My uncle was returned from Topmast Harbor. I paused but to bid him urgently to the bedside of Elizabeth, 153 then ran on to rejoin the parson at the turn of the road. By night, in a gale of wind and rain from the east, was no time for Parson Lute, of Yellow Tail Tickle, to be upon the long road to Whisper Cove. But the rough road, and the sweep of the wind, and the steep ascents, and the dripping limbs, and the forsaken places lying hid in the dark, and the mud and torrents, and the knee-deep, miry puddles seemed not to be perceived by him as he stumbled after me. He was praying aloud––importunately, as it is written. He would save the soul of Elizabeth, that man; the faith, the determination were within him. ’Twas fair pitiful the way he besought the Lord. And he made haste; he would pause only at the crests of the hills––to cough and to catch his breath. I was hard driven that night––straight into the wind, with the breathless parson forever at my heels. I shall never forget the exhibition of zeal. ’Twas divinely unselfish––’twas heroic as men have seldom shown heroism. Remembering what occurred thereafter, I number the misguided man with the holy martyrs. At the Cock’s Crest, whence the road tumbled down the cliff to Whisper Cove, the wind tore the breath out of Parson Lute, and the noise of the breakers, and the white of the sea beyond, without mercy, contemptuous, confused him utterly.
He fell.
“Tis near at hand, sir!” I pleaded with him.
He was up in a moment. “Let us press on, Daniel,” said he, “to the salvation of that soul. Let us press on!”
We began the descent....
XIII
JUDITH ABANDONED
I left the parson in the kitchen to win back his breath. He was near fordone, poor man! but still entreatingly prayed, in sentences broken by consumptive spasms, for wisdom and faith and the fire of the Holy Ghost in this dire emergency. When I entered the room where Elizabeth lay, ’twas to the grateful discovery that she had rallied: her breath came without wheeze or gasp; the labored, spasmodic beating of her heart no longer shook the bed. ’Twas now as though, I thought, they had troubled her with questions concerning her soul or her sin; for she was turned sullen––lying rigid and scowling, with her eyes fixed upon the whitewashed rafters, straying only in search of Judith, who sat near, grieving in dry sobs, affrighted.