“Have Skipper Nicholas come?” Elizabeth asked.
“No, maid; ’tis not he, maid.” They would still taunt her! They would still taunt her, in the way of virtuous women; ’twas “Maid! Maid!” until the heart of a man of honor––of a man of any sort––was fair sickened of virtue and women. “’Tis the parson,” said they.
Elizabeth sighed. “I wants a word along o’ Skipper Nicholas,” said she, faintly, “when he’ve come.”
Parson Lute softly entered from the kitchen, wiping the rain from his face and hands, stepping on tiptoe over the bare floor. He was worn and downcast. No inspiration, it seemed, had been granted in answer to his praying. I loved him, of old, as did all the children of Twist Tickle, to whom he was known because of gentlest sympathy, shown on the roads in fair weather and foul at district-meeting time; and I was glad that he had come to ease the passage to heaven of the mother of Judith. The five women of Whisper Cove, taken unaware by this stranger, stood in a flutter of embarrassment. They were not unkind––they were curious concerning death and the power of parsons. He laid a kind hand on Judith’s head, shook hands with the women, and upon each bestowed a whispered 157 blessing, being absently said; and the wives of Whisper Cove sat down and smoothed their skirts and folded their hands, all flushed and shaking with expectation. They wondered, no doubt, what he would accomplish––salvation or not: Parson Stump had failed. Parson Lute seemed for a moment to be unnerved by the critical attitude of his audience––made anxious for his reputation: a purely professional concern, inevitably habitual. He was not conscious of this, I am sure; he was too kind, too earnest in service, to consider his reputation. But yet he must do––when another had failed. The Lord had set him a hard task; but being earnest and kind, he had no contempt, no lack of love, I am sure, for the soul the Lord had given him to lose or to save––neither gross wish to excel, nor gross wish to excuse.
“Daughter,” he whispered, tenderly, to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth threw the coverlet over her head, so that only the tangled fringe of her hair was left to see; and she began to laugh––a coquettish trifling. Parson Lute gently uncovered the head.
“You isn’t Parson Stump,” Elizabeth tittered.
“Turn your face this way,” said Parson Lute.
She laughed.
“This way,” said Parson Lute.