Promotheus opened his eyes and his jagged, gnarly teeth showed in a smile, weak and trembly, but still game to the last line of it. “Nope,” he said so low we could hardly hear him, “I’m Promotheus, all right. I hung on as long as I could; but the vultures have finished my liver at last, Horace—they have finally finished it. I hate to leave you; but I’ll have to be goin’ soon. The’s only one thing I ask of ya—don’t send a single one o’ the boys to the pen. They don’t know what the world really is; but shuttin’ ’em out of it won’t ever teach ’em. If the’s anything you can do to give ’em a little start, it would be a mighty good thing—a mighty good thing.” His voice was gettin’ awful weak, an’ he’d have to rest every few words.
“And Ty Jones, too,” he went on, “Ty was square with me in the old days. Try to make him understand what it was ’at turned me again’ him; and if the’s any way to make things easier for Ty, I want you to have it done. Ty had a lot o’ tough times, himself, before he turned all the hard part of his nature outside. Don’t bear him any malice, Horace. Seventy times seven, the Friar sez we ought to forgive, and that many’ll last a long time, if a feller don’t take offence too easy. The’s a lot o’ things I don’t understand; but some way it seems to me that if I could just go out feelin’ I had squared things with Ty, I’d be a leetle mite easier in my mind.”
Horace stepped to Ty’s bed and shook him by the arm. “Did you hear what he said?” he demanded. “You know he’s achin’ to have you speak to him decent. Why don’t ya speak to him?”
Ty looked cold and stony into Horace’s eyes, and then took his left hand and pushed Horace’s grip from off his arm. Horace stood lookin’ at Ty with his fist clinched. The turned and saw it and a troubled look came into his face.
“Friar Tuck,” he said, “you meant it, didn’t ya—that about forgivin’ seventy times seven?”
“I did,” sez the Friar, his voice ringin’ out clear and strong in spite of its bein’ low pitched. “Be at peace, Promotheus, the laws of man are at war with the laws of God; but they’re bound to lose in the end. I want you to know that I forgive Ty Jones as fully as you do—and I shall do everything in my power to square things up with him.”
The held out his hand to the Friar, and they clasped in a comrade-grip. “I can trust you,” he said; “and I know you’ll do all you can to make Horace see it that way, too.”
“I forgive him, too, you big goose!” cried Horace. “I promise you that I’ll do all I can for him—on your account. Though I must say—but no, I mean it, Promotheus. I forgive him from my heart, and I’ll be as good a friend to him as I can.”
“Now, let the little gust o’ wind come,” sez The. “I’m perfectly ripe and ready for it, now.”
The’ was silence for several minutes; and then Promotheus said in a faint voice: “Friar, I wish you’d sing to me. All my life I’ve longed to hear a cradle-song, a regular baby cradle-song. I know it’s a damn-fool notion; but I never had it so strong as I’ve got it now—and I wish you’d sing one to me. My mother was a widow, mostly. She cleaned out offices at night to earn enough to keep us alive. She sacrificed her life for me, but I couldn’t understand this then.