During the former process I volunteered, as one whom she would trust, to watch for Belle, and lure her, if possible, to the house. I repeatedly saw that damsel's head peering out from behind the gravestones of Miss Pray's ancestors, down by the sea-wall, and making signals to me to know if advance were safe.
And every time, prostituting sublime justice to a weak sense of compassion, I waved her back to her fastness until after we should be gone.
"Shall I tell her 't you'll whip her after you git back, Miss Pray?" said Wesley, with deep relish.
"No," said Miss Pray, who had now appeared, resplendent in holiday attire. "Do you want her to run away, and leave me without help? All'as keep your mouth shet—that 's the safest commands for you; all'as keep your mouth shet."
Wesley closed that wide organ, with a look of wondering surprise.
Miss Pray was lean and resplendent, not gray and comfortable like my friend Mrs. Lester. There was no blueberry "turnover" to devour. As we passed over the jolting road I clung desperately to the carriage bars.
But it appeared that the captain had an abnormal design, before entering the Point, of descending into a shallow branch of Crooked River, there to wash the mud of past happy epochs from the carriage.
"Wal, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe," said his young wife, stultified with amaze at this proceeding, "I should like to know what's took you!"
"Adm'r'l bet, spell ago, 't he could scrape twenty-five pound o' mud off'n my two-seated kerridge next time I driv her to the Point. Jest keep yer eyes up the road," said Captain Pharo, standing, diligently and furtively swashing, with his unconscious boots submerged in water, "t' see that thar' ain't nobody lookin'."
"What 's he goin' to give ye, if ye win the bet, cap'n?" said his lively wife.