“Well, the sound increased and increased so, like young thunder she was e’en a’most skeared to death, and in a twitteration all over; and her knees began to shake so, she expected to go for it every minute; when a sudden turn of the path show’d her her husband and the poor squatter a sarchin’ for her.
“She was so overcome with fright and joy, she could hardly speak—and it warn’t a trifle that would toggle her tongue, that’s a fact. It was some time after she arrived at the house afore she could up and tell the story onderstandable; and when she did, she had to tell it twice over, first in short hand, and then in long metre, afore she could make out the whole bill o’ parcels. Indeed, she hante done tellin’ it yet, and wherever she is, she works round, and works round, till she gets Europe spoke of, and then she begins, ‘That reminds me of a most remarkable fact. Jist after I was married to Mr. Lot, we was to the Alps.’
“If ever you see her, and she begins that way, up hat and cut stick, double quick, or you’ll find the road over the Alps to Umbagog, a little the longest you’ve ever travelled, I know.
“Well, she had no sooner done than Cranbery jumps up on eend, and sais he to the guide, ‘Uncle,’ sais he, ‘jist come along with me, that’s a good feller, will you? We must return that good Samaritan’s’ cane to him; and as he must be considerable cold there, I’ll jist warm his hide a bit for him, to make his blood sarculate. If he thinks I’ll put that treatment to my wife, Miss Lot, into my pocket, and walk off with it, he’s mistaken in the child, that’s all, Sir. He may be stubbeder than I be, Uncle, that’s a fact; but if he was twice as stubbed, I’d walk into him like a thousand of bricks. I’ll give him a taste of my breed. Insultin’ a lady is a weed we don’t suffer to grow in our fields to Umbagog. Let him be who the devil he will, log-leg or leather-breeches—green-shirt or blanket-coat—land-trotter or river-roller, I’ll let him know there is a warrant out arter him, I know.”
“‘Why,’ sais the guide, ‘he couldn’t help himself, no how he could work it. He is a friar, or a monk, or a hermit, or a pilgrim, or somethin’ or another of that kind, for there is no eend to them, they are so many different sorts; but the breed he is of, have a vow never to look at a woman, or talk to a woman, or touch a woman, and if they do, there is a penance, as long as into the middle of next week.’
“‘Not look at a woman?’ sais Cran, ‘why, what sort of a guess world would this be without petticoats?—what a superfine superior tarnation fool he must be, to jine such a tee-total society as that. Mint julip I could give up, I do suppose, though I had a plaguy sight sooner not do it, that’s a fact: but as for womankind, why the angeliferous little torments, there is no livin’ without them. What do you think, stranger?’
“‘Sartainly,’ said Squatter; ‘but seein’ that the man had a vow, why it warn’t his fault, for he couldn’t do nothin’ else. Where he did wrong, was to look back; if he hadn’t a looked back, he wouldn’t have sinned.’
“‘Well, well,’ sais Cran, ‘if that’s the case, it is a hoss of another colour, that. I won’t look back nother, then. Let him he. But he is erroneous considerable.’
“So you see, Minister,” said Mr. Slick, “where there is nothin’ to be gained, and harm done, by this retrospection, as you call it, why I think lookin’ a-head is far better than—lookin’ back.”