"Brother Edwards," murmured Joel, solemnly, "they were not fish; they were the babes of Ellendeen!"
"Poor fellow, so he is wandering again! There must be another blister on!" exclaimed Mr. Edwards, compassionately. And by the time another blister was put on, and more drugs had been administered, Joel's fever was so far reduced that he was able to collect his thoughts and attempt a description of the prodigious scenes he had gone through. "Why, that was old Matthew Filkins and his two big sons whom you took for demons," shouted Mr. Edwards, as he listened attentively to Joel's account of his midnight adventures. "Mat is a teetotaller, and thinks nothing of parceling a man to Beelzebub if he gets drunk; and between ourselves, brother Joel, I do not think that Matthew is far wrong, for drunkenness is the high-road to ruin at all times."
"Yes, yes, I know that," groaned Joel. "But they put me in a coffin, and rowed me away. How do I come here? Oh, I am a doomed man! I am a doomed man! I shall not be long out of my real coffin!"
"Not if you go on like this, my brother," replied Mr. Edwards, impressively, and with a serious air. "You have received a severe contusion on the head, besides other injuries; and it is absolutely necessary that you be kept quiet, and discard these foolish fancies. Old Matthew Filkins is our only undertaker hereabouts; his workshop and wood-yard are close to the river side, and by water he frequently conveys his dismal but needful burdens. The wooden box in which he laid you for safety was required urgently for the body of a poor lad who died of infectious fever, and was laid in his mother's hovel midst living brothers and sisters. Mat is a kind-hearted man, and he did that for the poor widow which he would have scrupled to do for a rich one; though night or day on the river is all the same to him, for he could guide a boat blindfold: man and boy, for seventy years, Matthew Filkins has journeyed on that highway. He thought that he was doing best by you; he found, by a letter in your coat-pocket, that you came from 'The Swan,' Wood End, and, as he dropped down stream past our door, he deposited you, brother Joel, on the threshold where we found you, in a sad state indeed. I believe old Mat considered his dismal box tainted from having had one in your state in it, far more so than when it contained the remains of the poor boy for whom it was destined."
"And so it was, so it was, brother Edwards," exclaimed the penitent and humbled Joel; "and before I am put in a coffin again, I deserve to be buried alive if I am not a reformed man. When I get drunk again, may I be hurled into the pools of Ellendeen, along with the little misses of respected memory. But I say, brother, we must keep this mishap a secret from Patty, for she would be hard of belief as to it's being a reality, as you say it is; she would stick to the warning, and make sure I was a doomed man."
Very grateful and pleased was Patty, as time progressed and temptations multiplied, to find that her dear husband was proof against the strongest. Never was he known to be in the least degree inebriated after his return from the memorable expedition to Wood End; and not even to keep the "cold out," would he sip a drop of "fire-water" undiluted. The "warning" had not been in vain; and a long while after the events recorded had taken place, when Patty was made acquainted with them by her loving husband, who detested all concealments from the partner of his cares, she exclaimed in pitying tones, "It was very natural, my dear, that your thoughts should run on the terrible story about those precious babies, you that have little ones of your own. For my part, nothing in the wide world would tempt me to go a-fishing in those deep dark pools of Ellendeen; I should expect, every time I pulled up a heavy weight to see a dear baby instead of a fish!"
"But my dear," deprecatingly returned Joel, "even if the tale be true, it happened a century back, you know."
"Ah, Jo, Jo!" cried Patty, with a sly smile, "if I had a brandy-flask in my basket, perhaps I might forget that important fact."