“But I don’t think anyone believed them,” he confessed.
The farmer’s right forefinger began to tap his left palm again.
“Look here, sir, I ought to know something about Dr. Murchison’s character, I imagine. The man’s been here nearly a month, living in my house, and working like a Trojan. We’ve had nearly sixty cases, what with the pickers and our own people. You haven’t seen what the doctor’s been through in this little epidemic of ours, Mr. Burt, and I have. You get to the bottom of a man’s nature when he’s working eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, doing the nurse’s jobs as well as his own, and feeding some of the kids with his own hands. I’ve seen him come into my parlor, sir, at night, and go slap off to sleep on the sofa, he was that done. And never, not on one single blessed occasion, have I seen that man show the white feather or touch a drop of drink!”
Mr. Burt appeared to become more and more embarrassed by being stared at vehemently in the face, as the farmer’s right fist smacked the points of his argument into his left palm. He had to return Mr. Carrington’s stare, eye to eye, as a pledge of sincerity. He began to fidget, to scan the horizon, and to fumble with his watch-chain.
“Your evidence sounds conclusive,” he said; “I think it is time I—”
Mr. Carrington ignored the little man’s restiveness, and came and stood outside the gate.
“Now, I make it a rule in life, Mr. Burt, to take people just as I find ’em, and not to listen to what all the old women say. The rule of a practical man, you understand. Now—”
The Curate cast a flurried glance up the road, and pulled out his watch.
“You must really excuse me, Mr. Carrington.”
“In a hurry, are you? Well, I was only going to say that some of us people have come by a shrewd notion how all this chaff got chucked about in these parts. Murchison was a first-class man, and some people got jealous of him, and played a low-down game to get him out of the town. You take my meaning, Mr. Burt?”