“Done, sir; what can be done? I don’t suppose there are five souls in the village who have ever been inoculated. I trust, Mr. Richard, that you are one of them.”
“I followed Lady Montague’s example—before I went abroad.”
“Then you should be safe, sir. But those cottagers yonder would breed the pest as a dunghill breeds flies. Then there is my poor Mary. If it spreads, sir, she’ll take it as she takes everything—mumps, measles, and the ague. Good God, Mr. Richard, I lost my wife by the small-pox! What should I do if I lost my girl?”
The rector’s voluminous voice quavered with honest feeling. He blew his nose vigorously, blinked his eyes, and looked at Jeffray with lugubrious eagerness. Richard was touched by the old man’s distress. Poor Mary Sugg; her plain face could not bear further detractions from its beauty.
“Why not take her away?” he asked.
A mild frown spread itself across the rector’s forehead. He stared into the distance and shook his head.
“The girl might go,” he observed, slowly, “and yet I don’t think it is right lest she might carry the pest with her. No, sir, I don’t think it would be honest. As for me, Mr. Jeffray, I have no intention of turning tail. What would the poor folk think of their spiritual father if he tucked up his gown and scuttled directly the devil came down on them in the shape of a damnable disease?”
There was a look of blunt heroism on Dr. Sugg’s commonplace old countenance that refreshed Jeffray’s spirit of revolt against the Lady Letitia’s cynicism.
“You are right, sir,” he said. “I respect you for your sense of duty. The priory is a safer place than the rectory. Let Mary come up here to-morrow. Of course I shall forbid my servants going down into the village.”
Dr. Sugg appeared grateful and comforted. He sniffed, and shook Jeffray’s hand with unction.