. . a long illness. Well, well, it's all over!" Parson West
sighed. "He saved, or helped to save, a hundred and fifteen lives,
first and last. A hundred and fifteen lives!"
"I've heard something of the sort down at the Porth. A hundred and
fifty, I think they said. They seemed very proud of him down there."
"Why?" The Vicar faced round on me, and added after a moment abruptly--
"He didn't belong to them: he was not even born in this parish."
"Where then?"
He disregarded the question. "Besides, the number was a hundred and
fifteen: that's just the pity."
I did not understand: but he had seated himself at table and was running
through my iambics. In the third verse he underlined a false quantity
with blue pencil and looked up for an explanation. While I confessed
the fault, his gaze wandered away from me and fell upon his fingers
drumming upon the table's edge. A slant of red sunshine touched the
signet-ring on his little finger, which he moved up and down watching
the play of light on the rim of the collet. He was not listening.
By-and-by he glanced up, "I beg your pardon--" stammered he, and leaving
the rest of my verses uncorrected, pointed with his pencil to the
concluding one. "That's not Greek," he said.
"It's in Sophocles," I contended: and turning up the word in "Liddell
and Scott," I pushed the big lexicon under his nose.
Pages:
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267