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Tha' nobbut knocked a bit sillier than ordinary, an' that's daaft eneaf. An' soa he went on, callin' me all the names he could think on, but settin' my arm, wi' Jesse's help, as careful as could be. 'Yo' mun let the big oaf bide here a bit, Jesse, he says, when he hed strapped me up an' given me a dose o' physic; 'an' you an' 'Liza will tend him, though he's scarcelins worth the trouble.
"By sight." "If you've never even spoken to him you can't, of course, tell what he would have felt. Do you mind walking home with me? I don't live far from here, and we can talk better." He held his ground, obstinate and defiant. It was unjust that anyone, knowing himself to be brilliantly clever, should yet be made an oaf by an incident so trivial. "I'm sorry.
Dost remember a tall, fresh- coloured, cudgel-playing oaf that my Lady Bellaston led about with her as maids lead apes in hell, though he more of an ape than she of a maid 'tis a year gone?
"What, sir," cried I, as soon as the clerk was gone, "are you to venture it?" "Why, so it would appear," says he, filling his glass. "But let us speak no more of business. The very sight of Torrance brings in my head a little droll matter of some years ago, when I had made a tryst with the poor oaf at the cross of Edinburgh.
Little protection was this poor oaf with the scars of his master's whip upon him, but Geraldine had seen a doglike devotion light up the dull eyes in those few minutes up in her room, and in spite of the dwarf's hopeless words she felt that she had one friend in this place of desolation.
They are dear friends of our Priscilla." "But but nay, then, maid Mary, have compassion on a poor stupid oaf who is no match for her or you or any woman in subtlety and fence, and yet loveth yon maid as it is not well for man to love aught but his Maker. Tell me, doth she care aught for me?" "Nay, John, that is a question none but she should answer, but yet I may tell thee thus much.
He still declared to himself that he had made no sign, and that he was an oaf, an ass, a coward, in that he had not done so. But he had made some sign, and the sign had been read. There was no secret, no necessity for a secret on the subject between the mother and daughter, but yet it was not spoken of all at once.
Into this house many comely Abigails had come and gone; but Babet Blais remained in spite of him, having, as she deemed, acquired a wife's settlement and privileges, by virtue of the presence of a dwarfish, swarthy creature, half oaf, half imp, their mutual offspring.
The next afternoon, I strolled down to Rufe's and consulted him on the subject. It was a very droll interview, in the large, bare north room of the Silverado Hotel, Mrs. Hanson's patchwork on a frame, and Rufe, and his wife, and I, and the oaf himself, all more or less embarrassed. Rufe announced there was nobody in the neighbourhood but Irvine who could do a day's work for anybody.
"And I think it's berry 'sultin' in you to ax a' spectable colored 'oman any such question. Do I understan' de natur' ob an oaf? You might 's well ax me if I knows I's got a mortal soul to be save'! Yes, I does unnerstan' de natur' ob an oaf. I knows how, if anybody takes a false one, which it won't be Catherine Mortimer, they'll go right straight down to de debbil and serbe 'em right!"
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