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But I'll tell you what, Aminadab, he may, like our spirits, be a shadow himself. I could hardly speak for fear, though five minutes before I had as good a tankard of that Logie-brewed as you have before you; but I got my tongue through the ale at the other end o't, and cried out with Zechariah, wherein I was something like you, Aminadab, 'Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north."
I don't a bit wonder at thy seeing the iron soldier thee tells of; and if thee votes to-morrow for a man of blood, it wouldn't be strange if he should haunt thee all thy life." Aminadab Ivison was silent, for his conscience spoke in the words of his wife. He slept no more that night, and rose up in the morning a wiser and better man.
I sought long for details; nor was I by any means successful till I fell in with a man named Aminadab Fairweather, a resident at the Scouring Burn, in Dundee, who was in the habit of frequenting Logie House, and who, though very old, remembered many of the circumstances.
An instant served for some communication between her and Janet. Then a shrill scream from Ady, a running hither and thither on the part of the male figure, and at length, darting into the wood, he disappeared. Aminadab now saw Janet go into the house. Was all over? Aminadab could not tell. Ady still hung round the Cradle. She even circled it like a hovering ghost. At length she neared the door.
But Aminadab was no lover of Nature, especially if he saw in her recesses any hiding-places for such beings as Brahma, more mysterious to him from knowing nothing at all about him, except that he was some Ashtoreth, or Chemosh, or Milcom, in a new form, let loose from hell, to disturb the pure souls of Seceders destined for heaven.
"Arthur!" shouted that atrocious Plickaman, "the loafer's name's Aminadab, after that old Jew, his grandfather." Saccharissa looked at him and smiled contemptuously. I tried to smile. I could not. Aminadab was my name. That old dotard, my grandfather, had borne it before me. I had suppressed it carefully. "Aminadab's his name," repeated the Colonel.
Nor was his nervousness unjustified; for, even as he turned his head, he saw a figure wrapped up in a dark cloak, and surmounted by a white coil of pure linen, as he thought, emerging from the clump of thick trees that stood on the north end of the burying-ground. The figure, having run as it were in fear so far forward, no sooner saw the projecting head of Aminadab, than it turned and retreated.
The candidate may not be all you could wish for; but when the question is between him and a worse man, the best you can do is to choose the least of the two evils." "Just so the little iron man said," thought Aminadab. "'Get thee behind me, Satan! No, neighbor Discount," said he, "I've made up my mind. I see no warrant for choosing evil at all. I can't vote for that man."
It is a strange business; but the world's a strange place, and strange men and women live therein. Meat and drink and honour are better than wisdom. Look to your plate, Aminadab. Oh! I wish I knew less; but I saw what was coming when I saw George Cameron begin to build what he said was to be like a cradle. Did I not recollect what Kalee told me about the blood-bond?
At the mention of the birthmark, Georgiana, as usual, shrank as if a red-hot iron had touched her cheek. Again Aylmer applied himself to his labors. She could hear his voice in the distant furnace-room giving directions to Aminadab, whose harsh, uncouth, misshapen tones were audible in response, more like the grunt or growl of a brute than human speech.
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