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Updated: July 19, 2025
'He don't believe I want it, for I keep making excuses! muttered the poor man. 'Ay, I do; but I haven't got over the longing to be different. I'd cut off my right hand, I do believe, if I could be as Saxby is. I can't bring myself up to the point; that's it! Meanwhile, poor little Teddy crept indoors with a sad face, to announce to his mother the failure of his mission.
When we went to the shore this morning I had to wait in spasms of remorse and anxiety until Aunt got tired of reading and set off along the shore with Mrs. Saxby. Then I reached for my glass. Mr. Shelmardine and I had quite a conversation. Under the circumstances there could be no useless circumlocution in our exchange of ideas.
It was apparent to Jack and also to Bill Saxby that the ordeal of the swamp had crippled their companion whose bodily strength had been overtaxed. They debated whether to try to return to the coast and risk a voyage in the canoe but Trimble Rogers swore by all the saints in the calendar that he was done with the pestilent swamp. He would push on in spite of the rheumatism.
"Marguerite," she said impressively, "you know that I do not attend church here." "But, Aunt," I persisted, quakingly, "couldn't I go alone? It is not very far and I will be very careful." Aunt merely gave me a look that said about forty distinct and separate things, and I was turning away in despair when Mrs. Saxby bless her heart said: "I really think it would be no harm to let the child go."
'That's what I'm called. The man's face was an unhappy one, and he seemed to be the butt of his comrades, for they poured forth such a volley of good-natured ridicule on his appearance that Teddy looked from one to the other in complete mystification. 'Will you come and see my home? the child asked softly. 'Corporal Saxby told me he thought you would like to come. The man's face lightened.
Saxby looked like a chief mourner, but do you suppose I cared? I dropped behind them just once before we left the shore. I knew he was watching me and I waved my hand. I suppose I am really engaged to Francis Shelmardine. But was there ever such a funny wooing? And what will Aunt Martha say? After Many Days
While Aunt and Mrs. Saxby meander up and down the shore, leaving me free to a certain extent, I amuse myself by examining distant seas and coasts through it, thus getting a few peeps into a forbidden world. We see few people, although there is a large summer hotel about a mile up the beach. Our shore haunts do not seem to be popular with its guests. They prefer the rocks.
"I will be brave," she answered with quivering lips; "but what did it mean at Saxby then? Why, there was a funeral!" "He was hard-pressed," I told her, "and it was the only way to save him. Be brave, Lady Dennisford, for I have come to you for help!" "I will do everything you ask me to," she answered. "But tell me one thing more. He is alive!" "He is in London," I answered.
Perhaps because I looked, thinking of myself as I had been in the days before these strange happenings had come into my life, I answered his question promptly. "I cannot believe," I said, "that any one would know me for Hardross Courage. I am perfectly certain, too, that I should not recognize in you to-day the Leslie Guest who died at Saxby." "I believe that you are right," Guest admitted.
"Yes; pop will be perfectly crazy," she affirmed with a lingering intonation that seemed to imply a certain joy in the prospective disturbance of her parent's equilibrium. "He wants me to marry a preacher at Saxby Center who's almost as old as pop, and has three grown children. I thought maybe you could pretend to take me out for a little ride in your car, and pick up Abijah and give us a lift.
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