This sight, which might have touched with pity a more generous nature,
startled Richard Bassett, and then moved his bile. "I was a fool," said
he; "nothing will ever kill that man. He will see me out; see us all
out. And that Mary Wells nurses him, and I dare say in love with him by
this time; the fools can't nurse a man without. Curse the whole pack of
ye!" he yelled, and turned away in rage and disgust.
That same night he met Mary Wells, and, in a strange fit of jealousy,
began to make hot protestations of love to her. He knew it was no use
reproaching her, so he went on the other tack.
She received his vows with cool complacency, but would only stay a
minute, and would only talk of her master and mistress, toward whom her
heart was really warming in their trouble. She spoke hopefully, and
said: "'Tisn't as if he was one of your faint-hearted ones as meet
death half-way. Why, the second day, when he could scarce speak, he
sees me crying by the bed, and says he, almost in a whisper, 'What are
_you_ crying for?' 'Sir,' says I, ''tis for you--to see you lie like a
ghost.' 'Then you be wasting of salt-water,' says he. 'I wish I may,
sir,' says I. So then he raised himself up a little bit. 'Look at me,'
says he; 'I'm a Bassett. I am not the breed to die for a crack on the
skull, and leave you all to the mercy of them that would have no
mercy'--which he meant you, I suppose.
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