FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   >>  
light, first passage; second flight, second passage. She ran in in triumph at length, with a _screw-driver_! "No!" I whispered,--"no. The crooked thing you draw corks with," and I showed her the bottle again. "Find one somewhere and don't come back without it." So she vanished for the second time. "Frederic!" said Morton. I think he never called me so before. Should I risk the clothes-brush again? I opened Lycidas's own drawers,--papers, boxes, everything in order,--not a sign of a tool. "Frederic!" "Yes," I said. But why did I say "Yes"? "Father of Mercy, tell me what to do." And my mazed eyes, dim with tears,--did you ever shed tears from excitement?--fell on an old razor-strop of those days of shaving, made by C. WHITTAKER, SHEFFIELD. The "Sheffield" stood in black letters out from the rest like a vision. They make corkscrews in Sheffield too. If this Whittaker had only made a corkscrew! And what is a "Sheffield wimble?" Hand in my pocket,--brown paper parcel. "Where are you, Frederic?" "Yes," said I, for the last time. Twine off! brown paper off. And I learned that the "Sheffield wimble" was one of those things whose name you never heard before, which people sell you in Thames Tunnel, where a hoof-cleaner, a gimlet, a screw-driver, and a _corkscrew_ fold into one handle. "Yes," said I, again. "Pop," said the cork. "Bubble, bubble, bubble," said the whiskey. Bottle in one hand, full tumbler in the other, I walked in. George poured half a tumblerful down Lycidas's throat that time. Nor do I dare say how much he poured down afterwards. I found that there was need of it, from what he said of the pulse, when it was all over. I guess Mary had some, too. This was the turning-point. He was exceedingly weak, and we sat by him in turn through the night, giving, at short intervals, stimulants and such food as he could swallow easily; for I remember Morton was very particular not to raise his head more than we could help. But there was no real danger after this. As we turned away from the house on Christmas morning,--I to preach and he to visit his patients,--he said to me, "Did you make that whiskey?" "No," said I, "but poor Dod Dalton had to furnish the corkscrew." And I went down to the chapel to preach. The sermon had been lying ready at home on my desk,--and Polly had brought it round to me,--for there had been no time for me to go from Lycidas's home to D Street and to return. There was the text,
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   >>  



Top keywords:

Sheffield

 

Frederic

 

Lycidas

 
corkscrew
 
poured
 

whiskey

 

bubble

 
wimble
 

preach

 

Morton


driver

 

passage

 

brought

 
turning
 

tumbler

 

walked

 

Bottle

 
Bubble
 

George

 
throat

tumblerful

 
return
 

Street

 

morning

 
remember
 

patients

 

easily

 

Christmas

 

danger

 

turned


swallow

 

chapel

 

sermon

 

giving

 
Dalton
 

furnish

 
intervals
 
stimulants
 
exceedingly
 

opened


drawers

 

papers

 

clothes

 
called
 

Should

 

Father

 

vanished

 
whispered
 

length

 
crooked