ingly, "Never mind, Jim, it 's for his good; I 'm glad you skart him; you skart him a leetle too much this time, that 's all; next time you 'll be more careful, wo n't you, and not skear him so bad?"
That Captain Belgrave had been thrown from his wagon, and badly hurt, was known all over Little-Crampton, next morning. Some said he had been shot at by a highwayman; some, he had shot at a highwayman. The story took a hundred shapes, and finally was rolled up at the door of the Rev. Melchior Spat, who at once took his wagon, and drove off to the Mewkery. There the rumor was unfolded to Mr. Mewker, who, enjoying it immensely, made so many funny remarks thereon, that the Rev. Melchior Spat was convulsed with laughter, and then the two drove down to the Oakery to condole with the sufferer. On the way there, the Rev. Melchior was so wonderfully facetious, that Mewker, who never enjoyed any person's jokes but his own, was actually stimulated into mirth, and had it not been for happily catching a distant sight of the tower, would have so forgotten himself as to drive up to the door with a pleasant expression of countenance. As it was, they both entered grave as owls, and inquired, in faint and broken voices, how the Captain was, and whether he was able to see friends. Augusta, who received them, led them up to the room, where the Captain, with his face like the globe in the equinox, sitting propped up in bed, shook both feebly by the hands, and then the Rev. Melchior proposed prayer, to which Mewker promptly responded by dropping on his knees, and burying his face in the bottom of an easy chair. This was a signal for Adolphus to do likewise; and the Captain, not to be behind, struggling up into a sitting posture, leaned forward in the middle of the coverlet, with his toes and the end of his shirt deployed upon the pillows. Then the Rev. Melchior, in a crying voice, proceeded according to the homœopathic practice—that is, making it short and sweet as possible—touching upon the excellent qualities of the sufferer, the distress of his beloved friends, and especially of the anxiety which would be awakened in the bosom of one now absent, "whose heart was only the heart of a woman, a heart not strong and able to bear up against calamity, but weak, and fragile, and loving, and pitiful, and tender; a heart that was so weak, and loving, and pitiful, and tender, and
