'Give us your hand, Deacon,' cried the delighted pleader; 'you are a good man, if you _are_ a Deacon, and that's more'n I'd have said a week ago! You _have_ hurt that boy, and no mistake! You've either beaten the spirit all out of him, or you have shut up a devil in him that'll break out one o' these days, worse'n them that went into the pigs that we read about! But 'tain't too late to mend, an' if a stitch in time _does_ save nine, it's better to take the _nine_ stitches than to wait till they are ninety times nine. You've got to be a thousand times kinder to the boy than you would if you hadn't been so hard on him all his life.'
It was agreed that while the fever held its course nothing should be said to poor Hannah, and so the two men parted--warm friends for the first time in their lives.
And poor Hannah Lee went droopingly and patiently about her duties, asking quietly from day to day as to the health of Jason, and telling no soul how her heart seemed breaking within her, and how all the future looked to her like a dreary waste.
Mrs. Hopkins threw out gentle hints that the Deacon might relent, and that if he did the wish that was ever in Hannah's heart might be realized. But the poor child paid little heed to her suggestions, a foreshadowing of some direful calamity constantly enfolding and saddening her. Still she kept bravely and quietly about her duties, and it was only when she was alone in her chamber at night that she gave way to the terrible wofulness that oppressed her, and prayed, and wept, and wrestled with her sorrow.
And this sweet and lovely creature was the same pious and patient soul who was afterwards taunted by rude village boys, and pointed at as one who had sold herself to Satan.
One night she had cried herself asleep, and lay in an unquiet and fitful slumber. As she thought of him alway by day, so now in her dreams the image of Jason Fletcher was fantastically and singularly busy. It seemed to her that she stood upon an eminence overlooking a peaceful valley of that charming sort only to be seen in dreams. Afar off, and still, in some strange way, very near, she beheld the youth of her love, who reclined upon a bank beside a quiet stream. Everything was at rest. The soft moonbeams--for, in her dream, evening rested on the valley--bathed all the prospect in a cool effulgence. There was no sound, save only that sweet music of never-sleeping nature which is forever heard within all her broad domain. Still the dreamer felt that there was something direful and most to be dreaded that threatened to invade and mar the heavenly peacefulness. She felt it coming, and fearfully awaited its approach. And she had not long to wait. For presently there appeared, flying between the calm moonlight and the figure, and casting a doleful shadow over his form, a scaly and dreadful dragon, like those we read of that devastated whole countries in the old, old times. This hideous beast breathed fire and smoke from its horrid nostrils as it flew, and it flapped its fearful way downwards to scorch and destroy the figure recumbent by the stream.