"Ay, Davy," she said, with a shudder, "I'm thinkin' about hell."
"What for?" said I. "Sure, 'twill do you no good to think about hell."
"I got to," said she. "I'm goin' there!"
Skipper Tommy explained, when the folk had gone, that Mary, being once
in a south port of our coast, had chanced to hear a travelling parson
preach a sermon. "An'," said he, "'tis too bad that young man preached
about damnation, for 'tis the only sermon she ever heared, an' she isn't
seemin' t' get over it." After that I tried to persuade Mary that she
would not go to hell, but quite dismally failed--and not only failed,
but was soon thinking that I, too, was bound that way. When I expressed
this fear, Mary took a great fancy to me, and set me to getting from
Skipper Tommy a description of the particular tortures, as he conceived
they were to be inflicted; for, said she, he was a holy man, and could
tell what she so much wished to know. Skipper Tommy took me on his knee,
and spoke long and tenderly to me, so that I have never since feared
death or hell; but his words, being repeated, had no effect upon Mary,
who continued still to believe that the unhappy fate awaited her,
because of some sin she was predestined to commit, or, if not that,
because of her weight of original sin.
"Oh, Davy, I got t' go!" she moaned, tearing one of her nails to the
quick.
"No, no!" I cried. "The Lard 'll never be so mean t' you."
"You don't know Him," she said, mysteriously. "You don't know what He's
up to."
"Bother Him!" I exclaimed, angered that mortals should thus be made
miserable by interference. "I wisht He'd leave us be!"
"Hush!" she said, horrified.
"What's He gone an' done, now?" I demanded.
"He've not elected me," she whispered, solemnly. "He've left _me_ with
the goats."
And so, happily, I accumulated another grudge against this misconception
of the dear Lord, which Skipper Tommy's sweet philosophy and the jolly
companionship of the twins could not eliminate for many days. But
eventually the fresh air and laughter and tenderness restored my
complacency. I forgot all about hell; 'twas more interesting to don my
racquets and make the round of the fox traps with the twins, or to play
pranks on the neighbours, or to fashion curious masques and go mummering
from tilt to tilt. In the end, I emerged from the unfortunate mood with
one firm conviction, founded largely, I fear, upon a picture which hung
by my bed at home: that portraying a rising from the dead, the grave
below, a golden, cloudy heaven above, wherefrom a winged angel had
descended to take the hand of the free, enraptured soul. And my
conviction was this, that, come what might to the souls of the wicked,
the souls of the good were upon death robed in white and borne aloft to
some great bliss, yet lingered, by the way, to throw back a tender
glance.