"Show 'im 'ow you laid out the 'North-country Collier,' Tom.
Knock out 'is ivories--choke 'im wi' your famble!"
"Hark 'ee, friend Tom," said Jessamy, apparently quite unmoved by the
growing hostility of the rabble, "I love ye, Tom! And I love ye, first
because you're a child o' God, though to be sure ye don't look it,
Tom!" Here Tom unbuttoned and tossed aside his tight-fitting coat.
"And secondly," pursued Jessamy, "I love ye because somewhere inside
o' ye you've got an immortal soul--of a kind, Tom, that the Lord
holdeth precious and beyond rubies--though only the Lord knoweth why,
Tom." Here the big man tightened his belt and proceeded to roll up his
sleeves. "Therefore, Tom," continued Jessamy, watching these
preparations with kindly interest, "therefore, 't is your soul as I'm
after and the souls of all these pals o' yours--these poor lost lambs
as look so uncommonly like wolves, Tom. Howbeit--"
Uttering a scornful oath, Tom snatched an ale mug from one near by and
dashed its contents into Jessamy's face, whereupon rose a yell of
fierce laughter and acclaim.
"And now, Tom lad," sighed Jessamy, his blue eyes mild as ever, while
the liquid dripped from the great jut of his chin, "now, dear friend,
let's you an' me pray together!" Then, lifting his face to the
cloudless sky, Jessamy began thus, while Tom and his fellows stared
mute with amazement or perhaps awed by something in that shapely,
patient, yet grimly alert figure:
"O Lord who looketh into all hearts and in every heart can find
something good among the evil--aye, Lord, even in this Tom's heart,
since he is child o' Thine--grant that I, Thy humble instrument, may
rouse the good within Thy Tom's heart one way or t' other, either by
reason and gentleness or force and--"
I uttered a gasping, inarticulate cry of warning but in that instant
Jessamy moved his head an inch or so and the heavy pewter tankard that
should have brained him flew harmlessly by and rolled clattering a
good twenty paces behind him.
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