Frederick clutched his father's arm, his face changing from red to white as he watched Tessibel. She had clambered to her feet, ridiculously tangled in the rags of her dress. The dead Frederick was forgotten, falling with a great thud upon the floor. Her face was so mobile, so glassily white that if the hand of death had smitten her, she could not have looked ghastlier.
Standing before them, the tears drying over the hot blood which rushed in torrents afresh from her heart to her face, Tessibel learned her first lesson in suppressed emotion. She took two steps backward and wound her hands behind the post of Daddy's old-fashioned bed.
Truly it was Tessibel's first day and first night!
"He air to be hanged dead?" she asked, the painful shiftiness of her eyes settling questioningly upon the minister's face. "Aw, he air good, Daddy Skinner air, gooder than ye be, with ye cross and ye crown that ye sing about. Gooder than all ye whole church, if his gun did kill the gamekeeper. We has our rights to live, to eat bread and beans, like ye have, hain't we? If Daddy Skinner air hung, then Tessibel hangs too."
Here the tired young face drooped a little.
"Ye'll hang him will ye? Well! ye won't--cause--cause--"
Her red head flashed back upon the uncovered shoulders--the wild eyes lifted a moment to the rocking rafters in the roof.
"If ye lives in the sky, Jesus, that cares for the dyin', take Daddy Skinner and Tessibel--"
Her eyes dropped to the pan on the floor, against which the stiff body of the toad lay, and she ended,--"And Frederick."
It was a prayer,--a rough prayer, from untaught lips, but through the action which followed, it instantly lost its dignity. Tessibel forgot her lesson--forgot all save the taunting face of the minister. She gave her familiar leap in the air and came down with a cry upon the Dominie's chest.
"Ye'll kill him, will ye? Then I--I air goin' to kill ye," and deep into the face of the minister sunk the ten little toad-tainted fingers.
Frederick loosened her by extreme effort from his father's body and thrust the gasping preacher outside the door. The student placed his hand upon the panting girl's shoulder.
"You're wrong," he said gravely, "Your prayer was good and God heard. There is in the sky a suffering Christ and His cross--and by your prayers you may save your father, and also save--poor little Tessibel Skinner." Then glancing about the filthy room he added, "and cleanliness is next to godliness."