"
"But," said I, "no one could keep up with you."
"Do not try to: leave a sore man to nurse his hurts. I suppose you saw
my folly on the wharf--saw how I forgot myself?"
"Ach!" said Schmidt, who had toiled after us hot and red, and who now
slipped his quaint form in between us--"Ach! 'You forgot yourself.' This
say you. I do think you did remember your true self for a time this
morning."
"Hush! I am a man ashamed. Let us talk no more of it. I have ill kept my
faith," returned Wholesome impatiently.
"You may believe God doth not honor an honest man," said Schmidt; "which
is perhaps a God Quaker, not the God I see to myself."
I had so far kept my peace, noting the bitter self-reproach of
Wholesome, and having a lad's shyness before an older man's calamity;
but now I said indignantly, "If it be Friends' creed to see the poor and
old and feeble hurt without raising a hand, let us pray to be saved from
such religion."
"But," said Wholesome, "I should have spoken to him in kindness first.
Now I have only made of him a worse beast, and taught him more hatred.
And he of all men!"
"There is much salvation in some mistakes," said Schmidt smiling.
Just then we were stopped by two middle-aged Friends in drab of orthodox
tint, from which now-a-days Friends have much fallen away into gay
browns and blacks. They asked a question or two about an insurance on
one of our ships; and then the elder said, "Thee hand seems bleeding,
friend Richard;" which was true: he had cut his knuckles on his
opponent's teeth, and around them had wrapped hastily a handkerchief
which showed stains of blood here and there.
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