The deacon was in an agony.  He was menaced with the very thing he was in the hope of staving off, or a discussion on the subject of the sick man’s previous life.  The doctor was so mercurial and quick of apprehension, that, once fairly on the scent, he was nearly certain he would extract every thing from the patient.  This was the principal reason why the deacon did not wish to send for him; the expense, though a serious objection to one so niggardly, being of secondary consideration when so many doubloons were at stake.  It was necessary, however, to talk on boldly, as any appearance of hesitation might excite the doctor’s distrust.  The answers, therefore, came instantaneously.

“It may be as you say, doctor,” returned the deacon; “for them Vineyard folks (Anglice folk) are great wanderers.”

“That are they.  I had occasion to pass a day there, a few years since, on my way to Boston, and I found five women on the island to one man.  It must be a particularly conscientious person who could pass a week there, and escape committing the crime of bigamy.  As for your bachelors, I have heard that a poor wretch of that description, who unluckily found himself cast ashore there, was married three times the same morning.”

As the doctor was a little of a wag, deacon Pratt did not deem it necessary religiously to believe all that now escaped him; but he was glad to keep him in this vein, in order to prevent his getting again on the track of Daggett’s early life.  The device succeeded, Martha’s Vineyard being a standing joke for all in that quarter of the world, on the subject of the ladies.

Mary was in the porch to receive her uncle and the physician.  It was unnecessary for her to ask any questions, for her speaking countenance said all that was required, in order to obtain an answer.

“He’s in a bad way, certainly, young lady,” observed the doctor, taking a seat on one of the benches, “and I can give no hope.  How long he may live, is another matter.  If he has friends whom he wishes to see, or if he has any affairs to settle, the truth should be told him at once, and no time lost.”

“He knows nothing of his friends,” interrupted the deacon, quite thrown off his guard by his own eagerness, and unconscious, at the moment, of the manner in which he was committing himself on the subject of a knowledge of the sick man’s birth-place, “not having been on the Vineyard, or heard from there, since he first left home, quite fifty years since.”

The doctor saw the contradiction, and it set him thinking, and conjecturing, but he was too discreet to betray himself.  An explanation there probably was, and he trusted to time to ascertain it.

“What has become of captain Gar’ner?” he asked, looking curiously around, as if he expected to find him tied to the niece’s apron-string.

Mary blushed, but she was too innocent to betray any real confusion.

“He has gone back to the schooner, in order to have the boat ready for your return.”