"Did you say it was
not Asa?"
"Nay, I am neither Asa, nor Absalom, nor any of the Hebrew princes,
but Obed, the root and stock of them all. Have I not said, woman, that
you keep one in attendance who is entitled to a peaceable as well as
an honourable admission? Do you take me for an animal of the class
amphibia, and that I can play with my lungs as a blacksmith does with
his bellows?"
The naturalist might have expended his breath much longer, without
producing any desirable result, had Esther been his only auditor.
Disappointed and alarmed, the woman had already sought her pallet, and
was preparing, with a sort of desperate indifference, to compose
herself to sleep. Abner, the sentinel below, however, had been aroused
from an exceedingly equivocal situation by the outcry; and as he had
now regained sufficient consciousness to recognise the voice of the
physician, the latter was admitted with the least possible delay. Dr.
Battius bustled through the narrow entrance, with an air of singular
impatience, and was already beginning to mount the difficult ascent,
when catching a view of the porter, he paused, to observe with an air
that he intended should be impressively admonitory--
"Abner, there are dangerous symptoms of somnolency about thee! It is
sufficiently exhibited in the tendency to hiation, and may prove
dangerous not only to yourself, but to all thy father's family.
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