Page:Joan, the curate.djvu/17

Rh he buttoned himself up to the chin, and put a round, broad-brimmed black hat, with a bow and a twisted band of black cloth, tightly on to his somewhat rusty, grizzled bob-wig. "For there's none in these parts to nurse the sick as well as my daughter Joan."

"And sure I'm ready to go, father!" cried the girl, who, with the nimbleness of a fawn, had darted back into the parlor and brought out her father's case of surgical instruments, as well as a diminutive portable chest, containing such drugs and medicines as were in use at the time.

"I'll have on my hood in a tick of the clock."

And by the time these words were uttered she had flown up the steep, narrow staircase and disappeared round the bend at the top. The sailor, who had stepped inside the porch, out of the wind and a drizzling rain which had now begun to fall, was full of admiration and astonishment.

"Oons, sir, but 'twill be rough work for the young mistress!" said he. "The water's washing over the boat yonder, and we shan't be able to push off without getting wet up to the waist."

"The lass is used to rough weather," said