After reflecting whether he rightly understood the meaning of the other,
the surgeon, making due allowance for the love of learning, acting upon
a want of education, replied,--
"The moon, you mean; many philosophers have doubted how far it affects
the tides; but I think it is willfully rejecting the lights of science
not to believe it causes both the flux and reflux."
As reflux was a disorder with which Katy was not acquainted, she thought
it prudent to be silent; yet burning with curiosity to know the meaning
of certain portentous lights to which the other so often alluded, she
ventured to ask,--
"If them lights he spoke of were what was called northern lights in
these parts?"
In charity to her ignorance, the surgeon would have entered into an
elaborate explanation of his meaning, had he not been interrupted by the
mirth of Lawton. The trooper had listened so far with great composure;
but now he laughed until his aching bones reminded him of his fall, and
the tears rolled over his cheeks in larger drops than had ever been seen
there before. At length the offended physician seized an opportunity of
a pause to say,--
"To you, Captain Lawton, it may be a source of triumph, that an
uneducated woman should make a mistake in a subject on which men of
science have long been at variance; but yet you find this respectable
matron does not reject the lights--does not reject the use of proper
instruments in repairing injuries sustained by the human frame.
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