Then, when the neighbours came in to gossip, they sometimes spoke
against Luke. They would tell her that a man who would suspect her on
such slight grounds, and act as he did, could never be true to her;
that he would see some other whom he would prefer, and some day send
home word that he was married; neither was it likely that he would
ever come home alive from the Indies. These poisoned arrows, which
were meant as comfort, glanced harmlessly from Lucy, who was
invulnerably shielded by trusting love and hope. She would answer:
'very likely,' or 'it may be,' or 'there is no knowing what may
happen in this world of trouble,' and still rattle about her
lace-pegs over the pillow on which it was made with the quickness of
magic. Amongst her visitors, however, there were two who invariably
offered her better consolation; these were Larkin and his sister. Tom
'stuck up,' as he expressed it, for his friend Luke, and always put
the blame of the enlistment on the wiles and arts of the
recruiting-sergeant, who regularly entrapped him into the deed.
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