Directly, that magnificent suite of rooms was full. The house had given up its gay company group by group, when the vast apartments overflowed, and the illuminated grounds grew brilliant as fairy land. It was remarked that Mrs. Nelson had never received with such queenly grace before. That superb toilet surpassed her usual sumptuousness; the glow of her jewels scarcely matched the wild light that came and went in her eyes. Her spirits were unusually brilliant throughout the whole entertainment; the scarlet of excitement burnedon her cheeks; she seemed lifted out of herself by the success of this unique fete.
This was the general opinion of her guests. They could account for the brilliant beauty of her presence in no other way.
How could strangers guess at the quivering fear that trembled at her heart when any unusual noise arose in the crowd which surrounded her with flattery and soft adulation? How was it possible for them to know that the brilliant beauty of her face was lighted by the fever of anxiety so terrible that her heart quailed under it.
A few of the guests remarked upon the absence of Mr. Nelson. At first she evaded these inquiries, but, as the evening drew near its close, she whispered to one of her most intimate friends a secret that soon spread through the vast crowd:
Mr. Nelson was insane. The men that had been remarked with him in the hall were his keepers. The malady had been growing upon him for months, and could be kept secret no longer. She had done her best to conceal it, but of late his eccentricities had become so uncontrollable that a private asylum had been decided on. This it was which had made her so restless and excited all the evening. People thought it high spirits, but alas! how little the world knows of human suffering.
It had been against her will that the party had gone on. Indeed, her husband's malady had never become really violent until after the invitations were given out, but he was quite unfit to appear. It was a great affliction, but Mrs. Nelson was afraid of her life, and had with painful reluctance compelled herself to consign her dear husband entirely into medical hands. Early in the morning he would leave home.
These were the remarks which floated from lip to lip when the guests broke into groups after supper, and the dear friends who had met the lady of the mansion with congratulations, left with compassionate words of consolation, which she received with gentle grace, more attractive than her previous high spirits had been.
Ellen Mason was a magnificent actress—few women on the stage ever went through a difficultroleso triumphantly. But when her guests were all gone, the facts of her position came upon her mind with bitter force. She looked around on the luxurious ruin of the supper table, the withered garlands, the groups of glasses stained with amber, or ruddy wine, the broken pyramids, and silver baskets, heaped with dying flowers and rejected fruit, with a feeling of absolute disgust. The glittering confusion made her faint. She longed to rush by the servants, who were closing the house, and seek the open air, late as it was. This impulse seized upon her with such force that she gathered up the scarf of Brussels point, which had fallen like frost-work over her dress, and vailing her head with it, stepped through an open window into the grounds.
The moon was down, but hundreds of colored lamps still burned in the trees, looking only the more brilliant from the deep shadows that lay in the leaves. The cool night air chilled the fever in her veins and gave her more vivid power of reflection. There is no time when the emptiness of fashionable life strikes the mind so forcibly as that which follows a successful entertainment. The ruins of a feast are always oppressive.
The hollowness of her whole life struck Ellen Mason full upon the heart. What was she after all but a gross impostor forced to work out the problem of her ownfalsehood without help? She began to realize the insufficiency of all that had been gained to her life. She thought of the honest love that had made her humble home in the pine wood so pleasant. In that home how often had she thought of scenes like the one before her, and longed to act a part in them. But these had been only dreams. They had never deepened to ambitious hopes till Thrasher came with his brilliant temptations and won her from that honest roof. What a worthless life hers had proved since then! would it always be so? had she tied herself forever and ever to all this emptiness? Would she indeed be permitted to revel still among these golden husks? That man had threatened her with his speech and more fiercely still with his eyes. Oh, how she dreaded him.
Lost in these thoughts she sat down on a garden chair, and clasping both hands in her lap, began to cry. This was an unusual weakness. She had wept when the news of her husband's death came, but seldom since then. Vanity thrives best in the sunshine, tears are unnecessary to its growth. And now Ellen Mason's life was all vanity.
But Ellen wept now. The excitement of the evening had left her in a state of utter exhaustion. She gathered the lace scarf over her eyes, and it fell away damp, like a cobweb heavy with dew.
A slight noise upon the turf made her look up with some impatience. What servant had dared to follow and disturb her?
It was no servant, but a tall man, with the light from a cluster of lamps lying full upon his face. She arose, stood upright a moment, and fell back again, her lips apart, her eyes closed tight, as if to shut out some terribleobject. Her lips trembled as if words were struggling through them, but they gave forth no sound, and she fell away with her head resting against the hard iron fruit and clustering leaves of the garden chair.
The man drew close to her side, when he found that she was insensible, and bent over her with a countenance full of unutterable grief. There she lay beneath his eyes like a broken statue. The mother of his child—the wife of his youth, with the burning shame of a second and illegal marriage flashing from the jewels on her bosom and in her hair. But she was the mother of his child, the object of his first and only love, and that pale, cold face was wet with tears. His own hands had aided in separating her from that man. It was a solemn duty, but he had no wish of revenge beyond that. This task accomplished he would go away and struggle against his bereavement as a strong man should. He had not expected, nor perhaps wished to see that woman's face again, but as it lay beneath his gaze so like death, something of the solemn tenderness which death claims came over him. It was not love. It was not forgiveness—he had never condemned her enough for that—but the wronged man could not forget that she had been his wife, and that great sorrow and bitter shame had fallen upon her that night. He knelt upon the grass, and lifting her head from its iron resting-place, drew it to his bosom. The heart beneath scarcely quickened a pulse. To him she was not a living woman, but a memory that had turned to marble under his eyes and lay like marble against his heart.
It was terrible to see a human being so perfectly lifeless and yet feel that vitality existed in the pulselessheart. He did not touch that forehead with his lips, but passed one hand tenderly over it, muttering:
"Poor Ellen—poor lost Ellen."
She did not move; his words failed to reach her. He felt how cold she was growing, and lifting her in his arms carried her into the house; for the window through which she had passed was still open, the light of a chandelier poured through it, and was exhausted in the flower beds underneath.
In passing through the shrubbery the lace scarf caught on a rose-bush and was torn in fragments. He remembered how the drapery which had shrouded Paul's mother had been swept from the dead, and sighed heavily, as if composing this one also for the grave.
Mason passed through the window and stood in the little breakfast room, which has already been described. Through the open doors he caught a glimpse of the supper room, from which the scent of luscious fruits and dying flowers came with sickening force. On the other hand was a long vista of drawing-rooms, with the lights half extinguished, and a host of glittering objects visible through the semi-darkness, as lightning breaks through a cloud surcharged with electricity.
A sadness like that of death fell upon Mason as he saw these things. They told, in one glance, the history of her involuntary sin. Why should he wait there to cover her with new anguish and more living shame when life came back? He laid her down among the silken cushions of a couch whose crimson warmth only made her face more deathly, and went away forever. What more was there for him to do? Already he had persuaded Rice to spare that proud woman the last humiliationof her rashness, and keep her name, as it was now recognized, out of all legal proceedings necessary to the conviction of Nelson Thrasher. Beyond this, magnanimity itself was powerless.
MeantimeThrasher entered the room which had always been considered as particularly his own. The officers, went after him, found out the iron shutters, and fastened them securely. Then looking complacently around this impromptu prison, they went into the hall, locking the door securely outside.
Thrasher sat down in his easy chair, and leaning one hand on the table, waited patiently till they were gone. When all was quiet, he got up, crossed the room softly, and drew a couple of bolts, hidden in the elaborate carving of the door frame. He fastened the shutters in the same way, so that it was impossible for any one to gain entrance to the apartment against his desire.
When every thing was safe, he pushed the library table aside, and kneeling upon the mosaic floor, wheeled the centre ornament from its place. He descended to a flight of steps that led from the opening, and with a touch of the finger wheeled the pavement into place again, closing himself into a deep vault, apparently of solid mason work. Casks, evidently filled with choice wines, for the name of some rare vintage was marked oneach, were piled on one side of the vault; a rack filled with bottles rose to the ceiling opposite. It was, after all, only a wine vault that he had taken so much pains to conceal. This would have been the first conclusion had any one followed Thrasher into that recess. But his actions spoke of something more.
Previous to entering the vault, he had lighted a lamp, which he now placed on the pavement. With a quick wrench of the hand, he swung the wine rack from its place, and busied himself with one of the slabs of granite which composed the wall. That too swung open, and exposed an inner compartment, or square chamber, from which came a flash of precious metals, and iron-clamped boxes, piled in heaps within. A broad glow, given back to the light, streamed into the outer vault, filling it with golden gleams.
Thrasher stepped into the recess, and dragged out a bronze box, scarcely larger than that which held the jewels entrusted to Captain Mason, and which now blazed on the person of his wife. He opened this box carefully, and took out a heavy block of gold, evidently pure metal, but polished smoothly. It was shaped like a common house brick, and weighed so heavily that the strong hand of Thrasher sunk under it, and it fell to the stone floor, giving out a ringing sound that made him start, notwithstanding all his precautions, and the fact that he was now deep in the bosom of the earth.
There were many lines of fine engraving on one of the flat surfaces of the brick; the writing was in French, with which Thrasher seemed familiar, but he read it over with great care more than once. Then sitting down, with the brick before him, he took out a graver and began to cut some rude letters on the opposite side.The gold was very soft, in its pure state, and he made rapid progress; but the record, whatever it was, took more than two hours in the completion. When it was finished he dropped the brick into its box, leaving it unlocked. This he placed just within the mouth of the recess, muttering, "it will be the first thing to catch the eye."
After this, Thrasher opened another box and took out what seemed, by their glitter, to be some unset diamonds. These he placed in his bosom. Then filling his pockets with a weight of the gold coin, he stepped into the outer vault, swung the granite slab into place, and proceeded to cement it into the wall with some material which he took from one of the casks.
When this was accomplished he stole softly up the steps again, let himself into the upper room, and proceeded to undraw the bolts, which had given the doors and windows a double fastening. There was nothing more for him to do. Unconsciously the woman who was his fate, had placed him in a position to accomplish all that was needful to protect his wealth, and even if it should be found, to save it from her rapacity. Once satisfied of this, he became less excited; for during his work, great drops of perspiration had stood on his forehead, and a wild eagerness burned in his eyes; now he sat down in his easy chair for the last time, and sternly awaited the coming of his captors.
About daybreak they opened his prison and took him forth. He turned a fierce look on the paradise his wild love had created for a woman who now loaded his misfortunes with scorn, and muttered such bitter words under his breath that their venom turned his lips whiteas it passed them. In these words the last remnant of his love for Ellen Mason went out, poisoning the sweet breath of the flowers over which it swept.
Atthe base of Greenstown mountains, in the town of Granby, stands an old ruin, surrounded perhaps by more fearful associations than any one spot in the United States. The very tread of a stranger's foot on the soil arouses painful thoughts, for it awakens the reverberations which haunt those cavernous ruins, and every sound seems weighed down with moans, such as were for many years common to the place.
It is an old ruined prison I am writing about—one of the most terrible places of confinement ever known to this free country. A copper mine, which failed to yield its rich metal in the abundance demanded by capitalists, had been abandoned, and over the caverns hollowed out from the bosom of the earth, the authorities of Connecticut erected a prison for criminals. Thank God the place is a ruin now.
Humanity has dragged the wretched sinners from their burrowing places under ground, and given them at least pure air and the sunshine which God created alike for the innocent and the guilty. The spot is deathly silent, but you cannot pass it without an aching heart, for the misery once crowded in those cavernsgathers around the imagination, and settles upon it in a heavy cloud, surcharged with groans. You know that human misery has been crowded there in masses, without air to breathe, or such light as God gives to his meanest animal. You think of this till the hollows of the mountains seem gorged with groans, and the cry of suffering souls comes up through the very pores of the earth, making the wild flowers tremble beneath the doleful misery that grew desperate beneath their roots.
A group of rambling wooden buildings thrown promiscuously together, at the foot of a range of hills, standing out bleak and bare, form the ruthless feature of a lovely landscape. One building, lifted from the abrupt descent of the mountain by a double terrace of rocks, commanding a view of the country, which contrasted its rich cultivation, pleasant homesteads, and well-filled barns with that narrow roof and meagre belfry, rose beneath the wild beauty of the mountains. This was the aspect of Newgate built over the Simsbury Mines, at the time Katharine Allen first recognized it from the highway, which she must not tread again for eight weary years.
The front building alone was visible. That long attachment which runs back toward the hills, with its range of narrow windows, and the smaller buildings crowded against it, lay in shadow, but from the distance there was something imposing in the uncouth pile. The sun was approaching its rest, and flung increasing light around the old prison, giving it gleams of false cheerfulness that never entered its walls.
Katharine, who sat in the heavy country wagon, between her guards, chained to the seat, and with her delicatewrists chafed by the iron that weighed those little hands down to her lap, looked toward the gaunt pile with a feeling of sad speculation. Why had she—an innocent woman—been sent to a place like that? for it was terrible, even in the glory of sunset. In her whole life she had committed no wrong worthy of more than gentle punishment. Was it not enough that her husband had abandoned her? that her child was dead? that her name had become a by-word in the land? Not enough that she had gone through the first and most bitter portion of her sentence—had suffered that hour of public scorn on the gallows at New Haven—a more terrible penance than if her life had been exacted, for the memory was with her always? Must the laws be forever warring at her young life? Was that huge pile to be her home for eight long years? They would crowd her down among the desperate criminals who burrowed their lives out in the bosom of that mountain, and leave her to die there.
But could she die? Would the principles of life ever give way? When the sentence had been pronounced upon her, and the judge had condemned her to go through all the forms of an ignominious death without its last horrible pangs, she had said to herself, "It is well. I shall not live through that hour. They will not kill me; but I shall drop dead on the scaffold. It is thus our Lord will be merciful, and save me from all this misery."
But, alas! we cannot die of our own will. She had outlived that hour, and now stood before her second fate, and no signs of death came to snatch her from it. The anguish of this thought broke upon her as her eyes fell upon that gloomy pile, and she cried out in the depths of her soul.
"My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?"
As the cry left her lips, she lifted her chained hands to her face, and shut out the prison from her sight, moaning because God would not let her die.
The two men heard this outburst of misery, and looked on each other in silence. One turned his head aside, and drew the cuff of his coat across his eyes, and the other spoke sharply to his horses and began to lash them; but his voice and arm failed, and he, too, turned away his face.
"Look up, my poor gal," he said, at last, pointing toward the mountain with his whip. "It doesn't look so tarnal gloomy now."
Katharine dropped her hands, and the iron clashed down to her lap again. The sun was now at its full setting, and flung a thousand gorgeous tints on the old prison. Its windows sent back a blaze of gold, the cupola seemed brimming over with crimson radiance, and rich lights slanted down the terraces of the mountain.
"Yes," she said, thoughtfully. "God is everywhere—even in that place. If He will not let me die it is because there is work for me to do. I shall find it among poor souls yonder—more miserable still than I am, for they struggle under a weight of guilt; and I—God help us all. I shall find some one to tend and comfort there."
Katharine grew resigned under these good thoughts, and a sweet tranquillity stole into her eyes. She was innocent. God knew that, and she knew it, for had not her babe gone to Him pure from her own heart? Why should she question His graciousness? If He permitted her home to be in that prison, what right hadshe to rebel against it? In this frame of mind she entered Newgate.
It was that sad hour which consigned the prisoners, whose toil lay above ground, to this living tomb, deep in the earth. The crash of hammers and clank of iron had ceased in the workshops, and the prisoners were assembled in the main building, ready to descend into the mines in search of such rest as that terrible place could afford.
The officers of the prison were occupied. Guards leaned idly on their muskets, and a group of keepers kept strict watch over the terrible group. They had no time for newcomers, so Katharine stood between her guards, drooping wearily under her irons, and looked on, forgetting herself in compassion for those lost wretches.
A trap-door, scarcely large enough to admit a healthy man, led to the subterranean dungeons. Around this the prisoners crowded, some swearing fiercely, others laughing in fiendish glee, a few humble and brokenhearted, all hustling each other like wild animals crowded on a precipice. The guards and keepers looked on impatiently. The clank of chains and those haggard prison faces were familiar to them. They were only impatient to urge the crowd down that narrow passage, and seal the unhappy wretches deep in the bowels of the earth, when their duty ceased till morning.
Down through this narrow trap the prisoners forced themselves, cursing as they went, and jesting at their own misery. At last all had disappeared save a little band of women in "linsey-woolsey" dresses cut very scant, who had waited in one corner of the room, under a guard, for their turn to descend. As they passedKatharine, these women lifted their heavy eyes to her face, too miserable for pity or wonder; but her beauty and the strange expression of her features made them pause and look upon her as if they could not believe that she was one of themselves.
Some formalities passed. Katharine's name, age, and sentence were written down in the black records of the prison: "Katharine Allen, aged twenty-two, found guilty of manslaughter in the first degree; sentenced to sit upon a gallows in the public square of New Haven for one hour, and serve eight years at hard labor in the State Prison at Simsbury."
Twice as the warden made this record he stopped to look at the prisoner. Her presence troubled him with vague compassion. He took the irons from her arms himself, and rubbed the chafed wrists gently with his palm, muttering, "Poor wretch, poor wretch. It's hard to put her down among them."
It was not often that this dignitary visited the subterranean prison, but he called the keeper most remarkable for kindliness of heart and bade him take her away. His voice was gentle and Katharine looked at him gratefully, but she was afraid to speak, for while standing near the trap-door she had seen a keeper strike one of the women who presumed to answer him.
A rude ladder, which stood almost perpendicular, led from the trap-door to the dark caverns underneath. At the first glance Katharine drew back sick and appalled by the black gulf into which they were urging her. The warden came forward and strove to reassure her, but she trembled violently and reeled back from the door, holding out her hands with a piteous cry for mercy.
There was no help for it; she must descend like the rest, sleep and suffer like the rest, notwithstanding her beauty and the pure magnetism of her goodness. She clung to the kind hand reached forth by the warden, and shutting her eyes sunk through the trap and placed her trembling feet on the ladder. The keeper was just below encouraging her. The iron lamp which he held only served to make the darkness horrible. The blackness into which she was passing seemed to cover her soul and body.
At last her feet touched the earth. The skeleton ladder seemed melting away in the darkness overhead. The keeper's lamp flickered fitfully; a mouldy scent floated around her. "This," she murmured, "this must, indeed, be the valley and shadow of death."
The man opened a door sunk into the walls of the cavern, and there was a rude cell, occupied by a wooden bench, over which some straw was scattered; a slanting board, also covered with straw, rose a few inches above the level at one end, and this was all the pillow that beautiful head would know for eight years. The keeper carried a coarse gray blanket on his arm, which he laid down on the bench. Katharine took up the blanket, but her hands trembled so violently that she could not unfold it. He saw this; set his lamp on the earth, and spread the blanket over the straw. She tried to thank him, but could not speak.
The lamp light, faint as it was, revealed drops of moisture glistening thickly on the walls around her, and she detected the dull sound of water falling in perpetual rain from the low ceiling. This was the end of her journey; this was her home. The man left her alone; no light, no voice; the dull dropping of water from theroof was all the sound she heard. No wonder that she cried out again, "My God, my God! why hast Thou forsaken me?"
Thereis no cavern so deep, no darkness so profound that the Holy One cannot penetrate it with his mercy. It is unrepentant and stubborn guilt alone which resists Him. Soon as the cry left her lips, Katharine found her answer. Notwithstanding the hardness of her bed and the damp air which floated heavily around her, she grew calm; some heavenly strength fell upon her, and, folding her hands peacefully over her bosom, she fell asleep. The water kept dropping from the roof, monotonous and cold; the fresh straw grew moist under her cheek, but she smiled in the darkness and whispered softly of a little child that had come from a pleasant, happy place to comfort her, and which would visit that hard couch nightly, and tell her of the heavenly home where it had found a resting-place for them both.
When Katharine awoke in the morning, she was surprised to feel how strong the night had made her, and she went forth to the life which had seemed so terrible, with the firm resolve to find out her duty and do it.
What human being ever turned resolutely to the performance of a duty without finding some comfort growing up under it?
The gentleness and sweet obedience which marked Katharine Allen's conduct in the prison, won many a kind word and act from her keepers. Perhaps her beauty had something to do with this; but it was not her beauty which made those rude men respect her in the cells of that copper mine, as if she had been in the chambers of a palace. It was not her beauty which checked the curses on theconvicts'lips, or led them to some rude efforts of politeness as she passed in her humble prison garb.
After awhile, Katharine began to see how wise and good the Almighty had been in sending her to that gloomy place; how all unconsciously she had been led to a great work through sorrows that prepared her for it, step by step. If ever woman has a mission except that of performing the duties which come naturally before her day by day, and hour by hour, it is that of nursing the sick, and comforting the afflicted. Women were intended for the gentler works of humanity, and who shall say that the great reformers of the earth can surpass her in this mission of love, or find a channel in all society through which her womanhood can be so beautifully perfected?
It is guilt which makes the convict repulsive; attach a firm conviction of innocence, or even repentance to the prisoner and his coarse dress becomes picturesque, his hard fare sublime. When I describe Katharine Allen in prison she is lifted out of all real convict life, but seems to me like an angel wandering through those dark places, as one of old sought out and unlocked the dungeon of the apostle. Suffering had done a heavenly work with this young creature. Certainly, she had been unjustly punished, but had not this chain of eventsbrought her into a field of great usefulness! Of her own accord would she ever have sought that place, or descended that ladder? Yet where on earth was there a spot in which humanity suffered so much, or where the influence of a good woman could so surely bring comfort.
In her solitude, Katharine remembered many a wise lesson and kindly precept that old Mr. Thrasher had taught her when she was restive in her first imprisonment. It was wonderful how deeply the sayings of this good old man had impressed her.
It was not long before Katharine was lifted out of the deepest misery of her prison life and placed in the hospital as head nurse of that most horrible place. The unwholesome position of the prison, the dreary darkness of its mines, and the damps that trickled down their walls, engendered diseases of all kinds with frightful rapidity, and that bleak hospital room was always full. Those who know only of the common anguish of comfortably appointed sick chambers can have little idea of the terrible duties which fell upon this young creature. Instead of prayers she heard little but raving curses of the past and eager cries for release from that awful life, which was worse, these poor wretches protested, over and over again, than any punishment which could await their souls beyond the grave. Some would jest desperately about the ways and means of this escape; laugh about the scant shrouds and pine boxes in which they must set forth on the long journey. Others bore their pain with stolid obstinacy, fearing to die, but dreading to get well, for death gave them to the grave, health back into those damp mines, which was a living burial.
With the sweet calm of one who finds an unexpected duty to be performed, Katharine entered this place. Her very presence had a holy effect upon the suffering convicts. Cruelty only hardens sin, and in those days moral kindness to a convict was almost considered an offence against the law. Men were convicted to be punished, not with any idea of reformation, and being thrust utterly beyond the pale of mercy, grew desperate and reviled one another when the evil spirit tortured within them could find no other means of expression.
But the sweet goodness of this young woman, their fellow-prisoner, softened all this. She comforted them with her gentle ways; soothed down the profane spirit that gave out curses instead of groans, and dropped softer feelings into those uneasy souls as Heaven gives dew to weeds trampled along the dusty highway. She never preached, never exhorted them, never forced the prison Bible upon their rejection; but the simple promises of Scripture fell like poetry from her lips, at times when the hungry soul of some poor convict, not utterly lost, seemed to crave comfort at her hands. Sometimes, too, when a sick man, won by her goodness, would ask where she found the beautiful words with which she was striving to comfort him, Katharine would open the Bible and read aloud to convince him of their reality. Then some patient in the next cot would whisper her to read louder, and when her silvery voice was lifted those sick men would turn wearily on the hard pillows and listen.
It is no great hardship to read or pray with the sick. Many a dainty person can be found to perform such duties punctiliously; but to work for the sick, to watch with them, wait on them, and with little means supplygreat wants—this is a noble work even for the patience and endurance of a woman. This is charity in its perfect work, mingling prayers, kindness, and stern labor in one beautiful phase of Christianity. This work Katharine performed so well that the fiend which she found brooding over the pillow of many a wretched fellow-creature, stole away under the sound of her comfortings, and a pitying angel came in his place. This was a work of slow growth, but alas! Katharine had plenty of time—eight long years.
You ask me if this young girl was unhappy in her dreary life, and I answerno. Those who confer great good on humanity by self-sacrifice, cannot be made utterly miserable. To such hope never dies. No, I say again, the slumber whichKatharinefound in her pauses of rest was very sweet. At such times the dreary sound of those water-drops trickling down the walls of her prison, seemed like the bell-like murmurs of a fountain, around which a baby child—one that always came in her dreams—was hovering and waiting for her to finish her work in that prison and see how beautiful the world was beyond it.
I cannot pause now to give the details of her strange life, or tell you how many touching events rose each day to interest her best feelings. The prisoners, young and old, began to look upon her with affection. Even the women, whose hearts are not always easy of access to a sister woman, received her little kindnesses, when she found power to offer them, with something like gratitude. All this won upon the officers of the institution. With her they began to enforce the discipline of the prison less rigidly than they had ever done before; employed her in lighter tasks; gave their own needle-workto her deft fingers; and frequently supplied her with better food than was awarded to her fellow sufferers. She received every favor with thankfulness, but took no benefit to herself. The food which she appeared to carry off and consume in private, went to the nourishing of some poor invalid, whose grateful eyes thanked her and told of gentler feelings growing up in his heart.
Thus, through her favor with the prison officers and her influence with the convicts, this young woman won for herself a power of good, which those terrible walls had never witnessed since their foundation.
Downin the depths of those prison mines many a terrible scene took place at which humanity shuddered. Once huddled under ground and sealed in with the massive iron bars that crossed that small trap-door, little care was needed for the safety of the prisoners. So, like wild cattle hustled into a pound, they were left to their own vicious instincts, and those often led to riot and revolt. Sometimes the terrible monotony of this life was broken by a new gang of prisoners, who, shocked and outraged in every manly feeling by the degradation heaped upon them, fiercely resisted the rules which levelled them below the common brutes of the field, and, like wild animals just lassoed on the prairies, turned fiercely upon their tormentors.
Cases of horrible cruelty often occurred in the prison; Katharine knew of it only from the fierce noises that echoed through her cell at night, and by the frightened faces that passed before her during the next day. It was enough to shock the most hardened human soul, to know that any of those terrible means of punishment, invented as the curse of our prisons, was in progress. The very idea was enough to drive the blood from Katharine's heart. But she was helpless—had not even the power of protest—all she could do was to turn her pitying eyes on the poor wretch when his sufferings were over, and thus prove that compassion existed even in that terrible place. Usually these scenes of punishment ended in the hospital, then her sweet ministry made itself deeply felt, and many a hard heart yielded itself to her kindness which the most bitter correction had failed to reach.
Something of this kind had just transpired in the prison. A new convict had been sent in from the courts, and his first resistance of the prison laws had been met with unusual rigor. That night Katharine heard low groans, but no cries followed the crack of the lash, which fell so sharply and lasted so long that every nerve in her body quivered and shrunk with that keen sympathy which made the anguish of a fellow-creature her own.
She arose in the morning literally sore at heart, wounded with more tender anxiety than had ever affected her before regarding the man who had borne those awful lashes so bravely. Her duties for a time lay under ground, where much of the prison work was done. She went about them with a heavy heart. The damp, the close atmosphere, and absence of all sunlightdeepened the despondency that had seized upon her. In these subterraneous vaults is a vast oven, in which the prisoners' bread was baked, and here her duties for the morning were appointed. A woman stood before this oven casting wood into the red caverns of fire that glowed behind the rolling smoke. The woman paused with a huge stick of pitch pine half lifted to the oven, and balancing it a moment in her hands, she cast it to the earth, and sitting down upon it began to cry.
Katharine advanced that moment, and touched her on the arm.
"I can't—I can't! Whip me, if you like—put me in with him, but I can't do it!"
The woman evidently thought it one of the keepers, who had watched her rebellious movement. Katharine bent over her.
"What is the matter, Jones? It is only I. Can I help you?"
The woman looked up, relieved by the voice.
"No," she said, heavily. "It is the old story. You heard the lash last night—it kept us all awake. It is a new prisoner they are breaking in; a handsome, fine fellow; but he stood them out like a lion, and now—"
The woman paused and looked toward the oven with a sort of terror in her eyes.
"And now—oh! Jane, is he dead?" whispered Katharine. "Did they kill him?"
The woman pointed to a narrow door built close to the mouth of the oven, and whispered—
"He is in there!"
Katharine recoiled.
"In there, and that fire raging so; God have mercy upon us! it is death!"
"No, not always; not often, I think," answered the woman; "but I never did this work before. The sweat oven has not been used in my time till now. It's awful!"
A smothered moan, which rose above the roar and crackle of the fire, curdled the very blood in Katharine's veins.
"What is it? What is the horrible thing they are doing?" she cried, wildly. "What is that place?"
"You see the door—how narrow it is—a poor creature can hardly push through. Inside, it is just as narrow; stone walls pressing close up against the wretch, heated from the oven hot as life can bear."
"Oh, my God, my God, is this thing true?" cried Katharine, cowering down, and covering her face with both hands.
"I wont heap on the wood," cried the woman, bitterly. "They haven't the power to make me."
"Hush, hush; some one is coming."
It was a keeper to whom the terrible punishment had been entrusted. Katharine rose slowly to her feet and stood before him, her hands clasped, and the pale anguish of her face revealed by the fire light, which illuminated the darkness all around them.
"What are you women talking about? Go to your work, Katharine Allen."
She could not speak, but fell upon her knees, beseeching him with those wild eyes.
"What is all this about?" said the man, softening his voice.
"She wants you to let that poor man out—that's it," answered the woman, resting both elbows on her knees, and looking up from her seat on the wood. "Sheknows it aint human to treat any of God's creatures in this way, and wants to tell you so, only them groans has frightened the soul out of her body."
The man looked down at the young creature kneeling at his feet, and a shade of sympathy swept over his face.
"Get up," he said, almost kindly. "I have just come to see about him. This sort of thing don't gibe with my feelings more than it does with yours, but the fellow was obstinate as a mule—wanted a little of the proud blood sweated out of him, and I reckon he's got enough of it by this time."
"Oh, be quick, be quick, or he may die!" cried Katharine, gaining her voice. "How faint the moans are! Open the door! open the door!—hear how his poor hands beat against it!"
"Well, go away—this is no place for you. Run to the well, and have some water dipped up ready. They always make a dive for that first."
Katharine sprang to her feet, and darting across the space illuminated by the oven, made her way toward the well, which gushed out pure and crystalline in the depths of the mine, the only untainted thing in those subterranean regions. An iron lamp swung in the walls of the cavern near this outgush of pure water, which turned all the wavelets it touched to gold.
This was the spot to which the prisoners came when athirst, like cattle to a spring; and to this place, as the keeper truly said, the man who had suffered from the flames of that hot oven would surely come.
Katharine took an iron dipper, which was chained to the stones of the well, and filling it with water, held it till the weight bore down her hand, then she filled it oncemore from the centre of the well, and again held it ready. This time she had not long to wait, for she saw a human figure coming through the darkness with desperate effort, but slow progress—making futile attempts at speed, and giving broken leaps that brought him reeling and staggering every instant against the sides of the cavern.
Katharine poured out the water, and dipped it up afresh, as if that little effort could make it cooler. She would have gone forward to meet the man, but the chain would not permit it, and thus she stood waiting till he came up. He saw the vessel in her hand, dripping over with a rain of cool drops, and seizing upon it before she could look up, drained it off in wild, greedy haste.
"More! more!" he cried, dropping the dipper, and sweeping the perspiration from his face. "More! more!"
Katharine plunged the dipper into the well again. He would have snatched it from her but she lifted it to his lips. In this position the lamp-light fell upon her face. She dropped the iron vessel from between her two hands, as he fell forward with his face to the earth. She did not breathe—for her life she could not have uttered a sound—but dropping on her knees beside the prostrate man, she lifted his head from the earth. The light lay full upon his face. His eyes looked piteously into hers. She drew him up to her bosom; with the folds of her prison dress she wiped the rain of perspiration from his forehead and left tender kisses in its place; soft words came to her lips, tears swelled into her eyes; she had but one thought—holy thanksgiving to Heaven.
Directly the keeper came up, wondering that his victim should remain so long at the well.
"Halloo!" he said, "what is this? I thought you were half dead, my fine fellow!"
Katharine looked up; her face was radiant, and yet a tender pity beamed there.
"Hush!" she said; "he is my husband."
The keeper gave a prolonged whistle that echoed mournfully through the caverns, but Katharine repeated:
"Yes, it is my husband."
Thrasher did not speak, but she felt him trembling in her arms; his head rested more heavily on her bosom; he scarcely breathed.
The keeper felt some gleams of sympathy swelling in his bosom. With him Katharine had always been a favorite. He took compassion on her now.
"Poor fellow! he has had a tough job of it," he said; "weak as a kitten—why, see how he trembles; I'll just go to the warden and have him sent up to the hospital, where you can tend him till he picks up again."
Katharine smiled gratefully, and they were left alone, the woman and her husband. She bent down and kissed him.
"Nelson, my husband, speak one word—say that you know me."
He whispered hoarsely, "Yes, Katharine, I know you."
"And love me yet?"
The proud man was shorn of his strength, and burst into tears. When the keeper returned, her hand was locked in that of her husband. He was talking to her in a feeble voice, broken with grief; telling her things which made even that dark place still darker—of his unfaithfulness and its stern retribution. His heart was broken up, he kept nothing back. His crimes weregreat, but the record was given in few words, saddening the poor wife, who had been so happy a moment before, in spite of her bonds. She heard him through, wondering that so much of joy should lie underneath these facts, and whispering to herself: "He will be here seven years, and I with him. Oh, how much can be done in seven years!"
The keeper had compassion on them; he led Thrasher away to that portion of the prison devoted to the sick, and there the heaven of Katharine's convict life grew bright, for she saw the path of her duty clear, and knew, in her soul, that a holy work lay in her hands, a work of comfort and regeneration, which should lead her husband into the sunlight again.
She forgave him from the depths of her own pure heart; she forgave him all the wrong he had done, and all the hopes he had destroyed. Her care, her gentleness, and the holy faith that pervaded her words and acts, had its effect on this iron-hearted man. I cannot describe that which is beyond words, or tell how this gentle martyr reached the stern man's heart; but it softened day by day under her patient tending, and when he went back to the dreary duties of those prison mines, it was with a changed aspect. She had taught him, not only how beautiful a thing human love is, but through that most sacred of earthly feelings, led him to the holy source of all love, all honor, all the glory of life.
And so, as the years of their imprisonment wore on, these two people bore their fate with something better than mere resignation. They were content to work out the duties before them, feeling it recompense enough if they could smile on each other in passing down to theirplaces of rest, or exchange a word of comfort and encouragement now and then by the well, where they had first met.
Do not pity these people overmuch; where true love and faith exists, there is little need of compassion. Out of the depths of his penitence sprang up that perfect love which makes a heaven of any place. As for Katharine, was not her prison life made bright and beautiful. What was seven years of toil, hunger, and thirst to her if it redeemed the husband who had been lost?
Yearshad passed—seven long years—and in that time many a pleasant change had taken place around the minister's dwelling. Little twigs of rose bushes had grown into blossoming thickets; the big apple tree in the meadow had dry spray among its branches, like gray hairs on the head of a strong man; tiny honeysuckle shoots had spread into luxuriant vines; a row of red cherry trees along the fence was beginning to glow with fruit in season. Every thing inside and out of the minister's dwelling had prospered. He had scarcely grown a day older in his own person. Indeed, with his home comforts so cared for, and his wardrobe in order, he seemed a younger man than we found him, when, standing between the two deacons, counselling about the meadow lot, which now bloomed Eden-like around him.
As for the minister's wife, she had never looked so young, and it seemed impossible that she should ever grow old; a few almost imperceptible wrinkles marked the corners of her prim little mouth, but that was all.
Still, youth knows rapid changes, and other things than honeysuckles and roses had bloomed into perfection at the parsonage. There was a lovely girl sitting under the apple tree, not gathering fruit or blossoms, as of old, but busy with her crochet needle and a ball of crimson worsted, that would keep rolling from her lap into the grass in the most provoking manner. By her side, half lying on the ground, was a youth, the most splendid specimen of early manhood you ever saw, looking at her as she worked, with an expression in those dark eyes which could only have sprung from the one great passion of life.
As Rose worked, a smile dimpled the fresh mouth, and she glanced sideways at Paul from under those long, brown lashes, coquetting with him in her innocent way, but with a grace that was enough to bring the youth's heart into his eyes. Jube was at work in the garden at a distance, singing to himself, and pausing now and then to regard the scene going on under the apple tree.
This was what was passing between the young people. Rose paused a moment with her crochet hook in a half-looped stitch, and the smile trembled on her sweet mouth. Paul had asked a question, expressed a thousand times before, but never with that intonation and significance.
"Rose, do you love me?"
Now the bloom of roses mounted to her forehead, and swept down the snow of her neck! Paul saw it, andblushed also—the lashes drooped over those great velvety eyes, and a strange thrill, too sweet for pain, too new for entire pleasure, ran through his whole system.
"Rose, do you love me?"
As I have said, she had answered that question a thousand times before, but now it took away her voice. She bent her head and commenced her work again, looping up the worsted with desperate haste.
"Why don't you speak, Rose?"
"I don't know what to say," she replied, trembling all over.
"Don't know what to say!" repeated Paul, sitting upright, and turning his startled eyes full upon her. "I ask if you love me, and—oh, Rose, is there a doubt?"
Rose shook her head and bent over her work.
"If I ask this now," said Paul, very earnestly, "it is because I wish to be certain that—that—oh, Rose, why can't you answer me?"
"I have answered, Paul."
"But you turn away. You will not look at me."
"Yes—see, I do."
His face brightened all over; taking her hand, which he tangled up in the crimson thread in his impetuosity, he pressed it to his lips.
"I am going away, Rose."
"Going away—oh, Paul!"
"Yes; don't turn so white. I shall come back again in a few months—it is not so far off."
"Where, where?"
She could not complete the sentence, her tears rose so quick and fast.
"I am going back to my old home, Rose, in St. Domingo. My father was a rich man there—one of thefirst and highest in the island. I can remember that without help, but Jube has told me more than this. He and his brothers, a large family, were all killed in that awful massacre. They had great riches in gold and jewels. I saw piles and piles of gold brought into my father's house that last week, and heard those gentlemen, my father and his brothers, pledge themselves to defend it each for the other, so long as one of them should live. This compact was not written, but engraved on a brick of gold, that it might be permanent, and carry its own record wherever the treasures went. I was a boy, and too young for a trust of so much magnitude. Where these treasures were put I never knew. My uncles were all killed. My father, my mother—oh, Rose, you know about that. I alone was left of the family. Jube, dear old Jube yonder, is all the servant of our great household. My mother entrusted him with her jewels. They fell into the hands of Captain Thrasher."
Rose uttered a faint cry, and covered her face to hide its shame.
"Don't, Rose, don't," said Paul; "I am not blaming any one. Only telling you how it happened that Jube and I became so poor. There was some gold with the jewels, and that Rice made Thrasher give up. It has supported us ever since, for Rice traded with it, and kept it growing, good fellow. But that is very little, Rose. It kept us from being a burden here, but what would it amount to when—when—"
"When what, Paul?"
"When you and I are married, Rose."
The young girl drew a quick breath. The crochet hook fell from her hand—her arms, neck and face were bathed in blushes.
"Have you never thought of this, Rose?" said Paul, tenderly.
"I don't—don't know, Paul."
"But you will think of it?"
"Yes—yes."
"All the while I am gone?"
"Gone!" The tears that had been trembling in her eyes dropped to the roses on her cheek. He saw her grief and exulted in it.
"Jube knows where those treasures were buried. It was a safe place, deep in the vaults under my father's house. The negroes would never search there. Jube will go with me; we shall find all this gold, and then, Rose, then—"
She looked up, piteously.
"I don't care for gold; I hate jewels; from that day I have hated them. Don't go, Paul; I shall die before you come back."
"But we must live. When your father comes from the Indies, I cannot ask for his daughter without some way of earning or giving her bread. Those treasures belong to me. I am the last heir of our house. It is for your sake I shall search for them."
"No, no; I am afraid. There may be another shipwreck," cried the young girl, wringing her hands.
"Hush, hush, Rose! Jube is looking this way; the old fellow will wonder what we are talking about."
"But—but you wont go, Paul? It is too cruel."
"Not till you consent. You are my queen now, Rose, and shall keep or send me as you like."
She brightened with a sudden thought.
"Wait till father comes," she said, dashing her tears right and left with those white hands, "and then wecan all go together—that is, if father has not money enough of his own."
Paul pressed her hand again gratefully, as if she had indeed reigned his queen, and once more they sunk into the old attitude, save that she did not pretend to work, and Paul no longer vailed the joy in his eyes.
They did not hear the rattle of wheels, or know that a wagon had stopped at the parsonage; thus when Jube came hurriedly from his work in the garden, with intelligence in his face, Rose received him with a pretty pout, and Paul inquired rather sharply what he wanted coming upon them in that rude way.
Poor Jube was quite taken aback. Never in his whole life had he been so received by the young people; the joyful words were driven from his lips, and he stood mutely gazing at them like a Newfoundland dog rebuked for too much spirit.
"What did you want?" inquired Paul, self-rebuked and softened.
"Why, nothing, master, only Tom has just got out of the wagon and is coming this way."
"Tom! What—Tom Hutchins?"
"Yes, master; that's him coming through the kitchen door."
Rose started up all in commotion. The idea of meeting her rustic boy lover just then filled her with dismay. But there was no escape. He was half across the meadow, making directly for the apple tree. A fine, powerful young fellow he certainly was—broad-chested and stout of limb—but there was the same frank face, the same freckles on the cheeks, the same laughing blue eyes. He came up a little awkwardly, not exactly knowing how to use his arms in walking, and halteda few yards from Rose in blank astonishment at her beauty. She went toward him at once holding out her hands.
"Mr. Hutchins, I am so glad to see you!"
He took her outstretched hands and pressed them together between his two hard palms.
"Jest as sweet as ever; and oh, lots handsomer!" he said, with awkward gallantry.
"This is Paul," said Rose, embarrassed by his rough compliment. "He has not forgotten you."
"Nor I him, by a long shot," answered Tom, with energy. "How are you, old fellow? Know how to speak English, hey?"
Paul laughed, and lost his slender hand in Tom's grasp.
"I've got a little business with you, by-and-by," said Tom; "something terrible mysterious; and nothing would do but I must come right across from Simsbury and bring it myself. You guess, I reckon, what took me out there?"
"To see her?" inquired Paul, in a low voice.
"Yes, nothing else. The old people are getting infirm, and can't travel no more. That trial kinder did them up for going journeys, yet they aint content without hearing all about her every few months. So this time I went up. Had a little chore of my own in that'ere region, and wasn't backward to go; besides, I raly du feel sorry for them old folks. Not one word have they heard from Nelse Thrasher yet—think he's lost at sea, and that has nigh about broke their hearts. They are getting old now, I tell you."
"And you have been to see Katharine—that was very kind, Tom. If ever a good woman lived, she is one. How did you find her?"
"Handsomer than ever. I swan to man! she looked like an angel just come down, for all that linsey-woolsey dress. She's soft and still as a dove in brooding-time—never complains—never sheds no tears, but goes about like—like—oh, it aint of the least use trying to give you any idea of it."
"But her time is nearly up; she'll be coming out soon."
"Not jest to the day, I reckon. She told me not to let them send arter her, for she'd got a duty beyond her freedom day, and must wait till some one else was set free; then she would start for home, and stay with the old people all her life."
"It is like her, poor soul," said Paul, with deep feeling; "but who is the person for whose liberation she is waiting?"
"Jest step this way a minute, and I'll tell you."
Paul stepped aside, and walked reluctantly away from Rose.
"Look-a-here—she didn't tell me nothing, only in her sweet way asked me not to give the old folks any news that would trouble them, as if she kinder thought I knew; but if I didn't see Nelse Thrasher in that 'ere prison, that fellow has got a twin brother that's been tried and convicted."
Paul started. Had Thrasher indeed been punished? Was he now atoning his crime in prison? A moment's thought, and he understood it all. The generous privacy with which the trial had been kept, that disgrace need not reach Rose or her mother. He remembered now that soon after Mason's visit, the minister and his wife had been absent at the county town several days, and no one could tell why. How well the secret had been kept!
"We must not mention this before Rose," he said, thoughtfully.
"Nor the old people neither," replied Tom. "In this case the least said is soonest mended; but it was him, no mistake about that. To own up, he gin me this letter with his own hands, and a little heap of shiney stones that he dug out from the wall of his cell, where they'd been hid ever since he went to the prison. Katharine told him he could trust me, and he did; but you never seen a feller so altered—he's grown steady and sober-looking, and has a soft, kind way of speaking that makes your heart rise up to meet him. I never did see any thing like it. He's learned to smile, and it does you good to see it. I raly believe he'll live to be a comfort to them old people at last—that is when his time is up."
"I hope so," answered Paul, thoughtfully; "but you had a letter—is it for Rose?"
"No; for you."
"For me."
"Yes—do you know that the chap raly thought that you was dead and drowned in the salt sea, till a little while ago, when Katharine happened to tell him about your coming up to Bungy with Jube, and how youtried to help her, poor young critter. You remember that night?"
"Yes, I shall never forget it."
"Well, it seems he was thankful to know that you hadn't gone down with the wreck—you and the nigger; and he's been a trying to get this 'ere letter to you by safe hands ever since, but couldn't light on a downright honest chap till now."
Paul reached forth his hand to receive the letter, thinking, in his kind heart, "Poor man! he was cruel to me, and repents of it. I am glad for his own sake."
With these thoughts he broke the seal and began to read:
"Paul De Varney, I have wronged you, and would make restitution so far as human will can atone for crime. You are,Iknow, the only living heir of that proud old house which the Revolution destroyed. The treasures which were concealed by the males of your family, in a solemn compact, and buried in the vaults of your father's house, are in this country. I brought them in the vessel which Captain Mason had commanded from Port au Prince, removed them safely from the Floyd when she was abandoned, and the great bulk of them has never passed from my hands. In the vicinity of New York is a large mansion house, purchased some years ago by a Mr. Nelson. If you ask for this man Nelson, they will tell you that he is of unsound mind, and has been safely housed for years in an insane asylum. But this is the truth—I, Nelson Thrasher, am the man to whom that house belonged. In the depths of a secret vault, which you will find under the south wing, I have concealed the treasures which are yours. There is a room in that wing, furnished as a gentleman's study, the floor is a mosaic of colored marble."I send you a drawing of the design. The centre ornament, marked A, will yield if you touch the fourth curve of the arabasque pattern. You descend into a wine vault; the rack of bottles swings on hinges. Behind it; five feet from the corner, each way, is a slab of granite cemented into the wall; remove that, and lying in the entrance of a small inner vault you will find a Gold Brick, upon which the males of your house have engraved their compact, their names, and those of their descendants. All are dead except yourself. The treasure is yours. How I became possessed of it, the amount expended, and a solemn renunciation, you will find rudely cut on the lower side of the brick. Take possession of this wealth; no one will dare to question your right. All that I have in possession, and all that I can restore, is herewith forwarded. If you can only feel the joy in receiving this wealth that I do in casting it from me, the day that you read this will be a happy one, the first that ever resulted from this hoarded gold."Nelson Thrasher."
"Paul De Varney, I have wronged you, and would make restitution so far as human will can atone for crime. You are,Iknow, the only living heir of that proud old house which the Revolution destroyed. The treasures which were concealed by the males of your family, in a solemn compact, and buried in the vaults of your father's house, are in this country. I brought them in the vessel which Captain Mason had commanded from Port au Prince, removed them safely from the Floyd when she was abandoned, and the great bulk of them has never passed from my hands. In the vicinity of New York is a large mansion house, purchased some years ago by a Mr. Nelson. If you ask for this man Nelson, they will tell you that he is of unsound mind, and has been safely housed for years in an insane asylum. But this is the truth—I, Nelson Thrasher, am the man to whom that house belonged. In the depths of a secret vault, which you will find under the south wing, I have concealed the treasures which are yours. There is a room in that wing, furnished as a gentleman's study, the floor is a mosaic of colored marble.
"I send you a drawing of the design. The centre ornament, marked A, will yield if you touch the fourth curve of the arabasque pattern. You descend into a wine vault; the rack of bottles swings on hinges. Behind it; five feet from the corner, each way, is a slab of granite cemented into the wall; remove that, and lying in the entrance of a small inner vault you will find a Gold Brick, upon which the males of your house have engraved their compact, their names, and those of their descendants. All are dead except yourself. The treasure is yours. How I became possessed of it, the amount expended, and a solemn renunciation, you will find rudely cut on the lower side of the brick. Take possession of this wealth; no one will dare to question your right. All that I have in possession, and all that I can restore, is herewith forwarded. If you can only feel the joy in receiving this wealth that I do in casting it from me, the day that you read this will be a happy one, the first that ever resulted from this hoarded gold.
"Nelson Thrasher."
Paul read the letter over and over again. The contents seemed unreal; but for the clear description of the Gold Brick he would not have given it credence. But he remembered that well. The night when the seething metal had been poured into its mould, every member of the family had been summoned to stand by. The scene rose vividly before him. The red heat of the furnace glaring on the vault, the piles of gold throwing back its light, that group of aristocratic men stooping one after another to engrave a name on the dead gold of the brick, till he, the youngest and the last was called upon to take the graver in his young hand, andunder his father's direction, record his name on the golden record.
Paul had not understood the danger which prompted his kinsmen to gather up their treasures and make this singular record on the brick, but the storm came upon them at once.
In a single week that whole household had been swept away—father, mother, home. Is it wonderful that the young man grew pale, and shuddered, when Thrasher's letter reminded him of these things?
Paul had no heart to return to Rose. For the moment he thought of nothing but that terrible scene which had left him an orphan. He walked slowly away, and entering the house, sought the minister's study.
Tom Hutchins went back to the spot where Rose was standing.
"Miss Rose," he said, shuffling his feet in the grass, "you remember when I gave you a string of robins' eggs, and what I said about 'em?"
"Yes," answered Rose, blushing quietly, for the poor string of eggs had been smashed to atoms in a romping chase with Jube years ago.
"Yes, Mr. Hutchins—I—I hope you don't want them back again."
Tom looked rather crestfallen, colored violently, and relieved his right foot by standing heavily on the left.
"No, Miss Rose," he burst out at length, "I aint going to ask for 'em back, but—but the truth is, I was a scamp for giving you them 'ere eggs; not at the time, you know, but arterwards, when I kinder forgot you and took a shine to another gal. There, now, it's out, and I suppose you'll just hate and despise me for a mean heart-breaker all the rest of your life. But I could nothelp it, consarn me if I could. If the gal hadn't looked kinder like you, in the way of curls, and been a match for the best on 'em, I never should have gin in; but it's done, and can't be undone, without you insist on holding me to that bargain when I give the eggs. If you do, why speak out, and I'm ready to stand up to the rack, fodder or no fodder."
Rose did not laugh, but her eyes were brimful of fun, and her lips dimpled threateningly.
"Don't—don't cry; it 'ud break my heart. I aint downright engaged, nor nothing, and I waited to see if you'd give me up afore that—but—but if you'd just as lives, 'thar is as good fish in the sea as ever come out,' you know; still, as I said, if you didn't seem to mind it, I—I—"
Rose shook with the rush of laughter that was forbidden to her lips, but she felt a sort of respect for the honest purpose which had brought the youth to her presence, and answered him with gentle kindness:
"Have no trouble about me, Mr. Hutchins—we were only children then."
"True enough—so we were."
"You were very kind to us, and I can never forget it."
"Oh, don't—don't, Miss Rose—you make me feel what a scoundrel I was ever to think of anybody else."
"Ah, but it was impossible to help it."
"Do you think so now—really?"
"Indeed I do."
"And you wont hate me?"
"Not at all."
"Nor think me fickle?"
"Oh, children are always fickle; but we meet asgrown people, now, and there will be no more change. You are content, and so am I."
"In downright arnest?"
"In downright earnest."
"Miss Rose."
"Well."
"If I was not over head and heels in love—well, it's no use talking; but there aint your match this side creation, except her."