CHAPTER LXI.WAITING FOR NEWS.
There is not, upon the face of the earth, more harassing trouble than that which springs out of ignorance and suspense. Eva and Ruth Laurence had but a wild and vague idea of the evil that had fallen on the two most beloved members of their little household. They knew nothing of the law, and imprisonment to them was an awful blending of suffering and disgrace, to which the unchecked imagination lent unknown horrors.
They sat together for a time in dead silence, each afraid to speak, lest she should add something to the distress of the other. But, as time wore on, this stillness became intolerable. Eva sprang to her feet and began to walk the room, with the wild restless tread of a panther in its cage; while Ruth clasped both slender hands over her bosom, and let the tears run unchecked, from under her closed eyelids.
“Oh, Ruth, Ruth! what must we do!” cried out Eva, wringing her hands and wrenching them apart with impetuous force. “I cannot stay here waiting in this way;heought not to ask it.”
“But what can we do? Ah, me! how helpless we poor girls are!” said Ruth, opening her eyes, and wiping away the tears with her trembling hand. “Even your strength would be wasted, and I am so weak.”
“Oh, if I had something to lift—some great load to carry—sister, sister, I can believe now how ready persecuted women were to walk, unshod, among hot ploughshares. I could do it to save them and bring them back to us safe. I could! I could!”
“My sister, my own, own Eva, be patient. It would be only wasted strength if you could do all this; be patient and wait!”
“Wait, wait! that is a woman’s destiny in this world,” said Eva, with passionate vehemence; “but how can we—how can we? The pain of it is driving me wild!”
“Remember,” answered Ruth, speaking softly in her sweet patience, “we have a strong, good man at work for us. Is there no strength and hope in that?”
“But I want to do something; I must, I must.”
“Dear Eva, what can you do? Is it nothing that we have already won such a friend? have patience, sister.”
“Patience, Ruth, I have nothing but apprehension and fear. Think of her, our mother, so still, so proud. Yes, yes, the proudest woman I ever saw, with all our povertyand struggles; think of her in the hands of a policeman—in a cell of the tombs.”
“I do think of it, and it leaves me weak as a child; but Eva, there is a God above.”
Eva turned away from the sweet invalid with a gesture of sharp impatience.
“Yet our mother, and the dearest, brightest, noblest boy that ever lived, are forced from their homes, and innocent as angels, dragged like wolves through our streets. I cannot understand it; Icannotunderstand it!”
“Oh, Eva, Eva, have some faith in the justice of God, in the energy and goodness of this man who has already done so much for us. I am sure he will bring them back again!”
“But the time lengthens so. It is hours and hours since she was taken away! All night long that poor child has been shut up in a prison. Oh, it is terrible!”
“Ah, here is something; a carriage stops at the door. It brings us news, good or bad,” cried Ruth, now as much excited as her sister. “Run to the door, Eva.”
Eva had already sprung into the little entry, opened the door and met Mrs. Smith half way from the gate.
“What, what is it? Where are they?” she enquired, breathless with dread and impatience.
Mrs. Smith took the girl in her arms and kissed her, leaving a stain of tears on her cheek.
“Don’t be afraid; don’t be anxious. They’ll both be here in less than no time; I jumped into a hack which Smith will have to pay for, thank goodness, and made the driver hurry up his horses to an extent that they will never think of.”
“Then they are free? they are coming?”
“Free as birds, and coming along full split, no mistake about that. They wanted me to take the empty seat, but I had not the face to do it after Smith’s conduct; though hedid melt right down and try to back out when he saw how I took on.”
By the time this stream of words had heralded the good woman’s news, she was in the parlor, had half lifted Ruth from her couch, and was lavishing hearty kisses on her pale face.
“What has happened? what did they do down there? No wonder you want to know all about it. Well, I went straight down to the Tombs, which is just the lonesomest pile of stones inside, that you ever set eyes on; pillars like them Sampson carried off on his shoulders, and stone rooms that chill one like graves. Well, I wandered about among them hunting up your mother and that precious boy, till I found them at last in a room full of benches with a short counter along one end, and a man sitting behind it, and there stood your mother looking stern and gray as a rock in the winter, and there was little Jimmy a standing by her with his big eyes full of tears, which he kept wiping away, for fear folks might see him cry, poor darling; and that fellow Boyce had been telling his lies, and Smith was backing him up, and things looked awful cloudy till I up and had my say, though Smith was standing there wanting to stop me, and Mr. Ross, my friend Mrs. Carter’s brother, come in and stood by your mother like a monument. But I would have my say, and I did.”
“I haven’t any doubt, girls, that this speech of mine did the business; but another woman came in and finished up the whole thing. She was Jared Boyce’s brother’s wife. And they did the robbing and stealing, and hid the things in your wood-house. I wish you could have seen the scamp Boyce, when the woman told on him; he was just as gray as ashes, and all skimped up; you wouldn’t have known him—anyway, I shouldn’t; and Smith is just about the sheepiest man you ever sot eyes on, and wants me to say how awful sorry he is, which I won’t; and what a fool he has been, which I will.
“There, now! Didn’t I tell you! Here they come, all in one carriage, just as good as new. Let me lift you up, Ruthy, and you can see ’em get out, Mr. Ross and all, who is a gentleman, if one ever lived. There, there!”
Trembling with joy, Ruth looked out and saw Eva darting down the front walk with her arms extended.
Little James leaped into them and clung to her neck, covering her face with kisses; then he made a bound into the house, and Ruth saw no more; for his arms were around her, and his voice filled the room with its sobbing gladness.
Directly Eva came in clinging to her mother, who moved up the walk with her usual grave step, and put aside her bonnet and shawl before she said a word. Then she came up to Ruth, knelt by her side, and laid her head upon the cushion like one who throws down a heavy burden and longs to rest herself awhile.
Gentle Ruth drew close to the old woman, and with tearful kisses, softened the stony grayness of her lips, until they began to tremble. Then her whole frame shook, and, clinging to the girl, she cried out, “Oh, God be thanked, I am home again!” in a voice that made every one in the room weep; for feelings so restrained and pent up are terrible in their force when they once break bounds.
Mrs. Smith sat down in the corner of the room and cried piteously as she took in the deep pathos of this reunion. She had begun to soften toward her husband, accepting his sin upon her own shoulders; and thus sat condemned before the family he had so grievously afflicted.
The boy James saw this, and went up to her, wiping away the tears from his radiant eyes.
“Oh, what should we have done if you had not been our friend?” he said; “poor mother would have been there all alone with me; but you did not forget us.”
“Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy! You will never want to live with us again,” said the good woman.
“Won’t I though!” answered the boy, eagerly.
“For a time,” interposed Mr. Ross; “so long as he works for any one, Mrs. Smith; but we must put him to school and through the City College. Don’t you think so, madam?”
“What me,me! You don’t mean it, Mr. Ross?”
“But I do mean it.”
“Eva, Ruth, mother! do you hear that? Hurra! This morning I was in a prison-cell that seemed dug out of a rock; and now—now I’m going to college! Why don’t you stop crying and say Hurra! every one of you, Hurra!”