OUT OF A SCRAPE.
"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
you tried 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, _I_ know, 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, and under 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 not help 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 as grown 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."