BEN BENSON GIVES AN OPINION.
Mabel went back into the room sick and faint; her heart was enveloped in
shadows again.
Another knock at the door, a rambling timid knock, as if every knuckle
of a great hand lent its own sound to the wood. Mabel was impatient and
cried out, "come in, come in."
The door half opened and closed, opened again, and a huge foot was
planted on a cluster of roses in the carpet. Another foot appeared, and
our old friend Ben presented himself with a small basket on his arm, and
a huge bouquet of wild flowers in hand.
"I beg pardon, marm," said the honest fellow, taking off his tarpaulin
and setting it down by the door, "I begs any amount of pardons for this
here intrusion, but I thought that you'd like to see these ere shiners
afore the cook spiled their beauty on the gridiron; besides I found some
blue asters and a tuft of golden-rod in a holler of the woods that the
frost hasn't found out yet, and tied 'em up ship shape, thinking as you
might like the smell on 'em, now that they've got so scarce."
The quick tears sprung into Mabel Harrington's eyes. She held out her
hand with that beaming expression of face which rendered her at times
more than beautiful.
"Ben, my good old friend, you helped to save my life; how can I ever
thank you enough!"
Ben took the white hand in his huge grasp tenderly as if it had been a
newly-fledged dove. "Don't, don't, now, I can't stand it, that ere look
knocks the pins from under me, circumvents me into a lubberly boy again.
What was Ben Benson--the old scoundrel about, that he didn't do the hull
thing hisself? Don't hurt the poor feller's feelins by thanking him for
what he didn't do--he's ashamed of hisself, and hain't done nothing but
rip and tear at hisself for a sneak and coward ever since."
"Oh, Benson, don't abuse yourself in this manner--I cannot speak all my
thankfulness--I can never do enough for you. Sometimes, Ben, sometimes,
I think you are the best, almost the only true friend that I have on
earth--that is among the old friends, Ben."
Her eyes were full of tears. She pressed Ben's hard hand with her white
fingers.
"He'd die for you--that ere old weather-beaten chap--he'd die for you
any minute, and never ask the reason; but don't talk to him in that ere
way--it'll break his heart if you do. His eyes have sprung aleak
already, and no pump rigged, nothing to help hisself with, but the cuff
of his coat!"
"Well, well, I will not vex you with my thanks; but remember, good
friend, I must always feel them. Now tell me what you have got in the
basket. Something nice or beautiful, I daresay, for you bring the breath
of the hills in your very clothes."
Ben sat down his basket, with a glow of satisfaction, and proceeded to
display its contents: first, he removed a layer of crimson maple leaves,
presenting a surface of bright golden tints underneath, which were
daintily lifted from a bed of the softest and greenest moss in which a
pair of superb speckled trout lay softly embedded. Ben looked up with a
broad smile, as Mabel touched their spotted sides, gleaming up through
the delicate green, as if the gorgeous coloring of the leaves which lay
heaped upon the marble console had struck through, leaving prismatic
stains behind.
"I thought," said Ben, peering affectionately down into the basket,
"that a pair of these ere beauties might tempt you into eating
something. I've been a watching 'em a good while in the holler of the
rocks, just above where Miss Barker's mammy lives. The brook that comes
down by the side of her house is as pure as ice, and almost as cold, and
that's the kind of water for fellers like this. Ain't they smashers,
now? More'n a foot long, both on 'em, and sparkling like a lady's
bracelet."
"Thank you, thank you. They will be delicious. I have tasted no
breakfast yet. Tell the cook to prepare one for me."
"Will you have the goodness to trust that ere to Ben Benson, marm, and
he'll see that there's no mistake this time. That same awkward chap
brought a pair of shiners just like these, from the brook last night,
and instid of gitting in here, as he expected they would, what does he
see but that ar' gov'rness a-carrying them up in a silver platter to
General Harrington's room, as if he'd been sick, and not the lady. If
you've no objection, marm, Ben Benson 'll sarve these ere fellows
hisself, for the brook hasn't got another of the same sort, if he beat
brush for 'em a week."
"You are always kind," answered Mabel, "and it won't be the first time
you have turned cook in my behalf. Do you remember, Ben, doing like
services for me in Spain, years ago, when you insisted on leaving the
ship, and turning courier for us all?"
"Don't I, now?" said Ben, and his face brightened all over. "Didn't Ben
Benson? He was a smartish youngster then. Didn't he use to scour their
skillets and sasepans, to git the garlic out on 'em? But it wasn't of no
use, that ere garlic strikes through and through even hard iron in them
countries, and a'most everything you touch tastes on it, but the hard
biled eggs that had tough shells to 'em, as I used to bile for you and
the poor sick lady--they stood out agin it."
Mabel was looking sadly downward, and a troubled shadow came to her face
as she murmured--
"Poor lady--poor lady! How she suffered, and yet how completely her
disease baffled the Spanish physicians! That was a hard death."
Ben drew close to his mistress as she spoke. A strange meaning was in
his glance, as he said, impressively--
"Lady, that was a strange death. I've seen consumption enough, but it
wasn't what ailed _her_!"
Mabel lifted her eyes and looked anxiously at the honest face bent
toward her. "How can you think so, Benson?" she said.
"Because I know who gave that lady her medicine o'nights, when you and
the rest on 'em were in bed, and fast asleep; and I know that one time,
at any rate, it wasn't of the same color or taste as that the doctor
left, and she give it ten times when he told her once. I didn't think
much about it at the time, but since then, it's constantly a-coming into
my head."
Mabel turned deathly pale, and, yielding to a sudden faintness, sat
down.
"You do not think--you cannot think that there was really any neglect?"
"I didn't say nothing about neglect, marm--there wasn't much of that,
any how, for the poor lady never had a minute to herself. That ere
cream-colored gal was always a-hanging over her like a pison vine, and
the more she tended her, the sicker she grew--anybody with an eye to the
windward, could see that without a glass."
"Benson, you surprise--you pain me!" cried Mabel, with sudden energy.
"Great Heavens, what could have put this wild idea into your head?"
"It was in my head years ago, and went to sleep there," answered Ben
impressively--"but the sight of just sich a face, and just sich a
cretur, all but the color, prowling about this ere very house--in and
out like a mouser--has woke up the idee agin, and my own mother couldn't
sing it to sleep, if she rose from the dead with the old lol-lo-by on
her lips. I wish something could drive it away, for it's all the time a
sighing in my ear, like the sound of waves when they close over a
corpse."
"It is a terrible thought," said Mabel, shuddering.
"Now, don't go to turning pale nor nothing," said Ben, with prompt
anxiety, "don't take it to heart, no how--just as like as not, it's one
of old Ben Benson's sea-sarpents, that'll float off the minute it's
touched, and if it does amount to any thing, ain't that individual here
with his face to the wind, and his hand on the helm? Only do be careful
what you eat and drink here alone, if that ere gov'rness is turning
waiter for you or the general. There's a reason for it--be sartain of
that."
"How foolish all this is," said Mabel, striving to laugh.
"One would think, Benson, that we lived in Italy, when the Borgias made
poison an amusement, instead of being quiet people in the quietest land
on earth!"
"The quietest country on earth," answered Ben, reflecting over her words
with a hand buried amid the jack-knives, bits of twine, and lumps of
lead, in his deepest of deep pockets. "That ere sentiment used to sound
beautiful on a Fourth of July, when I was a shaver, but it's took after
my example, and out-grown itself a long shot. Why, marm, there ain't ere
a day but what some poor woman goes through a post mitimus, and two or
three men are found with their skulls driv in by sling shot down in the
city, to say nothing of them that never git under the crouner's hands,
but are put away with a doctor's pass, into the grave that somebody
should be hanged for filling. I can't go out a-fishing on the Hudson
now, marm, without a feeling that some gang of rowdies may set upon me
and steal my boat. I can't go into the city with a sartinty that a bowie
knife won't be buried in my side, before I get home. In short, marm, I
don't believe in calling countries quiet where murders and amusements go
hand in hand. America was a peaceable country once, but it ain't that
thing no longer. Them ere Borgers, as I've hearn, did their murders
softly and arter dark, and it won't be long afore we learn to do the
thing genteelly, as they did. I tell you, marm, I don't like strangers
a-running about this house while you and Miss Lina live in it. Ain't the
old sarvants enough--What have they done to be turned out of doors?"
"Who has been turned out of doors, Benson? No one by me," said Mabel, a
good deal surprised by this harangue.
"No, marm--but they're dropping out of their places softly marm, as the
leaves fall out yonder, without the least idee what wind strikes 'em.
Yesterday, the old cook, as has been in your kitchen twenty years, got
her discharge. To-morrow, for anything that old feller knows, Ben Benson
may git his mitimus, and when he asks to see the lady as he's sarved
heart and soul since he was a boy a'most, they'll tell him as they did
the cook--that this ere lady is sick, and can't be troubled with such
matters."
"And have they discharged my cook--poor, faithful Nancy? Is this so,
Benson? Who has done it? How dare they!" cried Mabel, surprised and
indignant. "Why did she not come to me? Has Nancy really gone?"
"Yes, marm, I saw her myself go off to the city, with a bandbox under
her arm, and a man behind, carrying her trunk."
"But what was her offence?"
"She didn't keep the General's woodcocks quite long enough to make 'em
tender--sarved 'em up too fresh and sweet--I don't know of nothing else
that they brought agin her."
"And she has gone--actually gone!"
"Bag and baggage, marm; they made clean work of it."
"They? Of whom do you speak? Not of Lina, not of Mr. Harrington--who,
but the General, himself, would dare to discharge my servants?"
"In course, nobody but the old Gineral could do it; but that are
gov'rness, marm, as has been a whispering with him in his room and out
on it, ever since you've been shut up here. She's been a-doing some of
that ere Borger work in a new way, pizening the mind, instead of the
stomach. Since that ere black-eyed pussy-cat came here and got to
mousing around, there hasn't been a mite of comfort anywhere, in-doors
or out. The very boat, as was as kind a craft as ever tuk to water's got
to running contrary, and is allus cutting across currents, and tussling
agin the wind. It ain't Christian, and as like as not, it's slandering
the poor feller to say it, but my 'pinion is, that Ben Benson's
a-beginning to hate that ere gal like pizon."
Mabel was so occupied with new thoughts, that she did not hear the
conclusion of this speech, but sat gazing steadily on the carpet.
"What can all this mean," she reflected. "The General has not been to
see me since the first day of my illness; then the half insolent air of
this girl--the discharge of my old servant, what can it mean?"
"More 'an this," continued Ben, warming up, "Nelly the chambermaid is a
going. She says that things don't suit her, and she's got too many
mistresses, by half, for her money!"
"This is very strange," said Mabel, rising with that firm moral courage,
which always prompted her to face a difficulty at once. "Say to the
General, that I wish to speak with him."
"The General isn't at home Mar'm, and hasn't been since yesterday."
"Very well, Benson, I shall dine with the family; a household always
goes wrong when its mistress is away."
"And shall I cook these beauties for you?" inquired Ben, gathering up
the moist leaves, and laying them over the trout again, with pleasant
alacrity; "the new cook mayn't know how to manage 'em; I don't want to
flatter that ere conceited feller--but Ben Benson does know how to cook
a trout arter he's catched it."
"Do as you please, Benson; they will certainly taste better from your
hand than if prepared by a cook whom I have never seen."
"In course they will," answered Ben, taking up his basket. "I'll go down
to the kitchen, and get things under way."