The Gold Brick Part 10

"Little master, I know where she is, we left her on White Island."

"And you did not tell me when I was so near; but we cannot be far off now, the storm drove us back. Jube, I've been watching for something to happen, for it is sure mamma wants us. Look behind that barrel, and see how much bread I've saved. Then the oranges Rice spoke of; he broke open a box, and I've got plenty."

"Well, little master."

"They've been working on the side of the s.h.i.+p to-day, and did not haul up the boat. That was what I've been watching for. Take the bread and the oranges, Jube, and let us go."

Jube arose, took up the little sack which the boy pointed out, and followed his young master without a question. They crossed the deck softly, dropped down the side of the vessel unseen, and with the knife which Rice had given him, Paul cut the boat loose from the s.h.i.+p.

The brig lay motionless, for she was still disabled, and the boat rocked lightly on the waves, breaking the starlight into golden ripples; thus the boat and the half wrecked vessel drifted apart. Three days of suns.h.i.+ne, and calm, lonely, bright days, in which these two childlike beings floated like people in a dream. The boy was in search of his lost parents, and looked out for them over the bright ocean with smiling and beautiful faith. The slave hoped nothing, sought for nothing. He was content by his young master's side. They had no compa.s.s, and but one pair of oars, which proved of little use, for the boat had no destination, nor its inmates the remotest knowledge of their own reckoning. Thus they drifted on three days without accident. No vessel hove in sight, and all was a clear, heavy calm. On the fourth day the bread and fruit were gone. Not a mouthful of food, not a drop of water, save the great deep, a draught of which would be delirium or death. The fifth day, and the pangs of hunger had crept steadily on, and gnawed at their vitals relentlessly. Paul no longer gazed abroad on the waters, but lay faint and ill in the bottom of the boat, looking up to the stars in the night time, as if missing his mother on earth, he sought her there. Thus they drifted on day and night, until the end drew near. Jube managed to catch a little dew at sunset, which he gave to the child.

Rain fell once in small quant.i.ties, and refreshed them, but still the cry of famished nature went up for food, and there was nothing but the salt water and the rainless heavens to answer it.

Paul lay in the bottom of the boat, fading away, and moaning with the pangs of famine; Jube bent over him, breaking the hot rays of the sun from the white and sunken face with his body, for they had no other shelter. The boy moaned in his sleep, and called for his mother in feeble anguish. Jube was very weak, but he managed to lift that light weight so far as to lay the boy's head on his knee.

With a spasm of pain the child awoke.

"Little master."

Jube's voice was like that of an old man, hollow and broken. The boy looked up, tried to smile, and murmured,

"Yes, Jube."

"Would you like something to eat, little master?"

"To eat--to eat," whispered the boy, opening his eyes wildly.

"A piece of nice steak. You wouldn't mind its being cooked, would you?"

"Steak!--something to eat! Oh, Jube, we shall never eat again!"

"Look here, little master, now be still and hear what I say."

The boy made a struggle to collect his faculties.

"Little master, listen: when you find me lying here in the boat, and you can't feel my heart beat when you lay your hand here, just cut a slice out of my shoulder with the jackknife."

The boy closed his eyes, shuddering.

"It won't be very hard eating."

The slave was feeling for the knife as he tempted the famished child, who lay moaning across his knee. He found it at last; but his gaunt hands opened it with difficulty, for their strength was all gone.

The poor fellow felt for the spot where his heart beat strongest. Then he spoke to the child again.

"The knife will be open, little master, don't forget what I tell you."

He lifted the knife feebly, a flash of suns.h.i.+ne on the blade gleamed across the half shut eyes of the boy. He comprehended the meaning of Jube's words. He sprang up, s.n.a.t.c.hed the knife, flung it into the ocean, and fell senseless on the bottom of the boat.

Jube burst into childish tears, and with his head bent down to his breast, fell into a state of apathy.

When he looked up again a s.h.i.+p was in sight, coming gallantly toward them. He gave a feeble shout, and strove to arouse the child, but could not. Then he took the cotton bag that had held their bread, and fastening it to an oar, swung it wearily to and fro, crying out with all his strength, which left nothing but moans on his parched lips.

The s.h.i.+p bore down upon them, she came so near that Jube could see her crew on the deck, then veered slowly and faded away.

CHAPTER X.

THE HOUSE IN THE PINE WOODS.

Some four or five miles from that lovely spot, where the Housatonic and Naugatuc join their waters, stands a large manufacturing village of no inconsiderable importance. Iron foundries, paper-mills, India rubber and silk manufactories cl.u.s.ter around one of the finest waterfalls of New England. That waterfall is picturesque even now, spite of the cottages, boarding houses, hotels, railroad station, and tanneries, that have taken the place of green woods, richly clothed hills, and a valley so fragrant with wild flowers, that it was happiness to breathe its very air.

But it is hardly worth while to describe this town as it is. Every thing, even the name, derived from an old Revolutionary officer, is changed. My object carries me back to a time when it was indeed one of the loveliest spots in the world--a rich, deep valley, with a n.o.ble waterfall thundering at its heart. High, curving, and broken banks, almost mountainous in places, looming up or sloping back on either side, and two lovely brooks pouring their bright, fresh waters into the river above the falls.

One came winding around Rock Rimmond, softened and shadowed by its grim heights. The other, pretty, sparkling Bladens Brook, ran laughing and dancing through the Wintergreen woods, on the opposite sh.o.r.e, with a gush of cheerfulness that seemed like suns.h.i.+ne, and leaped into the river just where it began to gather up its waters for a plunge over the great falls, in one broad, rus.h.i.+ng cataract of crystal. From the falls downward, the valley was choked up with n.o.ble forest trees, through which the river ran slowly and grandly till it swept around the shadowy base of Castle Rock, and disappeared on its way to join the Housatonic.

This rock, high, precipitous, and picturesque, terminates all that we have to do with the valley, for its high cliffs cut off the prospect in that direction, and all the level s.p.a.ce between it and the falls was one vast grove of white pines, which formed the grandest ma.s.ses of trees I ever saw in my life.

A few hemlocks, a white poplar or so, with now and then a magnificent oak variegated the woods, but great pines predominated everywhere. The earth was littered with their sharp leaves; the wind sighed among their branches as if it never could win a free pa.s.sage through their greenness. As for the suns.h.i.+ne, it only reached the forest turf and velvet moss in a golden embroidery--seldom with broad gleams. Never were there such cool, green shadows as hung about those woods. The noises that floated through them were strangely bewildering; there was the roar and dash of the falls--the clatter of machinery--for even in that day one factory, among the first ever established in New England, stood by the falls, and the sound of flying shuttles and the beat of heavy looms, held a cheerful rivalry with the flow of the waters and the rush of the winds. Then came the bird songs, wild, clear, and ringing, lost outside of the woods, but making heavenly music if you but listened under the trees.

Just below the falls, so near as almost to be sprinkled with the spray, and to gather foam wreaths about its timbers, was a long, low, wooden bridge, linking two villages together.

These villages crowned the two lofty banks overlooking the falls, from which one took its name. Fall's Hill was rendered most conspicuous by a pretty, white church, with a tall, symmetrical spire, cutting sharply against the sky, added to a cl.u.s.ter of superior dwelling houses, and a country store. In front of this store, just on the fork of the roads, stands, I hope to this day, a magnificent old willow tree, under which people who came from afar sometimes tied their horses, while they went up to wors.h.i.+p in the church, which stood on the very highest point of land to be found till you came to Rock Rimmond on one hand, or Castle Rock on the other. These crossroads cut in two directions, one led to the Bungy hills, and the other toward a red school-house and some straggling dwellings in shrub oaks: beyond this, the geography of the country is lost in a confusion of green hills and woodlands, which form a pleasant and prosperous farming country.

From Shrub Oak, the turnpike leads directly down Fall's Hill with precipitous steepness, across the old bridge, and through a sand hill, with a wall of white sand thirty feet high on either side, directly into Chewstown, on the opposite hill.

This cl.u.s.ter of houses took its name from some old Indian, forgotten by his tribe, who lived and died in a hut somewhere in the neighborhood, and at this day is probably forgotten in a town where a change of time-honored names seems to be a political fas.h.i.+on. At any rate, it was called Chewstown then, and a smart, active little village it was. For it had two crossroad taverns, a great, barnlike Presbyterian meeting-house, and a das.h.i.+ng, new Academy, which boasted of a pretentious little cupola with a bell in it, mounted on the highest point of land that side of the river, and contrasting itself saucily with the spire of the church on the opposite bank. Any number of roads crossed and recrossed over the hill at Chewstown. There was the Derby road, running along the banks of the river; the New Haven road, cutting through the sand banks in a parallel line, and crossroads from the farming districts intersecting them both. The fact is, Fall's Hill had a little more than its share of the aristocracy. Chewstown made up for that, by broader commercial opportunities. The taverns were always in a flouris.h.i.+ng condition, and a blacksmith's shop, that looked like a foundry, brought the farmers from far and near to get their horses and oxen shod. Besides, there was a country store on the corner, and three white cottages with bas.e.m.e.nts, built in a line like city houses, and the farmers on that side of the river were often heard to say that Chewstown could pull an even yoke with Fall's Hill any time of day, if they had not got a steeple to their meeting-house.

In this village, Captain Mason had left his wife and child, and here, also, Thrasher, the mate, was born. Down in the outskirts of the pine woods, on the Fall's Hill side of the Naugatuc, a river road ran along the curving base of the hill, and wound seaward with the stream. On this road, between the bridge and Castle Rock, there was but one house, a low, white cottage, with peach trees behind it, and lilac bushes in front. A great tulip tree sheltered the low roof, and behind the garden rolled the green billows of the pine woods. It was a lonely, but very beautiful spot, such as a man like Mason would be likely to select as a home for his beloved ones.

Here, in fact, this good man had left his wife and only child, the latter a charming little golden-haired creature of four years old, when he sailed for St. Domingo in the brig Floyd, which we know to have been left disabled and drifting on the ocean. The vessel had been absent six weeks beyond its time, and no intelligence had yet reached her owners or that anxious woman, regarding her fate. This voyage had been Mason's first experience as captain; his little savings had been invested in a private venture, out of which he hoped to provide something--beforehand, to use his own words--for his wife and little one.

Mrs. Mason was both sad and anxious--sad from the gloom of hope deferred, and anxious because the little provision made for her support had melted away, leaving her almost in want. She was sitting in her neat parlor, with one of the little girl's garments in her hands, sighing heavily with each drawing of the thread, when a knock sounded at the door.

She stopped, with the needle half through her work, and listened. Of course, _he_ would never have paused to knock at his own door, but then, the very thought of this wild possibility suspended her breath.

Again the knock sounded, and the young wife called out with her usual hospitable voice,

"Come in."

The door opened, and a female entered, wrapped in a dark red cloak--the hood of which she put modestly back, revealing as fair a face as you often look upon in an entire lifetime.

CHAPTER XI.