The Gold Brick Part 17

"Well, wife, any thing that keeps the boy at home will satisfy me.

Marriage is an inst.i.tution of the Lord, and no good man should say a word against it."

"Of course not, for that would be to slander our own youth. See, there is Nelson now, looking down toward Mrs. Allen's house. That's him under the but'nut tree. He's just stepped on the rock--you remember it. I wonder what he's flirting out his silk handkerchief for?"

"It's to scare off the crows, I reckon," answered the father, watching the movements of his son with some curiosity, "they're greater pests than ever, this year."

"No," said the old lady, "it's more than that. See, something moves on the other side of the stone wall. It's a woman--she's climbing over. Why don't he help her, I wonder? Yes, just as I thought, it is Katharine Allen. What do you say to that?"

"Well," answered the old man, flus.h.i.+ng around the temples. "I say it isn't likely the young folks think that we are spying after them. If they want to have a talk by themselves, I'm sure we've no objections.

You and I have been but'nutting together in our lives, haven't we?"

I am not sure that the old man did not kiss the face that was lifted smilingly to his. There was no one by, and he was so very happy all the morning--who could wonder at it? The old lady, at any rate, made no ado about the matter, but nestled a little closer to his side, and asked "if he saw Nelson and Katharine yet?"

"They are sitting on the rock together, wife, talking, no doubt; but we must not be watching them. Young folks don't like that, you know."

"Well, only just say that you think there's something in it, and I won't turn my eyes that way again; though it's a trial for a mother not to look on her son anywhere, after he has been away from home so long."

The father himself seemed to feel that it was a hards.h.i.+p, for, after walking across the room once or twice, he came back to the window where his wife still remained.

"See, husband, how Katharine jumps up and seems to be wringing her hands. What can ail her?"

"Maybe Nelson is telling her about leaving her half-brother on the wreck; that is enough to make the poor girl wring her hands--as for Mrs.

Allen, nothing but the grace of G.o.d can carry her through this trouble.

She hasn't seen her son for years, and was just expecting him home."

"Supposing I go right down and comfort her," whispered the good woman, her heart full of tender pity. "Or would she rather be left alone, I wonder?"

"Wait till the first grief goes off; after that, company may do her good."

"Poor girl, how she takes on, while Nelson sits there as if nothing was the matter. No, no, I am wrong; he's taken hold of her hands. He's talking to her--how kind of him. See, Katharine is quieter already. She sits down again; I know well enough, if any thing on earth could pacify her, he could. The dear boy!"

CHAPTER XVI.

A PAINFUL INTERVIEW.

Truly, Katharine Allen had sprung to her feet, and was wringing her hands in wild, bitter grief, at the news of her half-brother's death, for such she considered the account Thrasher gave her. True, she had never seen Rice since she was a little girl, and he was scarcely known in the neighborhood, as Mrs. Allen had moved to her present home with her second husband, and her son had gone to sea long before that. In her second widowhood, he had sometimes sent her money and warm-hearted letters, written in a great, cramped hand, which no one but a mother could have read. In her retired life, Mrs. Allen, who was a middle-aged woman when Katharine was born, had looked forward to news from her son as the great event of her life. With only her house, a few acres of land, and her pretty daughter's labor to depend on for a livelihood, the twenty and thirty dollars which came to her from this son, at the end of each voyage, was a great help. Without it, the widow and her beautiful daughter must have come to want, especially when sickness was in the house.

Now he was dead--the brave, generous man, whom Katharine had been taught to love like a father; and even while Thrasher told his own story, and her loving heart was almost given up to fond credulity, she was not quite satisfied that Rice might not have been saved. To leave him on the wreck even at his own request, seemed to her a terrible cruelty.

"He was my brother," she said; "the only support we had. He was so generous--so good to us both! Oh, Nelson, you should have saved him!"

"How did I know he was your brother, Katharine? He never told me a word about it; and if I ever heard the name, it had escaped me."

"But he was a human being; a mother waited for him, somewhere. You should have remembered that."

"It is useless talking in this way, Katharine," replied Thrasher, striving to pacify her grief. "I could only have saved him by violence.

He would not come with us, but stuck to the wreck, under some wild idea that she might yet be taken into port. I could have died with him, but nothing beyond that was possible."

"Oh, my mother! my poor mother! must I tell her this?" moaned Katharine.

"Perhaps it would have pleased you better had I gone down with him?"

"You!--you! Oh, that would have completed our desolation! The news would have killed me dead!"

"Then don't attempt to make me out a murderer."

"I haven't--I haven't!"

"Sit down, Katharine. These wild gestures will be seen from the house, and the old people won't know what to make of it. Sit down and compose yourself. This is not the only subject we have to talk about."

"I know it--I know it; but the thought of carrying the grief to my mother kills me."

"This is childish--I will submit to it no longer," cried Thrasher, beginning to lose patience. "Sit down, I say, and control yourself!" He took hold of her hands, grasping them till they burned with pain, and drew her forcibly to the rock. She looked at him breathlessly; the expression of his face frightened her.

"Now that you can be still," he said, sternly, "I have a great deal to say about our conversation last night. Will you try and listen like a rational creature?"

She was sobbing bitterly, and could only give an a.s.sent by a motion of the head.

"Well, regarding the senseless event which you make so much of----"

"Senseless, Nelson!" She looked up, as the words left her lips, and gazed at him reproachfully through her tears.

"Yes, senseless! What else could an act like that be considered? I was a man--and should have known better. What good has it done to be in such desperate haste?"

"What good?--what good? Did we not love each other?"

Something like a sneer came to Thrasher's lip. He longed to tell her the truth. It seemed the surest means of putting her out of the way.

"You don't speak, Nelson. You look strange when I say, 'Did we not love each other?'"

"No wonder, Katharine--why should you ask the question? If to make a fool of one's self is a proof of love, you have it!"

"To make a fool of one's self?" The poor girl turned white to the lips as she repeated these insulting words. "What does this mean, Nelson?"

"It means that you and I went off, like a couple of dunces, and got married!"

Katharine stopped crying. Surprise, for a moment, kept her mute; but directly there came into her eyes a proud, almost fierce determination, that Thrasher had never witnessed before.

"Do you mean this?" she said at last, in a low, clear voice, that made him start.

"Mean what?"

"That you are sorry for having married me."