The Gold Brick Part 53

Jube smiled broadly.

"Tell him to come back in the spring."

Jube lost his message, for the stage went off, scattering a storm of mud from its wheels, and thundering down the sand banks with a flourish of whips that aggravated Tom's unhappiness beyond measure.

"Never mind," he muttered, turning his horse to follow on the same road.

"If Rose Mason only knew I was driving this young critter that she used to consider so harnsome, she wouldn't think that stage any thing tremendous, loud as the driver cracks his whip."

With these consoling fragments of thought, Tom followed in the wake of the stage, trying his whip as he crossed the bridge in a manner that made his young steed plunge and jump on one side with a violence that brought the boy's heart into his mouth. While he was busy subduing the spirited animal the doctor rode on to the bridge and watched the conflict. It was soon over, for Tom had ignominiously given up by thrusting his whip under the seat in great dismay.

"Well, what's the news, Tom?" inquired the doctor, as he rode by.

"Nothing special sir, only Jube has cut. Going up the hill yonder on top of the stage. I say, you'll just make it all right with Mrs. Allen, doctor?"

The doctor nodded, chuckled softly, and rode on.

CHAPTER XLV.

PAUL FINDS A NEW HOME.

Once more the stage swung to at minister Prior's gate, and this time a slender boy, with a beauty of countenance that made you hold your breath, was lifted through the door, and set carefully down upon the gra.s.s.

Mr. Prior, who had been dreaming over his sermon in the study, came out, looking bland as a summer's morning, and was accosted by the driver:

"I say, minister, I always bring luck. Here is one of the nicest little shavers that ever you saw. He wants to come to school, and I've told him that you'll be a father to him, and as for Mrs. Prior--well, there's no doing that lady justice."

Mr. Prior smiled pleasantly, and went up to Paul.

"He is indeed a fine boy."

"Thank you, monsieur," said Paul, taking a letter, which the doctor had given him, from his pocket. "When you read this perhaps you tell more sure if I can stay here."

Mr. Prior glanced over the letter, and smiled down with hospitable kindness into Paul's anxious eyes.

"It would be difficult to answer no, even if we wished it," he said, kindly; "an orphan and a stranger--it is from such I fancy that the angels come to us unawares."

"You will not find me too much trouble," said Paul, smiling. "I study English good deal--try always."

"French is your native language, I think?"

"Yes, monsieur!"

"Then we will soon find a lady who can talk with you; come, my little man."

The minister led Paul into the house, speaking to him kindly enough, although, in his shyness, he was always sadly at a loss what to say to any child, and the boy looked so sorrowful at parting with his friend that the clergyman was in doubt what manner of argument to employ by way of consolation.

He gave the little fellow a seat in the parlor, and went away to find Mrs. Prior, and inform her of the arrival of her new pupil. She hurried in at once, and her motherly kindness soon made Paul, in a measure, forget his loneliness and desolation.

Mrs. Mason and Rose had gone out to walk; so, for an hour or two, the little woman gave the boy her undivided attention. He refused dinner, saying they had dined on the road; but Mrs. Prior, out of the experience of her schoolmistress days, had great faith in the unlimited powers of children in the way of voraciousness, so she brought him all manner of quaint shaped cakes and crullers, red apples and nuts, until Paul was confused by the abundance, and sat with them on the handkerchief laid across his lap, staring ruefully at the pile, and really not knowing where to begin.

But what comforted Paul more than any thing was to hear himself addressed in his native language, which Mrs. Prior spoke with a sufficient degree of fluency.

"I have a little girl here," she said, "who will be a nice playmate for you."

"Is she a pretty little girl?" Paul asked; for he possessed a keen appreciation of beauty.

"Very pretty; her name is Rose, and she is nice and sweet, like her name."

Paul was interested at once, and poured forth a flood of questions with such volubility that it required all Mrs. Prior's knowledge of French to follow him. When he learned that it was the very Rose that Tom Hutchins had talked of so much, he felt at once that he had fallen among old friends, and his face brightened till its singular beauty became a marvel in the eyes of the minister's little wife.

Before Mrs. Mason and her daughter returned, Paul and his hostess had become the best friends imaginable. He grew very confidential, made her cry heartily with a few words which conveyed an account of his mother's death, and she brightened at the story of his rescue at sea, and in her gentle heart blessed the rough sailor of whom Paul spoke so lovingly. In the glow of these benevolent feelings she determined to do every thing in her power to make the child's residence in her family a happy episode in his life.

When she heard Mrs. Mason and little Rose in the hall, Mrs. Prior went out and asked them to come in.

"I want your daughter and my new charge to be good friends," she said, pleasantly, to Mrs. Mason.

"I will see him before I give any answer, if you please," replied that lady, who grew more haughty and insolent every day.

"His society could not fail to be of benefit to any child," returned Mrs. Prior, annoyed, as often happened now, by the imperious manner of her boarder. "He is the most perfect little gentleman I ever saw in my life."

Mrs. Mason made an effort to look somewhat doubtful of Mrs. Prior's judgment in such matters, but there was a certain dignity in the lady's manner which checked further insolence.

Indeed, Mrs. Mason herself was wonderfully struck with the boy's delicacy of features and refinement of manner, the moment she saw him.

Her curiosity was excited, and she asked innumerable questions, which Paul answered evasively, for his childish instincts prejudiced him against the beautiful woman at once.

But the little girl and he soon opened friendly relations, after the first shyness, natural to children, had worn off. In the corner, where Paul was taken to admire her dolls, all fast asleep, as good dolls should be when visitors come on them unawares, she began to question him at once. What child would not? He told her of his perilous sea life, and of the beautiful country where he once lived, but there were scenes in that life so dark and terrible that the boy's heart shrunk away from them even in thought. To have mentioned them in childish play would have proved beyond his power. Among these were the blows that had been dealt on Jube, and all his miserable life in that brig.

Another subject which he never mentioned was the story of poor Katharine. Mrs. Allen, shrinking from the idea that her daughter's disgrace should be carried to her native town, had cautioned Paul never to mention their names, and he obeyed her faithfully.

The doctor had obtained a letter from a clergyman in New Haven to Mr.

Prior, which the boy had brought as an introduction, and that was all the information necessary.

Thus, though Paul and Rose became good friends, he never spoke of the people or scenes which they knew in common.

When bedtime came, Paul went up to the pretty little room prepared for him with considerable hesitation, as he had always had Jube near for comfort and protection.

However, he was too manly for a single remonstrance, and when Mrs. Prior kissed him good-night at the door, he knelt for his prayers, and hastened to bed with all speed.

When he was safely in bed, and the warmth began to make him feel somewhat less disconsolate, Mrs. Prior came to take away the candle, through fear of imaginary accidents.

"Are you comfortable?" she asked, stopping to look at him, as he lay with his cla.s.sical head visible above the clothes.

"Very," Paul said.

"Sleep well, and try to be happy," she returned, giving him another kiss, out of the tenderness of her heart.