The Gold Brick Part 77

"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, embarra.s.sed 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 ch.o.r.e 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 s.h.i.+ney 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 n.i.g.g.e.r; 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 rest.i.tution 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 pa.s.sed 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 h.o.a.rded 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 gra.s.s, "you remember when I gave you a string of robins' eggs, and what I said about 'em?"

"Yes," answered Rose, blus.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+ne 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."