"Sit here, Captain Murdock,-here," said Walter, hurrying on as he saw Mrs. Howland giving the stranger another seat than that.
"Walter," and there was reproach in the deacon"s voice, "not in your father"s chair."
"Yes, grandpa," said Walter, "Captain Murdock has been a father to me,-let him sit there for once."
So Captain Murdock sat there, his heart throbbing so loudly that Jessie, who was next to him, could hear it beat, and see his chin quiver, when the voice nearly eighty years old, was asking G.o.d"s blessing on their Thanksgiving Dinner; thanking G.o.d for returning their boy to them, and finishing the prayer with the touching pet.i.tion: "Send the other back!
oh, send the other back!"
Owing to the presence of the captain, who was considered a stranger, not a word was spoken of Seth, until they arose from the table, when Walter, unable longer to keep still, said:
"And so my father is free from all blame?"
Involuntarily Jessie went up to him and put her arm in his, waiting breathlessly for what would follow next.
"Yes, Walter," returned the deacon, "my Seth is innocent. Heaven bless him wherever he may be, and send him to me before I die, so I can hear him say he didn"t lay it up against me,-my hardening my heart and thinking he was guilty. Poor Seth, poor Seth! I"d give my life to blot out all the past and have him with me just as he was before he went away."
Captain Murdock was standing with his face to the window, but, as the deacon ceased speaking, he turned, and going up to him, placed his hand on either shoulder and looked into his eyes.
The movement was a most singular one, and to Mr. Graham, who knew that there must be a powerful motive for the action, there came a suspicion of the truth; but none to the old man, whose eyes fell beneath the burning gaze riveted upon him.
"Who are you?" he asked in a bewildered tone, "why do you look at me so hard? He scares me; Walter, take him away."
"Grandpa, don"t you know him?" and Walter drew near to them, but not until the old man"s ear had caught the whispered name of "_Father_."
Then, with a scream of joy, he wound his feeble arms round the stranger"s neck.
"Seth, boy, darling, Walter, am I going mad, or is it true? _Is it Seth?_ Is it my boy? Tell me, Walter," and releasing their grasp, the shaking hands were stretched supplicatingly toward Walter, who answered:
"Yes, grandpa. _It"s Seth._ I found him, and I have brought him home."
"Oh, Seth, Seth," and the h.o.a.ry head bowed itself upon the neck of the stranger, while the poor old man sobbed like a little child. "I didn"t expect it, Seth, though I"ve prayed for it so hard. Bless you, bless you, boy, I didn"t mean to go against you. I would have died at any time to know that you were innocent. Forgive me, Seth, because I am so old and weak."
"I do forgive you," answered Seth. "It"s all forgotten now, and I"ve come home to stay with you always till you die."
There was a hand laid lightly on Seth"s shoulder, and turning, he looked into the face of Mr. Graham, which quivered with emotion, as he said:
"I, too, have need of your forgiveness."
"None, Richard, none," and locked in each other"s arms, the friends long parted cancelled the olden debt, and in the heart of neither was there a feeling save that of perfect love.
Long and pa.s.sionately Mrs. Howland wept over her brother, for his return brought back the past, and all that she had suffered since the night he went away.
Aunt Debby, too, was much affected, but did not omit her accustomed "He allus was a good boy."
Then Mrs. Bellenger approached, and offering her hand, said to him very kindly:
"You are dear to me for Ellen"s sake, and though I never saw you until to-day, my heart claims you for a child. Shall I be your mother, Mr.
Marshall?"
He could only reply by pressing the hand she extended, for his heart was all too full for utterance.
"Let me go away alone," he said at last, "to weep out my great joy," and opening the door of what was once his room, he pa.s.sed for a time from their midst.
The surprise had apparently disturbed the deacon"s reason, for even after his son had left him he continued talking just the same: "Poor Seth,-poor child, to think your hair should be so gray, and you but a little boy."
Then, when Seth returned to them he made him sit down beside him, and holding both his hands, smiled up into his face a smile far more painful than tears would have been.
"Seth"s come home. Did you know it?" he would say to those around him, as if it were to them a piece of news, and often as he said it, he would smoothe the gray hair which seemed to trouble him so much.
Gradually, however, his mind became clearer, and he was able to understand all that Seth was telling them of his experience since the night he went away.
At last, just as the sun was setting, Mr. Marshall arose, and without a word, pa.s.sed into the open air. No one watched him to see whither he went, for all knew that before he returned to them he would go down the lane, along the beaten path, to where the moonlight fell upon a little grave.
It was long before he came back, and when he did, and entered the large kitchen, two figures stood by the western window, and he thought the arm of the taller was thrown about the waist of the shorter, while the face of the shorter was very near to that of the taller. Advancing toward them and stroking the dark curls, he said, half playfully, half earnestly:
"I believe that as Mr. Marshall I have not greeted Jessie yet, so I will do it now. Are you to be my daughter, little girl?"
"Yes, she is," answered Walter, while Jessie broke away from them, and was not visible again that night.
But when, at a late hour, Mrs. Bellenger left the happy group still a.s.sembled around the cheerful fire, and sought her room, from the depths of the snowy pillows, where Jessie lay nestled, there came a smothered voice, saying, half timidly:
"This is the nicest Thanksgiving I ever had, and I shall remember it forever."
CHAPTER XVII.-CONCLUSION.
Four years have pa.s.sed away since that Thanksgiving dinner, and for the deacon, who, then, did not expect to see another, there seem to be many yet in store. Hale, hearty and happy, he sits in his arm-chair, smoking his accustomed pipe; and when the villagers, who come often to see him, tell him how the old farm-house is improved, and how they should scarcely know it, he always answers:
"Yes, Seth has good taste, and Seth is rich. He could buy Deerwood, if he tried. He built those new houses for the poor down there by the river; he built the factory, too, and gives them all employment. Seth is a blessed boy."
Others, too, there were, besides the deacon, who called Seth Marshall blessed, and never since his return had a voice been raised against him.
After becoming somewhat accustomed to his new position as a free and respected man, his first wish was to modernize the farm-house a little more according to his ideas of taste and comfort. Once he thought to build a splendid mansion near by, but to this suggestion the father said:
"No; I like the old place best. The new house might be handsomer, but it would not be the one where you and I, and all of us were born, and your mother died. Wait till I"m dead, and then do as you please."
And so Seth is waiting, and as he waits he sets out trees and shrubbery, and beautifies a plot of ground, on which he will sometime erect a dwelling as a summer residence for his son, who lives in the city, and calls Mrs. Bartow grandma.
When the first Christmas snows were falling after his father"s return, Walter made Jessie his bride, and there now plays at his fireside a chubby, black-eyed boy, whom they call Graham Marshall, and who spends more time in Deerwood than he does in New York. Quite as old as the h.o.a.ry man in the corner, who sometimes calls him Walter, but oftener Seth, he "rides to Boston" on the deacon"s knee, pulls the deacon"s beard, wears the deacon"s gla.s.ses, smokes a stick of candy, and spits in imitation of the deacon, and then falls away to sleep in the deacon"s lap,-the two forming a most beautiful picture of old age and infancy together.
At Mr. Graham"s house, there is a beautiful six-months" baby, whose hair looks golden in the sunlight, and whose eyes of blue are much like those of Ellen Howland. They call her Nellie, and in all the world there is nothing one-half so precious as this child to the broken, melancholy man, who often comes to see her, and when no one can hear him, whispers sadly:
"Sweet Nellie,-darling Nellie,-little snow drop!" But whether he means the infant in the crib, or the Nellie dead long ago, is difficult to tell.
For eighteen months he toiled inside the prison walls, and then the powerful influence of Mr. Graham, Seth Marshall and Walter combined, procured him a pardon. An humbled and a better man, he would not leave the city. He would rather remain, he said, and live down his disgrace, than have it follow him as it was sure to do. So he stayed, accepting thankfully a situation which Walter procured for him, and Mrs.
Bellenger, when she saw that he was really changed, gladly gave him a home with herself, for she was lonely now that Walter was gone.