"Yes, doctor, it troubles me. I want to know what it means?"
"He has been sent here to keep your mother company."
She looked at him with reproachful earnestness, tried to shake her head, but the languid eyelids only drooped over the blue orbs fastened on his face, and, directly, tears began to swell under them.
"I heard people talking in the other room, doctor; what was it about?"
"I cannot tell you, not knowing what they said."
"They were talking about my baby."
The word broke out in a sob, and tears gushed through her trembling eyelashes. The doctor laid his hand on her head, and then the convulsion of her grief became heart-rending.
"Hush, child, hush! don"t cry, don"t cry--it will hurt you."
"Doctor, what--what did my baby die of?"
The doctor turned white with the pain and surprise of that question.
"Won"t you tell me, doctor?"
He looked at her in stern distrust. Her face was innocent as a child"s.
She interrogated his countenance imploringly through her tears.
"Don"t you know, Katharine?"
She began to cry bitterly.
"How could I? no one tells me, and I can"t remember any thing."
"Katharine, is this true?"
"Is what true, doctor?"
"Have you no knowledge how the child died?"
"No; I was in bed here, shaking with cold and burning up with fever. I wanted the baby, and got up; it was in the cradle, dead. Oh, I remember so well how white its little face was--how white and cold. I came back again, crept into bed, and wished that G.o.d would let me die, too."
"And this is all you know?"
"Yes, doctor; I was afraid to ask mother about it--she looks so strange; but you will tell me every thing."
The doctor gathered up his crutches hurriedly, and stamped his way into the next room.
"Mrs. Allen," he said, sharply, "you are a brave woman. I"m nothing but a poor, miserable coward. I"m going to sneak off, and let you talk to that poor girl. I could cut the throat of a lamb when it was looking into my eyes as soon as tell her what must come. You"re a Christian, Mrs. Allen, a downright Christian, and no sham--crusty and bitter, sharp and honest. You can do it; I can"t. You"re a Bible woman; I"m an old sinner, and am running away--do you understand--because I"m an abominable old coward. Tell her yourself."
Mrs. Allen turned white as parchment. She understood the doctor"s meaning in full.
"Has she been asking questions, doctor?"
"Yes; enough to break a commonly good heart--but mine is tough as sole leather."
"She is better?"
"Yes; a great deal better."
"And when she is well enough to be moved, they will take her away?"
"I suppose so--the hounds."
The woman stood motionless--her hands tightly clasped, and her lips stiffening with pain.
"You are right," she said; "who but her mother should take up this burden. I will tell Katharine."
"Not "till I am out of sight!" cried the doctor, wheeling sharply on his crutches. "I tell you, woman, I can"t stand it--feel like a butcher for what I have done. The law is an abomination. Why can"t they let my pretty pigeon alone? As if there wasn"t babies enough without making a fuss if one does drop off a little out of the common way?"
"I"ll tell her. It"s hard, but what is before me I can do," said the woman.
"Can"t I help little?" said a sweet voice from the hearth, "or Jube?
he"s very strong."
The doctor looked down on little Paul with a glance half quizzical, half serious.
"You, little shoat, you?"
"Yes, if madame please," said Paul, with a sad smile; "if there"s trouble, I and Jube very used to it. We"ve been in a boat together three days, with nothing but red hot sun and many waters to look on, till they blind us. We know how to be hungry and cold, and he knows how to be whipped on his back and never say a word. That is why we can help."
"That little trooper is what I call a pilgrim," muttered the guard, nodding at the doctor with a wink of the left eye.
Mrs. Allen laid her unsteady hand on Paul"s dark curls. "He is a good boy, and G.o.d will bless him," she said.
Paul, with that touching grace that is so beautiful in highly bred children of foreign birth, took the hard hand of his benefactress and touched it to his lips.
"He ought to have been sent to school," she said, in a weary voice, addressing the doctor. "My son charged it upon me, but I could not leave her."
The doctor wheeled round, and examined Paul"s face from beneath his heavy eyebrows.
"Go get your cap and great coat," he said with gruff kindness. "If you"ve got a wedge of mince pie or a slice of gingerbread, Mrs. Allen, drop it into a dinner basket, and I"ll put the shaver on his course of studies in double-quick time. Send him out when all is ready."
It took the doctor some minutes to mount his horse. By the time he was in the saddle, Paul came forth with a painted dinner basket on his arm.
A new pair of mittens imprisoned his delicate hands, while the yarn comforter that Rice had given him was twisted around his neck, and concealed the lower part of his face.
"That"s right, little trooper; climb up the fence and hop on behind.
That"s it--sharp as a steel trap. Sit up close and hold on to my belt.
All right. Here we go! Get up! Get along, I say!"
The doctor"s horse had been used to carrying double in all sorts of ways, so he only threw up his head, and cast his long mane on the air like a banner, intending this action as a protest against extra burdens in general, before he started off in a heavy trot toward Falls Hill.
The doctor was heavy-hearted enough, but he took some note of the strange child under his charge, told him to hang on to his belt like a dog to a sa.s.safras root, and expressed a decided opinion that Paul would be a man before his mother, which filled the boy"s heart with sadness, as that word mother was ever sure to do.