"You see the door--how narrow it is--a poor creature can hardly push through. Inside, it is just as narrow; stone walls pressing close up against the wretch, heated from the oven hot as life can bear."
"Oh, my G.o.d, my G.o.d, is this thing true?" cried Katharine, cowering down, and covering her face with both hands.
"I wont heap on the wood," cried the woman, bitterly. "They haven"t the power to make me."
"Hush, hush; some one is coming."
It was a keeper to whom the terrible punishment had been entrusted.
Katharine rose slowly to her feet and stood before him, her hands clasped, and the pale anguish of her face revealed by the fire light, which illuminated the darkness all around them.
"What are you women talking about? Go to your work, Katharine Allen."
She could not speak, but fell upon her knees, beseeching him with those wild eyes.
"What is all this about?" said the man, softening his voice.
"She wants you to let that poor man out--that"s it," answered the woman, resting both elbows on her knees, and looking up from her seat on the wood. "She knows it aint human to treat any of G.o.d"s creatures in this way, and wants to tell you so, only them groans has frightened the soul out of her body."
The man looked down at the young creature kneeling at his feet, and a shade of sympathy swept over his face.
"Get up," he said, almost kindly. "I have just come to see about him.
This sort of thing don"t gibe with my feelings more than it does with yours, but the fellow was obstinate as a mule--wanted a little of the proud blood sweated out of him, and I reckon he"s got enough of it by this time."
"Oh, be quick, be quick, or he may die!" cried Katharine, gaining her voice. "How faint the moans are! Open the door! open the door!--hear how his poor hands beat against it!"
"Well, go away--this is no place for you. Run to the well, and have some water dipped up ready. They always make a dive for that first."
Katharine sprang to her feet, and darting across the s.p.a.ce illuminated by the oven, made her way toward the well, which gushed out pure and crystalline in the depths of the mine, the only untainted thing in those subterranean regions. An iron lamp swung in the walls of the cavern near this outgush of pure water, which turned all the wavelets it touched to gold.
This was the spot to which the prisoners came when athirst, like cattle to a spring; and to this place, as the keeper truly said, the man who had suffered from the flames of that hot oven would surely come.
Katharine took an iron dipper, which was chained to the stones of the well, and filling it with water, held it till the weight bore down her hand, then she filled it once more from the centre of the well, and again held it ready. This time she had not long to wait, for she saw a human figure coming through the darkness with desperate effort, but slow progress--making futile attempts at speed, and giving broken leaps that brought him reeling and staggering every instant against the sides of the cavern.
Katharine poured out the water, and dipped it up afresh, as if that little effort could make it cooler. She would have gone forward to meet the man, but the chain would not permit it, and thus she stood waiting till he came up. He saw the vessel in her hand, dripping over with a rain of cool drops, and seizing upon it before she could look up, drained it off in wild, greedy haste.
"More! more!" he cried, dropping the dipper, and sweeping the perspiration from his face. "More! more!"
Katharine plunged the dipper into the well again. He would have s.n.a.t.c.hed it from her but she lifted it to his lips. In this position the lamp-light fell upon her face. She dropped the iron vessel from between her two hands, as he fell forward with his face to the earth. She did not breathe--for her life she could not have uttered a sound--but dropping on her knees beside the prostrate man, she lifted his head from the earth. The light lay full upon his face. His eyes looked piteously into hers. She drew him up to her bosom; with the folds of her prison dress she wiped the rain of perspiration from his forehead and left tender kisses in its place; soft words came to her lips, tears swelled into her eyes; she had but one thought--holy thanksgiving to Heaven.
Directly the keeper came up, wondering that his victim should remain so long at the well.
"Halloo!" he said, "what is this? I thought you were half dead, my fine fellow!"
Katharine looked up; her face was radiant, and yet a tender pity beamed there.
"Hush!" she said; "he is my husband."
The keeper gave a prolonged whistle that echoed mournfully through the caverns, but Katharine repeated:
"Yes, it is my husband."
Thrasher did not speak, but she felt him trembling in her arms; his head rested more heavily on her bosom; he scarcely breathed.
The keeper felt some gleams of sympathy swelling in his bosom. With him Katharine had always been a favorite. He took compa.s.sion on her now.
"Poor fellow! he has had a tough job of it," he said; "weak as a kitten--why, see how he trembles; I"ll just go to the warden and have him sent up to the hospital, where you can tend him till he picks up again."
Katharine smiled gratefully, and they were left alone, the woman and her husband. She bent down and kissed him.
"Nelson, my husband, speak one word--say that you know me."
He whispered hoa.r.s.ely, "Yes, Katharine, I know you."
"And love me yet?"
The proud man was shorn of his strength, and burst into tears. When the keeper returned, her hand was locked in that of her husband. He was talking to her in a feeble voice, broken with grief; telling her things which made even that dark place still darker--of his unfaithfulness and its stern retribution. His heart was broken up, he kept nothing back.
His crimes were great, but the record was given in few words, saddening the poor wife, who had been so happy a moment before, in spite of her bonds. She heard him through, wondering that so much of joy should lie underneath these facts, and whispering to herself: "He will be here seven years, and I with him. Oh, how much can be done in seven years!"
The keeper had compa.s.sion on them; he led Thrasher away to that portion of the prison devoted to the sick, and there the heaven of Katharine"s convict life grew bright, for she saw the path of her duty clear, and knew, in her soul, that a holy work lay in her hands, a work of comfort and regeneration, which should lead her husband into the sunlight again.
She forgave him from the depths of her own pure heart; she forgave him all the wrong he had done, and all the hopes he had destroyed. Her care, her gentleness, and the holy faith that pervaded her words and acts, had its effect on this iron-hearted man. I cannot describe that which is beyond words, or tell how this gentle martyr reached the stern man"s heart; but it softened day by day under her patient tending, and when he went back to the dreary duties of those prison mines, it was with a changed aspect. She had taught him, not only how beautiful a thing human love is, but through that most sacred of earthly feelings, led him to the holy source of all love, all honor, all the glory of life.
And so, as the years of their imprisonment wore on, these two people bore their fate with something better than mere resignation. They were content to work out the duties before them, feeling it recompense enough if they could smile on each other in pa.s.sing down to their places of rest, or exchange a word of comfort and encouragement now and then by the well, where they had first met.
Do not pity these people overmuch; where true love and faith exists, there is little need of compa.s.sion. Out of the depths of his penitence sprang up that perfect love which makes a heaven of any place. As for Katharine, was not her prison life made bright and beautiful. What was seven years of toil, hunger, and thirst to her if it redeemed the husband who had been lost?
CHAPTER LXXII.
UNDER THE APPLE TREE.
Years had pa.s.sed--seven long years--and in that time many a pleasant change had taken place around the minister"s dwelling. Little twigs of rose bushes had grown into blossoming thickets; the big apple tree in the meadow had dry spray among its branches, like gray hairs on the head of a strong man; tiny honeysuckle shoots had spread into luxuriant vines; a row of red cherry trees along the fence was beginning to glow with fruit in season. Every thing inside and out of the minister"s dwelling had prospered. He had scarcely grown a day older in his own person. Indeed, with his home comforts so cared for, and his wardrobe in order, he seemed a younger man than we found him, when, standing between the two deacons, counselling about the meadow lot, which now bloomed Eden-like around him.
As for the minister"s wife, she had never looked so young, and it seemed impossible that she should ever grow old; a few almost imperceptible wrinkles marked the corners of her prim little mouth, but that was all.
Still, youth knows rapid changes, and other things than honeysuckles and roses had bloomed into perfection at the parsonage. There was a lovely girl sitting under the apple tree, not gathering fruit or blossoms, as of old, but busy with her crochet needle and a ball of crimson worsted, that would keep rolling from her lap into the gra.s.s in the most provoking manner. By her side, half lying on the ground, was a youth, the most splendid specimen of early manhood you ever saw, looking at her as she worked, with an expression in those dark eyes which could only have sprung from the one great pa.s.sion of life.
As Rose worked, a smile dimpled the fresh mouth, and she glanced sideways at Paul from under those long, brown lashes, coquetting with him in her innocent way, but with a grace that was enough to bring the youth"s heart into his eyes. Jube was at work in the garden at a distance, singing to himself, and pausing now and then to regard the scene going on under the apple tree.
This was what was pa.s.sing between the young people. Rose paused a moment with her crochet hook in a half-looped st.i.tch, and the smile trembled on her sweet mouth. Paul had asked a question, expressed a thousand times before, but never with that intonation and significance.
"Rose, do you love me?"
Now the bloom of roses mounted to her forehead, and swept down the snow of her neck! Paul saw it, and blushed also--the lashes drooped over those great velvety eyes, and a strange thrill, too sweet for pain, too new for entire pleasure, ran through his whole system.