Rose took the hand, on which she pressed her quivering lips.
"Don"t be afraid of me--imperial women are always gracious. You shall stay at the court. Only one thing I must tell you. That woman, Brown, shall be exiled to Siberia--that is where I get the ermine for my mantles, you know; but cold, oh, so cold! Good enough for her, though.
Come close and I will tell you something. She ties my arms--she straps me down in bed--the false traitoress! But she shall go, and I will give you her place. Only don"t speak loud, she might hear us.
Hush--hush--hist!"
A slight noise broke the stillness of the house, and hushed the maniac"s whispers. Putting a finger to her lips she moved into the hall on tiptoe. The door leading to the south wing was open. With a cry that brought an echo of affright from her child, she darted through and rushed toward the room where Thrasher had been confined that night--her garments fluttering wildly, and the jewels with their innumerable pendants tinkling against each other in her hair and on her bosom.
Rose followed, striving to cry out, but terror deprived her of the power.
The room was dark, for the bolts of those shutters had rusted in their sockets--dark, except a circle of red light that lay like a fiery wheel in the centre of the room. Ellen Mason rushed toward this opening, and swooping down upon her knees, like an evil-omened bird greedy for prey, looked down into the vault beneath. She saw the glitter of gold heaped on the stone floor, with a blaze of lamp light pouring over it. Heard the clink as it was drawn from the inner vault. She saw several persons busy with the gold piling it in heaps. The most prominent figure was a young man with jet black hair and eyes full of trouble, examining a block of gold which lay on the top of that glittering heap.
With a shriek from which the words, "It is mine--mine--all mine!" broke fiercely out, the woman half rose, flung out her arms, and made a plunge. Rose Mason came up that instant and grasped desperately at her dress. A fragment of the old brocade was left in her hand--a low, dull sound, a simultaneous shriek of dismay from the people in the vault, and all was still as death.
Rose had fallen with her face to the floor, white as the marble on which she lay, and almost as lifeless.
Paul, disturbed by the noise overhead, had retreated from the treasures, dropped the brick, and was looking up when that unhappy woman plunged downward upon the gold. Her hands were extended, and made one grasp into the heap. The old coins rattled down to the pavement--her temple struck a corner of the Gold Brick, and a cl.u.s.ter of diamonds which she had fastened there was driven through deep into the brain. She struggled a little, gasped once or twice, stretched her limbs out upon the treasure, and died there.
CHAPTER LXXVI.
THE DOCTOR"S RIDE.
If the doctor was an eccentric man, he could be, when the occasion demanded it, both kind and thoughtful. More than once during Katharine"s confinement he had ridden far beyond his circuit, and visited her in that lonely prison. No one was ever made aware of the fact, and he alone, of all that neighborhood, with one exception, was informed that Nelson Thrasher was also an inmate of the same prison. From the good old people it had been kept with religious delicacy. They knew that Katharine had a right to her freedom, and could now return home at pleasure; but she had written to ask more time. Duties, she said, to her fellow-prisoners kept her among them yet a little longer. She was free to depart, but the hospital needed her, and with the warden"s consent she remained in voluntary service, teaching those whom she would soon leave behind how to tend and comfort the sick as she had done. This was an appeal that the old people could understand, so the lone mother submitted quietly to a few more months of solitude, and the Thrashers said to each other:
"Who knows but Nelson may come back before then?"
But time creeps on, even in a prison, and at last Thrasher was set free.
The doctor knew the time, and had the harness put on his old friend that morning at an early hour. The horse did not exactly like this proceeding. He objected to any long ride without the saddle-bags.
Indeed, he did not feel exactly like a respectable doctor"s horse without that appendage, and remonstrated against the indignity of reins, thills, and whiffle-trees, with vigorous shakes of the head, and even a vicious kick or two. But the doctor came out and expostulated with him after his own quaint fashion, and directly the two went off in harmony, one at each end of the reins.
For two whole days the sick of that neighborhood for fifteen miles around took care of themselves, and grumbled accordingly.
On the evening of the second day, there was a terrible rumbling of loose wheels along the Derby turnpike, for the brown horse had caught sight of his home, and instantly went off in a rickety series of leaps that almost tossed the doctor from his seat in front of the wagon.
"Don"t be afraid," he said, turning to the back seat, where a man and woman were seated, with the light of a crescent moon lying tenderly on their faces. "It"s his way when things go to suit him. The sight of home always sets him off."
"Oh, I am not afraid," said a sweet female voice "It"s a long time since either of us have known what fear was. Isn"t it, Nelson?"
The man thus addressed clasped the little hand which stole into his with tender force, but said nothing. His heart was too full. The trial that lay before him at the end of that ride might have taxed the courage of any man.
They rode on to the doctor"s house. He got out of the wagon, removed the temporary seat which had accommodated him from Simsbury, and held a silent counsel with his horse, patting the old fellow on the neck, and using all the conciliatory blandishments for deluding horseflesh into obedience, which have since been dignified into a science.
"There now, get along," he said, moving toward the gate. "He"ll go ahead without balking. No need of a whip. The old chap wont stand that from anybody but me. Drive on, and G.o.d be with you."
The strange man leaned heavily on his crutches, and gently lifted his hat as he uttered these words. The soft moonlight fell upon his head, and a grander one seldom bared itself in reverence to a n.o.ble sentiment.
As the doctor wheeled around he saw the members of his family coming out to welcome him home. His manner changed at once. Inwardly delighted with their prompt affection he put the children aside with good-natured rebukes of their clamorous joy, and stalking into the room, which served as an office, sunk quietly into a leathern easy chair, and desired the eldest boy to hand down his fiddle.
The boy took an old violin from its place on the wall and gave it into his father"s hand. The doctor drew a lump of rosin from his pocket, rasped the bow with it for a full minute, then lifting the instrument to his shoulder began to play; directly the children came rushing in from the hall and kitchen, astonished, for some of the wildest and most invigorating music heard for many a day, rang out from the dark old violin, filling the whole house with cheerfulness.
The doctor"s wife--a fine woman, of the Connecticut stamp--came softly into the room with word that his supper was on the table; but he only answered with a dash at Yankee Doodle, and revelled in it with a zest ten thousand suppers could not have excited. The good housewife never urged her husband to any thing; she knew the folly of that too well; so she sat down pleasantly and listened to his music. It was well worth the trouble, for the doctor threw off a world of generous thankfulness in those erratic notes, and when music comes from the soul it is always good. She asked no questions, but knew very well that something satisfactory had happened to her husband, for he always expressed these feelings through his violin.
Meantime the two travellers kept on up the turnpike. They pa.s.sed the rock spring, which sparkled out from the shadows cast over it from the dogwood thickets; all cut up root and branch in these days, and moved slowly over the old bridge. They could see the white spire of the Episcopal church, rising into the moonlight from the high bank opposite, and, with the sight, Katharine"s heart melted within her. She lifted her eyes to Thrasher; the moonlight lay full upon his face. It was pale and troubled. In that church he had been baptized.
Katharine took his hand with touching gentleness, and pressed it to her lips. Her face was so heavenly that he bent down and kissed it, leaving a heavy tear on her cheek, which she would not have wiped away for the world.
"Ah, Nelson!" she said, clasping her hands and lifting her eyes from the church spire to the heavens, which it seemed to penetrate--"how plainly I see the great goodness of G.o.d in all that has happened. At first it was very dark, and I struggled against the cruelty of that arrest, and the unjust sentence which branded me before the world. I forgot that the Son of G.o.d was thus a.s.sailed, thus branded! and worse still, put to death, that Christianity might be our inheritance. I did not know what great happiness might spring out of this degradation; how holy a work lay waiting for me in that prison!"
"My poor girl, it was a terrible life for you. Can G.o.d forgive me for bringing you there?"
"Nelson, this is wrong--it is unkind! It was to be; G.o.d knew what was best, and sent me in the path of a great duty against my will, or I never should have found it. He had compa.s.sion on those poor creatures so barbarously cut off from every thing sweet and good in life. They were perishing or turning to demons for the want of a little care, a few kind words, a smile of pity now and then. I was poor as poor could be, helpless as a child, but these things I could give them; so he thought it best that I should go.
"I was rebellious at first, Nelson, and wondered how it could be that I, an innocent woman, should suffer among the guilty. I was so young, so weak, and miserably selfish. Besides, I hoped so fondly that you would come back and save me. But they were dragging me away from all possibility of seeing you."
"My poor Katharine!"
"Oh, it was hard! it was hard!" she said, laying her forehead on his shoulder; "for I thought you loved me! I thought you loved me!"
He drew her head close to his bosom, but said nothing; self-reproach held his heart in silence.
"With this hope of seeing you again, rising above every thing, it was a cruel thought that you might come home and find me there, think perhaps that I had harmed your child."
"No, Katharine--no, I never could have believed that. In my most insane moments I knew and felt how good you were."
"But these thoughts would come to me in my prison, Nelson; I could not help that. So I struggled against that hard fate and wanted to die. The people were wrong and harsh with me, the law was wrong, the judges were wrong, but G.o.d was right."
"I--I was the most cruel of all," said Thrasher, in a low, pained voice.
"Still it was all needful. What else would have won me from home to live among those poor convicts, to help them and feel for them, till a beautiful happiness sprang up to me out of those dreary mines. Then, then," she added, with a gush of tender grat.i.tude, "just as I had learned to live and endure for others, knowing that G.o.d"s wisdom was higher than man"s justice, you came, my husband, and I had the power to help you. I so weak, and you so strong! From that day I knew how great a blessing had been won for me, out of what seemed the deadly ruin of a life. In that black depth I found the heart of my husband."
"Oh, a worthless, wicked heart, Katharine!"
"But it was mine--all mine!"
He girded her closer with his arm, and that was answer enough.
"Then you began to trust me, and believe in me, Nelson; as a strong man lets some little child lead him, because of its very helplessness; you listened to me and loved me--for you do love me, Nelson!"
"The G.o.d you worship so beautifully, Katharine, only knows how much I love you!"
"Oh, we shall be very happy!" answered the young woman, bowing her head, while a soft rain of tears fell down her cheeks. "Every soul in the prison loved us. G.o.d has forgiven us!"
"Not us, Katharine! It is I that have need of His pardon; not you, my wife!"
But in her sweet humility she would not have it so, and protested against it. "No, no; I was untamed, impatient, disobedient to my mother.
In a woman these are great sins. We are equal there as in the mercies which fall around us now."