CHAPTER VII.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 208, 25 June 1887, Page 3

CHAPTER VII.

THE FERRY-MAS "s RETURN, v thy f nnd in mine, dear ! I'm growing old! But time hath brought no sign, clear, That hearts grow cold. 'Tis long, lonf? since your swcot lovo Madolifc dhine, But age enrichcth true lovo, Like noMe v, mc t Gerald Mnssey. We must return to Gertrude, whom we left alone in the old ferry-house waiting through the dreary hours that precede the dawiCwaiting anxiously for the appearance of her grandfather. Long she sat there after her eccentric guest had left her. She was btartled at length by the striking of the clock. It struck our. A shiver passed through her sensitive frame, as from the chill of some approaching evil, "She arete, went and opened the front door and looked out. The hou^e faced the east. She looked across the deep and narrow ! river, t-o the dark and frowning precipices J on the other side. ' The dawn was just reddening over their I cedar-plumed summits. She glanced towauls the little landing. It was deserted. There was not a li\ ing soul to be seen. The party who had been shouting " boat !" for the last two hours had evidently given up, and gone off in discouragement. 41 They have gone down to the next ferry : that is fall seven miles oft. The poor young man got clear away ! I wonder how he fell into trouble !—! — and, oh ! I wonder what keeps m;/ dear grandfather so long ?"' she added, anviously, as she turned her head to the left and looked up the winding biidle-path that led tlnough the moun-tain-pass, and up to the. elevated natural plateau called Tlill Top. The rain-storm of the preceding night had swollen ail the mountain-streams, that now dashed down the rocks -with fearful velocity, tumbling at last in the Wildo. The wind had torn and broken the evergreen trees that clothed the mountain side, and a thunderbolt had stricken down a gigantic pine that grew at the foot of the precipice, and now lay acio-s the beach, a fallen monarch of the wilderness. "While Gertrude was btiil gazing on this devastation, her grandfather suddenly stood beside her. She started slightly and looked at him with a low exclamation of surprise. He seemed to have aged full ten years since she had seen him the night previous. His face was pale, his brow corrugated, his eyes sunken. "Dear grand ! lam so glad to see yo\i back at la^t,"' she exclaimed ; then growing graver, she inquired : " Our neighbour, General Slaughter? 1 ' " Gone," answered the old man, reverently, raising his broad-brimmed hat. " ' Gone ! ' " echoed the girl, solemnly. Gabriel Haddon bowed "his silver grey J head in silence, and then — " Are you up so early, my little True, or have you been watching through the night f' he kindly asked. " I have been up all night, dear grand. And you, too, have lost your rest, I fear." " I have not been at ease, child.*' "I am sorry for that. But come in and lie down. I -u ill get you a cup of coftee directly," she uiged, affectionately taking his hand. "Yes, we will go in ; but Jess can get my coffee. I want you. I want to talk with you,'' sighed the old man, turning i with her toward the house. "Jess ha=? not yet returned, giandpa," she explained, a's they entered the door. i ' ' What 1 And you have been quite alone all night? I suppose that is the j reason why you did not go to bed,"' said Gabriel Haddon, as he sank exhausted into his own easy-chair by the window. " No, dear grandpa, I did not go to bed, not because 1 was alone, but because I had company,'' answered Gertrude, with a smile. " Company ':" echoed the ferry-man. " Yes, grand, a traveller who came down to the steps on the other side of the river and called for the boat, I went and brought him across. He stayed until the storm was over, and went away about an hour ago. And there is something about it which I am afraid you will not like. He was soaking wet through and through. I l? n< > him, a suit of your clothes, and he wore them away, leaving his own and sixty dollars in money to pay for yours— about three times as much as they are worth, dear grand ; and, indeed, I could not help his leaving so much ;he xvould do it. But you know you can save it, and when you see him again you can make him take it back. Can you not?" "Yeg, lhydeaiy' the ferry-man answered, mechanically. He scarcely heard or underfifcOOd the question. He did not inquire the name or age or description of the stranger who had spent the night alone with his grand-daughter in the ferry-house. In his deep abstraction and absorption in Borne other hidden subject, he seemed not to have realised that there was anything unusual in the occurrence. . " Now if you will lie down and rest, dear grand, I will go and make your coffee," said Gertrude, stooping and tenderly kissing his forehead before leaving the room. She passed into the adjoining kitchen. Gertrude took her pail and passed out into the yard and through the back gate to the side of the precipice, whence from a fissure in the rocks sprang a little fountain of crystal water. She filled her pail at this spring and returned, to the house to fill her tea-kettle. As she entered the kitchen, however, the towering black form of Jessie Bell met her vision. " Oh, Aunt Jess, I'm so glad you have come home. Grandfather has returned very tired. I think he was up all night with General Slaughter," said Gertrude. "Yes, chile, likely he was. That ole sinner is gone at last i Yes ! 'In the midst of death we are in life.' ' Here to-morrow and gone to-day,' as the saying is. Well, hopes he's better off, dough I doubts it. Dunno how old marse ever could a forgibbed that ole rip all he done to him. 'Spose we must all foi'gib, dough, ef we wants to be forgibben. Well, I'd forgib, too, if I was 'peiled to do it ; but 'deed, I'd Avant to have him punished good 'foie ever / forgib • him— 'deed me. * Whatsoever a man reap that also shall he sow !" exclaimed old Jess, as she took off her long sun-bonnet and hung it up, and then set about getting the brealcfast. "What time did the old general pass away, Aunt Jess ?" inquired Gertrude, who, with her sleeves rolled up and her dress pinned back, was busily engaged breaking eggs into a pan to make an omelet. "What time de debbil come to fetch de ole raff, you mean ? — you hear dat last orful big clap o' thunder and blaze o' lightnin' like de last day had come and the yeth had busted up in flames ?"

" Yes ; I sSiould think I ought to," said Gertrude, with a reminiscence of the river scene on the preceding night. "Well, honey, he went right off in that clap o' thunder — 'deed he did -which if dere was any doubt which a way he went, dat might settle it." " Oh, Aunt Jess 1 Poor General Slaughter !" said Gertrude, deprecatingly. " What you say poor Gen'al Slaughter for ? What call you go 3 to pity he ?" bharply demanded old Jess, as she sat down in a chair and took a pan of batter on her lap : to beat for waffles. "01), Aunt Jes3 ! Poor man! He is gone now. Nobody has a good word for him. We ought not to speak ill of him. now he cannot answer for himself !" said Gertrude, pitifully. "Better say poor granddaddy. Better say dat. You dunno what ho done to old marse, I reckon," retorted old Jess, viciously beating the batter. " No, Ido not. What did he do ?" "Ax ole marse -do dat. Ax old marse. 1 ain't got no call to toil you. You ax ole marse what turned his hair grey in one week. Ax him dat. Ax him wny he never got married. Ax him dat. No, you better not ask him neither, come to fink ob it, ' Least mended, soonest said,' for you may hurt his feclin's, you know. But ( as to i'orgibbiu' dat ole Slaughter, dat ole 'sassin, I dat ole kidnapper, ole pirate, old cutthroat— I jed as lcab forgib de debbil -~ dere ?" exclaimed Jes^, beating and banging so furiously that the batter flew. " Aunfc Jess, I know that my dear grandI father hat forgiven him, and has consoled his dying hour. lie could bear no malice against a dying man," said Gertrude, gravely. " Well, den, I h'n ; and I'm glad as deres somefin' I kin do as ole marse can't. I kin bear malice, and I won't forgib him 'less I knowed ho was well punished. Ef he was punished good, den mebby I might forgib him— 'deed me. 'Spects de debbil will get me for my onforgibben sperrit. Can't help it ef he do. ' What can't bo 'durcd must be cured.' But de wust ob goin' to de dcb'ul would be de bad company it fetches one into. Now, ef I was to go to de debbil, I should have to 'sociate long o' Gen'al Slaughter and sich, for I's dead biiro he's gone dere — 'deed he." Gertrude turned away with a sigh, took a table cloth from the drawer of the dresser, and went into the parlour to set the table. There she saw her grandfather still reclining in the elbow-chair by the window. " Well, dear grand, I thought you had gone in to lio down until breakfast was ready," she said, taking his hand, which hung languidly down by his side, aud gazing tenderly in his face. " I forgot, my dear ; I forget," he breathed, in painful abstraction. "Won't you lie down now? Thero will be still ten or fifteen minutes for you to rest before it is put upon the table," she urged, with affectionate solicitude. { "No matter, my dear. I shall do very well as I am. Do not mind me, Gertrude," 1 f-aid Gabriel Haddon, in a tone of kind decision that ended the little controversy. 1 In a few moments the morning meal was laid upon the table. The sun, which had been above the hoi izon f^ome minutes, now appeared over the top of the eastern mountain, sending his beams across the river and through the window into the humble parlour of the feriy-house, beaming on the white cloth and flashing on the metal coffee-pot and cutlery. "Come, clear grand, a strong cup of coffee will do you good," said Gertrude, placing his chair at the table and taking her own seat behind the tray. Gabriel Haddon sat down, asked blessing, and then took and drank the cup of coilee she had jDoured out for him, and ate a part of an omelet and a part of a waffle— all in a mechanical and abstracted manner, ' as if he were scarcely conscious of what he was doing. While he was still at breakfast the sound of horses' feet wero heard galloping up to the gates, where they seemed to stop. In a few moments swift steps were heard approaching the house, and a rap sounded on the front door. The ferry-man arose and opened to the visitor — a messenger from Hill Top Hall. "Ah, Saturn, my man, is this you? You are wanting the boat of course," said the ferry-man. "Yes, marster, if you please. lam going to Wildeville to fetch the undertaker, and would like you to put me across, immediate, if possible," replied the messenger. " Certainly, my man ; I will go this moment," said the ferry-man. And without returning to the room he took his hat jrom the nail and walked down to the boat-house, followed by the negro. Meantime, Gertrude, assisted by old Jess, clewed away the table and put the room in order. At the end of half an hour the ferry-man returned. The little piece of routine work seemed to have broken the spell that bound him ; brought him to himself. He found the sitting-room in perfect order and his granddaughter seated at her little work-stand, diligently sewing. " What are you making, child ?" he inquired, seating himself in his easy-chair by the front window. " Making nothing, dear grand ; only putting now enffs on your shirt-sleeves," she answered, holding up her work. " Put it up, my little True, and draw your chair here close to mine. I must talk to you," said Gabriel Haddon gravely. Gertrude folded the Bhir t and drew her chair to the old man's side. They formed a- fine picture as they sat there by the vine-shaded window ; the majestic, reverend-looking old man, clothed in his clean, home-spun suit, reclining in his elbow-chair, his fine old face* framed in by his long, flowing, silver hair and beard, seeming like some prophet or patriarch of old ; and the maiden in her simple home-dress of blue and white, seated on a low chair at his feet, her hands clasped upon hie knee, her silky, dark hair rippling back from her beautiful, clear, pale face ; her Bof t, dark eyes raised reverently to his.