University of Virginia Library

35. XXXV.
A THUNDER-CLAP.

MRS. PINWORTH was setting her genteel but
very frugal tea-table; while Sophy was occupied
in making over her winter bonnet into a summer
hat.

“I wish you would tell me what to put on the front,” said
the young lady.

“Oh, something red; you're so very fond of red!” alluding
to the Roane top-knot.

“There!” — Sophy threw her bonnet, — “if you can't
stop twitting me about him, I won't do another stitch of work
in this house!”

“I wouldn't if I was you, you're going to marry so well!”
and with a sarcastic expression the widow bent her tall, spare
form, and reached across the table to lay a plate. “Go and
see who is at the door.”

“I sha'n't stir a step: I'm nobody's servant, madam!”

“Well, miss! if ever there was an ungrateful child!” —
The bell rang with sudden jangle. “Who can be ringing in

that way?” The widow peeped through the blinds. “An
old-boots man, I guess. I do wish such wretches” —

She opened the door about six inches, and showed a face
from which such wretches might certainly take a hint. A
large, rough-looking, weather-beaten, grizzly-bearded man, in
slouched hat and coarse worn clothes, with a travelling-bag in
his hand, —all covered with dust, — stood on the piazza.

“Nothing!” said the curt widow; and she was biting
off communication abruptly with the door, when the traveller
threw up his hand.

“Salome! don't you know me?”

Mrs. Pinworth opened her cage again a few inches, and,
deigning to look at the speaker, was betrayed into a slight
surprise.

“Why, Benjamin! is it you?” and, after some hesitation,
she opened the door a few inches farther, and extended
her hand stiffly. “How do you do?”

“Sister!” heaved the agitated voice of the big dusty man;
and, bursting into the house, he caught the prim widow in
his arms, and hugged her to his great warm heart, and kissed
her pale virtuous face with his bearded lips.

She disengaged herself as quickly as possible, arranged her
crumpled collar, and brushed her sleeve. “You'd better
step in,” she said in a formal voice. “Sophy, here is your
uncle Benjamin.”

Now, Sophy remembered her great-hearted uncle with
rather more affection than she was wont to feel for her relatives;

and she ran to meet him with an impulsiveness which
seemed enthusiastic compared with her mother's frigidity.
He kissed her heartily, and shook both her hands at once;
then looked around expectantly.

“And Lucy — where is Lucy?”

“You'd better sit down,” said the widow; “though
you're very dusty, and perhaps I'd better get you the
broom” —

“Where is my child?” demanded the traveller anxiously
with glistening eyes. “Her first! Is she well?”

“Sit down,” said the straight-backed relict, resigning herself
to the dust, “and I will try to tell you.”

“For God's sake!” he articulated, “what has happened
to her? I am sure you never would give your brother such
a welcome as this if all was well!”

“I have done my duty by Lucy faithfully,” — with a
self-righteous look. “She will tell you so.”

“Then she's alive? — thank God for that! She is my
idol, my all, as you know! I couldn't have borne it if any
thing had happened to her. But why hasn't she written?
Not a word have I heard from one of you for more than a
year, as often as I have written.”

“You have written?” cried Sophy. “We all thought
you was dead.”

“Dead? when I've been digging gold, and sending it on
here by thousands? Near ten thousand dollars I've sent to
Pelt; and I could have brought as much more but for my

terrible anxiety, — not getting a word from anybody here.
I couldn't stand it any longer.”

“Why, brother Ben!” exclaimed the widow, suddenly
warming, “have you been so fortunate! — Sophy, bring
a glass of that elderberry-wine. — You must be thirsty. Let
me take your coat and brush it for you. Our tea is almost
ready; and you're just in time. How good it will seem —
won't it, Sophy? — to have your uncle with us! I hardly
knew you at first, you are so changed! You've sent Mr.
Pelt — how much?”

“Hasn't he — hasn't Lucy — told you?”

“I must confess,” said the bewildered widow, “they have
kept it pretty secret: not a word of it has ever come to my
ear.”

“I don't believe Lucy knows of it herself!” cried Sophy;
“and I see now what Abner has been hinting lately about
Pelt!”

“It isn't possible! — you don't think — he is a villain?”
said Arlyn, startled. “Call Lucy! Why don't one of you
bring her? Is she in the house? But do let me wash off a
little of this dust, so she'll know me.”

“Pelt has grown rich all of a sudden, and built him a
grand house,” said Sophy.

“He wished to marry Sophy,” added her mother; “but
I have mistrusted something wasn't right, and opposed the
match.”

“There's some mistake,” replied Arlyn. “He has

drawn the money; but he wouldn't certainly think of swindling
me! Must be he never got my letters. I — I must
see him. But Lucy before any thing! Why — why do
you look so?”

“I have something very painful to say to you about
Lucy,” said Mrs. Pinworth.

“No, no! — nothing bad?”

“Be prepared, dear brother; and remember that you have
a home and a sister. Sophy will be a daughter to you in
her place.”

“Her place? What has become of her? Tell me at
once, — every thing!”

“Alas! she has disgraced us all! She eloped nearly a
year ago.”

Arlyn had risen to his feet, alarmed; but now he sank
back stunned.

“Not Lucy? — not my child?”

“Her conduct cannot give you any more pain than it has
me,” said the widow mournfully. “It has cost me days and
nights of prayers and tears.”

“She has not — not done wrong?” gasped forth the poor
pleading father.

“She is not married,” replied the excellent woman rigidly;
“but she has a child.”

Arlyn did not speak for a minute, — his face ghastly and
vacant, his eyes staring, his big heart slowly heaving as if it
would burst. Then he said, or rather whispered, —

“Who is the villain?”

“Guy Bannington,” said the widow with severe precision.
“And you may well say `villain'!”

“He — HIS son!” All his wrongs at the hands of the
colonel rushed back upon him. He clutched aimlessly and
helplessly at the air; then, swayed by a fearful agitation,
he staggered to his feet.

“Why! you ain't going? Do stop to tea, brother!”
The words did not seem to reach him for a moment; but at
the door he paused, as if dimly conscious that some civil
phrase was expected of him.

“Thank you, sister: I have business. 'Twill soon be
dark. I sha'n't want any supper. Thank you kindly.”

He shook the mother's hand, and then the daughter's, with
noble courtesy, smiling a forced and haggard smile; then went
forth with a pent-up tempest and gathering thunders in his
breast, which made the black sky and muttering hanging
storm-clouds seem idle mockery.