 | CHAPTER XVI.
BRENT BECOMES A LAW-BREAKER. The shadow of Moloch mountain |  |
16. CHAPTER XVI.
BRENT BECOMES A LAW-BREAKER.
The meal of fried pork, boiled potatoes,
hard bread, bannocks of Indian-meal, and
coffee without milk, was set upon the long
table, already noted, in the large room of the
shanty. Tablecloth, napkins, silver were all
dispensed with, and even the coarse earthern
plates and cups produced from among Zilpah's
purchases were an innovation upon the severe
custom of the woods, which sanctioned only
tin and iron as table equipage.
Brent had from the first decided to live with
his men, and as his men, laboring with them,
eating with them, resting with them, reserving
to himself only the privilege of a separate
sleeping-room, somewhat more fastidiously,
though hardly more luxuriantly, appointed
than their own. He now sat down at the
head of his homely table, and glancing from
its meagre appointments to the faces at either
hand, said simply:
“Welcome, friends, to our first meal together,
and may God make us all duly thankful for
this and his other gifts.”
“I don't know how you're a going to drink
your coffee without no milk in it, Mr. Brent.
It a'n't what you're used to,” said Zilpah querulously,
as she filled and passed the cups.
“We will have a cow next week, Zilpah,
and, meantime, if we cannot drink coffee
without milk, there is plenty of cold water,”
said Brent cheerily.
“I never see no milk in a logging-camp, nor
no cow neither, nor yet sugar,” said Richard,
reaching rather contemptuously for the sugar-basin.
“Where I've been, they always bile
merlasses with the coffee. Merlasses is first-rate
with fried pork too.”
“Molasses with fried pork!” cried Zilpah
indignantly.
“Jus' so. Didn't you ever eat none?”
asked Richard over the edge of his cup.
“No; nor I don't never mean to.”
“No more I wouldn't if I didn't want to;
but I'd like some, if you've got it hand, and
the boss ha'n't no objection.”
“Not the least,” said Brent smiling; and
Zilpah, with a snort of indignation, produced
and filled a japanned molasses-cup, which
Richard nearly emptied upon his plate, following
the usual habit of his class, to whom
instinct teaches the lesson of science, that the
carbon necessary to feed the fire constantly
formed by fierce labor and exposure is to be
found in heavy sweets and concentrated oils,
or, as they embody them, in molasses and
pork-fat.
Brent, silently revolving this idea in his
mind, finished his repast, and rising from the
table with the rest, was about to leave the
house, when Zilpah touched him upon the
arm, and mysteriously beckoned him into her
own room.
Brent followed, a little apprehensive of a
scene, and rapidly resolving to set the old
woman's mind at rest upon the vexed question
of the warming-pan by promising to pay for
it the first time he should have occasion to
send to the town. But Zilpah's conscience
was not of the peremptory and persistent
sort that will let neither its possessor nor accuser
rest, and so long as her felonious possession
remained snugly ensconced in the corner,
behind a black bombazine petticoat,
Zilpah was very willing to appear to forget it.
Her present subject of conversation was of
a different nature, and she heralded it with
the inquiry:
“There a'n't no sleeping-room except this
and your'n, and the loft where the men sleep,
is there?”
“No. What is wanted of more?” asked
Brent in some surprise.
“Well, I don't know. Where was you calculating
that Willy would sleep?”
“Why, with his brother, I suppose.”
“I shouldn't hardly love to have 'em do that
way, seems to me,” suggested Zilpah mysteriously.
“Why not, in Heaven's name?” demanded
Brent, rather irritated at his housekeeper's
diplomatic reserve.
“Well, you see, Mr. Brent, I don't know
nothing about it, but I kind o' mistrust that
it a'n't all just as it appears with these boys.”
“Do tell me what you mean, Zilpah, without
any more mysteries. What is wrong with
the boys?”
“Well, I didn't never hear that Paul Freeman
had any brother. He was took out of
the poor-house, and his mother was a traveller
that died there, and nobody knows who his
father was; so where's his brother going to
come from, I'd like to know?”
“Are you sure of this, Zilpah?” demanded
Brent, whose anger was always stirred by
deception, even of the most trivial description.
“Sartain sure, Mr. Marston; and more than
all that, I've my suspicions that the boy a'n't
no boy at all.”
“Which boy? What do you mean, Zilpah?”
“Why, Willy. I don't believe he's any kin
to Paul Freeman, and, what's more, I don't
believe he's a boy. He's a gal, unless I
miss my guess, and his name's Ruth Brewster.”
“What, the girl who killed her father?
Peleg Brewster's daughter?” demanded Brent
in horror.
“Sho! Who's going to believe Semanthy
Brewster's stories about any one she spites?”
demanded Zilpah in high disdain. “Who
killed Peleg Brewster a'n't for me to say; but
you take my word for it, that young one that
you call Willy is Ruth Brewster.'
“That is soon proved,” said Brent, striding
from the room, in spite of Zilpah's efforts to
detain him.
Paul Freeman was not in sight from the
door of the shanty, but Willy, crouching upon
the doorstep, was making play with Blunder,
Richard's ugly little terrier.
“Come here, child,” said Brent, laying a
heavy hand upon his shoulder.
At sound of that stern voice, and touch of
that determined hand, the child started to his
feet, and raised a pale and terror-stricken face
to that bent so severely upon him.
“Oh! what is it, Mr. Brent?” exclaimed he,
visibly trembling in every limb.
“Nothing to alarm you if you have done no
wrong,” replied Brent gravely. “Come with
me—I wish to talk with you a little.”
And much to the disappointment of Zilpah,
who had expected to make a third in the conversation,
he led the child into the store-house,
and shut the door.
Alone with him, the young man seated himself,
and fixed his eyes keenly upon the terror-stricken
face of the supposititious boy.
“Child,” said he, “I can forgive almost
any offence against myself, but I cannot forgive
a lie, for that is an offence against God.
Will you remember this?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And will you answer me some questions
fully and freely?”
“Y-e-s.”
“I do not force you to it, remember. If you
prefer, you may leave here to-morrow with
the man who drives the oxen back, and go
wherever you please. In that case, I shall ask
you nothing; but if you stay, I shall expect
you to give a full account of yourself. As
you said, hardly an hour ago, I am the master
of this place, and I want thoroughly understood
the position of each member of my
family. Will you be silent and leave me, or
will you stay and speak?”
The child hesitated for a moment, and then,
trembling all over, but resolutely raising his
eyes to Brent's, answered:
“I will stay and answer you.”
“Fully and truly?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then tell me your real name?”
“Ruth Brewster.”
“The daughter of Peleg Brewster, of
Milvor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And how came you here, in this disguise?”
“I met Paul, and I was—I was feeling very
bad, and he said he could get me away, and
take care of me; and he took me to Bloom, and
bought me these clothes, and then I came
with you to this place.”
“I must settle that part of the deception
with Paul, I perceive,” said Brent; and then,
laying a hand upon the girl's shoulder, and
fixing his eyes yet more keenly upon her face,
he asked:
“Ruth, why are you hiding from the relatives
and friends to whom you belong? Why
did you wish to be disguised, and to escape
from Milvor?”
“I cannot tell you, sir. Oh! I can't bear to
think about it!”
And the nervous trembling of the slender
figure increased to such a pitiable extent that
Brent could not in humanity pursue his interrogatory
in the same tone in which he had
begun it. Rising, he placed the young girl in
his own chair, offered her some water to drink,
and said kindly, although coldly:
“Do not be so distressed. I have no intention
of harming you; but I must know the
truth, or I cannot let you remain here. Now
tell me, Ruth, do you know of what you stand
accused at home?”
“They think I did it, don't they?” whispered
the child, her very lips blanched to a
deadly whiteness.
“Did what?”
“Killed father.”
“Yes, Ruth, they say so. It is a terrible
question to ask of a child, but it is my duty to
ask it. Did you do it?”
But instead of replying, Ruth slipped from
her chair to the floor, cowering there in a little
trembling heap, and hiding her face upon her
lap, while she burst into a fit of hysterical
weeping.
Brent looked at her in pity and dismay, for
he could not reconcile this excessive agitation
with the innocence in which he wished to believe.
“Ruth,” said he at last, “won't you speak
to me? Say that you are innocent of this horrible
crime, and I will not ask you another
question; for I am very, very sorry for you,
child.”
“Oh! don't, don't. I can't tell you any
thing about it. I dursn't,” gasped the child,
crouching still closer to the floor.
“Dare not! What are you afraid of, Ruth?
Is it of me?”
“No, sir, not of you.”
“Of whom then?”
“I can't tell, but I dursn't say a single word
to any body.”
“Cannot you even tell me that you are innocent
of your father's murder?” asked Brent,
in a voice of deep regret. “For on that turns
our whole future relation. If you can truthfully
deny that one accusation, you shall stay
with me, and I will protect you. If you can
not, Ruth, you must leave Wahtahree to-morrow.”
“O Mr. Brent! Leave you and Paul?
Where in all the world can I go?” asked the
child in sudden terror; and drawing herself
nearer to Brent, she clung about his knees,
her wet face imploringly raised to his. Inexpressibly
moved, the young man took her in
his arms, and seated her beside him. Then
with his arm still about her he said in a
voice of tenderest entreaty:
“Little Ruth, have faith in me. Whatever
alarms you so terribly forget it now, and only
remember that I have power to protect you,
and make your life a safe and happy one.
But you must trust me, child. I do not ask you
to break any promise, for even a bad promise
must be kept, unless the hand of God Himself
breaks it; but surely you can assure me that
you are innocent of the awful crime charged
upon you. That is all I ask.”
The child, no longer weeping, hid her face
for a moment in her hands, as if communing
with herself; then raised it, clear and luminous
with the truth, to meet Brent's tender but
penetrating look.
“I promised, and I said I hoped God would
strike me dead if I broke the promise, that I
never would say a single word about it anyway.
So can I?”
Brent sadly shook his head.
“No, child, you cannot.”
“But, Mr. Brent, look at me,” and the child,
slipping from her chair to the floor, stood upright
before him, her slender figure straightened,
her small pale face uplifted, her dark
eyes clear and fearless. “Look at me, please,
sir, and if you think I could have killed my
dear, dear father, the only one I had left to me
in all the world—O Mr. Brent! if you think I
killed him, let me go away—not to-morrow,
but now, this very minute. Let me go out
into the woods, and I don't care what becomes
of me till I die.”
And Brent laid his two hands upon her
shoulders, looked deep into her steadfast eyes,
and said:
“No, Ruth, I do not believe that you did it,
and although your oath of silence must not
be broken, I will believe the testimony of your
eyes against all the world. Nor will I
ever ask you another question upon this matter.
Rest content, and as happy as you may,
little Ruth, for I will take you safely upon
my own shoulders.”
“I won't be afraid any more, then,” said
Ruth quietly; and Brent smiled at the unconscious
flattery.
| CHAPTER XVI.
BRENT BECOMES A LAW-BREAKER. The shadow of Moloch mountain | |