University of Virginia Library

6. VI.
MRS. DUCKLOW'S ADVENTURES.

And now occurred a circumstance which Ducklow had
foreseen. The alarm of fire had reached Reuben's; and
although the report of its falseness followed immediately,
Mrs. Ducklow's inflammable fancy was so kindled by it
that she could find no comfort in prolonging her visit.

“Mr. Ducklow 'll be going for the trunk, and I must go
home and see to things, Taddy 's such a fellow for mischief!
I can foot it; I sha' n't mind it.”

And off she started, walking herself out of breath in her
anxiety.

She reached the brow of the hill just in time to see a
chaise drive away from her own door.

“Who can that be? I wonder if Taddy 's there to guard
the house! If anything should happen to them bonds!”

Out of breath as she was, she quickened her pace, and
trudged on, flushed, perspiring, panting, until she reached
the house.

“Thaddeus!” she called.

No Taddy answered. She went in. The house was deserted.
And lo! the carpet torn up and the bonds abstracted.

Mr. Ducklow never would have made such work, removing
the bonds. Then somebody else must have taken
them, she reasoned.

“The man in the chaise!” she exclaimed, or rather
made an effort to exclaim, succeeding only in bringing forth
a hoarse, gasping sound. Fear dried up articulation. Vox
faucibus hœsit.

And Taddy? He had disappeared; been murdered, perhaps,
— or gagged and carried away by the man in the
chaise.

Mrs. Ducklow flew hither and thither, (to use a favorite
phrase of her own), “like a hen with her head cut off”;
then rushed out of the house, and up the street, screaming
after the chaise, —

“Murder! murder! Stop thief! stop thief!”

She waved her hands aloft in the air frantically. If she
had trudged before, now she trotted, now she cantered:
but if the cantering of the old mare was fitly likened to

that of a cow, to what thing, to what manner of motion
under the sun, shall we liken the cantering of Mrs. Ducklow?
It was original; it was unique; it was prodigious.
Now, with her frantically waving hands, and all her undulating
and flapping skirts, she seemed a species of huge,
unwieldy bird attempting to fly. Then she sank down into
a heavy, dragging walk, — breath and strength all gone, —
no voice left even to scream murder. Then the awful realization
of the loss of the bonds once more rushing over
her, she started up again. “Half running, half flying,
what progress she made!” Then Atkins's dog saw her,
and, naturally mistaking her for a prodigy, came out at
her, bristling up and bounding and barking terrifically.

“Come here!” cried Atkins, following the dog.
“What 's the matter? What 's to pay, Mrs. Ducklow?”

Attempting to speak, the good woman could only pant
and wheeze.

“Robbed!” she at last managed to whisper, amid the
yelpings of the cur that refused to be silenced.

“Robbed? How? Who?”

“The chaise! Ketch it!”

Her gestures expressed more than her words; and Atkins's
horse and wagon, with which he had been drawing
out brush, being in the yard near by, he ran to them,
leaped to the seat, drove into the road, took Mrs. Ducklow
aboard, and set out in vigorous pursuit of the slow two-wheeled
vehicle.

“Stop, you, sir! Stop, you, sir!” shrieked Mrs. Ducklow,
having recovered her breath by the time they came up
with the chaise.

It stopped, and Mr. Grantley the minister put out his
good-natured, surprised face.

“You 've robbed my house! You 've took —”

Mrs. Ducklow was going on in wild, accusatory accents,
when she recognized the benign countenance.

“What do you say? I have robbed you?” he exclaimed,
very much astonished.

“No, no! not you! You would n't do such a thing!”
she stammered forth, while Atkins, who had laughed himself
weak at Mr. Ducklow's plight earlier in the morning,
now went off into a side-ache at Mrs. Ducklow's ludicrous
mistake. “But did you — did you stop at my house?
Have you seen our Thaddeus?”

“Here I be, Ma Ducklow!” piped a small voice; and
Taddy, who had till then remained hidden, fearing punishment,
peeped out of the chaise from behind the broad back
of the minister.

“Taddy! Taddy! how came the carpet —”

“I pulled it up, huntin' for a marble,” said Taddy, as
she paused, overmastered by her emotions.

“And the — the thing tied up in a yaller wrapper?”

“Pa Ducklow took it.”

“Ye sure?”

“Yes, I seen him!”

“O dear!” said Mrs. Ducklow, “I never was so beat!
Mr. Grantley, I hope — excuse me — I did n't know what
I was about! Taddy, you notty boy, what did you leave
the house for? Be ye quite sure yer Pa Ducklow —”

Taddy repeated that he was quite sure, as he climbed
from the chaise into Atkins's wagon. The minister smilingly
remarked that he hoped she would find no robbery
had been committed, and went his way. Atkins, driving
back, and setting her and Taddy down at the Ducklow
gate, answered her embarrassed “Much obleeged to ye,”
with a sincere “Not at all,” considering the fun he had
had a sufficient compensation for his trouble. And thus
ended the morning's adventures, with the exception of an
unimportant episode, in which Taddy, Mrs. Ducklow, and
Mrs. Ducklow's rattan were the principal actors.