第51章

For a few moments the woman sat silent, scarcely daring to breathe in that artificial attitude.And then, whether from some occult sympathy in the touch, or God best knows what, a sudden fancy began to thrill her.She began by remembering an old pain that she had forgotten, an old horror that she had resolutely put away all these years.She recalled days of sickness and distrust,--days of an overshadowing fear,--days of preparation for something that was to be prevented, that WAS prevented, with mortal agony and fear.She thought of a life that might have been,--she dared not say HADbeen,--and wondered.It was six years ago: if it had lived, it would have been as old as Carry.The arms which were folded loosely around the sleeping child began to tremble, and tighten their clasp.And then the deep potential impulse came, and with a half-sob, half-sigh, she threw her arms out, and drew the body of the sleeping child down, down, into her breast, down again and again as if she would hide it in the grave dug there years before.

And the gust that shook her passed, and then, ah me! the rain.

A drop or two fell upon the curls of Carry, and she moved uneasily in her sleep.But the woman soothed her again,--it was so easy to do it now,--and they sat there quiet and undisturbed, so quiet that they might have seemed incorporate of the lonely silent house, the slowly-declining sunbeams, and the general air of desertion and abandonment, yet a desertion that had in it nothing of age, decay, or despair.

Col.Starbottle waited at the Fiddletown hotel all that night in vain.And the next morning, when Mr.Tretherick returned to his husks, he found the house vacant and untenanted, except by motes and sunbeams.

When it was fairly known that Mrs.Tretherick had run away, taking Mr.Tretherick's own child with her, there was some excitement, and much diversity of opinion, in Fiddletown."The Dutch Flat Intelligencer" openly alluded to the "forcible abduction" of the child with the same freedom, and it is to be feared the same prejudice, with which it had criticised the abductor's poetry.All of Mrs.Tretherick's own sex, and perhaps a few of the opposite sex, whose distinctive quality was not, however, very strongly indicated, fully coincided in the views of "The Intelligencer."The majority, however, evaded the moral issue: that Mrs.Tretherick had shaken the red dust of Fiddletown from her dainty slippers was enough for them to know.They mourned the loss of the fair abductor more than her offence.They promptly rejected Tretherick as an injured husband and disconsolate father, and even went so far as to openly cast discredit on the sincerity of his grief.They reserved an ironical condolence for Col.Starbottle, overbearing that excellent man with untimely and demonstrative sympathy in bar-rooms, saloons, and other localities not generally deemed favorable to the display of sentiment."She was alliz a skittish thing, kernel," said one sympathizer, with a fine affectation of gloomy concern, and great readiness of illustration; "and it's kinder nat'ril thet she'd get away some day, and stampede that theer colt:

but thet she should shake YOU, kernel, thet she should just shake you--is what gits me.And they do say thet you jist hung around thet hotel all night, and payrolled them corriders, and histed yourself up and down them stairs, and meandered in and out o' thet piazzy, and all for nothing?" It was another generous and tenderly commiserating spirit that poured additional oil and wine on the colonel's wounds."The boys yer let on thet Mrs.Tretherick prevailed on ye to pack her trunk and a baby over from the house to the stage-offis, and that the chap ez did go off with her thanked you, and offered you two short bits, and sed ez how he liked your looks, and ud employ you agin--and now you say it ain't so? Well, I'll tell the boys it aint so, and I'm glad I met you, for stories DO get round."Happily for Mrs.Tretherick's reputation, however, the Chinaman in Tretherick's employment, who was the only eye-witness of her flight, stated that she was unaccompanied, except by the child.He further deposed, that, obeying her orders, he had stopped the Sacramento coach, and secured a passage for herself and child to San Francisco.It was true that Ah Fe's testimony was of no legal value.But nobody doubted it.Even those who were sceptical of the Pagan's ability to recognize the sacredness of the truth admitted his passionless, unprejudiced unconcern.But it would appear, from a hitherto unrecorded passage of this veracious chronicle, that herein they were mistaken.

It was about six months after the disappearance of Mrs.Tretherick, that Ah Fe, while working in Tretherick's lot, was hailed by two passing Chinamen.They were the ordinary mining coolies, equipped with long poles and baskets for their usual pilgrimages.An animated conversation at once ensued between Ah Fe and his brother Mongolians,--a conversation characterized by that usual shrill volubility and apparent animosity which was at once the delight and scorn of the intelligent Caucasian who did not understand a word of it.Such, at least, was the feeling with which Mr.Tretherick on his veranda, and Col.Starbottle who was passing, regarded their heathenish jargon.The gallant colonel simply kicked them out of his way: the irate Tretherick, with an oath, threw a stone at the group, and dispersed them.but not before one or two slips of yellow rice-paper, marked with hieroglyphics, were exchanged, and a small parcel put into Ah Fe's hands.When Ah Fe opened this in the dim solitude of his kitchen, he found a little girl's apron, freshly washed, ironed, and folded.On the corner of the hem were the initials "C.T." Ah Fe tucked it away in a corner of his blouse, and proceeded to wash his dishes in the sink with a smile of guileless satisfaction.