'Ay, ay, neighbor, leave all that to me.'
'And suppose there should be trouble about what Ned Saunders has been blabbing?'
'That won't amount to much; it will soon be known that you are the owner of nearly all the barrens now, and they will be careful enough how they raise their tongue against you; a man is not very likely to swear to his own injury.'
As Cross arose to depart, the other gentleman left his seat also, and dropping the hand which held the pistol, let it dangle by his side; the other hand he placed in his bosom, and facing his guest looked at him very complacently; a slight smile and a gentle, inclination of the head, on the part of Foster, were all the greeting that passed, as Cross neither turned his head nor uttered a word, but with a quick step left the house, and went on his way.
The wages of iniquity are sometimes reaped in this world, and Cross was just tasting the bitter fruit.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Mr. Rutherford had received his dear wife and children as it were from the jaws of death, but it had been by the almost super-human exertions of the faithful Cæsar, who, for a long time, was disabled by the severe injuries he had received as he bore them through the burning building. The noble beasts for which Cæsar had fought so bravely, with all the luxuries and comforts of his large establishment, were swept away at the demands of creditors, and nothing that he could call his own remained except the faithful old negro—who, although a slave, was too far advanced in life to be liable as property—and those dear objects in which his heart still found some sweet solace amid the drear prospect which surrounded him.
At present he was occupying a small house which had belonged to him once, and used as a tenement for a laborer on his estate. Few were the articles of furniture which sufficed for their use, and those had been, for the most part, loaned for their immediate necessity. His lovely wife still kept her pleasant smile, but her heart was smitten with a stroke that pressed it down heavily. It was not the loss of all, nor the change of abode, nor the rude and scanty furniture, nor all the other aggravating tokens of their change of circumstances—but she saw the struggle that was agitating her husband's mind; she could not relieve him of that load of care; she could not obliterate from his memory past errors, nor could she mark out for him a path that offered any other prospect than the dark one in which they were travelling then. All she could do was to make the best of what they had, to throw into her words the softest tones, and to lighten up her countenance with the semblance of hope she did not feel.
It was not long after they had thus been reduced to the extremity of fortune's change, wearied with the turmoil of his distracted mind, Mr. Rutherford was sitting at the little window that opened from their abode upon the highway; his Mary was beside him, and she held his hand, and fondly pressed it as she oft had done in better days, put it to her heart, and let him feel how true it beat for him. The shades of evening were just setting upon them, held back a little by the young moon which hung out her crescent in the west, when a vehicle stopped at their door, and a gentleman of lively mien alighted and prepared to enter. Mrs. Rutherford went for a light, while her husband repaired to the door to receive the visitor, whoever he might be, although, as he supposed, some messenger of evil tidings, like all of late.