"Ben, my good old friend, you helped to save my life; how can I ever thank you enough!"
Ben took the white hand in his huge grasp tenderly as if it had been a newly-fledged dove. "Don't, don't, now, I can't stand it, that ere look knocks the pins from under me, circumvents me into a lubberly boy again. What was Ben Benson—the old scoundrel about, that he didn't do the hull thing hisself? Don't hurt the poor feller's feelins by thanking him for what he didn't do—he's ashamed of hisself, and hain't done nothing but rip and tear at hisself for a sneak and coward ever since."
"Oh, Benson, don't abuse yourself in this manner—I cannot speak all my thankfulness—I can never do enough for you. Sometimes, Ben, sometimes, I think you are the best, almost the only true friend that I have on earth—that is among the old friends, Ben."
Her eyes were full of tears. She pressed Ben's hard hand with her white fingers.
"He'd die for you—that ere old weather-beaten chap—he'd die for you any minute, and never ask the reason; but don't talk to him in that ere way—it'll break his heart if you do. His eyes have sprung aleak already, and no pump rigged, nothing to help hisself with, but the cuff of his coat!"
"Well, well, I will not vex you with my thanks; but remember, good friend, I must always feel them. Now tell me what you have got in the basket. Something nice or beautiful, I daresay, for you bring the breath of the hills in your very clothes."
Ben sat down his basket, with a glow of satisfaction, and proceeded to display its contents: first, he removed a layer of crimson maple leaves, presenting a surface of bright golden tints underneath, which were daintily lifted from a bed of the softest and greenest moss in which a pair of superb speckled trout lay softly embedded. Ben looked up with a broad smile, as Mabel touched their spotted sides, gleaming up through the delicate green, as if the gorgeous coloring of the leaves which lay heaped upon the marble console had struck through, leaving prismatic stains behind.
"I thought," said Ben, peering affectionately down into the basket, "that a pair of these ere beauties might tempt you into eating something. I've been a watching 'em a good while in the holler of the rocks, just above where Miss Barker's mammy lives. The brook that comes down by the side of her house is as pure as ice, and almost as cold, and that's the kind of water for fellers like this. Ain't they smashers, now? More'n a foot long, both on 'em, and sparkling like a lady's bracelet."
"Thank you, thank you. They will be delicious. I have tasted no breakfast yet. Tell the cook to prepare one for me."
"Will you have the goodness to trust that ere to Ben Benson, marm, and he'll see that there's no mistake this time. That same awkward chap brought a pair of shiners just like these, from the brook last night, and instid of gitting in here, as he expected they would, what does he see but that ar' gov'rness a-carrying them up in a silver platter to General Harrington's room, as if he'd been sick, and not the lady. If you've no objection, marm, Ben Benson 'll sarve these ere fellows hisself, for the brook hasn't got another of the same sort, if he beat brush for 'em a week."