With this letter Rice gave Jube some gold pieces, which made the negro's eyes sparkle, for he recognized them as the coin circulated in his own country. Thus having provided for his friends, Rice took his way back to the disabled ship, and the sloop spread its white wings up the sound.
The deep snow, the skeleton trees, and scattering evergreens that lined the banks of the Housatonic, struck our poor fugitives from the tropics with a sense of absolute desolation. But the captain was kind, and this stood in place of sunshine and warmth with them. At the head of navigation, which brought the sloop to the mouth of the Naugatuc, the captain sent them forward with a return team, which, having deposited its load of produce, was ready to proceed up the river road, which led from Darby to the long wooden bridge below the falls.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
OUT OF HER DELIRIUM.
Alas! it was an unhappy house. Poor Katharine! when the dead child was brought to her, wrapped in the gorgeous shawl which had been her brother's gift, she uttered a low wail, so prolonged and mournful that it never left the memory of those who heard it. As the moan died on her lips, it seemed to carry her life with it, for she fell into a state of dumb apathy, and lay for hours together gazing on the wall without a sign of animation. Then she would mutter, in a low, terrified voice, "They have found it, they have found it."
The magistrates came to the house and examined the evidences of the case, but she took no heed of them. The doctor was summoned, but his opinion, as far as it went, was all against the probabilities of a natural death. He made every exertion in his power to win the poor mother to a state of consciousness, but all in vain; she only looked in his face and muttered, "They have found it, they have found it."
Mrs. Allen was called forward. She had grown old since the day before. The hair on her temples was white as frost now, and her figure stooped, as if some ponderous weight had been laid upon it. Yet the old woman was calm and still. Had the truth struck her dead at the magistrates' feet, she would, nevertheless, have spoken it. Her old neighbors knew this, and refrained from pressing her too far. It would be hard enough, they whispered in consultation, when she was brought into court; why should they torture her when the evidence was so conclusive.
So the magistrates sat all day with the dead infant lying in its little coffin on the table before them, deliberating solemnly together; while that poor mother in the next room, harassed and demented, lay with her face turned to the wall, muttering beneath her breath, "They have found it, they have found it."
Mrs. Allen sat on the hearth in her own high-backed chair, gazing with heavy eyes on the magistrates. She was chilled and shocked to the soul. The stiff pride of her nature was broken in twain, leaving her body bent, and her soul inert. Still, such is the indomitable power of household routine, in a woman of New England, that she replenished the fire from time to time, and prepared drink for the poor creature in the next room. But no food appeared in that dwelling during forty-eight hours. The cow moaned in its stable from the pain of its abundant milk, and the pigs, in a pen back of the house, thrust their noses between the boards and begged for food, with uncouth noises that penetrated into the house without arousing the mistress. A flock of hens huddled about the door, pecking at each other and raking up the snow with their claws.
All this made no impression on the woman. When the ashes grew deep in the fireplace she mechanically shovelled them behind the back log and sat down again, unconscious of the act; when a stick of wood broke into brands on each side the andirons, she lifted the massive tongs and placed them in the midst of the fire again, but with this action her soul had no part; that seemed dead within her.