The housewife was so occupied with the pretty strife under the apple tree that she did not hear a knock at the front door, and was quite taken by surprise when the help flung open that leading to the porch, and revealed two strange men standing in the hall behind her.
When the door was opened, shouts of laughter swept through it from the orchard, and one of the men, without heeding the lady, passed by her, saying:
"Excuse me! It is my child—my little daughter!" and with quick strides he advanced toward the apple tree, leaving his companion behind.
"Don't be skeered nor nothing, marm," said Rice, looking eagerly toward the apple tree. "It's his little darter, and he's just found out where she is, arter a tough siege among the niggers in St. Domingo, where we thought he was left dead. I seed him fall down like an ox with the blow of an axe, among a hull swarm of 'em in the cellar of one of them St. Domingo houses, and arterward I saw 'em carry him off to be buried. They took him up into the mountains, marm, and his goodness saved his life arter all; for one of the niggers that he'd saved from a flogging once knew him, and when the rest wanted to kill him over agin, this 'ere chap jest begged him off and took him away to his own hut and kinder nussed him up, you see; but it was a good while afore he got well, and he had a tough time getting away—had to take a vessel going 'round the Horn."
The minister had been disturbed by the knock which his wife had failed to hear, and now stood in the back door listening to this rapid narrative with a look of wonder in his face, while his wife sat with her breath suspended, and the color dying gradually from her cheek, appalled by the first glimpse of a crime in which she felt almost like a participant.
Meanwhile, Captain Mason reached the apple tree, and paused a few feet from Rose, with his arms extended, striving to call out, "My daughter, my daughter," but the words died on his lips, and broke up in tears; thus he stood before the child trembling like a criminal, and with his noble features all in a tumult of tender agitation.
Rose had just succeeded in coaxing the apple from Paul, and tossing it into the air, was intent on catching it with her hands, but her eyes fell upon the stranger, and the sight seemed to harden her into stone. The apple fell through her half-lifted hands, the laughter froze on her lips, and her blue eyes opened wide and wild.
"Rose, my own little Rose, have you forgotten me so soon?"
The child uttered a faint wail; her hands fell down; she stood before him like a flower withering at the stalk.
"Father! oh, father!"