The class-meeting lasted an hour. It was very fervent and demonstrative; and when it was over the kind old lady who had given Paul the gingerbread asked the preacher home to dinner. She said that roasted turkey, wild duck, and pumpkin-pie were waiting for them; and Mr. Bates thought fondly what a treat it would be for Paul on his birthday. He was to preach again that afternoon, seven miles away, and so moved briskly toward the sulky.
"The poor fellow is asleep," said the preacher, seeing that the curling head was not thrust up at his approach. "I wonder of what he dreams?" He drew near as he spoke. Old Bob was munching his corn sedately; the sulky had a saucy air; the robe nestled in the front, with the tiny stool peeping from a corner; but Paul was not there. The preacher called aloud; the horses raised their ears in reply, and the wheels crackled in the frozen crust. He called again; some sleigh-bells jingled merrily, and then the pines moaned. He looked into the other vehicles; he watched for the little foot-tracks in the snow; he ran back to the old church, and searched beneath every pew.
"Brethren—sisters," he cried, "I cannot find my boy!" and his voice was tremulous. They gathered round him and some said that Paul had ridden away with the worldly lads; others, that he was hiding mischievously. But one silent bystander looked into the drifts, and traced four great boot-marks close to the sulky. He followed them across the road into the pines, and out into the road again, where they were lost in the multitude of impressions. "Brother," he faltered, "God give you strength! your boy has been stolen—kidnapped!"
The old man staggered, but the kind old lady caught him, and as he leaned upon her shoulder his face grew hard and blanched; then he removed his hat, and his gray hair streamed over his gaunt features. "Let us pray!" he said.
The preacher plodded to his next appointment as if he had still a child, and his sermon was as full and straightforward. He announced his bereavement from the pulpit when he had done, and the whole country was alarmed and excited. He bore the tidings to his desolate home, and his stricken wife heard it with a stern resignation. Thenceforward he preached more of the burning pit, and less of the golden city; his eyes were full of fierce light, and his visage grew long and ghastly. He denied himself all joys and comforts; his prayers rang in the midnight through the gloomy parsonage; and he toiled in the ministry as if reckless of life, and anxious to lose it in his Master's service. The end came at last; the world closed over the grim couple, and they hoped through the grave's portal to find their child.
When Paul awoke from his nap in the sulky, he found himself far in the forest, and moving swiftly forward. A huge negro, with bloodshot eyes, was transferring him to an evil-looking white man, and he struggled in the latter's arms, crying for his papa.
The negro drew a long knife from his breast and flourished it before Paul's face. "Hold um jaw, or I kill um dead!" he muttered. "Got um grave dug out yer."
"O yer young yerlin!" said the other man, boxing Paul's ears, "yer don't know yer own father, don't yer? I'm yer parpa!"
"You are not," cried Paul. "Where are you taking me? Where is the church, and the sulky, and old Bob?"
The negro drove his knife so close to Paul's throat that the boy flinched and shrieked.