“I’ll stay with you if you’ll let me,” came the answer promptly.
“So you see,” smiled Nat to Ben, “you will have the trip all to yourselves. But,” with a sudden recollection of what was due to his uncle, “I must get you to take a letter to your father.”
So while Ben waited, he got a bottle of ink, a quill and a sheet of thick paper, with which he set about composing a long letter to Mr. Cooper. When he finally finished and sealed it up, he had told everything of importance there was to tell. Ben remained for some time talking and then got upon his horse for the ride to Cambridge.
“Do you know,” said he, as he mounted and sat looking down at his cousin, “that I rather envy you.”
“Why?”
“Because there is something in the air of this town that tells me that it’s here or hereabouts that the explosion is going to take place.”
“You are always finding things in the air,” laughed Nat.
“Well, if I do, I am generally right,” argued Ben. “Just you wait and see.”
Then they shook hands and said good-bye; Ben waved his hand and nodded smilingly to the Porcupine, who replied with a grin; then the rein was given the little roan, and she scampered away down the dimly lit street.
During the whole of the long, gloomy winter that followed, Nat Brewster saw no more of his cousin; once there came a letter from Mr. Cooper in which Ben enclosed a page of greetings, but that was all.