CHAPTER XIII
HIMSELF AGAIN
Never had the two old servants been so happy as they were that night after their rescue. At first they looked on it as a miracle, in which the spirits of their young master and his body-servant, their only son, had come back to earth to rescue them, and for a while their prayers and exhortations took on the uncanny tone of superstition. But after they had heard them talk in the old natural way and seen Captain Tom walking in the living flesh, they became satisfied that it was indeed their young master whom they had supposed to be dead.
Jack Bracken, with all the tenderness of one speaking to little children, explained it all to them—how he had himself carried Captain Tom off the battle-field of Franklin; how he had cared for him since—even to the present time; how Ephraim would not desert his young master, but had stayed with them, as cook and house boy. And how Captain Tom had now become well again.
Jack was careful not to go too much into details—especially Ephraim having lived for two years within a few miles of his parents and not making himself known! The truth was, as Jack knew, Ephraim had become infatuated with the free-booting life of Jack Bracken. He had gone with him on many a raid, and gold came too easy that way to dig it out of the soil, as in a cotton field.
The old people supposed all this happened far away, and in another country, and that they had all come home as soon as they could.
With this they were happy.