Half an hour later and Mildred lay sleeping in Bessy’s cradle, as calmly as if she were not the subject of the most wonderful surmises and ridiculous conjectures. On the wings of the wind the story flew that a baby had been left on Judge Howell’s steps,—that the Judge had sworn it should be sent to the poor-house; while the son, who came home at twelve o’clock at night, covered with mud and wet to the skin, had evinced far more interest in the stranger than was at all commendable for a boy scarcely out of his teens.
“But there was no tellin’ what young bucks would do, or old ones either, for that matter!” so at least said Widow Simms, the Judge’s bugbear, as she donned her shaker and palm-leaf shawl, and hurried across the fields in the direction of Beechwood, feeling greatly relieved to find that the object of her search was farther down the hill, for she stood somewhat in awe of the Judge and his proud son. But once in Hannah Hawkins’ bedroom, with her shaker on the floor and the baby on her lap, her tongue was loosened, and scarcely a person in the town who could by any possible means have been at all connected with the affair, escaped a malicious cut. The infant was then minutely examined, and pronounced the very image of the Judge, or of Captain Harrington, or of Deacon Snyder, she could not tell which.
“But I’m bound to find out,” she said; “I sha’n’t rest easy nights till I do.”
Then suddenly remembering that a kindred spirit, Polly Dutton, who lived some distance away, had probably not yet heard the news, she fastened her palm-leaf shawl with her broken-headed darning-needle, and bade Mrs. Hawkins good-morning just as a group of other visitors was announced.
All that day, and for many succeeding ones, the cottage was crowded with curious people, who had come to see the sight, and all of whom offered an opinion as to the parentage of the child. For more than four weeks a bevy of old women, with Widow Simms and Polly Dutton at their head, sat upon the character of nearly every person they knew, and when at last the sitting was ended and the verdict rendered, it was found that none had passed the ordeal so wholly unscathed as Richard Howell. It was a little strange, they admitted, that he should go to Kiah Thompson’s cottage three times a day; but then he had always been extremely fond of children, and it was but natural that he should take an interest in this one, particularly as his father had set his face so firmly against it, swearing heartily if its name were mentioned in his presence, and even threatening to prosecute the Widow Simms if she ever again presumed to say that the brat resembled him or his.
With a look of proud disdain upon his handsome, boyish face, Richard, who on account of his delicate health had not returned to college, heard from time to time what the gossiping villagers had to say of himself, and when at last it was told to him that he was exonerated from all blame, and that some had even predicted what the result would be, were his interest in the baby to continue until she were grown to womanhood, he burst into a merry laugh, the first which had escaped him since he came back to Beechwood.
“Stranger things than that had happened,” Widow Simms declared, and she held many a whispered conference with Hannah Hawkins as to the future, when Mildred would be the mistress of Beechwood, unless, indeed, Richard died before she were grown, an event which seemed not improbable, for as the autumn days wore on and the winter advanced, his failing strength became more and more perceptible, and the same old ladies, who once before had taken his case into consideration, now looked at him through medical eyes and pronounced him just gone with consumption.
Nothing but a sea voyage would save him, the physician said, and that to a warm, balmy climate. So when the spring came, he engaged a berth on board a vessel bound for the South Sea Islands, and after a pilgrimage to the obscure New Hampshire town where Hetty Kirby was buried, he came back to Beechwood one April night to bid his father adieu.
It was a stormy farewell, for loud, angry words were heard issuing from the library, and Rachel, who played the part of eaves-dropper, testified to hearing Richard say: “Listen to me, father, I have not told you all.” To which the Judge responded, “I’ll stop my ears before I’ll hear another word. You’ve told me enough already; and, from this hour, you are no son of mine. Leave me at once, and my curse go with you.”
With a face as white as marble, Richard answered, “I’ll go father, and it may be we shall never meet again; but, in the lonesome years to come, when you are old and sick, and there is none to love you, you’ll remember what you’ve said to me to-night.”