“Come with me to the house,” Tom said, putting his arm around him and almost carrying him up the slope, while Sherry ran sometimes in front and sometimes behind them and jumping on Paul, whom he nearly threw down.
Paul made no comment when introduced into the smuggler’s room from the cellar. It seemed very natural to go there, and after Tom had exchanged his wet clothing for dry ones and covered him in bed, he looked up and said: “It’s the old days come back,—when we were boys and played I was hiding here a prisoner, just as I am now.”
Tom did not reply. He was thinking what to do next. Paul decided it for him.
“Put another blanket, or something, over me,” he said. “I’m very cold, some like Harry Gill. How many did he have, when his teeth they chattered still.”
There was no extra blanket there, but Tom put a big rug over him, and gave him a swallow of brandy from the small flask he had in his pocket for just such an emergency.
“I know you are temperance,” he said, “and so am I, but if there was ever a time for brandy and lies it’s now. I’ve told a pile and expect to go on telling. Confound that dog with his yelps. He’ll have the whole house up if we don’t stop him,” he continued, as Sherry kept bounding against the door with short, sharp barks for admittance.
“Let him in,” Paul said. “He does me good.”
Tom let him in, with the result of a scene similar to that at the jail when he first saw Paul.
“Come up here and keep me warm,” Paul said to him, with a snap of his fingers, which brought the dog on to the billiard table, where he lay close to Paul, who gradually grew warmer and finally fell asleep.
How Tom managed to bring him anything to eat he hardly knew, but he did manage it. Paul, however, could not eat, and only took a bit of bread to please Tom, and then again fell asleep with Sherry beside him. He had given a growl or two when he heard the tramp of strange footsteps overhead as the officers went through the house, and Tom wanted to throttle him, fearing danger. That was passed, and Mr. and Mrs. Ralston found their son and his dog asleep when they went to him after being told where he was. His mother’s tears upon his face awoke him, and he started up, but fell back again upon his pillow weak as a child, bodily and mentally. The strain upon him had been more than he could bear, and for days he lay in a kind of lethargy, sleeping a great deal and partially delirious when awake. He knew he was free, but did not fully realize the situation or understand why he was in the Smuggler’s room instead of his own, or why his father’s face wore so grave a look of concern and his mother’s eyes were full of tears when she spoke to him. He saw only these two and Tom for a few days, if we except Sherry, who staid with him constantly and only went out for exercise and to bark and growl at any suspicious people who came near the house. Sherry was developing a new side to his character, and from being the best-natured dog in the neighborhood, was getting a name for the most savage. His favorite resting place when out of doors was near the entrance to the basement, where he would sit watching everything which went on around him, and when he heard a footstep at the front of the house, hurrying to see who the intruders were, growling if he did not like their looks, wagging his tail if he did and going back to his position near Paul’s door.