"You will only make him more revengeful. He has what he calls 'got even' with Josiah, and he is capable of doing it with you or me. Let him alone."
"Not I," said the Squire; "if only for his mother's sake, I must see what
I can do."
"Useless—quite useless," said Rivers. "You may think that strange advice for a clergyman, but I do sometimes despair of others and occasionally of Mark Rivers. Goodnight."
During these days the fugitive floated down the swift little river at night, and at dawn hid his frail boat and himself in the forests of a thinly settled land. He was brave enough, but his ignorance of geography added to his persistent terror. On the third day the broader waters brought him to farms and houses. Then he left his boat and struck out across the country until he came to a railway. In the station he made out that it led to Philadelphia. Knowing that he would be safe there, he bought a ticket and arrived in the city the next day—a free man with money, intelligence, and an honest liking for steady work.
The Squire had the good habit of second thought. His wife knew it well and had often found it valuable and to be trusted. At present he was thoroughly disgusted with the consequences of what he knew to be in some degree the result of his own feeling that he was bound to care for the man whose tie to him was one few men would have considered as in any serious degree obligatory. The night brought good counsel, and he made up his mind next morning simply to let the foster-brother alone. Fate decreed otherwise. In the morning he was asked by his wife to go with her to the village; she wanted some advice. He did not ask what, but said, "Of course. I am to try the barber's assistant I have brought from the mills to shave me, and what is more important—Westways. I have put him in our poor old Josiah's shop."
They went together to Pole's, and returning she stopped before the barn-like building where Grace gathered on Sundays a scant audience to hear the sermons which Rivers had told him had too much heart and too little head.
"What is it?" asked Penhallow.
"I have heard, James, that their chapel (she never called it church) is leaking—the roof, I mean. Could not you pay for a new roof?"
"Of course, my dear—of course. It can't cost much. I will see Grace about it."
"Thank you, James." On no account would she now have done this herself. She was out of touch for the time with the whole business of politics, and to have indulged her usual gentle desire to help others would have implied obligation on the part of the Baptist to accept her wish that he should vote and use his influence for Buchanan. Now the thing would be done without her aid. In time her desire to see the Democrats win in the interest of her dear South would revive, but at present what with Grey and the threat of the practical application of the Fugitive-Slave Act and her husband's disgust, she was disposed to let politics alone.