“And I never see the beat of the way he stuck to it, and never slep’ nights! He went horseback through the woods and through terrible rough roads, where the wagon couldn’t go. But that ain’t the strangest part!”
Hiram had gallantly assisted his bride to alight, and she stood now with us beside the old horse, and lowered her voice to a mysterious whisper.
“Mr. Horace hain’t got home yet, has he? We come acrost him, too, at a hotel, and if he wa’n’t lookin’ for Alf Reeder, too! We’d got the old horse then, least way Mr. Carruthers had. He come leadin’ him into the door-yard, while we was standin’ on the porch, and I see Mr. Horace knew him the minute he clapped eyes onto him. And it ’peared to me there wa’n’t nothin’ to do but jest to face the music.
“‘I know it’s old Lucifer,’ says I. ‘He belongs to Mr. David,’ says I, ‘and I’ve come a-purpose to carry him home.’ And then I hadn’t no time to think of what I should say, but something made me real bold! ‘When there’s somethin’ that a sick boy has got his heart on,’ says I, ‘why, there ain’t anything that’ll cure him but jest that thing, and it’s cruelty to keep it from him,’ says I. Now I felt as if the earth would open and swallow me up after I’d said that to Mr. Pa’tridge himself! But what do you think he done?—him that never was one to be free with hired help! He came right up to me and held out his hand for me to shake. And ‘God bless you!’ says he, with his great, strong voice a-shakin’. Mr. Horace that never was a professor!
“‘I guess I’ve been a hard man without realizin’ it, Loveday,’ says he. ‘I heard the truth about myself from some of your young people down in the shipyard one day, and I guess, mebbe, it has fetched me to a better mind,’ says he. ‘I come after the horse myself,’ says he, ‘but you’ve got the start of me.’ Now, wouldn’t you most think he’d really met with a change?”
Dave set out for Uncle Horace’s with the old horse after it had been fed and rubbed down, and on the orchard slope I saw him met by the tall gaunt figure that there was no mistaking. After a little parley, Dave put the bridle rein into Uncle Horace’s hand, and turned back.
“I thought it would be better that his father should take the horse to Rob,” he explained to me when I went to meet him.
But I knew he had denied himself a great pleasure. It is seldom that a boy has tact like that!
And I must tell him about Cyrus and Alice Yorke! Was any one ever so tormented as I by a divided heart? Now I felt almost resentful against Cyrus.
“Things have turned out so beautifully, haven’t they, Dave?” I stammered; “all but——” oh, if I only had a little tact! “O, Dave, do you care?” I blurted out.