The old folks looked more puzzled than ever. “Do speak, Charles,” said Mr. Keene; “what does it all mean? Did you set my house on fire?”
“I’m afraid I must have had some hand in it, sir,” said Charles, whose self-possession seemed quite to have deserted him.
“You!” exclaimed Mr. Keene; “and I’ve been laying it to this man!”
“Yes! you know’d I owed you a spite, on account o’ that plaguy bee-tree,” said Ashburn; “a guilty conscience needs no accuser. But you was much mistaken if you thought I was sich a bloody-minded villain as to burn your gimcrackery for that! If I could have paid you for it, fair and even, I’d ha’ done it with all my heart and soul. But I don’t set men’s houses a-fire when I get mad at ’em.”
“But you threatened vengeance,” said Mr. Keene.
“So I did, but that was when I expected to get it by law, though; and this here young man knows that, if he’d only speak.”
Thus adjured, Charles did speak, and so much to the purpose that it did not take many minutes to convince Mr. Keene that Ashburn’s evil-mindedness was bounded by the limits of the law, that precious privilege of the Wolverine. But there was still the mystery of Charles’s apparition, and in order to its full unravelment, the blushing Clarissa had to be enticed from her hiding-place, and brought to confession. And then it was made clear that she, with all her innocent looks, was the moving cause of the mighty mischief. She it was who encouraged Charles to believe that her uncle’s anger would not last forever; and this had led Charles to venture into the neighbourhood; and it was while consulting together, (on this particular point, of course,) that they managed to set the kitchen curtain on fire.
These things occupied some time in explaining,—but they were at length, by the aid of words and more eloquent blushes, made so clear, that Mr. Keene concluded, not only to new roof the kitchen, but to add a very pretty wing to one side of the house. And at the present time, the steps of Charles Darwin, when he returns from a surveying tour, seek the little gate as naturally as if he had never lived anywhere else. And the sweet face of Clarissa is always there, ready to welcome him, though she still finds plenty of time to keep in order the complicated affairs of both uncle and aunt.
Mr. Keene has done his very best to atone for his injurious estimate of Wolverine honour, by giving constant employment to Ashburn and his sons, and owning himself always the obliged party, without which concession all he could do would avail nothing. And Mrs. Keene and Clarissa have been unwearied in their kind attentions to the family, supplying them with so many comforts that most of them have got rid of the ague, in spite of themselves. The house has assumed so cheerful an appearance that I could scarcely recognise it for the same squalid den it had often made my heart ache to look upon. As I was returning from my last visit there, I encountered Mr. Ashburn, and remarked to him how very comfortable they seemed.
“Yes,” he replied; “I’ve had pretty good luck lately; but I’m a goin’ to pull up stakes and move to Wisconsin. I think I can do better, further West.”