“Oh,” she said, “it's only from Mr. Lowndes. I wonder what he wishes now.”
Every moment of her reading was for me an agony, and she read slowly. The last words she spoke aloud:—
“'If you do not wish the lad, send him to me, as Kate is very fond of him.' So Kate is very fond of him,” she repeated. And handing the letter to Mr. Mason, she added, “Tell him, Parson.”
The words burned into my soul and seared it. And to this day I tremble with anger as I think of them. The scene comes before me: the sky, the darkened portico, and Nicholas running after his mother crying: “Oh, mamma, how could you! How could you!”
Mr. Mason bent over me in compassion, and smoothed my hair.
“David,” said he, in a thick voice, “you are a brave boy, David. You will need all your courage now, my son. May God keep your nature sweet!”
He led me gently into the arbor and told me how, under Captain Baskin, the detachment had been ambushed by the Cherokees; and how my father, with Ensign Calhoun and another, had been killed, fighting bravely. The rest of the company had cut their way through and reached the settlements after terrible hardships.
I was left an orphan.
I shall not dwell here on the bitterness of those moments. We have all known sorrows in our lives,—great sorrows. The clergyman was a wise man, and did not strive to comfort me with words. But he sat there under the leaves with his arm about me until a blinding bolt split the blackness of the sky and the thunder rent our ears, and a Caribbean storm broke over Temple Bow with all the fury of the tropics. Then he led me through the drenching rain into the house, nor heeded the wet himself on his Sunday coat.
A great anger stayed me in my sorrow. I would no longer tarry under Mrs. Temple's roof, though the world without were a sea or a desert. The one resolution to escape rose stronger and stronger within me, and I determined neither to eat nor sleep until I had got away. The thought of leaving Nick was heavy indeed; and when he ran to me in the dark hall and threw his arms around me, it needed all my strength to keep from crying aloud.