MR. CLEMENT LINDSAY FINISHES HIS LETTER--WHAT CAME OF IT.
The first thing Clement Lindsay did, when he was fairly himself again, was to finish his letter to Susan Posey. He took it up where it left off, "with an affection which " and drew a long dash, as above. It was with great effort he wrote the lines which follow, for he had got an ugly blow on the forehead, and his eyes were "in mourning," as the gentlemen of the ring say, with unbecoming levity.
"An adventure! Just as I was writing these last words, I heard the cry of a young person, as it sounded, for help. I ran to the river and jumped in, and had the pleasure of saving a life. I got some bruises which have laid me up for a day or two; but I am getting over them very well now, and you need not worry about me at all. I will write again soon; so pray do not fret yourself, for I have had no hurt that will trouble me for any time."Of course, poor Susan Posey burst out crying, and cried as if her heart would break. Oh dear! Oh dear! what should she do! He was almost killed, she knew he was, or he had broken some of his bones.
Oh dear! Oh dear! She would go and see him, there!--she must and would. He would die, she knew he would,--and so on.
It was a singular testimony to the evident presence of a human element in Mr. Bytes Gridley that the poor girl, on her extreme trouble, should think of him as a counsellor. But the wonderful relenting kind of look on his grave features as he watched the little twins tumbling about his great books, and certain marks of real sympathy he had sometimes shown for her in her lesser woes, encouraged her, and she went straight to his study, letter in hand.
She gave a timid knock at the door of that awful sanctuary.
"Come in, Susan Posey," was its answer, in a pleasant tone. The old master knew her light step and the maidenly touch of her small hand on the panel.
What a sight! 'there were Sossy and Minthy intrenched in a Sebastopol which must have cost a good half-hour's engineering, and the terrible Bytes Gridley besieging the fortress with hostile manifestations of the most singular character. He was actually discharging a large sugar-plum at the postern gate, which having been left unclosed, the missile would certainly have reached one of the garrison, when he paused as the door opened, and the great round spectacles and four wide, staring infants' eyes were levelled at Miss Susan Posey.
She almost forgot her errand, grave as it was, in astonishment at this manifestation. The old man had emptied his shelves of half their folios to build up the fort, in the midst of which he had seated the two delighted and uproarious babes. There was his Cave's "Historia Literaria," and Sir Walter Raleigh's "History of the World," and a whole array of Christian Fathers, and Plato, and Aristotle, and Stanley's book of Philosophers, with Effigies, and the Junta Galen, and the Hippocrates of Foesius, and Walton's Polyglot, supported by Father Sanchez on one side and Fox's "Acts and Monuments" on the other,--an odd collection, as folios from lower shelves are apt to be.
The besieger discharged his sugar-plum, which was so well aimed that it fell directly into the lap of Minthy, who acted with it as if the garrison had been on short rations for some time.
He saw at once, on looking up, that there was trouble. "What now, Susan Posey, my dear?""O Mr. Gridley, I am in such trouble! What shall I do? What shall Ido?"
She turned back the name and the bottom of the letter in such a way that Mr. Gridley could read nothing but the few lines relating their adventure.
"So Mr. Clement Lindsay has been saving a life, has he, and got some hard knocks doing it, hey, Susan Posey? Well, well, Clement Lindsay is a brave fellow, and there is no need of hiding his name, my child.
Let me take the letter again a moment, Susan Posey. What is the date of it? June 16th. Yes,--yes,--yes!"He read the paragraph over again, and the signature too, if he wanted to; for poor Susan had found that her secret was hardly opaque to those round spectacles and the eyes behind them, and, with a not unbecoming blush, opened the fold of the letter before she handed it back.
"No, no, Susan Posey. He will come all right. His writing is steady, and if he had broken any bones he would have mentioned it.
It's a thing his wife will be proud of, if he is ever married, Susan Posey," (blushes,) "and his children too," (more blushes running up to her back hair,) "and there 's nothing to be worried about. But I'll tell you what, my dear, I've got a little business that calls me down the river tomorrow, and I shouldn't mind stopping an hour at Alderbank and seeing how our young friend Clement Lindsay is; and then, if he was going to have a long time of it, why we could manage it somehow that any friend who had any special interest in him could visit him, just to while away the tiresomeness of being sick. That's it, exactly. I'll stop at Alderbank, Susan Posey. Just clear up these two children for me, will you, my dear? Isosceles, come now,--that 's a good child. Helminthia, carry these sugar-plums down--stairs for me, and take good care of them, mind!"It was a case of gross bribery and corruption, for the fortress was immediately, evacuated on the receipt of a large paper of red and white comfits, and the garrison marched down--stairs much like conquerors, under the lead of the young lady, who was greatly eased in mind by the kind words and the promise of Mr. Byles Gridley.
But he, in the mean time, was busy with thoughts she did not suspect.
"A young person," he said to himself,--"why a young person? Why not say a boy, if it was a boy? What if this should be our handsome truant?--'June 16th, Thursday morning!'--About time to get to Alderbank by the river, I should think. None of the boats missing?
What then? She may have made a raft, or picked up some stray skiff.
