Chapter XVIII: The Rescued Wanderer

“At dawn a traveller passed that way.”

Long before light that morning, Farmer Fieldhurst and his son John arose and put the oxen to the wagon that had been loaded the night previous with turkeys, geese and chickens, to go to the Bell Haven market.

After drinking a couple of large bowls of strong coffee, and eating a great pone of corn-bread, with a proportionate quantity of middling rashers and fried eggs, the worthy farmer and his son wrapped themselves up in their great, dreadnought overcoats, pulled their fox-skin caps down over their foreheads, wound thick, woollen scarfs around their throats, drew on their oxhide over-boots and coonskin gloves, mounted the wagon, and grumbling greatly at the weather, drove off. With difficulty they got through the farm-gate and out upon the open road, where a colloquy ensued as to whether it were possible to proceed.

“I say, Johnny, I don’t think we can go on,” said Mr. Fieldhurst, pausing, and squinting down at the obstructed road, obscurely seen by the faint light of dawning day.

“Yes, but dad,” said John, who rather liked the fun of struggling through the snow-drifts—and who knew, besides, what argument was most likely to influence his father—“dad, you know if we _can_ manage to struggle through and get to market, why there’ll be so few of the country people in that we can get any price we like for our poultry.”

“That’s _so_,” said the farmer, reflectively; “but the roads are—very bad—drifts heavy.”

“Yes, dad, but the _load_ is light and the _beasts_ strong.”

“_That’s_ so, too, Johnny—and—I don’t know as this storm is going to last above a half hour longer. I reckon we’ll try to get on, and if we can’t, why we can but turn back after all. Come up there, Taurus! Whoa!—hoy!” and cheering his beasts of burthen, the farmer drove on until they reached, at a quarter of a mile distant, the gate that led from the country road into the turnpike.

“Get down, Jack, and open the gate.”

The boy obeyed, and pushed with all his strength.

“Well! what’s the matter?”

“There’s something agin it—a log or a sheep, or some thing in the snow,” said the boy, pushing the gate a little way open and squeezing himself through the aperture, and proceeding to kick and push at the obstructing object.

“Well!” said the farmer, impatiently.

“Lors alive, dad!” exclaimed the boy, retreating in a panic.

“What’s it?”

“It’s—it’s a woman!”

“No!” exclaimed the farmer, jumping off his seat and hurrying through the gate.

“It _is_ though, and—dead!”

The farmer stooped and cleared away the remaining snow, and raised the fragile form in his powerful arms, exclaiming—

“Lord of heaven, it is a woman, sure enough! a woman perished in the snow here, almost at our very gates!”

“What on the yeth could have fotch her out so early in such weather, dad?” inquired John, in an awe-struck voice, cautiously approaching.

“I—don’t—know. It’s—hard—telling. Nothink oughten’t to,” said the farmer, still holding the lifeless form as if it had been that of an infant in his great arms, and peering down to examine and see if he could recognize her features.

“Who is she, dad?”

“I—can’t—tell. I thought she looked a little like Mary Jones; but ’taint her. One thing’s sartain, John. We can’t go on now. Go roll the load in the wagon level as you can, and spread the sheepskins over them. We must put her on it and take her to the house, to rouse her if she’s alive, and to send for the crowner and give her Christian burial if she is dead,” said the farmer.

They placed her tenderly in the wagon, and then with a great deal of pulling and tugging and calling, succeeded in turning the oxens’ heads towards home. The eastern sky was red with the coming sun when the wagon once more drove into the farm-yard.

“There! I said you’d never be able to get along,” said the farmer’s wife, who saw them from the open door of the kitchen. “Lord alive! what is that your father’s got?” she asked of John, who, followed by the farmer with the lifeless body, entered the kitchen.

“It is a poor girl, whom we found in the snow at the outer-road gate,” answered Mr. Fieldhurst, sitting down in the chair, and turning back the hood and exposing the face of Adelaide Deville.

“Dead?” asked the wife, approaching and gazing in horror upon the still, white, cold face.

“Dead or swound. Do you know her?”

“Not a bit of her—I never saw her before! Who is she? how came she to fall in the snow? where did you pick her up? was that what brought you back?” these and other questions, Mrs. Fieldhurst asked in breathless haste, and Mr. Fieldhurst answered in hurry and impatience, saying at last—

“But good gracious, Marthy, if she is not dead are you going to let her die without an effort to save her?”

“No, no, not for the world! only I was so taken aback! Here! Mary! Susan! Jane! come here all of you!”

Three blooming country girls ran out from an adjoining chamber, and on seeing the apparently dead girl in their father’s arms, were about to open their mouths in astonishment, when their mother arrested them by saying:

“There now! ask no questions! I have lost time enough already. Run, Mary, and prepare the bed in the other room, and then put coals in the warming-pan and warm it well. Go, Jane, and bring down a suit of my flannel underclothes and a nightgown. Susan, take some brandy and sugar and spice, with a little hot water, and make a warm cordial. Father, you and John had better go and leave us alone.”

All the directions of the housewife were promptly obeyed.

A large double blanket was laid upon the carpet before the fire, and the fair patient placed upon it, undressed and rubbed briskly by the diligent hand of the farmer’s wife.

“She is a young lady of high rank, mother, for all her coarse, gray cloak and hood! Only look at this beautiful skirt! thick, soft, blue satin, quilted as fine as the finest Marseilles—and see this upper skirt, the finest cambric, embroidered half way up to the waist. And oh! see this linen, how delicately made! real linen-cambric, fine as a cobweb, and trimmed with real thread-lace!” said Jane, in rustic wonder and admiration, as she examined article by article of the wet clothing before hanging them to the fire to dry.

“And see the soft, thick silk-stockings, mother, and the little black satin-boots, with their high, white heels! Oh, how tiny and how pretty! _these_ never came from hereabouts! that I know; but Lors! they are quite spoiled now!” said Jane, trying to pull them into shape as she set them on the hearth to dry.

In rubbing and chafing the hands of the invalid, Mrs. Fieldhurst had noticed a diamond ring, that, even to her inexperienced eyes, appeared a jewel of inestimable value. And all this, so at variance with the personal habits of the wives and daughters of even the very wealthiest farmers around, filled her mind with vague conjectures. These did not prevent her from working with zeal for the restoration of her patient. Soon the fair form was re-clothed in warm, dry raiment, and laid in the comfortable bed. Then the friction was continued, and at last their efforts were rewarded with success. The white chest heaved, the fair throat throbbed, the lips trembled, closed, and gasped with the first returning breath, the snowy eyelids quivered and flew up, and the mild, mournful blue eyes looked in amazement upon the strange scene.

Mrs. Fieldhurst put a spoonful of the spiced cordial to her lips. She swallowed it mechanically, and revived by its stimulating qualities, looked around again in perplexity, and fixing her eyes in wonder upon the face of her hostess, inquired:

“What place is this? How came I here?”

“You are at John Fieldhurst’s farm, and now you must drink the rest of this and lie still, and be covered up warm to get into a sweat, and go to sleep if you can. Then, when you wake up, you shall have a warm, nourishing breakfast,” said the farmer’s wife, lifting the invalid’s head with one hand, and putting the cordial to her pale lips with the other.

Adelaide, from the mere habit of obedience, drank the prescribed restorative, and in her feeble state, overcome by its fumes, sank back upon her pillow, and before she had time to recollect or understand her real position, she fell into a deep, healthful, restoring sleep.

“I have always took notice that it isn’t good to watch a sleeper,” said Mrs. Fieldhurst. And she arose and closed the blinds, and shut up the room, and left her patient alone to repose.

“Have you made out who she is?” asked the farmer, who was warming his feet at the kitchen fire.

“No; she has scarcely come to her right mind yet; she’s dead asleep. She’ll tell us when she wakes, I reckon.”

“There’s A. D. marked on her linen, mother.”

“‘A. D.’—let’s see,” said the farmer’s wife, reflecting. “There’s Alice Diggs, Colonel Diggs’s youngest daughter—’taint her, I know. And there’s Anne Dawson, Mr. Plater’s overseer’s sister.”

“Dear, mother—big Anne Dawson?”

“Then there’s Abigail Drew.”

“Lord, mother, we know all them!”

“Then they are all the A. D.’s I can think of; anyways she’ll tell us who she is when she wakes,” said the farmer’s wife.

Now they had all heard the name of Lady Adelaide Deville, but so far was she removed from their sphere of thought as well as from their neighborhood, and so unlikely was she to be placed in the circumstances of their rescued wanderer, that neither her name or existence now occurred to them.

“One thing I do not like about her,” said the worthy housewife, “that is, all her clothes under her cloak and hood are much too fine. I don’t like to see an unprotected young female wear purple and fine linen and costly jewelry, like the woman of Babylon.”

While thus they freely conversed, their unfortunate guest, insensible of all her troubles, slept on in peace. She slept the sleep of deep exhaustion, consequently it was late when she awoke. Oh, what a different awakening to that of a few hours preceding, when she opened her unconscious eyes to close them soon in sleep. Now, with her awakening came first a vague but deep impression of some profound calamity, a heavy weight that could not be thrown from her heart. Then, with a slight effort of memory, and with a keen pang, came the full tide of consciousness. She remembered when and why she had left her home, how long she had wandered through the midnight, and when she had fallen and become insensible. She recollected opening her eyes a few hours before in this very bedchamber, where she could readily judge she had been brought by the kind-hearted people who had chanced to find her before her life became extinct. All this she knew, or judged, or recollected. There was, therefore, no occasion for her to ask questions. But how should she answer the questions that should be put to her?

Alas, with her breaking heart, she cared not how! she cared only to save the name of Deville from discreditable gossip, and she resolved to conceal her identity, and as soon as possible to leave her present place of shelter. She was in no haste to be disturbed by the presence of others. She would have liked to be alone until she could die. So she lay with her arms clasped above her head, quite still for many heavy minutes—and until the chamber door was softly opened and the farmer’s wife crept cautiously to the bedside and looked over her. Now, much as Adelaide wished to be left alone, she was incapable of even a tacit deception for that purpose, so opening her eyes, she said—

“I was not asleep.”

“How are you, then?” inquired her hostess, sitting down beside her.

“Well enough, I thank you.”

“Indeed! I am very glad you think so! You—you do not look very well!” said Mrs. Fieldhurst. Then going to the door she called to one of the young girls in the kitchen, and said—

“Susan, broil the breast of that chicken; make a round of toast and a cup of good tea, and bring it in here—quick.”

Then going back to her patient and seating herself beside the bed, she said—

“Poor girl! how came you to be out at that time of the morning in the snow-storm?”

“I had been out all night,” answered Adelaide.

“All night! powers above! how did that happen, child?”

“My kind friend,” said Adelaide, very gently, “you see in me a poor, unfortunate girl who can give no account of herself.”

The face of the honest wife and mother clouded.

“You have been _very_ kind to me; be kinder still by letting me depart unquestioned, and I shall always pray God to reward you.”

“She talks of _praying_—but then they _all_ do _that_ when it suits them,” thought Mrs. Fieldhurst, looking at her fair young guest and feeling completely confused and dumbfoundered by words at once so frank and so reserved. At length, recovering her speech, she said—

“Oh, if you make a _mystery_ of it, I have done, of course.”

“You are offended, my kind hostess. I am very sorry for it.”

“No, I am not offended, but I do think after all we have done for—well! never mind, I did not mean that, either.”

“You were about to say that after _all_ you had done for me, it was ungrateful in me not to confide in you. My kind friend, it is because I must not do so! There are many mysteries that nothing but the light of another world will make clear. This must remain one of them. Do not be displeased, but after I shall have left your house, remember me only as a poor, wandering child, whom you have saved from death.”

“I am not displeased.—There, Susan, I will take the waiter; you need not come in here. No, I am not displeased, but I think that I shall wait on you myself instead of letting my daughters do so,” said the worthy but severe matron, as she brought the waiter of refreshments to her patient. Now, Adelaide did not in the least understand the drift of these words. Her perfect innocence was armor of proof, from which the cruel arrows rebounded.

To please her hostess rather than to benefit herself, she partook slightly of the viands set before her, and then thanking Mrs. Fieldhurst, she said she believed that she would try to rise.

“Why?”

“To proceed on my journey.”

“You are clean crazy. It is almost night now, and though the storm is over, yet the roads are impassible, even to my old man’s team; what must they be to you?”

“I do not know; but I must attempt it.”

“Young girl, I’m afraid you could not give a very good account of yourself if you tried; but one thing certain, unless you’re perfectly desperate, and want to make way with yourself, you will not take the road to-night.”

“No—nothing on earth would drive me to wanton suicide,” said Adelaide, but with a tone and manner that caused the farmer’s wife to answer:

“But let me tell you, young girl, that people who expose themselves to death _on purpose_, as may be _you_ did last night, are just as sinful as those that put a rope around their own necks or swallow poison.”

Adelaide turned paler than before as she mused—

“I never thought of that. I would not do any thing wrong. God help me, is _that_ way of escape closed up too! Lord pity me! Lord help me! Oh! what shall I do! Oh! what shall I do! how long must I bear this heart, throbbing and burning and aching, and finding no ease at last!”

She clasped her hands upon her forehead and remained in silent anguish so long that the farmer’s wife, in a kinder tone, said to her—

“I cannot think of letting you leave us, child, until the weather is settled and the roads in good order, and that will not be for several days yet.”

“I will not go to-night, if you think I had better stay,” said Adelaide, humbly.

“Very well. I am glad you consent. And though _I_ did say I would not let the girls come in, to wait on you, yet I will do everything I can myself.”

“But why not let the girls come in?” asked the innocent and unsuspicious maiden.

“Why not? humph! well I should think you might guess why not!”

“I have no contagious fever—have I?” inquired Adelaide, in perplexity.

“Not as I know of; but there be worse than catching fevers!”

“What _do_ you mean?”

“Well, there, I reckon we won’t say any thing more about it—but young gals do not wander about all night in a storm alone, and try to get themselves frozen to death, for nothing!”

“Do pray explain yourself,” said Adelaide.

“Well, now, enough said! You be either the cunningest or innocentest creetur I ever saw in my life! If you _don’t_ know what I mean, it would be a pity to tell you; and if you _do_, it would be no use—there! Make yourself easy,” and taking up the waiter, the farmer’s wife returned to the kitchen.

The girls had supper prepared and the table set, and their father and brother were waiting for their evening-meal.

Mrs. Fieldhurst took her place at the head of the table, and her numerous family gathered around the board.

“Well! what do you make of our _find_ now?” asked Mr. Fieldhurst.

“I cannot make any thing at all of her,” answered his wife, who thereupon begun and related the substance of the interview that had just taken place between herself and Adelaide.

To this the young women listened with the deepest interest, the farmer and his son with curiosity.

“Well, I’ll tell you what it is, mother,” said Mr. Fieldhurst, “_I_ do not think she is a bad one, because you see if she _was_, she need not displease you by reserve when she could so easily trump up a fair story to account for being out in the storm at night. So, until we find her out to be guilty, let us take it for granted that she is innocent.”

“I think so too,” said John.

And so said the girls.

“You are not asked to think any thing about the young tramper,” sharply exclaimed their mother.

The farmer arose from the table, took his pipe, filled and lighted it, and sat down in the chimney-corner to smoke.

John took down his fowling-piece and established himself in the other corner to clean the barrel.

The mother and her daughters busied themselves with washing up the supper-service, clearing away the table and restoring the room to order.

After which they took their knitting-work and sat down to knit, until the farmer had finished his pipe.

Then they gathered together and offered up family-worship. In his prayers, the father of this household remembered the wayfarer that had been so strangely cast upon their care.

Then they separated for the night.

The next morning the farmer’s family arose early, that the farmer and his son might breakfast by times, and once more try the road to market.

For an hour or more they were all very busy until Mr. Fieldhurst and John were fairly started. Then Mrs. Fieldhurst began to think of her guest. She bade Susan make up some delicate butter-cakes, and broil a nice slice of ham, and set fresh tea to draw, while she herself carried water in to their patient.

And so saying, she filled a ewer and opened the door of the inner room. To her surprise, she found both the bed and the room empty. Her clothing that she had lent to the young girl was folded neatly, and laid upon a chair. Adelaide’s own garments, that had been hanging on a wooden rack, were gone.

While Mrs. Fieldhurst was looking around in astonishment, she descried a little note stuck in the corner of the looking-glass. She took it down, opened it and read these lines written in pencil—

“Good friends: to avoid altercation and to relieve you from embarrassment I depart quietly. Last night I heard you in your evening devotions praying ‘for one in bitter need.’ For that and all your kindness to the poor wanderer may God bless you.”

“Left the house, I do declare!” exclaimed the farmer’s wife in consternation. Her next thought was cruelly unjust:

“Susan, Mary, Jane, the tramper has run off, without letting anybody know when she was going! run in all of you and help me to look over the press and the chest of drawers to see if there is nothing missing.”

With many exclamations of astonishment, the girls hurried in and assisted in the search.

It is needless to say that all was found safe.