Adèle Dubois. Mrs. William T. Savage
room to attend to necessary business. Mrs. Dubois and Mrs. McNab went to fit up an apartment for the stranger.
In the mean time Mr. Norton and Adele were left with the invalid.
Mr. Brown's face had lost its pallid hue and was now overspread with the fiery glow of fever. He grew more and more restless in his sleep, until at length he opened his eyes wide and began to talk deliriously. At the first sound of his voice, Adèle started from her seat, expecting to hear some request from his lips.
Gazing at her wildly for a moment, he exclaimed, "What, you here, Agnes! you, travelling in this horrible wilderness! Where's your husband? Where's John, the brave boy? Don't bring them here to taunt me. Go away! Don't look at me!"
With an expression of terror on his countenance, he sank back upon the pillow and closed his eyes. Mr. Norton knelt down by the couch and made slow, soothing motions with his hand upon the hot and fevered head, until the sick man sank again into slumber. Seeing this, Adèle, who had been standing in mute bewilderment, came softly near and whispered, "He has been doing something wrong, has he not, sir?"
"I hope not", said the good man, "He is not himself now, and is not aware what he is saying. His fever causes his mind to wander".
"Yes, sir. But I think he is unhappy beside being sick. That sigh was so sorrowful!"
"It was sad enough", said Mr. Norton. After a pause, he continued, "I will stay by his bed and take care of him to-night".
"Ah! will you, sir?" said Adèle. "That is kind, but Aunt Patty, I know, will insist on taking charge of him. She thinks it her right to take care of all the sick people. But I don't wish her to stay with this gentleman to-night. If he talks again as he did just now, she will tell it all over the neighborhood".
At that moment, the door opened, and Mrs. McNab came waddling in, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Dubois.
"Now, Mr. Doobyce", said she, "if you and this pusson will just carry the patient up stairs, and place him on the bed, that's a' ye need do. I'll tak' care o' him".
"Permit me the privilege of watching by the gentleman's bed to-night", said Mr. Norton, turning to Mr. Dubois.
"By no means, sir", said his host; "you have had a long ride through the forest to-day and must be tired. Aunt Patty here prefers to take charge of him".
"Sir", said Mr. Norton, "I observed awhile ago, that his mind was quite wandering. He is greatly excited by fever, but I succeeded in quieting him once and perhaps may be able to do so again".
Here Mrs. McNab interposed in tones somewhat loud and irate.
"That's the way pussons fra' your country always talk. They think they can do everything better'n anybody else. What can a mon do at nussin', I wad ken?"
"Mr. Norton will nurse him well, I know. Let him take care of the gentleman, father", said Adèle.
"Hush, my dear", said Mr. Dubois, decidedly, "it is proper that Mrs. McNab take charge of Mr. Brown to-night".
Adèle made no reply, and only showed her vexation by casting a defiant look on the redoubtable aunt Patty, whose face was overspread with a grin of satisfaction at having carried her point.
Mr. Norton, of course, did not press his proposal farther, but consoled himself with the thought, that some future opportunity might occur, enabling him to fulfil his benevolent intentions.
A quieting powder was administered and Mrs. McNab established herself beside the fire that had been kindled in Mr. Brown's apartment.
After having indicated to Mr. Norton the bedroom he was to occupy for the night, the family retired, leaving him the only inmate of the room.
As he sat and watched the dying embers, he fell into a reverie concerning the events of the evening. His musings were of a somewhat perplexed nature. He was at a loss to account for the appearance of a gentleman, bearing unmistakable marks of refinement and wealth, as did Mr. Brown, under such circumstances, and in such a region as Miramichi. The words he had uttered in his delirium, added to the mystery. He was also puzzled about the family of Dubois. How came people of such culture and superiority in this dark portion of the earth? How strange, that they had lived here so many years, without assimilating to the common herd around them.
Thus his mind, excited by what had recently occurred, wandered on, until at length his thoughts fell into their accustomed channel—dwelling on his own mission to this benighted land, and framing various schemes by which he might accomplish the object so dear to his heart.
In the mean time, having turned his face partially aside from the fire, he was watching unconsciously the fitful gleaming of a light cast on the opposite wall by the occasional flaring up of a tongue of flame from the dying embers.
Suddenly he heard a deep, whirring sound as if the springs of some complicated machinery had just then been set in motion.
Looking around to find whence the noise proceeded, he was rather startled on observing in the wall, in one corner, just under the ceiling, a tiny door fly open, and emerging thence a grotesque, miniature man, holding, uplifted in his hand, a hammer of size proportionate to his own figure. Mr. Norton sat motionless, while this small specimen proceeded, with a jerky gait and many bobbing grimaces, across a wire stretched to the opposite corner of the room, where stood a tall, ebony clock. When within a short distance of the clock another tiny door in its side flew open; the little man entered and struck deliberately with the hammer the hour of midnight. Near the top of the dial-plate was seen from without the regular uplifting of the little arm, applying its stroke to the bell within. Having performed his duty, this personage jerked out of the clock, the tiny door closing behind him, bobbed and jerked along the wire as before, and disappeared at the door in the wall, which also immediately closed after his exit.
Having witnessed the whole manœuvre with comic wonder and curiosity, Mr. Norton burst into a loud and hearty peal of laughter, that was still resounding in the room when he became suddenly aware of the presence of Mrs. McNab. There she stood in the centre of the apartment, her firm, square figure apparently rooted to the floor, her head enveloped in innumerable folds of white cotton, a tower of strength and defiance.
Her unexpected appearance changed in a moment the mood of the good man, and he inquired anxiously, "Is the gentleman more ill? Can I assist you?"
"He's just this minnut closed his eyes to sleep, and naw I expect he's wide awake again, with the dreadfu' racket you were just a makin' O! my! wadna you hae made a good nuss?"
Mr. Norton truly grieved at his inadvertency in disturbing the household at this late hour of the night, begged pardon, and told Mrs. McNab he would not be guilty of a like offence.
"How has the gentleman been during the evening?" he asked.
"O! he's been ravin' crazy a'maist, and obstacled everything I've done for him. He's a very sick pusson naw. I cam' down to get a bottle of muddeson", and Mrs. McNab went to a closet and took from it the identical bottle of brandy from which Mrs. Dubois had poured when preparing the stimulating dose for the invalid. Mr. Norton observed this performance with a twinkle of the eye, but making no comment, the worthy woman retired from the room.
That night Mr. Norton slept indifferently, being disturbed by exciting and bewildering dreams. In his slumbers he saw an immense cathedral, lighted only by what seemed some great conflagration without, which, glaring in, with horrid, crimson hue upon the pictured walls, gave the place the strange, lurid aspect of Pandemonium. The effect was heightened by the appearance of thousands of small, grotesque beings, all bearing more or less resemblance to the little man of the clock, who were flying and bobbing, jerking and grinning through the air, beneath the great vault, as if madly revelling in the scene. Yet the good man all the while had a vague sense of some awful, impending calamity, which increased as he wandered around in great perplexity, exploring the countenances of the various groups scattered over the place.
Once he stumbled over a dead body and found it the corpse of the invalid in the room above. He seemed to himself to be lifting it carefully,