is arms, and laid her on the
sofa. Helen only stayed to lead the old horse into the barn, and
directly afterward was blowing up the blaze in the parlor, and calling
the delinquents to account. They had driven into Orton Wood, Frederick
said, and there the chaise broke down; and it being in an open space, he
had kindled a great fire to keep his mother warm, while he tied the
springs up as he might, which it took a weary while to do, and he had
brought home a chaiseful of fagots that nobody owned, and was cherishing
visions of future predatory excursions in the same direction.
Immediately as he said it, wheeling his mother's sofa up to the hearth
and rubbing his hands before it, a little occurrence took place that
rendered his invaluable chaiseful of fagots of a moment ago the mere
chips of this one, for it had changed the earth under all their feet.
Margaret was just coming in at the door; Master Tommy, hearing the
incoming and voices and confusion, and desiring to make a part of it,
called out from his den, "'Elen! let me out, let me out, I say. W-a-wa,
t-e-r, water. You know the Docker said I needed plenty of fresh air.
'Elen! let me out,--the Docker said I was a pecoolar child and needed
pecoolar treatment!" And before any one could reach him, the belligerent
boy gave the old door such an astonishing series of kicks and thrusts,
that the lock broke from its mouldering frame; the worn floor shook and
creaked; a bit of the plastering dropped from above; the door and Tommy
fell out together; and the old portrait of the pale proud lady started,
and trembled, and pitched downward, caught and split from end to end
upon the handle of the great steel poker. And suddenly, with a wild
exclamation of inextinguishable certainty and exultation, Helen held up
her apron to catch what came rattling and ringing and racing and
jingling, as they tumbled down together into it, and danced a measure
over the floor with the naughty nuns of the broken rosary-beads that
they surprised in their mad escape from the bondage of a hundred years.
The pale and languid mother started up, resting eagerly on her elbow;
Margaret fell upon the floor, catching up the guineas and doubloons as
if she were crazy, and kissing them in a transport; Tommy began to
discover what his pockets were made for, straightway. Meanwhile
Frederick sprung upon a chair and went to pulling out the thready
remnants of the decaying bags in which the gold had been enclosed; Helen