FullReads

“I’ve news,” said Joe; “want it?”

“Yes.”

Joe Downs opened his pocket, and, by the light of the moon, found the letter he had referred to.

“Dr. Gale told me not to fail to put this into your hands as I came by. I should kind o’ judge, by the way he spoke, that the continent couldn’t get along very well ‘thout you, if I hadn’t known a thing or two. Howsomever, here’s the letter, and I’ve to jog on to Guilford afore the moon goes down. So good-night.”

“Good night, Joe. Thank you for stopping,” said David, going into the house.

“Were you expecting that letter, David?” questioned Mr. Bushnell, when it had been read.

“No, sir. It is from Dr. Gale. He asks me to hasten matters as far as possible, but a new contrivance will have to go in before I am ready.”

“There! That’s what troubles him,” thought both Mrs. Bushnell and Ezra, and they exchanged glances of sympathy and satisfaction–and the little household went to sleep, quite care-free that night.

At two of the clock, with nearly noiseless tread, David Bushnell left the house.

As the door closed his mother moved uneasily in her sleep, and awoke with the sudden consciousness that something uncanny had happened. She looked from a window and saw, by the light of a low-lying moon, that David had gone out.

Without awakening her husband she protected herself with needful clothing, and, wrapped about in one of the curious plaid blankets of mingled blue and white, adorned with white fringe, that are yet to be found in the land, she followed into the night.

Save for the sleepy tinkle of the water over the stones in the Pochaug River, and an occasional cry of a night-bird still lingering by the sea, the air was very still.

With light tread across the bridge she ran a little way, and then ventured a timid cry of her own into the night:

“David! David!”

Now David Bushnell hoped to escape without awakening his mother. He was lingering near, to learn whether his going had disturbed anyone, and he was quite prepared for the call.

Turning back to meet her he thought: ” What a mother mine is.” And he said, “Well, mother, what is it? I was afraid I might disturb you.”

“O David!” was all that she could utter in response.

“And so you are troubled about me, are you? I’m only going to chase the will-o’-the-wisp a little while, and I could not do it, you know, until moon-down.”

” O David!” and this time with emphatic pressure on his arm, “David, come home. I can’t let you go off alone.”

“Come with me, then. You’re well blanketed, I see. I’d much rather have some one with me, only Ezra was tired and sleepy.”

He said this with so much of his accustomed manner that Mrs. Bushnell put her hand within his arm and went on, quite content now, and willing that he should speak when it pleased him to do so, and it pleased him very soon.

“Little mother,” he said, “I am afraid you are losing faith in me.”

“Never! David; only–I was a little afraid that you were losing your own head, or faith in yourself.”

“No; but I am afraid I’ve lost my faith in something else. I showed you the two bits of fox-fire that were crossed on one end of the needle in the compass, and the one bit made fast to the other? Well, to-day, when I went to the bottom of the river, the fox-fire gave no light, and the compass was useless. Can you understand how bad that would be under an enemy’s ship, not to know in which direction to navigate?”

“You must have fresh fire, then.”

” That is just what I am out for to-night. I had to wait till the moon was gone.”