Culm Rock Part 13

Was it any wonder that--with all this misery and death about him, and the sight of it distressing him--Noll should grow sick at heart? The gloom of the old stone house and the desolateness of his new home, when compared with the one which he had left, had, at first, been all that his fresh young spirits could bear; and, having grown to like his new abode in a measure, he found, even then, that it would not do to remember Hastings and his friends too often; and now, in these dreary days, the boy began to grow less cheerful and to feel an unconquerable desire to go back to those who loved him and whose homes knew nothing of dreariness or gloom. This longing for friends he kept bravely to himself, because he thought it was a part of his work--the work which it seemed to him was G.o.d's--to be as brave and cheerful as possible before Uncle Richard, and win him out of his gloom and moroseness. So this yearning and desire for brighter scenes and faces was kept a secret, and Trafford suspected nothing of it. His keen eyes, however, detected that Noll was graver and less talkative than usual, and he began to look about for a reason. Some dim knowledge of the sickness and death in the village had crept in to him through Noll's and Hagar's talk, and a sudden fear chilled him lest his nephew, too, was to be stricken down with the lingering fever. What if it should be so?

What if even now the boy was oppressed with the languor and depression which precedes illness? With this thought torturing him, he called to Noll one afternoon from the library window, as the boy was idly walking up and down the frozen sand. After a few minutes of waiting, Noll made his appearance at the library door, looking a little surprised, perhaps, at this unusual summons. Trafford bade him come up to his chair, and Noll obeyed.

"Where were you all the forenoon?" questioned the uncle. "I saw you but once after breakfast."

Noll looked as if he had much rather refrain from answering, but said, after a few seconds of hesitation, "Over at Culm, Uncle Richard."

"At Culm!" exclaimed Trafford, sternly. "Isn't the fever raging there?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you have been exposing yourself? Speak, Noll!"

"Why--yes--I suppose so, Uncle Richard. I was in the room where Hark Darby's little boy was sick."

Trafford stamped upon the floor with impatience. "What were you there for?" he cried.

"To carry something that Hagar made for it to drink. There's no doctor, you know; and they're terribly poor, Uncle Richard. Oh! if you could only--"

"Stop! I wish to hear naught of those fish-folks," cried Trafford.

"Oh! you careless lad, what can I do with you? Are you determined to catch the fever? Are you bound to be always in danger?"

"No; but it's terrible over there, and--and they're dying with the sickness, and nothing to make them comfortable! Oh! how can I help it, Uncle Richard?"

Trafford looked into the lad's earnest eyes and sighed. "Would you like to take the fever and be buried with the rest up there in the sand?" he asked.

Noll shivered a little, and answered, "No, I don't want to die, Uncle Richard. But I think I ought to help them all I can, over there, for all that. And it's such a little--such a _very_ little--that I can do!

Oh! Uncle Richard, don't you think it is terrible to see them so wretched, and no one to help them?"

"I don't see them!" said Trafford; "I should know nothing of it but for you, and I don't want you to see them or know aught of the misery or the sickness. Do you understand?"

Noll looked at his uncle as if he failed to comprehend.

"You don't mean that I'm not to go there any more?" he said.

"Yes, since you are not disposed to incline to my wishes, I must command you. You are not to go near--"

This time it was Noll who interrupted. Before Trafford could finish his command, the boy had taken two or three quick steps forward and clasped his arms so quickly and convulsively about the stern man's neck that he was startled into silence.

"Don't, don't say that, Uncle Richard!" cried Noll; "I couldn't mind you if you did! It wouldn't be right,--when they're all sick and almost starving,--and I couldn't do it, and it is not as papa told me to do! And--"

Trafford endeavored to release Noll's hold, but the boy only clung the tighter, exclaiming,--

"No, no! don't say it, Uncle Richard, for I couldn't mind you! Papa never would wish me to! And oh, why don't _you_ help those poor, dying people? Why don't you help them, Uncle Richard? Why don't you,--why _don't_ you?"

Surprised at this unusual vehemence on the part of his nephew, Trafford was silent, hardly knowing whether to be angry or indifferent. That this matter lay very near the boy's heart, he had no longer any doubt. What could he do with him?

"Noll," said he after a long silence, "do you mean that you will not obey me?"

The boy hesitated. "In everything else, Uncle Richard," he answered, with red cheeks and downcast eyes; "but this--but this--oh, how can you ask me to stop? There isn't any one else to do anything, and it helps a little, and they look for me to come every day; and if I did not--oh, Uncle Richard, it would be too cruel! I can't do it! Do _you_ think papa would be pleased?"

"But you are mine, now, not his," said Trafford; with something like displeasure in his tone; "aren't you aware of it?"

Noll said not a word, but stood with his eyes turned away from his uncle's, and his cheeks crimsoning, while his breath came quick and fast.

"Will you obey me or not?" Trafford asked, sternly.

Noll turned around and met his uncle's eye. He began to plead. His awe of his uncle seemed to have vanished for the time, and Trafford was astonished at the boy's earnestness and vehemence. Two or three times he was about to put up his hand to command silence, but Noll redoubled his pleading, and he continued to listen. All the remembrances of the past dreary weeks--the want, the slow wasting, the flickering out of life, the dismal laying away of the poor body in the sand--came to Noll as vividly as the reality which he had witnessed, and made him pray for relief with an earnestness and entreaty which ordinarily were not his.

"Just think, Uncle Richard," said he, in conclusion, "papa would have gone to their aid long ago. He bade me do all the good I could, and you won't forbid me?--oh, I know you will not!--and won't you help me to do more,--won't you, Uncle Richard?"

Trafford gloomily pushed his nephew away.

"Go!" he said; "I do not care to see you any more this afternoon."

Hardly had the boy turned away, however, before the quick thought flashed into his mind that he had failed to ask him the question for which he had called him. He might even now be ill, and he was sending him away in anger!

"Noll!" exclaimed Trafford, "come back. Are you ill, my boy?"

"No, sir."

"Why are you so grave and sober of late?"

"I didn't know that I was, Uncle Richard."

Trafford looked keenly in his nephew's face, and at last drew him toward himself. What if the fever should get a hold of the boy? he thought, anxiously. There was no aid, no succor!

"Oh, Noll," he said, as tenderly as he might, "you cannot know what a blow it would be to me to lose you. Won't you be careful for my sake?"

"Yes, Uncle Richard; I don't think there is much danger, though. It is only the weak, half-starved ones that are ill."

A long silence followed. Then Noll asked, softly,--

"Do you give me permission to help them all I can, Uncle Richard?"

Trafford drew a great sigh, as if he felt himself to be yielding, perhaps, the boy's very life, and answered, "Yes."

"And you'll help me, too?" said Noll, brightly.

"No! Isn't this enough? What more would you have?"

"I thought that--that perhaps you would help a little, too,--you can do so much more than I," said Noll.

Trafford shook his head, gloomily. "No," he said; "I can give you nothing but money. I have no heart for the work. And now I think of it, you've had no allowance since you came here, Noll. I had not thought of it before. Brother Noll and I always had spending-money."

"But I've no use for it," said Noll, with a little laugh; "I couldn't spend it if I tried, Uncle Richard!"

"You may find a use for it when the 'Gull' begins her trips again,"

said his uncle; "at any rate, you shall have an allowance. You will find it on your study table every Monday morning."