“It’s true, isn’t it, my son?”

Harry hugged him the tighter in answer.

“And you are home for good?”

Again the pressure.  “Yes, but don’t talk, you must go to sleep.  I won’t leave you.”  His own tears were choking him now.

Then, after a long pause, releasing his grasp:  “I did not know how weak I was. ...  Maybe I had better not talk. ...  Don’t stay.  Come to-morrow and tell me about it. ...  There is no bed for you here ...  I am sorry ... but you must go away—­you couldn’t be comfortable. ...  Todd—­”

The darky started forward—­both he and Aunt Jemima were crying: 

“Yes, Marse George.”

“Take the lamp and light Mr. Rutter downstairs.  To-morrow—­to-morrow, Harry. ...  My God—­think of it!—­Harry home!  Harry home!  My Harry home!” and he turned his face to the wall.

On the way back—­first to the stable, where he found that the horse had been properly cared for and his bill ready and then to his lodgings,—­Todd told him the story of what had happened:  At first his master had firmly intended going to the Eastern Shore—­and for a long stay—­for he had ordered his own and Todd’s trunks packed with everything they both owned in the way of clothes.  On the next day, however—­the day before the boat left—­Mr. Temple had made a visit to Jemima to bid her good-by, where he learned that her white lodger had decamped between suns, leaving two months board unpaid.  In the effort to find this man, or compel his employer to pay his bill, out of some wages still due him—­in both of which he failed—­his master had missed the boat and they were obliged to wait another week.  During this interim, not wishing to return to Pawson, and being as he said very comfortable where he was with his two servants to wait upon him, and the place as clean as a pin—­his master had moved his own and Todd’s trunk from the steamboat warehouse where they had been stored and had had them brought to Jemima’s.  Two days later—­whether from exposure in tramping the streets in his efforts to collect the old woman’s bill, or whether the change of lodgings had affected him—­he was taken down with a chill and had been in bed ever since.  With this situation staring both Jemima and himself in the face—­for neither she nor Mr. Temple had much money left—­Todd had appealed to Gadgem—­(he being the only man in his experience who could always produce a roll of bills when everybody else failed)—­who took him to the stableman whose accounts he collected —­and who had once bought one of St. George’s saddles—­and who then and there hired Todd as night attendant.  His wages, added to what Jemima could earn over her tubs, had kept the three alive.  All this had taken place four weeks or more ago.

None of all this, he assured Harry, had he told Gadgem or anybody else, his master’s positive directions being to keep his abode and his condition a secret from everybody.  All the collector knew was that Mr. Temple being too poor to take Todd with him, had left him behind to shift for himself until he could send for him.  All the neighborhood knew, to quote Todd’s own hilarious chuckle, was that “Miss Jemima Johnsing had two mo’ boa’ders; one a sick man dat had los’ his job an’ de udder a yaller nigger who sot up nights watchin’ de hosses eat dere haids off.”