Adèle Dubois | Page 5

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 manoeuvre 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.