“I went to sleep reading in bed and slept straight through all that noise. Why didn’t you come and wake me?”
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“We judged it warn’t worth while. Those fellows warn’t likely to come again — they hadn’t any tools left to work with, and what was the use of waking you up and scaring you to death? My three negro men stood guard at your house all the rest of the night. They’ve just come back.”
More visitors came, and the story had to be told and retold for a couple of hours more.
There was no Sabbath-school during day-school vacation, but everybody was early at church. The stirring event was well canvassed. News came that not a sign of the two villains had been yet discovered. When the sermon was finished, Judge Thatcher’s wife dropped alongside of Mrs. Harper as she moved down the aisle with the crowd and said:
“Is my Becky going to sleep all day? I just expected she would be tired to death.”
“Your Becky?”
“Yes,” with a startled look — “didn’t she stay with you last night?”
“Why, no.”
Mrs. Thatcher turned pale, and sank into a pew, just as Aunt Polly, talking briskly with a friend, passed by. Aunt Polly said:
“Good-morning, Mrs. Thatcher. Good-morning, Mrs. Harper. I’ve got a boy that’s turned up missing. I reckon my Tom stayed at your house last night — one of you. And now he’s afraid to come to church. I’ve got to settle with him.”
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Mrs. Thatcher shook her head feebly and turned paler than ever.
“He didn’t stay with us,” said Mrs. Harper, beginning to look uneasy. A marked anxiety came into Aunt Polly’s face.
“Joe Harper, have you seen my Tom this morning?”
“No’m.”
“When did you see him last?”
Joe tried to remember, but was not sure he could say. The people had stopped moving out of church. Whispers passed along, and a boding uneasiness took possession of every countenance. Children were anxiously questioned, and young teachers. They all said they had not noticed whether Tom and Becky were on board the ferryboat on the homeward trip; it was dark; no one thought of inquiring if any one was missing. One young man finally blurted out his fear that they were still in the cave! Mrs. Thatcher swooned away. Aunt Polly fell to crying and wringing her hands.
The alarm swept from lip to lip, from group to group, from street to street, and within five minutes the bells were wildly clanging and the whole town was up! The Cardiff Hill episode sank into instant insignificance, the burglars were forgotten, horses were saddled, skiffs were manned, the ferryboat ordered out, and before the horror was half an hour old, two hundred men were pouring down highroad and river toward the cave.
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All the long afternoon the village seemed empty and dead. Many women visited Aunt Polly and Mrs. Thatcher and tried to comfort them. They cried with them, too, and that was still better than words. All the tedious night the town waited for news; but when the morning dawned at last, all the word that came was, “Send more candles — and send food.” Mrs. Thatcher was almost crazed; and Aunt Polly, also. Judge Thatcher sent messages of hope and encouragement from the cave, but they conveyed no real cheer.
The old Welshman came home toward daylight, spattered with candle-grease, smeared with clay, and almost worn out. He found Huck still in the bed that had been provided for him, and delirious with fever. The physicians were all at the cave, so the Widow Douglas came and took charge of the patient. She said she would do her best by him, because, whether he was good, bad, or indifferent, he was the Lord’s, and nothing that was the Lord’s was a thing to be neglected. The Welshman said Huck had good spots in him, and the widow said:
“You can depend on it. That’s the Lord’s mark. He don’t leave it off. He never does. Puts it somewhere on every creature that comes from his hands.”
Early in the forenoon parties of jaded men began to straggle into the village, but the strongest of the citizens continued searching. All the news that could be gained was that remotenesses of the cavern