"
"Surely, sir," cried the father, losing sight of delicacy in
apprehension for his child, "you will keep secret the discovery which
your being in my house has enabled you to make?"
Harper turned quickly to the speaker, and then, losing the sternness
which had begun to gather on his countenance, he answered mildly, "I
have learned nothing in your family, sir, of which I was ignorant
before; but your son is safer from my knowledge of his visit than he
would be without it."
He bowed to the whole party, and without taking any notice of the
peddler, other than by simply thanking him for his attentions, mounted
his horse, and, riding steadily and gracefully through the little gate,
was soon lost behind the hill which sheltered the valley to the
northward.
The eyes of the peddler followed the retiring figure of the horseman so
long as it continued within view, and as it disappeared from his sight,
he drew a long and heavy sigh, as if relieved from a load of
apprehension. The Whartons had meditated in silence on the character and
visit of their unknown guest for the same period, when the father
approached Birch and observed,
"I am yet your debtor, Harvey, for the tobacco you were so kind as to
bring me from the city."
"If it should not prove so good as the first," replied the peddler,
fixing a last and lingering look in the direction of Harper's route, "it
is owing to the scarcity of the article.
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