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Title: The Eye of Dread
Author: Erskine, Payne, 1854-1924
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Eye of Dread" ***
[Illustration: "Listen. Go with the love in your heart--for me."
FRONTISPIECE. _See Page 329._]
THE EYE OF DREAD
By PAYNE ERSKINE
Author of "The Mountain Girl," "Joyful Heatherby," Etc.
With Frontispiece by
GEORGE GIBBS
A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
114-120 East Twenty-third Street--New York
Published by Arrangement With Little, Brown & Company
Copyright, 1913,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
Published, October, 1913
Reprinted, October, 1913
CONTENTS
BOOK ONE
I. BETTY 1
II. WATCHING THE BEES 9
III. A MOTHER'S STRUGGLE 23
IV. LEAVE-TAKING 34
V. THE PASSING OF TIME 49
VI. THE END OF THE WAR 59
VII. A NEW ERA BEGINS 69
VIII. MARY BALLARD'S DISCOVERY 87
IX. THE BANKER'S POINT OF VIEW 97
X. THE NUTTING PARTY 110
XI. BETTY BALLARD'S AWAKENING 125
XII. MYSTERIOUS FINDINGS 139
XIII. CONFESSION 157
BOOK TWO
XIV. OUT OF THE DESERT 168
XV. THE BIG MAN'S RETURN 183
XVI. A PECULIAR POSITION 198
XVII. ADOPTING A FAMILY 208
XVIII. LARRY KILDENE'S STORY 219
XIX. THE MINE--AND THE DEPARTURE 237
XX. ALONE ON THE MOUNTAIN 252
XXI. THE VIOLIN 267
XXII. THE BEAST ON THE TRAIL 282
XXIII. A DISCOURSE ON LYING 295
XXIV. AMALIA'S FÊTE 305
XXV. HARRY KING LEAVES THE MOUNTAIN 318
BOOK THREE
XXVI. THE LITTLE SCHOOL-TEACHER 331
XXVII. THE SWEDE'S TELEGRAM 342
XXVIII. "A RESEMBLANCE SOMEWHERE" 354
XXIX. THE ARREST 365
XXX. THE ARGUMENT 376
XXXI. ROBERT KATER'S SUCCESS 387
XXXII. THE PRISONER 408
XXXIII. HESTER CRAIGMILE RECEIVES HER LETTER 422
XXXIV. JEAN CRAIGMILE'S RETURN 433
XXXV. THE TRIAL 445
XXXVI. NELS NELSON'S TESTIMONY 453
XXXVII. THE STRANGER'S ARRIVAL 463
XXXVIII. BETTY BALLARD'S TESTIMONY 475
XXXIX. RECONCILIATION 487
XL. THE SAME BOY 499
THE EYE OF DREAD
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER I
BETTY
Two whip-poor-wills were uttering their insistent note, hidden
somewhere among the thick foliage of the maple and basswood trees that
towered above the spring down behind the house where the Ballards
lived. The sky in the west still glowed with amber light, and the
crescent moon floated like a golden boat above the horizon's edge. The
day had been unusually warm, and the family were all gathered on the
front porch in the dusk. The lamps within were unlighted, and the
evening wind blew the white muslin curtains out and in through the
opened windows. The porch was low,--only a step from the ground,--and
the grass of the dooryard felt soft and cool to the bare feet of the
children.
In front and all around lay the garden--flowers and fruit quaintly
intermingled. Down the long path to the gate, where three roads met,
great bunches of peonies lifted white blossoms--luminously white in
the moonlight; and on either side rows of currant bushes cast low,
dark shadows, and here and there dwarf crab-apple trees tossed pale,
scented flowers above them. In the dusky evening light the iris
flowers showed frail and iridescent against the dark shadows under the
bushes.
The children chattered quietly at their play, as if they felt a
mystery around them, and small Betty was sure she saw fairies dancing
on the iris flowers when the light breeze stirred them; but of this
she said nothing, lest her practical older sister should drop a
scornful word of unbelief, a thing Betty shrank from and instinctively
avoided. Why should she be told there were no such things as fairies
and goblins and pigwidgeons, when one might be at that very moment
dancing at her elbow and hear it all?
So Betty wagged her curly golden head, wise with the wisdom of
childhood, and went her own ways and thought her own thoughts. As for
the strange creatures of wondrous power that peopled the earth, and
the sky, and the streams, she knew they were there. She could almost
see them, could almost feel them and hear them, even though they were
hidden from mortal sight.
Did she not often go when the sun was setting and climb the fence
behind the barn under the great locust and silver-leaf poplar trees,
where none could see her, and watch the fiery griffins in the west?
Could she not see them flame and flash, their wings spreading far out
across the sky in fantastic flight, or drawn close and folded about
them in hues of purple and crimson and gold? Could she not see the
flying mist-women flinging their floating robes of softest pink and
palest green around their slender limbs, and trailing them delicately
across the deepening sky?
Had she not heard the giants--nay, seen them--driving their terrible
steeds over the tumbled clouds, and rolling them smooth with noise of
thunder, under huge rolling machines a thousand times bigger than
that Farmer Hopkins used to crush the clods in his wheat field in the
spring? Had she not seen the flashes of fire dart through the heavens,
struck by the hoofs of the giants' huge beasts? Ah! She knew! If
Martha would only listen to her, she could show her some of these true
things and stop her scoffing.
Lured by these mysteries, Betty made short excursions into the garden
away from the others, peering among the shadows, and gazing wide-eyed
into the clusters of iris flowers above which night moths fluttered
softly and silently. Maybe there were fairies there. Three could ride
at once on the back of a devil's riding horse, she knew, and in the
daytime they rode the dragon flies, two at a time; they were so light
it was nothing for the great green and gold, big-eyed dragon flies to
carry two.
Betty knew a place below the spring where the maidenhair fern grew
thick and spread out wide, perfect fronds on slender brown stems,
shading fairy bowers; and where taller ferns grew high and leaned over
like a delicate fairy forest; and where the wild violets grew so thick
you could not see the ground beneath them, and the grass was lush and
long like fine green hair, and crept up the hillside and over the
roots of the maple and basswood trees. Here lived the elves; she knew
them well, and often lay with her head among the violets, listening
for the thin sound of their elfin fiddles. Often she had drowsed the
summer noon in the coolness, unheeding the dinner call, until busy
Martha roused her with the sisterly scolding she knew she deserved and
took in good part.
Now as Betty crept cautiously about, peering and hoping with a
half-fearing expectation, a sweet, threadlike wail trembled out toward
her across the moonlit and shadowed space. Her father was tuning his
violin. Her mother sat at his side, hushing Bobby in her arms. Betty
could hear the sound of her rockers on the porch floor. Now the
plaintive call of the violin came stronger, and she hastened back to
curl up at her father's feet and listen. She closed her vision-seeing
eyes and leaned against her father's knee. He felt the gentle pressure
of his little daughter's head and liked it.
All the long summer day Betty's small feet had carried her on
numberless errands for young and old, and as the season advanced she
would be busier still. This Betty well knew, for she was old enough to
remember other summers, several of them, each bringing an advancing
crescendo of work. But oh, the happy days! For Betty lived in a world
all her own, wherein her play was as real as her work, and labor was
turned by her imaginative little mind into new forms of play, and
although night often found her weary--too tired to lie quietly in her
bed sometimes--the line between the two was never in her thoughts
distinctly drawn.
To-night Betty's conscience was troubling her a little, for she had
done two naughty things, and the pathetic quality of her father's
music made her wish with all the intensity of her sensitive soul that
she might confess to some one what she had done, but it was all too
peaceful and sweet now to tell her mother of naughty things, and,
anyway, she could not confess before the whole family, so she tried to
repent very hard and tell God all about it. Somehow it was always
easier to tell God about things; for she reasoned, if God was
everywhere and knew everything, then he knew she had been bad, and had
seen her all the time, and all she need do was to own up to it,
without explaining everything in words, as she would have to do to her
mother.
Brother Bobby's bare feet swung close to her cheek as they dangled
from her mother's knee, and she turned and kissed them, first one and
then the other, with eager kisses. He stirred and kicked out at her
fretfully.
"Don't wake him, dear," said her mother.
Then Betty drew up her knees and clasped them about with her arms, and
hid her face on them while she repented very hard. Mother had said
that very day that she never felt troubled about the baby when Betty
had care of him, and that very day she had recklessly taken him up
into the barn loft, climbing behind him and guiding his little feet
from one rung of the perpendicular ladder to another, teaching him to
cling with clenched hands to the rounds until she had landed him in
the loft. There she had persuaded him he was a swallow in his nest,
while she had taken her fill of the delight of leaping from the loft
down into the bay, where she had first tossed enough hay to make a
soft lighting place for the twelve-foot leap.
Oh, the joy of it--flying through the air! If she could only fly up
instead of down! Every time she climbed back into the loft she would
stop and cuddle the little brother and toss hay over him and tell him
he was a baby bird, and she was the mother bird, and must fly away and
bring him nice worms. She bade him look up to the rafters above and
see the mother birds flying out and in, while the little birds just
sat still in their nests and opened their mouths. So Bobby sat still,
and when she returned, obediently opened his mouth; but alas! he
wearied of his rôle in the play, and at last crept to the very edge of
the loft at a place where there was no hay spread beneath to break his
fall; and when Betty looked up and saw his sweet baby face peering
down at her over the edge, her heart stopped beating. How wildly she
called for him to wait for her to come to him! She promised him all
the dearest of her treasures if he would wait until "sister" got
there.
Now, as she sat clasping her knees, her little body grew all trembling
and weak again as she lived over the terrible moment when she had
reached him just in time to drag him back from the edge, and to cuddle
and caress him, until he lifted up his voice and wept, not because he
was in the least troubled or hurt, but because it seemed to be the
right thing to do.
Then she gave him the pretty round comb that held back her hair, and
he promptly straightened it and broke it; and when she reluctantly
brought him back to dinner--how she had succeeded in getting him down
from the loft would make a chapter of diplomacy--her mother reproved
her for allowing him to take it, and lapped the two pieces and wound
them about with thread, and told her she must wear the broken comb
after this. She was glad--glad it was broken--and she had treasured it
so--and glad that her mother had scolded her; she wished she had
scolded harder instead of speaking words of praise that cut her to the
heart. Oh, oh, oh! If he had fallen over, he would be dead now, and
she would have killed him! Thus she tortured herself, and repented
very hard.
The other sin she had that day committed she felt to be a double sin,
because she knew all the time it was wrong and did it deliberately.
When she went out with the corn meal to feed the little chicks and
fetch in the new-laid eggs, she carried, concealed under her skirt, a
small, squat book of Robert Burns' poems. These poems she loved; not
that she understood them, but that the rhythm pleased her, and the odd
words and half-comprehended phrases stirred her imagination.
So, after feeding the chicks and gathering the eggs, she did not
return to the house, but climbed instead up into the top of the
silver-leaf poplar behind the barn, and sat there long, swaying with
the swaying tree top and reading the lines that most fascinated her
and stirred her soul, until she forgot she must help Martha with the
breakfast dishes--forgot she must carry milk to the neighbor's--forgot
she must mind the baby and peel the potatoes for dinner. It was so
delightful to sway and swing and chant the rythmic lines over and over
that almost she forgot she was being bad, and Martha had done the
things she ought to have done, and the baby cried himself to sleep
without her, and lay with the pathetic tear marks still on his cheeks,
but her tired mother had only looked reproachfully at her and had not
said one word. Oh, dear! If she could only be a good girl! If only she
might pass one day being good all day long with nothing to regret!
Now with the wailing of the violin her soul grew hungry and sad, and a
strange, unchildish fear crept over her, a fear of the years to
come--so long and endless they would be, always coming, coming, one
after another; and here she was, never to stop living, and every day
doing something that she ought not and every evening repenting
it--and her father might stop loving her, and her sister might stop
loving her, and her little brother might stop loving her, and Bobby
might die--and even her mother might die or stop loving her, and she
might grow up and marry a man who forgot after a while to love
her--and she might be very poor--even poorer than they were now, and
have to wash dishes every day and no one to help her--until at last
she could bear the sadness no longer, and could not repent as hard as
she ought, there where she could not go down on her knees and just cry
and cry. So she slipped away and crept in the darkness to her own
room, where her mother found her half an hour later on her knees
beside the bed fast asleep. She lovingly undressed the limp, weary
little girl, lifted her tenderly and laid her curly head on the
pillow, and kissed her cheek with a repentant sigh of her own,
regretting that she must lay so many tasks on so small a child.
CHAPTER II
WATCHING THE BEES
Father Ballard walked slowly up the path from the garden, wiping his
brow, for the heat was oppressive. "Mary, my dear, I see signs of
swarming. The bees are hanging out on that hive under the Tolman
Sweet. Where's Betty?"
"She's down cellar churning, but she can leave. Bobby's getting
fretful, anyway, and she can take him under the trees and watch the
bees and amuse him. Betty!" Mary Ballard went to the short flight of
steps leading to the paved basement, dark and cool: "Betty, father
wants you to watch the bees, dear. Find Bobby. He's so still I'm
afraid he's out at the currant bushes again, and he'll make himself
sick. Keep an eye on the hive under the Tolman Sweet particularly,
dear."
Gladly Betty bounded up the steps and darted away to find the baby who
was still called the baby by reason of his being the last arrival,
although he was nearly three, and an active little tyrant at that.
Watching the bees was Betty's delight. Minding the baby, lolling under
the trees reading her books, gazing up into the great branches, and
all the time keeping an eye on the hives scattered about in the
garden,--nothing could be pleasanter.
Naturally Betty could not understand all she read in the books she
carried out from the library, for purely children's books were very
few in those days. The children of the present day would be dismayed
were they asked to read what Betty pondered over with avidity and
loved. Her father's library was his one extravagance, even though the
purchase of books was always a serious matter, each volume being
discussed and debated about, and only obtained after due preparation
by sundry small economies.
As for worldly possessions, the Ballards had started out with nothing
at all but their own two hands, and, as assets, well-equipped brains,
their love for each other, a fair amount of thrift, and a large share
of what Mary Ballard's old Grannie Sherman used to designate as
"gumption." Exactly what she intended should be understood by the word
it would be hard to say, unless it might be the faculty with which,
when one thing proved to be no longer feasible as a shift toward
progress and the making of a living for an increasing family, they
were enabled to discover other means and work them out to a productive
conclusion.
Thus, when times grew hard under the stress of the Civil War, and the
works of art representing many hours of Bertrand Ballard's keenest
effort lay in his studio unpurchased, and even carefully created
portraits, ordered and painstakingly painted, were left on his hands,
unclaimed and unpaid for, he quietly turned his attention to his
garden, saying, "People can live without pictures, but they must
eat."
So he obtained a few of the choicest of the quickly produced small
fruits and vegetables and flowers, and soon had rare and beautiful
things to sell. His clever hands, which before had made his own
stretchers for his canvases, and had fashioned and gilded with gold
leaf the frames for his own paintings, now made trellises for his
vines and boxes for his fruits, and when the price of sugar climbed to
the very top of the gamut, he created beehives on new models, and
bought a book on bee culture; ere long he had combs of delicious honey
to tempt the lovers of sweets.
But how came Bertrand Ballard away out in Wisconsin in a country home,
painting pictures for people who knew little or nothing of art, and
cared not to know more, raising fruits and keeping bees for the means
to live? Ah, that is another story, and to tell it would make another
book; suffice it to say that for love of a beautiful woman, strong and
wise and sweet, he had followed her farmer father out into the newer
west from old New York State.
There, frail in health and delicate and choice in his tastes, but
brave in spirit, he took up the battle of the weak with life, and
fought it like a strong man, valiantly and well. And where got he his
strength? How are the weak ever made strong? Through strength of
love--the inward fire that makes great the soul, while consuming the
dross of false values and foolish estimates--from the merry heart that
could laugh through any failure, and most of all from the beautiful
hand, supple and workful, and gentle and forceful, that lay in his.
But this is not the story of Bertrand Ballard, except incidentally as
he and his family play their part in the drama that centers in the
lives of two lads, one of whom--Peter Craigmile, Junior--comes now
swinging up the path from the front gate, where three roads meet,
brave in his new uniform of blue, with lifted head, and eyes grave and
shining with a kind of solemn elation.
"Bertrand, here comes Peter Junior in a new uniform," Mary Ballard
called to her husband, who was working at a box in which he meant to
fit glass sides for an aquarium for the edification of the little
ones. He came quickly out from his workroom, and Mary rose from her
seat and pushed her mending basket one side, and together they walked
down the path to meet the youth.
"Peter Junior, have you done it? Oh, I'm sorry!"
"Why, Mary! why, Mary! I'm astonished! Not sorry?" Bertrand took the
boy's hand in both his own and looked up in his eyes, for the lad was
tall, much taller than his friend. "I would go myself if I only had
the strength and were not near-sighted."
"Thank the Lord!" said his wife, fervently.
"Why, Mary--Mary--I'm astonished!" he said again. "Our country--"
"Yes, 'Our Country' is being bled to death," she said, taking the
boy's hand in hers for a moment; and, turning, they walked back to the
house with the young volunteer between them. "No, I'm not reconciled
to having our young men go down there and die by the thousands from
disease and bullets and in prisons. It's wrong! I say war is
iniquitous, and the issues, North or South, are not worth it. Peter, I
had hoped you were too young. Why did you?"
"I couldn't help it, Mrs. Ballard. The call for fifty thousand more
came, and father gave his consent; and, anyway, they are taking a
younger set now than at first."
"Yes, and soon they'll take an older set, and then they'll take the
small and frail and near-sighted ones, and then--" She stopped
suddenly, with a contrite glance at her husband's face. He hated to be
small and frail and near-sighted. She stepped round to his side and
put her hand in his. "I'm thankful you are, Bertrand," she said
quietly. "You'll stay to tea with us, won't you, Peter? We'll have it
out of doors."
"Yes, I'll stay--thank you. It may be the last time, and mother--I
came to see if you'd go up home and see mother, Mrs. Ballard. I kind
of thought you'd think as father and Mr. Ballard do about it, and I
thought you might be able to help mother to see it that way, too. You
see, mother--she--I always thought you were kind of strong and would
see things sort of--well--big, you know, more--as we men do." He held
his head high and looked off as he spoke.
She exchanged a half-smiling glance with her husband, and their hands
clasped tighter. "Maybe, though--if you feel this way--you can't help
mother--but what shall I do?" The big boy looked wistfully down at
her.
"I may not be able to help her to see things you want, Peter Junior.
Maybe she would be happier in seeing things her own way; but I can
sympathize with her. Perhaps I can help her to hope for the best, and
anyway--we can--just talk it over."
"Thank you, Mrs. Ballard, thank you. I don't care how she sees it,
if--if--she'll only be happier--and--give her consent. I can't bear to
go away without that; but if she won't give it, I must go anyway,--you
know."
"Yes," she said, smiling, "I suppose we women have to be forced
sometimes, or we never would allow some things to be done. You
enlisted first and then went to her for her consent? Yes, you are a
man, Peter Junior. But I tell you, if you were my son, I would never
give my consent--nor have it forced from me--still--I would love you
better for doing this."
"My love, your inconsistency is my joy," said her husband, as she
passed into the house and left them together.
The sun still shone hotly down, but the shadows were growing longer,
and Betty left baby asleep under the Harvest apple tree where she had
been staying patiently during the long, warm hours, and sat at her
father's feet on the edge of the porch, where apparently she was
wholly occupied in tracing patterns with her bare toes in the sand of
the path. Now and then she ran out to the Harvest apple tree and back,
her golden head darting among the green shrubbery like a sunbeam. She
wished to do her full duty by the bees and the baby, and at the same
time hear all the talk of the older ones, and watch the fascinating
young soldier in his new uniform.
As bright as the sunbeam, and as silent, she watched and listened. Her
heart beat fast with excitement, as it often did these days, when she
heard them talk of the war and the men who went away, perhaps never to
return, or to return with great glory. Now here was Peter Junior
going. He already had his beautiful new uniform, and he would march
and drill and carry a gun, and halt and present arms, along with the
older men she had seen in the great camp out on the high bluffs which
overlooked the wide, sweeping, rushing, willful Wisconsin River.
Oh, if she were only a man and as old as Peter Junior, she would go
with him; but it was very grand to know him even. Why was she a girl?
If God had only asked her which she would rather be when he had made
her out of dust, she would have told him to make her a man, so she
might be a soldier. It was not fair. There was Bobby; he would be a
man some day, and he could ride on a large black horse like the
knights of old, and go to wars, and rescue people, and do deeds of
arms. What deeds of arms were, she little knew, but it was something
very strong and wonderful that only knights and soldiers did.
Betty heaved a deep sigh, and put out her hand and softly touched
Peter Junior's trousers. He thought it was the kitten purring about.
No, God had not treated her fairly. Now she must grow up and be only a
woman, and wash dishes, and sweep and dust, and get very tired, and
wear dresses--and oh, dear! But then perhaps God had to do that way,
for if he had given everybody a choice, everybody would choose to be
men, and there would be no women to mind the home and take care of the
little children, and it would be a very sad kind of world, as she had
often heard her father say. Perhaps God had to do with them as Peter
Junior had done with his mother when he enlisted first and asked her
consent afterwards; just make them girls, and then try to convince
them afterwards that it was a fine thing to be a girl. She wished she
were Bobby instead of Betty--but then--Bobby might not have liked
that.
She glanced wistfully at the sleeping child and saw him toss his arms
about, and knew she ought to be there to sway a green branch over him
to keep the little gnats and flies from bothering him and waking him;
and the bees might swarm and no one see them.
"Father, is it three o'clock yet?"
"Yes, deary, why?"
"Goody! The bees won't swarm now, will they? Will you bring Bobby in,
father?"
"He is very well there; we won't disturb him."
Peter Junior looked down on the little girl, so full of vitality and
life and inspiration, so vibrant with enthusiasm, and saw her vaguely
as a slightly disturbing element, but otherwise of little moment in
the world's economy. His thoughts were on greater things.
Betty accepted her father's decision without protest, as she accepted
most things,--a finality to be endured and made the best of,--so she
continued to run back and forth between the sleeping child and the
porch, thereby losing much interesting dialogue,--all about camps and
fighting and scout duty,--until at last her mother returned and with a
glance at her small daughter's face said:--
"Father, will you bring baby in now and put him in his cradle? Betty
has had him nearly all day." And father went. Oh, beautiful mother!
How did she know!
Then Betty settled herself at Peter Junior's feet and looked up in his
eyes gravely. "What will you be, now you are a soldier?" she asked.
"Why, a soldier."
"No, I mean, will you be a general--or a flag carrier--or will you
drum? I'd be a general if I were you--or else a drummer. I think you
would be very handsome for a general."
Peter Junior threw back his head and laughed. It was the first time he
had laughed that day, and yet he was both proud and happy. "Would you
like to be a soldier?"
"Yes."
"But you might be killed, or have your leg shot off--or--"
"I know. So might you--but you would go, anyway--wouldn't you?"
"Certainly."
"Well, then you understand how I feel. I'd like to be a man, and go to
war, and 'Have a part to tear a cat in,' too."
"What's that? What's that? Mary, do you hear that?" said her father,
resuming his seat at Peter's side, and hearing her remark.
"Why, father, wouldn't you? You know you'd like to go to war. I heard
what you said to mother, and, anyway--I'd just like to be a man and
'Have a part to tear a cat in,' the way men have."
Bertrand Ballard looked down and patted his little daughter's head,
then caught her up and placed her on his knee. He realized suddenly
that his child was an entity unfathomed, separate from himself,
working out her own individuality almost without guidance, except such
as he and his Mary were unconsciously giving to her by their daily
acts and words.
"What books are those you have there? Don't you know you mustn't take
father's Shakespeare out and leave it on the grass?"
Betty laughed. "How did you know I had Shakespeare?"
"Didn't you say you 'Would like a part to tear a cat in'?"
"Oh, have you read 'Midsummer Night's Dream'?" She lifted her head
from his bosom and eyed him gravely a moment, then snuggled
comfortably down again. "But then, I suppose you have read everything."
Her father and Peter both laughed.
"Were you reading 'Midsummer Night's Dream' out there?"
"No, I've read that lots of times--long ago. I'm reading 'The Merry
Wives of Windsor' now."
"Mary, Mary, do you hear this? I think it's time our Betty had a
little supervision in her reading."
Mary Ballard came to the door from the tea table where she had been
arranging her little set of delicate china, her one rare treasure and
inheritance. "Yes, I knew she was reading--whatever she fancied, but I
thought I wouldn't interfere--not yet. I have so little time, for one
thing, and, anyway, I thought she might browse a bit. She's like a
calf in rare pastures, and I don't think she understands enough to do
her harm--or much good, either. Those things slide off from her like
water off a duck's back."
Betty looked anxiously up at her mother. What things was she missing?
She must read them all over again.
"What else have you out there, Betty?" asked her father.
Betty dropped her head shamefacedly. She never knew when she was in
the right and when wrong. Sometimes the very things which seemed most
right to her were most wrong. "That's 'Paradise Lost.' It was an old
book, father. There was a tear in the back when I took it down. I like
to read about Satan. I like to read about the mighty hosts and the
angels and the burning lake. Is that hell? I was pretending if the
bees swarmed that they would be the mighty host of bad angels falling
out of heaven."
Again Peter flung back his head and laughed. He looked at the child
with new interest, but Betty did not smile back at him. She did not
like being laughed at.
"It's true," she said; "they did fall out of heaven in a swarm, and it
was like over at High Knob on the river bank, only a million times
higher, because they were so long falling. 'From morn till noon they
fell, from noon till dewy eve.'" Betty looked off into space with
half-closed eyes. She was seeing them fall. "It was a long time to be
in suspense, wasn't it, father?" Then every one laughed. Even mother
joined in. She was putting the last touches to the tea table.
"Mary, my dear, I think we'd better take a little supervision of the
child's reading--I do, really."
The gate at the end of the long path to the house clicked, and another
lad came swinging up the walk, slightly taller than Peter Junior, but
otherwise enough like him in appearance to be his own brother. He was
not as grave as Peter, but smiled as he hailed them, waving his cap
above his head. He also wore the blue uniform, and it was new.
"Hallo, Peter! You here?"
"Of course I'm here. I thought you were never coming."
"You did?"
Betty sprang from her father's lap and ran to meet him. She slipped
her hand in his and hopped along at his side. "Oh, Rich! Are you
going, too? I wish I were you."
He lifted the child to a level with his face and kissed her, then set
her on her feet again. "Never wish that, Betty. It would spoil a nice
little girl."
"I'm not such a nice little girl. I--I--love Satan--and they're going
to--to--supervise my reading." She clung to his hand and nodded her
head with finality. He swung her along, making her take long leaps as
they walked.
"You love Satan? I thought you loved me!"
"It's the same thing, Rich," said Peter Junior, with a grin.
Bertrand had gone to the kitchen door. "Mary, my love, here's Richard
Kildene." She entered the living room, carrying a plate of light, hot
biscuit, and hurried out to Richard, greeting him warmly--even
lovingly.
"Bertrand, won't you and the boys carry the table out to the garden?"
she suggested. "Open both doors and take it carefully. It will be
pleasanter here in the shade."
The young men sprang to do her bidding, and the small table was borne
out under the trees, the lads enumerating with joy the articles of
Mary Ballard's simple menu.
"Hot biscuits and honey! My golly! Won't we wish for this in about two
months from now?" said Richard.
"Cream and caraway cookies!" shouted Peter Junior, turning back to the
porch to help Bertrand carry the chairs. "Of course we'll be wishing
for this before long, but that's part of soldiering."
"We're not looking forward to a well-fed, easy time of it, so we'll
just make the best of this to-night, and eat everything in sight,"
said Richard.
Bertrand preferred to change the subject. "This is some of our new
white clover honey," he said. "I took it from that hive over there
last evening, and they've been working all day as if they had had new
life given them. All bees want is a lot of empty space for storing
honey."
Richard followed Mrs. Ballard into the kitchen for the tea. "Where are
the other children?" he asked.
"Martha and Jamie are spending a week with my mother and father. They
love to go there, and mother--and father, also, seem never to have
enough of them. Baby is still asleep, and I must waken him, too, or
he won't sleep to-night. I hung a pail of milk over the spring to keep
it cool, and the butter is there also--and the Dutch cheese in a tin
box. Can you--wait, I'd better go with you. We'll leave the tea to
steep a minute."
They passed through the house and down toward the spring house under
the maple and basswood trees at the back, walking between rows of
currant bushes where the fruit hung red.
"I hate to leave all this--maybe forever," said the boy. The corners
of his mouth drooped a little, and he looked down at Mary Ballard with
a tender glint in his deep blue eyes. His eyes were as blue as the
lake on a summer's evening, and they were shaded by heavy dark brown
lashes, almost black. His brows and hair were the same deep brown.
Peter Junior's were a shade lighter, and his hair more curling. It was
often a matter of discussion in the village as to which of the boys
was the handsomer. That they were both fine-looking lads was always
conceded.
Mary Ballard turned toward him impulsively. "Why did you do this,
Richard? Why? I can't feel that this fever for war is right. It is
terrible. We are losing the best blood in the land in a wicked war."
She took his two hands in hers, and her eyes filled. "When we first
came here, your mother was my dearest friend. You never knew her, but
I loved her--and her loss was much to me. Richard, why didn't you
consult us?"
"I hadn't any one but you and your husband to care. Oh, Aunt Hester
loves me, of course, and is awfully good to me--but the Elder--I
always feel somehow as if he expects me to go to the bad. He never had
any use for my father, I guess. Was my father--was--he no good? Don't
mind telling me the truth: I ought to know."
"Your father was not so well known here, but he was, in Bertrand's
estimation, a royal Irish gentleman. We both liked him; no one could
help it. Never think hardly of him."
"Why has he never cared for me? Why have I never known him?"
"There was a quarrel--or--some unpleasantness between your uncle and
him; it's an old thing."
Richard's lip quivered an instant, then he drew himself up and smiled
on her, then he stooped and kissed her. "Some of us must go; we can't
let this nation be broken up. Some men must give their lives for it;
and I'm one of those who ought to go, for I have no one to mourn for
me. Half the class has enlisted."
"I venture to say you suggested it, too?"
"Well--yes."
"And Peter Junior was the first to follow you?"
"Well, yes! I'm sorry--because of Aunt Hester--but we always do pull
together, you know. See here, let's not think of it in this way. There
are other ways. Perhaps I'll come back with straps on my shoulders and
marry Betty some day."
"God grant you may; that is, if you come back as you left us. You
understand me? The same boy?"
"I do and I will," he said gravely.
That was a happy hour they spent at the evening meal, and many an
evening afterwards, when hardship and weariness had made the lads seem
more rugged and years older, they spoke of it and lived it over.
CHAPTER III
A MOTHER'S STRUGGLE
"Come, Lady, come. You're slow this morning." Mary Ballard drove a
steady, well-bred, chestnut mare with whom she was on most friendly
terms. Usually her carryall was filled with children, for she kept no
help, and when she went abroad, she must perforce take the children
with her or spend an unquiet hour or two while leaving them behind.
This morning she had left the children at home, and carried in their
stead a basket of fruit and flowers on the seat beside her. "Come,
Lady, come; just hurry a little." She touched the mare with the whip,
a delicate reminder to haste, which Lady assumed to be a fly and
treated as such with a switch of her tail.
The way seemed long to Mary Ballard this morning, and the sun beating
down on the parched fields made the air quiver with heat. The unpaved
road was heavy with dust, and the mare seemed to drag her feet through
it unnecessarily as she jogged along. Mary was anxious and dreaded the
visit she must make. She would be glad when it was over. What could
she say to the stricken woman who spent her time behind closed blinds?
Presently she left the dust behind and drove along under the maple
trees that lined the village street, over cool roads that were kept
well sprinkled.
The Craigmiles lived on the main street of the town in the most
dignified of the well-built homes of cream-colored brick, with a wide
front stoop and white columns at the entrance. Mary was shown into the
parlor by a neat serving maid, who stepped softly as if she were
afraid of waking some one. The room was dark and cool, but the air
seemed heavy with a lingering musky odor. The dark furniture was set
stiffly back against the walls, the floor was covered with a velvet
carpet of rich, dark colors, and oil portraits were hung about in
heavy gold frames.
Mary looked up at two of these portraits with pride, and rebelled that
the light was so shut out that they must always be seen in the
obscurity, for Bertrand had painted them, and she considered them her
husband's best work. In the painting of them and the long sittings
required the intimacy between the two families had begun. Really it
had begun before that, for there were other paintings in that
home--portraits, old and fine, which Elder Craigmile's father had
brought over from Scotland when he came to the new world to establish
a new home. These paintings were the pride of Elder Craigmile's heart,
and the delight of Bertrand Ballard's artist soul.
To Bertrand they were a discovery--an oasis in a desert. One day the
banker had called him in to look at a canvas that was falling to
pieces with age, in the hope that the artist might have the skill to
restore it. From that day the intimacy began, and a warm friendship
sprang up between the two families, founded on Bertrand's love for the
old works of art, wherein the ancestors of Peter Craigmile, Senior,
looked out from their frames with a dignity and warmth and grace
rarely to be met with in this new western land.
Bertrand's heart leaped with joy as he gazed on one of them, the one
he had been called on to save if possible. "This must be a genuine
Reynolds. Ah! They could paint, those old fellows!" he cried.
"Genuine Reynolds? Why, man, it is! it is! You are a true artist. You
knew it in a moment." Peter Senior's heart was immediately filled with
admiration for the younger man. "Yes, they were a good family--the
Craigmiles of Aberdeen. My father brought all the old portraits coming
to him to this country to keep the family traditions alive. It's a
good thing--a good thing!"
"She was a beautiful woman, the original of that portrait."
"She was a great beauty, indeed. Her husband took her to London to
have it done by the great painter. Ah, the Scotch lasses were fine!
Look at that color! You don't see that here, no?"
"Our American women are too pale, for the most part; but then again,
your men are too red."
"Ah! Beef and red wine! Beef and red wine! With us in Scotland it was
good oatcakes and home-brew--and the air. The air of the Scotch hills
and the sea. You don't have such air here, I've often heard my father
say. I've spent the greater part of my life here, so it's mostly the
traditions I have--they and the portraits."
Thus it came about that owing to his desire to keep up the line of
family portraits, Peter Craigmile engaged the artist to paint the
picture of his gentle, sweet-faced wife. She was painted seated, a
little son on either side of her; and now in the dimness she looked
out from the heavy gold frame, a half smile playing about her lips, on
her lap an open book, and about the low-cut crimson velvet bodice
rare old lace pinned at the bosom with a large brooch of wrought gold,
framing a delicately cut cameo.
As Mary Ballard sat in the parlor waiting, she looked up in the dusky
light at this picture. Ah, yes! Her Bertrand also was a great painter.
If only he could be where he might become known and appreciated! She
sighed for another reason, also, as she regarded it: because the two
little sons clasped by the mother's arms were both gone. Sunny-haired
Scotch laddies they were, with fair, wide brows, each in kilt and
plaid, with bare knees and ruddy cheeks. What delight her husband had
taken in painting it! And now the mother mourned unceasingly the loss
of those little sons, and of one other whom Mary had never seen, and
of whom they had no likeness. It was indeed hard that the one son left
them,--their firstborn,--their hope and pride, should now be going
away to leave them, going perhaps to his death.
The door opened and a shadow swept slowly across the room. Always pale
and in black--wrapped in her mourning the shadow of sorrow never left
this mother; and now it seemed to envelop even Mary Ballard, bright
and warm of nature as she was.
Hester Craigmile barely smiled as she held out her slender,
blue-veined hand.
"It is very good of you to come to me, Mary Ballard, but you can't
make me think I should be reconciled to this. No! It is hard enough to
be reconciled to the blows God has dealt me, without accepting what my
husband and son see fit to give me in this." Her hand was cold and
passive, and her voice was restrained and low.
Mary Ballard's hands were warm, and her tones were rich and full. She
took the proffered hand in both her own and drew the shadow down to
sit at her side.
"No, no. I'm not going to try to make you reconciled, or anything.
I've just come to tell you that I understand, and that I think you are
justified in withholding your consent to Peter Junior's going off in
this way."
"If he were killed, I should feel as if I had consented to his
death."
"Of course you would. I should feel just the same. Naturally you can't
forbid his going,--now,--for it's too late, and he would have to go
with the feeling of disobedience in his heart, and that would be cruel
to him, and worse for you."
"I know. His father has consented; they think I am wrong. My son
thinks I am wrong. But I can't! I can't!" In her suppressed tones
sounded the ancient wail of women--mothers crying for their sons
sacrificed in war. For a few moments neither of them spoke. It was
hard for Mary to break the silence. Her friend sat at her side
withdrawn and still; then she lifted her eyes to the picture of
herself and the children and spoke again, only breathing the words:
"Peter Junior--my beautiful oldest boy--he is the last--the others are
all gone--three of them."
"Peter Junior is splendid. I thought so last evening as I saw him
coming up the path. I took it home to myself--what I should feel, and
what I would think if he were my son. Somehow we women are so
inconsistent and foolish. I knew if he were my son, I never could give
my consent to his going, never in the world,--but there! I would be so
proud of him for doing just what your boy has done; I would look up
to him in admiration, and be so glad that he was just that kind of a
man!"
Hester Craigmile turned and looked steadily in her friend's eyes, but
did not open her lips, and after a moment Mary continued:--
"To have one's sons taken like these--is--is different. We know they
are safe with the One who loved little children; we know they are safe
and waiting for us. But to have a boy grow into a young man like Peter
Junior--so straight and fine and beautiful--and then to have him come
and say: 'I'm going to help save our country and will die for it if I
must!' Why, my heart would grow big with thanksgiving that I had
brought such an one into the world and reared him. I--What would I do!
I couldn't tell him he might go,--no,--but I'd just take him in my
arms and bless him and love him a thousand times more for it, so he
could go away with that warm feeling all about his heart; and
then--I'd just pray and hope the war might end soon and that he might
come back to me rewarded, and--and--still good."
"That's it. If he would,--I don't distrust my son,--but there are
always things to tempt, and if--if he were changed in that way, or if
he never came back,--I would die."
"I know. We can't help thinking about ourselves and how we are
left--or how we feel--" Mary hesitated and was loath to go on with
that train of thought, but her friend caught her meaning and rose in
silence and paced the room a moment, then returned.
"It is easy to talk in that way when one has not lost," she said.
"I know it seems so, but it is not easy, Hester Craigmile. It is
hard--so hard that I came near staying at home this morning. It seemed
as if I could not--could not--"
"Yes, what I said was bitter, and it wasn't honest. You were good to
come to me--and what you have said is true. It has helped me; I think
it will help me."
"Then good-by. I'll go now, but I'll come again soon." She left the
shadow sitting there with the basket of fruit and flowers at her side
unnoticed and forgotten, and stepped quietly out of the darkened room
into the sunlight and fresh air.
"I do wish I could induce her to go out a little--or open up her
house. I wish--" Mary Ballard said no more, but shut her lips tightly
on her thoughts, untied the mare, and drove slowly away.
Hester Craigmile stood for a moment gazing on the picture of her
little sons, then for an hour or more wandered up and down over her
spacious home, going from room to room, mechanically arranging and
rearranging the chairs and small articles on the mantels and tables.
Nothing was out of place. No dust or disorder anywhere, and there was
the pity of it. If only a boy's cap could be found lying about, or
books left carelessly where they ought not to be! One closed door she
passed again and again. Once she laid her hand on the knob, but passed
on, leaving it still unopened. At last she turned, and, walking
swiftly down the long hall, entered the room.
There the blinds were closed and the curtains drawn, and everything
set in as perfect order as in the parlor below. She sat down in a
chair placed back against the wall and folded her hands in her lap.
No, it was not so hard for Mary Ballard. It would not be, even if she
had a son old enough to go. Mary had work to do.
On the wall above Hester's head was one of the portraits which helped
to establish the family dignity of the Craigmiles. If the blinds had
been open, one could have seen it in sharp contrast to the pale moth
of a woman who sat beneath it. The painting, warm and rich in tone,
was of a dame in a long-bodiced dress. She held a fan in her hand and
wore feathers in her powdered hair. Her eyes gazed straight across the
room into those of a red-coated soldier who wore a sword at his side
and gold on his shoulders. Yes, there had been soldiers in the family
before Peter Junior's time.
This was Peter Junior's room, but the boy was there no longer. He had
come home from college one day and had entered it a boy, and then he
came out of it and down to his mother, dressed in his new uniform--a
man. Now he entered it no more, for he stayed at the camp over on the
high bluff of the Wisconsin River. He was wholly taken up with his new
duties there, and his room had been set in order and closed as if he
were dead.
Sitting there, Hester heard the church clock peal out the hour of
twelve, and started. Soon she would hear the front door open and shut,
and a heavy tread along the lower hall, and she would go down and sit
silently at the table opposite her husband, they two alone. There
would be silence, because there would be nothing to say. He loved her
and was tender of her, but his word was law, and in all matters he was
dictator, lawmaker, and judge, and from his decisions there was no
appeal. It never occurred to him that there ever need be. So Hester
Craigmile, reserved and intense, closed her lips on her own thoughts,
which it seemed to her to be useless to utter, and let them eat her
heart out in silence.
At the moment expected she heard the step on the floor of the
vestibule, and the door opened, but it was not her husband's step
alone that she heard. Surely it was Peter Junior's and his cousin's.
Were they coming to dinner? But no word had been sent. Hester stepped
out of the room and stood at the head of the stairs waiting. She did
not wish to go down and meet her son before the others, and if he did
not find her below, he would know where to look for her.
Peter Senior was an Elder in the Presbyterian Church, and he was
always addressed as Elder, even by his wife and son. On the street he
was always Elder Craigmile. She heard the men enter the dining room
and the door close after them, but still she waited. The maid would
have to be told to put two more places at the table, but Hester did
not move. The Elder might attend to that. Presently she heard quick
steps returning and knew her son was coming. She went to meet him and
was clasped in his arms, close and hard.
"You were waiting for me here? Come, mother, come." He stroked her
smooth, dark hair, and put his cheek to hers. It was what she needed,
what her heart was breaking for. She could even let him go easier
after this. Sometimes her husband kissed her, but only when he went a
journey or when he returned, a grave kiss of farewell or greeting; but
in her son's clasp there was something of her own soul's pent-up
longing.
"You'll come down, mother? Rich came home with me."
"Yes, I heard his voice. I am glad he came."
"See here, mother! I know what you are doing. This won't do. Every one
who goes to war doesn't get killed or go to the bad. Look at that old
redcoat up in my room. He wasn't killed, or where would I be now? I'm
coming back, just as he did. We are born to fight, we Craigmiles, and
father feels it or he never would have given his consent."
Slowly they went down the long winding flight of stairs--a flight with
a smooth banister down which it had once been Peter Junior's delight
to slide when there was no one nigh to reprove. Now he went down with
his arm around his slender mother's waist, and now and then he kissed
her cheek like a lover.
The Elder looked up as they entered, with a slight wince of
disapproval, the only demonstration of reproof he ever gave his wife,
which changed instantly to as slight a smile, as he noticed the faint
color in her cheek, and a brighter light in her eyes than there was at
breakfast. He and Richard were both seated as they entered, but they
rose instantly, and the Elder placed her chair with all the manner of
his forefathers, a courtesy he never neglected.
Hester Craigmile forced herself to converse, and tried to smile as if
there were no impending gloom. It was here Mary Ballard's influence
was felt by them all. She had helped her friend more than she knew.
"I'm glad to see you, Richard; I was afraid I might not."
"Oh, no, Aunt Hester. I'd never leave without seeing you. I went into
the bank and the Elder asked me to dinner and I jumped at the
chance."
"This is your home always, you know."
"And it's good to think of, too, Aunt Hester."
She looked at her son and then her nephew. "You are so like in your
uniforms I would not know you apart on the street in the dark," she
said. Richard shot a merry glance in his uncle's eyes, then only
smiled decorously with him and Peter Junior.
"I wish you'd visit the camp and see us drill. We go like clockwork,
Peter and I. They call us the twins."
"There is a very good reason for that, for your mother and I were
twins, and you resemble her, while Peter Junior resembles me," said
the Elder.
"Yes," said Hester, "Peter Junior looks like his father;" but as she
glanced at her son she knew his soul was hers.
Thus the meal passed in quiet, decorous talk, touching on nothing
vital, but holding a smoldering fire underneath. The young men said
nothing about the fact that the regiment had been called to duty, and
soon the camp on the bluff would be breaking up. They dared not touch
on the past, and they as little dared touch on the future--indeed
there might be no future. So they talked of indifferent things, and
Hester parted with her nephew as if they were to meet again soon,
except that she called him back when he was halfway down the steps and
kissed him again. As for her son, she took him up to his room and
there they stayed for an hour, and then he came out and she was left
in the house alone.
CHAPTER IV
LEAVE-TAKING
Early in the morning, while the earth was still a mass of gray shadow
and mist, and the sky had only begun to show faint signs of the flush
of dawn, Betty, awake and alert, crept softly out of bed, not to
awaken Martha, who slept the sleep of utter weariness at her side.
Martha had returned only the day before from her visit to her
grandfather's, a long carriage ride away from Leauvite.
Betty bathed hurriedly, giving a perfunctory brushing to the tangled
mass of curls, and getting into her clothing swiftly and silently. She
had been cautioned the night before by her mother not to awaken her
sister by getting up at too early an hour, for she would be called in
plenty of time to drive over with the rest to see the soldiers off.
But what if her mother should forget! So she put on her new white
dress and gathered a few small parcels which she had carefully tied up
the night before, and her hat and little white linen cape, and taking
her shoes in her hand, softly descended the stairs.
"Betty, Betty," her mother spoke in a sleepy voice from her own room
as the child crept past her door; "why, my dear, it isn't time to get
up yet. We shan't start for hours."
"I heard Peter Junior say they were going to strike camp at daybreak,
and I want to see them strike it. You don't need to get up. I can go
over there alone."
"Why, no, child! Mother couldn't let you do that. They don't want
little girls there. Go back to bed, dear. Did you wake Martha?"
"Oh, mother. Can't I go downstairs? I don't want to go to bed again.
I'll be very still."
"Will you lie on the lounge and try to go to sleep again?"
"Yes, mother."
Mary Ballard turned with a sigh and presently fell asleep, and Betty
softly continued her way and obediently lay down in the darkened room
below; but sleep she could not. At last, having satisfied her
conscience by lying quietly for a while, she stole to the open door,
for in that peaceful spot the Ballards slept with doors and windows
wide open all through the warm nights. Oh, but the world was cool and
mysterious, and the air was sweet! Little rustling noises made her
feel as if strange beings were stirring; above her head were soft
chirpings, and somewhere a bird was calling an undulating, long-drawn
note, low and sweet, like a tone drawn from her father's violin.
Betty sat on the edge of the porch and put on her shoes, and then
walked down the path to the gate. The white peonies and the iris
flowers were long since gone, and on the Harvest apple trees and the
Sweet Boughs the fruit hung ripening. All Betty's life long she never
forgot this wonderful moment of the breaking of day. She listened for
sounds to come to her from the camp far away on the river bluff, but
none were heard, only the restless moving of her grandfather's team
taking their early feed in the small pasture lot near by.
How fresh everything smelled! And the sky! Surely it must be like
this in heaven! It must be heaven showing through, while the world
slept. She was glad she had awakened early so she might see it,--she
and God and the angels, and all the wild things of earth.
Slowly everything around her grew plainer, and long rays of color,
faintly pink, streamed up into the sky from the eastern horizon; then
suddenly some pale gray, floating clouds above her head blossomed into
a wonderful rose laid upon a sea of gold, then gradually turned
shell-pink, then faded through changing shades to daytime clouds of
white. She wondered if the soldiers saw it, too. They were breaking
camp now, surely, for it was day. Still she swung on the gate and
dreamed, until a voice roused her.
"So Betty sleeps all night on the gate like a chicken on the fence." A
pair of long arms seized her and lifted her high in the air to a pair
of strong shoulders. Then she was tossed about and her cheeks rubbed
red against grandfather Clide's stubby beard, until she laughed aloud.
"What are you doing here on the gate?"
"I was watching the sky. I think God looked through and smiled, for
all at once it blossomed. Now the colors are gone."
Grandfather Clide set her gently on her feet and stood looking gravely
down on her for a moment. "So?" he said.
"The soldiers are striking camp over there, and then they are going to
march to the square, and then every one is to see them form and
salute--and then they are to march to the station, and--and--then--and
then I don't know what will be--I think glory."
Her grandfather shook his head, his thoughtful face half smiling and
half grave. He took her hand. "Come, we'll see what Jack and Jill are
up to." He led her to the pasture lot and the horses came and thrust
their heads over the fence and whinnied. "See? They want their oats."
Then Betty was lifted to old Jack's bare back and grandfather led him
by the forelock to the barn, while Jill followed after.
"Did Jack ever 'fall down and break his crown,' grandfather?"
"No, but he ran away once on a time."
"Oh, did Jill come running after?"
"That she did."
The sun had but just cast his first glance at High Knob, where the
camp was, and Mary Ballard was hastily whipping up batter for
pancakes, the simplest thing she could get for breakfast, as they were
to go early enough to see the "boys" at the camp before they formed
for their march to the town square. The children were to ride over in
the great carriage with grandfather and grandmother Clide, while
father and mother would take Bobby with them in the carryall. It was
an arrangement liked equally by the three small children and the
well-content grandparents.
Betty came to the house, clinging to her grandfather's hand. He drew
the large rocking-chair from the kitchen--where winter and summer it
occupied a place by the window, that Bertrand in his moments of rest
and leisure might sit and read the war news aloud to his wife as she
worked--out to a cool grass plot by the door, so that he might still
be near enough to chat with his daughter, while enjoying the morning
air.
Betty found tidy little Martha, fresh and clean as a rosebud,
stepping busily about, setting the table with extra places and putting
the chairs around. Filled with self-condemnation at the sight of her
sister's helpfulness, she dashed upstairs to do her part in getting
all neat for the day. First she coaxed naughty little Jamie, who, in
his nightshirt, was out on the porch roof fishing, dangling his shoe
over the edge by its strings tied to his father's cane, to return and
be hustled into his trousers--funny little garments that came almost
to his shoe tops--and to stand still while "sister" washed his face
and brushed his curly red hair into a state of semi-orderliness.
Then there was Bobby to be kissed and coaxed, and washed and dressed,
and told marvelous tales to beguile him into listening submission.
"Mother, mayn't I put Bobby's Sunday dress on him?" called Betty, from
the head of the stairs.
"Yes, dear, anything you like, but hurry. Breakfast is almost ready;"
then to Martha, "Leave the sweeping, deary, and run down to the spring
for the cream." To her father, Mary explained: "The little girls are a
great help. Betty manages to do for the boys without irritating them.
Now we'll eat while the cakes are hot. Come, Bertrand."
It was a grave mission and a sorrowful one, that early morning ride to
say good-by to those youthful volunteers. The breakfast conversation
turned on the subject with subdued intensity. Mary Ballard did not
explain herself,--she was too busy serving,--but denounced the war in
broad terms as "unnecessary and iniquitous," thus eliciting from her
husband his usual exclamation, when an aphorism of more than ordinary
daring burst from her lips: "Mary! why, Mary! I'm astonished!"
"Every one regards it from a different point of view," said his wife,
"and this is my point." It was conclusive.
Grandfather Clide turned sideways, leaned one elbow on the table in a
meditative way he had, and spoke slowly. Betty gazed up at him in
wide-eyed attention, while Mary poured the coffee and Martha helped
her mother by passing the cakes. Bobby sat close to his comfortable
grandmother, who seemed to be giving him all her attention, but who
heard everything, and was ready to drop a quiet word of significance
when applicable.
"If we bring the question down to its primal cause," said grandfather,
"if we bring it down to its primal cause, Mary is right; for the cause
being iniquitous, of course, the war is the same."
"What is 'primal cause,' grandfather?" asked Betty.
"The thing that began it all," said grandfather, regarding her
quizzically.
"I don't agree with your conclusion," said Bertrand, pausing to put
sirup on Jamie's cakes, after repeated demands therefor. "If the cause
be evil, it follows that to annihilate the cause--wipe it out of
existence--must be righteous."
"In God's good time," said grandmother Clide, quietly.
"God's good time, in my opinion, seems to be when we are forced to a
thing." Grandfather lifted one shaggy eyebrow in her direction.
"At any rate, and whatever happens," said Bertrand, "the Union must be
preserved, a nation, whole and undivided. My father left England for
love of its magnificent ideals of government by the people. Here is to
be the vast open ground where all nations may come and realize their
highest possibilities, and consequently this nation must be held
together and developed as a whole in all its resources, and not cut up
into small, ineffective, quarrelsome factions. To allow that would
mean the ruin of a colossal scheme for universal progress."
Mary brought her husband's coffee and put it beside his plate, as he
was too absorbed to take it, and as she did so placed her hand on his
shoulder with gentle pressure and their eyes met for an instant. Then
grandfather Clide took up the thread.
"Speaking of your father makes me think of my father, your old
grandfather Clide, Mary. He fought with his father in the Revolutionary
War when he was a lad no more than Peter Junior's age--or less. He lived
through it and came to be a judge of the supreme court of New York, and
helped to frame the constitution of that State, too. I used to hear
him say, when I was a mere boy,--and he would bring his fist down on
the table with an emphasis that made the dishes rattle, for all he
averred that he never used gesticulation to aid his oratory,--he used to
say,--I remember his words, as if it were but yesterday,--'Slavery is a
crime which we, the whole nation, are accountable for, and for which we
will be held accountable. If we as a nation will not do away with it by
legislation or mutual compact justly, then the Lord will take it into
his own hands and wipe it out with blood. He may be patient for a long
while, and give us a good chance, but if we wait too long,--it may
not be in my day--it may not be in yours,--he will wipe it out with
blood!' and here was where he used to make the dishes rattle."
"Maybe, then, this is the Lord's good time," said grandmother.
"I believe in preserving the Union at any cost, slavery or no
slavery," said Bertrand.
"The bigger and grander the nation, the more rottenness, if it's
rotten at heart. I believe it better--even at the cost of war--to wipe
out a national crime,--or let those who want slavery take themselves
out of it."
Betty began to quiver through all her little system of high-strung
nerves and sympathies. The talk was growing heated, and she hated to
listen to excited arguments; yet she gazed and listened with
fascinated attention.
Bertrand looked up at his father-in-law. "Why, father! why, father!
I'm astonished! I fail to see how permitting one tremendous evil can
possibly further any good purpose. To my mind the most tremendous evil
that could be perpetrated on this globe--the thing that would do more
to set all progress back for hundreds of years, maybe--would be to
break up this Union. Here in this country now we are advancing at a
pace that covers the centuries of the past in leaps of a hundred years
in one. Now cut this land up into little, caviling factions, and where
are we? Why, the very motto of the republic would be done away
with--'In Union there is strength.' I tell you slavery is a sort of
Delilah, and the nation--if it is divided--will be like Sampson with
his locks shorn."
"Well, war is here," said Mary, "and we must send off our young men to
the shambles, and later on fill up our country with the refuse of
Europe in their stead. It will be a terrible blood-letting for both
North and South, and it will be the best blood on both sides. I'm as
sorry for the mothers down there as I am for ourselves. Did you get
the apples, Bertrand? We'd better start, to be there at eight."
"I put them in the carryall, my dear, Sweet Boughs and Harvest apples.
The boys will have one more taste before they leave."
"Father, we want to carry some. Put some in the carriage too," said
Martha.
"Yes, father. We want to eat some while we are on the way."
"Why, Jamie, they are for the soldiers; they're not for us," cried
Betty, in horror. To eat even one, it seemed to her, would be greed
and robbery.
In spite of the gravity of the hour to the older ones, the occasion
took on an air of festivity to the children. In grandfather's
dignified old family carriage Martha sat with demure elation on the
back seat at her grandmother's side, wearing her white linen cape, and
a wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat of Neapolitan straw, with a blue
ribbon around the crown, and a narrow one attached to the front, the
end of which she held in her hand to pull the brim down to shade her
eyes as was the fashion for little girls of the day. She felt well
pleased with the hat, and held the ribbon daintily in her shapely
little hand.
At her feet was the basket of apples, and with her other hand she
guarded three small packages. Grandmother wore a gray, changeable
silk. The round waist fitted her plump figure smoothly, and the skirt
was full and flowing. Her bonnet was made of the same silk shirred on
rattan, and was not perched on the top of her head, but covered it
well and framed her sweet face with a full, white tulle ruching set
close under the brim.
Grandfather, up in front, drove Jack and Jill, who, he said, were
"feeling their oats." Betty did not wonder, for oats are sharp and
must prick their stomachs. She sat with grandfather,--he had promised
she should the night before,--and Jamie was tucked in between them. He
ought to have been in behind with grandmother, but his scream of
rebellion as he was lifted in brought instant yielding from Betty,
when grandfather interfered and took them both. But when Jamie
insisted on holding the reins, grandfather grew firm, and when screams
again began, his young majesty was lifted down and placed in the road
to remain until instant obedience was promised, after which he was
restored to the coveted place and away they went.
Betty's white linen cape blew out behind and her ribbons flew like
blue butterflies all about her hat. She forgot to hold down the brim,
as polite little girls did who knew how to wear their Sunday clothes.
She, too, held three small packages in her lap. For days, ever since
Peter Junior and Richard Kildene had taken tea with them in their new
uniforms, the little girls had patiently sewed to make the articles
which filled these packages.
Mary Ballard had planned them. In each was a needle-book filled with
needles large enough to be used by clumsy fingers, a pin ball, a
good-sized iron thimble, and a case of thread and yarn for mending,
buttons of various sizes, and a bit of beeswax, molded in Mary
Ballard's thimble, to wax their linen thread. All were neatly packed
in a case of bronzed leather bound about with firm braid, and tucked
under the strap of the leather on the inside was a small pair of
scissors. It was all very compact and tied about with the braid.
Mother had done some of the hardest of the sewing, but for the most
part the stitches had been painstakingly put in by the children's own
fingers.
The morning was cool, and the dust had been laid by a heavy shower in
the night. The horses held up their heads and went swiftly, in spite
of their long journey the day before. Soon they heard in the distance
the sound of the drum, and the merry note of a fife. Again a pang shot
through Betty's heart that she had not been a boy of Peter Junior's
age that she might go to war. She heaved a deep sigh and looked up in
her grandfather's face. It was a grizzled face, with blue eyes that
shot a kindly glance sideways at her as if he understood.
When they drew near, the horses danced to the merry tune, as if they
would like to go, too. All the camp seemed alive. How splendid the
soldiers looked in their blue uniforms, their guns flashing in the
sun! Betty watched how their legs with the stripes on them seemed to
twinkle as they moved all together, marching in companies. Back and
forth, back and forth, they went, and the orders came to the children
short and abrupt, as the men went through their maneuvers. They saw
the sentinel pacing up and down, and wondered why he did it instead of
marching with the other men. All these questions were saved up to ask
of grandfather when they got home. They were too interested to do
anything but watch now.
At last, very suddenly it seemed, the soldiers broke ranks and
scattered over the greensward, running hither and thither like ants.
Betty again drew a long breath. Now they were coming, the soldiers in
whom they were particularly interested.
"Can they do what they please now?" she asked her grandfather.
"Yes, for a while."
All along the sentry line carriages were drawn up, for this hour from
eight till nine was given to the "boys" to see their friends for the
last time in many months, maybe years, maybe forever. As they had come
from all over the State, some had no friends to meet them, but guests
were there in crowds, and every man might receive a handshake whether
he was known or not. All were friends to these young volunteers.
Bertrand Ballard was known and loved by all the youths. Some from the
village, and others from the country around, had been in the way of
coming to the Ballard home simply because the place was made an
enjoyable center for them. Some came to practice the violin and others
to sing. Some came to try their hand at sketching and painting and
some just to hear Bertrand talk. All was done for them quite
gratuitously on his part, and no laugh was merrier than his. Even the
chore boy came in for a share of the Ballards' kindly help, sitting at
Mary Ballard's side in the long winter evenings, and conning lessons
to patch up an education snatched haphazard and hardly come by.
Here comes one of them now, head up, smiling, and happy-go-lucky.
"Bertrand, here comes Johnnie. Give him the apples and let him
distribute them. Poor boy! I'm sorry he's going; he's too easily led,"
said Mary.
"Oh! Johnnie, Johnnie Cooper! I've got something for you. We made
them. Mother helped us," cried Martha. Now the children were out of
the carriage and running about among their friends.
Johnnie Cooper snatched Jamie from the ground and threw him up over
his head, then set him down again and took the parcel. Then he caught
Martha up and set her on his shoulder while he peeped into the
package.
"Stop, Johnnie. Set me down. I'm too big now for you to toss me up."
Her arms were clasped tightly under his chin as he held her by the
feet. Slowly he let her slide to the ground and thrust the little case
in his pocket, and stooping, kissed the child.
"I'll think of you and your mother when I use this," he said.
"And you'll write to us, won't you, Johnnie?" said Mary. "If you
don't, I shall think something is gone wrong with you." He knew what
she meant, and she knew he knew. "There are worse things than bullets,
Johnnie."
"Never you worry for me, Mrs. Ballard. We're going down for business,
and you won't see me again until we've licked the 'rebs.'" He held her
hand awkwardly for a minute, then relieved the tension by carrying off
the two baskets of apples. "I know the trees these came from," he
said, and soon a hundred boys in blue were eating Bertrand's choicest
apples.
"Here come the twins!" said some one, as Peter Junior and Richard
Kildene came toward them across the sward. Betty ran to meet them and
caught Richard by the hand. She loved to have him swing her in long
leaps from the ground as he walked.
"See, Richard, I made this for you all myself--almost. I put C in the
corner so it wouldn't get mixed with the others, because this I made
especially for you."
"Did you? Why didn't you put R in the corner if you meant it for me? I
think you meant this for Charley Crabbe."
"No, I didunt." Betty spoke most emphatically. "Martha has one for
him. I put C because--you'll see when you open it. Everything's bound
all round with my very best cherry-colored hair ribbon, to make it
very special, and that is what C is for. All the rest are brown, and
this is prettier, and it won't get mixed with Peter Junior's."
"Ah, yes. C is for cherry--Betty's hair ribbon; and the gold-brown
leather is for Betty's hair. Is that it?"
"Yep."
"Haven't I one, too?" asked Peter Junior.
"Yep. We made them just alike, and you can sew on buttons and
everything."
Thus the children made the leave-taking less somber, to the relief of
every one.
Grandfather and grandmother Clide had friends of their own whom they
had come all the forty miles to see,--neighbor boys from many of the
farms around their home, and their daughter-in-law's own brother, who
was like a son to them. There he stood, lithe and strong and genial,
and, alas! too easy-going to be safe among the temptations of the
camp.
Quickly the hour passed and the call came to form ranks for the march
to the town square, where speeches were to be made and prayers were to
be read before the march to the station.
Our little party waited until the last company had left the camp
ground and the excited children had seen them all and heard the sound
of the fife and drum to their last note and beat as the "boys in blue"
filed past them and off down the winding country road among the trees.
Nothing was said by the older ones of what might be in the future for
those gallant youths--yes, and for the few men of greater years with
them--as they wound out of sight. It was better so. Bobby fell asleep
in Mary Ballard's arms as they drove back, and a bright tear fell from
her wide-open, far-seeing eyes down on his baby cheek.
It was no lack of love for his son that kept Elder Craigmile away at
the departure of the boys from their camp on the bluff. He had
virtually said his say and parted from his son when he gave his
consent to his going in the first place. To him war meant sacrifice,
and the parting with sons, at no matter what cost. The dominant idea
with him was ever the preservation of the Union. At nine o'clock as
usual that morning he had entered the bank, and a few minutes later,
when the troops formed on the square, he came out and took his
appointed place on the platform, as one of the speakers, and offered a
closing prayer for the confounding of the enemy after the manner of
David of old--then he descended and took his son's hand, as he stood
in the ranks, with his arm across the boy's shoulder, looked a moment
in his eyes; then, without a word, he turned and reëntered the bank.
CHAPTER V
THE PASSING OF TIME
It was winter. The snow was blowing past the windows in blinding
drifts, and the road in front of the Ballards' home was fast filling
to the tops of the fences. A bright wood-fire was burning in the great
cookstove, which had been brought into the living room for warmth and
to economize steps, as all the work of the household devolved on Mary
and little Betty, since Martha spent the week days at the Deans in the
village in order to attend the high school.
Mary gazed anxiously now and then through the fast-frosting window
panes on the opaque whiteness of the storm without, where the trees
tossed their bare branches weirdly, like threatening gray phantoms,
grotesque and dimly seen through the driving snow. It was Friday
afternoon and still early, and brave, busy little Martha always came
home on Fridays after school to help her mother on Saturdays.
"Oh, I hope Martha hasn't started," said Mary. "Look out, Bertrand.
This is the wildest storm we have had this year."
"Mrs. Dean would never allow her to set out in this storm, I'm sure,"
said Bertrand. "I cautioned her yesterday when I was there never to
start when the weather seemed like a blizzard."
Bertrand had painted in his studio above as long as the light
remained, and now he was washing his brushes, carefully swishing the
water out of them and drawing each one between his lips to shape it
properly before laying it down. Mary laid the babe in her arms in its
crib, and rocked it a moment while she and Bertrand chatted.
A long winter and summer had passed since the troops marched away from
Leauvite, and now another winter was passing. For a year and a bit
more, little Janey, the babe now being hushed to sleep, had been a
member of the family circle. Thus it was that Mary Ballard seldom went
to the village, and Betty learned her lessons at home as best she
could, and tended the baby and helped her mother. But Bertrand and his
wife had plenty to talk about; for he went out and saw their friends
in the village, led the choir on Sundays, taught the Bible class,
heard all the news, and talked it over with Mary.
Thus, in one way or another, all the new books found their way into
the Ballards' home, were read and commented on, even though books were
not written so much for commercial purposes then as now, and their
writers were looked up to with more respect than criticism. The
_Atlantic Monthly_ and _Littell's Living Age_, _Harper's Magazine_,
and the _New York Tribune_ also brought up a variety of subjects for
discussion. Now and then a new poem by Whittier, or Bryant, or some
other of the small galaxy of poets who justly were becoming the
nation's pride, would appear and be read aloud to Mary as she prepared
their meals, or washed the dishes or ironed small garments, while
Betty listened with intent eyes and ears, as she helped her mother or
tended the baby.
That afternoon, while the storm soughed without, the cow and horse
were comfortably quartered in their small stable, which was banked
with straw to keep out the cold. Indoors, Jamie was whittling behind
the warm cookstove over a newspaper spread to catch the chips, while
Bobby played quietly in a corner with two gray kittens and a worsted
ball. Janey was asleep in the crib which Betty jogged now and then
while she knit on a sock for the soldiers,--Mary and the two little
girls were always knitting socks for the soldiers these days in their
spare moments and during the long winter evenings,--Mary was kneading
white loaves of bread with floury hands, and Bertrand sat close beside
the window to catch the last rays of daylight by which to read the war
news.
Bertrand always read the war news first,--news of battles and lists of
wounded and slain and imprisoned, and saddest of all, lists of the
missing,--following closely the movements of their own company of
"boys" from Leauvite. Mary listened always with a thought of the
shadow in the banker's home, and the mother there, watching and
waiting for the return of her boy. Although their own home was safe,
the sorrow of other homes, devastated and mourning, weighed heavily
upon Mary Ballard, and she needed to listen to the stirring editorials
of the _Tribune_, which Bertrand read with dramatic intensity, to
bolster up her faith in the rightness of this war between men who
ought to be brothers in their hopes and ambitions for the national
life of their great country.
"I suppose it is too great a thing to ask--that such a tremendous and
mixed nation as ours should be knit together for the good of all men
in a spirit of brotherly love--but what a thing to ask for! What a
thing to try for! If I were a man, I would pray that I might gain
influence over my fellows just for that--just--for that," said Mary.
"Ah," replied her husband, with fond optimism, "you need not say 'If I
were a man,' for that. It is the women who have the influence; don't
you know that, Mary?"
Mary looked down at her work, an incredulous smile playing about her
lips.
"Well, my dear?" Bertrand loved a response.
"Well, Bertrand? Men do like to talk about our 'sweet influence,'
don't they?" Then she laughed outright.
"But, Mary--but, Mary, it is true. Women do more with their influence
than men can do with their guns," and Bertrand really meant what he
said. Dusky shadows filled the room, but if the light had been
stronger, he would have seen that little ironical smile still playing
about his wife's lips.
"Did you see Judge Logan again about those Waupaca lots?"
Bertrand wondered what the lots had to do with the subject, but
suffered the digression patiently, for the feminine mind was not
supposed to be coherent. "Yes, my love; I saw him yesterday."
"What did you do about them? I hope you refused."
"No, my dear. I thought best not. He showed me very conclusively that
in time they will be worth more--much more--than the debt."
"Then why did he offer them to you for the debt? The portrait you
painted for him will be worth more, too, in time, than the debt. You
remember when you asked me what I thought, I said we needed the money
more now."
"Yes, I remember; but this plan is a looking toward the future. I
didn't think it wise to refuse."
Mary said nothing, but went out, returning presently with two lighted
candles. Bertrand was replenishing the fire. Had he been looking at
her face with the light of the candles on it as she carried them, he
would have noticed that little smile about her lips.
"I'm very glad we brought the bees in yesterday," he said. "This storm
would have made it impossible to do it to-day, and we should have lost
them."
"How about those lectures, dear? The 'boys' are all gone now, and you
won't have them to take up your time evenings, so you can easily
prepare them. They will take you into the city now and then, and that
will keep you in touch with the world outside this village." Bertrand
had been requested to give a series of lectures on art in one of the
colleges in the city. He had been well pleased and had accepted, but
later had refused because of certain dictatorship exercised by the
Board, which he felt infringed on his province of a suitable selection
of subjects. He was silent for a moment. Again Mary had irrelevantly
and abruptly changed the subject of conversation. Where was the
connection between bees and lectures? "I really wish you would, dear,"
urged Mary.
"You still wish it after the affront the Board has given me?"
"I know, but what do they know about art? I would give the lectures if
it was only to be able--incidentally--to teach them something. Be a
little conciliatory, dear."
"I will make no concessions. If I give the lectures, I must be allowed
to select my courses. It is my province."
"Did you see Elder Craigmile about it?"
"I did."
"And what did he say?"
"He seemed to think the Board was right."
"I knew he would. You remember I asked you not to go to him about it,
and that was why."
"Why did you think so? He assumes to be my friend."
"Because people who don't know anything about art always are satisfied
with their own opinions. They don't know anything to upset them. He
knows more than some of them, but how much is that? Enough to know
that he owns some fine paintings; but you taught him their value, now,
didn't you?" Bertrand smiled, but said nothing, and his wife
continued. "Prepare the lectures, dear, for my sake. I love to know
that you are doing such work."
"I can't. The action of the Board is an insult to my intelligence.
What are you smiling about?"
"About you, dear."
"Mary, why, Mary! I--"
But Mary only smiled the more. "You love my irrelevance and
inconsistency, you say,--"
"I love any weakness that is yours, Mary. What are you keeping back
from me?"
"The weakness that is mine, dear." Again Mary laughed outright. "It
would be useless to tell you--or to try to explain. I love you, isn't
that enough?"
Bertrand thought it ought to be, but was not sure, and said so. Then
Mary laughed again, and he kissed her, shaking his head dubiously, and
took up his violin for solace. Thus an hour passed; then Betty set the
table for supper, and the long evening followed like many another
evening, filled with the companionship only comfortably married
people know, while Bertrand read from the poets.
Since, with a man's helplessness in such matters, he could not do
the family mending, or knit for the soldiers, or remodel old garments
into new, it behooved him to render such tasks pleasant for the busy
hand and brain that must devise and create and make much out of little
for economy's sake; and this Bertrand did to Mary's complete
satisfaction.
Evenings like these were Betty's school, and they seemed all the
schooling she was likely to get, for the family funds were barely
sufficient to cover the expenses of one child at a time. But, as Mary
said, "It's not so bad for Betty to be kept at home, for she will read
and study, anyway, because she likes it, and it won't hurt her to
learn to be practical as well;" and no doubt Mary was right.
Bertrand was himself a poet in his appreciation and fineness of
choice, and he read for Mary with all the effectiveness and warmth of
color that he would put into a recitation for a large audience,
carried on solely by his one sympathetic listener and his love for
what he read; while Betty, in her corner close to the lamp behind her
father's chair, listened unnoticed, with eager soul, rapt and
uplifted.
As Bertrand read he commented. "These men who are writing like this
are doing for this country what the Lake Poets did for England. They
are making true literature for the nation, and saving it from
banality. They are going to live. They will be classed some day with
Wordsworth and all the rest of the best. Hear this from James Russell
Lowell. It's about a violin, and is called 'In the Twilight.' It's
worthy of Shelley." And Bertrand read the poem through, while Mary
let her knitting fall in her lap and listened. He loved to see her
listen in that way.
"Read again the verse that begins: 'O my life.' I seem to like it
best." And he read it over:--
"O my life, have we not had seasons
That only said, Live and rejoice?
That asked not for causes and reasons,
But made us all feeling and voice?
When we went with the winds in their blowing,
When Nature and we were peers,
And we seemed to share in the flowing
Of the inexhaustible years?
Have we not from the earth drawn juices
Too fine for earth's sordid uses?
Have I heard, have I seen
All I feel, all I know?
Doth my heart overween?
Or could it have been
Long ago?"
"And the next, Bertrand. I love to hear them over again." And he
read:--
"Sometimes a breath floats by me,
An odor from Dreamland sent,
That makes the ghost seem nigh me
Of a splendor that came and went,
Of a life lived somewhere, I know not
In what diviner sphere,
Of memories that stay not and go not,
Like music heard once by an ear
That cannot forget or reclaim it,
A something so shy, it would shame it
To make it a show,
A something too vague, could I name it,
For others to know,
As if I had lived it or dreamed it,
As if I had acted or schemed it,
Long ago!"
"And the last verse, father. I like the last best," cried Betty,
suddenly.
"Why, my deary. I thought you were gone to bed."
"No, mother lets me sit up a little while longer when you're reading.
I like to hear you." And he read for her the last verse:--
"And yet, could I live it over,
This life that stirs my brain,
Could I be both maiden and lover,
Moon and tide, bee and clover,
As I seem to have been, once again,
Could I but speak it and show it,
This pleasure more sharp than pain,
That baffles and lures me so,
The world should once more have a poet,
Such as it had
In the ages glad,
Long ago!"
Then, wishing to know more of the secret springs of his little
daughter's life, he asked: "Why do you love that stanza best, Betty,
my dear?"
Betty blushed crimson to the roots of her hair, for what she carried
in her heart was too precious to tell, but she meant to be a poet.
Even then, in the pocket of her calico dress lay a little book and a
stubbed lead pencil, and in the book was already the beginning of her
great epic. Her father had said the epic was a thing of the past, that
in the future none would be written, for that it was a form of
expressions that belonged to the world's youth, and that age brought
philosophy and introspection, but not epics.
She meant to surprise her father some day with this poem. The great
world was so full of mystery--of seductive beauty and terror and of
strange, enticing charm! She saw and felt it always. Even now, in the
driving, whirling storm without, in the darkness of her chamber, or
when she looked through the frosted panes into the starry skies at
midnight, always it was there all about her,--a something unexpressed,
unseen, but close--close to her,--the mystery which throbbed through
all her small being, and which she was one day to find out and
understand and put into her great epic.
She thought over her father's question, hardly knowing why she liked
that last stanza best. She slowly wound up her ball of yarn and thrust
the needles through it, and dropped it into her mother's workbasket
before she replied; then, taking up her candle, she looked shyly in
her father's eyes.
"Because I like where it says: 'This pleasure more sharp than pain,
That baffles and lures me so.'" Then she was gone, hurrying away lest
they should question her further and learn about the little book in
her pocket.
Thus time passed with the Ballards, many days swiftly flying, laden
with a fair share of sweetness and pleasure, and much of harassment
and toil, but in the main bringing happiness.
CHAPTER VI
THE END OF THE WAR
It was three years after the troops marched away from High Knob
encampment before either Peter Junior or Richard Kildene were again in
Leauvite, and then only Peter returned, because he was wounded, and
not that he was unwilling to enlist again, as did Richard and many of
the boys, when their first term of service was ended. He returned with
the brevet of a captain, for gallant conduct in the encounter in which
he received his wound, but only a shadow of the healthy, earnest boy
who had stood in the ranks on the town square of Leauvite three years
before; yet this very fact brought life and hope to his waiting
mother, now that she had the blessed privilege of nursing him back to
strength.
It seemed as though her long period of mourning ended when Peter
Junior, pallid in his blue uniform, his hair darkened and matted with
the dampness caused by weakness and pain, was borne in between the
white columns of his father's house. When the news reached him that
his son was lying wounded in a southern hospital, the Elder had, for
the first time in many, many years, followed an impulse without
pausing to consider his act beforehand. He left the bank on the
instant and started for the scene of battles, only hurrying home to
break the news first to his wife. Yielding to a rare tenderness, he
touched her hair as he kissed her, and enjoined on her to remember
that their son was not slain, but by a merciful Providence was only
wounded and might be spared to them. She must thank the Lord and be
ready to nurse him back to life.
Why Providence should be thus merciful to their son rather than to
many another son, the good Elder did not pause to consider. Possibly
he thought it no more than just that the prayers of the righteous
should be answered by a supernatural intervention between their sons
and the bullets of the enemy. His ideas on this point were no doubt
vague at the best, but certain it is that he returned from his long
and difficult journey to the seat of strife after his boy, with a
clearer notion of what war really was, and a more human sympathy for
those who go and suffer, and, as might be anticipated with those of
his temperament, an added bitterness against those whom he felt were
to blame for the conflict.
When Peter Junior left his home, his father had enjoined on him to go,
not in the spirit of bitterness and enmity, but as an act of duty, to
teach a needed lesson; for surely the Lord was on the side of the
right, and was using the men of the North to teach this needed lesson
to those laboring in error. Ah! it is a very different point of view
we take when we suffer, instead of merely moralizing on the suffering
of others; especially we who feel that we know what is right, and lack
in great part the imagination to comprehend the other man's viewpoint.
To us of that cast of mind there is only one viewpoint and that is our
own, and only a bodily departure to the other man's hilltop or valley,
as the case may be, will open the eyes and enlarge the understanding
to the extent of even allowing our fellows to see things in another
light from our own.
In this instance, while the Elder's understanding had been decidedly
enlarged, it had been in but one direction, and the effect had not
been to his spiritual benefit, for he had seen only the suffering of
his own side, and, being deficient in power to imagine what might be,
he had taken no charitable thought for the other side. Instead, a
feeling of hatred had been stirred within him,--a feeling he felt
himself justified in and therefore indulged and named: "Righteous
Indignation."
The Elder's face was stern and hard as he directed the men who bore
his boy on the litter where to turn, and how to lift it above the
banister in going up the stair so as not to jar the young man, who was
too weak after the long journey to do more than turn his eyes on his
mother's face.
But that mother's face! It seemed to him he had never seen it so
radiant and charming, for all that her hair had grown silvery white in
the three years since he had last kissed her. He could not take his
eyes from it, and besought her not to leave his side, even when the
Elder bade her go and not excite him, but allow him to rest.
No sooner was her son laid on his own bed in his old room than she
began a series of gentle ministrations most sweet to the boy and to
herself. But the Elder had been told that all he needed now was rest
and absolute quiet, and the surgeon's orders must be carried out
regardless of all else. Hester Craigmile yielded, as always, to the
Elder's will, and remained without, seated close beside her son's
door, her hands, that ached to serve, lying idle in her lap, while the
Elder brought him his warm milk and held it to his lips, lifting his
head to drink it, and then left him with the command to sleep.
"Don't go in for an hour at least," he enjoined on his wife as he
passed her and took his way to the bank, for it was too early for
closing, and there would still be time for him to look into his
affairs a bit. Thus for the banker the usual routine began.
Not so for Hester Craigmile. Joy and life had begun for her. She had
her boy again--quite to herself when the Elder was away, and the tears
for very happiness came to her eyes and dropped on her hands
unchecked. Had the Elder been there he would have enjoined upon her to
be controlled and she would have obeyed, but now there was no need,
and she wept deliciously for joy while she still sat outside the door
and listened. Intense--eager--it seemed almost as if she could hear
him breathe.
"Mother!" Hark! Did he speak? "Mother!" It was merely a breath, but
she heard and went swiftly to him. Kneeling, she clasped him, and her
tears wet his cheek, but at the same time they soothed him, and he
slept. It was thus the Elder found them when he returned from the
bank, both sweetly sleeping. He did not take his wife away for fear of
waking his son, nevertheless he was displeased with her, and when they
met at table that evening, she knew it.
The whole order of the house was changed because of Peter Junior's
return. Blinds, windows, and doors were thrown open at the direction
of the physician, that he might be given all the air and sunlight it
was possible to admit; else he would never gain strength, for so long
had he lived in the open air, in rain and sun, that he had need now of
every help nature could give.
A bullet had struck him in the hip and glanced off at a peculiar
angle, rendering his recovery precarious and long delayed, and causing
the old doctor to shake his head with the fear that he must pass the
rest of his life a cripple. Still, normal youth is buoyant and
vigorous and mocks at physicians' fears, and after a time, what with
heart at rest, with loving and unceasing care on his mother's part,
and rigorous supervision on his father's, Peter Junior did at length
recover sufficiently to be taken out to drive, and began to get back
the good red blood in his veins.
During this long period of convalescence, Peter Junior's one anxiety
was for his cousin Richard. Rumors had reached him that his comrade
had been wounded and taken prisoner, yet nothing definite had been
heard, until at last, after much writing, he learned Richard's
whereabouts, and later that he had been exchanged. Then, too ill and
prison-worn to go back to his regiment, he appeared one day, slowly
walking up the village street toward the banker's house.
There he was welcomed and made much of, and the two young men spent a
while together happily, the best of friends and comrades, still filled
with enthusiasm, but with a wider knowledge of life and the meaning of
war. These weeks were few and short, and soon Richard was back in the
army. Peter Junior, envying him, still lay convalescing and only able
with much difficulty to crawl to the carriage for his daily drive.
His mother always accompanied him on these drives, and the very first
of them was to the home of the Ballards. It was early spring, the air
was biting and cool, and Peter was unable to alight, but Mary and her
husband came to them where they waited at the gate and stood long,
talking happily. Jamie and Bobby followed at their heels and peered up
curiously at the wounded soldier, but Betty was seized with a rare
moment of shyness that held her back.
Dear little Betty! She had grown taller since Peter Junior had taken
that last tea at the Ballards. No longer care free, the oldest but
one, she had taken many of her mother's burdens upon her young
shoulders, albeit not knowing that they were burdens, since they were
wholly acts of love and joyously done. She was fully conscious of her
advancing years, and took them very seriously, regarding her acts with
a grave and serene sense of their importance. She had put back the
wild hair that used to fly about her face until her father called her
"An owl in an ivy bush" and her mother admonished her that her "head
was like a mop." Now, being in her teens, she wore her dresses longer
and never ran about barefooted, paddling in the brook below the
spring, although she would like to do so; still she was child enough
to run when she should walk, and to laugh when some would sigh.
Her thoughts had been romantically active regarding Peter Junior, how
he would look, and how splendid and great he was to have been a real
soldier and come home wounded--to have suffered and bled for his
country. And Richard, too, was brave and splendid. He must have been
in the very front of the battle to have been taken prisoner. She
wondered a little if he remembered her, but not much, for how could
men with great work to do, like fighting and dying for their country,
stop to think of a little girl who was still in short dresses when
they had seen her last?
Then, when the war was ended at last, there was Richard returned and
stopping at his uncle's. In the few short visits he made at the
Ballards' he greeted Betty as of old, as he would greet a little
sister of whom he was fond, and she accepted his frank, old-time
brotherliness in the same spirit, gayly and happily, revealing but
little of herself, and holding a slight reserve in her manner which
seemed to him quite delightful and maidenly. Then, all too suddenly,
he was gone again, but in his heart he carried a memory of her that
made a continual undercurrent in his thoughts.
And now Betty's father and mother were actually talking with Peter
Junior at their very gate. Impulse would have sent her flying to meet
him, but that new, self-conscious shyness stayed her feet, for he was
one to be approached with reverence. He was afflicted with no romantic
shyness with regard to her, however. He quite forgot her, indeed,
although he did ask in a general way after the children and even
mentioned Martha in particular, as, being the eldest, she was best
remembered. So Betty did not see Peter Junior this time, but she stood
where she could see the top of the carriage from her bedroom window,
whither she had fled, and she could see the blue sleeve of his coat as
he put out his arm to take her mother's hand at parting. That was
something, and she listened with beating heart for the sound of his
voice. Ah, little he dreamed what a tumult he had raised in the heart
of that young being whose imagination had been so stirred by all that
she had read and heard of war, and the part taken in it by their own
young men of Leauvite. That Peter Junior had come home brevetted a
captain for his bravery crowned him with glory. All that day Betty
went about with dreams in her head, and coursing through them was the
voice of the wounded young soldier.
At last, with the slow march of time, came the proclamation of peace,
and the nation so long held prostrate--a giant struggling against
fetters of its own forging, blinded and strangling in its own
blood--reared its head and cried out for the return of Hope, groping
on all sides to gather the divine youth to its arms, when, as a last
blow, dealt by a wanton hand, came the death of Lincoln.
Then it was that the nation recoiled and bowed itself for a time,
beaten and crushed--both North and South--and vultures gathered at the
seat of conflict and tore at its vitals and wrangled over the spoils.
Then it was that they who had sowed discord stooped to reap the
Devil's own harvest,--a woeful, bitter, desperate time, when more
enmity and deep rancor was bred and treasured up for future sorrow
than during all the years of the honest and active strife of the war.
In the very beginning that first news of the firing on Fort Sumter
flew through the North like a tragic cry, and men felt a sense of doom
hanging over the nation. Bertrand Ballard heard it and walked
sorrowfully home to his wife, and sat long with bowed head, brooding
and silent. Neighbor Wilcox heard it, and, leaving his business,
entered his home and called his household together with the servants
and held family worship--a service which it was his custom to hold
only on the Sabbath--and earnestly prayed for the salvation of the
country, and that wisdom might be granted its rulers, after which he
sent his oldest son to fight for the cause. Elder Craigmile heard it,
and consented that his last and only son should enter the ranks and
give his life, if need be, for the saving of the nation. Still,
tempering all this sorrow and anxiety was the chance for action, and
the hope of victory.
But now, in this later time, when the strength of the nation had been
wasted, when victory itself was dark with mourning for sons slain, the
loss of the one wise leader to whom all turned with uplifted hearts
seemed the signal for annihilation; and then, indeed, it appeared that
the prophecy of Mary Ballard's old grandfather had been fulfilled and
the curse of slavery had not only been wiped out with blood, but that
the greater curse of anarchy and misrule had taken its place to still
further scourge the nation.
Mary Ballard's mother, while scarcely past her prime, was taken ill
with fever and died, and immediately upon this blow to the dear old
father who was not yet old enough by many years to be beyond his
usefulness to those who loved and depended on him, came the tragic
death of Lincoln, whom he revered and in whom all his hopes for the
right adjustment of the nation's affairs rested. Under the weight of
the double calamity he gave up hope, and left the world where all
looked so dark to him, almost before the touch of his wife's hand had
grown cold in his.
"Father died of a broken heart," said Mary, and turned to her husband
and children with even more intensity of devotion. "For," she said,
"after all, the only thing in life of which we can be perfectly sure
is our love for each other. A grave may open at our feet anywhere at
any time, and only love oversteps it."
With such an animating spirit as this, no family can be wholly sad,
and though poverty pinched them at times, and sorrow had bitterly
visited them, with years and thrift things changed. Bertrand painted
more pictures and sold them; the children were gay and vigorous and
brought life and good times to the home, and the girls grew up to be
womanly, winsome lasses, light-hearted and good to look upon.
Enough of the war and the evils thereof has been said and written and
sung. Animosity is dead, and brotherhood and mutual service between
the two opposing factions of one great family have taken the place of
strife. Useless now to say what might have been, or how otherwise that
terrible time of devastation and sorrow could have been avoided.
Enough to know that at last as a nation, whole and undivided, we may
pull together in the tremendous force of our united strength, and that
now we may take up the "White Man's Burden" and bear it to its
magnificent conclusion to the service of all mankind and the glory of
God.
CHAPTER VII
A NEW ERA BEGINS
Bertrand Ballard's studio was at the top of his house, with a high
north window and roughly plastered walls of uncolored sand, left as
Bertrand himself had put the plaster on, with his trowel marks over
the surface as they happened to come, and the angles and projections
thereof draped with cobwebs.
When Peter Junior was able to leave his home and get about a little on
his crutches, he loved to come there and rest and spend his idle
hours, and Bertrand found pleasure in his companionship. They read
together, and sang together, and laughed together, and no sound was
more pleasant to Mary Ballard's ears than this same happy laughter.
Peter had sorely missed the companionship of his cousin, for, at the
close of the war, no longer a boy and unwilling to be dependent and
drifting, Richard had sought out a place for himself in the work of
the world.
First he had gone to Scotland to visit his mother's aunts. There he
found the two dear old ladies, sweetly observant of him, willing to
tell him much of his mother, who had been scarcely younger than the
youngest of them, but discreetly reticent about his father. From this
he gathered that for some reason his father was under a cloud. Yet he
did not shrink from trying to learn from them all they knew about him,
and for what reason they spoke as if to even mention his name was an
indiscretion. It was really little they knew, only that he had gravely
displeased their nephew, Peter Craigmile, who had brought Richard up,
and who was his mother's twin brother.
"But why did Uncle Peter have to bring me up? You say he quarreled
with my father?"
"Weel, ye see, ye'r mither was dead." It was Aunt Ellen, the elder by
twenty years, who told him most about it, she who spoke with the
broadest Scotch.
"Was my father a bad man, that Uncle 'Elder' disliked him so?"
"Weel now, I'd no say that; he was far from that to be right fair to
them both--for ye see--ye'r mither would never have loved him if he'd
been that--but he--he was an Irishman, and ye'r Uncle Peter could
never thole an Irishman, and he--he--fair stole ye'r mither from us
a'--an--" she hesitated to continue, then blurted out the real horror.
"Your Uncle Peter kenned he had ance been in the theayter, a sort o'
an actor body an' he couldna thole that."
But little was to be gained with all his questioning, and what he
could learn seemed no more than that his father had done what any man
might be expected to do if some one stood between him and the girl he
loved; so Richard felt that there must be something unknown to any one
but his uncle that had turned them all against his father. Why had his
father never appeared to claim his son? Why had he left his boy to be
reared by a man who hated the boy's father? It was a strange thing to
do, and it must be that his father was dead.
At this time Richard was filled with ambitions,--fired by his early
companionship with Bertrand Ballard,--and thought he would go to
France and become an artist;--to France, the Mecca of Bertrand's
dreams--he desired of all things to go there for study. But of all
this he said nothing to any one, for where was the money? He would
never ask his uncle for it, and now that he had learned that he had
been all his young life really a dependent on the bounty of his Uncle
Peter, he could no longer accept his help. He would hereafter make his
own way, asking no favors.
The old aunts guessed at his predicament, and offered to give him for
his mother's sake enough to carry him through the first year, but he
would not allow them to take from their income to pay his bills. No,
he would take his way back to America, and find a place for himself in
the new world; seek some active, stirring work, and save money, and
sometime--sometime he would do the things his heart loved. He often
thought of Betty, the little Betty who used to run to meet him and say
such quaint things; some day he would go to her and take her with him.
He would work first and do something worthy of so choice a little
mortal.
Thus dreaming, after the manner of youth, he went to Ireland, to his
father's boyhood home. He found only distant relatives there, and
learned that his father had disposed of all he ever owned of Irish
soil to an Englishman. A cousin much older than himself owned and
still lived on the estate that had been his grandfather Kildene's, and
Richard was welcomed and treated with openhearted hospitality. But
there, also, little was known of his father, only that the peasants on
the estate remembered him lovingly as a free-hearted gentleman.
Even that little was a relief to Richard's sore heart. Yes, his father
must be dead. He was sorry. He was a lonely man, and to have a
relative who was his very own, as near as a father, would be a great
deal. His cousin, Peter Junior, was good as a friend, but from now on
they must take paths that diverged, and that old intimacy must
naturally change. His sweet Aunt Hester he loved, and she would fill
the mother's place if she could, but it was not to be. It would mean
help from his Uncle Peter, and that would mean taking a place in his
uncle's bank, which had already been offered him, but which he did not
want, which he would not accept if he did want it.
So, after a long and happy visit at his cousin Kildene's, in
Ireland, he at last left for America again, and plunged into a new,
interesting, and vigorous life, one that suited well his energetic
nature. He found work on the great railway that was being built across
the plains to the Pacific Coast. He started as an engineer's
assistant, but soon his talent for managing men caused his employers
to put him in charge of gangs of workmen who were often difficult and
lawless. He did not object; indeed he liked the new job better than
that he began with. He was more interested in men than materials.
The life was hard and rough, but he came to love it. He loved the
wide, sweeping prairies, and, later on, the desert. He liked to lie
out under the stars,--often when the men slept under tents,--his gun
at his side and his thoughts back on the river bluffs at Leauvite. He
did a lot of dreaming and thinking, and he never forgot Betty. He
thought of her as still a child, although he was expecting her to grow
up and be ready for him when he should return to her. He had a vague
sort of feeling that all was understood between them, and that she was
quietly becoming womanly, and waiting for him.
Peter Junior might have found other friends in Leauvite had he sought
them out, but he did not care for them. His nature called for what he
found in Bertrand's studio, and he followed the desire of his heart
regardless of anything else, spending all the time he could reasonably
filch from his home. And what wonder! Richard would have done the same
and was even then envying Peter the opportunity, as Peter well knew
from his cousin's letters. There was no place in the village so
fascinating and delightful as this little country home on its
outskirts, no conversation more hopeful and helpful than Bertrand's,
and no welcome sweeter or kinder than Mary Ballard's.
One day, after Richard had gone out on the plains with the engineers
of the projected road, Peter lay stretched on a long divan in the
studio, his head supported by his hand as he half reclined on his
elbow, and his one crutch--he had long since discarded the other--within
reach of his arm. His violin also lay within reach, for he had been
playing there by himself, as Bertrand had gone on one of his rare
visits to the city a hundred miles away.
Betty Ballard had heard the wail of his violin from the garden, where
she had been gathering pears. That was how she knew where to find him
when she quickly appeared before him, rosy and flushed from her run to
the house and up the long flight of stairs.
As Peter lay there, he was gazing at the half-finished copy he had
been making of the head of an old man, for Peter had decided, since in
all probability he would be good for no active work such as Richard
had taken up, that he too would become an artist, like Bertrand
Ballard. To have followed his cousin would have delighted his heart,
for he had all the Scotchman's love of adventure, but, since that was
impossible, nothing was more alluring than the thought of fame and
success as an artist. He would not tie himself to Leauvite to get it.
He would go to Paris, and there he would do the things Bertrand had
been prevented from doing. Poor Bertrand! How he would have loved the
chance Peter Junior was planning for himself as he lay there dreaming
and studying the half-finished copy.
Suddenly he beheld Betty, standing directly in front of the work,
extending to him a folded bit of paper. "Here's a note from your
father," she cried.
Looking upon her thus, with eyes that had been filled with the aged,
rugged face on the canvas, Betty appealed to Peter as a lovely vision.
He had never noticed before, in just this way, her curious charm, but
these months of companionship and study with Bertrand had taught him
to see beauty understandingly, and now, as she stood panting a little,
with breath coming through parted lips and hair flying almost in the
wild way of her childhood, Peter saw, as if it were a revelation, that
she was lovely. He raised himself slowly and reached for the note
without taking his eyes from her face.
He did not open the letter, but continued to look in her eyes, at
which she turned about half shyly. "I heard your violin; that's how I
knew you were up here. Oh! Have you been painting on it again?"
"On my violin? No, I've been playing on it."
"No! Painting on the picture of your old man. I think you have it too
drawn out and thin. He's too hollow there under the cheek bone."
"Is he, Miss Critic? Well, thank your stars you're not."
"I know. I'm too fat." She rubbed her cheek until it was redder than
ever.
"What are you painting your cheeks for? There's color enough on them
as they are."
She made a little mouth at him. "I could paint your old man as well as
that, I know."
"I know you could. You could paint him far better than that."
She laughed, quickly repentant. "I didn't say that to be horrid. I
only said it for fun. I couldn't."
"And I know you could." He rose and stood without his crutch, looking
down on her. "And you're not 'too long drawn out,' are you? See? You
only come up to--about--here on me." He measured with his hand a
little below his chin.
"I don't care. You're not so awfully tall."
"Very well, have it so. That only makes you the shorter."
"I tell you I don't care. You'd better stop staring at me, if I'm so
little, and read your letter. The man's waiting for it. That's why I
ran all the way up here." By this it may be seen that Betty had lost
all her awe of the young soldier. Maybe it left her when he doffed his
uniform. "Here's your crutch. Doesn't it hurt you to stand alone?" She
reached him the despised prop.
"Hurt me to stand alone? No! I'm not a baby. Do you think I'm likely
to grow up bow-legged?" he thundered, taking it from her hand without
a thank you, and glaring down on her humorously. "You're a bit cruel
to remind me of it. I'm going to walk with a cane hereafter, and next
thing you know you'll see me stalking around without either."
"Why, Peter Junior! I'd be so proud of that crutch I wouldn't leave it
off for anything! I'd always limp a little, even if I didn't use it.
Cruel? I was complimenting you."
"Complimenting me? How?"
"By reminding you that you had been brave--and had been a soldier--and
had been wounded for your country--and had been promoted--and--"
But Peter drowned her voice with uproarious laughter, and suddenly
surprised himself as well as her by slipping his arm around her waist
and stopping her lips with a kiss.
Betty was surprised but not shocked. She knew of no reason why Peter
should not kiss her even though it was not his custom to treat her
thus. In Betty's home, demonstrative expressions of affection were as
natural as sunlight, and why should not Peter like her? Therefore it
was Peter who was shocked, and embarrassed her with his sudden
apology.
"I don't care if you did kiss me. You're just like my big brother--the
same as Richard is--and he often used to kiss me." She was trying to
set Peter at his ease. "And, anyway, I like you. Why, I supposed of
course you liked me--only naturally not as much as I liked you."
"Oh, more! Much more!" he stammered tremblingly. He knew in his heart
that there was a subtle difference, and that what he felt was not what
she meant when she said, "I like you." "I'm sure it is I who like you
the most."
"Oh, no, it isn't! Why, you never even used to see me. And I--I used
to gaze on you--and be so romantic! It was Richard who always saw me
and played with me. He used to toss me up, and I would run away down
the road to meet him. I wonder when he's coming back! I wish he'd
come. Why don't you read your father's letter? The man's waiting, you
know."
"Ah, yes. And I suppose Dad's waiting, too. I wonder why he wrote me
when he can see me every day!"
"Well, read it. Don't stand there looking at it and staring at me. Do
you know how you look? You look as if it were a message from the king,
saying: 'You are remanded to the tower, and are to have your head
struck off at sundown.' That's the way they did things in the olden
days." She turned to go.
"Stay here until I see if you are right." He dropped on the divan and
made room for her at his side.
"All right! That's what I wanted to do, but I thought it wouldn't be
polite to be curious."
"But you wouldn't be polite anyway, you know, so you might as well
stay. M-m-m. I'm remanded to the tower, sure enough. Father wants me
to meet him in the director's room as soon as banking hours are over.
Fine old Dad! He wouldn't think of infringing on banking hours for any
private reasons unless the sky were falling, and even then he would
save the bank papers first. See here--Betty--er--never mind. I'll tell
you another time."
"Please tell me now! What is it? Something dreadful, Peter Junior?"
"I wasn't thinking about this; it--it's something else--"
"About what?"
"About you."
"Oh, then it is no consequence. I want to hear what's in the letter.
Why did you tell me to stay if you weren't going to tell me what's in
it?"
"Nothing. We have had a little difference of opinion, my father and I,
and he evidently wants to settle it out of hand his way, by summoning
me in this official manner to appear before him at the bank."
"I know. He thinks you are idling away your time here trying to paint
pictures, and he wishes to make a respectable banker of you." She
reached over and began picking the strings of his violin.
"You musn't finger the strings of a violin that way."
"Why not? I want to see if I can pick out 'The Star Spangled Banner'
on it. I can on the flute, father's old one; he lets me."
"Because you'll get them oily."
She spread out her two firm little hands. "My fingers aren't greasy!"
she cried indignantly; "that's pear juice on them."
Peter Junior's gravity turned to laughter. "Well, I don't want pear
juice on my strings. Wait, you rogue, I'm going to kiss you again."
"No, you're not, you old hobble-de-hoy. You can't catch me." When she
was halfway down the stairs, she called back, "The man's waiting."
"Coward! Coward!" he called after her, "to run away from a poor old
cripple and then call him names." He thrust the letter into his
pocket, and seizing his crutch began deliberately and carefully to
descend the stairs, with grave, set face, not unlike his father's.
"Catch, Peter Junior," called Betty from the top of the pear tree as
he passed down the garden path, and tossed him a pear which he caught,
then another and another. "There! No, don't eat them now. Put them in
your desk, and next month they'll be just as sweet!"
"Will they? Just like you? I'll be even with you yet--when I catch
you."
"You'll get pear juice on your strings. There are lots of nice girls
in the village for you to kiss. They'll do just as well as me."
"Good girl. Good grammar. Good-by." He waved his hand toward Betty,
and turned to the waiting servant. "You go on and tell the Elder I'm
coming right along," he said, and hopped off down the road. It was
only lately he had begun to take long walks or hops like this, with
but one crutch, but he was growing frantic to be fairly on his two
feet again. The doctor had told him he never would be, but he set his
square chin, and decided that the doctor was wrong. More than ever
to-day, with the new touch of little pear-stained fingers on his
heart, he wanted to walk off like other men.
Now he tried to use his lame leg as much as possible. If only he might
throw away the crutch and walk with a cane, it would be something
gained. With one hand in his pocket he crushed his father's letter
into a small wad, then tossed it in the air and caught it awhile, then
put it back in his pocket and hobbled on.
The atmosphere had the smoky appearance of the fall, and the sweet
haze of Indian summer lay over the landscape, the horizon only faintly
outlined through it. Peter Junior sniffed the air. He wondered if the
forests in the north were afire. Golden maple leaves danced along on
the path before him, whirled hither and thither by the light breeze,
and the wild asters and goldenrod powdered his dark trousers with
pollen as he brushed them in passing. All the world was lovely, and he
appreciated it as he had never been able to do before. Bertrand's
influence had permeated his thoughts and widened thus his reach of
happiness.
He entered the bank just at the closing hour, and the staid, faithful
old clerks nodded to him as he passed through to the inner room, where
he found his father awaiting him. He dropped wearily into a swivel
chair before the great table and placed his crutch at his feet; wiping
the perspiration from his forehead, he leaned forward, and rested his
elbows on the table.
The young man's wan look, for the walk had taxed his strength,
reminded his father of the day he had brought the boy home wounded,
and his face relaxed.
"You are tired, my son."
"Oh, no. Not very. I have been more so." Peter Junior smiled a
disarming smile as he looked in his father's face. "I've tramped many
a mile on two sound feet when they were so numb from sheer weariness
that I could not feel them or know what they were doing. What did you
want to say to me, father?"
"Well, my son, we have different opinions, as you know, regarding your
future."
"I know, indeed."
"And a father's counsel is not to be lightly disposed of."
"I have no intention of doing so, father."
"No, no. But wait. You have been loitering the day at Mr. Ballard's?
Yes."
"I have nothing else to do, father,--and--" Peter Junior's smile
again came to the rescue. "It isn't as though I were in doubtful
company--I--there are worse places here in the village where I
might--where idle men waste their time."
"Ah, yes. But they are not for you--not for you, my son." The Elder
smiled in his turn, and lifted his brows, then drew them down and
looked keenly at his son. The afternoon sunlight streamed through the
high western window and fell on the older man's face, bringing it into
strong relief against the dark oak paneling behind him, and as Peter
Junior looked on his father he received his second revelation that
day. He had not known before what a strong, fine old face his father's
was, and for the second time he surprised himself, when he cried
out:--
"I tell you, father, you have a magnificent head! I'm going to make a
portrait of you just as you are--some day."
The Elder rose with an indignant, despairing downward motion of the
hands and began pacing the floor, while Peter Junior threw off
restraint and laughed aloud. The laughter freed his soul, but it sadly
irritated the Elder. He did not like unusual or unprecedented things,
and Peter Junior was certainly not like himself, and was acting in an
unprecedented manner.
"You have now regained a fair amount of strength and have reached an
age when you should think seriously of what you are to do in life. As
you know, it has always been my intention that you should take a place
here and fit yourself for the responsibilities that are now mine, but
which will some day devolve on you."
Peter Junior raised his hand in protest, then dropped it. "I mean to
be an artist, father."
"Faugh! An artist? Look at your friend, Bertrand Ballard. What has he
to live on? What will he have laid by for his old age? How has he
managed to live all these years--he and his wife? Miserable
hand-to-mouth existence! I'll see my son trying to emulate him! You'll
be an artist? And how will you support a wife if you ever have one?
You mean to marry some day?"
"I mean to marry Betty Ballard," said Peter Junior, with a rugged set
of his jaw.
Again the Elder made that despairing downward thrust with his open
hands. "Take a wife who has nothing, and a career which brings in
nothing, and live on what your father has amassed for you, and leave
your sons nothing--a pretty way for you to carry on the work I have
begun for you--to--establish an honorable family--"
"Father, father, I mean to do all I can to please you. I'll be always
dutiful--and honorable--but you must leave me my manhood. You must
allow me to choose my own path in life."
The Elder paced the floor a few moments longer, then resumed his chair
opposite his son, and, leaning back, looked across the table at his
boy, meditatively, with half-closed eyes. At last he said, "We'll take
this matter to the Lord, and leave it in his hands."
Then Peter Junior cried out upon him: "No, no, father; spare me that.
It only means that you'll state to the Lord what is your own way, and
pray to have it, and then be more than ever convinced that it is the
Lord's way."
"My son, my son!"
"It's so, father. I'm willing to ask for guidance of the Lord, but I'm
not willing to have you dictate to the Lord what--what I must do, and
so whip me in line with the scourge of prayer." Peter Junior paused,
as he looked in his father's face and saw the shocked and sorrowful
expression there instead of the passionate retort he expected. "I am
wrong to talk so, father; forgive me; but--have patience a little. God
gave to man the power of choice, didn't he?"
"Certainly. Through it all manner of evil came into the world."
"And all manner of good, too. I--a man ought not to be merely an
automaton, letting some one else always exercise that right for him.
Surely the right of choice would never have been given us if it were
not intended that each man should exercise it for himself. One who
does not is good for nothing."
"There is the command you forget; that of obedience to parents."
"But how long--how long, father? Am I not man enough to choose for
myself? Let me choose."
Then the Elder leaned forward and faced his son as his son was facing
him, both resting their elbows on the table and gazing straight into
each other's eyes; and the old man spoke first.
"My father founded this bank before I was born. He came from Scotland
when he was but a lad, with his parents, and went to school and
profited by his opportunities. He was of good family, as you know.
When he was still a very young man, he entered a bank in the city as
clerk, and received only ten dollars a week for his services, but he
was a steady, good lad, and ambitious, and soon he moved higher--and
higher. His father had taken up farming, and at his death, being an
only son, he converted the farm, all but the homestead, which we still
own, and which will be yours, into capital, and came to town and
started this bank. When I was younger than you, my son, I went into
the bank and stood at my father's right hand, as I wish you--for your
own sake--to do by me. We are a set race--a determined race, but we
are not an insubordinate race, my son."
Peter Junior was silent for a while; he felt himself being beaten.
Then he made one more plea. "It is not that I am insubordinate father,
but, as I see it, into each generation something enters, different
from the preceding one. New elements are combined. In me there is that
which my mother gave me."
"Your mother has always been a sweet woman, yielding to the judgment
of her husband, as is the duty of a good wife."
"I know she was brought up and trained to think that her duty, but I
doubt if you really know her heart. Did you ever try to know it? I
don't believe you understood what I meant by the scourge of prayer.
She would have known. She has lived all these years under that lash,
even though it has been wielded by the hand of one she loves--by one
who loves her." He paused a second time, arrested by his father's
expression. At first it was that of one who is stunned, then it
slowly changed to one of rage. For once the boy had broken through
that wall of self-control in which the Elder encased himself. Slowly
the Elder rose and leaned towering over his son across the table.
"I tell you that is a lie!" he shouted. "Your mother has never
rebelled. She has been an obedient, docile woman. It is a lie!"
Peter Junior made no reply. He also rose, and taking up his crutch,
turned toward the door. There he paused and looked back, with flashing
eyes. His lip quivered, but he held himself quiet.
"Come back!" shouted his father.
"I have told you the truth, father." He still stood with his hand on
the door.
"Has--has--your mother ever said anything to you to give you reason to
insult me this way?"
"No, never. We can't talk reasonably now. Let me go, and I'll try to
explain some other time."
"Explain now. There is no other time."
"Mother is sacred to me, father. I ought not to have dragged her into
this discussion."
The Elder's lips trembled. He turned and walked to the window and
stood a moment, silently looking out. At last he said in a low voice:
"She is sacred to me also, my son."
Peter Junior went back to his seat, and waited a while, with his head
in his hands; then he lifted his eyes to his father's face. "I can't
help it. Now I've begun, I might as well tell the truth. I meant what
I said when I spoke of the different element in me, and that it is
from my mother. You gave me that mother. I know you love her, and you
know that your will is her law, as you feel that it ought to be. But
when I am with her, I feel something of a nature in her that is not
yours. And why not? Why not, father? There is that of her in me that
makes me know this, and that of you in me that makes me understand
you. Even now, though you are not willing to give me my own way, it
makes me understand that you are insisting on your way because you
think it is for my good. But nothing can alter the fact that I have
inherited from my mother tastes that are not yours, and that entitle
me to my manhood's right of choice."
"Well, what is your choice, now that you know my wish?"
"I can't tell you yet, father. I must have more time. I only know what
I think I would like to do."
"You wish to talk it over with your mother?"
"Yes."
"She will agree with me."
"Yes, no doubt; but it's only fair to tell her and ask her advice,
especially if I decide to leave home."
The Elder caught his breath inwardly, but said no more. He recognized
in the boy enough of himself to know that he had met in him a power of
resistance equal to his own. He also knew what Peter Junior did not
know, that his grandfather's removal to this country was an act of
rebellion against the wishes of his father. It was a matter of family
history he had thought best not to divulge.
CHAPTER VIII
MARY BALLARD'S DISCOVERY
Peter Junior's mind was quite made up to go his own way and leave home
to study abroad, but first he would try to convert his father to his
way of thinking. Then there was another thing to be done. Not to
marry, of course; that, under present conditions, would never do; but
to make sure of Betty, lest some one come and steal into her heart
before his return.
After his talk with his father in the bank he lay long into the night,
gazing at the shadowed tracery on his wall cast by the full harvest
moon shining through the maple branches outside his window. The leaves
had not all fallen, and in the light breeze they danced and quivered,
and the branches swayed, and the shadows also swayed and danced
delicately over the soft gray wall paper and the red-coated old
soldier standing stiffly in his gold frame. Often in his waking dreams
in after life he saw the moving shadows silently swaying and dancing
over gray and red and gold, and often he tried to call them out from
the past to banish things he would forget.
Long this night he lay planning and thinking. Should he speak to Betty
and tell her he loved her? Should he only teach her to think of him,
not with the frank liking of her girlhood, so well expressed to him
that very day, but with the warm feeling which would cause her cheeks
to redden when he spoke? Could he be sure of himself--to do this
discreetly, or would he overstep the mark? He would wait and see what
the next day would bring forth.
In the morning he discarded his crutch, as he had threatened, and
walked out to the studio, using only a stout old blackthorn stick he
had found one day when rummaging among a collection of odds and ends
in the attic. He thought the stick was his father's and wondered why
so interesting a walking stick--or staff; it could hardly be called a
cane, he thought, because it was so large and oddly shaped--should be
hidden away there. Had his father seen it he would have recognized it
instantly as one that had belonged to his brother-in-law, Larry
Kildene, and it would have been cut up and used for lighting fires.
But it had been many years since the Elder had laid eyes on that
knobbed and sturdy stick, which Larry had treasured as a rare thing in
the new world, and a fine antique specimen of a genuine blackthorn. It
had belonged to his great-grandfather in Ireland, and no doubt had
done its part in cracking crowns.
Betty, kneading bread at a table before the kitchen window, spied
Peter Junior limping wearily up the walk without his crutch, and ran
to him, dusting the flour from her hands as she came.
"Lean on me. I won't get flour on your coat. What did you go without
your crutch for? It's very silly of you."
He essayed a laugh, but it was a self-conscious one. "I'm not going to
use a crutch all my lifetime; don't you think it. I'm very well off
without, and almost myself again. I don't need to lean on you--but I
will--just for fun." He put his arm about her and drew her to him.
"Stop, Peter Junior. Don't you see you're getting flour all over your
clothes?"
"I like flour on my clothes. It will do for stiffening." He raised her
hand and kissed her wrist where there was no flour.
"You're not leaning on me. You're just acting silly, and you can
hardly walk, you're so tired! Coming all this way without your crutch.
I think you're foolish."
"If you say anything more about that crutch, I'll throw away my cane
too." He dropped down on the piazza and drew her to the step beside
him.
"I must finish kneading the bread; I can't sit here. You rest in the
rocker awhile before you go up to the studio. Father's up there. He
came home late last night after we were all in bed." She returned to
her work, and after a moment called to him through the open window.
"There's going to be a nutting party to-morrow, and we want you to go.
We're going out to Carter's grove; we've got permission. Every one's
going."
Peter Junior rubbed the moisture from his hair and shook his head. He
must get nearer her, but it was always the same thing; just a happy
game, with no touch of sentiment--no more, he thought gloomily, than
if she were his sister.
"What are you all going there for?"
"Why, nuts, goosey; didn't I say we were going nutting?"
"I don't happen to want nuts." No, he wanted her to urge and coax him
to go for her sake, but what could he say?
He left his seat, took the side path around to the kitchen door, and
drew up a chair to the end of the table where she deftly manipulated
the sweet-smelling dough, patting it, and pulling it, and turning it
about until she was ready to put the shapely balls in the pans,
holding them in her two firm little hands with a slight rolling motion
as she slipped each loaf in its place. It had never occurred to Peter
Junior that bread making was such an interesting process.
"Why do you fuss with it so? Why don't you just dump it in the pan any
old way? That's the way I'd do." But he loved to watch her pink-tipped
fingers carefully shaping the loaves, nevertheless.
"Oh--because."
"Good reason."
"Well--the more you work it the better it is, just like everything
else; and then--if you don't make good-looking loaves, you'll never
have a handsome husband. Mother says so." She tossed a stray lock from
her eyes, and opening the oven door thrust in her arm. "My, but it's
hot! Why do you sit here in the heat? It's a lot nicer on the porch in
the rocker. Mother's gone to town--and--"
"I'd rather sit here with you--thank you." He spoke stiffly and
waited. What could he say; what could he do next? She left him a
moment and quickly returned with a cup of butter.
"You know--I'd stop and go out in the cool with you, Peter, but I must
work this dough I have left into raised biscuit; and then I have to
make a cake for to-morrow--and cookies--there's something to do in
this house, I tell you! How about to-morrow?"
"I don't believe I'd better go. All the rest of the world will be
there, and--"
"Only our little crowd. When I said everybody, you didn't think I
meant everybody in the whole world, did you? You know us all."
"Do you want me to go? There'll be enough others--"
She tossed her head and gave him a sidelong glance. "I always ask
people to go when I don't want them to."
He rose at that and stood close to her side, and, stooping, looked in
her eyes; and for the first time the color flamed up in her face
because of him. "I say--do you want me to go?"
"No, I don't."
But the red he had brought into her cheeks intoxicated him with
delight. Now he knew a thing to do. He seized her wrists and turned
her away from the table and continued to look into her eyes. She
twisted about, looking away from him, but the burning blush made even
the little ear she turned toward him pink, and he loved it. His
discretion was all gone. He loved her, and he would tell her now--now!
She must hear it, and slipping his arm around her, he drew her away
and out to the seat under the old silver-leaf poplar tree.
"You're acting silly, Peter Junior,--and my bread will all spoil and
get too light,--and my hands are all covered with flour, and--"
"And you'll sit right here while I talk to you a bit, if the bread
spoils and gets too light and everything burns to a cinder." She
started to run away from him, and his peremptory tone changed to
pleading. "Please, Betty, dear! just hear me this far. I'm going away,
Betty, and I love you. No, sit close and be my sweetheart. Dear, it
isn't the old thing. It's love, and it's what I want you to feel for
me. I woke up yesterday, and found I loved you." He held her closer
and lifted her face to his. "You must wake up, too, Betty; we can't
play always. Say you'll love me and be my wife--some day--won't you,
Betty?"
She drooped in his arms, hanging her head and looking down on her
floury hands.
"Say it, Betty dear, won't you?"
Her lip quivered. "I don't want to be anybody's wife--and, anyway--I
liked you better the other way."
"Why, Betty? Tell me why."
"Because--lots of reasons. I must help mother--and I'm only seventeen,
and--"
"Most eighteen, I know, because--"
"Well, anyway, mother says no girl of hers shall marry before she's of
age, and she says that means twenty-one, and--"
"That's all right. I can wait. Kiss me, Betty." But she was silent,
with face turned from him. Again he lifted her face to his. "I say,
kiss me, Betty. Just one? That was a stingy little kiss. You know I'm
going away, and that is why I spoke to you now. I didn't dare go
without telling you this first. You're so sweet, Betty, some one might
find you out and love you--just as I have--only not so deeply in love
with you--no one could--but some one might come and win you away from
me, and so I must make sure that you will marry me when you are of age
and I come back for you. Promise me."
"Where?--why--Peter Junior! Where are you going?" Betty removed his
arm from around her waist and slipped to her own end of the seat.
There, with hands folded decorously in her lap, with heightened color
and serious eyes, she looked shyly up at him. He had never seen her
shy before. Always she had been merry and teasing, and his heart was
proud that he had wrought such a miracle in her.
"I am going to Paris. I mean to be an artist." He leaned toward her
and would have taken her in his arms again, but she put his hands
away.
"Will your father let you do that?" Her eyes widened with surprise,
and the surprise nettled him.
"I don't know. He's thinking about it. Anyway, a man must decide for
himself what his career will be, and if he won't let me, I'll earn the
money and go without his letting me."
"Wouldn't that be the best way, anyway?"
"What do you mean? To go without his consent?"
"Of course not--goosey." She laughed and was herself again, but he
liked her better the other way. "To earn the money and then go.
It--it--would be more--more as if you were in earnest."
"My soul! Do you think I'm not in earnest? Do you think I'm not in
love with you?"
Instantly she was serious and shy again. His heart leaped. He loved to
feel his power over her thus. Still she tantalized him. "I'm not
meaning about loving me. That's not the question. I mean it would look
more as if you were in earnest about becoming an artist."
"No. The real question is, Do you love me? Will you marry me when I
come back?" She was silent and he came nearer. "Say it. Say it. I must
hear you say it before I leave." Her lips trembled as if she were
trying to form the words, and their eyes met.
"Yes--if--if--"
Then he caught her to him, and stopped her mouth with kisses. He did
not know himself. He was a man he had never met the like of, and he
gloried in himself. It seemed as if he heard bells ringing out in joy.
Then he looked up and saw Mary Ballard's eyes fixed on him.
"Peter Junior--what are you doing?" Her voice shook.
"I--I'm kissing Betty."
"I see that."
"We are to be married some day--and--"
"You are precipitate, Peter Junior."
Then Betty did what every woman does when her lover is blamed, no
matter how earnestly she may have resisted him before. She went
completely over to his side and took his part.
"He's going away, mother. He's going away to be gone--perhaps for
years; and I've--I've told him yes, mother,--so it isn't his fault."
Then she turned and fled to her own room, and hid her flaming face in
the pillow and wept.
"Sit here with me awhile, Peter Junior, and we'll talk it all over,"
said Mary.
He obeyed her, and looking squarely in her eyes, manfully told her his
plans, and tried to make her feel as he felt, that no love like his
had ever filled a man's heart before. At last she sent him up to the
studio to tell her husband, and she went in and finished Betty's task,
putting the bread--alas! too light by this time--in the oven, and
shaping the raised biscuit which Betty had left half-finished.
Then she paused a moment to look out of the window down the path
where the boys and little Janey would soon come tumbling home from
school, hot and hungry. A tear slowly coursed down her cheek, and,
following the curves, trembled on the tip of her chin. She brushed it
away impatiently. Of course it had to come--that was what life must
bring--but ah! not so soon--not so soon. Then she set about
preparations for dinner without Betty's help. That, too, was what it
would mean--sometime--to go on doing things without Betty. She gave a
little sigh, and at the instant an arm was slipped about her waist,
and she turned to look in Bertrand's eyes.
"Is it all right, Mary?"
"Why--yes--that is--if they'll always love each other as we have. I
think it ought not to be too definite an engagement, though, until his
plans are more settled. What do you think?"
"You are right, no doubt. I'll speak to him about that." Then he
kissed her warm, flushed cheek. "I declare, it makes me feel as Peter
Junior feels again, to have this happen."
"Ah, Bertrand! You never grew up--thank the Lord!" Then Mary laughed.
After all, they had been happy, and why not Betty and Peter? Surely
the young had their rights.
Bertrand climbed back to the studio where Peter Junior was pacing
restlessly back and forth, and again they talked it all over, until
the call came for dinner, when Peter was urged to stay, but would not.
No, he would not see Betty again until he could have her quite to
himself. So he limped away, feeling as if he were walking on air in
spite of his halting gait, and Betty from her window watched him pass
down the path and off along the grassy roadside. Then she went down to
dinner, flushed and grave, but with shining eyes. Her father kissed
her, but nothing was said, and the children thought nothing of it, for
it was quite natural in the family to kiss Betty.
CHAPTER IX
THE BANKER'S POINT OF VIEW
There was no picnic and nutting party the next day, owing to a
downpour of rain. Betty had time to think quietly over what had
happened the day before and her mind misgave her. What was it that so
filled her heart and mind? That so stirred her imagination? Was it
romance or love? She wished she knew how other girls felt who had
lovers. Was it easy or hard for them to say yes? Should a girl let her
lover kiss her the way Peter Junior had done? Some of the questions
which perplexed her she would have liked to ask her mother, but in
spite of their charming intimacy she could not bring herself to speak
of them. She wished she had a friend with a lover, and could talk it
all over with her, but although she had girl friends, none of them had
lovers, and to have one herself made her feel much older than any of
them.
So Betty thought matters out for herself. Of course she liked Peter
Junior--she had always liked him--and he was masterful--and she had
always known she would marry a soldier--and one who had been wounded
and been brave--that was the kind of a soldier to love. But she was
more subdued than usual and sewed steadily on gingham aprons for
Janey, making the buttonholes and binding them about the neck with
contrasting stuff.
"Anyway, I'm glad there is no picnic to-day. The boys may eat up the
cookies, and I didn't get the cake made after all," she said to her
mother, as she lingered a moment in the kitchen and looked out of the
window at the pouring rain. But she did not see the rain; she saw
again a gray-clad youth limping down the path between the lilacs and
away along the grassy roadside.
Well, what if she had said yes? It was all as it should be, according
to her dreams, only--only--he had not allowed her to say what she had
meant to say. She wished her mother had not happened to come just then
before she could explain to Peter Junior; that it was "yes" only if
when he came back he still wanted her and still loved her, and was
sure he had not made a mistake about it. It was often so in books. Men
went away, and when they returned, they found they no longer loved
their sweethearts. If such a terrible thing should happen to her! Oh,
dear! Or maybe he would be too honorable to say he no longer loved
her, and would marry her in spite of it; and she would find out
afterward, when it was too late, that he loved some one else; that
would be very terrible, and they would be miserable all their lives.
"I don't think I would let the boys eat up the cookies, dear; it may
clear off by sundown, and be fine to-morrow, and they'll be all as
glad as to go to-day. You make your cake."
"But Martha's coming home to-morrow night, and I'd rather wait now
until Saturday; that will be only one day longer, and it will be more
fun with her along." Betty spoke brightly and tried to make herself
feel that no momentous thing had happened. She hated the constraint of
it. "By that time Peter Junior will think that he can go, too. He's
so funny!" She laughed self-consciously, and carried the gingham
aprons back to her room.
"Bless her dear little heart." Mary Ballard understood.
Peter Junior also profited by the rainy morning. He had a long hour
alone with his mother to tell her of his wish to go to Paris; and her
way of receiving his news was a surprise to him. He had thought it
would be a struggle and that he would have to argue with her, setting
forth his hopes and plans, bringing her slowly to think with
quiescence of their long separation: but no. She rose and began to
pace the floor, and her eyes grew bright with eagerness.
"Oh, Peter, Peter!" She came and placed her two hands on his shoulders
and gazed into his eyes. "Peter Junior, you are a boy after my own
heart. You are going to be something worth while. I always knew you
would. It is Bertrand Ballard who has waked you up, who has taught you
to see that there is much outside of Leauvite for a man to do. I'm not
objecting to those who live here and have found their work here; it is
only that you are different. Go! Go!--It is--has your father--have you
asked his consent?"
"Oh, yes."
"Has he given it?"
"I think he is considering it seriously."
"Peter Junior, I hope you won't go without it--as you went once,
without mine." Never before had she mentioned it to him, or recalled
to his mind that terrible parting.
"Why not, mother? It would be as fair to him now as it was then to
you. It would be fairer; for this is a question of progress, and then
it was a matter of life and death."
"Ah, that was different, I admit. But I never could retaliate, or seem
to, even in the smallest thing. I don't want him to suffer as I
suffered."
It was almost a cry for pity, and Peter Junior wondered in his heart
at the depth of anguish she must have endured in those days, when he
had thrust the thought of her opposition to one side as merely an
obstacle overcome, and had felt the triumph of winning out in the
contest, as one step toward independent manhood. Now, indeed, their
viewpoints had changed. He felt almost a sense of pique that she had
yielded so joyously and so suddenly, although confronted with the
prospect of a long separation from him. Did she love him less than in
the past? Had his former disregard of her wishes lessened even a
trifle her mother love for him?
"I'm glad you can take the thought of my going as you do, mother." He
spoke coldly, as an only son may, but he was to be excused. He was
less spoiled than most only sons.
"In what way, my son?"
"Why--in being glad to have me go--instead of feeling as you did
then."
"Glad? Glad to have you go? It isn't that, dear. Understand me. I'm
sorry I spoke of that old time. It was only to spare your father. You
see we look at things differently. He loves to have us follow out his
plans. It is almost--death to him to have to give up; and with me--it
was not then as it is now. I don't like to think or speak of that
time."
"Don't, mother, don't!" cried Peter, contritely.
"But I must to make you see this as you should. It was love for you
then that made me cling to you, and want to hold you back from going;
just the same it is love for you now that makes me want you to go out
and find your right place in the world. I was letting you go then to
be shot at--to suffer fatigue, and cold, and imprisonment, who could
know, perhaps to be cruelly killed--and I did not believe in war. I
suppose your father was the nobler in his way of thinking, but I could
not see it his way. Angels from heaven couldn't have made me believe
it right; but it's over. Now I know your life will be made broader by
going, and you'll have scope, at least, to know what you really wish
to do with yourself and what you are worth, as you would not have, to
sit down in your father's bank, although you would be safer there, no
doubt. But you went through all the temptations of the army safely,
and I have no fear for you now, dear, no fear."
Peter Junior's heart melted. He took his mother in his arms and
stroked her beautiful white hair. "I love you, mother, dear," was all
he could say. Should he tell her of Betty now? The question died in
his heart. It was too much. He would be all hers for a little, nor
intrude the new love that she might think divided his heart. He
returned to the question of his father's consent. "Mother, what shall
I do if he will not give it?"
"Wait. Try to be patient and do what he wishes. It may help him to
yield in the end."
"Never! I know Dad better than that. He will only think all the more
that he is in the right, and that I have come to my senses. He never
takes any viewpoint but his own." His mother was silent. Never would
she open her lips against her husband. "I say, mother, naturally I
would rather go with his consent, but if he won't give it--How long
must a man be obedient just for the sake of obedience? Does such
bondage never end? Am I not of age?"
"I will speak to him. Wait and see. Talk it over with him again to-day
after banking hours."
"I--I--have something I must--must do to-day." He was thinking he
would go out to the Ballards' in spite of the rain.
The dinner hour passed without constraint. In these days Peter Junior
would not allow the long silences to occur that used often to cast a
gloom over the meals in his boyhood. He knew that in this way his
mother would sadly miss him. It was the Elder's way to keep his
thoughts for the most part to himself, and especially when there was
an issue of importance before him. It was supposed that his wife could
not take an interest in matters of business, or in things of interest
to men, so silence was the rule when they were alone.
This time Peter Junior mentioned the topic of the wonderful new
railroad that was being pushed across the plains and through the
unexplored desert to the Pacific.
"The mere thought of it is inspiring," said Hester.
"How so?" queried the Elder, with a lift of his brows. He deprecated
any thought connecting sentiment with achievement. Sentiment was of
the heart and only hindered achievement, which was purely of the
brain.
"It's just the wonder of it. Think of the two great oceans being
brought so near together! Only two weeks apart! Don't they estimate
that the time to cross will be only two weeks?"
"Yes, mother, and we have those splendid old pioneers who made the
first trail across the desert to thank for its being possible. It
isn't the capitalists who have done this. It's the ones who had faith
in themselves and dared the dangers and the hardships. They are the
ones I honor."
"They never went for love of humanity. It was mere love of wandering
and migratory instinct," said his father, grimly.
Peter Junior laughed merrily. "What did old grandfather Craigmile pull
up and come over to this country for? They had to cross in sailing
vessels then and take weeks for the journey."
"Progress, my son, progress. Your grandfather had the idea of
establishing his family in honorable business over here, and he did
it."
"Well, I say these people who have been crossing the plains and
crawling over the desert behind ox teams in 'prairie schooners' for
the last twenty or thirty years, braving all the dangers of the
unknown, have really paved the way for progress and civilization. The
railroad is being laid along the trail they made. Do you know
Richard's out there at the end of the line--nearly?"
"He would be likely to be. Roving boy! What's he doing there?"
"Poor boy! He almost died in that terrible southern prison. He was the
mere shadow of himself when he came home," said Hester.
"The young men of the present day have little use for beaten paths and
safe ways. I offered him a position in the bank, but no--he must go to
Scotland first to make the acquaintance of our aunts. If he had been
satisfied with that! But no, again, he must go to Ireland on a fool's
errand to learn something of his father." The Elder paused and bit his
lip, and a vein stood out on his forehead. "He's never seen fit to
write me of late."
"Of course such a big scheme as this road across the plains would
appeal to a man like Richard. He's doing very well, father. I wouldn't
be disturbed about him."
"Humph! I might as well be disturbed about the course of the Wisconsin
River. I might as well worry over the rush of a cataract. The lad has
no stability."
"He never fails to write to me, and I must say that he was considered
the most dependable man in the regiment."
"What is he doing? I should like to see the boy again." Hester looked
across at her son with a warm, loving light in her eyes.
"I don't know exactly, but it's something worth while, and calls for
lots of energy. He says they are striking out into the dust and alkali
now--right into the desert."
"And doesn't he say a word about when he is coming back?"
"Not a word, mother. He really has no home, you know. He says Scotland
has no opening for him, and he has no one to depend on but himself."
"He has relatives who are fairly well to do in Ireland."
The Elder frowned. "So I've heard, and my aunts in Scotland talked of
making him their heir, when I was last there."
"He knows that, father, but he says he's not one to stand round
waiting for two old women to die. He says they're fine, decorous old
ladies, too, who made a lot of him. I warrant they'd hold up their
hands in horror if they knew what a rough life he's leading now."
"How rough, my son? I wish he'd make up his mind to come home."
"There! I told him this is his home; just as much as it is mine. I'll
write him you said that, mother."
"Indeed, yes. Bless the boy!"
The Elder looked at his wife and lifted his brows, a sign that it was
time the meal should close, and she rose instantly. It was her habit
never to rise until the Elder gave the sign. Peter Junior walked down
the length of the hall at his father's side.
"What Richard really wished to do was what I mentioned to you
yesterday for myself. He wanted to go to Paris and study, but after
visiting his great-aunts he saw that it would be too much. He would
not allow them to take from their small income to help him through, so
he gave it up for the time being; but if he keeps on as he is, it is
my opinion he may go yet. He's making good money. Then we could be
there together."
The Elder made no reply, but stooped and drew on his india-rubber
overshoes,--stamping into them,--and then got himself into his
raincoat with sundry liftings and hunchings of his shoulders. Peter
Junior stood by waiting, if haply some sort of sign might be given
that his remark had been heeded, but his father only carefully
adjusted his hat and walked away in the rain, setting his feet down
stubbornly at each step, and holding his umbrella as if it were a
banner of righteousness. The younger man's face flushed, and he turned
from the door angrily; then he looked to see his mother's eyes fixed
on him sadly.
"At least he might treat me with common decency. He need not be rude,
even if I am his son." He thought he detected accusation of himself
in his mother's gaze and resented it.
"Be patient, dear."
"Oh, mother! Patient, patient! What have you got by being patient all
these years?"
"Peace of mind, my son."
"Mother--"
"Try to take your father's view of this matter. Have you any idea how
hard he has worked all his life, and always with the thought of you
and your advancement, and welfare? Why, Peter Junior, he is bound up
in you. He expected you would one day stand at his side, his mainstay
and help and comfort in his business."
"Then it wasn't for me; it was for himself that he has worked and
built up the bank. It's his bank, and his wife, and his son, and his
'Tower of Babel that he has builded,' and now he wants me to bury
myself in it and worship at his idolatry."
"Hush, Peter. I don't like to rebuke you, but I must. You can twist
facts about and see them in a wrong light, but the truth remains that
he has loved you tenderly--always. I know his heart better than
you--better than he. It is only that he thinks the line he has taken a
lifetime to lay out for you is the best. He is as sure of it as that
the days follow each other. He sees only futility in the way you would
go. I have no doubt his heart is sore over it at this moment, and that
he is grieving in a way that would shock you, could you comprehend
it."
"Enough said, mother, enough said. I'll try to be fair."
He went to his room and stood looking out at the rain-washed earth and
the falling leaves. The sky was heavy and drab. He thought of Betty
and her picnic and of how gay and sweet she was, and how altogether
desirable, and the thought wrought a change in his spirit. He went
downstairs and kissed his mother; then he, too, put on his rubber
overshoes and shook himself into his raincoat and carefully adjusted
his hat and his umbrella. Then with the assistance of the old
blackthorn stick he walked away in the rain, limping, it is true, but
nevertheless a younger, sturdier edition of the man who had passed out
before him.
He found Betty alone as he had hoped, for Mary Ballard had gone to
drive her husband to the station. Bertrand was thinking of opening a
studio in the city, at his wife's earnest solicitation, for she
thought him buried there in their village. As for the children--they
were still in school.
Thus it came about that Peter Junior spent the rest of that day with
Betty in her father's studio. He told Betty all his plans. He made
love to her and cajoled her, and was happy indeed. He had a winsome
way, and he made her say she loved him--more than once or twice--and
his heart was satisfied.
"We'll be married just as soon as I return from Paris, and you'll not
miss me so much until then?"
"Oh, no."
"Ah--but--but I hope you will--you know."
"Of course I shall! What would you suppose?"
"But you said no."
"Naturally! Didn't you wish me to say that?"
"I wanted you to tell the truth."
"Well, I did."
"There it is again! I'm afraid you don't really love me."
She tilted her head on one side and looked at him a moment. "Would you
like me to say I don't want you to go to Paris?"
"Not that, exactly; but all the time I'm gone I shall be longing for
you."
"I should hope so! It would be pretty bad if you didn't."
"Now you see what I mean about you. I want you to be longing for me
all the time, until I return."
"All right. I'll cry my eyes out, and I'll keep writing for you to
come home."
"Oh, come now! Tell me what you will do all the time."
"Oh, lots of things. I'll paint pictures, too, and--I'll write--and
help mother just as I do now; and I'll study art without going to
Paris."
"Will you, you rogue! I'd marry you first and take you with me if it
were possible, and you should study in Paris, too--that is, if you
wished to."
"Wouldn't it be wonderful! But I don't know--I believe I'd rather
write than paint."
"I believe I'd rather have you. They say there are no really great
women artists. It isn't in the woman's nature. They haven't the
strength. Oh, they have the delicacy and all that; it's something else
they lack."
"Humph! It's rather nice to have us lacking in one thing and another,
isn't it? It gives you men something to do to discover and fill in the
lacks."
"I know one little lady who lacks in nothing but years."
Betty looked out of the window and down into the yard. "There is
mother driving in. Let's go down and have cookies and milk. I'm sure
you need cookies and milk."
"I'll need anything you say."
"Very well, then, you'll need patience if ever you marry me."
"I know that well enough. Stop a moment. Kiss me before we go down."
He caught her in his arms, but she slipped away.
"No, I won't. You've had enough kisses. I'll always give you one when
you come, hereafter, and one when you go away, but no more."
"Then I shall come very often." He laughed and leaned upon her instead
of using his stick, as they slowly descended.
Mary Ballard was chilled after her long drive in the rain, and Betty
made her tea. Then, after a pleasant hour of chat and encouragement
from the two sweet women, Peter Junior left them, promising to go to
the picnic and nutting party on Saturday. It would surely be pleasant,
for the sky was already clearing. Yes, truly a glad heart brings
pleasant prognostications.
CHAPTER X
THE NUTTING PARTY
Peter Junior made no attempt the next day to speak further to his
father about his plans. It seemed to him better that he should wait
until his wise mother had talked the matter over with the Elder.
Although he put in most of the day at the studio, painting, he saw
very little of Betty and thought she was avoiding him out of girlish
coquetry, but she was only very busy. Martha was coming home and
everything must be as clean as wax. Martha was such a tidy housekeeper
that she would see the least lack and set to work to remedy it, and
that Betty could not abide. In these days Martha's coming marked a
semimonthly event in the home, for since completing her course at the
high school she had been teaching in the city. Bertrand would return
with her, and then all would have to be talked over,--just what he had
decided to do, and why.
In the evening a surprise awaited the whole household, for Martha
came, accompanied not only by her father, but also by a young
professor in the same school where she taught. Mary Ballard greeted
him most kindly, but she felt things were happening too rapidly in her
family. Jamie and Bobby watched the young man covertly yet eagerly,
taking note of his every movement and intonation. Was he one to be
emulated or avoided? Only little Janey was quite unabashed by him, and
this lightened his embarrassment greatly and helped him to the ease
of manner he strove to establish.
She led him out to the sweet-apple tree, and introduced him to the
calf and the bantams, and invited him to go with them nutting the next
day. "We're all going in a great, big picnic wagon. Everybody's going
and we'll have just lots of fun." And he accepted, provided she would
sit beside him all the way.
Bobby decided at this point that he also would befriend the young man.
"If you're going to sit beside her all the way, you'll have to be
lively. She never sits in one place more than two minutes. You'll have
to sit on papa's other knee for a while, and then you'll have to sit
on Peter Junior's."
"That will be interesting, anyway. Who's Peter Junior?"
"Oh, he's a man. He comes to see us a lot."
"He's the son of Elder Craigmile," explained Martha.
"Is he going, too, Betty?"
"Yes. The whole crowd are going. It will be fun. I'm glad now it
rained Thursday, for the Deans didn't want to postpone it till
to-morrow, and then, when it rained, Mrs. Dean said it would be too
wet to try to have it yesterday; and now we have you. I wanted all the
time to wait until you came home."
That night, when Martha went to their room, Betty followed her, and
after closing the door tightly she threw her arms around her sister's
neck.
"Oh, Martha, Martha, dear! Tell me all about him. Why didn't you let
us know? I came near having on my old blue gingham. What if I had?
He's awfully nice looking. Is he in love with you? Tell me all about
it. Does he make love to you? Oh, Martha! It's so romantic for you to
have a lover!"
"Hush, Betty, some one will hear you. Of course he doesn't make love
to me!"
"Why?"
"I wouldn't let him."
"Martha! Why not? Do you think it's bad to let a young man make love
to you?"
"Betty! You mustn't talk so loud. Everything sounds so through this
house. It would mortify me to death."
"What would mortify you to death: to have him make love to you or to
have someone hear me?"
"Betty, dear!"
"Well, tell me all about him--please! Why did he come out with you?"
"You shouldn't always be thinking about love-making--and--such things,
Betty, dear. He just came out in the most natural way, just because
he--he loves the country, and he was talking to me about it one day
and said he'd like to come out some Friday with me--just about asked
me to invite him. So when father called at the school yesterday for
me, I introduced them, and he said the same thing to father, and of
course father invited him over again, and--and--so he's here. That's
all there is to it."
"I bet it isn't. How long have you known him?"
"Why, ever since I've been in the school, naturally."
"What does he teach?"
"He has higher Latin and beginners' Greek, and then he has charge of
the main room when the principal goes out."
Betty pondered a little, sitting on the floor in front of her sister.
"You have such a lovely way of doing your hair. Is that the way to do
hair nowadays--with two long curls hanging down from one side of the
coil? You wind one side around the back knot, and then you pin the
other up and let the ends hang down in two long curls, don't you? I'm
going to try mine that way; may I?"
"Of course, darling! I'll help you."
"What's his name, Martha? I couldn't quite catch it, and I did not
want to let him know I thought it queer, so wouldn't ask over."
"His name is Lucien Thurbyfil. It's not so queer, Betty."
"Oh, you pronounce it T'urbyfil, just as if there were no 'h' in it.
You know I thought father said Mr. Tubfull--or something like that,
when he introduced him to mother, and that was why mother looked at
him in such an odd way."
The two girls laughed merrily. "Betty, what if you hadn't been a dear,
and had called him that! And he's so very correct!"
"Oh, is he? Then I'll try it to-morrow and we'll see what he'll do."
"Don't you dare! I'd be so ashamed I'd sink right through the floor.
He'd think we'd been making fun of him."
"Then I'll wait until we are out in the woods, for I'd hate to have
you make a hole in the floor by sinking through it."
"Betty! You'll be good to-morrow, won't you, dear?"
"Good? Am I not always good? Didn't I scrub and bake and put flowers
all over the ugly what-not in the corner of the parlor, and get the
grease spot out of the dining room rug that Jamie stepped butter
into--and all for you--without any thought of any Mr. Tubfull or any
one but you? All day long I've been doing it."
"Of course you did, and it was perfectly sweet; and the flowers and
mother looked so dear--and Janey's hands were clean--I looked to see.
You know usually they are so dirty. I knew you'd been busy; but Betty,
dear, you won't be mischievous to-morrow, will you? He's our guest,
you know, and you never were bashful, not as much as you really ought
to be, and we can't treat strangers just as we do--well--people we
have always known, like Peter Junior. They wouldn't understand it."
But the admonition seemed to be lost, for Betty's thoughts were
wandering from the point. "Hasn't he ever--ever--made love to you?"
Martha was washing her face and neck at the washstand in the corner,
and now she turned a face very rosy, possibly with scrubbing, and
threw water over her naughty little sister. "Well, hasn't he ever put
his arm around you or--or anything?"
"I wouldn't let a man do that."
"Not if you were engaged?"
"Of course not! That wouldn't be a nice way to do."
"Shouldn't you let a man kiss you or--or--put his arm around you--or
anything--even when he's trying to get engaged to you?"
"Of course not, Betty, dear. You're asking very silly questions. I'm
going to bed."
"Well, but they do in books. He did in 'Jane Eyre,' don't you
remember? And she was proud of it--and pretended not to be--and very
much touched, and treasured his every look in her heart. And in the
books they always kiss their lovers. How can Mr. Thurbyfil ever be
your lover, if you never let him even put his arm around you?"
"Betty, Betty, come to bed. He isn't my lover and he doesn't want to
be and we aren't in books, and you are getting too old to be so
silly."
Then Betty slowly disrobed and bathed her sweet limbs and at last
crept in beside her sister. Surely she had not done right. She had let
Peter Junior put his arm around her and kiss her, and that even before
they were engaged; and all yesterday afternoon he had held her hand
whenever she came near, and he had followed her about and had kissed
her a great many times. Her cheeks burned with shame in the darkness,
not that she had allowed this, but that she had not been as bashful as
she ought. But how could she be bashful without pretending?
"Martha," she said at last, "you are so sweet and pretty, if I were
Mr. Thurbyfil, I'd put my arm around you anyway, and make love to
you."
Then Martha drew Betty close and gave her a sleepy kiss. "No you
wouldn't, dear," she murmured, and soon the two were peacefully
sleeping, Betty's troubles quite forgotten. Still, when morning came,
she did not confide to her sister anything about Peter Junior, and she
even whispered to her mother not to mention a word of the affair to
any one.
At breakfast Jamie and Bobby were turbulent with delight. All outings
were a joy to them, no matter how often they came. Martha was neat and
rosy and gay. Lucien Thurbyfil wanted to help her by wiping the
dishes, but she sent him out to the sweet-apple tree with a basket,
enjoining him to bring only the mellow ones. "Be sure to get enough.
We're all going, father and mother and all."
"It's very nice of your people to make room for me on the wagon."
"And it's nice of you to go."
"I see Peter Junior. He's coming," shouted Bobby, from the top of the
sweet-apple tree.
"Who does he go with?" asked Martha.
"With us. He always does," said Betty. "I wonder why his mother and
the Elder never go out for any fun, the way you and father do!"
"The Elder always has to be at the bank, I suppose," said Mary
Ballard, "and she wouldn't go without him. Did you put in the salt and
pepper for the eggs, dear?"
"Yes, mother. I'm glad father isn't a banker."
"It takes a man of more ability than I to be a banker," said Bertrand,
laughing, albeit with concealed pride.
"We don't care if it does, Dad," said Jamie, patronizingly. "When I
get through the high school, I'm going to hire out to the bank." He
seized the lunch basket and marched manfully out to the wagon.
"I thought Peter Junior always went with Clara Dean. He did when I
left," said Martha, in a low voice to Betty, as they filled bottles
with raspberry shrub, and with cream for the coffee. "Did you tie
strings on the spoons, dear? They'll get mixed with the Walters' if
you don't. You remember theirs are just like ours."
"Oh, I forgot. Why, he likes Clara a lot, of course, but I guess they
just naturally expected him to go with us. They and the Walters have
a wagon together, anyway, and they wouldn't have room. We have one all
to ourselves. Hello, Peter Junior! Mr. Thurbyfil, this is Mr.
Junior."
"Happy to meet you, Mr. Junior," said the correct Mr. Thurbyfil. The
boys laughed uproariously, and the rest all smiled, except Betty, who
was grave and really seemed somewhat embarrassed.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Mr. Thurbyfil, this is Mr. Craigmile," said Martha. "You introduced
him as Mr. Junior, Betty."
"I didn't! Well, that's because I'm bashful. Come on, everybody,
mother's in." So they all climbed into the wagon and began to find
their places.
"Oh, father, have you the matches? The bottles are on the kitchen
table," exclaimed Martha.
"Don't get down, Mr. Ballard," said Lucien. "I'll get them. It would
never do to forget the bottles. Now, where's the little girl who was
to ride beside me?" and Janey crawled across the hay and settled
herself at her new friend's side. "Now I think we are beautifully
arranged," for Martha was on his other side.
"Very well, we're off," and Bertrand gathered up the reins and they
started.
"There they are. There's the other wagon," shouted Bobby. "We ought to
have a flag to wave."
Then Lucien, the correct, startled the party by putting his two
fingers in his mouth and whistling shrilly.
"They have such a load I wish Clara could ride with us," said Betty.
"Peter Junior, won't you get out and fetch her?"
So they all stopped and there were greetings and introductions and
much laughing and joking, and Peter Junior obediently helped Clara
Dean down and into the Ballards' wagon.
"Clara, Mr. Thurbyfil can whistle as loud as a train, through his
fingers, he can. Do it, Mr. Thurbyfil," said Bobby.
"Oh, I can do that," said Peter Junior, not to be outdone by the
stranger, and they all tried it. Bertrand and his wife, settled
comfortably on the high seat in front, had their own pleasure together
and paid no heed to the noisy crew behind them.
What a day! Autumn leaves and hazy distances, soft breezes and
sunlight, and miles of level road skirting woods and open fields where
the pumpkins lay yellow among the shocks of corn, and where the fence
corners were filled with flaming sumac, with goldenrod and purple
asters adding their softer coloring.
It was a good eight miles to Carter's woods, but they bordered the
river where the bluffs were not so high, and it would be possible to
build a fire on the river bank with perfect safety. Bertrand had
brought roasting ears from his patch of sweet corn, and as soon as
they arrived at their chosen grove, he and Mary leisurely turned their
attention to the preparing of the lunch with Mrs. Dean and Mrs.
Walters, leaving to the young people the gathering of the nuts.
Mrs. Dean, a slight, wiry woman, who acted and talked easily and
unceasingly, spread out a fresh linen cloth and laid a stone on each
corner to hold it down, and then looked into each lunch basket in
turn, to acquaint herself with its contents.
"I see you brought cake and cookies and jam, Mrs. Ballard, besides all
the corn and cream--you always do too much, and all your own work to
look after, too. Well, I brought a lot of ham sandwiches and that
brown bread your husband likes so much. I always feel so proud when
Mr. Ballard praises anything I do; he's so clever it makes me feel as
if I were really able to do something. And you're so clever too. I
don't know how it is some folks seem to have all the brains, and then
there's others--good enough--but there! As I tell Mr. Dean, you can't
tell why it is. Now where are the spoons? Every one brings their own,
of course; yes, here are yours, Mrs. Walters. It's good of you to
think of that sweet corn, Mr. Ballard.--Oh, he's gone away; well,
anyway, we're having a lot more than we can eat, and all so good and
tempting. I hope Mr. Dean won't overeat himself; he's just a boy at a
picnic, I always have to remind him--How?"
"Did you bring the cups for the coffee?" It was Mrs. Walters who
interrupted the flow of Mrs. Dean's eloquence. She was portly and
inclined to brevity, which made her a good companion for Mrs. Dean.
"I had such a time with my jell this summer, and now this fall my
grape jell's just as bad. This is all running over the glasses. There,
I'll set it on this paper. I do hate to see a clean cloth all spotted
with jell, even if it is a picnic when people think it doesn't make
any difference. I see Martha has a friend. Well, that's nice. I wish
Clara cared more for company; but, there, as I tell Mr. Dean--Oh, yes!
the cups. Clara, where are the cups? Oh, she's gone. Well, I'm sure
they're in that willow basket. I told Clara to pack towels around them
good. I do hate to see cups all nicked up; yes, here they are. It's
good of you to always tend the coffee, Mrs. Walters; you know just how
to make it. I tell Mr. Dean nobody ever makes coffee like you can at a
picnic. Now, if it's ready, I think everything else is; well, it soon
will be with such a fire, and the corn's not done, anyway. Do you
think the sun'll get round so as to shine on the table? I see it's
creeping this way pretty fast, and they're all so scattered over the
woods there's no telling when we will get every one here to eat. I see
another tablecloth in your basket, Mrs. Ballard. If you'll be good
enough to just hold that corner, we can cover everything up good, so,
and then I'll walk about a bit and call them all together." And the
kindly lady stepped briskly off through the woods, still talking,
while Mrs. Ballard and Mrs. Walters sat themselves down in the shade
and quietly watched the coffee and chatted.
It was past the noon hour, and the air was drowsy and still. The
voices and laughter of the nut gatherers came back to them from the
deeper woods in the distance, and the crackling of the fire where
Bertrand attended to the roasting of the corn near by, and the gentle
sound of the lapping water on the river bank came to them out of the
stillness.
"I wonder if Mr. Walters tied the horses good!" said his wife. "Seems
as if one's got loose. Don't you hear a horse galloping?"
"They're all there eating," said Mary, rising and looking about. "Some
one's coming, away off there over the bluff; see?"
"I wonder, now! My, but he rides well. He must be coming here. I hope
there's nothing the matter. It looks like--it might be Peter Junior,
only he's here already."
"It's--it's--no, it can't be--it is! It's--Bertrand, Bertrand! Why,
it's Richard!" cried Mary Ballard, as the horseman came toward them,
loping smoothly along under the trees, now in the sunlight and now in
the shadow. He leaped from the saddle, and, throwing the rein over a
knotted limb, walked rapidly toward them, holding out a hand to each,
as Bertrand and Mary hurried forward.
"I couldn't let you good folks have one of these fine old times
without me."
"Why, when did you come? Oh, Richard! It's good to see you again,"
said Mary.
"I came this morning. I went up to my uncle's and then to your house
and found you all away, and learned that you were here and my twin
with you, so here I am. How are the children? All grown up?"
"Almost. Come and sit down and give an account of yourself to Mary,
while I try to get hold of the rest," said Bertrand.
"Mrs. Dean has gone for them, father. Mrs. Walters, the coffee's all
right; come and sit down here and let's visit until the others come.
You remember Richard Kildene, Mrs. Walters?"
"Since he was a baby, but it's been so long since I've seen you,
Richard. I don't believe I'd have known you unless for your likeness
to Peter Junior. You look stronger than he now. Redder and browner."
"I ought to. I've been in the open air and sun for weeks. I'm only
here now by chance."
"A happy chance for us, Richard. Where have you been of late?" asked
Bertrand.
"Out on the plains--riding and keeping a gang of men under control,
for the most part, and pushing the work as rapidly as possible." He
tossed back his hair with the old movement Mary remembered so well.
"Tell me about the children, Martha and Betty; both grown up? Or still
ready to play with a comrade?"
"They're all here to-day. Martha's teaching in the city, but Betty's
at home helping me, as always. The boys are getting such big fellows,
and little Janey's as sweet as all the rest."
"There! That's Betty's laugh, I know. I'd recognize it if I heard it
out on the plains. I have, sometimes--when a homesick fit gets hold of
me out under the stars, when the noise of the camp has subsided. A
good deal of that work is done by the very refuse of humanity, you
know, a mighty tough lot."
"And you like that sort of thing, Richard?" asked Mary. "I thought
when you went to your people in Scotland, you might be leading a very
different kind of life by now."
"I thought so, too, then; but I guess for some reasons this is best.
Still, I couldn't resist stealing a couple of days to run up here and
see you all. I got off a carload of supplies yesterday from Chicago,
and then I wired back to the end of the line that I'd be two days
later myself. No wonder I followed you out here. I couldn't afford to
waste the precious hours. I say! That's Betty again! I'll find them
and say you're hungry, shall I?"
"Oh, they're coming now. I see Martha's pink dress, and there's Betty
in green over there."
But Richard was gone, striding over the fallen leaves toward the spot
of green which was Betty's gingham dress. And Betty, spying him,
forgot she was grown up. She ran toward him with outstretched arms,
as of old--only--just as he reached her, she drew back and a wave of
red suffused her face. She gave him one hand instead of both, and
called to Peter Junior to hurry.
"Well, Betty Ballard! I can't jump you along now over stocks and
stones as I used to. And here's everybody! Why, Jamie, what a great
man you are! I'll have to take you back with me to help build the new
road. And here's Bobby; and this little girl--I wonder if she
remembers me well enough to give me a kiss? I have nobody to kiss me
now, when I come back. That's right. That's what Betty used to do.
Why, hello! here's Clara Dean, and who's this? John Walters? So you're
a man, too! Mr. Dean, how are you? And Mrs. Dean! You don't grow any
older anyway, so I'll walk with you. Wait until I've pounded this old
chap a minute. Why didn't I write I was coming? Man, I didn't know it
myself. I'm under orders nowadays. To get here at all I had to steal
time. So you're graduated from a crutch to a cane? Good!"
Every one exclaimed at once, while Richard talked right on, until they
reached the riverside where the lunch was spread; and then the babble
was complete.
That night, as they all drove home in the moonlight, Richard tied his
horse to the rear of the Ballards' wagon and rode home seated on the
hay with the rest. He placed himself where Betty sat on his right, and
the two boys crowded as close to him as possible on his left. Little
Janey, cuddled at Betty's side, was soon fast asleep with her head in
her sister's lap, while Lucien Thurbyfil was well pleased to have
Martha in the corner to himself. Peter Junior sat near Betty and
listened with interest to his cousin, who entertained them all with
tales of the plains and the Indians, and the game that supplied them
with many a fine meal in camp.
"Say, did you ever see a real herd of wild buffalo just tearing over
the ground and kicking up a great dust and stampeding and everything?"
said Jamie.
"Oh, yes. And if you are out there all alone on your pony, you'd
better keep away from in front of them, too, or you'd be trampled to
death in a jiffy."
"What's stampeding?" said Bobby.
So Richard explained it, and much more that elicited long breaths of
interest. He told them of the miles and miles of land without a single
tree or hill, and only a sea of grass as far as the eye could reach,
as level as Lake Michigan, and far vaster. And how the great railway
was now approaching the desert, and how he had seen the bones of men
and cattle and horses bleaching white, lying beside their broken-down
wagons half buried in the drifting sand. He told them how the trail
that such people had made with so much difficulty stretched far, far
away into the desert along the very route, for the most part, that the
railroad was taking, and answered their questions so interestingly
that the boys were sorry when they reached home at last and they had
to bid good-night to Peter Junior's fascinating cousin, Richard.
CHAPTER XI
BETTY BALLARD'S AWAKENING
Mary and Bertrand always went early to church, for Bertrand led the
choir, and it was often necessary for him to gather the singers
together and try over the anthem before the service. Sometimes the
rector would change the hymns, and then the choir must have one little
rehearsal of them. Martha and Mr. Thurbyfil accompanied them this
morning, and Betty and the boys were to walk, for four grown-ups with
little Janey sandwiched in between more than filled the carryall.
In these days Betty no longer had to wash and dress her brothers, but
there were numerous attentions required of her, such as only growing
boys can originate, and "sister" was as kind and gay in helping them
over their difficulties as of old. So, now, as she stepped out of her
room all dressed for church in her white muslin with green rose sprigs
over it, with her green parasol, and her prayer book in her hand,
Bobby called her.
"Oh, Sis! I've broken my shoe string and it's time to start."
"I have a new one in my everyday shoes, Bobby, dear; run upstairs and
take it out. They're just inside the closet door. Wait a minute,
Jamie; that lock stands straight up on the back of your head. Can't
you make it lie down? Bring me the brush. You look splendid in your
new trousers. Now, you hurry on ahead and leave this at the Deans'.
It's Clara's sash bow. I found it in the wagon after they left last
night. Run, she may want to wear it to church.--Yes, Bobby, dear, I
sent him on, but you can catch up. Have you a handkerchief? Yes, I'll
follow in a minute."
And the boys rushed off, looking very clean in their Sunday clothing,
and very old and mannish in their long trousers and stiff hats. Betty
looked after them with pride, then she bethought her that the cat had
not had her saucer of milk, and ran down to the spring to get it,
leaving the doors wide open behind her. The day was quite warm enough
for her to wear the summer gown, and she was very winsome and pretty
in her starched muslin, with the delicate green buds sprayed over it.
She wore a green belt, too, and the parasol she was very proud of, for
she had bought it with her own chicken money. It was her heart's
delight. Betty's skirt reached nearly to the ground, for she was quite
in long dresses, and two little ruffles rippled about her feet as she
ran down the path to the spring. But, alas! As she turned away after
carefully fastening the spring-house door, the cat darted under her
feet; and Betty stumbled and the milk streamed down the front of her
dress and spattered her shoes--and if there was anything Betty liked,
it was to have her shoes very neat.
"Oh, Kitty! I hate your running under my feet that way all the time."
Betty was almost in tears. She set the saucer down and tried to wipe
off the milk, while the cat crouched before the dish and began
drinking eagerly and unthankfully, after the manner of cats.
Some one stood silently watching her from the kitchen steps as she
walked slowly up the path, gazing down on the ruin of the pretty
starched ruffles.
"Why, Richard!" was all she said, for something came up in her throat
and choked her. She waited where she stood, and in his eyes, her
aspect seemed that of despair. Was it all for the spilled milk?
"Why, Betty dear!" He caught her and kissed her and laughed at her and
comforted her all at once. "Not tears, dear? Tears to greet me? You
didn't half greet me last evening, and I came only to see you. Now you
will, where there's no one to see and no one to hear? Yes. Never mind
the spilled milk, you know better than that." But Betty lay in his
arms, a little crumpled wisp of sorrow, white and still.
"Away off there in Cheyenne I got to thinking of you, and I went to
headquarters and asked to be sent on this commission just to get the
chance to run up here and tell you I have been waiting all these years
for you to grow up. You have haunted me ever since I left Leauvite.
You darling, your laughing face was always with me, on the march--in
prison--and wherever I've been since. I've been trying to keep myself
right--for you--so I might dare some day to take you in my arms like
this and tell you--so I need not be ashamed before your--"
"Oh, Richard, wait!" wailed Betty, but he would not wait.
"I've waited long enough. I see you are grown up before I even dreamed
you could be. Thank heaven I came now! You are so sweet some one would
surely have won you away from me--but no one can now--no one."
"Richard, why didn't you tell me this when you first came home from
the war--before you went to Scotland? I would--"
"Not then, sweetheart; I couldn't. I didn't even know then I would
ever be worth the love of any woman; and--you were such a child
then--I couldn't intrude my weariness--my worn-out self on you. I was
sick at heart when I got out of that terrible prison; but now it is
all changed. I am my own man now, dependent on no one, and able to
marry you out of hand, Betty, dear. After you've told me something,
I'll do whatever you say, wait as long as you say. No, no! Listen!
Don't break away from me. You don't hate me as you do the cat. I
haven't been running under your feet all the time, have I, dear?
Listen. See here, my arms are strong now. They can hold you forever,
just like this. I've been thinking of you and dreaming of you and
loving you through these years. You have never been out of my mind nor
out of my heart. I've kept the little housewife you made me and bound
with your cherry-colored hair ribbon until it is in rags, but I love
it still. I love it. They took everything I had about me at the
prison; but this--they gave back to me. It was the only thing I begged
them to leave me."
Poor little Betty! She tried to speak and tried again, but she could
not utter a word. Her mouth grew dry and her knees would not support
her. Richard was so big and strong he did not feel her weight, and
only delighted in the thought that she resigned herself to him.
"Darling little Betty! Darling little Betty! You do understand, don't
you? Won't you tell me you do?"
But she only closed her eyes and lay quite still. She longed to lift
her arms and put them about his neck, and the effort not to do so
only crushed her spirit the more. Now she knew she was bad, and
unworthy such a great love as this. She had let Peter Junior kiss her,
and she had told him she loved him--and it was nothing to this. She
was not good; she was unworthy, and all the angels in heaven could
never bring her comfort any more. She was so still he put his cheek to
hers, and it seemed as if she moaned, and that without a sound.
"Have I hurt you, Betty, dear?"
"Oh, no, Richard, no."
"Do you love me, sweet?"
"Yes, Richard, yes. I love you so I could die of loving you, and I
can't help it. Oh, Richard, I can't help it."
"It's asking too much that you should love me so, and yet that's what
my selfish, hungry heart wants and came here for."
"Take your face away, Richard; stop. I must talk if it kills me. I
have been so bad and wicked. Oh, Richard, I can't tell you how wicked.
Let me stand by myself now. I can." She fought back the tears and
turned her face away from him, but when he let go of her, in her
weakness she swayed, and he caught her to him again, with many
repeated words of tenderness.
"If you will take me to the steps, Richard, and bring me a glass of
water, I think I can talk to you then. You remember where things are
in this house?"
Did he remember? Was there anything he had forgotten about this
beloved place? He brought her the water and she made him sit beside
her, but not near, only that she need not look in his eyes.
"Richard, I thought something was love--that was not--I didn't know.
It was only liking--and--and now I--I've been so wrong--and I want to
die--Oh, I want to die! No, don't. Do you want to make me sin again?
Oh, Richard, Richard! If you had only come before! Now it is too
late." She began sobbing bitterly, and her small frame shook with her
grief.
He seized her wrists and his hand trembled. She tried to cover her
face with her hands, but he took them down and held them.
"Betty, what have you done? Tell me--tell me quick."
Then she turned her face toward him, wet with tears. "Have pity on me,
Richard. Have pity on me, Richard, for my heart is broken, and the
thing that hurts me most is that it will hurt you."
"But it wasn't yesterday when I came to you out there in the woods. I
heard you laughing, and you ran to meet me as happy as ever--"
"You did not hear me laugh once again after you came and looked in my
eyes there in the grove. It was in that instant that my heart began to
break, and now I know why. Go back to Cheyenne. Go far away and never
think of me any more. I am not worthy of you, anyway. I have let you
hold me in your arms and kiss me when I ought not. Oh, I have been so
bad--so bad! Let me hide my face. I can't look in your eyes any
more."
But he was cruel. He made her look in his eyes and tell him all the
sorrowful truth. Then at last he grew pitiful again and tried brokenly
to comfort her, to make her feel that something would intervene to
help them, but in his heart he knew that his cause was lost, and his
hopes burned within him, a heap of smoldering coals dying in their own
ashes.
He had always loved Peter Junior too well to blame him especially as
Peter could not have known what havoc he was making of his cousin's
hopes. It had all been a terrible mischance, and now they must make
the best of it and be brave. Yet a feeling of resentment would creep
into his heart in spite of his manful resolve to be fair to his
cousin, and let nothing interfere with their lifelong friendship. In
vain he told himself that Peter had the same right as he to seek
Betty's love. Why not? Why should he think himself the only one to be
considered? But there was Betty! And when he thought of her, his soul
seemed to go out of him. Too late! Too late! And so he rose and walked
sorrowfully away.
When Mary Ballard came home from church, she found her little daughter
up in her room on her knees beside her bed, her arms stretched out
over the white counterpane, asleep. She had suffered until nature had
taken her into her own soothing arms and put her to sleep through
sheer weakness. Her cheeks were still burning and her eyelids red from
weeping. Mary thought her in a fever, and gently helped her to remove
the pretty muslin dress and got her to bed.
Betty drew a long sigh as her head sank back into the pillow. "My head
aches; don't worry, mother, dear." She thought her heart was closed
forever on her terrible secret.
"Mother'll bring you something for it, dear. You must have eaten
something at the picnic that didn't agree with you." She kissed
Betty's cheek, and at the door paused to look back on her, and a
strange misgiving smote her.
"I can't think what ails her," she said to Martha. "She seems to be
in a high fever. Did she sleep well last night?"
"Perfectly, but we talked a good while before we went to sleep.
Perhaps she got too tired yesterday. I thought she seemed excited,
too. Mrs. Walters always makes her coffee so strong."
Peter Junior came in to dinner, buoyant and happy. He was disappointed
not to see Betty, and frankly avowed it. He followed Mary into the
kitchen and begged to be allowed to go up and speak to Betty for only
a minute, but Mary thought sleep would be the best remedy and he would
better leave her alone. He had been to church with his father, and all
through the morning service as he sat at his father's side he had
meditated how he could persuade the Elder to look on his plans with
some degree of favor--enough at least to warrant him in going on with
them and trust to his father's coming around in time.
Neither he nor Richard were at the Elder's at dinner, and the meal
passed in silence, except for a word now and then in regard to the
sermon. Hester thought continually of her son and his hopes, but as
she glanced from time to time in her husband's face she realized that
silence on her part was still best. Whenever the Elder cleared his
throat and looked off out of the window, as was his wont when about to
speak of any matter of importance, her heart leaped and her eyes gazed
intently at her plate, to hide the emotion she could not restrain. Her
hands grew cold and her lips tremulous, but still she waited.
It was the Elder's custom to sleep after the Sunday's dinner, which
was always a hearty one, lying down on the sofa in the large parlor,
where the closed blinds made a pleasant somberness. Hester passed the
door and looked in on him, as he lay apparently asleep, his long, bony
frame stretched out and the muscles of his strong face relaxing to a
softness they sometimes assumed when sleeping. Her heart went out to
him. Oh, if he only knew! If she only dared! His boy ought to love
him, and understand him. If they would only understand!
Then she went up into Peter Junior's room and sat there where she
had sat seven years before--where she had often sat since--gazing
across at the red-coated old ancestor, her hands in her lap, her
thoughts busy with her son's future even as then. If all the others
had lived, would the quandary and the struggle between opposing
wills have been as great for each one as for this sole survivor?
Where were those little ones now? Playing in happy fields and
waiting for her and the stern old man who also suffered, but knew not
how to reveal his heart? Again and again the words repeated
themselves in her heart mechanically: "Wait on the Lord--Wait on the
Lord," and then, again, "Oh, Lord, how long?"
Peter Junior returned early from the Ballards', since he could not see
Betty, leaving the field open for Martha and her guest, much to the
guest's satisfaction. He went straight to the room occupied by Richard
whenever he was with them, but no Richard was there. His valise was
all packed ready for his start on the morrow, but there was no line
pinned to the frame of the mirror telling Peter Junior where to find
him, as was Richard's way in the past. With a fleeting glance around
to see if any bit of paper had been blown away, he went to his own
room and there he found his mother, waiting. In an instant that long
ago morning came to his mind, and as then he went swiftly to her,
and, kneeling, clasped her in his arms.
"Are you worried, mother mine? It's all right. I will be careful and
restrained. Don't be troubled."
Hester clasped her boy's head to her bosom and rested her face against
his soft hair. For a while the silence was deep and the moments burned
themselves into the young man's soul with a purifying fire never to be
forgotten. Presently she began speaking to him in low, murmuring
tones: "Your father is getting to be an old man, Peter, dear, and I--I
am no longer young. Our boy is dear to us--the dearest. In our
different ways we long only for what is best for you. If only it might
be revealed to you and us alike! Many paths are good paths to walk in,
and the way may be happy in any one of them, for happiness is of the
spirit. It is in you--not made for you by circumstances. We have been
so happy here, since you came home wounded, and to be wounded is not a
happy thing, as you well know; but it seemed to bring you and me
happiness, nevertheless. Did it not, dear?"
"Indeed yes, mother. Yes. It gave me a chance to have you to myself a
lot, and that ought to make any man happy, with a mother like you. And
now--a new happiness came to me, the other day, that I meant to speak
of yesterday and couldn't after getting so angry with father. It
seemed like sacrilege to speak of it then, and, besides, there was
another feeling that made me hesitate."
"So you are in love with some one, Peter?"
"Yes, mother. How did you guess it?"
"Because only love is a feeling that would make you say you could not
speak of it when your heart is full of anger. Is it Betty, dear?"
"Yes, mother. You are uncanny to read me so."
She laughed softly and held him closer. "I love Betty, too, Peter. You
will always be gentle and kind? You will never be hard and stern with
her?"
"Mother! Have I ever been so? Can't you tell by the way I have always
acted toward you that I would be tender and kind? She will be
myself--my very own. How could I be otherwise?"
Again Hester smiled her slow, wise smile. "You have always been
tender, Peter, but you have always gone right along and done your own
way, absolutely. The only reason there has not been more friction
between you and your father has been that you have been tactful; also
you have never seemed to desire unworthy things. You have been a good
son, dear: I am not complaining. And the only reason why I have
never--or seldom--felt hurt by your taking your own way has been that
my likings have usually responded to yours, and the thing I most
desired was that you should be allowed to take your own way. It is
good for a man to be decided and to have a way of his own: I have
liked it in you. But the matter still stands that it has always been
your way and never any one's else that you have taken. I can see you
being stern even with a wife you thought you wholly loved if her will
once crossed yours."
Peter Junior was silent and a little hurt. He rose and paced the room.
"I can't think I could ever cross Betty, or be unkind. It seems
preposterous," he said at last.
"Perhaps it might never seem to you necessary. Peter, boy, listen. You
say: 'She will be myself--my very own.' Now what does that mean? Does
it mean that when you are married, her personality will be merged in
yours, and so you two will be one? If so, you will not be completed
and rounded out, and she will be lost in you. A man does not reach his
full manhood to completion until he has loved greatly and truly, and
has found the one who is to complete him. At best, by ourselves, we
are never wholly man or wholly woman until this great soul completion
has taken place in us. Then children come to us, and our very souls
are knit in one, and still the mystery goes on and on; never are we
completed by being lost--either one--in the will or nature of the
other; but to make the whole and perfect creature, each must retain
the individuality belonging to himself or herself, each to each the
perfect and equal other half."
Peter Junior paused in his walk and stood for a moment looking
down on his mother, awed by what she revealed to him of her inner
nature. "I believe you have done this, mother. You have kept your
own individuality complete, and father doesn't know it."
"Not yet, but my hand will always be in his, and some day he will
know. You are very like him, and yet you understand me as he never
has, so you see how our oneness is wrought out in you. That which you
have in you of your father is good and strong: never lose it. The day
may come when you will be glad to have had such a father. Out in the
world men need such traits; but you must not forget that sometimes it
takes more strength to yield than to hold your own way. Yes, it takes
strength and courage sometimes to give up--and tremendous faith in
God. There! I hear him walking about. Go down and have your talk with
him. Remember what I say, dear, and don't get angry with your father.
He loves you, too."
"Have you said anything to him yet about--me--mother?"
"No. I have decided that it will be better for you to deal with him
yourself--courageously. You'll remember?"
Peter Junior took her again in his arms as she rose and stood beside
him, and kissed her tenderly. "Yes, mother. Dear, good, wise mother!
I'll try to remember all. It would have been easier for you, maybe, if
ever father's mother had said to him the things you have just said to
me."
"Life teaches us these things. If we keep an open mind, so God fills
it."
She stood still in the middle of the room, listening to his rapid
steps in the direction of the parlor. Then Hester did a thing very
unusual for her to do of a Sunday. She put on her shawl and bonnet and
walked out to see Mary Ballard.
No one ever knew what passed between Peter Junior and his father in
that parlor. The Elder did not open his lips about it either at home
or at the bank.
That Sunday evening some one saw Peter Junior and his cousin walking
together up the bluff where the old camp had stood, toward the sunset.
The path had many windings, and the bluff was dark and brown, and the
two figures stood out clear and strong against the sky of gold. That
was the last seen of either of the young men in the village. The one
who saw them told later that he knew they were "the twins" because one
of them walked with a stick and limped a little, and that the other
was talking as if he were very much in earnest about something, for he
was moving his arm up and down and gesticulating.
CHAPTER XII
MYSTERIOUS FINDINGS
Monday morning Elder Craigmile walked to the bank with the stubborn
straightening of the knees at each step that always betokened
irritation with him. Neither of the young men had appeared at
breakfast, a matter peculiarly annoying to him. Peter Junior he had
not expected to see, as, owing to his long period of recovery, he had
naturally been excused from rigorous rules, but his nephew surely
might have done that much out of courtesy, where he had always been
treated as a son, to promote the orderliness of the household. It was
unpardonable in the young man to lie abed in the morning thus when a
guest in that home. It was a mistake of his wife to allow Peter Junior
a night key. It induced late hours. He would take it from him. And as
for Richard--there was no telling what habits he had fallen into
during these years of wandering. What if he had come home to them with
a clear skin and laughing eye! Was not the "heart of man deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked"? And was not Satan abroad in
the world laying snares for the feet of wandering youths?
It was still early enough for many of the workmen to be on their way
to their day of labor with their tin dinner pails, and among them Mr.
Walters passed him, swinging his pail with the rest, although he was
master of his own foundry and employed fifty men. He had always gone
early to work, and carried his tin pail when he was one of the
workmen, and he still did it from choice. He, too, was a Scotchman of
a slightly different class from the Elder, it is true, but he was a
trustee of the church, and a man well respected in the community.
He touched his hat to the Elder, and the Elder nodded in return, but
neither spoke a word. Mr. Walters smiled after he was well past. "The
man has a touch of the indigestion," he said.
When the Elder entered his front door at noon, his first glance was at
the rack in the corner of the hall, where, on the left-hand hook,
Peter Junior's coat and hat had hung when he was at home, ever since
he was a boy. They were not there. The Elder lifted his bushy brows
one higher than the other, then drew them down to their usual straight
line, and walked on into the dining room. His wife was not there, but
in a moment she entered, looking white and perturbed.
"Peter!" she said, going up to her husband instead of taking her place
opposite him, "Peter!" She laid a trembling hand on his arm. "I
haven't seen the boys this morning. Their beds have not been slept
in."
"Quiet yourself, lass, quiet yourself. Sit and eat in peace. 'Evil
communications corrupt good manners,' but when doom strikes him, he'll
maybe experience a change of heart." The Elder spoke in a tone not
unkindly. He seated himself heavily.
Then his wife silently took her place at the table and he bowed his
head and repeated the grace to which she had listened three times a
day for nearly thirty years, only that this time he added the request
that the Lord would, in his "merciful kindness, strike terror to the
hearts of all evildoers and turn them from their way."
When the silent meal was ended, Hester followed her husband to the
door and laid a detaining hand on his arm. He stood and looked down on
that slender white hand as if it were something that too sudden a
movement would joggle off, and she did not know that it was as if she
had laid her hand on his very heart. "Peter, tell me what happened
yesterday afternoon. You should tell me, Peter."
Then the Elder did an unwonted thing. He placed his hand over hers and
pressed it harder on his arm, and after an instant's pause he stooped
and kissed her on the forehead.
"I spoke the lad fair, Hester, and made him an offer, but he would
none of it. He thinks he is his own master, but I have put him in the
Lord's hands."
"Has he gone, Peter?"
"Maybe, but the offer I made him was a good one. Comfort your heart,
lass. If he's gone, he will return. When the Devil holds the whip, he
makes a hard bargain, and drives fast. When the boy is hard pressed,
he will be glad to return to his father's house."
"Richard's valise is gone. The maid says he came late yesterday after
I was gone, and took it away with him."
"They are likely gone together."
"But Peter's things are all here. No, they would never go like that
and not bid me good-by."
The Elder threw out his hands with his characteristic downward gesture
of impatience. "I have no way of knowing, more than you. It is no
doubt that Richard has become a ne'er-do-weel. He felt shame to tell
us he was going a journey on the Sabbath day."
"Oh, Peter, I think not. Peter, be just. You know your son was never
one to let the Devil drive; he is like yourself, Peter. And as for
Richard, Peter Junior would never think so much of him if he were a
ne'er-do-weel."
"Women are foolish and fond. It is their nature, and perhaps that is
how we love them most, but the men should rule, for their own good. A
man should be master in his own house. When the lad returns, the door
is open to him. That is enough."
With a sorrowful heart he left her, and truth to tell, the sorrow was
more for his wife's hurt than for his own. The one great tenderness of
his life was his feeling for her, and this she felt rather than knew;
but he believed himself absolutely right and that the hurt was
inevitable, and for her was intensified by her weakness and fondness.
As for Hester, she turned away from the door and went quietly about
her well-ordered house, directing the maidservant and looking
carefully over her husband's wardrobe. Then she did the same for Peter
Junior's, and at last, taking her basket of mending, she sat in the
large, lace-curtained window looking out toward the west--the
direction from which Peter Junior would be likely to come. For how
long she would sit there during the days to come--waiting--she little
knew.
She was comforted by the thought of the talk she had had with him the
day before. She knew he was upright, and she felt that this
quarrel--if it had been a quarrel--with his father would surely be
healed; and then, there was Betty to call him back. The love of a girl
was a good thing for a man. It would be stronger to draw him and hold
him than love of home or of mother; it was the divine way for
humanity, and it was a good way, and she must be patient and wait.
She was glad she had gone without delay to Mary Ballard. The two women
were fond of each other, and the visit had been most satisfactory.
Betty she had not seen, for the maiden was still sleeping the long,
heavy sleep which saves a normal healthy body from wreck after severe
emotion. Betty was so young--it might be best that matters should wait
awhile as they were.
If Peter Junior went to Paris now, he would have to earn his own way,
of course, and possibly he had gone west with Richard where he could
earn faster than at home. Maybe that had been the grounds of the
quarrel. Surely she would hear from him soon. Perhaps he had taken
their talk on Sunday afternoon as a good-by to her; or he might yet
come to her and tell her his plans. So she comforted herself in the
most wholesome and natural way.
Richard's action in taking his valise away during her absence and
leaving no word of farewell for her was more of a surprise to her. But
then--he might have resented the Elder's attitude and sided with his
cousin. Or, he might have feared he would say things he would
afterwards regret, if he appeared, and so have taken himself quietly
away. Still, these reasons did not wholly appeal to her, and she was
filled with misgivings for him even more than for her son.
Peter Junior she trusted absolutely and Richard she loved as a son;
but there was much of his father in him, and the Irish nature was
erratic and wild, as the Elder said. Where was that father now? No
one knew. It was one of the causes for anxiety she had for the boy
that his father had been lost to them all ever since Richard's birth
and his wife's death. He had gone out of their lives as completely as
a candle in a gale of wind. She had mothered the boy, and the Elder
had always been kind to him for his own dead sister's sake, but of the
father they never spoke.
It was while Hester Craigmile sat in her western window, thinking her
thoughts, that two lads came hurrying down the bluff from the old camp
ground, breathless and awed. One carried a straw hat, and the other a
stout stick--a stick with an irregular knob at the end. It was Larry
Kildene's old blackthorn that Peter Junior had been carrying. The
Ballards' home was on the way between the bluff and the village, and
Mary Ballard was standing at their gate watching for the children from
school. She wished Jamie to go on an errand for her.
Mary noticed the agitation of the boys. They were John Walters and
Charlie Dean--two chums who were always first to be around when there
was anything unusual going on, or to be found. It was they who
discovered the fire in the foundry in time to have it put out. It was
they who knew where the tramps were hiding who had been stealing from
the village stores, and now Mary wondered what they had discovered.
She left the gate swinging open and walked down to meet them.
"What is it, boys?"
"We--we--found these--and--there's something happened," panted the
boys, both speaking at once.
She took the hat of white straw from John's hand. "Why! This is Peter
Junior's hat! Where did you find it?" She turned it about and saw
dark red stains, as if it had been grasped by a bloody hand--finger
marks of blood plainly imprinted on the rim.
"And this, Mrs. Ballard," said Charlie, putting Peter Junior's stick
in her hand, and pointing to the same red stains sunken into the knob.
"We think there's been a fight and some one's been hit with this."
She took it and looked at it in a dazed way. "Yes. He was carrying
this in the place of his crutch," she said, as if to herself.
"We think somebody's been pushed over the bluff into the river, Mrs.
Ballard, for they's a hunk been tore out as big as a man, from the
edge, and it's gone clean over, and down into the river. We can see
where it is gone. And it's an awful swift place."
She handed the articles back to the boys.
"Sit down in the shade here, and I'll bring you some sweet apples, and
if any one comes by, don't say anything about it until I have time to
consult with Mr. Ballard."
She hurried back and passed quickly around the house, and on to her
husband, who was repairing the garden fence.
"Bertrand, come with me quickly. Something serious has happened. I
don't want Betty to hear of it until we know what it is."
They hastened to the waiting boys, and together they slowly climbed
the long path leading to the old camping place. Bertrand carried the
stick and the hat carefully, for they were matters of great moment.
"This looks grave," he said, when the boys had told him their story.
"Perhaps we ought to have brought some one with us--if anything--"
said Mary.
"No, no; better wait and see, before making a stir."
It was a good half hour's walk up the hill, and every moment of the
time seemed heavily freighted with foreboding. They said no more until
they reached the spot where the boys had found the edge of the bluff
torn away. There, for a space of about two feet only, back from the
brink, the sparse grass was trampled, and the earth showed marks of
heels and in places the sod was freshly torn up.
"There's been something happened here, you see," said Charlie Dean.
"Here is where a foot has been braced to keep from being pushed over;
see, Mary? And here again."
"I see indeed." Mary looked, and stooping, picked something from the
ground that glinted through the loosened earth. She held it on her
open palm toward Bertrand, and the two boys looked intently at it. Her
husband did not touch it, but glanced quickly into her eyes and then
at the boys. Then her fingers closed over it, and taking her
handkerchief she tied it in one corner securely.
"Did you ever see anything like it, boys?" she asked.
"No, ma'am. It's a watch charm, isn't it? Or what?"
"I suppose it must be."
"I guess the fellah that was being pushed over must 'a' grabbed for
the other fellah's watch. Maybe he was trying to rob him."
"Let's see whether we can find anything else," said John Walters,
peering over the bluff.
"Don't, John, don't. You may fall over. It might have been a fall, and
one of them might have been trying to save the other, you know. He
might have caught at him and pulled this off. There's no reason why we
should surmise the worst."
"They might ha' been playing--you know--wrestling--and it might 'a'
happened so," said Charlie.
"Naw! They'd been big fools to wrestle so near the edge of the bluff
as this," said the practical John. "I see something white way down
there, Mrs. Ballard. I can get it, I guess."
"But take care, John. Go further round by the path."
Both boys ran along the bluff until they came to a path that led down
to the river. "Do be careful, boys!" called Mary.
"Now, let me see that again, my dear," and Mary untied the handkerchief.
"Yes, it is what I thought. That belonged to Larry Kildene. He got it
in India, although he said it was Chinese. He was a year in the
British service in India. I've often examined it. I should have known
it anywhere. He must have left it with Hester for the boy."
"Poor Larry! And it has come to this. I remember it on Richard's chain
when he came out there to meet us in the grove. Bertrand, what shall
we do? They must have been here--and have quarreled--and what has
happened! I'm going back to ask Betty."
"Ask Betty! My dear! What can Betty know about it?"
"Something upset her terribly yesterday morning. She was ill and with
no cause that I could see, and I believe she had had a nervous
shock."
"But she seemed all right this morning,--a little pale, but otherwise
quite herself." Bertrand turned the little charm over in his hand.
"He thought it was Chinese because it is jade, but this carving is
Egyptian. I don't think it is jade, and I don't think it is Chinese."
"But whatever it is, it was on Richard's chain Saturday," said Mary,
sadly. "And now, what can we do? On second thought I'll say nothing to
Betty. If a tragedy has come upon the Craigmiles, it will also fall on
her now, and we must spare her all of it we can, until we know."
A call came to them from below, and Bertrand hastily handed the charm
back to his wife, and she tied it again in her handkerchief.
"Oh, Bertrand, don't go near that terrible brink. It might give way.
I'm sure this has been an accident."
"But the stick, Mary, and the marks of blood on Peter Junior's hat.
I'm afraid--afraid."
"But they were always fond of each other. They have been like
brothers."
"And quarrels between brothers are often the bitterest."
"But we have never heard of their quarreling, and they were so glad to
see each other Saturday. And you know Peter Junior was always
possessed to do whatever Richard planned. They were that way about
enlisting, you remember, and everything else. What cause could Richard
have against Peter Junior?"
"We can't say it was Richard against Peter. You see the stick was
bloody, and it was Peter's. We must offer no opinion, no matter what
we think, for the world may turn against the wrong one, and only time
will tell."
They both were silent as the boys came panting up the bank. "Here's a
handkerchief. It was what I saw. It was caught on a thorn bush, and
here--here's Peter Junior's little notebook, with his name--"
"This is Peter's handkerchief. P. C. J. Hester Craigmile embroidered
those letters." Mary's eyes filled with tears. "Bertrand, we must go
to her. She may hear in some terrible way."
"And the book, where was that, John?"
"It was lying on that flat rock. John had to crawl along the ledge on
his belly to get it; and here, I found this lead pencil," cried
Charlie, excited and important.
"'Faber No. 2.' Yes, this was also Peter's." Bertrand shut it in the
notebook. "Mary, this looks sinister. We'd better go down. There's
nothing more to learn here."
"Maybe we'll find the young men both safely at home."
"Richard was to leave early this morning."
"I remember."
Sadly they returned, and the two boys walked with them, gravely and
earnestly propounding one explanation after another.
"You'd better go back to the house, Mary, and I'll go on to the
village with the boys. We'll consult with your father, John; he's a
thoughtful man, and--"
"And he's a coroner, too--" said John.
"Yes, but if there's nobody found, who's he goin' to sit on?"
"They don't sit on the body, they sit on the jury," said John, with
contempt.
"Don't I know that? But they've got to find the body, haven't they,
before they can sit on anything? Guess I know that much."
"Now, boys," said Bertrand, "this may turn out to be a very grave
matter, and you must keep silent about it. It won't do to get the town
all stirred up about it and all manner of rumors afloat. It must be
looked into quietly first, by responsible people, and you must keep
all your opinions and surmises to yourselves until the truth can be
learned."
"Don't walk, Bertrand; take the carryall, and these can be put under
the seat. Boys, if you'll go back there in the garden, you'll find
some more apples, and I'll fetch you out some cookies to go with
them." The boys briskly departed. "I don't want Betty to see them, and
we'll be silent until we know what to tell her," Mary added, as they
walked slowly up the front path.
Bertrand turned off to the stable, carrying the sad trophies with him,
and Mary entered the house. She looked first for Betty, but no Betty
was to be found, and the children were at home clamoring for something
to eat. They always came home from school ravenously hungry. Mary
hastily packed them a basket of fruit and cookies and sent them to
play picnic down by the brook. Still no Betty appeared.
"Where is she?" asked Bertrand, as he entered the kitchen after
bringing up the carryall.
"I don't know. She may have gone over to Clara Dean's. She spoke of
going there to-day. I'm glad--rather."
"Yes, yes."
A little later in the day, almost closing time at the bank, James
Walters and Bertrand Ballard entered and asked to see the Elder. They
were shown into the director's room, and found him seated alone at the
great table in the center. He pushed his papers one side and rose,
greeting them with his grave courtesy, as usual.
Mr. Walters, a shy man of few words, looked silently at Mr. Ballard
to speak, while the Elder urged them to be seated. "A warm day for the
season, and very pleasant to have it so. We'll hope the winter may
come late this year."
"Yes, yes. We wish to inquire after your son, Elder Craigmile. Is he
at home to-day?"
"Ah, yes. He was not at home--not when I left this noon." The Elder
cleared his throat and looked keenly at his friend. "Is it--ahem--a
matter of business, Mr. Ballard?"
"Unfortunately, no. We have come to inquire if he--when he was last at
home--or if his cousin--has been with you?"
"Not Richard, no. He came unexpectedly and has gone with as little
ceremony, but my son was here on the Sabbath--ahem--He dined that day
with you, Mr. Ballard?"
"He did--but--Elder, will you come with us? A matter with regard to
him and his cousin should be looked into."
"It is not necessary for me to interfere in matters regarding my son
any longer. He has taken the ordering of his life in his own hands
hereafter. As for Richard, he has long been his own master."
"Elder, I beg you to come with us. We fear foul play of some sort. It
is not a question now of family differences of opinion."
The Elder's face remained immovable, and Bertrand reluctantly added,
"We fear either your son or his cousin, possibly both of them, have
met with disaster--maybe murder."
A pallor crept over the Elder's face, and without a word further he
took his hat from a hook in the corner of the room, paused, and then
carefully arranged the papers he had pushed aside at their entrance
and placing them in his desk, turned the key, still without a word. At
the door he waited a moment with his hand on the knob, and with the
characteristic lift of his brows, asked: "Has anything been said to my
wife?"
"No, no. We thought best to do nothing until under your direction."
"Thank you. That's well. Whatever comes, I would spare her all I
can."
The three then drove slowly back to the top of the bluff, and on the
way Bertrand explained to the Elder all that had transpired. "It
seemed best to Mary and me that you should look the ground over
yourself, before any action be taken. We hoped appearances might be
deceptive, and that you would have information that would set our
fears at rest before news of a mystery should reach the town."
"Where are the boys who found these things?"
Mr. Walters spoke, "My son was one of them, and he is now at home.
They are forbidden to speak to any one until we know more about it."
Arrived at the top of the bluff the three men went carefully over the
ground, even descending the steep path to the margin of the river.
"There," said Bertrand, "the notebook was picked up on that flat rock
which juts out from that narrow ledge. John Walters crawled along the
ledge to get it. The handkerchief was caught on that thorn shrub,
halfway up, see? And the pencil was picked up down here, somewhere."
The Elder looked up to the top of the bluff and down at the rushing
river beneath, and as he looked he seemed visibly to shrink and become
in the instant an old man--older by twenty years. As they climbed back
again, his shoulders drooped and his breath came hard. As they neared
the top, Bertrand turned and gave him his aid to gain a firm footing
above.
"Don't forget that we can't always trust to appearances," he urged.
"Some heavy body--heavier than a clod of earth, has gone down there,"
said the Elder, and his voice sounded weak and thin.
"Yes, yes. But even so, a stone may have been dislodged. You can't be
sure."
"Ay, the lads might have been wrestling in play--or the like--and sent
a rock over; it's like lads, that," hazarded Mr. Walters.
"Wrestling on the Sabbath evening! They are men, not lads."
Mr. Walters looked down in embarrassment, and the old man continued.
"Would a stone leave a handkerchief clinging to a thorn? Would it
leave a notebook thrown down on yonder rock?" The Elder lifted his
head and looked to the sky: holding one hand above his head he shook
it toward heaven. "Would a stone leave a hat marked with a bloody
hand--my son's hat? There has been foul play here. May the curse of
God fall on him who has robbed me of my son, be he stranger or my own
kin."
His voice broke and he reeled backward and would have fallen over the
brink but for Bertrand's quickness. Then, trembling and bowed, his two
friends led him back to the carryall and no further word was spoken
until they reached the village, when the Elder said:--
"Will you kindly drive me to the bank, Mr. Ballard?"
They did so. No one was there, and the Elder quietly unlocked the door
and carried the articles found on the bluff into the room beyond and
locked them away. Bertrand followed him, loath to leave him thus, and
anxious to make a suggestion. The Elder opened the door of a cupboard
recessed into the wall and laid the hat on a high shelf. Then he took
the stick and looked at it with a sudden awakening in his eyes as if
he saw it for the first time.
"This stick--this blackthorn stick--accursed! How came it here? I
thought it had been burned. It was left years ago in my front hall
by--Richard's father. I condemned it to be burned."
"Peter Junior was using that in place of his crutch, no doubt because
of its strength. He had it at my house, and I recognize it now as one
Larry brought over with him--"
"Peter was using it! My God! My God! The blow was struck with this. It
is my son who is the murderer, and I have called down the curse of God
on him? It falls--it falls on me!" He sank in his chair--the same in
which he had sat when he talked with Peter Junior--and bowed his head
in his arms. "It is enough, Mr. Ballard. Will you leave me?"
"I can't leave you, sir: there is more to be said. We must not be
hasty in forming conclusions. If any one was thrown over the bluff, it
must have been your son, for he was lame and could not have saved
himself. If he struck any one, he could not have killed him; for
evidently he got away, unless he also went over the brink. If he got
away, he must be found. There is something for you to do, Elder
Craigmile."
The old man lifted his head and looked in Bertrand's face, pitifully
seeking there for help. "You are a good man, Mr. Ballard. I need your
counsel and help."
"First, we will go below the rapids and search; the sooner the better,
for in the strong current there is no telling how far--"
"Yes, we will search." The Elder lifted himself to his full height,
inspired by the thought of action. "We'll go now." He looked down on
his shorter friend, and Bertrand looked up to him, his genial face
saddened with sympathy, yet glowing with kindliness.
"Wait a little, Elder; let us consider further. Mr. Walters--sit down,
Elder Craigmile, for a moment--Mr. Walters is capable, and he can
organize the search; for if you keep this from your wife, you must be
discreet. Here is something I haven't shown you before. It is the
charm from Richard's watch. It was almost covered with earth where
they had been struggling, and Mary found it. You see there is a
mystery--and let us hope whatever happened was an accident. The
evidences are so--so--mingled, that no one may know whom to blame."
The Elder looked down on the charm without touching it, as it lay on
Bertrand's palm. "That belonged--" his lips twitched--"that belonged
to the man who took from me my twin sister. The shadow--forever the
shadow of Larry Kildene hangs over me." He was silent for some
moments, then he said: "Mr. Ballard, if, after the search, my son is
found to be murdered, I will put a detective on the trail of the man
who did the deed, and be he whom he may, he shall hang."
"Hush, Elder Craigmile; in Wisconsin men are not hanged."
"I tell you--be he whom he may--he shall suffer what is worse than to
be hanged, he shall enter the living grave of a life imprisonment."
CHAPTER XIII
CONFESSION
By Monday evening there were only two people in all the small town of
Leauvite who had not heard of the tragedy, and these were Hester
Craigmile and Betty Ballard. Mary doubted if it was wise to keep
Hester thus in ignorance, but it was the Elder's wish, and at his
request she went to spend the evening and if necessary the night with
his wife, to fend off any officious neighbor, while he personally
directed the search.
It was the Elder's firm belief that his son had been murdered, yet he
thought if no traces should be found of Peter Junior, he might be able
to spare Hester the agony of that belief. He preferred her to think
her son had gone off in anger and would sometime return. He felt
himself justified in this concealment, fearing that if she knew the
truth, she might grieve herself into her grave, and his request to
Mary to help him had been made so pitifully and humbly that her heart
melted at the sight of the old man's sorrow, and she went to spend
those weary hours with his wife.
As the Elder sometimes had meetings of importance to take him away of
an evening, Hester did not feel surprise at his absence, and she
accepted Mary's visit as one of sweet friendliness and courtesy
because of Peter's engagement to Betty. Nor did she wonder that the
visit was made without Bertrand, as Mary said he and the Elder had
business together, and she thought she would spend the time with her
friend until their return.
That was all quite as it should be and very pleasant, and Hester
filled the moments with cheerful chat, showing Mary certain pieces of
cloth from which she proposed to make dainty garments for Betty, to
help Mary with the girl's wedding outfit. To Mary it all seemed like a
dream as she locked the sad secret in her heart and listened. Her
friend's sorrow over Peter Junior's disagreement with his father and
his sudden departure from the home was tempered by the glad hope that
after all the years of anxiety, she was some time to have a daughter
to love, and that her boy and his wife would live near them, and her
home might again know the sound of happy children's voices. The sweet
thoughts brought her gladness and peace of mind, and Mary's visit made
the dream more sure of ultimate fulfillment.
Mary felt the Elder's wish lie upon her with the imperative force of a
law, and she did not dare disregard his request that on no account was
Hester to be told the truth. So she gathered all her fortitude and
courage to carry her through this ordeal. She examined the fine linen
that had been brought to Hester years ago from Scotland by Richard's
mother, and while she praised it she listened for steps without; the
heavy tread of men bringing a sorrowful and terrible burden. But the
minutes wore on, and no such sounds came, and the hour grew late.
"They may have gone out of town. Bertrand said something about it, and
told me to stay until he called for me, if I stayed all night." Mary
tried to laugh over it, and Hester seized the thought gayly.
"We'll go to bed, anyway, and your husband may just go home without
you when he comes."
And after a little longer wait they went to bed, and Hester slept, but
Mary lay wakeful and fearing, until in the early morning, while it was
yet dark, she heard the Elder slowly climb the stairs and go to his
room. Then she also slept, hoping against hope, that they had found
nothing.
Betty's pride and shame had caused her to keep her trouble to herself.
She knew Richard had gone forever, and she dreaded Peter Junior's next
visit. What should she do! Oh, what should she do! Should she tell
Peter she did not love him, and that all had been a mistake? She must
humble herself before him, and what excuse had she to make for all the
hours she had given him, and the caresses she had accepted? Ah! If
only she could make the last week as if it had never been! She was
shamed before her mother, who had seen him kiss her. She was ashamed
even in her own room in the darkness to think of all Peter Junior had
said to her, and the love he had lavished on her. Ought she to break
her word to him and beg him to forget? Ah! Neither he nor she could
ever forget.
Her brothers had been forbidden to tell her a word of the reports that
were already abroad in the town, and now they were both in bed and
asleep, and little Janey was cuddled in Betty's bed, also in
dreamland. At last, when neither her father nor her mother returned
and she could bear her own thoughts no longer, she brought drawing
materials down from the studio and spread them out on the dining room
table.
She had decided she would never marry any one--never. How could she!
But she would study in earnest and be an illustrator. If women could
never become great artists, as Peter Junior said, at least they might
illustrate books; and sometime--maybe--when her heart was not so sad,
she might write books, and she could illustrate them herself. Ah, that
would almost make up for what she must go without all her life.
For a while she worked painstakingly, but all the time it seemed as
though she could hear Richard's voice, and the words he had said to
her Sunday morning kept repeating themselves over and over in her
mind. Then the tears fell one by one and blurred her work, until at
last she put her head down on her arms and wept. Then the door opened
very softly and Richard entered. Swiftly he came to her and knelt at
her side. He put his head on her knee, and his whole body shook with
tearless sobs he could not restrain. He was faint and weak. She could
not know the whole cause of his grief, and thought he suffered because
of her. She must comfort him--but alas! What could she say? How could
she comfort him?
She put her trembling hand on his head and found the hair matted and
stiff. Then she saw a wound above his temple, and knew he was hurt,
and cried out: "You are hurt--you are hurt! Oh, Richard! Let me do
something for you."
He clasped her in his arms, but still did not look up at her, and
Betty forgot all her shame, and her lessons in propriety. She lifted
his head to her bosom and laid her cheek upon his and said all the
comforting things that came into her heart. She begged him to let her
wash his wound and to tell her how he came by it. She forgot
everything, except that she loved him and told him over and over the
sweet confession.
At last he found strength to speak to her brokenly. "Never love me any
more, Betty. I've committed a terrible crime--Oh, my God! And you will
hear of it Give me a little milk. I've eaten nothing since yesterday
morning, when I saw you. Then I'll try to tell you what you must
know--what all the world will tell you soon."
He rose and staggered to a chair and she brought him milk and bread
and meat, but she would not let him talk to her until he had allowed
her to wash the wound on his head and bind it up. As she worked the
touch of her hands seemed to bring him sane thoughts in spite of the
horror of himself that possessed him, and he was enabled to speak more
coherently.
"If I had not been crazed when I looked through the window and saw you
crying, Betty, I would never have let you see me or touch me again.
It's only adding one crime to another to come near you. I meant just
to look in and see if I could catch one glimpse of you, and then was
going to lose myself to all the world, or else give myself up to be
hung." Then he was silent, and she began to question him.
"Don't! Richard. Hung? What have you done? What do you mean? When was
it?"
"Sunday night."
"But you had to start for Cheyenne early this morning. Where have you
been all day? I thought you were gone forever, dear."
"I hid myself down by the river. I lay there all day, and heard them
talking, but I couldn't see them nor they me. It was a hiding place we
knew of when our camp was there--Peter Junior and I. He's gone. I did
it--I did it with murder in my heart--Oh, my God!"
"Don't, Richard. You must tell me nothing except as I ask you. It is
not as if we did not love each other. What you have done I must help
you bear--as--as wives help their husbands--for I will never marry;
but all my life my heart will be married to yours." He reached for her
hands and covered them with kisses and moaned. "No, Richard, don't.
Eat the bread and meat I have brought you. You've eaten nothing for
two days, and everything may seem worse to you than it is."
"No, no!"
"Richard, I'll go away from you and leave you here alone if you don't
eat."
"Yes, I must eat--not only now--but all the rest of my life, I must
eat to live and repent. He was my dearest friend. I taunted him and
said bitter things. I goaded him. I was insane with rage and at last
so was he. He struck me--and--and I--I was trying to push him over the
bluff--"
Slowly it dawned on Betty what Richard's talk really meant.
"Not Peter? Oh, Richard--not Peter!" She shrank from him, wide-eyed in
terror.
"He would have killed me--for I know what was in his heart as well as
I knew what was in my own--and we were both seeing red. I've felt it
sometimes in battle, and the feeling makes a man drunken. A man will
do anything then. We'd been always friends--and yet we were drunken
with hate; and now--he--he is better off than I. I must live. Unless
for the disgrace to my relatives, I would give myself up to be
hanged. It would be better to take the punishment than to live in such
torture as this."
The tears coursed fast down Betty's cheeks. Slowly she drew nearer
him, and bent down to him as he sat, until she could look into his
eyes. "What were you quarreling about, Richard?"
"Don't ask me, darling Betty."
"What was it, Richard?"
"All my life you will be the sweet help to me--the help that may keep
me from death in life. To carry in my soul the remembrance of last
night will need all the help God will let me have. If I had gone away
quietly, you and Peter Junior would have been married and have been
happy--but--"
"No, no. Oh, Richard, no. I knew in a moment when you came--"
"Yes, Betty, dear, Peter Junior was good and faithful; and he might
have been able to undo all the harm I had done. He could have taught
you to love him. I have done the devil's work--and then I killed
him--Oh, my God! My God!"
"How do you know you pushed him over? He may have fallen over. You
don't know it. He may have--"
"Hush, dearest. I did it. When I came to myself, it was in the night;
and it must have been late, for the moon was set. I could only see
faintly that something white lay near me. I felt of it, and it was
Peter Junior's hat. Then I felt all about for him--and he was gone and
I crawled to the edge of the bluff--but although I knew he was gone
over there and washed by the terrible current far down the river by
that time, I couldn't follow him, whether from cowardice or weakness.
I tried to get on my feet and could not. Then I must have fainted
again, for all the world faded away, and I thought maybe the blow had
done for me and I might not have to leap over there, after all. I
could feel myself slipping away.
"When I awoke, the sun was shining and a bird was singing just as if
nothing had happened, and I thought I had been dreaming an awful
dream--but there was the wound on my head and I was alive. Then I went
farther down the river and came back to the hiding place and crept in
there to wait and think. Then, after a long while, the boys came, and
I was terrified for fear they were searching for me. That is the
shameful truth, Betty. I feared. I never knew what fear was before.
Betty, fear is shameful. There I have been all day--waiting--for what,
I do not know; but it seemed that if I could only have one little
glimpse of you I could go bravely and give myself up. I will now--"
"No, Richard; it would do no good for you to die such a death. It
would undo nothing, and change nothing. Peter was angry, too, and he
struck you, and if he could have his way he would not want you to die.
I say maybe he is living now. He may not have gone over."
"It's no use, Betty. He went down. I pushed him into that terrible
river. I did it. I--I--I!" Richard only moaned the words in a whisper
of despair, and the horror of it all began to deepen and crush down
upon Betty. She retreated, step by step, until she backed against the
door leading to her chamber, and there she stood gazing at him with
her hand pressed over her lips to keep herself from crying out. Then
she saw him rise and turn toward the door without looking at her
again, his head bowed in grief, and the sight roused her. As the door
closed between them she ran and threw it open and followed him out
into the darkness.
"I can't, Richard. I can't let you go like this!" She clung to him,
sobbing her heart out on his bosom, and he clasped her and held her
warm little body close.
"I'm like a drowning man pulling you under with me. Your tears drown
me. I would not have entered the house if I had not seen you crying.
Never cry again for me, Betty, never."
"I will cry. I tell you I will cry. I will. I don't believe you are a
murderer."
"You must believe it. I am."
"I loved Peter Junior and you loved him. You did not mean to do it."
"I did it."
"If you did it, it is as if I did it, too. We both killed him--and I
am a murderer, too. It was because of me you did it, and if you give
yourself up to be hung, I will give myself up. Poor Peter--Oh,
Richard--I don't believe he fell over." For a long moment she sobbed
thus. "Where are you going, Richard?" she asked, lifting her head.
"I don't know, Betty. I may be taken and can go nowhere."
"Yes, you must go--quick--quick--now. Some one may come and find you
here."
"No one will find me. Cain was a wanderer over the face of the
earth."
"Will you let me know where you are, after you are gone?"
"No, Betty. You must never think of me, nor let me darken your life."
"Then must I live all the rest of the years without even knowing where
you are?"
"Yes, love. Put me out of your life from now on, and it will be enough
for me that you loved me once."
"I will help you atone, Richard. I will try to be brave--and help
Peter's mother to bear it. I will love her for Peter and for you."
"God's blessing on you forever, Betty." He was gone, striding away in
the darkness, and Betty, with trembling steps, entered the house.
Carefully she removed every sign of his having been there. The bowl of
water, and the cloth from which she had torn strips to bind his head
she carried away, and the glass from which he had taken his milk, she
washed, and even the crumbs of bread which had fallen to the floor she
picked up one by one, so that not a trace remained. Then she took her
drawing materials back to the studio, and after kneeling long at her
bedside, and only saying: "God, help Richard, help him," over and
over, she crept in beside her little sister, and still weeping and
praying chokingly clasped the sleeping child in her arms.
From that time, it seemed to Bertrand and Mary that a strange and
subtle change had taken place in their beloved little daughter; for
which they tried to account as the result of the mysterious
disappearance of Peter Junior. He was not found, and Richard also was
gone, and the matter after being for a long time the wonder of the
village, became a thing of the past. Only the Elder cherished the
thought that his son had been murdered, and quietly set a detective
at work to find the guilty man--whom he would bring back to
vengeance.
Her parents were forced to acquaint Betty with the suspicious nature
of Peter's disappearance, knowing she might hear of it soon and be
more shocked than if told by themselves. Mary wondered not a little at
her dry-eyed and silent reception of it, but that was a part of the
change in Betty.
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER XIV
OUT OF THE DESERT
"Good horse. Good horse. Good boy. Goldbug--go it! I know you're
dying, but so am I. Keep it up a little while longer--Good boy."
The young man encouraged his horse, while half asleep from utter
weariness and faint with hunger and thirst. The poor beast scrambled
over the rocks up a steep trail that seemed to have been long unused,
or indeed it might be no trail at all, but only a channel worn by
fierce, narrow torrents during the rainy season, now sun-baked and
dry.
The fall rains were late this year, and the yellow plains below
furnished neither food nor drink for either man or beast. The herds of
buffalo had long since wandered to fresher spaces nearer the river
beds. The young man's flask was empty, and it was twenty-seven hours
since either he or his horse had tasted anything. Now they had reached
the mountains he hoped to find water and game if he could only hold
out a little longer. Up and still up the lean horse scrambled with
nose to earth and quivering flanks, and the young man, leaning forward
and clinging to his seat as he reeled like one drunken, still murmured
words of encouragement. "Good boy--Goldbug, go it. Good horse, keep it
up."
All at once the way opened out on a jutting crest and made a sharp
turn to the right, and the horse paused on the verge so suddenly that
his rider lost his hold and fell headlong over into a scrub oak that
caught him and held him suspended in its tough and twisted branches
above a chasm so deep that the buzzards sailed on widespread wings
round and round in the blue air beneath him.
He lay there still and white as death, mercifully unconscious,
while an eagle with a wild scream circled about and perched on a
lightning-blasted tree far above and looked down on him.
For a moment the yellow horse swayed weakly on the brink, then feeling
himself relieved of his burden, he stiffened himself to a last great
effort and held on along the path which turned abruptly away from the
edge of the cliff and broadened out among low bushes and stunted
trees. Here again the horse paused and stretched his neck and bit off
the tips of the dry twigs near him, then turned his head and whinnied
to call his master, and pricked his ears to listen; but he only heard
the scream of the eagle overhead, and again he walked on, guided by an
instinct as mysterious and unerring as the call of conscience to a
human soul.
Good old beast! He had not much farther to go. Soon there was a sound
of water in the air--a continuous roar, muffled and deep. The path
wound upward, then descended gradually until it led him to an open,
grassy space, bordered by green trees. Again he turned his head and
gave his intelligent call. Why did not his master respond? Why did he
linger behind when here was grass and water--surely water, for the
smell of it was fresh and sweet. But it was well he called, for his
friendly nicker fell on human ears.
A man of stalwart frame, well built and spare, hairy and grizzled, but
ruddy with health, sat in a cabin hidden among the trees not forty
paces away, and prepared his meal of roasting quail suspended over the
fire in his chimney and potatoes baking in the ashes.
He lifted his head with a jerk, and swung the quail away from the
heat, leaving it still suspended, and taking his rifle from its pegs
stood for a moment in his door listening. For months he had not heard
the sound of a human voice, nor the nicker of any horse other than his
own. He called a word of greeting, "Hello, stranger!" but receiving no
response he ventured farther from his door.
Goldbug was eagerly grazing--too eagerly for his own good. The man
recognized the signs of starvation and led him to a tree, where he
brought him a little water in his own great tin dipper. Then he
relieved him of saddle and bridle and left him tied while he hastily
stowed a few hard-tack and a flask of whisky in his pocket, and taking
a lasso over his arm, started up the trail on his own horse.
"Some poor guy has lost his way and gone over the cliff," he
muttered.
The young man still lay as he had fallen, but now his eyes were open
and staring at the sky. Had he not been too weak to move he would have
gone down; as it was, he waited, not knowing if he were dead or in a
dream, seeing only the blue above him, and hearing only the scream of
the eagle.
"Lie still. Don't ye move. Don't ye stir a hair. I'll get ye. Still
now--still."
The big man's voice came to him as out of a great chasm, scarcely
heard for the roaring in his head, although he was quite near. His
arms hung down and one leg swung free, but his body rested easily
balanced in the branches. Presently he felt something fall lightly
across his chest, slip down to his hand, and then crawl slowly up his
arm to the shoulder, where it tightened and gripped. A vague hope
awoke in him.
"Now, wait. I'll get ye; don't move. I'll have a noose around ye'r leg
next,--so." The voice had grown clearer, and seemed nearer, but the
young man could make no response with his parched throat.
"Now if I hurt ye a bit, try to stand it." The man carried the long
loop of his lasso around the cliff and wound it securely around
another scrub oak, and then began slowly and steadily to pull, until
the young man moaned with pain,--to cry out was impossible.
"I'll have ye in a minute--I'll have ye--there! Catch at my hand. Poor
boy, poor boy, ye can't. Hold on--just a little more--there!" Strong
arms reached for him. Strong hands gripped his clothing and lifted him
from the terrible chasm's edge.
"He's more dead than alive," said the big man, as he strove to pour a
little whisky between the stranger's set teeth. "Well, I'll pack him
home and do for him there."
He lifted his weight easily, and placing him on his horse, led the
animal to the cabin where he laid him in his own bunk. There, with
cool water, and whisky carefully administered, the big man restored
him enough to know that he was conscious.
"There now, you'll come out of this all right. You've got a good body
and a good head, young man,--lie by a little and I'll give ye some
broth."
The man took a small stone jar from a shelf and putting in a little
water, took the half-cooked quail from the fire, and putting it in the
jar set it on the coals among the ashes, and covered it. From time to
time he lifted the cover and stirred it about, sprinkling in a little
corn meal, and when the steam began to rise with savory odor, he did
not wait for it to be wholly done, but taking a very little of the
broth in a tin cup, he cooled it and fed it to his patient drop by
drop until the young man's eyes looked gratefully into his.
Then, while the young man dozed, he returned to his own uneaten meal,
and dined on dried venison and roasted potatoes and salt. The big man
was a good housekeeper. He washed his few utensils and swept the
hearth with a broom worn almost to the handle. Then he removed the jar
containing the quail and broth from the embers, and set it aside in
reserve for his guest. Whenever the young man stirred he fed him again
with the broth, until at last he seemed to sleep naturally.
Seeing his patient quietly sleeping, the big man went out to the
starving horse and gave him another taste of water, and allowed him to
graze a few minutes, then tied him again, and returned to the cabin.
He stood for a while looking down at the pallid face of the sleeping
stranger, then he lighted his pipe and busied himself about the cabin,
returning from time to time to study the young man's countenance. His
pipe went out. He lighted it again and then sat down with his back to
the stranger and smoked and gazed in the embers.
The expression of his face was peculiarly gentle as he gazed. Perhaps
the thought of having rescued a human being worked on his spirit
kindly, or what not, but something brought him a vision of a pale
face with soft, dark hair waving back from the temples, and large gray
eyes looking up into his. It came and was gone, and came again, even
as he summoned it, and he smoked on. One watching him might have
thought that it was his custom to smoke and gaze and dream thus.
At last he became aware that the stranger was trying to speak to him
in husky whispers. He turned quickly.
"Feeling more fit, are you? Well, take another sup of broth. Can't let
you eat anything solid for a bit, but you can have all of the broth
now if you want it."
As he stooped over him the young man's fingers caught at his shirt
sleeve and pulled him down to listen to his whispered words.
"Pull me out of this--quickly--quickly--there's a--party--down
the--mountain--dying of thirst. Is this Higgins' Camp? I--I--tried to
get there for--for help." He panted and could say no more.
The big man whistled softly. "Thought you'd get to Higgins' Camp?
You're sixty miles out of the way--or more,--twice that, way you've
come. You took the wrong trail and you've gone forty miles one way
when you should have gone as far on the other. I did it myself once,
and never undid it."
The patient looked hungrily at the tin cup from which he had been
taking the broth. "Can you give me a little more?"
"Yes, drink it all. It won't hurt ye."
"I've got to get up. They'll die." He struggled and succeeded in
lifting himself to his elbow and with the effort he spoke more
strongly. "May I have another taste of the whisky? I'm coming
stronger now. I left them yesterday with all the food--only a
bit--and a little water--not enough to keep them alive much longer.
Yesterday--God help them--was it yesterday--or days ago?"
The older man had a slow, meditative manner of speech as if he had
long been in the way of speaking only to himself, unhurried, and at
peace. "It's no use your trying to think that out, young man, and I
can't tell you. Nor you won't be able to go for them in a while. No."
"I must. I must if I die. I don't care if I die--but they--I must go."
He tried again to raise himself, but fell back. Great drops stood out
on his forehead and into his eyes crept a look of horror. "It's
there!" he said, and pointed with his finger.
"What's there, man?"
"The eye. See! It's gone. Never mind, it's gone." He relaxed, and his
face turned gray and his eyes closed for a moment, then he said again,
"I must go to them."
"You can't go. You're delirious, man."
Then the stranger's lips twitched and he almost smiled. "Because I saw
it? I saw it watching me. It often is, and it's not delirium. I can
go. I am quite myself."
That half smile on the young man's face was reassuring and appealing.
The big man could not resist it.
"See here, are you enough yourself to take care of yourself, if I
leave you and go after them--whoever they are?"
"Yes, oh, yes."
"Will you be prudent--stay right here, eat very sparingly? Are they
back on the plain? If so, there is a long ride ahead of me, but my
horse is fresh. If they are not off the trail by which you came, I can
reach them."
"I did not once leave the trail after--there was no other way I could
take."
"Would they likely stay right where you left them?"
"They couldn't move if they tried. Oh, my God--if I were only myself
again!"
"Never waste words wishing, young man. I'll get them. But you must
give me your promise to wait here. Will you be prudent and wait?"
"Yes, yes."
"You'll be stronger before you know it, and then you'll want to leave,
you know, and go for them yourself. Don't do that. I'll give your
horse a bit more to eat and drink, and tie him again, then there'll be
no need for you to leave this bunk until to-morrow. I'm to follow the
trail you came up by, and not leave it until I come to--whoever it is?
Right. Do you give me your word, no matter how long gone I may be, not
to leave my place here until I return, or send?"
"Oh, yes, yes."
"Good. I'll trust you. There's a better reason than I care to give you
for this promise, young man. It's not a bad one."
The big man then made his preparations rapidly, pausing now and then
to give the stranger instructions as to where to find provisions and
how to manage there by himself, and inquiring carefully as to the
party he was to find. He packed saddlebags with supplies, and water
flasks, and, as he moved about, continued to question and admonish.
"By the time I get back you'll be as well as ever you were. A
couple of days--and you'll be fuming round instead of waiting in
patience--that's what I tell you. I'll fetch them--do you hear?
I'll do it. Now what's your name? Harry King? Harry King--very
well, I have it. And the party? Father and mother and daughter. Family
party. I see. Big fools, no doubt. No description needed, I guess.
Bird? Name Bird? No. McBride,--very good. Any name with a Mac to it
goes on this mountain--that means me. I'm the mountain. Any one I
don't want here I pack off down the trail, and _vice versa_."
Harry King lay still and heard the big man ride away. He heard his own
horse stamping and nickering, and heaving a great sigh of relief his
muscles relaxed, and he slept soundly on his hard bed. For hours he
had fought off this terrible languor with a desperation born of terror
for those he had left behind him, who looked to him as their only
hope. Now he resigned their fate to the big man whose eyes had looked
so kindly into his, with a childlike feeling of rest and content. He
lay thus until the sun rose high in the heavens the next morning, when
he was awakened by the insistent neighing of his horse which had risen
almost to a cry of fear.
"Poor beast. Poor beast," he muttered. His vocal chords seemed to have
stiffened and dried, and his attempt to call out to reassure the
animal resulted only in a hoarse croak. He devoured the meat of the
little quail left in the jar and drank the few remaining drops of
broth, then crawled out to look after the needs of his horse before
making further search for food for himself. He gathered all his little
strength to hold the frantic creature, maddened with hunger, and
tethered him where he could graze for half an hour, then fetched him
water as the big man had done, a little at a time in the great
dipper.
After these efforts he rested, sitting in the doorway in the sun, and
then searched out a meal for himself. The big man's larder was well
stocked, and although Harry King did not appear to be a western man,
he was a good camper, and could bake a corn dodger or toss a flapjack
with a fair amount of skill. As he worked, everything seemed like a
dream to him. The murmuring of the trees far up the mountain side, the
distant roar of falling water that made him feel as if a little way
off he might find the sea, filled his senses with an impression of
unseen forces at work all about him, and the peculiar clearness and
lightness of the atmosphere made him feel as if he were swaying over
the ground and barely touching his feet to the earth, instead of
walking. He might indeed be in an enchanted land, were it not for his
hunger and the reality of his still hungry horse.
After eating, he again stretched himself on the earth and again slept
until his horse awakened him. It was well. The sun was setting in the
golden notch of the hills, and once more he set himself to the same
task of laboriously giving his horse water and tethering him where the
grass was lush and green, then preparing food for himself, then
sitting in the doorway and letting the peace of the place sink into
his soul.
The horror of his situation when the big man found him had made no
impression, for he had mercifully been unconscious and too stupefied
with weariness to realize it. He had even no idea of how he had come
to the cabin, or from which direction. Inertly he thought over it. A
trail seemed to lead away to the southwest. He supposed he must have
come by it, but he had not. It was only the path made by his rescuer
in going to and fro between his garden patch and his cabin.
In the loneliness and peace of the dusk he looked up and saw the dome
above filled with stars, and all things were so vast and inexplicable
that he was minded to pray. The longing and the necessity of prayer
was upon him, and he stood with arms uplifted and eyes fixed on the
stars,--then his head sank on his breast and he turned slowly into the
cabin and lay down on the bunk with his hands pressed over his eyes,
and moaned. Far into the night he lay thus, unsleeping, now and again
uttering that low moan. Toward morning he again slept until far into
the day, and thus passed the first two days of his stay.
Strength came to him rapidly as the big man had said, and soon he was
restlessly searching the short paths all about for a way by which he
might find the plain below. He did not forget the promise which had
been exacted from him to remain, no matter how long, until the big
man's return, but he wished to discover whence he might arrive, and
perhaps journey to meet him on the way.
The first trail he followed led him to the fall that ever roared in
his ears. He stood amazed at its height and volume, and its wonderful
beauty. It lured him and drew him again and again to the spot from
which he first viewed it. Midway of its height he stood where every
now and then a little stronger breeze carried the fine mist of the
fall in his face. Behind him lay the garden, ever watered thus by the
wind-blown spray. Smoothly the water fell over a notch worn by its
never ceasing motion in what seemed the very crest of the mountain far
above him. Smoothly it fell into the rainbow mists that lost its base
in a wonderful iridescence of shadows and quivering, never resting
lights as far below him.
He caught his breath, and remembered the big man's words. "You missed
the trail to Higgins' Camp a long way back. It's easily done. I did it
myself once, and never undid it." He could not choose but return over
and over to that spot. A wonderful ending to a lost trail for a lost
soul.
The next path he followed took him to a living spring, where the big
man was wont to lead his own horse to water, and from whence he led
the water to his cabin in a small flume to always drip and trickle
past his door. It was at the end of this flume that Harry King had
filled the large dipper for his horse. Now he went back and washed
that utensil carefully, and hung it beside the door.
The next trail he followed led by a bare and more forbidding route to
the place where the big man had rescued him, and he knew it must be
the one by which he had come. A sense of what had happened came over
him terrifyingly, and he shrank from the abyss, his body quivering and
his head reeling. He would not look down into the blue depth, knowing
that if he did so, by that way his sanity would leave him, but he
crawled cautiously around the projecting cliff and wandered down the
stony trail. Now and again he called, "Whoopee! Whoopee!" but only his
own voice came back to him many times repeated.
Again and again he called and listened, "Whoopee! Whoopee!" and was
regretful at the thought that he did not even know the name of the man
who had saved him. Could he also save the others? The wild trail drew
him and fascinated him. Each day he followed a little farther, and
morning and evening he called his lonely cry, "Whoopee! Whoopee!" and
still was answered by the echo in diminuendo of his own voice. He
tried to resist the lure of that narrow, sun-baked, and stony descent,
which he felt led to the nethermost hell of hunger and burning thirst,
but always it seemed to him as if a cry came up for help, and if it
were not that he knew himself bound by a promise, he would have taken
his horse and returned to the horror below.
Each evening he reasoned with himself, and repeated the big man's
words for reassurance: "I'll fetch them, do you hear? I'll fetch
them," and again: "I'm the mountain. Any one I don't want here I pack
off down the trail." Perhaps he had taken them off to Higgins' Camp
instead of bringing them back with him--what then? Harry King bowed
his head at the thought. Then he understood the lure of the trail.
What then? Why, then--he would follow--follow--follow--until he found
again the woman for whom he had dared the unknown and to whom he had
given all but a few drops of water that were needed to keep him alive
long enough to find more for her. He would follow her back into that
hell below the heights. But how long should he wait? How long should
he trust the man to whom he had given his promise?
He decided to wait a reasonable time, long enough to allow for the big
man's going, and slow returning--long enough indeed for them to use up
all the provisions he had packed down to them, and then he would break
his promise and go. In the meantime he tried to keep himself sane by
doing what he found to do. He gathered the ripe corn in the big man's
garden patch and husked it and stored it in the shed which was built
against the cabin. Then he stored the fodder in a sort of stable built
of logs, one side of which was formed by a huge bowlder, or
projecting part of the mountain itself, not far from the spring, where
evidently it had been stored in the past, and where he supposed the
man kept his horse in winter. He judged the winters must be very
severe for the care with which this shed was covered and the wind
holes stopped. And all the time he worked each day seemed a month of
days, instead of a day of hours.
At last he felt he was justified in trying to learn the cause of the
delay at least, and he baked many cakes of yellow corn meal and
browned them well on the hearth, and roasted a side of bacon whole as
it was, and packed strips of dried venison, and filled his water flask
at the spring. After a long hunt he found empty bottles which he
wrapped round with husks and filled also with water. These he purposed
to hang at the sides of his saddle. He had carefully washed and mended
his clothing, and searching among the big man's effects, he found a
razor, dull and long unused. He sharpened and polished and stropped
it, and removed a vigorous growth of beard from his face, before a
little framed mirror. To-morrow he would take the trail down into the
horror from which he had come.
Now it only remained for him to look well to the good yellow horse and
sleep one more night in the friendly big man's bunk, then up before
the sun and go.
The nights were cold, and he thought he would replenish the fire on
his hearth, for he always had the feeling that at any moment they
might come wearily climbing up the trail, famished and cold. Any night
he might hear the "Halloo" of the big man's voice. In the shed where
he had piled the husked corn lay wood cut in lengths for the
fireplace, and taking a pine torch he stooped to collect a few
sticks, when, by the glare of the light he held, he saw what he had
never seen in the dim daylight of the windowless place. A heavy iron
ring lay at his feet, and as he kicked at it he discovered that it was
attached to something covered with earth beneath.
Impelled by curiosity he thrust the torch between the logs and removed
the earth, and found a huge bin of hewn logs carefully fitted and
smoothed on the inside. The cover was not fastened, but only held in
place by the weight of stones and earth piled above it. This bin was
half filled with finely broken ore, and as he lifted it in his hands
yellow dust sifted through his fingers.
Quivering with a strange excitement he delved deeper, lifting the
precious particles by handfuls, feeling of it, sifting it between his
fingers, and holding the torch close to the mass to catch the dull
glow of it. For a long time he knelt there, wondering at it, dreaming
over it, and feeling of it. Then he covered it all as he had found it,
and taking the wood for which he had come, he replenished the fire and
laid himself down to sleep.
What was gold to him? What were all the riches of the earth and of the
caves of the earth? Only one thought absorbed him,--the woman whom he
had left waiting for him on the burning plain, and a haunting memory
that would never leave him--never be stilled.
CHAPTER XV
THE BIG MAN'S RETURN
The night was bitter cold after a day of fierce heat. Three people
climbed the long winding trail from the plains beneath, slowly,
carefully, and silently. A huge mountaineer walked ahead, leading a
lean brown horse. Seated on the horse was a woman with long, pale
face, and deeply sunken dark eyes that looked out from under arched,
dark brows with a steady gaze that never wandered from some point just
ahead of her, not as if they perceived anything beyond, but more as if
they looked backward upon some terror.
Behind them on a sorrel horse--a horse slenderer and evidently of
better stock than the brown--rode another woman, also with dark eyes,
now heavy lidded from weariness, and pale skin, but younger and
stronger and more alert to the way they were taking. Her face was
built on different lines: a smooth, delicately modeled oval, wide at
the temples and level of brow, with heavy dark hair growing low over
the sides of the forehead, leaving the center high, and the arch of
the head perfect. Trailing along in the rear a small mule followed,
bearing a pack.
Sometimes the big man walking in front looked back and spoke a word of
encouragement, to which the younger of the two women replied in low
tones, as if the words were spoken under her breath.
"We'll stop and rest awhile now," he said at last, and led the horse
to one side, where a level space made it possible for them to dismount
and stretch themselves on the ground to give their weary limbs the
needed relaxation.
The younger woman slipped to the ground and led her horse forward to
where the elder sat rigidly stiff, declining to move.
"It is better we rest, mother. The kind man asks us."
"Non, Amalia, non. We go on. It is best that we not wait."
Then the daughter spoke rapidly in their own tongue, and the mother
bowed her head and allowed herself to be lifted from the saddle. Her
daughter then unrolled her blanket and, speaking still in her own
tongue, with difficulty persuaded her mother to lie down on the
mountain side, as they were directed, and the girl lay beside her,
covering her tenderly and pillowing her mother's head on her arm. The
big man led the animals farther on and sat down with his back against
a great rock, and waited.
They lay thus until the mother slept the sleep of exhaustion; then
Amalia rose cautiously, not to awaken her, and went over to him. Her
teeth chattered with the cold, and she drew a little shawl closer
across her chest.
"This is a very hard way--so warm in the day and so cold in the night.
It is not possible that I sleep. The cold drives me to move."
"You ought to have put part of that blanket over yourself. It's going
to be a long pull up the mountain, and you ought to sleep a little.
Walk about a bit to warm yourself and then try again to sleep."
"Yes. I try."
She turned docilely and walked back and forth, then very quietly crept
under the blanket beside her mother. He watched them a while, and when
he deemed she also must be sleeping, he removed his coat and gently
laid it over the girl. By that time darkness had settled heavily over
the mountain. The horses ceased browsing among the chaparral and lay
down, and the big man stretched himself for warmth close beside his
sorrel horse, on the stony ground. Thus in the stillness they all
slept; at last, over the mountain top the moon rose.
Higher and higher it crept up in the sky, and the stars waned before
its brilliant whiteness. The big man roused himself then, and looked
at the blanket under which the two women slept, and with a muttered
word of pity began gathering weeds and brush with which to build a
fire. It should be a very small fire, hidden by chaparral from the
plains below, and would be well stamped out and the charred place
covered with stones and brush when they left it. Soon he had steeped a
pot of coffee and fried some bacon, then he quickly put out his fire
and woke the two women. The younger sprang up, and, finding his coat
over her, took it to him and thanked him with rapid utterance.
"Oh, you are too kind. I am sorry you have deprive yourself of your
coat to put it over me. That is why I have been so warm."
The mother rose and shook out her skirt and glanced furtively about
her. "It is not the morning? It is the moon. That is well we go
early." She drank the coffee hurriedly and scarcely tasted the bacon
and hard biscuit. "It is no toilet we have here to make. So we go more
quickly. So is good."
"But you must eat the food, mother. You will be stronger for the long,
hard ride. You have not here to hurry. No one follows us here."
"Your father may be already by the camp, Amalia--to bring us
help--yes. But of those men 'rouge'--if they follow and rob us--"
The two women spoke English out of deference to the big man, and only
dropped into their own language or into fluent French when necessity
compelled them, or they thought themselves alone.
"Ah, but those red men, mother, they do not come here, so the kind man
told us, for now they are also kind. Sit here and eat the biscuit. I
will ask him."
She went over to where he stood by the animals, pouring a very little
water from the cans carried by the pack mule for each one. "They'll
have to hold out on this for the day, but they may only have half of
it now," he said.
"What shall I do?" Amalia looked with wide, distressed eyes in his
face. "She believes it yet, that my father lives and has gone to the
camp for help. She thinks we go to him,--to the camp. How can I tell
her? I cannot--I dare not."
"Let her think what satisfies her most. We can tell her as much as is
best for her to know, a little at a time, and there will be plenty of
time to do it in. We'll be snowed up on this mountain all winter." The
young woman did not reply, but stood perfectly still, gazing off into
the moonlit wilderness. "When people get locoed this way, the only
thing is to humor them and give them a chance to rest satisfied in
something--no matter what, much,--only so they are not hectored. No
mind can get well when it is being hectored."
"Hectored? That is to mean--tortured? Yes, I understand. It is that we
not suffer the mind to be tortured?"
"About that, yes."
"Thank you. I try to comfort her. But it is to lie to her? It is not a
sin, when it is for the healing?"
"I'm not authority on that, Miss, but I know lying's a blessing
sometimes."
"If I could make her see the marvelous beauty of this way we go, but
she will not look. Me, I can hardly breathe for the wonder--yet--I do
not forget my father is dead."
"I'm starting you off now, because it will not be so hard on either
you or the horses to travel by night, as long as it is light enough to
see the way. Then when the sun comes out hot, we can lie by a bit, as
we did yesterday."
"Then is no fear of the red men we met on the plains?"
"They're not likely to follow us up here--not at this season, and now
the railroad's going through, they're attracted by that."
"Do they never come to you, at your home?"
"Not often. They think I'm a sort of white 'medicine man'--kind of a
hoodoo, and leave me alone."
She looked at him with mystification in her eyes, but did not ask what
he meant, and returned to her mother.
"I have eaten. Now we go, is not?"
"Yes, mother. The kind man says we go on, and the red men will not
follow us."
"Good. I have afraid of the men 'rouge.' Your father knows not fear;
only I know it."
Soon they were mounted and traveling up the trail as before, the
little pack mule following in the rear. No breeze stirred to make the
frosty air bite more keenly, and the women rode in comparative
comfort, with their hands wrapped in their shawls to keep them warm.
They did not try to converse, or only uttered a word now and then in
their own tongue. Amalia's spirit was enrapt in the beauty around and
above and below her, so that she could not have spoken more than the
merest word for a reply had she tried.
The moonlight brought all the immediate surroundings into sharp
relief, and the distant hills in receding gradations seemed to be
created out of molten silver touched with palest gold. Above, the
vault of the heavens was almost black, and the stars were few, but
clear. Even the stones that impeded the horses' feet seemed to be made
of silver. The depths below them seemed as vast and black as the vault
above, except for the silver bath of light that touched the tops of
the gigantic trees at the bottom of the cañon around which they were
climbing.
The silence of this vastness was as fraught with mystery as the scene,
and was broken only by the scrambling of the horses over the stones
and their heavy breathing. Thus throughout the rest of the night they
wended steadily upward, only pausing now and then to allow the animals
to breathe, and then on. At last a thing occurred to break the
stillness and strike terror to Amalia's heart. It had occurred once
the day before when the silence was most profound. A piercing cry rent
the air, that began in a scream of terror and ended in a long-drawn
wail of despair.
Amalia slipped from her horse and stumbled over the rough ground to
her mother's side and poured forth a stream of words in her own
tongue, and clasped her arms about the rigid form that did not bend
toward her, but only sat staring into the white night as if her eye
perceived a sight from which she could not turn away.
"Look at me, mother. Oh, try to make her look at me!" The big man
lifted her from the horse, and she relaxed into trembling. "There, it
is gone now. Walk with me, mother;" and the two walked for a while,
holding hands, and Amalia talked unceasingly in low, soothing tones.
After a little time longer the moon paled and the stars disappeared,
and soon the sky became overspread with the changing coloring and the
splendor of dawn. Then the sun rose out of the glory, but still they
kept on their way until the heat began to overcome them. Then they
halted where some pines and high rocks made a shelter, but this time
the big man did not build a fire. He gave them a little coffee which
he had saved for them from what he had steeped during the night, and
they ate and rested, and the mother fell quickly into the sleep of
exhaustion, as before.
Thus during the middle of the day they rested, Amalia and the big man
sometimes sleeping and sometimes conversing quietly.
"I don't know why mother does this. I never knew her to until
yesterday. Father never used to let her look straight ahead of her as
she does now. She has always been very brave and strong. She has done
wonderful things--but I was not there. When troubles came on my
father, I was put in a convent--I know now it was to keep me from
harm. I did not know then why I was sent away from them, for my father
was not of the religion of the good sisters at the convent,--but now
I know--it was to save me."
"Why did troubles come on your father?"
"What he did I do not know, but I am very sure it was nothing wrong.
In my country sometimes men have to break the law to do right; my
mother has told me so. He was in prison a long time when I was living
in the convent, sheltered and cared for,--and mother--mother was
working all alone to get him out--all alone suffering."
"How could they keep you there if she had to work so hard?"
"My father had a friend. He was not of our country, and he was most
kind and good. I think he was of Scotland--or maybe of Ireland; I was
so little I do not know. He saved for my mother some of her money so
the government did not get it. I think my mother gave it to him,
once--before the trouble came. Maybe she knew it would come,--anyway,
so it was. I do not know if he was Irish, or of Scotland--but he must
have been a good man."
"Been? Is he dead?"
"Yes. It was of a fever he died. My mother told me. He gave us his
name, and to my father his papers to leave our country, for he knew he
would die, or my father never could have got out of the country. I
never saw him but once. When I saw you, I thought of him. He was grand
and good, as are you. My mother came for me at the convent in Paris,
and in the night we went to my father, and in the morning we went to
the great ship. We said McBride, and all was well. If we had said
Manovska when we took the ship, we would have been sent back and my
father would have been killed. In the prison we would have died. It
was hard to get on the ship, but when we got to this country, nobody
cared who got off."
"How long ago was that?"
"It was at the time of your great war we came. My mother wore the
dress of our peasant women, and I did the same."
"And were you quite safe in this country?"
"For a long time we lived very quietly, and we thought we were. But
after a time some one came, and father took him in, and then others
came, and went away again, and came again--I don't know why--they did
not tell me,--but this I know. Some one had a great enmity against my
father, and at last mother took me in the night to a strange place
where we knew no one, and then we went to another place--and to still
another. It was very wearisome."
"What was your father's business?"
"My father had no business. He was what you call a nobleman. He had
very much land, but he was generous and gave it nearly all away to his
poor people. My father was very learned and studied much. He made much
music--very beautiful--not for money--never for that. Only after we
came to this country did he so, to live. Once he played in a great
orchestra. It was then those men found him and came so often that he
had again to go away and hide. I think they brought him papers--very
important--to be sacredly guarded until a right time should come to
reveal them."
"And you have no knowledge why he was followed and persecuted?"
"I was so little at the beginning I do not know. If it was that in
his religion he was different,--or if he was trying to change in
the government the laws,--for we are not of Russia,--I know that when
he gave away his land, the other noblemen were very angry with him,
and at the court--where my father was sent by his people for
reasons--there was a prince,--I think it was about my mother he hated
my father so,--but for what--that I never heard. But he had my
father imprisoned, and there in the prison they--What was that
word,--hectored? Yes. In the prison they hectored him greatly--so
greatly that never more was he straight. It was very sad."
"I don't think we would say hectored, for that. I think we would say
tortured."
"Oh, yes. I see. To hector is of the mind, but torture is of the body.
It is that I mean--for they were very terrible to him. My mother was
there, and they made her look at it to bring him the more quickly to
tell for her sake what he would not for his own. I think when she
looks long before her at nothing, she is seeing again the tortures of
my father, and so she cries out in that terrible way. I think so."
"What were they trying to get out of him?"
Amalia looked up in his face with a puzzled expression for a moment.
"Get--out--of--him?" she asked.
"I mean, what did they want him to tell?"
"Ah, that I know not. It was never told. If they could find him, I
think they would try again to learn of him something which he only can
tell. I think if they could find my mother, they would now try to
learn from her what my father knew, but her lips are like the grave.
At that time he had told her nothing, but since then--when we were far
out in the wilderness--I do not know. I hope my mother will never be
found. Is it a very secret place to which we go?"
"I might call it that--yes. I've lived there for twenty years and no
white man has found me yet, until the young man, Harry King, was
pitched over the edge of eternity and only saved by a--well--a
chance--likely."
The young woman gazed at him wide-eyed, and drew in her breath. "You
saved him."
"If he obeyed me--I did."
"And all the twenty years were you alone?"
"I always had a horse."
"But for a companion--had you never one?"
"Never."
"Are you, too, a good man who has done a deed against the law of your
land?"
The big man looked off a moment, then down at her with a little smile
playing about his lips. "I never did a deed against the law of any
land that I know of, but as for the good part--that's another thing. I
may be fairly good as goodness goes."
"Goodnessgoes!" She repeated after him as if it were one word from
which she was trying to extract a meaning. "Was it then to flee from
the wicked world that you lived all the twenty years thus alone?"
"Hardly that, either. To tell the truth, it may be only a habit with
me."
"Will you forgive me that I asked? It was only that to me it has been
terrible to live always in hiding and fear. I love people, and desire
greatly to have kind people near me,--but of the world where my father
and mother lived, and at the court--and of the nobles, of all these I
am afraid."
"Yes, yes. I fancy you were." A grim look settled about his mouth,
although his eyes twinkled kindly. He marveled to think how trustingly
they accompanied him into this wilderness--but then--poor babes! What
else could they do? "You'll be safe from all the courts and nobles in
the world where I'm taking you."
"That is why my eyes do not weep for my father. He is now gone where
none can find him but God. It is very terrible that a good man should
always hide--hide and live in fear--always--even from his own kinsmen.
I understand some of the sorrows of the world."
"You'll forget it all up there."
"I will try if my mother recovers." She drew in her breath with a
little quivering catch.
"We'll wake her now, and start on. It won't do to waste daylight any
longer." Secretly he was afraid that they might be followed by
Indians, and was sorry he had made the fire in the night, but he
reasoned that he could never have brought them on without such
refreshment. Women are different from men. He could eat raw bacon and
hard-tack and go without coffee, when necessary, but to ask women to
do so was quite another thing.
For long hours now they traveled on, even after the moon had set, in
the darkness. It was just before the dawn, where the trail wound and
doubled on itself, that the sorrel horse was startled by a small
rolling stone that had been loosened on the trail above them.
Instantly the big man halted where they were.
"Are you brave enough to wait here a bit by your mother's horse while
I go on? That stone did not loosen itself. It may be nothing but some
little beast,--if it were a bear, the horses would have made a fuss."
He mounted the sorrel and went forward, leaving her standing on the
trail, holding the leading strap of her mother's horse, which tossed
its head and stepped about restlessly, trying to follow. She petted
and soothed the animal and talked in low tones to her mother. Then
with beating heart she listened. Two men's voices came down to
her--one, the big man's--and the other--yes, she had heard it before.
"It is 'Arry King, mother. Surely he has come down to meet us," she
said joyfully. She would have hurried on, but bethought herself she
would better wait as she had been directed. Soon the big man returned,
looking displeased and grim.
"Young chap couldn't wait. He gave me his promise, but he didn't keep
it."
"It was 'Arry King?" He made no reply, and they resumed their way as
before. "It was long to wait, and nothing to do," she pleaded,
divining his mood.
"I had good reasons, Miss. No matter. I sent him back. No need of him
here. We'll make it before morning now, and he will have the cabin
warm and hot coffee for us, if you can stand to go on for a goodish
long pull."
A goodish long pull it surely was, in the darkness, but the women bore
up with courage, and their guide led them safely. The horse Amalia
rode, being his own horse, knew the way well.
"Don't try to guide him; he'll take you quite safely," he called back
to her. "Let the reins hang." And in the dusk of early morning they
safely turned the curve where Harry King had fallen, never knowing the
danger.
Harry King, standing in the doorway of the cabin, with the firelight
bright behind him, saw them winding down the trail and hurried
forward. They were almost stupefied with fatigue. He lifted the mother
in his arms without a word and carried her into the cabin and laid her
in the bunk, which he had prepared to receive her. He greeted Amalia
with a quiet word as the big man led her in, and went out to the
horses, relieved them of their burdens, and led them away to the shed
by the spring. Soon the big man joined him, and began rubbing down the
animals.
"I will do this. You must rest," said Harry.
"I need none of your help," he said, not surlily, as the words might
sound, but colorlessly.
"I needed yours when I came here--or you saved me and brought me here,
and now whatever you wish I'll do, but for to-night you must take my
help. I'm not apologizing for what I did, because I thought it right,
but--"
"Peace, man, peace. I've lived a long time with no man to gainsay me.
I'll take what comes now and thank the Lord it's no worse. We'll leave
the cabin to the women, after I see that they have no fright about it,
and we'll sleep in the fodder. There have been worse beds."
"I have coffee on the hearth, hot, and corn dodgers--such as we used
to make in the army. I've made them often before."
"Turn the beasts free; there isn't room for them all in the shed, and
I'll go get a bite and join you soon."
So Harry King did not return to the cabin that night, much as he
desired to see Amalia again, but lay down on the fodder and tried to
sleep. His heart throbbed gladly at the thought of her safety. He had
not dared to inquire after her father. Although he had seen so little
of the big man he understood his mood, and having received such great
kindness at his hands, he was truly sorry at the invasion of his
peace. Undoubtedly he did not like to have a family, gathered from the
Lord only knew where, suddenly quartered on him for none knew how
long.
The cabin was only meant for a hermit of a man, and little suited to
women and their needs. A mixed household required more rooms. He tried
to think the matter through and to plan, but the effort brought
drowsiness, and before the big man returned he was asleep.
CHAPTER XVI
A PECULIAR POSITION
"Well, young man, we find ourselves in what I call a peculiar
position."
A smile that would have been sardonic, were it not for a few lines
around the corners of his eyes which belied any sinister suspicion,
spread grimly across the big man's face as he stood looking down on
Harry King in the dusk of the unlighted shed. The younger man rose
quickly from the fodder where he had slept heavily after the fatigues
of the past day and night, and stood respectfully looking into the big
man's face.
"I--I--realize the situation. I thought about it after I turned in
here--before you came down--or up--to this--ahem--bedroom. I can take
myself off, sir. And if there were any way--of relieving you
of--the--whole--embarrassment,--I--I--would do so."
"Everything's quiet down at the cabin. I've been there and looked
about a bit. They had need of sleep. You go back to your bunk, and
I'll take mine, and we'll talk the thing over before we see them
again. As for your taking yourself off, that remains to be seen. I'm
not crabbed, that's not the secret of my life alone,--though you might
think it. I--ahem--ahem." The big man cleared his throat and stretched
his spare frame full length on the fodder where he had slept. With his
elbow on the bed of corn stalks he lifted his head on his hand and
gazed at Harry King, not dreamily as when he first saw him, but with
covert keenness.
"Lie down in your place--a bit--lie down. We'll talk until we've
arrived at a conclusion, and it may be a long talk, so we may as well
be comfortable."
Harry King went back to his own bunk and lay prone, his forehead
resting on his folded arms and his face hidden. "Very well, sir; I'll
do my best. We have to accept each other for the best there is in us,
I take it. You've saved my life and the life of those two women, and
we all owe you our grat--"
"Go to, go to. It's not of that I'm wishing to speak. Let's begin at
the beginning, or, as near the beginning as we can. I've been standing
here looking at you while you were sleeping,--and last night--I mean
early this morning when I came up here, I--with a torch I studied your
face well and long. A man betrays his true nature when he is sleeping.
The lines of what he has been thinking and feeling show then when he
cannot disguise them by smiles or words. I'm old enough to be your
father--yes--so it might have been--and with your permission I'll talk
to you straight."
Harry King lifted his head and looked at the other, then resumed his
former position. "Thank you," was all he said.
"You've been well bred. You're in trouble. I ask you what is your true
name and what you have done?"
The young man did not speak. He lay still as if he had heard nothing,
but the other saw his hands clinch into knotted fists and the muscles
of his arms grow rigid. His heart beat heavily and the blood roared
in his ears. At last he lifted his head and looked back at the big man
and spoke monotonously.
"I gave you my name--all the name I have." His face was white in the
dim light and the lids drew close over his gray eyes.
"You prefer to lie to me? I ask in good faith."
"All the name I have is the one I gave you, Harry King."
"And you will hold to the lie?" They looked steadily into each other's
eyes. The young man nodded. "And there was more I asked of you."
Then the young man turned away from the keen eyes that had held him
and sat up in the fodder and clasped his knees with his hands and
looked straight out before him, regarding nothing--nothing but his own
thoughts. A strange expression crept over his face,--was it fear--or
was it an inward terror? Suddenly he put out his hand with a frantic
gesture toward the darkest corner of the place, "It's there," he cried
in a voice scarcely above a whisper, then hid his eyes and moaned. At
the sight, the big man's face softened.
"Lad, lad, ye're in trouble. I saved your body as it hung over the
cliff--and the Lord only knows how ye were saved. I took ye home and
laid ye in my own bunk,--and looked on your face--and there my heart
cried on the Lord for the first time in many years. I had forsworn the
company of men, and of all women,--and the faith of my fathers had
died in me,--but there, as I looked on your face--the lost years came
back. And now--ye're only Harry King. Only Harry King."
"That's all." The young man's lips set tightly and the cords of his
neck stood out. Nothing was lost to the eyes that watched him so
intently.
"I had a son--once. I held him in my arms--for an hour--and then left
him forever. You have a face that reminds me of one--one I hated--and
it minds me of one I--I--loved,--of one I loved better than I loved
life."
Then Harry King turned and gazed in the big man's eyes, and as he
gazed, the withdrawn, inward look left his own. He still sat clasping
his knees. "I can more easily tell you what I have done than I can
tell you my name. I have sworn never to utter it again." He was
weeping, but he hid his tears for very shame of them.
The older man shook his head. "I've known sorrow, boy, but the lesson
of it, never. Men say there is a thing to be learned from sorrow, but
to me it has brought only rebellion and bitterness. So I've missed
the good of it because it came upon me through arrogance and
injustice--not my own. So now I say to you--if it was at the
expense of your soul I saved your life, it were better I had let
you go down. Lad,--you've brought me a softness,--it's like what a
man feels for a woman. I'm glad it's come back to me. It is good to
feel. I'd make a son of you,--but--for the truth's sake tell me a bit
more."
"I had a friend and I killed him. I was angry and killed him. I have
left my name in his grave." Harry King rose and walked away and stood
shivering in the entrance of the shed. Then he came back and spoke
humbly. "Do with me what you will, but call me Harry King. I have
nothing on earth but the clothes on my body, and they are in rags. If
you have work for me to do, let me do it, in mercy. If not, let me go
back to the plains and die there."
"How long ago was this?"
"More--more than two years ago--yes, three--perhaps."
"And where have you been?"
"Knocking about--hiding. For a while I had work on the road they are
building--"
"Road? What road?"
"The new railroad across the continent."
"Where, young man, where?"
"From Chicago on. They got it as far as Cheyenne, but that was the
very place of all others where they would be apt to hunt for me. I got
news of a detective hanging about the camp, and I was sure he had come
there to track me. I had my wages and my clothes, and when I found
they had traced me there, I spent all I had for my horse and took my
pack and struck out over the plains." He paused and wiped the cold
drops from his forehead, then lifted his head with gathered courage.
"One day,--I found these people, nigh starving for both water and
food, and without strength to go where they could be provided for.
They, too, were refugees, I learned, and so I cast my lot with theirs,
and served them as best I could."
"And now they have fallen to the two of us to provide for. You say,
give you work? I've lived here these twenty years and found work for
no man but myself. I've found plenty of that--just to keep alive, part
of the time. It's bad here in the winter--if the stores give out. Tell
me what you know of these women."
"Where is the man?"
"Dead. I found him dead before I reached them. I left him lying where
I found him, and pushed on--got there just in time. He wasn't three
hours away from them as a man walks. I made them as comfortable as I
could and saw that no Indians were about, nor had been, they said; so
I ventured back and made a grave for him as best I could, and told the
daughter only, for the old lady seemed out of her head. I don't know
what we can do with her if she gets worse. I don't know." As the big
man talked he noticed the younger one growing calmer and listening
intently.
"Before I buried him I searched him and found a few papers--just
letters in a strange language, and from the feeling of his coat I
judged others were hid--sewed in it, so I fetched it back to her--the
young one. You thought I was long gone, and there was where you made
the blunder. How did you suppose I came by the pack mule and the other
horse?"
"When I saw them, I knew you must have gone to Higgins' Camp and back,
but how could I know it before? You might have been in need of me, and
of food."
"We'll say no more of it. Those men at the camp are beasts. I bought
those animals and paid gold for them. They wanted to know where I got
the gold. I told them where they'd never get it. They asked me ten
prices for those beasts, and then tried to keep me there until they
could clean me out and get hold of my knowledge. But I skipped away in
the night when they were all drunk and asleep. Then I had to make a
long detour to put them off the track if they should try to follow me,
and all that took time."
The big man paused to fill and light his pipe. "And what next?" asked
Harry King.
"Except for enough food and water to last us up the trail you came, I
packed nothing back to the wagon, and so had room to bring a few of
their things up here, and there may be some of your own among
them--they said something about it. We hauled the wagon as far as a
good place to hide it, in a wash, could be found, and we covered
it--and our tracks. But there was nothing left in it but a few of
their utensils, unless the box they did not open contained something.
It was left in the wagon. That was the best I could do with only the
help of the young woman, and she was too weak to do much. It may lie
there untouched for ten years unless a rain scoops it out, and that's
not likely.
"I showed the young woman as we came along where her father lay, and
as we came to a halt a bit farther on, she went back, while her mother
slept, and knelt there praying for an hour. I doubt any good it did
him, but it comforted her heart. It's a good religion for a woman,
where she does not have to think things out for herself, but takes a
priest's word for it all. And now they're here, and you're here, and
my home is invaded, and my peace is gone, and may the Lord help me--I
can't."
Harry King looked at him a moment in silence. "Nor can I--help--but to
take myself off."
"Take yourself off! And leave me alone with two women? I who have
foresworn them forever! How do you know but that they may each be
possessed by seven devils? But there! It isn't so bad. As long as they
stay you'll stay. It was through you they are here, and close on to
winter,--and if it was summer, it would be as bad to send them away
where they would have no place to stay and no way to live. Lad, the
world's hard on women. I've seen much."
Harry King went again and stood in the open entrance of the shed and
waited. The big man saw that he had succeeded in taking the other's
mind off himself, and had led him to think of others, and now he
followed up the advantage toward confidence that he had thus gained.
He also came to the entrance and laid his kindly hand on the younger
man's shoulder, and there in the pale light of that cloudy fall
morning, standing in the cool, invigorating air, with the sound of
falling water in their ears, the two men made a compact, and the end
was this.
"Harry King, if you'll be my son, I'll be your father. My boy would be
about your age--if he lives,--but if he does, he has been taught to
look down on me--on the very thought of me." He cast a wistful glance
at the young man's face as he spoke. "From the time I held him in my
arms, a day-old baby, I've never seen him, and it may be he has never
heard of me. He was in good hands and was given over for good reasons,
to one who hated my name and my race--and me. For love of his mother I
did this. It was all I could do for her; I would have gone down into
the grave for her.
"I, too, have been a wanderer over the face of the earth. At first I
lived in India--in China--anywhere to be as far on the other side of
the earth from her grave and my boy, as I vowed I would, but I've kept
the memory of her sweet in my heart. You need not fear I'll ask again
for your name. Until you choose to give it I will respect your
wish,--and for the rest--speak of it when you must--but not before. I
have no more to ask. You've been well bred, as I said, and that's
enough for me. You're more than of age--I can see that--but it's my
opinion you need a father. Will you take me?"
The young man drew in his breath sharply through quivering lips, and
made answer with averted head: "Cain! Cain and the curse of Cain! Can
I allow another to share it?"
"Another shares it and you have no choice."
"I will be more than a son. Sons hurt their fathers and accept all
from them and give little. You lifted me out of the abyss and brought
me back to life. You took on yourself the burden laid on me, to save
those who trusted me, knowing nothing of my crime,--and now you drag
my very soul from hell. I will do more than be your son--I will give
you the life you saved. Who are you?"
Then the big man gave his name, making no reciprocal demand. What
mattered a name? It was the man, by whatever name, he wanted.
"I am an Irishman by birth, and my name is Larry Kildene. If you'll go
to a little county not so far from Dublin, but to the north, you'll
find my people."
He was looking away toward the top of the mountain as he spoke, and
was seeing his grandfather's house as he had seen it when a boy, and
so he did not see the countenance of the young man at his side. Had he
done so, he would not have missed knowing what the young man from that
moment knew, and from that moment, out of the love now awakened in his
heart for the big man, carefully concealed, giving thanks that he had
not told his name.
For a long minute they stood thus looking away from each other, while
Harry King, by a mighty effort, gained control of his features, and
his voice. Then although white to the lips, he spoke quietly: "Harry
King--the murderer--be the son of Larry Kildene--Larry Kildene--I--to
slink away in the hills--forever to hide--"
"No more of that. I'll show you a new life. Give me your hand, Harry
King." And the young man extended both hands in a silence through
which no words could have been heard.
CHAPTER XVII
ADOPTING A FAMILY
As the two men walked down toward the cabin they saw Amalia standing
beside the door in the sunlight which now streamed through a rift in
the clouds, gazing up at the towering mountain and listening to the
falling water. She spied them and came swiftly to them, extending both
hands in a sweet, gracious impulsiveness, and began speaking rapidly
even before she reached them.
"Ah! So beautiful is your home! It is so much that I would say to you
of gratitude in my heart--it is like a river flowing swiftly to tell
you--Ah! I cannot say it all--and we come and intrude ourselves upon
you thus that you have no place where to go for your own sleeping--Is
not? Yes, I know it. So must we think quickly how we may unburden you
of us--my mother and myself--only that she yet is sleeping that
strange sleep that seems still not like sleep. Let me that I serve
you, sir?"
Larry Kildene looked on her glowing, upturned face, gathering his
slower wits for some response to her swift speech, while she turned to
the younger man, grasping his hands in the same manner and not ceasing
the flow of her utterance.
"And you, at such severe labor and great danger, have found this noble
man, and have sent him to us--to you do we owe what never can we
pay--it is thus while we live must we always thank you in our hearts.
And to this place--so _won-n-der-ful_--Ah! Beautiful like heaven--Is
not? Yes, and the sweet sound always in the air--like heaven and the
sound of wings--to stop here even for this night is to make those
sorrowful thoughts lie still and for a while speak nothing."
As she turned from one to the other, addressing each in turn, warm
lights flashed in her eyes through tears, like stars in a deep pool.
Her dark hair rolled back from her smooth oval forehead in heavy
coils, and over her head and knotted under her perfect chin, outlining
its curve, was a silken peasant handkerchief with a crimson border of
the richest hue, while about the neck of her colorless, closely fitted
gown was a piece of exquisite hand-wrought lace. She stood before
them, a vision from the old world, full of innate ladyhood, simple as
a peasant, at once appealing and dominating, impulsive, yet shy. Her
beautiful enunciation, her inverted and quaintly turned English, alive
with poetry, was typical of her whole personality, a sweet and strange
mixture of the high-bred aristocrat and the simple directness and
strength of the peasant.
The two men made stumbling and embarrassed replies. That tender and
beautiful quality of chivalry toward women, belonging by nature to
undefiled manhood, was awakened in them, and as one being, not two,
they would have laid their all at her feet. This, indeed, they
literally did. The small, one-room cabin, which had so long served for
Larry Kildene's palace, was given over entirely to the two women, and
the men made their own abode in the shed where they had slept.
This they accomplished by creating a new room, by extending the
roof-covered space Larry had used for his stable and the storing of
fodder, far enough along under the great overhanging rock to allow of
comfortable bunks, a place to walk about, and a fireplace also. The
labor involved in the making of this room was a boon to Harry King.
Upon the old stone boat which Larry had used for a similar purpose he
hauled stones gathered from the rock ledge and built therewith a
chimney, and with the few tools in the big man's store he made seats
out of hewn logs, and a rude table. This work was left to him by the
older man purposely, while he occupied himself with the gathering in
of the garden stuff for themselves and for the animals. A matter that
troubled his good heart not a little was that of providing for the
coming winter enough food supply for his suddenly acquired family. Of
grain and fodder he thought he had enough for animals kept in
idleness, as he still had stores gathered in previous years for his
own horse. But for these women, he must not allow them to suffer the
least privation.
It was not the question of food alone that disturbed him. At last he
laid his troubles before Harry King.
"You know, lad, it won't be so long before the snow will be down on
us, and I'm thinking what shall we do with them when the long winter
days set in." He nodded his head toward the cabin. "It's already
getting too cold for them to sit out of doors as they do. I should
have windows in my cabin--if I could get the glass up here. They can't
live there in the darkness, with the snow banked around them, with
nothing to use their fingers on as women like to do. Now, if they had
cloth or thread--but what use had I for such things? They're not
among my stores. I did not lay out to make it a home for women. The
mother will get farther and farther astray with her dreams if she has
nothing to do such as women like."
"I think we should ask them--or ask Amalia, she is wise. Have you
enough to keep them on--of food?"
"Of food, yes. Such as it is. No flour, but plenty of good wheat and
corn. I always pound it up and bake it, but it is coarse fare for
women. There's plenty of game for the hunting, and easy got, but it's
something to think about we'll need, else we'll all go loony."
"You have lived long here alone and seem sound of mind,--except for--"
Harry King smiled, "except for a certain unworldliness that would pass
for lunacy in the world below these heights."
"Let alone, son. I've usually had my own way for these years and have
formed the habit, but I've had my times. At the best it's a sort of
lunacy that takes a man away from his fellows, especially an Irishman.
Maybe you'll discover for yourself before we part--but it's not to the
point now. I'm asking you how we can keep the mother from brooding and
the daughter happy? She's asking to be sent away to earn money for her
mother. She thinks she can take her mother with her to the nearest
place on that new railroad you tell me of, and so on to some town. I
tell her, no. And if she goes, and leaves her mother here--bless
you--what would we do with her? Why, the woman would go yonder and
jump over the cliff."
"Oh, it would never do to listen to her. It would never do for her to
try living in a city earning her bread--not while--" Harry King paused
and turned a white, drawn face toward the mountain. Larry watched
him. "I can do nothing." He threw out his hands with a sudden downward
movement. "I, a criminal in hiding! My manhood is of no avail! My
God!"
"Remember, lad, the women have need of you right here. I'm keeping you
on this mountain at my valuation, not yours. I have need of you, and
your past is not to intrude in this place, and when you go out in the
world again, as you will, when the right time comes, you'll know how
to meet--and face--your life--or death, as a man should.
"Hold yourself with a firm hand, and do the work of the days as they
come. It's all the Lord gives us to do at any time. If I only had
books--now,--they would help us,--but where to get them--or how? We'll
even go and ask the women, as you advise."
They all ate together in the little cabin, as was their habit, a meal
prepared by Amalia, and carefully set out with all the dishes the
cabin afforded: so few that there were not enough to serve all at
once, but eked out by wooden blocks, and small lace serviettes taken
from Amalia's store of linen. At noon one day Larry Kildene spoke his
anxieties for their welfare, and cleverly managed to make the theme a
gay one.
"Where's the use in adopting a family if you don't get society out of
them? The question I ask is, when the winter shuts us in, what are we
going to do for sport--work--what you will? It's indoor sport I'm
meaning, for Harry and I have the hunting and providing in the
daytime. No, never you ask me what I was doing before you came. I was
my own master then--"
"And now you are ours? That is good, Sir Kildene. You have to say
what to do, and me, I accept to do what you advise. Is not?"
Amalia turned to Larry and smiled, and whenever Amalia smiled, her
mother would smile also, and nod her head as if to approve, although
she usually sat in silence.
"Yours to command," said Larry, bowing.
"He's master of us all, but it's yours to direct, Lady Amalia."
"Oh, me, Mr. 'Arry. It is better for me I make for you both sufficient
to eat, so all goes well. I think I have heard men are always pleased
of much that is excellent to eat and drink."
"Now, listen. We have only a short time before the heavy snows will
come down on us, and then there will be no chance whatever to get
supplies of any sort before spring. How far is the road completed now,
Harry?"
"It should be well past Cheyenne by now. They must be working toward
Laramie rapidly. If--if--you think best, I will go down and get
supplies--whatever can be found there."
"No. I have a plan. There's enough for one man to do here finishing
the jobs I have laid out, but one of us can very well be spared, and
as you have wakened me from my long sleep, and stirred my old bones to
life, and as I know best how to travel in this region, I'll take the
mule along, and go myself. I have a fancy for traveling by rail again.
You ladies make out a list of all you need, and I'll fill the order,
in so far as the stations have the articles. If I can't find the right
things at one station, I may at another, even if I go back East for
them."
"Ah, but, Sir Kildene, it is that we have no money. If but we could
get from the wagon the great box, there have we enough of things to
give us labor for all the winter. It is the lovely lace I make. A
little of the thread I have here, but not sufficient for long. So,
too, there is my father's violin. It made me much heart pain to leave
it--for me, I play a little,--and there is also of cloth such as men
wear--not of great quantity--but enough that I can make for
you--something--a little--maybe, Mr. 'Arry he like well some good
shirt of wool--as we make for our peasant--Is not?" Harry looked down
on his worn gray shirt sleeves, then into her eyes, and on the instant
his own fell. She took it for simple embarrassment, and spoke on.
"Yes. To go with us and help us so long and terrible a way, it has
made very torn your apparel."
"It makes that we improve him, could we obtain the box," said the
mother, speaking for the first time that day. Her voice was so deep
and full that it was almost masculine, but her modulations were
refined and most agreeable.
Amalia laughed for very gladness that her mother at last showed enough
interest in what was being said to speak.
"Ah, mamma, to improve--it is to make better the mind--the heart--but
of this has Mr. 'Arry no need. Is not, Sir Kildene? I call you always
Sir as title to nobleness of character. We have, in our country, to
inherit title, but here to make it of such character. It is well, I
think so."
Poor Larry Kildene had his own moment of embarrassment, but with her
swift appreciation of their moods she talked rapidly on, leaving the
compliment to fall as it would, and turning their thoughts to the
subject in hand. "But the box, mamma, it is heavy, and it is far down
on the terrible plain. If that you should try to obtain it, Sir
Kildene: Ah, I cannot!--Even to think of the peril is a hurt in my
heart. It must even lie there."
"And the men 'rouge'--"
"Yes. Of the red men--those Indian--of them I have great fear."
"The danger from them is past, now. If the road is beyond Cheyenne, it
must have reached Laramie or nearly so, and they would hang around the
stations, picking up what they can, but the government has them in
hand as never before. They would not dare interfere with white men
anywhere near the road. I've dreamed of a railroad to connect the two
oceans, but never expected to see it in my lifetime. I've taken a
notion to go and see it--just to look at it,--to try to be reconciled
to it."
"Reconciled? It is to like it, you mean--Sir Kildene? Is it not
_won-n-derful_--the achievement?"
"Oh, yes, the achievement, as you say. But other things will follow,
and the plains will no longer keep men at bay. The money grabbers will
pour in, and all the scum of creation will flock toward the setting
sun. Then, too, I shall hate to see the wild animals that have their
own rights killed in unsportsmanlike manner, and annihilated, as they
are wherever men can easily reach them. Men are wasteful and bad. I've
seen things in the wild places of the earth--and in the places where
men flock together in hoards--and where they think they are most
civilized, and the result has been what you see here,--a man living
alone with a horse for companionship, and the voice of the winds and
the falling water to fill his soul. Go to. Go to."
Larry Kildene rose and stood a moment in the cabin door, then
sauntered out in the sun, and off toward the fall. He had need to
think a while alone. His companions knew this necessity was on him,
and said nothing--only looked at each other, and took up the question
of their needs for the winter.
"Mr. 'Arry, is it possible to reach with safety a station? I mean is
time yet to go and return before the snows? Here are no deadly wolves
as in my own country--but is much else to make dangerous the way."
"There must be time or he would not propose it. I don't know about the
snows here."
"I have seen that Sir Kildene drinks with most pleasure the coffee,
but is little left--or not enough for all--to drink it. My mother and
I we drink with more pleasure the tea, and of tea we ourselves have a
little. It is possible also I make of things more palatable if I have
the sugar, but is very little here. I have searched well, the foods
placed here. Is it that Sir Kildene has other places where are such
articles?"
"All he has is in the bins against the wall yonder."
"Here is the key he gave me, and I have look well, but is not enough
to last but for one through all the months of winter. Ah, poor man! We
have come and eat his food like the wolves of the wild country at
home, is not? I have make each day of the coffee for him, yes, a good
drink, and for you not so good--forgive,--but for me and my mother,
only to pretend, that it might last for him. It is right so. We have
gone without more than to have no coffee, and this is not privation.
To have too much is bad for the soul."
Amalia's mother seemed to have withdrawn herself from them and
sat gazing into the smoking logs, apparently not hearing their
conversation. Harry King for the second time that day looked in
Amalia's eyes. It was a moment of forgetfulness. He had forbidden
himself this privilege except when courtesy demanded.
"You forgive--that I put--little coffee in your drink?"
"Forgive? Forgive?"
He murmured questioningly as if he hardly comprehended her meaning, as
indeed he did not. His mind was going over the days since first he saw
her, toiling to gather enough sagebrush to cook a drop of tea for her
father, and striving to conceal from him that she, herself, was taking
none, and barely tasting her hard biscuit that there might be enough
to keep life in her parents. As she sat before him now, in her worn,
mended, dark dress with the wonderful lace at the throat, and her thin
hands lying on the crimson-bordered kerchief in her lap,--her fingers
playing with the fringe, he still looked in her eyes and murmured,
"Forgive?"
"Ah, Mr. 'Arry, your mind is sleeping and has gone to dream. Listen to
me. If one goes to the plain, quickly he must go. I make with haste
this naming of things to eat. It is sad we must always eat--eat. In
heaven maybe is not so." She wandered a moment about the cabin, then
laughed for the second time. "Is no paper on which to write."
"There is no need of paper; he'll remember. Just mention them over.
Coffee,--is there any tea beside that you have?"
"No, but no need. I name it not."
"Tea is light and easily brought. What else?"
"And paper. I ask for that but for me to write my little romance of
all this--forgive--it is for occupation in the long winter. You also
must write of your experiences--perhaps--of your history of--of--You
like it not? Why, Mr. 'Arry! It is to make work for the mind. The mind
must work--work--or die. The hands--well. I make lace with the
hands--but for the mind is music--or the books--but here are no
books--good--we make them. So, paper I ask, and of crayon--Alas! It is
in the box! What to do?"
"Listen. We'll have that box, and bring it here on the mountain. I'll
get it."
"Ah, no! No. Will you break my heart?" She seized his arm and looked
in his eyes, her own brimming with tears. Then she flung up her arms
in her dramatic way, and covered her eyes. "I can see it all so
terrible. If you should go there and the Indian strike you dead--or
the snow come too soon and kill you with the cold--in the great drift
lying white--all the terrible hours never to see you again--Ah, no!"
In that instant his heart leaped toward her and the blood roared in
his ears. He would have clasped her to him, but he only stood rigidly
still. "Hands off, murderer!" The words seemed shouted at him by his
own conscience. "I would rather die--than that you should not have
your box," was all he said, and left the cabin. He, too, had need to
think things out alone.
CHAPTER XVIII
LARRY KILDENE'S STORY
"Man, but this is none so bad--none so bad."
Larry Kildene sat on a bench before a roaring fire in the room added
on to the fodder shed. The chimney which Harry King had built,
although not quite completed to its full height, was being tried for
the first time, as the night was too cold for comfort in the long, low
shed without fire, and the men had come down early this evening to
talk over their plans before Larry should start down the mountain in
the morning. They had heaped logs on the women's fire and seen that
all was right for them, and with cheerful good-nights had left them to
themselves.
Now, as they sat by their own fire, Harry could see Amalia by hers,
seated on a low bench of stone, close to the blazing torch of pine, so
placed that its smoke would be drawn up the large chimney. It was all
the light they had for their work in the evenings, other than the
firelight. He could see her fingers moving rapidly and mechanically at
some pretty open-work pattern, and now and then grasping deftly at the
ball of fine white thread that seemed to be ever taking little leaps,
and trying to roll into the fire, or out over the cabin floor. She
used a fine, slender needle and seemed to be performing some delicate
magic with her fingers. Was she one of the three fates continually
drawing out the thread of his life and weaving therewith a charmed
web? And if so--when would she cease?
"It's a good job and draws well."
"The chimney? Yes, it seems to." Harry roused himself and tried to
close his mind against the warm, glowing picture. "Yes--yes. It draws
well. I'm inclined to be a bit proud, although I never could have done
it if you had not given me the lessons."
"It's art, my boy. To build a good fireplace is just that. Did you
ever think that the whole world--and the welfare of it--centers just
around that;--the fireplace and the hearth--or what stands for it in
these days--maybe a little hole in the wall with a smudge of coal in
it, as they have in the towns--but it's the hearth and the cradle
beside it--and--the mother."
Larry's voice died almost to a whisper, and his chin dropped on his
breast, and his eyes gazed on the burning logs; and Harry, sitting
beside him, gazed also at the same logs, but the pictures wrought in
the alchemy of their souls were very different.
To Harry it was a sweet, oval face--a flush from the heat of the fire
more on the smooth cheek that was toward it than on the other, and
warm flame flashes in the large eyes that looked up at him from time
to time, while the slender figure bent a little forward to see the
better, as the wonderful hands kept up the never ceasing motion. A
white linen cloth spread over her lap cast a clearer, more rosy light
under her chin and brought out the strength of it and the delicate
curves of it, which Harry longed even to dare to look upon in the
rarest stolen intervals, without the clamor and outcry in his heart.
It was always the same--the cry of Cain in the wilderness. Would God
it might some day cease! What to him might be the hearth fire and the
cradle, and the mother, that the big man should dwell on them thus?
What had they meant in Larry Kildene's life, he who had lived for
twenty years the life of a hermit, and had forsworn women forever, as
he said?
"I tell ye, lad, there's a thing I would say to you--before I leave,
but it's sore to touch upon." Harry made a deprecating gesture. "No,
it's best I tell you. I--I'll come back--never fear--it's my plan to
come back, but in this life you may count on nothing for a surety.
I've learned that, and to prove it, look at me. I made sure, never
would I open my heart again to think on my fellow beings, but as
aliens to my life, and I've lived it out for twenty years, and thought
to hold out to the end. I held the Indians at bay through their
superstitions, and they would no more dare to cross my path with
hostile intent than they would dare take their chances over that fall
above there. Where did I put my pipe? I can't seem to find things as I
did in the cabin."
"Here it is, sir. I placed that stone further out at the end of the
chimney on purpose for it, and in this side I've left a hole for your
tobacco. I thought I was very clever doing that."
"And we'd be fine and cozy here in the winter--if it wer'n't for the
women--a--a--now I'm blundering. I'd never turn them out if they lived
there the rest of their days. But to have a lad beside me as I might
have had--if you'd said, 'Here it is, father,' but now, it would have
have been music to me. You see, Harry, I forswore the women harder
than I did the men, and it's the longing for the son I held in my
arms an hour and then gave up, that has lived in me all these years.
The mother--gone--The son I might have had."
"I can't say that--to you. I have a curse on me, and it will stay
until I have paid for my crime. But I'll be more to you than sons are
to their fathers. I'll be faithful to you as a dog to his master, and
love you more. I'll live for you even with the curse on me, and if
need be, I'll die for you."
"It's enough. I'll ask you no more. Have you no curiosity to hear what
I have to tell you?"
"I have, indeed I have. But it seems I can't ask it--unless I'm able
to return your confidence. To talk of my sorrow only deepens it. It
drives me wild."
"You'll have it yet to learn, that nothing helps a sorrow that can't
be helped like bearing it. I don't mean to lie down under it like a
dumb beast--but just take it up and bear it. That's what you're doing
now, and sometime you'll be able to carry it, and still laugh now and
again, when it's right to laugh--and even jest, on occasion. It's been
done and done well. It's good for a man to do it. The lass down there
at the cabin is doing it--and the mother is not. She's living in the
past. Maybe she can't help it."
"When I first came on them out there in the desert, she seemed brave
and strong. He was a poor, crippled man, with enormous vitality and a
leonine head. The two women adored him and lived only for him, and he
never knew it. He lived for an ideal and would have died for it. He
did not speak English as well as they. I used to wish I could
understand him, for he had a poet's soul, and eyes like his
daughter's. He seemed to carry some secret with him, and no doubt was
followed about the world as he thought he was. Fleeing myself, I could
not know, but from things the mother has dropped, they must have seen
terrible times together, she and her husband."
"A wonderful deal of poetry and romance always clung to the names of
Poland and Hungary for me. When I was young, our part of the world
thrilled at the name of Kosciuszko and Kossuth. I'd give a good deal
to know what this man's secret was. All those old tales of mystery,
like 'The Man with the Iron Mask,' and stories of noblemen spirited
away to Siberia, of men locked for many years in dungeons, like the
'Prisoner of Chillon,' which fired the fancy and genius of Byron
and sent him to fight for the oppressed, used to fill my dreams."
Larry talked on as if to himself. It seemed as if it were a habit
formed when he had only himself with whom to visit, and Harry was
interested.
"Now, to almost come upon a man of real ideals and a secret,--and just
miss it. I ought to have been out in the world doing some work worth
while--with my miserable, broken life--Boy! I knew that man McBride! I
knew him for sure. We were in college together. He left Oxford to go
to Russia, wild with the spirit of adventure and something more. He
was a dreamer--with a practical turn, too. There, no doubt, he met
these people. I judge this Manovska must have been in the diplomatic
service of Poland, from what Amalia told us. Have you any idea whether
that woman sitting there all day long rapt in her own thoughts knows
her husband's secret? Is it a thing any one now living would care to
know?"
"Indeed, yes. They lived in terror of the prince who hounded him over
the world. The mother trusted no one, but Amalia told me--enough--all
she knows herself. I don't know if the mother has the secret or not,
but at least she guesses it. The poor man was trying to live until he
could impart his knowledge to the right ones to bring about an
upheaval that would astonish the world. It meant revolution, whatever
it was. Amalia imagines it was to place a Polish king on the throne of
Russia, but she does not know. She told me of stolen records of a
Polish descendant of Catherine II of Russia. She thinks they were
brought to her father after he came to this country."
"If he had such knowledge or even thought he had, it was enough to set
them on his track all his life; the wonder is that he was let to live
at all."
"The mother never mentioned it, but Amalia told me. We talked more
freely out in the desert. That remarkable woman walked at her
husband's side over all the terrible miles to Siberia, and through her
he escaped,--and of the horrors of those years she never would speak,
even to her daughter. It's not to be wondered at that her mind is
astray. It's only a wonder that she is for the most part so calm."
"Well, the grave holds many a mystery, and what a fascination a
mystery has for humanity, savage or civilized! I've kept the Indians
at bay all this time by that means. They fear--they know not what, and
the mystery holds them. Now, for ourselves, I leave you for a little
while in charge of--the women--and of all my possessions." Larry,
gazing into the blazing logs, smiled. "You may not think so much of
them, but it's not so little now. Talk about lunacy--man, I
understand it. I've been a lunatic--for--ever since I made a find here
in this mountain."
He paused and mused a while, and Harry's thoughts dwelt for the time
on his own find in the wing of the cabin, where the firewood was
stored. The ring and the chest--he had not forgotten them, but by no
means would he mention them.
"You may wonder why I should tell you this, but when I'm through,
you'll know. It all came about because of a woman." Larry Kildene cast a
sidelong glance at Harry, and the glance was keen and saw more than the
younger man dreamed. "It's more often so than any other way--almost always
because of a woman. Her name may be anything--Mary--Elizabeth,--but, a
woman. This one's name was Katherine. Not like the Katherine of
Shakespeare, but the sweetest--the tenderest mother-woman the Lord ever
gave to man. I see her there in the fire. I've seen her there these many
years. Well, she was twin sister to the man who hated me. He hated
me--for why, I don't know--perhaps because he never could influence
me. He would make all who cared for him bow before his will.
"When I first saw her, she lived in his home. He was a banker of
means,--not wholly of his own getting, but partly so. His father was a
man of thrift and saving--anyway, he came to set too much store by
money. Sometimes I think he might have been jealous of me because I
had the Oxford training, and wished me to feel that wealth was a
greater thing to have. Scotchmen think more of education than we of
Ireland. It's a good thing, of course, but I'd never have looked down
on him because he went lacking it. But for some indiscretion maybe I
would have had money, too. It was spent too lavishly on me in my
youth. But no. I had none--only the experience and the knowledge of
what it might bring.
"Well, it came about that I came to America to gain the money I
lacked, and having learned a bit, in spite of Oxford and the schools,
of a practical nature, I took a position in his bank. All was very
well until I met her. Now there were the rosy cheeks and the dark hair
for you! She looked more like an Irish lass than a Scotch one. But
they're not so different, only that the Irish are for the most part
comelier.
"Now this banker had a very sweet wife, and she was kind to the Irish
lad and welcomed him to her house. I'm thinking she liked me a bit--I
liked her at all events. She welcomed me to her house until she was
forbid. It was after they forbid me the house that I took to walking
with Katherine, when all thought she was at Sunday School or visiting
a neighbor, or even--at the last--when no other time could be
stolen--when they thought her in bed. We walked there by the river
that flows by the town of Leauvite."
Again Larry Kildene paused and shot a swift glance at the young man
at his side, and noted the drawn lids and blanched face, but he kept
on. "In the moonlight we walked--lad--the ground there is holy now,
because she walked upon it. We used to go to a high bluff that
made a sheer fall to the river below--and there we used to stand and
tell each other--things we dreamed--of the life we should live
together--Ah, that life! She has spent it in heaven. I--I--have
spent the most of it here." He did not look at Harry King again. His
voice shook, but he continued. "After a time her brother got to
know about it, and he turned me from the bank, and sent her to live
with his father's sisters in Scotland.
"Kind old ladies, but unmarried, and too old for such a lass. How
could they know the heart of a girl who loved a man? It was I who knew
that. What did her brother know--her own twin brother? Nothing,
because he could see only his own thoughts, never hers, and thought
his thoughts were enough for wife or girl. I tell you, lad, men err
greatly in that, and right there many of the troubles of life step in.
The old man, her father, had left all his money to his son, but with
the injunction that she was to be provided for, all her days, of his
bounty. It's a mean way to treat a woman--because--see? She has no
right to her thoughts, and her heart is his to dispose of where he
wills--not as she wills--and then comes the trouble.
"I ask you, lad, if you loved a girl as fine as silk and as tender as
a flower you could crush in your hand with a touch ungentle, and you
saw one holding her with that sort of a touch,--even if it was meant
in love,--I'll not be unjust, he loved her as few love their
sisters--but he could not grasp her thus; I ask you what would you
do?"
"If I were a true man, and had a right to my manhood, I would take
her. I'd follow her to the ends of the earth."
"Right, my son--I did that. I took the little money I had from my
labor at the bank--all I had saved, and I went bravely to those two
old women--her aunts, and they turned me from their door. It was what
they had been enjoined to do. They said I was after the money and
without conscience or thrift. With the Scotch, often, the confusion is
natural between thrift and conscience. Ah, don't I know! If a man is
prosperous, he may hold out his hand to a maid and say 'Come,' and all
her relatives will cry 'Go,' and the marriage bells will ring. If he
is a happy Irishman with a shrunken purse, let his heart be loving and
true and open as the day, they will spurn him forth. For food and
raiment will they sell a soul, and for household gear will they clip
the wings of the little god, and set him out in the cold.
"But the arrow had entered Katherine's heart, and I knew and bided my
time. They saw no more of me, but I knew all her goings and comings. I
found her one day on the moor, with her collie, and her cheeks had
lost their color, and her gray eyes looked in my face with their tears
held back, like twin lakes under a cloud before a storm falls. I took
her in my arms, and we kissed. The collie looked on and wagged his
tail. It was all the approval we ever got from the family, but he was
a knowing dog.
"Well, then we walked hand in hand to a village, and it was near
nightfall, and we went straight to a magistrate and were married. I
had a little coin with me, and we stayed all night at an inn. There
was a great hurrying and scurrying all night over the moors for her,
but we knew naught of it, for we lay sleeping in each other's arms as
care free and happy as birds. If she wept a little, I comforted her.
In the morning we went to the great house where the aunts lived in the
town, and there, with her hand in mine, I told them, and the storm
broke. It was the disgrace of having been married clandestinely by a
magistrate that cut them most to the heart; and yet, what did they
think a man would do? And they cried upon her: 'We trusted you. We
trusted you.' And all the reply she made was: 'You thought I'd never
dare, but I love him.' Yes, love makes a woman's heart strong.
"Well, then, nothing would do, but they must have in the minister and
see us properly married. After that we stayed never a night in their
house, but I took her to Ireland to my grandfather's home. It was a
terrible year in Ireland, for the poverty was great, and while my
grandfather was well-to-do, as far as that means in Ireland, it was
very little they had that year for helping the poor." Larry Kildene
glanced no more at Harry King, but looked only in the fire, where the
logs had fallen in a glowing heap. His pipe was out, but he still held
it in his hand.
"It was little I could do. I had my education, and could repeat poems
and read Latin, but that would not feed hungry peasant children. I
went out on the land and labored with the men, and gave of my little
patrimony to keep the old folks, but it was too small for them all, so
at last I yielded to Katherine's importunities, and she wrote to her
brother for help--not for her and me, mind you.
"It was for the poor in Ireland she wrote, and she let me read it. It
was a sweet letter, asking forgiveness for her willfulness, yet saying
she must even do the same thing again if it were to do over again. She
pleaded only for the starving in the name of Christ. She asked only if
a little of that portion which should be hers might be sent her, and
that because he was her only brother and twin, and like part of her
very self--she turned it so lovingly--I never could tell you with what
skill--but she had the way--yes. But what did it bring?
"He was a canny, canny Scot, although brought up in America. Only for
the times when his mother would take him back to Aberdeen with my
Katherine for long visits, he never saw Scotland, but what's in the
blood holds fast through life. He was a canny Scot. It takes a time
for letters to go and come, and in those days longer than now, when in
two weeks one may reach the other side. The reply came as speedily as
those days would admit, and it was carefully considered. Ah, Peter was
a clever man to bring about his own way. Never a word did he say about
forgiveness. It was as if no breach had ever been, but one thing I
noticed that she thought must be only an omission, because of the more
important things that crowded it out. It was that never once did he
mention me any more than if I had never existed. He said he would send
her a certain sum of money--and it was a generous one, that is but
just to admit--if when she received it she would take another sum,
which he would also send, and return to them. He said his home was
hers forever if she wished, and that he loved her, and had never had
other feeling for her than love. Upon this letter came a long time of
pleading with me--and I was ever soft--with her. She won her way.
"'We will both go, Larry, dear,' she said. 'I know he forgot to say
you might come, too. If he loves me as he says, he would not break my
heart by leaving you out.'
"'He sends only enough for one--for you,' I said.
"'Yes, but he thinks you have enough to come by yourself. He thinks
you would not accept it--and would not insult you by sending more.'
"'He insults me by sending enough for you, dear. If I have it for me,
I have it for you--most of all for you, or I'm no true man. If I have
none for you--then we have none.'
"'Larry, for love of me, let me go--for the gulf between my twin
brother and me will never be passed until I go to him.' And this was
true enough. 'I will make them love you. Hester loves you now. She
will help me.' Hester was the sweet wife of her brother. So she clung
to me, and her hands touched me and caressed me--lad, I feel them now.
I put her on the boat, and the money he sent relieved the suffering
around me, and I gave thanks with a sore heart. It was for them, our
own peasantry, and for her, I parted with her then, but as soon as I
could I sold my little holding near my grandfather's house to an
Englishman who had long wanted it, and when it was parted with, I took
the money and delayed not a day to follow her.
"I wrote to her, telling her when and where to meet me in the little
town of Leauvite, and it was on the bluff over the river. I went to a
home I knew there--where they thought well of me--I think. In the
evening I walked up the long path, and there under the oak trees at
the top where we had been used to sit, I waited. She came to me,
walking in the golden light. It was spring. The whip-poor-wills called
and replied to each other from the woods. A mourning dove spoke to its
mate among the thick trees, low and sad, but it is only their way. I
was glad, and so were they.
"I held her in my arms, and the river sang to us. She told me all over
again the love in her heart for me, as she used to tell it. Lad! There
is only one theme in the world that is worth telling. There is only
one song in the universe that is worth singing, and when your heart
has once sung it aright, you will never sing another. The air was soft
and sweet around us, and we stayed until a town clock struck twelve;
then I took her back, and, as she was not strong, part of the way I
carried her in my arms. I left her at her brother's door, and she went
into the shadows there, and I was left outside,--all but my heart. She
had been home so short a time--her brother was not yet reconciled, but
she said she knew he would be. For me, I vowed I would make money
enough to give her a home that would shame him for the poverty of his
own--his, which he thought the finest in the town."
For a long time there was silence, and Larry Kildene sat with his head
drooped on his breast. At last he took up the thread where he had left
it. "Two days later I stood in the heavy parlor of that house,--I
stood there with their old portraits looking down on me, and my heart
was filled with ice--ice and fire. I took what they placed in my arms,
and it was--my--little son, but it might have been a stone. It weighed
like lead in my arms, that ached with its weight. Might I see her? No.
Was she gone? Yes. I laid the weight on the pillow held out to me for
it, and turned away. Then Hester came and laid her hand on my arm, but
my flesh was numb. I could not feel her touch.
"'Give him to me, Larry,' she was saying. 'I will love him like my
own, and he will be a brother to my little son.' And I gave him into
her arms, although I knew even then that he would be brought up to
know nothing of his father, as if I had never lived. I gave him into
her arms because he had no mother and his father's heart had gone out
of him. I gave him into her arms, because I felt it was all I could
do to let his mother have the comfort of knowing that he was not
adrift with me--if they do know where she is. For her sake most of all
and for the lad's sake I left him there.
"Then I knocked about the world a while, and back in Ireland I could
not stay, for the haunting thought of her. I could bide nowhere. Then
the thought took me that I would get money and take my boy back. A
longing for him grew in my heart, and it was all the thought I had,
but until I had money I would not return. I went to find a mine of
gold. Men were flying West to become rich through the finding of mines
of gold, and I joined them. I tried to reach a spot that has since
been named Higgins' Camp, for there it was rumored that gold was to be
found in plenty, and missed it. I came here, and here I stayed."
Now the big man rose to his feet, and looked down on the younger one.
He looked kindly. Then, as if seized and shaken by a torrent of
impulses which he was trying to hold in check, he spoke tremulously
and in suppressed tones.
"I longed for my son, but I tell you this, because there is a strange
thing which grasps a man's soul when he finds gold--as I found it. I
came to love it for its own sake. I lived here and stored it up--until
I am rich--you may not find many men so rich. I could go back and buy
that bank that was Peter Craigmile's pride--" His voice rose, but he
again suppressed it. "I could buy that pitiful little bank a hundred
times over. And she--is--gone. I tried to keep her and the remembrance
of her in my mind above the gold, but it was like a lunacy upon me. At
the last--until I found you there on the verge of death--the gold was
always first in my mind, and the triumph of having it. I came to
glory in it, and I worked day after day, and often in the night by
torches, and all I gathered I hid, and when I was too weary to work, I
sat and handled it and felt it fall through my fingers.
"A woman in England--Miss Evans, by name, only she writes under the
name of a man, George Eliot--has written a tale of a poor weaver who
came to love his little horde of gold as if it were alive and human.
It's a strong tale, that. A good one. Well, I came to understand what
the poor little weaver felt. Summer and winter, day and night, week
days and Sundays--and I was brought up to keep the Sunday like a
Christian should--all were the same to me, just one long period for
the getting together of gold. After a time I even forgot what I wanted
the gold for in the first place, and thought only of getting it, more
and more and more.
"This is a confession, lad. I tremble to think what would have been on
my soul had I done what I first thought of doing when that horse of
yours called me. He was calling for you--no doubt, but the call came
from heaven itself for me, and the temptation came. It was, to stay
where I was and know nothing. I might have done that, too, if it were
not for the selfish reasons that flashed through my mind, even as the
temptation seized it. It was that there might be those below who were
climbing to my home--to find me out and take from me my gold. I knew
there were prospectors all over, seeking for what I had found, and how
could I dare stay in my cabin and be traced by a stray horse wandering
to my door? Three coldblooded, selfish murders would now be resting on
my soul. It's no use for a man to shut his eyes and say 'I didn't
know.' It's his business to know. When you speak of the 'Curse of
Cain,' think what I might be bearing now, and remember, if a man
repents of his act, there's mercy for him. So I was taught, and so I
believe.
"When I looked in your face, lying there in my bunk, then I knew that
mercy had been shown me, and for this, here is the thing I mean to do.
It is to show my gold and the mine from which it came to you--"
"No, no! I can't bear it. I must not know." Harry King threw up his
hands as if in fright and rose, trembling in every limb.
"Man, what ails you?"
"Don't. Don't put temptation in my way that I may not be strong enough
to resist."
"I say, what ails you? It's a good thing, rightly used. It may help
you to a way out of your trouble. If I never return--I will, mind
you,--but we never know--if not, my life will surely not have been
spent for naught. You, now, are all I have on earth besides the gold.
It was to have been my son's, and it is yours. It might as well have
been left in the heart of the mountain, else."
"Better. The longer I think on it, the more I see that there is no
hope for me, no true repentance,--" Again that expression on Harry
King's face filled Larry's heart with deep pity. An inward terror
seemed to convulse his features and throw a pallor as of age and years
of sorrow into his visage. Then he continued, after a moment of
self-mastery: "No true repentance for me but to go back and take the
punishment. For this winter I will live here in peace, and do for
Madam Manovska and her daughter what I can, and anything I can do for
you,--then I must return and give myself up. The gold only holds out
a worldly hope to me, and makes what I must do seem harder. I am
afraid of it."
"I'll make you a promise that if I return I'll not let you have it,
but that it shall be turned to some good work. If I do not return, it
will rest on your conscience that before you make your confession, you
shall see it well placed for a charity. You'll have to find the
charity, I can't say what it should be offhand now, but come with me.
I must tell some man living my secret, and you're the only one.
Besides--I trust you. Surely I do."
CHAPTER XIX
THE MINE--AND THE DEPARTURE
Larry Kildene went around behind the stall where he kept his own horse
and returned with a hollow tube of burnt clay about a foot long. Into
this he thrust a pine knot heavy with pitch, and, carrying a bunch of
matches in his hand, he led the way back of the fodder.
"I made these clay handles for my torches myself. They are my
invention, and I am quite proud of them. You can hold this burning
knot until it is quite consumed, and that's a convenience." He stooped
and crept under the fodder, and then Harry King saw why he kept more
there than his horse could eat, and never let the store run low. It
was to conceal the opening of a long, low passage that might at first
be taken for a natural cave under the projecting mass of rock above
them, which formed one side and part of the roof of the shed.
Quivering with excitement, although sad at heart, Harry King followed
his guide, who went rapidly forward, talking and explaining as he
went. Under his feet the way was rough and made frequent turns, and
for the most part seemed to climb upward.
"There you see it. I discovered a vein of ore back there at the place
we entered, and assayed it and found it rich, and see how I worked
it out! Here it seemed to end, and then I was still sane enough to
think I had enough gold for my life; I left the digging for a
while, and went to find my boy. I learned that he was living and had
gone into the army with his cousin, and I knew we would be of little
use to each other then, but reasoned that the time was to come when
the war would be over, and then he would have to find a place for
himself, and his father's gold would help. However it was--I saw I
must wait. Sit here a bit on this ledge, I want to tell you, but not
in self-justification, mind you, not that.
"I had been in India, and had had my fill of wars and fighting. I
had no mind to it. I went off and bought stores and seed, and
thought I would make more of my garden and not show myself again in
Leauvite until my boy was back. It was in my thought, if the lad
survived the army, to send for him and give him gold to hold his
head above--well--to start him in life, and let him know his
father,--but when I returned, the great madness came on me.
"I had built the shed and stabled my horse there, and purposely
located my cabin below. The trail up here from the plain is a blind
one, because of the wash from the hills at times, and I didn't fear
much from white men,--still I concealed my tracks like this. Gold
often turns men into devils."
He was silent for a time, and Harry King wondered much why he had made
no further effort to find his son before making to himself the offer
he had, but he dared not question him, and preferred to let Larry take
his own way of telling what he would. As if divining his thought Larry
said quietly: "Something held me back from going down again to find my
son. The way is long, and in the old way of traveling over the plains
it would take a year or more to make the journey and return here, and
somehow a superstition seized me that my boy would set out sometime to
find me, and I would make the way easy for him to do it. And here on
the mountain the years slip by like a long sleep."
He began moving the torch about to show the walls of the cave in which
they sat, and as he did so he threw the light strongly on the young
man's face, and scrutinized it sharply. He saw again that terrible
look of sadness as if his soul were dying within him. He saw great
drops of sweat on his brow, and his eyes narrowed and fixed, and he
hurried on with the narrative. He could not bear the sight.
"Now here, look how this hole widens out? Here was where I prospected
about to find the vein again, and there is where I took it up. All
this overhead is full of gold. Think what it would mean if a man had
the right apparatus for getting it out--I mean separating it! I only
took what was free; that is, what could be easily freed from the
quartz. Sometimes I found it in fine nuggets, and then I would go
wild, and work until I was so weak I could hardly crawl back to the
entrance. I often lay down here and slept with fatigue before I could
get back and cook my supper."
As they went on a strange roaring seemed gradually to fill the
passage, and Harry spoke for the first time since they had entered. He
feared the sound of his own voice, as though if he began to speak, he
might scream out, or reveal something he was determined to hide. He
thought the roaring sound might be in his own ears from the surging of
blood in his veins and the tumultuous beating of his heart.
"What is it I hear? Is my head right?"
"The roaring? Yes, you're all right. I thought when I was working
here and slowly burrowing farther and farther that it might be the
lack of air, and tried to contrive some way of getting it from the
outside. I thought all the time that I was working farther into the
mountain, and that I would have to stop or die here like a rat in a
hole. But you just wait. You'll be surprised in a minute."
Then Harry laughed, and the laugh, unexpected to himself, woke him
from the trancelike feeling that possessed him, and he walked more
steadily. "I've been being more surprised each minute. Am I in
Aladdin's cave--or whose is it?"
"Only mine. Just one more turn here and then--! It was not in the
night I came here, and it was not all at once, as you are coming--hold
on! Let me go in front of you. The hole was made gradually, until, one
morning about ten o'clock, a great mass of rock--gold bearing, I tell
you--rich in nuggets--I was crazed to lose it--fell out into space,
and there I stood on the very verge of eternity."
They rounded the turn as he talked, and Larry Kildene stood forward
under the stars and waved the torch over his head and held Harry back
from the edge with his other hand. The air over their heads was sweet
and pure and cold, and full of the roar of falling water. They could
see it in a long, vast ribbon of luminous whiteness against the black
abyss--moving--and waving--coming out from nothingness far above them,
and reaching down to the nethermost depths--in that weird gloom of
night--into nothingness again.
Harry stepped back, and back, into the hole from which they had
emerged, and watched his companion stand holding the torch, which lit
his features with a deep red light until he looked as if he might be
the very alchemist of gold--red gold--and turning all he looked upon
into the metal which closes around men's hearts. The red light flashed
on the white ribbon of water, and this way and that, as he waved it
around, on the sides of the passage behind him, turning each point of
projecting rock into red gold.
"Do you know where we are? No. We're right under the fall--right
behind it. No one can ever see this hole from the outside. It is as
completely hidden as if the hand of the Almighty were stretched over
it. The rush of this body of water always in front of it keeps the air
in the passage always pure. It's wonderful--wonderful!"
He turned to look at Harry, and saw a wild man crouched in the
darkness of the passage, glaring, and preparing to leap. He seized and
shook him. "What ails you, man? Hold on. Hold on. Keep your head, I
say. There! I've got you. Turn about. Now! It's over now. That's
enough. It won't come again."
Harry moaned. "Oh, let me go. Let me get away from it."
The big man still gripped him and held him with his face toward the
darkness. "Tell me what you see," he commanded.
Still Harry moaned, and sank upon his knees. "Lord, forgive,
forgive!"
"Tell me what you see," Larry still commanded. He would try to break
up this vision seeing.
"God! It is the eye. It follows me. It is gone." He heaved a great
sigh of relief, but still remained upon his knees, quivering and weak.
"Did you see it? You must have seen it."
"I saw nothing, and you saw nothing. It's in your brain, and your
brain is sick. You must heal it. You must stop it. Stand now, and
conquer it."
Harry stood, shivering. "I wanted to end it. It would have been so
easy, and all over so soon," he murmured.
"And you would die a coward, and so add one more crime to the first.
You'd shirk a duty, and desert those who need you. You'd leave me in
the lurch, and those women dependent on me--wake up--"
"I'm awake. Let's go away." Harry put his hand to his forehead and
wiped away the cold drops that stood out like glistening beads of
blood in the red light of the torch.
Larry grieved for him, in spite of the harshness of his words and
tone, and taking him by the elbow, he led him kindly back into the
passage.
"Don't trouble about me now," Harry said at last. "You've given me a
thought to clutch to--if you really do need me--if I could believe
it."
"Well, you may! Didn't you say you'd do for me more than sons do
for their fathers? I ask you to do just that for me. Live for me. It's
a hard thing to ask of you, for, as you say, the other would be
easier, but it's a coward's way. Don't let it tempt you. Stand to
your guns like a man, and if the time comes and you can't see things
differently, go back and make your confession and die the death--as
a brave man should. Meantime, live to some purpose and do it
cheerfully." Larry paused. His words sank in, as he meant they should.
He guided Harry slowly back to the place from which they had diverged,
his arm across the younger man's shoulder.
"Now I've more to show you. When I saw what I had done, I set myself
to find another vein, and see this large room? I groveled all about
here, this way and that. A year of this, see. It took patience, and in
the meantime I went out into the world--as far as San Francisco, and
wasted a year or more; then back I came.
"I tell you there is a lure in the gold, and the mountains are powers
of peace to a man. It seemed there was no other place where I could
rest in peace of mind. The longing for my son was on me,--but the war
still raged, and I had no mind for that,--yet I was glad my boy was
taking his part in the world out of which I had dropped. For one thing
it seemed as if he were more my own than if he lived in Leauvite on
the banker's bounty. I would not go back there and meet the contempt
of Peter Craigmile, for he never could forget that I had taken his
sister out of hand, and she gone--man--it was all too sad. How did I
know how my son had been taught to think on me? I could not go back
when I would.
"His name was Richard--my boy's. If he came alive from the army I do
not know,--See? Here is where I found another vein, and I have
followed it on there to the end of this other branch of the passage,
and not exhausted it yet. Here's maybe another twenty years' work for
some man. Now, wasn't it a great work for one man alone, to tunnel
through that rock to the fall? No one man needs all that wealth. I've
often thought of Ireland and the poverty we left there. If I had my
boy to hearten me, I could do something for them now. We'll go back
and sleep, for it's the trail for me to-morrow, and to go and come
quickly, before the snow falls. Come!"
They returned in silence to the shed. The torch had burned well down
into the clay handle, and Larry Kildene extinguished the last sparks
before they crept through the fodder to their room in the shed. The
fire of logs was almost out, and the place growing cold.
"You'll find the gold in a strong box made of hewn logs, buried in the
ground underneath the wood in the addition to the cabin. There's no
need to go to it yet, not until you need money. I'll show you how I
prepare it for use, in the morning. I do it in the room I made there
near the fall. It's the most secret place a man ever had for such
work."
Larry stretched himself in his bunk and was soon sleeping soundly. Not
so the younger man. He could not compose himself after the excitement
of the evening. He tossed and turned until morning found him weary and
worn, but with his troubled mind more at rest than it had been for
many months. He had fought out his battle, at least for the time
being, and was at peace.
Harry King rose and went out into the cold morning air and was
refreshed. He brought in a large handful of pine cones and made a
roaring fire in the chimney he had built, before Larry roused himself.
Then he, too, went out and surveyed the sky with practiced eye.
"Clear and cool--that argues well for me. If it were warm, now, I'd
hardly like to start. Sometimes the snow holds off for weeks in this
weather."
They stood in the pallid light of the early morning an hour before the
sun, and the wind lifted Larry's hair and flapped his shirt sleeves
about his arms. It was a tingling, sharp breeze, and when they
returned to the cave, where they went for Harry's lesson in smelting,
the old man's cheeks were ruddy.
The sun had barely risen when the lesson was over, and they descended
for breakfast. Amalia had all ready for them, and greeted Larry from
the doorway.
"Good morning, Sir Kildene. You start soon. I have many good things to
eat all prepare to put in your bag, and when you sit to your dinner on
the long way, it is that you must think of Amalia and know that she
says a prayer to the sweet Christ, that he send his good angels to
watch over you all the way you go. A prayer to follow you all the way
is good, is not?" Amalia's frank and untrammeled way of referring to
Divinity always precipitated a shyness on Larry,--a shyness that
showed itself in smiles and stammering.
"Good--good--yes. Good, maybe so." Harry had turned back to bring down
Larry's horse and pack mule. "Now, while we eat,--Harry will be down
soon, we won't wait for him,--while we eat, let me go over the things
I'm to find for you down below. I must learn the list well by heart,
or you may send me back for the things I've missed bringing."
As they talked Amalia took from her wrist a heavy bracelet of gold,
and from a small leather bag hidden in her clothing, a brooch of
emeralds, quaintly set and very precious. Her mother sat in one of her
trancelike moods, apparently seeing nothing around her, and Amalia
took Larry to one side and spoke in low tones.
"Sir Kildene, I have thought much, and at last it seems to me right to
part with these. It is little that we have--and no money, only these.
What they are worth I have no knowledge. Mother may know, but to her I
say nothing. They are a memory of the days when my father was noble
and lived at the court. If you can sell them--it is that this brooch
should bring much money--my father has told me. It was saved for my
dowry, with a few other jewels of less worth. I have no need of dowry.
It is that I never will marry. Until my mother is gone I can well care
for her with the lace I make,--and then--"
"Lass, I can't take these. I have no knowledge of their worth--or--"
He knew he was saying what was not true, for he knew well the value of
what she laid so trustingly in his palm, and his hand quivered under
the shining jewels. He cleared his throat and began again. "I say, I
can't take jewels so valuable over the trail and run the risk of
losing them. Never! Put them by as before."
"But how can I ask of you the things I wish? I have no money to return
for them, and none for all you have done for my mother and me. Please,
Sir Kildene, take of this, then, only enough to buy for our need. It
is little to take. Do not be hard with me." She pleaded sweetly,
placing one hand under his great one, and the other over the jewels,
holding them pressed to his palm. "Will you go away and leave my heart
heavy?"
"Look here, now--" Again he cleared his throat. "You put them by until
I come back, and then--"
But she would not, and tying them in her handkerchief, she thrust them
in the pocket of his flannel shirt.
"There! It is not safe in such a place. Be sure you take care, Sir
Kildene. I have many thoughts in my mind. It is not all the money of
these you will need now, and of the rest I may take my mother to a
large city, where are people who understand the fine lace. There I may
sell enough to keep us well. But of money will I need first a little
to get us there. It is well for me, you take these--see? Is not?"
"No, it is not well." He spoke gruffly in his effort to overcome his
emotion. "Where under heaven can I sell these?"
"You go not to the great city?" she asked sadly. "How must we then so
long intrude us upon you! It is very sad." She clasped her hands and
looked in his eyes, her own brimming with tears; then he turned away.
Tears in a woman's eyes! He could not stand it.
"See here. I'll tell you what I'll do. If that railroad is through
anywhere--so--so--I can reach San Francisco--" He thought he knew that
to be an impossibility, and that she would be satisfied. "I say--if
it's where I can reach San Francisco, I'll see what can be done." He
cleared his throat a great many times, and stood awkwardly, hardly
daring to move with the precious jewels in his pocket. "See here.
They'll joggle out of here. Can't you--"
She turned on him radiantly. "You may have my bag of leather. In that
will they be safe."
She removed the string from her neck and by it pulled the small
embossed case from her bosom, shook out the few rings and unset stones
left in it, and returned the larger jewels to it, and gave it into his
hand, still warm from its soft resting place. At the same moment Harry
arrived, leading the animals. He lifted his head courageously and his
eyes shone as with an inspiration.
"Will you let me accompany you a bit of the way, sir? I'd like to go."
Larry accepted gladly. He knew then what he would do with Amalia's
dowry. "Then I'll bring Goldbug. Thank you, Amalia, yes. I'll drink my
coffee now, and eat as I ride." He ran back for his horse and soon
returned, and then drank his coffee and snatched a bite, while Amalia
and Larry slung the bags of food and the water on the mule and made
all ready for the start. As he ate, he tried to arouse and encourage
the mother, but she remained stolid until they were in the saddle,
when she rose and followed them a few steps, and said in her deep
voice: "Yes, I ask a thing. You will find Paul, my 'usband. Tell him
to come to me--it is best--no more,--I cannot in English." Then
turning to her daughter she spoke volubly in her own tongue, and waved
her hand imperiously toward the men.
"Yes, mamma. I tell all you say." Amalia took a step away from the
door, and her mother returned to her seat by the fire.
"It is so sad. My mother thinks my father is returned to our own
country and that you go there. She thinks you are our friend Sir
McBride in disguise, and that you go to help my father. She fears you
will be taken and sent to Siberia, and says tell my father it is
enough. He must no more try to save our fatherland: that our noblemen
are full of ingratitude, and that he must return to her and live
hereafter in peace."
"Let be so. It's a saving hallucination. Tell her if I find your
father, I will surely deliver the message." And the two men rode away
up the trail, conversing earnestly.
Larry Kildene explained to Harry about the jewels, and turned them
over to his keeping. "I had to take them, you see. You hide them in
that chamber I showed you, along with the gold bars. Hang it around
your neck, man, until you get back. It has rested on her bosom, and
if I were a young man like you, that fact alone would make it sacred
to me. It's her dowry, she said. I'd sooner part with my right hand
than take it from her."
"So would I." Harry took the case tenderly, and hid it as directed,
and went on to ask the favor he had accompanied Larry to ask. It was
that he might go down and bring the box from the wagon.
"Early this morning, before I woke you, I led the brown horse you
brought the mother up the mountain on out toward the trail; we'll find
him over the ridge, all packed ready, and when I ran back for my
horse, I left a letter written in charcoal on the hearth there in the
shed--Amalia will be sure to go there and find it, if I don't return
now--telling her what I'm after and that I'll only be gone a few days.
She's brave, and can get along without us." Larry did not reply at
once, and Harry continued.
"It will only take us a day and a half to reach it, and with your
help, a sling can be made of the canvas top of the wagon, and the two
animals can 'tote it' as the darkies down South say. I can walk back
up the trail, or even ride one of the horses. We'll take the tongue
and the reach from the wagon and make a sort of affair to hang to the
beasts, I know how it can be done. There may not be much of value in
the box, but then--there may be. I see Amalia wishes it of all things,
and that's enough for--us."
Thus it came that the two women were alone for five days. Madam
Manovska did not seem to heed the absence of the two men at first, and
waited in a contentment she had not shown before. It would seem that,
as Larry had said, there was saving in her hallucination, but Amalia
was troubled by it.
"Mother is so sure they will bring my father back," she thought. She
tried to forestall any such catastrophe as she feared by explaining
that they might not find her father or he might not return, even if he
got her message, not surely, for he had always done what he thought
his duty before anything else, and he might think it his duty to stay
where he could find something to do.
When Harry King did not return that night, Amalia did as he had
laughingly suggested to her, when he left, "You'll find a letter out
in the shed," was all he said. So she went up to the shed, and there
she lighted a torch, and kneeling on the stones of the wide hearth,
she read what he had written for her.
"To the Lady Amalia Manovska:
"Mr. Kildene will help me get your box. It will not be hard, for
the two of us, and after it is drawn out and loaded I can get up
with it myself and he can go on. I will soon be with you again,
never fear. Do not be afraid of Indians. If there were any danger,
I would not leave you. There is no way by which they would be
likely to reach you except by the trail on which we go, and we
will know if they are about before they can possibly get up the
trail. I have seen you brave on the plains, and you will be as
brave on the mountain top. Good-by for a few days.
"Yours to serve you,
"Harry King."
The tears ran fast down her cheeks as she read. "Oh, why did I speak
of it--why? He may be killed. He may die of this attempt." She threw
the torch from her into the fireplace, and clasping her hands began to
pray, first in English her own words, then the prayers for those in
peril which she had learned in the convent. Then, lying on her face,
she prayed frantically in her own tongue for Harry's safety. At last,
comforted a little, she took up the torch and, flushed and tearful,
walked down in the darkness to the cabin and crept into bed.
CHAPTER XX
ALONE ON THE MOUNTAIN
For the first two days of Harry King's absence Madam Manovska relapsed
into a more profound melancholy, and the care of her mother took up
Amalia's time and thoughts so completely as to give her little for
indulging her own anxiety for Harry's safety. Strangely, she felt no
fear for themselves, although they were thus alone on the mountain
top. She had a sense of security there which she had never felt in the
years since she had been taken from the convent to share her parents'
wanderings. She made an earnest effort to divert and arouse her mother
and succeeded until Madam Manovska talked much and volubly in Polish,
and revealed more of the thoughts that possessed her in the long hours
of brooding than she had ever told Amalia before. It seemed that she
confidently expected the return of the men with her husband, and that
the message she had sent by Larry Kildene would surely bring him. The
thought excited her greatly, and Amalia found it necessary to keep
continual watch lest she wander off down the trail in the direction
they had taken, and be lost.
For a time Amalia tried to prevent Madam Manovska from dwelling on the
past, until she became convinced that to do so was not well, since it
only induced the fits of brooding. She then decided to encourage her
mother to speak freely of her memories, rather than to keep them
locked in her own mind. It was in one of these intervals of
talkativeness that Amalia learned the cause of that strange cry that
had so pierced her heart and startled her on the trail.
They had gone out for a walk, as the only means of inducing her mother
to sleep was to let her walk in the clear air until so weary as to
bring her to the point of exhaustion. This time they went farther than
Amalia really intended, and had left the paths immediately about the
cabin, and climbed higher up the mountain. Here there was no trail and
the way was rough indeed, but Madam Manovska was in one of her most
wayward moods and insisted on going higher and farther.
Her strength was remarkable, but it seemed to be strength of will
rather than of body, for all at once she sank down, unable to go
forward or to return. Amalia led her to the shade of a great gnarled
tree, a species of fir, and made her lie down on a bed of stiff,
coarse moss, and there she pillowed her mother's head on her lap.
Whether it was something in the situation in which she found herself
or not, her mother began to tell her of a time about which she had
hitherto kept silent. It was of the long march through heat and cold,
over the wildest ways of the earth to Siberia, at her husband's side.
She told how she had persisted in going with him, even at the cost of
dressing in the garb of the exiles from the prisons and pretending to
be one of the condemned. Only one of the officers knew her secret, who
for reasons of humanity--or for some other feeling--kept silence. She
carried her child in her arms, a boy, five months old, and was allowed
to walk at her husband's side instead of following on with the other
women. She told how they carried a few things on their backs, and how
one and another of the men would take the little one at intervals to
help her, and how long the marches were when the summer was on the
wane and they wished to make as much distance as possible before they
were delayed by storms and snow.
Then she told how the storms came at last, and how her baby fell ill,
and cried and cried--all the time--and how they walked in deep snow,
until one and another fell by the way and never walked farther. She
told how some of the weaker ones were finally left behind, because
they could get on faster without them, but that the place where they
were left was a terrible one under a cruel man, and that her child
would surely have died there before the winter was over, and that when
she persisted in keeping on with her husband, they beat her, but at
last consented on condition that she would leave her baby boy. Then
how she appealed to the officer who knew well who she was and that she
was not one of the condemned, but had followed her husband for love,
and to intercede for him when he would have been ill-treated; and that
the man had allowed her to have her way, but later had demanded as his
reward for yielding to her, that she no longer belong to her husband,
but to him.
Looking off at the far ranges of mountains with steady gaze, she told
of the mountains they had crossed, and the rushing, terrible rivers;
and how, one day, the officer who had been kind only that he might be
more cruel, had determined to force her to obedience, and how he grew
very angry--so angry that when they had come to a trail that was
well-nigh impassable, winding around the side of a mountain, where was
a fearful rushing river far below them, and her baby cried in her
arms for cold and hunger, how he had snatched the child from her and
hurled it over the precipice into the swift water, and how she had
shrieked and struck him and was crazed and remembered no more for
days, except to call continually on God to send down curses on that
officer's head. She told how after that they were held at a certain
station for a long time, but that she was allowed to stay by her
husband only because the officer feared the terrible curses she had
asked of God to descend on that man, that he dared no more touch her.
Then Amalia understood many things better than ever before, and grew
if possible more tender of her mother. She thought how all during that
awful time she had been safe and sheltered in the convent, and her
life guarded; and moreover, she understood why her father had always
treated her mother as if she were higher than the angels and with the
courtesy and gentleness of a knight errant. He had bowed to her
slightest wish, and no wonder her mother thought that when he received
her request to return to her, and give up his hope, he would surely
come to her.
More than ever Amalia feared the days to come if she could in no way
convince her mother that it was not expedient for her father to return
yet. To say again that he was dead she dared not, even if she could
persuade Madam Manovska to believe it; for it seemed to her in that
event that her mother would give up all interest in life, and die of a
broken heart. But from the first she had not accepted the thought of
her husband's death, and held stubbornly to the belief that he had
joined Harry King to find help. He had, indeed, wandered away from
them a few hours after the young man's departure and had been unable
to find his way back, and, until Larry Kildene came to them, they had
comforted themselves that the two men were together.
Much more Madam Manovska told her daughter that day, before she slept;
and Amalia questioned her more closely than she had ever done
concerning her father's faith. Thereafter she sat for a long time on
the bank of coarse moss and pondered, with her mother's head pillowed
on her lap. The sun reached the hour of noon, and still the mother
slept and the daughter would not waken her.
She took from the small velvet bag she always carried with her, a
crisp cake of corn meal and ate to satisfy her sharp hunger, for the
keen air and the long climb gave her the appetite belonging to the
vigorous health which was hers. They had climbed that part of the
mountain directly behind the cabin, and from the secluded spot where
they sat she could look down on it and on the paths leading to it;
thankful and happy that at last they were where all was so safe, no
fear of intrusion entered her mind. Even her first anxiety about the
Indians she had dismissed.
Now, as her eyes wandered absently over the far distance and dropped
to the nearer hills, and on down to the cabin and the patch of
cultivated ground, what was her horror to see three figures stealing
with swift, gliding tread toward the fodder shed from above, where was
no trail, only such rough and wild hillside as that by which she and
her mother had climbed. The men seemed to be carrying something slung
between them on a pole. With long, gliding steps they walked in single
file as she had seen the Indians walk on the plains.
She drew in her breath sharply and clasped her hands in supplication.
Had those men seen them? Devoutly she prayed that they might not look
up toward the heights where she and her mother sat. As they continued
to descend she lost sight of them among the pines and the undergrowth
which was more vigorous near the fall, and then they appeared again
and went into the cabin. She thought they must have been in the fodder
shed when she lost sight of them, and now she waited breathlessly to
see them emerge from the cabin. For an hour she sat thus, straining
her eyes lest she miss seeing them when they came forth, and fearing
lest her mother waken. Then she saw smoke issuing from the cabin
chimney, and her heart stopped its beating. What! Were they preparing
to stay there? How could her mother endure the cold of the mountain
all night?
Then she began to consider how she might protect her mother after the
sun had gone from the cold that would envelop them. Reasoning that as
long as the Indians stayed in the cabin they could not be seen by
them, she looked about for some projecting ledge under which they
might creep for the night. Gently she lifted her mother's head and
placed it on her own folded shawl, and, with an eye ever on the cabin
below, she crept further up the side of the mountain until she found a
place where a huge rock, warmed by the sun, projected far out, and
left a hollow beneath, into which they might creep. Frantically she
tore off twigs of the scrubby pines around them, and made a fragrant
bed of pine needles and moss on which to rest. Then she woke her
mother.
Sane and practical on all subjects but the one, Madam Manovska roused
herself to meet this new difficulty with the old courage, and climbed
with Amalia's help to their wild resting place without a word of
complaint. There she sat looking out over the magnificent scene
before her with her great brooding eyes, and ate the coarse corn cake
Amalia put in her hands.
She talked, always in Polish or in French, of the men "rouge," and
said she did not wonder they came to so good a place to rest, and that
she would give thanks to the great God that she and her daughter were
on the mountain when they arrived. She reminded Amalia that if she had
consented to return when her daughter wished, they would now have been
in the cabin with those terrible men, and said that she had been
inspired of God to stay long on the mountain. Contentedly, then, she
munched her cake, and remarked that water would give comfort in the
eating of it, but she smiled and made the best of the dry food. Then
she prayed that her husband might be detained until the men were
gone.
Amalia gave her mother the water that was left in the bottle she had
brought with her, and lamented that she had saved so little for her.
"It was so bad, not to save more for my mamma," she cried, giving the
bottle with its lowered contents into her mother's hand. "I go to
watch, mamma mine. Soon will I return."
Amalia went back to her point of vantage, where she could see all
about the cabin and shed. Still the smoke poured from the chimney, and
there was no sign of red men without. It was a mountain sheep they had
carried, slung between them, and now they dressed and cooked a portion
of it, and were gorging themselves comfortably before the fire, with
many grunts of satisfaction at the finding of the formidable owner of
the premises absent. They were on their way to Laramie to trade and
sell game, and it was their intention to leave a portion of their
mutton with Larry Kildene; for never did they dare venture near him
without bringing a propitiatory offering.
The sun had set and the cold mists were blowing across from the fall
and closing around the cabin like a veil of amethystine dye, when
Amalia saw them moving about the cabin door as if preparing to depart.
Her heart rose, and she signaled her mother, but no. They went indoors
again, and she saw them no more. In truth they had disputed long as to
whether it was best to leave before the big man's return, or to remain
in their comfortable quarters and start early, before day. It was the
conference that drew them out, and they had made ready to start at a
moment's notice if he should return in the night. But as the darkness
crept on and Larry Kildene did not appear they stretched themselves
before the fire and slept, and the two women on the mountain, hungry
and cold, crept under the mother's cloak and lay long into the night,
shivering and listening, couched on the pine twigs Amalia had spread
under the ledge of rock. At last, clasped in each other's arms, they
slept, in spite of fear and cold, for very weariness.
Amalia woke next morning to the low murmuring of a voice. It was her
mother, kneeling in the pine needles, praying at her side. She waited
until the prayer was ended, then she rose and went out from the
sheltered hollow where they lay. "I will look a little, mamma. Wait
for me."
She gazed down on the cabin, but all was still. The amethystine veil
had not lifted, and no smoke came from the chimney. She crept back to
her mother's side, and they sat close for warmth, and waited. When the
sun rose and the clouds melted away, all the earth smiled up at them,
and their fears seemed to melt away with the clouds. Still they did
not venture out where they thought they might be spied from below, and
time passed while they watched earnestly for the sight of moving
figures, and still no smoke appeared from the cabin.
Higher and higher the sun climbed in the sky, yet they could not bring
themselves to return. Hunger pressed them, and Amalia begged her
mother to let her go a little nearer to listen, but she would not. So
they discussed together in their own tongue and neither would allow
the other to venture below, and still no smoke issued from the
chimney.
At last Amalia started and pressed her hand to her heart. What did she
see far along on the trail toward the desert? Surely, a man with two
animals, climbing toward the turn. Her eyes danced for gladness as she
turned a flushed face toward her mother.
"Look, mamma! Far on,--no--there! It is--mamma mine--it is 'Arry
King!" The mere sight of him made her break out in English. "It is
that I must go to him and tell him of the Indian in the cabin before
he arrive. If he come on them there, and they kill him! Oh, let me go
quickly." At the thought of him, and the danger he might meet, all her
fears of the men "rouge" returned upon her, and she was gone, passing
with incredible swiftness over the rough way, to try to intercept him
before he could reach the cabin.
But she need not have feared, for the Indians were long gone. Before
daybreak they had passed Harry where he rested in the deep dusk of the
morning, without knowing he was near. With swift, silent steps they
had passed down the trail, taking as much of Larry Kildene's corn as
they could carry, and leaving the bloody pelt of the sheep and a very
meager share of the mutton in exchange. Hungry and footsore, yet eager
and glad to have come home successfully, Harry King walked forward,
leading his good yellow horse, his eyes fixed on the cabin, and
wondering not a little; for he, too, saw that no smoke was issuing
from the chimney.
He hastened, and all Amalia's swiftness could not bring her to him
before he reached his goal. He saw first the bloody pelt hanging
beside the door, and his heart stood still. Those two women never
could have done that! Where were they? He dropped the leading strap,
leaving the weary horses where they stood, and ran forward to enter
the cabin and see the evidence of Indians all about. There were the
clean-picked bones of their feast and the dirt from their feet on
Amalia's carefully kept floor. The disorder smote him, and he ran out
again in the sun. Looking this way and that, he called and listened
and called again. Why did no answer reach him? Poor Amalia! In her
haste she had turned her foot and now, fainting with pain, and with
fear for him, she could not find her voice to reply.
He thought he heard a low cry. Was it she? He ran again, and now he
saw her, high above him, a dark heap on the ground. Quickly he was by
her side, and, kneeling, he gathered her in his arms. He forgot all
but that she was living and that he held her, and he kissed her white
face and her lips, and said all the tender things in his heart. He did
not know what he was saying. He only knew that he could feel her heart
beat, and that she was opening her eyes, and that with quivering arms
she clasped his neck, and that her tears wet his cheek, and that, over
and over, her lips were repeating his name.
"'Arry--'Arry King! You are come back. Ah, 'Arry King, my heart cry
with the great gladness they have not killed you."
All in the same instant he bethought himself that he must not caress
her thus. Yet filled with a gladness he could not fathom he still
clung to her and still murmured the words he meant never to speak to
her. One thing he could do. One thing sweet and right to do. He could
carry her to the cabin. How could she reach it else? His heart leaped
that he had at least that right.
"No, 'Arry King. You have walk the long, hard way, and are very
weary." But still he carried her.
"Put me down, 'Arry King." Then he obeyed her, and set her gently
down. "I am too great a burden. See, thus? If you help me a little--it
is that I may hop--It is better, is not?"
She smiled in his face, but he only stooped and lifted her again in
his arms. "You are not a burden, Amalia. Put your arms around my neck,
and lean on me."
She obeyed him, and he could say no more for the beating of his heart.
Carefully and slowly he made his way, setting his feet cautiously
among the stones that obstructed his path. Madam Manovska from her
heights above saw how her daughter was being carried, and, guessing
the trouble, snatched up the velvet bag Amalia had dropped in her
haste, flung her cloak about her, and began to thread her way down,
slowly and carefully; for, as she said to herself, "We must not both
break the bones at one time."
To Harry it seemed no sound was ever sweeter than Amalia's low voice
as she coaxed him brokenly to set her down and allow her to walk.
"This is great foolishness, 'Arry King, that you carry me. Put me down
that you rest a little."
"I can't, Amalia."
"You have walk all the long trail--I saw you walk--and lead those
horse, for only to bring our box. How my heart can thank you is not
possible. 'Arry King, you are so weary--put me down."
"I can't, Amalia," again was all he said. So he held her, comforting
his heart that he had this right, until he drew near the cabin, and
there Amalia saw the pelt of the sheep hung upon the wall of the
cabin, pitifully dangling, bloody and ragged. Strangely, at the sight
quite harmless, yet gruesome, all her fortitude gave way. With a cry
of terror she hid her face and clung to him.
"No, no. I cannot go there--not near it--no!"
"Oh, you brave, sweet woman! It is only a skin. Don't look at it,
then. You have been frightened. I see how you have suffered. Wait.
There--no, don't put your foot to the ground. Sit on this hillock
while I take it away."
But she only clung to him the more, and sobbed convulsively. "I am
afraid--'Arry King. Oh, if--if--they are there still! Those Indian! Do
not go there."
"But they are gone; I have been in and they are not there. I won't
take you into that place until I have made it fit for you again. Sit
here awhile. Amalia Manovska,--I can't see you weep." So tenderly he
spoke her name, with quivering lips, reverently. With all his power he
held himself and would dare no more. If only once more he might touch
her lips with his--only once in his renunciation--but no. His
conscience forbade him. Memory closed upon him like a deadening cloud
and drenched his hurt soul with sorrow. He rose from stooping above
her and looked back.
"Your mother is coming. She will be here in a moment and then I will
set that room in order for you, and--" his voice shook so that he was
obliged to pause. He stooped again to her and spoke softly: "Amalia
Manovska, stop weeping. Your tears fall on my heart."
"Ah, what have happen, to you--to Amalia--? Those terrible men
'rouge'!" cried Madam Manovska, hurrying forward.
"Oh, Madam, I am glad you have come. The Indians are gone, never fear.
Amalia has hurt her foot. It is very painful. You will know what to do
for her, and I will leave her while I make things more comfortable in
there."
He left them and ran to the cabin, and hastily taking the hideous pelt
from the wall, hid it, and then set himself to cleaning the room and
burning the litter of bones and scraps left from the feast. It was
horrible--yes, horrible, that they should have had such a fright, and
alone there. Soon he went back, and again taking her in his arms,
unresisted now, he laid her on the bunk, then knelt and removed her
worn shoe.
"Little worn shoe! It has walked many a mile, has it not? Did you
think to ask Larry Kildene to bring you new ones?"
"No, I forgot my feet." She laughed, and the spell of tears was
broken. The long strain of anxiety and fear and then the sudden
release had been too much. Moreover, she was faint with hunger.
Without explanation Harry King understood. He looked to the mother for
help and saw that a change had come over her. Roused from her apathy
she was preparing food, and looking from her to Amalia, they exchanged
a glance of mutual relief.
"How it is beautiful to see her!" Amalia spoke low. "It is my hurt
that is good for her mind. I am glad of the hurt."
He sat with the shoe in his hand. "Will you let me bind your ankle,
Amalia? It will grow worse unless something is done quickly." He spoke
humbly, as one beseeching a favor.
"Now it is already better, you have remove the shoe." How he loved her
quaint, rapid speech! "Mamma will bind it, for you have to do for
those horse and the mule. I know--I have seen--to take them to drink
and eat, and take from them the load--the burden. It is the box--for
that have you risk your life, and the gladness we feel to again have
it is--is only one greater--and that is to have you again with us. Oh,
what a sorrow and terror--if you had not come--I can never make you
know. When I see those Indian come walking after each other so as they
go--my heart cease to beat--and my body become like the ice--for the
fear. When fearing for myself, it is bad, but when for another it is
much--much--more terrible. So have I found it."
Her mother came then to attend to her hurt, interrupting Amalia's flow
of speech, and Harry went out to the animals, full of care and
misgiving. What now could he do? How endure the days to come with
their torture of repression? How shield her from himself and his
love--when she so freely gave? What middle course was possible,
without making her suffer?
That afternoon all the events of his journey were told to them as they
questioned him keenly, and he learned by little words and looks
exchanged between them how great had been their anxiety for him, and
of their night of terror on the mountain. But now that it was past and
they were all unhurt except for Amalia's accident, they made light of
it. He dragged in the box, and before he left them that night he
prepared Larry's gun, and told Amalia to let nothing frighten her.
"Don't leave the bunk, nor put your foot to the ground. Fire the gun
at the slightest disturbance, and I will surely hear. I have another
in the shed. Or I will roll myself in my blanket, and sleep outside
your door. Yes, I will do that."
Then the mother turned on him and spoke in her deep tones: "Go to your
bed, 'Arry King, and sleep well. You have need. We asked of the good
God your safety, and our fear is gone. Good night."
"Good-night."
CHAPTER XXI
THE VIOLIN
While Amalia lay recovering from the sprained ankle, which proved to
be a serious hurt, Madam Manovska continued to improve. She took up
the duties which had before occupied Amalia only, and seemed to grow
more cheerful. Still she remained convinced that Larry Kildene would
return with her husband, and her daughter's anxiety as to what might
be the outcome, when the big man should arrive alone, deepened.
Harry King guardedly and tenderly watched over the two women. Every
day he carried Amalia out in the sun to a sheltered place, where she
might sit and work at the fascinating lace with which her fingers
seemed to be only playing, yet which developed into webs of most
intricate design, even while her eyes were not fixed upon it, but were
glancing about at whatever interested her, or up in his face, as she
talked to him impulsively in her fluent, inverted English.
Amalia was not guarded; she was lavish with her interest in all he
said, and in her quick, responsive, and poetic play of fancy--ardent
and glowing--glad to give out from her soul its best to this man who
had befriended her father in their utmost need and who had saved her
own and her mother's life. She knew always when a cloud gathered over
his spirit, and made it her duty to dispel such mists of some
possible sad memory by turning his thoughts to whatever of beauty she
found around them, or in the inspiration of her own rich nature.
To avoid disquieting her by the studied guardedness of his manner,
Harry employed himself as much of the time as possible away from the
cabin, often in providing game for the winter. Larry Kildene had
instructed him how to cure and dry the meat and to store it and also
how to care for the skins, but because of the effect of that sight of
the bloody sheep's pelt on Amalia, he never showed her a poor little
dead creature, or the skin of one. He brought her mother whatever they
required of food, carefully prepared, and that was all.
He constructed a chair for her and threw over it furs from Larry
Kildene's store, making it soft and comfortable thereby. He made also
a footstool for the hurt ankle to rest upon, and found a beautiful
lynx skin with which to cover her feet. The back of the chair he made
high, and hinged it with leather to the seat, arranging it so that by
means of pegs it might be raised or lowered. Without lumber, and with
the most simple tools, he sawed and hewed the logs, and lacking nails
he set it together with pegs, but what matter? It was comfortable, and
in the making of it he eased his heart by expressing his love without
sorrowful betrayal.
Amalia laughed as she sat in it, one day, close to the open door,
because the air was too pinching cold for her to be out. She laughed
as she put her hands in the soft fur and drew her fingers through it,
and looked up in Harry's face.
"You are thinking me so foolish, yes, to have about me the skins of
poor little killed beasts? Yet I weeped all those tears on your coat
because to see the other--yes,--hanging beside the door. It is so we
are--is not?"
"I'm glad enough you're not consistent. It would be a blot on your
character."
"But for why, Mr. 'Arry?"
"Oh, I couldn't stand it."
Again she laughed. "How it is very peculiar--that reason you give. Not
to stand it! Could you then to sit it?" But Harry only laughed and
looked away from her. She laid her face against the soft fur. "Good
little animals--to give me your life. But some time you would
die--perhaps with sorrow of hunger and age, and the life be for
nothing. This is better."
"There you're right. Let me draw you back in the room and close the
door. It will freeze to-night, I'm thinking."
"Oh, not yet, please! I have yet to see the gloryful sky of the west.
Last evening how it was beautiful! To-night it will be more lovely to
look upon for the long line of little cloud there on which the red of
the sun will burn like fire in the heaven over the mountain."
"You must enjoy the beauty, Amalia, and then pray that there may be no
snow. It looks like it, and we want the snow to hold off until Larry
comes back."
"We pray, always, my mamma and I. She that he come back quickly, and
me--I pray that he come back safely--but to be soon--it is such terror
to me."
"Larry will find a way out of the difficulty. He will have an excuse
all thought out for your mother. I am more anxious about the snow with
a sunset sky like that, but I don't know anything about this region."
"Mr. 'Arry, so very clever you are in making things, can you help me
to one more thing? I like very much to have the sticks for lame
walking,--what you call--the crutch? Yes. I have for so long time
spoken only the Polish that I forget me greatly the English. You must
talk to me much, and make me reproof of my mistakes. Do you know for
why I like the crutch? It is that I would go each day--many times to
see the water fall down. Ah, how that is beautiful! In the sun, or
early in the morning, or in the night, always beautiful!"
"You shall have the crutches, Amalia, and until I get them made, I
will carry you to the fall each day. Come, I will take you there now.
I will wrap these furs around you, and you shall see the fall in the
evening light."
"No, 'Arry King. To-morrow I will try to ride on the horse if you will
lift me up on him. I will let you do this. But you may not carry me as
you have done. I am now so strong. You may make me the crutch, yes."
Of all things he wished her to let him carry her to the fall, but her
refusal was final, and he set about making the crutches immediately.
Through the evening he worked on them, and at nightfall the next day
he brought them to her. As he came down from his shed, carrying the
crutches proudly, he heard sweet, quavering tones in the air wafted
intermittently. The wind was still, and through the evening hush the
tones strengthened as he drew nearer the cabin, until they seemed to
wrap him in a net of interwoven cadences and fine-spun threads of
quivering melody--a net of sound, inclosing his spirit in its
intricate mesh of sweetness.
He paused and breathed deeply, and turned this way and that, as if he
would escape but found no way; then he walked slowly on. At the door
of the cabin he paused again. The firelight shone through from
underneath, and a fine thread of golden light sifted through the latch
of the door and fell on the hand that held Amalia's crutches. He
looked down on the spot of light dancing over his hand as if he were
dazed by it. Very gently he laid the crutches across the threshold,
and for a long time stood without, listening, his head bowed as if he
were praying.
It was her father's violin, the one she had wept at leaving behind
her. What was she playing? Strange, old-world melodies they seemed,
tossed into the air, now laughing, now wailing like sorrowing women
voices. Oh, the violin in her hands! Oh, the rapture of hearing it, as
her soul vibrated through it and called to him--called to him!--But he
would not hear the call. He turned sorrowfully and went down again to
the shed and there he lay upon his face and clasped his hands above
his head and whispered her name. It was as if his heart were beating
itself against prison walls and the clasped hands were stained with
blood.
He rose next morning, haggard and pale. The snow was
falling--falling--softly and silently. It fell like lead upon his
heart, so full of anxiety was he for the good friend who might even
then be climbing up the trail. Madam Manovska observed his drawn face,
and thought he suffered only from anxiety and tried to comfort him.
Amalia also attempted to cover her own anxiety by assurances that the
good St. Christopher who watches over travelers would protect Larry
Kildene, because he knew so well how many dangers there were, and that
he, who had carried the Christ with all his burden of sorrows could
surely keep "Sir Kildene" even through the snows of winter. In spite
of an inherent and trained disbelief in all supposed legends,
especially as tenets of faith, Harry felt himself comforted by her
talk, yet he could not forbear questioning her as to her own faith in
them.
"Do you truly believe all that, Amalia?"
"All--that--? Of what--Mr. 'Arry?" She seemed truly mystified.
"I mean those childish legends of the saints you often quote?"
Amalia laughed. "You think I have learn them of the good sisters in my
convent, and is no truth in them?"
"Why--I guess that's about it. Did your father believe them?"
"Maybe no. But my father was 'devoué'--very--but he had a very wide
thought of God and man--a thought reaching far out--to--I find it very
hard to explain. If but you understood the French, I could tell
you--but for me, I have my father's faith and it makes me glad to play
in my heart with these legends--as you call them."
He gave her a quick, appealing glance, then turned his gaze away. "Try
to explain. Your English is beautiful."
"If you eat your breakfast, then will I try."
"Yes, yes, I will. You say he had faith reaching far out--to where--to
what?"
"He said there would never be rest in all the universe until we find
everywhere God,--living--creating--moving forever in the--the--all."
She held out her hands and extended her arms in an encompassing
movement indescribably full of grace.
"You mean he was a pantheist?"
"Oh, no, no. That is to you a horror, I see, but it was not that."
She laughed again, so merrily that Harry laughed, too. But still he
persisted, "Amalia--never mind what your father thought; tell me your
own faith."
Then she grew grave, "My faith is--just--God. In the all.
Seeing--feeling--knowing--with us--for us--never away--in the deep
night of sorrow--understanding. In the far wilderness--hearing. In the
terror and remorse of the heart--when we weep for sin--loving. It is
only one thing in all the world to learn, and that is to learn all
things, just to reach out the mind, and touch God--to find his love in
the heart and so always live in the perfect music of God. That is the
wonderful harmony--and melody--and growth--of each little soul--and of
all peoples, all worlds,--Oh, it is the universe of love God gives to
us."
For a while they were silent, and Madam Manovska began to move about
the cabin, setting the things in order. She did not seem to have taken
any interest in their talk. Harry rose to go, but first he looked in
Amalia's eyes.
"The perfect Music of God?" He said the words slowly and questioningly.
"You understand my meaning?"
"I can't say. Do you?"
She quickly snatched up her violin which lay within reach of her arm.
"I can better show you." She drew a long chord, then from it wandered
into a melody, sweet and delicate; then she drew other chords, and on
into other melodies, all related; then she began to talk again. "It is
only on two strings I am playing--for hear? the others are now souls
out of the music of God--listen--" she drew her bow across the
discordant strings. "How that is terrible! So God creates great and
beautiful laws--" she went back into the harmony and perfect melody,
and played on, now changing to the discordant strain, and back, as she
talked--"and gives to all people power to understand, but not through
weakness--but through longing and searching with big earnestness of
purpose, and much desire. Who has no care and desire for the music of
God, strikes always those wrong notes, and all suffer as our ears
suffer with the bad sounds. So it is, through long desiring, and
living, always a little and a little more perceiving, reaching out the
hand to touch in love our brothers and sisters on the earth,--always
with patience learning to find in our own souls the note that strikes
in harmony with the great thought of God--and thus we understand and
live in the music of God. Ah, it is hard for me to say it--but it is
as if our souls are given wings--wings--that reach--from the gold of
the sun--even to the earth at our feet, and we float upon that great
harmony of love like upon a wonderful upbearing sea, and never can we
sink, and ever all is well--for we live in the thought of God."
"Amalia--Amalia--How about sin, and the one who--kills--and the ones
who hate--and the little children brought into the world in sin--"
Harry's voice trembled, and he bowed his head in his hands.
"Never is anything lost. They are the ones who have not yet
learned--they have not found the key to God's music. Those who find
must quickly help and give and teach the little children--the little
children find so easily the key--but to all the strings making
horrible discord on the earth--we dare not shut our ears and hide--so
do the sweet, good sisters in the convent. They do their little to
teach the little children, but it is always to shut their ears. But
the Christ went out in the world, not with hands over his ears, but
outreached to his brothers and sisters on the earth. But my father--my
father! He turned away from the church, because he saw they had not
found the true key to God's music--or I mean they kept it always hid,
and covered with much--how shall I say--with much drapery--and golden
coverings, that the truth--that is the key--was lost to sight. It was
for this my father quarreled with--all that he thought not the truth.
He believed to set his people free both from the world's oppression
and from their own ignorance, and give to them a truth uncovered. Oh,
it set his old friends in great discord more than ever--for they could
not make thus God's music. And so they rose up and threw him in
prison, and all the terrible things came upon him--of the world. My
mother must have been very able through love to drag him free from
them, even if they did pursue. It was the conflict of discord he felt
all his life, and now he is free."
Suddenly the mother's deep tones sounded through the cabin with a
finality that made them both start. "Yes. Now he is free--and yet will
he bring them to--know. We wait for him here. No more must he go to
Poland. It is not the will of God."
Still Harry was not satisfied. "But if you think all these great
thoughts--and you do--I can't see how you can quote those legends as
if you thought them true."
"I quote them, yes, because I love them, and their poetry. Through all
beauty--all sweetness--all strength--God brings to us his thought.
This I believe. I believe the saints lived and were holy and good,
loving the great brotherhood. Why may not they be given the work of
love still to do? It is all in the music of God, that they live, and
make happy, and why should I believe that it is now taken from them to
do good? Much that I think lies deep in my heart, and I cannot tell it
in words."
"Nor can I. But my thoughts--" For an instant Amalia, looking at him,
saw in his face the same look of inward fear--or rather of despair
that had appalled Larry, but it went as quickly as it appeared, and
she wondered afterward if she had really seen it, or if it was a
strange trick of the firelight in the windowless cabin.
"And your thoughts, Mr. 'Arry?"
"They are not to be told." Again he rose to go, and stood and looked
down on her, smiling. "I see you have already tried the crutches."
"Yes. I found them in the snow, before the door. How I got there? I
did hop. It was as if the good angels had come in the night. I wake
and something make me all glad--and I go to the door to look at the
whiteness, and then I am sorry, because of Sir Kildene, then I see
before me--while that I stand on one foot, and hop--hop--hop--so, I
see the crutch lie in the snow. Oh, Mr. 'Arry, now so pale you are! It
is that you have worked in the night to make them--Is not? That is
sorrowful to me. But now will I do for you pleasant things, because I
can move to do them on these, where before I must always sit
still--still--Ah, how that is hard to do! One good thing comes to me
of this hurt. It makes the old shoes to last longer. How is it never
to wear out shoes? Never to walk in them."
Harry laughed. "We'll have to make you some moccasins."
"And what is moccasins? Ah, yes, the Indian shoe. I like them well, so
soft they must be, and so pretty with the beads. I have seen once such
shoes on one little Indian child. Her mother made them."
Then Harry made her try the crutches to be sure they were quite right,
and, seeing that they were a little too long, he measured them with
care, and carried them back to the shed, and there he shortened them
and polished them with sand and a piece of flint, until he succeeded
in making a very workmanlike job of them.
At noon he brought them back, and stood in the doorway a moment beside
her, looking out through the whiteness upon the transformed world. In
spite of what that snow might mean to Larry Kildene, and through him
to them, of calamity, maybe death, a certain elation possessed Harry.
His body was braced to unusual energy by the keen, pure air, and his
spirit enthralled and lifted to unconscious adoration by the vast
mystery of a beauty, subtle and ethereal in its hushed eloquence. From
the zenith through whiteness to whiteness the flakes sifted from the
sky like a filmy bride's veil thrown over the blue of the farthest and
highest peaks, and swaying soft folds of lucent whiteness upon the
earth--the trees--and upon the cabin, and as they stood there, closing
them in together--the very center of mystery, their own souls. Again
the passion swept through him, to gather her in his arms, and he held
himself sternly and stiffly against it, and would have said something
simple and common to break the spell, but he only faltered and looked
down on his hands spread out before her, and what he said was: "Do you
see blood on them?"
"Ah, no. Did you hurt your hand to cause blood on them, and to make
those crutch for me?" she cried in consternation.
"No, no. It's nothing. I have not hurt my hand. See, there's no blood
on the crutches." He glanced at them as she leaned her weight on them
there at his side, with a feeling of relief. It seemed as if they must
show a stain, yet why should it be blood? "Come in. It's too cold for
you to stand in the door with no shawl. I mean to put enough wood in
here to last you the rest of the day--and go--"
"Mr. 'Arry! Not to leave us? No, it is no need you go--for why?"
Her terror touched him. "No, I would not go again and leave you and
your mother alone--not to save my soul. As you say, there is no
need--as long as it is so still and the clouds are thin the snow will
do little harm. It would be the driving, fine snow and the drifts that
would delay him."
"Yes, snow as we have it in the terrible Russia. I know such snow
well," said Madam Manovska.
They went in and closed the door, and sat down to eat. The meal was
lighted only by the dancing flames from the hearth, and their faces
glowed in the fitful light. Always the meals were conducted with a
certain stately ceremony which made the lack of dishes, other than the
shaped slabs of wood sawn from the ends of logs--odd make-shifts
invented by Harry, seem merely an accident of the moment, while the
bits of lace-edged linen that Amalia provided from their little store
seemed quite in harmony with the air of grace and gentleness that
surrounded the two women. It was as if they were using a service of
silver and Sevres, and to have missed the graciousness of their
ministrations, now that he had lived for a little while with them,
would have been sorrow indeed.
He even forgot that he was clothed in rags, and wore them as if they
were the faultless garments of a prince. It was only when he was alone
that he looked down on them and sighed. One day he had come to the
cabin to ask if he might take for a little while a needle and thread,
but when he got there, the conversation wandered to discussion of the
writers and the tragedies of the various nations and of their poets,
and the needle and thread were forgotten.
To-day, as the snow fell, it reminded Amalia of his need, and she
begged him to stay with them a little to see what the box he had
rescued for them contained. He yielded, and, taking up the violin, he
held it a moment to his chin as if he would play, then laid it down
again without drawing the bow across it.
"Ah, Mr. 'Arry, it is that you play," cried Amalia, in delight. "I
know it. No man takes in his hand the violin thus, if he do not
play."
"I had a friend once who played. No, I can't." He turned away from it
sadly, and she gently laid it back in its box, and caught up a piece
of heavy material.
"Look. It is a little of this left. It is for you. My mother has much
skill to make garments. Let us sew for you the blouse."
"Yes, I'll do that gladly. I have no other way to keep myself decent
before you."
"What would you have? All must serve or we die." Madam Manovska spoke,
"It is well, Sir 'Arry King, you carry your head like one prince, for
I will make of you one peasant in this blouse."
The two women laughed and measured him, and conferred volubly together
in their own tongue, and he went out from their presence feeling that
no prince had ever been so honored. They took also from their store
warm socks of wool and gave him. Sadly he needed them, as he realized
when he stepped out from their door, and the soft snow closed around
his feet, chilling them with the cold.
As he looked up in the sky he saw the clouds were breaking, and the
sun glowed through them like a great pale gold moon, even though the
flakes continued to veil thinly the distance. His heart lightened and
he went back to the cabin to tell them the good news, and to ask them
to pray for clear skies to-morrow. Having been reared in a rigidly
puritanic school of thought, the time was, when first he knew them,
that the freedom with which Amalia spoke of the Deity, and of the
Christ, and the saints, and her prayers, fell strangely upon his
unaccustomed ears. He was reserved religiously, and seemed to think
any mention of such topics should be made with bated breath, and the
utmost solemnity. Often it had been in his mind to ask her concerning
her beliefs, but his shyness on such themes had prevented.
Now that he had asked her he still wondered. He was used to feel that
no one could be really devout, and yet speak so freely. Why--he could
not have told. But now he began to understand, yet it was but a
beginning. Could it be that she belonged to no church? Was it some
sect of which he had never heard to which they belonged? If so, it
must be a true faith, or it never could have upheld them through all
their wanderings and afflictions, and, as he pondered, he found
himself filled with a measure of the same trustful peace. During
their flight across the plains together he had come to rest in them,
and when his heart was too heavy to dare address the Deity in his own
words, it was balm to his hurt spirit to hear them at their devotions
as if thus God were drawn nearer him.
This time, whether he might lay it to their prayers or no, his hopes
were fulfilled. The evening brought a clear sunset, and during the
next day the snow melted and soon was gone, and a breeze sprang up and
the clouds drifted away, and for several days thereafter the weather
continued clear and dry.
Now often he brought his horse to the door, and lifted Amalia to the
saddle and walked at her side, fearing she might rest her foot too
firmly in the stirrup and so lose control of the horse in her pain.
Always their way took them to the falls. And always he listened while
Amalia talked. He allowed himself only the most meager liberty of
expression. Distant and cold his manner often seemed to her, but
intuitively she respected his moods, if moods they might be called:
she suspected not.
CHAPTER XXII
THE BEAST ON THE TRAIL
A week after the first snowfall Larry Kildene returned. He had
lingered long after he should have taken the trail and had gone
farther than he had dreamed of going when he parted from his three
companions on the mountain top. All day long the snow had been
falling, and for the last few miles he had found it almost impossible
to crawl upward. Fortunately there had been no wind, and the snow lay
as it had fallen, covering the trail so completely that only Larry
Kildene himself could have kept it--he and his horse--yet not impeding
his progress with drifts to be tunneled through.
Harry King had been growing more and more uneasy during the day, and
had kept the trail from the cabin to the turn of the cliff clear of
snow, but below that point he did not think it wise to go: he could
not, indeed. There, however, he stationed himself to wait through the
night, and just beyond the turn he built a fire, thinking it might
send a light into the darkness to greet Larry, should he happen to be
toiling through the snow.
He did not arouse the fears of Amalia by telling her he meant to keep
watch all night on the cliff, but he asked her for a brew of Larry
Kildene's coffee--of which they had been most sparing--when he left
them after the evening meal, and it was given him without a thought,
as he had been all day working in the snow, and the request seemed
natural. He asked that he might have it in the great kettle in which
they prepared it, and carried it with him to the fodder shed.
Darkness had settled over the mountain when, after an hour's rest, he
returned to the top of the trail and mended his fire and placed his
kettle near enough to keep the contents hot. Through half the night he
waited thus, sometimes walking about and peering into the obscurity
below, sometimes replenishing his fire, and sometimes just patiently
sitting, his arms clasped about his knees, gazing into space and
brooding.
Many times had Harry King been lonely, but never had the awesomeness
of life and its mysterious leadings so impressed him as during this
night's vigil. Moses alone on the mountain top, carried there and left
where he might see into the promised land--the land toward which he
had been aided miraculously to lead his people, but which he might not
enter because of one sin,--one only transgression,--Elijah sitting
alone in the wilderness waiting for the revealing of God--waiting
heartbroken and weary, vicariously bearing in his own spirit regrets
and sorrows over the waywardness of his people Israel,--and John, the
forerunner--a "Voice crying in the wilderness 'Repent ye!'"--these
were not so lonely, for their God was with them and had led them by
direct communication and miraculous power; they were not lonely as
Cain was lonely, stained with a brother's blood, cast out from among
his fellows, hunted and haunted by his own guilt.
Silence profound and indescribable reigned, while the great, soft
flakes continued to drift slowly down, silent--silent--as the grave,
and above and beneath and on all sides the same absolute neutrality
of tint, vague and soft; yet the reality of the rugged mountain even
so obscured and covered, remained; its cliffs and crags below, deadly
and ragged, and fearful to look down upon, and skirting its sides the
long, weary trail, up which at that very moment a man might be
toiling, suffering, even to the limit of death--might be giving his
life for the two women and the man who had come to him so suddenly out
of the unknown; strange, passing strange it all was.
Again and again Harry rose and replenished the fire and stamped about,
shaking from his shoulders the little heaps of snow that had collected
there. The flames rose high in the still air and stained the snow
around his bonfire a rosy red. The redness of the fire-stained snow
was not more deep and vital than the red blood pulsing through his
heart. With all a strong man's virility and power he loved as only the
strong can love, and through all his brooding that undercurrent ran
like a swift and mighty river,--love, stronger than hate,--love,
triumphing over death,--love, deeper than hell,--love, lifting to the
zenith of heaven;--only two things seemed to him verities at that
moment, God above, and love within,--two overwhelming truths, terrible
in their power, all-consuming in their sweetness, one in their vast,
incomprehensible entity of force, beneficent, to be forever sought for
and chosen out of all the universe of good.
The true meaning of Amalia's faith, as she had brokenly tried to
explain it to him, dawned on his understanding. God,--love, truth, and
power,--annihilating evil as light eats up darkness, drawing all into
the great "harmony of the music of God."
Sitting there in the red light of the fire with the snow falling
around him, he knew what he must do first to come into the harmony. He
must take up his burden and declare the truth, and suffer the result,
no matter what it might be. Keen were all the impressions and visions
of his mind. Even while he could see Amalia sleeping in the cabin, and
could feel her soft breath on his cheek, could feel her in his
arms,--could hear her prayers for Larry Kildene's safety as at that
moment he might be coming to them,--he knew that the mighty river of
his love must be held back by a masterful will--must be dammed back
until its floods deepened into an ocean of tranquillity while he rose
above his loneliness and his fierce longing,--loving her, yet making
no avowal,--holding her in his heart, yet never disturbing her peace
of spirit by his own heart's tumult,--clinging to her night and day,
yet relinquishing her.
And out of this resolution, against which his nature cried and beat
itself, he saw, serene, and more lonely than Moses or Elijah,--beautiful,
and near to him as his love, the Christ taken to the high places, even
the pinnacle of the temple--and the mountain peak, overlooking the
worlds and the kingdoms thereof, and turning from them all to look down
on him with a countenance of ineffable beauty--the love that dies not.
He lifted his head. The visions were gone. Had he slept? The fire was
burning low and a long line was streaked across the eastern sky; a
line of gold, while still darkness rested below him and around him.
Again he built up the fire, and set the kettle closer. He stood out on
the height at the top of the trail and listened, his figure a black
silhouette against the dancing flames. He called, he shouted with all
his power, then listened. Did he hear a call? Surely it must be. He
plunged downward and called again, and again came the faint response.
In his hand he carried a long pole, and with it he prodded about in
the snow for sure footing and continued to descend, calling from time
to time, and rejoicing to hear the answering call. Yes, Larry Kildene
was below him in the obscurity, and now his voice came up to Harry,
long and clear. He had not far to go ere he saw the big man slowly
toiling upward through the dusk of dawn. He had dismounted, and the
weary animals were following behind.
Thus Larry Kildene came back to his mountain. Exhausted, he still made
light of his achievement--climbing through day and night to arrive
before the snow should embank around him. He stood in the firelight
swaying with weariness and tasted the hot coffee and shook his
grizzled head and laughed. The animals came slowly on and stood close
to him, almost resting their noses on his shoulder, while Harry King
gazed on him with admiration.
"Now if it weren't for the poor beasts, I'd lie down here by the fire
and sleep rather than take a step farther to-night. To-night?
Why--it's morning! Isn't it? I never thought we were so near the end.
If I hadn't seen the fire a long way down, I would have risked another
bivouac for the rest of the night. We might have lived through it--I
don't know, but this is better." He rubbed the nose of his panting
horse. "I shall drop to sleep if we don't move on."
A thin blue smoke was rising from the chimney as they passed the
cabin, but Amalia, kneeling before the hearth, did not know they were
near. Harry wondered if Larry had forgotten the mother's hallucination
about her husband, yet forbore to mention it, thinking it best to get
him into his bunk first. But he had not forgotten. When Harry came
into the shed after stabling the horses, he found Larry sitting before
the chimney fire warming his knees and smoking.
"Give me a little more of that coffee, Harry, and let's talk a bit
before I turn in for the day. There's the mother, now; she still
thinks as she did? I'll not see them until this evening--when I may
feel able to meet the question, and, lad, tell them what you please,
but--better not let the mother know I'm here until I can see her."
"Then, if you'll go to bed now, I'll bring your food up. I'll tell
Amalia, of course."
"I'm not hungry--only weary. Don't bother the women about food. After
a day and night of sleep I'll be quite fit again. Man! But it's good
to be back into the peace of the hills! I've been down where the waves
of civilization roar. Yes, yes; I'll go to my bunk after a bit. The
great menace to our tranquillity here for the winter is the mother."
"But she has improved."
"Good, good. How?"
"She thinks of things around her--and--takes care of the cabin since
Amalia's hurt."
"Hurt? How's that?"
"She sprained her ankle--only, but enough to lay her up for a while."
"I see. Shook her mother out of her dreams."
"Not entirely. I think the improvement comes more from her firm
conviction that you are to bring her husband with you, and Amalia
agrees with me. If you have an excuse that will satisfy her--"
"I see. She was satisfied in her mind that he was alive and would come
to her--I see. Keep her quiet until I wake up and then we'll find a
way out--if the truth is impossible. Now I'll sleep--for a day and a
night and a day--as long as I've been on that forced march. It was to
go back, or try to push through--or die--and I pushed through."
"Don't sleep until I've brought you some hot broth. I'm sure they have
it down there."
"I'll be glad of it, yes."
But he could not keep awake. Before Harry could throw another log on
the fire he was asleep. Then Harry gently drew an army blanket over
him and went out to the stable. There he saddled his own horse and led
him toward the cabin. Before he reached it he saw Amalia coming to
meet him, hobbling on her crutch. She was bareheaded and the light of
morning was in her eyes.
"Ah, 'Arry, 'Arry King! He has come. I see here marks of feet of
horses in the snow--is not? Is well? Is safe? Larry Kildene so noble
and kind! Yes. My mother? No, she prepares the food, and me, I shut
the door when I run out to see is it sun to-day and the terrible snow
no more falling. There I see the marks of horses, yes." She spoke
excitedly, and looked up in Harry's face with smiles on her lips and
anxious appeal in her eyes.
"Throw down that crutch and lean on me. I'll lift you up--There! Now
we'll go back to the cabin and lead Goldbug around a bit, so his
tracks will cover the others and account for them. Then after
breakfast I'll take you to the top of the trail and tell you."
She leaned down to him from her seat on the horse and put her hand on
his shoulder. "Is well? And you--you have not slept? No?"
Looking up in her face so wonderful and beautiful, so filled with
tender solicitude for him, and her glowing eyes fixed on his, he was
covered with confusion even to scarcely comprehending what she said.
He took the hand from his shoulder and kissed the tips of her fingers,
then dropped it and walked on ahead, leading the horse.
"I'm well, yes. Tired a bit, but, oh, yes! Larry Kildene? He's all
right. We'll go out on the trail and consult--what is best to do about
your mother--and say nothing until then."
To Amalia a kiss on the finger tips meant no more than the usual
morning greeting in her own country, and she rode on undisturbed by
his demonstration, which he felt keenly and for which he would have
knelt and begged her pardon. Ever since his first unguarded moment
when he returned and found her fainting on the hillside, he had set
such rigid watch over his actions that his adoration had been
expressed only in service--for the most part silent and with averted
eyes. This aloofness she felt, and with the fineness of her nature
respected, letting her own play of imagination hover away from
intimate intrusion, merely lightening the somber relationship that
would otherwise have existed, like a breeze that stirs only the
surface of a deep pool and sets dancing lights at play but leaves the
depths undisturbed.
Yet, with all her intuitiveness, she found him difficult and
enigmatic. An impenetrable wall seemed to be ever between them,
erected by his will, not hers; therefore she would not try by the
least suggestion of manner, or even of thought, to know why, nor would
she admit to her own spirit the hurt of it. The walled inclosure of
his heart was his, and she must remain without. To have attempted by
any art to get within the boundaries he had set she felt to be
unmaidenly.
In spite of his strength and vigor, Harry was very weary. But less
from his long night's vigil than from the emotions that had torn him
and left his heart heavy with the necessity of covering always this
strong, elemental love that smoldered, waiting in abeyance until it
might leap into consuming flame.
During the breakfast Harry sat silent, while the two women talked a
little with each other, speculating as to the weather, and rejoicing
that the morning was again clear. Then while her mother was occupied,
Amalia, unnoticed, gave him the broth to carry up to the shed, and
there, as Larry still slept, he set it near the fire that it might be
warm and ready for him should he wake during their absence. At the
cabin he brought wood and laid it beside the hearth, and looked about
to see if there were anything more he could do before he spoke.
"Madam Manovska, Amalia and I are going up the trail a little way, and
we may be gone some time, but--I'll take good care of her." He smiled
reassuringly: "We mustn't waste the sunny days. When Mr. Kildene
returns, you also must ride sometimes."
"Ah, yes. When? When? It is long--very long."
"But, maybe, not so long, mamma. Soon now must he come. I think it."
They left her standing in the door as they went off up the trail, the
glistening snow making the world so dazzling in the sunlight, so
blinding to her eyes, used to the obscurity of the cabin, that the
many tracks past the door were unnoticed by her. In silence they
walked until they had almost reached the turn, when Amalia spoke.
"Have you look, how I use but the one crutch, 'Arry King? Soon will I
again walk on my foot, very well. I have so many times to thank you.
Now of mamma we must speak. She thinks only, every day, every hour, of
my father. If we shall speak the truth to her--I do not know. What she
will do--we cannot tell. No. And it is well to keep her heart from too
much sorrow. For Sir Kildene, he must not be afflicted by us--my mamma
and I. We have take from him his house, and he is banish--all for us,
to make pleasant, and what we can do is little, so little--and if my
mamma sit always silent when we should be gay to each other and make
happy the days, is not good, and all his peace will be gone. Now talk
to me a little of your thoughts, 'Arry King."
"My thoughts must be like yours, Amalia, if I would have them wise.
It's best to leave her as undisturbed as possible until spring. The
months will go by rapidly. He will not be troubled. Then we can take
her to some place, where I will see to it that you are cared for--"
The horse suddenly stopped and settled back on his haunches and lifted
his head, looking wildly about. Harry sprang to the bridle, but he did
not try to get away, and only stood quivering and breathing loudly as
if in the direst fear, and leaned close to Harry for protection.
"What ails you? Good horse." Harry petted and coaxed, but he refused
to move on, and showed every sign of frantic fear. "I can't think what
possesses him. He's afraid, but of what?"
"There! There!" cried Amalia, pointing to the top of the trail at the
cliff. "It's the beast. I have read of it--so terrible! Ah!"
"Surely. That's a mountain lion; Goldbug scented him before he rounded
the cliff. They're cowards; never fear." He shouted and flung his arm
in the air, but did not dare let the bridle rein go for fear the horse
would bolt with her. For a moment the beast stood regarding them, then
turned and trotted off in a leisurely fashion.
"'Arry, take my hand one minute. I am like the horse, afraid. If that
animal had come when we were alone on the mountain in that night--it
is my heart that will not stand still."
"Don't be afraid now. He's gone. He was hunting there where I was last
night, and no doubt he smells the horses that came up the mountain
early this morning. It is the snow that has driven him out of the
cañon to hunt for food." He let her cling to his hand and stood
quietly, petting and soothing the horse.
"All night? 'Arry King, you were there all night? Why?" she shivered,
and, bending down, looked steadily in his eyes.
"I had a fire. There was no danger. There is more danger for me in--"
he cut his words short. "Shall we go on now? Or would you rather turn
back?"
She drew herself up and released his hand; still she trembled. "I will
be brave like you are brave. If you so desire, we go on."
"You are really braver than I. Then we'll go a few steps farther." But
the horse would not go on. He snorted and quivered and pulled back.
Harry looked up at Amalia. She sat calmly waiting, but was very pale.
Then he yielded to the horse, and, turning, led him back toward the
cabin. She drew a long sigh of relief then, and glanced at him, and
they both laughed.
"You see I am the coward, to only make believe I am not afraid. I am
very afraid, and now more than always will I be afraid when that you
go to hunt. 'Arry King, go no more alone." Her voice was low and
pleading. "There is much to do. I will teach you to speak the French,
like you have once said you wish to learn. Then is the book to write.
Is much to do that is very pleasant. But of those wild lions on the
hills, they are not for a man to fight alone." He restrained the
horse, and walked slowly at her side, his hand on the pommel of the
saddle, but did not speak. "You promise not? All night you stay in the
cold, where is danger, and how may I know you will not again do such a
thing? All is beautiful here, and great happiness may be if--if that
you do no tragedy." So sweetly did she plead he could no longer remain
silent.
"There is only one happiness for me in life, Amalia, and that is
forbidden me. I have expiation to make before I may ask happiness of
heaven. You have been most patient with my silences--always--will you
be patient still--and--understand?"
She drew in her breath sharply and turned her face away from him, and
for a moment was silent; then she spoke. Her voice was very low, and
very sweet. "What is right, that must be. Always."
Then they spoke again of Madam Manovska, and Amalia opened her heart
to him as never before. It seemed as if she would turn his thoughts
from whatever sorrow might be hanging over him, and impress him with
the feeling that no matter what might be the cause of his reserve, or
what wrong he might have done, her faith in him remained unshaken. It
was a sweet return for his stammered confession.
CHAPTER XXIII
A DISCOURSE ON LYING
All day Larry Kildene slept, hardly waking long enough toward
nightfall to drink his broth, but the next day he was refreshed and
merry.
"Leave Madam Manovska alone," he admonished Harry. "Take Amalia off
for another ride, and I'll go down to the cabin, and if there's a way
to set her mind at rest about her husband, I'll find it. I'd not be
willing to take an oath on what I may tell her, but it will be
satisfying, never fear."
The ride was a short one, for the air was chill, and there were more
signs of snow, but when they returned to the cabin, they found Larry
seated by the fire, drinking a brew of Madam's tea and conversing
with her joyously about his trip and what he had seen of the new
railroad. It was curious how he had succeeded in bringing her to take
an interest in things quite alien to her. The very atmosphere of
the cabin seemed to be cleared by his presence, big, genial, and
all-embracing. Certainly nothing of the recluse appeared in his
demeanor. Only when they were alone in their own quarters did he
show occasionally a longing for the old condition of unmolested
tranquillity. To go to his dinner at a set hour, no matter how well
prepared it might be, annoyed him.
"There's no reason in life why they should get a meal ready merely
because a timepiece says twelve o'clock. Let them wait until a man's
hungry," he would grumble. Then, arrived at the cabin, he would be all
courtesy and geniality.
When Harry rallied him on his inconsistency, he gravely replied: "An
Irish gentleman is an Irish gentleman the world over, no matter where
you find him, in court, camp, or wilderness; it's all one to him. Why
do you think I brought that mirror you shave by all the way up the
mountain? Why, to have a body to look at now and again, and to
blarney, just that I might not forget the trick. What was the good of
that, do you ask? Look at yourself, man. You're a dour Scotchman,
that's what you are, and you keep your humor done up in a wet blanket,
and when it glints out of the corner of your eye a bit, you draw down
the corners of your mouth to belie it. What's the good of that, now?
The world's a rough place to walk in for the most part, especially for
women, and if a man carries a smile on his face and a bit of blarney
on the tip of his tongue, he smooths the way for them. Now, there's
Madam Manovska. What would you and Amalia have done to her? Driven her
clean out of her head with your bungling. In a case like hers you must
be very discreet, and lead her around, by the way she wants to go, to
a place of safety."
Harry smiled. Since his avowal to Amalia of his determination to make
expiation for the crime that clouded his life, he had grown more
cheerful and less restrained in manner. He would accept the present
happiness, and so far as he could without wrong to her, he would fill
his hours with the joy of her companionship, and his love should
dominate him, and his heart should revel in the thought of her, and
her nearness to him; then when the spring should come and melt the
snowy barriers between him and the world below, he would go down and
make his expiation, drinking the bitter cup to the dregs.
This happy imprisonment on the mountain top with these two refined
women and this kindly man with the friendly heart and splendid body
and brain, he deemed worth a lifetime spent more sordidly. Here and
now, he felt himself able to weigh true values, and learned that
the usual ambitions of mortals--houses and gear and places of
precedence--could become the end of existence only to those whose
desires had become distorted by the world's estimates. Now he
understood how a man might live for a woman's smile, or give his life
for the touch of her hand, and how he might hunger for the pressing
of children's lips to his own. The warm friendships of life grew to
their true proportions in the vast scheme of things, as he looked in
the big man's eyes and answered his kindly banter.
"I see. It takes a genius to be a discreet and wise liar. Amalia's
lacking there--for me, I might learn. Now pocket your blarney long
enough to tell me why you called me a Scotchman."
"How would I know the difference between a broncho and a mule? By the
earmarks, boy. I've lived in the world long enough to know men. If
there be only a drop of Scotch blood in a man, he shows it. Like the
mule he brays at the wrong time, or he settles back and stands when he
should go forward. Oh, there's many a sign to enlighten the wise."
He rose and knocked the ashes from his pipe and thrust it in his
pocket and began to look over his pack, which had not been opened. Two
good-sized sacks hung on either side of the pack mule had held most
of his purchases, all carefully tied in separate bundles. The good man
had not been sparing of his gold. Since he had so long exiled himself,
having no use for what he had accumulated, he had now reveled in
spending.
"We're to live like lords and ladies, now, Harry. I've two silver
plates, and they're for the ladies. For us, we'll eat off the tin as
before. And silver mugs for their drink. See? I would have got them
china but it's too likely to break. Now, here's a luxury I've brought,
and it was heavy to carry, too. Here's twenty-four panes of glass. I
carried them, twelve on each side of my horse, like that, slung so,
see? That's two windows of two sash each, and six panes to a sash. Oh,
they're small, but see what a luxury for the women to do their pretty
work by. And there's work for you, to be making the sash. I've done my
share of that sort of thing in building the cabin for you, and
then--young man--I'll set you to digging out the gold. That's work
that'll put the worth of your body to the test, and the day will come
when you'll need it."
"I doubt my ever having much need of gold, but whatever you set me at
I'll do to the best of my ability."
"You may have your doubts, but I have none. Men are like bees; they
must ever be laying by something, even if they have no use for it." As
Larry talked he continued to sort over his purchases, and Harry looked
on, astounded at their variety and number.
While apparently oblivious of the younger man's interest, and absorbed
in his occupation, whistling, and turning the bundles over in his
hands as he tallied them off, he now and then shot a keen glance in
his companion's face. He had noticed the change in Harry, and was
alert to learn the cause. He found him more talkative, more eager and
awake. He suspected Harry had passed through some mental crisis, but
of what nature he was at a loss to determine. Certainly it had made
him a more agreeable companion than the gloom of his former manner.
"I'll dig for the gold, indeed I will, but I'd like to go on a hunt
now and then. I'd like a shot at the beast we saw sniffing over the
spot where I sat all night waiting for you to appear. It will no
longer be safe for Amalia to wander about alone as she did before she
hurt her ankle."
"The creature was after sheep. He'll find his prey growing scarcer now
that the railroad is so near. In ten years or less these mountain
sheep will be extinct. That's the result of civilization, my boy."
"I'd like to shoot this panther, though."
"We'll have to set a bait for him--and that means a deer or a sheep
must go. We'll do it soon, too."
"You've reconciled Madam Manovska to your coming home without her
husband! I didn't think it possible. Give me a lesson in diplomacy,
will you?"
"Wait till I light my pipe. Now. First, you must know there are several
kinds of lying, and you must learn which kinds are permissible--and
otherwise." With his pipe between his teeth, Larry stood, a mock
gravity about his mouth, and a humorous twinkle in his eyes, while he
looked down on Harry, and told off the lies on his fingers.
"First, there's the fool's lie--you'll know it because there's no
purpose in it, and there's the rogue's lie,--and as we're neither
fools nor rogues we'll class them both as--otherwise; then there's
the lie of pride, and, as that goes along with the fool's lie, we'll
throw it out with the--otherwise--and the coward's lie also goes with
the otherwise." Larry shook his fingers as if he tossed the four lies
off from their tips, and began again. "Now. Here's the friend's lie--a
man risks his soul to save a friend--good--or to help him out of
trouble--very well. And then there's the lover's lie, it's what a lad
tells his sweetheart--that goes along with what she tells him--and
comes by way of nature--"
"Or you might class it along with your own blarney."
"Let be, lad. I'm teaching you the diplomacy, now. Then there's the
lie of shame, and the lie of sorrow, wherein a man puts by, for his
own loved one's sake, or his self-respect, what's better covered;
that, too, comes by way of nature, even as a dog crawls away to die
alone, and we'll accept it. Now comes the lie of the man who would
tell a good tale for the amusement of his friends; very well, the
nature of man loves it, so we'll count it in, and along with it comes
a host of little lies like the sportsman's lie and the traveler's
lie--they all help to make life merry, and the world can ill do
without them. But now comes the lie of circumspection. You must learn
to lie it without lying. See? It's the lie of wisdom, and it's a very
subtle thing, and easily abused. If a man uses it for a selfish cause
and merely to pervert the truth, it's a black lie, and one of the very
worst. Or he may use it in a good cause, and it's fairly white. It
must be used with discrimination. That's the lie I used for the poor
Madam down there."
"But what did you say?"
"She says to me, 'And where is my 'usband?' I reply, 'Madam, your
husband is in a very safe and secret place,'--and that is true
enough--'where his enemies will never find him,'--and for all we know
that is also true. 'But I cannot understand why he did not come to me.
That is not like my 'usband.' 'No, Madam, it is not. But man must do
what he must, and the way was too long and arduous for his strength;
he could not take the long, weary climb.' And no more could he, true
enough. 'No, Madam, you cannot go to him, nor he come to you, for the
danger of the way and the wild beasts that are abroad looking for
food.' And what more true than that, for did not her daughter see one
hunting for food?
"So she covers her face with her hand and rocks herself back and
forth, and now, lad, here's where the blarney comes in. It's to tell
her of the worth of her husband, and what a loss it would be to the
world if he were to die on the trail, and what he would suffer if he
thought she were unhappy, and then in the ardor of my speech comes the
straight lie. I told her that he was writing the story of his life and
that it was to be a great work which would bring about a tremendous
revolution of justice and would bring confusion to his enemies, until
at last she holds up her head proudly and speaks of his wonderful
intellect and goodness. Then she says: 'He cannot come to me, very
good. He is not strong enough--no. I go to him to-morrow.' Think of
that, man! What I had to meet, and it was all to go over again. I
would call it very circumspect lying and in a good cause, too, to
comfort the poor soul. I told her of the snow, and how surely she
would die by the way and make her husband very sad, he who was now
happy in the writing of his book, and that to do so would break his
heart and cause his own death,--while to wait until spring in peace
would be wiser, because she might then descend the mountain in perfect
safety. So now she sits sewing and making things no man understands
the use of. She showed me the blouse she has made for you. Now, that
is the best medicine for her sick brain. They're great women, these
two. If we must have women about, we're in luck to have women of their
quality."
"We are, indeed."
"I saw the women who follow the road as it creeps across the plains.
They're pitiful to see. If these had been like them, we'd have been
obliged to take them in just the same, but Lord be merciful to them,
I'm glad they're not on my mountain." Larry shook his ponderous,
grizzled head and turned again to his packages. "Since they love to
sew, they may be making things for themselves next. Look you! Here is
silk for gowns, for women love adornment, the best of them."
Harry paused, his arms full of wood with which he was replenishing the
fire, and stared in amazement, as Larry unrolled a mass of changeable
satin wherein a deep cerise and green coloring shifted and shimmered
in the firelight. He held the rich material up to his own waist and
looked gravely down on the long folds that dropped to the floor and
coiled about his feet. "I told you we're to live like lords and ladies
now. Man! I'd like to see Amalia in a gown of this!"
Harry dropped his wood on the fire and threw back his head and
laughed. He even lay down on the floor to laugh, and rolled about
until his head lay among the folds of satin. Then he sat up, and
taking the material between his fingers felt of it, while the big man
looked down on him, gravely discomfited.
"And what did you bring for Madam Manovska?"
"Black, man, black. I'm no fool, I tell you. I know what's discreet
for an elderly lady." Then they gravely and laboriously folded
together the yards of gorgeous satin. "And I'd have been glad of your
measure to get you the suit of clothes you're needing. Lacking it, I
got one for myself. But for me they're a bit too small. You'll maybe
turn tailor and cut them still smaller for yourself. Take them, and if
they're no fit, you'll laugh out of the other corner of your mouth."
The two men stood a moment sheepishly eying each other, while Harry
held the clothes awkwardly in his hands.
"I--I--did need them." He choked a bit, and then laughed again.
"So did I need them--yours and mine, too." Larry held up another suit,
"See here. Mine are darker, to keep you from thinking them yours. And
here are the buckskins for hunting. I used to make them for myself,
but they had these for sale, and I was by way of spending money, so I
bought them. Now, with the blouses the women have made for you, we're
decent."
All at once it dawned on Harry what a journey the big man had made,
and he fairly shouted, "Larry Kildene, where have you been?"
"I rode like the very devil for three days. When once I was started, I
was crazed to go--and see--Then I reached the end of the road from the
coast this way. Did you know they're building the road from both ways
at once? I didn't, for I never went down to get news of the cities,
and they might have put the whole thing through without my even
knowing of it, if you hadn't tumbled in on me and told me of it.
"It stirred me up a bit. I left my horse in charge of one I thought I
might trust, and then took a train and rode over the new rails clean
through to San Francisco, and there I groveled around a day or two,
taking in the ways of men. They're doing big things. Now that the two
oceans are to be united by iron rails, great changes will come like
the wind,--the Lord knows when they will end! Now, the women will be
wanting us to eat, I'm thinking, and I'm not ready--but eat we must
when the hour comes, and we've done nothing this whole morning but
stand here and talk."
Thus Larry grumbled as they tramped down to the cabin through the
snow, with the rolls of silk under his arm, and the silver plates in
his hand, while Harry carried the sack of coffee and the paper for
Amalia. As they neared the cabin the big man paused.
"Take these things in for me, Harry. I--I--left something back in the
shed. Drop that coffee and I'll fetch it as I come along."
"Now, what kind of a lie would you call that, sir, since it's your
courage you've left?"
"Let be, let be. Can't you see I'm going back after it?"
So Harry carried in the gifts and Larry went back for his "courage"
and donned his new suit of clothes to help him carry it, and then came
walking in with a jovial swagger, and accepted the mother's thanks and
Amalia's embrace with a marvelous ease, especially the embrace, with
which he seemed mightily pleased.
CHAPTER XXIV
AMALIA'S FÊTE
The winter was a cold one, and the snows fell heavily, but a way was
always kept open between the cabin and the fodder shed, and also by
great labor a space was kept cleared around the cabin and a part of
the distance toward the fall so that the women might not be walled in
their quarters by the snow. With plenty to occupy them all, the weeks
sped swiftly and pleasantly. Larry did a little trapping and hunting,
but toward midwinter the sport became dangerous, because of the depth
of the snow, and with the exception of stalking a deer now and then,
for fresh food, he and Harry spent the most of their time burrowing in
the mountain for gold.
Amalia's crutches were gradually laid aside, until she ran about as
lightly as before, but even had she not been prevented by the snow she
would not have been allowed to go far away from the cabin alone. The
men baited and lay in wait for the panther, and at last shot him, but
Larry knew from long experience that when the snows were deep,
panthers often haunted his place, and their tracks were frequently
seen higher up the mountain where he was wont to hunt the mountain
sheep.
Sometimes Harry King rode with Amalia where the wind had swept the way
bare, toward the bend in the trail, and would bring her back glowing
and happy from the exercise. Sometimes when the storms were fierce
without, and he suspected Larry longed for his old-time seclusion, he
sat in the cabin. At these times Amalia redeemed her promise to teach
him French. Few indeed were the books she had for help in giving these
lessons. One little unbound book of old sonnets and songs and a small
pamphlet of more modern poems that her father had loved, were all,
except his Bible, which, although it was in Polish, contained copious
annotations in her father's hand in French, and between the leaves of
which lay loose pages filled with concise and plainly written
meditations of his own.
These Amalia loved and handled with reverence, and for Harry King they
had such vital interest that he learned the more rapidly that he might
know all they contained. He no longer wondered at her power and
breadth of thought. As he progressed he found in them a complete
system of ethics and religious faith. Their writer seemed to have
drawn from all sources intrinsically vital truths, and separated them
from their encumbering theologic verbiage and dogma, and had traced
them simply through to the great "Sermon on the Mount." In a few pages
this great man had comprised the deepest logic, and the sweetest and
widest theology, enough for all the world to live by, and enough to
guide nations in safety, if only all men might learn it.
It was sufficient. He knew Amalia better, and more deeply he
reverenced and loved her. He no longer quivered when he heard her
mention the "Virgin" or when she spoke of the "Sweet Christ." It was
not what his old dogmatic ancestry had fled from as "Popery." It was
her simple, direct faith in the living Christ, which gave her eyes
their clear, far-seeing vision, and her heart its quick, responsive
intuition and understanding. She might speak of the convent where she
had been protected and loved, and taught many things useful and good,
other than legends and doctrines. She had learned how, through her
father's understanding and study, to gather out the good, and leave
the rest, in all things.
And Harry learned his French. He was an apt scholar, and Larry fell in
line, for he had not forgotten the scholastic Latin and French of his
college days. He liked, indeed, to air his French occasionally,
although his accent was decidedly English, but his grammar was good
and a great help to Harry. Madam Manovska also enjoyed his efforts and
suggested that when they were all together they should converse in the
French alone, not only that they might help Harry, but also that they
might have a common language. It was to her and Amalia like their
native tongue, and their fluency for a time quite baffled Larry, but
he was determined not to be beaten, and when Harry faltered and
refused to go on, he pounded him on the back, and stirred him up to
try again.
Although Amalia's convent training had greatly restricted her
knowledge of literature other than religious, her later years of
intimate companionship with her father, and her mother's truly
remarkable knowledge of the classics and fearless investigation of the
modern thought of her day, had enlarged Amalia's horizon; while her
own vivid imagination and her native geniality caused her to lighten
always her mother's more somber thought with a delicate and gracious
play of fancy that was at once fascinating and delightful. This, and
Harry's determination to live to the utmost in these weeks of respite,
made him at times almost gay.
Most of all he reveled in Amalia's music. Certain melodies that she
said her father had made he loved especially, and sometimes she would
accompany them with a plaintive chant, half singing and half
recitation, of the sonnet which had inspired them, and which had been
woven through them. It was at these times that Larry listened with his
elbows on his knees and his eyes fixed on the fire, and Harry with his
eyes on Amalia's face, while the cabin became to him glorified with a
light, no longer from the flames, but with a radiance like that which
surrounded Dante's Beatrice in Paradise.
Amalia loved to please Larry Kildene. For this reason, knowing the joy
he would take in it, and also because she loved color and light and
joy, and the giving of joy, she took the gorgeous silk he had brought
her, and made it up in a fashion of her own. Down in the cities, she
knew, women were wearing their gowns spread out over wide hoops, but
she made the dress as she knew they were worn at the time Larry had
lived among women and had seen them most.
The bodice she fitted closely and shaped into a long point in front,
and the skirt she gathered and allowed to fall in long folds to her
feet. The sleeves she fitted only to her elbows, and gathered in them
deep lace of her own making--lace to dream about, and the creation of
which was one of those choice things she had learned of the good
sisters at the convent. About her neck she put a bertha, kerchiefwise,
and pinned it with a brooch of curiously wrought gold. Larry, "the
discreet and circumspect liar," thought of the emerald brooch she had
brought him to sell for her, and knowing how it would glow and blend
among the changing tints of the silk, he fetched it to her, explaining
that he could not sell it, and that the bracelet had covered all she
had asked him to purchase for her, and some to spare.
She thanked him, and fastened it in her bodice, and handed the other
to her mother. "There, mamma, when we have make you the dress Sir
Kildene have brought you, you must wear this, for it is beautiful with
the black. Then we will have a fête. And for the fête, Sir Kildene,
you must wear the very fine new clothes you have buy, and Mr. 'Arry
will carry on him the fine new clothing, and so will we be all attire
most splendid. I will make for you all the music you like the best,
and mamma will speak then the great poems she have learned by head,
and Sir Kildene will tell the story he can relate so well of strange
happenings. Oh, it will be a fine, good concert we will make here--and
you, Mr. 'Arry, what will you do?"
"I'll do the refreshments. I'll roast corn and make coffee. I'll be
audience and call for more."
"Ah, yes! Encore! Encore! The artists must always be very much
praised--very much--so have I heard, to make them content. It is Sir
Kildene who will be the great artist, and you must cry 'Encore,' and
honor him greatly with such calls. Then will we have the pleasure to
hear many stories from him. Ah, I like to hear them."
It was a strange life for Harry King, this odd mixture of finest
culture and high-bred delicacy of manner, with what appeared to be a
total absence of self-seeking and a simple enjoyment of everyday work.
He found Amalia one morning on her knees scrubbing the cabin floor,
and for the moment it shocked him. When they were out on the plains
camping and living as best they could, he felt it to be the natural
consequence of their necessities when he saw her washing their clothes
and making the best of their difficulties by doing hard things with
her own hands, but now that they were living in a civilized way, he
could not bear to see her, or her mother, doing the rough work. Amalia
only laughed at him. "See how fine we make all things. If I will not
serve for making clean the house, why am I? Is not?"
"It doesn't make any difference what you do, you are always
beautiful."
"Ah, Mr. 'Arry, you must say those compliments only in the French. It
is no language, the English, for those fine eloquences."
"No, I don't seem to be able to say anything I mean, in French. It's
always a sort of make-believe talk with me. Our whole life here seems
a sort of dream,--as if we were living in some wonderful bubble that
will suddenly burst one day, and leave us floating alone in space,
with nothing anywhere to rest on."
"No, no, you are mistake. Here is this floor, very real, and dirt on
it to be washed away,--from your boots, also very real, is not? Go
away, Mr. 'Arry, but come to-night in your fine clothing, for we have
our fête. Mamma has finish her beautiful new dress, and we will be
gay. Is good to be sometimes joyful, is not? We have here no care,
only to make happy together, and if we cannot do that, all is
somber."
And that evening indeed, Amalia had her "fête." Larry told his best
stories, and Harry was persuaded to tell them a little of his life as
a soldier, and to sing a camp song. More than this he would not do,
but he brought out something he had been reserving with pride, a few
little nuggets of gold. During the weeks he had worked he had found
little, until the last few days, but happening to strike a vein of
ore, richer than any Larry had ever found, the two men were greatly
elated, and had determined to interest the women by melting some of it
out of the quartz in which it was bedded, and turning out for each a
golden bullet in Larry's mold.
They heaped hard wood in the fireplace and the cabin was lighted most
gloriously. While they waited for the red coals to melt the gold,
Amalia took her violin and played and sang. It was nearly time for the
rigor of the winter to abate, but still a high wind was blowing, and
the fine snow was piling and drifting about the cabin, and even
sifting through the chinks around the window and door, but the storm
only made the brightness and warmth within more delightful.
When Larry drew his crucible from the coals and poured the tiny
glowing stream into his molds, Amalia cried out with joy. "How that is
beautiful! How wonderful to dig such beauty from the dark ground down
in the black earth! Ah, mamma, look!"
Then Larry pounded each one flat like a coin, and drilled through a
small hole, making thus, for each, a souvenir of the shining metal.
"This is from Harry's first mining," he said, "and it represents good,
hard labor. He's picked out a lot of worthless dirt and stone to find
this."
Amalia held the little disk in her hand and smiled upon it. "I love so
this little precious thing. Now, Mr. 'Arry, what shall I play for you?
It is yours to ask--for me, to play; it is all I have."
"That sonnet you played me yesterday. The last line is, '"Quelle est
donc cette femme?" et ne comprenda pas.'"
"The music of that is not my father's best--but you ask it, yes." Then
she began, first playing after her own heart little dancing airs, gay
and fantastic, and at last slid into a plaintive strain, and recited
the accompaniment of rhythmic words.
"Mon âme a son secret, ma vie a son mystère:
Un amour eternel en un moment concu.
Le mal est sans espoir, aussi j'ai du le taire
Et celle qui l'a fait n'en a jamais rien su."
One minor note came and went and came again, through the melody, until
the last tones fell on that note and were held suspended in a
tremulous plaint.
"Elle dira, lisant ces vers tout remplis d'elle:
'Quelle est donc cette femme?' et ne comprendra pas."
Without pause she passed into a quick staccato and then descended
to long-drawn tones, deep and full. "This is better, but I have never
played it for you because that it is Polish, and to make it in
English and so sing it is hard. You have heard of our great and good
general Kosciuszko, yes? My father loved well to speak of him and
also of one very high officer under him,--I speak his name for you,
Julian Niemcewicz. This high officer, I do not know how to say in
English his rank, but that is no matter. He was writer, and poet,
and soldier--all. At last he was exiled and sorrowful, like my
father,--sorrowful most of all because he might no more serve his
country. It is to this poet's own words which he wrote for his grave
that my father have put in music the cry of his sorrow. In Polish
is it more beautiful, but I sing it for you in English for your
comprehending."
"O, ye exiles, who so long wander over the world,
Where will ye find a resting place for your weary steps?
The wild dove has its nest, and the worm a clod of earth,
Each man a country, but the Pole a grave!"
It was indeed a cry of sorrow, the wail of a dying nation, and as
Amalia played and sang she became oblivious of all else a being
inspired by lofty emotion, while the two men sat in silence, wondering
and fascinated. The mother's eyes glowed upon her out of the obscurity
of her corner, and her voice alone broke the silence.
"I have heard my Paul in the night of the desert where he made that
music, I have heard him so play and sing it, that it would seem the
stars must fall down out of the heavens with sorrow for it."
Amalia smiled and caught up her violin again. "We will have no more of
this sad music this night. I will sing the wild song of the Ukraine,
most beautiful of all our country, alas, ours no more--Like that
other, the music is my father's, but the poem is written by a son of
the Ukraine--Zaliski."
A melody clear and sweet dominated, mounting to a note of triumph.
Slender and tall she stood in the middle of the room. The firelight
played on the folds of her gown, bringing out its color in brilliant
flashes. She seemed to Harry, with her rich complexion and glowing
eyes, absorbed thus in her music, a type of human splendor, vigorous,
vivid, adorable. Mostly in Polish, but sometimes in English, she again
half sang, half chanted, now playing with the voice, and again
dropping to accompaniment only, while they listened, the mother in
the shadows, Larry gazing in the fire, and Harry upon her.
"Me also has my mother, the Ukraine,
Me her son
Cradled on her bosom,
The enchantress."
She ceased, and with a sigh dropped at her mother's feet and rested
her head on her mother's knee.
"Tell us now, mamma, a poem. It is time we finish now our fête with
one good, long poem from you."
"You will understand me?" Madam Manovska turned to Harry. "You do well
understand what once you have heard--" She always spoke slowly and
with difficulty when she undertook English, and now she continued
speaking rapidly to Amalia in her own tongue, and her daughter
explained.
"Mamma says she will tell you a poem composed by a great poet, French,
who is now, for patriotism to his country, in exile. His name is
Victor Hugo. You have surely heard of him? Yes. She says she will
repeat this which she have by head, and because that it is not
familiar to you she asks will I tell it in English--if you so
desire?"
Again Madam Manovska addressed her daughter, and Amalia said: "She
thinks this high mountain and the plain below, and that we are exile
from our own land, makes her think of this; only that the conscience
has never for her brought terror, like for Cain, but only to those who
have so long persecuted my father with imprisonment, and drive him so
far to terrible places. She thinks they must always, with never
stopping, see the 'Eye' that regards forever. This also must Victor
Hugo know well, since for his country he also is driven in exile--and
can see the terrible 'Eye' go to punish his enemies."
Then Madam Manovska began repeating in her strong, deep tones the
lines:--
"Lorsque avec ses enfants vetus de peaux de bêtes,
Echevele, livide au milieu des tempètes,
Cain se fut enfui de devant Jehovah,
"Comme le soir tombait, l'homme sombre arriva
Au bas d'une montagne en une grande plaine;
Sa femme fatiguée et ses fils hors d'haleine;
Lui dire: 'Couchons-nous sur la terre et dormons.'"
"Oh, mamma, that is so sad, that poem,--but continue--I will make it
in English so well as I can, and for the mistakes--errors--of my
telling you will forgive?
"This is the story of the terrible man, Cain, how he go with his
children all in the skins of animals dressed. His hairs so wild, his
face pale,--he runs in the midst of the storms to hide himself from
God,--and, at last, in the night to the foot of a mountain on a great
plain he arrive, and his wife and sons, with no breath and very tired,
say to him, let us here on the earth lie down and sleep." Thus, as
Madam Manovska recited, Amalia told the story in her own words, and
Harry King listened rapt and tense to the very end, while the fire
burned low and the shadows closed around them.
"But Cain did not sleep, lying there by the mountain, for he saw
always in the far shadows the fearful Eye of the condemning power
fixed with great sorrow upon him. Then he cried, 'I am too near!' and
with trembling he awoke his children and his wife, and began to run
furiously into space. So for thirty days and thirty nights he walked,
always pale and silent, trembling, and never to see behind him,
without rest or sleeping, until they came to the shore of a far
country, named Assur.
"'Now rest we here, for we are come to the end of the world and are
safe,' but, as he seated himself and looked, there in the same place
on the far horizon he saw, in the sorrowful heavens, the Eye. Then
Cain called on the darkness to hide him, and Jabal, his son, parent of
those who live in tents, extended about him on that side the cloth of
his tent, and Tsilla, the little daughter of his son, asked him, 'You
see now nothing?' and Cain replied, 'I see the Eye, encore!'
"Then Jubal, his son, father of those who live in towns and blow upon
clarions and strike upon tambours, cried, 'I will make one barrier, I
will make one wall of bronze and put Cain behind it.' But even still,
Cain said, 'The Eye regards me always!'
"Then Henoch said: 'I will make a place of towers so terrible that no
one dare approach to him. Build we a city of citadels. Build we a city
and there fasten--shut--close.'
"Then Tubal Cain, father of men who make of iron, constructed one
city--enormous--superhuman; and while that he labored, his brothers in
the plain drove far away the sons of Enos and the children of Seth,
and put out the eyes of all who passed that way, and the night came
when the walls of covering of tents were not, and in their place were
walls of granite, every block immense, fastened with great nails of
iron, and the city seemed a city of iron, and the shadow of its towers
made night upon the plain, and about the city were walls more high
than mountains, and when all was done, they graved upon the door,
'Defense a Dieu d'entrer,' and they put the old father Cain in a tower
of stone in the midst of this city, and he sat there somber and
haggard.
"'Oh, my father, the Eye has now disappeared?' asked the child,
Tsilla, and Cain replied: 'No, it is always there! I will go and live
under the earth, as in his sepulcher, a man alone. There nothing can
see me more, and I no more can see anything.'
"Then made they for him one--cavern. And Cain said, 'This is well,'
and he descended alone under this somber vault and sat upon a seat in
the shadows, and when they had shut down the door of the cave, the Eye
was there in the tombs regarding him."
Thus, seated at her mother's feet, Amalia rendered the poem as her
mother recited, while the firelight played over her face and flashed
in the silken folds of her dress. When she had finished, the fire was
low and the cabin almost in darkness. No one spoke. Larry still gazed
in the dying embers, and Harry still sat with his eyes fixed on
Amalia's face.
"Victor Hugo, he is a very great man, as my 'usband have say," said
the mother at last.
"Ah, mamma. For Cain,--maybe,--yes, the Eye never closed, but now have
man hope or why was the Christ and the Holy Virgin? It is the
forgiving of God they bring--for--for love of the poor human,--and who
is sorrowful for his wrong--he is forgive with peace in his heart, is
not?"
CHAPTER XXV
HARRY KING LEAVES THE MOUNTAIN
When the two men bade Amalia and her mother good night and took their
way to the fodder shed, the snow was whirling and drifting around the
cabin, and the pathway was obliterated.
"This'll be the last storm of the year, I'm thinking," said Larry. But
the younger man strode on without making a reply. He bent forward,
leaning against the wind, and in silence trod a path for his friend
through the drifted heaps. At the door of the shed he stood back to
let Larry pass.
"I'll not go in yet. I'll tramp about in the snow a bit until--Don't
sit up for me--" He turned swiftly away into the night, but Larry
caught him by the arm and brought him back.
"Come in with me, lad; I'm lonely. We'll smoke together, then we'll
sleep well enough."
Then Harry went in and built up the fire, throwing on logs until the
shed was flooded with light and the bare rock wall seemed to leap
forward in the brilliance, but he did not smoke; he paced restlessly
about and at last crept into his bunk and lay with his face to the
wall. Larry sat long before the fire. "It's the music that's got in my
blood," he said. "Katherine could sing and lilt the Scotch airs like a
bird. She had a touch for the instrument, too."
But Harry could not respond to his friend's attempted confidence in
the rare mention of his wife's name. He lay staring at the rough stone
wall close to his face, and it seemed to him that his future was
bounded by a barrier as implacable and terrible as that. All through
the night he heard the deep tones of Madam Manovska's voice, and the
visions of the poem passed through his mind. He saw the strange old
man, the murderer, Cain, seated in the tomb, bowed and remorseful, and
in the darkness still the Eye. But side by side with this somber
vision he saw the interior of the cabin, and Amalia, glowing and warm
and splendid in her rich gown, with the red firelight playing over
her, leaning toward him, her wonderful eyes fixed on his with a regard
at once inscrutable and sympathetic. It was as if she were looking
into his heart, but did not wish him to know that she saw so deeply.
Towards morning the snow clouds were swept from the sky, and a late
moon shone out clear and cold upon a world carved crisply out of
molten silver. Unable longer to bear that waking torture, Harry King
rose and went out into the night, leaving his friend quietly sleeping.
He stood a moment listening to Larry's long, calm breathing; then
buttoning his coat warmly across his chest, he closed the shed door
softly behind him and floundered off into the drifts, without heeding
the direction he was taking, until he found himself on the brink of
the chasm where the river, sliding smoothly over the rocks high above
his head, was forever tumbling.
There he stood, trembling, but not with cold, nor with cowardice, nor
with fatigue. Sanity had come upon him. He would do no untoward act to
hurt the three people who would grieve for him. He would bear the hurt
of forever loving in silence, and continue to wait for the open road
that would lead him to prison and disgrace, or maybe a death of shame.
He considered, as often before, all the arguments that continually
fretted him and tore his spirit; and, as before, he knew the only
course to follow was the hard one which took him back to Amalia, until
spring and the melting of the snows released him--to live near her, to
see her and hear her voice, even touch her hand, and feel his body
grow tense and hard, suffering restraint. If only for one moment he
might let himself go! If but once again he might touch her lips with
his! Ah, God! If he might say one word of love--only once before
leaving her forever!
Standing there looking out upon the world beneath him and above him
bathed in the immaculate whiteness of the snow, and the moonlight over
all, he perceived how small an atom in the universe is one lone man,
yet how overwhelmingly great in his power to love. It seemed to him
that his love overtopped the hills and swept to the very throne of
God. He was exalted by it, and in this exaltation it was that he
trembled. Would it lift him up to triumph over remorse and death?
He turned and plodded back the inevitable way. It was still
night--cold and silver-white. He was filled with energy born of great
renunciation and despair, and could only calm himself by work. If he
could only work until he dropped, or fight with the elements, it would
help him. He began clearing the snow from the ground around the cabin
and cut the path through to the shed; then he quietly entered and
found Larry still calmly sleeping as if but a moment had passed.
Finally, he secured one of the torches and made his way through the
tunnel to the place where Larry and he had found the quartz which they
had smelted in the evening.
There he fastened the torch securely in a crevice, and began to swing
his pick and batter recklessly at the overhanging ledge. Never had he
worked so furiously, and the earth and stone lay all about him and
heaped at his feet. Deeper and deeper he fought and cut into the solid
wall, until, grimed with sweat and dirt, he sank exhausted upon the
pile of quartz he had loosened. Then he shoveled it to one side and
began again dealing erratic blows with his spent strength, until the
ledge hung dangerously over him. As it was, he reeled and swayed and
struck again, and staggered back to gather strength for another blow,
leaning on his pick, and this saved him from death; for, during the
instant's pause, the whole mass fell crashing in front of him, and he
went down with it, stunned and bleeding, but not crushed.
Larry Kildene breakfasted and worked about the cabin and the shed half
the day before he began to wonder at the young man's absence. He fell
to grumbling that Harry had not fed and groomed his horse, and did the
work himself. Noon came, and Amalia looked in his face anxiously as he
entered and Harry not with him.
"How is it that Mr. 'Arry have not arrive all this day?"
"Oh, he's mooning somewhere. Off on a tramp I suppose."
"Has he then his gun? No?"
"No, but he's been about. He cleared away all the snow, and I saw he
had been over to the fall." Amalia turned pale as the shrewd old man's
eyes rested on her. "He came back early, though, for I saw footprints
both ways."
"I hope he comes soon, for we have the good soup to-day, of the kind
Mr. 'Arry so well likes."
But he did not come soon, and it was with much misgiving that Larry
set out to search for him. Finding no trails leading anywhere except
the twice trodden one to the fall, he naturally turned into the mine
and followed along the path, torch in hand, hallooing jovially as he
went, but his voice only returned to him, reverberating hollowly.
Then, remembering the ledge where they had last worked, and how he had
meant to put in props before cutting away any more, he ran forward,
certain of calamity, and found his young friend lying where he had
fallen, the blood still oozing from a cut above the temple, where it
had clotted.
For a moment Larry stood aghast, thinking him dead, but quickly seeing
the fresh blood, he lifted the limp body and bound up the wound, and
then Harry opened his eyes and smiled in Larry's face. The big man in
his joy could do nothing but storm and scold.
"Didn't I tell ye to do no more here until we'd the props in? I'm
thinking you're a fool, and that's what you are. If I didn't tell ye
we needed them here, you could have seen it for yourself--and here
you've cut away all underneath. What did you do it for? I say!"
Tenderly he gathered Harry in his arms and lifted him from the débris
and loosened rock. "Now! Are you hurt anywhere else? Don't try to
stand. Bear on me. I say, bear on me."
"Oh, put me down and let me walk. I'm not hurt. Just a cut. How long
have you been here?"
"Walk! I say! Yes, walk! Put your arm here, across my shoulder, so.
You can walk as well as a week-old baby. You've lost blood enough to
kill a man." So Larry carried him in spite of himself, and laid him in
his bunk. There he stood, panting, and looking down on him. "You're
heavier by a few pounds than when I toted you down that trail last
fall."
"This is all foolishness. I could have made it myself--on foot," said
Harry, ungratefully, but he smiled up in the older man's face a
compensating smile.
"Oh, yes. You can lie there and grin now. And you'll continue to lie
there until I let you up. It's no more lessons with Amalia and no more
violin and poetry for you, for one while, young man."
"Thank God. It will help me over the time until the trail is open."
Larry stood staring foolishly on the drawn face and quivering,
sensitive lips.
"You're hungry, that's what you are," he said conclusively.
"Guess I am. I'm wretchedly sorry to make you all this trouble,
but--she mustn't come in here--you'll bring me a bite to eat--yes, I'm
hungry. That's what ails me." He drew a grimy hand across his eyes and
felt the bandage. "Why--you've done me up! I must have had quite a
cut."
"I'll wash your face and get your coat off, and your boots, and make
you fit to look at, and then--"
"I don't want to see her--or her mother--either. I'm just--I'm a bit
faint--I'll eat if--you'll fetch me a bite."
Quickly Larry removed his outer clothing and mended the fire and then
left him carefully wrapped in blankets and settled in his bunk. When
he returned, he found him light-headed and moaning and talking
incoherently. Only a few words could he understand, and these remained
in his memory.
"When I'm dead--when I'm dead, I say." And then, "Not yet. I can't
tell him yet.--I can't tell him the truth. It's too cruel." And again
the refrain: "When I'm dead--when I'm dead." But when Larry bent over
him and spoke, Harry looked sanely in his eyes and smiled again.
"Ah, that's good," he said, sipping the soup. "I'll be myself again
to-morrow, and save you all this trouble. You know I must have
accomplished a good deal, to break off that ledge, and the gold fairly
leaped out on me as I worked."
"Did you see it?"
"No, but I knew it--I felt it. Shake my clothes and see if they aren't
full of it."
"Was that what put you in such a frenzy and made a fool of you?"
"Yes--no--no. It--it--wasn't that."
"You know you were a fool, don't you?"
"If telling me of it makes me know it--yes."
"Eat a little more. Here are beans and venison. You must eat to make
up the loss. Why, man, I found you in a pool of blood."
"Oh, I'll make it up. I'll make it up all too soon. I'm not to die so
easily."
"You'll not make it up as soon as you think, young man. You may lose a
quart of blood in a minute, but it takes weeks to get it again," and
Harry King found his friend was right.
That was the last snow of winter, as Larry had predicted, and when
Harry crawled out in the sun, the earth smelled of spring, and the
waterfall thundered in its downward plunge, augmented by the melting
snows of the still higher mountains. The noise of it was ever in their
ears, and the sound seemed fraught with a buoyant impulse and
inspiration--the whirl and rush of a tremendous force, giving a sense
of superhuman power. Even after he was really able to walk about and
help himself, Harry would not allow himself to see Amalia. He forbade
Larry to tell them how much he was improved, and still taxed his
friend to bring him up his meals, and sit by him, telling him the
tales of his life.
"I'll wait on you here no longer, boy," said Larry, at last. "What in
life are you hiding in this shed for? The women think it strange of
you--the mother does, anyway,--you may never quite know what her
daughter thinks unless she wishes you to know, but I'm sure she thinks
strange of you. She ought to."
"I know. I'm perfectly well and strong. The trail's open now, and I'll
go--I'll go back--where I came from. You've been good to me--I can't
say any more--now."
"Smoke a pipe, lad, smoke a pipe."
Harry took a pipe and laughed. "You're better than any pipe, but I'll
smoke it, and I'll go down, yes, I must, and bid them good-by."
"And will you have nothing to tell me, lad, before you go?"
"Not yet. After I've made my peace with the world--with the law--I'll
have a letter sent you--telling all I know. You'll forgive me. You
see, when I look back--I wish to see your face--as I see it
now--not--not changed towards me."
"My face is not one to change toward you--you who have repented
whatever you've done that's wrong."
That evening Harry King went down to the cabin and sat with his three
friends and ate with them, and told them he was to depart on the
morrow. They chatted and laughed and put restraint away from them, and
all walked together to watch the sunset from a crag above the cabin.
As they returned Madam Manovska walked at Harry's side, and as she
bade him good night she said in her broken English:--
"You think not to return--no? But I say to you--in my soul I know
it--yet will you return--we no more to be here--perhaps--but you--yes.
You will return."
They stood a moment before the cabin, and the firelight streamed
through the open door and fell on Amalia's face. Harry took the
mother's hand as he parted from them, but he looked in Amalia's eyes.
In the morning he appeared with his kit strapped on his back equipped
for walking. The women protested that he should not go thus, but he
said he could not take Goldbug and leave him below. "He is yours,
Amalia. Don't beat him. He's a good horse--he saved my life--or tried
to."
"You know well it is my custom to beat animals. It is better you take
him, or I beat him severely."
"I know it. But you see, I can't take him. Ride him for me, and--don't
let him forget me. Good-by!"
He waved his hand and walked lightly away, and all stood in the
doorway watching him. At the top of a slight rise he turned again and
waved his hand, and was lost to their sight. Then Larry went back to
the shed and sat by the fire and smoked a lonely pipe, and the mother
began busily to weave at her lace in the cabin, closing the door, for
the morning air was chilly, and Amalia--for a moment she stood at the
cabin door, her hand pressed to her heart, her head bowed as if in
despair. Then she entered the cabin, caught up her silken shawl, and
went out.
Throwing the shawl over her head she ran along the trail Harry had
taken, until she was out of breath, then she paused, and looked back,
hesitating, quivering. Should she go on? Should she return?
"I will go but a little--little way. Maybe he stops a moment, if only
to--to--think a little," and she went on, hurrying, then moving more
slowly. She thought she might at least catch one more fleeting glimpse
of him as he turned the bend in the trail, but she did not. "Ah, he is
so quickly gone!" she sighed, but still walked on.
Yes, so quickly gone, but he had stopped as she thought, to think a
little, beyond the bend, there where he had waited the long night in
the snow for Larry Kildene, there where he had sat like Elijah of old,
despairing, under the juniper tree. He felt weary and old and worn. He
thought his youth had gone from him forever, but what matter? What was
youth without hope? Youth, love, life, all were to be relinquished. He
closed his eyes to the wonder of the hills and the beauty before him,
yet he knew they were there with their marvelous appeal, and he sat
with bowed head.
"'Arry! 'Arry King!" He raised his head, and there before him were all
that he had relinquished--youth, love, life.
He ran and caught her to him, as one who is drowning catches at life.
"You have leave me so coldly, 'Arry King." He pressed her cheek to
his. "You did not even speak to me a little." He kissed her lips. "You
have break my heart." He held her closer to his own. "Why have you
been so cold--like--like the ice--to leave me so hard--like--like--"
"To save you from just this, Amalia. To save you from the touch of my
hand--this is the crime I have fought against."
"No. To love is not crime."
"To dare to love--with the curse on my head that I feel as Cain felt
it--is crime. In the Eye he saw it always--as I--I--see it. To touch
you--it is like bringing the crime and curse on you, and through your
beautiful love making you suffer for it. See, Amalia? It was all I
could do to go out of your life and say nothing." His voice trembled
and his hand quivered as it rested on her hair. "I sat here to fight
it. My heart--my heart that I have not yet learned to conquer--was
pulling me back to you. I was faint and old. I could walk no farther
until the fight was won. Oh, Amalia--Amalia! Leave me alone, with the
curse on my head! It is not yours."
"No, and it is not yours. You have repent. I do not believe that poem
my mother is thinking so great. It is the terror of the ancient ones,
but to-day, no more. Take this. It is for you I bring it. I have wear
it always on my bosom, wear it now on yours."
She quickly unclasped from her neck a threadlike chain of gold, and
drew from her bosom a small ivory crucifix, to which it was attached.
Reaching up, she clasped it around his neck, and thrust the cross in
his bosom. Then, thinking he meant to protest, she seized his hands
and held them, and her words came with the impetuous rush of her
thoughts.
"No charm will help, Amalia. I killed my friend."
"Ah, no, 'Arry King! Take this of me. It is not as you think for one
charm I give it. No. It is for the love of Christ--that you remember
and think of it. For that I wear it. For that I give it to you. If
you have repent, and have the Christ in your heart, so are you
high--lifted above the sin, and if they take you--if they put the iron
on your hands--Ah, I know, it is there you go to give yourself
up,--if they keep you forever in the prison, still forever are you
free. If they put you to the death to be satisfied of the law, then
quickly are you alive in Paradise with Christ. Listen, it is for
the love that you give yourself up--for the sorrowfulness in your
heart that you have killed your friend? Is not? Yes. So is good.
See. Look to the hills, the high mountains, all far around us?
They are beautiful. They are yours. God gives you. And the sky--so
clear--and the bright sun and the spring life and the singing of the
birds? All are yours--God gives. And the love in your heart--for me?
God gives, yes, and for the one you have hurt? Yes. God gives it.
And for the Christ who so loves you? Yes. So is the love the great
life of God in you. It is yours. Listen. Go with the love in your
heart--for me,--it will not hurt. It will be sweet to me. I carry
no curse for you, as you say. It is gone. If I see you again in
this world--as may be--is joy--great joy. If I see you no more
here, yet in Paradise I will see you, and there also it will be joy,
for it is the love that is all of life, and all of eternity, and
lives--lives!"
Again he held her to his heart in a long embrace, and, when at last he
walked down the trail into the desert, he still felt her tears on his
cheek, her kisses on his lips, and her heart against his own.
BOOK THREE
CHAPTER XXVI
THE LITTLE SCHOOL-TEACHER
On a warm day in May, a day which opens the crab-apple blossoms and
sets the bees humming, and the children longing for a chance to pull
off shoes and stockings and go wading in the brook; on such a day the
door of the little schoolhouse stood open and the sunlight lay in a
long patch across the floor toward the "teacher's desk," and the
breeze came in and tossed a stray curl about her forehead, and the
children turned their heads often to look at the round clock on the
wall, watching for the slowly moving hands to point to the hour of
four.
It was a mixed school. Children of all ages were there, from naughty
little Johnnie Cole of five to Mary Burt and Hilton Le Moyne of
seventeen and nineteen, who were in algebra and the sixth reader. It
was well known by the rest of the children why Hilton Le Moyne
lingered in the school this year all through May and June, instead of
leaving in April, as usual, to help his uncle on the farm. It was
"Teacher." He was in love with her, and always waited after school,
hoping for a chance to walk home with her.
Poor boy! Black haired, red cheeked, and big hearted, he knew his love
was hopeless, for he was younger than she--not so much; but there was
Tom Howard who was also in love with her, and he had a span of sorrel
horses which he had raised and broken himself, and they were his own,
and he could come at any time--when she would let him--and take her
out riding.
Ah, that was something to aspire to! Such a team as that, and
"Teacher" to sit by his side and drive out with him, all in her pretty
flat hat with a pink rose on it and green ribbons flying, and her
green parasol over her head--sitting so easily--just leaning forward a
bit and turning and laughing at what he was saying, and all the town
seeing her with him, and his harness shining and new, making the team
look as splendid as the best livery in town, and his buggy all painted
so bright and new--well! The time would come when he too would have
such an outfit. It would. And Teacher would see that Tom Howard was
not the only one who could drive up after her in such style.
Little Teacher was tired to-day. The children had been restless and
noisy, and her heart had been heavy with a great disappointment. She
had been carefully saving her small salary that she might go when
school closed and take a course at the "Art Institute" in "Technique."
For a long time she had clung to the idea that she would become an
illustrator, and a great man had told her father that "with a little
instruction in technique" his daughter had "a fortune at the tips of
her fingers." Only technique! Yes, if she could get it!
Father could help her, of course, only father was a painter in oils
and not an illustrator--and then--he was so driven, always, and father
and mother both thought it would be best for her to take the course of
study recommended by the great man. So it was decided, for there was
Martha married and settled in her home not far away from the
Institute, and Teacher could live with her and study. Ah, the
long-coveted chance almost within her reach! Then--one difficulty
after another intervened, beginning with a great fire in the fall
which swept away Martha's home and all they had accumulated, together
with her husband's school, rendering it necessary for the young couple
to go back to Leauvite for the winter.
"Never mind, Betty, dear," Martha had encouraged her. "We'll return in
the spring and start again, and you can take the course just the
same."
But now a general financial stringency prevailed all over the country.
"It always seems, when there's a 'financial stringency,' that
portraits and paintings are the things people economize on first of
all," said Betty.
"Naturally," said Mary Ballard. "When people need food and clothing--they
want them, and not pictures. We'll just have to wait, dear."
"Yes, we'll have to wait, Mary." Saucy Betty had a way of calling her
mother "Mary." "Your dress is shabby, and you need a new bonnet; I
noticed it in church,--you'd never speak of that, though. You'd wear
your winter's bonnet all summer."
Yes, Betty must see to it, even if it took every bit of the fund, that
mother and Janey were suitably dressed. "Never mind, Mary, I'll catch
up some day. You needn't look sorry. I'm all right about my own
clothes, for Martha gave me a rose for my hat, and the new ribbons
make it so pretty,--and my green parasol is as good as new for all
I've had it three years, and--"
Betty stopped abruptly. Three years!--was it so long since that
parasol was new--and she was so happy--and Richard came home--? The
family were seated on the piazza as they were wont to be in the
evening, and Betty walked quietly into the house, and up to her room.
Bertrand Ballard sighed, and his wife reached out and took his hand in
hers. "She's never been the same since," he said.
"Her character has deepened and she's fine and sweet--"
"Yes, yes. I have three hundred dollars owing me for the Delong
portrait. If I had it, she should have her course. I'll make another
effort to collect it."
"I would, Bertrand."
Julien Thurbyfil and his wife walked down the flower-bordered path
side by side to the gate and stood leaning over it in silence.
Practical Martha was the first to break it.
"There will be just as much need for preparatory schools now as there
was before the fire, Julien."
"Yes, dear, yes."
"And, meanwhile, we are glad of this sweet haven to come to, aren't
we? And it won't be long before things are so you can begin again."
"Yes, dear, and then we'll make it up to Betty, won't we?"
But Julien was distraught and somber, in spite of brave words. He had
not inherited Mary Ballard's way of looking at things, nor his
father-in-law's buoyancy.
All that night Betty lay wakeful and thinking--thinking as she had
many, many a time during the last three years, trying to make plans
whereby she might adjust her thoughts to a life of loneliness, as
she had decided in her romantic heart was all she would take. How
could there be anything else for her since that terrible night
when Richard had come to her and confessed his guilt--his love and
his renunciation! Was she not sharing it all with him wherever he
might be, and whatever he was doing? Oh, where was he? Did he ever
think of her and know she was always thinking of him? Did he know
she prayed for him, and was the thought a comfort to him? Surely
Peter was the happier of the two, for he was not a sorrowing
criminal, wandering the earth, hiding and repenting. So all her
thoughts went out to Richard, and no wonder she was a weary little
wight at the end of the school day.
Four o'clock, and the children went hurrying away, all but Hilton Le
Moyne, who lingered awhile at his desk, and then reluctantly departed,
seeing Teacher did not look up from her papers except to give him a
nod and a fugitive little smile of absent-minded courtesy. Left thus
alone, Betty lifted the lid of her desk and put away the school
register and the carefully marked papers to be given out the next day,
and took from a small portfolio a packet of closely written sheets.
These she untied and looked over, tossing them rapidly aside one after
another until she found the one for which she searched.
It was a short poem, hastily written with lead pencil, and much
crumpled and worn, as if it had been carried about. Now she
straightened the torn edges and smoothed it out and began scanning the
lines, counting off on her fingers the rhythmic beats; she copied the
verses carefully on a fresh white sheet of paper and laid them aside;
then, shoving the whole heap of written papers from her, she selected
another fresh sheet and began anew, writing and scanning and writing
again.
Steadily she worked while an hour slipped by. A great bumblebee flew
in at one window and boomed past her head and out at the other window,
and a bluebird perched for an instant on the window ledge and was off
again. She saw the bee and the bird and paused awhile, gazing with
dreamy eyes through the high, uncurtained window at drifting clouds
already taking on the tint of the declining sun; then she stretched
her arms across her wide desk, and putting her head down on them, was
soon fast asleep. Tired little Teacher!
The breeze freshened and tumbled her hair and fanned her flushed
cheek, and it did more than that; for, as the drifting clouds
betokened, the weather was changing, and now a gust of wind caught at
her papers and took some of them out of the window, tossing and
whirling them hither and thither. Some were carried along the wayside
and lost utterly. One fluttered high over the tree tops and out across
the meadow, and then suddenly ceased its flight and drifted slowly
down like a dried leaf, past the face of a young man who sat on a
stone, moodily gazing in the meadow brook. He reached out a long arm
and caught it as it fluttered by, just in time to save it from
annihilation in the water.
For a moment he held the scrap of paper absently between his fingers,
then glancing down at it he spied faintly written, half-obliterated
verses and read them; then, with awakened interest, he read them
again, smoothing the torn bit of paper out on his knee. The place
where he sat was well screened from the road by a huge basswood tree,
which spread great limbs quite across the stream, and swept both its
banks with drooping branches and broad leaves. Now he held the scrap
on his open palm and studied it closely and thoughtfully. It was the
worn piece from which Betty had copied the verses.
"Oh, send me a thought on the winds that blow.
On the wing of a bird send a thought to me;
For the way is so long that I may not know,
And there are no paths on the troubled sea.
"Out of the darkness I saw you go,--
Into the shadows where sorrows be,--
Wounded and bleeding, and sad and slow,--
Into the darkness away from me.
"Out of my life and into the night,
But never out of my heart, my own.
Into the darkness out of the light,
Bleeding and wounded, and walking alone."
Here the words were quite erased and scratched over, and the pathetic
bit of paper looked as if it had been tear-stained. Carefully and
smoothly he laid it in his long bill book. The book was large and
plethoric with bank notes, and there beside them lay the little scrap
of paper, worn and soiled, yet tear washed, and as the young man
touched it tenderly he smiled and thought that in it was a wealth of
something no bank note could buy. With a touch of sentiment
unsuspected by himself, he felt it too sacred a thing to be touched by
them, and he smoothed it again and laid it in a compartment by
itself.
Then he rose, and sauntered across the meadow to the country road, and
down it past the schoolhouse standing on its own small rise of ground
with the door still wide open, and its shadow, cast by the rays of the
now setting sun stretched long across the playground. The young man
passed it, paused, turned back, and entered. There at her desk Betty
still slept, and as he stepped softly forward and looked down on her
she stirred slightly and drew a long breath, but slept on.
For a moment his heart ceased to beat, then it throbbed suffocatingly
and his hand went to his breast and clutched the bill book where lay
the tender little poem. There at her elbow lay the copy she had so
carefully made. The air of the room was warm and drowsy, and the
stillness was only broken by the low buzzing of two great bluebottle
flies that struggled futilely against the high window panes. Dear
little tired Betty! Dreaming,--of whom? The breath came through her
parted lips, softly and evenly, and the last ray of the sun fell on
her flushed cheek and brought out the touch of gold in her hair.
The young man turned away and crossed the bare floor with light steps
and drew the door softly shut after him as he went out. No one might
look upon her as she slept, with less reverent eyes. Some distance
away, where the road began to ascend toward the river bluff, he seated
himself on a stone overlooking the little schoolhouse and the road
beyond. There he took up his lonely watch, until he saw Betty come out
and walk hurriedly toward the village, carrying a book and swinging
her hat by the long ribbon ties; then he went on climbing the winding
path to the top of the bluff overlooking the river.
Moodily he paced up and down along the edge of the bluff, and finally
followed a zigzag path to the great rocks below, that at this point
seemed to have hurled themselves down there to do battle with the
eager, dominating flood. For a while he stood gazing into the rushing
water, not as though he were fascinated by it, but rather as if he
were held to the spot by some inward vision. Presently he seemed to
wake with a start and looked back along the narrow, steep path, and up
to the overhanging edge of the bluff, scanning it closely.
"Yes, yes. There is the notch where it lay, and this may be the very
stone on which I am standing. What an easy thing to fall over there
and meet death halfway!" He muttered the words under his breath and
began slowly to climb the difficult ascent.
The sun was gone, and down by the water a cold, damp current of air
seemed to sweep around the curve of the bluff along with the rush of
the river. As he climbed he came to a warmer wave of air, and the dusk
closed softly around him, as if nature were casting a friendly curtain
over the drowsing earth; and the roar of the river came up to him, no
longer angrily, but in a ceaseless, subdued complaint.
Again he paced the top of the bluff, and at last seated himself with
his feet hanging over the edge, at the spot from which the stone had
fallen. The trees on this wind-swept place were mostly gnarled oaks,
old and strong and rugged, standing like a band of weather-beaten life
guardsmen overlooking the miles of country around. Not twenty paces
from where the young man sat, half reclining on his elbow, stood one
of these oaks, and close to its great trunk on its shadowed side a man
bent forward intently watching him. Whenever the young man shifted his
position restlessly, the figure made a darting movement forward as if
to snatch him from the dangerous brink, then recoiled and continued to
watch.
Soon the young man seemed to be aware of the presence and watchful
eye, and looked behind him, peering into the dusk. Then the man left
his place and came toward him, with slow, sauntering step.
"Hullo!" he said, with an insinuating, rising inflection and in the
soft voice of the Scandinavian.
"Hallo!" replied the young man.
"Seek?"
"Sick? No." The young man laughed slightly. "What are you doing
here?"
"Oh, I yust make it leetle valk up here."
"Same with me, and now I'll make it a little walk back to town." The
young man rose and stretched himself and turned his steps slowly back
along the winding path.
"Vell, I tank I make it leetle valk down town, too," and the figure
came sauntering along at the young man's side.
"Oh, you're going my way, are you? All right."
"Yas, I tank I going yust de sam your way."
The young man set the pace more rapidly, and for a time they walked on
in silence. At last, "Live here?" he asked.
"Yas, I lif here."
"Been here long?"
"In America? Yes. I guess five--sax--year. Oh, I lak it goot."
"I mean here, in this place."
"Oh, here? Yas, two, t'ree year. I lak it goot too."
"Know any one here?"
"Oh, yas. I know people I vork by yet."
"Who are they?"
"Oh, I vork by many place--make garten--und vork wit' horses, und so.
Meesus Craikmile, I vork by her on garten. She iss dere no more."
The young man paused suddenly in his stride. "Gone? Where is she
gone?"
"Oh, she iss by ol' country gone. Her man iss gone mit." They walked
on.
"What! Is the Elder gone, too?"
"Yas. You know heem, yas?"
"Oh, yes. I know everybody here. I've been away for a good while."
"So? Yas, yust lak me. I was gone too goot wile, bot I coom back too,
yust lak you."
Here they came to a turn in the road, and the village lights began to
wink out through the darkness, and their ways parted.
"I'm going this way," said the young man. "You turn off here? Well,
good night."
"Vell, goot night." The Swede sauntered away down a by-path, and the
young man kept on the main road to the village and entered its one
hotel where he had engaged a room a few hours before.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE SWEDE'S TELEGRAM
As soon as the shadows hid the young man's retreating form from the
Swede's watchful eye, that individual quickened his pace and presently
broke into a run. Circling round a few blocks and regaining the main
street a little below the hotel, he entered the telegraph office.
There his haste seemed to leave him. He stood watching the clerk a few
minutes, but the latter paid no attention to him.
"Hullo!" he said at last.
"Hallo, yourself!" said the boy, without looking up or taking his hand
from the steadily clicking instrument.
"Say, I lak it you send me somet'ing by telegraph."
"All right. Hold on a minute," and the instrument clicked on.
After a little the Swede grew impatient. He scratched his pale gold
head and shuffled his feet.
"Say, I lak it you send me a little somet'ing yet." He reached out and
touched the boy on the shoulder.
"Keep out of here. I'll send your message when I'm through with this,"
and the instrument clicked on. Then the Swede resigned himself,
watching sullenly.
"Everybody has to take his turn," said the boy at last. "You can't cut
in like that." The boy was newly promoted and felt his importance. He
took the soiled scrap of paper held out to him. It was written over
in a clear, bold hand. "This isn't signed. Who sends this?"
"You make it yust lak it iss. I send dot."
"Well, sign it." He pushed a pen toward him, and the Swede took it in
clumsy fingers and wrote laboriously, "Nels Nelson."
"You didn't write this message?"
"No. I vork by de hotel, und I get a man write it."
"It isn't dated. Been carrying it around in your pocket a good while I
guess. Better date it."
"Date it?"
"Yes. Put down the time you send, you know."
"Oh, dat's not'ing. He know putty goot when he get it."
"Very well. 'To Mr. John Thomas,--State Street, Chicago. Job's ready.
Come along.' Who's job is it? Yours?"
"No. It's hees yob yet. You mak it go to-night, all right. Goot night.
I pay it now, yas. Vell, goot night."
He paid the boy and slipped out into the shadows of the street, and
again making the detour so that he came to the hotel from the rear, he
passed the stables, and before climbing to his cupboard of a room at
the top of the building, he stepped round to the side and looked in at
the dining room windows, and there he saw the young man seated at
supper.
"All right," he said softly.
The omnibus sent regularly by the hotel management brought only one
passenger from the early train next day. Times had been dull of late
and travel had greatly fallen off, as the proprietor complained. There
was nothing unusual about this passenger,--the ordinary traveling man,
representing a well-known New York dry-goods house.
Nels Nelson drove the omnibus. He had done so ever since Elder
Craigmile went to Scotland with his wife. The young man he had found
on the river bluff was pacing the hotel veranda as he drove up, and
Nels Nelson glanced at him, and into the eyes of the traveling man, as
he handed down the latter's heavy valise.
Standing at the desk, the newcomer chatted with the clerk as he wrote
his name under that of the last arrival the day before.
"Harry King," he read. "Came yesterday. Many stopping here now? Times
hard! I guess so! Nothing doing in my line. Nobody wants a thing.
Guess I'll leave the road and 'go west, young man,' as old Greeley
advises. What line is King in? Do' know? Is that him going into the
dining room? Guess I'll follow and fill up. Anything good to eat
here?"
In the dining room he indicated to the waiter by a nod of his head the
seat opposite Harry King, and immediately entered into a free and easy
conversation, giving him a history of his disappointments in the way
of trade, and reiterating his determination to "go west, young man."
He hardly glanced at Harry, but ate rapidly, stowing away all within
reach, until the meal was half through, then he looked up and asked
abruptly, "What line are you in, may I ask?"
"Certainly you may ask, but I can't tell you. I would be glad to do so
if I knew myself."
"Ever think of going west?"
"I've just come from there--or almost there--whereever it is."
"Stiles is my name--G. B. Stiles. Good name for a dry-goods salesman,
don't you think so? I know the styles all right, for men, and women
too. Like it out west?"
"Yes. Very well."
"Been there long?"
"Oh, two or three years."
"Had enough of it, likely?"
"Well, I can scarcely say that."
"Mean to stay east now?"
"I may. I'm not settled yet."
"Better take up my line. If I drop out, there'll be an opening with my
firm--good firm, too. Ward, Williams & Co., New York. Been in New
York, I suppose?"
"No, never."
"Well, better try it. I mean to 'go west, young man.' Know anybody
here? Ever live here?"
"Yes, when I was a boy."
"Come back to the boyhood home. We all do that, you know. There's
poetry in it--all do it. 'Old oaken bucket' and all that sort of
thing. I mean to do it myself yet,--back to old York state." G. B.
Stiles wiped his mouth vigorously and shoved back his chair. "Well,
see you again, I hope," he said, and walked off, picking his teeth
with a quill pick which he took from his vest pocket.
He walked slowly and meditatively through the office and out on the
sidewalk. Here he paused and glanced about, and seeing his companion
of the breakfast table was not in sight, he took his way around to the
stables. Nels Nelson was stooping in the stable yard, washing a
horse's legs. G. B. Stiles came and stood near, looking down on him,
and Nels straightened up and stood waiting, with the dripping rags in
his hand.
"Vell, I tol' you he coomin' back sometime. I vaiting long time all
ready, but yust lak I tol' you, he coom."
"I thought I told you not to sign that telegram. But it's no
matter,--didn't do any harm, I guess."
"Dot vas a fool, dot boy dere. He ask all tam, 'Vot for? Who write
dis? You not? Eh? Who sen' dis?' He make me put my name dere; den I
get out putty quvick or he ask yet vat iss it for a yob you got
somebody, eh?"
"Oh, well, we've got him now, and he don't seem to care to keep under
cover, either." G. B. Stiles seemed to address himself. "Too smart to
show a sign. See here, Nelson, are you ready to swear that he's the
man? Are you ready to swear to all you told me?"
"It is better you gif me a paper once, vit your name, dot you gif me
half dot money."
Nels Nelson stooped deliberately and went on washing the horse's legs.
A look of irritation swept over the placid face of G. B. Stiles, and
he slipped the toothpick back in his vest pocket and walked away.
"I say," called the Swede after him. "You gif me dot paper. Eh?"
"I can't stand talking to you here. You'll promise to swear to all you
told me when I was here the first time. If you do that, you are sure
of the money, and if you change it in the least, or show the least
sign of backing down, we neither of us get it. Understand?"
Again the Swede arose, and stood looking at him sullenly. "It iss ten
t'ousand tallers, und I get it half, eh?"
"Oh, you go to thunder!" The proprietor of the hotel came around the
corner of the stable, and G. B. Stiles addressed himself to him. "I'd
like the use of a horse to-day, and your man here, if I can get him.
I've got to make a trip to Rigg's Corners to sell some dry goods. Got
a good buggy?"
"Yes, and a horse you can drive yourself, if you like. Be gone all
day?"
"No, don't want to fool with a horse--may want to stay and send the
horse back--if I find a place where the grub is better than it is
here. See?"
"You'll be back after one meal at any place within a hundred miles of
here." The proprietor laughed.
"Might as well drive yourself. You won't want to send the horse back.
I'm short of drivers just now. Times are bad and travel light, so I
let one go."
"I'll take the Swede there."
"He's my station hand. Maybe Jake can drive you. Nels, where's Jake?"
"He's dere in the stable. Shake!" he shouted, without glancing up, and
Jake slouched out into the yard.
"Jake, here's a gentleman wants you to drive him out into the
country,--"
"I'll take the Swede. Jake can drive your station wagon for once."
G. B. Stiles laughed good-humoredly and returned to the piazza and sat
tilted back with his feet on the rail not far from Harry King, who was
intently reading the _New York Tribune_. For a while he eyed the young
man covertly, then dropped his feet to the floor and turned upon him
with a question on the political situation, and deliberately engaged
him in conversation, which Harry King entered into courteously yet
reluctantly. Evidently he was preoccupied with affairs of his own.
In the stable yard a discussion was going on. "Dot horse no goot in
buggy. Better you sell heem any vay. He yoomp by de cars all tam, und
he no goot by buggy."
"Well, you've got to take him by the buggy, if he is no good. I won't
let Jake drive him around the trains, and he won't let Jake go with
him out to Rigg's Corners, so you'll have to take the gray and the
buggy and go." The Swede began a sullen protest, but the proprietor
shouted back to him, "You'll do this or leave," and walked in.
Nels went then into the stable, smiling quietly. He was well satisfied
with the arrangement. "Shake, you put dot big horse by de buggy. No.
Tak' d'oder bridle. I don't drive heem mit ol' bridle; he yoomp too
quvick yet. All tam yoomping, dot horse."
Presently Nels drove round to the front of the hotel with the gray
horse and a high-top buggy. Harry King regarded him closely as he
passed, but Nels looked straight ahead. A boy came out carrying
Stiles' heavy valise.
"Put that in behind here," said Stiles, as he climbed in and seated
himself at Nels Nelson's side. The gray leaped forward on the instant
with so sudden a jump that he caught at his hat and missed it. Harry
King stepped down and picked it up.
"What ails your horse?" he asked, as he restored it to its owner.
"Oh, not'in'. He lak yoomp a little." And again the horse leaped
forward, taking them off at a frantic pace, the high-topped buggy
atilt as they turned the corner of the street into the country road.
Harry King returned to his seat. Surely it was the Scandinavian who
had walked down from the bluff with him the evening before. There was
no mistaking that soft, drawling voice.
"See here! You pull your beast down, I want to talk with you. Hi!
There goes my hat again. Can't you control him better than that? Let
me out." Nels pulled the animal down with a powerful arm, and he stood
quietly enough while G. B. Stiles climbed down and walked back for his
hat. "Look here! Can you manage the beast, or can't you?" he asked as
he stood beside the vehicle and wiped the dust from his soft black
felt with his sleeve. "If you can't, I'll walk."
"Oh, yas, I feex heem. I leek heem goot ven ve coom to place nobody
see me."
"I guess that's what ails him now. You've done that before."
"Yas, bot if you no lak I leek heem, ust you yoomp in und I lat heem
run goot for two, t'ree mile. Dot feex heem all right."
"I don't know about that. Sure you can hold him?"
"Yas, I hol' heem so goot he break hee's yaw off, if he don't stop ven
I tol' heem. Now, quvick. Whoa! Yoomp in."
G. B. Stiles scrambled in with unusual agility for him, and again they
were off, the gray taking them along with leaps and bounds, but the
road was smooth, and the dust laid by frequent showers was like velvet
under the horse's feet. Stiles drew himself up, clinging to the side
of the buggy and to his hat.
"How long will he keep this up?" he asked.
"Oh, he stop putty quvick. He lak it leetle run. T'ree, four mile he
run--das all." And the Swede was right. After a while the horse
settled down to a long, swinging trot. "Look at heem now. I make heem
go all tam lak dis. Ven I get my money I haf stable of my own und den
I buy heem. I know heem. I all tam tol' Meester Decker dot horse no
goot--I buy heem sheep. You go'n gif me dot money, eh?"
"I see. You're sharp, but you're asking too much. If it were not for
me, you wouldn't get a cent, or me either. See? I've spent a thousand
hunting that man up, and you haven't spent a cent. All you've done is
to stick here at the hotel and watch. I've been all over the country.
Even went to Europe and down in Mexico--everywhere. You haven't really
earned a cent of it."
"Vat for you goin' all offer de vorld? Vat you got by dot? Spen'
money--dot vot you got. Me, I stay here. I fin' heem; you not got heem
all offer de vorld. I tol' you, of a man he keel somebody, he run vay,
bot he goin' coom back where he done it. He not know it vot for he do
it, bot he do it all right."
"Look here, Nelson; it's outrageous! You can't lay claim to that
money. I told you if he was found and you were willing to give in your
evidence just as you gave it to me that day, I'd give you your fair
share of the reward, as you asked for it, but I never gave you any
reason to think you were to take half. I've spent all the money
working up this matter, and if I were to go back now and do nothing,
as I'm half a mind to do, you'd never get a cent of it. There's no
proof that he's the man."
"You no need spen' dot money."
"Can't I get reason into your head? When I set out to get hold of a
criminal, do you think I sit down in one place and wait? You didn't
find him; he came here, and it's only by an accident you have him, and
he may clear out yet, and neither of us be the better off because of
your pig-headedness. Here, drive into that grove and tie your horse a
minute and we'll come to an understanding. I can't write you out a
paper while we're moving along like this."
Then Nels turned into the grove and took the horse from the shafts and
tied him some distance away, while G. B. Stiles took writing materials
from his valise, and, sitting in the buggy, made a show of drawing up
a legal paper.
"I'm going to draw you up a paper as you asked me to. Now how do you
know you have the man?"
"It iss ten t'ousand tallers. You make me out dot paper you gif me
half yet."
"Damn it! You answer my question. I can't make this out unless I know
you're going to come up to the scratch." He made a show of writing,
and talked at the same time. "I, G. B. Stiles, detective, in the
employ of Peter Craigmile, of the town of Leauvite, for the capture of
the murderer of his son, Peter Craigmile, Jr., do hereby promise one
Nels Nelson, Swede,--in the employ of Mr Decker, hotel proprietor, as
stable man,--for services rendered in the identification of said
criminal at such time as he should be found,----Now, what service have
you rendered? How much money have you spent in the search?"
"Not'ing. I got heem."
"Nothing. That's just it."
"I got heem."
"No, you haven't got him, and you can't get him without me. Don't you
think it. I am the one to get him. You have no warrant and no license.
I'm the one to put in the claim and get the reward for you, and you'll
have to take what I choose to give, and no more. By rights you would
only have your fee as witness, and that's all. That's all the state
gives. Whatever else you get is by my kindness in sharing with you.
Hear?"
A dangerous light gleamed in the Swede's eyes, and Stiles, by a slight
disarrangement of his coat in the search for his handkerchief,
displayed a revolver in his hip pocket. Nels' eyes shifted, and he
looked away.
"You'd better quit this damned nonsense and say what you'll take and
what you'll swear to."
"I'll take half dot money," said Nels, softly and stubbornly.
"I'll take out all I've spent on this case before we divide it in any
way, shape, or manner." Stiles figured a moment on the margin of his
paper. "Now, what are you going to swear to? You needn't shift round.
You'll tell me here just what you're prepared to give in as evidence
before I put down a single figure to your name on this paper. See?"
"I done tol' you all dot in Chicago dot time."
"Very well. You'll give that in as evidence, every word of it, and
swear to it?"
"Yas."
"I don't more than half believe this is the man. You know it's life
imprisonment for him if it's proved on him, and you'd better be sure
you have the right one. I'm in for justice, and you're in for the
money, that's plain."
"Yas, I tank you lak it money, too."
"I'll not put him in irons to-night unless you give me some better
reason for your assertion. Why is he the man?"
"I seen heem dot tam, I know. He got it mark on hees head vere de blud
run dot tam, yust de sam, all right. I know heem. He speek lak heem.
He move hees arm lak heem. Yas, I know putty good."
"You're sure you remember everything he said--all you told me?"
"Oh, yas. I write it here," and he drew a small book from his pocket,
very worn and soiled. "All iss here writed."
"Let's see it." With a smile the Swede put it in Stiles' hand. He
regarded it in a puzzled way.
"What's this?" He handed the book back contemptuously. "You'll never
be able to make that out,--all dirty and--"
"Yas, I read heem, you not,--dot's Swedish."
"Very well. Perhaps you know what you're about," and the discussion
went on, until at last G. B. Stiles, partly by intimidation, partly by
assumption of being able to get on without his services, persuaded
Nels to modify his demands and accept three thousand for his evidence.
Then the gray was put in the shafts again, and they drove to the town
quietly, as if they had been to Rigg's Corners and back.
CHAPTER XXVIII
"A RESEMBLANCE SOMEWHERE"
While G. B. Stiles and the big Swede were taking their drive and
bargaining away Harry King's liberty, he had loitered about the town,
and visited a few places familiar to him. First he went to the home of
Elder Craigmile and found it locked, and the key in the care of one of
the bank clerks who slept there during the owner's absence. After
sitting a while on the front steps, with his elbows on his knees and
his head in his hands, he rose and strolled out along the quiet
country road on its grassy footpath, past the Ballards' home.
Mary and Bertrand were out in the little orchard at the back of the
house, gazing up at the apple blossoms that hung over their heads in
great pale pink clouds. A sweet odor came from the lilacs that hung
over the garden fence, and the sunlight streamed down on the peaceful
home, and on the opening spring flowers--the borders of dwarf purple
iris and big clusters of peonies, just beginning to bud,--and on the
beehives scattered about with the bees flying out and in. Ah! It was
still the same--tempting and inviting.
He paused at the gate, looking wistfully at the open door, but did not
enter. No, he must keep his own counsel and hold to his purpose,
without stirring these dear old friends to sorrowful sympathy. So he
passed on, unseen by them, feeling the old love for the place and all
the tender memories connected with it revived and deepened. On he
went, strolling toward the little schoolhouse where he had found dear
Betty Ballard sleeping at the big school desk the evening before, and
passed it by--only looking in curiously at the tousled heads bent over
their lessons, and at Betty herself, where she sat at the desk, a
class on the long recitation bench before her, and a great boy
standing at the blackboard. He saw her rise and take the chalk from
the boy's hand and make a few rapid strokes with it on the board.
Little Betty a school-teacher! She had suffered much! How much did she
care now? Was it over and her heart healed? Had other loves come to
her? All intent now on her work, she stood with her back toward him,
and as he passed the open door she turned half about, and he saw her
profile sharply against the blackboard. Older? Yes, she looked older,
but prettier for that, and slight and trim and neat, dressed in a soft
shade of green. She had worn such a dress once at a picnic. Well he
remembered it--could he ever forget? Swiftly she turned again to the
board and drew the eraser across the work, and he heard her voice
distinctly, with its singing quality--how well he remembered that
also--"Now, how many of the class can work this problem?"
Ah, little Betty! little Betty! Life is working problems for us all,
and you are working yours to a sweet conclusion, helping the children,
and taking up your own burdens and bearing them bravely. This was
Harry King's thought as he strolled on and seated himself again under
the basswood tree by the meadow brook, and took from his pocket the
worn scrap of paper the wind had brought him and read it again.
"Out of my life, and into the night,
But never out of my heart, my own.
Into the darkness, out of the light,
Bleeding and wounded and walking alone."
Such a tender, rhythmic bit of verse--Betty must have written it. It
was like her.
After a time he rose and strolled back again past the little
schoolhouse, and it was recess. Long before he reached it he heard the
voices of the children shouting, "Anty, anty over, anty, anty over."
They were divided into two bands, one on either side of the small
building, over which they tossed the ball and shouted as they tossed
it, "Anty, anty over"; and the band on the other side, warned by the
cry, caught the ball on the rebound if they could, and tore around the
corner of the building, trying to hit with it any luckless wight on
the other side, and so claim him for their own, and thus changing
sides, the merry romp went on.
Betty came to the door with the bell in her hand, and stood for a
moment looking out in the sunshine. One of the smallest of the boys
ran to her and threw his arms around her, and, looking up in her face,
screamed in wildest excitement, "I caught it twice, Teacher, I did."
With her hand on his head she looked in his eyes and smiled and
tinkled her little bell, and the children, big and little, all came
crowding through the door, hustling like a flock of chickens, and
every boy snatched off his cap as he rushed by her.
Ah, grave, dignified little Betty! Who was that passing slowly along
the road? Like a wild rose by the wayside she seemed to him, with her
pink cheeks and in her soft green gown, framed thus by the doorway of
the old schoolhouse. Naturally she had no recognition for this bearded
man, walking by with stiff, soldierly step, yet something caused her
to look again, turning as she entered, and, when he looked back, their
eyes met, and hers dropped before his, and she was lost to his sight
as she closed the door after her. Of course she could not recognize
him disguised thus with the beard on his face, and his dark, tanned
skin. She did not recognize him, and he was glad, yet sore at heart.
He had had all he could bear, and for the rest of the morning he wrote
letters, sitting in his room at Decker's hotel. Only two letters, but
one was a very long one--to Amalia Manovska. Out in the world he dared
not use her own name, so he addressed the envelope to Miss McBride, in
Larry Kildene's care, at the nearest station to which they had agreed
letters should be sent. Before he finished the second letter the gong
sounded for dinner. The noon meal was always dinner at the hotel. He
thrust his papers and the unfinished letter in his valise and locked
it--and went below.
G. B. Stiles was already there, seated in the same place as on the day
before, and Harry took his seat opposite him, and they began a
conversation in the same facile way, but the manner of the dry-goods
salesman towards him seemed to have undergone a change. It had lost
its swagger, and was more that of a man who could be a gentleman if he
chose, while to the surprise of Stiles the manner of the young man was
as disarmingly quiet and unconcerned as before, and as abstracted. He
could not believe that any man hovering on the brink of a terrible
catastrophe, and one to avert which required concealment of identity,
could be so unwary. He half believed the Swede was laboring under an
hallucination, and decided to be deliberate, and await developments
for the rest of the day.
After dinner they wandered out to the piazza side by side, and there
they sat and smoked, and talked over the political situation as
they had the evening before, and Stiles was surprised at the young
man's ignorance of general public matters. Was it ignorance, or
indifference?
"I thought all you army men would stand by Grant to the drop of the
hat."
"Yes, I suppose we would."
"You suppose so! Don't you know? I carried a gun under Grant, and I'd
swear to any policy he'd go in for, and what I say is, they haven't
had quite enough down there. What the South needs is another licking.
That's what it needs."
"Oh, no, no, no. I was sick of fighting, long before they laid me up,
and I guess a lot of us were."
G. B. Stiles brought his feet to the floor with a stamp of surprise
and turned to look full in the young man's face. For a moment he gazed
on him thus, then grunted. "Ever feel one of their bullets?"
"Oh, yes."
"That the mark, there over your temple?"
"No, it didn't do any harm to speak of. That's--where something--struck
me."
"Oh, you don't say!" Harry King rose. "Leaving?"
"No. I have a few letters to write--and--"
"Sorry to miss you. Staying in town for some time?"
"I hardly know. I may."
"Plans unsettled? Well, times are unsettled and no money stirring. My
plans are all upset, too."
The young man returned to his room and continued his writing. One
short letter to Betty, inclosing the worn scrap of paper the wind had
brought him; he kissed it before he placed it in the envelope. Then he
wrote one to her father and mother jointly, and a long one to Hester
Craigmile. Sometimes he would pause in his writing and tear up a page,
and begin over again, but at last all were done and inclosed in a
letter to the Elder and placed in a heavy envelope and sealed. Only
the one to Amalia he did not inclose, but carried it out and mailed it
himself.
Passing the bank on the way to the post office, he dropped in and made
quite a heavy deposit. It was just before closing time and the clerks
were all intent on getting their books straight, preparatory to
leaving. How well he remembered that moment of restless turning of
ledgers and the slight accession of eagerness in the younger clerks,
as they followed the long columns of figures down with the forefinger
of the left hand--the pen poised in the right. The whole scene smote
him poignantly as he stood at the teller's window waiting. And he
might have been doing that, he thought! A whole lifetime spent in
doing just that and more like it, year in and year out!
How had his life been better? He had sinned--and failed. Ah! But he
had lived and loved--lived terribly and loved greatly. God help him,
how he loved! Even for life to end here--either in prison or in
death--still he had felt the tremendous passions, and understood the
meaning of their power in a human soul. This had life brought him, and
a love beyond measure to crown all.
The teller peered at him through the little window behind which he had
stood so many years peering at people in this sleepy little bank, this
sure, safe, little bank, always doing its conservative business in the
same way, and heretofore always making good. He reached out a long,
well-shaped hand,--a large-veined hand, slightly hairy at the wrist,
to take the bank notes. How often had Harry King seen that hand
stretched thus through the little window, drawing bank notes toward
him! Almost with a shock he saw it now reach for his own--for the
first time. In the old days he had had none to deposit. It was always
for others it had been extended. Now it seemed as if he must seize the
hand and shake it,--the only hand that had been reached out to him
yet, in this town where his boyhood had been spent.
A young man who had preceded Harry King at the teller's window paused
near by at the cashier's desk and began asking questions which Harry
himself would have been glad to ask, but could not.
He was an alert, bright-eyed young chap with a smiling face. "Good
afternoon, Mr. Copeland. Any news for me to-day?"
Mr. Copeland was an elderly man of great dignity, and almost as much
of a figure there as the Elder himself. It was an act of great
temerity to approach him for items of news for the _Leauvite Mercury_.
Of this fact the young reporter seemed to be blithely ignorant. All
the clerks were covertly watching the outcome, and thus attention was
turned from Harry King; even the teller glanced frequently at the
cashier's desk as he counted the bank notes placed in his hand.
"News? No. No news," said Mr. Copeland, without looking up.
"Thank you. It's my business to ask for it, you know. We're making
more of a feature of personal items than ever before. We're up to
date, you see. 'Find out what people want and then give it to them.'
That's our motto." The young man leaned forward over the high railing
that corralled the cashier in his pen apart from the public, smilingly
oblivious of that dignitary's objections to an interview. "Expecting
the return of Elder Craigmile soon?"
At that question, to the surprise of all, the cashier suddenly changed
his manner to the suave affability with which he greeted people of
consequence. "We are expecting Elder Craigmile shortly. Yes. Indeed he
may arrive any day, if the voyage is favorable."
"Thank you. Mrs. Craigmile accompanies him, I suppose?"
"It is not likely, no. Her health demands--ahem--a little longer rest
and change."
"Ah! The Elder not called back by--for any particular reason? No.
Business going well? Good. I'm told there's a great deal of
depression."
"Oh, in a way--there may be,--but we're all of the conservative sort
here in Leauvite. We're not likely to feel it if there is. Good
afternoon."
No one paid any attention to Harry King as he walked out after the
_Leauvite Mercury_ reporter, except Mr. Copeland, who glanced at him
keenly as he passed his desk. Then, looking at his watch, he came out
of his corral and turned the key in the bank door.
"We'll have no more interruptions now," he said, as he paused at the
teller's window. "You know the young man who just went out?"
"Sam Carter of the _Mercury_. Old Billings no doubt sent him in to
learn how we stand."
"No, no, no. Sam Carter--I know him. Who's the young man who followed
him out?"
"I don't know. Here's his signature. He's just made a big deposit on
long time--only one thousand on call. Unusual these days."
Mr. Copeland's eyes glittered an instant. "Good. That's something. I
decided to give the town people to understand that there is no need
for their anxiety. It's the best policy, and when the Elder returns,
he may be induced to withdraw his insane offer of reward. Ten thousand
dollars! It's ridiculous, when the young men may both be dead, for all
the world will ever know."
"If we could do that--but I've known the Elder too long to hope for
it. This deposit stands for a year, see? And the ten thousand the
Elder has set one side for the reward gives us twenty thousand we
could not count on yesterday."
"In all the history of this bank we never were in so tight a place.
It's extraordinary, and quite unnecessary. That's a bright boy--Sam
Carter. I never thought of his putting such a construction on it when
I admitted the fact that Mrs. Craigmile is to remain. Two big banks
closed in Chicago this morning, and twenty small ones all over the
country during the last three days. One goes and hauls another down.
If we had only cabled across the Atlantic two weeks ago when I sent
that letter--he must have the letter by now--and if he has, he's on
the ocean."
"This deposit tides us over a few days, and, as I said, if we could
only get our hands on that reserve of the Elder's, we'd be safe
whatever comes."
"He'll have to bend his will for once. He must be made to see it, and
we must get our hands on it. I think he will. He'd cut off his right
hand before he'd see this bank go under."
"It's his son's murder that's eating into his heart. He's been losing
ground ever since."
The clerks gradually disappeared, quietly slipping out into the
sunshine one by one as their books were balanced, and now the two men
stood alone. It was a time used by them for taking account of the
bank's affairs generally, and they felt the stability of that
institution to be quite personal to them.
"I've seen that young man before," said Mr. Copeland. "Now, who is he?
Harry King--Harry King,--the Kings moved away from here--twelve years
ago--wasn't it? Their son would not be as old as this man."
"Boys grow up fast. You never can tell."
"The Kings were a short, thickset lot."
"He may not be one of them. He said nothing about ever having been
here before. I never talk with any one here at the window. It's quite
against my rules for the clerks, and has to be so for myself, of
course. I leave that sort of thing to you and the Elder."
"I say--I've seen him before--the way he walks--the way he carries
his head--there's a resemblance somewhere."
The two men also departed, after looking to the safe, and the
last duties devolving on them, seeing that all was locked and
double-locked. It was a solemn duty, always attended to solemnly.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE ARREST
Sam Carter loitered down the street after leaving the bank, and when
Harry King approached, he turned with his ready smile and accosted
him.
"Pleasant day. I see you're a stranger here, and I thought I might get
an item from you. Carter's my name, and I'm doing the reporting for
the _Mercury_. Be glad to make your acquaintance. Show you round a
little."
Harry was nonplussed for a moment. Such things did not use to occur in
this old-fashioned place as running about the streets picking up items
from people and asking personal questions for the paper to exploit the
replies. He looked twice at Sam Carter before responding.
"Thank you, I--I've been here before. I know the place pretty well."
"Very pretty place, don't you think so? Mean to stop for some time?"
"I hardly know as yet." Harry King mused a little, then resolved to
break his loneliness by accepting the casual acquaintance, and to
avoid personalities about himself by asking questions about the town
and those he used to know, but whom he preferred not to see. It was an
opportunity. "Yes, it is a pretty place. Have you been here long?"
"I've been here--let's see. About three years--maybe a little less.
You must have been away from Leauvite longer than that, I judge. I've
never left the place since I came and I never saw you before. No
wonder I thought you a stranger."
"I may call myself one--yes. A good many changes since you came?"
"Oh, yes. See the new courthouse? It's a beauty,--all solid
stone,--cost fifty thousand dollars. The _Mercury_ had a great deal to
do with bringing it about,--working up enthusiasm and the like,--but
there is a great deal of depression just now, and taxes running up.
People think government is taking a good deal out of them for such
public buildings, but, Lord help us! the government is needing money
just now as much as the people. It's hard to be public spirited when
taxes are being raised. You have people here?"
"Not now--no. Who's mayor here now?"
"Harding--Harding of the iron works. He makes a good one, too.
There's the new courthouse. The jail is underneath at the back. See
the barred windows? No breaking out of there. Three prisoners did
break out of the old one during the year this building was under
construction,--each in a different way, too,--shows how badly they
needed a new one. Quite an ornament to the square, don't you think
so?"
"The jail?"
"No, no,--The building as a whole. Better go over it while you're
here."
"I may--do so--yes."
"Staying some time, I believe you said."
"Did I? I may have said so."
"Staying at the hotel, I believe?"
"Yes, and here we are." Harry King stood an instant--undecided.
Certain things he wished to know, but had not the courage to ask--not
on the street--but maybe seated on the veranda he could ask this
outsider, in a casual way. "Drop in with me and have a smoke."
"I will, thank you. I often run in,--in the way of business,--but I
haven't tried it as a stopping place. Meals pretty good?"
"Very good." They took seats at the end of the piazza where Harry King
led the way. The sun was now low, but the air was still warm enough
for comfort, and no one was there but themselves, for it lacked an
hour to the return of the omnibus and the arrival of the usual loafers
who congregated at that time.
"You've made a good many acquaintances since you came, no doubt?"
"Well--a good many--yes."
"Know the Craigmiles?"
"The Craigmiles? There's no one there to know--now--but the Elder. Oh,
his wife, of course, but she stays at home so close no one ever sees
her. They're away now, if you want to see them."
"And she never goes out--you say?"
"Never since I've been in the town. You see, there was a tragedy in
the family. Just before I came it happened, and I remember the town
was all stirred up about it. Their son was murdered."
Harry King gave a quick start, then gathered himself up in strong
control and tilted his chair back against the wall.
"Their son murdered?" he asked. "Tell me about it. All you know."
"That's just it--nobody knows anything. They know he was murdered,
because he disappeared completely. The young man was called Peter
Junior, after his father, of course--and he was the one that was
murdered. They found every evidence of it. It was there on the bluff,
above the wildest part of the river, where the current is so strong no
man could live a minute in it. He would be dashed to death in the
flood, even if he were not killed in the fall from the brink, and that
young man was pushed over right there."
"How did they know he was pushed over?"
"They knew he was. They found his hat there, and it was bloody, as if
he had been struck first, and a club there, also bloody,--and it is
believed he was killed first and then pushed over, for there is the
place yet, after three years, where the earth gave way with the weight
of something shoved over the edge. Well, would you believe it--that
old man has kept the knowledge of it from his wife all this time. She
thinks her son quarreled with his father and went off, and that he
will surely return some day."
"And no one in the village ever told her?"
"All the town have helped the old Elder to keep it from her. You'd
think such a thing impossible, wouldn't you? But it's the truth. The
old man bribed the _Mercury_ to keep it out, and, by jiminy, it was
done! Here, in a town of this size where every one knows all about
every one else's affairs--it was done! It seems people took an
especial interest in keeping it from her, yet every one was talking
about it, and so I heard all there was to hear. Hallo! What are you
doing here?"
This last remark was addressed to Nels Nelson, who appeared just
below them and stood peering up at them through the veranda railing.
"I yust vaiting for Meestair Stiles. He tol' me vait for heem here."
"Mr. Stiles? Who's he?"
"Dere he coomin'."
As he spoke G. B. Stiles came through the hotel door and walked
gravely up to them. Something in his manner, and in the expectant,
watchful eye of the Swede, caused them both to rise. At the same
moment, Kellar, the sheriff, came up the front steps and approached
them, and placing his hand on Harry King's shoulder, drew from his
pocket a pair of handcuffs.
"Young man, it is my duty to arrest you. Here is my badge--this is
quite straight--for the murder of Peter Craigmile, Jr."
The young man neither moved nor spoke for a moment, and as he stood
thus the sheriff took him by the arm, and roused him. "Richard
Kildene, you are under arrest for the murder of your cousin, Peter
Craigmile, Jr."
With a quick, frantic movement, Harry King sprang back and thrust both
men violently from him. The red of anger mounted to his hair and
throbbed in his temples, then swept back to his heart, and left him
with a deathlike pallor.
"Keep back. I'm not Richard Kildene. You have the wrong man. Peter
Craigmile was never murdered."
The big Swede leaped the piazza railing and stood close to him, while
the sheriff held him pinioned, and Sam Carter drew out his notebook.
"You know me, Mr. Kellar,--stand off, I say. I am Peter Craigmile.
Look at me. Put away those handcuffs. It is I, alive, Peter Craigmile,
Jr."
"That's a very clever plea, but it's no go," said G. B. Stiles, and
proceeded to fasten the irons on his wrists.
"Yas, I know you dot man keel heem, all right. I hear you tol' some
von you keel heem," said the Swede, slowly, in suppressed excitement.
"You're a very good actor, young man,--mighty clever,--but it's no go.
Now you'll walk along with us if you please," said Mr. Kellar.
"But I tell you I don't please. It's a mistake. I am Peter Craigmile,
Jr., himself, alive."
"Well, if you are, you'll have a chance to prove it, but evidence is
against you. If you are he, why do you come back under an assumed name
during your father's absence? A little hitch there you did not take
into consideration."
"I had my reasons--good ones--I--came back to confess to
the--un--un--witting--killing of my cousin, Richard." He turned from
one to the other, panting as if he had been running a race, and threw
out his words impetuously. "I tell you I came here for the very
purpose of giving myself up--but you have the wrong man."
By this time a crowd had collected, and the servants were running from
their work all over the hotel, while the proprietor stood aloof with
staring eyes.
"Here, Mr. Decker, you remember me--Elder Craigmile's son? Some of you
must remember me."
But the proprietor only wagged his head. He would not be drawn into
the thing. "I have no means of knowing who you are--no more than Adam.
The name you wrote in my book was Harry King."
"I tell you I had my reasons. I meant to wait here until the
Elder's--my father's return and--"
"And in the meantime we'll put you in a quiet little apartment, very
private, where you can wait, while we look into things a bit."
"You needn't take me through the streets with these things on; I've no
intention of running away. Let me go to my room a minute."
"Yes, and put a bullet through your head. I've no intention of running
any risks now we have you," said the detective.
"Now you have who? You have no idea whom you have. Take off these
shackles until I pay my bill. You have no objection to that, have
you?"
They turned into the hotel, and the handcuffs were removed while the
young man took out his pocketbook and paid his reckoning. Then he
turned to them.
"I must ask you to accompany me to my room while I gather my toilet
necessities together." This they did, G. B. Stiles and the sheriff
walking one on either side, while the Swede followed at their heels.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded, turning suddenly upon the
stable man.
"Oh, I yust lookin' a leetle out."
"Mr. Stiles, what does this mean, that you have that man dogging me?"
"It's his affair, not mine. He thinks he has a certain interest in
you."
Then he turned in exasperation to the sheriff. "Can you give me a
little information, Mr. Kellar? What has that Swede to do with me? Why
am I arrested for the murder of my own self--preposterous! I, a man as
alive as you are? You can see for yourself that I am Elder
Craigmile's son. You know me?"
"I know the Elder fairly well--every one in Leauvite knows him, but I
can't say as I've ever taken particular notice of his boy, and,
anyway, the boy was murdered three years ago--a little over--for it
was in the fall of the year--well, that's most four years--and I must
say it's a mighty clever dodge, as Mr. Stiles says, for you to play
off this on us. It's a matter that will bear looking into. Now you sit
down here and hold on to yourself, while I go through your things.
You'll get them all, never fear."
Then Harry King sat down and looked off through the open window, and
paid no heed to what the men were doing. They might turn his large
valise inside out and read every scrap of written paper. There was
nothing to give the slightest clew to his identity. He had left the
envelope addressed to the Elder, containing the letters he had
written, at the bank, to be placed in the safety vault, and not to be
delivered until ordered to do so by himself.
As they finished their search and restored the articles to his valise,
he asked again that the handcuffs be left off as he walked through the
streets.
"I have no desire to escape. It is my wish to go with you. I only wish
I might have seen the--my father first. He could not have helped
me--but he would have understood--it would have seemed less--"
He could not go on, and the sheriff slipped the handcuffs in his
pocket, and they proceeded in silence to the courthouse, where he
listened to the reading of the warrant and his indictment in dazed
stupefaction, and then walked again in silence between his captors to
the jail in the rear.
"No one has ever been in this cell," said Mr. Kellar. "I'm doing the
best I can for you."
"How long must I stay here? Who brings accusation?"
"I don't know how long: as this is a murder charge you can't
be bailed out, and the trial will take time. The Elder brings
accusation--naturally."
"When is he expected home?"
"Can't say. You'll have some one to defend you, and then you can ask
all the questions you wish." The sheriff closed the heavy door and the
key was turned.
Then began weary days of waiting. If it had been possible to get the
trial over with, Harry would have been glad, but it made little
difference to him now, since the step had been taken, and a trial in
his case would only be a verdict, anyway--and confession was a simple
thing, and the hearing also.
The days passed, and he wondered that no one came to him--no friend of
the old time. Where were Bertrand Ballard and Mary? Where was little
Betty? Did they not know he was in jail? He did not know that others
had been arrested on the same charge and released, more than once.
True, no one had made the claim of being the Elder's own son and the
murdered man himself. As such incidents were always disturbing to
Betty, when Bertrand read the notice of the arrest in the _Mercury_,
the paper was laid away in his desk and his little daughter was spared
the sight of it this time.
But he spoke of the matter to his wife. "Here is another case of
arrest for poor Peter Junior's murder, Mary. The man claims to be
Peter Junior himself, but as he registered at the hotel under an
assumed name it is likely to be only another attempt to get the
reward money by some detective. It was very unwise for the Elder to
make it so large a sum."
"It can't be. Peter Junior would never be so cruel as to stay away all
this time, if he were alive, no matter how deeply he may have
quarreled with his father. I believe they both went over the bluff and
are both dead."
"It stands to reason that one or the other body would have been found
in that case. One might be lost, but hardly both. The search was very
thorough, even down to the mill race ten miles below."
"The current is so swift there, they might have been carried over the
race, and on, before the search began. I think so, although no one
else seems to."
"I wish the Elder would remove that temptation of the reward. It is
only an inducement to crime. Time alone will solve the mystery, and as
long as he continues to brood over it, he will go on failing in
health. It's coming to an obsession with him to live to see Richard
Kildene hung, and some one will have to swing for it if he has his
way. Now he will return and find this man in jail, and will bend every
effort, and give all his thought toward getting him convicted."
"But I thought you said they do not hang in this state."
"True--true. But imprisonment for life is--worse. I'm thinking of what
the Elder would like could he have his way."
"Bertrand--I believe the Elder is sure the man will be found and that
it will kill his wife, when she comes to know that Peter Junior was
murdered, and that is why he took her to Scotland. She told me she was
sure her son was there, or would go to see his great aunts there, and
that is why she consented to go--but I'm sure the Elder wished to get
her out of the way."
"Strange--strange," said Bertrand. "After all, it is better to
forgive. No one knows what transpired, and Richard is the real
sufferer."
"Do you suppose he'll leave Hester there, Bertrand?"
"I hardly think she would be left, but it is impossible to tell. A
son's loss is more than any other--to a mother."
"Do you think so, Bertrand? It would be hardest of all to lose a
husband, and the Elder has failed so much since Peter Junior's
death."
"Peter Junior seems to be the only one who has escaped suffering in
this tragedy. Remorse in Richard's case, and stubborn anger in the
Elder's--they are emotions that take large toll out of a man's
vitality. If ever Richard is found, he will not be the young man we
knew."
"Unless he is innocent. All this may have been an accident."
"Then why is he staying in hiding?"
"He may have felt there was no way to prove his innocence."
"Well, there is another reason why the Elder should withdraw his offer
of a reward, and when he comes back, I mean to try what can be done
once more. Everything would have to be circumstantial. He will have a
hard time to prove his nephew's guilt."
"I can't see why he should try to prove it. It must have been an
accident--at the last. Of course it might have been begun in anger, in
a moment of misunderstanding, but the nature of the boys would go to
show that it never could have been done intentionally. It is
impossible."
CHAPTER XXX
THE ARGUMENT
"Mr. Ballard, either my son was murdered, or he was a murderer. The
crime falls upon us, and the disgrace of it, no matter how you look at
it." The Elder sat in the back room at the bank, where his friend had
been arguing with him to withdraw the offer of a reward for the
arrest. "It's too late, now--too late. The man's found and he claims
to be my son. You're a kindly man, Mr. Ballard, but a blind one."
Bertrand drew his chair closer to the Elder's, as if by so doing he
might establish a friendlier thought in the man's heart. "Blind?
Blind, Elder Craigmile?"
"I say blind. I see. I see it all." The Elder rose and paced the
floor. "The boys fought, there on the bluff, and sought to kill each
other, and for the same cause that has wrought most of the evil in the
world. Over the love of a woman they fought. Peter carried a
blackthorn stick that ought never to have been in my house--you know,
for you brought it to me--and struck his cousin with it, and at the
same instant was pushed over the brink, as Richard intended."
"How do you know that Richard was not pushed over? How do you know
that he did not fall over with his cousin? How can you dare work for a
man's conviction on such slight evidence?"
"How do I know? Although you would favor that--that--although--" The
Elder paused and struggled for control, then sat weakly down and took
up the argument again with trembling voice. "Mr. Ballard, I would
spare you--much of this matter which has been brought to my
knowledge--but I cannot--because it must come out at the trial. It was
over your little daughter, Betty, that they fought. She has known all
these years that Richard Kildene murdered her lover."
"Elder--Elder! Your brooding has unbalanced your mind."
"Wait, my friend. This falls on you with but half the burden that I
have borne. My son was no murderer. Richard Kildene is not only a
murderer, but a coward. He went to your daughter while we were
dragging the river for my poor boy's body, and told her he had
murdered her lover; that he pushed him over the bluff and that he
intended to do so. Now he adds to his crime--by--coming here--and
pretending--to be--my son. He shall hang. He shall hang. If he does
not, there is no justice in heaven." The Elder looked up and shook his
hand above his head as if he defied the whole heavenly host.
Bertrand Ballard sat for a moment stunned. Such a preposterous turn
was beyond his comprehension. Strangely enough his first thought was a
mere contradiction, and he said: "Men are not hung in this state. You
will not have your wish." He leaned forward, with his elbows on the
great table and his head in his hands; then, without looking up, he
said: "Go on. Go on. How did you come by this astounding information?
Was it from Betty?"
"Then may he be shut in the blackest dungeon for the rest of his life.
No, it was not from Betty. Never. She has kept this terrible secret
well. I have not seen your daughter--not--since--since this was told
me. It has been known to the detective and to my attorney, Milton
Hibbard, for two years, and to me for one year--just before I offered
the increased reward to which you so object. I had reason."
"Then it is as I thought. Your offer of ten thousand dollars reward
has incited the crime of attempting to convict an innocent man. Again
I ask you, how did you come by this astounding information?"
"By the word of an eyewitness. Sit still, Mr. Ballard, until you hear
the whole; then blame me if you can. A few years ago you had a Swede
working for you in your garden. You boarded him. He slept in a little
room over your summer kitchen; do you remember?"
"Yes."
"He saw Richard Kildene come to the house when we were all away--while
you were with me--your wife with mine,--and your little daughter
alone. This Swede heard all that was said, and saw all that was done.
His testimony alone will--"
"Convict a man? It is greed! What is your detective working for and
why does this Swede come forward at this late day with his testimony?
Greed! Elder Craigmile, how do you know that this testimony is not all
made up between them? I will go home and ask Betty, and learn the
truth."
"And why does the young man come here under an assumed name, and when
he is discovered, claim to be my son? The only claim he could make
that could save him! If he knows anything, he knows that if he
pretends he is my son--laboring under the belief that he has killed
Richard Kildene--when he knows Richard's death can be disproved by
your daughter's statement that she saw and talked with Richard--he
knows that he may be released from the charge of murder and may
establish himself here as the man whom he himself threw over the
bluff, and who, therefore, can never return to give him the lie. I
say--if this is proved on him, he shall suffer the extreme penalty of
the law, or there is no justice in the land."
Bertrand rose, sadly shaken. "This is a very terrible accusation, my
friend. Let us hope it may not be proved true. I will go home and ask
Betty. You will take her testimony before that of the Swede?"
"If you are my friend, why are you willing my son should be proven a
murderer? It is a deep-laid scheme, and Richard Kildene walks close in
his father's steps. I have always seen his father in him. I tried to
save him for my sister's sake. I brought him up in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord, and did for him all that fathers do for their
sons, and now I have the fool's reward--the reward of the man who
warmed the viper in his bosom. He, to come here and sit in my son's
place--to eat bread at my table--at my wife's right hand--with her
smile in his eyes? Rather he shall--"
"We will find out the truth, and, if possible, you shall be saved from
yourself, Elder Craigmile, and your son will not be proven a murderer.
Let me still be your friend." Bertrand's voice thrilled with
suppressed emotion and the sympathy he could not utter, as he held out
his hand, which the Elder took in both his own shaking ones. His
voice trembled with suppressed emotion as he spoke.
"Pray God Hester may stay where she is until this thing is over. And
pray God you may not be blinded by love of your daughter, who was not
true to my son. She was promised to become his wife, but through all
these years she protects by her silence the murderer of her lover.
Ponder on this thought, Bertrand Ballard, and pray God you may have
the strength to be just."
Bertrand walked homeward with bowed head. It was Saturday. The day's
baking was in progress, and Mary Ballard was just removing a pan of
temptingly browned tea cakes from the oven when he entered. She did
not see his face as he asked, "Mary, where can I find Betty?"
"Upstairs in the studio, drawing. Where would you expect to find her?"
she said gayly. Something in her husband's voice touched her. She
hastily lifted the cakes from the pan and ran after him.
"What is it, dear?"
He was halfway up the stairs and he turned and came back to her. "I've
heard something that troubles me, and must see her alone, Mary. I'll
talk with you about it later. Don't let us be disturbed until we come
down."
"I think Janey is with her now."
"I'll send her down to you."
"Bertrand, it is something terrible! You are trying to spare me--don't
do it."
"Ask no questions."
"Tell Janey I want her to help in the kitchen."
Mary went back to her work in silence. If Bertrand wished to be alone
with Betty, he had a good reason; and presently Janey skipped in and
was set to paring the potatoes for dinner.
Bertrand found Betty bending closely over a drawing for which she had
no model, but which was intended to illustrate a fairy story. She was
using pen and ink, and trying to imitate the fine strokes of a steel
engraving. He stood at her side, looking down at her work a moment,
and his artist's sense for the instant crowded back other thoughts.
"You ought to have a model, daughter, and you should work in chalk or
charcoal for your designing."
"I know, father, but you see I am trying to make some illustrations
that will look like what are in the magazines. I'm making fairies,
father, and you know I can't find any models, so I have to make them
up."
"Put that away. I have some questions to ask you."
"What's the matter, daddy? You look as if the sky were falling." He
had seated himself on the long lounge where she had once sat and
chatted with Peter Junior. She recalled that day. It was when he
kissed her for the first time. Her cheeks flushed hotly as they always
did now when she thought of it, and her eyes were sad. She went over
and established herself at her father's side.
"What is it, daddy, dear?"
"Betty,"--he spoke sternly, as she had never heard him before,--"have
you been concealing something from your father and mother--and from
the world--for the last three years and a half?"
Her head drooped, the red left her cheeks, and she turned white to the
lips. She drew away from her father and clasped her hands in her lap,
tightly. She was praying for strength to tell the truth. Ah, could
she do it? Could she do it! And perhaps cause Richard's condemnation?
Had they found him?--that father should ask such a question now, after
so long a time?
"Why do you ask me such a question, father?"
"Tell me the truth, child."
"Father! I--I--can't," and her voice died away to a whisper.
"You can and you must, Betty."
She rose and stood trembling before him with clinched hands. "What has
happened? Tell me. It is not fair to ask me such a question unless you
tell me why." Then she dropped upon her knees and hid her face against
his sleeve. "If you don't tell me what has happened, I will never
speak again. I will be dumb, even if they kill me."
He put his arm tenderly about the trembling little form, and the act
brought the tears and he thought her softened. He knew, as Mary had
often said, that "Betty could not be driven, but might be led."
"Tell father all about it, little daughter." But she did not open her
lips. He waited patiently, then asked again, kindly and persistently,
"What have you been hiding, Betty?" but she only sobbed on. "Betty, if
you do not tell me now and here, you will be taken into court and made
to tell all you know before all the world! You will be proven to have
been untrue to the man you were to marry and who loved you, and to
have been shielding his murderer."
"Then it is Richard. They have found him?" She shrank away from her
father and her sobs ceased. "It has come at last. Father--if--if--I
had--been married to Richard--then would they make me go in court and
testify against him?"
"No. A wife is not compelled to give testimony against her husband,
nor may she testify for him, either."
Betty rose and straightened herself defiantly; with flaming cheeks and
flashing eyes she looked down upon him.
"Then I will tell one great lie--father--and do it even if--if it
should drag me down to--hell. I will say I am married to Richard--and
will swear to it." Bertrand was silent, aghast. "Father! Where is
Richard?"
"He is there in Leauvite, in jail. You must do what is right in the
eye of God, my child, and tell the truth."
"If I tell the truth,--they will do what is right in their own eyes.
They don't know what is right in the eye of God. If they drag me into
court--there before all the world I will lie to them until I drop
dead. Has--has--the Elder seen him?"
"Not yet. He refused to see him until the trial."
"He is a cruel, vindictive old man. Does he think it will bring Peter
back to life again to hang Richard? Does he think it will save his
wife from sorrow, or--or bring any one nearer heaven to do it?"
"If Richard has done the thing he is accused of doing, he deserves the
extremest rigor of the law."
"Father! Don't let the Elder make you hard like himself. What is he
accused of doing?"
"He is making claim that he is Peter Junior, and that he has come back
to Leauvite to give himself up for the murder of his cousin, Richard
Kildene. He thinks, no doubt, that you will say that you know Richard
is living, and that he has not killed him, and in that way he thinks
to escape punishment, by proving that Peter also is living, and is
himself. Do you see how it is? He has chosen to live here an impostor
rather than to live in hiding as an outcast, and is trading on his
likeness to his cousin to bear him out. I had hoped that it was all a
detective's lie, got up for the purpose of getting hold of the reward
money, but now I see it is true--the most astounding thing a man ever
tried."
"Did he send you to me?"
"No, child. I have not seen him."
"Father Bertrand Ballard! Have you taken some detective's word and not
even tried to see him?"
"Child, child! He is playing a desperate game, and taking an ignoble
part. He is doing a dastardly thing, and the burden is laid on you to
confess to the secret you have been hiding and tell the truth."
Bertrand spoke very sadly, and Betty's heart smote her for his sorrow;
yet she felt the thing was impossible for Richard to do, and that she
must hold the secret a little longer--all the more because even her
father seemed now to credit the terrible accusation. She threw her
arms about his neck and implored him.
"Oh, father, dear! Take me to the jail to see him, and after that I
will try to do what is right. I can think clearer after I have seen
him."
"I don't know if that will be allowed--but--"
"It will have to be allowed. How can I say if it is Richard until I
see him. It may not be Richard. The Elder is too blinded to even go
near him, and dear Mrs. Craigmile is not here. Some one ought to go in
fairness to Richard--who loves--" She choked and could say no more.
"I will talk to your mother first. There is another thing that should
soften your heart to the Elder. All over the country there is
financial trouble. Banks are going to pieces that never were in
trouble before, and Elder Craigmile's bank is going, he fears. It will
be a terrible crash, and we fear he may not outlive the blow. I tell
you this, even though you may not understand it, to soften your heart
toward him. He considers it in the nature of a disgrace."
"Yes. I understand, better than you think." Betty's voice was sad, and
she looked weary and spent. "If the bank breaks, it breaks the Elder's
heart. All the rest he could stand, but not that. The bank, the bank!
He tried to sacrifice Peter Junior to that bank. He would have broken
Peter's heart for that bank, as he has his wife's; for if it had not
been for Peter's quarrel with his father, first of all, over it, I
don't believe all the rest would have happened. Peter told me a lot. I
know."
"Betty, did you never love Peter Junior? Tell father."
"I thought I did. I thought I knew I did,--but when Richard came
home--then--I--I--knew I had made a terrible mistake; but, father, I
meant to stand by Peter--and never let anybody know until--Oh, father,
need I tell any more?"
"No, my dear. You would better talk with your mother."
Bertrand Ballard left the studio more confused in his mind, and yet
both sadder and wiser then he had ever been in his life. He had seen a
little way into his small daughter's soul, and conceived of a power
of spirit beyond him, although he considered her both unreasonable and
wrong. He grieved for her that she had carried such a great burden so
bravely and so long. How great must have been her love, or her
infatuation! The pathetic knowledge hardened his heart toward the
young man in the jail, and he no longer tried to defend him in his
thoughts.
He sent Mary up to talk with Betty, and that afternoon they all walked
over to the jail; for Mary could get no nearer her little daughter's
confidence, and no deeper into the heart of the matter than Betty had
allowed her father to go.
CHAPTER XXXI
ROBERT KATER'S SUCCESS
"Halloo! So it's here!" Robert Kater stood by a much-littered table
and looked down on a few papers and envelopes which some one had laid
there during his absence. All day long he had been wandering about the
streets of Paris, waiting--passing the time as he could in his
impatience--hoping for the communication contained in one of these
very envelopes. Now that it had come he felt himself struck with a
singular weakness, and did not seize it and tear it open. Instead, he
stood before the table, his hands in his pockets, and whistled
softly.
He made the tour of the studio several times, pausing now and then to
turn a canvas about, apparently as if he would criticize it, looking
at it but not regarding it, only absently turning one and another as
if it were a habit with him to do so; then returning to the table he
stirred the envelopes apart with one finger and finally separated one
from the rest, bearing an official seal, and with it a small package
carefully secured and bearing the same seal, but he did not open
either. "Yes, it's here, and that's the one," he said, but he spoke to
himself, for there was no one else in the room.
He moved wearily away, keeping the packet in his hand, but leaving the
envelope on the table, and hung his hat upon a point of an easel and
wiped his damp brow. As he did so, he lifted the dark brown hair from
his temple, showing a jagged scar. Quickly, as if with an habitual
touch, he rearranged the thick, soft lock so that the scar was
covered, and mounting a dais, seated himself on a great thronelike
chair covered with a royal tiger skin. The head of the tiger, mounted
high, with glittering eyes and fangs showing, rested on the floor
between his feet, and there, holding the small packet in his hand,
with elbows resting on the arms of the throne, he sat with head
dropped forward and shoulders lifted and eyes fixed on the tiger's
head.
For a long time he sat thus in the darkening room. At last it grew
quite dark. Only the great skylight over his head showed a defined
outline. The young man had had no dinner and no supper, for his
pockets were empty and his last sou gone. If he had opened the
envelopes, he would have found money, and more than money, for he
would have learned that the doors of the Salon had opened to him and
the highest medal awarded him, and that for which he had toiled and
waited and hoped,--for which he had staked his last effort and
sacrificed everything, was won. He was recognized, and all Paris would
quickly know it, and not Paris only, but all the world. But when he
would open the envelope, his hands fell slack, and there it still lay
on the table concealed by the darkness.
Down three flights of stairs in the court a strange and motley group
were collecting, some bearing candles, all masked, some fantastically
dressed and others only concealed by dominoes. The stairs went up on
the outer wall of this inner court, past the windows of the basement
occupied by the concierge and his wife and pretty daughter, and
entered the building on the first floor above. By this arrangement the
concierge could always see from his window who mounted them.
"Look, mamma." The pretty daughter stood peering out, her face framed
in the white muslin curtains. "Look. See the students. Ah, but they
are droll!"
"Come away, ma fille."
"But the owl and the ape, there, they seem on very good terms. I
wonder if they go to the room of Monsieur Kater! I think so; for
one--the ghost in white, he is a little lame like the Englishman who
goes always to the room of Monsieur.--Ah, bah! Imbecile! Away with
you! Pig!"
The ape had suddenly approached his ugly face close to the face framed
in the white muslin curtains on the other side of the window, and made
exaggerated motions of an embrace. The wife of the concierge snatched
her daughter away and drew the curtains close.
"Foolish child! Why do you stand and watch the rude fellows? This is
what you get by it. I have told you to keep your eyes within."
"But I love to see them, so droll they are."
Stealthily the fantastic creatures began to climb the stairs, one,
two, three flights, traversing a long hall at the end of each flight
and turning to climb again. The expense of keeping a light on each
floor for the corridors was not allowed in this building, and they
moved along in the darkness, but for the flickering light of the few
candles carried among them. As they neared the top they grew more
stealthy and kept close together on the landing outside the studio
door. One stooped and listened at the keyhole, then tried to look
through it. "Not there?" whispered another.
"No light," was the whispered reply. They spoke now in French, now in
English.
"He has heard us and hid himself. He is a strange man, this Scotchman.
He did not attend the 'Vernissage,' nor the presentation of prizes,
yet he wins the highest." The owl stretched out an arm, bare and
muscular, from under his wing and tried the door very gently. It was
not locked, and he thrust his head within, then reached back and took
a candle from the ghost. "This will give light enough. Put out the
rest of yours and make no noise."
Thus in the darkness they crept into the studio and gathered around
the table. There they saw the unopened envelopes.
"He is not here. He does not know," said one and another.
"Where then can he be?"
"He has taken a panic and fled. I told you so," said the ghost.
"Ah, here he is! Behold! The Hamlet of our ghost! Wake, Hamlet; your
father's spirit has arrived," cried one in English with a very French
accent.
They now gathered before the dais, shouting and cheering in both
English and French. One brought the envelopes on a palette and
presented them. The young man gazed at them, stupidly at first, then
with a feverish gleam in his eyes, but did not take them.
"Yes, I found them when I came in--but they are--not for me."
"They are addressed to you, Robert Kater, and the news is published
and you leave them here unopened."
"He does not know--I told you so."
"You have the packet in your hand. Open it. Take it from him and
decorate him. He is in a dream. It is the great medal. We will wake
him."
They began to cheer and cheer again, each after the manner of the
character he had assumed. The ass brayed, the owl hooted, the ghost
groaned. The ape leaped on the back of the throne whereon the young
man still sat, and seized him by the hair, chattering idiotically
after the manner of apes, and began to wag his head back and forth. In
the midst of the uproar Demosthenes stepped forward and took the
envelopes from the palette, and, tearing them open, began reading them
aloud by the light of a candle held for him by Lady Macbeth, who now
and then interrupted with the remark that "her little hand was stained
with blood," stretching forth an enormous, hairy hand for their
inspection. But as Demosthenes read on the uproar ceased, and all
listened with courteous attention. The ape leaped down from the back
of the throne, the owl ceased hooting, and all were silent until the
second envelope had been opened and the contents made known--that his
exhibit had been purchased by the Salon.
"Robert Kater, you are at the top. We congratulate you. To be
recognized by the 'Salon des Artistes Francaises' is to be recognized
and honored by all the world."
They all came forward with kindly and sincere words, and the young man
stood to receive them, but reeling and swaying, weary with emotion,
and faint with hunger.
"Were you not going to the mask?"
"I was weary; I had not thought."
"Then wake up and go. We come for you."
"I have no costume."
"Ah, that is nothing. Make one; it is easy."
"He sits there like his own Saul, enveloped in gloom. Come, I will be
your David," cried one, and snatched a guitar and began strumming it
wildly.
While the company scattered and searched the studio for materials with
which to create for him a costume for the mask, the ghost came limping
up to the young man who had seated himself again wearily on the
throne, and spoke to him quietly.
"The tide's turned, Kater; wake up to it. You're clear of the
breakers. The two pictures you were going to destroy are sold. I
brought those Americans here while you were away and showed them. I
told you they'd take something as soon as you were admitted. Here's
the money."
Robert Kater raised himself, looking in the eyes of his friend, and
took the bank notes as if he were not aware what they really might
be.
"I say! You've enough to keep you for a year if you don't throw it
away. Count it. I doubled your price and they took them at the price I
made. Look at these."
Then Robert Kater looked at them with glittering eyes, and his shaking
hand shut upon them, crushing the bank notes in a tight grip. "We'll
halve it, share and share alike," he whispered, staring at the ghost
without counting it. "As for this," his finger touched the decoration
on his breast--"it is given to a--You won't take half? Then I'll throw
them away."
"I'll take them all until you're sane enough to know what you're
doing. Give them to me." He took them back and crept quietly,
ghostlike, about the room until he found a receptacle in which he
knew they would be safe; then, removing one hundred francs from the
amount, he brought it back and thrust it in his friend's pocket.
"There--that's enough for you to throw away on us to-night. Why are
you taking off your decoration? Leave it where it is. It's yours."
"Yes, I suppose it is." Robert Kater brushed his hand across his eyes
and stepped down from the throne. Then lifting his head and shoulders
as if he threw off a burden, he leaped from the dais, and with one
long howl, began an Indian war dance. He was the center and life of
the hilarious crowd from that moment. The selection of materials had
been made. A curtain of royal purple hung behind the throne, and this
they threw around him as a toga, then crowned him as Mark Antony. They
found for him also a tunic of soft wool, and with a strip of gold
braid they converted a pair of sheepskin bedroom slippers into
sandals, bound on his feet over his short socks.
"I say! Mark Antony never wore things like these," he shouted. "Give
me a mask. I'll not wear these things without a mask." He snatched at
the head of the owl, who ducked under his arm and escaped. "Go then.
This is better. Mark, the illustrious, was an ass." He made a dive for
the head of his braying friend and barely missed him.
"Come. We waste time. Cleopatra awaits him at 'la Fourchette d'or';
all our Cleopatras await us there."
"Surely?"
"Surely. Madame la Charne is there and the sisters Lucie and
Bertha,--all are there,--and with them one very beautiful blonde whom
you have never seen."
"She is for you--you cold Scotchman! That stone within you, which you
call heart, to-night it will melt."
"You have everything planned then?"
"Everything is made ready."
"Look here! Wait, my friends! I haven't expressed myself yet." They
were preparing to lift him above their heads. "I wish to say that you
are all to share my good fortune and allow--"
"Wait for the champagne. You can say it then with more force."
"I say! Hold on! I ask you to--"
"So we do. We hold on. Now, up--so." He was borne in triumph down the
stairs and out on the street and away to the sign of the Golden Fork,
and seated at the head of the table in a small banquet room opening
off from the balcony at one side where the feast which had been
ordered and prepared was awaiting them.
A group of masked young women, gathered on the balcony, pelted them
with flowers as they passed beneath it, and when the men were all
seated, they trooped out, and each slid into her appointed place,
still masked.
Then came a confusion of tongues, badinage, repartee, wit undiluted by
discretion--and rippling laughter as one mask after another was torn
off.
"Ah, how glad I am to be rid of it! I was suffocating," said a soft
voice at Robert Kater's side.
He looked down quickly into a pair of clear, red-brown eyes--eyes into
which he had never looked before.
"Then we are both content that it is off." He smiled as he spoke. She
glanced up at him, then down and away. When she lifted her eyes an
instant later again to his face, he was no longer regarding her. She
was piqued, and quickly began conversing with the man on her left, the
one who had removed her mask.
"It is no use, your smile, mademoiselle. He is impervious, that man.
He has no sense or he could not turn his eyes away."
"I like best the impervious ones." With a light ripple of laughter she
turned again to her right. "Monsieur has forgotten?"
"Forgotten?" Robert was mystified until he realized in the instant
that she was pretending to a former acquaintance. "Could I forget,
mademoiselle? Permit me." He lifted his glass. "To your eyes--and to
your--memory," he said, and drank it off.
After that he became the gayest of them all, and the merriment never
flagged. He ate heartily, for he was very hungry, but he drank
sparingly. His brain seemed supplied with intellectual missiles which
he hurled right and left, but when they struck, it was only to send
out a rain of sparks like the balls of holiday fireworks that explode
in a fountain of brilliance and hurt no one.
"Monsieur is so gay!" said the soft voice of the blonde at his side.
"Are we not here for that, to enjoy ourselves?"
"Ah, if I could but believe that you remember me!"
"Is it possible mademoiselle thinks herself one to be so easily
forgotten?"
"Monsieur, tell me the truth." She glanced up archly. "I have one very
good reason for asking."
"You are very beautiful."
"But that is so banal--that remark."
"You complain that I tell you the truth when you ask it? You have so
often heard it that the telling becomes banal? Shall I continue?"
"But it is of yourself that I would hear."
"So? Then it is as I feared. It is you who have forgotten."
They were interrupted at that moment, for he was called upon for a
story, and he related one of his life as a soldier,--a little
incident, but everything pleased. They called upon him for another and
another. The hour grew late, and at last the banqueters rose and began
to remask and assume their various characters.
"What are you, monsieur, with that very strange dress that you wear, a
Roman or a Greek?" asked his companion.
"I really don't know--a sort of nondescript. I did not choose my
costume; it was made up for me by my friends. They called me Mark
Antony, but that was because they did not know what else to call me.
But they promised me Cleopatra if I would come with them."
"They would have done better to call you Petrarch, for I am Laura."
"But I never could have taken that part. I could make a very decent
sort of ass of myself, but not a poet."
"What a very terrible voice your Lady Macbeth has!"
"Yes; but she was a terror, you know. Shall we follow the rest?"
They all trooped out of the café, and fiacres were called to take them
to the house where the mask was held. The women were placed in their
respective carriages, but the men walked. At the door of the house, as
they entered the ballroom, they reunited, but again were soon
scattered. Robert Kater wandered about, searching here and there for
his very elusive Laura, so slim and elegant in her white and gold
draperies, who seemed to be greatly in demand. He saw many whom he
recognized; some by their carriage, some by their voices, but Laura
baffled him. Had he ever seen her before? He could not remember. He
would not have forgotten her--never. No, she was amusing herself with
him.
"Monsieur does not dance?" It was a Spanish gypsy with her lace
mantilla and the inevitable red rose in her hair. He knew the voice.
It was that of a little model he sometimes employed.
"I dance, yes. But I will only take you out on the floor, my little
Julie,--ha--ha--I know you, never fear--I will take you out on the
floor, but on one condition."
"It is granted before I know it."
"Then tell me, who is she just passing?"
"The one whose clothing is so--so--as if she would pose for the--"
"Hush, Julie. The one in white and gold."
"I asked if it were she. Yes, I know her very well, for I saw a
gentleman unmask her on the balcony above there, to kiss her. It is
she who dances so wonderfully at the Opéra Comique. You have seen her,
Mademoiselle Fée. Ah, come. Let us dance. It is the most perfect
waltz."
At the close of the waltz the owl came and took the little gypsy away
from Robert, and a moment later he heard the mellifluous voice of his
companion of the banquet.
"I am so weary, monsieur. Take me away where we may refresh
ourselves."
The red-brown eyes looked pleadingly into his, and the slender fingers
rested on his arm, and together they wandered to a corner of palms
where he seated her and brought her cool wine jelly and other
confections. She thanked him sweetly, and, drooping, she rested her
head upon her hand and her arm on the arm of her chair.
"So dull they are, these fêtes, and the people--bah! They are dull to
the point of despair."
She was a dream of gold and white as she sat there--the red-gold hair
and the red-brown eyes, and the soft gold and white draperies, too
clinging, as the little gypsy had indicated, but beautiful as a gold
and white lily. He sat beside her and gazed on her dreamily, but in a
manner too detached. She was not pleased, and she sighed.
"Take the refreshment, mademoiselle; you will feel better. I will
bring you wine. What will you have?"
"Oh, you men, who always think that to eat and drink something alone
can refresh! Have you never a sadness?"
"Very often, mademoiselle."
"Then what do you do?"
"I eat and drink, mademoiselle. Try it."
"Oh, you strange man from the cold north! You make me shiver. Touch my
hand. See? You have made me cold."
"Cold? You are a flame from the crown of gold on your head to your
shoes of gold."
"Now that you are become a success, monsieur, what will you do? To you
is given the heart's desire." She toyed with the quivering jelly,
merely tasting it. It too was golden in hue, and golden lights danced
in the heart of it.
"A great success? I am dreaming. It is so new to me that I do not
believe it."
"You are very clever, monsieur. You never tell your thoughts. I asked
if you remembered me and you answered in a riddle. I knew you did
not, for you never saw me before."
"Did I never see you dance?"
"Ah, there you are again! To see me dance--in a great audience--one of
many? That does not count. You but pretended."
He leaned forward, looking steadily in her eyes. "Did I but pretend
when I said I never could forget you? Ah, mademoiselle, you are too
modest."
She was maddened that she could not pique him to a more ardent manner,
but gave no sign by so much as the quiver of an eyelid. She only
turned her profile toward him indifferently. He noticed the piquant
line of her lips and chin and throat, and the golden tones of her
delicate skin.
"Did I not also tell you the truth when you asked me? And you rewarded
me by calling me banal."
"And I was right. You, who are so clever, could think of something
better to say." She gave him a quick glance, and placed a quivering
morsel of jelly between her lips. "But you are so very strange to me.
Tell me, were you never in love?"
"That is a question I may not answer." He still smiled, but it was
merely the continuation of the smile he had worn before she shot that
last arrow. He still looked in her eyes, but she knew he was not
seeing her. Then he rallied and laughed. "Come, question for question.
Were you never in love--or out of love--let us say?"
"Oh! Me!" She lifted her shoulders delicately. "Me! I am in love
now--at this moment. You do not treat me well. You have not danced
with me once."
"No. You have been dancing always, and fully occupied. How could I?"
"Ah, you have not learned. To dance with me--you must take me, not
stand one side and wait."
"Are you engaged for the next?"
"But, yes. It is no matter. I will dance it with you. He will be
consoled." She laughed, showing her beautiful, even teeth. "I make you
a confession. I said to him, 'I will dance it with you unless the cold
monsieur asks me--then I will dance with him, for it will do him
good.'"
Robert Kater rose and stood a moment looking through the palms. The
silken folds of his toga fell gracefully around him, and he held his
head high. Then he withdrew his eyes from the distance and turned them
again on her,--the gold and white being at his feet,--and she seemed
to him no longer human, but a phantom from which he must flee, if but
he might do so courteously, for he knew her to be no phantom, and he
could not be other than courteous.
"Will you accept from me my laurel crown?" He took the chaplet from
his head and laid it at her feet. Then, lifting her hand to his lips,
he kissed the tips of her pink fingers, bowing low before her. "I go
to send you wine. Console your partner. It is better so, for I too am
in love." He smiled upon her as he had smiled at first, and was gone,
walking out through the crowd--the weird, fantastic, bizarre company,
as if he were no part of them. One and another greeted him as he
passed, but he did not seem to hear them. He called a waiter and
ordered wine to be taken to Mademoiselle Fée, and quickly was gone.
They saw him no more.
It was nearly morning. A drizzling rain was falling, and the air was
chill after the heat of the crowded ballroom. He drew it into his
lungs in deep draughts, glad to be out in the freshness, and to feel
the cool rain on his forehead. He threw off his encumbering toga and
walked in his tunic, with bare throat and bare knees, and carried the
toga over one bare arm, and swung the other bare arm free. He walked
with head held high, for he was seeing visions, and hearing a
far-distant call. Now at last he might choose his path. He had not
failed, but with that call from afar--what should he do? Should he
answer it? Was it only a call from out his own heart--a passing,
futile call, luring him back?
Of one thing he was sure. There was the painting on which he had
labored and staked his all now hanging in the Salon. He could see it,
one of his visions realized,--David and Saul. The deep, rich
shadows, the throne, the tiger skin, the sandaled feet of the
remorseful king resting on the great fanged and leering head, the
eyes of the king looking hungrily out from under his forbidding brows,
the cruel lips pressed tightly together, and the lithe, thin hands
grasping the carved arms of the throne in fierce restraint,--all
this in the deep shadows between the majestic carved columns, their
bases concealed by the rich carpet covering the dais and their tops
lost in the brooding darkness above--the lowering darkness of purple
gloom that only served to reveal the sinister outlines of the somber,
sorrowful, suffering king, while he indulged the one pure passion
left him--listening--gazing from the shadows out into the light,
seeing nothing, only listening.
And before him, standing in the one ray of light, clothed only in his
tunic of white and his sandals, a human jewel of radiant color and
slender strength, a godlike conception of youth and grace, his harp
before him, the lilies crushed under his feet that he had torn from
the strings which his fingers touched caressingly, with sunlight in
his crown of golden, curling hair and the light of the stars in his
eyes--David, the strong, the simple, the trusting, the God-fearing
youth, as Robert Kater saw him, looking back through the ages.
Ah, now he could live. Now he could create--work: he had been
recognized, and rewarded--Dust and ashes! Dust and ashes! The hope of
his life realized, the goblet raised to his lips, and the draft--bitter.
The call falling upon his heart--imperative--beseeching--what did it
mean?
Slowly and heavily he mounted the stairs to his studio, and there
fumbled about in the darkness and the confusion left by his admiring
comrades until he found candles and made a light. He was cold, and his
light clothing clung to him wet and chilling as grave clothes. He tore
them off and got himself into things that were warm and dry, and
wrapping himself in an old dressing gown of flannel, sat down to
think.
He took the money his friend had brought him and counted it over. Good
old Ben Howard! Half of it must go to him, of course. And here were
finished canvases quite as good as the ones that had sold. Ben might
turn them to as good an account as the others,--yes,--here was enough
to carry him through a year and leave him leisure to paint unhampered
by the necessity of making pot boilers for a bare living.
"Tell me, were you never in love?" That soft, insinuating voice
haunted him against his will. In love? What did she know of love--the
divine passion? Love! Fame! Neither were possible to him. He bowed his
head upon the table, hiding his face, crushing the bank notes beneath
his arms. Deep in his soul the eye of his own conscience regarded
him,--an outcast hiding under an assumed name, covering the scar above
his temple with a falling lock of hair seldom lifted, and deep in his
soul a memory of a love. Oh, God! Dust and ashes! Dust and ashes!
He rose, and, taking his candle with him, opened a door leading from
the studio up a short flight of steps to a little cupboard of a
sleeping room. Here he cast himself on the bed and closed his eyes. He
must sleep: but no, he could not. After a time of restless tossing he
got up and drew an old portmanteau from the closet and threw the
contents out on the bed. From among them he picked up the thing he
sought and sat on the edge of his bed with it in his hands, turning it
over and regarding it, tieing and untieing the worn, frayed, but still
bright ribbons, which had once been the cherry-colored hair ribbons of
little Betty Ballard.
Suddenly he rose and lifted his head high, in his old, rather
imperious way, put out his candle, and looked through the small, dusty
panes of his window. It was day--early dawn. He was jaded and weary,
but he would try no longer to sleep. He must act, and shake off
sentimentalism. Yes, he must act. He bathed and dressed with care, and
then in haste, as if life depended on hurry, he packed the portmanteau
and stepped briskly into the studio, looking all about, noting
everything as if taking stock of it all, then sat down with pen and
paper to write.
The letter was a long one. It took time and thought. When he was
nearly through with it, Ben Howard lagged wearily in.
"Halloo! Why didn't you wait for me? What did you clear out for and
leave me in the lurch? Fresh as a daisy, you are, old chap, and I'm
done for, dead."
"You're not scientific in your pleasures." Robert Kater lifted his
eyes and looked at his friend. "Are you alive enough to hear me and
remember what I say? Will you do something for me? Shall I tell you
now or will you breakfast first?"
"Breakfast? Faugh!" He looked disgustedly around him.
"I'm sorry. You drink too much. Listen, Ben. I'll tell you what I mean
to do and what I wish you to do for me--and--you remember all you can
of it, will you? I must do it now, for you'll be asleep soon, and this
will be the last I shall see of you--ever. I'm leaving in two
hours--as soon as I've breakfasted."
"What's that? Hold on!" Ben Howard sprang up, and darting behind a
screen where they washed their brushes, he dashed cold water over his
head and came back toweling himself. "I'm fit now. I did drink too
much champagne, but I'll sleep it off. Now fire away,--what's up?"
"In two hours I'll be en route for the coast, and to-morrow I'll take
passage for home on the first boat." Robert closed and sealed the long
letter he had been writing and tossed it on the table. "I want this
mailed one week from to-day. Put it in your pocket so you won't lose
it among the rubbish here. One week from to-day it must be mailed.
It's to my great aunt, Jean Craigmile, who gave me the money to set
up here the first year. I've paid that up--last week--with my last
sou--and with interest. By rights she should have whatever there is
here of any value, for, if it were not for her help, there would not
have been a thing here anyway, and I've no one else to whom to leave
it--so see that this letter is mailed without fail, will you?"
The Englishman stood, now thoroughly awake, gazing at him, unable to
make common sense out of Robert's remarks. "B--b--but--what's up? What
are you leaving things to anybody for? You're not on your deathbed."
"I'm going home, don't you see?"
"But why don't you take the letter to her yourself--if you're going
home?"
"Not there, man; not to Scotland."
"Your home's there."
"I have allowed you to think so." Robert forced himself to talk
calmly. "In truth, I have no home, but the place I call home by
courtesy is where I was brought up--in America."
"You--you--d--d--don't--"
"Yes--it's time you knew this. I've been leading a double life, and
I'm done with it. I committed a crime, and I'm living under an
assumed name. There is no such man as Robert Kater that I know of on
earth, nor ever was. My name is--no matter--. I'm going back to
the place where I killed my best friend--to give myself up--to
imprisonment--I do not know to what--maybe death--but it will end
my torture of mind. Now you know why I could not go to the Vernissage,
to be treated--well, I could not go, that's all. Nor could I accept
the honors given me under a name not my own. All the time I've lived
in Paris I've been hiding--and this thing has been following
me--although my occupation seems to have been the best cover I could
have had--yet my soul has known no peace. Always--always--night and
day--my own conscience has been watching and accusing me, an eye of
dread steadily gazing down into my soul and seeing my sin deep, deep
in my heart. I could not hide from it. And I would have given up
before only that I wished to make good in something before I stepped
down and out. I've done it." He put his hand heavily on Ben Howard's
shoulder. "I've had a revelation this night. The lesson of my life is
learned at last. It is, that there is but one road to freedom and
life for me--and that road leads to a prison. It leads to a
prison,--maybe worse,--but it leads me to freedom--from the thing
that haunts me, that watches me and drives me. I may write you from
that place which I will call home--Were you ever in love?"
The abruptness of the question set Ben Howard stammering again. He
seized Robert's hand in both his own and held to it. "I--I--I--old
chap--I--n--n--no--were you?"
"Yes; I've heard the call of her voice in my heart--and I'm gone. Now,
Ben, stop your--well, I'll not preach to you, you of all men,--but--do
something worth while. I've need of part of the money you got for
me--to get back on--and pay a bill or two--and the rest I leave to
you--there where you put it you'll find it. Will you live here and
take care of these things for me until my good aunt, Jean Craigmile,
writes you? She'll tell you what to do with them--and more than likely
she'll take you under her wing--anyway, work, man, work. The place is
yours for the present--perhaps for a good while, and you'll have a
chance to make good. If I could live on that money for a year, as you
yourself said, you can live on half of it for half a year, and in that
time you can get ahead. Work."
He seized his portmanteau and was gone before Ben Howard could gather
his scattered senses or make reply.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE PRISONER
Harry King did not at once consult an attorney, for Milton Hibbard,
the only one he knew or cared to call upon for his defense, was an old
friend of the Elder's and had been retained by him to assist the
district attorney at the trial. The other two lawyers in Leauvite, one
of whom was the district attorney himself, were strangers to him.
Twice he sent messages to the Elder after his return, begging him to
come to him, never dreaming that they could be unheeded, but to the
second only was any reply sent, and then it was but a cursory line.
"Legal steps will be taken to secure justice for you, whoever you
are."
To his friends he sent no messages. Their sympathy could only mean
sorrow for them if they believed in him, and hurt to his own soul if
they distrusted him, and he suffered enough. So he lay there in the
clean, bare cell, and was glad that it was clean and held no traces of
former occupants. The walls smelled of lime in their freshly plastered
surfaces, and the floor had the pleasant odor of new pine.
His life passed in review before him from boyhood up. It had been a
happy life until the tragedy brought into it by his own anger and
violence, but since that time it had been one long nightmare of
remorse, heightened by fear, until he had met Amalia, and after that
it had been one unremitting strife between love and duty--delight in
her mind, in her touch, in her every movement, and in his own soul
despair unfathomable. Now at last it was to end in public exposure,
imprisonment, disgrace. A peculiar apathy of peace seemed to envelop
him. There was no longer hope to entice, no further struggle to be
waged against the terror of fear, or the joy of love, or the horror of
remorse; all seemed gone from him, even to the vague interest in
things transpiring in the world.
He had only a puzzled feeling concerning his arrest. Things had not
proceeded as he had planned. If the Elder would but come to him, all
would be right. He tried to analyze his feelings, and the thought that
possessed him most was wonder at the strange vacuity of the condition
of emotionlessness. Was it that he had so suffered that he was no
longer capable of feeling? What was feeling? What was emotion: and
life without either emotion, or feeling, or caring to feel,--what
would it be?
Valueless.--Empty space. Nothing left but bodily hunger, bodily
thirst, bodily weariness. A lifetime, for his years were not yet half
spent,--a lifetime at Waupun, and work for the body, but vacuity for
the mind--maybe--sometimes--memories. Even thinking thus he seemed to
have lost the power to feel sadness.
Confusion reigned within him, and yet he found himself powerless to
correlate his thoughts or suggest reasons for the strange happenings
of the last few days. It seemed to him that he was in a dream wherein
reason played no part. In the indictment he was arraigned for the
murder of Peter Craigmile, Jr.,--as Richard Kildene,--and yet he had
seen his cousin lying dead before him, during all the years that had
passed since he had fled from that sight. In battle he had seen men
clubbed with the butt end of a musket fall dead with wounded temples,
even as he had seen his cousin--stark--inert--lifeless. He had felt
the strange, insane rage to kill that he had seen in others and
marveled at. And now, after he had felt and done it, he was arrested
as the man he had slain.
All the morning he paced his cell and tried to force his thoughts to
work out the solution, but none presented itself. Was he the victim of
some strange form of insanity that caused him to lose his identity and
believe himself another man? Drunken men he had seen under the
delusion that all the rest of the world were drunken and they alone
sober. Oh, madness, madness! At least he was sane and knew himself,
and this was a confusion brought about by those who had undertaken his
arrest. He would wait for the Elder to come, and in the meantime live
in his memories, thinking of Amalia, and so awaken in himself one
living emotion, sacred and truly sane. In the sweetness of such
thinking alone he seemed to live.
He drew the little ivory crucifix from his bosom and looked at it.
"The Christ who bore our sins and griefs"--and again Amalia's words
came to him. "If they keep you forever in the prison, still forever
are you free." In snatches her words repeated themselves over in his
mind as he gazed. "If you have the Christ in your heart--so are you
high--lifted above the sin." "If I see you no more here, in Paradise
yet will I see you, and there it will be joy--great--joy; for it is
the love that is all of life, and all of eternity, and lives--lives."
Bertrand Ballard and his wife and daughter stood in the small room
opening off from the corridor that led to the rear of the courthouse
where was the jail, waiting for the jailer to bring his keys from his
office, and, waiting thus, Betty turned her eyes beseechingly on her
father, and for the first time since her talk with her mother in the
studio, opened her lips to speak to him. She was very pale, but she
did not tremble, and her voice had the quality of determination.
Bertrand had yielded the point and had taken her to the jail against
his own judgment, taking Mary with him to forestall the chance of
Betty's seeing the young man alone. "Surely," he thought, "she will
not ask to have her mother excluded from the interview."
"I don't want any one--not even you--or--or--mother, to go in with
me."
"My child, be wise--and be guided."
"Yes, father,--but I want to go in alone." She slipped her hand in her
mother's, but still looked in her father's eyes. "I must go in alone,
father. You don't understand--but mother does."
"This young man may be an impostor. It is almost unmaidenly for you to
wish to go in there alone. Mary--"
But Mary hesitated and trusted to her daughter's intuition. "Betty,
explain yourself," was all she said.
"Suppose it was father--or you thought it might be father--and a
terrible thing were hanging over him and you had not seen him for all
this time--and he were in there, and I were you--wouldn't you ask to
see him first alone? Would you stop for one moment to think about
being proper? What do I care! If he is an impostor, I shall know it.
In one moment I shall know it. I--I--just want to see him alone. It
is because he has suffered so long--that is why he has come like
this--if--they aren't accusing him wrongfully, and I--he will tell me
the truth. If he is Richard, I would know it if I came in and stood
beside him blindfolded. I will call you in a moment. Stand by the
door, and let me see him alone."
The jailer returned, alert and important, shaking the keys in his
hand. "This way, please."
In the moment's pause of unlocking, Betty again turned upon her
father, her eyes glowing in the dim light of the corridor with wide,
sorrowful gaze, large and irresistibly earnest. Bertrand glanced from
her to his wife, who slightly nodded her head. Then he said to the
surprised jailer: "We will wait here. My daughter may be able to
recognize him. Call us quickly, dear, if you have reason to change
your mind." The heavy door was closed behind her, and the key turned
in the lock.
Harry King loomed large and tall in the small room, standing with his
back to the door and his face lifted to the small window, where he
could see a patch of the blue sky and white, scudding clouds. For the
moment his spirit was not in that cell. It was free and on top of a
mountain, looking into the clear eyes of a woman who loved him. He was
so rapt in his vision that he did not hear the grating of the key in
the lock, and Betty stood abashed, with her back to the door, feeling
that she was gazing on a stranger. Relieved against the square of
light, his hair looked darker than she remembered Peter's ever to have
been,--as dark as Richard's, but that rough, neglected beard,--also
dark,--and the tanned skin, did not bring either young man to her
mind.
The pause was but for a moment, when he became aware that he was not
alone and turned and saw her there.
"Betty! oh, Betty! You have come to help me." He walked toward her
slowly, hardly believing his eyes, and held out both hands.
"If--I--can. Who are you?" She took his hands in hers and walked
around him, turning his face to the light. Her breath came and went
quickly, and a round red spot now burned on one of her cheeks, and her
face seemed to be only two great, pathetic eyes.
"Do I need to tell you, Betty? Once we thought we loved each other.
Did we, Betty?"
"I don't--don't--know--Peter! Oh, Peter! Oh, you are alive! Peter!
Richard didn't kill you!" She did not cry out, but spoke the words
with a low intensity that thrilled him, and then she threw her arms
about his neck and burst into tears. "He didn't do it! You are alive!
Peter, he didn't kill you! I knew he didn't do it. They all thought
he did, and--and--your father--he has almost broken his bank
just--just--hunting for Richard--to--to--have him hung--and oh!
Peter, I have lived in horror,--for--fear he w--w--w--would, and--"
"He never could, Betty. I have come home to atone. I have come home to
give myself up. I killed Richard--my cousin--my best friend. I struck
him in hate and saw him lying dead: all the time they were hunting him
it was I they should have hunted. I can't understand it. Did they take
his dead body for mine--or--how was it they did not know he was struck
down and murdered? They must have taken his body for mine--or--he
must have fallen over--but he didn't, for I saw him lying dead as I
had struck him. All these years the eye of vengeance has been upon me,
and my crime has haunted me. I have seen him lying so--dead. God!
God!"
Betty still clung to him and sobbed incoherently. "No, no, Peter, it
was you who were drowned--they found all your things and saw where you
had been pushed over, and--but you weren't drowned! They only thought
it--they believed it--"
He put his hand to his head as if to brush away the confusion which
staggered him. "Yes, Richard lay dead--and they found him,--but why
did they hunt for him? And I--I--living--why didn't they hunt me,--and
he, dead and lying there--why did they hunt him? But my father would
believe the worst of him rather than to see himself disgraced in his
son. Don't cry, little Betty, don't cry. You've had too much to bear.
Sit here beside me and I'll tell you all about it. That's why I came
back."
"B--b--ut if you weren't drowned, why--why didn't you come home and
say so? Didn't you ever see the papers and how they were hunting
Richard all over the world? I knew you were dead, because I knew you
never would be so cruel as to leave every one in doubt and your father
in sorrow--just because he had quarreled with you. It might have
killed your mother--if the Elder had let her know."
"I can't tell you all my reasons, Betty; mostly they were coward's
reasons. I did my best to leave evidence that I had been pushed over
the bluff, because it seemed the only way to hide myself. I did my
best to make them think me dead, and never thought any one could be
harmed by it, because I knew him to be dead; so I just thought we
would both be dead so far as the world would know,--and as for you,
dear,--I learned on that fatal night that you did not love me--and
that was another coward's reason why I wished to be dead to you all."
He began pacing the room, and Betty sat on the edge of the narrow jail
bedstead and watched him with tearful eyes. "It was true, Betty? You
did not really love me?"
"Peter! Didn't you ever see the papers? Didn't you ever know all about
the search for you and how he disappeared, too? Oh, Peter! And it was
supposed he killed you and pushed you over the bluff and then ran
away. Oh, Peter! But it was kept out of the home paper by the Elder so
your mother should not know--and Peter--didn't you know Richard
lived?"
"Lived? lived?" He lifted his clasped hands above his head, and they
trembled. "Lived? Betty, say it again!"
"Yes, Peter. I saw him and I know--"
"Oh, God, make me know it. Make me understand." He fell on his knees
beside her and hid his face in the scant jail bedding, and his frame
shook with dry sobs. "I was a coward. I told you that. I--I thought
myself a murderer, and all this time my terrible thought has driven
me--Lived? I never killed him? God! Betty, say it again."
Betty sat still for a moment, shaken at first with a feeling of
resentment that he had made them all suffer so, and Richard most of
all. Then she was overwhelmed with pity for him, and with a glad
tenderness. It was all over. The sorrow had been real, but it had all
been needless. She placed her hand on his head, then knelt beside him
and put her arm about his neck and drew his head to her bosom,
motherwise, for the deep mother heart in her was awakened, and thus
she told him all the story, and how Richard had come to her, broken
and repentant, and what had been said between them. When they rose
from their knees, it was as if they had been praying and at the same
time giving thanks.
"And you thought they would find him lying there dead and know you had
killed him and hunt you down for a murderer?"
"Yes."
"Poor Peter! So you pushed that great stone out of the edge of the
bluff into the river to make them think you had fallen over and
drowned--and threw your things down, too, to make it seem as if you
both were dead."
"Yes."
"Oh, Peter! What a terrible mistake! How you must have suffered!"
"Yes, as cowards suffer."
They stood for a moment with clasped hands, looking into each other's
eyes. "Then it was true what Richard told me? You did not love me,
Betty?" He had grown calmer, and he spoke very tenderly. "We must have
all the truth now and conceal nothing."
"Not quite--true. I--I--thought I did. You were so handsome! I was
only a child then--and I thought I loved you--or that I ought to--for
any girl would--I was so romantic in those days--and you had been
wounded--and it was like a romance--"
"And then?"
"And then Richard came, and I knew in one instant that I had done
wrong--and that I loved him--and oh, I felt myself so wicked."
"No, Betty, dear. It was all--"
"It was not fair to you. I would have been true to you, Peter; you
would have never known--but after Richard came and told me he had
killed you,--I felt as if I had killed you, too. I did like you,
Peter. I did! I will do whatever is right."
"Then it was not in vain--that we have all suffered. We have been
saved from doing each other wrong. Everything will come right now. All
that is needed is for father to hear what you have told me, and he
will come and take me out of here--Where is Richard?"
"No one knows."
"Not even you, Betty?"
"No; he has dropped out of the world as completely as you did."
"Well, it will be all right, anyway. Father will withdraw his charge
and--did you say his bank was going to pieces? He must have help. I
can help him. You can help him, Betty."
"How?"
Then Peter told Betty how he had found Richard's father in his
mountain retreat and that she must write to him. "If there is any
danger of the bank's going, write for me to Larry Kildene. Father
never would appeal to him if he lost everything in the world, so we
must do it. As soon as I am out of here we can save him." Already he
felt himself a new man, and spoke hopefully and cheerfully. He little
knew the struggle still before him.
"Peter, father and mother are out there in the corridor waiting. I
was to call them. I made them let me come in alone."
"Oh, call them, call them!"
"I don't think they will know you as I did, with that great beard on
your face. We'll see."
When Bertrand and Mary entered, they stood for a moment aghast, seeing
little likeness to either of the young men in the developed and
bronzed specimen of manhood before them. But they greeted him warmly,
eager to find him Peter, and in their manner he missed nothing of
their old-time kindliness.
"You are greatly changed, Peter Junior. You look more like Richard
Kildene than you ever did before in your life," said Mary.
"Yes, but when we see Richard, we may find that a change has taken
place in him also, and they will stand in their own shoes hereafter."
"Since the burden has been lifted from my soul and I know that he lives,
I could sing and shout aloud here in this cell. Imprisonment--even
death--means nothing to me now. All will come right before we know it."
"That is just the way Richard would act and speak. No wonder you have
been taken for him!" said Bertrand.
"Yes, he was always more buoyant than I. Maybe we have both changed,
but I hope he has not. I loved my friend."
As they walked home together Mary Ballard said, "Now, Peter ought to
be released right away."
"Certainly he will be as soon as the Elder realizes the truth."
"How he has changed, though! His face shows the mark of sorrow. Those
drooping, sensitive lines about his mouth--they were never there
before, and they are the lines of suffering. They touched my heart. I
wish Hester were at home. She ought to be written to. I'll do it as
soon as I get home."
"Peter is handsomer than he was, in spite of the lines, and, as you
say, he does look more like his cousin than he used to--because of
them, I think. Richard always had a debonair way with him, but he had
that little, sensitive droop to the lips--not so marked as Peter's is
now--but you remember, Mary--like his mother's."
"Oh, mother, don't you think Richard could be found?" Betty's voice
trailed sorrowfully over the words. She was thinking how he had
suffered all this time, and wishing her heart could reach out to him
and call him back to her.
"He must be, dear, if he lives."
"Oh, yes. He'll be found. It can be published that Peter Junior has
returned, and that will bring him after a while. Peter's physique
seems to have changed as well as his face. Did you notice that
backward swing of the shoulders, so like his cousin's, when he said,
'I could sing and shout here in this cell'? And the way he lifted his
head and smiled? That beard is a horrible disguise. I must send a
barber to him. He must be himself again."
"Oh, yes, do. He stands so straight and steps so easily. His lameness
seems to have quite gone," said Mary, joyously,--but at that, Bertrand
paused in his walk and looked at her, then glancing at Betty walking
slowly on before, he laid his finger to his lips and took his wife's
arm, and they said no more until they reached home and Betty was in
her room.
"I simply can't think it, Bertrand. I see Peter in him. It is Peter.
Of course he's like Richard. They were always alike, and that makes
him all the more Peter. No other man would have that likeness, and it
goes to show that he is Peter."
"My dear, unless the Elder sees him as we see him, the thing will have
to be tried out in the courts."
"Unless we can find Richard. Hester ought to be here. She could set
them right in a moment. Trust a mother to know her own boy. I'll write
her immediately. I'll--"
"But you have no authority, Mary."
"No authority? She is my friend. I have a right to do my duty by her,
and I can so put it that it will not be such a shock to her as it
inevitably will be if matters go wrong, or Peter should be kept in
prison for lack of evidence--or for too much evidence. She'll have to
know sooner or later."
Bertrand said no more against this, for was not Mary often quite
right? "I'll see to it that he has a barber, and try to persuade the
Elder to see him. That may settle it without any trouble. If not, I
must see that he has a good lawyer to help in his defense."
"If that savage old man remains stubborn, Hester must be here."
"If the thing goes to a trial, Betty will have to appear against
him."
"Well, it mustn't go to a trial, that's all."
That night two letters went out from Leauvite, one to Hester Craigmile
at Aberdeen, Scotland, and one to the other end of the earth, where
Larry Kildene waited for news of Harry King, there on the mountain
top. On the first of each month Larry rode down to the nearest point
where letters could be sent, making a three days' trip on horseback.
His first trip brought nothing, because Harry had not sent his first
letter in time to reach the station before Larry was well on his way
back up the mountain. He would not delay his return, for fear of
leaving the two women too long alone.
After Harry's departure, Madam Manovska had grown restless, and once
had wandered so far away as to cause them great alarm and a long
search, when she was found, sitting close to the fall, apparently too
weak and too dazed to move. This had so awakened Amalia's fears that
she never allowed her mother to leave the cabin alone, but always on
one pretext or another accompanied her.
The situation was a difficult one for them all. If Amalia took her
mother away to some town, as she wished to do, she feared for Madam
Manovska's sanity when she could not find her husband. And still, when
she tried to tell her mother of her father's death, she could not
convince her of its truth. For a while she would seem to understand
and believe it, but after a night's rest she would go back to the old
weary repetition of going to her husband and his need of her. Then it
was all to go over again, day after day, until at last Amalia gave up,
and allowed her mother the comfort of her belief: but all the more she
had to invent pretexts for keeping her on the mountain. So she
accepted Larry's kindly advice and his earnestly offered hospitality
and his comforting companionship, and remained, as, perforce, there
was nothing else for her to do.
CHAPTER XXXIII
HESTER CRAIGMILE RECEIVES HER LETTER
The letters reached their opposite destinations at about the same
time. The one to Amalia closely buttoned in Larry's pocket, and the
short one to himself which he read and reread as his horse slowly
climbed the trail, were halfway up the mountain when the postboy
delivered Hester Craigmile's at the door of the sedate brick house
belonging to the Craigmiles of Aberdeen.
Peter Junior's mother and two elderly women--his grandaunts--were
seated in the dignified parlor, taking afternoon tea, when the
housemaid brought Hester her letter.
"Is it from Peter, maybe?" asked the elder of the two aunts.
"No, Aunt Ellen; I think it is from a friend."
"It's strange now, that Peter's no written before this," said the
younger, leaning forward eagerly. "Will ye read it, dear? We'll be
wantin' to know if there's ae word about him intil't."
"There may be, Aunt Jean." Hester set her cup of tea down untasted,
and began to open her letter.
"But tak' yer tea first, Hester. Jean's an impatient body. That's too
bad of ye, Jean; her toast's gettin' cold."
"Oh, that's no matter at all, Aunt Ellen. I'll take it as soon as I
see if he's home all right. Yes, my friend says my husband has been
home for three days and is well."
"That's good. Noo ye're satisfied, lay it by and tak' yer tea." And
Hester smilingly laid it by and took her tea, for Mary Ballard had
said nothing on the first page to startle her friend's serenity.
Jean Craigmile, however, still looked eagerly at the letter as it lay
on a chair at Hester's side. She was a sweet-faced old lady, alert,
and as young as Peter Junior's father, for all she was his aunt, and
now she apologized for her eagerness by saying, as she often did: "Ye
mind he's mair like my brither than my nephew, for we all used to play
together--Peter, Katherine, and me. We were aye friends. She was like
a sister, and he like a brither. Ah, weel, we're auld noo."
Her sister looked at her fondly. "Ye're no so auld, Jean, but ye might
be aulder. It's like I might have been the mither of her, for I mind
the time when she was laid in my arms and my feyther tell't me I was
to aye care for her like my ain, an' but for her I would na' be livin'
noo."
"And why for no?" asked Jean, quickly.
"I had ye to care for, child. Do ye no' understand?"
Jean laughed merrily. "She's been callin' me child for saxty-five
years," she said.
Both the old ladies wore lace caps, but that of Jean's was a little
braver with ribbons than Ellen's. Small lavender bows were set in the
frill all about her face, and the long ends of the ribbon were not
tied, but fell down on the soft white mull handkerchief that crossed
over her bosom.
"I mind when Peter married ye, Hester," said Ellen. "I was fair wild
to have him bring ye here on his weddin' journey, and he should have
done so, for we'd not seen him since he was a lad, and all these years
I've been waitin' to see ye."
"Weel, 'twas good of him to leave ye bide with us a bit, an' go home
without ye," said Jean.
"It was good of him, but I ought not to have allowed it." Hester's
eyes glistened and her face grew tender and soft. To the world,
the Elder might seem harsh, stubborn, and vindictive, but Hester knew
the tenderness in which none but she believed. Ever since the
disappearance of their son, he had been gentle and most lovingly
watchful of her, and his domination had risen from the old critical
restraint on her thoughts and actions to a solicitous care for her
comfort,--studying her slightest wishes with almost appealing
thoughtfulness to gratify them.
"And why for no allow it? There's naething so good for a man as
lettin' him be kind to ye, even if he is an Elder in the kirk. I'm
thinkin' Peter's ain o' them that such as that is good for--Hester!
What ails ye! Are oot of ye're mind? Gi'e her a drap of whuskey, Jean.
Hester!"
While they were chatting and sipping their tea, Hester had quietly
resumed the reading of her letter, and now she sat staring straight
before her, the pages crushed in her hand, leaning forward, pale, with
her eyes fixed on space as if they looked on some awful sight.
"Hester! Hester! What is it? Is there a bit o' bad news for ye' in the
letter? Here, tak' a sip o' this, dear. Tak' it, Hester; 'twill
hairten ye up for whatever's intil't," cried Jean, holding to Hester's
lips the ever ready Scotch remedy, which she had snatched from a wall
cupboard behind her and poured out in a glass.
Ellen, who was lame and could not rise from her chair without help,
did not cease her directions and ejaculations, lapsing into the
broader Scotch of her girlhood under excitement, as was the way with
both the women. "Tell us what ails ye, dear; maybe it's no so bad. Gie
me the letter, Jean, an' I'll see what's intil't. Ring the bell for
Tillie an' we'll get her to the couch."
But Hester caught Jean's gown and would not let her go to the bell
cord which hung in the far corner of the room. "No, don't call her.
I'll lie down a moment, and--and--we'll talk--this--over." She clung
to the letter and would not let it out of her hand, but rose and
walked wearily to the couch unassisted and lay down, closing her eyes.
"After a minute, Aunt Ellen, I'll tell you. I must think, I must
think." So she lay quietly, gathering all her force to consider and
meet what she must, as her way was, while Jean sat beside, stroking
her hand and saying sweet, comforting words in her broad Scotch.
"There's neathin' so guid as a drap of whuskey, dear, for strengthnin'
the hairt whan ye hae a bit shock. It's no yer mon, Peter? No? Weel,
thank the Lord for that. Noo, tak ye anither bit sup, for ye ha'e na
tasted it. Wull ye no gie Ellen the letter, love? 'Twill save ye
tellin' her."
Hester passively took the whisky as she was bid, and presently sat up
and finished reading the letter. "Peter has been hiding--something
from me for--three years--and now--"
"Yes, an' noo. It's aye the way wi' them that hides--whan the day
comes they maun reveal--it's only the mair to their shame," exclaimed
Ellen.
"Oh, but it's all mixed up--and my best friend doesn't know the
truth. Yes, take the letter, Aunt Ellen, and read it yourself." She
held out the pages with a shaking hand, and Jean took them over to her
sister, who slowly read them in silence.
"Ah, noo. As I tell't ye, it's no so bad," she said at last.
"Wha's the trouble, Ellen? Don't keep us waitin'."
"Bide ye in patience, child. Ye're always so easily excitet. I maun
read the letter again to get the gist o't, but it's like this. The
Elder's been of the opeenion noo these three years that his son was
most foully murder't, an--"
"He may ha'e been kill't, but he was no' murder't," cried Jean,
excitedly. "I tell ye 'twas purely by accident--" she paused and
suddenly clapped both hands over her mouth and rocked herself back and
forth as if she had made some egregious blunder, then: "Gang on wi'
yer tellin'. It's dour to bide waitin'. Gie me the letter an' lat me
read it for mysel'."
"Lat me tell't as I maun tell't. Ye maun no keep interruptin'. Jean
has no order in her brain. She aye pits the last first an' the first
last. This is a hopefu' letter an' a guid ain from yer friend, an' it
tells ye yer son's leevin' an' no murder't--"
"Thank the Lord! I ha'e aye said it," ejaculated Jean, fervently.
"Ye ha'e aye said it? Child, what mean ye? Ye ha'e kenned naethin'
aboot it."
But Jean would not be set down. She leaned forward with glistening
eyes. "I ha'e aye said it. I ha'e aye said it. Gie me the letter,
Ellen."
But Ellen only turned composedly and resumed her interpretation of
the letter to Hester, who sat looking with dazed expression from one
aunt to the other.
"It all comes about from Peter's bein' a stubborn man, an' he'll no
change the opeenion he's held for three years wi'oot a struggle. Here
comes his boy back an' says, 'I'm Peter Junior, and yer son.' An' his
feyther says till him, 'Ye're no my son, for my son was murder't--an'
ye're Richard Kildene wha' murder't him.' And noo, it's for ye to go
home, Hester, an' bring Peter to his senses, and show him the truth. A
mither knows her ain boy, an' if it's Peter Junior, it's Peter Junior,
and Richard Kildene's died."
"I tell ye he's no dead!" cried Jean, springing to her feet.
"Hush, child. He maun be dead, for ain of them's dead, and this is
Peter Junior."
"Read it again, Aunt Ellen," said Hester, wearily. "You'll see that
the Elder brings a fearful charge against Richard. He thinks Richard
is making a false claim that he is--Peter--my boy."
Jean sat back in her chair crying silently and shrinking into herself
as if she were afraid to say more, and Ellen went on. "Listen, now,
what yer frien' says. 'The Elder is wrong, for Bertrand'--that's her
husband, I'm thinkin'--?"
"Yes."
"'Bertrand and Betty,--' Who's Betty, noo?"
"Betty is their daughter. She was to--have--married my son."
"Good. So she would know her lover. 'Betty and I have seen him,' she
says, 'and have talked with him, and we know he is Peter Junior,' she
says. 'Richard Kildene has disappeared,' she says, 'and yet we know
he is living somewhere and he must be found. We fear the Elder will
not withdraw the charge until Richard is located'--An' that will be
like Peter, too--'and meanwhile your son Peter will have to lie in
jail, where he is now, unless you can clear matters up here by coming
home and identifying him, and that you can surely do.'--An' that's all
vera weel. There's neathin' to go distraught over in the like o' that.
An' here she says, 'He's a noble, fine-looking man, and you'll be
proud of him when you see him.' Oh, 'tis a fine letter, an' it's Peter
wi' his stubbornness has been makin' a boggle o' things. If I were na
lame, I'd go back wi' ye an' gie Peter a piece o' my mind."
"An' I'll locate Richard for ye!" cried Jean, rising to her feet and
wiping away the fast-falling tears, laughing and weeping all in the
same moment. "Whish't, Ellen, it's ye'rsel' that kens neathin' aboot
it, an' I'll tell ye the truth the noo--that I've kept to mysel' this
lang time till my conscience has nigh whupped me intil my grave."
"Tak' a drap o' whuskey, Jean, ye're flyin' oot o' yer heid. It's the
hystiricks she's takin'."
"Ah, no! What is it, Aunt Jean? What is it?" cried Hester, eagerly,
drawing her to the seat by her side again.
"It's no the hystiricks," cried Jean, rocking back and forth and
patting her hands on her knees and speaking between laughing and
crying. "It's the truth at last, that I've been lyin' aboot these
three lang years, thank the Lord!"
"Jean, is it thankin' the Lord ye are, for lyin'?"
"Ellen, ye mind whan ye broke ye'r leg an' lay in the south chamber
that lang sax months?"
"Aye, weel do I mind it."
"Lat be wi' ye're interruptin' while I tell't. He came here."
"Who came here?"
"Richard--the poor lad! He tell't me all aboot it. How he had a mad
anger on him, an' kill't his cousin Peter Junior whan they'd been like
brithers all their lives, an' hoo he pushed him over the brink o' a
gre't precipice to his death, an' hoo he must forever flee fra' the
law an' his uncle's wrath. Noo it's--"
"Oh, Aunt Jean!" cried Hester, despairingly. "Don't you see that what
you say only goes to prove my husband right? Yet how could he claim to
be Peter--it--it's not like the boy. Richard never, never would--"
"He may ha' been oot o' his heid thinkin' he pushed him over the
brink. I ha'e na much opeenion o' the judgment o' a man ony way. They
never know whan to be set, an' whan to gie in. Think shame to yersel',
Jean, to be hidin' things fra me the like o' that an' then lyin' to
me."
"He was repentit, Ellen. Ye can na' tak the power o' the Lord in yer
ain han's an' gie a man up to the law whan he's repentit. If ye'd seen
him an' heard the words o' him and seen him greet, ye would ha' hid
him in yer hairt an' covered wi' the mantle o' charity, as I did.
Moreover, I saved ye from dour lyin' yersel'. Ye mind whan that man
that Peter sent here to find Richard came, hoo ye said till him that
Richard had never been here? Ye never knew why for that man wanted
Richard, but I knew an' I never tell't ye. An' if ye had known what I
knew, ye never could ha' tell't him what ye did so roundly an' sent
him aboot his business wi' a straight face."
"An' noo whaur is Richard?"
"He's awa' in Paris pentin' pictures. He went there to learn to be a
penter."
"An' whaur gat he the money to go wi'? There's whaur the new black
silk dress went ye should ha' bought yersel' that year. Ye lat me
think it went to the doctor. Child! Child!"
"Yes, sister; I lee'd to ye. It's been a heavy sin on my soul an' ye
may well thank the Lord it's no been on yer ain. But hark ye noo. It's
all come back to me. Here's the twenty pun' I gave him. It's come back
wi' interest." Proudly Jean drew from her bosom an envelope containing
forty pounds in bank notes. "Look ye, hoo he's doubl't it?" Again she
laughed through her tears.
"And you know where he is--and can find him?"
"Yes, Hester, dear, I know. He took a new name. It was Robert Kater he
called himsel'. So, there he's been pentin' pictures. Go, Hester, an'
find yer son, an' I'll find Richard. Ellen, ye'll have to do wi'
Tillie for a week an' a bit,--I'm going to Paris to find Richard."
"Ye'll do nae sic' thing. Ye'll find him by post."
"I'll trust to nae letter the noo, Ellen. Letters aften gang astray,
but I'll no gang astray."
"Oh, child, child! It's a sorrowful thing I'm lame an' can na' gang
wi' ye. What are ye doin', Hester?"
"I'm hunting for the newspaper. Don't they put the railroad
time-tables in the paper over here, or must I go to the station to
inquire about trains?"
"Ye'd better ask at the station. I'll go wi' ye. Ye might boggle it by
yersel'. Ring for Tillie, Jean. She can help me oot o' my chair an'
get me dressed, while ye're lookin' after yer ain packin', Jean."
So the masterful old lady immediately began to superintend the
hasty departure of both Hester and Jean. The whole procedure was
unprecedented and wholly out of the normal course of things, but if
duty called, they must go, whether she liked the thought of their
going or not. So she sent Tillie to call a cab, and contented
herself with bewailing the stubbornness of Peter, her nephew.
"It was aye so, whan he was a lad playin' wi' Jean an' Katherine,
whiles whan his feyther lat his mither bring Katherine and him back to
Scotland on a veesit. Jean and Katherine maun gie in til him if they
liket it or no. I've watched them mony's the time, when he would haud
them up in their play by the hour together, arguyin' which should be
horse an' which should be driver, an' it was always Peter that won his
way wi' them. Is the cab there, Tillie? Then gie me my crutch. Hester,
are you ready? Jean, I'll find oot for ye all aboot the trains for
Dover. Ye maun gang direc' an' no loiter by the way. Come, Hester. I
doot she ought not to be goin' aboot alone. Paris is an' awfu' like
place for a woman body to be goin' aboot alone. But it canna' be
helpit. What's an old woman like me wi' only one sound leg and a pair
o' crutches, to go on sic' like a journey?"
"If I could, I'd take you home with me, Aunt Ellen; if I were only
sure of the outcome of this trouble, I would anyway--but to take you
there to a home of sorrow--"
"There, Hester, dear. Don't ye greet. It's my opeenion ye're goin' to
find yer son an' tak him in yer arms ance mair. Ye were never the
right wife for Peter. I can see that. Ye're too saft an' gentle."
"I'm thinking how Peter has borne this trouble alone, all these
years, and suffered, trying to keep the sorrow from me."
"Yes, dear, yes. Peter told us all aboot it whan he was here, an' he
bade us not to lat ye ken a word aboot it, but to keep from ye all
knowledge of it. Noo it's come to ye by way of this letter fra yer
frien', an' I'm thinkin' it's the best way; for noo, at last ye ha'e
it in ye're power to go an' maybe save an innocent man, for it's no
like a son of our Katherine would be sic' like a base coward as to try
to win oot from justice by lyin' himsel' intil his victim's own home.
I'll no think it."
"Nor I, Aunt Ellen. It's unbelievable! And of Richard--no. I loved
Richard. He was like my own son to me--and Peter Junior loved him,
too. They may have quarreled--and even he might--in a moment of anger,
he might have killed my boy,--but surely he would never do a thing
like this. They are making some horrible mistake, or Mary Ballard
would never have written me."
"Noo ye're talkin' sense. Keep up courage an' never tak an' affliction
upo' yersel' until it's thrust upo' ye by Providence."
Thus good Aunt Ellen in her neat black bonnet and shawl and black
mits, seated at Hester's side in the cab holding to her crutches,
comforted and admonished her niece all the way to the station and
back, and the next day she bravely bade Jean and Hester both good-by
and settled herself in her armchair to wait patiently for news from
them.
CHAPTER XXXIV
JEAN CRAIGMILE'S RETURN
When at last Jean Craigmile returned, a glance at her face was quite
enough to convince Ellen that things had not gone well. She held her
peace, however, until her sister had had time to remove her bonnet and
her shawl and dress herself for the house, before she broke in upon
Jean's grim silence. Then she said:--
"Weel, Jean. I'm thinkin' ye'd better oot wi' it."
"Is Tillie no goin' to bring in the tea? It's past the hour. I see she
grows slack, wantin' me to look after her."
"Ring for it then, Jean. I'm no for leavin' my chair to ring for it."
So Jean pulled the cord and the tea was brought in due time, with hot
scones and the unwonted addition of a bowl of roses to grace the
tray.
"The posies are a greetin' to ye, Jean; I ordered them mysel'. Weel?
An' so ye ha'na' found him?"
"Oh, sister, my hairt's heavy an' sair. I canna' thole to tell ye."
"But ye maun do't, an' the sooner ye tell't the sooner ye'll ha'e it
over."
"He was na' there. Oh, Ellen, Ellen! He'd gone to America! I'm afraid
the Elder is right an' Hester has gone home to get her death blow. Why
were we so precipitate in lettin' her go?"
"Jean, tell me all aboot it, an' I'll pit my mind to it and help ye
think it oot. Don't ye leave oot a thing fra' the time ye left me till
the noo."
Slowly Jean poured her sister's tea and handed it to her. "Tak' yer
scones while they're hot, Ellen. I went to the place whaur he'd been
leevin'. I had the direction all right, but whan I called, I found
anither man in possession. The man was an Englishman, so I got on vera
weel for the speakin'. It's little I could do with they Frenchmen. He
was a dirty like man, an' he was daubin' away at a picture whan I
opened the door an' walked in. I said to him, 'Whaur's Richard'--no,
no, no. I said to him, calling Richard by the name he's been goin' by,
I said, 'Whaur's Robert Kater?' He jumped up an' began figitin' aboot
the room, settin' me a chair an' the like, an' I asked again, 'Is this
the pentin' room o' Robert Kater?' an' he said, 'It was his room,
yes.' Then he asked me was I any kin to him, an' I told him, did he
think I would come walkin' into his place the like o' that if I was no
kin to him? An' then he began tellin' me a string o' talk an' I could
na' mak' head nor tail o't, so I asked again, 'If ye're a friend o'
his, wull ye tell me whaur he's gone?' an' then he said it straight
oot, 'To Ameriky,' an' it fair broke my hairt."
For a minute Jean sat and sipped her tea, and wiped the tears from her
eyes; then she took up the thread of her story again.
"Then he seemed all at once to bethink himsel' o' something, an' he
ran to his coat that was hangin' behind the door on a nail, an' he
drew oot a letter fra the pocket, an' here it is.
"'Are ye Robert's Aunt Jean?' he asked, and I tell't him, an',
'Surely,' he said, 'an' I did na' think ye old enough to be his Aunt
Jean.' Then he began to excuse himsel' for forgettin' to mail that
letter. 'I promised him I would,' he said, 'but ye see, I have na'
been wearin' my best coat since he left, an' that's why. We gave him a
banket,' he says, 'an' I wore my best coat to the banket, an' he gave
me this an' told me to mail it after he was well away,' an' he says,
'I knew I ought not to put it in this coat pocket, for I'd forget
it,'--an' so he ran on; but it was no so good a coat, for the lining
was a' torn an' it was gray wi' dust, for I took it an' brushed it an'
mended it mysel' before I left Paris."
Again Jean paused, and taking out her neatly folded handkerchief wiped
away the falling tears, and sipped a moment at her tea in silence.
"Tak' ye a bit o' the scones, Jean. Ye'll no help matters by goin'
wi'oot eatin'. If the lad's done a shamefu' like thing, ye'll no help
him by greetin'. He maun fall. Ye've done yer best I doot, although
mistakenly to try to keep it fra me."
"He was sae bonny, Ellen, and that like his mither 'twould melt the
hairt oot o' ye to look on him."
"Ha'e ye no mair to tell me? Surely it never took ye these ten days to
find oot what ye ha'e tell't."
"The man was a kind sort o' a body, an' he took me oot to eat wi' him
at a cafy, an' he paid it himsel', but I'm thinkin' his purse was sair
empty whan he got through wi' it. I could na' help it. Men are vera
masterfu' bodies. I made it up to him though, for I bided a day or twa
at the hotel, an' went to the room,--the pentin' room whaur I found
him--there was whaur he stayed, for he was keepin' things as they
were, he said, for the one who was to come into they things--Robert
Kater had left there--ye'll find oot aboot them whan ye read the
letter--an' I made it as clean as ye'r han' before I left him. He made
a dour face whan he came in an' found me at it, but I'm thinkin' he
came to like it after a', for I heard him whustlin' to himsel' as I
went down the stair after tellin' him good-by.
"Gin ye had seen the dirt I took oot o' that room, Ellen, ye would a'
held up ye'r two han's in horror. There were crusts an' bones behind
the pictures standin' against the wa' that the rats an' mice had been
gnawin' there, an' there were bottles on a shelf, old an' empty an'
covered wi' cobwebs an' dust, an' the floor was so thick wi' dirt it
had to be scrapit, an' what wi' old papers an' rags I had a great
basket full taken awa--let be a bundle o' shirts that needed mendin'.
I took the shirts to the hotel, an' there I mended them until they
were guid enough to wear, an' sent them back. So there was as guid as
the price o' the denner he gave me, an' naethin said. Noo read the
letter an' ye'll see why I'm greetin'. Richard's gone to Ameriky to
perjure his soul. He says it was to gie himsel' up to the law, but
from the letter to Hester it's likely his courage failed him. There's
naethin' to mak' o't but that--an' he sae bonny an' sweet, like his
mither."
Jean Craigmile threw her apron over her head and rocked herself back
and forth, while Ellen set down her cup and reluctantly opened the
letter--many pages, in a long business envelope. She sighed as she
took them out.
"It's a waefu' thing how much trouble an' sorrow a man body brings
intil the world wi' him. Noo there's Richard, trailin' sorrow after
him whaurever he goes."
"But ye mind it came from Katherine first, marryin' wi' Larry Kildene
an' rinnin' awa' wi' him," replied Jean.
"It was Larry huntit her oot whaur she had been brought for safety."
They both sat in silence while Ellen read the letter to the very end.
At last, with a long, indrawn sigh, she spoke.
"It's no like a lad that could write sic a letter, to perjure his
soul. No won'er ye greet, Jean. He's gi'en ye everything he possesses,
wi' one o' the twa pictures in the Salon! Think o't! An' a' he got
fra' the ones he sold, except enough to take him to America. Ye canna'
tak' it."
"No. I ha'e gi'en them to the Englishman wha' has his room. I could
na' tak them." Jean continued to sway back and forth with her apron
over her head.
"Ye ha'e gi'en them awa'! All they pictures pented by yer ain niece's
son! An' twa' acceptit by the Salon! Child, child! I'd no think it o'
ye." Ellen leaned forward in her chair reprovingly, with the letter
crushed in her lap.
"I told him to keep them safe, as he was doin', an' if he got no word
fra' me after sax months,--he was to bide in the room wi' them--they
were his."
"Weel, ye're wiser than I thought ye."
For a long time they sat in silence, until at last Ellen took up the
letter to read it again, and began with the date at the head.
"Jean," she cried, holding it out to her sister and pointing to the
date with shaking finger. "Wull ye look at that noo! Are we both daft?
It's no possible for him to ha' gotten there before that letter was
written to Hester. Look ye, Jean! Look ye! Here 'tis the third day o'
June it was written by his own hand."
"Count it oot, Ellen, count it oot! Here's the calendar almanac. Noo
we'll ha'e it. It's twa weeks since Hester an' I left an' she got the
letter the day before that, an' that's fifteen days--"
"An' it takes twa weeks mair for a boat to cross the ocean, an' that
gives fourteen days mair before that letter to Hester was written, an'
three days fra' Liverpool here, pits it back to seventeen days,--an'
fifteen days--mak's thirty-two days,--an' here' it's nearin' the last
o' June--"
"Jean! Whan Hester's frien' was writin' that letter to Hester, Richard
was just sailin' fra France! Thank the Lord!"
"Thank the Lord!" ejaculated her sister, fervently. "Ellen, it's you
for havin' the head to think it oot, thank the Lord!" And now the dear
soul wept again for very gladness.
Ellen folded her hands in her lap complaisantly and nodded her head.
"Ye've a good head, yersel', Jean, but ye aye let yersel' get excitet.
Noo, it's only for us to bide in peace an' quiet an' know that the
earth is the Lord's an' the fullness thereof until we hear fra'
Hester."
"An' may the Lord pit it in her hairt to write soon!"
While the good Craigmiles of Aberdeen were composing themselves to the
hopeful view that Ellen's discovery of the date had given them, Larry
Kildene and Amalia were seated in a car, luxurious for that day,
speeding eastward over the desert across which Amalia and her father
and mother had fled in fear and privation so short a time before. She
gazed through the plate-glass windows and watched the quivering heat
waves rising from the burning sands. Well she knew those terrible
plains! She saw the bleaching bones of animals that had fallen by the
way, even as their own had fallen, and her eyes filled. She remembered
how Harry King had come to them one day, riding on his yellow
horse--riding out of the setting sun toward them, and how his
companionship had comforted them and his courage and help had saved
them more than once,--and how, had it not been for him, their bones,
too, might be lying there now, whitening in the heat. Oh, Harry, Harry
King! She who had once crossed those very plains behind a jaded team
now felt that the rushing train was crawling like a snail.
Larry Kildene, seated facing her and watching her, leaned forward and
touched her hand. "We're going at an awful pace," he said. "To think
of ever crossing these plains with the speed of the wind!"
She smiled a wan smile. "Yes, that is so. But it still is very slowly
we go when I measure with my thoughts the swiftness. In my thoughts we
should fly--fly!"
"It will be only three days to Chicago from here, and then one night
at a hotel to rest and clean up, and the next day we are there--in
Leauvite--think of it! We're an hour late by the schedule, so better
think of something else. We'll reach an eating station soon. Get
ready, for there will be a rush, and we'll not have a chance for a
good meal again for no one knows how long. Maybe you're not hungry,
but I could eat a mule. I like this, do you know, traveling in
comfort! To think of me--going home to save Peter's bank!" He chuckled
to himself a moment; then resumed: "And that's equivalent to saving
the man's life. Well, it's a poor way for a man to go through life,
able to see no way but his own way. It narrows his vision and shortens
his reach--for, see, let him find his way closed to him, and whoop!
he's at an end."
Again Larry sat and watched her, as he silently chuckled over his
present situation. Again he reached out and patted her hand, and again
she smiled at him, but he knew where her thoughts were. Harry King had
been gone but a short time when Madam Manovska, in spite of Amalia's
watchfulness, wandered away for the last time. On this occasion she
did not go toward the fall, but went along the trail toward the plains
below. It was nearly evening when she eluded Amalia and left the
cabin. Frantically they searched for her all night, riding through the
darkness, carrying torches and calling in all directions, as far as
they supposed her feet could have carried her, but did not find her
until early morning, lying peacefully under a little scrub pine, far
down the trail. By her side lay her husband's worn coat, with the
lining torn away, and a small heap of ashes and charred papers. She
had been destroying the documents he had guarded so long. She would
not leave them to witness against him. Tenderly they took her up and
carried her back to the cabin and laid her in her bunk, but she only
babbled of "Paul," telling happily that she had seen him, and that he
was coming up the trail after her, and that now they would live on the
mountain in peace and go no more to Poland--and quickly after that she
dropped to sleep again and never woke. She was with "Paul" at last.
Then Amalia dressed her in the black silk Larry had brought her, and
they carried her down the trail and laid her in a grave beside that of
her husband, and there Larry read the prayers of the English church
over the two lonely graves, while Amalia knelt at his side. When they
went down the trail to take the train, after receiving Betty's letter,
they marked the place with a cross which Larry had made.
Truth to tell, as they sat in the car, facing each other, Larry
himself was sad, although he tried to keep Amalia's thoughts cheerful.
At last she woke to the thought that it was only for her he maintained
that forced light-heartedness, and the realization came to her that he
also had cause for sorrow on leaving the spot where he had so long
lived in peace, to go to a friend in trouble. The thought helped her,
and she began to converse with Larry instead of sitting silently,
wrapped in her own griefs. Because her heart was with Harry
King,--filled with anxiety for him,--she talked mostly of him, and
that pleased Larry well; for he, too, had need to speak of Harry.
"Now there is a character for you, as fine and sweet as a woman and
strong, too! I've seen enough of men to know the best of them when I
find them. I saw it in him the moment I got him up to my cabin and
laid him in my bunk. He--he--minded me of one that's gone." His voice
dropped to the undertone of reminiscence. "Of one that's long
gone--long gone."
"Could you tell me about it, a little--just a very little?" Amalia
leaned toward him pleadingly. It was the first time she had ever asked
of Larry Kildene or Harry King a question that might seem like seeking
to know a thing purposely kept from her. But her intuitive nature told
her the time had now come when Larry longed to speak of himself, and
the loneliness of his soul pleaded for him.
"It's little indeed I can tell you, for it's little he ever told
me,--but it came to me--more than once--more than once--that he might
be my own son."
Amalia recoiled with a shock of surprise. She drew in her breath and
looked in his eyes eloquently. "Oh! Oh! And you never asked him? No?"
"Not in so many words, no. But I--I--came near enough to give him the
chance to tell the truth, if he would, but he had reasons of his own,
and he would not."
"Then--where we go now--to him--you have been to that place before?
Not?"
"I have."
"And he--he knows it? Not?"
"He knows it well. I told him it was there I left my son--my little
son--but he would say nothing. I was not even sure he knew the place
until these letters came to me. He has as yet written me no word, only
the message he sent me in his letter to you--that he will some time
write me." Then Larry took Betty's letter from his pocket and turned
it over and over, sadly. "This letter tells me more than all else, but
it sets me strangely adrift in my thoughts. It's not at all like what
I had thought it might be."
Amalia leaned forward eagerly. "Oh, tell me more--a little, what you
thought might be."
"This letter has added more to the heartache than all else that could
be. Either Harry King is my son--Richard Kildene--or he is the son of
the man who hated me and brought me sorrow. There you see the reason
he would tell me nothing. He could not."
"But how is it that you do not know your own son? It is so strange."
Larry's eyes filled as he looked off over the arid plains. "It's a
long story--that. I told it to him once to try to stir his heart
toward me, but it was of no use, and I'll not tell it now--but this.
I'd never looked on my boy since I held him in my arms--a heartbroken
man--until he came to me there--that is, if he were he. But if Harry
King is my son, then he is all the more a liar and a coward--if the
claim against him is true. I can't have it so."
"It is not so. He is no liar and no coward." Amalia spoke with
finality.
"I tell you if he is not my son, then he is the son of the man who
hated me--but even that man will not own him as his son. The little
girl who wrote this letter to me--she pleads with me to come on and
set them all right: but even she who loved him--who has loved him, can
urge no proof beyond her own consciousness, as to his identity; it is
beyond my understanding."
"The little girl--she--she has loved your son--she has loved
Harry--Harry King? Whom has she loved?" Amalia only breathed the
question.
"She has not said. I only read between the lines."
"How is it so--you read between lines? What is it you read?"
Larry saw he was making a mistake and resumed hurriedly: "I'll tell
you what little I know later, and we will go there and find out the
rest, but it may be more to my sorrow than my joy. Perhaps that's why
I'm taking you there--to be a help to me--I don't know. I have a
friend there who will take us both in, and who will understand as no
one else."
"I go to neither my joy nor my sorrow. They are of the world. I will
be no more of the world--but I will live only in love--to the Christ.
So may I find in my heart peace--as the sweet sisters who guarded me
in my childhood away from danger when that my father and mother were
in fear and sorrow living--they told me there only may one find peace
from sorrow. I will go to them--perhaps--perhaps--they will take
me--again--I do not know. But I will go first with you, Sir Kildene,
wherever you wish me to go. For you are my friend--now, as no one
else. But for you, I am on earth forever alone."
CHAPTER XXXV
THE TRIAL
After Mr. Ballard's visit to the jail, he took upon himself to do what
he could for the young man, out of sympathy and friendship toward both
parties, and in the cause of simple justice. He consulted the only
available counsel left him in Leauvite, a young lawyer named Nathan
Goodbody, whom he knew but slightly.
He told him as much of the case as he thought proper, and then gave
him a note to the prisoner, addressing him as Harry King. Armed with
this letter the young lawyer was soon in close consultation with his
new client. Despite Nathan Goodbody's youth Harry was favorably
impressed. The young man was so interested, so alert, so confident
that all would be well. He seemed to believe so completely the story
Harry told him, and took careful notes of it, saying he would prepare
a brief of the facts and the law, and that Harry might safely leave
everything to him.
"You were wounded in the hip, you say," Nathan Goodbody questioned
him. "We must not neglect the smallest item that may help you, for
your case needs strengthening. You say you were lamed by it--but you
seem to have recovered from that. Is there no scar?"
"That will not help me. My cousin was wounded also, but his was only a
flesh wound from which he quickly recovered and of which he thought
nothing. I doubt if any one here in Leauvite ever heard of it, but
it's the irony of fate that he was more badly scarred by it than I. He
was struck by a spent bullet that tore the flesh only, while the one
that hit me went cleanly to the bone, and splintered it. Mine laid me
up for a year before I could even walk with crutches, while he was
back at his post in a week."
"And both wounds were in the same place--on the same side, for
instance?"
"On the same side, yes; but his was lower down. Mine entered the hip
here, while he was struck about here." Harry indicated the places with
a touch of his finger. "I think it would be best to say nothing about
the scars, unless forced to do so, for I walk as well now as I ever
did, and that will be against me."
"That's a pity, now, isn't it? Suppose you try to get back a little of
the old limp."
Harry laughed. "No, I'll walk straight. Besides they've seen me on the
street, and even in my father's bank."
"Too bad, too bad. Why did you do it?"
"How could I guess there would be such an impossible development?
Until I saw Miss Ballard here in this cell I thought my cousin dead.
Why, my reason for coming here was to confess my crime, but they won't
give me the chance. They arrest me first of all for killing myself.
Now that I know my cousin lives I don't seem to care what happens to
me, except for--others."
"But man! You must put up a fight. Suppose your cousin is no longer
living; you don't want to spend the rest of your life in the
penitentiary because he can't be found."
"I see. If he is living, this whole trial is a farce, and if he is
not, it's a tragedy."
"We'll never let it become a tragedy, I'll promise you that." The
young man spoke with smiling confidence, but when he reached his
office again and had closed the door behind him, his manner changed
quickly to seriousness and doubt.
"I don't know," he said to himself, "I don't know if this story can be
made to satisfy a jury or not. A little shady. Too much coincidence to
suit me." He sat drumming with his fingers on his desk for a while,
and then rose and turned to his books. "I'll have a little law on this
case,--some point upon which we can go to the Supreme Court," and for
the rest of that day and long into the night Nathan Goodbody consulted
with his library.
In anticipation of the unusual public interest the District Attorney
directed the summoning of twenty-five jurors in addition to the
twenty-five of the regular panel. On the day set for the trial the
court room was packed to the doors. Inside the bar were the lawyers
and the officers of the court. Elder Craigmile sat by Milton Hibbard.
In the front seats just outside the bar were the fifty jurors and back
of them were the ladies who had come early, or who had been given the
seats of their gentlemen friends who had come early, and whose
gallantry had momentarily gotten the better of their judgment.
The stillness of the court room, like that of a church, was suddenly
broken by the entrance of the judge, a tall, spare man, with gray hair
and a serious outlook upon life. As he walked toward his seat, the
lawyers and officers of the court rose and stood until he was seated.
The clerk of the court read from a large book the journal of the court
of the previous day and then handed the book to the judge to be
signed. When this ceremony was completed, the judge took up the court
calender and said,--
"The State _v._ Richard Kildene," and turning to the lawyers engaged
in the case added, "Gentlemen, are you ready?"
"We are ready," answered the District Attorney.
"Bring in the prisoner."
When Harry entered the court room in charge of the sheriff, he looked
neither to the right nor to the left, and saw no one before him but
his own counsel, who arose and extended a friendly hand, and led him
to a seat beside himself within the bar.
Nathan Goodbody then rose, and, addressing the court with an air of
confident modesty, as if he were bringing forward a point so strong as
to require nothing more than the simple statement to give it weight,
said:--
"If the court please, the defense is ready, but I have noticed, as no
doubt the court has noticed, a distinguished member of this bar
sitting with the District Attorney as though it were intended that he
should take part in the trial of this case, and I am advised that he
intends to do so. I am also advised that he is in the employ of the
complaining witness who sits beside him, and that he has received, or
expects to receive, compensation from him for his services. I desire
at the outset of this case to raise a question as to whether counsel
employed and paid by a private person has a right to assist in the
prosecution of a criminal cause. I therefore object to the appearance
of Mr. Hibbard as counsel in this case, and to his taking any part in
this trial. If the facts I have stated are questioned, I will ask
Elder Craigmile to be sworn."
The court replied: "I shall assume the facts to be as stated by you
unless the counsel on the other side dissent from such a statement.
Considering the facts to be as stated, your objection raises a novel
question. Have you any authorities?"
"I do not know that the Supreme Court of this State has passed upon
this question. I do not think it has, but my objection finds support
in the well-established rule in this country, that a public prosecutor
acts in a quasi-judicial capacity. His object, like that of the court,
should be simple justice. The District Attorney represents the public
interest which can never be promoted by the conviction of the
innocent. As the District Attorney himself could not accept a fee or
reward from private parties, so, I urge, counsel employed to assist
him must be equally disinterested."
"The court considers the question an interesting one, but the practice
in the past has been against your contention. I will overrule your
objection, and give you an exception. Mr. Clerk, call a jury!"[1]
Then came the wearisome technicalities of the empaneling of a jury,
with challenges for cause and peremptory challenges, until nearly the
entire panel of fifty jurors was exhausted.
In this way two days were spent, with a result that when counsel on
both sides expressed themselves as satisfied with the jury, every one
in the court room doubted it. As the sheriff confided to the clerk, it
was an even bet that the first twelve men drawn were safer for both
sides than the twelve men who finally stood with uplifted hands and
were again sworn by the clerk. Harry King, who had never witnessed a
trial in his life, began to grow interested in these details quite
aside from his own part therein. He watched the clerk shaking the box,
wondering why he did so, until he saw the slips of paper being drawn
forth one by one from the small aperture on the top, and listened
while the name written on each was called aloud. Some of the names
were familiar to him, and it seemed as if he must turn about and speak
to the men who responded to their roll call, saying "here" as each
rose in his place behind him. But he resisted the impulse, never
turning his head, and only glancing curiously at each man as he took
his seat in the jury box at the order of the judge.
During all these proceedings the Elder sat looking straight before
him, glancing at the prisoner only when obliged to do so, and coldly
as an outsider might do. The trial was taking more time than he had
thought possible, and he saw no reason for such lengthy technicalities
and the delay in calling the witnesses. His air was worn and weary.
The prisoner, sitting beside his counsel, had taken less and less
interest in the proceedings, and the crowds, who had at first filled
the court room, had also lost interest and had drifted off about their
own affairs until the real business of the taking of testimony should
come on, till, at the close of the second day, the court room was
almost empty of visitors. The prisoner was glad to see them go. So
many familiar faces, faces from whom he might reasonably expect a
smile, or a handshake, were it possible, or at the very least a nod of
recognition, all with their eyes fixed on him, in a blank gaze of
aloofness or speculation. He felt as if his soul must have been in
some way separated from his body, and then returned to it to find all
the world gazing at the place where his soul should be without seeing
that it had returned and was craving their intelligent support. The
whole situation seemed to him cruelly impossible,--a sort of insane
delusion. Only one face never failed him, that of Bertrand Ballard,
who sat where he might now and then meet his eye, and who never left
the court room while the case was on.
When the time arrived for the introduction of the witnesses, the court
room again filled up; but he no longer looked for faces he knew. He
held himself sternly aloof, as if he feared his reason might leave him
if he continued to strive against those baffling eyes, who knew him
and did not know that they knew him, but who looked at him as if
trying to penetrate a mask when he wore no mask. Occasionally his
counsel turned to him for brief consultation, in which his part
consisted generally of a nod or a shake of the head as the case might
be.
While the District Attorney was addressing the jury, Milton Hibbard
moved forward and took the District Attorney's seat.
Then followed the testimony of the boys--now shy lads in their teens,
who had found the evidences of a struggle and possible murder so long
before on the river bluff. Under the adroit lead of counsel, they told
each the same story, and were excused cross-examination. Both boys had
identified the hat found on the bluff, and testified that the brown
stain, which now appeared somewhat faintly, had been a bright red, and
had looked like blood.
Then Bertrand Ballard was called, and the questions put to him were
more searching. Though the manner of the examiner was respectful and
courteous, he still contrived to leave the impression on those in the
court room that he hoped to draw out some fact that would lead to the
discovery of matters more vital to the case than the mere details to
which the witness testified. But Bertrand Ballard's prompt and
straightforward answers, and his simple and courteous manner, were a
full match for the able lawyer, and after two hours of effort he
subsided.
Then the testimony of the other witnesses was taken, even to that of
the little housemaid who had been in the family at the time, and who
had seen Peter Junior wear the hat. Did she know it for his? Yes. Why
did she know it? Because of the little break in the straw, on the edge
of the brim. But any man's hat might have such a break. What was there
about this particular break to make it the hat of Peter Junior?
Because she had made it herself. She had knocked it down one day when
she was brushing up in the front hall, and when she hung it up again,
she had seen the break, and knew she had done it.
And thus, in the careful scrutiny of small things, relating to the
habits, life, and manner of dressing of the two young men,--matters
about which nobody raised any question, and in which no one except the
examiner took any interest,--more days crept by, until, at last, the
main witnesses for the State were reached.
[1] The question raised by the prisoner's counsel was ruled in favor
of his contention in Biemel v. State. 71 Wis. 444, decided in
1888.
CHAPTER XXXVI
NELS NELSON'S TESTIMONY
The day was very warm, and the jury sat without their coats. The
audience, who had had time to debate and argue the question over and
over, were all there ready to throng in at the opening of the doors,
and sat listening, eager, anxious, and perspiring. Some were strongly
for the young man and some were as determined for the Elder's views,
and a tension of interest and friction of minds pervaded the very
atmosphere of the court room. It had been the effort of Milton Hibbard
to work up the sentiment of those who had been so eagerly following
the trial, in favor of his client's cause, before bringing on the
final coup of the testimony of the Swede, and, last of all, that of
Betty Ballard.
Poor little Betty, never for a moment doubting her perception in her
recognition of Peter Junior, yet fearing those doubting ones in the
court room, sat at home, quivering with the thought that the truth she
must tell when at last her turn came might be the one straw added to
the burden of evidence piled up to convict an innocent man. Wordlessly
and continually in her heart she was praying that Richard might know
and come to them, calling him, calling him, in her thoughts
ceaselessly imploring help, patience, delay, anything that might hold
events still until Richard could reach them, for deep in her heart of
faith she knew he would come. Wherever in all the universe he might
be, her cry must find him and bring him. He would feel it in his soul
and fly to them.
Bertrand brought Betty and her mother news of the proceedings, from
day to day, and always as he sat in the court room watching the
prisoner and the Elder, looking from one set face to the other, he
tried to convince himself that Mary and Betty were right in their firm
belief that it was none other than Peter Junior who sat there with
that steadfast look and the unvarying statement that he was the
Elder's son, and had returned to give himself up for the murder of his
cousin Richard, in the firm belief that he had left him dead on the
river bluff.
G. B. Stiles sat at the Elder's side, and when Nels Nelson was brought
in and sworn, he glanced across at Milton Hibbard with an expression
of satisfaction and settled himself back to watch the triumph of his
cause and the enjoyment of the assurance of the ten thousand dollars.
He had coached the Swede and felt sure he would give his testimony
with unwavering clearness.
The Elder's face worked and his hands clutched hard on the arms of
his chair. It was then that Bertrand Ballard, watching him with
sorrowful glances, lost all doubt that the prisoner was in truth
what he claimed to be, for, under the tension of strong feeling, the
milder lines of the younger man's face assumed a set power of
will,--immovable,--implacable,--until the force within him seemed to
mold the whole contour of his face into a youthful image of that of
the man who refused even to look at him.
Every eye in the court room was fixed on the Swede as he took his
place before the court and was bade to look on the prisoner.
Throughout his whole testimony he never varied from his first
statement. It was always the same.
"Do you know the prisoner?"
"Yas, I know heem. Dot is heem, I seen heem two, t'ree times."
"When did you see him first?"
"By Ballards' I seen heem first--he vas horse ridin' dot time. It vas
nobody home by Ballards' dot time. Eferybody vas gone off by dot
peek-neek."
"At that time did the prisoner speak to you?"
"Yas, he asket me where is Ballards' folks, und I tol' heem by
peek-neek, und he asket me where is it for a peek-neek is dey gone,
und I tol' heem by Carter's woods by der river, und he asket me is
Mees Betty gone by dem yet or is she home, und I tol' heem yas she is
gone mit, und he is off like der vind on hees horse already."
"When did you see the prisoner next?"
"By Ballards' yard dot time."
"What time?"
"It vas Sunday morning I seen heem, talkin' mit her."
"With whom was he talking?"
"Oh, he talk mit Ballards' girl--Mees Betty. Down by der spring house
I seen heem go, und he kiss her plenty--I seen heem."
"You are sure it was the prisoner you saw? You are sure it was not
Peter Craigmile, Jr.?"
"Sure it vas heem I saw. Craikmile's son, he vas lame, und valk by der
crutch all time. No, it vas dot man dere I saw."
"Where were you when you saw him?"
"I vas by my room vere I sleep. It vas a wine growin' by der vindow
up, so dey nefer see me, bot I seen dem all right. I seen heem kiss
her und I seen her tell heem go vay, und push heem off, und she cry
plenty."
"Did you hear what he said to her?"
Bertrand Ballard looked up at the examiner angrily, and counsel for
the prisoner objected to the question, but the judge allowed it to
pass unchallenged, on the ground that it was a question pertaining to
the motive for the deed of which the prisoner was accused.
"Yas, I hear it a little. Dey vas come up und stand dere by de vindow
under, und I hear dem talkin'. She cry, und say she vas sorry he vas
kiss her like dot, und he say he is goin' vay, und dot is vot for he
done it, und he don't come back no more, und she cry some more."
"Did he say anything against his cousin at that time?"
"No, he don' say not'ing, only yust he say, 'dot's all right bouts
heem,' he say, 'Peter Junior goot man all right, only he goin' vay all
same.'"
"Was that the last time you saw the prisoner?"
"No, I seen heem dot day und it vas efening."
"Where were you when you saw him next?"
"I vas goin' 'long mit der calf to eat it grass dere by Ballards'
yard, und he vas goin' 'long mit hees cousin, Craikmile's son, und he
vas walkin' slow for hees cousin, he don' got hees crutch dot day, he
valk mit dot stick dere, und he don' go putty quvick mit it." Nels
pointed to the heavy blackthorn stick lying on the table before the
jury.
"Were the two young men talking together?"
"No, dey don' speak much. I hear it he say, 'It iss better you valk by
my arm a little yet, Peter,' und Craikmile's son, he say, 'You go vay
mit your arm, I got no need by it,' like he vas little mad yet."
"You say you saw him in the morning with Miss Ballard. Where were the
family at that time?"
"Oh, dey vas gone by der church already."
"And in the evening where were they?"
"Oh, dey vas by der house und eat supper den."
"Did you see the prisoner again that day?"
"No, I didn' see heem dot day no more, bot dot next day I seen
heem--goot I seen heem."
Harry King here asked his counsel to object to his allowing the
witness to continually assert that the man he saw was the prisoner.
"He does not know that it was I. He is mistaken as are you all." And
Nathan Goodbody leaped to his feet.
"I object on behalf of my client to the assumption throughout this
whole examination, that the man whom the witness claims to have seen
was the prisoner. No proof to that effect has yet been brought
forward."
The witness was then required to give his reasons for his assertion
that the prisoner was the man he saw three years before.
"By what marks do you know him? Why is he not the man he claims to be,
the son of the plaintiff?"
"Oh, I know heem all right. Meester Craikmile's son, he vos more white
in de face. Hees hair vas more--more--I don' know how you call
dot--crooked on hees head yet." Nels put his hand to his head and
caught one of his straight, pale gold locks, and twisted it about. "It
vas goin round so,--und it vas more lighter yet as dot man here, und
hees face vas more lighter too, und he valked mit stick all time und
he don' go long mit hees head up,--red in hees face like dis man here
und dark in hees face too. Craikmile's son go all time limpin' so."
Nels took a step to illustrate the limp of Peter Junior when he had
seen him last.
"Do you see any other points of difference? Were the young men the
same height?"
"Yas, dey vas yust so high like each other, but not so vide out yet.
Dis man he iss vider yet as Meester Craikmile's son, he iss got more
chest like von goot horse--Oh, I know by men yust de same like horses
vat iss der difference yet."
"Now you tell the court just what you saw the next day. At what time
of the day was it?"
"It vas by der night I seen heem."
"On Monday night?"
"Yas."
"Late Monday night?"
"No, not so late, bot it vas dark already."
"Tell the court exactly where you saw him, when you saw him, and with
whom you saw him, and what you heard said."
"It vas by Ballards' I seen heem. I vas comin' home und it vas dark
already yust like I tol' you, und I seen dot man come along by
Ballards' house und stand by der door--long time I seen heem stan'
dere, und I yust go by der little trees under, und vatching vat it is
for doin' dere, dot man? Und I seen heem it iss der young man vat iss
come dot day askin' vere iss Ballards' folks, und so I yust wait und
look a little out, und I vatchin' heem. Und I seen heem stand und
vaitin' minute by der door outside, und I get me low under dem little
small flowers bushes Ballards is got by der door under dot vindow
dere, und I seen heem, he goin' in, and yust dere is Mees Betty
sittin', und he go quvick down on hees knees, und dere she yump lak
she is scairt. Den she take heem hees head in her hands und she asket
heem vat for is it dat blud he got it on hees head, und so he say it
is by fightin' he is got it, und she say vy for is he fightin', und he
say mit hees cousin he fight, und hees cousin he hit heem so, und she
asket heem vy for is hees cousin hit heem, und vy for iss he fightin'
mit hees cousin any vay, und den dey bot is cryin'. So I seen dot--und
den she go by der kitchen und bring vater und vash heem hees head und
tie clots round it so nice, und dere dey is talkin', und he tol' her
he done it."
"What did he tell her he had done?"
"Oh, he say he keel heem hees cousin. Dot vat I tol' you he done it."
"How did he say he killed him?"
The silence in the court room was painful in its intensity. The Elder
leaned forward and listened with contorted face, and the prisoner held
his breath. A pallor overspread his face and his hands were clenched.
"Oh, he say he push heem in der rifer ofer, und he do it all right for
he liket to do it, but he say he goin' run vay for dot."
"You mean to say that he said he intended to push him over? That he
tried to do it?"
"Oh, yas, he say he liket to push heem ofer, und he liket to do dot,
but he sorry any vay he done it, und he runnin' vay for dot."
"Tell the court what happened then."
"Den she get him somedings to eat, und dey sit dere, und dey talk, und
dey cry plenty, und she is feel putty bad, und he is feel putty bad,
too. Und so--he go out und shut dot door, und he valkin' down der
pat', und she yust come out der door, und run to heem und asket heem
vere he is goin' und if he tell her somedings vere he go, und he say
no, he tell her not'ing yet. Und den she say maybe he is not keel heem
any vay, bot yust t'inkin' he keel him, und he tol' her yas, he keel
heem all right, he push heem ofer und he is dead already, und so he
kiss her some more, und she is cry some more, und I t'ink he is cry,
too, bot dot is all. He done it all right. Und he is gone off den, und
she is gone in her house, und I don't see more no."
As the witness ceased speaking Mr. Hibbard turned to counsel for the
prisoner and said: "Cross-examine."
Rising in his place, and advancing a few steps toward the witness, the
young lawyer began his cross-examination. His task did not call for
the easy nonchalance of his more experienced adversary, who had the
advantage of knowing in advance just what his witness would testify.
It was for him to lead a stubborn and unwilling witness through the
mazes of a well-prepared story, to unravel, if possible, some of its
well-planned knots and convince the jury if he could that the witness
was not reliable and his testimony untrustworthy.
But this required a master in the art of cross-examination, and a
master begins the study of his subject--the witness--before the trial.
In subtle ways with which experience has made him familiar, he studies
his man, his life, his character, his habits, his strength, his
weakness, his foibles. He divines when he will hesitate, when he will
stumble, and he is ready to pounce upon him and force his hesitation
into an attempt at concealment, his stumble into a fall.
It is no discredit to Nathan Goodbody that he lacked the skill and
cunning of an astute cross-examiner. Unlike poets, they are made, not
born, and he found the Swede to be a difficult witness to handle to
his purpose. He succeeded in doing little more than to get him to
reaffirm the damaging testimony he had already given.
Being thus baffled, he determined to bring in here a point which he
had been reserving to use later, should Milton Hibbard decide to take
up the question of Peter Junior's lameness. As this did not seem to be
imminent, and the testimony of Nels Nelson had been so convincing, he
wished of all things to delay the calling of the next witness until he
could gain time, and carry the jury with him. Should Betty Ballard be
called to the stand that day he felt his cause would be lost.
Therefore, in the moment's pause following the close of his
cross-examination of the last witness, he turned and addressed the
court.
"May it please the Court. Knowing that there is but one more witness
to be called, and that the testimony of that witness can bring forward
no new light on this matter, I have excellent reason to desire at this
time to move the Court to bring in the verdict of not guilty."
At these words the eyes of every one in the court room were turned
upon the speaker, and the silence was such that his next words, though
uttered in a low voice, were distinctly heard by all present.
"This motion is based upon the fact that the State has failed to prove
the _corpus delicti_, upon the law, which is clear, that without such
proof there can be no conviction of the crime of murder. If the
testimony of the witness Nels Nelson can be accepted as the admission
of the man Richard Kildene, until the State can prove the _corpus
delicti_, no proof can be brought that it is the admission of the
prisoner at the bar. I say that until such proof can be brought by the
State, no further testimony can convict the prisoner at the bar. If it
please the Court, the authorities are clear that the fact that a
murder has been committed cannot be established by proof of the
admissions, even of the prisoner himself that he has committed the
crime. There must be direct proof of death as by finding and
identification of the body of the one supposed to be murdered. I have
some authorities here which I would like to read to your honor if you
will hear them."
The face of the judge during this statement of the prisoner's counsel
was full of serious interest. He leaned forward with his elbow on the
desk before him, and with his hand held behind his ear, intent to
catch every word. As counsel closed the judge glanced at the clock
hanging on the wall and said:--
"It is about time to close. You may pass up your authorities, and I
will take occasion to examine them before the court opens in the
morning. If counsel on the other side have any authorities, I will be
pleased to have them also."
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE STRANGER'S ARRIVAL
On taking his seat at the opening of court the next morning, the judge
at once announced his decision.
"I have given such thought as I have been able to the question raised
by counsel last evening, and have examined authorities cited by him,
and others, bearing upon the question, and have reached the conclusion
that his motion must be overruled. It is true that a conviction for
murder cannot rest alone upon the extra-judicial admission of the
accused. And in the present case I must remind the court and the jury
that thus far the identity of the prisoner has not yet been
established, as it is not determined whether or not he is the man whom
the witness, Nels Nelson, heard make the admission. It is true there
must be distinct proof, sufficient to satisfy the jury, beyond a
reasonable doubt, that homicide has been committed by some one, before
the admission of the accused that he did the act can be considered.
But I think that fact can be established by circumstantial evidence,
as well as any other fact in the case, and I shall so charge the jury.
I will give you an exception. Mr Nathan Goodbody, you may go on with
your defense after the hearing of the next witness, which is now in
order."[1]
The decision of the court was both a great surprise and a disappointment
to the defendant's young counsel. Considering the fact that the body of
the man supposed to have been murdered had never been found, and that
his death had been assumed from his sudden disappearance, and the
finding of his personal articles scattered on the river bluff,
together with the broken edge of the bluff and the traces of some
object having been thrown down the precipice at that point, and the
fact that the State was relying upon the testimony of the eavesdropping
Swede to prove confession by the prisoner, he still had not been
prepared for the testimony of this witness that he had heard the
accused say that he had killed his cousin, and that it had been his
intention to kill him. He was dismayed, but he had not entirely lost
confidence in his legal defense, even now that the judge had ruled
against him. There was still the Supreme Court.
He quickly determined that he would shift his attack from the court,
where he had been for the time repulsed, and endeavor to convince the
jury that the fact that Peter Junior was really dead had not "been
proven beyond a reasonable doubt."
Applying to the court for a short recess to give him time to consult
with his client, he used the time so given in going over with the
prisoner the situation in which the failure of his legal defense had
left them. He had hoped to arrest the trial on the point he had made
so as to eliminate entirely the hearing of further testimony,--that of
Betty Ballard,--and also to avoid the necessity of having his client
sworn, which last was inevitable if Betty's testimony was taken.
He had never been able to rid himself of the impression left upon his
mind when first he heard the story from his client's lips, that there
was in it an element of coincidence--too like dramatic fiction, or
that if taken ideally, it was above the average juryman's head.
He admonished the prisoner that when he should be called upon for his
testimony, he must make as little as possible of the fact of their
each being scarred on the hip, and scarred on the head, the two
cousins dramatically marked alike, and that he must in no way allude
to his having seen Betty Ballard in the prison alone.
"That was a horrible mistake. You must cut it out of your testimony
unless they force it. Avoid it. And you must make the jury see that
your return was a matter of--of--well, conscience--and so forth."
"I must tell the truth. That is all that I can do," said the prisoner,
wearily. "The judge is looking this way,--shall we--"
Nathan Goodbody rose quickly. "If the court please, we are ready to
proceed."
Then at last Betty Ballard was called to the witness stand. The hour
had come for which all the village had waited, and the fame of the
trial had spread beyond the village, and all who had known the boys in
their childhood and in their young manhood, and those who had been
their companions in arms--men from their own regiment--were there. The
matter had been discussed among them more or less heatedly and now the
court room could not hold the crowds that thronged its doors.
At this time, unknown to any of the actors in the drama, three
strangers, having made their way through the crowd outside the door,
were allowed to enter, and stood together in the far corner of the
court room unnoticed by the throng, intently watching and listening.
They had arrived from the opposite sides of the earth, and had met at
the village hotel. Larry had spied the younger man first, and,
scarcely knowing what he was doing, or why, he walked up to him, and
spoke, involuntarily holding out his hand to him.
"Tell me who you are," he said, ere Richard could surmise what was
happening.
"My name is Kildene," said Richard, frankly. "Have you any reason for
wishing to know me?"
For the moment he thought his interlocutor might be a detective, or
one who wished to verify a suspicion. Having but that moment arrived,
and knowing nothing of the trial which was going on, he could think
only of his reason for his return to Leauvite, and was glad to make an
end of incognito and sorrowful durance, and wearisome suspense, and he
did not hesitate, nor try any art of concealment. He looked directly
into Larry's eyes, almost defiantly for an instant, then seeing in
that rugged face a kindly glint of the eye and a quiver about the
mouth, his heart lightened and he grasped eagerly the hand held out to
him.
"Perhaps you will tell me whom you are? I suppose I ought to know, but
I've been away from here a long time."
Then the older man's hand fell a-trembling in his, and did not release
him, but rather clung to him as if he had had a shock.
"Come over here and sit beside me a moment, young man--I--I've--I'm
not feeling as strong as I look. I--I've a thing to tell you. Sit
down--sit down. We are alone? Yes. Every one's gone to the trial. I'm
on here from the West myself to attend it."
"The trial! What trial?"
"You've heard nothing of it? I was thinking maybe you were also--were
drawn here--you've but just come?"
"I've been here long enough to engage a room--which I shan't want
long. No, I've come for no trial exactly--maybe it might come to
that--? What have you to tell me?"
But Larry Kildene sat silent for a time before replying. An eager joy
had seized him, and a strange reticence held his tongue tied, a fear
of making himself known to this son whom he had never seen since he
had held him in his arms, a weak, wailing infant, thinking only of his
own loss. This dignified, stalwart young man, so pleasant to look
upon--no wonder the joy of his heart was a terrible joy, a hungering,
longing joy akin to pain! How should he make himself known? In what
words? A thousand thoughts crowded upon him. From Betty's letter he
knew something of the contention now going on in the court room, and
from the landlord last evening he had heard more, and he was impatient
to get to the trial.
Now this encounter with his own son,--the only one who could set all
right,--and who yet did not know of the happenings which so
imperatively required his presence in the court room, set Larry
Kildene's thoughts stammering and tripping over each other in such a
confusion of haste, and with it all the shyness before the great fact
of his unconfessed fatherhood, so overwhelmed him, that for once his
facile Irish nature did not help him. He was at a loss for words,
strangely abashed before this gentle-voiced, frank-faced, altogether
likable son of his. So he temporized and beat about the bush, and did
not touch first on that which was nearest his heart.
"Yes, yes. I've a thing to tell you. You came here to be at
a--a--trial--did you say, or intimate it might be? If--if--you'll tell
me a bit more, I maybe can help you--for I've seen a good bit of the
world. It's a strange trial going on here now--I've come to hear."
"Tell me something about it," said Richard, humoring the older man's
deliberation in arriving at his point.
"It's little I know yet. I've come to learn, for I'm interested in the
young man they're trying to convict. He's a sort of a relative of
mine. I wish to see fair play. Why are you here? Have you done
anything--what have you done?"
The young man moved restlessly. He was confused by the suddenness of
the question, which Larry's manner deprived of any suggestion of
rudeness.
"Did I intimate I had done anything?" He laughed. "I'm come to make a
statement to the proper ones--when I find them. I'll go over now and
hear a bit of this trial, since you mention it."
He spoke sadly and wearily, but he felt no resentment at the older
man's inquisitiveness. Larry's face expressed too much kindliness to
make resentment possible, but Richard was ill at ease to be talking
thus intimately with a stranger who had but just chanced upon him. He
rose to leave.
"Don't go. Don't go yet. Wait a bit--God, man! Wait! I've a thing to
tell you." Larry leaned forward, and his face worked and tears
glistened in his eyes as he looked keenly up into his son's face.
"You're a beautiful lad--a man--I'm--You're strong and fine--I'm
ashamed to tell it you--ashamed I've never looked on you since
then--until now. I should have given all up and found you. Forgive me.
Boy!--I'm your father--your father!" He rose and stood looking levelly
in his son's eyes, holding out both shaking hands. Richard took them
in his and held them--but could not speak.
The constraint of witnesses was not upon them, for they were quite
alone on the piazza, but the emotion of each of them was beyond words.
Richard swallowed, and waited, and then with no word they both sat
down and drew their chairs closer together. The simple act helped
them.
"I've been nigh on to a lifetime longing for you, lad."
"And I for you, father."
"That's the name I've been hungering to hear--"
"And I to speak--" Still they looked in each other's eyes. "And we
have a great deal to tell each other! I'm almost sorry--that--that--that
I've found you at last--for to do my duty will be harder now. I had no
one to care--particularly before--unless--"
"Unless a lass, maybe?"
"One I've been loving and true to--but long ago given up--we won't
speak of her. We'll have to talk a great deal, and there's so little
time! I must--must give myself up, father, to the law."
"Couldn't you put it off a bit, lad?"
Larry could not have told why he kept silent so long in regard to the
truth of the trial. It might have been a vague liking to watch the
workings of his son's real self and a desire to test him to the full.
From a hint dropped in Betty's letter he guessed shrewdly at the truth
of the situation. He knew now that Richard and his young friend of the
mountain top were actuated by the same motives, and he understood at
last why Harry King would never accept his offer of help, nor would
ever call him father. Because he could not take the place of the son,
of whom, as he thought, he had robbed the man who so freely offered
him friendship--and more than friendship. At last Larry understood why
Peter Junior had never yielded to his advances. It was honor, and the
test had been severe.
"Put it off a little? I might--I'm tempted--just to get acquainted
with my father--but I might be arrested, and I would prefer not to be.
I know I've been wanted for three years and over--it has taken me that
long to learn that only the truth can make a man free,--and now I
would rather give myself up, than to be taken--"
"I'm knowing maybe more of the matter than you think--so we'll drop
it. We must have a long talk later--but tell me now in a few words
what you can."
Then, drawn by the older man's gentle, magnetic sympathy, Richard
unlocked his heart and told all of his life that could be crowded in
those few short minutes,--of his boyhood's longings for a father of
his own--of his young manhood's love, of his flight, and a little of
his later life. "We'd be great chums, now, father,--if--if it weren't
for this--that hangs over me."
Then Larry could stand it no longer. He sprang up and clapped Richard
on the shoulder. "Come, lad, come! We'll go to this trial together. Do
you know who's being tried? No. They'll have to get this off before
they can take another on. I'm thinking you'll find your case none so
bad as it seems to you now. First there's a thing I must do. My
brother-in-law's in trouble--but it is his own fault--still I'm a mind
to help him out. He's a fine hater, that brother-in-law of mine, but
he's tried to do a father's part in the past by you--and done it well,
while I've been soured. In the gladness of my heart I'll help him
out--I'd made up my mind to do it before I left my mountain. Your
father's a rich man, boy--with money in store for you--I say it in
modesty, but he who reared you has been my enemy. Now I'm going to his
bank, and there I'll make a deposit that will save it from ruin."
He stood a moment chuckling, with both hands thrust deep in his
pockets. "We'll go to that trial--it's over an affair of his, and he's
fair in the wrong. We'll go and watch his discomfiture--and we'll see
him writhe. We'll see him carry things his own way--the only way he
can ever see--and then we'll watch him--man, we'll watch him--Oh, my
boy, my boy! I doubt it's wrong for me to exult over his chagrin, but
that's what I'm going for now. It was the other way before I met you,
but the finding of you has given me a light heart, and I'll watch that
brother-in-law's set-down with right good will."
He told Richard about Amalia, and asked him to wait until he fetched
her, as he wished her to accompany them, but still he said nothing to
him about his cousin Peter. He found Amalia descending the long flight
of stairs, dressed to go out, and knew she had been awaiting him for
the last half hour. Now he led her into the little parlor, while
Richard paced up and down the piazza, and there, where she could see
him as he passed the window to and fro, Larry told her what had come
to him, and even found time to moralize over it, in his gladness.
"That's it. A man makes up his mind to do what's right regardless of
all consequences or his prejudices, or what not,--and from that
moment all begins to grow clear, and he sees right--and things come
right. Now look at the man! He's a fine lad, no? They're both fine
lads--but this one's mine. Look at him I say. Things are to come right
for him, and all through his making up his mind to come back here and
stand to his guns. The same way with Harry King. I've told you the
contention--and at last you know who he is--but mind you, no word yet
to my son. I'll tell him as we walk along. I'm to stop at the bank
first, and if we tell him too soon, he'll be for going to the
courthouse straight. The landlord tells me there's danger of a run on
the bank to-morrow and the only reason it hasn't come to-day is that
the bank's been closed all the morning for the trial. I'm thinking
that was policy, for whoever heard of a bank's being closed in the
morning for a trial--or anything short of a death or a holiday?"
"But if it is now closed, why do we wait to go there? It is to do
nothing we make delay," said Amalia, anxiously.
"I told Decker to send word to the cashier to be there, as a deposit
is to be made. If he can't be there for that, then it's his own fault
if to-morrow finds him unprepared." Larry stepped out to meet Richard
and introduced Amalia. He had already told Richard a little of her
history, and now he gave her her own name, Manovska.
After a few moments' conversation she asked Larry: "I may keep now my
own name, it is quite safe, is not? They are gone now--those for whom
I feared."
"Wait a little," said Richard. "Wait until you have been down in the
world long enough to be sure. It is a hard thing to live under
suspicion, and until you have means of knowing, the other will be
safer."
"You think so? Then is better. Yes? Ah, Sir Kildene, how it is
beautiful to see your son does so very much resemble our friend."
They arrived at the bank, and Larry entered while Richard and Amalia
strolled on together. "We had a friend, Harry King,"--she paused and
would have corrected herself, but then continued--"he was very much
like to you--but he is here in trouble, and it is for that for which
we have come here. Sir Kildene is so long in that bank! I would go in
haste to that place where is our friend. Shall we turn and walk again
a little toward the bank? So will we the sooner encounter him on the
way."
They returned and met Larry coming out, stepping briskly. He too was
eager to be at the courthouse. He took his son's arm and rapidly and
earnestly told him the situation as he had just heard it from the
cashier. He told him that which he had been keeping back, and
impressed on him the truth that unless he had returned when he did,
the talk in the town was that the trial was likely to go against the
prisoner. Richard would have broken into a run, in his excitement, but
Larry held him back.
"Hold back a little, boy. Let us keep pace with you. There's really no
hurry, only that impulse that sent you home--it was as if you were
called, from all I can learn."
"It is my reprieve. I am free. He has suffered, too. Does he know yet
that I too live? Does he know?"
"Perhaps not--yet, but listen to me. Don't be too hasty in showing
yourself. If they did not know him, they won't know you--for you are
enough different for them never to suspect you, now that they have, or
think they have, the man for whom they have been searching. See here,
man, hold back for my sake. That man--that brother-in-law of mine--has
walked for years over my heart, and I've done nothing. He has despised
me, and without reason--because I presumed to love your mother, lad,
against his arrogant will. He--he--would--I will see him down in the
dust of repentance. I will see him willfully convict his own son--he
who has been hungering to see you--my son--sent to a prison for
life--or hanged."
Richard listened, lingering as Larry wished, appalled at this
revelation, until they arrived at the edge of the crowd around the
door, eagerly trying to wedge themselves in wherever the chance
offered.
"Oh! Sir Kildene--we are here--now what to do! How can we go in
there?" said Amalia.
Larry moved them aside slowly, pushing Amalia between Richard and
himself, and intimating to those nearest him that they were required
within, until a passage was gradually made for the three, and thus
they reached the door and so gained admittance. And that was how they
came to be there, crowded in a corner, all during the testimony of
Betty Ballard, unheeded by those around them--mere units in the throng
trying to hear the evidence and see the principals in the drama being
enacted before them.
[1] The ruling of the court upon this point was afterwards justified
by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in the case of Buel _v._
State, 104 Wis. 132, decided in 1899.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
BETTY BALLARD'S TESTIMONY
Betty Ballard stood, her slight figure drawn up, poised, erect, her
head thrown back, and her eyes fixed on the Elder's face. The silence
of the great audience was so intense that the buzzing of flies
circling around and around near the ceiling could be heard, while the
people all leaned forward as with one emotion, their eyes on the
principals before them, straining to hear, vivid, intent.
Richard saw only Betty, heeding no one but her, feeling her presence.
For a moment he stood pale as death, then the red blood mounted from
his heart, staining his neck and his face with its deep tide and
throbbing in his temples. The Elder felt her scrutiny and looked back
at her, and his brows contracted into a frown of severity.
"Miss Ballard," said the lawyer, "you are called upon to identify the
prisoner in the box."
She lifted her eyes to the judge's face, then turned them upon Milton
Hibbard, then fixed them again upon the Elder, but did not open her
lips. She did not seem to be aware that every eye in the court room
was fastened upon her. Pale and grave and silent she stood thus, for
to her the struggle was only between herself and the Elder.
"Miss Ballard, you are called upon to identify the prisoner in the
box. Can you do so?" asked the lawyer again, patiently.
Again she turned her clear eyes on the judge's face, "Yes, I can."
Then, looking into the Elder's eyes, she said: "He is your son, Elder
Craigmile. He is Peter. You know him. Look at him. He is Peter
Junior." Her voice rang clear and strong, and she pointed to the
prisoner with steady hand. "Look at him, Elder Craigmile; he is your
son."
"You will address the jury and the court, Miss Ballard, and give your
reasons for this assertion. How do you know he is Peter Craigmile,
Jr.?"
Then she turned toward the jury, and holding out both hands in sudden
pleading action cried out earnestly: "I know him. He is Peter Junior.
Can't you see he is Peter, the Elder's son?"
"But how do you know him?"
"Because it is he. I know him the way we always know people--by
just--knowing them. He is Peter Junior."
"Have you seen the prisoner before since his return to Leauvite?"
"Yes, I went to the jail and I saw him, and I knew him."
"But give a reason for your knowledge. How did you know him?"
"By--by the look in his eyes--by his hands--Oh! I just knew him in a
moment. I knew him."
"Miss Ballard, we have positive proof that Peter Junior was murdered
and from the lips of his murderer. The witness just dismissed says he
heard Richard Kildene tell you he pushed his cousin Peter Junior over
the bluff into the river. Can you deny this statement? On your sacred
oath can you deny it?"
"No, but I don't have to deny it, for you can see for yourselves that
Peter Junior is alive. He is not dead. He is here."
"Did Richard Kildene ever tell you he had pushed his cousin over the
bluff into the river? A simple answer is required, yes, or no!"
She stood for a moment, her lips white and trembling. "Yes!"
"When did he tell you this?"
"When he came to me, just after he thought he had done it--but he was
mistaken--he did not--he only thought he had done it."
"Did he tell you why he thought he had done it? Tell the court all
about it."
Then Betty lifted her head and spoke rapidly--eagerly. "Because he was
very angry with Peter Junior, and he wanted to kill him, and he did
try to push him over, but Peter struck him, and Richard didn't truly
know whether he really pushed him over or not,--for he lay there a
long time before he even knew where he was, and when he came to
himself again, he could not find Peter there and only his hat and
things--he thought he must have done it, because that was what he was
trying to do, just as everyone else has thought it--because when Peter
saw him lying there, he thought he had killed Richard, and so he
pushed a great stone over to make every one think he had gone over the
bluff and was dead, too, and he left his hat there and the other
things, and now he has come back to give himself up, just as he has
said, because he could not stand it to live any longer with the
thought on his conscience that he had killed Richard when he struck
him. But you would not let him give himself up. You have kept on
insisting he is Richard. And it is all your fault, Elder Craigmile,
because you won't look to see that he is your son." She paused,
panting, flushed and indignant.
"Miss Ballard, you are here as a witness," said the judge. "You must
restrain yourself and answer the questions that are asked you and make
no comments."
Here the Elder leaned forward and touched his attorney, and pointed a
shaking hand at the prisoner and said a few words, whereat the lawyer
turned sharply upon the witness.
"Miss Ballard, you have visited the prisoner since he has been in the
jail?"
"Yes, _I_ said so."
"Your Honor," said the examiner, "we all know that the son of the
plaintiff was lame, but this young man is sound on both his feet. You
have been told that Richard Kildene was struck on the head and this
young man bears the scar above his temple--"
Richard started forward, putting his hand to his head and lifting his
hair as he did so. He tried to call out, but in his excitement his
voice died in his throat, and Larry seized him and held him back.
"Watch him,--watch your uncle," he whispered in his ear. "He thinks he
has you there in the box and he wants you to get the worst the law
will give you. Watch him! The girl understands him. See her eyes upon
him. Stand still, boy; give him a chance to have his will. He'll find
it bitter when he learns the truth, and 'twill do him good. Wait, man!
You'll have it all in your hands later, and they'll be none the worse
for waiting a bit longer. Hold on for my sake, son. I'll tell you why
later, and you'll not be sorry you gave heed to me."
In these short ejaculated sentences, with his arm through Richard's,
Larry managed to keep him by his side as the examiner talked on.
"Your Honor, this young lady admits that she has visited the prisoner
in the jail, and can give adequate reason for her assertion that he is
the man he claims to be. She tells us what occurred in that fight on
the bluff--things that she was not there to see, things she could only
learn from the prisoner: is there not reason to believe that her
evidence has been arranged between them?"
"Yes, he told me,--Peter Junior told me, and he came here to give
himself up, but you won't let him give himself up."
"Miss Ballard," said the judge again, "you will remember that you are
to speak only in reply to questions put to you. Mr. Hibbard, continue
the examination."
"Miss Ballard, you admit that you saw Richard Kildene after he fought
with his cousin?"
"Yes."
"Was his head wounded?"
"Yes."
"What did you do?"
"I washed his head and bound it up. It was all bleeding."
"Very well. Then you can say on your sacred oath that Richard Kildene
was living and not murdered?"
"Yes."
"Did you see Peter Junior after they fought?"
"No. If I had seen him, I could have told everybody they were both
alive and there would have been no--"
"Look at the prisoner. Can you tell the jury where the cut on Richard
Kildene's head was?"
"Yes, I can. When I stood in front of him to bind it up, it was under
my right hand."
From this point the examiner began to touch upon things Betty would
gladly have concealed in her own heart, concerning her engagement to
Peter Junior, and her secret understanding with his cousin, and
whether she loved the one or the other, and what characteristics in
them caused her to prefer the one over the other, and why she had
never confided her preferences to any of her relatives or friends.
Still, with head erect, Betty flung back her answers.
Bertrand listened and writhed. The prisoner sat with bowed head. To
him she seemed a veritable saint. He knew how she suffered in this
public revelation of herself--of her innocent struggle between love
and loyalty, and maiden modesty, and that the desire to protect him
and help him was giving her strength. He saw how valiantly she has
been guarding her terrible secret from all the world while he had been
fleeing and hiding. Ah, if he had only been courageous! If he had not
fled, nor tried to cover his flight with proofs of his death! If he
had but stood to his guns like a soldier! He covered his face in
shame.
As for Richard, he gloried in her. He felt his heart swell in triumph
as he listened. He heard Amalia Manovska murmur: "Ah, how she is very
beautiful! No wonder it is that they both loved her!"
While he was filled with admiration for her, yet his heart ached for
her, and with anger and reproach against himself. He saw no one but
her, and he wanted to end it all and carry her away, but still yielded
to his father's earnest plea that he should wait. He understood, and
would restrain himself until Larry was satisfied, and the trial ended.
Still the examination went on.
"Miss Ballard, you admit that Peter Junior was lame when last you saw
him, and you observe that the prisoner has no lameness, and you admit
that you bound up a wound which had been inflicted on the head of
Richard Kildene, and here you see the scar upon the prisoner; can you
still on your sacred oath declare this man to be the son of the
plaintiff?"
"Yes!" She looked earnestly at the prisoner. "It is not the same head
and it is not the same scar." Again she extended her hands toward the
jury pleadingly and then toward the prisoner. "It is not by people's
legs we know them,--nor by their scars--it is by themselves--by--by
their souls. Oh! I know you, Peter! I know you!"
With the first petulance Milton Hibbard had shown during the trial he
now turned to the prisoner's counsel and said: "Take the witness."
"No cross-examination?" asked Nathan Goodbody, with a smile.
"No."
Then Betty flung one look back at the Elder, and fled to her mother
and hid her flushed face on Mary Ballard's bosom.
Now for the first time Richard could take an interest in the trial
merely for his own and Peter Junior's sake. He saw Nathan Goodbody
lean over and say a few words hurriedly to the prisoner, then rise and
slightly lift his hand as if to make a special request.
"If the court please, the accused desires permission to tell his own
story. May he be sworn on his own behalf?"
Permission being given, the prisoner rose and walked to the witness
chair, and having been sworn by the clerk to tell the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, began his statement.
Standing there watching him, and listening, Richard felt his heart
throb with the old friendship for this comrade of his childhood, his
youth, and his young manhood, in school, in college, and, at last,
tramping side by side on long marches, camping together, sleeping side
by side through many a night when the morrow might bring for them
death or wounds, victory or imprisonment,--sharing the same emotions
even until the first great passion of their lives cut them asunder.
Brought up without father or mother, this friendship had meant more to
Richard than to most men. As he heard his cousin's plea he was only
held from hurrying forward with extended arms by Larry's whispered
words.
"It's fine, son. Let him have his say out. Don't stop him. Watch how
it works on the old man yonder," for Peter Junior was telling of his
childhood among the people of Leauvite, speaking in a low, clear voice
which carried to all parts of the room.
"Your Honor, and Gentlemen of the Jury, Because I have no witness to
attest to the truth of my claim, I am forced to make this plea, simply
that you may believe me, that the accusation which my father through
his lawyer brings against me could never be possible. You who knew my
cousin, Richard Kildene, how honorable his life and his nature, know
how impossible to him would be the crime of which I, in his name, am
accused. I could not make this claim were I any other than I am--the
son of the man who--does not recognize his son.
"Gentlemen of the Jury, you all knew us as boys together--how we loved
each other and shared our pleasures like brothers--or more than
brothers, for we quarreled less than brothers often do. During all
the deep friendship of our lives, only once were we angry with each
other--only once--and then--blinded by a great passion and swept
beyond all knowledge of our acts, like men drunken we fought--we
struggled against each other. Our friendship was turned to hatred. We
tried--I think my cousin was trying to throw me over the brink of the
bluff--at least he was near doing it. I do not make the plea of
self-defense--for I was not acting in self-defense. I was lame, as
you have heard, and not so strong as he. I could not stand against
his greater strength,--but in my arms and hands I had power,--and
I struck him with my cane. With all my force I struck him, and
he--he--fell--wounded--and I--I--saw the blood gush from the wound I
had made in his temple--with the stick I carried that day--in the
place of my crutch.
"Your Honor and Gentlemen of the Jury, it was my--intent to kill him.
I--I--saw him lying at my feet--and thought I had done so." Here Peter
Junior bowed his head and covered his face with his hands, and a
breathless silence reigned in the court room until he lifted his head
and began again. "It is now three years and more--and during all the
time that has passed--I have seen him lying so--white--dead--and red
with his own blood--that I had shed. You asked me why I have at last
returned, and I reply, because I will no longer bear that sight. It
is the curse of Cain that hangs over a murderer's soul, and follows
wherever he goes. I tell you the form of my dead friend went with me
always--sleeping, he lay beside me; waking, he lay at my feet. When I
looked into the shadows, he was there, and when I worked in the mine
and swung my pick against the walls of rock, it seemed that I still
struck at my friend.
"Well may my father refuse to own me as his son--me--a murderer--but
one thing can I yet do to expiate my deed,--I can free my cousin's
name from all blame, and if I were to hang for my deed, gladly would I
walk over coals to the gallows, rather than that such a crime should
be laid at his door as that he tried to return here and creep into my
place after throwing me over the bluff into those terrible waters.
"Do with me what you will, Gentlemen of the Jury, but free his name. I
understand that my cousin's body was never found lying there as I had
left it when I fled in cowardice--when I tried to make all the world
think me also dead, and left him lying there--when I pushed the great
stone out of its place down where I had so nearly gone, and left my
hat lying as it had fallen and threw the articles from my pocket over
after the stone I had sent crashing down into the river. Since the
testimony here given proves that I was mistaken in my belief that I
had killed him, may God be thanked, I am free from the guilt of that
deed. Until he returns or until he is found and is known to be living,
do with me what you will. I came to you to surrender myself and make
this confession before you, and as I stand here in your presence and
before my Maker, I declare to you that what I have said is the
truth."
As he ceased speaking he looked steadily at the Elder's averted face,
then sat down, regarding no one else. He felt he had failed, and he
sat with head bowed in shame and sorrow. A low murmur rose and swept
through the court room like a sound of wind before a storm, and the
old Elder leaned toward his lawyer and spoke in low tones, lifting a
shaking finger, then dropped his hand and shifted slightly in his
chair.
As he did so Milton Hibbard arose and began his cross-examination.
The simplicity of Peter Junior's story, and the ingenuous manner in
which it had been told, called for a different cross-examination from
that which would have been adopted if this same counsel had been
called upon to cross-examine the Swede. He made no effort to entangle
the witness, but he led him instead to repeat that part of his
testimony in which he had told of the motive which induced him to
return and give himself up to justice. In doing so his questions, the
tone of his voice, and his manner were marked with incredulity. It was
as if he were saying to the jury: "Just listen to this impossible
story while I take him over it again. Did you ever hear anything like
it?" When he had gone in this direction as far as he thought discreet,
he asked abruptly: "I understand that you admit that you intended to
kill your cousin, and supposed you had killed him?"
"Yes. I admit it."
"And that you ran away to escape the consequences?"
"Yes."
"Is it your observation that acknowledged murderers are usually
possessed of the lofty motives and high sense of justice which you
claim have actuated you?"
"I--"
Without waiting for the witness to reply, the lawyer turned and looked
at the jury and with a sneer, said: "That's all."
"Your Honor, we have no other witness; the defense rests. I have
proposed some requests for your charge to the jury which I will hand
up."
And the judge said: "Counsel may address the jury."
During a slight pause which now ensued Larry Kildene tore a bit of
blank paper from a letter and wrote upon it: "Richard Kildene is in
this room and will come forward when called upon." This he folded and
sent by a boy to Nathan Goodbody.
CHAPTER XXXIX
RECONCILIATION
Milton Hibbard arose and began his argument to the jury. It was a
clear and forcible presentation of the case from his standpoint as
counsel for the State.
After recapitulating all the testimony that had been brought out
during the course of the trial, he closed with an earnest appeal for
the State against the defendant, showing conclusively that he believed
the prisoner guilty. The changing expressions on the faces of the jury
and among his audience showed that he was carrying them largely with
him. Before he began speaking, Richard again started forward, but
still Larry held him back. "Let be, son. Stand by and watch the old
man yonder. Hear what they have to say against Peter Junior. I want to
know what they have in their hearts." The strong dramatic appeal which
the situation held for Larry was communicated through him to Richard
also, and again he waited, and Milton Hibbard continued his oratory.
"After all, the evidence against the prisoner still stands
uncontradicted. You may see that to be able to sway you as he has, to
be able to stand here and make his most touching and dramatic plea
directly in the face of conclusive evidence, to dare to speak thus,
proves the man to be a most consummate actor. Your Honor and Gentlemen
of the Jury, nothing has ever been said against the intellect or
facile ability of the prisoner. The glimpses we have been shown of his
boyhood, even, prove his skill in carrying a part and holding a power
over his comrades, and here we have the talent developed in the man.
"He is too wise to try to deny the statements made by the witnesses of
the State, but from the moment Miss Ballard was allowed to see him
alone in the jail, he has been able to carry the young lady with him.
We do not bring any accusation against the young lady. No doubt she
thinks him what he claims to be. No doubt he succeeded in persuading
her he is her former fiancé, knowing well that he saw her and talked
with her before he fled, believing that her innocent acceptance of his
story as the true explanation of his reappearance here and now will
place him securely in the home of the man he claims is his father.
That she saw Richard Kildene and knows him to be living is his reason
for reappearing here and trying this most daring plea.
"Is the true Peter Craigmile, Jr., dead? Then he can never arise to
take the place this young man is now daring to usurp. Can Richard
Kildene be proved to be living? Then is he, posing as Peter Craigmile,
Jr., free from the charge of murder even if he makes confession
thereto. He returns and makes this plea because he would live the life
of a free man and not that of an outcast. He has himself told you
why.
"Now, as for the proofs that he is Richard Kildene, you have heard
them--and know them to be unanswered. He has not the marks of Elder
Craigmile's son. You have seen how the man he claims is his father
refuses to even look upon him. Could a father be so deceived as not
to know his own son? When Peter Craigmile, Jr., disappeared he was
lame and feeble. This man returns,--strong and walking as well as one
who never received a wound. Why, gentlemen, he stepped up here like a
soldier--erect as a man who is sound in every limb. In that his
subtlety has failed him. He forgot to act the part. But this
forgetfulness only goes to further prove the point in hand. He was so
sure of success that he forgot to act the part of the man he pretends
to be.
"He has forgotten to tell the court how he came by that scar above his
temple,--yet he makes the statement that he himself inflicted such a
wound on the head of Richard Kildene--the omission is remarkable in so
clever an actor. Miss Ballard also admits having bound up that wound
on the head of Richard Kildene,--but still she claims that this man is
her former fiancé, Peter Craigmile, Jr. Gentlemen of the Jury, is it
possible that you can retire from this court room and not consider
carefully this point? Is it not plainly to be seen that the prisoner
thought to return and take the place of the man he has slain, and
through the testimony of the young lady prove himself free from the
thing of which he accuses himself in his confession, and so live
hereafter the life of a free man without stain--and at last to marry
the young girl he has loved, of whom he robbed his cousin, and for
whom he killed him, and counting on the undeniable resemblance to that
cousin, as proved in this court, to deceive not only the young lady
herself--but also this whole community--thus making capital out of
that resemblance to his own advantage and--"
"Never! Never!" cried a voice from the far corner of the court room.
Instantly there was a stir all over. The Elder jumped up and frowned
toward the place from whence the interruption came, and Milton Hibbard
lifted his voice and tried to drown the uproar that rose and filled
the room, but not one word he uttered could be heard.
Order was called, and the stillness which ensued seemed ominous. Some
one was elbowing his way forward, and as he passed through the crowd
the uproar began again. Every one was on his feet, and although the
prisoner stood and gazed toward the source of commotion he could not
see the man who spoke. He looked across to the place where Betty
Ballard had been sitting between her father and mother, and there he
saw her standing on a chair, forgetful of the throng around her and of
all the eyes that had been fixed upon her during her testimony in cold
criticism, a wonderful, transfiguring light in her great gray eyes,
and her arms stretched out toward some one in the surging crowd who
was drawing nearer to the prisoner's box. Her lips were moving. She
was repeating a name over and over. He knew the name she was repeating
soundlessly, with quivering lips, and his heart gave a great bound and
then stopped beating, and he fell upon his knees and bowed his head on
his hands as they clung to the railing in front of him.
Amalia, watching them all, with throbbing pulses and luminous
eyes, saw and understood, and her spirit was filled with a great
thankfulness which she could not voice, but which lifted her, serene
and still, above every one there. Now she looked only at Peter
Junior. Then a tremor crept over her, and, turning, she clasped
Larry's arm with shaking hands.
"Let me that I lean a little upon you or I fall down. How this is
beautiful!"
Larry put his arm about her and held her to him, supporting her
gently. "It's all coming right, you see."
"Yes. But, how it is terrible for the old man! It is as if the
lightning had fallen on him."
Larry glanced at his brother-in-law and then looked away. After all
his desire to see him humbled, he felt a sense of shame in watching
the old man's abject humility and remorse. Thereafter he kept his eyes
fixed on his son, as he struggled with the throng packed closely
around him and shouting now his name. Suddenly, when he could no
longer progress, Richard felt himself lifted off his feet, and there,
borne on the shoulders of the men,--as he had so shortly before been
borne in triumph through the streets of Paris,--he was carried
forward, this time by men who had tramped in the same column of
infantry with him. Gladly now they held him aloft and shouted his
name, and the people roared it back to them as they made way, and he
was set down, as he directed, in the box beside the prisoner.
Had the Judge then tried to restore order it would have been futile.
He did not try. He stood smiling, with his hand on the old Elder's
shoulder. Then, while the people cheered and stamped and shouted the
names of the two young men, and while women wept and turned to each
other, clasping hands and laughing through tears, Milton Hibbard
stooped and spoke in the Elder's ear.
"I throw up the case, man, and rejoice with you and the whole town. Go
down there and take back your son."
"The Lord has visited me heavily for the wicked pride of my heart. I
have no right to joy in my son's return. He should cast me off." The
old man sat there, shriveled and weary--gazing straight before him,
and seeing only his own foolish prejudice, like a Giant Despair,
looming over him. But fortunately for him, no one saw him or noticed
him but the two at his side, for all eyes were fixed on the young men,
as they stood facing each other and gazed in each other's eyes.
It was a moment of breathless suspense throughout the court room, as
if the crowd by one impulse were waiting to hear the young man speak,
and the Judge seized the opportunity to again call for order.
When order had been secured, the prisoner's counsel rose and said: "If
your Honor please, I ask leave to have the proofs opened, and to be
permitted to call another witness."
The Judge replied: "I have no doubt the District Attorney will consent
to this request. You may call your witness."
"Richard Kildene!" rang out the triumphant voice of Nathan Goodbody,
and Richard stepped into the witness box and was sworn.
The natural eloquence with which he had been endowed was increased
tenfold by his intense earnestness as he stood, turning now to the
Judge and now to the jury, and told his story. The great audience,
watching him and listening breathlessly, perceived the differences
between the two men, a strong individuality in each causing such
diversity of character that the words of Betty Ballard, which had so
irritated the counsel, and which seemed so childish, now appealed to
them as the truest wisdom--the wisdom of the "Child" who "shall lead
them."
"It is not the same head and it is not the same scar. It is not by
their legs or their scars we know people, it is by themselves--by
their souls." Betty was vindicated.
Poignantly, intently, the audience felt as he wished them to feel the
truth of his words, as he described the eternal vigilance of a man's
own soul when he has a crime to expiate, and when he concluded by
saying: "It is the Eye of Dread that sees into the hidden recesses of
the heart,--to the uttermost end of life,--that follows the sinner
even into his grave, until he yields to the demands of righteousness
and accepts the terms of absolute truth," he carried them all with
him, and again the tumult broke loose, and they shouted and laughed
and wept and congratulated each other. The Judge himself sat stiffly
in his seat, his chin quivering with an emotion he was making a
desperate effort to conceal. Finally he turned and nodded to the
sheriff, who rapped loudly for order. In a moment the room was silent,
every one eager to hear what was to be the next step in the legal
drama.
"Gentlemen of the Jury," said the Judge, "Notwithstanding what has
occurred, it becomes our duty to proceed to an orderly determination
of this case. If you believe the testimony of the last witness, then,
of course, the crime charged has not been committed, the respondent is
not guilty, and he is entitled to your verdict. You may, if you
choose, consult together where you are, and if you agree upon a
verdict, the court will receive it. If you prefer to retire to
consider your verdict, you may do so."
The foreman of the jury then wrote the words, "Not guilty" on a piece
of paper, and writing his name under it, passed it to the others. Each
juror quickly signed his name under that of the foreman, and when it
was returned to him, he arose and said: "The jury finds the accused
not guilty."
Then for the first time every one looked at the Elder. He was seated
bowed over his clasped hands, as if he were praying, as indeed he was,
a fervent prayer for forgiveness.
Very quietly the people left the court room, filled with a reverent
awe by the sight of the old man's face. It was as if he had suddenly
died to the world while still sitting there before them. But at the
door they gathered and waited. Larry Kildene waited with them until he
spied Mary Ballard and Bertrand, with Betty, leaving, when he followed
them and gave Amalia into their charge. It was a swift and glad
meeting between Larry and his old friends, and a hurried explanation.
"I'm coming to tell you the whole, soon, but meantime I've brought
this lovely young lady for you to care for. Go with them, Amalia, and
tell them all about yourself, for they will be father and mother and
sister to you. I've found my son--I've a world to tell you, but now I
must hurry back and comfort my brother-in-law a bit." He took Mary's
hand in his and held it a moment, then Bertrand's, and then he
relieved the situation by taking Betty's and looking into her eyes,
which looked tearfully back at him. Stooping, as if irresistibly drawn
to her, he touched her fingers with his lips, and then lightly her
hair. It was done with the grace of an old courtier, and he was gone,
disappearing in the courthouse.
For a good while the crowd waited around the doors, neighbor visiting
with neighbor and recounting the events of the trial that had most
impressed them, and telling one and another how they had all along
felt that the young prisoner was no other than Peter Junior, and
laying all the blame on the Elder's reckless offer of so large a
reward. Nels Nelson crept sulkily back to the stable, and G. B. Stiles
returned to the hotel and packed his great valise and was taken to the
station in the omnibus by Nels Nelson. As they parted, G. B. Stiles
asked for the paper he had given the Swede.
"It's no good to you or any one now, you know. You're out nothing. I'm
the only one that's out--all I've spent--"
"Yas, bot I got heem. You not--all ofer de vorl. Dey vas bot' coom
back, dot's all," and so they parted.
Every one was glad and rejoiced over the return of the young men, with
a sense of relief that resulted in hilarity, and no one would leave
until he had had a chance to grasp the hands of the "boys." The men of
the jury lingered with the rest, all eager to convince their friends
that they would never have found the prisoner guilty of the charge
against him, and at the same time chaffing each other about their
discussions, and the way in which one and another had been caught by
the evidence and Peter's changed appearance.
At last the doors of the courthouse opened, and the Judge, and Milton
Hibbard, Peter Junior, his father, and the lawyers, and Larry and
Richard walked out in a group, when shouting and cheering began anew.
Before descending the steps, the Elder, with bared head, stepped
forward and stood regarding the people in silence, and the noise of
shouting and cheering stopped as suddenly as it began. The devout old
man stood erect, but his words came to them brokenly.
"My friends and my neighbors, as you all know, I have this day been
saved--from committing, in my blindness and my stubbornness, a great
crime,--for which the Lord be thanked. Unworthy as I am, this day my
son has been restored to me, fine and strong, for which the Lord be
thanked. And here, the young man brought up as a brother to him, is
again among you who have always loved him,"--he turned and took
Richard by the hand, and waited a moment; then, getting control of
himself, once more continued--"for which again, I say, the Lord be
thanked.
"And now let me present to you one whom many of you know already, who
has returned to us after many years--one whom in the past I have
greatly wronged. Let me here and now make confession before you all,
and present him to you as a man--" He turned and placed his hand on
Larry's shoulder. "Let me present him to you as a man who can forgive
an enemy--even so far as to allow that man who was his enemy to claim
him forevermore as--as--brother--and friend,--Larry Kildene!" Again
cheers burst forth and again were held back as the Elder continued.
"Neighbors--he has sent us back my son. He has saved me--more than
me--from ruin and disaster, in these days when ruin is abroad in the
land. How he has done it you will soon learn, for I ask you all to
come round to my house this night and--partake of--of--a little
collation to be prepared by Mr. Decker and sent in for this occasion."
The old man's voice grew stronger as he proceeded, "Just to welcome
home these boys of ours--our young men--and this man--generous and--"
"You've not been the only one to blame." Larry stepped forward and
seized the Elder's hand, "I take my share of the sorrow--but it is
past. We're friends--all of us--and we'll go all around to Elder
Craigmile's house this night, and help him give thanks by partaking of
his bounty--and now--will ye lift your voices and give a cheer for
Elder Craigmile, a man who has stood in this community for all that is
excellent, for uprightness and advancement, for honor and purity, a
man respected, admired, and true--who has stood for the good of his
fellows in this town of Leauvite for fifty years." Larry Kildene
lifted his hand above his head and smiled a smile that would have
drawn cheers from the very paving stones.
And the cheers came, heartily and strongly, as the four men, rugged
and strong, the gray-haired and the brown-haired, passed through the
crowd and across the town square and up the main street, and on to the
Elder's home.
Ere an hour had passed all was quiet, and the small town of Leauvite
had taken up the even tenor of its way. After a little time, Larry
Kildene and Richard left the Elder and his son by themselves and
strolled away from the town on the familiar road toward the river.
They talked quietly and happily of things nearest their hearts, as
they had need to do, until they came to a certain fork of the road,
when Larry paused, standing a moment with his arm across his son's
shoulder.
"I'll go on a piece by myself, Richard. I'm thinking you'll be wanting
to make a little visit."
Richard's eyes danced. "Come with me, father, come. There'll be others
there for you to talk with--who'll be glad to have you there, and--"
"Go to, go to! I know the ways of a man's heart as well as the next."
"I'll warrant you do, father!" and Richard bounded away, taking the
path he had so often trod in his boyhood. Larry stood and looked after
him a moment. He was pleased to hear how readily the word, father,
fell from the young man's lips. Yes, Richard was facile and ready. He
was his own son.
CHAPTER XL
THE SAME BOY
Mary Ballard stepped down from the open porch where Amalia and the
rest of the family sat behind a screen of vines, interestedly talking,
and walked along the path between the rose bushes that led to the
gate. She knew Richard must be coming when she saw Betty, who sat
where she could glance now and then down the road, drop her sewing and
hurry away through the house and off toward the spring. As Larry knew
the heart of a man, so Mary Ballard knew the heart of a girl. She said
nothing, but quietly strolled along and waited with her hand on the
gate.
"I wanted to be the first to open the gate to you, Richard," she said,
as he approached her with extended arms. Silently he drew her to him
and kissed her. She held him off a moment and gazed into his eyes.
"Yes, I'm the same boy. I think that was what you said to me when I
entered the army--that I should come back to you the same boy? I've
always had it in mind. I'm the same boy."
"I believe you, Richard. They are all out on the front porch, and
Bertrand is with them--if you wish to see him--first--and if you wish
to see Betty, take the path at the side, around the house to the
spring below the garden."
Betty stood with her back to the house under the great Bartlett pear
tree. She was trembling. She would not look around--Oh, no! She would
wait until he asked for her. He might not ask for her! If he did not,
she would not go in--not yet. But she did look around, for she felt
him near her--she was sure--sure--he was near--close--
"Oh, Richard, Richard! Oh, Richard, did you know that I have been
calling you in my heart--so hard, calling you, calling you?"
She was in his arms and his lips were on hers. "The same little Betty!
The same dear little Betty! Lovelier--sweeter--you wore a white dress
with little green sprigs on it--is this the dress?"
"Yes, no. I couldn't wear the same old one all this time." She spoke
between laughing and crying.
"Why is this just like it?"
"Because."
He held her away and gazed at her a moment. "What a lovely reason!
What a lovely Betty!" He drew her to him again. "I heard it all--there
in the court room. I was there and heard. What a load you have borne
for me--my little Betty--all this time--what a load!"
"It was horrible, Richard." She hid her flaming face on his breast.
"There, before the whole town--to tell every one--everything.
I--I--don't even know what I said."
"I do. Every word--dear little Betty! While I have been hiding like a
great coward, you have been bravely bearing my terrible burden,
bearing it for me."
"Oh, Richard! For weeks and weeks my heart has been calling you,
calling you--night and day, calling you to come home. I told them he
was Peter Junior, but they would not believe me--no one would believe
me but mother. Father tried to, but only mother really did."
"I heard you, Betty. I had a dingy little studio up three flights of
stairs in Paris, and I sat there painting one day--and I heard you. I
had sent a picture to the Salon, and was waiting in suspense to know
the result, and I heard your call--"
"Was--was--that what made you come home--or--or was it because you
knew you ought to?" She lifted her head and looked straight into his
eyes.
Richard laughed. "It's the same little Betty! The same Betty with the
same conscience bigger than her head--almost bigger than her heart. I
can't tell you what it was. I heard it again and again, and the last
time I just packed my things and wound up matters there--I had made a
success, Betty, dear--let me say that. It makes me feel just a little
bit more worth your while. I thought to make a success would be sweet,
but it was all worthless--I'll tell you all about it later--but it was
no help and I just followed the call and returned, hurrying as if I
knew all about the thing that was going on, when really I knew
nothing. Sometimes I thought it was you calling me, and sometimes I
thought it was my own conscience, and sometimes I thought it was only
that I could no longer bear my own thoughts--See here, Betty,
darling--don't--don't ever kill any one, for the thought that you have
committed a murder is an awful thing to carry about with you."
She laughed and hid her face again on his breast. "Richard, how can
we laugh--when it has all been so horrible?"
"We can't, Betty--we're crying." She looked up at him again, and
surely his eyes were filled with tears. She put up her hand and
lightly touched his lips with her fingers.
"I know. I know you've suffered, Richard. I see the lines of sorrow
here about your mouth--even when you smile. I saw the same in Peter
Junior's face, and it was so sad--I just hugged him, I was so glad it
was he--I--I--hugged him and kissed him--"
"Bless his heart! Somebody ought to."
"Somebody will. She's beautiful--and so--fascinating! Let's go in so
you can meet her."
"I have met her, and father has told me a great deal about her. I've
had a fine talk with my father. How wonderful that Peter should have
been the means of finding my father for me--and such a splendid
father! I often used to think out what kind of a father I would like
if I could choose one, but I never thought out just such a combination
of delightful qualities as I find in him."
"It's like a story, isn't it? And we'll all live happily ever after.
Shall we go in and see the rest, Richard? They'll be wanting to see
you too."
"Let's go over here and sit down. I don't want to see the rest quite
yet, little one. Why, Betty, do you suppose I can let go of you yet?"
"No," said Betty, meekly, and again Richard laughed. She lifted the
hair from his temple and touched the old scar.
"Yes, it's there, Betty. I'm glad he hit me that welt. I would have
pushed him over but for that. I deserved it."
"You're not so like him--not so like as you used to be. No one would
mistake you now. You don't look so much like yourself as you used
to--and you've a lot of white in your hair. Oh, Richard!"
"Yes. It's been pretty tough, Betty, dear,--pretty tough. Let's talk
of something else."
"And all the time I couldn't help you--even the least bit."
"But you were a help all the time--all the time."
"How, Richard?"
"I had a clean, sweet, perfect, innocent place always in my heart
where you were that kept me from caring for a lot of foolishness that
tempted other men. It was a good, sweet, wholesome place where you sat
always. When I wanted to see you sitting there, I had only to take a
funny little leather housewife, all worn, and tied with cherry-colored
hair ribbons, in my hand and look at it and remember."
Betty sighed a long sigh of contentment and settled herself closer in
his arms. "Yes, I was there, and God heard me praying for you.
Sometimes I felt myself there."
"In the secret chamber of my heart, Betty, dear?"
"Yes." They were silent for a while, one of the blessed silences which
make life worth living. Then Betty lifted her head. "Tell me about
Paris, Richard, and what you did there. It was Peter who was wild to
go and paint in Paris and it was you who went. That was why no one
found you. They never thought that of you--but I would have thought
it. I knew you had it in you."
"Oh, yes, after a fashion I had it in me."
"But you said you met with success. Did that mean you were admitted to
the Salon?"
"Yes, dear."
"Oh, Richard! How tremendous! I've read a lot about it. Oh, Richard!
Did you like the 'Old Masters'?"
"Did I! Betty, I learned a thing about your father, looking at the
work of some of those great old fellows. I learned that he is a better
painter and a greater man than people over here know."
"Mother knew it--all the time."
"Ah, yes, your mother! Would you like to go there, Betty? Then I'll
take you. We'll be married right away, won't we, dear?"
"You know, Richard, I believe I would be perfectly--absolutely--terribly
happy--if--if I could only get over being mad at your uncle. He was so
stubborn, he was just wicked. I hated him--I--I hated him so, and now
it seems as if I had got used to hating him and couldn't stop."
She had been so brave and had not once given way, but now at the
thought of all the bitterness and the fight of her will against that
of the old man, she sobbed in his arms. Her whole frame shook and he
gathered her close and comforted her. "He--he--he was always
saying--saying--"
"Never mind now what he was saying, dear. Listen."
"I--I--I--am afraid--I can never see him--or--or look at him
again--I--I--hate him so!"
"No, no. Don't hate him. Any one would have done the same in his place
who believed as firmly as he did what he believed."
"B--b--but he didn't need to believe it."
"You see he had known through that Dane man--or whatever he is--from
the detective--all I told you that night--how could he help it? I
believed Peter was dead--we all did--you did. He had brooded over it
and slept upon it--no wonder he refused even to look at Peter. If you
had seen Uncle Elder there in the court room after the people had
gone, if you had seen him then, Betty, you would never hate him
again."
"All the same, if--if--you hadn't come home when you did,--and the
law of Wisconsin allowed of hanging--he would have had him,
Peter Junior--he would have had his own son hanged,--and been
glad--glad--because he would have thought he was hanging you. I do
hate--"
"No, no. And as he very tersely said--if all had been as it seemed,
and it had been me--trying to take the place of Peter Junior--I would
have deserved hanging--now wouldn't I, after all the years when Uncle
Elder had been good to me for his sister's sake?"
"That's it--for his sister's sake--n--n--not for yours, always himself
and his came first. And then it wouldn't have been so. Even if it were
so, it wouldn't have been so--I mean--I wouldn't have believed
it--because it couldn't have been you and been so--"
"Darling little Irish Betty! What a fine daughter you will be to my
Irish Dad! Oh, my dear! my dear!"
"But you know such a thing would have been impossible for you to do.
They might have known it, too, if they'd had any sense. And that scar
on Peter's head--that was a new one and yours is an old one. If they
had had any sense, they could have seen that, too."
"Never any man on earth had a sweeter job than I! It's worth all I've
been through to come home here and comfort you. Let's keep it up all
our lives, see? You always stay mad at Uncle Elder, and I'll always
comfort you--just like this."
Then Betty laughed through her tears, and they kissed again, and then
proceeded to settle all their future to Richard's heart's content.
Then, after a long while, they crept in where the family were all
seated at supper, and instantly everything in the way of decorum at
meals was demoralized. Every one jumped up, and Betty and Richard were
surrounded and tumbled about and hugged and kissed by all--until a
shrill, childish voice raised a shout of laughter as little Janey
said: "What are we all kissing Betty for? She hasn't been away; she's
been here all the time."
It was Peter Junior who broke up the rout. He came in upon them,
saying he had left his father asleep, exhausted after the day's
emotion, and that he had come home to the Ballards to get a little
supper. Then it was all to be done over again, and Peter was jumbled
up among outstretched arms, and shaken and pounded and hugged, and
happy he was to be taken once more thus vociferously into the home
that had always meant so much to him. There they all were,--Martha and
Julien--James and Bob, as the boys were called these days,--and little
Janey--and Bertrand as joyous as a boy, and Mary--she who had always
known--even as Betty said, smiling on him in the old way--and there,
watching all with glowing eyes, Amalia at one side, waiting, until
Peter had her, too, in his arms.
Quickly Martha set a place for Peter between Amalia and herself. Yes,
it was all as it should be--the circle now complete--only--"Where is
your father, Richard?" asked Mary.
"He went off for a walk. Isn't he a glorious father for a man to fall
heir to? We're all to meet at Uncle Elder's to-night, and he'll be
there."
"Will he? I'm so glad."
"Yes, Mrs. Ballard." Richard looked gravely into her eyes and from her
to Bertrand. "You left after the verdict. You weren't at the
courthouse at the last. It's all come right, and it's going to stay
so."
The meal progressed and ended amid laughter; and a little later the
family all set out for the banker's home.
"How I wish Hester were here!" said Mary. "I did not wish her here
before--but now we want her." She looked at Peter.
"Yes, now we want her. We're ready for her at last. Father leaves for
New York to-morrow to fetch her. She's coming on the next steamship,
and he'll meet her and bring her back to us all."
"How that is beautiful!" murmured Amalia, as she walked at Peter's
side. He looked down at her and noted a weariness in her manner she
strove to conceal.
"Come back with me a little--just a little while. I can go later to my
father's, and he will excuse you, and I'll take you to him before he
leaves to-morrow. Come, I think I know where we may find Larry
Kildene." So Peter led her away into the dusk, and they walked
slowly--slowly--along the road leading to the river bluff--but not to
the top.
After a long hour Larry came down from the height where he had been
communing with himself and found them in the sweet starlight seated by
the wayside, and passed them, although he knew they were Peter and
Amalia. He walked lingeringly, feeling himself very much alone, until
he was seized by either arm and held.
"It is your blessing, Sir Kildene, we ask it."
And Larry gave them the blessing they asked, and took Amalia in his
arms and kissed her. "I thought from the first that you might be my
son, Peter, and it means no diminution in my love for you that I find
you are not. It's been a great day--a great day--a great day," he said
as if to himself, and they walked on together.
"Yes, yes! Sir Kildene, I am never to know again fear. I am to have
the new name, so strong and fine. Well can I say it. Hear me.
Peter-Craigmile-Junior. A strange, fine name--it is to be mine--given
to me. How all is beautiful here! It is the joy of heaven in my
heart--like--like heaven, is not, Peter?"
"Now you are here--yes, Amalia."
"So have I say to you before--to love is all of heaven--and all of
life, is not?"
Peter held in his hand the little crucifix he had worn on his bosom
since their parting. In the darkness he felt rather than saw it. He
placed it in her hand and drew her close as they walked. "Yes, Amalia,
yes. You have taught me. Hatred destroys like a blast, but love--love
is life itself."
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Eye of Dread" ***
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