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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14513-0.txt b/14513-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f84c130 --- /dev/null +++ b/14513-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12437 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Audrey, by Mary Johnston + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Audrey + +Author: Mary Johnston + +Release Date: December 29, 2004 [EBook #14513] +Last Updated: August 20, 2023 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Audrey Longhurst and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUDREY *** + + + + + AUDREY + + BY + MARY JOHNSTON + + AUTHOR OF “TO HAVE AND TO HOLD” AND + “PRISONERS OF HOPE” + + + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + F.C. YOHN + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + The Riverside Press, Cambridge + 1902 + + COPYRIGHT, 1901, 1902, BY MARY JOHNSTON + COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + _Published February, 1902_ + + + + + _Books by Mary Johnston._ + + + AUDREY. With Illustrations in color. Crown 8vo, $1.50 + + PRISONERS OF HOPE. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, $1.50. + + TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. With 8 Illustrations + by HOWARD PYLE, E.B. THOMPSON, + A.W. BETTS, and EMLEN McCONNELL. + Crown 8vo, $1.50. + + + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN & CO. + BOSTON AND NEW YORK. + +[Illustration: GAZED WITH WIDE-OPEN EYES AT THE INTRUDER (page 106)] + + TO + ELOISE, ANNE, AND ELIZABETH + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER TITLE PAGE + + I. THE CABIN IN THE VALLEY 1 + + II. THE COURT OF THE ORPHAN 16 + + III. DARDEN’S AUDREY 38 + + IV. THE ROAD TO WILLIAMSBURGH 52 + + V. THE STOREKEEPER 63 + + VI. MASTER AND MAN 73 + + VII. THE RETURN OF MONSIEUR JEAN HUGON 92 + + VIII. UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE 106 + + IX. MACLEAN TO THE RESCUE 117 + + X. HAWARD AND EVELYN 131 + + XI. AUDREY OF THE GARDEN 145 + + XII. THE PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN 163 + + XIII. A SABBATH DAY’S JOURNEY 179 + + XIV. THE BEND IN THE ROAD 194 + + XV. HUGON SPEAKS HIS MIND 206 + + XVI. AUDREY AND EVELYN 222 + + XVII. WITHIN THE PLAYHOUSE 237 + + XVIII. A QUESTION OF COLORS 249 + + XIX. THE GOVERNOR’S BALL 262 + + XX. THE UNINVITED GUEST 273 + + XXI. AUDREY AWAKES 287 + + XXII. BY THE RIVERSIDE 300 + + XXIII. A DUEL 312 + + XXIV. AUDREY COMES TO WESTOVER 322 + + XXV. TWO WOMEN 337 + + XXVI. SANCTUARY 349 + + XXVII. THE MISSION OF TRUELOVE 363 + + XXVIII. THE PLAYER 375 + + XXIX. AMOR VINCIT 391 + + XXX. THE LAST ACT 401 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + + GAZED WITH WIDE-OPEN EYES AT THE INTRUDER (page 106) _Frontispiece_ + + “HAD YOU LOVED ME--I HAD BEEN HAPPY” 58 + + AUDREY LEFT HER WARNING TO BE SPOKEN BY MACLEAN 206 + + “I DO NOT THINK I HAVE THE HONOR OF KNOWING”-- 270 + + HER DARK EYES MADE APPEAL 342 + + “JEAN! JEAN HUGON!” 414 + + + + +AUDREY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE CABIN IN THE VALLEY + + +The valley lay like a ribbon thrown into the midst of the encompassing +hills. The grass which grew there was soft and fine and abundant; the +trees which sprang from its dark, rich mould were tall and great of +girth. A bright stream flashed through it, and the sunshine fell warm +upon the grass and changed the tassels of the maize into golden plumes. +Above the valley, east and north and south, rose the hills, clad in +living green, mantled with the purpling grape, wreathed morn and eve +with trailing mist. To the westward were the mountains, and they dwelt +apart in a blue haze. Only in the morning, if the mist were not there, +the sunrise struck upon their long summits, and in the evening they +stood out, high and black and fearful, against the splendid sky. The +child who played beside the cabin door often watched them as the valley +filled with shadows, and thought of them as a great wall between her +and some land of the fairies which must needs lie beyond that barrier, +beneath the splendor and the evening star. The Indians called them the +Endless Mountains, and the child never doubted that they ran across the +world and touched the floor of heaven. + +In the hands of the woman who was spinning the thread broke and the +song died in the white throat of the girl who stood in the doorway. +For a moment the two gazed with widening eyes into the green September +world without the cabin; then the woman sprang to her feet, tore from +the wall a horn, and, running to the door, wound it lustily. The echoes +from the hills had not died when a man and a boy, the one bearing a +musket, the other an axe, burst from the shadow of the forest, and at +a run crossed the greensward and the field of maize between them and +the women. The child let fall her pine cones and pebbles, and fled to +her mother, to cling to her skirts, and look with brown, frightened +eyes for the wonder that should follow the winding of the horn. Only +twice could she remember that clear summons for her father: once when +it was winter and snow was on the ground, and a great wolf, gaunt and +bold, had fallen upon their sheep; and once when a drunken trader from +Germanna, with a Pamunkey who had tasted of the trader’s rum, had not +waited for an invitation before entering the cabin. It was not winter +now, and there was no sign of the red-faced trader or of the dreadful, +capering Indian. There was only a sound in the air, a strange noise +coming to them from the pass between the hills over which rose the sun. + +The man with the musket sent his voice before him as he approached +the group upon the doorstep: “Alce, woman! What’s amiss? I see naught +wrong!” + +His wife stepped forward to meet him. “There’s naught to see, William. +It’s to hear. There was a noise. Molly and I heard it, and then we lost +it. There it is again!” + +Fronting the cabin, beyond the maize field and the rich green grass +and the placid stream, rose two hills, steep and thickly wooded, and +between them ran a narrow, winding, and rocky pass. Down this gorge, to +the listening pioneer, now came a confused and trampling sound. + +“It is iron striking against the rocks!” he announced. “The hoofs of +horses”-- + +“Iron!” cried his wife. “The horses in Virginia go unshod! And what +should a troop of horse do here, beyond the frontier, where even the +rangers never come?” + +The man shook his head, a frown of perplexity upon his bronzed and +bearded face. “It is the sound of the hoofs of horses,” he said, “and +they are coming through the pass. Hark!” + +A trumpet blew, and there came a noise of laughter. The child pressed +close to her brother’s side. “Oh, Robin, maybe ’t is the fairies!” + +Out from the gloom of the pass into the sunshine of the valley, +splashing through the stream, trampling the long grass, laughing, and +calling one rider to the other, burst a company of fifty horsemen. The +trumpet blew again, and the entire party, drawing rein, stared at the +unexpected maize field, the cabin, and the people about the door. + +Between the intruders and the lonely folk, whose nearest neighbors were +twenty miles away, was only a strip of sunny grass, dotted over with +the stumps of trees that had been felled lest they afford cover for +attacking savages. A man, riding at the head of the invading party, +beckoned, somewhat imperiously, to the pioneer; and the latter, still +with his musket in the hollow of his arm, strode across the greensward, +and finding himself in the midst, not of rude traders and rangers, +but of easy, smiling, periwigged gentlemen, handsomely dressed and +accoutred, dropped the butt of his gun upon the ground, and took off +his squirrel-skin cap. + +“You are deep in the wilderness, good fellow,” said the man who +had beckoned, and who was possessed of a stately figure, a martial +countenance, and an air of great authority. “How far is it to the +mountains?” + +The pioneer stared at the long blue range, cloudlike in the distance. +“I don’t know,” he answered. “I hunt to the eastward. Twenty miles, +maybe. You’re never going to climb them?” + +“We are come out expressly to do so,” answered the other heartily, +“having a mind to drink the King’s health with our heads in the clouds! +We need another axeman to clear away the fallen trees and break the +nets of grapevine. Wilt go along amongst our rangers yonder, and earn a +pistole and undying fame?” + +The woodsman looked from the knot of gentlemen to the troop of hardy +rangers, who, with a dozen ebony servants and four Meherrin Indians, +made up the company. Under charge of the slaves were a number of +packhorses. Thrown across one was a noble deer; a second bore a brace +of wild turkeys and a two-year-old bear, fat and tender; a third had a +legion of pots and pans for the cooking of the woodland cheer; while +the burden of several others promised heart’s content of good liquor. +From the entire troop breathed a most enticing air of gay daring and +good-fellowship. The gentlemen were young and of cheerful countenances; +the rangers in the rear sat their horses and whistled to the +woodpeckers in the sugar-trees; the negroes grinned broadly; even the +Indians appeared a shade less saturnine than usual. The golden sunshine +poured upon them all, and the blue mountains that no Englishman had +ever passed seemed for the moment as soft and yielding as the cloud +that slept along their summits. And no man knew what might be just +beyond the mountains: Frenchmen, certainly, and the great lakes and +the South Sea: but, besides these, might there not be gold, glittering +stones, new birds and beasts and plants, strange secrets of the hills? +It was only westward-ho! for a week or two, with good company and good +drink-- + +The woodsman shifted from one foot to the other, but his wife, who had +now crossed the grass to his side, had no doubts. + +“You’ll not go, William!” she cried. “Remember the smoke that you saw +yesterday from the hilltop! If the Northern Indians are on the warpath +against the Southern, and are passing between us and the mountains, +there may be straying bands. I’ll not let you go!” + +In her eagerness she clasped his arm with her hands. She was a comely, +buxom dame, and the circle on horseback, being for the most part young +and gallant, and not having seen a woman for some days, looked kindly +upon her. + +“And so you saw a smoke, goodwife, and are afraid of roving Indians?” +said the gentleman who had spoken before. “That being the case, your +husband has our permission to stay behind. On my life, ’t is a shame to +ride away and leave you in danger of such marauders!” + +“Will your Excellency permit me to volunteer for guard duty?” demanded +a young man who had pressed his horse to the leader’s side. “It’s odds, +though, that when you return this way you’ll find me turned Papist. +I’ll swear your Excellency never saw in Flanders carved or painted +saint so worthy of your prayers as yonder breathing one!” + +The girl Molly had followed her parents, and now stood upon a little +grassy knoll, surveying with wide brown eyes the gay troop before her. +A light wind was blowing, and it wrapped her dress of tender, faded +blue around her young limbs, and lifted her loosened hair, gilded by +the sunshine into the likeness of an aureole. Her face was serious and +wondering, but fair as a woodland flower. She had placed her hand upon +the head of the child who was with her, clinging to her dress. The +green knoll formed a pedestal; behind was the sky, as blue as that of +Italy; the two figures might have been some painted altar-piece. + +The sprightly company, which had taken for its motto “Sic juvat +transcendere montes,” looked and worshiped. There was a moment of +silent devotion, broken by one of the gentlemen demanding if ’t were +not time for dinner; another remarked that they might go much farther +and fare much worse, in respect of a cool, sweet spot in which to rest +during the heat of the afternoon; and a third boldly proposed that +they go no farther at all that day. Their leader settled the question +by announcing that, Mr. Mason’s suggestion finding favor in his sight, +they would forthwith dismount, dine, drink red wine and white, and +wear out the heat of the day in this sylvan paradise until four of +the clock, when the trumpet should sound for the mount; also, that if +the goodwife and her daughter would do them the honor to partake of +their rustic fare, their healths should be drunk in nothing less than +Burgundy. + +As he spoke he swung himself from the saddle, pulled out his ruffles, +and raised his hat. “Ladies, permit me,”--a wave of his hand toward his +escort, who were now also on foot. “Colonel Robertson, Captain Clonder, +Captain Brooke, Mr. Haward, Mr. Beverley, Dr. Robinson, Mr. Fontaine, +Mr. Todd, Mr. Mason,--all of the Tramontane Order. For myself, I am +Alexander Spotswood, at your service.” + +The pioneer, standing behind his wife, plucked her by the sleeve. +“Ecod, Alce, ’t is the Governor himself! Mind your manners!” + +Alce, who had been a red-cheeked dairymaid in a great house in +England, needed no admonition. Her curtsy was profound; and when the +Governor took her by the hand and kissed her still blooming cheek, she +curtsied again. Molly, who had no memories of fine gentlemen and the +complaisance which was their due, blushed fire-red at the touch of his +Excellency’s lips, forgot to curtsy, and knew not where to look. When, +in her confusion, she turned her head aside, her eyes met those of the +young man who had threatened to turn Papist. He bowed, with his hand +upon his heart, and she blushed more deeply than before. + +By now every man had dismounted, and the valley was ringing with the +merriment of the jovial crew. The negroes led the horses down the +stream, lightened them of saddle and bridle, and left them tethered +to saplings beneath which the grass grew long and green. The rangers +gathered fallen wood, and kindled two mighty fires, while the gentlemen +of the party threw themselves down beside the stream, upon a little +grassy rise shadowed by a huge sugar-tree. A mound of turf, flanked +by two spreading roots, was the Governor’s chair of state, and Alce +and Molly he must needs seat beside him. Not one of his gay company +but seemed an adept in the high-flown compliment of the age; out of +very idleness and the mirth born of that summer hour they followed +his Excellency’s lead, and plied the two simple women with all the +wordy ammunition that a tolerable acquaintance with the mythology of +the ancients and the polite literature of the present could furnish. +The mother and daughter did not understand the fine speeches, but +liked them passing well. In their lonely lives, a little thing made +conversation for many and many a day. As for these golden hours,--the +jingle and clank and mellow laughter, the ruffles and gold buttons +and fine cloth, these gentlemen, young and handsome, friendly-eyed, +silver-tongued, the taste of wine, the taste of flattery, the sunshine +that surely was never yet so bright,--ten years from now they would +still be talking of these things, still wishing that such a day could +come again. + +The negroes were now busy around the fires, and soon the cheerful odor +of broiling meat rose and blended with the fragrance of the forest. +The pioneer, hospitably minded, beckoned to the four Meherrins, and +hastening with them to the patch of waving corn, returned with a goodly +lading of plump, green ears. A second foraging party, under guidance +of the boy, brought into the larder of the gentry half a dozen noble +melons, golden within and without. The woman whispered to the child, +and the latter ran to the cabin, filled her upgathered skirts with the +loaves of her mother’s baking, and came back to the group upon the +knoll beneath the sugar-tree. The Governor himself took the bread from +the little maid, then drew her toward him. + +“Thanks, my pretty one,” he said, with a smile that for the moment +quite dispelled the expression of haughtiness which marred an otherwise +comely countenance. “Come, give me a kiss, sweeting, and tell me thy +name.” + +The child looked at him gravely. “My name is Audrey,” she answered, +“and if you eat all of our bread we’ll have none for supper.” + +The Governor laughed, and kissed the small dark face. “I’ll give thee a +gold moidore, instead, my maid. Odso! thou’rt as dark and wild, almost, +as was my little Queen of the Saponies that died last year. Hast never +been away from the mountains, child?” + +Audrey shook her head, and thought the question but a foolish one. The +mountains were everywhere. Had she not been to the top of the hills, +and seen for herself that they went from one edge of the world to the +other? She was glad to slip from the Governor’s encircling arm, and +from the gay ring beneath the sugar-tree; to take refuge with herself +down by the water side, and watch the fairy tale from afar off. + +The rangers, with the pioneer and his son for their guests, dined +beside the kitchen fire, which they had kindled at a respectful +distance from the group upon the knoll. Active, bronzed and daring men, +wild riders, bold fighters, lovers of the freedom of the woods, they +sprawled upon the dark earth beneath the walnut-trees, laughed and +joked, and told old tales of hunting or of Indian warfare. The four +Meherrins ate apart and in stately silence, but the grinning negroes +must needs endure their hunger until their masters should be served. +One black detachment spread before the gentlemen of the expedition a +damask cloth; another placed upon the snowy field platters of smoking +venison and turkey, flanked by rockahominy and sea-biscuit, corn +roasted Indian fashion, golden melons, and a quantity of wild grapes +gathered from the vines that rioted over the hillside; while a third +set down, with due solemnity, a formidable array of bottles. There +being no chaplain in the party, the grace was short. The two captains +carved, but every man was his own Ganymede. The wines were good and +abundant: there was champagne for the King’s health; claret in which +to pledge themselves, gay stormers of the mountains; Burgundy for the +oreads who were so gracious as to sit beside them, smile upon them, +taste of their mortal fare. + +Sooth to say, the oreads were somewhat dazed by the company they +were keeping, and found the wine a more potent brew than the liquid +crystal of their mountain streams. Red roses bloomed in Molly’s +cheeks; her eyes grew starry, and no longer sought the ground; when +one of the gentlemen wove a chaplet of oak leaves, and with it crowned +her loosened hair, she laughed, and the sound was so silvery and +delightful that the company laughed with her. When the viands were +gone, the negroes drew the cloth, but left the wine. When the wine +was well-nigh spent, they brought to their masters long pipes and +japanned boxes filled with sweet-scented. The fragrant smoke, arising, +wrapped the knoll in a bluish haze. A wind had arisen, tempering the +blazing sunshine, and making low music up and down the hillsides. +The maples blossomed into silver, the restless poplar leaves danced +more and more madly, the hemlocks and great white pines waved their +broad, dark banners. Above the hilltops the sky was very blue, and the +distant heights seemed dream mountains and easy of climbing. A soft +and pleasing indolence, born of the afternoon, the sunlight, and the +red wine, came to dwell in the valley. One of the company beneath the +spreading sugar-tree laid his pipe upon the grass, clasped his hands +behind his head, and, with his eyes on the azure heaven showing between +branch and leaf, sang the song of Amiens of such another tree in such +another forest. The voice was manly, strong, and sweet; the rangers +quit their talk of war and hunting to listen, and the negroes, down by +the fire which they had built for themselves, laughed for very pleasure. + +When the wine was all drunken and the smoke of the tobacco quite blown +away, a gentleman who seemed of a somewhat saturnine disposition, and +less susceptible than his brother adventurers to the charms of the +wood nymphs, rose, and declared that he would go a-fishing in the +dark crystal of the stream below. His servant brought him hook and +line, while the grasshoppers in the tall grass served for bait. A rock +jutting over the flood formed a convenient seat, and a tulip-tree lent +a grateful shade. The fish were abundant and obliging; the fisherman +was happy. Three shining trophies had been landed, and he was in the +act of baiting the hook that should capture the fourth, when his eyes +chanced to meet the eyes of the child Audrey, who had left her covert +of purple-berried alder, and now stood beside him. Tithonus, green and +hale, skipped from between his fingers, and he let fall his line to +put out a good-natured hand and draw the child down to a seat upon the +rock. “Wouldst like to try thy skill, moppet?” he demanded. + +The child shook her head. “Are you a prince?” she asked, “and is the +grand gentleman with, the long hair and the purple coat the King?” + +The fisherman laughed. “No, little one, I’m only a poor ensign. The +gentleman yonder, being the representative in Virginia of my Lord of +Orkney and his Majesty King George the First, may somewhat smack of +royalty. Indeed, there are good Virginians who think that were the King +himself amongst us he could not more thoroughly play my Lord Absolute. +But he’s only the Governor of Virginia, after all, bright eyes.” + +“Does he live in a palace, like the King? My father once saw the King’s +house in a place they call London.” + +The gentleman laughed again. “Ay, he lives in a palace, a red brick +palace, sixty feet long and forty feet deep, with a bauble on top +that’s all afire on birth-nights. There are green gardens, too, with +winding paths, and sometimes pretty ladies walk in them. Wouldst like +to see all these fine things?” + +The child nodded. “Ay, that I would! Who is the gentleman that sang, +and that now sits by Molly? See! with his hand touching her hair. Is he +a Governor, too?” + +The other glanced in the direction of the sugar-tree, raised his +eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, and returned to his fishing. “That +is Mr. Marmaduke Haward,” he said, “who, having just come into a great +estate, goes abroad next month to be taught the newest, most genteel +mode of squandering it. Dost not like his looks, child? Half the ladies +of Williamsburgh are enamored of his _beaux yeux_.” + +Audrey made no answer, for just then the trumpet blew for the mount, +and the fisherman must needs draw in and pocket his hook and line. +Clear, high, and sweet, the triumphant notes pierced the air, and were +answered from the hills by a thousand fairy horns. The martial-minded +Governor would play the soldier in the wilderness; his little troop of +gentlemen and rangers and ebony servants had come out well drilled for +their tilt against the mountains. The echoes were still ringing, when, +with laughter, some expenditure of wit, and much cheerful swearing, the +camp was struck. The packhorses were again laden, the rangers swung +themselves into their saddles, and the gentlemen beneath the sugar-tree +rose from the grass, and tendered their farewells to the oreads. + +Alce roundly hoped that their Honors would pass that way again upon +their return from the high mountains, and the deepening rose of Molly’s +cheeks and her wistful eyes added weight to her mother’s importunity. +The Governor swore that in no great time they would dine again in the +valley, and his companions confirmed the oath. His Excellency, turning +to mount his horse, found the pioneer at the animal’s head. + +“So, honest fellow,” he exclaimed good-naturedly, “you will not with +us to grave your name upon the mountain tops? Let me tell you that you +are giving Fame the go-by. To march against the mountains and overcome +them as though they were so many Frenchmen, and then to gaze into the +promised land beyond--Odso, man, we are as great as were Cortez and +Pizarro and their crew! We are heroes and paladins! We are the Knights +of”-- + +His horse, impatient to be gone, struck with a ringing sound an +iron-shod hoof against a bit of rock. “The Knights of the Horseshoe,” +said the gentleman nearest the Governor. + +Spotswood uttered a delighted exclamation: “’Gad, Mr. Haward, you’ve +hit it! Well-nigh the first horseshoes used in Virginia--the number +we were forced to bring along--the sound of the iron against the +rocks--the Knights of the Horseshoe! ’Gad, I’ll send to London and have +little horseshoes--little gold horseshoes--made, and every man of us +shall wear one. The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe! It hath an odd, +charming sound, eh, gentlemen?” + +None of the gentlemen were prepared to deny that it was a quaint and +pleasing title. Instead, out of very lightness of heart and fantastic +humor, they must needs have the Burgundy again unpacked, that they +might pledge at once all valorous discoverers, his Excellency the +Governor of Virginia, and their new-named order. And when the wine was +drunk, the rangers were drawn up, the muskets were loaded, and a volley +was fired that brought the echoes crashing about their heads. The +Governor mounted, the trumpet sounded once more, and the joyous company +swept down the narrow valley toward the long, blue, distant ranges. + +The pioneer, his wife and children, watched them go. One of the +gentlemen turned in his saddle and waved his hand. Alce curtsied, but +Molly, at whom he had looked, saw him not, because her eyes were full +of tears. The company reached and entered a cleft between the hills; a +moment, and men and horses were lost to sight; a little longer, and not +even a sound could be heard. + +It was as though they had taken the sunshine with them; for a cloud had +come up from the west, and the sun was hidden. All at once the valley +seemed a sombre and lonely place, and the hills with their whispering +trees looked menacingly down upon the clearing, the cabin, and the five +simple English folk. The glory of the day was gone. After a little more +of idle staring, the frontiersman and his son returned to their work in +the forest, while Alce and Molly went indoors to their spinning, and +Audrey sat down upon the doorstep to listen to the hurry of voices in +the trees, and to watch the ever-deepening shadow of the cloud above +the valley. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE COURT OF THE ORPHAN + + +An hour before dusk found the company that had dined in the valley +making their way up the dry bed of a stream, through a gorge which +cleft a line of precipitous hills. On either hand the bank rose +steeply, giving no footing for man or beast. The road was a difficult +one; for here a tall, fern-crowned rock left but a narrow passage +between itself and the shaggy hillside, and there smooth and slippery +ledges, mounting one above the other, spanned the way. In places, +too, the drought had left pools of dark, still water, difficult to +avoid, and not infrequently the entire party must come to a halt while +the axemen cleared from the path a fallen birch or hemlock. Every +man was afoot, none caring to risk a fall upon the rocks or into +the black, cold water of the pools. The hoofs of the horses and the +spurs of the men clanked against the stones; now and then one of the +heavily laden packhorses stumbled and was sworn at, and once a warning +rattle, issuing from a rank growth of fern on the hillside, caused +a momentary commotion. There was no more laughter, or whistling, or +calling from the van to the rear guard. The way was arduous, and every +man must watch his footsteps; moreover, the last rays of the sun were +gilding the hilltops above them, and the level that should form their +camping-place must be reached before the falling of the night. + +The sunlight had all but faded from the heights, when one of the +company, stumbling over a round and mossy rock, measured his length +upon the ground, amid his own oaths at his mishap, and the exclamations +of the man immediately in his rear, whose progress he had thus +unceremoniously blocked. The horse of the fallen man, startled by the +dragging at the reins, reared and plunged, and in a moment the entire +column was in disorder. When the frightened animals were at last +quieted, and the line re-formed, the Governor called out to know who it +was that had fallen, and whether any damage had been suffered. + +“It was Mr. Haward, sir!” cried two or three; and presently the injured +gentleman himself, limping painfully, and with one side of his fine +green coat all stained by reason of contact with a bit of muddy ground, +appeared before his Excellency. + +“I have had a cursed mishap,--saving your presence, sir,” he explained. +“The right ankle is, I fear, badly sprained. The pain, is exquisite, +and I know not how I am to climb mountains.” + +The Governor uttered an exclamation of concern: “Unfortunate! Dr. +Robinson must look to the hurt at once.” + +“Your Excellency forgets my dispute with Dr. Robinson as to the dose +of Jesuit bark for my servant,” said the sufferer blandly. “Were I _in +extremis_ I should not apply to him for relief.” + +“I’ll lay my life that you are not _in extremis_ now,” retorted the +doctor. “If ever I saw a man with a sprained ankle keep his color so +marvelously, or heard him speak in so composed a tone! The pain must be +of a very unusual degree indeed!” + +“It is,” answered Mr. Haward calmly. “I cannot possibly go on in this +condition, your Excellency, nor can I dream of allowing my unlucky +accident to delay this worshipful company in their ascent of the +mountains. I will therefore take my servant and ride slowly back to +the cabin which we left this afternoon. Doubtless the worthy pioneer +will give me shelter until my foot is healed, and I will rejoin your +Excellency upon your return through the valley.” + +As he spoke, for the greater ease of the injured member, he leaned +against a towering lock. He was a handsome youth, with a trick of +keeping an unmoved countenance under even such a fire of laughter and +exclamation as greeted his announcement. + +“And for this you would lose the passing of the Appalachian Mountains!” +cried Spotswood. “Why, man! from those heights we may almost see Lake +Erie; may find out how near we are to the French, how easily the +mountains may be traversed, what promise of success should his Majesty +determine to plant settlements beyond them or to hold the mountain +passes! There is service to be done and honor to be gained, and you +would lag behind because of a wrenched ankle! Zoons, sir! at Blenheim I +charged a whole regiment of Frenchmen, with a wound in my breast into +which you might have thrust your hand!” + +The younger man shrugged his shoulders. “Beggars may not be choosers,” +he said coolly. “The sunlight is fast fading, and if we would be out of +this gorge before nightfall we must make no further tarrying. I have +your Excellency’s permission to depart?” + +One of the gentlemen made a low-voiced but audible remark to his +neighbor, and another hummed a line from a love song. The horses moved +impatiently amongst the loose stones, and the rangers began to mutter +that night would be upon them before they reached a safer footing. + +“Mr. Haward! Mr. Haward!” said the Governor sternly. “It is in my mind +that you meditate inflicting a greater harm than you have received. +Let me tell you, sir, if you think to so repay a simple-minded +hospitality”-- + +Mr. Haward’s eyes narrowed. “I own Colonel Spotswood for Governor of +Virginia,” he said, speaking slowly, as was his wont when he was angry. +“His office does not, I think, extend farther than that. As for these +pleasant-minded gentlemen who are not protected by their rank I beg to +inform them that in my fall my sword arm suffered no whit.” + +Turning, he beckoned to a negro who had worked his way from the +servants in the rear, along the line of rangers, to the outskirts of +the group of gentlemen gathered around the Governor and the injured +man. “Juba,” he ordered, “draw your horse and mine to one side. Your +Excellency, may I again remind you that it draws toward nightfall, and +that this road will be no pleasant one to travel in the dark?” + +What he said was true; moreover, upon the setting out of the expedition +it had been laughingly agreed that any gentleman who might find his +spirits dashed by the dangers and difficulties of the way should be at +liberty at any time to turn his back upon the mountains, and his face +toward safety and the settlements. The Governor frowned, bit his lips, +but finally burst into unwilling laughter. + +“You are a very young gentleman, Mr. Marmaduke Haward!” he cried. “Were +you a little younger, I know what ointment I should prescribe for +your hurt. Go your ways with your broken ankle; but if, when I come +again to the cabin in the valley, I find that your own injury has not +contented you, look to it that I do not make you build a bridge across +the bay itself! Gentlemen, Mr. Haward is bent upon intrusting his cure +to other and softer hands than Dr. Robinson’s, and the expedition must +go forward without him. We sorrow to lose him from our number, but we +know better than to reason with--ahem!--a twisted ankle. _En avant_, +gentlemen! Mr. Haward, pray have a care of yourself. I would advise +that the ankle be well bandaged, and that you stir not from the chimney +corner”-- + +“I thank your Excellency for your advice,” said Mr. Haward +imperturbably, “and will consider of taking it. I wish your Excellency +and these merry gentlemen a most complete victory over the mountains, +from which conquest I will no longer detain you.” + +He bowed as he spoke, and began to move, slowly and haltingly, across +the width of the rocky way to where his negro stood with the two horses. + +“Mr. Haward!” called the Governor. + +The recreant turned his head. “Your Excellency?” + +“It was the right foot, was it not?” queried his sometime leader. “Ah, +I thought so! Then it were best not to limp with the left.” + +Homeric laughter shook the air; but while Mr. Haward laughed not, +neither did he frown or blush. “I will remember, sir,” he said simply, +and at once began to limp with the proper foot. When he reached the +bank he turned, and, standing with his arm around his horse’s neck, +watched the company which he had so summarily deserted, as it put +itself into motion and went slowly past him up its dusky road. The +laughter and bantering farewells moved him not; he could at will draw +a line around himself across which few things could step. Not far +away the bed of the stream turned, and a hillside, dark with hemlock, +closed the view. He watched the train pass him, reach this bend, and +disappear. The axemen and the four Meherrins, the Governor and the +gentlemen of the Horseshoe, the rangers, the negroes,--all were gone +at last. With that passing, and with the ceasing of the laughter and +the trampling, came the twilight. A whippoorwill began to call, and the +wind sighed in the trees. Juba, the negro, moved closer to his master; +then upon an impulse stooped, and lifting above his head a great rock, +threw it with might into one of the shallow pools. The crashing sound +broke the spell of the loneliness and quiet that had fallen upon the +place. The white man drew his breath, shrugged his shoulders, and +turned his horse’s head down the way up which he had so lately come. + +The cabin in the valley was not three miles away. Down this ravine to +a level place of pines, through the pines to a strip of sassafras and +a poisoned field, past these into a dark, rich wood of mighty trees +linked together with the ripening grape, then three low hills, then +the valley and the cabin and a pair of starry eyes. It was full moon. +Once out from under the stifling walls of the ravine, and the silver +would tremble through the leaves, and show the path beneath. The trees, +too, that they had blazed,--with white wood pointing to white wood, the +backward way should be easy. + +The earth, rising sheer in darkness on either hand, shut in the bed +of the stream. In the warm, scented dusk the locusts shrilled in the +trees, and far up the gorge the whippoorwill called and called. The +air was filled with the gold of fireflies, a maze of spangles, now +darkening, now brightening, restless and bewildering. The small, round +pools caught the light from the yet faintly colored sky, and gleamed +among the rocks; a star shone out, and a hot wind, heavy with the smell +of the forest, moved the hemlock boughs and rustled in the laurels. + +The white man and the negro, each leading his horse, picked their way +with caution among the pitfalls of the rocky and uneven road. With the +passing of the Governor and his train a sudden cure had been wrought, +for now Haward’s step was as firm and light as it had been before his +fall. The negro looked at him once or twice with a puzzled face, but +made no comment and received no enlightenment. Indeed, so difficult +was their way that they were left but scant leisure for speech. Moment +by moment the darkness deepened, and once Haward’s horse came to its +knees, crashing down among the rocks and awakening every echo. + +The way, if hard, was short. The hills fell farther apart, the banks +became low and broad, and fair in front, between two slender pines, +shone out the great round moon. Leaving the bed of the stream, the two +men entered a pine wood, dim and fragrant and easy to thread. The moon +rose higher, and the light fell in wide shafts between trees that stood +well apart, with no vines to grapple one to another or undergrowth to +press about their knees. + +There needed no watchfulness: the ground was smooth, the light was +fair; no motion save the pale flicker of the fireflies, no sound save +the sigh of the night wind in the boughs that were so high overhead. +Master and man, riding slowly and steadily onward through a wood that +seemed interminably the same, came at last to think of other things +than the road which they were traveling. Their hands lost grasp upon +the reins, and their eyes, ceasing to glance now here, now there, gazed +steadfastly down the gray and dreamlike vista before them, and saw no +longer hole and branch, moonlight and the white scars that the axe +had made for guidance. The vision of the slave was of supper at the +quarters, of the scraping of the fiddle in the red firelight, of the +dancing and the singing. The white man saw, at first, only a girl’s +face, shy and innocent,--the face of the woodland maid who had fired +his fancy, who was drawing him through the wilderness back to the cabin +in the valley. But after a while, in the gray stillness, he lost the +face, and suddenly thought, instead, of the stone that was to cover +his father’s grave. The ship that was to bring the great, dark, carven +slab should be in by now; the day after his return to Williamsburgh the +stone must be put in place, covering in the green sod and that which +lay below. _Here, lieth in the hope of a joyful resurrection_-- + +His mind left the grave in the churchyard at Williamsburgh, and +visited the great plantation of which he was now sole master. There +was the house, foursquare, high-roofed, many-windowed, built of dark +red brick that glowed behind the veil of the walnuts and the oaks. +There, too, were the quarters,--the home quarter, that at the creek, +that on the ridge. Fifty white servants, three hundred slaves,--and +he was the master. The honeysuckles in the garden that had been his +father’s pride, the shining expanse of the river, the ship--his ship, +the Golden Rose--that was to take him home to England,--he forgot +the night and the forest, and saw these things quite plainly. Then +he fell to thinking of London and the sweets that he meant to taste, +the heady wine of youth and life that he meant to drain to the lees. +He was young; he could spare the years. One day he would come back to +Virginia, to the dim old garden and quiet house. His factor would give +account, and he would settle down in the red brick house, with the +tobacco to the north and east, the corn to the west, and to the south +the mighty river,--the river silvered by the moon, the river that lay +just beyond him, gleaming through the trees-- + +Startled by the sudden tightening of the reins, or by the tearing of +some frightened thing through the canes that beset the low, miry bank, +the horse sprang aside; then stood trembling with pricked ears. The +white man stared at the stream; turned in his saddle and stared at the +tree trunks, the patches of moonlight, and the impenetrable shadow that +closed each vista. “The blazed trees!” he exclaimed at last. “How long +since we saw one?” + +The slave shook his head. “Juba forgot to look. He was away by a river +that he knew.” + +“We have passed from out the pines,” said Haward. “These are oaks. But +what is that water, and how far we are out of our reckoning the Lord +only knows!” + +As he spoke he pushed his horse through the tall reeds to the bank of +the stream. Here in the open, away from the shadow of the trees, the +full moon had changed the night-time into a wonderful, silver day. +Narrow above and belows the stream widened before him into a fairy +basin, rimmed with reeds, unruffled, crystal-clear, stiller than a +dream. The trees that grew upon the farther side were faint gray clouds +in the moonlight, and the gold of the fireflies was very pale. From +over the water, out of the heart of the moonlit wood, came the song +of a mockingbird, a tumultuous ecstasy, possessing the air and making +elfin the night. + +Haward backed his horse from the reeds to the oak beneath which waited +the negro. “’Tis plain that we have lost our way, Juba,” he said, +with a laugh. “If you were an Indian, we should turn and straightway +retrace our steps to the blazed trees. Being what you are, you are more +valuable in the tobacco fields than in the forest. Perhaps this is the +stream which flows by the cabin in the valley. We’ll follow it down, +and so arrive, at least, at a conclusion.” + +They dismounted, and, leading their horses, followed the stream for +some distance, to arrive at the conclusion that it was not the one +beside which they had dined that day. When they were certain of this, +they turned and made their way back to the line of reeds which they had +broken to mark their starting-point. By now the moon was high, and the +mockingbird in the wood across the water was singing madly. Turning +from the still, moonlit sheet, the silent reeds, the clear mimicker in +the slumbrous wood, the two wayfarers plunged into the darkness beneath +the spreading branches of the oak-trees. They could not have ridden far +from the pines; in a very little while they might reach and recognize +the path which they should tread. + +An hour later, the great trees, oak and chestnut, beech and poplar, +suddenly gave way to saplings, many, close-set, and overrun with +grapevines. So dense was the growth, so unyielding the curtain of +vines, that men and horses were brought to a halt as before a fortress +wall. Again they turned, and, skirting that stubborn network, came upon +a swamp, where leafless trees, white as leprosy, stood up like ghosts +from the water that gleamed between the lily-pads. Leaving the swamp +they climbed a hill, and at the summit found only the moon and the +stars and a long plateau of sighing grass. Behind them were the great +mountains; before them, lesser heights, wooded hills, narrow valleys, +each like its fellow, each indistinct and shadowy, with no sign of +human tenant. + +Haward gazed at the climbing moon and at the wide and universal dimness +of the world beneath; then turned to the negro, and pointed to a few +low trees growing at the eastern end of the plateau. + +“Fasten the horses there, Juba,” he said. “We will wait upon this +hilltop until morning. When the light comes, we may be able to see the +clearing or the smoke from the cabin.” + +When the horses had been tethered, master and man lay down upon the +grass. It was so still upon the hilltop, and the heavens pressed so +closely, that the slave grew restless and strove to make talk. Failing +in this, he began to croon a savage, mournful air, and presently, +forgetting himself, to sing outright. + +“Be quiet!” ordered his master. “There may be Indians abroad.” + +The song came to an end as abruptly as it lad begun, and the singer, +having nothing better to do, went fast asleep. His companion, more +wakeful, lay with his hands behind his head and his eyes upon the +splendor of the firmament. Lying so, he could not see the valleys nor +the looming mountains. There were only the dome of the sky, the grass, +and himself. He stared at the moon, and made pictures of her shadowy +places; then fell to thinking of the morrow, and of the possibility +that after all he might never find again the cabin in the valley. While +he laughed at this supposition, yet he played with it. He was in a mood +to think the loss of the trail of the expedition no great matter. The +woods were full of game, the waters of fish; he and Juba had only to +keep their faces to the eastward, and a fortnight at most would bring +them to the settlements. But the valleys folded among the hills were +many; what if the one he sought should still elude him? What if the +cabin, the sugar-tree, the crystal stream, had sunk from sight, like +the city in one of Monsieur Gralland’s fantastic tales? Perhaps they +had done so,--the spot had all the air of a bit of fairyland,--and the +woodland maid was gone to walk with the elves. Well, perchance for +her it would be better so. And yet it would be pleasant if she should +climb the hillside now and sit beside him, with her shy dark eyes and +floating hair. Her hair was long and fine, and the wind would lift it; +her face was fair, and another than the wind should kiss it. The night +would not then be so slow in going. + +He turned upon his side, and looked along the grassy summit to the +woods upon the opposite slope and to the distant mountains. Dull +silver, immutable, perpetual, they reared themselves to meet the +moonbeams. Between him and those stern and changeless fronts, pallid as +with snows, stretched the gray woods. The moon shone very brightly, and +there was no wind. So unearthly was the quiet of the night, so solemn +the light, so high and still and calm the universe around him, that awe +fell upon his soul. It was well to lie upon the hilltop and guess at +the riddle of the world; now dimly to see the meaning, now to lose it +quite, to wonder, to think of death. The easy consciousness that for +him death was scores of years away, that he should not meet the spectre +until the wine was all drunken, the garlands withered, and he, the +guest, ready to depart, made these speculations not at all unpleasing. +He looked at his hand, blanched by the moonlight, lying beside him upon +the grass, and thought how like a dead hand it seemed, and what if he +could not move it, nor his body, nor could ever rise from the grass, +but must lie there upon the lonely hilltop in the untrodden wilderness, +until that which had ridden and hunted and passed so buoyantly through +life should become but a few dry bones, a handful of dust. He was of +his time, and its laxness of principle and conduct; if he held within +himself the potential scholar, statesman, and philosopher, there were +also the skeptic, the egotist, and the libertine. He followed the +fashion and disbelieved much, but he knew that if he died to-night +his soul would not stay with his body upon the hilltop. He wondered, +somewhat grimly, what it would do when so much that had clothed it +round--pride of life, love of pleasure, desire, ambition--should +be plucked away. Poor soul! Surely it would feel itself something +shrunken, stripped of warmth, shiveringly bare to all the winds of +heaven. The radiance of the moon usurped the sky, but behind that veil +of light the invisible and multitudinous stars were shining. Beyond +those stars were other stars, beyond those yet others; on and on went +the stars, wise men said. Beyond them all, what then? And where was the +place of the soul? What would it do? What heaven or hell would it find +or make for itself? Guesswork all! + +The silver pomp of the night began to be oppressive to him. There was +beauty, but it was a beauty cold and distant, infinitely withdrawn +from man and his concerns. Woods and mountains held aloof, communing +with the stars. They were kindred and of one house; it was man who +was alien, a stranger and alone. The hilltop cared not that he lay +thereon; the grass would grow as greenly when he was in his grave; all +his tragedies since time began he might reenact there below, and the +mountains would not bend to look. + +He flung his arm across his eyes to shut out the moonlight, and tried +to sleep. Finding the attempt a vain one, and that the night pressed +more and more heavily upon him, he sat up with the intention of shaking +the negro awake, and so providing himself with other company than his +own thoughts. + +His eyes had been upon the mountains, but now, with the sudden +movement, he faced the eastern horizon and a long cleft between the +hills. Far down this opening something was on fire, burning fiercely +and redly. Some one must have put torch to the forest; and yet it did +not burn as trees burn. It was like a bonfire ... it was a bonfire in a +clearing! There were not woods about it, but a field--and the glint of +water-- + +The negro, awakened by foot and voice, sprang up, and stood bewildered +beside his master. “It is the valley that we have been seeking, Juba,” +said the latter, speaking rapidly and low. “That burning pile is the +cabin, and ’t is like that there are Indians between us and it! Leave +the horses; we shall go faster without them. Look to the priming of +your gun, and make no noise. Now!” + +Rapidly descending the hill, they threw themselves into the woods at +its base. Here they could not see the fire, but now and then, as they +ran, they caught the glow, far down the lines of trees. Though they +went swiftly they went warily as well, keeping an eye and ear open +and muskets ready. But there was no sound other than their own quick +footfalls upon the floor of rotting leaves, or the eager brushing of +their bodies through occasional undergrowth; no sight but the serried +trees and the checkered light and shade upon the ground. + +They came to the shallow stream that flashed through the valley, and +crossing it found themselves on cleared ground, with only a long strip +of corn between them and what had been a home for English folk. It was +that no longer: for lack of fuel the flames were dying down; there was +only a charred and smoking pile, out of which leaped here and there a +red tongue. + +Haward had expected to hear a noise of savage triumph, and to see dark +figures moving about their handiwork. There was no noise, and the +moonlight showed no living being. The night was changelessly still and +bright; the tragedy had been played, and the mountains and the hills +and the running water had not looked. + +It took but a few minutes to break through the rustling corn and reach +the smouldering logs. Once before them, there seemed naught to do but +to stand and stare at the ruin, until a tongue of flame caught upon a +piece of uncharred wood, and showed them the body of the pioneer lying +at a little distance from the stone that had formed his doorstep. At a +sign from Haward the negro went and turned it over, then, let it sink +again into the seared grass. “Two arrows, Marse Duke,” he said, coming +back to the other’s side. “An’ they’ve taken his scalp.” + +Three times Haward made the round of the yet burning heap. Was it only +ruined and fallen walls, or was it a funeral pyre as well? To know, he +must wait for the day and until the fire had burned itself out. If the +former were the case, if the dead man alone kept the valley, then now, +through the forest and the moonlight, captives were being haled to some +Indian village, and to a fate more terrible than that of the man who +lay there upon the grass with an arrow through his heart. + +If the girl were still alive, yet was she dead to him. He was no +Quixote to tilt with windmills. Had a way to rescue her lain fair +before him, he would have risked his life without a thought. But the +woods were deep and pathless, and only an Indian could find and keep a +trail by night. To challenge the wilderness; to strike blindly at the +forest, now here, now there; to dare all, and know that it was hopeless +daring,--a madman might do this for love. But it was only Haward’s +fancy that had been touched, and if he lacked not courage, neither did +he lack a certain cool good sense which divided for him the possible +from that which was impossible, and therefore not to be undertaken. + +Turning from the ruin, he walked across the trampled sward to the +sugar-tree in whose shade, in the golden afternoon, he had sung to his +companions and to a simple girl. Idle and happy and far from harm had +the valley seemed. + + “Here shall he see + No enemy + But winter and rough weather.” + +Suddenly he found that he was trembling, and that a sensation of +faintness and of dull and sick revolt against all things under the +stars was upon him. Sitting down in the shadow of the tree, he rested +his face in his hands and shut his eyes, preferring the darkness within +to that outer night which hid not and cared not, which was so coldly at +peace. He was young, and though stories of such dismal things as that +before him were part of the stock in trade of every ancient, garrulous +man or woman of his acquaintance, they had been for him but tales; not +horrible truths to stare him in the face. He had seen his father die; +but he had died, in his bed, and like one who went to sleep. + +The negro had followed him, and now stood with his eyes upon the +dying flames, muttering to himself some heathenish charm. When it was +ended, he looked about him uneasily for a time; then bent and plucked +his master by the sleeve. “We cyarn’ do nothin’ here, Marse Duke,” he +whispered. “An’ the wolves may get the horses.” + +With a laugh and a groan, the young man rose to his feet. “That is +true, Juba,” he said. “It’s all over here,--we were too late. And it’s +not a pleasant place to lie awake in, waiting for the morning. We’ll go +back to the hilltop.” + +Leaving the tree, they struck across the grass and entered the strip +of corn. Something low and dark that had lain upon the ground started +up before them, and ran down the narrow way between the stalks. Haward +made after it and caught it. + +“Child!” he cried. “Where are the others?” + +The child had struggled for a moment, desperately if weakly, but at the +sound of his voice she lay still in his grasp, with her eyes upon his +face. In the moonlight each could see the other quite plainly. Raising +her in his arms, Haward bore her to the brink of the stream, laved her +face and chafed the small, cold hands. + +“Now tell me, Audrey,” he said at last. “Audrey is your name, isn’t it? +Cry, if you like, child, but try to tell me.” + +Audrey did not cry. She was very, very tired, and she wanted to go to +sleep. “The Indians came,” she told him in a whisper, with her head +upon his breast. “We all waked up, and father fired at them through the +hole in the door. Then they broke the door down, and he went outside, +and they killed him. Mother put me under the bed, and told me to stay +there, and to make no noise. Then the Indians came in at the door, +and killed her and Molly and Robin. I don’t remember anything after +that,--maybe I went to sleep. When I was awake again the Indians were +gone, but there was fire and smoke everywhere. I was afraid of the +fire, and so I crept from under the bed, and kissed mother and Molly +and Robin, and left them lying in the cabin, and came away.” + +She sighed with weariness, and the hand with which she put back her +dark hair that had fallen over her face was almost too heavy to lift. +“I sat beside father and watched the fire,” she said. “And then I heard +you and the black man coming over the stones in the stream. I thought +that you were Indians, and I went and hid in the corn.” + +Her voice failed, and her eyelids drooped. In some anxiety Haward +watched her breathing and felt for the pulse in the slight brown wrist; +then, satisfied, he lifted the light burden, and, nodding to the negro +to go before, recommenced his progress to the hill which he had left an +hour agone. + +It was not far away. He could see the bare summit above the treetops, +and in a little while they were upon its slope. A minute more and they +came to the clump of trees, and found the horses in safety, Haward +paused to take from the roll strapped behind his saddle a riding cloak; +then, leaving the negro with the horses, climbed to the grassy level. +Here he spread the cloak upon the ground, and laid the sleeping child +upon it, which done, he stood and looked at his new-found charge for a +moment; then turning, began to pace up and down upon the hilltop. + +It was necessary to decide upon a course of action. They had the +horses, the two muskets, powder and shot. The earth was dry and warm, +and the skies were cloudless. Was it best to push on to Germanna, or +was it best to wait down there in the valley for the return of the +Governor and his party? They would come that way, that was certain, and +would look to find him there. If they found only the ruined cabin, they +might think him dead or taken by the Indians, and an attempt to seek +him, as dangerous, perhaps, as fruitless, might be made. He decided +that he would wait. To-morrow he would take Juba and the horses and the +child and go down into the valley; not back to the sugar-tree and that +yet smouldering pyre, but to the woods on this side of the stream. + +This plan thought out, he went; and took his seat beside the child. She +was moaning in her sleep, and he bent over and soothed her. When she +was quiet he still kept her hand in his, as he sat there waiting for +the dawn. He gave the child small thought. Together he and Juba must +care for her until they could rejoin the expedition: then the Governor, +who was so fond of children, might take her in hand, and give her for +nurse old Dominick, who was as gentle as a woman. Once at Germanna +perhaps some scolding _Hausfrau_ would take her, for the sake of the +scrubbing and lifting to be gotten out of those small hands and that +slender frame. If not, she must on to Williamsburgh and the keeping of +the vestry there. The next Orphan Court would bind her to some master +or mistress who might (or might not) be kind to her, and so there would +be an end to the matter. + +The day was breaking. Moon and stars were gone, and the east was dull +pink, like faded roses. A ribbon of silver mist, marking the course of +the stream below, drew itself like a serpent through the woods that +were changing from gray to green. The dank smell of early morning rose +from the dew-drenched earth, and in the countless trees of the forest +the birds began to sing. + +A word or phrase which is as common and familiar as our hand may, in +some one minute of time, take on a significance and present a face so +keen and strange that it is as if we had never met it before. An Orphan +Court! Again he said the words to himself, and then aloud. No doubt +the law did its best for the fatherless and motherless, for such waifs +and strays as that which lay beside him. When it bound out children, +it was most emphatic that they should be fed and clothed and taught; +not starved or beaten unduly, or let to grow up ignorant as negroes. +Sometimes the law was obeyed, sometimes not. + +The roses in the east bloomed again, and the pink of their petals +melted into the clear blue of the upper skies. Because their beauty +compelled him Haward looked at the heavens. The Court of the Orphan!... +_When my father and my mother forsake, me, the Lord taketh me up_. +Haward acknowledged with surprise that portions of the Psalter did +somehow stick in the memory. + +The face of the child was dark and thin, but the eyes were large and +there was promise in the mouth. It was a pity-- + +He looked at her again, and suddenly resolved that he, Marmaduke +Haward, would provide for her future. When they met once more, he +should tell the Governor and his brother adventurers as much; and if +they chose to laugh, why, let them do so! He would take the child to +Williamsburgh with him, and get some woman to tend her until he could +find kind and decent folk with whom to bestow her. There were the new +minister of Fair View parish and his wife,--they might do. He would +give them two thousand pounds of sweet-scented a year for the child’s +maintenance. Oh, she should be well cared for! He would--if he thought +of it--send her gifts from London; and when she was grown, and asked in +marriage, he would give her for dowry a hundred acres of land. + +As the strengthening rays of the sun, shining alike upon the just +and the unjust, warmed his body, so his own benevolence warmed his +heart. He knew that he was doing a generous thing, and his soul felt +in tune with the beamy light, the caroling of the birds, the freshness +and fragrance of the morning. When at last the child awoke, and, the +recollection of the night coming full upon her, clung to him, weeping +and trembling, he put his arm around her and comforted her with all the +pet names his memory could conjure up. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +DARDEN’S AUDREY + + +It was May Day in Virginia, in the year 1727. In England there were +George the First, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France, and +Ireland King and Defender of the Faith; my Lord of Orkney, Governor +in chief of Virginia; and William Gooch, newly appointed Lieutenant +Governor. In Virginia there were Colonel Robert Carter, President of +the Council and Governor _pro tem._; the Council itself; and Mistress +Martha Jaquelin. + +By virtue of her good looks and sprightliness, the position of her +father in the community, and the fact that this 1st of May was one and +the same with her sixteenth birthday, young Mistress Jaquelin was May +Queen in Jamestown. And because her father was a worthy gentleman and +a gay one, with French blood in his veins and Virginia hospitality in +his heart, he had made a feast for divers of his acquaintances, and, +moreover, had provided, in a grassy meadow down by the water side, a +noble and seasonable entertainment for them, and for the handful of +townsfolk, and for all chance comers. + +Meadow and woodland and marsh, ploughed earth and blossoming orchards, +lay warm in the sunshine. Even the ruined town, fallen from her estate, +and become but as a handmaid to her younger sister, put a good face +upon her melancholy fortunes. Honeysuckle and ivy embraced and hid +crumbling walls, broken foundations, mounds of brick and rubbish, all +the untouched memorials of the last burning of the place. Grass grew +in the street, and the silent square was strewn with the gold of the +buttercups. The houses that yet stood and were lived in might have been +counted on the fingers of one hand, with the thumb for the church. +But in their gardens the flowers bloomed gayly, and the sycamores and +mulberries in the churchyard were haunts of song. The dead below had +music, and violets in the blowing grass, and the undertone of the +river. Perhaps they liked the peace of the town that was dead as they +were dead; that, like them, had seen of the travail of life, and now, +with shut eyes and folded hands, knew that it was vanity. + +But the Jaquelin house was built to the eastward of the churchyard and +the ruins of the town, and, facing the sparkling river, squarely turned +its back upon the quiet desolation at the upper end of the island and +upon the text from Ecclesiastes. + +In the level meadow, around a Maypole gay with garlands and with +fluttering ribbons, the grass had been closely mown, for there were +to be foot-races and wrestling bouts for the amusement of the guests. +Beneath a spreading tree a dozen fiddlers put their instruments in +tune, while behind the open windows of a small, ruinous house, dwelt in +by the sexton, a rustic choir was trying over “The Beggar’s Daughter of +Bednall Green.” Young men and maidens of the meaner sort, drawn from +the surrounding country, from small plantation, store and ordinary, +mill and ferry, clad in their holiday best and prone to laughter, +strayed here and there, or, walking up and down the river bank, where +it commanded a view of both the landing and the road, watched for the +coming of the gentlefolk. Children, too, were not lacking, but rolled +amidst the buttercups or caught at the ribbons flying from the Maypole, +while aged folk sat in the sun, and a procession of wide-lipped +negroes, carrying benches and chairs, advanced to the shaven green and +put the seats in order about the sylvan stage. It was but nine of the +clock, and the shadow of the Maypole was long upon the grass. Along the +slightly rising ground behind the meadow stretched an apple orchard in +full bloom, and between that line of rose and snow and the lapping of +the tide upon the yellow sands lay, for the length of a spring day, the +kingdom of all content. + +The shadow of the Maypole was not much shrunken when the guests of the +house of Jaquelin began to arrive. First to come, and from farthest +away, was Mr. Richard Ambler, of Yorktown, who had ridden from that +place to Williamsburgh the afternoon before, and had that morning +used the planter’s pace to Jamestown,--his industry being due to the +fact that he was courting the May Queen’s elder sister. Following +him came five Lees in a chariot, then a delegation of Burwells, then +two Digges in a chaise. A Bland and a Bassett and a Randolph came on +horseback, while a barge brought up river a bevy of blooming Carters, a +white-sailed sloop from Warwick landed a dozen Carys, great and small, +and two periaguas, filled with Harrisons, Aliens, and Cockes, shot over +from the Surrey shore. + +From a stand at one end of the grassy stage, trumpet and drum +proclaimed that the company had gathered beneath the sycamores before +the house, and was about to enter the meadow. Shrill-voiced mothers +warned their children from the Maypole, the fiddlers ceased their +twanging, and Pretty Bessee, her name cut in twain, died upon the air. +The throng of humble folk--largely made up of contestants for the +prizes of the day, and of their friends and kindred--scurried to its +appointed place, and with the issuing from the house gates of the May +Queen and her court the festivities commenced. + +An hour later, in the midst of a bout at quarterstaff between the +Jamestown blacksmith and the miller from Princess Creek, a coach and +four, accompanied by a horseman, crossed the neck, rolled through the +street, and, entering the meadow, drew up a hundred feet from the ring +of spectators. + +The eyes of the commonalty still hung upon every motion of the +blacksmith and the miller, but by the people of quality the cudgelers +were for the moment quite forgot. The head of the house of Jaquelin +hurried over the grass to the coach door. “Ha, Colonel Byrd! When we +heard that you were staying overnight at Green Spring, we hoped that, +being so near, you would come to our merrymaking. Mistress Evelyn, I +kiss your hands. Though we can’t give you the diversions of Spring +Garden, yet such as we have are at your feet. Mr. Marmaduke Haward, +your servant, sir! Virginia has missed you these ten years and more. +We were heartily glad to hear, t’other day, that the Golden Rose had +brought you home.” + +As he spoke the worthy gentleman strove to open the coach door; but the +horseman, to whom the latter part of his speech was addressed, and who +had now dismounted, was beforehand with him. The door swung open, and a +young lady, of a delicate and pensive beauty, placed one hand upon the +deferential arm of Mr. Marmaduke Haward and descended from the painted +coach to the flower-enameled sward. The women amongst the assembled +guests fluttered and whispered; for this was youth, beauty, wealth, +London, and the Court, all drawn in the person of Mistress Evelyn Byrd, +bred since childhood in the politest society of England, newly returned +with her father to his estate of Westover in Virginia, and, from her +garlanded gypsy hat to the point of her silken shoe, suggestive of the +rainbow world of _mode_. + +Her father--alert, vivacious, handsome, with finely cut lips that +were quick to smile, and dark eyes that smiled when the lips were +still--followed her to the earth, shook out his ruffles, and extended +his gold snuffbox to his good friend Mr. Jaquelin. The gentleman who +had ridden beside the coach threw the reins of his horse to one of the +negroes who had come running from the Jaquelin stables, and, together +with their host, the three walked across the strip of grass to the row +of expectant gentry. Down went the town-bred lady until the skirt of +her blue-green gown lay in folds upon the buttercups; down went the +ladies opposite in curtsies as profound, if less exquisitely graceful. +Off came the hats of the gentlemen; the bows were of the lowest; +snuffboxes were drawn out, handkerchiefs of fine holland flourished; +the welcoming speeches were hearty and not unpolished. + +It was a society less provincial than that of more than one shire that +was nearer to London by a thousand leagues. It dwelt upon the banks +of the Chesapeake and of great rivers; ships dropped their anchors +before its very doors. Now and again the planter followed his tobacco +aboard. The sands did not then run so swiftly through the hourglass; +if the voyage to England was long, why, so was life! The planters +went, sold their tobacco,--Sweet-scented, E. Dees, Oronoko, Cowpen, +Non-burning,--talked with their agents, visited their English kindred; +saw the town, the opera, and the play,--perhaps, afar off, the King; +and returned to Virginia and their plantations with the last but one +novelty in ideas, manner, and dress. Of their sons not a few were +educated in English schools, while their wives and daughters, if for +the most part they saw the enchanted ground only through the eyes of +husband, father, or brother, yet followed its fashions, when learned, +with religious zeal. In Williamsburgh, where all men went on occasion, +there was polite enough living: there were the college, the Capitol, +and the playhouse; the palace was a toy St. James; the Governors that +came and went almost as proper gentlemen, fitted to rule over English +people, as if they had been born in Hanover and could not speak their +subjects’ tongue. + +So it was that the assembly which had risen to greet Mr. Jaquelin’s +latest guests, besides being sufficiently well born, was not at all +ill bred, nor uninformed, nor untraveled. But it was not of the gay +world as were the three whom it welcomed. It had spent only months, not +years, in England; it had never kissed the King’s hand; it did not know +Bath nor the Wells; it was innocent of drums and routs and masquerades; +had not even a speaking acquaintance with great lords and ladies; had +never supped with Pope, or been grimly smiled upon by the Dean of St. +Patrick’s, or courted by the Earl of Peterborough. It had not, like the +elder of the two men, studied in the Low Countries, visited the Court +of France, and contracted friendships with men of illustrious names; +nor, like the younger, had it written a play that ran for two weeks, +fought a duel in the Field of Forty Footsteps, and lost and won at the +Cocoa Tree, between the lighting and snuffing of the candles, three +thousand pounds. + +Therefore it stood slightly in awe of the wit and manners and fine +feathers, curled newest fashion, of its sometime friends and neighbors, +and its welcome, if warm at heart, was stiff as cloth of gold with +ceremony. The May Queen tripped in her speech as she besought Mistress +Evelyn to take the flower-wreathed great chair standing proudly forth +from the humbler seats, and colored charmingly at the lady of fashion’s +smiling shake of the head and few graceful words of homage. The young +men slyly noted the length of the Colonel’s periwig and the quality of +Mr. Hayward’s Mechlin, while their elders, suddenly lacking material +for discourse, made shift to take a deal of snuff. The Colonel took +matters into his own capable hands. + +“Mr. Jaquelin, I wish that my tobacco at Westover may look as finely +a fortnight hence as does yours to-day! There promise to be more +Frenchmen in my fields than Germans at St. James. Mr. Gary, if I +come to Denbigh when the peaches are ripe, will you teach me to make +persico? Mr. Allen, I hear that you breed cocks as courageous as those +of Tanagra. I shall borrow from you for a fight that I mean to give. +Ladies, for how much gold will you sell the recipe for that balm of +Mecca you must use? There are dames at Court would come barefoot to +Virginia for so dazzling a bloom. Why do you patch only upon the Whig +side of the face? Are you all of one camp, and does not one of you grow +a white rosebush against the 29th of May? May it please your Majesty +the May Queen, I shall watch the sports from this seat upon your right +hand. Egad, the miller quits himself as though he were the moss-grown +fellow of Sherwood Forest!” + +The ice had thawed; and by the time the victorious miller had +been pushed forward to receive the smart cocked hat which was the +Virginia rendition of the crown of wild olive, it had quite melted. +Conversation became general, and food was found or made for laughter. +When the twelve fiddlers who succeeded the blacksmith and the miller +came trooping upon the green, they played, one by one, to perhaps as +light-hearted a company as a May Day ever shone upon. All their tunes +were gay and lively ones, and the younger men moved their feet to the +music, while a Strephon at the lower end of the lists seized upon a +blooming Chloe, and the two began to dance “as if,” quoth the Colonel, +“the musicians were so many tarantula doctors.” + +A flower-wreathed instrument of his calling went to the player of the +sprightliest air; after which awardment, the fiddlers, each to the tune +of his own choosing, marched off the green to make room for Pretty +Bessee, her father the beggar, and her suitors the innkeeper, the +merchant, the gentleman, and the knight. + +The high, quick notes of the song suited the sunshiny weather, the +sheen of the river, the azure skies. A light wind brought from the +orchard a vagrant troop of pink and white petals to camp upon the +silken sleeve of Mistress Evelyn Byrd. The gentleman sitting beside her +gathered them up and gave them again to the breeze. + +“It sounds sweetly enough,” he said, “but terribly old-fashioned:-- + + ‘I weigh not true love by the weight of the purse, + And beauty is beauty in every degree.’ + +That’s not Court doctrine.” + +The lady to whom he spoke rested her cheek upon her hand, and looked +past the singers to the blossoming slope and the sky above. “So much +the worse for the Court,” she said. “So much the better for”-- + +Haward glanced at her. “For Virginia?” he ended, with a smile. “Do you +think that they do not weigh love with gold here in Virginia, Evelyn? +It isn’t really Arcady.” + +“So much the better for some place, somewhere,” she answered quietly. +“I did not say Virginia. Indeed, from what travelers like yourself have +told me, I think the country lies not upon this earth. But the story is +at an end, and we must applaud with the rest. It sounded sweetly, after +all,--though it was only a lying song. What next?” + +Her father, from his station beside the May Queen, caught the question, +and broke the flow of his smiling compliments to answer it. “A race +between young girls, my love,--the lucky fair who proves her descent +from Atalanta to find, not a golden apple, but a golden guinea. Here +come from the sexton’s house the pretty light o’ heels!” + +The crowd, gentle and simple, arose, and pushed back all benches, +stools, and chairs, so as to enlarge the circumference of the ring, and +the six girls who were to run stepped out upon the green. The youngest +son of the house of Jaquelin checked them off in a shrill treble:-- + +“The blacksmith’s Meg--Mall and Jenny from the crossroads ordinary--the +Widow Constance’s Barbara--red-headed Bess--Parson Darden’s Audrey!” + +A tall, thin, grave gentleman, standing behind Haward, gave an +impatient jerk of his body and said something beneath his breath. +Haward looked over his shoulder. “Ha, Mr. Le Neve! I did not know you +were there. I had the pleasure of hearing you read at Williamsburgh +last Sunday afternoon,--though this is your parish, I believe? What was +that last name that the youngster cried? I failed to catch it.” + +“Audrey, sir,” answered the minister of James City parish; “Gideon +Darden’s Audrey. You can’t but have heard of Darden? A minister of the +gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, sir; and a scandal, a shame, and a +stumbling-block to the Church! A foul-mouthed, brawling, learned sot! A +stranger to good works, but a frequenter of tippling houses! A brazen, +dissembling, atheistical Demas, who will neither let go of the lusts +of the flesh nor of his parish,--a sweet-scented parish, sir, with the +best glebe in three counties! And he’s inducted, sir, inducted, which +is more than most of the clergy of Virginia, who neither fight nor +drink nor swear, can say for themselves!” + +The minister had lost his gravity, and spoke with warmth and +bitterness. As he paused for breath, Mistress Evelyn took her eyes from +the group of those about to run and opened her fan. “A careless father, +at least,” she said. “If he hath learning, he should know better than +to set his daughter there.” + +“She’s not his own, ma’am. She’s an orphan, bound to Darden and his +wife, I suppose. There’s some story or other about her, but, not being +curious in Mr. Darden’s affairs, I have never learned it. When I came +to Virginia, five years ago, she was a slip of a girl of thirteen +or so. Once, when I had occasion to visit Darden, she waylaid me in +the road as I was riding away, and asked me how far it was to the +mountains, and if there were Indians between them and us.” + +“Did she so?” asked Haward. “And which is--Audrey?” + +“The dark one--brown as a gypsy--with the dogwood in her hair. And mark +me, there’ll be Darden’s own luck and she’ll win. She’s fleeter than +a greyhound. I’ve seen her running in and out and to and fro in the +forest like a wild thing.” + +Bare of foot and slender ankle, bare of arm and shoulder, with heaving +bosom, shut lips, and steady eyes, each of the six runners awaited the +trumpet sound that should send her forth like an arrow to the goal, and +to the shining guinea that lay thereby. The spectators ceased to talk +and laugh, and bent forward, watching. Wagers had been laid, and each +man kept his eyes upon his favorite, measuring her chances. The trumpet +blew, and the race was on. + +When it was over and won, the May Queen rose from her seat and crossed +the grass to her fine lady guest. “There are left only the prizes for +this and for the boys’ race and for the best dancer. Will you not give +them, Mistress Evelyn, and so make them of more value?” + +More curtsying, more complimenting, and the gold was in Evelyn’s white +hand. The trumpet blew, the drum beat, the fiddlers swung into a quick, +staccato air, and Darden’s Audrey, leaving the post which she had +touched some seconds in advance of the foremost of those with whom she +had raced, came forward to receive the guinea. + +The straight, short skirt of dull blue linen could not hide the lines +of the young limbs; beneath the thin, white, sleeveless bodice showed +the tint of the flesh, the rise and fall of the bosom. The bare feet +trod the grass lightly and firmly; the brown eyes looked from under the +dogwood chaplet in a gaze that was serious, innocent, and unashamed. To +Audrey they were only people out of a fairy tale,--all those gay folk, +dressed in silks and with curled hair. They lived in “great houses,” +and men and women were born to till their fields, to row their boats, +to doff hats or curtsy as they passed. They were not real; if you +pricked them they would not bleed. In the mountains that she remembered +as a dream there were pale masses of bloom far up among the cliffs; +very beautiful, but no more to be gained than the moon or than rainbow +gold. She looked at the May party before which she had been called much +as, when a child, she had looked at the gorgeous, distant bloom,--not +without longing, perhaps, but indifferent, too, knowing that it was +beyond her reach. + +When the gold piece was held out to her, she took it, having earned it; +when the little speech with which the lady gave the guinea was ended, +she was ready with her curtsy and her “Thank you, ma’am.” The red came +into her cheeks because she was not used to so many eyes upon her, but +she did not blush for her bare feet, nor for her dress that had slipped +low over her shoulder, nor for the fact that she had run her swiftest +five times around the Maypole, all for the love of a golden guinea, and +for mere youth and pure-minded ignorance, and the springtime in the +pulses. + +The gold piece lay within her brown fingers a thought too lightly, for +as she stepped back from the row of gentlefolk it slid from her hand to +the ground. A gentleman, sitting beside the lady who had spoken to her, +stooped, and picking up the money gave it again into her hand. Though +she curtsied to him, she did not look at him, but turned away, glad to +be quit of all the eyes, and in a moment had slipped into the crowd +from which she had come. It was midday, and old Israel, the fisherman, +who had brought her and the Widow Constance’s Barbara up the river +in his boat, would be going back with the tide. She was not loath to +leave: the green meadow, the gaudy Maypole, and the music were good, +but the silence on the river, the shadow of the brooding forest, the +darting of the fish hawk, were better. + +In the meadow the boys’ race and the rustic dance were soon over. The +dinner at the Jaquelin house to its guests lasted longer, but it too +was hurried; for in the afternoon Mr. Harrison’s mare Nelly was to run +against Major Burwell’s Fearnaught, and the stakes were heavy. + +Not all of the company went from the banquet back to the meadow, where +the humbler folk, having eaten their dinner of bread and meat and +ale, were whiling away with sports of their own the hour before the +race. Colonel Byrd had business at Williamsburgh, and must reach his +lodgings there an hour before sunset. His four black horses brought +to the door the great vermilion-and-cream coach; an ebony coachman in +scarlet cracked his whip at a couple of negro urchins who had kept +pace with the vehicle as it lumbered from the stables, and a light +brown footman flung open the door and lowered the steps. The Colonel, +much regretting that occasion should call him away, vowed that he had +never spent a pleasanter May Day, kissed the May Queen’s hand, and was +prodigal of well-turned compliments, like the gay and gallant gentleman +that he was. His daughter made her graceful adieux in her clear, low, +and singularly sweet voice, and together they were swallowed up of +the mammoth coach. Mr. Haward took snuff with Mr. Jaquelin; then, +mounting his horse,--it was supposed that he too had business in +Williamsburgh,--raised his hat and bade farewell to the company with +one low and comprehensive bow. + +The equipage made a wide turn; the ladies and gentlemen upon the +Jaquelin porch fluttered fans and handkerchiefs; the Colonel, leaning +from the coach window, waved his hand; and the horseman lifted his hat +the second time. The very especial guests were gone; and though the +remainder of the afternoon was as merry as heart could wish, yet a +bouquet, a flavor, a tang of the Court and the great world, a breath of +air that was not colonial, had gone with them. For a moment the women +stood in a brown study, revolving in their minds Mistress Evelyn’s +gypsy hat and the exceeding thinness and fineness of her tucker; while +to each of the younger men came, linked to the memory of a charming +face, a vision of many-acred Westover. + +But the trumpet blew, summoning them to the sport of the afternoon, and +work stopped upon castles in Spain. When a horse-race was on, a meadow +in Virginia sufficed. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE ROAD TO WILLIAMSBURGH + + +April had gone out in rain, and though the sun now shone brightly from +a cloudless sky, the streams were swollen and the road was heavy. +The ponderous coach and the four black horses made slow progress. +The creeping pace, the languid warmth of the afternoon, the scent of +flowering trees, the ceaseless singing of redbird, catbird, robin, and +thrush, made it drowsy in the forest. In the midst of an agreeable +dissertation upon May Day sports of more ancient times the Colonel +paused to smother a yawn; and when he had done with the clown, the +piper, and the hobby-horse, he yawned again, this time outright. + +“What with Ludwell’s Burgundy, piquet, and the French peace, we sat +late last night. My eyes are as heavy as the road. Have you noticed, +my dear, how bland and dreamy is the air? On such an afternoon one is +content to be in Virginia, and out of the world. It is a very land of +the Lotophagi,--a lazy clime that Ulysses touched at, my love.” + +The equipage slowly climbed an easy ascent, and as slowly descended +to the level again. The road was narrow, and now and then a wild +cherry-tree struck the coach with a white arm, or a grapevine swung +through the window a fragrant trailer. The woods on either hand were +pale green and silver gray, save where they were starred with dogwood, +or where rose the pink mist of the Judas-tree. At the foot of the hill +the road skirted a mantled pond, choked with broad green leaves and +the half-submerged trunks of fallen trees. Upon these logs, basking in +the sunlight, lay small tortoises by the score. A snake glided across +the road in front of the horses, and from a bit of muddy ground rose a +cloud of yellow butterflies. + +The Colonel yawned for the third time, looked at his watch, sighed, +lifted his finely arched brows with a whimsical smile for his own +somnolence; then, with an “I beg your pardon, my love,” took out a lace +handkerchief, spread it over his face and head, and, crossing his legs, +sunk back into the capacious corner of the coach. In three minutes the +placid rise and fall of his ruffles bore witness that he slept. + +The horseman, who, riding beside the lowered glass, had at intervals +conversed with the occupants of the coach, now glanced from the +sleeping gentleman to the lady, in whose dark, almond-shaped eyes +lurked no sign of drowsiness. The pond had been passed, and before +them, between low banks crowned with ferns and overshadowed by +beech-trees, lay a long stretch of shady road. + +Haward drew rein, dismounted, and motioned to the coachman to check the +horses. When the coach had come to a standstill, he opened the door +with as little creaking as might be, and held out a petitionary hand. +“Will you not walk with me a little way, Evelyn?” he asked, speaking in +a low voice that he might not wake the sleeper. “It is much pleasanter +out here, with the birds and the flowers.” + +His eyes and the smile upon his lips added, “and with me.” From what he +had been upon a hilltop, one moonlight night eleven years before, he +had become a somewhat silent, handsome gentleman, composed in manner, +experienced, not unkindly, looking abroad from his apportioned mountain +crag and solitary fortress upon men, and the busy ways of men, with +a tolerant gaze. That to certain of his London acquaintance he was +simply the well-bred philosopher and man of letters; that in the minds +of others he was associated with the peacock plumage of the world +of fashion, with the flare of candles, the hot breath of gamesters, +the ring of gold upon the tables; that one clique had tales to tell +of a magnanimous spirit and a generous hand, while yet another grew +red at mention of his name, and put to his credit much that was not +creditable, was perhaps not strange. He, like his neighbors, had many +selves, and each in its turn--the scholar, the man of pleasure, the +indolent, kindly, reflective self, the self of pride and cool assurance +and stubborn will--took its place behind the mask, and went through +its allotted part. His self of all selves, the quiet, remote, crowned, +and inscrutable _I_, sat apart, alike curious and indifferent, watched +the others, and knew how little worth the while was the stir in the +ant-hill. + +But on a May Day, in the sunshine and the blossoming woods and the +company of Mistress Evelyn Byrd, it seemed, for the moment, worth the +while. At his invitation she had taken his hand and descended from +the coach. The great, painted thing moved slowly forward, bearing the +unconscious Colonel, and the two pedestrians walked behind it: he with +his horse’s reins over his arm and his hat in his hand; she lifting her +silken skirts from contact with the ground, and looking, not at her +companion, but at the greening boughs, and at the sunlight striking +upon smooth, pale beech trunks and the leaf-strewn earth beneath. Out +of the woods came a sudden medley of bird notes, clear, sweet, and +inexpressibly joyous. + +“That is a mockingbird,” said Haward. “I once heard one of a moonlight +night, beside a still water”-- + +He broke off, and they listened in silence. The bird flew away, and +they came to a brook traversing the road, and flowing in wide meanders +through the forest. There were stepping-stones, and Haward, crossing +first, turned and held out his hand to the lady. When she was upon his +side of the streamlet, and before he released the slender fingers, he +bent and kissed them; then, as there was no answering smile or blush, +but only a quiet withdrawal of the hand and a remark about the crystal +clearness of the brook, looked at her, with interrogation in his smile. + +“What is that crested bird upon yonder bough,” she asked,--“the one +that gave the piercing cry?” + +“A kingfisher,” he answered, “and cousin to the halcyon of the +ancients. If, when next you go to sea, you take its feathers with you, +you need have no fear of storms.” + +A tree, leafless, but purplish pink with bloom, leaned from the +bank above them. He broke a branch and gave it to her. “It is the +Judas-tree,” he told her. “Iscariot hanged himself thereon.” + +Around the trunk of a beech a lizard ran like a green flame, and they +heard the distant barking of a fox. Large white butterflies went past +them, and a hummingbird whirred into the heart of a wild honeysuckle +that had hasted to bloom. “How different from the English forests!” she +said. “I could love these best. What are all those broad-leaved plants +with the white, waxen flowers?” + +“May-apples. Some call them mandrakes, but they do not rise shrieking, +nor kill the wight that plucks them. Will you have me gather them for +you?” + +“I will not trouble you,” she answered, and presently turned aside to +pull them for herself. + +He looked at the graceful, bending figure and lifted his brows; then, +quickening his pace until he was up with the coach, he spoke to the +negro upon the box. “Tyre, drive on to that big pine, and wait there +for your mistress and me. Sidon,”--to the footman,--“get down and take +my horse. If your master wakes, tell him that Mistress Evelyn tired of +the coach, and that I am picking her a nosegay.” + +Tyre and Sidon, Haward’s steed, the four black coach horses, the +vermilion-and-cream coach, and the slumbering Colonel, all made a +progress of an hundred yards to the pine-tree, where the cortége came +to a halt. Mistress Evelyn looked up from the flower-gathering to find +the road bare before her, and Haward, sitting upon a log, watching her +with something between a smile and a frown. + +“You think that I, also, weigh true love by the weight of the purse,” +he said. “I do not care overmuch for your gold, Evelyn.” + +She did not answer at once, but stood with her head slightly bent, +fingering the waxen flowers with a delicate, lingering touch. Now that +there was no longer the noise of the wheels and the horses’ hoofs, +the forest stillness, which is composed of sound, made itself felt. +The call of birds, the whir of insects, the murmur of the wind in the +treetops, low, grave, incessant, and eternal as the sound of the sea, +joined themselves to the slow waves of fragrance, the stretch of road +whereon nothing moved, the sunlight lying on the earth, and made a +spacious quiet. + +“I think that there is nothing for which you care overmuch,” she said +at last. “Not for gold or the lack of it, not for friends or for +enemies, not even for yourself.” + +“I have known you for many years,” he answered. “I have watched you +grow from a child into a gracious and beautiful woman. Do you not think +that I care for you, Evelyn?” + +Near where he sat so many violets were blooming that they made a purple +carpet for the ground. Going over to them, she knelt and began to +pluck them. “If any danger threatened me,” she began, in her clear, +low voice, “I believe that you would step between me and it, though +at the peril of your life. I believe that you take some pleasure in +what you are pleased to style my beauty, some pride in a mind that you +have largely formed. If I died early, it would grieve you for a little +while. I call you my friend.” + +“I would be called your lover,” he said. + +She laid her fan upon the ground, heaped it with violets, and turned +again to her reaping. “How might that be,” she asked, “when you do +not love me? I knew that you would marry me. What do the French call +it,--_mariage de convenance_?” + +Her voice was even, and her head was bent so that he could not see +her face. In the pause that followed her words treetop whispered to +treetop, but the sunshine lay very still and bright upon the road and +upon the flowers by the wayside. + +“There are worse marriages,” Haward said at last. Rising from the log, +he moved to the side of the kneeling figure. “Let the violets rest, +Evelyn, while we reason together. You are too clear-eyed. Since they +offend you, I will drop the idle compliments, the pretty phrases, in +which neither of us believes. What if this tinted dream of love does +not exist for us? What if we are only friends--dear and old friends”-- + +He stooped, and, taking her by the busy hands, made her stand up +beside him. “Cannot we marry and still be friends?” he demanded, with +something like laughter in his eyes. “My dear, I would strive to make +you happy; and happiness is as often found in that temperate land where +we would dwell as in Love’s flaming climate.” He smiled and tried to +find her eyes, downcast and hidden in the shadow of her hat. “This is +no flowery wooing such as women love,” he said; “but then you are like +no other woman. Always the truth was best with you.” + +Upon her wrenching her hands from his, and suddenly and proudly raising +her head, he was amazed to find her white to the lips. + +“The truth!” she said slowly. “Always the truth was best! Well, then, +take the truth, and afterwards and forever and ever leave me alone! +You have been frank; why should not I, who, you say, am like no other +woman, be so, too? I will not marry you, because--because”--The crimson +flowed over her face and neck; then ebbed, leaving her whiter than +before. She put her hands, that still held the wild flowers, to her +breast, and her eyes, dark with pain, met his. “Had you loved me,” she +said proudly and quietly, “I had been happy.” + +[Illustration: “HAD YOU LOVED ME--I HAD BEEN HAPPY”] + +Haward stepped backwards until there lay between them a strip of sunny +earth. The murmur of the wind went on and the birds were singing, and +yet the forest seemed more quiet than death. “I could not guess,” he +said, speaking slowly and with his eyes upon the ground. “I have spoken +like a brute. I beg your pardon.” + +“You might have known! you might have guessed!” she cried, with +passion. “But, you walk an even way; you choose nor high nor low; you +look deep into your mind, but your heart you keep cool and vacant. +Oh, a very temperate land! I think that others less wise than you may +also be less blind. Never speak to me of this day! Let it die as these +blooms are dying in this hot sunshine! Now let us walk to the coach and +waken my father. I have gathered flowers enough.” + +Side by side, but without speaking, they moved from shadow to sunlight, +and from sunlight to shadow, down the road to the great pine-tree. The +white and purple flowers lay in her hand and along her bended arm; from +the folds of her dress, of some rich and silken stuff, chameleon-like +in its changing colors, breathed the subtle fragrance of the perfume +then most in fashion; over the thin lawn that half revealed, half +concealed neck and bosom was drawn a long and glossy curl, carefully +let to escape from the waved and banded hair beneath the gypsy hat. +Exquisite from head to foot, the figure had no place in the unpruned, +untrained, savage, and primeval beauty of those woods. Smooth sward, +with jets of water and carven nymphs embowered in clipped box or +yew, should have been its setting, and not this wild and tangled +growth, this license of bird and beast and growing things. And yet the +incongruous riot, the contrast of profuse, untended beauty, enhanced +the value of the picture, gave it piquancy and a completer charm. + +When they were within a few feet of the coach and horses and negroes, +all drowsing in the sunny road, Haward made as if to speak, but she +stopped him with her lifted hand. “Spare me,” she begged. “It is bad +enough as it is, but words would make it worse. If ever a day might +come--I do not think that I am unlovely; I even rate myself so highly +as to think that I am worthy of your love. If ever the day shall come +when you can say to me, ‘Now I see that love is no tinted dream; now +I ask you to be my wife indeed,’ then, upon that day--But until then +ask not of me what you asked back there among the violets. I, too, am +proud”--Her voice broke. + +“Evelyn!” he cried. “Poor child--poor friend”-- + +She turned her face upon him. “Don’t!” she said, and her lips were +smiling, though her eyes were full of tears. “We have forgot that it +is May Day, and that we must be light of heart. Look how white is that +dogwood-tree! Break me a bough for my chimney-piece at Williamsburgh.” + +He brought her a branch of the starry blossoms. “Did you notice,” she +asked, “that the girl who ran--Audrey--wore dogwood in her hair? You +could see her heart beat with very love of living. She was of the +woods, like a dryad. Had the prizes been of my choosing, she should +have had a gift more poetical than a guinea.” + +Haward opened the coach door, and stood gravely aside while she entered +the vehicle and took her seat, depositing her flowers upon the cushions +beside her. The Colonel stirred, uncrossed his legs, yawned, pulled the +handkerchief from his face, and opened his eyes. + +“Faith!” he exclaimed, straightening himself, and taking up his radiant +humor where, upon falling-asleep, he had let it drop. “The way must +have suddenly become smooth as a road in Venice, for I’ve felt no +jolting this half hour. Flowers, Evelyn? and Haward afoot? You’ve been +on a woodland saunter, then, while I enacted Solomon’s sluggard!” +The worthy parent’s eyes began to twinkle. “What flowers did you +find? They have strange blooms here, and yet I warrant that even in +these woods one might come across London pride and none-so-pretty and +forget-me-not”-- + +His daughter smiled, and asked him some idle question about the +May-apple and the Judas-tree. The master of Westover was a treasure +house of sprightly lore. Within ten minutes he had visited Palestine, +paid his compliments to the ancient herbalists, and landed again in his +own coach, to find in his late audience a somewhat _distraite_ daughter +and a friend in a brown study. The coach was lumbering on toward +Williamsburgh, and Haward, with level gaze and hand closed tightly upon +his horse’s reins, rode by the window, while the lady, sitting in her +corner with downcast eyes, fingered the dogwood blooms that were not +paler than her face. + +The Colonel’s wits were keen. One glance, a lift of his arched brows, +the merest ghost of a smile, and, dragging the younger man with +him, he plunged into politics. Invective against a refractory House +of Burgesses brought them a quarter of a mile upon their way; the +necessity for an act to encourage adventurers in iron works carried +them past a milldam; and frauds in the customs enabled them to reach a +crossroads ordinary, where the Colonel ordered a halt, and called for +a tankard of ale. A slipshod, blue-eyed Cherry brought it, and spoke +her thanks in broad Scotch for the shilling which the gay Colonel flung +tinkling into the measure. + +That versatile and considerate gentleman, having had his draught, cried +to the coachman to go on, and was beginning upon the question of the +militia, when Haward, who had dismounted, appeared at the coach door. +“I do not think that I will go on to Williamsburgh with you, sir,” he +said. “There’s some troublesome business with my overseer that ought +not to wait. If I take this road and the planter’s pace, I shall reach +Fair View by sunset. You do not return to Westover this week? Then I +shall see you at Williamsburgh within a day or two. Evelyn, good-day.” + +Her hand lay upon the cushion nearest him. He would have taken it in +his own, as for years he had done when he bade her good-by; but though +she smiled and gave him “Good-day” in her usual voice, she drew the +hand away. The Colonel’s eyebrows went up another fraction of an inch, +but he was a discreet gentleman who had bought experience. Skillfully +unobservant, his parting words were at once cordial and few in number; +and after Haward had mounted and had turned into the side road, he put +his handsome, periwigged head out of the coach window and called to +him some advice about the transplanting of tobacco. This done, and the +horseman out of sight, and the coach once more upon its leisurely way +to Williamsburgh, the model father pulled out of his pocket a small +book, and, after affectionately advising his daughter to close her eyes +and sleep out the miles to Williamsburgh, himself retired with Horace +to the Sabine farm. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE STOREKEEPER + + +It was now late afternoon, the sun’s rays coming slantingly into the +forest, and the warmth of the day past and gone. To Haward, riding at a +gallop down the road that was scarce more than a bridle path, the rush +of the cool air was grateful; the sharp striking of protruding twigs, +the violent brushing aside of hanging vines, not unwelcome. + +It was of the man that the uppermost feeling in his mind was one of +disgust at his late infelicity of speech, and at the blindness which +had prompted it. That he had not divined, that he had been so dull as +to assume that as he felt, or did not feel, so must she, annoyed him +like the jar of rude noises or like sand blowing into face and eyes. It +was of him, too, that the annoyance was purely with himself; for her, +when at last he came to think of her, he found only the old, placid +affection, as far removed from love as from hate. If he knew himself, +it would always be as far removed from love as from hate. + +All the days of her youth he had come and gone, a welcome guest at +her father’s house in London. He had grown to be her friend, watching +the crescent beauty of face and mind with something of the pride and +tenderness which a man might feel for a young and favorite sister; and +then, at last, when some turn of affairs sent them all home to Virginia +to take lot and part there, he had thought of marriage. + +His mind had turned, not unwillingly, from the town and its apples +of Sodom to his Virginia plantation that he had not seen for more +than ten years. It was his birthplace, and there he had spent his +boyhood. Sometimes, in heated rooms, when the candles in the sconces +were guttering down, and the dawn looked palely in upon gaming tables +and heaped gold, and seamed faces, haggardly triumphant, haggardly +despairing, determinedly indifferent, there had come to him visions of +cool dawns upon the river, wide, misty expanses of marsh and forest, +indistinct and cold and pure. The lonely “great house,” too,--the house +which his father had built with so much love and pains, that his son +and his son’s sons should have a worthy home,--appealed to him, and the +garden, and the fishing-boats, and the old slaves in the quarters. He +told himself that he was glad to go back. + +Had men called him ambitious, he would have smiled, and felt truly +that they had bungled in the word. Such and such things were simply +his appurtenances; in London, the regard due to a gentleman who to +a certain distinction in his manner of amusing himself added the +achievement of a successful comedy, three lampoons quoted at all +London tea-tables, and a piece of Whig invective, so able, stern, and +sustained that many cried that the Dean had met his match; in Virginia, +the deferential esteem of the colony at large, a place in the Council, +and a great estate. An alliance with the master of Westover was in +itself a desirable thing, advantageous to purse and to credit; his +house must have a mistress, and that mistress must please at every +point his fastidious taste. + +What better to do than to give it for Mistress Evelyn Byrd? Evelyn, who +had had for all her suitors only a slow smile and shake of the head; +Evelyn, who was older than her years; Evelyn, who was his friend as he +was hers. Love! He had left that land behind, and she had never touched +its shores; the geography of the poets to the contrary, it did not lie +in the course of all who passed through life. He made his suit, and now +he had his answer. + +If he did not take trouble to wonder at her confession, or to modestly +ask himself how he had deserved her love, neither did he insult her +with pity or with any lightness of thought. Nor was he ready to believe +that his rejection was final. Apparently indifferent as he was, it was +yet his way to move steadily and relentlessly, if very quietly, toward +what goal he desired to reach. He thought that Fair View might yet call +Evelyn Byrd its mistress. + +Since turning into the crossroad that, running south and east, would +take him back to the banks of the James and to his own house, he had +not slackened speed, but now, as he saw through the trees before him a +long zigzag of rail fence, he drew rein. The road turned, and a gate +barred his way. When he had opened it and passed through, he was upon +his own land. + +He had ridden off his irritation, and could now calmly tell himself +that the blunder was made and over with, and that it was the duty of +the philosopher to remember it only in so far as it must shape his +future course. His house of cards had toppled over; but the profound +indifferentism of his nature enabled him to view the ruins with +composure. After a while he would build the house again. The image of +Evelyn, as she had stood, dark-eyed and pale, with the flowers pressed +to her bosom, he put from him. He knew her strength of soul; and with +the curious hardness of the strong toward the strong, and also not +without the delicacy which, upon occasion, he could both feel and +exhibit, he shut the door upon that hour in the forest. + +He had left the woods, and was now riding through a field of newly +planted tobacco. It and the tobacco house in the midst of it were +silent, deserted, bathed in the late sunshine. The ground rose +slightly, and when he had mounted with it he saw below him the huddle +of cabins which formed the ridge quarter, and winding down to it a +string of negroes. One turned his head, and saw the solitary horseman +upon the summit of the slope behind him; another looked, and another, +until each man in line had his head over his shoulder. They knew that +the horseman was their master. Some had been upon the plantation when +he was a boy; others were more recent acquisitions who knew not his +face; but alike they grinned and ducked. The white man walking beside +the line took off his hat and pulled a forelock. Haward raised his hand +that they might know he saw, and rode on. + +Another piece of woods where a great number of felled trees cumbered +the ground, more tobacco, and then, in worn fields where the tobacco +had been, knee-deep wheat rippling in the evening breeze. The wheat +ran down to a marsh, and to a wide, slow creek that, save in the +shadow of its reedy banks, was blue as the sky above. Haward, riding +slowly beside his green fields and still waters, noted with quiet, +half-regretful pleasure this or that remembered feature of the +landscape. There had been little change. Here, where he remembered deep +woods, tobacco was planted; there, where the tobacco had been, were +now fields of wheat or corn, or wild tangles of vine-rid saplings and +brushwood: but for this it might have been yesterday that he had last +ridden that way. + +Presently he saw the river, and then the marshes with brown dots that +were his cattle straying over them, and beyond these the home landing +and the masts of the Golden Rose. The sun was near its setting; the men +had left the fields; over all things were the stillness and peace, the +encroaching shadows, the dwindling light, so golden in its quality, of +late afternoon. When he crossed the bridge over the creek, the hollow +sound that the boards gave forth beneath his horse’s hoofs had the +depth and resonance of drumbeats, and the cry of a solitary heron in +the marsh seemed louder than its wont. He passed the rolling-house and +drew near to the river, riding again through tobacco. These plants were +Oronoko; the mild sweet-scented took the higher ground. Along the river +bank grew a row of tall and stately trees: passing beneath them, he saw +the shining water between brown columns or through a veil of slight, +unfolding leaves. Soon the trees fell away, and he came to a stretch of +bank,--here naked earth, there clad in grass and dewberry vines. Near +by was a small landing, with several boats fastened to its piles; and +at a little distance beyond it, shadowed by a locust-tree, a strongly +built, two-roomed wooden house, with the earth around it trodden hard +and bare, and with two or three benches before its open door. Haward +recognized the store which his father--after the manner of his kind, +merchant and trader as well as planter and maker of laws--had built, +and which, through his agent in Virginia, he had maintained. + +Before one of the benches a man was kneeling with his back to Haward, +who could only see that his garb was that of a servant, and that his +hands were busily moving certain small objects this way and that upon +the board. At the edge of the space of bare earth were a horse-block +and a hitching-post. Haward rode up to them, dismounted, and fastened +his horse, then walked over to the man at the bench. + +So intent was the latter upon his employment that he heard neither +horse nor rider. He had some shells, a few bits of turf, and a double +handful of sand, and he was arranging these trifles upon the rough, +unpainted boards in a curious and intricate pattern. He was a tall +man, with hair that was more red than brown, and he was dressed in a +shirt of dowlas, leather breeches, and coarse plantation-made shoes and +stockings. + +“What are you doing?” asked Haward, after a moment’s silent watching of +the busy fingers and intent countenance. + +There was no start of awakened consciousness upon the other’s part. +“Why,” he said, as if he had asked the question of himself, “with this +sand I have traced the shores of Loch-na-Keal. This turf is green +Ulva, and this is Gometra, and the shell is Little Colonsay. With this +wet sand I have moulded Ben Grieg, and this higher pile is Ben More. +If I had but a sprig of heather, now, or a pebble from the shore of +Scridain!” + +The voice, while harsh, was not disagreeably so, and neither the words +nor the manner of using them smacked of the rustic. + +“And where are Loch-na-Keal and Ulva and Scridain?” demanded Haward. +“Somewhere in North Britain, I presume?” + +The second question broke the spell. The man glanced over his shoulder, +saw that he was not alone, and with one sweep of his hand blotting +loch and island and mountain out of existence, rose to his feet, and +opposed to Haward’s gaze a tall, muscular frame, high features slightly +pockmarked, and keen dark blue eyes. + +“I was dreaming, and did not hear you,” he said, civilly enough. “It’s +not often that any one comes to the store at this time of day. What d’ +ye lack?” + +As he spoke he moved toward the doorway, through which showed shelves +and tables piled with the extraordinary variety of goods which were +deemed essential to the colonial trade. “Are you the storekeeper?” +asked Haward, keeping pace with the other’s long stride. + +“It’s the name they call me by,” answered the man curtly; then, as he +chanced to turn his eyes upon the landing, his tone changed, and a +smile irradiated his countenance. “Here comes a customer,” he remarked, +“that’ll make you bide your turn.” + +A boat, rowed by a young boy and carrying a woman, had slipped out +of the creek, and along the river bank to the steps of the landing. +When they were reached, the boy sat still, the oars resting across his +knees, and his face upturned to a palace beautiful of pearl and saffron +cloud; but the woman mounted the steps, and, crossing the boards, came +up to the door and the men beside it. Her dress was gray and unadorned, +and she was young and of a quiet loveliness. + +“Mistress Truelove Taberer,” said the storekeeper, “what can you +choose, this May Day, that’s so fair as yourself?” + +A pair of gray eyes were lifted for the sixth part of a second, and +a voice that bad learned of the doves in the forest proceeded to +rebuke the flatterer. “Thee is idle in thy speech, Angus MacLean,” it +declared. “I am not fair; nor, if I were, should thee tell me of it. +Also, friend, it is idle and tendeth toward idolatry to speak of the +first day of the fifth month as May Day. My mother sent me for a paper +of White-chapel needles, and two of manikin pins. Has thee them in thy +store of goods?” + +“Come you in and look for yourself,” said the storekeeper. “There’s +woman’s gear enough, but it were easier for me to recount the names of +all the children of Gillean-ni-Tuaidhe than to remember how you call +the things you wear.” + +So saying he entered the store. The Quakeress followed, and Haward, +tired of his own thoughts, and in the mood to be amused by trifles, +trod in their footsteps. + +Door and window faced the west, and the glow from the sinking sun +illumined the thousand and one features of the place. Here was the +glint of tools and weapons; there pewter shone like silver, and +brass dazzled the eyes. Bales of red cotton, blue linen, flowered +Kidderminster, scarlet serge, gold and silver drugget, all sorts of +woven stuffs from lockram to brocade, made bright the shelves. Pendent +skins of buck and doe showed like brown satin, while looking-glasses +upon the wall reflected green trees and painted clouds. In one dark +corner lurked kegs of powder and of shot; another was the haunt of +aqua vitæ and right Jamaica. Playing-cards, snuffboxes, and fringed +gloves elbowed a shelf of books, and a full-bottomed wig ogled a +lady’s headdress of ribbon and malines. Knives and hatchets and duffel +blankets for the Indian trade were not wanting. + +Haward, leaning against a table laden with so singular a miscellany +that a fine saddle with crimson velvet holsters took the head of the +board, while the foot was set with blue and white china, watched the +sometime moulder of peak and islet draw out a case filled with such +small and womanish articles as pins and needles, tape and thread, and +place it before his customer. She made her choice, and the storekeeper +brought a great book, and entered against the head of the house of +Taberer so many pounds of tobacco; then, as the maiden turned to +depart, heaved a sigh so piteous and profound that no tender saint +in gray could do less than pause, half turn her head, and lift two +compassionate eyes. + +“Mistress Truelove, I have read the good book that you gave me, and I +cannot deny that I am much beholden to you,” and her debtor sighed like +a furnace. + +The girl’s quiet face flushed to the pink of a seashell, and her eyes +grew eager. + +“Then does thee not see the error of thy ways, Angus MacLean? If it +should be given me to pluck thee as a brand from the burning! Thee will +not again brag of war and revenge, nor sing vain and ruthless songs, +nor use dice or cards, nor will thee swear any more?” + +The voice was persuasion’s own. “May I be set overtide on the Lady’s +Rock, or spare a false Campbell when I meet him, or throw up my cap for +the damned Hogan Mogan that sits in Jamie’s place, if I am not entirely +convert!” cried the neophyte. “Oh, the devil! what have I said? +Mistress Truelove--Truelove”-- + +But Truelove was gone,--not in anger or in haste, for that would have +been unseemly, but quietly and steadily, with no looking back. The +storekeeper, leaping over a keg of nails that stood in the way, made +for the door, and together with Haward, who was already there, watched +her go. The path to the landing and the boat was short; she had taken +her seat, and the boy had bent to the oars, while the unlucky Scot was +yet alternately calling out protestations of amendment and muttering +maledictions upon his unguarded tongue. The canoe slipped from the +rosy, unshadowed water into the darkness beneath the overhanging trees, +reached the mouth of the creek, and in a moment disappeared from sight. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MASTER AND MAN + + +The two men, left alone, turned each toward the interior of the store, +and their eyes met. Alike in gray eyes and in dark blue there was +laughter. “Kittle folk, the Quakers,” said the storekeeper, with a +shrug, and went to put away his case of pins and needles. Haward, going +to the end of the store, found a row of dusty bottles, and breaking the +neck of one with a report like that of a pistol set the Madeira to his +lips, and therewith quenched his thirst. The wine cellar abutted upon +the library. Taking off his riding glove he ran his finger along the +bindings, and plucking forth The History of a Coy Lady looked at the +first page, read the last paragraph, and finally thrust the thin brown +and gilt volume into his pocket. Turning, he found himself face to face +with the storekeeper. + +“I have not the honor of knowing your name, sir,” remarked the latter +dryly. “Do you buy at this store, and upon whose account?” + +Haward shook his head, and applied himself again to the Madeira. + +“Then you carry with you coin of the realm with which to settle?” +continued the other. “The wine is two shillings; the book you may have +for twelve-pence.” + +“Here I need not pay, good fellow,” said Haward negligently, his eyes +upon a row of dangling objects. “Fetch me down yonder cane; ’t is as +delicately tapered and clouded as any at the Exchange.” + +“Pay me first for the wine and the book,” answered the man composedly. +“It’s a dirty business enough, God knows, for a gentleman to put finger +to; but since needs must when the devil drives, and he has driven me +here, why, I, Angus MacLean, who have no concerns of my own, must e’en +be faithful to the concerns of another. Wherefore put down the silver +you owe the Sassenach whose wine you have drunken and whose book you +have taken.” + +“And if I do not choose to pay?” asked Haward, with a smile. + +“Then you must e’en choose to fight,” was the cool reply. “And as I +observe that you wear neither sword nor pistols, and as jack boots +and a fine tight-buttoned riding coat are not the easiest clothes to +wrestle in, it appears just possible that I might win the cause.” + +“And when you’ve thrown me, what then?” + +“Oh, I would just draw a rope around you and yonder cask of Jamaica, +and leave you to read your stolen book in peace until Saunderson +(that’s the overseer, and he’s none so bad if he was born in Fife) +shall come. You can have it out with him; or maybe he’ll hale you +before the man that owns the store. I hear they expect him home.” + +Haward laughed, and abstracting another bottle from the shelf broke +its neck. “Hand me yonder cup,” he said easily, “and we’ll drink to +his home-coming. Good fellow, I am Mr. Marmaduke Haward, and I am glad +to find so honest a man in a place of no small trust. Long absence and +somewhat too complaisant a reference of all my Virginian affairs to my +agent have kept me much in ignorance of the economy of my plantation. +How long have you been my storekeeper?” + +Neither cup for the wine nor answer to the question being forthcoming, +Haward looked up from his broken bottle. The man was standing with his +body bent forward and his hand pressed against the wood of a great cask +behind him until the finger-nails showed white. His head was high, his +face dark red and angry, his brows drawn down until the gleaming eyes +beneath were like pin points. + +So sudden and so sinister was the change that Haward was startled. The +hour was late, the place deserted; as the man had discovered, he had no +weapons, nor, strong, active, and practiced as he was, did he flatter +himself that he could withstand the length of brawn and sinew before +him. Involuntarily, he stepped backward until there was a space between +them, casting at the same moment a glance toward the wall where hung +axe and knife and hatchet. + +The man intercepted the look, and broke into a laugh. The sound was +harsh and gibing, but not menacing. “You need not be afraid,” he said. +“I do not want the feel of a rope around my neck,--though God knows +why I should care! Here is no clansman of mine, and no cursed Campbell +either, to see my end!” + +“I am not afraid,” Haward answered calmly. Walking to the shelf that +held an array of drinking vessels, he took two cups, filled them with +wine, and going back to his former station, set one upon the cask +beside the storekeeper. “The wine is good,” he said. “Will you drink?” + +The other loosened the clasp of his hand upon the wood and drew +himself upright. “I eat the bread and drink the water which you give +your servants,” he answered, speaking with the thickness of hardly +restrained passion. “The wine cup goes from equal to equal.” + +As he spoke he took up the peace offering, eyed it for a moment with a +bitter smile, then flung it with force over his shoulder. The earthen +floor drank the wine; the china shivered into a thousand fragments. “I +have neither silver nor tobacco with which to pay for my pleasure,” +continued the still smiling storekeeper. “When I am come to the end of +my term, then, an it please you, I will serve out the damage.” + +Haward sat down upon a keg of powder, crossed his knees, and, with +his chin upon his hand, looked from between the curled lengths of his +periwig at the figure opposite. “I am glad to find that in Virginia, at +least, there is honesty,” he said dryly. “I will try to remember the +cost of the cup and the wine against the expiry of your indenture. In +the mean time, I am curious to know why you are angry with me whom you +have never seen before to-day.” + +With the dashing of the wine to earth the other’s passion had +apparently spent itself. The red slowly left his face, and he leaned +at ease against the cask, drumming upon its head with his fingers. The +sunlight, shrinking from floor and wall, had left but a single line of +gold. In the half light strange and sombre shapes possessed the room; +through the stillness, beneath the sound of the tattoo upon the cask +head, the river made itself heard. + +“For ten years and more you have been my--master,” said the +storekeeper. “It is a word for which I have an invincible distaste. It +is not well--having neither love nor friendship to put in its place--to +let hatred die. When I came first to this slavery, I hated all +Campbells, all Whigs, Forster that betrayed us at Preston, and Ewin Mor +Mackinnon. But the years have come and the years have gone, and I am +older than I was at twenty-five. The Campbells I can never reach: they +walk secure, overseas, through Lorn and Argyle, couching in the tall +heather above Etive, tracking the red deer in the Forest of Dalness. +Forster is dead. Ewin Mackinnon is dead, I know; for five years ago +come Martinmas night I saw his perjured soul on its way to hell. All +the world is turning Whig. A man may hate the world, it is true, but he +needs a single foe.” + +“And in that capacity you have adopted me?” demanded Haward. + +MacLean let his gaze travel over the man opposite him, from the looped +hat and the face between the waves of hair to the gilt spurs upon the +great boots; then turned his eyes upon his own hand and coarsely clad +arm stretched across the cask. “I, too, am a gentleman, the brother of +a chieftain,” he declared. “I am not without schooling. I have seen +something of life, and of countries more polite than the land where +I was born, though not so dear. I have been free, and have loved my +freedom. Do you find it so strange that I should hate you?” + +There was a silence; then, “Upon my soul, I do not know that I do,” +said Haward slowly. “And yet, until this day I did not know of your +existence.” + +“But I knew of yours,” answered the storekeeper. “Your agent hath an +annoying trick of speech, and the overseers have caught it from him. +‘Your master’ this, and ‘your master’ that; in short, for ten years it +hath been, ‘Work, you dog, that your master may play!’ Well, I have +worked; it was that, or killing myself, or going mad. I have worked +for you in the fields, in the smithy, in this close room. But when you +bought my body, you could not buy my soul. Day after day, and night +after night, I sent it away; I would not let it bide in these dull +levels, in this cursed land of heat and stagnant waters. At first it +went home to its own country,--to its friends and its foes, to the +torrent and the mountain and the music of the pipes; but at last the +pain outweighed the pleasure, and I sent it there no more. And then it +began to follow you.” + +“To follow me!” involuntarily exclaimed Haward. + +“I have been in London,” went on the other, without heeding the +interruption. “I know the life of men of quality, and where they most +resort. I early learned from your other servants, and from the chance +words of those who had your affairs in charge, that you were young, +well-looking, a man of pleasure. At first when I thought of you the +blood came into my cheek, but at last I thought of you constantly, +and I felt for you a constant hatred. It began when I knew that Ewin +Mackinnon was dead. I had no need of love; I had need of hate. Day +after day, my body slaving here, my mind has dogged your footsteps. Up +and down, to and fro, in business and in pleasure, in whatever place I +have imagined you to be, there have I been also. Did you never, when +there seemed none by, look over your shoulder, feeling another presence +than your own?” + +He ceased to speak, and the hand upon the cask was still. The sunshine +was clean gone from the room, and without the door the wind in the +locust-tree answered the voice of the river. Haward rose from his seat, +but made no further motion toward departing. “You have been frank,” he +said quietly. “Had you it in mind, all this while, so to speak to me +when we should meet?” + +“No,” answered the other. “I thought not of words, but of”-- + +“But of deeds,” Haward finished for him. “Rather, I imagine, of one +deed.” + +Composed as ever in voice and manner, he drew out his watch, and held +it aslant that the light might strike upon the dial. “’T is after six,” +he remarked as he put it away, “and I am yet a mile from the house.” +The wine that he had poured for himself had been standing, untouched, +upon the keg beside him. He took it up and drank it off; then wiped his +lips with his handkerchief, and passing the storekeeper with a slight +inclination of his head walked toward the door. A yard beyond the man +who had so coolly shown his side of the shield was a rude table, on +which were displayed hatchets and hunting knives. Haward passed the +gleaming steel; then, a foot beyond it, stood still, his face to the +open door, and his back to the storekeeper and the table with its +sinister lading. + +“You do wrong to allow so much dust and disorder,” he said sharply. “I +could write my name in that mirror, and there is a piece of brocade +fallen to the floor. Look to it that you keep the place more neat.” + +There was dead silence for a moment; then MacLean spoke in an even +voice: “Now a fool might call you as brave as Hector. For myself, I +only give you credit for some knowledge of men. You are right. It is +not my way to strike in the back an unarmed man. When you are gone, I +will wipe off the mirror and pick up the brocade.” + +He followed Haward outside. “It’s a brave evening for riding,” he +remarked, “and you have a bonny bit of horseflesh there. You’ll get to +the house before candlelight.” + +Beside one of the benches Haward made another pause. “You are a +Highlander and a Jacobite,” he said. “From your reference to Forster, +I gather that you were among the prisoners taken at Preston and +transported to Virginia.” + +“In the Elizabeth and Anne of Liverpool, _alias_ a bit of hell afloat; +the master, Captain Edward Trafford, _alias_ Satan’s first mate,” quoth +the other grimly. + +He stooped to the bench where lay the débris of the coast and mountains +he had been lately building, and picked up a small, deep shell. “My +story is short,” he began. “It could be packed into this. I was born +in the island of Mull, of my father a chieftain, and my mother a lady. +Some schooling I got in Aberdeen, some pleasure in Edinburgh and +London, and some service abroad. In my twenty-third year--being at home +at that time--I was asked to a hunting match at Braemar, and went. No +great while afterwards I was bidden to supper at an Edinburgh tavern, +and again I accepted the invitation. There was a small entertainment to +follow the supper,--just the taking of Edinburgh Castle. But the wine +was good, and we waited to powder our hair, and the entertainment could +hardly be called a success. Hard upon that convivial evening, I, with +many others, was asked across the Border to join a number of gentlemen +who drank to the King after our fashion, and had a like fancy for oak +boughs and white roses. The weather was pleasant, the company of the +best, the roads very noble after our Highland sheep tracks. Together +with our English friends, and enlivened by much good claret and by +music of bagpipe and drum, we strolled on through a fine, populous +country until we came to a town called Preston, where we thought we +would tarry for a day or two. However, circumstances arose which +detained us somewhat longer. (I dare say you have heard the story?) +When finally we took our leave, some of us went to heaven, some to +hell, and some to Barbadoes and Virginia. I was among those dispatched +to Virginia, and to all intents and purposes I died the day I landed. +There, the shell is full!” + +He tossed it from him, and going to the hitching-post loosed Haward’s +horse. Haward took the reins from his hand. “It hath been ten years and +more since Virginia got her share of the rebels taken at Preston. If I +remember aright, their indentures were to be made for seven years. Why, +then, are you yet in my service?” + +MacLean laughed. “I ran away,” he replied pleasantly, “and when I was +caught I made off a second time. I wonder that you planters do not +have a Society for the Encouragement of Runaways. Seeing that they are +nearly always retaken, and that their escapades so lengthen their term +of service, it would surely be to your advantage! There are yet several +years in which I am to call you master.” + +He laughed again, but the sound was mirthless, and the eyes beneath +the half-closed lids were harder than steel. Haward mounted his horse +and gathered up the reins. “I am not responsible for the laws of the +realm,” he said calmly, “nor for rebellions and insurrections, nor for +the practice of transporting overseas those to whom have been given +the ugly names of ‘rebel’ and ‘traitor.’ Destiny that set you there +put me here. We are alike pawns; what the player means we have no way +of telling. Curse Fate and the gods, if you choose,--and find that +your cursing does small good,--but regard me with indifference, as one +neither more nor less the slave of circumstances than yourself. It has +been long since I went this way. Is there yet the path by the river?” + +“Ay,” answered the other. “It is your shortest road.” + +“Then I will be going,” said Haward. “It grows late, and I am not +looked for before to-morrow. Good-night.” + +As he spoke he raised his hat and bowed to the gentleman from whom he +was parting. That rebel to King George gave a great start; then turned +very red, and shot a piercing glance at the man on horseback. The +latter’s mien was composed as ever, and, with his hat held beneath his +arm and his body slightly inclined, he was evidently awaiting a like +ceremony of leave-taking on the storekeeper’s part. MacLean drew a long +breath, stepped back a pace or two, and bowed to his equal. A second +“Good-night,” and one gentleman rode off in the direction of the great +house, while the other went thoughtfully back to the store, got a cloth +and wiped the dust from the mirror. + +It was pleasant riding by the river in the cool evening wind, with the +colors of the sunset yet gay in sky and water. Haward went slowly, +glancing now at the great, bright stream, now at the wide, calm fields +and the rim of woodland, dark and distant, bounding his possessions. +The smell of salt marshes, of ploughed ground, of leagues of flowering +forests, was in his nostrils. Behind him was the crescent moon; before +him a terrace crowned with lofty trees. Within the ring of foliage +was the house; even as he looked a light sprang up in a high window, +and shone like a star through the gathering dusk. Below the hill the +home landing ran its gaunt black length far out into the carmine +of the river; upon the Golden Rose lights burned like lower stars; +from a thicket to the left of the bridle path sounded the call of a +whippoorwill. A gust of wind blowing from the bay made to waver the +lanterns of the Golden Rose, broke and darkened the coral peace of the +river, and pushed rudely against the master of those parts. Haward laid +his hand upon his horse that he loved. “This is better than the Ring, +isn’t it, Mirza?” he asked genially, and the horse whinnied under his +touch. + +The land was quite gray, the river pearl-colored, and the fireflies +beginning to sparkle, when he rode through the home gates. In the dusk +of the world, out of the deeper shadow of the surrounding trees, his +house looked grimly upon him. The light had been at the side; all the +front was stark and black with shuttered windows. He rode to the back +of the house and hallooed to the slaves in the home quarter, where were +lights and noisy laughter, and one deep voice singing in an unknown +tongue. + +It was but a stone’s throw to the nearest cabin, and Haward’s call made +itself heard above the babel. The noise suddenly lessened, and two or +three negroes, starting up from the doorstep, hurried across the grass +to horse and rider. Quickly as they came, some one within the house was +beforehand with them. The door swung open; there was the flare of a +lighted candle, and a voice cried out to know what was wanted. + +“Wanted!” exclaimed Haward. “Ingress into my own house is wanted! Where +is Juba?” + +One of the negroes pressed forward. “Heah I is, Marse Duke! House all +ready for you, but you done sont word”-- + +“I know,--I know,” answered Haward impatiently. “I changed my mind. Is +that you, Saunderson, with the light? Or is it Hide?” + +The candle moved to one side, and there was disclosed a large white +face atop of a shambling figure dressed in some coarse, dark stuff. +“Neither, sir,” said an expressionless voice. “Will it please your +Honor to dismount?” + +Haward swung himself out of the saddle, tossed the reins to a negro, +and, with Juba at his heels, climbed the five low stone steps and +entered the wide hall running through the house and broken only by the +broad, winding stairway. Save for the glimmer of the solitary candle +all was in darkness; the bare floor, the paneled walls, echoed to his +tread. On either hand squares of blackness proclaimed the open doors of +large, empty rooms, and down the stair came a wind that bent the weak +flame. The negro took the light from the hand of the man who had opened +the door, and, pressing past his master, lit three candles in a sconce +upon the wall. + +“Yo’ room’s all ready, Marse Duke,” he declared. “Dere’s candles +enough, an’ de fire am laid an’ yo’ bed aired. Ef you wan’ some supper, +I kin get you bread an’ meat, an’ de wine was put in yesterday.” + +Haward nodded, and taking the candle began to mount the stairs. Half +way up he found that the man in the sad-colored raiment was following +him. He raised his brows, but being in a taciturn humor, and having, +moreover, to shield the flame from the wind that drove down the stair, +he said nothing, going on in silence to the landing, and to the great +eastward-facing room that had been his father’s, and which now he meant +to make his own. There were candles on the table, the dresser, and the +mantelshelf. He lit them all, and the room changed from a place of +shadows and monstrous shapes to a gentleman’s bedchamber,--somewhat +sparsely furnished, but of a comfortable and cheerful aspect. A +cloth lay upon the floor, the windows were curtained, and the bed +had fresh hangings of green and white Kidderminster. Over the mantel +hung a painting of Haward and his mother, done when he was six years +old. Beneath the laughing child and the smiling lady, young and +flower-crowned, were crossed two ancient swords. In the middle of the +room stood a heavy table, and pushed back, as though some one had +lately risen from it, was an armchair of Russian leather. Books lay +upon the table; one of them open, with a horn snuffbox keeping down the +leaf. + +Haward seated himself in the great chair, and looked around him with +a thoughtful and melancholy smile. He could not clearly remember his +mother. The rings upon her fingers and her silvery laughter were all +that dwelt in his mind, and now only the sound of that merriment +floated back to him and lingered in the room. But his father had died +upon that bed, and beside the dead man, between the candles at the head +and the candles at the foot, he had sat the night through. The curtains +were half drawn, and in their shadow his imagination laid again that +cold, inanimate form. Twelve years ago! How young he had been that +night, and how old he had thought himself as he watched beside the +dead, chilled by the cold of the crossed hands, awed by the silence, +half frighted by the shadows on the wall; now filled with natural +grief, now with surreptitious and shamefaced thoughts of his changed +estate,--yesterday son and dependent, to-day heir and master! Twelve +years! The sigh and the smile were not for the dead father, but for his +own dead youth, for the unjaded freshness of the morning, for the world +that had been, once upon a time. + +Turning in his seat, his eyes fell upon the man who had followed +him, and who was now standing between the table and the door. “Well, +friend?” he demanded. + +The man came a step or two nearer. His hat was in his hand, and his +body was obsequiously bent, but there was no discomposure in his +lifeless voice and manner. “I stayed to explain my presence in the +house, sir,” he said. “I am a lover of reading, and, knowing my +weakness, your overseer, who keeps the keys of the house, has been so +good as to let me, from time to time, come here to this room to mingle +in more delectable company than I can choose without these walls. +Your Honor doubtless remembers yonder goodly assemblage?” He motioned +with his hand toward a half-opened door, showing a closet lined with +well-filled bookshelves. + +“I remember,” replied Haward dryly. “So you come to my room alone at +night, and occupy yourself in reading? And when you are wearied you +refresh yourself with my wine?” As he spoke he clinked together the +bottle and glass that stood beside the books. + +“I plead guilty to the wine,” answered the intruder, as lifelessly as +ever, “but it is my only theft. I found the bottle below, and did not +think it would be missed. I trust that your Honor does not grudge it +to a poor devil who tastes Burgundy somewhat seldomer than does your +Worship. And my being in the house is pure innocence. Your overseer +knew that I would neither make nor meddle with aught but the books, +or he would not have given me the key to the little door, which I now +restore to your Honor’s keeping.” He advanced, and deposited upon the +table a large key. + +“What is your name?” demanded Haward, leaning back in his chair. + +“Bartholomew Paris, sir. I keep the school down by the swamp, where +I impart to fifteen or twenty of the youth of these parts the +rudiments of the ancient and modern tongues, mathematics, geography, +fortifications, navigation, philosophy”-- + +Haward yawned, and the schoolmaster broke the thread of his discourse. +“I weary you, sir,” he said. “I will, with your permission, take my +departure. May I make so bold as to beg your Honor that you will not +mention to the gentlemen hereabouts the small matter of this bottle of +wine? I would wish not to be prejudiced in the eyes of my patrons and +scholars.” + +“I will think of it,” Haward replied. “Come and take your snuffbox--if +it be yours--from the book where you have left it.” + +“It is mine,” said the man. “A present from the godly minister of this +parish.” + +As he spoke he put out his hand to take the snuffbox. Haward leaned +forward, seized the hand, and, bending back the fingers, exposed the +palm to the light of the candles upon the table. + +“The other, if you please,” he commanded. + +For a second--no longer--a wicked soul looked blackly out of the face +to which he had raised his eyes. Then the window shut, and the wall +was blank again. Without any change in his listless demeanor, the +schoolmaster laid his left hand, palm out, beside his right. + +“Humph!” exclaimed Haward. “So you have stolen before to-night? The +marks are old. When were you branded, and where?” + +“In Bristol, fifteen years ago,” answered the man unblushingly. “It was +all a mistake. I was as innocent as a newborn babe”-- + +“But unfortunately could not prove it,” interrupted Haward. “That is of +course. Go on.” + +“I was transported to South Carolina, and there served out my term. The +climate did not suit me, and I liked not the society, nor--being of a +peaceful disposition--the constant alarms of pirates and buccaneers. +So when I was once more my own man I traveled north to Virginia with +a party of traders. In my youth I had been an Oxford servitor, and +schoolmasters are in demand in Virginia. Weighed in the scales with +a knowledge of the humanities and some skill in imparting them, what +matters a little mishap with hot irons? My patrons are willing to let +bygones be bygones. My school flourishes like a green bay-tree, and the +minister of this parish will speak for the probity and sobriety of my +conduct. Now I will go, sir.” + +He made an awkward but deep and obsequious reverence, turned and went +out of the door, passing Juba, who was entering with a salver laden +with bread and meat and a couple of bottles. “Put down the food, Juba,” +said Haward, “and see this gentleman out of the house.” + +An hour later the master dismissed the slave, and sat down beside +the table to finish the wine and compose himself for the night. The +overseer had come hurrying to the great house, to be sent home again by +a message from the owner thereof that to-morrow would do for business; +the negro women who had been called to make the bed were gone; the +noises from the quarter had long ceased, and the house was very still. +In his rich, figured Indian nightgown and his silken nightcap, Haward +sat and drank his wine, slowly, with long pauses between the emptying +and the filling of the slender, tall-stemmed glass. A window was +open, and the wind blowing in made the candles to flicker. With the +wind came a murmur of leaves and the wash of the river,--stealthy and +mournful sounds that sorted not with the lighted room, the cheerful +homeliness of the flowered hangings, the gleeful lady and child above +the mantelshelf. Haward felt the incongruity: a slow sea voyage, and +a week in that Virginia which, settled one hundred and twenty years +before, was yet largely forest and stream, had weaned him, he thought, +from sounds of the street, and yet to-night he missed them, and would +have had the town again. When an owl hooted in the walnut-tree outside +his window, and in the distance, as far away as the creek quarter, a +dog howled, and the silence closed in again, he rose, and began to walk +to and fro, slowly, thinking of the past and the future. The past had +its ghosts,--not many; what spectres the future might raise only itself +could tell. So far as mortal vision went, it was a rose-colored future; +but on such a night of silence that was not silence, of loneliness that +was filled with still, small voices, of heavy darkness without, of +lights burning in an empty house, it was rather of ashes of roses that +one thought. + +Haward went to the open window, and with one knee upon the window seat +looked out into the windy, starlit night. This was the eastern face +of the house, and, beyond the waving trees, there were visible both +the river and the second and narrower creek which on this side bounded +the plantation. The voice with which the waters swept to the sea came +strongly to him. A large white moth sailed out of the darkness to the +lit window, but his presence scared it away. + +Looking through the walnut branches, he could see a light that burned +steadily, like a candle set in a window. For a moment he wondered +whence it shone; then he remembered that the glebe lands lay in that +direction. The parish was building a house for its new minister, when +he left Virginia, those many years ago. Suddenly he recalled that the +minister--who had seemed to him a bluff, downright, honest fellow--had +told him of a little room looking out upon an orchard, and had said +that it should be the child’s. + +It was possible that the star which pierced the darkness might mark +that room. He knit his brows in an effort to remember when, before this +day, he had last thought of a child whom he had held in his arms and +comforted, one splendid dawn, upon a hilltop, in a mountainous region. +He came to the conclusion that he must have forgotten her quite six +years ago. Well, she would seem to have thriven under his neglect,--and +he saw again the girl who had run for the golden guinea. It was true +that when he had put her there where that light was shining, it was +with some shadowy idea of giving her gentle breeding, of making a +lady of her. But man’s purposes are fleeting, and often gone with the +morrow. He had forgotten his purpose; and perhaps it was best this +way,--perhaps it was best this way. + +For a little longer he looked at the light and listened to the voice of +the river; then he rose from the window seat, drew the curtains, and +began thoughtfully to prepare for bed. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE RETURN OF MONSIEUR JEAN HUGON + + +To the north the glebe was bounded by a thick wood, a rank and dense +“second growth” springing from earth where had once stood, decorously +apart, the monster trees of the primeval forest; a wild maze of young +trees, saplings and underbrush, overrun from the tops of the slender, +bending pines to the bushes of dogwood and sassafras, and the rotting, +ancient stumps and fallen logs, by the uncontrollable, all-spreading +vine. It was such a fantastic thicket as one might look to find in +fairyland, thorny and impenetrable: here as tall as a ten years’ pine, +there sunken away to the height of the wild honeysuckles; everywhere +backed by blue sky, heavy with odors, filled, with the flash of wings +and the songs of birds. To the east the thicket fell away to low and +marshy grounds, where tall cypresses grew, and myriads of myrtle +bushes. Later in the year women and children would venture in upon the +unstable earth for the sake of the myrtle berries and their yield of +fragrant wax, and once and again an outlying slave had been tracked +by men and dogs to the dark recesses of the place; but for the most +part it was given over to its immemorial silence. To the south and the +west the tobacco fields of Fair View closed in upon the glebe, taking +the fertile river bank, and pressing down to the crooked, slow-moving, +deeply shadowed creek, upon whose farther bank stood the house of the +Rev. Gideon Darden. + +A more retired spot, a completer sequestration from the world of mart +and highway, it would have been hard to find. In the quiet of the early +morning, when the shadows of the trees lay across the dewy grass, +it was an angle of the earth as cloistral and withdrawn as heart of +scholar or of anchorite could wish. On one side of the house lay a tiny +orchard, and the windows of the living room looked out upon a mist of +pink and white apple blooms. The fragrance of the blossoms had been +in the room, but could not prevail against the odor of tobacco and +rum lately introduced by the master of the house and minister of the +parish. Audrey, sitting beside a table which had been drawn in front of +the window, turned her face aside, and was away, sense and soul, out +of the meanly furnished room into the midst of the great bouquets of +bloom, with the blue between and above. Darden, walking up and down, +with his pipe in his mouth, and the tobacco smoke curling like an +aureole around his bullet head, glanced toward the window. + +“When you have written that which I have told you to write, say so, +Audrey,” he commanded. “Don’t sit there staring at nothing!” + +Audrey came back to the present with a start, took up a pen, and drew +the standish nearer. “‘Answer of Gideon Darden, Minister of Fair View +Parish, in Virginia, to the several Queries contained in my Lord Bishop +of London’s Circular Letter to the Clergy in Virginia,’” she read, and +poised her pen in air. + +“Read out the questions,” ordered Darden, “and write my answer to each +in the space beneath. No blots, mind you, and spell not after the +promptings of your woman’s nature.” + +Going to a side table, be mixed for himself, in an old battered silver +cap, a generous draught of bombo; then, with the drink in his hand, +walked heavily across the uncarpeted floor to his armchair, which +creaked under his weight as he sank into its leathern lap. He put down +the rum and water with so unsteady a hand that the liquor spilled, and +when he refilled his pipe half the contents of his tobacco box showered +down upon his frayed and ancient and unclean coat and breeches. From +the pocket of the latter he now drew forth a silver coin, which he +balanced for a moment upon his fat forefinger, and finally sent +spinning across the table to Audrey. + +“’Tis the dregs of thy guinea, child, that Paris and Hugon and I +drank at the crossroads last night. ‘Burn me,’ says I to them, ‘if +that long-legged lass of mine shan’t have a drop in the cup!’ And say +Hugon”-- + +What Hugon said did not appear, or was confided to the depths of the +tankard which the minister raised to his lips. Audrey looked at the +splendid shilling gleaming upon the table beside her, but made no +motion toward taking it into closer possession. A little red had come +into the clear brown of her cheeks. She was a young girl, with her +dreams and fancies, and the golden guinea would have made a dream or +two come true. + +“‘Query the first,’” she read slowly, “‘How long since you went to the +plantations as missionary?’” + +Darden, leaning back in his chair, with his eyes uplifted through the +smoke clouds to the ceiling, took his pipe from his mouth, for the +better answering of his diocesan. “‘My Lord, thirteen years come St. +Swithin’s day,’” he dictated. “‘Signed, Gideon Darden.’ Audrey, do not +forget thy capitals. Thirteen years! Lord, Lord, the years, how they +fly! Hast it down, Audrey?” + +Audrey, writing in a slow, fair, clerkly hand, made her period, and +turned to the Bishop’s second question: “‘Had you any other church +before you came to that which you now possess?’” + +“‘No, my Lord,’” said the minister to the Bishop; then to the ceiling: +“I came raw from the devil to this parish. Audrey, hast ever heard +children say that Satan comes and walks behind me when I go through the +forest?” + +“Yes,” said Audrey, “but their eyes are not good. You go hand in hand.” + +Darden paused in the lifting of his tankard. “Thy wits are brightening, +Audrey; but keep such observations to thyself. It is only the +schoolmaster with whom I walk. Go on to the next question.” + +The Bishop desired to know how long the minister addressed had been +inducted into his living. The minister addressed, leaning forward, +laid it off to his Lordship how that the vestries in Virginia did not +incline to have ministers inducted, and, being very powerful, kept the +poor servants of the Church upon uneasy seats; but that he, Gideon +Darden, had the love of his flock, rich and poor, gentle and simple, +and that in the first year of his ministry the gentlemen of his vestry +had been pleased to present his name to the Governor for induction. +Which explanation made, the minister drank more rum, and looked out of +the window at the orchard and at his neighbor’s tobacco. + +“You are only a woman, and can hold no office, Audrey,” he said, “but I +will impart to you words of wisdom whose price is above rubies. Always +agree with your vestry. Go, hat in hand, to each of its members in +turn, craving advice as to the management of your own affairs. Thunder +from the pulpit against Popery, which does not exist in this colony, +and the Pretender, who is at present in Italy. Wrap a dozen black sheep +of inferior breed in white sheets and set them arow at the church door, +but make it stuff of the conscience to see no blemish in the wealthier +and more honorable portion of your flock. So you will thrive, and come +to be inducted into your living, whether in Virginia or some other +quarter of the globe. What’s the worthy Bishop’s next demand? Hasten, +for Hugon is coming this morning, and there’s settlement to be made of +a small bet, and a hand at cards.” + +By the circular letter and the lips of Audrey the Bishop proceeded +to propound a series of questions, which the minister answered with +portentous glibness. In the midst of an estimate of the value of a +living in a sweet-scented parish a face looked in at the window, and a +dark and sinewy hand laid before Audrey a bunch of scarlet columbine. + +“The rock was high,” said a voice, “and the pool beneath was deep and +dark. Here are the flowers that waved from the rock and threw colored +shadows upon the pool.” + +The girl shrank as from a sudden and mortal danger. Her lips trembled, +her eyes half closed, and with a hurried and passionate gesture she +rose from her chair, thrust from her the scarlet blooms, and with one +lithe movement of her body put between her and the window the heavy +writing table. The minister laid by his sum in arithmetic. + +“Ha, Hugon, dog of a trader!” he cried. “Come in, man. Hast brought the +skins? There’s fire-water upon the table, and Audrey will be kind. Stay +to dinner, and tell us what lading you brought down river, and of your +kindred in the forest and your kindred in Monacan-Town.” + +The man at the window shrugged his shoulders, lifted his brows, and +spread his hands. So a captain of Mousquetaires might have done; but +the face was dark-skinned, the cheek-bones were high, the black eyes +large, fierce, and restless. A great bushy peruke, of an ancient +fashion, and a coarse, much-laced cravat gave setting and lent a touch +of grotesqueness and of terror to a countenance wherein the blood of +the red man warred with that of the white. + +“I will not come in now,” said the voice again. “I am going in my boat +to the big creek to take twelve doeskins to an old man named Taberer. I +will come back to dinner. May I not, ma’m’selle?” + +The corners of the lips went up, and the thicket of false hair swept +the window sill, so low did the white man bow; but the Indian eyes were +watchful. Audrey made no answer; she stood with her face turned away +and her eyes upon the door, measuring her chances. If Darden would let +her pass, she might reach the stairway and her own room before the +trader could enter the house. There were bolts to its heavy door, and +Hugon might do as he had done before, and talk his heart out upon the +wrong side of the wood. Thanks be! lying upon her bed and pressing the +pillow over her ears, she did not have to hear. + +At the trader’s announcement that his present path led past the house, +she ceased her stealthy progress toward her own demesne, and waited, +with her back to the window, and her eyes upon one long ray of sunshine +that struck high against the wall. + +“I will come again,” said the voice without, and the apparition was +gone from the window. Once more blue sky and rosy bloom spanned the +opening, and the sunshine lay in a square upon the floor. The girl drew +a long breath, and turning to the table began to arrange the papers +upon it with trembling hands. + +“‘Sixteen thousand pounds of sweet-scented, at ten shillings the +hundredweight; for marriage by banns, five shillings; for the preaching +of a funeral sermon, forty shillings; for christening’”--began Darden +for the Bishop’s information. Audrey took her pen and wrote; but before +the list of the minister’s perquisites had come to an end the door flew +open, and a woman with the face of a vixen came hurriedly into the +room. With her entered the breeze from the river, driving before it the +smoke wreaths, and blowing the papers from the table to the floor. + +Darden stamped his foot. “Woman, I have business, I tell ye,--business +with the Bishop of London! I’ve kept his Lordship at the door this +se’nnight, and if I give him not audience Blair will presently be down +uon me with tooth and nail and his ancient threat of a visitation. +Begone and keep the house! Audrey, where are you, child?” + +“Audrey, leave the room!” commanded the woman. “I have something to say +that’s not for your ears. Let her go, Darden. There’s news, I tell you.” + +The minister glanced at his wife; then knocked the ashes from his pipe +and nodded dismissal to Audrey. His late secretary slipped from her +seat and left the room, not without alacrity. + +“Well?” demanded Darden, when the sound of the quick young feet had +died away. “Open your budget, Deborah. There’s naught in it, I’ll +swear, but some fal-lal about your flowered gown or an old woman’s +black cat and corner broomstick.” + +Mistress Deborah Darden pressed her thin lips together, and eyed her +lord and master with scant measure of conjugal fondness. “It’s about +some one nearer home than your bishops and commissaries,” she said. +“Hide passed by this morning, going to the river field. I was in the +garden, and he stopped to speak to me. Mr. Haward is home from England. +He came to the great house last night, and he ordered his horse for ten +o’clock this morning, and asked the nearest way through the fields to +the parsonage.” + +Darden whistled, and put down his drink untasted. + +“Enter the most powerful gentleman of my vestry!” he exclaimed. “He’ll +be that in a month’s time. A member of the Council, too, no doubt, and +with the Governor’s ear. He’s a scholar and fine gentleman. Deborah, +clear away this trash. Lay out my books, fetch a bottle of Canary, +and give me my Sunday coat. Put flowers on the table, and a dish of +bonchrétiens, and get on your tabby gown. Make your curtsy at the door; +then leave him to me.” + +“And Audrey?” said his wife. + +Darden, about to rise, sank back again and sat still, a hand upon +either arm of his chair. “Eh!” he said; then, in a meditative tone, +“That is so,--there is Audrey.” + +“If he has eyes, he’ll see that for himself,” retorted Mistress Deborah +tartly. “‘More to the purpose,’ he’ll say, ‘where is the money that I +gave you for her?’” + +“Why, it’s gone,” answered Darden “Gone in maintenance,--gone in meat +and drink and raiment. He didn’t want it buried. Pshaw, Deborah, he has +quite forgot his fine-lady plan! He forgot it years ago, I’ll swear.” + +“I’ll send her now on an errand to the Widow Constance’s,” said the +mistress of the house. “Then before he comes again I’ll get her a +gown”-- + +The minister brought his hand down upon the table. “You’ll do no such +thing!” he thundered. “The girl’s got to be here when he comes. As for +her dress, can’t she borrow from you? The Lord knows that though only +the wife of a poor parson, you might throw for gewgaws with a bona +roba! Go trick her out, and bring her here. I’ll attend to the wine and +the books.” + +When the door opened again, and Audrey, alarmed and wondering, slipped +with the wind into the room, and stood in the sunshine before the +minister, that worthy first frowned, then laughed, and finally swore. + +“’Swounds, Deborah, your hand is out! If I hadn’t taken you from +service, I’d swear that you were never inside a fine lady’s chamber. +What’s the matter with the girl’s skirt?” + +“She’s too tall!” cried the sometime waiting woman angrily. “As for +that great stain upon the silk, the wine made it when you threw your +tankard at me, last Sunday but one.” + +“That manteau pins her arms to her sides,” interrupted the minister +calmly, “and the lace is dirty. You’ve hidden all her hair under that +mazarine, and too many patches become not a brown skin. Turn around, +child!” + +While Audrey slowly revolved, the guardian of her fortunes, leaning +back in his chair, bent his bushy brows and gazed, not at the circling +figure in its tawdry apparel, but into the distance. When she stood +still and looked at him with a half-angry, half-frightened face, he +brought his bleared eyes to bear upon her, studied her for a minute, +then motioned to his wife. + +“She must take off this paltry finery, Deborah,” he announced. “I’ll +have none of it. Go, child, and don your Cinderella gown.” + +“What does it all mean?” cried Audrey, with heaving bosom. “Why did she +put these things upon me, and why will she tell me nothing? If Hugon +has hand in it”-- + +The minister made a gesture of contempt. “Hugon! Hugon, half Monacan +and half Frenchman, is bartering skins with a Quaker. Begone, child, +and when you are transformed return to us.” + +When the door had closed he turned upon his wife. “The girl has +been cared for,” he said. “She has been fed,--if not with cates and +dainties, then with bread and meat; she has been clothed,--if not in +silk and lace, then in good blue linen and penistone. She is young and +of the springtime, hath more learning than had many a princess of old +times, is innocent and good to look at. Thou and the rest of thy sex +are fools, Deborah, but wise men died not with Solomon. It matters not +about her dress.” + +Rising, he went to a shelf of battered, dog-eared books, and taking +down an armful proceeded to strew the volumes upon the table. The red +blooms of the columbine being in the way, he took up the bunch and +tossed it out of the window. With the light thud of the mass upon the +ground eyes of husband and wife met. + +“Hugon would marry the girl,” said the latter, twisting the hem of her +apron with restless fingers. + +Without change of countenance, Darden leaned forward, seized her by +the shoulder and shook her violently. “You are too given to idle and +meaningless words, Deborah,” he declared, releasing her. “By the Lord, +one of these days I’ll break you of the habit for good and all! Hugon, +and scarlet flowers, and who will marry Audrey, that is yet but a child +and useful about the house,--what has all this to do with the matter in +hand, which is simply to make ourselves and our house presentable in +the eyes of my chief parishioner? A man would think that thirteen years +in Virginia would teach any fool the necessity of standing well with +a powerful gentleman such as this. I’m no coward. Damn sanctimonious +parsons and my Lord Bishop’s Scotch hireling! If they yelp much longer +at my heels, I’ll scandalize them in good earnest! It’s thin ice, +though,--it’s thin ice; but I like this house and glebe, and I’m going +to live and die in them,--and die drunk, if I choose, Mr. Commissary +to the contrary! It’s of import, Deborah, that my parishioners, being +easy folk, willing to live and let live, should like me still, and that +a majority of my vestry should not be able to get on without me. With +this in mind, get out the wine, dust the best chair, and be ready with +thy curtsy. It will be time enough to cry Audrey’s banns when she is +asked in marriage.” + +Audrey, in her brown dress, with the color yet in her cheeks, entering +at the moment, Mistress Deborah attempted no response to her husband’s +adjuration. Darden turned to the girl. “I’ve done with the writing for +the nonce, child,” he said, “and need you no longer. I’ll smoke a pipe +and think of my sermon. You’re tired; out with you into the sunshine! +Go to the wood or down by the creek, but not beyond call, d’ye mind.” + +Audrey looked from one to the other, but said nothing. There were many +things in the world of other people which she did not understand; one +thing more or less made no great difference. But she did understand the +sunlit roof, the twilight halls, the patterned floor of the forest. +Blossoms drifting down, fleeing shadows, voices of wind and water, +and all murmurous elfin life spoke to her. They spoke the language of +her land; when she stepped out of the door into the air and faced the +portals of her world, they called to her to come. Lithe and slight and +light of foot, she answered to their piping. The orchard through which +she ran was fair with its rosy trees, like gayly dressed curtsying +dames; the slow, clear creek that held the double of the sky enticed, +but she passed it by. Straight as an arrow she pierced to the heart +of the wood that lay to the north. Thorn and bramble, branch of bloom +and entangling vine, stayed her not; long since she had found or had +made for herself a path to the centre of the labyrinth. Here was a +beech-tree, older by many a year than the young wood,--a solitary +tree spared by the axe what time its mates had fallen. Tall and +silver-gray the column of the trunk rose to meet wide branches and the +green lace-work of tender leaves. The earth beneath was clean swept, +and carpeted with the leaves of last year; a wide, dry, pale brown +enchanted ring, against whose borders pressed the riot of the forest. +Vine and bush, flower and fern, could not enter; but Audrey came and +laid herself down upon a cool and shady bed. + +By human measurement the house that she had left was hard by; even +from under the beech-tree Mistress Deborah’s thin call could draw her +back to the walls which sheltered her, which she had been taught to +call her home. But it was not her soul’s home, and now the veil of the +kindly woods withdrew it league on league, shut it out, made it as if +it had never been. From the charmed ring beneath the beech-tree she +took possession of her world; for her the wind murmured, the birds +sang, insects hummed or shrilled, the green saplings nodded their +heads. Flowers, and the bedded moss, and the little stream that leaped +from a precipice of three feet into the calm of a hand-deep pool spoke +to her. She was happy. Gone was the house and its inmates; gone Paris +the schoolmaster, who had taught her to write, and whose hand touching +hers in guidance made her sick and cold; gone Hugon the trader, whom +she feared and hated. Here were no toil, no annoy, no frightened +flutterings of the heart; she had passed the frontier, and was safe in +her own land. + +She pressed her cheek against the dead leaves, and, with the smell of +the earth in her nostrils, looked sideways with half-closed eyes and +made a radiant mist of the forest round about. A drowsy warmth was +in the air; the birds sang far away; through a rift in the foliage a +sunbeam came and rested beside her like A gilded snake. + +For a time, wrapped in the warmth and the green and gold mist, she +lay as quiet as the sunbeam; of the earth earthy, in pact with the +mould beneath the leaves, with the slowly crescent trunks, brown or +silver-gray, with moss and lichened rock, and with all life that basked +or crept or flew. At last, however, the mind aroused, and she opened +her eyes, saw, and thought of what she saw. It was pleasant in the +forest. She watched the flash of a bird, as blue as the sky, from limb +to limb; she listened to the elfin waterfall; she drew herself with +hand and arm across the leaves to the edge of the pale brown ring, +plucked a honeysuckle bough and brought it back to the silver column of +the beech; and lastly, glancing up from the rosy sprig within her hand, +she saw a man coming toward her, down the path that she had thought +hidden, holding his arm before him for shield against brier and branch, +and looking curiously about him as for a thing which he had come out to +seek. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE + + +In the moment in which she sprang to her feet she saw that it was +not Hugon, and her heart grew calm again. In her torn gown, with her +brown hair loosed from its fastenings, and falling over her shoulders +in heavy waves whose crests caught the sunlight, she stood against +the tree beneath which she had lain, gazed with wide-open eyes at the +intruder, and guessed from his fine coat and the sparkling toy looping +his hat that he was a gentleman. She knew gentlemen when she saw them: +on a time one had cursed her for scurrying like a partridge across the +road before his horse, making the beast come nigh to unseating him; +another, coming upon her and the Widow Constance’s Barbara gathering +fagots in the November woods, had tossed to each a sixpence; a third, +on vestry business with the minister, had touched her beneath the chin, +and sworn that an she were not so brown she were fair; a fourth, lying +hidden upon the bank of the creek, had caught her boat head as she +pushed it into the reeds, and had tried to kiss her. They had certain +ways, had gentlemen, but she knew no great harm of them. There was +one, now--but he would be like a prince. When at eventide the sky was +piled with pale towering clouds, and she looked, as she often looked, +down the river, toward the bay and the sea beyond, she always saw this +prince that she had woven--warp of memory, woof of dreams--stand erect +in the pearly light. There was a gentleman indeed! + +As to the possessor of the title now slowly and steadily making his way +toward her she was in a mere state of wonder. It was not possible that +he had lost his way; but if so, she was sorry that, in losing it, he +had found the slender zigzag of her path. A trustful child,--save where +Hugon was concerned,--she was not in the least afraid, and being of a +friendly mind looked at the approaching figure with shy kindliness, and +thought that he must have come from a distant part of the country. She +thought that had she ever seen him before she would have remembered it. + +Upon the outskirts of the ring, clear of the close embrace of flowering +bush and spreading vine. Haward paused, and looked with smiling eyes at +this girl of the woods, this forest creature that, springing from the +earth, had set its back against the tree. + +“Tarry awhile,” he said. “Slip not yet within the bark. Had I known, I +should have brought oblation of milk and honey.” + +“This is the thicket between Fair View and the glebe lands,” said +Audrey, who knew not what bark of tree and milk and honey had to do +with the case. “Over yonder, sir, is the road to the great house. This +path ends here; you must go back to the edge of the wood, then turn to +the south”-- + +“I have not lost my way,” answered Haward, still smiling. “It is +pleasant here in the shade, after the warmth of the open. May I not sit +down upon the leaves and talk to you for a while? I came out to find +you, you know.” + +As he spoke, and without waiting for the permission which he asked, +he crossed the rustling leaves, and threw himself down upon the earth +between two branching roots. Her skirt brushed his knee; with a +movement quick and shy she put more distance between them, then stood +and looked at him with wide, grave eyes. “Why do you say that you came +here to find me?” she asked. “I do not know you.” + +Haward laughed, nursing his knee and looking about him. “Let that pass +for a moment. You have the prettiest woodland parlor, child! Tell me, +do they treat you well over there?” with a jerk of his thumb toward the +glebe house. “Madam the shrew and his reverence the bully, are they +kind to you? Though they let you go like a beggar maid,”--he glanced +kindly enough at her bare feet and torn gown,--“yet they starve you +not, nor beat you, nor deny you aught in reason?” + +Audrey drew herself up. She had a proper pride, and she chose to +forget for this occasion a bruise upon her arm and the thrusting +upon her of Hugon’s company. “I do not know who you are, sir, that +ask me such questions,” she said sedately. “I have food and shelter +and--and--kindness. And I go barefoot only of week days”-- + +It was a brave beginning, but of a sudden she found it hard to go on. +She felt his eyes upon her and knew that he was unconvinced, and into +her own eyes came the large tears. They did not fall, but through +them she saw the forest swim in green and gold. “I have no father or +mother,” she said, “and no brother or sister. In all the world there is +no one that is kin to me.” + +Her voice, that was low and full and apt to fall into minor cadences, +died away, and she stood with her face raised and slightly turned from +the gentleman who lay at her feet, stretched out upon the sere beech +leaves. He did not seem inclined to speech, and for a time the little +brook and the birds and the wind in the trees sang undisturbed. + +“These woods are very beautiful,” said Haward at last, with his gaze +upon her, “but if the land were less level it were more to my taste. +Now, if this plain were a little valley couched among the hills, if to +the westward rose dark blue mountains like a rampart, if the runlet +yonder were broad and clear, if this beech were a sugar-tree”-- + +He broke off, content to see her eyes dilate, her bosom rise and fall, +her hand go trembling for support to the column of the beech. + +“Oh, the mountains!” she cried. “When the mist lifted, when the cloud +rested, when the sky was red behind them! Oh, the clear stream, and the +sugar-tree, and the cabin! Who are you? How did you know about these +things? Were you--were you there?” + +She turned upon him, with her soul in her eyes. As for him, lying at +length upon the ground, he locked his hands beneath his head and began +to sing, though scarce above his breath. He sang the song of Amiens:-- + + “Under the greenwood tree, + Who loves to lie with me.” + +When he had come to the end of the stanza he half rose, and turned +toward the mute and breathless figure leaning against the beech-tree. +For her the years had rolled back: one moment she stood upon the +doorstep of the cabin, and the air was filled with the trampling of +horses, with quick laughter, whistling, singing, and the call of a +trumpet; the next she ran, in night-time and in terror, between rows of +rustling corn, felt again the clasp of her pursuer, heard at her ear +the comfort of his voice. A film came between her eyes and the man at +whom she stared, and her heart grew cold. + +“Audrey,” said Haward, “come here, child.” + +The blood returned to her heart, her vision cleared, and her arm fell +from its clasp upon the tree. The bark opened not; the hamadryad had +lost the spell. When at his repeated command she crossed to him, she +went as the trusting, dumbly loving, dumbly grateful child whose life +he had saved, and whose comforter, protector, and guardian he had been. +When he took her hands in his she was glad to feel them there again, +and she had no blushes ready when he kissed her upon the forehead. It +was sweet to her who hungered for affection, who long ago had set his +image up, loving him purely as a sovereign spirit or as a dear and +great elder brother, to hear him call her again “little maid;” tell her +that she had not changed save in height; ask her if she remembered this +or that adventure, what time they had strayed in the woods together. +Remember! When at last, beneath his admirable management, the wonder +and the shyness melted away, and she found her tongue, memories came +in a torrent. The hilltop, the deep woods and the giant trees, the +house he had built for her out of stones and moss, the grapes they +had gathered, the fish they had caught, the thunderstorm when he had +snatched her out of the path of a stricken and falling pine, an alarm +of Indians, an alarm of wolves, finally the first faint sounds of the +returning expedition, the distant trumpet note, the nearer approach, +the bursting again into the valley of the Governor and his party, the +journey from that loved spot to Williamsburgh,--all sights and sounds, +thoughts and emotions, of that time, fast held through lonely years, +came at her call, and passed again in procession before them. Haward, +first amazed, then touched, reached at length the conclusion that the +years of her residence beneath the minister’s roof could not have been +happy; that she must always have put from her with shuddering and +horror the memory of the night which orphaned her; but that she had +passionately nursed, cherished, and loved all that she had of sweet and +dear, and that this all was the memory of her childhood in the valley, +and of that brief season when he had been her savior, protector, +friend, and playmate. He learned also--for she was too simple and +too glad either to withhold the information or to know that she had +given it--that in her girlish and innocent imaginings she had made of +him a fairy knight, clothing him in a panoply of power, mercy, and +tenderness, and setting him on high, so high that his very heel was +above the heads of the mortals within her ken. + +Keen enough in his perceptions, he was able to recognize that here was +a pure and imaginative spirit, strongly yearning after ideal strength, +beauty, and goodness. Given such a spirit, it was not unnatural that, +turning from sordid or unhappy surroundings as a flower turns from +shadow to the full face of the sun, she should have taken a memory +of valiant deeds, kind words, and a protecting arm, and have created +out of these a man after her own heart, endowing him with all heroic +attributes; at one and the same time sending him out into the world, +a knight-errant without fear and without reproach, and keeping him by +her side--the side of a child--in her own private wonderland. He saw +that she had done this, and he was ashamed. He did not tell her that +that eleven-years-distant fortnight was to him but a half-remembered +incident of a crowded life, and that to all intents and purposes she +herself had been forgotten. For one thing, it would have hurt her; +for another, he saw no reason why he should tell her. Upon occasion +he could be as ruthless as a stone; if he were so now he knew it +not, but in deceiving her deceived himself. Man of a world that was +corrupt enough, he was of course quietly assured that he could bend +this woodland creature--half child, half dryad--to the form of his +bidding. To do so was in his power, but not his pleasure. He meant to +leave her as she was; to accept the adoration of the child, but to +attempt no awakening of the woman. The girl was of the mountains, and +their higher, colder, purer air; though he had brought her body thence, +he would not have her spirit leave the climbing earth, the dreamlike +summits, for the hot and dusty plain. The plain, God knew, had dwellers +enough. + +She was a thing of wild and sylvan grace, and there was fulfillment +in a dark beauty all her own of the promise she had given as a child. +About her was a pathos, too,--the pathos of the flower taken from its +proper soil, and drooping in earth which nourished it not. Haward, +looking at her, watching the sensitive, mobile lips, reading in the +dark eyes, beneath the felicity of the present, a hint and prophecy +of woe, felt for her a pity so real and great that for the moment his +heart ached as for some sorrow of his own. She was only a young girl, +poor and helpless, born of poor and helpless parents dead long ago. +There was in her veins no gentle blood; she had none of the world’s +goods; her gown was torn, her feet went bare. She had youth, but not +its heritage of gladness: beauty, but none to see it; a nature that +reached toward light and height, and for its home the house which he +had lately left. He was a man older by many years than the girl beside +him, knowing good and evil; by instinct preferring the former, but at +times stooping, open-eyed, to that degree of the latter which a lax +and gay world held to be not incompatible with a convention somewhat +misnamed “the honor of a gentleman.” Now, beneath the beech-tree in the +forest which touched upon one side the glebe, upon the other his own +lands, he chose at this time the good; said to himself, and believed +the thing he said, that in word and in deed he would prove himself her +friend. + +Putting out his hand he drew her down upon the leaves; and she sat +beside him, still and happy, ready to answer him when he asked her +this or that, readier yet to sit in blissful, dreamy silence. She was +as pure as the flower which she held in her hand, and most innocent +in her imaginings. This was a very perfect knight, a great gentleman, +good and pitiful, that had saved her from the Indians when she was a +little girl, and had been kind to her,--ah, so kind! In that dreadful +night when she had lost father and mother and brother and sister, when +in the darkness her childish heart was a stone for terror, he had come, +like God, from the mountains, and straightway she was safe. Now into +her woods, from over the sea, he had come again, and at once the load +upon her heart, the dull longing and misery, the fear of Hugon, were +lifted. The chaplet which she laid at his feet was not loosely woven of +gay-colored flowers, but was compact of austerer blooms of gratitude, +reverence, and that love which is only a longing to serve. The glamour +was at hand, the enchanted light which breaks not from the east or the +west or the north or the south was upon its way; but she knew it not, +and she was happy in her ignorance. + +“I am tired of the city,” he said. “Now I shall stay in Virginia. A +longing for the river and the marshes and the house where I was born +came upon me”-- + +“I know,” she answered. “When I shut my eyes I see the cabin in the +valley, and when I dream it is of things which happen in a mountainous +country.” + +“I am alone in the great house,” he continued, “and the floors echo +somewhat loudly. The garden, too; beside myself there is no one +to smell the roses or to walk in the moonlight. I had forgotten +the isolation of these great plantations. Each is a province and a +despotism. If the despot has neither kith nor kin, has not yet made +friends, and cares not to draw company from the quarters, he is lonely. +They say that there are ladies in Virginia whose charms well-nigh +outweigh their dowries of sweet-scented and Oronoko. I will wed such an +one, and have laughter in my garden, and other footsteps than my own in +my house.” + +“There are beautiful ladies in these parts,” said Audrey. “There is the +one that gave me the guinea for my running yesterday. She was so very +fair. I wished with all my heart that I were like her.” + +“She is my friend,” said Haward slowly, “and her mind is as fair as her +face. I will tell her your story.” + +The gilded streak upon the earth beneath the beech had crept away, +but over the ferns and weeds and flowering bushes between the slight +trees without the ring the sunshine gloated. The blue of the sky was +wonderful, and in the silence Haward and Audrey heard the wind whisper +in the treetops. A dove moaned, and a hare ran past. + +“It was I who brought you from the mountains and placed you here,” said +Haward at last. “I thought it for the best, and that when I sailed away +I left you to a safe and happy life. It seems that I was mistaken. But +now that I am at home again, child, I wish you to look upon me, who am +so much your elder, as your guardian and protector still. If there is +anything which you lack, if you are misused, are in need of help, why, +think that your troubles are the Indians again, little maid, and turn +to me once more for help!” + +Having spoken honestly and well and very unwisely, he looked at his +watch and said that it was late. When he rose to his feet Audrey did +not move, and when he looked down upon her he saw that her eyes, that +had been wet, were overflowing. He put out his hand, and she took it +and touched it with her lips; then, because he said that he had not +meant to set her crying, she smiled, and with her own hand dashed away +the tears. + +“When I ride this way I shall always stop at the minister’s house,” +said Haward, “when, if there is aught which you need or wish, you must +tell me of it. Think of me as your friend, child.” + +He laid his hand lightly and caressingly upon her head. The ruffles +at his wrist, soft, fine, and perfumed, brushed her forehead and her +eyes. “The path through your labyrinth to its beechen heart was hard +to find,” he continued, “but I can easily retrace it. No, trouble not +yourself, child. Stay for a time where you are. I wish to speak to the +minister alone.” + +His hand was lifted. Audrey felt rather than saw him go. Only a few +feet, and the dogwood stars, the purple mist of the Judas-tree, the +white fragrance of a wild cherry, came like a painted arras between +them. For a time she could hear the movement of the branches as he put +them aside; but presently this too ceased, and the place was left to +her and to all the life that called it home. + +It was the same wood, surely, into which she had run two hours before, +and yet--and yet--When her tears were spent, and she stood up, leaning, +with her loosened hair and her gown that was the color of oak bark, +against the beech-tree, she looked about her and wondered. The wonder +did not last, for she found an explanation. + +“It has been blessed,” said Audrey, with all reverence and simplicity, +“and that is why the light is so different.” + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +MACLEAN TO THE RESCUE + + +Saunderson, the overseer, having laboriously written and signed a pass, +laid down the quill, wiped his inky forefinger upon his sleeve, and +gave the paper to the storekeeper, who sat idly by. + +“Ye’ll remember that the store chiefly lacks in broadcloth of Witney, +frieze and camlet, and in women’s shoes, both silk and callimanco. And +dinna forget to trade with Alick Ker for three small swords, a chafing +dish, and a dozen mourning and hand-and-heart rings. See that you have +the skins’ worth. Alick’s an awfu’ man to get the upper hand of.” + +“I’m thinking a MacLean should have small difficulty with a Ker,” said +the storekeeper dryly. “What I’m wanting to know is why I am saddled +with the company of Monsieur Jean Hugon.” He jerked his thumb toward +the figure of the trader standing within the doorway. “I do not like +the gentleman, and I’d rather trudge it to Williamsburgh alone.” + +“Ye ken not the value of the skins, nor how to show them off,” answered +the other. “Wherefore, for the consideration of a measure of rum, he’s +engaged to help you in the trading. As for his being half Indian, +Gude guide us! It’s been told me that no so many centuries ago the +Highlandmen painted their bodies and went into battle without taking +advantage even of feathers and silk grass. One half of him is of the +French nobeelity; he told me as much himself. And the best of ye--sic +as the Campbells--are no better than that.” + +He looked at MacLean with a caustic smile. The latter shrugged his +shoulders. “So long as you tie him neck and heels with a Campbell I +am content,” he answered. “Are you going? I’ll just bar the windows +and lock the door, and then I’ll be off with yonder copper cadet of a +French house. Good-day to you. I’ll be back to-night.” + +“Ye’d better,” said the overseer, with another widening of his thin +lips. “For myself, I bear ye no ill-will; for my grandmither--rest her +soul!--came frae the north, and I aye thought a Stewart better became +the throne than a foreign-speaking body frae Hanover. But if the store +is not open the morn I’ll raise hue and cry, and that without wasting +time. I’ve been told ye’re great huntsmen in the Highlands; if ye +choose to turn red deer yourself, I’ll give ye a chase, _and trade ye +down, man, and track ye down_.” + +MacLean half turned from the window. “I have hunted the red deer,” he +said, “in the land where I was born, and which I shall see no more, and +I have been myself hunted in the land where I shall die. I have run +until I have fallen, and I have felt the teeth of the dogs. Were God +to send a miracle--which he will not do--and I were to go back to the +glen and the crag and the deep birch woods, I suppose that I would hunt +again, would drive the stag to bay, holloing to my hounds, and thinking +the sound of the horns sweet music in my ears. It is the way of the +earth. Hunter and hunted, we make the world and the pity of it.” + +Setting to work again, he pushed to the heavy shutters. “You’ll find +them open in the morning,” he said, “and find me selling,--selling +clothing that I may not wear, wine that I may not drink, powder +and shot that I may not spend, swords that I may not use; and +giving,--giving pride, manhood, honor, heart’s blood”-- + +He broke off, shot to the bar across the shutters, and betook himself +in silence to the other window, where presently he burst into a fit +of laughter. The sound was harsh even to savagery. “Go your ways, +Saunderson,” he said. “I’ve tried the bars of the cage; they’re too +strong. Stop on your morning round, and I’ll give account of my +trading.” + +The overseer gone, the windows barred, and the heavy door shut and +locked behind him, MacLean paused upon the doorstep to look down upon +his appointed companion. The trader, half sitting, half reclining upon +a log, was striking at something with the point of his hunting-knife, +lightly, delicately, and often. The something was a lizard, about +which, as it lay in the sunshine upon the log, he had wrought a pen of +leafy twigs. The creature, darting for liberty this way and that, was +met at every turn by the steel, and at every turn suffered a new wound. +MacLean looked; then bent over and with a heavy stick struck the thing +out of its pain. + +“There’s a time to work and a time to play, Hugon,” he said coolly. +“Playtime’s over now. The sun is high, and Isaac and the oxen must have +the skins well-nigh to Williamsburgh. Up with you!” + +Hugon rose to his feet, slid his knife into its sheath, and announced +in good enough English that he was ready. He had youth, the slender, +hardy, perfectly moulded figure of the Indian, a coloring and a +countenance that were not of the white and not of the brown. When +he went a-trading up the river, past the thickly settled country, +past the falls, past the French town which his Huguenot father had +helped to build, into the deep woods and to the Indian village +whence had strayed his mother, he wore the clothing that became the +woods,--beaded moccasins, fringed leggings, hunting-shirt of deerskin, +cap of fur,--looked his part and played it well. When he came back to +an English country, to wharves and stores, to halls and porches of +great houses and parlors of lesser ones, to the streets and ordinaries +of Williamsburgh, he pulled on jack boots, shrugged himself into a +coat with silver buttons, stuck lace of a so-so quality at neck and +wrists, wore a cocked hat and a Blenheim wig, and became a figure alike +grotesque and terrible. Two thirds of the time his business caused +him to be in the forests that were far away; but when he returned to +civilization, to stare it in the face and brag within himself, “I am +lot and part of what I see!” he dwelt at the crossroads ordinary, drank +and gamed with Paris the schoolmaster and Darden the minister, and +dreamed (at times) of Darden’s Audrey. + +The miles to Williamsburgh were long and sunny, with the dust thick +beneath the feet. Warm and heavy, the scented spring possessed the +land. It was a day for drowsing in the shade: for them who must needs +walk in the sunshine, languor of thought overtook them, and sparsity of +speech. They walked rapidly, step with step, their two lean and sinewy +bodies casting the same length of shadow; but they kept their eyes upon +the long glare of white dust, and told not their dreams. At a point in +the road where the storekeeper saw only confused marks and a powdering +of dust upon the roadside bushes, the half-breed announced that there +had been that morning a scuffle in a gang of negroes; that a small man +had been thrown heavily to the earth, and a large man had made off +across a low ditch into the woods; that the overseer had parted the +combatants, and that some one’s back had bled. No sooner was this piece +of clairvoyance aired than he was vexed that he had shown a hall-mark +of the savage, and hastily explained that life in the woods, such as a +trader must live, would teach any man--an Englishman, now, as well as a +Frenchman--how to read what was written on the earth. Farther on, when +they came to a miniature glen between the semblance of two hills, down +which, in mockery of a torrent, brabbled a slim brown stream, MacLean +stood still, gazed for a minute, then, whistling, caught up with his +companion, and spoke at length upon the subject of the skins awaiting +them at Williamsburgh. + +The road had other travelers than themselves. At intervals a cloud of +dust would meet or overtake them, and out of the windows of coach or +chariot or lighter chaise faces would glance at them. In the thick dust +wheels and horses’ hoofs made no noise, the black coachmen sat still +upon the boxes, the faces were languid with the springtime. A moment +and all were gone. Oftener there passed a horseman. If he were riding +the planter’s pace, he went by like a whirlwind, troubling only to +curse them out of his path; if he had more leisure, he threw them a +good-morning, or perhaps drew rein to ask this or that of Hugon. The +trader was well known, and was an authority upon all matters pertaining +to hunting or trapping. The foot passengers were few, for in Virginia +no man walked that could ride, and on a morn of early May they that +walked were like to be busy in the fields. An ancient seaman, lame and +vagabond, lurched beside them for a while, then lagged behind; a witch, +old and bowed and bleared of eye, crossed their path; and a Sapony +hunter, with three wolves’ heads slung across his shoulder, slipped +by them on his way to claim the reward decreed by the Assembly. At a +turn of the road they came upon a small ordinary, with horses fastened +before it, and with laughter, oaths, and the rattling of dice issuing +from the open windows. The trader had money; the storekeeper had none. +The latter, though he was thirsty, would have passed on; but Hugon +twitched him by the sleeve, and producing from the depths of his great +flapped pocket a handful of crusadoes, écues, and pieces of eight, +indicated with a flourish that he was prepared to share with his less +fortunate companion. + +They drank standing, kissed the girl who served them, and took to the +road again. There were no more thick woods, the road running in a blaze +of sunshine past clumps of cedars and wayside tangles of blackberry, +sumac, and elder. Presently, beyond a group of elms, came into sight +the goodly college of William and Mary, and, dazzling white against the +blue, the spire of Bruton church. + +Within a wide pasture pertaining to the college, close to the roadside +and under the boughs of a vast poplar, half a score of students were +at play. Their lithe young bodies were dark of hue and were not +overburdened with clothing; their countenances remained unmoved, +without laughter or grimacing; and no excitement breathed in the voices +with which they called one to another. In deep gravity they tossed a +ball, or pitched a quoit, or engaged in wrestling. A white man, with a +singularly pure and gentle face, sat upon the grass at the foot of the +tree, and watched the studious efforts of his pupils with an approving +smile. + +“Wildcats to purr upon the hearth, and Indians to go to school!” quoth +MacLean. “Were you taught here, Hugon, and did you play so sadly?” + +The trader, his head held very high, drew out a large and bedizened +snuffbox, and took snuff with ostentation. “My father was of a great +tribe--I would say a great house--in the country called France,” he +explained, with dignity. “Oh, he was of a very great name indeed! His +blood was--what do you call it?--_blue_. I am the son of my father: +I am a Frenchman. _Bien_! My father dies, having always kept me with +him at Monacan-Town; and when they have laid him full length in the +ground, Monsieur le Marquis calls me to him. ‘Jean,’ says he, and his +voice is like the ice in the stream, ‘Jean, you have ten years, and +your father--may _le bon Dieu_ pardon his sins!--has left his wishes +regarding you and money for your maintenance. To-morrow Messieurs de +Sailly and de Breuil go down the river to talk of affairs with the +English Governor. You will go with them, and they will leave you at the +Indian school which the English have built near to the great college +in their town of Williamsburgh. There you will stay, learning all that +Englishmen can teach you, until you have eighteen years. Come back to +me then, and with the money left by your father you shall be fitted out +as a trader. Go!’ ... Yes, I went to school here; but I learned fast, +and did not forget the things I learned, and I played with the English +boys--there being no scholars from France--on the other side of the +pasture.” + +He waved his hand toward an irruption of laughing, shouting figures +from the north wing of the college. The white man under the tree had +been quietly observant of the two wayfarers, and he now rose to his +feet, and came over to the rail fence against which they leaned. + +“Ha, Jean Hugon!” he said pleasantly, touching with his thin white hand +the brown one of the trader. “I thought it had been my old scholar! +Canst say the belief and the Commandments yet, Jean? Yonder great +fellow with the ball is Meshawa,--Meshawa that was a little, little +fellow when you went away. All your other playmates are gone,--though +you did not play much, Jean, but gloomed and gloomed because you must +stay this side of the meadow with your own color. Will you not cross +the fence and sit awhile with your old master?” + +As he spoke he regarded with a humorous smile the dusty glories of his +sometime pupil, and when he had come to an end he turned and made as if +to beckon to the Indian with the ball. But Hugon drew his hand away, +straightened himself, and set his face like a flint toward the town. +“I am sorry, I have no time to-day,” he said stiffly. “My friend and I +have business in town with men of my own color. My color is white. I do +not want to see Meshawa or the others. I have forgotten them.” + +He turned away, but a thought striking him his face brightened, and +plunging his hand into his pocket he again brought forth his glittering +store. “Nowadays I have money,” he said grandly. “It used to be that +Indian braves brought Meshawa and the others presents, because they +were the sons of their great men. I was the son of a great man, too; +but he was not Indian and he was lying in his grave, and no one brought +me gifts. Now I wish to give presents. Here are ten coins, master. Give +one to each Indian boy, the largest to Meshawa.” + +The Indian teacher, Charles Griffin by name, looked with a whimsical +face at the silver pieces laid arow upon the top rail. “Very well, +Jean,” he said. “It is good to give of thy substance. Meshawa and the +others will have a feast. Yes, I will remember to tell them to whom +they owe it. Good-day to you both.” + +The meadow, the solemnly playing Indians, and their gentle teacher +were left behind, and the two men, passing the long college all astare +with windows, the Indian school, and an expanse of grass starred with +buttercups, came into Duke of Gloucester Street. Broad, unpaved, deep +in dust, shaded upon its ragged edges by mulberries and poplars, it +ran without shadow of turning from the gates of William and Mary to +the wide sweep before the Capitol. Houses bordered it, flush with the +street or set back in fragrant gardens; other and narrower ways opened +from it; half way down its length wide greens, where the buttercups +were thick in the grass, stretched north and south. Beyond these greens +were more houses, more mulberries and poplars, and finally, closing the +vista, the brick façade of the Capitol. + +The two from Fair View plantation kept their forest gait; for the +trader was in a hurry to fulfill his part of the bargain, which was +merely to exhibit and value the skins. There was an ordinary in +Nicholson Street that was to his liking. Sailors gamed there, and other +traders, and half a dozen younger sons of broken gentlemen. It was as +cleanly dining in its chief room as in the woods, and the aqua vitæ, if +bad, was cheap. In good humor with himself, and by nature lavish with +his earnings, he offered to make the storekeeper his guest for the day. +The latter curtly declined the invitation. He had bread and meat in his +wallet, and wanted no drink but water. He would dine beneath the trees +on the market green, would finish his business in town, and be half way +back to the plantation while the trader--being his own man, with no +fear of hue and cry if he were missed--was still at hazard. + +This question settled, the two kept each other company for several +hours longer, at the end of which time they issued from the store at +which the greater part of their business had been transacted, and +went their several ways,--Hugon to the ordinary in Nicholson Street, +and MacLean to his dinner beneath the sycamores on the green. When +the frugal meal had been eaten, the latter recrossed the sward to the +street, and took up again the round of his commissions. + +It was after three by the great clock in the cupola of the Capitol when +he stood before the door of Alexander Ker, the silversmith, and found +entrance made difficult by the serried shoulders of half a dozen young +men standing within the store, laughing, and making bantering speeches +to some one hidden from the Highlander’s vision. Presently an appealing +voice, followed by a low cry, proclaimed that the some one was a woman. + +MacLean had a lean and wiry strength which had stood him in good stead +upon more than one occasion in his checkered career. He now drove an +arm like a bar of iron between two broadcloth coats, sent the wearers +thereof to right and left, and found himself one of an inner ring +and facing Mistress Truelove Taberer, who stood at bay against the +silversmith’s long table. One arm was around the boy who had rowed her +to the Fair View store a week agone; with the other she was defending +her face from the attack of a beribboned gallant desirous of a kiss. +The boy, a slender, delicate lad of fourteen, struggled to free himself +from his sister’s restraining arm, his face white with passion and his +breath coming in gasps. “Let me go, Truelove!” he commanded. “If I am a +Friend, I am a man as well! Thou fellow with the shoulder knots, thee +shall pay dearly for thy insolence!” + +Truelove tightened her hold. “Ephraim, Ephraim! If a man compel thee to +go with him a mile, thee is to go with him twain; if he take thy cloak, +thee is to give him thy coat also; if he--Ah!” She buried her profaned +cheek in her arm and began to cry, but very softly. + +Her tormentors, flushed with wine and sworn to obtain each one a kiss, +laughed more loudly, and one young rake, with wig and ruffles awry, +lurched forward to take the place of the coxcomb who had scored. +Ephraim wrenched himself free, and making for this gentleman might have +given or received bodily injury, had not a heavy hand falling upon his +shoulder stopped him in mid-career. + +“Stand aside, boy,” said MacLean, “This quarrel’s mine by virtue of my +making it so. Mistress Truelove, you shall have no further annoyance. +Now, you Lowland cowards that cannot see a flower bloom but you wish to +trample it in the mire, come taste the ground yourself, and be taught +that the flower is out of reach!” + +As he spoke he stepped before the Quakeress, weaponless, but with his +eyes like steel. The half dozen spendthrifts and ne’er-do-weels whom he +faced paused but long enough to see that this newly arrived champion +had only his bare hands, and was, by token of his dress, undoubtedly +their inferior, before setting upon him with drunken laughter and the +loudly avowed purpose of administering a drubbing. The one that came +first he sent rolling to the floor. “Another for Hector!” he said +coolly. + +The silversmith, ensconced in safety behind the table, wrung his hands. +“Sirs, sirs! Take your quarrel into the street! I’ll no have fighting +in my store. What did ye rin in here for, ye Quaker baggage? Losh! did +ye ever see the like of that! Here, boy, ye can get through the window. +Rin for the constable! Rin, I tell ye, or there’ll be murder done!” + +A gentleman who had entered the store unobserved drew his rapier, and +with it struck up a heavy cane which was in the act of descending for +the second time upon the head of the unlucky Scot. “What is all this?” +he asked quietly. “Five men against one,--that is hardly fair play. Ah, +I see there were six; I had overlooked the gentleman on the floor, who, +I hope, is only stunned. Five to one,--the odds are heavy. Perhaps I +can make them less so.” With a smile upon his lips, he stepped backward +a foot or two until he stood with the weaker side. + +Now, had it been the constable who so suddenly appeared upon the scene, +the probabilities are that the fight, both sides having warmed to it, +would, despite the terrors of the law, have been carried to a finish. +But it was not the constable; it was a gentleman recently returned from +England, and become in the eyes of the youth of Williamsburgh the glass +of fashion and the mould of form. The youngster with the shoulder knots +had copied color and width of ribbon from a suit which this gentleman +had worn at the Palace; the rake with the wig awry, who passed for a +wit, had done him the honor to learn by heart portions of his play, and +to repeat (without quotation marks) a number of his epigrams; while +the pretty fellow whose cane he had struck up practiced night and +morning before a mirror his bow and manner of presenting his snuffbox. +A fourth ruffler desired office, and cared not to offend a prospective +Councilor. There was rumor, too, of a grand entertainment to be given +at Fair View; it was good to stand well with the law, but it was +imperative to do so with Mr. Marmaduke Haward. Their hands fell; they +drew back a pace, and the wit made himself spokesman. Roses were rare +so early in the year; for him and his companions, they had but wished +to compliment those that bloomed in the cheeks of the pretty Quakeress. +This servant fellow, breathing fire like a dragon, had taken it upon +himself to defend the roses,--which likely enough were grown for +him,--and so had been about to bring upon himself merited chastisement. +However, since it was Mr. Marmaduke Haward who pleaded for him--A full +stop, a low bow, and a flourish. “Will Mr. Haward honor me? ’Tis right +Macouba, and the box--if the author of ‘The Puppet Show’ would deign to +accept it”-- + +“Rather to change with you, sir,” said the other urbanely, and drew out +his own chased and medallioned box. + +The gentleman upon the floor had now gotten unsteadily to his feet. Mr. +Haward took snuff with each of the six; asked after the father of one, +the brother of another; delicately intimated his pleasure in finding +the noble order of Mohocks, that had lately died in London, resurrected +in Virginia; and fairly bowed the flattered youths out of the store. He +stood for a moment upon the threshold watching them go triumphantly, +if unsteadily, up the street; then turned to the interior of the store +to find MacLean seated upon a stool, with his head against the table, +submitting with a smile of pure content to the ministrations of the +dove-like mover of the late turmoil, who with trembling fingers was +striving to bind her kerchief about a great cut in his forehead. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +HAWARD AND EVELYN + + +MacLean put aside with much gentleness the hands of his surgeon, and, +rising to his feet, answered the question in Haward’s eyes by producing +a slip of paper and gravely proffering it to the man whom he served. +Haward took it, read it, and handed it back; then turned to the Quaker +maiden. “Mistress Truelove Taberer,” he said courteously. “Are you +staying in town? If you will tell me where you lodge, I will myself +conduct you thither.” + +Truelove shook her head, and slipped her hand into that of her brother +Ephraim. “I thank thee, friend,” she said, with gentle dignity, “and +thee, too, Angus MacLean, though I grieve that thee sees not that it +is not given us to meet evil with evil, nor to withstand force with +force. Ephraim and I can now go in peace. I thank thee again, friend, +and thee.” She gave her hand first to Haward, then to MacLean. The +former, knowing the fashion of the Quakers, held the small fingers a +moment, then let them drop; the latter, knowing it, too, raised them to +his lips and imprinted upon them an impassioned kiss. Truelove blushed, +then frowned, last of all drew her hand away. + +With the final glimpse of her gray skirt the Highlander came back to +the present. “Singly I could have answered for them all, one after the +other,” he said stiffly. “Together they had the advantage. I pay my +debt and give you thanks, sir.” + +“That is an ugly cut across your forehead,” replied Haward. “Mr. Ker +had best bring you a basin of water. Or stay! I am going to my lodging. +Come with me, and Juba shall dress the wound properly.” + +MacLean turned his keen blue eyes upon him. “Am I to understand that +you give me a command, or that you extend to me an invitation? In the +latter case, I should prefer”-- + +“Then take it as a command,” said Haward imperturbably. “I wish your +company. Mr. Ker, good-day; I will buy the piece of plate which you +showed me yesterday.” + +The two moved down the room together, but at the door MacLean, with his +face set like a flint, stood aside, and Haward passed out first, then +waited for the other to come up with him. + +“When I drink a cup I drain it to the dregs,” said the Scot. “I walk +behind the man who commands me. The way, you see, is not broad enough +for you and me and hatred.” + +“Then let hatred lag behind,” answered Haward coolly. “I have negroes +to walk at my heels when I go abroad. I take you for a gentleman, +accept your enmity an it please you, but protest against standing here +in the hot sunshine.” + +With a shrug MacLean joined him. “As you please,” he said. “I have in +spirit moved with you through London streets. I never thought to walk +with you in the flesh.” + +It was yet warm and bright in the street, the dust thick, the air +heavy with the odors of the May. Haward and MacLean walked in silence, +each as to the other, one as to the world at large. Now and again +the Virginian must stop to bow profoundly to curtsying ladies, or to +take snuff with some portly Councilor or less stately Burgess who, +coming from the Capitol, chanced to overtake them. When he paused his +storekeeper paused also, but, having no notice taken of him beyond a +glance to discern his quality, needed neither a supple back nor a ready +smile. + +Haward lodged upon Palace Street, in a square brick house, lived in by +an ancient couple who could remember Puritan rule in Virginia, who had +served Sir William Berkeley, and had witnessed the burning of Jamestown +by Bacon. There was a grassy yard to the house, and the path to the +door lay through an alley of lilacs, purple and white. The door was +open, and Haward and MacLean, entering, crossed the hall, and going +into a large, low room, into which the late sunshine was streaming, +found the negro Juba setting cakes and wine upon the table. + +“This gentleman hath a broken head, Juba,” said the master. “Bring +water and linen, and bind it up for him.” + +As he spoke he laid aside hat and rapier, and motioned MacLean to a +seat by the window. The latter obeyed the gesture in silence, and in +silence submitted to the ministrations of the negro. Haward, sitting at +the table, waited until the wound had been dressed; then with a wave of +the hand dismissed the black. + +“You would take nothing at my hands the other day,” he said to the grim +figure at the window. “Change your mind, my friend,--or my foe,--and +come sit and drink with me.” + +MacLean reared himself from his seat, and went stiffly over to the +table. “I have eaten and drunken with an enemy before to-day,” he said. +“Once I met Ewin Mor Mackinnon upon a mountain side. He had oatcake in +his sporran, and I a flask of usquebaugh. We couched in the heather, +and ate and drank together, and then we rose and fought. I should have +slain him but that a dozen Mackinnons came up the glen, and he turned +and fled to them for cover. Here I am in an alien land; a thousand +fiery crosses would not bring one clansman to my side; I cannot fight +my foe. Wherefore, then, should I take favors at his hands?” + +“Why should you be my foe?” demanded Haward. “Look you, now! There was +a time, I suppose, when I was an insolent youngster like any one of +those who lately set upon you; but now I call myself a philosopher and +man of a world for whose opinions I care not overmuch. My coat is of +fine cloth, and my shirt of holland; your shirt is lockram, and you +wear no coat at all: _ergo_, saith a world of pretty fellows, we are +beings of separate planets. ‘As the cloth is, the man is,’--to which +doctrine I am at times heretic. I have some store of yellow metal, +and spend my days in ridding myself of it,--a feat which you have +accomplished. A goodly number of acres is also counted unto me, but in +the end my holding and your holding will measure the same. I walk a +level road; you have met with your precipice, and, bruised by the fall, +you move along stony ways; but through the same gateway we go at last. +Fate, not I, put you here. Why should you hate me who am of your order?” + +MacLean left the table, and twice walked the length of the room, slowly +and with knitted brows. “If you mean the world-wide order,--the order +of gentlemen,”--he said, coming to a pause with the breadth of the +table between him and Haward, “we may have that ground in common. The +rest is debatable land. I do not take you for a sentimentalist or a +redresser of wrongs. I am your storekeeper, purchased with that same +yellow metal of which you so busily rid yourself; and your storekeeper +I shall remain until the natural death of my term, two years hence. +We are not countrymen; we own different kings; I may once have walked +your level road, but you have never moved in the stony ways; my eyes +are blue, while yours are gray; you love your melting Southern music, +and I take no joy save in the pipes; I dare swear you like the smell +of lilies which I cannot abide, and prefer fair hair in women where I +would choose the dark. There is no likeness between us. Why, then”-- + +Haward smiled, and drawing two glasses toward him slowly filled them +with wine. “It is true,” he said, “that it is not my intention to +become a petitioner for the pardon of a rebel to his serene and German +Majesty the King; true also that I like the fragrance of the lily. I +have my fancies. Say that I am a man of whim, and that, living in a +lonely house set in a Sahara of tobacco fields, it is my whim to desire +the acquaintance of the only gentleman within some miles of me. Say +that my fancy hath been caught by a picture drawn for me a week agone; +that, being a philosopher, I play with the idea that your spirit, knife +in hand, walked at my elbow for ten years, and I knew it not. Say that +the idea has for me a curious fascination. Say, finally, that I plume +myself that, given the chance, I might break down this airy hatred.” + +He set down the bottle, and pushed one of the brimming glasses across +the table. “I should like to make trial of my strength,” he said, +with, a laugh. “Come! I did you a service to-day; in your turn do me a +pleasure.” + +MacLean dragged a chair to the table, and sat down. “I will drink +with you,” he said, “and forget for an hour. A man grows tired--It is +Burgundy, is it not? Old Borlum and I emptied a bottle between us, the +day he went as hostage to Wills; since then I have not tasted wine. +’Tis a pretty color.” + +Haward lifted his glass. “I drink to your future. Freedom, better days, +a stake in a virgin land, friendship with a sometime foe.” He bowed to +his guest and drank. + +“In my country,” answered MacLean, “where we would do most honor, we +drink not to life, but to death. _Crioch onarach!_ Like a gentleman may +you die.” He drank, and sighed with pleasure. + +“The King!” said Haward. There was a china bowl, filled with red +anemones, upon the table. MacLean drew it toward him, and, pressing +aside the mass of bloom, passed his glass over the water in the bowl. +“The King! with all my heart,” he said imperturbably. + +Haward poured more wine. “I have toasted at the Kit-Kat many a piece of +brocade and lace less fair than yon bit of Quaker gray that cost you a +broken head. Shall we drink to Mistress Truelove Taberer?” + +By now the Burgundy had warmed the heart and loosened the tongue of +the man who had not tasted wine since the surrender of Preston. “It is +but a mile from the store to her father’s house,” he said. “Sometimes +on Sundays I go up the creek upon the Fair View side, and when I am +over against the house I holloa. Ephraim comes, in his boat and rows me +across, and I stay for an hour. They are strange folk, the Quakers. In +her sight and in that of her people I am as good a man as you. ‘Friend +Angus MacLean,’ ‘Friend Marmaduke Haward,’--world’s wealth and world’s +rank quite beside the question.” + +He drank, and commended the wine. Haward struck a silver bell, and bade +Juba bring another bottle. + +“When do you come again to the house at Fair View?” asked the +storekeeper. + +“Very shortly. It is a lonely place, where ghosts bear me company. I +hope that now and then, when I ask it, and when the duties of your day +are ended, you will come help me exorcise them. You shall find welcome +and good wine.” He spoke very courteously, and if he saw the humor of +the situation his smile betrayed him not. + +MacLean took a flower from the bowl, and plucked at its petals with +nervous fingers. “Do you mean that?” he asked at last. + +Haward leaned across the table, and their eyes met. “On my word I do,” +said the Virginian. + +The knocker on the house door sounded loudly, and a moment later a +woman’s clear voice, followed by a man’s deeper tones, was heard in the +hall. + +“More guests,” said Haward lightly. “You are a Jacobite; I +drink my chocolate at St. James’ Coffee House; the gentleman +approaching--despite his friendship for Orrery and for the Bishop of +Rochester--is but a Hanover Tory; but the lady,--the lady wears only +white roses, and every 10th of June makes a birthday feast.” + +The storekeeper rose hastily to take his leave, but was prevented both +by Haward’s restraining gesture and by the entrance of the two visitors +who were now ushered in by the grinning Juba. Haward stepped forward. +“You are very welcome, Colonel. Evelyn, this is kind. Your woman told +me this morning that you were not well, else”-- + +“A migraine,” she answered, in her clear, low voice. “I am better now, +and my father desired me to take the air with him.” + +“We return to Westover to-morrow,” said that sprightly gentleman. +“Evelyn is like David of old, and pines for water from the spring at +home. It also appears that the many houses and thronged streets of this +town weary her, who, poor child, is used to an Arcady called London! +When will you come to us at Westover, Marmaduke?” + +“I cannot tell,” Haward answered. “I must first put my own house in +order, so that I may in my turn entertain my friends.” + +As he spoke he moved aside, so as to include in the company MacLean, +who stood beside the table. “Evelyn,” he said, “let me make known to +you--and to you, Colonel--a Scots gentleman who hath broken his spear +in his tilt with fortune, as hath been the luck of many a gallant man +before him. Mistress Evelyn Byrd, Colonel Byrd--Mr. MacLean, who was an +officer in the Highland force taken at Preston, and who has been for +some years a prisoner of war in Virginia.” + +The lady’s curtsy was low; the Colonel bowed as to his friend’s friend. +If his eyebrows went up, and if a smile twitched the corners of his +lips, the falling curls of his periwig hid from view these tokens of +amused wonder. MacLean bowed somewhat stiffly, as one grown rusty in +such matters. “I am in addition Mr. Marmaduke Haward’s storekeeper,” +he said succinctly, then turned to the master of Fair View. “It grows +late,” he announced, “and I must be back at the store to-night. Have +you any message for Saunderson?” + +“None,” answered Haward. “I go myself to Fair View to-morrow, and then +I shall ask you to drink with me again.” + +As he spoke he held out his hand. MacLean looked at it, sighed, then +touched it with his own. A gleam as of wintry laughter came into his +blue eyes. “I doubt that I shall have to get me a new foe,” he said, +with regret in his voice. + +When he had bowed to the lady and to her father, and had gone out +of the room and down the lilac-bordered path and through the gate, +and when the three at the window had watched him turn into Duke of +Gloucester Street, the master of Westover looked at the master of +Fair View and burst out laughing. “Ludwell hath for an overseer the +scapegrace younger son of a baronet; and there are three brothers of an +excellent name under indentures to Robert Carter. I have at Westover a +gardener who annually makes the motto of his house to spring in pease +and asparagus. I have not had him to drink with me yet, and t’other day +I heard Ludwell give to the baronet’s son a hound’s rating.” + +“I do not drink with the name,” said Haward coolly. “I drink with the +man. The churl or coward may pass me by, but the gentleman, though his +hands be empty, I stop.” + +The other laughed again; then dismissed the question with a wave of his +hand, and pulled out a great gold watch with cornelian seals. “Carter +swears that Dr. Contesse hath a specific that is as sovereign for the +gout as is St. Andrew’s cross for a rattlesnake bite. I’ve had twinges +lately, and the doctor lives hard by. Evelyn, will you rest here while +I go petition Æsculapius? Haward, when I have the recipe I will return, +and impart it to you against the time when you need it. No, no, child, +stay where you are! I will be back anon.” + +Having waved aside his daughter’s faint protest, the Colonel +departed,--a gallant figure of a man, with a pretty wit and a heart +that was benevolently gay. As he went down the path he paused to +gather a sprig of lilac. “Westover--Fair View,” he said to himself, +and smiled, and smelled the lilac; then--though his ills were somewhat +apocryphal--walked off at a gouty pace across the buttercup-sprinkled +green toward the house of Dr. Contesse. + +Haward and Evelyn, left alone, kept silence for a time in the quiet +room that was filled with late sunshine and the fragrance of flowers. +He stood by the window, and she sat in a great chair, with her hands +folded in her lap, and her eyes upon them. When silence had become more +loud than speech, she turned in her seat and addressed herself to him. + +“I have known you do many good deeds,” she said slowly. “That gentleman +that was here is your servant, is he not, and an exile, and unhappy? +And you sent him away comforted. It was a generous thing.” + +Haward moved restlessly. “A generous thing,” he answered. “Ay, it +was generous. I can do such things at times, and why I do them who +can tell? Not I! Do you think that I care for that grim Highlander, +who drinks my death in place of my health, who is of a nation that I +dislike, and a party that is not mine?” + +She shook her head. “I do not know. And yet you helped him.” + +Haward left the window, and came and sat beside her. “Yes, I helped +him. I am not sure, but I think I did it because, when first we met, +he told me that he hated me, and meant the thing he said. It is my +humor to fix my own position in men’s minds; to lose the thing I have +that I may gain the thing I have not; to overcome, and never prize the +victory; to hunt down a quarry, and feel no ardor in the chase; to +strain after a goal, and yet care not if I never reach it.” + +He took her fan in his hand, and fell to counting the slender ivory +sticks. “I tread the stage as a fine gentleman,” he said. “It is the +part for which I was cast, and I play it well with proper mien and +gait. I was not asked if I would like the part, but I think that I do +like it, as much as I like anything. Seeing that I must play it, and +that there is that within me which cries out against slovenliness, I +play it as an artist should. Magnanimity goes with it, does it not, and +generosity, courtesy, care for the thing which is, and not for that +which seems? Why, then, with these and other qualities I strive to +endow the character.” + +He closed the fan, and, leaning back in his chair, shaded his eyes with +his hand. “When the lights are out,” he said; “when forever and a night +the actor bids the stage farewell; when, stripped of mask and tinsel, +he goes home to that Auditor who set him his part, then perhaps he +will be told what manner of man he is. The glass that now he dresses +before tells him not; but he thinks a truer glass would show a shrunken +figure.” + +He sat in silence for a moment; then laughed, and gave her back her +fan. “Am I to come to Westover, Evelyn?” he asked. “Your father +presses, and I have not known what answer to make him.” + +“You will give us pleasure by your coming,” she said gently and at +once. “My father wishes your advice as to the ordering of his library; +and you know that my pretty stepmother likes you well.” + +“Will it please you to have me come?” he asked, with his eyes upon her +face. + +She met his gaze very quietly. “Why not?” she answered simply. “You +will help me in my flower garden, and sing with me in the evening, as +of old.” + +“Evelyn,” he said, “if what I am about to say to you distresses you, +lift your hand, and I will cease to speak. Since a day and an hour in +the woods yonder, I have been thinking much. I wish to wipe that hour +from your memory as I wipe it from mine, and to begin afresh. You are +the fairest woman that I know, and the best. I beg you to accept my +reverence, homage, love; not the boy’s love, perhaps; perhaps not the +love that some men have to squander, but _my_ love. A quiet love, a +lasting trust, deep pride and pleasure”-- + +At her gesture he broke off, sat in silence for a moment, then rising +went to the window, and with slightly contracted brows stood looking +out at the sunshine that was slipping away. Presently he was aware that +she stood beside him. + +She was holding out her hand. “It is that of a friend,” she said. “No, +do not kiss it, for that is the act of a lover. And you are not my +lover,--oh, not yet, not yet!” A soft, exquisite blush stole over her +face and neck, but she did not lower her lovely candid eyes. “Perhaps +some day, some summer day at Westover, it will all be different,” she +breathed, and turned away. + +Haward caught her hand, and bending pressed his lips upon it. “It is +different now!” he cried. “Next week I shall come to Westover!” + +He led her back to the great chair, and presently she asked some +question as to the house at Fair View. He plunged into an account of +the cases of goods which had followed him from England by the Falcon, +and which now lay in the rooms that were yet to be swept and garnished; +then spoke lightly and whimsically of the solitary state in which he +must live, and of the entertainments which, to be in the Virginia +fashion, he must give. While he talked she sat and watched him, with +the faint smile upon her lips. The sunshine left the floor and the +wall, and a dankness from the long grass and the closing flowers and +the heavy trees in the adjacent churchyard stole into the room. With +the coming of the dusk conversation languished, and the two sat in +silence until the return of the Colonel. + +If that gentleman did not light the darkness like a star, at least +his entrance into a room invariably produced the effect of a sudden +accession of was lights, very fine and clear and bright. He broke a +jest or two, bade laughing farewell to the master of Fair View, and +carried off his daughter upon his arm. Haward walked with them to the +gate, and came back alone, stepping thoughtfully between the lilac +bushes. + +It was not until Juba had brought candles, and he had taken his seat at +table before the half-emptied bottle of wine, that it came to Haward +that he had wished to tell Evelyn of the brown girl who had run for the +guinea, but had forgotten to do so. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AUDREY OF THE GARDEN + + +The creek that ran between Fairview and the glebe lands was narrow and +deep; upon it, moored to a stake driven into a bit of marshy ground +below the orchard, lay a crazy boat belonging to the minister. To this +boat, of an early, sunny morning, came Audrey, and, standing erect, +pole in hand, pushed out from the reedy bank into the slow-moving +stream. It moved so slowly and was so clear that its depth seemed +the blue depth of the sky, with now and then a tranquil cloud to be +glided over. The banks were low and of the greenest grass, save where +they sank still lower and reeds abounded, or where some colored bush, +heavy with bloom, bent to meet its reflected image. It was so fair +that Audrey began to sing as she went down the stream; and without +knowing why she chose it, she sang a love song learned out of one of +Darden’s ungodly books, a plaintive and passionate lay addressed by +some cavalier to his mistress of an hour. She sang not loudly, but very +sweetly; carelessly, too, and as if to herself; now and then repeating +a line twice or maybe thrice; pleased with the sweet melancholy of the +notes, but not thinking overmuch of the meaning of the words. They +died upon her lips when Hugon rose from a lair of reeds and called to +her to stop. “Come to the shore, ma’m’selle!” he cried. “See, I have +brought you a ribbon from the town. Behold!” and he fluttered a crimson +streamer. + +Audrey caught her breath; then gazed, reassured, at the five yards of +water between her and the bank. Had Hugon stood there in his hunting +dress, she would have felt them no security; but he was wearing his +coat and breeches of fine cloth, his ruffled shirt, and his great black +periwig. A wetting would not be to his mind. + +As she answered not, but went on her way, silent now, and with her +slender figure bending with the motion of the pole, he frowned and +shrugged; then took up his pilgrimage, and with his light and swinging +stride kept alongside of the boat. The ribbon lay across his arm, +and he turned it in the sunshine. “If you come not and get it,” he +wheedled, “I will throw it in the water.” + +The angry tears sprang to Audrey’s eyes. “Do so, and save me the +trouble,” she answered, and then was sorry that she had spoken. + +The red came into the swarthy cheeks of the man upon the bank. “You +love me not,” he said. “Good! You have told me so before. But here I +am!” + +“Then here is a coward!” said Audrey. “I do not wish you to walk there. +I do not wish you to speak to me. Go back!” + +Hugon’s teeth began to show. “I go not,” he answered, with something +between a snarl and a smirk. “I love you, and I follow on your +path,--like a lover.” + +“Like an Indian!” cried the girl. + +The arrow pierced the heel. The face which he turned upon her was +the face of a savage, made grotesque and horrible, as war-paint and +feathers could not have made it, by the bushy black wig and the lace +cravat. + +“Audrey!” he called. “Morning Light! Sunshine in the Dark! Dancing +Water! Audrey that will not be called ‘mademoiselle’ nor have the +wooing of the son of a French chief! Then shall she have the wooing of +the son of a Monacan woman. I am a hunter. I will woo as they woo in +the woods.” + +Audrey bent to her pole, and made faster progress down the creek. Her +heart was hot and angry, and yet she was afraid. All dreadful things, +all things that oppressed with horror, all things that turned one white +and cold, so cold and still that one could not run away, were summed up +for her in the word “Indian.” To her the eyes of Hugon were basilisk +eyes,--they drew her and held her; and when she looked into them, she +saw flames rising and bodies of murdered kindred; then the mountains +loomed above her again, and it was night-time, and she was alone save +for the dead, and mad with fear and with the quiet. + +The green banks went by, and the creek began to widen. “Where are you +going?” called the trader. “Wheresoever you go, at the end of your path +stand my village and my wigwam. You cannot stay all day in that boat. +If you come not back at the bidden hour, Darden’s squaw will beat you. +Come over, Morning Light, come over, and take me in your boat, and tie +your hair with my gift. I will not hurt you. I will tell you the French +love songs that my father sang to my mother. I will speak of land that +I have bought (oh, I have prospered, ma’m’selle!), and of a house that +I mean to build, and of a woman that I wish to put in the house,--a +Sunshine in the Dark to greet me when I come from my hunting in the +great forests beyond the falls, from my trading with the nation of the +Tuscaroras, with the villages of the Monacans. Come over to me, Morning +Light!” + +The creek widened and widened, then doubled a grassy cape all in the +shadow of a towering sycamore. Beyond the point, crowning the low green +slope of the bank, and topped with a shaggy fell of honeysuckle and +ivy, began a red brick wall. Half way down its length it broke, and six +shallow steps led up to an iron gate, through whose bars one looked +into a garden. Gazing on down the creek past the farther stretch of the +wall, the eye came upon the shining reaches of the river. + +Audrey turned the boat’s head toward the steps and the gate in the +wall. The man on the opposite shore let fall an oath. + +“So you go to Fair View house!” he called across the stream. “There are +only negroes there, unless”--he came to a pause, and his face changed +again, and out of his eyes looked the spirit of some hot, ancestral +French lover, cynical, suspicious, and jealously watchful--“unless +their master is at home,” he ended, and laughed. + +Audrey touched the wall, and over a great iron hook projecting +therefrom threw a looped rope, and fastened her boat. + +“I stay here until you come forth!” swore Hugon from across the creek. +“And then I follow you back to where you must moor the boat. And then +I shall walk with you to the minister’s house. Until we meet again, +ma’m’selle!” + +Audrey answered not, but sped up the steps to the gate. A sick fear +lest it should be locked possessed her; but it opened at her touch, +disclosing a long, sunny path, paved with brick, and shut between lines +of tall, thick, and smoothly clipped box. The gate clanged to behind +her; ten steps, and the boat, the creek, and the farther shore were +hidden from her sight. With this comparative bliss came a faintness and +a trembling that presently made her slip down upon the warm and sunny +floor, and lie there, with her face within her arm and the tears upon +her cheeks. The odor of the box wrapped her like a mantle; a lizard +glided past her; somewhere in open spaces birds were singing; finally a +greyhound came down the path, and put its nose into the hollow of her +hand. + +She rose to her knees, and curled her arm around the dog’s neck; then, +with a long sigh, stood up, and asked of herself if this were the way +to the house. She had never seen the house at close range, had never +been in this walled garden. It was from Williamsburgh that the minister +had taken her to his home, eleven years before. Sometimes from the +river, in those years, she had seen, rising above the trees, the steep +roof and the upper windows; sometimes upon the creek she had gone past +the garden wall, and had smelled the flowers upon the other side. + +In her lonely life, with the beauty of the earth about her to teach her +that there might be greater beauty that she yet might see with a daily +round of toil and sharp words to push her to that escape which lay in +a world of dreams, she had entered that world, and thrived therein. It +was a world that was as pure as a pearl, and more fantastic than an +Arabian tale. She knew that when she died she could take nothing out of +life with her to heaven. But with this other world it was different, +and all that she had or dreamed of that was fair she carried through +its portals. This house was there. Long closed, walled in, guarded +by tall trees, seen at far intervals and from a distance, as through +a glass darkly, it had become to her an enchanted spot, about which +played her quick fancy, but where her feet might never stray. + +But now the spell which had held the place in slumber was snapped, +and her feet was set in its pleasant paths. She moved down the alley +between the lines of box, and the greyhound went with her. The branches +of a walnut-tree drooped heavily across the way; when she had passed +them she saw the house, square, dull red, bathed in sunshine. A moment, +and the walk led her between squat pillars of living green into the +garden out of the fairy tale. + +Dim, fragrant, and old time; walled in; here sunshiny spaces, there +cool shadows of fruit-trees; broken by circles and squares of box; +green with the grass and the leaves, red and purple and gold and +white with the flowers; with birds singing, with the great silver +river murmuring by without the wall at the foot of the terrace, with +the voice of a man who sat beneath a cherry-tree reading aloud to +himself,--such was the garden that she came upon, a young girl, and +heavy at heart. + +She was so near that she could hear the words of the reader, and she +knew the piece that he was reading; for you must remember that she was +not untaught, and that Darden had books. + + “‘When from the censer clouds of fragrance roll, + And swelling organs lift the rising soul, + One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight, + Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight’”-- + +The greyhound ran from Audrey to the man who was reading these verses +with taste and expression, and also with a smile half sad and half +cynical. He glanced from his page, saw the girl where she stood against +the dark pillar of the box, tossed aside the book, and went to her down +the grassy path between rows of nodding tulips. “Why, child!” he said. +“Did you come up like a flower? I am glad to see you in my garden, +little maid. Are there Indians without?” + +At least, to Audrey, there were none within. She had been angered, sick +at heart and sore afraid, but she was no longer so. In this world that +she had entered it was good to be alive; she knew that she was safe, +and of a sudden she felt that the sunshine was very golden, the music +very sweet. To Haward, looking at her with a smile, she gave a folded +paper which she drew from the bosom of her gown. “The minister sent me +with it,” she explained, and curtsied shyly. + +Haward took the paper, opened it, and fell to poring over the crabbed +characters with which it was adorned. “Ay? Gratulateth himself that +this fortunate parish hath at last for vestryman Mr. Marmaduke Haward; +knoweth that, seeing I am what I am, my influence will be paramount +with said vestry; commendeth himself to my favor; beggeth that I listen +not to charges made by a factious member anent a vastly magnified +occurrence at the French ordinary; prayeth that he may shortly present +himself at Fair View, and explain away certain calumnies with which his +enemies have poisoned the ears of the Commissary; hopeth that I am in +good health; and is my very obedient servant to command. Humph!” + +He let the paper flutter to the ground, and turned to Audrey with a +kindly smile. “I am much afraid that this man of the church, whom I +gave thee for guardian, child, is but a rascal, after all, and a wolf +in sheep’s clothing. But let him go hang while I show you my garden.” + +Going closer, he glanced at her keenly; then went nearer still, and +touched her cheek with his forefinger. “You have been crying,” he said. +“There _were_ Indians, then. How many and how strong, Audrey?” + +The dark eyes that met his were the eyes of the child who, in the +darkness, through the corn, had run from him, her helper. “There was +one,” she whispered, and looked over her shoulder. + +Haward drew her to the seat beneath the cherry-tree, and there, while +he sat beside her, elbow on knee and chin on hand, watching her, she +told him of Hugon. It was so natural to tell him. When she had made an +end of her halting, broken sentences, and he spoke to her gravely and +kindly, she hung upon his words, and thought him wise and wonderful +as a king. He told her that he would speak to Darden, and did not +despair of persuading that worthy to forbid the trader his house. Also +he told her that in this settled, pleasant, every-day Virginia, and +in the eighteenth century, a maid, however poor and humble, might not +be married against her will. If this half-breed had threats to utter, +there was always the law of the land. A few hours in the pillory or a +taste of the sheriff’s whip might not be amiss. Finally, if the trader +made his suit again, Audrey must let him know, and Monsieur Jean Hugon +should be taught that he had another than a helpless, friendless girl +to deal with. + +Audrey listened and was comforted, but the shadow did not quite leave +her eyes. “He is waiting for me now,” she said fearfully to Haward, +who had not missed the shadow. “He followed me down the creek, and +is waiting over against the gate in the wall. When I go back he will +follow me again, and at last I will have to cross to his side. And then +he will go home with me, and make me listen to him. His eyes burn me, +and when his hand touches me I see--I see”-- + +Her frame shook, and she raised to his gaze a countenance suddenly +changed into Tragedy’s own. “I don’t know why,” she said, in a stricken +voice, “but of them all that I kissed good-by that night I now see +only Molly. I suppose she was about as old as I am when they killed +her. We were always together. I can’t remember her face very clearly; +only her eyes, and how red her lips were. And her hair: it came to +her knees, and mine is just as long. For a long, long time after you +went away, when I could not sleep because it was dark, or when I was +frightened or Mistress Deborah beat me, I saw them all; but now I see +only Molly,--Molly lying there _dead_.” + +There was a silence in the garden, broken presently by Haward. “Ay, +Molly,” he said absently. + +With his hand covering his lips and his eyes upon the ground, he fell +into a brown study. Audrey sat very still for fear that she might +disturb him, who was so kind to her. A passionate gratitude filled her +young heart; she would have traveled round the world upon her knees to +serve him. As for him, he was not thinking of the mountain girl, the +oread who, in the days when he was younger and his heart beat high, +had caught his light fancy, tempting him from his comrades back to the +cabin in the valley, to look again into her eyes and touch the brown +waves of her hair. She was ashes, and the memory of her stirred him not. + +At last he looked up. “I myself will take you home, child. This fellow +shall not come near you. And cease to think of these gruesome things +that happened long ago. You are young and fair; you should be happy. I +will see to it that”-- + +He broke off, and again looked thoughtfully at the ground. The book +which he had tossed aside was lying upon the grass, open at the poem +which he had been reading. He stooped and raised the volume, and, +closing it, laid it upon the bench beside her. Presently he laughed. +“Come, child!” he said. “You have youth. I begin to think my own not +past recall. Come and let me show you my dial that I have just had put +up.” + +There was no load at Audrey’s heart: the vision of Molly had passed; +the fear of Hugon was a dwindling cloud. She was safe in this old sunny +garden, with harm shut without. And as a flower opens to the sunshine, +so because she was happy she grew more fair. Audrey every day, Audrey +of the infrequent speech and the wide dark eyes, the startled air, +the shy, fugitive smiles,--that was not Audrey of the garden. Audrey +of the garden had shining eyes, a wild elusive grace, laughter as +silvery as that which had rung from her sister’s lips, years agone, +beneath the sugar-tree in the far-off blue mountains, quick gestures, +quaint fancies which she feared not to speak out, the charm of mingled +humility and spirit; enough, in short, to make Audrey of the garden a +name to conjure with. + +They came to the sun-dial, and leaned thereon. Around its rim were +graved two lines from Herrick, and Audrey traced the letters with her +finger. “The philosophy is sound,” remarked Haward, “and the advice +worth the taking. Let us go see if there are any rosebuds to gather +from the bushes yonder. Damask buds should look well against your hair, +child.” + +When they came to the rosebushes he broke for her a few scarce-opened +buds, and himself fastened them in the coils of her hair. Innocent and +glad as she was,--glad even that he thought her fair,--she trembled +beneath his touch, and knew not why she trembled. When the rosebuds +were in place they went to see the clove pinks, and when they had seen +the clove pinks they walked slowly up another alley of box, and across +a grass plot to a side door of the house; for he had said that he must +show her in what great, lonely rooms he lived. + +Audrey measured the height and breadth of the house with her eyes. “It +is a large place for one to live in alone,” she said, and laughed. +“There’s a book at the Widow Constance’s; Barbara once showed it to +me. It is all about a pilgrim; and there’s a picture of a great square +house, quite like this, that was a giant’s castle,--Giant Despair. Good +giant, eat me not!” + +Child, woman, spirit of the woodland, she passed before him into a dim, +cool room, all littered with books. “My library,” said Haward, with a +wave of his hand. “But the curtains and pictures are not hung, nor the +books in place. Hast any schooling, little maid? Canst read?” + +Audrey flushed with pride that she could tell him that she was not +ignorant; not like Barbara, who could not read the giant’s name in the +pilgrim book. + +“The crossroads schoolmaster taught me,” she explained. “He has a +scar in each hand, and is a very wicked man, but he knows more than +the Commissary himself. The minister, too, has a cupboard filled with +books, and he buys the new ones as the ships bring them in. When I have +time, and Mistress Deborah will not let me go to the woods, I read. And +I remember what I read. I could”-- + +A smile trembled upon her lips, and her eyes grew brighter. Fired +by the desire that he should praise her learning, and in her very +innocence bold as a Wortley or a Howe, she began to repeat the lines +which he had been reading beneath the cherry-tree:-- + + “‘When from the censer clouds of fragrance roll’”-- + +The rhythm of the words, the passion of the thought, the pleased +surprise that she thought she read in his face, the gesture of his +hand, all spurred her on from line to line, sentence to sentence. And +now she was not herself, but that other woman, and she was giving +voice to all her passion, all her woe. The room became a convent cell; +her ragged dress the penitent’s trailing black. That Audrey, lithe +of mind as of body; who in the woods seemed the spirit of the woods, +in the garden the spirit of the garden, on the water the spirit of +the water,--that this Audrey, in using the speech of the poet, should +embody and become the spirit of that speech was perhaps, considering +all things, not so strange. At any rate, and however her power came +about, at that moment, in Fair View house, a great actress was speaking. + + “‘Fresh blooming Hope, gay daughter of the skies, + And Faith’”-- + +The speaker lost a word, hesitated, became confused. Finally silence; +then the Audrey of a while before, standing with heaving bosom, shy as +a fawn, fearful that she had not pleased him, after all. For if she had +done so, surely he would have told her as much. As it was, he had said +but one word, and that beneath his breath, “_Eloïsa!_” + +It would seem that her fear was unfounded; for when he did speak, there +were, God wot, sugar-plums enough. And Audrey, who in her workaday +world was always blamed, could not know that the praise that was so +sweet was less wholesome than the blame. + +Leaving the library they went into the hall, and from the hall looked +into great, echoing, half-furnished rooms. All about lay packing-cases, +many of them open, with rich stuffs streaming from them. Ornaments +were huddled on tables, mirrors and pictures leaned their faces to the +walls; everywhere was disorder. + +“The negroes are careless, and to-day I held their hands,” said Haward. +“I must get some proper person to see to this gear.” + +Up stairs and down they went through the house, that seemed very large +and very still, and finally they came out of the great front door, and +down the stone steps on to the terrace. Below them, sparkling in the +sunshine, lay the river, the opposite shore all in a haze of light. “I +must go home,” Audrey shyly reminded him, whereat he smiled assent, and +they went, not through the box alley to the gate in the wall, but down +the terrace, and out upon the hot brown boards of the landing. Haward, +stepping into a boat, handed her to a seat in the stern, and himself +took the oars. Leaving the landing, they came to the creek and entered +it. Presently they were gliding beneath the red brick wall with the +honeysuckle atop. On the opposite grassy shore, seated in a blaze of +noon sunshine, was Hugon. + +They in the boat took no notice. Haward, rowing, spoke evenly on, his +theme himself and the gay and lonely life he had led these eleven +years; and Audrey, though at first sight of the waiting figure she had +paled and trembled, was too safe, too happy, to give to trouble any +part of this magic morning. She kept her eyes on Haward’s face, and +almost forgot the man who had risen from the grass and in silence was +following them. + +Now, had the trader, in his hunting shirt and leggings, his moccasins +and fur cap, been walking in the great woods, this silence, even +with others in company, would have been natural enough to his Indian +blood; but Monsieur Jean Hugon, in peruke and laced coat, walking in a +civilized country, with words a-plenty and as hot as fire-water in his +heart, and none upon his tongue, was a figure strange and sinister. He +watched the two in the boat with an impassive face, and he walked like +an Indian on an enemy’s trail, so silently that he scarce seemed to +breathe, so lightly that his heavy boots failed to crush the flowers or +the tender grass. + +Haward rowed on, telling Audrey stories of the town, of great men whose +names she knew, and beautiful ladies of whom she had never heard; and +she sat before him with her slim brown hands folded in her lap and +the rosebuds withering in her hair, while through the reeds and the +grass and the bushes of the bank over against them strode Hugon in his +Blenheim wig and his wine-colored coat. Well-nigh together the three +reached the stake driven in among the reeds, a hundred yards below the +minister’s house. Haward fastened the boat, and, motioning to Audrey +to stay for the moment where she was, stepped out upon the bank to +confront the trader, who, walking steadily and silently as ever, was +almost upon them. + +But it was broad daylight, and Hugon, with his forest instincts, +preferred, when he wished to speak to the point, to speak in the dark. +He made no pause; only looked with his fierce black eyes at the quiet, +insouciant, fine gentleman standing with folded arms between him and +the boat; then passed on, going steadily up the creek toward the bend +where the water left the open smiling fields and took to the forest. +He never looked back, but went like a hunter with his prey before him. +Presently the shadows of the forest touched him, and Audrey and Haward +were left alone. + +The latter laughed. “If his courage is of the quality of his +lace--What, cowering, child, and the tears in your eyes! You were +braver when you were not so tall, in those mountain days. Nay, no need +to wet your shoe.” + +He lifted her in his arms, and set her feet upon firm grass. “How long +since I carried you across a stream and up a dark hillside!” he said. +“And yet to-day it seems but yesternight! Now, little maid, the Indian +has run away, and the path to the house is clear.” + + * * * * * + +In his smoke-filled, untidy best room Darden sat at table, his drink +beside him, his pipe between his fingers, and open before him a book +of jests, propped by a tome of divinity. His wife coming in from the +kitchen, he burrowed in the litter upon the table until he found an +open letter, which he flung toward her. “The Commissary threatens +again, damn him!” he said between smoke puffs. “It seems that t’other +night, when I was in my cups at the tavern, Le Neve and the fellow who +has Ware Creek parish--I forget his name--must needs come riding by. +I was dicing with Paris. Hugon held the stakes. I dare say we kept +not mum. And out of pure brotherly love and charity, my good, kind +gentlemen ride on to Williamsburgh on a tale-bearing errand! Is that +child never coming back, Deborah?” + +“She’s coming now,” answered his wife, with her eyes upon the letter. +“I was watching from the upper window. He rowed her up the creek +himself.” + +The door opened, and Audrey entered the room. Darden turned heavily in +his chair, and took the long pipe from between his teeth. “Well?” he +said. “You gave him my letter?” + +Audrey nodded. Her eyes were dreamy; the red of the buds in her +hair had somehow stolen to her cheeks; she could scarce keep her +lips from smiling. “He bade me tell you to come to supper with him +on Monday,” she said. “And the Falcon that we saw come in last week +brought furnishing for the great house. Oh, Mistress Deborah, the most +beautiful things! The rooms are all to be made fine; and the negro +women do not the work aright, and he wants some one to oversee them. +He says that he has learned that in England Mistress Deborah was own +woman to my Lady Squander, and so should know about hangings and china +and the placing of furniture. And he asks that she come to Fair View +morning after morning until the house is in order. He wishes me to +come, too. Mistress Deborah will much oblige him, he says, and he will +not forget her kindness.” + +Somewhat out of breath, but very happy, she looked with eager eyes +from one guardian to the other. Darden emptied and refilled his pipe, +scattering the ashes upon the book of jests. “Very good,” he said +briefly. + +Into the thin visage of the ex-waiting-woman, who had been happier +at my Lady Squander’s than in a Virginia parsonage, there crept a +tightened smile. In her way, when she was not in a passion, she was +fond of Audrey; but, in temper or out of temper, she was fonder of the +fine things which for a few days she might handle at Fair View house. +And the gratitude of the master thereof might appear in coins, or in +an order on his store for silk and lace. When, in her younger days, at +Bath or in town, she had served fine mistresses, she had been given +many a guinea for carrying a note or contriving an interview, and in +changing her estate she had not changed her code of morals. “We must +oblige Mr. Haward, of course,” she said complacently. “I warrant you +that I can give things an air! There’s not a parlor in this parish that +does not set my teeth on edge! Now at my Lady Squander’s”--She embarked +upon reminiscences of past splendor, checked only by her husband’s +impatient demand for dinner. + +Audrey, preparing to follow her into the kitchen, was stopped, as she +would have passed the table, by the minister’s heavy hand. “The roses +at Fair View bloom early,” he said, turning her about that he might +better see the red cluster in her hair. “Look you, Audrey! I wish you +no great harm, child. You mind me at times of one that I knew many +years ago, before ever I was chaplain to my Lord Squander or husband +to my Lady Squander’s waiting-woman. A hunter may use a decoy, and he +may also, on the whole, prefer to keep that decoy as good as when ’twas +made. Buy not thy roses too dearly, Audrey.” + +To Audrey he spoke in riddles. She took from her hair the loosened +buds, and looked at them lying in her hand. “I did not buy them,” she +said. “They grew in the sun on the south side of the great house, and +Mr. Haward gave them to me.” + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN + + +June came to tide-water Virginia with long, warm days and with the odor +of many roses. Day by day the cloudless sunshine visited the land: +night by night the large pale stars looked into its waters. It was a +slumberous land, of many creeks and rivers that were wide, slow, and +deep, of tobacco fields and lofty, solemn forests, of vague marshes, +of white mists, of a haze of heat far and near. The moon of blossoms +was past, and the red men--few in number now--had returned from their +hunting, and lay in the shade of the trees in the villages that the +English had left them, while the women brought them fish from the +weirs, and strawberries from the vines that carpeted every poisoned +field or neglected clearing. The black men toiled amidst the tobacco +and the maize; at noontide it was as hot in the fields as in the middle +passage, and the voices of those who sang over their work fell to a +dull crooning. The white men who were bound served listlessly; they +that were well were as lazy as the weather; they that were newly come +over and ill with the “seasoning” fever tossed upon their pallets, +longing for the cooling waters of home. The white men who were free +swore that the world, though fair, was warm, and none walked if he +could ride. The sunny, dusty roads were left for shadowed bridle paths; +in a land where most places could be reached by boat, the water would +have been the highway but that the languid air would not fill the +sails. It was agreed that the heat was unnatural, and that, likely +enough, there would be a deal of fever during the summer. + +But there was thick shade in the Fair View garden, and when there was +air at all it visited the terrace above the river. The rooms of the +house were large and high-pitched; draw to the shutters, and they +became as cool as caverns. Around the place the heat lay in wait: heat +of wide, shadowless fields, where Haward’s slaves toiled from morn to +eve; heat of the great river, unstirred by any wind, hot and sleeping +beneath the blazing sun; heat of sluggish creeks and of the marshes, +shadeless as the fields. Once reach the mighty trees drawn like a +cordon around house and garden, and there was escape. + +To and fro and up and down in the house went the erst waiting-woman +to my Lady Squander, carrying matters with a high hand. The negresses +who worked under her eye found her a hard taskmistress. Was a room +clean to-day, to-morrow it was found that there was dust upon the +polished floor, finger marks on the paneled walls. The same furniture +must be placed now in this room, now in that; china slowly washed and +bestowed in one closet transferred to another; an eternity spent upon +the household linen, another on the sewing and resewing, the hanging +and rehanging, of damask curtains. The slaves, silent when the greenish +eyes and tight, vixenish face were by, chattered, laughed, and sung +when they were left alone. If they fell idle, and little was done of a +morning, they went unrebuked; thoroughness, and not haste, appearing to +be Mistress Deborah’s motto. + +The master of Fair View found it too noisy in his house to sit therein, +and too warm to ride abroad. There were left the seat built round the +cherry-tree in the garden, the long, cool box walk, and the terrace +with a summer-house at either end. It was pleasant to read out of +doors, pacing the box walk, or sitting beneath the cherry-tree, +with the ripening fruit overhead. If the book was long in reading, +if morning by morning Haward’s finger slipped easily in between the +selfsame leaves, perhaps it was the fault of poet or philosopher. If +Audrey’s was the fault, she knew it not. + +How could she know it, who knew herself, that she was a poor, humble +maid, whom out of pure charity and knightly tenderness for weak and +sorrowful things he long ago had saved, since then had maintained, now +was kind to; and knew him, that he was learned and great and good, the +very perfect gentle knight who, as he rode to win the princess, yet +could stoop from his saddle to raise and help the herd girl? She had +found of late that she was often wakeful of nights; when this happened, +she lay and looked out of her window at the stars and wondered about +the princess. She was sure that the princess and the lady who had given +her the guinea were one. + +In the great house she would have worked her fingers to the bone. Her +strong young arms lifted heavy weights; her quick feet ran up and down +stairs for this or that; she would have taken the waxed cloths from the +negroes, and upon her knees and with willing hands have made to shine +like mirrors the floors that were to be trodden by knight and princess. +But almost every morning, before she had worked an hour, Haward would +call to her from the box walk or the seat beneath the cherry-tree; and +“Go, child,” would say Mistress Deborah, looking up from her task of +the moment. + +The garden continued to be the enchanted garden. To gather its flowers, +red and white, to pace with him cool paved walks between walls of +scented box, to sit beside him beneath the cherry-tree or upon the +grassy terrace, looking out upon the wide, idle river,--it was dreamy +bliss, a happiness too rare to last. There was no harm; not that she +ever dreamed there could be. The house overlooked garden and terrace; +the slaves passed and repassed the open windows; Juba came and went; +now and then Mistress Deborah herself would sally forth to receive +instructions concerning this or that from the master of the house. And +every day, at noon, the slaves drew to all the shutters save those of +the master’s room, and the minister’s wife and ward made their curtsies +and went home. The latter, like a child, counted the hours upon the +clock until the next morning; but then she was not used to happiness, +and the wine of it made her slightly drunken. + +The master of Fair View told himself that there was infection in this +lotus air of Virginia. A fever ran in his veins that made him languid +of will, somewhat sluggish of thought, willing to spend one day like +another, and all in a long dream. Sometimes, in the afternoons, when +he was alone in the garden or upon the terrace, with the house blank +and silent behind him, the slaves gone to the quarters, he tossed aside +his book, and, with his chin upon his hand and his eyes upon the sweep +of the river, first asked himself whither he was going, and then, +finding no satisfactory answer, fell to brooding. Once, going into the +house, he chanced to come upon his full-length reflection in a mirror +newly hung, and stopped short to gaze upon himself. The parlor of his +lodgings at Williamsburgh and the last time that he had seen Evelyn +came to him, conjured up by the memory of certain words of his own. + +“A truer glass might show a shrunken figure,” he repeated, and with a +quick and impatient sigh he looked at the image in the mirror. + +To the eye, at least, the figure was not shrunken. It was that of a man +still young, and of a handsome face and much distinction of bearing. +The dress was perfect in its quiet elegance; the air of the man +composed,--a trifle sad, a trifle mocking. Haward snapped his fingers +at the reflection. “The portrait of a gentleman,” he said, and passed +on. + +That night, in his own room, he took from an escritoire a picture of +Evelyn Byrd, done in miniature after a painting by a pupil of Kneller, +and, carrying it over to the light of the myrtle candles upon the +table, sat down and fell to studying it. After a while he let it drop +from his hand, and leaned back in his chair, thinking. + +The night air, rising slightly, bent back the flame of the candles, +around which moths were fluttering, and caused strange shadows upon +the walls. They were thick about the curtained bed whereon had died +the elder Haward,--a proud man, choleric, and hard to turn from his +purposes. Into the mind of his son, sitting staring at these shadows, +came the fantastic notion that amongst them, angry and struggling +vainly for speech, might be his father’s shade. The night was feverish, +of a heat and lassitude to foster grotesque and idle fancies. Haward +smiled, and spoke aloud to his imaginary ghost. + +“You need not strive for speech,” he said. “I know what you would say. +_Was it for this I built this house, bought land and slaves?... Fair +View and Westover, Westover and Fair View. A lady that will not wed +thee because she loves thee! Zoons, Marmaduke! thou puttest me beside +my patience!... As for this other, set no nameless, barefoot wench +where sat thy mother! King Cophetua and the beggar maid, indeed! I +warrant you Cophetua was something under three-and-thirty!_” + +Haward ceased to speak for his father, and sighed for himself. “Moral: +Three-and-thirty must be wiser in his day and generation.” He rose +from his chair, and began to walk the room. “If not Cophetua, what +then,--what then?” Passing the table, he took up the miniature again. +“The villain of the piece, I suppose, Evelyn?” he asked. + +The pure and pensive face seemed to answer him. He put the picture +hastily down, and recommenced his pacing to and fro. From the garden +below came the heavy odor of lilies, and the whisper of the river tried +the nerves. Haward went to the window, and, leaning out, looked, as now +each night he looked, up and across the creek toward the minister’s +house. To-night there was no light to mark it; it was late, and all the +world without his room was in darkness. He sat down in the window seat, +looked out upon the stars and listened to the river. An hour had passed +before he turned back to the room, where the candles had burned low. +“I will go to Westover to-morrow,” he said. “God knows, I should be a +villain”-- + +He locked the picture of Evelyn within his desk, drank his wine and +water, and went to bed, strongly resolved upon retreat. In the morning +he said, “I will go to Westover this afternoon;” and in the afternoon +he said, “I will go to-morrow.” When the morrow came, he found that +the house lacked but one day of being finished, and that there was +therefore no need for him to go at all. + +Mistress Deborah was loath, enough to take leave of damask and mirrors +and ornaments of china,--the latter fine enough and curious enough +to remind her of Lady Squander’s own drawing-room; but the leaf of +paper which Haward wrote upon, tore from his pocket-book, and gave her +provided consolation. Her thanks were very glib, her curtsy was very +deep. She was his most obliged, humble servant, and if she could serve +him again he would make her proud. Would he not, now, some day, row up +creek to their poor house, and taste of her perry and Shrewsbury cakes? +Audrey, standing by, raised her eyes, and made of the request a royal +invitation. + +For a week or more Haward abode upon his plantation, alone save for his +servants and slaves. Each day he sent for the overseer, and listened +gravely while that worthy expounded to him all the details of the +condition and conduct of the estate; in the early morning and the late +afternoon he rode abroad through his fields and forests. Mill and ferry +and rolling house were visited, and the quarters made his acquaintance. +At the creek quarter and the distant ridge quarter were bestowed the +newly bought, the sullen and the refractory of his chattels. When, +after sunset, and the fields were silent, he rode past the cabins, +coal-black figures, new from the slave deck, still seamed at wrist and +ankle, mowed and jabbered at him from over their bowls of steaming +food; others, who had forgotten the jungle and the slaver, answered, +when he spoke to them, in strange English; others, born in Virginia, +and remembering when he used to ride that way with his father, laughed, +called him “Marse Duke,” and agreed with him that the crop was looking +mighty well. With the dark he reached the great house, and negroes from +the home quarter took--his horse, while Juba lighted him through the +echoing hall into the lonely rooms. + +From the white quarter he procured a facile lad who could read and +write, and who, through too much quickness of wit, had failed to +prosper in England. Him he installed as secretary, and forthwith began +a correspondence with friends in England, as well as a long poem which +was to serve the double purpose of giving Mr. Pope a rival and of +occupying the mind of Mr. Marmaduke Haward. The letters were witty and +graceful, the poem was the same; but on the third day the secretary, +pausing for the next word that should fall from his master’s lips, +waited so long that he dropped asleep. When he awoke, Mr. Haward was +slowly tearing into bits the work that had been done on the poem. “It +will have to wait upon my mood,” he said. “Seal up the letter to Lord +Hervey, boy, and then begone to the fields. If I want you again, I will +send for you.” + +The next day he proposed to himself to ride to Williamsburgh and see +his acquaintances there. But even as he crossed the room to strike the +bell for Juba a distaste for the town and its people came upon him. It +occurred to him that instead he might take the barge and be rowed up +the river to the Jaquelins’ or to Green Spring; but in a moment this +plan also became repugnant. Finally he went out upon the terrace, and +sat there the morning through, staring at the river. That afternoon he +sent a negro to the store with a message for the storekeeper. + +The Highlander, obeying the demand for his company,--the third or +fourth since his day at Williamsburgh,--came shortly before twilight to +the great house, and found the master thereof still upon the terrace, +sitting beneath an oak, with a small table and a bottle of wine beside +him. + +“Ha, Mr. MacLean!” he cried, as the other approached. “Some days have +passed since last we laid the ghosts! I had meant to sooner improve our +acquaintance. But my house has been in disorder, and I myself,”--he +passed his hand across his face as if to wipe away the expression into +which it had been set,--“I myself have been poor company. There is a +witchery in the air of this place. I am become but a dreamer of dreams.” + +As he spoke he motioned his guest to an empty chair, and began to pour +wine for them both. His hand was not quite steady, and there was about +him a restlessness of aspect most unnatural to the man. The storekeeper +thought him looking worn, and as though he had passed sleepless nights. + +MacLean sat down, and drew his wineglass toward Mm. “It is the heat,” +he said. “Last night, in the store, I felt that I was stifling; and +I left it, and lay on the bare ground without. A star shot down the +sky, and I wished that a wind as swift and strong would rise and sweep +the land out to sea. When the day comes that I die, I wish to die a +fierce death. It is best to die in battle, for then the mind is raised, +and you taste all life in the moment before you go. If a man achieves +not that, then struggle with earth or air or the waves of the sea is +desirable. Driving sleet, armies of the snow, night and trackless +mountains, the leap of the torrent, swollen lakes where kelpies +lie in wait, wind on the sea with the black reef and the charging +breakers,--it is well to dash one’s force against the force of these, +and to die after fighting. But in this cursed land of warmth and ease +a man dies like a dog that is old and hath lain winter and summer upon +the hearthstone.” He drank his wine, and glanced again at Haward. “I +did not know that you were here,” he said. “Saunderson told me that you +were going to Westover.” + +“I was,--I am,” answered Haward briefly. Presently he roused himself +from the brown study into which he had fallen. + +“’Tis the heat, as you say. It enervates. For my part, I am willing +that your wind should arise. But it will not blow to-night. There is +not a breath; the river is like glass.” He raised the wine to his lips, +and drank deeply. “Come,” he said, laughing. “What did you at the store +to-day? And does Mistress Truelove despair of your conversion to _thee_ +and _thou_, and peace with all mankind? Hast procured an enemy to fill +the place I have vacated? I trust he’s no scurvy foe.” + +“I will take your questions in order,” answered the other +sententiously. “This morning I sold a deal of fine china to a parcel +of fine ladies who came by water from Jamestown, and were mightily +concerned to know whether your worship was gone to Westover, or had +instead (as ’t was reported) shut yourself up in Fair View house. And +this afternoon came over in a periagua, from the other side, a very +young gentleman with money in hand to buy a silver-fringed glove. ‘They +are sold in pairs,’ said I. ‘Fellow, I require but one,’ said he. ‘If +Dick Allen, who hath slandered me to Mistress Betty Cocke, dareth to +appear at the merrymaking at Colonel Harrison’s to-night, his cheek and +this glove shall come together!’ ‘Nathless, you must pay for both,’ I +told him; and the upshot is that he leaves with me a gold button as +earnest that he will bring the remainder of the price before the duel +to-morrow. That Quaker maiden of whom you ask hath a soul like the soul +of Colna-dona, of whom Murdoch, the harper of Coll, used to sing. She +is fair as a flower after winter, and as tender as the rose flush in +which swims yonder star. When I am with her, almost she persuades me +to think ill of honest hatred, and to pine no longer that it was not +I that had the killing of Ewin Mackinnon.” He gave a short laugh, and +stooping picked up an oak twig from the ground, and with deliberation +broke it into many small pieces. “Almost, but not quite,” he said. +“There was in that feud nothing illusory or fantastic; nothing of the +quality that marked, mayhap, another feud of my own making. If I have +found that in this latter case I took a wraith and dubbed it my enemy; +that, thinking I followed a foe, I followed a friend instead”--He threw +away the bits of bark, and straightened himself. “A friend!” he said, +drawing his breath. “Save for this Quaker family, I have had no friend +for many a year! And I cannot talk to them of honor and warfare and +the wide world.” His speech was sombre, but in his eyes there was an +eagerness not without pathos. + +The mood of the Gael chimed with the present mood of the Saxon. As +unlike in their natures as their histories, men would have called them; +and yet, far away, in dim recesses of the soul, at long distances from +the flesh, each recognised the other. And it was an evening, too, +in which to take care of other things than the ways and speech of +every day. The heat, the hush, and the stillness appeared well-nigh +preternatural. A sadness breathed over the earth; all things seemed +new and yet old; across the spectral river the dim plains beneath the +afterglow took the seeming of battlefields. + +“A friend!” said Haward. “There are many men who call themselves my +friends. I am melancholy to-day, restless, and divided against myself. +I do not know one of my acquaintance whom I would have called to be +melancholy with me as I have called you.” He leaned across the table +and touched MacLean’s hand that was somewhat hurriedly fingering the +wineglass. “Come!” he said. “Loneliness may haunt the level fields as +well as the ways that are rugged and steep. How many times have we +held converse since that day I found you in charge of my store? Often +enough, I think, for each to know the other’s quality. Our lives have +been very different, and yet I believe that we are akin. For myself, I +should be glad to hold as my friend so gallant though so unfortunate a +gentleman.” He smiled and made a gesture of courtesy. “Of course Mr. +MacLean may very justly not hold me in a like esteem, nor desire a +closer relation.” + +MacLean rose to his feet, and stood gazing across the river at the +twilight shore and the clear skies. Presently he turned, and his eyes +were wet. He drew his hand across them; then looked curiously at the +dew upon it. “I have not done this,” he said simply, “since a night at +Preston when I wept with rage. In my country we love as we hate, with +all the strength that God has given us. The brother of my spirit is to +me even as the brother of my flesh.... I used to dream that my hand was +at your throat or my sword through your heart, and wake in anger that +it was not so ... and now I could love you well.” + +Haward stood up, and the two men clasped hands. “It is a pact, then,” +said the Englishman. “By my faith, the world looks not so melancholy +gray as it did awhile ago. And here is Juba to say that supper waits. +Lay the table for two, Juba. Mr. MacLean will bear me company.” + +The storekeeper stayed late, the master of Fair View being an +accomplished gentleman, a very good talker, and an adept at turning his +house for the nonce into the house of his guest. Supper over they went +into the library, where their wine was set, and where the Highlander, +who was no great reader, gazed respectfully at the wit and wisdom arow +before him. “Colonel Byrd hath more volumes at Westover,” quoth Haward, +“but mine are of the choicer quality.” Juba brought a card table, and +lit more candles, while his master, unlocking a desk, took from it a +number of gold pieces. These he divided into two equal portions: kept +one beside him upon the polished table, and, with a fine smile, half +humorous, half deprecating, pushed the other across to his guest. With +an, imperturbable face MacLean stacked the gold before him, and they +fell to piquet, playing briskly, and with occasional application to the +Madeira upon the larger table, until ten of the clock. The Highlander, +then declaring that he must be no longer away from his post, swept +his heap of coins across to swell his opponent’s store, and said +good-night. Haward went with him to the great door, and watched him +stride off through the darkness whistling “The Battle of Harlaw.” + +That night Haward slept, and the next morning four negroes rowed him up +the river to Jamestown. Mr. Jaquelin was gone to Norfolk upon business, +but his beautiful wife and sprightly daughters found Mr. Marmaduke +Haward altogether charming. “’Twas as good as going to court,” they +said to one another, when the gentleman, after a two hours’ visit, +bowed himself out of their drawing-room. The object of their encomiums, +going down river in his barge, felt his spirits lighter than they +had been for some days. He spoke cheerfully to his negroes, and when +the barge passed a couple of fishing-boats he called to the slim +brown lads that caught for the plantation to know their luck. At the +landing he found the overseer, who walked to the great house with +him. The night before Tyburn Will had stolen from the white quarters, +and had met a couple of seamen from the Temperance at the crossroads +ordinary, which ordinary was going to get into trouble for breaking +the law which forbade the harboring of sailors ashore. The three had +taken in full lading of kill-devil rum, and Tyburn Will, too drunk to +run any farther, had been caught by Hide near Princess Creek, three +hours agone. What were the master’s orders? Should the rogue go to the +court-house whipping post, or should Hide save the trouble of taking +him there? In either case, thirty-nine lashes well laid on-- + +The master pursed his lips, dug into the ground with the ferrule of +his cane, and finally proposed to the astonished overseer that the +rascal be let off with a warning. “’Tis too fair a day to poison with +ugly sights and sounds,” he said, whimsically apologetic for his own +weakness. “’Twill do no great harm to be lenient, for once, Saunderson, +and I am in the mood to-day to be friends with all men, including +myself.” + +The overseer went away grumbling, and Haward entered the house. The +room where dwelt his books looked cool and inviting. He walked the +length of the shelves, took out a volume here and there for his evening +reading, and upon the binding of others laid an affectionate, lingering +touch. “I have had a fever, my friends,” he announced to the books, +“but I am about to find myself happily restored to reason and serenity; +in short, to health.” + +Some hours later he raised his eyes from the floor which he had been +studying for a great while, covered them for a moment with his hand, +then rose, and, with the air of a sleepwalker, went out of the lit +room into a calm and fragrant night. There was no moon, but the stars +were many, and it did not seem dark. When he came to the verge of the +landing, and the river, sighing in its sleep, lay clear below him, +mirroring the stars, it was as though he stood between two firmaments. +He descended the steps, and drew toward him a small rowboat that was +softly rubbing against the wet and glistening piles. The tide was out, +and the night was very quiet. + +Haward troubled not the midstream, but rowing in the shadow of the bank +to the mouth of the creek that slept beside his garden, turned and +went up this narrow water. Until he was free of the wall the odor of +honeysuckle and box clung to the air, freighting it heavily; when it +was left behind the reeds began to murmur and sigh, though not loudly, +for there was no wind. When he came to a point opposite the minister’s +house, rising fifty yards away from amidst low orchard trees, he rested +upon his oars. There was a light in an upper room, and as he looked +Audrey passed between the candle and the open window. A moment later +and the light was out, but he knew that she was sitting at the window. +Though it was dark, he found that he could call back with precision the +slender throat, the lifted face, and the enshadowing hair. For a while +he stayed, motionless in his boat, hidden by the reeds that whispered +and sighed; but at last he rowed away softly through the darkness, back +to the dim, slow-moving river and the Fair View landing. + +This was of a Friday. All the next day he spent in the garden, but on +Sunday morning he sent word to the stables to have Mirza saddled. He +was going to church, he told Juba over his chocolate, and he would wear +the gray and silver. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A SABBATH DAY’S JOURNEY + + +Although the house of worship which boasted as its ornament the +Reverend Gideon Darden was not so large and handsome as Bruton church, +nor could rival the painted glories of Poplar Spring, it was yet a +building good enough,--of brick, with a fair white spire and a decorous +mantle of ivy. The churchyard, too, was pleasant, though somewhat +crowded with the dead. There were oaks for shade, and wild roses for +fragrance, and the grass between the long gravestones, prone upon +mortal dust, grew very thick and green. Outside the gates,--a gift from +the first master of Fair View,--between the churchyard and the dusty +highroad ran a long strip of trampled turf, shaded by locust-trees and +by one gigantic gum that became in the autumn a pillar of fire. + +Haward, arriving somewhat after time, found drawn up upon this piece of +sward a coach, two berlins, a calash, and three chaises, while tied to +hitching-posts, trees, and the fence were a number of saddle-horses. In +the shade of the gum-tree sprawled half a dozen negro servants, but on +the box of the coach, from which the restless horses had been taken, +there yet sat the coachman, a mulatto of powerful build and a sullen +countenance. The vehicle stood in the blazing sunshine, and it was both +cooler and merrier beneath the tree,--a fact apparent enough to the +coachman, but the knowledge of which, seeing that he was chained to the +box, did him small good. Haward glanced at the figure indifferently; +but Juba, following his master upon Whitefoot Kate, grinned from ear to +ear. “Larnin’ not to run away, Sam? Road’s clear: why don’ you carry +off de coach?” + +Haward dismounted, and leaving Juba first to fasten the horses, and +then join his fellows beneath the gum-tree, walked into the churchyard. +The congregation had assembled, and besides himself there were none +without the church save the negroes and the dead. The service had +commenced. Through the open door came to him Darden’s voice: “_Dearly +beloved brethren_”-- + +Haward waited, leaning against a tomb deep graven with a coat of +arms and much stately Latin, until the singing clave the air, when +he entered the building, and passed down the aisle to his own pew, +the chiefest in the place. He was aware of the flutter and whisper on +either hand,--perhaps he did not find it unpleasing. Diogenes may have +carried his lantern not merely to find a man, but to show one as well, +and a philosopher in a pale gray riding dress, cut after the latest +mode, with silver lace and a fall of Mechlin, may be trusted to know +the value as well as the vanity of sublunary things. + +Of the gathering, which was not large, two thirds, perhaps, were people +of condition; and in the country, where occasions for display did not +present themselves uncalled, it was highly becoming to worship the Lord +in fine clothes. So there were broken rainbows in the tall pews, with a +soft waving of fans to and fro in the essenced air, and a low rustle of +silk. The men went as fine as the women, and the June sunshine, pouring +in upon all this lustre and color, made a flower-bed of the assemblage. +Being of the country, it was vastly better behaved than would have been +a fashionable London congregation; but it certainly saw no reason why +Mr. Marmaduke Haward should not, during the anthem, turn his back upon +altar, minister, and clerk, and employ himself in recognizing with a +smile and an inclination of his head his friends and acquaintances. +They smiled back,--the gentlemen bowing slightly, the ladies making a +sketch of a curtsy. All were glad that Fair View house was open once +more, and were kindly disposed toward the master thereof. + +The eyes of that gentleman were no longer for the gay parterre. Between +it and the door, in uncushioned pews or on rude benches, were to be +found the plainer sort of Darden’s parishioners, and in this territory, +that was like a border of sober foliage to the flower-bed in front, he +discovered whom he sought. + +Her gaze had been upon him since he passed the minister’s pew, where +she stood between my Lady Squander’s ex-waiting-woman and the branded +schoolmaster, but now their eyes came full together. She was dressed in +some coarse dark stuff, above which rose the brown pillar of her throat +and the elusive, singular beauty of her face. There was a flower in her +hair, placed as he had placed the rosebuds. A splendor leaped into her +eyes, but her cheek did not redden; it was to his face that the color +rushed. They had but a moment in which to gaze at each other, for the +singing, which to her, at least, had seemed suddenly to swell into a +great ascending tide of sound, with somewhere, far away, the silver +calling of a trumpet, now came to an end, and with another silken +rustle and murmur the congregation sat down. + +Haward did not turn again, and the service went drowsily on. Darden was +bleared of eye and somewhat thick of voice; the clerk’s whine was as +sleepy a sound as the buzzing of the bees in and out of window, or the +soft, incessant stir of painted fans. A churchwarden in the next pew +nodded and nodded, until he nodded his peruke awry, and a child went +fast asleep, with its head in its mother’s lap. One and all worshiped +somewhat languidly, with frequent glances at the hourglass upon the +pulpit. They prayed for King George the First, not knowing that he was +dead, and for the Prince, not knowing that he was King. The minister +preached against Quakers and witchcraft, and shook the rafters with his +fulminations. Finally came the benediction and a sigh of relief. + +In that country and time there was no unsociable and undignified +scurrying homeward after church. Decorous silence prevailed until +the house was exchanged for the green and shady churchyard: but then +tongues were loosened, and the flower-bed broken into clusters. One +must greet one’s neighbors; present or be presented to what company +might be staying at the various great houses within the parish; +talk, laugh, coquet, and ogle; make appointments for business or for +pleasure; speak of the last horse-race, the condition of wheat and +tobacco, and the news brought in by the Valour, man-of-war, that the +King was gone to Hanover. In short, for the nonce, the churchyard +became a drawing-room, with the sun for candles, with no painted images +of the past and gone upon the walls, but with the dead themselves +beneath the floor. + +The minister, having questions to settle with clerk and sexton, tarried +in the vestry room; but his wife, with Audrey and the schoolmaster, +waited for him outside, in the shade of an oak-tree that was just +without the pale of the drawing-room. Mistress Deborah, in her +tarnished amber satin and ribbons that had outworn their youth, bit +her lip and tapped her foot upon the ground. Audrey watched her +apprehensively. She knew the signs, and that when they reached home a +storm might break that would leave its mark upon her shoulders. The +minister’s wife was not approved of by the ladies of Fair View parish, +but had they seen how wistful was the face of the brown girl with her, +they might have turned aside, spoken, and let the storm go by. The +girl herself was scarcely noticed. Few had ever heard her story, or, +hearing it, had remembered; the careless many thought her an orphan, +bound to Darden and his wife,--in effect their servant. If she had +beauty, the ladies and gentlemen who saw her, Sunday after Sunday, in +the minister’s pew, had scarce discovered it. She was too dark, too +slim, too shy and strange of look, with her great brown eyes and that +startled turn of her head. Their taste was for lilies and roses, and it +was not an age that counted shyness a grace. + +Mr. Marmaduke Haward was not likely to be accused of diffidence. He had +come out of church with the sleepy-headed churchwarden, who was now +wide awake and mightily concerned to know what horse Mr. Haward meant +to enter for the great race at Mulberry Island, while at the foot of +the steps he was seized upon by another portly vestryman, and borne +off to be presented to three blooming young ladies, quick to second +their papa’s invitation home to dinner. Mr. Haward was ready to curse +his luck that he was engaged elsewhere; but were not these Graces the +children to whom he had used to send sugar-plums from Williamsburgh, +years and years ago? He vowed that the payment, which he had never +received, he would take now with usury, and proceeded to salute the +cheek of each protesting fair. The ladies found him vastly agreeable; +old and new friends crowded around him; he put forth his powers and +charmed all hearts,--and all the while inwardly cursed the length of +way to the gates, and the tardy progress thereto of his friends and +neighbors. + +But however slow in ebbing, the tide was really set toward home and +dinner. Darden, coming out of the vestry room, found the churchyard +almost cleared, and the road in a cloud of dust. The greater number of +those who came a-horseback were gone, and there had also departed both +berlins, the calash, and two chaises. Mr. Haward was handing the three +Graces into the coach with the chained coachman, Juba standing by, +holding his master’s horse. Darden grew something purpler in the face, +and, rumbling oaths, went over to the three beneath the oak. “How many +spoke to you to-day?” he asked roughly of his wife. “Did _he_ come and +speak?” + +“No, he didn’t!” cried Mistress Deborah tartly. “And all the gentry +went by; only Mr. Bray stopped to say that everybody knew of your fight +with Mr. Bailey at the French ordinary, and that the Commissary had +sent for Bailey, and was going to suspend him. I wish to Heaven I knew +why I married you, to be looked down upon by every Jill, when I might +have had his Lordship’s own man! Of all the fools”-- + +“You were not the only one,” answered her husband grimly. “Well, let’s +home; there’s dinner yet. What is it, Audrey?” This in answer to an +inarticulate sound from the girl. + +The schoolmaster answered for her: “Mr. Marmaduke Haward has not gone +with the coach. Perhaps he only waited until the other gentlefolk +should be gone. Here he comes.” + +The sward without the gates was bare of all whose presence mattered, +and Haward had indeed reëntered the churchyard, and was walking toward +them. Darden went to meet him. “These be fine tales I hear of you, Mr. +Darden,” said his parishioner calmly. “I should judge you were near the +end of your rope. There’s a vestry meeting Thursday. Shall I put in a +good word for your reverence? Egad, you need it!” + +“I shall be your honor’s most humble, most obliged servant,” quoth the +minister. “The affair at the French ordinary was nothing. I mean to +preach next Sunday upon calumny,--calumny that spareth none, not even +such as I. You are for home, I see, and our road for a time is the +same. Will you ride with us?” + +“Ay,” said Haward briefly. “But you must send yonder fellow with the +scarred hands packing. I travel not with thieves.” + +He had not troubled to lower his voice, and as he and Darden were now +themselves within the shadow of the oak, the schoolmaster overheard +him and answered for himself. “Your honor need not fear my company,” +he said, in his slow and lifeless tones. “I am walking, and I take the +short cut through the woods. Good-day, worthy Gideon. Madam Deborah and +Audrey, good-day.” + +He put his uncouth, shambling figure into motion, and, indifferent and +lifeless in manner as in voice, was gone, gliding like a long black +shadow through the churchyard and into the woods across the road. “I +knew him long ago in England,” the minister explained to their new +companion. “He’s a learned man, and, like myself, a calumniated one. +The gentlemen of these parts value him highly as an instructor of +youth. No need to send their sons to college if they’ve been with him +for a year or two! My good Deborah, Mr. Haward will ride with us toward +Fair View.” + +Mistress Deborah curtsied; then chided Audrey for not minding her +manners, but standing like a stock or stone, with her thoughts a +thousand miles away. “Let her be,” said Haward. “We gave each other +good-day in church.” + +Together the four left the churchyard. Darden brought up two sorry +horses; lifted his wife and Audrey upon one, and mounted the other. +Haward swung himself into his saddle, and the company started, Juba +upon Whitefoot Kate bringing up the rear. The master of Fair View +rode beside the minister, and only now and then spoke to the women. +The road was here sunny, there shady; the excessive heat broken, the +air pleasant enough. Everywhere, too, was the singing of birds, while +the fields that they passed of tobacco and golden, waving wheat were +charming to the sight. The minister was, when sober, a man of parts, +with some education and a deal of mother wit; in addition, a close +and shrewd observer of the times and people. He and Haward talked of +matters of public moment, and the two women listened, submissive and +admiring. It seemed that they came very quickly to the bridge across +the creek and the parting of their ways. Would Mr. Haward ride on to +the glebe house? + +It appeared that Mr. Haward would. Moreover, when the house was +reached, and Darden’s one slave came running from a broken-down +stable to take the horses, he made no motion toward returning to the +bridge which led across the creek to his own plantation, but instead +dismounted, flung his reins to Juba, and asked if he might stay to +dinner. + +Now, by the greatest good luck, considered Mistress Deborah, there +chanced to be in her larder a haunch of venison roasted most noble; +the ducklings and asparagus, too, cooked before church, needed but to +be popped into the oven; and there was also an apple tart with cream. +With elation, then, and eke with a mind at rest, she added her shrill +protests of delight to Darden’s more moderate assurances, and, leaving +Audrey to set chairs in the shade of a great apple-tree, hurried into +the house to unearth her damask tablecloth and silver spoons, and to +plan for the morrow a visit to the Widow Constance, and a casual remark +that Mr. Marmaduke Haward had dined with the minister the day before. +Audrey, her task done, went after her, to be met with graciousness most +unusual. “I’ll see to the dinner, child. Mr. Haward will expect one +of us to sit without, and you had as well go as I. If he’s talking to +Darden, you might get some larkspur and gilliflowers for the table. +La! the flowers that used to wither beneath the candles at my Lady +Squander’s!” + +Audrey, finding the two men in conversation beneath the apple-tree, +passed on to the ragged garden, where clumps of hardy, bright-colored +flowers played hide-and-seek with currant and gooseberry bushes. Haward +saw her go, and broke the thread of his discourse. Darden looked up, +and the eyes of the two men met; those of the younger were cold and +steady. A moment, and his glance had fallen to his watch which he had +pulled out. “’Tis early yet,” he said coolly, “and I dare say not quite +your dinner time,--which I beg that Mistress Deborah will not advance +on my account. Is it not your reverence’s habit to rest within doors +after your sermon? Pray do not let me detain you. I will go talk awhile +with Audrey.” + +He put up his watch and rose to his feet. Darden cleared his throat. “I +have, indeed, a letter to write to Mr. Commissary, and it may be half +an hour before Deborah has dinner ready. I will send your servant to +fetch you in.” + +Haward broke the larkspur and gilliflowers, and Audrey gathered up +her apron and filled it with the vivid blooms. The child that had +thus brought loaves of bread to a governor’s table spread beneath a +sugar-tree, with mountains round about, had been no purer of heart, no +more innocent of rustic coquetry. When her apron was filled she would +have returned to the house, but Haward would not have it so. “They will +call when dinner is ready,” he said. “I wish to talk to you, little +maid. Let us go sit in the shade of the willow yonder.” + +It was almost a twilight behind the cool green rain of the willow +boughs. Through that verdant mist Haward and Audrey saw the outer world +but dimly. “I had a fearful dream last night,” said Audrey. “I think +that that must have been why I was to glad to see you come into church +to-day. I dreamed that you had never come home again, overseas, in the +Golden Rose. Hugon was beside me, in the dream, telling me that you +were dead in England: and suddenly I knew that I had never really seen +you; that there was no garden, no terrace, no roses, no _you_. It was +all so cold and sad, and the sun kept growing smaller and smaller. +The woods, too, were black, and the wind cried in them so that I was +afraid. And then I was in Hugon’s house, holding the door,--there was +a wolf without,--and through the window I saw the mountains; only they +were so high that my heart ached to look upon them, and the wind cried +down the cleft in the hills. The wolf went away, and then, somehow, I +was upon the hilltop.... There was a dead man lying in the grass, but +it was too dark to see. Hugon came up behind me, stooped, and lifted +the hand.... Upon the finger was that ring you wear, burning in the +moonlight.... Oh me!” + +The remembered horror of her dream contending with present bliss shook +her spirit to its centre. She shuddered violently, then burst into a +passion of tears. + +Haward’s touch upon her hair, Haward’s voice in her ear, all the old +terms of endearment for a frightened child,--“little maid,” “little +coward,” “Why, sweetheart, these things are shadows, they cannot hurt +thee!” She controlled her tears, and was the happier for her weeping. +It was sweet to sit there in the lush grass, veiled and shadowed from +the world by the willow’s drooping green, and in that soft and happy +light to listen to his voice, half laughing, half chiding, wholly +tender and caressing. Dreams were naught, he said. Had Hugon troubled +her waking hours? + +He had come once to the house, it appeared; but she had run away and +hidden in the wood, and the minister had told him she was gone to the +Widow Constance’s. That was a long time ago; it must have been the day +after she and Mistress Deborah had last come from Fair View. + +“A long time,” said Haward. “It was a week ago. Has it seemed a long +time, Audrey?” + +“Yes,--oh yes!” + +“I have been busy. I must learn to be a planter, you know. But I have +thought of you, little maid.” + +Audrey was glad of that, but there was yet a weight upon her heart. +“After that dream I lay awake all night, and it came to me how wrongly +I had done. Hugon is a wicked man,--an Indian. Oh, I should never have +told you, that first day in the garden, that he was waiting for me +outside! For now, because you took care of me and would not let him +come near, he hates you. He is so wicked that he might do you a harm.” +Her eyes widened, and the hand that touched his was cold and trembling. +“If ever hurt came to you through me, I would drown myself in the river +yonder. And then I thought--lying awake last night--that perhaps I had +been troublesome to you, those days at Fair View, and that was why you +had not come to see the minister, as you had said you would.” The dark +eyes were pitifully eager; the hand that went to her heart trembled +more and more. “It is not as it was in the mountains,” she said. “I am +older now, and safe, and--and happy. And you have many things to do +and to think of, and many friends--gentlemen and beautiful ladies--to +go to see. I thought--last night--that when I saw you I would ask your +pardon for not remembering that the mountains were years ago; for +troubling you with my matters, sir; for making too free, forgetting my +place”--Her voice sank; the shamed red was in her cheeks, and her eyes, +that she had bravely kept upon his face, fell to the purple and gold +blooms in her lap. + +Haward rose from the grass, and, with his back to the gray hole of the +willow, looked first at the veil of leaf and stem through which dimly +showed house, orchard, and blue sky, then down upon the girl at his +feet. Her head was bent and she sat very still, one listless, upturned +hand upon the grass beside her, the other lying as quietly among her +flowers. + +“Audrey,” he said at last, “you shame me in your thoughts of me. I am +not that knight without fear and without reproach for which you take +me. Being what I am, you must believe that you have not wearied me; +that I think of you and wish to see you. And Hugon, having possibly +some care for his own neck, will do me no harm; that is a very foolish +notion, which you must put from you. Now listen.” He knelt beside her +and took her hand in his. “After a while, perhaps, when the weather is +cooler, and I must open my house and entertain after the fashion of the +country; when the new Governor comes in, and all this gay little world +of Virginia flocks to Williamsburgh; when I am a Councilor, and must go +with the rest, and must think of gold and place and people,--why, then, +maybe, our paths will again diverge, and only now and then will I catch +the gleam of your skirt, mountain maid, brown Audrey! But now in these +midsummer days it is a sleepy world, that cares not to go bustling up +and down. I am alone in my house; I visit not nor am visited, and the +days hang heavy. Let us make believe for a time that the mountains are +all around us, that it was but yesterday we traveled together. It is +only a little way from Fair View to the glebe house, from the glebe +house to Fair View. I will see you often, little maid, and you must +dream no more as you dreamed last night.” He paused; his voice changed, +and he went on as to himself: “It is a lonely land, with few to see +and none to care. I will drift with the summer, making of it an idyl, +beautiful,--yes, and innocent! When autumn comes I will go to Westover.” + +Of this speech Audrey caught only the last word. A wonderful smile, so +bright was it, and withal so sad, came into her face. “Westover!” she +said to herself. “That is where the princess lives.” + +“We will let thought alone,” continued Haward. “It suits not with this +charmed light, this glamour of the summer.” He made a laughing gesture. +“Hey, presto! little maid, there go the years rolling back! I swear I +see the mountains through the willow leaves.” + +“There was one like a wall shutting out the sun when he went down,” +answered Audrey. “It was black and grim, and the light flared like a +fire behind it. And there was the one above which the moon rose. It +was sharp, pointing like a finger to heaven, and I liked it best. Do +you remember how large was the moon pushing up behind the pine-trees? +We sat on the dark hillside watching it, and you told me beautiful +stories, while the moon rose higher and higher and the mockingbirds +began to sing.” + +Haward remembered not, but he said that he did so. “The moon is +full again,” he continued, “and last night I heard a mockingbird +in the garden. I will come in the barge to-morrow evening, and the +negroes shall row us up and down the river--you and me and Mistress +Deborah--between the sunset and the moonrise. Then it is lonely and +sweet upon the water. The roses can be smelled from the banks, and if +you will speak to the mockingbirds we shall have music, dryad Audrey, +brown maid of the woods!” + +Audrey’s laugh, was silver-clear and sweet, like that of a forest nymph +indeed. She was quite happy again, with all her half-formed doubts and +fears allayed. They had never been of him,--only of herself. The two +sat within the green and swaying fountain of the willow, and time went +by on eagle wings. Too soon came the slave to call them to the house; +the time within, though spent in the company of Darden and his wife, +passed too soon; too soon came the long shadows of the afternoon and +Haward’s call for his horse. + +Audrey watched him ride away, and the love light was in her eyes. She +did not know that it was so. That night, in her bare little room, when +the candle was out, she kneeled by the window and looked at the stars. +There was one very fair and golden, an empress of the night. “That is +the princess,” said Audrey, and smiled upon the peerless star. Far from +that light, scarce free from the murk of the horizon, shone a little +star, companionless in the night. “And that is I,” said Audrey, and +smiled upon herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE BEND IN THE ROAD + + + “‘Brave Derwentwater he is dead; + From his fair body they took the head: + But Mackintosh and his friends are fled, + And they’ll set the hat upon another head’”-- + +chanted the Fair View storekeeper, and looked aside at Mistress +Truelove Taberer, spinning in the doorway of her father’s house. + +Truelove answered naught, but her hands went to and fro, and her eyes +were for her work, not for MacLean, sitting on the doorstep at her feet. + + “‘And whether they’re gone beyond the sea’”-- + +The exile broke off and sighed heavily. Before the two a little yard, +all gay with hollyhocks and roses, sloped down to the wider of the two +creeks between which stretched the Fair View plantation. It was late of +a holiday afternoon. A storm was brewing, darkening all the water, and +erecting above the sweep of woods monstrous towers of gray cloud. There +must have been an echo, for MacLean’s sigh came back to him faintly, as +became an echo. + +“Is there not peace here, ‘beyond the sea’?” said Truelove softly. +“Thine must be a dreadful country, Angus MacLean!” + +The Highlander looked at her with kindling eyes. “Now had I the harp of +old Murdoch!” he said. + + “‘Dear is that land to the east, + Alba of the lakes! + Oh, that I might dwell there forever’”-- + +He turned upon the doorstep, and taking between his fingers the hem +of Truelove’s apron fell to plaiting it. “A woman named Deirdre, who +lived before the days of Gillean-na-Tuaidhe, made that song. She was +not born in that land, but it was dear to her because she dwelt there +with the man whom she loved. They went away, and the man was slain; +and where he was buried, there Deirdre cast herself down and died.” +His voice changed, and all the melancholy of his race, deep, wild, and +tender, looked from his eyes. “If to-day you found yourself in that +loved land, if this parched grass were brown heather, if it stretched +down to a tarn yonder, if that gray cloud that hath all the seeming of +a crag were crag indeed, and eagles plied between the tarn and it,”--he +touched her hand that lay idle now upon her knee,--“if you came like +Deirdre lightly through the heather, and found me lying here, and found +more red than should be in the tartan of the MacLeans, what would you +do, Truelove? What would you cry out, Truelove? How heavy would be thy +heart, Truelove?” + +Truelove sat in silence, with her eyes upon the sky above the dream +crags. “How heavy would grow thy heart, Truelove, Truelove?” whispered +the Highlander. + +Up the winding water, to the sedges and reeds below the little yard, +glided the boy Ephraim in his boat. The Quakeress started, and the +color flamed into her gentle face. She took up the distaff that she had +dropped, and fell to work again. “Thee must not speak to me so, Angus +MacLean,” she said. “I trust that my heart is not hard. Thy death would +grieve me, and my father and my mother and Ephraim”-- + +“I care not for thy father and mother and Ephraim!” MacLean began +impetuously. “But you do right to chide me. Once I knew a green glen +where maidens were fain when paused at their doors Angus, son of +Hector, son of Lachlan, son of Murdoch, son of Angus that was named for +Angus Mor, who was great-grandson of Hector of the Battles, who was son +of Lachlan Lubanach! But here I am a landless man, with none to do me +honor,--a wretch bereft of liberty”-- + +“To me, to all Friends,” said Truelove sweetly, halting a little in her +work, “thee has now what thee thyself calls freedom. For God meant not +that one of his creatures should say to another: ‘Lo, here am I! Behold +thy God!’ To me, and my father and mother and Ephraim, thee is no bond +servant of Marmaduke Haward. But thee is bond servant to thy own vain +songs; thy violent words; thy idle pride, that, vaunting the cruel +deeds of thy forefathers, calls meekness and submission the last worst +evil; thy shameless reverence for those thy fellow creatures, James +Stewart and him whom thee calls the chief of thy house,--forgetting +that there is but one house, and that God is its head; thy love of +clamor and warfare; thy hatred of the ways of peace”-- + +MacLean laughed. “I hate not all its ways. There is no hatred in my +heart for this house which is its altar, nor for the priestess of the +altar. Ah! now you frown, Truelove”-- + +Across the clouds ran so fierce a line of gold that Truelove, startled, +put her hand before her eyes. Another dart of lightning, a low roll of +thunder, a bending apart of the alder bushes on the far side of the +creek; then a woman’s voice calling to the boy in the boat to come +ferry her over. + +“Who may that be?” asked Truelove wonderingly. + +It was only a little way to the bending alders. Ephraim rowed across +the glassy water, dark beneath the approach of the storm; the woman +stepped into the boat, and the tiny craft came lightly back to its +haven beneath the bank. + +“It is Darden’s Audrey,” said the storekeeper. + +Truelove shrank a little, and her eyes darkened. “Why should she +come here? I never knew her. It is true that we may not think evil, +but--but”-- + +MacLean moved restlessly. “I have seen the girl but twice,” he said. +“Once she was alone, once--It is my friend of whom I think. I know +what they say, but, by St. Kattan! I hold him a gentleman too high of +mind, too noble--There was a tale I used to hear when I was a boy. A +long, long time ago a girl lived in the shadow of the tower of Duart, +and the chief looked down from his walls and saw her. Afterwards they +walked together by the shore and through the glens, and he cried her +health when he drank in his hall, sitting amongst his tacksmen. Then +what the men whispered the women spoke aloud; and so, more quickly +than the tarie is borne, word went to a man of the MacDonalds who +loved the Duart maiden. Not like a lover to his tryst did he come. In +the handle of his dirk the rich stones sparkled as they rose and fell +with the rise and fall of the maiden’s white bosom. She prayed to die +in his arms; for it was not Duart that she loved, but him. She died, +and they snooded her hair and buried her. Duart went overseas; the man +of the MacDonalds killed himself. It was all wrought with threads of +gossamer,--idle fancy, shrugs, smiles, whispers, slurring speech,--and +it was long ago. But there is yet gossamer to be had for the gathering; +it gleams on every hand these summer mornings.” + +By now Darden’s Audrey had left the boat and was close upon them. +MacLean arose, and Truelove hastily pushed aside her wheel. “Is thee +seeking shelter from the storm?” she asked tremulously, and with her +cheeks as pink as a seashell. “Will thee sit here with us? The storm +will not break yet awhile.” + +Audrey heeded her not, her eyes being for MacLean. She had been +running,--running more swiftly than for a thousand May Day guineas. +Even now, though her breath came short, every line of her slender +figure was tense, and she was ready to be off like an arrow. “You are +Mr. Haward’s friend?” she cried. “I have heard him say that you were +so--call you a brave gentleman”-- + +MacLean’s dark face flushed. “Yes, we are friends,--I thank God for it. +What have you to do with that, my lass?” + +“I also am his friend,” said Audrey, coming nearer. Her hands were +clasped, her bosom heaving. “Listen! To-day I was sent on an errand +to a house far up this creek. Coming back, I took the short way home +through the woods because of the storm. It led me past the schoolhouse +down by the big swamp. I thought that no one was there, and I went +and sat down upon the steps to rest a moment. The door behind me was +partly open. Then I heard two voices: the schoolmaster and Jean Hugon +were inside--close to me--talking. I would have run away, but I heard +Mr. Haward’s name.” Her hand went to her heart, and she drew a sobbing +breath. + +“Well!” cried MacLean sharply. + +“Mr. Haward went yesterday to Williamsburgh--alone--without Juba. He +rides back--alone--to Fair View late this afternoon--he is riding now. +You know the sharp bend in the road, with the steep bank above and the +pond below?” + +“Ay, where the road nears the river. Well?” + +“I heard all that Hugon and the schoolmaster said. I hid behind a +fallen tree and watched them leave the schoolhouse; then I followed +them, making no noise, back to the creek, where Hugon had a boat. They +crossed the creek, and fastened the boat on this side. I could follow +them no farther; the woods hid them; but they have gone downstream to +that bend in the road. Hugon had his hunting-knife and pistols; the +schoolmaster carried a coil of rope.” She flung back her head, and +her hands went to her throat as though she were stifling. “The turn +in the road is very sharp. Just past the bend they will stretch the +rope from side to side, fastening it to two trees. He will be hurrying +home before the bursting of the storm--he will be riding the planter’s +pace”-- + +“Man and horse will come crashing down!” cried the storekeeper, with a +great oath “And then”-- + +“Hugon’s knife, so there will be no noise.... They think he has gold +upon him: that is for the schoolmaster.... Hugon is an Indian, and he +will hide their trail. Men will think that some outlying slave was in +the woods, and set upon and killed him.” + +Her voice broke; then went on, gathering strength: “It was so late, and +I knew that he would ride fast because of the storm. I remembered this +house, and thought that, if I called, some one might come and ferry +me over the creek. Now I will run through the woods to the road, for +I must reach it before he passes on his way to where they wait.” She +turned her face toward the pine wood beyond the house. + +“Ay, that is best!” agreed the storekeeper. “Warned, he can take the +long way home, and Hugon and this other may be dealt with at his +leisure. Come, my girl; there’s no time to lose.” + +They left behind them the creek, the blooming dooryard, the small +white house, and the gentle Quakeress. The woods received them, and +they came into a world of livid greens and grays dashed here and there +with ebony,--a world that, expectant of the storm, had caught and was +holding its breath. Save for the noise of their feet upon dry leaves +that rustled like paper, the wood was soundless. The light that lay +within it, fallen from skies of iron, was wild and sinister; there was +no air, and the heat wrapped them like a mantle. So motionless were all +things, so fixed in quietude each branch and bough, each leaf or twig +or slender needle of the pine, that they seemed to be fleeing through a +wood of stone, jade and malachite, emerald and agate. + +They hurried on, not wasting breath in speech. Now and again MacLean +glanced aside at the girl, who kept beside him, moving as lightly as +presently would move the leaves when the wind arose. He remembered +certain scurrilous words spoken in the store a week agone by a knot of +purchasers, but when he looked at her face he thought of the Highland +maiden whose story he had told. As for Audrey, she saw not the woods +that she loved, heard not the leaves beneath her feet, knew not if the +light were gold or gray. She saw only a horse and rider riding from +Williamsburgh, heard only the rapid hoofbeats. All there was of her was +one dumb prayer for the rider’s safety. Her memory told her that it +was no great distance to the road, but her heart cried out that it was +so far away,--so far away! When the wood thinned, and they saw before +them the dusty strip, pallid and lonely beneath the storm clouds, her +heart leaped within her; then grew sick for fear that he had gone by. +When they stood, ankle-deep in the dust, she looked first toward the +north, and then to the south. Nothing moved; all was barren, hushed, +and lonely. + +“How can we know? How can we know?” she cried, and wrung her hands. + +MacLean’s keen eyes were busily searching for any sign that a horseman +had lately passed that way. At a little distance above them a shallow +stream of some width flowed across the way, and to this the Highlander +hastened, looked with attention at the road-bed where it emerged from +the water, then came back to Audrey with a satisfied air. “There are no +hoof-prints,” he said. “No marks upon the dust. None can have passed +for some hours.” + +A rotted log, streaked with velvet moss and blotched with fan-shaped, +orange-colored fungi, lay by the wayside, and the two sat down upon it +to wait for the coming horseman. Overhead the thunder was rolling, but +there was as yet no breath of wind, no splash of raindrops. Opposite +them rose a gigantic pine, towering above the forest, red-brown trunk +and ultimate cone of deep green foliage alike outlined against the dead +gloom of the sky. Audrey shook back her heavy hair and raised her face +to the roof of the world; her hands were clasped upon her knee; her +bare feet, slim and brown, rested on a carpet of moss; she was as still +as the forest, of which, to the Highlander, she suddenly seemed a part. +When they had kept silence for what seemed a long time, he spoke to her +with some hesitation: “You have known Mr. Haward but a short while; the +months are very few since he came from England.” + +The name brought Audrey down to earth again. “Did you not know?” she +asked wonderingly. “You also are his friend,--you see him often. I +thought that at times he would have spoken of me.” For a moment her +face was troubled, though only for a moment. “But I know why he did +not so,” she said softly to herself. “He is not one to speak of his +good deeds.” She turned toward MacLean, who was attentively watching +her, “But I may speak of them,” she said, with pride. “I have known Mr. +Haward for years and years. He saved my life; he brought me here from +the Indian country; he was, he is, so kind to me!” + +Since the afternoon beneath the willow-tree, Haward, while encouraging +her to speak of her long past, her sylvan childhood, her dream +memories, had somewhat sternly checked every expression of gratitude +for the part which he himself had played or was playing, in the drama +of her life. Walking in the minister’s orchard, sitting in the garden +or upon the terrace of Fair View house, drifting on the sunset river, +he waved that aside, and went on to teach her another lesson. The +teaching was exquisite; but when the lesson for the day was over, +and he was alone, he sat with one whom he despised. The learning was +exquisite; it was the sweetest song, but she knew not its name, and +the words were in a strange tongue. She was Audrey, that she knew; and +he,--he was the plumed knight, who, for the lack of a better listener, +told her gracious tales of love, showed her how warm and beautiful was +this world that she sometimes thought so sad, sang to her sweet lines +that poets had made. Over and through all she thought she read the name +of the princess. She had heard him say that with the breaking of the +heat he should go to Westover, and one day, early in summer, he had +shown her the miniature of Evelyn Byrd. Because she loved him blindly, +and because he was wise in his generation, her trust in him was +steadfast as her native hills, large as her faith in God. Now it was +sweet beneath her tongue to be able to tell one that was his friend how +worthy of all friendship--nay, all reverence--he was. She spoke simply, +but with that strange power of expression which nature had given her. +Gestures with her hands, quick changes in the tone of her voice, a +countenance that gave ample utterance to the moment’s thought,--as one +morning in the Fair View library she had brought into being that long +dead Eloïsa whose lines she spoke, so now her auditor of to-day thought +that he saw the things of which she told. + +She had risen, and was standing in the wild light, against the +background of the forest that was breathless, as if it too listened, +“And so he brought me safely to this land,” she said. “And so he left +me here for ten years, safe and happy, he thought. He has told me that +all that while he thought of me as safe and happy. That I was not +so,--why, that was not his fault! When he came back I was both. I have +never seen the sunshine so bright or the woods so fair as they have +been this summer. The people with whom I live are always kind to me +now,--that is his doing. And ah! it is because he would not let Hugon +scare or harm me that that wicked Indian waits for him now beyond the +bend in the road.” At the thought of Hugon she shuddered, and her eyes +began to widen. “Have we not been here a long time?” she cried. “Are +you sure? Oh, God! perhaps he has passed!” + +“No, no,” answered MacLean, with his hand upon her arm. “There is +no sign that he has done so. It is not late; it is that heavy cloud +above our heads that has so darkened the air. Perhaps he has not left +Williamsburgh at all: perhaps, the storm threatening, he waits until +to-morrow.” + +From the cloud above came a blinding light and a great crash of +thunder,--the one so intense, the other so tremendous, that for a +minute the two stood as if stunned. Then, “The tree!” cried Audrey. +The great pine, blasted and afire, uprooted itself and fell from them +like a reed that the wind has snapped. The thunder crash, and the din +with which the tree met its fellows of the forest, bore them down, and +finally struck the earth from which it came, seemed an alarum to waken +all nature from its sleep. The thunder became incessant, and the wind +suddenly arising the forest stretched itself and began to speak with no +uncertain voice. MacLean took his seat again upon the log, but Audrey +slipped into the road, and stood in the whirling dust, her arm raised +above her eyes, looking for the horseman whose approach she could not +hope to hear through the clamor of the storm. The wind lifted her long +hair, and the rising dust half obscured her form, bent against the +blast. On the lonesome road, in the partial light, she had the seeming +of an apparition, a creature tossed like a ball from the surging +forest. She had made herself a world, and she had become its product. +In all her ways, to the day of her death, there was about her a touch +of mirage, illusion, fantasy. The Highlander, imaginative like all his +race, and a believer in things not of heaven nor of earth, thought of +spirits of the glen and the shore. + +There was no rain as yet; only the hurly-burly of the forest, the white +dust cloud, and the wild commotion overhead. Audrey turned to MacLean, +watching her in silence. “He is coming!” she cried. “There is some one +with him. Now, now he is safe!” + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +HUGON SPEAKS HIS MIND + + +MacLean sprang up from the log, and, joining her, saw indeed two +horsemen galloping toward them, their heads bent and riding cloaks +raised to shield them from the whirlwind of dust, dead leaves, and +broken twigs. He knew Haward’s powerful steed Mirza, but the other +horse was strange. + +The two rode fast. A moment, and they were splashing through the +stream; another, and the horses, startled by Audrey’s cry and waving +arms and by the sudden and violent check on the part of their riders, +were rearing and curveting across the road. “What the devil!” cried one +of the horsemen. “Imp or sprite, or whatever you are, look out! Haward, +your horse will trample her!” + +But Audrey, with her hand on Mirza’s bridle, had no fears. Haward +stared at her in amazement. “Child, what are you doing here? Angus, you +too!” as the storekeeper advanced. “What rendezvous is this? Mirza, be +quiet!” + +Audrey left her warning to be spoken by MacLean. She was at peace, +her head against Mirza’s neck, her eyes upon Haward’s face, clear in +the flashing lightning. That gentleman heard the story with his usual +calmness; his companion first swore, and then laughed. + +[Illustration: AUDREY LEFT HER WARNING TO BE SPOKEN BY MACLEAN] + +“Here’s a Canterbury tale!” he cried. “Egad, Haward, are we to take +this skipping rope, vault it as though we were courtiers of Lilliput? +Neither of us is armed. I conceive that the longest way around will +prove our shortest way home.” + +“My dear Colonel, I want to speak with these two gentlemen.” + +“But at your leisure, my friend, at your leisure, and not in dying +tones! I like not what I hear of Monsieur Jean Hugon’s pistols. Flank +an ambush; don’t ride into it open-eyed.” + +“Colonel Byrd is right,” said the storekeeper earnestly. “Ride back, +the two of you, and take the bridle path that will carry you to Fair +View by way of the upper bridge. In the mean time, I will run through +the woods to Mr. Taberer’s house, cross there, hurry to the quarters, +rouse the overseer, and with a man or two we will recross the creek by +the lower bridge, and coming upon these rogues unawares, give them a +taste of their own medicine! We’ll hale them to the great house; you +shall have speech of them in your own hall.” + +Neither of the riders being able to suggest a better plan, the +storekeeper, with a wave of his hand, plunged into the forest, and was +soon lost to view amidst its serried trunks and waving branches. Haward +stooped from his saddle; Audrey set her bare foot upon his booted one, +and he swung her up behind him. “Put thine arm around me, child,” he +told her. “We will ride swiftly through the storm. Now, Colonel, to +turn our backs upon the enemy!” + +The lightning was about them, and they raced to the booming of the +thunder. Heavy raindrops began to fall, and the wind was a power to +drive the riders on. Its voice shrilled above the diapason of the +thunder; the forest swung to its long cry. When the horses turned +from the wide into the narrow road, they could no longer go abreast. +Mirza took the lead, and the bay fell a length behind. The branches +now hid the sky; between the flashes there was Stygian gloom, but when +the lightning came it showed far aisles of the forest. There was the +smell of rain upon dusty earth, there was the wine of coolness after +heat, there was the sense of being borne upon the wind, there was the +leaping of life within the veins to meet the awakened life without. +Audrey closed her eyes, and wished to ride thus forever. Haward, too, +traveling fast through mist and rain a road whose end was hidden, +facing the wet wind, hearing the voices of earth and sky, felt his +spirit mount with the mounting voices. So to ride with Love to doom! +On, and on, and on! Left behind the sophist, the apologist, the lover +of the world with his tinsel that was not gold, his pebbles that were +not gems! Only the man thundering on,--the man and his mate that was +meant for him since time began! He raised his face to the strife +above, he drew his breath, his hand closed over the hand of the woman +riding with him. At the touch a thrill ran through them both; had the +lightning with a sword of flame cut the world from beneath their feet, +they had passed on, immortal in their happiness. But the bolts struck +aimlessly, and the moment fled. Haward was Haward again; he recognized +his old acquaintance with a half-humorous, half-disdainful smile. The +road was no longer a road that gleamed athwart all time and space; the +wind had lost its trumpet tone; Love spoke not in the thunder, nor +seemed so high a thing as the lit heaven. Audrey’s hand was yet within +his clasp; but it was flesh and blood that he touched, not spirit, and +he was glad that it was so. For her, her cheek burned, and she hid +her eyes. She had looked unawares, as by the lightning glare, into a +world of which she had not dreamed. Its portals had shut; she rode on +in the twilight again, and she could not clearly remember what she had +seen. But she was sure that the air of that country was sweet, she was +faint with its beauty, her heart beat with violence to its far echoes. +Moreover, she was dimly aware that in the moment when she had looked +there had been a baptism. She had thought of herself as a child, as a +girl; now and for evermore she was a woman. + +They left the forest behind, and came to open fields where the tobacco +had been beaten to earth. The trees now stood singly or in shivering +copses. Above, the heavens were bare to their gaze, and the lightning +gave glimpses of pale castles overhanging steel-gray, fathomless +abysses. The road widened, and the bay was pushed by its rider to +Mirza’s side. Fields of corn where the long blades wildly clashed, a +wood of dripping cedars, a patch of Oronoko, tobacco house in midst, +rising ground and a vision of the river, then a swift descent to the +lower creek, and the bridge across which lay the road that ran to the +minister’s house. Audrey spoke earnestly to the master of Fair View, +and after a moment’s hesitation he drew rein. “We will not cross, +Colonel,” he declared. “My preserver will have it that she has troubled +us long enough; and indeed it is no great distance to the glebe house, +and the rain has stopped. Have down with thee, then, obstinate one!” + +Audrey slipped to the earth, and pushed back her hair from her eyes. +Colonel Byrd observed her curiously. “Faith,” he exclaimed, “’tis the +Atalanta of last May Day! Well, child, I believe thou hast saved our +lives. Come, here are three gold baubles that may pass for Hippomenes’ +apples!” + +Audrey put her hands behind her. “I want no money, sir. What I did was +a gift; it has no price.” She was only Darden’s Audrey, but she spoke +as proudly as a princess might have spoken. Haward smiled to hear her; +and seeing the smile, she was comforted. “For he understands,” she said +to herself. “He would never hurt me so.” It did not wound her that he +said no word, but only lifted his hat, when she curtsied to them both. +There was to-morrow, and he would praise her then for her quickness of +wit and her courage in following Hugon, whom she feared so much. + +The riders watched her cross the bridge and turn into the road that +led to the glebe house, then kept their own road in silence until it +brought them to the doors of Fair View. + +It was an hour later, and drawing toward dusk, when the Colonel, having +changed his wet riding clothes for a suit of his friend’s, came down +the stairs and entered the Fair View drawing-room. Haward, in green, +with rich lace at throat and wrist, was there before him, walking up +and down in the cheerful light of a fire kindled against the dampness. +“No sign of our men,” he said, as the other entered. “Come to the fire. +Faith, Colonel, my russet and gold becomes you mightily! Juba took you +the aqua vitæ?” + +“Ay, in one of your great silver goblets, with a forest of mint atop. +Ha, this is comfort!” He sank into an armchair, stretched his legs +before the blaze, and began to look about him. “I have ever said, +Haward, that of all the gentlemen of my acquaintance you have the most +exact taste. I told Bubb Dodington as much, last year, at Eastbury. +Damask, mirrors, paintings, china, cabinets,--all chaste and quiet, +extremely elegant, but without ostentation! It hath an air, too. I +would swear a woman had the placing of yonder painted jars!” + +“You are right,” said Haward, smiling. “The wife of the minister of +this parish was good enough to come to my assistance.” + +“Ah!” said the Colonel dryly. “Did Atalanta come as well? She is his +reverence’s servant, is she not?” + +“No,” answered Haward shortly to the last question, and, leaning +across, stirred the fire. + +The light caused to sparkle a jeweled pin worn in the lace of his +ruffles, and the toy caught the Colonel’s eye. “One of Spotswood’s +golden horseshoes!” he exclaimed. “I had them wrought for him in +London. Had they been so many stars and garters, he could have made no +greater pother! ’Tis ten years since I saw one.” + +Haward detached the horseshoe-shaped bauble from the lace, and laid it +on the other’s palm. The master of Westover regarded it curiously, and +read aloud the motto engraved upon its back: “‘Sic Juvat Transcendere +Montes.’ A barren exploit! But some day I too shall please myself and +cross these sun-kissing hills. And so the maid with the eyes is not his +reverence’s servant? What is she?” + +Haward took the golden horseshoe in his own hand, and fell to studying +it in the firelight. “I wore this to-night,” he said at length, with +deliberation, “in order that it might bring to your mind that sprightly +ultramontane expedition in which, my dear Colonel, had you not been +in England, you had undoubtedly borne a part. You have asked me a +question; I will answer it with a story, and so the time may pass +more rapidly until the arrival of Mr. MacLean with our friends who +set traps.” He turned the mimic horseshoe this way and that, watching +the small gems, that simulated nails, flash in the red light. “Some +days to the west of Germanna,” he said, “when about us were the lesser +mountains, and before us those that propped the sky, we came one sunny +noon upon a valley, a little valley, very peaceful below the heights. +A stream shone through it, and there were noble trees, and beside the +stream the cabin of a frontiersman.” + +On went the story. The fire crackled, reflecting itself in mirrors +and polished wood and many small window panes. Outside, the rain had +ceased, but the wind and the river murmured loudly, and the shadows +of the night were gathering. When the narrative was ended, he who had +spoken and he who had listened sat staring at the fire. “A pretty +story!” said the Colonel at last. “Dick Steele should have had it; +’twould have looked vastly well over against his Inkle and Yarico. +There the maid the savior, here the man; there perfidy, here plain +honesty; there for the woman a fate most tragical, here”-- + +“Here?” said Haward, as the other paused. + +The master of Westover took out his snuffbox. “And here the continued +kindness of a young and handsome preserver,” he said suavely, and +extended the box to his host. + +“You are mistaken,” said Haward. He rose, and stood leaning against +the mantel, his eyes upon the older man’s somewhat coldly smiling +countenance. “She is as innocent, as high of soul, and as pure of heart +as--as Evelyn.” + +The Colonel clicked to the lid of his box. “You will be so good as to +leave my daughter’s name out of the conversation.” + +“As you please,” Haward answered, with hauteur. + +Another silence, broken by the guest. “Why did you hang that kit-kat +of yourself behind the door, Haward?” he asked amiably. “’Tis too fine +a piece to be lost in shadow. I would advise a change with yonder +shepherdess.” + +“I do not know why,” said Haward restlessly. “A whim. Perhaps by nature +I court shadows and dark corners.” + +“That is not so,” Byrd replied quietly. He had turned in his chair, +the better to observe the distant portrait that was now lightened, now +darkened, as the flames rose and fell. “A speaking likeness,” he went +on, glancing from it to the original and back again. “I ever thought +it one of Kneller’s best. The portrait of a gentleman. Only--you have +noticed, I dare say, how in the firelight familiar objects change +aspect many times?--only just now it seemed to me that it lost that +distinction”-- + +“Well?” said Haward, as he paused. + +The Colonel went on slowly: “Lost that distinction, and became the +portrait of”-- + +“Well? Of whom?” asked Haward, and, with his eyes shaded by his hand, +gazed not at the portrait, but at the connoisseur in gold and russet. + +“Of a dirty tradesman,” said the master of Westover lightly. “In a +word, of an own brother to Mr. Thomas Inkle.” + +A dead silence; then Haward spoke calmly: “I will not take offense, +Colonel Byrd. Perhaps I should not take it even were it not as my guest +and in my drawing-room that you have so spoken. We will, if you please, +consign my portrait to the obscurity from which it has been dragged. +In good time here comes Juba to light the candles and set the shadows +fleeing.” + +Leaving the fire he moved to a window, and stood looking out upon the +windy twilight. From the back of the house came a sound of voices and +of footsteps. The Colonel put up his snuffbox and brushed a grain from +his ruffles. “Enter two murderers!” he said briskly. “Will you have +them here, Haward, or shall we go into the hall?” + +“Light all the candles, Juba,” ordered the master. “Here, I think, +Colonel, where the stage will set them off. Juba, go ask Mr. MacLean +and Saunderson to bring their prisoners here.” + +As he spoke, he turned from the contemplation of the night without to +the brightly lit room. “This is a murderous fellow, this Hugon,” he +said, as he took his seat in a great chair drawn before a table. “I +have heard Colonel Byrd argue in favor of imitating John Rolfe’s early +experiment, and marrying the white man to the heathen. We are about to +behold the result of such an union.” + +“I would not have the practice universal,” said the Colonel coolly, +“but ’twould go far toward remedying loss of scalps in this world, and +of infidel souls hereafter. Your sprightly lover is a most prevailing +missionary. But here is our Huguenot-Monacan.” + +MacLean, very wet and muddy, with one hand wrapped in a blood-stained +rag, came in first. “We found them hidden in the bushes at the turn +of the road,” he said hastily. “The schoolmaster was more peaceably +inclined than any Quaker, but Hugon fought like the wolf that he is. +Can’t you hang him out of hand, Haward? Give me a land where the +chief does justice while the king looks the other way!” He turned and +beckoned. “Bring them in, Saunderson.” + +There was no discomposure in the schoolmaster’s dress, and as little in +his face or manner. He bowed to the two gentlemen, then shambled across +to the fire, and as best he could held out his bound hands to the +grateful blaze. “May I ask, sir,” he said, in his lifeless voice, “why +it is that this youth and I, resting in all peace and quietness beside +a public road, should be set upon by your servants, overpowered, bound, +and haled to your house as to a judgment bar?” + +Haward, to whom this speech was addressed, gave it no attention. His +gaze was upon Hugon, who in his turn glared at him alone. Haward had +a subtle power of forcing and fixing the attention of a company; in +crowded rooms, without undue utterance or moving from his place, he +was apt to achieve the centre of the stage, the head of the table. +Now, the half-breed, by very virtue of the passion which, false to his +Indian blood, shook him like a leaf, of a rage which overmastered and +transformed, reached at a bound the Englishman’s plane of distinction. +His great wig, of a fashion years gone by, was pulled grotesquely +aside, showing the high forehead and shaven crown beneath; his laced +coat and tawdry waistcoat and ruffled shirt were torn and foul with +mud and mould, but the man himself made to be forgotten the absurdity +of his trappings. Gone, for him, were his captors, his accomplice, the +spectator in gold and russet; to Haward, also, sitting very cold, very +quiet, with narrowed eyes, they were gone. He was angered, and in the +mood to give rein after his own fashion to that anger. MacLean and the +master of Westover, the overseer and the schoolmaster, were forgotten, +and he and Hugon met alone as they might have met in the forest. +Between them, and without a spoken word, the two made this fact to be +recognized by the other occupants of the drawing-room. Colonel Byrd, +who had been standing with his hand upon the table, moved backward +until he joined MacLean beside the closed door: Saunderson drew near to +the schoolmaster: and the centre of the room was left to the would-be +murderer and the victim that had escaped him. + +“Monsieur le Monacan,” said Haward. + +Hugon snarled like an angry wolf, and strained at the rope which bound +his arms. + +Haward went on evenly: “Your tribe has smoked the peace pipe with the +white man. I was not told it by singing birds, but by the great white +father at Williamsburgh. They buried the hatchet very deep; the dead +leaves of many moons of Cohonks lie thick upon the place where they +buried it. Why have you made a warpath, treading it alone of your +color?” + +“Diable!” cried Hugon. “Pig of an Englishman! I will kill you for”-- + +“For an handful of blue beads,” said Haward, with a cold smile. “And I, +dog of an Indian! I will send a Nottoway to teach the Monacans how to +lay a snare and hide a trail.” + +The trader, gasping with passion, leaned across the table until his +eyes were within a foot of Haward’s unmoved face. “Who showed you the +trail and told you of the snare?” he whispered. “Tell me that, you +Englishman,--tell me that!” + +“A storm bird,” said Haward calmly. “Okee is perhaps angry with his +Monacans, and sent it.” + +“Was it Audrey?” + +Haward laughed. “No, it was not Audrey. And so, Monacan, you have +yourself fallen into the pit which you digged.” + +From the fireplace came the schoolmaster’s slow voice: “Dear sir, can +you show the pit? Why should this youth desire to harm you? Where is +the storm bird? Can you whistle it before a justice of the peace or +into a court room?” + +If Haward heard, it did not appear. He was leaning back in his chair, +his eyes fixed upon the trader’s twitching face in a cold and smiling +regard. “Well, Monacan?” he demanded. + +The half-breed straightened himself, and with a mighty effort +strove in vain for a composure that should match the other’s cold +self-command,--a command which taunted and stung now at this point, +now at that. “I am a Frenchman!” he cried, in a voice that broke with +passion. “I am of the noblesse of the land of France, which is a +country that is much grander than Virginia! Old Pierre at Monacan-Town +told me these things. My father changed his name when he came across +the sea, so I bear not the _de_ which is a sign of a great man. Listen, +you Englishman! I trade, I prosper, I buy me land, I begin to build me +a house. There is a girl that I see every hour, every minute, while I +am building it. She says she loves me not, but nevertheless I shall wed +her. Now I see her in this room, now in that; she comes down the stair, +she smiles at the window, she stands on the doorstep to welcome me when +I come home from my hunting and trading in the woods so far away. I +bring her fine skins of the otter, the beaver, and the fawn; beadwork +also from the villages and bracelets of copper and pearl. The flowers +bloom around her, and my heart sings to see her upon my doorstep.... +The flowers are dead, and you have stolen the girl away.... There was +a stream, and the sun shone upon it, and you and she were in a boat. I +walked alone upon the bank, and in my heart I left building my house +and fell to other work. You laughed; one day you will laugh no more. +That was many suns ago. I have watched”-- + +Foam was upon his lips, and he strained without ceasing at his bonds. +Already pulled far awry, his great peruke, a cataract of hair streaming +over his shoulders, shading and softening the swarthy features between +its curled waves, now slipped from his head and fell to the floor. The +change which its absence wrought was startling. Of the man the moiety +that was white disappeared. The shaven head, its poise, its features, +were Indian; the soul was Indian, and looked from Indian eyes. +Suddenly, for the last transforming touch, came a torrent of words in a +strange tongue, the tongue of his mother. Of what he was speaking, what +he was threatening, no one of them could tell; he was a savage giving +voice to madness and hate. + +Haward pushed back his chair from the table, and, rising, walked across +the room to the window. Hugon followed him, straining at the rope about +his arms and speaking thickly. His eyes were glaring, his teeth bared. +When he was so close that the Virginian could feel his hot breath, +the latter turned, and uttering an oath of disgust struck the back of +his hand across his lips. With the cry of an animal, Hugon, bound as +he was, threw himself bodily upon his foe, who in his turn flung the +trader from him with a violence that sent him reeling against the wall. +Here Saunderson, a man of powerful build, seized him by the shoulders, +holding him fast; MacLean, too, hurriedly crossed from the door. There +was no need, for the half-breed’s frenzy was spent. He stood with +glittering eyes following Haward’s every motion, but quite silent, his +frame rigid in the overseer’s grasp. + +Colonel Byrd went up to Haward and spoke in a low voice: “Best send +them at once to Williamsburgh.” + +Haward shook his head. “I cannot,” he said, with a gesture of +impatience. “There is no proof.” + +“No proof!” exclaimed his guest sharply. “You mean”-- + +The other met his stare of surprise with an imperturbable countenance. +“What I say,” he answered quietly. “My servants find two men lurking +beside a road that I am traveling. Being somewhat over-zealous, they +take them up upon suspicion of meaning mischief and bring them before +me. It is all guesswork why they were at the turn of the road, and what +they wanted there. There is no proof, no witness”-- + +“I see that there is no witness that you care to call,” said the +Colonel coldly. + +Haward waved his hand. “There is no witness,” he said, without change +of tone. “And therefore, Colonel, I am about to dismiss the case.” + +With a slight bow to his guest he left the window, and advanced to the +group in the centre of the room. “Saunderson,” he said abruptly, “take +these two men to the quarter and cut their bonds. Give them a start of +fifty yards, then loose the dogs and hunt them from the plantation. You +have men outside to help you? Very well; go! Mr. MacLean, will you see +this chase fairly started?” + +The Highlander, who had become very thoughtful of aspect since entering +the room, and who had not shared Saunderson’s start of surprise at +the master’s latest orders, nodded assent. Haward stood for a moment +gazing steadily at Hugon, but with no notice to bestow upon the bowing +schoolmaster; then walked over to the harpsichord, and, sitting down, +began to play an old tune, soft and slow, with pauses between the +notes. When he came to the final chord he looked over his shoulder +at the Colonel, standing before the mantel, with his eyes upon the +fire. “So they have gone,” he said. “Good riddance! A pretty brace of +villains!” + +“I should be loath to have Monsieur Jean Hugon for my enemy,” said the +Colonel gravely. + +Haward laughed. “I was told at Williamsburgh that a party of traders go +to the Southern Indians to-morrow, and he with them. Perhaps a month or +two of the woods will work a cure.” + +He fell to playing again, a quiet, plaintive air. When it was ended, he +rose and went over to the fire to keep his guest company; but finding +him in a mood for silence, presently fell silent himself, and took +to viewing structures of his own building in the red hollows between +the logs. This mutual taciturnity lasted until the announcement of +supper, and was relapsed into at intervals during the meal; but when +they had returned to the drawing-room the two talked until it was late, +and the fire had sunken to ash and embers. Before they parted for the +night it was agreed that the master of Westover should remain with +the master of Fair View for a day or so, at the end of which time the +latter gentleman would accompany the former to Westover for a visit of +indefinite length. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +AUDREY AND EVELYN + + +Hugon went a-trading to the Southern Indians, but had lately returned +to his lair at the crossroads ordinary, when, upon a sunny September +morning, Audrey and Mistress Deborah, mounted upon the sorriest of +Darden’s sorry steeds, turned from Duke of Gloucester into Palace +Street. They had parted with the minister before his favorite ordinary, +and were on their way to the house where they themselves were to lodge +during the three days of town life which Darden had vouchsafed to offer +them. + +For a month or more Virginia had been wearing black ribbons for the +King, who died in June, but in the last day or so there had been a +reversion to bright colors. This cheerful change had been wrought +by the arrival in the York of the Fortune of Bristol, with the new +governor on board. His Excellency had landed at Yorktown, and, after +suitable entertainment at the hands of its citizens, had proceeded +under escort to Williamsburgh. The entry into the town was triumphal, +and when, at the doorway of his Palace, the Governor turned, and +addressed a pleasing oration to the people whom he was to rule in +the name of the King and my Lord of Orkney, enthusiasm reached its +height. At night the town was illuminated, and well-nigh all its ladies +and gentlemen visited the Palace, in order to pay their duty to its +latest occupant. It was a pleasure-loving people, and the arrival +of a governor an occasion of which the most must be made. Gentlemen +of consideration had come in from every county, bringing with them +wives and daughters. In the mild, sunshiny weather the crowded town +overflowed into square and street and garden. Everywhere were bustle +and gayety,--gayety none the less for the presence of thirty or +more ministers of the Established Church. For Mr. Commissary Blair +had convoked a meeting of the clergy for the consideration of evils +affecting that body,--not, alas! from without alone. The Governor, +arriving so opportunely, must, too, be addressed upon the usual +subjects of presentation, induction, and all-powerful vestries. It was +fitting, also, that the college of William and Mary should have its +say upon the occasion, and the brightest scholar thereof was even now +closeted with the Latin master. That the copy of verses giving the +welcome of so many future planters, Burgesses, and members of Council +would be choice in thought and elegant in expression, there could be +no reasonable doubt. The Council was to give an entertainment at the +Capitol; one day had been set aside for a muster of militia in the +meadow beyond the college, another for a great horse-race; many small +parties were arranged; and last, but not least, on the night of the +day following Darden’s appearance in town, his Excellency was to give +a ball at the Palace. Add to all this that two notorious pirates were +standing their trial before a court-martial, with every prospect of +being hanged within the se’ennight; that a deputation of Nottoways and +Meherrins, having business with the white fathers in Williamsburgh, +were to be persuaded to dance their wildest, whoop their loudest, +around a bonfire built in the market square; that at the playhouse Cato +was to be given with extraordinary magnificence, and one may readily +see that there might have been found, in this sunny September week, +places less entertaining than Williamsburgh. + +Darden’s old white horse, with its double load, plodded along the +street that led to the toy Palace of this toy capital. The Palace, of +course, was not its riders’ destination; instead, when they had crossed +Nicholson Street, they drew up before a particularly small white house, +so hidden away behind lilac bushes and trellised grapevines that it +gave but here and there a pale hint of its existence. It was planted +in the shadow of a larger building, and a path led around it to what +seemed a pleasant, shady, and extensive garden. + +Mistress Deborah gave a sigh of satisfaction. “Seven years come +Martinmas since I last stayed overnight with Mary Stagg! And we were +born in the same village, and at Bath what mighty friends we were! She +was playing Dorinda,--that’s in ‘The Beaux’ Stratagem,’ Audrey,--and +her dress was just an old striped Persian, vastly unbecoming. Her +Ladyship’s pink alamode, that Major D---- spilt a dish of chocolate +over, she gave to me for carrying a note; and I gave it to Mary (she +was Mary Baker then),--for I looked hideous in pink,--and she was that +grateful, as well she might be! Mary, Mary!” + +A slender woman, with red-brown hair and faded cheeks, came running +from the house to the gate. “At last, my dear Deborah! I vow I had +given you up! Says I to Mirabell an hour ago,--you know that is my name +for Charles, for ’twas when he played Mirabell to my Millamant that we +fell in love,--‘Well,’ says I, ‘I’ll lay a gold-furbelowed scarf to a +yard of oznaburg that Mr. Darden, riding home through the night, and +in liquor, perhaps, has fallen and broken his neck, and Deborah can’t +come.’ And says Mirabell--But la, my dear, there you stand in your +safeguard, and I’m keeping the gate shut on you! Come in. Come in, +Audrey. Why, you’ve grown to be a woman! You were just a brown slip of +a thing, that Lady Day, two years ago, that I spent with Deborah. Come +in the both of you. There are cakes and a bottle of Madeira.” + +Audrey fastened the horse against the time that Darden should remember +to send for it, and then followed the ex-waiting-woman and the former +queen of a company of strollers up a grassy path and through a little +green door into a pleasant room, where grape leaves wreathed the +windows and cast their shadows upon a sanded floor. At one end of the +room stood a great, rudely built cabinet, and before it a long table, +strewn with an orderly litter of such slender articles of apparel as +silk and tissue scarfs, gauze hoods, breast knots, silk stockings, and +embroidered gloves. Mistress Deborah must needs run and examine these +at once, and Mistress Mary Stagg, wife of the lessee, manager, and +principal actor of the Williamsburgh theatre, looked complacently over +her shoulder. The minister’s wife sighed again, this time with envy. + +“What with the theatre, and the bowling green, and tea in your +summer-house, and dancing lessons, and the sale of these fine things, +you and Charles must turn a pretty penny! The luck that some folk have! +_You_ were always fortunate, Mary.” + +Mistress Stagg did not deny the imputation. But she was a kindly soul, +who had not forgotten the gift of my Lady Squander’s pink alamode. The +chocolate stain had not been so very large. + +“I’ve laid by a pretty piece of sarcenet of which to make you a +capuchin,” she said promptly. “Now, here’s the wine. Shan’t we go into +the garden, and sip it there? Peggy,” to the black girl holding a +salver, “put the cake and wine on the table in the arbor; then sit here +by the window, and call me if any come. My dear Deborah, I doubt if I +have so much as a ribbon left by the end of the week. The town is that +gay! I says to Mirabell this morning, says I, ‘Lord, my dear, it a’most +puts me in mind of Bath!’ And Mirabell says--But here’s the garden +door. Now, isn’t it cool and pleasant out here? Audrey may gather +us some grapes. Yes, they’re very fine, full bunches; it has been a +bounteous year.” + +The grape arbor hugged the house, but beyond it was a pretty, shady, +fancifully laid out garden, with shell-bordered walks, a grotto, a +summer-house, and a gate opening into Nicholson Street. Beyond the +garden a glimpse was to be caught through the trees of a trim bowling +green. It had rained the night before, and a delightful, almost vernal +freshness breathed in the air. The bees made a great buzzing amongst +the grapes, and the birds in the mulberry-trees sang as though it were +nesting time. Mistress Stagg and her old acquaintance sat at a table +placed in the shadow of the vines, and sipped their wine, while Audrey +obediently gathered clusters of the purple fruit, and thought the +garden very fine, but oh, not like--There could be no garden in the +world so beautiful and so dear as that! And she had not seen it for so +long, so long a time. She wondered if she would ever see it again. + +When she brought the fruit to the table, Mistress Stagg made room for +her kindly enough; and she sat and drank her wine and went to her world +of dreams, while her companions bartered town and country gossip. It +has been said that the small white house adjoined a larger building. A +window in this structure, which had much the appearance of a barn, was +now opened, with the result that a confused sound, as of several people +speaking at once, made itself heard. Suddenly the noise gave place to a +single high-pitched voice:-- + + “‘Welcome, my son! Here lay him down, my friends, + Full in my sight, that I may view at leisure + The bloody corse, and count those glorious wounds.’” + +A smile irradiated Mistress Stagg’s faded countenance, and she blew +a kiss toward the open window. “He does Cato so extremely well; and +it’s a grave, dull, odd character, too. But Mirabell--that’s Charles, +you know--manages to put a little life in it, a _Je ne sais quoi_, +a touch of Sir Harry Wildair. Now--now he’s pulling out his laced +handkerchief to weep over Rome! You should see him after he has fallen +on his sword, and is brought on in a chair, all over blood. This is +the third rehearsal; the play’s ordered for Monday night. Who is it, +Peggy? Madam Travis! It’s about the lace for her damask petticoat, and +there’s no telling how long she may keep me! My dear Deborah, when +you have finished your wine, Peggy shall show you your room. You must +make yourself quite at home. For says I to Mirabell this morning, ‘Far +be it from me to forget past kindnesses, and in those old Bath days +Deborah was a good friend to me,--which was no wonder, to be sure, +seeing that when we were little girls we went to the same dame school, +and always learned our book and worked our samplers together.’ And says +Mirabell--Yes, yes, ma’am, I’m coming!” + +She disappeared, and the black girl showed the two guests through the +hall and up a tiny stairway into a little dormer-windowed, whitewashed +room. Mistress Deborah, who still wore remnants of my Lady Squander’s +ancient gifts of spoiled finery, had likewise failed to discard the +second-hand fine-lady airs acquired during her service. She now +declared herself excessively tired by her morning ride, and martyr, +besides, to a migraine. Moreover, it was enough to give one the spleen +to hear Mary Stagg’s magpie chatter and to see how some folk throve, +willy-nilly, while others just as good--Here tears of vexation ensued, +and she must lie down upon the bed and call in a feeble voice for her +smelling salts. Audrey hurriedly searched in the ragged portmanteau +brought to town the day before in the ox-cart of an obliging +parishioner, found the flask, and took it to the bedside, to receive in +exchange a sound box of the ear for her tardiness. The blow reddened +her cheek, but brought no tears to her eyes. It was too small a thing +to weep for; tears were for blows upon the heart. + +It was a cool and quiet little room, and Mistress Deborah, who had +drunk two full glasses of the Madeira, presently fell asleep. Audrey +sat very still, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes upon them, +until their hostess’s voice announced from the foot of the stairs that +Madam Travis had taken her departure. She then slipped from the room, +and was affably received below, and taken into the apartment which they +had first entered. Here Mistress became at once extremely busy. A fan +was to be mounted; yards of silk gathered into furbelows; breast knots, +shoulder knots, sword knots, to be made up. Her customers were all +people of quality, and unless she did her part not one of them could go +to the ball. Audrey shyly proffered her aid, and was set to changing +the ribbons upon a mask. + +Mistress Stagg’s tongue went as fast as her needle: “And Deborah +is asleep! Poor soul! she’s sadly changed from what she was in old +England thirteen years ago. As neat a shape as you would see in +a day’s journey, with the prettiest color, and eyes as bright as +those marcasite buttons! And she saw the best of company at my Lady +Squander’s,--no lack there of kisses and guineas and fine gentlemen, +you may be sure! There’s a deal of change in this mortal world, and +it’s generally for the worse. Here, child, you may whip this lace on +Mr. Lightfoot’s ruffles. I think myself lucky, I can tell you, that +there are so few women in Cato. If ’tweren’t so, I should have to go +on myself; for since poor, dear, pretty Jane Day died of the smallpox, +and Oriana Jordan ran away with the rascally Bridewell fellow that we +bought to play husbands’ parts, and was never heard of more, but is +supposed to have gotten clean off to Barbadoes by favor of the master +of the Lady Susan, we have been short of actresses. But in this play +there are only Marcia and Lucia. ‘It is extremely fortunate, my dear,’ +said I to Mirabell this very morning, ‘that in this play, which is the +proper compliment to a great gentleman just taking office, Mr. Addison +should have put no more than two women.’ And Mirabell says--Don’t put +the lace so full, child; ’twon’t go round.” + +“A chair is stopping at the gate,” said Audrey, who sat by the window. +“There’s a lady in it.” + +The chair was a very fine painted one, borne by two gayly dressed +negroes, and escorted by a trio of beribboned young gentlemen, prodigal +of gallant speeches, amorous sighs, and languishing glances. Mistress +Stagg looked, started up, and, without waiting to raise from the floor +the armful of delicate silk which she had dropped, was presently +curtsying upon the doorstep. + +The bearers set down their load. One of the gentlemen opened the +chair door with a flourish, and the divinity, compressing her hoop, +descended. A second cavalier flung back Mistress Stagg’s gate, and the +third, with a low bow, proffered his hand to conduct the fair from the +gate to the doorstep. The lady shook her head; a smiling word or two, +a slight curtsy, the wave of a painted fan, and her attendants found +themselves dismissed. She came up the path alone, slowly, with her head +a little bent. Audrey, watching her from the window, knew who she was, +and her heart beat fast. If this lady were in town, then so was he; +he would not have stayed behind at Westover. She would have left the +room, but there was not time. The mistress of the house, smiling and +obsequious, fluttered in, and Evelyn Byrd followed. + +There had been ordered for her a hood of golden tissue, with wide and +long streamers to be tied beneath the chin, and she was come to try +it on. Mistress Stagg had it all but ready,--there was only the least +bit of stitchery; would Mistress Evelyn condescend to wait a very few +minutes? She placed a chair, and the lady sank into it, finding the +quiet of the shadowed room pleasant enough after the sunlight and +talkativeness of the world without. Mistress Stagg, in her role of +milliner, took the gauzy trifle, called by courtesy a hood, to the +farthest window, and fell busily to work. + +It seemed to grow more and more quiet in the room: the shadow of the +leaves lay still upon the floor; the drowsy humming of the bees outside +the windows, the sound of locusts in the trees, the distant noises of +the town,--all grew more remote, then suddenly appeared to cease. + +Audrey raised her eyes, and met the eyes of Evelyn. She knew that they +had been upon her for a long time, in the quiet of the room. She had +sat breathless, her head bowed over her work that lay idly in her lap, +but at last she must look. The two gazed at each other with a sorrowful +steadfastness; in the largeness of their several natures there was no +room for self-consciousness; it was the soul of each that gazed. But in +the mists of earthly ignorance they could not read what was written, +and they erred in their guessing. Audrey went not far wide. This was +the princess, and, out of the fullness of a heart that ached with loss, +she could have knelt and kissed the hem of her robe, and wished her +long and happy life. There was no bitterness in her heart; she never +dreamed that she had wronged the princess. But Evelyn thought: “This is +the girl they talk about. God knows, if he had loved worthily, I might +not so much have minded!” + +From the garden came a burst of laughter and high voices. Mistress +Stagg started up. “’Tis our people, Mistress Evelyn, coming from the +playhouse. We lodge them in the house by the bowling green, but after +rehearsals they’re apt to stop here. I’ll send them packing. The hood +is finished. Audrey will set it upon your head, ma’am, while I am gone. +Here, child! Mind you don’t crush it.” She gave the hood into Audrey’s +hands, and hurried from the room. + +Evelyn sat motionless, her silken draperies flowing around her, one +white arm bent, the soft curve of her cheek resting upon ringed +fingers. Her eyes yet dwelt upon Audrey, standing as motionless, the +mist of gauze and lace in her hands. “Do not trouble yourself,” she +said, in her low, clear voice. “I will wait until Mistress Stagg +returns.” + +The tone was very cold, but Audrey scarce noticed that it was so. “If I +may, I should like to serve you, ma’am,” she said pleadingly. “I will +be very careful.” + +Leaving the window, she came and knelt beside Evelyn; but when she +would have put the golden hood upon her head, the other drew back with +a gesture of aversion, a quick recoil of her entire frame. The hood +slipped to the floor. After a moment Audrey rose and stepped back a +pace or two. Neither spoke, but it was the one who thought no evil +whose eyes first sought the floor. Her dark cheek paled, and her lips +trembled; she turned, and going back to her seat by the window took up +her fallen work. Evelyn, with a sharp catch of her breath, withdrew +her attention from the other occupant of the room, and fixed it upon a +moted sunbeam lying like a bar between the two. + +Mistress Stagg returned. The hood was fitted, and its purchaser +prepared to leave. Audrey rose and made her curtsy, timidly, but with +a quick, appealing motion of her hand. Was not this the lady whom he +loved, that people said he was to wed? And had he not told her, long +ago, that he would speak of her to Mistress Evelyn Byrd, and that she +too would be her friend? Last May Day, when the guinea was put into her +hand, the lady’s smile was bright, her voice sweet and friendly. Now, +how changed! In her craving for a word, a look, from one so near him, +one that perhaps had seen him not an hour before; in her sad homage for +the object of his love, she forgot her late repulse, and grew bold. +When Evelyn would have passed her, she put forth a trembling hand and +began to speak, to say she scarce knew what; but the words died in +her throat. For a moment Evelyn stood, her head averted, an angry red +staining neck and bosom and beautiful, down-bent face. Her eyes half +closed, the long lashes quivering against her cheek, and she smiled +faintly, in scorn of the girl and scorn of herself. Then, freeing her +skirt from Audrey’s clasp, she passed in silence from the room. + +Audrey stood at the window, and with wide, pained eyes watched her go +down the path. Mistress Stagg was with her, talking volubly, and Evelyn +seemed to listen with smiling patience. One of the bedizened negroes +opened the chair door; the lady entered, and was borne away. Before +Mistress Stagg could reenter her house Audrey had gone quietly up the +winding stair to the little whitewashed room, where she found the +minister’s wife astir and restored to good humor. Her sleep had helped +her; she would go down at once and see what Mary was at. Darden, too, +was coming as soon as the meeting at the church had adjourned. After +dinner they would walk out and see the town, until which time Audrey +might do as she pleased. When she was gone, Audrey softly shut herself +in the little room, and lay down upon the bed, very still, with her +face hidden in her arm. + +With twelve of the clock came Darden, quite sober, distrait in manner +and uneasy of eye, and presently interrupted Mistress Stagg’s flow of +conversation by a demand to speak with his wife alone. At that time of +day the garden was a solitude, and thither the two repaired, taking +their seats upon a bench built round a mulberry-tree. + +“Well?” queried Mistress Deborah bitterly. “I suppose Mr. Commissary +showed himself vastly civil? I dare say you’re to preach before the +Governor next Sunday? Or maybe they’ve chosen Bailey? He boasts that he +can drink you under the table! One of these fine days you’ll drink and +curse and game yourself out of a parish!” + +Darden drew figures on the ground with his heavy stick. “On such a fine +day as this,” he said, in a suppressed voice, and looked askance at the +wife whom he beat upon occasion, but whose counsel he held in respect. + +She turned upon him. “What do you mean? They talk and talk, and cry +shame,--and a shame it is, the Lord knows! But it never comes to +anything”-- + +“It has come to this,” interrupted Darden, with an oath: “that this +Governor means to sweep in the corners; that the Commissary--damned +Scot!--to-day appointed a committee to inquire into the charges made +against me and Bailey and John Worden; that seven of my vestrymen are +dead against me; and that ‘deprivation’ has suddenly become a very +common word!” + +“Seven of the vestry?” said his wife, after a pause. “Who are they?” + +Darden told her. + +“If Mr. Haward”--she began slowly, her green eyes steady upon the +situation. “There’s not one of that seven would care to disoblige +him. I warrant you he could make them face about. They say he +knew the Governor in England, too; and there’s his late gift to +the college,--the Commissary wouldn’t forget that. If Mr. Haward +would”--She broke off, and with knit brows studied the problem more +intently. + +“If he would, he could,” Darden finished for her. “With his interest +this cloud would go by, as others have done before. I know that, +Deborah. And that’s the card I’m going to play.” + +“If you had gone to him, hat in hand, a month ago, he’d have done you +any favor,” said his helpmate sourly. “But it is different now. He’s +over his fancy; and besides, he’s at Westover.” + +“He’s in Williamsburgh, at Marot’s ordinary,” said the other. “As for +his being over his fancy,--I’ll try that. Fancy or no fancy, if a +woman asked him for a fairing, he would give it her, or I don’t know +my gentleman. We’ll call his interest a ribbon or some such toy, and +Audrey shall ask him for it.” + +“Audrey is a fool!” cried Mistress Deborah. “And you had best be +careful, or you’ll prove yourself another! There’s been talk enough +already. Audrey, village innocent that she is, is the only one that +doesn’t know it. The town’s not the country; if he sets tongues +a-clacking here”-- + +“He won’t,” said Darden roughly. “He’s no hare-brained one-and-twenty! +And Audrey’s a good girl. Go send her here, Deborah. Bid her fetch me +Stagg’s inkhorn and a pen and a sheet of paper. If he does anything for +me, it will have to be done quickly. They’re in haste to pull me out of +saddle, the damned canting pack! But I’ll try conclusions with them!” + +His wife departed, muttering to herself, and the reverend Gideon pulled +out of his capacious pocket a flask of usquebaugh. In five minutes from +the time of his setting it to his lips the light in which he viewed the +situation turned from gray to rose color. By the time he espied Audrey +coming toward him through the garden he felt a moral certainty that +when he came to die (if ever he died) it would be in his bed in the +Fair View glebe house. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +WITHIN THE PLAYHOUSE + + +Haward, sitting at the table in Marot’s best room, wrote an answer +to Audrey’s letter, and tore it up; wrote another, and gave it to +Juba, to be given to the messenger waiting below; recalled the negro +before he could reach the door, destroyed the second note, and wrote a +third. The first had been wise and kind, telling her that he was much +engaged, lightly and skillfully waving aside her request--the only +one she made--that she might see him that day. The second had been +less wise. The last told her that he would come at five o’clock to the +summer-house in Mistress Stagg’s garden. + +When he was alone in the room, he sat for some time very still, with +his eyes closed and his head thrown back against the tall woodwork +of his chair. His face was stern in repose: a handsome, even a fine +face, with a look of power and reflection, but to-day somewhat worn +and haggard of aspect. When presently he roused himself and took up +the letter that lay before him, the paper shook in his hand. “Wine, +Juba,” he said to the slave, who now reëntered the room. “And close the +window; it is growing cold.” + +There were but three lines between the “Mr. Haward” and “Audrey;” the +writing was stiff and clerkly, the words very simple,--a child’s asking +of a favor. He guessed rightly that it was the first letter of her own +that she had ever written. Suddenly a wave of passionate tenderness +took him; he bowed his head and kissed the paper; for the moment +many-threaded life and his own complex nature alike straightened to a +beautiful simplicity. He was the lover, merely; life was but the light +and shadow through which moved the woman whom he loved. He came back +to himself, and tried to think it out, but could not. Finally, with a +weary impatience, he declined to think at all. He was to dine at the +Governor’s. Evelyn would be there. + +Only momentarily, in those days of early summer, had he wavered in his +determination to make this lady his wife. Pride was at the root of his +being,--pride and a deep self-will; though because they were so sunken, +and because poisonous roots can flower most deceivingly, he neither +called himself nor was called of others a proud and willful man. He +wished Evelyn for his wife; nay, more, though on May Day he had shown +her that he loved her not, though in June he had offered her a love +that was only admiring affection, yet in the past month at Westover he +had come almost to believe that he loved her truly. That she was worthy +of true love he knew very well. With all his strength of will, he had +elected to forget the summer that lay behind him at Fair View, and to +live in the summer that was with him at Westover. His success had been +gratifying; in the flush of it, he persuaded himself that a chamber of +the heart had been locked forever, and the key thrown away. And lo now! +a touch, the sudden sight of a name, and the door had flown wide; nay, +the very walls were rived away! It was not a glance over the shoulder; +it was full presence in the room so lately sealed. + +He knew that Evelyn loved him. It was understood of all their +acquaintance that he was her suitor; months ago he had formally craved +her father’s permission to pay his addresses. There were times in those +weeks at Westover when she had come nigh to yielding, to believing that +he loved her; he was certain that with time he would have his way.... +But the room, the closed room, in which now he sat! + +He buried his face in his hands, and was suddenly back in spirit in his +garden at Fair View. The cherries were ripe; the birds were singing: +great butterflies went by. The sunshine beat on the dial, on the walks, +and the smell of the roses was strong as wine. His senses swam with the +warmth and fragrance; the garden enlarged itself, and blazed in beauty. +Never was sunshine so golden as that; never were roses so large, never +odors so potent-sweet. A spirit walked in the garden paths: its name +was Audrey.... No, it was speaking, speaking words of passion and of +woe.... Its name was Eloïsa! + +When he rose from his chair, he staggered slightly, and put his hand +to his head. Recovering himself in a moment, he called for his hat and +cane, and, leaving the ordinary, turned his face toward the Palace. +A garrulous fellow Councilor, also bidden to his Excellency’s dinner +party, overtook him, and, falling into step, began to speak first of +the pirates’ trial, and then of the weather. A hot and feverish summer. +’Twas said that a good third of the servants arriving in the country +since spring had died of their seasoning. The slaver lying in the York +had thrown thirty blacks overboard in the ran from Barbadoes,--some +strange sickness or other. Adsbud! He would not buy from the lot the +master landed; had they been white, they had showed like spectres! +September was the worst month of the year. He did not find Mr. Haward +in looks now. Best consult Dr. Contesse, though indeed he himself had a +preventive of fever which never failed. First he bled; then to so much +of Peruvian bark-- + +Mr. Haward declared that he was very well, and turned the conversation +piratewards again. + +The dinner at the Palace was somewhat hurried, the gentlemen rising +with the ladies, despite the enticements of Burgundy and champagne. It +was the afternoon set apart for the Indian dance. The bonfire in the +field behind the magazine had been kindled; the Nottoways and Meherrins +were waiting, still as statues, for the gathering of their audience. +Before the dance the great white father was to speak to them; the peace +pipe, also, was to be smoked. The town, gay of mood and snatching at +enjoyment, emptied its people into the sunny field. Only they who +could not go stayed at home. Those light-hearted folk, ministers to a +play-loving age, who dwelt in the house by the bowling green or in the +shadow of the theatre itself, must go, at all rates. Marcia and Lucia, +Syphax, Sempronius, and the African prince made off together, while the +sons of Cato, who chanced to be twin brothers, followed with a slower +step. Their indentures would expire next month, and they had thoughts, +the one of becoming an overseer, the other of moving up country and +joining a company of rangers: hence their somewhat haughty bearing +toward their fellow players, who--except old Syphax, who acted for the +love of it--had not even a bowing acquaintance with freedom. + +Mr. and Mrs. Stagg saw their minions depart, and then themselves left +the little white house in Palace Street. Mistress Deborah was with +them, but not Audrey. “She can’t abide the sight of an Indian,” said +the minister’s wife indifferently. “Besides, Darden will be here from +the church presently, and he may want her to write for him. She and +Peggy can mind the house.” + +The Capitol clock was telling five when Haward entered the garden by +the Nicholson Street gate. There had arisen a zephyr of the evening, +to loosen the yellow locust leaves and send them down upon the path, +to lay cool fingers upon his forehead that burned, and to whisper low +at his ear. House and garden and silent street seemed asleep in the +late sunshine, safe folded from the storm of sound that raged in the +field on the border of the town. Distance muffled the Indian drums, +and changed the scream of the pipes into a far-off wailing. Savage +cries, bursts of applause and laughter,--all came softly, blent like +the hum of the bees, mellow like the sunlight. There was no one in the +summer-house. Haward walked on to the grape arbor, and found there a +black girl, who pointed to an open door, pertaining not to the small +white house, but to that portion of the theatre which abutted upon the +garden. Haward, passing a window of Mr. Stagg’s domicile, was aware of +Darden sitting within, much engaged with a great book and a tankard of +sack. He made no pause for the vision, and another moment found him +within the playhouse. + +The sunlight entered in at the door and at one high window, but yet +the place was dim. The gallery and the rude boxes were all in shadow; +the sunbeams from the door struck into the pit, while those from the +high window let fall a shaft of misty light upon the stage itself, set +for a hall in Utica, with five cane chairs, an ancient settle, and a +Spanish table. On the settle, in the pale gold of the falling light, +sat Audrey, her hands clasped over her knees, her head thrown back, and +her eyes fixed upon the shadowy, chill, and soundless space before her. +Upon Haward’s speaking her name she sighed, and, loosing her hands, +turned toward him. He came and leaned upon the back of the settle. “You +sent for me, Audrey,” he said, and laid his hand lightly upon her hair. + +She shrank from his touch. “The minister made me write the letter,” she +said, in a low voice. “I did not wish to trouble you, sir.” + +Upon her wrist were dark marks. “Did Darden do that?” demanded Haward, +as he took his seat beside her. + +Audrey looked at the bruise indifferently; then with her other hand +covered it from sight. “I have a favor to ask of Mr. Haward,” she said. +“I hope that after his many kindnesses he will not refuse to do me this +greatest one. If he should grant my request, the gratitude which I must +needs already feel toward him will be increased tenfold.” The words +came precisely, in an even voice. + +Haward smiled. “Child, you have conned your lesson well. Leave the +words of the book, and tell me in your own language what his reverence +wants.” + +Audrey told him, but it seemed to her that he was not listening. When +she had come to an end of the minister’s grievances, she sat, with +downcast eyes, waiting for him to speak, wishing that he would not look +at her so steadily. She meant never to show him her heart,--never, +never; but beneath his gaze it was hard to keep her cheek from burning, +her lip from quivering. + +At last he spoke: “Would it please you, Audrey, if I should save this +man from his just deserts?” + +Audrey raised her eyes. “He and Mistress Deborah are all my friends,” +she said. “The glebe house is my home.” + +Deep sadness spoke in voice and eye. The shaft of light, moving, had +left her in the outer shadow: she sat there with a listless grace; with +a dignity, too, that was not without pathos. There had been a forlorn +child; there had been an unfriended girl; there was now a woman, for +Life to fondle or to wreak its rage upon. The change was subtle; one +more a lover or less a lover than Haward might not have noted it. +“I will petition the Commissary to-night,” he said, “the Governor +to-morrow. Is your having in friends so slight as you say, little maid?” + +Oh, he could reach to the quick! She was sure that he had not meant to +accuse her of ingratitude, and pitifully sure that she must have seemed +guilty of it. “No, no!” she cried. “I have had a friend”--Her voice +broke, and she started to her feet, her face to the door, all her being +quiveringly eager to be gone. She had asked that which she was bidden +to ask, had gained that which she was bidden to gain; for the rest, it +was far better that she should go. Better far for him to think her dull +and thankless as a stone than see--than see-- + +When Haward caught her by the hand, she trembled and drew a sobbing +breath. “‘I have had a friend,’ Audrey?” he asked. “Why not ‘I have a +friend’?” + +“Why not?” thought Audrey. “Of course he would think, why not? Well, +then”-- + +“I have a friend,” she said aloud. “Have you not been to me the kindest +friend, the most generous”--She faltered, but presently went on, a +strange courage coming to her. She had turned slightly toward him, +though she looked not at him, but upward to where the light streamed +through the high window. It fell now upon her face. “It is a great +thing to save life,” she said. “To save a soul alive, how much greater! +To have kept one soul in the knowledge that there is goodness, mercy, +tenderness, God; to have given it bread to eat where it sat among the +stones, water to drink where all the streams were dry,--oh, a king +might be proud of that! And that is what you have done for me.... When +you sailed away, so many years ago, and left me with the minister and +his wife, they were not always kind. But I knew that you thought them +so, and I always said to myself, ‘If he knew, he would be sorry for +me.’ At last I said, ‘He is sorry for me; there is the sea, and he +cannot come, but he knows, and is sorry.’ It was make-believe,--for +you thought that I was happy, did you not?--but it helped me very +much. I was only a child, you know, and I was so very lonely. I could +not think of mother and Molly, for when I did I saw them as--as I had +seen them last. The dark scared me, until I found that I could pretend +that you were holding my hand, as you used to do when night came in +the valley. After a while I had only to put out my hand, and yours +was there waiting for it. I hope that you can understand--I want you +to know how large is my debt.... As I grew, so did the debt. When I +was a girl it was larger than when I was a child. Do you know with +whom I have lived all these years? There is the minister, who comes +reeling home from the crossroads ordinary, who swears over the dice, +who teaches cunning that he calls wisdom, laughs at man and scarce +believes in God. His hand is heavy; this is his mark.” She held up her +bruised wrist to the light, then let the hand drop. When she spoke +of the minister, she made a gesture toward the shadows growing ever +thicker and darker in the body of the house. It was as though she saw +him there, and was pointing him out. “There is the minister’s wife,” +she said, and the motion of her hand again accused the shadows. “Oh, +their roof has sheltered me; I have eaten of their bread. But truth is +truth. There is the schoolmaster with the branded hands. He taught me, +you know. There is”--she was looking with wide eyes into the deepest of +the shadows--“there is Hugon!” Her voice died away. Haward did not move +or speak, and for a minute there was silence in the dusky playhouse. +Audrey broke it with a laugh, soft, light, and clear, that came oddly +upon the mood of the hour. Presently she was speaking again: “Do you +think it strange that I should laugh? I laughed to think I have escaped +them all. Do you know that they call me a dreamer? Once, deep in the +woods, I met the witch who lives at the head of the creek. She told me +that I was a dream child, and that all my life was a dream, and I must +pray never to awake; but I do not think she knew, for all that she is +a witch. They none of them know,--none, none! If I had not dreamed, as +they call it,--if I had watched, and listened, and laid to heart, and +become like them,--oh, then I should have died of your look when at +last you came! But I ‘dreamed;’ and in that long dream you, though you +were overseas, you showed me, little by little, that the spirit is not +bond, but free,--that it can walk the waves, and climb to the sunset +and the stars. And I found that the woods were fair, that the earth +was fair and kind as when I was a little child. And I grew to love and +long for goodness. And, day by day, I have had a life and a world where +flowers bloomed, and the streams ran fresh, and there was bread indeed +to eat. And it was you that showed me the road, that opened for me the +gates!” + +She ceased to speak, and, turning fully toward him, took his hand and +put it to her lips. “May you be very happy!” she said. “I thank you, +sir, that when you came at last you did not break my dream. The dream +fell short!” + +The smile upon her face was very sweet, very pure and noble. She would +have gone without another word, but Haward caught her by the sleeve. +“Stay awhile!” he cried. “I too am a dreamer, though not like you, you +maid of Dian, dark saint, cold vestal, with your eyes forever on the +still, white flame! Audrey, Audrey, Audrey! Do you know what a pretty +name you have, child, or how dark are your eyes, or how fine this hair +that a queen might envy? Westover has been dull, child.” + +Audrey shook her head and smiled, and thought that he was laughing at +her. A vision of Evelyn, as Evelyn had looked that morning, passed +before her. She did not believe that he had found Westover dull. + +“I am coming to Fair View, dark Audrey,” he went on. “In its garden +there are roses yet blooming for thy hair; there are sweet verses +calling to be read; there are cool, sequestered walks to be trodden, +with thy hand in mine,--thy hand in mine, little maid. Life is but +once; we shall never pass this way again. Drink the cup, wear the +roses, live the verses! Of what sing all the sweetest verses, dark-eyed +witch, forest Audrey?” + +“Of love,” said Audrey simply. She had freed her hand from his clasp, +and her face was troubled. She did not understand; never had she seen +him like this, with shining eyes and hot, unsteady touch. + +“There is the ball at the Palace to-morrow night,” he went on. “I must +be there, for a fair lady and I are to dance together.” He smiled. +“Poor Audrey, who hath never been to a ball; who only dances with the +elves, beneath the moon, around a beechen tree! The next day I will go +to Fair View, and you will be at the glebe house, and we will take up +the summer where we left it, that weary month ago.” + +“No, no,” said Audrey hurriedly, and shook her head. A vague and +formless trouble had laid its cold touch upon her heart; it was as +though she saw a cloud coming up, but it was no larger than a man’s +hand, and she knew not what it should portend, nor that it would grow +into a storm. He was strange to-day,--that she felt; but then all her +day since the coming of Evelyn had been sad and strange. + +The shaft of sunshine was gone from the stage, and all the house was +in shadow. Audrey descended the two or three steps leading into the +pit, and Haward followed her. Side by side they left the playhouse, and +found themselves in the garden, and also in the presence of five or six +ladies and gentlemen, seated upon the grass beneath a mulberry-tree, or +engaged in rifling the grape arbor of its purple fruit. + +The garden was a public one, and this gay little party, having tired of +the Indian spectacle, had repaired hither to treat of its own affairs. +Moreover, it had been there, scattered upon the grass in view of the +playhouse door, for the better part of an hour. Concerned with its own +wit and laughter, it had caught no sound of low voices issuing from +the theatre; and for the two who talked within, all outward noise had +ranked as coming from the distant, crowded fields. + +A young girl, her silken apron raised to catch the clusters which a +gentleman, mounted upon a chair, threw down, gave a little scream and +let fall her purple hoard. “’Gad!” cried the gentleman. One and another +exclaimed, and a withered beauty seated beneath the mulberry-tree +laughed shrilly. + +A moment, an effort, a sharp recall of wandering thoughts, and Haward +had the situation in hand. An easy greeting to the gentlemen, debonair +compliments for the ladies, a question or two as to the entertainment +they had left, then a negligent bringing forward of Audrey. “A little +brown ward and ancient playmate of mine,--shot up in the night to be as +tall as a woman. Make thy curtsy, child, and go tell the minister what +I have said on the subject he wots of.” + +Audrey curtsied and went away, having never raised her eyes to note the +stare of curiosity, the suppressed smile, the glance from eye to eye, +which had trod upon her introduction to the company. Haward, remaining +with his friends and acquaintances, gathered grapes for the blooming +girl and the withered beauty, and for a little, smiling woman who was +known for as arrant a scandalmonger as could be found in Virginia. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A QUESTION OF COLORS + + +Evelyn, seated at her toilette table, and in the hands of Mr. Timothy +Green, hairdresser in ordinary to Williamsburgh, looked with unseeing +eyes at her own fair reflection in the glass before her. Chloe, the +black handmaiden who stood at the door, latch in hand, had time to grow +tired of waiting before her mistress spoke. “You may tell Mr. Haward +that I am at home, Chloe. Bring him here.” + +The hairdresser drew a comb through the rippling brown tresses and +commenced his most elaborate arrangement, working with pursed lips, and +head bent now to this side, now to that. He had been a hard-pressed +man since sunrise, and the lighting of the Palace candles that night +might find him yet employed by some belated dame. Evelyn was very pale, +and shadows were beneath her eyes. Moved by a sudden impulse, she took +from the table a rouge pot, and hastily and with trembling fingers +rubbed bloom into her cheeks; then the patch box,--one, two, three +Tory partisans. “Now I am less like a ghost,” she said, “Mr. Green, do +I not look well and merry, and as though my sleep had been sound and +dreamless?” + +In his high, cracked voice, the hairdresser was sure that, pale or +glowing, grave or gay, Mistress Evelyn Byrd would be the toast at the +ball that night. The lady laughed, for she heard Haward’s step upon the +landing. He entered to the gay, tinkling sound, tent over the hand she +extended, then, laying aside hat and cane, took his seat beside the +table. + + “‘Fair tresses man’s imperial race insnare, + And beauty draws us with a single hair,’” + +he quoted, with a smile. Then: “Will you take our hearts in blue +to-night, Evelyn? You know that I love you best in blue.” + +She lifted her fan from the table, and waved it lightly to and fro. +“I go in rose color,” she said. “’Tis the gown I wore at Lady Rich’s +rout. I dare say you do not remember it? But my Lord of Peterborough +said”--She broke off, and smiled to her fan. + +Her voice was sweet and slightly drawling. The languid turn of the +wrist, the easy grace of attitude, the beauty of bared neck and tinted +face, of lowered lids and slow, faint smile,--oh, she was genuine +fine lady, if she was not quite Evelyn! A breeze blowing through the +open windows stirred their gay hangings of flowered cotton; the black +girl sat in a corner and sewed; the supple fingers of the hairdresser +went in and out of the heavy hair; roses in a deep blue bowl made the +room smell like a garden. Haward sighed, so pleasant was it to sit +quietly in this cool chamber, after the glare and wavering of the world +without. “My Lord of Peterborough is magnificent at compliments,” he +said kindly, “but ’twould be a jeweled speech indeed that outdid your +deserving, Evelyn. Come, now, wear the blue! I will find you white +roses; you shall wear them for a breast knot, and in the minuet return +me one again.” + +Evelyn waved her fan. “I dance the minuet with Mr. Lee.” Her tone was +still sweetly languid, her manner most indifferent. The thick and +glossy tress that, drawn forward, was to ripple over white neck and +bosom was too loosely curled. She regarded it in the mirror with an +anxious frown, then spoke of it to the hairdresser. + +Haward, smiling, watched her with heavy-lidded eyes. “Mr. Lee is a +fortunate gentleman,” he said. “I may gain the rose, perhaps, in the +country dance?” + +“That is better,” remarked the lady, surveying with satisfaction the +new-curled lock. “The country dance? For that Mr. Lightfoot hath my +promise.” + +“It seems that I am a laggard,” said Haward. + +The knocker sounded below. “I am at home, Chloe,” announced the +mistress; and the slave, laying aside her work, slipped from the room. + +Haward played with the trifles upon the dressing table. “Wherein have I +offended, Evelyn?” he asked, at last. + +The lady arched her brows, and the action made her for the moment very +like her handsome father. “Why, there is no offense!” she cried. “An +old acquaintance, a family friend! I step a minuet with Mr. Lee; I +stand up for a country dance with Mr. Lightfoot; I wear pink instead of +blue, and have lost my liking for white roses,--what is there in all +this that needs such a question? Ah, you have broken my silver chain!” + +“I am clumsy to-day!” he exclaimed. “A thousand pardons!” He let the +broken toy slip from his fingers to the polished surface of the table, +and forgot that it was there. “Since Colonel Byrd (I am sorry to learn) +keeps his room with a fit of the gout, may I--an old acquaintance, a +family friend--conduct you to the Palace to-night?” + +The fan waved on. “Thank you, but I go in our coach, and need no +escort.” The lady yawned, very delicately, behind her slender fingers; +then dropped the fan, and spoke with animation: “Ah, here is Mr. Lee! +In a good hour, sir! I saw the bracelet that you mended for Mistress +Winston. Canst do as much for my poor chain here? See! it and this +silver heart have parted company.” + +Mr. Lee kissed her hand, and took snuff with Mr. Haward; then, after an +ardent speech crammed with references to Vulcan and Venus, chains that +were not slight, hearts that were of softer substance, sat down beside +this kind and dazzling vision, and applied his clever fingers to the +problem in hand. He was a personable young gentleman, who had studied +at Oxford, and who, proudly conscious that his tragedy of Artaxerxes, +then reposing in the escritoire at home, much outmerited Haward’s +talked-of comedy, felt no diffidence in the company of the elder fine +gentleman. He rattled on of this and that, and Evelyn listened kindly, +with only the curve of her cheek visible to the family friend. The +silver heart was restored to its chain; the lady smiled her thanks; the +enamored youth hitched his chair some inches nearer the fair whom he +had obliged, and, with his hand upon his heart, entered the realm of +high-flown speech. The gay curtains waved; the roses were sweet; black +Chloe sewed and sewed; the hairdresser’s hands wove in and out, as +though he were a wizard making passes. + +Haward rose to take his leave. Evelyn yielded him her hand; it was +cold against his lips. She was nonchalant and smiling; he was easy, +unoffended, admirably the fine gentleman. For one moment their eyes +met. “I had been wiser,” thought the man, “I had been wiser to have +myself told her of that brown witch, that innocent sorceress! Why +something held my tongue I know not. Now she hath read my idyl, but all +darkened, all awry.” The woman thought: “Cruel and base! You knew that +my heart was yours to break, cast aside, and forget!” + +Out of the house the sunlight beat and blinded. Houses of red brick, +houses of white wood; the long, wide, dusty Duke of Gloucester Street; +gnarled mulberry-trees broad-leafed against a September sky, deeply, +passionately blue; glimpses of wood and field,--all seemed remote +without distance, still without stillness, the semblance of a dream, +and yet keen and near to oppression. It was a town of stores, of +ordinaries and public places; from open door and window all along Duke +of Gloucester Street came laughter, round oaths, now and then a scrap +of drinking song. To Haward, giddy, ill at ease, sickening of a fever, +the sounds were now as a cry in his ear, now as the noise of a distant +sea. The minister of James City parish and the minister of Ware Creek +were walking before him, arm in arm, set full sail for dinner after a +stormy morning. “For lo! the wicked prospereth!” said one, and “Fair +View parish bound over to the devil again!” plained the other. “He’s +firm in the saddle; he’ll ride easy to the day he drinks himself to +death, thanks to this sudden complaisance of Governor and Commissary!” + +“Thanks to”--cried the other sourly, and gave the thanks where they +were due. + +Haward heard the words, but even in the act of quickening his pace to +lay a heavy hand upon the speaker’s shoulder a listlessness came upon +him, and he forbore. The memory of the slurring speech went from him; +his thoughts were thistledown blown hither and yon by every vagrant +air. Coming to Marot’s ordinary he called for wine; then went up the +stair to his room, and sitting down at the table presently fell asleep, +with his head upon his arms. + +After a while the sounds from the public room below, where men were +carousing, disturbed his slumber. He stirred, and awoke refreshed. It +was afternoon, but he felt no hunger, only thirst, which he quenched +with the wine at hand. His windows gave upon the Capitol and a green +wood beyond; the waving trees enticed, while the room was dull and the +noises of the house distasteful. He said to himself that he would walk +abroad, would go out under the beckoning trees and be rid of the town. +He remembered that the Council was to meet that afternoon. Well, it +might sit without him! He was for the woods, where dwelt the cool winds +and the shadows deep and silent. + +A few yards, and he was quit of Duke of Gloucester Street; behind him, +porticoed Capitol, gaol, and tiny vineclad debtor’s prison. In the +gaol yard the pirates sat upon a bench in the sunshine, and one smoked +a long pipe, and one brooded upon his irons. Gold rings were in their +ears, and their black hair fell from beneath colored handkerchiefs +twisted turbanwise around their brows. The gaoler watched them, +standing in his doorway, and his children, at play beneath a tree, +built with sticks a mimic scaffold, and hanged thereon a broken puppet. +There was a shady road leading through a wood to Queen’s Creek and the +Capitol Landing, and down this road went Haward. His step was light; +the dullness, the throbbing pulses, the oppression of the morning, had +given way to a restlessness and a strange exaltation of spirit. Fancy +was quickened, imagination heightened; to himself he seemed to see the +heart of all things. Across his mind flitted fragments of verse,--now +a broken line just hinting beauty, now the pure passion of a lovely +stanza. His thoughts went to and fro, mobile as the waves of the sea; +but firm as the reefs beneath them stood his knowledge that presently +he was going back to Fair View. To-morrow, when the Governor’s ball +was over, when he could decently get away, he would leave the town; +he would go to his house in the country. Late flowers bloomed in his +garden; the terrace was fair above the river; beneath the red brick +wall, on the narrow little creek shining like a silver highway, lay a +winged boat; and the highway ran past a glebe house; and in the glebe +house dwelt a dryad whose tree had closed against her. Audrey!--a fair +name. Audrey, Audrey!--the birds were singing it; out of the deep, +Arcadian shadows any moment it might come, clearly cried by satyr, Pan, +or shepherd. Hark! there was song-- + +It was but a negro on the road behind, singing to himself as he went +about his master’s business. The voice was the voice of the race, +mellow, deep, and plaintive; perhaps the song was of love in a burning +land. He passed the white man, and the arching trees hid him, but the +wake of music was long in fading. The road leading through a cool and +shady dell, Haward left it, and took possession of the mossy earth +beneath a holly-tree. Here, lying on the ground, he could see the road +through the intervening foliage; else the place had seemed the heart of +an ancient wood. + +It was merry lying where were glimpses of blue sky, where the leaves +quivered and a squirrel chattered and a robin sang a madrigal. Youth +the divine, half way down the stair of misty yesterdays, turned upon +his heel and came back to him. He pillowed his head upon his arm, and +was content. It was well to be so filled with fancies, so iron of will, +so headstrong and gay; to be friends once more with a younger Haward, +with the Haward of a mountain pass, of mocking comrades and an irate +Excellency. + +From the road came a rumble of oaths. Sailors, sweating and straining, +were rolling a very great cask of tobacco from a neighboring warehouse +down to the landing and some expectant sloop. Haward, lying at ease, +smiled at their weary task, their grunting and swearing; when they were +gone, smiled at the blankness of the road. All things pleased. There +was food for mirth in the call of a partridge, in the inquisitive gaze +of a squirrel, in the web of a spider gaoler to a gilded fly. There +was food for greater mirth in the appearance on the road of a solitary +figure in a wine-colored coat and bushy black peruke. + +Haward sat up. “Ha, Monacan!” he cried, with a laugh, and threw a stick +to attract the man’s attention. + +Hugon turned, stood astare, then left the road and came down into the +dell. + +“What fortune, trader?” smiled Haward. “Did your traps hold in the +great forest? Were your people easy to fool, giving twelve deerskins +for an old match-coat? There is charm in a woodsman life. Come, tell me +of your journeys, dangers, and escapes.” + +The half-breed looked down upon him with a twitching face. “What +hinders me from killing you now?” he demanded, with a backward look at +the road. “None may pass for many minutes.” + +Haward lay back upon the moss, with his hands locked beneath his head. +“What indeed?” he answered calmly. “Come, here is a velvet log, fit +seat for an emperor--or a sachem; sit and tell me of your life in the +woods. For peace pipe let me offer my snuffbox.” In his mad humor +he sat up again, drew from his pocket, and presented with the most +approved flourish, his box of chased gold. “Monsieur, c’est le tabac +pour le nez d’un inonarque,” he said lazily. + +Hugon sat down upon the log, helped himself to the mixture with a grand +air, and shook the yellow dust from his ruffles. The action, meant to +be airy, only achieved fierceness. From some hidden sheath he drew a +knife, and began to strip from the log a piece of bark. “Tell me, you,” +he said. “Have you been to France? What manner of land is it?” + +“A gay country,” answered Haward; “a land where the men are all white, +and where at present, periwigs are worn much shorter than the one +monsieur affects.” + +“He is a great brave, a French gentleman? Always he kills the man he +hates?” + +“Not always,” said the other. “Sometimes the man he hates kills him.” + +By now one end of the piece of bark in the trader’s hands was shredded +to tinder. He drew from his pocket his flint and steel, and struck a +spark into the frayed mass. It flared up, and he held first the tips +of his fingers, then the palm of his hand, then his bared forearm, in +the flame that licked and scorched the flesh. His face was perfectly +unmoved, his eyes unchanged in their expression of hatred. “Can he do +this?” he asked. + +“Perhaps not,” said Haward lightly. “It is a very foolish thing to do.” + +The flame died out, and the trader tossed aside the charred bit of +bark. “There was old Pierre at Monacan-Town who taught me to pray to +_le bon Dieu_. He told me how grand and fine is a French gentleman, +and that I was the son of many such. He called the English great pigs, +with brains as dull and muddy as the river after many rains. My mother +was the daughter of a chief. She had strings of pearl for her neck, and +copper for her arms, and a robe of white doeskin, very soft and fine. +When she was dead and my father was dead, I came from Monacan-Town to +your English school over yonder. I can read and write. I am a white man +and a Frenchman, not an Indian. When I go to the villages in the woods, +I am given a lodge apart, and the men and women gather to hear a white +man speak.... You have done me wrong with that girl, that Ma’m’selle +Audrey that I wish for wife. We are enemies: that is as it should be. +You shall not have her,--never, never! But you despise me; how is that? +That day upon the creek, that night in your cursed house, you laughed”-- + +The Haward of the mountain pass, regarding the twitching face opposite +him and the hand clenched upon the handle of a knife, laughed again. At +the sound the trader’s face ceased to twitch. Haward felt rather than +saw the stealthy tightening of the frame, the gathering of forces, the +closer grasp upon the knife, and flung out his arm. A hare scurried +past, making for the deeper woods. From the road came the tramp of a +horse and a man’s voice, singing,-- + + “‘To all you ladies now on land’”-- + +while an inquisitive dog turned aside from the road, and plunged into +the dell. + +The rider, having checked his horse and quit his song in order to call +to his dog, looked through the thin veil of foliage and saw the two men +beneath the holly-tree. “Ha, Jean Hugon!” he cried. “Is that you? Where +is that packet of skins you were to deliver at my store? Come over +here, man!” + +The trader moistened his dry lips with his tongue, and slipped the +knife back into its sheath. “Had we been a mile in the woods,” he said, +“you would have laughed no more.” + +Haward watched him go. The argument with the rider was a lengthy one. +He upon horseback would not stand still in the road to finish it, but +put his beast into motion. The trader, explaining and gesticulating, +walked beside his stirrup; the voices grew fainter and fainter,--were +gone. Haward laughed to himself; then, with his eyes raised to the +depth on depth of blue, serene beyond the grating of thorn-pointed +leaves, sent his spirit to his red brick house and silent, sunny +garden, with the gate in the ivied wall, and the six steps down to the +boat and the lapping water. + +The shadows lengthened, and a wind of the evening entered the wood. +Haward shook off the lethargy that had kept him lying there for the +better part of an afternoon, rose to his feet, and left the green dell +for the road, all shadow now, winding back to the toy metropolis, to +Marot’s ordinary, to the ball at the Palace that night. + +The ball at the Palace!--he had forgotten it. Flare of lights, wail +of violins, a painted, silken crowd, laughter, whispers, magpie +chattering, wine, and the weariness of the dance, when his soul would +long to be with the night outside, with the rising wind and the shining +stars. He half determined not to go. What mattered the offense that +would be taken? Did he go he would repent, wearied and ennuyé, watching +Evelyn, all rose-colored, moving with another through the minuet; +tied himself perhaps to some pert miss, or cornered in a card-room by +boisterous gamesters, or, drinking with his peers, called on to toast +the lady of his dreams. Better the dull room at Marot’s ordinary, +or better still to order Mirza, and ride off at the planter’s pace, +through the starshine, to Fair View. On the river bank before the store +MacLean might be lying, dreaming of a mighty wind and a fierce death. +He would dismount, and sit beside that Highland gentleman, Jacobite +and strong man, and their moods would chime as they had chimed before. +Then on to the house and to the eastern window! Not to-night, but +to-morrow night, perhaps, would the darkness be pierced by the calm +pale star that marked another window. It was all a mistake, that month +at Westover,--days lost and wasted, the running of golden sands ill to +spare from Love’s brief glass.... + +His mood had changed when, with the gathering dusk, he entered his room +at Marot’s ordinary. He would go to the Palace that night; it would be +the act of a boy to fling away through the darkness, shirking a duty +his position demanded. He would go and be merry, watching Evelyn in the +gown that Peterborough had praised. + +When Juba had lighted the candles, he sat and drank and drank again of +the red wine upon the table. It put maggots in his brain, fired and +flushed him to the spirit’s core. An idea came, at which he laughed. +He bade it go, but it would not. It stayed, and his fevered fancy +played around it as a moth around a candle. At first he knew it for +a notion, bizarre and absurd, which presently he would dismiss. All +day strange thoughts had come and gone, appearing, disappearing, like +will-o’-the-wisps for which a man upon a firm road has no care. Never +fear that he will follow them! He sees the marsh, that it has no +footing. So with this Jack-o’-lantern conception,--it would vanish as +it came. + +It did not so. Instead, when he had drunken more wine, and had sat for +some time methodically measuring, over and over again, with thumb and +forefinger, the distance from candle to bottle, and from bottle to +glass, the idea began to lose its wildfire aspect. In no great time it +appeared an inspiration as reasonable as happy. When this point had +been reached, he stamped upon the floor to summon his servant from the +room below. “Lay out the white and gold, Juba,” he ordered, when the +negro appeared, “and come make me very fine. I am for the Palace,--I +and a brown lady that hath bewitched me! The white sword knot, sirrah; +and cock my hat with the diamond brooch”-- + +It was a night that was thronged with stars, and visited by a +whispering wind. Haward, walking rapidly along the almost deserted +Nicholson Street, lifted his burning forehead to the cool air and +the star-strewn fields of heaven. Coming to the gate by which he had +entered the afternoon before, he raised the latch and passed into the +garden. By now his fever was full upon him, and it was a man scarce +to be held responsible for his actions that presently knocked at the +door of the long room where, at the window opening upon Palace Street, +Audrey sat with Mistress Stagg and watched the people going to the ball. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE GOVERNOR’S BALL + + +For an hour it had been very quiet, very peaceful, in the small white +house on Palace Street. Darden was not there; for the Commissary had +sent for him, having certain inquiries to make and a stern warning to +deliver. Mistress Deborah had been asked to spend the night with an +acquaintance in the town, so she also was out and gone. Mistress Stagg +and Audrey kept the lower rooms, while overhead Mr. Charles Stagg, a +man that loved his art, walked up and down, and, with many wavings of +a laced handkerchief and much resort to a gilt snuffbox, reasoned with +Plato of death and the soul. The murmur of his voice came down to the +two women, and made the only sound in the house. Audrey, sitting by the +window, her chin upon her hand and her dark hair shadowing her face, +looked out upon the dooryard and the Palace Street beyond. The street +was lit by torches, and people were going to the ball in coaches and +chariots, on foot and in painted chairs. They went gayly, light of +heart, fine of person, a free and generous folk. Laughter floated over +to the silent watcher, and the torchlight gave her glimpses of another +land than her own. + +Many had been Mistress Stagg’s customers since morning, and something +had she heard besides admiration of her wares and exclamation at +her prices. Now, as she sat with some gay sewing beneath her nimble +fingers, she glanced once and again at the shadowed face opposite her. +If the look was not one of curiosity alone, but had in it an admixture +of new-found respect; if to Mistress Stagg the Audrey of yesterday, +unnoted, unwhispered of, was a being somewhat lowlier than the Audrey +of to-day, it may be remembered for her that she was an actress of the +early eighteenth century, and that fate and an old mother to support +had put her in that station. + +The candles beneath their glass shades burned steadily; the house +grew very quiet; the noises of the street lessened and lessened, for +now nearly all of the people were gone to the ball. Audrey watched +the round of light cast by the nearest torch. For a long time she had +watched it, thinking that he might perhaps cross the circle, and she +might see him in his splendor. She was still watching when he knocked +at the garden door. + +Mistress Stagg, sitting in a dream of her own, started violently. “La, +now, who may that be?” she exclaimed. “Go to the door, child. If ’tis +a stranger, we shelter none such, to be taken up for the harboring of +runaways!” + +Audrey went to the door and opened it. A moment’s pause, a low cry, +and she moved backward to the wall, where she stood with her slender +form sharply drawn against the white plaster, and with the fugitive, +elusive charm of her face quickened into absolute beauty, imperious for +attention. Haward, thus ushered into the room, gave the face its due. +His eyes, bright and fixed, were for it alone. Mistress Stagg’s curtsy +went unacknowledged save by a slight, mechanical motion of his hand, +and her inquiry as to what he lacked that she could supply received +no answer. He was a very handsome man, of a bearing both easy and +commanding, and to-night he was splendidly dressed in white satin with +embroidery of gold. To one of the women he seemed the king, who could +do no wrong; to the other, more learned in the book of the world, he +was merely a fine gentleman, whose way might as well be given him at +once, since, spite of denial, he would presently take it. + +Haward sat down, resting his clasped hands upon the table, gazing +steadfastly at the face, dark and beautiful, set like a flower against +the wall. “Come, little maid!” he said. “We are going to the ball +together, you and I. Hasten, or we shall not be in time for the minuet.” + +Audrey smiled and shook her head, thinking that it was his pleasure to +laugh at her a little. Mistress Stagg likewise showed her appreciation +of the pleasantry. When he repeated his command, speaking in an +authoritative tone and with a glance at his watch, there was a moment +of dead silence; then, “Go your ways, sir, and dance with Mistress +Evelyn Byrd!” cried the scandalized ex-actress. “The Governor’s ball is +not for the likes of Audrey!” + +“I will be judge of that,” he answered. “Come, let us be off, child! Or +stay! hast no other dress than that?” He looked toward the mistress of +the house. “I warrant that Mistress Stagg can trick you out! I would +have you go fine, Audrey of the hair! Audrey of the eyes! Audrey of the +full brown throat! Dull gold,--have you that, now, mistress, in damask +or brocade? Soft laces for her bosom, and a yellow bloom in her hair. +It should be dogwood, Audrey, like the coronal you wore on May Day. Do +you remember, child? The white stars in your hair, and the Maypole all +aflutter, and your feet upon the green grass”-- + +“Oh, I was happy then!” cried Audrey and wrung her hands. Within a +moment, however, she was calm again, and could look at him with a +smile. “I am only Audrey,” she said. “You know that the ball is not +for me. Why then do you tell me that I must go? It is your kindness; +I know that it is your kindness that speaks. But yet--but yet”--She +gazed at him imploringly: then from his steady smile caught a sudden +encouragement. “Oh!” she exclaimed with a gesture of quick relief, +and with tremulous laughter in her face and voice,--“oh, you are +mocking me! You only came to show how a gentleman looks who goes to a +Governor’s ball!” + +For the moment, in her relief at having read his riddle, there slipped +from her the fear of she knew not what,--the strangeness and heaviness +of heart that had been her portion since she came to Williamsburgh. +Leaving the white wall against which she had leaned, she came a little +forward, and with gayety and grace dropped him a curtsy. “Oh, the +white satin like the lilies in your garden!” she laughed. “And the red +heels to your shoes, and the gold-fringed sword knot, and the velvet +scabbard! Ah, let me see your sword, how bright and keen it is!” + +She was Audrey of the garden, and Haward, smiling, drew his rapier and +laid it in her hands. She looked at the golden hilt, and passed her +brown fingers along the gleaming blade. “Stainless,” she said, and gave +it back to him. + +Taking it, he took also the hand that had proffered it. “I was not +laughing, child,” he said. “Go to the ball thou shalt, and with me. +What! Thou art young and fair. Shalt have no pleasure”-- + +“What pleasure in that?” cried Audrey. “I may not go, sir; nay, I will +not go!” + +She freed her hand, and stood with heaving bosom and eyes that very +slowly filled with tears. Haward saw no reason for her tears. It +was true that she was young and fair; true, also, that she had few +pleasures. Well, he would change all that. The dance,--was it not woven +by those nymphs of old, those sprites of open spaces in the deep woods, +from whose immemorial company she must have strayed into this present +time? Now at the Palace the candles were burning for her, for her the +music was playing. Her welcome there amidst the tinsel people? Trust +him for that: he was what he was, and could compass greater things than +that would be. Go she should, because it pleased him to please her, +and because it was certainly necessary for him to oppose pride with +pride, and before the eyes of Evelyn demonstrate his indifference to +that lady’s choice of Mr. Lee for the minuet and Mr. Lightfoot for the +country dance. This last thought had far to travel from some unused, +deep-down quagmire of the heart, but it came. For the rest, the image +of Audrey decked in silk and lace, turned by her apparel into a dark +Court lady, a damsel in waiting to Queen Titania, caught his fancy in +both hands. He wished to see her thus,--wished it so strongly that he +knew it would come to pass. He was a gentleman who had acquired the +habit of having his own way. There had been times when the price of his +way had seemed too dear; when he had shrugged his shoulders and ceased +to desire what he would not buy. To-night he was not able to count +the cost. But he knew--he knew cruelly well--how to cut short this +fruitless protest of a young girl who thought him all that was wise and +great and good. + +“So you cannot say ‘yes’ to my asking, little maid?” he began, quiet +and smiling. “Cannot trust me that I have reasons for the asking? Well, +I will not ask again, Audrey, since it is so great a thing’”--“Oh,” +cried Audrey, “you know that I would die for you!” The tears welled +over, but she brushed them away with a trembling hand; then stood with +raised face, her eyes soft and dewy, a strange smile upon her lips. +She spoke at last as simply as a child: “Why you want me, that am only +Audrey, to go with you to the Palace yonder, I cannot tell. But I will +go, though I am only Audrey, and I have no other dress than this”-- + +Haward got unsteadily to his feet, and lightly touched the dark head +that she bowed upon her hands. “Why, now you are Audrey again,” he said +approvingly. “Why, child, I would do you a pleasure!” He turned to +the player’s wife. “She must not go in this guise. Have you no finery +stowed away?” + +Now, Mistress Stagg, though much scandalized, and very certain that +all this would never do, was in her way an artist, and could see as +in a mirror what bare throat and shoulders, rich hair drawn loosely +up, a touch of rouge, a patch or two, a silken gown, might achieve for +Audrey. And after all, had not Deborah told her that the girl was Mr. +Haward’s ward, not Darden’s, and that though Mr. Haward came and went +as he pleased, and was very kind to Audrey, so that Darden was sure of +getting whatever the girl asked for, yet she was a good girl, and there +was no harm? For the talk that day,--people were very idle, and given +to thinking the forest afire when there was only the least curl of +smoke. And in short and finally it was none of her business; but with +the aid of a certain chest upstairs, she knew what she could do! To +the ball might go a beauty would make Mistress Evelyn Byrd look to her +laurels! + +“There’s the birthday dress that Madam Carter sent us only last week,” +she began hesitatingly. “It’s very beautiful, and a’most as good as +new, and ’twould suit you to a miracle--But I vow you must not go, +Audrey!... To be sure, the damask is just the tint for you, and there +are roses would answer for your hair. But la, sir, you know ’twill +never do, never in this world.” + +Half an hour later, Haward rose from his chair and bowed low as to some +highborn and puissant dame. The fever that was now running high in his +veins flushed his cheek and made his eyes exceedingly bright. When he +went up to Audrey, and in graceful mockery of her sudden coming into +her kingdom, took her hand and, bending, kissed it, the picture that +they made cried out for some painter to preserve it. Her hand dropped +from his clasp, and buried itself in rich folds of flowered damask; the +quick rise and fall of her bosom stirred soft, yellowing laces, and +made to flash like diamonds some ornaments of marcasite; her face was +haunting in its pain and bewilderment and great beauty, and in the lie +which her eyes gave to the false roses beneath those homes of sadness +and longing. She had no word to say, she was “only Audrey,” and she +could not understand. But she wished to do his bidding, and so, when he +cried out upon her melancholy, and asked her if ’twere indeed a Sunday +in New England instead of a Saturday in Virginia, she smiled, and +strove to put on the mind as well as the garb of a gay lady who might +justly go to the Governor’s ball. + +Half frightened at her own success, Mistress Stagg hovered around her, +giving this or that final touch to her costume; but it was Haward +himself who put the roses in her hair. “A little longer, and we will +walk once more in my garden at Fair View,” he said. “June shall come +again for us, and we will tread the quiet paths, my sweet, and all the +roses shall bloom again for us. There, you are crowned! Hail, Queen!” + +Audrey felt the touch of his lips upon her forehead, and shivered. +All her world was going round; she could not steady it, could not +see aright, knew not what was happening. The strangeness made her +dizzy. She hardly heard Mistress Stagg’s last protest that it would +never do,--never in the world; hardly knew when she left the house. +She was out beneath the stars, moving toward a lit Palace whence came +the sound of violins. Haward’s arm was beneath her hand; his voice +was in her ear, but it was as the wind’s voice, whose speech she did +not understand. Suddenly they were within the Palace garden, with its +winding, torchlit walks, and the terraces at the side; suddenly again, +they had mounted the Palace steps, and the doors were open, and she +was confronted with lights and music and shifting, dazzling figures. +She stood still, clasped her hands, and gave Haward a piteous look. +Her face, for all its beauty and its painted roses, was strangely the +child’s face that had lain upon his breast, where he knelt amid the +corn, in the valley between the hills, so long ago. He gave her mute +appeal no heed. The Governor’s guests, passing from room to room, +crossed and recrossed the wide hall, and down the stairway, to meet +a row of gallants impatient at its foot, came fair women, one after +the other, the flower of the colony, clothed upon like the lilies of +old. Haward, entering with Audrey, saw Mr. Lee at the stairfoot, and, +raising his eyes, was aware of Evelyn descending alone and somewhat +slowly, all in rose color, and with a smile upon her lips. + +She was esteemed the most beautiful woman in Virginia, the most +graceful and accomplished. Wit and charm and fortune were hers, and the +little gay world of Virginia had mated her with Mr. Marmaduke Haward +of Fair View. Therefore that portion of it that chanced to be in the +hall of the Governor’s house withdrew for the moment its attention from +its own affairs, and bestowed it upon those of the lady descending the +stairs, and of the gold-and-white gentleman who, with a strange beauty +at his side, stood directly in her path. It was a very wise little +world, and since yesterday afternoon had been fairly bursting with its +own knowledge. It knew all about that gypsy who had come to town from +Fair View parish,--“La, my dear, just the servant of a minister!”--and +knew to a syllable what had passed in the violent quarrel to which Mr. +Lee owed his good fortune. + +[Illustration: “I DO NOT THINK I HAVE THE HONOR OF KNOWING”--] + +That triumphant gentleman now started forward, and, with a low bow, +extended his hand to lead to the ballroom this rose-colored paragon and +cynosure of all eyes. Evelyn smiled upon him, and gave him her scarf +to hold, but would not be hurried; must first speak to her old friend +Mr. Haward, and tell him that her father’s foot could now bear the +shoe, and that he might appear before the ball was over. This done, she +withdrew her gaze, from Haward’s strangely animated, vividly handsome +countenance, and turned it upon the figure at his side. “Pray present +me!” she said quickly. “I do not think I have the honor of knowing”-- + +Audrey raised her head, that had been bent, and looked again, as she +had looked yesterday, with all her innocent soul and heavy heart, +into the eyes of the princess. The smile died from Evelyn’s lips, and +a great wave of indignant red surged over face and neck and bosom. +The color fled, but not the bitter anger. So he could bring his fancy +there! Could clothe her that was a servant wench in a splendid gown, +and flaunt her before the world--before the world that must know--oh, +God! must know how she herself loved him! He could do this after that +month at Westover! She drew her breath, and met the insult fairly. “I +withdraw my petition,” she said clearly. “Now that I bethink me, my +acquaintance is already somewhat too great. Mr. Lee, shall we not join +the company? I have yet to make my curtsy to his Excellency.” + +With head erect, and with no attention to spare from the happy Mr. Lee, +she passed the sometime suitor for her hand and the apple of discord +which it had pleased him to throw into the assembly. A whisper ran +around the hall. Audrey heard suppressed laughter, and heard a speech +which she did not understand, but which was uttered in an angry voice, +much like Mistress Deborah’s when she chided. A sudden terror of +herself and of Haward’s world possessed her. She turned where she stood +in her borrowed plumage, and clung to his hand and arm. “Let me go,” +she begged. “It is all a mistake,--all wrong. Let me go,--let me go.” + +He laughed at her, shaking his head and looking into her beseeching +face with shining, far-off eyes. “Thou dear fool!” he said. “The ball +is made for thee, and all these folk are here to do thee honor!” +Holding her by the hand, he moved with her toward a wide doorway, +through which could be seen a greater throng of beautifully dressed +ladies and gentlemen. Music came from this room, and she saw that there +were dancers, and that beyond them, upon a sort of dais, and before a +great carved chair, stood a fine gentleman who, she knew, must be his +Excellency the Governor of Virginia. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE UNINVITED GUEST + + +“Mistress Audrey?” said the Governor graciously, as the lady in damask +rose from her curtsy. “Mistress Audrey whom? Mr. Haward, you gave me +not the name of the stock that hath flowered in so beauteous a bloom.” + +“Why, sir, the bloom is all in all,’” answered Haward. “What root it +springs from matters not. I trust that your Excellency is in good +health,--that you feel no touch of our seasoning fever?” + +“I asked the lady’s name, sir,” said the Governor pointedly. He was +standing in the midst of a knot of gentlemen, members of the Council +and officers of the colony. All around the long room, seated in chairs +arow against the walls, or gathered in laughing groups, or moving about +with a rustle and gleam of silk, were the Virginians his guests. From +the gallery, where were bestowed the musicians out of three parishes, +floated the pensive strains of a minuet, and in the centre of the +polished floor, under the eyes of the company, several couples moved +and postured through that stately dance. + +“The lady is my ward,” said Haward lightly. “I call her Audrey. Child, +tell his Excellency your other name.” + +If he thought at all, he thought that she could do it. But such an +estray, such a piece of flotsam, was Audrey, that she could not help +him out. “They call me Darden’s Audrey,” she explained to the Governor. +“If I ever heard my father’s name, I have forgotten it.” + +Her voice, though low, reached all those who had ceased from their own +concerns to stare at this strange guest, this dark-eyed, shrinking +beauty, so radiantly attired. The whisper had preceded her from the +hall: there had been fluttering and comment enough as, under the fire +of all those eyes, she had passed with Haward to where stood the +Governor receiving his guests. But the whisper had not reached his +Excellency’s ears. In London he had been slightly acquainted with Mr. +Marmaduke Haward, and now knew him for a member of his Council, and a +gentleman of much consequence in that Virginia which he had come to +rule. Moreover, he had that very morning granted a favor to Mr. Haward, +and by reason thereof was inclined to think amiably of the gentleman. +Of the piece of dark loveliness whom the Virginian had brought forward +to present, who could think otherwise? But his Excellency was a formal +man, punctilious, and cautious of his state. The bow with which he +received the strange lady’s curtsy had been profound; in speaking to +her he had made his tones honey-sweet, while his compliment quite +capped the one just paid to Mistress Evelyn Byrd. And now it would +appear that the lady had no name! Nay, from the looks that were being +exchanged, and from the tittering that had risen amongst the younger +of his guests, there must be more amiss than that! His Excellency +frowned, drew himself up, and turned what was meant to be a searching +and terrible eye upon the recreant in white satin. Audrey caught the +look, for which Haward cared no whit. Oh, she knew that she had no +business there,--she that only the other day had gone barefoot on +Darden’s errands, had been kept waiting in hall or kitchen of these +people’s houses! She knew that, for all her silken gown, she had no +place among them; but she thought that they were not kind to stare and +whisper and laugh, shaming her before one another and before him. Her +heart swelled; to the dreamy misery of the day and evening was added a +passionate sense of hurt and wrong and injustice. Her pride awoke, and +in a moment taught her many things, though among them was no distrust +of him. Brought to bay, she put out her hand and found a gate; pushed +it open, and entered upon her heritage of art. + +The change was so sudden that those who had stared at her sourly or +scornfully, or with malicious amusement or some stirrings of pity, +drew their breath and gave ground a little. Where was the shrinking, +frightened, unbidden guest of a moment before, with downcast eyes +and burning cheeks? Here was a proud and easy and radiant lady, +with witching eyes and a wonderful smile. “I am only Audrey, your +Excellency,” she said, and curtsied as she spoke. “My other name lies +buried in a valley amongst far-off mountains.” She slightly turned, +and addressed herself to a portly, velvet-clad gentleman, of a very +authoritative air, who, arriving late, had just shouldered himself into +the group about his Excellency. “By token,” she smiled, “of a gold +moidore that was paid for a loaf of bread.” + +The new Governor appealed to his predecessor. “What is this, Colonel +Spotswood, what is this?” he demanded, somewhat testily, of the +open-mouthed gentleman in velvet. + +“Odso!” cried the latter. “’Tis the little maid of the +sugar-tree!--Marmaduke Haward’s brown elf grown into the queen of all +the fairies!” Crossing to Audrey he took her by the hand. “My dear +child,” he said, with a benevolence that sat well upon him, “I always +meant to keep an eye upon thee, to see that Mr. Haward did by thee all +that he swore he would do. But at first there were cares of state, and +now for five years I have lived at Germanna, half way to thy mountains, +where echoes from the world seldom reach me. Permit me, my dear.” With +a somewhat cumbrous gallantry, the innocent gentleman, who had just +come to town and knew not the gossip thereof, bent and kissed her upon +the cheek. + +Audrey curtsied with a bright face to her old acquaintance of the +valley and the long road thence to the settled country. “I have been +cared for, sir,” she said. “You see that I am happy.” + +She turned to Haward, and he drew her hand within his arm. “Ay, child,” +he said. “We are keeping others of the company from their duty to +his Excellency. Besides, the minuet invites. I do not think I have +heard music so sweet before to-night. Your Excellency’s most obedient +servant! Gentlemen, allow us to pass.” The crowd opened before them, +and they found themselves in the centre of the room. Two couples were +walking a minuet; when they were joined by this dazzling third, the +ladies bridled, bit their lips, and shot Parthian glances. + +It was very fortunate, thought Audrey, that the Widow Constance +had once, long ago, taught her to dance, and that, when they were +sent to gather nuts or myrtle berries or fagots in the woods, she +and Barbara were used to taking hands beneath the trees and moving +with the glancing sunbeams and the nodding saplings and the swaying +grapevine trailers. She that had danced to the wind in the pine tops +could move with ease to the music of this night. And since it was so +that with a sore and frightened and breaking heart one could yet, in +some strange way, become quite another person,--any person that one +chose to be,--these cruel folk should not laugh at her again! They +had not laughed since, before the Governor yonder, she had suddenly +made believe that she was a carefree, great lady. Well, she would make +believe to them still. + +Her eyes were as brilliant as Haward’s that shone with fever; a smile +stayed upon her lips; she moved with dignity through the stately dance, +scarce erring once, graceful and fine in all that she did. Haward, +enamored, his wits afire, went mechanically through the oft-trod +measure, and swore to himself that he held in his hand the pearl of +price, the nonpareil of earth. In this dance and under cover of the +music they could speak to each other unheard of those about them. + +“‘Queen of all the fairies,’ did he call you?” he asked. “That was well +said. When we are at Fair View again, thou must show me where thou +wonnest with thy court, in what moonlit haunt, by what cool stream”-- + +“I would I were this night at Fair View glebe house,” said Audrey. “I +would I were at home in the mountains.” + +Her voice, sunken with pain and longing, was for him alone. To the +other dancers, to the crowded room at large, she seemed a brazen +girl, with beauty to make a goddess, wit to mask as a great lady, +effrontery to match that of the gentleman who had brought her here. +The age was free, and in that London which was dear to the hearts +of the Virginians ladies of damaged reputation were not so unusual +a feature of fashionable entertainments as to receive any especial +notice. But Williamsburgh was not London, and the dancer yonder, who +held her rose-crowned head so high, was no lady of fashion. They +knew her now for that dweller at Fair View gates of whom, during the +summer just past, there had been whispering enough. Evidently, it was +not for naught that Mr. Marmaduke Haward had refused invitations, +given no entertainments, shut himself up at Fair View, slighting old +friends and evincing no desire to make new ones. Why, the girl was a +servant,--nothing more nor less; she belonged to Gideon Darden, the +drunken minister; she was to have married Jean Hugon, the half-breed +trader. Look how the Governor, enlightened at last, glowered at her; +and how red was Colonel Spotswood’s face; and how Mistress Evelyn Byrd, +sitting in the midst of a little court of her own, made witty talk, +smiled upon her circle of adorers, and never glanced toward the centre +of the room, and the dancers there! + +“You are so sweet and gay to-night,” said Haward to Audrey. “Take your +pleasure, child, for it is a sad world, and the blight will fall. I +love to see you happy.” + +“Happy!” she answered. “I am not happy!” + +“You are above them all in beauty,” he went on. “There is not one here +that’s fit to tie your shoe.” + +“Oh me!” cried Audrey. “There is the lady that you love, and that loves +you. Why did she look at me so, in the hall yonder? And yesterday, when +she came to Mistress Stagg’s, I might not touch her or speak to her! +You told me that she was kind and good and pitiful. I dreamed that she +might let me serve her when she came to Fair View.” + +“She will never come to Fair View,” he said, “nor shall I go again to +Westover. I am for my own house now, you brown enchantress, and my own +garden, and the boat upon the river. Do you remember how sweet were our +days in June? We will live them over again, and there shall come for +us, besides, a fuller summer”-- + +“It is winter now,” said Audrey, with a sobbing breath, “and cold and +dark! I do not know myself, and you are strange. I beg you to let me +go away. I wish to wash off this paint, to put on my own gown. I am no +lady; you do wrong to keep me here. See, all the company are frowning +at me! The minister will hear what I have done and be angry, and +Mistress Deborah will beat me. I care not for that, but you--Oh, you +have gone far away,--as far as Fair View, as far as the mountains! I am +speaking to a stranger”-- + +In the dance their raised hands met again. “You see me, you speak to +me at last,” he said ardently. “That other, that cold brother of the +snows, that paladin and dream knight that you yourself made and dubbed +him me,--he has gone, Audrey; nay, he never was! But I myself, I am not +abhorrent to you?” + +“Oh,” she answered, “it is all dark! I cannot see--I cannot +understand”-- + +The time allotted to minuets having elapsed, the musicians after a +short pause began to play an ancient, lively air, and a number of +ladies and gentlemen, young, gayly dressed, and light of heart as +of heels, engaged in a country dance. When they were joined by Mr. +Marmaduke Haward and his shameless companion, there arose a great +rustling and whispering. A young girl in green taffeta was dancing +alone, wreathing in and out between the silken, gleaming couples, +coquetting with the men by means of fan and eyes, but taking hands and +moving a step or two with each sister of the dance. When she approached +Audrey, the latter smiled and extended her hand, because that was the +way the lady nearest her had done. But the girl in green stared coldly, +put her hand behind her, and, with the very faintest salute to Mr. +Marmaduke Haward, danced on her way. For one moment the smile died on +Audrey’s lips; then it came resolutely back, and she held her head high. + +The men, forming in two rows, drew their rapiers with a flourish, and, +crossing them overhead, made an arch of steel under which the women +must pass. Haward’s blade touched that of an old acquaintance. “I have +been leaning upon the back of a lady’s chair,” said the latter gruffly, +under cover of the music and the clashing steel,--“a lady dressed in +rose color, who’s as generous (to all save one poor devil) as she is +fair. I promised her I would take her message; the Lord knows I would +go to the bottom of the sea to give her pleasure! She says that you are +not yourself; begs that you will--go quietly away”-- + +An exclamation from the man next him, and a loud murmur mixed with some +laughter from those in the crowded room who were watching the dancers, +caused the gentleman to break off in the middle of his message. He +glanced over his shoulder; then, with a shrug, turned to his vis-a-vis +in white satin. “Now you see that ’twill not answer,--not in Virginia. +The women--bless them!--have a way of cutting Gordian knots.” + +A score of ladies, one treading in the footsteps of another, should +have passed beneath the flashing swords. But there had thrust itself +into their company a plague spot, and the girl in green taffeta and +a matron in silver brocade, between whom stood the hateful presence, +indignantly stepped out of line and declined to dance. The fear of +infection spreading like wildfire, the ranks refused to close, and +the company was thrown into confusion. Suddenly the girl in green, by +nature a leader of her kind, walked away, with a toss of her head, +from the huddle of those who were uncertain what to do, and joined her +friends among the spectators, who received her with acclaim. The sound +and her example were warranty enough for the cohort she had quitted. A +moment, and it was in virtuous retreat, and the dance was broken up. + +The gentlemen, who saw themselves summarily deserted, abruptly lowered +their swords. One laughed; another, flown with wine, gave utterance to +some coarse pleasantry; a third called to the musicians to stop the +music. Darden’s Audrey stood alone, brave in her beautiful borrowed +dress and the color that could not leave her cheeks. But her lips +had whitened, the smile was gone, and her eyes were like those of a +hunted deer. She looked mutely about her: how could she understand, +who trusted so completely, who lived in a labyrinth without a clue, +who had built her dream world so securely that she had left no way of +egress for herself? These were cruel people! She was mad to get away, +to tear off this strange dress, to fling herself down in the darkness, +in the woods, hiding her face against the earth! But though she was +only Audrey and so poor a thing, she had for her portion a dignity and +fineness of nature that was a stay to her steps. Barbara, though not +so poor and humble a maid, might have burst into tears, and run crying +from the room and the house; but to do that Audrey would have been +ashamed. + +“It was you, Mr. Corbin, that laughed, I think?” said Haward. +“To-morrow I shall send to know the reason of your mirth. Mr. Everard, +you will answer to me for that pretty oath. Mr. Travis, there rests the +lie that you uttered just now: stoop and take it again.” He flung his +glove at Mr. Travis’s feet. + +A great hubbub and exclamation arose. Mr. Travis lifted the glove with +the point of his rapier, and in a loud voice repeated the assertion +which had given umbrage to Mr. Haward of Fair View. That gentleman +sprang unsteadily forward, and the blades of the two crossed in dead +earnest. A moment, and the men were forced apart; but by this time the +whole room was in commotion. The musicians craned their necks over the +gallery rail, a woman screamed, and half a dozen gentlemen of years +and authority started from the crowd of witnesses to the affair and +made toward the centre of the room, with an eye to preventing further +trouble. Where much wine had been drunken and twenty rapiers were out, +matters might go from bad to worse. + +Another was before them. A lady in rose color had risen from her chair +and glided across the polished floor to the spot where trouble was +brewing. “Gentlemen, for shame!” she cried. Her voice was bell-like +in its clear sweetness, final in its grave rebuke and its recall to +sense and decency. She was Mistress Evelyn Byrd, who held sovereignty +in Virginia, and at the sound of her voice, the command of her raised +hand, the clamor suddenly ceased, and the angry group, parting, fell +back as from the presence of its veritable queen. + +Evelyn went up to Audrey and took her by the hand. “I am not tired +of dancing, as were those ladies who have left us,” she said, with +a smile, and in a sweet and friendly voice. “See, the gentlemen are +waiting I Let us finish out this measure, you and me.” + +At her gesture of command the lines that had so summarily broken +re-formed. Back into the old air swung the musicians; up went the +swords, crossing overhead with a ringing sound, and beneath the long +arch of protecting steel moved to the music the two women, the dark +beauty and the fair, the princess and the herdgirl. Evelyn led, and +Audrey, following, knew that now indeed she was walking in a dream. + +A very few moments, and the measure was finished. A smile, a curtsy, +a wave of Evelyn’s hand, and the dancers, disbanding, left the floor. +Mr. Corbin, Mr. Everard, and Mr. Travis, each had a word to say to Mr. +Haward of Fair View, as they passed that gentleman. + +Haward heard, and answered to the point; but when presently Evelyn +said, “Let us go into the garden,” and he found himself moving with her +and with Audrey through the buzzing, staring crowd toward the door of +the Governor’s house, he thought that it was into Fair View garden they +were about to descend. And when they came out upon the broad, torchlit +walk, and he saw gay parties of ladies and gentlemen straying here and +there beneath the trees, he thought it strange that he had forgotten +that he had guests this night. As for the sound of the river below his +terrace, he had never heard so loud a murmur. It grew and filled the +night, making thin and far away the voices of his guests. + +There was a coach at the gates, and Mr. Grymes, who awhile ago had told +him that he had a message to deliver, was at the coach door. Evelyn had +her hand upon his arm, and her voice was speaking to him from as far +away as across the river. “I am leaving the ball,” it said, “and I will +take the girl in my coach to the place where she is staying. Promise me +that you will not go back to the house yonder; promise me that you will +go away with Mr. Grymes, who is also weary of the ball”-- + +“Oh,” said Mr. Grymes lightly, “Mr. Haward agrees with me that Marot’s +best room, cool and quiet, a bottle of Burgundy, and a hand at piquet +are more alluring than the heat and babel we have left. We are going at +once, Mistress Evelyn. Haward, I propose that on our way to Marot’s we +knock up Dr. Contesse, and make him free of our company.” + +As he spoke, he handed into the coach the lady in flowered damask, who +had held up her head, but said no word, and the lady in rose-colored +brocade, who, through the length of the ballroom and the hall and the +broad walk where people passed and repassed, had kept her hand in +Audrey’s, and had talked, easily and with smiles, to the two attending +gentlemen. He shut to the coach door, and drew back, with a low bow, +when Haward’s deeply flushed, handsome face appeared for a moment at +the lowered glass. + +“Art away to Westover, Evelyn?” he asked. “Then ’t is ‘Good-by, +sweetheart!’ for I shall not go to Westover again. But you have a fair +road to travel,--there are violets by the wayside; for it is May Day, +you know, and the woods are white with dogwood and purple with the +Judas-tree. The violets are for you; but the great white blossoms, and +the boughs of rosy mist, and all the trees that wave in the wind are +for Audrey.” His eyes passed the woman whom he would have wed, and +rested upon her companion in the coach. “Thou fair dryad!” he said. +“Two days hence we will keep tryst beneath the beech-tree in the woods +beyond the glebe house.” + +The man beside him put a hand upon his shoulder and plucked him back, +nor would look at Evelyn’s drawn and whitened face, but called to the +coachman to go on. The black horses put themselves into motion, the +equipage made a wide turn, and the lights of the Palace were left +behind. + +Evelyn lodged in a house upon the outskirts of the town, but from the +Palace to Mistress Stagg’s was hardly more than a stone’s throw. Not +until the coach was drawing near the small white house did either of +the women speak. Then Audrey broke into an inarticulate murmur, and +stooping would have pressed her cheek against the hand that had clasped +hers only a little while before. But Evelyn snatched her hand away, +and with a gesture of passionate repulsion shrank into her corner of +the coach. “Oh, how dare you touch me!” she cried. “How dare you look +at me, you serpent that have stung me so!” Able to endure no longer, +she suddenly gave way to angry laughter. “Do you think I did it for +you,--put such humiliation upon myself for you? Why, you wanton, I +care not if you stand in white at every church door in Virginia! It +was for him, for Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, for whose name +and fame, if he cares not for them himself, his friends have yet some +care!” The coach stopped, and the footman opened the door. “Descend, +if you please,” went on Evelyn clearly and coldly. “You have had your +triumph. I say not there is no excuse for him,--you are very beautiful. +Good-night.” + +Audrey stood between the lilac bushes and watched the coach turn from +Palace into Duke of Gloucester Street; then went and knocked at the +green door. It was opened by Mistress Stagg in person, who drew her +into the parlor, where the good-natured woman had been sitting all +alone, and in increasing alarm as to what might be the outcome of this +whim of Mr. Marmaduke Haward’s. Now she was full of inquiries, ready to +admire and to nod approval, or to shake her head and cry, “I told you +so!” according to the turn of the girl’s recital. + +But Audrey had little to say, little to tell. Yes, oh yes, it had been +a very grand sight.... Yes, Mr. Haward was kind; he had always been +kind to her.... She had come home with Mistress Evelyn Byrd in her +coach.... Might she go now to her room? She would fold the dress very +carefully. + +Mistress Stagg let her go, for indeed there was no purpose to be served +in keeping her, seeing that the girl was clearly dazed, spoke without +knowing what she said, and stood astare like one of Mrs. Salmon’s +beautiful was ladies. She would hear all about it in the morning, when +the child had slept off her excitement. They at the Palace couldn’t +have taken her presence much amiss, or she would never in the world +have come home in the Westover coach. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +AUDREY AWAKES + + +There had lately come to Virginia, and to the convention of its clergy +at Williamsburgh, one Mr. Eliot, a minister after the heart of a large +number of sober and godly men whose reputation as a body suffered at +the hands of Mr. Darden, of Fair View parish, Mr. Bailey, of Newport, +Mr. Worden, of Lawn’s Creek, and a few kindred spirits. Certainly Mr. +Eliot was not like these; so erect, indeed, did he hold himself in +the strait and narrow path that his most admiring brethren, being, +as became good Virginians, somewhat easy-going in their saintliness, +were inclined to think that he leaned too far the other way. It was +commendable to hate sin and reprove the sinner; but when it came to +raining condemnation upon horse-racing, dancing, Cato at the playhouse, +and like innocent diversions, Mr. Eliot was surely somewhat out of +bounds. The most part accounted for his turn of mind by the fact that +ere he came to Virginia he had been a sojourner in New England. + +He was mighty in the pulpit, was Mr. Eliot; no droning reader of last +year’s sermons, but a thunderer forth of speech that was now acrid, +now fiery, but that always came from an impassioned nature, vehement +for the damnation of those whom God so strangely spared. When, as had +perforce happened during the past week, he must sit with his brethren +in the congregation and listen to lukewarm--nay, to dead and cold +adjurations and expoundings, his very soul itched to mount the pulpit +stairs, thrust down the Laodicean that chanced to occupy it, and +himself awaken as with the sound of a trumpet this people who slept +upon the verge of a precipice, between hell that gaped below and God +who sat on high, serenely regardful of his creatures’ plight. Though +so short a time in Virginia, he was already become a man of note, the +prophet not without honor, whom it was the fashion to admire, if not to +follow. It was therefore natural enough that the Commissary, himself a +man of plain speech from the pulpit, should appoint him to preach in +Bruton church this Sunday morning, before his Excellency the Governor, +the worshipful the Council, the clergy in convention, and as much of +Williamsburgh, gentle and simple, as could crowd into the church. Mr. +Eliot took the compliment as an answer to prayer, and chose for his +text Daniel fifth and twenty-seventh. + +Lodging as he did on Palace Street, the early hours of the past night, +which he would have given to prayer and meditation, had been profaned +by strains of music from the Governor’s house, by laughter and swearing +and much going to and fro in the street beneath his window. These +disturbances filling him with righteous wrath, he came down to his +breakfast next morning prepared to give his hostess, who kept him +company at table, line and verse which should demonstrate that Jehovah +shared his anger. + +“Ay, sir!” she cried. “And if that were all, sir”--and straightway she +embarked upon a colored narration of the occurrence at the Governor’s +ball. This was followed by a wonderfully circumstantial account of Mr. +Marmaduke Haward’s sins of omission against old and new acquaintances +who would have entertained him at their houses, and been entertained in +turn at Fair View, and by as detailed a description of the toils that +had been laid for him by that audacious piece who had forced herself +upon the company last night. + +Mr. Eliot listened aghast, and mentally amended his sermon. If he knew +Virginia, even so flagrant a case as this might never come before a +vestry. Should this woman go unreproved? When in due time he was in +the church, and the congregation was gathering, he beckoned to him one +of the sidesmen, asked a question, and when it was answered, looked +fixedly at a dark girl sitting far away in a pew beneath the gallery. + +It was a fine, sunny morning, with a tang of autumn in the air, and +the concourse within the church was very great. The clergy showed like +a wedge of black driven into the bright colors with which nave and +transept overflowed. His Excellency the Governor sat in state, with +the Council on either hand. One member of that body was not present. +Well-nigh all Williamsburgh knew by now that Mr. Marmaduke Haward +lay at Marot’s ordinary, ill of a raging fever. Hooped petticoat and +fragrant bodice found reason for whispering to laced coat and periwig; +significant glances traveled from every quarter of the building toward +the tall pew where, collected but somewhat palely smiling, sat Mistress +Evelyn Byrd beside her father. All this was before the sermon. When the +minister of the day mounted the pulpit, and, gaunt against the great +black sounding-board, gave out his text in a solemn and ringing voice, +such was the genuine power of the man that every face was turned toward +him, and throughout the building there fell a sudden hush. + +Audrey looked with the rest, but she could not have said that she +listened,--not at first. She was there because she always went to +church on Sunday. It had not occurred to her to ask that she might stay +at home. She had come from her room that morning with the same still +face, the same strained and startled look about the eyes, that she had +carried to it the night before. Black Peggy, who found her bed unslept +in, thought that she must have sat the night through beside the window. +Mistress Stagg, meeting her at the stairfoot with the tidings (just +gathered from the lips of a passer-by) of Mr. Haward’s illness, thought +that the girl took the news very quietly. She made no exclamation, +said nothing good or bad; only drew her hand across her brow and eyes, +as though she strove to thrust away a veil or mist that troubled her. +This gesture she repeated now and again during the hour before church +time. Mistress Stagg heard no more of the ball this morning than she +had heard the night before. Something ailed the girl. She was not +sullen, but she could not or would not talk. Perhaps, despite the fact +of the Westover coach, she had not been kindly used at the Palace. +The ex-actress pursed her lips, and confided to her Mirabell that +times were not what they once were. Had she not, at Bath, been given a +ticket to the Saturday ball by my Lord Squander himself? Ay, and she +had footed it, too, in the country dance, with the best of them, with +captains and French counts and gentlemen and ladies of title,--ay, and +had gone down the middle with, the very pattern of Sir Harry Wildair! +To be sure, no one had ever breathed a word against her character; but, +for her part, she believed no great harm of Audrey, either. Look at the +girl’s eyes, now: they were like a child’s or a saint’s. + +Mirabell nodded and looked wise, but said nothing. + +When the church bells rang Audrey was ready, and she walked to church +with Mistress Stagg much as, the night before, she had walked between +the lilacs to the green door when the Westover coach had passed from +her sight. Now she sat in the church much as she had sat at the window +the night through. She did not know that people were staring at her; +nor had she caught the venomous glance of Mistress Deborah, already in +the pew, and aware of more than had come to her friend’s ears. + +Audrey was not listening, was scarcely thinking. Her hands were crossed +in her lap, and now and then she raised one and made the motion of +pushing aside from her eyes something heavy that clung and blinded. +What part of her spirit that was not wholly darkened and folded within +itself was back in the mountains of her childhood, with those of her +own blood whom she had loved and lost. What use to try to understand +to-day,--to-day with its falling skies, its bewildered pondering over +the words that were said to her last night? And the morrow,--she must +leave that. Perhaps when it should dawn he would come to her, and call +her “little maid,” and laugh at her dreadful dream. But now, while it +was to-day, she could not think of him without an agony of pain and +bewilderment. He was ill, too, and suffering. Oh, she must leave the +thought of him alone! Back then to the long yesterdays she traveled, +and played quietly, dreamily, with Robin on the green grass beside the +shining stream, or sat on the doorstep, her head on Molly’s lap, and +watched the evening star behind the Endless Mountains. + +It was very quiet in the church save for that one great voice speaking. +Little by little the voice impressed itself upon her consciousness. +The eyes of her mind were upon long ranges of mountains distinct +against the splendor of a sunset sky. Last seen in childhood, viewed +now through the illusion of the years, the mountains were vastly +higher than nature had planned them; the streamers of light shot to +the zenith; the black forests were still; everywhere a fixed glory, a +gigantic silence, a holding of the breath for things to happen. + +By degrees the voice in her ears fitted in with the landscape, became, +so solemn and ringing it was, like the voice of the archangel of that +sunset land. Audrey listened at last; and suddenly the mountains were +gone, and the light from the sky, and her people were dead and dust +away in that hidden valley, and she was sitting in the church at +Williamsburgh, alone, without a friend. + +What was the preacher saying? What ball of the night before was he +describing with bitter power, the while he gave warning of handwriting +upon the wall such as had menaced Belshazzar’s feast of old? Of what +shameless girl was he telling,--what creature dressed in silks that +should have gone in rags, brought to that ball by her paramour-- + +The gaunt figure in the pulpit trembled like a leaf with the passion +of the preacher’s convictions and the energy of his utterance. On +had gone the stream of rhetoric, the denunciations, the satire, the +tremendous assertions of God’s mind and purposes. The lash that was +wielded was far-reaching; all the vices of the age--irreligion, +blasphemy, drunkenness, extravagance, vainglory, loose living--fell +under its sting. The condemnation was general, and each man looked to +see his neighbor wince. The occurrence at the ball last night,--he was +on that for final theme, was he? There was a slight movement throughout +the congregation. Some glanced to where would have sat Mr. Marmaduke +Haward, had not the gentleman been at present in his bed, raving now +of a great run of luck at the Cocoa Tree; now of an Indian who, with +his knee upon his breast, was throttling him to death. Others looked +over their shoulders to see if that gypsy yet sat beneath the gallery. +Colonel Byrd took out his snuffbox and studied the picture on the lid, +while his daughter sat like a carven lady, with a slight smile upon her +lips. + +On went the word picture that showed how vice could flaunt it in so +fallen an age. The preacher spared not plain words, squarely turned +himself toward the gallery, pointed out with voice and hand the object +of his censure and of God’s wrath. Had the law pilloried the girl +before them all, it had been but little worse for her. She sat like a +statue, staring with wide eyes at the window above the altar. This, +then, was what the words in the coach last night had meant--this was +what the princess thought--this was what his world thought-- + +There arose a commotion in the ranks of the clergy of Virginia. The +Reverend Gideon Darden, quitting with an oath the company of his +brethren, came down the aisle, and, pushing past his wife, took his +stand in the pew beside the orphan who had lived beneath his roof, whom +during many years he had cursed upon occasion and sometimes struck, and +whom he had latterly made his tool, “Never mind him, Audrey, my girl,” +he said, and put an unsteady hand upon her shoulder. “You’re a good +child; they cannot harm ye.” + +He turned his great shambling body and heavy face toward the +preacher, stemmed in the full tide of his eloquence by this unseemly +interruption, “Ye beggarly Scot!” he exclaimed thickly. “Ye +evil-thinking saint from Salem way, that know the very lining of the +Lord’s mind, and yet, walking through his earth, see but a poisonous +weed in his every harmless flower! Shame on you to beat down the flower +that never did you harm! The girl’s as innocent a thing as lives! Ay, +I’ve had my dram,--the more shame to you that are justly rebuked out of +the mouth of a drunken man! I have done, Mr. Commissary,” addressing +himself to that dignitary, who had advanced to the altar rail with his +arm raised in a command for silence. “I’ve no child of my own, thank +God! but the maid has grown up in my house, and I’ll not sit to hear +her belied. I’ve heard of last night; ’twas the mad whim of a sick man. +The girl’s as guiltless of wrong as any lady here. I, Gideon Darden, +vouch for it!” + +He sat heavily down beside Audrey, who never stirred from her still +regard of that high window. There was a moment of portentous silence; +then, “Let us pray,” said the minister from the pulpit. + +Audrey knelt with the rest, but she did not pray. And when it was +all over, and the benediction had been given, and she found herself +without the church, she looked at the green trees against the clear +autumnal skies and at the graves in the churchyard as though it were a +new world into which she had stepped. She could not have said that she +found it fair. Her place had been so near the door that well-nigh all +the congregation was behind her, streaming out of the church, eager +to reach the open air, where it might discuss the sermon, the futile +and scandalous interruption by the notorious Mr. Darden, and what Mr. +Marmaduke Haward might have said or done had he been present. + +Only Mistress Stagg kept beside her; for Mistress Deborah hung back, +unwilling to be seen in her company, and Darden, from that momentary +awakening of his better nature, had sunk to himself again, and thought +not how else he might aid this wounded member of his household. But +Mary Stagg was a kindly soul, whose heart had led her comfortably +through life with very little appeal to her head. The two or three +young women--Oldfields and Porters of the Virginian stage--who were +under indentures to her husband and herself found her as much their +friend as mistress. Their triumphs in the petty playhouse of this town +of a thousand souls were hers, and what woes they had came quickly to +her ears. Now she would have slipped her hand into Audrey’s and have +given garrulous comfort, as the two passed alone through the churchyard +gate and took their way up Palace Street toward the small white house. +But Audrey gave not her hand, did not answer, made no moan, neither +justified herself nor blamed another. She did not speak at all, but +after the first glance about her moved like a sleepwalker. + +When the house was reached she went up to the bedroom. Mistress +Deborah, entering stormily ten minutes later, found herself face to +face with a strange Audrey, who, standing in the middle of the floor, +raised her hand for silence in a gesture so commanding that the virago +stayed her tirade, and stood open-mouthed. + +“I wish to speak,” said the new Audrey. “I was waiting for you. There’s +a question I wish to ask, and I’ll ask it of you who were never kind to +me.” + +“Never kind to her!” cried the minister’s wife to the four walls. “And +she’s been taught, and pampered, and treated more like a daughter than +the beggar wench she is! And this is my return,--to sit by her in +church to-day, and have all Virginia think her belonging to me”-- + +“I belong to no one,” said Audrey. “Even God does not want me. Be quiet +until I have done.” She made again the gesture of pushing aside from +face and eyes the mist that clung and blinded. “I know now what they +say,” she went on. “The preacher told me awhile ago. Last night a lady +spoke to me: now I know what was her meaning. Because Mr. Haward, who +saved my life, who brought me from the mountains, who left me, when he +sailed away, where he thought I would be happy, was kind to me when he +came again after so many years; because he has often been to the glebe +house, and I to Fair View; because last night he would have me go with +him to the Governor’s ball, they think--they say out loud for all the +people to hear--that I--that I am like Joan, who was whipped last month +at the Court House. But it is not of the lies they tell that I wish to +speak.” + +Her hand went again to her forehead, then dropped at her side. A look +of fear and of piteous appeal came into her face. “The witch said that +I dreamed, and that it was not well for dreamers to awaken.” Suddenly +the quiet of her voice and bearing was broken. With a cry, she hurried +across the room, and, kneeling, caught at the other’s gown. “Ah! that +is no dream, is it? No dream that he is my friend, only my friend who +has always been sorry for me, has always helped me! He is the noblest +gentleman, the truest, the best--he loves the lady at Westover--they +are to be married--he never knew what people were saying--he was not +himself when he spoke to me so last night”--Her eyes appealed to the +face above her. “I could never have dreamed all this,” she said. “Tell +me that I was awake!” + +The minister’s wife looked down upon her with a bitter smile. “So +you’ve had your fool’s paradise? Well, once I had mine, though ’twas +not your kind. ’Tis a pretty country, Audrey, but it’s not long before +they turn you out.” She laughed somewhat drearily, then in a moment +turned shrew again. “He never knew what people were saying?” she cried. +“You little fool, do you suppose he cared? ’Twas you that played your +cards all wrong with your Governor’s ball last night!--setting up for a +lady, forsooth!--bringing all the town about your ears! You might have +known that he would never have taken you there in his senses. At Fair +View things went very well. He was entertained,--and I meant to see +that no harm came of it,--and Darden got his support in the vestry. For +he was bit,--there’s no doubt of that,--though what he ever saw in you +more than big eyes and a brown skin, the Lord knows, not I! Only your +friend!--a fine gentleman just from London, with a whole Canterbury +book of stories about his life there, to spend a’most a summer on the +road between his plantation and a wretched glebe house because he was +only your friend, and had saved you from the Indians when you were a +child, and wished to be kind to you still! I’ll tell you who did wish +to be kind to you, and that was Jean Hugon, the trader, who wanted to +marry you.” + +Audrey rose to her feet, and moved slowly backward to the wall. +Mistress Deborah went shrilly on: “I dare swear you believe that Mr. +Haward had you in mind all the years he was gone from Virginia? Well, +he didn’t. He puts you with Darden and me, and he says, ‘There’s the +strip of Oronoko down by the swamp,--I’ve told my agent that you’re to +have from it so many pounds a year;’ and he sails away to London and +all the fine things there, and never thinks of you more until he comes +back to Virginia and sees you last May Day at Jamestown. Next morning +he comes riding to the glebe house. ‘And so,’ he says to Darden, ‘and +so my little maid that I brought for trophy out of the Appalachian +Mountains is a woman grown? Faith, I’d quite forgot the child; but +Saunderson tells me that you have not forgot to draw upon my Oronoko.’ +That’s all the remembrance you were held in, Audrey.” + +She paused to take breath, and to look with shrewish triumph at the +girl who leaned against the wall. “I like not waking up,” said Audrey +to herself. “It were easier to die. Perhaps I am dying.” + +“And then out he walks to find and talk to you, and in sets your pretty +summer of all play and no work!” went on the other, in a high voice. +“Oh, there was kindness enough, once you had caught his fancy! I wonder +if the lady at Westover praised his kindness? They say she is a proud +young lady: I wonder if she liked your being at the ball last night? +When she comes to Fair View, I’ll take my oath that you’ll walk no more +in its garden! But perhaps she won’t come now,--though her maid Chloe +told Mistress Bray’s Martha that she certainly loves him”-- + +“I wish I were dead,” said Audrey. “I wish I were dead, like Molly.” +She stood up straight against the wall, and pushed her heavy hair from +her forehead. “Be quiet now,” she said. “You see that I am awake; there +is no need for further calling. I shall not dream again.” She looked at +the older woman doubtfully. “Would you mind,” she suggested,--“would +you be so very kind as to leave me alone, to sit here awake for a +while? I have to get used to it, you know. To-morrow, when we go back +to the glebe house, I will work the harder. It must be easy to work +when one is awake. Dreaming takes so much time.” + +Mistress Deborah could hardly have told why she did as she was asked. +Perhaps the very strangeness of the girl made her uncomfortable in +her presence; perhaps in her sour and withered heart there was yet +some little soundness of pity and comprehension; or perhaps it was +only that she had said her say, and was anxious to get to her friends +below, and shake from her soul the dust of any possible complicity with +circumstance in moulding the destinies of Darden’s Audrey. Be that as +it may, when she had flung her hood upon the bed and had looked at +herself in the cracked glass above the dresser, she went out of the +room, and closed the door somewhat softly behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +BY THE RIVERSIDE + + +“Yea, I am glad--I and my father and mother and Ephraim--that thee is +returned to Fair View,” answered Truelove. “And has thee truly no shoes +of plain and sober stuffs? These be much too gaudy.” + +“There’s a pair of black callimanco,” said the storekeeper reluctantly; +“but these of flowered silk would so become your feet, or this +red-heeled pair with the buckles, or this of fine morocco. Did you +think of me every day that I spent in Williamsburgh?” + +“I prayed for thee every day,” said Truelove simply,--“for thee and for +the sick man who had called thee to his side. Let me see thy callimanco +shoes. Thee knows that I may not wear these others.” + +The storekeeper brought the plainest footgear that his stock afforded. +“They are of a very small size,--perhaps too small. Had you not better +try them ere you buy? I could get a larger pair from Mr. Carter’s +store.” + +Truelove seated herself upon a convenient stool, and lifted her gray +skirt an inch above a slender ankle. “Perchance they may not be too +small,” she said, and in despite of her training and the whiteness of +her soul two dimples made their appearance above the corners of her +pretty mouth. MacLean knelt to remove the worn shoe, but found in the +shoestrings an obstinate knot. The two had the store to themselves; +for Ephraim waited for his sister at the landing, rocking in his boat +on the bosom of the river, watching a flight of wild geese drawn like +a snowy streamer across the dark blue sky. It was late autumn, and the +forest was dressed in flame color. + +“Thy fingers move so slowly that I fear thee is not well,” said +Truelove kindly. “They that have nursed men with fever do often fall +ill themselves. Will thee not see a physician?” + +MacLean, sanguine enough in hue, and no more gaunt of body than usual, +worked languidly on. “I trust no lowland physician,” he said. “In my +own country, if I had need, I would send to the foot of Dun-da-gu for +black Murdoch, whose fathers have been physicians to the MacLeans of +Duart since the days of Galethus. The little man in this parish,--his +father was a lawyer, his grandfather a merchant; he knows not what was +his great-grandfather! There, the shoe is untied! If I came every day +to your father’s house, and if your mother gave me to drink of her +elder-flower wine, and if I might sit on the sunny doorstep and watch +you at your spinning, I should, I think, recover.” + +He slipped upon her foot the shoe of black cloth. Truelove regarded it +gravely. “’Tis not too small, after all,” she said. “And does thee not +think it more comely than these other, with their silly pomp of colored +heels and blossoms woven in the silk?” She indicated with her glance +the vainglorious row upon the bench beside her; then looked down at the +little foot in its sombre covering and sighed. + +“I think that thy foot would be fair in the shoe of Donald Ross!” cried +the storekeeper, and kissed the member which he praised. + +Truelove drew back, her cheeks very pink, and the dimples quite +uncertain whether to go or stay. “Thee is idle in thy behavior,” she +said severely. “I do think that thee is of the generation that will not +learn. I pray thee to expeditiously put back my own shoe, and to give +me in a parcel the callimanco pair.” + +MacLean set himself to obey, though with the expedition of a tortoise. +Crisp autumn air and vivid sunshine pouring in at window and door +filled and lit the store. The doorway framed a picture of blue sky, +slow-moving water, and ragged landing; the window gave upon crimson +sumac and the gold of a sycamore. Truelove, in her gray gown and close +white cap, sat in the midst of the bouquet of colors afforded by the +motley lining of the Fair View store, and gazed through the window at +the riotous glory of this world. At last she looked at MacLean. “When, +a year ago, thee was put to mind this store, and I, coming here to buy, +made thy acquaintance,” she said softly, “thee wore always so stern +and sorrowful a look that my heart bled for thee. I knew that thee was +unhappy. Is thee unhappy still?” + +MacLean tied the shoestrings with elaborate care; then rose from his +knees, and stood looking down from his great height upon the Quaker +maiden. His face was softened, and when he spoke it was with a gentle +voice. “No,” he said, “I am not unhappy as at first I was. My king is +an exile, and my chief is forfeited. I suppose that my father is dead. +Ewin Mackinnon, my foe upon whom I swore revenge, lived untroubled by +me, and died at another’s hands. My country is closed against me; I +shall never see it more. I am named a rebel, and chained to this soil, +this dull and sluggish land, where from year’s end to year’s end the +key keeps the house and the furze bush keeps the cow. The best years +of my manhood--years in which I should have acquired honor--have gone +from me here. There was a man of my name amongst those gentlemen, +old officers of Dundee, who in France did not disdain to serve as +private sentinels, that their maintenance might not burden a king as +unfortunate as themselves. That MacLean fell in the taking of an island +in the Rhine which to this day is called the Island of the Scots, so +bravely did these gentlemen bear themselves. They made their lowly +station honorable; marshals and princes applauded their deeds. The man +of my name was unfortunate, but not degraded; his life was not amiss, +and his death was glorious. But I, Angus MacLean, son and brother of +chieftains, I serve as a slave; giving obedience where in nature it +is not due, laboring in an alien land for that which profiteth not, +looking to die peacefully in my bed! I should be no less than most +unhappy.” + +He sat down upon the bench beside Truelove, and taking the hem of +her apron began to plait it between his fingers. “But to-day,” he +said,--“but to-day the sky seems blue, the sunshine bright. Why is +that, Truelove?” + +Truelove, with her eyes cast down and a deeper wild rose in her cheeks, +opined that it was because Friend Marmaduke Haward was well of his +fever, and had that day returned to Fair View. “Friend Lewis Contesse +did tell my father, when he was in Williamsburgh, that thee made a +tenderer nurse than any woman, and that he did think that Marmaduke +Haward owed his life to thee. I am glad that thee has made friends with +him whom men foolishly call thy master.” + +“Credit to that the blue sky,” said the storekeeper whimsically; “there +is yet the sunshine to be accounted for. This room did not look so +bright half an hour syne.” + +But Truelove shook her head, and would not reckon further; instead +heard Ephraim calling, and gently drew her apron from the Highlander’s +clasp. “There will be a meeting of Friends at our house next fourth +day,” she said, in her most dovelike tones, as she rose and held out +her hand for her new shoes. “Will thee come, Angus? Thee will be +edified, for Friend Sarah Story, who hath the gift of prophecy, will be +there, and we do think to hear of great things. Thee will come?” + +“By St. Kattan, that will I!” exclaimed the storekeeper, with +suspicious readiness. “The meeting lasts not long, does it? When the +Friends are gone there will be reward? I mean I may sit on the doorstep +and watch you--and watch _thee_--spin?” + +Truelove dimpled once more, took her shoes, and would have gone her way +sedately and alone, but MacLean must needs keep her company to the end +of the landing and the waiting Ephraim. The latter, as he rowed away +from the Fair View store, remarked upon his sister’s looks: “What makes +thy cheeks so pink, Truelove, and thy eyes so big and soft?” + +Truelove did not know; thought that mayhap ’twas the sunshine and the +blowing wind. + +The sun still shone, but the wind had fallen, when, two hours later, +MacLean pocketed the key of the store, betook himself again to the +water’s edge, and entering a small boat, first turned it sunwise for +luck’s sake, then rowed slowly downstream to the great-house landing. +Here he found a handful of negroes--boatmen and house servants--basking +in the sunlight. Juba was of the number, and at MacLean’s call +scrambled to his feet and came to the head of the steps. “No, sah, +Marse Duke not on de place. He order Mirza an’ ride off”--a pause--“an’ +ride off to de glebe house. Yes, sah, I done tol’ him he ought to rest. +Goin’ to wait tel he come back?” + +“No,” answered MacLean, with a darkened face. “Tell him I will come to +the great house to-night.” + +In effect, the storekeeper was now, upon Fair View plantation, master +of his own time and person. Therefore, when he left the landing, he +did not row back to the store, but, it being pleasant upon the water, +kept on downstream, gliding beneath the drooping branches of red and +russet and gold. When he came to the mouth of the little creek that ran +past Haward’s garden, he rested upon his oars, and with a frowning face +looked up its silver reaches. + +The sun was near its setting, and a still and tranquil light lay +upon the river that was glassy smooth. Rowing close to the bank, the +Highlander saw through the gold fretwork of the leaves above him far +spaces of pale blue sky. All was quiet, windless, listlessly fair. A +few birds were on the wing, and far toward the opposite shore an idle +sail seemed scarce to hold its way. Presently the trees gave place to a +grassy shore, rimmed by a fiery vine that strove to cool its leaves in +the flood below. Behind it was a little rise of earth, a green hillock, +fresh and vernal in the midst of the flame-colored autumn. In shape it +was like those hills in his native land which the Highlander knew to be +tenanted by the _daoine shi’_ the men of peace. There, in glittering +chambers beneath the earth, they dwelt, a potent, eerie, gossamer folk, +and thence, men and women, they issued at times to deal balefully with +the mortal race. + +A woman was seated upon the hillock, quiet as a shadow, her head +resting on her hand, her eyes upon the river. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, +slight of figure, and utterly, mournfully still, sitting alone in the +fading light, with the northern sky behind her, for the moment she wore +to the Highlander an aspect not of earth, and he was startled. Then +he saw that it was but Darden’s Audrey. She watched the water where +it gleamed far off, and did not see him in his boat below the scarlet +vines. Nor when, after a moment’s hesitation, he fastened the boat to a +cedar stump, and stepped ashore, did she pay any heed. It was not until +he spoke to her, standing where he could have touched her with his +outstretched hand, that she moved or looked his way. + +“How long since you left the glebe house?” he demanded abruptly. + +“The sun was high,” she answered, in a slow, even voice, with no sign +of surprise at finding herself no longer alone. “I have been sitting +here for a long time. I thought that Hugon might be coming this +afternoon.... There is no use in hiding, but I thought if I stole down +here he might not find me very soon.” + +Her voice died away, and she looked again at the water. The storekeeper +sat down upon the bank, between the hillock and the fiery vine, and +his keen eyes watched her closely. “The river,” she said at last,--“I +like to watch it. There was a time when I loved the woods, but now I +see that they are ugly. Now, when I can steal away, I come to the river +always. I watch it and watch it, and think.... All that you give it is +taken so surely, and hurried away, and buried out of sight forever. A +little while ago I pulled a spray of farewell summer, and went down +there where the bank shelves and gave it to the river. It was gone in a +moment for all that the stream seems so stealthy and slow.” + +“The stream comes from afar,” said the Highlander. “In the west, +beneath the sun, it may be a torrent flashing through the mountains.” + +“The mountains!” cried Audrey. “Ah, they are uglier than the +woods,--black and terrible! Once I loved them, too, but that was long +ago.” She put her chin upon her hand, and again studied the river. +“Long ago,” she said, beneath her breath. + +There was a silence; then, “Mr. Haward is at Fair View again,” +announced the storekeeper. + +The girl’s face twitched. + +“He has been nigh to death,” went on her informant. “There were days +when I looked for no morrow for him; one night when I held above his +lips a mirror, and hardly thought to see the breath-stain.” + +Audrey laughed. “He can fool even Death, can he not?” The laugh was +light and mocking, a tinkling, elvish sound which the Highlander +frowned to hear. A book, worn and dog-eared, lay near her on the grass. +He took it up and turned the leaves; then put it by, and glanced +uneasily at the slender, brown-clad form seated upon the fairy mound. + +“That is strange reading,” he said. + +Audrey looked at the book listlessly. “The schoolmaster gave it to me. +It tells of things as they are, all stripped of make-believe, and shows +how men love only themselves, and how ugly and mean is the world when +we look at it aright. The schoolmaster says that to look at it aright +you must not dream; you must stay awake,”--she drew her hand across her +brow and eyes,--“you must stay awake.” + +“I had rather dream,” said MacLean shortly. “I have no love for your +schoolmaster.” + +“He is a wise man,” she answered. “Now that I do not like the woods I +listen to him when he comes to the glebe house. If I remember all he +says, maybe I shall grow wise, also, and the pain will stop.” Once more +she dropped her chin upon her hand and fell to brooding, her eyes upon +the river. When she spoke again it was to herself: “Sometimes of nights +I hear it calling me. Last night, while I knelt by my window, it called +so loud that I put my hands over my ears; but I could not keep out the +sound,--the sound of the river that comes from the mountains, that goes +to the sea. And then I saw that there was a light in Fair View house.” + +Her voice ceased, and the silence closed in around them. The sun was +setting, and in the west were purple islands merging into a sea of +gold. The river, too, was colored, and every tree was like a torch +burning stilly in the quiet of the evening. For some time MacLean +watched the girl, who now again seemed unconscious of his presence; +but at last he got to his feet, and looked toward his boat. “I must be +going,” he said; then, as Audrey raised her head and the light struck +upon her face, he continued more kindly than one would think so stern a +seeming man could speak: “I am sorry for you, my maid. God knows that I +should know how dreadful are the wounds of the spirit! Should you need +a friend”-- + +Audrey shook her head. “No more friends,” she said, and laughed as she +had laughed before. “They belong in dreams. When you are awake,--that +is a different thing.” + +The storekeeper went his way, back to the Fair View store, rowing +slowly, with a grim and troubled face, while Darden’s Audrey sat still +upon the green hillock and watched the darkening river. Behind her, +at no great distance, was the glebe house; more than once she thought +she heard Hugon coming through the bushes and calling her by name. The +river darkened more and more, and in the west the sea of gold changed +to plains of amethyst and opal. There was a crescent moon, and Audrey, +looking at it with eyes that ached for the tears that would not gather, +knew that once she would have found it fair. + +Hugon was coming, for she heard the twigs upon the path from the glebe +house snap beneath his tread. She did not turn or move; she would see +him soon enough, hear him soon enough. Presently his black eyes would +look into hers; it would be bird and snake over again, and the bird +was tired of fluttering. The bird was so tired that when a hand was +laid on her shoulder she did not writhe herself from under its touch; +instead only shuddered slightly, and stared with wide eyes at the +flowing river. But the hand was white, with a gleaming ring upon its +forefinger, and it stole down to clasp her own. “Audrey,” said a voice +that was not Hugon’s. + +The girl flung back her head, saw Haward’s face bending over her, and +with a loud cry sprang to her feet. When he would have touched her +again she recoiled, putting between them a space of green grass. “I +have hunted you for an hour,” he began. “At last I struck this path. +Audrey”-- + +Audrey’s hands went to her ears. Step by step she moved backward, until +she stood against the trunk of a blood-red oak. When she saw that +Haward followed her she uttered a terrified scream. At the sound and at +the sight of her face he stopped short, and his outstretched hand fell +to his side. “Why, Audrey, Audrey!” he exclaimed. “I would not hurt +you, child. I am not Jean Hugon!” + +The narrow path down which he had come was visible for some distance +as it wound through field and copse, and upon it there now appeared +another figure, as yet far off, but moving rapidly through the fading +light toward the river. “Jean! Jean! Jean Hugon!” cried Audrey. + +The blood rushed to Haward’s face. “As bad as that!” he said, beneath +his breath. Going over to the girl, he took her by the hands and strove +to make her look at him; but her face was like marble, and her eyes +would not meet his, and in a moment she had wrenched herself free of +his clasp. “Jean Hugon! Help, Jean Hugon!” she called. + +The half-breed in the distance heard her voice, and began to run toward +them. + +“Audrey, listen to me!” cried Haward. “How can I speak to you, how +explain, how entreat, when you are like this? Child, child, I am +no monster! Why do you shrink from me thus, look at me thus with +frightened eyes? You know that I love you!” + +She broke from him with lifted hands and a wailing cry. “Let me go! Let +me go! I am running through the corn, in the darkness, and I hope to +meet the Indians! I am awake,--oh, God! I am wide awake!” + +With another cry, and with her hands shutting out the sound of his +voice, she turned and fled toward the approaching trader. Haward, after +one deep oath and an impetuous, quickly checked movement to follow +the flying figure, stood beneath the oak and watched that meeting: +Hugon, in his wine-colored coat and Blenheim wig, fierce, inquisitive, +bragging of what he might do; the girl suddenly listless, silent, set +only upon an immediate return through the fields to the glebe house. + +She carried her point, and the two went away without let or hindrance +from the master of Fair View, who leaned against the stem of the oak +and watched them go. He had been very ill, and the hour’s search, +together with this unwonted beating of his heart, had made him +desperately weary,--too weary to do aught but go slowly and without +overmuch of thought to the spot where he had left his horse, mount +it, and ride as slowly homeward. To-morrow, he told himself, he would +manage differently; at least, she should be made to hear him. In +the mean time there was the night to be gotten through. MacLean, he +remembered, was coming to the great house. What with wine and cards, +thought might for a time be pushed out of doors. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +A DUEL + + +Juba, setting candles upon a table in Haward’s bedroom, chanced +to spill melted wax upon his master’s hand, outstretched on the +board. “Damn you!” cried Haward, moved by sudden and uncontrollable +irritation. “Look what you are doing, sirrah!” + +The negro gave a start of genuine surprise. Haward could punish,--Juba +had more than once felt the weight of his master’s cane,--but justice +had always been meted out with an equable voice and a fine impassivity +of countenance. “Don’t stand there staring at me!” now ordered the +master as irritably as before. “Go stir the fire, draw the curtains, +shut out the night! Ha, Angus, is that you?” + +MacLean crossed the room to the fire upon the hearth, and stood with +his eyes upon the crackling logs. “You kindle too soon your winter +fire,” he said. “These forests, flaming red and yellow, should warm the +land.” + +“Winter is at hand. The air strikes cold to-night,” answered Haward, +and, rising, began to pace the room, while MacLean watched him with +compressed lips and gloomy eyes. Finally he came to a stand before a +card table, set full in the ruddy light of the fire, and taking up the +cards ran them slowly through his fingers. “When the lotus was all +plucked and Lethe drained, then cards were born into the world,” he +said sententiously. “Come, my friend, let us forget awhile.” + +They sat down, and Haward dealt. + +“I came to the house landing before sunset,” began the storekeeper +slowly. “I found you gone.” + +“Ay,” said Haward, gathering up his cards. “’Tis yours to play.” + +“Juba told me that you had called for Mirza, and had ridden away to the +glebe house.” + +“True,” answered the other. “And what then?” + +There was a note of warning in his voice, but MacLean did not choose +to heed. “I rowed on down the river, past the mouth of the creek,” he +continued, with deliberation. “There was a mound of grass and a mass of +colored vines”-- + +“And a blood-red oak,” finished Haward coldly. “Shall we pay closer +regard to what we are doing? I play the king.” + +“You were there!” exclaimed the Highlander. “You--not Jean +Hugon--searched for and found the poor maid’s hiding-place.” The red +came into his tanned cheek. “Now, by St. Andrew!” he began; then +checked himself. + +Haward tapped with his finger the bit of painted pasteboard before him. +“I play the king,” he repeated, in an even voice; then struck a bell, +and when Juba appeared ordered the negro to bring wine and to stir the +fire. The flames, leaping up, lent strange animation to the face of the +lady above the mantelshelf, and a pristine brightness to the swords +crossed beneath the painting. The slave moved about the room, drawing +the curtains more closely, arranging all for the night. While he was +present the players gave their attention to the game, but with the +sound of the closing door MacLean laid down his cards. + +“I must speak,” he said abruptly. “The girl’s face haunts me. You do +wrong. It is not the act of a gentleman.” + +The silence that followed was broken by Haward, who spoke in the +smooth, slightly drawling tones which with him spelled irritation and +sudden, hardly controlled anger. “It is my home-coming,” he said. “I +am tired, and wish to-night to eat only of the lotus. Will you take up +your cards again?” + +A less impetuous man than MacLean, noting the signs of weakness, +fatigue, and impatience, would have waited, and on the morrow have been +listened to with equanimity. But the Highlander, fired by his cause, +thought not of delay. “To forget!” he exclaimed. “That is the coward’s +part! I would have you remember: remember yourself, who are by nature +a gentleman and generous; remember how alone and helpless is the girl; +remember to cease from this pursuit!” + +“We will leave the cards, and say good-night,” said Haward, with a +strong effort for self-control. + +“Good-night with all my heart!” cried the other hotly,--“when you have +promised to lay no further snare for that maid at your gates, whose +name you have blasted, whose heart you have wrung, whose nature you +have darkened and distorted”-- + +“Have you done?” demanded Haward. “Once more, ’t were wise to say +good-night at once.” + +“Not yet!” exclaimed the storekeeper, stretching out an eager hand. +“That girl hath so haunting a face. Haward, see her not again! God +wot, I think you have crushed the soul within her, and her name is +bandied from mouth to mouth. ’T were kind to leave her to forget and be +forgotten. Go to Westover: wed the lady there of whom you raved in your +fever. You are her declared suitor; ’tis said that she loves you”-- + +Haward drew his breath sharply and turned in his chair. Then, spent +with fatigue, irritable from recent illness, sore with the memory of +the meeting by the river, determined upon his course and yet deeply +perplexed, he narrowed his eyes and began to give poisoned arrow for +poisoned arrow. + +“Was it in the service of the Pretender that you became a squire of +dames?” he asked. “’Gad, for a Jacobite you are particular!” + +MacLean started as if struck, and drew himself up. “Have a care, sir! A +MacLean sits not to hear his king or his chief defamed. In future, pray +remember it.” + +“For my part,” said the other, “I would have Mr. MacLean remember”-- + +The intonation carried his meaning. MacLean, flushing deeply, rose +from the table. “That is unworthy of you,” he said. “But since before +to-night servants have rebuked masters, I spare not to tell you that +you do most wrongly. ’Tis sad for the girl she died not in that +wilderness where you found her.” + +“Ads my life!” cried Haward. “Leave my affairs alone!” + +Both men were upon their feet. “I took you for a gentleman,” said the +Highlander, breathing hard. “I said to myself: ‘Duart is overseas where +I cannot serve him. I will take this other for my chief’”-- + +“That is for a Highland cateran and traitor,” interrupted Haward, +pleased to find another dart, but scarcely aware of how deadly an +insult he was dealing. + +In a flash the blow was struck. Juba, in the next room, hearing the +noise of the overturned table, appeared at the door. “Set the table to +rights and light the candles again,” said his master calmly. “No, let +the cards lie. Now begone to the quarters! ’Twas I that stumbled and +overset the table.” + +Following the slave to the door he locked it upon him; then turned +again to the room, and to MacLean standing waiting in the centre of it. +“Under the circumstances, we may, I think, dispense with preliminaries. +You will give me satisfaction here and now?” + +“Do you take it at my hands?” asked the other proudly. “Just now you +reminded me that I was your servant. But find me a sword”-- + +Haward went to a carved chest; drew from it two rapiers, measured the +blades, and laid one upon the table. MacLean took it up, and slowly +passed the gleaming steel between his fingers. Presently he began to +speak, in a low, controlled, monotonous voice: “Why did you not leave +me as I was? Six months ago I was alone, quiet, dead. A star had set +for me; as the lights fail behind Ben More, it was lost and gone. +You, long hated, long looked for, came, and the star arose again. You +touched my scars, and suddenly I esteemed them honorable. You called me +friend, and I turned from my enmity and clasped your hand. Now my soul +goes back to its realm of solitude and hate; now you are my foe again.” +He broke off to bend the steel within his hands almost to the meeting +of hilt and point. “A hated master,” he ended, with bitter mirth, “yet +one that I must thank for grace extended. Forty stripes is, I believe, +the proper penalty.” + +Haward, who had seated himself at his escritoire and was writing, +turned his head. “For my reference to your imprisonment in Virginia I +apologize. I demand the reparation due from one gentleman to another +for the indignity of a blow. Pardon me for another moment, when I shall +be at your service.” + +He threw sand upon a sheet of gilt-edged paper, folded and superscribed +it; then took from his breast a thicker document. “The Solebay, +man-of-war, lying off Jamestown, sails at sunrise. The captain--Captain +Meade--is my friend. Who knows the fortunes of war? If by chance I +should fall to-night, take a boat at the landing, hasten upstream, and +hail the Solebay. When you are aboard give Meade--who has reason to +oblige me--this letter. He will carry you down the coast to Charleston, +where, if you change your name and lurk for a while, you may pass for +a buccaneer and be safe enough. For this other paper”--He hesitated, +then spoke on with some constraint: “It is your release from servitude +in Virginia,--in effect, your pardon. I have interest both here and at +home--it hath been many years since Preston--the paper was not hard +to obtain. I had meant to give it to you before we parted to-night. I +regret that, should you prove the better swordsman, it may be of little +service to you.” + +He laid the papers on the table, and began to divest himself of his +coat, waistcoat, and long, curled periwig. MacLean took up the pardon +and held it to a candle. It caught, but before the flame could reach +the writing Haward had dashed down the other’s hand and beaten out +the blaze. “’Slife, Angus, what would you do!” he cried, and, taken +unawares, there was angry concern in his voice. “Why, man, ’t is +liberty!” + +“I may not accept it,” said MacLean, with dry lips. “That letter, also, +is useless to me. I would you were all villain.” + +“Your scruple is fantastic!” retorted the other, and as he spoke he put +both papers upon the escritoire, weighting them with the sandbox. “You +shall take them hence when our score is settled,--ay, and use them as +best you may! Now, sir, are you ready?” + +“You are weak from illness,” said MacLean hoarsely, “Let the quarrel +rest until you have recovered strength.” + +Haward laughed. “I was not strong yesterday,” he said. “But Mr. Everard +is pinked in the side, and Mr. Travis, who would fight with pistols, +hath a ball through his shoulder.” + +The storekeeper started. “I have heard of those gentlemen! You fought +them both upon the day when you left your sickroom?” + +“Assuredly,” answered the other, with a slight lift of his brows. “Will +you be so good as to move the table to one side? So. On guard, sir!” + +The man who had been ill unto death and the man who for many years had +worn no sword acquitted themselves well. Had the room been a field +behind Montagu House, had there been present seconds, a physician, +gaping chairmen, the interest would have been breathless. As it was, +the lady upon the wall smiled on, with her eyes forever upon the +blossoms in her hand, and the river without, when it could be heard +through the clashing of steel, made but a listless and dreamy sound. +Each swordsman knew that he had provoked a friend to whom his debt was +great, but each, according to his godless creed, must strive as though +that friend were his dearest foe. The Englishman fought coolly, the +Gael with fervor. The latter had an unguarded moment. Haward’s blade +leaped to meet it, and on the other’s shirt appeared a bright red stain. + +In the moment that he was touched the Highlander let fall his sword. +Haward, not understanding, lowered his point, and with a gesture bade +his antagonist recover the weapon. But the storekeeper folded his arms. +“Where blood has been drawn there is satisfaction,” he said. “I have +given it to you, and now, by the bones of Gillean-na-Tuaidhe, I will +not fight you longer!” + +For a minute or more Haward stood with his eyes upon the ground and his +hand yet closely clasping the rapier hilt; then, drawing a long breath, +he took up the velvet scabbard and slowly sheathed his blade. “I am +content,” he said. “Your wound, I hope, is slight?” + +MacLean thrust a handkerchief into his bosom to stanch the bleeding. “A +pin prick,” he said indifferently. + +His late antagonist held out his hand. “It is well over. Come! We are +not young hotheads, but men who have lived and suffered, and should +know the vanity and the pity of such strife. Let us forget this hour, +call each other friends again”-- + +“Tell me first,” demanded MacLean, his arm rigid at his side,--“tell me +first why you fought Mr. Everard and Mr. Travis.” + +Gray eyes and dark blue met. “I fought them,” said Haward, “because, on +a time, they offered insult to the woman whom I intend to make my wife.” + +So quiet was it in the room when he had spoken that the wash of the +river, the tapping of walnut branches outside the window, the dropping +of coals upon the hearth, became loud and insistent sounds. Then, +“Darden’s Audrey?” said MacLean in a whisper. + +“Not Darden’s Audrey, but mine,” answered Haward,--“the only woman I +have ever loved or shall love.” + +He walked to the window and looked out into the darkness. “To-night +there is no light,” he said to himself, beneath his breath. “By and +by we shall stand here together, listening to the river, marking the +wind in the trees.” As upon paper heat of fire may cause to appear +characters before invisible, so, when he turned, the flame of a great +passion had brought all that was highest in this gentleman’s nature +into his countenance, softening and ennobling it. “Whatever my thoughts +before,” he said simply, “I have never, since I awoke from my fever and +remembered that night at the Palace, meant other than this.” Coming +back to MacLean he laid a hand upon his shoulder. “Who made us knows +we all do need forgiveness! Am I no more to you, Angus, than Ewin Mor +Mackinnon?” + +An hour later, those who were to be lifetime friends went together +down the echoing stair and through the empty house to the outer door. +When it was opened, they saw that upon the stone step without, in +the square of light thrown by the candles behind them, lay an Indian +arrow. MacLean picked it up. “’Twas placed athwart the door,” he said +doubtingly. “Is it in the nature of a challenge?” + +Haward took the dart, and examined it curiously. “The trader grows +troublesome,” he remarked. “He must back to the woods and to the foes +of his own class.” As he spoke he broke the arrow in two, and flung the +pieces from him. + +It was a night of many stars and a keen wind. Moved each in his degree +by its beauty, Haward and MacLean stood regarding it before they should +go, the one back to his solitary chamber, the other to the store which +was to be his charge no longer than the morrow. “I feel the air that +blows from the hills,” said the Highlander. “It comes over the heather; +it hath swept the lochs, and I hear it in the sound of torrents.” He +lifted his face to the wind. “The breath of freedom! I shall have +dreams to-night.” + +When he was gone, Haward, left alone, looked for a while upon the +heights of stars. “I too shall dream to-night,” he breathed to himself. +“To-morrow all will be well.” His gaze falling from the splendor of the +skies to the swaying trees, gaunt, bare, and murmuring of their loss +to the hurrying river, sadness and vague fear took sudden possession +of his soul. He spoke her name over and over; he left the house and +went into the garden. It was the garden of the dying year, and the +change that in the morning he had smiled to see now appalled him. He +would have had it June again. Now, when on the morrow he and Audrey +should pass through the garden, it must be down dank and leaf-strewn +paths, past yellow and broken stalks, with here and there wan ghosts of +flowers. + +He came to the dial, and, bending, pressed his lips against the carven +words that, so often as they had stood there together, she had traced +with her finger. “Love! thou mighty alchemist!” he breathed. “Life! +that may now be gold, now iron, but never again dull lead! Death”--He +paused; then, “There shall be no death,” he said, and left the withered +garden for the lonely, echoing house. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +AUDREY COMES TO WESTOVER + + +It was ten of the clock upon this same night when Hugon left the glebe +house. Audrey, crouching in the dark beside her window, heard him bid +the minister, as drunk as himself, good-night, and watched him go +unsteadily down the path that led to the road. Once he paused, and made +as if to return; then went on to his lair at the crossroads ordinary. +Again Audrey waited,--this time by the door. Darden stumbled upstairs +to bed. Mistress Deborah’s voice was raised in shrill reproach, and the +drunken minister answered her with oaths. The small house rang with +their quarrel, but Audrey listened with indifference; not trembling and +stopping her ears, as once she would have done. It was over at last, +and the place sunk in silence; but still the girl waited and listened, +standing close to the door. At last, as it was drawing toward midnight, +she put her hand upon the latch, and, raising it very softly, slipped +outside. Heavy breathing came from the room where slept her guardians; +it went evenly on while she crept downstairs and unbarred the outer +door. Sure and silent and light of touch, she passed like a spirit from +the house that had given her shelter, nor once looked back upon it. + +The boat, hidden in the reeds, was her destination; she loosed it, and +taking the oars rowed down the creek. When she came to the garden wall, +she bent her head and shut her eyes; but when she had left the creek +for the great dim river, she looked at Fair View house as she rowed +past it on her way to the mountains. No light to-night; the hour was +late, and he was asleep, and that was well. + +It was cold upon the river, and sere leaves, loosening their hold upon +that which had given them life, drifted down upon her as she rowed +beneath arching trees. When she left the dark bank for the unshadowed +stream, the wind struck her brow and the glittering stars perplexed +her. There were so many of them. When one shot, she knew that a soul +had left the earth. Another fell, and another,--it must be a good night +for dying. She ceased to row, and, leaning over, dipped her hand and +arm into the black water. The movement brought the gunwale of the boat +even with the flood.... Say that one leaned over a little farther ... +there would fall another star. God gathered the stars in his hand, but +he would surely be angry with one that came before it was called, and +the star would sink past him into a night forever dreadful.... The +water was cold and deep and black. Great fish throve in it, and below +was a bed of ooze and mud.... + +The girl awoke from her dream of self-murder with a cry of terror. +Not the river, good Lord, not the river! Not death, but life! With a +second shuddering cry she lifted hand and arm from the water, and with +frantic haste dried them upon the skirt of her dress. There had been +none to hear her. Upon the midnight river, between the dim forests that +ever spoke, but never listened, she was utterly alone. She took the +oars again, and went on her way up the river, rowing swiftly, for the +mountains were far away, and she might be pursued. + +When she drew near to Jamestown she shot far out into the river, +because men might be astir in the boats about the town landing. +Anchored in midstream was a great ship,--a man-of-war, bristling with +guns. Her boat touched its shadow, and the lookout called to her. She +bent her head, put forth her strength, and left the black hull behind +her. There was another ship to pass, a slaver that had come in the +evening before, and would land its cargo at sunrise. The stench that +arose from it was intolerable, and, as the girl passed, a corpse, +heavily weighted, was thrown into the water. Audrey went swiftly by, +and the river lay clean before her. The stars paled and the dawn came, +but she could not see the shores for the thick white mist. A spectral +boat, with a sail like a gray moth’s wing, slipped past her. The shadow +at the helm was whistling for the wind, and the sound came strange and +shrill through the filmy, ashen morning. The mist began to lift. A +few moments now, and the river would lie dazzlingly bare between the +red and yellow forests. She turned her boat shorewards, and presently +forced it beneath the bronze-leafed, drooping boughs of a sycamore. +Here she left the boat, tying it to the tree, and hoping that it was +well hidden. The great fear at her heart was that, when she was missed, +Hugon would undertake to follow and to find her. He had the skill to do +so. Perhaps, after many days, when she was in sight of the mountains, +she might turn her head and, in that lonely land, see him coming toward +her. + +The sun was shining, and the woods were gay above her head and gay +beneath her feet. When the wind blew, the colored leaves went before +it like flights of birds. She was hungry, and as she walked she ate a +piece of bread taken from the glebe-house larder. It was her plan to +go rapidly through the settled country, keeping as far as possible to +the great spaces of woodland which the axe had left untouched; sleeping +in such dark and hidden hollows as she could find; begging food only +when she must, and then from poor folk who would not stay her or be +overcurious about her business. As she went on, the houses, she knew, +would be farther and farther apart; the time would soon arrive when +she might walk half a day and see never a clearing in the deep woods. +Then the hills would rise about her, and far, far off she might see the +mountains, fixed, cloudlike, serene, and still, beyond the miles of +rustling forest. There would be no more great houses, built for ladies +and gentlemen, but here and there, at far distances, rude cabins, dwelt +in by kind and simple folk. At such a home, when the mountains had +taken on a deeper blue, when the streams were narrow and the level land +only a memory, she would pause, would ask if she might stay. What work +was wanted she would do. Perhaps there would be children, or a young +girl like Molly, or a kind woman like Mistress Stagg; and perhaps, +after a long, long while, it would grow to seem to her like that other +cabin. + +These were her rose-colored visions. At other times a terror took her +by the shoulders, holding her until her face whitened and her eyes grew +wide and dark. The way was long and the leaves were falling fast, and +she thought that it might be true that in this world into which she had +awakened there was for her no home. The cold would come, and she might +have no bread, and for all her wandering find none to take her in. In +those forests of the west the wolves ran in packs, and the Indians +burned and wasted. Some bitter night-time she would die.... Watching +the sky from Fair View windows, perhaps he might idly mark a falling +star. + +All that day she walked, keeping as far as was possible to the woods, +but forced now and again to traverse open fields and long stretches of +sunny road. If she saw any one coming, she hid in the roadside bushes, +or, if that could not be done, walked steadily onward, with her head +bent and her heart beating fast. It must have been a day for minding +one’s own business, for none stayed or questioned her. Her dinner she +begged from some children whom she found in a wood gathering nuts. +Supper she had none. When night fell, she was glad to lay herself down +upon a bed of leaves that she had raked together; but she slept little, +for the wind moaned in the half-clad branches, and she could not cease +from counting the stars that shot. In the morning, numbed and cold, she +went slowly on until she came to a wayside house. Quaker folk lived +there; and they asked her no question, but with kind words gave her +of what they had, and let her rest and grow warm in the sunshine upon +their doorstep. She thanked them with shy grace, but presently, when +they were not looking, rose and went her way. Upon the second day she +kept to the road. It was loss of time wandering in the woods, skirting +thicket and marsh, forced ever and again to return to the beaten track. +She thought, also, that she must be safe, so far was she now from Fair +View. How could they guess that she was gone to the mountains? + +About midday, two men on horseback looked at her in passing. One spoke +to the other, and turning their horses they put after and overtook +her. He who had spoken touched her with the butt of his whip. “Ecod!” +he exclaimed. “It’s the lass we saw run for a guinea last May Day at +Jamestown! Why so far from home, light o’ heels?” + +A wild leap of her heart, a singing in her ears, and Audrey clutched at +safety. + +“I be Joan, the smith’s daughter,” she said stolidly. “I niver ran for +a guinea. I niver saw a guinea. I be going an errand for feyther.” + +“Ecod, then!” said the other man. “You’re on a wrong scent. ’Twas no +dolt that ran that day!” + +The man who had touched her laughed. “’Facks, you are right, Tom! But +I’d ha’ sworn ’t was that brown girl. Go your ways on your errand for +’feyther’!” As he spoke, being of an amorous turn, he stooped from his +saddle and kissed her. Audrey, since she was at that time not Audrey at +all, but Joan, the smith’s daughter, took the salute as stolidly as she +had spoken. The two men rode away, and the second said to the first: “A +Williamsburgh man told me that the girl who won the guinea could speak +and look like a born lady. Didn’t ye hear the story of how she went to +the Governor’s ball, all tricked out, dancing, and making people think +she was some fine dame from Maryland maybe? And the next day she was +scored in church before all the town. I don’t know as they put a white +sheet on her, but they say ’t was no more than her deserts.” + +Audrey, left standing in the sunny road, retook her own countenance, +rubbed her cheek where the man’s lips had touched it, and trembled +like a leaf. She was frightened, both at the encounter and because she +could make herself so like Joan,--Joan who lived near the crossroads +ordinary, and who had been whipped at the Court House. + +Late that afternoon she came upon two or three rude dwellings clustered +about a mill. A knot of men, the miller in the midst, stood and gazed +at the mill-stream. They wore an angry look; and Audrey passed them +hastily by. At the farthest house she paused to beg a piece of bread; +but the woman who came to the door frowned and roughly bade her begone, +and a child threw a stone at her. “One witch is enough to take the +bread out of poor folks’ mouths!” cried the woman. “Be off, or I’ll set +the dogs on ye!” The children ran after her as she hastened from the +inhospitable neighborhood. “’T is a young witch,” they cried, “going to +help the old one swim to-night!” and a stone struck her, bruising her +shoulder. + +She began to run, and, fleet of foot as she was, soon distanced her +tormentors. When she slackened pace it was sunset, and she was faint +with hunger and desperately weary. From the road a bypath led to a +small clearing in a wood, with a slender spiral of smoke showing +between the trees. Audrey went that way, and came upon a crazy cabin +whose door and window were fast closed. In the unkempt garden rose an +apple-tree, with the red apples shriveling upon its boughs, and from +the broken gate a line of cedars, black and ragged, ran down to a piece +of water, here ghastly pale, there streaked like the sky above with +angry crimson. The place was very still, and the air felt cold. When no +answer came to her first knocking, Audrey beat upon the door; for she +was suddenly afraid of the road behind her, and of the doleful woods +and the coming night. + +The window shutter creaked ever so slightly, and some one looked out; +then the door opened, and a very old and wrinkled woman, with lines of +cunning about her mouth, laid her hand upon the girl’s arm. “Who be +ye?” she whispered. “Did ye bring warning? I don’t say, mind ye, that +I can’t make a stream go dry,--maybe I can and maybe I can’t,--but I +didn’t put a word on the one yonder.” She threw up her arms with a +wailing cry. “But they won’t believe what a poor old soul says! Are +they in an evil temper, honey?” + +“I don’t know what you mean,” said Audrey. “I have come a long way, and +I am hungry and tired. Give me a piece of bread, and let me stay with +you to-night.” + +The old woman moved aside, and the girl, entering a room that was mean +and poor enough, sat down upon a stool beside the fire. “If ye came by +the mill,” demanded her hostess, with a suspicious eye, “why did ye not +stop there for bite and sup?” + +“The men were all talking together,” answered Audrey wearily. “They +looked so angry that I was afraid of them. I did stop at one house; +but the woman bade me begone, and the children threw stones at me and +called me a witch.” + +The crone stooped and stirred the fire; then from a cupboard brought +forth bread and a little red wine, and set them before the girl. “They +called you a witch, did they?” she mumbled as she went to and fro. “And +the men were talking and planning together?” + +Audrey ate the bread and drank the wine; then, because she was so +tired, leaned her head against the table and fell half asleep. When she +roused herself, it was to find her withered hostess standing over her +with a sly and toothless smile. “I’ve been thinking,” she whispered, +“that since you’re here to mind the house, I’ll just step out to a +neighbor’s about some business I have in hand. You can stay by the +fire, honey, and be warm and comfortable. Maybe I’ll not come back +to-night.” + +Going to the window, she dropped a heavy bar across the shutter. “Ye’ll +put the chain across the door when I’m out,” she commanded. “There be +evil-disposed folk may want to win in.” Coming back to the girl, she +laid a skinny hand upon her arm. Whether with palsy or with fright the +hand shook like a leaf, but Audrey, half asleep again, noticed little +beyond the fact that the fire warmed her, and that here at last was +rest. “If there should come a knocking and a calling, honey,” whispered +the witch, “don’t ye answer to it or unbar the door. Ye’ll save time +for me that way. But if they win in, tell them I went to the northward.” + +Audrey looked at her with glazed, uncomprehending eyes, while the +gnome-like figure appeared to grow smaller, to melt out of the doorway. +It was a minute or more before the wayfarer thus left alone in the +hut could remember that she had been told to bar the door. Then her +instinct of obedience sent her to the threshold. Dusk was falling, and +the waters of the pool lay pale and still beyond the ebony cedars. +Through the twilit landscape moved the crone who had housed her for the +night; but she went not to the north, but southwards toward the river. +Presently the dusk swallowed her up, and Audrey was left with the +ragged garden and the broken fence and the tiny firelit hut. Reentering +the room, she fastened the door, as she had been told to do, and then +went back to the hearth. The fire blazed and the shadows danced; it was +far better than last night, out in the cold, lying upon dead leaves, +watching the falling stars. Here it was warm, warm as June in a walled +garden; the fire was red like the roses ... the roses that had thorns +to bring heart’s blood. + +Audrey fell fast asleep; and while she was asleep and the night was +yet young, the miller whose mill stream had run dry, the keeper of a +tippling house whose custom had dwindled, the ferryman whose child had +peaked and pined and died, came with a score of men to reckon with +the witch who had done the mischief. Finding door and window fast +shut, they knocked, softly at first, then loudly and with threats. One +watched the chimney, to see that the witch did not ride forth that way; +and the father of the child wished to gather brush, pile it against the +entrance, and set all afire. The miller, who was a man of strength, +ended the matter by breaking in the door. They knew that the witch was +there, because they had heard her moving about, and, when the door +gave, a cry of affright. When, however, they had laid hands upon her, +and dragged her out under the stars, into the light of the torches they +carried, they found that the witch, who, as was well known, could slip +her shape as a snake slips its skin, was no longer old and bowed, but +straight and young. + +“Let me go!” cried Audrey. “How dare you hold me! I never harmed one of +you. I am a poor girl come from a long way off”-- + +“Ay, a long way!” exclaimed the ferryman. “More leagues, I’ll warrant, +than there are miles in Virginia! We’ll see if ye can swim home, ye +witch!” + +“I’m no witch!” cried the girl again. “I never harmed you. Let me go!” + +One of the torchbearers gave ground a little. “She do look mortal +young. But where be the witch, then?” + +Audrey strove to shake herself free. “The old woman left me alone in +the house. She went to--to the northward.” + +“She lies!” cried the ferryman, addressing himself to the angry throng. +The torches, flaming in the night wind, gave forth a streaming, +uncertain, and bewildering light; to the excited imaginations of the +rustic avengers, the form in the midst of them was not always that of a +young girl, but now and again wavered toward the semblance of the hag +who had wrought them evil. “Before the child died he talked forever of +somebody young and fair that came and stood by him when he slept. We +thought ’t was his dead mother, but now--now I see who ’t was!” Seizing +the girl by the wrists, he burst with her through the crowd. “Let the +water touch her, she’ll turn witch again!” + +The excited throng, blinded by its own imagination, took up the cry. +The girl’s voice was drowned; she set her lips, and strove dumbly with +her captors; but they swept her through the weed-grown garden and +broken gate, past the cedars that were so ragged and black, down to the +cold and deep water. She thought of the night upon the river and of +the falling stars, and with a sudden, piercing cry struggled fiercely +to escape. The bank was steep; hands pushed her forward: she felt the +ghastly embrace of the water, and saw, ere the flood closed over her +upturned face, the cold and quiet stars. + +So loud was the ringing in her ears that she heard no access of voices +upon the bank, and knew not that a fresh commotion had arisen. She was +sinking for the third time, and her mind had begun to wander in the +Fair View garden, when an arm caught and held her up. She was borne +to the shore; there were men on horseback; some one with a clear, +authoritative voice was now berating, now good-humoredly arguing with, +her late judges. + +The man who had sprung to save her held her up to arms that reached +down from the bank above; another moment and she felt the earth again +beneath her feet, but could only think that, with half the dying past, +these strangers had been cruel to bring her back. Her rescuer shook +himself like a great dog. “I’ve saved the witch alive,” he panted. “May +God forgive and your Honor reward me!” + +“Nay, worthy constable, you must look to Sathanas for reward!” cried +the gentleman who had been haranguing the miller and his company. These +gentry, hardly convinced, but not prepared to debate the matter with +a justice of the peace and a great man of those parts, began to slip +away. The torchbearers, probably averse to holding a light to their own +countenances, had flung the torches into the water, and now, heavily +shadowed by the cedars, the place was in deep darkness. Presently there +were left to berate only the miller and the ferryman, and at last these +also went sullenly away without having troubled to mention the witch’s +late transformation from age to youth. + +“Where is the rescued fair one?” continued the gentleman who, for his +own pleasure, had led the conservers of law and order. “Produce the +sibyl, honest Dogberry! Faith, if the lady be not an ingrate, you’ve +henceforth a friend at court!” + +“My name is Saunders,--Dick Saunders, your Honor,” quoth the constable. +“For the witch, she lies quiet on the ground beneath the cedar yonder.” + +“She won’t speak!” cried another. “She just lies there trembling, with +her face in her hands.” + +“But she said, ‘O Christ!’ when we took her from the water,” put in a +third. + +“She was nigh drowned,” ended the constable. “And I’m a-tremble myself, +the water was that cold. Wauns! I wish I were in the chimney corner at +the Court House ordinary!” + +The master of Westover flung his riding cloak to one of the constable’s +men. “Wrap it around the shivering iniquity on the ground yonder; and +you, Tom Hope, that brought warning of what your neighbors would do, +mount and take the witch behind you. Master Constable, you will lodge +Hecate in the gaol to-night, and in the morning bring her up to the +great house. We would inquire why a lady so accomplished that she +can dry a mill stream to plague a miller cannot drain a pool to save +herself from drowning!” + +At a crossing of the ways, shortly before Court House, gaol, and +ordinary were reached, the adventurous Colonel gave a good-night to the +constable and his company, and, with a negro servant at his heels, rode +gayly on beneath the stars to his house at Westover. Hardy, alert, in +love with living, he was well amused by the night’s proceedings. The +incident should figure in his next letter to Orrery or to his cousin +Taylor. + +It figured largely in the table-talk next morning, when the sprightly +gentleman sat at breakfast with his daughter and his second wife, a +fair and youthful kinswoman of Martha and Teresa Blount. The gentleman, +launched upon the subject of witchcraft, handled it with equal wit and +learning. The ladies thought that the water must have been very cold, +and trusted that the old dame was properly grateful, and would, after +such a lesson, leave her evil practices. As they were rising from +table, word was brought to the master that constable and witch were +outside. + +The Colonel kissed his wife, promised his daughter to be merciful, and, +humming a song, went through the hall to the open house door and the +broad, three-sided steps of stone. The constable was awaiting him. + +“Here be mysteries, your Honor! As I serve the King, ’t weren’t Goody +Price for whom I ruined my new frieze, but a slip of a girl!” He waved +his hand. “Will your Honor please to look?” + +Audrey sat in the sunshine upon the stone steps with her head bowed +upon her arms. The morning that was so bright was not bright for her; +she thought that life had used her but unkindly. A great tree, growing +close to the house, sent leaves of dull gold adrift, and they lay at +her feet and upon the skirt of her dress. The constable spoke to her: +“Now, mistress, here’s a gentleman as stands for the King and the law. +Look up!” + +A white hand was laid upon the Colonel’s arm. “I came to make sure +that you were not harsh with the poor creature,” said Evelyn’s pitying +voice. “There is so much misery. Where is she? Ah!” + +To gain at last his prisoner’s attention, the constable struck her +lightly across the shoulders with his cane. “Get up!” he cried +impatiently. “Get up and make your curtsy! Ecod, I wish I’d left you in +Hunter’s Pond!” + +Audrey rose, and turned her face, not to the justice of the peace +and arbiter of the fate of witches, but to Evelyn, standing above +her,--Evelyn, slighter, paler, than she had been at Williamsburgh, but +beautiful in her colored, fragrant silks and the air that was hers of +sweet and mournful distinction. Now she cried out sharply, while “That +girl again!” swore the Colonel, beneath his breath. + +Audrey did as she had been told, and made her curtsy. Then, while +father and daughter stared at her, the gentleman very red and biting +his lip, the lady marble in her loveliness, she tried to speak, to +ask them to let her go, but found no words. The face of Evelyn, at +whom alone she looked, wavered into distance, gazing at her coldly and +mournfully from miles away. She made a faint gesture of weariness and +despair; then sank down at Evelyn’s feet, and lay there in a swoon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +TWO WOMEN + + +Evelyn, hearing footsteps across the floor of the attic room above her +own bedchamber, arose and set wide the door; then went back to her +chair by the window that looked out upon green grass and party-colored +trees and long reaches of the shining river. “Come here, if you +please,” she called to Audrey, as the latter slowly descended the +stair from the room where, half asleep, half awake, she had lain since +morning. + +Audrey entered the pleasant chamber, furnished with what luxury the age +afforded, and stood before the sometime princess of her dreams. “Will +you not sit down?” asked Evelyn, in a low voice, and pointed to a chair. + +“I had rather stand,” answered Audrey. “Why did you call me? I was on +my way”-- + +The other’s clear eyes dwelt upon her. “Whither were you going?” + +“Out of your house,” said Audrey simply, “and out of your life.” + +Evelyn folded her hands in her silken lap, and looked out upon river +and sky and ceaseless drift of colored leaves. “You can never go out of +my life,” she said. “Why the power to vex and ruin was given you I do +not know, but you have used it. Why did you run away from Fair View?” + +“That I might never see Mr. Haward again,” answered Audrey. She held +her head up, but she felt the stab. It had not occurred to her that +hers was the power to vex and ruin; apparently that belonged elsewhere. + +Evelyn turned from the window, and the two women, the princess and the +herdgirl, regarded each other. “Oh, my God!” cried Evelyn. “I did not +know that you loved him so!” + +But Audrey shook her head, and spoke with calmness: “Once I loved and +knew it not, and once I loved and knew it. It was all in a dream, and +now I have waked up.” She passed her hand across her brow and eyes, and +pushed back her heavy hair. It was a gesture that was common to her. +To Evelyn it brought a sudden stinging memory of the ballroom at the +Palace; of how this girl had looked in her splendid dress, with the +roses in her hair; of Haward’s words at the coach door. She had not +seen him since that night. “I am going a long way,” continued Audrey. +“It will be as though I died. I never meant to harm you.” + +The other gazed at her with wide, dry eyes, and with an unwonted color +in her cheeks. “She is beautiful,” thought Audrey; then wondered how +long she must stay in this room and this house. Without the window the +trees beckoned, the light was fair upon the river; in the south hung a +cloud, silver-hued, and shaped like two mighty wings. Audrey, with her +eyes upon the cloud, thought, “If the wings were mine, I would reach +the mountains to-night.” + +“Do you remember last May Day?” asked Evelyn, in a voice scarcely above +a whisper. “He and I, sitting side by side, watched your running, and +I praised you to him. Then we went away, and while we gathered flowers +on the road to Williamsburgh he asked me to be his wife. I said no, for +he loved me not as I wished to be loved. Afterward, in Williamsburgh, +he spoke again.... I said, ‘When you come to Westover;’ and he kissed +my hand, and vowed that the next week should find him here.” She turned +once more to the window, and, with her chin in her hand, looked out +upon the beauty of the autumn. “Day by day, and day by day,” she said, +in the same hushed voice, “I sat at this window and watched for him to +come. The weeks went by, and he came not. I began to hear talk of you. +Oh, I deny not that it was bitter!” + +“Oh me! oh me!” cried Audrey. “I was so happy, and I thought no harm.” + +“He came at last,” continued Evelyn. “For a month he stayed here, +paying me court. I was too proud to speak of what I had heard. After a +while I thought it must have been an idle rumor.” Her voice changed, +and with a sudden gesture of passion and despair she lifted her arms +above her head, then clasped and wrung her hands. “Oh, for a month +he forgot you! In all the years to come I shall have that comfort: +for one little month, in the company of the woman whom, because she +was of his own rank, because she had wealth, because others found her +fair and honored her with heart as well as lip, he wished to make his +wife,--for that short month he forgot you! The days were sweet to me, +sweet, sweet! Oh, I dreamed my dreams!... And then we were called to +Williamsburgh to greet the new Governor, and he went with us, and +again I heard your name coupled with his.... There was between us no +betrothal. I had delayed to say yes to his asking, for I wished to make +sure,--to make sure that he loved me. No man can say he broke troth +with me. For that my pride gives thanks!” + +“What must I do?” said Audrey to herself. “Pain is hard to bear.” + +“That night at the ball,” continued Evelyn, “when, coming down the +stair, I saw you standing beside him ... and after that, the music, +and the lights, and you dancing with him, in your dark beauty, with +the flowers in your hair ... and after that, you and I in my coach and +his face at the window!... Oh, I can tell you what he said! He said: +‘Good-by, sweetheart.... The violets are for you; but the great white +blossoms, and the boughs of rosy mist, and all the trees that wave in +the wind are for Audrey.’” + +“For me!” cried Audrey,--“for me an hour in Bruton church next morning!” + +A silence followed her words. Evelyn, sitting in the great chair, +rested her cheek upon her hand and gazed steadfastly at her guest of a +day. The sunshine had stolen from the room, but dwelt upon and caressed +the world without the window. Faint, tinkling notes of a harpsichord +floated up from the parlor below, followed by young Madam Byrd’s voice +singing to the perturbed Colonel:-- + + “‘O Love! they wrong thee much, + That say thy sweet is bitter, + When thy rich fruit is such + As nothing can be sweeter. + Fair house of joy and bliss’”-- + +The song came to an end, but after a pause the harpsichord sounded +again, and the singer’s voice rang out:-- + + “‘Under the greenwood tree, + Who loves to lie with me’”-- + +Audrey gave an involuntary cry; then, with her lip between her teeth, +strove for courage, failed, and with another strangled cry sank upon +her knees before a chair and buried her face in its cushions. + +When a little time had passed, Evelyn arose and went to her. “Fate has +played with us both,” she said, in a voice that strove for calmness. +“If there was great bitterness in my heart toward you then, I hope +it is not so now; if, on that night, I spoke harshly, unkindly, +ungenerously, I--I am sorry. I thought what others thought. I--I cared +not to touch you.... But now I am told that ’t was not you that did +unworthily. Mr. Haward has written to me; days ago I had this letter.” +It was in her hand, and she held it out to the kneeling girl. “Yes, +yes, you must read; it concerns you.” Her voice, low and broken, was +yet imperious. Audrey raised her head, took and read the letter. +There were but a few unsteady lines, written from Marot’s ordinary +at Williamsburgh. The writer was too weak as yet for many words; few +words were best, perhaps. His was all the blame for the occurrence +at the Palace, for all besides. That which, upon his recovery, he +must strive to teach his acquaintance at large he prayed Evelyn to +believe at once and forever. She whom, against her will and in the +madness of his fever, he had taken to the Governor’s house was most +innocent,--guiltless of all save a childlike affection for the writer, +a misplaced confidence, born of old days, and now shattered by his +own hand. Before that night she had never guessed his passion, never +known the use that had been made of her name. This upon the honor of +a gentleman. For the rest, as soon as his strength was regained, he +purposed traveling to Westover. There, if Mistress Evelyn Byrd would +receive him for an hour, he might in some measure explain, excuse. For +much, he knew, there was no excuse,--only pardon to be asked. + +The letter ended abruptly, as though the writer’s strength were +exhausted. Audrey read it through, then with indifference gave it back +to Evelyn. “It is true,--what he says?” whispered the latter, crumpling +the paper in her hand. + +Audrey gazed up at her with wide, tearless eyes. “Yes, it is true. +There was no need for you to use those words to me in the coach, that +night,--though even then I did not understand. There is no reason why +you should fear to touch me.” + +Her head sank upon her arm. In the parlor below the singing came to +an end, but the harpsichord, lightly fingered, gave forth a haunting +melody. It was suited to the afternoon: to the golden light, the +drifting leaves, the murmurs of wind and wave, without the window: to +the shadows, the stillness, and the sorrow within the room. Evelyn, +turning slowly toward the kneeling figure, of a sudden saw it through a +mist of tears. Her clasped hands parted; she bent and touched the bowed +head. Audrey looked up, and her dark eyes made appeal. Evelyn stooped +lower yet; her tears fell upon Audrey’s brow; a moment, and the two, +cast by life in the selfsame tragedy, were in each other’s arms. + +“You know that I came from the mountains,” whispered Audrey. “I +am going back. You must tell no one; in a little while I shall be +forgotten.” + +“To the mountains!” cried Evelyn. “No one lives there. You would die of +cold and hunger. No, no! We are alike unhappy: you shall stay with me +here at Westover.” + +[Illustration: HER DARK EYES MADE APPEAL] + +She rose from her knees, and Audrey rose with her. They no longer +clasped each other,--that impulse was past,--but their eyes met in +sorrowful amity. Audrey shook her head. “That may not be,” she said +simply. “I must go away that we may not both be unhappy.” She lifted +her face to the cloud in the south, “I almost died last night. When you +drown, there is at first fear and struggling, but at last it is like +dreaming, and there is a lightness.... When that came I thought, ‘It is +the air of the mountains,--I am drawing near them.’ ... Will you let me +go now? I will slip from the house through the fields into the woods, +and none will know”-- + +But Evelyn caught her by the wrist. “You are beside yourself! I would +rouse the plantation; in an hour you would be found. Stay with me!” + +A knock at the door, and the Colonel’s secretary, a pale and grave +young man, bowing on the threshold. He was just come from the attic +room, where he had failed to find the young woman who had been lodged +there that morning. The Colonel, supposing that by now she was +recovered from her swoon and her fright of the night before, and having +certain questions to put to her, desired her to descend to the parlor. +Hearing voices in Mistress Evelyn’s room-- + +“Very well, Mr. Drew,” said the lady. “You need not wait. I will myself +seek my father with--with our guest.” + +In the parlor Madam Byrd was yet at the harpsichord, but ceased to +touch the keys when her step-daughter, followed by Darden’s Audrey, +entered the room. The master of Westover, seated beside his young wife, +looked quickly up, arched his brows and turned somewhat red, as his +daughter, with her gliding step, crossed the room to greet him. Audrey, +obeying a motion of her companion’s hand, waited beside a window, +in the shadow of its heavy curtains. “Evelyn,” quoth the Colonel, +rising from his chair and taking his daughter’s hand, “this is scarce +befitting”-- + +Evelyn stayed his further speech by an appealing gesture. “Let me speak +with you, sir. No, no, madam, do not go! There is naught the world +might not hear.” + +Audrey waited in the shadow by the window, and her mind was busy, for +she had her plans to lay. Sometimes Evelyn’s low voice, sometimes the +Colonel’s deeper tones, pierced her understanding; when this was so she +moved restlessly, wishing that it were night and she away. Presently +she began to observe the room, which was richly furnished. There were +garlands upon the ceiling; a table near her was set with many curious +ornaments; upon a tall cabinet stood a bowl of yellow flowers; the lady +at the harpsichord wore a dress to match the flowers, while Evelyn’s +dress was white; beyond them was a pier glass finer than the one at +Fair View. + +This glass reflected the doorway, and thus she was the first to see the +man from whom she had fled. “Mr. Marmaduke Haward, massa!” announced +the servant who had ushered him through the hall. + +Haward, hat in hand, entered the room. The three beside the harpsichord +arose; the one at the window slipped deeper into the shadow of the +curtains, and so escaped the visitor’s observation. The latter bowed to +the master of Westover, who ceremoniously returned the salute, and to +the two ladies, who curtsied to him, but opened not their lips. + +“This, sir,” said Colonel Byrd, holding himself very erect, “is an +unexpected honor.” + +“Rather, sir, an unwished-for intrusion,” answered the other. “I beg +you to believe that I will trouble you for no longer time than matters +require.” + +The Colonel bit his lip. “There was a time when Mr. Haward was most +welcome to my house. If ’t is no longer thus”-- + +Haward made a gesture of assent. “I know that the time is past. I am +sorry that ’t is so. I had thought, sir, to find you alone. Am I to +speak before these ladies?” + +The Colonel hesitated, but Evelyn, leaving Madam Byrd beside the +harpsichord, came to her father’s side. That gentleman glanced at her +keenly. There was no agitation to mar the pensive loveliness of her +face; her eyes were steadfast, the lips faintly smiling. “If what you +have to say concerns my daughter,” said the Colonel, “she will listen +to you here and now.” + +For a few moments dead silence; then Haward spoke, slowly, weighing +his words: “I am on my way, Colonel Byrd, to the country beyond the +falls. I have entered upon a search, and I know not when it will be +ended or when I shall return. Westover lay in my path, and there was +that which needed to be said to you, sir, and to your daughter. When it +has been said I will take my leave.” He paused; then, with a quickened +breath, again took up his task: “Some months ago, sir, I sought and +obtained your permission to make my suit to your daughter for her hand. +The lady, worthy of a better mate, hath done well in saying no to my +importunity. I accept her decision, withdraw my suit, wish her all +happiness.” He bowed again formally; then stood with lowered eyes, his +hand griping the edge of the table. + +“I am aware that my daughter has declined to entertain your proposals,” +said the Colonel coldly, “and I approve her determination. Is this all, +sir?” + +“It should, perhaps, be all,” answered Haward. “And yet”--He turned to +Evelyn, snow-white, calm, with that faint smile upon her face. “May I +speak to you?” he said, in a scarcely audible voice. + +She looked at him, with parting lips. + +“Here and now,” the Colonel answered for her. “Be brief, sir.” + +The master of Fair View found it hard to speak, “Evelyn”--he began, +and paused, biting his lip. It was very quiet in the familiar parlor, +quiet and dim, and drawing toward eventide. The lady at the harpsichord +chanced to let fall her hand upon the keys. They gave forth a deep and +melancholy sound that vibrated through the room. The chord was like +an odor in its subtle power to bring crowding memories. To Haward, +and perhaps to Evelyn, scenes long shifted, long faded, took on fresh +colors, glowed anew, replaced the canvas of the present. For years the +two had been friends; later months had seen him her avowed suitor. In +this very room he had bent over her at the harpsichord when the song +was finished; had sat beside her in the deep window seat while the +stars brightened, before the candles were brought in. + +Now, for a moment, he stood with his hand over his eyes; then, letting +it fall, he spoke with firmness. “Evelyn,” he said, “if I have wronged +you, forgive me. Our friendship that has been I lay at your feet: +forget it and forget me. You are noble, generous, high of mind: I +pray you to let no remembrance of me trouble your life. May it be +happy,--may all good attend you.... Evelyn, good-by!” + +He kneeled and lifted to his lips the hem of her dress. As he rose, +and bowing low would have taken formal leave of the two beside her, +she put out her hand, staying him by the gesture and the look upon her +colorless face. “You spoke of a search,” she said. “What search?” + +Haward raised his eyes to hers that were quiet, almost smiling, though +darkly shadowed by past pain. “I will tell you, Evelyn. Why should not +I tell you this, also?... Four days ago, upon my return to Fair View, I +sought and found the woman that I love,--the woman that, by all that is +best within me, I love worthily! She shrank from me; she listened not; +she shut eye and ear, and fled. And I,--confident fool!--I thought, +‘To-morrow I will make her heed,’ and so let her go. When the morrow +came she was gone indeed.” He halted, made an involuntary gesture of +distress, then went on, rapidly and with agitation: “There was a boat +missing; she was seen to pass Jamestown, rowing steadily up the river. +But for this I should have thought--I should have feared--God knows +what I should not have feared! As it is I have searchers out, both on +this side and on the southern shore. An Indian and myself have come up +river in his canoe. We have not found her yet. If it be so that she has +passed unseen through the settled country, I will seek her toward the +mountains.” + +“And when you have found her, what then, sir?” cried the Colonel, +tapping his snuffbox. + +“Then, sir,” answered Haward with hauteur, “she will become my wife.” + +He turned again to Evelyn, but when he spoke it was less to her than +to himself. “It grows late,” he said. “Night is coming on, and at the +fall of the leaf the nights are cold. One sleeping in the forest would +suffer ... if she sleeps. I have not slept since she was missed. I must +begone”-- + +“It grows late indeed,” replied Evelyn, with lifted face and a voice +low, clear, and sweet as a silver bell,--“so late that there is a rose +flush in the sky beyond the river. Look! you may see it through yonder +window.” + +She touched his hand and made him look to the far window. “Who is it +that stands in the shadow, hiding her face in her hands?” he asked at +last, beneath his breath. + +“’Tis Audrey,” answered Evelyn, in the same clear, sweet, and +passionless tones. She took her hand from his and addressed herself to +her father. “Dear sir,” she said, “to my mind no quarrel exists between +us and this gentleman. There is no reason”--she drew herself up--“no +reason why we should not extend to Mr. Marmaduke Haward the hospitality +of Westover.” She smiled and leaned against her father’s arm. “And now +let us three,--you and Maria, whom I protest you keep too long at the +harpsichord, and I, who love this hour of the evening,--let us go walk +in the garden and see what flowers the frost has spared.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +SANCTUARY + + +“Child,” demanded Haward, “why did you frighten me so?” He took her +hands from her face, and drew her from the shadow of the curtain into +the evening glow. Her hands lay passive in his; her eyes held the +despair of a runner spent and fallen, with the goal just in sight. +“Would have had me go again to the mountains for you, little maid?” +Haward’s voice trembled with the delight of his ended quest. + +“Call me not by that name,” Audrey said. “One that is dead used it.” + +“I will call you love,” he answered,--“my love, my dear love, my true +love!” + +“Nor that either,” she said, and caught her breath. “I know not why you +should speak to me so.” + +“What must I call you then?” he asked, with the smile still upon his +lips. + +“A stranger and a dreamer,” she answered. “Go your ways, and I will go +mine.” + +There was silence in the room, broken by Haward. “For us two one path,” +he said; “why, Audrey, Audrey, Audrey!” Suddenly he caught her in his +arms. “My love!” he whispered--“my love Audrey! my wife Audrey!” His +kisses rained upon her face. She lay quiet until the storm had passed; +then freed herself, looked at him, and shook her head. + +“You killed him,” she said, “that one whom I--worshiped. It was not +well done of you.... There was a dream I had last summer. I told it +to--to the one you killed. Now part of the dream has come true.... You +never were! Oh, death had been easy pain, for it had left memory, hope! +But you never were! you never were!” + +“I am!” cried Haward ardently. “I am your lover! I am he who says to +you, Forget the past, forget and forgive, and come with me out of +your dreaming. Come, Audrey, come, come, from the dim woods into the +sunshine,--into the sunshine of the garden! The night you went away I +was there, Audrey, under the stars. The paths were deep in leaves, the +flowers dead and blackening; but the trees will be green again, and the +flowers bloom! When we are wed we will walk there, bringing the spring +with us”-- + +“When we are wed!” she answered. “That will never be.” + +“It will be this week,” he said, smiling. “Dear dryad, who have no +friends to make a pother, no dowry to lug with you, no gay wedding +raiment to provide; who have only to curtsy farewell to the trees and +put your hand in mine”-- + +She drew away her hands that he had caught in his, and pressed them +above her heart; then looked restlessly from window to door. “Will you +let me pass, sir?” she asked at last. “I am tired. I have to think what +I am to do, where I am to go.” + +“Where you are to go!” he exclaimed. “Why, back to the glebe house, and +I will follow, and the minister shall marry us. Child, child! where +else should you go? What else should you do?” + +“God knows!” cried the girl, with sudden and extraordinary passion. +“But not that! Oh, he is gone,--that other who would have understood!” + +Haward let fall his outstretched hand, drew back a pace or two, and +stood with knitted brows. The room was very quiet; only Audrey breathed +hurriedly, and through the open window came the sudden, lonely cry of +some river bird. The note was repeated ere Haward spoke again. + +“I will try to understand,” he said slowly. “Audrey, is it Evelyn that +comes between us?” + +Audrey passed her hand over her eyes and brow and pushed back her heavy +hair. “Oh, I have wronged her!” she cried. “I have taken her portion. +If once she was cruel to me, yet to-day she kissed me, her tears fell +upon my face. That which I have robbed her of I want not.... Oh, my +heart, my heart!” + +“‘T is I, not you, who have wronged this lady,” said Haward, after a +pause. “I have, I hope, her forgiveness. Is this the fault that keeps +you from me?” + +Audrey answered not, but leaned against the window and looked at the +cloud in the south that was now an amethyst island. Haward went closer +to her. “Is it,” he said, “is it because in my mind I sinned against +you, Audrey, because I brought upon you insult and calumny? Child, +child! I am of the world. That I did all this is true, but now I would +not purchase endless bliss with your least harm, and your name is more +to me than my own. Forgive me, Audrey, forgive the past.” He bowed his +head as he stood before her. + +Audrey gazed at him with wide, dry eyes whose lids burned. A hot color +had risen to her cheek; at her heart was a heavier aching, a fuller +knowledge of loss. “There is no past,” she said. “It was a dream and a +lie. There is only to-day ... _and you are a stranger_.” + +The purple cloud across the river began to darken; there came again the +lonely cry of the bird; in the house quarter the slaves were singing +as they went about their work. Suddenly Audrey laughed. It was sad +laughter, as mocking and elfin and mirthless a sound as was ever heard +in autumn twilight. “A stranger!” she repeated. “I know you by your +name, and that is all. You are Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, while +I--I am Darden’s Audrey!” + +She curtsied to him, so changed, so defiant, so darkly beautiful, that +he caught his breath to behold her. “You are all the world to me!” he +cried. “Audrey, Audrey! Look at me, listen to me!” + +He would have approached her, would have seized her hand, but she +waved him back. “Oh, the world! We must think of that! What would they +say, the Governor and the Council, and the people who go to balls, +and all the great folk you write to in England,--what would they say +if you married me? Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, the richest man +in Virginia! Mr. Marmaduke Haward, the man of taste, the scholar, the +fine gentleman, proud of his name, jealous of his honor! And Darden’s +Audrey, who hath gone barefoot on errands to most houses in Fair View +parish! Darden’s Audrey, whom the preacher pointed out to the people +in Bruton church! They would call you mad; they would give you cap +and bells; they would say, ‘Does he think that he can make her one of +us?--her that we turned and looked long upon in Bruton church, when the +preacher called her by a right name’”-- + +“Child, for God’s sake!” cried Haward. + +“There is the lady, too,--the lady who left us here together! We must +not forget to think of her,--of her whose picture you showed me at +Fair View, who was to be your wife, who took me by the hand that night +at the Palace. There is reproach in her eyes. Ah, do you not think +the look might grow, might come to haunt us? And yourself! Oh, sooner +or later regret and weariness would come to dwell at Fair View! The +lady who walks in the garden here is a fine lady and a fit mate for a +fine gentleman, and I am a beggar maid and no man’s mate, unless it be +Hugon’s. Hugon, who has sworn to have me in the house he has built! +Hugon, who would surely kill you”-- + +Haward caught her by the wrists, bruising them in his grasp. “Audrey, +Audrey! Let these fancies be! If we love each other”-- + +“If!” she echoed, and pulled her hands away. Her voice was strange, +her eyes were bright and strained, her face was burning. “But if not, +what then? And how should I love you who are a stranger to me? Oh, +a generous stranger who, where he thinks he has done a wrong, would +repair the damage.” Her voice broke; she flung back her head and +pressed her hands against her throat. “You have done me no wrong,” she +said. “If you had, I would forgive you, would say good-by to you, would +go my way.... as I am going now. Let me pass, sir!” + +Haward barred her way. “A stranger!” he said, beneath his breath. “Is +there then no tie between shadow and substance, dream and reality?” + +“None!” answered Audrey, with defiance. “Why did you come to the +mountains, eleven years ago? What business was it of yours whether I +lived or died? Oh, God was not kind to send you there!” + +“You loved me once!” he cried. “Audrey, Audrey, have I slain your love?” + +“It was never yours!” she answered passionately, “It was that +other’s,--that other whom I imagined, who never lived outside my dream! +Oh, let me pass, let me begone! You are cruel to keep me. I--I am so +tired.” + +White to the lips, Haward moved backward a step or two, but yet stood +between her and the door. Moments passed before he spoke; then, “Will +you become my wife?” he asked, in a studiously quiet voice. “Marry me, +Audrey, loving me not. Love may come in time, but give me now the right +to be your protector, the power to clear your name.” + +She looked at him with a strange smile, a fine gesture of scorn. “Marry +you, loving you not! That will I never do. Protector! That is a word I +have grown to dislike. My name! It is a slight thing. What matter if +folk look askance when it is only Darden’s Audrey? And there are those +whom an ill fame does not frighten. The schoolmaster will still give me +books to read, and tell me what they mean. He will not care, nor the +drunken minister, nor Hugon.... I am going back to them, to Mistress +Deborah and the glebe house. She will beat me, and the minister will +curse, but they will take me in.... I will work very hard, and never +look to Fair View. I see now that I could never reach the mountains.” +She began to move toward the door. He kept with her, step for step, his +eyes upon her face. “You will come no more to the glebe house,” she +said. “If you do, though the mountains be far the river is near.” + +He put his hand upon the latch of the door. “You will rest here +to-night?” he asked gently, as of a child. “I will speak to Colonel +Byrd; to-morrow he will send some one with you down the river. It will +be managed for you, and as you wish. You will rest to-night? You go +from me now to your room, Audrey?” + +“Yes,” she answered, and thought she spoke the truth. + +“I love you,--love you greatly,” he continued. “I will +conquer,--conquer and atone! But now, poor tired one, I let you go. +Sleep, Audrey, sleep and dream again.” He held open the door for her, +and stood aside with bent head. + +She passed him; then turned, and after a moment of silence spoke to him +with a strange and sorrowful stateliness. “You think, sir,” she said, +“that I have something to forgive?” + +“Much,” he answered,--“very much, Audrey.” + +“And you wish my forgiveness?” + +“Ay, Audrey, your forgiveness and your love.” + +“The first is mine to give,” she said. “If you wish it, take it. I +forgive you, sir. Good-by.” + +“Good-night,” he answered. “Audrey, good-night.” + +“Good-by,” she repeated, and slowly mounting the broad staircase passed +from his sight. + +It was dark in the upper hall, but there was a great glimmer of sky, an +opal space to mark a window that gave upon the sloping lawn and pallid +river. The pale light seemed to beckon. Audrey went not on to her attic +room, but to the window, and in doing so passed a small half-open door. +As she went by she glanced through the aperture, and saw that there was +a narrow stairway, built for the servants’ use, winding down to a door +in the western face of the house. + +Once at the open window, she leaned forth and looked to the east and +the west. The hush of the evening had fallen; the light was faint; +above the last rose flush a great star palely shone. All was quiet, +deserted; nothing stirring on the leaf-carpeted slope; no sound save +the distant singing of the slaves. The river lay bare from shore to +shore, save where the Westover landing stretched raggedly into the +flood. To its piles small boats were tied, but there seemed to be no +boatmen; wharf and river appeared as barren of movement and life as did +the long expanse of dusky lawn. + +“I will not sleep in this house to-night,” said Audrey to herself. “If +I can reach those boats unseen, I will go alone down the river. That +will be well. I am not wanted here.” + +When she arrived at the foot of the narrow stair, she slipped through +the door into a world all dusk and quiet, where was none to observe +her, none to stay her. Crouching by the wall she crept to the front of +the house, stole around the stone steps where, that morning, she had +sat in the sunshine, and came to the parlor windows. Close beneath one +was a block of stone. After a moment’s hesitation she stood upon this, +and, pressing her face against the window pane, looked her last upon +the room she had so lately left. A low fire upon the hearth, darkly +illumined it: he sat by the table, with his arms outstretched and his +head bowed upon them. Audrey dropped from the stone into the ever +growing shadows, crossed the lawn, slipped below the bank, and took +her way along the river edge to the long landing. When she was half +way down its length, she saw that there was a canoe which she had not +observed and that it held one man, who sat with his back to the shore. +With a quick breath of dismay she stood still, then setting her lips +went on; for the more she thought of having to see those two again, +Evelyn and the master of Fair View, the stronger grew her determination +to commence her backward journey alone and at once. + +She had almost reached the end of the wharf when the man in the boat +stood up and faced her. It was Hugon. The dusk was not so great but +that the two, the hunter and his quarry, could see each other plainly. +The latter turned with the sob of a stricken deer, but the impulse +to flight lasted not. Where might she go? Run blindly, north or east +or west, through the fields of Westover? That would shortly lead to +cowering in some wood or swamp while the feet of the searchers came +momently nearer. Return to the house, stand at bay once more? With all +her strength of soul she put this course from her. + +The quick strife in her mind ended in her moving slowly, as though +drawn by an invisible hand, to the edge of the wharf, above Hugon and +his canoe. She did not wonder to see him there. Every word that Haward +had spoken in the Westover parlor was burned upon her brain, and he had +said that he had come up river with an Indian. This was the Indian, and +to hunt her down those two had joined forces. + +“Ma’m’selle Audrey,” whispered the trader, staring as at a spirit. + +“Yes, Jean Hugon,” she answered, and looked down the glimmering reaches +of the James, then at the slender canoe and the deep and dark water +that flowed between the piles. In the slight craft, with that strong +man the river for ally, she were safe as in a tower of brass. + +“I am going home, Jean,” she said. “Will you row me down the river +to-night, and tell me as we go your stories of the woods and your +father’s glories in France? If you speak of other things I will drown +myself, for I am tired of hearing them. In the morning we will stop at +some landing for food, and then go on again. Let us hasten”-- + +The trader moistened his lips. “And him,” he demanded hoarsely,--“that +Englishman, that Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, who came to me and +said, ‘Half-breed, seeing that an Indian and a bloodhound have gifts in +common, we will take up the quest together. Find her, though it be to +lose her to me that same hour! And look that in our travels you try no +foul play, for this time I go armed,’--what of him?” + +Audrey waved her hand toward the house she had left. “He is there. Let +us make haste.” As she spoke she descended the steps, and, evading his +eager hand, stepped into the canoe. He looked at her doubtfully, half +afraid, so strange was it to see her sitting there, so like a spirit +from the land beyond the sun, a _revenant_ out of one of old Pierre’s +wild tales, had she come upon him. With quickened breath he loosed +the canoe from its mooring and took up the paddle. A moment, and they +were quit of the Westover landing and embarked upon a strange journey, +during which hour after hour Hugon made wild love, and hour after hour +Audrey opened not her lips. As the canoe went swiftly down the flood, +lights sprung up in the house it was leaving behind. A man, rising from +his chair with a heavy sigh, walked to the parlor window and looked +out upon lawn and sky and river, but, so dark had it grown, saw not +the canoe; thought only how deserted, how desolate and lonely, was the +scene. + + * * * * * + +In Williamsburgh as at Westover the autumn was dying, the winter was +coming, but neither farewell nor greeting perturbed the cheerful town. +To and fro through Palace and Nicholson and Duke of Gloucester streets +were blown the gay leaves; of early mornings white frosts lay upon +the earth like fairy snows, but midday and afternoon were warm and +bright. Mistress Stagg’s garden lay to the south, and in sheltered +corners bloomed marigolds and asters, while a vine, red-leafed and +purple-berried, made a splendid mantle for the playhouse wall. + +Within the theatre a rehearsal of “Tamerlane” was in progress. Turk and +Tartar spoke their minds, and Arpasia’s death cry clave the air. The +victorious Emperor passed final sentence upon Bajazet; then, chancing +to glance toward the wide door, suddenly abdicated his throne, and +in the character of Mr. Charles Stagg blew a kiss to his wife, who, +applauding softly, stood in the opening that was framed by the red vine. + +“Have you done, my dear?” she cried. “Then pray come with me a moment!” + +The two crossed the garden, and entered the grape arbor where in +September Mistress Stagg had entertained her old friend, my Lady +Squander’s sometime waiting-maid. Now the vines were bare of leaves, +and the sunshine streaming through lay in a flood upon the earth. Mary +Stagg’s chair was set in that golden warmth, and upon the ground beside +it had fallen some bright sewing. The silken stuff touched a coarser +cloth, and that was the skirt of Darden’s Audrey, who sat upon the +ground asleep, with her arm across the chair, and her head upon her arm. + +“How came she here?” demanded Mr. Stagg at last, when he had given a +tragedy start, folded his arms, and bent his brows. + +“She ran away,” answered Mistress Stagg, in a low voice, drawing her +spouse to a little distance from the sleeping figure. “She ran away +from the glebe house and went up the river, wanting--the Lord knows +why!--to reach the mountains. Something happened to bring her to her +senses, and she turned back, and falling in with that trader, Jean +Hugon, he brought her to Jamestown in his canoe. She walked from there +to the glebe house,--that was yesterday. The minister was away, and +Deborah, being in one of her passions, would not let her in. She’s that +hard, is Deborah, when she’s angry, harder than the nether millstone! +The girl lay in the woods last night. I vow I’ll never speak again +to Deborah, not though there were twenty Baths behind us!” Mistress +Stagg’s voice began to tremble. “I was sitting sewing in that chair, +now listening to your voices in the theatre, and now harking back in my +mind to old days when we weren’t prosperous like we are now.... And at +last I got to thinking of the babe, Charles, and how, if she had lived +and grown up, I might ha’ sat there sewing a pretty gown for my own +child, and how happy I would have made her. I tried to see her standing +beside me, laughing, pretty as a rose, waiting for me to take the last +stitch. It got so real that I raised my head to tell my dead child how +I was going to knot her ribbons, ... and there was this girl looking at +me!” + +“What, Millamant! a tear, my soul?” cried the theatric Mr. Stagg. + +Millamant wiped away the tear. “I’ll tell you what she said. She just +said: ‘You were kind to me when I was here before, but if you tell me +to go away I’ll go. You need not say it loudly.’ And then she almost +fell, and I put out my arm and caught her; and presently she was on her +knees there beside me, with her head in my lap.... And then we talked +together for a while. It was mostly me--she didn’t say much--but, +Charles, the girl’s done no wrong, no more than our child that’s dead +and in Christ’s bosom. She was so tired and worn. I got some milk and +gave it to her, and directly she went to sleep like a baby, with her +head on my knee.” + +The two went closer, and looked down upon the slender form and still, +dark face. The sleeper’s rest was deep. A tress of hair, fallen from +its fastening, swept her cheek; Mistress Stagg, stooping, put it in +place behind the small ear, then straightened herself and pressed her +Mirabell’s arm. + +“Well, my love,” quoth that gentleman, clearing his throat. “‘Great +minds, like Heaven, are pleased in doing good.’ My Millamant, declare +your thoughts!” + +Mistress Stagg twisted her apron hem between thumb and finger. “She’s +more than eighteen, Charles, and anyhow, if I understand it rightly, +she was never really bound to Darden. The law has no hold on her, for +neither vestry nor Orphan Court had anything to do with placing her +with Darden and Deborah. She’s free to stay.” + +“Free to stay?” queried Charles, and took a prodigious pinch of snuff. +“To stay with us?” + +“Why not?” asked his wife, and stole a persuasive hand into that of +her helpmate. “Oh, Charles, my heart went out to her! I made her so +beautiful once, and I could do it again and all the time. Don’t you +think her prettier than was Jane Day? And she’s graceful, and that +quick to learn! You’re such a teacher, Charles, and I know she’d do her +best.... Perhaps, after all, there would be no need to send away to +Bristol for one to take Jane’s place.” + +“H’m!” said the great man thoughtfully, and bit a curl of Tamerlane’s +vast periwig. “’Tis true I esteem her no dullard,” he at last +vouchsafed; “true also that she hath beauty. In fine, solely to give +thee pleasure, my Millamant, I will give the girl a trial no later than +this very afternoon.” + +Audrey stirred in her sleep, spoke Haward’s name, and sank again to +rest. Mr. Stagg took a second pinch of snuff. “There’s the scandal, +my love. His Excellency the Governor’s ball, Mr. Eliot’s sermon, Mr. +Marmaduke Haward’s illness and subsequent duels with Mr. Everard and +Mr. Travis, are in no danger of being forgotten. If this girl ever +comes to the speaking of an epilogue, there’ll be in Williamsburgh a +nine days’ wonder indeed!” + +“The wonder would not hurt,” said Mistress Stagg simply. + +“Far from it, my dear,” agreed Mr. Stagg, and closing his snuffbox, +went with a thoughtful brow back to the playhouse and the Tartar camp. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE MISSION OF TRUELOVE + + +Mistress Truelove Taberer, having read in a very clear and gentle +voice the Sermon on the Mount to those placid Friends, Tobias and +Martha Taberer, closed the book, and went about her household affairs +with a quiet step, but a heart that somehow fluttered at every sound +without the door. To still it she began to repeat to herself words she +had read: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the +children of God ... blessed are the peacemakers”-- + +Winter sunshine poured in at the windows and door. Truelove, kneeling +to wipe a fleck of dust from her wheel, suddenly, with a catch of her +breath and a lifting of her brown eyes, saw in the Scripture she had +been repeating a meaning and application hitherto unexpected. “The +peacemaker ... that is one who makes peace,--in the world, between +countries, in families, yea, in the heart of one alone. Did he not say, +last time he came, that with me he forgot this naughty world and all +its strife; that if I were always with him”-- + +Truelove’s countenance became exalted, her gaze fixed. “If it were a +call”--she murmured, and for a moment bowed her head upon the wheel; +then rose from her knees and went softly through the morning tasks. +When they were over, she took down from a peg and put on a long gray +cloak and a gray hood that most becomingly framed her wild-rose face; +then came and stood before her father and mother. “I am going forth to +walk by the creekside,” she said, in her sweet voice. “It may be that I +will meet Angus MacLean.” + +“If thee does,” answered one tranquil Friend, “thee may tell him that +upon next seventh day meeting will be held in this house.” + +“Truly,” said the other tranquil Friend, “my heart is drawn toward that +young man. His mind hath been filled with anger and resistance and the +turmoil of the world. It were well if he found peace at last.” + +“Surely it were well,” agreed Truelove sweetly, and went out into the +crisp winter weather. + +The holly, the pine, and the cedar made green places in the woods, and +the multitude of leaves underfoot were pleasant to tread. Clouds were +in the sky, but the spaces between were of serenest blue, and in the +sunshine the creek flashed diamonds. Truelove stood upon the bank, and, +with her hand shading her eyes, watched MacLean rowing toward her up +the creek. + +When he had fastened his boat and taken her hand, the two walked +soberly on beside the sparkling water until they came to a rude seat +built beneath an oak-tree, to which yet clung a number of brown leaves. +Truelove sat down, drawing her cloak about her, for, though the sun +shone, the air was keen. MacLean took off his coat, and kneeling put +it beneath her feet. He laughed at her protest. “Why, these winds are +not bleak!” he said. “This land knows no true and honest cold. In my +country, night after night have I lain in snow with only my plaid for +cover, and heard the spirits call in the icy wind, the kelpie shriek +beneath the frozen loch. I listened; then shut my eyes and dreamed warm +of glory and--true love.” + +“Thy coat is new,” said Truelove, with downcast eyes. “The earth will +stain the good cloth.” + +MacLean laughed. “Then will I wear it stained, as ’tis said a courtier +once wore his cloak.” + +“There is lace upon it,” said Truelove timidly. + +MacLean turned with a smile, and laid a fold of her cloak against his +dark cheek. “Ah, the lace offends you,--offends thee,--Truelove. Why, +’tis but to mark me a gentleman again! Last night, at Williamsburgh, I +supped with Haward and some gentlemen of Virginia. He would have me don +this suit. I might not disoblige my friend.” + +“Thee loves it,” said Truelove severely. “Thee loves the color, and the +feel of the fine cloth, and the ruffles at thy wrists.” + +The Highlander laughed. “Why, suppose that I do! Look, Truelove, how +brave and red are those holly berries, and how green and fantastically +twisted the leaves! The sky is a bright blue, and the clouds are +silver; and think what these woods will be when the winter is past! One +might do worse, meseems, than to be of God’s taste in such matters.” + +Truelove sighed, and drew her gray cloak more closely around her. + +“Thee is in spirits to-day, Angus MacLean,” she said, and sighed once +more. + +“I am free,” he answered. “The man within me walks no longer with a +hanging head.” + +“And what will thee do with thy freedom?” + +The Highlander made no immediate reply, but, chin in hand, studied the +drifts of leaves and the slow-moving water. “I am free,” he said at +last. “I wear to-day the dress of a gentleman. I could walk without +shame into a hall that I know, and find there strangers, standers in +dead men’s shoon, brothers who want me not,--who would say behind their +hands, ‘He has been twelve years a slave, and the world has changed +since he went away!’ ... I will not trouble them.” + +His face was as sombre as when Truelove first beheld it. Suddenly, and +against her will, tears came to her eyes. “I am glad--I and my father +and mother and Ephraim--that thee goes not overseas, Angus MacLean,” +said the dove’s voice. “We would have thee--I and my father and mother +and Ephraim--we would have thee stay in Virginia.” + +“I am to stay,” he answered. “I have felt no shame in taking a loan +from my friend, for I shall repay it. He hath lands up river in a +new-made county. I am to seat them for him, and there will be my home. +I will build a house and name it Duart; and if there are hills they +shall be Dun-da-gu and Grieg, and the sound of winter torrents shall be +to me as the sound of the waters of Mull.” + +Truelove caught her breath. “Thee will be lonely in those forests.” + +“I am used to loneliness.” + +“There be Indians on the frontier. They burn houses and carry away +prisoners. And there are wolves and dangerous beasts”-- + +“I am used to danger.” + +Truelove’s voice trembled more and more. “And thee must dwell among +negroes and rude men, with none to comfort thy soul, none to whom thee +can speak in thy dark hours?” + +“Before now I have spoken to the tobacco I have planted, the trees I +have felled, the swords and muskets I have sold.” + +“But at last thee came and spoke to me!” + +“Ay,” he answered. “There have been times when you saved my soul alive. +Now, in the forest, in my house of logs, when the day’s work is done, +and I sit upon my doorstep and begin to hear the voices of the past +crying to me like the spirits in the valley of Glensyte, I will think +of you instead.” + +“Oh!” cried Truelove. “Speak to me instead, and I will speak to thee +... sitting upon the doorstep of our house, when our day’s work is +done!” + +Her hood falling back showed her face, clear pink, with dewy eyes. The +carnation deepening from brow to throat, and the tears trembling upon +her long lashes, she suddenly hid her countenance in her gray cloak. +MacLean, on his knees beside her, drew away the folds. “Truelove, +Truelove! do you know what you have said?” + +Truelove put her hand upon her heart. “Oh, I fear,” she whispered, “I +fear that I have asked thee, Angus MacLean, to let me be--to let me +be--thy wife.” + +The water shone, and the holly berries were gay, and a robin redbreast +sang a cheerful song. Beneath the rustling oak-tree there was ardent +speech on the part of MacLean, who found in his mistress a listener +sweet and shy, and not garrulous of love. But her eyes dwelt upon him +and her hand rested at ease within his clasp, and she liked to hear him +speak of the home they were to make in the wilderness. It was to be +thus, and thus, and thus! With impassioned eloquence the Gael adorned +the shrine and advanced the merit of the divinity, and the divinity +listened with a smile, a blush, a tear, and now and then a meek rebuke. + +When an hour had passed, the sun went under a cloud and the air grew +colder. The bird had flown away, but in the rising wind the dead leaves +rustled loudly. MacLean and Truelove, leaving their future of honorable +toil, peace of mind, and enduring affection, came back to the present. + +“I must away,” said the Highlander. “Haward waits for me at +Williamsburgh. To-morrow, dearer to me than Deirdre to Naos! I will +come again.” + +Hand in hand the two walked slowly toward that haunt of peace, +Truelove’s quiet home. “And Marmaduke Haward awaits thee at +Williamsburgh?” said the Quakeress. “Last third day he met my father +and me on the Fair View road, and checked his horse and spoke to us. He +is changed.” + +“Changed indeed!” quoth the Highlander. “A fire burns him, a wind +drives him; and yet to the world, last night”--He paused. + +“Last night?” said Truelove. + +“He had a large company at Marot’s ordinary,” went on the other. “There +were the Governor and his fellow Councilors, with others of condition +or fashion. He was the very fine gentleman, the perfect host, free, +smiling, full of wit. But I had been with him before they came. I knew +the fires beneath.” + +The two walked in silence for a few moments, when MacLean spoke again: +“He drank to her. At the last, when this lady had been toasted, and +that, he rose and drank to ‘Audrey,’ and threw his wineglass over his +shoulder. He hath done what he could. The world knows that he loves +her honorably, seeks her vainly in marriage. Something more I know. +He gathered the company together last evening that, as his guests, +the highest officers, the finest gentlemen of the colony, should go +with him to the theatre to see her for the first time as a player. +Being what they were, and his guests, and his passion known, he would +insure for her, did she well or did she ill, order, interest, decent +applause.” MacLean broke off with a short, excited laugh. “It was not +needed,--his mediation. But he could not know that; no, nor none of us. +True, Stagg and his wife had bragged of the powers of this strangely +found actress of theirs that they were training to do great things, +but folk took it for a trick of their trade. Oh, there was curiosity +enough, but ’twas on Haward’s account.... Well, he drank to her, +standing at the head of the table at Marot’s ordinary, and the glass +crashed over his shoulder, and we all went to the play.” + +“Yes, yes!” cried Truelove, breathing quickly, and quite forgetting how +great a vanity was under discussion. + +“’Twas ‘Tamerlane,’ the play that this traitorous generation calls +for every 5th of November. It seems that the Governor--a Whig as rank +as Argyle--had ordered it again for this week. ’Tis a cursed piece of +slander that pictures the Prince of Orange a virtuous Emperor, his +late Majesty of France a hateful tyrant. But for Haward, whose guest I +was, I had not sat there with closed lips. I had sprung to my feet and +given those flatterers, those traducers, the lie! The thing taunted and +angered until she entered. Then I forgot.” + +“And she--and Audrey?” + +“Arpasia was her name in the play. She entered late; her death came +before the end; there was another woman who had more to do. It all +mattered not, I have seen a great actress.” + +“Darden’s Audrey!” said Truelove, in a whisper. + +“That at the very first; not afterwards,” answered MacLean. “She was +dressed, they say, as upon the night at the Palace, that first night of +Haward’s fever. When she came upon the stage, there was a murmur like +the wind in the leaves. She was most beautiful,--‘beauteous in hatred,’ +as the Sultan in the play called her,--dark and wonderful, with angry +eyes. For a little while she must stand in silence, and in these +moments men and women stared at her, then turned and looked at Haward. +But when she spoke we forgot that she was Darden’s Audrey.” + +MacLean laughed again. “When the play was ended,--or rather, when her +part in it was done,--the house did shake so with applause that Stagg +had to remonstrate. There’s naught talked of to-day in Williamsburgh +but Arpasia; and when I came down Palace Street this morning, there was +a great crowd about the playhouse door. Stagg might sell his tickets +for to-night at a guinea apiece. ‘Venice Preserved’ is the play.” + +“And Marmaduke Haward,--what of him?” asked Truelove softly. + +“He is English,” said MacLean, after a pause. “He can make of his face +a smiling mask, can keep his voice as even and as still as the pool +that is a mile away from the fierce torrent its parent. It is a gift +they have, the English. I remember at Preston”--He broke off with a +sigh. “There will be an end some day, I suppose. He will win her at +last to his way of thinking; and having gained her, he will be happy. +And yet to my mind there is something unfortunate, strange and fatal, +in the aspect of this girl. It hath always been so. She is such a one +as the Lady in Green. On a Halloween night, standing in the twelfth +rig, a man might hear her voice upon the wind. I would old Murdoch of +Coll, who hath the second sight, were here: he could tell the ending of +it all.” + +An hour later found the Highlander well upon his way to Williamsburgh, +walking through wood and field with his long stride, his heart warm +within him, his mind filled with the thought of Truelove and the home +that he would make for her in the rude, upriver country. Since the two +had sat beneath the oak, clouds had gathered, obscuring the sun. It +was now gray and cold in the forest, and presently snow began to fall, +slowly, in large flakes, between the still trees. + +MacLean looked with whimsical anxiety at several white particles upon +his suit of fine cloth, claret-colored and silver-laced, and quickened +his pace. But the snow was but the lazy vanguard of a storm, and so few +and harmless were the flakes that when, a mile from Williamsburgh and +at some little distance from the road, MacLean beheld a ring of figures +seated upon the Gounod beneath a giant elm, he stopped to observe who +and what they were that sat so still beneath the leafless tree in the +winter weather. + +The group, that at first glimpse had seemed some conclave of beings +uncouth and lubberly and solely of the forest, resolved itself into +the Indian teacher and his pupils, escaped for the afternoon from the +bounds of William and Mary. The Indian lads--slender, bronze, and +statuesque--sat in silence, stolidly listening to the words of the +white man, who, standing in the midst of the ring, with his back to the +elm-tree, told to his dusky charges a Bible tale. It was the story of +Joseph and his brethren. The clear, gentle tones of the teacher reached +MacLean’s ears where he stood unobserved behind a roadside growth of +bay and cedar. + +A touch upon the shoulder made him turn, to find at his elbow that +sometime pupil of Mr. Charles Griffin in whose company he had once +trudged from Fair View store to Williamsburgh. + +“I was lying in the woods over there,” said Hugon sullenly. “I heard +them coming, and I took my leave. ‘Peste!’ said I. ‘The old, weak man +who preaches quietness under men’s injuries, and the young wolf pack, +all brown, with Indian names!’ They may have the woods; for me, I go +back to the town where I belong.” + +He shrugged his shoulders, and stood scowling at the distant group. +MacLean, in his turn, looked curiously at his quondam companion of a +sunny day in May, the would-be assassin with whom he had struggled in +wind and rain beneath the thunders of an August storm. The trader wore +his great wig, his ancient steinkirk of tawdry lace, his high boots of +Spanish leather, cracked and stained. Between the waves of coarse hair, +out of coal-black, deep-set eyes looked the soul of the half-breed, +fierce, vengeful, ignorant, and embittered. + +“There is Meshawa,” he said,--“Meshawa, who was a little boy when I +went to school, but who used to laugh when I talked of France. Pardieu! +one day I found him alone when it was cold, and there was a fire in +the room. Next time I talked he did not laugh! They are all”--he swept +his hand toward the circle beneath the elm--“they are all Saponies, +Nottoways, Meherrins; their fathers are lovers of the peace pipe, +and humble to the English. A Monacan is a great brave; he laughs at +the Nottoways, and says that there are no men in the villages of the +Meherrins.” + +“When do you go again to trade with your people?” asked MacLean. + +Hugon glanced at him out of the corners of his black eyes. “They are +not my people; my people are French. I am not going to the woods any +more. I am so prosperous. Diable! shall not I as well as another stay +at Williamsburgh, dress fine, dwell in an ordinary, play high, and +drink of the best?” + +“There is none will prevent you,” said MacLean coolly. “Dwell in town, +take your ease in your inn, wear gold lace, stake the skins of all the +deer in Virginia, drink Burgundy and Champagne, but lay no more arrows +athwart the threshold of a gentleman’s door.” + +Hugon’s lips twitched into a tigerish grimace. “So he found the arrow? +Mortdieu! let him look to it that one day the arrow find not him!” + +“If I were Haward,” said MacLean, “I would have you taken up.” + +The trader again looked sideways at the speaker, shrugged his +shoulders and waved his hand. “Oh, he--he despises me too much for +that! Eh bien! to-day I love to see him live. When there is no wine +in the cup, but only dregs that are bitter, I laugh to see it at his +lips. She,--Ma’m’selle Audrey, that never before could I coax into +my boat,--she reached me her hand, she came with me down the river, +through the night-time, and left him behind at Westover. Ha! think +you not that was bitter, that drink which she gave him, Mr. Marmaduke +Haward of Fair View? Since then, if I go to that house, that garden at +Williamsburgh, she hides, she will not see me; the man and his wife +make excuse! Bad! But also he sees her never. He writes to her: she +answers not. Good! Let him live, with the fire built around him and the +splinters in his heart!” + +He laughed again, and, dismissing the subject with airiness somewhat +exaggerated, drew out his huge gilt snuffbox. The snow was now falling +more thickly, drawing a white and fleecy veil between the two upon +the road and the story-teller and his audience beneath the distant +elm. “Are you for Williamsburgh?” demanded the Highlander, when he had +somewhat abruptly declined to take snuff with Monsieur Jean Hugon. + +That worthy nodded, pocketing his box and incidentally making a great +jingling of coins. + +“Then,” quoth MacLean, “since I prefer to travel alone, twill wait +here until you have passed the rolling-house in the distance yonder. +Good-day to you!” + +He seated himself upon the stump of a tree, and, giving all his +attention to the snow, began to whistle a thoughtful air. Hugon glanced +at him with fierce black eyes and twitching lips, much desiring a +quarrel; then thought better of it, and before the tune had come to an +end was making with his long and noiseless stride his lonely way to +Williamsburgh, and the ordinary in Nicholson Street. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE PLAYER + + +About this time, Mr. Charles Stagg, of the Williamsburgh theatre in +Virginia, sent by the Horn of Plenty, bound for London, a long letter +to an ancient comrade and player of small parts at Drury Lane. A few +days later, young Mr. Lee, writing by the Golden Lucy to an agreeable +rake of his acquaintance, burst into a five-page panegyric upon the +Arpasia, the Belvidera, the Monimia, who had so marvelously dawned +upon the colonial horizon. The recipient of this communication, being +a frequenter of Button’s, and chancing one day to crack a bottle there +with Mr. Colley Cibber, drew from his pocket and read to that gentleman +the eulogy of Darden’s Audrey, with the remark that the writer was an +Oxford man and must know whereof he wrote. + +Cibber borrowed the letter, and the next day, in the company of +Wilks and a bottle of Burgundy, compared it with that of Mr. Charles +Stagg,--the latter’s correspondent having also brought the matter to +the great man’s notice. + +“She might offset that pretty jade Fenton at the Fields, eh, Bob?” said +Cibber. “They’re of an age. If the town took to her”-- + +“If her Belvidera made one pretty fellow weep, why not another?” added +Wilks. “Here--where is’t he says that, when she went out, for many +moments the pit was silent as the grave--and that then the applause was +deep--not shrill--and very long? ’Gad, if ’tis a Barry come again, and +we could lay hands on her, the house would be made!” + +Gibber sighed. “You’re dreaming, Bob,” he said good-humoredly. “’Twas +but a pack of Virginia planters, noisy over some _belle sauvage_ with a +ranting tongue.” + +“Men’s passions are the same, I take it, in Virginia as in London,” +answered the other. “If the _belle sauvage_ can move to that manner of +applause in one spot of earth, she may do so in another. And here again +he says, ‘A dark beauty, with a strange, alluring air ... a voice of +melting sweetness that yet can so express anguish and fear that the +blood turns cold and the heart is wrung to hear it’--Zoons, sir! What +would it cost to buy off this fellow Stagg, and to bring the phoenix +overseas?” + +“Something more than a lottery ticket,” laughed the other, and +beckoned to the drawer. “We’ll wait, Bob, until we’re sure ’tis a +phoenix indeed! There’s a gentleman in Virginia with whom I’ve some +acquaintance, Colonel William Byrd, that was the colony’s agent here. +I’ll write to him for a true account. There’s time enough.” + +So thought honest Cibber, and wrote at leisure to his Virginia +acquaintance. It made small difference whether he wrote or refrained +from writing, for he had naught to do with the destinies of Darden’s +Audrey. ’Twas almost summer before there came an answer to his letter. +He showed it to Wilks in the greenroom, between the acts of “The +Provoked Husband.” Mrs. Oldfield read it over their shoulders, and +vowed that ’twas a moving story; nay, more, in her next scene there was +a moisture in Lady Townly’s eyes quite out of keeping with the vivacity +of her lines. + +Darden’s Audrey had to do with Virginia, not London; with the winter, +never more the summer. It is not known how acceptable her Monimia, her +Belvidera, her Isabella, would have been to London playgoers. Perhaps +they would have received them as did the Virginians, perhaps not. +Cibber himself might or might not have drawn for us her portrait; might +or might not have dwelt upon the speaking eye, the slow, exquisite +smile with which she made more sad her saddest utterances, the wild +charm of her mirth, her power to make each auditor fear as his own +the impending harm, the tragic splendor in which, when the bolt had +fallen, converged all the pathos, beauty, and tenderness of her earlier +scenes. A Virginian of that winter, writing of her, had written thus; +but then Williamsburgh was not London, nor its playhouse Drury Lane. +Perhaps upon that ruder stage, before an audience less polite, with +never a critic in the pit or footman in the gallery, with no Fops’ +Corner and no great number of fine ladies in the boxes, the jewel shone +with a lustre that in a brighter light it had not worn. There was in +Mr. Charles Stagg’s company of players no mate for any gem; this one +was set amongst pebbles, and perhaps by contrast alone did it glow so +deeply. + +However this may be, in Virginia, in the winter and the early spring of +that year of grace Darden’s Audrey was known, extravagantly praised, +toasted, applauded to the echo. Night after night saw the theatre +crowded, gallery, pit, and boxes. Even the stage had its row of chairs, +seats held not too dear at half a guinea. Mr. Stagg had visions of a +larger house, a fuller company, renown and prosperity undreamed of +before that fortunate day when, in the grape arbor, he and his wife had +stood and watched Darden’s Audrey asleep, with her head pillowed upon +her arm. + +Darden’s Audrey! The name clung to her, though the minister had no +further lot or part in her fate. The poetasters called her Charmante, +Anwet, Chloe,--what not! Young Mr. Lee in many a slight and pleasing +set of verses addressed her as Sylvia, but to the community at large +she was Darden’s Audrey, and an enigma greater than the Sphinx. Why +would she not marry Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View? Was the girl +looking for a prince to come overseas for her? Or did she prefer to a +dazzling marriage the excitement of the theatre, the adulation, furious +applause? That could hardly be, for these things seemed to frighten +her. At times one could see her shrink and grow pale at some great +clapping or loud “Again!” And only upon the stage did the town behold +her. She rarely went abroad, and at the small white house in Palace +Street she was denied to visitors. True, ’twas the way to keep upon +curiosity the keenest edge, to pique interest and send the town to +the playhouse as the one point of view from which the riddle might be +studied. But wisdom such as this could scarce be expected of the girl. +Given, then, that ’twas not her vanity which kept her Darden’s Audrey, +what was it? Was not Mr. Haward of Fair View rich, handsome, a very +fine gentleman? Generous, too, for had he not sworn, as earnestly as +though he expected to be believed, that the girl was pure innocence? +His hand was ready to his sword, nor were men anxious to incur his cold +enmity, so that the assertion passed without open challenge. He was +mad for her,--that was plain enough. And she,--well she’s woman and +Darden’s Audrey, and so doubly an enigma. In the mean time, to-night +she plays Monimia, and her madness makes you weep, so sad it is, so +hopeless, and so piercing sweet. + +In this new world that was so strange to her Darden’s Audrey bore +herself as best she might. While it was day she kept within the house, +where the room that in September she had shared with Mistress Deborah +was now for her alone. Hour after hour she sat there, book in hand, +learning how those other women, those women of the past, had loved, +had suffered, had fallen to dusty death. Other hours she spent with +Mr. Charles Stagg in the long room downstairs, or, when Mistress Stagg +had customers, in the theatre itself. As in the branded schoolmaster +chance had given her a teacher skilled in imparting knowledge, so in +this small and pompous man, who beneath a garb of fustian hugged to +himself a genuine reverence and understanding of his art, she found an +instructor more able, perhaps, than had been a greater actor. In the +chill and empty playhouse, upon the narrow stage where, sitting in the +September sunshine, she had asked of Haward her last favor, she now +learned to speak for those sisters of her spirit, those dead women who +through rapture, agony, and madness had sunk to their long rest, had +given their hands to death and lain down in a common inn. To Audrey +they were real; she was free of their company. The shadows were the +people who lived and were happy; who night after night came to watch a +soul caught in the toils, to thunder applause when death with rude and +hasty hands broke the net, set free the prisoner. + +The girl dreamed as she breathed. Wakened from a long, long fantasy, +desolate and cold to the heart in an alien air, she sought for poppy +and mandragora, and in some sort finding them dreamed again, though not +for herself, not as before. It can hardly be said that she was unhappy. +She walked in a pageant of strange miseries, and the pomp of woe was +hers to portray. Those changelings from some fateful land, those +passionate, pale women, the milestones of whose pilgrimage spelled +love, ruin, despair, and death, they were her kindred, her sisters. Day +and night they kept her company: and her own pain lessened, grew at +last to a still and dreamy sorrow, never absent, never poignant. + +Of necessity, importunate grief was drugged to sleep. In the daylight +hours she must study, must rehearse with her fellow players; when night +came she put on a beautiful dress, and to lights and music and loud +applause there entered Monimia, or Belvidera, or Athenais. When the +play was done and the curtain fallen, the crowd of those who would have +stayed her ever gave way, daunted by her eyes, her closed lips, the +atmosphere that yet wrapped her of passion, woe, and exaltation, the +very tragedy of the soul that she had so richly painted. Like the ghost +of that woman who had so direfully loved and died, she was wont to slip +from the playhouse, through the dark garden, to the small white house +and her quiet room. There she laid off her gorgeous dress, and drew the +ornaments from her dark hair that was long as Molly’s had been that day +beneath the sugar-tree in the far-away valley. + +She rarely thought of Molly now, or of the mountains. With her hair +shadowing her face and streaming over bared neck and bosom she sat +before her mirror. The candle burned low; the face in the glass seemed +not her own. Dim, pale, dark-eyed, patient-lipped at last, out of a +mist and from a great distance the other woman looked at her. Far +countries, the burning noonday and utter love, night and woe and life, +the broken toy, flung with haste away! The mist thickened; the face +withdrew, farther, farther off; the candle burned low. Audrey put out +the weak flame, and laid herself upon the bed. Sleep came soon, and it +was still and dreamless. Sometimes Mary Stagg, light in hand, stole +into the room and stood above the quiet form. The girl hardly seemed +to breathe: she had a fashion of lying with crossed hands and head +drawn slightly back, much as she might be laid at last in her final +bed. Mistress Stagg put out a timid hand and felt the flesh if it were +warm; then bent and lightly kissed hand or arm or the soft curve of the +throat. Audrey stirred not, and the other went noiselessly away; or +Audrey opened dark eyes, faintly smiled and raised herself to meet the +half-awed caress, then sank to rest again. + +Into Mistress Stagg’s life had struck a shaft of colored light, had +come a note of strange music, had flown a bird of paradise. It was +and it was not her dead child come again. She knew that her Lucy had +never been thus, and the love that she gave Audrey was hardly mother +love. It was more nearly an homage, which, had she tried, she could +not have explained. When they were alone together, Audrey called the +older woman “mother,” often knelt and laid her head upon the other’s +lap or shoulder. In all her ways she was sweet and duteous, grateful +and eager to serve. But her spirit dwelt in a rarer air, and there +were heights and depths where the waif and her protectress might not +meet. To this the latter gave dumb recognition, and though she could +not understand, yet loved her protégée. At night, in the playhouse, +this love was heightened into exultant worship. At all times there was +delight in the girl’s beauty, pride in the comment and wonder of the +town, self-congratulation and the pleasing knowledge that wisdom is +vindicated of its children. Was not all this of her bringing about? Did +it not first occur to her that the child might take Jane Day’s place? +Even Charles, who strutted and plumed himself and offered his snuffbox +to every passer-by, must acknowledge that! Mistress Stagg stopped her +sewing to laugh triumphantly, then fell to work more diligently than +ever; for it was her pleasure to dress Darden’s Audrey richly, in +soft colors, heavy silken stuffs upon which was lavished a wealth of +delicate needlework. It was chiefly while she sat and sewed upon these +pretty things, with Audrey, book on knee, close beside her, that her +own child seemed to breathe again. + +Audrey thanked her and kissed her, and wore what she was given to +wear, nor thought how her beauty was enhanced. If others saw it, if +the wonder grew by what it fed on, if she was talked of, written of, +pledged, and lauded by a frank and susceptible people, she knew of all +this little enough, and for what she knew cared not at all. Her days +went dreamily by, nor very sad nor happy; full of work, yet vague and +unmarked as desert sands. What was real was a past that was not hers, +and those dead women to whom night by night she gave life and splendor. + +There were visitors to whom she was not denied. Darden came at times, +sat in Mistress Stagg’s sunny parlor, and talked to his sometime ward +much as he had talked in the glebe-house living room,--discursively, of +men and parochial affairs and his own unmerited woes. Audrey sat and +heard him, with her eyes upon the garden without the window. When he +lifted from the chair his great shambling figure, and took his stained +old hat and heavy cane, Audrey rose also, curtsied, and sent her duty +to Mistress Deborah, but she asked no questions as to that past home +of hers. It seemed not to interest her that the creek was frozen so +hard that one could walk upon it to Fair View, or that the minister had +bought a field from his wealthy neighbor, and meant to plant it with +Oronoko. Only when he told her that the little wood--the wood that she +had called her own--was being cleared, and that all day could be heard +the falling of the trees, did she lift startled eyes and draw a breath +like a moan. The minister looked at her from under shaggy brows, shook +his head, and went his way to his favorite ordinary, rum, and a hand at +cards. + +Mistress Deborah she beheld no more; but once the Widow Constance +brought Barbara to town, and the two, being very simple women, went +to the play to see the old Audrey, and saw instead a queen, tinseled, +mock-jeweled, clad in silk, who loved and triumphed, despaired and +died. The rude theatre shook to the applause. When it was all over, the +widow and Barbara went dazed to their lodging, and lay awake through +the night talking of these marvels. In the morning they found the +small white house, and Audrey came to them in the garden. When she had +kissed them, the three sat down in the arbor; for it was a fine, sunny +morning, and not cold. But the talk was not easy; Barbara’s eyes were +so round, and the widow kept mincing her words. Only when they were +joined by Mistress Stagg, to whom the widow became voluble, the two +girls spoke aside. + +“I have a guinea, Barbara,” said Audrey. “Mr. Stagg gave it to me, and +I need it not,--I need naught in the world. Barbara, here!--’tis for a +warm dress and a Sunday hood.” + +“Oh, Audrey,” breathed Barbara, “they say you might live at Fair +View,--that you might marry Mr. Haward and be a fine lady”-- + +Audrey laid her hand upon the other’s lips. “Hush! See, Barbara, you +must have the dress made thus, like mine.” + +“But if ’tis so, Audrey!” persisted poor Barbara. “Mother and I talked +of it last night. She said you would want a waiting-woman, and I +thought--Oh, Audrey!” + +Audrey bit her quivering lip and dashed away the tears. “I’ll want no +waiting-woman, Barbara. I’m naught but Audrey that you used to be kind +to. Let’s talk of other things. Have you missed me from the woods all +these days?” + +“It has been long since you were there,” said Barbara dully. “Now I +go with Joan at times, though mother frowns and says she is not fit. +Eh, Audrey, if I could have a dress of red silk, with gold and bright +stones, like you wore last night! Old days I had more than you, but +all’s changed now. Joan says”-- + +The Widow Constance rising to take leave, it did not appear what Joan +had said. The visitors from the country went away, nor came again +while Audrey dwelt in Williamsburgh. The schoolmaster came, and while +he waited for his sometime pupil to slowly descend the stairs talked +learnedly to Mr. Stagg of native genius, of the mind drawn steadily +through all accidents and adversities to the end of its own discovery, +and of how time and tide and all the winds of heaven conspire to bring +the fate assigned, to make the puppet move in the stated measure. +Mr. Stagg nodded, took out his snuffbox, and asked what now was the +schoolmaster’s opinion of the girl’s Monimia last night,--the last act, +for instance. Good Lord, how still the house was!--and then one long +sigh! + +The schoolmaster fingered the scars in his bands, as was his manner +at times, but kept his eyes upon the ground. When he spoke, there was +in his voice unwonted life. “Why, sir, I could have said with Lear, +_’Hysterica passio! down, thou climbing sorrow!’_--and I am not a man, +sir, that’s easily moved. The girl is greatly gifted. I knew that +before either you or the town, sir. Audrey, good-morrow!” + +Such as these from out her old life Darden’s Audrey saw and talked +with. Others sought her, watched for her, laid traps that might achieve +at least her presence, but largely in vain. She kept within the house; +when the knocker sounded she went to her own room. No flowery message, +compliment, or appeal, not even Mary Stagg’s kindly importunity, could +bring her from that coign of vantage. There were times when Mistress +Stagg’s showroom was crowded with customers; on sunny days young men +left the bowling green to stroll in the shell-bordered garden paths; +gentlemen and ladies of quality passing up and down Palace Street +walked more slowly when they came to the small white house, and looked +to see if the face of Darden’s Audrey showed at any window. + +Thus the winter wore away. The springtime was at hand, when one day +the Governor, wrought upon by Mistress Evelyn Byrd, sent to Mr. +Stagg, bidding him with his wife and the new player to the Palace. +The three, dressed in their best, were ushered into the drawing-room, +where they found his Excellency at chess with the Attorney-General; a +third gentleman, seated somewhat in the shadow, watching the game. A +servant placed, chairs for the people from the theatre. His Excellency +checkmated his antagonist, and, leaning back in his great chair, +looked at Darden’s Audrey, but addressed his conversation to Mr. +Charles Stagg. The great man was condescendingly affable, the lesser +one obsequious; while they talked the gentleman in the shadow arose +and drew his chair to Audrey’s side. ’Twas Colonel Byrd, and he spoke +to the girl kindly and courteously; asking after her welfare, giving +her her meed of praise, dwelling half humorously upon the astonishment +and delight into which she had surprised the play-loving town. Audrey +listened with downcast eyes to the suave tones, the well-turned +compliments, but when she must speak spoke quietly and well. + +At last the Governor turned toward her, and began to ask well-meant +questions and to give pompous encouragement to the new player. No +reference was made to that other time when she had visited the Palace. +A servant poured for each of the three a glass of wine. His Excellency +graciously desired that they shortly give ‘Tamerlane’ again, that +being a play which, as a true Whig and a hater of all tyrants, he much +delighted in, and as graciously announced his intention of bestowing +upon the company two slightly tarnished birthday suits. The great man +then arose, and the audience was over. + +Outside the house, in the sunny walk leading to the gates, the three +from the theatre met, full face, a lady and two gentlemen who had been +sauntering up and down in the pleasant weather. The lady was Evelyn +Byrd; the gentlemen were Mr. Lee and Mr. Grymes. + +Audrey, moving slightly in advance of her companions, halted at the +sight of Evelyn, and the rich color surged to her face; but the other, +pale and lovely, kept her composure, and, with a smile and a few +graceful words of greeting, curtsied deeply to the player. Audrey, with +a little catch of her breath, returned the curtsy. Both women were +richly dressed, both were beautiful; it seemed a ceremonious meeting of +two ladies of quality. The gentlemen also bowed profoundly, pressing +their hats against their hearts. Mistress Stagg, to whom her protégée’s +aversion to company was no light cross, twitched her Mirabell by the +sleeve and, hanging upon his arm, prevented his further advance. The +action said: “Let the child alone; maybe when the ice is once broken +she’ll see people, and not be so shy and strange!” + +“Mr. Lee,” said Evelyn sweetly, “I have dropped my glove,--perhaps in +the summer-house on the terrace. If you will be so good? Mr. Grymes, +will you desire Mr. Stagg yonder to shortly visit me at my lodging? I +wish to bespeak a play, and would confer with him on the matter.” + +The gentlemen bowed and hasted upon their several errands, leaving +Audrey and Evelyn standing face to face in the sunny path. “You are +well, I hope,” said the latter, in her low, clear voice, “and happy?” + +“I am well, Mistress Evelyn,” answered Audrey. “I think that I am not +unhappy.” + +The other gazed at her in silence; then, “We have all been blind,” she +said. “’Tis not a year since May Day and the Jaquelins’ merrymaking. +It seems much longer. You won the race,--do you remember?--and took +the prize from my hand. And neither of us thought of all that should +follow--did we?--or guessed at other days. I saw you last night at the +theatre, and you made my heart like to burst for pity and sorrow. You +were only playing at woe? You are not unhappy, not like that?” + +Audrey shook her head. “No, not like that.” + +There was a pause, broken by Evelyn. “Mr. Haward is in town,” she said, +in a low but unfaltering voice, “He was at the playhouse last night. I +watched him sitting in a box, in the shadow.... You also saw him?” + +“Yes,” said Audrey. “He had not been there for a long, long time. At +first he came night after night.... I wrote to him at last and told +him how he troubled me,--made me forget my lines,--and then he came no +more.” + +There was in her tone a strange wistfulness. Evelyn drew her breath +sharply, glanced swiftly at the dark face and liquid eyes. Mr. Grymes +yet held the manager and his wife in conversation, but Mr. Lee, a small +jessamine-scented glove in hand, was hurrying toward them from the +summer-house. + +“You think that you do not love Mr. Haward?” said Evelyn, in a low +voice. + +“I loved one that never lived,” said Audrey simply. “It was all in +a dream from which I have waked. I told him that at Westover, and +afterwards here in Williamsburgh. I grew so tired at last--it hurt me +so to tell him ... and then I wrote the letter. He has been at Fair +View this long time, has he not?” + +“Yes,” said Evelyn quietly. “He has been alone at Fair View.” The rose +in her cheeks had faded; she put her lace handkerchief to her lips, and +shut her hand so closely that the nails bit into the palm. In a moment, +however, she was smiling, a faint, inscrutable smile, and presently she +came a little nearer and took Audrey’s hand in her own. + +The soft, hot, lingering touch thrilled the girl. She began to speak +hurriedly, not knowing why she spoke nor what she wished to say: +“Mistress Evelyn”-- + +“Yes, Audrey,” said Evelyn, and laid a fluttering touch upon the +other’s lips, then in a moment spoke herself: “You are to remember +always, though you love him not, Audrey, that he never was true lover +of mine; that now and forever, and though you died to-night, he is +to me but an old acquaintance,--Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View. +Remember also that it was not your fault, nor his perhaps, nor mine, +and that with all my heart I wish his happiness.... Ah, Mr. Lee, you +found it? My thanks, sir.” + +Mr. Lee, having restored the glove with all the pretty froth of words +which the occasion merited, and seen Mistress Evelyn turn aside to +speak with Mr. Stagg, found himself mightily inclined to improve the +golden opportunity and at once lay siege to this paragon from the +playhouse. Two low bows, a three-piled, gold-embroidered compliment, a +quotation from his “To Sylvia upon her Leaving the Theatre,” and the +young gentleman thought his lines well laid. But Sylvia grew restless, +dealt in monosyllables, and finally retreated to Mistress Stagg’s side. +“Shall we not go home?” she whispered. “I--I am tired, and I have my +part to study, the long speech at the end that I stumbled in last +night. Ah, let us go!” + +Mistress Stagg sighed over the girl’s contumacy. It was not thus in +Bath when she was young, and men of fashion flocked to compliment a +handsome player. Now there was naught to do but to let the child have +her way. She and Audrey made their curtsies, and Mr. Charles Stagg +his bow, which was modeled after that of Beau Nash. Then the three +went down the sunny path to the Palace gates, and Evelyn with the two +gentlemen moved toward the house and the company within. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +AMOR VINCIT + + +By now it was early spring in Virginia, and a time of balm and +pleasantness. The season had not entered into its complete heritage of +gay hues, sweet odors, song, and wealth of bliss. Its birthday robe was +yet a-weaving, its coronal of blossoms yet folded buds, its choristers +not ready with their fullest pæans. But everywhere was earnest of +future riches. In the forest the bloodroot was in flower, and the +bluebird and the redbird flashed from the maple that was touched with +fire to the beech just lifted from a pale green fountain. In Mistress +Stagg’s garden daffodils bloomed, and dim blue hyacinths made sweet +places in the grass. The sun lay warm upon upturned earth, blackbirds +rose in squadrons and darkened the yet leafless trees, and every wind +brought rumors of the heyday toward which the earth was spinning. The +days were long and sweet; at night a moon came up, and between it and +the earth played soft and vernal airs. Then a pale light flooded the +garden, the shells bordering its paths gleamed like threaded pearls, +and the house showed whiter than a marble sepulchre. Mild incense, cool +winds, were there, but quiet came fitfully between the bursts of noise +from the lit theatre. + +On such a night as this Audrey, clothed in red silk, with a band of +false jewels about her shadowy hair, slipped through the stage door +into the garden, and moved across it to the small white house and rest. +Her part in the play was done; for all their storming she would not +stay. Silence and herself alone, and the mirror in her room; then, +sitting before the glass, to see in it darkly the woman whom she +had left dead upon the boards yonder,--no, not yonder, but in a far +country, and a fair and great city. Love! love! and death for love! and +her own face in the mirror gazing at her with eyes of that long-dead +Greek. It was the exaltation and the dream, mournful, yet not without +its luxury, that ended her every day. When the candle burned low, when +the face looked but dimly from the glass, then would she rise and +quench the flame, and lay herself down to sleep, with the moonlight +upon her crossed hands and quiet brow. + + * * * * * + +She passed through the grape arbor, and opened the door at which Haward +had knocked that September night of the Governor’s ball. She was in +Mistress Stagg’s long room; at that hour it should have been lit only +by a dying fire and a solitary candle. Now the fire was low enough, +but the room seemed aflare with myrtle tapers. Audrey, coming from the +dimness without, shaded her eyes with her hand. The heavy door shut to +behind her; unseeing still she moved toward the fire, but in a moment +let fall her hand and began to wonder at the unwonted lights. Mistress +Stagg was yet in the playhouse; who then had lit these candles? She +turned, and saw Haward standing with folded arms between her and the +door. + +The silence was long. He was Marmaduke Haward with all his powers +gathered, calm, determined, so desperate to have done with this thing, +to at once and forever gain his own and master fate, that his stillness +was that of deepest waters, his cool equanimity that of the gamester +who knows how will fall the loaded dice. Dressed with his accustomed +care, very pale, composed and quiet, he faced her whose spirit yet +lingered in a far city, who in the dreamy exaltation of this midnight +hour was ever half Audrey of the garden, half that other woman in a +dress of red silk, with jewels in her hair, who, love’s martyr, had +exulted, given all, and died. + +“How did you come here?” she breathed at last. “You said that you would +come never again.” + +“After to-night, never again,” he answered. “But now, Audrey, this once +again, this once again!” + +Gazing past him she made a movement toward the door. He shook his head. +“This is my hour, Audrey. You may not leave the room, nor will Mistress +Stagg enter it. I will not touch you, I will come no nearer to you. +Stand there in silence, if you choose, or cover the sight of me from +your eyes, while for my own ease, my own unhappiness, I say farewell.” + +“Farewell!” she echoed. “Long ago, at Westover, that was said between +you and me.... Why do you come like a ghost to keep me and peace apart?” + +He did not answer, and she locked her hands across her brow that burned +beneath the heavy circlet of mock gems. “Is it kind?” she demanded, +with a sob in her voice. “Is it kind to trouble me so, to keep me +here”-- + +“Was I ever kind?” he asked. “Since the night when I followed you, a +child, and caught you from the ground when you fell between the corn +rows, what kindness, Audrey?” + +“None!” she answered, with sudden passion. “Nor kindness then! Why went +you not some other way?” + +“Shall I tell you why I was there that night,--why I left my companions +and came riding back to the cabin in the valley?” + +She uncovered her eyes, “I thought--I thought then--that you were +sent”-- + +He looked at her with strange compassion. “My own will sent me.... +When, that sunny afternoon, we spurred from the valley toward the +higher mountains, we left behind us a forest flower, a young girl of +simple sweetness, with long dark hair,--like yours, Audrey.... It was +to pluck that flower that I deserted the expedition, that I went back +to the valley between the hills.” + +Her eyes dilated, and her hands very slowly rose to press her temples, +to make a shadow from which she might face the cup of trembling he was +pouring for her. + +“_Molly!_” she said, beneath her breath. + +He nodded. “Well, Death had gathered the flower.... Accident threw +across my path a tinier blossom, a helpless child. Save you then, care +for you then, I must, or I had been not man, but monster. Did I care +for you tenderly, Audrey? Did I make you love me with all your childish +heart? Did I become to you father and mother and sister and fairy +prince? Then what were you to me in those old days? A child fanciful +and charming, too fine in all her moods not to breed wonder, to give +the feeling that Nature had placed in that mountain cabin a changeling +of her own. A child that one must regard with fondness and some +pity,--what is called a dear child. Moreover, a child whose life I had +saved, and to whom it pleased me to play Providence. I was young, not +hard of heart, sedulous to fold back to the uttermost the roseleaves of +every delicate and poetic emotion, magnificently generous also, and set +to play my life _au grand seigneur_. To myself assume a responsibility +which with all ease might have been transferred to an Orphan Court, +to put my stamp upon your life to come, to watch you kneel and drink +of my fountain of generosity, to open my hand and with an indulgent +smile shower down upon you the coin of pleasure and advantage,--why, +what a tribute was this to my own sovereignty, what subtle flattery of +self-love, what delicate taste of power! Well, I kissed you good-by, +and unclasped your hands from my neck, chided you, laughed at you, +fondled you, promised all manner of pretty things and engaged you never +to forget me--and sailed away upon the Golden Rose to meet my crowded +years with their wine and roses, upas shadows and apples of Sodom. How +long before I forgot you, Audrey? A year and a day, perhaps. I protest +that I cannot remember exactly.” + +He slightly changed his position, but came no nearer to her. It was +growing quiet in the street beyond the curtained windows. One window +was bare, but it gave only upon an unused nook of the garden where were +merely the moonlight and some tall leafless bushes. + +“I came back to Virginia,” he said, “and I looked for and found you +in the heart of a flowering wood.... All that you imagined me to be, +Audrey, that was I not. Knight-errant, paladin, king among men,--what +irony, child, in that strange dream and infatuation of thine! I was--I +am--of my time and of myself, and he whom that day you thought me had +not then nor afterwards form or being. I wish you to be perfect in this +lesson, Audrey. Are you so?” + +“Yes,” she sighed. Her hands had fallen; she was looking at him with +slowly parting lips, and a strange expression in her eyes. + +He went on quietly as before, every feature controlled to impassivity +and his arms lightly folded: “That is well. Between the day when I +found you again and a night in the Palace yonder lies a summer,--a +summer! To me all the summers that ever I had or will have,--ten +thousand summers! Now tell me how I did in this wonderful summer.” + +“Ignobly,” she answered. + +He bowed his head gravely. “Ay, Audrey, it is a good word.” With a +quick sigh he left his place, and walking to the uncurtained window +stood there looking out upon the strip of moonlight and the screen of +bushes; but when he turned again to the room his face and bearing were +as impressive as before in their fine, still gravity, their repose of +determination. “And that evening by the river when you fled from me to +Hugon”-- + +“I had awaked,” she said, in a low voice. “You were to me a stranger, +and I feared you.” + +“And at Westover?” + +“A stranger.” + +“Here in Williamsburgh, when by dint of much striving I saw you, when +I wrote to you, when at last you sent me that letter, that piteous and +cruel letter, Audrey?” + +For one moment her dark eyes met his, then fell to her clasped hands. +“A stranger,” she said. + +“The letter was many weeks ago. I have been alone with my thoughts at +Fair View. And to-night, Audrey?” + +“A stranger,” she would have answered, but her voice broke. There were +shadows under her eyes; her lifted face had in it a strained, intent +expectancy as though she saw or heard one coming. + +“A stranger,” he acquiesced. “A foreigner in your world of dreams and +shadows. No prince, Audrey, or great white knight and hero. Only a +gentleman of these latter days, compact like his fellows of strength +and weakness; now very wise and now the mere finger-post of folly; set +to travel his own path; able to hear above him in the rarer air the +trumpet call, but choosing to loiter on the lower slopes. In addition +a man who loves at last, loves greatly, with a passion that shall +ennoble. A stranger and your lover, Audrey, come to say farewell.” + +Her voice came like an echo, plaintive and clear and from far away: +“Farewell.” + +“How steadily do I stand here to say farewell!” he said. “Yet I am +eaten of my passion. A fire burns me, a voice within me ever cries +aloud. I am whirled in a resistless wind.... Ah, my love, the garden at +Fair View! The folded rose that will never bloom, the dial where linger +the heavy hours, the heavy, heavy, heavy hours!” + +“The garden,” she whispered. “I smell the box.... The path was all in +sunshine. So quiet, so hushed.... I went a little farther, and I heard +your voice where you sat and read--and read of Eloïsa.... _Oh, Evelyn, +Evelyn!_” + +“The last time--the last farewell!” he said. “When the Golden Rose is +far at sea, when the winds blow, when the stars drift below the verge, +when the sea speaks, then may I forget you, may the vision of you pass! +Now at Fair View it passes not; it dwells. Night and day I behold you, +the woman that I love, the woman that I love in vain!” + +“The Golden Rose!” she answered. “The sea.... Alas!” + +Her voice had risen into a cry. The walls of the room were gone, the +air pressed upon her heavily, the lights wavered, the waters were +passing over her as they had passed that night of the witch’s hut. +How far away the bank upon which he stood! He spoke to her, and his +voice came faintly as from that distant shore or from the deck of a +swiftly passing ship. “And so it is good-by, sweetheart; for why should +I stay in Virginia? Ah, if you loved me, Audrey! But since it is not +so--Good-by, good-by. This time I’ll not forget you, but I will not +come again. Good-by!” + +Her lips moved, but there came no words. A light had dawned upon her +face, her hand was lifted as though to stay a sound of music. Suddenly +she turned toward him, swayed, and would have fallen but that his arm +caught and upheld her. Her head was thrown back; the soft masses of her +wonderful hair brushed his cheek and shoulder; her eyes looked past +him, and a smile, pure and exquisite past expression, just redeemed her +face from sadness. “Good-morrow, Love!” she said clearly and sweetly. + +At the sound of her own words came to her the full realization and +understanding of herself. With a cry she freed herself from his +supporting arm, stepped backward and looked at him. The color surged +over her face and throat, her eyelids drooped; while her name was +yet upon his lips she answered with a broken cry of ecstasy and +abandonment. A moment and she was in his arms and their lips had met. + +How quiet it was in the long room, where the myrtle candles gave out +their faint perfume and the low fire leaped upon the hearth! Thus for +a time; then, growing faint with her happiness, she put up protesting +hands. He made her sit in the great chair, and knelt before her, all +youth and fire, handsome, ardent, transfigured by his passion into such +a lover as a queen might desire. + +“Hail, Sultana!” he said, smiling, his eyes upon her diadem. “Now you +are Arpasia again, and I am Moneses, and ready, ah, most ready, to die +for you.” + +She also smiled. “Remember that I am to quickly follow you.” + +“When shall we marry?” he demanded. “The garden cries out for you, my +love, and I wish to hear your footstep in my house. It hath been a +dreary house, filled with shadows, haunted by keen longings and vain +regrets. Now the windows shall be flung wide and the sunshine shall +pour in. Oh, your voice singing through the rooms, your foot upon the +stairs!” He took her hands and put them to his lips. “I love as men +loved of old,” he said. “I am far from myself and my times. When will +you become my wife?” + +She answered him simply, like the child that at times she seemed: “When +you will. But I must be Arpasia again to-morrow night. The Governor +hath ordered the play repeated, and Margery Linn could not learn my +part in time.” + +He laughed, fingering the red silk of her hanging sleeve, feasting +his eyes upon her dark beauty, so heightened and deepened in the year +that had passed. “Then play to them--and to me who shall watch you +well--to-morrow night. But after that to them never again! only to me, +Audrey, to me when we walk in the garden at home, when we sit in the +book-room and the candles are lighted. That day in May when first you +came into my garden, when first I showed you my house, when first I +rowed you home with the sunshine on the water and the roses in your +hair! Love, love! do you remember?” + +“Remember?” she answered, in a thrilling voice. “When I am dead I shall +yet remember! And I will come when you want me. After to-morrow night +I will come.... Oh, cannot you hear the river? And the walls of the +box will be freshly green, and the fruit-trees all in bloom! The white +leaves drift down upon the bench beneath the cherry-tree.... I will sit +in the grass at your feet. Oh, I love you, have loved you long!” + +They had risen and now with her head upon his breast and his arm about +her, they stood in the heart of the soft radiance of many candles. His +face was bowed upon the dark wonder of her hair; when at last he lifted +his eyes, they chanced to fall upon the one uncurtained window. Audrey, +feeling his slight, quickly controlled start, turned within his arm and +also saw the face of Jean Hugon, pressed against the glass, staring in +upon them. + +Before Haward could reach the window the face was gone. A strip +of moonlight, some leafless bushes, beyond, the blank wall of the +theatre,--that was all. Raising the sash, Haward leaned forth until he +could see the garden at large. Moonlight still and cold, winding paths, +and shadows of tree and shrub and vine, but no sign of living creature. +He closed the window and drew the curtain across, then turned again to +Audrey. “A phantom of the night,” he said, and laughed. + +She was standing in the centre of the room, with her red dress gleaming +in the candlelight. Her brow beneath its mock crown had no lines of +care, and her wonderful eyes smiled upon him. “I have no fear of it,” +she answered. “That is strange, is it not, when I have feared it for so +long? I have no other fear to-night than that I shall outlive your love +for me.” + +“I will love you until the stars fall,” he said. + +“They are falling to-night. When you are without the door look up, and +you may see one pass swiftly down the sky. Once I watched them from the +dark river”-- + +“I will love you until the sun grows old,” he said. “Through life and +death, through heaven or hell, past the beating of my heart, while +lasts my soul!... Audrey, Audrey!” + +“If it is so,” she answered, “then all is well. Now kiss me good-night, +for I hear Mistress Stagg’s voice. You will come again to-morrow? And +to-morrow night,--oh, to-morrow night I shall see only you, think of +only you while I play! Good-night, good-night.” + +They kissed and parted, and Haward, a happy man, went with raised face +through the stillness and the moonlight to his lodging at Marot’s +ordinary. No phantoms of the night disturbed him. He had found the +philosopher’s stone, had drunk of the divine elixir. Life was at last +a thing much to be desired, and the Giver of life was good, and the +_summum bonum_ was deathless love. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE LAST ACT + + +Before eight of the clock, Mr. Stagg, peering from behind the curtain, +noted with satisfaction that the house was filling rapidly; upon the +stroke of the hour it was crowded to the door, without which might be +heard angry voices contending that there must be yet places for the +buying. The musicians began to play and more candles were lighted. +There were laughter, talk, greetings from one part of the house to +another, as much movement to and fro as could be accomplished in so +crowded a space. The manners of the London playhouses were aped not +unsuccessfully. To compare small things with great, it might have +been Drury Lane upon a gala night. If the building was rude, yet it +had no rival in the colonies, and if the audience was not so gay of +hue, impertinent of tongue, or paramount in fashion as its London +counterpart, yet it was composed of the rulers and makers of a land +destined to greatness. + +In the centre box sat his Excellency, William Gooch, +Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, resplendent in velvet and gold lace, +and beside him Colonel Alexander Spotswood, arrived in town from +Germanna that day, with his heart much set upon the passage, by the +Assembly, of an act which would advantage his iron works. Colonel Byrd +of Westover, Colonel Esmond of Castlewood, Colonel Carter, Colonel +Page, and Colonel Ludwell were likewise of the Governor’s party, +while seated or standing in the pit, or mingling with the ladies who +made gay the boxes, were other gentlemen of consequence,--Councilors, +Burgesses, owners of vast tracts of land, of ships and many slaves. Of +their number some were traveled men, and some had fought in England’s +wars, and some had studied in her universities. Many were of gentle +blood, sprung from worthy and venerable houses in that green island +which with fondness they still called home, and many had made for +themselves name and fortune, hewing their way to honor through a +primeval forest of adversities. Lesser personages were not lacking, +but crowded the gallery and invaded the pit. Old fighters of Indians +were present, and masters of ships trading from the Spanish islands +or from the ports of home. Rude lumbermen from Norfolk or the borders +of the Dismal Swamp stared about them, while here and there showed +the sad-colored coat of a minister, or the broad face of some Walloon +from Spotswood’s settlement on the Rapidan, or the keener countenances +of Frenchmen from Monacan-Town. The armorer from the Magazine elbowed +a great proprietor from the Eastern shore, while a famous guide and +hunter, long and lean and brown, described to a magnate of Yorktown +a buffalo capture in the far west, twenty leagues beyond the falls. +Masters and scholars from William and Mary were there, with rangers, +traders, sailors ashore, small planters, merchants, loquacious keepers +of ordinaries, and with men, now free and with a stake in the land, +who had come there as indentured servants, or as convicts, runaways, +and fugitives from justice. In the upper gallery, where no payment was +exacted, many servants with a sprinkling of favorite mulatto or mustee +slaves; in the boxes the lustre and sweep of damask and brocade, light +laughter, silvery voices, the flutter of fans; everywhere the vividness +and animation of a strangely compounded society, where the shadows were +deep and the lights were high. + +Nor did the conversation of so motley an assemblage lack a certain +pictorial quality, a somewhat fantastic opulence of reference and +allusion. Of what might its members speak while they waited for the +drawing aside of the piece of baize which hung between them and an +Oriental camp? There was the staple of their wealth, a broad-leafed +plant, the smoke of whose far-spread burning might have wrapped its +native fields in a perpetual haze as of Indian summer; and there +was the warfare, bequeathed from generation to generation, against +the standing armies of the forest, that subtle foe that slept not, +retreated not, whose vanguard, ever falling, ever showed unbroken ranks +beyond. Trapper and trader and ranger might tell of trails through the +wilderness vast and hostile, of canoes upon unknown waters, of beasts +of prey, creatures screaming in the night-time through the ebony woods. +Of Indian villages, also, and of red men who, in the fastnesses that +were left them, took and tortured and slew after strange fashions. The +white man, strong as the wind, drove the red man before his face like +an autumn leaf, but he beckoned to the black man, and the black man +came at his call. He came in numbers from a far country, and the manner +of his coming was in chains. What he had to sell was valuable, but the +purchase price came not into his hands. Of him also mention was made +to-night. The master of the tall ship that had brought him into the +James or the York, the dealer to whom he was consigned, the officer +of the Crown who had cried him for sale, the planter who had bought +him, the divine who preached that he was of a race accursed,--all +were there, and all had interest in this merchandise. Others in the +throng talked of ships both great and small, and the quaintness of +their names, the golden flowers and golden women, the swift birds and +beasts, the namesakes of Fortune or of Providence, came pleasantly upon +the ear. The still-vexed Bermoothes, Barbadoes, and all the Indies +were spoken of; ports to the north and ports to the south, pirate +craft and sunken treasure, a flight, a fight, a chase at sea. The men +from Norfolk talked of the great Dismal and its trees of juniper and +cypress, the traders of trading, the masters from William and Mary of +the humanities. The greater men, authoritative and easy, owners of +flesh and blood and much land, holders of many offices and leaders of +the people, paid their respects to horse-racing and cock-fighting, +cards and dice; to building, planting, the genteelest mode of living, +and to public affairs both in Virginia and at home in England. Old +friends, with oaths of hearty affection, and from opposite quarters +of the house, addressed each other as Tom, or Ned, or Dick, while old +enemies, finding themselves side by side, exchanged extremely civil +speeches, and so put a keener edge upon their mutual disgust. In the +boxes where glowed the women there was comfit talk, vastly pretty +speeches, asseverations, denials, windy sighs, the politest oaths, +whispering, talk of the play, and, last but not least, of Mr. Haward of +Fair View, and Darden’s Audrey. + +Haward, entering the pit, made his way quietly to where a servant was +holding for him a place. The fellow pulled his forelock in response +to his master’s nod, then shouldered his way through the press to the +ladder-like stairs that led to the upper gallery. Haward, standing +at his ease, looked about him, recognizing this or that acquaintance +with his slow, fine smile and an inclination of his head. He was much +observed, and presently a lady leaned from her box, smiled, waved her +fan, and slightly beckoned to him. It was young Madam Byrd, and Evelyn +sat beside her. + +Five minutes later, as Haward entered the box of the ladies of +Westover, music sounded, the curtain was drawn back, and the play +began. Upon the ruder sort in the audience silence fell at once: they +that followed the sea, and they that followed the woods, and all the +simple folk ceased their noise and gesticulation, and gazed spellbound +at the pomp before them of rude scenery and indifferent actors. But +the great ones of the earth talked on, attending to their own business +in the face of Tamerlane and his victorious force. It was the fashion +to do so, and in the play to-night the first act counted nothing, for +Darden’s Audrey had naught to do with it. In the second act, when she +entered as Arpasia, the entire house would fall quiet, staring and +holding its breath. + +Haward bent over Madam Byrd’s hand; then, as that lady turned from him +to greet Mr. Lee, addressed himself with grave courtesy to Evelyn, +clothed in pale blue, and more lovely even than her wont. For months +they had not met. She had written him one letter,--had written the +night of the day upon which she had encountered Audrey in the Palace +walk,--and he had answered it with a broken line of passionate thanks +for unmerited kindness. Now as he bent over her she caught his wrist +lightly with her hand, and her touch burned him through the lace of his +ruffles. With her other hand she spread her fan; Mr. Lee’s shoulder +knot also screened them while Mr. Grymes had engaged its owner’s +attention, and pretty Madam Byrd was in animated conversation with the +occupants of a neighboring box. “Is it well?” asked Evelyn, very low. + +Haward’s answer was as low, and bravely spoken with his eyes meeting +her clear gaze, and her touch upon his wrist. “For me, Evelyn, it is +very well,” he said. “For her--may I live to make it well for her, +forever and a day well for her! She is to be my wife.” + +“I am glad,” said Evelyn,--“very glad.” + +“You are a noble lady,” he answered. “Once, long ago, I styled myself +your friend, your equal. Now I know better my place and yours, and as +from a princess I take your alms. For your letter--that letter, Evelyn, +which told me what you thought, which showed me what to do--I humbly +thank you.” + +She let fall her hand from her silken lap, and watched with unseeing +eyes the mimicry of life upon the stage before them, where Selima knelt +to Tamerlane, and Moneses mourned for Arpasia. Presently she said +again, “I am glad;” and then, when they had kept silence for a while, +“You will live at Fair View?” + +“Ay,” he replied. “I will make it well for her here in Virginia.” + +“You must let me help you,” she said. “So old a friend as I may claim +that as a right. To-morrow I may visit her, may I not? Now we must look +at the players. When she enters there is no need to cry for silence. It +comes of itself, and stays; we watch her with straining eyes. Who is +that man in a cloak, staring at us from the pit? See, with the great +peruke and the scar!” + +Haward, bending, looked over the rail, then drew back with a smile. +“A half-breed trader,” he said, “by name Jean Hugon. Something of a +character.” + +“He looked strangely at us,” said Evelyn, “with how haggard a face! My +scarf, Mr. Lee? Thank you. Madam, have you the right of the matter from +Kitty Page?” + +The conversation became general, and soon, the act approaching its +end, and other gentlemen pressing into the box which held so beautiful +a woman, so great a catch, and so assured a belle as Mistress Evelyn +Byrd, Haward arose and took his leave. To others of the brilliant +company assembled in the playhouse he paid his respects, speaking +deferentially to the Governor, gayly to his fellow Councilors and +planters, and bowing low to many ladies. All this was in the interval +between the acts. At the second parting of the curtain he resumed his +former station in the pit. With intention he had chosen a section of it +where were few of his own class. From the midst of the ruder sort he +could watch her more freely, could exult at his ease in her beauty both +of face and mind. + +The curtains parted, and the fiddlers strove for warlike music. +Tamerlane, surrounded by the Tartar host, received his prisoners, and +the defiant rant of Bajazet shook the rafters. All the sound and fury +of the stage could not drown the noise of the audience. Idle talk and +laughter, loud comment upon the players, went on,--went on until there +entered Darden’s Audrey, dressed in red silk, with a jeweled circlet +like a line of flame about her dark flowing hair. The noise sank, +voices of men and women died away; for a moment the rustle of silk, the +flutter of fans, continued, then this also ceased. + +She stood before the Sultan, wide-eyed, with a smile of scorn upon her +lips; then spoke in a voice, low, grave, monotonous, charged like a +passing bell with warning and with solemn woe. The house seemed to grow +more still; the playgoers, box and pit and gallery, leaned slightly +forward: whether she spoke or moved or stood in silence, Darden’s +Audrey, that had been a thing of naught, now held every eye, was +regnant for an hour in this epitome of the world. The scene went on, +and now it was to Moneses that she spoke. All the bliss and anguish of +unhappy love sounded in her voice, dwelt in her eye and most exquisite +smile, hung upon her every gesture. The curtains closed; from the +throng that had watched her came a sound like a sigh, after which, +slowly, tongues were loosened. An interval of impatient waiting, then +the music again and the parting curtains, and Darden’s Audrey,--the +girl who could so paint very love, very sorrow, very death; the girl +who had come strangely and by a devious path from the height and +loneliness of the mountains to the level of this stage and the watching +throng. + +At the close of the fourth act of the play, Haward left his station in +the pit, and quietly made his way to the regions behind the curtain, +where in the very circumscribed space that served as greenroom to +the Williamsburgh theatre he found Tamerlane, Bajazet, and their +satellites, together with a number of gentlemen invaders from the +front of the house. Mistress Stagg was there, and Selima, perched upon +a table, was laughing with the aforesaid gentlemen, but no Arpasia. +Haward drew the elder woman aside. “I wish to see her,” he said, in a +low voice, kindly but imperious. “A moment only, good woman.” + +With her finger at her lips Mistress Stagg glanced about her. “She +hides from them always, she’s that strange a child: though indeed, sir, +as sweet a young lady as a prince might wed! This way, sir,--it’s dark; +make no noise.” + +She led him through a dim passageway, and softly opened a door. “There, +sir, for just five minutes! I’ll call her in time.” + +The door gave upon the garden, and Audrey sat upon the step in the +moonshine and the stillness. Her hand propped her chin, and her eyes +were raised to the few silver stars. That mock crown which she wore +sparkled palely, and the light lay in the folds of her silken dress. +At the opening of the door she did not turn, thinking that Mistress +Stagg stood behind her. “How bright the moon shines!” she said. “A +mockingbird should be singing, singing! Is it time for Arpasia?” + +As she rose from the step Haward caught her in his arms. “It is I, my +love! Ah, heart’s desire! I worship you who gleam in the moonlight, +with your crown like an aureole”-- + +Audrey rested against him, clasping her hands upon his shoulder. “There +were nights like this,” she said dreamily. “If I were a little child +again, you could lift me in your arms and carry me home, I am tired ... +I would that I needed not to go back to the glare and noise. The moon +shines so bright! I have been thinking”-- + +He bent his head and kissed her twice. “Poor Arpasia! Poor tired child! +Soon we shall go home, Audrey,--we two, my love, we two!” + +“I have been thinking, sitting here in the moonlight,” she went on, +her hands clasped upon his shoulder, and her cheek resting on them. “I +was so ignorant. I never dreamed that I could wrong her ... and when I +awoke it was too late. And now I love you,--not the dream, but you. I +know not what is right or wrong; I know only that I love. I think she +understands--forgives. I love you so!” Her hands parted, and she stood +from him with her face raised to the balm of the night. “I love you +so,” she repeated, and the low cadence of her laugh broke the silver +stillness of the garden. “The moon up there, she knows it. And the +stars,--not one has fallen to-night! Smell the flowers. Wait, I will +pluck you hyacinths.” + +They grew by the doorstep, and she broke the slender stalks and gave +them into his hand. But when he had kissed them he would give them +back, would fasten them himself in the folds of silk, that rose and +fell with her quickened breathing. He fastened them with a brooch which +he took from the Mechlin at his throat. It was the golden horseshoe, +the token that he had journeyed to the Endless Mountains. + +“Now I must go,” said Audrey. “They are calling for Arpasia. Follow me +not at once. Good-night, good-night! Ah, I love you so! Remember always +that I love you so!” + +She was gone. In a few minutes he also reëntered the playhouse, and +went to his former place where, with none of his kind about him, he +might watch her undisturbed. As he made his way with some difficulty +through the throng, he was aware that he brushed against a man in a +great peruke, who, despite the heat of the house, was wrapped in an +old roquelaure tawdrily laced; also that the man was keeping stealthy +pace with him, and that when he at last reached his station the cloaked +figure fell into place immediately behind him. + +Haward shrugged his shoulders, but would not turn his head, and thereby +grant recognition to Jean Hugon, the trader. Did he so, the half-breed +might break into speech, provoke a quarrel, make God knew what +assertion, what disturbance. To-morrow steps should be taken--Ah, the +curtain! + +The silence deepened, and men and women leaned forward holding their +breath. Darden’s Audrey, robed and crowned as Arpasia, sat alone +in the Sultan’s tent, staring before her with wide dark eyes, then +slowly rising began to speak. A sound, a sigh as of wonder, ran from +the one to the other of the throng that watched her. Why did she look +thus, with contracted brows, toward one quarter of the house? What +inarticulate words was she uttering? What gesture, quickly controlled, +did she make of ghastly fear and warning? And now the familiar words +came halting from her lips:-- + + “‘Sure ’tis a horror, more than darkness brings, + That sits upon the night!’” + +With the closing words of her speech the audience burst into a great +storm of applause. ’Gad! how she acts! But what now? Why, what is this? + +It was quite in nature and the mode for an actress to pause in the +middle of a scene to curtsy thanks for generous applause, to smile and +throw a mocking kiss to pit and boxes, but Darden’s Audrey had hitherto +not followed the fashion. Also it was not uncustomary for some spoiled +favorite of a player to trip down, between her scenes, the step or two +from the stage to the pit, and mingle with the gallants there, laugh, +jest, accept languishing glances, audacious comparisons, and such +weighty trifles as gilt snuffboxes and rings of price. But this player +had not heretofore honored the custom; moreover, at present she was +needed upon the stage. Bajazet must thunder and she defy; without her +the play could not move, and indeed the actors were now staring with +the audience. What was it? Why had she crossed the stage, and, slowly, +smilingly, beautiful and stately in her gleaming robes, descended those +few steps which led to the pit? What had she to do there, throwing +smiling glances to right and left, lightly waving the folk, gentle and +simple, from her path, pressing steadily onward to some unguessed-at +goal. As though held by a spell they watched her, one and all,--Haward, +Evelyn, the Governor, the man in the cloak, every soul in that motley +assemblage. The wonder had not time to dull, for the moments were few +between her final leave-taking of those boards which she had trodden +supreme and the crashing and terrible chord which was to close the +entertainment of this night. + +Her face was raised to the boxes, and it seemed as though her dark eyes +sought one there. Then, suddenly, she swerved. There were men between +her and Haward. She raised her hand, and they fell back, making for her +a path. Haward, bewildered, started forward, but her cry was not to +him. It was to the figure just behind him,--the cloaked figure whose +hand grasped the hunting-knife which from the stage, as she had looked +to where stood her lover, she had seen or divined. “Jean! Jean Hugon!” +she cried. + +Involuntarily the trader pushed toward her, past the man whom he meant +to stab to the heart. The action, dragging his cloak aside, showed the +half-raised arm and the gleaming steel. For many minutes the knife had +been ready. The play was nearly over, and she must see this man who +had stolen her heart, this Haward of Fair View, die. Else Jean Hugon’s +vengeance were not complete. For his own safety the maddened half-breed +had ceased to care. No warning cried from the stage could have done +aught but precipitate the deed, but now for the moment, amazed and +doubtful, he turned his back upon his prey. + +In that moment the Audrey of the woods, a creature lithe and agile and +strong of wrist as of will, had thrown herself upon him, clutching the +hand that held the knife. He strove to dash her from him, but in vain; +the house was in an uproar; and now Haward’s hands were at his throat, +Haward’s voice was crying to that fair devil, that Audrey for whom he +had built his house, who was balking him of revenge, whose body was +between him and his enemy! Suddenly he was all savage; as upon a night +in Fair View house he had cast off the trammels of his white blood, so +now. An access of furious strength came to him; he shook himself free; +the knife gleamed in the air, descended.... He drew it from the bosom +into which he had plunged it, and as Haward caught her in his arms, who +would else have sunk to the floor, the half-breed burst through the +horror-stricken throng, brandishing the red blade and loudly speaking +in the tongue of the Monacans. Like a whirlwind he was gone from the +house, and for a time none thought to follow him. + +[Illustration: “JEAN! JEAN HUGON!”] + +They bore her into the small white house, and up the stair to her own +room, and laid her upon the bed. Dr. Contesse came and went away, and +came again. There was a crowd in Palace Street before the theatre. +A man mounting the doorstep so that he might be heard of all, said +clearly, “She may live until dawn,--no longer.” Later, one came out of +the house and asked that there might be quiet. The crowd melted away, +but throughout the mild night, filled with the soft airs and thousand +odors of the spring, people stayed about the place, standing silent in +the street or sitting on the garden benches. + +In the room upstairs lay Darden’s Audrey, with crossed hands and head +put slightly back. She lay still, upon the edge of death, nor seemed to +care that it was so. Her eyes were closed, and at intervals one sitting +at the bed head laid touch upon her pulse, or held before her lips a +slight ringlet of her hair. Mary Stagg sat by the window and wept, but +Haward, kneeling, hid his face in the covering of the bed. The form +upon it was not more still than he; Mistress Stagg, also, stifled her +sobs, for it seemed not a place for loud grief. + +In the room below, amidst the tinsel frippery of small wares, waited +others whose lives had touched the life that was ebbing away. Now +and then one spoke in a hushed voice, a window was raised, a servant +bringing in fresh candles trod too heavily; then the quiet closed +in again. Late in the night came through the open windows a distant +clamor, and presently a man ran down Palace Street, and as he ran +called aloud some tidings. MacLean, standing near the door, went softly +out. When he returned, Colonel Byrd, sitting at the table, lifted +inquiring brows. “They took him in the reeds near the Capitol landing,” +said the Highlander grimly. “He’s in the gaol now, but whether the +people will leave him there”-- + +The night wore on, grew old, passed into the cold melancholy of its +latest hour. Darden’s Audrey sighed and stirred, and a little strength +coming to her parting spirit, she opened her eyes and loosed her +hands. The physician held to her lips the cordial, and she drank a +very little. Haward lifted his head, and as Contesse passed him to set +down the cup, caught him by the sleeve. The other looked pityingly at +the man into whose face had come a flush of hope. “’T is but the last +flickering of the flame,” he said. “Soon even the spark will vanish.” + +Audrey began to speak. At first her words were wild and wandering, but, +the mist lifting somewhat, she presently knew Mistress Stagg, and liked +to have her take the doctor’s place beside her. At Haward she looked +doubtfully, with wide eyes, as scarce understanding. When he called her +name she faintly shook her head, then turned it slightly from him and +veiled her eyes. It came to him with a terrible pang that the memory of +their latest meetings was wiped from her brain, and that she was afraid +of his broken words and the tears upon her hand. + +When she spoke again it was to ask for the minister. He was below, and +Mistress Stagg went weeping down the stairs to summon him. He came, but +would not touch the girl; only stood, with his hat in his hand, and +looked down upon her with bleared eyes and a heavy countenance. + +“I am to die, am I not?” she asked, with her gaze upon him. + +“That is as God wills, Audrey,” he answered. + +“I am not afraid to die.” + +“You have no need,” he said, and going out of the room and down the +stairs, made Stagg pour for him a glass of aqua vitæ. + +Audrey closed her eyes, and when she opened them again there seemed to +be many persons in the room. One was bending over her whom at first she +thought was Molly, but soon she saw more clearly, and smiled at the +pale and sorrowful face. The lady bent lower yet, and kissed her on the +forehead. “Audrey,” she said, and Audrey looking up at her answered, +“Evelyn.” + +When the dawn came glimmering in the windows, when the mist was cold +and the birds were faintly heard, they raised her upon her pillows, and +wiped the death dew from her forehead. “Audrey, Audrey, Audrey!” cried +Haward, and caught at her hands. + +She looked at him with a faint and doubtful smile, remembering nothing +of that hour in the room below, of those minutes in the moonlit garden. +“Gather the rosebuds while ye may,” she said; and then, “The house is +large. Good giant, eat me not!” + +The man upon his knees beside her uttered a cry, and began to speak to +her, thickly, rapidly, words of agony, entreaty, and love. To-morrow +and for all life habit would resume its sway, and lost love, remorse, +and vain regrets put on a mask that was cold and fine and able to +deceive. To-night there spoke the awakened heart. With her hands cold +in his, with his agonized gaze upon the face from which the light was +slowly passing, he poured forth his passion and his anguish, and she +listened not. They moistened her lips, and one opened wide the window +that gave upon the east. “It was all a dream,” she said; and again, +“All a dream.” A little later, while the sky flushed slowly and the +light of the candles grew pale, she began suddenly, and in a stronger +voice, to speak as Arpasia:-- + + “‘If it be happiness, alas! to die, + To lie forgotten in the silent grave’”-- + +“Forgotten!” cried Haward. “Audrey, Audrey, Audrey! Go not from me! Oh, +love, love, stay awhile!” + +“The mountains,” said Audrey clearly. “The sun upon them and the +lifting mist.” + +“The mountains!” he cried. “Ay, we will go to them, Audrey, we will go +together! Why, you are stronger, sweetheart! There is strength in your +voice and your hands, and a light in your eyes. Oh, if you will live, +Audrey, I will make you happy! You shall take me to the mountains--we +will go together, you and I! Audrey, Audrey”-- + +But Audrey was gone already. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUDREY *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Audrey</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Mary Johnston</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 29, 2004 [EBook #14513]<br> +[Most recently updated: August 20, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Audrey Longhurst and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUDREY ***</div> + + + +<h1 id="Page_-10">AUDREY</h1> + +<p class="center">BY</p> +<span class="big">MARY JOHNSTON</span></p> + +<p class="center">AUTHOR OF "TO HAVE AND TO HOLD" AND<br> +"PRISONERS OF HOPE"</p> + + +<p class="center">WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY<br> +F.C. YOHN</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/04.jpg"><img src="./images/04-tb.jpg" alt="Emblem" title="Emblem"></a></p> + +<p class="center">BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br> +HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY<br> +The Riverside Press, Cambridge<br> +1902</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> + +<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1901, 1902, BY MARY JOHNSTON<br> +COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.<br> +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<br><br><br><br> + +<i>Published February, 1902</i></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> + + +<h3><i>Books by Mary Johnston.</i></h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">AUDREY. With Illustrations in color. Crown 8vo, $1.50</span><br><br> + +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">PRISONERS OF HOPE. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, $1.50.</span><br><br> + +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. With 8 Illustrations</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">by HOWARD PYLE, E.B. THOMPSON,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A.W. BETTS, and EMLEN McCONNELL.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Crown 8vo, $1.50.</span><br><br><br> +</p> + +<p class="center">HOUGHTON MIFFLIN & CO.<br> +BOSTON AND NEW YORK.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> + +<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/frontispiece.jpg"><img src="./images/frontispiece-tb.jpg" alt="GAZED WITH WIDE-OPEN EYES AT THE INTRUDER (page 106)" title="GAZED WITH WIDE-OPEN EYES AT THE INTRUDER (page 106)"></a></p><p class="figcenter">GAZED WITH WIDE-OPEN EYES AT THE INTRUDER (page 106)</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<p class="center">TO<br> +ELOISE, ANNE, AND ELIZABETH</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> + + +<div class="center"><table class="autotable"> +<tr><td class="tdl"></td><td class="tdr">CHAPTER</td><td class="tdc">TITLE</td><td class="tdc">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"> <a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>I</b></a></td><td class="tdl">THE CABIN IN THE VALLEY</td><td class="tdl">1</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>II.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">THE COURT OF THE ORPHAN</td><td class="tdl">16</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>III.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">DARDEN'S AUDREY</td><td class="tdl">38</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>IV.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">THE ROAD TO WILLIAMSBURGH</td><td class="tdl">52</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>V.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">THE STOREKEEPER</td><td class="tdl">63</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>VI.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">MASTER AND MAN</td><td class="tdl">73</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>VII.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">THE RETURN OF MONSIEUR JEAN HUGON</td><td class="tdl">92</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>VIII.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE</td><td class="tdl">106</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>IX.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">MACLEAN TO THE RESCUE</td><td class="tdl">117</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>X.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">HAWARD AND EVELYN</td><td class="tdl">131</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>XI.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">AUDREY OF THE GARDEN</td><td class="tdl">145</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>XII.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">THE PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN</td><td class="tdl">163</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>XIII.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">A SABBATH DAY'S JOURNEY</td><td class="tdl">179</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>XIV.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">THE BEND IN THE ROAD</td><td class="tdl">194</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>XV.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">HUGON SPEAKS HIS MIND</td><td class="tdl">206</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>XVII.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">AUDREY AND EVELYN</td><td class="tdl">222</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>XVII.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">WITHIN THE PLAYHOUSE</td><td class="tdl">237</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>XVIII.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">A QUESTION OF COLORS</td><td class="tdl">249</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>XIX.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">THE GOVERNOR'S BALL</td><td class="tdl">262</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>XX.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">THE UNINVITED GUEST</td><td class="tdl">273</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>XXI.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">AUDREY AWAKES</td><td class="tdl">287</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>XXII.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">BY THE RIVERSIDE</td><td class="tdl">300</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>XXIII.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">A DUEL</td><td class="tdl">312</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>XXIV.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">AUDREY COMES TO WESTOVER</td><td class="tdl">322</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b>XXV.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">TWO WOMEN</td><td class="tdl">337</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b>XXVI.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">SANCTUARY</td><td class="tdl">349</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><b>XXVII.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">THE MISSION OF TRUELOVE</td><td class="tdl">363</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b>XXVIII.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">THE PLAYER</td><td class="tdl">375</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><b>XXIX.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">AMOR VINCIT</td><td class="tdl">391</td></tr> +<tr><td class="tdr"></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><b>XXX.</b></a></td><td class="tdl">THE LAST ACT</td><td class="tdl">401</td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<div class="center"><table class="autotable"> +<tr><td class="tdl"></td><td class="tdl"></td><td class="tdl">PAGE</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdl"></td><td class="tdl">GAZED WITH WIDE-OPEN EYES AT THE INTRUDER (page 106)</td><td class="tdl"><i>Frontispiece</i></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdl"></td><td class="tdl">"HAD YOU LOVED ME—I HAD BEEN HAPPY"</td><td class="tdl">58</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdl"></td><td class="tdl">AUDREY LEFT HER WARNING TO BE SPOKEN BY MACLEAN</td><td class="tdl">206</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdl"></td><td class="tdl">"I DO NOT THINK I HAVE THE HONOR OF KNOWING"—</td><td class="tdl">272</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdl"></td><td class="tdl">HER DARK EYES MADE APPEAL</td><td class="tdl">347</td></tr> + +<tr><td class="tdl"></td><td class="tdl">"JEAN! JEAN HUGON!"</td><td class="tdl">420</td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<p></p> + +<p class="center xbig">Audrey</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br>THE CABIN IN THE VALLEY</h2> + + +<p>The valley lay like a ribbon thrown into the midst of the encompassing +hills. The grass which grew there was soft and fine and abundant; the +trees which sprang from its dark, rich mould were tall and great of girth. +A bright stream flashed through it, and the sunshine fell warm upon the +grass and changed the tassels of the maize into golden plumes. Above the +valley, east and north and south, rose the hills, clad in living green, +mantled with the purpling grape, wreathed morn and eve with trailing mist. +To the westward were the mountains, and they dwelt apart in a blue haze. +Only in the morning, if the mist were not there, the sunrise struck upon +their long summits, and in the evening they stood out, high and black and +fearful, against the splendid sky. The child who played beside the cabin +door often watched them as the valley filled with shadows, and thought of +them as a great wall between her and some land of the fairies which must +needs lie beyond that barrier, beneath the splendor and the evening star. +The Indians called them the Endless Mountains, and the child never doubted +that they ran across the world and touched the floor of heaven.</p> + +<p>In the hands of the woman who was spinning the thread broke and the song +died in the white throat of the girl who stood in the doorway. For a +moment the two gazed with widening eyes into the green September world +without the cabin; then the woman sprang to her feet, tore from the wall a +horn, and, running to the door, wound it lustily. The echoes from the +hills had not died when a man and a boy, the one bearing a musket, the +other an axe, burst from the shadow of the forest, and at a run crossed +the greensward and the field of maize between them and the women. The +child let fall her pine cones and pebbles, and fled to her mother, to +cling to her skirts, and look with brown, frightened eyes for the wonder +that should follow the winding of the horn. Only twice could she remember +that clear summons for her father: once when it was winter and snow was on +the ground, and a great wolf, gaunt and bold, had fallen upon their sheep; +and once when a drunken trader from Germanna, with a Pamunkey who had +tasted of the trader's rum, had not waited for an invitation before +entering the cabin. It was not winter now, and there was no sign of the +red-faced trader or of the dreadful, capering Indian. There was only a +sound in the air, a strange noise coming to them from the pass between the +hills over which rose the sun.</p> + +<p>The man with the musket sent his voice before him as he approached the +group upon the doorstep: "Alce, woman! What's amiss? I see naught wrong!"</p> + +<p>His wife stepped forward to meet him. "There's naught to see, William. +It's to hear. There was a noise. Molly and I heard it, and then we lost +it. There it is again!"</p> + +<p>Fronting the cabin, beyond the maize field and the rich green grass and +the placid stream, rose two hills, steep and thickly wooded, and between +them ran a narrow, winding, and rocky pass. Down this gorge, to the +listening pioneer, now came a confused and trampling sound.</p> + +<p>"It is iron striking against the rocks!" he announced. "The hoofs of +horses"—</p> + +<p>"Iron!" cried his wife. "The horses in Virginia go unshod! And what should +a troop of horse do here, beyond the frontier, where even the rangers +never come?"</p> + +<p>The man shook his head, a frown of perplexity upon his bronzed and bearded +face. "It is the sound of the hoofs of horses," he said, "and they are +coming through the pass. Hark!"</p> + +<p>A trumpet blew, and there came a noise of laughter. The child pressed +close to her brother's side. "Oh, Robin, maybe 't is the fairies!"</p> + +<p>Out from the gloom of the pass into the sunshine of the valley, splashing +through the stream, trampling the long grass, laughing, and calling one +rider to the other, burst a company of fifty horsemen. The trumpet blew +again, and the entire party, drawing rein, stared at the unexpected maize +field, the cabin, and the people about the door.</p> + +<p>Between the intruders and the lonely folk, whose nearest neighbors were +twenty miles away, was only a strip of sunny grass, dotted over with the +stumps of trees that had been felled lest they afford cover for attacking +savages. A man, riding at the head of the invading party, beckoned, +somewhat imperiously, to the pioneer; and the latter, still with his +musket in the hollow of his arm, strode across the greensward, and +finding himself in the midst, not of rude traders and rangers, but of +easy, smiling, periwigged gentlemen, handsomely dressed and accoutred, +dropped the butt of his gun upon the ground, and took off his +squirrel-skin cap.</p> + +<p>"You are deep in the wilderness, good fellow," said the man who had +beckoned, and who was possessed of a stately figure, a martial +countenance, and an air of great authority. "How far is it to the +mountains?"</p> + +<p>The pioneer stared at the long blue range, cloudlike in the distance. "I +don't know," he answered. "I hunt to the eastward. Twenty miles, maybe. +You're never going to climb them?"</p> + +<p>"We are come out expressly to do so," answered the other heartily, "having +a mind to drink the King's health with our heads in the clouds! We need +another axeman to clear away the fallen trees and break the nets of +grapevine. Wilt go along amongst our rangers yonder, and earn a pistole +and undying fame?"</p> + +<p>The woodsman looked from the knot of gentlemen to the troop of hardy +rangers, who, with a dozen ebony servants and four Meherrin Indians, made +up the company. Under charge of the slaves were a number of packhorses. +Thrown across one was a noble deer; a second bore a brace of wild turkeys +and a two-year-old bear, fat and tender; a third had a legion of pots and +pans for the cooking of the woodland cheer; while the burden of several +others promised heart's content of good liquor. From the entire troop +breathed a most enticing air of gay daring and good-fellowship. The +gentlemen were young and of cheerful countenances; the rangers in the rear +sat their horses and whistled to the woodpeckers in the sugar-trees; the +negroes grinned broadly; even the Indians appeared a shade less saturnine +than usual. The golden sunshine poured upon them all, and the blue +mountains that no Englishman had ever passed seemed for the moment as soft +and yielding as the cloud that slept along their summits. And no man knew +what might be just beyond the mountains: Frenchmen, certainly, and the +great lakes and the South Sea: but, besides these, might there not be +gold, glittering stones, new birds and beasts and plants, strange secrets +of the hills? It was only westward-ho! for a week or two, with good +company and good drink—</p> + +<p>The woodsman shifted from one foot to the other, but his wife, who had now +crossed the grass to his side, had no doubts.</p> + +<p>"You'll not go, William!" she cried. "Remember the smoke that you saw +yesterday from the hilltop! If the Northern Indians are on the warpath +against the Southern, and are passing between us and the mountains, there +may be straying bands. I'll not let you go!"</p> + +<p>In her eagerness she clasped his arm with her hands. She was a comely, +buxom dame, and the circle on horseback, being for the most part young and +gallant, and not having seen a woman for some days, looked kindly upon +her.</p> + +<p>"And so you saw a smoke, goodwife, and are afraid of roving Indians?" said +the gentleman who had spoken before. "That being the case, your husband +has our permission to stay behind. On my life, 't is a shame to ride away +and leave you in danger of such marauders!"</p> + +<p>"Will your Excellency permit me to volunteer for guard duty?" demanded a +young man who had pressed his horse to the leader's side. "It's odds, +though, that when you return this way you'll find me turned Papist. I'll +swear your Excellency never saw in Flanders carved or painted saint so +worthy of your prayers as yonder breathing one!"</p> + +<p>The girl Molly had followed her parents, and now stood upon a little +grassy knoll, surveying with wide brown eyes the gay troop before her. A +light wind was blowing, and it wrapped her dress of tender, faded blue +around her young limbs, and lifted her loosened hair, gilded by the +sunshine into the likeness of an aureole. Her face was serious and +wondering, but fair as a woodland flower. She had placed her hand upon the +head of the child who was with her, clinging to her dress. The green knoll +formed a pedestal; behind was the sky, as blue as that of Italy; the two +figures might have been some painted altar-piece.</p> + +<p>The sprightly company, which had taken for its motto "Sic juvat +transcendere montes," looked and worshiped. There was a moment of silent +devotion, broken by one of the gentlemen demanding if 't were not time for +dinner; another remarked that they might go much farther and fare much +worse, in respect of a cool, sweet spot in which to rest during the heat +of the afternoon; and a third boldly proposed that they go no farther at +all that day. Their leader settled the question by announcing that, Mr. +Mason's suggestion finding favor in his sight, they would forthwith +dismount, dine, drink red wine and white, and wear out the heat of the day +in this sylvan paradise until four of the clock, when the trumpet should +sound for the mount; also, that if the goodwife and her daughter would do +them the honor to partake of their rustic fare, their healths should be +drunk in nothing less than Burgundy.</p> + +<p>As he spoke he swung himself from the saddle, pulled out his ruffles, and +raised his hat. "Ladies, permit me,"—a wave of his hand toward his +escort, who were now also on foot. "Colonel Robertson, Captain Clonder, +Captain Brooke, Mr. Haward, Mr. Beverley, Dr. Robinson, Mr. Fontaine, Mr. +Todd, Mr. Mason,—all of the Tramontane Order. For myself, I am Alexander +Spotswood, at your service."</p> + +<p>The pioneer, standing behind his wife, plucked her by the sleeve. "Ecod, +Alce, 't is the Governor himself! Mind your manners!"</p> + +<p>Alce, who had been a red-cheeked dairymaid in a great house in England, +needed no admonition. Her curtsy was profound; and when the Governor took +her by the hand and kissed her still blooming cheek, she curtsied again. +Molly, who had no memories of fine gentlemen and the complaisance which +was their due, blushed fire-red at the touch of his Excellency's lips, +forgot to curtsy, and knew not where to look. When, in her confusion, she +turned her head aside, her eyes met those of the young man who had +threatened to turn Papist. He bowed, with his hand upon his heart, and she +blushed more deeply than before.</p> + +<p>By now every man had dismounted, and the valley was ringing with the +merriment of the jovial crew. The negroes led the horses down the stream, +lightened them of saddle and bridle, and left them tethered to saplings +beneath which the grass grew long and green. The rangers gathered fallen +wood, and kindled two mighty fires, while the gentlemen of the party threw +themselves down beside the stream, upon a little grassy rise shadowed by a +huge sugar-tree. A mound of turf, flanked by two spreading roots, was the +Governor's chair of state, and Alce and Molly he must needs seat beside +him. Not one of his gay company but seemed an adept in the high-flown +compliment of the age; out of very idleness and the mirth born of that +summer hour they followed his Excellency's lead, and plied the two simple +women with all the wordy ammunition that a tolerable acquaintance with the +mythology of the ancients and the polite literature of the present could +furnish. The mother and daughter did not understand the fine speeches, but +liked them passing well. In their lonely lives, a little thing made +conversation for many and many a day. As for these golden hours,—the +jingle and clank and mellow laughter, the ruffles and gold buttons and +fine cloth, these gentlemen, young and handsome, friendly-eyed, +silver-tongued, the taste of wine, the taste of flattery, the sunshine +that surely was never yet so bright,—ten years from now they would still +be talking of these things, still wishing that such a day could come +again.</p> + +<p>The negroes were now busy around the fires, and soon the cheerful odor of +broiling meat rose and blended with the fragrance of the forest. The +pioneer, hospitably minded, beckoned to the four Meherrins, and hastening +with them to the patch of waving corn, returned with a goodly lading of +plump, green ears. A second foraging party, under guidance of the boy, +brought into the larder of the gentry half a dozen noble melons, golden +within and without. The woman whispered to the child, and the latter ran +to the cabin, filled her upgathered skirts with the loaves of her mother's +baking, and came back to the group upon the knoll beneath the sugar-tree. +The Governor himself took the bread from the little maid, then drew her +toward him.</p> + +<p>"Thanks, my pretty one," he said, with a smile that for the moment quite +dispelled the expression of haughtiness which marred an otherwise comely +countenance. "Come, give me a kiss, sweeting, and tell me thy name."</p> + +<p>The child looked at him gravely. "My name is Audrey," she answered, "and +if you eat all of our bread we'll have none for supper."</p> + +<p>The Governor laughed, and kissed the small dark face. "I'll give thee a +gold moidore, instead, my maid. Odso! thou'rt as dark and wild, almost, as +was my little Queen of the Saponies that died last year. Hast never been +away from the mountains, child?"</p> + +<p>Audrey shook her head, and thought the question but a foolish one. The +mountains were everywhere. Had she not been to the top of the hills, and +seen for herself that they went from one edge of the world to the other? +She was glad to slip from the Governor's encircling arm, and from the gay +ring beneath the sugar-tree; to take refuge with herself down by the water +side, and watch the fairy tale from afar off.</p> + +<p>The rangers, with the pioneer and his son for their guests, dined beside +the kitchen fire, which they had kindled at a respectful distance from the +group upon the knoll. Active, bronzed and daring men, wild riders, bold +fighters, lovers of the freedom of the woods, they sprawled upon the dark +earth beneath the walnut-trees, laughed and joked, and told old tales of +hunting or of Indian warfare. The four Meherrins ate apart and in stately +silence, but the grinning negroes must needs endure their hunger until +their masters should be served. One black detachment spread before the +gentlemen of the expedition a damask cloth; another placed upon the snowy +field platters of smoking venison and turkey, flanked by rockahominy and +sea-biscuit, corn roasted Indian fashion, golden melons, and a quantity of +wild grapes gathered from the vines that rioted over the hillside; while a +third set down, with due solemnity, a formidable array of bottles. There +being no chaplain in the party, the grace was short. The two captains +carved, but every man was his own Ganymede. The wines were good and +abundant: there was champagne for the King's health; claret in which to +pledge themselves, gay stormers of the mountains; Burgundy for the oreads +who were so gracious as to sit beside them, smile upon them, taste of +their mortal fare.</p> + +<p>Sooth to say, the oreads were somewhat dazed by the company they were +keeping, and found the wine a more potent brew than the liquid crystal of +their mountain streams. Red roses bloomed in Molly's cheeks; her eyes grew +starry, and no longer sought the ground; when one of the gentlemen wove a +chaplet of oak leaves, and with it crowned her loosened hair, she laughed, +and the sound was so silvery and delightful that the company laughed with +her. When the viands were gone, the negroes drew the cloth, but left the +wine. When the wine was well-nigh spent, they brought to their masters +long pipes and japanned boxes filled with sweet-scented. The fragrant +smoke, arising, wrapped the knoll in a bluish haze. A wind had arisen, +tempering the blazing sunshine, and making low music up and down the +hillsides. The maples blossomed into silver, the restless poplar leaves +danced more and more madly, the hemlocks and great white pines waved their +broad, dark banners. Above the hilltops the sky was very blue, and the +distant heights seemed dream mountains and easy of climbing. A soft and +pleasing indolence, born of the afternoon, the sunlight, and the red wine, +came to dwell in the valley. One of the company beneath the spreading +sugar-tree laid his pipe upon the grass, clasped his hands behind his +head, and, with his eyes on the azure heaven showing between branch and +leaf, sang the song of Amiens of such another tree in such another forest. +The voice was manly, strong, and sweet; the rangers quit their talk of war +and hunting to listen, and the negroes, down by the fire which they had +built for themselves, laughed for very pleasure.</p> + +<p>When the wine was all drunken and the smoke of the tobacco quite blown +away, a gentleman who seemed of a somewhat saturnine disposition, and less +susceptible than his brother adventurers to the charms of the wood nymphs, +rose, and declared that he would go a-fishing in the dark crystal of the +stream below. His servant brought him hook and line, while the +grasshoppers in the tall grass served for bait. A rock jutting over the +flood formed a convenient seat, and a tulip-tree lent a grateful shade. +The fish were abundant and obliging; the fisherman was happy. Three +shining trophies had been landed, and he was in the act of baiting the +hook that should capture the fourth, when his eyes chanced to meet the +eyes of the child Audrey, who had left her covert of purple-berried alder, +and now stood beside him. Tithonus, green and hale, skipped from between +his fingers, and he let fall his line to put out a good-natured hand and +draw the child down to a seat upon the rock. "Wouldst like to try thy +skill, moppet?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>The child shook her head. "Are you a prince?" she asked, "and is the grand +gentleman with, the long hair and the purple coat the King?"</p> + +<p>The fisherman laughed. "No, little one, I'm only a poor ensign. The +gentleman yonder, being the representative in Virginia of my Lord of +Orkney and his Majesty King George the First, may somewhat smack of +royalty. Indeed, there are good Virginians who think that were the King +himself amongst us he could not more thoroughly play my Lord Absolute. But +he's only the Governor of Virginia, after all, bright eyes."</p> + +<p>"Does he live in a palace, like the King? My father once saw the King's +house in a place they call London."</p> + +<p>The gentleman laughed again. "Ay, he lives in a palace, a red brick +palace, sixty feet long and forty feet deep, with a bauble on top that's +all afire on birth-nights. There are green gardens, too, with winding +paths, and sometimes pretty ladies walk in them. Wouldst like to see all +these fine things?"</p> + +<p>The child nodded. "Ay, that I would! Who is the gentleman that sang, and +that now sits by Molly? See! with his hand touching her hair. Is he a +Governor, too?"</p> + +<p>The other glanced in the direction of the sugar-tree, raised his eyebrows, +shrugged his shoulders, and returned to his fishing. "That is Mr. +Marmaduke Haward," he said, "who, having just come into a great estate, +goes abroad next month to be taught the newest, most genteel mode of +squandering it. Dost not like his looks, child? Half the ladies of +Williamsburgh are enamored of his <i>beaux yeux</i>."</p> + +<p>Audrey made no answer, for just then the trumpet blew for the mount, and +the fisherman must needs draw in and pocket his hook and line. Clear, +high, and sweet, the triumphant notes pierced the air, and were answered +from the hills by a thousand fairy horns. The martial-minded Governor +would play the soldier in the wilderness; his little troop of gentlemen +and rangers and ebony servants had come out well drilled for their tilt +against the mountains. The echoes were still ringing, when, with laughter, +some expenditure of wit, and much cheerful swearing, the camp was struck. +The packhorses were again laden, the rangers swung themselves into their +saddles, and the gentlemen beneath the sugar-tree rose from the grass, and +tendered their farewells to the oreads.</p> + +<p>Alce roundly hoped that their Honors would pass that way again upon their +return from the high mountains, and the deepening rose of Molly's cheeks +and her wistful eyes added weight to her mother's importunity. The +Governor swore that in no great time they would dine again in the valley, +and his companions confirmed the oath. His Excellency, turning to mount +his horse, found the pioneer at the animal's head.</p> + +<p>"So, honest fellow," he exclaimed good-naturedly, "you will not with us to +grave your name upon the mountain tops? Let me tell you that you are +giving Fame the go-by. To march against the mountains and overcome them as +though they were so many Frenchmen, and then to gaze into the promised +land beyond—Odso, man, we are as great as were Cortez and Pizarro and +their crew! We are heroes and paladins! We are the Knights of"—</p> + +<p>His horse, impatient to be gone, struck with a ringing sound an iron-shod +hoof against a bit of rock. "The Knights of the Horseshoe," said the +gentleman nearest the Governor.</p> + +<p>Spotswood uttered a delighted exclamation: "'Gad, Mr. Haward, you've hit +it! Well-nigh the first horseshoes used in Virginia—the number we were +forced to bring along—the sound of the iron against the rocks—the +Knights of the Horseshoe! 'Gad, I'll send to London and have little +horseshoes—little gold horseshoes—made, and every man of us shall wear +one. The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe! It hath an odd, charming sound, +eh, gentlemen?"</p> + +<p>None of the gentlemen were prepared to deny that it was a quaint and +pleasing title. Instead, out of very lightness of heart and fantastic +humor, they must needs have the Burgundy again unpacked, that they might +pledge at once all valorous discoverers, his Excellency the Governor of +Virginia, and their new-named order. And when the wine was drunk, the +rangers were drawn up, the muskets were loaded, and a volley was fired +that brought the echoes crashing about their heads. The Governor mounted, +the trumpet sounded once more, and the joyous company swept down the +narrow valley toward the long, blue, distant ranges.</p> + +<p>The pioneer, his wife and children, watched them go. One of the gentlemen +turned in his saddle and waved his hand. Alce curtsied, but Molly, at whom +he had looked, saw him not, because her eyes were full of tears. The +company reached and entered a cleft between the hills; a moment, and men +and horses were lost to sight; a little longer, and not even a sound could +be heard.</p> + +<p>It was as though they had taken the sunshine with them; for a cloud had +come up from the west, and the sun was hidden. All at once the valley +seemed a sombre and lonely place, and the hills with their whispering +trees looked menacingly down upon the clearing, the cabin, and the five +simple English folk. The glory of the day was gone. After a little more +of idle staring, the frontiersman and his son returned to their work in +the forest, while Alce and Molly went indoors to their spinning, and +Audrey sat down upon the doorstep to listen to the hurry of voices in the +trees, and to watch the ever-deepening shadow of the cloud above the +valley.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br>THE COURT OF THE ORPHAN</h2> + + +<p>An hour before dusk found the company that had dined in the valley making +their way up the dry bed of a stream, through a gorge which cleft a line +of precipitous hills. On either hand the bank rose steeply, giving no +footing for man or beast. The road was a difficult one; for here a tall, +fern-crowned rock left but a narrow passage between itself and the shaggy +hillside, and there smooth and slippery ledges, mounting one above the +other, spanned the way. In places, too, the drought had left pools of +dark, still water, difficult to avoid, and not infrequently the entire +party must come to a halt while the axemen cleared from the path a fallen +birch or hemlock. Every man was afoot, none caring to risk a fall upon the +rocks or into the black, cold water of the pools. The hoofs of the horses +and the spurs of the men clanked against the stones; now and then one of +the heavily laden packhorses stumbled and was sworn at, and once a warning +rattle, issuing from a rank growth of fern on the hillside, caused a +momentary commotion. There was no more laughter, or whistling, or calling +from the van to the rear guard. The way was arduous, and every man must +watch his footsteps; moreover, the last rays of the sun were gilding the +hilltops above them, and the level that should form their camping-place +must be reached before the falling of the night.</p> + +<p>The sunlight had all but faded from the heights, when one of the company, +stumbling over a round and mossy rock, measured his length upon the +ground, amid his own oaths at his mishap, and the exclamations of the man +immediately in his rear, whose progress he had thus unceremoniously +blocked. The horse of the fallen man, startled by the dragging at the +reins, reared and plunged, and in a moment the entire column was in +disorder. When the frightened animals were at last quieted, and the line +re-formed, the Governor called out to know who it was that had fallen, and +whether any damage had been suffered.</p> + +<p>"It was Mr. Haward, sir!" cried two or three; and presently the injured +gentleman himself, limping painfully, and with one side of his fine green +coat all stained by reason of contact with a bit of muddy ground, appeared +before his Excellency.</p> + +<p>"I have had a cursed mishap,—saving your presence, sir," he explained. +"The right ankle is, I fear, badly sprained. The pain, is exquisite, and I +know not how I am to climb mountains."</p> + +<p>The Governor uttered an exclamation of concern: "Unfortunate! Dr. Robinson +must look to the hurt at once."</p> + +<p>"Your Excellency forgets my dispute with Dr. Robinson as to the dose of +Jesuit bark for my servant," said the sufferer blandly. "Were I <i>in +extremis</i> I should not apply to him for relief."</p> + +<p>"I'll lay my life that you are not <i>in extremis</i> now," retorted the +doctor. "If ever I saw a man with a sprained ankle keep his color so +marvelously, or heard him speak in so composed a tone! The pain must be of +a very unusual degree indeed!"</p> + +<p>"It is," answered Mr. Haward calmly. "I cannot possibly go on in this +condition, your Excellency, nor can I dream of allowing my unlucky +accident to delay this worshipful company in their ascent of the +mountains. I will therefore take my servant and ride slowly back to the +cabin which we left this afternoon. Doubtless the worthy pioneer will give +me shelter until my foot is healed, and I will rejoin your Excellency upon +your return through the valley."</p> + +<p>As he spoke, for the greater ease of the injured member, he leaned against +a towering lock. He was a handsome youth, with a trick of keeping an +unmoved countenance under even such a fire of laughter and exclamation as +greeted his announcement.</p> + +<p>"And for this you would lose the passing of the Appalachian Mountains!" +cried Spotswood. "Why, man! from those heights we may almost see Lake +Erie; may find out how near we are to the French, how easily the mountains +may be traversed, what promise of success should his Majesty determine to +plant settlements beyond them or to hold the mountain passes! There is +service to be done and honor to be gained, and you would lag behind +because of a wrenched ankle! Zoons, sir! at Blenheim I charged a whole +regiment of Frenchmen, with a wound in my breast into which you might have +thrust your hand!"</p> + +<p>The younger man shrugged his shoulders. "Beggars may not be choosers," he +said coolly. "The sunlight is fast fading, and if we would be out of this +gorge before nightfall we must make no further tarrying. I have your +Excellency's permission to depart?"</p> + +<p>One of the gentlemen made a low-voiced but audible remark to his neighbor, +and another hummed a line from a love song. The horses moved impatiently +amongst the loose stones, and the rangers began to mutter that night +would be upon them before they reached a safer footing.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Haward! Mr. Haward!" said the Governor sternly. "It is in my mind +that you meditate inflicting a greater harm than you have received. Let me +tell you, sir, if you think to so repay a simple-minded hospitality"—</p> + +<p>Mr. Haward's eyes narrowed. "I own Colonel Spotswood for Governor of +Virginia," he said, speaking slowly, as was his wont when he was angry. +"His office does not, I think, extend farther than that. As for these +pleasant-minded gentlemen who are not protected by their rank I beg to +inform them that in my fall my sword arm suffered no whit."</p> + +<p>Turning, he beckoned to a negro who had worked his way from the servants +in the rear, along the line of rangers, to the outskirts of the group of +gentlemen gathered around the Governor and the injured man. "Juba," he +ordered, "draw your horse and mine to one side. Your Excellency, may I +again remind you that it draws toward nightfall, and that this road will +be no pleasant one to travel in the dark?"</p> + +<p>What he said was true; moreover, upon the setting out of the expedition it +had been laughingly agreed that any gentleman who might find his spirits +dashed by the dangers and difficulties of the way should be at liberty at +any time to turn his back upon the mountains, and his face toward safety +and the settlements. The Governor frowned, bit his lips, but finally burst +into unwilling laughter.</p> + +<p>"You are a very young gentleman, Mr. Marmaduke Haward!" he cried. "Were +you a little younger, I know what ointment I should prescribe for your +hurt. Go your ways with your broken ankle; but if, when I come again to +the cabin in the valley, I find that your own injury has not contented +you, look to it that I do not make you build a bridge across the bay +itself! Gentlemen, Mr. Haward is bent upon intrusting his cure to other +and softer hands than Dr. Robinson's, and the expedition must go forward +without him. We sorrow to lose him from our number, but we know better +than to reason with—ahem!—a twisted ankle. <i>En avant</i>, gentlemen! Mr. +Haward, pray have a care of yourself. I would advise that the ankle be +well bandaged, and that you stir not from the chimney corner"—</p> + +<p>"I thank your Excellency for your advice," said Mr. Haward imperturbably, +"and will consider of taking it. I wish your Excellency and these merry +gentlemen a most complete victory over the mountains, from which conquest +I will no longer detain you."</p> + +<p>He bowed as he spoke, and began to move, slowly and haltingly, across the +width of the rocky way to where his negro stood with the two horses.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Haward!" called the Governor.</p> + +<p>The recreant turned his head. "Your Excellency?"</p> + +<p>"It was the right foot, was it not?" queried his sometime leader. "Ah, I +thought so! Then it were best not to limp with the left."</p> + +<p>Homeric laughter shook the air; but while Mr. Haward laughed not, neither +did he frown or blush. "I will remember, sir," he said simply, and at once +began to limp with the proper foot. When he reached the bank he turned, +and, standing with his arm around his horse's neck, watched the company +which he had so summarily deserted, as it put itself into motion and went +slowly past him up its dusky road. The laughter and bantering farewells +moved him not; he could at will draw a line around himself across which +few things could step. Not far away the bed of the stream turned, and a +hillside, dark with hemlock, closed the view. He watched the train pass +him, reach this bend, and disappear. The axemen and the four Meherrins, +the Governor and the gentlemen of the Horseshoe, the rangers, the +negroes,—all were gone at last. With that passing, and with the ceasing +of the laughter and the trampling, came the twilight. A whippoorwill began +to call, and the wind sighed in the trees. Juba, the negro, moved closer +to his master; then upon an impulse stooped, and lifting above his head a +great rock, threw it with might into one of the shallow pools. The +crashing sound broke the spell of the loneliness and quiet that had fallen +upon the place. The white man drew his breath, shrugged his shoulders, and +turned his horse's head down the way up which he had so lately come.</p> + +<p>The cabin in the valley was not three miles away. Down this ravine to a +level place of pines, through the pines to a strip of sassafras and a +poisoned field, past these into a dark, rich wood of mighty trees linked +together with the ripening grape, then three low hills, then the valley +and the cabin and a pair of starry eyes. It was full moon. Once out from +under the stifling walls of the ravine, and the silver would tremble +through the leaves, and show the path beneath. The trees, too, that they +had blazed,—with white wood pointing to white wood, the backward way +should be easy.</p> + +<p>The earth, rising sheer in darkness on either hand, shut in the bed of the +stream. In the warm, scented dusk the locusts shrilled in the trees, and +far up the gorge the whippoorwill called and called. The air was filled +with the gold of fireflies, a maze of spangles, now darkening, now +brightening, restless and bewildering. The small, round pools caught the +light from the yet faintly colored sky, and gleamed among the rocks; a +star shone out, and a hot wind, heavy with the smell of the forest, moved +the hemlock boughs and rustled in the laurels.</p> + +<p>The white man and the negro, each leading his horse, picked their way with +caution among the pitfalls of the rocky and uneven road. With the passing +of the Governor and his train a sudden cure had been wrought, for now +Haward's step was as firm and light as it had been before his fall. The +negro looked at him once or twice with a puzzled face, but made no comment +and received no enlightenment. Indeed, so difficult was their way that +they were left but scant leisure for speech. Moment by moment the darkness +deepened, and once Haward's horse came to its knees, crashing down among +the rocks and awakening every echo.</p> + +<p>The way, if hard, was short. The hills fell farther apart, the banks +became low and broad, and fair in front, between two slender pines, shone +out the great round moon. Leaving the bed of the stream, the two men +entered a pine wood, dim and fragrant and easy to thread. The moon rose +higher, and the light fell in wide shafts between trees that stood well +apart, with no vines to grapple one to another or undergrowth to press +about their knees.</p> + +<p>There needed no watchfulness: the ground was smooth, the light was fair; +no motion save the pale flicker of the fireflies, no sound save the sigh +of the night wind in the boughs that were so high overhead. Master and +man, riding slowly and steadily onward through a wood that seemed +interminably the same, came at last to think of other things than the road +which they were traveling. Their hands lost grasp upon the reins, and +their eyes, ceasing to glance now here, now there, gazed steadfastly down +the gray and dreamlike vista before them, and saw no longer hole and +branch, moonlight and the white scars that the axe had made for guidance. +The vision of the slave was of supper at the quarters, of the scraping of +the fiddle in the red firelight, of the dancing and the singing. The white +man saw, at first, only a girl's face, shy and innocent,—the face of the +woodland maid who had fired his fancy, who was drawing him through the +wilderness back to the cabin in the valley. But after a while, in the gray +stillness, he lost the face, and suddenly thought, instead, of the stone +that was to cover his father's grave. The ship that was to bring the +great, dark, carven slab should be in by now; the day after his return to +Williamsburgh the stone must be put in place, covering in the green sod +and that which lay below. <i>Here, lieth in the hope of a joyful +resurrection</i>—</p> + +<p>His mind left the grave in the churchyard at Williamsburgh, and visited +the great plantation of which he was now sole master. There was the house, +foursquare, high-roofed, many-windowed, built of dark red brick that +glowed behind the veil of the walnuts and the oaks. There, too, were the +quarters,—the home quarter, that at the creek, that on the ridge. Fifty +white servants, three hundred slaves,—and he was the master. The +honeysuckles in the garden that had been his father's pride, the shining +expanse of the river, the ship—his ship, the Golden Rose—that was to +take him home to England,—he forgot the night and the forest, and saw +these things quite plainly. Then he fell to thinking of London and the +sweets that he meant to taste, the heady wine of youth and life that he +meant to drain to the lees. He was young; he could spare the years. One +day he would come back to Virginia, to the dim old garden and quiet house. +His factor would give account, and he would settle down in the red brick +house, with the tobacco to the north and east, the corn to the west, and +to the south the mighty river,—the river silvered by the moon, the river +that lay just beyond him, gleaming through the trees—</p> + +<p>Startled by the sudden tightening of the reins, or by the tearing of some +frightened thing through the canes that beset the low, miry bank, the +horse sprang aside; then stood trembling with pricked ears. The white man +stared at the stream; turned in his saddle and stared at the tree trunks, +the patches of moonlight, and the impenetrable shadow that closed each +vista. "The blazed trees!" he exclaimed at last. "How long since we saw +one?"</p> + +<p>The slave shook his head. "Juba forgot to look. He was away by a river +that he knew."</p> + +<p>"We have passed from out the pines," said Haward. "These are oaks. But +what is that water, and how far we are out of our reckoning the Lord only +knows!"</p> + +<p>As he spoke he pushed his horse through the tall reeds to the bank of the +stream. Here in the open, away from the shadow of the trees, the full moon +had changed the night-time into a wonderful, silver day. Narrow above and +belows the stream widened before him into a fairy basin, rimmed with +reeds, unruffled, crystal-clear, stiller than a dream. The trees that grew +upon the farther side were faint gray clouds in the moonlight, and the +gold of the fireflies was very pale. From over the water, out of the heart +of the moonlit wood, came the song of a mockingbird, a tumultuous ecstasy, +possessing the air and making elfin the night.</p> + +<p>Haward backed his horse from the reeds to the oak beneath which waited the +negro. "'Tis plain that we have lost our way, Juba," he said, with a +laugh. "If you were an Indian, we should turn and straightway retrace our +steps to the blazed trees. Being what you are, you are more valuable in +the tobacco fields than in the forest. Perhaps this is the stream which +flows by the cabin in the valley. We'll follow it down, and so arrive, at +least, at a conclusion."</p> + +<p>They dismounted, and, leading their horses, followed the stream for some +distance, to arrive at the conclusion that it was not the one beside which +they had dined that day. When they were certain of this, they turned and +made their way back to the line of reeds which they had broken to mark +their starting-point. By now the moon was high, and the mockingbird in the +wood across the water was singing madly. Turning from the still, moonlit +sheet, the silent reeds, the clear mimicker in the slumbrous wood, the two +wayfarers plunged into the darkness beneath the spreading branches of the +oak-trees. They could not have ridden far from the pines; in a very little +while they might reach and recognize the path which they should tread.</p> + +<p>An hour later, the great trees, oak and chestnut, beech and poplar, +suddenly gave way to saplings, many, close-set, and overrun with +grapevines. So dense was the growth, so unyielding the curtain of vines, +that men and horses were brought to a halt as before a fortress wall. +Again they turned, and, skirting that stubborn network, came upon a swamp, +where leafless trees, white as leprosy, stood up like ghosts from the +water that gleamed between the lily-pads. Leaving the swamp they climbed a +hill, and at the summit found only the moon and the stars and a long +plateau of sighing grass. Behind them were the great mountains; before +them, lesser heights, wooded hills, narrow valleys, each like its fellow, +each indistinct and shadowy, with no sign of human tenant.</p> + +<p>Haward gazed at the climbing moon and at the wide and universal dimness of +the world beneath; then turned to the negro, and pointed to a few low +trees growing at the eastern end of the plateau.</p> + +<p>"Fasten the horses there, Juba," he said. "We will wait upon this hilltop +until morning. When the light comes, we may be able to see the clearing or +the smoke from the cabin."</p> + +<p>When the horses had been tethered, master and man lay down upon the grass. +It was so still upon the hilltop, and the heavens pressed so closely, that +the slave grew restless and strove to make talk. Failing in this, he began +to croon a savage, mournful air, and presently, forgetting himself, to +sing outright.</p> + +<p>"Be quiet!" ordered his master. "There may be Indians abroad."</p> + +<p>The song came to an end as abruptly as it lad begun, and the singer, +having nothing better to do, went fast asleep. His companion, more +wakeful, lay with his hands behind his head and his eyes upon the splendor +of the firmament. Lying so, he could not see the valleys nor the looming +mountains. There were only the dome of the sky, the grass, and himself. +He stared at the moon, and made pictures of her shadowy places; then fell +to thinking of the morrow, and of the possibility that after all he might +never find again the cabin in the valley. While he laughed at this +supposition, yet he played with it. He was in a mood to think the loss of +the trail of the expedition no great matter. The woods were full of game, +the waters of fish; he and Juba had only to keep their faces to the +eastward, and a fortnight at most would bring them to the settlements. But +the valleys folded among the hills were many; what if the one he sought +should still elude him? What if the cabin, the sugar-tree, the crystal +stream, had sunk from sight, like the city in one of Monsieur Gralland's +fantastic tales? Perhaps they had done so,—the spot had all the air of a +bit of fairyland,—and the woodland maid was gone to walk with the elves. +Well, perchance for her it would be better so. And yet it would be +pleasant if she should climb the hillside now and sit beside him, with her +shy dark eyes and floating hair. Her hair was long and fine, and the wind +would lift it; her face was fair, and another than the wind should kiss +it. The night would not then be so slow in going.</p> + +<p>He turned upon his side, and looked along the grassy summit to the woods +upon the opposite slope and to the distant mountains. Dull silver, +immutable, perpetual, they reared themselves to meet the moonbeams. +Between him and those stern and changeless fronts, pallid as with snows, +stretched the gray woods. The moon shone very brightly, and there was no +wind. So unearthly was the quiet of the night, so solemn the light, so +high and still and calm the universe around him, that awe fell upon his +soul. It was well to lie upon the hilltop and guess at the riddle of the +world; now dimly to see the meaning, now to lose it quite, to wonder, to +think of death. The easy consciousness that for him death was scores of +years away, that he should not meet the spectre until the wine was all +drunken, the garlands withered, and he, the guest, ready to depart, made +these speculations not at all unpleasing. He looked at his hand, blanched +by the moonlight, lying beside him upon the grass, and thought how like a +dead hand it seemed, and what if he could not move it, nor his body, nor +could ever rise from the grass, but must lie there upon the lonely hilltop +in the untrodden wilderness, until that which had ridden and hunted and +passed so buoyantly through life should become but a few dry bones, a +handful of dust. He was of his time, and its laxness of principle and +conduct; if he held within himself the potential scholar, statesman, and +philosopher, there were also the skeptic, the egotist, and the libertine. +He followed the fashion and disbelieved much, but he knew that if he died +to-night his soul would not stay with his body upon the hilltop. He +wondered, somewhat grimly, what it would do when so much that had clothed +it round—pride of life, love of pleasure, desire, ambition—should be +plucked away. Poor soul! Surely it would feel itself something shrunken, +stripped of warmth, shiveringly bare to all the winds of heaven. The +radiance of the moon usurped the sky, but behind that veil of light the +invisible and multitudinous stars were shining. Beyond those stars were +other stars, beyond those yet others; on and on went the stars, wise men +said. Beyond them all, what then? And where was the place of the soul? +What would it do? What heaven or hell would it find or make for itself? +Guesswork all!</p> + +<p>The silver pomp of the night began to be oppressive to him. There was +beauty, but it was a beauty cold and distant, infinitely withdrawn from +man and his concerns. Woods and mountains held aloof, communing with the +stars. They were kindred and of one house; it was man who was alien, a +stranger and alone. The hilltop cared not that he lay thereon; the grass +would grow as greenly when he was in his grave; all his tragedies since +time began he might reenact there below, and the mountains would not bend +to look.</p> + +<p>He flung his arm across his eyes to shut out the moonlight, and tried to +sleep. Finding the attempt a vain one, and that the night pressed more and +more heavily upon him, he sat up with the intention of shaking the negro +awake, and so providing himself with other company than his own thoughts.</p> + +<p>His eyes had been upon the mountains, but now, with the sudden movement, +he faced the eastern horizon and a long cleft between the hills. Far down +this opening something was on fire, burning fiercely and redly. Some one +must have put torch to the forest; and yet it did not burn as trees burn. +It was like a bonfire ... it was a bonfire in a clearing! There were not +woods about it, but a field—and the glint of water—</p> + +<p>The negro, awakened by foot and voice, sprang up, and stood bewildered +beside his master. "It is the valley that we have been seeking, Juba," +said the latter, speaking rapidly and low. "That burning pile is the +cabin, and 't is like that there are Indians between us and it! Leave the +horses; we shall go faster without them. Look to the priming of your gun, +and make no noise. Now!"</p> + +<p>Rapidly descending the hill, they threw themselves into the woods at its +base. Here they could not see the fire, but now and then, as they ran, +they caught the glow, far down the lines of trees. Though they went +swiftly they went warily as well, keeping an eye and ear open and muskets +ready. But there was no sound other than their own quick footfalls upon +the floor of rotting leaves, or the eager brushing of their bodies through +occasional undergrowth; no sight but the serried trees and the checkered +light and shade upon the ground.</p> + +<p>They came to the shallow stream that flashed through the valley, and +crossing it found themselves on cleared ground, with only a long strip of +corn between them and what had been a home for English folk. It was that +no longer: for lack of fuel the flames were dying down; there was only a +charred and smoking pile, out of which leaped here and there a red tongue.</p> + +<p>Haward had expected to hear a noise of savage triumph, and to see dark +figures moving about their handiwork. There was no noise, and the +moonlight showed no living being. The night was changelessly still and +bright; the tragedy had been played, and the mountains and the hills and +the running water had not looked.</p> + +<p>It took but a few minutes to break through the rustling corn and reach the +smouldering logs. Once before them, there seemed naught to do but to stand +and stare at the ruin, until a tongue of flame caught upon a piece of +uncharred wood, and showed them the body of the pioneer lying at a little +distance from the stone that had formed his doorstep. At a sign from +Haward the negro went and turned it over, then, let it sink again into the +seared grass. "Two arrows, Marse Duke," he said, coming back to the +other's side. "An' they've taken his scalp."</p> + +<p>Three times Haward made the round of the yet burning heap. Was it only +ruined and fallen walls, or was it a funeral pyre as well? To know, he +must wait for the day and until the fire had burned itself out. If the +former were the case, if the dead man alone kept the valley, then now, +through the forest and the moonlight, captives were being haled to some +Indian village, and to a fate more terrible than that of the man who lay +there upon the grass with an arrow through his heart.</p> + +<p>If the girl were still alive, yet was she dead to him. He was no Quixote +to tilt with windmills. Had a way to rescue her lain fair before him, he +would have risked his life without a thought. But the woods were deep and +pathless, and only an Indian could find and keep a trail by night. To +challenge the wilderness; to strike blindly at the forest, now here, now +there; to dare all, and know that it was hopeless daring,—a madman might +do this for love. But it was only Haward's fancy that had been touched, +and if he lacked not courage, neither did he lack a certain cool good +sense which divided for him the possible from that which was impossible, +and therefore not to be undertaken.</p> + +<p>Turning from the ruin, he walked across the trampled sward to the +sugar-tree in whose shade, in the golden afternoon, he had sung to his +companions and to a simple girl. Idle and happy and far from harm had the +valley seemed.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">"Here shall he see</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">No enemy</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But winter and rough weather."</span><br> +</p> + +<p>Suddenly he found that he was trembling, and that a sensation of faintness +and of dull and sick revolt against all things under the stars was upon +him. Sitting down in the shadow of the tree, he rested his face in his +hands and shut his eyes, preferring the darkness within to that outer +night which hid not and cared not, which was so coldly at peace. He was +young, and though stories of such dismal things as that before him were +part of the stock in trade of every ancient, garrulous man or woman of his +acquaintance, they had been for him but tales; not horrible truths to +stare him in the face. He had seen his father die; but he had died, in his +bed, and like one who went to sleep.</p> + +<p>The negro had followed him, and now stood with his eyes upon the dying +flames, muttering to himself some heathenish charm. When it was ended, he +looked about him uneasily for a time; then bent and plucked his master by +the sleeve. "We cyarn' do nothin' here, Marse Duke," he whispered. "An' +the wolves may get the horses."</p> + +<p>With a laugh and a groan, the young man rose to his feet. "That is true, +Juba," he said. "It's all over here,—we were too late. And it's not a +pleasant place to lie awake in, waiting for the morning. We'll go back to +the hilltop."</p> + +<p>Leaving the tree, they struck across the grass and entered the strip of +corn. Something low and dark that had lain upon the ground started up +before them, and ran down the narrow way between the stalks. Haward made +after it and caught it.</p> + +<p>"Child!" he cried. "Where are the others?"</p> + +<p>The child had struggled for a moment, desperately if weakly, but at the +sound of his voice she lay still in his grasp, with her eyes upon his +face. In the moonlight each could see the other quite plainly. Raising her +in his arms, Haward bore her to the brink of the stream, laved her face +and chafed the small, cold hands.</p> + +<p>"Now tell me, Audrey," he said at last. "Audrey is your name, isn't it? +Cry, if you like, child, but try to tell me."</p> + +<p>Audrey did not cry. She was very, very tired, and she wanted to go to +sleep. "The Indians came," she told him in a whisper, with her head upon +his breast. "We all waked up, and father fired at them through the hole in +the door. Then they broke the door down, and he went outside, and they +killed him. Mother put me under the bed, and told me to stay there, and to +make no noise. Then the Indians came in at the door, and killed her and +Molly and Robin. I don't remember anything after that,—maybe I went to +sleep. When I was awake again the Indians were gone, but there was fire +and smoke everywhere. I was afraid of the fire, and so I crept from under +the bed, and kissed mother and Molly and Robin, and left them lying in the +cabin, and came away."</p> + +<p>She sighed with weariness, and the hand with which she put back her dark +hair that had fallen over her face was almost too heavy to lift. "I sat +beside father and watched the fire," she said. "And then I heard you and +the black man coming over the stones in the stream. I thought that you +were Indians, and I went and hid in the corn."</p> + +<p>Her voice failed, and her eyelids drooped. In some anxiety Haward watched +her breathing and felt for the pulse in the slight brown wrist; then, +satisfied, he lifted the light burden, and, nodding to the negro to go +before, recommenced his progress to the hill which he had left an hour +agone.</p> + +<p>It was not far away. He could see the bare summit above the treetops, and +in a little while they were upon its slope. A minute more and they came to +the clump of trees, and found the horses in safety, Haward paused to take +from the roll strapped behind his saddle a riding cloak; then, leaving the +negro with the horses, climbed to the grassy level. Here he spread the +cloak upon the ground, and laid the sleeping child upon it, which done, he +stood and looked at his new-found charge for a moment; then turning, began +to pace up and down upon the hilltop.</p> + +<p>It was necessary to decide upon a course of action. They had the horses, +the two muskets, powder and shot. The earth was dry and warm, and the +skies were cloudless. Was it best to push on to Germanna, or was it best +to wait down there in the valley for the return of the Governor and his +party? They would come that way, that was certain, and would look to find +him there. If they found only the ruined cabin, they might think him dead +or taken by the Indians, and an attempt to seek him, as dangerous, +perhaps, as fruitless, might be made. He decided that he would wait. +To-morrow he would take Juba and the horses and the child and go down into +the valley; not back to the sugar-tree and that yet smouldering pyre, but +to the woods on this side of the stream.</p> + +<p>This plan thought out, he went; and took his seat beside the child. She +was moaning in her sleep, and he bent over and soothed her. When she was +quiet he still kept her hand in his, as he sat there waiting for the dawn. +He gave the child small thought. Together he and Juba must care for her +until they could rejoin the expedition: then the Governor, who was so fond +of children, might take her in hand, and give her for nurse old Dominick, +who was as gentle as a woman. Once at Germanna perhaps some scolding +<i>Hausfrau</i> would take her, for the sake of the scrubbing and lifting to be +gotten out of those small hands and that slender frame. If not, she must +on to Williamsburgh and the keeping of the vestry there. The next Orphan +Court would bind her to some master or mistress who might (or might not) +be kind to her, and so there would be an end to the matter.</p> + +<p>The day was breaking. Moon and stars were gone, and the east was dull +pink, like faded roses. A ribbon of silver mist, marking the course of the +stream below, drew itself like a serpent through the woods that were +changing from gray to green. The dank smell of early morning rose from the +dew-drenched earth, and in the countless trees of the forest the birds +began to sing.</p> + +<p>A word or phrase which is as common and familiar as our hand may, in some +one minute of time, take on a significance and present a face so keen and +strange that it is as if we had never met it before. An Orphan Court! +Again he said the words to himself, and then aloud. No doubt the law did +its best for the fatherless and motherless, for such waifs and strays as +that which lay beside him. When it bound out children, it was most +emphatic that they should be fed and clothed and taught; not starved or +beaten unduly, or let to grow up ignorant as negroes. Sometimes the law +was obeyed, sometimes not.</p> + +<p>The roses in the east bloomed again, and the pink of their petals melted +into the clear blue of the upper skies. Because their beauty compelled him +Haward looked at the heavens. The Court of the Orphan!... <i>When my father +and my mother forsake, me, the Lord taketh me up</i>. Haward acknowledged +with surprise that portions of the Psalter did somehow stick in the +memory.</p> + +<p>The face of the child was dark and thin, but the eyes were large and there +was promise in the mouth. It was a pity—</p> + +<p>He looked at her again, and suddenly resolved that he, Marmaduke Haward, +would provide for her future. When they met once more, he should tell the +Governor and his brother adventurers as much; and if they chose to laugh, +why, let them do so! He would take the child to Williamsburgh with him, +and get some woman to tend her until he could find kind and decent folk +with whom to bestow her. There were the new minister of Fair View parish +and his wife,—they might do. He would give them two thousand pounds of +sweet-scented a year for the child's maintenance. Oh, she should be well +cared for! He would—if he thought of it—send her gifts from London; and +when she was grown, and asked in marriage, he would give her for dowry a +hundred acres of land.</p> + +<p>As the strengthening rays of the sun, shining alike upon the just and the +unjust, warmed his body, so his own benevolence warmed his heart. He knew +that he was doing a generous thing, and his soul felt in tune with the +beamy light, the caroling of the birds, the freshness and fragrance of the +morning. When at last the child awoke, and, the recollection of the night +coming full upon her, clung to him, weeping and trembling, he put his arm +around her and comforted her with all the pet names his memory could +conjure up.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br>DARDEN'S AUDREY</h2> + + +<p>It was May Day in Virginia, in the year 1727. In England there were George +the First, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King +and Defender of the Faith; my Lord of Orkney, Governor in chief of +Virginia; and William Gooch, newly appointed Lieutenant Governor. In +Virginia there were Colonel Robert Carter, President of the Council and +Governor <i>pro tem.</i>; the Council itself; and Mistress Martha Jaquelin.</p> + +<p>By virtue of her good looks and sprightliness, the position of her father +in the community, and the fact that this 1st of May was one and the same +with her sixteenth birthday, young Mistress Jaquelin was May Queen in +Jamestown. And because her father was a worthy gentleman and a gay one, +with French blood in his veins and Virginia hospitality in his heart, he +had made a feast for divers of his acquaintances, and, moreover, had +provided, in a grassy meadow down by the water side, a noble and +seasonable entertainment for them, and for the handful of townsfolk, and +for all chance comers.</p> + +<p>Meadow and woodland and marsh, ploughed earth and blossoming orchards, lay +warm in the sunshine. Even the ruined town, fallen from her estate, and +become but as a handmaid to her younger sister, put a good face upon her +melancholy fortunes. Honeysuckle and ivy embraced and hid crumbling walls, +broken foundations, mounds of brick and rubbish, all the untouched +memorials of the last burning of the place. Grass grew in the street, and +the silent square was strewn with the gold of the buttercups. The houses +that yet stood and were lived in might have been counted on the fingers of +one hand, with the thumb for the church. But in their gardens the flowers +bloomed gayly, and the sycamores and mulberries in the churchyard were +haunts of song. The dead below had music, and violets in the blowing +grass, and the undertone of the river. Perhaps they liked the peace of the +town that was dead as they were dead; that, like them, had seen of the +travail of life, and now, with shut eyes and folded hands, knew that it +was vanity.</p> + +<p>But the Jaquelin house was built to the eastward of the churchyard and the +ruins of the town, and, facing the sparkling river, squarely turned its +back upon the quiet desolation at the upper end of the island and upon the +text from Ecclesiastes.</p> + +<p>In the level meadow, around a Maypole gay with garlands and with +fluttering ribbons, the grass had been closely mown, for there were to be +foot-races and wrestling bouts for the amusement of the guests. Beneath a +spreading tree a dozen fiddlers put their instruments in tune, while +behind the open windows of a small, ruinous house, dwelt in by the sexton, +a rustic choir was trying over "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green." +Young men and maidens of the meaner sort, drawn from the surrounding +country, from small plantation, store and ordinary, mill and ferry, clad +in their holiday best and prone to laughter, strayed here and there, or, +walking up and down the river bank, where it commanded a view of both the +landing and the road, watched for the coming of the gentlefolk. Children, +too, were not lacking, but rolled amidst the buttercups or caught at the +ribbons flying from the Maypole, while aged folk sat in the sun, and a +procession of wide-lipped negroes, carrying benches and chairs, advanced +to the shaven green and put the seats in order about the sylvan stage. It +was but nine of the clock, and the shadow of the Maypole was long upon the +grass. Along the slightly rising ground behind the meadow stretched an +apple orchard in full bloom, and between that line of rose and snow and +the lapping of the tide upon the yellow sands lay, for the length of a +spring day, the kingdom of all content.</p> + +<p>The shadow of the Maypole was not much shrunken when the guests of the +house of Jaquelin began to arrive. First to come, and from farthest away, +was Mr. Richard Ambler, of Yorktown, who had ridden from that place to +Williamsburgh the afternoon before, and had that morning used the +planter's pace to Jamestown,—his industry being due to the fact that he +was courting the May Queen's elder sister. Following him came five Lees in +a chariot, then a delegation of Burwells, then two Digges in a chaise. A +Bland and a Bassett and a Randolph came on horseback, while a barge +brought up river a bevy of blooming Carters, a white-sailed sloop from +Warwick landed a dozen Carys, great and small, and two periaguas, filled +with Harrisons, Aliens, and Cockes, shot over from the Surrey shore.</p> + +<p>From a stand at one end of the grassy stage, trumpet and drum proclaimed +that the company had gathered beneath the sycamores before the house, and +was about to enter the meadow. Shrill-voiced mothers warned their +children from the Maypole, the fiddlers ceased their twanging, and Pretty +Bessee, her name cut in twain, died upon the air. The throng of humble +folk—largely made up of contestants for the prizes of the day, and of +their friends and kindred—scurried to its appointed place, and with the +issuing from the house gates of the May Queen and her court the +festivities commenced.</p> + +<p>An hour later, in the midst of a bout at quarterstaff between the +Jamestown blacksmith and the miller from Princess Creek, a coach and four, +accompanied by a horseman, crossed the neck, rolled through the street, +and, entering the meadow, drew up a hundred feet from the ring of +spectators.</p> + +<p>The eyes of the commonalty still hung upon every motion of the blacksmith +and the miller, but by the people of quality the cudgelers were for the +moment quite forgot. The head of the house of Jaquelin hurried over the +grass to the coach door. "Ha, Colonel Byrd! When we heard that you were +staying overnight at Green Spring, we hoped that, being so near, you would +come to our merrymaking. Mistress Evelyn, I kiss your hands. Though we +can't give you the diversions of Spring Garden, yet such as we have are at +your feet. Mr. Marmaduke Haward, your servant, sir! Virginia has missed +you these ten years and more. We were heartily glad to hear, t'other day, +that the Golden Rose had brought you home."</p> + +<p>As he spoke the worthy gentleman strove to open the coach door; but the +horseman, to whom the latter part of his speech was addressed, and who had +now dismounted, was beforehand with him. The door swung open, and a young +lady, of a delicate and pensive beauty, placed one hand upon the +deferential arm of Mr. Marmaduke Haward and descended from the painted +coach to the flower-enameled sward. The women amongst the assembled guests +fluttered and whispered; for this was youth, beauty, wealth, London, and +the Court, all drawn in the person of Mistress Evelyn Byrd, bred since +childhood in the politest society of England, newly returned with her +father to his estate of Westover in Virginia, and, from her garlanded +gypsy hat to the point of her silken shoe, suggestive of the rainbow world +of <i>mode</i>.</p> + +<p>Her father—alert, vivacious, handsome, with finely cut lips that were +quick to smile, and dark eyes that smiled when the lips were +still—followed her to the earth, shook out his ruffles, and extended his +gold snuffbox to his good friend Mr. Jaquelin. The gentleman who had +ridden beside the coach threw the reins of his horse to one of the negroes +who had come running from the Jaquelin stables, and, together with their +host, the three walked across the strip of grass to the row of expectant +gentry. Down went the town-bred lady until the skirt of her blue-green +gown lay in folds upon the buttercups; down went the ladies opposite in +curtsies as profound, if less exquisitely graceful. Off came the hats of +the gentlemen; the bows were of the lowest; snuffboxes were drawn out, +handkerchiefs of fine holland flourished; the welcoming speeches were +hearty and not unpolished.</p> + +<p>It was a society less provincial than that of more than one shire that was +nearer to London by a thousand leagues. It dwelt upon the banks of the +Chesapeake and of great rivers; ships dropped their anchors before its +very doors. Now and again the planter followed his tobacco aboard. The +sands did not then run so swiftly through the hourglass; if the voyage to +England was long, why, so was life! The planters went, sold their +tobacco,—Sweet-scented, E. Dees, Oronoko, Cowpen, Non-burning,—talked +with their agents, visited their English kindred; saw the town, the opera, +and the play,—perhaps, afar off, the King; and returned to Virginia and +their plantations with the last but one novelty in ideas, manner, and +dress. Of their sons not a few were educated in English schools, while +their wives and daughters, if for the most part they saw the enchanted +ground only through the eyes of husband, father, or brother, yet followed +its fashions, when learned, with religious zeal. In Williamsburgh, where +all men went on occasion, there was polite enough living: there were the +college, the Capitol, and the playhouse; the palace was a toy St. James; +the Governors that came and went almost as proper gentlemen, fitted to +rule over English people, as if they had been born in Hanover and could +not speak their subjects' tongue.</p> + +<p>So it was that the assembly which had risen to greet Mr. Jaquelin's latest +guests, besides being sufficiently well born, was not at all ill bred, nor +uninformed, nor untraveled. But it was not of the gay world as were the +three whom it welcomed. It had spent only months, not years, in England; +it had never kissed the King's hand; it did not know Bath nor the Wells; +it was innocent of drums and routs and masquerades; had not even a +speaking acquaintance with great lords and ladies; had never supped with +Pope, or been grimly smiled upon by the Dean of St. Patrick's, or courted +by the Earl of Peterborough. It had not, like the elder of the two men, +studied in the Low Countries, visited the Court of France, and contracted +friendships with men of illustrious names; nor, like the younger, had it +written a play that ran for two weeks, fought a duel in the Field of Forty +Footsteps, and lost and won at the Cocoa Tree, between the lighting and +snuffing of the candles, three thousand pounds.</p> + +<p>Therefore it stood slightly in awe of the wit and manners and fine +feathers, curled newest fashion, of its sometime friends and neighbors, +and its welcome, if warm at heart, was stiff as cloth of gold with +ceremony. The May Queen tripped in her speech as she besought Mistress +Evelyn to take the flower-wreathed great chair standing proudly forth from +the humbler seats, and colored charmingly at the lady of fashion's smiling +shake of the head and few graceful words of homage. The young men slyly +noted the length of the Colonel's periwig and the quality of Mr. Hayward's +Mechlin, while their elders, suddenly lacking material for discourse, made +shift to take a deal of snuff. The Colonel took matters into his own +capable hands.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jaquelin, I wish that my tobacco at Westover may look as finely a +fortnight hence as does yours to-day! There promise to be more Frenchmen +in my fields than Germans at St. James. Mr. Gary, if I come to Denbigh +when the peaches are ripe, will you teach me to make persico? Mr. Allen, I +hear that you breed cocks as courageous as those of Tanagra. I shall +borrow from you for a fight that I mean to give. Ladies, for how much gold +will you sell the recipe for that balm of Mecca you must use? There are +dames at Court would come barefoot to Virginia for so dazzling a bloom. +Why do you patch only upon the Whig side of the face? Are you all of one +camp, and does not one of you grow a white rosebush against the 29th of +May? May it please your Majesty the May Queen, I shall watch the sports +from this seat upon your right hand. Egad, the miller quits himself as +though he were the moss-grown fellow of Sherwood Forest!"</p> + +<p>The ice had thawed; and by the time the victorious miller had been pushed +forward to receive the smart cocked hat which was the Virginia rendition +of the crown of wild olive, it had quite melted. Conversation became +general, and food was found or made for laughter. When the twelve fiddlers +who succeeded the blacksmith and the miller came trooping upon the green, +they played, one by one, to perhaps as light-hearted a company as a May +Day ever shone upon. All their tunes were gay and lively ones, and the +younger men moved their feet to the music, while a Strephon at the lower +end of the lists seized upon a blooming Chloe, and the two began to dance +"as if," quoth the Colonel, "the musicians were so many tarantula +doctors."</p> + +<p>A flower-wreathed instrument of his calling went to the player of the +sprightliest air; after which awardment, the fiddlers, each to the tune of +his own choosing, marched off the green to make room for Pretty Bessee, +her father the beggar, and her suitors the innkeeper, the merchant, the +gentleman, and the knight.</p> + +<p>The high, quick notes of the song suited the sunshiny weather, the sheen +of the river, the azure skies. A light wind brought from the orchard a +vagrant troop of pink and white petals to camp upon the silken sleeve of +Mistress Evelyn Byrd. The gentleman sitting beside her gathered them up +and gave them again to the breeze.</p> + +<p>"It sounds sweetly enough," he said, "but terribly old-fashioned:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'I weigh not true love by the weight of the purse,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And beauty is beauty in every degree.'</span><br> +</p> + +<p>That's not Court doctrine."</p> + +<p>The lady to whom he spoke rested her cheek upon her hand, and looked past +the singers to the blossoming slope and the sky above. "So much the worse +for the Court," she said. "So much the better for"—</p> + +<p>Haward glanced at her. "For Virginia?" he ended, with a smile. "Do you +think that they do not weigh love with gold here in Virginia, Evelyn? It +isn't really Arcady."</p> + +<p>"So much the better for some place, somewhere," she answered quietly. "I +did not say Virginia. Indeed, from what travelers like yourself have told +me, I think the country lies not upon this earth. But the story is at an +end, and we must applaud with the rest. It sounded sweetly, after +all,—though it was only a lying song. What next?"</p> + +<p>Her father, from his station beside the May Queen, caught the question, +and broke the flow of his smiling compliments to answer it. "A race +between young girls, my love,—the lucky fair who proves her descent from +Atalanta to find, not a golden apple, but a golden guinea. Here come from +the sexton's house the pretty light o' heels!"</p> + +<p>The crowd, gentle and simple, arose, and pushed back all benches, stools, +and chairs, so as to enlarge the circumference of the ring, and the six +girls who were to run stepped out upon the green. The youngest son of the +house of Jaquelin checked them off in a shrill treble:—</p> + +<p>"The blacksmith's Meg—Mall and Jenny from the crossroads ordinary—the +Widow Constance's Barbara—red-headed Bess—Parson Darden's Audrey!"</p> + +<p>A tall, thin, grave gentleman, standing behind Haward, gave an impatient +jerk of his body and said something beneath his breath. Haward looked over +his shoulder. "Ha, Mr. Le Neve! I did not know you were there. I had the +pleasure of hearing you read at Williamsburgh last Sunday +afternoon,—though this is your parish, I believe? What was that last name +that the youngster cried? I failed to catch it."</p> + +<p>"Audrey, sir," answered the minister of James City parish; "Gideon +Darden's Audrey. You can't but have heard of Darden? A minister of the +gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, sir; and a scandal, a shame, and a +stumbling-block to the Church! A foul-mouthed, brawling, learned sot! A +stranger to good works, but a frequenter of tippling houses! A brazen, +dissembling, atheistical Demas, who will neither let go of the lusts of +the flesh nor of his parish,—a sweet-scented parish, sir, with the best +glebe in three counties! And he's inducted, sir, inducted, which is more +than most of the clergy of Virginia, who neither fight nor drink nor +swear, can say for themselves!"</p> + +<p>The minister had lost his gravity, and spoke with warmth and bitterness. +As he paused for breath, Mistress Evelyn took her eyes from the group of +those about to run and opened her fan. "A careless father, at least," she +said. "If he hath learning, he should know better than to set his daughter +there."</p> + +<p>"She's not his own, ma'am. She's an orphan, bound to Darden and his wife, +I suppose. There's some story or other about her, but, not being curious +in Mr. Darden's affairs, I have never learned it. When I came to +Virginia, five years ago, she was a slip of a girl of thirteen or so. +Once, when I had occasion to visit Darden, she waylaid me in the road as I +was riding away, and asked me how far it was to the mountains, and if +there were Indians between them and us."</p> + +<p>"Did she so?" asked Haward. "And which is—Audrey?"</p> + +<p>"The dark one—brown as a gypsy—with the dogwood in her hair. And mark +me, there'll be Darden's own luck and she'll win. She's fleeter than a +greyhound. I've seen her running in and out and to and fro in the forest +like a wild thing."</p> + +<p>Bare of foot and slender ankle, bare of arm and shoulder, with heaving +bosom, shut lips, and steady eyes, each of the six runners awaited the +trumpet sound that should send her forth like an arrow to the goal, and to +the shining guinea that lay thereby. The spectators ceased to talk and +laugh, and bent forward, watching. Wagers had been laid, and each man kept +his eyes upon his favorite, measuring her chances. The trumpet blew, and +the race was on.</p> + +<p>When it was over and won, the May Queen rose from her seat and crossed the +grass to her fine lady guest. "There are left only the prizes for this and +for the boys' race and for the best dancer. Will you not give them, +Mistress Evelyn, and so make them of more value?"</p> + +<p>More curtsying, more complimenting, and the gold was in Evelyn's white +hand. The trumpet blew, the drum beat, the fiddlers swung into a quick, +staccato air, and Darden's Audrey, leaving the post which she had touched +some seconds in advance of the foremost of those with whom she had raced, +came forward to receive the guinea.</p> + +<p>The straight, short skirt of dull blue linen could not hide the lines of +the young limbs; beneath the thin, white, sleeveless bodice showed the +tint of the flesh, the rise and fall of the bosom. The bare feet trod the +grass lightly and firmly; the brown eyes looked from under the dogwood +chaplet in a gaze that was serious, innocent, and unashamed. To Audrey +they were only people out of a fairy tale,—all those gay folk, dressed in +silks and with curled hair. They lived in "great houses," and men and +women were born to till their fields, to row their boats, to doff hats or +curtsy as they passed. They were not real; if you pricked them they would +not bleed. In the mountains that she remembered as a dream there were pale +masses of bloom far up among the cliffs; very beautiful, but no more to be +gained than the moon or than rainbow gold. She looked at the May party +before which she had been called much as, when a child, she had looked at +the gorgeous, distant bloom,—not without longing, perhaps, but +indifferent, too, knowing that it was beyond her reach.</p> + +<p>When the gold piece was held out to her, she took it, having earned it; +when the little speech with which the lady gave the guinea was ended, she +was ready with her curtsy and her "Thank you, ma'am." The red came into +her cheeks because she was not used to so many eyes upon her, but she did +not blush for her bare feet, nor for her dress that had slipped low over +her shoulder, nor for the fact that she had run her swiftest five times +around the Maypole, all for the love of a golden guinea, and for mere +youth and pure-minded ignorance, and the springtime in the pulses.</p> + +<p>The gold piece lay within her brown fingers a thought too lightly, for as +she stepped back from the row of gentlefolk it slid from her hand to the +ground. A gentleman, sitting beside the lady who had spoken to her, +stooped, and picking up the money gave it again into her hand. Though she +curtsied to him, she did not look at him, but turned away, glad to be quit +of all the eyes, and in a moment had slipped into the crowd from which she +had come. It was midday, and old Israel, the fisherman, who had brought +her and the Widow Constance's Barbara up the river in his boat, would be +going back with the tide. She was not loath to leave: the green meadow, +the gaudy Maypole, and the music were good, but the silence on the river, +the shadow of the brooding forest, the darting of the fish hawk, were +better.</p> + +<p>In the meadow the boys' race and the rustic dance were soon over. The +dinner at the Jaquelin house to its guests lasted longer, but it too was +hurried; for in the afternoon Mr. Harrison's mare Nelly was to run against +Major Burwell's Fearnaught, and the stakes were heavy.</p> + +<p>Not all of the company went from the banquet back to the meadow, where the +humbler folk, having eaten their dinner of bread and meat and ale, were +whiling away with sports of their own the hour before the race. Colonel +Byrd had business at Williamsburgh, and must reach his lodgings there an +hour before sunset. His four black horses brought to the door the great +vermilion-and-cream coach; an ebony coachman in scarlet cracked his whip +at a couple of negro urchins who had kept pace with the vehicle as it +lumbered from the stables, and a light brown footman flung open the door +and lowered the steps. The Colonel, much regretting that occasion should +call him away, vowed that he had never spent a pleasanter May Day, kissed +the May Queen's hand, and was prodigal of well-turned compliments, like +the gay and gallant gentleman that he was. His daughter made her graceful +adieux in her clear, low, and singularly sweet voice, and together they +were swallowed up of the mammoth coach. Mr. Haward took snuff with Mr. +Jaquelin; then, mounting his horse,—it was supposed that he too had +business in Williamsburgh,—raised his hat and bade farewell to the +company with one low and comprehensive bow.</p> + +<p>The equipage made a wide turn; the ladies and gentlemen upon the Jaquelin +porch fluttered fans and handkerchiefs; the Colonel, leaning from the +coach window, waved his hand; and the horseman lifted his hat the second +time. The very especial guests were gone; and though the remainder of the +afternoon was as merry as heart could wish, yet a bouquet, a flavor, a +tang of the Court and the great world, a breath of air that was not +colonial, had gone with them. For a moment the women stood in a brown +study, revolving in their minds Mistress Evelyn's gypsy hat and the +exceeding thinness and fineness of her tucker; while to each of the +younger men came, linked to the memory of a charming face, a vision of +many-acred Westover.</p> + +<p>But the trumpet blew, summoning them to the sport of the afternoon, and +work stopped upon castles in Spain. When a horse-race was on, a meadow in +Virginia sufficed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br>THE ROAD TO WILLIAMSBURGH</h2> + + +<p>April had gone out in rain, and though the sun now shone brightly from a +cloudless sky, the streams were swollen and the road was heavy. The +ponderous coach and the four black horses made slow progress. The creeping +pace, the languid warmth of the afternoon, the scent of flowering trees, +the ceaseless singing of redbird, catbird, robin, and thrush, made it +drowsy in the forest. In the midst of an agreeable dissertation upon May +Day sports of more ancient times the Colonel paused to smother a yawn; and +when he had done with the clown, the piper, and the hobby-horse, he yawned +again, this time outright.</p> + +<p>"What with Ludwell's Burgundy, piquet, and the French peace, we sat late +last night. My eyes are as heavy as the road. Have you noticed, my dear, +how bland and dreamy is the air? On such an afternoon one is content to be +in Virginia, and out of the world. It is a very land of the Lotophagi,—a +lazy clime that Ulysses touched at, my love."</p> + +<p>The equipage slowly climbed an easy ascent, and as slowly descended to the +level again. The road was narrow, and now and then a wild cherry-tree +struck the coach with a white arm, or a grapevine swung through the window +a fragrant trailer. The woods on either hand were pale green and silver +gray, save where they were starred with dogwood, or where rose the pink +mist of the Judas-tree. At the foot of the hill the road skirted a mantled +pond, choked with broad green leaves and the half-submerged trunks of +fallen trees. Upon these logs, basking in the sunlight, lay small +tortoises by the score. A snake glided across the road in front of the +horses, and from a bit of muddy ground rose a cloud of yellow butterflies.</p> + +<p>The Colonel yawned for the third time, looked at his watch, sighed, lifted +his finely arched brows with a whimsical smile for his own somnolence; +then, with an "I beg your pardon, my love," took out a lace handkerchief, +spread it over his face and head, and, crossing his legs, sunk back into +the capacious corner of the coach. In three minutes the placid rise and +fall of his ruffles bore witness that he slept.</p> + +<p>The horseman, who, riding beside the lowered glass, had at intervals +conversed with the occupants of the coach, now glanced from the sleeping +gentleman to the lady, in whose dark, almond-shaped eyes lurked no sign of +drowsiness. The pond had been passed, and before them, between low banks +crowned with ferns and overshadowed by beech-trees, lay a long stretch of +shady road.</p> + +<p>Haward drew rein, dismounted, and motioned to the coachman to check the +horses. When the coach had come to a standstill, he opened the door with +as little creaking as might be, and held out a petitionary hand. "Will you +not walk with me a little way, Evelyn?" he asked, speaking in a low voice +that he might not wake the sleeper. "It is much pleasanter out here, with +the birds and the flowers."</p> + +<p>His eyes and the smile upon his lips added, "and with me." From what he +had been upon a hilltop, one moonlight night eleven years before, he had +become a somewhat silent, handsome gentleman, composed in manner, +experienced, not unkindly, looking abroad from his apportioned mountain +crag and solitary fortress upon men, and the busy ways of men, with a +tolerant gaze. That to certain of his London acquaintance he was simply +the well-bred philosopher and man of letters; that in the minds of others +he was associated with the peacock plumage of the world of fashion, with +the flare of candles, the hot breath of gamesters, the ring of gold upon +the tables; that one clique had tales to tell of a magnanimous spirit and +a generous hand, while yet another grew red at mention of his name, and +put to his credit much that was not creditable, was perhaps not strange. +He, like his neighbors, had many selves, and each in its turn—the +scholar, the man of pleasure, the indolent, kindly, reflective self, the +self of pride and cool assurance and stubborn will—took its place behind +the mask, and went through its allotted part. His self of all selves, the +quiet, remote, crowned, and inscrutable <i>I</i>, sat apart, alike curious and +indifferent, watched the others, and knew how little worth the while was +the stir in the ant-hill.</p> + +<p>But on a May Day, in the sunshine and the blossoming woods and the company +of Mistress Evelyn Byrd, it seemed, for the moment, worth the while. At +his invitation she had taken his hand and descended from the coach. The +great, painted thing moved slowly forward, bearing the unconscious +Colonel, and the two pedestrians walked behind it: he with his horse's +reins over his arm and his hat in his hand; she lifting her silken skirts +from contact with the ground, and looking, not at her companion, but at +the greening boughs, and at the sunlight striking upon smooth, pale beech +trunks and the leaf-strewn earth beneath. Out of the woods came a sudden +medley of bird notes, clear, sweet, and inexpressibly joyous.</p> + +<p>"That is a mockingbird," said Haward. "I once heard one of a moonlight +night, beside a still water"—</p> + +<p>He broke off, and they listened in silence. The bird flew away, and they +came to a brook traversing the road, and flowing in wide meanders through +the forest. There were stepping-stones, and Haward, crossing first, turned +and held out his hand to the lady. When she was upon his side of the +streamlet, and before he released the slender fingers, he bent and kissed +them; then, as there was no answering smile or blush, but only a quiet +withdrawal of the hand and a remark about the crystal clearness of the +brook, looked at her, with interrogation in his smile.</p> + +<p>"What is that crested bird upon yonder bough," she asked,—"the one that +gave the piercing cry?"</p> + +<p>"A kingfisher," he answered, "and cousin to the halcyon of the ancients. +If, when next you go to sea, you take its feathers with you, you need have +no fear of storms."</p> + +<p>A tree, leafless, but purplish pink with bloom, leaned from the bank above +them. He broke a branch and gave it to her. "It is the Judas-tree," he +told her. "Iscariot hanged himself thereon."</p> + +<p>Around the trunk of a beech a lizard ran like a green flame, and they +heard the distant barking of a fox. Large white butterflies went past +them, and a hummingbird whirred into the heart of a wild honeysuckle that +had hasted to bloom. "How different from the English forests!" she said. +"I could love these best. What are all those broad-leaved plants with the +white, waxen flowers?"</p> + +<p>"May-apples. Some call them mandrakes, but they do not rise shrieking, nor +kill the wight that plucks them. Will you have me gather them for you?"</p> + +<p>"I will not trouble you," she answered, and presently turned aside to pull +them for herself.</p> + +<p>He looked at the graceful, bending figure and lifted his brows; then, +quickening his pace until he was up with the coach, he spoke to the negro +upon the box. "Tyre, drive on to that big pine, and wait there for your +mistress and me. Sidon,"—to the footman,—"get down and take my horse. If +your master wakes, tell him that Mistress Evelyn tired of the coach, and +that I am picking her a nosegay."</p> + +<p>Tyre and Sidon, Haward's steed, the four black coach horses, the +vermilion-and-cream coach, and the slumbering Colonel, all made a progress +of an hundred yards to the pine-tree, where the cortége came to a halt. +Mistress Evelyn looked up from the flower-gathering to find the road bare +before her, and Haward, sitting upon a log, watching her with something +between a smile and a frown.</p> + +<p>"You think that I, also, weigh true love by the weight of the purse," he +said. "I do not care overmuch for your gold, Evelyn."</p> + +<p>She did not answer at once, but stood with her head slightly bent, +fingering the waxen flowers with a delicate, lingering touch. Now that +there was no longer the noise of the wheels and the horses' hoofs, the +forest stillness, which is composed of sound, made itself felt. The call +of birds, the whir of insects, the murmur of the wind in the treetops, +low, grave, incessant, and eternal as the sound of the sea, joined +themselves to the slow waves of fragrance, the stretch of road whereon +nothing moved, the sunlight lying on the earth, and made a spacious quiet.</p> + +<p>"I think that there is nothing for which you care overmuch," she said at +last. "Not for gold or the lack of it, not for friends or for enemies, not +even for yourself."</p> + +<p>"I have known you for many years," he answered. "I have watched you grow +from a child into a gracious and beautiful woman. Do you not think that I +care for you, Evelyn?"</p> + +<p>Near where he sat so many violets were blooming that they made a purple +carpet for the ground. Going over to them, she knelt and began to pluck +them. "If any danger threatened me," she began, in her clear, low voice, +"I believe that you would step between me and it, though at the peril of +your life. I believe that you take some pleasure in what you are pleased +to style my beauty, some pride in a mind that you have largely formed. If +I died early, it would grieve you for a little while. I call you my +friend."</p> + +<p>"I would be called your lover," he said.</p> + +<p>She laid her fan upon the ground, heaped it with violets, and turned again +to her reaping. "How might that be," she asked, "when you do not love me? +I knew that you would marry me. What do the French call it,—<i>mariage de +convenance</i>?"</p> + +<p>Her voice was even, and her head was bent so that he could not see her +face. In the pause that followed her words treetop whispered to treetop, +but the sunshine lay very still and bright upon the road and upon the +flowers by the wayside.</p> + +<p>"There are worse marriages," Haward said at last. Rising from the log, he +moved to the side of the kneeling figure. "Let the violets rest, Evelyn, +while we reason together. You are too clear-eyed. Since they offend you, +I will drop the idle compliments, the pretty phrases, in which neither of +us believes. What if this tinted dream of love does not exist for us? What +if we are only friends—dear and old friends"—</p> + +<p>He stooped, and, taking her by the busy hands, made her stand up beside +him. "Cannot we marry and still be friends?" he demanded, with something +like laughter in his eyes. "My dear, I would strive to make you happy; and +happiness is as often found in that temperate land where we would dwell as +in Love's flaming climate." He smiled and tried to find her eyes, downcast +and hidden in the shadow of her hat. "This is no flowery wooing such as +women love," he said; "but then you are like no other woman. Always the +truth was best with you."</p> + +<p>Upon her wrenching her hands from his, and suddenly and proudly raising +her head, he was amazed to find her white to the lips.</p> + +<p>"The truth!" she said slowly. "Always the truth was best! Well, then, take +the truth, and afterwards and forever and ever leave me alone! You have +been frank; why should not I, who, you say, am like no other woman, be so, +too? I will not marry you, because—because"—The crimson flowed over her +face and neck; then ebbed, leaving her whiter than before. She put her +hands, that still held the wild flowers, to her breast, and her eyes, dark +with pain, met his. "Had you loved me," she said proudly and quietly, "I +had been happy."</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/58.jpg"><img src="./images/58-tb.jpg" alt=""HAD YOU LOVED ME—I HAD BEEN HAPPY"" title=""HAD YOU LOVED ME—I HAD BEEN HAPPY""></a></p><p class="figcenter">"HAD YOU LOVED ME—I HAD BEEN HAPPY"</p> + +<p>Haward stepped backwards until there lay between them a strip of sunny +earth. The murmur of the wind went on and the birds were singing, and yet +the forest seemed more quiet than death. "I could not guess," he said, +speaking slowly and with his eyes upon the ground. "I have spoken like a +brute. I beg your pardon."</p> + +<p>"You might have known! you might have guessed!" she cried, with passion. +"But, you walk an even way; you choose nor high nor low; you look deep +into your mind, but your heart you keep cool and vacant. Oh, a very +temperate land! I think that others less wise than you may also be less +blind. Never speak to me of this day! Let it die as these blooms are dying +in this hot sunshine! Now let us walk to the coach and waken my father. I +have gathered flowers enough."</p> + +<p>Side by side, but without speaking, they moved from shadow to sunlight, +and from sunlight to shadow, down the road to the great pine-tree. The +white and purple flowers lay in her hand and along her bended arm; from +the folds of her dress, of some rich and silken stuff, chameleon-like in +its changing colors, breathed the subtle fragrance of the perfume then +most in fashion; over the thin lawn that half revealed, half concealed +neck and bosom was drawn a long and glossy curl, carefully let to escape +from the waved and banded hair beneath the gypsy hat. Exquisite from head +to foot, the figure had no place in the unpruned, untrained, savage, and +primeval beauty of those woods. Smooth sward, with jets of water and +carven nymphs embowered in clipped box or yew, should have been its +setting, and not this wild and tangled growth, this license of bird and +beast and growing things. And yet the incongruous riot, the contrast of +profuse, untended beauty, enhanced the value of the picture, gave it +piquancy and a completer charm.</p> + +<p>When they were within a few feet of the coach and horses and negroes, all +drowsing in the sunny road, Haward made as if to speak, but she stopped +him with her lifted hand. "Spare me," she begged. "It is bad enough as it +is, but words would make it worse. If ever a day might come—I do not +think that I am unlovely; I even rate myself so highly as to think that I +am worthy of your love. If ever the day shall come when you can say to me, +'Now I see that love is no tinted dream; now I ask you to be my wife +indeed,' then, upon that day—But until then ask not of me what you asked +back there among the violets. I, too, am proud"—Her voice broke.</p> + +<p>"Evelyn!" he cried. "Poor child—poor friend"—</p> + +<p>She turned her face upon him. "Don't!" she said, and her lips were +smiling, though her eyes were full of tears. "We have forgot that it is +May Day, and that we must be light of heart. Look how white is that +dogwood-tree! Break me a bough for my chimney-piece at Williamsburgh."</p> + +<p>He brought her a branch of the starry blossoms. "Did you notice," she +asked, "that the girl who ran—Audrey—wore dogwood in her hair? You could +see her heart beat with very love of living. She was of the woods, like a +dryad. Had the prizes been of my choosing, she should have had a gift more +poetical than a guinea."</p> + +<p>Haward opened the coach door, and stood gravely aside while she entered +the vehicle and took her seat, depositing her flowers upon the cushions +beside her. The Colonel stirred, uncrossed his legs, yawned, pulled the +handkerchief from his face, and opened his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Faith!" he exclaimed, straightening himself, and taking up his radiant +humor where, upon falling-asleep, he had let it drop. "The way must have +suddenly become smooth as a road in Venice, for I've felt no jolting this +half hour. Flowers, Evelyn? and Haward afoot? You've been on a woodland +saunter, then, while I enacted Solomon's sluggard!" The worthy parent's +eyes began to twinkle. "What flowers did you find? They have strange +blooms here, and yet I warrant that even in these woods one might come +across London pride and none-so-pretty and forget-me-not"—</p> + +<p>His daughter smiled, and asked him some idle question about the May-apple +and the Judas-tree. The master of Westover was a treasure house of +sprightly lore. Within ten minutes he had visited Palestine, paid his +compliments to the ancient herbalists, and landed again in his own coach, +to find in his late audience a somewhat <i>distraite</i> daughter and a friend +in a brown study. The coach was lumbering on toward Williamsburgh, and +Haward, with level gaze and hand closed tightly upon his horse's reins, +rode by the window, while the lady, sitting in her corner with downcast +eyes, fingered the dogwood blooms that were not paler than her face.</p> + +<p>The Colonel's wits were keen. One glance, a lift of his arched brows, the +merest ghost of a smile, and, dragging the younger man with him, he +plunged into politics. Invective against a refractory House of Burgesses +brought them a quarter of a mile upon their way; the necessity for an act +to encourage adventurers in iron works carried them past a milldam; and +frauds in the customs enabled them to reach a crossroads ordinary, where +the Colonel ordered a halt, and called for a tankard of ale. A slipshod, +blue-eyed Cherry brought it, and spoke her thanks in broad Scotch for the +shilling which the gay Colonel flung tinkling into the measure.</p> + +<p>That versatile and considerate gentleman, having had his draught, cried to +the coachman to go on, and was beginning upon the question of the militia, +when Haward, who had dismounted, appeared at the coach door. "I do not +think that I will go on to Williamsburgh with you, sir," he said. "There's +some troublesome business with my overseer that ought not to wait. If I +take this road and the planter's pace, I shall reach Fair View by sunset. +You do not return to Westover this week? Then I shall see you at +Williamsburgh within a day or two. Evelyn, good-day."</p> + +<p>Her hand lay upon the cushion nearest him. He would have taken it in his +own, as for years he had done when he bade her good-by; but though she +smiled and gave him "Good-day" in her usual voice, she drew the hand away. +The Colonel's eyebrows went up another fraction of an inch, but he was a +discreet gentleman who had bought experience. Skillfully unobservant, his +parting words were at once cordial and few in number; and after Haward had +mounted and had turned into the side road, he put his handsome, periwigged +head out of the coach window and called to him some advice about the +transplanting of tobacco. This done, and the horseman out of sight, and +the coach once more upon its leisurely way to Williamsburgh, the model +father pulled out of his pocket a small book, and, after affectionately +advising his daughter to close her eyes and sleep out the miles to +Williamsburgh, himself retired with Horace to the Sabine farm.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br>THE STOREKEEPER</h2> + + +<p>It was now late afternoon, the sun's rays coming slantingly into the +forest, and the warmth of the day past and gone. To Haward, riding at a +gallop down the road that was scarce more than a bridle path, the rush of +the cool air was grateful; the sharp striking of protruding twigs, the +violent brushing aside of hanging vines, not unwelcome.</p> + +<p>It was of the man that the uppermost feeling in his mind was one of +disgust at his late infelicity of speech, and at the blindness which had +prompted it. That he had not divined, that he had been so dull as to +assume that as he felt, or did not feel, so must she, annoyed him like the +jar of rude noises or like sand blowing into face and eyes. It was of him, +too, that the annoyance was purely with himself; for her, when at last he +came to think of her, he found only the old, placid affection, as far +removed from love as from hate. If he knew himself, it would always be as +far removed from love as from hate.</p> + +<p>All the days of her youth he had come and gone, a welcome guest at her +father's house in London. He had grown to be her friend, watching the +crescent beauty of face and mind with something of the pride and +tenderness which a man might feel for a young and favorite sister; and +then, at last, when some turn of affairs sent them all home to Virginia +to take lot and part there, he had thought of marriage.</p> + +<p>His mind had turned, not unwillingly, from the town and its apples of +Sodom to his Virginia plantation that he had not seen for more than ten +years. It was his birthplace, and there he had spent his boyhood. +Sometimes, in heated rooms, when the candles in the sconces were guttering +down, and the dawn looked palely in upon gaming tables and heaped gold, +and seamed faces, haggardly triumphant, haggardly despairing, determinedly +indifferent, there had come to him visions of cool dawns upon the river, +wide, misty expanses of marsh and forest, indistinct and cold and pure. +The lonely "great house," too,—the house which his father had built with +so much love and pains, that his son and his son's sons should have a +worthy home,—appealed to him, and the garden, and the fishing-boats, and +the old slaves in the quarters. He told himself that he was glad to go +back.</p> + +<p>Had men called him ambitious, he would have smiled, and felt truly that +they had bungled in the word. Such and such things were simply his +appurtenances; in London, the regard due to a gentleman who to a certain +distinction in his manner of amusing himself added the achievement of a +successful comedy, three lampoons quoted at all London tea-tables, and a +piece of Whig invective, so able, stern, and sustained that many cried +that the Dean had met his match; in Virginia, the deferential esteem of +the colony at large, a place in the Council, and a great estate. An +alliance with the master of Westover was in itself a desirable thing, +advantageous to purse and to credit; his house must have a mistress, and +that mistress must please at every point his fastidious taste.</p> + +<p>What better to do than to give it for Mistress Evelyn Byrd? Evelyn, who +had had for all her suitors only a slow smile and shake of the head; +Evelyn, who was older than her years; Evelyn, who was his friend as he was +hers. Love! He had left that land behind, and she had never touched its +shores; the geography of the poets to the contrary, it did not lie in the +course of all who passed through life. He made his suit, and now he had +his answer.</p> + +<p>If he did not take trouble to wonder at her confession, or to modestly ask +himself how he had deserved her love, neither did he insult her with pity +or with any lightness of thought. Nor was he ready to believe that his +rejection was final. Apparently indifferent as he was, it was yet his way +to move steadily and relentlessly, if very quietly, toward what goal he +desired to reach. He thought that Fair View might yet call Evelyn Byrd its +mistress.</p> + +<p>Since turning into the crossroad that, running south and east, would take +him back to the banks of the James and to his own house, he had not +slackened speed, but now, as he saw through the trees before him a long +zigzag of rail fence, he drew rein. The road turned, and a gate barred his +way. When he had opened it and passed through, he was upon his own land.</p> + +<p>He had ridden off his irritation, and could now calmly tell himself that +the blunder was made and over with, and that it was the duty of the +philosopher to remember it only in so far as it must shape his future +course. His house of cards had toppled over; but the profound +indifferentism of his nature enabled him to view the ruins with composure. +After a while he would build the house again. The image of Evelyn, as she +had stood, dark-eyed and pale, with the flowers pressed to her bosom, he +put from him. He knew her strength of soul; and with the curious hardness +of the strong toward the strong, and also not without the delicacy which, +upon occasion, he could both feel and exhibit, he shut the door upon that +hour in the forest.</p> + +<p>He had left the woods, and was now riding through a field of newly planted +tobacco. It and the tobacco house in the midst of it were silent, +deserted, bathed in the late sunshine. The ground rose slightly, and when +he had mounted with it he saw below him the huddle of cabins which formed +the ridge quarter, and winding down to it a string of negroes. One turned +his head, and saw the solitary horseman upon the summit of the slope +behind him; another looked, and another, until each man in line had his +head over his shoulder. They knew that the horseman was their master. Some +had been upon the plantation when he was a boy; others were more recent +acquisitions who knew not his face; but alike they grinned and ducked. The +white man walking beside the line took off his hat and pulled a forelock. +Haward raised his hand that they might know he saw, and rode on.</p> + +<p>Another piece of woods where a great number of felled trees cumbered the +ground, more tobacco, and then, in worn fields where the tobacco had been, +knee-deep wheat rippling in the evening breeze. The wheat ran down to a +marsh, and to a wide, slow creek that, save in the shadow of its reedy +banks, was blue as the sky above. Haward, riding slowly beside his green +fields and still waters, noted with quiet, half-regretful pleasure this or +that remembered feature of the landscape. There had been little change. +Here, where he remembered deep woods, tobacco was planted; there, where +the tobacco had been, were now fields of wheat or corn, or wild tangles of +vine-rid saplings and brushwood: but for this it might have been yesterday +that he had last ridden that way.</p> + +<p>Presently he saw the river, and then the marshes with brown dots that were +his cattle straying over them, and beyond these the home landing and the +masts of the Golden Rose. The sun was near its setting; the men had left +the fields; over all things were the stillness and peace, the encroaching +shadows, the dwindling light, so golden in its quality, of late afternoon. +When he crossed the bridge over the creek, the hollow sound that the +boards gave forth beneath his horse's hoofs had the depth and resonance of +drumbeats, and the cry of a solitary heron in the marsh seemed louder than +its wont. He passed the rolling-house and drew near to the river, riding +again through tobacco. These plants were Oronoko; the mild sweet-scented +took the higher ground. Along the river bank grew a row of tall and +stately trees: passing beneath them, he saw the shining water between +brown columns or through a veil of slight, unfolding leaves. Soon the +trees fell away, and he came to a stretch of bank,—here naked earth, +there clad in grass and dewberry vines. Near by was a small landing, with +several boats fastened to its piles; and at a little distance beyond it, +shadowed by a locust-tree, a strongly built, two-roomed wooden house, with +the earth around it trodden hard and bare, and with two or three benches +before its open door. Haward recognized the store which his father—after +the manner of his kind, merchant and trader as well as planter and maker +of laws—had built, and which, through his agent in Virginia, he had +maintained.</p> + +<p>Before one of the benches a man was kneeling with his back to Haward, who +could only see that his garb was that of a servant, and that his hands +were busily moving certain small objects this way and that upon the board. +At the edge of the space of bare earth were a horse-block and a +hitching-post. Haward rode up to them, dismounted, and fastened his horse, +then walked over to the man at the bench.</p> + +<p>So intent was the latter upon his employment that he heard neither horse +nor rider. He had some shells, a few bits of turf, and a double handful of +sand, and he was arranging these trifles upon the rough, unpainted boards +in a curious and intricate pattern. He was a tall man, with hair that was +more red than brown, and he was dressed in a shirt of dowlas, leather +breeches, and coarse plantation-made shoes and stockings.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing?" asked Haward, after a moment's silent watching of +the busy fingers and intent countenance.</p> + +<p>There was no start of awakened consciousness upon the other's part. "Why," +he said, as if he had asked the question of himself, "with this sand I +have traced the shores of Loch-na-Keal. This turf is green Ulva, and this +is Gometra, and the shell is Little Colonsay. With this wet sand I have +moulded Ben Grieg, and this higher pile is Ben More. If I had but a sprig +of heather, now, or a pebble from the shore of Scridain!"</p> + +<p>The voice, while harsh, was not disagreeably so, and neither the words nor +the manner of using them smacked of the rustic.</p> + +<p>"And where are Loch-na-Keal and Ulva and Scridain?" demanded Haward. +"Somewhere in North Britain, I presume?"</p> + +<p>The second question broke the spell. The man glanced over his shoulder, +saw that he was not alone, and with one sweep of his hand blotting loch +and island and mountain out of existence, rose to his feet, and opposed to +Haward's gaze a tall, muscular frame, high features slightly pockmarked, +and keen dark blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"I was dreaming, and did not hear you," he said, civilly enough. "It's not +often that any one comes to the store at this time of day. What d' ye +lack?"</p> + +<p>As he spoke he moved toward the doorway, through which showed shelves and +tables piled with the extraordinary variety of goods which were deemed +essential to the colonial trade. "Are you the storekeeper?" asked Haward, +keeping pace with the other's long stride.</p> + +<p>"It's the name they call me by," answered the man curtly; then, as he +chanced to turn his eyes upon the landing, his tone changed, and a smile +irradiated his countenance. "Here comes a customer," he remarked, "that'll +make you bide your turn."</p> + +<p>A boat, rowed by a young boy and carrying a woman, had slipped out of the +creek, and along the river bank to the steps of the landing. When they +were reached, the boy sat still, the oars resting across his knees, and +his face upturned to a palace beautiful of pearl and saffron cloud; but +the woman mounted the steps, and, crossing the boards, came up to the door +and the men beside it. Her dress was gray and unadorned, and she was young +and of a quiet loveliness.</p> + +<p>"Mistress Truelove Taberer," said the storekeeper, "what can you choose, +this May Day, that's so fair as yourself?"</p> + +<p>A pair of gray eyes were lifted for the sixth part of a second, and a +voice that bad learned of the doves in the forest proceeded to rebuke the +flatterer. "Thee is idle in thy speech, Angus MacLean," it declared. "I am +not fair; nor, if I were, should thee tell me of it. Also, friend, it is +idle and tendeth toward idolatry to speak of the first day of the fifth +month as May Day. My mother sent me for a paper of White-chapel needles, +and two of manikin pins. Has thee them in thy store of goods?"</p> + +<p>"Come you in and look for yourself," said the storekeeper. "There's +woman's gear enough, but it were easier for me to recount the names of all +the children of Gillean-ni-Tuaidhe than to remember how you call the +things you wear."</p> + +<p>So saying he entered the store. The Quakeress followed, and Haward, tired +of his own thoughts, and in the mood to be amused by trifles, trod in +their footsteps.</p> + +<p>Door and window faced the west, and the glow from the sinking sun +illumined the thousand and one features of the place. Here was the glint +of tools and weapons; there pewter shone like silver, and brass dazzled +the eyes. Bales of red cotton, blue linen, flowered Kidderminster, scarlet +serge, gold and silver drugget, all sorts of woven stuffs from lockram to +brocade, made bright the shelves. Pendent skins of buck and doe showed +like brown satin, while looking-glasses upon the wall reflected green +trees and painted clouds. In one dark corner lurked kegs of powder and of +shot; another was the haunt of aqua vitæ and right Jamaica. +Playing-cards, snuffboxes, and fringed gloves elbowed a shelf of books, +and a full-bottomed wig ogled a lady's headdress of ribbon and malines. +Knives and hatchets and duffel blankets for the Indian trade were not +wanting.</p> + +<p>Haward, leaning against a table laden with so singular a miscellany that a +fine saddle with crimson velvet holsters took the head of the board, while +the foot was set with blue and white china, watched the sometime moulder +of peak and islet draw out a case filled with such small and womanish +articles as pins and needles, tape and thread, and place it before his +customer. She made her choice, and the storekeeper brought a great book, +and entered against the head of the house of Taberer so many pounds of +tobacco; then, as the maiden turned to depart, heaved a sigh so piteous +and profound that no tender saint in gray could do less than pause, half +turn her head, and lift two compassionate eyes.</p> + +<p>"Mistress Truelove, I have read the good book that you gave me, and I +cannot deny that I am much beholden to you," and her debtor sighed like a +furnace.</p> + +<p>The girl's quiet face flushed to the pink of a seashell, and her eyes grew +eager.</p> + +<p>"Then does thee not see the error of thy ways, Angus MacLean? If it should +be given me to pluck thee as a brand from the burning! Thee will not again +brag of war and revenge, nor sing vain and ruthless songs, nor use dice or +cards, nor will thee swear any more?"</p> + +<p>The voice was persuasion's own. "May I be set overtide on the Lady's Rock, +or spare a false Campbell when I meet him, or throw up my cap for the +damned Hogan Mogan that sits in Jamie's place, if I am not entirely +convert!" cried the neophyte. "Oh, the devil! what have I said? Mistress +Truelove—Truelove"—</p> + +<p>But Truelove was gone,—not in anger or in haste, for that would have been +unseemly, but quietly and steadily, with no looking back. The storekeeper, +leaping over a keg of nails that stood in the way, made for the door, and +together with Haward, who was already there, watched her go. The path to +the landing and the boat was short; she had taken her seat, and the boy +had bent to the oars, while the unlucky Scot was yet alternately calling +out protestations of amendment and muttering maledictions upon his +unguarded tongue. The canoe slipped from the rosy, unshadowed water into +the darkness beneath the overhanging trees, reached the mouth of the +creek, and in a moment disappeared from sight.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br>MASTER AND MAN</h2> + + +<p>The two men, left alone, turned each toward the interior of the store, and +their eyes met. Alike in gray eyes and in dark blue there was laughter. +"Kittle folk, the Quakers," said the storekeeper, with a shrug, and went +to put away his case of pins and needles. Haward, going to the end of the +store, found a row of dusty bottles, and breaking the neck of one with a +report like that of a pistol set the Madeira to his lips, and therewith +quenched his thirst. The wine cellar abutted upon the library. Taking off +his riding glove he ran his finger along the bindings, and plucking forth +The History of a Coy Lady looked at the first page, read the last +paragraph, and finally thrust the thin brown and gilt volume into his +pocket. Turning, he found himself face to face with the storekeeper.</p> + +<p>"I have not the honor of knowing your name, sir," remarked the latter +dryly. "Do you buy at this store, and upon whose account?"</p> + +<p>Haward shook his head, and applied himself again to the Madeira.</p> + +<p>"Then you carry with you coin of the realm with which to settle?" +continued the other. "The wine is two shillings; the book you may have for +twelve-pence."</p> + +<p>"Here I need not pay, good fellow," said Haward negligently, his eyes +upon a row of dangling objects. "Fetch me down yonder cane; 't is as +delicately tapered and clouded as any at the Exchange."</p> + +<p>"Pay me first for the wine and the book," answered the man composedly. +"It's a dirty business enough, God knows, for a gentleman to put finger +to; but since needs must when the devil drives, and he has driven me here, +why, I, Angus MacLean, who have no concerns of my own, must e'en be +faithful to the concerns of another. Wherefore put down the silver you owe +the Sassenach whose wine you have drunken and whose book you have taken."</p> + +<p>"And if I do not choose to pay?" asked Haward, with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Then you must e'en choose to fight," was the cool reply. "And as I +observe that you wear neither sword nor pistols, and as jack boots and a +fine tight-buttoned riding coat are not the easiest clothes to wrestle in, +it appears just possible that I might win the cause."</p> + +<p>"And when you've thrown me, what then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I would just draw a rope around you and yonder cask of Jamaica, and +leave you to read your stolen book in peace until Saunderson (that's the +overseer, and he's none so bad if he was born in Fife) shall come. You can +have it out with him; or maybe he'll hale you before the man that owns the +store. I hear they expect him home."</p> + +<p>Haward laughed, and abstracting another bottle from the shelf broke its +neck. "Hand me yonder cup," he said easily, "and we'll drink to his +home-coming. Good fellow, I am Mr. Marmaduke Haward, and I am glad to find +so honest a man in a place of no small trust. Long absence and somewhat +too complaisant a reference of all my Virginian affairs to my agent have +kept me much in ignorance of the economy of my plantation. How long have +you been my storekeeper?"</p> + +<p>Neither cup for the wine nor answer to the question being forthcoming, +Haward looked up from his broken bottle. The man was standing with his +body bent forward and his hand pressed against the wood of a great cask +behind him until the finger-nails showed white. His head was high, his +face dark red and angry, his brows drawn down until the gleaming eyes +beneath were like pin points.</p> + +<p>So sudden and so sinister was the change that Haward was startled. The +hour was late, the place deserted; as the man had discovered, he had no +weapons, nor, strong, active, and practiced as he was, did he flatter +himself that he could withstand the length of brawn and sinew before him. +Involuntarily, he stepped backward until there was a space between them, +casting at the same moment a glance toward the wall where hung axe and +knife and hatchet.</p> + +<p>The man intercepted the look, and broke into a laugh. The sound was harsh +and gibing, but not menacing. "You need not be afraid," he said. "I do not +want the feel of a rope around my neck,—though God knows why I should +care! Here is no clansman of mine, and no cursed Campbell either, to see +my end!"</p> + +<p>"I am not afraid," Haward answered calmly. Walking to the shelf that held +an array of drinking vessels, he took two cups, filled them with wine, and +going back to his former station, set one upon the cask beside the +storekeeper. "The wine is good," he said. "Will you drink?"</p> + +<p>The other loosened the clasp of his hand upon the wood and drew himself +upright. "I eat the bread and drink the water which you give your +servants," he answered, speaking with the thickness of hardly restrained +passion. "The wine cup goes from equal to equal."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he took up the peace offering, eyed it for a moment with a +bitter smile, then flung it with force over his shoulder. The earthen +floor drank the wine; the china shivered into a thousand fragments. "I +have neither silver nor tobacco with which to pay for my pleasure," +continued the still smiling storekeeper. "When I am come to the end of my +term, then, an it please you, I will serve out the damage."</p> + +<p>Haward sat down upon a keg of powder, crossed his knees, and, with his +chin upon his hand, looked from between the curled lengths of his periwig +at the figure opposite. "I am glad to find that in Virginia, at least, +there is honesty," he said dryly. "I will try to remember the cost of the +cup and the wine against the expiry of your indenture. In the mean time, I +am curious to know why you are angry with me whom you have never seen +before to-day."</p> + +<p>With the dashing of the wine to earth the other's passion had apparently +spent itself. The red slowly left his face, and he leaned at ease against +the cask, drumming upon its head with his fingers. The sunlight, shrinking +from floor and wall, had left but a single line of gold. In the half light +strange and sombre shapes possessed the room; through the stillness, +beneath the sound of the tattoo upon the cask head, the river made itself +heard.</p> + +<p>"For ten years and more you have been my—master," said the storekeeper. +"It is a word for which I have an invincible distaste. It is not +well—having neither love nor friendship to put in its place—to let +hatred die. When I came first to this slavery, I hated all Campbells, all +Whigs, Forster that betrayed us at Preston, and Ewin Mor Mackinnon. But +the years have come and the years have gone, and I am older than I was at +twenty-five. The Campbells I can never reach: they walk secure, overseas, +through Lorn and Argyle, couching in the tall heather above Etive, +tracking the red deer in the Forest of Dalness. Forster is dead. Ewin +Mackinnon is dead, I know; for five years ago come Martinmas night I saw +his perjured soul on its way to hell. All the world is turning Whig. A man +may hate the world, it is true, but he needs a single foe."</p> + +<p>"And in that capacity you have adopted me?" demanded Haward.</p> + +<p>MacLean let his gaze travel over the man opposite him, from the looped hat +and the face between the waves of hair to the gilt spurs upon the great +boots; then turned his eyes upon his own hand and coarsely clad arm +stretched across the cask. "I, too, am a gentleman, the brother of a +chieftain," he declared. "I am not without schooling. I have seen +something of life, and of countries more polite than the land where I was +born, though not so dear. I have been free, and have loved my freedom. Do +you find it so strange that I should hate you?"</p> + +<p>There was a silence; then, "Upon my soul, I do not know that I do," said +Haward slowly. "And yet, until this day I did not know of your existence."</p> + +<p>"But I knew of yours," answered the storekeeper. "Your agent hath an +annoying trick of speech, and the overseers have caught it from him. 'Your +master' this, and 'your master' that; in short, for ten years it hath +been, 'Work, you dog, that your master may play!' Well, I have worked; it +was that, or killing myself, or going mad. I have worked for you in the +fields, in the smithy, in this close room. But when you bought my body, +you could not buy my soul. Day after day, and night after night, I sent it +away; I would not let it bide in these dull levels, in this cursed land of +heat and stagnant waters. At first it went home to its own country,—to +its friends and its foes, to the torrent and the mountain and the music of +the pipes; but at last the pain outweighed the pleasure, and I sent it +there no more. And then it began to follow you."</p> + +<p>"To follow me!" involuntarily exclaimed Haward.</p> + +<p>"I have been in London," went on the other, without heeding the +interruption. "I know the life of men of quality, and where they most +resort. I early learned from your other servants, and from the chance +words of those who had your affairs in charge, that you were young, +well-looking, a man of pleasure. At first when I thought of you the blood +came into my cheek, but at last I thought of you constantly, and I felt +for you a constant hatred. It began when I knew that Ewin Mackinnon was +dead. I had no need of love; I had need of hate. Day after day, my body +slaving here, my mind has dogged your footsteps. Up and down, to and fro, +in business and in pleasure, in whatever place I have imagined you to be, +there have I been also. Did you never, when there seemed none by, look +over your shoulder, feeling another presence than your own?"</p> + +<p>He ceased to speak, and the hand upon the cask was still. The sunshine was +clean gone from the room, and without the door the wind in the +locust-tree answered the voice of the river. Haward rose from his seat, +but made no further motion toward departing. "You have been frank," he +said quietly. "Had you it in mind, all this while, so to speak to me when +we should meet?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered the other. "I thought not of words, but of"—</p> + +<p>"But of deeds," Haward finished for him. "Rather, I imagine, of one deed."</p> + +<p>Composed as ever in voice and manner, he drew out his watch, and held it +aslant that the light might strike upon the dial. "'T is after six," he +remarked as he put it away, "and I am yet a mile from the house." The wine +that he had poured for himself had been standing, untouched, upon the keg +beside him. He took it up and drank it off; then wiped his lips with his +handkerchief, and passing the storekeeper with a slight inclination of his +head walked toward the door. A yard beyond the man who had so coolly shown +his side of the shield was a rude table, on which were displayed hatchets +and hunting knives. Haward passed the gleaming steel; then, a foot beyond +it, stood still, his face to the open door, and his back to the +storekeeper and the table with its sinister lading.</p> + +<p>"You do wrong to allow so much dust and disorder," he said sharply. "I +could write my name in that mirror, and there is a piece of brocade fallen +to the floor. Look to it that you keep the place more neat."</p> + +<p>There was dead silence for a moment; then MacLean spoke in an even voice: +"Now a fool might call you as brave as Hector. For myself, I only give you +credit for some knowledge of men. You are right. It is not my way to +strike in the back an unarmed man. When you are gone, I will wipe off the +mirror and pick up the brocade."</p> + +<p>He followed Haward outside. "It's a brave evening for riding," he +remarked, "and you have a bonny bit of horseflesh there. You'll get to the +house before candlelight."</p> + +<p>Beside one of the benches Haward made another pause. "You are a Highlander +and a Jacobite," he said. "From your reference to Forster, I gather that +you were among the prisoners taken at Preston and transported to +Virginia."</p> + +<p>"In the Elizabeth and Anne of Liverpool, <i>alias</i> a bit of hell afloat; the +master, Captain Edward Trafford, <i>alias</i> Satan's first mate," quoth the +other grimly.</p> + +<p>He stooped to the bench where lay the débris of the coast and mountains he +had been lately building, and picked up a small, deep shell. "My story is +short," he began. "It could be packed into this. I was born in the island +of Mull, of my father a chieftain, and my mother a lady. Some schooling I +got in Aberdeen, some pleasure in Edinburgh and London, and some service +abroad. In my twenty-third year—being at home at that time—I was asked +to a hunting match at Braemar, and went. No great while afterwards I was +bidden to supper at an Edinburgh tavern, and again I accepted the +invitation. There was a small entertainment to follow the supper,—just +the taking of Edinburgh Castle. But the wine was good, and we waited to +powder our hair, and the entertainment could hardly be called a success. +Hard upon that convivial evening, I, with many others, was asked across +the Border to join a number of gentlemen who drank to the King after our +fashion, and had a like fancy for oak boughs and white roses. The weather +was pleasant, the company of the best, the roads very noble after our +Highland sheep tracks. Together with our English friends, and enlivened by +much good claret and by music of bagpipe and drum, we strolled on through +a fine, populous country until we came to a town called Preston, where we +thought we would tarry for a day or two. However, circumstances arose +which detained us somewhat longer. (I dare say you have heard the story?) +When finally we took our leave, some of us went to heaven, some to hell, +and some to Barbadoes and Virginia. I was among those dispatched to +Virginia, and to all intents and purposes I died the day I landed. There, +the shell is full!"</p> + +<p>He tossed it from him, and going to the hitching-post loosed Haward's +horse. Haward took the reins from his hand. "It hath been ten years and +more since Virginia got her share of the rebels taken at Preston. If I +remember aright, their indentures were to be made for seven years. Why, +then, are you yet in my service?"</p> + +<p>MacLean laughed. "I ran away," he replied pleasantly, "and when I was +caught I made off a second time. I wonder that you planters do not have a +Society for the Encouragement of Runaways. Seeing that they are nearly +always retaken, and that their escapades so lengthen their term of +service, it would surely be to your advantage! There are yet several years +in which I am to call you master."</p> + +<p>He laughed again, but the sound was mirthless, and the eyes beneath the +half-closed lids were harder than steel. Haward mounted his horse and +gathered up the reins. "I am not responsible for the laws of the realm," +he said calmly, "nor for rebellions and insurrections, nor for the +practice of transporting overseas those to whom have been given the ugly +names of 'rebel' and 'traitor.' Destiny that set you there put me here. We +are alike pawns; what the player means we have no way of telling. Curse +Fate and the gods, if you choose,—and find that your cursing does small +good,—but regard me with indifference, as one neither more nor less the +slave of circumstances than yourself. It has been long since I went this +way. Is there yet the path by the river?"</p> + +<p>"Ay," answered the other. "It is your shortest road."</p> + +<p>"Then I will be going," said Haward. "It grows late, and I am not looked +for before to-morrow. Good-night."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he raised his hat and bowed to the gentleman from whom he was +parting. That rebel to King George gave a great start; then turned very +red, and shot a piercing glance at the man on horseback. The latter's mien +was composed as ever, and, with his hat held beneath his arm and his body +slightly inclined, he was evidently awaiting a like ceremony of +leave-taking on the storekeeper's part. MacLean drew a long breath, +stepped back a pace or two, and bowed to his equal. A second "Good-night," +and one gentleman rode off in the direction of the great house, while the +other went thoughtfully back to the store, got a cloth and wiped the dust +from the mirror.</p> + +<p>It was pleasant riding by the river in the cool evening wind, with the +colors of the sunset yet gay in sky and water. Haward went slowly, +glancing now at the great, bright stream, now at the wide, calm fields and +the rim of woodland, dark and distant, bounding his possessions. The smell +of salt marshes, of ploughed ground, of leagues of flowering forests, was +in his nostrils. Behind him was the crescent moon; before him a terrace +crowned with lofty trees. Within the ring of foliage was the house; even +as he looked a light sprang up in a high window, and shone like a star +through the gathering dusk. Below the hill the home landing ran its gaunt +black length far out into the carmine of the river; upon the Golden Rose +lights burned like lower stars; from a thicket to the left of the bridle +path sounded the call of a whippoorwill. A gust of wind blowing from the +bay made to waver the lanterns of the Golden Rose, broke and darkened the +coral peace of the river, and pushed rudely against the master of those +parts. Haward laid his hand upon his horse that he loved. "This is better +than the Ring, isn't it, Mirza?" he asked genially, and the horse whinnied +under his touch.</p> + +<p>The land was quite gray, the river pearl-colored, and the fireflies +beginning to sparkle, when he rode through the home gates. In the dusk of +the world, out of the deeper shadow of the surrounding trees, his house +looked grimly upon him. The light had been at the side; all the front was +stark and black with shuttered windows. He rode to the back of the house +and hallooed to the slaves in the home quarter, where were lights and +noisy laughter, and one deep voice singing in an unknown tongue.</p> + +<p>It was but a stone's throw to the nearest cabin, and Haward's call made +itself heard above the babel. The noise suddenly lessened, and two or +three negroes, starting up from the doorstep, hurried across the grass to +horse and rider. Quickly as they came, some one within the house was +beforehand with them. The door swung open; there was the flare of a +lighted candle, and a voice cried out to know what was wanted.</p> + +<p>"Wanted!" exclaimed Haward. "Ingress into my own house is wanted! Where is +Juba?"</p> + +<p>One of the negroes pressed forward. "Heah I is, Marse Duke! House all +ready for you, but you done sont word"—</p> + +<p>"I know,—I know," answered Haward impatiently. "I changed my mind. Is +that you, Saunderson, with the light? Or is it Hide?"</p> + +<p>The candle moved to one side, and there was disclosed a large white face +atop of a shambling figure dressed in some coarse, dark stuff. "Neither, +sir," said an expressionless voice. "Will it please your Honor to +dismount?"</p> + +<p>Haward swung himself out of the saddle, tossed the reins to a negro, and, +with Juba at his heels, climbed the five low stone steps and entered the +wide hall running through the house and broken only by the broad, winding +stairway. Save for the glimmer of the solitary candle all was in darkness; +the bare floor, the paneled walls, echoed to his tread. On either hand +squares of blackness proclaimed the open doors of large, empty rooms, and +down the stair came a wind that bent the weak flame. The negro took the +light from the hand of the man who had opened the door, and, pressing past +his master, lit three candles in a sconce upon the wall.</p> + +<p>"Yo' room's all ready, Marse Duke," he declared. "Dere's candles enough, +an' de fire am laid an' yo' bed aired. Ef you wan' some supper, I kin get +you bread an' meat, an' de wine was put in yesterday."</p> + +<p>Haward nodded, and taking the candle began to mount the stairs. Half way +up he found that the man in the sad-colored raiment was following him. He +raised his brows, but being in a taciturn humor, and having, moreover, to +shield the flame from the wind that drove down the stair, he said nothing, +going on in silence to the landing, and to the great eastward-facing room +that had been his father's, and which now he meant to make his own. There +were candles on the table, the dresser, and the mantelshelf. He lit them +all, and the room changed from a place of shadows and monstrous shapes to +a gentleman's bedchamber,—somewhat sparsely furnished, but of a +comfortable and cheerful aspect. A cloth lay upon the floor, the windows +were curtained, and the bed had fresh hangings of green and white +Kidderminster. Over the mantel hung a painting of Haward and his mother, +done when he was six years old. Beneath the laughing child and the smiling +lady, young and flower-crowned, were crossed two ancient swords. In the +middle of the room stood a heavy table, and pushed back, as though some +one had lately risen from it, was an armchair of Russian leather. Books +lay upon the table; one of them open, with a horn snuffbox keeping down +the leaf.</p> + +<p>Haward seated himself in the great chair, and looked around him with a +thoughtful and melancholy smile. He could not clearly remember his mother. +The rings upon her fingers and her silvery laughter were all that dwelt in +his mind, and now only the sound of that merriment floated back to him and +lingered in the room. But his father had died upon that bed, and beside +the dead man, between the candles at the head and the candles at the foot, +he had sat the night through. The curtains were half drawn, and in their +shadow his imagination laid again that cold, inanimate form. Twelve years +ago! How young he had been that night, and how old he had thought himself +as he watched beside the dead, chilled by the cold of the crossed hands, +awed by the silence, half frighted by the shadows on the wall; now filled +with natural grief, now with surreptitious and shamefaced thoughts of his +changed estate,—yesterday son and dependent, to-day heir and master! +Twelve years! The sigh and the smile were not for the dead father, but for +his own dead youth, for the unjaded freshness of the morning, for the +world that had been, once upon a time.</p> + +<p>Turning in his seat, his eyes fell upon the man who had followed him, and +who was now standing between the table and the door. "Well, friend?" he +demanded.</p> + +<p>The man came a step or two nearer. His hat was in his hand, and his body +was obsequiously bent, but there was no discomposure in his lifeless voice +and manner. "I stayed to explain my presence in the house, sir," he said. +"I am a lover of reading, and, knowing my weakness, your overseer, who +keeps the keys of the house, has been so good as to let me, from time to +time, come here to this room to mingle in more delectable company than I +can choose without these walls. Your Honor doubtless remembers yonder +goodly assemblage?" He motioned with his hand toward a half-opened door, +showing a closet lined with well-filled bookshelves.</p> + +<p>"I remember," replied Haward dryly. "So you come to my room alone at +night, and occupy yourself in reading? And when you are wearied you +refresh yourself with my wine?" As he spoke he clinked together the bottle +and glass that stood beside the books.</p> + +<p>"I plead guilty to the wine," answered the intruder, as lifelessly as +ever, "but it is my only theft. I found the bottle below, and did not +think it would be missed. I trust that your Honor does not grudge it to a +poor devil who tastes Burgundy somewhat seldomer than does your Worship. +And my being in the house is pure innocence. Your overseer knew that I +would neither make nor meddle with aught but the books, or he would not +have given me the key to the little door, which I now restore to your +Honor's keeping." He advanced, and deposited upon the table a large key.</p> + +<p>"What is your name?" demanded Haward, leaning back in his chair.</p> + +<p>"Bartholomew Paris, sir. I keep the school down by the swamp, where I +impart to fifteen or twenty of the youth of these parts the rudiments of +the ancient and modern tongues, mathematics, geography, fortifications, +navigation, philosophy"—</p> + +<p>Haward yawned, and the schoolmaster broke the thread of his discourse. "I +weary you, sir," he said. "I will, with your permission, take my +departure. May I make so bold as to beg your Honor that you will not +mention to the gentlemen hereabouts the small matter of this bottle of +wine? I would wish not to be prejudiced in the eyes of my patrons and +scholars."</p> + +<p>"I will think of it," Haward replied. "Come and take your snuffbox—if it +be yours—from the book where you have left it."</p> + +<p>"It is mine," said the man. "A present from the godly minister of this +parish."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he put out his hand to take the snuffbox. Haward leaned +forward, seized the hand, and, bending back the fingers, exposed the palm +to the light of the candles upon the table.</p> + +<p>"The other, if you please," he commanded.</p> + +<p>For a second—no longer—a wicked soul looked blackly out of the face to +which he had raised his eyes. Then the window shut, and the wall was blank +again. Without any change in his listless demeanor, the schoolmaster laid +his left hand, palm out, beside his right.</p> + +<p>"Humph!" exclaimed Haward. "So you have stolen before to-night? The marks +are old. When were you branded, and where?"</p> + +<p>"In Bristol, fifteen years ago," answered the man unblushingly. "It was +all a mistake. I was as innocent as a newborn babe"—</p> + +<p>"But unfortunately could not prove it," interrupted Haward. "That is of +course. Go on."</p> + +<p>"I was transported to South Carolina, and there served out my term. The +climate did not suit me, and I liked not the society, nor—being of a +peaceful disposition—the constant alarms of pirates and buccaneers. So +when I was once more my own man I traveled north to Virginia with a party +of traders. In my youth I had been an Oxford servitor, and schoolmasters +are in demand in Virginia. Weighed in the scales with a knowledge of the +humanities and some skill in imparting them, what matters a little mishap +with hot irons? My patrons are willing to let bygones be bygones. My +school flourishes like a green bay-tree, and the minister of this parish +will speak for the probity and sobriety of my conduct. Now I will go, +sir."</p> + +<p>He made an awkward but deep and obsequious reverence, turned and went out +of the door, passing Juba, who was entering with a salver laden with bread +and meat and a couple of bottles. "Put down the food, Juba," said Haward, +"and see this gentleman out of the house."</p> + +<p>An hour later the master dismissed the slave, and sat down beside the +table to finish the wine and compose himself for the night. The overseer +had come hurrying to the great house, to be sent home again by a message +from the owner thereof that to-morrow would do for business; the negro +women who had been called to make the bed were gone; the noises from the +quarter had long ceased, and the house was very still. In his rich, +figured Indian nightgown and his silken nightcap, Haward sat and drank his +wine, slowly, with long pauses between the emptying and the filling of the +slender, tall-stemmed glass. A window was open, and the wind blowing in +made the candles to flicker. With the wind came a murmur of leaves and the +wash of the river,—stealthy and mournful sounds that sorted not with the +lighted room, the cheerful homeliness of the flowered hangings, the +gleeful lady and child above the mantelshelf. Haward felt the incongruity: +a slow sea voyage, and a week in that Virginia which, settled one hundred +and twenty years before, was yet largely forest and stream, had weaned +him, he thought, from sounds of the street, and yet to-night he missed +them, and would have had the town again. When an owl hooted in the +walnut-tree outside his window, and in the distance, as far away as the +creek quarter, a dog howled, and the silence closed in again, he rose, and +began to walk to and fro, slowly, thinking of the past and the future. The +past had its ghosts,—not many; what spectres the future might raise only +itself could tell. So far as mortal vision went, it was a rose-colored +future; but on such a night of silence that was not silence, of +loneliness that was filled with still, small voices, of heavy darkness +without, of lights burning in an empty house, it was rather of ashes of +roses that one thought.</p> + +<p>Haward went to the open window, and with one knee upon the window seat +looked out into the windy, starlit night. This was the eastern face of the +house, and, beyond the waving trees, there were visible both the river and +the second and narrower creek which on this side bounded the plantation. +The voice with which the waters swept to the sea came strongly to him. A +large white moth sailed out of the darkness to the lit window, but his +presence scared it away.</p> + +<p>Looking through the walnut branches, he could see a light that burned +steadily, like a candle set in a window. For a moment he wondered whence +it shone; then he remembered that the glebe lands lay in that direction. +The parish was building a house for its new minister, when he left +Virginia, those many years ago. Suddenly he recalled that the +minister—who had seemed to him a bluff, downright, honest fellow—had +told him of a little room looking out upon an orchard, and had said that +it should be the child's.</p> + +<p>It was possible that the star which pierced the darkness might mark that +room. He knit his brows in an effort to remember when, before this day, he +had last thought of a child whom he had held in his arms and comforted, +one splendid dawn, upon a hilltop, in a mountainous region. He came to the +conclusion that he must have forgotten her quite six years ago. Well, she +would seem to have thriven under his neglect,—and he saw again the girl +who had run for the golden guinea. It was true that when he had put her +there where that light was shining, it was with some shadowy idea of +giving her gentle breeding, of making a lady of her. But man's purposes +are fleeting, and often gone with the morrow. He had forgotten his +purpose; and perhaps it was best this way,—perhaps it was best this way.</p> + +<p>For a little longer he looked at the light and listened to the voice of +the river; then he rose from the window seat, drew the curtains, and began +thoughtfully to prepare for bed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br>THE RETURN OF MONSIEUR JEAN HUGON</h2> + + +<p>To the north the glebe was bounded by a thick wood, a rank and dense +"second growth" springing from earth where had once stood, decorously +apart, the monster trees of the primeval forest; a wild maze of young +trees, saplings and underbrush, overrun from the tops of the slender, +bending pines to the bushes of dogwood and sassafras, and the rotting, +ancient stumps and fallen logs, by the uncontrollable, all-spreading vine. +It was such a fantastic thicket as one might look to find in fairyland, +thorny and impenetrable: here as tall as a ten years' pine, there sunken +away to the height of the wild honeysuckles; everywhere backed by blue +sky, heavy with odors, filled, with the flash of wings and the songs of +birds. To the east the thicket fell away to low and marshy grounds, where +tall cypresses grew, and myriads of myrtle bushes. Later in the year women +and children would venture in upon the unstable earth for the sake of the +myrtle berries and their yield of fragrant wax, and once and again an +outlying slave had been tracked by men and dogs to the dark recesses of +the place; but for the most part it was given over to its immemorial +silence. To the south and the west the tobacco fields of Fair View closed +in upon the glebe, taking the fertile river bank, and pressing down to the +crooked, slow-moving, deeply shadowed creek, upon whose farther bank +stood the house of the Rev. Gideon Darden.</p> + +<p>A more retired spot, a completer sequestration from the world of mart and +highway, it would have been hard to find. In the quiet of the early +morning, when the shadows of the trees lay across the dewy grass, it was +an angle of the earth as cloistral and withdrawn as heart of scholar or of +anchorite could wish. On one side of the house lay a tiny orchard, and the +windows of the living room looked out upon a mist of pink and white apple +blooms. The fragrance of the blossoms had been in the room, but could not +prevail against the odor of tobacco and rum lately introduced by the +master of the house and minister of the parish. Audrey, sitting beside a +table which had been drawn in front of the window, turned her face aside, +and was away, sense and soul, out of the meanly furnished room into the +midst of the great bouquets of bloom, with the blue between and above. +Darden, walking up and down, with his pipe in his mouth, and the tobacco +smoke curling like an aureole around his bullet head, glanced toward the +window.</p> + +<p>"When you have written that which I have told you to write, say so, +Audrey," he commanded. "Don't sit there staring at nothing!"</p> + +<p>Audrey came back to the present with a start, took up a pen, and drew the +standish nearer. "'Answer of Gideon Darden, Minister of Fair View Parish, +in Virginia, to the several Queries contained in my Lord Bishop of +London's Circular Letter to the Clergy in Virginia,'" she read, and poised +her pen in air.</p> + +<p>"Read out the questions," ordered Darden, "and write my answer to each in +the space beneath. No blots, mind you, and spell not after the promptings +of your woman's nature."</p> + +<p>Going to a side table, be mixed for himself, in an old battered silver +cap, a generous draught of bombo; then, with the drink in his hand, walked +heavily across the uncarpeted floor to his armchair, which creaked under +his weight as he sank into its leathern lap. He put down the rum and water +with so unsteady a hand that the liquor spilled, and when he refilled his +pipe half the contents of his tobacco box showered down upon his frayed +and ancient and unclean coat and breeches. From the pocket of the latter +he now drew forth a silver coin, which he balanced for a moment upon his +fat forefinger, and finally sent spinning across the table to Audrey.</p> + +<p>"'Tis the dregs of thy guinea, child, that Paris and Hugon and I drank at +the crossroads last night. 'Burn me,' says I to them, 'if that long-legged +lass of mine shan't have a drop in the cup!' And say Hugon"—</p> + +<p>What Hugon said did not appear, or was confided to the depths of the +tankard which the minister raised to his lips. Audrey looked at the +splendid shilling gleaming upon the table beside her, but made no motion +toward taking it into closer possession. A little red had come into the +clear brown of her cheeks. She was a young girl, with her dreams and +fancies, and the golden guinea would have made a dream or two come true.</p> + +<p>"'Query the first,'" she read slowly, "'How long since you went to the +plantations as missionary?'"</p> + +<p>Darden, leaning back in his chair, with his eyes uplifted through the +smoke clouds to the ceiling, took his pipe from his mouth, for the better +answering of his diocesan. "'My Lord, thirteen years come St. Swithin's +day,'" he dictated. "'Signed, Gideon Darden.' Audrey, do not forget thy +capitals. Thirteen years! Lord, Lord, the years, how they fly! Hast it +down, Audrey?"</p> + +<p>Audrey, writing in a slow, fair, clerkly hand, made her period, and turned +to the Bishop's second question: "'Had you any other church before you +came to that which you now possess?'"</p> + +<p>"'No, my Lord,'" said the minister to the Bishop; then to the ceiling: "I +came raw from the devil to this parish. Audrey, hast ever heard children +say that Satan comes and walks behind me when I go through the forest?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Audrey, "but their eyes are not good. You go hand in hand."</p> + +<p>Darden paused in the lifting of his tankard. "Thy wits are brightening, +Audrey; but keep such observations to thyself. It is only the schoolmaster +with whom I walk. Go on to the next question."</p> + +<p>The Bishop desired to know how long the minister addressed had been +inducted into his living. The minister addressed, leaning forward, laid it +off to his Lordship how that the vestries in Virginia did not incline to +have ministers inducted, and, being very powerful, kept the poor servants +of the Church upon uneasy seats; but that he, Gideon Darden, had the love +of his flock, rich and poor, gentle and simple, and that in the first year +of his ministry the gentlemen of his vestry had been pleased to present +his name to the Governor for induction. Which explanation made, the +minister drank more rum, and looked out of the window at the orchard and +at his neighbor's tobacco.</p> + +<p>"You are only a woman, and can hold no office, Audrey," he said, "but I +will impart to you words of wisdom whose price is above rubies. Always +agree with your vestry. Go, hat in hand, to each of its members in turn, +craving advice as to the management of your own affairs. Thunder from the +pulpit against Popery, which does not exist in this colony, and the +Pretender, who is at present in Italy. Wrap a dozen black sheep of +inferior breed in white sheets and set them arow at the church door, but +make it stuff of the conscience to see no blemish in the wealthier and +more honorable portion of your flock. So you will thrive, and come to be +inducted into your living, whether in Virginia or some other quarter of +the globe. What's the worthy Bishop's next demand? Hasten, for Hugon is +coming this morning, and there's settlement to be made of a small bet, and +a hand at cards."</p> + +<p>By the circular letter and the lips of Audrey the Bishop proceeded to +propound a series of questions, which the minister answered with +portentous glibness. In the midst of an estimate of the value of a living +in a sweet-scented parish a face looked in at the window, and a dark and +sinewy hand laid before Audrey a bunch of scarlet columbine.</p> + +<p>"The rock was high," said a voice, "and the pool beneath was deep and +dark. Here are the flowers that waved from the rock and threw colored +shadows upon the pool."</p> + +<p>The girl shrank as from a sudden and mortal danger. Her lips trembled, her +eyes half closed, and with a hurried and passionate gesture she rose from +her chair, thrust from her the scarlet blooms, and with one lithe movement +of her body put between her and the window the heavy writing table. The +minister laid by his sum in arithmetic.</p> + +<p>"Ha, Hugon, dog of a trader!" he cried. "Come in, man. Hast brought the +skins? There's fire-water upon the table, and Audrey will be kind. Stay to +dinner, and tell us what lading you brought down river, and of your +kindred in the forest and your kindred in Monacan-Town."</p> + +<p>The man at the window shrugged his shoulders, lifted his brows, and spread +his hands. So a captain of Mousquetaires might have done; but the face was +dark-skinned, the cheek-bones were high, the black eyes large, fierce, and +restless. A great bushy peruke, of an ancient fashion, and a coarse, +much-laced cravat gave setting and lent a touch of grotesqueness and of +terror to a countenance wherein the blood of the red man warred with that +of the white.</p> + +<p>"I will not come in now," said the voice again. "I am going in my boat to +the big creek to take twelve doeskins to an old man named Taberer. I will +come back to dinner. May I not, ma'm'selle?"</p> + +<p>The corners of the lips went up, and the thicket of false hair swept the +window sill, so low did the white man bow; but the Indian eyes were +watchful. Audrey made no answer; she stood with her face turned away and +her eyes upon the door, measuring her chances. If Darden would let her +pass, she might reach the stairway and her own room before the trader +could enter the house. There were bolts to its heavy door, and Hugon might +do as he had done before, and talk his heart out upon the wrong side of +the wood. Thanks be! lying upon her bed and pressing the pillow over her +ears, she did not have to hear.</p> + +<p>At the trader's announcement that his present path led past the house, +she ceased her stealthy progress toward her own demesne, and waited, with +her back to the window, and her eyes upon one long ray of sunshine that +struck high against the wall.</p> + +<p>"I will come again," said the voice without, and the apparition was gone +from the window. Once more blue sky and rosy bloom spanned the opening, +and the sunshine lay in a square upon the floor. The girl drew a long +breath, and turning to the table began to arrange the papers upon it with +trembling hands.</p> + +<p>"'Sixteen thousand pounds of sweet-scented, at ten shillings the +hundredweight; for marriage by banns, five shillings; for the preaching of +a funeral sermon, forty shillings; for christening'"—began Darden for the +Bishop's information. Audrey took her pen and wrote; but before the list +of the minister's perquisites had come to an end the door flew open, and a +woman with the face of a vixen came hurriedly into the room. With her +entered the breeze from the river, driving before it the smoke wreaths, +and blowing the papers from the table to the floor.</p> + +<p>Darden stamped his foot. "Woman, I have business, I tell ye,—business +with the Bishop of London! I've kept his Lordship at the door this +se'nnight, and if I give him not audience Blair will presently be down uon +me with tooth and nail and his ancient threat of a visitation. Begone and +keep the house! Audrey, where are you, child?"</p> + +<p>"Audrey, leave the room!" commanded the woman. "I have something to say +that's not for your ears. Let her go, Darden. There's news, I tell you."</p> + +<p>The minister glanced at his wife; then knocked the ashes from his pipe and +nodded dismissal to Audrey. His late secretary slipped from her seat and +left the room, not without alacrity.</p> + +<p>"Well?" demanded Darden, when the sound of the quick young feet had died +away. "Open your budget, Deborah. There's naught in it, I'll swear, but +some fal-lal about your flowered gown or an old woman's black cat and +corner broomstick."</p> + +<p>Mistress Deborah Darden pressed her thin lips together, and eyed her lord +and master with scant measure of conjugal fondness. "It's about some one +nearer home than your bishops and commissaries," she said. "Hide passed by +this morning, going to the river field. I was in the garden, and he +stopped to speak to me. Mr. Haward is home from England. He came to the +great house last night, and he ordered his horse for ten o'clock this +morning, and asked the nearest way through the fields to the parsonage."</p> + +<p>Darden whistled, and put down his drink untasted.</p> + +<p>"Enter the most powerful gentleman of my vestry!" he exclaimed. "He'll be +that in a month's time. A member of the Council, too, no doubt, and with +the Governor's ear. He's a scholar and fine gentleman. Deborah, clear away +this trash. Lay out my books, fetch a bottle of Canary, and give me my +Sunday coat. Put flowers on the table, and a dish of bonchrétiens, and get +on your tabby gown. Make your curtsy at the door; then leave him to me."</p> + +<p>"And Audrey?" said his wife.</p> + +<p>Darden, about to rise, sank back again and sat still, a hand upon either +arm of his chair. "Eh!" he said; then, in a meditative tone, "That is +so,—there is Audrey."</p> + +<p>"If he has eyes, he'll see that for himself," retorted Mistress Deborah +tartly. "'More to the purpose,' he'll say, 'where is the money that I +gave you for her?'"</p> + +<p>"Why, it's gone," answered Darden "Gone in maintenance,—gone in meat and +drink and raiment. He didn't want it buried. Pshaw, Deborah, he has quite +forgot his fine-lady plan! He forgot it years ago, I'll swear."</p> + +<p>"I'll send her now on an errand to the Widow Constance's," said the +mistress of the house. "Then before he comes again I'll get her a gown"—</p> + +<p>The minister brought his hand down upon the table. "You'll do no such +thing!" he thundered. "The girl's got to be here when he comes. As for her +dress, can't she borrow from you? The Lord knows that though only the wife +of a poor parson, you might throw for gewgaws with a bona roba! Go trick +her out, and bring her here. I'll attend to the wine and the books."</p> + +<p>When the door opened again, and Audrey, alarmed and wondering, slipped +with the wind into the room, and stood in the sunshine before the +minister, that worthy first frowned, then laughed, and finally swore.</p> + +<p>"'Swounds, Deborah, your hand is out! If I hadn't taken you from service, +I'd swear that you were never inside a fine lady's chamber. What's the +matter with the girl's skirt?"</p> + +<p>"She's too tall!" cried the sometime waiting woman angrily. "As for that +great stain upon the silk, the wine made it when you threw your tankard at +me, last Sunday but one."</p> + +<p>"That manteau pins her arms to her sides," interrupted the minister +calmly, "and the lace is dirty. You've hidden all her hair under that +mazarine, and too many patches become not a brown skin. Turn around, +child!"</p> + +<p>While Audrey slowly revolved, the guardian of her fortunes, leaning back +in his chair, bent his bushy brows and gazed, not at the circling figure +in its tawdry apparel, but into the distance. When she stood still and +looked at him with a half-angry, half-frightened face, he brought his +bleared eyes to bear upon her, studied her for a minute, then motioned to +his wife.</p> + +<p>"She must take off this paltry finery, Deborah," he announced. "I'll have +none of it. Go, child, and don your Cinderella gown."</p> + +<p>"What does it all mean?" cried Audrey, with heaving bosom. "Why did she +put these things upon me, and why will she tell me nothing? If Hugon has +hand in it"—</p> + +<p>The minister made a gesture of contempt. "Hugon! Hugon, half Monacan and +half Frenchman, is bartering skins with a Quaker. Begone, child, and when +you are transformed return to us."</p> + +<p>When the door had closed he turned upon his wife. "The girl has been cared +for," he said. "She has been fed,—if not with cates and dainties, then +with bread and meat; she has been clothed,—if not in silk and lace, then +in good blue linen and penistone. She is young and of the springtime, hath +more learning than had many a princess of old times, is innocent and good +to look at. Thou and the rest of thy sex are fools, Deborah, but wise men +died not with Solomon. It matters not about her dress."</p> + +<p>Rising, he went to a shelf of battered, dog-eared books, and taking down +an armful proceeded to strew the volumes upon the table. The red blooms of +the columbine being in the way, he took up the bunch and tossed it out of +the window. With the light thud of the mass upon the ground eyes of +husband and wife met.</p> + +<p>"Hugon would marry the girl," said the latter, twisting the hem of her +apron with restless fingers.</p> + +<p>Without change of countenance, Darden leaned forward, seized her by the +shoulder and shook her violently. "You are too given to idle and +meaningless words, Deborah," he declared, releasing her. "By the Lord, one +of these days I'll break you of the habit for good and all! Hugon, and +scarlet flowers, and who will marry Audrey, that is yet but a child and +useful about the house,—what has all this to do with the matter in hand, +which is simply to make ourselves and our house presentable in the eyes of +my chief parishioner? A man would think that thirteen years in Virginia +would teach any fool the necessity of standing well with a powerful +gentleman such as this. I'm no coward. Damn sanctimonious parsons and my +Lord Bishop's Scotch hireling! If they yelp much longer at my heels, I'll +scandalize them in good earnest! It's thin ice, though,—it's thin ice; +but I like this house and glebe, and I'm going to live and die in +them,—and die drunk, if I choose, Mr. Commissary to the contrary! It's of +import, Deborah, that my parishioners, being easy folk, willing to live +and let live, should like me still, and that a majority of my vestry +should not be able to get on without me. With this in mind, get out the +wine, dust the best chair, and be ready with thy curtsy. It will be time +enough to cry Audrey's banns when she is asked in marriage."</p> + +<p>Audrey, in her brown dress, with the color yet in her cheeks, entering at +the moment, Mistress Deborah attempted no response to her husband's +adjuration. Darden turned to the girl. "I've done with the writing for +the nonce, child," he said, "and need you no longer. I'll smoke a pipe and +think of my sermon. You're tired; out with you into the sunshine! Go to +the wood or down by the creek, but not beyond call, d'ye mind."</p> + +<p>Audrey looked from one to the other, but said nothing. There were many +things in the world of other people which she did not understand; one +thing more or less made no great difference. But she did understand the +sunlit roof, the twilight halls, the patterned floor of the forest. +Blossoms drifting down, fleeing shadows, voices of wind and water, and all +murmurous elfin life spoke to her. They spoke the language of her land; +when she stepped out of the door into the air and faced the portals of her +world, they called to her to come. Lithe and slight and light of foot, she +answered to their piping. The orchard through which she ran was fair with +its rosy trees, like gayly dressed curtsying dames; the slow, clear creek +that held the double of the sky enticed, but she passed it by. Straight as +an arrow she pierced to the heart of the wood that lay to the north. Thorn +and bramble, branch of bloom and entangling vine, stayed her not; long +since she had found or had made for herself a path to the centre of the +labyrinth. Here was a beech-tree, older by many a year than the young +wood,—a solitary tree spared by the axe what time its mates had fallen. +Tall and silver-gray the column of the trunk rose to meet wide branches +and the green lace-work of tender leaves. The earth beneath was clean +swept, and carpeted with the leaves of last year; a wide, dry, pale brown +enchanted ring, against whose borders pressed the riot of the forest. Vine +and bush, flower and fern, could not enter; but Audrey came and laid +herself down upon a cool and shady bed.</p> + +<p>By human measurement the house that she had left was hard by; even from +under the beech-tree Mistress Deborah's thin call could draw her back to +the walls which sheltered her, which she had been taught to call her home. +But it was not her soul's home, and now the veil of the kindly woods +withdrew it league on league, shut it out, made it as if it had never +been. From the charmed ring beneath the beech-tree she took possession of +her world; for her the wind murmured, the birds sang, insects hummed or +shrilled, the green saplings nodded their heads. Flowers, and the bedded +moss, and the little stream that leaped from a precipice of three feet +into the calm of a hand-deep pool spoke to her. She was happy. Gone was +the house and its inmates; gone Paris the schoolmaster, who had taught her +to write, and whose hand touching hers in guidance made her sick and cold; +gone Hugon the trader, whom she feared and hated. Here were no toil, no +annoy, no frightened flutterings of the heart; she had passed the +frontier, and was safe in her own land.</p> + +<p>She pressed her cheek against the dead leaves, and, with the smell of the +earth in her nostrils, looked sideways with half-closed eyes and made a +radiant mist of the forest round about. A drowsy warmth was in the air; +the birds sang far away; through a rift in the foliage a sunbeam came and +rested beside her like A gilded snake.</p> + +<p>For a time, wrapped in the warmth and the green and gold mist, she lay as +quiet as the sunbeam; of the earth earthy, in pact with the mould beneath +the leaves, with the slowly crescent trunks, brown or silver-gray, with +moss and lichened rock, and with all life that basked or crept or flew. At +last, however, the mind aroused, and she opened her eyes, saw, and thought +of what she saw. It was pleasant in the forest. She watched the flash of a +bird, as blue as the sky, from limb to limb; she listened to the elfin +waterfall; she drew herself with hand and arm across the leaves to the +edge of the pale brown ring, plucked a honeysuckle bough and brought it +back to the silver column of the beech; and lastly, glancing up from the +rosy sprig within her hand, she saw a man coming toward her, down the path +that she had thought hidden, holding his arm before him for shield against +brier and branch, and looking curiously about him as for a thing which he +had come out to seek.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br>UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE</h2> + + +<p>In the moment in which she sprang to her feet she saw that it was not +Hugon, and her heart grew calm again. In her torn gown, with her brown +hair loosed from its fastenings, and falling over her shoulders in heavy +waves whose crests caught the sunlight, she stood against the tree beneath +which she had lain, gazed with wide-open eyes at the intruder, and guessed +from his fine coat and the sparkling toy looping his hat that he was a +gentleman. She knew gentlemen when she saw them: on a time one had cursed +her for scurrying like a partridge across the road before his horse, +making the beast come nigh to unseating him; another, coming upon her and +the Widow Constance's Barbara gathering fagots in the November woods, had +tossed to each a sixpence; a third, on vestry business with the minister, +had touched her beneath the chin, and sworn that an she were not so brown +she were fair; a fourth, lying hidden upon the bank of the creek, had +caught her boat head as she pushed it into the reeds, and had tried to +kiss her. They had certain ways, had gentlemen, but she knew no great harm +of them. There was one, now—but he would be like a prince. When at +eventide the sky was piled with pale towering clouds, and she looked, as +she often looked, down the river, toward the bay and the sea beyond, she +always saw this prince that she had woven—warp of memory, woof of +dreams—stand erect in the pearly light. There was a gentleman indeed!</p> + +<p>As to the possessor of the title now slowly and steadily making his way +toward her she was in a mere state of wonder. It was not possible that he +had lost his way; but if so, she was sorry that, in losing it, he had +found the slender zigzag of her path. A trustful child,—save where Hugon +was concerned,—she was not in the least afraid, and being of a friendly +mind looked at the approaching figure with shy kindliness, and thought +that he must have come from a distant part of the country. She thought +that had she ever seen him before she would have remembered it.</p> + +<p>Upon the outskirts of the ring, clear of the close embrace of flowering +bush and spreading vine. Haward paused, and looked with smiling eyes at +this girl of the woods, this forest creature that, springing from the +earth, had set its back against the tree.</p> + +<p>"Tarry awhile," he said. "Slip not yet within the bark. Had I known, I +should have brought oblation of milk and honey."</p> + +<p>"This is the thicket between Fair View and the glebe lands," said Audrey, +who knew not what bark of tree and milk and honey had to do with the case. +"Over yonder, sir, is the road to the great house. This path ends here; +you must go back to the edge of the wood, then turn to the south"—</p> + +<p>"I have not lost my way," answered Haward, still smiling. "It is pleasant +here in the shade, after the warmth of the open. May I not sit down upon +the leaves and talk to you for a while? I came out to find you, you +know."</p> + +<p>As he spoke, and without waiting for the permission which he asked, he +crossed the rustling leaves, and threw himself down upon the earth between +two branching roots. Her skirt brushed his knee; with a movement quick and +shy she put more distance between them, then stood and looked at him with +wide, grave eyes. "Why do you say that you came here to find me?" she +asked. "I do not know you."</p> + +<p>Haward laughed, nursing his knee and looking about him. "Let that pass for +a moment. You have the prettiest woodland parlor, child! Tell me, do they +treat you well over there?" with a jerk of his thumb toward the glebe +house. "Madam the shrew and his reverence the bully, are they kind to you? +Though they let you go like a beggar maid,"—he glanced kindly enough at +her bare feet and torn gown,—"yet they starve you not, nor beat you, nor +deny you aught in reason?"</p> + +<p>Audrey drew herself up. She had a proper pride, and she chose to forget +for this occasion a bruise upon her arm and the thrusting upon her of +Hugon's company. "I do not know who you are, sir, that ask me such +questions," she said sedately. "I have food and shelter +and—and—kindness. And I go barefoot only of week days"—</p> + +<p>It was a brave beginning, but of a sudden she found it hard to go on. She +felt his eyes upon her and knew that he was unconvinced, and into her own +eyes came the large tears. They did not fall, but through them she saw the +forest swim in green and gold. "I have no father or mother," she said, +"and no brother or sister. In all the world there is no one that is kin to +me."</p> + +<p>Her voice, that was low and full and apt to fall into minor cadences, +died away, and she stood with her face raised and slightly turned from the +gentleman who lay at her feet, stretched out upon the sere beech leaves. +He did not seem inclined to speech, and for a time the little brook and +the birds and the wind in the trees sang undisturbed.</p> + +<p>"These woods are very beautiful," said Haward at last, with his gaze upon +her, "but if the land were less level it were more to my taste. Now, if +this plain were a little valley couched among the hills, if to the +westward rose dark blue mountains like a rampart, if the runlet yonder +were broad and clear, if this beech were a sugar-tree"—</p> + +<p>He broke off, content to see her eyes dilate, her bosom rise and fall, her +hand go trembling for support to the column of the beech.</p> + +<p>"Oh, the mountains!" she cried. "When the mist lifted, when the cloud +rested, when the sky was red behind them! Oh, the clear stream, and the +sugar-tree, and the cabin! Who are you? How did you know about these +things? Were you—were you there?"</p> + +<p>She turned upon him, with her soul in her eyes. As for him, lying at +length upon the ground, he locked his hands beneath his head and began to +sing, though scarce above his breath. He sang the song of Amiens:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Under the greenwood tree,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Who loves to lie with me."</span><br> +</p> + +<p>When he had come to the end of the stanza he half rose, and turned toward +the mute and breathless figure leaning against the beech-tree. For her the +years had rolled back: one moment she stood upon the doorstep of the +cabin, and the air was filled with the trampling of horses, with quick +laughter, whistling, singing, and the call of a trumpet; the next she ran, +in night-time and in terror, between rows of rustling corn, felt again the +clasp of her pursuer, heard at her ear the comfort of his voice. A film +came between her eyes and the man at whom she stared, and her heart grew +cold.</p> + +<p>"Audrey," said Haward, "come here, child."</p> + +<p>The blood returned to her heart, her vision cleared, and her arm fell from +its clasp upon the tree. The bark opened not; the hamadryad had lost the +spell. When at his repeated command she crossed to him, she went as the +trusting, dumbly loving, dumbly grateful child whose life he had saved, +and whose comforter, protector, and guardian he had been. When he took her +hands in his she was glad to feel them there again, and she had no blushes +ready when he kissed her upon the forehead. It was sweet to her who +hungered for affection, who long ago had set his image up, loving him +purely as a sovereign spirit or as a dear and great elder brother, to hear +him call her again "little maid;" tell her that she had not changed save +in height; ask her if she remembered this or that adventure, what time +they had strayed in the woods together. Remember! When at last, beneath +his admirable management, the wonder and the shyness melted away, and she +found her tongue, memories came in a torrent. The hilltop, the deep woods +and the giant trees, the house he had built for her out of stones and +moss, the grapes they had gathered, the fish they had caught, the +thunderstorm when he had snatched her out of the path of a stricken and +falling pine, an alarm of Indians, an alarm of wolves, finally the first +faint sounds of the returning expedition, the distant trumpet note, the +nearer approach, the bursting again into the valley of the Governor and +his party, the journey from that loved spot to Williamsburgh,—all sights +and sounds, thoughts and emotions, of that time, fast held through lonely +years, came at her call, and passed again in procession before them. +Haward, first amazed, then touched, reached at length the conclusion that +the years of her residence beneath the minister's roof could not have been +happy; that she must always have put from her with shuddering and horror +the memory of the night which orphaned her; but that she had passionately +nursed, cherished, and loved all that she had of sweet and dear, and that +this all was the memory of her childhood in the valley, and of that brief +season when he had been her savior, protector, friend, and playmate. He +learned also—for she was too simple and too glad either to withhold the +information or to know that she had given it—that in her girlish and +innocent imaginings she had made of him a fairy knight, clothing him in a +panoply of power, mercy, and tenderness, and setting him on high, so high +that his very heel was above the heads of the mortals within her ken.</p> + +<p>Keen enough in his perceptions, he was able to recognize that here was a +pure and imaginative spirit, strongly yearning after ideal strength, +beauty, and goodness. Given such a spirit, it was not unnatural that, +turning from sordid or unhappy surroundings as a flower turns from shadow +to the full face of the sun, she should have taken a memory of valiant +deeds, kind words, and a protecting arm, and have created out of these a +man after her own heart, endowing him with all heroic attributes; at one +and the same time sending him out into the world, a knight-errant without +fear and without reproach, and keeping him by her side—the side of a +child—in her own private wonderland. He saw that she had done this, and +he was ashamed. He did not tell her that that eleven-years-distant +fortnight was to him but a half-remembered incident of a crowded life, and +that to all intents and purposes she herself had been forgotten. For one +thing, it would have hurt her; for another, he saw no reason why he should +tell her. Upon occasion he could be as ruthless as a stone; if he were so +now he knew it not, but in deceiving her deceived himself. Man of a world +that was corrupt enough, he was of course quietly assured that he could +bend this woodland creature—half child, half dryad—to the form of his +bidding. To do so was in his power, but not his pleasure. He meant to +leave her as she was; to accept the adoration of the child, but to attempt +no awakening of the woman. The girl was of the mountains, and their +higher, colder, purer air; though he had brought her body thence, he would +not have her spirit leave the climbing earth, the dreamlike summits, for +the hot and dusty plain. The plain, God knew, had dwellers enough.</p> + +<p>She was a thing of wild and sylvan grace, and there was fulfillment in a +dark beauty all her own of the promise she had given as a child. About her +was a pathos, too,—the pathos of the flower taken from its proper soil, +and drooping in earth which nourished it not. Haward, looking at her, +watching the sensitive, mobile lips, reading in the dark eyes, beneath the +felicity of the present, a hint and prophecy of woe, felt for her a pity +so real and great that for the moment his heart ached as for some sorrow +of his own. She was only a young girl, poor and helpless, born of poor +and helpless parents dead long ago. There was in her veins no gentle +blood; she had none of the world's goods; her gown was torn, her feet went +bare. She had youth, but not its heritage of gladness: beauty, but none to +see it; a nature that reached toward light and height, and for its home +the house which he had lately left. He was a man older by many years than +the girl beside him, knowing good and evil; by instinct preferring the +former, but at times stooping, open-eyed, to that degree of the latter +which a lax and gay world held to be not incompatible with a convention +somewhat misnamed "the honor of a gentleman." Now, beneath the beech-tree +in the forest which touched upon one side the glebe, upon the other his +own lands, he chose at this time the good; said to himself, and believed +the thing he said, that in word and in deed he would prove himself her +friend.</p> + +<p>Putting out his hand he drew her down upon the leaves; and she sat beside +him, still and happy, ready to answer him when he asked her this or that, +readier yet to sit in blissful, dreamy silence. She was as pure as the +flower which she held in her hand, and most innocent in her imaginings. +This was a very perfect knight, a great gentleman, good and pitiful, that +had saved her from the Indians when she was a little girl, and had been +kind to her,—ah, so kind! In that dreadful night when she had lost father +and mother and brother and sister, when in the darkness her childish heart +was a stone for terror, he had come, like God, from the mountains, and +straightway she was safe. Now into her woods, from over the sea, he had +come again, and at once the load upon her heart, the dull longing and +misery, the fear of Hugon, were lifted. The chaplet which she laid at his +feet was not loosely woven of gay-colored flowers, but was compact of +austerer blooms of gratitude, reverence, and that love which is only a +longing to serve. The glamour was at hand, the enchanted light which +breaks not from the east or the west or the north or the south was upon +its way; but she knew it not, and she was happy in her ignorance.</p> + +<p>"I am tired of the city," he said. "Now I shall stay in Virginia. A +longing for the river and the marshes and the house where I was born came +upon me"—</p> + +<p>"I know," she answered. "When I shut my eyes I see the cabin in the +valley, and when I dream it is of things which happen in a mountainous +country."</p> + +<p>"I am alone in the great house," he continued, "and the floors echo +somewhat loudly. The garden, too; beside myself there is no one to smell +the roses or to walk in the moonlight. I had forgotten the isolation of +these great plantations. Each is a province and a despotism. If the despot +has neither kith nor kin, has not yet made friends, and cares not to draw +company from the quarters, he is lonely. They say that there are ladies in +Virginia whose charms well-nigh outweigh their dowries of sweet-scented +and Oronoko. I will wed such an one, and have laughter in my garden, and +other footsteps than my own in my house."</p> + +<p>"There are beautiful ladies in these parts," said Audrey. "There is the +one that gave me the guinea for my running yesterday. She was so very +fair. I wished with all my heart that I were like her."</p> + +<p>"She is my friend," said Haward slowly, "and her mind is as fair as her +face. I will tell her your story."</p> + +<p>The gilded streak upon the earth beneath the beech had crept away, but +over the ferns and weeds and flowering bushes between the slight trees +without the ring the sunshine gloated. The blue of the sky was wonderful, +and in the silence Haward and Audrey heard the wind whisper in the +treetops. A dove moaned, and a hare ran past.</p> + +<p>"It was I who brought you from the mountains and placed you here," said +Haward at last. "I thought it for the best, and that when I sailed away I +left you to a safe and happy life. It seems that I was mistaken. But now +that I am at home again, child, I wish you to look upon me, who am so much +your elder, as your guardian and protector still. If there is anything +which you lack, if you are misused, are in need of help, why, think that +your troubles are the Indians again, little maid, and turn to me once more +for help!"</p> + +<p>Having spoken honestly and well and very unwisely, he looked at his watch +and said that it was late. When he rose to his feet Audrey did not move, +and when he looked down upon her he saw that her eyes, that had been wet, +were overflowing. He put out his hand, and she took it and touched it with +her lips; then, because he said that he had not meant to set her crying, +she smiled, and with her own hand dashed away the tears.</p> + +<p>"When I ride this way I shall always stop at the minister's house," said +Haward, "when, if there is aught which you need or wish, you must tell me +of it. Think of me as your friend, child."</p> + +<p>He laid his hand lightly and caressingly upon her head. The ruffles at his +wrist, soft, fine, and perfumed, brushed her forehead and her eyes. "The +path through your labyrinth to its beechen heart was hard to find," he +continued, "but I can easily retrace it. No, trouble not yourself, child. +Stay for a time where you are. I wish to speak to the minister alone."</p> + +<p>His hand was lifted. Audrey felt rather than saw him go. Only a few feet, +and the dogwood stars, the purple mist of the Judas-tree, the white +fragrance of a wild cherry, came like a painted arras between them. For a +time she could hear the movement of the branches as he put them aside; but +presently this too ceased, and the place was left to her and to all the +life that called it home.</p> + +<p>It was the same wood, surely, into which she had run two hours before, and +yet—and yet—When her tears were spent, and she stood up, leaning, with +her loosened hair and her gown that was the color of oak bark, against the +beech-tree, she looked about her and wondered. The wonder did not last, +for she found an explanation.</p> + +<p>"It has been blessed," said Audrey, with all reverence and simplicity, +"and that is why the light is so different."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX<br>MACLEAN TO THE RESCUE</h2> + + +<p>Saunderson, the overseer, having laboriously written and signed a pass, +laid down the quill, wiped his inky forefinger upon his sleeve, and gave +the paper to the storekeeper, who sat idly by.</p> + +<p>"Ye'll remember that the store chiefly lacks in broadcloth of Witney, +frieze and camlet, and in women's shoes, both silk and callimanco. And +dinna forget to trade with Alick Ker for three small swords, a chafing +dish, and a dozen mourning and hand-and-heart rings. See that you have the +skins' worth. Alick's an awfu' man to get the upper hand of."</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking a MacLean should have small difficulty with a Ker," said the +storekeeper dryly. "What I'm wanting to know is why I am saddled with the +company of Monsieur Jean Hugon." He jerked his thumb toward the figure of +the trader standing within the doorway. "I do not like the gentleman, and +I'd rather trudge it to Williamsburgh alone."</p> + +<p>"Ye ken not the value of the skins, nor how to show them off," answered +the other. "Wherefore, for the consideration of a measure of rum, he's +engaged to help you in the trading. As for his being half Indian, Gude +guide us! It's been told me that no so many centuries ago the Highlandmen +painted their bodies and went into battle without taking advantage even of +feathers and silk grass. One half of him is of the French nobeelity; he +told me as much himself. And the best of ye—sic as the Campbells—are no +better than that."</p> + +<p>He looked at MacLean with a caustic smile. The latter shrugged his +shoulders. "So long as you tie him neck and heels with a Campbell I am +content," he answered. "Are you going? I'll just bar the windows and lock +the door, and then I'll be off with yonder copper cadet of a French house. +Good-day to you. I'll be back to-night."</p> + +<p>"Ye'd better," said the overseer, with another widening of his thin lips. +"For myself, I bear ye no ill-will; for my grandmither—rest her +soul!—came frae the north, and I aye thought a Stewart better became the +throne than a foreign-speaking body frae Hanover. But if the store is not +open the morn I'll raise hue and cry, and that without wasting time. I've +been told ye're great huntsmen in the Highlands; if ye choose to turn red +deer yourself, I'll give ye a chase, <i>and trade ye down, man, and track ye +down</i>."</p> + +<p>MacLean half turned from the window. "I have hunted the red deer," he +said, "in the land where I was born, and which I shall see no more, and I +have been myself hunted in the land where I shall die. I have run until I +have fallen, and I have felt the teeth of the dogs. Were God to send a +miracle—which he will not do—and I were to go back to the glen and the +crag and the deep birch woods, I suppose that I would hunt again, would +drive the stag to bay, holloing to my hounds, and thinking the sound of +the horns sweet music in my ears. It is the way of the earth. Hunter and +hunted, we make the world and the pity of it."</p> + +<p>Setting to work again, he pushed to the heavy shutters. "You'll find them +open in the morning," he said, "and find me selling,—selling clothing +that I may not wear, wine that I may not drink, powder and shot that I may +not spend, swords that I may not use; and giving,—giving pride, manhood, +honor, heart's blood"—</p> + +<p>He broke off, shot to the bar across the shutters, and betook himself in +silence to the other window, where presently he burst into a fit of +laughter. The sound was harsh even to savagery. "Go your ways, +Saunderson," he said. "I've tried the bars of the cage; they're too +strong. Stop on your morning round, and I'll give account of my trading."</p> + +<p>The overseer gone, the windows barred, and the heavy door shut and locked +behind him, MacLean paused upon the doorstep to look down upon his +appointed companion. The trader, half sitting, half reclining upon a log, +was striking at something with the point of his hunting-knife, lightly, +delicately, and often. The something was a lizard, about which, as it lay +in the sunshine upon the log, he had wrought a pen of leafy twigs. The +creature, darting for liberty this way and that, was met at every turn by +the steel, and at every turn suffered a new wound. MacLean looked; then +bent over and with a heavy stick struck the thing out of its pain.</p> + +<p>"There's a time to work and a time to play, Hugon," he said coolly. +"Playtime's over now. The sun is high, and Isaac and the oxen must have +the skins well-nigh to Williamsburgh. Up with you!"</p> + +<p>Hugon rose to his feet, slid his knife into its sheath, and announced in +good enough English that he was ready. He had youth, the slender, hardy, +perfectly moulded figure of the Indian, a coloring and a countenance that +were not of the white and not of the brown. When he went a-trading up the +river, past the thickly settled country, past the falls, past the French +town which his Huguenot father had helped to build, into the deep woods +and to the Indian village whence had strayed his mother, he wore the +clothing that became the woods,—beaded moccasins, fringed leggings, +hunting-shirt of deerskin, cap of fur,—looked his part and played it +well. When he came back to an English country, to wharves and stores, to +halls and porches of great houses and parlors of lesser ones, to the +streets and ordinaries of Williamsburgh, he pulled on jack boots, shrugged +himself into a coat with silver buttons, stuck lace of a so-so quality at +neck and wrists, wore a cocked hat and a Blenheim wig, and became a figure +alike grotesque and terrible. Two thirds of the time his business caused +him to be in the forests that were far away; but when he returned to +civilization, to stare it in the face and brag within himself, "I am lot +and part of what I see!" he dwelt at the crossroads ordinary, drank and +gamed with Paris the schoolmaster and Darden the minister, and dreamed (at +times) of Darden's Audrey.</p> + +<p>The miles to Williamsburgh were long and sunny, with the dust thick +beneath the feet. Warm and heavy, the scented spring possessed the land. +It was a day for drowsing in the shade: for them who must needs walk in +the sunshine, languor of thought overtook them, and sparsity of speech. +They walked rapidly, step with step, their two lean and sinewy bodies +casting the same length of shadow; but they kept their eyes upon the long +glare of white dust, and told not their dreams. At a point in the road +where the storekeeper saw only confused marks and a powdering of dust +upon the roadside bushes, the half-breed announced that there had been +that morning a scuffle in a gang of negroes; that a small man had been +thrown heavily to the earth, and a large man had made off across a low +ditch into the woods; that the overseer had parted the combatants, and +that some one's back had bled. No sooner was this piece of clairvoyance +aired than he was vexed that he had shown a hall-mark of the savage, and +hastily explained that life in the woods, such as a trader must live, +would teach any man—an Englishman, now, as well as a Frenchman—how to +read what was written on the earth. Farther on, when they came to a +miniature glen between the semblance of two hills, down which, in mockery +of a torrent, brabbled a slim brown stream, MacLean stood still, gazed for +a minute, then, whistling, caught up with his companion, and spoke at +length upon the subject of the skins awaiting them at Williamsburgh.</p> + +<p>The road had other travelers than themselves. At intervals a cloud of dust +would meet or overtake them, and out of the windows of coach or chariot or +lighter chaise faces would glance at them. In the thick dust wheels and +horses' hoofs made no noise, the black coachmen sat still upon the boxes, +the faces were languid with the springtime. A moment and all were gone. +Oftener there passed a horseman. If he were riding the planter's pace, he +went by like a whirlwind, troubling only to curse them out of his path; if +he had more leisure, he threw them a good-morning, or perhaps drew rein to +ask this or that of Hugon. The trader was well known, and was an authority +upon all matters pertaining to hunting or trapping. The foot passengers +were few, for in Virginia no man walked that could ride, and on a morn of +early May they that walked were like to be busy in the fields. An ancient +seaman, lame and vagabond, lurched beside them for a while, then lagged +behind; a witch, old and bowed and bleared of eye, crossed their path; and +a Sapony hunter, with three wolves' heads slung across his shoulder, +slipped by them on his way to claim the reward decreed by the Assembly. At +a turn of the road they came upon a small ordinary, with horses fastened +before it, and with laughter, oaths, and the rattling of dice issuing from +the open windows. The trader had money; the storekeeper had none. The +latter, though he was thirsty, would have passed on; but Hugon twitched +him by the sleeve, and producing from the depths of his great flapped +pocket a handful of crusadoes, écues, and pieces of eight, indicated with +a flourish that he was prepared to share with his less fortunate +companion.</p> + +<p>They drank standing, kissed the girl who served them, and took to the road +again. There were no more thick woods, the road running in a blaze of +sunshine past clumps of cedars and wayside tangles of blackberry, sumac, +and elder. Presently, beyond a group of elms, came into sight the goodly +college of William and Mary, and, dazzling white against the blue, the +spire of Bruton church.</p> + +<p>Within a wide pasture pertaining to the college, close to the roadside and +under the boughs of a vast poplar, half a score of students were at play. +Their lithe young bodies were dark of hue and were not overburdened with +clothing; their countenances remained unmoved, without laughter or +grimacing; and no excitement breathed in the voices with which they +called one to another. In deep gravity they tossed a ball, or pitched a +quoit, or engaged in wrestling. A white man, with a singularly pure and +gentle face, sat upon the grass at the foot of the tree, and watched the +studious efforts of his pupils with an approving smile.</p> + +<p>"Wildcats to purr upon the hearth, and Indians to go to school!" quoth +MacLean. "Were you taught here, Hugon, and did you play so sadly?"</p> + +<p>The trader, his head held very high, drew out a large and bedizened +snuffbox, and took snuff with ostentation. "My father was of a great +tribe—I would say a great house—in the country called France," he +explained, with dignity. "Oh, he was of a very great name indeed! His +blood was—what do you call it?—<i>blue</i>. I am the son of my father: I am a +Frenchman. <i>Bien</i>! My father dies, having always kept me with him at +Monacan-Town; and when they have laid him full length in the ground, +Monsieur le Marquis calls me to him. 'Jean,' says he, and his voice is +like the ice in the stream, 'Jean, you have ten years, and your +father—may <i>le bon Dieu</i> pardon his sins!—has left his wishes regarding +you and money for your maintenance. To-morrow Messieurs de Sailly and de +Breuil go down the river to talk of affairs with the English Governor. You +will go with them, and they will leave you at the Indian school which the +English have built near to the great college in their town of +Williamsburgh. There you will stay, learning all that Englishmen can teach +you, until you have eighteen years. Come back to me then, and with the +money left by your father you shall be fitted out as a trader. Go!' ... +Yes, I went to school here; but I learned fast, and did not forget the +things I learned, and I played with the English boys—there being no +scholars from France—on the other side of the pasture."</p> + +<p>He waved his hand toward an irruption of laughing, shouting figures from +the north wing of the college. The white man under the tree had been +quietly observant of the two wayfarers, and he now rose to his feet, and +came over to the rail fence against which they leaned.</p> + +<p>"Ha, Jean Hugon!" he said pleasantly, touching with his thin white hand +the brown one of the trader. "I thought it had been my old scholar! Canst +say the belief and the Commandments yet, Jean? Yonder great fellow with +the ball is Meshawa,—Meshawa that was a little, little fellow when you +went away. All your other playmates are gone,—though you did not play +much, Jean, but gloomed and gloomed because you must stay this side of the +meadow with your own color. Will you not cross the fence and sit awhile +with your old master?"</p> + +<p>As he spoke he regarded with a humorous smile the dusty glories of his +sometime pupil, and when he had come to an end he turned and made as if to +beckon to the Indian with the ball. But Hugon drew his hand away, +straightened himself, and set his face like a flint toward the town. "I am +sorry, I have no time to-day," he said stiffly. "My friend and I have +business in town with men of my own color. My color is white. I do not +want to see Meshawa or the others. I have forgotten them."</p> + +<p>He turned away, but a thought striking him his face brightened, and +plunging his hand into his pocket he again brought forth his glittering +store. "Nowadays I have money," he said grandly. "It used to be that +Indian braves brought Meshawa and the others presents, because they were +the sons of their great men. I was the son of a great man, too; but he was +not Indian and he was lying in his grave, and no one brought me gifts. Now +I wish to give presents. Here are ten coins, master. Give one to each +Indian boy, the largest to Meshawa."</p> + +<p>The Indian teacher, Charles Griffin by name, looked with a whimsical face +at the silver pieces laid arow upon the top rail. "Very well, Jean," he +said. "It is good to give of thy substance. Meshawa and the others will +have a feast. Yes, I will remember to tell them to whom they owe it. +Good-day to you both."</p> + +<p>The meadow, the solemnly playing Indians, and their gentle teacher were +left behind, and the two men, passing the long college all astare with +windows, the Indian school, and an expanse of grass starred with +buttercups, came into Duke of Gloucester Street. Broad, unpaved, deep in +dust, shaded upon its ragged edges by mulberries and poplars, it ran +without shadow of turning from the gates of William and Mary to the wide +sweep before the Capitol. Houses bordered it, flush with the street or set +back in fragrant gardens; other and narrower ways opened from it; half way +down its length wide greens, where the buttercups were thick in the grass, +stretched north and south. Beyond these greens were more houses, more +mulberries and poplars, and finally, closing the vista, the brick façade +of the Capitol.</p> + +<p>The two from Fair View plantation kept their forest gait; for the trader +was in a hurry to fulfill his part of the bargain, which was merely to +exhibit and value the skins. There was an ordinary in Nicholson Street +that was to his liking. Sailors gamed there, and other traders, and half +a dozen younger sons of broken gentlemen. It was as cleanly dining in its +chief room as in the woods, and the aqua vitæ, if bad, was cheap. In good +humor with himself, and by nature lavish with his earnings, he offered to +make the storekeeper his guest for the day. The latter curtly declined the +invitation. He had bread and meat in his wallet, and wanted no drink but +water. He would dine beneath the trees on the market green, would finish +his business in town, and be half way back to the plantation while the +trader—being his own man, with no fear of hue and cry if he were +missed—was still at hazard.</p> + +<p>This question settled, the two kept each other company for several hours +longer, at the end of which time they issued from the store at which the +greater part of their business had been transacted, and went their several +ways,—Hugon to the ordinary in Nicholson Street, and MacLean to his +dinner beneath the sycamores on the green. When the frugal meal had been +eaten, the latter recrossed the sward to the street, and took up again the +round of his commissions.</p> + +<p>It was after three by the great clock in the cupola of the Capitol when he +stood before the door of Alexander Ker, the silversmith, and found +entrance made difficult by the serried shoulders of half a dozen young men +standing within the store, laughing, and making bantering speeches to some +one hidden from the Highlander's vision. Presently an appealing voice, +followed by a low cry, proclaimed that the some one was a woman.</p> + +<p>MacLean had a lean and wiry strength which had stood him in good stead +upon more than one occasion in his checkered career. He now drove an arm +like a bar of iron between two broadcloth coats, sent the wearers thereof +to right and left, and found himself one of an inner ring and facing +Mistress Truelove Taberer, who stood at bay against the silversmith's long +table. One arm was around the boy who had rowed her to the Fair View store +a week agone; with the other she was defending her face from the attack of +a beribboned gallant desirous of a kiss. The boy, a slender, delicate lad +of fourteen, struggled to free himself from his sister's restraining arm, +his face white with passion and his breath coming in gasps. "Let me go, +Truelove!" he commanded. "If I am a Friend, I am a man as well! Thou +fellow with the shoulder knots, thee shall pay dearly for thy insolence!"</p> + +<p>Truelove tightened her hold. "Ephraim, Ephraim! If a man compel thee to go +with him a mile, thee is to go with him twain; if he take thy cloak, thee +is to give him thy coat also; if he—Ah!" She buried her profaned cheek in +her arm and began to cry, but very softly.</p> + +<p>Her tormentors, flushed with wine and sworn to obtain each one a kiss, +laughed more loudly, and one young rake, with wig and ruffles awry, +lurched forward to take the place of the coxcomb who had scored. Ephraim +wrenched himself free, and making for this gentleman might have given or +received bodily injury, had not a heavy hand falling upon his shoulder +stopped him in mid-career.</p> + +<p>"Stand aside, boy," said MacLean, "This quarrel's mine by virtue of my +making it so. Mistress Truelove, you shall have no further annoyance. Now, +you Lowland cowards that cannot see a flower bloom but you wish to trample +it in the mire, come taste the ground yourself, and be taught that the +flower is out of reach!"</p> + +<p>As he spoke he stepped before the Quakeress, weaponless, but with his eyes +like steel. The half dozen spendthrifts and ne'er-do-weels whom he faced +paused but long enough to see that this newly arrived champion had only +his bare hands, and was, by token of his dress, undoubtedly their +inferior, before setting upon him with drunken laughter and the loudly +avowed purpose of administering a drubbing. The one that came first he +sent rolling to the floor. "Another for Hector!" he said coolly.</p> + +<p>The silversmith, ensconced in safety behind the table, wrung his hands. +"Sirs, sirs! Take your quarrel into the street! I'll no have fighting in +my store. What did ye rin in here for, ye Quaker baggage? Losh! did ye +ever see the like of that! Here, boy, ye can get through the window. Rin +for the constable! Rin, I tell ye, or there'll be murder done!"</p> + +<p>A gentleman who had entered the store unobserved drew his rapier, and with +it struck up a heavy cane which was in the act of descending for the +second time upon the head of the unlucky Scot. "What is all this?" he +asked quietly. "Five men against one,—that is hardly fair play. Ah, I see +there were six; I had overlooked the gentleman on the floor, who, I hope, +is only stunned. Five to one,—the odds are heavy. Perhaps I can make them +less so." With a smile upon his lips, he stepped backward a foot or two +until he stood with the weaker side.</p> + +<p>Now, had it been the constable who so suddenly appeared upon the scene, +the probabilities are that the fight, both sides having warmed to it, +would, despite the terrors of the law, have been carried to a finish. But +it was not the constable; it was a gentleman recently returned from +England, and become in the eyes of the youth of Williamsburgh the glass of +fashion and the mould of form. The youngster with the shoulder knots had +copied color and width of ribbon from a suit which this gentleman had worn +at the Palace; the rake with the wig awry, who passed for a wit, had done +him the honor to learn by heart portions of his play, and to repeat +(without quotation marks) a number of his epigrams; while the pretty +fellow whose cane he had struck up practiced night and morning before a +mirror his bow and manner of presenting his snuffbox. A fourth ruffler +desired office, and cared not to offend a prospective Councilor. There was +rumor, too, of a grand entertainment to be given at Fair View; it was good +to stand well with the law, but it was imperative to do so with Mr. +Marmaduke Haward. Their hands fell; they drew back a pace, and the wit +made himself spokesman. Roses were rare so early in the year; for him and +his companions, they had but wished to compliment those that bloomed in +the cheeks of the pretty Quakeress. This servant fellow, breathing fire +like a dragon, had taken it upon himself to defend the roses,—which +likely enough were grown for him,—and so had been about to bring upon +himself merited chastisement. However, since it was Mr. Marmaduke Haward +who pleaded for him—A full stop, a low bow, and a flourish. "Will Mr. +Haward honor me? 'Tis right Macouba, and the box—if the author of 'The +Puppet Show' would deign to accept it"—</p> + +<p>"Rather to change with you, sir," said the other urbanely, and drew out +his own chased and medallioned box.</p> + +<p>The gentleman upon the floor had now gotten unsteadily to his feet. Mr. +Haward took snuff with each of the six; asked after the father of one, the +brother of another; delicately intimated his pleasure in finding the noble +order of Mohocks, that had lately died in London, resurrected in Virginia; +and fairly bowed the flattered youths out of the store. He stood for a +moment upon the threshold watching them go triumphantly, if unsteadily, up +the street; then turned to the interior of the store to find MacLean +seated upon a stool, with his head against the table, submitting with a +smile of pure content to the ministrations of the dove-like mover of the +late turmoil, who with trembling fingers was striving to bind her kerchief +about a great cut in his forehead.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X<br>HAWARD AND EVELYN</h2> + + +<p>MacLean put aside with much gentleness the hands of his surgeon, and, +rising to his feet, answered the question in Haward's eyes by producing a +slip of paper and gravely proffering it to the man whom he served. Haward +took it, read it, and handed it back; then turned to the Quaker maiden. +"Mistress Truelove Taberer," he said courteously. "Are you staying in +town? If you will tell me where you lodge, I will myself conduct you +thither."</p> + +<p>Truelove shook her head, and slipped her hand into that of her brother +Ephraim. "I thank thee, friend," she said, with gentle dignity, "and thee, +too, Angus MacLean, though I grieve that thee sees not that it is not +given us to meet evil with evil, nor to withstand force with force. +Ephraim and I can now go in peace. I thank thee again, friend, and thee." +She gave her hand first to Haward, then to MacLean. The former, knowing +the fashion of the Quakers, held the small fingers a moment, then let them +drop; the latter, knowing it, too, raised them to his lips and imprinted +upon them an impassioned kiss. Truelove blushed, then frowned, last of all +drew her hand away.</p> + +<p>With the final glimpse of her gray skirt the Highlander came back to the +present. "Singly I could have answered for them all, one after the other," +he said stiffly. "Together they had the advantage. I pay my debt and give +you thanks, sir."</p> + +<p>"That is an ugly cut across your forehead," replied Haward. "Mr. Ker had +best bring you a basin of water. Or stay! I am going to my lodging. Come +with me, and Juba shall dress the wound properly."</p> + +<p>MacLean turned his keen blue eyes upon him. "Am I to understand that you +give me a command, or that you extend to me an invitation? In the latter +case, I should prefer"—</p> + +<p>"Then take it as a command," said Haward imperturbably. "I wish your +company. Mr. Ker, good-day; I will buy the piece of plate which you showed +me yesterday."</p> + +<p>The two moved down the room together, but at the door MacLean, with his +face set like a flint, stood aside, and Haward passed out first, then +waited for the other to come up with him.</p> + +<p>"When I drink a cup I drain it to the dregs," said the Scot. "I walk +behind the man who commands me. The way, you see, is not broad enough for +you and me and hatred."</p> + +<p>"Then let hatred lag behind," answered Haward coolly. "I have negroes to +walk at my heels when I go abroad. I take you for a gentleman, accept your +enmity an it please you, but protest against standing here in the hot +sunshine."</p> + +<p>With a shrug MacLean joined him. "As you please," he said. "I have in +spirit moved with you through London streets. I never thought to walk with +you in the flesh."</p> + +<p>It was yet warm and bright in the street, the dust thick, the air heavy +with the odors of the May. Haward and MacLean walked in silence, each as +to the other, one as to the world at large. Now and again the Virginian +must stop to bow profoundly to curtsying ladies, or to take snuff with +some portly Councilor or less stately Burgess who, coming from the +Capitol, chanced to overtake them. When he paused his storekeeper paused +also, but, having no notice taken of him beyond a glance to discern his +quality, needed neither a supple back nor a ready smile.</p> + +<p>Haward lodged upon Palace Street, in a square brick house, lived in by an +ancient couple who could remember Puritan rule in Virginia, who had served +Sir William Berkeley, and had witnessed the burning of Jamestown by Bacon. +There was a grassy yard to the house, and the path to the door lay through +an alley of lilacs, purple and white. The door was open, and Haward and +MacLean, entering, crossed the hall, and going into a large, low room, +into which the late sunshine was streaming, found the negro Juba setting +cakes and wine upon the table.</p> + +<p>"This gentleman hath a broken head, Juba," said the master. "Bring water +and linen, and bind it up for him."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he laid aside hat and rapier, and motioned MacLean to a seat +by the window. The latter obeyed the gesture in silence, and in silence +submitted to the ministrations of the negro. Haward, sitting at the table, +waited until the wound had been dressed; then with a wave of the hand +dismissed the black.</p> + +<p>"You would take nothing at my hands the other day," he said to the grim +figure at the window. "Change your mind, my friend,—or my foe,—and come +sit and drink with me."</p> + +<p>MacLean reared himself from his seat, and went stiffly over to the table. +"I have eaten and drunken with an enemy before to-day," he said. "Once I +met Ewin Mor Mackinnon upon a mountain side. He had oatcake in his +sporran, and I a flask of usquebaugh. We couched in the heather, and ate +and drank together, and then we rose and fought. I should have slain him +but that a dozen Mackinnons came up the glen, and he turned and fled to +them for cover. Here I am in an alien land; a thousand fiery crosses would +not bring one clansman to my side; I cannot fight my foe. Wherefore, then, +should I take favors at his hands?"</p> + +<p>"Why should you be my foe?" demanded Haward. "Look you, now! There was a +time, I suppose, when I was an insolent youngster like any one of those +who lately set upon you; but now I call myself a philosopher and man of a +world for whose opinions I care not overmuch. My coat is of fine cloth, +and my shirt of holland; your shirt is lockram, and you wear no coat at +all: <i>ergo</i>, saith a world of pretty fellows, we are beings of separate +planets. 'As the cloth is, the man is,'—to which doctrine I am at times +heretic. I have some store of yellow metal, and spend my days in ridding +myself of it,—a feat which you have accomplished. A goodly number of +acres is also counted unto me, but in the end my holding and your holding +will measure the same. I walk a level road; you have met with your +precipice, and, bruised by the fall, you move along stony ways; but +through the same gateway we go at last. Fate, not I, put you here. Why +should you hate me who am of your order?"</p> + +<p>MacLean left the table, and twice walked the length of the room, slowly +and with knitted brows. "If you mean the world-wide order,—the order of +gentlemen,"—he said, coming to a pause with the breadth of the table +between him and Haward, "we may have that ground in common. The rest is +debatable land. I do not take you for a sentimentalist or a redresser of +wrongs. I am your storekeeper, purchased with that same yellow metal of +which you so busily rid yourself; and your storekeeper I shall remain +until the natural death of my term, two years hence. We are not +countrymen; we own different kings; I may once have walked your level +road, but you have never moved in the stony ways; my eyes are blue, while +yours are gray; you love your melting Southern music, and I take no joy +save in the pipes; I dare swear you like the smell of lilies which I +cannot abide, and prefer fair hair in women where I would choose the dark. +There is no likeness between us. Why, then"—</p> + +<p>Haward smiled, and drawing two glasses toward him slowly filled them with +wine. "It is true," he said, "that it is not my intention to become a +petitioner for the pardon of a rebel to his serene and German Majesty the +King; true also that I like the fragrance of the lily. I have my fancies. +Say that I am a man of whim, and that, living in a lonely house set in a +Sahara of tobacco fields, it is my whim to desire the acquaintance of the +only gentleman within some miles of me. Say that my fancy hath been caught +by a picture drawn for me a week agone; that, being a philosopher, I play +with the idea that your spirit, knife in hand, walked at my elbow for ten +years, and I knew it not. Say that the idea has for me a curious +fascination. Say, finally, that I plume myself that, given the chance, I +might break down this airy hatred."</p> + +<p>He set down the bottle, and pushed one of the brimming glasses across the +table. "I should like to make trial of my strength," he said, with, a +laugh. "Come! I did you a service to-day; in your turn do me a pleasure."</p> + +<p>MacLean dragged a chair to the table, and sat down. "I will drink with +you," he said, "and forget for an hour. A man grows tired—It is Burgundy, +is it not? Old Borlum and I emptied a bottle between us, the day he went +as hostage to Wills; since then I have not tasted wine. 'Tis a pretty +color."</p> + +<p>Haward lifted his glass. "I drink to your future. Freedom, better days, a +stake in a virgin land, friendship with a sometime foe." He bowed to his +guest and drank.</p> + +<p>"In my country," answered MacLean, "where we would do most honor, we drink +not to life, but to death. <i>Crioch onarach!</i> Like a gentleman may you +die." He drank, and sighed with pleasure.</p> + +<p>"The King!" said Haward. There was a china bowl, filled with red anemones, +upon the table. MacLean drew it toward him, and, pressing aside the mass +of bloom, passed his glass over the water in the bowl. "The King! with all +my heart," he said imperturbably.</p> + +<p>Haward poured more wine. "I have toasted at the Kit-Kat many a piece of +brocade and lace less fair than yon bit of Quaker gray that cost you a +broken head. Shall we drink to Mistress Truelove Taberer?"</p> + +<p>By now the Burgundy had warmed the heart and loosened the tongue of the +man who had not tasted wine since the surrender of Preston. "It is but a +mile from the store to her father's house," he said. "Sometimes on +Sundays I go up the creek upon the Fair View side, and when I am over +against the house I holloa. Ephraim comes, in his boat and rows me across, +and I stay for an hour. They are strange folk, the Quakers. In her sight +and in that of her people I am as good a man as you. 'Friend Angus +MacLean,' 'Friend Marmaduke Haward,'—world's wealth and world's rank +quite beside the question."</p> + +<p>He drank, and commended the wine. Haward struck a silver bell, and bade +Juba bring another bottle.</p> + +<p>"When do you come again to the house at Fair View?" asked the storekeeper.</p> + +<p>"Very shortly. It is a lonely place, where ghosts bear me company. I hope +that now and then, when I ask it, and when the duties of your day are +ended, you will come help me exorcise them. You shall find welcome and +good wine." He spoke very courteously, and if he saw the humor of the +situation his smile betrayed him not.</p> + +<p>MacLean took a flower from the bowl, and plucked at its petals with +nervous fingers. "Do you mean that?" he asked at last.</p> + +<p>Haward leaned across the table, and their eyes met. "On my word I do," +said the Virginian.</p> + +<p>The knocker on the house door sounded loudly, and a moment later a woman's +clear voice, followed by a man's deeper tones, was heard in the hall.</p> + +<p>"More guests," said Haward lightly. "You are a Jacobite; I drink my +chocolate at St. James' Coffee House; the gentleman approaching—despite +his friendship for Orrery and for the Bishop of Rochester—is but a +Hanover Tory; but the lady,—the lady wears only white roses, and every +10th of June makes a birthday feast."</p> + +<p>The storekeeper rose hastily to take his leave, but was prevented both by +Haward's restraining gesture and by the entrance of the two visitors who +were now ushered in by the grinning Juba. Haward stepped forward. "You are +very welcome, Colonel. Evelyn, this is kind. Your woman told me this +morning that you were not well, else"—</p> + +<p>"A migraine," she answered, in her clear, low voice. "I am better now, and +my father desired me to take the air with him."</p> + +<p>"We return to Westover to-morrow," said that sprightly gentleman. "Evelyn +is like David of old, and pines for water from the spring at home. It also +appears that the many houses and thronged streets of this town weary her, +who, poor child, is used to an Arcady called London! When will you come to +us at Westover, Marmaduke?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell," Haward answered. "I must first put my own house in order, +so that I may in my turn entertain my friends."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he moved aside, so as to include in the company MacLean, who +stood beside the table. "Evelyn," he said, "let me make known to you—and +to you, Colonel—a Scots gentleman who hath broken his spear in his tilt +with fortune, as hath been the luck of many a gallant man before him. +Mistress Evelyn Byrd, Colonel Byrd—Mr. MacLean, who was an officer in the +Highland force taken at Preston, and who has been for some years a +prisoner of war in Virginia."</p> + +<p>The lady's curtsy was low; the Colonel bowed as to his friend's friend. If +his eyebrows went up, and if a smile twitched the corners of his lips, the +falling curls of his periwig hid from view these tokens of amused wonder. +MacLean bowed somewhat stiffly, as one grown rusty in such matters. "I am +in addition Mr. Marmaduke Haward's storekeeper," he said succinctly, then +turned to the master of Fair View. "It grows late," he announced, "and I +must be back at the store to-night. Have you any message for Saunderson?"</p> + +<p>"None," answered Haward. "I go myself to Fair View to-morrow, and then I +shall ask you to drink with me again."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he held out his hand. MacLean looked at it, sighed, then +touched it with his own. A gleam as of wintry laughter came into his blue +eyes. "I doubt that I shall have to get me a new foe," he said, with +regret in his voice.</p> + +<p>When he had bowed to the lady and to her father, and had gone out of the +room and down the lilac-bordered path and through the gate, and when the +three at the window had watched him turn into Duke of Gloucester Street, +the master of Westover looked at the master of Fair View and burst out +laughing. "Ludwell hath for an overseer the scapegrace younger son of a +baronet; and there are three brothers of an excellent name under +indentures to Robert Carter. I have at Westover a gardener who annually +makes the motto of his house to spring in pease and asparagus. I have not +had him to drink with me yet, and t'other day I heard Ludwell give to the +baronet's son a hound's rating."</p> + +<p>"I do not drink with the name," said Haward coolly. "I drink with the man. +The churl or coward may pass me by, but the gentleman, though his hands be +empty, I stop."</p> + +<p>The other laughed again; then dismissed the question with a wave of his +hand, and pulled out a great gold watch with cornelian seals. "Carter +swears that Dr. Contesse hath a specific that is as sovereign for the gout +as is St. Andrew's cross for a rattlesnake bite. I've had twinges lately, +and the doctor lives hard by. Evelyn, will you rest here while I go +petition Æsculapius? Haward, when I have the recipe I will return, and +impart it to you against the time when you need it. No, no, child, stay +where you are! I will be back anon."</p> + +<p>Having waved aside his daughter's faint protest, the Colonel departed,—a +gallant figure of a man, with a pretty wit and a heart that was +benevolently gay. As he went down the path he paused to gather a sprig of +lilac. "Westover—Fair View," he said to himself, and smiled, and smelled +the lilac; then—though his ills were somewhat apocryphal—walked off at a +gouty pace across the buttercup-sprinkled green toward the house of Dr. +Contesse.</p> + +<p>Haward and Evelyn, left alone, kept silence for a time in the quiet room +that was filled with late sunshine and the fragrance of flowers. He stood +by the window, and she sat in a great chair, with her hands folded in her +lap, and her eyes upon them. When silence had become more loud than +speech, she turned in her seat and addressed herself to him.</p> + +<p>"I have known you do many good deeds," she said slowly. "That gentleman +that was here is your servant, is he not, and an exile, and unhappy? And +you sent him away comforted. It was a generous thing."</p> + +<p>Haward moved restlessly. "A generous thing," he answered. "Ay, it was +generous. I can do such things at times, and why I do them who can tell? +Not I! Do you think that I care for that grim Highlander, who drinks my +death in place of my health, who is of a nation that I dislike, and a +party that is not mine?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "I do not know. And yet you helped him."</p> + +<p>Haward left the window, and came and sat beside her. "Yes, I helped him. I +am not sure, but I think I did it because, when first we met, he told me +that he hated me, and meant the thing he said. It is my humor to fix my +own position in men's minds; to lose the thing I have that I may gain the +thing I have not; to overcome, and never prize the victory; to hunt down a +quarry, and feel no ardor in the chase; to strain after a goal, and yet +care not if I never reach it."</p> + +<p>He took her fan in his hand, and fell to counting the slender ivory +sticks. "I tread the stage as a fine gentleman," he said. "It is the part +for which I was cast, and I play it well with proper mien and gait. I was +not asked if I would like the part, but I think that I do like it, as much +as I like anything. Seeing that I must play it, and that there is that +within me which cries out against slovenliness, I play it as an artist +should. Magnanimity goes with it, does it not, and generosity, courtesy, +care for the thing which is, and not for that which seems? Why, then, with +these and other qualities I strive to endow the character."</p> + +<p>He closed the fan, and, leaning back in his chair, shaded his eyes with +his hand. "When the lights are out," he said; "when forever and a night +the actor bids the stage farewell; when, stripped of mask and tinsel, he +goes home to that Auditor who set him his part, then perhaps he will be +told what manner of man he is. The glass that now he dresses before tells +him not; but he thinks a truer glass would show a shrunken figure."</p> + +<p>He sat in silence for a moment; then laughed, and gave her back her fan. +"Am I to come to Westover, Evelyn?" he asked. "Your father presses, and I +have not known what answer to make him."</p> + +<p>"You will give us pleasure by your coming," she said gently and at once. +"My father wishes your advice as to the ordering of his library; and you +know that my pretty stepmother likes you well."</p> + +<p>"Will it please you to have me come?" he asked, with his eyes upon her +face.</p> + +<p>She met his gaze very quietly. "Why not?" she answered simply. "You will +help me in my flower garden, and sing with me in the evening, as of old."</p> + +<p>"Evelyn," he said, "if what I am about to say to you distresses you, lift +your hand, and I will cease to speak. Since a day and an hour in the woods +yonder, I have been thinking much. I wish to wipe that hour from your +memory as I wipe it from mine, and to begin afresh. You are the fairest +woman that I know, and the best. I beg you to accept my reverence, homage, +love; not the boy's love, perhaps; perhaps not the love that some men have +to squander, but <i>my</i> love. A quiet love, a lasting trust, deep pride and +pleasure"—</p> + +<p>At her gesture he broke off, sat in silence for a moment, then rising went +to the window, and with slightly contracted brows stood looking out at the +sunshine that was slipping away. Presently he was aware that she stood +beside him.</p> + +<p>She was holding out her hand. "It is that of a friend," she said. "No, do +not kiss it, for that is the act of a lover. And you are not my +lover,—oh, not yet, not yet!" A soft, exquisite blush stole over her face +and neck, but she did not lower her lovely candid eyes. "Perhaps some day, +some summer day at Westover, it will all be different," she breathed, and +turned away.</p> + +<p>Haward caught her hand, and bending pressed his lips upon it. "It is +different now!" he cried. "Next week I shall come to Westover!"</p> + +<p>He led her back to the great chair, and presently she asked some question +as to the house at Fair View. He plunged into an account of the cases of +goods which had followed him from England by the Falcon, and which now lay +in the rooms that were yet to be swept and garnished; then spoke lightly +and whimsically of the solitary state in which he must live, and of the +entertainments which, to be in the Virginia fashion, he must give. While +he talked she sat and watched him, with the faint smile upon her lips. The +sunshine left the floor and the wall, and a dankness from the long grass +and the closing flowers and the heavy trees in the adjacent churchyard +stole into the room. With the coming of the dusk conversation languished, +and the two sat in silence until the return of the Colonel.</p> + +<p>If that gentleman did not light the darkness like a star, at least his +entrance into a room invariably produced the effect of a sudden accession +of was lights, very fine and clear and bright. He broke a jest or two, +bade laughing farewell to the master of Fair View, and carried off his +daughter upon his arm. Haward walked with them to the gate, and came back +alone, stepping thoughtfully between the lilac bushes.</p> + +<p>It was not until Juba had brought candles, and he had taken his seat at +table before the half-emptied bottle of wine, that it came to Haward that +he had wished to tell Evelyn of the brown girl who had run for the guinea, +but had forgotten to do so.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI<br>AUDREY OF THE GARDEN</h2> + + +<p>The creek that ran between Fairview and the glebe lands was narrow and +deep; upon it, moored to a stake driven into a bit of marshy ground below +the orchard, lay a crazy boat belonging to the minister. To this boat, of +an early, sunny morning, came Audrey, and, standing erect, pole in hand, +pushed out from the reedy bank into the slow-moving stream. It moved so +slowly and was so clear that its depth seemed the blue depth of the sky, +with now and then a tranquil cloud to be glided over. The banks were low +and of the greenest grass, save where they sank still lower and reeds +abounded, or where some colored bush, heavy with bloom, bent to meet its +reflected image. It was so fair that Audrey began to sing as she went down +the stream; and without knowing why she chose it, she sang a love song +learned out of one of Darden's ungodly books, a plaintive and passionate +lay addressed by some cavalier to his mistress of an hour. She sang not +loudly, but very sweetly; carelessly, too, and as if to herself; now and +then repeating a line twice or maybe thrice; pleased with the sweet +melancholy of the notes, but not thinking overmuch of the meaning of the +words. They died upon her lips when Hugon rose from a lair of reeds and +called to her to stop. "Come to the shore, ma'm'selle!" he cried. "See, I +have brought you a ribbon from the town. Behold!" and he fluttered a +crimson streamer.</p> + +<p>Audrey caught her breath; then gazed, reassured, at the five yards of +water between her and the bank. Had Hugon stood there in his hunting +dress, she would have felt them no security; but he was wearing his coat +and breeches of fine cloth, his ruffled shirt, and his great black +periwig. A wetting would not be to his mind.</p> + +<p>As she answered not, but went on her way, silent now, and with her slender +figure bending with the motion of the pole, he frowned and shrugged; then +took up his pilgrimage, and with his light and swinging stride kept +alongside of the boat. The ribbon lay across his arm, and he turned it in +the sunshine. "If you come not and get it," he wheedled, "I will throw it +in the water."</p> + +<p>The angry tears sprang to Audrey's eyes. "Do so, and save me the trouble," +she answered, and then was sorry that she had spoken.</p> + +<p>The red came into the swarthy cheeks of the man upon the bank. "You love +me not," he said. "Good! You have told me so before. But here I am!"</p> + +<p>"Then here is a coward!" said Audrey. "I do not wish you to walk there. I +do not wish you to speak to me. Go back!"</p> + +<p>Hugon's teeth began to show. "I go not," he answered, with something +between a snarl and a smirk. "I love you, and I follow on your path,—like +a lover."</p> + +<p>"Like an Indian!" cried the girl.</p> + +<p>The arrow pierced the heel. The face which he turned upon her was the face +of a savage, made grotesque and horrible, as war-paint and feathers could +not have made it, by the bushy black wig and the lace cravat.</p> + +<p>"Audrey!" he called. "Morning Light! Sunshine in the Dark! Dancing Water! +Audrey that will not be called 'mademoiselle' nor have the wooing of the +son of a French chief! Then shall she have the wooing of the son of a +Monacan woman. I am a hunter. I will woo as they woo in the woods."</p> + +<p>Audrey bent to her pole, and made faster progress down the creek. Her +heart was hot and angry, and yet she was afraid. All dreadful things, all +things that oppressed with horror, all things that turned one white and +cold, so cold and still that one could not run away, were summed up for +her in the word "Indian." To her the eyes of Hugon were basilisk +eyes,—they drew her and held her; and when she looked into them, she saw +flames rising and bodies of murdered kindred; then the mountains loomed +above her again, and it was night-time, and she was alone save for the +dead, and mad with fear and with the quiet.</p> + +<p>The green banks went by, and the creek began to widen. "Where are you +going?" called the trader. "Wheresoever you go, at the end of your path +stand my village and my wigwam. You cannot stay all day in that boat. If +you come not back at the bidden hour, Darden's squaw will beat you. Come +over, Morning Light, come over, and take me in your boat, and tie your +hair with my gift. I will not hurt you. I will tell you the French love +songs that my father sang to my mother. I will speak of land that I have +bought (oh, I have prospered, ma'm'selle!), and of a house that I mean to +build, and of a woman that I wish to put in the house,—a Sunshine in the +Dark to greet me when I come from my hunting in the great forests beyond +the falls, from my trading with the nation of the Tuscaroras, with the +villages of the Monacans. Come over to me, Morning Light!"</p> + +<p>The creek widened and widened, then doubled a grassy cape all in the +shadow of a towering sycamore. Beyond the point, crowning the low green +slope of the bank, and topped with a shaggy fell of honeysuckle and ivy, +began a red brick wall. Half way down its length it broke, and six shallow +steps led up to an iron gate, through whose bars one looked into a garden. +Gazing on down the creek past the farther stretch of the wall, the eye +came upon the shining reaches of the river.</p> + +<p>Audrey turned the boat's head toward the steps and the gate in the wall. +The man on the opposite shore let fall an oath.</p> + +<p>"So you go to Fair View house!" he called across the stream. "There are +only negroes there, unless"—he came to a pause, and his face changed +again, and out of his eyes looked the spirit of some hot, ancestral French +lover, cynical, suspicious, and jealously watchful—"unless their master +is at home," he ended, and laughed.</p> + +<p>Audrey touched the wall, and over a great iron hook projecting therefrom +threw a looped rope, and fastened her boat.</p> + +<p>"I stay here until you come forth!" swore Hugon from across the creek. +"And then I follow you back to where you must moor the boat. And then I +shall walk with you to the minister's house. Until we meet again, +ma'm'selle!"</p> + +<p>Audrey answered not, but sped up the steps to the gate. A sick fear lest +it should be locked possessed her; but it opened at her touch, disclosing +a long, sunny path, paved with brick, and shut between lines of tall, +thick, and smoothly clipped box. The gate clanged to behind her; ten +steps, and the boat, the creek, and the farther shore were hidden from her +sight. With this comparative bliss came a faintness and a trembling that +presently made her slip down upon the warm and sunny floor, and lie there, +with her face within her arm and the tears upon her cheeks. The odor of +the box wrapped her like a mantle; a lizard glided past her; somewhere in +open spaces birds were singing; finally a greyhound came down the path, +and put its nose into the hollow of her hand.</p> + +<p>She rose to her knees, and curled her arm around the dog's neck; then, +with a long sigh, stood up, and asked of herself if this were the way to +the house. She had never seen the house at close range, had never been in +this walled garden. It was from Williamsburgh that the minister had taken +her to his home, eleven years before. Sometimes from the river, in those +years, she had seen, rising above the trees, the steep roof and the upper +windows; sometimes upon the creek she had gone past the garden wall, and +had smelled the flowers upon the other side.</p> + +<p>In her lonely life, with the beauty of the earth about her to teach her +that there might be greater beauty that she yet might see with a daily +round of toil and sharp words to push her to that escape which lay in a +world of dreams, she had entered that world, and thrived therein. It was a +world that was as pure as a pearl, and more fantastic than an Arabian +tale. She knew that when she died she could take nothing out of life with +her to heaven. But with this other world it was different, and all that +she had or dreamed of that was fair she carried through its portals. This +house was there. Long closed, walled in, guarded by tall trees, seen at +far intervals and from a distance, as through a glass darkly, it had +become to her an enchanted spot, about which played her quick fancy, but +where her feet might never stray.</p> + +<p>But now the spell which had held the place in slumber was snapped, and her +feet was set in its pleasant paths. She moved down the alley between the +lines of box, and the greyhound went with her. The branches of a +walnut-tree drooped heavily across the way; when she had passed them she +saw the house, square, dull red, bathed in sunshine. A moment, and the +walk led her between squat pillars of living green into the garden out of +the fairy tale.</p> + +<p>Dim, fragrant, and old time; walled in; here sunshiny spaces, there cool +shadows of fruit-trees; broken by circles and squares of box; green with +the grass and the leaves, red and purple and gold and white with the +flowers; with birds singing, with the great silver river murmuring by +without the wall at the foot of the terrace, with the voice of a man who +sat beneath a cherry-tree reading aloud to himself,—such was the garden +that she came upon, a young girl, and heavy at heart.</p> + +<p>She was so near that she could hear the words of the reader, and she knew +the piece that he was reading; for you must remember that she was not +untaught, and that Darden had books.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'When from the censer clouds of fragrance roll,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And swelling organs lift the rising soul,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight'"—</span><br> +</p> + +<p>The greyhound ran from Audrey to the man who was reading these verses +with taste and expression, and also with a smile half sad and half +cynical. He glanced from his page, saw the girl where she stood against +the dark pillar of the box, tossed aside the book, and went to her down +the grassy path between rows of nodding tulips. "Why, child!" he said. +"Did you come up like a flower? I am glad to see you in my garden, little +maid. Are there Indians without?"</p> + +<p>At least, to Audrey, there were none within. She had been angered, sick at +heart and sore afraid, but she was no longer so. In this world that she +had entered it was good to be alive; she knew that she was safe, and of a +sudden she felt that the sunshine was very golden, the music very sweet. +To Haward, looking at her with a smile, she gave a folded paper which she +drew from the bosom of her gown. "The minister sent me with it," she +explained, and curtsied shyly.</p> + +<p>Haward took the paper, opened it, and fell to poring over the crabbed +characters with which it was adorned. "Ay? Gratulateth himself that this +fortunate parish hath at last for vestryman Mr. Marmaduke Haward; knoweth +that, seeing I am what I am, my influence will be paramount with said +vestry; commendeth himself to my favor; beggeth that I listen not to +charges made by a factious member anent a vastly magnified occurrence at +the French ordinary; prayeth that he may shortly present himself at Fair +View, and explain away certain calumnies with which his enemies have +poisoned the ears of the Commissary; hopeth that I am in good health; and +is my very obedient servant to command. Humph!"</p> + +<p>He let the paper flutter to the ground, and turned to Audrey with a +kindly smile. "I am much afraid that this man of the church, whom I gave +thee for guardian, child, is but a rascal, after all, and a wolf in +sheep's clothing. But let him go hang while I show you my garden."</p> + +<p>Going closer, he glanced at her keenly; then went nearer still, and +touched her cheek with his forefinger. "You have been crying," he said. +"There <i>were</i> Indians, then. How many and how strong, Audrey?"</p> + +<p>The dark eyes that met his were the eyes of the child who, in the +darkness, through the corn, had run from him, her helper. "There was one," +she whispered, and looked over her shoulder.</p> + +<p>Haward drew her to the seat beneath the cherry-tree, and there, while he +sat beside her, elbow on knee and chin on hand, watching her, she told him +of Hugon. It was so natural to tell him. When she had made an end of her +halting, broken sentences, and he spoke to her gravely and kindly, she +hung upon his words, and thought him wise and wonderful as a king. He told +her that he would speak to Darden, and did not despair of persuading that +worthy to forbid the trader his house. Also he told her that in this +settled, pleasant, every-day Virginia, and in the eighteenth century, a +maid, however poor and humble, might not be married against her will. If +this half-breed had threats to utter, there was always the law of the +land. A few hours in the pillory or a taste of the sheriff's whip might +not be amiss. Finally, if the trader made his suit again, Audrey must let +him know, and Monsieur Jean Hugon should be taught that he had another +than a helpless, friendless girl to deal with.</p> + +<p>Audrey listened and was comforted, but the shadow did not quite leave her +eyes. "He is waiting for me now," she said fearfully to Haward, who had +not missed the shadow. "He followed me down the creek, and is waiting over +against the gate in the wall. When I go back he will follow me again, and +at last I will have to cross to his side. And then he will go home with +me, and make me listen to him. His eyes burn me, and when his hand touches +me I see—I see"—</p> + +<p>Her frame shook, and she raised to his gaze a countenance suddenly changed +into Tragedy's own. "I don't know why," she said, in a stricken voice, +"but of them all that I kissed good-by that night I now see only Molly. I +suppose she was about as old as I am when they killed her. We were always +together. I can't remember her face very clearly; only her eyes, and how +red her lips were. And her hair: it came to her knees, and mine is just as +long. For a long, long time after you went away, when I could not sleep +because it was dark, or when I was frightened or Mistress Deborah beat me, +I saw them all; but now I see only Molly,—Molly lying there <i>dead</i>."</p> + +<p>There was a silence in the garden, broken presently by Haward. "Ay, +Molly," he said absently.</p> + +<p>With his hand covering his lips and his eyes upon the ground, he fell into +a brown study. Audrey sat very still for fear that she might disturb him, +who was so kind to her. A passionate gratitude filled her young heart; she +would have traveled round the world upon her knees to serve him. As for +him, he was not thinking of the mountain girl, the oread who, in the days +when he was younger and his heart beat high, had caught his light fancy, +tempting him from his comrades back to the cabin in the valley, to look +again into her eyes and touch the brown waves of her hair. She was ashes, +and the memory of her stirred him not.</p> + +<p>At last he looked up. "I myself will take you home, child. This fellow +shall not come near you. And cease to think of these gruesome things that +happened long ago. You are young and fair; you should be happy. I will see +to it that"—</p> + +<p>He broke off, and again looked thoughtfully at the ground. The book which +he had tossed aside was lying upon the grass, open at the poem which he +had been reading. He stooped and raised the volume, and, closing it, laid +it upon the bench beside her. Presently he laughed. "Come, child!" he +said. "You have youth. I begin to think my own not past recall. Come and +let me show you my dial that I have just had put up."</p> + +<p>There was no load at Audrey's heart: the vision of Molly had passed; the +fear of Hugon was a dwindling cloud. She was safe in this old sunny +garden, with harm shut without. And as a flower opens to the sunshine, so +because she was happy she grew more fair. Audrey every day, Audrey of the +infrequent speech and the wide dark eyes, the startled air, the shy, +fugitive smiles,—that was not Audrey of the garden. Audrey of the garden +had shining eyes, a wild elusive grace, laughter as silvery as that which +had rung from her sister's lips, years agone, beneath the sugar-tree in +the far-off blue mountains, quick gestures, quaint fancies which she +feared not to speak out, the charm of mingled humility and spirit; enough, +in short, to make Audrey of the garden a name to conjure with.</p> + +<p>They came to the sun-dial, and leaned thereon. Around its rim were graved +two lines from Herrick, and Audrey traced the letters with her finger. +"The philosophy is sound," remarked Haward, "and the advice worth the +taking. Let us go see if there are any rosebuds to gather from the bushes +yonder. Damask buds should look well against your hair, child."</p> + +<p>When they came to the rosebushes he broke for her a few scarce-opened +buds, and himself fastened them in the coils of her hair. Innocent and +glad as she was,—glad even that he thought her fair,—she trembled +beneath his touch, and knew not why she trembled. When the rosebuds were +in place they went to see the clove pinks, and when they had seen the +clove pinks they walked slowly up another alley of box, and across a grass +plot to a side door of the house; for he had said that he must show her in +what great, lonely rooms he lived.</p> + +<p>Audrey measured the height and breadth of the house with her eyes. "It is +a large place for one to live in alone," she said, and laughed. "There's a +book at the Widow Constance's; Barbara once showed it to me. It is all +about a pilgrim; and there's a picture of a great square house, quite like +this, that was a giant's castle,—Giant Despair. Good giant, eat me not!"</p> + +<p>Child, woman, spirit of the woodland, she passed before him into a dim, +cool room, all littered with books. "My library," said Haward, with a wave +of his hand. "But the curtains and pictures are not hung, nor the books in +place. Hast any schooling, little maid? Canst read?"</p> + +<p>Audrey flushed with pride that she could tell him that she was not +ignorant; not like Barbara, who could not read the giant's name in the +pilgrim book.</p> + +<p>"The crossroads schoolmaster taught me," she explained. "He has a scar in +each hand, and is a very wicked man, but he knows more than the Commissary +himself. The minister, too, has a cupboard filled with books, and he buys +the new ones as the ships bring them in. When I have time, and Mistress +Deborah will not let me go to the woods, I read. And I remember what I +read. I could"—</p> + +<p>A smile trembled upon her lips, and her eyes grew brighter. Fired by the +desire that he should praise her learning, and in her very innocence bold +as a Wortley or a Howe, she began to repeat the lines which he had been +reading beneath the cherry-tree:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'When from the censer clouds of fragrance roll'"—</span><br> +</p> + +<p>The rhythm of the words, the passion of the thought, the pleased surprise +that she thought she read in his face, the gesture of his hand, all +spurred her on from line to line, sentence to sentence. And now she was +not herself, but that other woman, and she was giving voice to all her +passion, all her woe. The room became a convent cell; her ragged dress the +penitent's trailing black. That Audrey, lithe of mind as of body; who in +the woods seemed the spirit of the woods, in the garden the spirit of the +garden, on the water the spirit of the water,—that this Audrey, in using +the speech of the poet, should embody and become the spirit of that speech +was perhaps, considering all things, not so strange. At any rate, and +however her power came about, at that moment, in Fair View house, a great +actress was speaking.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'Fresh blooming Hope, gay daughter of the skies,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And Faith'"—</span><br> +</p> + +<p>The speaker lost a word, hesitated, became confused. Finally silence; +then the Audrey of a while before, standing with heaving bosom, shy as a +fawn, fearful that she had not pleased him, after all. For if she had done +so, surely he would have told her as much. As it was, he had said but one +word, and that beneath his breath, "<i>Eloïsa!</i>"</p> + +<p>It would seem that her fear was unfounded; for when he did speak, there +were, God wot, sugar-plums enough. And Audrey, who in her workaday world +was always blamed, could not know that the praise that was so sweet was +less wholesome than the blame.</p> + +<p>Leaving the library they went into the hall, and from the hall looked into +great, echoing, half-furnished rooms. All about lay packing-cases, many of +them open, with rich stuffs streaming from them. Ornaments were huddled on +tables, mirrors and pictures leaned their faces to the walls; everywhere +was disorder.</p> + +<p>"The negroes are careless, and to-day I held their hands," said Haward. "I +must get some proper person to see to this gear."</p> + +<p>Up stairs and down they went through the house, that seemed very large and +very still, and finally they came out of the great front door, and down +the stone steps on to the terrace. Below them, sparkling in the sunshine, +lay the river, the opposite shore all in a haze of light. "I must go +home," Audrey shyly reminded him, whereat he smiled assent, and they went, +not through the box alley to the gate in the wall, but down the terrace, +and out upon the hot brown boards of the landing. Haward, stepping into a +boat, handed her to a seat in the stern, and himself took the oars. +Leaving the landing, they came to the creek and entered it. Presently +they were gliding beneath the red brick wall with the honeysuckle atop. On +the opposite grassy shore, seated in a blaze of noon sunshine, was Hugon.</p> + +<p>They in the boat took no notice. Haward, rowing, spoke evenly on, his +theme himself and the gay and lonely life he had led these eleven years; +and Audrey, though at first sight of the waiting figure she had paled and +trembled, was too safe, too happy, to give to trouble any part of this +magic morning. She kept her eyes on Haward's face, and almost forgot the +man who had risen from the grass and in silence was following them.</p> + +<p>Now, had the trader, in his hunting shirt and leggings, his moccasins and +fur cap, been walking in the great woods, this silence, even with others +in company, would have been natural enough to his Indian blood; but +Monsieur Jean Hugon, in peruke and laced coat, walking in a civilized +country, with words a-plenty and as hot as fire-water in his heart, and +none upon his tongue, was a figure strange and sinister. He watched the +two in the boat with an impassive face, and he walked like an Indian on an +enemy's trail, so silently that he scarce seemed to breathe, so lightly +that his heavy boots failed to crush the flowers or the tender grass.</p> + +<p>Haward rowed on, telling Audrey stories of the town, of great men whose +names she knew, and beautiful ladies of whom she had never heard; and she +sat before him with her slim brown hands folded in her lap and the +rosebuds withering in her hair, while through the reeds and the grass and +the bushes of the bank over against them strode Hugon in his Blenheim wig +and his wine-colored coat. Well-nigh together the three reached the stake +driven in among the reeds, a hundred yards below the minister's house. +Haward fastened the boat, and, motioning to Audrey to stay for the moment +where she was, stepped out upon the bank to confront the trader, who, +walking steadily and silently as ever, was almost upon them.</p> + +<p>But it was broad daylight, and Hugon, with his forest instincts, +preferred, when he wished to speak to the point, to speak in the dark. He +made no pause; only looked with his fierce black eyes at the quiet, +insouciant, fine gentleman standing with folded arms between him and the +boat; then passed on, going steadily up the creek toward the bend where +the water left the open smiling fields and took to the forest. He never +looked back, but went like a hunter with his prey before him. Presently +the shadows of the forest touched him, and Audrey and Haward were left +alone.</p> + +<p>The latter laughed. "If his courage is of the quality of his lace—What, +cowering, child, and the tears in your eyes! You were braver when you were +not so tall, in those mountain days. Nay, no need to wet your shoe."</p> + +<p>He lifted her in his arms, and set her feet upon firm grass. "How long +since I carried you across a stream and up a dark hillside!" he said. "And +yet to-day it seems but yesternight! Now, little maid, the Indian has run +away, and the path to the house is clear."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;'> + +<p>In his smoke-filled, untidy best room Darden sat at table, his drink +beside him, his pipe between his fingers, and open before him a book of +jests, propped by a tome of divinity. His wife coming in from the +kitchen, he burrowed in the litter upon the table until he found an open +letter, which he flung toward her. "The Commissary threatens again, damn +him!" he said between smoke puffs. "It seems that t'other night, when I +was in my cups at the tavern, Le Neve and the fellow who has Ware Creek +parish—I forget his name—must needs come riding by. I was dicing with +Paris. Hugon held the stakes. I dare say we kept not mum. And out of pure +brotherly love and charity, my good, kind gentlemen ride on to +Williamsburgh on a tale-bearing errand! Is that child never coming back, +Deborah?"</p> + +<p>"She's coming now," answered his wife, with her eyes upon the letter. "I +was watching from the upper window. He rowed her up the creek himself."</p> + +<p>The door opened, and Audrey entered the room. Darden turned heavily in his +chair, and took the long pipe from between his teeth. "Well?" he said. +"You gave him my letter?"</p> + +<p>Audrey nodded. Her eyes were dreamy; the red of the buds in her hair had +somehow stolen to her cheeks; she could scarce keep her lips from smiling. +"He bade me tell you to come to supper with him on Monday," she said. "And +the Falcon that we saw come in last week brought furnishing for the great +house. Oh, Mistress Deborah, the most beautiful things! The rooms are all +to be made fine; and the negro women do not the work aright, and he wants +some one to oversee them. He says that he has learned that in England +Mistress Deborah was own woman to my Lady Squander, and so should know +about hangings and china and the placing of furniture. And he asks that +she come to Fair View morning after morning until the house is in order. +He wishes me to come, too. Mistress Deborah will much oblige him, he +says, and he will not forget her kindness."</p> + +<p>Somewhat out of breath, but very happy, she looked with eager eyes from +one guardian to the other. Darden emptied and refilled his pipe, +scattering the ashes upon the book of jests. "Very good," he said briefly.</p> + +<p>Into the thin visage of the ex-waiting-woman, who had been happier at my +Lady Squander's than in a Virginia parsonage, there crept a tightened +smile. In her way, when she was not in a passion, she was fond of Audrey; +but, in temper or out of temper, she was fonder of the fine things which +for a few days she might handle at Fair View house. And the gratitude of +the master thereof might appear in coins, or in an order on his store for +silk and lace. When, in her younger days, at Bath or in town, she had +served fine mistresses, she had been given many a guinea for carrying a +note or contriving an interview, and in changing her estate she had not +changed her code of morals. "We must oblige Mr. Haward, of course," she +said complacently. "I warrant you that I can give things an air! There's +not a parlor in this parish that does not set my teeth on edge! Now at my +Lady Squander's"—She embarked upon reminiscences of past splendor, +checked only by her husband's impatient demand for dinner.</p> + +<p>Audrey, preparing to follow her into the kitchen, was stopped, as she +would have passed the table, by the minister's heavy hand. "The roses at +Fair View bloom early," he said, turning her about that he might better +see the red cluster in her hair. "Look you, Audrey! I wish you no great +harm, child. You mind me at times of one that I knew many years ago, +before ever I was chaplain to my Lord Squander or husband to my Lady +Squander's waiting-woman. A hunter may use a decoy, and he may also, on +the whole, prefer to keep that decoy as good as when 'twas made. Buy not +thy roses too dearly, Audrey."</p> + +<p>To Audrey he spoke in riddles. She took from her hair the loosened buds, +and looked at them lying in her hand. "I did not buy them," she said. +"They grew in the sun on the south side of the great house, and Mr. Haward +gave them to me."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII<br>THE PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN</h2> + + +<p>June came to tide-water Virginia with long, warm days and with the odor of +many roses. Day by day the cloudless sunshine visited the land: night by +night the large pale stars looked into its waters. It was a slumberous +land, of many creeks and rivers that were wide, slow, and deep, of tobacco +fields and lofty, solemn forests, of vague marshes, of white mists, of a +haze of heat far and near. The moon of blossoms was past, and the red +men—few in number now—had returned from their hunting, and lay in the +shade of the trees in the villages that the English had left them, while +the women brought them fish from the weirs, and strawberries from the +vines that carpeted every poisoned field or neglected clearing. The black +men toiled amidst the tobacco and the maize; at noontide it was as hot in +the fields as in the middle passage, and the voices of those who sang over +their work fell to a dull crooning. The white men who were bound served +listlessly; they that were well were as lazy as the weather; they that +were newly come over and ill with the "seasoning" fever tossed upon their +pallets, longing for the cooling waters of home. The white men who were +free swore that the world, though fair, was warm, and none walked if he +could ride. The sunny, dusty roads were left for shadowed bridle paths; +in a land where most places could be reached by boat, the water would +have been the highway but that the languid air would not fill the sails. +It was agreed that the heat was unnatural, and that, likely enough, there +would be a deal of fever during the summer.</p> + +<p>But there was thick shade in the Fair View garden, and when there was air +at all it visited the terrace above the river. The rooms of the house were +large and high-pitched; draw to the shutters, and they became as cool as +caverns. Around the place the heat lay in wait: heat of wide, shadowless +fields, where Haward's slaves toiled from morn to eve; heat of the great +river, unstirred by any wind, hot and sleeping beneath the blazing sun; +heat of sluggish creeks and of the marshes, shadeless as the fields. Once +reach the mighty trees drawn like a cordon around house and garden, and +there was escape.</p> + +<p>To and fro and up and down in the house went the erst waiting-woman to my +Lady Squander, carrying matters with a high hand. The negresses who worked +under her eye found her a hard taskmistress. Was a room clean to-day, +to-morrow it was found that there was dust upon the polished floor, finger +marks on the paneled walls. The same furniture must be placed now in this +room, now in that; china slowly washed and bestowed in one closet +transferred to another; an eternity spent upon the household linen, +another on the sewing and resewing, the hanging and rehanging, of damask +curtains. The slaves, silent when the greenish eyes and tight, vixenish +face were by, chattered, laughed, and sung when they were left alone. If +they fell idle, and little was done of a morning, they went unrebuked; +thoroughness, and not haste, appearing to be Mistress Deborah's motto.</p> + +<p>The master of Fair View found it too noisy in his house to sit therein, +and too warm to ride abroad. There were left the seat built round the +cherry-tree in the garden, the long, cool box walk, and the terrace with a +summer-house at either end. It was pleasant to read out of doors, pacing +the box walk, or sitting beneath the cherry-tree, with the ripening fruit +overhead. If the book was long in reading, if morning by morning Haward's +finger slipped easily in between the selfsame leaves, perhaps it was the +fault of poet or philosopher. If Audrey's was the fault, she knew it not.</p> + +<p>How could she know it, who knew herself, that she was a poor, humble maid, +whom out of pure charity and knightly tenderness for weak and sorrowful +things he long ago had saved, since then had maintained, now was kind to; +and knew him, that he was learned and great and good, the very perfect +gentle knight who, as he rode to win the princess, yet could stoop from +his saddle to raise and help the herd girl? She had found of late that she +was often wakeful of nights; when this happened, she lay and looked out of +her window at the stars and wondered about the princess. She was sure that +the princess and the lady who had given her the guinea were one.</p> + +<p>In the great house she would have worked her fingers to the bone. Her +strong young arms lifted heavy weights; her quick feet ran up and down +stairs for this or that; she would have taken the waxed cloths from the +negroes, and upon her knees and with willing hands have made to shine like +mirrors the floors that were to be trodden by knight and princess. But +almost every morning, before she had worked an hour, Haward would call to +her from the box walk or the seat beneath the cherry-tree; and "Go, +child," would say Mistress Deborah, looking up from her task of the +moment.</p> + +<p>The garden continued to be the enchanted garden. To gather its flowers, +red and white, to pace with him cool paved walks between walls of scented +box, to sit beside him beneath the cherry-tree or upon the grassy terrace, +looking out upon the wide, idle river,—it was dreamy bliss, a happiness +too rare to last. There was no harm; not that she ever dreamed there could +be. The house overlooked garden and terrace; the slaves passed and +repassed the open windows; Juba came and went; now and then Mistress +Deborah herself would sally forth to receive instructions concerning this +or that from the master of the house. And every day, at noon, the slaves +drew to all the shutters save those of the master's room, and the +minister's wife and ward made their curtsies and went home. The latter, +like a child, counted the hours upon the clock until the next morning; but +then she was not used to happiness, and the wine of it made her slightly +drunken.</p> + +<p>The master of Fair View told himself that there was infection in this +lotus air of Virginia. A fever ran in his veins that made him languid of +will, somewhat sluggish of thought, willing to spend one day like another, +and all in a long dream. Sometimes, in the afternoons, when he was alone +in the garden or upon the terrace, with the house blank and silent behind +him, the slaves gone to the quarters, he tossed aside his book, and, with +his chin upon his hand and his eyes upon the sweep of the river, first +asked himself whither he was going, and then, finding no satisfactory +answer, fell to brooding. Once, going into the house, he chanced to come +upon his full-length reflection in a mirror newly hung, and stopped short +to gaze upon himself. The parlor of his lodgings at Williamsburgh and the +last time that he had seen Evelyn came to him, conjured up by the memory +of certain words of his own.</p> + +<p>"A truer glass might show a shrunken figure," he repeated, and with a +quick and impatient sigh he looked at the image in the mirror.</p> + +<p>To the eye, at least, the figure was not shrunken. It was that of a man +still young, and of a handsome face and much distinction of bearing. The +dress was perfect in its quiet elegance; the air of the man composed,—a +trifle sad, a trifle mocking. Haward snapped his fingers at the +reflection. "The portrait of a gentleman," he said, and passed on.</p> + +<p>That night, in his own room, he took from an escritoire a picture of +Evelyn Byrd, done in miniature after a painting by a pupil of Kneller, +and, carrying it over to the light of the myrtle candles upon the table, +sat down and fell to studying it. After a while he let it drop from his +hand, and leaned back in his chair, thinking.</p> + +<p>The night air, rising slightly, bent back the flame of the candles, around +which moths were fluttering, and caused strange shadows upon the walls. +They were thick about the curtained bed whereon had died the elder +Haward,—a proud man, choleric, and hard to turn from his purposes. Into +the mind of his son, sitting staring at these shadows, came the fantastic +notion that amongst them, angry and struggling vainly for speech, might be +his father's shade. The night was feverish, of a heat and lassitude to +foster grotesque and idle fancies. Haward smiled, and spoke aloud to his +imaginary ghost.</p> + +<p>"You need not strive for speech," he said. "I know what you would say. +<i>Was it for this I built this house, bought land and slaves?... Fair View +and Westover, Westover and Fair View. A lady that will not wed thee +because she loves thee! Zoons, Marmaduke! thou puttest me beside my +patience!... As for this other, set no nameless, barefoot wench where sat +thy mother! King Cophetua and the beggar maid, indeed! I warrant you +Cophetua was something under three-and-thirty!</i>"</p> + +<p>Haward ceased to speak for his father, and sighed for himself. "Moral: +Three-and-thirty must be wiser in his day and generation." He rose from +his chair, and began to walk the room. "If not Cophetua, what then,—what +then?" Passing the table, he took up the miniature again. "The villain of +the piece, I suppose, Evelyn?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The pure and pensive face seemed to answer him. He put the picture hastily +down, and recommenced his pacing to and fro. From the garden below came +the heavy odor of lilies, and the whisper of the river tried the nerves. +Haward went to the window, and, leaning out, looked, as now each night he +looked, up and across the creek toward the minister's house. To-night +there was no light to mark it; it was late, and all the world without his +room was in darkness. He sat down in the window seat, looked out upon the +stars and listened to the river. An hour had passed before he turned back +to the room, where the candles had burned low. "I will go to Westover +to-morrow," he said. "God knows, I should be a villain"—</p> + +<p>He locked the picture of Evelyn within his desk, drank his wine and water, +and went to bed, strongly resolved upon retreat. In the morning he said, +"I will go to Westover this afternoon;" and in the afternoon he said, "I +will go to-morrow." When the morrow came, he found that the house lacked +but one day of being finished, and that there was therefore no need for +him to go at all.</p> + +<p>Mistress Deborah was loath, enough to take leave of damask and mirrors and +ornaments of china,—the latter fine enough and curious enough to remind +her of Lady Squander's own drawing-room; but the leaf of paper which +Haward wrote upon, tore from his pocket-book, and gave her provided +consolation. Her thanks were very glib, her curtsy was very deep. She was +his most obliged, humble servant, and if she could serve him again he +would make her proud. Would he not, now, some day, row up creek to their +poor house, and taste of her perry and Shrewsbury cakes? Audrey, standing +by, raised her eyes, and made of the request a royal invitation.</p> + +<p>For a week or more Haward abode upon his plantation, alone save for his +servants and slaves. Each day he sent for the overseer, and listened +gravely while that worthy expounded to him all the details of the +condition and conduct of the estate; in the early morning and the late +afternoon he rode abroad through his fields and forests. Mill and ferry +and rolling house were visited, and the quarters made his acquaintance. At +the creek quarter and the distant ridge quarter were bestowed the newly +bought, the sullen and the refractory of his chattels. When, after sunset, +and the fields were silent, he rode past the cabins, coal-black figures, +new from the slave deck, still seamed at wrist and ankle, mowed and +jabbered at him from over their bowls of steaming food; others, who had +forgotten the jungle and the slaver, answered, when he spoke to them, in +strange English; others, born in Virginia, and remembering when he used to +ride that way with his father, laughed, called him "Marse Duke," and +agreed with him that the crop was looking mighty well. With the dark he +reached the great house, and negroes from the home quarter took—his +horse, while Juba lighted him through the echoing hall into the lonely +rooms.</p> + +<p>From the white quarter he procured a facile lad who could read and write, +and who, through too much quickness of wit, had failed to prosper in +England. Him he installed as secretary, and forthwith began a +correspondence with friends in England, as well as a long poem which was +to serve the double purpose of giving Mr. Pope a rival and of occupying +the mind of Mr. Marmaduke Haward. The letters were witty and graceful, the +poem was the same; but on the third day the secretary, pausing for the +next word that should fall from his master's lips, waited so long that he +dropped asleep. When he awoke, Mr. Haward was slowly tearing into bits the +work that had been done on the poem. "It will have to wait upon my mood," +he said. "Seal up the letter to Lord Hervey, boy, and then begone to the +fields. If I want you again, I will send for you."</p> + +<p>The next day he proposed to himself to ride to Williamsburgh and see his +acquaintances there. But even as he crossed the room to strike the bell +for Juba a distaste for the town and its people came upon him. It occurred +to him that instead he might take the barge and be rowed up the river to +the Jaquelins' or to Green Spring; but in a moment this plan also became +repugnant. Finally he went out upon the terrace, and sat there the morning +through, staring at the river. That afternoon he sent a negro to the +store with a message for the storekeeper.</p> + +<p>The Highlander, obeying the demand for his company,—the third or fourth +since his day at Williamsburgh,—came shortly before twilight to the great +house, and found the master thereof still upon the terrace, sitting +beneath an oak, with a small table and a bottle of wine beside him.</p> + +<p>"Ha, Mr. MacLean!" he cried, as the other approached. "Some days have +passed since last we laid the ghosts! I had meant to sooner improve our +acquaintance. But my house has been in disorder, and I myself,"—he passed +his hand across his face as if to wipe away the expression into which it +had been set,—"I myself have been poor company. There is a witchery in +the air of this place. I am become but a dreamer of dreams."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he motioned his guest to an empty chair, and began to pour +wine for them both. His hand was not quite steady, and there was about him +a restlessness of aspect most unnatural to the man. The storekeeper +thought him looking worn, and as though he had passed sleepless nights.</p> + +<p>MacLean sat down, and drew his wineglass toward Mm. "It is the heat," he +said. "Last night, in the store, I felt that I was stifling; and I left +it, and lay on the bare ground without. A star shot down the sky, and I +wished that a wind as swift and strong would rise and sweep the land out +to sea. When the day comes that I die, I wish to die a fierce death. It is +best to die in battle, for then the mind is raised, and you taste all life +in the moment before you go. If a man achieves not that, then struggle +with earth or air or the waves of the sea is desirable. Driving sleet, +armies of the snow, night and trackless mountains, the leap of the +torrent, swollen lakes where kelpies lie in wait, wind on the sea with the +black reef and the charging breakers,—it is well to dash one's force +against the force of these, and to die after fighting. But in this cursed +land of warmth and ease a man dies like a dog that is old and hath lain +winter and summer upon the hearthstone." He drank his wine, and glanced +again at Haward. "I did not know that you were here," he said. "Saunderson +told me that you were going to Westover."</p> + +<p>"I was,—I am," answered Haward briefly. Presently he roused himself from +the brown study into which he had fallen.</p> + +<p>"'Tis the heat, as you say. It enervates. For my part, I am willing that +your wind should arise. But it will not blow to-night. There is not a +breath; the river is like glass." He raised the wine to his lips, and +drank deeply. "Come," he said, laughing. "What did you at the store +to-day? And does Mistress Truelove despair of your conversion to <i>thee</i> +and <i>thou</i>, and peace with all mankind? Hast procured an enemy to fill the +place I have vacated? I trust he's no scurvy foe."</p> + +<p>"I will take your questions in order," answered the other sententiously. +"This morning I sold a deal of fine china to a parcel of fine ladies who +came by water from Jamestown, and were mightily concerned to know whether +your worship was gone to Westover, or had instead (as 't was reported) +shut yourself up in Fair View house. And this afternoon came over in a +periagua, from the other side, a very young gentleman with money in hand +to buy a silver-fringed glove. 'They are sold in pairs,' said I. 'Fellow, +I require but one,' said he. 'If Dick Allen, who hath slandered me to +Mistress Betty Cocke, dareth to appear at the merrymaking at Colonel +Harrison's to-night, his cheek and this glove shall come together!' +'Nathless, you must pay for both,' I told him; and the upshot is that he +leaves with me a gold button as earnest that he will bring the remainder +of the price before the duel to-morrow. That Quaker maiden of whom you ask +hath a soul like the soul of Colna-dona, of whom Murdoch, the harper of +Coll, used to sing. She is fair as a flower after winter, and as tender as +the rose flush in which swims yonder star. When I am with her, almost she +persuades me to think ill of honest hatred, and to pine no longer that it +was not I that had the killing of Ewin Mackinnon." He gave a short laugh, +and stooping picked up an oak twig from the ground, and with deliberation +broke it into many small pieces. "Almost, but not quite," he said. "There +was in that feud nothing illusory or fantastic; nothing of the quality +that marked, mayhap, another feud of my own making. If I have found that +in this latter case I took a wraith and dubbed it my enemy; that, thinking +I followed a foe, I followed a friend instead"—He threw away the bits of +bark, and straightened himself. "A friend!" he said, drawing his breath. +"Save for this Quaker family, I have had no friend for many a year! And I +cannot talk to them of honor and warfare and the wide world." His speech +was sombre, but in his eyes there was an eagerness not without pathos.</p> + +<p>The mood of the Gael chimed with the present mood of the Saxon. As unlike +in their natures as their histories, men would have called them; and yet, +far away, in dim recesses of the soul, at long distances from the flesh, +each recognised the other. And it was an evening, too, in which to take +care of other things than the ways and speech of every day. The heat, the +hush, and the stillness appeared well-nigh preternatural. A sadness +breathed over the earth; all things seemed new and yet old; across the +spectral river the dim plains beneath the afterglow took the seeming of +battlefields.</p> + +<p>"A friend!" said Haward. "There are many men who call themselves my +friends. I am melancholy to-day, restless, and divided against myself. I +do not know one of my acquaintance whom I would have called to be +melancholy with me as I have called you." He leaned across the table and +touched MacLean's hand that was somewhat hurriedly fingering the +wineglass. "Come!" he said. "Loneliness may haunt the level fields as well +as the ways that are rugged and steep. How many times have we held +converse since that day I found you in charge of my store? Often enough, I +think, for each to know the other's quality. Our lives have been very +different, and yet I believe that we are akin. For myself, I should be +glad to hold as my friend so gallant though so unfortunate a gentleman." +He smiled and made a gesture of courtesy. "Of course Mr. MacLean may very +justly not hold me in a like esteem, nor desire a closer relation."</p> + +<p>MacLean rose to his feet, and stood gazing across the river at the +twilight shore and the clear skies. Presently he turned, and his eyes were +wet. He drew his hand across them; then looked curiously at the dew upon +it. "I have not done this," he said simply, "since a night at Preston when +I wept with rage. In my country we love as we hate, with all the strength +that God has given us. The brother of my spirit is to me even as the +brother of my flesh.... I used to dream that my hand was at your throat or +my sword through your heart, and wake in anger that it was not so ... and +now I could love you well."</p> + +<p>Haward stood up, and the two men clasped hands. "It is a pact, then," said +the Englishman. "By my faith, the world looks not so melancholy gray as it +did awhile ago. And here is Juba to say that supper waits. Lay the table +for two, Juba. Mr. MacLean will bear me company."</p> + +<p>The storekeeper stayed late, the master of Fair View being an accomplished +gentleman, a very good talker, and an adept at turning his house for the +nonce into the house of his guest. Supper over they went into the library, +where their wine was set, and where the Highlander, who was no great +reader, gazed respectfully at the wit and wisdom arow before him. "Colonel +Byrd hath more volumes at Westover," quoth Haward, "but mine are of the +choicer quality." Juba brought a card table, and lit more candles, while +his master, unlocking a desk, took from it a number of gold pieces. These +he divided into two equal portions: kept one beside him upon the polished +table, and, with a fine smile, half humorous, half deprecating, pushed the +other across to his guest. With an, imperturbable face MacLean stacked the +gold before him, and they fell to piquet, playing briskly, and with +occasional application to the Madeira upon the larger table, until ten of +the clock. The Highlander, then declaring that he must be no longer away +from his post, swept his heap of coins across to swell his opponent's +store, and said good-night. Haward went with him to the great door, and +watched him stride off through the darkness whistling "The Battle of +Harlaw."</p> + +<p>That night Haward slept, and the next morning four negroes rowed him up +the river to Jamestown. Mr. Jaquelin was gone to Norfolk upon business, +but his beautiful wife and sprightly daughters found Mr. Marmaduke Haward +altogether charming. "'Twas as good as going to court," they said to one +another, when the gentleman, after a two hours' visit, bowed himself out +of their drawing-room. The object of their encomiums, going down river in +his barge, felt his spirits lighter than they had been for some days. He +spoke cheerfully to his negroes, and when the barge passed a couple of +fishing-boats he called to the slim brown lads that caught for the +plantation to know their luck. At the landing he found the overseer, who +walked to the great house with him. The night before Tyburn Will had +stolen from the white quarters, and had met a couple of seamen from the +Temperance at the crossroads ordinary, which ordinary was going to get +into trouble for breaking the law which forbade the harboring of sailors +ashore. The three had taken in full lading of kill-devil rum, and Tyburn +Will, too drunk to run any farther, had been caught by Hide near Princess +Creek, three hours agone. What were the master's orders? Should the rogue +go to the court-house whipping post, or should Hide save the trouble of +taking him there? In either case, thirty-nine lashes well laid on—</p> + +<p>The master pursed his lips, dug into the ground with the ferrule of his +cane, and finally proposed to the astonished overseer that the rascal be +let off with a warning. "'Tis too fair a day to poison with ugly sights +and sounds," he said, whimsically apologetic for his own weakness. "'Twill +do no great harm to be lenient, for once, Saunderson, and I am in the mood +to-day to be friends with all men, including myself."</p> + +<p>The overseer went away grumbling, and Haward entered the house. The room +where dwelt his books looked cool and inviting. He walked the length of +the shelves, took out a volume here and there for his evening reading, and +upon the binding of others laid an affectionate, lingering touch. "I have +had a fever, my friends," he announced to the books, "but I am about to +find myself happily restored to reason and serenity; in short, to health."</p> + +<p>Some hours later he raised his eyes from the floor which he had been +studying for a great while, covered them for a moment with his hand, then +rose, and, with the air of a sleepwalker, went out of the lit room into a +calm and fragrant night. There was no moon, but the stars were many, and +it did not seem dark. When he came to the verge of the landing, and the +river, sighing in its sleep, lay clear below him, mirroring the stars, it +was as though he stood between two firmaments. He descended the steps, and +drew toward him a small rowboat that was softly rubbing against the wet +and glistening piles. The tide was out, and the night was very quiet.</p> + +<p>Haward troubled not the midstream, but rowing in the shadow of the bank to +the mouth of the creek that slept beside his garden, turned and went up +this narrow water. Until he was free of the wall the odor of honeysuckle +and box clung to the air, freighting it heavily; when it was left behind +the reeds began to murmur and sigh, though not loudly, for there was no +wind. When he came to a point opposite the minister's house, rising fifty +yards away from amidst low orchard trees, he rested upon his oars. There +was a light in an upper room, and as he looked Audrey passed between the +candle and the open window. A moment later and the light was out, but he +knew that she was sitting at the window. Though it was dark, he found that +he could call back with precision the slender throat, the lifted face, and +the enshadowing hair. For a while he stayed, motionless in his boat, +hidden by the reeds that whispered and sighed; but at last he rowed away +softly through the darkness, back to the dim, slow-moving river and the +Fair View landing.</p> + +<p>This was of a Friday. All the next day he spent in the garden, but on +Sunday morning he sent word to the stables to have Mirza saddled. He was +going to church, he told Juba over his chocolate, and he would wear the +gray and silver.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII<br>A SABBATH DAY'S JOURNEY</h2> + + +<p>Although the house of worship which boasted as its ornament the Reverend +Gideon Darden was not so large and handsome as Bruton church, nor could +rival the painted glories of Poplar Spring, it was yet a building good +enough,—of brick, with a fair white spire and a decorous mantle of ivy. +The churchyard, too, was pleasant, though somewhat crowded with the dead. +There were oaks for shade, and wild roses for fragrance, and the grass +between the long gravestones, prone upon mortal dust, grew very thick and +green. Outside the gates,—a gift from the first master of Fair +View,—between the churchyard and the dusty highroad ran a long strip of +trampled turf, shaded by locust-trees and by one gigantic gum that became +in the autumn a pillar of fire.</p> + +<p>Haward, arriving somewhat after time, found drawn up upon this piece of +sward a coach, two berlins, a calash, and three chaises, while tied to +hitching-posts, trees, and the fence were a number of saddle-horses. In +the shade of the gum-tree sprawled half a dozen negro servants, but on the +box of the coach, from which the restless horses had been taken, there yet +sat the coachman, a mulatto of powerful build and a sullen countenance. +The vehicle stood in the blazing sunshine, and it was both cooler and +merrier beneath the tree,—a fact apparent enough to the coachman, but +the knowledge of which, seeing that he was chained to the box, did him +small good. Haward glanced at the figure indifferently; but Juba, +following his master upon Whitefoot Kate, grinned from ear to ear. +"Larnin' not to run away, Sam? Road's clear: why don' you carry off de +coach?"</p> + +<p>Haward dismounted, and leaving Juba first to fasten the horses, and then +join his fellows beneath the gum-tree, walked into the churchyard. The +congregation had assembled, and besides himself there were none without +the church save the negroes and the dead. The service had commenced. +Through the open door came to him Darden's voice: "<i>Dearly beloved +brethren</i>"—</p> + +<p>Haward waited, leaning against a tomb deep graven with a coat of arms and +much stately Latin, until the singing clave the air, when he entered the +building, and passed down the aisle to his own pew, the chiefest in the +place. He was aware of the flutter and whisper on either hand,—perhaps he +did not find it unpleasing. Diogenes may have carried his lantern not +merely to find a man, but to show one as well, and a philosopher in a pale +gray riding dress, cut after the latest mode, with silver lace and a fall +of Mechlin, may be trusted to know the value as well as the vanity of +sublunary things.</p> + +<p>Of the gathering, which was not large, two thirds, perhaps, were people of +condition; and in the country, where occasions for display did not present +themselves uncalled, it was highly becoming to worship the Lord in fine +clothes. So there were broken rainbows in the tall pews, with a soft +waving of fans to and fro in the essenced air, and a low rustle of silk. +The men went as fine as the women, and the June sunshine, pouring in upon +all this lustre and color, made a flower-bed of the assemblage. Being of +the country, it was vastly better behaved than would have been a +fashionable London congregation; but it certainly saw no reason why Mr. +Marmaduke Haward should not, during the anthem, turn his back upon altar, +minister, and clerk, and employ himself in recognizing with a smile and an +inclination of his head his friends and acquaintances. They smiled +back,—the gentlemen bowing slightly, the ladies making a sketch of a +curtsy. All were glad that Fair View house was open once more, and were +kindly disposed toward the master thereof.</p> + +<p>The eyes of that gentleman were no longer for the gay parterre. Between it +and the door, in uncushioned pews or on rude benches, were to be found the +plainer sort of Darden's parishioners, and in this territory, that was +like a border of sober foliage to the flower-bed in front, he discovered +whom he sought.</p> + +<p>Her gaze had been upon him since he passed the minister's pew, where she +stood between my Lady Squander's ex-waiting-woman and the branded +schoolmaster, but now their eyes came full together. She was dressed in +some coarse dark stuff, above which rose the brown pillar of her throat +and the elusive, singular beauty of her face. There was a flower in her +hair, placed as he had placed the rosebuds. A splendor leaped into her +eyes, but her cheek did not redden; it was to his face that the color +rushed. They had but a moment in which to gaze at each other, for the +singing, which to her, at least, had seemed suddenly to swell into a great +ascending tide of sound, with somewhere, far away, the silver calling of a +trumpet, now came to an end, and with another silken rustle and murmur +the congregation sat down.</p> + +<p>Haward did not turn again, and the service went drowsily on. Darden was +bleared of eye and somewhat thick of voice; the clerk's whine was as +sleepy a sound as the buzzing of the bees in and out of window, or the +soft, incessant stir of painted fans. A churchwarden in the next pew +nodded and nodded, until he nodded his peruke awry, and a child went fast +asleep, with its head in its mother's lap. One and all worshiped somewhat +languidly, with frequent glances at the hourglass upon the pulpit. They +prayed for King George the First, not knowing that he was dead, and for +the Prince, not knowing that he was King. The minister preached against +Quakers and witchcraft, and shook the rafters with his fulminations. +Finally came the benediction and a sigh of relief.</p> + +<p>In that country and time there was no unsociable and undignified scurrying +homeward after church. Decorous silence prevailed until the house was +exchanged for the green and shady churchyard: but then tongues were +loosened, and the flower-bed broken into clusters. One must greet one's +neighbors; present or be presented to what company might be staying at the +various great houses within the parish; talk, laugh, coquet, and ogle; +make appointments for business or for pleasure; speak of the last +horse-race, the condition of wheat and tobacco, and the news brought in by +the Valour, man-of-war, that the King was gone to Hanover. In short, for +the nonce, the churchyard became a drawing-room, with the sun for candles, +with no painted images of the past and gone upon the walls, but with the +dead themselves beneath the floor.</p> + +<p>The minister, having questions to settle with clerk and sexton, tarried +in the vestry room; but his wife, with Audrey and the schoolmaster, waited +for him outside, in the shade of an oak-tree that was just without the +pale of the drawing-room. Mistress Deborah, in her tarnished amber satin +and ribbons that had outworn their youth, bit her lip and tapped her foot +upon the ground. Audrey watched her apprehensively. She knew the signs, +and that when they reached home a storm might break that would leave its +mark upon her shoulders. The minister's wife was not approved of by the +ladies of Fair View parish, but had they seen how wistful was the face of +the brown girl with her, they might have turned aside, spoken, and let the +storm go by. The girl herself was scarcely noticed. Few had ever heard her +story, or, hearing it, had remembered; the careless many thought her an +orphan, bound to Darden and his wife,—in effect their servant. If she had +beauty, the ladies and gentlemen who saw her, Sunday after Sunday, in the +minister's pew, had scarce discovered it. She was too dark, too slim, too +shy and strange of look, with her great brown eyes and that startled turn +of her head. Their taste was for lilies and roses, and it was not an age +that counted shyness a grace.</p> + +<p>Mr. Marmaduke Haward was not likely to be accused of diffidence. He had +come out of church with the sleepy-headed churchwarden, who was now wide +awake and mightily concerned to know what horse Mr. Haward meant to enter +for the great race at Mulberry Island, while at the foot of the steps he +was seized upon by another portly vestryman, and borne off to be presented +to three blooming young ladies, quick to second their papa's invitation +home to dinner. Mr. Haward was ready to curse his luck that he was +engaged elsewhere; but were not these Graces the children to whom he had +used to send sugar-plums from Williamsburgh, years and years ago? He vowed +that the payment, which he had never received, he would take now with +usury, and proceeded to salute the cheek of each protesting fair. The +ladies found him vastly agreeable; old and new friends crowded around him; +he put forth his powers and charmed all hearts,—and all the while +inwardly cursed the length of way to the gates, and the tardy progress +thereto of his friends and neighbors.</p> + +<p>But however slow in ebbing, the tide was really set toward home and +dinner. Darden, coming out of the vestry room, found the churchyard almost +cleared, and the road in a cloud of dust. The greater number of those who +came a-horseback were gone, and there had also departed both berlins, the +calash, and two chaises. Mr. Haward was handing the three Graces into the +coach with the chained coachman, Juba standing by, holding his master's +horse. Darden grew something purpler in the face, and, rumbling oaths, +went over to the three beneath the oak. "How many spoke to you to-day?" he +asked roughly of his wife. "Did <i>he</i> come and speak?"</p> + +<p>"No, he didn't!" cried Mistress Deborah tartly. "And all the gentry went +by; only Mr. Bray stopped to say that everybody knew of your fight with +Mr. Bailey at the French ordinary, and that the Commissary had sent for +Bailey, and was going to suspend him. I wish to Heaven I knew why I +married you, to be looked down upon by every Jill, when I might have had +his Lordship's own man! Of all the fools"—</p> + +<p>"You were not the only one," answered her husband grimly. "Well, let's +home; there's dinner yet. What is it, Audrey?" This in answer to an +inarticulate sound from the girl.</p> + +<p>The schoolmaster answered for her: "Mr. Marmaduke Haward has not gone with +the coach. Perhaps he only waited until the other gentlefolk should be +gone. Here he comes."</p> + +<p>The sward without the gates was bare of all whose presence mattered, and +Haward had indeed reëntered the churchyard, and was walking toward them. +Darden went to meet him. "These be fine tales I hear of you, Mr. Darden," +said his parishioner calmly. "I should judge you were near the end of your +rope. There's a vestry meeting Thursday. Shall I put in a good word for +your reverence? Egad, you need it!"</p> + +<p>"I shall be your honor's most humble, most obliged servant," quoth the +minister. "The affair at the French ordinary was nothing. I mean to preach +next Sunday upon calumny,—calumny that spareth none, not even such as I. +You are for home, I see, and our road for a time is the same. Will you +ride with us?"</p> + +<p>"Ay," said Haward briefly. "But you must send yonder fellow with the +scarred hands packing. I travel not with thieves."</p> + +<p>He had not troubled to lower his voice, and as he and Darden were now +themselves within the shadow of the oak, the schoolmaster overheard him +and answered for himself. "Your honor need not fear my company," he said, +in his slow and lifeless tones. "I am walking, and I take the short cut +through the woods. Good-day, worthy Gideon. Madam Deborah and Audrey, +good-day."</p> + +<p>He put his uncouth, shambling figure into motion, and, indifferent and +lifeless in manner as in voice, was gone, gliding like a long black +shadow through the churchyard and into the woods across the road. "I knew +him long ago in England," the minister explained to their new companion. +"He's a learned man, and, like myself, a calumniated one. The gentlemen of +these parts value him highly as an instructor of youth. No need to send +their sons to college if they've been with him for a year or two! My good +Deborah, Mr. Haward will ride with us toward Fair View."</p> + +<p>Mistress Deborah curtsied; then chided Audrey for not minding her manners, +but standing like a stock or stone, with her thoughts a thousand miles +away. "Let her be," said Haward. "We gave each other good-day in church."</p> + +<p>Together the four left the churchyard. Darden brought up two sorry horses; +lifted his wife and Audrey upon one, and mounted the other. Haward swung +himself into his saddle, and the company started, Juba upon Whitefoot Kate +bringing up the rear. The master of Fair View rode beside the minister, +and only now and then spoke to the women. The road was here sunny, there +shady; the excessive heat broken, the air pleasant enough. Everywhere, +too, was the singing of birds, while the fields that they passed of +tobacco and golden, waving wheat were charming to the sight. The minister +was, when sober, a man of parts, with some education and a deal of mother +wit; in addition, a close and shrewd observer of the times and people. He +and Haward talked of matters of public moment, and the two women listened, +submissive and admiring. It seemed that they came very quickly to the +bridge across the creek and the parting of their ways. Would Mr. Haward +ride on to the glebe house?</p> + +<p>It appeared that Mr. Haward would. Moreover, when the house was reached, +and Darden's one slave came running from a broken-down stable to take the +horses, he made no motion toward returning to the bridge which led across +the creek to his own plantation, but instead dismounted, flung his reins +to Juba, and asked if he might stay to dinner.</p> + +<p>Now, by the greatest good luck, considered Mistress Deborah, there chanced +to be in her larder a haunch of venison roasted most noble; the ducklings +and asparagus, too, cooked before church, needed but to be popped into the +oven; and there was also an apple tart with cream. With elation, then, and +eke with a mind at rest, she added her shrill protests of delight to +Darden's more moderate assurances, and, leaving Audrey to set chairs in +the shade of a great apple-tree, hurried into the house to unearth her +damask tablecloth and silver spoons, and to plan for the morrow a visit to +the Widow Constance, and a casual remark that Mr. Marmaduke Haward had +dined with the minister the day before. Audrey, her task done, went after +her, to be met with graciousness most unusual. "I'll see to the dinner, +child. Mr. Haward will expect one of us to sit without, and you had as +well go as I. If he's talking to Darden, you might get some larkspur and +gilliflowers for the table. La! the flowers that used to wither beneath +the candles at my Lady Squander's!"</p> + +<p>Audrey, finding the two men in conversation beneath the apple-tree, passed +on to the ragged garden, where clumps of hardy, bright-colored flowers +played hide-and-seek with currant and gooseberry bushes. Haward saw her +go, and broke the thread of his discourse. Darden looked up, and the eyes +of the two men met; those of the younger were cold and steady. A moment, +and his glance had fallen to his watch which he had pulled out. "'Tis +early yet," he said coolly, "and I dare say not quite your dinner +time,—which I beg that Mistress Deborah will not advance on my account. +Is it not your reverence's habit to rest within doors after your sermon? +Pray do not let me detain you. I will go talk awhile with Audrey."</p> + +<p>He put up his watch and rose to his feet. Darden cleared his throat. "I +have, indeed, a letter to write to Mr. Commissary, and it may be half an +hour before Deborah has dinner ready. I will send your servant to fetch +you in."</p> + +<p>Haward broke the larkspur and gilliflowers, and Audrey gathered up her +apron and filled it with the vivid blooms. The child that had thus brought +loaves of bread to a governor's table spread beneath a sugar-tree, with +mountains round about, had been no purer of heart, no more innocent of +rustic coquetry. When her apron was filled she would have returned to the +house, but Haward would not have it so. "They will call when dinner is +ready," he said. "I wish to talk to you, little maid. Let us go sit in the +shade of the willow yonder."</p> + +<p>It was almost a twilight behind the cool green rain of the willow boughs. +Through that verdant mist Haward and Audrey saw the outer world but dimly. +"I had a fearful dream last night," said Audrey. "I think that that must +have been why I was to glad to see you come into church to-day. I dreamed +that you had never come home again, overseas, in the Golden Rose. Hugon +was beside me, in the dream, telling me that you were dead in England: and +suddenly I knew that I had never really seen you; that there was no +garden, no terrace, no roses, no <i>you</i>. It was all so cold and sad, and +the sun kept growing smaller and smaller. The woods, too, were black, and +the wind cried in them so that I was afraid. And then I was in Hugon's +house, holding the door,—there was a wolf without,—and through the +window I saw the mountains; only they were so high that my heart ached to +look upon them, and the wind cried down the cleft in the hills. The wolf +went away, and then, somehow, I was upon the hilltop.... There was a dead +man lying in the grass, but it was too dark to see. Hugon came up behind +me, stooped, and lifted the hand.... Upon the finger was that ring you +wear, burning in the moonlight.... Oh me!"</p> + +<p>The remembered horror of her dream contending with present bliss shook her +spirit to its centre. She shuddered violently, then burst into a passion +of tears.</p> + +<p>Haward's touch upon her hair, Haward's voice in her ear, all the old terms +of endearment for a frightened child,—"little maid," "little coward," +"Why, sweetheart, these things are shadows, they cannot hurt thee!" She +controlled her tears, and was the happier for her weeping. It was sweet to +sit there in the lush grass, veiled and shadowed from the world by the +willow's drooping green, and in that soft and happy light to listen to his +voice, half laughing, half chiding, wholly tender and caressing. Dreams +were naught, he said. Had Hugon troubled her waking hours?</p> + +<p>He had come once to the house, it appeared; but she had run away and +hidden in the wood, and the minister had told him she was gone to the +Widow Constance's. That was a long time ago; it must have been the day +after she and Mistress Deborah had last come from Fair View.</p> + +<p>"A long time," said Haward. "It was a week ago. Has it seemed a long time, +Audrey?"</p> + +<p>"Yes,—oh yes!"</p> + +<p>"I have been busy. I must learn to be a planter, you know. But I have +thought of you, little maid."</p> + +<p>Audrey was glad of that, but there was yet a weight upon her heart. "After +that dream I lay awake all night, and it came to me how wrongly I had +done. Hugon is a wicked man,—an Indian. Oh, I should never have told you, +that first day in the garden, that he was waiting for me outside! For now, +because you took care of me and would not let him come near, he hates you. +He is so wicked that he might do you a harm." Her eyes widened, and the +hand that touched his was cold and trembling. "If ever hurt came to you +through me, I would drown myself in the river yonder. And then I +thought—lying awake last night—that perhaps I had been troublesome to +you, those days at Fair View, and that was why you had not come to see the +minister, as you had said you would." The dark eyes were pitifully eager; +the hand that went to her heart trembled more and more. "It is not as it +was in the mountains," she said. "I am older now, and safe, and—and +happy. And you have many things to do and to think of, and many +friends—gentlemen and beautiful ladies—to go to see. I thought—last +night—that when I saw you I would ask your pardon for not remembering +that the mountains were years ago; for troubling you with my matters, sir; +for making too free, forgetting my place"—Her voice sank; the shamed red +was in her cheeks, and her eyes, that she had bravely kept upon his face, +fell to the purple and gold blooms in her lap.</p> + +<p>Haward rose from the grass, and, with his back to the gray hole of the +willow, looked first at the veil of leaf and stem through which dimly +showed house, orchard, and blue sky, then down upon the girl at his feet. +Her head was bent and she sat very still, one listless, upturned hand upon +the grass beside her, the other lying as quietly among her flowers.</p> + +<p>"Audrey," he said at last, "you shame me in your thoughts of me. I am not +that knight without fear and without reproach for which you take me. Being +what I am, you must believe that you have not wearied me; that I think of +you and wish to see you. And Hugon, having possibly some care for his own +neck, will do me no harm; that is a very foolish notion, which you must +put from you. Now listen." He knelt beside her and took her hand in his. +"After a while, perhaps, when the weather is cooler, and I must open my +house and entertain after the fashion of the country; when the new +Governor comes in, and all this gay little world of Virginia flocks to +Williamsburgh; when I am a Councilor, and must go with the rest, and must +think of gold and place and people,—why, then, maybe, our paths will +again diverge, and only now and then will I catch the gleam of your skirt, +mountain maid, brown Audrey! But now in these midsummer days it is a +sleepy world, that cares not to go bustling up and down. I am alone in my +house; I visit not nor am visited, and the days hang heavy. Let us make +believe for a time that the mountains are all around us, that it was but +yesterday we traveled together. It is only a little way from Fair View to +the glebe house, from the glebe house to Fair View. I will see you often, +little maid, and you must dream no more as you dreamed last night." He +paused; his voice changed, and he went on as to himself: "It is a lonely +land, with few to see and none to care. I will drift with the summer, +making of it an idyl, beautiful,—yes, and innocent! When autumn comes I +will go to Westover."</p> + +<p>Of this speech Audrey caught only the last word. A wonderful smile, so +bright was it, and withal so sad, came into her face. "Westover!" she said +to herself. "That is where the princess lives."</p> + +<p>"We will let thought alone," continued Haward. "It suits not with this +charmed light, this glamour of the summer." He made a laughing gesture. +"Hey, presto! little maid, there go the years rolling back! I swear I see +the mountains through the willow leaves."</p> + +<p>"There was one like a wall shutting out the sun when he went down," +answered Audrey. "It was black and grim, and the light flared like a fire +behind it. And there was the one above which the moon rose. It was sharp, +pointing like a finger to heaven, and I liked it best. Do you remember how +large was the moon pushing up behind the pine-trees? We sat on the dark +hillside watching it, and you told me beautiful stories, while the moon +rose higher and higher and the mockingbirds began to sing."</p> + +<p>Haward remembered not, but he said that he did so. "The moon is full +again," he continued, "and last night I heard a mockingbird in the garden. +I will come in the barge to-morrow evening, and the negroes shall row us +up and down the river—you and me and Mistress Deborah—between the sunset +and the moonrise. Then it is lonely and sweet upon the water. The roses +can be smelled from the banks, and if you will speak to the mockingbirds +we shall have music, dryad Audrey, brown maid of the woods!"</p> + +<p>Audrey's laugh, was silver-clear and sweet, like that of a forest nymph +indeed. She was quite happy again, with all her half-formed doubts and +fears allayed. They had never been of him,—only of herself. The two sat +within the green and swaying fountain of the willow, and time went by on +eagle wings. Too soon came the slave to call them to the house; the time +within, though spent in the company of Darden and his wife, passed too +soon; too soon came the long shadows of the afternoon and Haward's call +for his horse.</p> + +<p>Audrey watched him ride away, and the love light was in her eyes. She did +not know that it was so. That night, in her bare little room, when the +candle was out, she kneeled by the window and looked at the stars. There +was one very fair and golden, an empress of the night. "That is the +princess," said Audrey, and smiled upon the peerless star. Far from that +light, scarce free from the murk of the horizon, shone a little star, +companionless in the night. "And that is I," said Audrey, and smiled upon +herself.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV<br>THE BEND IN THE ROAD</h2> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'Brave Derwentwater he is dead;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">From his fair body they took the head:</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But Mackintosh and his friends are fled,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And they'll set the hat upon another head'"—</span><br> +</p> + +<p>chanted the Fair View storekeeper, and looked aside at Mistress Truelove +Taberer, spinning in the doorway of her father's house.</p> + +<p>Truelove answered naught, but her hands went to and fro, and her eyes were +for her work, not for MacLean, sitting on the doorstep at her feet.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'And whether they're gone beyond the sea'"—</span><br> +</p> + +<p>The exile broke off and sighed heavily. Before the two a little yard, all +gay with hollyhocks and roses, sloped down to the wider of the two creeks +between which stretched the Fair View plantation. It was late of a holiday +afternoon. A storm was brewing, darkening all the water, and erecting +above the sweep of woods monstrous towers of gray cloud. There must have +been an echo, for MacLean's sigh came back to him faintly, as became an +echo.</p> + +<p>"Is there not peace here, 'beyond the sea'?" said Truelove softly. "Thine +must be a dreadful country, Angus MacLean!"</p> + +<p>The Highlander looked at her with kindling eyes. "Now had I the harp of +old Murdoch!" he said.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'Dear is that land to the east,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Alba of the lakes!</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Oh, that I might dwell there forever'"—</span><br> +</p> + +<p>He turned upon the doorstep, and taking between his fingers the hem of +Truelove's apron fell to plaiting it. "A woman named Deirdre, who lived +before the days of Gillean-na-Tuaidhe, made that song. She was not born in +that land, but it was dear to her because she dwelt there with the man +whom she loved. They went away, and the man was slain; and where he was +buried, there Deirdre cast herself down and died." His voice changed, and +all the melancholy of his race, deep, wild, and tender, looked from his +eyes. "If to-day you found yourself in that loved land, if this parched +grass were brown heather, if it stretched down to a tarn yonder, if that +gray cloud that hath all the seeming of a crag were crag indeed, and +eagles plied between the tarn and it,"—he touched her hand that lay idle +now upon her knee,—"if you came like Deirdre lightly through the heather, +and found me lying here, and found more red than should be in the tartan +of the MacLeans, what would you do, Truelove? What would you cry out, +Truelove? How heavy would be thy heart, Truelove?"</p> + +<p>Truelove sat in silence, with her eyes upon the sky above the dream crags. +"How heavy would grow thy heart, Truelove, Truelove?" whispered the +Highlander.</p> + +<p>Up the winding water, to the sedges and reeds below the little yard, +glided the boy Ephraim in his boat. The Quakeress started, and the color +flamed into her gentle face. She took up the distaff that she had dropped, +and fell to work again. "Thee must not speak to me so, Angus MacLean," she +said. "I trust that my heart is not hard. Thy death would grieve me, and +my father and my mother and Ephraim"—</p> + +<p>"I care not for thy father and mother and Ephraim!" MacLean began +impetuously. "But you do right to chide me. Once I knew a green glen where +maidens were fain when paused at their doors Angus, son of Hector, son of +Lachlan, son of Murdoch, son of Angus that was named for Angus Mor, who +was great-grandson of Hector of the Battles, who was son of Lachlan +Lubanach! But here I am a landless man, with none to do me honor,—a +wretch bereft of liberty"—</p> + +<p>"To me, to all Friends," said Truelove sweetly, halting a little in her +work, "thee has now what thee thyself calls freedom. For God meant not +that one of his creatures should say to another: 'Lo, here am I! Behold +thy God!' To me, and my father and mother and Ephraim, thee is no bond +servant of Marmaduke Haward. But thee is bond servant to thy own vain +songs; thy violent words; thy idle pride, that, vaunting the cruel deeds +of thy forefathers, calls meekness and submission the last worst evil; thy +shameless reverence for those thy fellow creatures, James Stewart and him +whom thee calls the chief of thy house,—forgetting that there is but one +house, and that God is its head; thy love of clamor and warfare; thy +hatred of the ways of peace"—</p> + +<p>MacLean laughed. "I hate not all its ways. There is no hatred in my heart +for this house which is its altar, nor for the priestess of the altar. Ah! +now you frown, Truelove"—</p> + +<p>Across the clouds ran so fierce a line of gold that Truelove, startled, +put her hand before her eyes. Another dart of lightning, a low roll of +thunder, a bending apart of the alder bushes on the far side of the creek; +then a woman's voice calling to the boy in the boat to come ferry her +over.</p> + +<p>"Who may that be?" asked Truelove wonderingly.</p> + +<p>It was only a little way to the bending alders. Ephraim rowed across the +glassy water, dark beneath the approach of the storm; the woman stepped +into the boat, and the tiny craft came lightly back to its haven beneath +the bank.</p> + +<p>"It is Darden's Audrey," said the storekeeper.</p> + +<p>Truelove shrank a little, and her eyes darkened. "Why should she come +here? I never knew her. It is true that we may not think evil, but—but"—</p> + +<p>MacLean moved restlessly. "I have seen the girl but twice," he said. "Once +she was alone, once—It is my friend of whom I think. I know what they +say, but, by St. Kattan! I hold him a gentleman too high of mind, too +noble—There was a tale I used to hear when I was a boy. A long, long time +ago a girl lived in the shadow of the tower of Duart, and the chief looked +down from his walls and saw her. Afterwards they walked together by the +shore and through the glens, and he cried her health when he drank in his +hall, sitting amongst his tacksmen. Then what the men whispered the women +spoke aloud; and so, more quickly than the tarie is borne, word went to a +man of the MacDonalds who loved the Duart maiden. Not like a lover to his +tryst did he come. In the handle of his dirk the rich stones sparkled as +they rose and fell with the rise and fall of the maiden's white bosom. She +prayed to die in his arms; for it was not Duart that she loved, but him. +She died, and they snooded her hair and buried her. Duart went overseas; +the man of the MacDonalds killed himself. It was all wrought with threads +of gossamer,—idle fancy, shrugs, smiles, whispers, slurring speech,—and +it was long ago. But there is yet gossamer to be had for the gathering; it +gleams on every hand these summer mornings."</p> + +<p>By now Darden's Audrey had left the boat and was close upon them. MacLean +arose, and Truelove hastily pushed aside her wheel. "Is thee seeking +shelter from the storm?" she asked tremulously, and with her cheeks as +pink as a seashell. "Will thee sit here with us? The storm will not break +yet awhile."</p> + +<p>Audrey heeded her not, her eyes being for MacLean. She had been +running,—running more swiftly than for a thousand May Day guineas. Even +now, though her breath came short, every line of her slender figure was +tense, and she was ready to be off like an arrow. "You are Mr. Haward's +friend?" she cried. "I have heard him say that you were so—call you a +brave gentleman"—</p> + +<p>MacLean's dark face flushed. "Yes, we are friends,—I thank God for it. +What have you to do with that, my lass?"</p> + +<p>"I also am his friend," said Audrey, coming nearer. Her hands were +clasped, her bosom heaving. "Listen! To-day I was sent on an errand to a +house far up this creek. Coming back, I took the short way home through +the woods because of the storm. It led me past the schoolhouse down by the +big swamp. I thought that no one was there, and I went and sat down upon +the steps to rest a moment. The door behind me was partly open. Then I +heard two voices: the schoolmaster and Jean Hugon were inside—close to +me—talking. I would have run away, but I heard Mr. Haward's name." Her +hand went to her heart, and she drew a sobbing breath.</p> + +<p>"Well!" cried MacLean sharply.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Haward went yesterday to Williamsburgh—alone—without Juba. He rides +back—alone—to Fair View late this afternoon—he is riding now. You know +the sharp bend in the road, with the steep bank above and the pond below?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, where the road nears the river. Well?"</p> + +<p>"I heard all that Hugon and the schoolmaster said. I hid behind a fallen +tree and watched them leave the schoolhouse; then I followed them, making +no noise, back to the creek, where Hugon had a boat. They crossed the +creek, and fastened the boat on this side. I could follow them no farther; +the woods hid them; but they have gone downstream to that bend in the +road. Hugon had his hunting-knife and pistols; the schoolmaster carried a +coil of rope." She flung back her head, and her hands went to her throat +as though she were stifling. "The turn in the road is very sharp. Just +past the bend they will stretch the rope from side to side, fastening it +to two trees. He will be hurrying home before the bursting of the +storm—he will be riding the planter's pace"—</p> + +<p>"Man and horse will come crashing down!" cried the storekeeper, with a +great oath "And then"—</p> + +<p>"Hugon's knife, so there will be no noise.... They think he has gold upon +him: that is for the schoolmaster.... Hugon is an Indian, and he will hide +their trail. Men will think that some outlying slave was in the woods, and +set upon and killed him."</p> + +<p>Her voice broke; then went on, gathering strength: "It was so late, and I +knew that he would ride fast because of the storm. I remembered this +house, and thought that, if I called, some one might come and ferry me +over the creek. Now I will run through the woods to the road, for I must +reach it before he passes on his way to where they wait." She turned her +face toward the pine wood beyond the house.</p> + +<p>"Ay, that is best!" agreed the storekeeper. "Warned, he can take the long +way home, and Hugon and this other may be dealt with at his leisure. Come, +my girl; there's no time to lose."</p> + +<p>They left behind them the creek, the blooming dooryard, the small white +house, and the gentle Quakeress. The woods received them, and they came +into a world of livid greens and grays dashed here and there with +ebony,—a world that, expectant of the storm, had caught and was holding +its breath. Save for the noise of their feet upon dry leaves that rustled +like paper, the wood was soundless. The light that lay within it, fallen +from skies of iron, was wild and sinister; there was no air, and the heat +wrapped them like a mantle. So motionless were all things, so fixed in +quietude each branch and bough, each leaf or twig or slender needle of the +pine, that they seemed to be fleeing through a wood of stone, jade and +malachite, emerald and agate.</p> + +<p>They hurried on, not wasting breath in speech. Now and again MacLean +glanced aside at the girl, who kept beside him, moving as lightly as +presently would move the leaves when the wind arose. He remembered certain +scurrilous words spoken in the store a week agone by a knot of purchasers, +but when he looked at her face he thought of the Highland maiden whose +story he had told. As for Audrey, she saw not the woods that she loved, +heard not the leaves beneath her feet, knew not if the light were gold or +gray. She saw only a horse and rider riding from Williamsburgh, heard only +the rapid hoofbeats. All there was of her was one dumb prayer for the +rider's safety. Her memory told her that it was no great distance to the +road, but her heart cried out that it was so far away,—so far away! When +the wood thinned, and they saw before them the dusty strip, pallid and +lonely beneath the storm clouds, her heart leaped within her; then grew +sick for fear that he had gone by. When they stood, ankle-deep in the +dust, she looked first toward the north, and then to the south. Nothing +moved; all was barren, hushed, and lonely.</p> + +<p>"How can we know? How can we know?" she cried, and wrung her hands.</p> + +<p>MacLean's keen eyes were busily searching for any sign that a horseman had +lately passed that way. At a little distance above them a shallow stream +of some width flowed across the way, and to this the Highlander hastened, +looked with attention at the road-bed where it emerged from the water, +then came back to Audrey with a satisfied air. "There are no hoof-prints," +he said. "No marks upon the dust. None can have passed for some hours."</p> + +<p>A rotted log, streaked with velvet moss and blotched with fan-shaped, +orange-colored fungi, lay by the wayside, and the two sat down upon it to +wait for the coming horseman. Overhead the thunder was rolling, but there +was as yet no breath of wind, no splash of raindrops. Opposite them rose a +gigantic pine, towering above the forest, red-brown trunk and ultimate +cone of deep green foliage alike outlined against the dead gloom of the +sky. Audrey shook back her heavy hair and raised her face to the roof of +the world; her hands were clasped upon her knee; her bare feet, slim and +brown, rested on a carpet of moss; she was as still as the forest, of +which, to the Highlander, she suddenly seemed a part. When they had kept +silence for what seemed a long time, he spoke to her with some hesitation: +"You have known Mr. Haward but a short while; the months are very few +since he came from England."</p> + +<p>The name brought Audrey down to earth again. "Did you not know?" she asked +wonderingly. "You also are his friend,—you see him often. I thought that +at times he would have spoken of me." For a moment her face was troubled, +though only for a moment. "But I know why he did not so," she said softly +to herself. "He is not one to speak of his good deeds." She turned toward +MacLean, who was attentively watching her, "But I may speak of them," she +said, with pride. "I have known Mr. Haward for years and years. He saved +my life; he brought me here from the Indian country; he was, he is, so +kind to me!"</p> + +<p>Since the afternoon beneath the willow-tree, Haward, while encouraging her +to speak of her long past, her sylvan childhood, her dream memories, had +somewhat sternly checked every expression of gratitude for the part which +he himself had played or was playing, in the drama of her life. Walking in +the minister's orchard, sitting in the garden or upon the terrace of Fair +View house, drifting on the sunset river, he waved that aside, and went on +to teach her another lesson. The teaching was exquisite; but when the +lesson for the day was over, and he was alone, he sat with one whom he +despised. The learning was exquisite; it was the sweetest song, but she +knew not its name, and the words were in a strange tongue. She was +Audrey, that she knew; and he,—he was the plumed knight, who, for the +lack of a better listener, told her gracious tales of love, showed her how +warm and beautiful was this world that she sometimes thought so sad, sang +to her sweet lines that poets had made. Over and through all she thought +she read the name of the princess. She had heard him say that with the +breaking of the heat he should go to Westover, and one day, early in +summer, he had shown her the miniature of Evelyn Byrd. Because she loved +him blindly, and because he was wise in his generation, her trust in him +was steadfast as her native hills, large as her faith in God. Now it was +sweet beneath her tongue to be able to tell one that was his friend how +worthy of all friendship—nay, all reverence—he was. She spoke simply, +but with that strange power of expression which nature had given her. +Gestures with her hands, quick changes in the tone of her voice, a +countenance that gave ample utterance to the moment's thought,—as one +morning in the Fair View library she had brought into being that long dead +Eloïsa whose lines she spoke, so now her auditor of to-day thought that he +saw the things of which she told.</p> + +<p>She had risen, and was standing in the wild light, against the background +of the forest that was breathless, as if it too listened, "And so he +brought me safely to this land," she said. "And so he left me here for ten +years, safe and happy, he thought. He has told me that all that while he +thought of me as safe and happy. That I was not so,—why, that was not his +fault! When he came back I was both. I have never seen the sunshine so +bright or the woods so fair as they have been this summer. The people +with whom I live are always kind to me now,—that is his doing. And ah! it +is because he would not let Hugon scare or harm me that that wicked Indian +waits for him now beyond the bend in the road." At the thought of Hugon +she shuddered, and her eyes began to widen. "Have we not been here a long +time?" she cried. "Are you sure? Oh, God! perhaps he has passed!"</p> + +<p>"No, no," answered MacLean, with his hand upon her arm. "There is no sign +that he has done so. It is not late; it is that heavy cloud above our +heads that has so darkened the air. Perhaps he has not left Williamsburgh +at all: perhaps, the storm threatening, he waits until to-morrow."</p> + +<p>From the cloud above came a blinding light and a great crash of +thunder,—the one so intense, the other so tremendous, that for a minute +the two stood as if stunned. Then, "The tree!" cried Audrey. The great +pine, blasted and afire, uprooted itself and fell from them like a reed +that the wind has snapped. The thunder crash, and the din with which the +tree met its fellows of the forest, bore them down, and finally struck the +earth from which it came, seemed an alarum to waken all nature from its +sleep. The thunder became incessant, and the wind suddenly arising the +forest stretched itself and began to speak with no uncertain voice. +MacLean took his seat again upon the log, but Audrey slipped into the +road, and stood in the whirling dust, her arm raised above her eyes, +looking for the horseman whose approach she could not hope to hear through +the clamor of the storm. The wind lifted her long hair, and the rising +dust half obscured her form, bent against the blast. On the lonesome +road, in the partial light, she had the seeming of an apparition, a +creature tossed like a ball from the surging forest. She had made herself +a world, and she had become its product. In all her ways, to the day of +her death, there was about her a touch of mirage, illusion, fantasy. The +Highlander, imaginative like all his race, and a believer in things not of +heaven nor of earth, thought of spirits of the glen and the shore.</p> + +<p>There was no rain as yet; only the hurly-burly of the forest, the white +dust cloud, and the wild commotion overhead. Audrey turned to MacLean, +watching her in silence. "He is coming!" she cried. "There is some one +with him. Now, now he is safe!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV<br>HUGON SPEAKS HIS MIND</h2> + + +<p>MacLean sprang up from the log, and, joining her, saw indeed two horsemen +galloping toward them, their heads bent and riding cloaks raised to shield +them from the whirlwind of dust, dead leaves, and broken twigs. He knew +Haward's powerful steed Mirza, but the other horse was strange.</p> + +<p>The two rode fast. A moment, and they were splashing through the stream; +another, and the horses, startled by Audrey's cry and waving arms and by +the sudden and violent check on the part of their riders, were rearing and +curveting across the road. "What the devil!" cried one of the horsemen. +"Imp or sprite, or whatever you are, look out! Haward, your horse will +trample her!"</p> + +<p>But Audrey, with her hand on Mirza's bridle, had no fears. Haward stared +at her in amazement. "Child, what are you doing here? Angus, you too!" as +the storekeeper advanced. "What rendezvous is this? Mirza, be quiet!"</p> + +<p>Audrey left her warning to be spoken by MacLean. She was at peace, her +head against Mirza's neck, her eyes upon Haward's face, clear in the +flashing lightning. That gentleman heard the story with his usual +calmness; his companion first swore, and then laughed.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/206.jpg"><img src="./images/206-tb.jpg" alt=""HAD YOU LOVED ME—I HAD BEEN HAPPY"" title="AUDREY LEFT HER WARNING TO BE SPOKEN BY MACLEAN"></a></p><p class="figcenter">AUDREY LEFT HER WARNING TO BE SPOKEN BY MACLEAN</p> + +<p>"Here's a Canterbury tale!" he cried. "Egad, Haward, are we to take this +skipping rope, vault it as though we were courtiers of Lilliput? Neither +of us is armed. I conceive that the longest way around will prove our +shortest way home."</p> + +<p>"My dear Colonel, I want to speak with these two gentlemen."</p> + +<p>"But at your leisure, my friend, at your leisure, and not in dying tones! +I like not what I hear of Monsieur Jean Hugon's pistols. Flank an ambush; +don't ride into it open-eyed."</p> + +<p>"Colonel Byrd is right," said the storekeeper earnestly. "Ride back, the +two of you, and take the bridle path that will carry you to Fair View by +way of the upper bridge. In the mean time, I will run through the woods to +Mr. Taberer's house, cross there, hurry to the quarters, rouse the +overseer, and with a man or two we will recross the creek by the lower +bridge, and coming upon these rogues unawares, give them a taste of their +own medicine! We'll hale them to the great house; you shall have speech of +them in your own hall."</p> + +<p>Neither of the riders being able to suggest a better plan, the +storekeeper, with a wave of his hand, plunged into the forest, and was +soon lost to view amidst its serried trunks and waving branches. Haward +stooped from his saddle; Audrey set her bare foot upon his booted one, and +he swung her up behind him. "Put thine arm around me, child," he told her. +"We will ride swiftly through the storm. Now, Colonel, to turn our backs +upon the enemy!"</p> + +<p>The lightning was about them, and they raced to the booming of the +thunder. Heavy raindrops began to fall, and the wind was a power to drive +the riders on. Its voice shrilled above the diapason of the thunder; the +forest swung to its long cry. When the horses turned from the wide into +the narrow road, they could no longer go abreast. Mirza took the lead, and +the bay fell a length behind. The branches now hid the sky; between the +flashes there was Stygian gloom, but when the lightning came it showed far +aisles of the forest. There was the smell of rain upon dusty earth, there +was the wine of coolness after heat, there was the sense of being borne +upon the wind, there was the leaping of life within the veins to meet the +awakened life without. Audrey closed her eyes, and wished to ride thus +forever. Haward, too, traveling fast through mist and rain a road whose +end was hidden, facing the wet wind, hearing the voices of earth and sky, +felt his spirit mount with the mounting voices. So to ride with Love to +doom! On, and on, and on! Left behind the sophist, the apologist, the +lover of the world with his tinsel that was not gold, his pebbles that +were not gems! Only the man thundering on,—the man and his mate that was +meant for him since time began! He raised his face to the strife above, he +drew his breath, his hand closed over the hand of the woman riding with +him. At the touch a thrill ran through them both; had the lightning with a +sword of flame cut the world from beneath their feet, they had passed on, +immortal in their happiness. But the bolts struck aimlessly, and the +moment fled. Haward was Haward again; he recognized his old acquaintance +with a half-humorous, half-disdainful smile. The road was no longer a road +that gleamed athwart all time and space; the wind had lost its trumpet +tone; Love spoke not in the thunder, nor seemed so high a thing as the lit +heaven. Audrey's hand was yet within his clasp; but it was flesh and +blood that he touched, not spirit, and he was glad that it was so. For +her, her cheek burned, and she hid her eyes. She had looked unawares, as +by the lightning glare, into a world of which she had not dreamed. Its +portals had shut; she rode on in the twilight again, and she could not +clearly remember what she had seen. But she was sure that the air of that +country was sweet, she was faint with its beauty, her heart beat with +violence to its far echoes. Moreover, she was dimly aware that in the +moment when she had looked there had been a baptism. She had thought of +herself as a child, as a girl; now and for evermore she was a woman.</p> + +<p>They left the forest behind, and came to open fields where the tobacco had +been beaten to earth. The trees now stood singly or in shivering copses. +Above, the heavens were bare to their gaze, and the lightning gave +glimpses of pale castles overhanging steel-gray, fathomless abysses. The +road widened, and the bay was pushed by its rider to Mirza's side. Fields +of corn where the long blades wildly clashed, a wood of dripping cedars, a +patch of Oronoko, tobacco house in midst, rising ground and a vision of +the river, then a swift descent to the lower creek, and the bridge across +which lay the road that ran to the minister's house. Audrey spoke +earnestly to the master of Fair View, and after a moment's hesitation he +drew rein. "We will not cross, Colonel," he declared. "My preserver will +have it that she has troubled us long enough; and indeed it is no great +distance to the glebe house, and the rain has stopped. Have down with +thee, then, obstinate one!"</p> + +<p>Audrey slipped to the earth, and pushed back her hair from her eyes. +Colonel Byrd observed her curiously. "Faith," he exclaimed, "'tis the +Atalanta of last May Day! Well, child, I believe thou hast saved our +lives. Come, here are three gold baubles that may pass for Hippomenes' +apples!"</p> + +<p>Audrey put her hands behind her. "I want no money, sir. What I did was a +gift; it has no price." She was only Darden's Audrey, but she spoke as +proudly as a princess might have spoken. Haward smiled to hear her; and +seeing the smile, she was comforted. "For he understands," she said to +herself. "He would never hurt me so." It did not wound her that he said no +word, but only lifted his hat, when she curtsied to them both. There was +to-morrow, and he would praise her then for her quickness of wit and her +courage in following Hugon, whom she feared so much.</p> + +<p>The riders watched her cross the bridge and turn into the road that led to +the glebe house, then kept their own road in silence until it brought them +to the doors of Fair View.</p> + +<p>It was an hour later, and drawing toward dusk, when the Colonel, having +changed his wet riding clothes for a suit of his friend's, came down the +stairs and entered the Fair View drawing-room. Haward, in green, with rich +lace at throat and wrist, was there before him, walking up and down in the +cheerful light of a fire kindled against the dampness. "No sign of our +men," he said, as the other entered. "Come to the fire. Faith, Colonel, my +russet and gold becomes you mightily! Juba took you the aqua vitæ?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, in one of your great silver goblets, with a forest of mint atop. Ha, +this is comfort!" He sank into an armchair, stretched his legs before the +blaze, and began to look about him. "I have ever said, Haward, that of +all the gentlemen of my acquaintance you have the most exact taste. I told +Bubb Dodington as much, last year, at Eastbury. Damask, mirrors, +paintings, china, cabinets,—all chaste and quiet, extremely elegant, but +without ostentation! It hath an air, too. I would swear a woman had the +placing of yonder painted jars!"</p> + +<p>"You are right," said Haward, smiling. "The wife of the minister of this +parish was good enough to come to my assistance."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said the Colonel dryly. "Did Atalanta come as well? She is his +reverence's servant, is she not?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered Haward shortly to the last question, and, leaning across, +stirred the fire.</p> + +<p>The light caused to sparkle a jeweled pin worn in the lace of his ruffles, +and the toy caught the Colonel's eye. "One of Spotswood's golden +horseshoes!" he exclaimed. "I had them wrought for him in London. Had they +been so many stars and garters, he could have made no greater pother! 'Tis +ten years since I saw one."</p> + +<p>Haward detached the horseshoe-shaped bauble from the lace, and laid it on +the other's palm. The master of Westover regarded it curiously, and read +aloud the motto engraved upon its back: "'Sic Juvat Transcendere Montes.' +A barren exploit! But some day I too shall please myself and cross these +sun-kissing hills. And so the maid with the eyes is not his reverence's +servant? What is she?"</p> + +<p>Haward took the golden horseshoe in his own hand, and fell to studying it +in the firelight. "I wore this to-night," he said at length, with +deliberation, "in order that it might bring to your mind that sprightly +ultramontane expedition in which, my dear Colonel, had you not been in +England, you had undoubtedly borne a part. You have asked me a question; I +will answer it with a story, and so the time may pass more rapidly until +the arrival of Mr. MacLean with our friends who set traps." He turned the +mimic horseshoe this way and that, watching the small gems, that simulated +nails, flash in the red light. "Some days to the west of Germanna," he +said, "when about us were the lesser mountains, and before us those that +propped the sky, we came one sunny noon upon a valley, a little valley, +very peaceful below the heights. A stream shone through it, and there were +noble trees, and beside the stream the cabin of a frontiersman."</p> + +<p>On went the story. The fire crackled, reflecting itself in mirrors and +polished wood and many small window panes. Outside, the rain had ceased, +but the wind and the river murmured loudly, and the shadows of the night +were gathering. When the narrative was ended, he who had spoken and he who +had listened sat staring at the fire. "A pretty story!" said the Colonel +at last. "Dick Steele should have had it; 'twould have looked vastly well +over against his Inkle and Yarico. There the maid the savior, here the +man; there perfidy, here plain honesty; there for the woman a fate most +tragical, here"—</p> + +<p>"Here?" said Haward, as the other paused.</p> + +<p>The master of Westover took out his snuffbox. "And here the continued +kindness of a young and handsome preserver," he said suavely, and extended +the box to his host.</p> + +<p>"You are mistaken," said Haward. He rose, and stood leaning against the +mantel, his eyes upon the older man's somewhat coldly smiling +countenance. "She is as innocent, as high of soul, and as pure of heart +as—as Evelyn."</p> + +<p>The Colonel clicked to the lid of his box. "You will be so good as to +leave my daughter's name out of the conversation."</p> + +<p>"As you please," Haward answered, with hauteur.</p> + +<p>Another silence, broken by the guest. "Why did you hang that kit-kat of +yourself behind the door, Haward?" he asked amiably. "'Tis too fine a +piece to be lost in shadow. I would advise a change with yonder +shepherdess."</p> + +<p>"I do not know why," said Haward restlessly. "A whim. Perhaps by nature I +court shadows and dark corners."</p> + +<p>"That is not so," Byrd replied quietly. He had turned in his chair, the +better to observe the distant portrait that was now lightened, now +darkened, as the flames rose and fell. "A speaking likeness," he went on, +glancing from it to the original and back again. "I ever thought it one of +Kneller's best. The portrait of a gentleman. Only—you have noticed, I +dare say, how in the firelight familiar objects change aspect many +times?—only just now it seemed to me that it lost that distinction"—</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Haward, as he paused.</p> + +<p>The Colonel went on slowly: "Lost that distinction, and became the +portrait of"—</p> + +<p>"Well? Of whom?" asked Haward, and, with his eyes shaded by his hand, +gazed not at the portrait, but at the connoisseur in gold and russet.</p> + +<p>"Of a dirty tradesman," said the master of Westover lightly. "In a word, +of an own brother to Mr. Thomas Inkle."</p> + +<p>A dead silence; then Haward spoke calmly: "I will not take offense, +Colonel Byrd. Perhaps I should not take it even were it not as my guest +and in my drawing-room that you have so spoken. We will, if you please, +consign my portrait to the obscurity from which it has been dragged. In +good time here comes Juba to light the candles and set the shadows +fleeing."</p> + +<p>Leaving the fire he moved to a window, and stood looking out upon the +windy twilight. From the back of the house came a sound of voices and of +footsteps. The Colonel put up his snuffbox and brushed a grain from his +ruffles. "Enter two murderers!" he said briskly. "Will you have them here, +Haward, or shall we go into the hall?"</p> + +<p>"Light all the candles, Juba," ordered the master. "Here, I think, +Colonel, where the stage will set them off. Juba, go ask Mr. MacLean and +Saunderson to bring their prisoners here."</p> + +<p>As he spoke, he turned from the contemplation of the night without to the +brightly lit room. "This is a murderous fellow, this Hugon," he said, as +he took his seat in a great chair drawn before a table. "I have heard +Colonel Byrd argue in favor of imitating John Rolfe's early experiment, +and marrying the white man to the heathen. We are about to behold the +result of such an union."</p> + +<p>"I would not have the practice universal," said the Colonel coolly, "but +'twould go far toward remedying loss of scalps in this world, and of +infidel souls hereafter. Your sprightly lover is a most prevailing +missionary. But here is our Huguenot-Monacan."</p> + +<p>MacLean, very wet and muddy, with one hand wrapped in a blood-stained rag, +came in first. "We found them hidden in the bushes at the turn of the +road," he said hastily. "The schoolmaster was more peaceably inclined than +any Quaker, but Hugon fought like the wolf that he is. Can't you hang him +out of hand, Haward? Give me a land where the chief does justice while the +king looks the other way!" He turned and beckoned. "Bring them in, +Saunderson."</p> + +<p>There was no discomposure in the schoolmaster's dress, and as little in +his face or manner. He bowed to the two gentlemen, then shambled across to +the fire, and as best he could held out his bound hands to the grateful +blaze. "May I ask, sir," he said, in his lifeless voice, "why it is that +this youth and I, resting in all peace and quietness beside a public road, +should be set upon by your servants, overpowered, bound, and haled to your +house as to a judgment bar?"</p> + +<p>Haward, to whom this speech was addressed, gave it no attention. His gaze +was upon Hugon, who in his turn glared at him alone. Haward had a subtle +power of forcing and fixing the attention of a company; in crowded rooms, +without undue utterance or moving from his place, he was apt to achieve +the centre of the stage, the head of the table. Now, the half-breed, by +very virtue of the passion which, false to his Indian blood, shook him +like a leaf, of a rage which overmastered and transformed, reached at a +bound the Englishman's plane of distinction. His great wig, of a fashion +years gone by, was pulled grotesquely aside, showing the high forehead and +shaven crown beneath; his laced coat and tawdry waistcoat and ruffled +shirt were torn and foul with mud and mould, but the man himself made to +be forgotten the absurdity of his trappings. Gone, for him, were his +captors, his accomplice, the spectator in gold and russet; to Haward, +also, sitting very cold, very quiet, with narrowed eyes, they were gone. +He was angered, and in the mood to give rein after his own fashion to that +anger. MacLean and the master of Westover, the overseer and the +schoolmaster, were forgotten, and he and Hugon met alone as they might +have met in the forest. Between them, and without a spoken word, the two +made this fact to be recognized by the other occupants of the +drawing-room. Colonel Byrd, who had been standing with his hand upon the +table, moved backward until he joined MacLean beside the closed door: +Saunderson drew near to the schoolmaster: and the centre of the room was +left to the would-be murderer and the victim that had escaped him.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur le Monacan," said Haward.</p> + +<p>Hugon snarled like an angry wolf, and strained at the rope which bound his +arms.</p> + +<p>Haward went on evenly: "Your tribe has smoked the peace pipe with the +white man. I was not told it by singing birds, but by the great white +father at Williamsburgh. They buried the hatchet very deep; the dead +leaves of many moons of Cohonks lie thick upon the place where they buried +it. Why have you made a warpath, treading it alone of your color?"</p> + +<p>"Diable!" cried Hugon. "Pig of an Englishman! I will kill you for"—</p> + +<p>"For an handful of blue beads," said Haward, with a cold smile. "And I, +dog of an Indian! I will send a Nottoway to teach the Monacans how to lay +a snare and hide a trail."</p> + +<p>The trader, gasping with passion, leaned across the table until his eyes +were within a foot of Haward's unmoved face. "Who showed you the trail and +told you of the snare?" he whispered. "Tell me that, you +Englishman,—tell me that!"</p> + +<p>"A storm bird," said Haward calmly. "Okee is perhaps angry with his +Monacans, and sent it."</p> + +<p>"Was it Audrey?"</p> + +<p>Haward laughed. "No, it was not Audrey. And so, Monacan, you have yourself +fallen into the pit which you digged."</p> + +<p>From the fireplace came the schoolmaster's slow voice: "Dear sir, can you +show the pit? Why should this youth desire to harm you? Where is the storm +bird? Can you whistle it before a justice of the peace or into a court +room?"</p> + +<p>If Haward heard, it did not appear. He was leaning back in his chair, his +eyes fixed upon the trader's twitching face in a cold and smiling regard. +"Well, Monacan?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>The half-breed straightened himself, and with a mighty effort strove in +vain for a composure that should match the other's cold self-command,—a +command which taunted and stung now at this point, now at that. "I am a +Frenchman!" he cried, in a voice that broke with passion. "I am of the +noblesse of the land of France, which is a country that is much grander +than Virginia! Old Pierre at Monacan-Town told me these things. My father +changed his name when he came across the sea, so I bear not the <i>de</i> which +is a sign of a great man. Listen, you Englishman! I trade, I prosper, I +buy me land, I begin to build me a house. There is a girl that I see every +hour, every minute, while I am building it. She says she loves me not, but +nevertheless I shall wed her. Now I see her in this room, now in that; she +comes down the stair, she smiles at the window, she stands on the +doorstep to welcome me when I come home from my hunting and trading in +the woods so far away. I bring her fine skins of the otter, the beaver, +and the fawn; beadwork also from the villages and bracelets of copper and +pearl. The flowers bloom around her, and my heart sings to see her upon my +doorstep.... The flowers are dead, and you have stolen the girl away.... +There was a stream, and the sun shone upon it, and you and she were in a +boat. I walked alone upon the bank, and in my heart I left building my +house and fell to other work. You laughed; one day you will laugh no more. +That was many suns ago. I have watched"—</p> + +<p>Foam was upon his lips, and he strained without ceasing at his bonds. +Already pulled far awry, his great peruke, a cataract of hair streaming +over his shoulders, shading and softening the swarthy features between its +curled waves, now slipped from his head and fell to the floor. The change +which its absence wrought was startling. Of the man the moiety that was +white disappeared. The shaven head, its poise, its features, were Indian; +the soul was Indian, and looked from Indian eyes. Suddenly, for the last +transforming touch, came a torrent of words in a strange tongue, the +tongue of his mother. Of what he was speaking, what he was threatening, no +one of them could tell; he was a savage giving voice to madness and hate.</p> + +<p>Haward pushed back his chair from the table, and, rising, walked across +the room to the window. Hugon followed him, straining at the rope about +his arms and speaking thickly. His eyes were glaring, his teeth bared. +When he was so close that the Virginian could feel his hot breath, the +latter turned, and uttering an oath of disgust struck the back of his +hand across his lips. With the cry of an animal, Hugon, bound as he was, +threw himself bodily upon his foe, who in his turn flung the trader from +him with a violence that sent him reeling against the wall. Here +Saunderson, a man of powerful build, seized him by the shoulders, holding +him fast; MacLean, too, hurriedly crossed from the door. There was no +need, for the half-breed's frenzy was spent. He stood with glittering eyes +following Haward's every motion, but quite silent, his frame rigid in the +overseer's grasp.</p> + +<p>Colonel Byrd went up to Haward and spoke in a low voice: "Best send them +at once to Williamsburgh."</p> + +<p>Haward shook his head. "I cannot," he said, with a gesture of impatience. +"There is no proof."</p> + +<p>"No proof!" exclaimed his guest sharply. "You mean"—</p> + +<p>The other met his stare of surprise with an imperturbable countenance. +"What I say," he answered quietly. "My servants find two men lurking +beside a road that I am traveling. Being somewhat over-zealous, they take +them up upon suspicion of meaning mischief and bring them before me. It is +all guesswork why they were at the turn of the road, and what they wanted +there. There is no proof, no witness"—</p> + +<p>"I see that there is no witness that you care to call," said the Colonel +coldly.</p> + +<p>Haward waved his hand. "There is no witness," he said, without change of +tone. "And therefore, Colonel, I am about to dismiss the case."</p> + +<p>With a slight bow to his guest he left the window, and advanced to the +group in the centre of the room. "Saunderson," he said abruptly, "take +these two men to the quarter and cut their bonds. Give them a start of +fifty yards, then loose the dogs and hunt them from the plantation. You +have men outside to help you? Very well; go! Mr. MacLean, will you see +this chase fairly started?"</p> + +<p>The Highlander, who had become very thoughtful of aspect since entering +the room, and who had not shared Saunderson's start of surprise at the +master's latest orders, nodded assent. Haward stood for a moment gazing +steadily at Hugon, but with no notice to bestow upon the bowing +schoolmaster; then walked over to the harpsichord, and, sitting down, +began to play an old tune, soft and slow, with pauses between the notes. +When he came to the final chord he looked over his shoulder at the +Colonel, standing before the mantel, with his eyes upon the fire. "So they +have gone," he said. "Good riddance! A pretty brace of villains!"</p> + +<p>"I should be loath to have Monsieur Jean Hugon for my enemy," said the +Colonel gravely.</p> + +<p>Haward laughed. "I was told at Williamsburgh that a party of traders go to +the Southern Indians to-morrow, and he with them. Perhaps a month or two +of the woods will work a cure."</p> + +<p>He fell to playing again, a quiet, plaintive air. When it was ended, he +rose and went over to the fire to keep his guest company; but finding him +in a mood for silence, presently fell silent himself, and took to viewing +structures of his own building in the red hollows between the logs. This +mutual taciturnity lasted until the announcement of supper, and was +relapsed into at intervals during the meal; but when they had returned to +the drawing-room the two talked until it was late, and the fire had sunken +to ash and embers. Before they parted for the night it was agreed that +the master of Westover should remain with the master of Fair View for a +day or so, at the end of which time the latter gentleman would accompany +the former to Westover for a visit of indefinite length.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI<br>AUDREY AND EVELYN</h2> + + +<p>Hugon went a-trading to the Southern Indians, but had lately returned to +his lair at the crossroads ordinary, when, upon a sunny September morning, +Audrey and Mistress Deborah, mounted upon the sorriest of Darden's sorry +steeds, turned from Duke of Gloucester into Palace Street. They had parted +with the minister before his favorite ordinary, and were on their way to +the house where they themselves were to lodge during the three days of +town life which Darden had vouchsafed to offer them.</p> + +<p>For a month or more Virginia had been wearing black ribbons for the King, +who died in June, but in the last day or so there had been a reversion to +bright colors. This cheerful change had been wrought by the arrival in the +York of the Fortune of Bristol, with the new governor on board. His +Excellency had landed at Yorktown, and, after suitable entertainment at +the hands of its citizens, had proceeded under escort to Williamsburgh. +The entry into the town was triumphal, and when, at the doorway of his +Palace, the Governor turned, and addressed a pleasing oration to the +people whom he was to rule in the name of the King and my Lord of Orkney, +enthusiasm reached its height. At night the town was illuminated, and +well-nigh all its ladies and gentlemen visited the Palace, in order to +pay their duty to its latest occupant. It was a pleasure-loving people, +and the arrival of a governor an occasion of which the most must be made. +Gentlemen of consideration had come in from every county, bringing with +them wives and daughters. In the mild, sunshiny weather the crowded town +overflowed into square and street and garden. Everywhere were bustle and +gayety,—gayety none the less for the presence of thirty or more ministers +of the Established Church. For Mr. Commissary Blair had convoked a meeting +of the clergy for the consideration of evils affecting that body,—not, +alas! from without alone. The Governor, arriving so opportunely, must, +too, be addressed upon the usual subjects of presentation, induction, and +all-powerful vestries. It was fitting, also, that the college of William +and Mary should have its say upon the occasion, and the brightest scholar +thereof was even now closeted with the Latin master. That the copy of +verses giving the welcome of so many future planters, Burgesses, and +members of Council would be choice in thought and elegant in expression, +there could be no reasonable doubt. The Council was to give an +entertainment at the Capitol; one day had been set aside for a muster of +militia in the meadow beyond the college, another for a great horse-race; +many small parties were arranged; and last, but not least, on the night of +the day following Darden's appearance in town, his Excellency was to give +a ball at the Palace. Add to all this that two notorious pirates were +standing their trial before a court-martial, with every prospect of being +hanged within the se'ennight; that a deputation of Nottoways and +Meherrins, having business with the white fathers in Williamsburgh, were +to be persuaded to dance their wildest, whoop their loudest, around a +bonfire built in the market square; that at the playhouse Cato was to be +given with extraordinary magnificence, and one may readily see that there +might have been found, in this sunny September week, places less +entertaining than Williamsburgh.</p> + +<p>Darden's old white horse, with its double load, plodded along the street +that led to the toy Palace of this toy capital. The Palace, of course, was +not its riders' destination; instead, when they had crossed Nicholson +Street, they drew up before a particularly small white house, so hidden +away behind lilac bushes and trellised grapevines that it gave but here +and there a pale hint of its existence. It was planted in the shadow of a +larger building, and a path led around it to what seemed a pleasant, +shady, and extensive garden.</p> + +<p>Mistress Deborah gave a sigh of satisfaction. "Seven years come Martinmas +since I last stayed overnight with Mary Stagg! And we were born in the +same village, and at Bath what mighty friends we were! She was playing +Dorinda,—that's in 'The Beaux' Stratagem,' Audrey,—and her dress was +just an old striped Persian, vastly unbecoming. Her Ladyship's pink +alamode, that Major D—— spilt a dish of chocolate over, she gave to me +for carrying a note; and I gave it to Mary (she was Mary Baker then),—for +I looked hideous in pink,—and she was that grateful, as well she might +be! Mary, Mary!"</p> + +<p>A slender woman, with red-brown hair and faded cheeks, came running from +the house to the gate. "At last, my dear Deborah! I vow I had given you +up! Says I to Mirabell an hour ago,—you know that is my name for Charles, +for 'twas when he played Mirabell to my Millamant that we fell in +love,—'Well,' says I, 'I'll lay a gold-furbelowed scarf to a yard of +oznaburg that Mr. Darden, riding home through the night, and in liquor, +perhaps, has fallen and broken his neck, and Deborah can't come.' And says +Mirabell—But la, my dear, there you stand in your safeguard, and I'm +keeping the gate shut on you! Come in. Come in, Audrey. Why, you've grown +to be a woman! You were just a brown slip of a thing, that Lady Day, two +years ago, that I spent with Deborah. Come in the both of you. There are +cakes and a bottle of Madeira."</p> + +<p>Audrey fastened the horse against the time that Darden should remember to +send for it, and then followed the ex-waiting-woman and the former queen +of a company of strollers up a grassy path and through a little green door +into a pleasant room, where grape leaves wreathed the windows and cast +their shadows upon a sanded floor. At one end of the room stood a great, +rudely built cabinet, and before it a long table, strewn with an orderly +litter of such slender articles of apparel as silk and tissue scarfs, +gauze hoods, breast knots, silk stockings, and embroidered gloves. +Mistress Deborah must needs run and examine these at once, and Mistress +Mary Stagg, wife of the lessee, manager, and principal actor of the +Williamsburgh theatre, looked complacently over her shoulder. The +minister's wife sighed again, this time with envy.</p> + +<p>"What with the theatre, and the bowling green, and tea in your +summer-house, and dancing lessons, and the sale of these fine things, you +and Charles must turn a pretty penny! The luck that some folk have! <i>You</i> +were always fortunate, Mary."</p> + +<p>Mistress Stagg did not deny the imputation. But she was a kindly soul, +who had not forgotten the gift of my Lady Squander's pink alamode. The +chocolate stain had not been so very large.</p> + +<p>"I've laid by a pretty piece of sarcenet of which to make you a capuchin," +she said promptly. "Now, here's the wine. Shan't we go into the garden, +and sip it there? Peggy," to the black girl holding a salver, "put the +cake and wine on the table in the arbor; then sit here by the window, and +call me if any come. My dear Deborah, I doubt if I have so much as a +ribbon left by the end of the week. The town is that gay! I says to +Mirabell this morning, says I, 'Lord, my dear, it a'most puts me in mind +of Bath!' And Mirabell says—But here's the garden door. Now, isn't it +cool and pleasant out here? Audrey may gather us some grapes. Yes, they're +very fine, full bunches; it has been a bounteous year."</p> + +<p>The grape arbor hugged the house, but beyond it was a pretty, shady, +fancifully laid out garden, with shell-bordered walks, a grotto, a +summer-house, and a gate opening into Nicholson Street. Beyond the garden +a glimpse was to be caught through the trees of a trim bowling green. It +had rained the night before, and a delightful, almost vernal freshness +breathed in the air. The bees made a great buzzing amongst the grapes, and +the birds in the mulberry-trees sang as though it were nesting time. +Mistress Stagg and her old acquaintance sat at a table placed in the +shadow of the vines, and sipped their wine, while Audrey obediently +gathered clusters of the purple fruit, and thought the garden very fine, +but oh, not like—There could be no garden in the world so beautiful and +so dear as that! And she had not seen it for so long, so long a time. She +wondered if she would ever see it again.</p> + +<p>When she brought the fruit to the table, Mistress Stagg made room for her +kindly enough; and she sat and drank her wine and went to her world of +dreams, while her companions bartered town and country gossip. It has been +said that the small white house adjoined a larger building. A window in +this structure, which had much the appearance of a barn, was now opened, +with the result that a confused sound, as of several people speaking at +once, made itself heard. Suddenly the noise gave place to a single +high-pitched voice:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'Welcome, my son! Here lay him down, my friends,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Full in my sight, that I may view at leisure</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The bloody corse, and count those glorious wounds.'"</span><br> +</p> + +<p>A smile irradiated Mistress Stagg's faded countenance, and she blew a kiss +toward the open window. "He does Cato so extremely well; and it's a grave, +dull, odd character, too. But Mirabell—that's Charles, you know—manages +to put a little life in it, a <i>Je ne sais quoi</i>, a touch of Sir Harry +Wildair. Now—now he's pulling out his laced handkerchief to weep over +Rome! You should see him after he has fallen on his sword, and is brought +on in a chair, all over blood. This is the third rehearsal; the play's +ordered for Monday night. Who is it, Peggy? Madam Travis! It's about the +lace for her damask petticoat, and there's no telling how long she may +keep me! My dear Deborah, when you have finished your wine, Peggy shall +show you your room. You must make yourself quite at home. For says I to +Mirabell this morning, 'Far be it from me to forget past kindnesses, and +in those old Bath days Deborah was a good friend to me,—which was no +wonder, to be sure, seeing that when we were little girls we went to the +same dame school, and always learned our book and worked our samplers +together.' And says Mirabell—Yes, yes, ma'am, I'm coming!"</p> + +<p>She disappeared, and the black girl showed the two guests through the hall +and up a tiny stairway into a little dormer-windowed, whitewashed room. +Mistress Deborah, who still wore remnants of my Lady Squander's ancient +gifts of spoiled finery, had likewise failed to discard the second-hand +fine-lady airs acquired during her service. She now declared herself +excessively tired by her morning ride, and martyr, besides, to a migraine. +Moreover, it was enough to give one the spleen to hear Mary Stagg's magpie +chatter and to see how some folk throve, willy-nilly, while others just as +good—Here tears of vexation ensued, and she must lie down upon the bed +and call in a feeble voice for her smelling salts. Audrey hurriedly +searched in the ragged portmanteau brought to town the day before in the +ox-cart of an obliging parishioner, found the flask, and took it to the +bedside, to receive in exchange a sound box of the ear for her tardiness. +The blow reddened her cheek, but brought no tears to her eyes. It was too +small a thing to weep for; tears were for blows upon the heart.</p> + +<p>It was a cool and quiet little room, and Mistress Deborah, who had drunk +two full glasses of the Madeira, presently fell asleep. Audrey sat very +still, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes upon them, until their +hostess's voice announced from the foot of the stairs that Madam Travis +had taken her departure. She then slipped from the room, and was affably +received below, and taken into the apartment which they had first entered. +Here Mistress became at once extremely busy. A fan was to be mounted; +yards of silk gathered into furbelows; breast knots, shoulder knots, sword +knots, to be made up. Her customers were all people of quality, and unless +she did her part not one of them could go to the ball. Audrey shyly +proffered her aid, and was set to changing the ribbons upon a mask.</p> + +<p>Mistress Stagg's tongue went as fast as her needle: "And Deborah is +asleep! Poor soul! she's sadly changed from what she was in old England +thirteen years ago. As neat a shape as you would see in a day's journey, +with the prettiest color, and eyes as bright as those marcasite buttons! +And she saw the best of company at my Lady Squander's,—no lack there of +kisses and guineas and fine gentlemen, you may be sure! There's a deal of +change in this mortal world, and it's generally for the worse. Here, +child, you may whip this lace on Mr. Lightfoot's ruffles. I think myself +lucky, I can tell you, that there are so few women in Cato. If 'tweren't +so, I should have to go on myself; for since poor, dear, pretty Jane Day +died of the smallpox, and Oriana Jordan ran away with the rascally +Bridewell fellow that we bought to play husbands' parts, and was never +heard of more, but is supposed to have gotten clean off to Barbadoes by +favor of the master of the Lady Susan, we have been short of actresses. +But in this play there are only Marcia and Lucia. 'It is extremely +fortunate, my dear,' said I to Mirabell this very morning, 'that in this +play, which is the proper compliment to a great gentleman just taking +office, Mr. Addison should have put no more than two women.' And Mirabell +says—Don't put the lace so full, child; 'twon't go round."</p> + +<p>"A chair is stopping at the gate," said Audrey, who sat by the window. +"There's a lady in it."</p> + +<p>The chair was a very fine painted one, borne by two gayly dressed negroes, +and escorted by a trio of beribboned young gentlemen, prodigal of gallant +speeches, amorous sighs, and languishing glances. Mistress Stagg looked, +started up, and, without waiting to raise from the floor the armful of +delicate silk which she had dropped, was presently curtsying upon the +doorstep.</p> + +<p>The bearers set down their load. One of the gentlemen opened the chair +door with a flourish, and the divinity, compressing her hoop, descended. A +second cavalier flung back Mistress Stagg's gate, and the third, with a +low bow, proffered his hand to conduct the fair from the gate to the +doorstep. The lady shook her head; a smiling word or two, a slight curtsy, +the wave of a painted fan, and her attendants found themselves dismissed. +She came up the path alone, slowly, with her head a little bent. Audrey, +watching her from the window, knew who she was, and her heart beat fast. +If this lady were in town, then so was he; he would not have stayed behind +at Westover. She would have left the room, but there was not time. The +mistress of the house, smiling and obsequious, fluttered in, and Evelyn +Byrd followed.</p> + +<p>There had been ordered for her a hood of golden tissue, with wide and long +streamers to be tied beneath the chin, and she was come to try it on. +Mistress Stagg had it all but ready,—there was only the least bit of +stitchery; would Mistress Evelyn condescend to wait a very few minutes? +She placed a chair, and the lady sank into it, finding the quiet of the +shadowed room pleasant enough after the sunlight and talkativeness of the +world without. Mistress Stagg, in her role of milliner, took the gauzy +trifle, called by courtesy a hood, to the farthest window, and fell +busily to work.</p> + +<p>It seemed to grow more and more quiet in the room: the shadow of the +leaves lay still upon the floor; the drowsy humming of the bees outside +the windows, the sound of locusts in the trees, the distant noises of the +town,—all grew more remote, then suddenly appeared to cease.</p> + +<p>Audrey raised her eyes, and met the eyes of Evelyn. She knew that they had +been upon her for a long time, in the quiet of the room. She had sat +breathless, her head bowed over her work that lay idly in her lap, but at +last she must look. The two gazed at each other with a sorrowful +steadfastness; in the largeness of their several natures there was no room +for self-consciousness; it was the soul of each that gazed. But in the +mists of earthly ignorance they could not read what was written, and they +erred in their guessing. Audrey went not far wide. This was the princess, +and, out of the fullness of a heart that ached with loss, she could have +knelt and kissed the hem of her robe, and wished her long and happy life. +There was no bitterness in her heart; she never dreamed that she had +wronged the princess. But Evelyn thought: "This is the girl they talk +about. God knows, if he had loved worthily, I might not so much have +minded!"</p> + +<p>From the garden came a burst of laughter and high voices. Mistress Stagg +started up. "'Tis our people, Mistress Evelyn, coming from the playhouse. +We lodge them in the house by the bowling green, but after rehearsals +they're apt to stop here. I'll send them packing. The hood is finished. +Audrey will set it upon your head, ma'am, while I am gone. Here, child! +Mind you don't crush it." She gave the hood into Audrey's hands, and +hurried from the room.</p> + +<p>Evelyn sat motionless, her silken draperies flowing around her, one white +arm bent, the soft curve of her cheek resting upon ringed fingers. Her +eyes yet dwelt upon Audrey, standing as motionless, the mist of gauze and +lace in her hands. "Do not trouble yourself," she said, in her low, clear +voice. "I will wait until Mistress Stagg returns."</p> + +<p>The tone was very cold, but Audrey scarce noticed that it was so. "If I +may, I should like to serve you, ma'am," she said pleadingly. "I will be +very careful."</p> + +<p>Leaving the window, she came and knelt beside Evelyn; but when she would +have put the golden hood upon her head, the other drew back with a gesture +of aversion, a quick recoil of her entire frame. The hood slipped to the +floor. After a moment Audrey rose and stepped back a pace or two. Neither +spoke, but it was the one who thought no evil whose eyes first sought the +floor. Her dark cheek paled, and her lips trembled; she turned, and going +back to her seat by the window took up her fallen work. Evelyn, with a +sharp catch of her breath, withdrew her attention from the other occupant +of the room, and fixed it upon a moted sunbeam lying like a bar between +the two.</p> + +<p>Mistress Stagg returned. The hood was fitted, and its purchaser prepared +to leave. Audrey rose and made her curtsy, timidly, but with a quick, +appealing motion of her hand. Was not this the lady whom he loved, that +people said he was to wed? And had he not told her, long ago, that he +would speak of her to Mistress Evelyn Byrd, and that she too would be her +friend? Last May Day, when the guinea was put into her hand, the lady's +smile was bright, her voice sweet and friendly. Now, how changed! In her +craving for a word, a look, from one so near him, one that perhaps had +seen him not an hour before; in her sad homage for the object of his love, +she forgot her late repulse, and grew bold. When Evelyn would have passed +her, she put forth a trembling hand and began to speak, to say she scarce +knew what; but the words died in her throat. For a moment Evelyn stood, +her head averted, an angry red staining neck and bosom and beautiful, +down-bent face. Her eyes half closed, the long lashes quivering against +her cheek, and she smiled faintly, in scorn of the girl and scorn of +herself. Then, freeing her skirt from Audrey's clasp, she passed in +silence from the room.</p> + +<p>Audrey stood at the window, and with wide, pained eyes watched her go down +the path. Mistress Stagg was with her, talking volubly, and Evelyn seemed +to listen with smiling patience. One of the bedizened negroes opened the +chair door; the lady entered, and was borne away. Before Mistress Stagg +could reenter her house Audrey had gone quietly up the winding stair to +the little whitewashed room, where she found the minister's wife astir and +restored to good humor. Her sleep had helped her; she would go down at +once and see what Mary was at. Darden, too, was coming as soon as the +meeting at the church had adjourned. After dinner they would walk out and +see the town, until which time Audrey might do as she pleased. When she +was gone, Audrey softly shut herself in the little room, and lay down upon +the bed, very still, with her face hidden in her arm.</p> + +<p>With twelve of the clock came Darden, quite sober, distrait in manner and +uneasy of eye, and presently interrupted Mistress Stagg's flow of +conversation by a demand to speak with his wife alone. At that time of day +the garden was a solitude, and thither the two repaired, taking their +seats upon a bench built round a mulberry-tree.</p> + +<p>"Well?" queried Mistress Deborah bitterly. "I suppose Mr. Commissary +showed himself vastly civil? I dare say you're to preach before the +Governor next Sunday? Or maybe they've chosen Bailey? He boasts that he +can drink you under the table! One of these fine days you'll drink and +curse and game yourself out of a parish!"</p> + +<p>Darden drew figures on the ground with his heavy stick. "On such a fine +day as this," he said, in a suppressed voice, and looked askance at the +wife whom he beat upon occasion, but whose counsel he held in respect.</p> + +<p>She turned upon him. "What do you mean? They talk and talk, and cry +shame,—and a shame it is, the Lord knows! But it never comes to +anything"—</p> + +<p>"It has come to this," interrupted Darden, with an oath: "that this +Governor means to sweep in the corners; that the Commissary—damned +Scot!—to-day appointed a committee to inquire into the charges made +against me and Bailey and John Worden; that seven of my vestrymen are dead +against me; and that 'deprivation' has suddenly become a very common +word!"</p> + +<p>"Seven of the vestry?" said his wife, after a pause. "Who are they?"</p> + +<p>Darden told her.</p> + +<p>"If Mr. Haward"—she began slowly, her green eyes steady upon the +situation. "There's not one of that seven would care to disoblige him. I +warrant you he could make them face about. They say he knew the Governor +in England, too; and there's his late gift to the college,—the Commissary +wouldn't forget that. If Mr. Haward would"—She broke off, and with knit +brows studied the problem more intently.</p> + +<p>"If he would, he could," Darden finished for her. "With his interest this +cloud would go by, as others have done before. I know that, Deborah. And +that's the card I'm going to play."</p> + +<p>"If you had gone to him, hat in hand, a month ago, he'd have done you any +favor," said his helpmate sourly. "But it is different now. He's over his +fancy; and besides, he's at Westover."</p> + +<p>"He's in Williamsburgh, at Marot's ordinary," said the other. "As for his +being over his fancy,—I'll try that. Fancy or no fancy, if a woman asked +him for a fairing, he would give it her, or I don't know my gentleman. +We'll call his interest a ribbon or some such toy, and Audrey shall ask +him for it."</p> + +<p>"Audrey is a fool!" cried Mistress Deborah. "And you had best be careful, +or you'll prove yourself another! There's been talk enough already. +Audrey, village innocent that she is, is the only one that doesn't know +it. The town's not the country; if he sets tongues a-clacking here"—</p> + +<p>"He won't," said Darden roughly. "He's no hare-brained one-and-twenty! And +Audrey's a good girl. Go send her here, Deborah. Bid her fetch me Stagg's +inkhorn and a pen and a sheet of paper. If he does anything for me, it +will have to be done quickly. They're in haste to pull me out of saddle, +the damned canting pack! But I'll try conclusions with them!"</p> + +<p>His wife departed, muttering to herself, and the reverend Gideon pulled +out of his capacious pocket a flask of usquebaugh. In five minutes from +the time of his setting it to his lips the light in which he viewed the +situation turned from gray to rose color. By the time he espied Audrey +coming toward him through the garden he felt a moral certainty that when +he came to die (if ever he died) it would be in his bed in the Fair View +glebe house.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII<br>WITHIN THE PLAYHOUSE</h2> + + +<p>Haward, sitting at the table in Marot's best room, wrote an answer to +Audrey's letter, and tore it up; wrote another, and gave it to Juba, to be +given to the messenger waiting below; recalled the negro before he could +reach the door, destroyed the second note, and wrote a third. The first +had been wise and kind, telling her that he was much engaged, lightly and +skillfully waving aside her request—the only one she made—that she might +see him that day. The second had been less wise. The last told her that he +would come at five o'clock to the summer-house in Mistress Stagg's garden.</p> + +<p>When he was alone in the room, he sat for some time very still, with his +eyes closed and his head thrown back against the tall woodwork of his +chair. His face was stern in repose: a handsome, even a fine face, with a +look of power and reflection, but to-day somewhat worn and haggard of +aspect. When presently he roused himself and took up the letter that lay +before him, the paper shook in his hand. "Wine, Juba," he said to the +slave, who now reëntered the room. "And close the window; it is growing +cold."</p> + +<p>There were but three lines between the "Mr. Haward" and "Audrey;" the +writing was stiff and clerkly, the words very simple,—a child's asking of +a favor. He guessed rightly that it was the first letter of her own that +she had ever written. Suddenly a wave of passionate tenderness took him; +he bowed his head and kissed the paper; for the moment many-threaded life +and his own complex nature alike straightened to a beautiful simplicity. +He was the lover, merely; life was but the light and shadow through which +moved the woman whom he loved. He came back to himself, and tried to think +it out, but could not. Finally, with a weary impatience, he declined to +think at all. He was to dine at the Governor's. Evelyn would be there.</p> + +<p>Only momentarily, in those days of early summer, had he wavered in his +determination to make this lady his wife. Pride was at the root of his +being,—pride and a deep self-will; though because they were so sunken, +and because poisonous roots can flower most deceivingly, he neither called +himself nor was called of others a proud and willful man. He wished Evelyn +for his wife; nay, more, though on May Day he had shown her that he loved +her not, though in June he had offered her a love that was only admiring +affection, yet in the past month at Westover he had come almost to believe +that he loved her truly. That she was worthy of true love he knew very +well. With all his strength of will, he had elected to forget the summer +that lay behind him at Fair View, and to live in the summer that was with +him at Westover. His success had been gratifying; in the flush of it, he +persuaded himself that a chamber of the heart had been locked forever, and +the key thrown away. And lo now! a touch, the sudden sight of a name, and +the door had flown wide; nay, the very walls were rived away! It was not a +glance over the shoulder; it was full presence in the room so lately +sealed.</p> + +<p>He knew that Evelyn loved him. It was understood of all their acquaintance +that he was her suitor; months ago he had formally craved her father's +permission to pay his addresses. There were times in those weeks at +Westover when she had come nigh to yielding, to believing that he loved +her; he was certain that with time he would have his way.... But the room, +the closed room, in which now he sat!</p> + +<p>He buried his face in his hands, and was suddenly back in spirit in his +garden at Fair View. The cherries were ripe; the birds were singing: great +butterflies went by. The sunshine beat on the dial, on the walks, and the +smell of the roses was strong as wine. His senses swam with the warmth and +fragrance; the garden enlarged itself, and blazed in beauty. Never was +sunshine so golden as that; never were roses so large, never odors so +potent-sweet. A spirit walked in the garden paths: its name was Audrey.... +No, it was speaking, speaking words of passion and of woe.... Its name was +Eloïsa!</p> + +<p>When he rose from his chair, he staggered slightly, and put his hand to +his head. Recovering himself in a moment, he called for his hat and cane, +and, leaving the ordinary, turned his face toward the Palace. A garrulous +fellow Councilor, also bidden to his Excellency's dinner party, overtook +him, and, falling into step, began to speak first of the pirates' trial, +and then of the weather. A hot and feverish summer. 'Twas said that a good +third of the servants arriving in the country since spring had died of +their seasoning. The slaver lying in the York had thrown thirty blacks +overboard in the ran from Barbadoes,—some strange sickness or other. +Adsbud! He would not buy from the lot the master landed; had they been +white, they had showed like spectres! September was the worst month of +the year. He did not find Mr. Haward in looks now. Best consult Dr. +Contesse, though indeed he himself had a preventive of fever which never +failed. First he bled; then to so much of Peruvian bark—</p> + +<p>Mr. Haward declared that he was very well, and turned the conversation +piratewards again.</p> + +<p>The dinner at the Palace was somewhat hurried, the gentlemen rising with +the ladies, despite the enticements of Burgundy and champagne. It was the +afternoon set apart for the Indian dance. The bonfire in the field behind +the magazine had been kindled; the Nottoways and Meherrins were waiting, +still as statues, for the gathering of their audience. Before the dance +the great white father was to speak to them; the peace pipe, also, was to +be smoked. The town, gay of mood and snatching at enjoyment, emptied its +people into the sunny field. Only they who could not go stayed at home. +Those light-hearted folk, ministers to a play-loving age, who dwelt in the +house by the bowling green or in the shadow of the theatre itself, must +go, at all rates. Marcia and Lucia, Syphax, Sempronius, and the African +prince made off together, while the sons of Cato, who chanced to be twin +brothers, followed with a slower step. Their indentures would expire next +month, and they had thoughts, the one of becoming an overseer, the other +of moving up country and joining a company of rangers: hence their +somewhat haughty bearing toward their fellow players, who—except old +Syphax, who acted for the love of it—had not even a bowing acquaintance +with freedom.</p> + +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Stagg saw their minions depart, and then themselves left the +little white house in Palace Street. Mistress Deborah was with them, but +not Audrey. "She can't abide the sight of an Indian," said the minister's +wife indifferently. "Besides, Darden will be here from the church +presently, and he may want her to write for him. She and Peggy can mind +the house."</p> + +<p>The Capitol clock was telling five when Haward entered the garden by the +Nicholson Street gate. There had arisen a zephyr of the evening, to loosen +the yellow locust leaves and send them down upon the path, to lay cool +fingers upon his forehead that burned, and to whisper low at his ear. +House and garden and silent street seemed asleep in the late sunshine, +safe folded from the storm of sound that raged in the field on the border +of the town. Distance muffled the Indian drums, and changed the scream of +the pipes into a far-off wailing. Savage cries, bursts of applause and +laughter,—all came softly, blent like the hum of the bees, mellow like +the sunlight. There was no one in the summer-house. Haward walked on to +the grape arbor, and found there a black girl, who pointed to an open +door, pertaining not to the small white house, but to that portion of the +theatre which abutted upon the garden. Haward, passing a window of Mr. +Stagg's domicile, was aware of Darden sitting within, much engaged with a +great book and a tankard of sack. He made no pause for the vision, and +another moment found him within the playhouse.</p> + +<p>The sunlight entered in at the door and at one high window, but yet the +place was dim. The gallery and the rude boxes were all in shadow; the +sunbeams from the door struck into the pit, while those from the high +window let fall a shaft of misty light upon the stage itself, set for a +hall in Utica, with five cane chairs, an ancient settle, and a Spanish +table. On the settle, in the pale gold of the falling light, sat Audrey, +her hands clasped over her knees, her head thrown back, and her eyes fixed +upon the shadowy, chill, and soundless space before her. Upon Haward's +speaking her name she sighed, and, loosing her hands, turned toward him. +He came and leaned upon the back of the settle. "You sent for me, Audrey," +he said, and laid his hand lightly upon her hair.</p> + +<p>She shrank from his touch. "The minister made me write the letter," she +said, in a low voice. "I did not wish to trouble you, sir."</p> + +<p>Upon her wrist were dark marks. "Did Darden do that?" demanded Haward, as +he took his seat beside her.</p> + +<p>Audrey looked at the bruise indifferently; then with her other hand +covered it from sight. "I have a favor to ask of Mr. Haward," she said. "I +hope that after his many kindnesses he will not refuse to do me this +greatest one. If he should grant my request, the gratitude which I must +needs already feel toward him will be increased tenfold." The words came +precisely, in an even voice.</p> + +<p>Haward smiled. "Child, you have conned your lesson well. Leave the words +of the book, and tell me in your own language what his reverence wants."</p> + +<p>Audrey told him, but it seemed to her that he was not listening. When she +had come to an end of the minister's grievances, she sat, with downcast +eyes, waiting for him to speak, wishing that he would not look at her so +steadily. She meant never to show him her heart,—never, never; but +beneath his gaze it was hard to keep her cheek from burning, her lip from +quivering.</p> + +<p>At last he spoke: "Would it please you, Audrey, if I should save this man +from his just deserts?"</p> + +<p>Audrey raised her eyes. "He and Mistress Deborah are all my friends," she +said. "The glebe house is my home."</p> + +<p>Deep sadness spoke in voice and eye. The shaft of light, moving, had left +her in the outer shadow: she sat there with a listless grace; with a +dignity, too, that was not without pathos. There had been a forlorn child; +there had been an unfriended girl; there was now a woman, for Life to +fondle or to wreak its rage upon. The change was subtle; one more a lover +or less a lover than Haward might not have noted it. "I will petition the +Commissary to-night," he said, "the Governor to-morrow. Is your having in +friends so slight as you say, little maid?"</p> + +<p>Oh, he could reach to the quick! She was sure that he had not meant to +accuse her of ingratitude, and pitifully sure that she must have seemed +guilty of it. "No, no!" she cried. "I have had a friend"—Her voice broke, +and she started to her feet, her face to the door, all her being +quiveringly eager to be gone. She had asked that which she was bidden to +ask, had gained that which she was bidden to gain; for the rest, it was +far better that she should go. Better far for him to think her dull and +thankless as a stone than see—than see—</p> + +<p>When Haward caught her by the hand, she trembled and drew a sobbing +breath. "'I have had a friend,' Audrey?" he asked. "Why not 'I have a +friend'?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" thought Audrey. "Of course he would think, why not? Well, +then"—</p> + +<p>"I have a friend," she said aloud. "Have you not been to me the kindest +friend, the most generous"—She faltered, but presently went on, a strange +courage coming to her. She had turned slightly toward him, though she +looked not at him, but upward to where the light streamed through the high +window. It fell now upon her face. "It is a great thing to save life," she +said. "To save a soul alive, how much greater! To have kept one soul in +the knowledge that there is goodness, mercy, tenderness, God; to have +given it bread to eat where it sat among the stones, water to drink where +all the streams were dry,—oh, a king might be proud of that! And that is +what you have done for me.... When you sailed away, so many years ago, and +left me with the minister and his wife, they were not always kind. But I +knew that you thought them so, and I always said to myself, 'If he knew, +he would be sorry for me.' At last I said, 'He is sorry for me; there is +the sea, and he cannot come, but he knows, and is sorry.' It was +make-believe,—for you thought that I was happy, did you not?—but it +helped me very much. I was only a child, you know, and I was so very +lonely. I could not think of mother and Molly, for when I did I saw them +as—as I had seen them last. The dark scared me, until I found that I +could pretend that you were holding my hand, as you used to do when night +came in the valley. After a while I had only to put out my hand, and yours +was there waiting for it. I hope that you can understand—I want you to +know how large is my debt.... As I grew, so did the debt. When I was a +girl it was larger than when I was a child. Do you know with whom I have +lived all these years? There is the minister, who comes reeling home from +the crossroads ordinary, who swears over the dice, who teaches cunning +that he calls wisdom, laughs at man and scarce believes in God. His hand +is heavy; this is his mark." She held up her bruised wrist to the light, +then let the hand drop. When she spoke of the minister, she made a gesture +toward the shadows growing ever thicker and darker in the body of the +house. It was as though she saw him there, and was pointing him out. +"There is the minister's wife," she said, and the motion of her hand again +accused the shadows. "Oh, their roof has sheltered me; I have eaten of +their bread. But truth is truth. There is the schoolmaster with the +branded hands. He taught me, you know. There is"—she was looking with +wide eyes into the deepest of the shadows—"there is Hugon!" Her voice +died away. Haward did not move or speak, and for a minute there was +silence in the dusky playhouse. Audrey broke it with a laugh, soft, light, +and clear, that came oddly upon the mood of the hour. Presently she was +speaking again: "Do you think it strange that I should laugh? I laughed to +think I have escaped them all. Do you know that they call me a dreamer? +Once, deep in the woods, I met the witch who lives at the head of the +creek. She told me that I was a dream child, and that all my life was a +dream, and I must pray never to awake; but I do not think she knew, for +all that she is a witch. They none of them know,—none, none! If I had not +dreamed, as they call it,—if I had watched, and listened, and laid to +heart, and become like them,—oh, then I should have died of your look +when at last you came! But I 'dreamed;' and in that long dream you, though +you were overseas, you showed me, little by little, that the spirit is not +bond, but free,—that it can walk the waves, and climb to the sunset and +the stars. And I found that the woods were fair, that the earth was fair +and kind as when I was a little child. And I grew to love and long for +goodness. And, day by day, I have had a life and a world where flowers +bloomed, and the streams ran fresh, and there was bread indeed to eat. And +it was you that showed me the road, that opened for me the gates!"</p> + +<p>She ceased to speak, and, turning fully toward him, took his hand and put +it to her lips. "May you be very happy!" she said. "I thank you, sir, that +when you came at last you did not break my dream. The dream fell short!"</p> + +<p>The smile upon her face was very sweet, very pure and noble. She would +have gone without another word, but Haward caught her by the sleeve. "Stay +awhile!" he cried. "I too am a dreamer, though not like you, you maid of +Dian, dark saint, cold vestal, with your eyes forever on the still, white +flame! Audrey, Audrey, Audrey! Do you know what a pretty name you have, +child, or how dark are your eyes, or how fine this hair that a queen might +envy? Westover has been dull, child."</p> + +<p>Audrey shook her head and smiled, and thought that he was laughing at her. +A vision of Evelyn, as Evelyn had looked that morning, passed before her. +She did not believe that he had found Westover dull.</p> + +<p>"I am coming to Fair View, dark Audrey," he went on. "In its garden there +are roses yet blooming for thy hair; there are sweet verses calling to be +read; there are cool, sequestered walks to be trodden, with thy hand in +mine,—thy hand in mine, little maid. Life is but once; we shall never +pass this way again. Drink the cup, wear the roses, live the verses! Of +what sing all the sweetest verses, dark-eyed witch, forest Audrey?"</p> + +<p>"Of love," said Audrey simply. She had freed her hand from his clasp, and +her face was troubled. She did not understand; never had she seen him like +this, with shining eyes and hot, unsteady touch.</p> + +<p>"There is the ball at the Palace to-morrow night," he went on. "I must be +there, for a fair lady and I are to dance together." He smiled. "Poor +Audrey, who hath never been to a ball; who only dances with the elves, +beneath the moon, around a beechen tree! The next day I will go to Fair +View, and you will be at the glebe house, and we will take up the summer +where we left it, that weary month ago."</p> + +<p>"No, no," said Audrey hurriedly, and shook her head. A vague and formless +trouble had laid its cold touch upon her heart; it was as though she saw a +cloud coming up, but it was no larger than a man's hand, and she knew not +what it should portend, nor that it would grow into a storm. He was +strange to-day,—that she felt; but then all her day since the coming of +Evelyn had been sad and strange.</p> + +<p>The shaft of sunshine was gone from the stage, and all the house was in +shadow. Audrey descended the two or three steps leading into the pit, and +Haward followed her. Side by side they left the playhouse, and found +themselves in the garden, and also in the presence of five or six ladies +and gentlemen, seated upon the grass beneath a mulberry-tree, or engaged +in rifling the grape arbor of its purple fruit.</p> + +<p>The garden was a public one, and this gay little party, having tired of +the Indian spectacle, had repaired hither to treat of its own affairs. +Moreover, it had been there, scattered upon the grass in view of the +playhouse door, for the better part of an hour. Concerned with its own wit +and laughter, it had caught no sound of low voices issuing from the +theatre; and for the two who talked within, all outward noise had ranked +as coming from the distant, crowded fields.</p> + +<p>A young girl, her silken apron raised to catch the clusters which a +gentleman, mounted upon a chair, threw down, gave a little scream and let +fall her purple hoard. "'Gad!" cried the gentleman. One and another +exclaimed, and a withered beauty seated beneath the mulberry-tree laughed +shrilly.</p> + +<p>A moment, an effort, a sharp recall of wandering thoughts, and Haward had +the situation in hand. An easy greeting to the gentlemen, debonair +compliments for the ladies, a question or two as to the entertainment they +had left, then a negligent bringing forward of Audrey. "A little brown +ward and ancient playmate of mine,—shot up in the night to be as tall as +a woman. Make thy curtsy, child, and go tell the minister what I have said +on the subject he wots of."</p> + +<p>Audrey curtsied and went away, having never raised her eyes to note the +stare of curiosity, the suppressed smile, the glance from eye to eye, +which had trod upon her introduction to the company. Haward, remaining +with his friends and acquaintances, gathered grapes for the blooming girl +and the withered beauty, and for a little, smiling woman who was known for +as arrant a scandalmonger as could be found in Virginia.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII<br>A QUESTION OF COLORS</h2> + + +<p>Evelyn, seated at her toilette table, and in the hands of Mr. Timothy +Green, hairdresser in ordinary to Williamsburgh, looked with unseeing eyes +at her own fair reflection in the glass before her. Chloe, the black +handmaiden who stood at the door, latch in hand, had time to grow tired of +waiting before her mistress spoke. "You may tell Mr. Haward that I am at +home, Chloe. Bring him here."</p> + +<p>The hairdresser drew a comb through the rippling brown tresses and +commenced his most elaborate arrangement, working with pursed lips, and +head bent now to this side, now to that. He had been a hard-pressed man +since sunrise, and the lighting of the Palace candles that night might +find him yet employed by some belated dame. Evelyn was very pale, and +shadows were beneath her eyes. Moved by a sudden impulse, she took from +the table a rouge pot, and hastily and with trembling fingers rubbed bloom +into her cheeks; then the patch box,—one, two, three Tory partisans. "Now +I am less like a ghost," she said, "Mr. Green, do I not look well and +merry, and as though my sleep had been sound and dreamless?"</p> + +<p>In his high, cracked voice, the hairdresser was sure that, pale or +glowing, grave or gay, Mistress Evelyn Byrd would be the toast at the ball +that night. The lady laughed, for she heard Haward's step upon the +landing. He entered to the gay, tinkling sound, tent over the hand she +extended, then, laying aside hat and cane, took his seat beside the table.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And beauty draws us with a single hair,'"</span><br> +</p> + +<p>he quoted, with a smile. Then: "Will you take our hearts in blue to-night, +Evelyn? You know that I love you best in blue."</p> + +<p>She lifted her fan from the table, and waved it lightly to and fro. "I go +in rose color," she said. "'Tis the gown I wore at Lady Rich's rout. I +dare say you do not remember it? But my Lord of Peterborough said"—She +broke off, and smiled to her fan.</p> + +<p>Her voice was sweet and slightly drawling. The languid turn of the wrist, +the easy grace of attitude, the beauty of bared neck and tinted face, of +lowered lids and slow, faint smile,—oh, she was genuine fine lady, if she +was not quite Evelyn! A breeze blowing through the open windows stirred +their gay hangings of flowered cotton; the black girl sat in a corner and +sewed; the supple fingers of the hairdresser went in and out of the heavy +hair; roses in a deep blue bowl made the room smell like a garden. Haward +sighed, so pleasant was it to sit quietly in this cool chamber, after the +glare and wavering of the world without. "My Lord of Peterborough is +magnificent at compliments," he said kindly, "but 'twould be a jeweled +speech indeed that outdid your deserving, Evelyn. Come, now, wear the +blue! I will find you white roses; you shall wear them for a breast knot, +and in the minuet return me one again."</p> + +<p>Evelyn waved her fan. "I dance the minuet with Mr. Lee." Her tone was +still sweetly languid, her manner most indifferent. The thick and glossy +tress that, drawn forward, was to ripple over white neck and bosom was too +loosely curled. She regarded it in the mirror with an anxious frown, then +spoke of it to the hairdresser.</p> + +<p>Haward, smiling, watched her with heavy-lidded eyes. "Mr. Lee is a +fortunate gentleman," he said. "I may gain the rose, perhaps, in the +country dance?"</p> + +<p>"That is better," remarked the lady, surveying with satisfaction the +new-curled lock. "The country dance? For that Mr. Lightfoot hath my +promise."</p> + +<p>"It seems that I am a laggard," said Haward.</p> + +<p>The knocker sounded below. "I am at home, Chloe," announced the mistress; +and the slave, laying aside her work, slipped from the room.</p> + +<p>Haward played with the trifles upon the dressing table. "Wherein have I +offended, Evelyn?" he asked, at last.</p> + +<p>The lady arched her brows, and the action made her for the moment very +like her handsome father. "Why, there is no offense!" she cried. "An old +acquaintance, a family friend! I step a minuet with Mr. Lee; I stand up +for a country dance with Mr. Lightfoot; I wear pink instead of blue, and +have lost my liking for white roses,—what is there in all this that needs +such a question? Ah, you have broken my silver chain!"</p> + +<p>"I am clumsy to-day!" he exclaimed. "A thousand pardons!" He let the +broken toy slip from his fingers to the polished surface of the table, and +forgot that it was there. "Since Colonel Byrd (I am sorry to learn) keeps +his room with a fit of the gout, may I—an old acquaintance, a family +friend—conduct you to the Palace to-night?"</p> + +<p>The fan waved on. "Thank you, but I go in our coach, and need no escort." +The lady yawned, very delicately, behind her slender fingers; then dropped +the fan, and spoke with animation: "Ah, here is Mr. Lee! In a good hour, +sir! I saw the bracelet that you mended for Mistress Winston. Canst do as +much for my poor chain here? See! it and this silver heart have parted +company."</p> + +<p>Mr. Lee kissed her hand, and took snuff with Mr. Haward; then, after an +ardent speech crammed with references to Vulcan and Venus, chains that +were not slight, hearts that were of softer substance, sat down beside +this kind and dazzling vision, and applied his clever fingers to the +problem in hand. He was a personable young gentleman, who had studied at +Oxford, and who, proudly conscious that his tragedy of Artaxerxes, then +reposing in the escritoire at home, much outmerited Haward's talked-of +comedy, felt no diffidence in the company of the elder fine gentleman. He +rattled on of this and that, and Evelyn listened kindly, with only the +curve of her cheek visible to the family friend. The silver heart was +restored to its chain; the lady smiled her thanks; the enamored youth +hitched his chair some inches nearer the fair whom he had obliged, and, +with his hand upon his heart, entered the realm of high-flown speech. The +gay curtains waved; the roses were sweet; black Chloe sewed and sewed; the +hairdresser's hands wove in and out, as though he were a wizard making +passes.</p> + +<p>Haward rose to take his leave. Evelyn yielded him her hand; it was cold +against his lips. She was nonchalant and smiling; he was easy, unoffended, +admirably the fine gentleman. For one moment their eyes met. "I had been +wiser," thought the man, "I had been wiser to have myself told her of +that brown witch, that innocent sorceress! Why something held my tongue I +know not. Now she hath read my idyl, but all darkened, all awry." The +woman thought: "Cruel and base! You knew that my heart was yours to break, +cast aside, and forget!"</p> + +<p>Out of the house the sunlight beat and blinded. Houses of red brick, +houses of white wood; the long, wide, dusty Duke of Gloucester Street; +gnarled mulberry-trees broad-leafed against a September sky, deeply, +passionately blue; glimpses of wood and field,—all seemed remote without +distance, still without stillness, the semblance of a dream, and yet keen +and near to oppression. It was a town of stores, of ordinaries and public +places; from open door and window all along Duke of Gloucester Street came +laughter, round oaths, now and then a scrap of drinking song. To Haward, +giddy, ill at ease, sickening of a fever, the sounds were now as a cry in +his ear, now as the noise of a distant sea. The minister of James City +parish and the minister of Ware Creek were walking before him, arm in arm, +set full sail for dinner after a stormy morning. "For lo! the wicked +prospereth!" said one, and "Fair View parish bound over to the devil +again!" plained the other. "He's firm in the saddle; he'll ride easy to +the day he drinks himself to death, thanks to this sudden complaisance of +Governor and Commissary!"</p> + +<p>"Thanks to"—cried the other sourly, and gave the thanks where they were +due.</p> + +<p>Haward heard the words, but even in the act of quickening his pace to lay +a heavy hand upon the speaker's shoulder a listlessness came upon him, and +he forbore. The memory of the slurring speech went from him; his thoughts +were thistledown blown hither and yon by every vagrant air. Coming to +Marot's ordinary he called for wine; then went up the stair to his room, +and sitting down at the table presently fell asleep, with his head upon +his arms.</p> + +<p>After a while the sounds from the public room below, where men were +carousing, disturbed his slumber. He stirred, and awoke refreshed. It was +afternoon, but he felt no hunger, only thirst, which he quenched with the +wine at hand. His windows gave upon the Capitol and a green wood beyond; +the waving trees enticed, while the room was dull and the noises of the +house distasteful. He said to himself that he would walk abroad, would go +out under the beckoning trees and be rid of the town. He remembered that +the Council was to meet that afternoon. Well, it might sit without him! He +was for the woods, where dwelt the cool winds and the shadows deep and +silent.</p> + +<p>A few yards, and he was quit of Duke of Gloucester Street; behind him, +porticoed Capitol, gaol, and tiny vineclad debtor's prison. In the gaol +yard the pirates sat upon a bench in the sunshine, and one smoked a long +pipe, and one brooded upon his irons. Gold rings were in their ears, and +their black hair fell from beneath colored handkerchiefs twisted +turbanwise around their brows. The gaoler watched them, standing in his +doorway, and his children, at play beneath a tree, built with sticks a +mimic scaffold, and hanged thereon a broken puppet. There was a shady road +leading through a wood to Queen's Creek and the Capitol Landing, and down +this road went Haward. His step was light; the dullness, the throbbing +pulses, the oppression of the morning, had given way to a restlessness and +a strange exaltation of spirit. Fancy was quickened, imagination +heightened; to himself he seemed to see the heart of all things. Across +his mind flitted fragments of verse,—now a broken line just hinting +beauty, now the pure passion of a lovely stanza. His thoughts went to and +fro, mobile as the waves of the sea; but firm as the reefs beneath them +stood his knowledge that presently he was going back to Fair View. +To-morrow, when the Governor's ball was over, when he could decently get +away, he would leave the town; he would go to his house in the country. +Late flowers bloomed in his garden; the terrace was fair above the river; +beneath the red brick wall, on the narrow little creek shining like a +silver highway, lay a winged boat; and the highway ran past a glebe house; +and in the glebe house dwelt a dryad whose tree had closed against her. +Audrey!—a fair name. Audrey, Audrey!—the birds were singing it; out of +the deep, Arcadian shadows any moment it might come, clearly cried by +satyr, Pan, or shepherd. Hark! there was song—</p> + +<p>It was but a negro on the road behind, singing to himself as he went about +his master's business. The voice was the voice of the race, mellow, deep, +and plaintive; perhaps the song was of love in a burning land. He passed +the white man, and the arching trees hid him, but the wake of music was +long in fading. The road leading through a cool and shady dell, Haward +left it, and took possession of the mossy earth beneath a holly-tree. +Here, lying on the ground, he could see the road through the intervening +foliage; else the place had seemed the heart of an ancient wood.</p> + +<p>It was merry lying where were glimpses of blue sky, where the leaves +quivered and a squirrel chattered and a robin sang a madrigal. Youth the +divine, half way down the stair of misty yesterdays, turned upon his heel +and came back to him. He pillowed his head upon his arm, and was content. +It was well to be so filled with fancies, so iron of will, so headstrong +and gay; to be friends once more with a younger Haward, with the Haward of +a mountain pass, of mocking comrades and an irate Excellency.</p> + +<p>From the road came a rumble of oaths. Sailors, sweating and straining, +were rolling a very great cask of tobacco from a neighboring warehouse +down to the landing and some expectant sloop. Haward, lying at ease, +smiled at their weary task, their grunting and swearing; when they were +gone, smiled at the blankness of the road. All things pleased. There was +food for mirth in the call of a partridge, in the inquisitive gaze of a +squirrel, in the web of a spider gaoler to a gilded fly. There was food +for greater mirth in the appearance on the road of a solitary figure in a +wine-colored coat and bushy black peruke.</p> + +<p>Haward sat up. "Ha, Monacan!" he cried, with a laugh, and threw a stick to +attract the man's attention.</p> + +<p>Hugon turned, stood astare, then left the road and came down into the +dell.</p> + +<p>"What fortune, trader?" smiled Haward. "Did your traps hold in the great +forest? Were your people easy to fool, giving twelve deerskins for an old +match-coat? There is charm in a woodsman life. Come, tell me of your +journeys, dangers, and escapes."</p> + +<p>The half-breed looked down upon him with a twitching face. "What hinders +me from killing you now?" he demanded, with a backward look at the road. +"None may pass for many minutes."</p> + +<p>Haward lay back upon the moss, with his hands locked beneath his head. +"What indeed?" he answered calmly. "Come, here is a velvet log, fit seat +for an emperor—or a sachem; sit and tell me of your life in the woods. +For peace pipe let me offer my snuffbox." In his mad humor he sat up +again, drew from his pocket, and presented with the most approved +flourish, his box of chased gold. "Monsieur, c'est le tabac pour le nez +d'un inonarque," he said lazily.</p> + +<p>Hugon sat down upon the log, helped himself to the mixture with a grand +air, and shook the yellow dust from his ruffles. The action, meant to be +airy, only achieved fierceness. From some hidden sheath he drew a knife, +and began to strip from the log a piece of bark. "Tell me, you," he said. +"Have you been to France? What manner of land is it?"</p> + +<p>"A gay country," answered Haward; "a land where the men are all white, and +where at present, periwigs are worn much shorter than the one monsieur +affects."</p> + +<p>"He is a great brave, a French gentleman? Always he kills the man he +hates?"</p> + +<p>"Not always," said the other. "Sometimes the man he hates kills him."</p> + +<p>By now one end of the piece of bark in the trader's hands was shredded to +tinder. He drew from his pocket his flint and steel, and struck a spark +into the frayed mass. It flared up, and he held first the tips of his +fingers, then the palm of his hand, then his bared forearm, in the flame +that licked and scorched the flesh. His face was perfectly unmoved, his +eyes unchanged in their expression of hatred. "Can he do this?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not," said Haward lightly. "It is a very foolish thing to do."</p> + +<p>The flame died out, and the trader tossed aside the charred bit of bark. +"There was old Pierre at Monacan-Town who taught me to pray to <i>le bon +Dieu</i>. He told me how grand and fine is a French gentleman, and that I was +the son of many such. He called the English great pigs, with brains as +dull and muddy as the river after many rains. My mother was the daughter +of a chief. She had strings of pearl for her neck, and copper for her +arms, and a robe of white doeskin, very soft and fine. When she was dead +and my father was dead, I came from Monacan-Town to your English school +over yonder. I can read and write. I am a white man and a Frenchman, not +an Indian. When I go to the villages in the woods, I am given a lodge +apart, and the men and women gather to hear a white man speak.... You have +done me wrong with that girl, that Ma'm'selle Audrey that I wish for wife. +We are enemies: that is as it should be. You shall not have her,—never, +never! But you despise me; how is that? That day upon the creek, that +night in your cursed house, you laughed"—</p> + +<p>The Haward of the mountain pass, regarding the twitching face opposite him +and the hand clenched upon the handle of a knife, laughed again. At the +sound the trader's face ceased to twitch. Haward felt rather than saw the +stealthy tightening of the frame, the gathering of forces, the closer +grasp upon the knife, and flung out his arm. A hare scurried past, making +for the deeper woods. From the road came the tramp of a horse and a man's +voice, singing,—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'To all you ladies now on land'"—</span><br> +</p> + +<p>while an inquisitive dog turned aside from the road, and plunged into the +dell.</p> + +<p>The rider, having checked his horse and quit his song in order to call to +his dog, looked through the thin veil of foliage and saw the two men +beneath the holly-tree. "Ha, Jean Hugon!" he cried. "Is that you? Where is +that packet of skins you were to deliver at my store? Come over here, +man!"</p> + +<p>The trader moistened his dry lips with his tongue, and slipped the knife +back into its sheath. "Had we been a mile in the woods," he said, "you +would have laughed no more."</p> + +<p>Haward watched him go. The argument with the rider was a lengthy one. He +upon horseback would not stand still in the road to finish it, but put his +beast into motion. The trader, explaining and gesticulating, walked beside +his stirrup; the voices grew fainter and fainter,—were gone. Haward +laughed to himself; then, with his eyes raised to the depth on depth of +blue, serene beyond the grating of thorn-pointed leaves, sent his spirit +to his red brick house and silent, sunny garden, with the gate in the +ivied wall, and the six steps down to the boat and the lapping water.</p> + +<p>The shadows lengthened, and a wind of the evening entered the wood. Haward +shook off the lethargy that had kept him lying there for the better part +of an afternoon, rose to his feet, and left the green dell for the road, +all shadow now, winding back to the toy metropolis, to Marot's ordinary, +to the ball at the Palace that night.</p> + +<p>The ball at the Palace!—he had forgotten it. Flare of lights, wail of +violins, a painted, silken crowd, laughter, whispers, magpie chattering, +wine, and the weariness of the dance, when his soul would long to be with +the night outside, with the rising wind and the shining stars. He half +determined not to go. What mattered the offense that would be taken? Did +he go he would repent, wearied and ennuyé, watching Evelyn, all +rose-colored, moving with another through the minuet; tied himself perhaps +to some pert miss, or cornered in a card-room by boisterous gamesters, or, +drinking with his peers, called on to toast the lady of his dreams. Better +the dull room at Marot's ordinary, or better still to order Mirza, and +ride off at the planter's pace, through the starshine, to Fair View. On +the river bank before the store MacLean might be lying, dreaming of a +mighty wind and a fierce death. He would dismount, and sit beside that +Highland gentleman, Jacobite and strong man, and their moods would chime +as they had chimed before. Then on to the house and to the eastern window! +Not to-night, but to-morrow night, perhaps, would the darkness be pierced +by the calm pale star that marked another window. It was all a mistake, +that month at Westover,—days lost and wasted, the running of golden sands +ill to spare from Love's brief glass....</p> + +<p>His mood had changed when, with the gathering dusk, he entered his room at +Marot's ordinary. He would go to the Palace that night; it would be the +act of a boy to fling away through the darkness, shirking a duty his +position demanded. He would go and be merry, watching Evelyn in the gown +that Peterborough had praised.</p> + +<p>When Juba had lighted the candles, he sat and drank and drank again of the +red wine upon the table. It put maggots in his brain, fired and flushed +him to the spirit's core. An idea came, at which he laughed. He bade it +go, but it would not. It stayed, and his fevered fancy played around it +as a moth around a candle. At first he knew it for a notion, bizarre and +absurd, which presently he would dismiss. All day strange thoughts had +come and gone, appearing, disappearing, like will-o'-the-wisps for which a +man upon a firm road has no care. Never fear that he will follow them! He +sees the marsh, that it has no footing. So with this Jack-o'-lantern +conception,—it would vanish as it came.</p> + +<p>It did not so. Instead, when he had drunken more wine, and had sat for +some time methodically measuring, over and over again, with thumb and +forefinger, the distance from candle to bottle, and from bottle to glass, +the idea began to lose its wildfire aspect. In no great time it appeared +an inspiration as reasonable as happy. When this point had been reached, +he stamped upon the floor to summon his servant from the room below. "Lay +out the white and gold, Juba," he ordered, when the negro appeared, "and +come make me very fine. I am for the Palace,—I and a brown lady that hath +bewitched me! The white sword knot, sirrah; and cock my hat with the +diamond brooch"—</p> + +<p>It was a night that was thronged with stars, and visited by a whispering +wind. Haward, walking rapidly along the almost deserted Nicholson Street, +lifted his burning forehead to the cool air and the star-strewn fields of +heaven. Coming to the gate by which he had entered the afternoon before, +he raised the latch and passed into the garden. By now his fever was full +upon him, and it was a man scarce to be held responsible for his actions +that presently knocked at the door of the long room where, at the window +opening upon Palace Street, Audrey sat with Mistress Stagg and watched the +people going to the ball.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX<br>THE GOVERNOR'S BALL</h2> + + +<p>For an hour it had been very quiet, very peaceful, in the small white +house on Palace Street. Darden was not there; for the Commissary had sent +for him, having certain inquiries to make and a stern warning to deliver. +Mistress Deborah had been asked to spend the night with an acquaintance in +the town, so she also was out and gone. Mistress Stagg and Audrey kept the +lower rooms, while overhead Mr. Charles Stagg, a man that loved his art, +walked up and down, and, with many wavings of a laced handkerchief and +much resort to a gilt snuffbox, reasoned with Plato of death and the soul. +The murmur of his voice came down to the two women, and made the only +sound in the house. Audrey, sitting by the window, her chin upon her hand +and her dark hair shadowing her face, looked out upon the dooryard and the +Palace Street beyond. The street was lit by torches, and people were going +to the ball in coaches and chariots, on foot and in painted chairs. They +went gayly, light of heart, fine of person, a free and generous folk. +Laughter floated over to the silent watcher, and the torchlight gave her +glimpses of another land than her own.</p> + +<p>Many had been Mistress Stagg's customers since morning, and something had +she heard besides admiration of her wares and exclamation at her prices. +Now, as she sat with some gay sewing beneath her nimble fingers, she +glanced once and again at the shadowed face opposite her. If the look was +not one of curiosity alone, but had in it an admixture of new-found +respect; if to Mistress Stagg the Audrey of yesterday, unnoted, +unwhispered of, was a being somewhat lowlier than the Audrey of to-day, it +may be remembered for her that she was an actress of the early eighteenth +century, and that fate and an old mother to support had put her in that +station.</p> + +<p>The candles beneath their glass shades burned steadily; the house grew +very quiet; the noises of the street lessened and lessened, for now nearly +all of the people were gone to the ball. Audrey watched the round of light +cast by the nearest torch. For a long time she had watched it, thinking +that he might perhaps cross the circle, and she might see him in his +splendor. She was still watching when he knocked at the garden door.</p> + +<p>Mistress Stagg, sitting in a dream of her own, started violently. "La, +now, who may that be?" she exclaimed. "Go to the door, child. If 'tis a +stranger, we shelter none such, to be taken up for the harboring of +runaways!"</p> + +<p>Audrey went to the door and opened it. A moment's pause, a low cry, and +she moved backward to the wall, where she stood with her slender form +sharply drawn against the white plaster, and with the fugitive, elusive +charm of her face quickened into absolute beauty, imperious for attention. +Haward, thus ushered into the room, gave the face its due. His eyes, +bright and fixed, were for it alone. Mistress Stagg's curtsy went +unacknowledged save by a slight, mechanical motion of his hand, and her +inquiry as to what he lacked that she could supply received no answer. He +was a very handsome man, of a bearing both easy and commanding, and +to-night he was splendidly dressed in white satin with embroidery of gold. +To one of the women he seemed the king, who could do no wrong; to the +other, more learned in the book of the world, he was merely a fine +gentleman, whose way might as well be given him at once, since, spite of +denial, he would presently take it.</p> + +<p>Haward sat down, resting his clasped hands upon the table, gazing +steadfastly at the face, dark and beautiful, set like a flower against the +wall. "Come, little maid!" he said. "We are going to the ball together, +you and I. Hasten, or we shall not be in time for the minuet."</p> + +<p>Audrey smiled and shook her head, thinking that it was his pleasure to +laugh at her a little. Mistress Stagg likewise showed her appreciation of +the pleasantry. When he repeated his command, speaking in an authoritative +tone and with a glance at his watch, there was a moment of dead silence; +then, "Go your ways, sir, and dance with Mistress Evelyn Byrd!" cried the +scandalized ex-actress. "The Governor's ball is not for the likes of +Audrey!"</p> + +<p>"I will be judge of that," he answered. "Come, let us be off, child! Or +stay! hast no other dress than that?" He looked toward the mistress of the +house. "I warrant that Mistress Stagg can trick you out! I would have you +go fine, Audrey of the hair! Audrey of the eyes! Audrey of the full brown +throat! Dull gold,—have you that, now, mistress, in damask or brocade? +Soft laces for her bosom, and a yellow bloom in her hair. It should be +dogwood, Audrey, like the coronal you wore on May Day. Do you remember, +child? The white stars in your hair, and the Maypole all aflutter, and +your feet upon the green grass"—</p> + +<p>"Oh, I was happy then!" cried Audrey and wrung her hands. Within a moment, +however, she was calm again, and could look at him with a smile. "I am +only Audrey," she said. "You know that the ball is not for me. Why then do +you tell me that I must go? It is your kindness; I know that it is your +kindness that speaks. But yet—but yet"—She gazed at him imploringly: +then from his steady smile caught a sudden encouragement. "Oh!" she +exclaimed with a gesture of quick relief, and with tremulous laughter in +her face and voice,—"oh, you are mocking me! You only came to show how a +gentleman looks who goes to a Governor's ball!"</p> + +<p>For the moment, in her relief at having read his riddle, there slipped +from her the fear of she knew not what,—the strangeness and heaviness of +heart that had been her portion since she came to Williamsburgh. Leaving +the white wall against which she had leaned, she came a little forward, +and with gayety and grace dropped him a curtsy. "Oh, the white satin like +the lilies in your garden!" she laughed. "And the red heels to your shoes, +and the gold-fringed sword knot, and the velvet scabbard! Ah, let me see +your sword, how bright and keen it is!"</p> + +<p>She was Audrey of the garden, and Haward, smiling, drew his rapier and +laid it in her hands. She looked at the golden hilt, and passed her brown +fingers along the gleaming blade. "Stainless," she said, and gave it back +to him.</p> + +<p>Taking it, he took also the hand that had proffered it. "I was not +laughing, child," he said. "Go to the ball thou shalt, and with me. What! +Thou art young and fair. Shalt have no pleasure"—</p> + +<p>"What pleasure in that?" cried Audrey. "I may not go, sir; nay, I will not +go!"</p> + +<p>She freed her hand, and stood with heaving bosom and eyes that very slowly +filled with tears. Haward saw no reason for her tears. It was true that +she was young and fair; true, also, that she had few pleasures. Well, he +would change all that. The dance,—was it not woven by those nymphs of +old, those sprites of open spaces in the deep woods, from whose immemorial +company she must have strayed into this present time? Now at the Palace +the candles were burning for her, for her the music was playing. Her +welcome there amidst the tinsel people? Trust him for that: he was what he +was, and could compass greater things than that would be. Go she should, +because it pleased him to please her, and because it was certainly +necessary for him to oppose pride with pride, and before the eyes of +Evelyn demonstrate his indifference to that lady's choice of Mr. Lee for +the minuet and Mr. Lightfoot for the country dance. This last thought had +far to travel from some unused, deep-down quagmire of the heart, but it +came. For the rest, the image of Audrey decked in silk and lace, turned by +her apparel into a dark Court lady, a damsel in waiting to Queen Titania, +caught his fancy in both hands. He wished to see her thus,—wished it so +strongly that he knew it would come to pass. He was a gentleman who had +acquired the habit of having his own way. There had been times when the +price of his way had seemed too dear; when he had shrugged his shoulders +and ceased to desire what he would not buy. To-night he was not able to +count the cost. But he knew—he knew cruelly well—how to cut short this +fruitless protest of a young girl who thought him all that was wise and +great and good.</p> + +<p>"So you cannot say 'yes' to my asking, little maid?" he began, quiet and +smiling. "Cannot trust me that I have reasons for the asking? Well, I will +not ask again, Audrey, since it is so great a thing'"—"Oh," cried Audrey, +"you know that I would die for you!" The tears welled over, but she +brushed them away with a trembling hand; then stood with raised face, her +eyes soft and dewy, a strange smile upon her lips. She spoke at last as +simply as a child: "Why you want me, that am only Audrey, to go with you +to the Palace yonder, I cannot tell. But I will go, though I am only +Audrey, and I have no other dress than this"—</p> + +<p>Haward got unsteadily to his feet, and lightly touched the dark head that +she bowed upon her hands. "Why, now you are Audrey again," he said +approvingly. "Why, child, I would do you a pleasure!" He turned to the +player's wife. "She must not go in this guise. Have you no finery stowed +away?"</p> + +<p>Now, Mistress Stagg, though much scandalized, and very certain that all +this would never do, was in her way an artist, and could see as in a +mirror what bare throat and shoulders, rich hair drawn loosely up, a touch +of rouge, a patch or two, a silken gown, might achieve for Audrey. And +after all, had not Deborah told her that the girl was Mr. Haward's ward, +not Darden's, and that though Mr. Haward came and went as he pleased, and +was very kind to Audrey, so that Darden was sure of getting whatever the +girl asked for, yet she was a good girl, and there was no harm? For the +talk that day,—people were very idle, and given to thinking the forest +afire when there was only the least curl of smoke. And in short and +finally it was none of her business; but with the aid of a certain chest +upstairs, she knew what she could do! To the ball might go a beauty would +make Mistress Evelyn Byrd look to her laurels!</p> + +<p>"There's the birthday dress that Madam Carter sent us only last week," she +began hesitatingly. "It's very beautiful, and a'most as good as new, and +'twould suit you to a miracle—But I vow you must not go, Audrey!... To be +sure, the damask is just the tint for you, and there are roses would +answer for your hair. But la, sir, you know 'twill never do, never in this +world."</p> + +<p>Half an hour later, Haward rose from his chair and bowed low as to some +highborn and puissant dame. The fever that was now running high in his +veins flushed his cheek and made his eyes exceedingly bright. When he went +up to Audrey, and in graceful mockery of her sudden coming into her +kingdom, took her hand and, bending, kissed it, the picture that they made +cried out for some painter to preserve it. Her hand dropped from his +clasp, and buried itself in rich folds of flowered damask; the quick rise +and fall of her bosom stirred soft, yellowing laces, and made to flash +like diamonds some ornaments of marcasite; her face was haunting in its +pain and bewilderment and great beauty, and in the lie which her eyes gave +to the false roses beneath those homes of sadness and longing. She had no +word to say, she was "only Audrey," and she could not understand. But she +wished to do his bidding, and so, when he cried out upon her melancholy, +and asked her if 'twere indeed a Sunday in New England instead of a +Saturday in Virginia, she smiled, and strove to put on the mind as well +as the garb of a gay lady who might justly go to the Governor's ball.</p> + +<p>Half frightened at her own success, Mistress Stagg hovered around her, +giving this or that final touch to her costume; but it was Haward himself +who put the roses in her hair. "A little longer, and we will walk once +more in my garden at Fair View," he said. "June shall come again for us, +and we will tread the quiet paths, my sweet, and all the roses shall bloom +again for us. There, you are crowned! Hail, Queen!"</p> + +<p>Audrey felt the touch of his lips upon her forehead, and shivered. All her +world was going round; she could not steady it, could not see aright, knew +not what was happening. The strangeness made her dizzy. She hardly heard +Mistress Stagg's last protest that it would never do,—never in the world; +hardly knew when she left the house. She was out beneath the stars, moving +toward a lit Palace whence came the sound of violins. Haward's arm was +beneath her hand; his voice was in her ear, but it was as the wind's +voice, whose speech she did not understand. Suddenly they were within the +Palace garden, with its winding, torchlit walks, and the terraces at the +side; suddenly again, they had mounted the Palace steps, and the doors +were open, and she was confronted with lights and music and shifting, +dazzling figures. She stood still, clasped her hands, and gave Haward a +piteous look. Her face, for all its beauty and its painted roses, was +strangely the child's face that had lain upon his breast, where he knelt +amid the corn, in the valley between the hills, so long ago. He gave her +mute appeal no heed. The Governor's guests, passing from room to room, +crossed and recrossed the wide hall, and down the stairway, to meet a row +of gallants impatient at its foot, came fair women, one after the other, +the flower of the colony, clothed upon like the lilies of old. Haward, +entering with Audrey, saw Mr. Lee at the stairfoot, and, raising his eyes, +was aware of Evelyn descending alone and somewhat slowly, all in rose +color, and with a smile upon her lips.</p> + +<p>She was esteemed the most beautiful woman in Virginia, the most graceful +and accomplished. Wit and charm and fortune were hers, and the little gay +world of Virginia had mated her with Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View. +Therefore that portion of it that chanced to be in the hall of the +Governor's house withdrew for the moment its attention from its own +affairs, and bestowed it upon those of the lady descending the stairs, and +of the gold-and-white gentleman who, with a strange beauty at his side, +stood directly in her path. It was a very wise little world, and since +yesterday afternoon had been fairly bursting with its own knowledge. It +knew all about that gypsy who had come to town from Fair View +parish,—"La, my dear, just the servant of a minister!"—and knew to a +syllable what had passed in the violent quarrel to which Mr. Lee owed his +good fortune.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/270.jpg"><img src="./images/270-tb.jpg" alt=""I DO NOT THINK I HAVE THE HONOR OF KNOWING"—" title=""I DO NOT THINK I HAVE THE HONOR OF KNOWING"—"></a></p><p class="figcenter">"I DO NOT THINK I HAVE THE HONOR OF KNOWING"—</p> + +<p>That triumphant gentleman now started forward, and, with a low bow, +extended his hand to lead to the ballroom this rose-colored paragon and +cynosure of all eyes. Evelyn smiled upon him, and gave him her scarf to +hold, but would not be hurried; must first speak to her old friend Mr. +Haward, and tell him that her father's foot could now bear the shoe, and +that he might appear before the ball was over. This done, she withdrew her +gaze, from Haward's strangely animated, vividly handsome countenance, +and turned it upon the figure at his side. "Pray present me!" she said +quickly. "I do not think I have the honor of knowing"—</p> + +<p>Audrey raised her head, that had been bent, and looked again, as she had +looked yesterday, with all her innocent soul and heavy heart, into the +eyes of the princess. The smile died from Evelyn's lips, and a great wave +of indignant red surged over face and neck and bosom. The color fled, but +not the bitter anger. So he could bring his fancy there! Could clothe her +that was a servant wench in a splendid gown, and flaunt her before the +world—before the world that must know—oh, God! must know how she herself +loved him! He could do this after that month at Westover! She drew her +breath, and met the insult fairly. "I withdraw my petition," she said +clearly. "Now that I bethink me, my acquaintance is already somewhat too +great. Mr. Lee, shall we not join the company? I have yet to make my +curtsy to his Excellency."</p> + +<p>With head erect, and with no attention to spare from the happy Mr. Lee, +she passed the sometime suitor for her hand and the apple of discord which +it had pleased him to throw into the assembly. A whisper ran around the +hall. Audrey heard suppressed laughter, and heard a speech which she did +not understand, but which was uttered in an angry voice, much like +Mistress Deborah's when she chided. A sudden terror of herself and of +Haward's world possessed her. She turned where she stood in her borrowed +plumage, and clung to his hand and arm. "Let me go," she begged. "It is +all a mistake,—all wrong. Let me go,—let me go."</p> + +<p>He laughed at her, shaking his head and looking into her beseeching face +with shining, far-off eyes. "Thou dear fool!" he said. "The ball is made +for thee, and all these folk are here to do thee honor!" Holding her by +the hand, he moved with her toward a wide doorway, through which could be +seen a greater throng of beautifully dressed ladies and gentlemen. Music +came from this room, and she saw that there were dancers, and that beyond +them, upon a sort of dais, and before a great carved chair, stood a fine +gentleman who, she knew, must be his Excellency the Governor of Virginia.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX<br>THE UNINVITED GUEST</h2> + + +<p>"Mistress Audrey?" said the Governor graciously, as the lady in damask +rose from her curtsy. "Mistress Audrey whom? Mr. Haward, you gave me not +the name of the stock that hath flowered in so beauteous a bloom."</p> + +<p>"Why, sir, the bloom is all in all,'" answered Haward. "What root it +springs from matters not. I trust that your Excellency is in good +health,—that you feel no touch of our seasoning fever?"</p> + +<p>"I asked the lady's name, sir," said the Governor pointedly. He was +standing in the midst of a knot of gentlemen, members of the Council and +officers of the colony. All around the long room, seated in chairs arow +against the walls, or gathered in laughing groups, or moving about with a +rustle and gleam of silk, were the Virginians his guests. From the +gallery, where were bestowed the musicians out of three parishes, floated +the pensive strains of a minuet, and in the centre of the polished floor, +under the eyes of the company, several couples moved and postured through +that stately dance.</p> + +<p>"The lady is my ward," said Haward lightly. "I call her Audrey. Child, +tell his Excellency your other name."</p> + +<p>If he thought at all, he thought that she could do it. But such an +estray, such a piece of flotsam, was Audrey, that she could not help him +out. "They call me Darden's Audrey," she explained to the Governor. "If I +ever heard my father's name, I have forgotten it."</p> + +<p>Her voice, though low, reached all those who had ceased from their own +concerns to stare at this strange guest, this dark-eyed, shrinking beauty, +so radiantly attired. The whisper had preceded her from the hall: there +had been fluttering and comment enough as, under the fire of all those +eyes, she had passed with Haward to where stood the Governor receiving his +guests. But the whisper had not reached his Excellency's ears. In London +he had been slightly acquainted with Mr. Marmaduke Haward, and now knew +him for a member of his Council, and a gentleman of much consequence in +that Virginia which he had come to rule. Moreover, he had that very +morning granted a favor to Mr. Haward, and by reason thereof was inclined +to think amiably of the gentleman. Of the piece of dark loveliness whom +the Virginian had brought forward to present, who could think otherwise? +But his Excellency was a formal man, punctilious, and cautious of his +state. The bow with which he received the strange lady's curtsy had been +profound; in speaking to her he had made his tones honey-sweet, while his +compliment quite capped the one just paid to Mistress Evelyn Byrd. And now +it would appear that the lady had no name! Nay, from the looks that were +being exchanged, and from the tittering that had risen amongst the younger +of his guests, there must be more amiss than that! His Excellency frowned, +drew himself up, and turned what was meant to be a searching and terrible +eye upon the recreant in white satin. Audrey caught the look, for which +Haward cared no whit. Oh, she knew that she had no business there,—she +that only the other day had gone barefoot on Darden's errands, had been +kept waiting in hall or kitchen of these people's houses! She knew that, +for all her silken gown, she had no place among them; but she thought that +they were not kind to stare and whisper and laugh, shaming her before one +another and before him. Her heart swelled; to the dreamy misery of the day +and evening was added a passionate sense of hurt and wrong and injustice. +Her pride awoke, and in a moment taught her many things, though among them +was no distrust of him. Brought to bay, she put out her hand and found a +gate; pushed it open, and entered upon her heritage of art.</p> + +<p>The change was so sudden that those who had stared at her sourly or +scornfully, or with malicious amusement or some stirrings of pity, drew +their breath and gave ground a little. Where was the shrinking, +frightened, unbidden guest of a moment before, with downcast eyes and +burning cheeks? Here was a proud and easy and radiant lady, with witching +eyes and a wonderful smile. "I am only Audrey, your Excellency," she said, +and curtsied as she spoke. "My other name lies buried in a valley amongst +far-off mountains." She slightly turned, and addressed herself to a +portly, velvet-clad gentleman, of a very authoritative air, who, arriving +late, had just shouldered himself into the group about his Excellency. "By +token," she smiled, "of a gold moidore that was paid for a loaf of bread."</p> + +<p>The new Governor appealed to his predecessor. "What is this, Colonel +Spotswood, what is this?" he demanded, somewhat testily, of the +open-mouthed gentleman in velvet.</p> + +<p>"Odso!" cried the latter. "'Tis the little maid of the +sugar-tree!—Marmaduke Haward's brown elf grown into the queen of all the +fairies!" Crossing to Audrey he took her by the hand. "My dear child," he +said, with a benevolence that sat well upon him, "I always meant to keep +an eye upon thee, to see that Mr. Haward did by thee all that he swore he +would do. But at first there were cares of state, and now for five years I +have lived at Germanna, half way to thy mountains, where echoes from the +world seldom reach me. Permit me, my dear." With a somewhat cumbrous +gallantry, the innocent gentleman, who had just come to town and knew not +the gossip thereof, bent and kissed her upon the cheek.</p> + +<p>Audrey curtsied with a bright face to her old acquaintance of the valley +and the long road thence to the settled country. "I have been cared for, +sir," she said. "You see that I am happy."</p> + +<p>She turned to Haward, and he drew her hand within his arm. "Ay, child," he +said. "We are keeping others of the company from their duty to his +Excellency. Besides, the minuet invites. I do not think I have heard music +so sweet before to-night. Your Excellency's most obedient servant! +Gentlemen, allow us to pass." The crowd opened before them, and they found +themselves in the centre of the room. Two couples were walking a minuet; +when they were joined by this dazzling third, the ladies bridled, bit +their lips, and shot Parthian glances.</p> + +<p>It was very fortunate, thought Audrey, that the Widow Constance had once, +long ago, taught her to dance, and that, when they were sent to gather +nuts or myrtle berries or fagots in the woods, she and Barbara were used +to taking hands beneath the trees and moving with the glancing sunbeams +and the nodding saplings and the swaying grapevine trailers. She that had +danced to the wind in the pine tops could move with ease to the music of +this night. And since it was so that with a sore and frightened and +breaking heart one could yet, in some strange way, become quite another +person,—any person that one chose to be,—these cruel folk should not +laugh at her again! They had not laughed since, before the Governor +yonder, she had suddenly made believe that she was a carefree, great lady. +Well, she would make believe to them still.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were as brilliant as Haward's that shone with fever; a smile +stayed upon her lips; she moved with dignity through the stately dance, +scarce erring once, graceful and fine in all that she did. Haward, +enamored, his wits afire, went mechanically through the oft-trod measure, +and swore to himself that he held in his hand the pearl of price, the +nonpareil of earth. In this dance and under cover of the music they could +speak to each other unheard of those about them.</p> + +<p>"'Queen of all the fairies,' did he call you?" he asked. "That was well +said. When we are at Fair View again, thou must show me where thou wonnest +with thy court, in what moonlit haunt, by what cool stream"—</p> + +<p>"I would I were this night at Fair View glebe house," said Audrey. "I +would I were at home in the mountains."</p> + +<p>Her voice, sunken with pain and longing, was for him alone. To the other +dancers, to the crowded room at large, she seemed a brazen girl, with +beauty to make a goddess, wit to mask as a great lady, effrontery to +match that of the gentleman who had brought her here. The age was free, +and in that London which was dear to the hearts of the Virginians ladies +of damaged reputation were not so unusual a feature of fashionable +entertainments as to receive any especial notice. But Williamsburgh was +not London, and the dancer yonder, who held her rose-crowned head so high, +was no lady of fashion. They knew her now for that dweller at Fair View +gates of whom, during the summer just past, there had been whispering +enough. Evidently, it was not for naught that Mr. Marmaduke Haward had +refused invitations, given no entertainments, shut himself up at Fair +View, slighting old friends and evincing no desire to make new ones. Why, +the girl was a servant,—nothing more nor less; she belonged to Gideon +Darden, the drunken minister; she was to have married Jean Hugon, the +half-breed trader. Look how the Governor, enlightened at last, glowered at +her; and how red was Colonel Spotswood's face; and how Mistress Evelyn +Byrd, sitting in the midst of a little court of her own, made witty talk, +smiled upon her circle of adorers, and never glanced toward the centre of +the room, and the dancers there!</p> + +<p>"You are so sweet and gay to-night," said Haward to Audrey. "Take your +pleasure, child, for it is a sad world, and the blight will fall. I love +to see you happy."</p> + +<p>"Happy!" she answered. "I am not happy!"</p> + +<p>"You are above them all in beauty," he went on. "There is not one here +that's fit to tie your shoe."</p> + +<p>"Oh me!" cried Audrey. "There is the lady that you love, and that loves +you. Why did she look at me so, in the hall yonder? And yesterday, when +she came to Mistress Stagg's, I might not touch her or speak to her! You +told me that she was kind and good and pitiful. I dreamed that she might +let me serve her when she came to Fair View."</p> + +<p>"She will never come to Fair View," he said, "nor shall I go again to +Westover. I am for my own house now, you brown enchantress, and my own +garden, and the boat upon the river. Do you remember how sweet were our +days in June? We will live them over again, and there shall come for us, +besides, a fuller summer"—</p> + +<p>"It is winter now," said Audrey, with a sobbing breath, "and cold and +dark! I do not know myself, and you are strange. I beg you to let me go +away. I wish to wash off this paint, to put on my own gown. I am no lady; +you do wrong to keep me here. See, all the company are frowning at me! The +minister will hear what I have done and be angry, and Mistress Deborah +will beat me. I care not for that, but you—Oh, you have gone far +away,—as far as Fair View, as far as the mountains! I am speaking to a +stranger"—</p> + +<p>In the dance their raised hands met again. "You see me, you speak to me at +last," he said ardently. "That other, that cold brother of the snows, that +paladin and dream knight that you yourself made and dubbed him me,—he has +gone, Audrey; nay, he never was! But I myself, I am not abhorrent to you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," she answered, "it is all dark! I cannot see—I cannot understand"—</p> + +<p>The time allotted to minuets having elapsed, the musicians after a short +pause began to play an ancient, lively air, and a number of ladies and +gentlemen, young, gayly dressed, and light of heart as of heels, engaged +in a country dance. When they were joined by Mr. Marmaduke Haward and his +shameless companion, there arose a great rustling and whispering. A young +girl in green taffeta was dancing alone, wreathing in and out between the +silken, gleaming couples, coquetting with the men by means of fan and +eyes, but taking hands and moving a step or two with each sister of the +dance. When she approached Audrey, the latter smiled and extended her +hand, because that was the way the lady nearest her had done. But the girl +in green stared coldly, put her hand behind her, and, with the very +faintest salute to Mr. Marmaduke Haward, danced on her way. For one moment +the smile died on Audrey's lips; then it came resolutely back, and she +held her head high.</p> + +<p>The men, forming in two rows, drew their rapiers with a flourish, and, +crossing them overhead, made an arch of steel under which the women must +pass. Haward's blade touched that of an old acquaintance. "I have been +leaning upon the back of a lady's chair," said the latter gruffly, under +cover of the music and the clashing steel,—"a lady dressed in rose color, +who's as generous (to all save one poor devil) as she is fair. I promised +her I would take her message; the Lord knows I would go to the bottom of +the sea to give her pleasure! She says that you are not yourself; begs +that you will—go quietly away"—</p> + +<p>An exclamation from the man next him, and a loud murmur mixed with some +laughter from those in the crowded room who were watching the dancers, +caused the gentleman to break off in the middle of his message. He glanced +over his shoulder; then, with a shrug, turned to his vis-a-vis in white +satin. "Now you see that 'twill not answer,—not in Virginia. The +women—bless them!—have a way of cutting Gordian knots."</p> + +<p>A score of ladies, one treading in the footsteps of another, should have +passed beneath the flashing swords. But there had thrust itself into their +company a plague spot, and the girl in green taffeta and a matron in +silver brocade, between whom stood the hateful presence, indignantly +stepped out of line and declined to dance. The fear of infection spreading +like wildfire, the ranks refused to close, and the company was thrown into +confusion. Suddenly the girl in green, by nature a leader of her kind, +walked away, with a toss of her head, from the huddle of those who were +uncertain what to do, and joined her friends among the spectators, who +received her with acclaim. The sound and her example were warranty enough +for the cohort she had quitted. A moment, and it was in virtuous retreat, +and the dance was broken up.</p> + +<p>The gentlemen, who saw themselves summarily deserted, abruptly lowered +their swords. One laughed; another, flown with wine, gave utterance to +some coarse pleasantry; a third called to the musicians to stop the music. +Darden's Audrey stood alone, brave in her beautiful borrowed dress and the +color that could not leave her cheeks. But her lips had whitened, the +smile was gone, and her eyes were like those of a hunted deer. She looked +mutely about her: how could she understand, who trusted so completely, who +lived in a labyrinth without a clue, who had built her dream world so +securely that she had left no way of egress for herself? These were cruel +people! She was mad to get away, to tear off this strange dress, to fling +herself down in the darkness, in the woods, hiding her face against the +earth! But though she was only Audrey and so poor a thing, she had for her +portion a dignity and fineness of nature that was a stay to her steps. +Barbara, though not so poor and humble a maid, might have burst into +tears, and run crying from the room and the house; but to do that Audrey +would have been ashamed.</p> + +<p>"It was you, Mr. Corbin, that laughed, I think?" said Haward. "To-morrow I +shall send to know the reason of your mirth. Mr. Everard, you will answer +to me for that pretty oath. Mr. Travis, there rests the lie that you +uttered just now: stoop and take it again." He flung his glove at Mr. +Travis's feet.</p> + +<p>A great hubbub and exclamation arose. Mr. Travis lifted the glove with the +point of his rapier, and in a loud voice repeated the assertion which had +given umbrage to Mr. Haward of Fair View. That gentleman sprang unsteadily +forward, and the blades of the two crossed in dead earnest. A moment, and +the men were forced apart; but by this time the whole room was in +commotion. The musicians craned their necks over the gallery rail, a woman +screamed, and half a dozen gentlemen of years and authority started from +the crowd of witnesses to the affair and made toward the centre of the +room, with an eye to preventing further trouble. Where much wine had been +drunken and twenty rapiers were out, matters might go from bad to worse.</p> + +<p>Another was before them. A lady in rose color had risen from her chair and +glided across the polished floor to the spot where trouble was brewing. +"Gentlemen, for shame!" she cried. Her voice was bell-like in its clear +sweetness, final in its grave rebuke and its recall to sense and decency. +She was Mistress Evelyn Byrd, who held sovereignty in Virginia, and at the +sound of her voice, the command of her raised hand, the clamor suddenly +ceased, and the angry group, parting, fell back as from the presence of +its veritable queen.</p> + +<p>Evelyn went up to Audrey and took her by the hand. "I am not tired of +dancing, as were those ladies who have left us," she said, with a smile, +and in a sweet and friendly voice. "See, the gentlemen are waiting I Let +us finish out this measure, you and me."</p> + +<p>At her gesture of command the lines that had so summarily broken +re-formed. Back into the old air swung the musicians; up went the swords, +crossing overhead with a ringing sound, and beneath the long arch of +protecting steel moved to the music the two women, the dark beauty and the +fair, the princess and the herdgirl. Evelyn led, and Audrey, following, +knew that now indeed she was walking in a dream.</p> + +<p>A very few moments, and the measure was finished. A smile, a curtsy, a +wave of Evelyn's hand, and the dancers, disbanding, left the floor. Mr. +Corbin, Mr. Everard, and Mr. Travis, each had a word to say to Mr. Haward +of Fair View, as they passed that gentleman.</p> + +<p>Haward heard, and answered to the point; but when presently Evelyn said, +"Let us go into the garden," and he found himself moving with her and with +Audrey through the buzzing, staring crowd toward the door of the +Governor's house, he thought that it was into Fair View garden they were +about to descend. And when they came out upon the broad, torchlit walk, +and he saw gay parties of ladies and gentlemen straying here and there +beneath the trees, he thought it strange that he had forgotten that he had +guests this night. As for the sound of the river below his terrace, he had +never heard so loud a murmur. It grew and filled the night, making thin +and far away the voices of his guests.</p> + +<p>There was a coach at the gates, and Mr. Grymes, who awhile ago had told +him that he had a message to deliver, was at the coach door. Evelyn had +her hand upon his arm, and her voice was speaking to him from as far away +as across the river. "I am leaving the ball," it said, "and I will take +the girl in my coach to the place where she is staying. Promise me that +you will not go back to the house yonder; promise me that you will go away +with Mr. Grymes, who is also weary of the ball"—</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Mr. Grymes lightly, "Mr. Haward agrees with me that Marot's +best room, cool and quiet, a bottle of Burgundy, and a hand at piquet are +more alluring than the heat and babel we have left. We are going at once, +Mistress Evelyn. Haward, I propose that on our way to Marot's we knock up +Dr. Contesse, and make him free of our company."</p> + +<p>As he spoke, he handed into the coach the lady in flowered damask, who had +held up her head, but said no word, and the lady in rose-colored brocade, +who, through the length of the ballroom and the hall and the broad walk +where people passed and repassed, had kept her hand in Audrey's, and had +talked, easily and with smiles, to the two attending gentlemen. He shut to +the coach door, and drew back, with a low bow, when Haward's deeply +flushed, handsome face appeared for a moment at the lowered glass.</p> + +<p>"Art away to Westover, Evelyn?" he asked. "Then 't is 'Good-by, +sweetheart!' for I shall not go to Westover again. But you have a fair +road to travel,—there are violets by the wayside; for it is May Day, you +know, and the woods are white with dogwood and purple with the Judas-tree. +The violets are for you; but the great white blossoms, and the boughs of +rosy mist, and all the trees that wave in the wind are for Audrey." His +eyes passed the woman whom he would have wed, and rested upon her +companion in the coach. "Thou fair dryad!" he said. "Two days hence we +will keep tryst beneath the beech-tree in the woods beyond the glebe +house."</p> + +<p>The man beside him put a hand upon his shoulder and plucked him back, nor +would look at Evelyn's drawn and whitened face, but called to the coachman +to go on. The black horses put themselves into motion, the equipage made a +wide turn, and the lights of the Palace were left behind.</p> + +<p>Evelyn lodged in a house upon the outskirts of the town, but from the +Palace to Mistress Stagg's was hardly more than a stone's throw. Not until +the coach was drawing near the small white house did either of the women +speak. Then Audrey broke into an inarticulate murmur, and stooping would +have pressed her cheek against the hand that had clasped hers only a +little while before. But Evelyn snatched her hand away, and with a gesture +of passionate repulsion shrank into her corner of the coach. "Oh, how dare +you touch me!" she cried. "How dare you look at me, you serpent that have +stung me so!" Able to endure no longer, she suddenly gave way to angry +laughter. "Do you think I did it for you,—put such humiliation upon +myself for you? Why, you wanton, I care not if you stand in white at +every church door in Virginia! It was for him, for Mr. Marmaduke Haward of +Fair View, for whose name and fame, if he cares not for them himself, his +friends have yet some care!" The coach stopped, and the footman opened the +door. "Descend, if you please," went on Evelyn clearly and coldly. "You +have had your triumph. I say not there is no excuse for him,—you are very +beautiful. Good-night."</p> + +<p>Audrey stood between the lilac bushes and watched the coach turn from +Palace into Duke of Gloucester Street; then went and knocked at the green +door. It was opened by Mistress Stagg in person, who drew her into the +parlor, where the good-natured woman had been sitting all alone, and in +increasing alarm as to what might be the outcome of this whim of Mr. +Marmaduke Haward's. Now she was full of inquiries, ready to admire and to +nod approval, or to shake her head and cry, "I told you so!" according to +the turn of the girl's recital.</p> + +<p>But Audrey had little to say, little to tell. Yes, oh yes, it had been a +very grand sight.... Yes, Mr. Haward was kind; he had always been kind to +her.... She had come home with Mistress Evelyn Byrd in her coach.... Might +she go now to her room? She would fold the dress very carefully.</p> + +<p>Mistress Stagg let her go, for indeed there was no purpose to be served in +keeping her, seeing that the girl was clearly dazed, spoke without knowing +what she said, and stood astare like one of Mrs. Salmon's beautiful was +ladies. She would hear all about it in the morning, when the child had +slept off her excitement. They at the Palace couldn't have taken her +presence much amiss, or she would never in the world have come home in the +Westover coach.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI<br>AUDREY AWAKES</h2> + + +<p>There had lately come to Virginia, and to the convention of its clergy at +Williamsburgh, one Mr. Eliot, a minister after the heart of a large number +of sober and godly men whose reputation as a body suffered at the hands of +Mr. Darden, of Fair View parish, Mr. Bailey, of Newport, Mr. Worden, of +Lawn's Creek, and a few kindred spirits. Certainly Mr. Eliot was not like +these; so erect, indeed, did he hold himself in the strait and narrow path +that his most admiring brethren, being, as became good Virginians, +somewhat easy-going in their saintliness, were inclined to think that he +leaned too far the other way. It was commendable to hate sin and reprove +the sinner; but when it came to raining condemnation upon horse-racing, +dancing, Cato at the playhouse, and like innocent diversions, Mr. Eliot +was surely somewhat out of bounds. The most part accounted for his turn of +mind by the fact that ere he came to Virginia he had been a sojourner in +New England.</p> + +<p>He was mighty in the pulpit, was Mr. Eliot; no droning reader of last +year's sermons, but a thunderer forth of speech that was now acrid, now +fiery, but that always came from an impassioned nature, vehement for the +damnation of those whom God so strangely spared. When, as had perforce +happened during the past week, he must sit with his brethren in the +congregation and listen to lukewarm—nay, to dead and cold adjurations and +expoundings, his very soul itched to mount the pulpit stairs, thrust down +the Laodicean that chanced to occupy it, and himself awaken as with the +sound of a trumpet this people who slept upon the verge of a precipice, +between hell that gaped below and God who sat on high, serenely regardful +of his creatures' plight. Though so short a time in Virginia, he was +already become a man of note, the prophet not without honor, whom it was +the fashion to admire, if not to follow. It was therefore natural enough +that the Commissary, himself a man of plain speech from the pulpit, should +appoint him to preach in Bruton church this Sunday morning, before his +Excellency the Governor, the worshipful the Council, the clergy in +convention, and as much of Williamsburgh, gentle and simple, as could +crowd into the church. Mr. Eliot took the compliment as an answer to +prayer, and chose for his text Daniel fifth and twenty-seventh.</p> + +<p>Lodging as he did on Palace Street, the early hours of the past night, +which he would have given to prayer and meditation, had been profaned by +strains of music from the Governor's house, by laughter and swearing and +much going to and fro in the street beneath his window. These disturbances +filling him with righteous wrath, he came down to his breakfast next +morning prepared to give his hostess, who kept him company at table, line +and verse which should demonstrate that Jehovah shared his anger.</p> + +<p>"Ay, sir!" she cried. "And if that were all, sir"—and straightway she +embarked upon a colored narration of the occurrence at the Governor's +ball. This was followed by a wonderfully circumstantial account of Mr. +Marmaduke Haward's sins of omission against old and new acquaintances who +would have entertained him at their houses, and been entertained in turn +at Fair View, and by as detailed a description of the toils that had been +laid for him by that audacious piece who had forced herself upon the +company last night.</p> + +<p>Mr. Eliot listened aghast, and mentally amended his sermon. If he knew +Virginia, even so flagrant a case as this might never come before a +vestry. Should this woman go unreproved? When in due time he was in the +church, and the congregation was gathering, he beckoned to him one of the +sidesmen, asked a question, and when it was answered, looked fixedly at a +dark girl sitting far away in a pew beneath the gallery.</p> + +<p>It was a fine, sunny morning, with a tang of autumn in the air, and the +concourse within the church was very great. The clergy showed like a wedge +of black driven into the bright colors with which nave and transept +overflowed. His Excellency the Governor sat in state, with the Council on +either hand. One member of that body was not present. Well-nigh all +Williamsburgh knew by now that Mr. Marmaduke Haward lay at Marot's +ordinary, ill of a raging fever. Hooped petticoat and fragrant bodice +found reason for whispering to laced coat and periwig; significant glances +traveled from every quarter of the building toward the tall pew where, +collected but somewhat palely smiling, sat Mistress Evelyn Byrd beside her +father. All this was before the sermon. When the minister of the day +mounted the pulpit, and, gaunt against the great black sounding-board, +gave out his text in a solemn and ringing voice, such was the genuine +power of the man that every face was turned toward him, and throughout the +building there fell a sudden hush.</p> + +<p>Audrey looked with the rest, but she could not have said that she +listened,—not at first. She was there because she always went to church +on Sunday. It had not occurred to her to ask that she might stay at home. +She had come from her room that morning with the same still face, the same +strained and startled look about the eyes, that she had carried to it the +night before. Black Peggy, who found her bed unslept in, thought that she +must have sat the night through beside the window. Mistress Stagg, meeting +her at the stairfoot with the tidings (just gathered from the lips of a +passer-by) of Mr. Haward's illness, thought that the girl took the news +very quietly. She made no exclamation, said nothing good or bad; only drew +her hand across her brow and eyes, as though she strove to thrust away a +veil or mist that troubled her. This gesture she repeated now and again +during the hour before church time. Mistress Stagg heard no more of the +ball this morning than she had heard the night before. Something ailed the +girl. She was not sullen, but she could not or would not talk. Perhaps, +despite the fact of the Westover coach, she had not been kindly used at +the Palace. The ex-actress pursed her lips, and confided to her Mirabell +that times were not what they once were. Had she not, at Bath, been given +a ticket to the Saturday ball by my Lord Squander himself? Ay, and she had +footed it, too, in the country dance, with the best of them, with captains +and French counts and gentlemen and ladies of title,—ay, and had gone +down the middle with, the very pattern of Sir Harry Wildair! To be sure, +no one had ever breathed a word against her character; but, for her part, +she believed no great harm of Audrey, either. Look at the girl's eyes, +now: they were like a child's or a saint's.</p> + +<p>Mirabell nodded and looked wise, but said nothing.</p> + +<p>When the church bells rang Audrey was ready, and she walked to church with +Mistress Stagg much as, the night before, she had walked between the +lilacs to the green door when the Westover coach had passed from her +sight. Now she sat in the church much as she had sat at the window the +night through. She did not know that people were staring at her; nor had +she caught the venomous glance of Mistress Deborah, already in the pew, +and aware of more than had come to her friend's ears.</p> + +<p>Audrey was not listening, was scarcely thinking. Her hands were crossed in +her lap, and now and then she raised one and made the motion of pushing +aside from her eyes something heavy that clung and blinded. What part of +her spirit that was not wholly darkened and folded within itself was back +in the mountains of her childhood, with those of her own blood whom she +had loved and lost. What use to try to understand to-day,—to-day with its +falling skies, its bewildered pondering over the words that were said to +her last night? And the morrow,—she must leave that. Perhaps when it +should dawn he would come to her, and call her "little maid," and laugh at +her dreadful dream. But now, while it was to-day, she could not think of +him without an agony of pain and bewilderment. He was ill, too, and +suffering. Oh, she must leave the thought of him alone! Back then to the +long yesterdays she traveled, and played quietly, dreamily, with Robin on +the green grass beside the shining stream, or sat on the doorstep, her +head on Molly's lap, and watched the evening star behind the Endless +Mountains.</p> + +<p>It was very quiet in the church save for that one great voice speaking. +Little by little the voice impressed itself upon her consciousness. The +eyes of her mind were upon long ranges of mountains distinct against the +splendor of a sunset sky. Last seen in childhood, viewed now through the +illusion of the years, the mountains were vastly higher than nature had +planned them; the streamers of light shot to the zenith; the black forests +were still; everywhere a fixed glory, a gigantic silence, a holding of the +breath for things to happen.</p> + +<p>By degrees the voice in her ears fitted in with the landscape, became, so +solemn and ringing it was, like the voice of the archangel of that sunset +land. Audrey listened at last; and suddenly the mountains were gone, and +the light from the sky, and her people were dead and dust away in that +hidden valley, and she was sitting in the church at Williamsburgh, alone, +without a friend.</p> + +<p>What was the preacher saying? What ball of the night before was he +describing with bitter power, the while he gave warning of handwriting +upon the wall such as had menaced Belshazzar's feast of old? Of what +shameless girl was he telling,—what creature dressed in silks that should +have gone in rags, brought to that ball by her paramour—</p> + +<p>The gaunt figure in the pulpit trembled like a leaf with the passion of +the preacher's convictions and the energy of his utterance. On had gone +the stream of rhetoric, the denunciations, the satire, the tremendous +assertions of God's mind and purposes. The lash that was wielded was +far-reaching; all the vices of the age—irreligion, blasphemy, +drunkenness, extravagance, vainglory, loose living—fell under its sting. +The condemnation was general, and each man looked to see his neighbor +wince. The occurrence at the ball last night,—he was on that for final +theme, was he? There was a slight movement throughout the congregation. +Some glanced to where would have sat Mr. Marmaduke Haward, had not the +gentleman been at present in his bed, raving now of a great run of luck at +the Cocoa Tree; now of an Indian who, with his knee upon his breast, was +throttling him to death. Others looked over their shoulders to see if that +gypsy yet sat beneath the gallery. Colonel Byrd took out his snuffbox and +studied the picture on the lid, while his daughter sat like a carven lady, +with a slight smile upon her lips.</p> + +<p>On went the word picture that showed how vice could flaunt it in so fallen +an age. The preacher spared not plain words, squarely turned himself +toward the gallery, pointed out with voice and hand the object of his +censure and of God's wrath. Had the law pilloried the girl before them +all, it had been but little worse for her. She sat like a statue, staring +with wide eyes at the window above the altar. This, then, was what the +words in the coach last night had meant—this was what the princess +thought—this was what his world thought—</p> + +<p>There arose a commotion in the ranks of the clergy of Virginia. The +Reverend Gideon Darden, quitting with an oath the company of his brethren, +came down the aisle, and, pushing past his wife, took his stand in the pew +beside the orphan who had lived beneath his roof, whom during many years +he had cursed upon occasion and sometimes struck, and whom he had latterly +made his tool, "Never mind him, Audrey, my girl," he said, and put an +unsteady hand upon her shoulder. "You're a good child; they cannot harm +ye."</p> + +<p>He turned his great shambling body and heavy face toward the preacher, +stemmed in the full tide of his eloquence by this unseemly interruption, +"Ye beggarly Scot!" he exclaimed thickly. "Ye evil-thinking saint from +Salem way, that know the very lining of the Lord's mind, and yet, walking +through his earth, see but a poisonous weed in his every harmless flower! +Shame on you to beat down the flower that never did you harm! The girl's +as innocent a thing as lives! Ay, I've had my dram,—the more shame to you +that are justly rebuked out of the mouth of a drunken man! I have done, +Mr. Commissary," addressing himself to that dignitary, who had advanced to +the altar rail with his arm raised in a command for silence. "I've no +child of my own, thank God! but the maid has grown up in my house, and +I'll not sit to hear her belied. I've heard of last night; 'twas the mad +whim of a sick man. The girl's as guiltless of wrong as any lady here. I, +Gideon Darden, vouch for it!"</p> + +<p>He sat heavily down beside Audrey, who never stirred from her still regard +of that high window. There was a moment of portentous silence; then, "Let +us pray," said the minister from the pulpit.</p> + +<p>Audrey knelt with the rest, but she did not pray. And when it was all +over, and the benediction had been given, and she found herself without +the church, she looked at the green trees against the clear autumnal +skies and at the graves in the churchyard as though it were a new world +into which she had stepped. She could not have said that she found it +fair. Her place had been so near the door that well-nigh all the +congregation was behind her, streaming out of the church, eager to reach +the open air, where it might discuss the sermon, the futile and scandalous +interruption by the notorious Mr. Darden, and what Mr. Marmaduke Haward +might have said or done had he been present.</p> + +<p>Only Mistress Stagg kept beside her; for Mistress Deborah hung back, +unwilling to be seen in her company, and Darden, from that momentary +awakening of his better nature, had sunk to himself again, and thought not +how else he might aid this wounded member of his household. But Mary Stagg +was a kindly soul, whose heart had led her comfortably through life with +very little appeal to her head. The two or three young women—Oldfields +and Porters of the Virginian stage—who were under indentures to her +husband and herself found her as much their friend as mistress. Their +triumphs in the petty playhouse of this town of a thousand souls were +hers, and what woes they had came quickly to her ears. Now she would have +slipped her hand into Audrey's and have given garrulous comfort, as the +two passed alone through the churchyard gate and took their way up Palace +Street toward the small white house. But Audrey gave not her hand, did not +answer, made no moan, neither justified herself nor blamed another. She +did not speak at all, but after the first glance about her moved like a +sleepwalker.</p> + +<p>When the house was reached she went up to the bedroom. Mistress Deborah, +entering stormily ten minutes later, found herself face to face with a +strange Audrey, who, standing in the middle of the floor, raised her hand +for silence in a gesture so commanding that the virago stayed her tirade, +and stood open-mouthed.</p> + +<p>"I wish to speak," said the new Audrey. "I was waiting for you. There's a +question I wish to ask, and I'll ask it of you who were never kind to me."</p> + +<p>"Never kind to her!" cried the minister's wife to the four walls. "And +she's been taught, and pampered, and treated more like a daughter than the +beggar wench she is! And this is my return,—to sit by her in church +to-day, and have all Virginia think her belonging to me"—</p> + +<p>"I belong to no one," said Audrey. "Even God does not want me. Be quiet +until I have done." She made again the gesture of pushing aside from face +and eyes the mist that clung and blinded. "I know now what they say," she +went on. "The preacher told me awhile ago. Last night a lady spoke to me: +now I know what was her meaning. Because Mr. Haward, who saved my life, +who brought me from the mountains, who left me, when he sailed away, where +he thought I would be happy, was kind to me when he came again after so +many years; because he has often been to the glebe house, and I to Fair +View; because last night he would have me go with him to the Governor's +ball, they think—they say out loud for all the people to hear—that +I—that I am like Joan, who was whipped last month at the Court House. But +it is not of the lies they tell that I wish to speak."</p> + +<p>Her hand went again to her forehead, then dropped at her side. A look of +fear and of piteous appeal came into her face. "The witch said that I +dreamed, and that it was not well for dreamers to awaken." Suddenly the +quiet of her voice and bearing was broken. With a cry, she hurried across +the room, and, kneeling, caught at the other's gown. "Ah! that is no +dream, is it? No dream that he is my friend, only my friend who has always +been sorry for me, has always helped me! He is the noblest gentleman, the +truest, the best—he loves the lady at Westover—they are to be +married—he never knew what people were saying—he was not himself when he +spoke to me so last night"—Her eyes appealed to the face above her. "I +could never have dreamed all this," she said. "Tell me that I was awake!"</p> + +<p>The minister's wife looked down upon her with a bitter smile. "So you've +had your fool's paradise? Well, once I had mine, though 'twas not your +kind. 'Tis a pretty country, Audrey, but it's not long before they turn +you out." She laughed somewhat drearily, then in a moment turned shrew +again. "He never knew what people were saying?" she cried. "You little +fool, do you suppose he cared? 'Twas you that played your cards all wrong +with your Governor's ball last night!—setting up for a lady, +forsooth!—bringing all the town about your ears! You might have known +that he would never have taken you there in his senses. At Fair View +things went very well. He was entertained,—and I meant to see that no +harm came of it,—and Darden got his support in the vestry. For he was +bit,—there's no doubt of that,—though what he ever saw in you more than +big eyes and a brown skin, the Lord knows, not I! Only your friend!—a +fine gentleman just from London, with a whole Canterbury book of stories +about his life there, to spend a'most a summer on the road between his +plantation and a wretched glebe house because he was only your friend, and +had saved you from the Indians when you were a child, and wished to be +kind to you still! I'll tell you who did wish to be kind to you, and that +was Jean Hugon, the trader, who wanted to marry you."</p> + +<p>Audrey rose to her feet, and moved slowly backward to the wall. Mistress +Deborah went shrilly on: "I dare swear you believe that Mr. Haward had you +in mind all the years he was gone from Virginia? Well, he didn't. He puts +you with Darden and me, and he says, 'There's the strip of Oronoko down by +the swamp,—I 've told my agent that you're to have from it so many pounds +a year;' and he sails away to London and all the fine things there, and +never thinks of you more until he comes back to Virginia and sees you last +May Day at Jamestown. Next morning he comes riding to the glebe house. +'And so,' he says to Darden, 'and so my little maid that I brought for +trophy out of the Appalachian Mountains is a woman grown? Faith, I'd quite +forgot the child; but Saunderson tells me that you have not forgot to draw +upon my Oronoko.' That's all the remembrance you were held in, Audrey."</p> + +<p>She paused to take breath, and to look with shrewish triumph at the girl +who leaned against the wall. "I like not waking up," said Audrey to +herself. "It were easier to die. Perhaps I am dying."</p> + +<p>"And then out he walks to find and talk to you, and in sets your pretty +summer of all play and no work!" went on the other, in a high voice. "Oh, +there was kindness enough, once you had caught his fancy! I wonder if the +lady at Westover praised his kindness? They say she is a proud young lady: +I wonder if she liked your being at the ball last night? When she comes +to Fair View, I'll take my oath that you'll walk no more in its garden! +But perhaps she won't come now,—though her maid Chloe told Mistress +Bray's Martha that she certainly loves him"—</p> + +<p>"I wish I were dead," said Audrey. "I wish I were dead, like Molly." She +stood up straight against the wall, and pushed her heavy hair from her +forehead. "Be quiet now," she said. "You see that I am awake; there is no +need for further calling. I shall not dream again." She looked at the +older woman doubtfully. "Would you mind," she suggested,—"would you be so +very kind as to leave me alone, to sit here awake for a while? I have to +get used to it, you know. To-morrow, when we go back to the glebe house, I +will work the harder. It must be easy to work when one is awake. Dreaming +takes so much time."</p> + +<p>Mistress Deborah could hardly have told why she did as she was asked. +Perhaps the very strangeness of the girl made her uncomfortable in her +presence; perhaps in her sour and withered heart there was yet some little +soundness of pity and comprehension; or perhaps it was only that she had +said her say, and was anxious to get to her friends below, and shake from +her soul the dust of any possible complicity with circumstance in moulding +the destinies of Darden's Audrey. Be that as it may, when she had flung +her hood upon the bed and had looked at herself in the cracked glass above +the dresser, she went out of the room, and closed the door somewhat softly +behind her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII<br>BY THE RIVERSIDE</h2> + + +<p>"Yea, I am glad—I and my father and mother and Ephraim—that thee is +returned to Fair View," answered Truelove. "And has thee truly no shoes of +plain and sober stuffs? These be much too gaudy."</p> + +<p>"There's a pair of black callimanco," said the storekeeper reluctantly; +"but these of flowered silk would so become your feet, or this red-heeled +pair with the buckles, or this of fine morocco. Did you think of me every +day that I spent in Williamsburgh?"</p> + +<p>"I prayed for thee every day," said Truelove simply,—"for thee and for +the sick man who had called thee to his side. Let me see thy callimanco +shoes. Thee knows that I may not wear these others."</p> + +<p>The storekeeper brought the plainest footgear that his stock afforded. +"They are of a very small size,—perhaps too small. Had you not better try +them ere you buy? I could get a larger pair from Mr. Carter's store."</p> + +<p>Truelove seated herself upon a convenient stool, and lifted her gray skirt +an inch above a slender ankle. "Perchance they may not be too small," she +said, and in despite of her training and the whiteness of her soul two +dimples made their appearance above the corners of her pretty mouth. +MacLean knelt to remove the worn shoe, but found in the shoestrings an +obstinate knot. The two had the store to themselves; for Ephraim waited +for his sister at the landing, rocking in his boat on the bosom of the +river, watching a flight of wild geese drawn like a snowy streamer across +the dark blue sky. It was late autumn, and the forest was dressed in flame +color.</p> + +<p>"Thy fingers move so slowly that I fear thee is not well," said Truelove +kindly. "They that have nursed men with fever do often fall ill +themselves. Will thee not see a physician?"</p> + +<p>MacLean, sanguine enough in hue, and no more gaunt of body than usual, +worked languidly on. "I trust no lowland physician," he said. "In my own +country, if I had need, I would send to the foot of Dun-da-gu for black +Murdoch, whose fathers have been physicians to the MacLeans of Duart since +the days of Galethus. The little man in this parish,—his father was a +lawyer, his grandfather a merchant; he knows not what was his +great-grandfather! There, the shoe is untied! If I came every day to your +father's house, and if your mother gave me to drink of her elder-flower +wine, and if I might sit on the sunny doorstep and watch you at your +spinning, I should, I think, recover."</p> + +<p>He slipped upon her foot the shoe of black cloth. Truelove regarded it +gravely. "'Tis not too small, after all," she said. "And does thee not +think it more comely than these other, with their silly pomp of colored +heels and blossoms woven in the silk?" She indicated with her glance the +vainglorious row upon the bench beside her; then looked down at the little +foot in its sombre covering and sighed.</p> + +<p>"I think that thy foot would be fair in the shoe of Donald Ross!" cried +the storekeeper, and kissed the member which he praised.</p> + +<p>Truelove drew back, her cheeks very pink, and the dimples quite uncertain +whether to go or stay. "Thee is idle in thy behavior," she said severely. +"I do think that thee is of the generation that will not learn. I pray +thee to expeditiously put back my own shoe, and to give me in a parcel the +callimanco pair."</p> + +<p>MacLean set himself to obey, though with the expedition of a tortoise. +Crisp autumn air and vivid sunshine pouring in at window and door filled +and lit the store. The doorway framed a picture of blue sky, slow-moving +water, and ragged landing; the window gave upon crimson sumac and the gold +of a sycamore. Truelove, in her gray gown and close white cap, sat in the +midst of the bouquet of colors afforded by the motley lining of the Fair +View store, and gazed through the window at the riotous glory of this +world. At last she looked at MacLean. "When, a year ago, thee was put to +mind this store, and I, coming here to buy, made thy acquaintance," she +said softly, "thee wore always so stern and sorrowful a look that my heart +bled for thee. I knew that thee was unhappy. Is thee unhappy still?"</p> + +<p>MacLean tied the shoestrings with elaborate care; then rose from his +knees, and stood looking down from his great height upon the Quaker +maiden. His face was softened, and when he spoke it was with a gentle +voice. "No," he said, "I am not unhappy as at first I was. My king is an +exile, and my chief is forfeited. I suppose that my father is dead. Ewin +Mackinnon, my foe upon whom I swore revenge, lived untroubled by me, and +died at another's hands. My country is closed against me; I shall never +see it more. I am named a rebel, and chained to this soil, this dull and +sluggish land, where from year's end to year's end the key keeps the +house and the furze bush keeps the cow. The best years of my +manhood—years in which I should have acquired honor—have gone from me +here. There was a man of my name amongst those gentlemen, old officers of +Dundee, who in France did not disdain to serve as private sentinels, that +their maintenance might not burden a king as unfortunate as themselves. +That MacLean fell in the taking of an island in the Rhine which to this +day is called the Island of the Scots, so bravely did these gentlemen bear +themselves. They made their lowly station honorable; marshals and princes +applauded their deeds. The man of my name was unfortunate, but not +degraded; his life was not amiss, and his death was glorious. But I, Angus +MacLean, son and brother of chieftains, I serve as a slave; giving +obedience where in nature it is not due, laboring in an alien land for +that which profiteth not, looking to die peacefully in my bed! I should be +no less than most unhappy."</p> + +<p>He sat down upon the bench beside Truelove, and taking the hem of her +apron began to plait it between his fingers. "But to-day," he said,—"but +to-day the sky seems blue, the sunshine bright. Why is that, Truelove?"</p> + +<p>Truelove, with her eyes cast down and a deeper wild rose in her cheeks, +opined that it was because Friend Marmaduke Haward was well of his fever, +and had that day returned to Fair View. "Friend Lewis Contesse did tell my +father, when he was in Williamsburgh, that thee made a tenderer nurse than +any woman, and that he did think that Marmaduke Haward owed his life to +thee. I am glad that thee has made friends with him whom men foolishly +call thy master."</p> + +<p>"Credit to that the blue sky," said the storekeeper whimsically; "there is +yet the sunshine to be accounted for. This room did not look so bright +half an hour syne."</p> + +<p>But Truelove shook her head, and would not reckon further; instead heard +Ephraim calling, and gently drew her apron from the Highlander's clasp. +"There will be a meeting of Friends at our house next fourth day," she +said, in her most dovelike tones, as she rose and held out her hand for +her new shoes. "Will thee come, Angus? Thee will be edified, for Friend +Sarah Story, who hath the gift of prophecy, will be there, and we do think +to hear of great things. Thee will come?"</p> + +<p>"By St. Kattan, that will I!" exclaimed the storekeeper, with suspicious +readiness. "The meeting lasts not long, does it? When the Friends are gone +there will be reward? I mean I may sit on the doorstep and watch you—and +watch <i>thee</i>—spin?"</p> + +<p>Truelove dimpled once more, took her shoes, and would have gone her way +sedately and alone, but MacLean must needs keep her company to the end of +the landing and the waiting Ephraim. The latter, as he rowed away from the +Fair View store, remarked upon his sister's looks: "What makes thy cheeks +so pink, Truelove, and thy eyes so big and soft?"</p> + +<p>Truelove did not know; thought that mayhap 'twas the sunshine and the +blowing wind.</p> + +<p>The sun still shone, but the wind had fallen, when, two hours later, +MacLean pocketed the key of the store, betook himself again to the water's +edge, and entering a small boat, first turned it sunwise for luck's sake, +then rowed slowly downstream to the great-house landing. Here he found a +handful of negroes—boatmen and house servants—basking in the sunlight. +Juba was of the number, and at MacLean's call scrambled to his feet and +came to the head of the steps. "No, sah, Marse Duke not on de place. He +order Mirza an' ride off"—a pause—"an' ride off to de glebe house. Yes, +sah, I done tol' him he ought to rest. Goin' to wait tel he come back?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered MacLean, with a darkened face. "Tell him I will come to the +great house to-night."</p> + +<p>In effect, the storekeeper was now, upon Fair View plantation, master of +his own time and person. Therefore, when he left the landing, he did not +row back to the store, but, it being pleasant upon the water, kept on +downstream, gliding beneath the drooping branches of red and russet and +gold. When he came to the mouth of the little creek that ran past Haward's +garden, he rested upon his oars, and with a frowning face looked up its +silver reaches.</p> + +<p>The sun was near its setting, and a still and tranquil light lay upon the +river that was glassy smooth. Rowing close to the bank, the Highlander saw +through the gold fretwork of the leaves above him far spaces of pale blue +sky. All was quiet, windless, listlessly fair. A few birds were on the +wing, and far toward the opposite shore an idle sail seemed scarce to hold +its way. Presently the trees gave place to a grassy shore, rimmed by a +fiery vine that strove to cool its leaves in the flood below. Behind it +was a little rise of earth, a green hillock, fresh and vernal in the midst +of the flame-colored autumn. In shape it was like those hills in his +native land which the Highlander knew to be tenanted by the <i>daoine shi'</i> +the men of peace. There, in glittering chambers beneath the earth, they +dwelt, a potent, eerie, gossamer folk, and thence, men and women, they +issued at times to deal balefully with the mortal race.</p> + +<p>A woman was seated upon the hillock, quiet as a shadow, her head resting +on her hand, her eyes upon the river. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, slight of +figure, and utterly, mournfully still, sitting alone in the fading light, +with the northern sky behind her, for the moment she wore to the +Highlander an aspect not of earth, and he was startled. Then he saw that +it was but Darden's Audrey. She watched the water where it gleamed far +off, and did not see him in his boat below the scarlet vines. Nor when, +after a moment's hesitation, he fastened the boat to a cedar stump, and +stepped ashore, did she pay any heed. It was not until he spoke to her, +standing where he could have touched her with his outstretched hand, that +she moved or looked his way.</p> + +<p>"How long since you left the glebe house?" he demanded abruptly.</p> + +<p>"The sun was high," she answered, in a slow, even voice, with no sign of +surprise at finding herself no longer alone. "I have been sitting here for +a long time. I thought that Hugon might be coming this afternoon.... There +is no use in hiding, but I thought if I stole down here he might not find +me very soon."</p> + +<p>Her voice died away, and she looked again at the water. The storekeeper +sat down upon the bank, between the hillock and the fiery vine, and his +keen eyes watched her closely. "The river," she said at last,—“I like to +watch it. There was a time when I loved the woods, but now I see that they +are ugly. Now, when I can steal away, I come to the river always. I watch +it and watch it, and think.... All that you give it is taken so surely, +and hurried away, and buried out of sight forever. A little while ago I +pulled a spray of farewell summer, and went down there where the bank +shelves and gave it to the river. It was gone in a moment for all that the +stream seems so stealthy and slow."</p> + +<p>"The stream comes from afar," said the Highlander. "In the west, beneath +the sun, it may be a torrent flashing through the mountains."</p> + +<p>"The mountains!" cried Audrey. "Ah, they are uglier than the woods,—black +and terrible! Once I loved them, too, but that was long ago." She put her +chin upon her hand, and again studied the river. "Long ago," she said, +beneath her breath.</p> + +<p>There was a silence; then, "Mr. Haward is at Fair View again," announced +the storekeeper.</p> + +<p>The girl's face twitched.</p> + +<p>"He has been nigh to death," went on her informant. "There were days when +I looked for no morrow for him; one night when I held above his lips a +mirror, and hardly thought to see the breath-stain."</p> + +<p>Audrey laughed. "He can fool even Death, can he not?" The laugh was light +and mocking, a tinkling, elvish sound which the Highlander frowned to +hear. A book, worn and dog-eared, lay near her on the grass. He took it up +and turned the leaves; then put it by, and glanced uneasily at the +slender, brown-clad form seated upon the fairy mound.</p> + +<p>"That is strange reading," he said.</p> + +<p>Audrey looked at the book listlessly. "The schoolmaster gave it to me. It +tells of things as they are, all stripped of make-believe, and shows how +men love only themselves, and how ugly and mean is the world when we look +at it aright. The schoolmaster says that to look at it aright you must +not dream; you must stay awake,"—she drew her hand across her brow and +eyes,—"you must stay awake."</p> + +<p>"I had rather dream," said MacLean shortly. "I have no love for your +schoolmaster."</p> + +<p>"He is a wise man," she answered. "Now that I do not like the woods I +listen to him when he comes to the glebe house. If I remember all he says, +maybe I shall grow wise, also, and the pain will stop." Once more she +dropped her chin upon her hand and fell to brooding, her eyes upon the +river. When she spoke again it was to herself: "Sometimes of nights I hear +it calling me. Last night, while I knelt by my window, it called so loud +that I put my hands over my ears; but I could not keep out the sound,—the +sound of the river that comes from the mountains, that goes to the sea. +And then I saw that there was a light in Fair View house."</p> + +<p>Her voice ceased, and the silence closed in around them. The sun was +setting, and in the west were purple islands merging into a sea of gold. +The river, too, was colored, and every tree was like a torch burning +stilly in the quiet of the evening. For some time MacLean watched the +girl, who now again seemed unconscious of his presence; but at last he got +to his feet, and looked toward his boat. "I must be going," he said; then, +as Audrey raised her head and the light struck upon her face, he continued +more kindly than one would think so stern a seeming man could speak: "I am +sorry for you, my maid. God knows that I should know how dreadful are the +wounds of the spirit! Should you need a friend"—</p> + +<p>Audrey shook her head. "No more friends," she said, and laughed as she had +laughed before. "They belong in dreams. When you are awake,—that is a +different thing."</p> + +<p>The storekeeper went his way, back to the Fair View store, rowing slowly, +with a grim and troubled face, while Darden's Audrey sat still upon the +green hillock and watched the darkening river. Behind her, at no great +distance, was the glebe house; more than once she thought she heard Hugon +coming through the bushes and calling her by name. The river darkened more +and more, and in the west the sea of gold changed to plains of amethyst +and opal. There was a crescent moon, and Audrey, looking at it with eyes +that ached for the tears that would not gather, knew that once she would +have found it fair.</p> + +<p>Hugon was coming, for she heard the twigs upon the path from the glebe +house snap beneath his tread. She did not turn or move; she would see him +soon enough, hear him soon enough. Presently his black eyes would look +into hers; it would be bird and snake over again, and the bird was tired +of fluttering. The bird was so tired that when a hand was laid on her +shoulder she did not writhe herself from under its touch; instead only +shuddered slightly, and stared with wide eyes at the flowing river. But +the hand was white, with a gleaming ring upon its forefinger, and it stole +down to clasp her own. "Audrey," said a voice that was not Hugon's.</p> + +<p>The girl flung back her head, saw Haward's face bending over her, and with +a loud cry sprang to her feet. When he would have touched her again she +recoiled, putting between them a space of green grass. "I have hunted you +for an hour," he began. "At last I struck this path. Audrey"—</p> + +<p>Audrey's hands went to her ears. Step by step she moved backward, until +she stood against the trunk of a blood-red oak. When she saw that Haward +followed her she uttered a terrified scream. At the sound and at the sight +of her face he stopped short, and his outstretched hand fell to his side. +"Why, Audrey, Audrey!" he exclaimed. "I would not hurt you, child. I am +not Jean Hugon!"</p> + +<p>The narrow path down which he had come was visible for some distance as it +wound through field and copse, and upon it there now appeared another +figure, as yet far off, but moving rapidly through the fading light toward +the river. "Jean! Jean! Jean Hugon!" cried Audrey.</p> + +<p>The blood rushed to Haward's face. "As bad as that!" he said, beneath his +breath. Going over to the girl, he took her by the hands and strove to +make her look at him; but her face was like marble, and her eyes would not +meet his, and in a moment she had wrenched herself free of his clasp. +"Jean Hugon! Help, Jean Hugon!" she called.</p> + +<p>The half-breed in the distance heard her voice, and began to run toward +them.</p> + +<p>"Audrey, listen to me!" cried Haward. "How can I speak to you, how +explain, how entreat, when you are like this? Child, child, I am no +monster! Why do you shrink from me thus, look at me thus with frightened +eyes? You know that I love you!"</p> + +<p>She broke from him with lifted hands and a wailing cry. "Let me go! Let me +go! I am running through the corn, in the darkness, and I hope to meet the +Indians! I am awake,—oh, God! I am wide awake!"</p> + +<p>With another cry, and with her hands shutting out the sound of his voice, +she turned and fled toward the approaching trader. Haward, after one deep +oath and an impetuous, quickly checked movement to follow the flying +figure, stood beneath the oak and watched that meeting: Hugon, in his +wine-colored coat and Blenheim wig, fierce, inquisitive, bragging of what +he might do; the girl suddenly listless, silent, set only upon an +immediate return through the fields to the glebe house.</p> + +<p>She carried her point, and the two went away without let or hindrance from +the master of Fair View, who leaned against the stem of the oak and +watched them go. He had been very ill, and the hour's search, together +with this unwonted beating of his heart, had made him desperately +weary,—too weary to do aught but go slowly and without overmuch of +thought to the spot where he had left his horse, mount it, and ride as +slowly homeward. To-morrow, he told himself, he would manage differently; +at least, she should be made to hear him. In the mean time there was the +night to be gotten through. MacLean, he remembered, was coming to the +great house. What with wine and cards, thought might for a time be pushed +out of doors.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII<br>A DUEL</h2> + + +<p>Juba, setting candles upon a table in Haward's bedroom, chanced to spill +melted wax upon his master's hand, outstretched on the board. "Damn you!" +cried Haward, moved by sudden and uncontrollable irritation. "Look what +you are doing, sirrah!"</p> + +<p>The negro gave a start of genuine surprise. Haward could punish,—Juba had +more than once felt the weight of his master's cane,—but justice had +always been meted out with an equable voice and a fine impassivity of +countenance. "Don't stand there staring at me!" now ordered the master as +irritably as before. "Go stir the fire, draw the curtains, shut out the +night! Ha, Angus, is that you?"</p> + +<p>MacLean crossed the room to the fire upon the hearth, and stood with his +eyes upon the crackling logs. "You kindle too soon your winter fire," he +said. "These forests, flaming red and yellow, should warm the land."</p> + +<p>"Winter is at hand. The air strikes cold to-night," answered Haward, and, +rising, began to pace the room, while MacLean watched him with compressed +lips and gloomy eyes. Finally he came to a stand before a card table, set +full in the ruddy light of the fire, and taking up the cards ran them +slowly through his fingers. "When the lotus was all plucked and Lethe +drained, then cards were born into the world," he said sententiously. +"Come, my friend, let us forget awhile."</p> + +<p>They sat down, and Haward dealt.</p> + +<p>"I came to the house landing before sunset," began the storekeeper slowly. +"I found you gone."</p> + +<p>"Ay," said Haward, gathering up his cards. "'Tis yours to play."</p> + +<p>"Juba told me that you had called for Mirza, and had ridden away to the +glebe house."</p> + +<p>"True," answered the other. "And what then?"</p> + +<p>There was a note of warning in his voice, but MacLean did not choose to +heed. "I rowed on down the river, past the mouth of the creek," he +continued, with deliberation. "There was a mound of grass and a mass of +colored vines"—</p> + +<p>"And a blood-red oak," finished Haward coldly. "Shall we pay closer regard +to what we are doing? I play the king."</p> + +<p>"You were there!" exclaimed the Highlander. "You—not Jean Hugon—searched +for and found the poor maid's hiding-place." The red came into his tanned +cheek. "Now, by St. Andrew!" he began; then checked himself.</p> + +<p>Haward tapped with his finger the bit of painted pasteboard before him. "I +play the king," he repeated, in an even voice; then struck a bell, and +when Juba appeared ordered the negro to bring wine and to stir the fire. +The flames, leaping up, lent strange animation to the face of the lady +above the mantelshelf, and a pristine brightness to the swords crossed +beneath the painting. The slave moved about the room, drawing the curtains +more closely, arranging all for the night. While he was present the +players gave their attention to the game, but with the sound of the +closing door MacLean laid down his cards.</p> + +<p>"I must speak," he said abruptly. "The girl's face haunts me. You do +wrong. It is not the act of a gentleman."</p> + +<p>The silence that followed was broken by Haward, who spoke in the smooth, +slightly drawling tones which with him spelled irritation and sudden, +hardly controlled anger. "It is my home-coming," he said. "I am tired, and +wish to-night to eat only of the lotus. Will you take up your cards +again?"</p> + +<p>A less impetuous man than MacLean, noting the signs of weakness, fatigue, +and impatience, would have waited, and on the morrow have been listened to +with equanimity. But the Highlander, fired by his cause, thought not of +delay. "To forget!" he exclaimed. "That is the coward's part! I would have +you remember: remember yourself, who are by nature a gentleman and +generous; remember how alone and helpless is the girl; remember to cease +from this pursuit!"</p> + +<p>"We will leave the cards, and say good-night," said Haward, with a strong +effort for self-control.</p> + +<p>"Good-night with all my heart!" cried the other hotly,—"when you have +promised to lay no further snare for that maid at your gates, whose name +you have blasted, whose heart you have wrung, whose nature you have +darkened and distorted"—</p> + +<p>"Have you done?" demanded Haward. "Once more, 't were wise to say +good-night at once."</p> + +<p>"Not yet!" exclaimed the storekeeper, stretching out an eager hand. "That +girl hath so haunting a face. Haward, see her not again! God wot, I think +you have crushed the soul within her, and her name is bandied from mouth +to mouth. 'T were kind to leave her to forget and be forgotten. Go to +Westover: wed the lady there of whom you raved in your fever. You are her +declared suitor; 'tis said that she loves you"—</p> + +<p>Haward drew his breath sharply and turned in his chair. Then, spent with +fatigue, irritable from recent illness, sore with the memory of the +meeting by the river, determined upon his course and yet deeply perplexed, +he narrowed his eyes and began to give poisoned arrow for poisoned arrow.</p> + +<p>"Was it in the service of the Pretender that you became a squire of +dames?" he asked. "'Gad, for a Jacobite you are particular!"</p> + +<p>MacLean started as if struck, and drew himself up. "Have a care, sir! A +MacLean sits not to hear his king or his chief defamed. In future, pray +remember it."</p> + +<p>"For my part," said the other, "I would have Mr. MacLean remember"—</p> + +<p>The intonation carried his meaning. MacLean, flushing deeply, rose from +the table. "That is unworthy of you," he said. "But since before to-night +servants have rebuked masters, I spare not to tell you that you do most +wrongly. 'Tis sad for the girl she died not in that wilderness where you +found her."</p> + +<p>"Ads my life!" cried Haward. "Leave my affairs alone!"</p> + +<p>Both men were upon their feet. "I took you for a gentleman," said the +Highlander, breathing hard. "I said to myself: 'Duart is overseas where I +cannot serve him. I will take this other for my chief'"—</p> + +<p>"That is for a Highland cateran and traitor," interrupted Haward, pleased +to find another dart, but scarcely aware of how deadly an insult he was +dealing.</p> + +<p>In a flash the blow was struck. Juba, in the next room, hearing the noise +of the overturned table, appeared at the door. "Set the table to rights +and light the candles again," said his master calmly. "No, let the cards +lie. Now begone to the quarters! 'Twas I that stumbled and overset the +table."</p> + +<p>Following the slave to the door he locked it upon him; then turned again +to the room, and to MacLean standing waiting in the centre of it. "Under +the circumstances, we may, I think, dispense with preliminaries. You will +give me satisfaction here and now?"</p> + +<p>"Do you take it at my hands?" asked the other proudly. "Just now you +reminded me that I was your servant. But find me a sword"—</p> + +<p>Haward went to a carved chest; drew from it two rapiers, measured the +blades, and laid one upon the table. MacLean took it up, and slowly passed +the gleaming steel between his fingers. Presently he began to speak, in a +low, controlled, monotonous voice: "Why did you not leave me as I was? Six +months ago I was alone, quiet, dead. A star had set for me; as the lights +fail behind Ben More, it was lost and gone. You, long hated, long looked +for, came, and the star arose again. You touched my scars, and suddenly I +esteemed them honorable. You called me friend, and I turned from my enmity +and clasped your hand. Now my soul goes back to its realm of solitude and +hate; now you are my foe again." He broke off to bend the steel within his +hands almost to the meeting of hilt and point. "A hated master," he ended, +with bitter mirth, "yet one that I must thank for grace extended. Forty +stripes is, I believe, the proper penalty."</p> + +<p>Haward, who had seated himself at his escritoire and was writing, turned +his head. "For my reference to your imprisonment in Virginia I apologize. +I demand the reparation due from one gentleman to another for the +indignity of a blow. Pardon me for another moment, when I shall be at your +service."</p> + +<p>He threw sand upon a sheet of gilt-edged paper, folded and superscribed +it; then took from his breast a thicker document. "The Solebay, +man-of-war, lying off Jamestown, sails at sunrise. The captain—Captain +Meade—is my friend. Who knows the fortunes of war? If by chance I should +fall to-night, take a boat at the landing, hasten upstream, and hail the +Solebay. When you are aboard give Meade—who has reason to oblige me—this +letter. He will carry you down the coast to Charleston, where, if you +change your name and lurk for a while, you may pass for a buccaneer and be +safe enough. For this other paper"—He hesitated, then spoke on with some +constraint: "It is your release from servitude in Virginia,—in effect, +your pardon. I have interest both here and at home—it hath been many +years since Preston—the paper was not hard to obtain. I had meant to give +it to you before we parted to-night. I regret that, should you prove the +better swordsman, it may be of little service to you."</p> + +<p>He laid the papers on the table, and began to divest himself of his coat, +waistcoat, and long, curled periwig. MacLean took up the pardon and held +it to a candle. It caught, but before the flame could reach the writing +Haward had dashed down the other's hand and beaten out the blaze. "'Slife, +Angus, what would you do!" he cried, and, taken unawares, there was angry +concern in his voice. "Why, man, 't is liberty!"</p> + +<p>"I may not accept it," said MacLean, with dry lips. "That letter, also, +is useless to me. I would you were all villain."</p> + +<p>"Your scruple is fantastic!" retorted the other, and as he spoke he put +both papers upon the escritoire, weighting them with the sandbox. "You +shall take them hence when our score is settled,—ay, and use them as best +you may! Now, sir, are you ready?"</p> + +<p>"You are weak from illness," said MacLean hoarsely, "Let the quarrel rest +until you have recovered strength."</p> + +<p>Haward laughed. "I was not strong yesterday," he said. "But Mr. Everard is +pinked in the side, and Mr. Travis, who would fight with pistols, hath a +ball through his shoulder."</p> + +<p>The storekeeper started. "I have heard of those gentlemen! You fought them +both upon the day when you left your sickroom?"</p> + +<p>"Assuredly," answered the other, with a slight lift of his brows. "Will +you be so good as to move the table to one side? So. On guard, sir!"</p> + +<p>The man who had been ill unto death and the man who for many years had +worn no sword acquitted themselves well. Had the room been a field behind +Montagu House, had there been present seconds, a physician, gaping +chairmen, the interest would have been breathless. As it was, the lady +upon the wall smiled on, with her eyes forever upon the blossoms in her +hand, and the river without, when it could be heard through the clashing +of steel, made but a listless and dreamy sound. Each swordsman knew that +he had provoked a friend to whom his debt was great, but each, according +to his godless creed, must strive as though that friend were his dearest +foe. The Englishman fought coolly, the Gael with fervor. The latter had +an unguarded moment. Haward's blade leaped to meet it, and on the other's +shirt appeared a bright red stain.</p> + +<p>In the moment that he was touched the Highlander let fall his sword. +Haward, not understanding, lowered his point, and with a gesture bade his +antagonist recover the weapon. But the storekeeper folded his arms. "Where +blood has been drawn there is satisfaction," he said. "I have given it to +you, and now, by the bones of Gillean-na-Tuaidhe, I will not fight you +longer!"</p> + +<p>For a minute or more Haward stood with his eyes upon the ground and his +hand yet closely clasping the rapier hilt; then, drawing a long breath, he +took up the velvet scabbard and slowly sheathed his blade. "I am content," +he said. "Your wound, I hope, is slight?"</p> + +<p>MacLean thrust a handkerchief into his bosom to stanch the bleeding. "A +pin prick," he said indifferently.</p> + +<p>His late antagonist held out his hand. "It is well over. Come! We are not +young hotheads, but men who have lived and suffered, and should know the +vanity and the pity of such strife. Let us forget this hour, call each +other friends again"—</p> + +<p>"Tell me first," demanded MacLean, his arm rigid at his side,—"tell me +first why you fought Mr. Everard and Mr. Travis."</p> + +<p>Gray eyes and dark blue met. "I fought them," said Haward, "because, on a +time, they offered insult to the woman whom I intend to make my wife."</p> + +<p>So quiet was it in the room when he had spoken that the wash of the river, +the tapping of walnut branches outside the window, the dropping of coals +upon the hearth, became loud and insistent sounds. Then, "Darden's +Audrey?" said MacLean in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"Not Darden's Audrey, but mine," answered Haward,—"the only woman I have +ever loved or shall love."</p> + +<p>He walked to the window and looked out into the darkness. "To-night there +is no light," he said to himself, beneath his breath. "By and by we shall +stand here together, listening to the river, marking the wind in the +trees." As upon paper heat of fire may cause to appear characters before +invisible, so, when he turned, the flame of a great passion had brought +all that was highest in this gentleman's nature into his countenance, +softening and ennobling it. "Whatever my thoughts before," he said simply, +"I have never, since I awoke from my fever and remembered that night at +the Palace, meant other than this." Coming back to MacLean he laid a hand +upon his shoulder. "Who made us knows we all do need forgiveness! Am I no +more to you, Angus, than Ewin Mor Mackinnon?"</p> + +<p>An hour later, those who were to be lifetime friends went together down +the echoing stair and through the empty house to the outer door. When it +was opened, they saw that upon the stone step without, in the square of +light thrown by the candles behind them, lay an Indian arrow. MacLean +picked it up. "'Twas placed athwart the door," he said doubtingly. "Is it +in the nature of a challenge?"</p> + +<p>Haward took the dart, and examined it curiously. "The trader grows +troublesome," he remarked. "He must back to the woods and to the foes of +his own class." As he spoke he broke the arrow in two, and flung the +pieces from him.</p> + +<p>It was a night of many stars and a keen wind. Moved each in his degree by +its beauty, Haward and MacLean stood regarding it before they should go, +the one back to his solitary chamber, the other to the store which was to +be his charge no longer than the morrow. "I feel the air that blows from +the hills," said the Highlander. "It comes over the heather; it hath swept +the lochs, and I hear it in the sound of torrents." He lifted his face to +the wind. "The breath of freedom! I shall have dreams to-night."</p> + +<p>When he was gone, Haward, left alone, looked for a while upon the heights +of stars. "I too shall dream to-night," he breathed to himself. "To-morrow +all will be well." His gaze falling from the splendor of the skies to the +swaying trees, gaunt, bare, and murmuring of their loss to the hurrying +river, sadness and vague fear took sudden possession of his soul. He spoke +her name over and over; he left the house and went into the garden. It was +the garden of the dying year, and the change that in the morning he had +smiled to see now appalled him. He would have had it June again. Now, when +on the morrow he and Audrey should pass through the garden, it must be +down dank and leaf-strewn paths, past yellow and broken stalks, with here +and there wan ghosts of flowers.</p> + +<p>He came to the dial, and, bending, pressed his lips against the carven +words that, so often as they had stood there together, she had traced with +her finger. "Love! thou mighty alchemist!" he breathed. "Life! that may +now be gold, now iron, but never again dull lead! Death"—He paused; then, +"There shall be no death," he said, and left the withered garden for the +lonely, echoing house.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV<br>AUDREY COMES TO WESTOVER</h2> + + +<p>It was ten of the clock upon this same night when Hugon left the glebe +house. Audrey, crouching in the dark beside her window, heard him bid the +minister, as drunk as himself, good-night, and watched him go unsteadily +down the path that led to the road. Once he paused, and made as if to +return; then went on to his lair at the crossroads ordinary. Again Audrey +waited,—this time by the door. Darden stumbled upstairs to bed. Mistress +Deborah's voice was raised in shrill reproach, and the drunken minister +answered her with oaths. The small house rang with their quarrel, but +Audrey listened with indifference; not trembling and stopping her ears, as +once she would have done. It was over at last, and the place sunk in +silence; but still the girl waited and listened, standing close to the +door. At last, as it was drawing toward midnight, she put her hand upon +the latch, and, raising it very softly, slipped outside. Heavy breathing +came from the room where slept her guardians; it went evenly on while she +crept downstairs and unbarred the outer door. Sure and silent and light of +touch, she passed like a spirit from the house that had given her shelter, +nor once looked back upon it.</p> + +<p>The boat, hidden in the reeds, was her destination; she loosed it, and +taking the oars rowed down the creek. When she came to the garden wall, +she bent her head and shut her eyes; but when she had left the creek for +the great dim river, she looked at Fair View house as she rowed past it on +her way to the mountains. No light to-night; the hour was late, and he was +asleep, and that was well.</p> + +<p>It was cold upon the river, and sere leaves, loosening their hold upon +that which had given them life, drifted down upon her as she rowed beneath +arching trees. When she left the dark bank for the unshadowed stream, the +wind struck her brow and the glittering stars perplexed her. There were so +many of them. When one shot, she knew that a soul had left the earth. +Another fell, and another,—it must be a good night for dying. She ceased +to row, and, leaning over, dipped her hand and arm into the black water. +The movement brought the gunwale of the boat even with the flood.... Say +that one leaned over a little farther ... there would fall another star. +God gathered the stars in his hand, but he would surely be angry with one +that came before it was called, and the star would sink past him into a +night forever dreadful.... The water was cold and deep and black. Great +fish throve in it, and below was a bed of ooze and mud....</p> + +<p>The girl awoke from her dream of self-murder with a cry of terror. Not the +river, good Lord, not the river! Not death, but life! With a second +shuddering cry she lifted hand and arm from the water, and with frantic +haste dried them upon the skirt of her dress. There had been none to hear +her. Upon the midnight river, between the dim forests that ever spoke, but +never listened, she was utterly alone. She took the oars again, and went +on her way up the river, rowing swiftly, for the mountains were far away, +and she might be pursued.</p> + +<p>When she drew near to Jamestown she shot far out into the river, because +men might be astir in the boats about the town landing. Anchored in +midstream was a great ship,—a man-of-war, bristling with guns. Her boat +touched its shadow, and the lookout called to her. She bent her head, put +forth her strength, and left the black hull behind her. There was another +ship to pass, a slaver that had come in the evening before, and would land +its cargo at sunrise. The stench that arose from it was intolerable, and, +as the girl passed, a corpse, heavily weighted, was thrown into the water. +Audrey went swiftly by, and the river lay clean before her. The stars +paled and the dawn came, but she could not see the shores for the thick +white mist. A spectral boat, with a sail like a gray moth's wing, slipped +past her. The shadow at the helm was whistling for the wind, and the sound +came strange and shrill through the filmy, ashen morning. The mist began +to lift. A few moments now, and the river would lie dazzlingly bare +between the red and yellow forests. She turned her boat shorewards, and +presently forced it beneath the bronze-leafed, drooping boughs of a +sycamore. Here she left the boat, tying it to the tree, and hoping that it +was well hidden. The great fear at her heart was that, when she was +missed, Hugon would undertake to follow and to find her. He had the skill +to do so. Perhaps, after many days, when she was in sight of the +mountains, she might turn her head and, in that lonely land, see him +coming toward her.</p> + +<p>The sun was shining, and the woods were gay above her head and gay beneath +her feet. When the wind blew, the colored leaves went before it like +flights of birds. She was hungry, and as she walked she ate a piece of +bread taken from the glebe-house larder. It was her plan to go rapidly +through the settled country, keeping as far as possible to the great +spaces of woodland which the axe had left untouched; sleeping in such dark +and hidden hollows as she could find; begging food only when she must, and +then from poor folk who would not stay her or be overcurious about her +business. As she went on, the houses, she knew, would be farther and +farther apart; the time would soon arrive when she might walk half a day +and see never a clearing in the deep woods. Then the hills would rise +about her, and far, far off she might see the mountains, fixed, cloudlike, +serene, and still, beyond the miles of rustling forest. There would be no +more great houses, built for ladies and gentlemen, but here and there, at +far distances, rude cabins, dwelt in by kind and simple folk. At such a +home, when the mountains had taken on a deeper blue, when the streams were +narrow and the level land only a memory, she would pause, would ask if she +might stay. What work was wanted she would do. Perhaps there would be +children, or a young girl like Molly, or a kind woman like Mistress Stagg; +and perhaps, after a long, long while, it would grow to seem to her like +that other cabin.</p> + +<p>These were her rose-colored visions. At other times a terror took her by +the shoulders, holding her until her face whitened and her eyes grew wide +and dark. The way was long and the leaves were falling fast, and she +thought that it might be true that in this world into which she had +awakened there was for her no home. The cold would come, and she might +have no bread, and for all her wandering find none to take her in. In +those forests of the west the wolves ran in packs, and the Indians burned +and wasted. Some bitter night-time she would die.... Watching the sky from +Fair View windows, perhaps he might idly mark a falling star.</p> + +<p>All that day she walked, keeping as far as was possible to the woods, but +forced now and again to traverse open fields and long stretches of sunny +road. If she saw any one coming, she hid in the roadside bushes, or, if +that could not be done, walked steadily onward, with her head bent and her +heart beating fast. It must have been a day for minding one's own +business, for none stayed or questioned her. Her dinner she begged from +some children whom she found in a wood gathering nuts. Supper she had +none. When night fell, she was glad to lay herself down upon a bed of +leaves that she had raked together; but she slept little, for the wind +moaned in the half-clad branches, and she could not cease from counting +the stars that shot. In the morning, numbed and cold, she went slowly on +until she came to a wayside house. Quaker folk lived there; and they asked +her no question, but with kind words gave her of what they had, and let +her rest and grow warm in the sunshine upon their doorstep. She thanked +them with shy grace, but presently, when they were not looking, rose and +went her way. Upon the second day she kept to the road. It was loss of +time wandering in the woods, skirting thicket and marsh, forced ever and +again to return to the beaten track. She thought, also, that she must be +safe, so far was she now from Fair View. How could they guess that she was +gone to the mountains?</p> + +<p>About midday, two men on horseback looked at her in passing. One spoke to +the other, and turning their horses they put after and overtook her. He +who had spoken touched her with the butt of his whip. "Ecod!" he +exclaimed. "It's the lass we saw run for a guinea last May Day at +Jamestown! Why so far from home, light o' heels?"</p> + +<p>A wild leap of her heart, a singing in her ears, and Audrey clutched at +safety.</p> + +<p>"I be Joan, the smith's daughter," she said stolidly. "I niver ran for a +guinea. I niver saw a guinea. I be going an errand for feyther."</p> + +<p>"Ecod, then!" said the other man. "You're on a wrong scent. 'Twas no dolt +that ran that day!"</p> + +<p>The man who had touched her laughed. "'Facks, you are right, Tom! But I'd +ha' sworn 't was that brown girl. Go your ways on your errand for +'feyther'!" As he spoke, being of an amorous turn, he stooped from his +saddle and kissed her. Audrey, since she was at that time not Audrey at +all, but Joan, the smith's daughter, took the salute as stolidly as she +had spoken. The two men rode away, and the second said to the first: "A +Williamsburgh man told me that the girl who won the guinea could speak and +look like a born lady. Didn't ye hear the story of how she went to the +Governor's ball, all tricked out, dancing, and making people think she was +some fine dame from Maryland maybe? And the next day she was scored in +church before all the town. I don't know as they put a white sheet on her, +but they say 't was no more than her deserts."</p> + +<p>Audrey, left standing in the sunny road, retook her own countenance, +rubbed her cheek where the man's lips had touched it, and trembled like a +leaf. She was frightened, both at the encounter and because she could +make herself so like Joan,—Joan who lived near the crossroads ordinary, +and who had been whipped at the Court House.</p> + +<p>Late that afternoon she came upon two or three rude dwellings clustered +about a mill. A knot of men, the miller in the midst, stood and gazed at +the mill-stream. They wore an angry look; and Audrey passed them hastily +by. At the farthest house she paused to beg a piece of bread; but the +woman who came to the door frowned and roughly bade her begone, and a +child threw a stone at her. "One witch is enough to take the bread out of +poor folks' mouths!" cried the woman. "Be off, or I'll set the dogs on +ye!" The children ran after her as she hastened from the inhospitable +neighborhood. "'T is a young witch," they cried, "going to help the old +one swim to-night!" and a stone struck her, bruising her shoulder.</p> + +<p>She began to run, and, fleet of foot as she was, soon distanced her +tormentors. When she slackened pace it was sunset, and she was faint with +hunger and desperately weary. From the road a bypath led to a small +clearing in a wood, with a slender spiral of smoke showing between the +trees. Audrey went that way, and came upon a crazy cabin whose door and +window were fast closed. In the unkempt garden rose an apple-tree, with +the red apples shriveling upon its boughs, and from the broken gate a line +of cedars, black and ragged, ran down to a piece of water, here ghastly +pale, there streaked like the sky above with angry crimson. The place was +very still, and the air felt cold. When no answer came to her first +knocking, Audrey beat upon the door; for she was suddenly afraid of the +road behind her, and of the doleful woods and the coming night.</p> + +<p>The window shutter creaked ever so slightly, and some one looked out; then +the door opened, and a very old and wrinkled woman, with lines of cunning +about her mouth, laid her hand upon the girl's arm. "Who be ye?" she +whispered. "Did ye bring warning? I don't say, mind ye, that I can't make +a stream go dry,—maybe I can and maybe I can't,—but I didn't put a word +on the one yonder." She threw up her arms with a wailing cry. "But they +won't believe what a poor old soul says! Are they in an evil temper, +honey?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean," said Audrey. "I have come a long way, and I +am hungry and tired. Give me a piece of bread, and let me stay with you +to-night."</p> + +<p>The old woman moved aside, and the girl, entering a room that was mean and +poor enough, sat down upon a stool beside the fire. "If ye came by the +mill," demanded her hostess, with a suspicious eye, "why did ye not stop +there for bite and sup?"</p> + +<p>"The men were all talking together," answered Audrey wearily. "They looked +so angry that I was afraid of them. I did stop at one house; but the woman +bade me begone, and the children threw stones at me and called me a +witch."</p> + +<p>The crone stooped and stirred the fire; then from a cupboard brought forth +bread and a little red wine, and set them before the girl. "They called +you a witch, did they?" she mumbled as she went to and fro. "And the men +were talking and planning together?"</p> + +<p>Audrey ate the bread and drank the wine; then, because she was so tired, +leaned her head against the table and fell half asleep. When she roused +herself, it was to find her withered hostess standing over her with a sly +and toothless smile. "I've been thinking," she whispered, "that since +you're here to mind the house, I'll just step out to a neighbor's about +some business I have in hand. You can stay by the fire, honey, and be warm +and comfortable. Maybe I'll not come back to-night."</p> + +<p>Going to the window, she dropped a heavy bar across the shutter. "Ye'll +put the chain across the door when I'm out," she commanded. "There be +evil-disposed folk may want to win in." Coming back to the girl, she laid +a skinny hand upon her arm. Whether with palsy or with fright the hand +shook like a leaf, but Audrey, half asleep again, noticed little beyond +the fact that the fire warmed her, and that here at last was rest. "If +there should come a knocking and a calling, honey," whispered the witch, +"don't ye answer to it or unbar the door. Ye'll save time for me that way. +But if they win in, tell them I went to the northward."</p> + +<p>Audrey looked at her with glazed, uncomprehending eyes, while the +gnome-like figure appeared to grow smaller, to melt out of the doorway. It +was a minute or more before the wayfarer thus left alone in the hut could +remember that she had been told to bar the door. Then her instinct of +obedience sent her to the threshold. Dusk was falling, and the waters of +the pool lay pale and still beyond the ebony cedars. Through the twilit +landscape moved the crone who had housed her for the night; but she went +not to the north, but southwards toward the river. Presently the dusk +swallowed her up, and Audrey was left with the ragged garden and the +broken fence and the tiny firelit hut. Reentering the room, she fastened +the door, as she had been told to do, and then went back to the hearth. +The fire blazed and the shadows danced; it was far better than last night, +out in the cold, lying upon dead leaves, watching the falling stars. Here +it was warm, warm as June in a walled garden; the fire was red like the +roses ... the roses that had thorns to bring heart's blood.</p> + +<p>Audrey fell fast asleep; and while she was asleep and the night was yet +young, the miller whose mill stream had run dry, the keeper of a tippling +house whose custom had dwindled, the ferryman whose child had peaked and +pined and died, came with a score of men to reckon with the witch who had +done the mischief. Finding door and window fast shut, they knocked, softly +at first, then loudly and with threats. One watched the chimney, to see +that the witch did not ride forth that way; and the father of the child +wished to gather brush, pile it against the entrance, and set all afire. +The miller, who was a man of strength, ended the matter by breaking in the +door. They knew that the witch was there, because they had heard her +moving about, and, when the door gave, a cry of affright. When, however, +they had laid hands upon her, and dragged her out under the stars, into +the light of the torches they carried, they found that the witch, who, as +was well known, could slip her shape as a snake slips its skin, was no +longer old and bowed, but straight and young.</p> + +<p>"Let me go!" cried Audrey. "How dare you hold me! I never harmed one of +you. I am a poor girl come from a long way off"—</p> + +<p>"Ay, a long way!" exclaimed the ferryman. "More leagues, I'll warrant, +than there are miles in Virginia! We'll see if ye can swim home, ye +witch!"</p> + +<p>"I'm no witch!" cried the girl again. "I never harmed you. Let me go!"</p> + +<p>One of the torchbearers gave ground a little. "She do look mortal young. +But where be the witch, then?"</p> + +<p>Audrey strove to shake herself free. "The old woman left me alone in the +house. She went to—to the northward."</p> + +<p>"She lies!" cried the ferryman, addressing himself to the angry throng. +The torches, flaming in the night wind, gave forth a streaming, uncertain, +and bewildering light; to the excited imaginations of the rustic avengers, +the form in the midst of them was not always that of a young girl, but now +and again wavered toward the semblance of the hag who had wrought them +evil. "Before the child died he talked forever of somebody young and fair +that came and stood by him when he slept. We thought 't was his dead +mother, but now—now I see who 't was!" Seizing the girl by the wrists, he +burst with her through the crowd. "Let the water touch her, she'll turn +witch again!"</p> + +<p>The excited throng, blinded by its own imagination, took up the cry. The +girl's voice was drowned; she set her lips, and strove dumbly with her +captors; but they swept her through the weed-grown garden and broken gate, +past the cedars that were so ragged and black, down to the cold and deep +water. She thought of the night upon the river and of the falling stars, +and with a sudden, piercing cry struggled fiercely to escape. The bank was +steep; hands pushed her forward: she felt the ghastly embrace of the +water, and saw, ere the flood closed over her upturned face, the cold and +quiet stars.</p> + +<p>So loud was the ringing in her ears that she heard no access of voices +upon the bank, and knew not that a fresh commotion had arisen. She was +sinking for the third time, and her mind had begun to wander in the Fair +View garden, when an arm caught and held her up. She was borne to the +shore; there were men on horseback; some one with a clear, authoritative +voice was now berating, now good-humoredly arguing with, her late judges.</p> + +<p>The man who had sprung to save her held her up to arms that reached down +from the bank above; another moment and she felt the earth again beneath +her feet, but could only think that, with half the dying past, these +strangers had been cruel to bring her back. Her rescuer shook himself like +a great dog. "I've saved the witch alive," he panted. "May God forgive and +your Honor reward me!"</p> + +<p>"Nay, worthy constable, you must look to Sathanas for reward!" cried the +gentleman who had been haranguing the miller and his company. These +gentry, hardly convinced, but not prepared to debate the matter with a +justice of the peace and a great man of those parts, began to slip away. +The torchbearers, probably averse to holding a light to their own +countenances, had flung the torches into the water, and now, heavily +shadowed by the cedars, the place was in deep darkness. Presently there +were left to berate only the miller and the ferryman, and at last these +also went sullenly away without having troubled to mention the witch's +late transformation from age to youth.</p> + +<p>"Where is the rescued fair one?" continued the gentleman who, for his own +pleasure, had led the conservers of law and order. "Produce the sibyl, +honest Dogberry! Faith, if the lady be not an ingrate, you've henceforth a +friend at court!"</p> + +<p>"My name is Saunders,—Dick Saunders, your Honor," quoth the constable. +"For the witch, she lies quiet on the ground beneath the cedar yonder."</p> + +<p>"She won't speak!" cried another. "She just lies there trembling, with her +face in her hands."</p> + +<p>"But she said, 'O Christ!' when we took her from the water," put in a +third.</p> + +<p>"She was nigh drowned," ended the constable. "And I'm a-tremble myself, +the water was that cold. Wauns! I wish I were in the chimney corner at the +Court House ordinary!"</p> + +<p>The master of Westover flung his riding cloak to one of the constable's +men. "Wrap it around the shivering iniquity on the ground yonder; and you, +Tom Hope, that brought warning of what your neighbors would do, mount and +take the witch behind you. Master Constable, you will lodge Hecate in the +gaol to-night, and in the morning bring her up to the great house. We +would inquire why a lady so accomplished that she can dry a mill stream to +plague a miller cannot drain a pool to save herself from drowning!"</p> + +<p>At a crossing of the ways, shortly before Court House, gaol, and ordinary +were reached, the adventurous Colonel gave a good-night to the constable +and his company, and, with a negro servant at his heels, rode gayly on +beneath the stars to his house at Westover. Hardy, alert, in love with +living, he was well amused by the night's proceedings. The incident should +figure in his next letter to Orrery or to his cousin Taylor.</p> + +<p>It figured largely in the table-talk next morning, when the sprightly +gentleman sat at breakfast with his daughter and his second wife, a fair +and youthful kinswoman of Martha and Teresa Blount. The gentleman, +launched upon the subject of witchcraft, handled it with equal wit and +learning. The ladies thought that the water must have been very cold, and +trusted that the old dame was properly grateful, and would, after such a +lesson, leave her evil practices. As they were rising from table, word was +brought to the master that constable and witch were outside.</p> + +<p>The Colonel kissed his wife, promised his daughter to be merciful, and, +humming a song, went through the hall to the open house door and the +broad, three-sided steps of stone. The constable was awaiting him.</p> + +<p>"Here be mysteries, your Honor! As I serve the King, 't weren't Goody +Price for whom I ruined my new frieze, but a slip of a girl!" He waved his +hand. "Will your Honor please to look?"</p> + +<p>Audrey sat in the sunshine upon the stone steps with her head bowed upon +her arms. The morning that was so bright was not bright for her; she +thought that life had used her but unkindly. A great tree, growing close +to the house, sent leaves of dull gold adrift, and they lay at her feet +and upon the skirt of her dress. The constable spoke to her: "Now, +mistress, here's a gentleman as stands for the King and the law. Look up!"</p> + +<p>A white hand was laid upon the Colonel's arm. "I came to make sure that +you were not harsh with the poor creature," said Evelyn's pitying voice. +"There is so much misery. Where is she? Ah!"</p> + +<p>To gain at last his prisoner's attention, the constable struck her lightly +across the shoulders with his cane. "Get up!" he cried impatiently. "Get +up and make your curtsy! Ecod, I wish I'd left you in Hunter's Pond!"</p> + +<p>Audrey rose, and turned her face, not to the justice of the peace and +arbiter of the fate of witches, but to Evelyn, standing above +her,—Evelyn, slighter, paler, than she had been at Williamsburgh, but +beautiful in her colored, fragrant silks and the air that was hers of +sweet and mournful distinction. Now she cried out sharply, while "That +girl again!" swore the Colonel, beneath his breath.</p> + +<p>Audrey did as she had been told, and made her curtsy. Then, while father +and daughter stared at her, the gentleman very red and biting his lip, the +lady marble in her loveliness, she tried to speak, to ask them to let her +go, but found no words. The face of Evelyn, at whom alone she looked, +wavered into distance, gazing at her coldly and mournfully from miles +away. She made a faint gesture of weariness and despair; then sank down at +Evelyn's feet, and lay there in a swoon.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV<br>TWO WOMEN</h2> + + +<p>Evelyn, hearing footsteps across the floor of the attic room above her own +bedchamber, arose and set wide the door; then went back to her chair by +the window that looked out upon green grass and party-colored trees and +long reaches of the shining river. "Come here, if you please," she called +to Audrey, as the latter slowly descended the stair from the room where, +half asleep, half awake, she had lain since morning.</p> + +<p>Audrey entered the pleasant chamber, furnished with what luxury the age +afforded, and stood before the sometime princess of her dreams. "Will you +not sit down?" asked Evelyn, in a low voice, and pointed to a chair.</p> + +<p>"I had rather stand," answered Audrey. "Why did you call me? I was on my +way"—</p> + +<p>The other's clear eyes dwelt upon her. "Whither were you going?"</p> + +<p>"Out of your house," said Audrey simply, "and out of your life."</p> + +<p>Evelyn folded her hands in her silken lap, and looked out upon river and +sky and ceaseless drift of colored leaves. "You can never go out of my +life," she said. "Why the power to vex and ruin was given you I do not +know, but you have used it. Why did you run away from Fair View?"</p> + +<p>"That I might never see Mr. Haward again," answered Audrey. She held her +head up, but she felt the stab. It had not occurred to her that hers was +the power to vex and ruin; apparently that belonged elsewhere.</p> + +<p>Evelyn turned from the window, and the two women, the princess and the +herdgirl, regarded each other. "Oh, my God!" cried Evelyn. "I did not know +that you loved him so!"</p> + +<p>But Audrey shook her head, and spoke with calmness: "Once I loved and knew +it not, and once I loved and knew it. It was all in a dream, and now I +have waked up." She passed her hand across her brow and eyes, and pushed +back her heavy hair. It was a gesture that was common to her. To Evelyn it +brought a sudden stinging memory of the ballroom at the Palace; of how +this girl had looked in her splendid dress, with the roses in her hair; of +Haward's words at the coach door. She had not seen him since that night. +"I am going a long way," continued Audrey. "It will be as though I died. I +never meant to harm you."</p> + +<p>The other gazed at her with wide, dry eyes, and with an unwonted color in +her cheeks. "She is beautiful," thought Audrey; then wondered how long she +must stay in this room and this house. Without the window the trees +beckoned, the light was fair upon the river; in the south hung a cloud, +silver-hued, and shaped like two mighty wings. Audrey, with her eyes upon +the cloud, thought, "If the wings were mine, I would reach the mountains +to-night."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember last May Day?" asked Evelyn, in a voice scarcely above a +whisper. "He and I, sitting side by side, watched your running, and I +praised you to him. Then we went away, and while we gathered flowers on +the road to Williamsburgh he asked me to be his wife. I said no, for he +loved me not as I wished to be loved. Afterward, in Williamsburgh, he +spoke again.... I said, 'When you come to Westover;' and he kissed my +hand, and vowed that the next week should find him here." She turned once +more to the window, and, with her chin in her hand, looked out upon the +beauty of the autumn. "Day by day, and day by day," she said, in the same +hushed voice, "I sat at this window and watched for him to come. The weeks +went by, and he came not. I began to hear talk of you. Oh, I deny not that +it was bitter!"</p> + +<p>"Oh me! oh me!" cried Audrey. "I was so happy, and I thought no harm."</p> + +<p>"He came at last," continued Evelyn. "For a month he stayed here, paying +me court. I was too proud to speak of what I had heard. After a while I +thought it must have been an idle rumor." Her voice changed, and with a +sudden gesture of passion and despair she lifted her arms above her head, +then clasped and wrung her hands. "Oh, for a month he forgot you! In all +the years to come I shall have that comfort: for one little month, in the +company of the woman whom, because she was of his own rank, because she +had wealth, because others found her fair and honored her with heart as +well as lip, he wished to make his wife,—for that short month he forgot +you! The days were sweet to me, sweet, sweet! Oh, I dreamed my dreams!... +And then we were called to Williamsburgh to greet the new Governor, and he +went with us, and again I heard your name coupled with his.... There was +between us no betrothal. I had delayed to say yes to his asking, for I +wished to make sure,—to make sure that he loved me. No man can say he +broke troth with me. For that my pride gives thanks!"</p> + +<p>"What must I do?" said Audrey to herself. "Pain is hard to bear."</p> + +<p>"That night at the ball," continued Evelyn, "when, coming down the stair, +I saw you standing beside him ... and after that, the music, and the +lights, and you dancing with him, in your dark beauty, with the flowers in +your hair ... and after that, you and I in my coach and his face at the +window!... Oh, I can tell you what he said! He said: 'Good-by, +sweetheart.... The violets are for you; but the great white blossoms, and +the boughs of rosy mist, and all the trees that wave in the wind are for +Audrey.'"</p> + +<p>"For me!" cried Audrey,—"for me an hour in Bruton church next morning!"</p> + +<p>A silence followed her words. Evelyn, sitting in the great chair, rested +her cheek upon her hand and gazed steadfastly at her guest of a day. The +sunshine had stolen from the room, but dwelt upon and caressed the world +without the window. Faint, tinkling notes of a harpsichord floated up from +the parlor below, followed by young Madam Byrd's voice singing to the +perturbed Colonel:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'O Love! they wrong thee much,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That say thy sweet is bitter,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">When thy rich fruit is such</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">As nothing can be sweeter.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Fair house of joy and bliss'"—</span><br> +</p> + +<p>The song came to an end, but after a pause the harpsichord sounded again, +and the singer's voice rang out:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'Under the greenwood tree,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Who loves to lie with me'"—</span><br> +</p> + +<p>Audrey gave an involuntary cry; then, with her lip between her teeth, +strove for courage, failed, and with another strangled cry sank upon her +knees before a chair and buried her face in its cushions.</p> + +<p>When a little time had passed, Evelyn arose and went to her. "Fate has +played with us both," she said, in a voice that strove for calmness. "If +there was great bitterness in my heart toward you then, I hope it is not +so now; if, on that night, I spoke harshly, unkindly, ungenerously, I—I +am sorry. I thought what others thought. I—I cared not to touch you.... +But now I am told that 't was not you that did unworthily. Mr. Haward has +written to me; days ago I had this letter." It was in her hand, and she +held it out to the kneeling girl. "Yes, yes, you must read; it concerns +you." Her voice, low and broken, was yet imperious. Audrey raised her +head, took and read the letter. There were but a few unsteady lines, +written from Marot's ordinary at Williamsburgh. The writer was too weak as +yet for many words; few words were best, perhaps. His was all the blame +for the occurrence at the Palace, for all besides. That which, upon his +recovery, he must strive to teach his acquaintance at large he prayed +Evelyn to believe at once and forever. She whom, against her will and in +the madness of his fever, he had taken to the Governor's house was most +innocent,—guiltless of all save a childlike affection for the writer, a +misplaced confidence, born of old days, and now shattered by his own hand. +Before that night she had never guessed his passion, never known the use +that had been made of her name. This upon the honor of a gentleman. For +the rest, as soon as his strength was regained, he purposed traveling to +Westover. There, if Mistress Evelyn Byrd would receive him for an hour, +he might in some measure explain, excuse. For much, he knew, there was no +excuse,—only pardon to be asked.</p> + +<p>The letter ended abruptly, as though the writer's strength were exhausted. +Audrey read it through, then with indifference gave it back to Evelyn. "It +is true,—what he says?" whispered the latter, crumpling the paper in her +hand.</p> + +<p>Audrey gazed up at her with wide, tearless eyes. "Yes, it is true. There +was no need for you to use those words to me in the coach, that +night,—though even then I did not understand. There is no reason why you +should fear to touch me."</p> + +<p>Her head sank upon her arm. In the parlor below the singing came to an +end, but the harpsichord, lightly fingered, gave forth a haunting melody. +It was suited to the afternoon: to the golden light, the drifting leaves, +the murmurs of wind and wave, without the window: to the shadows, the +stillness, and the sorrow within the room. Evelyn, turning slowly toward +the kneeling figure, of a sudden saw it through a mist of tears. Her +clasped hands parted; she bent and touched the bowed head. Audrey looked +up, and her dark eyes made appeal. Evelyn stooped lower yet; her tears +fell upon Audrey's brow; a moment, and the two, cast by life in the +selfsame tragedy, were in each other's arms.</p> + +<p>"You know that I came from the mountains," whispered Audrey. "I am going +back. You must tell no one; in a little while I shall be forgotten."</p> + +<p>"To the mountains!" cried Evelyn. "No one lives there. You would die of +cold and hunger. No, no! We are alike unhappy: you shall stay with me here +at Westover."</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/342.jpg"><img src="./images/342-tb.jpg" alt="HER DARK EYES MADE APPEAL" title="HER DARK EYES MADE APPEAL"></a></p><p class="figcenter">HER DARK EYES MADE APPEAL</p> + +<p>She rose from her knees, and Audrey rose with her. They no longer clasped +each other,—that impulse was past,—but their eyes met in sorrowful +amity. Audrey shook her head. "That may not be," she said simply. "I must +go away that we may not both be unhappy." She lifted her face to the cloud +in the south, "I almost died last night. When you drown, there is at first +fear and struggling, but at last it is like dreaming, and there is a +lightness.... When that came I thought, 'It is the air of the +mountains,—I am drawing near them.' ... Will you let me go now? I will +slip from the house through the fields into the woods, and none will +know"—</p> + +<p>But Evelyn caught her by the wrist. "You are beside yourself! I would +rouse the plantation; in an hour you would be found. Stay with me!"</p> + +<p>A knock at the door, and the Colonel's secretary, a pale and grave young +man, bowing on the threshold. He was just come from the attic room, where +he had failed to find the young woman who had been lodged there that +morning. The Colonel, supposing that by now she was recovered from her +swoon and her fright of the night before, and having certain questions to +put to her, desired her to descend to the parlor. Hearing voices in +Mistress Evelyn's room—</p> + +<p>"Very well, Mr. Drew," said the lady. "You need not wait. I will myself +seek my father with—with our guest."</p> + +<p>In the parlor Madam Byrd was yet at the harpsichord, but ceased to touch +the keys when her step-daughter, followed by Darden's Audrey, entered the +room. The master of Westover, seated beside his young wife, looked quickly +up, arched his brows and turned somewhat red, as his daughter, with her +gliding step, crossed the room to greet him. Audrey, obeying a motion of +her companion's hand, waited beside a window, in the shadow of its heavy +curtains. "Evelyn," quoth the Colonel, rising from his chair and taking +his daughter's hand, "this is scarce befitting"—</p> + +<p>Evelyn stayed his further speech by an appealing gesture. "Let me speak +with you, sir. No, no, madam, do not go! There is naught the world might +not hear."</p> + +<p>Audrey waited in the shadow by the window, and her mind was busy, for she +had her plans to lay. Sometimes Evelyn's low voice, sometimes the +Colonel's deeper tones, pierced her understanding; when this was so she +moved restlessly, wishing that it were night and she away. Presently she +began to observe the room, which was richly furnished. There were garlands +upon the ceiling; a table near her was set with many curious ornaments; +upon a tall cabinet stood a bowl of yellow flowers; the lady at the +harpsichord wore a dress to match the flowers, while Evelyn's dress was +white; beyond them was a pier glass finer than the one at Fair View.</p> + +<p>This glass reflected the doorway, and thus she was the first to see the +man from whom she had fled. "Mr. Marmaduke Haward, massa!" announced the +servant who had ushered him through the hall.</p> + +<p>Haward, hat in hand, entered the room. The three beside the harpsichord +arose; the one at the window slipped deeper into the shadow of the +curtains, and so escaped the visitor's observation. The latter bowed to +the master of Westover, who ceremoniously returned the salute, and to the +two ladies, who curtsied to him, but opened not their lips.</p> + +<p>"This, sir," said Colonel Byrd, holding himself very erect, "is an +unexpected honor."</p> + +<p>"Rather, sir, an unwished-for intrusion," answered the other. "I beg you +to believe that I will trouble you for no longer time than matters +require."</p> + +<p>The Colonel bit his lip. "There was a time when Mr. Haward was most +welcome to my house. If 't is no longer thus"—</p> + +<p>Haward made a gesture of assent. "I know that the time is past. I am sorry +that 't is so. I had thought, sir, to find you alone. Am I to speak before +these ladies?"</p> + +<p>The Colonel hesitated, but Evelyn, leaving Madam Byrd beside the +harpsichord, came to her father's side. That gentleman glanced at her +keenly. There was no agitation to mar the pensive loveliness of her face; +her eyes were steadfast, the lips faintly smiling. "If what you have to +say concerns my daughter," said the Colonel, "she will listen to you here +and now."</p> + +<p>For a few moments dead silence; then Haward spoke, slowly, weighing his +words: "I am on my way, Colonel Byrd, to the country beyond the falls. I +have entered upon a search, and I know not when it will be ended or when I +shall return. Westover lay in my path, and there was that which needed to +be said to you, sir, and to your daughter. When it has been said I will +take my leave." He paused; then, with a quickened breath, again took up +his task: "Some months ago, sir, I sought and obtained your permission to +make my suit to your daughter for her hand. The lady, worthy of a better +mate, hath done well in saying no to my importunity. I accept her +decision, withdraw my suit, wish her all happiness." He bowed again +formally; then stood with lowered eyes, his hand griping the edge of the +table.</p> + +<p>"I am aware that my daughter has declined to entertain your proposals," +said the Colonel coldly, "and I approve her determination. Is this all, +sir?"</p> + +<p>"It should, perhaps, be all," answered Haward. "And yet"—He turned to +Evelyn, snow-white, calm, with that faint smile upon her face. "May I +speak to you?" he said, in a scarcely audible voice.</p> + +<p>She looked at him, with parting lips.</p> + +<p>"Here and now," the Colonel answered for her. "Be brief, sir."</p> + +<p>The master of Fair View found it hard to speak, "Evelyn"—he began, and +paused, biting his lip. It was very quiet in the familiar parlor, quiet +and dim, and drawing toward eventide. The lady at the harpsichord chanced +to let fall her hand upon the keys. They gave forth a deep and melancholy +sound that vibrated through the room. The chord was like an odor in its +subtle power to bring crowding memories. To Haward, and perhaps to Evelyn, +scenes long shifted, long faded, took on fresh colors, glowed anew, +replaced the canvas of the present. For years the two had been friends; +later months had seen him her avowed suitor. In this very room he had bent +over her at the harpsichord when the song was finished; had sat beside her +in the deep window seat while the stars brightened, before the candles +were brought in.</p> + +<p>Now, for a moment, he stood with his hand over his eyes; then, letting it +fall, he spoke with firmness. "Evelyn," he said, "if I have wronged you, +forgive me. Our friendship that has been I lay at your feet: forget it and +forget me. You are noble, generous, high of mind: I pray you to let no +remembrance of me trouble your life. May it be happy,—may all good attend +you.... Evelyn, good-by!"</p> + +<p>He kneeled and lifted to his lips the hem of her dress. As he rose, and +bowing low would have taken formal leave of the two beside her, she put +out her hand, staying him by the gesture and the look upon her colorless +face. "You spoke of a search," she said. "What search?"</p> + +<p>Haward raised his eyes to hers that were quiet, almost smiling, though +darkly shadowed by past pain. "I will tell you, Evelyn. Why should not I +tell you this, also?... Four days ago, upon my return to Fair View, I +sought and found the woman that I love,—the woman that, by all that is +best within me, I love worthily! She shrank from me; she listened not; she +shut eye and ear, and fled. And I,—confident fool!—I thought, 'To-morrow +I will make her heed,' and so let her go. When the morrow came she was +gone indeed." He halted, made an involuntary gesture of distress, then +went on, rapidly and with agitation: "There was a boat missing; she was +seen to pass Jamestown, rowing steadily up the river. But for this I +should have thought—I should have feared—God knows what I should not +have feared! As it is I have searchers out, both on this side and on the +southern shore. An Indian and myself have come up river in his canoe. We +have not found her yet. If it be so that she has passed unseen through the +settled country, I will seek her toward the mountains."</p> + +<p>"And when you have found her, what then, sir?" cried the Colonel, tapping +his snuffbox.</p> + +<p>"Then, sir," answered Haward with hauteur, "she will become my wife."</p> + +<p>He turned again to Evelyn, but when he spoke it was less to her than to +himself. "It grows late," he said. "Night is coming on, and at the fall of +the leaf the nights are cold. One sleeping in the forest would suffer ... +if she sleeps. I have not slept since she was missed. I must begone"—</p> + +<p>"It grows late indeed," replied Evelyn, with lifted face and a voice low, +clear, and sweet as a silver bell,—"so late that there is a rose flush in +the sky beyond the river. Look! you may see it through yonder window."</p> + +<p>She touched his hand and made him look to the far window. "Who is it that +stands in the shadow, hiding her face in her hands?" he asked at last, +beneath his breath.</p> + +<p>"'Tis Audrey," answered Evelyn, in the same clear, sweet, and passionless +tones. She took her hand from his and addressed herself to her father. +"Dear sir," she said, "to my mind no quarrel exists between us and this +gentleman. There is no reason"—she drew herself up—"no reason why we +should not extend to Mr. Marmaduke Haward the hospitality of Westover." +She smiled and leaned against her father's arm. "And now let us +three,—you and Maria, whom I protest you keep too long at the +harpsichord, and I, who love this hour of the evening,—let us go walk in +the garden and see what flowers the frost has spared."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI<br>SANCTUARY</h2> + + +<p>"Child," demanded Haward, "why did you frighten me so?" He took her hands +from her face, and drew her from the shadow of the curtain into the +evening glow. Her hands lay passive in his; her eyes held the despair of a +runner spent and fallen, with the goal just in sight. "Would have had me +go again to the mountains for you, little maid?" Haward's voice trembled +with the delight of his ended quest.</p> + +<p>"Call me not by that name," Audrey said. "One that is dead used it."</p> + +<p>"I will call you love," he answered,—"my love, my dear love, my true +love!"</p> + +<p>"Nor that either," she said, and caught her breath. "I know not why you +should speak to me so."</p> + +<p>"What must I call you then?" he asked, with the smile still upon his lips.</p> + +<p>"A stranger and a dreamer," she answered. "Go your ways, and I will go +mine."</p> + +<p>There was silence in the room, broken by Haward. "For us two one path," he +said; "why, Audrey, Audrey, Audrey!" Suddenly he caught her in his arms. +"My love!" he whispered—"my love Audrey! my wife Audrey!" His kisses +rained upon her face. She lay quiet until the storm had passed; then freed +herself, looked at him, and shook her head.</p> + +<p>"You killed him," she said, "that one whom I—worshiped. It was not well +done of you.... There was a dream I had last summer. I told it to—to the +one you killed. Now part of the dream has come true.... You never were! +Oh, death had been easy pain, for it had left memory, hope! But you never +were! you never were!"</p> + +<p>"I am!" cried Haward ardently. "I am your lover! I am he who says to you, +Forget the past, forget and forgive, and come with me out of your +dreaming. Come, Audrey, come, come, from the dim woods into the +sunshine,—into the sunshine of the garden! The night you went away I was +there, Audrey, under the stars. The paths were deep in leaves, the flowers +dead and blackening; but the trees will be green again, and the flowers +bloom! When we are wed we will walk there, bringing the spring with us"—</p> + +<p>"When we are wed!" she answered. "That will never be."</p> + +<p>"It will be this week," he said, smiling. "Dear dryad, who have no friends +to make a pother, no dowry to lug with you, no gay wedding raiment to +provide; who have only to curtsy farewell to the trees and put your hand +in mine"—</p> + +<p>She drew away her hands that he had caught in his, and pressed them above +her heart; then looked restlessly from window to door. "Will you let me +pass, sir?" she asked at last. "I am tired. I have to think what I am to +do, where I am to go."</p> + +<p>"Where you are to go!" he exclaimed. "Why, back to the glebe house, and I +will follow, and the minister shall marry us. Child, child! where else +should you go? What else should you do?"</p> + +<p>"God knows!" cried the girl, with sudden and extraordinary passion. "But +not that! Oh, he is gone,—that other who would have understood!"</p> + +<p>Haward let fall his outstretched hand, drew back a pace or two, and stood +with knitted brows. The room was very quiet; only Audrey breathed +hurriedly, and through the open window came the sudden, lonely cry of some +river bird. The note was repeated ere Haward spoke again.</p> + +<p>"I will try to understand," he said slowly. "Audrey, is it Evelyn that +comes between us?"</p> + +<p>Audrey passed her hand over her eyes and brow and pushed back her heavy +hair. "Oh, I have wronged her!" she cried. "I have taken her portion. If +once she was cruel to me, yet to-day she kissed me, her tears fell upon my +face. That which I have robbed her of I want not.... Oh, my heart, my +heart!"</p> + +<p>"'T is I, not you, who have wronged this lady," said Haward, after a +pause. "I have, I hope, her forgiveness. Is this the fault that keeps you +from me?"</p> + +<p>Audrey answered not, but leaned against the window and looked at the cloud +in the south that was now an amethyst island. Haward went closer to her. +"Is it," he said, "is it because in my mind I sinned against you, Audrey, +because I brought upon you insult and calumny? Child, child! I am of the +world. That I did all this is true, but now I would not purchase endless +bliss with your least harm, and your name is more to me than my own. +Forgive me, Audrey, forgive the past." He bowed his head as he stood +before her.</p> + +<p>Audrey gazed at him with wide, dry eyes whose lids burned. A hot color had +risen to her cheek; at her heart was a heavier aching, a fuller knowledge +of loss. "There is no past," she said. "It was a dream and a lie. There is +only to-day ... <i>and you are a stranger</i>."</p> + +<p>The purple cloud across the river began to darken; there came again the +lonely cry of the bird; in the house quarter the slaves were singing as +they went about their work. Suddenly Audrey laughed. It was sad laughter, +as mocking and elfin and mirthless a sound as was ever heard in autumn +twilight. "A stranger!" she repeated. "I know you by your name, and that +is all. You are Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, while I—I am Darden's +Audrey!"</p> + +<p>She curtsied to him, so changed, so defiant, so darkly beautiful, that he +caught his breath to behold her. "You are all the world to me!" he cried. +"Audrey, Audrey! Look at me, listen to me!"</p> + +<p>He would have approached her, would have seized her hand, but she waved +him back. "Oh, the world! We must think of that! What would they say, the +Governor and the Council, and the people who go to balls, and all the +great folk you write to in England,—what would they say if you married +me? Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, the richest man in Virginia! Mr. +Marmaduke Haward, the man of taste, the scholar, the fine gentleman, proud +of his name, jealous of his honor! And Darden's Audrey, who hath gone +barefoot on errands to most houses in Fair View parish! Darden's Audrey, +whom the preacher pointed out to the people in Bruton church! They would +call you mad; they would give you cap and bells; they would say, 'Does he +think that he can make her one of us?—her that we turned and looked long +upon in Bruton church, when the preacher called her by a right name'"—</p> + +<p>"Child, for God's sake!" cried Haward.</p> + +<p>"There is the lady, too,—the lady who left us here together! We must not +forget to think of her,—of her whose picture you showed me at Fair View, +who was to be your wife, who took me by the hand that night at the +Palace. There is reproach in her eyes. Ah, do you not think the look might +grow, might come to haunt us? And yourself! Oh, sooner or later regret and +weariness would come to dwell at Fair View! The lady who walks in the +garden here is a fine lady and a fit mate for a fine gentleman, and I am a +beggar maid and no man's mate, unless it be Hugon's. Hugon, who has sworn +to have me in the house he has built! Hugon, who would surely kill you"—</p> + +<p>Haward caught her by the wrists, bruising them in his grasp. "Audrey, +Audrey! Let these fancies be! If we love each other"—</p> + +<p>"If!" she echoed, and pulled her hands away. Her voice was strange, her +eyes were bright and strained, her face was burning. "But if not, what +then? And how should I love you who are a stranger to me? Oh, a generous +stranger who, where he thinks he has done a wrong, would repair the +damage." Her voice broke; she flung back her head and pressed her hands +against her throat. "You have done me no wrong," she said. "If you had, I +would forgive you, would say good-by to you, would go my way.... as I am +going now. Let me pass, sir!"</p> + +<p>Haward barred her way. "A stranger!" he said, beneath his breath. "Is +there then no tie between shadow and substance, dream and reality?"</p> + +<p>"None!" answered Audrey, with defiance. "Why did you come to the +mountains, eleven years ago? What business was it of yours whether I lived +or died? Oh, God was not kind to send you there!"</p> + +<p>"You loved me once!" he cried. "Audrey, Audrey, have I slain your love?"</p> + +<p>"It was never yours!" she answered passionately, "It was that +other's,—that other whom I imagined, who never lived outside my dream! +Oh, let me pass, let me begone! You are cruel to keep me. I—I am so +tired."</p> + +<p>White to the lips, Haward moved backward a step or two, but yet stood +between her and the door. Moments passed before he spoke; then, "Will you +become my wife?" he asked, in a studiously quiet voice. "Marry me, Audrey, +loving me not. Love may come in time, but give me now the right to be your +protector, the power to clear your name."</p> + +<p>She looked at him with a strange smile, a fine gesture of scorn. "Marry +you, loving you not! That will I never do. Protector! That is a word I +have grown to dislike. My name! It is a slight thing. What matter if folk +look askance when it is only Darden's Audrey? And there are those whom an +ill fame does not frighten. The schoolmaster will still give me books to +read, and tell me what they mean. He will not care, nor the drunken +minister, nor Hugon.... I am going back to them, to Mistress Deborah and +the glebe house. She will beat me, and the minister will curse, but they +will take me in.... I will work very hard, and never look to Fair View. I +see now that I could never reach the mountains." She began to move toward +the door. He kept with her, step for step, his eyes upon her face. "You +will come no more to the glebe house," she said. "If you do, though the +mountains be far the river is near."</p> + +<p>He put his hand upon the latch of the door. "You will rest here to-night?" +he asked gently, as of a child. "I will speak to Colonel Byrd; to-morrow +he will send some one with you down the river. It will be managed for you, +and as you wish. You will rest to-night? You go from me now to your room, +Audrey?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered, and thought she spoke the truth.</p> + +<p>"I love you,—love you greatly," he continued. "I will conquer,—conquer +and atone! But now, poor tired one, I let you go. Sleep, Audrey, sleep and +dream again." He held open the door for her, and stood aside with bent +head.</p> + +<p>She passed him; then turned, and after a moment of silence spoke to him +with a strange and sorrowful stateliness. "You think, sir," she said, +"that I have something to forgive?"</p> + +<p>"Much," he answered,—"very much, Audrey."</p> + +<p>"And you wish my forgiveness?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, Audrey, your forgiveness and your love."</p> + +<p>"The first is mine to give," she said. "If you wish it, take it. I forgive +you, sir. Good-by."</p> + +<p>"Good-night," he answered. "Audrey, good-night."</p> + +<p>"Good-by," she repeated, and slowly mounting the broad staircase passed +from his sight.</p> + +<p>It was dark in the upper hall, but there was a great glimmer of sky, an +opal space to mark a window that gave upon the sloping lawn and pallid +river. The pale light seemed to beckon. Audrey went not on to her attic +room, but to the window, and in doing so passed a small half-open door. As +she went by she glanced through the aperture, and saw that there was a +narrow stairway, built for the servants' use, winding down to a door in +the western face of the house.</p> + +<p>Once at the open window, she leaned forth and looked to the east and the +west. The hush of the evening had fallen; the light was faint; above the +last rose flush a great star palely shone. All was quiet, deserted; +nothing stirring on the leaf-carpeted slope; no sound save the distant +singing of the slaves. The river lay bare from shore to shore, save where +the Westover landing stretched raggedly into the flood. To its piles small +boats were tied, but there seemed to be no boatmen; wharf and river +appeared as barren of movement and life as did the long expanse of dusky +lawn.</p> + +<p>"I will not sleep in this house to-night," said Audrey to herself. "If I +can reach those boats unseen, I will go alone down the river. That will be +well. I am not wanted here."</p> + +<p>When she arrived at the foot of the narrow stair, she slipped through the +door into a world all dusk and quiet, where was none to observe her, none +to stay her. Crouching by the wall she crept to the front of the house, +stole around the stone steps where, that morning, she had sat in the +sunshine, and came to the parlor windows. Close beneath one was a block of +stone. After a moment's hesitation she stood upon this, and, pressing her +face against the window pane, looked her last upon the room she had so +lately left. A low fire upon the hearth, darkly illumined it: he sat by +the table, with his arms outstretched and his head bowed upon them. Audrey +dropped from the stone into the ever growing shadows, crossed the lawn, +slipped below the bank, and took her way along the river edge to the long +landing. When she was half way down its length, she saw that there was a +canoe which she had not observed and that it held one man, who sat with +his back to the shore. With a quick breath of dismay she stood still, then +setting her lips went on; for the more she thought of having to see those +two again, Evelyn and the master of Fair View, the stronger grew her +determination to commence her backward journey alone and at once.</p> + +<p>She had almost reached the end of the wharf when the man in the boat stood +up and faced her. It was Hugon. The dusk was not so great but that the +two, the hunter and his quarry, could see each other plainly. The latter +turned with the sob of a stricken deer, but the impulse to flight lasted +not. Where might she go? Run blindly, north or east or west, through the +fields of Westover? That would shortly lead to cowering in some wood or +swamp while the feet of the searchers came momently nearer. Return to the +house, stand at bay once more? With all her strength of soul she put this +course from her.</p> + +<p>The quick strife in her mind ended in her moving slowly, as though drawn +by an invisible hand, to the edge of the wharf, above Hugon and his canoe. +She did not wonder to see him there. Every word that Haward had spoken in +the Westover parlor was burned upon her brain, and he had said that he had +come up river with an Indian. This was the Indian, and to hunt her down +those two had joined forces.</p> + +<p>"Ma'm'selle Audrey," whispered the trader, staring as at a spirit.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Jean Hugon," she answered, and looked down the glimmering reaches of +the James, then at the slender canoe and the deep and dark water that +flowed between the piles. In the slight craft, with that strong man the +river for ally, she were safe as in a tower of brass.</p> + +<p>"I am going home, Jean," she said. "Will you row me down the river +to-night, and tell me as we go your stories of the woods and your father's +glories in France? If you speak of other things I will drown myself, for +I am tired of hearing them. In the morning we will stop at some landing +for food, and then go on again. Let us hasten"—</p> + +<p>The trader moistened his lips. "And him," he demanded hoarsely,—"that +Englishman, that Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, who came to me and said, +'Half-breed, seeing that an Indian and a bloodhound have gifts in common, +we will take up the quest together. Find her, though it be to lose her to +me that same hour! And look that in our travels you try no foul play, for +this time I go armed,'—what of him?"</p> + +<p>Audrey waved her hand toward the house she had left. "He is there. Let us +make haste." As she spoke she descended the steps, and, evading his eager +hand, stepped into the canoe. He looked at her doubtfully, half afraid, so +strange was it to see her sitting there, so like a spirit from the land +beyond the sun, a <i>revenant</i> out of one of old Pierre's wild tales, had +she come upon him. With quickened breath he loosed the canoe from its +mooring and took up the paddle. A moment, and they were quit of the +Westover landing and embarked upon a strange journey, during which hour +after hour Hugon made wild love, and hour after hour Audrey opened not her +lips. As the canoe went swiftly down the flood, lights sprung up in the +house it was leaving behind. A man, rising from his chair with a heavy +sigh, walked to the parlor window and looked out upon lawn and sky and +river, but, so dark had it grown, saw not the canoe; thought only how +deserted, how desolate and lonely, was the scene.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;'> + +<p>In Williamsburgh as at Westover the autumn was dying, the winter was +coming, but neither farewell nor greeting perturbed the cheerful town. To +and fro through Palace and Nicholson and Duke of Gloucester streets were +blown the gay leaves; of early mornings white frosts lay upon the earth +like fairy snows, but midday and afternoon were warm and bright. Mistress +Stagg's garden lay to the south, and in sheltered corners bloomed +marigolds and asters, while a vine, red-leafed and purple-berried, made a +splendid mantle for the playhouse wall.</p> + +<p>Within the theatre a rehearsal of "Tamerlane" was in progress. Turk and +Tartar spoke their minds, and Arpasia's death cry clave the air. The +victorious Emperor passed final sentence upon Bajazet; then, chancing to +glance toward the wide door, suddenly abdicated his throne, and in the +character of Mr. Charles Stagg blew a kiss to his wife, who, applauding +softly, stood in the opening that was framed by the red vine.</p> + +<p>"Have you done, my dear?" she cried. "Then pray come with me a moment!"</p> + +<p>The two crossed the garden, and entered the grape arbor where in September +Mistress Stagg had entertained her old friend, my Lady Squander's sometime +waiting-maid. Now the vines were bare of leaves, and the sunshine +streaming through lay in a flood upon the earth. Mary Stagg's chair was +set in that golden warmth, and upon the ground beside it had fallen some +bright sewing. The silken stuff touched a coarser cloth, and that was the +skirt of Darden's Audrey, who sat upon the ground asleep, with her arm +across the chair, and her head upon her arm.</p> + +<p>"How came she here?" demanded Mr. Stagg at last, when he had given a +tragedy start, folded his arms, and bent his brows.</p> + +<p>"She ran away," answered Mistress Stagg, in a low voice, drawing her +spouse to a little distance from the sleeping figure. "She ran away from +the glebe house and went up the river, wanting—the Lord knows why!—to +reach the mountains. Something happened to bring her to her senses, and +she turned back, and falling in with that trader, Jean Hugon, he brought +her to Jamestown in his canoe. She walked from there to the glebe +house,—that was yesterday. The minister was away, and Deborah, being in +one of her passions, would not let her in. She's that hard, is Deborah, +when she's angry, harder than the nether millstone! The girl lay in the +woods last night. I vow I'll never speak again to Deborah, not though +there were twenty Baths behind us!" Mistress Stagg's voice began to +tremble. "I was sitting sewing in that chair, now listening to your voices +in the theatre, and now harking back in my mind to old days when we +weren't prosperous like we are now.... And at last I got to thinking of +the babe, Charles, and how, if she had lived and grown up, I might ha' sat +there sewing a pretty gown for my own child, and how happy I would have +made her. I tried to see her standing beside me, laughing, pretty as a +rose, waiting for me to take the last stitch. It got so real that I raised +my head to tell my dead child how I was going to knot her ribbons, ... and +there was this girl looking at me!"</p> + +<p>"What, Millamant! a tear, my soul?" cried the theatric Mr. Stagg.</p> + +<p>Millamant wiped away the tear. "I'll tell you what she said. She just +said: 'You were kind to me when I was here before, but if you tell me to +go away I'll go. You need not say it loudly.' And then she almost fell, +and I put out my arm and caught her; and presently she was on her knees +there beside me, with her head in my lap.... And then we talked together +for a while. It was mostly me—she didn't say much—but, Charles, the +girl's done no wrong, no more than our child that's dead and in Christ's +bosom. She was so tired and worn. I got some milk and gave it to her, and +directly she went to sleep like a baby, with her head on my knee."</p> + +<p>The two went closer, and looked down upon the slender form and still, dark +face. The sleeper's rest was deep. A tress of hair, fallen from its +fastening, swept her cheek; Mistress Stagg, stooping, put it in place +behind the small ear, then straightened herself and pressed her Mirabell's +arm.</p> + +<p>"Well, my love," quoth that gentleman, clearing his throat. "'Great minds, +like Heaven, are pleased in doing good.' My Millamant, declare your +thoughts!"</p> + +<p>Mistress Stagg twisted her apron hem between thumb and finger. "She's more +than eighteen, Charles, and anyhow, if I understand it rightly, she was +never really bound to Darden. The law has no hold on her, for neither +vestry nor Orphan Court had anything to do with placing her with Darden +and Deborah. She's free to stay."</p> + +<p>"Free to stay?" queried Charles, and took a prodigious pinch of snuff. "To +stay with us?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" asked his wife, and stole a persuasive hand into that of her +helpmate. "Oh, Charles, my heart went out to her! I made her so beautiful +once, and I could do it again and all the time. Don't you think her +prettier than was Jane Day? And she's graceful, and that quick to learn! +You're such a teacher, Charles, and I know she'd do her best.... Perhaps, +after all, there would be no need to send away to Bristol for one to take +Jane's place."</p> + +<p>"H'm!" said the great man thoughtfully, and bit a curl of Tamerlane's vast +periwig. "'Tis true I esteem her no dullard," he at last vouchsafed; "true +also that she hath beauty. In fine, solely to give thee pleasure, my +Millamant, I will give the girl a trial no later than this very +afternoon."</p> + +<p>Audrey stirred in her sleep, spoke Haward's name, and sank again to rest. +Mr. Stagg took a second pinch of snuff. "There's the scandal, my love. His +Excellency the Governor's ball, Mr. Eliot's sermon, Mr. Marmaduke Haward's +illness and subsequent duels with Mr. Everard and Mr. Travis, are in no +danger of being forgotten. If this girl ever comes to the speaking of an +epilogue, there'll be in Williamsburgh a nine days' wonder indeed!"</p> + +<p>"The wonder would not hurt," said Mistress Stagg simply.</p> + +<p>"Far from it, my dear," agreed Mr. Stagg, and closing his snuffbox, went +with a thoughtful brow back to the playhouse and the Tartar camp.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII<br>THE MISSION OF TRUELOVE</h2> + + +<p>Mistress Truelove Taberer, having read in a very clear and gentle voice +the Sermon on the Mount to those placid Friends, Tobias and Martha +Taberer, closed the book, and went about her household affairs with a +quiet step, but a heart that somehow fluttered at every sound without the +door. To still it she began to repeat to herself words she had read: +"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God +... blessed are the peacemakers"—</p> + +<p>Winter sunshine poured in at the windows and door. Truelove, kneeling to +wipe a fleck of dust from her wheel, suddenly, with a catch of her breath +and a lifting of her brown eyes, saw in the Scripture she had been +repeating a meaning and application hitherto unexpected. "The peacemaker +... that is one who makes peace,—in the world, between countries, in +families, yea, in the heart of one alone. Did he not say, last time he +came, that with me he forgot this naughty world and all its strife; that +if I were always with him"—</p> + +<p>Truelove's countenance became exalted, her gaze fixed. "If it were a +call"—she murmured, and for a moment bowed her head upon the wheel; then +rose from her knees and went softly through the morning tasks. When they +were over, she took down from a peg and put on a long gray cloak and a +gray hood that most becomingly framed her wild-rose face; then came and +stood before her father and mother. "I am going forth to walk by the +creekside," she said, in her sweet voice. "It may be that I will meet +Angus MacLean."</p> + +<p>"If thee does," answered one tranquil Friend, "thee may tell him that upon +next seventh day meeting will be held in this house."</p> + +<p>"Truly," said the other tranquil Friend, "my heart is drawn toward that +young man. His mind hath been filled with anger and resistance and the +turmoil of the world. It were well if he found peace at last."</p> + +<p>"Surely it were well," agreed Truelove sweetly, and went out into the +crisp winter weather.</p> + +<p>The holly, the pine, and the cedar made green places in the woods, and the +multitude of leaves underfoot were pleasant to tread. Clouds were in the +sky, but the spaces between were of serenest blue, and in the sunshine the +creek flashed diamonds. Truelove stood upon the bank, and, with her hand +shading her eyes, watched MacLean rowing toward her up the creek.</p> + +<p>When he had fastened his boat and taken her hand, the two walked soberly +on beside the sparkling water until they came to a rude seat built beneath +an oak-tree, to which yet clung a number of brown leaves. Truelove sat +down, drawing her cloak about her, for, though the sun shone, the air was +keen. MacLean took off his coat, and kneeling put it beneath her feet. He +laughed at her protest. "Why, these winds are not bleak!" he said. "This +land knows no true and honest cold. In my country, night after night have +I lain in snow with only my plaid for cover, and heard the spirits call in +the icy wind, the kelpie shriek beneath the frozen loch. I listened; then +shut my eyes and dreamed warm of glory and—true love."</p> + +<p>"Thy coat is new," said Truelove, with downcast eyes. "The earth will +stain the good cloth."</p> + +<p>MacLean laughed. "Then will I wear it stained, as 'tis said a courtier +once wore his cloak."</p> + +<p>"There is lace upon it," said Truelove timidly.</p> + +<p>MacLean turned with a smile, and laid a fold of her cloak against his dark +cheek. "Ah, the lace offends you,—offends thee,—Truelove. Why, 'tis but +to mark me a gentleman again! Last night, at Williamsburgh, I supped with +Haward and some gentlemen of Virginia. He would have me don this suit. I +might not disoblige my friend."</p> + +<p>"Thee loves it," said Truelove severely. "Thee loves the color, and the +feel of the fine cloth, and the ruffles at thy wrists."</p> + +<p>The Highlander laughed. "Why, suppose that I do! Look, Truelove, how brave +and red are those holly berries, and how green and fantastically twisted +the leaves! The sky is a bright blue, and the clouds are silver; and think +what these woods will be when the winter is past! One might do worse, +meseems, than to be of God's taste in such matters."</p> + +<p>Truelove sighed, and drew her gray cloak more closely around her.</p> + +<p>"Thee is in spirits to-day, Angus MacLean," she said, and sighed once +more.</p> + +<p>"I am free," he answered. "The man within me walks no longer with a +hanging head."</p> + +<p>"And what will thee do with thy freedom?"</p> + +<p>The Highlander made no immediate reply, but, chin in hand, studied the +drifts of leaves and the slow-moving water. "I am free," he said at last. +"I wear to-day the dress of a gentleman. I could walk without shame into +a hall that I know, and find there strangers, standers in dead men's +shoon, brothers who want me not,—who would say behind their hands, 'He +has been twelve years a slave, and the world has changed since he went +away!' ... I will not trouble them."</p> + +<p>His face was as sombre as when Truelove first beheld it. Suddenly, and +against her will, tears came to her eyes. "I am glad—I and my father and +mother and Ephraim—that thee goes not overseas, Angus MacLean," said the +dove's voice. "We would have thee—I and my father and mother and +Ephraim—we would have thee stay in Virginia."</p> + +<p>"I am to stay," he answered. "I have felt no shame in taking a loan from +my friend, for I shall repay it. He hath lands up river in a new-made +county. I am to seat them for him, and there will be my home. I will build +a house and name it Duart; and if there are hills they shall be Dun-da-gu +and Grieg, and the sound of winter torrents shall be to me as the sound of +the waters of Mull."</p> + +<p>Truelove caught her breath. "Thee will be lonely in those forests."</p> + +<p>"I am used to loneliness."</p> + +<p>"There be Indians on the frontier. They burn houses and carry away +prisoners. And there are wolves and dangerous beasts"—</p> + +<p>"I am used to danger."</p> + +<p>Truelove's voice trembled more and more. "And thee must dwell among +negroes and rude men, with none to comfort thy soul, none to whom thee can +speak in thy dark hours?"</p> + +<p>"Before now I have spoken to the tobacco I have planted, the trees I have +felled, the swords and muskets I have sold."</p> + +<p>"But at last thee came and spoke to me!"</p> + +<p>"Ay," he answered. "There have been times when you saved my soul alive. +Now, in the forest, in my house of logs, when the day's work is done, and +I sit upon my doorstep and begin to hear the voices of the past crying to +me like the spirits in the valley of Glensyte, I will think of you +instead."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" cried Truelove. "Speak to me instead, and I will speak to thee ... +sitting upon the doorstep of our house, when our day's work is done!"</p> + +<p>Her hood falling back showed her face, clear pink, with dewy eyes. The +carnation deepening from brow to throat, and the tears trembling upon her +long lashes, she suddenly hid her countenance in her gray cloak. MacLean, +on his knees beside her, drew away the folds. "Truelove, Truelove! do you +know what you have said?"</p> + +<p>Truelove put her hand upon her heart. "Oh, I fear," she whispered, "I fear +that I have asked thee, Angus MacLean, to let me be—to let me be—thy +wife."</p> + +<p>The water shone, and the holly berries were gay, and a robin redbreast +sang a cheerful song. Beneath the rustling oak-tree there was ardent +speech on the part of MacLean, who found in his mistress a listener sweet +and shy, and not garrulous of love. But her eyes dwelt upon him and her +hand rested at ease within his clasp, and she liked to hear him speak of +the home they were to make in the wilderness. It was to be thus, and thus, +and thus! With impassioned eloquence the Gael adorned the shrine and +advanced the merit of the divinity, and the divinity listened with a +smile, a blush, a tear, and now and then a meek rebuke.</p> + +<p>When an hour had passed, the sun went under a cloud and the air grew +colder. The bird had flown away, but in the rising wind the dead leaves +rustled loudly. MacLean and Truelove, leaving their future of honorable +toil, peace of mind, and enduring affection, came back to the present.</p> + +<p>"I must away," said the Highlander. "Haward waits for me at Williamsburgh. +To-morrow, dearer to me than Deirdre to Naos! I will come again."</p> + +<p>Hand in hand the two walked slowly toward that haunt of peace, Truelove's +quiet home. "And Marmaduke Haward awaits thee at Williamsburgh?" said the +Quakeress. "Last third day he met my father and me on the Fair View road, +and checked his horse and spoke to us. He is changed."</p> + +<p>"Changed indeed!" quoth the Highlander. "A fire burns him, a wind drives +him; and yet to the world, last night"—He paused.</p> + +<p>"Last night?" said Truelove.</p> + +<p>"He had a large company at Marot's ordinary," went on the other. "There +were the Governor and his fellow Councilors, with others of condition or +fashion. He was the very fine gentleman, the perfect host, free, smiling, +full of wit. But I had been with him before they came. I knew the fires +beneath."</p> + +<p>The two walked in silence for a few moments, when MacLean spoke again: "He +drank to her. At the last, when this lady had been toasted, and that, he +rose and drank to 'Audrey,' and threw his wineglass over his shoulder. He +hath done what he could. The world knows that he loves her honorably, +seeks her vainly in marriage. Something more I know. He gathered the +company together last evening that, as his guests, the highest officers, +the finest gentlemen of the colony, should go with him to the theatre to +see her for the first time as a player. Being what they were, and his +guests, and his passion known, he would insure for her, did she well or +did she ill, order, interest, decent applause." MacLean broke off with a +short, excited laugh. "It was not needed,—his mediation. But he could not +know that; no, nor none of us. True, Stagg and his wife had bragged of the +powers of this strangely found actress of theirs that they were training +to do great things, but folk took it for a trick of their trade. Oh, there +was curiosity enough, but 'twas on Haward's account.... Well, he drank to +her, standing at the head of the table at Marot's ordinary, and the glass +crashed over his shoulder, and we all went to the play."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes!" cried Truelove, breathing quickly, and quite forgetting how +great a vanity was under discussion.</p> + +<p>"'Twas 'Tamerlane,' the play that this traitorous generation calls for +every 5th of November. It seems that the Governor—a Whig as rank as +Argyle—had ordered it again for this week. 'Tis a cursed piece of slander +that pictures the Prince of Orange a virtuous Emperor, his late Majesty of +France a hateful tyrant. But for Haward, whose guest I was, I had not sat +there with closed lips. I had sprung to my feet and given those +flatterers, those traducers, the lie! The thing taunted and angered until +she entered. Then I forgot."</p> + +<p>"And she—and Audrey?"</p> + +<p>"Arpasia was her name in the play. She entered late; her death came before +the end; there was another woman who had more to do. It all mattered not, +I have seen a great actress."</p> + +<p>"Darden's Audrey!" said Truelove, in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"That at the very first; not afterwards," answered MacLean. "She was +dressed, they say, as upon the night at the Palace, that first night of +Haward's fever. When she came upon the stage, there was a murmur like the +wind in the leaves. She was most beautiful,—'beauteous in hatred,' as the +Sultan in the play called her,—dark and wonderful, with angry eyes. For a +little while she must stand in silence, and in these moments men and women +stared at her, then turned and looked at Haward. But when she spoke we +forgot that she was Darden's Audrey."</p> + +<p>MacLean laughed again. "When the play was ended,—or rather, when her part +in it was done,—the house did shake so with applause that Stagg had to +remonstrate. There's naught talked of to-day in Williamsburgh but Arpasia; +and when I came down Palace Street this morning, there was a great crowd +about the playhouse door. Stagg might sell his tickets for to-night at a +guinea apiece. 'Venice Preserved' is the play."</p> + +<p>"And Marmaduke Haward,—what of him?" asked Truelove softly.</p> + +<p>"He is English," said MacLean, after a pause. "He can make of his face a +smiling mask, can keep his voice as even and as still as the pool that is +a mile away from the fierce torrent its parent. It is a gift they have, +the English. I remember at Preston"—He broke off with a sigh. "There will +be an end some day, I suppose. He will win her at last to his way of +thinking; and having gained her, he will be happy. And yet to my mind +there is something unfortunate, strange and fatal, in the aspect of this +girl. It hath always been so. She is such a one as the Lady in Green. On a +Halloween night, standing in the twelfth rig, a man might hear her voice +upon the wind. I would old Murdoch of Coll, who hath the second sight, +were here: he could tell the ending of it all."</p> + +<p>An hour later found the Highlander well upon his way to Williamsburgh, +walking through wood and field with his long stride, his heart warm within +him, his mind filled with the thought of Truelove and the home that he +would make for her in the rude, upriver country. Since the two had sat +beneath the oak, clouds had gathered, obscuring the sun. It was now gray +and cold in the forest, and presently snow began to fall, slowly, in large +flakes, between the still trees.</p> + +<p>MacLean looked with whimsical anxiety at several white particles upon his +suit of fine cloth, claret-colored and silver-laced, and quickened his +pace. But the snow was but the lazy vanguard of a storm, and so few and +harmless were the flakes that when, a mile from Williamsburgh and at some +little distance from the road, MacLean beheld a ring of figures seated +upon the Gounod beneath a giant elm, he stopped to observe who and what +they were that sat so still beneath the leafless tree in the winter +weather.</p> + +<p>The group, that at first glimpse had seemed some conclave of beings +uncouth and lubberly and solely of the forest, resolved itself into the +Indian teacher and his pupils, escaped for the afternoon from the bounds +of William and Mary. The Indian lads—slender, bronze, and statuesque—sat +in silence, stolidly listening to the words of the white man, who, +standing in the midst of the ring, with his back to the elm-tree, told to +his dusky charges a Bible tale. It was the story of Joseph and his +brethren. The clear, gentle tones of the teacher reached MacLean's ears +where he stood unobserved behind a roadside growth of bay and cedar.</p> + +<p>A touch upon the shoulder made him turn, to find at his elbow that +sometime pupil of Mr. Charles Griffin in whose company he had once trudged +from Fair View store to Williamsburgh.</p> + +<p>"I was lying in the woods over there," said Hugon sullenly. "I heard them +coming, and I took my leave. 'Peste!' said I. 'The old, weak man who +preaches quietness under men's injuries, and the young wolf pack, all +brown, with Indian names!' They may have the woods; for me, I go back to +the town where I belong."</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders, and stood scowling at the distant group. +MacLean, in his turn, looked curiously at his quondam companion of a sunny +day in May, the would-be assassin with whom he had struggled in wind and +rain beneath the thunders of an August storm. The trader wore his great +wig, his ancient steinkirk of tawdry lace, his high boots of Spanish +leather, cracked and stained. Between the waves of coarse hair, out of +coal-black, deep-set eyes looked the soul of the half-breed, fierce, +vengeful, ignorant, and embittered.</p> + +<p>"There is Meshawa," he said,—"Meshawa, who was a little boy when I went +to school, but who used to laugh when I talked of France. Pardieu! one day +I found him alone when it was cold, and there was a fire in the room. Next +time I talked he did not laugh! They are all"—he swept his hand toward +the circle beneath the elm—"they are all Saponies, Nottoways, Meherrins; +their fathers are lovers of the peace pipe, and humble to the English. A +Monacan is a great brave; he laughs at the Nottoways, and says that there +are no men in the villages of the Meherrins."</p> + +<p>"When do you go again to trade with your people?" asked MacLean.</p> + +<p>Hugon glanced at him out of the corners of his black eyes. "They are not +my people; my people are French. I am not going to the woods any more. I +am so prosperous. Diable! shall not I as well as another stay at +Williamsburgh, dress fine, dwell in an ordinary, play high, and drink of +the best?"</p> + +<p>"There is none will prevent you," said MacLean coolly. "Dwell in town, +take your ease in your inn, wear gold lace, stake the skins of all the +deer in Virginia, drink Burgundy and Champagne, but lay no more arrows +athwart the threshold of a gentleman's door."</p> + +<p>Hugon's lips twitched into a tigerish grimace. "So he found the arrow? +Mortdieu! let him look to it that one day the arrow find not him!"</p> + +<p>"If I were Haward," said MacLean, "I would have you taken up."</p> + +<p>The trader again looked sideways at the speaker, shrugged his shoulders +and waved his hand. "Oh, he—he despises me too much for that! Eh bien! +to-day I love to see him live. When there is no wine in the cup, but only +dregs that are bitter, I laugh to see it at his lips. She,—Ma'm'selle +Audrey, that never before could I coax into my boat,—she reached me her +hand, she came with me down the river, through the night-time, and left +him behind at Westover. Ha! think you not that was bitter, that drink +which she gave him, Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View? Since then, if I go +to that house, that garden at Williamsburgh, she hides, she will not see +me; the man and his wife make excuse! Bad! But also he sees her never. He +writes to her: she answers not. Good! Let him live, with the fire built +around him and the splinters in his heart!"</p> + +<p>He laughed again, and, dismissing the subject with airiness somewhat +exaggerated, drew out his huge gilt snuffbox. The snow was now falling +more thickly, drawing a white and fleecy veil between the two upon the +road and the story-teller and his audience beneath the distant elm. "Are +you for Williamsburgh?" demanded the Highlander, when he had somewhat +abruptly declined to take snuff with Monsieur Jean Hugon.</p> + +<p>That worthy nodded, pocketing his box and incidentally making a great +jingling of coins.</p> + +<p>"Then," quoth MacLean, "since I prefer to travel alone, twill wait here +until you have passed the rolling-house in the distance yonder. Good-day +to you!"</p> + +<p>He seated himself upon the stump of a tree, and, giving all his attention +to the snow, began to whistle a thoughtful air. Hugon glanced at him with +fierce black eyes and twitching lips, much desiring a quarrel; then +thought better of it, and before the tune had come to an end was making +with his long and noiseless stride his lonely way to Williamsburgh, and +the ordinary in Nicholson Street.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII<br>THE PLAYER</h2> + + +<p>About this time, Mr. Charles Stagg, of the Williamsburgh theatre in +Virginia, sent by the Horn of Plenty, bound for London, a long letter to +an ancient comrade and player of small parts at Drury Lane. A few days +later, young Mr. Lee, writing by the Golden Lucy to an agreeable rake of +his acquaintance, burst into a five-page panegyric upon the Arpasia, the +Belvidera, the Monimia, who had so marvelously dawned upon the colonial +horizon. The recipient of this communication, being a frequenter of +Button's, and chancing one day to crack a bottle there with Mr. Colley +Cibber, drew from his pocket and read to that gentleman the eulogy of +Darden's Audrey, with the remark that the writer was an Oxford man and +must know whereof he wrote.</p> + +<p>Cibber borrowed the letter, and the next day, in the company of Wilks and +a bottle of Burgundy, compared it with that of Mr. Charles Stagg,—the +latter's correspondent having also brought the matter to the great man's +notice.</p> + +<p>"She might offset that pretty jade Fenton at the Fields, eh, Bob?" said +Cibber. "They're of an age. If the town took to her"—</p> + +<p>"If her Belvidera made one pretty fellow weep, why not another?" added +Wilks. "Here—where is't he says that, when she went out, for many moments +the pit was silent as the grave—and that then the applause was deep—not +shrill—and very long? 'Gad, if 'tis a Barry come again, and we could lay +hands on her, the house would be made!"</p> + +<p>Gibber sighed. "You're dreaming, Bob," he said good-humoredly. "'Twas but +a pack of Virginia planters, noisy over some <i>belle sauvage</i> with a +ranting tongue."</p> + +<p>"Men's passions are the same, I take it, in Virginia as in London," +answered the other. "If the <i>belle sauvage</i> can move to that manner of +applause in one spot of earth, she may do so in another. And here again he +says, 'A dark beauty, with a strange, alluring air ... a voice of melting +sweetness that yet can so express anguish and fear that the blood turns +cold and the heart is wrung to hear it'—Zoons, sir! What would it cost to +buy off this fellow Stagg, and to bring the phoenix overseas?"</p> + +<p>"Something more than a lottery ticket," laughed the other, and beckoned to +the drawer. "We'll wait, Bob, until we're sure 'tis a phoenix indeed! +There's a gentleman in Virginia with whom I've some acquaintance, Colonel +William Byrd, that was the colony's agent here. I'll write to him for a +true account. There's time enough."</p> + +<p>So thought honest Cibber, and wrote at leisure to his Virginia +acquaintance. It made small difference whether he wrote or refrained from +writing, for he had naught to do with the destinies of Darden's Audrey. +'Twas almost summer before there came an answer to his letter. He showed +it to Wilks in the greenroom, between the acts of "The Provoked Husband." +Mrs. Oldfield read it over their shoulders, and vowed that 'twas a moving +story; nay, more, in her next scene there was a moisture in Lady Townly's +eyes quite out of keeping with the vivacity of her lines.</p> + +<p>Darden's Audrey had to do with Virginia, not London; with the winter, +never more the summer. It is not known how acceptable her Monimia, her +Belvidera, her Isabella, would have been to London playgoers. Perhaps they +would have received them as did the Virginians, perhaps not. Cibber +himself might or might not have drawn for us her portrait; might or might +not have dwelt upon the speaking eye, the slow, exquisite smile with which +she made more sad her saddest utterances, the wild charm of her mirth, her +power to make each auditor fear as his own the impending harm, the tragic +splendor in which, when the bolt had fallen, converged all the pathos, +beauty, and tenderness of her earlier scenes. A Virginian of that winter, +writing of her, had written thus; but then Williamsburgh was not London, +nor its playhouse Drury Lane. Perhaps upon that ruder stage, before an +audience less polite, with never a critic in the pit or footman in the +gallery, with no Fops' Corner and no great number of fine ladies in the +boxes, the jewel shone with a lustre that in a brighter light it had not +worn. There was in Mr. Charles Stagg's company of players no mate for any +gem; this one was set amongst pebbles, and perhaps by contrast alone did +it glow so deeply.</p> + +<p>However this may be, in Virginia, in the winter and the early spring of +that year of grace Darden's Audrey was known, extravagantly praised, +toasted, applauded to the echo. Night after night saw the theatre crowded, +gallery, pit, and boxes. Even the stage had its row of chairs, seats held +not too dear at half a guinea. Mr. Stagg had visions of a larger house, a +fuller company, renown and prosperity undreamed of before that fortunate +day when, in the grape arbor, he and his wife had stood and watched +Darden's Audrey asleep, with her head pillowed upon her arm.</p> + +<p>Darden's Audrey! The name clung to her, though the minister had no further +lot or part in her fate. The poetasters called her Charmante, Anwet, +Chloe,—what not! Young Mr. Lee in many a slight and pleasing set of +verses addressed her as Sylvia, but to the community at large she was +Darden's Audrey, and an enigma greater than the Sphinx. Why would she not +marry Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View? Was the girl looking for a prince +to come overseas for her? Or did she prefer to a dazzling marriage the +excitement of the theatre, the adulation, furious applause? That could +hardly be, for these things seemed to frighten her. At times one could see +her shrink and grow pale at some great clapping or loud "Again!" And only +upon the stage did the town behold her. She rarely went abroad, and at the +small white house in Palace Street she was denied to visitors. True, 'twas +the way to keep upon curiosity the keenest edge, to pique interest and +send the town to the playhouse as the one point of view from which the +riddle might be studied. But wisdom such as this could scarce be expected +of the girl. Given, then, that 'twas not her vanity which kept her +Darden's Audrey, what was it? Was not Mr. Haward of Fair View rich, +handsome, a very fine gentleman? Generous, too, for had he not sworn, as +earnestly as though he expected to be believed, that the girl was pure +innocence? His hand was ready to his sword, nor were men anxious to incur +his cold enmity, so that the assertion passed without open challenge. He +was mad for her,—that was plain enough. And she,—well she's woman and +Darden's Audrey, and so doubly an enigma. In the mean time, to-night she +plays Monimia, and her madness makes you weep, so sad it is, so hopeless, +and so piercing sweet.</p> + +<p>In this new world that was so strange to her Darden's Audrey bore herself +as best she might. While it was day she kept within the house, where the +room that in September she had shared with Mistress Deborah was now for +her alone. Hour after hour she sat there, book in hand, learning how those +other women, those women of the past, had loved, had suffered, had fallen +to dusty death. Other hours she spent with Mr. Charles Stagg in the long +room downstairs, or, when Mistress Stagg had customers, in the theatre +itself. As in the branded schoolmaster chance had given her a teacher +skilled in imparting knowledge, so in this small and pompous man, who +beneath a garb of fustian hugged to himself a genuine reverence and +understanding of his art, she found an instructor more able, perhaps, than +had been a greater actor. In the chill and empty playhouse, upon the +narrow stage where, sitting in the September sunshine, she had asked of +Haward her last favor, she now learned to speak for those sisters of her +spirit, those dead women who through rapture, agony, and madness had sunk +to their long rest, had given their hands to death and lain down in a +common inn. To Audrey they were real; she was free of their company. The +shadows were the people who lived and were happy; who night after night +came to watch a soul caught in the toils, to thunder applause when death +with rude and hasty hands broke the net, set free the prisoner.</p> + +<p>The girl dreamed as she breathed. Wakened from a long, long fantasy, +desolate and cold to the heart in an alien air, she sought for poppy and +mandragora, and in some sort finding them dreamed again, though not for +herself, not as before. It can hardly be said that she was unhappy. She +walked in a pageant of strange miseries, and the pomp of woe was hers to +portray. Those changelings from some fateful land, those passionate, pale +women, the milestones of whose pilgrimage spelled love, ruin, despair, and +death, they were her kindred, her sisters. Day and night they kept her +company: and her own pain lessened, grew at last to a still and dreamy +sorrow, never absent, never poignant.</p> + +<p>Of necessity, importunate grief was drugged to sleep. In the daylight +hours she must study, must rehearse with her fellow players; when night +came she put on a beautiful dress, and to lights and music and loud +applause there entered Monimia, or Belvidera, or Athenais. When the play +was done and the curtain fallen, the crowd of those who would have stayed +her ever gave way, daunted by her eyes, her closed lips, the atmosphere +that yet wrapped her of passion, woe, and exaltation, the very tragedy of +the soul that she had so richly painted. Like the ghost of that woman who +had so direfully loved and died, she was wont to slip from the playhouse, +through the dark garden, to the small white house and her quiet room. +There she laid off her gorgeous dress, and drew the ornaments from her +dark hair that was long as Molly's had been that day beneath the +sugar-tree in the far-away valley.</p> + +<p>She rarely thought of Molly now, or of the mountains. With her hair +shadowing her face and streaming over bared neck and bosom she sat before +her mirror. The candle burned low; the face in the glass seemed not her +own. Dim, pale, dark-eyed, patient-lipped at last, out of a mist and from +a great distance the other woman looked at her. Far countries, the burning +noonday and utter love, night and woe and life, the broken toy, flung with +haste away! The mist thickened; the face withdrew, farther, farther off; +the candle burned low. Audrey put out the weak flame, and laid herself +upon the bed. Sleep came soon, and it was still and dreamless. Sometimes +Mary Stagg, light in hand, stole into the room and stood above the quiet +form. The girl hardly seemed to breathe: she had a fashion of lying with +crossed hands and head drawn slightly back, much as she might be laid at +last in her final bed. Mistress Stagg put out a timid hand and felt the +flesh if it were warm; then bent and lightly kissed hand or arm or the +soft curve of the throat. Audrey stirred not, and the other went +noiselessly away; or Audrey opened dark eyes, faintly smiled and raised +herself to meet the half-awed caress, then sank to rest again.</p> + +<p>Into Mistress Stagg's life had struck a shaft of colored light, had come a +note of strange music, had flown a bird of paradise. It was and it was not +her dead child come again. She knew that her Lucy had never been thus, and +the love that she gave Audrey was hardly mother love. It was more nearly +an homage, which, had she tried, she could not have explained. When they +were alone together, Audrey called the older woman "mother," often knelt +and laid her head upon the other's lap or shoulder. In all her ways she +was sweet and duteous, grateful and eager to serve. But her spirit dwelt +in a rarer air, and there were heights and depths where the waif and her +protectress might not meet. To this the latter gave dumb recognition, and +though she could not understand, yet loved her protégée. At night, in the +playhouse, this love was heightened into exultant worship. At all times +there was delight in the girl's beauty, pride in the comment and wonder of +the town, self-congratulation and the pleasing knowledge that wisdom is +vindicated of its children. Was not all this of her bringing about? Did it +not first occur to her that the child might take Jane Day's place? Even +Charles, who strutted and plumed himself and offered his snuffbox to every +passer-by, must acknowledge that! Mistress Stagg stopped her sewing to +laugh triumphantly, then fell to work more diligently than ever; for it +was her pleasure to dress Darden's Audrey richly, in soft colors, heavy +silken stuffs upon which was lavished a wealth of delicate needlework. It +was chiefly while she sat and sewed upon these pretty things, with Audrey, +book on knee, close beside her, that her own child seemed to breathe +again.</p> + +<p>Audrey thanked her and kissed her, and wore what she was given to wear, +nor thought how her beauty was enhanced. If others saw it, if the wonder +grew by what it fed on, if she was talked of, written of, pledged, and +lauded by a frank and susceptible people, she knew of all this little +enough, and for what she knew cared not at all. Her days went dreamily by, +nor very sad nor happy; full of work, yet vague and unmarked as desert +sands. What was real was a past that was not hers, and those dead women to +whom night by night she gave life and splendor.</p> + +<p>There were visitors to whom she was not denied. Darden came at times, sat +in Mistress Stagg's sunny parlor, and talked to his sometime ward much as +he had talked in the glebe-house living room,—discursively, of men and +parochial affairs and his own unmerited woes. Audrey sat and heard him, +with her eyes upon the garden without the window. When he lifted from the +chair his great shambling figure, and took his stained old hat and heavy +cane, Audrey rose also, curtsied, and sent her duty to Mistress Deborah, +but she asked no questions as to that past home of hers. It seemed not to +interest her that the creek was frozen so hard that one could walk upon it +to Fair View, or that the minister had bought a field from his wealthy +neighbor, and meant to plant it with Oronoko. Only when he told her that +the little wood—the wood that she had called her own—was being cleared, +and that all day could be heard the falling of the trees, did she lift +startled eyes and draw a breath like a moan. The minister looked at her +from under shaggy brows, shook his head, and went his way to his favorite +ordinary, rum, and a hand at cards.</p> + +<p>Mistress Deborah she beheld no more; but once the Widow Constance brought +Barbara to town, and the two, being very simple women, went to the play to +see the old Audrey, and saw instead a queen, tinseled, mock-jeweled, clad +in silk, who loved and triumphed, despaired and died. The rude theatre +shook to the applause. When it was all over, the widow and Barbara went +dazed to their lodging, and lay awake through the night talking of these +marvels. In the morning they found the small white house, and Audrey came +to them in the garden. When she had kissed them, the three sat down in the +arbor; for it was a fine, sunny morning, and not cold. But the talk was +not easy; Barbara's eyes were so round, and the widow kept mincing her +words. Only when they were joined by Mistress Stagg, to whom the widow +became voluble, the two girls spoke aside.</p> + +<p>"I have a guinea, Barbara," said Audrey. "Mr. Stagg gave it to me, and I +need it not,—I need naught in the world. Barbara, here!—'tis for a warm +dress and a Sunday hood."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Audrey," breathed Barbara, "they say you might live at Fair +View,—that you might marry Mr. Haward and be a fine lady"—</p> + +<p>Audrey laid her hand upon the other's lips. "Hush! See, Barbara, you must +have the dress made thus, like mine."</p> + +<p>"But if 'tis so, Audrey!" persisted poor Barbara. "Mother and I talked of +it last night. She said you would want a waiting-woman, and I thought—Oh, +Audrey!"</p> + +<p>Audrey bit her quivering lip and dashed away the tears. "I'll want no +waiting-woman, Barbara. I'm naught but Audrey that you used to be kind to. +Let's talk of other things. Have you missed me from the woods all these +days?"</p> + +<p>"It has been long since you were there," said Barbara dully. "Now I go +with Joan at times, though mother frowns and says she is not fit. Eh, +Audrey, if I could have a dress of red silk, with gold and bright stones, +like you wore last night! Old days I had more than you, but all's changed +now. Joan says"—</p> + +<p>The Widow Constance rising to take leave, it did not appear what Joan had +said. The visitors from the country went away, nor came again while Audrey +dwelt in Williamsburgh. The schoolmaster came, and while he waited for his +sometime pupil to slowly descend the stairs talked learnedly to Mr. Stagg +of native genius, of the mind drawn steadily through all accidents and +adversities to the end of its own discovery, and of how time and tide and +all the winds of heaven conspire to bring the fate assigned, to make the +puppet move in the stated measure. Mr. Stagg nodded, took out his +snuffbox, and asked what now was the schoolmaster's opinion of the girl's +Monimia last night,—the last act, for instance. Good Lord, how still the +house was!—and then one long sigh!</p> + +<p>The schoolmaster fingered the scars in his bands, as was his manner at +times, but kept his eyes upon the ground. When he spoke, there was in his +voice unwonted life. "Why, sir, I could have said with Lear, <i>'Hysterica +passio! down, thou climbing sorrow!'</i>—and I am not a man, sir, that's +easily moved. The girl is greatly gifted. I knew that before either you or +the town, sir. Audrey, good-morrow!"</p> + +<p>Such as these from out her old life Darden's Audrey saw and talked with. +Others sought her, watched for her, laid traps that might achieve at least +her presence, but largely in vain. She kept within the house; when the +knocker sounded she went to her own room. No flowery message, compliment, +or appeal, not even Mary Stagg's kindly importunity, could bring her from +that coign of vantage. There were times when Mistress Stagg's showroom was +crowded with customers; on sunny days young men left the bowling green to +stroll in the shell-bordered garden paths; gentlemen and ladies of quality +passing up and down Palace Street walked more slowly when they came to the +small white house, and looked to see if the face of Darden's Audrey showed +at any window.</p> + +<p>Thus the winter wore away. The springtime was at hand, when one day the +Governor, wrought upon by Mistress Evelyn Byrd, sent to Mr. Stagg, bidding +him with his wife and the new player to the Palace. The three, dressed in +their best, were ushered into the drawing-room, where they found his +Excellency at chess with the Attorney-General; a third gentleman, seated +somewhat in the shadow, watching the game. A servant placed, chairs for +the people from the theatre. His Excellency checkmated his antagonist, +and, leaning back in his great chair, looked at Darden's Audrey, but +addressed his conversation to Mr. Charles Stagg. The great man was +condescendingly affable, the lesser one obsequious; while they talked the +gentleman in the shadow arose and drew his chair to Audrey's side. 'Twas +Colonel Byrd, and he spoke to the girl kindly and courteously; asking +after her welfare, giving her her meed of praise, dwelling half humorously +upon the astonishment and delight into which she had surprised the +play-loving town. Audrey listened with downcast eyes to the suave tones, +the well-turned compliments, but when she must speak spoke quietly and +well.</p> + +<p>At last the Governor turned toward her, and began to ask well-meant +questions and to give pompous encouragement to the new player. No +reference was made to that other time when she had visited the Palace. A +servant poured for each of the three a glass of wine. His Excellency +graciously desired that they shortly give 'Tamerlane' again, that being a +play which, as a true Whig and a hater of all tyrants, he much delighted +in, and as graciously announced his intention of bestowing upon the +company two slightly tarnished birthday suits. The great man then arose, +and the audience was over.</p> + +<p>Outside the house, in the sunny walk leading to the gates, the three from +the theatre met, full face, a lady and two gentlemen who had been +sauntering up and down in the pleasant weather. The lady was Evelyn Byrd; +the gentlemen were Mr. Lee and Mr. Grymes.</p> + +<p>Audrey, moving slightly in advance of her companions, halted at the sight +of Evelyn, and the rich color surged to her face; but the other, pale and +lovely, kept her composure, and, with a smile and a few graceful words of +greeting, curtsied deeply to the player. Audrey, with a little catch of +her breath, returned the curtsy. Both women were richly dressed, both were +beautiful; it seemed a ceremonious meeting of two ladies of quality. The +gentlemen also bowed profoundly, pressing their hats against their hearts. +Mistress Stagg, to whom her protégée's aversion to company was no light +cross, twitched her Mirabell by the sleeve and, hanging upon his arm, +prevented his further advance. The action said: "Let the child alone; +maybe when the ice is once broken she'll see people, and not be so shy and +strange!"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lee," said Evelyn sweetly, "I have dropped my glove,—perhaps in the +summer-house on the terrace. If you will be so good? Mr. Grymes, will you +desire Mr. Stagg yonder to shortly visit me at my lodging? I wish to +bespeak a play, and would confer with him on the matter."</p> + +<p>The gentlemen bowed and hasted upon their several errands, leaving Audrey +and Evelyn standing face to face in the sunny path. "You are well, I +hope," said the latter, in her low, clear voice, "and happy?"</p> + +<p>"I am well, Mistress Evelyn," answered Audrey. "I think that I am not +unhappy."</p> + +<p>The other gazed at her in silence; then, "We have all been blind," she +said. "'Tis not a year since May Day and the Jaquelins' merrymaking. It +seems much longer. You won the race,—do you remember?—and took the prize +from my hand. And neither of us thought of all that should follow—did +we?—or guessed at other days. I saw you last night at the theatre, and +you made my heart like to burst for pity and sorrow. You were only playing +at woe? You are not unhappy, not like that?"</p> + +<p>Audrey shook her head. "No, not like that."</p> + +<p>There was a pause, broken by Evelyn. "Mr. Haward is in town," she said, in +a low but unfaltering voice, "He was at the playhouse last night. I +watched him sitting in a box, in the shadow.... You also saw him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Audrey. "He had not been there for a long, long time. At first +he came night after night.... I wrote to him at last and told him how he +troubled me,—made me forget my lines,—and then he came no more."</p> + +<p>There was in her tone a strange wistfulness. Evelyn drew her breath +sharply, glanced swiftly at the dark face and liquid eyes. Mr. Grymes yet +held the manager and his wife in conversation, but Mr. Lee, a small +jessamine-scented glove in hand, was hurrying toward them from the +summer-house.</p> + +<p>"You think that you do not love Mr. Haward?" said Evelyn, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"I loved one that never lived," said Audrey simply. "It was all in a dream +from which I have waked. I told him that at Westover, and afterwards here +in Williamsburgh. I grew so tired at last—it hurt me so to tell him ... +and then I wrote the letter. He has been at Fair View this long time, has +he not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Evelyn quietly. "He has been alone at Fair View." The rose in +her cheeks had faded; she put her lace handkerchief to her lips, and shut +her hand so closely that the nails bit into the palm. In a moment, +however, she was smiling, a faint, inscrutable smile, and presently she +came a little nearer and took Audrey's hand in her own.</p> + +<p>The soft, hot, lingering touch thrilled the girl. She began to speak +hurriedly, not knowing why she spoke nor what she wished to say: "Mistress +Evelyn"—</p> + +<p>"Yes, Audrey," said Evelyn, and laid a fluttering touch upon the other's +lips, then in a moment spoke herself: "You are to remember always, though +you love him not, Audrey, that he never was true lover of mine; that now +and forever, and though you died to-night, he is to me but an old +acquaintance,—Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View. Remember also that it +was not your fault, nor his perhaps, nor mine, and that with all my heart +I wish his happiness.... Ah, Mr. Lee, you found it? My thanks, sir."</p> + +<p>Mr. Lee, having restored the glove with all the pretty froth of words +which the occasion merited, and seen Mistress Evelyn turn aside to speak +with Mr. Stagg, found himself mightily inclined to improve the golden +opportunity and at once lay siege to this paragon from the playhouse. Two +low bows, a three-piled, gold-embroidered compliment, a quotation from his +"To Sylvia upon her Leaving the Theatre," and the young gentleman thought +his lines well laid. But Sylvia grew restless, dealt in monosyllables, and +finally retreated to Mistress Stagg's side. "Shall we not go home?" she +whispered. "I—I am tired, and I have my part to study, the long speech at +the end that I stumbled in last night. Ah, let us go!"</p> + +<p>Mistress Stagg sighed over the girl's contumacy. It was not thus in Bath +when she was young, and men of fashion flocked to compliment a handsome +player. Now there was naught to do but to let the child have her way. She +and Audrey made their curtsies, and Mr. Charles Stagg his bow, which was +modeled after that of Beau Nash. Then the three went down the sunny path +to the Palace gates, and Evelyn with the two gentlemen moved toward the +house and the company within.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX<br>AMOR VINCIT</h2> + + +<p>By now it was early spring in Virginia, and a time of balm and +pleasantness. The season had not entered into its complete heritage of gay +hues, sweet odors, song, and wealth of bliss. Its birthday robe was yet +a-weaving, its coronal of blossoms yet folded buds, its choristers not +ready with their fullest pæans. But everywhere was earnest of future +riches. In the forest the bloodroot was in flower, and the bluebird and +the redbird flashed from the maple that was touched with fire to the beech +just lifted from a pale green fountain. In Mistress Stagg's garden +daffodils bloomed, and dim blue hyacinths made sweet places in the grass. +The sun lay warm upon upturned earth, blackbirds rose in squadrons and +darkened the yet leafless trees, and every wind brought rumors of the +heyday toward which the earth was spinning. The days were long and sweet; +at night a moon came up, and between it and the earth played soft and +vernal airs. Then a pale light flooded the garden, the shells bordering +its paths gleamed like threaded pearls, and the house showed whiter than a +marble sepulchre. Mild incense, cool winds, were there, but quiet came +fitfully between the bursts of noise from the lit theatre.</p> + +<p>On such a night as this Audrey, clothed in red silk, with a band of false +jewels about her shadowy hair, slipped through the stage door into the +garden, and moved across it to the small white house and rest. Her part +in the play was done; for all their storming she would not stay. Silence +and herself alone, and the mirror in her room; then, sitting before the +glass, to see in it darkly the woman whom she had left dead upon the +boards yonder,—no, not yonder, but in a far country, and a fair and great +city. Love! love! and death for love! and her own face in the mirror +gazing at her with eyes of that long-dead Greek. It was the exaltation and +the dream, mournful, yet not without its luxury, that ended her every day. +When the candle burned low, when the face looked but dimly from the glass, +then would she rise and quench the flame, and lay herself down to sleep, +with the moonlight upon her crossed hands and quiet brow.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;'> + +<p>She passed through the grape arbor, and opened the door at which Haward +had knocked that September night of the Governor's ball. She was in +Mistress Stagg's long room; at that hour it should have been lit only by a +dying fire and a solitary candle. Now the fire was low enough, but the +room seemed aflare with myrtle tapers. Audrey, coming from the dimness +without, shaded her eyes with her hand. The heavy door shut to behind her; +unseeing still she moved toward the fire, but in a moment let fall her +hand and began to wonder at the unwonted lights. Mistress Stagg was yet in +the playhouse; who then had lit these candles? She turned, and saw Haward +standing with folded arms between her and the door.</p> + +<p>The silence was long. He was Marmaduke Haward with all his powers +gathered, calm, determined, so desperate to have done with this thing, to +at once and forever gain his own and master fate, that his stillness was +that of deepest waters, his cool equanimity that of the gamester who knows +how will fall the loaded dice. Dressed with his accustomed care, very +pale, composed and quiet, he faced her whose spirit yet lingered in a far +city, who in the dreamy exaltation of this midnight hour was ever half +Audrey of the garden, half that other woman in a dress of red silk, with +jewels in her hair, who, love's martyr, had exulted, given all, and died.</p> + +<p>"How did you come here?" she breathed at last. "You said that you would +come never again."</p> + +<p>"After to-night, never again," he answered. "But now, Audrey, this once +again, this once again!"</p> + +<p>Gazing past him she made a movement toward the door. He shook his head. +"This is my hour, Audrey. You may not leave the room, nor will Mistress +Stagg enter it. I will not touch you, I will come no nearer to you. Stand +there in silence, if you choose, or cover the sight of me from your eyes, +while for my own ease, my own unhappiness, I say farewell."</p> + +<p>"Farewell!" she echoed. "Long ago, at Westover, that was said between you +and me.... Why do you come like a ghost to keep me and peace apart?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer, and she locked her hands across her brow that burned +beneath the heavy circlet of mock gems. "Is it kind?" she demanded, with a +sob in her voice. "Is it kind to trouble me so, to keep me here"—</p> + +<p>"Was I ever kind?" he asked. "Since the night when I followed you, a +child, and caught you from the ground when you fell between the corn rows, +what kindness, Audrey?"</p> + +<p>"None!" she answered, with sudden passion. "Nor kindness then! Why went +you not some other way?"</p> + +<p>"Shall I tell you why I was there that night,—why I left my companions +and came riding back to the cabin in the valley?"</p> + +<p>She uncovered her eyes, "I thought—I thought then—that you were sent"—</p> + +<p>He looked at her with strange compassion. "My own will sent me.... When, +that sunny afternoon, we spurred from the valley toward the higher +mountains, we left behind us a forest flower, a young girl of simple +sweetness, with long dark hair,—like yours, Audrey.... It was to pluck +that flower that I deserted the expedition, that I went back to the valley +between the hills."</p> + +<p>Her eyes dilated, and her hands very slowly rose to press her temples, to +make a shadow from which she might face the cup of trembling he was +pouring for her.</p> + +<p>"<i>Molly!</i>" she said, beneath her breath.</p> + +<p>He nodded. "Well, Death had gathered the flower.... Accident threw across +my path a tinier blossom, a helpless child. Save you then, care for you +then, I must, or I had been not man, but monster. Did I care for you +tenderly, Audrey? Did I make you love me with all your childish heart? Did +I become to you father and mother and sister and fairy prince? Then what +were you to me in those old days? A child fanciful and charming, too fine +in all her moods not to breed wonder, to give the feeling that Nature had +placed in that mountain cabin a changeling of her own. A child that one +must regard with fondness and some pity,—what is called a dear child. +Moreover, a child whose life I had saved, and to whom it pleased me to +play Providence. I was young, not hard of heart, sedulous to fold back to +the uttermost the roseleaves of every delicate and poetic emotion, +magnificently generous also, and set to play my life <i>au grand seigneur</i>. +To myself assume a responsibility which with all ease might have been +transferred to an Orphan Court, to put my stamp upon your life to come, to +watch you kneel and drink of my fountain of generosity, to open my hand +and with an indulgent smile shower down upon you the coin of pleasure and +advantage,—why, what a tribute was this to my own sovereignty, what +subtle flattery of self-love, what delicate taste of power! Well, I kissed +you good-by, and unclasped your hands from my neck, chided you, laughed at +you, fondled you, promised all manner of pretty things and engaged you +never to forget me—and sailed away upon the Golden Rose to meet my +crowded years with their wine and roses, upas shadows and apples of Sodom. +How long before I forgot you, Audrey? A year and a day, perhaps. I protest +that I cannot remember exactly."</p> + +<p>He slightly changed his position, but came no nearer to her. It was +growing quiet in the street beyond the curtained windows. One window was +bare, but it gave only upon an unused nook of the garden where were merely +the moonlight and some tall leafless bushes.</p> + +<p>"I came back to Virginia," he said, "and I looked for and found you in the +heart of a flowering wood.... All that you imagined me to be, Audrey, that +was I not. Knight-errant, paladin, king among men,—what irony, child, in +that strange dream and infatuation of thine! I was—I am—of my time and +of myself, and he whom that day you thought me had not then nor afterwards +form or being. I wish you to be perfect in this lesson, Audrey. Are you +so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she sighed. Her hands had fallen; she was looking at him with +slowly parting lips, and a strange expression in her eyes.</p> + +<p>He went on quietly as before, every feature controlled to impassivity and +his arms lightly folded: "That is well. Between the day when I found you +again and a night in the Palace yonder lies a summer,—a summer! To me all +the summers that ever I had or will have,—ten thousand summers! Now tell +me how I did in this wonderful summer."</p> + +<p>"Ignobly," she answered.</p> + +<p>He bowed his head gravely. "Ay, Audrey, it is a good word." With a quick +sigh he left his place, and walking to the uncurtained window stood there +looking out upon the strip of moonlight and the screen of bushes; but when +he turned again to the room his face and bearing were as impressive as +before in their fine, still gravity, their repose of determination. "And +that evening by the river when you fled from me to Hugon"—</p> + +<p>"I had awaked," she said, in a low voice. "You were to me a stranger, and +I feared you."</p> + +<p>"And at Westover?"</p> + +<p>"A stranger."</p> + +<p>"Here in Williamsburgh, when by dint of much striving I saw you, when I +wrote to you, when at last you sent me that letter, that piteous and cruel +letter, Audrey?"</p> + +<p>For one moment her dark eyes met his, then fell to her clasped hands. "A +stranger," she said.</p> + +<p>"The letter was many weeks ago. I have been alone with my thoughts at Fair +View. And to-night, Audrey?"</p> + +<p>"A stranger," she would have answered, but her voice broke. There were +shadows under her eyes; her lifted face had in it a strained, intent +expectancy as though she saw or heard one coming.</p> + +<p>"A stranger," he acquiesced. "A foreigner in your world of dreams and +shadows. No prince, Audrey, or great white knight and hero. Only a +gentleman of these latter days, compact like his fellows of strength and +weakness; now very wise and now the mere finger-post of folly; set to +travel his own path; able to hear above him in the rarer air the trumpet +call, but choosing to loiter on the lower slopes. In addition a man who +loves at last, loves greatly, with a passion that shall ennoble. A +stranger and your lover, Audrey, come to say farewell."</p> + +<p>Her voice came like an echo, plaintive and clear and from far away: +"Farewell."</p> + +<p>"How steadily do I stand here to say farewell!" he said. "Yet I am eaten +of my passion. A fire burns me, a voice within me ever cries aloud. I am +whirled in a resistless wind.... Ah, my love, the garden at Fair View! The +folded rose that will never bloom, the dial where linger the heavy hours, +the heavy, heavy, heavy hours!"</p> + +<p>"The garden," she whispered. "I smell the box.... The path was all in +sunshine. So quiet, so hushed.... I went a little farther, and I heard +your voice where you sat and read—and read of Eloïsa.... <i>Oh, Evelyn, +Evelyn!</i>"</p> + +<p>"The last time—the last farewell!" he said. "When the Golden Rose is far +at sea, when the winds blow, when the stars drift below the verge, when +the sea speaks, then may I forget you, may the vision of you pass! Now at +Fair View it passes not; it dwells. Night and day I behold you, the woman +that I love, the woman that I love in vain!"</p> + +<p>"The Golden Rose!" she answered. "The sea.... Alas!"</p> + +<p>Her voice had risen into a cry. The walls of the room were gone, the air +pressed upon her heavily, the lights wavered, the waters were passing over +her as they had passed that night of the witch's hut. How far away the +bank upon which he stood! He spoke to her, and his voice came faintly as +from that distant shore or from the deck of a swiftly passing ship. "And +so it is good-by, sweetheart; for why should I stay in Virginia? Ah, if +you loved me, Audrey! But since it is not so—Good-by, good-by. This time +I'll not forget you, but I will not come again. Good-by!"</p> + +<p>Her lips moved, but there came no words. A light had dawned upon her face, +her hand was lifted as though to stay a sound of music. Suddenly she +turned toward him, swayed, and would have fallen but that his arm caught +and upheld her. Her head was thrown back; the soft masses of her wonderful +hair brushed his cheek and shoulder; her eyes looked past him, and a +smile, pure and exquisite past expression, just redeemed her face from +sadness. "Good-morrow, Love!" she said clearly and sweetly.</p> + +<p>At the sound of her own words came to her the full realization and +understanding of herself. With a cry she freed herself from his supporting +arm, stepped backward and looked at him. The color surged over her face +and throat, her eyelids drooped; while her name was yet upon his lips she +answered with a broken cry of ecstasy and abandonment. A moment and she +was in his arms and their lips had met.</p> + +<p>How quiet it was in the long room, where the myrtle candles gave out their +faint perfume and the low fire leaped upon the hearth! Thus for a time; +then, growing faint with her happiness, she put up protesting hands. He +made her sit in the great chair, and knelt before her, all youth and fire, +handsome, ardent, transfigured by his passion into such a lover as a queen +might desire.</p> + +<p>"Hail, Sultana!" he said, smiling, his eyes upon her diadem. "Now you are +Arpasia again, and I am Moneses, and ready, ah, most ready, to die for +you."</p> + +<p>She also smiled. "Remember that I am to quickly follow you."</p> + +<p>"When shall we marry?" he demanded. "The garden cries out for you, my +love, and I wish to hear your footstep in my house. It hath been a dreary +house, filled with shadows, haunted by keen longings and vain regrets. Now +the windows shall be flung wide and the sunshine shall pour in. Oh, your +voice singing through the rooms, your foot upon the stairs!" He took her +hands and put them to his lips. "I love as men loved of old," he said. "I +am far from myself and my times. When will you become my wife?"</p> + +<p>She answered him simply, like the child that at times she seemed: "When +you will. But I must be Arpasia again to-morrow night. The Governor hath +ordered the play repeated, and Margery Linn could not learn my part in +time."</p> + +<p>He laughed, fingering the red silk of her hanging sleeve, feasting his +eyes upon her dark beauty, so heightened and deepened in the year that had +passed. "Then play to them—and to me who shall watch you well—to-morrow +night. But after that to them never again! only to me, Audrey, to me when +we walk in the garden at home, when we sit in the book-room and the +candles are lighted. That day in May when first you came into my garden, +when first I showed you my house, when first I rowed you home with the +sunshine on the water and the roses in your hair! Love, love! do you +remember?"</p> + +<p>"Remember?" she answered, in a thrilling voice. "When I am dead I shall +yet remember! And I will come when you want me. After to-morrow night I +will come.... Oh, cannot you hear the river? And the walls of the box will +be freshly green, and the fruit-trees all in bloom! The white leaves drift +down upon the bench beneath the cherry-tree.... I will sit in the grass at +your feet. Oh, I love you, have loved you long!"</p> + +<p>They had risen and now with her head upon his breast and his arm about +her, they stood in the heart of the soft radiance of many candles. His +face was bowed upon the dark wonder of her hair; when at last he lifted +his eyes, they chanced to fall upon the one uncurtained window. Audrey, +feeling his slight, quickly controlled start, turned within his arm and +also saw the face of Jean Hugon, pressed against the glass, staring in +upon them.</p> + +<p>Before Haward could reach the window the face was gone. A strip of +moonlight, some leafless bushes, beyond, the blank wall of the +theatre,—that was all. Raising the sash, Haward leaned forth until he +could see the garden at large. Moonlight still and cold, winding paths, +and shadows of tree and shrub and vine, but no sign of living creature. He +closed the window and drew the curtain across, then turned again to +Audrey. "A phantom of the night," he said, and laughed.</p> + +<p>She was standing in the centre of the room, with her red dress gleaming +in the candlelight. Her brow beneath its mock crown had no lines of care, +and her wonderful eyes smiled upon him. "I have no fear of it," she +answered. "That is strange, is it not, when I have feared it for so long? +I have no other fear to-night than that I shall outlive your love for me."</p> + +<p>"I will love you until the stars fall," he said.</p> + +<p>"They are falling to-night. When you are without the door look up, and you +may see one pass swiftly down the sky. Once I watched them from the dark +river"—</p> + +<p>"I will love you until the sun grows old," he said. "Through life and +death, through heaven or hell, past the beating of my heart, while lasts +my soul!... Audrey, Audrey!"</p> + +<p>"If it is so," she answered, "then all is well. Now kiss me good-night, +for I hear Mistress Stagg's voice. You will come again to-morrow? And +to-morrow night,—oh, to-morrow night I shall see only you, think of only +you while I play! Good-night, good-night."</p> + +<p>They kissed and parted, and Haward, a happy man, went with raised face +through the stillness and the moonlight to his lodging at Marot's +ordinary. No phantoms of the night disturbed him. He had found the +philosopher's stone, had drunk of the divine elixir. Life was at last a +thing much to be desired, and the Giver of life was good, and the <i>summum +bonum</i> was deathless love.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;"> +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX<br>THE LAST ACT</h2> + + +<p>Before eight of the clock, Mr. Stagg, peering from behind the curtain, +noted with satisfaction that the house was filling rapidly; upon the +stroke of the hour it was crowded to the door, without which might be +heard angry voices contending that there must be yet places for the +buying. The musicians began to play and more candles were lighted. There +were laughter, talk, greetings from one part of the house to another, as +much movement to and fro as could be accomplished in so crowded a space. +The manners of the London playhouses were aped not unsuccessfully. To +compare small things with great, it might have been Drury Lane upon a gala +night. If the building was rude, yet it had no rival in the colonies, and +if the audience was not so gay of hue, impertinent of tongue, or paramount +in fashion as its London counterpart, yet it was composed of the rulers +and makers of a land destined to greatness.</p> + +<p>In the centre box sat his Excellency, William Gooch, Lieutenant-Governor +of Virginia, resplendent in velvet and gold lace, and beside him Colonel +Alexander Spotswood, arrived in town from Germanna that day, with his +heart much set upon the passage, by the Assembly, of an act which would +advantage his iron works. Colonel Byrd of Westover, Colonel Esmond of +Castlewood, Colonel Carter, Colonel Page, and Colonel Ludwell were +likewise of the Governor's party, while seated or standing in the pit, or +mingling with the ladies who made gay the boxes, were other gentlemen of +consequence,—Councilors, Burgesses, owners of vast tracts of land, of +ships and many slaves. Of their number some were traveled men, and some +had fought in England's wars, and some had studied in her universities. +Many were of gentle blood, sprung from worthy and venerable houses in that +green island which with fondness they still called home, and many had made +for themselves name and fortune, hewing their way to honor through a +primeval forest of adversities. Lesser personages were not lacking, but +crowded the gallery and invaded the pit. Old fighters of Indians were +present, and masters of ships trading from the Spanish islands or from the +ports of home. Rude lumbermen from Norfolk or the borders of the Dismal +Swamp stared about them, while here and there showed the sad-colored coat +of a minister, or the broad face of some Walloon from Spotswood's +settlement on the Rapidan, or the keener countenances of Frenchmen from +Monacan-Town. The armorer from the Magazine elbowed a great proprietor +from the Eastern shore, while a famous guide and hunter, long and lean and +brown, described to a magnate of Yorktown a buffalo capture in the far +west, twenty leagues beyond the falls. Masters and scholars from William +and Mary were there, with rangers, traders, sailors ashore, small +planters, merchants, loquacious keepers of ordinaries, and with men, now +free and with a stake in the land, who had come there as indentured +servants, or as convicts, runaways, and fugitives from justice. In the +upper gallery, where no payment was exacted, many servants with a +sprinkling of favorite mulatto or mustee slaves; in the boxes the lustre +and sweep of damask and brocade, light laughter, silvery voices, the +flutter of fans; everywhere the vividness and animation of a strangely +compounded society, where the shadows were deep and the lights were high.</p> + +<p>Nor did the conversation of so motley an assemblage lack a certain +pictorial quality, a somewhat fantastic opulence of reference and +allusion. Of what might its members speak while they waited for the +drawing aside of the piece of baize which hung between them and an +Oriental camp? There was the staple of their wealth, a broad-leafed plant, +the smoke of whose far-spread burning might have wrapped its native fields +in a perpetual haze as of Indian summer; and there was the warfare, +bequeathed from generation to generation, against the standing armies of +the forest, that subtle foe that slept not, retreated not, whose vanguard, +ever falling, ever showed unbroken ranks beyond. Trapper and trader and +ranger might tell of trails through the wilderness vast and hostile, of +canoes upon unknown waters, of beasts of prey, creatures screaming in the +night-time through the ebony woods. Of Indian villages, also, and of red +men who, in the fastnesses that were left them, took and tortured and slew +after strange fashions. The white man, strong as the wind, drove the red +man before his face like an autumn leaf, but he beckoned to the black man, +and the black man came at his call. He came in numbers from a far country, +and the manner of his coming was in chains. What he had to sell was +valuable, but the purchase price came not into his hands. Of him also +mention was made to-night. The master of the tall ship that had brought +him into the James or the York, the dealer to whom he was consigned, the +officer of the Crown who had cried him for sale, the planter who had +bought him, the divine who preached that he was of a race accursed,—all +were there, and all had interest in this merchandise. Others in the throng +talked of ships both great and small, and the quaintness of their names, +the golden flowers and golden women, the swift birds and beasts, the +namesakes of Fortune or of Providence, came pleasantly upon the ear. The +still-vexed Bermoothes, Barbadoes, and all the Indies were spoken of; +ports to the north and ports to the south, pirate craft and sunken +treasure, a flight, a fight, a chase at sea. The men from Norfolk talked +of the great Dismal and its trees of juniper and cypress, the traders of +trading, the masters from William and Mary of the humanities. The greater +men, authoritative and easy, owners of flesh and blood and much land, +holders of many offices and leaders of the people, paid their respects to +horse-racing and cock-fighting, cards and dice; to building, planting, the +genteelest mode of living, and to public affairs both in Virginia and at +home in England. Old friends, with oaths of hearty affection, and from +opposite quarters of the house, addressed each other as Tom, or Ned, or +Dick, while old enemies, finding themselves side by side, exchanged +extremely civil speeches, and so put a keener edge upon their mutual +disgust. In the boxes where glowed the women there was comfit talk, vastly +pretty speeches, asseverations, denials, windy sighs, the politest oaths, +whispering, talk of the play, and, last but not least, of Mr. Haward of +Fair View, and Darden's Audrey.</p> + +<p>Haward, entering the pit, made his way quietly to where a servant was +holding for him a place. The fellow pulled his forelock in response to +his master's nod, then shouldered his way through the press to the +ladder-like stairs that led to the upper gallery. Haward, standing at his +ease, looked about him, recognizing this or that acquaintance with his +slow, fine smile and an inclination of his head. He was much observed, and +presently a lady leaned from her box, smiled, waved her fan, and slightly +beckoned to him. It was young Madam Byrd, and Evelyn sat beside her.</p> + +<p>Five minutes later, as Haward entered the box of the ladies of Westover, +music sounded, the curtain was drawn back, and the play began. Upon the +ruder sort in the audience silence fell at once: they that followed the +sea, and they that followed the woods, and all the simple folk ceased +their noise and gesticulation, and gazed spellbound at the pomp before +them of rude scenery and indifferent actors. But the great ones of the +earth talked on, attending to their own business in the face of Tamerlane +and his victorious force. It was the fashion to do so, and in the play +to-night the first act counted nothing, for Darden's Audrey had naught to +do with it. In the second act, when she entered as Arpasia, the entire +house would fall quiet, staring and holding its breath.</p> + +<p>Haward bent over Madam Byrd's hand; then, as that lady turned from him to +greet Mr. Lee, addressed himself with grave courtesy to Evelyn, clothed in +pale blue, and more lovely even than her wont. For months they had not +met. She had written him one letter,—had written the night of the day +upon which she had encountered Audrey in the Palace walk,—and he had +answered it with a broken line of passionate thanks for unmerited +kindness. Now as he bent over her she caught his wrist lightly with her +hand, and her touch burned him through the lace of his ruffles. With her +other hand she spread her fan; Mr. Lee's shoulder knot also screened them +while Mr. Grymes had engaged its owner's attention, and pretty Madam Byrd +was in animated conversation with the occupants of a neighboring box. "Is +it well?" asked Evelyn, very low.</p> + +<p>Haward's answer was as low, and bravely spoken with his eyes meeting her +clear gaze, and her touch upon his wrist. "For me, Evelyn, it is very +well," he said. "For her—may I live to make it well for her, forever and +a day well for her! She is to be my wife."</p> + +<p>"I am glad," said Evelyn,—"very glad."</p> + +<p>"You are a noble lady," he answered. "Once, long ago, I styled myself your +friend, your equal. Now I know better my place and yours, and as from a +princess I take your alms. For your letter—that letter, Evelyn, which +told me what you thought, which showed me what to do—I humbly thank you."</p> + +<p>She let fall her hand from her silken lap, and watched with unseeing eyes +the mimicry of life upon the stage before them, where Selima knelt to +Tamerlane, and Moneses mourned for Arpasia. Presently she said again, "I +am glad;" and then, when they had kept silence for a while, "You will live +at Fair View?"</p> + +<p>"Ay," he replied. "I will make it well for her here in Virginia."</p> + +<p>"You must let me help you," she said. "So old a friend as I may claim that +as a right. To-morrow I may visit her, may I not? Now we must look at the +players. When she enters there is no need to cry for silence. It comes of +itself, and stays; we watch her with straining eyes. Who is that man in a +cloak, staring at us from the pit? See, with the great peruke and the +scar!"</p> + +<p>Haward, bending, looked over the rail, then drew back with a smile. "A +half-breed trader," he said, "by name Jean Hugon. Something of a +character."</p> + +<p>"He looked strangely at us," said Evelyn, "with how haggard a face! My +scarf, Mr. Lee? Thank you. Madam, have you the right of the matter from +Kitty Page?"</p> + +<p>The conversation became general, and soon, the act approaching its end, +and other gentlemen pressing into the box which held so beautiful a woman, +so great a catch, and so assured a belle as Mistress Evelyn Byrd, Haward +arose and took his leave. To others of the brilliant company assembled in +the playhouse he paid his respects, speaking deferentially to the +Governor, gayly to his fellow Councilors and planters, and bowing low to +many ladies. All this was in the interval between the acts. At the second +parting of the curtain he resumed his former station in the pit. With +intention he had chosen a section of it where were few of his own class. +From the midst of the ruder sort he could watch her more freely, could +exult at his ease in her beauty both of face and mind.</p> + +<p>The curtains parted, and the fiddlers strove for warlike music. Tamerlane, +surrounded by the Tartar host, received his prisoners, and the defiant +rant of Bajazet shook the rafters. All the sound and fury of the stage +could not drown the noise of the audience. Idle talk and laughter, loud +comment upon the players, went on,—went on until there entered Darden's +Audrey, dressed in red silk, with a jeweled circlet like a line of flame +about her dark flowing hair. The noise sank, voices of men and women died +away; for a moment the rustle of silk, the flutter of fans, continued, +then this also ceased.</p> + +<p>She stood before the Sultan, wide-eyed, with a smile of scorn upon her +lips; then spoke in a voice, low, grave, monotonous, charged like a +passing bell with warning and with solemn woe. The house seemed to grow +more still; the playgoers, box and pit and gallery, leaned slightly +forward: whether she spoke or moved or stood in silence, Darden's Audrey, +that had been a thing of naught, now held every eye, was regnant for an +hour in this epitome of the world. The scene went on, and now it was to +Moneses that she spoke. All the bliss and anguish of unhappy love sounded +in her voice, dwelt in her eye and most exquisite smile, hung upon her +every gesture. The curtains closed; from the throng that had watched her +came a sound like a sigh, after which, slowly, tongues were loosened. An +interval of impatient waiting, then the music again and the parting +curtains, and Darden's Audrey,—the girl who could so paint very love, +very sorrow, very death; the girl who had come strangely and by a devious +path from the height and loneliness of the mountains to the level of this +stage and the watching throng.</p> + +<p>At the close of the fourth act of the play, Haward left his station in the +pit, and quietly made his way to the regions behind the curtain, where in +the very circumscribed space that served as greenroom to the Williamsburgh +theatre he found Tamerlane, Bajazet, and their satellites, together with a +number of gentlemen invaders from the front of the house. Mistress Stagg +was there, and Selima, perched upon a table, was laughing with the +aforesaid gentlemen, but no Arpasia. Haward drew the elder woman aside. "I +wish to see her," he said, in a low voice, kindly but imperious. "A moment +only, good woman."</p> + +<p>With her finger at her lips Mistress Stagg glanced about her. "She hides +from them always, she's that strange a child: though indeed, sir, as sweet +a young lady as a prince might wed! This way, sir,—it's dark; make no +noise."</p> + +<p>She led him through a dim passageway, and softly opened a door. "There, +sir, for just five minutes! I'll call her in time."</p> + +<p>The door gave upon the garden, and Audrey sat upon the step in the +moonshine and the stillness. Her hand propped her chin, and her eyes were +raised to the few silver stars. That mock crown which she wore sparkled +palely, and the light lay in the folds of her silken dress. At the opening +of the door she did not turn, thinking that Mistress Stagg stood behind +her. "How bright the moon shines!" she said. "A mockingbird should be +singing, singing! Is it time for Arpasia?"</p> + +<p>As she rose from the step Haward caught her in his arms. "It is I, my +love! Ah, heart's desire! I worship you who gleam in the moonlight, with +your crown like an aureole"—</p> + +<p>Audrey rested against him, clasping her hands upon his shoulder. "There +were nights like this," she said dreamily. "If I were a little child +again, you could lift me in your arms and carry me home, I am tired ... I +would that I needed not to go back to the glare and noise. The moon shines +so bright! I have been thinking"—</p> + +<p>He bent his head and kissed her twice. "Poor Arpasia! Poor tired child! +Soon we shall go home, Audrey,—we two, my love, we two!"</p> + +<p>"I have been thinking, sitting here in the moonlight," she went on, her +hands clasped upon his shoulder, and her cheek resting on them. "I was so +ignorant. I never dreamed that I could wrong her ... and when I awoke it +was too late. And now I love you,—not the dream, but you. I know not what +is right or wrong; I know only that I love. I think she +understands—forgives. I love you so!" Her hands parted, and she stood +from him with her face raised to the balm of the night. "I love you so," +she repeated, and the low cadence of her laugh broke the silver stillness +of the garden. "The moon up there, she knows it. And the stars,—not one +has fallen to-night! Smell the flowers. Wait, I will pluck you hyacinths."</p> + +<p>They grew by the doorstep, and she broke the slender stalks and gave them +into his hand. But when he had kissed them he would give them back, would +fasten them himself in the folds of silk, that rose and fell with her +quickened breathing. He fastened them with a brooch which he took from the +Mechlin at his throat. It was the golden horseshoe, the token that he had +journeyed to the Endless Mountains.</p> + +<p>"Now I must go," said Audrey. "They are calling for Arpasia. Follow me not +at once. Good-night, good-night! Ah, I love you so! Remember always that I +love you so!"</p> + +<p>She was gone. In a few minutes he also reëntered the playhouse, and went +to his former place where, with none of his kind about him, he might watch +her undisturbed. As he made his way with some difficulty through the +throng, he was aware that he brushed against a man in a great peruke, who, +despite the heat of the house, was wrapped in an old roquelaure tawdrily +laced; also that the man was keeping stealthy pace with him, and that when +he at last reached his station the cloaked figure fell into place +immediately behind him.</p> + +<p>Haward shrugged his shoulders, but would not turn his head, and thereby +grant recognition to Jean Hugon, the trader. Did he so, the half-breed +might break into speech, provoke a quarrel, make God knew what assertion, +what disturbance. To-morrow steps should be taken—Ah, the curtain!</p> + +<p>The silence deepened, and men and women leaned forward holding their +breath. Darden's Audrey, robed and crowned as Arpasia, sat alone in the +Sultan's tent, staring before her with wide dark eyes, then slowly rising +began to speak. A sound, a sigh as of wonder, ran from the one to the +other of the throng that watched her. Why did she look thus, with +contracted brows, toward one quarter of the house? What inarticulate words +was she uttering? What gesture, quickly controlled, did she make of +ghastly fear and warning? And now the familiar words came halting from her +lips:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'Sure 'tis a horror, more than darkness brings,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">That sits upon the night!'"</span><br> +</p> + +<p>With the closing words of her speech the audience burst into a great storm +of applause. 'Gad! how she acts! But what now? Why, what is this?</p> + +<p>It was quite in nature and the mode for an actress to pause in the middle +of a scene to curtsy thanks for generous applause, to smile and throw a +mocking kiss to pit and boxes, but Darden's Audrey had hitherto not +followed the fashion. Also it was not uncustomary for some spoiled +favorite of a player to trip down, between her scenes, the step or two +from the stage to the pit, and mingle with the gallants there, laugh, +jest, accept languishing glances, audacious comparisons, and such weighty +trifles as gilt snuffboxes and rings of price. But this player had not +heretofore honored the custom; moreover, at present she was needed upon +the stage. Bajazet must thunder and she defy; without her the play could +not move, and indeed the actors were now staring with the audience. What +was it? Why had she crossed the stage, and, slowly, smilingly, beautiful +and stately in her gleaming robes, descended those few steps which led to +the pit? What had she to do there, throwing smiling glances to right and +left, lightly waving the folk, gentle and simple, from her path, pressing +steadily onward to some unguessed-at goal. As though held by a spell they +watched her, one and all,—Haward, Evelyn, the Governor, the man in the +cloak, every soul in that motley assemblage. The wonder had not time to +dull, for the moments were few between her final leave-taking of those +boards which she had trodden supreme and the crashing and terrible chord +which was to close the entertainment of this night.</p> + +<p>Her face was raised to the boxes, and it seemed as though her dark eyes +sought one there. Then, suddenly, she swerved. There were men between her +and Haward. She raised her hand, and they fell back, making for her a +path. Haward, bewildered, started forward, but her cry was not to him. It +was to the figure just behind him,—the cloaked figure whose hand grasped +the hunting-knife which from the stage, as she had looked to where stood +her lover, she had seen or divined. "Jean! Jean Hugon!" she cried.</p> + +<p>Involuntarily the trader pushed toward her, past the man whom he meant to +stab to the heart. The action, dragging his cloak aside, showed the +half-raised arm and the gleaming steel. For many minutes the knife had +been ready. The play was nearly over, and she must see this man who had +stolen her heart, this Haward of Fair View, die. Else Jean Hugon's +vengeance were not complete. For his own safety the maddened half-breed +had ceased to care. No warning cried from the stage could have done aught +but precipitate the deed, but now for the moment, amazed and doubtful, he +turned his back upon his prey.</p> + +<p>In that moment the Audrey of the woods, a creature lithe and agile and +strong of wrist as of will, had thrown herself upon him, clutching the +hand that held the knife. He strove to dash her from him, but in vain; the +house was in an uproar; and now Haward's hands were at his throat, +Haward's voice was crying to that fair devil, that Audrey for whom he had +built his house, who was balking him of revenge, whose body was between +him and his enemy! Suddenly he was all savage; as upon a night in Fair +View house he had cast off the trammels of his white blood, so now. An +access of furious strength came to him; he shook himself free; the knife +gleamed in the air, descended.... He drew it from the bosom into which he +had plunged it, and as Haward caught her in his arms, who would else have +sunk to the floor, the half-breed burst through the horror-stricken +throng, brandishing the red blade and loudly speaking in the tongue of the +Monacans. Like a whirlwind he was gone from the house, and for a time none +thought to follow him.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"><a href="./images/414.jpg"><img src="./images/414-tb.jpg" alt=""JEAN! JEAN HUGON!"" title=""JEAN! JEAN HUGON!""></a></p><p class="figcenter">"JEAN! JEAN HUGON!"</p> + +<p>They bore her into the small white house, and up the stair to her own +room, and laid her upon the bed. Dr. Contesse came and went away, and came +again. There was a crowd in Palace Street before the theatre. A man +mounting the doorstep so that he might be heard of all, said clearly, "She +may live until dawn,—no longer." Later, one came out of the house and +asked that there might be quiet. The crowd melted away, but throughout the +mild night, filled with the soft airs and thousand odors of the spring, +people stayed about the place, standing silent in the street or sitting on +the garden benches.</p> + +<p>In the room upstairs lay Darden's Audrey, with crossed hands and head put +slightly back. She lay still, upon the edge of death, nor seemed to care +that it was so. Her eyes were closed, and at intervals one sitting at the +bed head laid touch upon her pulse, or held before her lips a slight +ringlet of her hair. Mary Stagg sat by the window and wept, but Haward, +kneeling, hid his face in the covering of the bed. The form upon it was +not more still than he; Mistress Stagg, also, stifled her sobs, for it +seemed not a place for loud grief.</p> + +<p>In the room below, amidst the tinsel frippery of small wares, waited +others whose lives had touched the life that was ebbing away. Now and then +one spoke in a hushed voice, a window was raised, a servant bringing in +fresh candles trod too heavily; then the quiet closed in again. Late in +the night came through the open windows a distant clamor, and presently a +man ran down Palace Street, and as he ran called aloud some tidings. +MacLean, standing near the door, went softly out. When he returned, +Colonel Byrd, sitting at the table, lifted inquiring brows. "They took +him in the reeds near the Capitol landing," said the Highlander grimly. +"He's in the gaol now, but whether the people will leave him there"—</p> + +<p>The night wore on, grew old, passed into the cold melancholy of its latest +hour. Darden's Audrey sighed and stirred, and a little strength coming to +her parting spirit, she opened her eyes and loosed her hands. The +physician held to her lips the cordial, and she drank a very little. +Haward lifted his head, and as Contesse passed him to set down the cup, +caught him by the sleeve. The other looked pityingly at the man into whose +face had come a flush of hope. "'T is but the last flickering of the +flame," he said. "Soon even the spark will vanish."</p> + +<p>Audrey began to speak. At first her words were wild and wandering, but, +the mist lifting somewhat, she presently knew Mistress Stagg, and liked to +have her take the doctor's place beside her. At Haward she looked +doubtfully, with wide eyes, as scarce understanding. When he called her +name she faintly shook her head, then turned it slightly from him and +veiled her eyes. It came to him with a terrible pang that the memory of +their latest meetings was wiped from her brain, and that she was afraid of +his broken words and the tears upon her hand.</p> + +<p>When she spoke again it was to ask for the minister. He was below, and +Mistress Stagg went weeping down the stairs to summon him. He came, but +would not touch the girl; only stood, with his hat in his hand, and looked +down upon her with bleared eyes and a heavy countenance.</p> + +<p>"I am to die, am I not?" she asked, with her gaze upon him.</p> + +<p>"That is as God wills, Audrey," he answered.</p> + +<p>"I am not afraid to die."</p> + +<p>"You have no need," he said, and going out of the room and down the +stairs, made Stagg pour for him a glass of aqua vitæ.</p> + +<p>Audrey closed her eyes, and when she opened them again there seemed to be +many persons in the room. One was bending over her whom at first she +thought was Molly, but soon she saw more clearly, and smiled at the pale +and sorrowful face. The lady bent lower yet, and kissed her on the +forehead. "Audrey," she said, and Audrey looking up at her answered, +"Evelyn."</p> + +<p>When the dawn came glimmering in the windows, when the mist was cold and +the birds were faintly heard, they raised her upon her pillows, and wiped +the death dew from her forehead. "Audrey, Audrey, Audrey!" cried Haward, +and caught at her hands.</p> + +<p>She looked at him with a faint and doubtful smile, remembering nothing of +that hour in the room below, of those minutes in the moonlit garden. +"Gather the rosebuds while ye may," she said; and then, "The house is +large. Good giant, eat me not!"</p> + +<p>The man upon his knees beside her uttered a cry, and began to speak to +her, thickly, rapidly, words of agony, entreaty, and love. To-morrow and +for all life habit would resume its sway, and lost love, remorse, and vain +regrets put on a mask that was cold and fine and able to deceive. To-night +there spoke the awakened heart. With her hands cold in his, with his +agonized gaze upon the face from which the light was slowly passing, he +poured forth his passion and his anguish, and she listened not. They +moistened her lips, and one opened wide the window that gave upon the +east. "It was all a dream," she said; and again, "All a dream." A little +later, while the sky flushed slowly and the light of the candles grew +pale, she began suddenly, and in a stronger voice, to speak as Arpasia:—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"'If it be happiness, alas! to die,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To lie forgotten in the silent grave'"—</span><br> +</p> + +<p>"Forgotten!" cried Haward. "Audrey, Audrey, Audrey! Go not from me! Oh, +love, love, stay awhile!"</p> + +<p>"The mountains," said Audrey clearly. "The sun upon them and the lifting +mist."</p> + +<p>"The mountains!" he cried. "Ay, we will go to them, Audrey, we will go +together! Why, you are stronger, sweetheart! There is strength in your +voice and your hands, and a light in your eyes. Oh, if you will live, +Audrey, I will make you happy! You shall take me to the mountains—we will +go together, you and I! Audrey, Audrey"—</p> + +<p>But Audrey was gone already.</p> + + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUDREY ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f38ef33 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14513 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14513) diff --git a/old/14513-8.txt b/old/14513-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..be375b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14513-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12095 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Audrey, by Mary Johnston + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Audrey + +Author: Mary Johnston + +Release Date: December 29, 2004 [EBook #14513] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUDREY *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + + + AUDREY + + BY + MARY JOHNSTON + + AUTHOR OF "TO HAVE AND TO HOLD" AND + "PRISONERS OF HOPE" + + + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + F.C. YOHN + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + The Riverside Press, Cambridge + 1902 + + COPYRIGHT, 1901, 1902, BY MARY JOHNSTON + COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + _Published February, 1902_ + + + + + + _Books by Mary Johnston._ + + + AUDREY. With Illustrations in color. Crown 8vo, $1.50 + + PRISONERS OF HOPE. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, $1.50. + + TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. With 8 Illustrations + by HOWARD PYLE, E.B. THOMPSON, + A.W. BETTS, and EMLEN McCONNELL. + Crown 8vo, $1.50. + + + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN & CO. + BOSTON AND NEW YORK. + +[Illustration: GAZED WITH WIDE-OPEN EYES AT THE INTRUDER (page 106)] + + TO + ELOISE, ANNE, AND ELIZABETH + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER TITLE PAGE + + I. THE CABIN IN THE VALLEY 1 + + II. THE COURT OF THE ORPHAN 16 + + III. DARDEN'S AUDREY 38 + + IV. THE ROAD TO WILLIAMSBURGH 52 + + V. THE STOREKEEPER 63 + + VI. MASTER AND MAN 73 + + VII. THE RETURN OF MONSIEUR JEAN HUGON 92 + + VIII. UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE 106 + + IX. MACLEAN TO THE RESCUE 117 + + X. HAWARD AND EVELYN 131 + + XI. AUDREY OF THE GARDEN 145 + + XII. THE PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN 163 + + XIII. A SABBATH DAY'S JOURNEY 179 + + XIV. THE BEND IN THE ROAD 194 + + XV. HUGON SPEAKS HIS MIND 206 + + XVI. AUDREY AND EVELYN 222 + + XVII. WITHIN THE PLAYHOUSE 237 + + XVIII. A QUESTION OF COLORS 249 + + XIX. THE GOVERNOR'S BALL 262 + + XX. THE UNINVITED GUEST 273 + + XXI. AUDREY AWAKES 287 + + XXII. BY THE RIVERSIDE 300 + + XXIII. A DUEL 312 + + XXIV. AUDREY COMES TO WESTOVER 322 + + XXV. TWO WOMEN 337 + + XXVI. SANCTUARY 349 + + XXVII. THE MISSION OF TRUELOVE 363 + + XXVIII. THE PLAYER 375 + + XXIX. AMOR VINCIT 391 + + XXX. THE LAST ACT 402 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + + GAZED WITH WIDE-OPEN EYES AT THE INTRUDER (page 106) _Frontispiece_ + + "HAD YOU LOVED ME--I HAD BEEN HAPPY" 58 + + AUDREY LEFT HER WARNING TO BE SPOKEN BY MACLEAN 206 + + "I DO NOT THINK I HAVE THE HONOR OF KNOWING"-- 270 + + HER DARK EYES MADE APPEAL 342 + + "JEAN! JEAN HUGON!" 414 + + + +AUDREY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE CABIN IN THE VALLEY + + +The valley lay like a ribbon thrown into the midst of the encompassing +hills. The grass which grew there was soft and fine and abundant; the +trees which sprang from its dark, rich mould were tall and great of girth. +A bright stream flashed through it, and the sunshine fell warm upon the +grass and changed the tassels of the maize into golden plumes. Above the +valley, east and north and south, rose the hills, clad in living green, +mantled with the purpling grape, wreathed morn and eve with trailing mist. +To the westward were the mountains, and they dwelt apart in a blue haze. +Only in the morning, if the mist were not there, the sunrise struck upon +their long summits, and in the evening they stood out, high and black and +fearful, against the splendid sky. The child who played beside the cabin +door often watched them as the valley filled with shadows, and thought of +them as a great wall between her and some land of the fairies which must +needs lie beyond that barrier, beneath the splendor and the evening star. +The Indians called them the Endless Mountains, and the child never doubted +that they ran across the world and touched the floor of heaven. + +In the hands of the woman who was spinning the thread broke and the song +died in the white throat of the girl who stood in the doorway. For a +moment the two gazed with widening eyes into the green September world +without the cabin; then the woman sprang to her feet, tore from the wall a +horn, and, running to the door, wound it lustily. The echoes from the +hills had not died when a man and a boy, the one bearing a musket, the +other an axe, burst from the shadow of the forest, and at a run crossed +the greensward and the field of maize between them and the women. The +child let fall her pine cones and pebbles, and fled to her mother, to +cling to her skirts, and look with brown, frightened eyes for the wonder +that should follow the winding of the horn. Only twice could she remember +that clear summons for her father: once when it was winter and snow was on +the ground, and a great wolf, gaunt and bold, had fallen upon their sheep; +and once when a drunken trader from Germanna, with a Pamunkey who had +tasted of the trader's rum, had not waited for an invitation before +entering the cabin. It was not winter now, and there was no sign of the +red-faced trader or of the dreadful, capering Indian. There was only a +sound in the air, a strange noise coming to them from the pass between the +hills over which rose the sun. + +The man with the musket sent his voice before him as he approached the +group upon the doorstep: "Alce, woman! What's amiss? I see naught wrong!" + +His wife stepped forward to meet him. "There's naught to see, William. +It's to hear. There was a noise. Molly and I heard it, and then we lost +it. There it is again!" + +Fronting the cabin, beyond the maize field and the rich green grass and +the placid stream, rose two hills, steep and thickly wooded, and between +them ran a narrow, winding, and rocky pass. Down this gorge, to the +listening pioneer, now came a confused and trampling sound. + +"It is iron striking against the rocks!" he announced. "The hoofs of +horses"-- + +"Iron!" cried his wife. "The horses in Virginia go unshod! And what should +a troop of horse do here, beyond the frontier, where even the rangers +never come?" + +The man shook his head, a frown of perplexity upon his bronzed and bearded +face. "It is the sound of the hoofs of horses," he said, "and they are +coming through the pass. Hark!" + +A trumpet blew, and there came a noise of laughter. The child pressed +close to her brother's side. "Oh, Robin, maybe 't is the fairies!" + +Out from the gloom of the pass into the sunshine of the valley, splashing +through the stream, trampling the long grass, laughing, and calling one +rider to the other, burst a company of fifty horsemen. The trumpet blew +again, and the entire party, drawing rein, stared at the unexpected maize +field, the cabin, and the people about the door. + +Between the intruders and the lonely folk, whose nearest neighbors were +twenty miles away, was only a strip of sunny grass, dotted over with the +stumps of trees that had been felled lest they afford cover for attacking +savages. A man, riding at the head of the invading party, beckoned, +somewhat imperiously, to the pioneer; and the latter, still with his +musket in the hollow of his arm, strode across the greensward, and +finding himself in the midst, not of rude traders and rangers, but of +easy, smiling, periwigged gentlemen, handsomely dressed and accoutred, +dropped the butt of his gun upon the ground, and took off his +squirrel-skin cap. + +"You are deep in the wilderness, good fellow," said the man who had +beckoned, and who was possessed of a stately figure, a martial +countenance, and an air of great authority. "How far is it to the +mountains?" + +The pioneer stared at the long blue range, cloudlike in the distance. "I +don't know," he answered. "I hunt to the eastward. Twenty miles, maybe. +You're never going to climb them?" + +"We are come out expressly to do so," answered the other heartily, "having +a mind to drink the King's health with our heads in the clouds! We need +another axeman to clear away the fallen trees and break the nets of +grapevine. Wilt go along amongst our rangers yonder, and earn a pistole +and undying fame?" + +The woodsman looked from the knot of gentlemen to the troop of hardy +rangers, who, with a dozen ebony servants and four Meherrin Indians, made +up the company. Under charge of the slaves were a number of packhorses. +Thrown across one was a noble deer; a second bore a brace of wild turkeys +and a two-year-old bear, fat and tender; a third had a legion of pots and +pans for the cooking of the woodland cheer; while the burden of several +others promised heart's content of good liquor. From the entire troop +breathed a most enticing air of gay daring and good-fellowship. The +gentlemen were young and of cheerful countenances; the rangers in the rear +sat their horses and whistled to the woodpeckers in the sugar-trees; the +negroes grinned broadly; even the Indians appeared a shade less saturnine +than usual. The golden sunshine poured upon them all, and the blue +mountains that no Englishman had ever passed seemed for the moment as soft +and yielding as the cloud that slept along their summits. And no man knew +what might be just beyond the mountains: Frenchmen, certainly, and the +great lakes and the South Sea: but, besides these, might there not be +gold, glittering stones, new birds and beasts and plants, strange secrets +of the hills? It was only westward-ho! for a week or two, with good +company and good drink-- + +The woodsman shifted from one foot to the other, but his wife, who had now +crossed the grass to his side, had no doubts. + +"You'll not go, William!" she cried. "Remember the smoke that you saw +yesterday from the hilltop! If the Northern Indians are on the warpath +against the Southern, and are passing between us and the mountains, there +may be straying bands. I'll not let you go!" + +In her eagerness she clasped his arm with her hands. She was a comely, +buxom dame, and the circle on horseback, being for the most part young and +gallant, and not having seen a woman for some days, looked kindly upon +her. + +"And so you saw a smoke, goodwife, and are afraid of roving Indians?" said +the gentleman who had spoken before. "That being the case, your husband +has our permission to stay behind. On my life, 't is a shame to ride away +and leave you in danger of such marauders!" + +"Will your Excellency permit me to volunteer for guard duty?" demanded a +young man who had pressed his horse to the leader's side. "It's odds, +though, that when you return this way you'll find me turned Papist. I'll +swear your Excellency never saw in Flanders carved or painted saint so +worthy of your prayers as yonder breathing one!" + +The girl Molly had followed her parents, and now stood upon a little +grassy knoll, surveying with wide brown eyes the gay troop before her. A +light wind was blowing, and it wrapped her dress of tender, faded blue +around her young limbs, and lifted her loosened hair, gilded by the +sunshine into the likeness of an aureole. Her face was serious and +wondering, but fair as a woodland flower. She had placed her hand upon the +head of the child who was with her, clinging to her dress. The green knoll +formed a pedestal; behind was the sky, as blue as that of Italy; the two +figures might have been some painted altar-piece. + +The sprightly company, which had taken for its motto "Sic juvat +transcendere montes," looked and worshiped. There was a moment of silent +devotion, broken by one of the gentlemen demanding if 't were not time for +dinner; another remarked that they might go much farther and fare much +worse, in respect of a cool, sweet spot in which to rest during the heat +of the afternoon; and a third boldly proposed that they go no farther at +all that day. Their leader settled the question by announcing that, Mr. +Mason's suggestion finding favor in his sight, they would forthwith +dismount, dine, drink red wine and white, and wear out the heat of the day +in this sylvan paradise until four of the clock, when the trumpet should +sound for the mount; also, that if the goodwife and her daughter would do +them the honor to partake of their rustic fare, their healths should be +drunk in nothing less than Burgundy. + +As he spoke he swung himself from the saddle, pulled out his ruffles, and +raised his hat. "Ladies, permit me,"--a wave of his hand toward his +escort, who were now also on foot. "Colonel Robertson, Captain Clonder, +Captain Brooke, Mr. Haward, Mr. Beverley, Dr. Robinson, Mr. Fontaine, Mr. +Todd, Mr. Mason,--all of the Tramontane Order. For myself, I am Alexander +Spotswood, at your service." + +The pioneer, standing behind his wife, plucked her by the sleeve. "Ecod, +Alce, 't is the Governor himself! Mind your manners!" + +Alce, who had been a red-cheeked dairymaid in a great house in England, +needed no admonition. Her curtsy was profound; and when the Governor took +her by the hand and kissed her still blooming cheek, she curtsied again. +Molly, who had no memories of fine gentlemen and the complaisance which +was their due, blushed fire-red at the touch of his Excellency's lips, +forgot to curtsy, and knew not where to look. When, in her confusion, she +turned her head aside, her eyes met those of the young man who had +threatened to turn Papist. He bowed, with his hand upon his heart, and she +blushed more deeply than before. + +By now every man had dismounted, and the valley was ringing with the +merriment of the jovial crew. The negroes led the horses down the stream, +lightened them of saddle and bridle, and left them tethered to saplings +beneath which the grass grew long and green. The rangers gathered fallen +wood, and kindled two mighty fires, while the gentlemen of the party threw +themselves down beside the stream, upon a little grassy rise shadowed by a +huge sugar-tree. A mound of turf, flanked by two spreading roots, was the +Governor's chair of state, and Alce and Molly he must needs seat beside +him. Not one of his gay company but seemed an adept in the high-flown +compliment of the age; out of very idleness and the mirth born of that +summer hour they followed his Excellency's lead, and plied the two simple +women with all the wordy ammunition that a tolerable acquaintance with the +mythology of the ancients and the polite literature of the present could +furnish. The mother and daughter did not understand the fine speeches, but +liked them passing well. In their lonely lives, a little thing made +conversation for many and many a day. As for these golden hours,--the +jingle and clank and mellow laughter, the ruffles and gold buttons and +fine cloth, these gentlemen, young and handsome, friendly-eyed, +silver-tongued, the taste of wine, the taste of flattery, the sunshine +that surely was never yet so bright,--ten years from now they would still +be talking of these things, still wishing that such a day could come +again. + +The negroes were now busy around the fires, and soon the cheerful odor of +broiling meat rose and blended with the fragrance of the forest. The +pioneer, hospitably minded, beckoned to the four Meherrins, and hastening +with them to the patch of waving corn, returned with a goodly lading of +plump, green ears. A second foraging party, under guidance of the boy, +brought into the larder of the gentry half a dozen noble melons, golden +within and without. The woman whispered to the child, and the latter ran +to the cabin, filled her upgathered skirts with the loaves of her mother's +baking, and came back to the group upon the knoll beneath the sugar-tree. +The Governor himself took the bread from the little maid, then drew her +toward him. + +"Thanks, my pretty one," he said, with a smile that for the moment quite +dispelled the expression of haughtiness which marred an otherwise comely +countenance. "Come, give me a kiss, sweeting, and tell me thy name." + +The child looked at him gravely. "My name is Audrey," she answered, "and +if you eat all of our bread we'll have none for supper." + +The Governor laughed, and kissed the small dark face. "I'll give thee a +gold moidore, instead, my maid. Odso! thou'rt as dark and wild, almost, as +was my little Queen of the Saponies that died last year. Hast never been +away from the mountains, child?" + +Audrey shook her head, and thought the question but a foolish one. The +mountains were everywhere. Had she not been to the top of the hills, and +seen for herself that they went from one edge of the world to the other? +She was glad to slip from the Governor's encircling arm, and from the gay +ring beneath the sugar-tree; to take refuge with herself down by the water +side, and watch the fairy tale from afar off. + +The rangers, with the pioneer and his son for their guests, dined beside +the kitchen fire, which they had kindled at a respectful distance from the +group upon the knoll. Active, bronzed and daring men, wild riders, bold +fighters, lovers of the freedom of the woods, they sprawled upon the dark +earth beneath the walnut-trees, laughed and joked, and told old tales of +hunting or of Indian warfare. The four Meherrins ate apart and in stately +silence, but the grinning negroes must needs endure their hunger until +their masters should be served. One black detachment spread before the +gentlemen of the expedition a damask cloth; another placed upon the snowy +field platters of smoking venison and turkey, flanked by rockahominy and +sea-biscuit, corn roasted Indian fashion, golden melons, and a quantity of +wild grapes gathered from the vines that rioted over the hillside; while a +third set down, with due solemnity, a formidable array of bottles. There +being no chaplain in the party, the grace was short. The two captains +carved, but every man was his own Ganymede. The wines were good and +abundant: there was champagne for the King's health; claret in which to +pledge themselves, gay stormers of the mountains; Burgundy for the oreads +who were so gracious as to sit beside them, smile upon them, taste of +their mortal fare. + +Sooth to say, the oreads were somewhat dazed by the company they were +keeping, and found the wine a more potent brew than the liquid crystal of +their mountain streams. Red roses bloomed in Molly's cheeks; her eyes grew +starry, and no longer sought the ground; when one of the gentlemen wove a +chaplet of oak leaves, and with it crowned her loosened hair, she laughed, +and the sound was so silvery and delightful that the company laughed with +her. When the viands were gone, the negroes drew the cloth, but left the +wine. When the wine was well-nigh spent, they brought to their masters +long pipes and japanned boxes filled with sweet-scented. The fragrant +smoke, arising, wrapped the knoll in a bluish haze. A wind had arisen, +tempering the blazing sunshine, and making low music up and down the +hillsides. The maples blossomed into silver, the restless poplar leaves +danced more and more madly, the hemlocks and great white pines waved their +broad, dark banners. Above the hilltops the sky was very blue, and the +distant heights seemed dream mountains and easy of climbing. A soft and +pleasing indolence, born of the afternoon, the sunlight, and the red wine, +came to dwell in the valley. One of the company beneath the spreading +sugar-tree laid his pipe upon the grass, clasped his hands behind his +head, and, with his eyes on the azure heaven showing between branch and +leaf, sang the song of Amiens of such another tree in such another forest. +The voice was manly, strong, and sweet; the rangers quit their talk of war +and hunting to listen, and the negroes, down by the fire which they had +built for themselves, laughed for very pleasure. + +When the wine was all drunken and the smoke of the tobacco quite blown +away, a gentleman who seemed of a somewhat saturnine disposition, and less +susceptible than his brother adventurers to the charms of the wood nymphs, +rose, and declared that he would go a-fishing in the dark crystal of the +stream below. His servant brought him hook and line, while the +grasshoppers in the tall grass served for bait. A rock jutting over the +flood formed a convenient seat, and a tulip-tree lent a grateful shade. +The fish were abundant and obliging; the fisherman was happy. Three +shining trophies had been landed, and he was in the act of baiting the +hook that should capture the fourth, when his eyes chanced to meet the +eyes of the child Audrey, who had left her covert of purple-berried alder, +and now stood beside him. Tithonus, green and hale, skipped from between +his fingers, and he let fall his line to put out a good-natured hand and +draw the child down to a seat upon the rock. "Wouldst like to try thy +skill, moppet?" he demanded. + +The child shook her head. "Are you a prince?" she asked, "and is the grand +gentleman with, the long hair and the purple coat the King?" + +The fisherman laughed. "No, little one, I'm only a poor ensign. The +gentleman yonder, being the representative in Virginia of my Lord of +Orkney and his Majesty King George the First, may somewhat smack of +royalty. Indeed, there are good Virginians who think that were the King +himself amongst us he could not more thoroughly play my Lord Absolute. But +he's only the Governor of Virginia, after all, bright eyes." + +"Does he live in a palace, like the King? My father once saw the King's +house in a place they call London." + +The gentleman laughed again. "Ay, he lives in a palace, a red brick +palace, sixty feet long and forty feet deep, with a bauble on top that's +all afire on birth-nights. There are green gardens, too, with winding +paths, and sometimes pretty ladies walk in them. Wouldst like to see all +these fine things?" + +The child nodded. "Ay, that I would! Who is the gentleman that sang, and +that now sits by Molly? See! with his hand touching her hair. Is he a +Governor, too?" + +The other glanced in the direction of the sugar-tree, raised his eyebrows, +shrugged his shoulders, and returned to his fishing. "That is Mr. +Marmaduke Haward," he said, "who, having just come into a great estate, +goes abroad next month to be taught the newest, most genteel mode of +squandering it. Dost not like his looks, child? Half the ladies of +Williamsburgh are enamored of his _beaux yeux_." + +Audrey made no answer, for just then the trumpet blew for the mount, and +the fisherman must needs draw in and pocket his hook and line. Clear, +high, and sweet, the triumphant notes pierced the air, and were answered +from the hills by a thousand fairy horns. The martial-minded Governor +would play the soldier in the wilderness; his little troop of gentlemen +and rangers and ebony servants had come out well drilled for their tilt +against the mountains. The echoes were still ringing, when, with laughter, +some expenditure of wit, and much cheerful swearing, the camp was struck. +The packhorses were again laden, the rangers swung themselves into their +saddles, and the gentlemen beneath the sugar-tree rose from the grass, and +tendered their farewells to the oreads. + +Alce roundly hoped that their Honors would pass that way again upon their +return from the high mountains, and the deepening rose of Molly's cheeks +and her wistful eyes added weight to her mother's importunity. The +Governor swore that in no great time they would dine again in the valley, +and his companions confirmed the oath. His Excellency, turning to mount +his horse, found the pioneer at the animal's head. + +"So, honest fellow," he exclaimed good-naturedly, "you will not with us to +grave your name upon the mountain tops? Let me tell you that you are +giving Fame the go-by. To march against the mountains and overcome them as +though they were so many Frenchmen, and then to gaze into the promised +land beyond--Odso, man, we are as great as were Cortez and Pizarro and +their crew! We are heroes and paladins! We are the Knights of"-- + +His horse, impatient to be gone, struck with a ringing sound an iron-shod +hoof against a bit of rock. "The Knights of the Horseshoe," said the +gentleman nearest the Governor. + +Spotswood uttered a delighted exclamation: "'Gad, Mr. Haward, you've hit +it! Well-nigh the first horseshoes used in Virginia--the number we were +forced to bring along--the sound of the iron against the rocks--the +Knights of the Horseshoe! 'Gad, I'll send to London and have little +horseshoes--little gold horseshoes--made, and every man of us shall wear +one. The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe! It hath an odd, charming sound, +eh, gentlemen?" + +None of the gentlemen were prepared to deny that it was a quaint and +pleasing title. Instead, out of very lightness of heart and fantastic +humor, they must needs have the Burgundy again unpacked, that they might +pledge at once all valorous discoverers, his Excellency the Governor of +Virginia, and their new-named order. And when the wine was drunk, the +rangers were drawn up, the muskets were loaded, and a volley was fired +that brought the echoes crashing about their heads. The Governor mounted, +the trumpet sounded once more, and the joyous company swept down the +narrow valley toward the long, blue, distant ranges. + +The pioneer, his wife and children, watched them go. One of the gentlemen +turned in his saddle and waved his hand. Alce curtsied, but Molly, at whom +he had looked, saw him not, because her eyes were full of tears. The +company reached and entered a cleft between the hills; a moment, and men +and horses were lost to sight; a little longer, and not even a sound could +be heard. + +It was as though they had taken the sunshine with them; for a cloud had +come up from the west, and the sun was hidden. All at once the valley +seemed a sombre and lonely place, and the hills with their whispering +trees looked menacingly down upon the clearing, the cabin, and the five +simple English folk. The glory of the day was gone. After a little more +of idle staring, the frontiersman and his son returned to their work in +the forest, while Alce and Molly went indoors to their spinning, and +Audrey sat down upon the doorstep to listen to the hurry of voices in the +trees, and to watch the ever-deepening shadow of the cloud above the +valley. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE COURT OF THE ORPHAN + + +An hour before dusk found the company that had dined in the valley making +their way up the dry bed of a stream, through a gorge which cleft a line +of precipitous hills. On either hand the bank rose steeply, giving no +footing for man or beast. The road was a difficult one; for here a tall, +fern-crowned rock left but a narrow passage between itself and the shaggy +hillside, and there smooth and slippery ledges, mounting one above the +other, spanned the way. In places, too, the drought had left pools of +dark, still water, difficult to avoid, and not infrequently the entire +party must come to a halt while the axemen cleared from the path a fallen +birch or hemlock. Every man was afoot, none caring to risk a fall upon the +rocks or into the black, cold water of the pools. The hoofs of the horses +and the spurs of the men clanked against the stones; now and then one of +the heavily laden packhorses stumbled and was sworn at, and once a warning +rattle, issuing from a rank growth of fern on the hillside, caused a +momentary commotion. There was no more laughter, or whistling, or calling +from the van to the rear guard. The way was arduous, and every man must +watch his footsteps; moreover, the last rays of the sun were gilding the +hilltops above them, and the level that should form their camping-place +must be reached before the falling of the night. + +The sunlight had all but faded from the heights, when one of the company, +stumbling over a round and mossy rock, measured his length upon the +ground, amid his own oaths at his mishap, and the exclamations of the man +immediately in his rear, whose progress he had thus unceremoniously +blocked. The horse of the fallen man, startled by the dragging at the +reins, reared and plunged, and in a moment the entire column was in +disorder. When the frightened animals were at last quieted, and the line +re-formed, the Governor called out to know who it was that had fallen, and +whether any damage had been suffered. + +"It was Mr. Haward, sir!" cried two or three; and presently the injured +gentleman himself, limping painfully, and with one side of his fine green +coat all stained by reason of contact with a bit of muddy ground, appeared +before his Excellency. + +"I have had a cursed mishap,--saving your presence, sir," he explained. +"The right ankle is, I fear, badly sprained. The pain, is exquisite, and I +know not how I am to climb mountains." + +The Governor uttered an exclamation of concern: "Unfortunate! Dr. Robinson +must look to the hurt at once." + +"Your Excellency forgets my dispute with Dr. Robinson as to the dose of +Jesuit bark for my servant," said the sufferer blandly. "Were I _in +extremis_ I should not apply to him for relief." + +"I'll lay my life that you are not _in extremis_ now," retorted the +doctor. "If ever I saw a man with a sprained ankle keep his color so +marvelously, or heard him speak in so composed a tone! The pain must be of +a very unusual degree indeed!" + +"It is," answered Mr. Haward calmly. "I cannot possibly go on in this +condition, your Excellency, nor can I dream of allowing my unlucky +accident to delay this worshipful company in their ascent of the +mountains. I will therefore take my servant and ride slowly back to the +cabin which we left this afternoon. Doubtless the worthy pioneer will give +me shelter until my foot is healed, and I will rejoin your Excellency upon +your return through the valley." + +As he spoke, for the greater ease of the injured member, he leaned against +a towering lock. He was a handsome youth, with a trick of keeping an +unmoved countenance under even such a fire of laughter and exclamation as +greeted his announcement. + +"And for this you would lose the passing of the Appalachian Mountains!" +cried Spotswood. "Why, man! from those heights we may almost see Lake +Erie; may find out how near we are to the French, how easily the mountains +may be traversed, what promise of success should his Majesty determine to +plant settlements beyond them or to hold the mountain passes! There is +service to be done and honor to be gained, and you would lag behind +because of a wrenched ankle! Zoons, sir! at Blenheim I charged a whole +regiment of Frenchmen, with a wound in my breast into which you might have +thrust your hand!" + +The younger man shrugged his shoulders. "Beggars may not be choosers," he +said coolly. "The sunlight is fast fading, and if we would be out of this +gorge before nightfall we must make no further tarrying. I have your +Excellency's permission to depart?" + +One of the gentlemen made a low-voiced but audible remark to his neighbor, +and another hummed a line from a love song. The horses moved impatiently +amongst the loose stones, and the rangers began to mutter that night +would be upon them before they reached a safer footing. + +"Mr. Haward! Mr. Haward!" said the Governor sternly. "It is in my mind +that you meditate inflicting a greater harm than you have received. Let me +tell you, sir, if you think to so repay a simple-minded hospitality"-- + +Mr. Haward's eyes narrowed. "I own Colonel Spotswood for Governor of +Virginia," he said, speaking slowly, as was his wont when he was angry. +"His office does not, I think, extend farther than that. As for these +pleasant-minded gentlemen who are not protected by their rank I beg to +inform them that in my fall my sword arm suffered no whit." + +Turning, he beckoned to a negro who had worked his way from the servants +in the rear, along the line of rangers, to the outskirts of the group of +gentlemen gathered around the Governor and the injured man. "Juba," he +ordered, "draw your horse and mine to one side. Your Excellency, may I +again remind you that it draws toward nightfall, and that this road will +be no pleasant one to travel in the dark?" + +What he said was true; moreover, upon the setting out of the expedition it +had been laughingly agreed that any gentleman who might find his spirits +dashed by the dangers and difficulties of the way should be at liberty at +any time to turn his back upon the mountains, and his face toward safety +and the settlements. The Governor frowned, bit his lips, but finally burst +into unwilling laughter. + +"You are a very young gentleman, Mr. Marmaduke Haward!" he cried. "Were +you a little younger, I know what ointment I should prescribe for your +hurt. Go your ways with your broken ankle; but if, when I come again to +the cabin in the valley, I find that your own injury has not contented +you, look to it that I do not make you build a bridge across the bay +itself! Gentlemen, Mr. Haward is bent upon intrusting his cure to other +and softer hands than Dr. Robinson's, and the expedition must go forward +without him. We sorrow to lose him from our number, but we know better +than to reason with--ahem!--a twisted ankle. _En avant_, gentlemen! Mr. +Haward, pray have a care of yourself. I would advise that the ankle be +well bandaged, and that you stir not from the chimney corner"-- + +"I thank your Excellency for your advice," said Mr. Haward imperturbably, +"and will consider of taking it. I wish your Excellency and these merry +gentlemen a most complete victory over the mountains, from which conquest +I will no longer detain you." + +He bowed as he spoke, and began to move, slowly and haltingly, across the +width of the rocky way to where his negro stood with the two horses. + +"Mr. Haward!" called the Governor. + +The recreant turned his head. "Your Excellency?" + +"It was the right foot, was it not?" queried his sometime leader. "Ah, I +thought so! Then it were best not to limp with the left." + +Homeric laughter shook the air; but while Mr. Haward laughed not, neither +did he frown or blush. "I will remember, sir," he said simply, and at once +began to limp with the proper foot. When he reached the bank he turned, +and, standing with his arm around his horse's neck, watched the company +which he had so summarily deserted, as it put itself into motion and went +slowly past him up its dusky road. The laughter and bantering farewells +moved him not; he could at will draw a line around himself across which +few things could step. Not far away the bed of the stream turned, and a +hillside, dark with hemlock, closed the view. He watched the train pass +him, reach this bend, and disappear. The axemen and the four Meherrins, +the Governor and the gentlemen of the Horseshoe, the rangers, the +negroes,--all were gone at last. With that passing, and with the ceasing +of the laughter and the trampling, came the twilight. A whippoorwill began +to call, and the wind sighed in the trees. Juba, the negro, moved closer +to his master; then upon an impulse stooped, and lifting above his head a +great rock, threw it with might into one of the shallow pools. The +crashing sound broke the spell of the loneliness and quiet that had fallen +upon the place. The white man drew his breath, shrugged his shoulders, and +turned his horse's head down the way up which he had so lately come. + +The cabin in the valley was not three miles away. Down this ravine to a +level place of pines, through the pines to a strip of sassafras and a +poisoned field, past these into a dark, rich wood of mighty trees linked +together with the ripening grape, then three low hills, then the valley +and the cabin and a pair of starry eyes. It was full moon. Once out from +under the stifling walls of the ravine, and the silver would tremble +through the leaves, and show the path beneath. The trees, too, that they +had blazed,--with white wood pointing to white wood, the backward way +should be easy. + +The earth, rising sheer in darkness on either hand, shut in the bed of the +stream. In the warm, scented dusk the locusts shrilled in the trees, and +far up the gorge the whippoorwill called and called. The air was filled +with the gold of fireflies, a maze of spangles, now darkening, now +brightening, restless and bewildering. The small, round pools caught the +light from the yet faintly colored sky, and gleamed among the rocks; a +star shone out, and a hot wind, heavy with the smell of the forest, moved +the hemlock boughs and rustled in the laurels. + +The white man and the negro, each leading his horse, picked their way with +caution among the pitfalls of the rocky and uneven road. With the passing +of the Governor and his train a sudden cure had been wrought, for now +Haward's step was as firm and light as it had been before his fall. The +negro looked at him once or twice with a puzzled face, but made no comment +and received no enlightenment. Indeed, so difficult was their way that +they were left but scant leisure for speech. Moment by moment the darkness +deepened, and once Haward's horse came to its knees, crashing down among +the rocks and awakening every echo. + +The way, if hard, was short. The hills fell farther apart, the banks +became low and broad, and fair in front, between two slender pines, shone +out the great round moon. Leaving the bed of the stream, the two men +entered a pine wood, dim and fragrant and easy to thread. The moon rose +higher, and the light fell in wide shafts between trees that stood well +apart, with no vines to grapple one to another or undergrowth to press +about their knees. + +There needed no watchfulness: the ground was smooth, the light was fair; +no motion save the pale flicker of the fireflies, no sound save the sigh +of the night wind in the boughs that were so high overhead. Master and +man, riding slowly and steadily onward through a wood that seemed +interminably the same, came at last to think of other things than the road +which they were traveling. Their hands lost grasp upon the reins, and +their eyes, ceasing to glance now here, now there, gazed steadfastly down +the gray and dreamlike vista before them, and saw no longer hole and +branch, moonlight and the white scars that the axe had made for guidance. +The vision of the slave was of supper at the quarters, of the scraping of +the fiddle in the red firelight, of the dancing and the singing. The white +man saw, at first, only a girl's face, shy and innocent,--the face of the +woodland maid who had fired his fancy, who was drawing him through the +wilderness back to the cabin in the valley. But after a while, in the gray +stillness, he lost the face, and suddenly thought, instead, of the stone +that was to cover his father's grave. The ship that was to bring the +great, dark, carven slab should be in by now; the day after his return to +Williamsburgh the stone must be put in place, covering in the green sod +and that which lay below. _Here, lieth in the hope of a joyful +resurrection_-- + +His mind left the grave in the churchyard at Williamsburgh, and visited +the great plantation of which he was now sole master. There was the house, +foursquare, high-roofed, many-windowed, built of dark red brick that +glowed behind the veil of the walnuts and the oaks. There, too, were the +quarters,--the home quarter, that at the creek, that on the ridge. Fifty +white servants, three hundred slaves,--and he was the master. The +honeysuckles in the garden that had been his father's pride, the shining +expanse of the river, the ship--his ship, the Golden Rose--that was to +take him home to England,--he forgot the night and the forest, and saw +these things quite plainly. Then he fell to thinking of London and the +sweets that he meant to taste, the heady wine of youth and life that he +meant to drain to the lees. He was young; he could spare the years. One +day he would come back to Virginia, to the dim old garden and quiet house. +His factor would give account, and he would settle down in the red brick +house, with the tobacco to the north and east, the corn to the west, and +to the south the mighty river,--the river silvered by the moon, the river +that lay just beyond him, gleaming through the trees-- + +Startled by the sudden tightening of the reins, or by the tearing of some +frightened thing through the canes that beset the low, miry bank, the +horse sprang aside; then stood trembling with pricked ears. The white man +stared at the stream; turned in his saddle and stared at the tree trunks, +the patches of moonlight, and the impenetrable shadow that closed each +vista. "The blazed trees!" he exclaimed at last. "How long since we saw +one?" + +The slave shook his head. "Juba forgot to look. He was away by a river +that he knew." + +"We have passed from out the pines," said Haward. "These are oaks. But +what is that water, and how far we are out of our reckoning the Lord only +knows!" + +As he spoke he pushed his horse through the tall reeds to the bank of the +stream. Here in the open, away from the shadow of the trees, the full moon +had changed the night-time into a wonderful, silver day. Narrow above and +belows the stream widened before him into a fairy basin, rimmed with +reeds, unruffled, crystal-clear, stiller than a dream. The trees that grew +upon the farther side were faint gray clouds in the moonlight, and the +gold of the fireflies was very pale. From over the water, out of the heart +of the moonlit wood, came the song of a mockingbird, a tumultuous ecstasy, +possessing the air and making elfin the night. + +Haward backed his horse from the reeds to the oak beneath which waited the +negro. "'Tis plain that we have lost our way, Juba," he said, with a +laugh. "If you were an Indian, we should turn and straightway retrace our +steps to the blazed trees. Being what you are, you are more valuable in +the tobacco fields than in the forest. Perhaps this is the stream which +flows by the cabin in the valley. We'll follow it down, and so arrive, at +least, at a conclusion." + +They dismounted, and, leading their horses, followed the stream for some +distance, to arrive at the conclusion that it was not the one beside which +they had dined that day. When they were certain of this, they turned and +made their way back to the line of reeds which they had broken to mark +their starting-point. By now the moon was high, and the mockingbird in the +wood across the water was singing madly. Turning from the still, moonlit +sheet, the silent reeds, the clear mimicker in the slumbrous wood, the two +wayfarers plunged into the darkness beneath the spreading branches of the +oak-trees. They could not have ridden far from the pines; in a very little +while they might reach and recognize the path which they should tread. + +An hour later, the great trees, oak and chestnut, beech and poplar, +suddenly gave way to saplings, many, close-set, and overrun with +grapevines. So dense was the growth, so unyielding the curtain of vines, +that men and horses were brought to a halt as before a fortress wall. +Again they turned, and, skirting that stubborn network, came upon a swamp, +where leafless trees, white as leprosy, stood up like ghosts from the +water that gleamed between the lily-pads. Leaving the swamp they climbed a +hill, and at the summit found only the moon and the stars and a long +plateau of sighing grass. Behind them were the great mountains; before +them, lesser heights, wooded hills, narrow valleys, each like its fellow, +each indistinct and shadowy, with no sign of human tenant. + +Haward gazed at the climbing moon and at the wide and universal dimness of +the world beneath; then turned to the negro, and pointed to a few low +trees growing at the eastern end of the plateau. + +"Fasten the horses there, Juba," he said. "We will wait upon this hilltop +until morning. When the light comes, we may be able to see the clearing or +the smoke from the cabin." + +When the horses had been tethered, master and man lay down upon the grass. +It was so still upon the hilltop, and the heavens pressed so closely, that +the slave grew restless and strove to make talk. Failing in this, he began +to croon a savage, mournful air, and presently, forgetting himself, to +sing outright. + +"Be quiet!" ordered his master. "There may be Indians abroad." + +The song came to an end as abruptly as it lad begun, and the singer, +having nothing better to do, went fast asleep. His companion, more +wakeful, lay with his hands behind his head and his eyes upon the splendor +of the firmament. Lying so, he could not see the valleys nor the looming +mountains. There were only the dome of the sky, the grass, and himself. +He stared at the moon, and made pictures of her shadowy places; then fell +to thinking of the morrow, and of the possibility that after all he might +never find again the cabin in the valley. While he laughed at this +supposition, yet he played with it. He was in a mood to think the loss of +the trail of the expedition no great matter. The woods were full of game, +the waters of fish; he and Juba had only to keep their faces to the +eastward, and a fortnight at most would bring them to the settlements. But +the valleys folded among the hills were many; what if the one he sought +should still elude him? What if the cabin, the sugar-tree, the crystal +stream, had sunk from sight, like the city in one of Monsieur Gralland's +fantastic tales? Perhaps they had done so,--the spot had all the air of a +bit of fairyland,--and the woodland maid was gone to walk with the elves. +Well, perchance for her it would be better so. And yet it would be +pleasant if she should climb the hillside now and sit beside him, with her +shy dark eyes and floating hair. Her hair was long and fine, and the wind +would lift it; her face was fair, and another than the wind should kiss +it. The night would not then be so slow in going. + +He turned upon his side, and looked along the grassy summit to the woods +upon the opposite slope and to the distant mountains. Dull silver, +immutable, perpetual, they reared themselves to meet the moonbeams. +Between him and those stern and changeless fronts, pallid as with snows, +stretched the gray woods. The moon shone very brightly, and there was no +wind. So unearthly was the quiet of the night, so solemn the light, so +high and still and calm the universe around him, that awe fell upon his +soul. It was well to lie upon the hilltop and guess at the riddle of the +world; now dimly to see the meaning, now to lose it quite, to wonder, to +think of death. The easy consciousness that for him death was scores of +years away, that he should not meet the spectre until the wine was all +drunken, the garlands withered, and he, the guest, ready to depart, made +these speculations not at all unpleasing. He looked at his hand, blanched +by the moonlight, lying beside him upon the grass, and thought how like a +dead hand it seemed, and what if he could not move it, nor his body, nor +could ever rise from the grass, but must lie there upon the lonely hilltop +in the untrodden wilderness, until that which had ridden and hunted and +passed so buoyantly through life should become but a few dry bones, a +handful of dust. He was of his time, and its laxness of principle and +conduct; if he held within himself the potential scholar, statesman, and +philosopher, there were also the skeptic, the egotist, and the libertine. +He followed the fashion and disbelieved much, but he knew that if he died +to-night his soul would not stay with his body upon the hilltop. He +wondered, somewhat grimly, what it would do when so much that had clothed +it round--pride of life, love of pleasure, desire, ambition--should be +plucked away. Poor soul! Surely it would feel itself something shrunken, +stripped of warmth, shiveringly bare to all the winds of heaven. The +radiance of the moon usurped the sky, but behind that veil of light the +invisible and multitudinous stars were shining. Beyond those stars were +other stars, beyond those yet others; on and on went the stars, wise men +said. Beyond them all, what then? And where was the place of the soul? +What would it do? What heaven or hell would it find or make for itself? +Guesswork all! + +The silver pomp of the night began to be oppressive to him. There was +beauty, but it was a beauty cold and distant, infinitely withdrawn from +man and his concerns. Woods and mountains held aloof, communing with the +stars. They were kindred and of one house; it was man who was alien, a +stranger and alone. The hilltop cared not that he lay thereon; the grass +would grow as greenly when he was in his grave; all his tragedies since +time began he might reenact there below, and the mountains would not bend +to look. + +He flung his arm across his eyes to shut out the moonlight, and tried to +sleep. Finding the attempt a vain one, and that the night pressed more and +more heavily upon him, he sat up with the intention of shaking the negro +awake, and so providing himself with other company than his own thoughts. + +His eyes had been upon the mountains, but now, with the sudden movement, +he faced the eastern horizon and a long cleft between the hills. Far down +this opening something was on fire, burning fiercely and redly. Some one +must have put torch to the forest; and yet it did not burn as trees burn. +It was like a bonfire ... it was a bonfire in a clearing! There were not +woods about it, but a field--and the glint of water-- + +The negro, awakened by foot and voice, sprang up, and stood bewildered +beside his master. "It is the valley that we have been seeking, Juba," +said the latter, speaking rapidly and low. "That burning pile is the +cabin, and 't is like that there are Indians between us and it! Leave the +horses; we shall go faster without them. Look to the priming of your gun, +and make no noise. Now!" + +Rapidly descending the hill, they threw themselves into the woods at its +base. Here they could not see the fire, but now and then, as they ran, +they caught the glow, far down the lines of trees. Though they went +swiftly they went warily as well, keeping an eye and ear open and muskets +ready. But there was no sound other than their own quick footfalls upon +the floor of rotting leaves, or the eager brushing of their bodies through +occasional undergrowth; no sight but the serried trees and the checkered +light and shade upon the ground. + +They came to the shallow stream that flashed through the valley, and +crossing it found themselves on cleared ground, with only a long strip of +corn between them and what had been a home for English folk. It was that +no longer: for lack of fuel the flames were dying down; there was only a +charred and smoking pile, out of which leaped here and there a red tongue. + +Haward had expected to hear a noise of savage triumph, and to see dark +figures moving about their handiwork. There was no noise, and the +moonlight showed no living being. The night was changelessly still and +bright; the tragedy had been played, and the mountains and the hills and +the running water had not looked. + +It took but a few minutes to break through the rustling corn and reach the +smouldering logs. Once before them, there seemed naught to do but to stand +and stare at the ruin, until a tongue of flame caught upon a piece of +uncharred wood, and showed them the body of the pioneer lying at a little +distance from the stone that had formed his doorstep. At a sign from +Haward the negro went and turned it over, then, let it sink again into the +seared grass. "Two arrows, Marse Duke," he said, coming back to the +other's side. "An' they've taken his scalp." + +Three times Haward made the round of the yet burning heap. Was it only +ruined and fallen walls, or was it a funeral pyre as well? To know, he +must wait for the day and until the fire had burned itself out. If the +former were the case, if the dead man alone kept the valley, then now, +through the forest and the moonlight, captives were being haled to some +Indian village, and to a fate more terrible than that of the man who lay +there upon the grass with an arrow through his heart. + +If the girl were still alive, yet was she dead to him. He was no Quixote +to tilt with windmills. Had a way to rescue her lain fair before him, he +would have risked his life without a thought. But the woods were deep and +pathless, and only an Indian could find and keep a trail by night. To +challenge the wilderness; to strike blindly at the forest, now here, now +there; to dare all, and know that it was hopeless daring,--a madman might +do this for love. But it was only Haward's fancy that had been touched, +and if he lacked not courage, neither did he lack a certain cool good +sense which divided for him the possible from that which was impossible, +and therefore not to be undertaken. + +Turning from the ruin, he walked across the trampled sward to the +sugar-tree in whose shade, in the golden afternoon, he had sung to his +companions and to a simple girl. Idle and happy and far from harm had the +valley seemed. + + "Here shall he see + No enemy + But winter and rough weather." + +Suddenly he found that he was trembling, and that a sensation of faintness +and of dull and sick revolt against all things under the stars was upon +him. Sitting down in the shadow of the tree, he rested his face in his +hands and shut his eyes, preferring the darkness within to that outer +night which hid not and cared not, which was so coldly at peace. He was +young, and though stories of such dismal things as that before him were +part of the stock in trade of every ancient, garrulous man or woman of his +acquaintance, they had been for him but tales; not horrible truths to +stare him in the face. He had seen his father die; but he had died, in his +bed, and like one who went to sleep. + +The negro had followed him, and now stood with his eyes upon the dying +flames, muttering to himself some heathenish charm. When it was ended, he +looked about him uneasily for a time; then bent and plucked his master by +the sleeve. "We cyarn' do nothin' here, Marse Duke," he whispered. "An' +the wolves may get the horses." + +With a laugh and a groan, the young man rose to his feet. "That is true, +Juba," he said. "It's all over here,--we were too late. And it's not a +pleasant place to lie awake in, waiting for the morning. We'll go back to +the hilltop." + +Leaving the tree, they struck across the grass and entered the strip of +corn. Something low and dark that had lain upon the ground started up +before them, and ran down the narrow way between the stalks. Haward made +after it and caught it. + +"Child!" he cried. "Where are the others?" + +The child had struggled for a moment, desperately if weakly, but at the +sound of his voice she lay still in his grasp, with her eyes upon his +face. In the moonlight each could see the other quite plainly. Raising her +in his arms, Haward bore her to the brink of the stream, laved her face +and chafed the small, cold hands. + +"Now tell me, Audrey," he said at last. "Audrey is your name, isn't it? +Cry, if you like, child, but try to tell me." + +Audrey did not cry. She was very, very tired, and she wanted to go to +sleep. "The Indians came," she told him in a whisper, with her head upon +his breast. "We all waked up, and father fired at them through the hole in +the door. Then they broke the door down, and he went outside, and they +killed him. Mother put me under the bed, and told me to stay there, and to +make no noise. Then the Indians came in at the door, and killed her and +Molly and Robin. I don't remember anything after that,--maybe I went to +sleep. When I was awake again the Indians were gone, but there was fire +and smoke everywhere. I was afraid of the fire, and so I crept from under +the bed, and kissed mother and Molly and Robin, and left them lying in the +cabin, and came away." + +She sighed with weariness, and the hand with which she put back her dark +hair that had fallen over her face was almost too heavy to lift. "I sat +beside father and watched the fire," she said. "And then I heard you and +the black man coming over the stones in the stream. I thought that you +were Indians, and I went and hid in the corn." + +Her voice failed, and her eyelids drooped. In some anxiety Haward watched +her breathing and felt for the pulse in the slight brown wrist; then, +satisfied, he lifted the light burden, and, nodding to the negro to go +before, recommenced his progress to the hill which he had left an hour +agone. + +It was not far away. He could see the bare summit above the treetops, and +in a little while they were upon its slope. A minute more and they came to +the clump of trees, and found the horses in safety, Haward paused to take +from the roll strapped behind his saddle a riding cloak; then, leaving the +negro with the horses, climbed to the grassy level. Here he spread the +cloak upon the ground, and laid the sleeping child upon it, which done, he +stood and looked at his new-found charge for a moment; then turning, began +to pace up and down upon the hilltop. + +It was necessary to decide upon a course of action. They had the horses, +the two muskets, powder and shot. The earth was dry and warm, and the +skies were cloudless. Was it best to push on to Germanna, or was it best +to wait down there in the valley for the return of the Governor and his +party? They would come that way, that was certain, and would look to find +him there. If they found only the ruined cabin, they might think him dead +or taken by the Indians, and an attempt to seek him, as dangerous, +perhaps, as fruitless, might be made. He decided that he would wait. +To-morrow he would take Juba and the horses and the child and go down into +the valley; not back to the sugar-tree and that yet smouldering pyre, but +to the woods on this side of the stream. + +This plan thought out, he went; and took his seat beside the child. She +was moaning in her sleep, and he bent over and soothed her. When she was +quiet he still kept her hand in his, as he sat there waiting for the dawn. +He gave the child small thought. Together he and Juba must care for her +until they could rejoin the expedition: then the Governor, who was so fond +of children, might take her in hand, and give her for nurse old Dominick, +who was as gentle as a woman. Once at Germanna perhaps some scolding +_Hausfrau_ would take her, for the sake of the scrubbing and lifting to be +gotten out of those small hands and that slender frame. If not, she must +on to Williamsburgh and the keeping of the vestry there. The next Orphan +Court would bind her to some master or mistress who might (or might not) +be kind to her, and so there would be an end to the matter. + +The day was breaking. Moon and stars were gone, and the east was dull +pink, like faded roses. A ribbon of silver mist, marking the course of the +stream below, drew itself like a serpent through the woods that were +changing from gray to green. The dank smell of early morning rose from the +dew-drenched earth, and in the countless trees of the forest the birds +began to sing. + +A word or phrase which is as common and familiar as our hand may, in some +one minute of time, take on a significance and present a face so keen and +strange that it is as if we had never met it before. An Orphan Court! +Again he said the words to himself, and then aloud. No doubt the law did +its best for the fatherless and motherless, for such waifs and strays as +that which lay beside him. When it bound out children, it was most +emphatic that they should be fed and clothed and taught; not starved or +beaten unduly, or let to grow up ignorant as negroes. Sometimes the law +was obeyed, sometimes not. + +The roses in the east bloomed again, and the pink of their petals melted +into the clear blue of the upper skies. Because their beauty compelled him +Haward looked at the heavens. The Court of the Orphan!... _When my father +and my mother forsake, me, the Lord taketh me up_. Haward acknowledged +with surprise that portions of the Psalter did somehow stick in the +memory. + +The face of the child was dark and thin, but the eyes were large and there +was promise in the mouth. It was a pity-- + +He looked at her again, and suddenly resolved that he, Marmaduke Haward, +would provide for her future. When they met once more, he should tell the +Governor and his brother adventurers as much; and if they chose to laugh, +why, let them do so! He would take the child to Williamsburgh with him, +and get some woman to tend her until he could find kind and decent folk +with whom to bestow her. There were the new minister of Fair View parish +and his wife,--they might do. He would give them two thousand pounds of +sweet-scented a year for the child's maintenance. Oh, she should be well +cared for! He would--if he thought of it--send her gifts from London; and +when she was grown, and asked in marriage, he would give her for dowry a +hundred acres of land. + +As the strengthening rays of the sun, shining alike upon the just and the +unjust, warmed his body, so his own benevolence warmed his heart. He knew +that he was doing a generous thing, and his soul felt in tune with the +beamy light, the caroling of the birds, the freshness and fragrance of the +morning. When at last the child awoke, and, the recollection of the night +coming full upon her, clung to him, weeping and trembling, he put his arm +around her and comforted her with all the pet names his memory could +conjure up. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +DARDEN'S AUDREY + + +It was May Day in Virginia, in the year 1727. In England there were George +the First, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King +and Defender of the Faith; my Lord of Orkney, Governor in chief of +Virginia; and William Gooch, newly appointed Lieutenant Governor. In +Virginia there were Colonel Robert Carter, President of the Council and +Governor _pro tem._; the Council itself; and Mistress Martha Jaquelin. + +By virtue of her good looks and sprightliness, the position of her father +in the community, and the fact that this 1st of May was one and the same +with her sixteenth birthday, young Mistress Jaquelin was May Queen in +Jamestown. And because her father was a worthy gentleman and a gay one, +with French blood in his veins and Virginia hospitality in his heart, he +had made a feast for divers of his acquaintances, and, moreover, had +provided, in a grassy meadow down by the water side, a noble and +seasonable entertainment for them, and for the handful of townsfolk, and +for all chance comers. + +Meadow and woodland and marsh, ploughed earth and blossoming orchards, lay +warm in the sunshine. Even the ruined town, fallen from her estate, and +become but as a handmaid to her younger sister, put a good face upon her +melancholy fortunes. Honeysuckle and ivy embraced and hid crumbling walls, +broken foundations, mounds of brick and rubbish, all the untouched +memorials of the last burning of the place. Grass grew in the street, and +the silent square was strewn with the gold of the buttercups. The houses +that yet stood and were lived in might have been counted on the fingers of +one hand, with the thumb for the church. But in their gardens the flowers +bloomed gayly, and the sycamores and mulberries in the churchyard were +haunts of song. The dead below had music, and violets in the blowing +grass, and the undertone of the river. Perhaps they liked the peace of the +town that was dead as they were dead; that, like them, had seen of the +travail of life, and now, with shut eyes and folded hands, knew that it +was vanity. + +But the Jaquelin house was built to the eastward of the churchyard and the +ruins of the town, and, facing the sparkling river, squarely turned its +back upon the quiet desolation at the upper end of the island and upon the +text from Ecclesiastes. + +In the level meadow, around a Maypole gay with garlands and with +fluttering ribbons, the grass had been closely mown, for there were to be +foot-races and wrestling bouts for the amusement of the guests. Beneath a +spreading tree a dozen fiddlers put their instruments in tune, while +behind the open windows of a small, ruinous house, dwelt in by the sexton, +a rustic choir was trying over "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green." +Young men and maidens of the meaner sort, drawn from the surrounding +country, from small plantation, store and ordinary, mill and ferry, clad +in their holiday best and prone to laughter, strayed here and there, or, +walking up and down the river bank, where it commanded a view of both the +landing and the road, watched for the coming of the gentlefolk. Children, +too, were not lacking, but rolled amidst the buttercups or caught at the +ribbons flying from the Maypole, while aged folk sat in the sun, and a +procession of wide-lipped negroes, carrying benches and chairs, advanced +to the shaven green and put the seats in order about the sylvan stage. It +was but nine of the clock, and the shadow of the Maypole was long upon the +grass. Along the slightly rising ground behind the meadow stretched an +apple orchard in full bloom, and between that line of rose and snow and +the lapping of the tide upon the yellow sands lay, for the length of a +spring day, the kingdom of all content. + +The shadow of the Maypole was not much shrunken when the guests of the +house of Jaquelin began to arrive. First to come, and from farthest away, +was Mr. Richard Ambler, of Yorktown, who had ridden from that place to +Williamsburgh the afternoon before, and had that morning used the +planter's pace to Jamestown,--his industry being due to the fact that he +was courting the May Queen's elder sister. Following him came five Lees in +a chariot, then a delegation of Burwells, then two Digges in a chaise. A +Bland and a Bassett and a Randolph came on horseback, while a barge +brought up river a bevy of blooming Carters, a white-sailed sloop from +Warwick landed a dozen Carys, great and small, and two periaguas, filled +with Harrisons, Aliens, and Cockes, shot over from the Surrey shore. + +From a stand at one end of the grassy stage, trumpet and drum proclaimed +that the company had gathered beneath the sycamores before the house, and +was about to enter the meadow. Shrill-voiced mothers warned their +children from the Maypole, the fiddlers ceased their twanging, and Pretty +Bessee, her name cut in twain, died upon the air. The throng of humble +folk--largely made up of contestants for the prizes of the day, and of +their friends and kindred--scurried to its appointed place, and with the +issuing from the house gates of the May Queen and her court the +festivities commenced. + +An hour later, in the midst of a bout at quarterstaff between the +Jamestown blacksmith and the miller from Princess Creek, a coach and four, +accompanied by a horseman, crossed the neck, rolled through the street, +and, entering the meadow, drew up a hundred feet from the ring of +spectators. + +The eyes of the commonalty still hung upon every motion of the blacksmith +and the miller, but by the people of quality the cudgelers were for the +moment quite forgot. The head of the house of Jaquelin hurried over the +grass to the coach door. "Ha, Colonel Byrd! When we heard that you were +staying overnight at Green Spring, we hoped that, being so near, you would +come to our merrymaking. Mistress Evelyn, I kiss your hands. Though we +can't give you the diversions of Spring Garden, yet such as we have are at +your feet. Mr. Marmaduke Haward, your servant, sir! Virginia has missed +you these ten years and more. We were heartily glad to hear, t'other day, +that the Golden Rose had brought you home." + +As he spoke the worthy gentleman strove to open the coach door; but the +horseman, to whom the latter part of his speech was addressed, and who had +now dismounted, was beforehand with him. The door swung open, and a young +lady, of a delicate and pensive beauty, placed one hand upon the +deferential arm of Mr. Marmaduke Haward and descended from the painted +coach to the flower-enameled sward. The women amongst the assembled guests +fluttered and whispered; for this was youth, beauty, wealth, London, and +the Court, all drawn in the person of Mistress Evelyn Byrd, bred since +childhood in the politest society of England, newly returned with her +father to his estate of Westover in Virginia, and, from her garlanded +gypsy hat to the point of her silken shoe, suggestive of the rainbow world +of _mode_. + +Her father--alert, vivacious, handsome, with finely cut lips that were +quick to smile, and dark eyes that smiled when the lips were +still--followed her to the earth, shook out his ruffles, and extended his +gold snuffbox to his good friend Mr. Jaquelin. The gentleman who had +ridden beside the coach threw the reins of his horse to one of the negroes +who had come running from the Jaquelin stables, and, together with their +host, the three walked across the strip of grass to the row of expectant +gentry. Down went the town-bred lady until the skirt of her blue-green +gown lay in folds upon the buttercups; down went the ladies opposite in +curtsies as profound, if less exquisitely graceful. Off came the hats of +the gentlemen; the bows were of the lowest; snuffboxes were drawn out, +handkerchiefs of fine holland flourished; the welcoming speeches were +hearty and not unpolished. + +It was a society less provincial than that of more than one shire that was +nearer to London by a thousand leagues. It dwelt upon the banks of the +Chesapeake and of great rivers; ships dropped their anchors before its +very doors. Now and again the planter followed his tobacco aboard. The +sands did not then run so swiftly through the hourglass; if the voyage to +England was long, why, so was life! The planters went, sold their +tobacco,--Sweet-scented, E. Dees, Oronoko, Cowpen, Non-burning,--talked +with their agents, visited their English kindred; saw the town, the opera, +and the play,--perhaps, afar off, the King; and returned to Virginia and +their plantations with the last but one novelty in ideas, manner, and +dress. Of their sons not a few were educated in English schools, while +their wives and daughters, if for the most part they saw the enchanted +ground only through the eyes of husband, father, or brother, yet followed +its fashions, when learned, with religious zeal. In Williamsburgh, where +all men went on occasion, there was polite enough living: there were the +college, the Capitol, and the playhouse; the palace was a toy St. James; +the Governors that came and went almost as proper gentlemen, fitted to +rule over English people, as if they had been born in Hanover and could +not speak their subjects' tongue. + +So it was that the assembly which had risen to greet Mr. Jaquelin's latest +guests, besides being sufficiently well born, was not at all ill bred, nor +uninformed, nor untraveled. But it was not of the gay world as were the +three whom it welcomed. It had spent only months, not years, in England; +it had never kissed the King's hand; it did not know Bath nor the Wells; +it was innocent of drums and routs and masquerades; had not even a +speaking acquaintance with great lords and ladies; had never supped with +Pope, or been grimly smiled upon by the Dean of St. Patrick's, or courted +by the Earl of Peterborough. It had not, like the elder of the two men, +studied in the Low Countries, visited the Court of France, and contracted +friendships with men of illustrious names; nor, like the younger, had it +written a play that ran for two weeks, fought a duel in the Field of Forty +Footsteps, and lost and won at the Cocoa Tree, between the lighting and +snuffing of the candles, three thousand pounds. + +Therefore it stood slightly in awe of the wit and manners and fine +feathers, curled newest fashion, of its sometime friends and neighbors, +and its welcome, if warm at heart, was stiff as cloth of gold with +ceremony. The May Queen tripped in her speech as she besought Mistress +Evelyn to take the flower-wreathed great chair standing proudly forth from +the humbler seats, and colored charmingly at the lady of fashion's smiling +shake of the head and few graceful words of homage. The young men slyly +noted the length of the Colonel's periwig and the quality of Mr. Hayward's +Mechlin, while their elders, suddenly lacking material for discourse, made +shift to take a deal of snuff. The Colonel took matters into his own +capable hands. + +"Mr. Jaquelin, I wish that my tobacco at Westover may look as finely a +fortnight hence as does yours to-day! There promise to be more Frenchmen +in my fields than Germans at St. James. Mr. Gary, if I come to Denbigh +when the peaches are ripe, will you teach me to make persico? Mr. Allen, I +hear that you breed cocks as courageous as those of Tanagra. I shall +borrow from you for a fight that I mean to give. Ladies, for how much gold +will you sell the recipe for that balm of Mecca you must use? There are +dames at Court would come barefoot to Virginia for so dazzling a bloom. +Why do you patch only upon the Whig side of the face? Are you all of one +camp, and does not one of you grow a white rosebush against the 29th of +May? May it please your Majesty the May Queen, I shall watch the sports +from this seat upon your right hand. Egad, the miller quits himself as +though he were the moss-grown fellow of Sherwood Forest!" + +The ice had thawed; and by the time the victorious miller had been pushed +forward to receive the smart cocked hat which was the Virginia rendition +of the crown of wild olive, it had quite melted. Conversation became +general, and food was found or made for laughter. When the twelve fiddlers +who succeeded the blacksmith and the miller came trooping upon the green, +they played, one by one, to perhaps as light-hearted a company as a May +Day ever shone upon. All their tunes were gay and lively ones, and the +younger men moved their feet to the music, while a Strephon at the lower +end of the lists seized upon a blooming Chloe, and the two began to dance +"as if," quoth the Colonel, "the musicians were so many tarantula +doctors." + +A flower-wreathed instrument of his calling went to the player of the +sprightliest air; after which awardment, the fiddlers, each to the tune of +his own choosing, marched off the green to make room for Pretty Bessee, +her father the beggar, and her suitors the innkeeper, the merchant, the +gentleman, and the knight. + +The high, quick notes of the song suited the sunshiny weather, the sheen +of the river, the azure skies. A light wind brought from the orchard a +vagrant troop of pink and white petals to camp upon the silken sleeve of +Mistress Evelyn Byrd. The gentleman sitting beside her gathered them up +and gave them again to the breeze. + +"It sounds sweetly enough," he said, "but terribly old-fashioned:-- + + 'I weigh not true love by the weight of the purse, + And beauty is beauty in every degree.' + +That's not Court doctrine." + +The lady to whom he spoke rested her cheek upon her hand, and looked past +the singers to the blossoming slope and the sky above. "So much the worse +for the Court," she said. "So much the better for"-- + +Haward glanced at her. "For Virginia?" he ended, with a smile. "Do you +think that they do not weigh love with gold here in Virginia, Evelyn? It +isn't really Arcady." + +"So much the better for some place, somewhere," she answered quietly. "I +did not say Virginia. Indeed, from what travelers like yourself have told +me, I think the country lies not upon this earth. But the story is at an +end, and we must applaud with the rest. It sounded sweetly, after +all,--though it was only a lying song. What next?" + +Her father, from his station beside the May Queen, caught the question, +and broke the flow of his smiling compliments to answer it. "A race +between young girls, my love,--the lucky fair who proves her descent from +Atalanta to find, not a golden apple, but a golden guinea. Here come from +the sexton's house the pretty light o' heels!" + +The crowd, gentle and simple, arose, and pushed back all benches, stools, +and chairs, so as to enlarge the circumference of the ring, and the six +girls who were to run stepped out upon the green. The youngest son of the +house of Jaquelin checked them off in a shrill treble:-- + +"The blacksmith's Meg--Mall and Jenny from the crossroads ordinary--the +Widow Constance's Barbara--red-headed Bess--Parson Darden's Audrey!" + +A tall, thin, grave gentleman, standing behind Haward, gave an impatient +jerk of his body and said something beneath his breath. Haward looked over +his shoulder. "Ha, Mr. Le Neve! I did not know you were there. I had the +pleasure of hearing you read at Williamsburgh last Sunday +afternoon,--though this is your parish, I believe? What was that last name +that the youngster cried? I failed to catch it." + +"Audrey, sir," answered the minister of James City parish; "Gideon +Darden's Audrey. You can't but have heard of Darden? A minister of the +gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, sir; and a scandal, a shame, and a +stumbling-block to the Church! A foul-mouthed, brawling, learned sot! A +stranger to good works, but a frequenter of tippling houses! A brazen, +dissembling, atheistical Demas, who will neither let go of the lusts of +the flesh nor of his parish,--a sweet-scented parish, sir, with the best +glebe in three counties! And he's inducted, sir, inducted, which is more +than most of the clergy of Virginia, who neither fight nor drink nor +swear, can say for themselves!" + +The minister had lost his gravity, and spoke with warmth and bitterness. +As he paused for breath, Mistress Evelyn took her eyes from the group of +those about to run and opened her fan. "A careless father, at least," she +said. "If he hath learning, he should know better than to set his daughter +there." + +"She's not his own, ma'am. She's an orphan, bound to Darden and his wife, +I suppose. There's some story or other about her, but, not being curious +in Mr. Darden's affairs, I have never learned it. When I came to +Virginia, five years ago, she was a slip of a girl of thirteen or so. +Once, when I had occasion to visit Darden, she waylaid me in the road as I +was riding away, and asked me how far it was to the mountains, and if +there were Indians between them and us." + +"Did she so?" asked Haward. "And which is--Audrey?" + +"The dark one--brown as a gypsy--with the dogwood in her hair. And mark +me, there'll be Darden's own luck and she'll win. She's fleeter than a +greyhound. I've seen her running in and out and to and fro in the forest +like a wild thing." + +Bare of foot and slender ankle, bare of arm and shoulder, with heaving +bosom, shut lips, and steady eyes, each of the six runners awaited the +trumpet sound that should send her forth like an arrow to the goal, and to +the shining guinea that lay thereby. The spectators ceased to talk and +laugh, and bent forward, watching. Wagers had been laid, and each man kept +his eyes upon his favorite, measuring her chances. The trumpet blew, and +the race was on. + +When it was over and won, the May Queen rose from her seat and crossed the +grass to her fine lady guest. "There are left only the prizes for this and +for the boys' race and for the best dancer. Will you not give them, +Mistress Evelyn, and so make them of more value?" + +More curtsying, more complimenting, and the gold was in Evelyn's white +hand. The trumpet blew, the drum beat, the fiddlers swung into a quick, +staccato air, and Darden's Audrey, leaving the post which she had touched +some seconds in advance of the foremost of those with whom she had raced, +came forward to receive the guinea. + +The straight, short skirt of dull blue linen could not hide the lines of +the young limbs; beneath the thin, white, sleeveless bodice showed the +tint of the flesh, the rise and fall of the bosom. The bare feet trod the +grass lightly and firmly; the brown eyes looked from under the dogwood +chaplet in a gaze that was serious, innocent, and unashamed. To Audrey +they were only people out of a fairy tale,--all those gay folk, dressed in +silks and with curled hair. They lived in "great houses," and men and +women were born to till their fields, to row their boats, to doff hats or +curtsy as they passed. They were not real; if you pricked them they would +not bleed. In the mountains that she remembered as a dream there were pale +masses of bloom far up among the cliffs; very beautiful, but no more to be +gained than the moon or than rainbow gold. She looked at the May party +before which she had been called much as, when a child, she had looked at +the gorgeous, distant bloom,--not without longing, perhaps, but +indifferent, too, knowing that it was beyond her reach. + +When the gold piece was held out to her, she took it, having earned it; +when the little speech with which the lady gave the guinea was ended, she +was ready with her curtsy and her "Thank you, ma'am." The red came into +her cheeks because she was not used to so many eyes upon her, but she did +not blush for her bare feet, nor for her dress that had slipped low over +her shoulder, nor for the fact that she had run her swiftest five times +around the Maypole, all for the love of a golden guinea, and for mere +youth and pure-minded ignorance, and the springtime in the pulses. + +The gold piece lay within her brown fingers a thought too lightly, for as +she stepped back from the row of gentlefolk it slid from her hand to the +ground. A gentleman, sitting beside the lady who had spoken to her, +stooped, and picking up the money gave it again into her hand. Though she +curtsied to him, she did not look at him, but turned away, glad to be quit +of all the eyes, and in a moment had slipped into the crowd from which she +had come. It was midday, and old Israel, the fisherman, who had brought +her and the Widow Constance's Barbara up the river in his boat, would be +going back with the tide. She was not loath to leave: the green meadow, +the gaudy Maypole, and the music were good, but the silence on the river, +the shadow of the brooding forest, the darting of the fish hawk, were +better. + +In the meadow the boys' race and the rustic dance were soon over. The +dinner at the Jaquelin house to its guests lasted longer, but it too was +hurried; for in the afternoon Mr. Harrison's mare Nelly was to run against +Major Burwell's Fearnaught, and the stakes were heavy. + +Not all of the company went from the banquet back to the meadow, where the +humbler folk, having eaten their dinner of bread and meat and ale, were +whiling away with sports of their own the hour before the race. Colonel +Byrd had business at Williamsburgh, and must reach his lodgings there an +hour before sunset. His four black horses brought to the door the great +vermilion-and-cream coach; an ebony coachman in scarlet cracked his whip +at a couple of negro urchins who had kept pace with the vehicle as it +lumbered from the stables, and a light brown footman flung open the door +and lowered the steps. The Colonel, much regretting that occasion should +call him away, vowed that he had never spent a pleasanter May Day, kissed +the May Queen's hand, and was prodigal of well-turned compliments, like +the gay and gallant gentleman that he was. His daughter made her graceful +adieux in her clear, low, and singularly sweet voice, and together they +were swallowed up of the mammoth coach. Mr. Haward took snuff with Mr. +Jaquelin; then, mounting his horse,--it was supposed that he too had +business in Williamsburgh,--raised his hat and bade farewell to the +company with one low and comprehensive bow. + +The equipage made a wide turn; the ladies and gentlemen upon the Jaquelin +porch fluttered fans and handkerchiefs; the Colonel, leaning from the +coach window, waved his hand; and the horseman lifted his hat the second +time. The very especial guests were gone; and though the remainder of the +afternoon was as merry as heart could wish, yet a bouquet, a flavor, a +tang of the Court and the great world, a breath of air that was not +colonial, had gone with them. For a moment the women stood in a brown +study, revolving in their minds Mistress Evelyn's gypsy hat and the +exceeding thinness and fineness of her tucker; while to each of the +younger men came, linked to the memory of a charming face, a vision of +many-acred Westover. + +But the trumpet blew, summoning them to the sport of the afternoon, and +work stopped upon castles in Spain. When a horse-race was on, a meadow in +Virginia sufficed. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE ROAD TO WILLIAMSBURGH + + +April had gone out in rain, and though the sun now shone brightly from a +cloudless sky, the streams were swollen and the road was heavy. The +ponderous coach and the four black horses made slow progress. The creeping +pace, the languid warmth of the afternoon, the scent of flowering trees, +the ceaseless singing of redbird, catbird, robin, and thrush, made it +drowsy in the forest. In the midst of an agreeable dissertation upon May +Day sports of more ancient times the Colonel paused to smother a yawn; and +when he had done with the clown, the piper, and the hobby-horse, he yawned +again, this time outright. + +"What with Ludwell's Burgundy, piquet, and the French peace, we sat late +last night. My eyes are as heavy as the road. Have you noticed, my dear, +how bland and dreamy is the air? On such an afternoon one is content to be +in Virginia, and out of the world. It is a very land of the Lotophagi,--a +lazy clime that Ulysses touched at, my love." + +The equipage slowly climbed an easy ascent, and as slowly descended to the +level again. The road was narrow, and now and then a wild cherry-tree +struck the coach with a white arm, or a grapevine swung through the window +a fragrant trailer. The woods on either hand were pale green and silver +gray, save where they were starred with dogwood, or where rose the pink +mist of the Judas-tree. At the foot of the hill the road skirted a mantled +pond, choked with broad green leaves and the half-submerged trunks of +fallen trees. Upon these logs, basking in the sunlight, lay small +tortoises by the score. A snake glided across the road in front of the +horses, and from a bit of muddy ground rose a cloud of yellow butterflies. + +The Colonel yawned for the third time, looked at his watch, sighed, lifted +his finely arched brows with a whimsical smile for his own somnolence; +then, with an "I beg your pardon, my love," took out a lace handkerchief, +spread it over his face and head, and, crossing his legs, sunk back into +the capacious corner of the coach. In three minutes the placid rise and +fall of his ruffles bore witness that he slept. + +The horseman, who, riding beside the lowered glass, had at intervals +conversed with the occupants of the coach, now glanced from the sleeping +gentleman to the lady, in whose dark, almond-shaped eyes lurked no sign of +drowsiness. The pond had been passed, and before them, between low banks +crowned with ferns and overshadowed by beech-trees, lay a long stretch of +shady road. + +Haward drew rein, dismounted, and motioned to the coachman to check the +horses. When the coach had come to a standstill, he opened the door with +as little creaking as might be, and held out a petitionary hand. "Will you +not walk with me a little way, Evelyn?" he asked, speaking in a low voice +that he might not wake the sleeper. "It is much pleasanter out here, with +the birds and the flowers." + +His eyes and the smile upon his lips added, "and with me." From what he +had been upon a hilltop, one moonlight night eleven years before, he had +become a somewhat silent, handsome gentleman, composed in manner, +experienced, not unkindly, looking abroad from his apportioned mountain +crag and solitary fortress upon men, and the busy ways of men, with a +tolerant gaze. That to certain of his London acquaintance he was simply +the well-bred philosopher and man of letters; that in the minds of others +he was associated with the peacock plumage of the world of fashion, with +the flare of candles, the hot breath of gamesters, the ring of gold upon +the tables; that one clique had tales to tell of a magnanimous spirit and +a generous hand, while yet another grew red at mention of his name, and +put to his credit much that was not creditable, was perhaps not strange. +He, like his neighbors, had many selves, and each in its turn--the +scholar, the man of pleasure, the indolent, kindly, reflective self, the +self of pride and cool assurance and stubborn will--took its place behind +the mask, and went through its allotted part. His self of all selves, the +quiet, remote, crowned, and inscrutable _I_, sat apart, alike curious and +indifferent, watched the others, and knew how little worth the while was +the stir in the ant-hill. + +But on a May Day, in the sunshine and the blossoming woods and the company +of Mistress Evelyn Byrd, it seemed, for the moment, worth the while. At +his invitation she had taken his hand and descended from the coach. The +great, painted thing moved slowly forward, bearing the unconscious +Colonel, and the two pedestrians walked behind it: he with his horse's +reins over his arm and his hat in his hand; she lifting her silken skirts +from contact with the ground, and looking, not at her companion, but at +the greening boughs, and at the sunlight striking upon smooth, pale beech +trunks and the leaf-strewn earth beneath. Out of the woods came a sudden +medley of bird notes, clear, sweet, and inexpressibly joyous. + +"That is a mockingbird," said Haward. "I once heard one of a moonlight +night, beside a still water"-- + +He broke off, and they listened in silence. The bird flew away, and they +came to a brook traversing the road, and flowing in wide meanders through +the forest. There were stepping-stones, and Haward, crossing first, turned +and held out his hand to the lady. When she was upon his side of the +streamlet, and before he released the slender fingers, he bent and kissed +them; then, as there was no answering smile or blush, but only a quiet +withdrawal of the hand and a remark about the crystal clearness of the +brook, looked at her, with interrogation in his smile. + +"What is that crested bird upon yonder bough," she asked,--"the one that +gave the piercing cry?" + +"A kingfisher," he answered, "and cousin to the halcyon of the ancients. +If, when next you go to sea, you take its feathers with you, you need have +no fear of storms." + +A tree, leafless, but purplish pink with bloom, leaned from the bank above +them. He broke a branch and gave it to her. "It is the Judas-tree," he +told her. "Iscariot hanged himself thereon." + +Around the trunk of a beech a lizard ran like a green flame, and they +heard the distant barking of a fox. Large white butterflies went past +them, and a hummingbird whirred into the heart of a wild honeysuckle that +had hasted to bloom. "How different from the English forests!" she said. +"I could love these best. What are all those broad-leaved plants with the +white, waxen flowers?" + +"May-apples. Some call them mandrakes, but they do not rise shrieking, nor +kill the wight that plucks them. Will you have me gather them for you?" + +"I will not trouble you," she answered, and presently turned aside to pull +them for herself. + +He looked at the graceful, bending figure and lifted his brows; then, +quickening his pace until he was up with the coach, he spoke to the negro +upon the box. "Tyre, drive on to that big pine, and wait there for your +mistress and me. Sidon,"--to the footman,--"get down and take my horse. If +your master wakes, tell him that Mistress Evelyn tired of the coach, and +that I am picking her a nosegay." + +Tyre and Sidon, Haward's steed, the four black coach horses, the +vermilion-and-cream coach, and the slumbering Colonel, all made a progress +of an hundred yards to the pine-tree, where the cortge came to a halt. +Mistress Evelyn looked up from the flower-gathering to find the road bare +before her, and Haward, sitting upon a log, watching her with something +between a smile and a frown. + +"You think that I, also, weigh true love by the weight of the purse," he +said. "I do not care overmuch for your gold, Evelyn." + +She did not answer at once, but stood with her head slightly bent, +fingering the waxen flowers with a delicate, lingering touch. Now that +there was no longer the noise of the wheels and the horses' hoofs, the +forest stillness, which is composed of sound, made itself felt. The call +of birds, the whir of insects, the murmur of the wind in the treetops, +low, grave, incessant, and eternal as the sound of the sea, joined +themselves to the slow waves of fragrance, the stretch of road whereon +nothing moved, the sunlight lying on the earth, and made a spacious quiet. + +"I think that there is nothing for which you care overmuch," she said at +last. "Not for gold or the lack of it, not for friends or for enemies, not +even for yourself." + +"I have known you for many years," he answered. "I have watched you grow +from a child into a gracious and beautiful woman. Do you not think that I +care for you, Evelyn?" + +Near where he sat so many violets were blooming that they made a purple +carpet for the ground. Going over to them, she knelt and began to pluck +them. "If any danger threatened me," she began, in her clear, low voice, +"I believe that you would step between me and it, though at the peril of +your life. I believe that you take some pleasure in what you are pleased +to style my beauty, some pride in a mind that you have largely formed. If +I died early, it would grieve you for a little while. I call you my +friend." + +"I would be called your lover," he said. + +She laid her fan upon the ground, heaped it with violets, and turned again +to her reaping. "How might that be," she asked, "when you do not love me? +I knew that you would marry me. What do the French call it,--_mariage de +convenance_?" + +Her voice was even, and her head was bent so that he could not see her +face. In the pause that followed her words treetop whispered to treetop, +but the sunshine lay very still and bright upon the road and upon the +flowers by the wayside. + +"There are worse marriages," Haward said at last. Rising from the log, he +moved to the side of the kneeling figure. "Let the violets rest, Evelyn, +while we reason together. You are too clear-eyed. Since they offend you, +I will drop the idle compliments, the pretty phrases, in which neither of +us believes. What if this tinted dream of love does not exist for us? What +if we are only friends--dear and old friends"-- + +He stooped, and, taking her by the busy hands, made her stand up beside +him. "Cannot we marry and still be friends?" he demanded, with something +like laughter in his eyes. "My dear, I would strive to make you happy; and +happiness is as often found in that temperate land where we would dwell as +in Love's flaming climate." He smiled and tried to find her eyes, downcast +and hidden in the shadow of her hat. "This is no flowery wooing such as +women love," he said; "but then you are like no other woman. Always the +truth was best with you." + +Upon her wrenching her hands from his, and suddenly and proudly raising +her head, he was amazed to find her white to the lips. + +"The truth!" she said slowly. "Always the truth was best! Well, then, take +the truth, and afterwards and forever and ever leave me alone! You have +been frank; why should not I, who, you say, am like no other woman, be so, +too? I will not marry you, because--because"--The crimson flowed over her +face and neck; then ebbed, leaving her whiter than before. She put her +hands, that still held the wild flowers, to her breast, and her eyes, dark +with pain, met his. "Had you loved me," she said proudly and quietly, "I +had been happy." + +[Illustration: "HAD YOU LOVED ME--I HAD BEEN HAPPY"] + +Haward stepped backwards until there lay between them a strip of sunny +earth. The murmur of the wind went on and the birds were singing, and yet +the forest seemed more quiet than death. "I could not guess," he said, +speaking slowly and with his eyes upon the ground. "I have spoken like a +brute. I beg your pardon." + +"You might have known! you might have guessed!" she cried, with passion. +"But, you walk an even way; you choose nor high nor low; you look deep +into your mind, but your heart you keep cool and vacant. Oh, a very +temperate land! I think that others less wise than you may also be less +blind. Never speak to me of this day! Let it die as these blooms are dying +in this hot sunshine! Now let us walk to the coach and waken my father. I +have gathered flowers enough." + +Side by side, but without speaking, they moved from shadow to sunlight, +and from sunlight to shadow, down the road to the great pine-tree. The +white and purple flowers lay in her hand and along her bended arm; from +the folds of her dress, of some rich and silken stuff, chameleon-like in +its changing colors, breathed the subtle fragrance of the perfume then +most in fashion; over the thin lawn that half revealed, half concealed +neck and bosom was drawn a long and glossy curl, carefully let to escape +from the waved and banded hair beneath the gypsy hat. Exquisite from head +to foot, the figure had no place in the unpruned, untrained, savage, and +primeval beauty of those woods. Smooth sward, with jets of water and +carven nymphs embowered in clipped box or yew, should have been its +setting, and not this wild and tangled growth, this license of bird and +beast and growing things. And yet the incongruous riot, the contrast of +profuse, untended beauty, enhanced the value of the picture, gave it +piquancy and a completer charm. + +When they were within a few feet of the coach and horses and negroes, all +drowsing in the sunny road, Haward made as if to speak, but she stopped +him with her lifted hand. "Spare me," she begged. "It is bad enough as it +is, but words would make it worse. If ever a day might come--I do not +think that I am unlovely; I even rate myself so highly as to think that I +am worthy of your love. If ever the day shall come when you can say to me, +'Now I see that love is no tinted dream; now I ask you to be my wife +indeed,' then, upon that day--But until then ask not of me what you asked +back there among the violets. I, too, am proud"--Her voice broke. + +"Evelyn!" he cried. "Poor child--poor friend"-- + +She turned her face upon him. "Don't!" she said, and her lips were +smiling, though her eyes were full of tears. "We have forgot that it is +May Day, and that we must be light of heart. Look how white is that +dogwood-tree! Break me a bough for my chimney-piece at Williamsburgh." + +He brought her a branch of the starry blossoms. "Did you notice," she +asked, "that the girl who ran--Audrey--wore dogwood in her hair? You could +see her heart beat with very love of living. She was of the woods, like a +dryad. Had the prizes been of my choosing, she should have had a gift more +poetical than a guinea." + +Haward opened the coach door, and stood gravely aside while she entered +the vehicle and took her seat, depositing her flowers upon the cushions +beside her. The Colonel stirred, uncrossed his legs, yawned, pulled the +handkerchief from his face, and opened his eyes. + +"Faith!" he exclaimed, straightening himself, and taking up his radiant +humor where, upon falling-asleep, he had let it drop. "The way must have +suddenly become smooth as a road in Venice, for I've felt no jolting this +half hour. Flowers, Evelyn? and Haward afoot? You've been on a woodland +saunter, then, while I enacted Solomon's sluggard!" The worthy parent's +eyes began to twinkle. "What flowers did you find? They have strange +blooms here, and yet I warrant that even in these woods one might come +across London pride and none-so-pretty and forget-me-not"-- + +His daughter smiled, and asked him some idle question about the May-apple +and the Judas-tree. The master of Westover was a treasure house of +sprightly lore. Within ten minutes he had visited Palestine, paid his +compliments to the ancient herbalists, and landed again in his own coach, +to find in his late audience a somewhat _distraite_ daughter and a friend +in a brown study. The coach was lumbering on toward Williamsburgh, and +Haward, with level gaze and hand closed tightly upon his horse's reins, +rode by the window, while the lady, sitting in her corner with downcast +eyes, fingered the dogwood blooms that were not paler than her face. + +The Colonel's wits were keen. One glance, a lift of his arched brows, the +merest ghost of a smile, and, dragging the younger man with him, he +plunged into politics. Invective against a refractory House of Burgesses +brought them a quarter of a mile upon their way; the necessity for an act +to encourage adventurers in iron works carried them past a milldam; and +frauds in the customs enabled them to reach a crossroads ordinary, where +the Colonel ordered a halt, and called for a tankard of ale. A slipshod, +blue-eyed Cherry brought it, and spoke her thanks in broad Scotch for the +shilling which the gay Colonel flung tinkling into the measure. + +That versatile and considerate gentleman, having had his draught, cried to +the coachman to go on, and was beginning upon the question of the militia, +when Haward, who had dismounted, appeared at the coach door. "I do not +think that I will go on to Williamsburgh with you, sir," he said. "There's +some troublesome business with my overseer that ought not to wait. If I +take this road and the planter's pace, I shall reach Fair View by sunset. +You do not return to Westover this week? Then I shall see you at +Williamsburgh within a day or two. Evelyn, good-day." + +Her hand lay upon the cushion nearest him. He would have taken it in his +own, as for years he had done when he bade her good-by; but though she +smiled and gave him "Good-day" in her usual voice, she drew the hand away. +The Colonel's eyebrows went up another fraction of an inch, but he was a +discreet gentleman who had bought experience. Skillfully unobservant, his +parting words were at once cordial and few in number; and after Haward had +mounted and had turned into the side road, he put his handsome, periwigged +head out of the coach window and called to him some advice about the +transplanting of tobacco. This done, and the horseman out of sight, and +the coach once more upon its leisurely way to Williamsburgh, the model +father pulled out of his pocket a small book, and, after affectionately +advising his daughter to close her eyes and sleep out the miles to +Williamsburgh, himself retired with Horace to the Sabine farm. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE STOREKEEPER + + +It was now late afternoon, the sun's rays coming slantingly into the +forest, and the warmth of the day past and gone. To Haward, riding at a +gallop down the road that was scarce more than a bridle path, the rush of +the cool air was grateful; the sharp striking of protruding twigs, the +violent brushing aside of hanging vines, not unwelcome. + +It was of the man that the uppermost feeling in his mind was one of +disgust at his late infelicity of speech, and at the blindness which had +prompted it. That he had not divined, that he had been so dull as to +assume that as he felt, or did not feel, so must she, annoyed him like the +jar of rude noises or like sand blowing into face and eyes. It was of him, +too, that the annoyance was purely with himself; for her, when at last he +came to think of her, he found only the old, placid affection, as far +removed from love as from hate. If he knew himself, it would always be as +far removed from love as from hate. + +All the days of her youth he had come and gone, a welcome guest at her +father's house in London. He had grown to be her friend, watching the +crescent beauty of face and mind with something of the pride and +tenderness which a man might feel for a young and favorite sister; and +then, at last, when some turn of affairs sent them all home to Virginia +to take lot and part there, he had thought of marriage. + +His mind had turned, not unwillingly, from the town and its apples of +Sodom to his Virginia plantation that he had not seen for more than ten +years. It was his birthplace, and there he had spent his boyhood. +Sometimes, in heated rooms, when the candles in the sconces were guttering +down, and the dawn looked palely in upon gaming tables and heaped gold, +and seamed faces, haggardly triumphant, haggardly despairing, determinedly +indifferent, there had come to him visions of cool dawns upon the river, +wide, misty expanses of marsh and forest, indistinct and cold and pure. +The lonely "great house," too,--the house which his father had built with +so much love and pains, that his son and his son's sons should have a +worthy home,--appealed to him, and the garden, and the fishing-boats, and +the old slaves in the quarters. He told himself that he was glad to go +back. + +Had men called him ambitious, he would have smiled, and felt truly that +they had bungled in the word. Such and such things were simply his +appurtenances; in London, the regard due to a gentleman who to a certain +distinction in his manner of amusing himself added the achievement of a +successful comedy, three lampoons quoted at all London tea-tables, and a +piece of Whig invective, so able, stern, and sustained that many cried +that the Dean had met his match; in Virginia, the deferential esteem of +the colony at large, a place in the Council, and a great estate. An +alliance with the master of Westover was in itself a desirable thing, +advantageous to purse and to credit; his house must have a mistress, and +that mistress must please at every point his fastidious taste. + +What better to do than to give it for Mistress Evelyn Byrd? Evelyn, who +had had for all her suitors only a slow smile and shake of the head; +Evelyn, who was older than her years; Evelyn, who was his friend as he was +hers. Love! He had left that land behind, and she had never touched its +shores; the geography of the poets to the contrary, it did not lie in the +course of all who passed through life. He made his suit, and now he had +his answer. + +If he did not take trouble to wonder at her confession, or to modestly ask +himself how he had deserved her love, neither did he insult her with pity +or with any lightness of thought. Nor was he ready to believe that his +rejection was final. Apparently indifferent as he was, it was yet his way +to move steadily and relentlessly, if very quietly, toward what goal he +desired to reach. He thought that Fair View might yet call Evelyn Byrd its +mistress. + +Since turning into the crossroad that, running south and east, would take +him back to the banks of the James and to his own house, he had not +slackened speed, but now, as he saw through the trees before him a long +zigzag of rail fence, he drew rein. The road turned, and a gate barred his +way. When he had opened it and passed through, he was upon his own land. + +He had ridden off his irritation, and could now calmly tell himself that +the blunder was made and over with, and that it was the duty of the +philosopher to remember it only in so far as it must shape his future +course. His house of cards had toppled over; but the profound +indifferentism of his nature enabled him to view the ruins with composure. +After a while he would build the house again. The image of Evelyn, as she +had stood, dark-eyed and pale, with the flowers pressed to her bosom, he +put from him. He knew her strength of soul; and with the curious hardness +of the strong toward the strong, and also not without the delicacy which, +upon occasion, he could both feel and exhibit, he shut the door upon that +hour in the forest. + +He had left the woods, and was now riding through a field of newly planted +tobacco. It and the tobacco house in the midst of it were silent, +deserted, bathed in the late sunshine. The ground rose slightly, and when +he had mounted with it he saw below him the huddle of cabins which formed +the ridge quarter, and winding down to it a string of negroes. One turned +his head, and saw the solitary horseman upon the summit of the slope +behind him; another looked, and another, until each man in line had his +head over his shoulder. They knew that the horseman was their master. Some +had been upon the plantation when he was a boy; others were more recent +acquisitions who knew not his face; but alike they grinned and ducked. The +white man walking beside the line took off his hat and pulled a forelock. +Haward raised his hand that they might know he saw, and rode on. + +Another piece of woods where a great number of felled trees cumbered the +ground, more tobacco, and then, in worn fields where the tobacco had been, +knee-deep wheat rippling in the evening breeze. The wheat ran down to a +marsh, and to a wide, slow creek that, save in the shadow of its reedy +banks, was blue as the sky above. Haward, riding slowly beside his green +fields and still waters, noted with quiet, half-regretful pleasure this or +that remembered feature of the landscape. There had been little change. +Here, where he remembered deep woods, tobacco was planted; there, where +the tobacco had been, were now fields of wheat or corn, or wild tangles of +vine-rid saplings and brushwood: but for this it might have been yesterday +that he had last ridden that way. + +Presently he saw the river, and then the marshes with brown dots that were +his cattle straying over them, and beyond these the home landing and the +masts of the Golden Rose. The sun was near its setting; the men had left +the fields; over all things were the stillness and peace, the encroaching +shadows, the dwindling light, so golden in its quality, of late afternoon. +When he crossed the bridge over the creek, the hollow sound that the +boards gave forth beneath his horse's hoofs had the depth and resonance of +drumbeats, and the cry of a solitary heron in the marsh seemed louder than +its wont. He passed the rolling-house and drew near to the river, riding +again through tobacco. These plants were Oronoko; the mild sweet-scented +took the higher ground. Along the river bank grew a row of tall and +stately trees: passing beneath them, he saw the shining water between +brown columns or through a veil of slight, unfolding leaves. Soon the +trees fell away, and he came to a stretch of bank,--here naked earth, +there clad in grass and dewberry vines. Near by was a small landing, with +several boats fastened to its piles; and at a little distance beyond it, +shadowed by a locust-tree, a strongly built, two-roomed wooden house, with +the earth around it trodden hard and bare, and with two or three benches +before its open door. Haward recognized the store which his father--after +the manner of his kind, merchant and trader as well as planter and maker +of laws--had built, and which, through his agent in Virginia, he had +maintained. + +Before one of the benches a man was kneeling with his back to Haward, who +could only see that his garb was that of a servant, and that his hands +were busily moving certain small objects this way and that upon the board. +At the edge of the space of bare earth were a horse-block and a +hitching-post. Haward rode up to them, dismounted, and fastened his horse, +then walked over to the man at the bench. + +So intent was the latter upon his employment that he heard neither horse +nor rider. He had some shells, a few bits of turf, and a double handful of +sand, and he was arranging these trifles upon the rough, unpainted boards +in a curious and intricate pattern. He was a tall man, with hair that was +more red than brown, and he was dressed in a shirt of dowlas, leather +breeches, and coarse plantation-made shoes and stockings. + +"What are you doing?" asked Haward, after a moment's silent watching of +the busy fingers and intent countenance. + +There was no start of awakened consciousness upon the other's part. "Why," +he said, as if he had asked the question of himself, "with this sand I +have traced the shores of Loch-na-Keal. This turf is green Ulva, and this +is Gometra, and the shell is Little Colonsay. With this wet sand I have +moulded Ben Grieg, and this higher pile is Ben More. If I had but a sprig +of heather, now, or a pebble from the shore of Scridain!" + +The voice, while harsh, was not disagreeably so, and neither the words nor +the manner of using them smacked of the rustic. + +"And where are Loch-na-Keal and Ulva and Scridain?" demanded Haward. +"Somewhere in North Britain, I presume?" + +The second question broke the spell. The man glanced over his shoulder, +saw that he was not alone, and with one sweep of his hand blotting loch +and island and mountain out of existence, rose to his feet, and opposed to +Haward's gaze a tall, muscular frame, high features slightly pockmarked, +and keen dark blue eyes. + +"I was dreaming, and did not hear you," he said, civilly enough. "It's not +often that any one comes to the store at this time of day. What d' ye +lack?" + +As he spoke he moved toward the doorway, through which showed shelves and +tables piled with the extraordinary variety of goods which were deemed +essential to the colonial trade. "Are you the storekeeper?" asked Haward, +keeping pace with the other's long stride. + +"It's the name they call me by," answered the man curtly; then, as he +chanced to turn his eyes upon the landing, his tone changed, and a smile +irradiated his countenance. "Here comes a customer," he remarked, "that'll +make you bide your turn." + +A boat, rowed by a young boy and carrying a woman, had slipped out of the +creek, and along the river bank to the steps of the landing. When they +were reached, the boy sat still, the oars resting across his knees, and +his face upturned to a palace beautiful of pearl and saffron cloud; but +the woman mounted the steps, and, crossing the boards, came up to the door +and the men beside it. Her dress was gray and unadorned, and she was young +and of a quiet loveliness. + +"Mistress Truelove Taberer," said the storekeeper, "what can you choose, +this May Day, that's so fair as yourself?" + +A pair of gray eyes were lifted for the sixth part of a second, and a +voice that bad learned of the doves in the forest proceeded to rebuke the +flatterer. "Thee is idle in thy speech, Angus MacLean," it declared. "I am +not fair; nor, if I were, should thee tell me of it. Also, friend, it is +idle and tendeth toward idolatry to speak of the first day of the fifth +month as May Day. My mother sent me for a paper of White-chapel needles, +and two of manikin pins. Has thee them in thy store of goods?" + +"Come you in and look for yourself," said the storekeeper. "There's +woman's gear enough, but it were easier for me to recount the names of all +the children of Gillean-ni-Tuaidhe than to remember how you call the +things you wear." + +So saying he entered the store. The Quakeress followed, and Haward, tired +of his own thoughts, and in the mood to be amused by trifles, trod in +their footsteps. + +Door and window faced the west, and the glow from the sinking sun +illumined the thousand and one features of the place. Here was the glint +of tools and weapons; there pewter shone like silver, and brass dazzled +the eyes. Bales of red cotton, blue linen, flowered Kidderminster, scarlet +serge, gold and silver drugget, all sorts of woven stuffs from lockram to +brocade, made bright the shelves. Pendent skins of buck and doe showed +like brown satin, while looking-glasses upon the wall reflected green +trees and painted clouds. In one dark corner lurked kegs of powder and of +shot; another was the haunt of aqua vit and right Jamaica. +Playing-cards, snuffboxes, and fringed gloves elbowed a shelf of books, +and a full-bottomed wig ogled a lady's headdress of ribbon and malines. +Knives and hatchets and duffel blankets for the Indian trade were not +wanting. + +Haward, leaning against a table laden with so singular a miscellany that a +fine saddle with crimson velvet holsters took the head of the board, while +the foot was set with blue and white china, watched the sometime moulder +of peak and islet draw out a case filled with such small and womanish +articles as pins and needles, tape and thread, and place it before his +customer. She made her choice, and the storekeeper brought a great book, +and entered against the head of the house of Taberer so many pounds of +tobacco; then, as the maiden turned to depart, heaved a sigh so piteous +and profound that no tender saint in gray could do less than pause, half +turn her head, and lift two compassionate eyes. + +"Mistress Truelove, I have read the good book that you gave me, and I +cannot deny that I am much beholden to you," and her debtor sighed like a +furnace. + +The girl's quiet face flushed to the pink of a seashell, and her eyes grew +eager. + +"Then does thee not see the error of thy ways, Angus MacLean? If it should +be given me to pluck thee as a brand from the burning! Thee will not again +brag of war and revenge, nor sing vain and ruthless songs, nor use dice or +cards, nor will thee swear any more?" + +The voice was persuasion's own. "May I be set overtide on the Lady's Rock, +or spare a false Campbell when I meet him, or throw up my cap for the +damned Hogan Mogan that sits in Jamie's place, if I am not entirely +convert!" cried the neophyte. "Oh, the devil! what have I said? Mistress +Truelove--Truelove"-- + +But Truelove was gone,--not in anger or in haste, for that would have been +unseemly, but quietly and steadily, with no looking back. The storekeeper, +leaping over a keg of nails that stood in the way, made for the door, and +together with Haward, who was already there, watched her go. The path to +the landing and the boat was short; she had taken her seat, and the boy +had bent to the oars, while the unlucky Scot was yet alternately calling +out protestations of amendment and muttering maledictions upon his +unguarded tongue. The canoe slipped from the rosy, unshadowed water into +the darkness beneath the overhanging trees, reached the mouth of the +creek, and in a moment disappeared from sight. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MASTER AND MAN + + +The two men, left alone, turned each toward the interior of the store, and +their eyes met. Alike in gray eyes and in dark blue there was laughter. +"Kittle folk, the Quakers," said the storekeeper, with a shrug, and went +to put away his case of pins and needles. Haward, going to the end of the +store, found a row of dusty bottles, and breaking the neck of one with a +report like that of a pistol set the Madeira to his lips, and therewith +quenched his thirst. The wine cellar abutted upon the library. Taking off +his riding glove he ran his finger along the bindings, and plucking forth +The History of a Coy Lady looked at the first page, read the last +paragraph, and finally thrust the thin brown and gilt volume into his +pocket. Turning, he found himself face to face with the storekeeper. + +"I have not the honor of knowing your name, sir," remarked the latter +dryly. "Do you buy at this store, and upon whose account?" + +Haward shook his head, and applied himself again to the Madeira. + +"Then you carry with you coin of the realm with which to settle?" +continued the other. "The wine is two shillings; the book you may have for +twelve-pence." + +"Here I need not pay, good fellow," said Haward negligently, his eyes +upon a row of dangling objects. "Fetch me down yonder cane; 't is as +delicately tapered and clouded as any at the Exchange." + +"Pay me first for the wine and the book," answered the man composedly. +"It's a dirty business enough, God knows, for a gentleman to put finger +to; but since needs must when the devil drives, and he has driven me here, +why, I, Angus MacLean, who have no concerns of my own, must e'en be +faithful to the concerns of another. Wherefore put down the silver you owe +the Sassenach whose wine you have drunken and whose book you have taken." + +"And if I do not choose to pay?" asked Haward, with a smile. + +"Then you must e'en choose to fight," was the cool reply. "And as I +observe that you wear neither sword nor pistols, and as jack boots and a +fine tight-buttoned riding coat are not the easiest clothes to wrestle in, +it appears just possible that I might win the cause." + +"And when you've thrown me, what then?" + +"Oh, I would just draw a rope around you and yonder cask of Jamaica, and +leave you to read your stolen book in peace until Saunderson (that's the +overseer, and he's none so bad if he was born in Fife) shall come. You can +have it out with him; or maybe he'll hale you before the man that owns the +store. I hear they expect him home." + +Haward laughed, and abstracting another bottle from the shelf broke its +neck. "Hand me yonder cup," he said easily, "and we'll drink to his +home-coming. Good fellow, I am Mr. Marmaduke Haward, and I am glad to find +so honest a man in a place of no small trust. Long absence and somewhat +too complaisant a reference of all my Virginian affairs to my agent have +kept me much in ignorance of the economy of my plantation. How long have +you been my storekeeper?" + +Neither cup for the wine nor answer to the question being forthcoming, +Haward looked up from his broken bottle. The man was standing with his +body bent forward and his hand pressed against the wood of a great cask +behind him until the finger-nails showed white. His head was high, his +face dark red and angry, his brows drawn down until the gleaming eyes +beneath were like pin points. + +So sudden and so sinister was the change that Haward was startled. The +hour was late, the place deserted; as the man had discovered, he had no +weapons, nor, strong, active, and practiced as he was, did he flatter +himself that he could withstand the length of brawn and sinew before him. +Involuntarily, he stepped backward until there was a space between them, +casting at the same moment a glance toward the wall where hung axe and +knife and hatchet. + +The man intercepted the look, and broke into a laugh. The sound was harsh +and gibing, but not menacing. "You need not be afraid," he said. "I do not +want the feel of a rope around my neck,--though God knows why I should +care! Here is no clansman of mine, and no cursed Campbell either, to see +my end!" + +"I am not afraid," Haward answered calmly. Walking to the shelf that held +an array of drinking vessels, he took two cups, filled them with wine, and +going back to his former station, set one upon the cask beside the +storekeeper. "The wine is good," he said. "Will you drink?" + +The other loosened the clasp of his hand upon the wood and drew himself +upright. "I eat the bread and drink the water which you give your +servants," he answered, speaking with the thickness of hardly restrained +passion. "The wine cup goes from equal to equal." + +As he spoke he took up the peace offering, eyed it for a moment with a +bitter smile, then flung it with force over his shoulder. The earthen +floor drank the wine; the china shivered into a thousand fragments. "I +have neither silver nor tobacco with which to pay for my pleasure," +continued the still smiling storekeeper. "When I am come to the end of my +term, then, an it please you, I will serve out the damage." + +Haward sat down upon a keg of powder, crossed his knees, and, with his +chin upon his hand, looked from between the curled lengths of his periwig +at the figure opposite. "I am glad to find that in Virginia, at least, +there is honesty," he said dryly. "I will try to remember the cost of the +cup and the wine against the expiry of your indenture. In the mean time, I +am curious to know why you are angry with me whom you have never seen +before to-day." + +With the dashing of the wine to earth the other's passion had apparently +spent itself. The red slowly left his face, and he leaned at ease against +the cask, drumming upon its head with his fingers. The sunlight, shrinking +from floor and wall, had left but a single line of gold. In the half light +strange and sombre shapes possessed the room; through the stillness, +beneath the sound of the tattoo upon the cask head, the river made itself +heard. + +"For ten years and more you have been my--master," said the storekeeper. +"It is a word for which I have an invincible distaste. It is not +well--having neither love nor friendship to put in its place--to let +hatred die. When I came first to this slavery, I hated all Campbells, all +Whigs, Forster that betrayed us at Preston, and Ewin Mor Mackinnon. But +the years have come and the years have gone, and I am older than I was at +twenty-five. The Campbells I can never reach: they walk secure, overseas, +through Lorn and Argyle, couching in the tall heather above Etive, +tracking the red deer in the Forest of Dalness. Forster is dead. Ewin +Mackinnon is dead, I know; for five years ago come Martinmas night I saw +his perjured soul on its way to hell. All the world is turning Whig. A man +may hate the world, it is true, but he needs a single foe." + +"And in that capacity you have adopted me?" demanded Haward. + +MacLean let his gaze travel over the man opposite him, from the looped hat +and the face between the waves of hair to the gilt spurs upon the great +boots; then turned his eyes upon his own hand and coarsely clad arm +stretched across the cask. "I, too, am a gentleman, the brother of a +chieftain," he declared. "I am not without schooling. I have seen +something of life, and of countries more polite than the land where I was +born, though not so dear. I have been free, and have loved my freedom. Do +you find it so strange that I should hate you?" + +There was a silence; then, "Upon my soul, I do not know that I do," said +Haward slowly. "And yet, until this day I did not know of your existence." + +"But I knew of yours," answered the storekeeper. "Your agent hath an +annoying trick of speech, and the overseers have caught it from him. 'Your +master' this, and 'your master' that; in short, for ten years it hath +been, 'Work, you dog, that your master may play!' Well, I have worked; it +was that, or killing myself, or going mad. I have worked for you in the +fields, in the smithy, in this close room. But when you bought my body, +you could not buy my soul. Day after day, and night after night, I sent it +away; I would not let it bide in these dull levels, in this cursed land of +heat and stagnant waters. At first it went home to its own country,--to +its friends and its foes, to the torrent and the mountain and the music of +the pipes; but at last the pain outweighed the pleasure, and I sent it +there no more. And then it began to follow you." + +"To follow me!" involuntarily exclaimed Haward. + +"I have been in London," went on the other, without heeding the +interruption. "I know the life of men of quality, and where they most +resort. I early learned from your other servants, and from the chance +words of those who had your affairs in charge, that you were young, +well-looking, a man of pleasure. At first when I thought of you the blood +came into my cheek, but at last I thought of you constantly, and I felt +for you a constant hatred. It began when I knew that Ewin Mackinnon was +dead. I had no need of love; I had need of hate. Day after day, my body +slaving here, my mind has dogged your footsteps. Up and down, to and fro, +in business and in pleasure, in whatever place I have imagined you to be, +there have I been also. Did you never, when there seemed none by, look +over your shoulder, feeling another presence than your own?" + +He ceased to speak, and the hand upon the cask was still. The sunshine was +clean gone from the room, and without the door the wind in the +locust-tree answered the voice of the river. Haward rose from his seat, +but made no further motion toward departing. "You have been frank," he +said quietly. "Had you it in mind, all this while, so to speak to me when +we should meet?" + +"No," answered the other. "I thought not of words, but of"-- + +"But of deeds," Haward finished for him. "Rather, I imagine, of one deed." + +Composed as ever in voice and manner, he drew out his watch, and held it +aslant that the light might strike upon the dial. "'T is after six," he +remarked as he put it away, "and I am yet a mile from the house." The wine +that he had poured for himself had been standing, untouched, upon the keg +beside him. He took it up and drank it off; then wiped his lips with his +handkerchief, and passing the storekeeper with a slight inclination of his +head walked toward the door. A yard beyond the man who had so coolly shown +his side of the shield was a rude table, on which were displayed hatchets +and hunting knives. Haward passed the gleaming steel; then, a foot beyond +it, stood still, his face to the open door, and his back to the +storekeeper and the table with its sinister lading. + +"You do wrong to allow so much dust and disorder," he said sharply. "I +could write my name in that mirror, and there is a piece of brocade fallen +to the floor. Look to it that you keep the place more neat." + +There was dead silence for a moment; then MacLean spoke in an even voice: +"Now a fool might call you as brave as Hector. For myself, I only give you +credit for some knowledge of men. You are right. It is not my way to +strike in the back an unarmed man. When you are gone, I will wipe off the +mirror and pick up the brocade." + +He followed Haward outside. "It's a brave evening for riding," he +remarked, "and you have a bonny bit of horseflesh there. You'll get to the +house before candlelight." + +Beside one of the benches Haward made another pause. "You are a Highlander +and a Jacobite," he said. "From your reference to Forster, I gather that +you were among the prisoners taken at Preston and transported to +Virginia." + +"In the Elizabeth and Anne of Liverpool, _alias_ a bit of hell afloat; the +master, Captain Edward Trafford, _alias_ Satan's first mate," quoth the +other grimly. + +He stooped to the bench where lay the dbris of the coast and mountains he +had been lately building, and picked up a small, deep shell. "My story is +short," he began. "It could be packed into this. I was born in the island +of Mull, of my father a chieftain, and my mother a lady. Some schooling I +got in Aberdeen, some pleasure in Edinburgh and London, and some service +abroad. In my twenty-third year--being at home at that time--I was asked +to a hunting match at Braemar, and went. No great while afterwards I was +bidden to supper at an Edinburgh tavern, and again I accepted the +invitation. There was a small entertainment to follow the supper,--just +the taking of Edinburgh Castle. But the wine was good, and we waited to +powder our hair, and the entertainment could hardly be called a success. +Hard upon that convivial evening, I, with many others, was asked across +the Border to join a number of gentlemen who drank to the King after our +fashion, and had a like fancy for oak boughs and white roses. The weather +was pleasant, the company of the best, the roads very noble after our +Highland sheep tracks. Together with our English friends, and enlivened by +much good claret and by music of bagpipe and drum, we strolled on through +a fine, populous country until we came to a town called Preston, where we +thought we would tarry for a day or two. However, circumstances arose +which detained us somewhat longer. (I dare say you have heard the story?) +When finally we took our leave, some of us went to heaven, some to hell, +and some to Barbadoes and Virginia. I was among those dispatched to +Virginia, and to all intents and purposes I died the day I landed. There, +the shell is full!" + +He tossed it from him, and going to the hitching-post loosed Haward's +horse. Haward took the reins from his hand. "It hath been ten years and +more since Virginia got her share of the rebels taken at Preston. If I +remember aright, their indentures were to be made for seven years. Why, +then, are you yet in my service?" + +MacLean laughed. "I ran away," he replied pleasantly, "and when I was +caught I made off a second time. I wonder that you planters do not have a +Society for the Encouragement of Runaways. Seeing that they are nearly +always retaken, and that their escapades so lengthen their term of +service, it would surely be to your advantage! There are yet several years +in which I am to call you master." + +He laughed again, but the sound was mirthless, and the eyes beneath the +half-closed lids were harder than steel. Haward mounted his horse and +gathered up the reins. "I am not responsible for the laws of the realm," +he said calmly, "nor for rebellions and insurrections, nor for the +practice of transporting overseas those to whom have been given the ugly +names of 'rebel' and 'traitor.' Destiny that set you there put me here. We +are alike pawns; what the player means we have no way of telling. Curse +Fate and the gods, if you choose,--and find that your cursing does small +good,--but regard me with indifference, as one neither more nor less the +slave of circumstances than yourself. It has been long since I went this +way. Is there yet the path by the river?" + +"Ay," answered the other. "It is your shortest road." + +"Then I will be going," said Haward. "It grows late, and I am not looked +for before to-morrow. Good-night." + +As he spoke he raised his hat and bowed to the gentleman from whom he was +parting. That rebel to King George gave a great start; then turned very +red, and shot a piercing glance at the man on horseback. The latter's mien +was composed as ever, and, with his hat held beneath his arm and his body +slightly inclined, he was evidently awaiting a like ceremony of +leave-taking on the storekeeper's part. MacLean drew a long breath, +stepped back a pace or two, and bowed to his equal. A second "Good-night," +and one gentleman rode off in the direction of the great house, while the +other went thoughtfully back to the store, got a cloth and wiped the dust +from the mirror. + +It was pleasant riding by the river in the cool evening wind, with the +colors of the sunset yet gay in sky and water. Haward went slowly, +glancing now at the great, bright stream, now at the wide, calm fields and +the rim of woodland, dark and distant, bounding his possessions. The smell +of salt marshes, of ploughed ground, of leagues of flowering forests, was +in his nostrils. Behind him was the crescent moon; before him a terrace +crowned with lofty trees. Within the ring of foliage was the house; even +as he looked a light sprang up in a high window, and shone like a star +through the gathering dusk. Below the hill the home landing ran its gaunt +black length far out into the carmine of the river; upon the Golden Rose +lights burned like lower stars; from a thicket to the left of the bridle +path sounded the call of a whippoorwill. A gust of wind blowing from the +bay made to waver the lanterns of the Golden Rose, broke and darkened the +coral peace of the river, and pushed rudely against the master of those +parts. Haward laid his hand upon his horse that he loved. "This is better +than the Ring, isn't it, Mirza?" he asked genially, and the horse whinnied +under his touch. + +The land was quite gray, the river pearl-colored, and the fireflies +beginning to sparkle, when he rode through the home gates. In the dusk of +the world, out of the deeper shadow of the surrounding trees, his house +looked grimly upon him. The light had been at the side; all the front was +stark and black with shuttered windows. He rode to the back of the house +and hallooed to the slaves in the home quarter, where were lights and +noisy laughter, and one deep voice singing in an unknown tongue. + +It was but a stone's throw to the nearest cabin, and Haward's call made +itself heard above the babel. The noise suddenly lessened, and two or +three negroes, starting up from the doorstep, hurried across the grass to +horse and rider. Quickly as they came, some one within the house was +beforehand with them. The door swung open; there was the flare of a +lighted candle, and a voice cried out to know what was wanted. + +"Wanted!" exclaimed Haward. "Ingress into my own house is wanted! Where is +Juba?" + +One of the negroes pressed forward. "Heah I is, Marse Duke! House all +ready for you, but you done sont word"-- + +"I know,--I know," answered Haward impatiently. "I changed my mind. Is +that you, Saunderson, with the light? Or is it Hide?" + +The candle moved to one side, and there was disclosed a large white face +atop of a shambling figure dressed in some coarse, dark stuff. "Neither, +sir," said an expressionless voice. "Will it please your Honor to +dismount?" + +Haward swung himself out of the saddle, tossed the reins to a negro, and, +with Juba at his heels, climbed the five low stone steps and entered the +wide hall running through the house and broken only by the broad, winding +stairway. Save for the glimmer of the solitary candle all was in darkness; +the bare floor, the paneled walls, echoed to his tread. On either hand +squares of blackness proclaimed the open doors of large, empty rooms, and +down the stair came a wind that bent the weak flame. The negro took the +light from the hand of the man who had opened the door, and, pressing past +his master, lit three candles in a sconce upon the wall. + +"Yo' room's all ready, Marse Duke," he declared. "Dere's candles enough, +an' de fire am laid an' yo' bed aired. Ef you wan' some supper, I kin get +you bread an' meat, an' de wine was put in yesterday." + +Haward nodded, and taking the candle began to mount the stairs. Half way +up he found that the man in the sad-colored raiment was following him. He +raised his brows, but being in a taciturn humor, and having, moreover, to +shield the flame from the wind that drove down the stair, he said nothing, +going on in silence to the landing, and to the great eastward-facing room +that had been his father's, and which now he meant to make his own. There +were candles on the table, the dresser, and the mantelshelf. He lit them +all, and the room changed from a place of shadows and monstrous shapes to +a gentleman's bedchamber,--somewhat sparsely furnished, but of a +comfortable and cheerful aspect. A cloth lay upon the floor, the windows +were curtained, and the bed had fresh hangings of green and white +Kidderminster. Over the mantel hung a painting of Haward and his mother, +done when he was six years old. Beneath the laughing child and the smiling +lady, young and flower-crowned, were crossed two ancient swords. In the +middle of the room stood a heavy table, and pushed back, as though some +one had lately risen from it, was an armchair of Russian leather. Books +lay upon the table; one of them open, with a horn snuffbox keeping down +the leaf. + +Haward seated himself in the great chair, and looked around him with a +thoughtful and melancholy smile. He could not clearly remember his mother. +The rings upon her fingers and her silvery laughter were all that dwelt in +his mind, and now only the sound of that merriment floated back to him and +lingered in the room. But his father had died upon that bed, and beside +the dead man, between the candles at the head and the candles at the foot, +he had sat the night through. The curtains were half drawn, and in their +shadow his imagination laid again that cold, inanimate form. Twelve years +ago! How young he had been that night, and how old he had thought himself +as he watched beside the dead, chilled by the cold of the crossed hands, +awed by the silence, half frighted by the shadows on the wall; now filled +with natural grief, now with surreptitious and shamefaced thoughts of his +changed estate,--yesterday son and dependent, to-day heir and master! +Twelve years! The sigh and the smile were not for the dead father, but for +his own dead youth, for the unjaded freshness of the morning, for the +world that had been, once upon a time. + +Turning in his seat, his eyes fell upon the man who had followed him, and +who was now standing between the table and the door. "Well, friend?" he +demanded. + +The man came a step or two nearer. His hat was in his hand, and his body +was obsequiously bent, but there was no discomposure in his lifeless voice +and manner. "I stayed to explain my presence in the house, sir," he said. +"I am a lover of reading, and, knowing my weakness, your overseer, who +keeps the keys of the house, has been so good as to let me, from time to +time, come here to this room to mingle in more delectable company than I +can choose without these walls. Your Honor doubtless remembers yonder +goodly assemblage?" He motioned with his hand toward a half-opened door, +showing a closet lined with well-filled bookshelves. + +"I remember," replied Haward dryly. "So you come to my room alone at +night, and occupy yourself in reading? And when you are wearied you +refresh yourself with my wine?" As he spoke he clinked together the bottle +and glass that stood beside the books. + +"I plead guilty to the wine," answered the intruder, as lifelessly as +ever, "but it is my only theft. I found the bottle below, and did not +think it would be missed. I trust that your Honor does not grudge it to a +poor devil who tastes Burgundy somewhat seldomer than does your Worship. +And my being in the house is pure innocence. Your overseer knew that I +would neither make nor meddle with aught but the books, or he would not +have given me the key to the little door, which I now restore to your +Honor's keeping." He advanced, and deposited upon the table a large key. + +"What is your name?" demanded Haward, leaning back in his chair. + +"Bartholomew Paris, sir. I keep the school down by the swamp, where I +impart to fifteen or twenty of the youth of these parts the rudiments of +the ancient and modern tongues, mathematics, geography, fortifications, +navigation, philosophy"-- + +Haward yawned, and the schoolmaster broke the thread of his discourse. "I +weary you, sir," he said. "I will, with your permission, take my +departure. May I make so bold as to beg your Honor that you will not +mention to the gentlemen hereabouts the small matter of this bottle of +wine? I would wish not to be prejudiced in the eyes of my patrons and +scholars." + +"I will think of it," Haward replied. "Come and take your snuffbox--if it +be yours--from the book where you have left it." + +"It is mine," said the man. "A present from the godly minister of this +parish." + +As he spoke he put out his hand to take the snuffbox. Haward leaned +forward, seized the hand, and, bending back the fingers, exposed the palm +to the light of the candles upon the table. + +"The other, if you please," he commanded. + +For a second--no longer--a wicked soul looked blackly out of the face to +which he had raised his eyes. Then the window shut, and the wall was blank +again. Without any change in his listless demeanor, the schoolmaster laid +his left hand, palm out, beside his right. + +"Humph!" exclaimed Haward. "So you have stolen before to-night? The marks +are old. When were you branded, and where?" + +"In Bristol, fifteen years ago," answered the man unblushingly. "It was +all a mistake. I was as innocent as a newborn babe"-- + +"But unfortunately could not prove it," interrupted Haward. "That is of +course. Go on." + +"I was transported to South Carolina, and there served out my term. The +climate did not suit me, and I liked not the society, nor--being of a +peaceful disposition--the constant alarms of pirates and buccaneers. So +when I was once more my own man I traveled north to Virginia with a party +of traders. In my youth I had been an Oxford servitor, and schoolmasters +are in demand in Virginia. Weighed in the scales with a knowledge of the +humanities and some skill in imparting them, what matters a little mishap +with hot irons? My patrons are willing to let bygones be bygones. My +school flourishes like a green bay-tree, and the minister of this parish +will speak for the probity and sobriety of my conduct. Now I will go, +sir." + +He made an awkward but deep and obsequious reverence, turned and went out +of the door, passing Juba, who was entering with a salver laden with bread +and meat and a couple of bottles. "Put down the food, Juba," said Haward, +"and see this gentleman out of the house." + +An hour later the master dismissed the slave, and sat down beside the +table to finish the wine and compose himself for the night. The overseer +had come hurrying to the great house, to be sent home again by a message +from the owner thereof that to-morrow would do for business; the negro +women who had been called to make the bed were gone; the noises from the +quarter had long ceased, and the house was very still. In his rich, +figured Indian nightgown and his silken nightcap, Haward sat and drank his +wine, slowly, with long pauses between the emptying and the filling of the +slender, tall-stemmed glass. A window was open, and the wind blowing in +made the candles to flicker. With the wind came a murmur of leaves and the +wash of the river,--stealthy and mournful sounds that sorted not with the +lighted room, the cheerful homeliness of the flowered hangings, the +gleeful lady and child above the mantelshelf. Haward felt the incongruity: +a slow sea voyage, and a week in that Virginia which, settled one hundred +and twenty years before, was yet largely forest and stream, had weaned +him, he thought, from sounds of the street, and yet to-night he missed +them, and would have had the town again. When an owl hooted in the +walnut-tree outside his window, and in the distance, as far away as the +creek quarter, a dog howled, and the silence closed in again, he rose, and +began to walk to and fro, slowly, thinking of the past and the future. The +past had its ghosts,--not many; what spectres the future might raise only +itself could tell. So far as mortal vision went, it was a rose-colored +future; but on such a night of silence that was not silence, of +loneliness that was filled with still, small voices, of heavy darkness +without, of lights burning in an empty house, it was rather of ashes of +roses that one thought. + +Haward went to the open window, and with one knee upon the window seat +looked out into the windy, starlit night. This was the eastern face of the +house, and, beyond the waving trees, there were visible both the river and +the second and narrower creek which on this side bounded the plantation. +The voice with which the waters swept to the sea came strongly to him. A +large white moth sailed out of the darkness to the lit window, but his +presence scared it away. + +Looking through the walnut branches, he could see a light that burned +steadily, like a candle set in a window. For a moment he wondered whence +it shone; then he remembered that the glebe lands lay in that direction. +The parish was building a house for its new minister, when he left +Virginia, those many years ago. Suddenly he recalled that the +minister--who had seemed to him a bluff, downright, honest fellow--had +told him of a little room looking out upon an orchard, and had said that +it should be the child's. + +It was possible that the star which pierced the darkness might mark that +room. He knit his brows in an effort to remember when, before this day, he +had last thought of a child whom he had held in his arms and comforted, +one splendid dawn, upon a hilltop, in a mountainous region. He came to the +conclusion that he must have forgotten her quite six years ago. Well, she +would seem to have thriven under his neglect,--and he saw again the girl +who had run for the golden guinea. It was true that when he had put her +there where that light was shining, it was with some shadowy idea of +giving her gentle breeding, of making a lady of her. But man's purposes +are fleeting, and often gone with the morrow. He had forgotten his +purpose; and perhaps it was best this way,--perhaps it was best this way. + +For a little longer he looked at the light and listened to the voice of +the river; then he rose from the window seat, drew the curtains, and began +thoughtfully to prepare for bed. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE RETURN OF MONSIEUR JEAN HUGON + + +To the north the glebe was bounded by a thick wood, a rank and dense +"second growth" springing from earth where had once stood, decorously +apart, the monster trees of the primeval forest; a wild maze of young +trees, saplings and underbrush, overrun from the tops of the slender, +bending pines to the bushes of dogwood and sassafras, and the rotting, +ancient stumps and fallen logs, by the uncontrollable, all-spreading vine. +It was such a fantastic thicket as one might look to find in fairyland, +thorny and impenetrable: here as tall as a ten years' pine, there sunken +away to the height of the wild honeysuckles; everywhere backed by blue +sky, heavy with odors, filled, with the flash of wings and the songs of +birds. To the east the thicket fell away to low and marshy grounds, where +tall cypresses grew, and myriads of myrtle bushes. Later in the year women +and children would venture in upon the unstable earth for the sake of the +myrtle berries and their yield of fragrant wax, and once and again an +outlying slave had been tracked by men and dogs to the dark recesses of +the place; but for the most part it was given over to its immemorial +silence. To the south and the west the tobacco fields of Fair View closed +in upon the glebe, taking the fertile river bank, and pressing down to the +crooked, slow-moving, deeply shadowed creek, upon whose farther bank +stood the house of the Rev. Gideon Darden. + +A more retired spot, a completer sequestration from the world of mart and +highway, it would have been hard to find. In the quiet of the early +morning, when the shadows of the trees lay across the dewy grass, it was +an angle of the earth as cloistral and withdrawn as heart of scholar or of +anchorite could wish. On one side of the house lay a tiny orchard, and the +windows of the living room looked out upon a mist of pink and white apple +blooms. The fragrance of the blossoms had been in the room, but could not +prevail against the odor of tobacco and rum lately introduced by the +master of the house and minister of the parish. Audrey, sitting beside a +table which had been drawn in front of the window, turned her face aside, +and was away, sense and soul, out of the meanly furnished room into the +midst of the great bouquets of bloom, with the blue between and above. +Darden, walking up and down, with his pipe in his mouth, and the tobacco +smoke curling like an aureole around his bullet head, glanced toward the +window. + +"When you have written that which I have told you to write, say so, +Audrey," he commanded. "Don't sit there staring at nothing!" + +Audrey came back to the present with a start, took up a pen, and drew the +standish nearer. "'Answer of Gideon Darden, Minister of Fair View Parish, +in Virginia, to the several Queries contained in my Lord Bishop of +London's Circular Letter to the Clergy in Virginia,'" she read, and poised +her pen in air. + +"Read out the questions," ordered Darden, "and write my answer to each in +the space beneath. No blots, mind you, and spell not after the promptings +of your woman's nature." + +Going to a side table, be mixed for himself, in an old battered silver +cap, a generous draught of bombo; then, with the drink in his hand, walked +heavily across the uncarpeted floor to his armchair, which creaked under +his weight as he sank into its leathern lap. He put down the rum and water +with so unsteady a hand that the liquor spilled, and when he refilled his +pipe half the contents of his tobacco box showered down upon his frayed +and ancient and unclean coat and breeches. From the pocket of the latter +he now drew forth a silver coin, which he balanced for a moment upon his +fat forefinger, and finally sent spinning across the table to Audrey. + +"'Tis the dregs of thy guinea, child, that Paris and Hugon and I drank at +the crossroads last night. 'Burn me,' says I to them, 'if that long-legged +lass of mine shan't have a drop in the cup!' And say Hugon"-- + +What Hugon said did not appear, or was confided to the depths of the +tankard which the minister raised to his lips. Audrey looked at the +splendid shilling gleaming upon the table beside her, but made no motion +toward taking it into closer possession. A little red had come into the +clear brown of her cheeks. She was a young girl, with her dreams and +fancies, and the golden guinea would have made a dream or two come true. + +"'Query the first,'" she read slowly, "'How long since you went to the +plantations as missionary?'" + +Darden, leaning back in his chair, with his eyes uplifted through the +smoke clouds to the ceiling, took his pipe from his mouth, for the better +answering of his diocesan. "'My Lord, thirteen years come St. Swithin's +day,'" he dictated. "'Signed, Gideon Darden.' Audrey, do not forget thy +capitals. Thirteen years! Lord, Lord, the years, how they fly! Hast it +down, Audrey?" + +Audrey, writing in a slow, fair, clerkly hand, made her period, and turned +to the Bishop's second question: "'Had you any other church before you +came to that which you now possess?'" + +"'No, my Lord,'" said the minister to the Bishop; then to the ceiling: "I +came raw from the devil to this parish. Audrey, hast ever heard children +say that Satan comes and walks behind me when I go through the forest?" + +"Yes," said Audrey, "but their eyes are not good. You go hand in hand." + +Darden paused in the lifting of his tankard. "Thy wits are brightening, +Audrey; but keep such observations to thyself. It is only the schoolmaster +with whom I walk. Go on to the next question." + +The Bishop desired to know how long the minister addressed had been +inducted into his living. The minister addressed, leaning forward, laid it +off to his Lordship how that the vestries in Virginia did not incline to +have ministers inducted, and, being very powerful, kept the poor servants +of the Church upon uneasy seats; but that he, Gideon Darden, had the love +of his flock, rich and poor, gentle and simple, and that in the first year +of his ministry the gentlemen of his vestry had been pleased to present +his name to the Governor for induction. Which explanation made, the +minister drank more rum, and looked out of the window at the orchard and +at his neighbor's tobacco. + +"You are only a woman, and can hold no office, Audrey," he said, "but I +will impart to you words of wisdom whose price is above rubies. Always +agree with your vestry. Go, hat in hand, to each of its members in turn, +craving advice as to the management of your own affairs. Thunder from the +pulpit against Popery, which does not exist in this colony, and the +Pretender, who is at present in Italy. Wrap a dozen black sheep of +inferior breed in white sheets and set them arow at the church door, but +make it stuff of the conscience to see no blemish in the wealthier and +more honorable portion of your flock. So you will thrive, and come to be +inducted into your living, whether in Virginia or some other quarter of +the globe. What's the worthy Bishop's next demand? Hasten, for Hugon is +coming this morning, and there's settlement to be made of a small bet, and +a hand at cards." + +By the circular letter and the lips of Audrey the Bishop proceeded to +propound a series of questions, which the minister answered with +portentous glibness. In the midst of an estimate of the value of a living +in a sweet-scented parish a face looked in at the window, and a dark and +sinewy hand laid before Audrey a bunch of scarlet columbine. + +"The rock was high," said a voice, "and the pool beneath was deep and +dark. Here are the flowers that waved from the rock and threw colored +shadows upon the pool." + +The girl shrank as from a sudden and mortal danger. Her lips trembled, her +eyes half closed, and with a hurried and passionate gesture she rose from +her chair, thrust from her the scarlet blooms, and with one lithe movement +of her body put between her and the window the heavy writing table. The +minister laid by his sum in arithmetic. + +"Ha, Hugon, dog of a trader!" he cried. "Come in, man. Hast brought the +skins? There's fire-water upon the table, and Audrey will be kind. Stay to +dinner, and tell us what lading you brought down river, and of your +kindred in the forest and your kindred in Monacan-Town." + +The man at the window shrugged his shoulders, lifted his brows, and spread +his hands. So a captain of Mousquetaires might have done; but the face was +dark-skinned, the cheek-bones were high, the black eyes large, fierce, and +restless. A great bushy peruke, of an ancient fashion, and a coarse, +much-laced cravat gave setting and lent a touch of grotesqueness and of +terror to a countenance wherein the blood of the red man warred with that +of the white. + +"I will not come in now," said the voice again. "I am going in my boat to +the big creek to take twelve doeskins to an old man named Taberer. I will +come back to dinner. May I not, ma'm'selle?" + +The corners of the lips went up, and the thicket of false hair swept the +window sill, so low did the white man bow; but the Indian eyes were +watchful. Audrey made no answer; she stood with her face turned away and +her eyes upon the door, measuring her chances. If Darden would let her +pass, she might reach the stairway and her own room before the trader +could enter the house. There were bolts to its heavy door, and Hugon might +do as he had done before, and talk his heart out upon the wrong side of +the wood. Thanks be! lying upon her bed and pressing the pillow over her +ears, she did not have to hear. + +At the trader's announcement that his present path led past the house, +she ceased her stealthy progress toward her own demesne, and waited, with +her back to the window, and her eyes upon one long ray of sunshine that +struck high against the wall. + +"I will come again," said the voice without, and the apparition was gone +from the window. Once more blue sky and rosy bloom spanned the opening, +and the sunshine lay in a square upon the floor. The girl drew a long +breath, and turning to the table began to arrange the papers upon it with +trembling hands. + +"'Sixteen thousand pounds of sweet-scented, at ten shillings the +hundredweight; for marriage by banns, five shillings; for the preaching of +a funeral sermon, forty shillings; for christening'"--began Darden for the +Bishop's information. Audrey took her pen and wrote; but before the list +of the minister's perquisites had come to an end the door flew open, and a +woman with the face of a vixen came hurriedly into the room. With her +entered the breeze from the river, driving before it the smoke wreaths, +and blowing the papers from the table to the floor. + +Darden stamped his foot. "Woman, I have business, I tell ye,--business +with the Bishop of London! I've kept his Lordship at the door this +se'nnight, and if I give him not audience Blair will presently be down uon +me with tooth and nail and his ancient threat of a visitation. Begone and +keep the house! Audrey, where are you, child?" + +"Audrey, leave the room!" commanded the woman. "I have something to say +that's not for your ears. Let her go, Darden. There's news, I tell you." + +The minister glanced at his wife; then knocked the ashes from his pipe and +nodded dismissal to Audrey. His late secretary slipped from her seat and +left the room, not without alacrity. + +"Well?" demanded Darden, when the sound of the quick young feet had died +away. "Open your budget, Deborah. There's naught in it, I'll swear, but +some fal-lal about your flowered gown or an old woman's black cat and +corner broomstick." + +Mistress Deborah Darden pressed her thin lips together, and eyed her lord +and master with scant measure of conjugal fondness. "It's about some one +nearer home than your bishops and commissaries," she said. "Hide passed by +this morning, going to the river field. I was in the garden, and he +stopped to speak to me. Mr. Haward is home from England. He came to the +great house last night, and he ordered his horse for ten o'clock this +morning, and asked the nearest way through the fields to the parsonage." + +Darden whistled, and put down his drink untasted. + +"Enter the most powerful gentleman of my vestry!" he exclaimed. "He'll be +that in a month's time. A member of the Council, too, no doubt, and with +the Governor's ear. He's a scholar and fine gentleman. Deborah, clear away +this trash. Lay out my books, fetch a bottle of Canary, and give me my +Sunday coat. Put flowers on the table, and a dish of bonchrtiens, and get +on your tabby gown. Make your curtsy at the door; then leave him to me." + +"And Audrey?" said his wife. + +Darden, about to rise, sank back again and sat still, a hand upon either +arm of his chair. "Eh!" he said; then, in a meditative tone, "That is +so,--there is Audrey." + +"If he has eyes, he'll see that for himself," retorted Mistress Deborah +tartly. "'More to the purpose,' he'll say, 'where is the money that I +gave you for her?'" + +"Why, it's gone," answered Darden "Gone in maintenance,--gone in meat and +drink and raiment. He didn't want it buried. Pshaw, Deborah, he has quite +forgot his fine-lady plan! He forgot it years ago, I'll swear." + +"I'll send her now on an errand to the Widow Constance's," said the +mistress of the house. "Then before he comes again I'll get her a gown"-- + +The minister brought his hand down upon the table. "You'll do no such +thing!" he thundered. "The girl's got to be here when he comes. As for her +dress, can't she borrow from you? The Lord knows that though only the wife +of a poor parson, you might throw for gewgaws with a bona roba! Go trick +her out, and bring her here. I'll attend to the wine and the books." + +When the door opened again, and Audrey, alarmed and wondering, slipped +with the wind into the room, and stood in the sunshine before the +minister, that worthy first frowned, then laughed, and finally swore. + +"'Swounds, Deborah, your hand is out! If I hadn't taken you from service, +I'd swear that you were never inside a fine lady's chamber. What's the +matter with the girl's skirt?" + +"She's too tall!" cried the sometime waiting woman angrily. "As for that +great stain upon the silk, the wine made it when you threw your tankard at +me, last Sunday but one." + +"That manteau pins her arms to her sides," interrupted the minister +calmly, "and the lace is dirty. You've hidden all her hair under that +mazarine, and too many patches become not a brown skin. Turn around, +child!" + +While Audrey slowly revolved, the guardian of her fortunes, leaning back +in his chair, bent his bushy brows and gazed, not at the circling figure +in its tawdry apparel, but into the distance. When she stood still and +looked at him with a half-angry, half-frightened face, he brought his +bleared eyes to bear upon her, studied her for a minute, then motioned to +his wife. + +"She must take off this paltry finery, Deborah," he announced. "I'll have +none of it. Go, child, and don your Cinderella gown." + +"What does it all mean?" cried Audrey, with heaving bosom. "Why did she +put these things upon me, and why will she tell me nothing? If Hugon has +hand in it"-- + +The minister made a gesture of contempt. "Hugon! Hugon, half Monacan and +half Frenchman, is bartering skins with a Quaker. Begone, child, and when +you are transformed return to us." + +When the door had closed he turned upon his wife. "The girl has been cared +for," he said. "She has been fed,--if not with cates and dainties, then +with bread and meat; she has been clothed,--if not in silk and lace, then +in good blue linen and penistone. She is young and of the springtime, hath +more learning than had many a princess of old times, is innocent and good +to look at. Thou and the rest of thy sex are fools, Deborah, but wise men +died not with Solomon. It matters not about her dress." + +Rising, he went to a shelf of battered, dog-eared books, and taking down +an armful proceeded to strew the volumes upon the table. The red blooms of +the columbine being in the way, he took up the bunch and tossed it out of +the window. With the light thud of the mass upon the ground eyes of +husband and wife met. + +"Hugon would marry the girl," said the latter, twisting the hem of her +apron with restless fingers. + +Without change of countenance, Darden leaned forward, seized her by the +shoulder and shook her violently. "You are too given to idle and +meaningless words, Deborah," he declared, releasing her. "By the Lord, one +of these days I'll break you of the habit for good and all! Hugon, and +scarlet flowers, and who will marry Audrey, that is yet but a child and +useful about the house,--what has all this to do with the matter in hand, +which is simply to make ourselves and our house presentable in the eyes of +my chief parishioner? A man would think that thirteen years in Virginia +would teach any fool the necessity of standing well with a powerful +gentleman such as this. I'm no coward. Damn sanctimonious parsons and my +Lord Bishop's Scotch hireling! If they yelp much longer at my heels, I'll +scandalize them in good earnest! It's thin ice, though,--it's thin ice; +but I like this house and glebe, and I'm going to live and die in +them,--and die drunk, if I choose, Mr. Commissary to the contrary! It's of +import, Deborah, that my parishioners, being easy folk, willing to live +and let live, should like me still, and that a majority of my vestry +should not be able to get on without me. With this in mind, get out the +wine, dust the best chair, and be ready with thy curtsy. It will be time +enough to cry Audrey's banns when she is asked in marriage." + +Audrey, in her brown dress, with the color yet in her cheeks, entering at +the moment, Mistress Deborah attempted no response to her husband's +adjuration. Darden turned to the girl. "I've done with the writing for +the nonce, child," he said, "and need you no longer. I'll smoke a pipe and +think of my sermon. You're tired; out with you into the sunshine! Go to +the wood or down by the creek, but not beyond call, d'ye mind." + +Audrey looked from one to the other, but said nothing. There were many +things in the world of other people which she did not understand; one +thing more or less made no great difference. But she did understand the +sunlit roof, the twilight halls, the patterned floor of the forest. +Blossoms drifting down, fleeing shadows, voices of wind and water, and all +murmurous elfin life spoke to her. They spoke the language of her land; +when she stepped out of the door into the air and faced the portals of her +world, they called to her to come. Lithe and slight and light of foot, she +answered to their piping. The orchard through which she ran was fair with +its rosy trees, like gayly dressed curtsying dames; the slow, clear creek +that held the double of the sky enticed, but she passed it by. Straight as +an arrow she pierced to the heart of the wood that lay to the north. Thorn +and bramble, branch of bloom and entangling vine, stayed her not; long +since she had found or had made for herself a path to the centre of the +labyrinth. Here was a beech-tree, older by many a year than the young +wood,--a solitary tree spared by the axe what time its mates had fallen. +Tall and silver-gray the column of the trunk rose to meet wide branches +and the green lace-work of tender leaves. The earth beneath was clean +swept, and carpeted with the leaves of last year; a wide, dry, pale brown +enchanted ring, against whose borders pressed the riot of the forest. Vine +and bush, flower and fern, could not enter; but Audrey came and laid +herself down upon a cool and shady bed. + +By human measurement the house that she had left was hard by; even from +under the beech-tree Mistress Deborah's thin call could draw her back to +the walls which sheltered her, which she had been taught to call her home. +But it was not her soul's home, and now the veil of the kindly woods +withdrew it league on league, shut it out, made it as if it had never +been. From the charmed ring beneath the beech-tree she took possession of +her world; for her the wind murmured, the birds sang, insects hummed or +shrilled, the green saplings nodded their heads. Flowers, and the bedded +moss, and the little stream that leaped from a precipice of three feet +into the calm of a hand-deep pool spoke to her. She was happy. Gone was +the house and its inmates; gone Paris the schoolmaster, who had taught her +to write, and whose hand touching hers in guidance made her sick and cold; +gone Hugon the trader, whom she feared and hated. Here were no toil, no +annoy, no frightened flutterings of the heart; she had passed the +frontier, and was safe in her own land. + +She pressed her cheek against the dead leaves, and, with the smell of the +earth in her nostrils, looked sideways with half-closed eyes and made a +radiant mist of the forest round about. A drowsy warmth was in the air; +the birds sang far away; through a rift in the foliage a sunbeam came and +rested beside her like A gilded snake. + +For a time, wrapped in the warmth and the green and gold mist, she lay as +quiet as the sunbeam; of the earth earthy, in pact with the mould beneath +the leaves, with the slowly crescent trunks, brown or silver-gray, with +moss and lichened rock, and with all life that basked or crept or flew. At +last, however, the mind aroused, and she opened her eyes, saw, and thought +of what she saw. It was pleasant in the forest. She watched the flash of a +bird, as blue as the sky, from limb to limb; she listened to the elfin +waterfall; she drew herself with hand and arm across the leaves to the +edge of the pale brown ring, plucked a honeysuckle bough and brought it +back to the silver column of the beech; and lastly, glancing up from the +rosy sprig within her hand, she saw a man coming toward her, down the path +that she had thought hidden, holding his arm before him for shield against +brier and branch, and looking curiously about him as for a thing which he +had come out to seek. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE + + +In the moment in which she sprang to her feet she saw that it was not +Hugon, and her heart grew calm again. In her torn gown, with her brown +hair loosed from its fastenings, and falling over her shoulders in heavy +waves whose crests caught the sunlight, she stood against the tree beneath +which she had lain, gazed with wide-open eyes at the intruder, and guessed +from his fine coat and the sparkling toy looping his hat that he was a +gentleman. She knew gentlemen when she saw them: on a time one had cursed +her for scurrying like a partridge across the road before his horse, +making the beast come nigh to unseating him; another, coming upon her and +the Widow Constance's Barbara gathering fagots in the November woods, had +tossed to each a sixpence; a third, on vestry business with the minister, +had touched her beneath the chin, and sworn that an she were not so brown +she were fair; a fourth, lying hidden upon the bank of the creek, had +caught her boat head as she pushed it into the reeds, and had tried to +kiss her. They had certain ways, had gentlemen, but she knew no great harm +of them. There was one, now--but he would be like a prince. When at +eventide the sky was piled with pale towering clouds, and she looked, as +she often looked, down the river, toward the bay and the sea beyond, she +always saw this prince that she had woven--warp of memory, woof of +dreams--stand erect in the pearly light. There was a gentleman indeed! + +As to the possessor of the title now slowly and steadily making his way +toward her she was in a mere state of wonder. It was not possible that he +had lost his way; but if so, she was sorry that, in losing it, he had +found the slender zigzag of her path. A trustful child,--save where Hugon +was concerned,--she was not in the least afraid, and being of a friendly +mind looked at the approaching figure with shy kindliness, and thought +that he must have come from a distant part of the country. She thought +that had she ever seen him before she would have remembered it. + +Upon the outskirts of the ring, clear of the close embrace of flowering +bush and spreading vine. Haward paused, and looked with smiling eyes at +this girl of the woods, this forest creature that, springing from the +earth, had set its back against the tree. + +"Tarry awhile," he said. "Slip not yet within the bark. Had I known, I +should have brought oblation of milk and honey." + +"This is the thicket between Fair View and the glebe lands," said Audrey, +who knew not what bark of tree and milk and honey had to do with the case. +"Over yonder, sir, is the road to the great house. This path ends here; +you must go back to the edge of the wood, then turn to the south"-- + +"I have not lost my way," answered Haward, still smiling. "It is pleasant +here in the shade, after the warmth of the open. May I not sit down upon +the leaves and talk to you for a while? I came out to find you, you +know." + +As he spoke, and without waiting for the permission which he asked, he +crossed the rustling leaves, and threw himself down upon the earth between +two branching roots. Her skirt brushed his knee; with a movement quick and +shy she put more distance between them, then stood and looked at him with +wide, grave eyes. "Why do you say that you came here to find me?" she +asked. "I do not know you." + +Haward laughed, nursing his knee and looking about him. "Let that pass for +a moment. You have the prettiest woodland parlor, child! Tell me, do they +treat you well over there?" with a jerk of his thumb toward the glebe +house. "Madam the shrew and his reverence the bully, are they kind to you? +Though they let you go like a beggar maid,"--he glanced kindly enough at +her bare feet and torn gown,--"yet they starve you not, nor beat you, nor +deny you aught in reason?" + +Audrey drew herself up. She had a proper pride, and she chose to forget +for this occasion a bruise upon her arm and the thrusting upon her of +Hugon's company. "I do not know who you are, sir, that ask me such +questions," she said sedately. "I have food and shelter +and--and--kindness. And I go barefoot only of week days"-- + +It was a brave beginning, but of a sudden she found it hard to go on. She +felt his eyes upon her and knew that he was unconvinced, and into her own +eyes came the large tears. They did not fall, but through them she saw the +forest swim in green and gold. "I have no father or mother," she said, +"and no brother or sister. In all the world there is no one that is kin to +me." + +Her voice, that was low and full and apt to fall into minor cadences, +died away, and she stood with her face raised and slightly turned from the +gentleman who lay at her feet, stretched out upon the sere beech leaves. +He did not seem inclined to speech, and for a time the little brook and +the birds and the wind in the trees sang undisturbed. + +"These woods are very beautiful," said Haward at last, with his gaze upon +her, "but if the land were less level it were more to my taste. Now, if +this plain were a little valley couched among the hills, if to the +westward rose dark blue mountains like a rampart, if the runlet yonder +were broad and clear, if this beech were a sugar-tree"-- + +He broke off, content to see her eyes dilate, her bosom rise and fall, her +hand go trembling for support to the column of the beech. + +"Oh, the mountains!" she cried. "When the mist lifted, when the cloud +rested, when the sky was red behind them! Oh, the clear stream, and the +sugar-tree, and the cabin! Who are you? How did you know about these +things? Were you--were you there?" + +She turned upon him, with her soul in her eyes. As for him, lying at +length upon the ground, he locked his hands beneath his head and began to +sing, though scarce above his breath. He sang the song of Amiens:-- + + "Under the greenwood tree, + Who loves to lie with me." + +When he had come to the end of the stanza he half rose, and turned toward +the mute and breathless figure leaning against the beech-tree. For her the +years had rolled back: one moment she stood upon the doorstep of the +cabin, and the air was filled with the trampling of horses, with quick +laughter, whistling, singing, and the call of a trumpet; the next she ran, +in night-time and in terror, between rows of rustling corn, felt again the +clasp of her pursuer, heard at her ear the comfort of his voice. A film +came between her eyes and the man at whom she stared, and her heart grew +cold. + +"Audrey," said Haward, "come here, child." + +The blood returned to her heart, her vision cleared, and her arm fell from +its clasp upon the tree. The bark opened not; the hamadryad had lost the +spell. When at his repeated command she crossed to him, she went as the +trusting, dumbly loving, dumbly grateful child whose life he had saved, +and whose comforter, protector, and guardian he had been. When he took her +hands in his she was glad to feel them there again, and she had no blushes +ready when he kissed her upon the forehead. It was sweet to her who +hungered for affection, who long ago had set his image up, loving him +purely as a sovereign spirit or as a dear and great elder brother, to hear +him call her again "little maid;" tell her that she had not changed save +in height; ask her if she remembered this or that adventure, what time +they had strayed in the woods together. Remember! When at last, beneath +his admirable management, the wonder and the shyness melted away, and she +found her tongue, memories came in a torrent. The hilltop, the deep woods +and the giant trees, the house he had built for her out of stones and +moss, the grapes they had gathered, the fish they had caught, the +thunderstorm when he had snatched her out of the path of a stricken and +falling pine, an alarm of Indians, an alarm of wolves, finally the first +faint sounds of the returning expedition, the distant trumpet note, the +nearer approach, the bursting again into the valley of the Governor and +his party, the journey from that loved spot to Williamsburgh,--all sights +and sounds, thoughts and emotions, of that time, fast held through lonely +years, came at her call, and passed again in procession before them. +Haward, first amazed, then touched, reached at length the conclusion that +the years of her residence beneath the minister's roof could not have been +happy; that she must always have put from her with shuddering and horror +the memory of the night which orphaned her; but that she had passionately +nursed, cherished, and loved all that she had of sweet and dear, and that +this all was the memory of her childhood in the valley, and of that brief +season when he had been her savior, protector, friend, and playmate. He +learned also--for she was too simple and too glad either to withhold the +information or to know that she had given it--that in her girlish and +innocent imaginings she had made of him a fairy knight, clothing him in a +panoply of power, mercy, and tenderness, and setting him on high, so high +that his very heel was above the heads of the mortals within her ken. + +Keen enough in his perceptions, he was able to recognize that here was a +pure and imaginative spirit, strongly yearning after ideal strength, +beauty, and goodness. Given such a spirit, it was not unnatural that, +turning from sordid or unhappy surroundings as a flower turns from shadow +to the full face of the sun, she should have taken a memory of valiant +deeds, kind words, and a protecting arm, and have created out of these a +man after her own heart, endowing him with all heroic attributes; at one +and the same time sending him out into the world, a knight-errant without +fear and without reproach, and keeping him by her side--the side of a +child--in her own private wonderland. He saw that she had done this, and +he was ashamed. He did not tell her that that eleven-years-distant +fortnight was to him but a half-remembered incident of a crowded life, and +that to all intents and purposes she herself had been forgotten. For one +thing, it would have hurt her; for another, he saw no reason why he should +tell her. Upon occasion he could be as ruthless as a stone; if he were so +now he knew it not, but in deceiving her deceived himself. Man of a world +that was corrupt enough, he was of course quietly assured that he could +bend this woodland creature--half child, half dryad--to the form of his +bidding. To do so was in his power, but not his pleasure. He meant to +leave her as she was; to accept the adoration of the child, but to attempt +no awakening of the woman. The girl was of the mountains, and their +higher, colder, purer air; though he had brought her body thence, he would +not have her spirit leave the climbing earth, the dreamlike summits, for +the hot and dusty plain. The plain, God knew, had dwellers enough. + +She was a thing of wild and sylvan grace, and there was fulfillment in a +dark beauty all her own of the promise she had given as a child. About her +was a pathos, too,--the pathos of the flower taken from its proper soil, +and drooping in earth which nourished it not. Haward, looking at her, +watching the sensitive, mobile lips, reading in the dark eyes, beneath the +felicity of the present, a hint and prophecy of woe, felt for her a pity +so real and great that for the moment his heart ached as for some sorrow +of his own. She was only a young girl, poor and helpless, born of poor +and helpless parents dead long ago. There was in her veins no gentle +blood; she had none of the world's goods; her gown was torn, her feet went +bare. She had youth, but not its heritage of gladness: beauty, but none to +see it; a nature that reached toward light and height, and for its home +the house which he had lately left. He was a man older by many years than +the girl beside him, knowing good and evil; by instinct preferring the +former, but at times stooping, open-eyed, to that degree of the latter +which a lax and gay world held to be not incompatible with a convention +somewhat misnamed "the honor of a gentleman." Now, beneath the beech-tree +in the forest which touched upon one side the glebe, upon the other his +own lands, he chose at this time the good; said to himself, and believed +the thing he said, that in word and in deed he would prove himself her +friend. + +Putting out his hand he drew her down upon the leaves; and she sat beside +him, still and happy, ready to answer him when he asked her this or that, +readier yet to sit in blissful, dreamy silence. She was as pure as the +flower which she held in her hand, and most innocent in her imaginings. +This was a very perfect knight, a great gentleman, good and pitiful, that +had saved her from the Indians when she was a little girl, and had been +kind to her,--ah, so kind! In that dreadful night when she had lost father +and mother and brother and sister, when in the darkness her childish heart +was a stone for terror, he had come, like God, from the mountains, and +straightway she was safe. Now into her woods, from over the sea, he had +come again, and at once the load upon her heart, the dull longing and +misery, the fear of Hugon, were lifted. The chaplet which she laid at his +feet was not loosely woven of gay-colored flowers, but was compact of +austerer blooms of gratitude, reverence, and that love which is only a +longing to serve. The glamour was at hand, the enchanted light which +breaks not from the east or the west or the north or the south was upon +its way; but she knew it not, and she was happy in her ignorance. + +"I am tired of the city," he said. "Now I shall stay in Virginia. A +longing for the river and the marshes and the house where I was born came +upon me"-- + +"I know," she answered. "When I shut my eyes I see the cabin in the +valley, and when I dream it is of things which happen in a mountainous +country." + +"I am alone in the great house," he continued, "and the floors echo +somewhat loudly. The garden, too; beside myself there is no one to smell +the roses or to walk in the moonlight. I had forgotten the isolation of +these great plantations. Each is a province and a despotism. If the despot +has neither kith nor kin, has not yet made friends, and cares not to draw +company from the quarters, he is lonely. They say that there are ladies in +Virginia whose charms well-nigh outweigh their dowries of sweet-scented +and Oronoko. I will wed such an one, and have laughter in my garden, and +other footsteps than my own in my house." + +"There are beautiful ladies in these parts," said Audrey. "There is the +one that gave me the guinea for my running yesterday. She was so very +fair. I wished with all my heart that I were like her." + +"She is my friend," said Haward slowly, "and her mind is as fair as her +face. I will tell her your story." + +The gilded streak upon the earth beneath the beech had crept away, but +over the ferns and weeds and flowering bushes between the slight trees +without the ring the sunshine gloated. The blue of the sky was wonderful, +and in the silence Haward and Audrey heard the wind whisper in the +treetops. A dove moaned, and a hare ran past. + +"It was I who brought you from the mountains and placed you here," said +Haward at last. "I thought it for the best, and that when I sailed away I +left you to a safe and happy life. It seems that I was mistaken. But now +that I am at home again, child, I wish you to look upon me, who am so much +your elder, as your guardian and protector still. If there is anything +which you lack, if you are misused, are in need of help, why, think that +your troubles are the Indians again, little maid, and turn to me once more +for help!" + +Having spoken honestly and well and very unwisely, he looked at his watch +and said that it was late. When he rose to his feet Audrey did not move, +and when he looked down upon her he saw that her eyes, that had been wet, +were overflowing. He put out his hand, and she took it and touched it with +her lips; then, because he said that he had not meant to set her crying, +she smiled, and with her own hand dashed away the tears. + +"When I ride this way I shall always stop at the minister's house," said +Haward, "when, if there is aught which you need or wish, you must tell me +of it. Think of me as your friend, child." + +He laid his hand lightly and caressingly upon her head. The ruffles at his +wrist, soft, fine, and perfumed, brushed her forehead and her eyes. "The +path through your labyrinth to its beechen heart was hard to find," he +continued, "but I can easily retrace it. No, trouble not yourself, child. +Stay for a time where you are. I wish to speak to the minister alone." + +His hand was lifted. Audrey felt rather than saw him go. Only a few feet, +and the dogwood stars, the purple mist of the Judas-tree, the white +fragrance of a wild cherry, came like a painted arras between them. For a +time she could hear the movement of the branches as he put them aside; but +presently this too ceased, and the place was left to her and to all the +life that called it home. + +It was the same wood, surely, into which she had run two hours before, and +yet--and yet--When her tears were spent, and she stood up, leaning, with +her loosened hair and her gown that was the color of oak bark, against the +beech-tree, she looked about her and wondered. The wonder did not last, +for she found an explanation. + +"It has been blessed," said Audrey, with all reverence and simplicity, +"and that is why the light is so different." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +MACLEAN TO THE RESCUE + + +Saunderson, the overseer, having laboriously written and signed a pass, +laid down the quill, wiped his inky forefinger upon his sleeve, and gave +the paper to the storekeeper, who sat idly by. + +"Ye'll remember that the store chiefly lacks in broadcloth of Witney, +frieze and camlet, and in women's shoes, both silk and callimanco. And +dinna forget to trade with Alick Ker for three small swords, a chafing +dish, and a dozen mourning and hand-and-heart rings. See that you have the +skins' worth. Alick's an awfu' man to get the upper hand of." + +"I'm thinking a MacLean should have small difficulty with a Ker," said the +storekeeper dryly. "What I'm wanting to know is why I am saddled with the +company of Monsieur Jean Hugon." He jerked his thumb toward the figure of +the trader standing within the doorway. "I do not like the gentleman, and +I'd rather trudge it to Williamsburgh alone." + +"Ye ken not the value of the skins, nor how to show them off," answered +the other. "Wherefore, for the consideration of a measure of rum, he's +engaged to help you in the trading. As for his being half Indian, Gude +guide us! It's been told me that no so many centuries ago the Highlandmen +painted their bodies and went into battle without taking advantage even of +feathers and silk grass. One half of him is of the French nobeelity; he +told me as much himself. And the best of ye--sic as the Campbells--are no +better than that." + +He looked at MacLean with a caustic smile. The latter shrugged his +shoulders. "So long as you tie him neck and heels with a Campbell I am +content," he answered. "Are you going? I'll just bar the windows and lock +the door, and then I'll be off with yonder copper cadet of a French house. +Good-day to you. I'll be back to-night." + +"Ye'd better," said the overseer, with another widening of his thin lips. +"For myself, I bear ye no ill-will; for my grandmither--rest her +soul!--came frae the north, and I aye thought a Stewart better became the +throne than a foreign-speaking body frae Hanover. But if the store is not +open the morn I'll raise hue and cry, and that without wasting time. I've +been told ye're great huntsmen in the Highlands; if ye choose to turn red +deer yourself, I'll give ye a chase, _and trade ye down, man, and track ye +down_." + +MacLean half turned from the window. "I have hunted the red deer," he +said, "in the land where I was born, and which I shall see no more, and I +have been myself hunted in the land where I shall die. I have run until I +have fallen, and I have felt the teeth of the dogs. Were God to send a +miracle--which he will not do--and I were to go back to the glen and the +crag and the deep birch woods, I suppose that I would hunt again, would +drive the stag to bay, holloing to my hounds, and thinking the sound of +the horns sweet music in my ears. It is the way of the earth. Hunter and +hunted, we make the world and the pity of it." + +Setting to work again, he pushed to the heavy shutters. "You'll find them +open in the morning," he said, "and find me selling,--selling clothing +that I may not wear, wine that I may not drink, powder and shot that I may +not spend, swords that I may not use; and giving,--giving pride, manhood, +honor, heart's blood"-- + +He broke off, shot to the bar across the shutters, and betook himself in +silence to the other window, where presently he burst into a fit of +laughter. The sound was harsh even to savagery. "Go your ways, +Saunderson," he said. "I've tried the bars of the cage; they're too +strong. Stop on your morning round, and I'll give account of my trading." + +The overseer gone, the windows barred, and the heavy door shut and locked +behind him, MacLean paused upon the doorstep to look down upon his +appointed companion. The trader, half sitting, half reclining upon a log, +was striking at something with the point of his hunting-knife, lightly, +delicately, and often. The something was a lizard, about which, as it lay +in the sunshine upon the log, he had wrought a pen of leafy twigs. The +creature, darting for liberty this way and that, was met at every turn by +the steel, and at every turn suffered a new wound. MacLean looked; then +bent over and with a heavy stick struck the thing out of its pain. + +"There's a time to work and a time to play, Hugon," he said coolly. +"Playtime's over now. The sun is high, and Isaac and the oxen must have +the skins well-nigh to Williamsburgh. Up with you!" + +Hugon rose to his feet, slid his knife into its sheath, and announced in +good enough English that he was ready. He had youth, the slender, hardy, +perfectly moulded figure of the Indian, a coloring and a countenance that +were not of the white and not of the brown. When he went a-trading up the +river, past the thickly settled country, past the falls, past the French +town which his Huguenot father had helped to build, into the deep woods +and to the Indian village whence had strayed his mother, he wore the +clothing that became the woods,--beaded moccasins, fringed leggings, +hunting-shirt of deerskin, cap of fur,--looked his part and played it +well. When he came back to an English country, to wharves and stores, to +halls and porches of great houses and parlors of lesser ones, to the +streets and ordinaries of Williamsburgh, he pulled on jack boots, shrugged +himself into a coat with silver buttons, stuck lace of a so-so quality at +neck and wrists, wore a cocked hat and a Blenheim wig, and became a figure +alike grotesque and terrible. Two thirds of the time his business caused +him to be in the forests that were far away; but when he returned to +civilization, to stare it in the face and brag within himself, "I am lot +and part of what I see!" he dwelt at the crossroads ordinary, drank and +gamed with Paris the schoolmaster and Darden the minister, and dreamed (at +times) of Darden's Audrey. + +The miles to Williamsburgh were long and sunny, with the dust thick +beneath the feet. Warm and heavy, the scented spring possessed the land. +It was a day for drowsing in the shade: for them who must needs walk in +the sunshine, languor of thought overtook them, and sparsity of speech. +They walked rapidly, step with step, their two lean and sinewy bodies +casting the same length of shadow; but they kept their eyes upon the long +glare of white dust, and told not their dreams. At a point in the road +where the storekeeper saw only confused marks and a powdering of dust +upon the roadside bushes, the half-breed announced that there had been +that morning a scuffle in a gang of negroes; that a small man had been +thrown heavily to the earth, and a large man had made off across a low +ditch into the woods; that the overseer had parted the combatants, and +that some one's back had bled. No sooner was this piece of clairvoyance +aired than he was vexed that he had shown a hall-mark of the savage, and +hastily explained that life in the woods, such as a trader must live, +would teach any man--an Englishman, now, as well as a Frenchman--how to +read what was written on the earth. Farther on, when they came to a +miniature glen between the semblance of two hills, down which, in mockery +of a torrent, brabbled a slim brown stream, MacLean stood still, gazed for +a minute, then, whistling, caught up with his companion, and spoke at +length upon the subject of the skins awaiting them at Williamsburgh. + +The road had other travelers than themselves. At intervals a cloud of dust +would meet or overtake them, and out of the windows of coach or chariot or +lighter chaise faces would glance at them. In the thick dust wheels and +horses' hoofs made no noise, the black coachmen sat still upon the boxes, +the faces were languid with the springtime. A moment and all were gone. +Oftener there passed a horseman. If he were riding the planter's pace, he +went by like a whirlwind, troubling only to curse them out of his path; if +he had more leisure, he threw them a good-morning, or perhaps drew rein to +ask this or that of Hugon. The trader was well known, and was an authority +upon all matters pertaining to hunting or trapping. The foot passengers +were few, for in Virginia no man walked that could ride, and on a morn of +early May they that walked were like to be busy in the fields. An ancient +seaman, lame and vagabond, lurched beside them for a while, then lagged +behind; a witch, old and bowed and bleared of eye, crossed their path; and +a Sapony hunter, with three wolves' heads slung across his shoulder, +slipped by them on his way to claim the reward decreed by the Assembly. At +a turn of the road they came upon a small ordinary, with horses fastened +before it, and with laughter, oaths, and the rattling of dice issuing from +the open windows. The trader had money; the storekeeper had none. The +latter, though he was thirsty, would have passed on; but Hugon twitched +him by the sleeve, and producing from the depths of his great flapped +pocket a handful of crusadoes, cues, and pieces of eight, indicated with +a flourish that he was prepared to share with his less fortunate +companion. + +They drank standing, kissed the girl who served them, and took to the road +again. There were no more thick woods, the road running in a blaze of +sunshine past clumps of cedars and wayside tangles of blackberry, sumac, +and elder. Presently, beyond a group of elms, came into sight the goodly +college of William and Mary, and, dazzling white against the blue, the +spire of Bruton church. + +Within a wide pasture pertaining to the college, close to the roadside and +under the boughs of a vast poplar, half a score of students were at play. +Their lithe young bodies were dark of hue and were not overburdened with +clothing; their countenances remained unmoved, without laughter or +grimacing; and no excitement breathed in the voices with which they +called one to another. In deep gravity they tossed a ball, or pitched a +quoit, or engaged in wrestling. A white man, with a singularly pure and +gentle face, sat upon the grass at the foot of the tree, and watched the +studious efforts of his pupils with an approving smile. + +"Wildcats to purr upon the hearth, and Indians to go to school!" quoth +MacLean. "Were you taught here, Hugon, and did you play so sadly?" + +The trader, his head held very high, drew out a large and bedizened +snuffbox, and took snuff with ostentation. "My father was of a great +tribe--I would say a great house--in the country called France," he +explained, with dignity. "Oh, he was of a very great name indeed! His +blood was--what do you call it?--_blue_. I am the son of my father: I am a +Frenchman. _Bien_! My father dies, having always kept me with him at +Monacan-Town; and when they have laid him full length in the ground, +Monsieur le Marquis calls me to him. 'Jean,' says he, and his voice is +like the ice in the stream, 'Jean, you have ten years, and your +father--may _le bon Dieu_ pardon his sins!--has left his wishes regarding +you and money for your maintenance. To-morrow Messieurs de Sailly and de +Breuil go down the river to talk of affairs with the English Governor. You +will go with them, and they will leave you at the Indian school which the +English have built near to the great college in their town of +Williamsburgh. There you will stay, learning all that Englishmen can teach +you, until you have eighteen years. Come back to me then, and with the +money left by your father you shall be fitted out as a trader. Go!' ... +Yes, I went to school here; but I learned fast, and did not forget the +things I learned, and I played with the English boys--there being no +scholars from France--on the other side of the pasture." + +He waved his hand toward an irruption of laughing, shouting figures from +the north wing of the college. The white man under the tree had been +quietly observant of the two wayfarers, and he now rose to his feet, and +came over to the rail fence against which they leaned. + +"Ha, Jean Hugon!" he said pleasantly, touching with his thin white hand +the brown one of the trader. "I thought it had been my old scholar! Canst +say the belief and the Commandments yet, Jean? Yonder great fellow with +the ball is Meshawa,--Meshawa that was a little, little fellow when you +went away. All your other playmates are gone,--though you did not play +much, Jean, but gloomed and gloomed because you must stay this side of the +meadow with your own color. Will you not cross the fence and sit awhile +with your old master?" + +As he spoke he regarded with a humorous smile the dusty glories of his +sometime pupil, and when he had come to an end he turned and made as if to +beckon to the Indian with the ball. But Hugon drew his hand away, +straightened himself, and set his face like a flint toward the town. "I am +sorry, I have no time to-day," he said stiffly. "My friend and I have +business in town with men of my own color. My color is white. I do not +want to see Meshawa or the others. I have forgotten them." + +He turned away, but a thought striking him his face brightened, and +plunging his hand into his pocket he again brought forth his glittering +store. "Nowadays I have money," he said grandly. "It used to be that +Indian braves brought Meshawa and the others presents, because they were +the sons of their great men. I was the son of a great man, too; but he was +not Indian and he was lying in his grave, and no one brought me gifts. Now +I wish to give presents. Here are ten coins, master. Give one to each +Indian boy, the largest to Meshawa." + +The Indian teacher, Charles Griffin by name, looked with a whimsical face +at the silver pieces laid arow upon the top rail. "Very well, Jean," he +said. "It is good to give of thy substance. Meshawa and the others will +have a feast. Yes, I will remember to tell them to whom they owe it. +Good-day to you both." + +The meadow, the solemnly playing Indians, and their gentle teacher were +left behind, and the two men, passing the long college all astare with +windows, the Indian school, and an expanse of grass starred with +buttercups, came into Duke of Gloucester Street. Broad, unpaved, deep in +dust, shaded upon its ragged edges by mulberries and poplars, it ran +without shadow of turning from the gates of William and Mary to the wide +sweep before the Capitol. Houses bordered it, flush with the street or set +back in fragrant gardens; other and narrower ways opened from it; half way +down its length wide greens, where the buttercups were thick in the grass, +stretched north and south. Beyond these greens were more houses, more +mulberries and poplars, and finally, closing the vista, the brick faade +of the Capitol. + +The two from Fair View plantation kept their forest gait; for the trader +was in a hurry to fulfill his part of the bargain, which was merely to +exhibit and value the skins. There was an ordinary in Nicholson Street +that was to his liking. Sailors gamed there, and other traders, and half +a dozen younger sons of broken gentlemen. It was as cleanly dining in its +chief room as in the woods, and the aqua vit, if bad, was cheap. In good +humor with himself, and by nature lavish with his earnings, he offered to +make the storekeeper his guest for the day. The latter curtly declined the +invitation. He had bread and meat in his wallet, and wanted no drink but +water. He would dine beneath the trees on the market green, would finish +his business in town, and be half way back to the plantation while the +trader--being his own man, with no fear of hue and cry if he were +missed--was still at hazard. + +This question settled, the two kept each other company for several hours +longer, at the end of which time they issued from the store at which the +greater part of their business had been transacted, and went their several +ways,--Hugon to the ordinary in Nicholson Street, and MacLean to his +dinner beneath the sycamores on the green. When the frugal meal had been +eaten, the latter recrossed the sward to the street, and took up again the +round of his commissions. + +It was after three by the great clock in the cupola of the Capitol when he +stood before the door of Alexander Ker, the silversmith, and found +entrance made difficult by the serried shoulders of half a dozen young men +standing within the store, laughing, and making bantering speeches to some +one hidden from the Highlander's vision. Presently an appealing voice, +followed by a low cry, proclaimed that the some one was a woman. + +MacLean had a lean and wiry strength which had stood him in good stead +upon more than one occasion in his checkered career. He now drove an arm +like a bar of iron between two broadcloth coats, sent the wearers thereof +to right and left, and found himself one of an inner ring and facing +Mistress Truelove Taberer, who stood at bay against the silversmith's long +table. One arm was around the boy who had rowed her to the Fair View store +a week agone; with the other she was defending her face from the attack of +a beribboned gallant desirous of a kiss. The boy, a slender, delicate lad +of fourteen, struggled to free himself from his sister's restraining arm, +his face white with passion and his breath coming in gasps. "Let me go, +Truelove!" he commanded. "If I am a Friend, I am a man as well! Thou +fellow with the shoulder knots, thee shall pay dearly for thy insolence!" + +Truelove tightened her hold. "Ephraim, Ephraim! If a man compel thee to go +with him a mile, thee is to go with him twain; if he take thy cloak, thee +is to give him thy coat also; if he--Ah!" She buried her profaned cheek in +her arm and began to cry, but very softly. + +Her tormentors, flushed with wine and sworn to obtain each one a kiss, +laughed more loudly, and one young rake, with wig and ruffles awry, +lurched forward to take the place of the coxcomb who had scored. Ephraim +wrenched himself free, and making for this gentleman might have given or +received bodily injury, had not a heavy hand falling upon his shoulder +stopped him in mid-career. + +"Stand aside, boy," said MacLean, "This quarrel's mine by virtue of my +making it so. Mistress Truelove, you shall have no further annoyance. Now, +you Lowland cowards that cannot see a flower bloom but you wish to trample +it in the mire, come taste the ground yourself, and be taught that the +flower is out of reach!" + +As he spoke he stepped before the Quakeress, weaponless, but with his eyes +like steel. The half dozen spendthrifts and ne'er-do-weels whom he faced +paused but long enough to see that this newly arrived champion had only +his bare hands, and was, by token of his dress, undoubtedly their +inferior, before setting upon him with drunken laughter and the loudly +avowed purpose of administering a drubbing. The one that came first he +sent rolling to the floor. "Another for Hector!" he said coolly. + +The silversmith, ensconced in safety behind the table, wrung his hands. +"Sirs, sirs! Take your quarrel into the street! I'll no have fighting in +my store. What did ye rin in here for, ye Quaker baggage? Losh! did ye +ever see the like of that! Here, boy, ye can get through the window. Rin +for the constable! Rin, I tell ye, or there'll be murder done!" + +A gentleman who had entered the store unobserved drew his rapier, and with +it struck up a heavy cane which was in the act of descending for the +second time upon the head of the unlucky Scot. "What is all this?" he +asked quietly. "Five men against one,--that is hardly fair play. Ah, I see +there were six; I had overlooked the gentleman on the floor, who, I hope, +is only stunned. Five to one,--the odds are heavy. Perhaps I can make them +less so." With a smile upon his lips, he stepped backward a foot or two +until he stood with the weaker side. + +Now, had it been the constable who so suddenly appeared upon the scene, +the probabilities are that the fight, both sides having warmed to it, +would, despite the terrors of the law, have been carried to a finish. But +it was not the constable; it was a gentleman recently returned from +England, and become in the eyes of the youth of Williamsburgh the glass of +fashion and the mould of form. The youngster with the shoulder knots had +copied color and width of ribbon from a suit which this gentleman had worn +at the Palace; the rake with the wig awry, who passed for a wit, had done +him the honor to learn by heart portions of his play, and to repeat +(without quotation marks) a number of his epigrams; while the pretty +fellow whose cane he had struck up practiced night and morning before a +mirror his bow and manner of presenting his snuffbox. A fourth ruffler +desired office, and cared not to offend a prospective Councilor. There was +rumor, too, of a grand entertainment to be given at Fair View; it was good +to stand well with the law, but it was imperative to do so with Mr. +Marmaduke Haward. Their hands fell; they drew back a pace, and the wit +made himself spokesman. Roses were rare so early in the year; for him and +his companions, they had but wished to compliment those that bloomed in +the cheeks of the pretty Quakeress. This servant fellow, breathing fire +like a dragon, had taken it upon himself to defend the roses,--which +likely enough were grown for him,--and so had been about to bring upon +himself merited chastisement. However, since it was Mr. Marmaduke Haward +who pleaded for him--A full stop, a low bow, and a flourish. "Will Mr. +Haward honor me? 'Tis right Macouba, and the box--if the author of 'The +Puppet Show' would deign to accept it"-- + +"Rather to change with you, sir," said the other urbanely, and drew out +his own chased and medallioned box. + +The gentleman upon the floor had now gotten unsteadily to his feet. Mr. +Haward took snuff with each of the six; asked after the father of one, the +brother of another; delicately intimated his pleasure in finding the noble +order of Mohocks, that had lately died in London, resurrected in Virginia; +and fairly bowed the flattered youths out of the store. He stood for a +moment upon the threshold watching them go triumphantly, if unsteadily, up +the street; then turned to the interior of the store to find MacLean +seated upon a stool, with his head against the table, submitting with a +smile of pure content to the ministrations of the dove-like mover of the +late turmoil, who with trembling fingers was striving to bind her kerchief +about a great cut in his forehead. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +HAWARD AND EVELYN + + +MacLean put aside with much gentleness the hands of his surgeon, and, +rising to his feet, answered the question in Haward's eyes by producing a +slip of paper and gravely proffering it to the man whom he served. Haward +took it, read it, and handed it back; then turned to the Quaker maiden. +"Mistress Truelove Taberer," he said courteously. "Are you staying in +town? If you will tell me where you lodge, I will myself conduct you +thither." + +Truelove shook her head, and slipped her hand into that of her brother +Ephraim. "I thank thee, friend," she said, with gentle dignity, "and thee, +too, Angus MacLean, though I grieve that thee sees not that it is not +given us to meet evil with evil, nor to withstand force with force. +Ephraim and I can now go in peace. I thank thee again, friend, and thee." +She gave her hand first to Haward, then to MacLean. The former, knowing +the fashion of the Quakers, held the small fingers a moment, then let them +drop; the latter, knowing it, too, raised them to his lips and imprinted +upon them an impassioned kiss. Truelove blushed, then frowned, last of all +drew her hand away. + +With the final glimpse of her gray skirt the Highlander came back to the +present. "Singly I could have answered for them all, one after the other," +he said stiffly. "Together they had the advantage. I pay my debt and give +you thanks, sir." + +"That is an ugly cut across your forehead," replied Haward. "Mr. Ker had +best bring you a basin of water. Or stay! I am going to my lodging. Come +with me, and Juba shall dress the wound properly." + +MacLean turned his keen blue eyes upon him. "Am I to understand that you +give me a command, or that you extend to me an invitation? In the latter +case, I should prefer"-- + +"Then take it as a command," said Haward imperturbably. "I wish your +company. Mr. Ker, good-day; I will buy the piece of plate which you showed +me yesterday." + +The two moved down the room together, but at the door MacLean, with his +face set like a flint, stood aside, and Haward passed out first, then +waited for the other to come up with him. + +"When I drink a cup I drain it to the dregs," said the Scot. "I walk +behind the man who commands me. The way, you see, is not broad enough for +you and me and hatred." + +"Then let hatred lag behind," answered Haward coolly. "I have negroes to +walk at my heels when I go abroad. I take you for a gentleman, accept your +enmity an it please you, but protest against standing here in the hot +sunshine." + +With a shrug MacLean joined him. "As you please," he said. "I have in +spirit moved with you through London streets. I never thought to walk with +you in the flesh." + +It was yet warm and bright in the street, the dust thick, the air heavy +with the odors of the May. Haward and MacLean walked in silence, each as +to the other, one as to the world at large. Now and again the Virginian +must stop to bow profoundly to curtsying ladies, or to take snuff with +some portly Councilor or less stately Burgess who, coming from the +Capitol, chanced to overtake them. When he paused his storekeeper paused +also, but, having no notice taken of him beyond a glance to discern his +quality, needed neither a supple back nor a ready smile. + +Haward lodged upon Palace Street, in a square brick house, lived in by an +ancient couple who could remember Puritan rule in Virginia, who had served +Sir William Berkeley, and had witnessed the burning of Jamestown by Bacon. +There was a grassy yard to the house, and the path to the door lay through +an alley of lilacs, purple and white. The door was open, and Haward and +MacLean, entering, crossed the hall, and going into a large, low room, +into which the late sunshine was streaming, found the negro Juba setting +cakes and wine upon the table. + +"This gentleman hath a broken head, Juba," said the master. "Bring water +and linen, and bind it up for him." + +As he spoke he laid aside hat and rapier, and motioned MacLean to a seat +by the window. The latter obeyed the gesture in silence, and in silence +submitted to the ministrations of the negro. Haward, sitting at the table, +waited until the wound had been dressed; then with a wave of the hand +dismissed the black. + +"You would take nothing at my hands the other day," he said to the grim +figure at the window. "Change your mind, my friend,--or my foe,--and come +sit and drink with me." + +MacLean reared himself from his seat, and went stiffly over to the table. +"I have eaten and drunken with an enemy before to-day," he said. "Once I +met Ewin Mor Mackinnon upon a mountain side. He had oatcake in his +sporran, and I a flask of usquebaugh. We couched in the heather, and ate +and drank together, and then we rose and fought. I should have slain him +but that a dozen Mackinnons came up the glen, and he turned and fled to +them for cover. Here I am in an alien land; a thousand fiery crosses would +not bring one clansman to my side; I cannot fight my foe. Wherefore, then, +should I take favors at his hands?" + +"Why should you be my foe?" demanded Haward. "Look you, now! There was a +time, I suppose, when I was an insolent youngster like any one of those +who lately set upon you; but now I call myself a philosopher and man of a +world for whose opinions I care not overmuch. My coat is of fine cloth, +and my shirt of holland; your shirt is lockram, and you wear no coat at +all: _ergo_, saith a world of pretty fellows, we are beings of separate +planets. 'As the cloth is, the man is,'--to which doctrine I am at times +heretic. I have some store of yellow metal, and spend my days in ridding +myself of it,--a feat which you have accomplished. A goodly number of +acres is also counted unto me, but in the end my holding and your holding +will measure the same. I walk a level road; you have met with your +precipice, and, bruised by the fall, you move along stony ways; but +through the same gateway we go at last. Fate, not I, put you here. Why +should you hate me who am of your order?" + +MacLean left the table, and twice walked the length of the room, slowly +and with knitted brows. "If you mean the world-wide order,--the order of +gentlemen,"--he said, coming to a pause with the breadth of the table +between him and Haward, "we may have that ground in common. The rest is +debatable land. I do not take you for a sentimentalist or a redresser of +wrongs. I am your storekeeper, purchased with that same yellow metal of +which you so busily rid yourself; and your storekeeper I shall remain +until the natural death of my term, two years hence. We are not +countrymen; we own different kings; I may once have walked your level +road, but you have never moved in the stony ways; my eyes are blue, while +yours are gray; you love your melting Southern music, and I take no joy +save in the pipes; I dare swear you like the smell of lilies which I +cannot abide, and prefer fair hair in women where I would choose the dark. +There is no likeness between us. Why, then"-- + +Haward smiled, and drawing two glasses toward him slowly filled them with +wine. "It is true," he said, "that it is not my intention to become a +petitioner for the pardon of a rebel to his serene and German Majesty the +King; true also that I like the fragrance of the lily. I have my fancies. +Say that I am a man of whim, and that, living in a lonely house set in a +Sahara of tobacco fields, it is my whim to desire the acquaintance of the +only gentleman within some miles of me. Say that my fancy hath been caught +by a picture drawn for me a week agone; that, being a philosopher, I play +with the idea that your spirit, knife in hand, walked at my elbow for ten +years, and I knew it not. Say that the idea has for me a curious +fascination. Say, finally, that I plume myself that, given the chance, I +might break down this airy hatred." + +He set down the bottle, and pushed one of the brimming glasses across the +table. "I should like to make trial of my strength," he said, with, a +laugh. "Come! I did you a service to-day; in your turn do me a pleasure." + +MacLean dragged a chair to the table, and sat down. "I will drink with +you," he said, "and forget for an hour. A man grows tired--It is Burgundy, +is it not? Old Borlum and I emptied a bottle between us, the day he went +as hostage to Wills; since then I have not tasted wine. 'Tis a pretty +color." + +Haward lifted his glass. "I drink to your future. Freedom, better days, a +stake in a virgin land, friendship with a sometime foe." He bowed to his +guest and drank. + +"In my country," answered MacLean, "where we would do most honor, we drink +not to life, but to death. _Crioch onarach!_ Like a gentleman may you +die." He drank, and sighed with pleasure. + +"The King!" said Haward. There was a china bowl, filled with red anemones, +upon the table. MacLean drew it toward him, and, pressing aside the mass +of bloom, passed his glass over the water in the bowl. "The King! with all +my heart," he said imperturbably. + +Haward poured more wine. "I have toasted at the Kit-Kat many a piece of +brocade and lace less fair than yon bit of Quaker gray that cost you a +broken head. Shall we drink to Mistress Truelove Taberer?" + +By now the Burgundy had warmed the heart and loosened the tongue of the +man who had not tasted wine since the surrender of Preston. "It is but a +mile from the store to her father's house," he said. "Sometimes on +Sundays I go up the creek upon the Fair View side, and when I am over +against the house I holloa. Ephraim comes, in his boat and rows me across, +and I stay for an hour. They are strange folk, the Quakers. In her sight +and in that of her people I am as good a man as you. 'Friend Angus +MacLean,' 'Friend Marmaduke Haward,'--world's wealth and world's rank +quite beside the question." + +He drank, and commended the wine. Haward struck a silver bell, and bade +Juba bring another bottle. + +"When do you come again to the house at Fair View?" asked the storekeeper. + +"Very shortly. It is a lonely place, where ghosts bear me company. I hope +that now and then, when I ask it, and when the duties of your day are +ended, you will come help me exorcise them. You shall find welcome and +good wine." He spoke very courteously, and if he saw the humor of the +situation his smile betrayed him not. + +MacLean took a flower from the bowl, and plucked at its petals with +nervous fingers. "Do you mean that?" he asked at last. + +Haward leaned across the table, and their eyes met. "On my word I do," +said the Virginian. + +The knocker on the house door sounded loudly, and a moment later a woman's +clear voice, followed by a man's deeper tones, was heard in the hall. + +"More guests," said Haward lightly. "You are a Jacobite; I drink my +chocolate at St. James' Coffee House; the gentleman approaching--despite +his friendship for Orrery and for the Bishop of Rochester--is but a +Hanover Tory; but the lady,--the lady wears only white roses, and every +10th of June makes a birthday feast." + +The storekeeper rose hastily to take his leave, but was prevented both by +Haward's restraining gesture and by the entrance of the two visitors who +were now ushered in by the grinning Juba. Haward stepped forward. "You are +very welcome, Colonel. Evelyn, this is kind. Your woman told me this +morning that you were not well, else"-- + +"A migraine," she answered, in her clear, low voice. "I am better now, and +my father desired me to take the air with him." + +"We return to Westover to-morrow," said that sprightly gentleman. "Evelyn +is like David of old, and pines for water from the spring at home. It also +appears that the many houses and thronged streets of this town weary her, +who, poor child, is used to an Arcady called London! When will you come to +us at Westover, Marmaduke?" + +"I cannot tell," Haward answered. "I must first put my own house in order, +so that I may in my turn entertain my friends." + +As he spoke he moved aside, so as to include in the company MacLean, who +stood beside the table. "Evelyn," he said, "let me make known to you--and +to you, Colonel--a Scots gentleman who hath broken his spear in his tilt +with fortune, as hath been the luck of many a gallant man before him. +Mistress Evelyn Byrd, Colonel Byrd--Mr. MacLean, who was an officer in the +Highland force taken at Preston, and who has been for some years a +prisoner of war in Virginia." + +The lady's curtsy was low; the Colonel bowed as to his friend's friend. If +his eyebrows went up, and if a smile twitched the corners of his lips, the +falling curls of his periwig hid from view these tokens of amused wonder. +MacLean bowed somewhat stiffly, as one grown rusty in such matters. "I am +in addition Mr. Marmaduke Haward's storekeeper," he said succinctly, then +turned to the master of Fair View. "It grows late," he announced, "and I +must be back at the store to-night. Have you any message for Saunderson?" + +"None," answered Haward. "I go myself to Fair View to-morrow, and then I +shall ask you to drink with me again." + +As he spoke he held out his hand. MacLean looked at it, sighed, then +touched it with his own. A gleam as of wintry laughter came into his blue +eyes. "I doubt that I shall have to get me a new foe," he said, with +regret in his voice. + +When he had bowed to the lady and to her father, and had gone out of the +room and down the lilac-bordered path and through the gate, and when the +three at the window had watched him turn into Duke of Gloucester Street, +the master of Westover looked at the master of Fair View and burst out +laughing. "Ludwell hath for an overseer the scapegrace younger son of a +baronet; and there are three brothers of an excellent name under +indentures to Robert Carter. I have at Westover a gardener who annually +makes the motto of his house to spring in pease and asparagus. I have not +had him to drink with me yet, and t'other day I heard Ludwell give to the +baronet's son a hound's rating." + +"I do not drink with the name," said Haward coolly. "I drink with the man. +The churl or coward may pass me by, but the gentleman, though his hands be +empty, I stop." + +The other laughed again; then dismissed the question with a wave of his +hand, and pulled out a great gold watch with cornelian seals. "Carter +swears that Dr. Contesse hath a specific that is as sovereign for the gout +as is St. Andrew's cross for a rattlesnake bite. I've had twinges lately, +and the doctor lives hard by. Evelyn, will you rest here while I go +petition sculapius? Haward, when I have the recipe I will return, and +impart it to you against the time when you need it. No, no, child, stay +where you are! I will be back anon." + +Having waved aside his daughter's faint protest, the Colonel departed,--a +gallant figure of a man, with a pretty wit and a heart that was +benevolently gay. As he went down the path he paused to gather a sprig of +lilac. "Westover--Fair View," he said to himself, and smiled, and smelled +the lilac; then--though his ills were somewhat apocryphal--walked off at a +gouty pace across the buttercup-sprinkled green toward the house of Dr. +Contesse. + +Haward and Evelyn, left alone, kept silence for a time in the quiet room +that was filled with late sunshine and the fragrance of flowers. He stood +by the window, and she sat in a great chair, with her hands folded in her +lap, and her eyes upon them. When silence had become more loud than +speech, she turned in her seat and addressed herself to him. + +"I have known you do many good deeds," she said slowly. "That gentleman +that was here is your servant, is he not, and an exile, and unhappy? And +you sent him away comforted. It was a generous thing." + +Haward moved restlessly. "A generous thing," he answered. "Ay, it was +generous. I can do such things at times, and why I do them who can tell? +Not I! Do you think that I care for that grim Highlander, who drinks my +death in place of my health, who is of a nation that I dislike, and a +party that is not mine?" + +She shook her head. "I do not know. And yet you helped him." + +Haward left the window, and came and sat beside her. "Yes, I helped him. I +am not sure, but I think I did it because, when first we met, he told me +that he hated me, and meant the thing he said. It is my humor to fix my +own position in men's minds; to lose the thing I have that I may gain the +thing I have not; to overcome, and never prize the victory; to hunt down a +quarry, and feel no ardor in the chase; to strain after a goal, and yet +care not if I never reach it." + +He took her fan in his hand, and fell to counting the slender ivory +sticks. "I tread the stage as a fine gentleman," he said. "It is the part +for which I was cast, and I play it well with proper mien and gait. I was +not asked if I would like the part, but I think that I do like it, as much +as I like anything. Seeing that I must play it, and that there is that +within me which cries out against slovenliness, I play it as an artist +should. Magnanimity goes with it, does it not, and generosity, courtesy, +care for the thing which is, and not for that which seems? Why, then, with +these and other qualities I strive to endow the character." + +He closed the fan, and, leaning back in his chair, shaded his eyes with +his hand. "When the lights are out," he said; "when forever and a night +the actor bids the stage farewell; when, stripped of mask and tinsel, he +goes home to that Auditor who set him his part, then perhaps he will be +told what manner of man he is. The glass that now he dresses before tells +him not; but he thinks a truer glass would show a shrunken figure." + +He sat in silence for a moment; then laughed, and gave her back her fan. +"Am I to come to Westover, Evelyn?" he asked. "Your father presses, and I +have not known what answer to make him." + +"You will give us pleasure by your coming," she said gently and at once. +"My father wishes your advice as to the ordering of his library; and you +know that my pretty stepmother likes you well." + +"Will it please you to have me come?" he asked, with his eyes upon her +face. + +She met his gaze very quietly. "Why not?" she answered simply. "You will +help me in my flower garden, and sing with me in the evening, as of old." + +"Evelyn," he said, "if what I am about to say to you distresses you, lift +your hand, and I will cease to speak. Since a day and an hour in the woods +yonder, I have been thinking much. I wish to wipe that hour from your +memory as I wipe it from mine, and to begin afresh. You are the fairest +woman that I know, and the best. I beg you to accept my reverence, homage, +love; not the boy's love, perhaps; perhaps not the love that some men have +to squander, but _my_ love. A quiet love, a lasting trust, deep pride and +pleasure"-- + +At her gesture he broke off, sat in silence for a moment, then rising went +to the window, and with slightly contracted brows stood looking out at the +sunshine that was slipping away. Presently he was aware that she stood +beside him. + +She was holding out her hand. "It is that of a friend," she said. "No, do +not kiss it, for that is the act of a lover. And you are not my +lover,--oh, not yet, not yet!" A soft, exquisite blush stole over her face +and neck, but she did not lower her lovely candid eyes. "Perhaps some day, +some summer day at Westover, it will all be different," she breathed, and +turned away. + +Haward caught her hand, and bending pressed his lips upon it. "It is +different now!" he cried. "Next week I shall come to Westover!" + +He led her back to the great chair, and presently she asked some question +as to the house at Fair View. He plunged into an account of the cases of +goods which had followed him from England by the Falcon, and which now lay +in the rooms that were yet to be swept and garnished; then spoke lightly +and whimsically of the solitary state in which he must live, and of the +entertainments which, to be in the Virginia fashion, he must give. While +he talked she sat and watched him, with the faint smile upon her lips. The +sunshine left the floor and the wall, and a dankness from the long grass +and the closing flowers and the heavy trees in the adjacent churchyard +stole into the room. With the coming of the dusk conversation languished, +and the two sat in silence until the return of the Colonel. + +If that gentleman did not light the darkness like a star, at least his +entrance into a room invariably produced the effect of a sudden accession +of was lights, very fine and clear and bright. He broke a jest or two, +bade laughing farewell to the master of Fair View, and carried off his +daughter upon his arm. Haward walked with them to the gate, and came back +alone, stepping thoughtfully between the lilac bushes. + +It was not until Juba had brought candles, and he had taken his seat at +table before the half-emptied bottle of wine, that it came to Haward that +he had wished to tell Evelyn of the brown girl who had run for the guinea, +but had forgotten to do so. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AUDREY OF THE GARDEN + + +The creek that ran between Fairview and the glebe lands was narrow and +deep; upon it, moored to a stake driven into a bit of marshy ground below +the orchard, lay a crazy boat belonging to the minister. To this boat, of +an early, sunny morning, came Audrey, and, standing erect, pole in hand, +pushed out from the reedy bank into the slow-moving stream. It moved so +slowly and was so clear that its depth seemed the blue depth of the sky, +with now and then a tranquil cloud to be glided over. The banks were low +and of the greenest grass, save where they sank still lower and reeds +abounded, or where some colored bush, heavy with bloom, bent to meet its +reflected image. It was so fair that Audrey began to sing as she went down +the stream; and without knowing why she chose it, she sang a love song +learned out of one of Darden's ungodly books, a plaintive and passionate +lay addressed by some cavalier to his mistress of an hour. She sang not +loudly, but very sweetly; carelessly, too, and as if to herself; now and +then repeating a line twice or maybe thrice; pleased with the sweet +melancholy of the notes, but not thinking overmuch of the meaning of the +words. They died upon her lips when Hugon rose from a lair of reeds and +called to her to stop. "Come to the shore, ma'm'selle!" he cried. "See, I +have brought you a ribbon from the town. Behold!" and he fluttered a +crimson streamer. + +Audrey caught her breath; then gazed, reassured, at the five yards of +water between her and the bank. Had Hugon stood there in his hunting +dress, she would have felt them no security; but he was wearing his coat +and breeches of fine cloth, his ruffled shirt, and his great black +periwig. A wetting would not be to his mind. + +As she answered not, but went on her way, silent now, and with her slender +figure bending with the motion of the pole, he frowned and shrugged; then +took up his pilgrimage, and with his light and swinging stride kept +alongside of the boat. The ribbon lay across his arm, and he turned it in +the sunshine. "If you come not and get it," he wheedled, "I will throw it +in the water." + +The angry tears sprang to Audrey's eyes. "Do so, and save me the trouble," +she answered, and then was sorry that she had spoken. + +The red came into the swarthy cheeks of the man upon the bank. "You love +me not," he said. "Good! You have told me so before. But here I am!" + +"Then here is a coward!" said Audrey. "I do not wish you to walk there. I +do not wish you to speak to me. Go back!" + +Hugon's teeth began to show. "I go not," he answered, with something +between a snarl and a smirk. "I love you, and I follow on your path,--like +a lover." + +"Like an Indian!" cried the girl. + +The arrow pierced the heel. The face which he turned upon her was the face +of a savage, made grotesque and horrible, as war-paint and feathers could +not have made it, by the bushy black wig and the lace cravat. + +"Audrey!" he called. "Morning Light! Sunshine in the Dark! Dancing Water! +Audrey that will not be called 'mademoiselle' nor have the wooing of the +son of a French chief! Then shall she have the wooing of the son of a +Monacan woman. I am a hunter. I will woo as they woo in the woods." + +Audrey bent to her pole, and made faster progress down the creek. Her +heart was hot and angry, and yet she was afraid. All dreadful things, all +things that oppressed with horror, all things that turned one white and +cold, so cold and still that one could not run away, were summed up for +her in the word "Indian." To her the eyes of Hugon were basilisk +eyes,--they drew her and held her; and when she looked into them, she saw +flames rising and bodies of murdered kindred; then the mountains loomed +above her again, and it was night-time, and she was alone save for the +dead, and mad with fear and with the quiet. + +The green banks went by, and the creek began to widen. "Where are you +going?" called the trader. "Wheresoever you go, at the end of your path +stand my village and my wigwam. You cannot stay all day in that boat. If +you come not back at the bidden hour, Darden's squaw will beat you. Come +over, Morning Light, come over, and take me in your boat, and tie your +hair with my gift. I will not hurt you. I will tell you the French love +songs that my father sang to my mother. I will speak of land that I have +bought (oh, I have prospered, ma'm'selle!), and of a house that I mean to +build, and of a woman that I wish to put in the house,--a Sunshine in the +Dark to greet me when I come from my hunting in the great forests beyond +the falls, from my trading with the nation of the Tuscaroras, with the +villages of the Monacans. Come over to me, Morning Light!" + +The creek widened and widened, then doubled a grassy cape all in the +shadow of a towering sycamore. Beyond the point, crowning the low green +slope of the bank, and topped with a shaggy fell of honeysuckle and ivy, +began a red brick wall. Half way down its length it broke, and six shallow +steps led up to an iron gate, through whose bars one looked into a garden. +Gazing on down the creek past the farther stretch of the wall, the eye +came upon the shining reaches of the river. + +Audrey turned the boat's head toward the steps and the gate in the wall. +The man on the opposite shore let fall an oath. + +"So you go to Fair View house!" he called across the stream. "There are +only negroes there, unless"--he came to a pause, and his face changed +again, and out of his eyes looked the spirit of some hot, ancestral French +lover, cynical, suspicious, and jealously watchful--"unless their master +is at home," he ended, and laughed. + +Audrey touched the wall, and over a great iron hook projecting therefrom +threw a looped rope, and fastened her boat. + +"I stay here until you come forth!" swore Hugon from across the creek. +"And then I follow you back to where you must moor the boat. And then I +shall walk with you to the minister's house. Until we meet again, +ma'm'selle!" + +Audrey answered not, but sped up the steps to the gate. A sick fear lest +it should be locked possessed her; but it opened at her touch, disclosing +a long, sunny path, paved with brick, and shut between lines of tall, +thick, and smoothly clipped box. The gate clanged to behind her; ten +steps, and the boat, the creek, and the farther shore were hidden from her +sight. With this comparative bliss came a faintness and a trembling that +presently made her slip down upon the warm and sunny floor, and lie there, +with her face within her arm and the tears upon her cheeks. The odor of +the box wrapped her like a mantle; a lizard glided past her; somewhere in +open spaces birds were singing; finally a greyhound came down the path, +and put its nose into the hollow of her hand. + +She rose to her knees, and curled her arm around the dog's neck; then, +with a long sigh, stood up, and asked of herself if this were the way to +the house. She had never seen the house at close range, had never been in +this walled garden. It was from Williamsburgh that the minister had taken +her to his home, eleven years before. Sometimes from the river, in those +years, she had seen, rising above the trees, the steep roof and the upper +windows; sometimes upon the creek she had gone past the garden wall, and +had smelled the flowers upon the other side. + +In her lonely life, with the beauty of the earth about her to teach her +that there might be greater beauty that she yet might see with a daily +round of toil and sharp words to push her to that escape which lay in a +world of dreams, she had entered that world, and thrived therein. It was a +world that was as pure as a pearl, and more fantastic than an Arabian +tale. She knew that when she died she could take nothing out of life with +her to heaven. But with this other world it was different, and all that +she had or dreamed of that was fair she carried through its portals. This +house was there. Long closed, walled in, guarded by tall trees, seen at +far intervals and from a distance, as through a glass darkly, it had +become to her an enchanted spot, about which played her quick fancy, but +where her feet might never stray. + +But now the spell which had held the place in slumber was snapped, and her +feet was set in its pleasant paths. She moved down the alley between the +lines of box, and the greyhound went with her. The branches of a +walnut-tree drooped heavily across the way; when she had passed them she +saw the house, square, dull red, bathed in sunshine. A moment, and the +walk led her between squat pillars of living green into the garden out of +the fairy tale. + +Dim, fragrant, and old time; walled in; here sunshiny spaces, there cool +shadows of fruit-trees; broken by circles and squares of box; green with +the grass and the leaves, red and purple and gold and white with the +flowers; with birds singing, with the great silver river murmuring by +without the wall at the foot of the terrace, with the voice of a man who +sat beneath a cherry-tree reading aloud to himself,--such was the garden +that she came upon, a young girl, and heavy at heart. + +She was so near that she could hear the words of the reader, and she knew +the piece that he was reading; for you must remember that she was not +untaught, and that Darden had books. + + "'When from the censer clouds of fragrance roll, + And swelling organs lift the rising soul, + One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight, + Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight'"-- + +The greyhound ran from Audrey to the man who was reading these verses +with taste and expression, and also with a smile half sad and half +cynical. He glanced from his page, saw the girl where she stood against +the dark pillar of the box, tossed aside the book, and went to her down +the grassy path between rows of nodding tulips. "Why, child!" he said. +"Did you come up like a flower? I am glad to see you in my garden, little +maid. Are there Indians without?" + +At least, to Audrey, there were none within. She had been angered, sick at +heart and sore afraid, but she was no longer so. In this world that she +had entered it was good to be alive; she knew that she was safe, and of a +sudden she felt that the sunshine was very golden, the music very sweet. +To Haward, looking at her with a smile, she gave a folded paper which she +drew from the bosom of her gown. "The minister sent me with it," she +explained, and curtsied shyly. + +Haward took the paper, opened it, and fell to poring over the crabbed +characters with which it was adorned. "Ay? Gratulateth himself that this +fortunate parish hath at last for vestryman Mr. Marmaduke Haward; knoweth +that, seeing I am what I am, my influence will be paramount with said +vestry; commendeth himself to my favor; beggeth that I listen not to +charges made by a factious member anent a vastly magnified occurrence at +the French ordinary; prayeth that he may shortly present himself at Fair +View, and explain away certain calumnies with which his enemies have +poisoned the ears of the Commissary; hopeth that I am in good health; and +is my very obedient servant to command. Humph!" + +He let the paper flutter to the ground, and turned to Audrey with a +kindly smile. "I am much afraid that this man of the church, whom I gave +thee for guardian, child, is but a rascal, after all, and a wolf in +sheep's clothing. But let him go hang while I show you my garden." + +Going closer, he glanced at her keenly; then went nearer still, and +touched her cheek with his forefinger. "You have been crying," he said. +"There _were_ Indians, then. How many and how strong, Audrey?" + +The dark eyes that met his were the eyes of the child who, in the +darkness, through the corn, had run from him, her helper. "There was one," +she whispered, and looked over her shoulder. + +Haward drew her to the seat beneath the cherry-tree, and there, while he +sat beside her, elbow on knee and chin on hand, watching her, she told him +of Hugon. It was so natural to tell him. When she had made an end of her +halting, broken sentences, and he spoke to her gravely and kindly, she +hung upon his words, and thought him wise and wonderful as a king. He told +her that he would speak to Darden, and did not despair of persuading that +worthy to forbid the trader his house. Also he told her that in this +settled, pleasant, every-day Virginia, and in the eighteenth century, a +maid, however poor and humble, might not be married against her will. If +this half-breed had threats to utter, there was always the law of the +land. A few hours in the pillory or a taste of the sheriff's whip might +not be amiss. Finally, if the trader made his suit again, Audrey must let +him know, and Monsieur Jean Hugon should be taught that he had another +than a helpless, friendless girl to deal with. + +Audrey listened and was comforted, but the shadow did not quite leave her +eyes. "He is waiting for me now," she said fearfully to Haward, who had +not missed the shadow. "He followed me down the creek, and is waiting over +against the gate in the wall. When I go back he will follow me again, and +at last I will have to cross to his side. And then he will go home with +me, and make me listen to him. His eyes burn me, and when his hand touches +me I see--I see"-- + +Her frame shook, and she raised to his gaze a countenance suddenly changed +into Tragedy's own. "I don't know why," she said, in a stricken voice, +"but of them all that I kissed good-by that night I now see only Molly. I +suppose she was about as old as I am when they killed her. We were always +together. I can't remember her face very clearly; only her eyes, and how +red her lips were. And her hair: it came to her knees, and mine is just as +long. For a long, long time after you went away, when I could not sleep +because it was dark, or when I was frightened or Mistress Deborah beat me, +I saw them all; but now I see only Molly,--Molly lying there _dead_." + +There was a silence in the garden, broken presently by Haward. "Ay, +Molly," he said absently. + +With his hand covering his lips and his eyes upon the ground, he fell into +a brown study. Audrey sat very still for fear that she might disturb him, +who was so kind to her. A passionate gratitude filled her young heart; she +would have traveled round the world upon her knees to serve him. As for +him, he was not thinking of the mountain girl, the oread who, in the days +when he was younger and his heart beat high, had caught his light fancy, +tempting him from his comrades back to the cabin in the valley, to look +again into her eyes and touch the brown waves of her hair. She was ashes, +and the memory of her stirred him not. + +At last he looked up. "I myself will take you home, child. This fellow +shall not come near you. And cease to think of these gruesome things that +happened long ago. You are young and fair; you should be happy. I will see +to it that"-- + +He broke off, and again looked thoughtfully at the ground. The book which +he had tossed aside was lying upon the grass, open at the poem which he +had been reading. He stooped and raised the volume, and, closing it, laid +it upon the bench beside her. Presently he laughed. "Come, child!" he +said. "You have youth. I begin to think my own not past recall. Come and +let me show you my dial that I have just had put up." + +There was no load at Audrey's heart: the vision of Molly had passed; the +fear of Hugon was a dwindling cloud. She was safe in this old sunny +garden, with harm shut without. And as a flower opens to the sunshine, so +because she was happy she grew more fair. Audrey every day, Audrey of the +infrequent speech and the wide dark eyes, the startled air, the shy, +fugitive smiles,--that was not Audrey of the garden. Audrey of the garden +had shining eyes, a wild elusive grace, laughter as silvery as that which +had rung from her sister's lips, years agone, beneath the sugar-tree in +the far-off blue mountains, quick gestures, quaint fancies which she +feared not to speak out, the charm of mingled humility and spirit; enough, +in short, to make Audrey of the garden a name to conjure with. + +They came to the sun-dial, and leaned thereon. Around its rim were graved +two lines from Herrick, and Audrey traced the letters with her finger. +"The philosophy is sound," remarked Haward, "and the advice worth the +taking. Let us go see if there are any rosebuds to gather from the bushes +yonder. Damask buds should look well against your hair, child." + +When they came to the rosebushes he broke for her a few scarce-opened +buds, and himself fastened them in the coils of her hair. Innocent and +glad as she was,--glad even that he thought her fair,--she trembled +beneath his touch, and knew not why she trembled. When the rosebuds were +in place they went to see the clove pinks, and when they had seen the +clove pinks they walked slowly up another alley of box, and across a grass +plot to a side door of the house; for he had said that he must show her in +what great, lonely rooms he lived. + +Audrey measured the height and breadth of the house with her eyes. "It is +a large place for one to live in alone," she said, and laughed. "There's a +book at the Widow Constance's; Barbara once showed it to me. It is all +about a pilgrim; and there's a picture of a great square house, quite like +this, that was a giant's castle,--Giant Despair. Good giant, eat me not!" + +Child, woman, spirit of the woodland, she passed before him into a dim, +cool room, all littered with books. "My library," said Haward, with a wave +of his hand. "But the curtains and pictures are not hung, nor the books in +place. Hast any schooling, little maid? Canst read?" + +Audrey flushed with pride that she could tell him that she was not +ignorant; not like Barbara, who could not read the giant's name in the +pilgrim book. + +"The crossroads schoolmaster taught me," she explained. "He has a scar in +each hand, and is a very wicked man, but he knows more than the Commissary +himself. The minister, too, has a cupboard filled with books, and he buys +the new ones as the ships bring them in. When I have time, and Mistress +Deborah will not let me go to the woods, I read. And I remember what I +read. I could"-- + +A smile trembled upon her lips, and her eyes grew brighter. Fired by the +desire that he should praise her learning, and in her very innocence bold +as a Wortley or a Howe, she began to repeat the lines which he had been +reading beneath the cherry-tree:-- + + "'When from the censer clouds of fragrance roll'"-- + +The rhythm of the words, the passion of the thought, the pleased surprise +that she thought she read in his face, the gesture of his hand, all +spurred her on from line to line, sentence to sentence. And now she was +not herself, but that other woman, and she was giving voice to all her +passion, all her woe. The room became a convent cell; her ragged dress the +penitent's trailing black. That Audrey, lithe of mind as of body; who in +the woods seemed the spirit of the woods, in the garden the spirit of the +garden, on the water the spirit of the water,--that this Audrey, in using +the speech of the poet, should embody and become the spirit of that speech +was perhaps, considering all things, not so strange. At any rate, and +however her power came about, at that moment, in Fair View house, a great +actress was speaking. + + "'Fresh blooming Hope, gay daughter of the skies, + And Faith'"-- + +The speaker lost a word, hesitated, became confused. Finally silence; +then the Audrey of a while before, standing with heaving bosom, shy as a +fawn, fearful that she had not pleased him, after all. For if she had done +so, surely he would have told her as much. As it was, he had said but one +word, and that beneath his breath, "_Elosa!_" + +It would seem that her fear was unfounded; for when he did speak, there +were, God wot, sugar-plums enough. And Audrey, who in her workaday world +was always blamed, could not know that the praise that was so sweet was +less wholesome than the blame. + +Leaving the library they went into the hall, and from the hall looked into +great, echoing, half-furnished rooms. All about lay packing-cases, many of +them open, with rich stuffs streaming from them. Ornaments were huddled on +tables, mirrors and pictures leaned their faces to the walls; everywhere +was disorder. + +"The negroes are careless, and to-day I held their hands," said Haward. "I +must get some proper person to see to this gear." + +Up stairs and down they went through the house, that seemed very large and +very still, and finally they came out of the great front door, and down +the stone steps on to the terrace. Below them, sparkling in the sunshine, +lay the river, the opposite shore all in a haze of light. "I must go +home," Audrey shyly reminded him, whereat he smiled assent, and they went, +not through the box alley to the gate in the wall, but down the terrace, +and out upon the hot brown boards of the landing. Haward, stepping into a +boat, handed her to a seat in the stern, and himself took the oars. +Leaving the landing, they came to the creek and entered it. Presently +they were gliding beneath the red brick wall with the honeysuckle atop. On +the opposite grassy shore, seated in a blaze of noon sunshine, was Hugon. + +They in the boat took no notice. Haward, rowing, spoke evenly on, his +theme himself and the gay and lonely life he had led these eleven years; +and Audrey, though at first sight of the waiting figure she had paled and +trembled, was too safe, too happy, to give to trouble any part of this +magic morning. She kept her eyes on Haward's face, and almost forgot the +man who had risen from the grass and in silence was following them. + +Now, had the trader, in his hunting shirt and leggings, his moccasins and +fur cap, been walking in the great woods, this silence, even with others +in company, would have been natural enough to his Indian blood; but +Monsieur Jean Hugon, in peruke and laced coat, walking in a civilized +country, with words a-plenty and as hot as fire-water in his heart, and +none upon his tongue, was a figure strange and sinister. He watched the +two in the boat with an impassive face, and he walked like an Indian on an +enemy's trail, so silently that he scarce seemed to breathe, so lightly +that his heavy boots failed to crush the flowers or the tender grass. + +Haward rowed on, telling Audrey stories of the town, of great men whose +names she knew, and beautiful ladies of whom she had never heard; and she +sat before him with her slim brown hands folded in her lap and the +rosebuds withering in her hair, while through the reeds and the grass and +the bushes of the bank over against them strode Hugon in his Blenheim wig +and his wine-colored coat. Well-nigh together the three reached the stake +driven in among the reeds, a hundred yards below the minister's house. +Haward fastened the boat, and, motioning to Audrey to stay for the moment +where she was, stepped out upon the bank to confront the trader, who, +walking steadily and silently as ever, was almost upon them. + +But it was broad daylight, and Hugon, with his forest instincts, +preferred, when he wished to speak to the point, to speak in the dark. He +made no pause; only looked with his fierce black eyes at the quiet, +insouciant, fine gentleman standing with folded arms between him and the +boat; then passed on, going steadily up the creek toward the bend where +the water left the open smiling fields and took to the forest. He never +looked back, but went like a hunter with his prey before him. Presently +the shadows of the forest touched him, and Audrey and Haward were left +alone. + +The latter laughed. "If his courage is of the quality of his lace--What, +cowering, child, and the tears in your eyes! You were braver when you were +not so tall, in those mountain days. Nay, no need to wet your shoe." + +He lifted her in his arms, and set her feet upon firm grass. "How long +since I carried you across a stream and up a dark hillside!" he said. "And +yet to-day it seems but yesternight! Now, little maid, the Indian has run +away, and the path to the house is clear." + + * * * * * + +In his smoke-filled, untidy best room Darden sat at table, his drink +beside him, his pipe between his fingers, and open before him a book of +jests, propped by a tome of divinity. His wife coming in from the +kitchen, he burrowed in the litter upon the table until he found an open +letter, which he flung toward her. "The Commissary threatens again, damn +him!" he said between smoke puffs. "It seems that t'other night, when I +was in my cups at the tavern, Le Neve and the fellow who has Ware Creek +parish--I forget his name--must needs come riding by. I was dicing with +Paris. Hugon held the stakes. I dare say we kept not mum. And out of pure +brotherly love and charity, my good, kind gentlemen ride on to +Williamsburgh on a tale-bearing errand! Is that child never coming back, +Deborah?" + +"She's coming now," answered his wife, with her eyes upon the letter. "I +was watching from the upper window. He rowed her up the creek himself." + +The door opened, and Audrey entered the room. Darden turned heavily in his +chair, and took the long pipe from between his teeth. "Well?" he said. +"You gave him my letter?" + +Audrey nodded. Her eyes were dreamy; the red of the buds in her hair had +somehow stolen to her cheeks; she could scarce keep her lips from smiling. +"He bade me tell you to come to supper with him on Monday," she said. "And +the Falcon that we saw come in last week brought furnishing for the great +house. Oh, Mistress Deborah, the most beautiful things! The rooms are all +to be made fine; and the negro women do not the work aright, and he wants +some one to oversee them. He says that he has learned that in England +Mistress Deborah was own woman to my Lady Squander, and so should know +about hangings and china and the placing of furniture. And he asks that +she come to Fair View morning after morning until the house is in order. +He wishes me to come, too. Mistress Deborah will much oblige him, he +says, and he will not forget her kindness." + +Somewhat out of breath, but very happy, she looked with eager eyes from +one guardian to the other. Darden emptied and refilled his pipe, +scattering the ashes upon the book of jests. "Very good," he said briefly. + +Into the thin visage of the ex-waiting-woman, who had been happier at my +Lady Squander's than in a Virginia parsonage, there crept a tightened +smile. In her way, when she was not in a passion, she was fond of Audrey; +but, in temper or out of temper, she was fonder of the fine things which +for a few days she might handle at Fair View house. And the gratitude of +the master thereof might appear in coins, or in an order on his store for +silk and lace. When, in her younger days, at Bath or in town, she had +served fine mistresses, she had been given many a guinea for carrying a +note or contriving an interview, and in changing her estate she had not +changed her code of morals. "We must oblige Mr. Haward, of course," she +said complacently. "I warrant you that I can give things an air! There's +not a parlor in this parish that does not set my teeth on edge! Now at my +Lady Squander's"--She embarked upon reminiscences of past splendor, +checked only by her husband's impatient demand for dinner. + +Audrey, preparing to follow her into the kitchen, was stopped, as she +would have passed the table, by the minister's heavy hand. "The roses at +Fair View bloom early," he said, turning her about that he might better +see the red cluster in her hair. "Look you, Audrey! I wish you no great +harm, child. You mind me at times of one that I knew many years ago, +before ever I was chaplain to my Lord Squander or husband to my Lady +Squander's waiting-woman. A hunter may use a decoy, and he may also, on +the whole, prefer to keep that decoy as good as when 'twas made. Buy not +thy roses too dearly, Audrey." + +To Audrey he spoke in riddles. She took from her hair the loosened buds, +and looked at them lying in her hand. "I did not buy them," she said. +"They grew in the sun on the south side of the great house, and Mr. Haward +gave them to me." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN + + +June came to tide-water Virginia with long, warm days and with the odor of +many roses. Day by day the cloudless sunshine visited the land: night by +night the large pale stars looked into its waters. It was a slumberous +land, of many creeks and rivers that were wide, slow, and deep, of tobacco +fields and lofty, solemn forests, of vague marshes, of white mists, of a +haze of heat far and near. The moon of blossoms was past, and the red +men--few in number now--had returned from their hunting, and lay in the +shade of the trees in the villages that the English had left them, while +the women brought them fish from the weirs, and strawberries from the +vines that carpeted every poisoned field or neglected clearing. The black +men toiled amidst the tobacco and the maize; at noontide it was as hot in +the fields as in the middle passage, and the voices of those who sang over +their work fell to a dull crooning. The white men who were bound served +listlessly; they that were well were as lazy as the weather; they that +were newly come over and ill with the "seasoning" fever tossed upon their +pallets, longing for the cooling waters of home. The white men who were +free swore that the world, though fair, was warm, and none walked if he +could ride. The sunny, dusty roads were left for shadowed bridle paths; +in a land where most places could be reached by boat, the water would +have been the highway but that the languid air would not fill the sails. +It was agreed that the heat was unnatural, and that, likely enough, there +would be a deal of fever during the summer. + +But there was thick shade in the Fair View garden, and when there was air +at all it visited the terrace above the river. The rooms of the house were +large and high-pitched; draw to the shutters, and they became as cool as +caverns. Around the place the heat lay in wait: heat of wide, shadowless +fields, where Haward's slaves toiled from morn to eve; heat of the great +river, unstirred by any wind, hot and sleeping beneath the blazing sun; +heat of sluggish creeks and of the marshes, shadeless as the fields. Once +reach the mighty trees drawn like a cordon around house and garden, and +there was escape. + +To and fro and up and down in the house went the erst waiting-woman to my +Lady Squander, carrying matters with a high hand. The negresses who worked +under her eye found her a hard taskmistress. Was a room clean to-day, +to-morrow it was found that there was dust upon the polished floor, finger +marks on the paneled walls. The same furniture must be placed now in this +room, now in that; china slowly washed and bestowed in one closet +transferred to another; an eternity spent upon the household linen, +another on the sewing and resewing, the hanging and rehanging, of damask +curtains. The slaves, silent when the greenish eyes and tight, vixenish +face were by, chattered, laughed, and sung when they were left alone. If +they fell idle, and little was done of a morning, they went unrebuked; +thoroughness, and not haste, appearing to be Mistress Deborah's motto. + +The master of Fair View found it too noisy in his house to sit therein, +and too warm to ride abroad. There were left the seat built round the +cherry-tree in the garden, the long, cool box walk, and the terrace with a +summer-house at either end. It was pleasant to read out of doors, pacing +the box walk, or sitting beneath the cherry-tree, with the ripening fruit +overhead. If the book was long in reading, if morning by morning Haward's +finger slipped easily in between the selfsame leaves, perhaps it was the +fault of poet or philosopher. If Audrey's was the fault, she knew it not. + +How could she know it, who knew herself, that she was a poor, humble maid, +whom out of pure charity and knightly tenderness for weak and sorrowful +things he long ago had saved, since then had maintained, now was kind to; +and knew him, that he was learned and great and good, the very perfect +gentle knight who, as he rode to win the princess, yet could stoop from +his saddle to raise and help the herd girl? She had found of late that she +was often wakeful of nights; when this happened, she lay and looked out of +her window at the stars and wondered about the princess. She was sure that +the princess and the lady who had given her the guinea were one. + +In the great house she would have worked her fingers to the bone. Her +strong young arms lifted heavy weights; her quick feet ran up and down +stairs for this or that; she would have taken the waxed cloths from the +negroes, and upon her knees and with willing hands have made to shine like +mirrors the floors that were to be trodden by knight and princess. But +almost every morning, before she had worked an hour, Haward would call to +her from the box walk or the seat beneath the cherry-tree; and "Go, +child," would say Mistress Deborah, looking up from her task of the +moment. + +The garden continued to be the enchanted garden. To gather its flowers, +red and white, to pace with him cool paved walks between walls of scented +box, to sit beside him beneath the cherry-tree or upon the grassy terrace, +looking out upon the wide, idle river,--it was dreamy bliss, a happiness +too rare to last. There was no harm; not that she ever dreamed there could +be. The house overlooked garden and terrace; the slaves passed and +repassed the open windows; Juba came and went; now and then Mistress +Deborah herself would sally forth to receive instructions concerning this +or that from the master of the house. And every day, at noon, the slaves +drew to all the shutters save those of the master's room, and the +minister's wife and ward made their curtsies and went home. The latter, +like a child, counted the hours upon the clock until the next morning; but +then she was not used to happiness, and the wine of it made her slightly +drunken. + +The master of Fair View told himself that there was infection in this +lotus air of Virginia. A fever ran in his veins that made him languid of +will, somewhat sluggish of thought, willing to spend one day like another, +and all in a long dream. Sometimes, in the afternoons, when he was alone +in the garden or upon the terrace, with the house blank and silent behind +him, the slaves gone to the quarters, he tossed aside his book, and, with +his chin upon his hand and his eyes upon the sweep of the river, first +asked himself whither he was going, and then, finding no satisfactory +answer, fell to brooding. Once, going into the house, he chanced to come +upon his full-length reflection in a mirror newly hung, and stopped short +to gaze upon himself. The parlor of his lodgings at Williamsburgh and the +last time that he had seen Evelyn came to him, conjured up by the memory +of certain words of his own. + +"A truer glass might show a shrunken figure," he repeated, and with a +quick and impatient sigh he looked at the image in the mirror. + +To the eye, at least, the figure was not shrunken. It was that of a man +still young, and of a handsome face and much distinction of bearing. The +dress was perfect in its quiet elegance; the air of the man composed,--a +trifle sad, a trifle mocking. Haward snapped his fingers at the +reflection. "The portrait of a gentleman," he said, and passed on. + +That night, in his own room, he took from an escritoire a picture of +Evelyn Byrd, done in miniature after a painting by a pupil of Kneller, +and, carrying it over to the light of the myrtle candles upon the table, +sat down and fell to studying it. After a while he let it drop from his +hand, and leaned back in his chair, thinking. + +The night air, rising slightly, bent back the flame of the candles, around +which moths were fluttering, and caused strange shadows upon the walls. +They were thick about the curtained bed whereon had died the elder +Haward,--a proud man, choleric, and hard to turn from his purposes. Into +the mind of his son, sitting staring at these shadows, came the fantastic +notion that amongst them, angry and struggling vainly for speech, might be +his father's shade. The night was feverish, of a heat and lassitude to +foster grotesque and idle fancies. Haward smiled, and spoke aloud to his +imaginary ghost. + +"You need not strive for speech," he said. "I know what you would say. +_Was it for this I built this house, bought land and slaves?... Fair View +and Westover, Westover and Fair View. A lady that will not wed thee +because she loves thee! Zoons, Marmaduke! thou puttest me beside my +patience!... As for this other, set no nameless, barefoot wench where sat +thy mother! King Cophetua and the beggar maid, indeed! I warrant you +Cophetua was something under three-and-thirty!_" + +Haward ceased to speak for his father, and sighed for himself. "Moral: +Three-and-thirty must be wiser in his day and generation." He rose from +his chair, and began to walk the room. "If not Cophetua, what then,--what +then?" Passing the table, he took up the miniature again. "The villain of +the piece, I suppose, Evelyn?" he asked. + +The pure and pensive face seemed to answer him. He put the picture hastily +down, and recommenced his pacing to and fro. From the garden below came +the heavy odor of lilies, and the whisper of the river tried the nerves. +Haward went to the window, and, leaning out, looked, as now each night he +looked, up and across the creek toward the minister's house. To-night +there was no light to mark it; it was late, and all the world without his +room was in darkness. He sat down in the window seat, looked out upon the +stars and listened to the river. An hour had passed before he turned back +to the room, where the candles had burned low. "I will go to Westover +to-morrow," he said. "God knows, I should be a villain"-- + +He locked the picture of Evelyn within his desk, drank his wine and water, +and went to bed, strongly resolved upon retreat. In the morning he said, +"I will go to Westover this afternoon;" and in the afternoon he said, "I +will go to-morrow." When the morrow came, he found that the house lacked +but one day of being finished, and that there was therefore no need for +him to go at all. + +Mistress Deborah was loath, enough to take leave of damask and mirrors and +ornaments of china,--the latter fine enough and curious enough to remind +her of Lady Squander's own drawing-room; but the leaf of paper which +Haward wrote upon, tore from his pocket-book, and gave her provided +consolation. Her thanks were very glib, her curtsy was very deep. She was +his most obliged, humble servant, and if she could serve him again he +would make her proud. Would he not, now, some day, row up creek to their +poor house, and taste of her perry and Shrewsbury cakes? Audrey, standing +by, raised her eyes, and made of the request a royal invitation. + +For a week or more Haward abode upon his plantation, alone save for his +servants and slaves. Each day he sent for the overseer, and listened +gravely while that worthy expounded to him all the details of the +condition and conduct of the estate; in the early morning and the late +afternoon he rode abroad through his fields and forests. Mill and ferry +and rolling house were visited, and the quarters made his acquaintance. At +the creek quarter and the distant ridge quarter were bestowed the newly +bought, the sullen and the refractory of his chattels. When, after sunset, +and the fields were silent, he rode past the cabins, coal-black figures, +new from the slave deck, still seamed at wrist and ankle, mowed and +jabbered at him from over their bowls of steaming food; others, who had +forgotten the jungle and the slaver, answered, when he spoke to them, in +strange English; others, born in Virginia, and remembering when he used to +ride that way with his father, laughed, called him "Marse Duke," and +agreed with him that the crop was looking mighty well. With the dark he +reached the great house, and negroes from the home quarter took--his +horse, while Juba lighted him through the echoing hall into the lonely +rooms. + +From the white quarter he procured a facile lad who could read and write, +and who, through too much quickness of wit, had failed to prosper in +England. Him he installed as secretary, and forthwith began a +correspondence with friends in England, as well as a long poem which was +to serve the double purpose of giving Mr. Pope a rival and of occupying +the mind of Mr. Marmaduke Haward. The letters were witty and graceful, the +poem was the same; but on the third day the secretary, pausing for the +next word that should fall from his master's lips, waited so long that he +dropped asleep. When he awoke, Mr. Haward was slowly tearing into bits the +work that had been done on the poem. "It will have to wait upon my mood," +he said. "Seal up the letter to Lord Hervey, boy, and then begone to the +fields. If I want you again, I will send for you." + +The next day he proposed to himself to ride to Williamsburgh and see his +acquaintances there. But even as he crossed the room to strike the bell +for Juba a distaste for the town and its people came upon him. It occurred +to him that instead he might take the barge and be rowed up the river to +the Jaquelins' or to Green Spring; but in a moment this plan also became +repugnant. Finally he went out upon the terrace, and sat there the morning +through, staring at the river. That afternoon he sent a negro to the +store with a message for the storekeeper. + +The Highlander, obeying the demand for his company,--the third or fourth +since his day at Williamsburgh,--came shortly before twilight to the great +house, and found the master thereof still upon the terrace, sitting +beneath an oak, with a small table and a bottle of wine beside him. + +"Ha, Mr. MacLean!" he cried, as the other approached. "Some days have +passed since last we laid the ghosts! I had meant to sooner improve our +acquaintance. But my house has been in disorder, and I myself,"--he passed +his hand across his face as if to wipe away the expression into which it +had been set,--"I myself have been poor company. There is a witchery in +the air of this place. I am become but a dreamer of dreams." + +As he spoke he motioned his guest to an empty chair, and began to pour +wine for them both. His hand was not quite steady, and there was about him +a restlessness of aspect most unnatural to the man. The storekeeper +thought him looking worn, and as though he had passed sleepless nights. + +MacLean sat down, and drew his wineglass toward Mm. "It is the heat," he +said. "Last night, in the store, I felt that I was stifling; and I left +it, and lay on the bare ground without. A star shot down the sky, and I +wished that a wind as swift and strong would rise and sweep the land out +to sea. When the day comes that I die, I wish to die a fierce death. It is +best to die in battle, for then the mind is raised, and you taste all life +in the moment before you go. If a man achieves not that, then struggle +with earth or air or the waves of the sea is desirable. Driving sleet, +armies of the snow, night and trackless mountains, the leap of the +torrent, swollen lakes where kelpies lie in wait, wind on the sea with the +black reef and the charging breakers,--it is well to dash one's force +against the force of these, and to die after fighting. But in this cursed +land of warmth and ease a man dies like a dog that is old and hath lain +winter and summer upon the hearthstone." He drank his wine, and glanced +again at Haward. "I did not know that you were here," he said. "Saunderson +told me that you were going to Westover." + +"I was,--I am," answered Haward briefly. Presently he roused himself from +the brown study into which he had fallen. + +"'Tis the heat, as you say. It enervates. For my part, I am willing that +your wind should arise. But it will not blow to-night. There is not a +breath; the river is like glass." He raised the wine to his lips, and +drank deeply. "Come," he said, laughing. "What did you at the store +to-day? And does Mistress Truelove despair of your conversion to _thee_ +and _thou_, and peace with all mankind? Hast procured an enemy to fill the +place I have vacated? I trust he's no scurvy foe." + +"I will take your questions in order," answered the other sententiously. +"This morning I sold a deal of fine china to a parcel of fine ladies who +came by water from Jamestown, and were mightily concerned to know whether +your worship was gone to Westover, or had instead (as 't was reported) +shut yourself up in Fair View house. And this afternoon came over in a +periagua, from the other side, a very young gentleman with money in hand +to buy a silver-fringed glove. 'They are sold in pairs,' said I. 'Fellow, +I require but one,' said he. 'If Dick Allen, who hath slandered me to +Mistress Betty Cocke, dareth to appear at the merrymaking at Colonel +Harrison's to-night, his cheek and this glove shall come together!' +'Nathless, you must pay for both,' I told him; and the upshot is that he +leaves with me a gold button as earnest that he will bring the remainder +of the price before the duel to-morrow. That Quaker maiden of whom you ask +hath a soul like the soul of Colna-dona, of whom Murdoch, the harper of +Coll, used to sing. She is fair as a flower after winter, and as tender as +the rose flush in which swims yonder star. When I am with her, almost she +persuades me to think ill of honest hatred, and to pine no longer that it +was not I that had the killing of Ewin Mackinnon." He gave a short laugh, +and stooping picked up an oak twig from the ground, and with deliberation +broke it into many small pieces. "Almost, but not quite," he said. "There +was in that feud nothing illusory or fantastic; nothing of the quality +that marked, mayhap, another feud of my own making. If I have found that +in this latter case I took a wraith and dubbed it my enemy; that, thinking +I followed a foe, I followed a friend instead"--He threw away the bits of +bark, and straightened himself. "A friend!" he said, drawing his breath. +"Save for this Quaker family, I have had no friend for many a year! And I +cannot talk to them of honor and warfare and the wide world." His speech +was sombre, but in his eyes there was an eagerness not without pathos. + +The mood of the Gael chimed with the present mood of the Saxon. As unlike +in their natures as their histories, men would have called them; and yet, +far away, in dim recesses of the soul, at long distances from the flesh, +each recognised the other. And it was an evening, too, in which to take +care of other things than the ways and speech of every day. The heat, the +hush, and the stillness appeared well-nigh preternatural. A sadness +breathed over the earth; all things seemed new and yet old; across the +spectral river the dim plains beneath the afterglow took the seeming of +battlefields. + +"A friend!" said Haward. "There are many men who call themselves my +friends. I am melancholy to-day, restless, and divided against myself. I +do not know one of my acquaintance whom I would have called to be +melancholy with me as I have called you." He leaned across the table and +touched MacLean's hand that was somewhat hurriedly fingering the +wineglass. "Come!" he said. "Loneliness may haunt the level fields as well +as the ways that are rugged and steep. How many times have we held +converse since that day I found you in charge of my store? Often enough, I +think, for each to know the other's quality. Our lives have been very +different, and yet I believe that we are akin. For myself, I should be +glad to hold as my friend so gallant though so unfortunate a gentleman." +He smiled and made a gesture of courtesy. "Of course Mr. MacLean may very +justly not hold me in a like esteem, nor desire a closer relation." + +MacLean rose to his feet, and stood gazing across the river at the +twilight shore and the clear skies. Presently he turned, and his eyes were +wet. He drew his hand across them; then looked curiously at the dew upon +it. "I have not done this," he said simply, "since a night at Preston when +I wept with rage. In my country we love as we hate, with all the strength +that God has given us. The brother of my spirit is to me even as the +brother of my flesh.... I used to dream that my hand was at your throat or +my sword through your heart, and wake in anger that it was not so ... and +now I could love you well." + +Haward stood up, and the two men clasped hands. "It is a pact, then," said +the Englishman. "By my faith, the world looks not so melancholy gray as it +did awhile ago. And here is Juba to say that supper waits. Lay the table +for two, Juba. Mr. MacLean will bear me company." + +The storekeeper stayed late, the master of Fair View being an accomplished +gentleman, a very good talker, and an adept at turning his house for the +nonce into the house of his guest. Supper over they went into the library, +where their wine was set, and where the Highlander, who was no great +reader, gazed respectfully at the wit and wisdom arow before him. "Colonel +Byrd hath more volumes at Westover," quoth Haward, "but mine are of the +choicer quality." Juba brought a card table, and lit more candles, while +his master, unlocking a desk, took from it a number of gold pieces. These +he divided into two equal portions: kept one beside him upon the polished +table, and, with a fine smile, half humorous, half deprecating, pushed the +other across to his guest. With an, imperturbable face MacLean stacked the +gold before him, and they fell to piquet, playing briskly, and with +occasional application to the Madeira upon the larger table, until ten of +the clock. The Highlander, then declaring that he must be no longer away +from his post, swept his heap of coins across to swell his opponent's +store, and said good-night. Haward went with him to the great door, and +watched him stride off through the darkness whistling "The Battle of +Harlaw." + +That night Haward slept, and the next morning four negroes rowed him up +the river to Jamestown. Mr. Jaquelin was gone to Norfolk upon business, +but his beautiful wife and sprightly daughters found Mr. Marmaduke Haward +altogether charming. "'Twas as good as going to court," they said to one +another, when the gentleman, after a two hours' visit, bowed himself out +of their drawing-room. The object of their encomiums, going down river in +his barge, felt his spirits lighter than they had been for some days. He +spoke cheerfully to his negroes, and when the barge passed a couple of +fishing-boats he called to the slim brown lads that caught for the +plantation to know their luck. At the landing he found the overseer, who +walked to the great house with him. The night before Tyburn Will had +stolen from the white quarters, and had met a couple of seamen from the +Temperance at the crossroads ordinary, which ordinary was going to get +into trouble for breaking the law which forbade the harboring of sailors +ashore. The three had taken in full lading of kill-devil rum, and Tyburn +Will, too drunk to run any farther, had been caught by Hide near Princess +Creek, three hours agone. What were the master's orders? Should the rogue +go to the court-house whipping post, or should Hide save the trouble of +taking him there? In either case, thirty-nine lashes well laid on-- + +The master pursed his lips, dug into the ground with the ferrule of his +cane, and finally proposed to the astonished overseer that the rascal be +let off with a warning. "'Tis too fair a day to poison with ugly sights +and sounds," he said, whimsically apologetic for his own weakness. "'Twill +do no great harm to be lenient, for once, Saunderson, and I am in the mood +to-day to be friends with all men, including myself." + +The overseer went away grumbling, and Haward entered the house. The room +where dwelt his books looked cool and inviting. He walked the length of +the shelves, took out a volume here and there for his evening reading, and +upon the binding of others laid an affectionate, lingering touch. "I have +had a fever, my friends," he announced to the books, "but I am about to +find myself happily restored to reason and serenity; in short, to health." + +Some hours later he raised his eyes from the floor which he had been +studying for a great while, covered them for a moment with his hand, then +rose, and, with the air of a sleepwalker, went out of the lit room into a +calm and fragrant night. There was no moon, but the stars were many, and +it did not seem dark. When he came to the verge of the landing, and the +river, sighing in its sleep, lay clear below him, mirroring the stars, it +was as though he stood between two firmaments. He descended the steps, and +drew toward him a small rowboat that was softly rubbing against the wet +and glistening piles. The tide was out, and the night was very quiet. + +Haward troubled not the midstream, but rowing in the shadow of the bank to +the mouth of the creek that slept beside his garden, turned and went up +this narrow water. Until he was free of the wall the odor of honeysuckle +and box clung to the air, freighting it heavily; when it was left behind +the reeds began to murmur and sigh, though not loudly, for there was no +wind. When he came to a point opposite the minister's house, rising fifty +yards away from amidst low orchard trees, he rested upon his oars. There +was a light in an upper room, and as he looked Audrey passed between the +candle and the open window. A moment later and the light was out, but he +knew that she was sitting at the window. Though it was dark, he found that +he could call back with precision the slender throat, the lifted face, and +the enshadowing hair. For a while he stayed, motionless in his boat, +hidden by the reeds that whispered and sighed; but at last he rowed away +softly through the darkness, back to the dim, slow-moving river and the +Fair View landing. + +This was of a Friday. All the next day he spent in the garden, but on +Sunday morning he sent word to the stables to have Mirza saddled. He was +going to church, he told Juba over his chocolate, and he would wear the +gray and silver. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A SABBATH DAY'S JOURNEY + + +Although the house of worship which boasted as its ornament the Reverend +Gideon Darden was not so large and handsome as Bruton church, nor could +rival the painted glories of Poplar Spring, it was yet a building good +enough,--of brick, with a fair white spire and a decorous mantle of ivy. +The churchyard, too, was pleasant, though somewhat crowded with the dead. +There were oaks for shade, and wild roses for fragrance, and the grass +between the long gravestones, prone upon mortal dust, grew very thick and +green. Outside the gates,--a gift from the first master of Fair +View,--between the churchyard and the dusty highroad ran a long strip of +trampled turf, shaded by locust-trees and by one gigantic gum that became +in the autumn a pillar of fire. + +Haward, arriving somewhat after time, found drawn up upon this piece of +sward a coach, two berlins, a calash, and three chaises, while tied to +hitching-posts, trees, and the fence were a number of saddle-horses. In +the shade of the gum-tree sprawled half a dozen negro servants, but on the +box of the coach, from which the restless horses had been taken, there yet +sat the coachman, a mulatto of powerful build and a sullen countenance. +The vehicle stood in the blazing sunshine, and it was both cooler and +merrier beneath the tree,--a fact apparent enough to the coachman, but +the knowledge of which, seeing that he was chained to the box, did him +small good. Haward glanced at the figure indifferently; but Juba, +following his master upon Whitefoot Kate, grinned from ear to ear. +"Larnin' not to run away, Sam? Road's clear: why don' you carry off de +coach?" + +Haward dismounted, and leaving Juba first to fasten the horses, and then +join his fellows beneath the gum-tree, walked into the churchyard. The +congregation had assembled, and besides himself there were none without +the church save the negroes and the dead. The service had commenced. +Through the open door came to him Darden's voice: "_Dearly beloved +brethren_"-- + +Haward waited, leaning against a tomb deep graven with a coat of arms and +much stately Latin, until the singing clave the air, when he entered the +building, and passed down the aisle to his own pew, the chiefest in the +place. He was aware of the flutter and whisper on either hand,--perhaps he +did not find it unpleasing. Diogenes may have carried his lantern not +merely to find a man, but to show one as well, and a philosopher in a pale +gray riding dress, cut after the latest mode, with silver lace and a fall +of Mechlin, may be trusted to know the value as well as the vanity of +sublunary things. + +Of the gathering, which was not large, two thirds, perhaps, were people of +condition; and in the country, where occasions for display did not present +themselves uncalled, it was highly becoming to worship the Lord in fine +clothes. So there were broken rainbows in the tall pews, with a soft +waving of fans to and fro in the essenced air, and a low rustle of silk. +The men went as fine as the women, and the June sunshine, pouring in upon +all this lustre and color, made a flower-bed of the assemblage. Being of +the country, it was vastly better behaved than would have been a +fashionable London congregation; but it certainly saw no reason why Mr. +Marmaduke Haward should not, during the anthem, turn his back upon altar, +minister, and clerk, and employ himself in recognizing with a smile and an +inclination of his head his friends and acquaintances. They smiled +back,--the gentlemen bowing slightly, the ladies making a sketch of a +curtsy. All were glad that Fair View house was open once more, and were +kindly disposed toward the master thereof. + +The eyes of that gentleman were no longer for the gay parterre. Between it +and the door, in uncushioned pews or on rude benches, were to be found the +plainer sort of Darden's parishioners, and in this territory, that was +like a border of sober foliage to the flower-bed in front, he discovered +whom he sought. + +Her gaze had been upon him since he passed the minister's pew, where she +stood between my Lady Squander's ex-waiting-woman and the branded +schoolmaster, but now their eyes came full together. She was dressed in +some coarse dark stuff, above which rose the brown pillar of her throat +and the elusive, singular beauty of her face. There was a flower in her +hair, placed as he had placed the rosebuds. A splendor leaped into her +eyes, but her cheek did not redden; it was to his face that the color +rushed. They had but a moment in which to gaze at each other, for the +singing, which to her, at least, had seemed suddenly to swell into a great +ascending tide of sound, with somewhere, far away, the silver calling of a +trumpet, now came to an end, and with another silken rustle and murmur +the congregation sat down. + +Haward did not turn again, and the service went drowsily on. Darden was +bleared of eye and somewhat thick of voice; the clerk's whine was as +sleepy a sound as the buzzing of the bees in and out of window, or the +soft, incessant stir of painted fans. A churchwarden in the next pew +nodded and nodded, until he nodded his peruke awry, and a child went fast +asleep, with its head in its mother's lap. One and all worshiped somewhat +languidly, with frequent glances at the hourglass upon the pulpit. They +prayed for King George the First, not knowing that he was dead, and for +the Prince, not knowing that he was King. The minister preached against +Quakers and witchcraft, and shook the rafters with his fulminations. +Finally came the benediction and a sigh of relief. + +In that country and time there was no unsociable and undignified scurrying +homeward after church. Decorous silence prevailed until the house was +exchanged for the green and shady churchyard: but then tongues were +loosened, and the flower-bed broken into clusters. One must greet one's +neighbors; present or be presented to what company might be staying at the +various great houses within the parish; talk, laugh, coquet, and ogle; +make appointments for business or for pleasure; speak of the last +horse-race, the condition of wheat and tobacco, and the news brought in by +the Valour, man-of-war, that the King was gone to Hanover. In short, for +the nonce, the churchyard became a drawing-room, with the sun for candles, +with no painted images of the past and gone upon the walls, but with the +dead themselves beneath the floor. + +The minister, having questions to settle with clerk and sexton, tarried +in the vestry room; but his wife, with Audrey and the schoolmaster, waited +for him outside, in the shade of an oak-tree that was just without the +pale of the drawing-room. Mistress Deborah, in her tarnished amber satin +and ribbons that had outworn their youth, bit her lip and tapped her foot +upon the ground. Audrey watched her apprehensively. She knew the signs, +and that when they reached home a storm might break that would leave its +mark upon her shoulders. The minister's wife was not approved of by the +ladies of Fair View parish, but had they seen how wistful was the face of +the brown girl with her, they might have turned aside, spoken, and let the +storm go by. The girl herself was scarcely noticed. Few had ever heard her +story, or, hearing it, had remembered; the careless many thought her an +orphan, bound to Darden and his wife,--in effect their servant. If she had +beauty, the ladies and gentlemen who saw her, Sunday after Sunday, in the +minister's pew, had scarce discovered it. She was too dark, too slim, too +shy and strange of look, with her great brown eyes and that startled turn +of her head. Their taste was for lilies and roses, and it was not an age +that counted shyness a grace. + +Mr. Marmaduke Haward was not likely to be accused of diffidence. He had +come out of church with the sleepy-headed churchwarden, who was now wide +awake and mightily concerned to know what horse Mr. Haward meant to enter +for the great race at Mulberry Island, while at the foot of the steps he +was seized upon by another portly vestryman, and borne off to be presented +to three blooming young ladies, quick to second their papa's invitation +home to dinner. Mr. Haward was ready to curse his luck that he was +engaged elsewhere; but were not these Graces the children to whom he had +used to send sugar-plums from Williamsburgh, years and years ago? He vowed +that the payment, which he had never received, he would take now with +usury, and proceeded to salute the cheek of each protesting fair. The +ladies found him vastly agreeable; old and new friends crowded around him; +he put forth his powers and charmed all hearts,--and all the while +inwardly cursed the length of way to the gates, and the tardy progress +thereto of his friends and neighbors. + +But however slow in ebbing, the tide was really set toward home and +dinner. Darden, coming out of the vestry room, found the churchyard almost +cleared, and the road in a cloud of dust. The greater number of those who +came a-horseback were gone, and there had also departed both berlins, the +calash, and two chaises. Mr. Haward was handing the three Graces into the +coach with the chained coachman, Juba standing by, holding his master's +horse. Darden grew something purpler in the face, and, rumbling oaths, +went over to the three beneath the oak. "How many spoke to you to-day?" he +asked roughly of his wife. "Did _he_ come and speak?" + +"No, he didn't!" cried Mistress Deborah tartly. "And all the gentry went +by; only Mr. Bray stopped to say that everybody knew of your fight with +Mr. Bailey at the French ordinary, and that the Commissary had sent for +Bailey, and was going to suspend him. I wish to Heaven I knew why I +married you, to be looked down upon by every Jill, when I might have had +his Lordship's own man! Of all the fools"-- + +"You were not the only one," answered her husband grimly. "Well, let's +home; there's dinner yet. What is it, Audrey?" This in answer to an +inarticulate sound from the girl. + +The schoolmaster answered for her: "Mr. Marmaduke Haward has not gone with +the coach. Perhaps he only waited until the other gentlefolk should be +gone. Here he comes." + +The sward without the gates was bare of all whose presence mattered, and +Haward had indeed rentered the churchyard, and was walking toward them. +Darden went to meet him. "These be fine tales I hear of you, Mr. Darden," +said his parishioner calmly. "I should judge you were near the end of your +rope. There's a vestry meeting Thursday. Shall I put in a good word for +your reverence? Egad, you need it!" + +"I shall be your honor's most humble, most obliged servant," quoth the +minister. "The affair at the French ordinary was nothing. I mean to preach +next Sunday upon calumny,--calumny that spareth none, not even such as I. +You are for home, I see, and our road for a time is the same. Will you +ride with us?" + +"Ay," said Haward briefly. "But you must send yonder fellow with the +scarred hands packing. I travel not with thieves." + +He had not troubled to lower his voice, and as he and Darden were now +themselves within the shadow of the oak, the schoolmaster overheard him +and answered for himself. "Your honor need not fear my company," he said, +in his slow and lifeless tones. "I am walking, and I take the short cut +through the woods. Good-day, worthy Gideon. Madam Deborah and Audrey, +good-day." + +He put his uncouth, shambling figure into motion, and, indifferent and +lifeless in manner as in voice, was gone, gliding like a long black +shadow through the churchyard and into the woods across the road. "I knew +him long ago in England," the minister explained to their new companion. +"He's a learned man, and, like myself, a calumniated one. The gentlemen of +these parts value him highly as an instructor of youth. No need to send +their sons to college if they've been with him for a year or two! My good +Deborah, Mr. Haward will ride with us toward Fair View." + +Mistress Deborah curtsied; then chided Audrey for not minding her manners, +but standing like a stock or stone, with her thoughts a thousand miles +away. "Let her be," said Haward. "We gave each other good-day in church." + +Together the four left the churchyard. Darden brought up two sorry horses; +lifted his wife and Audrey upon one, and mounted the other. Haward swung +himself into his saddle, and the company started, Juba upon Whitefoot Kate +bringing up the rear. The master of Fair View rode beside the minister, +and only now and then spoke to the women. The road was here sunny, there +shady; the excessive heat broken, the air pleasant enough. Everywhere, +too, was the singing of birds, while the fields that they passed of +tobacco and golden, waving wheat were charming to the sight. The minister +was, when sober, a man of parts, with some education and a deal of mother +wit; in addition, a close and shrewd observer of the times and people. He +and Haward talked of matters of public moment, and the two women listened, +submissive and admiring. It seemed that they came very quickly to the +bridge across the creek and the parting of their ways. Would Mr. Haward +ride on to the glebe house? + +It appeared that Mr. Haward would. Moreover, when the house was reached, +and Darden's one slave came running from a broken-down stable to take the +horses, he made no motion toward returning to the bridge which led across +the creek to his own plantation, but instead dismounted, flung his reins +to Juba, and asked if he might stay to dinner. + +Now, by the greatest good luck, considered Mistress Deborah, there chanced +to be in her larder a haunch of venison roasted most noble; the ducklings +and asparagus, too, cooked before church, needed but to be popped into the +oven; and there was also an apple tart with cream. With elation, then, and +eke with a mind at rest, she added her shrill protests of delight to +Darden's more moderate assurances, and, leaving Audrey to set chairs in +the shade of a great apple-tree, hurried into the house to unearth her +damask tablecloth and silver spoons, and to plan for the morrow a visit to +the Widow Constance, and a casual remark that Mr. Marmaduke Haward had +dined with the minister the day before. Audrey, her task done, went after +her, to be met with graciousness most unusual. "I'll see to the dinner, +child. Mr. Haward will expect one of us to sit without, and you had as +well go as I. If he's talking to Darden, you might get some larkspur and +gilliflowers for the table. La! the flowers that used to wither beneath +the candles at my Lady Squander's!" + +Audrey, finding the two men in conversation beneath the apple-tree, passed +on to the ragged garden, where clumps of hardy, bright-colored flowers +played hide-and-seek with currant and gooseberry bushes. Haward saw her +go, and broke the thread of his discourse. Darden looked up, and the eyes +of the two men met; those of the younger were cold and steady. A moment, +and his glance had fallen to his watch which he had pulled out. "'Tis +early yet," he said coolly, "and I dare say not quite your dinner +time,--which I beg that Mistress Deborah will not advance on my account. +Is it not your reverence's habit to rest within doors after your sermon? +Pray do not let me detain you. I will go talk awhile with Audrey." + +He put up his watch and rose to his feet. Darden cleared his throat. "I +have, indeed, a letter to write to Mr. Commissary, and it may be half an +hour before Deborah has dinner ready. I will send your servant to fetch +you in." + +Haward broke the larkspur and gilliflowers, and Audrey gathered up her +apron and filled it with the vivid blooms. The child that had thus brought +loaves of bread to a governor's table spread beneath a sugar-tree, with +mountains round about, had been no purer of heart, no more innocent of +rustic coquetry. When her apron was filled she would have returned to the +house, but Haward would not have it so. "They will call when dinner is +ready," he said. "I wish to talk to you, little maid. Let us go sit in the +shade of the willow yonder." + +It was almost a twilight behind the cool green rain of the willow boughs. +Through that verdant mist Haward and Audrey saw the outer world but dimly. +"I had a fearful dream last night," said Audrey. "I think that that must +have been why I was to glad to see you come into church to-day. I dreamed +that you had never come home again, overseas, in the Golden Rose. Hugon +was beside me, in the dream, telling me that you were dead in England: and +suddenly I knew that I had never really seen you; that there was no +garden, no terrace, no roses, no _you_. It was all so cold and sad, and +the sun kept growing smaller and smaller. The woods, too, were black, and +the wind cried in them so that I was afraid. And then I was in Hugon's +house, holding the door,--there was a wolf without,--and through the +window I saw the mountains; only they were so high that my heart ached to +look upon them, and the wind cried down the cleft in the hills. The wolf +went away, and then, somehow, I was upon the hilltop.... There was a dead +man lying in the grass, but it was too dark to see. Hugon came up behind +me, stooped, and lifted the hand.... Upon the finger was that ring you +wear, burning in the moonlight.... Oh me!" + +The remembered horror of her dream contending with present bliss shook her +spirit to its centre. She shuddered violently, then burst into a passion +of tears. + +Haward's touch upon her hair, Haward's voice in her ear, all the old terms +of endearment for a frightened child,--"little maid," "little coward," +"Why, sweetheart, these things are shadows, they cannot hurt thee!" She +controlled her tears, and was the happier for her weeping. It was sweet to +sit there in the lush grass, veiled and shadowed from the world by the +willow's drooping green, and in that soft and happy light to listen to his +voice, half laughing, half chiding, wholly tender and caressing. Dreams +were naught, he said. Had Hugon troubled her waking hours? + +He had come once to the house, it appeared; but she had run away and +hidden in the wood, and the minister had told him she was gone to the +Widow Constance's. That was a long time ago; it must have been the day +after she and Mistress Deborah had last come from Fair View. + +"A long time," said Haward. "It was a week ago. Has it seemed a long time, +Audrey?" + +"Yes,--oh yes!" + +"I have been busy. I must learn to be a planter, you know. But I have +thought of you, little maid." + +Audrey was glad of that, but there was yet a weight upon her heart. "After +that dream I lay awake all night, and it came to me how wrongly I had +done. Hugon is a wicked man,--an Indian. Oh, I should never have told you, +that first day in the garden, that he was waiting for me outside! For now, +because you took care of me and would not let him come near, he hates you. +He is so wicked that he might do you a harm." Her eyes widened, and the +hand that touched his was cold and trembling. "If ever hurt came to you +through me, I would drown myself in the river yonder. And then I +thought--lying awake last night--that perhaps I had been troublesome to +you, those days at Fair View, and that was why you had not come to see the +minister, as you had said you would." The dark eyes were pitifully eager; +the hand that went to her heart trembled more and more. "It is not as it +was in the mountains," she said. "I am older now, and safe, and--and +happy. And you have many things to do and to think of, and many +friends--gentlemen and beautiful ladies--to go to see. I thought--last +night--that when I saw you I would ask your pardon for not remembering +that the mountains were years ago; for troubling you with my matters, sir; +for making too free, forgetting my place"--Her voice sank; the shamed red +was in her cheeks, and her eyes, that she had bravely kept upon his face, +fell to the purple and gold blooms in her lap. + +Haward rose from the grass, and, with his back to the gray hole of the +willow, looked first at the veil of leaf and stem through which dimly +showed house, orchard, and blue sky, then down upon the girl at his feet. +Her head was bent and she sat very still, one listless, upturned hand upon +the grass beside her, the other lying as quietly among her flowers. + +"Audrey," he said at last, "you shame me in your thoughts of me. I am not +that knight without fear and without reproach for which you take me. Being +what I am, you must believe that you have not wearied me; that I think of +you and wish to see you. And Hugon, having possibly some care for his own +neck, will do me no harm; that is a very foolish notion, which you must +put from you. Now listen." He knelt beside her and took her hand in his. +"After a while, perhaps, when the weather is cooler, and I must open my +house and entertain after the fashion of the country; when the new +Governor comes in, and all this gay little world of Virginia flocks to +Williamsburgh; when I am a Councilor, and must go with the rest, and must +think of gold and place and people,--why, then, maybe, our paths will +again diverge, and only now and then will I catch the gleam of your skirt, +mountain maid, brown Audrey! But now in these midsummer days it is a +sleepy world, that cares not to go bustling up and down. I am alone in my +house; I visit not nor am visited, and the days hang heavy. Let us make +believe for a time that the mountains are all around us, that it was but +yesterday we traveled together. It is only a little way from Fair View to +the glebe house, from the glebe house to Fair View. I will see you often, +little maid, and you must dream no more as you dreamed last night." He +paused; his voice changed, and he went on as to himself: "It is a lonely +land, with few to see and none to care. I will drift with the summer, +making of it an idyl, beautiful,--yes, and innocent! When autumn comes I +will go to Westover." + +Of this speech Audrey caught only the last word. A wonderful smile, so +bright was it, and withal so sad, came into her face. "Westover!" she said +to herself. "That is where the princess lives." + +"We will let thought alone," continued Haward. "It suits not with this +charmed light, this glamour of the summer." He made a laughing gesture. +"Hey, presto! little maid, there go the years rolling back! I swear I see +the mountains through the willow leaves." + +"There was one like a wall shutting out the sun when he went down," +answered Audrey. "It was black and grim, and the light flared like a fire +behind it. And there was the one above which the moon rose. It was sharp, +pointing like a finger to heaven, and I liked it best. Do you remember how +large was the moon pushing up behind the pine-trees? We sat on the dark +hillside watching it, and you told me beautiful stories, while the moon +rose higher and higher and the mockingbirds began to sing." + +Haward remembered not, but he said that he did so. "The moon is full +again," he continued, "and last night I heard a mockingbird in the garden. +I will come in the barge to-morrow evening, and the negroes shall row us +up and down the river--you and me and Mistress Deborah--between the sunset +and the moonrise. Then it is lonely and sweet upon the water. The roses +can be smelled from the banks, and if you will speak to the mockingbirds +we shall have music, dryad Audrey, brown maid of the woods!" + +Audrey's laugh, was silver-clear and sweet, like that of a forest nymph +indeed. She was quite happy again, with all her half-formed doubts and +fears allayed. They had never been of him,--only of herself. The two sat +within the green and swaying fountain of the willow, and time went by on +eagle wings. Too soon came the slave to call them to the house; the time +within, though spent in the company of Darden and his wife, passed too +soon; too soon came the long shadows of the afternoon and Haward's call +for his horse. + +Audrey watched him ride away, and the love light was in her eyes. She did +not know that it was so. That night, in her bare little room, when the +candle was out, she kneeled by the window and looked at the stars. There +was one very fair and golden, an empress of the night. "That is the +princess," said Audrey, and smiled upon the peerless star. Far from that +light, scarce free from the murk of the horizon, shone a little star, +companionless in the night. "And that is I," said Audrey, and smiled upon +herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE BEND IN THE ROAD + + + "'Brave Derwentwater he is dead; + From his fair body they took the head: + But Mackintosh and his friends are fled, + And they'll set the hat upon another head'"-- + +chanted the Fair View storekeeper, and looked aside at Mistress Truelove +Taberer, spinning in the doorway of her father's house. + +Truelove answered naught, but her hands went to and fro, and her eyes were +for her work, not for MacLean, sitting on the doorstep at her feet. + + "'And whether they're gone beyond the sea'"-- + +The exile broke off and sighed heavily. Before the two a little yard, all +gay with hollyhocks and roses, sloped down to the wider of the two creeks +between which stretched the Fair View plantation. It was late of a holiday +afternoon. A storm was brewing, darkening all the water, and erecting +above the sweep of woods monstrous towers of gray cloud. There must have +been an echo, for MacLean's sigh came back to him faintly, as became an +echo. + +"Is there not peace here, 'beyond the sea'?" said Truelove softly. "Thine +must be a dreadful country, Angus MacLean!" + +The Highlander looked at her with kindling eyes. "Now had I the harp of +old Murdoch!" he said. + + "'Dear is that land to the east, + Alba of the lakes! + Oh, that I might dwell there forever'"-- + +He turned upon the doorstep, and taking between his fingers the hem of +Truelove's apron fell to plaiting it. "A woman named Deirdre, who lived +before the days of Gillean-na-Tuaidhe, made that song. She was not born in +that land, but it was dear to her because she dwelt there with the man +whom she loved. They went away, and the man was slain; and where he was +buried, there Deirdre cast herself down and died." His voice changed, and +all the melancholy of his race, deep, wild, and tender, looked from his +eyes. "If to-day you found yourself in that loved land, if this parched +grass were brown heather, if it stretched down to a tarn yonder, if that +gray cloud that hath all the seeming of a crag were crag indeed, and +eagles plied between the tarn and it,"--he touched her hand that lay idle +now upon her knee,--"if you came like Deirdre lightly through the heather, +and found me lying here, and found more red than should be in the tartan +of the MacLeans, what would you do, Truelove? What would you cry out, +Truelove? How heavy would be thy heart, Truelove?" + +Truelove sat in silence, with her eyes upon the sky above the dream crags. +"How heavy would grow thy heart, Truelove, Truelove?" whispered the +Highlander. + +Up the winding water, to the sedges and reeds below the little yard, +glided the boy Ephraim in his boat. The Quakeress started, and the color +flamed into her gentle face. She took up the distaff that she had dropped, +and fell to work again. "Thee must not speak to me so, Angus MacLean," she +said. "I trust that my heart is not hard. Thy death would grieve me, and +my father and my mother and Ephraim"-- + +"I care not for thy father and mother and Ephraim!" MacLean began +impetuously. "But you do right to chide me. Once I knew a green glen where +maidens were fain when paused at their doors Angus, son of Hector, son of +Lachlan, son of Murdoch, son of Angus that was named for Angus Mor, who +was great-grandson of Hector of the Battles, who was son of Lachlan +Lubanach! But here I am a landless man, with none to do me honor,--a +wretch bereft of liberty"-- + +"To me, to all Friends," said Truelove sweetly, halting a little in her +work, "thee has now what thee thyself calls freedom. For God meant not +that one of his creatures should say to another: 'Lo, here am I! Behold +thy God!' To me, and my father and mother and Ephraim, thee is no bond +servant of Marmaduke Haward. But thee is bond servant to thy own vain +songs; thy violent words; thy idle pride, that, vaunting the cruel deeds +of thy forefathers, calls meekness and submission the last worst evil; thy +shameless reverence for those thy fellow creatures, James Stewart and him +whom thee calls the chief of thy house,--forgetting that there is but one +house, and that God is its head; thy love of clamor and warfare; thy +hatred of the ways of peace"-- + +MacLean laughed. "I hate not all its ways. There is no hatred in my heart +for this house which is its altar, nor for the priestess of the altar. Ah! +now you frown, Truelove"-- + +Across the clouds ran so fierce a line of gold that Truelove, startled, +put her hand before her eyes. Another dart of lightning, a low roll of +thunder, a bending apart of the alder bushes on the far side of the creek; +then a woman's voice calling to the boy in the boat to come ferry her +over. + +"Who may that be?" asked Truelove wonderingly. + +It was only a little way to the bending alders. Ephraim rowed across the +glassy water, dark beneath the approach of the storm; the woman stepped +into the boat, and the tiny craft came lightly back to its haven beneath +the bank. + +"It is Darden's Audrey," said the storekeeper. + +Truelove shrank a little, and her eyes darkened. "Why should she come +here? I never knew her. It is true that we may not think evil, but--but"-- + +MacLean moved restlessly. "I have seen the girl but twice," he said. "Once +she was alone, once--It is my friend of whom I think. I know what they +say, but, by St. Kattan! I hold him a gentleman too high of mind, too +noble--There was a tale I used to hear when I was a boy. A long, long time +ago a girl lived in the shadow of the tower of Duart, and the chief looked +down from his walls and saw her. Afterwards they walked together by the +shore and through the glens, and he cried her health when he drank in his +hall, sitting amongst his tacksmen. Then what the men whispered the women +spoke aloud; and so, more quickly than the tarie is borne, word went to a +man of the MacDonalds who loved the Duart maiden. Not like a lover to his +tryst did he come. In the handle of his dirk the rich stones sparkled as +they rose and fell with the rise and fall of the maiden's white bosom. She +prayed to die in his arms; for it was not Duart that she loved, but him. +She died, and they snooded her hair and buried her. Duart went overseas; +the man of the MacDonalds killed himself. It was all wrought with threads +of gossamer,--idle fancy, shrugs, smiles, whispers, slurring speech,--and +it was long ago. But there is yet gossamer to be had for the gathering; it +gleams on every hand these summer mornings." + +By now Darden's Audrey had left the boat and was close upon them. MacLean +arose, and Truelove hastily pushed aside her wheel. "Is thee seeking +shelter from the storm?" she asked tremulously, and with her cheeks as +pink as a seashell. "Will thee sit here with us? The storm will not break +yet awhile." + +Audrey heeded her not, her eyes being for MacLean. She had been +running,--running more swiftly than for a thousand May Day guineas. Even +now, though her breath came short, every line of her slender figure was +tense, and she was ready to be off like an arrow. "You are Mr. Haward's +friend?" she cried. "I have heard him say that you were so--call you a +brave gentleman"-- + +MacLean's dark face flushed. "Yes, we are friends,--I thank God for it. +What have you to do with that, my lass?" + +"I also am his friend," said Audrey, coming nearer. Her hands were +clasped, her bosom heaving. "Listen! To-day I was sent on an errand to a +house far up this creek. Coming back, I took the short way home through +the woods because of the storm. It led me past the schoolhouse down by the +big swamp. I thought that no one was there, and I went and sat down upon +the steps to rest a moment. The door behind me was partly open. Then I +heard two voices: the schoolmaster and Jean Hugon were inside--close to +me--talking. I would have run away, but I heard Mr. Haward's name." Her +hand went to her heart, and she drew a sobbing breath. + +"Well!" cried MacLean sharply. + +"Mr. Haward went yesterday to Williamsburgh--alone--without Juba. He rides +back--alone--to Fair View late this afternoon--he is riding now. You know +the sharp bend in the road, with the steep bank above and the pond below?" + +"Ay, where the road nears the river. Well?" + +"I heard all that Hugon and the schoolmaster said. I hid behind a fallen +tree and watched them leave the schoolhouse; then I followed them, making +no noise, back to the creek, where Hugon had a boat. They crossed the +creek, and fastened the boat on this side. I could follow them no farther; +the woods hid them; but they have gone downstream to that bend in the +road. Hugon had his hunting-knife and pistols; the schoolmaster carried a +coil of rope." She flung back her head, and her hands went to her throat +as though she were stifling. "The turn in the road is very sharp. Just +past the bend they will stretch the rope from side to side, fastening it +to two trees. He will be hurrying home before the bursting of the +storm--he will be riding the planter's pace"-- + +"Man and horse will come crashing down!" cried the storekeeper, with a +great oath "And then"-- + +"Hugon's knife, so there will be no noise.... They think he has gold upon +him: that is for the schoolmaster.... Hugon is an Indian, and he will hide +their trail. Men will think that some outlying slave was in the woods, and +set upon and killed him." + +Her voice broke; then went on, gathering strength: "It was so late, and I +knew that he would ride fast because of the storm. I remembered this +house, and thought that, if I called, some one might come and ferry me +over the creek. Now I will run through the woods to the road, for I must +reach it before he passes on his way to where they wait." She turned her +face toward the pine wood beyond the house. + +"Ay, that is best!" agreed the storekeeper. "Warned, he can take the long +way home, and Hugon and this other may be dealt with at his leisure. Come, +my girl; there's no time to lose." + +They left behind them the creek, the blooming dooryard, the small white +house, and the gentle Quakeress. The woods received them, and they came +into a world of livid greens and grays dashed here and there with +ebony,--a world that, expectant of the storm, had caught and was holding +its breath. Save for the noise of their feet upon dry leaves that rustled +like paper, the wood was soundless. The light that lay within it, fallen +from skies of iron, was wild and sinister; there was no air, and the heat +wrapped them like a mantle. So motionless were all things, so fixed in +quietude each branch and bough, each leaf or twig or slender needle of the +pine, that they seemed to be fleeing through a wood of stone, jade and +malachite, emerald and agate. + +They hurried on, not wasting breath in speech. Now and again MacLean +glanced aside at the girl, who kept beside him, moving as lightly as +presently would move the leaves when the wind arose. He remembered certain +scurrilous words spoken in the store a week agone by a knot of purchasers, +but when he looked at her face he thought of the Highland maiden whose +story he had told. As for Audrey, she saw not the woods that she loved, +heard not the leaves beneath her feet, knew not if the light were gold or +gray. She saw only a horse and rider riding from Williamsburgh, heard only +the rapid hoofbeats. All there was of her was one dumb prayer for the +rider's safety. Her memory told her that it was no great distance to the +road, but her heart cried out that it was so far away,--so far away! When +the wood thinned, and they saw before them the dusty strip, pallid and +lonely beneath the storm clouds, her heart leaped within her; then grew +sick for fear that he had gone by. When they stood, ankle-deep in the +dust, she looked first toward the north, and then to the south. Nothing +moved; all was barren, hushed, and lonely. + +"How can we know? How can we know?" she cried, and wrung her hands. + +MacLean's keen eyes were busily searching for any sign that a horseman had +lately passed that way. At a little distance above them a shallow stream +of some width flowed across the way, and to this the Highlander hastened, +looked with attention at the road-bed where it emerged from the water, +then came back to Audrey with a satisfied air. "There are no hoof-prints," +he said. "No marks upon the dust. None can have passed for some hours." + +A rotted log, streaked with velvet moss and blotched with fan-shaped, +orange-colored fungi, lay by the wayside, and the two sat down upon it to +wait for the coming horseman. Overhead the thunder was rolling, but there +was as yet no breath of wind, no splash of raindrops. Opposite them rose a +gigantic pine, towering above the forest, red-brown trunk and ultimate +cone of deep green foliage alike outlined against the dead gloom of the +sky. Audrey shook back her heavy hair and raised her face to the roof of +the world; her hands were clasped upon her knee; her bare feet, slim and +brown, rested on a carpet of moss; she was as still as the forest, of +which, to the Highlander, she suddenly seemed a part. When they had kept +silence for what seemed a long time, he spoke to her with some hesitation: +"You have known Mr. Haward but a short while; the months are very few +since he came from England." + +The name brought Audrey down to earth again. "Did you not know?" she asked +wonderingly. "You also are his friend,--you see him often. I thought that +at times he would have spoken of me." For a moment her face was troubled, +though only for a moment. "But I know why he did not so," she said softly +to herself. "He is not one to speak of his good deeds." She turned toward +MacLean, who was attentively watching her, "But I may speak of them," she +said, with pride. "I have known Mr. Haward for years and years. He saved +my life; he brought me here from the Indian country; he was, he is, so +kind to me!" + +Since the afternoon beneath the willow-tree, Haward, while encouraging her +to speak of her long past, her sylvan childhood, her dream memories, had +somewhat sternly checked every expression of gratitude for the part which +he himself had played or was playing, in the drama of her life. Walking in +the minister's orchard, sitting in the garden or upon the terrace of Fair +View house, drifting on the sunset river, he waved that aside, and went on +to teach her another lesson. The teaching was exquisite; but when the +lesson for the day was over, and he was alone, he sat with one whom he +despised. The learning was exquisite; it was the sweetest song, but she +knew not its name, and the words were in a strange tongue. She was +Audrey, that she knew; and he,--he was the plumed knight, who, for the +lack of a better listener, told her gracious tales of love, showed her how +warm and beautiful was this world that she sometimes thought so sad, sang +to her sweet lines that poets had made. Over and through all she thought +she read the name of the princess. She had heard him say that with the +breaking of the heat he should go to Westover, and one day, early in +summer, he had shown her the miniature of Evelyn Byrd. Because she loved +him blindly, and because he was wise in his generation, her trust in him +was steadfast as her native hills, large as her faith in God. Now it was +sweet beneath her tongue to be able to tell one that was his friend how +worthy of all friendship--nay, all reverence--he was. She spoke simply, +but with that strange power of expression which nature had given her. +Gestures with her hands, quick changes in the tone of her voice, a +countenance that gave ample utterance to the moment's thought,--as one +morning in the Fair View library she had brought into being that long dead +Elosa whose lines she spoke, so now her auditor of to-day thought that he +saw the things of which she told. + +She had risen, and was standing in the wild light, against the background +of the forest that was breathless, as if it too listened, "And so he +brought me safely to this land," she said. "And so he left me here for ten +years, safe and happy, he thought. He has told me that all that while he +thought of me as safe and happy. That I was not so,--why, that was not his +fault! When he came back I was both. I have never seen the sunshine so +bright or the woods so fair as they have been this summer. The people +with whom I live are always kind to me now,--that is his doing. And ah! it +is because he would not let Hugon scare or harm me that that wicked Indian +waits for him now beyond the bend in the road." At the thought of Hugon +she shuddered, and her eyes began to widen. "Have we not been here a long +time?" she cried. "Are you sure? Oh, God! perhaps he has passed!" + +"No, no," answered MacLean, with his hand upon her arm. "There is no sign +that he has done so. It is not late; it is that heavy cloud above our +heads that has so darkened the air. Perhaps he has not left Williamsburgh +at all: perhaps, the storm threatening, he waits until to-morrow." + +From the cloud above came a blinding light and a great crash of +thunder,--the one so intense, the other so tremendous, that for a minute +the two stood as if stunned. Then, "The tree!" cried Audrey. The great +pine, blasted and afire, uprooted itself and fell from them like a reed +that the wind has snapped. The thunder crash, and the din with which the +tree met its fellows of the forest, bore them down, and finally struck the +earth from which it came, seemed an alarum to waken all nature from its +sleep. The thunder became incessant, and the wind suddenly arising the +forest stretched itself and began to speak with no uncertain voice. +MacLean took his seat again upon the log, but Audrey slipped into the +road, and stood in the whirling dust, her arm raised above her eyes, +looking for the horseman whose approach she could not hope to hear through +the clamor of the storm. The wind lifted her long hair, and the rising +dust half obscured her form, bent against the blast. On the lonesome +road, in the partial light, she had the seeming of an apparition, a +creature tossed like a ball from the surging forest. She had made herself +a world, and she had become its product. In all her ways, to the day of +her death, there was about her a touch of mirage, illusion, fantasy. The +Highlander, imaginative like all his race, and a believer in things not of +heaven nor of earth, thought of spirits of the glen and the shore. + +There was no rain as yet; only the hurly-burly of the forest, the white +dust cloud, and the wild commotion overhead. Audrey turned to MacLean, +watching her in silence. "He is coming!" she cried. "There is some one +with him. Now, now he is safe!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +HUGON SPEAKS HIS MIND + + +MacLean sprang up from the log, and, joining her, saw indeed two horsemen +galloping toward them, their heads bent and riding cloaks raised to shield +them from the whirlwind of dust, dead leaves, and broken twigs. He knew +Haward's powerful steed Mirza, but the other horse was strange. + +The two rode fast. A moment, and they were splashing through the stream; +another, and the horses, startled by Audrey's cry and waving arms and by +the sudden and violent check on the part of their riders, were rearing and +curveting across the road. "What the devil!" cried one of the horsemen. +"Imp or sprite, or whatever you are, look out! Haward, your horse will +trample her!" + +But Audrey, with her hand on Mirza's bridle, had no fears. Haward stared +at her in amazement. "Child, what are you doing here? Angus, you too!" as +the storekeeper advanced. "What rendezvous is this? Mirza, be quiet!" + +Audrey left her warning to be spoken by MacLean. She was at peace, her +head against Mirza's neck, her eyes upon Haward's face, clear in the +flashing lightning. That gentleman heard the story with his usual +calmness; his companion first swore, and then laughed. + +[Illustration: AUDREY LEFT HER WARNING TO BE SPOKEN BY MACLEAN] + +"Here's a Canterbury tale!" he cried. "Egad, Haward, are we to take this +skipping rope, vault it as though we were courtiers of Lilliput? Neither +of us is armed. I conceive that the longest way around will prove our +shortest way home." + +"My dear Colonel, I want to speak with these two gentlemen." + +"But at your leisure, my friend, at your leisure, and not in dying tones! +I like not what I hear of Monsieur Jean Hugon's pistols. Flank an ambush; +don't ride into it open-eyed." + +"Colonel Byrd is right," said the storekeeper earnestly. "Ride back, the +two of you, and take the bridle path that will carry you to Fair View by +way of the upper bridge. In the mean time, I will run through the woods to +Mr. Taberer's house, cross there, hurry to the quarters, rouse the +overseer, and with a man or two we will recross the creek by the lower +bridge, and coming upon these rogues unawares, give them a taste of their +own medicine! We'll hale them to the great house; you shall have speech of +them in your own hall." + +Neither of the riders being able to suggest a better plan, the +storekeeper, with a wave of his hand, plunged into the forest, and was +soon lost to view amidst its serried trunks and waving branches. Haward +stooped from his saddle; Audrey set her bare foot upon his booted one, and +he swung her up behind him. "Put thine arm around me, child," he told her. +"We will ride swiftly through the storm. Now, Colonel, to turn our backs +upon the enemy!" + +The lightning was about them, and they raced to the booming of the +thunder. Heavy raindrops began to fall, and the wind was a power to drive +the riders on. Its voice shrilled above the diapason of the thunder; the +forest swung to its long cry. When the horses turned from the wide into +the narrow road, they could no longer go abreast. Mirza took the lead, and +the bay fell a length behind. The branches now hid the sky; between the +flashes there was Stygian gloom, but when the lightning came it showed far +aisles of the forest. There was the smell of rain upon dusty earth, there +was the wine of coolness after heat, there was the sense of being borne +upon the wind, there was the leaping of life within the veins to meet the +awakened life without. Audrey closed her eyes, and wished to ride thus +forever. Haward, too, traveling fast through mist and rain a road whose +end was hidden, facing the wet wind, hearing the voices of earth and sky, +felt his spirit mount with the mounting voices. So to ride with Love to +doom! On, and on, and on! Left behind the sophist, the apologist, the +lover of the world with his tinsel that was not gold, his pebbles that +were not gems! Only the man thundering on,--the man and his mate that was +meant for him since time began! He raised his face to the strife above, he +drew his breath, his hand closed over the hand of the woman riding with +him. At the touch a thrill ran through them both; had the lightning with a +sword of flame cut the world from beneath their feet, they had passed on, +immortal in their happiness. But the bolts struck aimlessly, and the +moment fled. Haward was Haward again; he recognized his old acquaintance +with a half-humorous, half-disdainful smile. The road was no longer a road +that gleamed athwart all time and space; the wind had lost its trumpet +tone; Love spoke not in the thunder, nor seemed so high a thing as the lit +heaven. Audrey's hand was yet within his clasp; but it was flesh and +blood that he touched, not spirit, and he was glad that it was so. For +her, her cheek burned, and she hid her eyes. She had looked unawares, as +by the lightning glare, into a world of which she had not dreamed. Its +portals had shut; she rode on in the twilight again, and she could not +clearly remember what she had seen. But she was sure that the air of that +country was sweet, she was faint with its beauty, her heart beat with +violence to its far echoes. Moreover, she was dimly aware that in the +moment when she had looked there had been a baptism. She had thought of +herself as a child, as a girl; now and for evermore she was a woman. + +They left the forest behind, and came to open fields where the tobacco had +been beaten to earth. The trees now stood singly or in shivering copses. +Above, the heavens were bare to their gaze, and the lightning gave +glimpses of pale castles overhanging steel-gray, fathomless abysses. The +road widened, and the bay was pushed by its rider to Mirza's side. Fields +of corn where the long blades wildly clashed, a wood of dripping cedars, a +patch of Oronoko, tobacco house in midst, rising ground and a vision of +the river, then a swift descent to the lower creek, and the bridge across +which lay the road that ran to the minister's house. Audrey spoke +earnestly to the master of Fair View, and after a moment's hesitation he +drew rein. "We will not cross, Colonel," he declared. "My preserver will +have it that she has troubled us long enough; and indeed it is no great +distance to the glebe house, and the rain has stopped. Have down with +thee, then, obstinate one!" + +Audrey slipped to the earth, and pushed back her hair from her eyes. +Colonel Byrd observed her curiously. "Faith," he exclaimed, "'tis the +Atalanta of last May Day! Well, child, I believe thou hast saved our +lives. Come, here are three gold baubles that may pass for Hippomenes' +apples!" + +Audrey put her hands behind her. "I want no money, sir. What I did was a +gift; it has no price." She was only Darden's Audrey, but she spoke as +proudly as a princess might have spoken. Haward smiled to hear her; and +seeing the smile, she was comforted. "For he understands," she said to +herself. "He would never hurt me so." It did not wound her that he said no +word, but only lifted his hat, when she curtsied to them both. There was +to-morrow, and he would praise her then for her quickness of wit and her +courage in following Hugon, whom she feared so much. + +The riders watched her cross the bridge and turn into the road that led to +the glebe house, then kept their own road in silence until it brought them +to the doors of Fair View. + +It was an hour later, and drawing toward dusk, when the Colonel, having +changed his wet riding clothes for a suit of his friend's, came down the +stairs and entered the Fair View drawing-room. Haward, in green, with rich +lace at throat and wrist, was there before him, walking up and down in the +cheerful light of a fire kindled against the dampness. "No sign of our +men," he said, as the other entered. "Come to the fire. Faith, Colonel, my +russet and gold becomes you mightily! Juba took you the aqua vit?" + +"Ay, in one of your great silver goblets, with a forest of mint atop. Ha, +this is comfort!" He sank into an armchair, stretched his legs before the +blaze, and began to look about him. "I have ever said, Haward, that of +all the gentlemen of my acquaintance you have the most exact taste. I told +Bubb Dodington as much, last year, at Eastbury. Damask, mirrors, +paintings, china, cabinets,--all chaste and quiet, extremely elegant, but +without ostentation! It hath an air, too. I would swear a woman had the +placing of yonder painted jars!" + +"You are right," said Haward, smiling. "The wife of the minister of this +parish was good enough to come to my assistance." + +"Ah!" said the Colonel dryly. "Did Atalanta come as well? She is his +reverence's servant, is she not?" + +"No," answered Haward shortly to the last question, and, leaning across, +stirred the fire. + +The light caused to sparkle a jeweled pin worn in the lace of his ruffles, +and the toy caught the Colonel's eye. "One of Spotswood's golden +horseshoes!" he exclaimed. "I had them wrought for him in London. Had they +been so many stars and garters, he could have made no greater pother! 'Tis +ten years since I saw one." + +Haward detached the horseshoe-shaped bauble from the lace, and laid it on +the other's palm. The master of Westover regarded it curiously, and read +aloud the motto engraved upon its back: "'Sic Juvat Transcendere Montes.' +A barren exploit! But some day I too shall please myself and cross these +sun-kissing hills. And so the maid with the eyes is not his reverence's +servant? What is she?" + +Haward took the golden horseshoe in his own hand, and fell to studying it +in the firelight. "I wore this to-night," he said at length, with +deliberation, "in order that it might bring to your mind that sprightly +ultramontane expedition in which, my dear Colonel, had you not been in +England, you had undoubtedly borne a part. You have asked me a question; I +will answer it with a story, and so the time may pass more rapidly until +the arrival of Mr. MacLean with our friends who set traps." He turned the +mimic horseshoe this way and that, watching the small gems, that simulated +nails, flash in the red light. "Some days to the west of Germanna," he +said, "when about us were the lesser mountains, and before us those that +propped the sky, we came one sunny noon upon a valley, a little valley, +very peaceful below the heights. A stream shone through it, and there were +noble trees, and beside the stream the cabin of a frontiersman." + +On went the story. The fire crackled, reflecting itself in mirrors and +polished wood and many small window panes. Outside, the rain had ceased, +but the wind and the river murmured loudly, and the shadows of the night +were gathering. When the narrative was ended, he who had spoken and he who +had listened sat staring at the fire. "A pretty story!" said the Colonel +at last. "Dick Steele should have had it; 'twould have looked vastly well +over against his Inkle and Yarico. There the maid the savior, here the +man; there perfidy, here plain honesty; there for the woman a fate most +tragical, here"-- + +"Here?" said Haward, as the other paused. + +The master of Westover took out his snuffbox. "And here the continued +kindness of a young and handsome preserver," he said suavely, and extended +the box to his host. + +"You are mistaken," said Haward. He rose, and stood leaning against the +mantel, his eyes upon the older man's somewhat coldly smiling +countenance. "She is as innocent, as high of soul, and as pure of heart +as--as Evelyn." + +The Colonel clicked to the lid of his box. "You will be so good as to +leave my daughter's name out of the conversation." + +"As you please," Haward answered, with hauteur. + +Another silence, broken by the guest. "Why did you hang that kit-kat of +yourself behind the door, Haward?" he asked amiably. "'Tis too fine a +piece to be lost in shadow. I would advise a change with yonder +shepherdess." + +"I do not know why," said Haward restlessly. "A whim. Perhaps by nature I +court shadows and dark corners." + +"That is not so," Byrd replied quietly. He had turned in his chair, the +better to observe the distant portrait that was now lightened, now +darkened, as the flames rose and fell. "A speaking likeness," he went on, +glancing from it to the original and back again. "I ever thought it one of +Kneller's best. The portrait of a gentleman. Only--you have noticed, I +dare say, how in the firelight familiar objects change aspect many +times?--only just now it seemed to me that it lost that distinction"-- + +"Well?" said Haward, as he paused. + +The Colonel went on slowly: "Lost that distinction, and became the +portrait of"-- + +"Well? Of whom?" asked Haward, and, with his eyes shaded by his hand, +gazed not at the portrait, but at the connoisseur in gold and russet. + +"Of a dirty tradesman," said the master of Westover lightly. "In a word, +of an own brother to Mr. Thomas Inkle." + +A dead silence; then Haward spoke calmly: "I will not take offense, +Colonel Byrd. Perhaps I should not take it even were it not as my guest +and in my drawing-room that you have so spoken. We will, if you please, +consign my portrait to the obscurity from which it has been dragged. In +good time here comes Juba to light the candles and set the shadows +fleeing." + +Leaving the fire he moved to a window, and stood looking out upon the +windy twilight. From the back of the house came a sound of voices and of +footsteps. The Colonel put up his snuffbox and brushed a grain from his +ruffles. "Enter two murderers!" he said briskly. "Will you have them here, +Haward, or shall we go into the hall?" + +"Light all the candles, Juba," ordered the master. "Here, I think, +Colonel, where the stage will set them off. Juba, go ask Mr. MacLean and +Saunderson to bring their prisoners here." + +As he spoke, he turned from the contemplation of the night without to the +brightly lit room. "This is a murderous fellow, this Hugon," he said, as +he took his seat in a great chair drawn before a table. "I have heard +Colonel Byrd argue in favor of imitating John Rolfe's early experiment, +and marrying the white man to the heathen. We are about to behold the +result of such an union." + +"I would not have the practice universal," said the Colonel coolly, "but +'twould go far toward remedying loss of scalps in this world, and of +infidel souls hereafter. Your sprightly lover is a most prevailing +missionary. But here is our Huguenot-Monacan." + +MacLean, very wet and muddy, with one hand wrapped in a blood-stained rag, +came in first. "We found them hidden in the bushes at the turn of the +road," he said hastily. "The schoolmaster was more peaceably inclined than +any Quaker, but Hugon fought like the wolf that he is. Can't you hang him +out of hand, Haward? Give me a land where the chief does justice while the +king looks the other way!" He turned and beckoned. "Bring them in, +Saunderson." + +There was no discomposure in the schoolmaster's dress, and as little in +his face or manner. He bowed to the two gentlemen, then shambled across to +the fire, and as best he could held out his bound hands to the grateful +blaze. "May I ask, sir," he said, in his lifeless voice, "why it is that +this youth and I, resting in all peace and quietness beside a public road, +should be set upon by your servants, overpowered, bound, and haled to your +house as to a judgment bar?" + +Haward, to whom this speech was addressed, gave it no attention. His gaze +was upon Hugon, who in his turn glared at him alone. Haward had a subtle +power of forcing and fixing the attention of a company; in crowded rooms, +without undue utterance or moving from his place, he was apt to achieve +the centre of the stage, the head of the table. Now, the half-breed, by +very virtue of the passion which, false to his Indian blood, shook him +like a leaf, of a rage which overmastered and transformed, reached at a +bound the Englishman's plane of distinction. His great wig, of a fashion +years gone by, was pulled grotesquely aside, showing the high forehead and +shaven crown beneath; his laced coat and tawdry waistcoat and ruffled +shirt were torn and foul with mud and mould, but the man himself made to +be forgotten the absurdity of his trappings. Gone, for him, were his +captors, his accomplice, the spectator in gold and russet; to Haward, +also, sitting very cold, very quiet, with narrowed eyes, they were gone. +He was angered, and in the mood to give rein after his own fashion to that +anger. MacLean and the master of Westover, the overseer and the +schoolmaster, were forgotten, and he and Hugon met alone as they might +have met in the forest. Between them, and without a spoken word, the two +made this fact to be recognized by the other occupants of the +drawing-room. Colonel Byrd, who had been standing with his hand upon the +table, moved backward until he joined MacLean beside the closed door: +Saunderson drew near to the schoolmaster: and the centre of the room was +left to the would-be murderer and the victim that had escaped him. + +"Monsieur le Monacan," said Haward. + +Hugon snarled like an angry wolf, and strained at the rope which bound his +arms. + +Haward went on evenly: "Your tribe has smoked the peace pipe with the +white man. I was not told it by singing birds, but by the great white +father at Williamsburgh. They buried the hatchet very deep; the dead +leaves of many moons of Cohonks lie thick upon the place where they buried +it. Why have you made a warpath, treading it alone of your color?" + +"Diable!" cried Hugon. "Pig of an Englishman! I will kill you for"-- + +"For an handful of blue beads," said Haward, with a cold smile. "And I, +dog of an Indian! I will send a Nottoway to teach the Monacans how to lay +a snare and hide a trail." + +The trader, gasping with passion, leaned across the table until his eyes +were within a foot of Haward's unmoved face. "Who showed you the trail and +told you of the snare?" he whispered. "Tell me that, you +Englishman,--tell me that!" + +"A storm bird," said Haward calmly. "Okee is perhaps angry with his +Monacans, and sent it." + +"Was it Audrey?" + +Haward laughed. "No, it was not Audrey. And so, Monacan, you have yourself +fallen into the pit which you digged." + +From the fireplace came the schoolmaster's slow voice: "Dear sir, can you +show the pit? Why should this youth desire to harm you? Where is the storm +bird? Can you whistle it before a justice of the peace or into a court +room?" + +If Haward heard, it did not appear. He was leaning back in his chair, his +eyes fixed upon the trader's twitching face in a cold and smiling regard. +"Well, Monacan?" he demanded. + +The half-breed straightened himself, and with a mighty effort strove in +vain for a composure that should match the other's cold self-command,--a +command which taunted and stung now at this point, now at that. "I am a +Frenchman!" he cried, in a voice that broke with passion. "I am of the +noblesse of the land of France, which is a country that is much grander +than Virginia! Old Pierre at Monacan-Town told me these things. My father +changed his name when he came across the sea, so I bear not the _de_ which +is a sign of a great man. Listen, you Englishman! I trade, I prosper, I +buy me land, I begin to build me a house. There is a girl that I see every +hour, every minute, while I am building it. She says she loves me not, but +nevertheless I shall wed her. Now I see her in this room, now in that; she +comes down the stair, she smiles at the window, she stands on the +doorstep to welcome me when I come home from my hunting and trading in +the woods so far away. I bring her fine skins of the otter, the beaver, +and the fawn; beadwork also from the villages and bracelets of copper and +pearl. The flowers bloom around her, and my heart sings to see her upon my +doorstep.... The flowers are dead, and you have stolen the girl away.... +There was a stream, and the sun shone upon it, and you and she were in a +boat. I walked alone upon the bank, and in my heart I left building my +house and fell to other work. You laughed; one day you will laugh no more. +That was many suns ago. I have watched"-- + +Foam was upon his lips, and he strained without ceasing at his bonds. +Already pulled far awry, his great peruke, a cataract of hair streaming +over his shoulders, shading and softening the swarthy features between its +curled waves, now slipped from his head and fell to the floor. The change +which its absence wrought was startling. Of the man the moiety that was +white disappeared. The shaven head, its poise, its features, were Indian; +the soul was Indian, and looked from Indian eyes. Suddenly, for the last +transforming touch, came a torrent of words in a strange tongue, the +tongue of his mother. Of what he was speaking, what he was threatening, no +one of them could tell; he was a savage giving voice to madness and hate. + +Haward pushed back his chair from the table, and, rising, walked across +the room to the window. Hugon followed him, straining at the rope about +his arms and speaking thickly. His eyes were glaring, his teeth bared. +When he was so close that the Virginian could feel his hot breath, the +latter turned, and uttering an oath of disgust struck the back of his +hand across his lips. With the cry of an animal, Hugon, bound as he was, +threw himself bodily upon his foe, who in his turn flung the trader from +him with a violence that sent him reeling against the wall. Here +Saunderson, a man of powerful build, seized him by the shoulders, holding +him fast; MacLean, too, hurriedly crossed from the door. There was no +need, for the half-breed's frenzy was spent. He stood with glittering eyes +following Haward's every motion, but quite silent, his frame rigid in the +overseer's grasp. + +Colonel Byrd went up to Haward and spoke in a low voice: "Best send them +at once to Williamsburgh." + +Haward shook his head. "I cannot," he said, with a gesture of impatience. +"There is no proof." + +"No proof!" exclaimed his guest sharply. "You mean"-- + +The other met his stare of surprise with an imperturbable countenance. +"What I say," he answered quietly. "My servants find two men lurking +beside a road that I am traveling. Being somewhat over-zealous, they take +them up upon suspicion of meaning mischief and bring them before me. It is +all guesswork why they were at the turn of the road, and what they wanted +there. There is no proof, no witness"-- + +"I see that there is no witness that you care to call," said the Colonel +coldly. + +Haward waved his hand. "There is no witness," he said, without change of +tone. "And therefore, Colonel, I am about to dismiss the case." + +With a slight bow to his guest he left the window, and advanced to the +group in the centre of the room. "Saunderson," he said abruptly, "take +these two men to the quarter and cut their bonds. Give them a start of +fifty yards, then loose the dogs and hunt them from the plantation. You +have men outside to help you? Very well; go! Mr. MacLean, will you see +this chase fairly started?" + +The Highlander, who had become very thoughtful of aspect since entering +the room, and who had not shared Saunderson's start of surprise at the +master's latest orders, nodded assent. Haward stood for a moment gazing +steadily at Hugon, but with no notice to bestow upon the bowing +schoolmaster; then walked over to the harpsichord, and, sitting down, +began to play an old tune, soft and slow, with pauses between the notes. +When he came to the final chord he looked over his shoulder at the +Colonel, standing before the mantel, with his eyes upon the fire. "So they +have gone," he said. "Good riddance! A pretty brace of villains!" + +"I should be loath to have Monsieur Jean Hugon for my enemy," said the +Colonel gravely. + +Haward laughed. "I was told at Williamsburgh that a party of traders go to +the Southern Indians to-morrow, and he with them. Perhaps a month or two +of the woods will work a cure." + +He fell to playing again, a quiet, plaintive air. When it was ended, he +rose and went over to the fire to keep his guest company; but finding him +in a mood for silence, presently fell silent himself, and took to viewing +structures of his own building in the red hollows between the logs. This +mutual taciturnity lasted until the announcement of supper, and was +relapsed into at intervals during the meal; but when they had returned to +the drawing-room the two talked until it was late, and the fire had sunken +to ash and embers. Before they parted for the night it was agreed that +the master of Westover should remain with the master of Fair View for a +day or so, at the end of which time the latter gentleman would accompany +the former to Westover for a visit of indefinite length. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +AUDREY AND EVELYN + + +Hugon went a-trading to the Southern Indians, but had lately returned to +his lair at the crossroads ordinary, when, upon a sunny September morning, +Audrey and Mistress Deborah, mounted upon the sorriest of Darden's sorry +steeds, turned from Duke of Gloucester into Palace Street. They had parted +with the minister before his favorite ordinary, and were on their way to +the house where they themselves were to lodge during the three days of +town life which Darden had vouchsafed to offer them. + +For a month or more Virginia had been wearing black ribbons for the King, +who died in June, but in the last day or so there had been a reversion to +bright colors. This cheerful change had been wrought by the arrival in the +York of the Fortune of Bristol, with the new governor on board. His +Excellency had landed at Yorktown, and, after suitable entertainment at +the hands of its citizens, had proceeded under escort to Williamsburgh. +The entry into the town was triumphal, and when, at the doorway of his +Palace, the Governor turned, and addressed a pleasing oration to the +people whom he was to rule in the name of the King and my Lord of Orkney, +enthusiasm reached its height. At night the town was illuminated, and +well-nigh all its ladies and gentlemen visited the Palace, in order to +pay their duty to its latest occupant. It was a pleasure-loving people, +and the arrival of a governor an occasion of which the most must be made. +Gentlemen of consideration had come in from every county, bringing with +them wives and daughters. In the mild, sunshiny weather the crowded town +overflowed into square and street and garden. Everywhere were bustle and +gayety,--gayety none the less for the presence of thirty or more ministers +of the Established Church. For Mr. Commissary Blair had convoked a meeting +of the clergy for the consideration of evils affecting that body,--not, +alas! from without alone. The Governor, arriving so opportunely, must, +too, be addressed upon the usual subjects of presentation, induction, and +all-powerful vestries. It was fitting, also, that the college of William +and Mary should have its say upon the occasion, and the brightest scholar +thereof was even now closeted with the Latin master. That the copy of +verses giving the welcome of so many future planters, Burgesses, and +members of Council would be choice in thought and elegant in expression, +there could be no reasonable doubt. The Council was to give an +entertainment at the Capitol; one day had been set aside for a muster of +militia in the meadow beyond the college, another for a great horse-race; +many small parties were arranged; and last, but not least, on the night of +the day following Darden's appearance in town, his Excellency was to give +a ball at the Palace. Add to all this that two notorious pirates were +standing their trial before a court-martial, with every prospect of being +hanged within the se'ennight; that a deputation of Nottoways and +Meherrins, having business with the white fathers in Williamsburgh, were +to be persuaded to dance their wildest, whoop their loudest, around a +bonfire built in the market square; that at the playhouse Cato was to be +given with extraordinary magnificence, and one may readily see that there +might have been found, in this sunny September week, places less +entertaining than Williamsburgh. + +Darden's old white horse, with its double load, plodded along the street +that led to the toy Palace of this toy capital. The Palace, of course, was +not its riders' destination; instead, when they had crossed Nicholson +Street, they drew up before a particularly small white house, so hidden +away behind lilac bushes and trellised grapevines that it gave but here +and there a pale hint of its existence. It was planted in the shadow of a +larger building, and a path led around it to what seemed a pleasant, +shady, and extensive garden. + +Mistress Deborah gave a sigh of satisfaction. "Seven years come Martinmas +since I last stayed overnight with Mary Stagg! And we were born in the +same village, and at Bath what mighty friends we were! She was playing +Dorinda,--that's in 'The Beaux' Stratagem,' Audrey,--and her dress was +just an old striped Persian, vastly unbecoming. Her Ladyship's pink +alamode, that Major D---- spilt a dish of chocolate over, she gave to me +for carrying a note; and I gave it to Mary (she was Mary Baker then),--for +I looked hideous in pink,--and she was that grateful, as well she might +be! Mary, Mary!" + +A slender woman, with red-brown hair and faded cheeks, came running from +the house to the gate. "At last, my dear Deborah! I vow I had given you +up! Says I to Mirabell an hour ago,--you know that is my name for Charles, +for 'twas when he played Mirabell to my Millamant that we fell in +love,--'Well,' says I, 'I'll lay a gold-furbelowed scarf to a yard of +oznaburg that Mr. Darden, riding home through the night, and in liquor, +perhaps, has fallen and broken his neck, and Deborah can't come.' And says +Mirabell--But la, my dear, there you stand in your safeguard, and I'm +keeping the gate shut on you! Come in. Come in, Audrey. Why, you've grown +to be a woman! You were just a brown slip of a thing, that Lady Day, two +years ago, that I spent with Deborah. Come in the both of you. There are +cakes and a bottle of Madeira." + +Audrey fastened the horse against the time that Darden should remember to +send for it, and then followed the ex-waiting-woman and the former queen +of a company of strollers up a grassy path and through a little green door +into a pleasant room, where grape leaves wreathed the windows and cast +their shadows upon a sanded floor. At one end of the room stood a great, +rudely built cabinet, and before it a long table, strewn with an orderly +litter of such slender articles of apparel as silk and tissue scarfs, +gauze hoods, breast knots, silk stockings, and embroidered gloves. +Mistress Deborah must needs run and examine these at once, and Mistress +Mary Stagg, wife of the lessee, manager, and principal actor of the +Williamsburgh theatre, looked complacently over her shoulder. The +minister's wife sighed again, this time with envy. + +"What with the theatre, and the bowling green, and tea in your +summer-house, and dancing lessons, and the sale of these fine things, you +and Charles must turn a pretty penny! The luck that some folk have! _You_ +were always fortunate, Mary." + +Mistress Stagg did not deny the imputation. But she was a kindly soul, +who had not forgotten the gift of my Lady Squander's pink alamode. The +chocolate stain had not been so very large. + +"I've laid by a pretty piece of sarcenet of which to make you a capuchin," +she said promptly. "Now, here's the wine. Shan't we go into the garden, +and sip it there? Peggy," to the black girl holding a salver, "put the +cake and wine on the table in the arbor; then sit here by the window, and +call me if any come. My dear Deborah, I doubt if I have so much as a +ribbon left by the end of the week. The town is that gay! I says to +Mirabell this morning, says I, 'Lord, my dear, it a'most puts me in mind +of Bath!' And Mirabell says--But here's the garden door. Now, isn't it +cool and pleasant out here? Audrey may gather us some grapes. Yes, they're +very fine, full bunches; it has been a bounteous year." + +The grape arbor hugged the house, but beyond it was a pretty, shady, +fancifully laid out garden, with shell-bordered walks, a grotto, a +summer-house, and a gate opening into Nicholson Street. Beyond the garden +a glimpse was to be caught through the trees of a trim bowling green. It +had rained the night before, and a delightful, almost vernal freshness +breathed in the air. The bees made a great buzzing amongst the grapes, and +the birds in the mulberry-trees sang as though it were nesting time. +Mistress Stagg and her old acquaintance sat at a table placed in the +shadow of the vines, and sipped their wine, while Audrey obediently +gathered clusters of the purple fruit, and thought the garden very fine, +but oh, not like--There could be no garden in the world so beautiful and +so dear as that! And she had not seen it for so long, so long a time. She +wondered if she would ever see it again. + +When she brought the fruit to the table, Mistress Stagg made room for her +kindly enough; and she sat and drank her wine and went to her world of +dreams, while her companions bartered town and country gossip. It has been +said that the small white house adjoined a larger building. A window in +this structure, which had much the appearance of a barn, was now opened, +with the result that a confused sound, as of several people speaking at +once, made itself heard. Suddenly the noise gave place to a single +high-pitched voice:-- + + "'Welcome, my son! Here lay him down, my friends, + Full in my sight, that I may view at leisure + The bloody corse, and count those glorious wounds.'" + +A smile irradiated Mistress Stagg's faded countenance, and she blew a kiss +toward the open window. "He does Cato so extremely well; and it's a grave, +dull, odd character, too. But Mirabell--that's Charles, you know--manages +to put a little life in it, a _Je ne sais quoi_, a touch of Sir Harry +Wildair. Now--now he's pulling out his laced handkerchief to weep over +Rome! You should see him after he has fallen on his sword, and is brought +on in a chair, all over blood. This is the third rehearsal; the play's +ordered for Monday night. Who is it, Peggy? Madam Travis! It's about the +lace for her damask petticoat, and there's no telling how long she may +keep me! My dear Deborah, when you have finished your wine, Peggy shall +show you your room. You must make yourself quite at home. For says I to +Mirabell this morning, 'Far be it from me to forget past kindnesses, and +in those old Bath days Deborah was a good friend to me,--which was no +wonder, to be sure, seeing that when we were little girls we went to the +same dame school, and always learned our book and worked our samplers +together.' And says Mirabell--Yes, yes, ma'am, I'm coming!" + +She disappeared, and the black girl showed the two guests through the hall +and up a tiny stairway into a little dormer-windowed, whitewashed room. +Mistress Deborah, who still wore remnants of my Lady Squander's ancient +gifts of spoiled finery, had likewise failed to discard the second-hand +fine-lady airs acquired during her service. She now declared herself +excessively tired by her morning ride, and martyr, besides, to a migraine. +Moreover, it was enough to give one the spleen to hear Mary Stagg's magpie +chatter and to see how some folk throve, willy-nilly, while others just as +good--Here tears of vexation ensued, and she must lie down upon the bed +and call in a feeble voice for her smelling salts. Audrey hurriedly +searched in the ragged portmanteau brought to town the day before in the +ox-cart of an obliging parishioner, found the flask, and took it to the +bedside, to receive in exchange a sound box of the ear for her tardiness. +The blow reddened her cheek, but brought no tears to her eyes. It was too +small a thing to weep for; tears were for blows upon the heart. + +It was a cool and quiet little room, and Mistress Deborah, who had drunk +two full glasses of the Madeira, presently fell asleep. Audrey sat very +still, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes upon them, until their +hostess's voice announced from the foot of the stairs that Madam Travis +had taken her departure. She then slipped from the room, and was affably +received below, and taken into the apartment which they had first entered. +Here Mistress became at once extremely busy. A fan was to be mounted; +yards of silk gathered into furbelows; breast knots, shoulder knots, sword +knots, to be made up. Her customers were all people of quality, and unless +she did her part not one of them could go to the ball. Audrey shyly +proffered her aid, and was set to changing the ribbons upon a mask. + +Mistress Stagg's tongue went as fast as her needle: "And Deborah is +asleep! Poor soul! she's sadly changed from what she was in old England +thirteen years ago. As neat a shape as you would see in a day's journey, +with the prettiest color, and eyes as bright as those marcasite buttons! +And she saw the best of company at my Lady Squander's,--no lack there of +kisses and guineas and fine gentlemen, you may be sure! There's a deal of +change in this mortal world, and it's generally for the worse. Here, +child, you may whip this lace on Mr. Lightfoot's ruffles. I think myself +lucky, I can tell you, that there are so few women in Cato. If 'tweren't +so, I should have to go on myself; for since poor, dear, pretty Jane Day +died of the smallpox, and Oriana Jordan ran away with the rascally +Bridewell fellow that we bought to play husbands' parts, and was never +heard of more, but is supposed to have gotten clean off to Barbadoes by +favor of the master of the Lady Susan, we have been short of actresses. +But in this play there are only Marcia and Lucia. 'It is extremely +fortunate, my dear,' said I to Mirabell this very morning, 'that in this +play, which is the proper compliment to a great gentleman just taking +office, Mr. Addison should have put no more than two women.' And Mirabell +says--Don't put the lace so full, child; 'twon't go round." + +"A chair is stopping at the gate," said Audrey, who sat by the window. +"There's a lady in it." + +The chair was a very fine painted one, borne by two gayly dressed negroes, +and escorted by a trio of beribboned young gentlemen, prodigal of gallant +speeches, amorous sighs, and languishing glances. Mistress Stagg looked, +started up, and, without waiting to raise from the floor the armful of +delicate silk which she had dropped, was presently curtsying upon the +doorstep. + +The bearers set down their load. One of the gentlemen opened the chair +door with a flourish, and the divinity, compressing her hoop, descended. A +second cavalier flung back Mistress Stagg's gate, and the third, with a +low bow, proffered his hand to conduct the fair from the gate to the +doorstep. The lady shook her head; a smiling word or two, a slight curtsy, +the wave of a painted fan, and her attendants found themselves dismissed. +She came up the path alone, slowly, with her head a little bent. Audrey, +watching her from the window, knew who she was, and her heart beat fast. +If this lady were in town, then so was he; he would not have stayed behind +at Westover. She would have left the room, but there was not time. The +mistress of the house, smiling and obsequious, fluttered in, and Evelyn +Byrd followed. + +There had been ordered for her a hood of golden tissue, with wide and long +streamers to be tied beneath the chin, and she was come to try it on. +Mistress Stagg had it all but ready,--there was only the least bit of +stitchery; would Mistress Evelyn condescend to wait a very few minutes? +She placed a chair, and the lady sank into it, finding the quiet of the +shadowed room pleasant enough after the sunlight and talkativeness of the +world without. Mistress Stagg, in her role of milliner, took the gauzy +trifle, called by courtesy a hood, to the farthest window, and fell +busily to work. + +It seemed to grow more and more quiet in the room: the shadow of the +leaves lay still upon the floor; the drowsy humming of the bees outside +the windows, the sound of locusts in the trees, the distant noises of the +town,--all grew more remote, then suddenly appeared to cease. + +Audrey raised her eyes, and met the eyes of Evelyn. She knew that they had +been upon her for a long time, in the quiet of the room. She had sat +breathless, her head bowed over her work that lay idly in her lap, but at +last she must look. The two gazed at each other with a sorrowful +steadfastness; in the largeness of their several natures there was no room +for self-consciousness; it was the soul of each that gazed. But in the +mists of earthly ignorance they could not read what was written, and they +erred in their guessing. Audrey went not far wide. This was the princess, +and, out of the fullness of a heart that ached with loss, she could have +knelt and kissed the hem of her robe, and wished her long and happy life. +There was no bitterness in her heart; she never dreamed that she had +wronged the princess. But Evelyn thought: "This is the girl they talk +about. God knows, if he had loved worthily, I might not so much have +minded!" + +From the garden came a burst of laughter and high voices. Mistress Stagg +started up. "'Tis our people, Mistress Evelyn, coming from the playhouse. +We lodge them in the house by the bowling green, but after rehearsals +they're apt to stop here. I'll send them packing. The hood is finished. +Audrey will set it upon your head, ma'am, while I am gone. Here, child! +Mind you don't crush it." She gave the hood into Audrey's hands, and +hurried from the room. + +Evelyn sat motionless, her silken draperies flowing around her, one white +arm bent, the soft curve of her cheek resting upon ringed fingers. Her +eyes yet dwelt upon Audrey, standing as motionless, the mist of gauze and +lace in her hands. "Do not trouble yourself," she said, in her low, clear +voice. "I will wait until Mistress Stagg returns." + +The tone was very cold, but Audrey scarce noticed that it was so. "If I +may, I should like to serve you, ma'am," she said pleadingly. "I will be +very careful." + +Leaving the window, she came and knelt beside Evelyn; but when she would +have put the golden hood upon her head, the other drew back with a gesture +of aversion, a quick recoil of her entire frame. The hood slipped to the +floor. After a moment Audrey rose and stepped back a pace or two. Neither +spoke, but it was the one who thought no evil whose eyes first sought the +floor. Her dark cheek paled, and her lips trembled; she turned, and going +back to her seat by the window took up her fallen work. Evelyn, with a +sharp catch of her breath, withdrew her attention from the other occupant +of the room, and fixed it upon a moted sunbeam lying like a bar between +the two. + +Mistress Stagg returned. The hood was fitted, and its purchaser prepared +to leave. Audrey rose and made her curtsy, timidly, but with a quick, +appealing motion of her hand. Was not this the lady whom he loved, that +people said he was to wed? And had he not told her, long ago, that he +would speak of her to Mistress Evelyn Byrd, and that she too would be her +friend? Last May Day, when the guinea was put into her hand, the lady's +smile was bright, her voice sweet and friendly. Now, how changed! In her +craving for a word, a look, from one so near him, one that perhaps had +seen him not an hour before; in her sad homage for the object of his love, +she forgot her late repulse, and grew bold. When Evelyn would have passed +her, she put forth a trembling hand and began to speak, to say she scarce +knew what; but the words died in her throat. For a moment Evelyn stood, +her head averted, an angry red staining neck and bosom and beautiful, +down-bent face. Her eyes half closed, the long lashes quivering against +her cheek, and she smiled faintly, in scorn of the girl and scorn of +herself. Then, freeing her skirt from Audrey's clasp, she passed in +silence from the room. + +Audrey stood at the window, and with wide, pained eyes watched her go down +the path. Mistress Stagg was with her, talking volubly, and Evelyn seemed +to listen with smiling patience. One of the bedizened negroes opened the +chair door; the lady entered, and was borne away. Before Mistress Stagg +could reenter her house Audrey had gone quietly up the winding stair to +the little whitewashed room, where she found the minister's wife astir and +restored to good humor. Her sleep had helped her; she would go down at +once and see what Mary was at. Darden, too, was coming as soon as the +meeting at the church had adjourned. After dinner they would walk out and +see the town, until which time Audrey might do as she pleased. When she +was gone, Audrey softly shut herself in the little room, and lay down upon +the bed, very still, with her face hidden in her arm. + +With twelve of the clock came Darden, quite sober, distrait in manner and +uneasy of eye, and presently interrupted Mistress Stagg's flow of +conversation by a demand to speak with his wife alone. At that time of day +the garden was a solitude, and thither the two repaired, taking their +seats upon a bench built round a mulberry-tree. + +"Well?" queried Mistress Deborah bitterly. "I suppose Mr. Commissary +showed himself vastly civil? I dare say you're to preach before the +Governor next Sunday? Or maybe they've chosen Bailey? He boasts that he +can drink you under the table! One of these fine days you'll drink and +curse and game yourself out of a parish!" + +Darden drew figures on the ground with his heavy stick. "On such a fine +day as this," he said, in a suppressed voice, and looked askance at the +wife whom he beat upon occasion, but whose counsel he held in respect. + +She turned upon him. "What do you mean? They talk and talk, and cry +shame,--and a shame it is, the Lord knows! But it never comes to +anything"-- + +"It has come to this," interrupted Darden, with an oath: "that this +Governor means to sweep in the corners; that the Commissary--damned +Scot!--to-day appointed a committee to inquire into the charges made +against me and Bailey and John Worden; that seven of my vestrymen are dead +against me; and that 'deprivation' has suddenly become a very common +word!" + +"Seven of the vestry?" said his wife, after a pause. "Who are they?" + +Darden told her. + +"If Mr. Haward"--she began slowly, her green eyes steady upon the +situation. "There's not one of that seven would care to disoblige him. I +warrant you he could make them face about. They say he knew the Governor +in England, too; and there's his late gift to the college,--the Commissary +wouldn't forget that. If Mr. Haward would"--She broke off, and with knit +brows studied the problem more intently. + +"If he would, he could," Darden finished for her. "With his interest this +cloud would go by, as others have done before. I know that, Deborah. And +that's the card I'm going to play." + +"If you had gone to him, hat in hand, a month ago, he'd have done you any +favor," said his helpmate sourly. "But it is different now. He's over his +fancy; and besides, he's at Westover." + +"He's in Williamsburgh, at Marot's ordinary," said the other. "As for his +being over his fancy,--I'll try that. Fancy or no fancy, if a woman asked +him for a fairing, he would give it her, or I don't know my gentleman. +We'll call his interest a ribbon or some such toy, and Audrey shall ask +him for it." + +"Audrey is a fool!" cried Mistress Deborah. "And you had best be careful, +or you'll prove yourself another! There's been talk enough already. +Audrey, village innocent that she is, is the only one that doesn't know +it. The town's not the country; if he sets tongues a-clacking here"-- + +"He won't," said Darden roughly. "He's no hare-brained one-and-twenty! And +Audrey's a good girl. Go send her here, Deborah. Bid her fetch me Stagg's +inkhorn and a pen and a sheet of paper. If he does anything for me, it +will have to be done quickly. They're in haste to pull me out of saddle, +the damned canting pack! But I'll try conclusions with them!" + +His wife departed, muttering to herself, and the reverend Gideon pulled +out of his capacious pocket a flask of usquebaugh. In five minutes from +the time of his setting it to his lips the light in which he viewed the +situation turned from gray to rose color. By the time he espied Audrey +coming toward him through the garden he felt a moral certainty that when +he came to die (if ever he died) it would be in his bed in the Fair View +glebe house. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +WITHIN THE PLAYHOUSE + + +Haward, sitting at the table in Marot's best room, wrote an answer to +Audrey's letter, and tore it up; wrote another, and gave it to Juba, to be +given to the messenger waiting below; recalled the negro before he could +reach the door, destroyed the second note, and wrote a third. The first +had been wise and kind, telling her that he was much engaged, lightly and +skillfully waving aside her request--the only one she made--that she might +see him that day. The second had been less wise. The last told her that he +would come at five o'clock to the summer-house in Mistress Stagg's garden. + +When he was alone in the room, he sat for some time very still, with his +eyes closed and his head thrown back against the tall woodwork of his +chair. His face was stern in repose: a handsome, even a fine face, with a +look of power and reflection, but to-day somewhat worn and haggard of +aspect. When presently he roused himself and took up the letter that lay +before him, the paper shook in his hand. "Wine, Juba," he said to the +slave, who now rentered the room. "And close the window; it is growing +cold." + +There were but three lines between the "Mr. Haward" and "Audrey;" the +writing was stiff and clerkly, the words very simple,--a child's asking of +a favor. He guessed rightly that it was the first letter of her own that +she had ever written. Suddenly a wave of passionate tenderness took him; +he bowed his head and kissed the paper; for the moment many-threaded life +and his own complex nature alike straightened to a beautiful simplicity. +He was the lover, merely; life was but the light and shadow through which +moved the woman whom he loved. He came back to himself, and tried to think +it out, but could not. Finally, with a weary impatience, he declined to +think at all. He was to dine at the Governor's. Evelyn would be there. + +Only momentarily, in those days of early summer, had he wavered in his +determination to make this lady his wife. Pride was at the root of his +being,--pride and a deep self-will; though because they were so sunken, +and because poisonous roots can flower most deceivingly, he neither called +himself nor was called of others a proud and willful man. He wished Evelyn +for his wife; nay, more, though on May Day he had shown her that he loved +her not, though in June he had offered her a love that was only admiring +affection, yet in the past month at Westover he had come almost to believe +that he loved her truly. That she was worthy of true love he knew very +well. With all his strength of will, he had elected to forget the summer +that lay behind him at Fair View, and to live in the summer that was with +him at Westover. His success had been gratifying; in the flush of it, he +persuaded himself that a chamber of the heart had been locked forever, and +the key thrown away. And lo now! a touch, the sudden sight of a name, and +the door had flown wide; nay, the very walls were rived away! It was not a +glance over the shoulder; it was full presence in the room so lately +sealed. + +He knew that Evelyn loved him. It was understood of all their acquaintance +that he was her suitor; months ago he had formally craved her father's +permission to pay his addresses. There were times in those weeks at +Westover when she had come nigh to yielding, to believing that he loved +her; he was certain that with time he would have his way.... But the room, +the closed room, in which now he sat! + +He buried his face in his hands, and was suddenly back in spirit in his +garden at Fair View. The cherries were ripe; the birds were singing: great +butterflies went by. The sunshine beat on the dial, on the walks, and the +smell of the roses was strong as wine. His senses swam with the warmth and +fragrance; the garden enlarged itself, and blazed in beauty. Never was +sunshine so golden as that; never were roses so large, never odors so +potent-sweet. A spirit walked in the garden paths: its name was Audrey.... +No, it was speaking, speaking words of passion and of woe.... Its name was +Elosa! + +When he rose from his chair, he staggered slightly, and put his hand to +his head. Recovering himself in a moment, he called for his hat and cane, +and, leaving the ordinary, turned his face toward the Palace. A garrulous +fellow Councilor, also bidden to his Excellency's dinner party, overtook +him, and, falling into step, began to speak first of the pirates' trial, +and then of the weather. A hot and feverish summer. 'Twas said that a good +third of the servants arriving in the country since spring had died of +their seasoning. The slaver lying in the York had thrown thirty blacks +overboard in the ran from Barbadoes,--some strange sickness or other. +Adsbud! He would not buy from the lot the master landed; had they been +white, they had showed like spectres! September was the worst month of +the year. He did not find Mr. Haward in looks now. Best consult Dr. +Contesse, though indeed he himself had a preventive of fever which never +failed. First he bled; then to so much of Peruvian bark-- + +Mr. Haward declared that he was very well, and turned the conversation +piratewards again. + +The dinner at the Palace was somewhat hurried, the gentlemen rising with +the ladies, despite the enticements of Burgundy and champagne. It was the +afternoon set apart for the Indian dance. The bonfire in the field behind +the magazine had been kindled; the Nottoways and Meherrins were waiting, +still as statues, for the gathering of their audience. Before the dance +the great white father was to speak to them; the peace pipe, also, was to +be smoked. The town, gay of mood and snatching at enjoyment, emptied its +people into the sunny field. Only they who could not go stayed at home. +Those light-hearted folk, ministers to a play-loving age, who dwelt in the +house by the bowling green or in the shadow of the theatre itself, must +go, at all rates. Marcia and Lucia, Syphax, Sempronius, and the African +prince made off together, while the sons of Cato, who chanced to be twin +brothers, followed with a slower step. Their indentures would expire next +month, and they had thoughts, the one of becoming an overseer, the other +of moving up country and joining a company of rangers: hence their +somewhat haughty bearing toward their fellow players, who--except old +Syphax, who acted for the love of it--had not even a bowing acquaintance +with freedom. + +Mr. and Mrs. Stagg saw their minions depart, and then themselves left the +little white house in Palace Street. Mistress Deborah was with them, but +not Audrey. "She can't abide the sight of an Indian," said the minister's +wife indifferently. "Besides, Darden will be here from the church +presently, and he may want her to write for him. She and Peggy can mind +the house." + +The Capitol clock was telling five when Haward entered the garden by the +Nicholson Street gate. There had arisen a zephyr of the evening, to loosen +the yellow locust leaves and send them down upon the path, to lay cool +fingers upon his forehead that burned, and to whisper low at his ear. +House and garden and silent street seemed asleep in the late sunshine, +safe folded from the storm of sound that raged in the field on the border +of the town. Distance muffled the Indian drums, and changed the scream of +the pipes into a far-off wailing. Savage cries, bursts of applause and +laughter,--all came softly, blent like the hum of the bees, mellow like +the sunlight. There was no one in the summer-house. Haward walked on to +the grape arbor, and found there a black girl, who pointed to an open +door, pertaining not to the small white house, but to that portion of the +theatre which abutted upon the garden. Haward, passing a window of Mr. +Stagg's domicile, was aware of Darden sitting within, much engaged with a +great book and a tankard of sack. He made no pause for the vision, and +another moment found him within the playhouse. + +The sunlight entered in at the door and at one high window, but yet the +place was dim. The gallery and the rude boxes were all in shadow; the +sunbeams from the door struck into the pit, while those from the high +window let fall a shaft of misty light upon the stage itself, set for a +hall in Utica, with five cane chairs, an ancient settle, and a Spanish +table. On the settle, in the pale gold of the falling light, sat Audrey, +her hands clasped over her knees, her head thrown back, and her eyes fixed +upon the shadowy, chill, and soundless space before her. Upon Haward's +speaking her name she sighed, and, loosing her hands, turned toward him. +He came and leaned upon the back of the settle. "You sent for me, Audrey," +he said, and laid his hand lightly upon her hair. + +She shrank from his touch. "The minister made me write the letter," she +said, in a low voice. "I did not wish to trouble you, sir." + +Upon her wrist were dark marks. "Did Darden do that?" demanded Haward, as +he took his seat beside her. + +Audrey looked at the bruise indifferently; then with her other hand +covered it from sight. "I have a favor to ask of Mr. Haward," she said. "I +hope that after his many kindnesses he will not refuse to do me this +greatest one. If he should grant my request, the gratitude which I must +needs already feel toward him will be increased tenfold." The words came +precisely, in an even voice. + +Haward smiled. "Child, you have conned your lesson well. Leave the words +of the book, and tell me in your own language what his reverence wants." + +Audrey told him, but it seemed to her that he was not listening. When she +had come to an end of the minister's grievances, she sat, with downcast +eyes, waiting for him to speak, wishing that he would not look at her so +steadily. She meant never to show him her heart,--never, never; but +beneath his gaze it was hard to keep her cheek from burning, her lip from +quivering. + +At last he spoke: "Would it please you, Audrey, if I should save this man +from his just deserts?" + +Audrey raised her eyes. "He and Mistress Deborah are all my friends," she +said. "The glebe house is my home." + +Deep sadness spoke in voice and eye. The shaft of light, moving, had left +her in the outer shadow: she sat there with a listless grace; with a +dignity, too, that was not without pathos. There had been a forlorn child; +there had been an unfriended girl; there was now a woman, for Life to +fondle or to wreak its rage upon. The change was subtle; one more a lover +or less a lover than Haward might not have noted it. "I will petition the +Commissary to-night," he said, "the Governor to-morrow. Is your having in +friends so slight as you say, little maid?" + +Oh, he could reach to the quick! She was sure that he had not meant to +accuse her of ingratitude, and pitifully sure that she must have seemed +guilty of it. "No, no!" she cried. "I have had a friend"--Her voice broke, +and she started to her feet, her face to the door, all her being +quiveringly eager to be gone. She had asked that which she was bidden to +ask, had gained that which she was bidden to gain; for the rest, it was +far better that she should go. Better far for him to think her dull and +thankless as a stone than see--than see-- + +When Haward caught her by the hand, she trembled and drew a sobbing +breath. "'I have had a friend,' Audrey?" he asked. "Why not 'I have a +friend'?" + +"Why not?" thought Audrey. "Of course he would think, why not? Well, +then"-- + +"I have a friend," she said aloud. "Have you not been to me the kindest +friend, the most generous"--She faltered, but presently went on, a strange +courage coming to her. She had turned slightly toward him, though she +looked not at him, but upward to where the light streamed through the high +window. It fell now upon her face. "It is a great thing to save life," she +said. "To save a soul alive, how much greater! To have kept one soul in +the knowledge that there is goodness, mercy, tenderness, God; to have +given it bread to eat where it sat among the stones, water to drink where +all the streams were dry,--oh, a king might be proud of that! And that is +what you have done for me.... When you sailed away, so many years ago, and +left me with the minister and his wife, they were not always kind. But I +knew that you thought them so, and I always said to myself, 'If he knew, +he would be sorry for me.' At last I said, 'He is sorry for me; there is +the sea, and he cannot come, but he knows, and is sorry.' It was +make-believe,--for you thought that I was happy, did you not?--but it +helped me very much. I was only a child, you know, and I was so very +lonely. I could not think of mother and Molly, for when I did I saw them +as--as I had seen them last. The dark scared me, until I found that I +could pretend that you were holding my hand, as you used to do when night +came in the valley. After a while I had only to put out my hand, and yours +was there waiting for it. I hope that you can understand--I want you to +know how large is my debt.... As I grew, so did the debt. When I was a +girl it was larger than when I was a child. Do you know with whom I have +lived all these years? There is the minister, who comes reeling home from +the crossroads ordinary, who swears over the dice, who teaches cunning +that he calls wisdom, laughs at man and scarce believes in God. His hand +is heavy; this is his mark." She held up her bruised wrist to the light, +then let the hand drop. When she spoke of the minister, she made a gesture +toward the shadows growing ever thicker and darker in the body of the +house. It was as though she saw him there, and was pointing him out. +"There is the minister's wife," she said, and the motion of her hand again +accused the shadows. "Oh, their roof has sheltered me; I have eaten of +their bread. But truth is truth. There is the schoolmaster with the +branded hands. He taught me, you know. There is"--she was looking with +wide eyes into the deepest of the shadows--"there is Hugon!" Her voice +died away. Haward did not move or speak, and for a minute there was +silence in the dusky playhouse. Audrey broke it with a laugh, soft, light, +and clear, that came oddly upon the mood of the hour. Presently she was +speaking again: "Do you think it strange that I should laugh? I laughed to +think I have escaped them all. Do you know that they call me a dreamer? +Once, deep in the woods, I met the witch who lives at the head of the +creek. She told me that I was a dream child, and that all my life was a +dream, and I must pray never to awake; but I do not think she knew, for +all that she is a witch. They none of them know,--none, none! If I had not +dreamed, as they call it,--if I had watched, and listened, and laid to +heart, and become like them,--oh, then I should have died of your look +when at last you came! But I 'dreamed;' and in that long dream you, though +you were overseas, you showed me, little by little, that the spirit is not +bond, but free,--that it can walk the waves, and climb to the sunset and +the stars. And I found that the woods were fair, that the earth was fair +and kind as when I was a little child. And I grew to love and long for +goodness. And, day by day, I have had a life and a world where flowers +bloomed, and the streams ran fresh, and there was bread indeed to eat. And +it was you that showed me the road, that opened for me the gates!" + +She ceased to speak, and, turning fully toward him, took his hand and put +it to her lips. "May you be very happy!" she said. "I thank you, sir, that +when you came at last you did not break my dream. The dream fell short!" + +The smile upon her face was very sweet, very pure and noble. She would +have gone without another word, but Haward caught her by the sleeve. "Stay +awhile!" he cried. "I too am a dreamer, though not like you, you maid of +Dian, dark saint, cold vestal, with your eyes forever on the still, white +flame! Audrey, Audrey, Audrey! Do you know what a pretty name you have, +child, or how dark are your eyes, or how fine this hair that a queen might +envy? Westover has been dull, child." + +Audrey shook her head and smiled, and thought that he was laughing at her. +A vision of Evelyn, as Evelyn had looked that morning, passed before her. +She did not believe that he had found Westover dull. + +"I am coming to Fair View, dark Audrey," he went on. "In its garden there +are roses yet blooming for thy hair; there are sweet verses calling to be +read; there are cool, sequestered walks to be trodden, with thy hand in +mine,--thy hand in mine, little maid. Life is but once; we shall never +pass this way again. Drink the cup, wear the roses, live the verses! Of +what sing all the sweetest verses, dark-eyed witch, forest Audrey?" + +"Of love," said Audrey simply. She had freed her hand from his clasp, and +her face was troubled. She did not understand; never had she seen him like +this, with shining eyes and hot, unsteady touch. + +"There is the ball at the Palace to-morrow night," he went on. "I must be +there, for a fair lady and I are to dance together." He smiled. "Poor +Audrey, who hath never been to a ball; who only dances with the elves, +beneath the moon, around a beechen tree! The next day I will go to Fair +View, and you will be at the glebe house, and we will take up the summer +where we left it, that weary month ago." + +"No, no," said Audrey hurriedly, and shook her head. A vague and formless +trouble had laid its cold touch upon her heart; it was as though she saw a +cloud coming up, but it was no larger than a man's hand, and she knew not +what it should portend, nor that it would grow into a storm. He was +strange to-day,--that she felt; but then all her day since the coming of +Evelyn had been sad and strange. + +The shaft of sunshine was gone from the stage, and all the house was in +shadow. Audrey descended the two or three steps leading into the pit, and +Haward followed her. Side by side they left the playhouse, and found +themselves in the garden, and also in the presence of five or six ladies +and gentlemen, seated upon the grass beneath a mulberry-tree, or engaged +in rifling the grape arbor of its purple fruit. + +The garden was a public one, and this gay little party, having tired of +the Indian spectacle, had repaired hither to treat of its own affairs. +Moreover, it had been there, scattered upon the grass in view of the +playhouse door, for the better part of an hour. Concerned with its own wit +and laughter, it had caught no sound of low voices issuing from the +theatre; and for the two who talked within, all outward noise had ranked +as coming from the distant, crowded fields. + +A young girl, her silken apron raised to catch the clusters which a +gentleman, mounted upon a chair, threw down, gave a little scream and let +fall her purple hoard. "'Gad!" cried the gentleman. One and another +exclaimed, and a withered beauty seated beneath the mulberry-tree laughed +shrilly. + +A moment, an effort, a sharp recall of wandering thoughts, and Haward had +the situation in hand. An easy greeting to the gentlemen, debonair +compliments for the ladies, a question or two as to the entertainment they +had left, then a negligent bringing forward of Audrey. "A little brown +ward and ancient playmate of mine,--shot up in the night to be as tall as +a woman. Make thy curtsy, child, and go tell the minister what I have said +on the subject he wots of." + +Audrey curtsied and went away, having never raised her eyes to note the +stare of curiosity, the suppressed smile, the glance from eye to eye, +which had trod upon her introduction to the company. Haward, remaining +with his friends and acquaintances, gathered grapes for the blooming girl +and the withered beauty, and for a little, smiling woman who was known for +as arrant a scandalmonger as could be found in Virginia. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A QUESTION OF COLORS + + +Evelyn, seated at her toilette table, and in the hands of Mr. Timothy +Green, hairdresser in ordinary to Williamsburgh, looked with unseeing eyes +at her own fair reflection in the glass before her. Chloe, the black +handmaiden who stood at the door, latch in hand, had time to grow tired of +waiting before her mistress spoke. "You may tell Mr. Haward that I am at +home, Chloe. Bring him here." + +The hairdresser drew a comb through the rippling brown tresses and +commenced his most elaborate arrangement, working with pursed lips, and +head bent now to this side, now to that. He had been a hard-pressed man +since sunrise, and the lighting of the Palace candles that night might +find him yet employed by some belated dame. Evelyn was very pale, and +shadows were beneath her eyes. Moved by a sudden impulse, she took from +the table a rouge pot, and hastily and with trembling fingers rubbed bloom +into her cheeks; then the patch box,--one, two, three Tory partisans. "Now +I am less like a ghost," she said, "Mr. Green, do I not look well and +merry, and as though my sleep had been sound and dreamless?" + +In his high, cracked voice, the hairdresser was sure that, pale or +glowing, grave or gay, Mistress Evelyn Byrd would be the toast at the ball +that night. The lady laughed, for she heard Haward's step upon the +landing. He entered to the gay, tinkling sound, tent over the hand she +extended, then, laying aside hat and cane, took his seat beside the table. + + "'Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare, + And beauty draws us with a single hair,'" + +he quoted, with a smile. Then: "Will you take our hearts in blue to-night, +Evelyn? You know that I love you best in blue." + +She lifted her fan from the table, and waved it lightly to and fro. "I go +in rose color," she said. "'Tis the gown I wore at Lady Rich's rout. I +dare say you do not remember it? But my Lord of Peterborough said"--She +broke off, and smiled to her fan. + +Her voice was sweet and slightly drawling. The languid turn of the wrist, +the easy grace of attitude, the beauty of bared neck and tinted face, of +lowered lids and slow, faint smile,--oh, she was genuine fine lady, if she +was not quite Evelyn! A breeze blowing through the open windows stirred +their gay hangings of flowered cotton; the black girl sat in a corner and +sewed; the supple fingers of the hairdresser went in and out of the heavy +hair; roses in a deep blue bowl made the room smell like a garden. Haward +sighed, so pleasant was it to sit quietly in this cool chamber, after the +glare and wavering of the world without. "My Lord of Peterborough is +magnificent at compliments," he said kindly, "but 'twould be a jeweled +speech indeed that outdid your deserving, Evelyn. Come, now, wear the +blue! I will find you white roses; you shall wear them for a breast knot, +and in the minuet return me one again." + +Evelyn waved her fan. "I dance the minuet with Mr. Lee." Her tone was +still sweetly languid, her manner most indifferent. The thick and glossy +tress that, drawn forward, was to ripple over white neck and bosom was too +loosely curled. She regarded it in the mirror with an anxious frown, then +spoke of it to the hairdresser. + +Haward, smiling, watched her with heavy-lidded eyes. "Mr. Lee is a +fortunate gentleman," he said. "I may gain the rose, perhaps, in the +country dance?" + +"That is better," remarked the lady, surveying with satisfaction the +new-curled lock. "The country dance? For that Mr. Lightfoot hath my +promise." + +"It seems that I am a laggard," said Haward. + +The knocker sounded below. "I am at home, Chloe," announced the mistress; +and the slave, laying aside her work, slipped from the room. + +Haward played with the trifles upon the dressing table. "Wherein have I +offended, Evelyn?" he asked, at last. + +The lady arched her brows, and the action made her for the moment very +like her handsome father. "Why, there is no offense!" she cried. "An old +acquaintance, a family friend! I step a minuet with Mr. Lee; I stand up +for a country dance with Mr. Lightfoot; I wear pink instead of blue, and +have lost my liking for white roses,--what is there in all this that needs +such a question? Ah, you have broken my silver chain!" + +"I am clumsy to-day!" he exclaimed. "A thousand pardons!" He let the +broken toy slip from his fingers to the polished surface of the table, and +forgot that it was there. "Since Colonel Byrd (I am sorry to learn) keeps +his room with a fit of the gout, may I--an old acquaintance, a family +friend--conduct you to the Palace to-night?" + +The fan waved on. "Thank you, but I go in our coach, and need no escort." +The lady yawned, very delicately, behind her slender fingers; then dropped +the fan, and spoke with animation: "Ah, here is Mr. Lee! In a good hour, +sir! I saw the bracelet that you mended for Mistress Winston. Canst do as +much for my poor chain here? See! it and this silver heart have parted +company." + +Mr. Lee kissed her hand, and took snuff with Mr. Haward; then, after an +ardent speech crammed with references to Vulcan and Venus, chains that +were not slight, hearts that were of softer substance, sat down beside +this kind and dazzling vision, and applied his clever fingers to the +problem in hand. He was a personable young gentleman, who had studied at +Oxford, and who, proudly conscious that his tragedy of Artaxerxes, then +reposing in the escritoire at home, much outmerited Haward's talked-of +comedy, felt no diffidence in the company of the elder fine gentleman. He +rattled on of this and that, and Evelyn listened kindly, with only the +curve of her cheek visible to the family friend. The silver heart was +restored to its chain; the lady smiled her thanks; the enamored youth +hitched his chair some inches nearer the fair whom he had obliged, and, +with his hand upon his heart, entered the realm of high-flown speech. The +gay curtains waved; the roses were sweet; black Chloe sewed and sewed; the +hairdresser's hands wove in and out, as though he were a wizard making +passes. + +Haward rose to take his leave. Evelyn yielded him her hand; it was cold +against his lips. She was nonchalant and smiling; he was easy, unoffended, +admirably the fine gentleman. For one moment their eyes met. "I had been +wiser," thought the man, "I had been wiser to have myself told her of +that brown witch, that innocent sorceress! Why something held my tongue I +know not. Now she hath read my idyl, but all darkened, all awry." The +woman thought: "Cruel and base! You knew that my heart was yours to break, +cast aside, and forget!" + +Out of the house the sunlight beat and blinded. Houses of red brick, +houses of white wood; the long, wide, dusty Duke of Gloucester Street; +gnarled mulberry-trees broad-leafed against a September sky, deeply, +passionately blue; glimpses of wood and field,--all seemed remote without +distance, still without stillness, the semblance of a dream, and yet keen +and near to oppression. It was a town of stores, of ordinaries and public +places; from open door and window all along Duke of Gloucester Street came +laughter, round oaths, now and then a scrap of drinking song. To Haward, +giddy, ill at ease, sickening of a fever, the sounds were now as a cry in +his ear, now as the noise of a distant sea. The minister of James City +parish and the minister of Ware Creek were walking before him, arm in arm, +set full sail for dinner after a stormy morning. "For lo! the wicked +prospereth!" said one, and "Fair View parish bound over to the devil +again!" plained the other. "He's firm in the saddle; he'll ride easy to +the day he drinks himself to death, thanks to this sudden complaisance of +Governor and Commissary!" + +"Thanks to"--cried the other sourly, and gave the thanks where they were +due. + +Haward heard the words, but even in the act of quickening his pace to lay +a heavy hand upon the speaker's shoulder a listlessness came upon him, and +he forbore. The memory of the slurring speech went from him; his thoughts +were thistledown blown hither and yon by every vagrant air. Coming to +Marot's ordinary he called for wine; then went up the stair to his room, +and sitting down at the table presently fell asleep, with his head upon +his arms. + +After a while the sounds from the public room below, where men were +carousing, disturbed his slumber. He stirred, and awoke refreshed. It was +afternoon, but he felt no hunger, only thirst, which he quenched with the +wine at hand. His windows gave upon the Capitol and a green wood beyond; +the waving trees enticed, while the room was dull and the noises of the +house distasteful. He said to himself that he would walk abroad, would go +out under the beckoning trees and be rid of the town. He remembered that +the Council was to meet that afternoon. Well, it might sit without him! He +was for the woods, where dwelt the cool winds and the shadows deep and +silent. + +A few yards, and he was quit of Duke of Gloucester Street; behind him, +porticoed Capitol, gaol, and tiny vineclad debtor's prison. In the gaol +yard the pirates sat upon a bench in the sunshine, and one smoked a long +pipe, and one brooded upon his irons. Gold rings were in their ears, and +their black hair fell from beneath colored handkerchiefs twisted +turbanwise around their brows. The gaoler watched them, standing in his +doorway, and his children, at play beneath a tree, built with sticks a +mimic scaffold, and hanged thereon a broken puppet. There was a shady road +leading through a wood to Queen's Creek and the Capitol Landing, and down +this road went Haward. His step was light; the dullness, the throbbing +pulses, the oppression of the morning, had given way to a restlessness and +a strange exaltation of spirit. Fancy was quickened, imagination +heightened; to himself he seemed to see the heart of all things. Across +his mind flitted fragments of verse,--now a broken line just hinting +beauty, now the pure passion of a lovely stanza. His thoughts went to and +fro, mobile as the waves of the sea; but firm as the reefs beneath them +stood his knowledge that presently he was going back to Fair View. +To-morrow, when the Governor's ball was over, when he could decently get +away, he would leave the town; he would go to his house in the country. +Late flowers bloomed in his garden; the terrace was fair above the river; +beneath the red brick wall, on the narrow little creek shining like a +silver highway, lay a winged boat; and the highway ran past a glebe house; +and in the glebe house dwelt a dryad whose tree had closed against her. +Audrey!--a fair name. Audrey, Audrey!--the birds were singing it; out of +the deep, Arcadian shadows any moment it might come, clearly cried by +satyr, Pan, or shepherd. Hark! there was song-- + +It was but a negro on the road behind, singing to himself as he went about +his master's business. The voice was the voice of the race, mellow, deep, +and plaintive; perhaps the song was of love in a burning land. He passed +the white man, and the arching trees hid him, but the wake of music was +long in fading. The road leading through a cool and shady dell, Haward +left it, and took possession of the mossy earth beneath a holly-tree. +Here, lying on the ground, he could see the road through the intervening +foliage; else the place had seemed the heart of an ancient wood. + +It was merry lying where were glimpses of blue sky, where the leaves +quivered and a squirrel chattered and a robin sang a madrigal. Youth the +divine, half way down the stair of misty yesterdays, turned upon his heel +and came back to him. He pillowed his head upon his arm, and was content. +It was well to be so filled with fancies, so iron of will, so headstrong +and gay; to be friends once more with a younger Haward, with the Haward of +a mountain pass, of mocking comrades and an irate Excellency. + +From the road came a rumble of oaths. Sailors, sweating and straining, +were rolling a very great cask of tobacco from a neighboring warehouse +down to the landing and some expectant sloop. Haward, lying at ease, +smiled at their weary task, their grunting and swearing; when they were +gone, smiled at the blankness of the road. All things pleased. There was +food for mirth in the call of a partridge, in the inquisitive gaze of a +squirrel, in the web of a spider gaoler to a gilded fly. There was food +for greater mirth in the appearance on the road of a solitary figure in a +wine-colored coat and bushy black peruke. + +Haward sat up. "Ha, Monacan!" he cried, with a laugh, and threw a stick to +attract the man's attention. + +Hugon turned, stood astare, then left the road and came down into the +dell. + +"What fortune, trader?" smiled Haward. "Did your traps hold in the great +forest? Were your people easy to fool, giving twelve deerskins for an old +match-coat? There is charm in a woodsman life. Come, tell me of your +journeys, dangers, and escapes." + +The half-breed looked down upon him with a twitching face. "What hinders +me from killing you now?" he demanded, with a backward look at the road. +"None may pass for many minutes." + +Haward lay back upon the moss, with his hands locked beneath his head. +"What indeed?" he answered calmly. "Come, here is a velvet log, fit seat +for an emperor--or a sachem; sit and tell me of your life in the woods. +For peace pipe let me offer my snuffbox." In his mad humor he sat up +again, drew from his pocket, and presented with the most approved +flourish, his box of chased gold. "Monsieur, c'est le tabac pour le nez +d'un inonarque," he said lazily. + +Hugon sat down upon the log, helped himself to the mixture with a grand +air, and shook the yellow dust from his ruffles. The action, meant to be +airy, only achieved fierceness. From some hidden sheath he drew a knife, +and began to strip from the log a piece of bark. "Tell me, you," he said. +"Have you been to France? What manner of land is it?" + +"A gay country," answered Haward; "a land where the men are all white, and +where at present, periwigs are worn much shorter than the one monsieur +affects." + +"He is a great brave, a French gentleman? Always he kills the man he +hates?" + +"Not always," said the other. "Sometimes the man he hates kills him." + +By now one end of the piece of bark in the trader's hands was shredded to +tinder. He drew from his pocket his flint and steel, and struck a spark +into the frayed mass. It flared up, and he held first the tips of his +fingers, then the palm of his hand, then his bared forearm, in the flame +that licked and scorched the flesh. His face was perfectly unmoved, his +eyes unchanged in their expression of hatred. "Can he do this?" he asked. + +"Perhaps not," said Haward lightly. "It is a very foolish thing to do." + +The flame died out, and the trader tossed aside the charred bit of bark. +"There was old Pierre at Monacan-Town who taught me to pray to _le bon +Dieu_. He told me how grand and fine is a French gentleman, and that I was +the son of many such. He called the English great pigs, with brains as +dull and muddy as the river after many rains. My mother was the daughter +of a chief. She had strings of pearl for her neck, and copper for her +arms, and a robe of white doeskin, very soft and fine. When she was dead +and my father was dead, I came from Monacan-Town to your English school +over yonder. I can read and write. I am a white man and a Frenchman, not +an Indian. When I go to the villages in the woods, I am given a lodge +apart, and the men and women gather to hear a white man speak.... You have +done me wrong with that girl, that Ma'm'selle Audrey that I wish for wife. +We are enemies: that is as it should be. You shall not have her,--never, +never! But you despise me; how is that? That day upon the creek, that +night in your cursed house, you laughed"-- + +The Haward of the mountain pass, regarding the twitching face opposite him +and the hand clenched upon the handle of a knife, laughed again. At the +sound the trader's face ceased to twitch. Haward felt rather than saw the +stealthy tightening of the frame, the gathering of forces, the closer +grasp upon the knife, and flung out his arm. A hare scurried past, making +for the deeper woods. From the road came the tramp of a horse and a man's +voice, singing,-- + + "'To all you ladies now on land'"-- + +while an inquisitive dog turned aside from the road, and plunged into the +dell. + +The rider, having checked his horse and quit his song in order to call to +his dog, looked through the thin veil of foliage and saw the two men +beneath the holly-tree. "Ha, Jean Hugon!" he cried. "Is that you? Where is +that packet of skins you were to deliver at my store? Come over here, +man!" + +The trader moistened his dry lips with his tongue, and slipped the knife +back into its sheath. "Had we been a mile in the woods," he said, "you +would have laughed no more." + +Haward watched him go. The argument with the rider was a lengthy one. He +upon horseback would not stand still in the road to finish it, but put his +beast into motion. The trader, explaining and gesticulating, walked beside +his stirrup; the voices grew fainter and fainter,--were gone. Haward +laughed to himself; then, with his eyes raised to the depth on depth of +blue, serene beyond the grating of thorn-pointed leaves, sent his spirit +to his red brick house and silent, sunny garden, with the gate in the +ivied wall, and the six steps down to the boat and the lapping water. + +The shadows lengthened, and a wind of the evening entered the wood. Haward +shook off the lethargy that had kept him lying there for the better part +of an afternoon, rose to his feet, and left the green dell for the road, +all shadow now, winding back to the toy metropolis, to Marot's ordinary, +to the ball at the Palace that night. + +The ball at the Palace!--he had forgotten it. Flare of lights, wail of +violins, a painted, silken crowd, laughter, whispers, magpie chattering, +wine, and the weariness of the dance, when his soul would long to be with +the night outside, with the rising wind and the shining stars. He half +determined not to go. What mattered the offense that would be taken? Did +he go he would repent, wearied and ennuy, watching Evelyn, all +rose-colored, moving with another through the minuet; tied himself perhaps +to some pert miss, or cornered in a card-room by boisterous gamesters, or, +drinking with his peers, called on to toast the lady of his dreams. Better +the dull room at Marot's ordinary, or better still to order Mirza, and +ride off at the planter's pace, through the starshine, to Fair View. On +the river bank before the store MacLean might be lying, dreaming of a +mighty wind and a fierce death. He would dismount, and sit beside that +Highland gentleman, Jacobite and strong man, and their moods would chime +as they had chimed before. Then on to the house and to the eastern window! +Not to-night, but to-morrow night, perhaps, would the darkness be pierced +by the calm pale star that marked another window. It was all a mistake, +that month at Westover,--days lost and wasted, the running of golden sands +ill to spare from Love's brief glass.... + +His mood had changed when, with the gathering dusk, he entered his room at +Marot's ordinary. He would go to the Palace that night; it would be the +act of a boy to fling away through the darkness, shirking a duty his +position demanded. He would go and be merry, watching Evelyn in the gown +that Peterborough had praised. + +When Juba had lighted the candles, he sat and drank and drank again of the +red wine upon the table. It put maggots in his brain, fired and flushed +him to the spirit's core. An idea came, at which he laughed. He bade it +go, but it would not. It stayed, and his fevered fancy played around it +as a moth around a candle. At first he knew it for a notion, bizarre and +absurd, which presently he would dismiss. All day strange thoughts had +come and gone, appearing, disappearing, like will-o'-the-wisps for which a +man upon a firm road has no care. Never fear that he will follow them! He +sees the marsh, that it has no footing. So with this Jack-o'-lantern +conception,--it would vanish as it came. + +It did not so. Instead, when he had drunken more wine, and had sat for +some time methodically measuring, over and over again, with thumb and +forefinger, the distance from candle to bottle, and from bottle to glass, +the idea began to lose its wildfire aspect. In no great time it appeared +an inspiration as reasonable as happy. When this point had been reached, +he stamped upon the floor to summon his servant from the room below. "Lay +out the white and gold, Juba," he ordered, when the negro appeared, "and +come make me very fine. I am for the Palace,--I and a brown lady that hath +bewitched me! The white sword knot, sirrah; and cock my hat with the +diamond brooch"-- + +It was a night that was thronged with stars, and visited by a whispering +wind. Haward, walking rapidly along the almost deserted Nicholson Street, +lifted his burning forehead to the cool air and the star-strewn fields of +heaven. Coming to the gate by which he had entered the afternoon before, +he raised the latch and passed into the garden. By now his fever was full +upon him, and it was a man scarce to be held responsible for his actions +that presently knocked at the door of the long room where, at the window +opening upon Palace Street, Audrey sat with Mistress Stagg and watched the +people going to the ball. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE GOVERNOR'S BALL + + +For an hour it had been very quiet, very peaceful, in the small white +house on Palace Street. Darden was not there; for the Commissary had sent +for him, having certain inquiries to make and a stern warning to deliver. +Mistress Deborah had been asked to spend the night with an acquaintance in +the town, so she also was out and gone. Mistress Stagg and Audrey kept the +lower rooms, while overhead Mr. Charles Stagg, a man that loved his art, +walked up and down, and, with many wavings of a laced handkerchief and +much resort to a gilt snuffbox, reasoned with Plato of death and the soul. +The murmur of his voice came down to the two women, and made the only +sound in the house. Audrey, sitting by the window, her chin upon her hand +and her dark hair shadowing her face, looked out upon the dooryard and the +Palace Street beyond. The street was lit by torches, and people were going +to the ball in coaches and chariots, on foot and in painted chairs. They +went gayly, light of heart, fine of person, a free and generous folk. +Laughter floated over to the silent watcher, and the torchlight gave her +glimpses of another land than her own. + +Many had been Mistress Stagg's customers since morning, and something had +she heard besides admiration of her wares and exclamation at her prices. +Now, as she sat with some gay sewing beneath her nimble fingers, she +glanced once and again at the shadowed face opposite her. If the look was +not one of curiosity alone, but had in it an admixture of new-found +respect; if to Mistress Stagg the Audrey of yesterday, unnoted, +unwhispered of, was a being somewhat lowlier than the Audrey of to-day, it +may be remembered for her that she was an actress of the early eighteenth +century, and that fate and an old mother to support had put her in that +station. + +The candles beneath their glass shades burned steadily; the house grew +very quiet; the noises of the street lessened and lessened, for now nearly +all of the people were gone to the ball. Audrey watched the round of light +cast by the nearest torch. For a long time she had watched it, thinking +that he might perhaps cross the circle, and she might see him in his +splendor. She was still watching when he knocked at the garden door. + +Mistress Stagg, sitting in a dream of her own, started violently. "La, +now, who may that be?" she exclaimed. "Go to the door, child. If 'tis a +stranger, we shelter none such, to be taken up for the harboring of +runaways!" + +Audrey went to the door and opened it. A moment's pause, a low cry, and +she moved backward to the wall, where she stood with her slender form +sharply drawn against the white plaster, and with the fugitive, elusive +charm of her face quickened into absolute beauty, imperious for attention. +Haward, thus ushered into the room, gave the face its due. His eyes, +bright and fixed, were for it alone. Mistress Stagg's curtsy went +unacknowledged save by a slight, mechanical motion of his hand, and her +inquiry as to what he lacked that she could supply received no answer. He +was a very handsome man, of a bearing both easy and commanding, and +to-night he was splendidly dressed in white satin with embroidery of gold. +To one of the women he seemed the king, who could do no wrong; to the +other, more learned in the book of the world, he was merely a fine +gentleman, whose way might as well be given him at once, since, spite of +denial, he would presently take it. + +Haward sat down, resting his clasped hands upon the table, gazing +steadfastly at the face, dark and beautiful, set like a flower against the +wall. "Come, little maid!" he said. "We are going to the ball together, +you and I. Hasten, or we shall not be in time for the minuet." + +Audrey smiled and shook her head, thinking that it was his pleasure to +laugh at her a little. Mistress Stagg likewise showed her appreciation of +the pleasantry. When he repeated his command, speaking in an authoritative +tone and with a glance at his watch, there was a moment of dead silence; +then, "Go your ways, sir, and dance with Mistress Evelyn Byrd!" cried the +scandalized ex-actress. "The Governor's ball is not for the likes of +Audrey!" + +"I will be judge of that," he answered. "Come, let us be off, child! Or +stay! hast no other dress than that?" He looked toward the mistress of the +house. "I warrant that Mistress Stagg can trick you out! I would have you +go fine, Audrey of the hair! Audrey of the eyes! Audrey of the full brown +throat! Dull gold,--have you that, now, mistress, in damask or brocade? +Soft laces for her bosom, and a yellow bloom in her hair. It should be +dogwood, Audrey, like the coronal you wore on May Day. Do you remember, +child? The white stars in your hair, and the Maypole all aflutter, and +your feet upon the green grass"-- + +"Oh, I was happy then!" cried Audrey and wrung her hands. Within a moment, +however, she was calm again, and could look at him with a smile. "I am +only Audrey," she said. "You know that the ball is not for me. Why then do +you tell me that I must go? It is your kindness; I know that it is your +kindness that speaks. But yet--but yet"--She gazed at him imploringly: +then from his steady smile caught a sudden encouragement. "Oh!" she +exclaimed with a gesture of quick relief, and with tremulous laughter in +her face and voice,--"oh, you are mocking me! You only came to show how a +gentleman looks who goes to a Governor's ball!" + +For the moment, in her relief at having read his riddle, there slipped +from her the fear of she knew not what,--the strangeness and heaviness of +heart that had been her portion since she came to Williamsburgh. Leaving +the white wall against which she had leaned, she came a little forward, +and with gayety and grace dropped him a curtsy. "Oh, the white satin like +the lilies in your garden!" she laughed. "And the red heels to your shoes, +and the gold-fringed sword knot, and the velvet scabbard! Ah, let me see +your sword, how bright and keen it is!" + +She was Audrey of the garden, and Haward, smiling, drew his rapier and +laid it in her hands. She looked at the golden hilt, and passed her brown +fingers along the gleaming blade. "Stainless," she said, and gave it back +to him. + +Taking it, he took also the hand that had proffered it. "I was not +laughing, child," he said. "Go to the ball thou shalt, and with me. What! +Thou art young and fair. Shalt have no pleasure"-- + +"What pleasure in that?" cried Audrey. "I may not go, sir; nay, I will not +go!" + +She freed her hand, and stood with heaving bosom and eyes that very slowly +filled with tears. Haward saw no reason for her tears. It was true that +she was young and fair; true, also, that she had few pleasures. Well, he +would change all that. The dance,--was it not woven by those nymphs of +old, those sprites of open spaces in the deep woods, from whose immemorial +company she must have strayed into this present time? Now at the Palace +the candles were burning for her, for her the music was playing. Her +welcome there amidst the tinsel people? Trust him for that: he was what he +was, and could compass greater things than that would be. Go she should, +because it pleased him to please her, and because it was certainly +necessary for him to oppose pride with pride, and before the eyes of +Evelyn demonstrate his indifference to that lady's choice of Mr. Lee for +the minuet and Mr. Lightfoot for the country dance. This last thought had +far to travel from some unused, deep-down quagmire of the heart, but it +came. For the rest, the image of Audrey decked in silk and lace, turned by +her apparel into a dark Court lady, a damsel in waiting to Queen Titania, +caught his fancy in both hands. He wished to see her thus,--wished it so +strongly that he knew it would come to pass. He was a gentleman who had +acquired the habit of having his own way. There had been times when the +price of his way had seemed too dear; when he had shrugged his shoulders +and ceased to desire what he would not buy. To-night he was not able to +count the cost. But he knew--he knew cruelly well--how to cut short this +fruitless protest of a young girl who thought him all that was wise and +great and good. + +"So you cannot say 'yes' to my asking, little maid?" he began, quiet and +smiling. "Cannot trust me that I have reasons for the asking? Well, I will +not ask again, Audrey, since it is so great a thing'"--"Oh," cried Audrey, +"you know that I would die for you!" The tears welled over, but she +brushed them away with a trembling hand; then stood with raised face, her +eyes soft and dewy, a strange smile upon her lips. She spoke at last as +simply as a child: "Why you want me, that am only Audrey, to go with you +to the Palace yonder, I cannot tell. But I will go, though I am only +Audrey, and I have no other dress than this"-- + +Haward got unsteadily to his feet, and lightly touched the dark head that +she bowed upon her hands. "Why, now you are Audrey again," he said +approvingly. "Why, child, I would do you a pleasure!" He turned to the +player's wife. "She must not go in this guise. Have you no finery stowed +away?" + +Now, Mistress Stagg, though much scandalized, and very certain that all +this would never do, was in her way an artist, and could see as in a +mirror what bare throat and shoulders, rich hair drawn loosely up, a touch +of rouge, a patch or two, a silken gown, might achieve for Audrey. And +after all, had not Deborah told her that the girl was Mr. Haward's ward, +not Darden's, and that though Mr. Haward came and went as he pleased, and +was very kind to Audrey, so that Darden was sure of getting whatever the +girl asked for, yet she was a good girl, and there was no harm? For the +talk that day,--people were very idle, and given to thinking the forest +afire when there was only the least curl of smoke. And in short and +finally it was none of her business; but with the aid of a certain chest +upstairs, she knew what she could do! To the ball might go a beauty would +make Mistress Evelyn Byrd look to her laurels! + +"There's the birthday dress that Madam Carter sent us only last week," she +began hesitatingly. "It's very beautiful, and a'most as good as new, and +'twould suit you to a miracle--But I vow you must not go, Audrey!... To be +sure, the damask is just the tint for you, and there are roses would +answer for your hair. But la, sir, you know 'twill never do, never in this +world." + +Half an hour later, Haward rose from his chair and bowed low as to some +highborn and puissant dame. The fever that was now running high in his +veins flushed his cheek and made his eyes exceedingly bright. When he went +up to Audrey, and in graceful mockery of her sudden coming into her +kingdom, took her hand and, bending, kissed it, the picture that they made +cried out for some painter to preserve it. Her hand dropped from his +clasp, and buried itself in rich folds of flowered damask; the quick rise +and fall of her bosom stirred soft, yellowing laces, and made to flash +like diamonds some ornaments of marcasite; her face was haunting in its +pain and bewilderment and great beauty, and in the lie which her eyes gave +to the false roses beneath those homes of sadness and longing. She had no +word to say, she was "only Audrey," and she could not understand. But she +wished to do his bidding, and so, when he cried out upon her melancholy, +and asked her if 'twere indeed a Sunday in New England instead of a +Saturday in Virginia, she smiled, and strove to put on the mind as well +as the garb of a gay lady who might justly go to the Governor's ball. + +Half frightened at her own success, Mistress Stagg hovered around her, +giving this or that final touch to her costume; but it was Haward himself +who put the roses in her hair. "A little longer, and we will walk once +more in my garden at Fair View," he said. "June shall come again for us, +and we will tread the quiet paths, my sweet, and all the roses shall bloom +again for us. There, you are crowned! Hail, Queen!" + +Audrey felt the touch of his lips upon her forehead, and shivered. All her +world was going round; she could not steady it, could not see aright, knew +not what was happening. The strangeness made her dizzy. She hardly heard +Mistress Stagg's last protest that it would never do,--never in the world; +hardly knew when she left the house. She was out beneath the stars, moving +toward a lit Palace whence came the sound of violins. Haward's arm was +beneath her hand; his voice was in her ear, but it was as the wind's +voice, whose speech she did not understand. Suddenly they were within the +Palace garden, with its winding, torchlit walks, and the terraces at the +side; suddenly again, they had mounted the Palace steps, and the doors +were open, and she was confronted with lights and music and shifting, +dazzling figures. She stood still, clasped her hands, and gave Haward a +piteous look. Her face, for all its beauty and its painted roses, was +strangely the child's face that had lain upon his breast, where he knelt +amid the corn, in the valley between the hills, so long ago. He gave her +mute appeal no heed. The Governor's guests, passing from room to room, +crossed and recrossed the wide hall, and down the stairway, to meet a row +of gallants impatient at its foot, came fair women, one after the other, +the flower of the colony, clothed upon like the lilies of old. Haward, +entering with Audrey, saw Mr. Lee at the stairfoot, and, raising his eyes, +was aware of Evelyn descending alone and somewhat slowly, all in rose +color, and with a smile upon her lips. + +She was esteemed the most beautiful woman in Virginia, the most graceful +and accomplished. Wit and charm and fortune were hers, and the little gay +world of Virginia had mated her with Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View. +Therefore that portion of it that chanced to be in the hall of the +Governor's house withdrew for the moment its attention from its own +affairs, and bestowed it upon those of the lady descending the stairs, and +of the gold-and-white gentleman who, with a strange beauty at his side, +stood directly in her path. It was a very wise little world, and since +yesterday afternoon had been fairly bursting with its own knowledge. It +knew all about that gypsy who had come to town from Fair View +parish,--"La, my dear, just the servant of a minister!"--and knew to a +syllable what had passed in the violent quarrel to which Mr. Lee owed his +good fortune. + +[Illustration: "I DO NOT THINK I HAVE THE HONOR OF KNOWING"--] + +That triumphant gentleman now started forward, and, with a low bow, +extended his hand to lead to the ballroom this rose-colored paragon and +cynosure of all eyes. Evelyn smiled upon him, and gave him her scarf to +hold, but would not be hurried; must first speak to her old friend Mr. +Haward, and tell him that her father's foot could now bear the shoe, and +that he might appear before the ball was over. This done, she withdrew her +gaze, from Haward's strangely animated, vividly handsome countenance, +and turned it upon the figure at his side. "Pray present me!" she said +quickly. "I do not think I have the honor of knowing"-- + +Audrey raised her head, that had been bent, and looked again, as she had +looked yesterday, with all her innocent soul and heavy heart, into the +eyes of the princess. The smile died from Evelyn's lips, and a great wave +of indignant red surged over face and neck and bosom. The color fled, but +not the bitter anger. So he could bring his fancy there! Could clothe her +that was a servant wench in a splendid gown, and flaunt her before the +world--before the world that must know--oh, God! must know how she herself +loved him! He could do this after that month at Westover! She drew her +breath, and met the insult fairly. "I withdraw my petition," she said +clearly. "Now that I bethink me, my acquaintance is already somewhat too +great. Mr. Lee, shall we not join the company? I have yet to make my +curtsy to his Excellency." + +With head erect, and with no attention to spare from the happy Mr. Lee, +she passed the sometime suitor for her hand and the apple of discord which +it had pleased him to throw into the assembly. A whisper ran around the +hall. Audrey heard suppressed laughter, and heard a speech which she did +not understand, but which was uttered in an angry voice, much like +Mistress Deborah's when she chided. A sudden terror of herself and of +Haward's world possessed her. She turned where she stood in her borrowed +plumage, and clung to his hand and arm. "Let me go," she begged. "It is +all a mistake,--all wrong. Let me go,--let me go." + +He laughed at her, shaking his head and looking into her beseeching face +with shining, far-off eyes. "Thou dear fool!" he said. "The ball is made +for thee, and all these folk are here to do thee honor!" Holding her by +the hand, he moved with her toward a wide doorway, through which could be +seen a greater throng of beautifully dressed ladies and gentlemen. Music +came from this room, and she saw that there were dancers, and that beyond +them, upon a sort of dais, and before a great carved chair, stood a fine +gentleman who, she knew, must be his Excellency the Governor of Virginia. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE UNINVITED GUEST + + +"Mistress Audrey?" said the Governor graciously, as the lady in damask +rose from her curtsy. "Mistress Audrey whom? Mr. Haward, you gave me not +the name of the stock that hath flowered in so beauteous a bloom." + +"Why, sir, the bloom is all in all,'" answered Haward. "What root it +springs from matters not. I trust that your Excellency is in good +health,--that you feel no touch of our seasoning fever?" + +"I asked the lady's name, sir," said the Governor pointedly. He was +standing in the midst of a knot of gentlemen, members of the Council and +officers of the colony. All around the long room, seated in chairs arow +against the walls, or gathered in laughing groups, or moving about with a +rustle and gleam of silk, were the Virginians his guests. From the +gallery, where were bestowed the musicians out of three parishes, floated +the pensive strains of a minuet, and in the centre of the polished floor, +under the eyes of the company, several couples moved and postured through +that stately dance. + +"The lady is my ward," said Haward lightly. "I call her Audrey. Child, +tell his Excellency your other name." + +If he thought at all, he thought that she could do it. But such an +estray, such a piece of flotsam, was Audrey, that she could not help him +out. "They call me Darden's Audrey," she explained to the Governor. "If I +ever heard my father's name, I have forgotten it." + +Her voice, though low, reached all those who had ceased from their own +concerns to stare at this strange guest, this dark-eyed, shrinking beauty, +so radiantly attired. The whisper had preceded her from the hall: there +had been fluttering and comment enough as, under the fire of all those +eyes, she had passed with Haward to where stood the Governor receiving his +guests. But the whisper had not reached his Excellency's ears. In London +he had been slightly acquainted with Mr. Marmaduke Haward, and now knew +him for a member of his Council, and a gentleman of much consequence in +that Virginia which he had come to rule. Moreover, he had that very +morning granted a favor to Mr. Haward, and by reason thereof was inclined +to think amiably of the gentleman. Of the piece of dark loveliness whom +the Virginian had brought forward to present, who could think otherwise? +But his Excellency was a formal man, punctilious, and cautious of his +state. The bow with which he received the strange lady's curtsy had been +profound; in speaking to her he had made his tones honey-sweet, while his +compliment quite capped the one just paid to Mistress Evelyn Byrd. And now +it would appear that the lady had no name! Nay, from the looks that were +being exchanged, and from the tittering that had risen amongst the younger +of his guests, there must be more amiss than that! His Excellency frowned, +drew himself up, and turned what was meant to be a searching and terrible +eye upon the recreant in white satin. Audrey caught the look, for which +Haward cared no whit. Oh, she knew that she had no business there,--she +that only the other day had gone barefoot on Darden's errands, had been +kept waiting in hall or kitchen of these people's houses! She knew that, +for all her silken gown, she had no place among them; but she thought that +they were not kind to stare and whisper and laugh, shaming her before one +another and before him. Her heart swelled; to the dreamy misery of the day +and evening was added a passionate sense of hurt and wrong and injustice. +Her pride awoke, and in a moment taught her many things, though among them +was no distrust of him. Brought to bay, she put out her hand and found a +gate; pushed it open, and entered upon her heritage of art. + +The change was so sudden that those who had stared at her sourly or +scornfully, or with malicious amusement or some stirrings of pity, drew +their breath and gave ground a little. Where was the shrinking, +frightened, unbidden guest of a moment before, with downcast eyes and +burning cheeks? Here was a proud and easy and radiant lady, with witching +eyes and a wonderful smile. "I am only Audrey, your Excellency," she said, +and curtsied as she spoke. "My other name lies buried in a valley amongst +far-off mountains." She slightly turned, and addressed herself to a +portly, velvet-clad gentleman, of a very authoritative air, who, arriving +late, had just shouldered himself into the group about his Excellency. "By +token," she smiled, "of a gold moidore that was paid for a loaf of bread." + +The new Governor appealed to his predecessor. "What is this, Colonel +Spotswood, what is this?" he demanded, somewhat testily, of the +open-mouthed gentleman in velvet. + +"Odso!" cried the latter. "'Tis the little maid of the +sugar-tree!--Marmaduke Haward's brown elf grown into the queen of all the +fairies!" Crossing to Audrey he took her by the hand. "My dear child," he +said, with a benevolence that sat well upon him, "I always meant to keep +an eye upon thee, to see that Mr. Haward did by thee all that he swore he +would do. But at first there were cares of state, and now for five years I +have lived at Germanna, half way to thy mountains, where echoes from the +world seldom reach me. Permit me, my dear." With a somewhat cumbrous +gallantry, the innocent gentleman, who had just come to town and knew not +the gossip thereof, bent and kissed her upon the cheek. + +Audrey curtsied with a bright face to her old acquaintance of the valley +and the long road thence to the settled country. "I have been cared for, +sir," she said. "You see that I am happy." + +She turned to Haward, and he drew her hand within his arm. "Ay, child," he +said. "We are keeping others of the company from their duty to his +Excellency. Besides, the minuet invites. I do not think I have heard music +so sweet before to-night. Your Excellency's most obedient servant! +Gentlemen, allow us to pass." The crowd opened before them, and they found +themselves in the centre of the room. Two couples were walking a minuet; +when they were joined by this dazzling third, the ladies bridled, bit +their lips, and shot Parthian glances. + +It was very fortunate, thought Audrey, that the Widow Constance had once, +long ago, taught her to dance, and that, when they were sent to gather +nuts or myrtle berries or fagots in the woods, she and Barbara were used +to taking hands beneath the trees and moving with the glancing sunbeams +and the nodding saplings and the swaying grapevine trailers. She that had +danced to the wind in the pine tops could move with ease to the music of +this night. And since it was so that with a sore and frightened and +breaking heart one could yet, in some strange way, become quite another +person,--any person that one chose to be,--these cruel folk should not +laugh at her again! They had not laughed since, before the Governor +yonder, she had suddenly made believe that she was a carefree, great lady. +Well, she would make believe to them still. + +Her eyes were as brilliant as Haward's that shone with fever; a smile +stayed upon her lips; she moved with dignity through the stately dance, +scarce erring once, graceful and fine in all that she did. Haward, +enamored, his wits afire, went mechanically through the oft-trod measure, +and swore to himself that he held in his hand the pearl of price, the +nonpareil of earth. In this dance and under cover of the music they could +speak to each other unheard of those about them. + +"'Queen of all the fairies,' did he call you?" he asked. "That was well +said. When we are at Fair View again, thou must show me where thou wonnest +with thy court, in what moonlit haunt, by what cool stream"-- + +"I would I were this night at Fair View glebe house," said Audrey. "I +would I were at home in the mountains." + +Her voice, sunken with pain and longing, was for him alone. To the other +dancers, to the crowded room at large, she seemed a brazen girl, with +beauty to make a goddess, wit to mask as a great lady, effrontery to +match that of the gentleman who had brought her here. The age was free, +and in that London which was dear to the hearts of the Virginians ladies +of damaged reputation were not so unusual a feature of fashionable +entertainments as to receive any especial notice. But Williamsburgh was +not London, and the dancer yonder, who held her rose-crowned head so high, +was no lady of fashion. They knew her now for that dweller at Fair View +gates of whom, during the summer just past, there had been whispering +enough. Evidently, it was not for naught that Mr. Marmaduke Haward had +refused invitations, given no entertainments, shut himself up at Fair +View, slighting old friends and evincing no desire to make new ones. Why, +the girl was a servant,--nothing more nor less; she belonged to Gideon +Darden, the drunken minister; she was to have married Jean Hugon, the +half-breed trader. Look how the Governor, enlightened at last, glowered at +her; and how red was Colonel Spotswood's face; and how Mistress Evelyn +Byrd, sitting in the midst of a little court of her own, made witty talk, +smiled upon her circle of adorers, and never glanced toward the centre of +the room, and the dancers there! + +"You are so sweet and gay to-night," said Haward to Audrey. "Take your +pleasure, child, for it is a sad world, and the blight will fall. I love +to see you happy." + +"Happy!" she answered. "I am not happy!" + +"You are above them all in beauty," he went on. "There is not one here +that's fit to tie your shoe." + +"Oh me!" cried Audrey. "There is the lady that you love, and that loves +you. Why did she look at me so, in the hall yonder? And yesterday, when +she came to Mistress Stagg's, I might not touch her or speak to her! You +told me that she was kind and good and pitiful. I dreamed that she might +let me serve her when she came to Fair View." + +"She will never come to Fair View," he said, "nor shall I go again to +Westover. I am for my own house now, you brown enchantress, and my own +garden, and the boat upon the river. Do you remember how sweet were our +days in June? We will live them over again, and there shall come for us, +besides, a fuller summer"-- + +"It is winter now," said Audrey, with a sobbing breath, "and cold and +dark! I do not know myself, and you are strange. I beg you to let me go +away. I wish to wash off this paint, to put on my own gown. I am no lady; +you do wrong to keep me here. See, all the company are frowning at me! The +minister will hear what I have done and be angry, and Mistress Deborah +will beat me. I care not for that, but you--Oh, you have gone far +away,--as far as Fair View, as far as the mountains! I am speaking to a +stranger"-- + +In the dance their raised hands met again. "You see me, you speak to me at +last," he said ardently. "That other, that cold brother of the snows, that +paladin and dream knight that you yourself made and dubbed him me,--he has +gone, Audrey; nay, he never was! But I myself, I am not abhorrent to you?" + +"Oh," she answered, "it is all dark! I cannot see--I cannot understand"-- + +The time allotted to minuets having elapsed, the musicians after a short +pause began to play an ancient, lively air, and a number of ladies and +gentlemen, young, gayly dressed, and light of heart as of heels, engaged +in a country dance. When they were joined by Mr. Marmaduke Haward and his +shameless companion, there arose a great rustling and whispering. A young +girl in green taffeta was dancing alone, wreathing in and out between the +silken, gleaming couples, coquetting with the men by means of fan and +eyes, but taking hands and moving a step or two with each sister of the +dance. When she approached Audrey, the latter smiled and extended her +hand, because that was the way the lady nearest her had done. But the girl +in green stared coldly, put her hand behind her, and, with the very +faintest salute to Mr. Marmaduke Haward, danced on her way. For one moment +the smile died on Audrey's lips; then it came resolutely back, and she +held her head high. + +The men, forming in two rows, drew their rapiers with a flourish, and, +crossing them overhead, made an arch of steel under which the women must +pass. Haward's blade touched that of an old acquaintance. "I have been +leaning upon the back of a lady's chair," said the latter gruffly, under +cover of the music and the clashing steel,--"a lady dressed in rose color, +who's as generous (to all save one poor devil) as she is fair. I promised +her I would take her message; the Lord knows I would go to the bottom of +the sea to give her pleasure! She says that you are not yourself; begs +that you will--go quietly away"-- + +An exclamation from the man next him, and a loud murmur mixed with some +laughter from those in the crowded room who were watching the dancers, +caused the gentleman to break off in the middle of his message. He glanced +over his shoulder; then, with a shrug, turned to his vis-a-vis in white +satin. "Now you see that 'twill not answer,--not in Virginia. The +women--bless them!--have a way of cutting Gordian knots." + +A score of ladies, one treading in the footsteps of another, should have +passed beneath the flashing swords. But there had thrust itself into their +company a plague spot, and the girl in green taffeta and a matron in +silver brocade, between whom stood the hateful presence, indignantly +stepped out of line and declined to dance. The fear of infection spreading +like wildfire, the ranks refused to close, and the company was thrown into +confusion. Suddenly the girl in green, by nature a leader of her kind, +walked away, with a toss of her head, from the huddle of those who were +uncertain what to do, and joined her friends among the spectators, who +received her with acclaim. The sound and her example were warranty enough +for the cohort she had quitted. A moment, and it was in virtuous retreat, +and the dance was broken up. + +The gentlemen, who saw themselves summarily deserted, abruptly lowered +their swords. One laughed; another, flown with wine, gave utterance to +some coarse pleasantry; a third called to the musicians to stop the music. +Darden's Audrey stood alone, brave in her beautiful borrowed dress and the +color that could not leave her cheeks. But her lips had whitened, the +smile was gone, and her eyes were like those of a hunted deer. She looked +mutely about her: how could she understand, who trusted so completely, who +lived in a labyrinth without a clue, who had built her dream world so +securely that she had left no way of egress for herself? These were cruel +people! She was mad to get away, to tear off this strange dress, to fling +herself down in the darkness, in the woods, hiding her face against the +earth! But though she was only Audrey and so poor a thing, she had for her +portion a dignity and fineness of nature that was a stay to her steps. +Barbara, though not so poor and humble a maid, might have burst into +tears, and run crying from the room and the house; but to do that Audrey +would have been ashamed. + +"It was you, Mr. Corbin, that laughed, I think?" said Haward. "To-morrow I +shall send to know the reason of your mirth. Mr. Everard, you will answer +to me for that pretty oath. Mr. Travis, there rests the lie that you +uttered just now: stoop and take it again." He flung his glove at Mr. +Travis's feet. + +A great hubbub and exclamation arose. Mr. Travis lifted the glove with the +point of his rapier, and in a loud voice repeated the assertion which had +given umbrage to Mr. Haward of Fair View. That gentleman sprang unsteadily +forward, and the blades of the two crossed in dead earnest. A moment, and +the men were forced apart; but by this time the whole room was in +commotion. The musicians craned their necks over the gallery rail, a woman +screamed, and half a dozen gentlemen of years and authority started from +the crowd of witnesses to the affair and made toward the centre of the +room, with an eye to preventing further trouble. Where much wine had been +drunken and twenty rapiers were out, matters might go from bad to worse. + +Another was before them. A lady in rose color had risen from her chair and +glided across the polished floor to the spot where trouble was brewing. +"Gentlemen, for shame!" she cried. Her voice was bell-like in its clear +sweetness, final in its grave rebuke and its recall to sense and decency. +She was Mistress Evelyn Byrd, who held sovereignty in Virginia, and at the +sound of her voice, the command of her raised hand, the clamor suddenly +ceased, and the angry group, parting, fell back as from the presence of +its veritable queen. + +Evelyn went up to Audrey and took her by the hand. "I am not tired of +dancing, as were those ladies who have left us," she said, with a smile, +and in a sweet and friendly voice. "See, the gentlemen are waiting I Let +us finish out this measure, you and me." + +At her gesture of command the lines that had so summarily broken +re-formed. Back into the old air swung the musicians; up went the swords, +crossing overhead with a ringing sound, and beneath the long arch of +protecting steel moved to the music the two women, the dark beauty and the +fair, the princess and the herdgirl. Evelyn led, and Audrey, following, +knew that now indeed she was walking in a dream. + +A very few moments, and the measure was finished. A smile, a curtsy, a +wave of Evelyn's hand, and the dancers, disbanding, left the floor. Mr. +Corbin, Mr. Everard, and Mr. Travis, each had a word to say to Mr. Haward +of Fair View, as they passed that gentleman. + +Haward heard, and answered to the point; but when presently Evelyn said, +"Let us go into the garden," and he found himself moving with her and with +Audrey through the buzzing, staring crowd toward the door of the +Governor's house, he thought that it was into Fair View garden they were +about to descend. And when they came out upon the broad, torchlit walk, +and he saw gay parties of ladies and gentlemen straying here and there +beneath the trees, he thought it strange that he had forgotten that he had +guests this night. As for the sound of the river below his terrace, he had +never heard so loud a murmur. It grew and filled the night, making thin +and far away the voices of his guests. + +There was a coach at the gates, and Mr. Grymes, who awhile ago had told +him that he had a message to deliver, was at the coach door. Evelyn had +her hand upon his arm, and her voice was speaking to him from as far away +as across the river. "I am leaving the ball," it said, "and I will take +the girl in my coach to the place where she is staying. Promise me that +you will not go back to the house yonder; promise me that you will go away +with Mr. Grymes, who is also weary of the ball"-- + +"Oh," said Mr. Grymes lightly, "Mr. Haward agrees with me that Marot's +best room, cool and quiet, a bottle of Burgundy, and a hand at piquet are +more alluring than the heat and babel we have left. We are going at once, +Mistress Evelyn. Haward, I propose that on our way to Marot's we knock up +Dr. Contesse, and make him free of our company." + +As he spoke, he handed into the coach the lady in flowered damask, who had +held up her head, but said no word, and the lady in rose-colored brocade, +who, through the length of the ballroom and the hall and the broad walk +where people passed and repassed, had kept her hand in Audrey's, and had +talked, easily and with smiles, to the two attending gentlemen. He shut to +the coach door, and drew back, with a low bow, when Haward's deeply +flushed, handsome face appeared for a moment at the lowered glass. + +"Art away to Westover, Evelyn?" he asked. "Then 't is 'Good-by, +sweetheart!' for I shall not go to Westover again. But you have a fair +road to travel,--there are violets by the wayside; for it is May Day, you +know, and the woods are white with dogwood and purple with the Judas-tree. +The violets are for you; but the great white blossoms, and the boughs of +rosy mist, and all the trees that wave in the wind are for Audrey." His +eyes passed the woman whom he would have wed, and rested upon her +companion in the coach. "Thou fair dryad!" he said. "Two days hence we +will keep tryst beneath the beech-tree in the woods beyond the glebe +house." + +The man beside him put a hand upon his shoulder and plucked him back, nor +would look at Evelyn's drawn and whitened face, but called to the coachman +to go on. The black horses put themselves into motion, the equipage made a +wide turn, and the lights of the Palace were left behind. + +Evelyn lodged in a house upon the outskirts of the town, but from the +Palace to Mistress Stagg's was hardly more than a stone's throw. Not until +the coach was drawing near the small white house did either of the women +speak. Then Audrey broke into an inarticulate murmur, and stooping would +have pressed her cheek against the hand that had clasped hers only a +little while before. But Evelyn snatched her hand away, and with a gesture +of passionate repulsion shrank into her corner of the coach. "Oh, how dare +you touch me!" she cried. "How dare you look at me, you serpent that have +stung me so!" Able to endure no longer, she suddenly gave way to angry +laughter. "Do you think I did it for you,--put such humiliation upon +myself for you? Why, you wanton, I care not if you stand in white at +every church door in Virginia! It was for him, for Mr. Marmaduke Haward of +Fair View, for whose name and fame, if he cares not for them himself, his +friends have yet some care!" The coach stopped, and the footman opened the +door. "Descend, if you please," went on Evelyn clearly and coldly. "You +have had your triumph. I say not there is no excuse for him,--you are very +beautiful. Good-night." + +Audrey stood between the lilac bushes and watched the coach turn from +Palace into Duke of Gloucester Street; then went and knocked at the green +door. It was opened by Mistress Stagg in person, who drew her into the +parlor, where the good-natured woman had been sitting all alone, and in +increasing alarm as to what might be the outcome of this whim of Mr. +Marmaduke Haward's. Now she was full of inquiries, ready to admire and to +nod approval, or to shake her head and cry, "I told you so!" according to +the turn of the girl's recital. + +But Audrey had little to say, little to tell. Yes, oh yes, it had been a +very grand sight.... Yes, Mr. Haward was kind; he had always been kind to +her.... She had come home with Mistress Evelyn Byrd in her coach.... Might +she go now to her room? She would fold the dress very carefully. + +Mistress Stagg let her go, for indeed there was no purpose to be served in +keeping her, seeing that the girl was clearly dazed, spoke without knowing +what she said, and stood astare like one of Mrs. Salmon's beautiful was +ladies. She would hear all about it in the morning, when the child had +slept off her excitement. They at the Palace couldn't have taken her +presence much amiss, or she would never in the world have come home in the +Westover coach. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +AUDREY AWAKES + + +There had lately come to Virginia, and to the convention of its clergy at +Williamsburgh, one Mr. Eliot, a minister after the heart of a large number +of sober and godly men whose reputation as a body suffered at the hands of +Mr. Darden, of Fair View parish, Mr. Bailey, of Newport, Mr. Worden, of +Lawn's Creek, and a few kindred spirits. Certainly Mr. Eliot was not like +these; so erect, indeed, did he hold himself in the strait and narrow path +that his most admiring brethren, being, as became good Virginians, +somewhat easy-going in their saintliness, were inclined to think that he +leaned too far the other way. It was commendable to hate sin and reprove +the sinner; but when it came to raining condemnation upon horse-racing, +dancing, Cato at the playhouse, and like innocent diversions, Mr. Eliot +was surely somewhat out of bounds. The most part accounted for his turn of +mind by the fact that ere he came to Virginia he had been a sojourner in +New England. + +He was mighty in the pulpit, was Mr. Eliot; no droning reader of last +year's sermons, but a thunderer forth of speech that was now acrid, now +fiery, but that always came from an impassioned nature, vehement for the +damnation of those whom God so strangely spared. When, as had perforce +happened during the past week, he must sit with his brethren in the +congregation and listen to lukewarm--nay, to dead and cold adjurations and +expoundings, his very soul itched to mount the pulpit stairs, thrust down +the Laodicean that chanced to occupy it, and himself awaken as with the +sound of a trumpet this people who slept upon the verge of a precipice, +between hell that gaped below and God who sat on high, serenely regardful +of his creatures' plight. Though so short a time in Virginia, he was +already become a man of note, the prophet not without honor, whom it was +the fashion to admire, if not to follow. It was therefore natural enough +that the Commissary, himself a man of plain speech from the pulpit, should +appoint him to preach in Bruton church this Sunday morning, before his +Excellency the Governor, the worshipful the Council, the clergy in +convention, and as much of Williamsburgh, gentle and simple, as could +crowd into the church. Mr. Eliot took the compliment as an answer to +prayer, and chose for his text Daniel fifth and twenty-seventh. + +Lodging as he did on Palace Street, the early hours of the past night, +which he would have given to prayer and meditation, had been profaned by +strains of music from the Governor's house, by laughter and swearing and +much going to and fro in the street beneath his window. These disturbances +filling him with righteous wrath, he came down to his breakfast next +morning prepared to give his hostess, who kept him company at table, line +and verse which should demonstrate that Jehovah shared his anger. + +"Ay, sir!" she cried. "And if that were all, sir"--and straightway she +embarked upon a colored narration of the occurrence at the Governor's +ball. This was followed by a wonderfully circumstantial account of Mr. +Marmaduke Haward's sins of omission against old and new acquaintances who +would have entertained him at their houses, and been entertained in turn +at Fair View, and by as detailed a description of the toils that had been +laid for him by that audacious piece who had forced herself upon the +company last night. + +Mr. Eliot listened aghast, and mentally amended his sermon. If he knew +Virginia, even so flagrant a case as this might never come before a +vestry. Should this woman go unreproved? When in due time he was in the +church, and the congregation was gathering, he beckoned to him one of the +sidesmen, asked a question, and when it was answered, looked fixedly at a +dark girl sitting far away in a pew beneath the gallery. + +It was a fine, sunny morning, with a tang of autumn in the air, and the +concourse within the church was very great. The clergy showed like a wedge +of black driven into the bright colors with which nave and transept +overflowed. His Excellency the Governor sat in state, with the Council on +either hand. One member of that body was not present. Well-nigh all +Williamsburgh knew by now that Mr. Marmaduke Haward lay at Marot's +ordinary, ill of a raging fever. Hooped petticoat and fragrant bodice +found reason for whispering to laced coat and periwig; significant glances +traveled from every quarter of the building toward the tall pew where, +collected but somewhat palely smiling, sat Mistress Evelyn Byrd beside her +father. All this was before the sermon. When the minister of the day +mounted the pulpit, and, gaunt against the great black sounding-board, +gave out his text in a solemn and ringing voice, such was the genuine +power of the man that every face was turned toward him, and throughout the +building there fell a sudden hush. + +Audrey looked with the rest, but she could not have said that she +listened,--not at first. She was there because she always went to church +on Sunday. It had not occurred to her to ask that she might stay at home. +She had come from her room that morning with the same still face, the same +strained and startled look about the eyes, that she had carried to it the +night before. Black Peggy, who found her bed unslept in, thought that she +must have sat the night through beside the window. Mistress Stagg, meeting +her at the stairfoot with the tidings (just gathered from the lips of a +passer-by) of Mr. Haward's illness, thought that the girl took the news +very quietly. She made no exclamation, said nothing good or bad; only drew +her hand across her brow and eyes, as though she strove to thrust away a +veil or mist that troubled her. This gesture she repeated now and again +during the hour before church time. Mistress Stagg heard no more of the +ball this morning than she had heard the night before. Something ailed the +girl. She was not sullen, but she could not or would not talk. Perhaps, +despite the fact of the Westover coach, she had not been kindly used at +the Palace. The ex-actress pursed her lips, and confided to her Mirabell +that times were not what they once were. Had she not, at Bath, been given +a ticket to the Saturday ball by my Lord Squander himself? Ay, and she had +footed it, too, in the country dance, with the best of them, with captains +and French counts and gentlemen and ladies of title,--ay, and had gone +down the middle with, the very pattern of Sir Harry Wildair! To be sure, +no one had ever breathed a word against her character; but, for her part, +she believed no great harm of Audrey, either. Look at the girl's eyes, +now: they were like a child's or a saint's. + +Mirabell nodded and looked wise, but said nothing. + +When the church bells rang Audrey was ready, and she walked to church with +Mistress Stagg much as, the night before, she had walked between the +lilacs to the green door when the Westover coach had passed from her +sight. Now she sat in the church much as she had sat at the window the +night through. She did not know that people were staring at her; nor had +she caught the venomous glance of Mistress Deborah, already in the pew, +and aware of more than had come to her friend's ears. + +Audrey was not listening, was scarcely thinking. Her hands were crossed in +her lap, and now and then she raised one and made the motion of pushing +aside from her eyes something heavy that clung and blinded. What part of +her spirit that was not wholly darkened and folded within itself was back +in the mountains of her childhood, with those of her own blood whom she +had loved and lost. What use to try to understand to-day,--to-day with its +falling skies, its bewildered pondering over the words that were said to +her last night? And the morrow,--she must leave that. Perhaps when it +should dawn he would come to her, and call her "little maid," and laugh at +her dreadful dream. But now, while it was to-day, she could not think of +him without an agony of pain and bewilderment. He was ill, too, and +suffering. Oh, she must leave the thought of him alone! Back then to the +long yesterdays she traveled, and played quietly, dreamily, with Robin on +the green grass beside the shining stream, or sat on the doorstep, her +head on Molly's lap, and watched the evening star behind the Endless +Mountains. + +It was very quiet in the church save for that one great voice speaking. +Little by little the voice impressed itself upon her consciousness. The +eyes of her mind were upon long ranges of mountains distinct against the +splendor of a sunset sky. Last seen in childhood, viewed now through the +illusion of the years, the mountains were vastly higher than nature had +planned them; the streamers of light shot to the zenith; the black forests +were still; everywhere a fixed glory, a gigantic silence, a holding of the +breath for things to happen. + +By degrees the voice in her ears fitted in with the landscape, became, so +solemn and ringing it was, like the voice of the archangel of that sunset +land. Audrey listened at last; and suddenly the mountains were gone, and +the light from the sky, and her people were dead and dust away in that +hidden valley, and she was sitting in the church at Williamsburgh, alone, +without a friend. + +What was the preacher saying? What ball of the night before was he +describing with bitter power, the while he gave warning of handwriting +upon the wall such as had menaced Belshazzar's feast of old? Of what +shameless girl was he telling,--what creature dressed in silks that should +have gone in rags, brought to that ball by her paramour-- + +The gaunt figure in the pulpit trembled like a leaf with the passion of +the preacher's convictions and the energy of his utterance. On had gone +the stream of rhetoric, the denunciations, the satire, the tremendous +assertions of God's mind and purposes. The lash that was wielded was +far-reaching; all the vices of the age--irreligion, blasphemy, +drunkenness, extravagance, vainglory, loose living--fell under its sting. +The condemnation was general, and each man looked to see his neighbor +wince. The occurrence at the ball last night,--he was on that for final +theme, was he? There was a slight movement throughout the congregation. +Some glanced to where would have sat Mr. Marmaduke Haward, had not the +gentleman been at present in his bed, raving now of a great run of luck at +the Cocoa Tree; now of an Indian who, with his knee upon his breast, was +throttling him to death. Others looked over their shoulders to see if that +gypsy yet sat beneath the gallery. Colonel Byrd took out his snuffbox and +studied the picture on the lid, while his daughter sat like a carven lady, +with a slight smile upon her lips. + +On went the word picture that showed how vice could flaunt it in so fallen +an age. The preacher spared not plain words, squarely turned himself +toward the gallery, pointed out with voice and hand the object of his +censure and of God's wrath. Had the law pilloried the girl before them +all, it had been but little worse for her. She sat like a statue, staring +with wide eyes at the window above the altar. This, then, was what the +words in the coach last night had meant--this was what the princess +thought--this was what his world thought-- + +There arose a commotion in the ranks of the clergy of Virginia. The +Reverend Gideon Darden, quitting with an oath the company of his brethren, +came down the aisle, and, pushing past his wife, took his stand in the pew +beside the orphan who had lived beneath his roof, whom during many years +he had cursed upon occasion and sometimes struck, and whom he had latterly +made his tool, "Never mind him, Audrey, my girl," he said, and put an +unsteady hand upon her shoulder. "You're a good child; they cannot harm +ye." + +He turned his great shambling body and heavy face toward the preacher, +stemmed in the full tide of his eloquence by this unseemly interruption, +"Ye beggarly Scot!" he exclaimed thickly. "Ye evil-thinking saint from +Salem way, that know the very lining of the Lord's mind, and yet, walking +through his earth, see but a poisonous weed in his every harmless flower! +Shame on you to beat down the flower that never did you harm! The girl's +as innocent a thing as lives! Ay, I've had my dram,--the more shame to you +that are justly rebuked out of the mouth of a drunken man! I have done, +Mr. Commissary," addressing himself to that dignitary, who had advanced to +the altar rail with his arm raised in a command for silence. "I've no +child of my own, thank God! but the maid has grown up in my house, and +I'll not sit to hear her belied. I've heard of last night; 'twas the mad +whim of a sick man. The girl's as guiltless of wrong as any lady here. I, +Gideon Darden, vouch for it!" + +He sat heavily down beside Audrey, who never stirred from her still regard +of that high window. There was a moment of portentous silence; then, "Let +us pray," said the minister from the pulpit. + +Audrey knelt with the rest, but she did not pray. And when it was all +over, and the benediction had been given, and she found herself without +the church, she looked at the green trees against the clear autumnal +skies and at the graves in the churchyard as though it were a new world +into which she had stepped. She could not have said that she found it +fair. Her place had been so near the door that well-nigh all the +congregation was behind her, streaming out of the church, eager to reach +the open air, where it might discuss the sermon, the futile and scandalous +interruption by the notorious Mr. Darden, and what Mr. Marmaduke Haward +might have said or done had he been present. + +Only Mistress Stagg kept beside her; for Mistress Deborah hung back, +unwilling to be seen in her company, and Darden, from that momentary +awakening of his better nature, had sunk to himself again, and thought not +how else he might aid this wounded member of his household. But Mary Stagg +was a kindly soul, whose heart had led her comfortably through life with +very little appeal to her head. The two or three young women--Oldfields +and Porters of the Virginian stage--who were under indentures to her +husband and herself found her as much their friend as mistress. Their +triumphs in the petty playhouse of this town of a thousand souls were +hers, and what woes they had came quickly to her ears. Now she would have +slipped her hand into Audrey's and have given garrulous comfort, as the +two passed alone through the churchyard gate and took their way up Palace +Street toward the small white house. But Audrey gave not her hand, did not +answer, made no moan, neither justified herself nor blamed another. She +did not speak at all, but after the first glance about her moved like a +sleepwalker. + +When the house was reached she went up to the bedroom. Mistress Deborah, +entering stormily ten minutes later, found herself face to face with a +strange Audrey, who, standing in the middle of the floor, raised her hand +for silence in a gesture so commanding that the virago stayed her tirade, +and stood open-mouthed. + +"I wish to speak," said the new Audrey. "I was waiting for you. There's a +question I wish to ask, and I'll ask it of you who were never kind to me." + +"Never kind to her!" cried the minister's wife to the four walls. "And +she's been taught, and pampered, and treated more like a daughter than the +beggar wench she is! And this is my return,--to sit by her in church +to-day, and have all Virginia think her belonging to me"-- + +"I belong to no one," said Audrey. "Even God does not want me. Be quiet +until I have done." She made again the gesture of pushing aside from face +and eyes the mist that clung and blinded. "I know now what they say," she +went on. "The preacher told me awhile ago. Last night a lady spoke to me: +now I know what was her meaning. Because Mr. Haward, who saved my life, +who brought me from the mountains, who left me, when he sailed away, where +he thought I would be happy, was kind to me when he came again after so +many years; because he has often been to the glebe house, and I to Fair +View; because last night he would have me go with him to the Governor's +ball, they think--they say out loud for all the people to hear--that +I--that I am like Joan, who was whipped last month at the Court House. But +it is not of the lies they tell that I wish to speak." + +Her hand went again to her forehead, then dropped at her side. A look of +fear and of piteous appeal came into her face. "The witch said that I +dreamed, and that it was not well for dreamers to awaken." Suddenly the +quiet of her voice and bearing was broken. With a cry, she hurried across +the room, and, kneeling, caught at the other's gown. "Ah! that is no +dream, is it? No dream that he is my friend, only my friend who has always +been sorry for me, has always helped me! He is the noblest gentleman, the +truest, the best--he loves the lady at Westover--they are to be +married--he never knew what people were saying--he was not himself when he +spoke to me so last night"--Her eyes appealed to the face above her. "I +could never have dreamed all this," she said. "Tell me that I was awake!" + +The minister's wife looked down upon her with a bitter smile. "So you've +had your fool's paradise? Well, once I had mine, though 'twas not your +kind. 'Tis a pretty country, Audrey, but it's not long before they turn +you out." She laughed somewhat drearily, then in a moment turned shrew +again. "He never knew what people were saying?" she cried. "You little +fool, do you suppose he cared? 'Twas you that played your cards all wrong +with your Governor's ball last night!--setting up for a lady, +forsooth!--bringing all the town about your ears! You might have known +that he would never have taken you there in his senses. At Fair View +things went very well. He was entertained,--and I meant to see that no +harm came of it,--and Darden got his support in the vestry. For he was +bit,--there's no doubt of that,--though what he ever saw in you more than +big eyes and a brown skin, the Lord knows, not I! Only your friend!--a +fine gentleman just from London, with a whole Canterbury book of stories +about his life there, to spend a'most a summer on the road between his +plantation and a wretched glebe house because he was only your friend, and +had saved you from the Indians when you were a child, and wished to be +kind to you still! I'll tell you who did wish to be kind to you, and that +was Jean Hugon, the trader, who wanted to marry you." + +Audrey rose to her feet, and moved slowly backward to the wall. Mistress +Deborah went shrilly on: "I dare swear you believe that Mr. Haward had you +in mind all the years he was gone from Virginia? Well, he didn't. He puts +you with Darden and me, and he says, 'There's the strip of Oronoko down by +the swamp,--I 've told my agent that you're to have from it so many pounds +a year;' and he sails away to London and all the fine things there, and +never thinks of you more until he comes back to Virginia and sees you last +May Day at Jamestown. Next morning he comes riding to the glebe house. +'And so,' he says to Darden, 'and so my little maid that I brought for +trophy out of the Appalachian Mountains is a woman grown? Faith, I'd quite +forgot the child; but Saunderson tells me that you have not forgot to draw +upon my Oronoko.' That's all the remembrance you were held in, Audrey." + +She paused to take breath, and to look with shrewish triumph at the girl +who leaned against the wall. "I like not waking up," said Audrey to +herself. "It were easier to die. Perhaps I am dying." + +"And then out he walks to find and talk to you, and in sets your pretty +summer of all play and no work!" went on the other, in a high voice. "Oh, +there was kindness enough, once you had caught his fancy! I wonder if the +lady at Westover praised his kindness? They say she is a proud young lady: +I wonder if she liked your being at the ball last night? When she comes +to Fair View, I'll take my oath that you'll walk no more in its garden! +But perhaps she won't come now,--though her maid Chloe told Mistress +Bray's Martha that she certainly loves him"-- + +"I wish I were dead," said Audrey. "I wish I were dead, like Molly." She +stood up straight against the wall, and pushed her heavy hair from her +forehead. "Be quiet now," she said. "You see that I am awake; there is no +need for further calling. I shall not dream again." She looked at the +older woman doubtfully. "Would you mind," she suggested,--"would you be so +very kind as to leave me alone, to sit here awake for a while? I have to +get used to it, you know. To-morrow, when we go back to the glebe house, I +will work the harder. It must be easy to work when one is awake. Dreaming +takes so much time." + +Mistress Deborah could hardly have told why she did as she was asked. +Perhaps the very strangeness of the girl made her uncomfortable in her +presence; perhaps in her sour and withered heart there was yet some little +soundness of pity and comprehension; or perhaps it was only that she had +said her say, and was anxious to get to her friends below, and shake from +her soul the dust of any possible complicity with circumstance in moulding +the destinies of Darden's Audrey. Be that as it may, when she had flung +her hood upon the bed and had looked at herself in the cracked glass above +the dresser, she went out of the room, and closed the door somewhat softly +behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +BY THE RIVERSIDE + + +"Yea, I am glad--I and my father and mother and Ephraim--that thee is +returned to Fair View," answered Truelove. "And has thee truly no shoes of +plain and sober stuffs? These be much too gaudy." + +"There's a pair of black callimanco," said the storekeeper reluctantly; +"but these of flowered silk would so become your feet, or this red-heeled +pair with the buckles, or this of fine morocco. Did you think of me every +day that I spent in Williamsburgh?" + +"I prayed for thee every day," said Truelove simply,--"for thee and for +the sick man who had called thee to his side. Let me see thy callimanco +shoes. Thee knows that I may not wear these others." + +The storekeeper brought the plainest footgear that his stock afforded. +"They are of a very small size,--perhaps too small. Had you not better try +them ere you buy? I could get a larger pair from Mr. Carter's store." + +Truelove seated herself upon a convenient stool, and lifted her gray skirt +an inch above a slender ankle. "Perchance they may not be too small," she +said, and in despite of her training and the whiteness of her soul two +dimples made their appearance above the corners of her pretty mouth. +MacLean knelt to remove the worn shoe, but found in the shoestrings an +obstinate knot. The two had the store to themselves; for Ephraim waited +for his sister at the landing, rocking in his boat on the bosom of the +river, watching a flight of wild geese drawn like a snowy streamer across +the dark blue sky. It was late autumn, and the forest was dressed in flame +color. + +"Thy fingers move so slowly that I fear thee is not well," said Truelove +kindly. "They that have nursed men with fever do often fall ill +themselves. Will thee not see a physician?" + +MacLean, sanguine enough in hue, and no more gaunt of body than usual, +worked languidly on. "I trust no lowland physician," he said. "In my own +country, if I had need, I would send to the foot of Dun-da-gu for black +Murdoch, whose fathers have been physicians to the MacLeans of Duart since +the days of Galethus. The little man in this parish,--his father was a +lawyer, his grandfather a merchant; he knows not what was his +great-grandfather! There, the shoe is untied! If I came every day to your +father's house, and if your mother gave me to drink of her elder-flower +wine, and if I might sit on the sunny doorstep and watch you at your +spinning, I should, I think, recover." + +He slipped upon her foot the shoe of black cloth. Truelove regarded it +gravely. "'Tis not too small, after all," she said. "And does thee not +think it more comely than these other, with their silly pomp of colored +heels and blossoms woven in the silk?" She indicated with her glance the +vainglorious row upon the bench beside her; then looked down at the little +foot in its sombre covering and sighed. + +"I think that thy foot would be fair in the shoe of Donald Ross!" cried +the storekeeper, and kissed the member which he praised. + +Truelove drew back, her cheeks very pink, and the dimples quite uncertain +whether to go or stay. "Thee is idle in thy behavior," she said severely. +"I do think that thee is of the generation that will not learn. I pray +thee to expeditiously put back my own shoe, and to give me in a parcel the +callimanco pair." + +MacLean set himself to obey, though with the expedition of a tortoise. +Crisp autumn air and vivid sunshine pouring in at window and door filled +and lit the store. The doorway framed a picture of blue sky, slow-moving +water, and ragged landing; the window gave upon crimson sumac and the gold +of a sycamore. Truelove, in her gray gown and close white cap, sat in the +midst of the bouquet of colors afforded by the motley lining of the Fair +View store, and gazed through the window at the riotous glory of this +world. At last she looked at MacLean. "When, a year ago, thee was put to +mind this store, and I, coming here to buy, made thy acquaintance," she +said softly, "thee wore always so stern and sorrowful a look that my heart +bled for thee. I knew that thee was unhappy. Is thee unhappy still?" + +MacLean tied the shoestrings with elaborate care; then rose from his +knees, and stood looking down from his great height upon the Quaker +maiden. His face was softened, and when he spoke it was with a gentle +voice. "No," he said, "I am not unhappy as at first I was. My king is an +exile, and my chief is forfeited. I suppose that my father is dead. Ewin +Mackinnon, my foe upon whom I swore revenge, lived untroubled by me, and +died at another's hands. My country is closed against me; I shall never +see it more. I am named a rebel, and chained to this soil, this dull and +sluggish land, where from year's end to year's end the key keeps the +house and the furze bush keeps the cow. The best years of my +manhood--years in which I should have acquired honor--have gone from me +here. There was a man of my name amongst those gentlemen, old officers of +Dundee, who in France did not disdain to serve as private sentinels, that +their maintenance might not burden a king as unfortunate as themselves. +That MacLean fell in the taking of an island in the Rhine which to this +day is called the Island of the Scots, so bravely did these gentlemen bear +themselves. They made their lowly station honorable; marshals and princes +applauded their deeds. The man of my name was unfortunate, but not +degraded; his life was not amiss, and his death was glorious. But I, Angus +MacLean, son and brother of chieftains, I serve as a slave; giving +obedience where in nature it is not due, laboring in an alien land for +that which profiteth not, looking to die peacefully in my bed! I should be +no less than most unhappy." + +He sat down upon the bench beside Truelove, and taking the hem of her +apron began to plait it between his fingers. "But to-day," he said,--"but +to-day the sky seems blue, the sunshine bright. Why is that, Truelove?" + +Truelove, with her eyes cast down and a deeper wild rose in her cheeks, +opined that it was because Friend Marmaduke Haward was well of his fever, +and had that day returned to Fair View. "Friend Lewis Contesse did tell my +father, when he was in Williamsburgh, that thee made a tenderer nurse than +any woman, and that he did think that Marmaduke Haward owed his life to +thee. I am glad that thee has made friends with him whom men foolishly +call thy master." + +"Credit to that the blue sky," said the storekeeper whimsically; "there is +yet the sunshine to be accounted for. This room did not look so bright +half an hour syne." + +But Truelove shook her head, and would not reckon further; instead heard +Ephraim calling, and gently drew her apron from the Highlander's clasp. +"There will be a meeting of Friends at our house next fourth day," she +said, in her most dovelike tones, as she rose and held out her hand for +her new shoes. "Will thee come, Angus? Thee will be edified, for Friend +Sarah Story, who hath the gift of prophecy, will be there, and we do think +to hear of great things. Thee will come?" + +"By St. Kattan, that will I!" exclaimed the storekeeper, with suspicious +readiness. "The meeting lasts not long, does it? When the Friends are gone +there will be reward? I mean I may sit on the doorstep and watch you--and +watch _thee_--spin?" + +Truelove dimpled once more, took her shoes, and would have gone her way +sedately and alone, but MacLean must needs keep her company to the end of +the landing and the waiting Ephraim. The latter, as he rowed away from the +Fair View store, remarked upon his sister's looks: "What makes thy cheeks +so pink, Truelove, and thy eyes so big and soft?" + +Truelove did not know; thought that mayhap 'twas the sunshine and the +blowing wind. + +The sun still shone, but the wind had fallen, when, two hours later, +MacLean pocketed the key of the store, betook himself again to the water's +edge, and entering a small boat, first turned it sunwise for luck's sake, +then rowed slowly downstream to the great-house landing. Here he found a +handful of negroes--boatmen and house servants--basking in the sunlight. +Juba was of the number, and at MacLean's call scrambled to his feet and +came to the head of the steps. "No, sah, Marse Duke not on de place. He +order Mirza an' ride off"--a pause--"an' ride off to de glebe house. Yes, +sah, I done tol' him he ought to rest. Goin' to wait tel he come back?" + +"No," answered MacLean, with a darkened face. "Tell him I will come to the +great house to-night." + +In effect, the storekeeper was now, upon Fair View plantation, master of +his own time and person. Therefore, when he left the landing, he did not +row back to the store, but, it being pleasant upon the water, kept on +downstream, gliding beneath the drooping branches of red and russet and +gold. When he came to the mouth of the little creek that ran past Haward's +garden, he rested upon his oars, and with a frowning face looked up its +silver reaches. + +The sun was near its setting, and a still and tranquil light lay upon the +river that was glassy smooth. Rowing close to the bank, the Highlander saw +through the gold fretwork of the leaves above him far spaces of pale blue +sky. All was quiet, windless, listlessly fair. A few birds were on the +wing, and far toward the opposite shore an idle sail seemed scarce to hold +its way. Presently the trees gave place to a grassy shore, rimmed by a +fiery vine that strove to cool its leaves in the flood below. Behind it +was a little rise of earth, a green hillock, fresh and vernal in the midst +of the flame-colored autumn. In shape it was like those hills in his +native land which the Highlander knew to be tenanted by the _daoine shi'_ +the men of peace. There, in glittering chambers beneath the earth, they +dwelt, a potent, eerie, gossamer folk, and thence, men and women, they +issued at times to deal balefully with the mortal race. + +A woman was seated upon the hillock, quiet as a shadow, her head resting +on her hand, her eyes upon the river. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, slight of +figure, and utterly, mournfully still, sitting alone in the fading light, +with the northern sky behind her, for the moment she wore to the +Highlander an aspect not of earth, and he was startled. Then he saw that +it was but Darden's Audrey. She watched the water where it gleamed far +off, and did not see him in his boat below the scarlet vines. Nor when, +after a moment's hesitation, he fastened the boat to a cedar stump, and +stepped ashore, did she pay any heed. It was not until he spoke to her, +standing where he could have touched her with his outstretched hand, that +she moved or looked his way. + +"How long since you left the glebe house?" he demanded abruptly. + +"The sun was high," she answered, in a slow, even voice, with no sign of +surprise at finding herself no longer alone. "I have been sitting here for +a long time. I thought that Hugon might be coming this afternoon.... There +is no use in hiding, but I thought if I stole down here he might not find +me very soon." + +Her voice died away, and she looked again at the water. The storekeeper +sat down upon the bank, between the hillock and the fiery vine, and his +keen eyes watched her closely. "The river," she said at last,--I like to +watch it. There was a time when I loved the woods, but now I see that they +are ugly. Now, when I can steal away, I come to the river always. I watch +it and watch it, and think.... All that you give it is taken so surely, +and hurried away, and buried out of sight forever. A little while ago I +pulled a spray of farewell summer, and went down there where the bank +shelves and gave it to the river. It was gone in a moment for all that the +stream seems so stealthy and slow." + +"The stream comes from afar," said the Highlander. "In the west, beneath +the sun, it may be a torrent flashing through the mountains." + +"The mountains!" cried Audrey. "Ah, they are uglier than the woods,--black +and terrible! Once I loved them, too, but that was long ago." She put her +chin upon her hand, and again studied the river. "Long ago," she said, +beneath her breath. + +There was a silence; then, "Mr. Haward is at Fair View again," announced +the storekeeper. + +The girl's face twitched. + +"He has been nigh to death," went on her informant. "There were days when +I looked for no morrow for him; one night when I held above his lips a +mirror, and hardly thought to see the breath-stain." + +Audrey laughed. "He can fool even Death, can he not?" The laugh was light +and mocking, a tinkling, elvish sound which the Highlander frowned to +hear. A book, worn and dog-eared, lay near her on the grass. He took it up +and turned the leaves; then put it by, and glanced uneasily at the +slender, brown-clad form seated upon the fairy mound. + +"That is strange reading," he said. + +Audrey looked at the book listlessly. "The schoolmaster gave it to me. It +tells of things as they are, all stripped of make-believe, and shows how +men love only themselves, and how ugly and mean is the world when we look +at it aright. The schoolmaster says that to look at it aright you must +not dream; you must stay awake,"--she drew her hand across her brow and +eyes,--"you must stay awake." + +"I had rather dream," said MacLean shortly. "I have no love for your +schoolmaster." + +"He is a wise man," she answered. "Now that I do not like the woods I +listen to him when he comes to the glebe house. If I remember all he says, +maybe I shall grow wise, also, and the pain will stop." Once more she +dropped her chin upon her hand and fell to brooding, her eyes upon the +river. When she spoke again it was to herself: "Sometimes of nights I hear +it calling me. Last night, while I knelt by my window, it called so loud +that I put my hands over my ears; but I could not keep out the sound,--the +sound of the river that comes from the mountains, that goes to the sea. +And then I saw that there was a light in Fair View house." + +Her voice ceased, and the silence closed in around them. The sun was +setting, and in the west were purple islands merging into a sea of gold. +The river, too, was colored, and every tree was like a torch burning +stilly in the quiet of the evening. For some time MacLean watched the +girl, who now again seemed unconscious of his presence; but at last he got +to his feet, and looked toward his boat. "I must be going," he said; then, +as Audrey raised her head and the light struck upon her face, he continued +more kindly than one would think so stern a seeming man could speak: "I am +sorry for you, my maid. God knows that I should know how dreadful are the +wounds of the spirit! Should you need a friend"-- + +Audrey shook her head. "No more friends," she said, and laughed as she had +laughed before. "They belong in dreams. When you are awake,--that is a +different thing." + +The storekeeper went his way, back to the Fair View store, rowing slowly, +with a grim and troubled face, while Darden's Audrey sat still upon the +green hillock and watched the darkening river. Behind her, at no great +distance, was the glebe house; more than once she thought she heard Hugon +coming through the bushes and calling her by name. The river darkened more +and more, and in the west the sea of gold changed to plains of amethyst +and opal. There was a crescent moon, and Audrey, looking at it with eyes +that ached for the tears that would not gather, knew that once she would +have found it fair. + +Hugon was coming, for she heard the twigs upon the path from the glebe +house snap beneath his tread. She did not turn or move; she would see him +soon enough, hear him soon enough. Presently his black eyes would look +into hers; it would be bird and snake over again, and the bird was tired +of fluttering. The bird was so tired that when a hand was laid on her +shoulder she did not writhe herself from under its touch; instead only +shuddered slightly, and stared with wide eyes at the flowing river. But +the hand was white, with a gleaming ring upon its forefinger, and it stole +down to clasp her own. "Audrey," said a voice that was not Hugon's. + +The girl flung back her head, saw Haward's face bending over her, and with +a loud cry sprang to her feet. When he would have touched her again she +recoiled, putting between them a space of green grass. "I have hunted you +for an hour," he began. "At last I struck this path. Audrey"-- + +Audrey's hands went to her ears. Step by step she moved backward, until +she stood against the trunk of a blood-red oak. When she saw that Haward +followed her she uttered a terrified scream. At the sound and at the sight +of her face he stopped short, and his outstretched hand fell to his side. +"Why, Audrey, Audrey!" he exclaimed. "I would not hurt you, child. I am +not Jean Hugon!" + +The narrow path down which he had come was visible for some distance as it +wound through field and copse, and upon it there now appeared another +figure, as yet far off, but moving rapidly through the fading light toward +the river. "Jean! Jean! Jean Hugon!" cried Audrey. + +The blood rushed to Haward's face. "As bad as that!" he said, beneath his +breath. Going over to the girl, he took her by the hands and strove to +make her look at him; but her face was like marble, and her eyes would not +meet his, and in a moment she had wrenched herself free of his clasp. +"Jean Hugon! Help, Jean Hugon!" she called. + +The half-breed in the distance heard her voice, and began to run toward +them. + +"Audrey, listen to me!" cried Haward. "How can I speak to you, how +explain, how entreat, when you are like this? Child, child, I am no +monster! Why do you shrink from me thus, look at me thus with frightened +eyes? You know that I love you!" + +She broke from him with lifted hands and a wailing cry. "Let me go! Let me +go! I am running through the corn, in the darkness, and I hope to meet the +Indians! I am awake,--oh, God! I am wide awake!" + +With another cry, and with her hands shutting out the sound of his voice, +she turned and fled toward the approaching trader. Haward, after one deep +oath and an impetuous, quickly checked movement to follow the flying +figure, stood beneath the oak and watched that meeting: Hugon, in his +wine-colored coat and Blenheim wig, fierce, inquisitive, bragging of what +he might do; the girl suddenly listless, silent, set only upon an +immediate return through the fields to the glebe house. + +She carried her point, and the two went away without let or hindrance from +the master of Fair View, who leaned against the stem of the oak and +watched them go. He had been very ill, and the hour's search, together +with this unwonted beating of his heart, had made him desperately +weary,--too weary to do aught but go slowly and without overmuch of +thought to the spot where he had left his horse, mount it, and ride as +slowly homeward. To-morrow, he told himself, he would manage differently; +at least, she should be made to hear him. In the mean time there was the +night to be gotten through. MacLean, he remembered, was coming to the +great house. What with wine and cards, thought might for a time be pushed +out of doors. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +A DUEL + + +Juba, setting candles upon a table in Haward's bedroom, chanced to spill +melted wax upon his master's hand, outstretched on the board. "Damn you!" +cried Haward, moved by sudden and uncontrollable irritation. "Look what +you are doing, sirrah!" + +The negro gave a start of genuine surprise. Haward could punish,--Juba had +more than once felt the weight of his master's cane,--but justice had +always been meted out with an equable voice and a fine impassivity of +countenance. "Don't stand there staring at me!" now ordered the master as +irritably as before. "Go stir the fire, draw the curtains, shut out the +night! Ha, Angus, is that you?" + +MacLean crossed the room to the fire upon the hearth, and stood with his +eyes upon the crackling logs. "You kindle too soon your winter fire," he +said. "These forests, flaming red and yellow, should warm the land." + +"Winter is at hand. The air strikes cold to-night," answered Haward, and, +rising, began to pace the room, while MacLean watched him with compressed +lips and gloomy eyes. Finally he came to a stand before a card table, set +full in the ruddy light of the fire, and taking up the cards ran them +slowly through his fingers. "When the lotus was all plucked and Lethe +drained, then cards were born into the world," he said sententiously. +"Come, my friend, let us forget awhile." + +They sat down, and Haward dealt. + +"I came to the house landing before sunset," began the storekeeper slowly. +"I found you gone." + +"Ay," said Haward, gathering up his cards. "'Tis yours to play." + +"Juba told me that you had called for Mirza, and had ridden away to the +glebe house." + +"True," answered the other. "And what then?" + +There was a note of warning in his voice, but MacLean did not choose to +heed. "I rowed on down the river, past the mouth of the creek," he +continued, with deliberation. "There was a mound of grass and a mass of +colored vines"-- + +"And a blood-red oak," finished Haward coldly. "Shall we pay closer regard +to what we are doing? I play the king." + +"You were there!" exclaimed the Highlander. "You--not Jean Hugon--searched +for and found the poor maid's hiding-place." The red came into his tanned +cheek. "Now, by St. Andrew!" he began; then checked himself. + +Haward tapped with his finger the bit of painted pasteboard before him. "I +play the king," he repeated, in an even voice; then struck a bell, and +when Juba appeared ordered the negro to bring wine and to stir the fire. +The flames, leaping up, lent strange animation to the face of the lady +above the mantelshelf, and a pristine brightness to the swords crossed +beneath the painting. The slave moved about the room, drawing the curtains +more closely, arranging all for the night. While he was present the +players gave their attention to the game, but with the sound of the +closing door MacLean laid down his cards. + +"I must speak," he said abruptly. "The girl's face haunts me. You do +wrong. It is not the act of a gentleman." + +The silence that followed was broken by Haward, who spoke in the smooth, +slightly drawling tones which with him spelled irritation and sudden, +hardly controlled anger. "It is my home-coming," he said. "I am tired, and +wish to-night to eat only of the lotus. Will you take up your cards +again?" + +A less impetuous man than MacLean, noting the signs of weakness, fatigue, +and impatience, would have waited, and on the morrow have been listened to +with equanimity. But the Highlander, fired by his cause, thought not of +delay. "To forget!" he exclaimed. "That is the coward's part! I would have +you remember: remember yourself, who are by nature a gentleman and +generous; remember how alone and helpless is the girl; remember to cease +from this pursuit!" + +"We will leave the cards, and say good-night," said Haward, with a strong +effort for self-control. + +"Good-night with all my heart!" cried the other hotly,--"when you have +promised to lay no further snare for that maid at your gates, whose name +you have blasted, whose heart you have wrung, whose nature you have +darkened and distorted"-- + +"Have you done?" demanded Haward. "Once more, 't were wise to say +good-night at once." + +"Not yet!" exclaimed the storekeeper, stretching out an eager hand. "That +girl hath so haunting a face. Haward, see her not again! God wot, I think +you have crushed the soul within her, and her name is bandied from mouth +to mouth. 'T were kind to leave her to forget and be forgotten. Go to +Westover: wed the lady there of whom you raved in your fever. You are her +declared suitor; 'tis said that she loves you"-- + +Haward drew his breath sharply and turned in his chair. Then, spent with +fatigue, irritable from recent illness, sore with the memory of the +meeting by the river, determined upon his course and yet deeply perplexed, +he narrowed his eyes and began to give poisoned arrow for poisoned arrow. + +"Was it in the service of the Pretender that you became a squire of +dames?" he asked. "'Gad, for a Jacobite you are particular!" + +MacLean started as if struck, and drew himself up. "Have a care, sir! A +MacLean sits not to hear his king or his chief defamed. In future, pray +remember it." + +"For my part," said the other, "I would have Mr. MacLean remember"-- + +The intonation carried his meaning. MacLean, flushing deeply, rose from +the table. "That is unworthy of you," he said. "But since before to-night +servants have rebuked masters, I spare not to tell you that you do most +wrongly. 'Tis sad for the girl she died not in that wilderness where you +found her." + +"Ads my life!" cried Haward. "Leave my affairs alone!" + +Both men were upon their feet. "I took you for a gentleman," said the +Highlander, breathing hard. "I said to myself: 'Duart is overseas where I +cannot serve him. I will take this other for my chief'"-- + +"That is for a Highland cateran and traitor," interrupted Haward, pleased +to find another dart, but scarcely aware of how deadly an insult he was +dealing. + +In a flash the blow was struck. Juba, in the next room, hearing the noise +of the overturned table, appeared at the door. "Set the table to rights +and light the candles again," said his master calmly. "No, let the cards +lie. Now begone to the quarters! 'Twas I that stumbled and overset the +table." + +Following the slave to the door he locked it upon him; then turned again +to the room, and to MacLean standing waiting in the centre of it. "Under +the circumstances, we may, I think, dispense with preliminaries. You will +give me satisfaction here and now?" + +"Do you take it at my hands?" asked the other proudly. "Just now you +reminded me that I was your servant. But find me a sword"-- + +Haward went to a carved chest; drew from it two rapiers, measured the +blades, and laid one upon the table. MacLean took it up, and slowly passed +the gleaming steel between his fingers. Presently he began to speak, in a +low, controlled, monotonous voice: "Why did you not leave me as I was? Six +months ago I was alone, quiet, dead. A star had set for me; as the lights +fail behind Ben More, it was lost and gone. You, long hated, long looked +for, came, and the star arose again. You touched my scars, and suddenly I +esteemed them honorable. You called me friend, and I turned from my enmity +and clasped your hand. Now my soul goes back to its realm of solitude and +hate; now you are my foe again." He broke off to bend the steel within his +hands almost to the meeting of hilt and point. "A hated master," he ended, +with bitter mirth, "yet one that I must thank for grace extended. Forty +stripes is, I believe, the proper penalty." + +Haward, who had seated himself at his escritoire and was writing, turned +his head. "For my reference to your imprisonment in Virginia I apologize. +I demand the reparation due from one gentleman to another for the +indignity of a blow. Pardon me for another moment, when I shall be at your +service." + +He threw sand upon a sheet of gilt-edged paper, folded and superscribed +it; then took from his breast a thicker document. "The Solebay, +man-of-war, lying off Jamestown, sails at sunrise. The captain--Captain +Meade--is my friend. Who knows the fortunes of war? If by chance I should +fall to-night, take a boat at the landing, hasten upstream, and hail the +Solebay. When you are aboard give Meade--who has reason to oblige me--this +letter. He will carry you down the coast to Charleston, where, if you +change your name and lurk for a while, you may pass for a buccaneer and be +safe enough. For this other paper"--He hesitated, then spoke on with some +constraint: "It is your release from servitude in Virginia,--in effect, +your pardon. I have interest both here and at home--it hath been many +years since Preston--the paper was not hard to obtain. I had meant to give +it to you before we parted to-night. I regret that, should you prove the +better swordsman, it may be of little service to you." + +He laid the papers on the table, and began to divest himself of his coat, +waistcoat, and long, curled periwig. MacLean took up the pardon and held +it to a candle. It caught, but before the flame could reach the writing +Haward had dashed down the other's hand and beaten out the blaze. "'Slife, +Angus, what would you do!" he cried, and, taken unawares, there was angry +concern in his voice. "Why, man, 't is liberty!" + +"I may not accept it," said MacLean, with dry lips. "That letter, also, +is useless to me. I would you were all villain." + +"Your scruple is fantastic!" retorted the other, and as he spoke he put +both papers upon the escritoire, weighting them with the sandbox. "You +shall take them hence when our score is settled,--ay, and use them as best +you may! Now, sir, are you ready?" + +"You are weak from illness," said MacLean hoarsely, "Let the quarrel rest +until you have recovered strength." + +Haward laughed. "I was not strong yesterday," he said. "But Mr. Everard is +pinked in the side, and Mr. Travis, who would fight with pistols, hath a +ball through his shoulder." + +The storekeeper started. "I have heard of those gentlemen! You fought them +both upon the day when you left your sickroom?" + +"Assuredly," answered the other, with a slight lift of his brows. "Will +you be so good as to move the table to one side? So. On guard, sir!" + +The man who had been ill unto death and the man who for many years had +worn no sword acquitted themselves well. Had the room been a field behind +Montagu House, had there been present seconds, a physician, gaping +chairmen, the interest would have been breathless. As it was, the lady +upon the wall smiled on, with her eyes forever upon the blossoms in her +hand, and the river without, when it could be heard through the clashing +of steel, made but a listless and dreamy sound. Each swordsman knew that +he had provoked a friend to whom his debt was great, but each, according +to his godless creed, must strive as though that friend were his dearest +foe. The Englishman fought coolly, the Gael with fervor. The latter had +an unguarded moment. Haward's blade leaped to meet it, and on the other's +shirt appeared a bright red stain. + +In the moment that he was touched the Highlander let fall his sword. +Haward, not understanding, lowered his point, and with a gesture bade his +antagonist recover the weapon. But the storekeeper folded his arms. "Where +blood has been drawn there is satisfaction," he said. "I have given it to +you, and now, by the bones of Gillean-na-Tuaidhe, I will not fight you +longer!" + +For a minute or more Haward stood with his eyes upon the ground and his +hand yet closely clasping the rapier hilt; then, drawing a long breath, he +took up the velvet scabbard and slowly sheathed his blade. "I am content," +he said. "Your wound, I hope, is slight?" + +MacLean thrust a handkerchief into his bosom to stanch the bleeding. "A +pin prick," he said indifferently. + +His late antagonist held out his hand. "It is well over. Come! We are not +young hotheads, but men who have lived and suffered, and should know the +vanity and the pity of such strife. Let us forget this hour, call each +other friends again"-- + +"Tell me first," demanded MacLean, his arm rigid at his side,--"tell me +first why you fought Mr. Everard and Mr. Travis." + +Gray eyes and dark blue met. "I fought them," said Haward, "because, on a +time, they offered insult to the woman whom I intend to make my wife." + +So quiet was it in the room when he had spoken that the wash of the river, +the tapping of walnut branches outside the window, the dropping of coals +upon the hearth, became loud and insistent sounds. Then, "Darden's +Audrey?" said MacLean in a whisper. + +"Not Darden's Audrey, but mine," answered Haward,--"the only woman I have +ever loved or shall love." + +He walked to the window and looked out into the darkness. "To-night there +is no light," he said to himself, beneath his breath. "By and by we shall +stand here together, listening to the river, marking the wind in the +trees." As upon paper heat of fire may cause to appear characters before +invisible, so, when he turned, the flame of a great passion had brought +all that was highest in this gentleman's nature into his countenance, +softening and ennobling it. "Whatever my thoughts before," he said simply, +"I have never, since I awoke from my fever and remembered that night at +the Palace, meant other than this." Coming back to MacLean he laid a hand +upon his shoulder. "Who made us knows we all do need forgiveness! Am I no +more to you, Angus, than Ewin Mor Mackinnon?" + +An hour later, those who were to be lifetime friends went together down +the echoing stair and through the empty house to the outer door. When it +was opened, they saw that upon the stone step without, in the square of +light thrown by the candles behind them, lay an Indian arrow. MacLean +picked it up. "'Twas placed athwart the door," he said doubtingly. "Is it +in the nature of a challenge?" + +Haward took the dart, and examined it curiously. "The trader grows +troublesome," he remarked. "He must back to the woods and to the foes of +his own class." As he spoke he broke the arrow in two, and flung the +pieces from him. + +It was a night of many stars and a keen wind. Moved each in his degree by +its beauty, Haward and MacLean stood regarding it before they should go, +the one back to his solitary chamber, the other to the store which was to +be his charge no longer than the morrow. "I feel the air that blows from +the hills," said the Highlander. "It comes over the heather; it hath swept +the lochs, and I hear it in the sound of torrents." He lifted his face to +the wind. "The breath of freedom! I shall have dreams to-night." + +When he was gone, Haward, left alone, looked for a while upon the heights +of stars. "I too shall dream to-night," he breathed to himself. "To-morrow +all will be well." His gaze falling from the splendor of the skies to the +swaying trees, gaunt, bare, and murmuring of their loss to the hurrying +river, sadness and vague fear took sudden possession of his soul. He spoke +her name over and over; he left the house and went into the garden. It was +the garden of the dying year, and the change that in the morning he had +smiled to see now appalled him. He would have had it June again. Now, when +on the morrow he and Audrey should pass through the garden, it must be +down dank and leaf-strewn paths, past yellow and broken stalks, with here +and there wan ghosts of flowers. + +He came to the dial, and, bending, pressed his lips against the carven +words that, so often as they had stood there together, she had traced with +her finger. "Love! thou mighty alchemist!" he breathed. "Life! that may +now be gold, now iron, but never again dull lead! Death"--He paused; then, +"There shall be no death," he said, and left the withered garden for the +lonely, echoing house. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +AUDREY COMES TO WESTOVER + + +It was ten of the clock upon this same night when Hugon left the glebe +house. Audrey, crouching in the dark beside her window, heard him bid the +minister, as drunk as himself, good-night, and watched him go unsteadily +down the path that led to the road. Once he paused, and made as if to +return; then went on to his lair at the crossroads ordinary. Again Audrey +waited,--this time by the door. Darden stumbled upstairs to bed. Mistress +Deborah's voice was raised in shrill reproach, and the drunken minister +answered her with oaths. The small house rang with their quarrel, but +Audrey listened with indifference; not trembling and stopping her ears, as +once she would have done. It was over at last, and the place sunk in +silence; but still the girl waited and listened, standing close to the +door. At last, as it was drawing toward midnight, she put her hand upon +the latch, and, raising it very softly, slipped outside. Heavy breathing +came from the room where slept her guardians; it went evenly on while she +crept downstairs and unbarred the outer door. Sure and silent and light of +touch, she passed like a spirit from the house that had given her shelter, +nor once looked back upon it. + +The boat, hidden in the reeds, was her destination; she loosed it, and +taking the oars rowed down the creek. When she came to the garden wall, +she bent her head and shut her eyes; but when she had left the creek for +the great dim river, she looked at Fair View house as she rowed past it on +her way to the mountains. No light to-night; the hour was late, and he was +asleep, and that was well. + +It was cold upon the river, and sere leaves, loosening their hold upon +that which had given them life, drifted down upon her as she rowed beneath +arching trees. When she left the dark bank for the unshadowed stream, the +wind struck her brow and the glittering stars perplexed her. There were so +many of them. When one shot, she knew that a soul had left the earth. +Another fell, and another,--it must be a good night for dying. She ceased +to row, and, leaning over, dipped her hand and arm into the black water. +The movement brought the gunwale of the boat even with the flood.... Say +that one leaned over a little farther ... there would fall another star. +God gathered the stars in his hand, but he would surely be angry with one +that came before it was called, and the star would sink past him into a +night forever dreadful.... The water was cold and deep and black. Great +fish throve in it, and below was a bed of ooze and mud.... + +The girl awoke from her dream of self-murder with a cry of terror. Not the +river, good Lord, not the river! Not death, but life! With a second +shuddering cry she lifted hand and arm from the water, and with frantic +haste dried them upon the skirt of her dress. There had been none to hear +her. Upon the midnight river, between the dim forests that ever spoke, but +never listened, she was utterly alone. She took the oars again, and went +on her way up the river, rowing swiftly, for the mountains were far away, +and she might be pursued. + +When she drew near to Jamestown she shot far out into the river, because +men might be astir in the boats about the town landing. Anchored in +midstream was a great ship,--a man-of-war, bristling with guns. Her boat +touched its shadow, and the lookout called to her. She bent her head, put +forth her strength, and left the black hull behind her. There was another +ship to pass, a slaver that had come in the evening before, and would land +its cargo at sunrise. The stench that arose from it was intolerable, and, +as the girl passed, a corpse, heavily weighted, was thrown into the water. +Audrey went swiftly by, and the river lay clean before her. The stars +paled and the dawn came, but she could not see the shores for the thick +white mist. A spectral boat, with a sail like a gray moth's wing, slipped +past her. The shadow at the helm was whistling for the wind, and the sound +came strange and shrill through the filmy, ashen morning. The mist began +to lift. A few moments now, and the river would lie dazzlingly bare +between the red and yellow forests. She turned her boat shorewards, and +presently forced it beneath the bronze-leafed, drooping boughs of a +sycamore. Here she left the boat, tying it to the tree, and hoping that it +was well hidden. The great fear at her heart was that, when she was +missed, Hugon would undertake to follow and to find her. He had the skill +to do so. Perhaps, after many days, when she was in sight of the +mountains, she might turn her head and, in that lonely land, see him +coming toward her. + +The sun was shining, and the woods were gay above her head and gay beneath +her feet. When the wind blew, the colored leaves went before it like +flights of birds. She was hungry, and as she walked she ate a piece of +bread taken from the glebe-house larder. It was her plan to go rapidly +through the settled country, keeping as far as possible to the great +spaces of woodland which the axe had left untouched; sleeping in such dark +and hidden hollows as she could find; begging food only when she must, and +then from poor folk who would not stay her or be overcurious about her +business. As she went on, the houses, she knew, would be farther and +farther apart; the time would soon arrive when she might walk half a day +and see never a clearing in the deep woods. Then the hills would rise +about her, and far, far off she might see the mountains, fixed, cloudlike, +serene, and still, beyond the miles of rustling forest. There would be no +more great houses, built for ladies and gentlemen, but here and there, at +far distances, rude cabins, dwelt in by kind and simple folk. At such a +home, when the mountains had taken on a deeper blue, when the streams were +narrow and the level land only a memory, she would pause, would ask if she +might stay. What work was wanted she would do. Perhaps there would be +children, or a young girl like Molly, or a kind woman like Mistress Stagg; +and perhaps, after a long, long while, it would grow to seem to her like +that other cabin. + +These were her rose-colored visions. At other times a terror took her by +the shoulders, holding her until her face whitened and her eyes grew wide +and dark. The way was long and the leaves were falling fast, and she +thought that it might be true that in this world into which she had +awakened there was for her no home. The cold would come, and she might +have no bread, and for all her wandering find none to take her in. In +those forests of the west the wolves ran in packs, and the Indians burned +and wasted. Some bitter night-time she would die.... Watching the sky from +Fair View windows, perhaps he might idly mark a falling star. + +All that day she walked, keeping as far as was possible to the woods, but +forced now and again to traverse open fields and long stretches of sunny +road. If she saw any one coming, she hid in the roadside bushes, or, if +that could not be done, walked steadily onward, with her head bent and her +heart beating fast. It must have been a day for minding one's own +business, for none stayed or questioned her. Her dinner she begged from +some children whom she found in a wood gathering nuts. Supper she had +none. When night fell, she was glad to lay herself down upon a bed of +leaves that she had raked together; but she slept little, for the wind +moaned in the half-clad branches, and she could not cease from counting +the stars that shot. In the morning, numbed and cold, she went slowly on +until she came to a wayside house. Quaker folk lived there; and they asked +her no question, but with kind words gave her of what they had, and let +her rest and grow warm in the sunshine upon their doorstep. She thanked +them with shy grace, but presently, when they were not looking, rose and +went her way. Upon the second day she kept to the road. It was loss of +time wandering in the woods, skirting thicket and marsh, forced ever and +again to return to the beaten track. She thought, also, that she must be +safe, so far was she now from Fair View. How could they guess that she was +gone to the mountains? + +About midday, two men on horseback looked at her in passing. One spoke to +the other, and turning their horses they put after and overtook her. He +who had spoken touched her with the butt of his whip. "Ecod!" he +exclaimed. "It's the lass we saw run for a guinea last May Day at +Jamestown! Why so far from home, light o' heels?" + +A wild leap of her heart, a singing in her ears, and Audrey clutched at +safety. + +"I be Joan, the smith's daughter," she said stolidly. "I niver ran for a +guinea. I niver saw a guinea. I be going an errand for feyther." + +"Ecod, then!" said the other man. "You're on a wrong scent. 'Twas no dolt +that ran that day!" + +The man who had touched her laughed. "'Facks, you are right, Tom! But I'd +ha' sworn 't was that brown girl. Go your ways on your errand for +'feyther'!" As he spoke, being of an amorous turn, he stooped from his +saddle and kissed her. Audrey, since she was at that time not Audrey at +all, but Joan, the smith's daughter, took the salute as stolidly as she +had spoken. The two men rode away, and the second said to the first: "A +Williamsburgh man told me that the girl who won the guinea could speak and +look like a born lady. Didn't ye hear the story of how she went to the +Governor's ball, all tricked out, dancing, and making people think she was +some fine dame from Maryland maybe? And the next day she was scored in +church before all the town. I don't know as they put a white sheet on her, +but they say 't was no more than her deserts." + +Audrey, left standing in the sunny road, retook her own countenance, +rubbed her cheek where the man's lips had touched it, and trembled like a +leaf. She was frightened, both at the encounter and because she could +make herself so like Joan,--Joan who lived near the crossroads ordinary, +and who had been whipped at the Court House. + +Late that afternoon she came upon two or three rude dwellings clustered +about a mill. A knot of men, the miller in the midst, stood and gazed at +the mill-stream. They wore an angry look; and Audrey passed them hastily +by. At the farthest house she paused to beg a piece of bread; but the +woman who came to the door frowned and roughly bade her begone, and a +child threw a stone at her. "One witch is enough to take the bread out of +poor folks' mouths!" cried the woman. "Be off, or I'll set the dogs on +ye!" The children ran after her as she hastened from the inhospitable +neighborhood. "'T is a young witch," they cried, "going to help the old +one swim to-night!" and a stone struck her, bruising her shoulder. + +She began to run, and, fleet of foot as she was, soon distanced her +tormentors. When she slackened pace it was sunset, and she was faint with +hunger and desperately weary. From the road a bypath led to a small +clearing in a wood, with a slender spiral of smoke showing between the +trees. Audrey went that way, and came upon a crazy cabin whose door and +window were fast closed. In the unkempt garden rose an apple-tree, with +the red apples shriveling upon its boughs, and from the broken gate a line +of cedars, black and ragged, ran down to a piece of water, here ghastly +pale, there streaked like the sky above with angry crimson. The place was +very still, and the air felt cold. When no answer came to her first +knocking, Audrey beat upon the door; for she was suddenly afraid of the +road behind her, and of the doleful woods and the coming night. + +The window shutter creaked ever so slightly, and some one looked out; then +the door opened, and a very old and wrinkled woman, with lines of cunning +about her mouth, laid her hand upon the girl's arm. "Who be ye?" she +whispered. "Did ye bring warning? I don't say, mind ye, that I can't make +a stream go dry,--maybe I can and maybe I can't,--but I didn't put a word +on the one yonder." She threw up her arms with a wailing cry. "But they +won't believe what a poor old soul says! Are they in an evil temper, +honey?" + +"I don't know what you mean," said Audrey. "I have come a long way, and I +am hungry and tired. Give me a piece of bread, and let me stay with you +to-night." + +The old woman moved aside, and the girl, entering a room that was mean and +poor enough, sat down upon a stool beside the fire. "If ye came by the +mill," demanded her hostess, with a suspicious eye, "why did ye not stop +there for bite and sup?" + +"The men were all talking together," answered Audrey wearily. "They looked +so angry that I was afraid of them. I did stop at one house; but the woman +bade me begone, and the children threw stones at me and called me a +witch." + +The crone stooped and stirred the fire; then from a cupboard brought forth +bread and a little red wine, and set them before the girl. "They called +you a witch, did they?" she mumbled as she went to and fro. "And the men +were talking and planning together?" + +Audrey ate the bread and drank the wine; then, because she was so tired, +leaned her head against the table and fell half asleep. When she roused +herself, it was to find her withered hostess standing over her with a sly +and toothless smile. "I've been thinking," she whispered, "that since +you're here to mind the house, I'll just step out to a neighbor's about +some business I have in hand. You can stay by the fire, honey, and be warm +and comfortable. Maybe I'll not come back to-night." + +Going to the window, she dropped a heavy bar across the shutter. "Ye'll +put the chain across the door when I'm out," she commanded. "There be +evil-disposed folk may want to win in." Coming back to the girl, she laid +a skinny hand upon her arm. Whether with palsy or with fright the hand +shook like a leaf, but Audrey, half asleep again, noticed little beyond +the fact that the fire warmed her, and that here at last was rest. "If +there should come a knocking and a calling, honey," whispered the witch, +"don't ye answer to it or unbar the door. Ye'll save time for me that way. +But if they win in, tell them I went to the northward." + +Audrey looked at her with glazed, uncomprehending eyes, while the +gnome-like figure appeared to grow smaller, to melt out of the doorway. It +was a minute or more before the wayfarer thus left alone in the hut could +remember that she had been told to bar the door. Then her instinct of +obedience sent her to the threshold. Dusk was falling, and the waters of +the pool lay pale and still beyond the ebony cedars. Through the twilit +landscape moved the crone who had housed her for the night; but she went +not to the north, but southwards toward the river. Presently the dusk +swallowed her up, and Audrey was left with the ragged garden and the +broken fence and the tiny firelit hut. Reentering the room, she fastened +the door, as she had been told to do, and then went back to the hearth. +The fire blazed and the shadows danced; it was far better than last night, +out in the cold, lying upon dead leaves, watching the falling stars. Here +it was warm, warm as June in a walled garden; the fire was red like the +roses ... the roses that had thorns to bring heart's blood. + +Audrey fell fast asleep; and while she was asleep and the night was yet +young, the miller whose mill stream had run dry, the keeper of a tippling +house whose custom had dwindled, the ferryman whose child had peaked and +pined and died, came with a score of men to reckon with the witch who had +done the mischief. Finding door and window fast shut, they knocked, softly +at first, then loudly and with threats. One watched the chimney, to see +that the witch did not ride forth that way; and the father of the child +wished to gather brush, pile it against the entrance, and set all afire. +The miller, who was a man of strength, ended the matter by breaking in the +door. They knew that the witch was there, because they had heard her +moving about, and, when the door gave, a cry of affright. When, however, +they had laid hands upon her, and dragged her out under the stars, into +the light of the torches they carried, they found that the witch, who, as +was well known, could slip her shape as a snake slips its skin, was no +longer old and bowed, but straight and young. + +"Let me go!" cried Audrey. "How dare you hold me! I never harmed one of +you. I am a poor girl come from a long way off"-- + +"Ay, a long way!" exclaimed the ferryman. "More leagues, I'll warrant, +than there are miles in Virginia! We'll see if ye can swim home, ye +witch!" + +"I'm no witch!" cried the girl again. "I never harmed you. Let me go!" + +One of the torchbearers gave ground a little. "She do look mortal young. +But where be the witch, then?" + +Audrey strove to shake herself free. "The old woman left me alone in the +house. She went to--to the northward." + +"She lies!" cried the ferryman, addressing himself to the angry throng. +The torches, flaming in the night wind, gave forth a streaming, uncertain, +and bewildering light; to the excited imaginations of the rustic avengers, +the form in the midst of them was not always that of a young girl, but now +and again wavered toward the semblance of the hag who had wrought them +evil. "Before the child died he talked forever of somebody young and fair +that came and stood by him when he slept. We thought 't was his dead +mother, but now--now I see who 't was!" Seizing the girl by the wrists, he +burst with her through the crowd. "Let the water touch her, she'll turn +witch again!" + +The excited throng, blinded by its own imagination, took up the cry. The +girl's voice was drowned; she set her lips, and strove dumbly with her +captors; but they swept her through the weed-grown garden and broken gate, +past the cedars that were so ragged and black, down to the cold and deep +water. She thought of the night upon the river and of the falling stars, +and with a sudden, piercing cry struggled fiercely to escape. The bank was +steep; hands pushed her forward: she felt the ghastly embrace of the +water, and saw, ere the flood closed over her upturned face, the cold and +quiet stars. + +So loud was the ringing in her ears that she heard no access of voices +upon the bank, and knew not that a fresh commotion had arisen. She was +sinking for the third time, and her mind had begun to wander in the Fair +View garden, when an arm caught and held her up. She was borne to the +shore; there were men on horseback; some one with a clear, authoritative +voice was now berating, now good-humoredly arguing with, her late judges. + +The man who had sprung to save her held her up to arms that reached down +from the bank above; another moment and she felt the earth again beneath +her feet, but could only think that, with half the dying past, these +strangers had been cruel to bring her back. Her rescuer shook himself like +a great dog. "I've saved the witch alive," he panted. "May God forgive and +your Honor reward me!" + +"Nay, worthy constable, you must look to Sathanas for reward!" cried the +gentleman who had been haranguing the miller and his company. These +gentry, hardly convinced, but not prepared to debate the matter with a +justice of the peace and a great man of those parts, began to slip away. +The torchbearers, probably averse to holding a light to their own +countenances, had flung the torches into the water, and now, heavily +shadowed by the cedars, the place was in deep darkness. Presently there +were left to berate only the miller and the ferryman, and at last these +also went sullenly away without having troubled to mention the witch's +late transformation from age to youth. + +"Where is the rescued fair one?" continued the gentleman who, for his own +pleasure, had led the conservers of law and order. "Produce the sibyl, +honest Dogberry! Faith, if the lady be not an ingrate, you've henceforth a +friend at court!" + +"My name is Saunders,--Dick Saunders, your Honor," quoth the constable. +"For the witch, she lies quiet on the ground beneath the cedar yonder." + +"She won't speak!" cried another. "She just lies there trembling, with her +face in her hands." + +"But she said, 'O Christ!' when we took her from the water," put in a +third. + +"She was nigh drowned," ended the constable. "And I'm a-tremble myself, +the water was that cold. Wauns! I wish I were in the chimney corner at the +Court House ordinary!" + +The master of Westover flung his riding cloak to one of the constable's +men. "Wrap it around the shivering iniquity on the ground yonder; and you, +Tom Hope, that brought warning of what your neighbors would do, mount and +take the witch behind you. Master Constable, you will lodge Hecate in the +gaol to-night, and in the morning bring her up to the great house. We +would inquire why a lady so accomplished that she can dry a mill stream to +plague a miller cannot drain a pool to save herself from drowning!" + +At a crossing of the ways, shortly before Court House, gaol, and ordinary +were reached, the adventurous Colonel gave a good-night to the constable +and his company, and, with a negro servant at his heels, rode gayly on +beneath the stars to his house at Westover. Hardy, alert, in love with +living, he was well amused by the night's proceedings. The incident should +figure in his next letter to Orrery or to his cousin Taylor. + +It figured largely in the table-talk next morning, when the sprightly +gentleman sat at breakfast with his daughter and his second wife, a fair +and youthful kinswoman of Martha and Teresa Blount. The gentleman, +launched upon the subject of witchcraft, handled it with equal wit and +learning. The ladies thought that the water must have been very cold, and +trusted that the old dame was properly grateful, and would, after such a +lesson, leave her evil practices. As they were rising from table, word was +brought to the master that constable and witch were outside. + +The Colonel kissed his wife, promised his daughter to be merciful, and, +humming a song, went through the hall to the open house door and the +broad, three-sided steps of stone. The constable was awaiting him. + +"Here be mysteries, your Honor! As I serve the King, 't weren't Goody +Price for whom I ruined my new frieze, but a slip of a girl!" He waved his +hand. "Will your Honor please to look?" + +Audrey sat in the sunshine upon the stone steps with her head bowed upon +her arms. The morning that was so bright was not bright for her; she +thought that life had used her but unkindly. A great tree, growing close +to the house, sent leaves of dull gold adrift, and they lay at her feet +and upon the skirt of her dress. The constable spoke to her: "Now, +mistress, here's a gentleman as stands for the King and the law. Look up!" + +A white hand was laid upon the Colonel's arm. "I came to make sure that +you were not harsh with the poor creature," said Evelyn's pitying voice. +"There is so much misery. Where is she? Ah!" + +To gain at last his prisoner's attention, the constable struck her lightly +across the shoulders with his cane. "Get up!" he cried impatiently. "Get +up and make your curtsy! Ecod, I wish I'd left you in Hunter's Pond!" + +Audrey rose, and turned her face, not to the justice of the peace and +arbiter of the fate of witches, but to Evelyn, standing above +her,--Evelyn, slighter, paler, than she had been at Williamsburgh, but +beautiful in her colored, fragrant silks and the air that was hers of +sweet and mournful distinction. Now she cried out sharply, while "That +girl again!" swore the Colonel, beneath his breath. + +Audrey did as she had been told, and made her curtsy. Then, while father +and daughter stared at her, the gentleman very red and biting his lip, the +lady marble in her loveliness, she tried to speak, to ask them to let her +go, but found no words. The face of Evelyn, at whom alone she looked, +wavered into distance, gazing at her coldly and mournfully from miles +away. She made a faint gesture of weariness and despair; then sank down at +Evelyn's feet, and lay there in a swoon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +TWO WOMEN + + +Evelyn, hearing footsteps across the floor of the attic room above her own +bedchamber, arose and set wide the door; then went back to her chair by +the window that looked out upon green grass and party-colored trees and +long reaches of the shining river. "Come here, if you please," she called +to Audrey, as the latter slowly descended the stair from the room where, +half asleep, half awake, she had lain since morning. + +Audrey entered the pleasant chamber, furnished with what luxury the age +afforded, and stood before the sometime princess of her dreams. "Will you +not sit down?" asked Evelyn, in a low voice, and pointed to a chair. + +"I had rather stand," answered Audrey. "Why did you call me? I was on my +way"-- + +The other's clear eyes dwelt upon her. "Whither were you going?" + +"Out of your house," said Audrey simply, "and out of your life." + +Evelyn folded her hands in her silken lap, and looked out upon river and +sky and ceaseless drift of colored leaves. "You can never go out of my +life," she said. "Why the power to vex and ruin was given you I do not +know, but you have used it. Why did you run away from Fair View?" + +"That I might never see Mr. Haward again," answered Audrey. She held her +head up, but she felt the stab. It had not occurred to her that hers was +the power to vex and ruin; apparently that belonged elsewhere. + +Evelyn turned from the window, and the two women, the princess and the +herdgirl, regarded each other. "Oh, my God!" cried Evelyn. "I did not know +that you loved him so!" + +But Audrey shook her head, and spoke with calmness: "Once I loved and knew +it not, and once I loved and knew it. It was all in a dream, and now I +have waked up." She passed her hand across her brow and eyes, and pushed +back her heavy hair. It was a gesture that was common to her. To Evelyn it +brought a sudden stinging memory of the ballroom at the Palace; of how +this girl had looked in her splendid dress, with the roses in her hair; of +Haward's words at the coach door. She had not seen him since that night. +"I am going a long way," continued Audrey. "It will be as though I died. I +never meant to harm you." + +The other gazed at her with wide, dry eyes, and with an unwonted color in +her cheeks. "She is beautiful," thought Audrey; then wondered how long she +must stay in this room and this house. Without the window the trees +beckoned, the light was fair upon the river; in the south hung a cloud, +silver-hued, and shaped like two mighty wings. Audrey, with her eyes upon +the cloud, thought, "If the wings were mine, I would reach the mountains +to-night." + +"Do you remember last May Day?" asked Evelyn, in a voice scarcely above a +whisper. "He and I, sitting side by side, watched your running, and I +praised you to him. Then we went away, and while we gathered flowers on +the road to Williamsburgh he asked me to be his wife. I said no, for he +loved me not as I wished to be loved. Afterward, in Williamsburgh, he +spoke again.... I said, 'When you come to Westover;' and he kissed my +hand, and vowed that the next week should find him here." She turned once +more to the window, and, with her chin in her hand, looked out upon the +beauty of the autumn. "Day by day, and day by day," she said, in the same +hushed voice, "I sat at this window and watched for him to come. The weeks +went by, and he came not. I began to hear talk of you. Oh, I deny not that +it was bitter!" + +"Oh me! oh me!" cried Audrey. "I was so happy, and I thought no harm." + +"He came at last," continued Evelyn. "For a month he stayed here, paying +me court. I was too proud to speak of what I had heard. After a while I +thought it must have been an idle rumor." Her voice changed, and with a +sudden gesture of passion and despair she lifted her arms above her head, +then clasped and wrung her hands. "Oh, for a month he forgot you! In all +the years to come I shall have that comfort: for one little month, in the +company of the woman whom, because she was of his own rank, because she +had wealth, because others found her fair and honored her with heart as +well as lip, he wished to make his wife,--for that short month he forgot +you! The days were sweet to me, sweet, sweet! Oh, I dreamed my dreams!... +And then we were called to Williamsburgh to greet the new Governor, and he +went with us, and again I heard your name coupled with his.... There was +between us no betrothal. I had delayed to say yes to his asking, for I +wished to make sure,--to make sure that he loved me. No man can say he +broke troth with me. For that my pride gives thanks!" + +"What must I do?" said Audrey to herself. "Pain is hard to bear." + +"That night at the ball," continued Evelyn, "when, coming down the stair, +I saw you standing beside him ... and after that, the music, and the +lights, and you dancing with him, in your dark beauty, with the flowers in +your hair ... and after that, you and I in my coach and his face at the +window!... Oh, I can tell you what he said! He said: 'Good-by, +sweetheart.... The violets are for you; but the great white blossoms, and +the boughs of rosy mist, and all the trees that wave in the wind are for +Audrey.'" + +"For me!" cried Audrey,--"for me an hour in Bruton church next morning!" + +A silence followed her words. Evelyn, sitting in the great chair, rested +her cheek upon her hand and gazed steadfastly at her guest of a day. The +sunshine had stolen from the room, but dwelt upon and caressed the world +without the window. Faint, tinkling notes of a harpsichord floated up from +the parlor below, followed by young Madam Byrd's voice singing to the +perturbed Colonel:-- + + "'O Love! they wrong thee much, + That say thy sweet is bitter, + When thy rich fruit is such + As nothing can be sweeter. + Fair house of joy and bliss'"-- + +The song came to an end, but after a pause the harpsichord sounded again, +and the singer's voice rang out:-- + + "'Under the greenwood tree, + Who loves to lie with me'"-- + +Audrey gave an involuntary cry; then, with her lip between her teeth, +strove for courage, failed, and with another strangled cry sank upon her +knees before a chair and buried her face in its cushions. + +When a little time had passed, Evelyn arose and went to her. "Fate has +played with us both," she said, in a voice that strove for calmness. "If +there was great bitterness in my heart toward you then, I hope it is not +so now; if, on that night, I spoke harshly, unkindly, ungenerously, I--I +am sorry. I thought what others thought. I--I cared not to touch you.... +But now I am told that 't was not you that did unworthily. Mr. Haward has +written to me; days ago I had this letter." It was in her hand, and she +held it out to the kneeling girl. "Yes, yes, you must read; it concerns +you." Her voice, low and broken, was yet imperious. Audrey raised her +head, took and read the letter. There were but a few unsteady lines, +written from Marot's ordinary at Williamsburgh. The writer was too weak as +yet for many words; few words were best, perhaps. His was all the blame +for the occurrence at the Palace, for all besides. That which, upon his +recovery, he must strive to teach his acquaintance at large he prayed +Evelyn to believe at once and forever. She whom, against her will and in +the madness of his fever, he had taken to the Governor's house was most +innocent,--guiltless of all save a childlike affection for the writer, a +misplaced confidence, born of old days, and now shattered by his own hand. +Before that night she had never guessed his passion, never known the use +that had been made of her name. This upon the honor of a gentleman. For +the rest, as soon as his strength was regained, he purposed traveling to +Westover. There, if Mistress Evelyn Byrd would receive him for an hour, +he might in some measure explain, excuse. For much, he knew, there was no +excuse,--only pardon to be asked. + +The letter ended abruptly, as though the writer's strength were exhausted. +Audrey read it through, then with indifference gave it back to Evelyn. "It +is true,--what he says?" whispered the latter, crumpling the paper in her +hand. + +Audrey gazed up at her with wide, tearless eyes. "Yes, it is true. There +was no need for you to use those words to me in the coach, that +night,--though even then I did not understand. There is no reason why you +should fear to touch me." + +Her head sank upon her arm. In the parlor below the singing came to an +end, but the harpsichord, lightly fingered, gave forth a haunting melody. +It was suited to the afternoon: to the golden light, the drifting leaves, +the murmurs of wind and wave, without the window: to the shadows, the +stillness, and the sorrow within the room. Evelyn, turning slowly toward +the kneeling figure, of a sudden saw it through a mist of tears. Her +clasped hands parted; she bent and touched the bowed head. Audrey looked +up, and her dark eyes made appeal. Evelyn stooped lower yet; her tears +fell upon Audrey's brow; a moment, and the two, cast by life in the +selfsame tragedy, were in each other's arms. + +"You know that I came from the mountains," whispered Audrey. "I am going +back. You must tell no one; in a little while I shall be forgotten." + +"To the mountains!" cried Evelyn. "No one lives there. You would die of +cold and hunger. No, no! We are alike unhappy: you shall stay with me here +at Westover." + +[Illustration: HER DARK EYES MADE APPEAL] + +She rose from her knees, and Audrey rose with her. They no longer clasped +each other,--that impulse was past,--but their eyes met in sorrowful +amity. Audrey shook her head. "That may not be," she said simply. "I must +go away that we may not both be unhappy." She lifted her face to the cloud +in the south, "I almost died last night. When you drown, there is at first +fear and struggling, but at last it is like dreaming, and there is a +lightness.... When that came I thought, 'It is the air of the +mountains,--I am drawing near them.' ... Will you let me go now? I will +slip from the house through the fields into the woods, and none will +know"-- + +But Evelyn caught her by the wrist. "You are beside yourself! I would +rouse the plantation; in an hour you would be found. Stay with me!" + +A knock at the door, and the Colonel's secretary, a pale and grave young +man, bowing on the threshold. He was just come from the attic room, where +he had failed to find the young woman who had been lodged there that +morning. The Colonel, supposing that by now she was recovered from her +swoon and her fright of the night before, and having certain questions to +put to her, desired her to descend to the parlor. Hearing voices in +Mistress Evelyn's room-- + +"Very well, Mr. Drew," said the lady. "You need not wait. I will myself +seek my father with--with our guest." + +In the parlor Madam Byrd was yet at the harpsichord, but ceased to touch +the keys when her step-daughter, followed by Darden's Audrey, entered the +room. The master of Westover, seated beside his young wife, looked quickly +up, arched his brows and turned somewhat red, as his daughter, with her +gliding step, crossed the room to greet him. Audrey, obeying a motion of +her companion's hand, waited beside a window, in the shadow of its heavy +curtains. "Evelyn," quoth the Colonel, rising from his chair and taking +his daughter's hand, "this is scarce befitting"-- + +Evelyn stayed his further speech by an appealing gesture. "Let me speak +with you, sir. No, no, madam, do not go! There is naught the world might +not hear." + +Audrey waited in the shadow by the window, and her mind was busy, for she +had her plans to lay. Sometimes Evelyn's low voice, sometimes the +Colonel's deeper tones, pierced her understanding; when this was so she +moved restlessly, wishing that it were night and she away. Presently she +began to observe the room, which was richly furnished. There were garlands +upon the ceiling; a table near her was set with many curious ornaments; +upon a tall cabinet stood a bowl of yellow flowers; the lady at the +harpsichord wore a dress to match the flowers, while Evelyn's dress was +white; beyond them was a pier glass finer than the one at Fair View. + +This glass reflected the doorway, and thus she was the first to see the +man from whom she had fled. "Mr. Marmaduke Haward, massa!" announced the +servant who had ushered him through the hall. + +Haward, hat in hand, entered the room. The three beside the harpsichord +arose; the one at the window slipped deeper into the shadow of the +curtains, and so escaped the visitor's observation. The latter bowed to +the master of Westover, who ceremoniously returned the salute, and to the +two ladies, who curtsied to him, but opened not their lips. + +"This, sir," said Colonel Byrd, holding himself very erect, "is an +unexpected honor." + +"Rather, sir, an unwished-for intrusion," answered the other. "I beg you +to believe that I will trouble you for no longer time than matters +require." + +The Colonel bit his lip. "There was a time when Mr. Haward was most +welcome to my house. If 't is no longer thus"-- + +Haward made a gesture of assent. "I know that the time is past. I am sorry +that 't is so. I had thought, sir, to find you alone. Am I to speak before +these ladies?" + +The Colonel hesitated, but Evelyn, leaving Madam Byrd beside the +harpsichord, came to her father's side. That gentleman glanced at her +keenly. There was no agitation to mar the pensive loveliness of her face; +her eyes were steadfast, the lips faintly smiling. "If what you have to +say concerns my daughter," said the Colonel, "she will listen to you here +and now." + +For a few moments dead silence; then Haward spoke, slowly, weighing his +words: "I am on my way, Colonel Byrd, to the country beyond the falls. I +have entered upon a search, and I know not when it will be ended or when I +shall return. Westover lay in my path, and there was that which needed to +be said to you, sir, and to your daughter. When it has been said I will +take my leave." He paused; then, with a quickened breath, again took up +his task: "Some months ago, sir, I sought and obtained your permission to +make my suit to your daughter for her hand. The lady, worthy of a better +mate, hath done well in saying no to my importunity. I accept her +decision, withdraw my suit, wish her all happiness." He bowed again +formally; then stood with lowered eyes, his hand griping the edge of the +table. + +"I am aware that my daughter has declined to entertain your proposals," +said the Colonel coldly, "and I approve her determination. Is this all, +sir?" + +"It should, perhaps, be all," answered Haward. "And yet"--He turned to +Evelyn, snow-white, calm, with that faint smile upon her face. "May I +speak to you?" he said, in a scarcely audible voice. + +She looked at him, with parting lips. + +"Here and now," the Colonel answered for her. "Be brief, sir." + +The master of Fair View found it hard to speak, "Evelyn"--he began, and +paused, biting his lip. It was very quiet in the familiar parlor, quiet +and dim, and drawing toward eventide. The lady at the harpsichord chanced +to let fall her hand upon the keys. They gave forth a deep and melancholy +sound that vibrated through the room. The chord was like an odor in its +subtle power to bring crowding memories. To Haward, and perhaps to Evelyn, +scenes long shifted, long faded, took on fresh colors, glowed anew, +replaced the canvas of the present. For years the two had been friends; +later months had seen him her avowed suitor. In this very room he had bent +over her at the harpsichord when the song was finished; had sat beside her +in the deep window seat while the stars brightened, before the candles +were brought in. + +Now, for a moment, he stood with his hand over his eyes; then, letting it +fall, he spoke with firmness. "Evelyn," he said, "if I have wronged you, +forgive me. Our friendship that has been I lay at your feet: forget it and +forget me. You are noble, generous, high of mind: I pray you to let no +remembrance of me trouble your life. May it be happy,--may all good attend +you.... Evelyn, good-by!" + +He kneeled and lifted to his lips the hem of her dress. As he rose, and +bowing low would have taken formal leave of the two beside her, she put +out her hand, staying him by the gesture and the look upon her colorless +face. "You spoke of a search," she said. "What search?" + +Haward raised his eyes to hers that were quiet, almost smiling, though +darkly shadowed by past pain. "I will tell you, Evelyn. Why should not I +tell you this, also?... Four days ago, upon my return to Fair View, I +sought and found the woman that I love,--the woman that, by all that is +best within me, I love worthily! She shrank from me; she listened not; she +shut eye and ear, and fled. And I,--confident fool!--I thought, 'To-morrow +I will make her heed,' and so let her go. When the morrow came she was +gone indeed." He halted, made an involuntary gesture of distress, then +went on, rapidly and with agitation: "There was a boat missing; she was +seen to pass Jamestown, rowing steadily up the river. But for this I +should have thought--I should have feared--God knows what I should not +have feared! As it is I have searchers out, both on this side and on the +southern shore. An Indian and myself have come up river in his canoe. We +have not found her yet. If it be so that she has passed unseen through the +settled country, I will seek her toward the mountains." + +"And when you have found her, what then, sir?" cried the Colonel, tapping +his snuffbox. + +"Then, sir," answered Haward with hauteur, "she will become my wife." + +He turned again to Evelyn, but when he spoke it was less to her than to +himself. "It grows late," he said. "Night is coming on, and at the fall of +the leaf the nights are cold. One sleeping in the forest would suffer ... +if she sleeps. I have not slept since she was missed. I must begone"-- + +"It grows late indeed," replied Evelyn, with lifted face and a voice low, +clear, and sweet as a silver bell,--"so late that there is a rose flush in +the sky beyond the river. Look! you may see it through yonder window." + +She touched his hand and made him look to the far window. "Who is it that +stands in the shadow, hiding her face in her hands?" he asked at last, +beneath his breath. + +"'Tis Audrey," answered Evelyn, in the same clear, sweet, and passionless +tones. She took her hand from his and addressed herself to her father. +"Dear sir," she said, "to my mind no quarrel exists between us and this +gentleman. There is no reason"--she drew herself up--"no reason why we +should not extend to Mr. Marmaduke Haward the hospitality of Westover." +She smiled and leaned against her father's arm. "And now let us +three,--you and Maria, whom I protest you keep too long at the +harpsichord, and I, who love this hour of the evening,--let us go walk in +the garden and see what flowers the frost has spared." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +SANCTUARY + + +"Child," demanded Haward, "why did you frighten me so?" He took her hands +from her face, and drew her from the shadow of the curtain into the +evening glow. Her hands lay passive in his; her eyes held the despair of a +runner spent and fallen, with the goal just in sight. "Would have had me +go again to the mountains for you, little maid?" Haward's voice trembled +with the delight of his ended quest. + +"Call me not by that name," Audrey said. "One that is dead used it." + +"I will call you love," he answered,--"my love, my dear love, my true +love!" + +"Nor that either," she said, and caught her breath. "I know not why you +should speak to me so." + +"What must I call you then?" he asked, with the smile still upon his lips. + +"A stranger and a dreamer," she answered. "Go your ways, and I will go +mine." + +There was silence in the room, broken by Haward. "For us two one path," he +said; "why, Audrey, Audrey, Audrey!" Suddenly he caught her in his arms. +"My love!" he whispered--"my love Audrey! my wife Audrey!" His kisses +rained upon her face. She lay quiet until the storm had passed; then freed +herself, looked at him, and shook her head. + +"You killed him," she said, "that one whom I--worshiped. It was not well +done of you.... There was a dream I had last summer. I told it to--to the +one you killed. Now part of the dream has come true.... You never were! +Oh, death had been easy pain, for it had left memory, hope! But you never +were! you never were!" + +"I am!" cried Haward ardently. "I am your lover! I am he who says to you, +Forget the past, forget and forgive, and come with me out of your +dreaming. Come, Audrey, come, come, from the dim woods into the +sunshine,--into the sunshine of the garden! The night you went away I was +there, Audrey, under the stars. The paths were deep in leaves, the flowers +dead and blackening; but the trees will be green again, and the flowers +bloom! When we are wed we will walk there, bringing the spring with us"-- + +"When we are wed!" she answered. "That will never be." + +"It will be this week," he said, smiling. "Dear dryad, who have no friends +to make a pother, no dowry to lug with you, no gay wedding raiment to +provide; who have only to curtsy farewell to the trees and put your hand +in mine"-- + +She drew away her hands that he had caught in his, and pressed them above +her heart; then looked restlessly from window to door. "Will you let me +pass, sir?" she asked at last. "I am tired. I have to think what I am to +do, where I am to go." + +"Where you are to go!" he exclaimed. "Why, back to the glebe house, and I +will follow, and the minister shall marry us. Child, child! where else +should you go? What else should you do?" + +"God knows!" cried the girl, with sudden and extraordinary passion. "But +not that! Oh, he is gone,--that other who would have understood!" + +Haward let fall his outstretched hand, drew back a pace or two, and stood +with knitted brows. The room was very quiet; only Audrey breathed +hurriedly, and through the open window came the sudden, lonely cry of some +river bird. The note was repeated ere Haward spoke again. + +"I will try to understand," he said slowly. "Audrey, is it Evelyn that +comes between us?" + +Audrey passed her hand over her eyes and brow and pushed back her heavy +hair. "Oh, I have wronged her!" she cried. "I have taken her portion. If +once she was cruel to me, yet to-day she kissed me, her tears fell upon my +face. That which I have robbed her of I want not.... Oh, my heart, my +heart!" + +"'T is I, not you, who have wronged this lady," said Haward, after a +pause. "I have, I hope, her forgiveness. Is this the fault that keeps you +from me?" + +Audrey answered not, but leaned against the window and looked at the cloud +in the south that was now an amethyst island. Haward went closer to her. +"Is it," he said, "is it because in my mind I sinned against you, Audrey, +because I brought upon you insult and calumny? Child, child! I am of the +world. That I did all this is true, but now I would not purchase endless +bliss with your least harm, and your name is more to me than my own. +Forgive me, Audrey, forgive the past." He bowed his head as he stood +before her. + +Audrey gazed at him with wide, dry eyes whose lids burned. A hot color had +risen to her cheek; at her heart was a heavier aching, a fuller knowledge +of loss. "There is no past," she said. "It was a dream and a lie. There is +only to-day ... _and you are a stranger_." + +The purple cloud across the river began to darken; there came again the +lonely cry of the bird; in the house quarter the slaves were singing as +they went about their work. Suddenly Audrey laughed. It was sad laughter, +as mocking and elfin and mirthless a sound as was ever heard in autumn +twilight. "A stranger!" she repeated. "I know you by your name, and that +is all. You are Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, while I--I am Darden's +Audrey!" + +She curtsied to him, so changed, so defiant, so darkly beautiful, that he +caught his breath to behold her. "You are all the world to me!" he cried. +"Audrey, Audrey! Look at me, listen to me!" + +He would have approached her, would have seized her hand, but she waved +him back. "Oh, the world! We must think of that! What would they say, the +Governor and the Council, and the people who go to balls, and all the +great folk you write to in England,--what would they say if you married +me? Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, the richest man in Virginia! Mr. +Marmaduke Haward, the man of taste, the scholar, the fine gentleman, proud +of his name, jealous of his honor! And Darden's Audrey, who hath gone +barefoot on errands to most houses in Fair View parish! Darden's Audrey, +whom the preacher pointed out to the people in Bruton church! They would +call you mad; they would give you cap and bells; they would say, 'Does he +think that he can make her one of us?--her that we turned and looked long +upon in Bruton church, when the preacher called her by a right name'"-- + +"Child, for God's sake!" cried Haward. + +"There is the lady, too,--the lady who left us here together! We must not +forget to think of her,--of her whose picture you showed me at Fair View, +who was to be your wife, who took me by the hand that night at the +Palace. There is reproach in her eyes. Ah, do you not think the look might +grow, might come to haunt us? And yourself! Oh, sooner or later regret and +weariness would come to dwell at Fair View! The lady who walks in the +garden here is a fine lady and a fit mate for a fine gentleman, and I am a +beggar maid and no man's mate, unless it be Hugon's. Hugon, who has sworn +to have me in the house he has built! Hugon, who would surely kill you"-- + +Haward caught her by the wrists, bruising them in his grasp. "Audrey, +Audrey! Let these fancies be! If we love each other"-- + +"If!" she echoed, and pulled her hands away. Her voice was strange, her +eyes were bright and strained, her face was burning. "But if not, what +then? And how should I love you who are a stranger to me? Oh, a generous +stranger who, where he thinks he has done a wrong, would repair the +damage." Her voice broke; she flung back her head and pressed her hands +against her throat. "You have done me no wrong," she said. "If you had, I +would forgive you, would say good-by to you, would go my way.... as I am +going now. Let me pass, sir!" + +Haward barred her way. "A stranger!" he said, beneath his breath. "Is +there then no tie between shadow and substance, dream and reality?" + +"None!" answered Audrey, with defiance. "Why did you come to the +mountains, eleven years ago? What business was it of yours whether I lived +or died? Oh, God was not kind to send you there!" + +"You loved me once!" he cried. "Audrey, Audrey, have I slain your love?" + +"It was never yours!" she answered passionately, "It was that +other's,--that other whom I imagined, who never lived outside my dream! +Oh, let me pass, let me begone! You are cruel to keep me. I--I am so +tired." + +White to the lips, Haward moved backward a step or two, but yet stood +between her and the door. Moments passed before he spoke; then, "Will you +become my wife?" he asked, in a studiously quiet voice. "Marry me, Audrey, +loving me not. Love may come in time, but give me now the right to be your +protector, the power to clear your name." + +She looked at him with a strange smile, a fine gesture of scorn. "Marry +you, loving you not! That will I never do. Protector! That is a word I +have grown to dislike. My name! It is a slight thing. What matter if folk +look askance when it is only Darden's Audrey? And there are those whom an +ill fame does not frighten. The schoolmaster will still give me books to +read, and tell me what they mean. He will not care, nor the drunken +minister, nor Hugon.... I am going back to them, to Mistress Deborah and +the glebe house. She will beat me, and the minister will curse, but they +will take me in.... I will work very hard, and never look to Fair View. I +see now that I could never reach the mountains." She began to move toward +the door. He kept with her, step for step, his eyes upon her face. "You +will come no more to the glebe house," she said. "If you do, though the +mountains be far the river is near." + +He put his hand upon the latch of the door. "You will rest here to-night?" +he asked gently, as of a child. "I will speak to Colonel Byrd; to-morrow +he will send some one with you down the river. It will be managed for you, +and as you wish. You will rest to-night? You go from me now to your room, +Audrey?" + +"Yes," she answered, and thought she spoke the truth. + +"I love you,--love you greatly," he continued. "I will conquer,--conquer +and atone! But now, poor tired one, I let you go. Sleep, Audrey, sleep and +dream again." He held open the door for her, and stood aside with bent +head. + +She passed him; then turned, and after a moment of silence spoke to him +with a strange and sorrowful stateliness. "You think, sir," she said, +"that I have something to forgive?" + +"Much," he answered,--"very much, Audrey." + +"And you wish my forgiveness?" + +"Ay, Audrey, your forgiveness and your love." + +"The first is mine to give," she said. "If you wish it, take it. I forgive +you, sir. Good-by." + +"Good-night," he answered. "Audrey, good-night." + +"Good-by," she repeated, and slowly mounting the broad staircase passed +from his sight. + +It was dark in the upper hall, but there was a great glimmer of sky, an +opal space to mark a window that gave upon the sloping lawn and pallid +river. The pale light seemed to beckon. Audrey went not on to her attic +room, but to the window, and in doing so passed a small half-open door. As +she went by she glanced through the aperture, and saw that there was a +narrow stairway, built for the servants' use, winding down to a door in +the western face of the house. + +Once at the open window, she leaned forth and looked to the east and the +west. The hush of the evening had fallen; the light was faint; above the +last rose flush a great star palely shone. All was quiet, deserted; +nothing stirring on the leaf-carpeted slope; no sound save the distant +singing of the slaves. The river lay bare from shore to shore, save where +the Westover landing stretched raggedly into the flood. To its piles small +boats were tied, but there seemed to be no boatmen; wharf and river +appeared as barren of movement and life as did the long expanse of dusky +lawn. + +"I will not sleep in this house to-night," said Audrey to herself. "If I +can reach those boats unseen, I will go alone down the river. That will be +well. I am not wanted here." + +When she arrived at the foot of the narrow stair, she slipped through the +door into a world all dusk and quiet, where was none to observe her, none +to stay her. Crouching by the wall she crept to the front of the house, +stole around the stone steps where, that morning, she had sat in the +sunshine, and came to the parlor windows. Close beneath one was a block of +stone. After a moment's hesitation she stood upon this, and, pressing her +face against the window pane, looked her last upon the room she had so +lately left. A low fire upon the hearth, darkly illumined it: he sat by +the table, with his arms outstretched and his head bowed upon them. Audrey +dropped from the stone into the ever growing shadows, crossed the lawn, +slipped below the bank, and took her way along the river edge to the long +landing. When she was half way down its length, she saw that there was a +canoe which she had not observed and that it held one man, who sat with +his back to the shore. With a quick breath of dismay she stood still, then +setting her lips went on; for the more she thought of having to see those +two again, Evelyn and the master of Fair View, the stronger grew her +determination to commence her backward journey alone and at once. + +She had almost reached the end of the wharf when the man in the boat stood +up and faced her. It was Hugon. The dusk was not so great but that the +two, the hunter and his quarry, could see each other plainly. The latter +turned with the sob of a stricken deer, but the impulse to flight lasted +not. Where might she go? Run blindly, north or east or west, through the +fields of Westover? That would shortly lead to cowering in some wood or +swamp while the feet of the searchers came momently nearer. Return to the +house, stand at bay once more? With all her strength of soul she put this +course from her. + +The quick strife in her mind ended in her moving slowly, as though drawn +by an invisible hand, to the edge of the wharf, above Hugon and his canoe. +She did not wonder to see him there. Every word that Haward had spoken in +the Westover parlor was burned upon her brain, and he had said that he had +come up river with an Indian. This was the Indian, and to hunt her down +those two had joined forces. + +"Ma'm'selle Audrey," whispered the trader, staring as at a spirit. + +"Yes, Jean Hugon," she answered, and looked down the glimmering reaches of +the James, then at the slender canoe and the deep and dark water that +flowed between the piles. In the slight craft, with that strong man the +river for ally, she were safe as in a tower of brass. + +"I am going home, Jean," she said. "Will you row me down the river +to-night, and tell me as we go your stories of the woods and your father's +glories in France? If you speak of other things I will drown myself, for +I am tired of hearing them. In the morning we will stop at some landing +for food, and then go on again. Let us hasten"-- + +The trader moistened his lips. "And him," he demanded hoarsely,--"that +Englishman, that Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, who came to me and said, +'Half-breed, seeing that an Indian and a bloodhound have gifts in common, +we will take up the quest together. Find her, though it be to lose her to +me that same hour! And look that in our travels you try no foul play, for +this time I go armed,'--what of him?" + +Audrey waved her hand toward the house she had left. "He is there. Let us +make haste." As she spoke she descended the steps, and, evading his eager +hand, stepped into the canoe. He looked at her doubtfully, half afraid, so +strange was it to see her sitting there, so like a spirit from the land +beyond the sun, a _revenant_ out of one of old Pierre's wild tales, had +she come upon him. With quickened breath he loosed the canoe from its +mooring and took up the paddle. A moment, and they were quit of the +Westover landing and embarked upon a strange journey, during which hour +after hour Hugon made wild love, and hour after hour Audrey opened not her +lips. As the canoe went swiftly down the flood, lights sprung up in the +house it was leaving behind. A man, rising from his chair with a heavy +sigh, walked to the parlor window and looked out upon lawn and sky and +river, but, so dark had it grown, saw not the canoe; thought only how +deserted, how desolate and lonely, was the scene. + + * * * * * + +In Williamsburgh as at Westover the autumn was dying, the winter was +coming, but neither farewell nor greeting perturbed the cheerful town. To +and fro through Palace and Nicholson and Duke of Gloucester streets were +blown the gay leaves; of early mornings white frosts lay upon the earth +like fairy snows, but midday and afternoon were warm and bright. Mistress +Stagg's garden lay to the south, and in sheltered corners bloomed +marigolds and asters, while a vine, red-leafed and purple-berried, made a +splendid mantle for the playhouse wall. + +Within the theatre a rehearsal of "Tamerlane" was in progress. Turk and +Tartar spoke their minds, and Arpasia's death cry clave the air. The +victorious Emperor passed final sentence upon Bajazet; then, chancing to +glance toward the wide door, suddenly abdicated his throne, and in the +character of Mr. Charles Stagg blew a kiss to his wife, who, applauding +softly, stood in the opening that was framed by the red vine. + +"Have you done, my dear?" she cried. "Then pray come with me a moment!" + +The two crossed the garden, and entered the grape arbor where in September +Mistress Stagg had entertained her old friend, my Lady Squander's sometime +waiting-maid. Now the vines were bare of leaves, and the sunshine +streaming through lay in a flood upon the earth. Mary Stagg's chair was +set in that golden warmth, and upon the ground beside it had fallen some +bright sewing. The silken stuff touched a coarser cloth, and that was the +skirt of Darden's Audrey, who sat upon the ground asleep, with her arm +across the chair, and her head upon her arm. + +"How came she here?" demanded Mr. Stagg at last, when he had given a +tragedy start, folded his arms, and bent his brows. + +"She ran away," answered Mistress Stagg, in a low voice, drawing her +spouse to a little distance from the sleeping figure. "She ran away from +the glebe house and went up the river, wanting--the Lord knows why!--to +reach the mountains. Something happened to bring her to her senses, and +she turned back, and falling in with that trader, Jean Hugon, he brought +her to Jamestown in his canoe. She walked from there to the glebe +house,--that was yesterday. The minister was away, and Deborah, being in +one of her passions, would not let her in. She's that hard, is Deborah, +when she's angry, harder than the nether millstone! The girl lay in the +woods last night. I vow I'll never speak again to Deborah, not though +there were twenty Baths behind us!" Mistress Stagg's voice began to +tremble. "I was sitting sewing in that chair, now listening to your voices +in the theatre, and now harking back in my mind to old days when we +weren't prosperous like we are now.... And at last I got to thinking of +the babe, Charles, and how, if she had lived and grown up, I might ha' sat +there sewing a pretty gown for my own child, and how happy I would have +made her. I tried to see her standing beside me, laughing, pretty as a +rose, waiting for me to take the last stitch. It got so real that I raised +my head to tell my dead child how I was going to knot her ribbons, ... and +there was this girl looking at me!" + +"What, Millamant! a tear, my soul?" cried the theatric Mr. Stagg. + +Millamant wiped away the tear. "I'll tell you what she said. She just +said: 'You were kind to me when I was here before, but if you tell me to +go away I'll go. You need not say it loudly.' And then she almost fell, +and I put out my arm and caught her; and presently she was on her knees +there beside me, with her head in my lap.... And then we talked together +for a while. It was mostly me--she didn't say much--but, Charles, the +girl's done no wrong, no more than our child that's dead and in Christ's +bosom. She was so tired and worn. I got some milk and gave it to her, and +directly she went to sleep like a baby, with her head on my knee." + +The two went closer, and looked down upon the slender form and still, dark +face. The sleeper's rest was deep. A tress of hair, fallen from its +fastening, swept her cheek; Mistress Stagg, stooping, put it in place +behind the small ear, then straightened herself and pressed her Mirabell's +arm. + +"Well, my love," quoth that gentleman, clearing his throat. "'Great minds, +like Heaven, are pleased in doing good.' My Millamant, declare your +thoughts!" + +Mistress Stagg twisted her apron hem between thumb and finger. "She's more +than eighteen, Charles, and anyhow, if I understand it rightly, she was +never really bound to Darden. The law has no hold on her, for neither +vestry nor Orphan Court had anything to do with placing her with Darden +and Deborah. She's free to stay." + +"Free to stay?" queried Charles, and took a prodigious pinch of snuff. "To +stay with us?" + +"Why not?" asked his wife, and stole a persuasive hand into that of her +helpmate. "Oh, Charles, my heart went out to her! I made her so beautiful +once, and I could do it again and all the time. Don't you think her +prettier than was Jane Day? And she's graceful, and that quick to learn! +You're such a teacher, Charles, and I know she'd do her best.... Perhaps, +after all, there would be no need to send away to Bristol for one to take +Jane's place." + +"H'm!" said the great man thoughtfully, and bit a curl of Tamerlane's vast +periwig. "'Tis true I esteem her no dullard," he at last vouchsafed; "true +also that she hath beauty. In fine, solely to give thee pleasure, my +Millamant, I will give the girl a trial no later than this very +afternoon." + +Audrey stirred in her sleep, spoke Haward's name, and sank again to rest. +Mr. Stagg took a second pinch of snuff. "There's the scandal, my love. His +Excellency the Governor's ball, Mr. Eliot's sermon, Mr. Marmaduke Haward's +illness and subsequent duels with Mr. Everard and Mr. Travis, are in no +danger of being forgotten. If this girl ever comes to the speaking of an +epilogue, there'll be in Williamsburgh a nine days' wonder indeed!" + +"The wonder would not hurt," said Mistress Stagg simply. + +"Far from it, my dear," agreed Mr. Stagg, and closing his snuffbox, went +with a thoughtful brow back to the playhouse and the Tartar camp. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE MISSION OF TRUELOVE + + +Mistress Truelove Taberer, having read in a very clear and gentle voice +the Sermon on the Mount to those placid Friends, Tobias and Martha +Taberer, closed the book, and went about her household affairs with a +quiet step, but a heart that somehow fluttered at every sound without the +door. To still it she began to repeat to herself words she had read: +"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of +God ... blessed are the peacemakers"-- + +Winter sunshine poured in at the windows and door. Truelove, kneeling to +wipe a fleck of dust from her wheel, suddenly, with a catch of her breath +and a lifting of her brown eyes, saw in the Scripture she had been +repeating a meaning and application hitherto unexpected. "The +peacemaker ... that is one who makes peace,--in the world, between +countries, in families, yea, in the heart of one alone. Did he not say, +last time he came, that with me he forgot this naughty world and all its +strife; that if I were always with him"-- + +Truelove's countenance became exalted, her gaze fixed. "If it were a +call"--she murmured, and for a moment bowed her head upon the wheel; then +rose from her knees and went softly through the morning tasks. When they +were over, she took down from a peg and put on a long gray cloak and a +gray hood that most becomingly framed her wild-rose face; then came and +stood before her father and mother. "I am going forth to walk by the +creekside," she said, in her sweet voice. "It may be that I will meet +Angus MacLean." + +"If thee does," answered one tranquil Friend, "thee may tell him that upon +next seventh day meeting will be held in this house." + +"Truly," said the other tranquil Friend, "my heart is drawn toward that +young man. His mind hath been filled with anger and resistance and the +turmoil of the world. It were well if he found peace at last." + +"Surely it were well," agreed Truelove sweetly, and went out into the +crisp winter weather. + +The holly, the pine, and the cedar made green places in the woods, and the +multitude of leaves underfoot were pleasant to tread. Clouds were in the +sky, but the spaces between were of serenest blue, and in the sunshine the +creek flashed diamonds. Truelove stood upon the bank, and, with her hand +shading her eyes, watched MacLean rowing toward her up the creek. + +When he had fastened his boat and taken her hand, the two walked soberly +on beside the sparkling water until they came to a rude seat built beneath +an oak-tree, to which yet clung a number of brown leaves. Truelove sat +down, drawing her cloak about her, for, though the sun shone, the air was +keen. MacLean took off his coat, and kneeling put it beneath her feet. He +laughed at her protest. "Why, these winds are not bleak!" he said. "This +land knows no true and honest cold. In my country, night after night have +I lain in snow with only my plaid for cover, and heard the spirits call in +the icy wind, the kelpie shriek beneath the frozen loch. I listened; then +shut my eyes and dreamed warm of glory and--true love." + +"Thy coat is new," said Truelove, with downcast eyes. "The earth will +stain the good cloth." + +MacLean laughed. "Then will I wear it stained, as 'tis said a courtier +once wore his cloak." + +"There is lace upon it," said Truelove timidly. + +MacLean turned with a smile, and laid a fold of her cloak against his dark +cheek. "Ah, the lace offends you,--offends thee,--Truelove. Why, 'tis but +to mark me a gentleman again! Last night, at Williamsburgh, I supped with +Haward and some gentlemen of Virginia. He would have me don this suit. I +might not disoblige my friend." + +"Thee loves it," said Truelove severely. "Thee loves the color, and the +feel of the fine cloth, and the ruffles at thy wrists." + +The Highlander laughed. "Why, suppose that I do! Look, Truelove, how brave +and red are those holly berries, and how green and fantastically twisted +the leaves! The sky is a bright blue, and the clouds are silver; and think +what these woods will be when the winter is past! One might do worse, +meseems, than to be of God's taste in such matters." + +Truelove sighed, and drew her gray cloak more closely around her. + +"Thee is in spirits to-day, Angus MacLean," she said, and sighed once +more. + +"I am free," he answered. "The man within me walks no longer with a +hanging head." + +"And what will thee do with thy freedom?" + +The Highlander made no immediate reply, but, chin in hand, studied the +drifts of leaves and the slow-moving water. "I am free," he said at last. +"I wear to-day the dress of a gentleman. I could walk without shame into +a hall that I know, and find there strangers, standers in dead men's +shoon, brothers who want me not,--who would say behind their hands, 'He +has been twelve years a slave, and the world has changed since he went +away!' ... I will not trouble them." + +His face was as sombre as when Truelove first beheld it. Suddenly, and +against her will, tears came to her eyes. "I am glad--I and my father and +mother and Ephraim--that thee goes not overseas, Angus MacLean," said the +dove's voice. "We would have thee--I and my father and mother and +Ephraim--we would have thee stay in Virginia." + +"I am to stay," he answered. "I have felt no shame in taking a loan from +my friend, for I shall repay it. He hath lands up river in a new-made +county. I am to seat them for him, and there will be my home. I will build +a house and name it Duart; and if there are hills they shall be Dun-da-gu +and Grieg, and the sound of winter torrents shall be to me as the sound of +the waters of Mull." + +Truelove caught her breath. "Thee will be lonely in those forests." + +"I am used to loneliness." + +"There be Indians on the frontier. They burn houses and carry away +prisoners. And there are wolves and dangerous beasts"-- + +"I am used to danger." + +Truelove's voice trembled more and more. "And thee must dwell among +negroes and rude men, with none to comfort thy soul, none to whom thee can +speak in thy dark hours?" + +"Before now I have spoken to the tobacco I have planted, the trees I have +felled, the swords and muskets I have sold." + +"But at last thee came and spoke to me!" + +"Ay," he answered. "There have been times when you saved my soul alive. +Now, in the forest, in my house of logs, when the day's work is done, and +I sit upon my doorstep and begin to hear the voices of the past crying to +me like the spirits in the valley of Glensyte, I will think of you +instead." + +"Oh!" cried Truelove. "Speak to me instead, and I will speak to thee ... +sitting upon the doorstep of our house, when our day's work is done!" + +Her hood falling back showed her face, clear pink, with dewy eyes. The +carnation deepening from brow to throat, and the tears trembling upon her +long lashes, she suddenly hid her countenance in her gray cloak. MacLean, +on his knees beside her, drew away the folds. "Truelove, Truelove! do you +know what you have said?" + +Truelove put her hand upon her heart. "Oh, I fear," she whispered, "I fear +that I have asked thee, Angus MacLean, to let me be--to let me be--thy +wife." + +The water shone, and the holly berries were gay, and a robin redbreast +sang a cheerful song. Beneath the rustling oak-tree there was ardent +speech on the part of MacLean, who found in his mistress a listener sweet +and shy, and not garrulous of love. But her eyes dwelt upon him and her +hand rested at ease within his clasp, and she liked to hear him speak of +the home they were to make in the wilderness. It was to be thus, and thus, +and thus! With impassioned eloquence the Gael adorned the shrine and +advanced the merit of the divinity, and the divinity listened with a +smile, a blush, a tear, and now and then a meek rebuke. + +When an hour had passed, the sun went under a cloud and the air grew +colder. The bird had flown away, but in the rising wind the dead leaves +rustled loudly. MacLean and Truelove, leaving their future of honorable +toil, peace of mind, and enduring affection, came back to the present. + +"I must away," said the Highlander. "Haward waits for me at Williamsburgh. +To-morrow, dearer to me than Deirdre to Naos! I will come again." + +Hand in hand the two walked slowly toward that haunt of peace, Truelove's +quiet home. "And Marmaduke Haward awaits thee at Williamsburgh?" said the +Quakeress. "Last third day he met my father and me on the Fair View road, +and checked his horse and spoke to us. He is changed." + +"Changed indeed!" quoth the Highlander. "A fire burns him, a wind drives +him; and yet to the world, last night"--He paused. + +"Last night?" said Truelove. + +"He had a large company at Marot's ordinary," went on the other. "There +were the Governor and his fellow Councilors, with others of condition or +fashion. He was the very fine gentleman, the perfect host, free, smiling, +full of wit. But I had been with him before they came. I knew the fires +beneath." + +The two walked in silence for a few moments, when MacLean spoke again: "He +drank to her. At the last, when this lady had been toasted, and that, he +rose and drank to 'Audrey,' and threw his wineglass over his shoulder. He +hath done what he could. The world knows that he loves her honorably, +seeks her vainly in marriage. Something more I know. He gathered the +company together last evening that, as his guests, the highest officers, +the finest gentlemen of the colony, should go with him to the theatre to +see her for the first time as a player. Being what they were, and his +guests, and his passion known, he would insure for her, did she well or +did she ill, order, interest, decent applause." MacLean broke off with a +short, excited laugh. "It was not needed,--his mediation. But he could not +know that; no, nor none of us. True, Stagg and his wife had bragged of the +powers of this strangely found actress of theirs that they were training +to do great things, but folk took it for a trick of their trade. Oh, there +was curiosity enough, but 'twas on Haward's account.... Well, he drank to +her, standing at the head of the table at Marot's ordinary, and the glass +crashed over his shoulder, and we all went to the play." + +"Yes, yes!" cried Truelove, breathing quickly, and quite forgetting how +great a vanity was under discussion. + +"'Twas 'Tamerlane,' the play that this traitorous generation calls for +every 5th of November. It seems that the Governor--a Whig as rank as +Argyle--had ordered it again for this week. 'Tis a cursed piece of slander +that pictures the Prince of Orange a virtuous Emperor, his late Majesty of +France a hateful tyrant. But for Haward, whose guest I was, I had not sat +there with closed lips. I had sprung to my feet and given those +flatterers, those traducers, the lie! The thing taunted and angered until +she entered. Then I forgot." + +"And she--and Audrey?" + +"Arpasia was her name in the play. She entered late; her death came before +the end; there was another woman who had more to do. It all mattered not, +I have seen a great actress." + +"Darden's Audrey!" said Truelove, in a whisper. + +"That at the very first; not afterwards," answered MacLean. "She was +dressed, they say, as upon the night at the Palace, that first night of +Haward's fever. When she came upon the stage, there was a murmur like the +wind in the leaves. She was most beautiful,--'beauteous in hatred,' as the +Sultan in the play called her,--dark and wonderful, with angry eyes. For a +little while she must stand in silence, and in these moments men and women +stared at her, then turned and looked at Haward. But when she spoke we +forgot that she was Darden's Audrey." + +MacLean laughed again. "When the play was ended,--or rather, when her part +in it was done,--the house did shake so with applause that Stagg had to +remonstrate. There's naught talked of to-day in Williamsburgh but Arpasia; +and when I came down Palace Street this morning, there was a great crowd +about the playhouse door. Stagg might sell his tickets for to-night at a +guinea apiece. 'Venice Preserved' is the play." + +"And Marmaduke Haward,--what of him?" asked Truelove softly. + +"He is English," said MacLean, after a pause. "He can make of his face a +smiling mask, can keep his voice as even and as still as the pool that is +a mile away from the fierce torrent its parent. It is a gift they have, +the English. I remember at Preston"--He broke off with a sigh. "There will +be an end some day, I suppose. He will win her at last to his way of +thinking; and having gained her, he will be happy. And yet to my mind +there is something unfortunate, strange and fatal, in the aspect of this +girl. It hath always been so. She is such a one as the Lady in Green. On a +Halloween night, standing in the twelfth rig, a man might hear her voice +upon the wind. I would old Murdoch of Coll, who hath the second sight, +were here: he could tell the ending of it all." + +An hour later found the Highlander well upon his way to Williamsburgh, +walking through wood and field with his long stride, his heart warm within +him, his mind filled with the thought of Truelove and the home that he +would make for her in the rude, upriver country. Since the two had sat +beneath the oak, clouds had gathered, obscuring the sun. It was now gray +and cold in the forest, and presently snow began to fall, slowly, in large +flakes, between the still trees. + +MacLean looked with whimsical anxiety at several white particles upon his +suit of fine cloth, claret-colored and silver-laced, and quickened his +pace. But the snow was but the lazy vanguard of a storm, and so few and +harmless were the flakes that when, a, mile from Williamsburgh and at some +little distance from the road, MacLean beheld a ring of figures seated +upon the Gounod beneath a giant elm, he stopped to observe who and what +they were that sat so still beneath the leafless tree in the winter +weather. + +The group, that at first glimpse had seemed some conclave of beings +uncouth and lubberly and solely of the forest, resolved itself into the +Indian teacher and his pupils, escaped for the afternoon from the bounds +of William and Mary. The Indian lads--slender, bronze, and statuesque--sat +in silence, stolidly listening to the words of the white man, who, +standing in the midst of the ring, with his back to the elm-tree, told to +his dusky charges a Bible tale. It was the story of Joseph and his +brethren. The clear, gentle tones of the teacher reached MacLean's ears +where he stood unobserved behind a roadside growth of bay and cedar. + +A touch upon the shoulder made him turn, to find at his elbow that +sometime pupil of Mr. Charles Griffin in whose company he had once trudged +from Fair View store to Williamsburgh. + +"I was lying in the woods over there," said Hugon sullenly. "I heard them +coming, and I took my leave. 'Peste!' said I. 'The old, weak man who +preaches quietness under men's injuries, and the young wolf pack, all +brown, with Indian names!' They may have the woods; for me, I go back to +the town where I belong." + +He shrugged his shoulders, and stood scowling at the distant group. +MacLean, in his turn, looked curiously at his quondam companion of a sunny +day in May, the would-be assassin with whom he had struggled in wind and +rain beneath the thunders of an August storm. The trader wore his great +wig, his ancient steinkirk of tawdry lace, his high boots of Spanish +leather, cracked and stained. Between the waves of coarse hair, out of +coal-black, deep-set eyes looked the soul of the half-breed, fierce, +vengeful, ignorant, and embittered. + +"There is Meshawa," he said,--"Meshawa, who was a little boy when I went +to school, but who used to laugh when I talked of France. Pardieu! one day +I found him alone when it was cold, and there was a fire in the room. Next +time I talked he did not laugh! They are all"--he swept his hand toward +the circle beneath the elm--"they are all Saponies, Nottoways, Meherrins; +their fathers are lovers of the peace pipe, and humble to the English. A +Monacan is a great brave; he laughs at the Nottoways, and says that there +are no men in the villages of the Meherrins." + +"When do you go again to trade with your people?" asked MacLean. + +Hugon glanced at him out of the corners of his black eyes. "They are not +my people; my people are French. I am not going to the woods any more. I +am so prosperous. Diable! shall not I as well as another stay at +Williamsburgh, dress fine, dwell in an ordinary, play high, and drink of +the best?" + +"There is none will prevent you," said MacLean coolly. "Dwell in town, +take your ease in your inn, wear gold lace, stake the skins of all the +deer in Virginia, drink Burgundy and Champagne, but lay no more arrows +athwart the threshold of a gentleman's door." + +Hugon's lips twitched into a tigerish grimace. "So he found the arrow? +Mortdieu! let him look to it that one day the arrow find not him!" + +"If I were Haward," said MacLean, "I would have you taken up." + +The trader again looked sideways at the speaker, shrugged his shoulders +and waved his hand. "Oh, he--he despises me too much for that! Eh bien! +to-day I love to see him live. When there is no wine in the cup, but only +dregs that are bitter, I laugh to see it at his lips. She,--Ma'm'selle +Audrey, that never before could I coax into my boat,--she reached me her +hand, she came with me down the river, through the night-time, and left +him behind at Westover. Ha! think you not that was bitter, that drink +which she gave him, Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View? Since then, if I go +to that house, that garden at Williamsburgh, she hides, she will not see +me; the man and his wife make excuse! Bad! But also he sees her never. He +writes to her: she answers not. Good! Let him live, with the fire built +around him and the splinters in his heart!" + +He laughed again, and, dismissing the subject with airiness somewhat +exaggerated, drew out his huge gilt snuffbox. The snow was now falling +more thickly, drawing a white and fleecy veil between the two upon the +road and the story-teller and his audience beneath the distant elm. "Are +you for Williamsburgh?" demanded the Highlander, when he had somewhat +abruptly declined to take snuff with Monsieur Jean Hugon. + +That worthy nodded, pocketing his box and incidentally making a great +jingling of coins. + +"Then," quoth MacLean, "since I prefer to travel alone, twill wait here +until you have passed the rolling-house in the distance yonder. Good-day +to you!" + +He seated himself upon the stump of a tree, and, giving all his attention +to the snow, began to whistle a thoughtful air. Hugon glanced at him with +fierce black eyes and twitching lips, much desiring a quarrel; then +thought better of it, and before the tune had come to an end was making +with his long and noiseless stride his lonely way to Williamsburgh, and +the ordinary in Nicholson Street. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE PLAYER + + +About this time, Mr. Charles Stagg, of the Williamsburgh theatre in +Virginia, sent by the Horn of Plenty, bound for London, a long letter to +an ancient comrade and player of small parts at Drury Lane. A few days +later, young Mr. Lee, writing by the Golden Lucy to an agreeable rake of +his acquaintance, burst into a five-page panegyric upon the Arpasia, the +Belvidera, the Monimia, who had so marvelously dawned upon the colonial +horizon. The recipient of this communication, being a frequenter of +Button's, and chancing one day to crack a bottle there with Mr. Colley +Cibber, drew from his pocket and read to that gentleman the eulogy of +Darden's Audrey, with the remark that the writer was an Oxford man and +must know whereof he wrote. + +Cibber borrowed the letter, and the next day, in the company of Wilks and +a bottle of Burgundy, compared it with that of Mr. Charles Stagg,--the +latter's correspondent having also brought the matter to the great man's +notice. + +"She might offset that pretty jade Fenton at the Fields, eh, Bob?" said +Cibber. "They're of an age. If the town took to her"-- + +"If her Belvidera made one pretty fellow weep, why not another?" added +Wilks. "Here--where is't he says that, when she went out, for many moments +the pit was silent as the grave--and that then the applause was deep--not +shrill--and very long? 'Gad, if 'tis a Barry come again, and we could lay +hands on her, the house would be made!" + +Gibber sighed. "You're dreaming, Bob," he said good-humoredly. "'Twas but +a pack of Virginia planters, noisy over some _belle sauvage_ with a +ranting tongue." + +"Men's passions are the same, I take it, in Virginia as in London," +answered the other. "If the _belle sauvage_ can move to that manner of +applause in one spot of earth, she may do so in another. And here again he +says, 'A dark beauty, with a strange, alluring air ... a voice of melting +sweetness that yet can so express anguish and fear that the blood turns +cold and the heart is wrung to hear it'--Zoons, sir! What would it cost to +buy off this fellow Stagg, and to bring the phoenix overseas?" + +"Something more than a lottery ticket," laughed the other, and beckoned to +the drawer. "We'll wait, Bob, until we're sure 'tis a phoenix indeed! +There's a gentleman in Virginia with whom I've some acquaintance, Colonel +William Byrd, that was the colony's agent here. I'll write to him for a +true account. There's time enough." + +So thought honest Cibber, and wrote at leisure to his Virginia +acquaintance. It made small difference whether he wrote or refrained from +writing, for he had naught to do with the destinies of Darden's Audrey. +'Twas almost summer before there came an answer to his letter. He showed +it to Wilks in the greenroom, between the acts of "The Provoked Husband." +Mrs. Oldfield read it over their shoulders, and vowed that 'twas a moving +story; nay, more, in her next scene there was a moisture in Lady Townly's +eyes quite out of keeping with the vivacity of her lines. + +Darden's Audrey had to do with Virginia, not London; with the winter, +never more the summer. It is not known how acceptable her Monimia, her +Belvidera, her Isabella, would have been to London playgoers. Perhaps they +would have received them as did the Virginians, perhaps not. Cibber +himself might or might not have drawn for us her portrait; might or might +not have dwelt upon the speaking eye, the slow, exquisite smile with which +she made more sad her saddest utterances, the wild charm of her mirth, her +power to make each auditor fear as his own the impending harm, the tragic +splendor in which, when the bolt had fallen, converged all the pathos, +beauty, and tenderness of her earlier scenes. A Virginian of that winter, +writing of her, had written thus; but then Williamsburgh was not London, +nor its playhouse Drury Lane. Perhaps upon that ruder stage, before an +audience less polite, with never a critic in the pit or footman in the +gallery, with no Fops' Corner and no great number of fine ladies in the +boxes, the jewel shone with a lustre that in a brighter light it had not +worn. There was in Mr. Charles Stagg's company of players no mate for any +gem; this one was set amongst pebbles, and perhaps by contrast alone did +it glow so deeply. + +However this may be, in Virginia, in the winter and the early spring of +that year of grace Darden's Audrey was known, extravagantly praised, +toasted, applauded to the echo. Night after night saw the theatre crowded, +gallery, pit, and boxes. Even the stage had its row of chairs, seats held +not too dear at half a guinea. Mr. Stagg had visions of a larger house, a +fuller company, renown and prosperity undreamed of before that fortunate +day when, in the grape arbor, he and his wife had stood and watched +Darden's Audrey asleep, with her head pillowed upon her arm. + +Darden's Audrey! The name clung to her, though the minister had no further +lot or part in her fate. The poetasters called her Charmante, Anwet, +Chloe,--what not! Young Mr. Lee in many a slight and pleasing set of +verses addressed her as Sylvia, but to the community at large she was +Darden's Audrey, and an enigma greater than the Sphinx. Why would she not +marry Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View? Was the girl looking for a prince +to come overseas for her? Or did she prefer to a dazzling marriage the +excitement of the theatre, the adulation, furious applause? That could +hardly be, for these things seemed to frighten her. At times one could see +her shrink and grow pale at some great clapping or loud "Again!" And only +upon the stage did the town behold her. She rarely went abroad, and at the +small white house in Palace Street she was denied to visitors. True, 'twas +the way to keep upon curiosity the keenest edge, to pique interest and +send the town to the playhouse as the one point of view from which the +riddle might be studied. But wisdom such as this could scarce be expected +of the girl. Given, then, that 'twas not her vanity which kept her +Darden's Audrey, what was it? Was not Mr. Haward of Fair View rich, +handsome, a very fine gentleman? Generous, too, for had he not sworn, as +earnestly as though he expected to be believed, that the girl was pure +innocence? His hand was ready to his sword, nor were men anxious to incur +his cold enmity, so that the assertion passed without open challenge. He +was mad for her,--that was plain enough. And she,--well she's woman and +Darden's Audrey, and so doubly an enigma. In the mean time, to-night she +plays Monimia, and her madness makes you weep, so sad it is, so hopeless, +and so piercing sweet. + +In this new world that was so strange to her Darden's Audrey bore herself +as best she might. While it was day she kept within the house, where the +room that in September she had shared with Mistress Deborah was now for +her alone. Hour after hour she sat there, book in hand, learning how those +other women, those women of the past, had loved, had suffered, had fallen +to dusty death. Other hours she spent with Mr. Charles Stagg in the long +room downstairs, or, when Mistress Stagg had customers, in the theatre +itself. As in the branded schoolmaster chance had given her a teacher +skilled in imparting knowledge, so in this small and pompous man, who +beneath a garb of fustian hugged to himself a genuine reverence and +understanding of his art, she found an instructor more able, perhaps, than +had been a greater actor. In the chill and empty playhouse, upon the +narrow stage where, sitting in the September sunshine, she had asked of +Haward her last favor, she now learned to speak for those sisters of her +spirit, those dead women who through rapture, agony, and madness had sunk +to their long rest, had given their hands to death and lain down in a +common inn. To Audrey they were real; she was free of their company. The +shadows were the people who lived and were happy; who night after night +came to watch a soul caught in the toils, to thunder applause when death +with rude and hasty hands broke the net, set free the prisoner. + +The girl dreamed as she breathed. Wakened from a long, long fantasy, +desolate and cold to the heart in an alien air, she sought for poppy and +mandragora, and in some sort finding them dreamed again, though not for +herself, not as before. It can hardly be said that she was unhappy. She +walked in a pageant of strange miseries, and the pomp of woe was hers to +portray. Those changelings from some fateful land, those passionate, pale +women, the milestones of whose pilgrimage spelled love, ruin, despair, and +death, they were her kindred, her sisters. Day and night they kept her +company: and her own pain lessened, grew at last to a still and dreamy +sorrow, never absent, never poignant. + +Of necessity, importunate grief was drugged to sleep. In the daylight +hours she must study, must rehearse with her fellow players; when night +came she put on a beautiful dress, and to lights and music and loud +applause there entered Monimia, or Belvidera, or Athenais. When the play +was done and the curtain fallen, the crowd of those who would have stayed +her ever gave way, daunted by her eyes, her closed lips, the atmosphere +that yet wrapped her of passion, woe, and exaltation, the very tragedy of +the soul that she had so richly painted. Like the ghost of that woman who +had so direfully loved and died, she was wont to slip from the playhouse, +through the dark garden, to the small white house and her quiet room. +There she laid off her gorgeous dress, and drew the ornaments from her +dark hair that was long as Molly's had been that day beneath the +sugar-tree in the far-away valley. + +She rarely thought of Molly now, or of the mountains. With her hair +shadowing her face and streaming over bared neck and bosom she sat before +her mirror. The candle burned low; the face in the glass seemed not her +own. Dim, pale, dark-eyed, patient-lipped at last, out of a mist and from +a great distance the other woman looked at her. Far countries, the burning +noonday and utter love, night and woe and life, the broken toy, flung with +haste away! The mist thickened; the face withdrew, farther, farther off; +the candle burned low. Audrey put out the weak flame, and laid herself +upon the bed. Sleep came soon, and it was still and dreamless. Sometimes +Mary Stagg, light in hand, stole into the room and stood above the quiet +form. The girl hardly seemed to breathe: she had a fashion of lying with +crossed hands and head drawn slightly back, much as she might be laid at +last in her final bed. Mistress Stagg put out a timid hand and felt the +flesh if it were warm; then bent and lightly kissed hand or arm or the +soft curve of the throat. Audrey stirred not, and the other went +noiselessly away; or Audrey opened dark eyes, faintly smiled and raised +herself to meet the half-awed caress, then sank to rest again. + +Into Mistress Stagg's life had struck a shaft of colored light, had come a +note of strange music, had flown a bird of paradise. It was and it was not +her dead child come again. She knew that her Lucy had never been thus, and +the love that she gave Audrey was hardly mother love. It was more nearly +an homage, which, had she tried, she could not have explained. When they +were alone together, Audrey called the older woman "mother," often knelt +and laid her head upon the other's lap or shoulder. In all her ways she +was sweet and duteous, grateful and eager to serve. But her spirit dwelt +in a rarer air, and there were heights and depths where the waif and her +protectress might not meet. To this the latter gave dumb recognition, and +though she could not understand, yet loved her protge. At night, in the +playhouse, this love was heightened into exultant worship. At all times +there was delight in the girl's beauty, pride in the comment and wonder of +the town, self-congratulation and the pleasing knowledge that wisdom is +vindicated of its children. Was not all this of her bringing about? Did it +not first occur to her that the child might take Jane Day's place? Even +Charles, who strutted and plumed himself and offered his snuffbox to every +passer-by, must acknowledge that! Mistress Stagg stopped her sewing to +laugh triumphantly, then fell to work more diligently than ever; for it +was her pleasure to dress Darden's Audrey richly, in soft colors, heavy +silken stuffs upon which was lavished a wealth of delicate needlework. It +was chiefly while she sat and sewed upon these pretty things, with Audrey, +book on knee, close beside her, that her own child seemed to breathe +again. + +Audrey thanked her and kissed her, and wore what she was given to wear, +nor thought how her beauty was enhanced. If others saw it, if the wonder +grew by what it fed on, if she was talked of, written of, pledged, and +lauded by a frank and susceptible people, she knew of all this little +enough, and for what she knew cared not at all. Her days went dreamily by, +nor very sad nor happy; full of work, yet vague and unmarked as desert +sands. What was real was a past that was not hers, and those dead women to +whom night by night she gave life and splendor. + +There were visitors to whom she was not denied. Darden came at times, sat +in Mistress Stagg's sunny parlor, and talked to his sometime ward much as +he had talked in the glebe-house living room,--discursively, of men and +parochial affairs and his own unmerited woes. Audrey sat and heard him, +with her eyes upon the garden without the window. When he lifted from the +chair his great shambling figure, and took his stained old hat and heavy +cane, Audrey rose also, curtsied, and sent her duty to Mistress Deborah, +but she asked no questions as to that past home of hers. It seemed not to +interest her that the creek was frozen so hard that one could walk upon it +to Fair View, or that the minister had bought a field from his wealthy +neighbor, and meant to plant it with Oronoko. Only when he told her that +the little wood--the wood that she had called her own--was being cleared, +and that all day could be heard the falling of the trees, did she lift +startled eyes and draw a breath like a moan. The minister looked at her +from under shaggy brows, shook his head, and went his way to his favorite +ordinary, rum, and a hand at cards. + +Mistress Deborah she beheld no more; but once the Widow Constance brought +Barbara to town, and the two, being very simple women, went to the play to +see the old Audrey, and saw instead a queen, tinseled, mock-jeweled, clad +in silk, who loved and triumphed, despaired and died. The rude theatre +shook to the applause. When it was all over, the widow and Barbara went +dazed to their lodging, and lay awake through the night talking of these +marvels. In the morning they found the small white house, and Audrey came +to them in the garden. When she had kissed them, the three sat down in the +arbor; for it was a fine, sunny morning, and not cold. But the talk was +not easy; Barbara's eyes were so round, and the widow kept mincing her +words. Only when they were joined by Mistress Stagg, to whom the widow +became voluble, the two girls spoke aside. + +"I have a guinea, Barbara," said Audrey. "Mr. Stagg gave it to me, and I +need it not,--I need naught in the world. Barbara, here!--'tis for a warm +dress and a Sunday hood." + +"Oh, Audrey," breathed Barbara, "they say you might live at Fair +View,--that you might marry Mr. Haward and be a fine lady"-- + +Audrey laid her hand upon the other's lips. "Hush! See, Barbara, you must +have the dress made thus, like mine." + +"But if 'tis so, Audrey!" persisted poor Barbara. "Mother and I talked of +it last night. She said you would want a waiting-woman, and I thought--Oh, +Audrey!" + +Audrey bit her quivering lip and dashed away the tears. "I'll want no +waiting-woman, Barbara. I'm naught but Audrey that you used to be kind to. +Let's talk of other things. Have you missed me from the woods all these +days?" + +"It has been long since you were there," said Barbara dully. "Now I go +with Joan at times, though mother frowns and says she is not fit. Eh, +Audrey, if I could have a dress of red silk, with gold and bright stones, +like you wore last night! Old days I had more than you, but all's changed +now. Joan says"-- + +The Widow Constance rising to take leave, it did not appear what Joan had +said. The visitors from the country went away, nor came again while Audrey +dwelt in Williamsburgh. The schoolmaster came, and while he waited for his +sometime pupil to slowly descend the stairs talked learnedly to Mr. Stagg +of native genius, of the mind drawn steadily through all accidents and +adversities to the end of its own discovery, and of how time and tide and +all the winds of heaven conspire to bring the fate assigned, to make the +puppet move in the stated measure. Mr. Stagg nodded, took out his +snuffbox, and asked what now was the schoolmaster's opinion of the girl's +Monimia last night,--the last act, for instance. Good Lord, how still the +house was!--and then one long sigh! + +The schoolmaster fingered the scars in his bands, as was his manner at +times, but kept his eyes upon the ground. When he spoke, there was in his +voice unwonted life. "Why, sir, I could have said with Lear, _'Hysterica +passio! down, thou climbing sorrow!'_--and I am not a man, sir, that's +easily moved. The girl is greatly gifted. I knew that before either you or +the town, sir. Audrey, good-morrow!" + +Such as these from out her old life Darden's Audrey saw and talked with. +Others sought her, watched for her, laid traps that might achieve at least +her presence, but largely in vain. She kept within the house; when the +knocker sounded she went to her own room. No flowery message, compliment, +or appeal, not even Mary Stagg's kindly importunity, could bring her from +that coign of vantage. There were times when Mistress Stagg's showroom was +crowded with customers; on sunny days young men left the bowling green to +stroll in the shell-bordered garden paths; gentlemen and ladies of quality +passing up and down Palace Street walked more slowly when they came to the +small white house, and looked to see if the face of Darden's Audrey showed +at any window. + +Thus the winter wore away. The springtime was at hand, when one day the +Governor, wrought upon by Mistress Evelyn Byrd, sent to Mr. Stagg, bidding +him with his wife and the new player to the Palace. The three, dressed in +their best, were ushered into the drawing-room, where they found his +Excellency at chess with the Attorney-General; a third gentleman, seated +somewhat in the shadow, watching the game. A servant placed, chairs for +the people from the theatre. His Excellency checkmated his antagonist, +and, leaning back in his great chair, looked at Darden's Audrey, but +addressed his conversation to Mr. Charles Stagg. The great man was +condescendingly affable, the lesser one obsequious; while they talked the +gentleman in the shadow arose and drew his chair to Audrey's side. 'Twas +Colonel Byrd, and he spoke to the girl kindly and courteously; asking +after her welfare, giving her her meed of praise, dwelling half humorously +upon the astonishment and delight into which she had surprised the +play-loving town. Audrey listened with downcast eyes to the suave tones, +the well-turned compliments, but when she must speak spoke quietly and +well. + +At last the Governor turned toward her, and began to ask well-meant +questions and to give pompous encouragement to the new player. No +reference was made to that other time when she had visited the Palace. A +servant poured for each of the three a glass of wine. His Excellency +graciously desired that they shortly give 'Tamerlane' again, that being a +play which, as a true Whig and a hater of all tyrants, he much delighted +in, and as graciously announced his intention of bestowing upon the +company two slightly tarnished birthday suits. The great man then arose, +and the audience was over. + +Outside the house, in the sunny walk leading to the gates, the three from +the theatre met, full face, a lady and two gentlemen who had been +sauntering up and down in the pleasant weather. The lady was Evelyn Byrd; +the gentlemen were Mr. Lee and Mr. Grymes. + +Audrey, moving slightly in advance of her companions, halted at the sight +of Evelyn, and the rich color surged to her face; but the other, pale and +lovely, kept her composure, and, with a smile and a few graceful words of +greeting, curtsied deeply to the player. Audrey, with a little catch of +her breath, returned the curtsy. Both women were richly dressed, both were +beautiful; it seemed a ceremonious meeting of two ladies of quality. The +gentlemen also bowed profoundly, pressing their hats against their hearts. +Mistress Stagg, to whom her protge's aversion to company was no light +cross, twitched her Mirabell by the sleeve and, hanging upon his arm, +prevented his further advance. The action said: "Let the child alone; +maybe when the ice is once broken she'll see people, and not be so shy and +strange!" + +"Mr. Lee," said Evelyn sweetly, "I have dropped my glove,--perhaps in the +summer-house on the terrace. If you will be so good? Mr. Grymes, will you +desire Mr. Stagg yonder to shortly visit me at my lodging? I wish to +bespeak a play, and would confer with him on the matter." + +The gentlemen bowed and hasted upon their several errands, leaving Audrey +and Evelyn standing face to face in the sunny path. "You are well, I +hope," said the latter, in her low, clear voice, "and happy?" + +"I am well, Mistress Evelyn," answered Audrey. "I think that I am not +unhappy." + +The other gazed at her in silence; then, "We have all been blind," she +said. "'Tis not a year since May Day and the Jaquelins' merrymaking. It +seems much longer. You won the race,--do you remember?--and took the prize +from my hand. And neither of us thought of all that should follow--did +we?--or guessed at other days. I saw you last night at the theatre, and +you made my heart like to burst for pity and sorrow. You were only playing +at woe? You are not unhappy, not like that?" + +Audrey shook her head. "No, not like that." + +There was a pause, broken by Evelyn. "Mr. Haward is in town," she said, in +a low but unfaltering voice, "He was at the playhouse last night. I +watched him sitting in a box, in the shadow.... You also saw him?" + +"Yes," said Audrey. "He had not been there for a long, long time. At first +he came night after night.... I wrote to him at last and told him how he +troubled me,--made me forget my lines,--and then he came no more." + +There was in her tone a strange wistfulness. Evelyn drew her breath +sharply, glanced swiftly at the dark face and liquid eyes. Mr. Grymes yet +held the manager and his wife in conversation, but Mr. Lee, a small +jessamine-scented glove in hand, was hurrying toward them from the +summer-house. + +"You think that you do not love Mr. Haward?" said Evelyn, in a low voice. + +"I loved one that never lived," said Audrey simply. "It was all in a dream +from which I have waked. I told him that at Westover, and afterwards here +in Williamsburgh. I grew so tired at last--it hurt me so to tell him ... +and then I wrote the letter. He has been at Fair View this long time, has +he not?" + +"Yes," said Evelyn quietly. "He has been alone at Fair View." The rose in +her cheeks had faded; she put her lace handkerchief to her lips, and shut +her hand so closely that the nails bit into the palm. In a moment, +however, she was smiling, a faint, inscrutable smile, and presently she +came a little nearer and took Audrey's hand in her own. + +The soft, hot, lingering touch thrilled the girl. She began to speak +hurriedly, not knowing why she spoke nor what she wished to say: "Mistress +Evelyn"-- + +"Yes, Audrey," said Evelyn, and laid a fluttering touch upon the other's +lips, then in a moment spoke herself: "You are to remember always, though +you love him not, Audrey, that he never was true lover of mine; that now +and forever, and though you died to-night, he is to me but an old +acquaintance,--Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View. Remember also that it +was not your fault, nor his perhaps, nor mine, and that with all my heart +I wish his happiness.... Ah, Mr. Lee, you found it? My thanks, sir." + +Mr. Lee, having restored the glove with all the pretty froth of words +which the occasion merited, and seen Mistress Evelyn turn aside to speak +with Mr. Stagg, found himself mightily inclined to improve the golden +opportunity and at once lay siege to this paragon from the playhouse. Two +low bows, a three-piled, gold-embroidered compliment, a quotation from his +"To Sylvia upon her Leaving the Theatre," and the young gentleman thought +his lines well laid. But Sylvia grew restless, dealt in monosyllables, and +finally retreated to Mistress Stagg's side. "Shall we not go home?" she +whispered. "I--I am tired, and I have my part to study, the long speech at +the end that I stumbled in last night. Ah, let us go!" + +Mistress Stagg sighed over the girl's contumacy. It was not thus in Bath +when she was young, and men of fashion flocked to compliment a handsome +player. Now there was naught to do but to let the child have her way. She +and Audrey made their curtsies, and Mr. Charles Stagg his bow, which was +modeled after that of Beau Nash. Then the three went down the sunny path +to the Palace gates, and Evelyn with the two gentlemen moved toward the +house and the company within. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +AMOR VINCIT + + +By now it was early spring in Virginia, and a time of balm and +pleasantness. The season had not entered into its complete heritage of gay +hues, sweet odors, song, and wealth of bliss. Its birthday robe was yet +a-weaving, its coronal of blossoms yet folded buds, its choristers not +ready with their fullest pans. But everywhere was earnest of future +riches. In the forest the bloodroot was in flower, and the bluebird and +the redbird flashed from the maple that was touched with fire to the beech +just lifted from a pale green fountain. In Mistress Stagg's garden +daffodils bloomed, and dim blue hyacinths made sweet places in the grass. +The sun lay warm upon upturned earth, blackbirds rose in squadrons and +darkened the yet leafless trees, and every wind brought rumors of the +heyday toward which the earth was spinning. The days were long and sweet; +at night a moon came up, and between it and the earth played soft and +vernal airs. Then a pale light flooded the garden, the shells bordering +its paths gleamed like threaded pearls, and the house showed whiter than a +marble sepulchre. Mild incense, cool winds, were there, but quiet came +fitfully between the bursts of noise from the lit theatre. + +On such a night as this Audrey, clothed in red silk, with a band of false +jewels about her shadowy hair, slipped through the stage door into the +garden, and moved across it to the small white house and rest. Her part +in the play was done; for all their storming she would not stay. Silence +and herself alone, and the mirror in her room; then, sitting before the +glass, to see in it darkly the woman whom she had left dead upon the +boards yonder,--no, not yonder, but in a far country, and a fair and great +city. Love! love! and death for love! and her own face in the mirror +gazing at her with eyes of that long-dead Greek. It was the exaltation and +the dream, mournful, yet not without its luxury, that ended her every day. +When the candle burned low, when the face looked but dimly from the glass, +then would she rise and quench the flame, and lay herself down to sleep, +with the moonlight upon her crossed hands and quiet brow. + + * * * * * + +She passed through the grape arbor, and opened the door at which Haward +had knocked that September night of the Governor's ball. She was in +Mistress Stagg's long room; at that hour it should have been lit only by a +dying fire and a solitary candle. Now the fire was low enough, but the +room seemed aflare with myrtle tapers. Audrey, coming from the dimness +without, shaded her eyes with her hand. The heavy door shut to behind her; +unseeing still she moved toward the fire, but in a moment let fall her +hand and began to wonder at the unwonted lights. Mistress Stagg was yet in +the playhouse; who then had lit these candles? She turned, and saw Haward +standing with folded arms between her and the door. + +The silence was long. He was Marmaduke Haward with all his powers +gathered, calm, determined, so desperate to have done with this thing, to +at once and forever gain his own and master fate, that his stillness was +that of deepest waters, his cool equanimity that of the gamester who knows +how will fall the loaded dice. Dressed with his accustomed care, very +pale, composed and quiet, he faced her whose spirit yet lingered in a far +city, who in the dreamy exaltation of this midnight hour was ever half +Audrey of the garden, half that other woman in a dress of red silk, with +jewels in her hair, who, love's martyr, had exulted, given all, and died. + +"How did you come here?" she breathed at last. "You said that you would +come never again." + +"After to-night, never again," he answered. "But now, Audrey, this once +again, this once again!" + +Gazing past him she made a movement toward the door. He shook his head. +"This is my hour, Audrey. You may not leave the room, nor will Mistress +Stagg enter it. I will not touch you, I will come no nearer to you. Stand +there in silence, if you choose, or cover the sight of me from your eyes, +while for my own ease, my own unhappiness, I say farewell." + +"Farewell!" she echoed. "Long ago, at Westover, that was said between you +and me.... Why do you come like a ghost to keep me and peace apart?" + +He did not answer, and she locked her hands across her brow that burned +beneath the heavy circlet of mock gems. "Is it kind?" she demanded, with a +sob in her voice. "Is it kind to trouble me so, to keep me here"-- + +"Was I ever kind?" he asked. "Since the night when I followed you, a +child, and caught you from the ground when you fell between the corn rows, +what kindness, Audrey?" + +"None!" she answered, with sudden passion. "Nor kindness then! Why went +you not some other way?" + +"Shall I tell you why I was there that night,--why I left my companions +and came riding back to the cabin in the valley?" + +She uncovered her eyes, "I thought--I thought then--that you were sent"-- + +He looked at her with strange compassion. "My own will sent me.... When, +that sunny afternoon, we spurred from the valley toward the higher +mountains, we left behind us a forest flower, a young girl of simple +sweetness, with long dark hair,--like yours, Audrey.... It was to pluck +that flower that I deserted the expedition, that I went back to the valley +between the hills." + +Her eyes dilated, and her hands very slowly rose to press her temples, to +make a shadow from which she might face the cup of trembling he was +pouring for her. + +"_Molly!_" she said, beneath her breath. + +He nodded. "Well, Death had gathered the flower.... Accident threw across +my path a tinier blossom, a helpless child. Save you then, care for you +then, I must, or I had been not man, but monster. Did I care for you +tenderly, Audrey? Did I make you love me with all your childish heart? Did +I become to you father and mother and sister and fairy prince? Then what +were you to me in those old days? A child fanciful and charming, too fine +in all her moods not to breed wonder, to give the feeling that Nature had +placed in that mountain cabin a changeling of her own. A child that one +must regard with fondness and some pity,--what is called a dear child. +Moreover, a child whose life I had saved, and to whom it pleased me to +play Providence. I was young, not hard of heart, sedulous to fold back to +the uttermost the roseleaves of every delicate and poetic emotion, +magnificently generous also, and set to play my life _au grand seigneur_. +To myself assume a responsibility which with all ease might have been +transferred to an Orphan Court, to put my stamp upon your life to come, to +watch you kneel and drink of my fountain of generosity, to open my hand +and with an indulgent smile shower down upon you the coin of pleasure and +advantage,--why, what a tribute was this to my own sovereignty, what +subtle flattery of self-love, what delicate taste of power! Well, I kissed +you good-by, and unclasped your hands from my neck, chided you, laughed at +you, fondled you, promised all manner of pretty things and engaged you +never to forget me--and sailed away upon the Golden Rose to meet my +crowded years with their wine and roses, upas shadows and apples of Sodom. +How long before I forgot you, Audrey? A year and a day, perhaps. I protest +that I cannot remember exactly." + +He slightly changed his position, but came no nearer to her. It was +growing quiet in the street beyond the curtained windows. One window was +bare, but it gave only upon an unused nook of the garden where were merely +the moonlight and some tall leafless bushes. + +"I came back to Virginia," he said, "and I looked for and found you in the +heart of a flowering wood.... All that you imagined me to be, Audrey, that +was I not. Knight-errant, paladin, king among men,--what irony, child, in +that strange dream and infatuation of thine! I was--I am--of my time and +of myself, and he whom that day you thought me had not then nor afterwards +form or being. I wish you to be perfect in this lesson, Audrey. Are you +so?" + +"Yes," she sighed. Her hands had fallen; she was looking at him with +slowly parting lips, and a strange expression in her eyes. + +He went on quietly as before, every feature controlled to impassivity and +his arms lightly folded: "That is well. Between the day when I found you +again and a night in the Palace yonder lies a summer,--a summer! To me all +the summers that ever I had or will have,--ten thousand summers! Now tell +me how I did in this wonderful summer." + +"Ignobly," she answered. + +He bowed his head gravely. "Ay, Audrey, it is a good word." With a quick +sigh he left his place, and walking to the uncurtained window stood there +looking out upon the strip of moonlight and the screen of bushes; but when +he turned again to the room his face and bearing were as impressive as +before in their fine, still gravity, their repose of determination. "And +that evening by the river when you fled from me to Hugon"-- + +"I had awaked," she said, in a low voice. "You were to me a stranger, and +I feared you." + +"And at Westover?" + +"A stranger." + +"Here in Williamsburgh, when by dint of much striving I saw you, when I +wrote to you, when at last you sent me that letter, that piteous and cruel +letter, Audrey?" + +For one moment her dark eyes met his, then fell to her clasped hands. "A +stranger," she said. + +"The letter was many weeks ago. I have been alone with my thoughts at Fair +View. And to-night, Audrey?" + +"A stranger," she would have answered, but her voice broke. There were +shadows under her eyes; her lifted face had in it a strained, intent +expectancy as though she saw or heard one coming. + +"A stranger," he acquiesced. "A foreigner in your world of dreams and +shadows. No prince, Audrey, or great white knight and hero. Only a +gentleman of these latter days, compact like his fellows of strength and +weakness; now very wise and now the mere finger-post of folly; set to +travel his own path; able to hear above him in the rarer air the trumpet +call, but choosing to loiter on the lower slopes. In addition a man who +loves at last, loves greatly, with a passion that shall ennoble. A +stranger and your lover, Audrey, come to say farewell." + +Her voice came like an echo, plaintive and clear and from far away: +"Farewell." + +"How steadily do I stand here to say farewell!" he said. "Yet I am eaten +of my passion. A fire burns me, a voice within me ever cries aloud. I am +whirled in a resistless wind.... Ah, my love, the garden at Fair View! The +folded rose that will never bloom, the dial where linger the heavy hours, +the heavy, heavy, heavy hours!" + +"The garden," she whispered. "I smell the box.... The path was all in +sunshine. So quiet, so hushed.... I went a little farther, and I heard +your voice where you sat and read--and read of Elosa.... _Oh, Evelyn, +Evelyn!_" + +"The last time--the last farewell!" he said. "When the Golden Rose is far +at sea, when the winds blow, when the stars drift below the verge, when +the sea speaks, then may I forget you, may the vision of you pass! Now at +Fair View it passes not; it dwells. Night and day I behold you, the woman +that I love, the woman that I love in vain!" + +"The Golden Rose!" she answered. "The sea.... Alas!" + +Her voice had risen into a cry. The walls of the room were gone, the air +pressed upon her heavily, the lights wavered, the waters were passing over +her as they had passed that night of the witch's hut. How far away the +bank upon which he stood! He spoke to her, and his voice came faintly as +from that distant shore or from the deck of a swiftly passing ship. "And +so it is good-by, sweetheart; for why should I stay in Virginia? Ah, if +you loved me, Audrey! But since it is not so--Good-by, good-by. This time +I'll not forget you, but I will not come again. Good-by!" + +Her lips moved, but there came no words. A light had dawned upon her face, +her hand was lifted as though to stay a sound of music. Suddenly she +turned toward him, swayed, and would have fallen but that his arm caught +and upheld her. Her head was thrown back; the soft masses of her wonderful +hair brushed his cheek and shoulder; her eyes looked past him, and a +smile, pure and exquisite past expression, just redeemed her face from +sadness. "Good-morrow, Love!" she said clearly and sweetly. + +At the sound of her own words came to her the full realization and +understanding of herself. With a cry she freed herself from his supporting +arm, stepped backward and looked at him. The color surged over her face +and throat, her eyelids drooped; while her name was yet upon his lips she +answered with a broken cry of ecstasy and abandonment. A moment and she +was in his arms and their lips had met. + +How quiet it was in the long room, where the myrtle candles gave out their +faint perfume and the low fire leaped upon the hearth! Thus for a time; +then, growing faint with her happiness, she put up protesting hands. He +made her sit in the great chair, and knelt before her, all youth and fire, +handsome, ardent, transfigured by his passion into such a lover as a queen +might desire. + +"Hail, Sultana!" he said, smiling, his eyes upon her diadem. "Now you are +Arpasia again, and I am Moneses, and ready, ah, most ready, to die for +you." + +She also smiled. "Remember that I am to quickly follow you." + +"When shall we marry?" he demanded. "The garden cries out for you, my +love, and I wish to hear your footstep in my house. It hath been a dreary +house, filled with shadows, haunted by keen longings and vain regrets. Now +the windows shall be flung wide and the sunshine shall pour in. Oh, your +voice singing through the rooms, your foot upon the stairs!" He took her +hands and put them to his lips. "I love as men loved of old," he said. "I +am far from myself and my times. When will you become my wife?" + +She answered him simply, like the child that at times she seemed: "When +you will. But I must be Arpasia again to-morrow night. The Governor hath +ordered the play repeated, and Margery Linn could not learn my part in +time." + +He laughed, fingering the red silk of her hanging sleeve, feasting his +eyes upon her dark beauty, so heightened and deepened in the year that had +passed. "Then play to them--and to me who shall watch you well--to-morrow +night. But after that to them never again! only to me, Audrey, to me when +we walk in the garden at home, when we sit in the book-room and the +candles are lighted. That day in May when first you came into my garden, +when first I showed you my house, when first I rowed you home with the +sunshine on the water and the roses in your hair! Love, love! do you +remember?" + +"Remember?" she answered, in a thrilling voice. "When I am dead I shall +yet remember! And I will come when you want me. After to-morrow night I +will come.... Oh, cannot you hear the river? And the walls of the box will +be freshly green, and the fruit-trees all in bloom! The white leaves drift +down upon the bench beneath the cherry-tree.... I will sit in the grass at +your feet. Oh, I love you, have loved you long!" + +They had risen and now with her head upon his breast and his arm about +her, they stood in the heart of the soft radiance of many candles. His +face was bowed upon the dark wonder of her hair; when at last he lifted +his eyes, they chanced to fall upon the one uncurtained window. Audrey, +feeling his slight, quickly controlled start, turned within his arm and +also saw the face of Jean Hugon, pressed against the glass, staring in +upon them. + +Before Haward could reach the window the face was gone. A strip of +moonlight, some leafless bashes, beyond, the blank wall of the +theatre,--that was all. Raising the sash, Haward leaned forth until he +could see the garden at large. Moonlight still and cold, winding paths, +and shadows of tree and shrub and vine, but no sign of living creature. He +closed the window and drew the curtain across, then turned again to +Audrey. "A phantom of the night," he said, and laughed. + +She was standing in the centre of the room, with her red dress gleaming +in the candlelight. Her brow beneath its mock crown had no lines of care, +and her wonderful eyes smiled upon him. "I have no fear of it," she +answered. "That is strange, is it not, when I have feared it for so long? +I have no other fear to-night than that I shall outlive your love for me." + +"I will love you until the stars fall," he said. + +"They are falling to-night. When you are without the door look up, and you +may see one pass swiftly down the sky. Once I watched them from the dark +river"-- + +"I will love you until the sun grows old," he said. "Through life and +death, through heaven or hell, past the beating of my heart, while lasts +my soul!... Audrey, Audrey!" + +"If it is so," she answered, "then all is well. Now kiss me good-night, +for I hear Mistress Stagg's voice. You will come again to-morrow? And +to-morrow night,--oh, to-morrow night I shall see only you, think of only +you while I play! Good-night, good-night." + +They kissed and parted, and Haward, a happy man, went with raised face +through the stillness and the moonlight to his lodging at Marot's +ordinary. No phantoms of the night disturbed him. He had found the +philosopher's stone, had drunk of the divine elixir. Life was at last a +thing much to be desired, and the Giver of life was good, and the _summum +bonum_ was deathless love. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE LAST ACT + + +Before eight of the clock, Mr. Stagg, peering from behind the curtain, +noted with satisfaction that the house was filling rapidly; upon the +stroke of the hour it was crowded to the door, without which might be +heard angry voices contending that there must be yet places for the +buying. The musicians began to play and more candles were lighted. There +were laughter, talk, greetings from one part of the house to another, as +much movement to and fro as could be accomplished in so crowded a space. +The manners of the London playhouses were aped not unsuccessfully. To +compare small things with great, it might have been Drury Lane upon a gala +night. If the building was rude, yet it had no rival in the colonies, and +if the audience was not so gay of hue, impertinent of tongue, or paramount +in fashion as its London counterpart, yet it was composed of the rulers +and makers of a land destined to greatness. + +In the centre box sat his Excellency, William Gooch, Lieutenant-Governor +of Virginia, resplendent in velvet and gold lace, and beside him Colonel +Alexander Spotswood, arrived in town from Germanna that day, with his +heart much set upon the passage, by the Assembly, of an act which would +advantage his iron works. Colonel Byrd of Westover, Colonel Esmond of +Castlewood, Colonel Carter, Colonel Page, and Colonel Ludwell were +likewise of the Governor's party, while seated or standing in the pit, or +mingling with the ladies who made gay the boxes, were other gentlemen of +consequence,--Councilors, Burgesses, owners of vast tracts of land, of +ships and many slaves. Of their number some were traveled men, and some +had fought in England's wars, and some had studied in her universities. +Many were of gentle blood, sprung from worthy and venerable houses in that +green island which with fondness they still called home, and many had made +for themselves name and fortune, hewing their way to honor through a +primeval forest of adversities. Lesser personages were not lacking, but +crowded the gallery and invaded the pit. Old fighters of Indians were +present, and masters of ships trading from the Spanish islands or from the +ports of home. Rude lumbermen from Norfolk or the borders of the Dismal +Swamp stared about them, while here and there showed the sad-colored coat +of a minister, or the broad face of some Walloon from Spotswood's +settlement on the Rapidan, or the keener countenances of Frenchmen from +Monacan-Town. The armorer from the Magazine elbowed a great proprietor +from the Eastern shore, while a famous guide and hunter, long and lean and +brown, described to a magnate of Yorktown a buffalo capture in the far +west, twenty leagues beyond the falls. Masters and scholars from William +and Mary were there, with rangers, traders, sailors ashore, small +planters, merchants, loquacious keepers of ordinaries, and with men, now +free and with a stake in the land, who had come there as indentured +servants, or as convicts, runaways, and fugitives from justice. In the +upper gallery, where no payment was exacted, many servants with a +sprinkling of favorite mulatto or mustee slaves; in the boxes the lustre +and sweep of damask and brocade, light laughter, silvery voices, the +flutter of fans; everywhere the vividness and animation of a strangely +compounded society, where the shadows were deep and the lights were high. + +Nor did the conversation of so motley an assemblage lack a certain +pictorial quality, a somewhat fantastic opulence of reference and +allusion. Of what might its members speak while they waited for the +drawing aside of the piece of baize which hung between them and an +Oriental camp? There was the staple of their wealth, a broad-leafed plant, +the smoke of whose far-spread burning might have wrapped its native fields +in a perpetual haze as of Indian summer; and there was the warfare, +bequeathed from generation to generation, against the standing armies of +the forest, that subtle foe that slept not, retreated not, whose vanguard, +ever falling, ever showed unbroken ranks beyond. Trapper and trader and +ranger might tell of trails through the wilderness vast and hostile, of +canoes upon unknown waters, of beasts of prey, creatures screaming in the +night-time through the ebony woods. Of Indian villages, also, and of red +men who, in the fastnesses that were left them, took and tortured and slew +after strange fashions. The white man, strong as the wind, drove the red +man before his face like an autumn leaf, but he beckoned to the black man, +and the black man came at his call. He came in numbers from a far country, +and the manner of his coming was in chains. What he had to sell was +valuable, but the purchase price came not into his hands. Of him also +mention was made to-night. The master of the tall ship that had brought +him into the James or the York, the dealer to whom he was consigned, the +officer of the Crown who had cried him for sale, the planter who had +bought him, the divine who preached that he was of a race accursed,--all +were there, and all had interest in this merchandise. Others in the throng +talked of ships both great and small, and the quaintness of their names, +the golden flowers and golden women, the swift birds and beasts, the +namesakes of Fortune or of Providence, came pleasantly upon the ear. The +still-vexed Bermoothes, Barbadoes, and all the Indies were spoken of; +ports to the north and ports to the south, pirate craft and sunken +treasure, a flight, a fight, a chase at sea. The men from Norfolk talked +of the great Dismal and its trees of juniper and cypress, the traders of +trading, the masters from William and Mary of the humanities. The greater +men, authoritative and easy, owners of flesh and blood and much land, +holders of many offices and leaders of the people, paid their respects to +horse-racing and cock-fighting, cards and dice; to building, planting, the +genteelest mode of living, and to public affairs both in Virginia and at +home in England. Old friends, with oaths of hearty affection, and from +opposite quarters of the house, addressed each other as Tom, or Ned, or +Dick, while old enemies, finding themselves side by side, exchanged +extremely civil speeches, and so put a keener edge upon their mutual +disgust. In the boxes where glowed the women there was comfit talk, vastly +pretty speeches, asseverations, denials, windy sighs, the politest oaths, +whispering, talk of the play, and, last but not least, of Mr. Haward of +Fair View, and Darden's Audrey. + +Haward, entering the pit, made his way quietly to where a servant was +holding for him a place. The fellow pulled his forelock in response to +his master's nod, then shouldered his way through the press to the +ladder-like stairs that led to the upper gallery. Haward, standing at his +ease, looked about him, recognizing this or that acquaintance with his +slow, fine smile and an inclination of his head. He was much observed, and +presently a lady leaned from her box, smiled, waved her fan, and slightly +beckoned to him. It was young Madam Byrd, and Evelyn sat beside her. + +Five minutes later, as Haward entered the box of the ladies of Westover, +music sounded, the curtain was drawn back, and the play began. Upon the +ruder sort in the audience silence fell at once: they that followed the +sea, and they that followed the woods, and all the simple folk ceased +their noise and gesticulation, and gazed spellbound at the pomp before +them of rude scenery and indifferent actors. But the great ones of the +earth talked on, attending to their own business in the face of Tamerlane +and his victorious force. It was the fashion to do so, and in the play +to-night the first act counted nothing, for Darden's Audrey had naught to +do with it. In the second act, when she entered as Arpasia, the entire +house would fall quiet, staring and holding its breath. + +Haward bent over Madam Byrd's hand; then, as that lady turned from him to +greet Mr. Lee, addressed himself with grave courtesy to Evelyn, clothed in +pale blue, and more lovely even than her wont. For months they had not +met. She had written him one letter,--had written the night of the day +upon which she had encountered Audrey in the Palace walk,--and he had +answered it with a broken line of passionate thanks for unmerited +kindness. Now as he bent over her she caught his wrist lightly with her +hand, and her touch burned him through the lace of his ruffles. With her +other hand she spread her fan; Mr. Lee's shoulder knot also screened them +while Mr. Grymes had engaged its owner's attention, and pretty Madam Byrd +was in animated conversation with the occupants of a neighboring box. "Is +it well?" asked Evelyn, very low. + +Haward's answer was as low, and bravely spoken with his eyes meeting her +clear gaze, and her touch upon his wrist. "For me, Evelyn, it is very +well," he said. "For her--may I live to make it well for her, forever and +a day well for her! She is to be my wife." + +"I am glad," said Evelyn,--"very glad." + +"You are a noble lady," he answered. "Once, long ago, I styled myself your +friend, your equal. Now I know better my place and yours, and as from a +princess I take your alms. For your letter--that letter, Evelyn, which +told me what you thought, which showed me what to do--I humbly thank you." + +She let fall her hand from her silken lap, and watched with unseeing eyes +the mimicry of life upon the stage before them, where Selima knelt to +Tamerlane, and Moneses mourned for Arpasia. Presently she said again, "I +am glad;" and then, when they had kept silence for a while, "You will live +at Fair View?" + +"Ay," he replied. "I will make it well for her here in Virginia." + +"You must let me help you," she said. "So old a friend as I may claim that +as a right. To-morrow I may visit her, may I not? Now we must look at the +players. When she enters there is no need to cry for silence. It comes of +itself, and stays; we watch her with straining eyes. Who is that man in a +cloak, staring at us from the pit? See, with the great peruke and the +scar!" + +Haward, bending, looked over the rail, then drew back with a smile. "A +half-breed trader," he said, "by name Jean Hugon. Something of a +character." + +"He looked strangely at us," said Evelyn, "with how haggard a face! My +scarf, Mr. Lee? Thank you. Madam, have you the right of the matter from +Kitty Page?" + +The conversation became general, and soon, the act approaching its end, +and other gentlemen pressing into the box which held so beautiful a woman, +so great a catch, and so assured a belle as Mistress Evelyn Byrd, Haward +arose and took his leave. To others of the brilliant company assembled in +the playhouse he paid his respects, speaking deferentially to the +Governor, gayly to his fellow Councilors and planters, and bowing low to +many ladies. All this was in the interval between the acts. At the second +parting of the curtain he resumed his former station in the pit. With +intention he had chosen a section of it where were few of his own class. +From the midst of the ruder sort he could watch her more freely, could +exult at his ease in her beauty both of face and mind. + +The curtains parted, and the fiddlers strove for warlike music. Tamerlane, +surrounded by the Tartar host, received his prisoners, and the defiant +rant of Bajazet shook the rafters. All the sound and fury of the stage +could not drown the noise of the audience. Idle talk and laughter, loud +comment upon the players, went on,--went on until there entered Darden's +Audrey, dressed in red silk, with a jeweled circlet like a line of flame +about her dark flowing hair. The noise sank, voices of men and women died +away; for a moment the rustle of silk, the flutter of fans, continued, +then this also ceased. + +She stood before the Sultan, wide-eyed, with a smile of scorn upon her +lips; then spoke in a voice, low, grave, monotonous, charged like a +passing bell with warning and with solemn woe. The house seemed to grow +more still; the playgoers, box and pit and gallery, leaned slightly +forward: whether she spoke or moved or stood in silence, Darden's Audrey, +that had been a thing of naught, now held every eye, was regnant for an +hour in this epitome of the world. The scene went on, and now it was to +Moneses that she spoke. All the bliss and anguish of unhappy love sounded +in her voice, dwelt in her eye and most exquisite smile, hung upon her +every gesture. The curtains closed; from the throng that had watched her +came a sound like a sigh, after which, slowly, tongues were loosened. An +interval of impatient waiting, then the music again and the parting +curtains, and Darden's Audrey,--the girl who could so paint very love, +very sorrow, very death; the girl who had come strangely and by a devious +path from the height and loneliness of the mountains to the level of this +stage and the watching throng. + +At the close of the fourth act of the play, Haward left his station in the +pit, and quietly made his way to the regions behind the curtain, where in +the very circumscribed space that served as greenroom to the Williamsburgh +theatre he found Tamerlane, Bajazet, and their satellites, together with a +number of gentlemen invaders from the front of the house. Mistress Stagg +was there, and Selima, perched upon a table, was laughing with the +aforesaid gentlemen, but no Arpasia. Haward drew the elder woman aside. "I +wish to see her," he said, in a low voice, kindly but imperious. "A moment +only, good woman." + +With her finger at her lips Mistress Stagg glanced about her. "She hides +from them always, she's that strange a child: though indeed, sir, as sweet +a young lady as a prince might wed! This way, sir,--it's dark; make no +noise." + +She led him through a dim passageway, and softly opened a door. "There, +sir, for just five minutes! I'll call her in time." + +The door gave upon the garden, and Audrey sat upon the step in the +moonshine and the stillness. Her hand propped her chin, and her eyes were +raised to the few silver stars. That mock crown which she wore sparkled +palely, and the light lay in the folds of her silken dress. At the opening +of the door she did not turn, thinking that Mistress Stagg stood behind +her. "How bright the moon shines!" she said. "A mockingbird should be +singing, singing! Is it time for Arpasia?" + +As she rose from the step Haward caught her in his arms. "It is I, my +love! Ah, heart's desire! I worship you who gleam in the moonlight, with +your crown like an aureole"-- + +Audrey rested against him, clasping her hands upon his shoulder. "There +were nights like this," she said dreamily. "If I were a little child +again, you could lift me in your arms and carry me home, I am tired ... I +would that I needed not to go back to the glare and noise. The moon shines +so bright! I have been thinking"-- + +He bent his head and kissed her twice. "Poor Arpasia! Poor tired child! +Soon we shall go home, Audrey,--we two, my love, we two!" + +"I have been thinking, sitting here in the moonlight," she went on, her +hands clasped upon his shoulder, and her cheek resting on them. "I was so +ignorant. I never dreamed that I could wrong her ... and when I awoke it +was too late. And now I love you,--not the dream, but you. I know not what +is right or wrong; I know only that I love. I think she +understands--forgives. I love you so!" Her hands parted, and she stood +from him with her face raised to the balm of the night. "I love you so," +she repeated, and the low cadence of her laugh broke the silver stillness +of the garden. "The moon up there, she knows it. And the stars,--not one +has fallen to-night! Smell the flowers. Wait, I will pluck you hyacinths." + +They grew by the doorstep, and she broke the slender stalks and gave them +into his hand. But when he had kissed them he would give them back, would +fasten them himself in the folds of silk, that rose and fell with her +quickened breathing. He fastened them with a brooch which he took from the +Mechlin at his throat. It was the golden horseshoe, the token that he had +journeyed to the Endless Mountains. + +"Now I must go," said Audrey. "They are calling for Arpasia. Follow me not +at once. Good-night, good-night! Ah, I love you so! Remember always that I +love you so!" + +She was gone. In a few minutes he also rentered the playhouse, and went +to his former place where, with none of his kind about him, he might watch +her undisturbed. As he made his way with some difficulty through the +throng, he was aware that he brushed against a man in a great peruke, who, +despite the heat of the house, was wrapped in an old roquelaure tawdrily +laced; also that the man was keeping stealthy pace with him, and that when +he at last reached his station the cloaked figure fell into place +immediately behind him. + +Haward shrugged his shoulders, but would not turn his head, and thereby +grant recognition to Jean Hugon, the trader. Did he so, the half-breed +might break into speech, provoke a quarrel, make God knew what assertion, +what disturbance. To-morrow steps should be taken--Ah, the curtain! + +The silence deepened, and men and women leaned forward holding their +breath. Darden's Audrey, robed and crowned as Arpasia, sat alone in the +Sultan's tent, staring before her with wide dark eyes, then slowly rising +began to speak. A sound, a sigh as of wonder, ran from the one to the +other of the throng that watched her. Why did she look thus, with +contracted brows, toward one quarter of the house? What inarticulate words +was she uttering? What gesture, quickly controlled, did she make of +ghastly fear and warning? And now the familiar words came halting from her +lips:-- + + "'Sure 'tis a horror, more than darkness brings, + That sits upon the night!'" + +With the closing words of her speech the audience burst into a great storm +of applause. 'Gad! how she acts! But what now? Why, what is this? + +It was quite in nature and the mode for an actress to pause in the middle +of a scene to curtsy thanks for generous applause, to smile and throw a +mocking kiss to pit and boxes, but Darden's Audrey had hitherto not +followed the fashion. Also it was not uncustomary for some spoiled +favorite of a player to trip down, between her scenes, the step or two +from the stage to the pit, and mingle with the gallants there, laugh, +jest, accept languishing glances, audacious comparisons, and such weighty +trifles as gilt snuffboxes and rings of price. But this player had not +heretofore honored the custom; moreover, at present she was needed upon +the stage. Bajazet must thunder and she defy; without her the play could +not move, and indeed the actors were now staring with the audience. What +was it? Why had she crossed the stage, and, slowly, smilingly, beautiful +and stately in her gleaming robes, descended those few steps which led to +the pit? What had she to do there, throwing smiling glances to right and +left, lightly waving the folk, gentle and simple, from her path, pressing +steadily onward to some unguessed-at goal. As though held by a spell they +watched her, one and all,--Haward, Evelyn, the Governor, the man in the +cloak, every soul in that motley assemblage. The wonder had not time to +dull, for the moments were few between her final leave-taking of those +boards which she had trodden supreme and the crashing and terrible chord +which was to close the entertainment of this night. + +Her face was raised to the boxes, and it seemed as though her dark eyes +sought one there. Then, suddenly, she swerved. There were men between her +and Haward. She raised her hand, and they fell back, making for her a +path. Haward, bewildered, started forward, but her cry was not to him. It +was to the figure just behind him,--the cloaked figure whose hand grasped +the hunting-knife which from the stage, as she had looked to where stood +her lover, she had seen or divined. "Jean! Jean Hugon!" she cried. + +Involuntarily the trader pushed toward her, past the man whom he meant to +stab to the heart. The action, dragging his cloak aside, showed the +half-raised arm and the gleaming steel. For many minutes the knife had +been ready. The play was nearly over, and she must see this man who had +stolen her heart, this Haward of Fair View, die. Else Jean Hugon's +vengeance were not complete. For his own safety the maddened half-breed +had ceased to care. No warning cried from the stage could have done aught +but precipitate the deed, but now for the moment, amazed and doubtful, he +turned his back upon his prey. + +In that moment the Audrey of the woods, a creature lithe and agile and +strong of wrist as of will, had thrown herself upon him, clutching the +hand that held the knife. He strove to dash her from him, but in vain; the +house was in an uproar; and now Haward's hands were at his throat, +Haward's voice was crying to that fair devil, that Audrey for whom he had +built his house, who was balking him of revenge, whose body was between +him and his enemy! Suddenly he was all savage; as upon a night in Fair +View house he had cast off the trammels of his white blood, so now. An +access of furious strength came to him; he shook himself free; the knife +gleamed in the air, descended.... He drew it from the bosom into which he +had plunged it, and as Haward caught her in his arms, who would else have +sunk to the floor, the half-breed burst through the horror-stricken +throng, brandishing the red blade and loudly speaking in the tongue of the +Monacans. Like a whirlwind he was gone from the house, and for a time none +thought to follow him. + +[Illustration: "JEAN! JEAN HUGON!"] + +They bore her into the small white house, and up the stair to her own +room, and laid her upon the bed. Dr. Contesse came and went away, and came +again. There was a crowd in Palace Street before the theatre. A man +mounting the doorstep so that he might be heard of all, said clearly, "She +may live until dawn,--no longer." Later, one came out of the house and +asked that there might be quiet. The crowd melted away, but throughout the +mild night, filled with the soft airs and thousand odors of the spring, +people stayed about the place, standing silent in the street or sitting on +the garden benches. + +In the room upstairs lay Darden's Audrey, with crossed hands and head put +slightly back. She lay still, upon the edge of death, nor seemed to care +that it was so. Her eyes were closed, and at intervals one sitting at the +bed head laid touch upon her pulse, or held before her lips a slight +ringlet of her hair. Mary Stagg sat by the window and wept, but Haward, +kneeling, hid his face in the covering of the bed. The form upon it was +not more still than he; Mistress Stagg, also, stifled her sobs, for it +seemed not a place for loud grief. + +In the room below, amidst the tinsel frippery of small wares, waited +others whose lives had touched the life that was ebbing away. Now and then +one spoke in a hushed voice, a window was raised, a servant bringing in +fresh candles trod too heavily; then the quiet closed in again. Late in +the night came through the open windows a distant clamor, and presently a +man ran down Palace Street, and as he ran called aloud some tidings. +MacLean, standing near the door, went softly out. When he returned, +Colonel Byrd, sitting at the table, lifted inquiring brows. "They took +him in the reeds near the Capitol landing," said the Highlander grimly. +"He's in the gaol now, but whether the people will leave him there"-- + +The night wore on, grew old, passed into the cold melancholy of its latest +hour. Darden's Audrey sighed and stirred, and a little strength coming to +her parting spirit, she opened her eyes and loosed her hands. The +physician held to her lips the cordial, and she drank a very little. +Haward lifted his head, and as Contesse passed him to set down the cup, +caught him by the sleeve. The other looked pityingly at the man into whose +face had come a flush of hope. "'T is but the last flickering of the +flame," he said. "Soon even the spark will vanish." + +Audrey began to speak. At first her words were wild and wandering, but, +the mist lifting somewhat, she presently knew Mistress Stagg, and liked to +have her take the doctor's place beside her. At Haward she looked +doubtfully, with wide eyes, as scarce understanding. When he called her +name she faintly shook her head, then turned it slightly from him and +veiled her eyes. It came to him with a terrible pang that the memory of +their latest meetings was wiped from her brain, and that she was afraid of +his broken words and the tears upon her hand. + +When she spoke again it was to ask for the minister. He was below, and +Mistress Stagg went weeping down the stairs to summon him. He came, but +would not touch the girl; only stood, with his hat in his hand, and looked +down upon her with bleared eyes and a heavy countenance. + +"I am to die, am I not?" she asked, with her gaze upon him. + +"That is as God wills, Audrey," he answered. + +"I am not afraid to die." + +"You have no need," he said, and going out of the room and down the +stairs, made Stagg pour for him a glass of aqua vit. + +Audrey closed her eyes, and when she opened them again there seemed to be +many persons in the room. One was bending over her whom at first she +thought was Molly, but soon she saw more clearly, and smiled at the pale +and sorrowful face. The lady bent lower yet, and kissed her on the +forehead. "Audrey," she said, and Audrey looking up at her answered, +"Evelyn." + +When the dawn came glimmering in the windows, when the mist was cold and +the birds were faintly heard, they raised her upon her pillows, and wiped +the death dew from her forehead. "Audrey, Audrey, Audrey!" cried Haward, +and caught at her hands. + +She looked at him with a faint and doubtful smile, remembering nothing of +that hour in the room below, of those minutes in the moonlit garden. +"Gather the rosebuds while ye may," she said; and then, "The house is +large. Good giant, eat me not!" + +The man upon his knees beside her uttered a cry, and began to speak to +her, thickly, rapidly, words of agony, entreaty, and love. To-morrow and +for all life habit would resume its sway, and lost love, remorse, and vain +regrets put on a mask that was cold and fine and able to deceive. To-night +there spoke the awakened heart. With her hands cold in his, with his +agonized gaze upon the face from which the light was slowly passing, he +poured forth his passion and his anguish, and she listened not. They +moistened her lips, and one opened wide the window that gave upon the +east. "It was all a dream," she said; and again, "All a dream." A little +later, while the sky flushed slowly and the light of the candles grew +pale, she began suddenly, and in a stronger voice, to speak as Arpasia:-- + + "'If it be happiness, alas! to die, + To lie forgotten in the silent grave'"-- + +"Forgotten!" cried Haward. "Audrey, Audrey, Audrey! Go not from me! Oh, +love, love, stay awhile!" + +"The mountains," said Audrey clearly. "The sun upon them and the lifting +mist." + +"The mountains!" he cried. "Ay, we will go to them, Audrey, we will go +together! Why, you are stronger, sweetheart! There is strength in your +voice and your hands, and a light in your eyes. Oh, if you will live, +Audrey, I will make you happy! You shall take me to the mountains--we will +go together, you and I! Audrey, Audrey"-- + +But Audrey was gone already. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Audrey, by Mary Johnston + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUDREY *** + +***** This file should be named 14513-8.txt or 14513-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/5/1/14513/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/14513-8.zip b/old/14513-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..644216a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14513-8.zip diff --git a/old/14513.txt b/old/14513.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4df766e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14513.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12095 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Audrey, by Mary Johnston + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Audrey + +Author: Mary Johnston + +Release Date: December 29, 2004 [EBook #14513] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUDREY *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + + + AUDREY + + BY + MARY JOHNSTON + + AUTHOR OF "TO HAVE AND TO HOLD" AND + "PRISONERS OF HOPE" + + + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + F.C. YOHN + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + The Riverside Press, Cambridge + 1902 + + COPYRIGHT, 1901, 1902, BY MARY JOHNSTON + COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + _Published February, 1902_ + + + + + + _Books by Mary Johnston._ + + + AUDREY. With Illustrations in color. Crown 8vo, $1.50 + + PRISONERS OF HOPE. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, $1.50. + + TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. With 8 Illustrations + by HOWARD PYLE, E.B. THOMPSON, + A.W. BETTS, and EMLEN McCONNELL. + Crown 8vo, $1.50. + + + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN & CO. + BOSTON AND NEW YORK. + +[Illustration: GAZED WITH WIDE-OPEN EYES AT THE INTRUDER (page 106)] + + TO + ELOISE, ANNE, AND ELIZABETH + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER TITLE PAGE + + I. THE CABIN IN THE VALLEY 1 + + II. THE COURT OF THE ORPHAN 16 + + III. DARDEN'S AUDREY 38 + + IV. THE ROAD TO WILLIAMSBURGH 52 + + V. THE STOREKEEPER 63 + + VI. MASTER AND MAN 73 + + VII. THE RETURN OF MONSIEUR JEAN HUGON 92 + + VIII. UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE 106 + + IX. MACLEAN TO THE RESCUE 117 + + X. HAWARD AND EVELYN 131 + + XI. AUDREY OF THE GARDEN 145 + + XII. THE PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN 163 + + XIII. A SABBATH DAY'S JOURNEY 179 + + XIV. THE BEND IN THE ROAD 194 + + XV. HUGON SPEAKS HIS MIND 206 + + XVI. AUDREY AND EVELYN 222 + + XVII. WITHIN THE PLAYHOUSE 237 + + XVIII. A QUESTION OF COLORS 249 + + XIX. THE GOVERNOR'S BALL 262 + + XX. THE UNINVITED GUEST 273 + + XXI. AUDREY AWAKES 287 + + XXII. BY THE RIVERSIDE 300 + + XXIII. A DUEL 312 + + XXIV. AUDREY COMES TO WESTOVER 322 + + XXV. TWO WOMEN 337 + + XXVI. SANCTUARY 349 + + XXVII. THE MISSION OF TRUELOVE 363 + + XXVIII. THE PLAYER 375 + + XXIX. AMOR VINCIT 391 + + XXX. THE LAST ACT 402 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + + GAZED WITH WIDE-OPEN EYES AT THE INTRUDER (page 106) _Frontispiece_ + + "HAD YOU LOVED ME--I HAD BEEN HAPPY" 58 + + AUDREY LEFT HER WARNING TO BE SPOKEN BY MACLEAN 206 + + "I DO NOT THINK I HAVE THE HONOR OF KNOWING"-- 270 + + HER DARK EYES MADE APPEAL 342 + + "JEAN! JEAN HUGON!" 414 + + + +AUDREY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE CABIN IN THE VALLEY + + +The valley lay like a ribbon thrown into the midst of the encompassing +hills. The grass which grew there was soft and fine and abundant; the +trees which sprang from its dark, rich mould were tall and great of girth. +A bright stream flashed through it, and the sunshine fell warm upon the +grass and changed the tassels of the maize into golden plumes. Above the +valley, east and north and south, rose the hills, clad in living green, +mantled with the purpling grape, wreathed morn and eve with trailing mist. +To the westward were the mountains, and they dwelt apart in a blue haze. +Only in the morning, if the mist were not there, the sunrise struck upon +their long summits, and in the evening they stood out, high and black and +fearful, against the splendid sky. The child who played beside the cabin +door often watched them as the valley filled with shadows, and thought of +them as a great wall between her and some land of the fairies which must +needs lie beyond that barrier, beneath the splendor and the evening star. +The Indians called them the Endless Mountains, and the child never doubted +that they ran across the world and touched the floor of heaven. + +In the hands of the woman who was spinning the thread broke and the song +died in the white throat of the girl who stood in the doorway. For a +moment the two gazed with widening eyes into the green September world +without the cabin; then the woman sprang to her feet, tore from the wall a +horn, and, running to the door, wound it lustily. The echoes from the +hills had not died when a man and a boy, the one bearing a musket, the +other an axe, burst from the shadow of the forest, and at a run crossed +the greensward and the field of maize between them and the women. The +child let fall her pine cones and pebbles, and fled to her mother, to +cling to her skirts, and look with brown, frightened eyes for the wonder +that should follow the winding of the horn. Only twice could she remember +that clear summons for her father: once when it was winter and snow was on +the ground, and a great wolf, gaunt and bold, had fallen upon their sheep; +and once when a drunken trader from Germanna, with a Pamunkey who had +tasted of the trader's rum, had not waited for an invitation before +entering the cabin. It was not winter now, and there was no sign of the +red-faced trader or of the dreadful, capering Indian. There was only a +sound in the air, a strange noise coming to them from the pass between the +hills over which rose the sun. + +The man with the musket sent his voice before him as he approached the +group upon the doorstep: "Alce, woman! What's amiss? I see naught wrong!" + +His wife stepped forward to meet him. "There's naught to see, William. +It's to hear. There was a noise. Molly and I heard it, and then we lost +it. There it is again!" + +Fronting the cabin, beyond the maize field and the rich green grass and +the placid stream, rose two hills, steep and thickly wooded, and between +them ran a narrow, winding, and rocky pass. Down this gorge, to the +listening pioneer, now came a confused and trampling sound. + +"It is iron striking against the rocks!" he announced. "The hoofs of +horses"-- + +"Iron!" cried his wife. "The horses in Virginia go unshod! And what should +a troop of horse do here, beyond the frontier, where even the rangers +never come?" + +The man shook his head, a frown of perplexity upon his bronzed and bearded +face. "It is the sound of the hoofs of horses," he said, "and they are +coming through the pass. Hark!" + +A trumpet blew, and there came a noise of laughter. The child pressed +close to her brother's side. "Oh, Robin, maybe 't is the fairies!" + +Out from the gloom of the pass into the sunshine of the valley, splashing +through the stream, trampling the long grass, laughing, and calling one +rider to the other, burst a company of fifty horsemen. The trumpet blew +again, and the entire party, drawing rein, stared at the unexpected maize +field, the cabin, and the people about the door. + +Between the intruders and the lonely folk, whose nearest neighbors were +twenty miles away, was only a strip of sunny grass, dotted over with the +stumps of trees that had been felled lest they afford cover for attacking +savages. A man, riding at the head of the invading party, beckoned, +somewhat imperiously, to the pioneer; and the latter, still with his +musket in the hollow of his arm, strode across the greensward, and +finding himself in the midst, not of rude traders and rangers, but of +easy, smiling, periwigged gentlemen, handsomely dressed and accoutred, +dropped the butt of his gun upon the ground, and took off his +squirrel-skin cap. + +"You are deep in the wilderness, good fellow," said the man who had +beckoned, and who was possessed of a stately figure, a martial +countenance, and an air of great authority. "How far is it to the +mountains?" + +The pioneer stared at the long blue range, cloudlike in the distance. "I +don't know," he answered. "I hunt to the eastward. Twenty miles, maybe. +You're never going to climb them?" + +"We are come out expressly to do so," answered the other heartily, "having +a mind to drink the King's health with our heads in the clouds! We need +another axeman to clear away the fallen trees and break the nets of +grapevine. Wilt go along amongst our rangers yonder, and earn a pistole +and undying fame?" + +The woodsman looked from the knot of gentlemen to the troop of hardy +rangers, who, with a dozen ebony servants and four Meherrin Indians, made +up the company. Under charge of the slaves were a number of packhorses. +Thrown across one was a noble deer; a second bore a brace of wild turkeys +and a two-year-old bear, fat and tender; a third had a legion of pots and +pans for the cooking of the woodland cheer; while the burden of several +others promised heart's content of good liquor. From the entire troop +breathed a most enticing air of gay daring and good-fellowship. The +gentlemen were young and of cheerful countenances; the rangers in the rear +sat their horses and whistled to the woodpeckers in the sugar-trees; the +negroes grinned broadly; even the Indians appeared a shade less saturnine +than usual. The golden sunshine poured upon them all, and the blue +mountains that no Englishman had ever passed seemed for the moment as soft +and yielding as the cloud that slept along their summits. And no man knew +what might be just beyond the mountains: Frenchmen, certainly, and the +great lakes and the South Sea: but, besides these, might there not be +gold, glittering stones, new birds and beasts and plants, strange secrets +of the hills? It was only westward-ho! for a week or two, with good +company and good drink-- + +The woodsman shifted from one foot to the other, but his wife, who had now +crossed the grass to his side, had no doubts. + +"You'll not go, William!" she cried. "Remember the smoke that you saw +yesterday from the hilltop! If the Northern Indians are on the warpath +against the Southern, and are passing between us and the mountains, there +may be straying bands. I'll not let you go!" + +In her eagerness she clasped his arm with her hands. She was a comely, +buxom dame, and the circle on horseback, being for the most part young and +gallant, and not having seen a woman for some days, looked kindly upon +her. + +"And so you saw a smoke, goodwife, and are afraid of roving Indians?" said +the gentleman who had spoken before. "That being the case, your husband +has our permission to stay behind. On my life, 't is a shame to ride away +and leave you in danger of such marauders!" + +"Will your Excellency permit me to volunteer for guard duty?" demanded a +young man who had pressed his horse to the leader's side. "It's odds, +though, that when you return this way you'll find me turned Papist. I'll +swear your Excellency never saw in Flanders carved or painted saint so +worthy of your prayers as yonder breathing one!" + +The girl Molly had followed her parents, and now stood upon a little +grassy knoll, surveying with wide brown eyes the gay troop before her. A +light wind was blowing, and it wrapped her dress of tender, faded blue +around her young limbs, and lifted her loosened hair, gilded by the +sunshine into the likeness of an aureole. Her face was serious and +wondering, but fair as a woodland flower. She had placed her hand upon the +head of the child who was with her, clinging to her dress. The green knoll +formed a pedestal; behind was the sky, as blue as that of Italy; the two +figures might have been some painted altar-piece. + +The sprightly company, which had taken for its motto "Sic juvat +transcendere montes," looked and worshiped. There was a moment of silent +devotion, broken by one of the gentlemen demanding if 't were not time for +dinner; another remarked that they might go much farther and fare much +worse, in respect of a cool, sweet spot in which to rest during the heat +of the afternoon; and a third boldly proposed that they go no farther at +all that day. Their leader settled the question by announcing that, Mr. +Mason's suggestion finding favor in his sight, they would forthwith +dismount, dine, drink red wine and white, and wear out the heat of the day +in this sylvan paradise until four of the clock, when the trumpet should +sound for the mount; also, that if the goodwife and her daughter would do +them the honor to partake of their rustic fare, their healths should be +drunk in nothing less than Burgundy. + +As he spoke he swung himself from the saddle, pulled out his ruffles, and +raised his hat. "Ladies, permit me,"--a wave of his hand toward his +escort, who were now also on foot. "Colonel Robertson, Captain Clonder, +Captain Brooke, Mr. Haward, Mr. Beverley, Dr. Robinson, Mr. Fontaine, Mr. +Todd, Mr. Mason,--all of the Tramontane Order. For myself, I am Alexander +Spotswood, at your service." + +The pioneer, standing behind his wife, plucked her by the sleeve. "Ecod, +Alce, 't is the Governor himself! Mind your manners!" + +Alce, who had been a red-cheeked dairymaid in a great house in England, +needed no admonition. Her curtsy was profound; and when the Governor took +her by the hand and kissed her still blooming cheek, she curtsied again. +Molly, who had no memories of fine gentlemen and the complaisance which +was their due, blushed fire-red at the touch of his Excellency's lips, +forgot to curtsy, and knew not where to look. When, in her confusion, she +turned her head aside, her eyes met those of the young man who had +threatened to turn Papist. He bowed, with his hand upon his heart, and she +blushed more deeply than before. + +By now every man had dismounted, and the valley was ringing with the +merriment of the jovial crew. The negroes led the horses down the stream, +lightened them of saddle and bridle, and left them tethered to saplings +beneath which the grass grew long and green. The rangers gathered fallen +wood, and kindled two mighty fires, while the gentlemen of the party threw +themselves down beside the stream, upon a little grassy rise shadowed by a +huge sugar-tree. A mound of turf, flanked by two spreading roots, was the +Governor's chair of state, and Alce and Molly he must needs seat beside +him. Not one of his gay company but seemed an adept in the high-flown +compliment of the age; out of very idleness and the mirth born of that +summer hour they followed his Excellency's lead, and plied the two simple +women with all the wordy ammunition that a tolerable acquaintance with the +mythology of the ancients and the polite literature of the present could +furnish. The mother and daughter did not understand the fine speeches, but +liked them passing well. In their lonely lives, a little thing made +conversation for many and many a day. As for these golden hours,--the +jingle and clank and mellow laughter, the ruffles and gold buttons and +fine cloth, these gentlemen, young and handsome, friendly-eyed, +silver-tongued, the taste of wine, the taste of flattery, the sunshine +that surely was never yet so bright,--ten years from now they would still +be talking of these things, still wishing that such a day could come +again. + +The negroes were now busy around the fires, and soon the cheerful odor of +broiling meat rose and blended with the fragrance of the forest. The +pioneer, hospitably minded, beckoned to the four Meherrins, and hastening +with them to the patch of waving corn, returned with a goodly lading of +plump, green ears. A second foraging party, under guidance of the boy, +brought into the larder of the gentry half a dozen noble melons, golden +within and without. The woman whispered to the child, and the latter ran +to the cabin, filled her upgathered skirts with the loaves of her mother's +baking, and came back to the group upon the knoll beneath the sugar-tree. +The Governor himself took the bread from the little maid, then drew her +toward him. + +"Thanks, my pretty one," he said, with a smile that for the moment quite +dispelled the expression of haughtiness which marred an otherwise comely +countenance. "Come, give me a kiss, sweeting, and tell me thy name." + +The child looked at him gravely. "My name is Audrey," she answered, "and +if you eat all of our bread we'll have none for supper." + +The Governor laughed, and kissed the small dark face. "I'll give thee a +gold moidore, instead, my maid. Odso! thou'rt as dark and wild, almost, as +was my little Queen of the Saponies that died last year. Hast never been +away from the mountains, child?" + +Audrey shook her head, and thought the question but a foolish one. The +mountains were everywhere. Had she not been to the top of the hills, and +seen for herself that they went from one edge of the world to the other? +She was glad to slip from the Governor's encircling arm, and from the gay +ring beneath the sugar-tree; to take refuge with herself down by the water +side, and watch the fairy tale from afar off. + +The rangers, with the pioneer and his son for their guests, dined beside +the kitchen fire, which they had kindled at a respectful distance from the +group upon the knoll. Active, bronzed and daring men, wild riders, bold +fighters, lovers of the freedom of the woods, they sprawled upon the dark +earth beneath the walnut-trees, laughed and joked, and told old tales of +hunting or of Indian warfare. The four Meherrins ate apart and in stately +silence, but the grinning negroes must needs endure their hunger until +their masters should be served. One black detachment spread before the +gentlemen of the expedition a damask cloth; another placed upon the snowy +field platters of smoking venison and turkey, flanked by rockahominy and +sea-biscuit, corn roasted Indian fashion, golden melons, and a quantity of +wild grapes gathered from the vines that rioted over the hillside; while a +third set down, with due solemnity, a formidable array of bottles. There +being no chaplain in the party, the grace was short. The two captains +carved, but every man was his own Ganymede. The wines were good and +abundant: there was champagne for the King's health; claret in which to +pledge themselves, gay stormers of the mountains; Burgundy for the oreads +who were so gracious as to sit beside them, smile upon them, taste of +their mortal fare. + +Sooth to say, the oreads were somewhat dazed by the company they were +keeping, and found the wine a more potent brew than the liquid crystal of +their mountain streams. Red roses bloomed in Molly's cheeks; her eyes grew +starry, and no longer sought the ground; when one of the gentlemen wove a +chaplet of oak leaves, and with it crowned her loosened hair, she laughed, +and the sound was so silvery and delightful that the company laughed with +her. When the viands were gone, the negroes drew the cloth, but left the +wine. When the wine was well-nigh spent, they brought to their masters +long pipes and japanned boxes filled with sweet-scented. The fragrant +smoke, arising, wrapped the knoll in a bluish haze. A wind had arisen, +tempering the blazing sunshine, and making low music up and down the +hillsides. The maples blossomed into silver, the restless poplar leaves +danced more and more madly, the hemlocks and great white pines waved their +broad, dark banners. Above the hilltops the sky was very blue, and the +distant heights seemed dream mountains and easy of climbing. A soft and +pleasing indolence, born of the afternoon, the sunlight, and the red wine, +came to dwell in the valley. One of the company beneath the spreading +sugar-tree laid his pipe upon the grass, clasped his hands behind his +head, and, with his eyes on the azure heaven showing between branch and +leaf, sang the song of Amiens of such another tree in such another forest. +The voice was manly, strong, and sweet; the rangers quit their talk of war +and hunting to listen, and the negroes, down by the fire which they had +built for themselves, laughed for very pleasure. + +When the wine was all drunken and the smoke of the tobacco quite blown +away, a gentleman who seemed of a somewhat saturnine disposition, and less +susceptible than his brother adventurers to the charms of the wood nymphs, +rose, and declared that he would go a-fishing in the dark crystal of the +stream below. His servant brought him hook and line, while the +grasshoppers in the tall grass served for bait. A rock jutting over the +flood formed a convenient seat, and a tulip-tree lent a grateful shade. +The fish were abundant and obliging; the fisherman was happy. Three +shining trophies had been landed, and he was in the act of baiting the +hook that should capture the fourth, when his eyes chanced to meet the +eyes of the child Audrey, who had left her covert of purple-berried alder, +and now stood beside him. Tithonus, green and hale, skipped from between +his fingers, and he let fall his line to put out a good-natured hand and +draw the child down to a seat upon the rock. "Wouldst like to try thy +skill, moppet?" he demanded. + +The child shook her head. "Are you a prince?" she asked, "and is the grand +gentleman with, the long hair and the purple coat the King?" + +The fisherman laughed. "No, little one, I'm only a poor ensign. The +gentleman yonder, being the representative in Virginia of my Lord of +Orkney and his Majesty King George the First, may somewhat smack of +royalty. Indeed, there are good Virginians who think that were the King +himself amongst us he could not more thoroughly play my Lord Absolute. But +he's only the Governor of Virginia, after all, bright eyes." + +"Does he live in a palace, like the King? My father once saw the King's +house in a place they call London." + +The gentleman laughed again. "Ay, he lives in a palace, a red brick +palace, sixty feet long and forty feet deep, with a bauble on top that's +all afire on birth-nights. There are green gardens, too, with winding +paths, and sometimes pretty ladies walk in them. Wouldst like to see all +these fine things?" + +The child nodded. "Ay, that I would! Who is the gentleman that sang, and +that now sits by Molly? See! with his hand touching her hair. Is he a +Governor, too?" + +The other glanced in the direction of the sugar-tree, raised his eyebrows, +shrugged his shoulders, and returned to his fishing. "That is Mr. +Marmaduke Haward," he said, "who, having just come into a great estate, +goes abroad next month to be taught the newest, most genteel mode of +squandering it. Dost not like his looks, child? Half the ladies of +Williamsburgh are enamored of his _beaux yeux_." + +Audrey made no answer, for just then the trumpet blew for the mount, and +the fisherman must needs draw in and pocket his hook and line. Clear, +high, and sweet, the triumphant notes pierced the air, and were answered +from the hills by a thousand fairy horns. The martial-minded Governor +would play the soldier in the wilderness; his little troop of gentlemen +and rangers and ebony servants had come out well drilled for their tilt +against the mountains. The echoes were still ringing, when, with laughter, +some expenditure of wit, and much cheerful swearing, the camp was struck. +The packhorses were again laden, the rangers swung themselves into their +saddles, and the gentlemen beneath the sugar-tree rose from the grass, and +tendered their farewells to the oreads. + +Alce roundly hoped that their Honors would pass that way again upon their +return from the high mountains, and the deepening rose of Molly's cheeks +and her wistful eyes added weight to her mother's importunity. The +Governor swore that in no great time they would dine again in the valley, +and his companions confirmed the oath. His Excellency, turning to mount +his horse, found the pioneer at the animal's head. + +"So, honest fellow," he exclaimed good-naturedly, "you will not with us to +grave your name upon the mountain tops? Let me tell you that you are +giving Fame the go-by. To march against the mountains and overcome them as +though they were so many Frenchmen, and then to gaze into the promised +land beyond--Odso, man, we are as great as were Cortez and Pizarro and +their crew! We are heroes and paladins! We are the Knights of"-- + +His horse, impatient to be gone, struck with a ringing sound an iron-shod +hoof against a bit of rock. "The Knights of the Horseshoe," said the +gentleman nearest the Governor. + +Spotswood uttered a delighted exclamation: "'Gad, Mr. Haward, you've hit +it! Well-nigh the first horseshoes used in Virginia--the number we were +forced to bring along--the sound of the iron against the rocks--the +Knights of the Horseshoe! 'Gad, I'll send to London and have little +horseshoes--little gold horseshoes--made, and every man of us shall wear +one. The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe! It hath an odd, charming sound, +eh, gentlemen?" + +None of the gentlemen were prepared to deny that it was a quaint and +pleasing title. Instead, out of very lightness of heart and fantastic +humor, they must needs have the Burgundy again unpacked, that they might +pledge at once all valorous discoverers, his Excellency the Governor of +Virginia, and their new-named order. And when the wine was drunk, the +rangers were drawn up, the muskets were loaded, and a volley was fired +that brought the echoes crashing about their heads. The Governor mounted, +the trumpet sounded once more, and the joyous company swept down the +narrow valley toward the long, blue, distant ranges. + +The pioneer, his wife and children, watched them go. One of the gentlemen +turned in his saddle and waved his hand. Alce curtsied, but Molly, at whom +he had looked, saw him not, because her eyes were full of tears. The +company reached and entered a cleft between the hills; a moment, and men +and horses were lost to sight; a little longer, and not even a sound could +be heard. + +It was as though they had taken the sunshine with them; for a cloud had +come up from the west, and the sun was hidden. All at once the valley +seemed a sombre and lonely place, and the hills with their whispering +trees looked menacingly down upon the clearing, the cabin, and the five +simple English folk. The glory of the day was gone. After a little more +of idle staring, the frontiersman and his son returned to their work in +the forest, while Alce and Molly went indoors to their spinning, and +Audrey sat down upon the doorstep to listen to the hurry of voices in the +trees, and to watch the ever-deepening shadow of the cloud above the +valley. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE COURT OF THE ORPHAN + + +An hour before dusk found the company that had dined in the valley making +their way up the dry bed of a stream, through a gorge which cleft a line +of precipitous hills. On either hand the bank rose steeply, giving no +footing for man or beast. The road was a difficult one; for here a tall, +fern-crowned rock left but a narrow passage between itself and the shaggy +hillside, and there smooth and slippery ledges, mounting one above the +other, spanned the way. In places, too, the drought had left pools of +dark, still water, difficult to avoid, and not infrequently the entire +party must come to a halt while the axemen cleared from the path a fallen +birch or hemlock. Every man was afoot, none caring to risk a fall upon the +rocks or into the black, cold water of the pools. The hoofs of the horses +and the spurs of the men clanked against the stones; now and then one of +the heavily laden packhorses stumbled and was sworn at, and once a warning +rattle, issuing from a rank growth of fern on the hillside, caused a +momentary commotion. There was no more laughter, or whistling, or calling +from the van to the rear guard. The way was arduous, and every man must +watch his footsteps; moreover, the last rays of the sun were gilding the +hilltops above them, and the level that should form their camping-place +must be reached before the falling of the night. + +The sunlight had all but faded from the heights, when one of the company, +stumbling over a round and mossy rock, measured his length upon the +ground, amid his own oaths at his mishap, and the exclamations of the man +immediately in his rear, whose progress he had thus unceremoniously +blocked. The horse of the fallen man, startled by the dragging at the +reins, reared and plunged, and in a moment the entire column was in +disorder. When the frightened animals were at last quieted, and the line +re-formed, the Governor called out to know who it was that had fallen, and +whether any damage had been suffered. + +"It was Mr. Haward, sir!" cried two or three; and presently the injured +gentleman himself, limping painfully, and with one side of his fine green +coat all stained by reason of contact with a bit of muddy ground, appeared +before his Excellency. + +"I have had a cursed mishap,--saving your presence, sir," he explained. +"The right ankle is, I fear, badly sprained. The pain, is exquisite, and I +know not how I am to climb mountains." + +The Governor uttered an exclamation of concern: "Unfortunate! Dr. Robinson +must look to the hurt at once." + +"Your Excellency forgets my dispute with Dr. Robinson as to the dose of +Jesuit bark for my servant," said the sufferer blandly. "Were I _in +extremis_ I should not apply to him for relief." + +"I'll lay my life that you are not _in extremis_ now," retorted the +doctor. "If ever I saw a man with a sprained ankle keep his color so +marvelously, or heard him speak in so composed a tone! The pain must be of +a very unusual degree indeed!" + +"It is," answered Mr. Haward calmly. "I cannot possibly go on in this +condition, your Excellency, nor can I dream of allowing my unlucky +accident to delay this worshipful company in their ascent of the +mountains. I will therefore take my servant and ride slowly back to the +cabin which we left this afternoon. Doubtless the worthy pioneer will give +me shelter until my foot is healed, and I will rejoin your Excellency upon +your return through the valley." + +As he spoke, for the greater ease of the injured member, he leaned against +a towering lock. He was a handsome youth, with a trick of keeping an +unmoved countenance under even such a fire of laughter and exclamation as +greeted his announcement. + +"And for this you would lose the passing of the Appalachian Mountains!" +cried Spotswood. "Why, man! from those heights we may almost see Lake +Erie; may find out how near we are to the French, how easily the mountains +may be traversed, what promise of success should his Majesty determine to +plant settlements beyond them or to hold the mountain passes! There is +service to be done and honor to be gained, and you would lag behind +because of a wrenched ankle! Zoons, sir! at Blenheim I charged a whole +regiment of Frenchmen, with a wound in my breast into which you might have +thrust your hand!" + +The younger man shrugged his shoulders. "Beggars may not be choosers," he +said coolly. "The sunlight is fast fading, and if we would be out of this +gorge before nightfall we must make no further tarrying. I have your +Excellency's permission to depart?" + +One of the gentlemen made a low-voiced but audible remark to his neighbor, +and another hummed a line from a love song. The horses moved impatiently +amongst the loose stones, and the rangers began to mutter that night +would be upon them before they reached a safer footing. + +"Mr. Haward! Mr. Haward!" said the Governor sternly. "It is in my mind +that you meditate inflicting a greater harm than you have received. Let me +tell you, sir, if you think to so repay a simple-minded hospitality"-- + +Mr. Haward's eyes narrowed. "I own Colonel Spotswood for Governor of +Virginia," he said, speaking slowly, as was his wont when he was angry. +"His office does not, I think, extend farther than that. As for these +pleasant-minded gentlemen who are not protected by their rank I beg to +inform them that in my fall my sword arm suffered no whit." + +Turning, he beckoned to a negro who had worked his way from the servants +in the rear, along the line of rangers, to the outskirts of the group of +gentlemen gathered around the Governor and the injured man. "Juba," he +ordered, "draw your horse and mine to one side. Your Excellency, may I +again remind you that it draws toward nightfall, and that this road will +be no pleasant one to travel in the dark?" + +What he said was true; moreover, upon the setting out of the expedition it +had been laughingly agreed that any gentleman who might find his spirits +dashed by the dangers and difficulties of the way should be at liberty at +any time to turn his back upon the mountains, and his face toward safety +and the settlements. The Governor frowned, bit his lips, but finally burst +into unwilling laughter. + +"You are a very young gentleman, Mr. Marmaduke Haward!" he cried. "Were +you a little younger, I know what ointment I should prescribe for your +hurt. Go your ways with your broken ankle; but if, when I come again to +the cabin in the valley, I find that your own injury has not contented +you, look to it that I do not make you build a bridge across the bay +itself! Gentlemen, Mr. Haward is bent upon intrusting his cure to other +and softer hands than Dr. Robinson's, and the expedition must go forward +without him. We sorrow to lose him from our number, but we know better +than to reason with--ahem!--a twisted ankle. _En avant_, gentlemen! Mr. +Haward, pray have a care of yourself. I would advise that the ankle be +well bandaged, and that you stir not from the chimney corner"-- + +"I thank your Excellency for your advice," said Mr. Haward imperturbably, +"and will consider of taking it. I wish your Excellency and these merry +gentlemen a most complete victory over the mountains, from which conquest +I will no longer detain you." + +He bowed as he spoke, and began to move, slowly and haltingly, across the +width of the rocky way to where his negro stood with the two horses. + +"Mr. Haward!" called the Governor. + +The recreant turned his head. "Your Excellency?" + +"It was the right foot, was it not?" queried his sometime leader. "Ah, I +thought so! Then it were best not to limp with the left." + +Homeric laughter shook the air; but while Mr. Haward laughed not, neither +did he frown or blush. "I will remember, sir," he said simply, and at once +began to limp with the proper foot. When he reached the bank he turned, +and, standing with his arm around his horse's neck, watched the company +which he had so summarily deserted, as it put itself into motion and went +slowly past him up its dusky road. The laughter and bantering farewells +moved him not; he could at will draw a line around himself across which +few things could step. Not far away the bed of the stream turned, and a +hillside, dark with hemlock, closed the view. He watched the train pass +him, reach this bend, and disappear. The axemen and the four Meherrins, +the Governor and the gentlemen of the Horseshoe, the rangers, the +negroes,--all were gone at last. With that passing, and with the ceasing +of the laughter and the trampling, came the twilight. A whippoorwill began +to call, and the wind sighed in the trees. Juba, the negro, moved closer +to his master; then upon an impulse stooped, and lifting above his head a +great rock, threw it with might into one of the shallow pools. The +crashing sound broke the spell of the loneliness and quiet that had fallen +upon the place. The white man drew his breath, shrugged his shoulders, and +turned his horse's head down the way up which he had so lately come. + +The cabin in the valley was not three miles away. Down this ravine to a +level place of pines, through the pines to a strip of sassafras and a +poisoned field, past these into a dark, rich wood of mighty trees linked +together with the ripening grape, then three low hills, then the valley +and the cabin and a pair of starry eyes. It was full moon. Once out from +under the stifling walls of the ravine, and the silver would tremble +through the leaves, and show the path beneath. The trees, too, that they +had blazed,--with white wood pointing to white wood, the backward way +should be easy. + +The earth, rising sheer in darkness on either hand, shut in the bed of the +stream. In the warm, scented dusk the locusts shrilled in the trees, and +far up the gorge the whippoorwill called and called. The air was filled +with the gold of fireflies, a maze of spangles, now darkening, now +brightening, restless and bewildering. The small, round pools caught the +light from the yet faintly colored sky, and gleamed among the rocks; a +star shone out, and a hot wind, heavy with the smell of the forest, moved +the hemlock boughs and rustled in the laurels. + +The white man and the negro, each leading his horse, picked their way with +caution among the pitfalls of the rocky and uneven road. With the passing +of the Governor and his train a sudden cure had been wrought, for now +Haward's step was as firm and light as it had been before his fall. The +negro looked at him once or twice with a puzzled face, but made no comment +and received no enlightenment. Indeed, so difficult was their way that +they were left but scant leisure for speech. Moment by moment the darkness +deepened, and once Haward's horse came to its knees, crashing down among +the rocks and awakening every echo. + +The way, if hard, was short. The hills fell farther apart, the banks +became low and broad, and fair in front, between two slender pines, shone +out the great round moon. Leaving the bed of the stream, the two men +entered a pine wood, dim and fragrant and easy to thread. The moon rose +higher, and the light fell in wide shafts between trees that stood well +apart, with no vines to grapple one to another or undergrowth to press +about their knees. + +There needed no watchfulness: the ground was smooth, the light was fair; +no motion save the pale flicker of the fireflies, no sound save the sigh +of the night wind in the boughs that were so high overhead. Master and +man, riding slowly and steadily onward through a wood that seemed +interminably the same, came at last to think of other things than the road +which they were traveling. Their hands lost grasp upon the reins, and +their eyes, ceasing to glance now here, now there, gazed steadfastly down +the gray and dreamlike vista before them, and saw no longer hole and +branch, moonlight and the white scars that the axe had made for guidance. +The vision of the slave was of supper at the quarters, of the scraping of +the fiddle in the red firelight, of the dancing and the singing. The white +man saw, at first, only a girl's face, shy and innocent,--the face of the +woodland maid who had fired his fancy, who was drawing him through the +wilderness back to the cabin in the valley. But after a while, in the gray +stillness, he lost the face, and suddenly thought, instead, of the stone +that was to cover his father's grave. The ship that was to bring the +great, dark, carven slab should be in by now; the day after his return to +Williamsburgh the stone must be put in place, covering in the green sod +and that which lay below. _Here, lieth in the hope of a joyful +resurrection_-- + +His mind left the grave in the churchyard at Williamsburgh, and visited +the great plantation of which he was now sole master. There was the house, +foursquare, high-roofed, many-windowed, built of dark red brick that +glowed behind the veil of the walnuts and the oaks. There, too, were the +quarters,--the home quarter, that at the creek, that on the ridge. Fifty +white servants, three hundred slaves,--and he was the master. The +honeysuckles in the garden that had been his father's pride, the shining +expanse of the river, the ship--his ship, the Golden Rose--that was to +take him home to England,--he forgot the night and the forest, and saw +these things quite plainly. Then he fell to thinking of London and the +sweets that he meant to taste, the heady wine of youth and life that he +meant to drain to the lees. He was young; he could spare the years. One +day he would come back to Virginia, to the dim old garden and quiet house. +His factor would give account, and he would settle down in the red brick +house, with the tobacco to the north and east, the corn to the west, and +to the south the mighty river,--the river silvered by the moon, the river +that lay just beyond him, gleaming through the trees-- + +Startled by the sudden tightening of the reins, or by the tearing of some +frightened thing through the canes that beset the low, miry bank, the +horse sprang aside; then stood trembling with pricked ears. The white man +stared at the stream; turned in his saddle and stared at the tree trunks, +the patches of moonlight, and the impenetrable shadow that closed each +vista. "The blazed trees!" he exclaimed at last. "How long since we saw +one?" + +The slave shook his head. "Juba forgot to look. He was away by a river +that he knew." + +"We have passed from out the pines," said Haward. "These are oaks. But +what is that water, and how far we are out of our reckoning the Lord only +knows!" + +As he spoke he pushed his horse through the tall reeds to the bank of the +stream. Here in the open, away from the shadow of the trees, the full moon +had changed the night-time into a wonderful, silver day. Narrow above and +belows the stream widened before him into a fairy basin, rimmed with +reeds, unruffled, crystal-clear, stiller than a dream. The trees that grew +upon the farther side were faint gray clouds in the moonlight, and the +gold of the fireflies was very pale. From over the water, out of the heart +of the moonlit wood, came the song of a mockingbird, a tumultuous ecstasy, +possessing the air and making elfin the night. + +Haward backed his horse from the reeds to the oak beneath which waited the +negro. "'Tis plain that we have lost our way, Juba," he said, with a +laugh. "If you were an Indian, we should turn and straightway retrace our +steps to the blazed trees. Being what you are, you are more valuable in +the tobacco fields than in the forest. Perhaps this is the stream which +flows by the cabin in the valley. We'll follow it down, and so arrive, at +least, at a conclusion." + +They dismounted, and, leading their horses, followed the stream for some +distance, to arrive at the conclusion that it was not the one beside which +they had dined that day. When they were certain of this, they turned and +made their way back to the line of reeds which they had broken to mark +their starting-point. By now the moon was high, and the mockingbird in the +wood across the water was singing madly. Turning from the still, moonlit +sheet, the silent reeds, the clear mimicker in the slumbrous wood, the two +wayfarers plunged into the darkness beneath the spreading branches of the +oak-trees. They could not have ridden far from the pines; in a very little +while they might reach and recognize the path which they should tread. + +An hour later, the great trees, oak and chestnut, beech and poplar, +suddenly gave way to saplings, many, close-set, and overrun with +grapevines. So dense was the growth, so unyielding the curtain of vines, +that men and horses were brought to a halt as before a fortress wall. +Again they turned, and, skirting that stubborn network, came upon a swamp, +where leafless trees, white as leprosy, stood up like ghosts from the +water that gleamed between the lily-pads. Leaving the swamp they climbed a +hill, and at the summit found only the moon and the stars and a long +plateau of sighing grass. Behind them were the great mountains; before +them, lesser heights, wooded hills, narrow valleys, each like its fellow, +each indistinct and shadowy, with no sign of human tenant. + +Haward gazed at the climbing moon and at the wide and universal dimness of +the world beneath; then turned to the negro, and pointed to a few low +trees growing at the eastern end of the plateau. + +"Fasten the horses there, Juba," he said. "We will wait upon this hilltop +until morning. When the light comes, we may be able to see the clearing or +the smoke from the cabin." + +When the horses had been tethered, master and man lay down upon the grass. +It was so still upon the hilltop, and the heavens pressed so closely, that +the slave grew restless and strove to make talk. Failing in this, he began +to croon a savage, mournful air, and presently, forgetting himself, to +sing outright. + +"Be quiet!" ordered his master. "There may be Indians abroad." + +The song came to an end as abruptly as it lad begun, and the singer, +having nothing better to do, went fast asleep. His companion, more +wakeful, lay with his hands behind his head and his eyes upon the splendor +of the firmament. Lying so, he could not see the valleys nor the looming +mountains. There were only the dome of the sky, the grass, and himself. +He stared at the moon, and made pictures of her shadowy places; then fell +to thinking of the morrow, and of the possibility that after all he might +never find again the cabin in the valley. While he laughed at this +supposition, yet he played with it. He was in a mood to think the loss of +the trail of the expedition no great matter. The woods were full of game, +the waters of fish; he and Juba had only to keep their faces to the +eastward, and a fortnight at most would bring them to the settlements. But +the valleys folded among the hills were many; what if the one he sought +should still elude him? What if the cabin, the sugar-tree, the crystal +stream, had sunk from sight, like the city in one of Monsieur Gralland's +fantastic tales? Perhaps they had done so,--the spot had all the air of a +bit of fairyland,--and the woodland maid was gone to walk with the elves. +Well, perchance for her it would be better so. And yet it would be +pleasant if she should climb the hillside now and sit beside him, with her +shy dark eyes and floating hair. Her hair was long and fine, and the wind +would lift it; her face was fair, and another than the wind should kiss +it. The night would not then be so slow in going. + +He turned upon his side, and looked along the grassy summit to the woods +upon the opposite slope and to the distant mountains. Dull silver, +immutable, perpetual, they reared themselves to meet the moonbeams. +Between him and those stern and changeless fronts, pallid as with snows, +stretched the gray woods. The moon shone very brightly, and there was no +wind. So unearthly was the quiet of the night, so solemn the light, so +high and still and calm the universe around him, that awe fell upon his +soul. It was well to lie upon the hilltop and guess at the riddle of the +world; now dimly to see the meaning, now to lose it quite, to wonder, to +think of death. The easy consciousness that for him death was scores of +years away, that he should not meet the spectre until the wine was all +drunken, the garlands withered, and he, the guest, ready to depart, made +these speculations not at all unpleasing. He looked at his hand, blanched +by the moonlight, lying beside him upon the grass, and thought how like a +dead hand it seemed, and what if he could not move it, nor his body, nor +could ever rise from the grass, but must lie there upon the lonely hilltop +in the untrodden wilderness, until that which had ridden and hunted and +passed so buoyantly through life should become but a few dry bones, a +handful of dust. He was of his time, and its laxness of principle and +conduct; if he held within himself the potential scholar, statesman, and +philosopher, there were also the skeptic, the egotist, and the libertine. +He followed the fashion and disbelieved much, but he knew that if he died +to-night his soul would not stay with his body upon the hilltop. He +wondered, somewhat grimly, what it would do when so much that had clothed +it round--pride of life, love of pleasure, desire, ambition--should be +plucked away. Poor soul! Surely it would feel itself something shrunken, +stripped of warmth, shiveringly bare to all the winds of heaven. The +radiance of the moon usurped the sky, but behind that veil of light the +invisible and multitudinous stars were shining. Beyond those stars were +other stars, beyond those yet others; on and on went the stars, wise men +said. Beyond them all, what then? And where was the place of the soul? +What would it do? What heaven or hell would it find or make for itself? +Guesswork all! + +The silver pomp of the night began to be oppressive to him. There was +beauty, but it was a beauty cold and distant, infinitely withdrawn from +man and his concerns. Woods and mountains held aloof, communing with the +stars. They were kindred and of one house; it was man who was alien, a +stranger and alone. The hilltop cared not that he lay thereon; the grass +would grow as greenly when he was in his grave; all his tragedies since +time began he might reenact there below, and the mountains would not bend +to look. + +He flung his arm across his eyes to shut out the moonlight, and tried to +sleep. Finding the attempt a vain one, and that the night pressed more and +more heavily upon him, he sat up with the intention of shaking the negro +awake, and so providing himself with other company than his own thoughts. + +His eyes had been upon the mountains, but now, with the sudden movement, +he faced the eastern horizon and a long cleft between the hills. Far down +this opening something was on fire, burning fiercely and redly. Some one +must have put torch to the forest; and yet it did not burn as trees burn. +It was like a bonfire ... it was a bonfire in a clearing! There were not +woods about it, but a field--and the glint of water-- + +The negro, awakened by foot and voice, sprang up, and stood bewildered +beside his master. "It is the valley that we have been seeking, Juba," +said the latter, speaking rapidly and low. "That burning pile is the +cabin, and 't is like that there are Indians between us and it! Leave the +horses; we shall go faster without them. Look to the priming of your gun, +and make no noise. Now!" + +Rapidly descending the hill, they threw themselves into the woods at its +base. Here they could not see the fire, but now and then, as they ran, +they caught the glow, far down the lines of trees. Though they went +swiftly they went warily as well, keeping an eye and ear open and muskets +ready. But there was no sound other than their own quick footfalls upon +the floor of rotting leaves, or the eager brushing of their bodies through +occasional undergrowth; no sight but the serried trees and the checkered +light and shade upon the ground. + +They came to the shallow stream that flashed through the valley, and +crossing it found themselves on cleared ground, with only a long strip of +corn between them and what had been a home for English folk. It was that +no longer: for lack of fuel the flames were dying down; there was only a +charred and smoking pile, out of which leaped here and there a red tongue. + +Haward had expected to hear a noise of savage triumph, and to see dark +figures moving about their handiwork. There was no noise, and the +moonlight showed no living being. The night was changelessly still and +bright; the tragedy had been played, and the mountains and the hills and +the running water had not looked. + +It took but a few minutes to break through the rustling corn and reach the +smouldering logs. Once before them, there seemed naught to do but to stand +and stare at the ruin, until a tongue of flame caught upon a piece of +uncharred wood, and showed them the body of the pioneer lying at a little +distance from the stone that had formed his doorstep. At a sign from +Haward the negro went and turned it over, then, let it sink again into the +seared grass. "Two arrows, Marse Duke," he said, coming back to the +other's side. "An' they've taken his scalp." + +Three times Haward made the round of the yet burning heap. Was it only +ruined and fallen walls, or was it a funeral pyre as well? To know, he +must wait for the day and until the fire had burned itself out. If the +former were the case, if the dead man alone kept the valley, then now, +through the forest and the moonlight, captives were being haled to some +Indian village, and to a fate more terrible than that of the man who lay +there upon the grass with an arrow through his heart. + +If the girl were still alive, yet was she dead to him. He was no Quixote +to tilt with windmills. Had a way to rescue her lain fair before him, he +would have risked his life without a thought. But the woods were deep and +pathless, and only an Indian could find and keep a trail by night. To +challenge the wilderness; to strike blindly at the forest, now here, now +there; to dare all, and know that it was hopeless daring,--a madman might +do this for love. But it was only Haward's fancy that had been touched, +and if he lacked not courage, neither did he lack a certain cool good +sense which divided for him the possible from that which was impossible, +and therefore not to be undertaken. + +Turning from the ruin, he walked across the trampled sward to the +sugar-tree in whose shade, in the golden afternoon, he had sung to his +companions and to a simple girl. Idle and happy and far from harm had the +valley seemed. + + "Here shall he see + No enemy + But winter and rough weather." + +Suddenly he found that he was trembling, and that a sensation of faintness +and of dull and sick revolt against all things under the stars was upon +him. Sitting down in the shadow of the tree, he rested his face in his +hands and shut his eyes, preferring the darkness within to that outer +night which hid not and cared not, which was so coldly at peace. He was +young, and though stories of such dismal things as that before him were +part of the stock in trade of every ancient, garrulous man or woman of his +acquaintance, they had been for him but tales; not horrible truths to +stare him in the face. He had seen his father die; but he had died, in his +bed, and like one who went to sleep. + +The negro had followed him, and now stood with his eyes upon the dying +flames, muttering to himself some heathenish charm. When it was ended, he +looked about him uneasily for a time; then bent and plucked his master by +the sleeve. "We cyarn' do nothin' here, Marse Duke," he whispered. "An' +the wolves may get the horses." + +With a laugh and a groan, the young man rose to his feet. "That is true, +Juba," he said. "It's all over here,--we were too late. And it's not a +pleasant place to lie awake in, waiting for the morning. We'll go back to +the hilltop." + +Leaving the tree, they struck across the grass and entered the strip of +corn. Something low and dark that had lain upon the ground started up +before them, and ran down the narrow way between the stalks. Haward made +after it and caught it. + +"Child!" he cried. "Where are the others?" + +The child had struggled for a moment, desperately if weakly, but at the +sound of his voice she lay still in his grasp, with her eyes upon his +face. In the moonlight each could see the other quite plainly. Raising her +in his arms, Haward bore her to the brink of the stream, laved her face +and chafed the small, cold hands. + +"Now tell me, Audrey," he said at last. "Audrey is your name, isn't it? +Cry, if you like, child, but try to tell me." + +Audrey did not cry. She was very, very tired, and she wanted to go to +sleep. "The Indians came," she told him in a whisper, with her head upon +his breast. "We all waked up, and father fired at them through the hole in +the door. Then they broke the door down, and he went outside, and they +killed him. Mother put me under the bed, and told me to stay there, and to +make no noise. Then the Indians came in at the door, and killed her and +Molly and Robin. I don't remember anything after that,--maybe I went to +sleep. When I was awake again the Indians were gone, but there was fire +and smoke everywhere. I was afraid of the fire, and so I crept from under +the bed, and kissed mother and Molly and Robin, and left them lying in the +cabin, and came away." + +She sighed with weariness, and the hand with which she put back her dark +hair that had fallen over her face was almost too heavy to lift. "I sat +beside father and watched the fire," she said. "And then I heard you and +the black man coming over the stones in the stream. I thought that you +were Indians, and I went and hid in the corn." + +Her voice failed, and her eyelids drooped. In some anxiety Haward watched +her breathing and felt for the pulse in the slight brown wrist; then, +satisfied, he lifted the light burden, and, nodding to the negro to go +before, recommenced his progress to the hill which he had left an hour +agone. + +It was not far away. He could see the bare summit above the treetops, and +in a little while they were upon its slope. A minute more and they came to +the clump of trees, and found the horses in safety, Haward paused to take +from the roll strapped behind his saddle a riding cloak; then, leaving the +negro with the horses, climbed to the grassy level. Here he spread the +cloak upon the ground, and laid the sleeping child upon it, which done, he +stood and looked at his new-found charge for a moment; then turning, began +to pace up and down upon the hilltop. + +It was necessary to decide upon a course of action. They had the horses, +the two muskets, powder and shot. The earth was dry and warm, and the +skies were cloudless. Was it best to push on to Germanna, or was it best +to wait down there in the valley for the return of the Governor and his +party? They would come that way, that was certain, and would look to find +him there. If they found only the ruined cabin, they might think him dead +or taken by the Indians, and an attempt to seek him, as dangerous, +perhaps, as fruitless, might be made. He decided that he would wait. +To-morrow he would take Juba and the horses and the child and go down into +the valley; not back to the sugar-tree and that yet smouldering pyre, but +to the woods on this side of the stream. + +This plan thought out, he went; and took his seat beside the child. She +was moaning in her sleep, and he bent over and soothed her. When she was +quiet he still kept her hand in his, as he sat there waiting for the dawn. +He gave the child small thought. Together he and Juba must care for her +until they could rejoin the expedition: then the Governor, who was so fond +of children, might take her in hand, and give her for nurse old Dominick, +who was as gentle as a woman. Once at Germanna perhaps some scolding +_Hausfrau_ would take her, for the sake of the scrubbing and lifting to be +gotten out of those small hands and that slender frame. If not, she must +on to Williamsburgh and the keeping of the vestry there. The next Orphan +Court would bind her to some master or mistress who might (or might not) +be kind to her, and so there would be an end to the matter. + +The day was breaking. Moon and stars were gone, and the east was dull +pink, like faded roses. A ribbon of silver mist, marking the course of the +stream below, drew itself like a serpent through the woods that were +changing from gray to green. The dank smell of early morning rose from the +dew-drenched earth, and in the countless trees of the forest the birds +began to sing. + +A word or phrase which is as common and familiar as our hand may, in some +one minute of time, take on a significance and present a face so keen and +strange that it is as if we had never met it before. An Orphan Court! +Again he said the words to himself, and then aloud. No doubt the law did +its best for the fatherless and motherless, for such waifs and strays as +that which lay beside him. When it bound out children, it was most +emphatic that they should be fed and clothed and taught; not starved or +beaten unduly, or let to grow up ignorant as negroes. Sometimes the law +was obeyed, sometimes not. + +The roses in the east bloomed again, and the pink of their petals melted +into the clear blue of the upper skies. Because their beauty compelled him +Haward looked at the heavens. The Court of the Orphan!... _When my father +and my mother forsake, me, the Lord taketh me up_. Haward acknowledged +with surprise that portions of the Psalter did somehow stick in the +memory. + +The face of the child was dark and thin, but the eyes were large and there +was promise in the mouth. It was a pity-- + +He looked at her again, and suddenly resolved that he, Marmaduke Haward, +would provide for her future. When they met once more, he should tell the +Governor and his brother adventurers as much; and if they chose to laugh, +why, let them do so! He would take the child to Williamsburgh with him, +and get some woman to tend her until he could find kind and decent folk +with whom to bestow her. There were the new minister of Fair View parish +and his wife,--they might do. He would give them two thousand pounds of +sweet-scented a year for the child's maintenance. Oh, she should be well +cared for! He would--if he thought of it--send her gifts from London; and +when she was grown, and asked in marriage, he would give her for dowry a +hundred acres of land. + +As the strengthening rays of the sun, shining alike upon the just and the +unjust, warmed his body, so his own benevolence warmed his heart. He knew +that he was doing a generous thing, and his soul felt in tune with the +beamy light, the caroling of the birds, the freshness and fragrance of the +morning. When at last the child awoke, and, the recollection of the night +coming full upon her, clung to him, weeping and trembling, he put his arm +around her and comforted her with all the pet names his memory could +conjure up. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +DARDEN'S AUDREY + + +It was May Day in Virginia, in the year 1727. In England there were George +the First, by the grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King +and Defender of the Faith; my Lord of Orkney, Governor in chief of +Virginia; and William Gooch, newly appointed Lieutenant Governor. In +Virginia there were Colonel Robert Carter, President of the Council and +Governor _pro tem._; the Council itself; and Mistress Martha Jaquelin. + +By virtue of her good looks and sprightliness, the position of her father +in the community, and the fact that this 1st of May was one and the same +with her sixteenth birthday, young Mistress Jaquelin was May Queen in +Jamestown. And because her father was a worthy gentleman and a gay one, +with French blood in his veins and Virginia hospitality in his heart, he +had made a feast for divers of his acquaintances, and, moreover, had +provided, in a grassy meadow down by the water side, a noble and +seasonable entertainment for them, and for the handful of townsfolk, and +for all chance comers. + +Meadow and woodland and marsh, ploughed earth and blossoming orchards, lay +warm in the sunshine. Even the ruined town, fallen from her estate, and +become but as a handmaid to her younger sister, put a good face upon her +melancholy fortunes. Honeysuckle and ivy embraced and hid crumbling walls, +broken foundations, mounds of brick and rubbish, all the untouched +memorials of the last burning of the place. Grass grew in the street, and +the silent square was strewn with the gold of the buttercups. The houses +that yet stood and were lived in might have been counted on the fingers of +one hand, with the thumb for the church. But in their gardens the flowers +bloomed gayly, and the sycamores and mulberries in the churchyard were +haunts of song. The dead below had music, and violets in the blowing +grass, and the undertone of the river. Perhaps they liked the peace of the +town that was dead as they were dead; that, like them, had seen of the +travail of life, and now, with shut eyes and folded hands, knew that it +was vanity. + +But the Jaquelin house was built to the eastward of the churchyard and the +ruins of the town, and, facing the sparkling river, squarely turned its +back upon the quiet desolation at the upper end of the island and upon the +text from Ecclesiastes. + +In the level meadow, around a Maypole gay with garlands and with +fluttering ribbons, the grass had been closely mown, for there were to be +foot-races and wrestling bouts for the amusement of the guests. Beneath a +spreading tree a dozen fiddlers put their instruments in tune, while +behind the open windows of a small, ruinous house, dwelt in by the sexton, +a rustic choir was trying over "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green." +Young men and maidens of the meaner sort, drawn from the surrounding +country, from small plantation, store and ordinary, mill and ferry, clad +in their holiday best and prone to laughter, strayed here and there, or, +walking up and down the river bank, where it commanded a view of both the +landing and the road, watched for the coming of the gentlefolk. Children, +too, were not lacking, but rolled amidst the buttercups or caught at the +ribbons flying from the Maypole, while aged folk sat in the sun, and a +procession of wide-lipped negroes, carrying benches and chairs, advanced +to the shaven green and put the seats in order about the sylvan stage. It +was but nine of the clock, and the shadow of the Maypole was long upon the +grass. Along the slightly rising ground behind the meadow stretched an +apple orchard in full bloom, and between that line of rose and snow and +the lapping of the tide upon the yellow sands lay, for the length of a +spring day, the kingdom of all content. + +The shadow of the Maypole was not much shrunken when the guests of the +house of Jaquelin began to arrive. First to come, and from farthest away, +was Mr. Richard Ambler, of Yorktown, who had ridden from that place to +Williamsburgh the afternoon before, and had that morning used the +planter's pace to Jamestown,--his industry being due to the fact that he +was courting the May Queen's elder sister. Following him came five Lees in +a chariot, then a delegation of Burwells, then two Digges in a chaise. A +Bland and a Bassett and a Randolph came on horseback, while a barge +brought up river a bevy of blooming Carters, a white-sailed sloop from +Warwick landed a dozen Carys, great and small, and two periaguas, filled +with Harrisons, Aliens, and Cockes, shot over from the Surrey shore. + +From a stand at one end of the grassy stage, trumpet and drum proclaimed +that the company had gathered beneath the sycamores before the house, and +was about to enter the meadow. Shrill-voiced mothers warned their +children from the Maypole, the fiddlers ceased their twanging, and Pretty +Bessee, her name cut in twain, died upon the air. The throng of humble +folk--largely made up of contestants for the prizes of the day, and of +their friends and kindred--scurried to its appointed place, and with the +issuing from the house gates of the May Queen and her court the +festivities commenced. + +An hour later, in the midst of a bout at quarterstaff between the +Jamestown blacksmith and the miller from Princess Creek, a coach and four, +accompanied by a horseman, crossed the neck, rolled through the street, +and, entering the meadow, drew up a hundred feet from the ring of +spectators. + +The eyes of the commonalty still hung upon every motion of the blacksmith +and the miller, but by the people of quality the cudgelers were for the +moment quite forgot. The head of the house of Jaquelin hurried over the +grass to the coach door. "Ha, Colonel Byrd! When we heard that you were +staying overnight at Green Spring, we hoped that, being so near, you would +come to our merrymaking. Mistress Evelyn, I kiss your hands. Though we +can't give you the diversions of Spring Garden, yet such as we have are at +your feet. Mr. Marmaduke Haward, your servant, sir! Virginia has missed +you these ten years and more. We were heartily glad to hear, t'other day, +that the Golden Rose had brought you home." + +As he spoke the worthy gentleman strove to open the coach door; but the +horseman, to whom the latter part of his speech was addressed, and who had +now dismounted, was beforehand with him. The door swung open, and a young +lady, of a delicate and pensive beauty, placed one hand upon the +deferential arm of Mr. Marmaduke Haward and descended from the painted +coach to the flower-enameled sward. The women amongst the assembled guests +fluttered and whispered; for this was youth, beauty, wealth, London, and +the Court, all drawn in the person of Mistress Evelyn Byrd, bred since +childhood in the politest society of England, newly returned with her +father to his estate of Westover in Virginia, and, from her garlanded +gypsy hat to the point of her silken shoe, suggestive of the rainbow world +of _mode_. + +Her father--alert, vivacious, handsome, with finely cut lips that were +quick to smile, and dark eyes that smiled when the lips were +still--followed her to the earth, shook out his ruffles, and extended his +gold snuffbox to his good friend Mr. Jaquelin. The gentleman who had +ridden beside the coach threw the reins of his horse to one of the negroes +who had come running from the Jaquelin stables, and, together with their +host, the three walked across the strip of grass to the row of expectant +gentry. Down went the town-bred lady until the skirt of her blue-green +gown lay in folds upon the buttercups; down went the ladies opposite in +curtsies as profound, if less exquisitely graceful. Off came the hats of +the gentlemen; the bows were of the lowest; snuffboxes were drawn out, +handkerchiefs of fine holland flourished; the welcoming speeches were +hearty and not unpolished. + +It was a society less provincial than that of more than one shire that was +nearer to London by a thousand leagues. It dwelt upon the banks of the +Chesapeake and of great rivers; ships dropped their anchors before its +very doors. Now and again the planter followed his tobacco aboard. The +sands did not then run so swiftly through the hourglass; if the voyage to +England was long, why, so was life! The planters went, sold their +tobacco,--Sweet-scented, E. Dees, Oronoko, Cowpen, Non-burning,--talked +with their agents, visited their English kindred; saw the town, the opera, +and the play,--perhaps, afar off, the King; and returned to Virginia and +their plantations with the last but one novelty in ideas, manner, and +dress. Of their sons not a few were educated in English schools, while +their wives and daughters, if for the most part they saw the enchanted +ground only through the eyes of husband, father, or brother, yet followed +its fashions, when learned, with religious zeal. In Williamsburgh, where +all men went on occasion, there was polite enough living: there were the +college, the Capitol, and the playhouse; the palace was a toy St. James; +the Governors that came and went almost as proper gentlemen, fitted to +rule over English people, as if they had been born in Hanover and could +not speak their subjects' tongue. + +So it was that the assembly which had risen to greet Mr. Jaquelin's latest +guests, besides being sufficiently well born, was not at all ill bred, nor +uninformed, nor untraveled. But it was not of the gay world as were the +three whom it welcomed. It had spent only months, not years, in England; +it had never kissed the King's hand; it did not know Bath nor the Wells; +it was innocent of drums and routs and masquerades; had not even a +speaking acquaintance with great lords and ladies; had never supped with +Pope, or been grimly smiled upon by the Dean of St. Patrick's, or courted +by the Earl of Peterborough. It had not, like the elder of the two men, +studied in the Low Countries, visited the Court of France, and contracted +friendships with men of illustrious names; nor, like the younger, had it +written a play that ran for two weeks, fought a duel in the Field of Forty +Footsteps, and lost and won at the Cocoa Tree, between the lighting and +snuffing of the candles, three thousand pounds. + +Therefore it stood slightly in awe of the wit and manners and fine +feathers, curled newest fashion, of its sometime friends and neighbors, +and its welcome, if warm at heart, was stiff as cloth of gold with +ceremony. The May Queen tripped in her speech as she besought Mistress +Evelyn to take the flower-wreathed great chair standing proudly forth from +the humbler seats, and colored charmingly at the lady of fashion's smiling +shake of the head and few graceful words of homage. The young men slyly +noted the length of the Colonel's periwig and the quality of Mr. Hayward's +Mechlin, while their elders, suddenly lacking material for discourse, made +shift to take a deal of snuff. The Colonel took matters into his own +capable hands. + +"Mr. Jaquelin, I wish that my tobacco at Westover may look as finely a +fortnight hence as does yours to-day! There promise to be more Frenchmen +in my fields than Germans at St. James. Mr. Gary, if I come to Denbigh +when the peaches are ripe, will you teach me to make persico? Mr. Allen, I +hear that you breed cocks as courageous as those of Tanagra. I shall +borrow from you for a fight that I mean to give. Ladies, for how much gold +will you sell the recipe for that balm of Mecca you must use? There are +dames at Court would come barefoot to Virginia for so dazzling a bloom. +Why do you patch only upon the Whig side of the face? Are you all of one +camp, and does not one of you grow a white rosebush against the 29th of +May? May it please your Majesty the May Queen, I shall watch the sports +from this seat upon your right hand. Egad, the miller quits himself as +though he were the moss-grown fellow of Sherwood Forest!" + +The ice had thawed; and by the time the victorious miller had been pushed +forward to receive the smart cocked hat which was the Virginia rendition +of the crown of wild olive, it had quite melted. Conversation became +general, and food was found or made for laughter. When the twelve fiddlers +who succeeded the blacksmith and the miller came trooping upon the green, +they played, one by one, to perhaps as light-hearted a company as a May +Day ever shone upon. All their tunes were gay and lively ones, and the +younger men moved their feet to the music, while a Strephon at the lower +end of the lists seized upon a blooming Chloe, and the two began to dance +"as if," quoth the Colonel, "the musicians were so many tarantula +doctors." + +A flower-wreathed instrument of his calling went to the player of the +sprightliest air; after which awardment, the fiddlers, each to the tune of +his own choosing, marched off the green to make room for Pretty Bessee, +her father the beggar, and her suitors the innkeeper, the merchant, the +gentleman, and the knight. + +The high, quick notes of the song suited the sunshiny weather, the sheen +of the river, the azure skies. A light wind brought from the orchard a +vagrant troop of pink and white petals to camp upon the silken sleeve of +Mistress Evelyn Byrd. The gentleman sitting beside her gathered them up +and gave them again to the breeze. + +"It sounds sweetly enough," he said, "but terribly old-fashioned:-- + + 'I weigh not true love by the weight of the purse, + And beauty is beauty in every degree.' + +That's not Court doctrine." + +The lady to whom he spoke rested her cheek upon her hand, and looked past +the singers to the blossoming slope and the sky above. "So much the worse +for the Court," she said. "So much the better for"-- + +Haward glanced at her. "For Virginia?" he ended, with a smile. "Do you +think that they do not weigh love with gold here in Virginia, Evelyn? It +isn't really Arcady." + +"So much the better for some place, somewhere," she answered quietly. "I +did not say Virginia. Indeed, from what travelers like yourself have told +me, I think the country lies not upon this earth. But the story is at an +end, and we must applaud with the rest. It sounded sweetly, after +all,--though it was only a lying song. What next?" + +Her father, from his station beside the May Queen, caught the question, +and broke the flow of his smiling compliments to answer it. "A race +between young girls, my love,--the lucky fair who proves her descent from +Atalanta to find, not a golden apple, but a golden guinea. Here come from +the sexton's house the pretty light o' heels!" + +The crowd, gentle and simple, arose, and pushed back all benches, stools, +and chairs, so as to enlarge the circumference of the ring, and the six +girls who were to run stepped out upon the green. The youngest son of the +house of Jaquelin checked them off in a shrill treble:-- + +"The blacksmith's Meg--Mall and Jenny from the crossroads ordinary--the +Widow Constance's Barbara--red-headed Bess--Parson Darden's Audrey!" + +A tall, thin, grave gentleman, standing behind Haward, gave an impatient +jerk of his body and said something beneath his breath. Haward looked over +his shoulder. "Ha, Mr. Le Neve! I did not know you were there. I had the +pleasure of hearing you read at Williamsburgh last Sunday +afternoon,--though this is your parish, I believe? What was that last name +that the youngster cried? I failed to catch it." + +"Audrey, sir," answered the minister of James City parish; "Gideon +Darden's Audrey. You can't but have heard of Darden? A minister of the +gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, sir; and a scandal, a shame, and a +stumbling-block to the Church! A foul-mouthed, brawling, learned sot! A +stranger to good works, but a frequenter of tippling houses! A brazen, +dissembling, atheistical Demas, who will neither let go of the lusts of +the flesh nor of his parish,--a sweet-scented parish, sir, with the best +glebe in three counties! And he's inducted, sir, inducted, which is more +than most of the clergy of Virginia, who neither fight nor drink nor +swear, can say for themselves!" + +The minister had lost his gravity, and spoke with warmth and bitterness. +As he paused for breath, Mistress Evelyn took her eyes from the group of +those about to run and opened her fan. "A careless father, at least," she +said. "If he hath learning, he should know better than to set his daughter +there." + +"She's not his own, ma'am. She's an orphan, bound to Darden and his wife, +I suppose. There's some story or other about her, but, not being curious +in Mr. Darden's affairs, I have never learned it. When I came to +Virginia, five years ago, she was a slip of a girl of thirteen or so. +Once, when I had occasion to visit Darden, she waylaid me in the road as I +was riding away, and asked me how far it was to the mountains, and if +there were Indians between them and us." + +"Did she so?" asked Haward. "And which is--Audrey?" + +"The dark one--brown as a gypsy--with the dogwood in her hair. And mark +me, there'll be Darden's own luck and she'll win. She's fleeter than a +greyhound. I've seen her running in and out and to and fro in the forest +like a wild thing." + +Bare of foot and slender ankle, bare of arm and shoulder, with heaving +bosom, shut lips, and steady eyes, each of the six runners awaited the +trumpet sound that should send her forth like an arrow to the goal, and to +the shining guinea that lay thereby. The spectators ceased to talk and +laugh, and bent forward, watching. Wagers had been laid, and each man kept +his eyes upon his favorite, measuring her chances. The trumpet blew, and +the race was on. + +When it was over and won, the May Queen rose from her seat and crossed the +grass to her fine lady guest. "There are left only the prizes for this and +for the boys' race and for the best dancer. Will you not give them, +Mistress Evelyn, and so make them of more value?" + +More curtsying, more complimenting, and the gold was in Evelyn's white +hand. The trumpet blew, the drum beat, the fiddlers swung into a quick, +staccato air, and Darden's Audrey, leaving the post which she had touched +some seconds in advance of the foremost of those with whom she had raced, +came forward to receive the guinea. + +The straight, short skirt of dull blue linen could not hide the lines of +the young limbs; beneath the thin, white, sleeveless bodice showed the +tint of the flesh, the rise and fall of the bosom. The bare feet trod the +grass lightly and firmly; the brown eyes looked from under the dogwood +chaplet in a gaze that was serious, innocent, and unashamed. To Audrey +they were only people out of a fairy tale,--all those gay folk, dressed in +silks and with curled hair. They lived in "great houses," and men and +women were born to till their fields, to row their boats, to doff hats or +curtsy as they passed. They were not real; if you pricked them they would +not bleed. In the mountains that she remembered as a dream there were pale +masses of bloom far up among the cliffs; very beautiful, but no more to be +gained than the moon or than rainbow gold. She looked at the May party +before which she had been called much as, when a child, she had looked at +the gorgeous, distant bloom,--not without longing, perhaps, but +indifferent, too, knowing that it was beyond her reach. + +When the gold piece was held out to her, she took it, having earned it; +when the little speech with which the lady gave the guinea was ended, she +was ready with her curtsy and her "Thank you, ma'am." The red came into +her cheeks because she was not used to so many eyes upon her, but she did +not blush for her bare feet, nor for her dress that had slipped low over +her shoulder, nor for the fact that she had run her swiftest five times +around the Maypole, all for the love of a golden guinea, and for mere +youth and pure-minded ignorance, and the springtime in the pulses. + +The gold piece lay within her brown fingers a thought too lightly, for as +she stepped back from the row of gentlefolk it slid from her hand to the +ground. A gentleman, sitting beside the lady who had spoken to her, +stooped, and picking up the money gave it again into her hand. Though she +curtsied to him, she did not look at him, but turned away, glad to be quit +of all the eyes, and in a moment had slipped into the crowd from which she +had come. It was midday, and old Israel, the fisherman, who had brought +her and the Widow Constance's Barbara up the river in his boat, would be +going back with the tide. She was not loath to leave: the green meadow, +the gaudy Maypole, and the music were good, but the silence on the river, +the shadow of the brooding forest, the darting of the fish hawk, were +better. + +In the meadow the boys' race and the rustic dance were soon over. The +dinner at the Jaquelin house to its guests lasted longer, but it too was +hurried; for in the afternoon Mr. Harrison's mare Nelly was to run against +Major Burwell's Fearnaught, and the stakes were heavy. + +Not all of the company went from the banquet back to the meadow, where the +humbler folk, having eaten their dinner of bread and meat and ale, were +whiling away with sports of their own the hour before the race. Colonel +Byrd had business at Williamsburgh, and must reach his lodgings there an +hour before sunset. His four black horses brought to the door the great +vermilion-and-cream coach; an ebony coachman in scarlet cracked his whip +at a couple of negro urchins who had kept pace with the vehicle as it +lumbered from the stables, and a light brown footman flung open the door +and lowered the steps. The Colonel, much regretting that occasion should +call him away, vowed that he had never spent a pleasanter May Day, kissed +the May Queen's hand, and was prodigal of well-turned compliments, like +the gay and gallant gentleman that he was. His daughter made her graceful +adieux in her clear, low, and singularly sweet voice, and together they +were swallowed up of the mammoth coach. Mr. Haward took snuff with Mr. +Jaquelin; then, mounting his horse,--it was supposed that he too had +business in Williamsburgh,--raised his hat and bade farewell to the +company with one low and comprehensive bow. + +The equipage made a wide turn; the ladies and gentlemen upon the Jaquelin +porch fluttered fans and handkerchiefs; the Colonel, leaning from the +coach window, waved his hand; and the horseman lifted his hat the second +time. The very especial guests were gone; and though the remainder of the +afternoon was as merry as heart could wish, yet a bouquet, a flavor, a +tang of the Court and the great world, a breath of air that was not +colonial, had gone with them. For a moment the women stood in a brown +study, revolving in their minds Mistress Evelyn's gypsy hat and the +exceeding thinness and fineness of her tucker; while to each of the +younger men came, linked to the memory of a charming face, a vision of +many-acred Westover. + +But the trumpet blew, summoning them to the sport of the afternoon, and +work stopped upon castles in Spain. When a horse-race was on, a meadow in +Virginia sufficed. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE ROAD TO WILLIAMSBURGH + + +April had gone out in rain, and though the sun now shone brightly from a +cloudless sky, the streams were swollen and the road was heavy. The +ponderous coach and the four black horses made slow progress. The creeping +pace, the languid warmth of the afternoon, the scent of flowering trees, +the ceaseless singing of redbird, catbird, robin, and thrush, made it +drowsy in the forest. In the midst of an agreeable dissertation upon May +Day sports of more ancient times the Colonel paused to smother a yawn; and +when he had done with the clown, the piper, and the hobby-horse, he yawned +again, this time outright. + +"What with Ludwell's Burgundy, piquet, and the French peace, we sat late +last night. My eyes are as heavy as the road. Have you noticed, my dear, +how bland and dreamy is the air? On such an afternoon one is content to be +in Virginia, and out of the world. It is a very land of the Lotophagi,--a +lazy clime that Ulysses touched at, my love." + +The equipage slowly climbed an easy ascent, and as slowly descended to the +level again. The road was narrow, and now and then a wild cherry-tree +struck the coach with a white arm, or a grapevine swung through the window +a fragrant trailer. The woods on either hand were pale green and silver +gray, save where they were starred with dogwood, or where rose the pink +mist of the Judas-tree. At the foot of the hill the road skirted a mantled +pond, choked with broad green leaves and the half-submerged trunks of +fallen trees. Upon these logs, basking in the sunlight, lay small +tortoises by the score. A snake glided across the road in front of the +horses, and from a bit of muddy ground rose a cloud of yellow butterflies. + +The Colonel yawned for the third time, looked at his watch, sighed, lifted +his finely arched brows with a whimsical smile for his own somnolence; +then, with an "I beg your pardon, my love," took out a lace handkerchief, +spread it over his face and head, and, crossing his legs, sunk back into +the capacious corner of the coach. In three minutes the placid rise and +fall of his ruffles bore witness that he slept. + +The horseman, who, riding beside the lowered glass, had at intervals +conversed with the occupants of the coach, now glanced from the sleeping +gentleman to the lady, in whose dark, almond-shaped eyes lurked no sign of +drowsiness. The pond had been passed, and before them, between low banks +crowned with ferns and overshadowed by beech-trees, lay a long stretch of +shady road. + +Haward drew rein, dismounted, and motioned to the coachman to check the +horses. When the coach had come to a standstill, he opened the door with +as little creaking as might be, and held out a petitionary hand. "Will you +not walk with me a little way, Evelyn?" he asked, speaking in a low voice +that he might not wake the sleeper. "It is much pleasanter out here, with +the birds and the flowers." + +His eyes and the smile upon his lips added, "and with me." From what he +had been upon a hilltop, one moonlight night eleven years before, he had +become a somewhat silent, handsome gentleman, composed in manner, +experienced, not unkindly, looking abroad from his apportioned mountain +crag and solitary fortress upon men, and the busy ways of men, with a +tolerant gaze. That to certain of his London acquaintance he was simply +the well-bred philosopher and man of letters; that in the minds of others +he was associated with the peacock plumage of the world of fashion, with +the flare of candles, the hot breath of gamesters, the ring of gold upon +the tables; that one clique had tales to tell of a magnanimous spirit and +a generous hand, while yet another grew red at mention of his name, and +put to his credit much that was not creditable, was perhaps not strange. +He, like his neighbors, had many selves, and each in its turn--the +scholar, the man of pleasure, the indolent, kindly, reflective self, the +self of pride and cool assurance and stubborn will--took its place behind +the mask, and went through its allotted part. His self of all selves, the +quiet, remote, crowned, and inscrutable _I_, sat apart, alike curious and +indifferent, watched the others, and knew how little worth the while was +the stir in the ant-hill. + +But on a May Day, in the sunshine and the blossoming woods and the company +of Mistress Evelyn Byrd, it seemed, for the moment, worth the while. At +his invitation she had taken his hand and descended from the coach. The +great, painted thing moved slowly forward, bearing the unconscious +Colonel, and the two pedestrians walked behind it: he with his horse's +reins over his arm and his hat in his hand; she lifting her silken skirts +from contact with the ground, and looking, not at her companion, but at +the greening boughs, and at the sunlight striking upon smooth, pale beech +trunks and the leaf-strewn earth beneath. Out of the woods came a sudden +medley of bird notes, clear, sweet, and inexpressibly joyous. + +"That is a mockingbird," said Haward. "I once heard one of a moonlight +night, beside a still water"-- + +He broke off, and they listened in silence. The bird flew away, and they +came to a brook traversing the road, and flowing in wide meanders through +the forest. There were stepping-stones, and Haward, crossing first, turned +and held out his hand to the lady. When she was upon his side of the +streamlet, and before he released the slender fingers, he bent and kissed +them; then, as there was no answering smile or blush, but only a quiet +withdrawal of the hand and a remark about the crystal clearness of the +brook, looked at her, with interrogation in his smile. + +"What is that crested bird upon yonder bough," she asked,--"the one that +gave the piercing cry?" + +"A kingfisher," he answered, "and cousin to the halcyon of the ancients. +If, when next you go to sea, you take its feathers with you, you need have +no fear of storms." + +A tree, leafless, but purplish pink with bloom, leaned from the bank above +them. He broke a branch and gave it to her. "It is the Judas-tree," he +told her. "Iscariot hanged himself thereon." + +Around the trunk of a beech a lizard ran like a green flame, and they +heard the distant barking of a fox. Large white butterflies went past +them, and a hummingbird whirred into the heart of a wild honeysuckle that +had hasted to bloom. "How different from the English forests!" she said. +"I could love these best. What are all those broad-leaved plants with the +white, waxen flowers?" + +"May-apples. Some call them mandrakes, but they do not rise shrieking, nor +kill the wight that plucks them. Will you have me gather them for you?" + +"I will not trouble you," she answered, and presently turned aside to pull +them for herself. + +He looked at the graceful, bending figure and lifted his brows; then, +quickening his pace until he was up with the coach, he spoke to the negro +upon the box. "Tyre, drive on to that big pine, and wait there for your +mistress and me. Sidon,"--to the footman,--"get down and take my horse. If +your master wakes, tell him that Mistress Evelyn tired of the coach, and +that I am picking her a nosegay." + +Tyre and Sidon, Haward's steed, the four black coach horses, the +vermilion-and-cream coach, and the slumbering Colonel, all made a progress +of an hundred yards to the pine-tree, where the cortege came to a halt. +Mistress Evelyn looked up from the flower-gathering to find the road bare +before her, and Haward, sitting upon a log, watching her with something +between a smile and a frown. + +"You think that I, also, weigh true love by the weight of the purse," he +said. "I do not care overmuch for your gold, Evelyn." + +She did not answer at once, but stood with her head slightly bent, +fingering the waxen flowers with a delicate, lingering touch. Now that +there was no longer the noise of the wheels and the horses' hoofs, the +forest stillness, which is composed of sound, made itself felt. The call +of birds, the whir of insects, the murmur of the wind in the treetops, +low, grave, incessant, and eternal as the sound of the sea, joined +themselves to the slow waves of fragrance, the stretch of road whereon +nothing moved, the sunlight lying on the earth, and made a spacious quiet. + +"I think that there is nothing for which you care overmuch," she said at +last. "Not for gold or the lack of it, not for friends or for enemies, not +even for yourself." + +"I have known you for many years," he answered. "I have watched you grow +from a child into a gracious and beautiful woman. Do you not think that I +care for you, Evelyn?" + +Near where he sat so many violets were blooming that they made a purple +carpet for the ground. Going over to them, she knelt and began to pluck +them. "If any danger threatened me," she began, in her clear, low voice, +"I believe that you would step between me and it, though at the peril of +your life. I believe that you take some pleasure in what you are pleased +to style my beauty, some pride in a mind that you have largely formed. If +I died early, it would grieve you for a little while. I call you my +friend." + +"I would be called your lover," he said. + +She laid her fan upon the ground, heaped it with violets, and turned again +to her reaping. "How might that be," she asked, "when you do not love me? +I knew that you would marry me. What do the French call it,--_mariage de +convenance_?" + +Her voice was even, and her head was bent so that he could not see her +face. In the pause that followed her words treetop whispered to treetop, +but the sunshine lay very still and bright upon the road and upon the +flowers by the wayside. + +"There are worse marriages," Haward said at last. Rising from the log, he +moved to the side of the kneeling figure. "Let the violets rest, Evelyn, +while we reason together. You are too clear-eyed. Since they offend you, +I will drop the idle compliments, the pretty phrases, in which neither of +us believes. What if this tinted dream of love does not exist for us? What +if we are only friends--dear and old friends"-- + +He stooped, and, taking her by the busy hands, made her stand up beside +him. "Cannot we marry and still be friends?" he demanded, with something +like laughter in his eyes. "My dear, I would strive to make you happy; and +happiness is as often found in that temperate land where we would dwell as +in Love's flaming climate." He smiled and tried to find her eyes, downcast +and hidden in the shadow of her hat. "This is no flowery wooing such as +women love," he said; "but then you are like no other woman. Always the +truth was best with you." + +Upon her wrenching her hands from his, and suddenly and proudly raising +her head, he was amazed to find her white to the lips. + +"The truth!" she said slowly. "Always the truth was best! Well, then, take +the truth, and afterwards and forever and ever leave me alone! You have +been frank; why should not I, who, you say, am like no other woman, be so, +too? I will not marry you, because--because"--The crimson flowed over her +face and neck; then ebbed, leaving her whiter than before. She put her +hands, that still held the wild flowers, to her breast, and her eyes, dark +with pain, met his. "Had you loved me," she said proudly and quietly, "I +had been happy." + +[Illustration: "HAD YOU LOVED ME--I HAD BEEN HAPPY"] + +Haward stepped backwards until there lay between them a strip of sunny +earth. The murmur of the wind went on and the birds were singing, and yet +the forest seemed more quiet than death. "I could not guess," he said, +speaking slowly and with his eyes upon the ground. "I have spoken like a +brute. I beg your pardon." + +"You might have known! you might have guessed!" she cried, with passion. +"But, you walk an even way; you choose nor high nor low; you look deep +into your mind, but your heart you keep cool and vacant. Oh, a very +temperate land! I think that others less wise than you may also be less +blind. Never speak to me of this day! Let it die as these blooms are dying +in this hot sunshine! Now let us walk to the coach and waken my father. I +have gathered flowers enough." + +Side by side, but without speaking, they moved from shadow to sunlight, +and from sunlight to shadow, down the road to the great pine-tree. The +white and purple flowers lay in her hand and along her bended arm; from +the folds of her dress, of some rich and silken stuff, chameleon-like in +its changing colors, breathed the subtle fragrance of the perfume then +most in fashion; over the thin lawn that half revealed, half concealed +neck and bosom was drawn a long and glossy curl, carefully let to escape +from the waved and banded hair beneath the gypsy hat. Exquisite from head +to foot, the figure had no place in the unpruned, untrained, savage, and +primeval beauty of those woods. Smooth sward, with jets of water and +carven nymphs embowered in clipped box or yew, should have been its +setting, and not this wild and tangled growth, this license of bird and +beast and growing things. And yet the incongruous riot, the contrast of +profuse, untended beauty, enhanced the value of the picture, gave it +piquancy and a completer charm. + +When they were within a few feet of the coach and horses and negroes, all +drowsing in the sunny road, Haward made as if to speak, but she stopped +him with her lifted hand. "Spare me," she begged. "It is bad enough as it +is, but words would make it worse. If ever a day might come--I do not +think that I am unlovely; I even rate myself so highly as to think that I +am worthy of your love. If ever the day shall come when you can say to me, +'Now I see that love is no tinted dream; now I ask you to be my wife +indeed,' then, upon that day--But until then ask not of me what you asked +back there among the violets. I, too, am proud"--Her voice broke. + +"Evelyn!" he cried. "Poor child--poor friend"-- + +She turned her face upon him. "Don't!" she said, and her lips were +smiling, though her eyes were full of tears. "We have forgot that it is +May Day, and that we must be light of heart. Look how white is that +dogwood-tree! Break me a bough for my chimney-piece at Williamsburgh." + +He brought her a branch of the starry blossoms. "Did you notice," she +asked, "that the girl who ran--Audrey--wore dogwood in her hair? You could +see her heart beat with very love of living. She was of the woods, like a +dryad. Had the prizes been of my choosing, she should have had a gift more +poetical than a guinea." + +Haward opened the coach door, and stood gravely aside while she entered +the vehicle and took her seat, depositing her flowers upon the cushions +beside her. The Colonel stirred, uncrossed his legs, yawned, pulled the +handkerchief from his face, and opened his eyes. + +"Faith!" he exclaimed, straightening himself, and taking up his radiant +humor where, upon falling-asleep, he had let it drop. "The way must have +suddenly become smooth as a road in Venice, for I've felt no jolting this +half hour. Flowers, Evelyn? and Haward afoot? You've been on a woodland +saunter, then, while I enacted Solomon's sluggard!" The worthy parent's +eyes began to twinkle. "What flowers did you find? They have strange +blooms here, and yet I warrant that even in these woods one might come +across London pride and none-so-pretty and forget-me-not"-- + +His daughter smiled, and asked him some idle question about the May-apple +and the Judas-tree. The master of Westover was a treasure house of +sprightly lore. Within ten minutes he had visited Palestine, paid his +compliments to the ancient herbalists, and landed again in his own coach, +to find in his late audience a somewhat _distraite_ daughter and a friend +in a brown study. The coach was lumbering on toward Williamsburgh, and +Haward, with level gaze and hand closed tightly upon his horse's reins, +rode by the window, while the lady, sitting in her corner with downcast +eyes, fingered the dogwood blooms that were not paler than her face. + +The Colonel's wits were keen. One glance, a lift of his arched brows, the +merest ghost of a smile, and, dragging the younger man with him, he +plunged into politics. Invective against a refractory House of Burgesses +brought them a quarter of a mile upon their way; the necessity for an act +to encourage adventurers in iron works carried them past a milldam; and +frauds in the customs enabled them to reach a crossroads ordinary, where +the Colonel ordered a halt, and called for a tankard of ale. A slipshod, +blue-eyed Cherry brought it, and spoke her thanks in broad Scotch for the +shilling which the gay Colonel flung tinkling into the measure. + +That versatile and considerate gentleman, having had his draught, cried to +the coachman to go on, and was beginning upon the question of the militia, +when Haward, who had dismounted, appeared at the coach door. "I do not +think that I will go on to Williamsburgh with you, sir," he said. "There's +some troublesome business with my overseer that ought not to wait. If I +take this road and the planter's pace, I shall reach Fair View by sunset. +You do not return to Westover this week? Then I shall see you at +Williamsburgh within a day or two. Evelyn, good-day." + +Her hand lay upon the cushion nearest him. He would have taken it in his +own, as for years he had done when he bade her good-by; but though she +smiled and gave him "Good-day" in her usual voice, she drew the hand away. +The Colonel's eyebrows went up another fraction of an inch, but he was a +discreet gentleman who had bought experience. Skillfully unobservant, his +parting words were at once cordial and few in number; and after Haward had +mounted and had turned into the side road, he put his handsome, periwigged +head out of the coach window and called to him some advice about the +transplanting of tobacco. This done, and the horseman out of sight, and +the coach once more upon its leisurely way to Williamsburgh, the model +father pulled out of his pocket a small book, and, after affectionately +advising his daughter to close her eyes and sleep out the miles to +Williamsburgh, himself retired with Horace to the Sabine farm. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE STOREKEEPER + + +It was now late afternoon, the sun's rays coming slantingly into the +forest, and the warmth of the day past and gone. To Haward, riding at a +gallop down the road that was scarce more than a bridle path, the rush of +the cool air was grateful; the sharp striking of protruding twigs, the +violent brushing aside of hanging vines, not unwelcome. + +It was of the man that the uppermost feeling in his mind was one of +disgust at his late infelicity of speech, and at the blindness which had +prompted it. That he had not divined, that he had been so dull as to +assume that as he felt, or did not feel, so must she, annoyed him like the +jar of rude noises or like sand blowing into face and eyes. It was of him, +too, that the annoyance was purely with himself; for her, when at last he +came to think of her, he found only the old, placid affection, as far +removed from love as from hate. If he knew himself, it would always be as +far removed from love as from hate. + +All the days of her youth he had come and gone, a welcome guest at her +father's house in London. He had grown to be her friend, watching the +crescent beauty of face and mind with something of the pride and +tenderness which a man might feel for a young and favorite sister; and +then, at last, when some turn of affairs sent them all home to Virginia +to take lot and part there, he had thought of marriage. + +His mind had turned, not unwillingly, from the town and its apples of +Sodom to his Virginia plantation that he had not seen for more than ten +years. It was his birthplace, and there he had spent his boyhood. +Sometimes, in heated rooms, when the candles in the sconces were guttering +down, and the dawn looked palely in upon gaming tables and heaped gold, +and seamed faces, haggardly triumphant, haggardly despairing, determinedly +indifferent, there had come to him visions of cool dawns upon the river, +wide, misty expanses of marsh and forest, indistinct and cold and pure. +The lonely "great house," too,--the house which his father had built with +so much love and pains, that his son and his son's sons should have a +worthy home,--appealed to him, and the garden, and the fishing-boats, and +the old slaves in the quarters. He told himself that he was glad to go +back. + +Had men called him ambitious, he would have smiled, and felt truly that +they had bungled in the word. Such and such things were simply his +appurtenances; in London, the regard due to a gentleman who to a certain +distinction in his manner of amusing himself added the achievement of a +successful comedy, three lampoons quoted at all London tea-tables, and a +piece of Whig invective, so able, stern, and sustained that many cried +that the Dean had met his match; in Virginia, the deferential esteem of +the colony at large, a place in the Council, and a great estate. An +alliance with the master of Westover was in itself a desirable thing, +advantageous to purse and to credit; his house must have a mistress, and +that mistress must please at every point his fastidious taste. + +What better to do than to give it for Mistress Evelyn Byrd? Evelyn, who +had had for all her suitors only a slow smile and shake of the head; +Evelyn, who was older than her years; Evelyn, who was his friend as he was +hers. Love! He had left that land behind, and she had never touched its +shores; the geography of the poets to the contrary, it did not lie in the +course of all who passed through life. He made his suit, and now he had +his answer. + +If he did not take trouble to wonder at her confession, or to modestly ask +himself how he had deserved her love, neither did he insult her with pity +or with any lightness of thought. Nor was he ready to believe that his +rejection was final. Apparently indifferent as he was, it was yet his way +to move steadily and relentlessly, if very quietly, toward what goal he +desired to reach. He thought that Fair View might yet call Evelyn Byrd its +mistress. + +Since turning into the crossroad that, running south and east, would take +him back to the banks of the James and to his own house, he had not +slackened speed, but now, as he saw through the trees before him a long +zigzag of rail fence, he drew rein. The road turned, and a gate barred his +way. When he had opened it and passed through, he was upon his own land. + +He had ridden off his irritation, and could now calmly tell himself that +the blunder was made and over with, and that it was the duty of the +philosopher to remember it only in so far as it must shape his future +course. His house of cards had toppled over; but the profound +indifferentism of his nature enabled him to view the ruins with composure. +After a while he would build the house again. The image of Evelyn, as she +had stood, dark-eyed and pale, with the flowers pressed to her bosom, he +put from him. He knew her strength of soul; and with the curious hardness +of the strong toward the strong, and also not without the delicacy which, +upon occasion, he could both feel and exhibit, he shut the door upon that +hour in the forest. + +He had left the woods, and was now riding through a field of newly planted +tobacco. It and the tobacco house in the midst of it were silent, +deserted, bathed in the late sunshine. The ground rose slightly, and when +he had mounted with it he saw below him the huddle of cabins which formed +the ridge quarter, and winding down to it a string of negroes. One turned +his head, and saw the solitary horseman upon the summit of the slope +behind him; another looked, and another, until each man in line had his +head over his shoulder. They knew that the horseman was their master. Some +had been upon the plantation when he was a boy; others were more recent +acquisitions who knew not his face; but alike they grinned and ducked. The +white man walking beside the line took off his hat and pulled a forelock. +Haward raised his hand that they might know he saw, and rode on. + +Another piece of woods where a great number of felled trees cumbered the +ground, more tobacco, and then, in worn fields where the tobacco had been, +knee-deep wheat rippling in the evening breeze. The wheat ran down to a +marsh, and to a wide, slow creek that, save in the shadow of its reedy +banks, was blue as the sky above. Haward, riding slowly beside his green +fields and still waters, noted with quiet, half-regretful pleasure this or +that remembered feature of the landscape. There had been little change. +Here, where he remembered deep woods, tobacco was planted; there, where +the tobacco had been, were now fields of wheat or corn, or wild tangles of +vine-rid saplings and brushwood: but for this it might have been yesterday +that he had last ridden that way. + +Presently he saw the river, and then the marshes with brown dots that were +his cattle straying over them, and beyond these the home landing and the +masts of the Golden Rose. The sun was near its setting; the men had left +the fields; over all things were the stillness and peace, the encroaching +shadows, the dwindling light, so golden in its quality, of late afternoon. +When he crossed the bridge over the creek, the hollow sound that the +boards gave forth beneath his horse's hoofs had the depth and resonance of +drumbeats, and the cry of a solitary heron in the marsh seemed louder than +its wont. He passed the rolling-house and drew near to the river, riding +again through tobacco. These plants were Oronoko; the mild sweet-scented +took the higher ground. Along the river bank grew a row of tall and +stately trees: passing beneath them, he saw the shining water between +brown columns or through a veil of slight, unfolding leaves. Soon the +trees fell away, and he came to a stretch of bank,--here naked earth, +there clad in grass and dewberry vines. Near by was a small landing, with +several boats fastened to its piles; and at a little distance beyond it, +shadowed by a locust-tree, a strongly built, two-roomed wooden house, with +the earth around it trodden hard and bare, and with two or three benches +before its open door. Haward recognized the store which his father--after +the manner of his kind, merchant and trader as well as planter and maker +of laws--had built, and which, through his agent in Virginia, he had +maintained. + +Before one of the benches a man was kneeling with his back to Haward, who +could only see that his garb was that of a servant, and that his hands +were busily moving certain small objects this way and that upon the board. +At the edge of the space of bare earth were a horse-block and a +hitching-post. Haward rode up to them, dismounted, and fastened his horse, +then walked over to the man at the bench. + +So intent was the latter upon his employment that he heard neither horse +nor rider. He had some shells, a few bits of turf, and a double handful of +sand, and he was arranging these trifles upon the rough, unpainted boards +in a curious and intricate pattern. He was a tall man, with hair that was +more red than brown, and he was dressed in a shirt of dowlas, leather +breeches, and coarse plantation-made shoes and stockings. + +"What are you doing?" asked Haward, after a moment's silent watching of +the busy fingers and intent countenance. + +There was no start of awakened consciousness upon the other's part. "Why," +he said, as if he had asked the question of himself, "with this sand I +have traced the shores of Loch-na-Keal. This turf is green Ulva, and this +is Gometra, and the shell is Little Colonsay. With this wet sand I have +moulded Ben Grieg, and this higher pile is Ben More. If I had but a sprig +of heather, now, or a pebble from the shore of Scridain!" + +The voice, while harsh, was not disagreeably so, and neither the words nor +the manner of using them smacked of the rustic. + +"And where are Loch-na-Keal and Ulva and Scridain?" demanded Haward. +"Somewhere in North Britain, I presume?" + +The second question broke the spell. The man glanced over his shoulder, +saw that he was not alone, and with one sweep of his hand blotting loch +and island and mountain out of existence, rose to his feet, and opposed to +Haward's gaze a tall, muscular frame, high features slightly pockmarked, +and keen dark blue eyes. + +"I was dreaming, and did not hear you," he said, civilly enough. "It's not +often that any one comes to the store at this time of day. What d' ye +lack?" + +As he spoke he moved toward the doorway, through which showed shelves and +tables piled with the extraordinary variety of goods which were deemed +essential to the colonial trade. "Are you the storekeeper?" asked Haward, +keeping pace with the other's long stride. + +"It's the name they call me by," answered the man curtly; then, as he +chanced to turn his eyes upon the landing, his tone changed, and a smile +irradiated his countenance. "Here comes a customer," he remarked, "that'll +make you bide your turn." + +A boat, rowed by a young boy and carrying a woman, had slipped out of the +creek, and along the river bank to the steps of the landing. When they +were reached, the boy sat still, the oars resting across his knees, and +his face upturned to a palace beautiful of pearl and saffron cloud; but +the woman mounted the steps, and, crossing the boards, came up to the door +and the men beside it. Her dress was gray and unadorned, and she was young +and of a quiet loveliness. + +"Mistress Truelove Taberer," said the storekeeper, "what can you choose, +this May Day, that's so fair as yourself?" + +A pair of gray eyes were lifted for the sixth part of a second, and a +voice that bad learned of the doves in the forest proceeded to rebuke the +flatterer. "Thee is idle in thy speech, Angus MacLean," it declared. "I am +not fair; nor, if I were, should thee tell me of it. Also, friend, it is +idle and tendeth toward idolatry to speak of the first day of the fifth +month as May Day. My mother sent me for a paper of White-chapel needles, +and two of manikin pins. Has thee them in thy store of goods?" + +"Come you in and look for yourself," said the storekeeper. "There's +woman's gear enough, but it were easier for me to recount the names of all +the children of Gillean-ni-Tuaidhe than to remember how you call the +things you wear." + +So saying he entered the store. The Quakeress followed, and Haward, tired +of his own thoughts, and in the mood to be amused by trifles, trod in +their footsteps. + +Door and window faced the west, and the glow from the sinking sun +illumined the thousand and one features of the place. Here was the glint +of tools and weapons; there pewter shone like silver, and brass dazzled +the eyes. Bales of red cotton, blue linen, flowered Kidderminster, scarlet +serge, gold and silver drugget, all sorts of woven stuffs from lockram to +brocade, made bright the shelves. Pendent skins of buck and doe showed +like brown satin, while looking-glasses upon the wall reflected green +trees and painted clouds. In one dark corner lurked kegs of powder and of +shot; another was the haunt of aqua vitae and right Jamaica. +Playing-cards, snuffboxes, and fringed gloves elbowed a shelf of books, +and a full-bottomed wig ogled a lady's headdress of ribbon and malines. +Knives and hatchets and duffel blankets for the Indian trade were not +wanting. + +Haward, leaning against a table laden with so singular a miscellany that a +fine saddle with crimson velvet holsters took the head of the board, while +the foot was set with blue and white china, watched the sometime moulder +of peak and islet draw out a case filled with such small and womanish +articles as pins and needles, tape and thread, and place it before his +customer. She made her choice, and the storekeeper brought a great book, +and entered against the head of the house of Taberer so many pounds of +tobacco; then, as the maiden turned to depart, heaved a sigh so piteous +and profound that no tender saint in gray could do less than pause, half +turn her head, and lift two compassionate eyes. + +"Mistress Truelove, I have read the good book that you gave me, and I +cannot deny that I am much beholden to you," and her debtor sighed like a +furnace. + +The girl's quiet face flushed to the pink of a seashell, and her eyes grew +eager. + +"Then does thee not see the error of thy ways, Angus MacLean? If it should +be given me to pluck thee as a brand from the burning! Thee will not again +brag of war and revenge, nor sing vain and ruthless songs, nor use dice or +cards, nor will thee swear any more?" + +The voice was persuasion's own. "May I be set overtide on the Lady's Rock, +or spare a false Campbell when I meet him, or throw up my cap for the +damned Hogan Mogan that sits in Jamie's place, if I am not entirely +convert!" cried the neophyte. "Oh, the devil! what have I said? Mistress +Truelove--Truelove"-- + +But Truelove was gone,--not in anger or in haste, for that would have been +unseemly, but quietly and steadily, with no looking back. The storekeeper, +leaping over a keg of nails that stood in the way, made for the door, and +together with Haward, who was already there, watched her go. The path to +the landing and the boat was short; she had taken her seat, and the boy +had bent to the oars, while the unlucky Scot was yet alternately calling +out protestations of amendment and muttering maledictions upon his +unguarded tongue. The canoe slipped from the rosy, unshadowed water into +the darkness beneath the overhanging trees, reached the mouth of the +creek, and in a moment disappeared from sight. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MASTER AND MAN + + +The two men, left alone, turned each toward the interior of the store, and +their eyes met. Alike in gray eyes and in dark blue there was laughter. +"Kittle folk, the Quakers," said the storekeeper, with a shrug, and went +to put away his case of pins and needles. Haward, going to the end of the +store, found a row of dusty bottles, and breaking the neck of one with a +report like that of a pistol set the Madeira to his lips, and therewith +quenched his thirst. The wine cellar abutted upon the library. Taking off +his riding glove he ran his finger along the bindings, and plucking forth +The History of a Coy Lady looked at the first page, read the last +paragraph, and finally thrust the thin brown and gilt volume into his +pocket. Turning, he found himself face to face with the storekeeper. + +"I have not the honor of knowing your name, sir," remarked the latter +dryly. "Do you buy at this store, and upon whose account?" + +Haward shook his head, and applied himself again to the Madeira. + +"Then you carry with you coin of the realm with which to settle?" +continued the other. "The wine is two shillings; the book you may have for +twelve-pence." + +"Here I need not pay, good fellow," said Haward negligently, his eyes +upon a row of dangling objects. "Fetch me down yonder cane; 't is as +delicately tapered and clouded as any at the Exchange." + +"Pay me first for the wine and the book," answered the man composedly. +"It's a dirty business enough, God knows, for a gentleman to put finger +to; but since needs must when the devil drives, and he has driven me here, +why, I, Angus MacLean, who have no concerns of my own, must e'en be +faithful to the concerns of another. Wherefore put down the silver you owe +the Sassenach whose wine you have drunken and whose book you have taken." + +"And if I do not choose to pay?" asked Haward, with a smile. + +"Then you must e'en choose to fight," was the cool reply. "And as I +observe that you wear neither sword nor pistols, and as jack boots and a +fine tight-buttoned riding coat are not the easiest clothes to wrestle in, +it appears just possible that I might win the cause." + +"And when you've thrown me, what then?" + +"Oh, I would just draw a rope around you and yonder cask of Jamaica, and +leave you to read your stolen book in peace until Saunderson (that's the +overseer, and he's none so bad if he was born in Fife) shall come. You can +have it out with him; or maybe he'll hale you before the man that owns the +store. I hear they expect him home." + +Haward laughed, and abstracting another bottle from the shelf broke its +neck. "Hand me yonder cup," he said easily, "and we'll drink to his +home-coming. Good fellow, I am Mr. Marmaduke Haward, and I am glad to find +so honest a man in a place of no small trust. Long absence and somewhat +too complaisant a reference of all my Virginian affairs to my agent have +kept me much in ignorance of the economy of my plantation. How long have +you been my storekeeper?" + +Neither cup for the wine nor answer to the question being forthcoming, +Haward looked up from his broken bottle. The man was standing with his +body bent forward and his hand pressed against the wood of a great cask +behind him until the finger-nails showed white. His head was high, his +face dark red and angry, his brows drawn down until the gleaming eyes +beneath were like pin points. + +So sudden and so sinister was the change that Haward was startled. The +hour was late, the place deserted; as the man had discovered, he had no +weapons, nor, strong, active, and practiced as he was, did he flatter +himself that he could withstand the length of brawn and sinew before him. +Involuntarily, he stepped backward until there was a space between them, +casting at the same moment a glance toward the wall where hung axe and +knife and hatchet. + +The man intercepted the look, and broke into a laugh. The sound was harsh +and gibing, but not menacing. "You need not be afraid," he said. "I do not +want the feel of a rope around my neck,--though God knows why I should +care! Here is no clansman of mine, and no cursed Campbell either, to see +my end!" + +"I am not afraid," Haward answered calmly. Walking to the shelf that held +an array of drinking vessels, he took two cups, filled them with wine, and +going back to his former station, set one upon the cask beside the +storekeeper. "The wine is good," he said. "Will you drink?" + +The other loosened the clasp of his hand upon the wood and drew himself +upright. "I eat the bread and drink the water which you give your +servants," he answered, speaking with the thickness of hardly restrained +passion. "The wine cup goes from equal to equal." + +As he spoke he took up the peace offering, eyed it for a moment with a +bitter smile, then flung it with force over his shoulder. The earthen +floor drank the wine; the china shivered into a thousand fragments. "I +have neither silver nor tobacco with which to pay for my pleasure," +continued the still smiling storekeeper. "When I am come to the end of my +term, then, an it please you, I will serve out the damage." + +Haward sat down upon a keg of powder, crossed his knees, and, with his +chin upon his hand, looked from between the curled lengths of his periwig +at the figure opposite. "I am glad to find that in Virginia, at least, +there is honesty," he said dryly. "I will try to remember the cost of the +cup and the wine against the expiry of your indenture. In the mean time, I +am curious to know why you are angry with me whom you have never seen +before to-day." + +With the dashing of the wine to earth the other's passion had apparently +spent itself. The red slowly left his face, and he leaned at ease against +the cask, drumming upon its head with his fingers. The sunlight, shrinking +from floor and wall, had left but a single line of gold. In the half light +strange and sombre shapes possessed the room; through the stillness, +beneath the sound of the tattoo upon the cask head, the river made itself +heard. + +"For ten years and more you have been my--master," said the storekeeper. +"It is a word for which I have an invincible distaste. It is not +well--having neither love nor friendship to put in its place--to let +hatred die. When I came first to this slavery, I hated all Campbells, all +Whigs, Forster that betrayed us at Preston, and Ewin Mor Mackinnon. But +the years have come and the years have gone, and I am older than I was at +twenty-five. The Campbells I can never reach: they walk secure, overseas, +through Lorn and Argyle, couching in the tall heather above Etive, +tracking the red deer in the Forest of Dalness. Forster is dead. Ewin +Mackinnon is dead, I know; for five years ago come Martinmas night I saw +his perjured soul on its way to hell. All the world is turning Whig. A man +may hate the world, it is true, but he needs a single foe." + +"And in that capacity you have adopted me?" demanded Haward. + +MacLean let his gaze travel over the man opposite him, from the looped hat +and the face between the waves of hair to the gilt spurs upon the great +boots; then turned his eyes upon his own hand and coarsely clad arm +stretched across the cask. "I, too, am a gentleman, the brother of a +chieftain," he declared. "I am not without schooling. I have seen +something of life, and of countries more polite than the land where I was +born, though not so dear. I have been free, and have loved my freedom. Do +you find it so strange that I should hate you?" + +There was a silence; then, "Upon my soul, I do not know that I do," said +Haward slowly. "And yet, until this day I did not know of your existence." + +"But I knew of yours," answered the storekeeper. "Your agent hath an +annoying trick of speech, and the overseers have caught it from him. 'Your +master' this, and 'your master' that; in short, for ten years it hath +been, 'Work, you dog, that your master may play!' Well, I have worked; it +was that, or killing myself, or going mad. I have worked for you in the +fields, in the smithy, in this close room. But when you bought my body, +you could not buy my soul. Day after day, and night after night, I sent it +away; I would not let it bide in these dull levels, in this cursed land of +heat and stagnant waters. At first it went home to its own country,--to +its friends and its foes, to the torrent and the mountain and the music of +the pipes; but at last the pain outweighed the pleasure, and I sent it +there no more. And then it began to follow you." + +"To follow me!" involuntarily exclaimed Haward. + +"I have been in London," went on the other, without heeding the +interruption. "I know the life of men of quality, and where they most +resort. I early learned from your other servants, and from the chance +words of those who had your affairs in charge, that you were young, +well-looking, a man of pleasure. At first when I thought of you the blood +came into my cheek, but at last I thought of you constantly, and I felt +for you a constant hatred. It began when I knew that Ewin Mackinnon was +dead. I had no need of love; I had need of hate. Day after day, my body +slaving here, my mind has dogged your footsteps. Up and down, to and fro, +in business and in pleasure, in whatever place I have imagined you to be, +there have I been also. Did you never, when there seemed none by, look +over your shoulder, feeling another presence than your own?" + +He ceased to speak, and the hand upon the cask was still. The sunshine was +clean gone from the room, and without the door the wind in the +locust-tree answered the voice of the river. Haward rose from his seat, +but made no further motion toward departing. "You have been frank," he +said quietly. "Had you it in mind, all this while, so to speak to me when +we should meet?" + +"No," answered the other. "I thought not of words, but of"-- + +"But of deeds," Haward finished for him. "Rather, I imagine, of one deed." + +Composed as ever in voice and manner, he drew out his watch, and held it +aslant that the light might strike upon the dial. "'T is after six," he +remarked as he put it away, "and I am yet a mile from the house." The wine +that he had poured for himself had been standing, untouched, upon the keg +beside him. He took it up and drank it off; then wiped his lips with his +handkerchief, and passing the storekeeper with a slight inclination of his +head walked toward the door. A yard beyond the man who had so coolly shown +his side of the shield was a rude table, on which were displayed hatchets +and hunting knives. Haward passed the gleaming steel; then, a foot beyond +it, stood still, his face to the open door, and his back to the +storekeeper and the table with its sinister lading. + +"You do wrong to allow so much dust and disorder," he said sharply. "I +could write my name in that mirror, and there is a piece of brocade fallen +to the floor. Look to it that you keep the place more neat." + +There was dead silence for a moment; then MacLean spoke in an even voice: +"Now a fool might call you as brave as Hector. For myself, I only give you +credit for some knowledge of men. You are right. It is not my way to +strike in the back an unarmed man. When you are gone, I will wipe off the +mirror and pick up the brocade." + +He followed Haward outside. "It's a brave evening for riding," he +remarked, "and you have a bonny bit of horseflesh there. You'll get to the +house before candlelight." + +Beside one of the benches Haward made another pause. "You are a Highlander +and a Jacobite," he said. "From your reference to Forster, I gather that +you were among the prisoners taken at Preston and transported to +Virginia." + +"In the Elizabeth and Anne of Liverpool, _alias_ a bit of hell afloat; the +master, Captain Edward Trafford, _alias_ Satan's first mate," quoth the +other grimly. + +He stooped to the bench where lay the debris of the coast and mountains he +had been lately building, and picked up a small, deep shell. "My story is +short," he began. "It could be packed into this. I was born in the island +of Mull, of my father a chieftain, and my mother a lady. Some schooling I +got in Aberdeen, some pleasure in Edinburgh and London, and some service +abroad. In my twenty-third year--being at home at that time--I was asked +to a hunting match at Braemar, and went. No great while afterwards I was +bidden to supper at an Edinburgh tavern, and again I accepted the +invitation. There was a small entertainment to follow the supper,--just +the taking of Edinburgh Castle. But the wine was good, and we waited to +powder our hair, and the entertainment could hardly be called a success. +Hard upon that convivial evening, I, with many others, was asked across +the Border to join a number of gentlemen who drank to the King after our +fashion, and had a like fancy for oak boughs and white roses. The weather +was pleasant, the company of the best, the roads very noble after our +Highland sheep tracks. Together with our English friends, and enlivened by +much good claret and by music of bagpipe and drum, we strolled on through +a fine, populous country until we came to a town called Preston, where we +thought we would tarry for a day or two. However, circumstances arose +which detained us somewhat longer. (I dare say you have heard the story?) +When finally we took our leave, some of us went to heaven, some to hell, +and some to Barbadoes and Virginia. I was among those dispatched to +Virginia, and to all intents and purposes I died the day I landed. There, +the shell is full!" + +He tossed it from him, and going to the hitching-post loosed Haward's +horse. Haward took the reins from his hand. "It hath been ten years and +more since Virginia got her share of the rebels taken at Preston. If I +remember aright, their indentures were to be made for seven years. Why, +then, are you yet in my service?" + +MacLean laughed. "I ran away," he replied pleasantly, "and when I was +caught I made off a second time. I wonder that you planters do not have a +Society for the Encouragement of Runaways. Seeing that they are nearly +always retaken, and that their escapades so lengthen their term of +service, it would surely be to your advantage! There are yet several years +in which I am to call you master." + +He laughed again, but the sound was mirthless, and the eyes beneath the +half-closed lids were harder than steel. Haward mounted his horse and +gathered up the reins. "I am not responsible for the laws of the realm," +he said calmly, "nor for rebellions and insurrections, nor for the +practice of transporting overseas those to whom have been given the ugly +names of 'rebel' and 'traitor.' Destiny that set you there put me here. We +are alike pawns; what the player means we have no way of telling. Curse +Fate and the gods, if you choose,--and find that your cursing does small +good,--but regard me with indifference, as one neither more nor less the +slave of circumstances than yourself. It has been long since I went this +way. Is there yet the path by the river?" + +"Ay," answered the other. "It is your shortest road." + +"Then I will be going," said Haward. "It grows late, and I am not looked +for before to-morrow. Good-night." + +As he spoke he raised his hat and bowed to the gentleman from whom he was +parting. That rebel to King George gave a great start; then turned very +red, and shot a piercing glance at the man on horseback. The latter's mien +was composed as ever, and, with his hat held beneath his arm and his body +slightly inclined, he was evidently awaiting a like ceremony of +leave-taking on the storekeeper's part. MacLean drew a long breath, +stepped back a pace or two, and bowed to his equal. A second "Good-night," +and one gentleman rode off in the direction of the great house, while the +other went thoughtfully back to the store, got a cloth and wiped the dust +from the mirror. + +It was pleasant riding by the river in the cool evening wind, with the +colors of the sunset yet gay in sky and water. Haward went slowly, +glancing now at the great, bright stream, now at the wide, calm fields and +the rim of woodland, dark and distant, bounding his possessions. The smell +of salt marshes, of ploughed ground, of leagues of flowering forests, was +in his nostrils. Behind him was the crescent moon; before him a terrace +crowned with lofty trees. Within the ring of foliage was the house; even +as he looked a light sprang up in a high window, and shone like a star +through the gathering dusk. Below the hill the home landing ran its gaunt +black length far out into the carmine of the river; upon the Golden Rose +lights burned like lower stars; from a thicket to the left of the bridle +path sounded the call of a whippoorwill. A gust of wind blowing from the +bay made to waver the lanterns of the Golden Rose, broke and darkened the +coral peace of the river, and pushed rudely against the master of those +parts. Haward laid his hand upon his horse that he loved. "This is better +than the Ring, isn't it, Mirza?" he asked genially, and the horse whinnied +under his touch. + +The land was quite gray, the river pearl-colored, and the fireflies +beginning to sparkle, when he rode through the home gates. In the dusk of +the world, out of the deeper shadow of the surrounding trees, his house +looked grimly upon him. The light had been at the side; all the front was +stark and black with shuttered windows. He rode to the back of the house +and hallooed to the slaves in the home quarter, where were lights and +noisy laughter, and one deep voice singing in an unknown tongue. + +It was but a stone's throw to the nearest cabin, and Haward's call made +itself heard above the babel. The noise suddenly lessened, and two or +three negroes, starting up from the doorstep, hurried across the grass to +horse and rider. Quickly as they came, some one within the house was +beforehand with them. The door swung open; there was the flare of a +lighted candle, and a voice cried out to know what was wanted. + +"Wanted!" exclaimed Haward. "Ingress into my own house is wanted! Where is +Juba?" + +One of the negroes pressed forward. "Heah I is, Marse Duke! House all +ready for you, but you done sont word"-- + +"I know,--I know," answered Haward impatiently. "I changed my mind. Is +that you, Saunderson, with the light? Or is it Hide?" + +The candle moved to one side, and there was disclosed a large white face +atop of a shambling figure dressed in some coarse, dark stuff. "Neither, +sir," said an expressionless voice. "Will it please your Honor to +dismount?" + +Haward swung himself out of the saddle, tossed the reins to a negro, and, +with Juba at his heels, climbed the five low stone steps and entered the +wide hall running through the house and broken only by the broad, winding +stairway. Save for the glimmer of the solitary candle all was in darkness; +the bare floor, the paneled walls, echoed to his tread. On either hand +squares of blackness proclaimed the open doors of large, empty rooms, and +down the stair came a wind that bent the weak flame. The negro took the +light from the hand of the man who had opened the door, and, pressing past +his master, lit three candles in a sconce upon the wall. + +"Yo' room's all ready, Marse Duke," he declared. "Dere's candles enough, +an' de fire am laid an' yo' bed aired. Ef you wan' some supper, I kin get +you bread an' meat, an' de wine was put in yesterday." + +Haward nodded, and taking the candle began to mount the stairs. Half way +up he found that the man in the sad-colored raiment was following him. He +raised his brows, but being in a taciturn humor, and having, moreover, to +shield the flame from the wind that drove down the stair, he said nothing, +going on in silence to the landing, and to the great eastward-facing room +that had been his father's, and which now he meant to make his own. There +were candles on the table, the dresser, and the mantelshelf. He lit them +all, and the room changed from a place of shadows and monstrous shapes to +a gentleman's bedchamber,--somewhat sparsely furnished, but of a +comfortable and cheerful aspect. A cloth lay upon the floor, the windows +were curtained, and the bed had fresh hangings of green and white +Kidderminster. Over the mantel hung a painting of Haward and his mother, +done when he was six years old. Beneath the laughing child and the smiling +lady, young and flower-crowned, were crossed two ancient swords. In the +middle of the room stood a heavy table, and pushed back, as though some +one had lately risen from it, was an armchair of Russian leather. Books +lay upon the table; one of them open, with a horn snuffbox keeping down +the leaf. + +Haward seated himself in the great chair, and looked around him with a +thoughtful and melancholy smile. He could not clearly remember his mother. +The rings upon her fingers and her silvery laughter were all that dwelt in +his mind, and now only the sound of that merriment floated back to him and +lingered in the room. But his father had died upon that bed, and beside +the dead man, between the candles at the head and the candles at the foot, +he had sat the night through. The curtains were half drawn, and in their +shadow his imagination laid again that cold, inanimate form. Twelve years +ago! How young he had been that night, and how old he had thought himself +as he watched beside the dead, chilled by the cold of the crossed hands, +awed by the silence, half frighted by the shadows on the wall; now filled +with natural grief, now with surreptitious and shamefaced thoughts of his +changed estate,--yesterday son and dependent, to-day heir and master! +Twelve years! The sigh and the smile were not for the dead father, but for +his own dead youth, for the unjaded freshness of the morning, for the +world that had been, once upon a time. + +Turning in his seat, his eyes fell upon the man who had followed him, and +who was now standing between the table and the door. "Well, friend?" he +demanded. + +The man came a step or two nearer. His hat was in his hand, and his body +was obsequiously bent, but there was no discomposure in his lifeless voice +and manner. "I stayed to explain my presence in the house, sir," he said. +"I am a lover of reading, and, knowing my weakness, your overseer, who +keeps the keys of the house, has been so good as to let me, from time to +time, come here to this room to mingle in more delectable company than I +can choose without these walls. Your Honor doubtless remembers yonder +goodly assemblage?" He motioned with his hand toward a half-opened door, +showing a closet lined with well-filled bookshelves. + +"I remember," replied Haward dryly. "So you come to my room alone at +night, and occupy yourself in reading? And when you are wearied you +refresh yourself with my wine?" As he spoke he clinked together the bottle +and glass that stood beside the books. + +"I plead guilty to the wine," answered the intruder, as lifelessly as +ever, "but it is my only theft. I found the bottle below, and did not +think it would be missed. I trust that your Honor does not grudge it to a +poor devil who tastes Burgundy somewhat seldomer than does your Worship. +And my being in the house is pure innocence. Your overseer knew that I +would neither make nor meddle with aught but the books, or he would not +have given me the key to the little door, which I now restore to your +Honor's keeping." He advanced, and deposited upon the table a large key. + +"What is your name?" demanded Haward, leaning back in his chair. + +"Bartholomew Paris, sir. I keep the school down by the swamp, where I +impart to fifteen or twenty of the youth of these parts the rudiments of +the ancient and modern tongues, mathematics, geography, fortifications, +navigation, philosophy"-- + +Haward yawned, and the schoolmaster broke the thread of his discourse. "I +weary you, sir," he said. "I will, with your permission, take my +departure. May I make so bold as to beg your Honor that you will not +mention to the gentlemen hereabouts the small matter of this bottle of +wine? I would wish not to be prejudiced in the eyes of my patrons and +scholars." + +"I will think of it," Haward replied. "Come and take your snuffbox--if it +be yours--from the book where you have left it." + +"It is mine," said the man. "A present from the godly minister of this +parish." + +As he spoke he put out his hand to take the snuffbox. Haward leaned +forward, seized the hand, and, bending back the fingers, exposed the palm +to the light of the candles upon the table. + +"The other, if you please," he commanded. + +For a second--no longer--a wicked soul looked blackly out of the face to +which he had raised his eyes. Then the window shut, and the wall was blank +again. Without any change in his listless demeanor, the schoolmaster laid +his left hand, palm out, beside his right. + +"Humph!" exclaimed Haward. "So you have stolen before to-night? The marks +are old. When were you branded, and where?" + +"In Bristol, fifteen years ago," answered the man unblushingly. "It was +all a mistake. I was as innocent as a newborn babe"-- + +"But unfortunately could not prove it," interrupted Haward. "That is of +course. Go on." + +"I was transported to South Carolina, and there served out my term. The +climate did not suit me, and I liked not the society, nor--being of a +peaceful disposition--the constant alarms of pirates and buccaneers. So +when I was once more my own man I traveled north to Virginia with a party +of traders. In my youth I had been an Oxford servitor, and schoolmasters +are in demand in Virginia. Weighed in the scales with a knowledge of the +humanities and some skill in imparting them, what matters a little mishap +with hot irons? My patrons are willing to let bygones be bygones. My +school flourishes like a green bay-tree, and the minister of this parish +will speak for the probity and sobriety of my conduct. Now I will go, +sir." + +He made an awkward but deep and obsequious reverence, turned and went out +of the door, passing Juba, who was entering with a salver laden with bread +and meat and a couple of bottles. "Put down the food, Juba," said Haward, +"and see this gentleman out of the house." + +An hour later the master dismissed the slave, and sat down beside the +table to finish the wine and compose himself for the night. The overseer +had come hurrying to the great house, to be sent home again by a message +from the owner thereof that to-morrow would do for business; the negro +women who had been called to make the bed were gone; the noises from the +quarter had long ceased, and the house was very still. In his rich, +figured Indian nightgown and his silken nightcap, Haward sat and drank his +wine, slowly, with long pauses between the emptying and the filling of the +slender, tall-stemmed glass. A window was open, and the wind blowing in +made the candles to flicker. With the wind came a murmur of leaves and the +wash of the river,--stealthy and mournful sounds that sorted not with the +lighted room, the cheerful homeliness of the flowered hangings, the +gleeful lady and child above the mantelshelf. Haward felt the incongruity: +a slow sea voyage, and a week in that Virginia which, settled one hundred +and twenty years before, was yet largely forest and stream, had weaned +him, he thought, from sounds of the street, and yet to-night he missed +them, and would have had the town again. When an owl hooted in the +walnut-tree outside his window, and in the distance, as far away as the +creek quarter, a dog howled, and the silence closed in again, he rose, and +began to walk to and fro, slowly, thinking of the past and the future. The +past had its ghosts,--not many; what spectres the future might raise only +itself could tell. So far as mortal vision went, it was a rose-colored +future; but on such a night of silence that was not silence, of +loneliness that was filled with still, small voices, of heavy darkness +without, of lights burning in an empty house, it was rather of ashes of +roses that one thought. + +Haward went to the open window, and with one knee upon the window seat +looked out into the windy, starlit night. This was the eastern face of the +house, and, beyond the waving trees, there were visible both the river and +the second and narrower creek which on this side bounded the plantation. +The voice with which the waters swept to the sea came strongly to him. A +large white moth sailed out of the darkness to the lit window, but his +presence scared it away. + +Looking through the walnut branches, he could see a light that burned +steadily, like a candle set in a window. For a moment he wondered whence +it shone; then he remembered that the glebe lands lay in that direction. +The parish was building a house for its new minister, when he left +Virginia, those many years ago. Suddenly he recalled that the +minister--who had seemed to him a bluff, downright, honest fellow--had +told him of a little room looking out upon an orchard, and had said that +it should be the child's. + +It was possible that the star which pierced the darkness might mark that +room. He knit his brows in an effort to remember when, before this day, he +had last thought of a child whom he had held in his arms and comforted, +one splendid dawn, upon a hilltop, in a mountainous region. He came to the +conclusion that he must have forgotten her quite six years ago. Well, she +would seem to have thriven under his neglect,--and he saw again the girl +who had run for the golden guinea. It was true that when he had put her +there where that light was shining, it was with some shadowy idea of +giving her gentle breeding, of making a lady of her. But man's purposes +are fleeting, and often gone with the morrow. He had forgotten his +purpose; and perhaps it was best this way,--perhaps it was best this way. + +For a little longer he looked at the light and listened to the voice of +the river; then he rose from the window seat, drew the curtains, and began +thoughtfully to prepare for bed. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE RETURN OF MONSIEUR JEAN HUGON + + +To the north the glebe was bounded by a thick wood, a rank and dense +"second growth" springing from earth where had once stood, decorously +apart, the monster trees of the primeval forest; a wild maze of young +trees, saplings and underbrush, overrun from the tops of the slender, +bending pines to the bushes of dogwood and sassafras, and the rotting, +ancient stumps and fallen logs, by the uncontrollable, all-spreading vine. +It was such a fantastic thicket as one might look to find in fairyland, +thorny and impenetrable: here as tall as a ten years' pine, there sunken +away to the height of the wild honeysuckles; everywhere backed by blue +sky, heavy with odors, filled, with the flash of wings and the songs of +birds. To the east the thicket fell away to low and marshy grounds, where +tall cypresses grew, and myriads of myrtle bushes. Later in the year women +and children would venture in upon the unstable earth for the sake of the +myrtle berries and their yield of fragrant wax, and once and again an +outlying slave had been tracked by men and dogs to the dark recesses of +the place; but for the most part it was given over to its immemorial +silence. To the south and the west the tobacco fields of Fair View closed +in upon the glebe, taking the fertile river bank, and pressing down to the +crooked, slow-moving, deeply shadowed creek, upon whose farther bank +stood the house of the Rev. Gideon Darden. + +A more retired spot, a completer sequestration from the world of mart and +highway, it would have been hard to find. In the quiet of the early +morning, when the shadows of the trees lay across the dewy grass, it was +an angle of the earth as cloistral and withdrawn as heart of scholar or of +anchorite could wish. On one side of the house lay a tiny orchard, and the +windows of the living room looked out upon a mist of pink and white apple +blooms. The fragrance of the blossoms had been in the room, but could not +prevail against the odor of tobacco and rum lately introduced by the +master of the house and minister of the parish. Audrey, sitting beside a +table which had been drawn in front of the window, turned her face aside, +and was away, sense and soul, out of the meanly furnished room into the +midst of the great bouquets of bloom, with the blue between and above. +Darden, walking up and down, with his pipe in his mouth, and the tobacco +smoke curling like an aureole around his bullet head, glanced toward the +window. + +"When you have written that which I have told you to write, say so, +Audrey," he commanded. "Don't sit there staring at nothing!" + +Audrey came back to the present with a start, took up a pen, and drew the +standish nearer. "'Answer of Gideon Darden, Minister of Fair View Parish, +in Virginia, to the several Queries contained in my Lord Bishop of +London's Circular Letter to the Clergy in Virginia,'" she read, and poised +her pen in air. + +"Read out the questions," ordered Darden, "and write my answer to each in +the space beneath. No blots, mind you, and spell not after the promptings +of your woman's nature." + +Going to a side table, be mixed for himself, in an old battered silver +cap, a generous draught of bombo; then, with the drink in his hand, walked +heavily across the uncarpeted floor to his armchair, which creaked under +his weight as he sank into its leathern lap. He put down the rum and water +with so unsteady a hand that the liquor spilled, and when he refilled his +pipe half the contents of his tobacco box showered down upon his frayed +and ancient and unclean coat and breeches. From the pocket of the latter +he now drew forth a silver coin, which he balanced for a moment upon his +fat forefinger, and finally sent spinning across the table to Audrey. + +"'Tis the dregs of thy guinea, child, that Paris and Hugon and I drank at +the crossroads last night. 'Burn me,' says I to them, 'if that long-legged +lass of mine shan't have a drop in the cup!' And say Hugon"-- + +What Hugon said did not appear, or was confided to the depths of the +tankard which the minister raised to his lips. Audrey looked at the +splendid shilling gleaming upon the table beside her, but made no motion +toward taking it into closer possession. A little red had come into the +clear brown of her cheeks. She was a young girl, with her dreams and +fancies, and the golden guinea would have made a dream or two come true. + +"'Query the first,'" she read slowly, "'How long since you went to the +plantations as missionary?'" + +Darden, leaning back in his chair, with his eyes uplifted through the +smoke clouds to the ceiling, took his pipe from his mouth, for the better +answering of his diocesan. "'My Lord, thirteen years come St. Swithin's +day,'" he dictated. "'Signed, Gideon Darden.' Audrey, do not forget thy +capitals. Thirteen years! Lord, Lord, the years, how they fly! Hast it +down, Audrey?" + +Audrey, writing in a slow, fair, clerkly hand, made her period, and turned +to the Bishop's second question: "'Had you any other church before you +came to that which you now possess?'" + +"'No, my Lord,'" said the minister to the Bishop; then to the ceiling: "I +came raw from the devil to this parish. Audrey, hast ever heard children +say that Satan comes and walks behind me when I go through the forest?" + +"Yes," said Audrey, "but their eyes are not good. You go hand in hand." + +Darden paused in the lifting of his tankard. "Thy wits are brightening, +Audrey; but keep such observations to thyself. It is only the schoolmaster +with whom I walk. Go on to the next question." + +The Bishop desired to know how long the minister addressed had been +inducted into his living. The minister addressed, leaning forward, laid it +off to his Lordship how that the vestries in Virginia did not incline to +have ministers inducted, and, being very powerful, kept the poor servants +of the Church upon uneasy seats; but that he, Gideon Darden, had the love +of his flock, rich and poor, gentle and simple, and that in the first year +of his ministry the gentlemen of his vestry had been pleased to present +his name to the Governor for induction. Which explanation made, the +minister drank more rum, and looked out of the window at the orchard and +at his neighbor's tobacco. + +"You are only a woman, and can hold no office, Audrey," he said, "but I +will impart to you words of wisdom whose price is above rubies. Always +agree with your vestry. Go, hat in hand, to each of its members in turn, +craving advice as to the management of your own affairs. Thunder from the +pulpit against Popery, which does not exist in this colony, and the +Pretender, who is at present in Italy. Wrap a dozen black sheep of +inferior breed in white sheets and set them arow at the church door, but +make it stuff of the conscience to see no blemish in the wealthier and +more honorable portion of your flock. So you will thrive, and come to be +inducted into your living, whether in Virginia or some other quarter of +the globe. What's the worthy Bishop's next demand? Hasten, for Hugon is +coming this morning, and there's settlement to be made of a small bet, and +a hand at cards." + +By the circular letter and the lips of Audrey the Bishop proceeded to +propound a series of questions, which the minister answered with +portentous glibness. In the midst of an estimate of the value of a living +in a sweet-scented parish a face looked in at the window, and a dark and +sinewy hand laid before Audrey a bunch of scarlet columbine. + +"The rock was high," said a voice, "and the pool beneath was deep and +dark. Here are the flowers that waved from the rock and threw colored +shadows upon the pool." + +The girl shrank as from a sudden and mortal danger. Her lips trembled, her +eyes half closed, and with a hurried and passionate gesture she rose from +her chair, thrust from her the scarlet blooms, and with one lithe movement +of her body put between her and the window the heavy writing table. The +minister laid by his sum in arithmetic. + +"Ha, Hugon, dog of a trader!" he cried. "Come in, man. Hast brought the +skins? There's fire-water upon the table, and Audrey will be kind. Stay to +dinner, and tell us what lading you brought down river, and of your +kindred in the forest and your kindred in Monacan-Town." + +The man at the window shrugged his shoulders, lifted his brows, and spread +his hands. So a captain of Mousquetaires might have done; but the face was +dark-skinned, the cheek-bones were high, the black eyes large, fierce, and +restless. A great bushy peruke, of an ancient fashion, and a coarse, +much-laced cravat gave setting and lent a touch of grotesqueness and of +terror to a countenance wherein the blood of the red man warred with that +of the white. + +"I will not come in now," said the voice again. "I am going in my boat to +the big creek to take twelve doeskins to an old man named Taberer. I will +come back to dinner. May I not, ma'm'selle?" + +The corners of the lips went up, and the thicket of false hair swept the +window sill, so low did the white man bow; but the Indian eyes were +watchful. Audrey made no answer; she stood with her face turned away and +her eyes upon the door, measuring her chances. If Darden would let her +pass, she might reach the stairway and her own room before the trader +could enter the house. There were bolts to its heavy door, and Hugon might +do as he had done before, and talk his heart out upon the wrong side of +the wood. Thanks be! lying upon her bed and pressing the pillow over her +ears, she did not have to hear. + +At the trader's announcement that his present path led past the house, +she ceased her stealthy progress toward her own demesne, and waited, with +her back to the window, and her eyes upon one long ray of sunshine that +struck high against the wall. + +"I will come again," said the voice without, and the apparition was gone +from the window. Once more blue sky and rosy bloom spanned the opening, +and the sunshine lay in a square upon the floor. The girl drew a long +breath, and turning to the table began to arrange the papers upon it with +trembling hands. + +"'Sixteen thousand pounds of sweet-scented, at ten shillings the +hundredweight; for marriage by banns, five shillings; for the preaching of +a funeral sermon, forty shillings; for christening'"--began Darden for the +Bishop's information. Audrey took her pen and wrote; but before the list +of the minister's perquisites had come to an end the door flew open, and a +woman with the face of a vixen came hurriedly into the room. With her +entered the breeze from the river, driving before it the smoke wreaths, +and blowing the papers from the table to the floor. + +Darden stamped his foot. "Woman, I have business, I tell ye,--business +with the Bishop of London! I've kept his Lordship at the door this +se'nnight, and if I give him not audience Blair will presently be down uon +me with tooth and nail and his ancient threat of a visitation. Begone and +keep the house! Audrey, where are you, child?" + +"Audrey, leave the room!" commanded the woman. "I have something to say +that's not for your ears. Let her go, Darden. There's news, I tell you." + +The minister glanced at his wife; then knocked the ashes from his pipe and +nodded dismissal to Audrey. His late secretary slipped from her seat and +left the room, not without alacrity. + +"Well?" demanded Darden, when the sound of the quick young feet had died +away. "Open your budget, Deborah. There's naught in it, I'll swear, but +some fal-lal about your flowered gown or an old woman's black cat and +corner broomstick." + +Mistress Deborah Darden pressed her thin lips together, and eyed her lord +and master with scant measure of conjugal fondness. "It's about some one +nearer home than your bishops and commissaries," she said. "Hide passed by +this morning, going to the river field. I was in the garden, and he +stopped to speak to me. Mr. Haward is home from England. He came to the +great house last night, and he ordered his horse for ten o'clock this +morning, and asked the nearest way through the fields to the parsonage." + +Darden whistled, and put down his drink untasted. + +"Enter the most powerful gentleman of my vestry!" he exclaimed. "He'll be +that in a month's time. A member of the Council, too, no doubt, and with +the Governor's ear. He's a scholar and fine gentleman. Deborah, clear away +this trash. Lay out my books, fetch a bottle of Canary, and give me my +Sunday coat. Put flowers on the table, and a dish of bonchretiens, and get +on your tabby gown. Make your curtsy at the door; then leave him to me." + +"And Audrey?" said his wife. + +Darden, about to rise, sank back again and sat still, a hand upon either +arm of his chair. "Eh!" he said; then, in a meditative tone, "That is +so,--there is Audrey." + +"If he has eyes, he'll see that for himself," retorted Mistress Deborah +tartly. "'More to the purpose,' he'll say, 'where is the money that I +gave you for her?'" + +"Why, it's gone," answered Darden "Gone in maintenance,--gone in meat and +drink and raiment. He didn't want it buried. Pshaw, Deborah, he has quite +forgot his fine-lady plan! He forgot it years ago, I'll swear." + +"I'll send her now on an errand to the Widow Constance's," said the +mistress of the house. "Then before he comes again I'll get her a gown"-- + +The minister brought his hand down upon the table. "You'll do no such +thing!" he thundered. "The girl's got to be here when he comes. As for her +dress, can't she borrow from you? The Lord knows that though only the wife +of a poor parson, you might throw for gewgaws with a bona roba! Go trick +her out, and bring her here. I'll attend to the wine and the books." + +When the door opened again, and Audrey, alarmed and wondering, slipped +with the wind into the room, and stood in the sunshine before the +minister, that worthy first frowned, then laughed, and finally swore. + +"'Swounds, Deborah, your hand is out! If I hadn't taken you from service, +I'd swear that you were never inside a fine lady's chamber. What's the +matter with the girl's skirt?" + +"She's too tall!" cried the sometime waiting woman angrily. "As for that +great stain upon the silk, the wine made it when you threw your tankard at +me, last Sunday but one." + +"That manteau pins her arms to her sides," interrupted the minister +calmly, "and the lace is dirty. You've hidden all her hair under that +mazarine, and too many patches become not a brown skin. Turn around, +child!" + +While Audrey slowly revolved, the guardian of her fortunes, leaning back +in his chair, bent his bushy brows and gazed, not at the circling figure +in its tawdry apparel, but into the distance. When she stood still and +looked at him with a half-angry, half-frightened face, he brought his +bleared eyes to bear upon her, studied her for a minute, then motioned to +his wife. + +"She must take off this paltry finery, Deborah," he announced. "I'll have +none of it. Go, child, and don your Cinderella gown." + +"What does it all mean?" cried Audrey, with heaving bosom. "Why did she +put these things upon me, and why will she tell me nothing? If Hugon has +hand in it"-- + +The minister made a gesture of contempt. "Hugon! Hugon, half Monacan and +half Frenchman, is bartering skins with a Quaker. Begone, child, and when +you are transformed return to us." + +When the door had closed he turned upon his wife. "The girl has been cared +for," he said. "She has been fed,--if not with cates and dainties, then +with bread and meat; she has been clothed,--if not in silk and lace, then +in good blue linen and penistone. She is young and of the springtime, hath +more learning than had many a princess of old times, is innocent and good +to look at. Thou and the rest of thy sex are fools, Deborah, but wise men +died not with Solomon. It matters not about her dress." + +Rising, he went to a shelf of battered, dog-eared books, and taking down +an armful proceeded to strew the volumes upon the table. The red blooms of +the columbine being in the way, he took up the bunch and tossed it out of +the window. With the light thud of the mass upon the ground eyes of +husband and wife met. + +"Hugon would marry the girl," said the latter, twisting the hem of her +apron with restless fingers. + +Without change of countenance, Darden leaned forward, seized her by the +shoulder and shook her violently. "You are too given to idle and +meaningless words, Deborah," he declared, releasing her. "By the Lord, one +of these days I'll break you of the habit for good and all! Hugon, and +scarlet flowers, and who will marry Audrey, that is yet but a child and +useful about the house,--what has all this to do with the matter in hand, +which is simply to make ourselves and our house presentable in the eyes of +my chief parishioner? A man would think that thirteen years in Virginia +would teach any fool the necessity of standing well with a powerful +gentleman such as this. I'm no coward. Damn sanctimonious parsons and my +Lord Bishop's Scotch hireling! If they yelp much longer at my heels, I'll +scandalize them in good earnest! It's thin ice, though,--it's thin ice; +but I like this house and glebe, and I'm going to live and die in +them,--and die drunk, if I choose, Mr. Commissary to the contrary! It's of +import, Deborah, that my parishioners, being easy folk, willing to live +and let live, should like me still, and that a majority of my vestry +should not be able to get on without me. With this in mind, get out the +wine, dust the best chair, and be ready with thy curtsy. It will be time +enough to cry Audrey's banns when she is asked in marriage." + +Audrey, in her brown dress, with the color yet in her cheeks, entering at +the moment, Mistress Deborah attempted no response to her husband's +adjuration. Darden turned to the girl. "I've done with the writing for +the nonce, child," he said, "and need you no longer. I'll smoke a pipe and +think of my sermon. You're tired; out with you into the sunshine! Go to +the wood or down by the creek, but not beyond call, d'ye mind." + +Audrey looked from one to the other, but said nothing. There were many +things in the world of other people which she did not understand; one +thing more or less made no great difference. But she did understand the +sunlit roof, the twilight halls, the patterned floor of the forest. +Blossoms drifting down, fleeing shadows, voices of wind and water, and all +murmurous elfin life spoke to her. They spoke the language of her land; +when she stepped out of the door into the air and faced the portals of her +world, they called to her to come. Lithe and slight and light of foot, she +answered to their piping. The orchard through which she ran was fair with +its rosy trees, like gayly dressed curtsying dames; the slow, clear creek +that held the double of the sky enticed, but she passed it by. Straight as +an arrow she pierced to the heart of the wood that lay to the north. Thorn +and bramble, branch of bloom and entangling vine, stayed her not; long +since she had found or had made for herself a path to the centre of the +labyrinth. Here was a beech-tree, older by many a year than the young +wood,--a solitary tree spared by the axe what time its mates had fallen. +Tall and silver-gray the column of the trunk rose to meet wide branches +and the green lace-work of tender leaves. The earth beneath was clean +swept, and carpeted with the leaves of last year; a wide, dry, pale brown +enchanted ring, against whose borders pressed the riot of the forest. Vine +and bush, flower and fern, could not enter; but Audrey came and laid +herself down upon a cool and shady bed. + +By human measurement the house that she had left was hard by; even from +under the beech-tree Mistress Deborah's thin call could draw her back to +the walls which sheltered her, which she had been taught to call her home. +But it was not her soul's home, and now the veil of the kindly woods +withdrew it league on league, shut it out, made it as if it had never +been. From the charmed ring beneath the beech-tree she took possession of +her world; for her the wind murmured, the birds sang, insects hummed or +shrilled, the green saplings nodded their heads. Flowers, and the bedded +moss, and the little stream that leaped from a precipice of three feet +into the calm of a hand-deep pool spoke to her. She was happy. Gone was +the house and its inmates; gone Paris the schoolmaster, who had taught her +to write, and whose hand touching hers in guidance made her sick and cold; +gone Hugon the trader, whom she feared and hated. Here were no toil, no +annoy, no frightened flutterings of the heart; she had passed the +frontier, and was safe in her own land. + +She pressed her cheek against the dead leaves, and, with the smell of the +earth in her nostrils, looked sideways with half-closed eyes and made a +radiant mist of the forest round about. A drowsy warmth was in the air; +the birds sang far away; through a rift in the foliage a sunbeam came and +rested beside her like A gilded snake. + +For a time, wrapped in the warmth and the green and gold mist, she lay as +quiet as the sunbeam; of the earth earthy, in pact with the mould beneath +the leaves, with the slowly crescent trunks, brown or silver-gray, with +moss and lichened rock, and with all life that basked or crept or flew. At +last, however, the mind aroused, and she opened her eyes, saw, and thought +of what she saw. It was pleasant in the forest. She watched the flash of a +bird, as blue as the sky, from limb to limb; she listened to the elfin +waterfall; she drew herself with hand and arm across the leaves to the +edge of the pale brown ring, plucked a honeysuckle bough and brought it +back to the silver column of the beech; and lastly, glancing up from the +rosy sprig within her hand, she saw a man coming toward her, down the path +that she had thought hidden, holding his arm before him for shield against +brier and branch, and looking curiously about him as for a thing which he +had come out to seek. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE + + +In the moment in which she sprang to her feet she saw that it was not +Hugon, and her heart grew calm again. In her torn gown, with her brown +hair loosed from its fastenings, and falling over her shoulders in heavy +waves whose crests caught the sunlight, she stood against the tree beneath +which she had lain, gazed with wide-open eyes at the intruder, and guessed +from his fine coat and the sparkling toy looping his hat that he was a +gentleman. She knew gentlemen when she saw them: on a time one had cursed +her for scurrying like a partridge across the road before his horse, +making the beast come nigh to unseating him; another, coming upon her and +the Widow Constance's Barbara gathering fagots in the November woods, had +tossed to each a sixpence; a third, on vestry business with the minister, +had touched her beneath the chin, and sworn that an she were not so brown +she were fair; a fourth, lying hidden upon the bank of the creek, had +caught her boat head as she pushed it into the reeds, and had tried to +kiss her. They had certain ways, had gentlemen, but she knew no great harm +of them. There was one, now--but he would be like a prince. When at +eventide the sky was piled with pale towering clouds, and she looked, as +she often looked, down the river, toward the bay and the sea beyond, she +always saw this prince that she had woven--warp of memory, woof of +dreams--stand erect in the pearly light. There was a gentleman indeed! + +As to the possessor of the title now slowly and steadily making his way +toward her she was in a mere state of wonder. It was not possible that he +had lost his way; but if so, she was sorry that, in losing it, he had +found the slender zigzag of her path. A trustful child,--save where Hugon +was concerned,--she was not in the least afraid, and being of a friendly +mind looked at the approaching figure with shy kindliness, and thought +that he must have come from a distant part of the country. She thought +that had she ever seen him before she would have remembered it. + +Upon the outskirts of the ring, clear of the close embrace of flowering +bush and spreading vine. Haward paused, and looked with smiling eyes at +this girl of the woods, this forest creature that, springing from the +earth, had set its back against the tree. + +"Tarry awhile," he said. "Slip not yet within the bark. Had I known, I +should have brought oblation of milk and honey." + +"This is the thicket between Fair View and the glebe lands," said Audrey, +who knew not what bark of tree and milk and honey had to do with the case. +"Over yonder, sir, is the road to the great house. This path ends here; +you must go back to the edge of the wood, then turn to the south"-- + +"I have not lost my way," answered Haward, still smiling. "It is pleasant +here in the shade, after the warmth of the open. May I not sit down upon +the leaves and talk to you for a while? I came out to find you, you +know." + +As he spoke, and without waiting for the permission which he asked, he +crossed the rustling leaves, and threw himself down upon the earth between +two branching roots. Her skirt brushed his knee; with a movement quick and +shy she put more distance between them, then stood and looked at him with +wide, grave eyes. "Why do you say that you came here to find me?" she +asked. "I do not know you." + +Haward laughed, nursing his knee and looking about him. "Let that pass for +a moment. You have the prettiest woodland parlor, child! Tell me, do they +treat you well over there?" with a jerk of his thumb toward the glebe +house. "Madam the shrew and his reverence the bully, are they kind to you? +Though they let you go like a beggar maid,"--he glanced kindly enough at +her bare feet and torn gown,--"yet they starve you not, nor beat you, nor +deny you aught in reason?" + +Audrey drew herself up. She had a proper pride, and she chose to forget +for this occasion a bruise upon her arm and the thrusting upon her of +Hugon's company. "I do not know who you are, sir, that ask me such +questions," she said sedately. "I have food and shelter +and--and--kindness. And I go barefoot only of week days"-- + +It was a brave beginning, but of a sudden she found it hard to go on. She +felt his eyes upon her and knew that he was unconvinced, and into her own +eyes came the large tears. They did not fall, but through them she saw the +forest swim in green and gold. "I have no father or mother," she said, +"and no brother or sister. In all the world there is no one that is kin to +me." + +Her voice, that was low and full and apt to fall into minor cadences, +died away, and she stood with her face raised and slightly turned from the +gentleman who lay at her feet, stretched out upon the sere beech leaves. +He did not seem inclined to speech, and for a time the little brook and +the birds and the wind in the trees sang undisturbed. + +"These woods are very beautiful," said Haward at last, with his gaze upon +her, "but if the land were less level it were more to my taste. Now, if +this plain were a little valley couched among the hills, if to the +westward rose dark blue mountains like a rampart, if the runlet yonder +were broad and clear, if this beech were a sugar-tree"-- + +He broke off, content to see her eyes dilate, her bosom rise and fall, her +hand go trembling for support to the column of the beech. + +"Oh, the mountains!" she cried. "When the mist lifted, when the cloud +rested, when the sky was red behind them! Oh, the clear stream, and the +sugar-tree, and the cabin! Who are you? How did you know about these +things? Were you--were you there?" + +She turned upon him, with her soul in her eyes. As for him, lying at +length upon the ground, he locked his hands beneath his head and began to +sing, though scarce above his breath. He sang the song of Amiens:-- + + "Under the greenwood tree, + Who loves to lie with me." + +When he had come to the end of the stanza he half rose, and turned toward +the mute and breathless figure leaning against the beech-tree. For her the +years had rolled back: one moment she stood upon the doorstep of the +cabin, and the air was filled with the trampling of horses, with quick +laughter, whistling, singing, and the call of a trumpet; the next she ran, +in night-time and in terror, between rows of rustling corn, felt again the +clasp of her pursuer, heard at her ear the comfort of his voice. A film +came between her eyes and the man at whom she stared, and her heart grew +cold. + +"Audrey," said Haward, "come here, child." + +The blood returned to her heart, her vision cleared, and her arm fell from +its clasp upon the tree. The bark opened not; the hamadryad had lost the +spell. When at his repeated command she crossed to him, she went as the +trusting, dumbly loving, dumbly grateful child whose life he had saved, +and whose comforter, protector, and guardian he had been. When he took her +hands in his she was glad to feel them there again, and she had no blushes +ready when he kissed her upon the forehead. It was sweet to her who +hungered for affection, who long ago had set his image up, loving him +purely as a sovereign spirit or as a dear and great elder brother, to hear +him call her again "little maid;" tell her that she had not changed save +in height; ask her if she remembered this or that adventure, what time +they had strayed in the woods together. Remember! When at last, beneath +his admirable management, the wonder and the shyness melted away, and she +found her tongue, memories came in a torrent. The hilltop, the deep woods +and the giant trees, the house he had built for her out of stones and +moss, the grapes they had gathered, the fish they had caught, the +thunderstorm when he had snatched her out of the path of a stricken and +falling pine, an alarm of Indians, an alarm of wolves, finally the first +faint sounds of the returning expedition, the distant trumpet note, the +nearer approach, the bursting again into the valley of the Governor and +his party, the journey from that loved spot to Williamsburgh,--all sights +and sounds, thoughts and emotions, of that time, fast held through lonely +years, came at her call, and passed again in procession before them. +Haward, first amazed, then touched, reached at length the conclusion that +the years of her residence beneath the minister's roof could not have been +happy; that she must always have put from her with shuddering and horror +the memory of the night which orphaned her; but that she had passionately +nursed, cherished, and loved all that she had of sweet and dear, and that +this all was the memory of her childhood in the valley, and of that brief +season when he had been her savior, protector, friend, and playmate. He +learned also--for she was too simple and too glad either to withhold the +information or to know that she had given it--that in her girlish and +innocent imaginings she had made of him a fairy knight, clothing him in a +panoply of power, mercy, and tenderness, and setting him on high, so high +that his very heel was above the heads of the mortals within her ken. + +Keen enough in his perceptions, he was able to recognize that here was a +pure and imaginative spirit, strongly yearning after ideal strength, +beauty, and goodness. Given such a spirit, it was not unnatural that, +turning from sordid or unhappy surroundings as a flower turns from shadow +to the full face of the sun, she should have taken a memory of valiant +deeds, kind words, and a protecting arm, and have created out of these a +man after her own heart, endowing him with all heroic attributes; at one +and the same time sending him out into the world, a knight-errant without +fear and without reproach, and keeping him by her side--the side of a +child--in her own private wonderland. He saw that she had done this, and +he was ashamed. He did not tell her that that eleven-years-distant +fortnight was to him but a half-remembered incident of a crowded life, and +that to all intents and purposes she herself had been forgotten. For one +thing, it would have hurt her; for another, he saw no reason why he should +tell her. Upon occasion he could be as ruthless as a stone; if he were so +now he knew it not, but in deceiving her deceived himself. Man of a world +that was corrupt enough, he was of course quietly assured that he could +bend this woodland creature--half child, half dryad--to the form of his +bidding. To do so was in his power, but not his pleasure. He meant to +leave her as she was; to accept the adoration of the child, but to attempt +no awakening of the woman. The girl was of the mountains, and their +higher, colder, purer air; though he had brought her body thence, he would +not have her spirit leave the climbing earth, the dreamlike summits, for +the hot and dusty plain. The plain, God knew, had dwellers enough. + +She was a thing of wild and sylvan grace, and there was fulfillment in a +dark beauty all her own of the promise she had given as a child. About her +was a pathos, too,--the pathos of the flower taken from its proper soil, +and drooping in earth which nourished it not. Haward, looking at her, +watching the sensitive, mobile lips, reading in the dark eyes, beneath the +felicity of the present, a hint and prophecy of woe, felt for her a pity +so real and great that for the moment his heart ached as for some sorrow +of his own. She was only a young girl, poor and helpless, born of poor +and helpless parents dead long ago. There was in her veins no gentle +blood; she had none of the world's goods; her gown was torn, her feet went +bare. She had youth, but not its heritage of gladness: beauty, but none to +see it; a nature that reached toward light and height, and for its home +the house which he had lately left. He was a man older by many years than +the girl beside him, knowing good and evil; by instinct preferring the +former, but at times stooping, open-eyed, to that degree of the latter +which a lax and gay world held to be not incompatible with a convention +somewhat misnamed "the honor of a gentleman." Now, beneath the beech-tree +in the forest which touched upon one side the glebe, upon the other his +own lands, he chose at this time the good; said to himself, and believed +the thing he said, that in word and in deed he would prove himself her +friend. + +Putting out his hand he drew her down upon the leaves; and she sat beside +him, still and happy, ready to answer him when he asked her this or that, +readier yet to sit in blissful, dreamy silence. She was as pure as the +flower which she held in her hand, and most innocent in her imaginings. +This was a very perfect knight, a great gentleman, good and pitiful, that +had saved her from the Indians when she was a little girl, and had been +kind to her,--ah, so kind! In that dreadful night when she had lost father +and mother and brother and sister, when in the darkness her childish heart +was a stone for terror, he had come, like God, from the mountains, and +straightway she was safe. Now into her woods, from over the sea, he had +come again, and at once the load upon her heart, the dull longing and +misery, the fear of Hugon, were lifted. The chaplet which she laid at his +feet was not loosely woven of gay-colored flowers, but was compact of +austerer blooms of gratitude, reverence, and that love which is only a +longing to serve. The glamour was at hand, the enchanted light which +breaks not from the east or the west or the north or the south was upon +its way; but she knew it not, and she was happy in her ignorance. + +"I am tired of the city," he said. "Now I shall stay in Virginia. A +longing for the river and the marshes and the house where I was born came +upon me"-- + +"I know," she answered. "When I shut my eyes I see the cabin in the +valley, and when I dream it is of things which happen in a mountainous +country." + +"I am alone in the great house," he continued, "and the floors echo +somewhat loudly. The garden, too; beside myself there is no one to smell +the roses or to walk in the moonlight. I had forgotten the isolation of +these great plantations. Each is a province and a despotism. If the despot +has neither kith nor kin, has not yet made friends, and cares not to draw +company from the quarters, he is lonely. They say that there are ladies in +Virginia whose charms well-nigh outweigh their dowries of sweet-scented +and Oronoko. I will wed such an one, and have laughter in my garden, and +other footsteps than my own in my house." + +"There are beautiful ladies in these parts," said Audrey. "There is the +one that gave me the guinea for my running yesterday. She was so very +fair. I wished with all my heart that I were like her." + +"She is my friend," said Haward slowly, "and her mind is as fair as her +face. I will tell her your story." + +The gilded streak upon the earth beneath the beech had crept away, but +over the ferns and weeds and flowering bushes between the slight trees +without the ring the sunshine gloated. The blue of the sky was wonderful, +and in the silence Haward and Audrey heard the wind whisper in the +treetops. A dove moaned, and a hare ran past. + +"It was I who brought you from the mountains and placed you here," said +Haward at last. "I thought it for the best, and that when I sailed away I +left you to a safe and happy life. It seems that I was mistaken. But now +that I am at home again, child, I wish you to look upon me, who am so much +your elder, as your guardian and protector still. If there is anything +which you lack, if you are misused, are in need of help, why, think that +your troubles are the Indians again, little maid, and turn to me once more +for help!" + +Having spoken honestly and well and very unwisely, he looked at his watch +and said that it was late. When he rose to his feet Audrey did not move, +and when he looked down upon her he saw that her eyes, that had been wet, +were overflowing. He put out his hand, and she took it and touched it with +her lips; then, because he said that he had not meant to set her crying, +she smiled, and with her own hand dashed away the tears. + +"When I ride this way I shall always stop at the minister's house," said +Haward, "when, if there is aught which you need or wish, you must tell me +of it. Think of me as your friend, child." + +He laid his hand lightly and caressingly upon her head. The ruffles at his +wrist, soft, fine, and perfumed, brushed her forehead and her eyes. "The +path through your labyrinth to its beechen heart was hard to find," he +continued, "but I can easily retrace it. No, trouble not yourself, child. +Stay for a time where you are. I wish to speak to the minister alone." + +His hand was lifted. Audrey felt rather than saw him go. Only a few feet, +and the dogwood stars, the purple mist of the Judas-tree, the white +fragrance of a wild cherry, came like a painted arras between them. For a +time she could hear the movement of the branches as he put them aside; but +presently this too ceased, and the place was left to her and to all the +life that called it home. + +It was the same wood, surely, into which she had run two hours before, and +yet--and yet--When her tears were spent, and she stood up, leaning, with +her loosened hair and her gown that was the color of oak bark, against the +beech-tree, she looked about her and wondered. The wonder did not last, +for she found an explanation. + +"It has been blessed," said Audrey, with all reverence and simplicity, +"and that is why the light is so different." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +MACLEAN TO THE RESCUE + + +Saunderson, the overseer, having laboriously written and signed a pass, +laid down the quill, wiped his inky forefinger upon his sleeve, and gave +the paper to the storekeeper, who sat idly by. + +"Ye'll remember that the store chiefly lacks in broadcloth of Witney, +frieze and camlet, and in women's shoes, both silk and callimanco. And +dinna forget to trade with Alick Ker for three small swords, a chafing +dish, and a dozen mourning and hand-and-heart rings. See that you have the +skins' worth. Alick's an awfu' man to get the upper hand of." + +"I'm thinking a MacLean should have small difficulty with a Ker," said the +storekeeper dryly. "What I'm wanting to know is why I am saddled with the +company of Monsieur Jean Hugon." He jerked his thumb toward the figure of +the trader standing within the doorway. "I do not like the gentleman, and +I'd rather trudge it to Williamsburgh alone." + +"Ye ken not the value of the skins, nor how to show them off," answered +the other. "Wherefore, for the consideration of a measure of rum, he's +engaged to help you in the trading. As for his being half Indian, Gude +guide us! It's been told me that no so many centuries ago the Highlandmen +painted their bodies and went into battle without taking advantage even of +feathers and silk grass. One half of him is of the French nobeelity; he +told me as much himself. And the best of ye--sic as the Campbells--are no +better than that." + +He looked at MacLean with a caustic smile. The latter shrugged his +shoulders. "So long as you tie him neck and heels with a Campbell I am +content," he answered. "Are you going? I'll just bar the windows and lock +the door, and then I'll be off with yonder copper cadet of a French house. +Good-day to you. I'll be back to-night." + +"Ye'd better," said the overseer, with another widening of his thin lips. +"For myself, I bear ye no ill-will; for my grandmither--rest her +soul!--came frae the north, and I aye thought a Stewart better became the +throne than a foreign-speaking body frae Hanover. But if the store is not +open the morn I'll raise hue and cry, and that without wasting time. I've +been told ye're great huntsmen in the Highlands; if ye choose to turn red +deer yourself, I'll give ye a chase, _and trade ye down, man, and track ye +down_." + +MacLean half turned from the window. "I have hunted the red deer," he +said, "in the land where I was born, and which I shall see no more, and I +have been myself hunted in the land where I shall die. I have run until I +have fallen, and I have felt the teeth of the dogs. Were God to send a +miracle--which he will not do--and I were to go back to the glen and the +crag and the deep birch woods, I suppose that I would hunt again, would +drive the stag to bay, holloing to my hounds, and thinking the sound of +the horns sweet music in my ears. It is the way of the earth. Hunter and +hunted, we make the world and the pity of it." + +Setting to work again, he pushed to the heavy shutters. "You'll find them +open in the morning," he said, "and find me selling,--selling clothing +that I may not wear, wine that I may not drink, powder and shot that I may +not spend, swords that I may not use; and giving,--giving pride, manhood, +honor, heart's blood"-- + +He broke off, shot to the bar across the shutters, and betook himself in +silence to the other window, where presently he burst into a fit of +laughter. The sound was harsh even to savagery. "Go your ways, +Saunderson," he said. "I've tried the bars of the cage; they're too +strong. Stop on your morning round, and I'll give account of my trading." + +The overseer gone, the windows barred, and the heavy door shut and locked +behind him, MacLean paused upon the doorstep to look down upon his +appointed companion. The trader, half sitting, half reclining upon a log, +was striking at something with the point of his hunting-knife, lightly, +delicately, and often. The something was a lizard, about which, as it lay +in the sunshine upon the log, he had wrought a pen of leafy twigs. The +creature, darting for liberty this way and that, was met at every turn by +the steel, and at every turn suffered a new wound. MacLean looked; then +bent over and with a heavy stick struck the thing out of its pain. + +"There's a time to work and a time to play, Hugon," he said coolly. +"Playtime's over now. The sun is high, and Isaac and the oxen must have +the skins well-nigh to Williamsburgh. Up with you!" + +Hugon rose to his feet, slid his knife into its sheath, and announced in +good enough English that he was ready. He had youth, the slender, hardy, +perfectly moulded figure of the Indian, a coloring and a countenance that +were not of the white and not of the brown. When he went a-trading up the +river, past the thickly settled country, past the falls, past the French +town which his Huguenot father had helped to build, into the deep woods +and to the Indian village whence had strayed his mother, he wore the +clothing that became the woods,--beaded moccasins, fringed leggings, +hunting-shirt of deerskin, cap of fur,--looked his part and played it +well. When he came back to an English country, to wharves and stores, to +halls and porches of great houses and parlors of lesser ones, to the +streets and ordinaries of Williamsburgh, he pulled on jack boots, shrugged +himself into a coat with silver buttons, stuck lace of a so-so quality at +neck and wrists, wore a cocked hat and a Blenheim wig, and became a figure +alike grotesque and terrible. Two thirds of the time his business caused +him to be in the forests that were far away; but when he returned to +civilization, to stare it in the face and brag within himself, "I am lot +and part of what I see!" he dwelt at the crossroads ordinary, drank and +gamed with Paris the schoolmaster and Darden the minister, and dreamed (at +times) of Darden's Audrey. + +The miles to Williamsburgh were long and sunny, with the dust thick +beneath the feet. Warm and heavy, the scented spring possessed the land. +It was a day for drowsing in the shade: for them who must needs walk in +the sunshine, languor of thought overtook them, and sparsity of speech. +They walked rapidly, step with step, their two lean and sinewy bodies +casting the same length of shadow; but they kept their eyes upon the long +glare of white dust, and told not their dreams. At a point in the road +where the storekeeper saw only confused marks and a powdering of dust +upon the roadside bushes, the half-breed announced that there had been +that morning a scuffle in a gang of negroes; that a small man had been +thrown heavily to the earth, and a large man had made off across a low +ditch into the woods; that the overseer had parted the combatants, and +that some one's back had bled. No sooner was this piece of clairvoyance +aired than he was vexed that he had shown a hall-mark of the savage, and +hastily explained that life in the woods, such as a trader must live, +would teach any man--an Englishman, now, as well as a Frenchman--how to +read what was written on the earth. Farther on, when they came to a +miniature glen between the semblance of two hills, down which, in mockery +of a torrent, brabbled a slim brown stream, MacLean stood still, gazed for +a minute, then, whistling, caught up with his companion, and spoke at +length upon the subject of the skins awaiting them at Williamsburgh. + +The road had other travelers than themselves. At intervals a cloud of dust +would meet or overtake them, and out of the windows of coach or chariot or +lighter chaise faces would glance at them. In the thick dust wheels and +horses' hoofs made no noise, the black coachmen sat still upon the boxes, +the faces were languid with the springtime. A moment and all were gone. +Oftener there passed a horseman. If he were riding the planter's pace, he +went by like a whirlwind, troubling only to curse them out of his path; if +he had more leisure, he threw them a good-morning, or perhaps drew rein to +ask this or that of Hugon. The trader was well known, and was an authority +upon all matters pertaining to hunting or trapping. The foot passengers +were few, for in Virginia no man walked that could ride, and on a morn of +early May they that walked were like to be busy in the fields. An ancient +seaman, lame and vagabond, lurched beside them for a while, then lagged +behind; a witch, old and bowed and bleared of eye, crossed their path; and +a Sapony hunter, with three wolves' heads slung across his shoulder, +slipped by them on his way to claim the reward decreed by the Assembly. At +a turn of the road they came upon a small ordinary, with horses fastened +before it, and with laughter, oaths, and the rattling of dice issuing from +the open windows. The trader had money; the storekeeper had none. The +latter, though he was thirsty, would have passed on; but Hugon twitched +him by the sleeve, and producing from the depths of his great flapped +pocket a handful of crusadoes, ecues, and pieces of eight, indicated with +a flourish that he was prepared to share with his less fortunate +companion. + +They drank standing, kissed the girl who served them, and took to the road +again. There were no more thick woods, the road running in a blaze of +sunshine past clumps of cedars and wayside tangles of blackberry, sumac, +and elder. Presently, beyond a group of elms, came into sight the goodly +college of William and Mary, and, dazzling white against the blue, the +spire of Bruton church. + +Within a wide pasture pertaining to the college, close to the roadside and +under the boughs of a vast poplar, half a score of students were at play. +Their lithe young bodies were dark of hue and were not overburdened with +clothing; their countenances remained unmoved, without laughter or +grimacing; and no excitement breathed in the voices with which they +called one to another. In deep gravity they tossed a ball, or pitched a +quoit, or engaged in wrestling. A white man, with a singularly pure and +gentle face, sat upon the grass at the foot of the tree, and watched the +studious efforts of his pupils with an approving smile. + +"Wildcats to purr upon the hearth, and Indians to go to school!" quoth +MacLean. "Were you taught here, Hugon, and did you play so sadly?" + +The trader, his head held very high, drew out a large and bedizened +snuffbox, and took snuff with ostentation. "My father was of a great +tribe--I would say a great house--in the country called France," he +explained, with dignity. "Oh, he was of a very great name indeed! His +blood was--what do you call it?--_blue_. I am the son of my father: I am a +Frenchman. _Bien_! My father dies, having always kept me with him at +Monacan-Town; and when they have laid him full length in the ground, +Monsieur le Marquis calls me to him. 'Jean,' says he, and his voice is +like the ice in the stream, 'Jean, you have ten years, and your +father--may _le bon Dieu_ pardon his sins!--has left his wishes regarding +you and money for your maintenance. To-morrow Messieurs de Sailly and de +Breuil go down the river to talk of affairs with the English Governor. You +will go with them, and they will leave you at the Indian school which the +English have built near to the great college in their town of +Williamsburgh. There you will stay, learning all that Englishmen can teach +you, until you have eighteen years. Come back to me then, and with the +money left by your father you shall be fitted out as a trader. Go!' ... +Yes, I went to school here; but I learned fast, and did not forget the +things I learned, and I played with the English boys--there being no +scholars from France--on the other side of the pasture." + +He waved his hand toward an irruption of laughing, shouting figures from +the north wing of the college. The white man under the tree had been +quietly observant of the two wayfarers, and he now rose to his feet, and +came over to the rail fence against which they leaned. + +"Ha, Jean Hugon!" he said pleasantly, touching with his thin white hand +the brown one of the trader. "I thought it had been my old scholar! Canst +say the belief and the Commandments yet, Jean? Yonder great fellow with +the ball is Meshawa,--Meshawa that was a little, little fellow when you +went away. All your other playmates are gone,--though you did not play +much, Jean, but gloomed and gloomed because you must stay this side of the +meadow with your own color. Will you not cross the fence and sit awhile +with your old master?" + +As he spoke he regarded with a humorous smile the dusty glories of his +sometime pupil, and when he had come to an end he turned and made as if to +beckon to the Indian with the ball. But Hugon drew his hand away, +straightened himself, and set his face like a flint toward the town. "I am +sorry, I have no time to-day," he said stiffly. "My friend and I have +business in town with men of my own color. My color is white. I do not +want to see Meshawa or the others. I have forgotten them." + +He turned away, but a thought striking him his face brightened, and +plunging his hand into his pocket he again brought forth his glittering +store. "Nowadays I have money," he said grandly. "It used to be that +Indian braves brought Meshawa and the others presents, because they were +the sons of their great men. I was the son of a great man, too; but he was +not Indian and he was lying in his grave, and no one brought me gifts. Now +I wish to give presents. Here are ten coins, master. Give one to each +Indian boy, the largest to Meshawa." + +The Indian teacher, Charles Griffin by name, looked with a whimsical face +at the silver pieces laid arow upon the top rail. "Very well, Jean," he +said. "It is good to give of thy substance. Meshawa and the others will +have a feast. Yes, I will remember to tell them to whom they owe it. +Good-day to you both." + +The meadow, the solemnly playing Indians, and their gentle teacher were +left behind, and the two men, passing the long college all astare with +windows, the Indian school, and an expanse of grass starred with +buttercups, came into Duke of Gloucester Street. Broad, unpaved, deep in +dust, shaded upon its ragged edges by mulberries and poplars, it ran +without shadow of turning from the gates of William and Mary to the wide +sweep before the Capitol. Houses bordered it, flush with the street or set +back in fragrant gardens; other and narrower ways opened from it; half way +down its length wide greens, where the buttercups were thick in the grass, +stretched north and south. Beyond these greens were more houses, more +mulberries and poplars, and finally, closing the vista, the brick facade +of the Capitol. + +The two from Fair View plantation kept their forest gait; for the trader +was in a hurry to fulfill his part of the bargain, which was merely to +exhibit and value the skins. There was an ordinary in Nicholson Street +that was to his liking. Sailors gamed there, and other traders, and half +a dozen younger sons of broken gentlemen. It was as cleanly dining in its +chief room as in the woods, and the aqua vitae, if bad, was cheap. In good +humor with himself, and by nature lavish with his earnings, he offered to +make the storekeeper his guest for the day. The latter curtly declined the +invitation. He had bread and meat in his wallet, and wanted no drink but +water. He would dine beneath the trees on the market green, would finish +his business in town, and be half way back to the plantation while the +trader--being his own man, with no fear of hue and cry if he were +missed--was still at hazard. + +This question settled, the two kept each other company for several hours +longer, at the end of which time they issued from the store at which the +greater part of their business had been transacted, and went their several +ways,--Hugon to the ordinary in Nicholson Street, and MacLean to his +dinner beneath the sycamores on the green. When the frugal meal had been +eaten, the latter recrossed the sward to the street, and took up again the +round of his commissions. + +It was after three by the great clock in the cupola of the Capitol when he +stood before the door of Alexander Ker, the silversmith, and found +entrance made difficult by the serried shoulders of half a dozen young men +standing within the store, laughing, and making bantering speeches to some +one hidden from the Highlander's vision. Presently an appealing voice, +followed by a low cry, proclaimed that the some one was a woman. + +MacLean had a lean and wiry strength which had stood him in good stead +upon more than one occasion in his checkered career. He now drove an arm +like a bar of iron between two broadcloth coats, sent the wearers thereof +to right and left, and found himself one of an inner ring and facing +Mistress Truelove Taberer, who stood at bay against the silversmith's long +table. One arm was around the boy who had rowed her to the Fair View store +a week agone; with the other she was defending her face from the attack of +a beribboned gallant desirous of a kiss. The boy, a slender, delicate lad +of fourteen, struggled to free himself from his sister's restraining arm, +his face white with passion and his breath coming in gasps. "Let me go, +Truelove!" he commanded. "If I am a Friend, I am a man as well! Thou +fellow with the shoulder knots, thee shall pay dearly for thy insolence!" + +Truelove tightened her hold. "Ephraim, Ephraim! If a man compel thee to go +with him a mile, thee is to go with him twain; if he take thy cloak, thee +is to give him thy coat also; if he--Ah!" She buried her profaned cheek in +her arm and began to cry, but very softly. + +Her tormentors, flushed with wine and sworn to obtain each one a kiss, +laughed more loudly, and one young rake, with wig and ruffles awry, +lurched forward to take the place of the coxcomb who had scored. Ephraim +wrenched himself free, and making for this gentleman might have given or +received bodily injury, had not a heavy hand falling upon his shoulder +stopped him in mid-career. + +"Stand aside, boy," said MacLean, "This quarrel's mine by virtue of my +making it so. Mistress Truelove, you shall have no further annoyance. Now, +you Lowland cowards that cannot see a flower bloom but you wish to trample +it in the mire, come taste the ground yourself, and be taught that the +flower is out of reach!" + +As he spoke he stepped before the Quakeress, weaponless, but with his eyes +like steel. The half dozen spendthrifts and ne'er-do-weels whom he faced +paused but long enough to see that this newly arrived champion had only +his bare hands, and was, by token of his dress, undoubtedly their +inferior, before setting upon him with drunken laughter and the loudly +avowed purpose of administering a drubbing. The one that came first he +sent rolling to the floor. "Another for Hector!" he said coolly. + +The silversmith, ensconced in safety behind the table, wrung his hands. +"Sirs, sirs! Take your quarrel into the street! I'll no have fighting in +my store. What did ye rin in here for, ye Quaker baggage? Losh! did ye +ever see the like of that! Here, boy, ye can get through the window. Rin +for the constable! Rin, I tell ye, or there'll be murder done!" + +A gentleman who had entered the store unobserved drew his rapier, and with +it struck up a heavy cane which was in the act of descending for the +second time upon the head of the unlucky Scot. "What is all this?" he +asked quietly. "Five men against one,--that is hardly fair play. Ah, I see +there were six; I had overlooked the gentleman on the floor, who, I hope, +is only stunned. Five to one,--the odds are heavy. Perhaps I can make them +less so." With a smile upon his lips, he stepped backward a foot or two +until he stood with the weaker side. + +Now, had it been the constable who so suddenly appeared upon the scene, +the probabilities are that the fight, both sides having warmed to it, +would, despite the terrors of the law, have been carried to a finish. But +it was not the constable; it was a gentleman recently returned from +England, and become in the eyes of the youth of Williamsburgh the glass of +fashion and the mould of form. The youngster with the shoulder knots had +copied color and width of ribbon from a suit which this gentleman had worn +at the Palace; the rake with the wig awry, who passed for a wit, had done +him the honor to learn by heart portions of his play, and to repeat +(without quotation marks) a number of his epigrams; while the pretty +fellow whose cane he had struck up practiced night and morning before a +mirror his bow and manner of presenting his snuffbox. A fourth ruffler +desired office, and cared not to offend a prospective Councilor. There was +rumor, too, of a grand entertainment to be given at Fair View; it was good +to stand well with the law, but it was imperative to do so with Mr. +Marmaduke Haward. Their hands fell; they drew back a pace, and the wit +made himself spokesman. Roses were rare so early in the year; for him and +his companions, they had but wished to compliment those that bloomed in +the cheeks of the pretty Quakeress. This servant fellow, breathing fire +like a dragon, had taken it upon himself to defend the roses,--which +likely enough were grown for him,--and so had been about to bring upon +himself merited chastisement. However, since it was Mr. Marmaduke Haward +who pleaded for him--A full stop, a low bow, and a flourish. "Will Mr. +Haward honor me? 'Tis right Macouba, and the box--if the author of 'The +Puppet Show' would deign to accept it"-- + +"Rather to change with you, sir," said the other urbanely, and drew out +his own chased and medallioned box. + +The gentleman upon the floor had now gotten unsteadily to his feet. Mr. +Haward took snuff with each of the six; asked after the father of one, the +brother of another; delicately intimated his pleasure in finding the noble +order of Mohocks, that had lately died in London, resurrected in Virginia; +and fairly bowed the flattered youths out of the store. He stood for a +moment upon the threshold watching them go triumphantly, if unsteadily, up +the street; then turned to the interior of the store to find MacLean +seated upon a stool, with his head against the table, submitting with a +smile of pure content to the ministrations of the dove-like mover of the +late turmoil, who with trembling fingers was striving to bind her kerchief +about a great cut in his forehead. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +HAWARD AND EVELYN + + +MacLean put aside with much gentleness the hands of his surgeon, and, +rising to his feet, answered the question in Haward's eyes by producing a +slip of paper and gravely proffering it to the man whom he served. Haward +took it, read it, and handed it back; then turned to the Quaker maiden. +"Mistress Truelove Taberer," he said courteously. "Are you staying in +town? If you will tell me where you lodge, I will myself conduct you +thither." + +Truelove shook her head, and slipped her hand into that of her brother +Ephraim. "I thank thee, friend," she said, with gentle dignity, "and thee, +too, Angus MacLean, though I grieve that thee sees not that it is not +given us to meet evil with evil, nor to withstand force with force. +Ephraim and I can now go in peace. I thank thee again, friend, and thee." +She gave her hand first to Haward, then to MacLean. The former, knowing +the fashion of the Quakers, held the small fingers a moment, then let them +drop; the latter, knowing it, too, raised them to his lips and imprinted +upon them an impassioned kiss. Truelove blushed, then frowned, last of all +drew her hand away. + +With the final glimpse of her gray skirt the Highlander came back to the +present. "Singly I could have answered for them all, one after the other," +he said stiffly. "Together they had the advantage. I pay my debt and give +you thanks, sir." + +"That is an ugly cut across your forehead," replied Haward. "Mr. Ker had +best bring you a basin of water. Or stay! I am going to my lodging. Come +with me, and Juba shall dress the wound properly." + +MacLean turned his keen blue eyes upon him. "Am I to understand that you +give me a command, or that you extend to me an invitation? In the latter +case, I should prefer"-- + +"Then take it as a command," said Haward imperturbably. "I wish your +company. Mr. Ker, good-day; I will buy the piece of plate which you showed +me yesterday." + +The two moved down the room together, but at the door MacLean, with his +face set like a flint, stood aside, and Haward passed out first, then +waited for the other to come up with him. + +"When I drink a cup I drain it to the dregs," said the Scot. "I walk +behind the man who commands me. The way, you see, is not broad enough for +you and me and hatred." + +"Then let hatred lag behind," answered Haward coolly. "I have negroes to +walk at my heels when I go abroad. I take you for a gentleman, accept your +enmity an it please you, but protest against standing here in the hot +sunshine." + +With a shrug MacLean joined him. "As you please," he said. "I have in +spirit moved with you through London streets. I never thought to walk with +you in the flesh." + +It was yet warm and bright in the street, the dust thick, the air heavy +with the odors of the May. Haward and MacLean walked in silence, each as +to the other, one as to the world at large. Now and again the Virginian +must stop to bow profoundly to curtsying ladies, or to take snuff with +some portly Councilor or less stately Burgess who, coming from the +Capitol, chanced to overtake them. When he paused his storekeeper paused +also, but, having no notice taken of him beyond a glance to discern his +quality, needed neither a supple back nor a ready smile. + +Haward lodged upon Palace Street, in a square brick house, lived in by an +ancient couple who could remember Puritan rule in Virginia, who had served +Sir William Berkeley, and had witnessed the burning of Jamestown by Bacon. +There was a grassy yard to the house, and the path to the door lay through +an alley of lilacs, purple and white. The door was open, and Haward and +MacLean, entering, crossed the hall, and going into a large, low room, +into which the late sunshine was streaming, found the negro Juba setting +cakes and wine upon the table. + +"This gentleman hath a broken head, Juba," said the master. "Bring water +and linen, and bind it up for him." + +As he spoke he laid aside hat and rapier, and motioned MacLean to a seat +by the window. The latter obeyed the gesture in silence, and in silence +submitted to the ministrations of the negro. Haward, sitting at the table, +waited until the wound had been dressed; then with a wave of the hand +dismissed the black. + +"You would take nothing at my hands the other day," he said to the grim +figure at the window. "Change your mind, my friend,--or my foe,--and come +sit and drink with me." + +MacLean reared himself from his seat, and went stiffly over to the table. +"I have eaten and drunken with an enemy before to-day," he said. "Once I +met Ewin Mor Mackinnon upon a mountain side. He had oatcake in his +sporran, and I a flask of usquebaugh. We couched in the heather, and ate +and drank together, and then we rose and fought. I should have slain him +but that a dozen Mackinnons came up the glen, and he turned and fled to +them for cover. Here I am in an alien land; a thousand fiery crosses would +not bring one clansman to my side; I cannot fight my foe. Wherefore, then, +should I take favors at his hands?" + +"Why should you be my foe?" demanded Haward. "Look you, now! There was a +time, I suppose, when I was an insolent youngster like any one of those +who lately set upon you; but now I call myself a philosopher and man of a +world for whose opinions I care not overmuch. My coat is of fine cloth, +and my shirt of holland; your shirt is lockram, and you wear no coat at +all: _ergo_, saith a world of pretty fellows, we are beings of separate +planets. 'As the cloth is, the man is,'--to which doctrine I am at times +heretic. I have some store of yellow metal, and spend my days in ridding +myself of it,--a feat which you have accomplished. A goodly number of +acres is also counted unto me, but in the end my holding and your holding +will measure the same. I walk a level road; you have met with your +precipice, and, bruised by the fall, you move along stony ways; but +through the same gateway we go at last. Fate, not I, put you here. Why +should you hate me who am of your order?" + +MacLean left the table, and twice walked the length of the room, slowly +and with knitted brows. "If you mean the world-wide order,--the order of +gentlemen,"--he said, coming to a pause with the breadth of the table +between him and Haward, "we may have that ground in common. The rest is +debatable land. I do not take you for a sentimentalist or a redresser of +wrongs. I am your storekeeper, purchased with that same yellow metal of +which you so busily rid yourself; and your storekeeper I shall remain +until the natural death of my term, two years hence. We are not +countrymen; we own different kings; I may once have walked your level +road, but you have never moved in the stony ways; my eyes are blue, while +yours are gray; you love your melting Southern music, and I take no joy +save in the pipes; I dare swear you like the smell of lilies which I +cannot abide, and prefer fair hair in women where I would choose the dark. +There is no likeness between us. Why, then"-- + +Haward smiled, and drawing two glasses toward him slowly filled them with +wine. "It is true," he said, "that it is not my intention to become a +petitioner for the pardon of a rebel to his serene and German Majesty the +King; true also that I like the fragrance of the lily. I have my fancies. +Say that I am a man of whim, and that, living in a lonely house set in a +Sahara of tobacco fields, it is my whim to desire the acquaintance of the +only gentleman within some miles of me. Say that my fancy hath been caught +by a picture drawn for me a week agone; that, being a philosopher, I play +with the idea that your spirit, knife in hand, walked at my elbow for ten +years, and I knew it not. Say that the idea has for me a curious +fascination. Say, finally, that I plume myself that, given the chance, I +might break down this airy hatred." + +He set down the bottle, and pushed one of the brimming glasses across the +table. "I should like to make trial of my strength," he said, with, a +laugh. "Come! I did you a service to-day; in your turn do me a pleasure." + +MacLean dragged a chair to the table, and sat down. "I will drink with +you," he said, "and forget for an hour. A man grows tired--It is Burgundy, +is it not? Old Borlum and I emptied a bottle between us, the day he went +as hostage to Wills; since then I have not tasted wine. 'Tis a pretty +color." + +Haward lifted his glass. "I drink to your future. Freedom, better days, a +stake in a virgin land, friendship with a sometime foe." He bowed to his +guest and drank. + +"In my country," answered MacLean, "where we would do most honor, we drink +not to life, but to death. _Crioch onarach!_ Like a gentleman may you +die." He drank, and sighed with pleasure. + +"The King!" said Haward. There was a china bowl, filled with red anemones, +upon the table. MacLean drew it toward him, and, pressing aside the mass +of bloom, passed his glass over the water in the bowl. "The King! with all +my heart," he said imperturbably. + +Haward poured more wine. "I have toasted at the Kit-Kat many a piece of +brocade and lace less fair than yon bit of Quaker gray that cost you a +broken head. Shall we drink to Mistress Truelove Taberer?" + +By now the Burgundy had warmed the heart and loosened the tongue of the +man who had not tasted wine since the surrender of Preston. "It is but a +mile from the store to her father's house," he said. "Sometimes on +Sundays I go up the creek upon the Fair View side, and when I am over +against the house I holloa. Ephraim comes, in his boat and rows me across, +and I stay for an hour. They are strange folk, the Quakers. In her sight +and in that of her people I am as good a man as you. 'Friend Angus +MacLean,' 'Friend Marmaduke Haward,'--world's wealth and world's rank +quite beside the question." + +He drank, and commended the wine. Haward struck a silver bell, and bade +Juba bring another bottle. + +"When do you come again to the house at Fair View?" asked the storekeeper. + +"Very shortly. It is a lonely place, where ghosts bear me company. I hope +that now and then, when I ask it, and when the duties of your day are +ended, you will come help me exorcise them. You shall find welcome and +good wine." He spoke very courteously, and if he saw the humor of the +situation his smile betrayed him not. + +MacLean took a flower from the bowl, and plucked at its petals with +nervous fingers. "Do you mean that?" he asked at last. + +Haward leaned across the table, and their eyes met. "On my word I do," +said the Virginian. + +The knocker on the house door sounded loudly, and a moment later a woman's +clear voice, followed by a man's deeper tones, was heard in the hall. + +"More guests," said Haward lightly. "You are a Jacobite; I drink my +chocolate at St. James' Coffee House; the gentleman approaching--despite +his friendship for Orrery and for the Bishop of Rochester--is but a +Hanover Tory; but the lady,--the lady wears only white roses, and every +10th of June makes a birthday feast." + +The storekeeper rose hastily to take his leave, but was prevented both by +Haward's restraining gesture and by the entrance of the two visitors who +were now ushered in by the grinning Juba. Haward stepped forward. "You are +very welcome, Colonel. Evelyn, this is kind. Your woman told me this +morning that you were not well, else"-- + +"A migraine," she answered, in her clear, low voice. "I am better now, and +my father desired me to take the air with him." + +"We return to Westover to-morrow," said that sprightly gentleman. "Evelyn +is like David of old, and pines for water from the spring at home. It also +appears that the many houses and thronged streets of this town weary her, +who, poor child, is used to an Arcady called London! When will you come to +us at Westover, Marmaduke?" + +"I cannot tell," Haward answered. "I must first put my own house in order, +so that I may in my turn entertain my friends." + +As he spoke he moved aside, so as to include in the company MacLean, who +stood beside the table. "Evelyn," he said, "let me make known to you--and +to you, Colonel--a Scots gentleman who hath broken his spear in his tilt +with fortune, as hath been the luck of many a gallant man before him. +Mistress Evelyn Byrd, Colonel Byrd--Mr. MacLean, who was an officer in the +Highland force taken at Preston, and who has been for some years a +prisoner of war in Virginia." + +The lady's curtsy was low; the Colonel bowed as to his friend's friend. If +his eyebrows went up, and if a smile twitched the corners of his lips, the +falling curls of his periwig hid from view these tokens of amused wonder. +MacLean bowed somewhat stiffly, as one grown rusty in such matters. "I am +in addition Mr. Marmaduke Haward's storekeeper," he said succinctly, then +turned to the master of Fair View. "It grows late," he announced, "and I +must be back at the store to-night. Have you any message for Saunderson?" + +"None," answered Haward. "I go myself to Fair View to-morrow, and then I +shall ask you to drink with me again." + +As he spoke he held out his hand. MacLean looked at it, sighed, then +touched it with his own. A gleam as of wintry laughter came into his blue +eyes. "I doubt that I shall have to get me a new foe," he said, with +regret in his voice. + +When he had bowed to the lady and to her father, and had gone out of the +room and down the lilac-bordered path and through the gate, and when the +three at the window had watched him turn into Duke of Gloucester Street, +the master of Westover looked at the master of Fair View and burst out +laughing. "Ludwell hath for an overseer the scapegrace younger son of a +baronet; and there are three brothers of an excellent name under +indentures to Robert Carter. I have at Westover a gardener who annually +makes the motto of his house to spring in pease and asparagus. I have not +had him to drink with me yet, and t'other day I heard Ludwell give to the +baronet's son a hound's rating." + +"I do not drink with the name," said Haward coolly. "I drink with the man. +The churl or coward may pass me by, but the gentleman, though his hands be +empty, I stop." + +The other laughed again; then dismissed the question with a wave of his +hand, and pulled out a great gold watch with cornelian seals. "Carter +swears that Dr. Contesse hath a specific that is as sovereign for the gout +as is St. Andrew's cross for a rattlesnake bite. I've had twinges lately, +and the doctor lives hard by. Evelyn, will you rest here while I go +petition AEsculapius? Haward, when I have the recipe I will return, and +impart it to you against the time when you need it. No, no, child, stay +where you are! I will be back anon." + +Having waved aside his daughter's faint protest, the Colonel departed,--a +gallant figure of a man, with a pretty wit and a heart that was +benevolently gay. As he went down the path he paused to gather a sprig of +lilac. "Westover--Fair View," he said to himself, and smiled, and smelled +the lilac; then--though his ills were somewhat apocryphal--walked off at a +gouty pace across the buttercup-sprinkled green toward the house of Dr. +Contesse. + +Haward and Evelyn, left alone, kept silence for a time in the quiet room +that was filled with late sunshine and the fragrance of flowers. He stood +by the window, and she sat in a great chair, with her hands folded in her +lap, and her eyes upon them. When silence had become more loud than +speech, she turned in her seat and addressed herself to him. + +"I have known you do many good deeds," she said slowly. "That gentleman +that was here is your servant, is he not, and an exile, and unhappy? And +you sent him away comforted. It was a generous thing." + +Haward moved restlessly. "A generous thing," he answered. "Ay, it was +generous. I can do such things at times, and why I do them who can tell? +Not I! Do you think that I care for that grim Highlander, who drinks my +death in place of my health, who is of a nation that I dislike, and a +party that is not mine?" + +She shook her head. "I do not know. And yet you helped him." + +Haward left the window, and came and sat beside her. "Yes, I helped him. I +am not sure, but I think I did it because, when first we met, he told me +that he hated me, and meant the thing he said. It is my humor to fix my +own position in men's minds; to lose the thing I have that I may gain the +thing I have not; to overcome, and never prize the victory; to hunt down a +quarry, and feel no ardor in the chase; to strain after a goal, and yet +care not if I never reach it." + +He took her fan in his hand, and fell to counting the slender ivory +sticks. "I tread the stage as a fine gentleman," he said. "It is the part +for which I was cast, and I play it well with proper mien and gait. I was +not asked if I would like the part, but I think that I do like it, as much +as I like anything. Seeing that I must play it, and that there is that +within me which cries out against slovenliness, I play it as an artist +should. Magnanimity goes with it, does it not, and generosity, courtesy, +care for the thing which is, and not for that which seems? Why, then, with +these and other qualities I strive to endow the character." + +He closed the fan, and, leaning back in his chair, shaded his eyes with +his hand. "When the lights are out," he said; "when forever and a night +the actor bids the stage farewell; when, stripped of mask and tinsel, he +goes home to that Auditor who set him his part, then perhaps he will be +told what manner of man he is. The glass that now he dresses before tells +him not; but he thinks a truer glass would show a shrunken figure." + +He sat in silence for a moment; then laughed, and gave her back her fan. +"Am I to come to Westover, Evelyn?" he asked. "Your father presses, and I +have not known what answer to make him." + +"You will give us pleasure by your coming," she said gently and at once. +"My father wishes your advice as to the ordering of his library; and you +know that my pretty stepmother likes you well." + +"Will it please you to have me come?" he asked, with his eyes upon her +face. + +She met his gaze very quietly. "Why not?" she answered simply. "You will +help me in my flower garden, and sing with me in the evening, as of old." + +"Evelyn," he said, "if what I am about to say to you distresses you, lift +your hand, and I will cease to speak. Since a day and an hour in the woods +yonder, I have been thinking much. I wish to wipe that hour from your +memory as I wipe it from mine, and to begin afresh. You are the fairest +woman that I know, and the best. I beg you to accept my reverence, homage, +love; not the boy's love, perhaps; perhaps not the love that some men have +to squander, but _my_ love. A quiet love, a lasting trust, deep pride and +pleasure"-- + +At her gesture he broke off, sat in silence for a moment, then rising went +to the window, and with slightly contracted brows stood looking out at the +sunshine that was slipping away. Presently he was aware that she stood +beside him. + +She was holding out her hand. "It is that of a friend," she said. "No, do +not kiss it, for that is the act of a lover. And you are not my +lover,--oh, not yet, not yet!" A soft, exquisite blush stole over her face +and neck, but she did not lower her lovely candid eyes. "Perhaps some day, +some summer day at Westover, it will all be different," she breathed, and +turned away. + +Haward caught her hand, and bending pressed his lips upon it. "It is +different now!" he cried. "Next week I shall come to Westover!" + +He led her back to the great chair, and presently she asked some question +as to the house at Fair View. He plunged into an account of the cases of +goods which had followed him from England by the Falcon, and which now lay +in the rooms that were yet to be swept and garnished; then spoke lightly +and whimsically of the solitary state in which he must live, and of the +entertainments which, to be in the Virginia fashion, he must give. While +he talked she sat and watched him, with the faint smile upon her lips. The +sunshine left the floor and the wall, and a dankness from the long grass +and the closing flowers and the heavy trees in the adjacent churchyard +stole into the room. With the coming of the dusk conversation languished, +and the two sat in silence until the return of the Colonel. + +If that gentleman did not light the darkness like a star, at least his +entrance into a room invariably produced the effect of a sudden accession +of was lights, very fine and clear and bright. He broke a jest or two, +bade laughing farewell to the master of Fair View, and carried off his +daughter upon his arm. Haward walked with them to the gate, and came back +alone, stepping thoughtfully between the lilac bushes. + +It was not until Juba had brought candles, and he had taken his seat at +table before the half-emptied bottle of wine, that it came to Haward that +he had wished to tell Evelyn of the brown girl who had run for the guinea, +but had forgotten to do so. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +AUDREY OF THE GARDEN + + +The creek that ran between Fairview and the glebe lands was narrow and +deep; upon it, moored to a stake driven into a bit of marshy ground below +the orchard, lay a crazy boat belonging to the minister. To this boat, of +an early, sunny morning, came Audrey, and, standing erect, pole in hand, +pushed out from the reedy bank into the slow-moving stream. It moved so +slowly and was so clear that its depth seemed the blue depth of the sky, +with now and then a tranquil cloud to be glided over. The banks were low +and of the greenest grass, save where they sank still lower and reeds +abounded, or where some colored bush, heavy with bloom, bent to meet its +reflected image. It was so fair that Audrey began to sing as she went down +the stream; and without knowing why she chose it, she sang a love song +learned out of one of Darden's ungodly books, a plaintive and passionate +lay addressed by some cavalier to his mistress of an hour. She sang not +loudly, but very sweetly; carelessly, too, and as if to herself; now and +then repeating a line twice or maybe thrice; pleased with the sweet +melancholy of the notes, but not thinking overmuch of the meaning of the +words. They died upon her lips when Hugon rose from a lair of reeds and +called to her to stop. "Come to the shore, ma'm'selle!" he cried. "See, I +have brought you a ribbon from the town. Behold!" and he fluttered a +crimson streamer. + +Audrey caught her breath; then gazed, reassured, at the five yards of +water between her and the bank. Had Hugon stood there in his hunting +dress, she would have felt them no security; but he was wearing his coat +and breeches of fine cloth, his ruffled shirt, and his great black +periwig. A wetting would not be to his mind. + +As she answered not, but went on her way, silent now, and with her slender +figure bending with the motion of the pole, he frowned and shrugged; then +took up his pilgrimage, and with his light and swinging stride kept +alongside of the boat. The ribbon lay across his arm, and he turned it in +the sunshine. "If you come not and get it," he wheedled, "I will throw it +in the water." + +The angry tears sprang to Audrey's eyes. "Do so, and save me the trouble," +she answered, and then was sorry that she had spoken. + +The red came into the swarthy cheeks of the man upon the bank. "You love +me not," he said. "Good! You have told me so before. But here I am!" + +"Then here is a coward!" said Audrey. "I do not wish you to walk there. I +do not wish you to speak to me. Go back!" + +Hugon's teeth began to show. "I go not," he answered, with something +between a snarl and a smirk. "I love you, and I follow on your path,--like +a lover." + +"Like an Indian!" cried the girl. + +The arrow pierced the heel. The face which he turned upon her was the face +of a savage, made grotesque and horrible, as war-paint and feathers could +not have made it, by the bushy black wig and the lace cravat. + +"Audrey!" he called. "Morning Light! Sunshine in the Dark! Dancing Water! +Audrey that will not be called 'mademoiselle' nor have the wooing of the +son of a French chief! Then shall she have the wooing of the son of a +Monacan woman. I am a hunter. I will woo as they woo in the woods." + +Audrey bent to her pole, and made faster progress down the creek. Her +heart was hot and angry, and yet she was afraid. All dreadful things, all +things that oppressed with horror, all things that turned one white and +cold, so cold and still that one could not run away, were summed up for +her in the word "Indian." To her the eyes of Hugon were basilisk +eyes,--they drew her and held her; and when she looked into them, she saw +flames rising and bodies of murdered kindred; then the mountains loomed +above her again, and it was night-time, and she was alone save for the +dead, and mad with fear and with the quiet. + +The green banks went by, and the creek began to widen. "Where are you +going?" called the trader. "Wheresoever you go, at the end of your path +stand my village and my wigwam. You cannot stay all day in that boat. If +you come not back at the bidden hour, Darden's squaw will beat you. Come +over, Morning Light, come over, and take me in your boat, and tie your +hair with my gift. I will not hurt you. I will tell you the French love +songs that my father sang to my mother. I will speak of land that I have +bought (oh, I have prospered, ma'm'selle!), and of a house that I mean to +build, and of a woman that I wish to put in the house,--a Sunshine in the +Dark to greet me when I come from my hunting in the great forests beyond +the falls, from my trading with the nation of the Tuscaroras, with the +villages of the Monacans. Come over to me, Morning Light!" + +The creek widened and widened, then doubled a grassy cape all in the +shadow of a towering sycamore. Beyond the point, crowning the low green +slope of the bank, and topped with a shaggy fell of honeysuckle and ivy, +began a red brick wall. Half way down its length it broke, and six shallow +steps led up to an iron gate, through whose bars one looked into a garden. +Gazing on down the creek past the farther stretch of the wall, the eye +came upon the shining reaches of the river. + +Audrey turned the boat's head toward the steps and the gate in the wall. +The man on the opposite shore let fall an oath. + +"So you go to Fair View house!" he called across the stream. "There are +only negroes there, unless"--he came to a pause, and his face changed +again, and out of his eyes looked the spirit of some hot, ancestral French +lover, cynical, suspicious, and jealously watchful--"unless their master +is at home," he ended, and laughed. + +Audrey touched the wall, and over a great iron hook projecting therefrom +threw a looped rope, and fastened her boat. + +"I stay here until you come forth!" swore Hugon from across the creek. +"And then I follow you back to where you must moor the boat. And then I +shall walk with you to the minister's house. Until we meet again, +ma'm'selle!" + +Audrey answered not, but sped up the steps to the gate. A sick fear lest +it should be locked possessed her; but it opened at her touch, disclosing +a long, sunny path, paved with brick, and shut between lines of tall, +thick, and smoothly clipped box. The gate clanged to behind her; ten +steps, and the boat, the creek, and the farther shore were hidden from her +sight. With this comparative bliss came a faintness and a trembling that +presently made her slip down upon the warm and sunny floor, and lie there, +with her face within her arm and the tears upon her cheeks. The odor of +the box wrapped her like a mantle; a lizard glided past her; somewhere in +open spaces birds were singing; finally a greyhound came down the path, +and put its nose into the hollow of her hand. + +She rose to her knees, and curled her arm around the dog's neck; then, +with a long sigh, stood up, and asked of herself if this were the way to +the house. She had never seen the house at close range, had never been in +this walled garden. It was from Williamsburgh that the minister had taken +her to his home, eleven years before. Sometimes from the river, in those +years, she had seen, rising above the trees, the steep roof and the upper +windows; sometimes upon the creek she had gone past the garden wall, and +had smelled the flowers upon the other side. + +In her lonely life, with the beauty of the earth about her to teach her +that there might be greater beauty that she yet might see with a daily +round of toil and sharp words to push her to that escape which lay in a +world of dreams, she had entered that world, and thrived therein. It was a +world that was as pure as a pearl, and more fantastic than an Arabian +tale. She knew that when she died she could take nothing out of life with +her to heaven. But with this other world it was different, and all that +she had or dreamed of that was fair she carried through its portals. This +house was there. Long closed, walled in, guarded by tall trees, seen at +far intervals and from a distance, as through a glass darkly, it had +become to her an enchanted spot, about which played her quick fancy, but +where her feet might never stray. + +But now the spell which had held the place in slumber was snapped, and her +feet was set in its pleasant paths. She moved down the alley between the +lines of box, and the greyhound went with her. The branches of a +walnut-tree drooped heavily across the way; when she had passed them she +saw the house, square, dull red, bathed in sunshine. A moment, and the +walk led her between squat pillars of living green into the garden out of +the fairy tale. + +Dim, fragrant, and old time; walled in; here sunshiny spaces, there cool +shadows of fruit-trees; broken by circles and squares of box; green with +the grass and the leaves, red and purple and gold and white with the +flowers; with birds singing, with the great silver river murmuring by +without the wall at the foot of the terrace, with the voice of a man who +sat beneath a cherry-tree reading aloud to himself,--such was the garden +that she came upon, a young girl, and heavy at heart. + +She was so near that she could hear the words of the reader, and she knew +the piece that he was reading; for you must remember that she was not +untaught, and that Darden had books. + + "'When from the censer clouds of fragrance roll, + And swelling organs lift the rising soul, + One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight, + Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight'"-- + +The greyhound ran from Audrey to the man who was reading these verses +with taste and expression, and also with a smile half sad and half +cynical. He glanced from his page, saw the girl where she stood against +the dark pillar of the box, tossed aside the book, and went to her down +the grassy path between rows of nodding tulips. "Why, child!" he said. +"Did you come up like a flower? I am glad to see you in my garden, little +maid. Are there Indians without?" + +At least, to Audrey, there were none within. She had been angered, sick at +heart and sore afraid, but she was no longer so. In this world that she +had entered it was good to be alive; she knew that she was safe, and of a +sudden she felt that the sunshine was very golden, the music very sweet. +To Haward, looking at her with a smile, she gave a folded paper which she +drew from the bosom of her gown. "The minister sent me with it," she +explained, and curtsied shyly. + +Haward took the paper, opened it, and fell to poring over the crabbed +characters with which it was adorned. "Ay? Gratulateth himself that this +fortunate parish hath at last for vestryman Mr. Marmaduke Haward; knoweth +that, seeing I am what I am, my influence will be paramount with said +vestry; commendeth himself to my favor; beggeth that I listen not to +charges made by a factious member anent a vastly magnified occurrence at +the French ordinary; prayeth that he may shortly present himself at Fair +View, and explain away certain calumnies with which his enemies have +poisoned the ears of the Commissary; hopeth that I am in good health; and +is my very obedient servant to command. Humph!" + +He let the paper flutter to the ground, and turned to Audrey with a +kindly smile. "I am much afraid that this man of the church, whom I gave +thee for guardian, child, is but a rascal, after all, and a wolf in +sheep's clothing. But let him go hang while I show you my garden." + +Going closer, he glanced at her keenly; then went nearer still, and +touched her cheek with his forefinger. "You have been crying," he said. +"There _were_ Indians, then. How many and how strong, Audrey?" + +The dark eyes that met his were the eyes of the child who, in the +darkness, through the corn, had run from him, her helper. "There was one," +she whispered, and looked over her shoulder. + +Haward drew her to the seat beneath the cherry-tree, and there, while he +sat beside her, elbow on knee and chin on hand, watching her, she told him +of Hugon. It was so natural to tell him. When she had made an end of her +halting, broken sentences, and he spoke to her gravely and kindly, she +hung upon his words, and thought him wise and wonderful as a king. He told +her that he would speak to Darden, and did not despair of persuading that +worthy to forbid the trader his house. Also he told her that in this +settled, pleasant, every-day Virginia, and in the eighteenth century, a +maid, however poor and humble, might not be married against her will. If +this half-breed had threats to utter, there was always the law of the +land. A few hours in the pillory or a taste of the sheriff's whip might +not be amiss. Finally, if the trader made his suit again, Audrey must let +him know, and Monsieur Jean Hugon should be taught that he had another +than a helpless, friendless girl to deal with. + +Audrey listened and was comforted, but the shadow did not quite leave her +eyes. "He is waiting for me now," she said fearfully to Haward, who had +not missed the shadow. "He followed me down the creek, and is waiting over +against the gate in the wall. When I go back he will follow me again, and +at last I will have to cross to his side. And then he will go home with +me, and make me listen to him. His eyes burn me, and when his hand touches +me I see--I see"-- + +Her frame shook, and she raised to his gaze a countenance suddenly changed +into Tragedy's own. "I don't know why," she said, in a stricken voice, +"but of them all that I kissed good-by that night I now see only Molly. I +suppose she was about as old as I am when they killed her. We were always +together. I can't remember her face very clearly; only her eyes, and how +red her lips were. And her hair: it came to her knees, and mine is just as +long. For a long, long time after you went away, when I could not sleep +because it was dark, or when I was frightened or Mistress Deborah beat me, +I saw them all; but now I see only Molly,--Molly lying there _dead_." + +There was a silence in the garden, broken presently by Haward. "Ay, +Molly," he said absently. + +With his hand covering his lips and his eyes upon the ground, he fell into +a brown study. Audrey sat very still for fear that she might disturb him, +who was so kind to her. A passionate gratitude filled her young heart; she +would have traveled round the world upon her knees to serve him. As for +him, he was not thinking of the mountain girl, the oread who, in the days +when he was younger and his heart beat high, had caught his light fancy, +tempting him from his comrades back to the cabin in the valley, to look +again into her eyes and touch the brown waves of her hair. She was ashes, +and the memory of her stirred him not. + +At last he looked up. "I myself will take you home, child. This fellow +shall not come near you. And cease to think of these gruesome things that +happened long ago. You are young and fair; you should be happy. I will see +to it that"-- + +He broke off, and again looked thoughtfully at the ground. The book which +he had tossed aside was lying upon the grass, open at the poem which he +had been reading. He stooped and raised the volume, and, closing it, laid +it upon the bench beside her. Presently he laughed. "Come, child!" he +said. "You have youth. I begin to think my own not past recall. Come and +let me show you my dial that I have just had put up." + +There was no load at Audrey's heart: the vision of Molly had passed; the +fear of Hugon was a dwindling cloud. She was safe in this old sunny +garden, with harm shut without. And as a flower opens to the sunshine, so +because she was happy she grew more fair. Audrey every day, Audrey of the +infrequent speech and the wide dark eyes, the startled air, the shy, +fugitive smiles,--that was not Audrey of the garden. Audrey of the garden +had shining eyes, a wild elusive grace, laughter as silvery as that which +had rung from her sister's lips, years agone, beneath the sugar-tree in +the far-off blue mountains, quick gestures, quaint fancies which she +feared not to speak out, the charm of mingled humility and spirit; enough, +in short, to make Audrey of the garden a name to conjure with. + +They came to the sun-dial, and leaned thereon. Around its rim were graved +two lines from Herrick, and Audrey traced the letters with her finger. +"The philosophy is sound," remarked Haward, "and the advice worth the +taking. Let us go see if there are any rosebuds to gather from the bushes +yonder. Damask buds should look well against your hair, child." + +When they came to the rosebushes he broke for her a few scarce-opened +buds, and himself fastened them in the coils of her hair. Innocent and +glad as she was,--glad even that he thought her fair,--she trembled +beneath his touch, and knew not why she trembled. When the rosebuds were +in place they went to see the clove pinks, and when they had seen the +clove pinks they walked slowly up another alley of box, and across a grass +plot to a side door of the house; for he had said that he must show her in +what great, lonely rooms he lived. + +Audrey measured the height and breadth of the house with her eyes. "It is +a large place for one to live in alone," she said, and laughed. "There's a +book at the Widow Constance's; Barbara once showed it to me. It is all +about a pilgrim; and there's a picture of a great square house, quite like +this, that was a giant's castle,--Giant Despair. Good giant, eat me not!" + +Child, woman, spirit of the woodland, she passed before him into a dim, +cool room, all littered with books. "My library," said Haward, with a wave +of his hand. "But the curtains and pictures are not hung, nor the books in +place. Hast any schooling, little maid? Canst read?" + +Audrey flushed with pride that she could tell him that she was not +ignorant; not like Barbara, who could not read the giant's name in the +pilgrim book. + +"The crossroads schoolmaster taught me," she explained. "He has a scar in +each hand, and is a very wicked man, but he knows more than the Commissary +himself. The minister, too, has a cupboard filled with books, and he buys +the new ones as the ships bring them in. When I have time, and Mistress +Deborah will not let me go to the woods, I read. And I remember what I +read. I could"-- + +A smile trembled upon her lips, and her eyes grew brighter. Fired by the +desire that he should praise her learning, and in her very innocence bold +as a Wortley or a Howe, she began to repeat the lines which he had been +reading beneath the cherry-tree:-- + + "'When from the censer clouds of fragrance roll'"-- + +The rhythm of the words, the passion of the thought, the pleased surprise +that she thought she read in his face, the gesture of his hand, all +spurred her on from line to line, sentence to sentence. And now she was +not herself, but that other woman, and she was giving voice to all her +passion, all her woe. The room became a convent cell; her ragged dress the +penitent's trailing black. That Audrey, lithe of mind as of body; who in +the woods seemed the spirit of the woods, in the garden the spirit of the +garden, on the water the spirit of the water,--that this Audrey, in using +the speech of the poet, should embody and become the spirit of that speech +was perhaps, considering all things, not so strange. At any rate, and +however her power came about, at that moment, in Fair View house, a great +actress was speaking. + + "'Fresh blooming Hope, gay daughter of the skies, + And Faith'"-- + +The speaker lost a word, hesitated, became confused. Finally silence; +then the Audrey of a while before, standing with heaving bosom, shy as a +fawn, fearful that she had not pleased him, after all. For if she had done +so, surely he would have told her as much. As it was, he had said but one +word, and that beneath his breath, "_Eloisa!_" + +It would seem that her fear was unfounded; for when he did speak, there +were, God wot, sugar-plums enough. And Audrey, who in her workaday world +was always blamed, could not know that the praise that was so sweet was +less wholesome than the blame. + +Leaving the library they went into the hall, and from the hall looked into +great, echoing, half-furnished rooms. All about lay packing-cases, many of +them open, with rich stuffs streaming from them. Ornaments were huddled on +tables, mirrors and pictures leaned their faces to the walls; everywhere +was disorder. + +"The negroes are careless, and to-day I held their hands," said Haward. "I +must get some proper person to see to this gear." + +Up stairs and down they went through the house, that seemed very large and +very still, and finally they came out of the great front door, and down +the stone steps on to the terrace. Below them, sparkling in the sunshine, +lay the river, the opposite shore all in a haze of light. "I must go +home," Audrey shyly reminded him, whereat he smiled assent, and they went, +not through the box alley to the gate in the wall, but down the terrace, +and out upon the hot brown boards of the landing. Haward, stepping into a +boat, handed her to a seat in the stern, and himself took the oars. +Leaving the landing, they came to the creek and entered it. Presently +they were gliding beneath the red brick wall with the honeysuckle atop. On +the opposite grassy shore, seated in a blaze of noon sunshine, was Hugon. + +They in the boat took no notice. Haward, rowing, spoke evenly on, his +theme himself and the gay and lonely life he had led these eleven years; +and Audrey, though at first sight of the waiting figure she had paled and +trembled, was too safe, too happy, to give to trouble any part of this +magic morning. She kept her eyes on Haward's face, and almost forgot the +man who had risen from the grass and in silence was following them. + +Now, had the trader, in his hunting shirt and leggings, his moccasins and +fur cap, been walking in the great woods, this silence, even with others +in company, would have been natural enough to his Indian blood; but +Monsieur Jean Hugon, in peruke and laced coat, walking in a civilized +country, with words a-plenty and as hot as fire-water in his heart, and +none upon his tongue, was a figure strange and sinister. He watched the +two in the boat with an impassive face, and he walked like an Indian on an +enemy's trail, so silently that he scarce seemed to breathe, so lightly +that his heavy boots failed to crush the flowers or the tender grass. + +Haward rowed on, telling Audrey stories of the town, of great men whose +names she knew, and beautiful ladies of whom she had never heard; and she +sat before him with her slim brown hands folded in her lap and the +rosebuds withering in her hair, while through the reeds and the grass and +the bushes of the bank over against them strode Hugon in his Blenheim wig +and his wine-colored coat. Well-nigh together the three reached the stake +driven in among the reeds, a hundred yards below the minister's house. +Haward fastened the boat, and, motioning to Audrey to stay for the moment +where she was, stepped out upon the bank to confront the trader, who, +walking steadily and silently as ever, was almost upon them. + +But it was broad daylight, and Hugon, with his forest instincts, +preferred, when he wished to speak to the point, to speak in the dark. He +made no pause; only looked with his fierce black eyes at the quiet, +insouciant, fine gentleman standing with folded arms between him and the +boat; then passed on, going steadily up the creek toward the bend where +the water left the open smiling fields and took to the forest. He never +looked back, but went like a hunter with his prey before him. Presently +the shadows of the forest touched him, and Audrey and Haward were left +alone. + +The latter laughed. "If his courage is of the quality of his lace--What, +cowering, child, and the tears in your eyes! You were braver when you were +not so tall, in those mountain days. Nay, no need to wet your shoe." + +He lifted her in his arms, and set her feet upon firm grass. "How long +since I carried you across a stream and up a dark hillside!" he said. "And +yet to-day it seems but yesternight! Now, little maid, the Indian has run +away, and the path to the house is clear." + + * * * * * + +In his smoke-filled, untidy best room Darden sat at table, his drink +beside him, his pipe between his fingers, and open before him a book of +jests, propped by a tome of divinity. His wife coming in from the +kitchen, he burrowed in the litter upon the table until he found an open +letter, which he flung toward her. "The Commissary threatens again, damn +him!" he said between smoke puffs. "It seems that t'other night, when I +was in my cups at the tavern, Le Neve and the fellow who has Ware Creek +parish--I forget his name--must needs come riding by. I was dicing with +Paris. Hugon held the stakes. I dare say we kept not mum. And out of pure +brotherly love and charity, my good, kind gentlemen ride on to +Williamsburgh on a tale-bearing errand! Is that child never coming back, +Deborah?" + +"She's coming now," answered his wife, with her eyes upon the letter. "I +was watching from the upper window. He rowed her up the creek himself." + +The door opened, and Audrey entered the room. Darden turned heavily in his +chair, and took the long pipe from between his teeth. "Well?" he said. +"You gave him my letter?" + +Audrey nodded. Her eyes were dreamy; the red of the buds in her hair had +somehow stolen to her cheeks; she could scarce keep her lips from smiling. +"He bade me tell you to come to supper with him on Monday," she said. "And +the Falcon that we saw come in last week brought furnishing for the great +house. Oh, Mistress Deborah, the most beautiful things! The rooms are all +to be made fine; and the negro women do not the work aright, and he wants +some one to oversee them. He says that he has learned that in England +Mistress Deborah was own woman to my Lady Squander, and so should know +about hangings and china and the placing of furniture. And he asks that +she come to Fair View morning after morning until the house is in order. +He wishes me to come, too. Mistress Deborah will much oblige him, he +says, and he will not forget her kindness." + +Somewhat out of breath, but very happy, she looked with eager eyes from +one guardian to the other. Darden emptied and refilled his pipe, +scattering the ashes upon the book of jests. "Very good," he said briefly. + +Into the thin visage of the ex-waiting-woman, who had been happier at my +Lady Squander's than in a Virginia parsonage, there crept a tightened +smile. In her way, when she was not in a passion, she was fond of Audrey; +but, in temper or out of temper, she was fonder of the fine things which +for a few days she might handle at Fair View house. And the gratitude of +the master thereof might appear in coins, or in an order on his store for +silk and lace. When, in her younger days, at Bath or in town, she had +served fine mistresses, she had been given many a guinea for carrying a +note or contriving an interview, and in changing her estate she had not +changed her code of morals. "We must oblige Mr. Haward, of course," she +said complacently. "I warrant you that I can give things an air! There's +not a parlor in this parish that does not set my teeth on edge! Now at my +Lady Squander's"--She embarked upon reminiscences of past splendor, +checked only by her husband's impatient demand for dinner. + +Audrey, preparing to follow her into the kitchen, was stopped, as she +would have passed the table, by the minister's heavy hand. "The roses at +Fair View bloom early," he said, turning her about that he might better +see the red cluster in her hair. "Look you, Audrey! I wish you no great +harm, child. You mind me at times of one that I knew many years ago, +before ever I was chaplain to my Lord Squander or husband to my Lady +Squander's waiting-woman. A hunter may use a decoy, and he may also, on +the whole, prefer to keep that decoy as good as when 'twas made. Buy not +thy roses too dearly, Audrey." + +To Audrey he spoke in riddles. She took from her hair the loosened buds, +and looked at them lying in her hand. "I did not buy them," she said. +"They grew in the sun on the south side of the great house, and Mr. Haward +gave them to me." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN + + +June came to tide-water Virginia with long, warm days and with the odor of +many roses. Day by day the cloudless sunshine visited the land: night by +night the large pale stars looked into its waters. It was a slumberous +land, of many creeks and rivers that were wide, slow, and deep, of tobacco +fields and lofty, solemn forests, of vague marshes, of white mists, of a +haze of heat far and near. The moon of blossoms was past, and the red +men--few in number now--had returned from their hunting, and lay in the +shade of the trees in the villages that the English had left them, while +the women brought them fish from the weirs, and strawberries from the +vines that carpeted every poisoned field or neglected clearing. The black +men toiled amidst the tobacco and the maize; at noontide it was as hot in +the fields as in the middle passage, and the voices of those who sang over +their work fell to a dull crooning. The white men who were bound served +listlessly; they that were well were as lazy as the weather; they that +were newly come over and ill with the "seasoning" fever tossed upon their +pallets, longing for the cooling waters of home. The white men who were +free swore that the world, though fair, was warm, and none walked if he +could ride. The sunny, dusty roads were left for shadowed bridle paths; +in a land where most places could be reached by boat, the water would +have been the highway but that the languid air would not fill the sails. +It was agreed that the heat was unnatural, and that, likely enough, there +would be a deal of fever during the summer. + +But there was thick shade in the Fair View garden, and when there was air +at all it visited the terrace above the river. The rooms of the house were +large and high-pitched; draw to the shutters, and they became as cool as +caverns. Around the place the heat lay in wait: heat of wide, shadowless +fields, where Haward's slaves toiled from morn to eve; heat of the great +river, unstirred by any wind, hot and sleeping beneath the blazing sun; +heat of sluggish creeks and of the marshes, shadeless as the fields. Once +reach the mighty trees drawn like a cordon around house and garden, and +there was escape. + +To and fro and up and down in the house went the erst waiting-woman to my +Lady Squander, carrying matters with a high hand. The negresses who worked +under her eye found her a hard taskmistress. Was a room clean to-day, +to-morrow it was found that there was dust upon the polished floor, finger +marks on the paneled walls. The same furniture must be placed now in this +room, now in that; china slowly washed and bestowed in one closet +transferred to another; an eternity spent upon the household linen, +another on the sewing and resewing, the hanging and rehanging, of damask +curtains. The slaves, silent when the greenish eyes and tight, vixenish +face were by, chattered, laughed, and sung when they were left alone. If +they fell idle, and little was done of a morning, they went unrebuked; +thoroughness, and not haste, appearing to be Mistress Deborah's motto. + +The master of Fair View found it too noisy in his house to sit therein, +and too warm to ride abroad. There were left the seat built round the +cherry-tree in the garden, the long, cool box walk, and the terrace with a +summer-house at either end. It was pleasant to read out of doors, pacing +the box walk, or sitting beneath the cherry-tree, with the ripening fruit +overhead. If the book was long in reading, if morning by morning Haward's +finger slipped easily in between the selfsame leaves, perhaps it was the +fault of poet or philosopher. If Audrey's was the fault, she knew it not. + +How could she know it, who knew herself, that she was a poor, humble maid, +whom out of pure charity and knightly tenderness for weak and sorrowful +things he long ago had saved, since then had maintained, now was kind to; +and knew him, that he was learned and great and good, the very perfect +gentle knight who, as he rode to win the princess, yet could stoop from +his saddle to raise and help the herd girl? She had found of late that she +was often wakeful of nights; when this happened, she lay and looked out of +her window at the stars and wondered about the princess. She was sure that +the princess and the lady who had given her the guinea were one. + +In the great house she would have worked her fingers to the bone. Her +strong young arms lifted heavy weights; her quick feet ran up and down +stairs for this or that; she would have taken the waxed cloths from the +negroes, and upon her knees and with willing hands have made to shine like +mirrors the floors that were to be trodden by knight and princess. But +almost every morning, before she had worked an hour, Haward would call to +her from the box walk or the seat beneath the cherry-tree; and "Go, +child," would say Mistress Deborah, looking up from her task of the +moment. + +The garden continued to be the enchanted garden. To gather its flowers, +red and white, to pace with him cool paved walks between walls of scented +box, to sit beside him beneath the cherry-tree or upon the grassy terrace, +looking out upon the wide, idle river,--it was dreamy bliss, a happiness +too rare to last. There was no harm; not that she ever dreamed there could +be. The house overlooked garden and terrace; the slaves passed and +repassed the open windows; Juba came and went; now and then Mistress +Deborah herself would sally forth to receive instructions concerning this +or that from the master of the house. And every day, at noon, the slaves +drew to all the shutters save those of the master's room, and the +minister's wife and ward made their curtsies and went home. The latter, +like a child, counted the hours upon the clock until the next morning; but +then she was not used to happiness, and the wine of it made her slightly +drunken. + +The master of Fair View told himself that there was infection in this +lotus air of Virginia. A fever ran in his veins that made him languid of +will, somewhat sluggish of thought, willing to spend one day like another, +and all in a long dream. Sometimes, in the afternoons, when he was alone +in the garden or upon the terrace, with the house blank and silent behind +him, the slaves gone to the quarters, he tossed aside his book, and, with +his chin upon his hand and his eyes upon the sweep of the river, first +asked himself whither he was going, and then, finding no satisfactory +answer, fell to brooding. Once, going into the house, he chanced to come +upon his full-length reflection in a mirror newly hung, and stopped short +to gaze upon himself. The parlor of his lodgings at Williamsburgh and the +last time that he had seen Evelyn came to him, conjured up by the memory +of certain words of his own. + +"A truer glass might show a shrunken figure," he repeated, and with a +quick and impatient sigh he looked at the image in the mirror. + +To the eye, at least, the figure was not shrunken. It was that of a man +still young, and of a handsome face and much distinction of bearing. The +dress was perfect in its quiet elegance; the air of the man composed,--a +trifle sad, a trifle mocking. Haward snapped his fingers at the +reflection. "The portrait of a gentleman," he said, and passed on. + +That night, in his own room, he took from an escritoire a picture of +Evelyn Byrd, done in miniature after a painting by a pupil of Kneller, +and, carrying it over to the light of the myrtle candles upon the table, +sat down and fell to studying it. After a while he let it drop from his +hand, and leaned back in his chair, thinking. + +The night air, rising slightly, bent back the flame of the candles, around +which moths were fluttering, and caused strange shadows upon the walls. +They were thick about the curtained bed whereon had died the elder +Haward,--a proud man, choleric, and hard to turn from his purposes. Into +the mind of his son, sitting staring at these shadows, came the fantastic +notion that amongst them, angry and struggling vainly for speech, might be +his father's shade. The night was feverish, of a heat and lassitude to +foster grotesque and idle fancies. Haward smiled, and spoke aloud to his +imaginary ghost. + +"You need not strive for speech," he said. "I know what you would say. +_Was it for this I built this house, bought land and slaves?... Fair View +and Westover, Westover and Fair View. A lady that will not wed thee +because she loves thee! Zoons, Marmaduke! thou puttest me beside my +patience!... As for this other, set no nameless, barefoot wench where sat +thy mother! King Cophetua and the beggar maid, indeed! I warrant you +Cophetua was something under three-and-thirty!_" + +Haward ceased to speak for his father, and sighed for himself. "Moral: +Three-and-thirty must be wiser in his day and generation." He rose from +his chair, and began to walk the room. "If not Cophetua, what then,--what +then?" Passing the table, he took up the miniature again. "The villain of +the piece, I suppose, Evelyn?" he asked. + +The pure and pensive face seemed to answer him. He put the picture hastily +down, and recommenced his pacing to and fro. From the garden below came +the heavy odor of lilies, and the whisper of the river tried the nerves. +Haward went to the window, and, leaning out, looked, as now each night he +looked, up and across the creek toward the minister's house. To-night +there was no light to mark it; it was late, and all the world without his +room was in darkness. He sat down in the window seat, looked out upon the +stars and listened to the river. An hour had passed before he turned back +to the room, where the candles had burned low. "I will go to Westover +to-morrow," he said. "God knows, I should be a villain"-- + +He locked the picture of Evelyn within his desk, drank his wine and water, +and went to bed, strongly resolved upon retreat. In the morning he said, +"I will go to Westover this afternoon;" and in the afternoon he said, "I +will go to-morrow." When the morrow came, he found that the house lacked +but one day of being finished, and that there was therefore no need for +him to go at all. + +Mistress Deborah was loath, enough to take leave of damask and mirrors and +ornaments of china,--the latter fine enough and curious enough to remind +her of Lady Squander's own drawing-room; but the leaf of paper which +Haward wrote upon, tore from his pocket-book, and gave her provided +consolation. Her thanks were very glib, her curtsy was very deep. She was +his most obliged, humble servant, and if she could serve him again he +would make her proud. Would he not, now, some day, row up creek to their +poor house, and taste of her perry and Shrewsbury cakes? Audrey, standing +by, raised her eyes, and made of the request a royal invitation. + +For a week or more Haward abode upon his plantation, alone save for his +servants and slaves. Each day he sent for the overseer, and listened +gravely while that worthy expounded to him all the details of the +condition and conduct of the estate; in the early morning and the late +afternoon he rode abroad through his fields and forests. Mill and ferry +and rolling house were visited, and the quarters made his acquaintance. At +the creek quarter and the distant ridge quarter were bestowed the newly +bought, the sullen and the refractory of his chattels. When, after sunset, +and the fields were silent, he rode past the cabins, coal-black figures, +new from the slave deck, still seamed at wrist and ankle, mowed and +jabbered at him from over their bowls of steaming food; others, who had +forgotten the jungle and the slaver, answered, when he spoke to them, in +strange English; others, born in Virginia, and remembering when he used to +ride that way with his father, laughed, called him "Marse Duke," and +agreed with him that the crop was looking mighty well. With the dark he +reached the great house, and negroes from the home quarter took--his +horse, while Juba lighted him through the echoing hall into the lonely +rooms. + +From the white quarter he procured a facile lad who could read and write, +and who, through too much quickness of wit, had failed to prosper in +England. Him he installed as secretary, and forthwith began a +correspondence with friends in England, as well as a long poem which was +to serve the double purpose of giving Mr. Pope a rival and of occupying +the mind of Mr. Marmaduke Haward. The letters were witty and graceful, the +poem was the same; but on the third day the secretary, pausing for the +next word that should fall from his master's lips, waited so long that he +dropped asleep. When he awoke, Mr. Haward was slowly tearing into bits the +work that had been done on the poem. "It will have to wait upon my mood," +he said. "Seal up the letter to Lord Hervey, boy, and then begone to the +fields. If I want you again, I will send for you." + +The next day he proposed to himself to ride to Williamsburgh and see his +acquaintances there. But even as he crossed the room to strike the bell +for Juba a distaste for the town and its people came upon him. It occurred +to him that instead he might take the barge and be rowed up the river to +the Jaquelins' or to Green Spring; but in a moment this plan also became +repugnant. Finally he went out upon the terrace, and sat there the morning +through, staring at the river. That afternoon he sent a negro to the +store with a message for the storekeeper. + +The Highlander, obeying the demand for his company,--the third or fourth +since his day at Williamsburgh,--came shortly before twilight to the great +house, and found the master thereof still upon the terrace, sitting +beneath an oak, with a small table and a bottle of wine beside him. + +"Ha, Mr. MacLean!" he cried, as the other approached. "Some days have +passed since last we laid the ghosts! I had meant to sooner improve our +acquaintance. But my house has been in disorder, and I myself,"--he passed +his hand across his face as if to wipe away the expression into which it +had been set,--"I myself have been poor company. There is a witchery in +the air of this place. I am become but a dreamer of dreams." + +As he spoke he motioned his guest to an empty chair, and began to pour +wine for them both. His hand was not quite steady, and there was about him +a restlessness of aspect most unnatural to the man. The storekeeper +thought him looking worn, and as though he had passed sleepless nights. + +MacLean sat down, and drew his wineglass toward Mm. "It is the heat," he +said. "Last night, in the store, I felt that I was stifling; and I left +it, and lay on the bare ground without. A star shot down the sky, and I +wished that a wind as swift and strong would rise and sweep the land out +to sea. When the day comes that I die, I wish to die a fierce death. It is +best to die in battle, for then the mind is raised, and you taste all life +in the moment before you go. If a man achieves not that, then struggle +with earth or air or the waves of the sea is desirable. Driving sleet, +armies of the snow, night and trackless mountains, the leap of the +torrent, swollen lakes where kelpies lie in wait, wind on the sea with the +black reef and the charging breakers,--it is well to dash one's force +against the force of these, and to die after fighting. But in this cursed +land of warmth and ease a man dies like a dog that is old and hath lain +winter and summer upon the hearthstone." He drank his wine, and glanced +again at Haward. "I did not know that you were here," he said. "Saunderson +told me that you were going to Westover." + +"I was,--I am," answered Haward briefly. Presently he roused himself from +the brown study into which he had fallen. + +"'Tis the heat, as you say. It enervates. For my part, I am willing that +your wind should arise. But it will not blow to-night. There is not a +breath; the river is like glass." He raised the wine to his lips, and +drank deeply. "Come," he said, laughing. "What did you at the store +to-day? And does Mistress Truelove despair of your conversion to _thee_ +and _thou_, and peace with all mankind? Hast procured an enemy to fill the +place I have vacated? I trust he's no scurvy foe." + +"I will take your questions in order," answered the other sententiously. +"This morning I sold a deal of fine china to a parcel of fine ladies who +came by water from Jamestown, and were mightily concerned to know whether +your worship was gone to Westover, or had instead (as 't was reported) +shut yourself up in Fair View house. And this afternoon came over in a +periagua, from the other side, a very young gentleman with money in hand +to buy a silver-fringed glove. 'They are sold in pairs,' said I. 'Fellow, +I require but one,' said he. 'If Dick Allen, who hath slandered me to +Mistress Betty Cocke, dareth to appear at the merrymaking at Colonel +Harrison's to-night, his cheek and this glove shall come together!' +'Nathless, you must pay for both,' I told him; and the upshot is that he +leaves with me a gold button as earnest that he will bring the remainder +of the price before the duel to-morrow. That Quaker maiden of whom you ask +hath a soul like the soul of Colna-dona, of whom Murdoch, the harper of +Coll, used to sing. She is fair as a flower after winter, and as tender as +the rose flush in which swims yonder star. When I am with her, almost she +persuades me to think ill of honest hatred, and to pine no longer that it +was not I that had the killing of Ewin Mackinnon." He gave a short laugh, +and stooping picked up an oak twig from the ground, and with deliberation +broke it into many small pieces. "Almost, but not quite," he said. "There +was in that feud nothing illusory or fantastic; nothing of the quality +that marked, mayhap, another feud of my own making. If I have found that +in this latter case I took a wraith and dubbed it my enemy; that, thinking +I followed a foe, I followed a friend instead"--He threw away the bits of +bark, and straightened himself. "A friend!" he said, drawing his breath. +"Save for this Quaker family, I have had no friend for many a year! And I +cannot talk to them of honor and warfare and the wide world." His speech +was sombre, but in his eyes there was an eagerness not without pathos. + +The mood of the Gael chimed with the present mood of the Saxon. As unlike +in their natures as their histories, men would have called them; and yet, +far away, in dim recesses of the soul, at long distances from the flesh, +each recognised the other. And it was an evening, too, in which to take +care of other things than the ways and speech of every day. The heat, the +hush, and the stillness appeared well-nigh preternatural. A sadness +breathed over the earth; all things seemed new and yet old; across the +spectral river the dim plains beneath the afterglow took the seeming of +battlefields. + +"A friend!" said Haward. "There are many men who call themselves my +friends. I am melancholy to-day, restless, and divided against myself. I +do not know one of my acquaintance whom I would have called to be +melancholy with me as I have called you." He leaned across the table and +touched MacLean's hand that was somewhat hurriedly fingering the +wineglass. "Come!" he said. "Loneliness may haunt the level fields as well +as the ways that are rugged and steep. How many times have we held +converse since that day I found you in charge of my store? Often enough, I +think, for each to know the other's quality. Our lives have been very +different, and yet I believe that we are akin. For myself, I should be +glad to hold as my friend so gallant though so unfortunate a gentleman." +He smiled and made a gesture of courtesy. "Of course Mr. MacLean may very +justly not hold me in a like esteem, nor desire a closer relation." + +MacLean rose to his feet, and stood gazing across the river at the +twilight shore and the clear skies. Presently he turned, and his eyes were +wet. He drew his hand across them; then looked curiously at the dew upon +it. "I have not done this," he said simply, "since a night at Preston when +I wept with rage. In my country we love as we hate, with all the strength +that God has given us. The brother of my spirit is to me even as the +brother of my flesh.... I used to dream that my hand was at your throat or +my sword through your heart, and wake in anger that it was not so ... and +now I could love you well." + +Haward stood up, and the two men clasped hands. "It is a pact, then," said +the Englishman. "By my faith, the world looks not so melancholy gray as it +did awhile ago. And here is Juba to say that supper waits. Lay the table +for two, Juba. Mr. MacLean will bear me company." + +The storekeeper stayed late, the master of Fair View being an accomplished +gentleman, a very good talker, and an adept at turning his house for the +nonce into the house of his guest. Supper over they went into the library, +where their wine was set, and where the Highlander, who was no great +reader, gazed respectfully at the wit and wisdom arow before him. "Colonel +Byrd hath more volumes at Westover," quoth Haward, "but mine are of the +choicer quality." Juba brought a card table, and lit more candles, while +his master, unlocking a desk, took from it a number of gold pieces. These +he divided into two equal portions: kept one beside him upon the polished +table, and, with a fine smile, half humorous, half deprecating, pushed the +other across to his guest. With an, imperturbable face MacLean stacked the +gold before him, and they fell to piquet, playing briskly, and with +occasional application to the Madeira upon the larger table, until ten of +the clock. The Highlander, then declaring that he must be no longer away +from his post, swept his heap of coins across to swell his opponent's +store, and said good-night. Haward went with him to the great door, and +watched him stride off through the darkness whistling "The Battle of +Harlaw." + +That night Haward slept, and the next morning four negroes rowed him up +the river to Jamestown. Mr. Jaquelin was gone to Norfolk upon business, +but his beautiful wife and sprightly daughters found Mr. Marmaduke Haward +altogether charming. "'Twas as good as going to court," they said to one +another, when the gentleman, after a two hours' visit, bowed himself out +of their drawing-room. The object of their encomiums, going down river in +his barge, felt his spirits lighter than they had been for some days. He +spoke cheerfully to his negroes, and when the barge passed a couple of +fishing-boats he called to the slim brown lads that caught for the +plantation to know their luck. At the landing he found the overseer, who +walked to the great house with him. The night before Tyburn Will had +stolen from the white quarters, and had met a couple of seamen from the +Temperance at the crossroads ordinary, which ordinary was going to get +into trouble for breaking the law which forbade the harboring of sailors +ashore. The three had taken in full lading of kill-devil rum, and Tyburn +Will, too drunk to run any farther, had been caught by Hide near Princess +Creek, three hours agone. What were the master's orders? Should the rogue +go to the court-house whipping post, or should Hide save the trouble of +taking him there? In either case, thirty-nine lashes well laid on-- + +The master pursed his lips, dug into the ground with the ferrule of his +cane, and finally proposed to the astonished overseer that the rascal be +let off with a warning. "'Tis too fair a day to poison with ugly sights +and sounds," he said, whimsically apologetic for his own weakness. "'Twill +do no great harm to be lenient, for once, Saunderson, and I am in the mood +to-day to be friends with all men, including myself." + +The overseer went away grumbling, and Haward entered the house. The room +where dwelt his books looked cool and inviting. He walked the length of +the shelves, took out a volume here and there for his evening reading, and +upon the binding of others laid an affectionate, lingering touch. "I have +had a fever, my friends," he announced to the books, "but I am about to +find myself happily restored to reason and serenity; in short, to health." + +Some hours later he raised his eyes from the floor which he had been +studying for a great while, covered them for a moment with his hand, then +rose, and, with the air of a sleepwalker, went out of the lit room into a +calm and fragrant night. There was no moon, but the stars were many, and +it did not seem dark. When he came to the verge of the landing, and the +river, sighing in its sleep, lay clear below him, mirroring the stars, it +was as though he stood between two firmaments. He descended the steps, and +drew toward him a small rowboat that was softly rubbing against the wet +and glistening piles. The tide was out, and the night was very quiet. + +Haward troubled not the midstream, but rowing in the shadow of the bank to +the mouth of the creek that slept beside his garden, turned and went up +this narrow water. Until he was free of the wall the odor of honeysuckle +and box clung to the air, freighting it heavily; when it was left behind +the reeds began to murmur and sigh, though not loudly, for there was no +wind. When he came to a point opposite the minister's house, rising fifty +yards away from amidst low orchard trees, he rested upon his oars. There +was a light in an upper room, and as he looked Audrey passed between the +candle and the open window. A moment later and the light was out, but he +knew that she was sitting at the window. Though it was dark, he found that +he could call back with precision the slender throat, the lifted face, and +the enshadowing hair. For a while he stayed, motionless in his boat, +hidden by the reeds that whispered and sighed; but at last he rowed away +softly through the darkness, back to the dim, slow-moving river and the +Fair View landing. + +This was of a Friday. All the next day he spent in the garden, but on +Sunday morning he sent word to the stables to have Mirza saddled. He was +going to church, he told Juba over his chocolate, and he would wear the +gray and silver. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A SABBATH DAY'S JOURNEY + + +Although the house of worship which boasted as its ornament the Reverend +Gideon Darden was not so large and handsome as Bruton church, nor could +rival the painted glories of Poplar Spring, it was yet a building good +enough,--of brick, with a fair white spire and a decorous mantle of ivy. +The churchyard, too, was pleasant, though somewhat crowded with the dead. +There were oaks for shade, and wild roses for fragrance, and the grass +between the long gravestones, prone upon mortal dust, grew very thick and +green. Outside the gates,--a gift from the first master of Fair +View,--between the churchyard and the dusty highroad ran a long strip of +trampled turf, shaded by locust-trees and by one gigantic gum that became +in the autumn a pillar of fire. + +Haward, arriving somewhat after time, found drawn up upon this piece of +sward a coach, two berlins, a calash, and three chaises, while tied to +hitching-posts, trees, and the fence were a number of saddle-horses. In +the shade of the gum-tree sprawled half a dozen negro servants, but on the +box of the coach, from which the restless horses had been taken, there yet +sat the coachman, a mulatto of powerful build and a sullen countenance. +The vehicle stood in the blazing sunshine, and it was both cooler and +merrier beneath the tree,--a fact apparent enough to the coachman, but +the knowledge of which, seeing that he was chained to the box, did him +small good. Haward glanced at the figure indifferently; but Juba, +following his master upon Whitefoot Kate, grinned from ear to ear. +"Larnin' not to run away, Sam? Road's clear: why don' you carry off de +coach?" + +Haward dismounted, and leaving Juba first to fasten the horses, and then +join his fellows beneath the gum-tree, walked into the churchyard. The +congregation had assembled, and besides himself there were none without +the church save the negroes and the dead. The service had commenced. +Through the open door came to him Darden's voice: "_Dearly beloved +brethren_"-- + +Haward waited, leaning against a tomb deep graven with a coat of arms and +much stately Latin, until the singing clave the air, when he entered the +building, and passed down the aisle to his own pew, the chiefest in the +place. He was aware of the flutter and whisper on either hand,--perhaps he +did not find it unpleasing. Diogenes may have carried his lantern not +merely to find a man, but to show one as well, and a philosopher in a pale +gray riding dress, cut after the latest mode, with silver lace and a fall +of Mechlin, may be trusted to know the value as well as the vanity of +sublunary things. + +Of the gathering, which was not large, two thirds, perhaps, were people of +condition; and in the country, where occasions for display did not present +themselves uncalled, it was highly becoming to worship the Lord in fine +clothes. So there were broken rainbows in the tall pews, with a soft +waving of fans to and fro in the essenced air, and a low rustle of silk. +The men went as fine as the women, and the June sunshine, pouring in upon +all this lustre and color, made a flower-bed of the assemblage. Being of +the country, it was vastly better behaved than would have been a +fashionable London congregation; but it certainly saw no reason why Mr. +Marmaduke Haward should not, during the anthem, turn his back upon altar, +minister, and clerk, and employ himself in recognizing with a smile and an +inclination of his head his friends and acquaintances. They smiled +back,--the gentlemen bowing slightly, the ladies making a sketch of a +curtsy. All were glad that Fair View house was open once more, and were +kindly disposed toward the master thereof. + +The eyes of that gentleman were no longer for the gay parterre. Between it +and the door, in uncushioned pews or on rude benches, were to be found the +plainer sort of Darden's parishioners, and in this territory, that was +like a border of sober foliage to the flower-bed in front, he discovered +whom he sought. + +Her gaze had been upon him since he passed the minister's pew, where she +stood between my Lady Squander's ex-waiting-woman and the branded +schoolmaster, but now their eyes came full together. She was dressed in +some coarse dark stuff, above which rose the brown pillar of her throat +and the elusive, singular beauty of her face. There was a flower in her +hair, placed as he had placed the rosebuds. A splendor leaped into her +eyes, but her cheek did not redden; it was to his face that the color +rushed. They had but a moment in which to gaze at each other, for the +singing, which to her, at least, had seemed suddenly to swell into a great +ascending tide of sound, with somewhere, far away, the silver calling of a +trumpet, now came to an end, and with another silken rustle and murmur +the congregation sat down. + +Haward did not turn again, and the service went drowsily on. Darden was +bleared of eye and somewhat thick of voice; the clerk's whine was as +sleepy a sound as the buzzing of the bees in and out of window, or the +soft, incessant stir of painted fans. A churchwarden in the next pew +nodded and nodded, until he nodded his peruke awry, and a child went fast +asleep, with its head in its mother's lap. One and all worshiped somewhat +languidly, with frequent glances at the hourglass upon the pulpit. They +prayed for King George the First, not knowing that he was dead, and for +the Prince, not knowing that he was King. The minister preached against +Quakers and witchcraft, and shook the rafters with his fulminations. +Finally came the benediction and a sigh of relief. + +In that country and time there was no unsociable and undignified scurrying +homeward after church. Decorous silence prevailed until the house was +exchanged for the green and shady churchyard: but then tongues were +loosened, and the flower-bed broken into clusters. One must greet one's +neighbors; present or be presented to what company might be staying at the +various great houses within the parish; talk, laugh, coquet, and ogle; +make appointments for business or for pleasure; speak of the last +horse-race, the condition of wheat and tobacco, and the news brought in by +the Valour, man-of-war, that the King was gone to Hanover. In short, for +the nonce, the churchyard became a drawing-room, with the sun for candles, +with no painted images of the past and gone upon the walls, but with the +dead themselves beneath the floor. + +The minister, having questions to settle with clerk and sexton, tarried +in the vestry room; but his wife, with Audrey and the schoolmaster, waited +for him outside, in the shade of an oak-tree that was just without the +pale of the drawing-room. Mistress Deborah, in her tarnished amber satin +and ribbons that had outworn their youth, bit her lip and tapped her foot +upon the ground. Audrey watched her apprehensively. She knew the signs, +and that when they reached home a storm might break that would leave its +mark upon her shoulders. The minister's wife was not approved of by the +ladies of Fair View parish, but had they seen how wistful was the face of +the brown girl with her, they might have turned aside, spoken, and let the +storm go by. The girl herself was scarcely noticed. Few had ever heard her +story, or, hearing it, had remembered; the careless many thought her an +orphan, bound to Darden and his wife,--in effect their servant. If she had +beauty, the ladies and gentlemen who saw her, Sunday after Sunday, in the +minister's pew, had scarce discovered it. She was too dark, too slim, too +shy and strange of look, with her great brown eyes and that startled turn +of her head. Their taste was for lilies and roses, and it was not an age +that counted shyness a grace. + +Mr. Marmaduke Haward was not likely to be accused of diffidence. He had +come out of church with the sleepy-headed churchwarden, who was now wide +awake and mightily concerned to know what horse Mr. Haward meant to enter +for the great race at Mulberry Island, while at the foot of the steps he +was seized upon by another portly vestryman, and borne off to be presented +to three blooming young ladies, quick to second their papa's invitation +home to dinner. Mr. Haward was ready to curse his luck that he was +engaged elsewhere; but were not these Graces the children to whom he had +used to send sugar-plums from Williamsburgh, years and years ago? He vowed +that the payment, which he had never received, he would take now with +usury, and proceeded to salute the cheek of each protesting fair. The +ladies found him vastly agreeable; old and new friends crowded around him; +he put forth his powers and charmed all hearts,--and all the while +inwardly cursed the length of way to the gates, and the tardy progress +thereto of his friends and neighbors. + +But however slow in ebbing, the tide was really set toward home and +dinner. Darden, coming out of the vestry room, found the churchyard almost +cleared, and the road in a cloud of dust. The greater number of those who +came a-horseback were gone, and there had also departed both berlins, the +calash, and two chaises. Mr. Haward was handing the three Graces into the +coach with the chained coachman, Juba standing by, holding his master's +horse. Darden grew something purpler in the face, and, rumbling oaths, +went over to the three beneath the oak. "How many spoke to you to-day?" he +asked roughly of his wife. "Did _he_ come and speak?" + +"No, he didn't!" cried Mistress Deborah tartly. "And all the gentry went +by; only Mr. Bray stopped to say that everybody knew of your fight with +Mr. Bailey at the French ordinary, and that the Commissary had sent for +Bailey, and was going to suspend him. I wish to Heaven I knew why I +married you, to be looked down upon by every Jill, when I might have had +his Lordship's own man! Of all the fools"-- + +"You were not the only one," answered her husband grimly. "Well, let's +home; there's dinner yet. What is it, Audrey?" This in answer to an +inarticulate sound from the girl. + +The schoolmaster answered for her: "Mr. Marmaduke Haward has not gone with +the coach. Perhaps he only waited until the other gentlefolk should be +gone. Here he comes." + +The sward without the gates was bare of all whose presence mattered, and +Haward had indeed reentered the churchyard, and was walking toward them. +Darden went to meet him. "These be fine tales I hear of you, Mr. Darden," +said his parishioner calmly. "I should judge you were near the end of your +rope. There's a vestry meeting Thursday. Shall I put in a good word for +your reverence? Egad, you need it!" + +"I shall be your honor's most humble, most obliged servant," quoth the +minister. "The affair at the French ordinary was nothing. I mean to preach +next Sunday upon calumny,--calumny that spareth none, not even such as I. +You are for home, I see, and our road for a time is the same. Will you +ride with us?" + +"Ay," said Haward briefly. "But you must send yonder fellow with the +scarred hands packing. I travel not with thieves." + +He had not troubled to lower his voice, and as he and Darden were now +themselves within the shadow of the oak, the schoolmaster overheard him +and answered for himself. "Your honor need not fear my company," he said, +in his slow and lifeless tones. "I am walking, and I take the short cut +through the woods. Good-day, worthy Gideon. Madam Deborah and Audrey, +good-day." + +He put his uncouth, shambling figure into motion, and, indifferent and +lifeless in manner as in voice, was gone, gliding like a long black +shadow through the churchyard and into the woods across the road. "I knew +him long ago in England," the minister explained to their new companion. +"He's a learned man, and, like myself, a calumniated one. The gentlemen of +these parts value him highly as an instructor of youth. No need to send +their sons to college if they've been with him for a year or two! My good +Deborah, Mr. Haward will ride with us toward Fair View." + +Mistress Deborah curtsied; then chided Audrey for not minding her manners, +but standing like a stock or stone, with her thoughts a thousand miles +away. "Let her be," said Haward. "We gave each other good-day in church." + +Together the four left the churchyard. Darden brought up two sorry horses; +lifted his wife and Audrey upon one, and mounted the other. Haward swung +himself into his saddle, and the company started, Juba upon Whitefoot Kate +bringing up the rear. The master of Fair View rode beside the minister, +and only now and then spoke to the women. The road was here sunny, there +shady; the excessive heat broken, the air pleasant enough. Everywhere, +too, was the singing of birds, while the fields that they passed of +tobacco and golden, waving wheat were charming to the sight. The minister +was, when sober, a man of parts, with some education and a deal of mother +wit; in addition, a close and shrewd observer of the times and people. He +and Haward talked of matters of public moment, and the two women listened, +submissive and admiring. It seemed that they came very quickly to the +bridge across the creek and the parting of their ways. Would Mr. Haward +ride on to the glebe house? + +It appeared that Mr. Haward would. Moreover, when the house was reached, +and Darden's one slave came running from a broken-down stable to take the +horses, he made no motion toward returning to the bridge which led across +the creek to his own plantation, but instead dismounted, flung his reins +to Juba, and asked if he might stay to dinner. + +Now, by the greatest good luck, considered Mistress Deborah, there chanced +to be in her larder a haunch of venison roasted most noble; the ducklings +and asparagus, too, cooked before church, needed but to be popped into the +oven; and there was also an apple tart with cream. With elation, then, and +eke with a mind at rest, she added her shrill protests of delight to +Darden's more moderate assurances, and, leaving Audrey to set chairs in +the shade of a great apple-tree, hurried into the house to unearth her +damask tablecloth and silver spoons, and to plan for the morrow a visit to +the Widow Constance, and a casual remark that Mr. Marmaduke Haward had +dined with the minister the day before. Audrey, her task done, went after +her, to be met with graciousness most unusual. "I'll see to the dinner, +child. Mr. Haward will expect one of us to sit without, and you had as +well go as I. If he's talking to Darden, you might get some larkspur and +gilliflowers for the table. La! the flowers that used to wither beneath +the candles at my Lady Squander's!" + +Audrey, finding the two men in conversation beneath the apple-tree, passed +on to the ragged garden, where clumps of hardy, bright-colored flowers +played hide-and-seek with currant and gooseberry bushes. Haward saw her +go, and broke the thread of his discourse. Darden looked up, and the eyes +of the two men met; those of the younger were cold and steady. A moment, +and his glance had fallen to his watch which he had pulled out. "'Tis +early yet," he said coolly, "and I dare say not quite your dinner +time,--which I beg that Mistress Deborah will not advance on my account. +Is it not your reverence's habit to rest within doors after your sermon? +Pray do not let me detain you. I will go talk awhile with Audrey." + +He put up his watch and rose to his feet. Darden cleared his throat. "I +have, indeed, a letter to write to Mr. Commissary, and it may be half an +hour before Deborah has dinner ready. I will send your servant to fetch +you in." + +Haward broke the larkspur and gilliflowers, and Audrey gathered up her +apron and filled it with the vivid blooms. The child that had thus brought +loaves of bread to a governor's table spread beneath a sugar-tree, with +mountains round about, had been no purer of heart, no more innocent of +rustic coquetry. When her apron was filled she would have returned to the +house, but Haward would not have it so. "They will call when dinner is +ready," he said. "I wish to talk to you, little maid. Let us go sit in the +shade of the willow yonder." + +It was almost a twilight behind the cool green rain of the willow boughs. +Through that verdant mist Haward and Audrey saw the outer world but dimly. +"I had a fearful dream last night," said Audrey. "I think that that must +have been why I was to glad to see you come into church to-day. I dreamed +that you had never come home again, overseas, in the Golden Rose. Hugon +was beside me, in the dream, telling me that you were dead in England: and +suddenly I knew that I had never really seen you; that there was no +garden, no terrace, no roses, no _you_. It was all so cold and sad, and +the sun kept growing smaller and smaller. The woods, too, were black, and +the wind cried in them so that I was afraid. And then I was in Hugon's +house, holding the door,--there was a wolf without,--and through the +window I saw the mountains; only they were so high that my heart ached to +look upon them, and the wind cried down the cleft in the hills. The wolf +went away, and then, somehow, I was upon the hilltop.... There was a dead +man lying in the grass, but it was too dark to see. Hugon came up behind +me, stooped, and lifted the hand.... Upon the finger was that ring you +wear, burning in the moonlight.... Oh me!" + +The remembered horror of her dream contending with present bliss shook her +spirit to its centre. She shuddered violently, then burst into a passion +of tears. + +Haward's touch upon her hair, Haward's voice in her ear, all the old terms +of endearment for a frightened child,--"little maid," "little coward," +"Why, sweetheart, these things are shadows, they cannot hurt thee!" She +controlled her tears, and was the happier for her weeping. It was sweet to +sit there in the lush grass, veiled and shadowed from the world by the +willow's drooping green, and in that soft and happy light to listen to his +voice, half laughing, half chiding, wholly tender and caressing. Dreams +were naught, he said. Had Hugon troubled her waking hours? + +He had come once to the house, it appeared; but she had run away and +hidden in the wood, and the minister had told him she was gone to the +Widow Constance's. That was a long time ago; it must have been the day +after she and Mistress Deborah had last come from Fair View. + +"A long time," said Haward. "It was a week ago. Has it seemed a long time, +Audrey?" + +"Yes,--oh yes!" + +"I have been busy. I must learn to be a planter, you know. But I have +thought of you, little maid." + +Audrey was glad of that, but there was yet a weight upon her heart. "After +that dream I lay awake all night, and it came to me how wrongly I had +done. Hugon is a wicked man,--an Indian. Oh, I should never have told you, +that first day in the garden, that he was waiting for me outside! For now, +because you took care of me and would not let him come near, he hates you. +He is so wicked that he might do you a harm." Her eyes widened, and the +hand that touched his was cold and trembling. "If ever hurt came to you +through me, I would drown myself in the river yonder. And then I +thought--lying awake last night--that perhaps I had been troublesome to +you, those days at Fair View, and that was why you had not come to see the +minister, as you had said you would." The dark eyes were pitifully eager; +the hand that went to her heart trembled more and more. "It is not as it +was in the mountains," she said. "I am older now, and safe, and--and +happy. And you have many things to do and to think of, and many +friends--gentlemen and beautiful ladies--to go to see. I thought--last +night--that when I saw you I would ask your pardon for not remembering +that the mountains were years ago; for troubling you with my matters, sir; +for making too free, forgetting my place"--Her voice sank; the shamed red +was in her cheeks, and her eyes, that she had bravely kept upon his face, +fell to the purple and gold blooms in her lap. + +Haward rose from the grass, and, with his back to the gray hole of the +willow, looked first at the veil of leaf and stem through which dimly +showed house, orchard, and blue sky, then down upon the girl at his feet. +Her head was bent and she sat very still, one listless, upturned hand upon +the grass beside her, the other lying as quietly among her flowers. + +"Audrey," he said at last, "you shame me in your thoughts of me. I am not +that knight without fear and without reproach for which you take me. Being +what I am, you must believe that you have not wearied me; that I think of +you and wish to see you. And Hugon, having possibly some care for his own +neck, will do me no harm; that is a very foolish notion, which you must +put from you. Now listen." He knelt beside her and took her hand in his. +"After a while, perhaps, when the weather is cooler, and I must open my +house and entertain after the fashion of the country; when the new +Governor comes in, and all this gay little world of Virginia flocks to +Williamsburgh; when I am a Councilor, and must go with the rest, and must +think of gold and place and people,--why, then, maybe, our paths will +again diverge, and only now and then will I catch the gleam of your skirt, +mountain maid, brown Audrey! But now in these midsummer days it is a +sleepy world, that cares not to go bustling up and down. I am alone in my +house; I visit not nor am visited, and the days hang heavy. Let us make +believe for a time that the mountains are all around us, that it was but +yesterday we traveled together. It is only a little way from Fair View to +the glebe house, from the glebe house to Fair View. I will see you often, +little maid, and you must dream no more as you dreamed last night." He +paused; his voice changed, and he went on as to himself: "It is a lonely +land, with few to see and none to care. I will drift with the summer, +making of it an idyl, beautiful,--yes, and innocent! When autumn comes I +will go to Westover." + +Of this speech Audrey caught only the last word. A wonderful smile, so +bright was it, and withal so sad, came into her face. "Westover!" she said +to herself. "That is where the princess lives." + +"We will let thought alone," continued Haward. "It suits not with this +charmed light, this glamour of the summer." He made a laughing gesture. +"Hey, presto! little maid, there go the years rolling back! I swear I see +the mountains through the willow leaves." + +"There was one like a wall shutting out the sun when he went down," +answered Audrey. "It was black and grim, and the light flared like a fire +behind it. And there was the one above which the moon rose. It was sharp, +pointing like a finger to heaven, and I liked it best. Do you remember how +large was the moon pushing up behind the pine-trees? We sat on the dark +hillside watching it, and you told me beautiful stories, while the moon +rose higher and higher and the mockingbirds began to sing." + +Haward remembered not, but he said that he did so. "The moon is full +again," he continued, "and last night I heard a mockingbird in the garden. +I will come in the barge to-morrow evening, and the negroes shall row us +up and down the river--you and me and Mistress Deborah--between the sunset +and the moonrise. Then it is lonely and sweet upon the water. The roses +can be smelled from the banks, and if you will speak to the mockingbirds +we shall have music, dryad Audrey, brown maid of the woods!" + +Audrey's laugh, was silver-clear and sweet, like that of a forest nymph +indeed. She was quite happy again, with all her half-formed doubts and +fears allayed. They had never been of him,--only of herself. The two sat +within the green and swaying fountain of the willow, and time went by on +eagle wings. Too soon came the slave to call them to the house; the time +within, though spent in the company of Darden and his wife, passed too +soon; too soon came the long shadows of the afternoon and Haward's call +for his horse. + +Audrey watched him ride away, and the love light was in her eyes. She did +not know that it was so. That night, in her bare little room, when the +candle was out, she kneeled by the window and looked at the stars. There +was one very fair and golden, an empress of the night. "That is the +princess," said Audrey, and smiled upon the peerless star. Far from that +light, scarce free from the murk of the horizon, shone a little star, +companionless in the night. "And that is I," said Audrey, and smiled upon +herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE BEND IN THE ROAD + + + "'Brave Derwentwater he is dead; + From his fair body they took the head: + But Mackintosh and his friends are fled, + And they'll set the hat upon another head'"-- + +chanted the Fair View storekeeper, and looked aside at Mistress Truelove +Taberer, spinning in the doorway of her father's house. + +Truelove answered naught, but her hands went to and fro, and her eyes were +for her work, not for MacLean, sitting on the doorstep at her feet. + + "'And whether they're gone beyond the sea'"-- + +The exile broke off and sighed heavily. Before the two a little yard, all +gay with hollyhocks and roses, sloped down to the wider of the two creeks +between which stretched the Fair View plantation. It was late of a holiday +afternoon. A storm was brewing, darkening all the water, and erecting +above the sweep of woods monstrous towers of gray cloud. There must have +been an echo, for MacLean's sigh came back to him faintly, as became an +echo. + +"Is there not peace here, 'beyond the sea'?" said Truelove softly. "Thine +must be a dreadful country, Angus MacLean!" + +The Highlander looked at her with kindling eyes. "Now had I the harp of +old Murdoch!" he said. + + "'Dear is that land to the east, + Alba of the lakes! + Oh, that I might dwell there forever'"-- + +He turned upon the doorstep, and taking between his fingers the hem of +Truelove's apron fell to plaiting it. "A woman named Deirdre, who lived +before the days of Gillean-na-Tuaidhe, made that song. She was not born in +that land, but it was dear to her because she dwelt there with the man +whom she loved. They went away, and the man was slain; and where he was +buried, there Deirdre cast herself down and died." His voice changed, and +all the melancholy of his race, deep, wild, and tender, looked from his +eyes. "If to-day you found yourself in that loved land, if this parched +grass were brown heather, if it stretched down to a tarn yonder, if that +gray cloud that hath all the seeming of a crag were crag indeed, and +eagles plied between the tarn and it,"--he touched her hand that lay idle +now upon her knee,--"if you came like Deirdre lightly through the heather, +and found me lying here, and found more red than should be in the tartan +of the MacLeans, what would you do, Truelove? What would you cry out, +Truelove? How heavy would be thy heart, Truelove?" + +Truelove sat in silence, with her eyes upon the sky above the dream crags. +"How heavy would grow thy heart, Truelove, Truelove?" whispered the +Highlander. + +Up the winding water, to the sedges and reeds below the little yard, +glided the boy Ephraim in his boat. The Quakeress started, and the color +flamed into her gentle face. She took up the distaff that she had dropped, +and fell to work again. "Thee must not speak to me so, Angus MacLean," she +said. "I trust that my heart is not hard. Thy death would grieve me, and +my father and my mother and Ephraim"-- + +"I care not for thy father and mother and Ephraim!" MacLean began +impetuously. "But you do right to chide me. Once I knew a green glen where +maidens were fain when paused at their doors Angus, son of Hector, son of +Lachlan, son of Murdoch, son of Angus that was named for Angus Mor, who +was great-grandson of Hector of the Battles, who was son of Lachlan +Lubanach! But here I am a landless man, with none to do me honor,--a +wretch bereft of liberty"-- + +"To me, to all Friends," said Truelove sweetly, halting a little in her +work, "thee has now what thee thyself calls freedom. For God meant not +that one of his creatures should say to another: 'Lo, here am I! Behold +thy God!' To me, and my father and mother and Ephraim, thee is no bond +servant of Marmaduke Haward. But thee is bond servant to thy own vain +songs; thy violent words; thy idle pride, that, vaunting the cruel deeds +of thy forefathers, calls meekness and submission the last worst evil; thy +shameless reverence for those thy fellow creatures, James Stewart and him +whom thee calls the chief of thy house,--forgetting that there is but one +house, and that God is its head; thy love of clamor and warfare; thy +hatred of the ways of peace"-- + +MacLean laughed. "I hate not all its ways. There is no hatred in my heart +for this house which is its altar, nor for the priestess of the altar. Ah! +now you frown, Truelove"-- + +Across the clouds ran so fierce a line of gold that Truelove, startled, +put her hand before her eyes. Another dart of lightning, a low roll of +thunder, a bending apart of the alder bushes on the far side of the creek; +then a woman's voice calling to the boy in the boat to come ferry her +over. + +"Who may that be?" asked Truelove wonderingly. + +It was only a little way to the bending alders. Ephraim rowed across the +glassy water, dark beneath the approach of the storm; the woman stepped +into the boat, and the tiny craft came lightly back to its haven beneath +the bank. + +"It is Darden's Audrey," said the storekeeper. + +Truelove shrank a little, and her eyes darkened. "Why should she come +here? I never knew her. It is true that we may not think evil, but--but"-- + +MacLean moved restlessly. "I have seen the girl but twice," he said. "Once +she was alone, once--It is my friend of whom I think. I know what they +say, but, by St. Kattan! I hold him a gentleman too high of mind, too +noble--There was a tale I used to hear when I was a boy. A long, long time +ago a girl lived in the shadow of the tower of Duart, and the chief looked +down from his walls and saw her. Afterwards they walked together by the +shore and through the glens, and he cried her health when he drank in his +hall, sitting amongst his tacksmen. Then what the men whispered the women +spoke aloud; and so, more quickly than the tarie is borne, word went to a +man of the MacDonalds who loved the Duart maiden. Not like a lover to his +tryst did he come. In the handle of his dirk the rich stones sparkled as +they rose and fell with the rise and fall of the maiden's white bosom. She +prayed to die in his arms; for it was not Duart that she loved, but him. +She died, and they snooded her hair and buried her. Duart went overseas; +the man of the MacDonalds killed himself. It was all wrought with threads +of gossamer,--idle fancy, shrugs, smiles, whispers, slurring speech,--and +it was long ago. But there is yet gossamer to be had for the gathering; it +gleams on every hand these summer mornings." + +By now Darden's Audrey had left the boat and was close upon them. MacLean +arose, and Truelove hastily pushed aside her wheel. "Is thee seeking +shelter from the storm?" she asked tremulously, and with her cheeks as +pink as a seashell. "Will thee sit here with us? The storm will not break +yet awhile." + +Audrey heeded her not, her eyes being for MacLean. She had been +running,--running more swiftly than for a thousand May Day guineas. Even +now, though her breath came short, every line of her slender figure was +tense, and she was ready to be off like an arrow. "You are Mr. Haward's +friend?" she cried. "I have heard him say that you were so--call you a +brave gentleman"-- + +MacLean's dark face flushed. "Yes, we are friends,--I thank God for it. +What have you to do with that, my lass?" + +"I also am his friend," said Audrey, coming nearer. Her hands were +clasped, her bosom heaving. "Listen! To-day I was sent on an errand to a +house far up this creek. Coming back, I took the short way home through +the woods because of the storm. It led me past the schoolhouse down by the +big swamp. I thought that no one was there, and I went and sat down upon +the steps to rest a moment. The door behind me was partly open. Then I +heard two voices: the schoolmaster and Jean Hugon were inside--close to +me--talking. I would have run away, but I heard Mr. Haward's name." Her +hand went to her heart, and she drew a sobbing breath. + +"Well!" cried MacLean sharply. + +"Mr. Haward went yesterday to Williamsburgh--alone--without Juba. He rides +back--alone--to Fair View late this afternoon--he is riding now. You know +the sharp bend in the road, with the steep bank above and the pond below?" + +"Ay, where the road nears the river. Well?" + +"I heard all that Hugon and the schoolmaster said. I hid behind a fallen +tree and watched them leave the schoolhouse; then I followed them, making +no noise, back to the creek, where Hugon had a boat. They crossed the +creek, and fastened the boat on this side. I could follow them no farther; +the woods hid them; but they have gone downstream to that bend in the +road. Hugon had his hunting-knife and pistols; the schoolmaster carried a +coil of rope." She flung back her head, and her hands went to her throat +as though she were stifling. "The turn in the road is very sharp. Just +past the bend they will stretch the rope from side to side, fastening it +to two trees. He will be hurrying home before the bursting of the +storm--he will be riding the planter's pace"-- + +"Man and horse will come crashing down!" cried the storekeeper, with a +great oath "And then"-- + +"Hugon's knife, so there will be no noise.... They think he has gold upon +him: that is for the schoolmaster.... Hugon is an Indian, and he will hide +their trail. Men will think that some outlying slave was in the woods, and +set upon and killed him." + +Her voice broke; then went on, gathering strength: "It was so late, and I +knew that he would ride fast because of the storm. I remembered this +house, and thought that, if I called, some one might come and ferry me +over the creek. Now I will run through the woods to the road, for I must +reach it before he passes on his way to where they wait." She turned her +face toward the pine wood beyond the house. + +"Ay, that is best!" agreed the storekeeper. "Warned, he can take the long +way home, and Hugon and this other may be dealt with at his leisure. Come, +my girl; there's no time to lose." + +They left behind them the creek, the blooming dooryard, the small white +house, and the gentle Quakeress. The woods received them, and they came +into a world of livid greens and grays dashed here and there with +ebony,--a world that, expectant of the storm, had caught and was holding +its breath. Save for the noise of their feet upon dry leaves that rustled +like paper, the wood was soundless. The light that lay within it, fallen +from skies of iron, was wild and sinister; there was no air, and the heat +wrapped them like a mantle. So motionless were all things, so fixed in +quietude each branch and bough, each leaf or twig or slender needle of the +pine, that they seemed to be fleeing through a wood of stone, jade and +malachite, emerald and agate. + +They hurried on, not wasting breath in speech. Now and again MacLean +glanced aside at the girl, who kept beside him, moving as lightly as +presently would move the leaves when the wind arose. He remembered certain +scurrilous words spoken in the store a week agone by a knot of purchasers, +but when he looked at her face he thought of the Highland maiden whose +story he had told. As for Audrey, she saw not the woods that she loved, +heard not the leaves beneath her feet, knew not if the light were gold or +gray. She saw only a horse and rider riding from Williamsburgh, heard only +the rapid hoofbeats. All there was of her was one dumb prayer for the +rider's safety. Her memory told her that it was no great distance to the +road, but her heart cried out that it was so far away,--so far away! When +the wood thinned, and they saw before them the dusty strip, pallid and +lonely beneath the storm clouds, her heart leaped within her; then grew +sick for fear that he had gone by. When they stood, ankle-deep in the +dust, she looked first toward the north, and then to the south. Nothing +moved; all was barren, hushed, and lonely. + +"How can we know? How can we know?" she cried, and wrung her hands. + +MacLean's keen eyes were busily searching for any sign that a horseman had +lately passed that way. At a little distance above them a shallow stream +of some width flowed across the way, and to this the Highlander hastened, +looked with attention at the road-bed where it emerged from the water, +then came back to Audrey with a satisfied air. "There are no hoof-prints," +he said. "No marks upon the dust. None can have passed for some hours." + +A rotted log, streaked with velvet moss and blotched with fan-shaped, +orange-colored fungi, lay by the wayside, and the two sat down upon it to +wait for the coming horseman. Overhead the thunder was rolling, but there +was as yet no breath of wind, no splash of raindrops. Opposite them rose a +gigantic pine, towering above the forest, red-brown trunk and ultimate +cone of deep green foliage alike outlined against the dead gloom of the +sky. Audrey shook back her heavy hair and raised her face to the roof of +the world; her hands were clasped upon her knee; her bare feet, slim and +brown, rested on a carpet of moss; she was as still as the forest, of +which, to the Highlander, she suddenly seemed a part. When they had kept +silence for what seemed a long time, he spoke to her with some hesitation: +"You have known Mr. Haward but a short while; the months are very few +since he came from England." + +The name brought Audrey down to earth again. "Did you not know?" she asked +wonderingly. "You also are his friend,--you see him often. I thought that +at times he would have spoken of me." For a moment her face was troubled, +though only for a moment. "But I know why he did not so," she said softly +to herself. "He is not one to speak of his good deeds." She turned toward +MacLean, who was attentively watching her, "But I may speak of them," she +said, with pride. "I have known Mr. Haward for years and years. He saved +my life; he brought me here from the Indian country; he was, he is, so +kind to me!" + +Since the afternoon beneath the willow-tree, Haward, while encouraging her +to speak of her long past, her sylvan childhood, her dream memories, had +somewhat sternly checked every expression of gratitude for the part which +he himself had played or was playing, in the drama of her life. Walking in +the minister's orchard, sitting in the garden or upon the terrace of Fair +View house, drifting on the sunset river, he waved that aside, and went on +to teach her another lesson. The teaching was exquisite; but when the +lesson for the day was over, and he was alone, he sat with one whom he +despised. The learning was exquisite; it was the sweetest song, but she +knew not its name, and the words were in a strange tongue. She was +Audrey, that she knew; and he,--he was the plumed knight, who, for the +lack of a better listener, told her gracious tales of love, showed her how +warm and beautiful was this world that she sometimes thought so sad, sang +to her sweet lines that poets had made. Over and through all she thought +she read the name of the princess. She had heard him say that with the +breaking of the heat he should go to Westover, and one day, early in +summer, he had shown her the miniature of Evelyn Byrd. Because she loved +him blindly, and because he was wise in his generation, her trust in him +was steadfast as her native hills, large as her faith in God. Now it was +sweet beneath her tongue to be able to tell one that was his friend how +worthy of all friendship--nay, all reverence--he was. She spoke simply, +but with that strange power of expression which nature had given her. +Gestures with her hands, quick changes in the tone of her voice, a +countenance that gave ample utterance to the moment's thought,--as one +morning in the Fair View library she had brought into being that long dead +Eloisa whose lines she spoke, so now her auditor of to-day thought that he +saw the things of which she told. + +She had risen, and was standing in the wild light, against the background +of the forest that was breathless, as if it too listened, "And so he +brought me safely to this land," she said. "And so he left me here for ten +years, safe and happy, he thought. He has told me that all that while he +thought of me as safe and happy. That I was not so,--why, that was not his +fault! When he came back I was both. I have never seen the sunshine so +bright or the woods so fair as they have been this summer. The people +with whom I live are always kind to me now,--that is his doing. And ah! it +is because he would not let Hugon scare or harm me that that wicked Indian +waits for him now beyond the bend in the road." At the thought of Hugon +she shuddered, and her eyes began to widen. "Have we not been here a long +time?" she cried. "Are you sure? Oh, God! perhaps he has passed!" + +"No, no," answered MacLean, with his hand upon her arm. "There is no sign +that he has done so. It is not late; it is that heavy cloud above our +heads that has so darkened the air. Perhaps he has not left Williamsburgh +at all: perhaps, the storm threatening, he waits until to-morrow." + +From the cloud above came a blinding light and a great crash of +thunder,--the one so intense, the other so tremendous, that for a minute +the two stood as if stunned. Then, "The tree!" cried Audrey. The great +pine, blasted and afire, uprooted itself and fell from them like a reed +that the wind has snapped. The thunder crash, and the din with which the +tree met its fellows of the forest, bore them down, and finally struck the +earth from which it came, seemed an alarum to waken all nature from its +sleep. The thunder became incessant, and the wind suddenly arising the +forest stretched itself and began to speak with no uncertain voice. +MacLean took his seat again upon the log, but Audrey slipped into the +road, and stood in the whirling dust, her arm raised above her eyes, +looking for the horseman whose approach she could not hope to hear through +the clamor of the storm. The wind lifted her long hair, and the rising +dust half obscured her form, bent against the blast. On the lonesome +road, in the partial light, she had the seeming of an apparition, a +creature tossed like a ball from the surging forest. She had made herself +a world, and she had become its product. In all her ways, to the day of +her death, there was about her a touch of mirage, illusion, fantasy. The +Highlander, imaginative like all his race, and a believer in things not of +heaven nor of earth, thought of spirits of the glen and the shore. + +There was no rain as yet; only the hurly-burly of the forest, the white +dust cloud, and the wild commotion overhead. Audrey turned to MacLean, +watching her in silence. "He is coming!" she cried. "There is some one +with him. Now, now he is safe!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +HUGON SPEAKS HIS MIND + + +MacLean sprang up from the log, and, joining her, saw indeed two horsemen +galloping toward them, their heads bent and riding cloaks raised to shield +them from the whirlwind of dust, dead leaves, and broken twigs. He knew +Haward's powerful steed Mirza, but the other horse was strange. + +The two rode fast. A moment, and they were splashing through the stream; +another, and the horses, startled by Audrey's cry and waving arms and by +the sudden and violent check on the part of their riders, were rearing and +curveting across the road. "What the devil!" cried one of the horsemen. +"Imp or sprite, or whatever you are, look out! Haward, your horse will +trample her!" + +But Audrey, with her hand on Mirza's bridle, had no fears. Haward stared +at her in amazement. "Child, what are you doing here? Angus, you too!" as +the storekeeper advanced. "What rendezvous is this? Mirza, be quiet!" + +Audrey left her warning to be spoken by MacLean. She was at peace, her +head against Mirza's neck, her eyes upon Haward's face, clear in the +flashing lightning. That gentleman heard the story with his usual +calmness; his companion first swore, and then laughed. + +[Illustration: AUDREY LEFT HER WARNING TO BE SPOKEN BY MACLEAN] + +"Here's a Canterbury tale!" he cried. "Egad, Haward, are we to take this +skipping rope, vault it as though we were courtiers of Lilliput? Neither +of us is armed. I conceive that the longest way around will prove our +shortest way home." + +"My dear Colonel, I want to speak with these two gentlemen." + +"But at your leisure, my friend, at your leisure, and not in dying tones! +I like not what I hear of Monsieur Jean Hugon's pistols. Flank an ambush; +don't ride into it open-eyed." + +"Colonel Byrd is right," said the storekeeper earnestly. "Ride back, the +two of you, and take the bridle path that will carry you to Fair View by +way of the upper bridge. In the mean time, I will run through the woods to +Mr. Taberer's house, cross there, hurry to the quarters, rouse the +overseer, and with a man or two we will recross the creek by the lower +bridge, and coming upon these rogues unawares, give them a taste of their +own medicine! We'll hale them to the great house; you shall have speech of +them in your own hall." + +Neither of the riders being able to suggest a better plan, the +storekeeper, with a wave of his hand, plunged into the forest, and was +soon lost to view amidst its serried trunks and waving branches. Haward +stooped from his saddle; Audrey set her bare foot upon his booted one, and +he swung her up behind him. "Put thine arm around me, child," he told her. +"We will ride swiftly through the storm. Now, Colonel, to turn our backs +upon the enemy!" + +The lightning was about them, and they raced to the booming of the +thunder. Heavy raindrops began to fall, and the wind was a power to drive +the riders on. Its voice shrilled above the diapason of the thunder; the +forest swung to its long cry. When the horses turned from the wide into +the narrow road, they could no longer go abreast. Mirza took the lead, and +the bay fell a length behind. The branches now hid the sky; between the +flashes there was Stygian gloom, but when the lightning came it showed far +aisles of the forest. There was the smell of rain upon dusty earth, there +was the wine of coolness after heat, there was the sense of being borne +upon the wind, there was the leaping of life within the veins to meet the +awakened life without. Audrey closed her eyes, and wished to ride thus +forever. Haward, too, traveling fast through mist and rain a road whose +end was hidden, facing the wet wind, hearing the voices of earth and sky, +felt his spirit mount with the mounting voices. So to ride with Love to +doom! On, and on, and on! Left behind the sophist, the apologist, the +lover of the world with his tinsel that was not gold, his pebbles that +were not gems! Only the man thundering on,--the man and his mate that was +meant for him since time began! He raised his face to the strife above, he +drew his breath, his hand closed over the hand of the woman riding with +him. At the touch a thrill ran through them both; had the lightning with a +sword of flame cut the world from beneath their feet, they had passed on, +immortal in their happiness. But the bolts struck aimlessly, and the +moment fled. Haward was Haward again; he recognized his old acquaintance +with a half-humorous, half-disdainful smile. The road was no longer a road +that gleamed athwart all time and space; the wind had lost its trumpet +tone; Love spoke not in the thunder, nor seemed so high a thing as the lit +heaven. Audrey's hand was yet within his clasp; but it was flesh and +blood that he touched, not spirit, and he was glad that it was so. For +her, her cheek burned, and she hid her eyes. She had looked unawares, as +by the lightning glare, into a world of which she had not dreamed. Its +portals had shut; she rode on in the twilight again, and she could not +clearly remember what she had seen. But she was sure that the air of that +country was sweet, she was faint with its beauty, her heart beat with +violence to its far echoes. Moreover, she was dimly aware that in the +moment when she had looked there had been a baptism. She had thought of +herself as a child, as a girl; now and for evermore she was a woman. + +They left the forest behind, and came to open fields where the tobacco had +been beaten to earth. The trees now stood singly or in shivering copses. +Above, the heavens were bare to their gaze, and the lightning gave +glimpses of pale castles overhanging steel-gray, fathomless abysses. The +road widened, and the bay was pushed by its rider to Mirza's side. Fields +of corn where the long blades wildly clashed, a wood of dripping cedars, a +patch of Oronoko, tobacco house in midst, rising ground and a vision of +the river, then a swift descent to the lower creek, and the bridge across +which lay the road that ran to the minister's house. Audrey spoke +earnestly to the master of Fair View, and after a moment's hesitation he +drew rein. "We will not cross, Colonel," he declared. "My preserver will +have it that she has troubled us long enough; and indeed it is no great +distance to the glebe house, and the rain has stopped. Have down with +thee, then, obstinate one!" + +Audrey slipped to the earth, and pushed back her hair from her eyes. +Colonel Byrd observed her curiously. "Faith," he exclaimed, "'tis the +Atalanta of last May Day! Well, child, I believe thou hast saved our +lives. Come, here are three gold baubles that may pass for Hippomenes' +apples!" + +Audrey put her hands behind her. "I want no money, sir. What I did was a +gift; it has no price." She was only Darden's Audrey, but she spoke as +proudly as a princess might have spoken. Haward smiled to hear her; and +seeing the smile, she was comforted. "For he understands," she said to +herself. "He would never hurt me so." It did not wound her that he said no +word, but only lifted his hat, when she curtsied to them both. There was +to-morrow, and he would praise her then for her quickness of wit and her +courage in following Hugon, whom she feared so much. + +The riders watched her cross the bridge and turn into the road that led to +the glebe house, then kept their own road in silence until it brought them +to the doors of Fair View. + +It was an hour later, and drawing toward dusk, when the Colonel, having +changed his wet riding clothes for a suit of his friend's, came down the +stairs and entered the Fair View drawing-room. Haward, in green, with rich +lace at throat and wrist, was there before him, walking up and down in the +cheerful light of a fire kindled against the dampness. "No sign of our +men," he said, as the other entered. "Come to the fire. Faith, Colonel, my +russet and gold becomes you mightily! Juba took you the aqua vitae?" + +"Ay, in one of your great silver goblets, with a forest of mint atop. Ha, +this is comfort!" He sank into an armchair, stretched his legs before the +blaze, and began to look about him. "I have ever said, Haward, that of +all the gentlemen of my acquaintance you have the most exact taste. I told +Bubb Dodington as much, last year, at Eastbury. Damask, mirrors, +paintings, china, cabinets,--all chaste and quiet, extremely elegant, but +without ostentation! It hath an air, too. I would swear a woman had the +placing of yonder painted jars!" + +"You are right," said Haward, smiling. "The wife of the minister of this +parish was good enough to come to my assistance." + +"Ah!" said the Colonel dryly. "Did Atalanta come as well? She is his +reverence's servant, is she not?" + +"No," answered Haward shortly to the last question, and, leaning across, +stirred the fire. + +The light caused to sparkle a jeweled pin worn in the lace of his ruffles, +and the toy caught the Colonel's eye. "One of Spotswood's golden +horseshoes!" he exclaimed. "I had them wrought for him in London. Had they +been so many stars and garters, he could have made no greater pother! 'Tis +ten years since I saw one." + +Haward detached the horseshoe-shaped bauble from the lace, and laid it on +the other's palm. The master of Westover regarded it curiously, and read +aloud the motto engraved upon its back: "'Sic Juvat Transcendere Montes.' +A barren exploit! But some day I too shall please myself and cross these +sun-kissing hills. And so the maid with the eyes is not his reverence's +servant? What is she?" + +Haward took the golden horseshoe in his own hand, and fell to studying it +in the firelight. "I wore this to-night," he said at length, with +deliberation, "in order that it might bring to your mind that sprightly +ultramontane expedition in which, my dear Colonel, had you not been in +England, you had undoubtedly borne a part. You have asked me a question; I +will answer it with a story, and so the time may pass more rapidly until +the arrival of Mr. MacLean with our friends who set traps." He turned the +mimic horseshoe this way and that, watching the small gems, that simulated +nails, flash in the red light. "Some days to the west of Germanna," he +said, "when about us were the lesser mountains, and before us those that +propped the sky, we came one sunny noon upon a valley, a little valley, +very peaceful below the heights. A stream shone through it, and there were +noble trees, and beside the stream the cabin of a frontiersman." + +On went the story. The fire crackled, reflecting itself in mirrors and +polished wood and many small window panes. Outside, the rain had ceased, +but the wind and the river murmured loudly, and the shadows of the night +were gathering. When the narrative was ended, he who had spoken and he who +had listened sat staring at the fire. "A pretty story!" said the Colonel +at last. "Dick Steele should have had it; 'twould have looked vastly well +over against his Inkle and Yarico. There the maid the savior, here the +man; there perfidy, here plain honesty; there for the woman a fate most +tragical, here"-- + +"Here?" said Haward, as the other paused. + +The master of Westover took out his snuffbox. "And here the continued +kindness of a young and handsome preserver," he said suavely, and extended +the box to his host. + +"You are mistaken," said Haward. He rose, and stood leaning against the +mantel, his eyes upon the older man's somewhat coldly smiling +countenance. "She is as innocent, as high of soul, and as pure of heart +as--as Evelyn." + +The Colonel clicked to the lid of his box. "You will be so good as to +leave my daughter's name out of the conversation." + +"As you please," Haward answered, with hauteur. + +Another silence, broken by the guest. "Why did you hang that kit-kat of +yourself behind the door, Haward?" he asked amiably. "'Tis too fine a +piece to be lost in shadow. I would advise a change with yonder +shepherdess." + +"I do not know why," said Haward restlessly. "A whim. Perhaps by nature I +court shadows and dark corners." + +"That is not so," Byrd replied quietly. He had turned in his chair, the +better to observe the distant portrait that was now lightened, now +darkened, as the flames rose and fell. "A speaking likeness," he went on, +glancing from it to the original and back again. "I ever thought it one of +Kneller's best. The portrait of a gentleman. Only--you have noticed, I +dare say, how in the firelight familiar objects change aspect many +times?--only just now it seemed to me that it lost that distinction"-- + +"Well?" said Haward, as he paused. + +The Colonel went on slowly: "Lost that distinction, and became the +portrait of"-- + +"Well? Of whom?" asked Haward, and, with his eyes shaded by his hand, +gazed not at the portrait, but at the connoisseur in gold and russet. + +"Of a dirty tradesman," said the master of Westover lightly. "In a word, +of an own brother to Mr. Thomas Inkle." + +A dead silence; then Haward spoke calmly: "I will not take offense, +Colonel Byrd. Perhaps I should not take it even were it not as my guest +and in my drawing-room that you have so spoken. We will, if you please, +consign my portrait to the obscurity from which it has been dragged. In +good time here comes Juba to light the candles and set the shadows +fleeing." + +Leaving the fire he moved to a window, and stood looking out upon the +windy twilight. From the back of the house came a sound of voices and of +footsteps. The Colonel put up his snuffbox and brushed a grain from his +ruffles. "Enter two murderers!" he said briskly. "Will you have them here, +Haward, or shall we go into the hall?" + +"Light all the candles, Juba," ordered the master. "Here, I think, +Colonel, where the stage will set them off. Juba, go ask Mr. MacLean and +Saunderson to bring their prisoners here." + +As he spoke, he turned from the contemplation of the night without to the +brightly lit room. "This is a murderous fellow, this Hugon," he said, as +he took his seat in a great chair drawn before a table. "I have heard +Colonel Byrd argue in favor of imitating John Rolfe's early experiment, +and marrying the white man to the heathen. We are about to behold the +result of such an union." + +"I would not have the practice universal," said the Colonel coolly, "but +'twould go far toward remedying loss of scalps in this world, and of +infidel souls hereafter. Your sprightly lover is a most prevailing +missionary. But here is our Huguenot-Monacan." + +MacLean, very wet and muddy, with one hand wrapped in a blood-stained rag, +came in first. "We found them hidden in the bushes at the turn of the +road," he said hastily. "The schoolmaster was more peaceably inclined than +any Quaker, but Hugon fought like the wolf that he is. Can't you hang him +out of hand, Haward? Give me a land where the chief does justice while the +king looks the other way!" He turned and beckoned. "Bring them in, +Saunderson." + +There was no discomposure in the schoolmaster's dress, and as little in +his face or manner. He bowed to the two gentlemen, then shambled across to +the fire, and as best he could held out his bound hands to the grateful +blaze. "May I ask, sir," he said, in his lifeless voice, "why it is that +this youth and I, resting in all peace and quietness beside a public road, +should be set upon by your servants, overpowered, bound, and haled to your +house as to a judgment bar?" + +Haward, to whom this speech was addressed, gave it no attention. His gaze +was upon Hugon, who in his turn glared at him alone. Haward had a subtle +power of forcing and fixing the attention of a company; in crowded rooms, +without undue utterance or moving from his place, he was apt to achieve +the centre of the stage, the head of the table. Now, the half-breed, by +very virtue of the passion which, false to his Indian blood, shook him +like a leaf, of a rage which overmastered and transformed, reached at a +bound the Englishman's plane of distinction. His great wig, of a fashion +years gone by, was pulled grotesquely aside, showing the high forehead and +shaven crown beneath; his laced coat and tawdry waistcoat and ruffled +shirt were torn and foul with mud and mould, but the man himself made to +be forgotten the absurdity of his trappings. Gone, for him, were his +captors, his accomplice, the spectator in gold and russet; to Haward, +also, sitting very cold, very quiet, with narrowed eyes, they were gone. +He was angered, and in the mood to give rein after his own fashion to that +anger. MacLean and the master of Westover, the overseer and the +schoolmaster, were forgotten, and he and Hugon met alone as they might +have met in the forest. Between them, and without a spoken word, the two +made this fact to be recognized by the other occupants of the +drawing-room. Colonel Byrd, who had been standing with his hand upon the +table, moved backward until he joined MacLean beside the closed door: +Saunderson drew near to the schoolmaster: and the centre of the room was +left to the would-be murderer and the victim that had escaped him. + +"Monsieur le Monacan," said Haward. + +Hugon snarled like an angry wolf, and strained at the rope which bound his +arms. + +Haward went on evenly: "Your tribe has smoked the peace pipe with the +white man. I was not told it by singing birds, but by the great white +father at Williamsburgh. They buried the hatchet very deep; the dead +leaves of many moons of Cohonks lie thick upon the place where they buried +it. Why have you made a warpath, treading it alone of your color?" + +"Diable!" cried Hugon. "Pig of an Englishman! I will kill you for"-- + +"For an handful of blue beads," said Haward, with a cold smile. "And I, +dog of an Indian! I will send a Nottoway to teach the Monacans how to lay +a snare and hide a trail." + +The trader, gasping with passion, leaned across the table until his eyes +were within a foot of Haward's unmoved face. "Who showed you the trail and +told you of the snare?" he whispered. "Tell me that, you +Englishman,--tell me that!" + +"A storm bird," said Haward calmly. "Okee is perhaps angry with his +Monacans, and sent it." + +"Was it Audrey?" + +Haward laughed. "No, it was not Audrey. And so, Monacan, you have yourself +fallen into the pit which you digged." + +From the fireplace came the schoolmaster's slow voice: "Dear sir, can you +show the pit? Why should this youth desire to harm you? Where is the storm +bird? Can you whistle it before a justice of the peace or into a court +room?" + +If Haward heard, it did not appear. He was leaning back in his chair, his +eyes fixed upon the trader's twitching face in a cold and smiling regard. +"Well, Monacan?" he demanded. + +The half-breed straightened himself, and with a mighty effort strove in +vain for a composure that should match the other's cold self-command,--a +command which taunted and stung now at this point, now at that. "I am a +Frenchman!" he cried, in a voice that broke with passion. "I am of the +noblesse of the land of France, which is a country that is much grander +than Virginia! Old Pierre at Monacan-Town told me these things. My father +changed his name when he came across the sea, so I bear not the _de_ which +is a sign of a great man. Listen, you Englishman! I trade, I prosper, I +buy me land, I begin to build me a house. There is a girl that I see every +hour, every minute, while I am building it. She says she loves me not, but +nevertheless I shall wed her. Now I see her in this room, now in that; she +comes down the stair, she smiles at the window, she stands on the +doorstep to welcome me when I come home from my hunting and trading in +the woods so far away. I bring her fine skins of the otter, the beaver, +and the fawn; beadwork also from the villages and bracelets of copper and +pearl. The flowers bloom around her, and my heart sings to see her upon my +doorstep.... The flowers are dead, and you have stolen the girl away.... +There was a stream, and the sun shone upon it, and you and she were in a +boat. I walked alone upon the bank, and in my heart I left building my +house and fell to other work. You laughed; one day you will laugh no more. +That was many suns ago. I have watched"-- + +Foam was upon his lips, and he strained without ceasing at his bonds. +Already pulled far awry, his great peruke, a cataract of hair streaming +over his shoulders, shading and softening the swarthy features between its +curled waves, now slipped from his head and fell to the floor. The change +which its absence wrought was startling. Of the man the moiety that was +white disappeared. The shaven head, its poise, its features, were Indian; +the soul was Indian, and looked from Indian eyes. Suddenly, for the last +transforming touch, came a torrent of words in a strange tongue, the +tongue of his mother. Of what he was speaking, what he was threatening, no +one of them could tell; he was a savage giving voice to madness and hate. + +Haward pushed back his chair from the table, and, rising, walked across +the room to the window. Hugon followed him, straining at the rope about +his arms and speaking thickly. His eyes were glaring, his teeth bared. +When he was so close that the Virginian could feel his hot breath, the +latter turned, and uttering an oath of disgust struck the back of his +hand across his lips. With the cry of an animal, Hugon, bound as he was, +threw himself bodily upon his foe, who in his turn flung the trader from +him with a violence that sent him reeling against the wall. Here +Saunderson, a man of powerful build, seized him by the shoulders, holding +him fast; MacLean, too, hurriedly crossed from the door. There was no +need, for the half-breed's frenzy was spent. He stood with glittering eyes +following Haward's every motion, but quite silent, his frame rigid in the +overseer's grasp. + +Colonel Byrd went up to Haward and spoke in a low voice: "Best send them +at once to Williamsburgh." + +Haward shook his head. "I cannot," he said, with a gesture of impatience. +"There is no proof." + +"No proof!" exclaimed his guest sharply. "You mean"-- + +The other met his stare of surprise with an imperturbable countenance. +"What I say," he answered quietly. "My servants find two men lurking +beside a road that I am traveling. Being somewhat over-zealous, they take +them up upon suspicion of meaning mischief and bring them before me. It is +all guesswork why they were at the turn of the road, and what they wanted +there. There is no proof, no witness"-- + +"I see that there is no witness that you care to call," said the Colonel +coldly. + +Haward waved his hand. "There is no witness," he said, without change of +tone. "And therefore, Colonel, I am about to dismiss the case." + +With a slight bow to his guest he left the window, and advanced to the +group in the centre of the room. "Saunderson," he said abruptly, "take +these two men to the quarter and cut their bonds. Give them a start of +fifty yards, then loose the dogs and hunt them from the plantation. You +have men outside to help you? Very well; go! Mr. MacLean, will you see +this chase fairly started?" + +The Highlander, who had become very thoughtful of aspect since entering +the room, and who had not shared Saunderson's start of surprise at the +master's latest orders, nodded assent. Haward stood for a moment gazing +steadily at Hugon, but with no notice to bestow upon the bowing +schoolmaster; then walked over to the harpsichord, and, sitting down, +began to play an old tune, soft and slow, with pauses between the notes. +When he came to the final chord he looked over his shoulder at the +Colonel, standing before the mantel, with his eyes upon the fire. "So they +have gone," he said. "Good riddance! A pretty brace of villains!" + +"I should be loath to have Monsieur Jean Hugon for my enemy," said the +Colonel gravely. + +Haward laughed. "I was told at Williamsburgh that a party of traders go to +the Southern Indians to-morrow, and he with them. Perhaps a month or two +of the woods will work a cure." + +He fell to playing again, a quiet, plaintive air. When it was ended, he +rose and went over to the fire to keep his guest company; but finding him +in a mood for silence, presently fell silent himself, and took to viewing +structures of his own building in the red hollows between the logs. This +mutual taciturnity lasted until the announcement of supper, and was +relapsed into at intervals during the meal; but when they had returned to +the drawing-room the two talked until it was late, and the fire had sunken +to ash and embers. Before they parted for the night it was agreed that +the master of Westover should remain with the master of Fair View for a +day or so, at the end of which time the latter gentleman would accompany +the former to Westover for a visit of indefinite length. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +AUDREY AND EVELYN + + +Hugon went a-trading to the Southern Indians, but had lately returned to +his lair at the crossroads ordinary, when, upon a sunny September morning, +Audrey and Mistress Deborah, mounted upon the sorriest of Darden's sorry +steeds, turned from Duke of Gloucester into Palace Street. They had parted +with the minister before his favorite ordinary, and were on their way to +the house where they themselves were to lodge during the three days of +town life which Darden had vouchsafed to offer them. + +For a month or more Virginia had been wearing black ribbons for the King, +who died in June, but in the last day or so there had been a reversion to +bright colors. This cheerful change had been wrought by the arrival in the +York of the Fortune of Bristol, with the new governor on board. His +Excellency had landed at Yorktown, and, after suitable entertainment at +the hands of its citizens, had proceeded under escort to Williamsburgh. +The entry into the town was triumphal, and when, at the doorway of his +Palace, the Governor turned, and addressed a pleasing oration to the +people whom he was to rule in the name of the King and my Lord of Orkney, +enthusiasm reached its height. At night the town was illuminated, and +well-nigh all its ladies and gentlemen visited the Palace, in order to +pay their duty to its latest occupant. It was a pleasure-loving people, +and the arrival of a governor an occasion of which the most must be made. +Gentlemen of consideration had come in from every county, bringing with +them wives and daughters. In the mild, sunshiny weather the crowded town +overflowed into square and street and garden. Everywhere were bustle and +gayety,--gayety none the less for the presence of thirty or more ministers +of the Established Church. For Mr. Commissary Blair had convoked a meeting +of the clergy for the consideration of evils affecting that body,--not, +alas! from without alone. The Governor, arriving so opportunely, must, +too, be addressed upon the usual subjects of presentation, induction, and +all-powerful vestries. It was fitting, also, that the college of William +and Mary should have its say upon the occasion, and the brightest scholar +thereof was even now closeted with the Latin master. That the copy of +verses giving the welcome of so many future planters, Burgesses, and +members of Council would be choice in thought and elegant in expression, +there could be no reasonable doubt. The Council was to give an +entertainment at the Capitol; one day had been set aside for a muster of +militia in the meadow beyond the college, another for a great horse-race; +many small parties were arranged; and last, but not least, on the night of +the day following Darden's appearance in town, his Excellency was to give +a ball at the Palace. Add to all this that two notorious pirates were +standing their trial before a court-martial, with every prospect of being +hanged within the se'ennight; that a deputation of Nottoways and +Meherrins, having business with the white fathers in Williamsburgh, were +to be persuaded to dance their wildest, whoop their loudest, around a +bonfire built in the market square; that at the playhouse Cato was to be +given with extraordinary magnificence, and one may readily see that there +might have been found, in this sunny September week, places less +entertaining than Williamsburgh. + +Darden's old white horse, with its double load, plodded along the street +that led to the toy Palace of this toy capital. The Palace, of course, was +not its riders' destination; instead, when they had crossed Nicholson +Street, they drew up before a particularly small white house, so hidden +away behind lilac bushes and trellised grapevines that it gave but here +and there a pale hint of its existence. It was planted in the shadow of a +larger building, and a path led around it to what seemed a pleasant, +shady, and extensive garden. + +Mistress Deborah gave a sigh of satisfaction. "Seven years come Martinmas +since I last stayed overnight with Mary Stagg! And we were born in the +same village, and at Bath what mighty friends we were! She was playing +Dorinda,--that's in 'The Beaux' Stratagem,' Audrey,--and her dress was +just an old striped Persian, vastly unbecoming. Her Ladyship's pink +alamode, that Major D---- spilt a dish of chocolate over, she gave to me +for carrying a note; and I gave it to Mary (she was Mary Baker then),--for +I looked hideous in pink,--and she was that grateful, as well she might +be! Mary, Mary!" + +A slender woman, with red-brown hair and faded cheeks, came running from +the house to the gate. "At last, my dear Deborah! I vow I had given you +up! Says I to Mirabell an hour ago,--you know that is my name for Charles, +for 'twas when he played Mirabell to my Millamant that we fell in +love,--'Well,' says I, 'I'll lay a gold-furbelowed scarf to a yard of +oznaburg that Mr. Darden, riding home through the night, and in liquor, +perhaps, has fallen and broken his neck, and Deborah can't come.' And says +Mirabell--But la, my dear, there you stand in your safeguard, and I'm +keeping the gate shut on you! Come in. Come in, Audrey. Why, you've grown +to be a woman! You were just a brown slip of a thing, that Lady Day, two +years ago, that I spent with Deborah. Come in the both of you. There are +cakes and a bottle of Madeira." + +Audrey fastened the horse against the time that Darden should remember to +send for it, and then followed the ex-waiting-woman and the former queen +of a company of strollers up a grassy path and through a little green door +into a pleasant room, where grape leaves wreathed the windows and cast +their shadows upon a sanded floor. At one end of the room stood a great, +rudely built cabinet, and before it a long table, strewn with an orderly +litter of such slender articles of apparel as silk and tissue scarfs, +gauze hoods, breast knots, silk stockings, and embroidered gloves. +Mistress Deborah must needs run and examine these at once, and Mistress +Mary Stagg, wife of the lessee, manager, and principal actor of the +Williamsburgh theatre, looked complacently over her shoulder. The +minister's wife sighed again, this time with envy. + +"What with the theatre, and the bowling green, and tea in your +summer-house, and dancing lessons, and the sale of these fine things, you +and Charles must turn a pretty penny! The luck that some folk have! _You_ +were always fortunate, Mary." + +Mistress Stagg did not deny the imputation. But she was a kindly soul, +who had not forgotten the gift of my Lady Squander's pink alamode. The +chocolate stain had not been so very large. + +"I've laid by a pretty piece of sarcenet of which to make you a capuchin," +she said promptly. "Now, here's the wine. Shan't we go into the garden, +and sip it there? Peggy," to the black girl holding a salver, "put the +cake and wine on the table in the arbor; then sit here by the window, and +call me if any come. My dear Deborah, I doubt if I have so much as a +ribbon left by the end of the week. The town is that gay! I says to +Mirabell this morning, says I, 'Lord, my dear, it a'most puts me in mind +of Bath!' And Mirabell says--But here's the garden door. Now, isn't it +cool and pleasant out here? Audrey may gather us some grapes. Yes, they're +very fine, full bunches; it has been a bounteous year." + +The grape arbor hugged the house, but beyond it was a pretty, shady, +fancifully laid out garden, with shell-bordered walks, a grotto, a +summer-house, and a gate opening into Nicholson Street. Beyond the garden +a glimpse was to be caught through the trees of a trim bowling green. It +had rained the night before, and a delightful, almost vernal freshness +breathed in the air. The bees made a great buzzing amongst the grapes, and +the birds in the mulberry-trees sang as though it were nesting time. +Mistress Stagg and her old acquaintance sat at a table placed in the +shadow of the vines, and sipped their wine, while Audrey obediently +gathered clusters of the purple fruit, and thought the garden very fine, +but oh, not like--There could be no garden in the world so beautiful and +so dear as that! And she had not seen it for so long, so long a time. She +wondered if she would ever see it again. + +When she brought the fruit to the table, Mistress Stagg made room for her +kindly enough; and she sat and drank her wine and went to her world of +dreams, while her companions bartered town and country gossip. It has been +said that the small white house adjoined a larger building. A window in +this structure, which had much the appearance of a barn, was now opened, +with the result that a confused sound, as of several people speaking at +once, made itself heard. Suddenly the noise gave place to a single +high-pitched voice:-- + + "'Welcome, my son! Here lay him down, my friends, + Full in my sight, that I may view at leisure + The bloody corse, and count those glorious wounds.'" + +A smile irradiated Mistress Stagg's faded countenance, and she blew a kiss +toward the open window. "He does Cato so extremely well; and it's a grave, +dull, odd character, too. But Mirabell--that's Charles, you know--manages +to put a little life in it, a _Je ne sais quoi_, a touch of Sir Harry +Wildair. Now--now he's pulling out his laced handkerchief to weep over +Rome! You should see him after he has fallen on his sword, and is brought +on in a chair, all over blood. This is the third rehearsal; the play's +ordered for Monday night. Who is it, Peggy? Madam Travis! It's about the +lace for her damask petticoat, and there's no telling how long she may +keep me! My dear Deborah, when you have finished your wine, Peggy shall +show you your room. You must make yourself quite at home. For says I to +Mirabell this morning, 'Far be it from me to forget past kindnesses, and +in those old Bath days Deborah was a good friend to me,--which was no +wonder, to be sure, seeing that when we were little girls we went to the +same dame school, and always learned our book and worked our samplers +together.' And says Mirabell--Yes, yes, ma'am, I'm coming!" + +She disappeared, and the black girl showed the two guests through the hall +and up a tiny stairway into a little dormer-windowed, whitewashed room. +Mistress Deborah, who still wore remnants of my Lady Squander's ancient +gifts of spoiled finery, had likewise failed to discard the second-hand +fine-lady airs acquired during her service. She now declared herself +excessively tired by her morning ride, and martyr, besides, to a migraine. +Moreover, it was enough to give one the spleen to hear Mary Stagg's magpie +chatter and to see how some folk throve, willy-nilly, while others just as +good--Here tears of vexation ensued, and she must lie down upon the bed +and call in a feeble voice for her smelling salts. Audrey hurriedly +searched in the ragged portmanteau brought to town the day before in the +ox-cart of an obliging parishioner, found the flask, and took it to the +bedside, to receive in exchange a sound box of the ear for her tardiness. +The blow reddened her cheek, but brought no tears to her eyes. It was too +small a thing to weep for; tears were for blows upon the heart. + +It was a cool and quiet little room, and Mistress Deborah, who had drunk +two full glasses of the Madeira, presently fell asleep. Audrey sat very +still, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes upon them, until their +hostess's voice announced from the foot of the stairs that Madam Travis +had taken her departure. She then slipped from the room, and was affably +received below, and taken into the apartment which they had first entered. +Here Mistress became at once extremely busy. A fan was to be mounted; +yards of silk gathered into furbelows; breast knots, shoulder knots, sword +knots, to be made up. Her customers were all people of quality, and unless +she did her part not one of them could go to the ball. Audrey shyly +proffered her aid, and was set to changing the ribbons upon a mask. + +Mistress Stagg's tongue went as fast as her needle: "And Deborah is +asleep! Poor soul! she's sadly changed from what she was in old England +thirteen years ago. As neat a shape as you would see in a day's journey, +with the prettiest color, and eyes as bright as those marcasite buttons! +And she saw the best of company at my Lady Squander's,--no lack there of +kisses and guineas and fine gentlemen, you may be sure! There's a deal of +change in this mortal world, and it's generally for the worse. Here, +child, you may whip this lace on Mr. Lightfoot's ruffles. I think myself +lucky, I can tell you, that there are so few women in Cato. If 'tweren't +so, I should have to go on myself; for since poor, dear, pretty Jane Day +died of the smallpox, and Oriana Jordan ran away with the rascally +Bridewell fellow that we bought to play husbands' parts, and was never +heard of more, but is supposed to have gotten clean off to Barbadoes by +favor of the master of the Lady Susan, we have been short of actresses. +But in this play there are only Marcia and Lucia. 'It is extremely +fortunate, my dear,' said I to Mirabell this very morning, 'that in this +play, which is the proper compliment to a great gentleman just taking +office, Mr. Addison should have put no more than two women.' And Mirabell +says--Don't put the lace so full, child; 'twon't go round." + +"A chair is stopping at the gate," said Audrey, who sat by the window. +"There's a lady in it." + +The chair was a very fine painted one, borne by two gayly dressed negroes, +and escorted by a trio of beribboned young gentlemen, prodigal of gallant +speeches, amorous sighs, and languishing glances. Mistress Stagg looked, +started up, and, without waiting to raise from the floor the armful of +delicate silk which she had dropped, was presently curtsying upon the +doorstep. + +The bearers set down their load. One of the gentlemen opened the chair +door with a flourish, and the divinity, compressing her hoop, descended. A +second cavalier flung back Mistress Stagg's gate, and the third, with a +low bow, proffered his hand to conduct the fair from the gate to the +doorstep. The lady shook her head; a smiling word or two, a slight curtsy, +the wave of a painted fan, and her attendants found themselves dismissed. +She came up the path alone, slowly, with her head a little bent. Audrey, +watching her from the window, knew who she was, and her heart beat fast. +If this lady were in town, then so was he; he would not have stayed behind +at Westover. She would have left the room, but there was not time. The +mistress of the house, smiling and obsequious, fluttered in, and Evelyn +Byrd followed. + +There had been ordered for her a hood of golden tissue, with wide and long +streamers to be tied beneath the chin, and she was come to try it on. +Mistress Stagg had it all but ready,--there was only the least bit of +stitchery; would Mistress Evelyn condescend to wait a very few minutes? +She placed a chair, and the lady sank into it, finding the quiet of the +shadowed room pleasant enough after the sunlight and talkativeness of the +world without. Mistress Stagg, in her role of milliner, took the gauzy +trifle, called by courtesy a hood, to the farthest window, and fell +busily to work. + +It seemed to grow more and more quiet in the room: the shadow of the +leaves lay still upon the floor; the drowsy humming of the bees outside +the windows, the sound of locusts in the trees, the distant noises of the +town,--all grew more remote, then suddenly appeared to cease. + +Audrey raised her eyes, and met the eyes of Evelyn. She knew that they had +been upon her for a long time, in the quiet of the room. She had sat +breathless, her head bowed over her work that lay idly in her lap, but at +last she must look. The two gazed at each other with a sorrowful +steadfastness; in the largeness of their several natures there was no room +for self-consciousness; it was the soul of each that gazed. But in the +mists of earthly ignorance they could not read what was written, and they +erred in their guessing. Audrey went not far wide. This was the princess, +and, out of the fullness of a heart that ached with loss, she could have +knelt and kissed the hem of her robe, and wished her long and happy life. +There was no bitterness in her heart; she never dreamed that she had +wronged the princess. But Evelyn thought: "This is the girl they talk +about. God knows, if he had loved worthily, I might not so much have +minded!" + +From the garden came a burst of laughter and high voices. Mistress Stagg +started up. "'Tis our people, Mistress Evelyn, coming from the playhouse. +We lodge them in the house by the bowling green, but after rehearsals +they're apt to stop here. I'll send them packing. The hood is finished. +Audrey will set it upon your head, ma'am, while I am gone. Here, child! +Mind you don't crush it." She gave the hood into Audrey's hands, and +hurried from the room. + +Evelyn sat motionless, her silken draperies flowing around her, one white +arm bent, the soft curve of her cheek resting upon ringed fingers. Her +eyes yet dwelt upon Audrey, standing as motionless, the mist of gauze and +lace in her hands. "Do not trouble yourself," she said, in her low, clear +voice. "I will wait until Mistress Stagg returns." + +The tone was very cold, but Audrey scarce noticed that it was so. "If I +may, I should like to serve you, ma'am," she said pleadingly. "I will be +very careful." + +Leaving the window, she came and knelt beside Evelyn; but when she would +have put the golden hood upon her head, the other drew back with a gesture +of aversion, a quick recoil of her entire frame. The hood slipped to the +floor. After a moment Audrey rose and stepped back a pace or two. Neither +spoke, but it was the one who thought no evil whose eyes first sought the +floor. Her dark cheek paled, and her lips trembled; she turned, and going +back to her seat by the window took up her fallen work. Evelyn, with a +sharp catch of her breath, withdrew her attention from the other occupant +of the room, and fixed it upon a moted sunbeam lying like a bar between +the two. + +Mistress Stagg returned. The hood was fitted, and its purchaser prepared +to leave. Audrey rose and made her curtsy, timidly, but with a quick, +appealing motion of her hand. Was not this the lady whom he loved, that +people said he was to wed? And had he not told her, long ago, that he +would speak of her to Mistress Evelyn Byrd, and that she too would be her +friend? Last May Day, when the guinea was put into her hand, the lady's +smile was bright, her voice sweet and friendly. Now, how changed! In her +craving for a word, a look, from one so near him, one that perhaps had +seen him not an hour before; in her sad homage for the object of his love, +she forgot her late repulse, and grew bold. When Evelyn would have passed +her, she put forth a trembling hand and began to speak, to say she scarce +knew what; but the words died in her throat. For a moment Evelyn stood, +her head averted, an angry red staining neck and bosom and beautiful, +down-bent face. Her eyes half closed, the long lashes quivering against +her cheek, and she smiled faintly, in scorn of the girl and scorn of +herself. Then, freeing her skirt from Audrey's clasp, she passed in +silence from the room. + +Audrey stood at the window, and with wide, pained eyes watched her go down +the path. Mistress Stagg was with her, talking volubly, and Evelyn seemed +to listen with smiling patience. One of the bedizened negroes opened the +chair door; the lady entered, and was borne away. Before Mistress Stagg +could reenter her house Audrey had gone quietly up the winding stair to +the little whitewashed room, where she found the minister's wife astir and +restored to good humor. Her sleep had helped her; she would go down at +once and see what Mary was at. Darden, too, was coming as soon as the +meeting at the church had adjourned. After dinner they would walk out and +see the town, until which time Audrey might do as she pleased. When she +was gone, Audrey softly shut herself in the little room, and lay down upon +the bed, very still, with her face hidden in her arm. + +With twelve of the clock came Darden, quite sober, distrait in manner and +uneasy of eye, and presently interrupted Mistress Stagg's flow of +conversation by a demand to speak with his wife alone. At that time of day +the garden was a solitude, and thither the two repaired, taking their +seats upon a bench built round a mulberry-tree. + +"Well?" queried Mistress Deborah bitterly. "I suppose Mr. Commissary +showed himself vastly civil? I dare say you're to preach before the +Governor next Sunday? Or maybe they've chosen Bailey? He boasts that he +can drink you under the table! One of these fine days you'll drink and +curse and game yourself out of a parish!" + +Darden drew figures on the ground with his heavy stick. "On such a fine +day as this," he said, in a suppressed voice, and looked askance at the +wife whom he beat upon occasion, but whose counsel he held in respect. + +She turned upon him. "What do you mean? They talk and talk, and cry +shame,--and a shame it is, the Lord knows! But it never comes to +anything"-- + +"It has come to this," interrupted Darden, with an oath: "that this +Governor means to sweep in the corners; that the Commissary--damned +Scot!--to-day appointed a committee to inquire into the charges made +against me and Bailey and John Worden; that seven of my vestrymen are dead +against me; and that 'deprivation' has suddenly become a very common +word!" + +"Seven of the vestry?" said his wife, after a pause. "Who are they?" + +Darden told her. + +"If Mr. Haward"--she began slowly, her green eyes steady upon the +situation. "There's not one of that seven would care to disoblige him. I +warrant you he could make them face about. They say he knew the Governor +in England, too; and there's his late gift to the college,--the Commissary +wouldn't forget that. If Mr. Haward would"--She broke off, and with knit +brows studied the problem more intently. + +"If he would, he could," Darden finished for her. "With his interest this +cloud would go by, as others have done before. I know that, Deborah. And +that's the card I'm going to play." + +"If you had gone to him, hat in hand, a month ago, he'd have done you any +favor," said his helpmate sourly. "But it is different now. He's over his +fancy; and besides, he's at Westover." + +"He's in Williamsburgh, at Marot's ordinary," said the other. "As for his +being over his fancy,--I'll try that. Fancy or no fancy, if a woman asked +him for a fairing, he would give it her, or I don't know my gentleman. +We'll call his interest a ribbon or some such toy, and Audrey shall ask +him for it." + +"Audrey is a fool!" cried Mistress Deborah. "And you had best be careful, +or you'll prove yourself another! There's been talk enough already. +Audrey, village innocent that she is, is the only one that doesn't know +it. The town's not the country; if he sets tongues a-clacking here"-- + +"He won't," said Darden roughly. "He's no hare-brained one-and-twenty! And +Audrey's a good girl. Go send her here, Deborah. Bid her fetch me Stagg's +inkhorn and a pen and a sheet of paper. If he does anything for me, it +will have to be done quickly. They're in haste to pull me out of saddle, +the damned canting pack! But I'll try conclusions with them!" + +His wife departed, muttering to herself, and the reverend Gideon pulled +out of his capacious pocket a flask of usquebaugh. In five minutes from +the time of his setting it to his lips the light in which he viewed the +situation turned from gray to rose color. By the time he espied Audrey +coming toward him through the garden he felt a moral certainty that when +he came to die (if ever he died) it would be in his bed in the Fair View +glebe house. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +WITHIN THE PLAYHOUSE + + +Haward, sitting at the table in Marot's best room, wrote an answer to +Audrey's letter, and tore it up; wrote another, and gave it to Juba, to be +given to the messenger waiting below; recalled the negro before he could +reach the door, destroyed the second note, and wrote a third. The first +had been wise and kind, telling her that he was much engaged, lightly and +skillfully waving aside her request--the only one she made--that she might +see him that day. The second had been less wise. The last told her that he +would come at five o'clock to the summer-house in Mistress Stagg's garden. + +When he was alone in the room, he sat for some time very still, with his +eyes closed and his head thrown back against the tall woodwork of his +chair. His face was stern in repose: a handsome, even a fine face, with a +look of power and reflection, but to-day somewhat worn and haggard of +aspect. When presently he roused himself and took up the letter that lay +before him, the paper shook in his hand. "Wine, Juba," he said to the +slave, who now reentered the room. "And close the window; it is growing +cold." + +There were but three lines between the "Mr. Haward" and "Audrey;" the +writing was stiff and clerkly, the words very simple,--a child's asking of +a favor. He guessed rightly that it was the first letter of her own that +she had ever written. Suddenly a wave of passionate tenderness took him; +he bowed his head and kissed the paper; for the moment many-threaded life +and his own complex nature alike straightened to a beautiful simplicity. +He was the lover, merely; life was but the light and shadow through which +moved the woman whom he loved. He came back to himself, and tried to think +it out, but could not. Finally, with a weary impatience, he declined to +think at all. He was to dine at the Governor's. Evelyn would be there. + +Only momentarily, in those days of early summer, had he wavered in his +determination to make this lady his wife. Pride was at the root of his +being,--pride and a deep self-will; though because they were so sunken, +and because poisonous roots can flower most deceivingly, he neither called +himself nor was called of others a proud and willful man. He wished Evelyn +for his wife; nay, more, though on May Day he had shown her that he loved +her not, though in June he had offered her a love that was only admiring +affection, yet in the past month at Westover he had come almost to believe +that he loved her truly. That she was worthy of true love he knew very +well. With all his strength of will, he had elected to forget the summer +that lay behind him at Fair View, and to live in the summer that was with +him at Westover. His success had been gratifying; in the flush of it, he +persuaded himself that a chamber of the heart had been locked forever, and +the key thrown away. And lo now! a touch, the sudden sight of a name, and +the door had flown wide; nay, the very walls were rived away! It was not a +glance over the shoulder; it was full presence in the room so lately +sealed. + +He knew that Evelyn loved him. It was understood of all their acquaintance +that he was her suitor; months ago he had formally craved her father's +permission to pay his addresses. There were times in those weeks at +Westover when she had come nigh to yielding, to believing that he loved +her; he was certain that with time he would have his way.... But the room, +the closed room, in which now he sat! + +He buried his face in his hands, and was suddenly back in spirit in his +garden at Fair View. The cherries were ripe; the birds were singing: great +butterflies went by. The sunshine beat on the dial, on the walks, and the +smell of the roses was strong as wine. His senses swam with the warmth and +fragrance; the garden enlarged itself, and blazed in beauty. Never was +sunshine so golden as that; never were roses so large, never odors so +potent-sweet. A spirit walked in the garden paths: its name was Audrey.... +No, it was speaking, speaking words of passion and of woe.... Its name was +Eloisa! + +When he rose from his chair, he staggered slightly, and put his hand to +his head. Recovering himself in a moment, he called for his hat and cane, +and, leaving the ordinary, turned his face toward the Palace. A garrulous +fellow Councilor, also bidden to his Excellency's dinner party, overtook +him, and, falling into step, began to speak first of the pirates' trial, +and then of the weather. A hot and feverish summer. 'Twas said that a good +third of the servants arriving in the country since spring had died of +their seasoning. The slaver lying in the York had thrown thirty blacks +overboard in the ran from Barbadoes,--some strange sickness or other. +Adsbud! He would not buy from the lot the master landed; had they been +white, they had showed like spectres! September was the worst month of +the year. He did not find Mr. Haward in looks now. Best consult Dr. +Contesse, though indeed he himself had a preventive of fever which never +failed. First he bled; then to so much of Peruvian bark-- + +Mr. Haward declared that he was very well, and turned the conversation +piratewards again. + +The dinner at the Palace was somewhat hurried, the gentlemen rising with +the ladies, despite the enticements of Burgundy and champagne. It was the +afternoon set apart for the Indian dance. The bonfire in the field behind +the magazine had been kindled; the Nottoways and Meherrins were waiting, +still as statues, for the gathering of their audience. Before the dance +the great white father was to speak to them; the peace pipe, also, was to +be smoked. The town, gay of mood and snatching at enjoyment, emptied its +people into the sunny field. Only they who could not go stayed at home. +Those light-hearted folk, ministers to a play-loving age, who dwelt in the +house by the bowling green or in the shadow of the theatre itself, must +go, at all rates. Marcia and Lucia, Syphax, Sempronius, and the African +prince made off together, while the sons of Cato, who chanced to be twin +brothers, followed with a slower step. Their indentures would expire next +month, and they had thoughts, the one of becoming an overseer, the other +of moving up country and joining a company of rangers: hence their +somewhat haughty bearing toward their fellow players, who--except old +Syphax, who acted for the love of it--had not even a bowing acquaintance +with freedom. + +Mr. and Mrs. Stagg saw their minions depart, and then themselves left the +little white house in Palace Street. Mistress Deborah was with them, but +not Audrey. "She can't abide the sight of an Indian," said the minister's +wife indifferently. "Besides, Darden will be here from the church +presently, and he may want her to write for him. She and Peggy can mind +the house." + +The Capitol clock was telling five when Haward entered the garden by the +Nicholson Street gate. There had arisen a zephyr of the evening, to loosen +the yellow locust leaves and send them down upon the path, to lay cool +fingers upon his forehead that burned, and to whisper low at his ear. +House and garden and silent street seemed asleep in the late sunshine, +safe folded from the storm of sound that raged in the field on the border +of the town. Distance muffled the Indian drums, and changed the scream of +the pipes into a far-off wailing. Savage cries, bursts of applause and +laughter,--all came softly, blent like the hum of the bees, mellow like +the sunlight. There was no one in the summer-house. Haward walked on to +the grape arbor, and found there a black girl, who pointed to an open +door, pertaining not to the small white house, but to that portion of the +theatre which abutted upon the garden. Haward, passing a window of Mr. +Stagg's domicile, was aware of Darden sitting within, much engaged with a +great book and a tankard of sack. He made no pause for the vision, and +another moment found him within the playhouse. + +The sunlight entered in at the door and at one high window, but yet the +place was dim. The gallery and the rude boxes were all in shadow; the +sunbeams from the door struck into the pit, while those from the high +window let fall a shaft of misty light upon the stage itself, set for a +hall in Utica, with five cane chairs, an ancient settle, and a Spanish +table. On the settle, in the pale gold of the falling light, sat Audrey, +her hands clasped over her knees, her head thrown back, and her eyes fixed +upon the shadowy, chill, and soundless space before her. Upon Haward's +speaking her name she sighed, and, loosing her hands, turned toward him. +He came and leaned upon the back of the settle. "You sent for me, Audrey," +he said, and laid his hand lightly upon her hair. + +She shrank from his touch. "The minister made me write the letter," she +said, in a low voice. "I did not wish to trouble you, sir." + +Upon her wrist were dark marks. "Did Darden do that?" demanded Haward, as +he took his seat beside her. + +Audrey looked at the bruise indifferently; then with her other hand +covered it from sight. "I have a favor to ask of Mr. Haward," she said. "I +hope that after his many kindnesses he will not refuse to do me this +greatest one. If he should grant my request, the gratitude which I must +needs already feel toward him will be increased tenfold." The words came +precisely, in an even voice. + +Haward smiled. "Child, you have conned your lesson well. Leave the words +of the book, and tell me in your own language what his reverence wants." + +Audrey told him, but it seemed to her that he was not listening. When she +had come to an end of the minister's grievances, she sat, with downcast +eyes, waiting for him to speak, wishing that he would not look at her so +steadily. She meant never to show him her heart,--never, never; but +beneath his gaze it was hard to keep her cheek from burning, her lip from +quivering. + +At last he spoke: "Would it please you, Audrey, if I should save this man +from his just deserts?" + +Audrey raised her eyes. "He and Mistress Deborah are all my friends," she +said. "The glebe house is my home." + +Deep sadness spoke in voice and eye. The shaft of light, moving, had left +her in the outer shadow: she sat there with a listless grace; with a +dignity, too, that was not without pathos. There had been a forlorn child; +there had been an unfriended girl; there was now a woman, for Life to +fondle or to wreak its rage upon. The change was subtle; one more a lover +or less a lover than Haward might not have noted it. "I will petition the +Commissary to-night," he said, "the Governor to-morrow. Is your having in +friends so slight as you say, little maid?" + +Oh, he could reach to the quick! She was sure that he had not meant to +accuse her of ingratitude, and pitifully sure that she must have seemed +guilty of it. "No, no!" she cried. "I have had a friend"--Her voice broke, +and she started to her feet, her face to the door, all her being +quiveringly eager to be gone. She had asked that which she was bidden to +ask, had gained that which she was bidden to gain; for the rest, it was +far better that she should go. Better far for him to think her dull and +thankless as a stone than see--than see-- + +When Haward caught her by the hand, she trembled and drew a sobbing +breath. "'I have had a friend,' Audrey?" he asked. "Why not 'I have a +friend'?" + +"Why not?" thought Audrey. "Of course he would think, why not? Well, +then"-- + +"I have a friend," she said aloud. "Have you not been to me the kindest +friend, the most generous"--She faltered, but presently went on, a strange +courage coming to her. She had turned slightly toward him, though she +looked not at him, but upward to where the light streamed through the high +window. It fell now upon her face. "It is a great thing to save life," she +said. "To save a soul alive, how much greater! To have kept one soul in +the knowledge that there is goodness, mercy, tenderness, God; to have +given it bread to eat where it sat among the stones, water to drink where +all the streams were dry,--oh, a king might be proud of that! And that is +what you have done for me.... When you sailed away, so many years ago, and +left me with the minister and his wife, they were not always kind. But I +knew that you thought them so, and I always said to myself, 'If he knew, +he would be sorry for me.' At last I said, 'He is sorry for me; there is +the sea, and he cannot come, but he knows, and is sorry.' It was +make-believe,--for you thought that I was happy, did you not?--but it +helped me very much. I was only a child, you know, and I was so very +lonely. I could not think of mother and Molly, for when I did I saw them +as--as I had seen them last. The dark scared me, until I found that I +could pretend that you were holding my hand, as you used to do when night +came in the valley. After a while I had only to put out my hand, and yours +was there waiting for it. I hope that you can understand--I want you to +know how large is my debt.... As I grew, so did the debt. When I was a +girl it was larger than when I was a child. Do you know with whom I have +lived all these years? There is the minister, who comes reeling home from +the crossroads ordinary, who swears over the dice, who teaches cunning +that he calls wisdom, laughs at man and scarce believes in God. His hand +is heavy; this is his mark." She held up her bruised wrist to the light, +then let the hand drop. When she spoke of the minister, she made a gesture +toward the shadows growing ever thicker and darker in the body of the +house. It was as though she saw him there, and was pointing him out. +"There is the minister's wife," she said, and the motion of her hand again +accused the shadows. "Oh, their roof has sheltered me; I have eaten of +their bread. But truth is truth. There is the schoolmaster with the +branded hands. He taught me, you know. There is"--she was looking with +wide eyes into the deepest of the shadows--"there is Hugon!" Her voice +died away. Haward did not move or speak, and for a minute there was +silence in the dusky playhouse. Audrey broke it with a laugh, soft, light, +and clear, that came oddly upon the mood of the hour. Presently she was +speaking again: "Do you think it strange that I should laugh? I laughed to +think I have escaped them all. Do you know that they call me a dreamer? +Once, deep in the woods, I met the witch who lives at the head of the +creek. She told me that I was a dream child, and that all my life was a +dream, and I must pray never to awake; but I do not think she knew, for +all that she is a witch. They none of them know,--none, none! If I had not +dreamed, as they call it,--if I had watched, and listened, and laid to +heart, and become like them,--oh, then I should have died of your look +when at last you came! But I 'dreamed;' and in that long dream you, though +you were overseas, you showed me, little by little, that the spirit is not +bond, but free,--that it can walk the waves, and climb to the sunset and +the stars. And I found that the woods were fair, that the earth was fair +and kind as when I was a little child. And I grew to love and long for +goodness. And, day by day, I have had a life and a world where flowers +bloomed, and the streams ran fresh, and there was bread indeed to eat. And +it was you that showed me the road, that opened for me the gates!" + +She ceased to speak, and, turning fully toward him, took his hand and put +it to her lips. "May you be very happy!" she said. "I thank you, sir, that +when you came at last you did not break my dream. The dream fell short!" + +The smile upon her face was very sweet, very pure and noble. She would +have gone without another word, but Haward caught her by the sleeve. "Stay +awhile!" he cried. "I too am a dreamer, though not like you, you maid of +Dian, dark saint, cold vestal, with your eyes forever on the still, white +flame! Audrey, Audrey, Audrey! Do you know what a pretty name you have, +child, or how dark are your eyes, or how fine this hair that a queen might +envy? Westover has been dull, child." + +Audrey shook her head and smiled, and thought that he was laughing at her. +A vision of Evelyn, as Evelyn had looked that morning, passed before her. +She did not believe that he had found Westover dull. + +"I am coming to Fair View, dark Audrey," he went on. "In its garden there +are roses yet blooming for thy hair; there are sweet verses calling to be +read; there are cool, sequestered walks to be trodden, with thy hand in +mine,--thy hand in mine, little maid. Life is but once; we shall never +pass this way again. Drink the cup, wear the roses, live the verses! Of +what sing all the sweetest verses, dark-eyed witch, forest Audrey?" + +"Of love," said Audrey simply. She had freed her hand from his clasp, and +her face was troubled. She did not understand; never had she seen him like +this, with shining eyes and hot, unsteady touch. + +"There is the ball at the Palace to-morrow night," he went on. "I must be +there, for a fair lady and I are to dance together." He smiled. "Poor +Audrey, who hath never been to a ball; who only dances with the elves, +beneath the moon, around a beechen tree! The next day I will go to Fair +View, and you will be at the glebe house, and we will take up the summer +where we left it, that weary month ago." + +"No, no," said Audrey hurriedly, and shook her head. A vague and formless +trouble had laid its cold touch upon her heart; it was as though she saw a +cloud coming up, but it was no larger than a man's hand, and she knew not +what it should portend, nor that it would grow into a storm. He was +strange to-day,--that she felt; but then all her day since the coming of +Evelyn had been sad and strange. + +The shaft of sunshine was gone from the stage, and all the house was in +shadow. Audrey descended the two or three steps leading into the pit, and +Haward followed her. Side by side they left the playhouse, and found +themselves in the garden, and also in the presence of five or six ladies +and gentlemen, seated upon the grass beneath a mulberry-tree, or engaged +in rifling the grape arbor of its purple fruit. + +The garden was a public one, and this gay little party, having tired of +the Indian spectacle, had repaired hither to treat of its own affairs. +Moreover, it had been there, scattered upon the grass in view of the +playhouse door, for the better part of an hour. Concerned with its own wit +and laughter, it had caught no sound of low voices issuing from the +theatre; and for the two who talked within, all outward noise had ranked +as coming from the distant, crowded fields. + +A young girl, her silken apron raised to catch the clusters which a +gentleman, mounted upon a chair, threw down, gave a little scream and let +fall her purple hoard. "'Gad!" cried the gentleman. One and another +exclaimed, and a withered beauty seated beneath the mulberry-tree laughed +shrilly. + +A moment, an effort, a sharp recall of wandering thoughts, and Haward had +the situation in hand. An easy greeting to the gentlemen, debonair +compliments for the ladies, a question or two as to the entertainment they +had left, then a negligent bringing forward of Audrey. "A little brown +ward and ancient playmate of mine,--shot up in the night to be as tall as +a woman. Make thy curtsy, child, and go tell the minister what I have said +on the subject he wots of." + +Audrey curtsied and went away, having never raised her eyes to note the +stare of curiosity, the suppressed smile, the glance from eye to eye, +which had trod upon her introduction to the company. Haward, remaining +with his friends and acquaintances, gathered grapes for the blooming girl +and the withered beauty, and for a little, smiling woman who was known for +as arrant a scandalmonger as could be found in Virginia. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A QUESTION OF COLORS + + +Evelyn, seated at her toilette table, and in the hands of Mr. Timothy +Green, hairdresser in ordinary to Williamsburgh, looked with unseeing eyes +at her own fair reflection in the glass before her. Chloe, the black +handmaiden who stood at the door, latch in hand, had time to grow tired of +waiting before her mistress spoke. "You may tell Mr. Haward that I am at +home, Chloe. Bring him here." + +The hairdresser drew a comb through the rippling brown tresses and +commenced his most elaborate arrangement, working with pursed lips, and +head bent now to this side, now to that. He had been a hard-pressed man +since sunrise, and the lighting of the Palace candles that night might +find him yet employed by some belated dame. Evelyn was very pale, and +shadows were beneath her eyes. Moved by a sudden impulse, she took from +the table a rouge pot, and hastily and with trembling fingers rubbed bloom +into her cheeks; then the patch box,--one, two, three Tory partisans. "Now +I am less like a ghost," she said, "Mr. Green, do I not look well and +merry, and as though my sleep had been sound and dreamless?" + +In his high, cracked voice, the hairdresser was sure that, pale or +glowing, grave or gay, Mistress Evelyn Byrd would be the toast at the ball +that night. The lady laughed, for she heard Haward's step upon the +landing. He entered to the gay, tinkling sound, tent over the hand she +extended, then, laying aside hat and cane, took his seat beside the table. + + "'Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare, + And beauty draws us with a single hair,'" + +he quoted, with a smile. Then: "Will you take our hearts in blue to-night, +Evelyn? You know that I love you best in blue." + +She lifted her fan from the table, and waved it lightly to and fro. "I go +in rose color," she said. "'Tis the gown I wore at Lady Rich's rout. I +dare say you do not remember it? But my Lord of Peterborough said"--She +broke off, and smiled to her fan. + +Her voice was sweet and slightly drawling. The languid turn of the wrist, +the easy grace of attitude, the beauty of bared neck and tinted face, of +lowered lids and slow, faint smile,--oh, she was genuine fine lady, if she +was not quite Evelyn! A breeze blowing through the open windows stirred +their gay hangings of flowered cotton; the black girl sat in a corner and +sewed; the supple fingers of the hairdresser went in and out of the heavy +hair; roses in a deep blue bowl made the room smell like a garden. Haward +sighed, so pleasant was it to sit quietly in this cool chamber, after the +glare and wavering of the world without. "My Lord of Peterborough is +magnificent at compliments," he said kindly, "but 'twould be a jeweled +speech indeed that outdid your deserving, Evelyn. Come, now, wear the +blue! I will find you white roses; you shall wear them for a breast knot, +and in the minuet return me one again." + +Evelyn waved her fan. "I dance the minuet with Mr. Lee." Her tone was +still sweetly languid, her manner most indifferent. The thick and glossy +tress that, drawn forward, was to ripple over white neck and bosom was too +loosely curled. She regarded it in the mirror with an anxious frown, then +spoke of it to the hairdresser. + +Haward, smiling, watched her with heavy-lidded eyes. "Mr. Lee is a +fortunate gentleman," he said. "I may gain the rose, perhaps, in the +country dance?" + +"That is better," remarked the lady, surveying with satisfaction the +new-curled lock. "The country dance? For that Mr. Lightfoot hath my +promise." + +"It seems that I am a laggard," said Haward. + +The knocker sounded below. "I am at home, Chloe," announced the mistress; +and the slave, laying aside her work, slipped from the room. + +Haward played with the trifles upon the dressing table. "Wherein have I +offended, Evelyn?" he asked, at last. + +The lady arched her brows, and the action made her for the moment very +like her handsome father. "Why, there is no offense!" she cried. "An old +acquaintance, a family friend! I step a minuet with Mr. Lee; I stand up +for a country dance with Mr. Lightfoot; I wear pink instead of blue, and +have lost my liking for white roses,--what is there in all this that needs +such a question? Ah, you have broken my silver chain!" + +"I am clumsy to-day!" he exclaimed. "A thousand pardons!" He let the +broken toy slip from his fingers to the polished surface of the table, and +forgot that it was there. "Since Colonel Byrd (I am sorry to learn) keeps +his room with a fit of the gout, may I--an old acquaintance, a family +friend--conduct you to the Palace to-night?" + +The fan waved on. "Thank you, but I go in our coach, and need no escort." +The lady yawned, very delicately, behind her slender fingers; then dropped +the fan, and spoke with animation: "Ah, here is Mr. Lee! In a good hour, +sir! I saw the bracelet that you mended for Mistress Winston. Canst do as +much for my poor chain here? See! it and this silver heart have parted +company." + +Mr. Lee kissed her hand, and took snuff with Mr. Haward; then, after an +ardent speech crammed with references to Vulcan and Venus, chains that +were not slight, hearts that were of softer substance, sat down beside +this kind and dazzling vision, and applied his clever fingers to the +problem in hand. He was a personable young gentleman, who had studied at +Oxford, and who, proudly conscious that his tragedy of Artaxerxes, then +reposing in the escritoire at home, much outmerited Haward's talked-of +comedy, felt no diffidence in the company of the elder fine gentleman. He +rattled on of this and that, and Evelyn listened kindly, with only the +curve of her cheek visible to the family friend. The silver heart was +restored to its chain; the lady smiled her thanks; the enamored youth +hitched his chair some inches nearer the fair whom he had obliged, and, +with his hand upon his heart, entered the realm of high-flown speech. The +gay curtains waved; the roses were sweet; black Chloe sewed and sewed; the +hairdresser's hands wove in and out, as though he were a wizard making +passes. + +Haward rose to take his leave. Evelyn yielded him her hand; it was cold +against his lips. She was nonchalant and smiling; he was easy, unoffended, +admirably the fine gentleman. For one moment their eyes met. "I had been +wiser," thought the man, "I had been wiser to have myself told her of +that brown witch, that innocent sorceress! Why something held my tongue I +know not. Now she hath read my idyl, but all darkened, all awry." The +woman thought: "Cruel and base! You knew that my heart was yours to break, +cast aside, and forget!" + +Out of the house the sunlight beat and blinded. Houses of red brick, +houses of white wood; the long, wide, dusty Duke of Gloucester Street; +gnarled mulberry-trees broad-leafed against a September sky, deeply, +passionately blue; glimpses of wood and field,--all seemed remote without +distance, still without stillness, the semblance of a dream, and yet keen +and near to oppression. It was a town of stores, of ordinaries and public +places; from open door and window all along Duke of Gloucester Street came +laughter, round oaths, now and then a scrap of drinking song. To Haward, +giddy, ill at ease, sickening of a fever, the sounds were now as a cry in +his ear, now as the noise of a distant sea. The minister of James City +parish and the minister of Ware Creek were walking before him, arm in arm, +set full sail for dinner after a stormy morning. "For lo! the wicked +prospereth!" said one, and "Fair View parish bound over to the devil +again!" plained the other. "He's firm in the saddle; he'll ride easy to +the day he drinks himself to death, thanks to this sudden complaisance of +Governor and Commissary!" + +"Thanks to"--cried the other sourly, and gave the thanks where they were +due. + +Haward heard the words, but even in the act of quickening his pace to lay +a heavy hand upon the speaker's shoulder a listlessness came upon him, and +he forbore. The memory of the slurring speech went from him; his thoughts +were thistledown blown hither and yon by every vagrant air. Coming to +Marot's ordinary he called for wine; then went up the stair to his room, +and sitting down at the table presently fell asleep, with his head upon +his arms. + +After a while the sounds from the public room below, where men were +carousing, disturbed his slumber. He stirred, and awoke refreshed. It was +afternoon, but he felt no hunger, only thirst, which he quenched with the +wine at hand. His windows gave upon the Capitol and a green wood beyond; +the waving trees enticed, while the room was dull and the noises of the +house distasteful. He said to himself that he would walk abroad, would go +out under the beckoning trees and be rid of the town. He remembered that +the Council was to meet that afternoon. Well, it might sit without him! He +was for the woods, where dwelt the cool winds and the shadows deep and +silent. + +A few yards, and he was quit of Duke of Gloucester Street; behind him, +porticoed Capitol, gaol, and tiny vineclad debtor's prison. In the gaol +yard the pirates sat upon a bench in the sunshine, and one smoked a long +pipe, and one brooded upon his irons. Gold rings were in their ears, and +their black hair fell from beneath colored handkerchiefs twisted +turbanwise around their brows. The gaoler watched them, standing in his +doorway, and his children, at play beneath a tree, built with sticks a +mimic scaffold, and hanged thereon a broken puppet. There was a shady road +leading through a wood to Queen's Creek and the Capitol Landing, and down +this road went Haward. His step was light; the dullness, the throbbing +pulses, the oppression of the morning, had given way to a restlessness and +a strange exaltation of spirit. Fancy was quickened, imagination +heightened; to himself he seemed to see the heart of all things. Across +his mind flitted fragments of verse,--now a broken line just hinting +beauty, now the pure passion of a lovely stanza. His thoughts went to and +fro, mobile as the waves of the sea; but firm as the reefs beneath them +stood his knowledge that presently he was going back to Fair View. +To-morrow, when the Governor's ball was over, when he could decently get +away, he would leave the town; he would go to his house in the country. +Late flowers bloomed in his garden; the terrace was fair above the river; +beneath the red brick wall, on the narrow little creek shining like a +silver highway, lay a winged boat; and the highway ran past a glebe house; +and in the glebe house dwelt a dryad whose tree had closed against her. +Audrey!--a fair name. Audrey, Audrey!--the birds were singing it; out of +the deep, Arcadian shadows any moment it might come, clearly cried by +satyr, Pan, or shepherd. Hark! there was song-- + +It was but a negro on the road behind, singing to himself as he went about +his master's business. The voice was the voice of the race, mellow, deep, +and plaintive; perhaps the song was of love in a burning land. He passed +the white man, and the arching trees hid him, but the wake of music was +long in fading. The road leading through a cool and shady dell, Haward +left it, and took possession of the mossy earth beneath a holly-tree. +Here, lying on the ground, he could see the road through the intervening +foliage; else the place had seemed the heart of an ancient wood. + +It was merry lying where were glimpses of blue sky, where the leaves +quivered and a squirrel chattered and a robin sang a madrigal. Youth the +divine, half way down the stair of misty yesterdays, turned upon his heel +and came back to him. He pillowed his head upon his arm, and was content. +It was well to be so filled with fancies, so iron of will, so headstrong +and gay; to be friends once more with a younger Haward, with the Haward of +a mountain pass, of mocking comrades and an irate Excellency. + +From the road came a rumble of oaths. Sailors, sweating and straining, +were rolling a very great cask of tobacco from a neighboring warehouse +down to the landing and some expectant sloop. Haward, lying at ease, +smiled at their weary task, their grunting and swearing; when they were +gone, smiled at the blankness of the road. All things pleased. There was +food for mirth in the call of a partridge, in the inquisitive gaze of a +squirrel, in the web of a spider gaoler to a gilded fly. There was food +for greater mirth in the appearance on the road of a solitary figure in a +wine-colored coat and bushy black peruke. + +Haward sat up. "Ha, Monacan!" he cried, with a laugh, and threw a stick to +attract the man's attention. + +Hugon turned, stood astare, then left the road and came down into the +dell. + +"What fortune, trader?" smiled Haward. "Did your traps hold in the great +forest? Were your people easy to fool, giving twelve deerskins for an old +match-coat? There is charm in a woodsman life. Come, tell me of your +journeys, dangers, and escapes." + +The half-breed looked down upon him with a twitching face. "What hinders +me from killing you now?" he demanded, with a backward look at the road. +"None may pass for many minutes." + +Haward lay back upon the moss, with his hands locked beneath his head. +"What indeed?" he answered calmly. "Come, here is a velvet log, fit seat +for an emperor--or a sachem; sit and tell me of your life in the woods. +For peace pipe let me offer my snuffbox." In his mad humor he sat up +again, drew from his pocket, and presented with the most approved +flourish, his box of chased gold. "Monsieur, c'est le tabac pour le nez +d'un inonarque," he said lazily. + +Hugon sat down upon the log, helped himself to the mixture with a grand +air, and shook the yellow dust from his ruffles. The action, meant to be +airy, only achieved fierceness. From some hidden sheath he drew a knife, +and began to strip from the log a piece of bark. "Tell me, you," he said. +"Have you been to France? What manner of land is it?" + +"A gay country," answered Haward; "a land where the men are all white, and +where at present, periwigs are worn much shorter than the one monsieur +affects." + +"He is a great brave, a French gentleman? Always he kills the man he +hates?" + +"Not always," said the other. "Sometimes the man he hates kills him." + +By now one end of the piece of bark in the trader's hands was shredded to +tinder. He drew from his pocket his flint and steel, and struck a spark +into the frayed mass. It flared up, and he held first the tips of his +fingers, then the palm of his hand, then his bared forearm, in the flame +that licked and scorched the flesh. His face was perfectly unmoved, his +eyes unchanged in their expression of hatred. "Can he do this?" he asked. + +"Perhaps not," said Haward lightly. "It is a very foolish thing to do." + +The flame died out, and the trader tossed aside the charred bit of bark. +"There was old Pierre at Monacan-Town who taught me to pray to _le bon +Dieu_. He told me how grand and fine is a French gentleman, and that I was +the son of many such. He called the English great pigs, with brains as +dull and muddy as the river after many rains. My mother was the daughter +of a chief. She had strings of pearl for her neck, and copper for her +arms, and a robe of white doeskin, very soft and fine. When she was dead +and my father was dead, I came from Monacan-Town to your English school +over yonder. I can read and write. I am a white man and a Frenchman, not +an Indian. When I go to the villages in the woods, I am given a lodge +apart, and the men and women gather to hear a white man speak.... You have +done me wrong with that girl, that Ma'm'selle Audrey that I wish for wife. +We are enemies: that is as it should be. You shall not have her,--never, +never! But you despise me; how is that? That day upon the creek, that +night in your cursed house, you laughed"-- + +The Haward of the mountain pass, regarding the twitching face opposite him +and the hand clenched upon the handle of a knife, laughed again. At the +sound the trader's face ceased to twitch. Haward felt rather than saw the +stealthy tightening of the frame, the gathering of forces, the closer +grasp upon the knife, and flung out his arm. A hare scurried past, making +for the deeper woods. From the road came the tramp of a horse and a man's +voice, singing,-- + + "'To all you ladies now on land'"-- + +while an inquisitive dog turned aside from the road, and plunged into the +dell. + +The rider, having checked his horse and quit his song in order to call to +his dog, looked through the thin veil of foliage and saw the two men +beneath the holly-tree. "Ha, Jean Hugon!" he cried. "Is that you? Where is +that packet of skins you were to deliver at my store? Come over here, +man!" + +The trader moistened his dry lips with his tongue, and slipped the knife +back into its sheath. "Had we been a mile in the woods," he said, "you +would have laughed no more." + +Haward watched him go. The argument with the rider was a lengthy one. He +upon horseback would not stand still in the road to finish it, but put his +beast into motion. The trader, explaining and gesticulating, walked beside +his stirrup; the voices grew fainter and fainter,--were gone. Haward +laughed to himself; then, with his eyes raised to the depth on depth of +blue, serene beyond the grating of thorn-pointed leaves, sent his spirit +to his red brick house and silent, sunny garden, with the gate in the +ivied wall, and the six steps down to the boat and the lapping water. + +The shadows lengthened, and a wind of the evening entered the wood. Haward +shook off the lethargy that had kept him lying there for the better part +of an afternoon, rose to his feet, and left the green dell for the road, +all shadow now, winding back to the toy metropolis, to Marot's ordinary, +to the ball at the Palace that night. + +The ball at the Palace!--he had forgotten it. Flare of lights, wail of +violins, a painted, silken crowd, laughter, whispers, magpie chattering, +wine, and the weariness of the dance, when his soul would long to be with +the night outside, with the rising wind and the shining stars. He half +determined not to go. What mattered the offense that would be taken? Did +he go he would repent, wearied and ennuye, watching Evelyn, all +rose-colored, moving with another through the minuet; tied himself perhaps +to some pert miss, or cornered in a card-room by boisterous gamesters, or, +drinking with his peers, called on to toast the lady of his dreams. Better +the dull room at Marot's ordinary, or better still to order Mirza, and +ride off at the planter's pace, through the starshine, to Fair View. On +the river bank before the store MacLean might be lying, dreaming of a +mighty wind and a fierce death. He would dismount, and sit beside that +Highland gentleman, Jacobite and strong man, and their moods would chime +as they had chimed before. Then on to the house and to the eastern window! +Not to-night, but to-morrow night, perhaps, would the darkness be pierced +by the calm pale star that marked another window. It was all a mistake, +that month at Westover,--days lost and wasted, the running of golden sands +ill to spare from Love's brief glass.... + +His mood had changed when, with the gathering dusk, he entered his room at +Marot's ordinary. He would go to the Palace that night; it would be the +act of a boy to fling away through the darkness, shirking a duty his +position demanded. He would go and be merry, watching Evelyn in the gown +that Peterborough had praised. + +When Juba had lighted the candles, he sat and drank and drank again of the +red wine upon the table. It put maggots in his brain, fired and flushed +him to the spirit's core. An idea came, at which he laughed. He bade it +go, but it would not. It stayed, and his fevered fancy played around it +as a moth around a candle. At first he knew it for a notion, bizarre and +absurd, which presently he would dismiss. All day strange thoughts had +come and gone, appearing, disappearing, like will-o'-the-wisps for which a +man upon a firm road has no care. Never fear that he will follow them! He +sees the marsh, that it has no footing. So with this Jack-o'-lantern +conception,--it would vanish as it came. + +It did not so. Instead, when he had drunken more wine, and had sat for +some time methodically measuring, over and over again, with thumb and +forefinger, the distance from candle to bottle, and from bottle to glass, +the idea began to lose its wildfire aspect. In no great time it appeared +an inspiration as reasonable as happy. When this point had been reached, +he stamped upon the floor to summon his servant from the room below. "Lay +out the white and gold, Juba," he ordered, when the negro appeared, "and +come make me very fine. I am for the Palace,--I and a brown lady that hath +bewitched me! The white sword knot, sirrah; and cock my hat with the +diamond brooch"-- + +It was a night that was thronged with stars, and visited by a whispering +wind. Haward, walking rapidly along the almost deserted Nicholson Street, +lifted his burning forehead to the cool air and the star-strewn fields of +heaven. Coming to the gate by which he had entered the afternoon before, +he raised the latch and passed into the garden. By now his fever was full +upon him, and it was a man scarce to be held responsible for his actions +that presently knocked at the door of the long room where, at the window +opening upon Palace Street, Audrey sat with Mistress Stagg and watched the +people going to the ball. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE GOVERNOR'S BALL + + +For an hour it had been very quiet, very peaceful, in the small white +house on Palace Street. Darden was not there; for the Commissary had sent +for him, having certain inquiries to make and a stern warning to deliver. +Mistress Deborah had been asked to spend the night with an acquaintance in +the town, so she also was out and gone. Mistress Stagg and Audrey kept the +lower rooms, while overhead Mr. Charles Stagg, a man that loved his art, +walked up and down, and, with many wavings of a laced handkerchief and +much resort to a gilt snuffbox, reasoned with Plato of death and the soul. +The murmur of his voice came down to the two women, and made the only +sound in the house. Audrey, sitting by the window, her chin upon her hand +and her dark hair shadowing her face, looked out upon the dooryard and the +Palace Street beyond. The street was lit by torches, and people were going +to the ball in coaches and chariots, on foot and in painted chairs. They +went gayly, light of heart, fine of person, a free and generous folk. +Laughter floated over to the silent watcher, and the torchlight gave her +glimpses of another land than her own. + +Many had been Mistress Stagg's customers since morning, and something had +she heard besides admiration of her wares and exclamation at her prices. +Now, as she sat with some gay sewing beneath her nimble fingers, she +glanced once and again at the shadowed face opposite her. If the look was +not one of curiosity alone, but had in it an admixture of new-found +respect; if to Mistress Stagg the Audrey of yesterday, unnoted, +unwhispered of, was a being somewhat lowlier than the Audrey of to-day, it +may be remembered for her that she was an actress of the early eighteenth +century, and that fate and an old mother to support had put her in that +station. + +The candles beneath their glass shades burned steadily; the house grew +very quiet; the noises of the street lessened and lessened, for now nearly +all of the people were gone to the ball. Audrey watched the round of light +cast by the nearest torch. For a long time she had watched it, thinking +that he might perhaps cross the circle, and she might see him in his +splendor. She was still watching when he knocked at the garden door. + +Mistress Stagg, sitting in a dream of her own, started violently. "La, +now, who may that be?" she exclaimed. "Go to the door, child. If 'tis a +stranger, we shelter none such, to be taken up for the harboring of +runaways!" + +Audrey went to the door and opened it. A moment's pause, a low cry, and +she moved backward to the wall, where she stood with her slender form +sharply drawn against the white plaster, and with the fugitive, elusive +charm of her face quickened into absolute beauty, imperious for attention. +Haward, thus ushered into the room, gave the face its due. His eyes, +bright and fixed, were for it alone. Mistress Stagg's curtsy went +unacknowledged save by a slight, mechanical motion of his hand, and her +inquiry as to what he lacked that she could supply received no answer. He +was a very handsome man, of a bearing both easy and commanding, and +to-night he was splendidly dressed in white satin with embroidery of gold. +To one of the women he seemed the king, who could do no wrong; to the +other, more learned in the book of the world, he was merely a fine +gentleman, whose way might as well be given him at once, since, spite of +denial, he would presently take it. + +Haward sat down, resting his clasped hands upon the table, gazing +steadfastly at the face, dark and beautiful, set like a flower against the +wall. "Come, little maid!" he said. "We are going to the ball together, +you and I. Hasten, or we shall not be in time for the minuet." + +Audrey smiled and shook her head, thinking that it was his pleasure to +laugh at her a little. Mistress Stagg likewise showed her appreciation of +the pleasantry. When he repeated his command, speaking in an authoritative +tone and with a glance at his watch, there was a moment of dead silence; +then, "Go your ways, sir, and dance with Mistress Evelyn Byrd!" cried the +scandalized ex-actress. "The Governor's ball is not for the likes of +Audrey!" + +"I will be judge of that," he answered. "Come, let us be off, child! Or +stay! hast no other dress than that?" He looked toward the mistress of the +house. "I warrant that Mistress Stagg can trick you out! I would have you +go fine, Audrey of the hair! Audrey of the eyes! Audrey of the full brown +throat! Dull gold,--have you that, now, mistress, in damask or brocade? +Soft laces for her bosom, and a yellow bloom in her hair. It should be +dogwood, Audrey, like the coronal you wore on May Day. Do you remember, +child? The white stars in your hair, and the Maypole all aflutter, and +your feet upon the green grass"-- + +"Oh, I was happy then!" cried Audrey and wrung her hands. Within a moment, +however, she was calm again, and could look at him with a smile. "I am +only Audrey," she said. "You know that the ball is not for me. Why then do +you tell me that I must go? It is your kindness; I know that it is your +kindness that speaks. But yet--but yet"--She gazed at him imploringly: +then from his steady smile caught a sudden encouragement. "Oh!" she +exclaimed with a gesture of quick relief, and with tremulous laughter in +her face and voice,--"oh, you are mocking me! You only came to show how a +gentleman looks who goes to a Governor's ball!" + +For the moment, in her relief at having read his riddle, there slipped +from her the fear of she knew not what,--the strangeness and heaviness of +heart that had been her portion since she came to Williamsburgh. Leaving +the white wall against which she had leaned, she came a little forward, +and with gayety and grace dropped him a curtsy. "Oh, the white satin like +the lilies in your garden!" she laughed. "And the red heels to your shoes, +and the gold-fringed sword knot, and the velvet scabbard! Ah, let me see +your sword, how bright and keen it is!" + +She was Audrey of the garden, and Haward, smiling, drew his rapier and +laid it in her hands. She looked at the golden hilt, and passed her brown +fingers along the gleaming blade. "Stainless," she said, and gave it back +to him. + +Taking it, he took also the hand that had proffered it. "I was not +laughing, child," he said. "Go to the ball thou shalt, and with me. What! +Thou art young and fair. Shalt have no pleasure"-- + +"What pleasure in that?" cried Audrey. "I may not go, sir; nay, I will not +go!" + +She freed her hand, and stood with heaving bosom and eyes that very slowly +filled with tears. Haward saw no reason for her tears. It was true that +she was young and fair; true, also, that she had few pleasures. Well, he +would change all that. The dance,--was it not woven by those nymphs of +old, those sprites of open spaces in the deep woods, from whose immemorial +company she must have strayed into this present time? Now at the Palace +the candles were burning for her, for her the music was playing. Her +welcome there amidst the tinsel people? Trust him for that: he was what he +was, and could compass greater things than that would be. Go she should, +because it pleased him to please her, and because it was certainly +necessary for him to oppose pride with pride, and before the eyes of +Evelyn demonstrate his indifference to that lady's choice of Mr. Lee for +the minuet and Mr. Lightfoot for the country dance. This last thought had +far to travel from some unused, deep-down quagmire of the heart, but it +came. For the rest, the image of Audrey decked in silk and lace, turned by +her apparel into a dark Court lady, a damsel in waiting to Queen Titania, +caught his fancy in both hands. He wished to see her thus,--wished it so +strongly that he knew it would come to pass. He was a gentleman who had +acquired the habit of having his own way. There had been times when the +price of his way had seemed too dear; when he had shrugged his shoulders +and ceased to desire what he would not buy. To-night he was not able to +count the cost. But he knew--he knew cruelly well--how to cut short this +fruitless protest of a young girl who thought him all that was wise and +great and good. + +"So you cannot say 'yes' to my asking, little maid?" he began, quiet and +smiling. "Cannot trust me that I have reasons for the asking? Well, I will +not ask again, Audrey, since it is so great a thing'"--"Oh," cried Audrey, +"you know that I would die for you!" The tears welled over, but she +brushed them away with a trembling hand; then stood with raised face, her +eyes soft and dewy, a strange smile upon her lips. She spoke at last as +simply as a child: "Why you want me, that am only Audrey, to go with you +to the Palace yonder, I cannot tell. But I will go, though I am only +Audrey, and I have no other dress than this"-- + +Haward got unsteadily to his feet, and lightly touched the dark head that +she bowed upon her hands. "Why, now you are Audrey again," he said +approvingly. "Why, child, I would do you a pleasure!" He turned to the +player's wife. "She must not go in this guise. Have you no finery stowed +away?" + +Now, Mistress Stagg, though much scandalized, and very certain that all +this would never do, was in her way an artist, and could see as in a +mirror what bare throat and shoulders, rich hair drawn loosely up, a touch +of rouge, a patch or two, a silken gown, might achieve for Audrey. And +after all, had not Deborah told her that the girl was Mr. Haward's ward, +not Darden's, and that though Mr. Haward came and went as he pleased, and +was very kind to Audrey, so that Darden was sure of getting whatever the +girl asked for, yet she was a good girl, and there was no harm? For the +talk that day,--people were very idle, and given to thinking the forest +afire when there was only the least curl of smoke. And in short and +finally it was none of her business; but with the aid of a certain chest +upstairs, she knew what she could do! To the ball might go a beauty would +make Mistress Evelyn Byrd look to her laurels! + +"There's the birthday dress that Madam Carter sent us only last week," she +began hesitatingly. "It's very beautiful, and a'most as good as new, and +'twould suit you to a miracle--But I vow you must not go, Audrey!... To be +sure, the damask is just the tint for you, and there are roses would +answer for your hair. But la, sir, you know 'twill never do, never in this +world." + +Half an hour later, Haward rose from his chair and bowed low as to some +highborn and puissant dame. The fever that was now running high in his +veins flushed his cheek and made his eyes exceedingly bright. When he went +up to Audrey, and in graceful mockery of her sudden coming into her +kingdom, took her hand and, bending, kissed it, the picture that they made +cried out for some painter to preserve it. Her hand dropped from his +clasp, and buried itself in rich folds of flowered damask; the quick rise +and fall of her bosom stirred soft, yellowing laces, and made to flash +like diamonds some ornaments of marcasite; her face was haunting in its +pain and bewilderment and great beauty, and in the lie which her eyes gave +to the false roses beneath those homes of sadness and longing. She had no +word to say, she was "only Audrey," and she could not understand. But she +wished to do his bidding, and so, when he cried out upon her melancholy, +and asked her if 'twere indeed a Sunday in New England instead of a +Saturday in Virginia, she smiled, and strove to put on the mind as well +as the garb of a gay lady who might justly go to the Governor's ball. + +Half frightened at her own success, Mistress Stagg hovered around her, +giving this or that final touch to her costume; but it was Haward himself +who put the roses in her hair. "A little longer, and we will walk once +more in my garden at Fair View," he said. "June shall come again for us, +and we will tread the quiet paths, my sweet, and all the roses shall bloom +again for us. There, you are crowned! Hail, Queen!" + +Audrey felt the touch of his lips upon her forehead, and shivered. All her +world was going round; she could not steady it, could not see aright, knew +not what was happening. The strangeness made her dizzy. She hardly heard +Mistress Stagg's last protest that it would never do,--never in the world; +hardly knew when she left the house. She was out beneath the stars, moving +toward a lit Palace whence came the sound of violins. Haward's arm was +beneath her hand; his voice was in her ear, but it was as the wind's +voice, whose speech she did not understand. Suddenly they were within the +Palace garden, with its winding, torchlit walks, and the terraces at the +side; suddenly again, they had mounted the Palace steps, and the doors +were open, and she was confronted with lights and music and shifting, +dazzling figures. She stood still, clasped her hands, and gave Haward a +piteous look. Her face, for all its beauty and its painted roses, was +strangely the child's face that had lain upon his breast, where he knelt +amid the corn, in the valley between the hills, so long ago. He gave her +mute appeal no heed. The Governor's guests, passing from room to room, +crossed and recrossed the wide hall, and down the stairway, to meet a row +of gallants impatient at its foot, came fair women, one after the other, +the flower of the colony, clothed upon like the lilies of old. Haward, +entering with Audrey, saw Mr. Lee at the stairfoot, and, raising his eyes, +was aware of Evelyn descending alone and somewhat slowly, all in rose +color, and with a smile upon her lips. + +She was esteemed the most beautiful woman in Virginia, the most graceful +and accomplished. Wit and charm and fortune were hers, and the little gay +world of Virginia had mated her with Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View. +Therefore that portion of it that chanced to be in the hall of the +Governor's house withdrew for the moment its attention from its own +affairs, and bestowed it upon those of the lady descending the stairs, and +of the gold-and-white gentleman who, with a strange beauty at his side, +stood directly in her path. It was a very wise little world, and since +yesterday afternoon had been fairly bursting with its own knowledge. It +knew all about that gypsy who had come to town from Fair View +parish,--"La, my dear, just the servant of a minister!"--and knew to a +syllable what had passed in the violent quarrel to which Mr. Lee owed his +good fortune. + +[Illustration: "I DO NOT THINK I HAVE THE HONOR OF KNOWING"--] + +That triumphant gentleman now started forward, and, with a low bow, +extended his hand to lead to the ballroom this rose-colored paragon and +cynosure of all eyes. Evelyn smiled upon him, and gave him her scarf to +hold, but would not be hurried; must first speak to her old friend Mr. +Haward, and tell him that her father's foot could now bear the shoe, and +that he might appear before the ball was over. This done, she withdrew her +gaze, from Haward's strangely animated, vividly handsome countenance, +and turned it upon the figure at his side. "Pray present me!" she said +quickly. "I do not think I have the honor of knowing"-- + +Audrey raised her head, that had been bent, and looked again, as she had +looked yesterday, with all her innocent soul and heavy heart, into the +eyes of the princess. The smile died from Evelyn's lips, and a great wave +of indignant red surged over face and neck and bosom. The color fled, but +not the bitter anger. So he could bring his fancy there! Could clothe her +that was a servant wench in a splendid gown, and flaunt her before the +world--before the world that must know--oh, God! must know how she herself +loved him! He could do this after that month at Westover! She drew her +breath, and met the insult fairly. "I withdraw my petition," she said +clearly. "Now that I bethink me, my acquaintance is already somewhat too +great. Mr. Lee, shall we not join the company? I have yet to make my +curtsy to his Excellency." + +With head erect, and with no attention to spare from the happy Mr. Lee, +she passed the sometime suitor for her hand and the apple of discord which +it had pleased him to throw into the assembly. A whisper ran around the +hall. Audrey heard suppressed laughter, and heard a speech which she did +not understand, but which was uttered in an angry voice, much like +Mistress Deborah's when she chided. A sudden terror of herself and of +Haward's world possessed her. She turned where she stood in her borrowed +plumage, and clung to his hand and arm. "Let me go," she begged. "It is +all a mistake,--all wrong. Let me go,--let me go." + +He laughed at her, shaking his head and looking into her beseeching face +with shining, far-off eyes. "Thou dear fool!" he said. "The ball is made +for thee, and all these folk are here to do thee honor!" Holding her by +the hand, he moved with her toward a wide doorway, through which could be +seen a greater throng of beautifully dressed ladies and gentlemen. Music +came from this room, and she saw that there were dancers, and that beyond +them, upon a sort of dais, and before a great carved chair, stood a fine +gentleman who, she knew, must be his Excellency the Governor of Virginia. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE UNINVITED GUEST + + +"Mistress Audrey?" said the Governor graciously, as the lady in damask +rose from her curtsy. "Mistress Audrey whom? Mr. Haward, you gave me not +the name of the stock that hath flowered in so beauteous a bloom." + +"Why, sir, the bloom is all in all,'" answered Haward. "What root it +springs from matters not. I trust that your Excellency is in good +health,--that you feel no touch of our seasoning fever?" + +"I asked the lady's name, sir," said the Governor pointedly. He was +standing in the midst of a knot of gentlemen, members of the Council and +officers of the colony. All around the long room, seated in chairs arow +against the walls, or gathered in laughing groups, or moving about with a +rustle and gleam of silk, were the Virginians his guests. From the +gallery, where were bestowed the musicians out of three parishes, floated +the pensive strains of a minuet, and in the centre of the polished floor, +under the eyes of the company, several couples moved and postured through +that stately dance. + +"The lady is my ward," said Haward lightly. "I call her Audrey. Child, +tell his Excellency your other name." + +If he thought at all, he thought that she could do it. But such an +estray, such a piece of flotsam, was Audrey, that she could not help him +out. "They call me Darden's Audrey," she explained to the Governor. "If I +ever heard my father's name, I have forgotten it." + +Her voice, though low, reached all those who had ceased from their own +concerns to stare at this strange guest, this dark-eyed, shrinking beauty, +so radiantly attired. The whisper had preceded her from the hall: there +had been fluttering and comment enough as, under the fire of all those +eyes, she had passed with Haward to where stood the Governor receiving his +guests. But the whisper had not reached his Excellency's ears. In London +he had been slightly acquainted with Mr. Marmaduke Haward, and now knew +him for a member of his Council, and a gentleman of much consequence in +that Virginia which he had come to rule. Moreover, he had that very +morning granted a favor to Mr. Haward, and by reason thereof was inclined +to think amiably of the gentleman. Of the piece of dark loveliness whom +the Virginian had brought forward to present, who could think otherwise? +But his Excellency was a formal man, punctilious, and cautious of his +state. The bow with which he received the strange lady's curtsy had been +profound; in speaking to her he had made his tones honey-sweet, while his +compliment quite capped the one just paid to Mistress Evelyn Byrd. And now +it would appear that the lady had no name! Nay, from the looks that were +being exchanged, and from the tittering that had risen amongst the younger +of his guests, there must be more amiss than that! His Excellency frowned, +drew himself up, and turned what was meant to be a searching and terrible +eye upon the recreant in white satin. Audrey caught the look, for which +Haward cared no whit. Oh, she knew that she had no business there,--she +that only the other day had gone barefoot on Darden's errands, had been +kept waiting in hall or kitchen of these people's houses! She knew that, +for all her silken gown, she had no place among them; but she thought that +they were not kind to stare and whisper and laugh, shaming her before one +another and before him. Her heart swelled; to the dreamy misery of the day +and evening was added a passionate sense of hurt and wrong and injustice. +Her pride awoke, and in a moment taught her many things, though among them +was no distrust of him. Brought to bay, she put out her hand and found a +gate; pushed it open, and entered upon her heritage of art. + +The change was so sudden that those who had stared at her sourly or +scornfully, or with malicious amusement or some stirrings of pity, drew +their breath and gave ground a little. Where was the shrinking, +frightened, unbidden guest of a moment before, with downcast eyes and +burning cheeks? Here was a proud and easy and radiant lady, with witching +eyes and a wonderful smile. "I am only Audrey, your Excellency," she said, +and curtsied as she spoke. "My other name lies buried in a valley amongst +far-off mountains." She slightly turned, and addressed herself to a +portly, velvet-clad gentleman, of a very authoritative air, who, arriving +late, had just shouldered himself into the group about his Excellency. "By +token," she smiled, "of a gold moidore that was paid for a loaf of bread." + +The new Governor appealed to his predecessor. "What is this, Colonel +Spotswood, what is this?" he demanded, somewhat testily, of the +open-mouthed gentleman in velvet. + +"Odso!" cried the latter. "'Tis the little maid of the +sugar-tree!--Marmaduke Haward's brown elf grown into the queen of all the +fairies!" Crossing to Audrey he took her by the hand. "My dear child," he +said, with a benevolence that sat well upon him, "I always meant to keep +an eye upon thee, to see that Mr. Haward did by thee all that he swore he +would do. But at first there were cares of state, and now for five years I +have lived at Germanna, half way to thy mountains, where echoes from the +world seldom reach me. Permit me, my dear." With a somewhat cumbrous +gallantry, the innocent gentleman, who had just come to town and knew not +the gossip thereof, bent and kissed her upon the cheek. + +Audrey curtsied with a bright face to her old acquaintance of the valley +and the long road thence to the settled country. "I have been cared for, +sir," she said. "You see that I am happy." + +She turned to Haward, and he drew her hand within his arm. "Ay, child," he +said. "We are keeping others of the company from their duty to his +Excellency. Besides, the minuet invites. I do not think I have heard music +so sweet before to-night. Your Excellency's most obedient servant! +Gentlemen, allow us to pass." The crowd opened before them, and they found +themselves in the centre of the room. Two couples were walking a minuet; +when they were joined by this dazzling third, the ladies bridled, bit +their lips, and shot Parthian glances. + +It was very fortunate, thought Audrey, that the Widow Constance had once, +long ago, taught her to dance, and that, when they were sent to gather +nuts or myrtle berries or fagots in the woods, she and Barbara were used +to taking hands beneath the trees and moving with the glancing sunbeams +and the nodding saplings and the swaying grapevine trailers. She that had +danced to the wind in the pine tops could move with ease to the music of +this night. And since it was so that with a sore and frightened and +breaking heart one could yet, in some strange way, become quite another +person,--any person that one chose to be,--these cruel folk should not +laugh at her again! They had not laughed since, before the Governor +yonder, she had suddenly made believe that she was a carefree, great lady. +Well, she would make believe to them still. + +Her eyes were as brilliant as Haward's that shone with fever; a smile +stayed upon her lips; she moved with dignity through the stately dance, +scarce erring once, graceful and fine in all that she did. Haward, +enamored, his wits afire, went mechanically through the oft-trod measure, +and swore to himself that he held in his hand the pearl of price, the +nonpareil of earth. In this dance and under cover of the music they could +speak to each other unheard of those about them. + +"'Queen of all the fairies,' did he call you?" he asked. "That was well +said. When we are at Fair View again, thou must show me where thou wonnest +with thy court, in what moonlit haunt, by what cool stream"-- + +"I would I were this night at Fair View glebe house," said Audrey. "I +would I were at home in the mountains." + +Her voice, sunken with pain and longing, was for him alone. To the other +dancers, to the crowded room at large, she seemed a brazen girl, with +beauty to make a goddess, wit to mask as a great lady, effrontery to +match that of the gentleman who had brought her here. The age was free, +and in that London which was dear to the hearts of the Virginians ladies +of damaged reputation were not so unusual a feature of fashionable +entertainments as to receive any especial notice. But Williamsburgh was +not London, and the dancer yonder, who held her rose-crowned head so high, +was no lady of fashion. They knew her now for that dweller at Fair View +gates of whom, during the summer just past, there had been whispering +enough. Evidently, it was not for naught that Mr. Marmaduke Haward had +refused invitations, given no entertainments, shut himself up at Fair +View, slighting old friends and evincing no desire to make new ones. Why, +the girl was a servant,--nothing more nor less; she belonged to Gideon +Darden, the drunken minister; she was to have married Jean Hugon, the +half-breed trader. Look how the Governor, enlightened at last, glowered at +her; and how red was Colonel Spotswood's face; and how Mistress Evelyn +Byrd, sitting in the midst of a little court of her own, made witty talk, +smiled upon her circle of adorers, and never glanced toward the centre of +the room, and the dancers there! + +"You are so sweet and gay to-night," said Haward to Audrey. "Take your +pleasure, child, for it is a sad world, and the blight will fall. I love +to see you happy." + +"Happy!" she answered. "I am not happy!" + +"You are above them all in beauty," he went on. "There is not one here +that's fit to tie your shoe." + +"Oh me!" cried Audrey. "There is the lady that you love, and that loves +you. Why did she look at me so, in the hall yonder? And yesterday, when +she came to Mistress Stagg's, I might not touch her or speak to her! You +told me that she was kind and good and pitiful. I dreamed that she might +let me serve her when she came to Fair View." + +"She will never come to Fair View," he said, "nor shall I go again to +Westover. I am for my own house now, you brown enchantress, and my own +garden, and the boat upon the river. Do you remember how sweet were our +days in June? We will live them over again, and there shall come for us, +besides, a fuller summer"-- + +"It is winter now," said Audrey, with a sobbing breath, "and cold and +dark! I do not know myself, and you are strange. I beg you to let me go +away. I wish to wash off this paint, to put on my own gown. I am no lady; +you do wrong to keep me here. See, all the company are frowning at me! The +minister will hear what I have done and be angry, and Mistress Deborah +will beat me. I care not for that, but you--Oh, you have gone far +away,--as far as Fair View, as far as the mountains! I am speaking to a +stranger"-- + +In the dance their raised hands met again. "You see me, you speak to me at +last," he said ardently. "That other, that cold brother of the snows, that +paladin and dream knight that you yourself made and dubbed him me,--he has +gone, Audrey; nay, he never was! But I myself, I am not abhorrent to you?" + +"Oh," she answered, "it is all dark! I cannot see--I cannot understand"-- + +The time allotted to minuets having elapsed, the musicians after a short +pause began to play an ancient, lively air, and a number of ladies and +gentlemen, young, gayly dressed, and light of heart as of heels, engaged +in a country dance. When they were joined by Mr. Marmaduke Haward and his +shameless companion, there arose a great rustling and whispering. A young +girl in green taffeta was dancing alone, wreathing in and out between the +silken, gleaming couples, coquetting with the men by means of fan and +eyes, but taking hands and moving a step or two with each sister of the +dance. When she approached Audrey, the latter smiled and extended her +hand, because that was the way the lady nearest her had done. But the girl +in green stared coldly, put her hand behind her, and, with the very +faintest salute to Mr. Marmaduke Haward, danced on her way. For one moment +the smile died on Audrey's lips; then it came resolutely back, and she +held her head high. + +The men, forming in two rows, drew their rapiers with a flourish, and, +crossing them overhead, made an arch of steel under which the women must +pass. Haward's blade touched that of an old acquaintance. "I have been +leaning upon the back of a lady's chair," said the latter gruffly, under +cover of the music and the clashing steel,--"a lady dressed in rose color, +who's as generous (to all save one poor devil) as she is fair. I promised +her I would take her message; the Lord knows I would go to the bottom of +the sea to give her pleasure! She says that you are not yourself; begs +that you will--go quietly away"-- + +An exclamation from the man next him, and a loud murmur mixed with some +laughter from those in the crowded room who were watching the dancers, +caused the gentleman to break off in the middle of his message. He glanced +over his shoulder; then, with a shrug, turned to his vis-a-vis in white +satin. "Now you see that 'twill not answer,--not in Virginia. The +women--bless them!--have a way of cutting Gordian knots." + +A score of ladies, one treading in the footsteps of another, should have +passed beneath the flashing swords. But there had thrust itself into their +company a plague spot, and the girl in green taffeta and a matron in +silver brocade, between whom stood the hateful presence, indignantly +stepped out of line and declined to dance. The fear of infection spreading +like wildfire, the ranks refused to close, and the company was thrown into +confusion. Suddenly the girl in green, by nature a leader of her kind, +walked away, with a toss of her head, from the huddle of those who were +uncertain what to do, and joined her friends among the spectators, who +received her with acclaim. The sound and her example were warranty enough +for the cohort she had quitted. A moment, and it was in virtuous retreat, +and the dance was broken up. + +The gentlemen, who saw themselves summarily deserted, abruptly lowered +their swords. One laughed; another, flown with wine, gave utterance to +some coarse pleasantry; a third called to the musicians to stop the music. +Darden's Audrey stood alone, brave in her beautiful borrowed dress and the +color that could not leave her cheeks. But her lips had whitened, the +smile was gone, and her eyes were like those of a hunted deer. She looked +mutely about her: how could she understand, who trusted so completely, who +lived in a labyrinth without a clue, who had built her dream world so +securely that she had left no way of egress for herself? These were cruel +people! She was mad to get away, to tear off this strange dress, to fling +herself down in the darkness, in the woods, hiding her face against the +earth! But though she was only Audrey and so poor a thing, she had for her +portion a dignity and fineness of nature that was a stay to her steps. +Barbara, though not so poor and humble a maid, might have burst into +tears, and run crying from the room and the house; but to do that Audrey +would have been ashamed. + +"It was you, Mr. Corbin, that laughed, I think?" said Haward. "To-morrow I +shall send to know the reason of your mirth. Mr. Everard, you will answer +to me for that pretty oath. Mr. Travis, there rests the lie that you +uttered just now: stoop and take it again." He flung his glove at Mr. +Travis's feet. + +A great hubbub and exclamation arose. Mr. Travis lifted the glove with the +point of his rapier, and in a loud voice repeated the assertion which had +given umbrage to Mr. Haward of Fair View. That gentleman sprang unsteadily +forward, and the blades of the two crossed in dead earnest. A moment, and +the men were forced apart; but by this time the whole room was in +commotion. The musicians craned their necks over the gallery rail, a woman +screamed, and half a dozen gentlemen of years and authority started from +the crowd of witnesses to the affair and made toward the centre of the +room, with an eye to preventing further trouble. Where much wine had been +drunken and twenty rapiers were out, matters might go from bad to worse. + +Another was before them. A lady in rose color had risen from her chair and +glided across the polished floor to the spot where trouble was brewing. +"Gentlemen, for shame!" she cried. Her voice was bell-like in its clear +sweetness, final in its grave rebuke and its recall to sense and decency. +She was Mistress Evelyn Byrd, who held sovereignty in Virginia, and at the +sound of her voice, the command of her raised hand, the clamor suddenly +ceased, and the angry group, parting, fell back as from the presence of +its veritable queen. + +Evelyn went up to Audrey and took her by the hand. "I am not tired of +dancing, as were those ladies who have left us," she said, with a smile, +and in a sweet and friendly voice. "See, the gentlemen are waiting I Let +us finish out this measure, you and me." + +At her gesture of command the lines that had so summarily broken +re-formed. Back into the old air swung the musicians; up went the swords, +crossing overhead with a ringing sound, and beneath the long arch of +protecting steel moved to the music the two women, the dark beauty and the +fair, the princess and the herdgirl. Evelyn led, and Audrey, following, +knew that now indeed she was walking in a dream. + +A very few moments, and the measure was finished. A smile, a curtsy, a +wave of Evelyn's hand, and the dancers, disbanding, left the floor. Mr. +Corbin, Mr. Everard, and Mr. Travis, each had a word to say to Mr. Haward +of Fair View, as they passed that gentleman. + +Haward heard, and answered to the point; but when presently Evelyn said, +"Let us go into the garden," and he found himself moving with her and with +Audrey through the buzzing, staring crowd toward the door of the +Governor's house, he thought that it was into Fair View garden they were +about to descend. And when they came out upon the broad, torchlit walk, +and he saw gay parties of ladies and gentlemen straying here and there +beneath the trees, he thought it strange that he had forgotten that he had +guests this night. As for the sound of the river below his terrace, he had +never heard so loud a murmur. It grew and filled the night, making thin +and far away the voices of his guests. + +There was a coach at the gates, and Mr. Grymes, who awhile ago had told +him that he had a message to deliver, was at the coach door. Evelyn had +her hand upon his arm, and her voice was speaking to him from as far away +as across the river. "I am leaving the ball," it said, "and I will take +the girl in my coach to the place where she is staying. Promise me that +you will not go back to the house yonder; promise me that you will go away +with Mr. Grymes, who is also weary of the ball"-- + +"Oh," said Mr. Grymes lightly, "Mr. Haward agrees with me that Marot's +best room, cool and quiet, a bottle of Burgundy, and a hand at piquet are +more alluring than the heat and babel we have left. We are going at once, +Mistress Evelyn. Haward, I propose that on our way to Marot's we knock up +Dr. Contesse, and make him free of our company." + +As he spoke, he handed into the coach the lady in flowered damask, who had +held up her head, but said no word, and the lady in rose-colored brocade, +who, through the length of the ballroom and the hall and the broad walk +where people passed and repassed, had kept her hand in Audrey's, and had +talked, easily and with smiles, to the two attending gentlemen. He shut to +the coach door, and drew back, with a low bow, when Haward's deeply +flushed, handsome face appeared for a moment at the lowered glass. + +"Art away to Westover, Evelyn?" he asked. "Then 't is 'Good-by, +sweetheart!' for I shall not go to Westover again. But you have a fair +road to travel,--there are violets by the wayside; for it is May Day, you +know, and the woods are white with dogwood and purple with the Judas-tree. +The violets are for you; but the great white blossoms, and the boughs of +rosy mist, and all the trees that wave in the wind are for Audrey." His +eyes passed the woman whom he would have wed, and rested upon her +companion in the coach. "Thou fair dryad!" he said. "Two days hence we +will keep tryst beneath the beech-tree in the woods beyond the glebe +house." + +The man beside him put a hand upon his shoulder and plucked him back, nor +would look at Evelyn's drawn and whitened face, but called to the coachman +to go on. The black horses put themselves into motion, the equipage made a +wide turn, and the lights of the Palace were left behind. + +Evelyn lodged in a house upon the outskirts of the town, but from the +Palace to Mistress Stagg's was hardly more than a stone's throw. Not until +the coach was drawing near the small white house did either of the women +speak. Then Audrey broke into an inarticulate murmur, and stooping would +have pressed her cheek against the hand that had clasped hers only a +little while before. But Evelyn snatched her hand away, and with a gesture +of passionate repulsion shrank into her corner of the coach. "Oh, how dare +you touch me!" she cried. "How dare you look at me, you serpent that have +stung me so!" Able to endure no longer, she suddenly gave way to angry +laughter. "Do you think I did it for you,--put such humiliation upon +myself for you? Why, you wanton, I care not if you stand in white at +every church door in Virginia! It was for him, for Mr. Marmaduke Haward of +Fair View, for whose name and fame, if he cares not for them himself, his +friends have yet some care!" The coach stopped, and the footman opened the +door. "Descend, if you please," went on Evelyn clearly and coldly. "You +have had your triumph. I say not there is no excuse for him,--you are very +beautiful. Good-night." + +Audrey stood between the lilac bushes and watched the coach turn from +Palace into Duke of Gloucester Street; then went and knocked at the green +door. It was opened by Mistress Stagg in person, who drew her into the +parlor, where the good-natured woman had been sitting all alone, and in +increasing alarm as to what might be the outcome of this whim of Mr. +Marmaduke Haward's. Now she was full of inquiries, ready to admire and to +nod approval, or to shake her head and cry, "I told you so!" according to +the turn of the girl's recital. + +But Audrey had little to say, little to tell. Yes, oh yes, it had been a +very grand sight.... Yes, Mr. Haward was kind; he had always been kind to +her.... She had come home with Mistress Evelyn Byrd in her coach.... Might +she go now to her room? She would fold the dress very carefully. + +Mistress Stagg let her go, for indeed there was no purpose to be served in +keeping her, seeing that the girl was clearly dazed, spoke without knowing +what she said, and stood astare like one of Mrs. Salmon's beautiful was +ladies. She would hear all about it in the morning, when the child had +slept off her excitement. They at the Palace couldn't have taken her +presence much amiss, or she would never in the world have come home in the +Westover coach. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +AUDREY AWAKES + + +There had lately come to Virginia, and to the convention of its clergy at +Williamsburgh, one Mr. Eliot, a minister after the heart of a large number +of sober and godly men whose reputation as a body suffered at the hands of +Mr. Darden, of Fair View parish, Mr. Bailey, of Newport, Mr. Worden, of +Lawn's Creek, and a few kindred spirits. Certainly Mr. Eliot was not like +these; so erect, indeed, did he hold himself in the strait and narrow path +that his most admiring brethren, being, as became good Virginians, +somewhat easy-going in their saintliness, were inclined to think that he +leaned too far the other way. It was commendable to hate sin and reprove +the sinner; but when it came to raining condemnation upon horse-racing, +dancing, Cato at the playhouse, and like innocent diversions, Mr. Eliot +was surely somewhat out of bounds. The most part accounted for his turn of +mind by the fact that ere he came to Virginia he had been a sojourner in +New England. + +He was mighty in the pulpit, was Mr. Eliot; no droning reader of last +year's sermons, but a thunderer forth of speech that was now acrid, now +fiery, but that always came from an impassioned nature, vehement for the +damnation of those whom God so strangely spared. When, as had perforce +happened during the past week, he must sit with his brethren in the +congregation and listen to lukewarm--nay, to dead and cold adjurations and +expoundings, his very soul itched to mount the pulpit stairs, thrust down +the Laodicean that chanced to occupy it, and himself awaken as with the +sound of a trumpet this people who slept upon the verge of a precipice, +between hell that gaped below and God who sat on high, serenely regardful +of his creatures' plight. Though so short a time in Virginia, he was +already become a man of note, the prophet not without honor, whom it was +the fashion to admire, if not to follow. It was therefore natural enough +that the Commissary, himself a man of plain speech from the pulpit, should +appoint him to preach in Bruton church this Sunday morning, before his +Excellency the Governor, the worshipful the Council, the clergy in +convention, and as much of Williamsburgh, gentle and simple, as could +crowd into the church. Mr. Eliot took the compliment as an answer to +prayer, and chose for his text Daniel fifth and twenty-seventh. + +Lodging as he did on Palace Street, the early hours of the past night, +which he would have given to prayer and meditation, had been profaned by +strains of music from the Governor's house, by laughter and swearing and +much going to and fro in the street beneath his window. These disturbances +filling him with righteous wrath, he came down to his breakfast next +morning prepared to give his hostess, who kept him company at table, line +and verse which should demonstrate that Jehovah shared his anger. + +"Ay, sir!" she cried. "And if that were all, sir"--and straightway she +embarked upon a colored narration of the occurrence at the Governor's +ball. This was followed by a wonderfully circumstantial account of Mr. +Marmaduke Haward's sins of omission against old and new acquaintances who +would have entertained him at their houses, and been entertained in turn +at Fair View, and by as detailed a description of the toils that had been +laid for him by that audacious piece who had forced herself upon the +company last night. + +Mr. Eliot listened aghast, and mentally amended his sermon. If he knew +Virginia, even so flagrant a case as this might never come before a +vestry. Should this woman go unreproved? When in due time he was in the +church, and the congregation was gathering, he beckoned to him one of the +sidesmen, asked a question, and when it was answered, looked fixedly at a +dark girl sitting far away in a pew beneath the gallery. + +It was a fine, sunny morning, with a tang of autumn in the air, and the +concourse within the church was very great. The clergy showed like a wedge +of black driven into the bright colors with which nave and transept +overflowed. His Excellency the Governor sat in state, with the Council on +either hand. One member of that body was not present. Well-nigh all +Williamsburgh knew by now that Mr. Marmaduke Haward lay at Marot's +ordinary, ill of a raging fever. Hooped petticoat and fragrant bodice +found reason for whispering to laced coat and periwig; significant glances +traveled from every quarter of the building toward the tall pew where, +collected but somewhat palely smiling, sat Mistress Evelyn Byrd beside her +father. All this was before the sermon. When the minister of the day +mounted the pulpit, and, gaunt against the great black sounding-board, +gave out his text in a solemn and ringing voice, such was the genuine +power of the man that every face was turned toward him, and throughout the +building there fell a sudden hush. + +Audrey looked with the rest, but she could not have said that she +listened,--not at first. She was there because she always went to church +on Sunday. It had not occurred to her to ask that she might stay at home. +She had come from her room that morning with the same still face, the same +strained and startled look about the eyes, that she had carried to it the +night before. Black Peggy, who found her bed unslept in, thought that she +must have sat the night through beside the window. Mistress Stagg, meeting +her at the stairfoot with the tidings (just gathered from the lips of a +passer-by) of Mr. Haward's illness, thought that the girl took the news +very quietly. She made no exclamation, said nothing good or bad; only drew +her hand across her brow and eyes, as though she strove to thrust away a +veil or mist that troubled her. This gesture she repeated now and again +during the hour before church time. Mistress Stagg heard no more of the +ball this morning than she had heard the night before. Something ailed the +girl. She was not sullen, but she could not or would not talk. Perhaps, +despite the fact of the Westover coach, she had not been kindly used at +the Palace. The ex-actress pursed her lips, and confided to her Mirabell +that times were not what they once were. Had she not, at Bath, been given +a ticket to the Saturday ball by my Lord Squander himself? Ay, and she had +footed it, too, in the country dance, with the best of them, with captains +and French counts and gentlemen and ladies of title,--ay, and had gone +down the middle with, the very pattern of Sir Harry Wildair! To be sure, +no one had ever breathed a word against her character; but, for her part, +she believed no great harm of Audrey, either. Look at the girl's eyes, +now: they were like a child's or a saint's. + +Mirabell nodded and looked wise, but said nothing. + +When the church bells rang Audrey was ready, and she walked to church with +Mistress Stagg much as, the night before, she had walked between the +lilacs to the green door when the Westover coach had passed from her +sight. Now she sat in the church much as she had sat at the window the +night through. She did not know that people were staring at her; nor had +she caught the venomous glance of Mistress Deborah, already in the pew, +and aware of more than had come to her friend's ears. + +Audrey was not listening, was scarcely thinking. Her hands were crossed in +her lap, and now and then she raised one and made the motion of pushing +aside from her eyes something heavy that clung and blinded. What part of +her spirit that was not wholly darkened and folded within itself was back +in the mountains of her childhood, with those of her own blood whom she +had loved and lost. What use to try to understand to-day,--to-day with its +falling skies, its bewildered pondering over the words that were said to +her last night? And the morrow,--she must leave that. Perhaps when it +should dawn he would come to her, and call her "little maid," and laugh at +her dreadful dream. But now, while it was to-day, she could not think of +him without an agony of pain and bewilderment. He was ill, too, and +suffering. Oh, she must leave the thought of him alone! Back then to the +long yesterdays she traveled, and played quietly, dreamily, with Robin on +the green grass beside the shining stream, or sat on the doorstep, her +head on Molly's lap, and watched the evening star behind the Endless +Mountains. + +It was very quiet in the church save for that one great voice speaking. +Little by little the voice impressed itself upon her consciousness. The +eyes of her mind were upon long ranges of mountains distinct against the +splendor of a sunset sky. Last seen in childhood, viewed now through the +illusion of the years, the mountains were vastly higher than nature had +planned them; the streamers of light shot to the zenith; the black forests +were still; everywhere a fixed glory, a gigantic silence, a holding of the +breath for things to happen. + +By degrees the voice in her ears fitted in with the landscape, became, so +solemn and ringing it was, like the voice of the archangel of that sunset +land. Audrey listened at last; and suddenly the mountains were gone, and +the light from the sky, and her people were dead and dust away in that +hidden valley, and she was sitting in the church at Williamsburgh, alone, +without a friend. + +What was the preacher saying? What ball of the night before was he +describing with bitter power, the while he gave warning of handwriting +upon the wall such as had menaced Belshazzar's feast of old? Of what +shameless girl was he telling,--what creature dressed in silks that should +have gone in rags, brought to that ball by her paramour-- + +The gaunt figure in the pulpit trembled like a leaf with the passion of +the preacher's convictions and the energy of his utterance. On had gone +the stream of rhetoric, the denunciations, the satire, the tremendous +assertions of God's mind and purposes. The lash that was wielded was +far-reaching; all the vices of the age--irreligion, blasphemy, +drunkenness, extravagance, vainglory, loose living--fell under its sting. +The condemnation was general, and each man looked to see his neighbor +wince. The occurrence at the ball last night,--he was on that for final +theme, was he? There was a slight movement throughout the congregation. +Some glanced to where would have sat Mr. Marmaduke Haward, had not the +gentleman been at present in his bed, raving now of a great run of luck at +the Cocoa Tree; now of an Indian who, with his knee upon his breast, was +throttling him to death. Others looked over their shoulders to see if that +gypsy yet sat beneath the gallery. Colonel Byrd took out his snuffbox and +studied the picture on the lid, while his daughter sat like a carven lady, +with a slight smile upon her lips. + +On went the word picture that showed how vice could flaunt it in so fallen +an age. The preacher spared not plain words, squarely turned himself +toward the gallery, pointed out with voice and hand the object of his +censure and of God's wrath. Had the law pilloried the girl before them +all, it had been but little worse for her. She sat like a statue, staring +with wide eyes at the window above the altar. This, then, was what the +words in the coach last night had meant--this was what the princess +thought--this was what his world thought-- + +There arose a commotion in the ranks of the clergy of Virginia. The +Reverend Gideon Darden, quitting with an oath the company of his brethren, +came down the aisle, and, pushing past his wife, took his stand in the pew +beside the orphan who had lived beneath his roof, whom during many years +he had cursed upon occasion and sometimes struck, and whom he had latterly +made his tool, "Never mind him, Audrey, my girl," he said, and put an +unsteady hand upon her shoulder. "You're a good child; they cannot harm +ye." + +He turned his great shambling body and heavy face toward the preacher, +stemmed in the full tide of his eloquence by this unseemly interruption, +"Ye beggarly Scot!" he exclaimed thickly. "Ye evil-thinking saint from +Salem way, that know the very lining of the Lord's mind, and yet, walking +through his earth, see but a poisonous weed in his every harmless flower! +Shame on you to beat down the flower that never did you harm! The girl's +as innocent a thing as lives! Ay, I've had my dram,--the more shame to you +that are justly rebuked out of the mouth of a drunken man! I have done, +Mr. Commissary," addressing himself to that dignitary, who had advanced to +the altar rail with his arm raised in a command for silence. "I've no +child of my own, thank God! but the maid has grown up in my house, and +I'll not sit to hear her belied. I've heard of last night; 'twas the mad +whim of a sick man. The girl's as guiltless of wrong as any lady here. I, +Gideon Darden, vouch for it!" + +He sat heavily down beside Audrey, who never stirred from her still regard +of that high window. There was a moment of portentous silence; then, "Let +us pray," said the minister from the pulpit. + +Audrey knelt with the rest, but she did not pray. And when it was all +over, and the benediction had been given, and she found herself without +the church, she looked at the green trees against the clear autumnal +skies and at the graves in the churchyard as though it were a new world +into which she had stepped. She could not have said that she found it +fair. Her place had been so near the door that well-nigh all the +congregation was behind her, streaming out of the church, eager to reach +the open air, where it might discuss the sermon, the futile and scandalous +interruption by the notorious Mr. Darden, and what Mr. Marmaduke Haward +might have said or done had he been present. + +Only Mistress Stagg kept beside her; for Mistress Deborah hung back, +unwilling to be seen in her company, and Darden, from that momentary +awakening of his better nature, had sunk to himself again, and thought not +how else he might aid this wounded member of his household. But Mary Stagg +was a kindly soul, whose heart had led her comfortably through life with +very little appeal to her head. The two or three young women--Oldfields +and Porters of the Virginian stage--who were under indentures to her +husband and herself found her as much their friend as mistress. Their +triumphs in the petty playhouse of this town of a thousand souls were +hers, and what woes they had came quickly to her ears. Now she would have +slipped her hand into Audrey's and have given garrulous comfort, as the +two passed alone through the churchyard gate and took their way up Palace +Street toward the small white house. But Audrey gave not her hand, did not +answer, made no moan, neither justified herself nor blamed another. She +did not speak at all, but after the first glance about her moved like a +sleepwalker. + +When the house was reached she went up to the bedroom. Mistress Deborah, +entering stormily ten minutes later, found herself face to face with a +strange Audrey, who, standing in the middle of the floor, raised her hand +for silence in a gesture so commanding that the virago stayed her tirade, +and stood open-mouthed. + +"I wish to speak," said the new Audrey. "I was waiting for you. There's a +question I wish to ask, and I'll ask it of you who were never kind to me." + +"Never kind to her!" cried the minister's wife to the four walls. "And +she's been taught, and pampered, and treated more like a daughter than the +beggar wench she is! And this is my return,--to sit by her in church +to-day, and have all Virginia think her belonging to me"-- + +"I belong to no one," said Audrey. "Even God does not want me. Be quiet +until I have done." She made again the gesture of pushing aside from face +and eyes the mist that clung and blinded. "I know now what they say," she +went on. "The preacher told me awhile ago. Last night a lady spoke to me: +now I know what was her meaning. Because Mr. Haward, who saved my life, +who brought me from the mountains, who left me, when he sailed away, where +he thought I would be happy, was kind to me when he came again after so +many years; because he has often been to the glebe house, and I to Fair +View; because last night he would have me go with him to the Governor's +ball, they think--they say out loud for all the people to hear--that +I--that I am like Joan, who was whipped last month at the Court House. But +it is not of the lies they tell that I wish to speak." + +Her hand went again to her forehead, then dropped at her side. A look of +fear and of piteous appeal came into her face. "The witch said that I +dreamed, and that it was not well for dreamers to awaken." Suddenly the +quiet of her voice and bearing was broken. With a cry, she hurried across +the room, and, kneeling, caught at the other's gown. "Ah! that is no +dream, is it? No dream that he is my friend, only my friend who has always +been sorry for me, has always helped me! He is the noblest gentleman, the +truest, the best--he loves the lady at Westover--they are to be +married--he never knew what people were saying--he was not himself when he +spoke to me so last night"--Her eyes appealed to the face above her. "I +could never have dreamed all this," she said. "Tell me that I was awake!" + +The minister's wife looked down upon her with a bitter smile. "So you've +had your fool's paradise? Well, once I had mine, though 'twas not your +kind. 'Tis a pretty country, Audrey, but it's not long before they turn +you out." She laughed somewhat drearily, then in a moment turned shrew +again. "He never knew what people were saying?" she cried. "You little +fool, do you suppose he cared? 'Twas you that played your cards all wrong +with your Governor's ball last night!--setting up for a lady, +forsooth!--bringing all the town about your ears! You might have known +that he would never have taken you there in his senses. At Fair View +things went very well. He was entertained,--and I meant to see that no +harm came of it,--and Darden got his support in the vestry. For he was +bit,--there's no doubt of that,--though what he ever saw in you more than +big eyes and a brown skin, the Lord knows, not I! Only your friend!--a +fine gentleman just from London, with a whole Canterbury book of stories +about his life there, to spend a'most a summer on the road between his +plantation and a wretched glebe house because he was only your friend, and +had saved you from the Indians when you were a child, and wished to be +kind to you still! I'll tell you who did wish to be kind to you, and that +was Jean Hugon, the trader, who wanted to marry you." + +Audrey rose to her feet, and moved slowly backward to the wall. Mistress +Deborah went shrilly on: "I dare swear you believe that Mr. Haward had you +in mind all the years he was gone from Virginia? Well, he didn't. He puts +you with Darden and me, and he says, 'There's the strip of Oronoko down by +the swamp,--I 've told my agent that you're to have from it so many pounds +a year;' and he sails away to London and all the fine things there, and +never thinks of you more until he comes back to Virginia and sees you last +May Day at Jamestown. Next morning he comes riding to the glebe house. +'And so,' he says to Darden, 'and so my little maid that I brought for +trophy out of the Appalachian Mountains is a woman grown? Faith, I'd quite +forgot the child; but Saunderson tells me that you have not forgot to draw +upon my Oronoko.' That's all the remembrance you were held in, Audrey." + +She paused to take breath, and to look with shrewish triumph at the girl +who leaned against the wall. "I like not waking up," said Audrey to +herself. "It were easier to die. Perhaps I am dying." + +"And then out he walks to find and talk to you, and in sets your pretty +summer of all play and no work!" went on the other, in a high voice. "Oh, +there was kindness enough, once you had caught his fancy! I wonder if the +lady at Westover praised his kindness? They say she is a proud young lady: +I wonder if she liked your being at the ball last night? When she comes +to Fair View, I'll take my oath that you'll walk no more in its garden! +But perhaps she won't come now,--though her maid Chloe told Mistress +Bray's Martha that she certainly loves him"-- + +"I wish I were dead," said Audrey. "I wish I were dead, like Molly." She +stood up straight against the wall, and pushed her heavy hair from her +forehead. "Be quiet now," she said. "You see that I am awake; there is no +need for further calling. I shall not dream again." She looked at the +older woman doubtfully. "Would you mind," she suggested,--"would you be so +very kind as to leave me alone, to sit here awake for a while? I have to +get used to it, you know. To-morrow, when we go back to the glebe house, I +will work the harder. It must be easy to work when one is awake. Dreaming +takes so much time." + +Mistress Deborah could hardly have told why she did as she was asked. +Perhaps the very strangeness of the girl made her uncomfortable in her +presence; perhaps in her sour and withered heart there was yet some little +soundness of pity and comprehension; or perhaps it was only that she had +said her say, and was anxious to get to her friends below, and shake from +her soul the dust of any possible complicity with circumstance in moulding +the destinies of Darden's Audrey. Be that as it may, when she had flung +her hood upon the bed and had looked at herself in the cracked glass above +the dresser, she went out of the room, and closed the door somewhat softly +behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +BY THE RIVERSIDE + + +"Yea, I am glad--I and my father and mother and Ephraim--that thee is +returned to Fair View," answered Truelove. "And has thee truly no shoes of +plain and sober stuffs? These be much too gaudy." + +"There's a pair of black callimanco," said the storekeeper reluctantly; +"but these of flowered silk would so become your feet, or this red-heeled +pair with the buckles, or this of fine morocco. Did you think of me every +day that I spent in Williamsburgh?" + +"I prayed for thee every day," said Truelove simply,--"for thee and for +the sick man who had called thee to his side. Let me see thy callimanco +shoes. Thee knows that I may not wear these others." + +The storekeeper brought the plainest footgear that his stock afforded. +"They are of a very small size,--perhaps too small. Had you not better try +them ere you buy? I could get a larger pair from Mr. Carter's store." + +Truelove seated herself upon a convenient stool, and lifted her gray skirt +an inch above a slender ankle. "Perchance they may not be too small," she +said, and in despite of her training and the whiteness of her soul two +dimples made their appearance above the corners of her pretty mouth. +MacLean knelt to remove the worn shoe, but found in the shoestrings an +obstinate knot. The two had the store to themselves; for Ephraim waited +for his sister at the landing, rocking in his boat on the bosom of the +river, watching a flight of wild geese drawn like a snowy streamer across +the dark blue sky. It was late autumn, and the forest was dressed in flame +color. + +"Thy fingers move so slowly that I fear thee is not well," said Truelove +kindly. "They that have nursed men with fever do often fall ill +themselves. Will thee not see a physician?" + +MacLean, sanguine enough in hue, and no more gaunt of body than usual, +worked languidly on. "I trust no lowland physician," he said. "In my own +country, if I had need, I would send to the foot of Dun-da-gu for black +Murdoch, whose fathers have been physicians to the MacLeans of Duart since +the days of Galethus. The little man in this parish,--his father was a +lawyer, his grandfather a merchant; he knows not what was his +great-grandfather! There, the shoe is untied! If I came every day to your +father's house, and if your mother gave me to drink of her elder-flower +wine, and if I might sit on the sunny doorstep and watch you at your +spinning, I should, I think, recover." + +He slipped upon her foot the shoe of black cloth. Truelove regarded it +gravely. "'Tis not too small, after all," she said. "And does thee not +think it more comely than these other, with their silly pomp of colored +heels and blossoms woven in the silk?" She indicated with her glance the +vainglorious row upon the bench beside her; then looked down at the little +foot in its sombre covering and sighed. + +"I think that thy foot would be fair in the shoe of Donald Ross!" cried +the storekeeper, and kissed the member which he praised. + +Truelove drew back, her cheeks very pink, and the dimples quite uncertain +whether to go or stay. "Thee is idle in thy behavior," she said severely. +"I do think that thee is of the generation that will not learn. I pray +thee to expeditiously put back my own shoe, and to give me in a parcel the +callimanco pair." + +MacLean set himself to obey, though with the expedition of a tortoise. +Crisp autumn air and vivid sunshine pouring in at window and door filled +and lit the store. The doorway framed a picture of blue sky, slow-moving +water, and ragged landing; the window gave upon crimson sumac and the gold +of a sycamore. Truelove, in her gray gown and close white cap, sat in the +midst of the bouquet of colors afforded by the motley lining of the Fair +View store, and gazed through the window at the riotous glory of this +world. At last she looked at MacLean. "When, a year ago, thee was put to +mind this store, and I, coming here to buy, made thy acquaintance," she +said softly, "thee wore always so stern and sorrowful a look that my heart +bled for thee. I knew that thee was unhappy. Is thee unhappy still?" + +MacLean tied the shoestrings with elaborate care; then rose from his +knees, and stood looking down from his great height upon the Quaker +maiden. His face was softened, and when he spoke it was with a gentle +voice. "No," he said, "I am not unhappy as at first I was. My king is an +exile, and my chief is forfeited. I suppose that my father is dead. Ewin +Mackinnon, my foe upon whom I swore revenge, lived untroubled by me, and +died at another's hands. My country is closed against me; I shall never +see it more. I am named a rebel, and chained to this soil, this dull and +sluggish land, where from year's end to year's end the key keeps the +house and the furze bush keeps the cow. The best years of my +manhood--years in which I should have acquired honor--have gone from me +here. There was a man of my name amongst those gentlemen, old officers of +Dundee, who in France did not disdain to serve as private sentinels, that +their maintenance might not burden a king as unfortunate as themselves. +That MacLean fell in the taking of an island in the Rhine which to this +day is called the Island of the Scots, so bravely did these gentlemen bear +themselves. They made their lowly station honorable; marshals and princes +applauded their deeds. The man of my name was unfortunate, but not +degraded; his life was not amiss, and his death was glorious. But I, Angus +MacLean, son and brother of chieftains, I serve as a slave; giving +obedience where in nature it is not due, laboring in an alien land for +that which profiteth not, looking to die peacefully in my bed! I should be +no less than most unhappy." + +He sat down upon the bench beside Truelove, and taking the hem of her +apron began to plait it between his fingers. "But to-day," he said,--"but +to-day the sky seems blue, the sunshine bright. Why is that, Truelove?" + +Truelove, with her eyes cast down and a deeper wild rose in her cheeks, +opined that it was because Friend Marmaduke Haward was well of his fever, +and had that day returned to Fair View. "Friend Lewis Contesse did tell my +father, when he was in Williamsburgh, that thee made a tenderer nurse than +any woman, and that he did think that Marmaduke Haward owed his life to +thee. I am glad that thee has made friends with him whom men foolishly +call thy master." + +"Credit to that the blue sky," said the storekeeper whimsically; "there is +yet the sunshine to be accounted for. This room did not look so bright +half an hour syne." + +But Truelove shook her head, and would not reckon further; instead heard +Ephraim calling, and gently drew her apron from the Highlander's clasp. +"There will be a meeting of Friends at our house next fourth day," she +said, in her most dovelike tones, as she rose and held out her hand for +her new shoes. "Will thee come, Angus? Thee will be edified, for Friend +Sarah Story, who hath the gift of prophecy, will be there, and we do think +to hear of great things. Thee will come?" + +"By St. Kattan, that will I!" exclaimed the storekeeper, with suspicious +readiness. "The meeting lasts not long, does it? When the Friends are gone +there will be reward? I mean I may sit on the doorstep and watch you--and +watch _thee_--spin?" + +Truelove dimpled once more, took her shoes, and would have gone her way +sedately and alone, but MacLean must needs keep her company to the end of +the landing and the waiting Ephraim. The latter, as he rowed away from the +Fair View store, remarked upon his sister's looks: "What makes thy cheeks +so pink, Truelove, and thy eyes so big and soft?" + +Truelove did not know; thought that mayhap 'twas the sunshine and the +blowing wind. + +The sun still shone, but the wind had fallen, when, two hours later, +MacLean pocketed the key of the store, betook himself again to the water's +edge, and entering a small boat, first turned it sunwise for luck's sake, +then rowed slowly downstream to the great-house landing. Here he found a +handful of negroes--boatmen and house servants--basking in the sunlight. +Juba was of the number, and at MacLean's call scrambled to his feet and +came to the head of the steps. "No, sah, Marse Duke not on de place. He +order Mirza an' ride off"--a pause--"an' ride off to de glebe house. Yes, +sah, I done tol' him he ought to rest. Goin' to wait tel he come back?" + +"No," answered MacLean, with a darkened face. "Tell him I will come to the +great house to-night." + +In effect, the storekeeper was now, upon Fair View plantation, master of +his own time and person. Therefore, when he left the landing, he did not +row back to the store, but, it being pleasant upon the water, kept on +downstream, gliding beneath the drooping branches of red and russet and +gold. When he came to the mouth of the little creek that ran past Haward's +garden, he rested upon his oars, and with a frowning face looked up its +silver reaches. + +The sun was near its setting, and a still and tranquil light lay upon the +river that was glassy smooth. Rowing close to the bank, the Highlander saw +through the gold fretwork of the leaves above him far spaces of pale blue +sky. All was quiet, windless, listlessly fair. A few birds were on the +wing, and far toward the opposite shore an idle sail seemed scarce to hold +its way. Presently the trees gave place to a grassy shore, rimmed by a +fiery vine that strove to cool its leaves in the flood below. Behind it +was a little rise of earth, a green hillock, fresh and vernal in the midst +of the flame-colored autumn. In shape it was like those hills in his +native land which the Highlander knew to be tenanted by the _daoine shi'_ +the men of peace. There, in glittering chambers beneath the earth, they +dwelt, a potent, eerie, gossamer folk, and thence, men and women, they +issued at times to deal balefully with the mortal race. + +A woman was seated upon the hillock, quiet as a shadow, her head resting +on her hand, her eyes upon the river. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, slight of +figure, and utterly, mournfully still, sitting alone in the fading light, +with the northern sky behind her, for the moment she wore to the +Highlander an aspect not of earth, and he was startled. Then he saw that +it was but Darden's Audrey. She watched the water where it gleamed far +off, and did not see him in his boat below the scarlet vines. Nor when, +after a moment's hesitation, he fastened the boat to a cedar stump, and +stepped ashore, did she pay any heed. It was not until he spoke to her, +standing where he could have touched her with his outstretched hand, that +she moved or looked his way. + +"How long since you left the glebe house?" he demanded abruptly. + +"The sun was high," she answered, in a slow, even voice, with no sign of +surprise at finding herself no longer alone. "I have been sitting here for +a long time. I thought that Hugon might be coming this afternoon.... There +is no use in hiding, but I thought if I stole down here he might not find +me very soon." + +Her voice died away, and she looked again at the water. The storekeeper +sat down upon the bank, between the hillock and the fiery vine, and his +keen eyes watched her closely. "The river," she said at last,--I like to +watch it. There was a time when I loved the woods, but now I see that they +are ugly. Now, when I can steal away, I come to the river always. I watch +it and watch it, and think.... All that you give it is taken so surely, +and hurried away, and buried out of sight forever. A little while ago I +pulled a spray of farewell summer, and went down there where the bank +shelves and gave it to the river. It was gone in a moment for all that the +stream seems so stealthy and slow." + +"The stream comes from afar," said the Highlander. "In the west, beneath +the sun, it may be a torrent flashing through the mountains." + +"The mountains!" cried Audrey. "Ah, they are uglier than the woods,--black +and terrible! Once I loved them, too, but that was long ago." She put her +chin upon her hand, and again studied the river. "Long ago," she said, +beneath her breath. + +There was a silence; then, "Mr. Haward is at Fair View again," announced +the storekeeper. + +The girl's face twitched. + +"He has been nigh to death," went on her informant. "There were days when +I looked for no morrow for him; one night when I held above his lips a +mirror, and hardly thought to see the breath-stain." + +Audrey laughed. "He can fool even Death, can he not?" The laugh was light +and mocking, a tinkling, elvish sound which the Highlander frowned to +hear. A book, worn and dog-eared, lay near her on the grass. He took it up +and turned the leaves; then put it by, and glanced uneasily at the +slender, brown-clad form seated upon the fairy mound. + +"That is strange reading," he said. + +Audrey looked at the book listlessly. "The schoolmaster gave it to me. It +tells of things as they are, all stripped of make-believe, and shows how +men love only themselves, and how ugly and mean is the world when we look +at it aright. The schoolmaster says that to look at it aright you must +not dream; you must stay awake,"--she drew her hand across her brow and +eyes,--"you must stay awake." + +"I had rather dream," said MacLean shortly. "I have no love for your +schoolmaster." + +"He is a wise man," she answered. "Now that I do not like the woods I +listen to him when he comes to the glebe house. If I remember all he says, +maybe I shall grow wise, also, and the pain will stop." Once more she +dropped her chin upon her hand and fell to brooding, her eyes upon the +river. When she spoke again it was to herself: "Sometimes of nights I hear +it calling me. Last night, while I knelt by my window, it called so loud +that I put my hands over my ears; but I could not keep out the sound,--the +sound of the river that comes from the mountains, that goes to the sea. +And then I saw that there was a light in Fair View house." + +Her voice ceased, and the silence closed in around them. The sun was +setting, and in the west were purple islands merging into a sea of gold. +The river, too, was colored, and every tree was like a torch burning +stilly in the quiet of the evening. For some time MacLean watched the +girl, who now again seemed unconscious of his presence; but at last he got +to his feet, and looked toward his boat. "I must be going," he said; then, +as Audrey raised her head and the light struck upon her face, he continued +more kindly than one would think so stern a seeming man could speak: "I am +sorry for you, my maid. God knows that I should know how dreadful are the +wounds of the spirit! Should you need a friend"-- + +Audrey shook her head. "No more friends," she said, and laughed as she had +laughed before. "They belong in dreams. When you are awake,--that is a +different thing." + +The storekeeper went his way, back to the Fair View store, rowing slowly, +with a grim and troubled face, while Darden's Audrey sat still upon the +green hillock and watched the darkening river. Behind her, at no great +distance, was the glebe house; more than once she thought she heard Hugon +coming through the bushes and calling her by name. The river darkened more +and more, and in the west the sea of gold changed to plains of amethyst +and opal. There was a crescent moon, and Audrey, looking at it with eyes +that ached for the tears that would not gather, knew that once she would +have found it fair. + +Hugon was coming, for she heard the twigs upon the path from the glebe +house snap beneath his tread. She did not turn or move; she would see him +soon enough, hear him soon enough. Presently his black eyes would look +into hers; it would be bird and snake over again, and the bird was tired +of fluttering. The bird was so tired that when a hand was laid on her +shoulder she did not writhe herself from under its touch; instead only +shuddered slightly, and stared with wide eyes at the flowing river. But +the hand was white, with a gleaming ring upon its forefinger, and it stole +down to clasp her own. "Audrey," said a voice that was not Hugon's. + +The girl flung back her head, saw Haward's face bending over her, and with +a loud cry sprang to her feet. When he would have touched her again she +recoiled, putting between them a space of green grass. "I have hunted you +for an hour," he began. "At last I struck this path. Audrey"-- + +Audrey's hands went to her ears. Step by step she moved backward, until +she stood against the trunk of a blood-red oak. When she saw that Haward +followed her she uttered a terrified scream. At the sound and at the sight +of her face he stopped short, and his outstretched hand fell to his side. +"Why, Audrey, Audrey!" he exclaimed. "I would not hurt you, child. I am +not Jean Hugon!" + +The narrow path down which he had come was visible for some distance as it +wound through field and copse, and upon it there now appeared another +figure, as yet far off, but moving rapidly through the fading light toward +the river. "Jean! Jean! Jean Hugon!" cried Audrey. + +The blood rushed to Haward's face. "As bad as that!" he said, beneath his +breath. Going over to the girl, he took her by the hands and strove to +make her look at him; but her face was like marble, and her eyes would not +meet his, and in a moment she had wrenched herself free of his clasp. +"Jean Hugon! Help, Jean Hugon!" she called. + +The half-breed in the distance heard her voice, and began to run toward +them. + +"Audrey, listen to me!" cried Haward. "How can I speak to you, how +explain, how entreat, when you are like this? Child, child, I am no +monster! Why do you shrink from me thus, look at me thus with frightened +eyes? You know that I love you!" + +She broke from him with lifted hands and a wailing cry. "Let me go! Let me +go! I am running through the corn, in the darkness, and I hope to meet the +Indians! I am awake,--oh, God! I am wide awake!" + +With another cry, and with her hands shutting out the sound of his voice, +she turned and fled toward the approaching trader. Haward, after one deep +oath and an impetuous, quickly checked movement to follow the flying +figure, stood beneath the oak and watched that meeting: Hugon, in his +wine-colored coat and Blenheim wig, fierce, inquisitive, bragging of what +he might do; the girl suddenly listless, silent, set only upon an +immediate return through the fields to the glebe house. + +She carried her point, and the two went away without let or hindrance from +the master of Fair View, who leaned against the stem of the oak and +watched them go. He had been very ill, and the hour's search, together +with this unwonted beating of his heart, had made him desperately +weary,--too weary to do aught but go slowly and without overmuch of +thought to the spot where he had left his horse, mount it, and ride as +slowly homeward. To-morrow, he told himself, he would manage differently; +at least, she should be made to hear him. In the mean time there was the +night to be gotten through. MacLean, he remembered, was coming to the +great house. What with wine and cards, thought might for a time be pushed +out of doors. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +A DUEL + + +Juba, setting candles upon a table in Haward's bedroom, chanced to spill +melted wax upon his master's hand, outstretched on the board. "Damn you!" +cried Haward, moved by sudden and uncontrollable irritation. "Look what +you are doing, sirrah!" + +The negro gave a start of genuine surprise. Haward could punish,--Juba had +more than once felt the weight of his master's cane,--but justice had +always been meted out with an equable voice and a fine impassivity of +countenance. "Don't stand there staring at me!" now ordered the master as +irritably as before. "Go stir the fire, draw the curtains, shut out the +night! Ha, Angus, is that you?" + +MacLean crossed the room to the fire upon the hearth, and stood with his +eyes upon the crackling logs. "You kindle too soon your winter fire," he +said. "These forests, flaming red and yellow, should warm the land." + +"Winter is at hand. The air strikes cold to-night," answered Haward, and, +rising, began to pace the room, while MacLean watched him with compressed +lips and gloomy eyes. Finally he came to a stand before a card table, set +full in the ruddy light of the fire, and taking up the cards ran them +slowly through his fingers. "When the lotus was all plucked and Lethe +drained, then cards were born into the world," he said sententiously. +"Come, my friend, let us forget awhile." + +They sat down, and Haward dealt. + +"I came to the house landing before sunset," began the storekeeper slowly. +"I found you gone." + +"Ay," said Haward, gathering up his cards. "'Tis yours to play." + +"Juba told me that you had called for Mirza, and had ridden away to the +glebe house." + +"True," answered the other. "And what then?" + +There was a note of warning in his voice, but MacLean did not choose to +heed. "I rowed on down the river, past the mouth of the creek," he +continued, with deliberation. "There was a mound of grass and a mass of +colored vines"-- + +"And a blood-red oak," finished Haward coldly. "Shall we pay closer regard +to what we are doing? I play the king." + +"You were there!" exclaimed the Highlander. "You--not Jean Hugon--searched +for and found the poor maid's hiding-place." The red came into his tanned +cheek. "Now, by St. Andrew!" he began; then checked himself. + +Haward tapped with his finger the bit of painted pasteboard before him. "I +play the king," he repeated, in an even voice; then struck a bell, and +when Juba appeared ordered the negro to bring wine and to stir the fire. +The flames, leaping up, lent strange animation to the face of the lady +above the mantelshelf, and a pristine brightness to the swords crossed +beneath the painting. The slave moved about the room, drawing the curtains +more closely, arranging all for the night. While he was present the +players gave their attention to the game, but with the sound of the +closing door MacLean laid down his cards. + +"I must speak," he said abruptly. "The girl's face haunts me. You do +wrong. It is not the act of a gentleman." + +The silence that followed was broken by Haward, who spoke in the smooth, +slightly drawling tones which with him spelled irritation and sudden, +hardly controlled anger. "It is my home-coming," he said. "I am tired, and +wish to-night to eat only of the lotus. Will you take up your cards +again?" + +A less impetuous man than MacLean, noting the signs of weakness, fatigue, +and impatience, would have waited, and on the morrow have been listened to +with equanimity. But the Highlander, fired by his cause, thought not of +delay. "To forget!" he exclaimed. "That is the coward's part! I would have +you remember: remember yourself, who are by nature a gentleman and +generous; remember how alone and helpless is the girl; remember to cease +from this pursuit!" + +"We will leave the cards, and say good-night," said Haward, with a strong +effort for self-control. + +"Good-night with all my heart!" cried the other hotly,--"when you have +promised to lay no further snare for that maid at your gates, whose name +you have blasted, whose heart you have wrung, whose nature you have +darkened and distorted"-- + +"Have you done?" demanded Haward. "Once more, 't were wise to say +good-night at once." + +"Not yet!" exclaimed the storekeeper, stretching out an eager hand. "That +girl hath so haunting a face. Haward, see her not again! God wot, I think +you have crushed the soul within her, and her name is bandied from mouth +to mouth. 'T were kind to leave her to forget and be forgotten. Go to +Westover: wed the lady there of whom you raved in your fever. You are her +declared suitor; 'tis said that she loves you"-- + +Haward drew his breath sharply and turned in his chair. Then, spent with +fatigue, irritable from recent illness, sore with the memory of the +meeting by the river, determined upon his course and yet deeply perplexed, +he narrowed his eyes and began to give poisoned arrow for poisoned arrow. + +"Was it in the service of the Pretender that you became a squire of +dames?" he asked. "'Gad, for a Jacobite you are particular!" + +MacLean started as if struck, and drew himself up. "Have a care, sir! A +MacLean sits not to hear his king or his chief defamed. In future, pray +remember it." + +"For my part," said the other, "I would have Mr. MacLean remember"-- + +The intonation carried his meaning. MacLean, flushing deeply, rose from +the table. "That is unworthy of you," he said. "But since before to-night +servants have rebuked masters, I spare not to tell you that you do most +wrongly. 'Tis sad for the girl she died not in that wilderness where you +found her." + +"Ads my life!" cried Haward. "Leave my affairs alone!" + +Both men were upon their feet. "I took you for a gentleman," said the +Highlander, breathing hard. "I said to myself: 'Duart is overseas where I +cannot serve him. I will take this other for my chief'"-- + +"That is for a Highland cateran and traitor," interrupted Haward, pleased +to find another dart, but scarcely aware of how deadly an insult he was +dealing. + +In a flash the blow was struck. Juba, in the next room, hearing the noise +of the overturned table, appeared at the door. "Set the table to rights +and light the candles again," said his master calmly. "No, let the cards +lie. Now begone to the quarters! 'Twas I that stumbled and overset the +table." + +Following the slave to the door he locked it upon him; then turned again +to the room, and to MacLean standing waiting in the centre of it. "Under +the circumstances, we may, I think, dispense with preliminaries. You will +give me satisfaction here and now?" + +"Do you take it at my hands?" asked the other proudly. "Just now you +reminded me that I was your servant. But find me a sword"-- + +Haward went to a carved chest; drew from it two rapiers, measured the +blades, and laid one upon the table. MacLean took it up, and slowly passed +the gleaming steel between his fingers. Presently he began to speak, in a +low, controlled, monotonous voice: "Why did you not leave me as I was? Six +months ago I was alone, quiet, dead. A star had set for me; as the lights +fail behind Ben More, it was lost and gone. You, long hated, long looked +for, came, and the star arose again. You touched my scars, and suddenly I +esteemed them honorable. You called me friend, and I turned from my enmity +and clasped your hand. Now my soul goes back to its realm of solitude and +hate; now you are my foe again." He broke off to bend the steel within his +hands almost to the meeting of hilt and point. "A hated master," he ended, +with bitter mirth, "yet one that I must thank for grace extended. Forty +stripes is, I believe, the proper penalty." + +Haward, who had seated himself at his escritoire and was writing, turned +his head. "For my reference to your imprisonment in Virginia I apologize. +I demand the reparation due from one gentleman to another for the +indignity of a blow. Pardon me for another moment, when I shall be at your +service." + +He threw sand upon a sheet of gilt-edged paper, folded and superscribed +it; then took from his breast a thicker document. "The Solebay, +man-of-war, lying off Jamestown, sails at sunrise. The captain--Captain +Meade--is my friend. Who knows the fortunes of war? If by chance I should +fall to-night, take a boat at the landing, hasten upstream, and hail the +Solebay. When you are aboard give Meade--who has reason to oblige me--this +letter. He will carry you down the coast to Charleston, where, if you +change your name and lurk for a while, you may pass for a buccaneer and be +safe enough. For this other paper"--He hesitated, then spoke on with some +constraint: "It is your release from servitude in Virginia,--in effect, +your pardon. I have interest both here and at home--it hath been many +years since Preston--the paper was not hard to obtain. I had meant to give +it to you before we parted to-night. I regret that, should you prove the +better swordsman, it may be of little service to you." + +He laid the papers on the table, and began to divest himself of his coat, +waistcoat, and long, curled periwig. MacLean took up the pardon and held +it to a candle. It caught, but before the flame could reach the writing +Haward had dashed down the other's hand and beaten out the blaze. "'Slife, +Angus, what would you do!" he cried, and, taken unawares, there was angry +concern in his voice. "Why, man, 't is liberty!" + +"I may not accept it," said MacLean, with dry lips. "That letter, also, +is useless to me. I would you were all villain." + +"Your scruple is fantastic!" retorted the other, and as he spoke he put +both papers upon the escritoire, weighting them with the sandbox. "You +shall take them hence when our score is settled,--ay, and use them as best +you may! Now, sir, are you ready?" + +"You are weak from illness," said MacLean hoarsely, "Let the quarrel rest +until you have recovered strength." + +Haward laughed. "I was not strong yesterday," he said. "But Mr. Everard is +pinked in the side, and Mr. Travis, who would fight with pistols, hath a +ball through his shoulder." + +The storekeeper started. "I have heard of those gentlemen! You fought them +both upon the day when you left your sickroom?" + +"Assuredly," answered the other, with a slight lift of his brows. "Will +you be so good as to move the table to one side? So. On guard, sir!" + +The man who had been ill unto death and the man who for many years had +worn no sword acquitted themselves well. Had the room been a field behind +Montagu House, had there been present seconds, a physician, gaping +chairmen, the interest would have been breathless. As it was, the lady +upon the wall smiled on, with her eyes forever upon the blossoms in her +hand, and the river without, when it could be heard through the clashing +of steel, made but a listless and dreamy sound. Each swordsman knew that +he had provoked a friend to whom his debt was great, but each, according +to his godless creed, must strive as though that friend were his dearest +foe. The Englishman fought coolly, the Gael with fervor. The latter had +an unguarded moment. Haward's blade leaped to meet it, and on the other's +shirt appeared a bright red stain. + +In the moment that he was touched the Highlander let fall his sword. +Haward, not understanding, lowered his point, and with a gesture bade his +antagonist recover the weapon. But the storekeeper folded his arms. "Where +blood has been drawn there is satisfaction," he said. "I have given it to +you, and now, by the bones of Gillean-na-Tuaidhe, I will not fight you +longer!" + +For a minute or more Haward stood with his eyes upon the ground and his +hand yet closely clasping the rapier hilt; then, drawing a long breath, he +took up the velvet scabbard and slowly sheathed his blade. "I am content," +he said. "Your wound, I hope, is slight?" + +MacLean thrust a handkerchief into his bosom to stanch the bleeding. "A +pin prick," he said indifferently. + +His late antagonist held out his hand. "It is well over. Come! We are not +young hotheads, but men who have lived and suffered, and should know the +vanity and the pity of such strife. Let us forget this hour, call each +other friends again"-- + +"Tell me first," demanded MacLean, his arm rigid at his side,--"tell me +first why you fought Mr. Everard and Mr. Travis." + +Gray eyes and dark blue met. "I fought them," said Haward, "because, on a +time, they offered insult to the woman whom I intend to make my wife." + +So quiet was it in the room when he had spoken that the wash of the river, +the tapping of walnut branches outside the window, the dropping of coals +upon the hearth, became loud and insistent sounds. Then, "Darden's +Audrey?" said MacLean in a whisper. + +"Not Darden's Audrey, but mine," answered Haward,--"the only woman I have +ever loved or shall love." + +He walked to the window and looked out into the darkness. "To-night there +is no light," he said to himself, beneath his breath. "By and by we shall +stand here together, listening to the river, marking the wind in the +trees." As upon paper heat of fire may cause to appear characters before +invisible, so, when he turned, the flame of a great passion had brought +all that was highest in this gentleman's nature into his countenance, +softening and ennobling it. "Whatever my thoughts before," he said simply, +"I have never, since I awoke from my fever and remembered that night at +the Palace, meant other than this." Coming back to MacLean he laid a hand +upon his shoulder. "Who made us knows we all do need forgiveness! Am I no +more to you, Angus, than Ewin Mor Mackinnon?" + +An hour later, those who were to be lifetime friends went together down +the echoing stair and through the empty house to the outer door. When it +was opened, they saw that upon the stone step without, in the square of +light thrown by the candles behind them, lay an Indian arrow. MacLean +picked it up. "'Twas placed athwart the door," he said doubtingly. "Is it +in the nature of a challenge?" + +Haward took the dart, and examined it curiously. "The trader grows +troublesome," he remarked. "He must back to the woods and to the foes of +his own class." As he spoke he broke the arrow in two, and flung the +pieces from him. + +It was a night of many stars and a keen wind. Moved each in his degree by +its beauty, Haward and MacLean stood regarding it before they should go, +the one back to his solitary chamber, the other to the store which was to +be his charge no longer than the morrow. "I feel the air that blows from +the hills," said the Highlander. "It comes over the heather; it hath swept +the lochs, and I hear it in the sound of torrents." He lifted his face to +the wind. "The breath of freedom! I shall have dreams to-night." + +When he was gone, Haward, left alone, looked for a while upon the heights +of stars. "I too shall dream to-night," he breathed to himself. "To-morrow +all will be well." His gaze falling from the splendor of the skies to the +swaying trees, gaunt, bare, and murmuring of their loss to the hurrying +river, sadness and vague fear took sudden possession of his soul. He spoke +her name over and over; he left the house and went into the garden. It was +the garden of the dying year, and the change that in the morning he had +smiled to see now appalled him. He would have had it June again. Now, when +on the morrow he and Audrey should pass through the garden, it must be +down dank and leaf-strewn paths, past yellow and broken stalks, with here +and there wan ghosts of flowers. + +He came to the dial, and, bending, pressed his lips against the carven +words that, so often as they had stood there together, she had traced with +her finger. "Love! thou mighty alchemist!" he breathed. "Life! that may +now be gold, now iron, but never again dull lead! Death"--He paused; then, +"There shall be no death," he said, and left the withered garden for the +lonely, echoing house. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +AUDREY COMES TO WESTOVER + + +It was ten of the clock upon this same night when Hugon left the glebe +house. Audrey, crouching in the dark beside her window, heard him bid the +minister, as drunk as himself, good-night, and watched him go unsteadily +down the path that led to the road. Once he paused, and made as if to +return; then went on to his lair at the crossroads ordinary. Again Audrey +waited,--this time by the door. Darden stumbled upstairs to bed. Mistress +Deborah's voice was raised in shrill reproach, and the drunken minister +answered her with oaths. The small house rang with their quarrel, but +Audrey listened with indifference; not trembling and stopping her ears, as +once she would have done. It was over at last, and the place sunk in +silence; but still the girl waited and listened, standing close to the +door. At last, as it was drawing toward midnight, she put her hand upon +the latch, and, raising it very softly, slipped outside. Heavy breathing +came from the room where slept her guardians; it went evenly on while she +crept downstairs and unbarred the outer door. Sure and silent and light of +touch, she passed like a spirit from the house that had given her shelter, +nor once looked back upon it. + +The boat, hidden in the reeds, was her destination; she loosed it, and +taking the oars rowed down the creek. When she came to the garden wall, +she bent her head and shut her eyes; but when she had left the creek for +the great dim river, she looked at Fair View house as she rowed past it on +her way to the mountains. No light to-night; the hour was late, and he was +asleep, and that was well. + +It was cold upon the river, and sere leaves, loosening their hold upon +that which had given them life, drifted down upon her as she rowed beneath +arching trees. When she left the dark bank for the unshadowed stream, the +wind struck her brow and the glittering stars perplexed her. There were so +many of them. When one shot, she knew that a soul had left the earth. +Another fell, and another,--it must be a good night for dying. She ceased +to row, and, leaning over, dipped her hand and arm into the black water. +The movement brought the gunwale of the boat even with the flood.... Say +that one leaned over a little farther ... there would fall another star. +God gathered the stars in his hand, but he would surely be angry with one +that came before it was called, and the star would sink past him into a +night forever dreadful.... The water was cold and deep and black. Great +fish throve in it, and below was a bed of ooze and mud.... + +The girl awoke from her dream of self-murder with a cry of terror. Not the +river, good Lord, not the river! Not death, but life! With a second +shuddering cry she lifted hand and arm from the water, and with frantic +haste dried them upon the skirt of her dress. There had been none to hear +her. Upon the midnight river, between the dim forests that ever spoke, but +never listened, she was utterly alone. She took the oars again, and went +on her way up the river, rowing swiftly, for the mountains were far away, +and she might be pursued. + +When she drew near to Jamestown she shot far out into the river, because +men might be astir in the boats about the town landing. Anchored in +midstream was a great ship,--a man-of-war, bristling with guns. Her boat +touched its shadow, and the lookout called to her. She bent her head, put +forth her strength, and left the black hull behind her. There was another +ship to pass, a slaver that had come in the evening before, and would land +its cargo at sunrise. The stench that arose from it was intolerable, and, +as the girl passed, a corpse, heavily weighted, was thrown into the water. +Audrey went swiftly by, and the river lay clean before her. The stars +paled and the dawn came, but she could not see the shores for the thick +white mist. A spectral boat, with a sail like a gray moth's wing, slipped +past her. The shadow at the helm was whistling for the wind, and the sound +came strange and shrill through the filmy, ashen morning. The mist began +to lift. A few moments now, and the river would lie dazzlingly bare +between the red and yellow forests. She turned her boat shorewards, and +presently forced it beneath the bronze-leafed, drooping boughs of a +sycamore. Here she left the boat, tying it to the tree, and hoping that it +was well hidden. The great fear at her heart was that, when she was +missed, Hugon would undertake to follow and to find her. He had the skill +to do so. Perhaps, after many days, when she was in sight of the +mountains, she might turn her head and, in that lonely land, see him +coming toward her. + +The sun was shining, and the woods were gay above her head and gay beneath +her feet. When the wind blew, the colored leaves went before it like +flights of birds. She was hungry, and as she walked she ate a piece of +bread taken from the glebe-house larder. It was her plan to go rapidly +through the settled country, keeping as far as possible to the great +spaces of woodland which the axe had left untouched; sleeping in such dark +and hidden hollows as she could find; begging food only when she must, and +then from poor folk who would not stay her or be overcurious about her +business. As she went on, the houses, she knew, would be farther and +farther apart; the time would soon arrive when she might walk half a day +and see never a clearing in the deep woods. Then the hills would rise +about her, and far, far off she might see the mountains, fixed, cloudlike, +serene, and still, beyond the miles of rustling forest. There would be no +more great houses, built for ladies and gentlemen, but here and there, at +far distances, rude cabins, dwelt in by kind and simple folk. At such a +home, when the mountains had taken on a deeper blue, when the streams were +narrow and the level land only a memory, she would pause, would ask if she +might stay. What work was wanted she would do. Perhaps there would be +children, or a young girl like Molly, or a kind woman like Mistress Stagg; +and perhaps, after a long, long while, it would grow to seem to her like +that other cabin. + +These were her rose-colored visions. At other times a terror took her by +the shoulders, holding her until her face whitened and her eyes grew wide +and dark. The way was long and the leaves were falling fast, and she +thought that it might be true that in this world into which she had +awakened there was for her no home. The cold would come, and she might +have no bread, and for all her wandering find none to take her in. In +those forests of the west the wolves ran in packs, and the Indians burned +and wasted. Some bitter night-time she would die.... Watching the sky from +Fair View windows, perhaps he might idly mark a falling star. + +All that day she walked, keeping as far as was possible to the woods, but +forced now and again to traverse open fields and long stretches of sunny +road. If she saw any one coming, she hid in the roadside bushes, or, if +that could not be done, walked steadily onward, with her head bent and her +heart beating fast. It must have been a day for minding one's own +business, for none stayed or questioned her. Her dinner she begged from +some children whom she found in a wood gathering nuts. Supper she had +none. When night fell, she was glad to lay herself down upon a bed of +leaves that she had raked together; but she slept little, for the wind +moaned in the half-clad branches, and she could not cease from counting +the stars that shot. In the morning, numbed and cold, she went slowly on +until she came to a wayside house. Quaker folk lived there; and they asked +her no question, but with kind words gave her of what they had, and let +her rest and grow warm in the sunshine upon their doorstep. She thanked +them with shy grace, but presently, when they were not looking, rose and +went her way. Upon the second day she kept to the road. It was loss of +time wandering in the woods, skirting thicket and marsh, forced ever and +again to return to the beaten track. She thought, also, that she must be +safe, so far was she now from Fair View. How could they guess that she was +gone to the mountains? + +About midday, two men on horseback looked at her in passing. One spoke to +the other, and turning their horses they put after and overtook her. He +who had spoken touched her with the butt of his whip. "Ecod!" he +exclaimed. "It's the lass we saw run for a guinea last May Day at +Jamestown! Why so far from home, light o' heels?" + +A wild leap of her heart, a singing in her ears, and Audrey clutched at +safety. + +"I be Joan, the smith's daughter," she said stolidly. "I niver ran for a +guinea. I niver saw a guinea. I be going an errand for feyther." + +"Ecod, then!" said the other man. "You're on a wrong scent. 'Twas no dolt +that ran that day!" + +The man who had touched her laughed. "'Facks, you are right, Tom! But I'd +ha' sworn 't was that brown girl. Go your ways on your errand for +'feyther'!" As he spoke, being of an amorous turn, he stooped from his +saddle and kissed her. Audrey, since she was at that time not Audrey at +all, but Joan, the smith's daughter, took the salute as stolidly as she +had spoken. The two men rode away, and the second said to the first: "A +Williamsburgh man told me that the girl who won the guinea could speak and +look like a born lady. Didn't ye hear the story of how she went to the +Governor's ball, all tricked out, dancing, and making people think she was +some fine dame from Maryland maybe? And the next day she was scored in +church before all the town. I don't know as they put a white sheet on her, +but they say 't was no more than her deserts." + +Audrey, left standing in the sunny road, retook her own countenance, +rubbed her cheek where the man's lips had touched it, and trembled like a +leaf. She was frightened, both at the encounter and because she could +make herself so like Joan,--Joan who lived near the crossroads ordinary, +and who had been whipped at the Court House. + +Late that afternoon she came upon two or three rude dwellings clustered +about a mill. A knot of men, the miller in the midst, stood and gazed at +the mill-stream. They wore an angry look; and Audrey passed them hastily +by. At the farthest house she paused to beg a piece of bread; but the +woman who came to the door frowned and roughly bade her begone, and a +child threw a stone at her. "One witch is enough to take the bread out of +poor folks' mouths!" cried the woman. "Be off, or I'll set the dogs on +ye!" The children ran after her as she hastened from the inhospitable +neighborhood. "'T is a young witch," they cried, "going to help the old +one swim to-night!" and a stone struck her, bruising her shoulder. + +She began to run, and, fleet of foot as she was, soon distanced her +tormentors. When she slackened pace it was sunset, and she was faint with +hunger and desperately weary. From the road a bypath led to a small +clearing in a wood, with a slender spiral of smoke showing between the +trees. Audrey went that way, and came upon a crazy cabin whose door and +window were fast closed. In the unkempt garden rose an apple-tree, with +the red apples shriveling upon its boughs, and from the broken gate a line +of cedars, black and ragged, ran down to a piece of water, here ghastly +pale, there streaked like the sky above with angry crimson. The place was +very still, and the air felt cold. When no answer came to her first +knocking, Audrey beat upon the door; for she was suddenly afraid of the +road behind her, and of the doleful woods and the coming night. + +The window shutter creaked ever so slightly, and some one looked out; then +the door opened, and a very old and wrinkled woman, with lines of cunning +about her mouth, laid her hand upon the girl's arm. "Who be ye?" she +whispered. "Did ye bring warning? I don't say, mind ye, that I can't make +a stream go dry,--maybe I can and maybe I can't,--but I didn't put a word +on the one yonder." She threw up her arms with a wailing cry. "But they +won't believe what a poor old soul says! Are they in an evil temper, +honey?" + +"I don't know what you mean," said Audrey. "I have come a long way, and I +am hungry and tired. Give me a piece of bread, and let me stay with you +to-night." + +The old woman moved aside, and the girl, entering a room that was mean and +poor enough, sat down upon a stool beside the fire. "If ye came by the +mill," demanded her hostess, with a suspicious eye, "why did ye not stop +there for bite and sup?" + +"The men were all talking together," answered Audrey wearily. "They looked +so angry that I was afraid of them. I did stop at one house; but the woman +bade me begone, and the children threw stones at me and called me a +witch." + +The crone stooped and stirred the fire; then from a cupboard brought forth +bread and a little red wine, and set them before the girl. "They called +you a witch, did they?" she mumbled as she went to and fro. "And the men +were talking and planning together?" + +Audrey ate the bread and drank the wine; then, because she was so tired, +leaned her head against the table and fell half asleep. When she roused +herself, it was to find her withered hostess standing over her with a sly +and toothless smile. "I've been thinking," she whispered, "that since +you're here to mind the house, I'll just step out to a neighbor's about +some business I have in hand. You can stay by the fire, honey, and be warm +and comfortable. Maybe I'll not come back to-night." + +Going to the window, she dropped a heavy bar across the shutter. "Ye'll +put the chain across the door when I'm out," she commanded. "There be +evil-disposed folk may want to win in." Coming back to the girl, she laid +a skinny hand upon her arm. Whether with palsy or with fright the hand +shook like a leaf, but Audrey, half asleep again, noticed little beyond +the fact that the fire warmed her, and that here at last was rest. "If +there should come a knocking and a calling, honey," whispered the witch, +"don't ye answer to it or unbar the door. Ye'll save time for me that way. +But if they win in, tell them I went to the northward." + +Audrey looked at her with glazed, uncomprehending eyes, while the +gnome-like figure appeared to grow smaller, to melt out of the doorway. It +was a minute or more before the wayfarer thus left alone in the hut could +remember that she had been told to bar the door. Then her instinct of +obedience sent her to the threshold. Dusk was falling, and the waters of +the pool lay pale and still beyond the ebony cedars. Through the twilit +landscape moved the crone who had housed her for the night; but she went +not to the north, but southwards toward the river. Presently the dusk +swallowed her up, and Audrey was left with the ragged garden and the +broken fence and the tiny firelit hut. Reentering the room, she fastened +the door, as she had been told to do, and then went back to the hearth. +The fire blazed and the shadows danced; it was far better than last night, +out in the cold, lying upon dead leaves, watching the falling stars. Here +it was warm, warm as June in a walled garden; the fire was red like the +roses ... the roses that had thorns to bring heart's blood. + +Audrey fell fast asleep; and while she was asleep and the night was yet +young, the miller whose mill stream had run dry, the keeper of a tippling +house whose custom had dwindled, the ferryman whose child had peaked and +pined and died, came with a score of men to reckon with the witch who had +done the mischief. Finding door and window fast shut, they knocked, softly +at first, then loudly and with threats. One watched the chimney, to see +that the witch did not ride forth that way; and the father of the child +wished to gather brush, pile it against the entrance, and set all afire. +The miller, who was a man of strength, ended the matter by breaking in the +door. They knew that the witch was there, because they had heard her +moving about, and, when the door gave, a cry of affright. When, however, +they had laid hands upon her, and dragged her out under the stars, into +the light of the torches they carried, they found that the witch, who, as +was well known, could slip her shape as a snake slips its skin, was no +longer old and bowed, but straight and young. + +"Let me go!" cried Audrey. "How dare you hold me! I never harmed one of +you. I am a poor girl come from a long way off"-- + +"Ay, a long way!" exclaimed the ferryman. "More leagues, I'll warrant, +than there are miles in Virginia! We'll see if ye can swim home, ye +witch!" + +"I'm no witch!" cried the girl again. "I never harmed you. Let me go!" + +One of the torchbearers gave ground a little. "She do look mortal young. +But where be the witch, then?" + +Audrey strove to shake herself free. "The old woman left me alone in the +house. She went to--to the northward." + +"She lies!" cried the ferryman, addressing himself to the angry throng. +The torches, flaming in the night wind, gave forth a streaming, uncertain, +and bewildering light; to the excited imaginations of the rustic avengers, +the form in the midst of them was not always that of a young girl, but now +and again wavered toward the semblance of the hag who had wrought them +evil. "Before the child died he talked forever of somebody young and fair +that came and stood by him when he slept. We thought 't was his dead +mother, but now--now I see who 't was!" Seizing the girl by the wrists, he +burst with her through the crowd. "Let the water touch her, she'll turn +witch again!" + +The excited throng, blinded by its own imagination, took up the cry. The +girl's voice was drowned; she set her lips, and strove dumbly with her +captors; but they swept her through the weed-grown garden and broken gate, +past the cedars that were so ragged and black, down to the cold and deep +water. She thought of the night upon the river and of the falling stars, +and with a sudden, piercing cry struggled fiercely to escape. The bank was +steep; hands pushed her forward: she felt the ghastly embrace of the +water, and saw, ere the flood closed over her upturned face, the cold and +quiet stars. + +So loud was the ringing in her ears that she heard no access of voices +upon the bank, and knew not that a fresh commotion had arisen. She was +sinking for the third time, and her mind had begun to wander in the Fair +View garden, when an arm caught and held her up. She was borne to the +shore; there were men on horseback; some one with a clear, authoritative +voice was now berating, now good-humoredly arguing with, her late judges. + +The man who had sprung to save her held her up to arms that reached down +from the bank above; another moment and she felt the earth again beneath +her feet, but could only think that, with half the dying past, these +strangers had been cruel to bring her back. Her rescuer shook himself like +a great dog. "I've saved the witch alive," he panted. "May God forgive and +your Honor reward me!" + +"Nay, worthy constable, you must look to Sathanas for reward!" cried the +gentleman who had been haranguing the miller and his company. These +gentry, hardly convinced, but not prepared to debate the matter with a +justice of the peace and a great man of those parts, began to slip away. +The torchbearers, probably averse to holding a light to their own +countenances, had flung the torches into the water, and now, heavily +shadowed by the cedars, the place was in deep darkness. Presently there +were left to berate only the miller and the ferryman, and at last these +also went sullenly away without having troubled to mention the witch's +late transformation from age to youth. + +"Where is the rescued fair one?" continued the gentleman who, for his own +pleasure, had led the conservers of law and order. "Produce the sibyl, +honest Dogberry! Faith, if the lady be not an ingrate, you've henceforth a +friend at court!" + +"My name is Saunders,--Dick Saunders, your Honor," quoth the constable. +"For the witch, she lies quiet on the ground beneath the cedar yonder." + +"She won't speak!" cried another. "She just lies there trembling, with her +face in her hands." + +"But she said, 'O Christ!' when we took her from the water," put in a +third. + +"She was nigh drowned," ended the constable. "And I'm a-tremble myself, +the water was that cold. Wauns! I wish I were in the chimney corner at the +Court House ordinary!" + +The master of Westover flung his riding cloak to one of the constable's +men. "Wrap it around the shivering iniquity on the ground yonder; and you, +Tom Hope, that brought warning of what your neighbors would do, mount and +take the witch behind you. Master Constable, you will lodge Hecate in the +gaol to-night, and in the morning bring her up to the great house. We +would inquire why a lady so accomplished that she can dry a mill stream to +plague a miller cannot drain a pool to save herself from drowning!" + +At a crossing of the ways, shortly before Court House, gaol, and ordinary +were reached, the adventurous Colonel gave a good-night to the constable +and his company, and, with a negro servant at his heels, rode gayly on +beneath the stars to his house at Westover. Hardy, alert, in love with +living, he was well amused by the night's proceedings. The incident should +figure in his next letter to Orrery or to his cousin Taylor. + +It figured largely in the table-talk next morning, when the sprightly +gentleman sat at breakfast with his daughter and his second wife, a fair +and youthful kinswoman of Martha and Teresa Blount. The gentleman, +launched upon the subject of witchcraft, handled it with equal wit and +learning. The ladies thought that the water must have been very cold, and +trusted that the old dame was properly grateful, and would, after such a +lesson, leave her evil practices. As they were rising from table, word was +brought to the master that constable and witch were outside. + +The Colonel kissed his wife, promised his daughter to be merciful, and, +humming a song, went through the hall to the open house door and the +broad, three-sided steps of stone. The constable was awaiting him. + +"Here be mysteries, your Honor! As I serve the King, 't weren't Goody +Price for whom I ruined my new frieze, but a slip of a girl!" He waved his +hand. "Will your Honor please to look?" + +Audrey sat in the sunshine upon the stone steps with her head bowed upon +her arms. The morning that was so bright was not bright for her; she +thought that life had used her but unkindly. A great tree, growing close +to the house, sent leaves of dull gold adrift, and they lay at her feet +and upon the skirt of her dress. The constable spoke to her: "Now, +mistress, here's a gentleman as stands for the King and the law. Look up!" + +A white hand was laid upon the Colonel's arm. "I came to make sure that +you were not harsh with the poor creature," said Evelyn's pitying voice. +"There is so much misery. Where is she? Ah!" + +To gain at last his prisoner's attention, the constable struck her lightly +across the shoulders with his cane. "Get up!" he cried impatiently. "Get +up and make your curtsy! Ecod, I wish I'd left you in Hunter's Pond!" + +Audrey rose, and turned her face, not to the justice of the peace and +arbiter of the fate of witches, but to Evelyn, standing above +her,--Evelyn, slighter, paler, than she had been at Williamsburgh, but +beautiful in her colored, fragrant silks and the air that was hers of +sweet and mournful distinction. Now she cried out sharply, while "That +girl again!" swore the Colonel, beneath his breath. + +Audrey did as she had been told, and made her curtsy. Then, while father +and daughter stared at her, the gentleman very red and biting his lip, the +lady marble in her loveliness, she tried to speak, to ask them to let her +go, but found no words. The face of Evelyn, at whom alone she looked, +wavered into distance, gazing at her coldly and mournfully from miles +away. She made a faint gesture of weariness and despair; then sank down at +Evelyn's feet, and lay there in a swoon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +TWO WOMEN + + +Evelyn, hearing footsteps across the floor of the attic room above her own +bedchamber, arose and set wide the door; then went back to her chair by +the window that looked out upon green grass and party-colored trees and +long reaches of the shining river. "Come here, if you please," she called +to Audrey, as the latter slowly descended the stair from the room where, +half asleep, half awake, she had lain since morning. + +Audrey entered the pleasant chamber, furnished with what luxury the age +afforded, and stood before the sometime princess of her dreams. "Will you +not sit down?" asked Evelyn, in a low voice, and pointed to a chair. + +"I had rather stand," answered Audrey. "Why did you call me? I was on my +way"-- + +The other's clear eyes dwelt upon her. "Whither were you going?" + +"Out of your house," said Audrey simply, "and out of your life." + +Evelyn folded her hands in her silken lap, and looked out upon river and +sky and ceaseless drift of colored leaves. "You can never go out of my +life," she said. "Why the power to vex and ruin was given you I do not +know, but you have used it. Why did you run away from Fair View?" + +"That I might never see Mr. Haward again," answered Audrey. She held her +head up, but she felt the stab. It had not occurred to her that hers was +the power to vex and ruin; apparently that belonged elsewhere. + +Evelyn turned from the window, and the two women, the princess and the +herdgirl, regarded each other. "Oh, my God!" cried Evelyn. "I did not know +that you loved him so!" + +But Audrey shook her head, and spoke with calmness: "Once I loved and knew +it not, and once I loved and knew it. It was all in a dream, and now I +have waked up." She passed her hand across her brow and eyes, and pushed +back her heavy hair. It was a gesture that was common to her. To Evelyn it +brought a sudden stinging memory of the ballroom at the Palace; of how +this girl had looked in her splendid dress, with the roses in her hair; of +Haward's words at the coach door. She had not seen him since that night. +"I am going a long way," continued Audrey. "It will be as though I died. I +never meant to harm you." + +The other gazed at her with wide, dry eyes, and with an unwonted color in +her cheeks. "She is beautiful," thought Audrey; then wondered how long she +must stay in this room and this house. Without the window the trees +beckoned, the light was fair upon the river; in the south hung a cloud, +silver-hued, and shaped like two mighty wings. Audrey, with her eyes upon +the cloud, thought, "If the wings were mine, I would reach the mountains +to-night." + +"Do you remember last May Day?" asked Evelyn, in a voice scarcely above a +whisper. "He and I, sitting side by side, watched your running, and I +praised you to him. Then we went away, and while we gathered flowers on +the road to Williamsburgh he asked me to be his wife. I said no, for he +loved me not as I wished to be loved. Afterward, in Williamsburgh, he +spoke again.... I said, 'When you come to Westover;' and he kissed my +hand, and vowed that the next week should find him here." She turned once +more to the window, and, with her chin in her hand, looked out upon the +beauty of the autumn. "Day by day, and day by day," she said, in the same +hushed voice, "I sat at this window and watched for him to come. The weeks +went by, and he came not. I began to hear talk of you. Oh, I deny not that +it was bitter!" + +"Oh me! oh me!" cried Audrey. "I was so happy, and I thought no harm." + +"He came at last," continued Evelyn. "For a month he stayed here, paying +me court. I was too proud to speak of what I had heard. After a while I +thought it must have been an idle rumor." Her voice changed, and with a +sudden gesture of passion and despair she lifted her arms above her head, +then clasped and wrung her hands. "Oh, for a month he forgot you! In all +the years to come I shall have that comfort: for one little month, in the +company of the woman whom, because she was of his own rank, because she +had wealth, because others found her fair and honored her with heart as +well as lip, he wished to make his wife,--for that short month he forgot +you! The days were sweet to me, sweet, sweet! Oh, I dreamed my dreams!... +And then we were called to Williamsburgh to greet the new Governor, and he +went with us, and again I heard your name coupled with his.... There was +between us no betrothal. I had delayed to say yes to his asking, for I +wished to make sure,--to make sure that he loved me. No man can say he +broke troth with me. For that my pride gives thanks!" + +"What must I do?" said Audrey to herself. "Pain is hard to bear." + +"That night at the ball," continued Evelyn, "when, coming down the stair, +I saw you standing beside him ... and after that, the music, and the +lights, and you dancing with him, in your dark beauty, with the flowers in +your hair ... and after that, you and I in my coach and his face at the +window!... Oh, I can tell you what he said! He said: 'Good-by, +sweetheart.... The violets are for you; but the great white blossoms, and +the boughs of rosy mist, and all the trees that wave in the wind are for +Audrey.'" + +"For me!" cried Audrey,--"for me an hour in Bruton church next morning!" + +A silence followed her words. Evelyn, sitting in the great chair, rested +her cheek upon her hand and gazed steadfastly at her guest of a day. The +sunshine had stolen from the room, but dwelt upon and caressed the world +without the window. Faint, tinkling notes of a harpsichord floated up from +the parlor below, followed by young Madam Byrd's voice singing to the +perturbed Colonel:-- + + "'O Love! they wrong thee much, + That say thy sweet is bitter, + When thy rich fruit is such + As nothing can be sweeter. + Fair house of joy and bliss'"-- + +The song came to an end, but after a pause the harpsichord sounded again, +and the singer's voice rang out:-- + + "'Under the greenwood tree, + Who loves to lie with me'"-- + +Audrey gave an involuntary cry; then, with her lip between her teeth, +strove for courage, failed, and with another strangled cry sank upon her +knees before a chair and buried her face in its cushions. + +When a little time had passed, Evelyn arose and went to her. "Fate has +played with us both," she said, in a voice that strove for calmness. "If +there was great bitterness in my heart toward you then, I hope it is not +so now; if, on that night, I spoke harshly, unkindly, ungenerously, I--I +am sorry. I thought what others thought. I--I cared not to touch you.... +But now I am told that 't was not you that did unworthily. Mr. Haward has +written to me; days ago I had this letter." It was in her hand, and she +held it out to the kneeling girl. "Yes, yes, you must read; it concerns +you." Her voice, low and broken, was yet imperious. Audrey raised her +head, took and read the letter. There were but a few unsteady lines, +written from Marot's ordinary at Williamsburgh. The writer was too weak as +yet for many words; few words were best, perhaps. His was all the blame +for the occurrence at the Palace, for all besides. That which, upon his +recovery, he must strive to teach his acquaintance at large he prayed +Evelyn to believe at once and forever. She whom, against her will and in +the madness of his fever, he had taken to the Governor's house was most +innocent,--guiltless of all save a childlike affection for the writer, a +misplaced confidence, born of old days, and now shattered by his own hand. +Before that night she had never guessed his passion, never known the use +that had been made of her name. This upon the honor of a gentleman. For +the rest, as soon as his strength was regained, he purposed traveling to +Westover. There, if Mistress Evelyn Byrd would receive him for an hour, +he might in some measure explain, excuse. For much, he knew, there was no +excuse,--only pardon to be asked. + +The letter ended abruptly, as though the writer's strength were exhausted. +Audrey read it through, then with indifference gave it back to Evelyn. "It +is true,--what he says?" whispered the latter, crumpling the paper in her +hand. + +Audrey gazed up at her with wide, tearless eyes. "Yes, it is true. There +was no need for you to use those words to me in the coach, that +night,--though even then I did not understand. There is no reason why you +should fear to touch me." + +Her head sank upon her arm. In the parlor below the singing came to an +end, but the harpsichord, lightly fingered, gave forth a haunting melody. +It was suited to the afternoon: to the golden light, the drifting leaves, +the murmurs of wind and wave, without the window: to the shadows, the +stillness, and the sorrow within the room. Evelyn, turning slowly toward +the kneeling figure, of a sudden saw it through a mist of tears. Her +clasped hands parted; she bent and touched the bowed head. Audrey looked +up, and her dark eyes made appeal. Evelyn stooped lower yet; her tears +fell upon Audrey's brow; a moment, and the two, cast by life in the +selfsame tragedy, were in each other's arms. + +"You know that I came from the mountains," whispered Audrey. "I am going +back. You must tell no one; in a little while I shall be forgotten." + +"To the mountains!" cried Evelyn. "No one lives there. You would die of +cold and hunger. No, no! We are alike unhappy: you shall stay with me here +at Westover." + +[Illustration: HER DARK EYES MADE APPEAL] + +She rose from her knees, and Audrey rose with her. They no longer clasped +each other,--that impulse was past,--but their eyes met in sorrowful +amity. Audrey shook her head. "That may not be," she said simply. "I must +go away that we may not both be unhappy." She lifted her face to the cloud +in the south, "I almost died last night. When you drown, there is at first +fear and struggling, but at last it is like dreaming, and there is a +lightness.... When that came I thought, 'It is the air of the +mountains,--I am drawing near them.' ... Will you let me go now? I will +slip from the house through the fields into the woods, and none will +know"-- + +But Evelyn caught her by the wrist. "You are beside yourself! I would +rouse the plantation; in an hour you would be found. Stay with me!" + +A knock at the door, and the Colonel's secretary, a pale and grave young +man, bowing on the threshold. He was just come from the attic room, where +he had failed to find the young woman who had been lodged there that +morning. The Colonel, supposing that by now she was recovered from her +swoon and her fright of the night before, and having certain questions to +put to her, desired her to descend to the parlor. Hearing voices in +Mistress Evelyn's room-- + +"Very well, Mr. Drew," said the lady. "You need not wait. I will myself +seek my father with--with our guest." + +In the parlor Madam Byrd was yet at the harpsichord, but ceased to touch +the keys when her step-daughter, followed by Darden's Audrey, entered the +room. The master of Westover, seated beside his young wife, looked quickly +up, arched his brows and turned somewhat red, as his daughter, with her +gliding step, crossed the room to greet him. Audrey, obeying a motion of +her companion's hand, waited beside a window, in the shadow of its heavy +curtains. "Evelyn," quoth the Colonel, rising from his chair and taking +his daughter's hand, "this is scarce befitting"-- + +Evelyn stayed his further speech by an appealing gesture. "Let me speak +with you, sir. No, no, madam, do not go! There is naught the world might +not hear." + +Audrey waited in the shadow by the window, and her mind was busy, for she +had her plans to lay. Sometimes Evelyn's low voice, sometimes the +Colonel's deeper tones, pierced her understanding; when this was so she +moved restlessly, wishing that it were night and she away. Presently she +began to observe the room, which was richly furnished. There were garlands +upon the ceiling; a table near her was set with many curious ornaments; +upon a tall cabinet stood a bowl of yellow flowers; the lady at the +harpsichord wore a dress to match the flowers, while Evelyn's dress was +white; beyond them was a pier glass finer than the one at Fair View. + +This glass reflected the doorway, and thus she was the first to see the +man from whom she had fled. "Mr. Marmaduke Haward, massa!" announced the +servant who had ushered him through the hall. + +Haward, hat in hand, entered the room. The three beside the harpsichord +arose; the one at the window slipped deeper into the shadow of the +curtains, and so escaped the visitor's observation. The latter bowed to +the master of Westover, who ceremoniously returned the salute, and to the +two ladies, who curtsied to him, but opened not their lips. + +"This, sir," said Colonel Byrd, holding himself very erect, "is an +unexpected honor." + +"Rather, sir, an unwished-for intrusion," answered the other. "I beg you +to believe that I will trouble you for no longer time than matters +require." + +The Colonel bit his lip. "There was a time when Mr. Haward was most +welcome to my house. If 't is no longer thus"-- + +Haward made a gesture of assent. "I know that the time is past. I am sorry +that 't is so. I had thought, sir, to find you alone. Am I to speak before +these ladies?" + +The Colonel hesitated, but Evelyn, leaving Madam Byrd beside the +harpsichord, came to her father's side. That gentleman glanced at her +keenly. There was no agitation to mar the pensive loveliness of her face; +her eyes were steadfast, the lips faintly smiling. "If what you have to +say concerns my daughter," said the Colonel, "she will listen to you here +and now." + +For a few moments dead silence; then Haward spoke, slowly, weighing his +words: "I am on my way, Colonel Byrd, to the country beyond the falls. I +have entered upon a search, and I know not when it will be ended or when I +shall return. Westover lay in my path, and there was that which needed to +be said to you, sir, and to your daughter. When it has been said I will +take my leave." He paused; then, with a quickened breath, again took up +his task: "Some months ago, sir, I sought and obtained your permission to +make my suit to your daughter for her hand. The lady, worthy of a better +mate, hath done well in saying no to my importunity. I accept her +decision, withdraw my suit, wish her all happiness." He bowed again +formally; then stood with lowered eyes, his hand griping the edge of the +table. + +"I am aware that my daughter has declined to entertain your proposals," +said the Colonel coldly, "and I approve her determination. Is this all, +sir?" + +"It should, perhaps, be all," answered Haward. "And yet"--He turned to +Evelyn, snow-white, calm, with that faint smile upon her face. "May I +speak to you?" he said, in a scarcely audible voice. + +She looked at him, with parting lips. + +"Here and now," the Colonel answered for her. "Be brief, sir." + +The master of Fair View found it hard to speak, "Evelyn"--he began, and +paused, biting his lip. It was very quiet in the familiar parlor, quiet +and dim, and drawing toward eventide. The lady at the harpsichord chanced +to let fall her hand upon the keys. They gave forth a deep and melancholy +sound that vibrated through the room. The chord was like an odor in its +subtle power to bring crowding memories. To Haward, and perhaps to Evelyn, +scenes long shifted, long faded, took on fresh colors, glowed anew, +replaced the canvas of the present. For years the two had been friends; +later months had seen him her avowed suitor. In this very room he had bent +over her at the harpsichord when the song was finished; had sat beside her +in the deep window seat while the stars brightened, before the candles +were brought in. + +Now, for a moment, he stood with his hand over his eyes; then, letting it +fall, he spoke with firmness. "Evelyn," he said, "if I have wronged you, +forgive me. Our friendship that has been I lay at your feet: forget it and +forget me. You are noble, generous, high of mind: I pray you to let no +remembrance of me trouble your life. May it be happy,--may all good attend +you.... Evelyn, good-by!" + +He kneeled and lifted to his lips the hem of her dress. As he rose, and +bowing low would have taken formal leave of the two beside her, she put +out her hand, staying him by the gesture and the look upon her colorless +face. "You spoke of a search," she said. "What search?" + +Haward raised his eyes to hers that were quiet, almost smiling, though +darkly shadowed by past pain. "I will tell you, Evelyn. Why should not I +tell you this, also?... Four days ago, upon my return to Fair View, I +sought and found the woman that I love,--the woman that, by all that is +best within me, I love worthily! She shrank from me; she listened not; she +shut eye and ear, and fled. And I,--confident fool!--I thought, 'To-morrow +I will make her heed,' and so let her go. When the morrow came she was +gone indeed." He halted, made an involuntary gesture of distress, then +went on, rapidly and with agitation: "There was a boat missing; she was +seen to pass Jamestown, rowing steadily up the river. But for this I +should have thought--I should have feared--God knows what I should not +have feared! As it is I have searchers out, both on this side and on the +southern shore. An Indian and myself have come up river in his canoe. We +have not found her yet. If it be so that she has passed unseen through the +settled country, I will seek her toward the mountains." + +"And when you have found her, what then, sir?" cried the Colonel, tapping +his snuffbox. + +"Then, sir," answered Haward with hauteur, "she will become my wife." + +He turned again to Evelyn, but when he spoke it was less to her than to +himself. "It grows late," he said. "Night is coming on, and at the fall of +the leaf the nights are cold. One sleeping in the forest would suffer ... +if she sleeps. I have not slept since she was missed. I must begone"-- + +"It grows late indeed," replied Evelyn, with lifted face and a voice low, +clear, and sweet as a silver bell,--"so late that there is a rose flush in +the sky beyond the river. Look! you may see it through yonder window." + +She touched his hand and made him look to the far window. "Who is it that +stands in the shadow, hiding her face in her hands?" he asked at last, +beneath his breath. + +"'Tis Audrey," answered Evelyn, in the same clear, sweet, and passionless +tones. She took her hand from his and addressed herself to her father. +"Dear sir," she said, "to my mind no quarrel exists between us and this +gentleman. There is no reason"--she drew herself up--"no reason why we +should not extend to Mr. Marmaduke Haward the hospitality of Westover." +She smiled and leaned against her father's arm. "And now let us +three,--you and Maria, whom I protest you keep too long at the +harpsichord, and I, who love this hour of the evening,--let us go walk in +the garden and see what flowers the frost has spared." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +SANCTUARY + + +"Child," demanded Haward, "why did you frighten me so?" He took her hands +from her face, and drew her from the shadow of the curtain into the +evening glow. Her hands lay passive in his; her eyes held the despair of a +runner spent and fallen, with the goal just in sight. "Would have had me +go again to the mountains for you, little maid?" Haward's voice trembled +with the delight of his ended quest. + +"Call me not by that name," Audrey said. "One that is dead used it." + +"I will call you love," he answered,--"my love, my dear love, my true +love!" + +"Nor that either," she said, and caught her breath. "I know not why you +should speak to me so." + +"What must I call you then?" he asked, with the smile still upon his lips. + +"A stranger and a dreamer," she answered. "Go your ways, and I will go +mine." + +There was silence in the room, broken by Haward. "For us two one path," he +said; "why, Audrey, Audrey, Audrey!" Suddenly he caught her in his arms. +"My love!" he whispered--"my love Audrey! my wife Audrey!" His kisses +rained upon her face. She lay quiet until the storm had passed; then freed +herself, looked at him, and shook her head. + +"You killed him," she said, "that one whom I--worshiped. It was not well +done of you.... There was a dream I had last summer. I told it to--to the +one you killed. Now part of the dream has come true.... You never were! +Oh, death had been easy pain, for it had left memory, hope! But you never +were! you never were!" + +"I am!" cried Haward ardently. "I am your lover! I am he who says to you, +Forget the past, forget and forgive, and come with me out of your +dreaming. Come, Audrey, come, come, from the dim woods into the +sunshine,--into the sunshine of the garden! The night you went away I was +there, Audrey, under the stars. The paths were deep in leaves, the flowers +dead and blackening; but the trees will be green again, and the flowers +bloom! When we are wed we will walk there, bringing the spring with us"-- + +"When we are wed!" she answered. "That will never be." + +"It will be this week," he said, smiling. "Dear dryad, who have no friends +to make a pother, no dowry to lug with you, no gay wedding raiment to +provide; who have only to curtsy farewell to the trees and put your hand +in mine"-- + +She drew away her hands that he had caught in his, and pressed them above +her heart; then looked restlessly from window to door. "Will you let me +pass, sir?" she asked at last. "I am tired. I have to think what I am to +do, where I am to go." + +"Where you are to go!" he exclaimed. "Why, back to the glebe house, and I +will follow, and the minister shall marry us. Child, child! where else +should you go? What else should you do?" + +"God knows!" cried the girl, with sudden and extraordinary passion. "But +not that! Oh, he is gone,--that other who would have understood!" + +Haward let fall his outstretched hand, drew back a pace or two, and stood +with knitted brows. The room was very quiet; only Audrey breathed +hurriedly, and through the open window came the sudden, lonely cry of some +river bird. The note was repeated ere Haward spoke again. + +"I will try to understand," he said slowly. "Audrey, is it Evelyn that +comes between us?" + +Audrey passed her hand over her eyes and brow and pushed back her heavy +hair. "Oh, I have wronged her!" she cried. "I have taken her portion. If +once she was cruel to me, yet to-day she kissed me, her tears fell upon my +face. That which I have robbed her of I want not.... Oh, my heart, my +heart!" + +"'T is I, not you, who have wronged this lady," said Haward, after a +pause. "I have, I hope, her forgiveness. Is this the fault that keeps you +from me?" + +Audrey answered not, but leaned against the window and looked at the cloud +in the south that was now an amethyst island. Haward went closer to her. +"Is it," he said, "is it because in my mind I sinned against you, Audrey, +because I brought upon you insult and calumny? Child, child! I am of the +world. That I did all this is true, but now I would not purchase endless +bliss with your least harm, and your name is more to me than my own. +Forgive me, Audrey, forgive the past." He bowed his head as he stood +before her. + +Audrey gazed at him with wide, dry eyes whose lids burned. A hot color had +risen to her cheek; at her heart was a heavier aching, a fuller knowledge +of loss. "There is no past," she said. "It was a dream and a lie. There is +only to-day ... _and you are a stranger_." + +The purple cloud across the river began to darken; there came again the +lonely cry of the bird; in the house quarter the slaves were singing as +they went about their work. Suddenly Audrey laughed. It was sad laughter, +as mocking and elfin and mirthless a sound as was ever heard in autumn +twilight. "A stranger!" she repeated. "I know you by your name, and that +is all. You are Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, while I--I am Darden's +Audrey!" + +She curtsied to him, so changed, so defiant, so darkly beautiful, that he +caught his breath to behold her. "You are all the world to me!" he cried. +"Audrey, Audrey! Look at me, listen to me!" + +He would have approached her, would have seized her hand, but she waved +him back. "Oh, the world! We must think of that! What would they say, the +Governor and the Council, and the people who go to balls, and all the +great folk you write to in England,--what would they say if you married +me? Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, the richest man in Virginia! Mr. +Marmaduke Haward, the man of taste, the scholar, the fine gentleman, proud +of his name, jealous of his honor! And Darden's Audrey, who hath gone +barefoot on errands to most houses in Fair View parish! Darden's Audrey, +whom the preacher pointed out to the people in Bruton church! They would +call you mad; they would give you cap and bells; they would say, 'Does he +think that he can make her one of us?--her that we turned and looked long +upon in Bruton church, when the preacher called her by a right name'"-- + +"Child, for God's sake!" cried Haward. + +"There is the lady, too,--the lady who left us here together! We must not +forget to think of her,--of her whose picture you showed me at Fair View, +who was to be your wife, who took me by the hand that night at the +Palace. There is reproach in her eyes. Ah, do you not think the look might +grow, might come to haunt us? And yourself! Oh, sooner or later regret and +weariness would come to dwell at Fair View! The lady who walks in the +garden here is a fine lady and a fit mate for a fine gentleman, and I am a +beggar maid and no man's mate, unless it be Hugon's. Hugon, who has sworn +to have me in the house he has built! Hugon, who would surely kill you"-- + +Haward caught her by the wrists, bruising them in his grasp. "Audrey, +Audrey! Let these fancies be! If we love each other"-- + +"If!" she echoed, and pulled her hands away. Her voice was strange, her +eyes were bright and strained, her face was burning. "But if not, what +then? And how should I love you who are a stranger to me? Oh, a generous +stranger who, where he thinks he has done a wrong, would repair the +damage." Her voice broke; she flung back her head and pressed her hands +against her throat. "You have done me no wrong," she said. "If you had, I +would forgive you, would say good-by to you, would go my way.... as I am +going now. Let me pass, sir!" + +Haward barred her way. "A stranger!" he said, beneath his breath. "Is +there then no tie between shadow and substance, dream and reality?" + +"None!" answered Audrey, with defiance. "Why did you come to the +mountains, eleven years ago? What business was it of yours whether I lived +or died? Oh, God was not kind to send you there!" + +"You loved me once!" he cried. "Audrey, Audrey, have I slain your love?" + +"It was never yours!" she answered passionately, "It was that +other's,--that other whom I imagined, who never lived outside my dream! +Oh, let me pass, let me begone! You are cruel to keep me. I--I am so +tired." + +White to the lips, Haward moved backward a step or two, but yet stood +between her and the door. Moments passed before he spoke; then, "Will you +become my wife?" he asked, in a studiously quiet voice. "Marry me, Audrey, +loving me not. Love may come in time, but give me now the right to be your +protector, the power to clear your name." + +She looked at him with a strange smile, a fine gesture of scorn. "Marry +you, loving you not! That will I never do. Protector! That is a word I +have grown to dislike. My name! It is a slight thing. What matter if folk +look askance when it is only Darden's Audrey? And there are those whom an +ill fame does not frighten. The schoolmaster will still give me books to +read, and tell me what they mean. He will not care, nor the drunken +minister, nor Hugon.... I am going back to them, to Mistress Deborah and +the glebe house. She will beat me, and the minister will curse, but they +will take me in.... I will work very hard, and never look to Fair View. I +see now that I could never reach the mountains." She began to move toward +the door. He kept with her, step for step, his eyes upon her face. "You +will come no more to the glebe house," she said. "If you do, though the +mountains be far the river is near." + +He put his hand upon the latch of the door. "You will rest here to-night?" +he asked gently, as of a child. "I will speak to Colonel Byrd; to-morrow +he will send some one with you down the river. It will be managed for you, +and as you wish. You will rest to-night? You go from me now to your room, +Audrey?" + +"Yes," she answered, and thought she spoke the truth. + +"I love you,--love you greatly," he continued. "I will conquer,--conquer +and atone! But now, poor tired one, I let you go. Sleep, Audrey, sleep and +dream again." He held open the door for her, and stood aside with bent +head. + +She passed him; then turned, and after a moment of silence spoke to him +with a strange and sorrowful stateliness. "You think, sir," she said, +"that I have something to forgive?" + +"Much," he answered,--"very much, Audrey." + +"And you wish my forgiveness?" + +"Ay, Audrey, your forgiveness and your love." + +"The first is mine to give," she said. "If you wish it, take it. I forgive +you, sir. Good-by." + +"Good-night," he answered. "Audrey, good-night." + +"Good-by," she repeated, and slowly mounting the broad staircase passed +from his sight. + +It was dark in the upper hall, but there was a great glimmer of sky, an +opal space to mark a window that gave upon the sloping lawn and pallid +river. The pale light seemed to beckon. Audrey went not on to her attic +room, but to the window, and in doing so passed a small half-open door. As +she went by she glanced through the aperture, and saw that there was a +narrow stairway, built for the servants' use, winding down to a door in +the western face of the house. + +Once at the open window, she leaned forth and looked to the east and the +west. The hush of the evening had fallen; the light was faint; above the +last rose flush a great star palely shone. All was quiet, deserted; +nothing stirring on the leaf-carpeted slope; no sound save the distant +singing of the slaves. The river lay bare from shore to shore, save where +the Westover landing stretched raggedly into the flood. To its piles small +boats were tied, but there seemed to be no boatmen; wharf and river +appeared as barren of movement and life as did the long expanse of dusky +lawn. + +"I will not sleep in this house to-night," said Audrey to herself. "If I +can reach those boats unseen, I will go alone down the river. That will be +well. I am not wanted here." + +When she arrived at the foot of the narrow stair, she slipped through the +door into a world all dusk and quiet, where was none to observe her, none +to stay her. Crouching by the wall she crept to the front of the house, +stole around the stone steps where, that morning, she had sat in the +sunshine, and came to the parlor windows. Close beneath one was a block of +stone. After a moment's hesitation she stood upon this, and, pressing her +face against the window pane, looked her last upon the room she had so +lately left. A low fire upon the hearth, darkly illumined it: he sat by +the table, with his arms outstretched and his head bowed upon them. Audrey +dropped from the stone into the ever growing shadows, crossed the lawn, +slipped below the bank, and took her way along the river edge to the long +landing. When she was half way down its length, she saw that there was a +canoe which she had not observed and that it held one man, who sat with +his back to the shore. With a quick breath of dismay she stood still, then +setting her lips went on; for the more she thought of having to see those +two again, Evelyn and the master of Fair View, the stronger grew her +determination to commence her backward journey alone and at once. + +She had almost reached the end of the wharf when the man in the boat stood +up and faced her. It was Hugon. The dusk was not so great but that the +two, the hunter and his quarry, could see each other plainly. The latter +turned with the sob of a stricken deer, but the impulse to flight lasted +not. Where might she go? Run blindly, north or east or west, through the +fields of Westover? That would shortly lead to cowering in some wood or +swamp while the feet of the searchers came momently nearer. Return to the +house, stand at bay once more? With all her strength of soul she put this +course from her. + +The quick strife in her mind ended in her moving slowly, as though drawn +by an invisible hand, to the edge of the wharf, above Hugon and his canoe. +She did not wonder to see him there. Every word that Haward had spoken in +the Westover parlor was burned upon her brain, and he had said that he had +come up river with an Indian. This was the Indian, and to hunt her down +those two had joined forces. + +"Ma'm'selle Audrey," whispered the trader, staring as at a spirit. + +"Yes, Jean Hugon," she answered, and looked down the glimmering reaches of +the James, then at the slender canoe and the deep and dark water that +flowed between the piles. In the slight craft, with that strong man the +river for ally, she were safe as in a tower of brass. + +"I am going home, Jean," she said. "Will you row me down the river +to-night, and tell me as we go your stories of the woods and your father's +glories in France? If you speak of other things I will drown myself, for +I am tired of hearing them. In the morning we will stop at some landing +for food, and then go on again. Let us hasten"-- + +The trader moistened his lips. "And him," he demanded hoarsely,--"that +Englishman, that Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, who came to me and said, +'Half-breed, seeing that an Indian and a bloodhound have gifts in common, +we will take up the quest together. Find her, though it be to lose her to +me that same hour! And look that in our travels you try no foul play, for +this time I go armed,'--what of him?" + +Audrey waved her hand toward the house she had left. "He is there. Let us +make haste." As she spoke she descended the steps, and, evading his eager +hand, stepped into the canoe. He looked at her doubtfully, half afraid, so +strange was it to see her sitting there, so like a spirit from the land +beyond the sun, a _revenant_ out of one of old Pierre's wild tales, had +she come upon him. With quickened breath he loosed the canoe from its +mooring and took up the paddle. A moment, and they were quit of the +Westover landing and embarked upon a strange journey, during which hour +after hour Hugon made wild love, and hour after hour Audrey opened not her +lips. As the canoe went swiftly down the flood, lights sprung up in the +house it was leaving behind. A man, rising from his chair with a heavy +sigh, walked to the parlor window and looked out upon lawn and sky and +river, but, so dark had it grown, saw not the canoe; thought only how +deserted, how desolate and lonely, was the scene. + + * * * * * + +In Williamsburgh as at Westover the autumn was dying, the winter was +coming, but neither farewell nor greeting perturbed the cheerful town. To +and fro through Palace and Nicholson and Duke of Gloucester streets were +blown the gay leaves; of early mornings white frosts lay upon the earth +like fairy snows, but midday and afternoon were warm and bright. Mistress +Stagg's garden lay to the south, and in sheltered corners bloomed +marigolds and asters, while a vine, red-leafed and purple-berried, made a +splendid mantle for the playhouse wall. + +Within the theatre a rehearsal of "Tamerlane" was in progress. Turk and +Tartar spoke their minds, and Arpasia's death cry clave the air. The +victorious Emperor passed final sentence upon Bajazet; then, chancing to +glance toward the wide door, suddenly abdicated his throne, and in the +character of Mr. Charles Stagg blew a kiss to his wife, who, applauding +softly, stood in the opening that was framed by the red vine. + +"Have you done, my dear?" she cried. "Then pray come with me a moment!" + +The two crossed the garden, and entered the grape arbor where in September +Mistress Stagg had entertained her old friend, my Lady Squander's sometime +waiting-maid. Now the vines were bare of leaves, and the sunshine +streaming through lay in a flood upon the earth. Mary Stagg's chair was +set in that golden warmth, and upon the ground beside it had fallen some +bright sewing. The silken stuff touched a coarser cloth, and that was the +skirt of Darden's Audrey, who sat upon the ground asleep, with her arm +across the chair, and her head upon her arm. + +"How came she here?" demanded Mr. Stagg at last, when he had given a +tragedy start, folded his arms, and bent his brows. + +"She ran away," answered Mistress Stagg, in a low voice, drawing her +spouse to a little distance from the sleeping figure. "She ran away from +the glebe house and went up the river, wanting--the Lord knows why!--to +reach the mountains. Something happened to bring her to her senses, and +she turned back, and falling in with that trader, Jean Hugon, he brought +her to Jamestown in his canoe. She walked from there to the glebe +house,--that was yesterday. The minister was away, and Deborah, being in +one of her passions, would not let her in. She's that hard, is Deborah, +when she's angry, harder than the nether millstone! The girl lay in the +woods last night. I vow I'll never speak again to Deborah, not though +there were twenty Baths behind us!" Mistress Stagg's voice began to +tremble. "I was sitting sewing in that chair, now listening to your voices +in the theatre, and now harking back in my mind to old days when we +weren't prosperous like we are now.... And at last I got to thinking of +the babe, Charles, and how, if she had lived and grown up, I might ha' sat +there sewing a pretty gown for my own child, and how happy I would have +made her. I tried to see her standing beside me, laughing, pretty as a +rose, waiting for me to take the last stitch. It got so real that I raised +my head to tell my dead child how I was going to knot her ribbons, ... and +there was this girl looking at me!" + +"What, Millamant! a tear, my soul?" cried the theatric Mr. Stagg. + +Millamant wiped away the tear. "I'll tell you what she said. She just +said: 'You were kind to me when I was here before, but if you tell me to +go away I'll go. You need not say it loudly.' And then she almost fell, +and I put out my arm and caught her; and presently she was on her knees +there beside me, with her head in my lap.... And then we talked together +for a while. It was mostly me--she didn't say much--but, Charles, the +girl's done no wrong, no more than our child that's dead and in Christ's +bosom. She was so tired and worn. I got some milk and gave it to her, and +directly she went to sleep like a baby, with her head on my knee." + +The two went closer, and looked down upon the slender form and still, dark +face. The sleeper's rest was deep. A tress of hair, fallen from its +fastening, swept her cheek; Mistress Stagg, stooping, put it in place +behind the small ear, then straightened herself and pressed her Mirabell's +arm. + +"Well, my love," quoth that gentleman, clearing his throat. "'Great minds, +like Heaven, are pleased in doing good.' My Millamant, declare your +thoughts!" + +Mistress Stagg twisted her apron hem between thumb and finger. "She's more +than eighteen, Charles, and anyhow, if I understand it rightly, she was +never really bound to Darden. The law has no hold on her, for neither +vestry nor Orphan Court had anything to do with placing her with Darden +and Deborah. She's free to stay." + +"Free to stay?" queried Charles, and took a prodigious pinch of snuff. "To +stay with us?" + +"Why not?" asked his wife, and stole a persuasive hand into that of her +helpmate. "Oh, Charles, my heart went out to her! I made her so beautiful +once, and I could do it again and all the time. Don't you think her +prettier than was Jane Day? And she's graceful, and that quick to learn! +You're such a teacher, Charles, and I know she'd do her best.... Perhaps, +after all, there would be no need to send away to Bristol for one to take +Jane's place." + +"H'm!" said the great man thoughtfully, and bit a curl of Tamerlane's vast +periwig. "'Tis true I esteem her no dullard," he at last vouchsafed; "true +also that she hath beauty. In fine, solely to give thee pleasure, my +Millamant, I will give the girl a trial no later than this very +afternoon." + +Audrey stirred in her sleep, spoke Haward's name, and sank again to rest. +Mr. Stagg took a second pinch of snuff. "There's the scandal, my love. His +Excellency the Governor's ball, Mr. Eliot's sermon, Mr. Marmaduke Haward's +illness and subsequent duels with Mr. Everard and Mr. Travis, are in no +danger of being forgotten. If this girl ever comes to the speaking of an +epilogue, there'll be in Williamsburgh a nine days' wonder indeed!" + +"The wonder would not hurt," said Mistress Stagg simply. + +"Far from it, my dear," agreed Mr. Stagg, and closing his snuffbox, went +with a thoughtful brow back to the playhouse and the Tartar camp. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE MISSION OF TRUELOVE + + +Mistress Truelove Taberer, having read in a very clear and gentle voice +the Sermon on the Mount to those placid Friends, Tobias and Martha +Taberer, closed the book, and went about her household affairs with a +quiet step, but a heart that somehow fluttered at every sound without the +door. To still it she began to repeat to herself words she had read: +"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of +God ... blessed are the peacemakers"-- + +Winter sunshine poured in at the windows and door. Truelove, kneeling to +wipe a fleck of dust from her wheel, suddenly, with a catch of her breath +and a lifting of her brown eyes, saw in the Scripture she had been +repeating a meaning and application hitherto unexpected. "The +peacemaker ... that is one who makes peace,--in the world, between +countries, in families, yea, in the heart of one alone. Did he not say, +last time he came, that with me he forgot this naughty world and all its +strife; that if I were always with him"-- + +Truelove's countenance became exalted, her gaze fixed. "If it were a +call"--she murmured, and for a moment bowed her head upon the wheel; then +rose from her knees and went softly through the morning tasks. When they +were over, she took down from a peg and put on a long gray cloak and a +gray hood that most becomingly framed her wild-rose face; then came and +stood before her father and mother. "I am going forth to walk by the +creekside," she said, in her sweet voice. "It may be that I will meet +Angus MacLean." + +"If thee does," answered one tranquil Friend, "thee may tell him that upon +next seventh day meeting will be held in this house." + +"Truly," said the other tranquil Friend, "my heart is drawn toward that +young man. His mind hath been filled with anger and resistance and the +turmoil of the world. It were well if he found peace at last." + +"Surely it were well," agreed Truelove sweetly, and went out into the +crisp winter weather. + +The holly, the pine, and the cedar made green places in the woods, and the +multitude of leaves underfoot were pleasant to tread. Clouds were in the +sky, but the spaces between were of serenest blue, and in the sunshine the +creek flashed diamonds. Truelove stood upon the bank, and, with her hand +shading her eyes, watched MacLean rowing toward her up the creek. + +When he had fastened his boat and taken her hand, the two walked soberly +on beside the sparkling water until they came to a rude seat built beneath +an oak-tree, to which yet clung a number of brown leaves. Truelove sat +down, drawing her cloak about her, for, though the sun shone, the air was +keen. MacLean took off his coat, and kneeling put it beneath her feet. He +laughed at her protest. "Why, these winds are not bleak!" he said. "This +land knows no true and honest cold. In my country, night after night have +I lain in snow with only my plaid for cover, and heard the spirits call in +the icy wind, the kelpie shriek beneath the frozen loch. I listened; then +shut my eyes and dreamed warm of glory and--true love." + +"Thy coat is new," said Truelove, with downcast eyes. "The earth will +stain the good cloth." + +MacLean laughed. "Then will I wear it stained, as 'tis said a courtier +once wore his cloak." + +"There is lace upon it," said Truelove timidly. + +MacLean turned with a smile, and laid a fold of her cloak against his dark +cheek. "Ah, the lace offends you,--offends thee,--Truelove. Why, 'tis but +to mark me a gentleman again! Last night, at Williamsburgh, I supped with +Haward and some gentlemen of Virginia. He would have me don this suit. I +might not disoblige my friend." + +"Thee loves it," said Truelove severely. "Thee loves the color, and the +feel of the fine cloth, and the ruffles at thy wrists." + +The Highlander laughed. "Why, suppose that I do! Look, Truelove, how brave +and red are those holly berries, and how green and fantastically twisted +the leaves! The sky is a bright blue, and the clouds are silver; and think +what these woods will be when the winter is past! One might do worse, +meseems, than to be of God's taste in such matters." + +Truelove sighed, and drew her gray cloak more closely around her. + +"Thee is in spirits to-day, Angus MacLean," she said, and sighed once +more. + +"I am free," he answered. "The man within me walks no longer with a +hanging head." + +"And what will thee do with thy freedom?" + +The Highlander made no immediate reply, but, chin in hand, studied the +drifts of leaves and the slow-moving water. "I am free," he said at last. +"I wear to-day the dress of a gentleman. I could walk without shame into +a hall that I know, and find there strangers, standers in dead men's +shoon, brothers who want me not,--who would say behind their hands, 'He +has been twelve years a slave, and the world has changed since he went +away!' ... I will not trouble them." + +His face was as sombre as when Truelove first beheld it. Suddenly, and +against her will, tears came to her eyes. "I am glad--I and my father and +mother and Ephraim--that thee goes not overseas, Angus MacLean," said the +dove's voice. "We would have thee--I and my father and mother and +Ephraim--we would have thee stay in Virginia." + +"I am to stay," he answered. "I have felt no shame in taking a loan from +my friend, for I shall repay it. He hath lands up river in a new-made +county. I am to seat them for him, and there will be my home. I will build +a house and name it Duart; and if there are hills they shall be Dun-da-gu +and Grieg, and the sound of winter torrents shall be to me as the sound of +the waters of Mull." + +Truelove caught her breath. "Thee will be lonely in those forests." + +"I am used to loneliness." + +"There be Indians on the frontier. They burn houses and carry away +prisoners. And there are wolves and dangerous beasts"-- + +"I am used to danger." + +Truelove's voice trembled more and more. "And thee must dwell among +negroes and rude men, with none to comfort thy soul, none to whom thee can +speak in thy dark hours?" + +"Before now I have spoken to the tobacco I have planted, the trees I have +felled, the swords and muskets I have sold." + +"But at last thee came and spoke to me!" + +"Ay," he answered. "There have been times when you saved my soul alive. +Now, in the forest, in my house of logs, when the day's work is done, and +I sit upon my doorstep and begin to hear the voices of the past crying to +me like the spirits in the valley of Glensyte, I will think of you +instead." + +"Oh!" cried Truelove. "Speak to me instead, and I will speak to thee ... +sitting upon the doorstep of our house, when our day's work is done!" + +Her hood falling back showed her face, clear pink, with dewy eyes. The +carnation deepening from brow to throat, and the tears trembling upon her +long lashes, she suddenly hid her countenance in her gray cloak. MacLean, +on his knees beside her, drew away the folds. "Truelove, Truelove! do you +know what you have said?" + +Truelove put her hand upon her heart. "Oh, I fear," she whispered, "I fear +that I have asked thee, Angus MacLean, to let me be--to let me be--thy +wife." + +The water shone, and the holly berries were gay, and a robin redbreast +sang a cheerful song. Beneath the rustling oak-tree there was ardent +speech on the part of MacLean, who found in his mistress a listener sweet +and shy, and not garrulous of love. But her eyes dwelt upon him and her +hand rested at ease within his clasp, and she liked to hear him speak of +the home they were to make in the wilderness. It was to be thus, and thus, +and thus! With impassioned eloquence the Gael adorned the shrine and +advanced the merit of the divinity, and the divinity listened with a +smile, a blush, a tear, and now and then a meek rebuke. + +When an hour had passed, the sun went under a cloud and the air grew +colder. The bird had flown away, but in the rising wind the dead leaves +rustled loudly. MacLean and Truelove, leaving their future of honorable +toil, peace of mind, and enduring affection, came back to the present. + +"I must away," said the Highlander. "Haward waits for me at Williamsburgh. +To-morrow, dearer to me than Deirdre to Naos! I will come again." + +Hand in hand the two walked slowly toward that haunt of peace, Truelove's +quiet home. "And Marmaduke Haward awaits thee at Williamsburgh?" said the +Quakeress. "Last third day he met my father and me on the Fair View road, +and checked his horse and spoke to us. He is changed." + +"Changed indeed!" quoth the Highlander. "A fire burns him, a wind drives +him; and yet to the world, last night"--He paused. + +"Last night?" said Truelove. + +"He had a large company at Marot's ordinary," went on the other. "There +were the Governor and his fellow Councilors, with others of condition or +fashion. He was the very fine gentleman, the perfect host, free, smiling, +full of wit. But I had been with him before they came. I knew the fires +beneath." + +The two walked in silence for a few moments, when MacLean spoke again: "He +drank to her. At the last, when this lady had been toasted, and that, he +rose and drank to 'Audrey,' and threw his wineglass over his shoulder. He +hath done what he could. The world knows that he loves her honorably, +seeks her vainly in marriage. Something more I know. He gathered the +company together last evening that, as his guests, the highest officers, +the finest gentlemen of the colony, should go with him to the theatre to +see her for the first time as a player. Being what they were, and his +guests, and his passion known, he would insure for her, did she well or +did she ill, order, interest, decent applause." MacLean broke off with a +short, excited laugh. "It was not needed,--his mediation. But he could not +know that; no, nor none of us. True, Stagg and his wife had bragged of the +powers of this strangely found actress of theirs that they were training +to do great things, but folk took it for a trick of their trade. Oh, there +was curiosity enough, but 'twas on Haward's account.... Well, he drank to +her, standing at the head of the table at Marot's ordinary, and the glass +crashed over his shoulder, and we all went to the play." + +"Yes, yes!" cried Truelove, breathing quickly, and quite forgetting how +great a vanity was under discussion. + +"'Twas 'Tamerlane,' the play that this traitorous generation calls for +every 5th of November. It seems that the Governor--a Whig as rank as +Argyle--had ordered it again for this week. 'Tis a cursed piece of slander +that pictures the Prince of Orange a virtuous Emperor, his late Majesty of +France a hateful tyrant. But for Haward, whose guest I was, I had not sat +there with closed lips. I had sprung to my feet and given those +flatterers, those traducers, the lie! The thing taunted and angered until +she entered. Then I forgot." + +"And she--and Audrey?" + +"Arpasia was her name in the play. She entered late; her death came before +the end; there was another woman who had more to do. It all mattered not, +I have seen a great actress." + +"Darden's Audrey!" said Truelove, in a whisper. + +"That at the very first; not afterwards," answered MacLean. "She was +dressed, they say, as upon the night at the Palace, that first night of +Haward's fever. When she came upon the stage, there was a murmur like the +wind in the leaves. She was most beautiful,--'beauteous in hatred,' as the +Sultan in the play called her,--dark and wonderful, with angry eyes. For a +little while she must stand in silence, and in these moments men and women +stared at her, then turned and looked at Haward. But when she spoke we +forgot that she was Darden's Audrey." + +MacLean laughed again. "When the play was ended,--or rather, when her part +in it was done,--the house did shake so with applause that Stagg had to +remonstrate. There's naught talked of to-day in Williamsburgh but Arpasia; +and when I came down Palace Street this morning, there was a great crowd +about the playhouse door. Stagg might sell his tickets for to-night at a +guinea apiece. 'Venice Preserved' is the play." + +"And Marmaduke Haward,--what of him?" asked Truelove softly. + +"He is English," said MacLean, after a pause. "He can make of his face a +smiling mask, can keep his voice as even and as still as the pool that is +a mile away from the fierce torrent its parent. It is a gift they have, +the English. I remember at Preston"--He broke off with a sigh. "There will +be an end some day, I suppose. He will win her at last to his way of +thinking; and having gained her, he will be happy. And yet to my mind +there is something unfortunate, strange and fatal, in the aspect of this +girl. It hath always been so. She is such a one as the Lady in Green. On a +Halloween night, standing in the twelfth rig, a man might hear her voice +upon the wind. I would old Murdoch of Coll, who hath the second sight, +were here: he could tell the ending of it all." + +An hour later found the Highlander well upon his way to Williamsburgh, +walking through wood and field with his long stride, his heart warm within +him, his mind filled with the thought of Truelove and the home that he +would make for her in the rude, upriver country. Since the two had sat +beneath the oak, clouds had gathered, obscuring the sun. It was now gray +and cold in the forest, and presently snow began to fall, slowly, in large +flakes, between the still trees. + +MacLean looked with whimsical anxiety at several white particles upon his +suit of fine cloth, claret-colored and silver-laced, and quickened his +pace. But the snow was but the lazy vanguard of a storm, and so few and +harmless were the flakes that when, a, mile from Williamsburgh and at some +little distance from the road, MacLean beheld a ring of figures seated +upon the Gounod beneath a giant elm, he stopped to observe who and what +they were that sat so still beneath the leafless tree in the winter +weather. + +The group, that at first glimpse had seemed some conclave of beings +uncouth and lubberly and solely of the forest, resolved itself into the +Indian teacher and his pupils, escaped for the afternoon from the bounds +of William and Mary. The Indian lads--slender, bronze, and statuesque--sat +in silence, stolidly listening to the words of the white man, who, +standing in the midst of the ring, with his back to the elm-tree, told to +his dusky charges a Bible tale. It was the story of Joseph and his +brethren. The clear, gentle tones of the teacher reached MacLean's ears +where he stood unobserved behind a roadside growth of bay and cedar. + +A touch upon the shoulder made him turn, to find at his elbow that +sometime pupil of Mr. Charles Griffin in whose company he had once trudged +from Fair View store to Williamsburgh. + +"I was lying in the woods over there," said Hugon sullenly. "I heard them +coming, and I took my leave. 'Peste!' said I. 'The old, weak man who +preaches quietness under men's injuries, and the young wolf pack, all +brown, with Indian names!' They may have the woods; for me, I go back to +the town where I belong." + +He shrugged his shoulders, and stood scowling at the distant group. +MacLean, in his turn, looked curiously at his quondam companion of a sunny +day in May, the would-be assassin with whom he had struggled in wind and +rain beneath the thunders of an August storm. The trader wore his great +wig, his ancient steinkirk of tawdry lace, his high boots of Spanish +leather, cracked and stained. Between the waves of coarse hair, out of +coal-black, deep-set eyes looked the soul of the half-breed, fierce, +vengeful, ignorant, and embittered. + +"There is Meshawa," he said,--"Meshawa, who was a little boy when I went +to school, but who used to laugh when I talked of France. Pardieu! one day +I found him alone when it was cold, and there was a fire in the room. Next +time I talked he did not laugh! They are all"--he swept his hand toward +the circle beneath the elm--"they are all Saponies, Nottoways, Meherrins; +their fathers are lovers of the peace pipe, and humble to the English. A +Monacan is a great brave; he laughs at the Nottoways, and says that there +are no men in the villages of the Meherrins." + +"When do you go again to trade with your people?" asked MacLean. + +Hugon glanced at him out of the corners of his black eyes. "They are not +my people; my people are French. I am not going to the woods any more. I +am so prosperous. Diable! shall not I as well as another stay at +Williamsburgh, dress fine, dwell in an ordinary, play high, and drink of +the best?" + +"There is none will prevent you," said MacLean coolly. "Dwell in town, +take your ease in your inn, wear gold lace, stake the skins of all the +deer in Virginia, drink Burgundy and Champagne, but lay no more arrows +athwart the threshold of a gentleman's door." + +Hugon's lips twitched into a tigerish grimace. "So he found the arrow? +Mortdieu! let him look to it that one day the arrow find not him!" + +"If I were Haward," said MacLean, "I would have you taken up." + +The trader again looked sideways at the speaker, shrugged his shoulders +and waved his hand. "Oh, he--he despises me too much for that! Eh bien! +to-day I love to see him live. When there is no wine in the cup, but only +dregs that are bitter, I laugh to see it at his lips. She,--Ma'm'selle +Audrey, that never before could I coax into my boat,--she reached me her +hand, she came with me down the river, through the night-time, and left +him behind at Westover. Ha! think you not that was bitter, that drink +which she gave him, Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View? Since then, if I go +to that house, that garden at Williamsburgh, she hides, she will not see +me; the man and his wife make excuse! Bad! But also he sees her never. He +writes to her: she answers not. Good! Let him live, with the fire built +around him and the splinters in his heart!" + +He laughed again, and, dismissing the subject with airiness somewhat +exaggerated, drew out his huge gilt snuffbox. The snow was now falling +more thickly, drawing a white and fleecy veil between the two upon the +road and the story-teller and his audience beneath the distant elm. "Are +you for Williamsburgh?" demanded the Highlander, when he had somewhat +abruptly declined to take snuff with Monsieur Jean Hugon. + +That worthy nodded, pocketing his box and incidentally making a great +jingling of coins. + +"Then," quoth MacLean, "since I prefer to travel alone, twill wait here +until you have passed the rolling-house in the distance yonder. Good-day +to you!" + +He seated himself upon the stump of a tree, and, giving all his attention +to the snow, began to whistle a thoughtful air. Hugon glanced at him with +fierce black eyes and twitching lips, much desiring a quarrel; then +thought better of it, and before the tune had come to an end was making +with his long and noiseless stride his lonely way to Williamsburgh, and +the ordinary in Nicholson Street. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THE PLAYER + + +About this time, Mr. Charles Stagg, of the Williamsburgh theatre in +Virginia, sent by the Horn of Plenty, bound for London, a long letter to +an ancient comrade and player of small parts at Drury Lane. A few days +later, young Mr. Lee, writing by the Golden Lucy to an agreeable rake of +his acquaintance, burst into a five-page panegyric upon the Arpasia, the +Belvidera, the Monimia, who had so marvelously dawned upon the colonial +horizon. The recipient of this communication, being a frequenter of +Button's, and chancing one day to crack a bottle there with Mr. Colley +Cibber, drew from his pocket and read to that gentleman the eulogy of +Darden's Audrey, with the remark that the writer was an Oxford man and +must know whereof he wrote. + +Cibber borrowed the letter, and the next day, in the company of Wilks and +a bottle of Burgundy, compared it with that of Mr. Charles Stagg,--the +latter's correspondent having also brought the matter to the great man's +notice. + +"She might offset that pretty jade Fenton at the Fields, eh, Bob?" said +Cibber. "They're of an age. If the town took to her"-- + +"If her Belvidera made one pretty fellow weep, why not another?" added +Wilks. "Here--where is't he says that, when she went out, for many moments +the pit was silent as the grave--and that then the applause was deep--not +shrill--and very long? 'Gad, if 'tis a Barry come again, and we could lay +hands on her, the house would be made!" + +Gibber sighed. "You're dreaming, Bob," he said good-humoredly. "'Twas but +a pack of Virginia planters, noisy over some _belle sauvage_ with a +ranting tongue." + +"Men's passions are the same, I take it, in Virginia as in London," +answered the other. "If the _belle sauvage_ can move to that manner of +applause in one spot of earth, she may do so in another. And here again he +says, 'A dark beauty, with a strange, alluring air ... a voice of melting +sweetness that yet can so express anguish and fear that the blood turns +cold and the heart is wrung to hear it'--Zoons, sir! What would it cost to +buy off this fellow Stagg, and to bring the phoenix overseas?" + +"Something more than a lottery ticket," laughed the other, and beckoned to +the drawer. "We'll wait, Bob, until we're sure 'tis a phoenix indeed! +There's a gentleman in Virginia with whom I've some acquaintance, Colonel +William Byrd, that was the colony's agent here. I'll write to him for a +true account. There's time enough." + +So thought honest Cibber, and wrote at leisure to his Virginia +acquaintance. It made small difference whether he wrote or refrained from +writing, for he had naught to do with the destinies of Darden's Audrey. +'Twas almost summer before there came an answer to his letter. He showed +it to Wilks in the greenroom, between the acts of "The Provoked Husband." +Mrs. Oldfield read it over their shoulders, and vowed that 'twas a moving +story; nay, more, in her next scene there was a moisture in Lady Townly's +eyes quite out of keeping with the vivacity of her lines. + +Darden's Audrey had to do with Virginia, not London; with the winter, +never more the summer. It is not known how acceptable her Monimia, her +Belvidera, her Isabella, would have been to London playgoers. Perhaps they +would have received them as did the Virginians, perhaps not. Cibber +himself might or might not have drawn for us her portrait; might or might +not have dwelt upon the speaking eye, the slow, exquisite smile with which +she made more sad her saddest utterances, the wild charm of her mirth, her +power to make each auditor fear as his own the impending harm, the tragic +splendor in which, when the bolt had fallen, converged all the pathos, +beauty, and tenderness of her earlier scenes. A Virginian of that winter, +writing of her, had written thus; but then Williamsburgh was not London, +nor its playhouse Drury Lane. Perhaps upon that ruder stage, before an +audience less polite, with never a critic in the pit or footman in the +gallery, with no Fops' Corner and no great number of fine ladies in the +boxes, the jewel shone with a lustre that in a brighter light it had not +worn. There was in Mr. Charles Stagg's company of players no mate for any +gem; this one was set amongst pebbles, and perhaps by contrast alone did +it glow so deeply. + +However this may be, in Virginia, in the winter and the early spring of +that year of grace Darden's Audrey was known, extravagantly praised, +toasted, applauded to the echo. Night after night saw the theatre crowded, +gallery, pit, and boxes. Even the stage had its row of chairs, seats held +not too dear at half a guinea. Mr. Stagg had visions of a larger house, a +fuller company, renown and prosperity undreamed of before that fortunate +day when, in the grape arbor, he and his wife had stood and watched +Darden's Audrey asleep, with her head pillowed upon her arm. + +Darden's Audrey! The name clung to her, though the minister had no further +lot or part in her fate. The poetasters called her Charmante, Anwet, +Chloe,--what not! Young Mr. Lee in many a slight and pleasing set of +verses addressed her as Sylvia, but to the community at large she was +Darden's Audrey, and an enigma greater than the Sphinx. Why would she not +marry Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View? Was the girl looking for a prince +to come overseas for her? Or did she prefer to a dazzling marriage the +excitement of the theatre, the adulation, furious applause? That could +hardly be, for these things seemed to frighten her. At times one could see +her shrink and grow pale at some great clapping or loud "Again!" And only +upon the stage did the town behold her. She rarely went abroad, and at the +small white house in Palace Street she was denied to visitors. True, 'twas +the way to keep upon curiosity the keenest edge, to pique interest and +send the town to the playhouse as the one point of view from which the +riddle might be studied. But wisdom such as this could scarce be expected +of the girl. Given, then, that 'twas not her vanity which kept her +Darden's Audrey, what was it? Was not Mr. Haward of Fair View rich, +handsome, a very fine gentleman? Generous, too, for had he not sworn, as +earnestly as though he expected to be believed, that the girl was pure +innocence? His hand was ready to his sword, nor were men anxious to incur +his cold enmity, so that the assertion passed without open challenge. He +was mad for her,--that was plain enough. And she,--well she's woman and +Darden's Audrey, and so doubly an enigma. In the mean time, to-night she +plays Monimia, and her madness makes you weep, so sad it is, so hopeless, +and so piercing sweet. + +In this new world that was so strange to her Darden's Audrey bore herself +as best she might. While it was day she kept within the house, where the +room that in September she had shared with Mistress Deborah was now for +her alone. Hour after hour she sat there, book in hand, learning how those +other women, those women of the past, had loved, had suffered, had fallen +to dusty death. Other hours she spent with Mr. Charles Stagg in the long +room downstairs, or, when Mistress Stagg had customers, in the theatre +itself. As in the branded schoolmaster chance had given her a teacher +skilled in imparting knowledge, so in this small and pompous man, who +beneath a garb of fustian hugged to himself a genuine reverence and +understanding of his art, she found an instructor more able, perhaps, than +had been a greater actor. In the chill and empty playhouse, upon the +narrow stage where, sitting in the September sunshine, she had asked of +Haward her last favor, she now learned to speak for those sisters of her +spirit, those dead women who through rapture, agony, and madness had sunk +to their long rest, had given their hands to death and lain down in a +common inn. To Audrey they were real; she was free of their company. The +shadows were the people who lived and were happy; who night after night +came to watch a soul caught in the toils, to thunder applause when death +with rude and hasty hands broke the net, set free the prisoner. + +The girl dreamed as she breathed. Wakened from a long, long fantasy, +desolate and cold to the heart in an alien air, she sought for poppy and +mandragora, and in some sort finding them dreamed again, though not for +herself, not as before. It can hardly be said that she was unhappy. She +walked in a pageant of strange miseries, and the pomp of woe was hers to +portray. Those changelings from some fateful land, those passionate, pale +women, the milestones of whose pilgrimage spelled love, ruin, despair, and +death, they were her kindred, her sisters. Day and night they kept her +company: and her own pain lessened, grew at last to a still and dreamy +sorrow, never absent, never poignant. + +Of necessity, importunate grief was drugged to sleep. In the daylight +hours she must study, must rehearse with her fellow players; when night +came she put on a beautiful dress, and to lights and music and loud +applause there entered Monimia, or Belvidera, or Athenais. When the play +was done and the curtain fallen, the crowd of those who would have stayed +her ever gave way, daunted by her eyes, her closed lips, the atmosphere +that yet wrapped her of passion, woe, and exaltation, the very tragedy of +the soul that she had so richly painted. Like the ghost of that woman who +had so direfully loved and died, she was wont to slip from the playhouse, +through the dark garden, to the small white house and her quiet room. +There she laid off her gorgeous dress, and drew the ornaments from her +dark hair that was long as Molly's had been that day beneath the +sugar-tree in the far-away valley. + +She rarely thought of Molly now, or of the mountains. With her hair +shadowing her face and streaming over bared neck and bosom she sat before +her mirror. The candle burned low; the face in the glass seemed not her +own. Dim, pale, dark-eyed, patient-lipped at last, out of a mist and from +a great distance the other woman looked at her. Far countries, the burning +noonday and utter love, night and woe and life, the broken toy, flung with +haste away! The mist thickened; the face withdrew, farther, farther off; +the candle burned low. Audrey put out the weak flame, and laid herself +upon the bed. Sleep came soon, and it was still and dreamless. Sometimes +Mary Stagg, light in hand, stole into the room and stood above the quiet +form. The girl hardly seemed to breathe: she had a fashion of lying with +crossed hands and head drawn slightly back, much as she might be laid at +last in her final bed. Mistress Stagg put out a timid hand and felt the +flesh if it were warm; then bent and lightly kissed hand or arm or the +soft curve of the throat. Audrey stirred not, and the other went +noiselessly away; or Audrey opened dark eyes, faintly smiled and raised +herself to meet the half-awed caress, then sank to rest again. + +Into Mistress Stagg's life had struck a shaft of colored light, had come a +note of strange music, had flown a bird of paradise. It was and it was not +her dead child come again. She knew that her Lucy had never been thus, and +the love that she gave Audrey was hardly mother love. It was more nearly +an homage, which, had she tried, she could not have explained. When they +were alone together, Audrey called the older woman "mother," often knelt +and laid her head upon the other's lap or shoulder. In all her ways she +was sweet and duteous, grateful and eager to serve. But her spirit dwelt +in a rarer air, and there were heights and depths where the waif and her +protectress might not meet. To this the latter gave dumb recognition, and +though she could not understand, yet loved her protegee. At night, in the +playhouse, this love was heightened into exultant worship. At all times +there was delight in the girl's beauty, pride in the comment and wonder of +the town, self-congratulation and the pleasing knowledge that wisdom is +vindicated of its children. Was not all this of her bringing about? Did it +not first occur to her that the child might take Jane Day's place? Even +Charles, who strutted and plumed himself and offered his snuffbox to every +passer-by, must acknowledge that! Mistress Stagg stopped her sewing to +laugh triumphantly, then fell to work more diligently than ever; for it +was her pleasure to dress Darden's Audrey richly, in soft colors, heavy +silken stuffs upon which was lavished a wealth of delicate needlework. It +was chiefly while she sat and sewed upon these pretty things, with Audrey, +book on knee, close beside her, that her own child seemed to breathe +again. + +Audrey thanked her and kissed her, and wore what she was given to wear, +nor thought how her beauty was enhanced. If others saw it, if the wonder +grew by what it fed on, if she was talked of, written of, pledged, and +lauded by a frank and susceptible people, she knew of all this little +enough, and for what she knew cared not at all. Her days went dreamily by, +nor very sad nor happy; full of work, yet vague and unmarked as desert +sands. What was real was a past that was not hers, and those dead women to +whom night by night she gave life and splendor. + +There were visitors to whom she was not denied. Darden came at times, sat +in Mistress Stagg's sunny parlor, and talked to his sometime ward much as +he had talked in the glebe-house living room,--discursively, of men and +parochial affairs and his own unmerited woes. Audrey sat and heard him, +with her eyes upon the garden without the window. When he lifted from the +chair his great shambling figure, and took his stained old hat and heavy +cane, Audrey rose also, curtsied, and sent her duty to Mistress Deborah, +but she asked no questions as to that past home of hers. It seemed not to +interest her that the creek was frozen so hard that one could walk upon it +to Fair View, or that the minister had bought a field from his wealthy +neighbor, and meant to plant it with Oronoko. Only when he told her that +the little wood--the wood that she had called her own--was being cleared, +and that all day could be heard the falling of the trees, did she lift +startled eyes and draw a breath like a moan. The minister looked at her +from under shaggy brows, shook his head, and went his way to his favorite +ordinary, rum, and a hand at cards. + +Mistress Deborah she beheld no more; but once the Widow Constance brought +Barbara to town, and the two, being very simple women, went to the play to +see the old Audrey, and saw instead a queen, tinseled, mock-jeweled, clad +in silk, who loved and triumphed, despaired and died. The rude theatre +shook to the applause. When it was all over, the widow and Barbara went +dazed to their lodging, and lay awake through the night talking of these +marvels. In the morning they found the small white house, and Audrey came +to them in the garden. When she had kissed them, the three sat down in the +arbor; for it was a fine, sunny morning, and not cold. But the talk was +not easy; Barbara's eyes were so round, and the widow kept mincing her +words. Only when they were joined by Mistress Stagg, to whom the widow +became voluble, the two girls spoke aside. + +"I have a guinea, Barbara," said Audrey. "Mr. Stagg gave it to me, and I +need it not,--I need naught in the world. Barbara, here!--'tis for a warm +dress and a Sunday hood." + +"Oh, Audrey," breathed Barbara, "they say you might live at Fair +View,--that you might marry Mr. Haward and be a fine lady"-- + +Audrey laid her hand upon the other's lips. "Hush! See, Barbara, you must +have the dress made thus, like mine." + +"But if 'tis so, Audrey!" persisted poor Barbara. "Mother and I talked of +it last night. She said you would want a waiting-woman, and I thought--Oh, +Audrey!" + +Audrey bit her quivering lip and dashed away the tears. "I'll want no +waiting-woman, Barbara. I'm naught but Audrey that you used to be kind to. +Let's talk of other things. Have you missed me from the woods all these +days?" + +"It has been long since you were there," said Barbara dully. "Now I go +with Joan at times, though mother frowns and says she is not fit. Eh, +Audrey, if I could have a dress of red silk, with gold and bright stones, +like you wore last night! Old days I had more than you, but all's changed +now. Joan says"-- + +The Widow Constance rising to take leave, it did not appear what Joan had +said. The visitors from the country went away, nor came again while Audrey +dwelt in Williamsburgh. The schoolmaster came, and while he waited for his +sometime pupil to slowly descend the stairs talked learnedly to Mr. Stagg +of native genius, of the mind drawn steadily through all accidents and +adversities to the end of its own discovery, and of how time and tide and +all the winds of heaven conspire to bring the fate assigned, to make the +puppet move in the stated measure. Mr. Stagg nodded, took out his +snuffbox, and asked what now was the schoolmaster's opinion of the girl's +Monimia last night,--the last act, for instance. Good Lord, how still the +house was!--and then one long sigh! + +The schoolmaster fingered the scars in his bands, as was his manner at +times, but kept his eyes upon the ground. When he spoke, there was in his +voice unwonted life. "Why, sir, I could have said with Lear, _'Hysterica +passio! down, thou climbing sorrow!'_--and I am not a man, sir, that's +easily moved. The girl is greatly gifted. I knew that before either you or +the town, sir. Audrey, good-morrow!" + +Such as these from out her old life Darden's Audrey saw and talked with. +Others sought her, watched for her, laid traps that might achieve at least +her presence, but largely in vain. She kept within the house; when the +knocker sounded she went to her own room. No flowery message, compliment, +or appeal, not even Mary Stagg's kindly importunity, could bring her from +that coign of vantage. There were times when Mistress Stagg's showroom was +crowded with customers; on sunny days young men left the bowling green to +stroll in the shell-bordered garden paths; gentlemen and ladies of quality +passing up and down Palace Street walked more slowly when they came to the +small white house, and looked to see if the face of Darden's Audrey showed +at any window. + +Thus the winter wore away. The springtime was at hand, when one day the +Governor, wrought upon by Mistress Evelyn Byrd, sent to Mr. Stagg, bidding +him with his wife and the new player to the Palace. The three, dressed in +their best, were ushered into the drawing-room, where they found his +Excellency at chess with the Attorney-General; a third gentleman, seated +somewhat in the shadow, watching the game. A servant placed, chairs for +the people from the theatre. His Excellency checkmated his antagonist, +and, leaning back in his great chair, looked at Darden's Audrey, but +addressed his conversation to Mr. Charles Stagg. The great man was +condescendingly affable, the lesser one obsequious; while they talked the +gentleman in the shadow arose and drew his chair to Audrey's side. 'Twas +Colonel Byrd, and he spoke to the girl kindly and courteously; asking +after her welfare, giving her her meed of praise, dwelling half humorously +upon the astonishment and delight into which she had surprised the +play-loving town. Audrey listened with downcast eyes to the suave tones, +the well-turned compliments, but when she must speak spoke quietly and +well. + +At last the Governor turned toward her, and began to ask well-meant +questions and to give pompous encouragement to the new player. No +reference was made to that other time when she had visited the Palace. A +servant poured for each of the three a glass of wine. His Excellency +graciously desired that they shortly give 'Tamerlane' again, that being a +play which, as a true Whig and a hater of all tyrants, he much delighted +in, and as graciously announced his intention of bestowing upon the +company two slightly tarnished birthday suits. The great man then arose, +and the audience was over. + +Outside the house, in the sunny walk leading to the gates, the three from +the theatre met, full face, a lady and two gentlemen who had been +sauntering up and down in the pleasant weather. The lady was Evelyn Byrd; +the gentlemen were Mr. Lee and Mr. Grymes. + +Audrey, moving slightly in advance of her companions, halted at the sight +of Evelyn, and the rich color surged to her face; but the other, pale and +lovely, kept her composure, and, with a smile and a few graceful words of +greeting, curtsied deeply to the player. Audrey, with a little catch of +her breath, returned the curtsy. Both women were richly dressed, both were +beautiful; it seemed a ceremonious meeting of two ladies of quality. The +gentlemen also bowed profoundly, pressing their hats against their hearts. +Mistress Stagg, to whom her protegee's aversion to company was no light +cross, twitched her Mirabell by the sleeve and, hanging upon his arm, +prevented his further advance. The action said: "Let the child alone; +maybe when the ice is once broken she'll see people, and not be so shy and +strange!" + +"Mr. Lee," said Evelyn sweetly, "I have dropped my glove,--perhaps in the +summer-house on the terrace. If you will be so good? Mr. Grymes, will you +desire Mr. Stagg yonder to shortly visit me at my lodging? I wish to +bespeak a play, and would confer with him on the matter." + +The gentlemen bowed and hasted upon their several errands, leaving Audrey +and Evelyn standing face to face in the sunny path. "You are well, I +hope," said the latter, in her low, clear voice, "and happy?" + +"I am well, Mistress Evelyn," answered Audrey. "I think that I am not +unhappy." + +The other gazed at her in silence; then, "We have all been blind," she +said. "'Tis not a year since May Day and the Jaquelins' merrymaking. It +seems much longer. You won the race,--do you remember?--and took the prize +from my hand. And neither of us thought of all that should follow--did +we?--or guessed at other days. I saw you last night at the theatre, and +you made my heart like to burst for pity and sorrow. You were only playing +at woe? You are not unhappy, not like that?" + +Audrey shook her head. "No, not like that." + +There was a pause, broken by Evelyn. "Mr. Haward is in town," she said, in +a low but unfaltering voice, "He was at the playhouse last night. I +watched him sitting in a box, in the shadow.... You also saw him?" + +"Yes," said Audrey. "He had not been there for a long, long time. At first +he came night after night.... I wrote to him at last and told him how he +troubled me,--made me forget my lines,--and then he came no more." + +There was in her tone a strange wistfulness. Evelyn drew her breath +sharply, glanced swiftly at the dark face and liquid eyes. Mr. Grymes yet +held the manager and his wife in conversation, but Mr. Lee, a small +jessamine-scented glove in hand, was hurrying toward them from the +summer-house. + +"You think that you do not love Mr. Haward?" said Evelyn, in a low voice. + +"I loved one that never lived," said Audrey simply. "It was all in a dream +from which I have waked. I told him that at Westover, and afterwards here +in Williamsburgh. I grew so tired at last--it hurt me so to tell him ... +and then I wrote the letter. He has been at Fair View this long time, has +he not?" + +"Yes," said Evelyn quietly. "He has been alone at Fair View." The rose in +her cheeks had faded; she put her lace handkerchief to her lips, and shut +her hand so closely that the nails bit into the palm. In a moment, +however, she was smiling, a faint, inscrutable smile, and presently she +came a little nearer and took Audrey's hand in her own. + +The soft, hot, lingering touch thrilled the girl. She began to speak +hurriedly, not knowing why she spoke nor what she wished to say: "Mistress +Evelyn"-- + +"Yes, Audrey," said Evelyn, and laid a fluttering touch upon the other's +lips, then in a moment spoke herself: "You are to remember always, though +you love him not, Audrey, that he never was true lover of mine; that now +and forever, and though you died to-night, he is to me but an old +acquaintance,--Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View. Remember also that it +was not your fault, nor his perhaps, nor mine, and that with all my heart +I wish his happiness.... Ah, Mr. Lee, you found it? My thanks, sir." + +Mr. Lee, having restored the glove with all the pretty froth of words +which the occasion merited, and seen Mistress Evelyn turn aside to speak +with Mr. Stagg, found himself mightily inclined to improve the golden +opportunity and at once lay siege to this paragon from the playhouse. Two +low bows, a three-piled, gold-embroidered compliment, a quotation from his +"To Sylvia upon her Leaving the Theatre," and the young gentleman thought +his lines well laid. But Sylvia grew restless, dealt in monosyllables, and +finally retreated to Mistress Stagg's side. "Shall we not go home?" she +whispered. "I--I am tired, and I have my part to study, the long speech at +the end that I stumbled in last night. Ah, let us go!" + +Mistress Stagg sighed over the girl's contumacy. It was not thus in Bath +when she was young, and men of fashion flocked to compliment a handsome +player. Now there was naught to do but to let the child have her way. She +and Audrey made their curtsies, and Mr. Charles Stagg his bow, which was +modeled after that of Beau Nash. Then the three went down the sunny path +to the Palace gates, and Evelyn with the two gentlemen moved toward the +house and the company within. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +AMOR VINCIT + + +By now it was early spring in Virginia, and a time of balm and +pleasantness. The season had not entered into its complete heritage of gay +hues, sweet odors, song, and wealth of bliss. Its birthday robe was yet +a-weaving, its coronal of blossoms yet folded buds, its choristers not +ready with their fullest paeans. But everywhere was earnest of future +riches. In the forest the bloodroot was in flower, and the bluebird and +the redbird flashed from the maple that was touched with fire to the beech +just lifted from a pale green fountain. In Mistress Stagg's garden +daffodils bloomed, and dim blue hyacinths made sweet places in the grass. +The sun lay warm upon upturned earth, blackbirds rose in squadrons and +darkened the yet leafless trees, and every wind brought rumors of the +heyday toward which the earth was spinning. The days were long and sweet; +at night a moon came up, and between it and the earth played soft and +vernal airs. Then a pale light flooded the garden, the shells bordering +its paths gleamed like threaded pearls, and the house showed whiter than a +marble sepulchre. Mild incense, cool winds, were there, but quiet came +fitfully between the bursts of noise from the lit theatre. + +On such a night as this Audrey, clothed in red silk, with a band of false +jewels about her shadowy hair, slipped through the stage door into the +garden, and moved across it to the small white house and rest. Her part +in the play was done; for all their storming she would not stay. Silence +and herself alone, and the mirror in her room; then, sitting before the +glass, to see in it darkly the woman whom she had left dead upon the +boards yonder,--no, not yonder, but in a far country, and a fair and great +city. Love! love! and death for love! and her own face in the mirror +gazing at her with eyes of that long-dead Greek. It was the exaltation and +the dream, mournful, yet not without its luxury, that ended her every day. +When the candle burned low, when the face looked but dimly from the glass, +then would she rise and quench the flame, and lay herself down to sleep, +with the moonlight upon her crossed hands and quiet brow. + + * * * * * + +She passed through the grape arbor, and opened the door at which Haward +had knocked that September night of the Governor's ball. She was in +Mistress Stagg's long room; at that hour it should have been lit only by a +dying fire and a solitary candle. Now the fire was low enough, but the +room seemed aflare with myrtle tapers. Audrey, coming from the dimness +without, shaded her eyes with her hand. The heavy door shut to behind her; +unseeing still she moved toward the fire, but in a moment let fall her +hand and began to wonder at the unwonted lights. Mistress Stagg was yet in +the playhouse; who then had lit these candles? She turned, and saw Haward +standing with folded arms between her and the door. + +The silence was long. He was Marmaduke Haward with all his powers +gathered, calm, determined, so desperate to have done with this thing, to +at once and forever gain his own and master fate, that his stillness was +that of deepest waters, his cool equanimity that of the gamester who knows +how will fall the loaded dice. Dressed with his accustomed care, very +pale, composed and quiet, he faced her whose spirit yet lingered in a far +city, who in the dreamy exaltation of this midnight hour was ever half +Audrey of the garden, half that other woman in a dress of red silk, with +jewels in her hair, who, love's martyr, had exulted, given all, and died. + +"How did you come here?" she breathed at last. "You said that you would +come never again." + +"After to-night, never again," he answered. "But now, Audrey, this once +again, this once again!" + +Gazing past him she made a movement toward the door. He shook his head. +"This is my hour, Audrey. You may not leave the room, nor will Mistress +Stagg enter it. I will not touch you, I will come no nearer to you. Stand +there in silence, if you choose, or cover the sight of me from your eyes, +while for my own ease, my own unhappiness, I say farewell." + +"Farewell!" she echoed. "Long ago, at Westover, that was said between you +and me.... Why do you come like a ghost to keep me and peace apart?" + +He did not answer, and she locked her hands across her brow that burned +beneath the heavy circlet of mock gems. "Is it kind?" she demanded, with a +sob in her voice. "Is it kind to trouble me so, to keep me here"-- + +"Was I ever kind?" he asked. "Since the night when I followed you, a +child, and caught you from the ground when you fell between the corn rows, +what kindness, Audrey?" + +"None!" she answered, with sudden passion. "Nor kindness then! Why went +you not some other way?" + +"Shall I tell you why I was there that night,--why I left my companions +and came riding back to the cabin in the valley?" + +She uncovered her eyes, "I thought--I thought then--that you were sent"-- + +He looked at her with strange compassion. "My own will sent me.... When, +that sunny afternoon, we spurred from the valley toward the higher +mountains, we left behind us a forest flower, a young girl of simple +sweetness, with long dark hair,--like yours, Audrey.... It was to pluck +that flower that I deserted the expedition, that I went back to the valley +between the hills." + +Her eyes dilated, and her hands very slowly rose to press her temples, to +make a shadow from which she might face the cup of trembling he was +pouring for her. + +"_Molly!_" she said, beneath her breath. + +He nodded. "Well, Death had gathered the flower.... Accident threw across +my path a tinier blossom, a helpless child. Save you then, care for you +then, I must, or I had been not man, but monster. Did I care for you +tenderly, Audrey? Did I make you love me with all your childish heart? Did +I become to you father and mother and sister and fairy prince? Then what +were you to me in those old days? A child fanciful and charming, too fine +in all her moods not to breed wonder, to give the feeling that Nature had +placed in that mountain cabin a changeling of her own. A child that one +must regard with fondness and some pity,--what is called a dear child. +Moreover, a child whose life I had saved, and to whom it pleased me to +play Providence. I was young, not hard of heart, sedulous to fold back to +the uttermost the roseleaves of every delicate and poetic emotion, +magnificently generous also, and set to play my life _au grand seigneur_. +To myself assume a responsibility which with all ease might have been +transferred to an Orphan Court, to put my stamp upon your life to come, to +watch you kneel and drink of my fountain of generosity, to open my hand +and with an indulgent smile shower down upon you the coin of pleasure and +advantage,--why, what a tribute was this to my own sovereignty, what +subtle flattery of self-love, what delicate taste of power! Well, I kissed +you good-by, and unclasped your hands from my neck, chided you, laughed at +you, fondled you, promised all manner of pretty things and engaged you +never to forget me--and sailed away upon the Golden Rose to meet my +crowded years with their wine and roses, upas shadows and apples of Sodom. +How long before I forgot you, Audrey? A year and a day, perhaps. I protest +that I cannot remember exactly." + +He slightly changed his position, but came no nearer to her. It was +growing quiet in the street beyond the curtained windows. One window was +bare, but it gave only upon an unused nook of the garden where were merely +the moonlight and some tall leafless bushes. + +"I came back to Virginia," he said, "and I looked for and found you in the +heart of a flowering wood.... All that you imagined me to be, Audrey, that +was I not. Knight-errant, paladin, king among men,--what irony, child, in +that strange dream and infatuation of thine! I was--I am--of my time and +of myself, and he whom that day you thought me had not then nor afterwards +form or being. I wish you to be perfect in this lesson, Audrey. Are you +so?" + +"Yes," she sighed. Her hands had fallen; she was looking at him with +slowly parting lips, and a strange expression in her eyes. + +He went on quietly as before, every feature controlled to impassivity and +his arms lightly folded: "That is well. Between the day when I found you +again and a night in the Palace yonder lies a summer,--a summer! To me all +the summers that ever I had or will have,--ten thousand summers! Now tell +me how I did in this wonderful summer." + +"Ignobly," she answered. + +He bowed his head gravely. "Ay, Audrey, it is a good word." With a quick +sigh he left his place, and walking to the uncurtained window stood there +looking out upon the strip of moonlight and the screen of bushes; but when +he turned again to the room his face and bearing were as impressive as +before in their fine, still gravity, their repose of determination. "And +that evening by the river when you fled from me to Hugon"-- + +"I had awaked," she said, in a low voice. "You were to me a stranger, and +I feared you." + +"And at Westover?" + +"A stranger." + +"Here in Williamsburgh, when by dint of much striving I saw you, when I +wrote to you, when at last you sent me that letter, that piteous and cruel +letter, Audrey?" + +For one moment her dark eyes met his, then fell to her clasped hands. "A +stranger," she said. + +"The letter was many weeks ago. I have been alone with my thoughts at Fair +View. And to-night, Audrey?" + +"A stranger," she would have answered, but her voice broke. There were +shadows under her eyes; her lifted face had in it a strained, intent +expectancy as though she saw or heard one coming. + +"A stranger," he acquiesced. "A foreigner in your world of dreams and +shadows. No prince, Audrey, or great white knight and hero. Only a +gentleman of these latter days, compact like his fellows of strength and +weakness; now very wise and now the mere finger-post of folly; set to +travel his own path; able to hear above him in the rarer air the trumpet +call, but choosing to loiter on the lower slopes. In addition a man who +loves at last, loves greatly, with a passion that shall ennoble. A +stranger and your lover, Audrey, come to say farewell." + +Her voice came like an echo, plaintive and clear and from far away: +"Farewell." + +"How steadily do I stand here to say farewell!" he said. "Yet I am eaten +of my passion. A fire burns me, a voice within me ever cries aloud. I am +whirled in a resistless wind.... Ah, my love, the garden at Fair View! The +folded rose that will never bloom, the dial where linger the heavy hours, +the heavy, heavy, heavy hours!" + +"The garden," she whispered. "I smell the box.... The path was all in +sunshine. So quiet, so hushed.... I went a little farther, and I heard +your voice where you sat and read--and read of Eloisa.... _Oh, Evelyn, +Evelyn!_" + +"The last time--the last farewell!" he said. "When the Golden Rose is far +at sea, when the winds blow, when the stars drift below the verge, when +the sea speaks, then may I forget you, may the vision of you pass! Now at +Fair View it passes not; it dwells. Night and day I behold you, the woman +that I love, the woman that I love in vain!" + +"The Golden Rose!" she answered. "The sea.... Alas!" + +Her voice had risen into a cry. The walls of the room were gone, the air +pressed upon her heavily, the lights wavered, the waters were passing over +her as they had passed that night of the witch's hut. How far away the +bank upon which he stood! He spoke to her, and his voice came faintly as +from that distant shore or from the deck of a swiftly passing ship. "And +so it is good-by, sweetheart; for why should I stay in Virginia? Ah, if +you loved me, Audrey! But since it is not so--Good-by, good-by. This time +I'll not forget you, but I will not come again. Good-by!" + +Her lips moved, but there came no words. A light had dawned upon her face, +her hand was lifted as though to stay a sound of music. Suddenly she +turned toward him, swayed, and would have fallen but that his arm caught +and upheld her. Her head was thrown back; the soft masses of her wonderful +hair brushed his cheek and shoulder; her eyes looked past him, and a +smile, pure and exquisite past expression, just redeemed her face from +sadness. "Good-morrow, Love!" she said clearly and sweetly. + +At the sound of her own words came to her the full realization and +understanding of herself. With a cry she freed herself from his supporting +arm, stepped backward and looked at him. The color surged over her face +and throat, her eyelids drooped; while her name was yet upon his lips she +answered with a broken cry of ecstasy and abandonment. A moment and she +was in his arms and their lips had met. + +How quiet it was in the long room, where the myrtle candles gave out their +faint perfume and the low fire leaped upon the hearth! Thus for a time; +then, growing faint with her happiness, she put up protesting hands. He +made her sit in the great chair, and knelt before her, all youth and fire, +handsome, ardent, transfigured by his passion into such a lover as a queen +might desire. + +"Hail, Sultana!" he said, smiling, his eyes upon her diadem. "Now you are +Arpasia again, and I am Moneses, and ready, ah, most ready, to die for +you." + +She also smiled. "Remember that I am to quickly follow you." + +"When shall we marry?" he demanded. "The garden cries out for you, my +love, and I wish to hear your footstep in my house. It hath been a dreary +house, filled with shadows, haunted by keen longings and vain regrets. Now +the windows shall be flung wide and the sunshine shall pour in. Oh, your +voice singing through the rooms, your foot upon the stairs!" He took her +hands and put them to his lips. "I love as men loved of old," he said. "I +am far from myself and my times. When will you become my wife?" + +She answered him simply, like the child that at times she seemed: "When +you will. But I must be Arpasia again to-morrow night. The Governor hath +ordered the play repeated, and Margery Linn could not learn my part in +time." + +He laughed, fingering the red silk of her hanging sleeve, feasting his +eyes upon her dark beauty, so heightened and deepened in the year that had +passed. "Then play to them--and to me who shall watch you well--to-morrow +night. But after that to them never again! only to me, Audrey, to me when +we walk in the garden at home, when we sit in the book-room and the +candles are lighted. That day in May when first you came into my garden, +when first I showed you my house, when first I rowed you home with the +sunshine on the water and the roses in your hair! Love, love! do you +remember?" + +"Remember?" she answered, in a thrilling voice. "When I am dead I shall +yet remember! And I will come when you want me. After to-morrow night I +will come.... Oh, cannot you hear the river? And the walls of the box will +be freshly green, and the fruit-trees all in bloom! The white leaves drift +down upon the bench beneath the cherry-tree.... I will sit in the grass at +your feet. Oh, I love you, have loved you long!" + +They had risen and now with her head upon his breast and his arm about +her, they stood in the heart of the soft radiance of many candles. His +face was bowed upon the dark wonder of her hair; when at last he lifted +his eyes, they chanced to fall upon the one uncurtained window. Audrey, +feeling his slight, quickly controlled start, turned within his arm and +also saw the face of Jean Hugon, pressed against the glass, staring in +upon them. + +Before Haward could reach the window the face was gone. A strip of +moonlight, some leafless bashes, beyond, the blank wall of the +theatre,--that was all. Raising the sash, Haward leaned forth until he +could see the garden at large. Moonlight still and cold, winding paths, +and shadows of tree and shrub and vine, but no sign of living creature. He +closed the window and drew the curtain across, then turned again to +Audrey. "A phantom of the night," he said, and laughed. + +She was standing in the centre of the room, with her red dress gleaming +in the candlelight. Her brow beneath its mock crown had no lines of care, +and her wonderful eyes smiled upon him. "I have no fear of it," she +answered. "That is strange, is it not, when I have feared it for so long? +I have no other fear to-night than that I shall outlive your love for me." + +"I will love you until the stars fall," he said. + +"They are falling to-night. When you are without the door look up, and you +may see one pass swiftly down the sky. Once I watched them from the dark +river"-- + +"I will love you until the sun grows old," he said. "Through life and +death, through heaven or hell, past the beating of my heart, while lasts +my soul!... Audrey, Audrey!" + +"If it is so," she answered, "then all is well. Now kiss me good-night, +for I hear Mistress Stagg's voice. You will come again to-morrow? And +to-morrow night,--oh, to-morrow night I shall see only you, think of only +you while I play! Good-night, good-night." + +They kissed and parted, and Haward, a happy man, went with raised face +through the stillness and the moonlight to his lodging at Marot's +ordinary. No phantoms of the night disturbed him. He had found the +philosopher's stone, had drunk of the divine elixir. Life was at last a +thing much to be desired, and the Giver of life was good, and the _summum +bonum_ was deathless love. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +THE LAST ACT + + +Before eight of the clock, Mr. Stagg, peering from behind the curtain, +noted with satisfaction that the house was filling rapidly; upon the +stroke of the hour it was crowded to the door, without which might be +heard angry voices contending that there must be yet places for the +buying. The musicians began to play and more candles were lighted. There +were laughter, talk, greetings from one part of the house to another, as +much movement to and fro as could be accomplished in so crowded a space. +The manners of the London playhouses were aped not unsuccessfully. To +compare small things with great, it might have been Drury Lane upon a gala +night. If the building was rude, yet it had no rival in the colonies, and +if the audience was not so gay of hue, impertinent of tongue, or paramount +in fashion as its London counterpart, yet it was composed of the rulers +and makers of a land destined to greatness. + +In the centre box sat his Excellency, William Gooch, Lieutenant-Governor +of Virginia, resplendent in velvet and gold lace, and beside him Colonel +Alexander Spotswood, arrived in town from Germanna that day, with his +heart much set upon the passage, by the Assembly, of an act which would +advantage his iron works. Colonel Byrd of Westover, Colonel Esmond of +Castlewood, Colonel Carter, Colonel Page, and Colonel Ludwell were +likewise of the Governor's party, while seated or standing in the pit, or +mingling with the ladies who made gay the boxes, were other gentlemen of +consequence,--Councilors, Burgesses, owners of vast tracts of land, of +ships and many slaves. Of their number some were traveled men, and some +had fought in England's wars, and some had studied in her universities. +Many were of gentle blood, sprung from worthy and venerable houses in that +green island which with fondness they still called home, and many had made +for themselves name and fortune, hewing their way to honor through a +primeval forest of adversities. Lesser personages were not lacking, but +crowded the gallery and invaded the pit. Old fighters of Indians were +present, and masters of ships trading from the Spanish islands or from the +ports of home. Rude lumbermen from Norfolk or the borders of the Dismal +Swamp stared about them, while here and there showed the sad-colored coat +of a minister, or the broad face of some Walloon from Spotswood's +settlement on the Rapidan, or the keener countenances of Frenchmen from +Monacan-Town. The armorer from the Magazine elbowed a great proprietor +from the Eastern shore, while a famous guide and hunter, long and lean and +brown, described to a magnate of Yorktown a buffalo capture in the far +west, twenty leagues beyond the falls. Masters and scholars from William +and Mary were there, with rangers, traders, sailors ashore, small +planters, merchants, loquacious keepers of ordinaries, and with men, now +free and with a stake in the land, who had come there as indentured +servants, or as convicts, runaways, and fugitives from justice. In the +upper gallery, where no payment was exacted, many servants with a +sprinkling of favorite mulatto or mustee slaves; in the boxes the lustre +and sweep of damask and brocade, light laughter, silvery voices, the +flutter of fans; everywhere the vividness and animation of a strangely +compounded society, where the shadows were deep and the lights were high. + +Nor did the conversation of so motley an assemblage lack a certain +pictorial quality, a somewhat fantastic opulence of reference and +allusion. Of what might its members speak while they waited for the +drawing aside of the piece of baize which hung between them and an +Oriental camp? There was the staple of their wealth, a broad-leafed plant, +the smoke of whose far-spread burning might have wrapped its native fields +in a perpetual haze as of Indian summer; and there was the warfare, +bequeathed from generation to generation, against the standing armies of +the forest, that subtle foe that slept not, retreated not, whose vanguard, +ever falling, ever showed unbroken ranks beyond. Trapper and trader and +ranger might tell of trails through the wilderness vast and hostile, of +canoes upon unknown waters, of beasts of prey, creatures screaming in the +night-time through the ebony woods. Of Indian villages, also, and of red +men who, in the fastnesses that were left them, took and tortured and slew +after strange fashions. The white man, strong as the wind, drove the red +man before his face like an autumn leaf, but he beckoned to the black man, +and the black man came at his call. He came in numbers from a far country, +and the manner of his coming was in chains. What he had to sell was +valuable, but the purchase price came not into his hands. Of him also +mention was made to-night. The master of the tall ship that had brought +him into the James or the York, the dealer to whom he was consigned, the +officer of the Crown who had cried him for sale, the planter who had +bought him, the divine who preached that he was of a race accursed,--all +were there, and all had interest in this merchandise. Others in the throng +talked of ships both great and small, and the quaintness of their names, +the golden flowers and golden women, the swift birds and beasts, the +namesakes of Fortune or of Providence, came pleasantly upon the ear. The +still-vexed Bermoothes, Barbadoes, and all the Indies were spoken of; +ports to the north and ports to the south, pirate craft and sunken +treasure, a flight, a fight, a chase at sea. The men from Norfolk talked +of the great Dismal and its trees of juniper and cypress, the traders of +trading, the masters from William and Mary of the humanities. The greater +men, authoritative and easy, owners of flesh and blood and much land, +holders of many offices and leaders of the people, paid their respects to +horse-racing and cock-fighting, cards and dice; to building, planting, the +genteelest mode of living, and to public affairs both in Virginia and at +home in England. Old friends, with oaths of hearty affection, and from +opposite quarters of the house, addressed each other as Tom, or Ned, or +Dick, while old enemies, finding themselves side by side, exchanged +extremely civil speeches, and so put a keener edge upon their mutual +disgust. In the boxes where glowed the women there was comfit talk, vastly +pretty speeches, asseverations, denials, windy sighs, the politest oaths, +whispering, talk of the play, and, last but not least, of Mr. Haward of +Fair View, and Darden's Audrey. + +Haward, entering the pit, made his way quietly to where a servant was +holding for him a place. The fellow pulled his forelock in response to +his master's nod, then shouldered his way through the press to the +ladder-like stairs that led to the upper gallery. Haward, standing at his +ease, looked about him, recognizing this or that acquaintance with his +slow, fine smile and an inclination of his head. He was much observed, and +presently a lady leaned from her box, smiled, waved her fan, and slightly +beckoned to him. It was young Madam Byrd, and Evelyn sat beside her. + +Five minutes later, as Haward entered the box of the ladies of Westover, +music sounded, the curtain was drawn back, and the play began. Upon the +ruder sort in the audience silence fell at once: they that followed the +sea, and they that followed the woods, and all the simple folk ceased +their noise and gesticulation, and gazed spellbound at the pomp before +them of rude scenery and indifferent actors. But the great ones of the +earth talked on, attending to their own business in the face of Tamerlane +and his victorious force. It was the fashion to do so, and in the play +to-night the first act counted nothing, for Darden's Audrey had naught to +do with it. In the second act, when she entered as Arpasia, the entire +house would fall quiet, staring and holding its breath. + +Haward bent over Madam Byrd's hand; then, as that lady turned from him to +greet Mr. Lee, addressed himself with grave courtesy to Evelyn, clothed in +pale blue, and more lovely even than her wont. For months they had not +met. She had written him one letter,--had written the night of the day +upon which she had encountered Audrey in the Palace walk,--and he had +answered it with a broken line of passionate thanks for unmerited +kindness. Now as he bent over her she caught his wrist lightly with her +hand, and her touch burned him through the lace of his ruffles. With her +other hand she spread her fan; Mr. Lee's shoulder knot also screened them +while Mr. Grymes had engaged its owner's attention, and pretty Madam Byrd +was in animated conversation with the occupants of a neighboring box. "Is +it well?" asked Evelyn, very low. + +Haward's answer was as low, and bravely spoken with his eyes meeting her +clear gaze, and her touch upon his wrist. "For me, Evelyn, it is very +well," he said. "For her--may I live to make it well for her, forever and +a day well for her! She is to be my wife." + +"I am glad," said Evelyn,--"very glad." + +"You are a noble lady," he answered. "Once, long ago, I styled myself your +friend, your equal. Now I know better my place and yours, and as from a +princess I take your alms. For your letter--that letter, Evelyn, which +told me what you thought, which showed me what to do--I humbly thank you." + +She let fall her hand from her silken lap, and watched with unseeing eyes +the mimicry of life upon the stage before them, where Selima knelt to +Tamerlane, and Moneses mourned for Arpasia. Presently she said again, "I +am glad;" and then, when they had kept silence for a while, "You will live +at Fair View?" + +"Ay," he replied. "I will make it well for her here in Virginia." + +"You must let me help you," she said. "So old a friend as I may claim that +as a right. To-morrow I may visit her, may I not? Now we must look at the +players. When she enters there is no need to cry for silence. It comes of +itself, and stays; we watch her with straining eyes. Who is that man in a +cloak, staring at us from the pit? See, with the great peruke and the +scar!" + +Haward, bending, looked over the rail, then drew back with a smile. "A +half-breed trader," he said, "by name Jean Hugon. Something of a +character." + +"He looked strangely at us," said Evelyn, "with how haggard a face! My +scarf, Mr. Lee? Thank you. Madam, have you the right of the matter from +Kitty Page?" + +The conversation became general, and soon, the act approaching its end, +and other gentlemen pressing into the box which held so beautiful a woman, +so great a catch, and so assured a belle as Mistress Evelyn Byrd, Haward +arose and took his leave. To others of the brilliant company assembled in +the playhouse he paid his respects, speaking deferentially to the +Governor, gayly to his fellow Councilors and planters, and bowing low to +many ladies. All this was in the interval between the acts. At the second +parting of the curtain he resumed his former station in the pit. With +intention he had chosen a section of it where were few of his own class. +From the midst of the ruder sort he could watch her more freely, could +exult at his ease in her beauty both of face and mind. + +The curtains parted, and the fiddlers strove for warlike music. Tamerlane, +surrounded by the Tartar host, received his prisoners, and the defiant +rant of Bajazet shook the rafters. All the sound and fury of the stage +could not drown the noise of the audience. Idle talk and laughter, loud +comment upon the players, went on,--went on until there entered Darden's +Audrey, dressed in red silk, with a jeweled circlet like a line of flame +about her dark flowing hair. The noise sank, voices of men and women died +away; for a moment the rustle of silk, the flutter of fans, continued, +then this also ceased. + +She stood before the Sultan, wide-eyed, with a smile of scorn upon her +lips; then spoke in a voice, low, grave, monotonous, charged like a +passing bell with warning and with solemn woe. The house seemed to grow +more still; the playgoers, box and pit and gallery, leaned slightly +forward: whether she spoke or moved or stood in silence, Darden's Audrey, +that had been a thing of naught, now held every eye, was regnant for an +hour in this epitome of the world. The scene went on, and now it was to +Moneses that she spoke. All the bliss and anguish of unhappy love sounded +in her voice, dwelt in her eye and most exquisite smile, hung upon her +every gesture. The curtains closed; from the throng that had watched her +came a sound like a sigh, after which, slowly, tongues were loosened. An +interval of impatient waiting, then the music again and the parting +curtains, and Darden's Audrey,--the girl who could so paint very love, +very sorrow, very death; the girl who had come strangely and by a devious +path from the height and loneliness of the mountains to the level of this +stage and the watching throng. + +At the close of the fourth act of the play, Haward left his station in the +pit, and quietly made his way to the regions behind the curtain, where in +the very circumscribed space that served as greenroom to the Williamsburgh +theatre he found Tamerlane, Bajazet, and their satellites, together with a +number of gentlemen invaders from the front of the house. Mistress Stagg +was there, and Selima, perched upon a table, was laughing with the +aforesaid gentlemen, but no Arpasia. Haward drew the elder woman aside. "I +wish to see her," he said, in a low voice, kindly but imperious. "A moment +only, good woman." + +With her finger at her lips Mistress Stagg glanced about her. "She hides +from them always, she's that strange a child: though indeed, sir, as sweet +a young lady as a prince might wed! This way, sir,--it's dark; make no +noise." + +She led him through a dim passageway, and softly opened a door. "There, +sir, for just five minutes! I'll call her in time." + +The door gave upon the garden, and Audrey sat upon the step in the +moonshine and the stillness. Her hand propped her chin, and her eyes were +raised to the few silver stars. That mock crown which she wore sparkled +palely, and the light lay in the folds of her silken dress. At the opening +of the door she did not turn, thinking that Mistress Stagg stood behind +her. "How bright the moon shines!" she said. "A mockingbird should be +singing, singing! Is it time for Arpasia?" + +As she rose from the step Haward caught her in his arms. "It is I, my +love! Ah, heart's desire! I worship you who gleam in the moonlight, with +your crown like an aureole"-- + +Audrey rested against him, clasping her hands upon his shoulder. "There +were nights like this," she said dreamily. "If I were a little child +again, you could lift me in your arms and carry me home, I am tired ... I +would that I needed not to go back to the glare and noise. The moon shines +so bright! I have been thinking"-- + +He bent his head and kissed her twice. "Poor Arpasia! Poor tired child! +Soon we shall go home, Audrey,--we two, my love, we two!" + +"I have been thinking, sitting here in the moonlight," she went on, her +hands clasped upon his shoulder, and her cheek resting on them. "I was so +ignorant. I never dreamed that I could wrong her ... and when I awoke it +was too late. And now I love you,--not the dream, but you. I know not what +is right or wrong; I know only that I love. I think she +understands--forgives. I love you so!" Her hands parted, and she stood +from him with her face raised to the balm of the night. "I love you so," +she repeated, and the low cadence of her laugh broke the silver stillness +of the garden. "The moon up there, she knows it. And the stars,--not one +has fallen to-night! Smell the flowers. Wait, I will pluck you hyacinths." + +They grew by the doorstep, and she broke the slender stalks and gave them +into his hand. But when he had kissed them he would give them back, would +fasten them himself in the folds of silk, that rose and fell with her +quickened breathing. He fastened them with a brooch which he took from the +Mechlin at his throat. It was the golden horseshoe, the token that he had +journeyed to the Endless Mountains. + +"Now I must go," said Audrey. "They are calling for Arpasia. Follow me not +at once. Good-night, good-night! Ah, I love you so! Remember always that I +love you so!" + +She was gone. In a few minutes he also reentered the playhouse, and went +to his former place where, with none of his kind about him, he might watch +her undisturbed. As he made his way with some difficulty through the +throng, he was aware that he brushed against a man in a great peruke, who, +despite the heat of the house, was wrapped in an old roquelaure tawdrily +laced; also that the man was keeping stealthy pace with him, and that when +he at last reached his station the cloaked figure fell into place +immediately behind him. + +Haward shrugged his shoulders, but would not turn his head, and thereby +grant recognition to Jean Hugon, the trader. Did he so, the half-breed +might break into speech, provoke a quarrel, make God knew what assertion, +what disturbance. To-morrow steps should be taken--Ah, the curtain! + +The silence deepened, and men and women leaned forward holding their +breath. Darden's Audrey, robed and crowned as Arpasia, sat alone in the +Sultan's tent, staring before her with wide dark eyes, then slowly rising +began to speak. A sound, a sigh as of wonder, ran from the one to the +other of the throng that watched her. Why did she look thus, with +contracted brows, toward one quarter of the house? What inarticulate words +was she uttering? What gesture, quickly controlled, did she make of +ghastly fear and warning? And now the familiar words came halting from her +lips:-- + + "'Sure 'tis a horror, more than darkness brings, + That sits upon the night!'" + +With the closing words of her speech the audience burst into a great storm +of applause. 'Gad! how she acts! But what now? Why, what is this? + +It was quite in nature and the mode for an actress to pause in the middle +of a scene to curtsy thanks for generous applause, to smile and throw a +mocking kiss to pit and boxes, but Darden's Audrey had hitherto not +followed the fashion. Also it was not uncustomary for some spoiled +favorite of a player to trip down, between her scenes, the step or two +from the stage to the pit, and mingle with the gallants there, laugh, +jest, accept languishing glances, audacious comparisons, and such weighty +trifles as gilt snuffboxes and rings of price. But this player had not +heretofore honored the custom; moreover, at present she was needed upon +the stage. Bajazet must thunder and she defy; without her the play could +not move, and indeed the actors were now staring with the audience. What +was it? Why had she crossed the stage, and, slowly, smilingly, beautiful +and stately in her gleaming robes, descended those few steps which led to +the pit? What had she to do there, throwing smiling glances to right and +left, lightly waving the folk, gentle and simple, from her path, pressing +steadily onward to some unguessed-at goal. As though held by a spell they +watched her, one and all,--Haward, Evelyn, the Governor, the man in the +cloak, every soul in that motley assemblage. The wonder had not time to +dull, for the moments were few between her final leave-taking of those +boards which she had trodden supreme and the crashing and terrible chord +which was to close the entertainment of this night. + +Her face was raised to the boxes, and it seemed as though her dark eyes +sought one there. Then, suddenly, she swerved. There were men between her +and Haward. She raised her hand, and they fell back, making for her a +path. Haward, bewildered, started forward, but her cry was not to him. It +was to the figure just behind him,--the cloaked figure whose hand grasped +the hunting-knife which from the stage, as she had looked to where stood +her lover, she had seen or divined. "Jean! Jean Hugon!" she cried. + +Involuntarily the trader pushed toward her, past the man whom he meant to +stab to the heart. The action, dragging his cloak aside, showed the +half-raised arm and the gleaming steel. For many minutes the knife had +been ready. The play was nearly over, and she must see this man who had +stolen her heart, this Haward of Fair View, die. Else Jean Hugon's +vengeance were not complete. For his own safety the maddened half-breed +had ceased to care. No warning cried from the stage could have done aught +but precipitate the deed, but now for the moment, amazed and doubtful, he +turned his back upon his prey. + +In that moment the Audrey of the woods, a creature lithe and agile and +strong of wrist as of will, had thrown herself upon him, clutching the +hand that held the knife. He strove to dash her from him, but in vain; the +house was in an uproar; and now Haward's hands were at his throat, +Haward's voice was crying to that fair devil, that Audrey for whom he had +built his house, who was balking him of revenge, whose body was between +him and his enemy! Suddenly he was all savage; as upon a night in Fair +View house he had cast off the trammels of his white blood, so now. An +access of furious strength came to him; he shook himself free; the knife +gleamed in the air, descended.... He drew it from the bosom into which he +had plunged it, and as Haward caught her in his arms, who would else have +sunk to the floor, the half-breed burst through the horror-stricken +throng, brandishing the red blade and loudly speaking in the tongue of the +Monacans. Like a whirlwind he was gone from the house, and for a time none +thought to follow him. + +[Illustration: "JEAN! JEAN HUGON!"] + +They bore her into the small white house, and up the stair to her own +room, and laid her upon the bed. Dr. Contesse came and went away, and came +again. There was a crowd in Palace Street before the theatre. A man +mounting the doorstep so that he might be heard of all, said clearly, "She +may live until dawn,--no longer." Later, one came out of the house and +asked that there might be quiet. The crowd melted away, but throughout the +mild night, filled with the soft airs and thousand odors of the spring, +people stayed about the place, standing silent in the street or sitting on +the garden benches. + +In the room upstairs lay Darden's Audrey, with crossed hands and head put +slightly back. She lay still, upon the edge of death, nor seemed to care +that it was so. Her eyes were closed, and at intervals one sitting at the +bed head laid touch upon her pulse, or held before her lips a slight +ringlet of her hair. Mary Stagg sat by the window and wept, but Haward, +kneeling, hid his face in the covering of the bed. The form upon it was +not more still than he; Mistress Stagg, also, stifled her sobs, for it +seemed not a place for loud grief. + +In the room below, amidst the tinsel frippery of small wares, waited +others whose lives had touched the life that was ebbing away. Now and then +one spoke in a hushed voice, a window was raised, a servant bringing in +fresh candles trod too heavily; then the quiet closed in again. Late in +the night came through the open windows a distant clamor, and presently a +man ran down Palace Street, and as he ran called aloud some tidings. +MacLean, standing near the door, went softly out. When he returned, +Colonel Byrd, sitting at the table, lifted inquiring brows. "They took +him in the reeds near the Capitol landing," said the Highlander grimly. +"He's in the gaol now, but whether the people will leave him there"-- + +The night wore on, grew old, passed into the cold melancholy of its latest +hour. Darden's Audrey sighed and stirred, and a little strength coming to +her parting spirit, she opened her eyes and loosed her hands. The +physician held to her lips the cordial, and she drank a very little. +Haward lifted his head, and as Contesse passed him to set down the cup, +caught him by the sleeve. The other looked pityingly at the man into whose +face had come a flush of hope. "'T is but the last flickering of the +flame," he said. "Soon even the spark will vanish." + +Audrey began to speak. At first her words were wild and wandering, but, +the mist lifting somewhat, she presently knew Mistress Stagg, and liked to +have her take the doctor's place beside her. At Haward she looked +doubtfully, with wide eyes, as scarce understanding. When he called her +name she faintly shook her head, then turned it slightly from him and +veiled her eyes. It came to him with a terrible pang that the memory of +their latest meetings was wiped from her brain, and that she was afraid of +his broken words and the tears upon her hand. + +When she spoke again it was to ask for the minister. He was below, and +Mistress Stagg went weeping down the stairs to summon him. He came, but +would not touch the girl; only stood, with his hat in his hand, and looked +down upon her with bleared eyes and a heavy countenance. + +"I am to die, am I not?" she asked, with her gaze upon him. + +"That is as God wills, Audrey," he answered. + +"I am not afraid to die." + +"You have no need," he said, and going out of the room and down the +stairs, made Stagg pour for him a glass of aqua vitae. + +Audrey closed her eyes, and when she opened them again there seemed to be +many persons in the room. One was bending over her whom at first she +thought was Molly, but soon she saw more clearly, and smiled at the pale +and sorrowful face. The lady bent lower yet, and kissed her on the +forehead. "Audrey," she said, and Audrey looking up at her answered, +"Evelyn." + +When the dawn came glimmering in the windows, when the mist was cold and +the birds were faintly heard, they raised her upon her pillows, and wiped +the death dew from her forehead. "Audrey, Audrey, Audrey!" cried Haward, +and caught at her hands. + +She looked at him with a faint and doubtful smile, remembering nothing of +that hour in the room below, of those minutes in the moonlit garden. +"Gather the rosebuds while ye may," she said; and then, "The house is +large. Good giant, eat me not!" + +The man upon his knees beside her uttered a cry, and began to speak to +her, thickly, rapidly, words of agony, entreaty, and love. To-morrow and +for all life habit would resume its sway, and lost love, remorse, and vain +regrets put on a mask that was cold and fine and able to deceive. To-night +there spoke the awakened heart. With her hands cold in his, with his +agonized gaze upon the face from which the light was slowly passing, he +poured forth his passion and his anguish, and she listened not. They +moistened her lips, and one opened wide the window that gave upon the +east. "It was all a dream," she said; and again, "All a dream." A little +later, while the sky flushed slowly and the light of the candles grew +pale, she began suddenly, and in a stronger voice, to speak as Arpasia:-- + + "'If it be happiness, alas! to die, + To lie forgotten in the silent grave'"-- + +"Forgotten!" cried Haward. "Audrey, Audrey, Audrey! Go not from me! Oh, +love, love, stay awhile!" + +"The mountains," said Audrey clearly. "The sun upon them and the lifting +mist." + +"The mountains!" he cried. "Ay, we will go to them, Audrey, we will go +together! Why, you are stronger, sweetheart! There is strength in your +voice and your hands, and a light in your eyes. Oh, if you will live, +Audrey, I will make you happy! You shall take me to the mountains--we will +go together, you and I! Audrey, Audrey"-- + +But Audrey was gone already. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Audrey, by Mary Johnston + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUDREY *** + +***** This file should be named 14513.txt or 14513.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/5/1/14513/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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