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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/2316.txt b/2316.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7fcd5b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/2316.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7016 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext The Choir Invisible, by James Lane Allen + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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Farley. +Project Gutenburg/Make A Difference Day Project 1999. + + + + + +THE CHOIR INVISIBLE + +by James Lane Allen + + + + +"O may I join the choir invisible +Of those immortal dead who live again +In minds made better by their presence. . . +. . . feed pure love, +Beget the smiles that have no cruelty, +Be the sweet presence of a good diffused +And in diffusion evermore intense. +So shall I join the choir invisible +Whose music is the gladness of the world." + +GEORGE ELIOT + +THE middle of a fragrant afternoon of May in the green wilderness of +Kentucky: the year 1795. + +High overhead ridges of many-peaked cloud--the gleaming, wandering Alps of +the blue ether; outstretched far below, the warming bosom of the earth, +throbbing with the hope of maternity. Two spirits abroad in the air, +encountering each other and passing into one: the spirit of scentless spring +left by melting snows and the spirit of scented summer born with the +earliest buds. The road through the forest one of those wagon-tracks that +were being opened from the clearings of the settlers, and that wound along +beneath trees of which those now seen in Kentucky are the unworthy +survivors--oaks and walnuts, maples and elms, centuries old, gnarled, +massive, drooping, majestic, through whose arches the sun hurled down only +some solitary spear of gold, and over whose gray-mossed roots some cold +brook crept in silence; with here and there billowy open spaces of wild rye, +buffalo grass, and clover on which the light fell in sheets of radiance; +with other spots so dim that for ages no shoot had sprung from the deep +black mould; blown to and fro across this wagon-road, odours of ivy, +pennyroyal and mint, mingled with the fragrance of the wild grape; flitting +to and fro across it, as low as the violet-beds, as high as the sycamores, +unnumbered kinds of birds, some of which like the paroquet are long since +vanished. + +Down it now there came in a drowsy amble an old white bob-tail horse, his +polished coat shining like silver when he crossed an expanse of sunlight, +fading into spectral paleness when he passed under the rayless trees; his +foretop floating like a snowy plume in the light wind, his unshod feet, +half-covered by the fetlocks, stepping noiselessly over the loamy earth; the +rims of his nostrils expanding like flexible ebony; and in his eyes that +look of peace which is never seen but in those of petted animals. + +He had on an old bridle with knots of blue violets hanging, down at his +ears; over his broad back was spread a blanket of buffalo-skin; on this +rested a worn black side-saddle, and sitting in the saddle was a girl, whom +every young man of the town not far away knew to be Amy Falconer, and whom +many an old pioneer dreamed of when he fell asleep beside his rifle and his +hunting-knife in his lonely cabin of the wilderness. She was perhaps the +first beautiful girl of aristocratic birth ever seen in Kentucky, and the +first of the famous train of those who for a hundred years since have +wrecked or saved the lives of the men. + +Her pink calico dress, newly starched and ironed, had looked so pretty to +her when she had started from home, that she had not been able to bear the +thought of wearing over it this lovely afternoon her faded, mud-stained +riding-skirt; and it was so short that it showed, resting against the +saddle-skirt, her little feet loosely fitted into new bronze morocco shoes. +On her hands she had drawn white half-hand mittens of home-knit; and on her +head she wore an enormous white scoop-bonnet, lined with pink and tied under +her chin in a huge muslin bow. Her face, hidden away under the +pink-and-white shadow, showed such hints of pearl and rose that it seemed +carved from the inner surface of a sea-shell. Her eyes were gray, almond +shaped, rather wide apart, with an expression changeful and playful, but +withal rather shrewd and hard; her light brown hair, as fine as unspun silk, +was parted over her brow and drawn simply back behind her ears; and the lips +of her little mouth curved against each other, fresh, velvet-like, smiling. + +On she rode down the avenue of the primeval woods; and Nature seemed +arranged to salute her as some imperial presence; with the waving of a +hundred green boughs above on each side; with a hundred floating odours; +with the swift play of nimble forms up and down the boles of trees; and all +the sweet confusion of innumerable melodies. + +Then one of those trifles happened that contain the history of our lives, as +a drop of dew draws into itself the majesty and solemnity of the heavens. + +>From the pommel of the side-saddle there dangled a heavy roll of home-spun +linen, which she was taking to town to her aunt's merchant as barter for +queen's-ware pitchers; and behind this roll of linen, fastened to a ring +under the seat of the saddle, was swung a bundle tied up in a large +blue-and-white checked cotton neckkerchief. Whenever she fidgeted in the +saddle, or whenever the horse stumbled as he often did because he was clumsy +and because the road was obstructed by stumps and roots, the string by which +this bundle was tied slipped a little through the lossening knot and the +bundle hung a little lower down. Just where the wagon-trail passed out into +the broader public road leading from Lexington to Frankfort and the +travelling began to be really good, the horse caught one of his forefeet +against the loop of a root, was thrown violently forward, and the bundle +slipped noiselessly from the saddle to the earth. + +She did not see it. She indignantly gathered the reins more tightly in her +hand, pushed back her bonnet, which now hung down over her eyes like the +bill of a pelican, and applied her little switch of wild cherry to the +horse's flank with such vehemence that a fly which was about to alight on +that spot went to the other side. The old horse himself--he bore the +peaceable name of William Penn--merely gave one of the comforting switches +of his bob-tail with which he brushed away the thought of any small +annoyance, and stopped a moment to nibble at the wayside cane mixed with +purple blossoming peavine. + +Out of the lengthening shadows of the woods the girl and the horse passed on +toward the little town; and far behind them in the public road lay the lost +bundle. + +II + +IN the open square on Cheapside in Lexington there is now a bronze statue of +John Breckinridge. Not far from where it stands the pioneers a hundred years +ago had built the first log school-house of the town. + +Poor old school-house, long since become scattered ashes! Poor little +backwoods academicians, driven in about sunrise, driven out toward dusk! +Poor little tired backs with nothing to lean against! Poor little bare feet +that could never reach the floor! Poor little droop-headed figures, so +sleepy in the long summer days, so afraid to fall asleep! Long, long since, +little children of the past, your backs have become straight enough, +measured on the same cool bed; sooner or later your feet, wherever +wandering, have found their resting-places in the soft earth; and all your +drooping heads have gone to sleep on the same dreamless pillow and there are +sleeping. And the young schoolmaster, who seemed exempt from frailty while +he guarded like a sentinel that lone outpost of the alphabet--he too has +long since joined the choir invisible of the immortal dead. But there is +something left of him though more than a century has passed away: something +that has wandered far down the course of time to us like the faint summer +fragrance of a young tree long since fallen dead in its wintered +forest--like a dim radiance yet travelling onward into space from an orb +turned black and cold--like an old melody, surviving on and on in the air +without any instrument, without any strings. + +John Gray, the school-master. At four o'clock that afternoon and therefore +earlier than usual, he was standing on the hickory block which formed the +doorstep of the school-house, having just closed the door behind him for the +day. Down at his side, between the thumb and forefinger of one hand, hung +his big black hat, which was decorated with a tricoloured cockade, to show +that he was a member of the Democratic Society of Lexington, modelled after +the Democratic Society of Philadelphia and the Jacobin clubs of France. In +the open palm of the other lay his big silver English lever watch with a +glass case and broad black silk fob. + +A young fellow of powerful build, lean, muscular; wearing simply but with +gentlemanly care a suit of black, which was relieved around his wrists and +neck by linen, snow-white and of the finest quality. In contrast with his +dress, a complexion fresh, pure, brilliant--the complexion of health and +innocence; in contrast with this complexion from above a mass of coarse +dark-red hair, cut short and loosely curling. Much physical beauty in the +head, the shape being noble, the pose full of dignity and of strength; +almost no beauty in the face itself except in the gray eyes which were +sincere, modest, grave. Yet a face not without moral loftiness and +intellectual power; rugged as a rock, but as a rock is made less rugged by a +little vine creeping over it, so his was softened by a fine network of +nerves that wrought out upon it a look of kindness; betraying the first +nature of passion, but disciplined to the higher nature of control; +youthful, but wearing those unmistakable marks of maturity which mean a +fierce early struggle against the rougher forces of the world. On the whole, +with the calm, self respecting air of one who, having thus far won in the +battle of life, has a fiercer longing for larger conflict, and whose entire +character rests on the noiseless conviction that he is a man and a +gentleman. + +Deeper insight would have been needed to discover how true and earnest a +soul he was; how high a value he set on what the future had in store for him +and on what his life would be worth to himself and to others; and how, +liking rather to help himself than to be helped, he liked less to be trifled +with and least of all to be seriously thwarted. + +He was thinking, as his eyes rested on the watch, that if this were one of +his ordinary days he would pursue his ordinary duties; he would go up street +to the office of Marshall and for the next hour read as many pages of law as +possible; then get his supper at his favourite tavern--the Sign of the +Spinning, Wheel--near the two locust trees; then walk out into the country +for an hour or more; then back to his room and more law until midnight by +the light of his tallow dip. + +But this was not an ordinary day--being one that he had long waited for and +was destined never to forget. At dusk the evening before, the post-rider, so +tired that he had scarce strength of wind to blow his horn, had ridden into +town bringing the mail from Philadelphia; and in this mail there was great +news for him. It had kept him awake nearly all of the night before; it had +been uppermost in his mind the entire day in school. At the thought of it +now he thrust his watch into his pocket, pulled his hat resolutely over his +brow, and started toward Main Street, meaning to turn thence toward Cross +Street, now known as Broadway. On the outskirts of the town in that +direction lay the wilderness, undulating away for hundreds of miles like a +vast green robe with scarce a rift of human making. + +He failed to urge his way through the throng as speedily as he may have +expected, being withheld at moments by passing acquaintances, and at others +pausing of his own choice to watch some spectacle of the street. + +The feeling lay fresh upon him this afternoon that not many years back the +spot over which the town was spread had been but a hidden glade in the heart +of the beautiful, awful wilderness, with a bountiful spring bubbling up out +of the turf, and a stream winding away through the green, valley-bottom to +the bright, shady Elkhorn: a glade that for ages had been thronged by +stately-headed elk and heavy-headed bison, and therefore sought also by +unreckoned generations of soft-footed, hard eyed red hunters. Then had come +the beginning of the end when one summer day, toward sunset, a few tired, +rugged backwoodsmen of the Anglo-Saxon race, wandering fearless and far into +the wilderness from the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge and the +Alleghanies, had made their camp by the margin of the spring; and always +afterwards, whether by day or by night, they had dreamed of this as the land +they must conquer for their homes. Now they had conquered it already; and +now this was the town that had been built there, with its wide streets under +big trees of the primeval woods; with a long stretch of turf on one side of +the stream for a town common; with inns and taverns in the style of those of +country England or of Virginia in the reign of George the Third; with shops +displaying the costliest merchandise of Philadelphia; with rude dwellings of +logs now giving way to others of frame and of brick; and, stretching away +from the town toward the encompassing wilderness, orderly gardens and +orchards now pink with the blossom of the peach, and fields of young maize +and wheat and flax and hemp. + +As the mighty stream of migration of the Anglo-Saxon race had burst through +the jagged channels of the Alleghanies and rushed onward to the unknown, +illimitable West, it was this little town that had received one of the main +streams, whence it flowed more gently dispersed over the rich lands of the +newly created State, or passed on to the Ohio and the southern fringes of +the Lakes. It was this that received also a vast return current of the +fearful, the disappointed, the weak, as they recoiled from the awful +frontier of backwood life and resought the peaceful Atlantic seaboard--one +of the defeated Anglo-Saxon armies of civilization. + +These two far-clashing tides of the aroused, migrating race--the one flowing +westward, the other ebbing eastward--John Gray found himself noting with +deep interest as he moved through the town that afternoon a hundred years +ago; and not less keenly the unlike groups and characters thrown +dramatically together upon this crowded stage of border history. + +At one point his attention was arrested by the tearful voices of women and +the weeping of little children: a company of travellers with +pack-horses--one of the caravans across the desert of the Western woods--was +moving off to return by the Wilderness Road to the old abandoned homes in +Virginia and North Carolina. Farther on, his passage was blocked by a joyous +crowd that had gathered about another caravan newly arrived--not one +traveller having perished on the way. Seated on the roots of an oak were a +group of young backwoodsmen--swarthy, lean, tall, wild and reckless of +bearing--their long rifles propped against the tree or held fondly across +the knees; the gray smoke of their pipes mingling with the gray of their +jauntily worn raccoon-skin caps; the rifts of yellow sunlight blending with +the yellow of their huntingshirts and tunics; their knives and powder-horns +fastened in the belts that girt in their gaunt waists: the heroic youthful +sinew of the old border folk. One among them, larger and handsomer than the +others, had pleased his fancy by donning more nearly the Indian dress. His +breech-clout was of dappled fawn-skin; his long thigh boots of thin +deer-hide were open at the hips, leaving exposed the clear whiteness of his +flesh; below the knees they were ornamented by a scarlet fringe tipped with +the hoofs of fawns and the spurs of the wild turkey; and in his cap he wore +the intertwined wings of the hawk and the scarlet tanager. + +Under another tree in front of a tavern bearing the sign of the Virginia +arms, a group of students of William and Mary, the new aristocrats of the +West, were singing, gambling, drinking; while at intervals one of them, who +had lying open before him a copy of Tom Paine's "Age of Reason," pounded on +the table and apostrophied the liberties of Man. Once Gray paused beside a +tall pole that had been planted at a street corner and surmounted with a +liberty cap. Two young men, each wearing the tricolour cockade as he did, +were standing, there engaged in secret conversation. As he joined them, +three other young men--Federalists--sauntered past, wearing black cockades, +with an eagle button on the left side. The six men saluted coolly. + +Many another group and solitary figure he saw to remind him of the turbulent +history of the time and place. A parson, who had been the calmest of Indian +fighters, had lost all self-control as he contended out in the road with +another parson for the use of Dr. Watts' hymns instead of the Psalms of +David. Near by, listening to them, and with a wondering eye on all he saw in +the street, stood a French priest of Bordeaux, an exile from the fury of the +avenging jacobins. There were brown flatboatmen, in weather-beaten felt +hats, just returned by the long overland trip from New Orleans and +discussing with tobacco merchants the open navigation of the Mississippi; +and as they talked, up to them hurried the inventor Edward West, who said +with excitement that if they would but step across the common to the town +branch, he would demonstrate by his own model that some day navigation would +be by steam: whereat they all laughed kindly at him for a dreamer, and went +to laugh at the action of his mimic boat, moving hither and thither over the +dammed water of the stream. Sitting on a stump apart from every one, his dog +at his feet, his rifle across his lap, an aged backwoodsman surveyed in +sorrow the civilization that had already destroyed his hunting and that was +about sending him farther west to the depths of Missouri--along with the +buffalo. His glance fell with disgust upon two old gentlemen in +knee-breeches who met and offered each other their snuff-boxes, with a deep +bow. He looked much more kindly at a crave, proud Chickasaw hunter, who +strode by with inward grief and shame, wounded by the robbery of his people. +Puritans from New England; cavaliers from Virginia; Scotch-Irish from +Pennsylvania; mild-eyed trappers and bargemen from the French hamlets of +Kaskaskia and Cahokia; wood-choppers; scouts; surveyors; swaggering +adventurers; land-lawyers; colonial burgesses,--all these mingled and +jostled, plotted and bartered, in the shops, in the streets, under the +trees. + +And everywhere soldiers and officers of the Revolution--come West with their +families to search for homes, or to take possession of the grants made them +by the Government. In the course of a short walk John Gray passed men who +had been wounded in the battle of Point Pleasant; men who had waded behind +Clark through the freezing marshes of the Illinois to the storming of +Vincennes; men who had charged through flame and smoke up the side of King's +Mountain against Ferguson's Carolina loyalists; men who with chilled ardour +had let themselves be led into the massacre of the Wabash by blundering St. +Clair; men who with wild thrilling pulses had rushed to victory behind mad +Antony Wayne. + +And the women! Some--the terrible lioness-mothers of the Western jungles who +had been used like men to fight with rifle, knife, and axe--now sat silent +in the doorways of their rough cabins, wrinkled, scarred, fierce, silent, +scornful of all advancing luxury and refinement. Flitting gaily past them, +on their way to the dry goods stores--supplied by trains of pack-horses from +over the Alleghanies, or by pack-horse and boat down the Ohio--hurried the +wives of the officers, daintily choosing satins and ribands for a coming +ball. All this and more he noted as he passed lingeringly on. The deep +vibrations of history swept through him, arousing him as the marshalling +storm cloud, the rush of winds, and sunlight flickering into gloom kindle +the sense of the high, the mighty, the sublime. + +As he was crossing the common, a number of young fellows stripped and girt +for racing--for speed greater than an Indian's saved many a life in those +days, and running was part of the regular training of the young--bounded up +to him like deer, giving a challenge: he too was very swift. But he named +another day, impatient of the many interruptions that had already delayed +him, and with long, rapid strides he had soon passed beyond the last fields +and ranges of the town. Then he slackened his pace. Before him, a living +wall, rose the edge of the wilderness. Noting the position of the sun and +searching for a point of least resistance, he plunged in. + +Soon he had to make his way through a thicket of cane some twelve feet high; +then through a jungle of wild rye, buffalo grass and briars; beyond which he +struck a narrow deertrace and followed that in its westward winding through +thinner undergrowth under the dark trees. + +He was unarmed. He did not even wear a knife. But the thought rose in his +mind of how rapidly the forest also was changing its character. The Indians +were gone. Two years had passed since they had for the last time flecked the +tender green with tender blood. And the deadly wild creatures--the native +people of earth and tree--they likewise had fled from the slaughter and +starvation of their kind. A little while back and a maddened buffalo or a +wounded elk might have trodden him down and gored him to death in that +thicket and no one have ever learned his fate--as happened to many a +solitary hunter. He could not feel sure that hiding in the leaves of the +branches against which his hat sometimes brushed there did not lie the +panther, the hungrier for the fawns that had been driven from the near +coverts. A swift lowering of its head, a tense noiseless spring, its fangs +buried in his neck,--with no knife the contest would not have gone well with +him. But of deadly big game he saw no sign that day. Once from a distant +brake he was surprised to hear the gobble of the wild turkey; and more +surprised still--and delighted--when the trail led to a twilight gloom and +coolness, and at the green margin of a little spring he saw a stag drinking. +It turned its terrified eyes upon him for an instant and then bounded away +like a gray shadow. + +When he had gone about two miles, keeping his face steadily toward the sun, +he came upon evidences of a clearing: burnt and fallen timber; a field of +sprouting maize; another of young wheat; a peach orchard flushing all the +green around with its clouds of pink; beyond this a garden of vegetables; +and yet farther on, a log house. + +He was hurrying on toward the house; but as he passed the garden he saw +standing in one corner, with a rake in her hand, a beautifully formed woman +in homespun, and near by a negro lad dropping garden-seed. His eyes lighted +up with pleasure; and changing his course at once, he approached and leaned +on the picket fence. + +"How do you do, Mrs. Falconer?" + +She turned with a cry, dropping her rake and pushing her sun-bonnet back +from her eyes. + +"How unkind to frighten me!" she said, laughing as she recognized him; and +then she came over to the fence and gave him her hand--beautiful, but +hardened by work. A faint colour had spread over her face. + +"I didn't mean to frighten you," he replied, smiling at her fondly. "But I +had rapped on the fence twice. I suppose you took me for a flicker. Or you +were too busy with your gardening to hear me. Or, may be you were too deep +in your own thoughts." + +"How do you happen to be out of school so early?" she asked, avoiding the +subject. + +"I was through with the lessons." + +"You must have hurried." + +"I did." + +"And is that the way you treat people's children?" + +"That's the way I treated them to-day." + +"And then you came straight out here?" + +"As straight and fast as my legs could carry me--with a good many +interruptions." + +She searched his face eagerly for a moment. Then her eyes fell and she +turned back to the seed-planting. He stood leaning over the fence with his +hat in his hand, glancing impatiently at the house. + +"How can you respect yourself, to stand there idling and see me hard at +work?" she said at length, without looking, at him. + +"But you do the work so well--better than I could! Besides, you are obeying +a Divine law. I have no right to keep you from doing the will of God. I +observe you as one of the daughters of Eve--under the curse of toil." + +"There's no Divine command that I should plant beans. But it is my command +that Amy shall. And this is Amy's work. Aren't you willing to work for her?" +she asked, slowly raising her eyes to his face. + +"I am willing to work for her, but I am not willing to do her work!" he +replied." If the queen sits quietly in the parlour, eating bread and +honey"--and he nodded, protesting, toward the house. + +"The queen's not in the parlour, eating bread and honey. She has gone to +town to stay with Kitty Poythress till after the ball." + +She noted how his expression instantly changed, and how, unconscious of his +own action, he shifted his face back to the direction of the town. + +"Her uncle was to take her in to-morrow," she went on, still watching him, +"but no! she and Kitty must see each other to-night; and her uncle must be +sure to bring her party finery in the gig to-morrow. I'm sorry you had your +walk for nothing; but you'll stay to supper?" + +"Thank you; I must go back presently." + +"Didn't you expect to stay when you came?" + + He flushed and laughed in confusion. + +"If you'll stay, I'll make you a johnny-cake on a new ash shingle with my +own hands." + +"Thank you, I really must go back. But if there's a johnny-cake already +made, I could easily take it along." + +"My johnny-cakes do not bear transportation." + +"I wouldn't transport it far, you know." + +"Do stay! Major Falconer will be so disappointed. He said at dinner there +were so many things he wanted to talk to you about. He has been looking for +you to come out. And, then, we have had no news for weeks. The major has +been too busy to go to town; and I!--I am as dry as one of the gourds of +Confucius." + +His thoughts settled contentedly upon her once more and his face cleared. + +"I can't stay to supper, but I'll keep the Indians away till the major +comes," he said. "What were you thinking of when I surprised you?" + +"What was I thinking of?" She stopped working while she repeated his words +and folded her hands about the handle of the rake as if to rest awhile. A +band of her soft, shining hair, loosened by its own weight when she had bent +over to thin some seed carelessly scattered in the furrow, now fell across +her forehead. She pushed her bonnet back and stood gathering it a little +absently into its place with the tips of her fingers. Meanwhile he could see +that her eyes rested upon the edge of the wilderness. It seemed to him that +she must be thinking of that; and he noted with pain, as often before, the +contrast between her and her surroundings. From every direction the forest +appeared to be rushing in upon that perilous little reef of a clearing--that +unsheltered island of human life, newly displaying itself amid the ancient, +blood-flecked, horror-haunted sea of woods. And shipwrecked on this island, +tossed to it by one of the long tidal waves of history, there to remain in +exile from the manners, the refinement, the ease, the society to which she +had always been accustomed, this remarkable gentlewoman. + +III + +HE had learned a great deal about her past, and held it mirrored in his +memory. The general picture of it rose before his eyes now, as he leaned on +the fence this pleasant afternoon in May and watched her restoring to its +place, with delicate strokes of her finger-tips, the lock of her soft, +shining hair.How could any one so fine have thriven amid conditions so +exhausting? Those hard toiling fingers, now grasping the heavy hoe, once +used to tinkle over the spinet; the small, sensitive feet, now covered with +coarse shoe-packs tied with leather thongs, once shone in rainbow hues of +satin slippers and silken hose. A sunbonnet for the tiara of osprey plumes; +a dress spun and woven by her own hand out of her own flax, instead of the +stiff brocade; log hut for manor-house; one negro boy instead of troops of +servants: to have possessed all that, to have been brought down to all this, +and not to have been ruined by it, never to have lost distinction or been +coarsened by coarseness never to have parted with grace of manner or grace +of spirit, or been bent or broken or overclouded in character and +ideals,--it was all this that made her in his eyes a great woman, a great +lady. + +He held her in such reverence that, as he caught the serious look in her +eyes at his impulsive question, he was sorry he had asked it: the last thing +he could ever have thought of doing would have been to intrude upon the +privacy of her reflections. +"What was I thinking of?" + +There was a short silence and then she turned to him eagerly, brightly, with +an entire change of voice and expression-- +"But the news from town--you haven't told me the news." +"Oh, there is any amount of news!" he cried, glad of a chance to retreat +from his intrusion. And he began lightly, recklessly: +"A bookbinder has opened a shop on Cross Street--a capital hand at the +business, by the name of Leischman--and he will bind books at the regular +market prices in exchange for linen rags, maple sugar, and goose-quills. I +advise you to keep an eye on your geese, if the major once takes a notion to +have his old Shakespeare and his other volumes, that had their bindings +knocked off in crossing the Alleghanies, elegantly rebound. You can tell him +also that after a squirrel-hunt in Bourbon County the farmers counted +scalps, and they numbered five thousand five hundred and eighty-nine; so +that he is not the only one who has trouble with his corn. And then you can +tell him that on the common the other day Nelson Tapp and Willis Tandy had a +fearful fight over a land-suit. Now it was Tandy and Tapp; now it was Tapp +and Tandy; but they went off at last and drowned themselves and the memory +of the suit in a bowl of sagamity.""And there is no news for me, I suppose?" + +"Oh yes! I am happy to inform you that at McIllvain's you can now buy the +finest Dutch and English letter-paper, gilt, embossed, or marbled." + +"That is not very important; I have no correspondents." +"Well, a saddlery has been opened by two fellows from London, England, and +you can now buy Amy a new side-saddle. She needs one." +"Nor is that! The major buys the saddles for the family." +"Well, then, as I came out on Alain Street, I passed some ladies who accused +me of being on my way here, and who impressed it upon me that I must tell +you of the last displays of women-wear: painted and velvet ribbons, I think +they said, and crepe scarfs, and chintzes and nankeens and moreens and +sarcenets, and--oh yes!-some muslinette jackets tamboured with gold and +silver. They said we were becoming civilized--that the town would soon be +as good as Williamsburg, or Annapolis, or Philadelphia for such things. You +see I am like my children: I remember what I don't understand." + +"I understand what I must not remember! Don't tell me of those things," she +added. "They remind me of the past; they make me think of Virginia. I wear +homespun now, and am a Kentuckian.""Well, then, the Indians fired on the +Ohio packet-boat near Three Islands and killed--" + +"Oh!" she said, with pain and terror, "don't tell me of that, either! It +reminds me of the present.""Well, in Holland two thousand cats have been put +into the corn-stores, to check the ravages of rats and mice," he said, +laughing. + +"What is the news from France? Do be serious!" +"In New York some Frenchmen, seeing their flag insulted by Englishmen who +took it down from the liberty-cap, went upstairs to the room of an English +officer named Codd, seized his regimental coat and tore it to pieces." + +"I'm glad of it! It was a very proper action!" +"But, madam, the man Codd was perfectly innocent!" +"No matter! His coat was guilty. They didn't tear him to pieces; they tore +his coat. Are there any new books at the stores?" + +"A great many! I have spent part of the last three days in looking over +them. You can have new copies of your old favourites, Joseph Andrews, or +Roderick Random, or Humphrey Clinker. You can have Goldsmith and Young, and +Chesterfield and Addison. There is Don Quixote and Hudibras, Gulliver and +Hume, Paley and Butler, Hervey and Watts, Lavater and Trenck, Seneca and +Gregory, Nepos and even Aspasia Vindicated--to say nothing of Abelard and +He1oise and Thomas a Kempis. All the Voltaires have been sold, however, and +the Tom Paines went off at a rattling gait. By the way, while on the subject +of books, tell the major that we have raised five hundred dollars toward +buying books for the Transylvania Library, and that as soon as my school is +out I am to go East as a purchasing committee. What particularly interests +me is that I am going to Mount Vernon, to ask a subscription from President +Washington. Think of that! Think of my presenting myself there with my +tricoloured cockade --a Kentucky Jacobin!" +"The President may be so occupied with the plots of you Kentucky jacobins," +she said, "that he will not feel much like supplying you with more +literature." Then she added, looking at him anxiously, " And so you are +going away?" + +"I'm going, and I'm glad I'm going. I have never set eyes on a great man. It +makes my heart beat to think of it. I feel as a young Gaul might who was +going to Rome to ask Caesar for gold with which to overthrow him. Seriously, +it would be a dreadful thing for the country if a treaty should be ratified +with England. There is not a democratic society from Boston to Charleston +that will not feel enraged with the President. You may be sure that every +patriot in Kentucky will be outraged, and that the Governor will denounce it +to the House." + +"There is news from France, then--serious news?""Much, much! The National +Convention has agreed to carry into full effect the treaty of commerce +between the two Republics, and the French and American flags have been +united and suspended in the hall. The Dutch have declared the sovereignty of +the French, and French and Dutch patriots have taken St. Martin's. The +English have declared war against the Dutch and granted letters of marque +and reprisals. There has been a complete change in the Spanish Ministry. +There has been a treaty made between France and the Grand Duke of Tuscany. +The French fleet is in the West Indies and has taken possession of +Guadeloupe. All French emigrants in Switzerland have been ordered to remove +ten leagues from the borders of France. A hundred and fifty thousand +Austrians are hurrying down toward the Rhine, to be reinforced by fifty +thousand more." + +He had run over these items with the rapidity of one who has his eye on the +map of the world, noting, the slightest change in the situation of affairs +that could affect Kentucky; and she listened eagerly like one no less +interested. + +"But the treaty! The treaty! The open navigation of the Mississippi!" she +cried impatiently. +"The last news is that the treaty will certainly be concluded and the open +navigation of the Mississippi assured to us forever. The major will load his +flatboats, drift down to New Orleans, sell those Spanish fops his tobacco +for its weight in gems, buy a mustang to ride home on, and if not robbed and +murdered by the land-pirates on the way, come back to you like an enormous +bumblebee from a clover-field, his thighs literally packed with gold." + +"I am so glad, so glad, so glad!" +He drew from his pockets a roll. +"Here are papers for two months back. And now I've something else to tell +you. That is one of the things I came for" + +As he said this, his manner, hitherto full of humour and vivacity, turned +grave, and his voice, sinking to a lower tone, became charged with +sweetness. It was the voice in which one refined and sincere soul confides +to another refined and sincere soul the secret of some new happiness that +has come to it. + +But noticing the negro lad, who had paused in his work several paces off and +stood watching them, he said to her: + +"May I have a drink?" +She turned to the negro:"Go to the spring-house and bring some water."The +lad moved away, smiling to himself and shaking his head. + +"He has broken all my pitchers," she added. "To-day I had to send my last +roll of linen to town by Amy to buy more queen's-ware. The moss will grow on +the bucket before he gets back." +When the boy was out of hearing, she turned again to him: + +"What is it? Tell me quickly." + +"I have had news from Philadelphia. The case is at last decided in favour of +the heirs, and I come at once into possession of my share. It may be eight +or ten thousand dollars." His voice trembled a little despite himself. + +She took his hands in hers with a warm, close pressure, and tears of joy +sprang to her eyes. +The whole of his bare, bleak life was known to her; its half-starved +beginning; its early merciless buffeting; the upheaval of vast circumstance +in the revolutionary history of the times by which he had again and again +been thrown back upon his own undefended strength; and stealthily following +him from place to place, always closing around him, always seeking to +strangle him, or to poison him in some vital spot, that most silent, subtle +serpent of life--Poverty. Knowing this, and knowing also the man he had +become, she would in secret sometimes liken him to one of those rare unions +of delicacy and hardihood which in the world of wild flowers Nature refuses +to bring forth except from the cranny of a cold rock. Its home is the +battle-field of black roaring tempests; the red lightnings play among its +roots ; all night seamless snow-drifts are woven around its heart; no bee +ever rises to it from the valley below where the green spring is kneeling; +no morning bird ever soars past it with observant song; but in due time, +with unswerving obedience to a law of beauty unfolding from within, it sets +forth its perfect leaves and strains its steadfast face toward the sun. + +These paltry thousands! She realized that they would lift from him the +burden of debts that he had assumed, and give him, without further waiting, +the libertyof his powers and the opportunities of the world."God bless you!" +She said with trembling lips. "It makes me happier than it does you. No one +else in the whole world is as glad as I am."Silence fell upon them. Both +were thinking, but in very different ways--of the changes that would now +take place in his life. + +"Do you know," he said at length, looking into her face with the quietest +smile, that if this lawsuit had gone against me it would have been the first +great defeat of my life? Sorely as I have struggled, I have yet to encounter +that common myth of weak men, an insurmountable barrier. The imperfection of +our lives-- what is it but the imperfection of our planning and doing? +Shattered ideals--what hand shatters them but one's own? I declare to you at +this moment, standing here in the clear light of my own past, that I firmly +believe I shall be what I will, that I shall have what I want, and that I +shall now go on rearing the structure of my life, to the last detail, just +as I have long planned it."She did not answer, but stood looking at him with +a new pity in her eyes. After all, was he so young, so untaught by the +world? Had a little prosperity already puffed him up? +"There will be this difference, of course," he added. "Hitherto I have had +to build slowly; henceforth there will be no delay, now that I am free to +lay hold upon the material. But, my dear friend, I cannot bear to think of +my life as a structure to be successfully reared without settling at once +how it is to be lighted from within. And, therefore, I have come to speak to +you about--the lamp." +As he said this a solemn beauty flashed out upon his face. As though the +outer curtain of his nature had been drawn up, she now gazed into the depths +and confidences. + +Her head dropped quickly on her bosom; and she drew slightly back, as though +to escape pain or danger."You must know how long I have loved Amy," he +continued in a tone of calmness. "I have not spoken sooner, because the +circumstances of my life made it necessary for me to wait; and now I wish to +ask her to become my wife, and I am here to beg your consent first." + +For some time she did not answer. The slip of an elm grew beside the picket +fence, and she stood passing her fingers over the topmost leaves, with her +head lowered so that he could not see her face. At length she said in a +voice he could hardly hear: + +"I have feared for a long time that this would come; but I have never been +able to get ready for it, and I am not ready now." + +Neither spoke for some time longer; only his expression changed, and he +looked over at her with a compassionate, amused gravity, as though he meant +to be very patient with her opposition. On her part, she was thinking--Is it +possible that the first use he will make of his new liberty is to forge the +chain of a new slavery? Is this some weak spot now to be fully revealed in +his character? Is this the drain in the bottom of the lake that will in the +end bring its high, clear level down to mud and stagnant shallows and a +swarm of stinging insects? At last she spoke, but with difficulty:"I have +known for a year that you were interested in Amy. You could not have been +here so much without our seeing that. But let me ask you one question: Have +you ever thought that I wished you to marry her?" +"I have always beheld in you an unmasked enemy," he replied, smiling. + +"Then I can go on," she said. "But I feel as though never in my life have I +done a thing that is as near being familiar and unwomanly. Nevertheless, for +your sake--for hers--for ours--it is my plain, hard duty to ask you whether +you are sure--even if you should have her consent--that my niece is the +woman you ought to marry." And she lifted to him her clear, calm eyes, +prematurely old in the experience of life. + +"I am sure," he answered with the readiness of one who has foreseen the +question. + +The negro boy approached with a bucket of cold crystal water, and he drank a +big gourd full of it gratefully. + +"You can go and kindle the fire in the kitchen," she said to the negro. "It +is nearly time to be getting supper. I will be in by and by." + +"You have been with her so much!" she continued to Gray after another +interval of embarrassment. "And you know, or you ought to know, her +disposition, her tastes, her ways and views of life. Is she the companion +you need now? will always need?" + +"I have been much with her," he replied, taking up her words with humorous +gravity. "But I have never studied her as I have studied law. I have never +cross-examined her for a witness, or prosecuted her as an attorney, or +pronounced sentence on her is a judge. I am her advocate--and I am ready to +defend her now--even to you!" +"John!--""I love her--that is all there is of it!" + +"Suppose you wait a little longer." + +"I have waited too long already from necessity." It was on his lips to add: +"I have gone too far with her; it is too late to retreat;" but he checked +himself. + +"If I should feel, then, that I must withhold my consent?" + +He grew serious, and after the silence of a few moments, he said with great +respect:"I should be sorry; but--" and then he forbore. + +"If Major Falconer should withhold his?" +He shook his head, and set his lips, turning his face away through courtesy. +"It would make no difference! Nothing would make any difference!" and then +another silence followed. +"I suppose all this would be considered the proof that you loved her," she +began at length, despairingly, "but even love is not enough to begin with; +much less is it enough to live by." + +"You don't appreciate her! You don't do her justice!" he cried rudely. "But +perhaps no woman can ever understand why a man loves any other woman!" +"I am not thinking of why you love my niece," she replied, with a curl of +pride in her nostril and a flash of anger in her eyes. "I am thinking of why +you will cease to love her, and why you will both be unhappy if you marry +her. It is not my duty to analyze your affections; it is my duty to take +care of her welfare.""My dear friend," he cried, his face aglow with +impatient enthusiasm --"my dear friend" and he suddenly lifted her hand to +his lips, "I have but one anxiety in the whole matter: will you cease to be +my friend if I act in opposition to your wishes?" +"Should I cease to be your friend because you had made a mistake? It is not +to me you are unkind," she answered, quickly withdrawing her hand. Spots of +the palest rose appeared on her cheeks, and she bent over and picked up the +rake, and began to work. + +"I must be going," he said awkwardly; "it is getting late." + +"Yes," she said; "it is getting late." + +Still he lingered, swinging his hat in his hand, ill at case, with his face +set hard away. +"Is that all you have to say to me?" he asked at length, wheeling and +looking her steadily and fondly in the eyes. + +"That is all," she replied, controlling the quiver in her voice; but then +letting herself go a little, she added with slow distinctness: +"You might remember this: some women in marrying demand all and give all: +with good men they are the happy; with base men they are the brokenhearted. +Some demand everything and give little: with weak men they are tyrants; with +strong men they are the divorced. Some demand little and give all: with +congenial souls they are already in heaven; with uncongenial they are soon +in their graves. Some give little and demand little: they are the heartless, +and they bring neither the joy of life nor the peace of death." +"And which of these is Amy?" he said, after a minute of reflection. "And +which of the men am I?" +"Don't ask her to marry you until you find out both," she answered. + +She watched him as he strode away from her across the clearing, with a look +in her eyes that she knew nothing of--watched him, motionless, until his +tall, black figure passed from sight behind the green sunlit wall of the +wilderness. What undisciplined, unawakened strength there was in him! how +far such a stride as that would carry him on in life! It was like the tread +of one of his own forefathers in Cromwell's unconquer-able, hymn-singing +armies. She loved to think of him as holding his descent from a line so +pious and so grim: it served to account to her for the quality of stern, +spiritual soldiership that still seemed to be the mastering trait of his +nature. How long would it remain so, was the question that she had often +asked of herself. A fighter in the world he would always be--she felt sure +of that; nor was it necessary to look into his past to obtain this +assurance; one had but to look into his eyes. Moreover, she had little doubt +that with a temper so steadily bent on conflict, he would never suffer +defeat where his own utmost strength was all that was needed to conquer. But +as he grew older, and the world in part conquered him as it conquers so many +of us, would he go into his later battles as he had entered his earlier +ones--to the measure of a sacred chant? Beneath the sweat and wounds of all +his victories would he carry the white lustre of conscience, burning +untarnished in him to the end? + +It was this religious purity of his nature and his life, resting upon him as +a mantle visible to all eyes but invisible to him, that had, as she +believed, attracted her to him so powerfully. On that uncouth border of +Western civilization, to which they had both been cast, he was a little +lonely in his way, she in hers; and this fact had drawn them somewhat +together. He was a scholar, she a reader; that too had formed a bond. He had +been much at their home as lover of her niece, and this intimacy had given +her a good chance to take his wearing measure as a man. But over and above +all other things, it was the effect of the unfallen in him, of the highest +keeping itself above assault, of his first youth never yet brushed away as a +bloom, that constituted to her his distinction among the men that she had +known. It served to place him in contrast with the colonial Virginia society +of her remembrance--a society in which even the minds of the clergy were not +like a lawn scentless with the dew on it, but like a lawn parched by the +afternoon sun and full of hot odours. It kept him aloof from the loose ways +of the young backwoodsmen and aristocrats of the town, with whom otherwise +he closely mingled. It gave her the right, she thought, to indulge a +friendship for him such as she had never felt for any other man; and in this +friendship it made it easier for her to overlook a great deal that was rude +in him, headstrong, overbearing. + +When, this afternoon, he had asked her what she was thinking of when he +surprised her with his visit, she had not replied: she could not have avowed +even to herself that she was thinking of such things as these: that having, +for some years, drawn out a hard, dull life in that settlement of +pathfinders, trappers, woodchoppers, hunters, Indian fighters, surveyors; +having afterwards, with little interest, watched them, one by one, as the +earliest types of civilization followed,--the merchant, the lawyer, the +priest, the preacher of the Gospel, the soldiers and officers of the +Revolution,--at last, through all the wilderness, as it now fondly seemed to +her, she saw shining the white light of his long absent figure, bringing a +new melody to the woods, a new meaning to her life, and putting an end to +all her desire ever to return to the old society beyond the mountains. + +His figure passed out of sight, and she turned and walked sorrowfully to the +cabin, from the low rugged chimney of which a pale blue smoke now rose into +the twilight air. She chid herself that she had confronted the declaration +of his purpose to marry her niece with so little spirit, such faulty tact. +She had long known that he would ask this; she had long gotten ready what +she would say; but in the struggle between their wills, she had been +unaccountably embarrassed, she had blundered, and he had left rather +strengthened than weakened in his determination. + +But she must prevent the marriage; her mind was more resolute than ever as +to that. +Slowly she reached the doorstep of the cabin, a roughly hewn log, and +turning, stood there with her bonnet in her hand, her white figure outlined +before the doorway, slender and still. +The sun had set. Night was rushing on over the awful land. The wolf-dog, in +his kennel behind the house, rose, shook himself at his chain, and uttered a +long howl that reached away to the dark woods--the darker for the vast +pulsing yellow light that waved behind them in the west like a gorgeous soft +aerial fan. As the echoes died out from the peach orchard came the song of a +robin, calling for love and rest. +Then from another direction across the clearing another sound reached her: +the careless whistle of the major, returning from his day's work in the +field. When she heard that, her face took on the expression that a woman +sometimes comes to wear when she has accepted what life has brought her +although it has brought her nothing for which she cares; and her lips opened +with an unconscious sigh of weariness--the weariness that has been gathering +weariness for years and that runs on in weariness through the future. + +Later, she was kneeling before the red logs of the fireplace with one hand +shielding her delicate face from the blistering heat; in the other holding +the shingle on which richly made and carefully shaped was the bread of +Indian maize that he liked. She did not rise until she had placed it where +it would be perfectly browned; otherwise he would have been disappointed and +the evening would have been spoiled. + +IV + +JOHN GRAY did not return to town by his straight course through the forest, +but followed the winding wagon-road at a slow, meditative gait. He was +always thoughtful after he had been with Mrs. Falconer; he was unusually +thoughtful now; and the gathering hush of night, the holy expectancy of +stars, a flock of white clouds lying at rest low on the green sky like sheep +in some far uplifted meadow, the freshness of the woods soon to be hung with +dew,--all these melted into his mood as notes from many instruments blend in +the ear. +But he was soon aroused in an unexpected way. When he reached the place +where the wagon-road passed out into the broader public road leading from +Lexington to Frankfort, he came near stumbling over a large, loose bundle, +tied in a blue and white neckerchief. +Plainly it had been lost and plainly it was his duty to discover if possible +to whom it belonged. He carried it to one side of the road and began to +examine its contents: a wide, white lace tucker, two fine cambric +handkerchiefs, two pairs of India cotton hose, two pairs of silk hose, two +thin muslin handkerchiefs, a pair of long kid gloves,--straw colour,--a pair +of white kid shoes, a pale-blue silk coat, a thin, white striped muslin +dress.The articles were not marked. Whose could they be? Not Amy's: Mrs. +Falconer had expressly said that the major was to bring her finery to town +in the gig the next day. They might have been dropped by some girl or by +some family servant, riding into town; he knew several young ladies, to any +one of whom they might belong. He would inquire in the morning; and +meantime, he would leave the bundle at the office of the printer, where lost +articles were commonly kept until they could be advertised in the paper, and +called for by their owners. +He replaced the things, and carefully retied the ends of the kerchief. It +was dark when he reached town, and he went straight to his room and locked +the bundle in his closet. Then he hurried to his tavern, where his supper +had to be especially cooked for him, it being past the early hour of the +pioneer evening meal. While he sat out under the tree at the door, waiting +and impatiently thinking that he would go to see Amy as soon as he could +despatch it, the tavern-keeper came out to say that some members of the +Democratic Society had been looking for him. Later on, these returned. A +meeting of the Society had been called for that night, to consider news +brought by the postrider the day previous and to prepare advices for the +Philadelphia Society against the postrider's return: as secretary, he was +wanted at the proceedings. He begged hard to be excused, but he was the +scholar, the scribe; no one would take his place. +When the meeting ended, the hour was past for seeing Amy. He went to his +room and read law with flickering concentration of mind till near midnight. +Then he snuffed out his candle, undressed, and stretched himself along the +edge of his bed. + +It was hard and coarse. The room itself was the single one that formed the +ruder sort of pioneer cabin. The floor was the earth itself, covered here +and there with the skins of wild animals; the walls but logs, poorly +plastered. From a row of pegs driven into one of these hung his clothes--not +many. The antlers of a stag over the doorway held his rifle, his +hunting-belt, and his hat. A swinging shelf displayed a few books, being +eagerly added to as he could bitterly afford it--with a copy of Paley, lent +by the Reverend James Moore, the dreamy, saintlike, flute-playing Episcopal +parson of the town. In the middle of the room a round table of his own +vigorous carpentry stood on a panther skin; and on this lay some copy books +in which he had just set new copies for his children; a handful of +goosequills to be fashioned into pens for them; the proceedings of the +Democratic Society, freshly added to this evening; copies of the Kentucky +Gazette containing essays by the political leaders of the day on the +separation of Kentucky from the Union and the opening of the Mississippi to +its growing commerce--among them some of his own, stately and academic, +signed "Cato the Younger." Lying open on the table lay his Bible; after law, +he always read a little in that; and to-night he had reread one of his +favourite chapters of St.Paul: that wherein the great, calm, victorious +soldier of the spirit surveys the history of his trials, imprisonments, +beatings. In one corner was set a three-cornered cupboard containing his +underwear, his new cossack boots, and a few precious things that had been +his mother's: her teacup and saucer, her prayer-book. It was in this closet +that he had put the lost bundle. + +He had hardly stretched himself along the edge of his bed before he began to +think of this. +Every complete man embraces some of the qualities of a woman, for Nature +does not mean that sex shall be more than a partial separation of one common +humanity; otherwise we should be too much divided to be companionable. And +it is these womanly qualities that not only endow a man with his insight +into the other sex, but that enable him to bestow a certain feminine +supervision upon his own affairs when no actual female has them in charge. +If he marries, this inner helpmeet behaves in unlike ways toward the newly +reigning usurper; sometimes giving up peaceably, at others remaining her +life-long critic--reluctant but irremovable. If many a wife did but realize +that she is perpetually observed not only by the eyes of a pardoning husband +but by the eyes of another woman hidden away in the depths of his being, she +would do many things differently and not do some things at all. + +The invisible slip of a woman in Gray now began to question him regarding +the bundle. Would not those delicate, beautiful things be ruined, thus put +away in his closet? He got up, took the bundle out, laid it on his table, +untied the kerchief, lifted carefully off the white muslin dress and the +blue silk coat, and started with them toward two empty pegs on the wall. He +never closed the door of his cabin if the night was fine. It stood open now +and a light wind blew the soft fabrics against his body and limbs, so that +they seemed to fold themselves about him, to cling to him. He disengaged +them reluctantly--apologetically. + +Then he lay down again. But now the dress on the wall fascinated him. The +moonlight bathed it, the wind swayed it. This was the first time that a +woman's garments had ever hung in his room. He welcomed the mere accident of +their presence as though it possessed a forerunning intelligence, as though +it were the annunciation of his approaching change of life. And so laughing +to himself, and under the spell of a growing fancy, he got up again and took +the little white shoes and set them on the table in the moonlight--on the +open Bible and the speech of St.Paul--and then went back, and lay looking at +them and dreaming--looking at them and dreaming. + +His thoughts passed meantime like a shining flock of white doves to Amy, +hovering about her. They stole onward to the time when she would be his +wife; when lying thus, he would wake in the night and see her dress on the +wall and feel her head on his bosom; when her little shoes might stand on +his open Bible, if they chose, and the satin instep of her bare foot be +folded in the hard hollow of his. + +He uttered a deep, voiceless, impassioned outcry that she might not die +young nor he die young; that the struggles and hardships of life, now +seeming to be ended, might never begirt him or her so closely again; that +they might grow peacefully old together. +To-morrow then, he would see her; no, not tomorrow; it was long past +midnight now. +He got down on his bare knees beside the bed with his face buried in his +hands and said his prayers. + +And then lying outstretched with his head resting on his folded hands, the +moonlight streaming through the window and lighting up his dark-red curls +and falling on his face and neck and chest, the cool south wind blowing down +his warm limbs, his eyes opening and closing in religious purity on the +dress, and his mind opening and closing on the visions of his future, he +fell asleep. +V + +WHEN he awoke late, he stretched his big arms drowsily out before his face +with a gesture like that of a swimmer parting the water: he was in truth +making his way out of a fathomless, moonlit sea of dreams to the shores of +reality. Broad daylight startled him with its sheer blinding revelation of +the material world, as the foot of a swimmer, long used to the yielding +pavements of the ocean, touches with surprise the first rock and sand. + +He sprang up, bathed, dressed, and stepped out into the crystalline +freshness of the morning. He was glowing with his exercise, at peace with +himself and with all men, and so strong in the exuberance of his manhood +that he felt he could have leaped over into the east, shouldered the sun, +and run gaily, impatiently, with it up the sky. How could he wait to see Amy +until it went up its long slow way and then down again to its setting? A +powerful young lion may some time have appeared thus at daybreak on the edge +of a jungle and measured the stretches of sand to be crossed before he could +reach an oasis where memory told him was the lurking-place of love. + +It was still early. The first smoke curled upward from the chimneys of the +town; the melodious tinkle of bells reached his ear as the cows passed from +the milking to the outlying ranges deep in their wild verdure. Even as he +stood surveying the scene, along the path which ran close to his cabin came +a bare-headed, nutbrown pioneer girl, whose close-fitting dress of white +homespun revealed the rounded outlines of her figure. She had gathered up +the skirt which was short, to keep it from the tops of the wet weeds. Her +bare, beautiful feet were pink with the cold dew. Forgotten, her slow fat +cows had passed on far ahead; for at her side, wooing her with drooping +lashes while the earth was still flushed with the morn, strolled a young +Indian fighter, swarthy, lean tall, wild. His long thigh boots of thin +deer-hide, open at the hips, were ornamented with a scarlet fringe and +rattled musically with the hoofs of fawns and the spurs of the wild turkey; +his gray racoonskin cap was adorned with the wings of the hawk and the +scarlet tanager. + +The magnificent young, warrior lifted his cap to the school-master with a +quiet laugh; and the girl smiled at him and shook a warning finger to remind +him he was not to betray them. He smiled back with a deprecating gesture to +signify that he could be trusted. He would have liked it better if he could +have said more plainly that he too had the same occupation now; and as he +gazed after them, lingering along the path side by side, the long-stifled +cravings of his heart rose to his unworldly, passionate eyes: he all but +wished that Amy also milked the cows at early morning and drove them out to +pasture. + +When he went to his breakfast at the tavern, one of the young Williamsburg +aristocrats was already there, pretending to eat; and hovering about the +table, brisk to appease his demands, the daughter of the taverner: she as +ruddy as a hollyhock and gaily flaunting her head from side to side with the +pleasure of denying him everything but his food, yet meaning to kiss him +when twilight came--once, and then to run. + +Truly, it seemed that this day was to be given up to much pairing: as be +thought it rightly should be and that without delay. When he took his seat +in the school-room and looked out upon the children, they had never seemed +so small, so pitiful. It struck him that Nature is cruel not to fit us for +love and marriage as soon as we are born--cruel to make us wait twenty or +thirty years before she lets us really begin to live. He looked with eyes +more full of pity than usual at blear-eyed, delicate little Jennie, as to +whom he could never tell whether it was the multiplication-table that made +her deathly sick, or sickness that kept her from multiplying. His eye lit +upon a wee, chubby-cheeked urchin on the end of a high, hard bench, and he +fell to counting how many ages must pass before that unsuspicious grub would +grow his palpitating wings of flame. He felt like making them a little +speech and telling them how happy he was, and how happy they would all be +when they got old enough to deserve it. + +And as for the lessons that day, what difference could it make whether ideas +sprouted or did not sprout in those useless brains? He answered all the hard +questions himself; and, indeed, so sunny and exhilarating was the weather of +his discipline that little Jennie, seeing how the rays fell and the wind +lay, gave up the multiplication-table altogether and fell to drawing +tomahawks. + +A remarkable mixture of human life there was in Gray's school. There were +the native little Kentuckians, born in the wilderness--the first wild, hardy +generation of the new people; and there were little folks from Virginia, +from Tennessee, from North Carolina, and from Pennsylvania and other +sources, huddled together, some uncouth, some gentle-born, and all starting +out to be formed into the men and women of Kentucky. +They had their strange, sad, heroic games and pastimes under his guidance. +Two little girls would be driving the cows home about dusk; three little +boys would play Indian and capture them and carry them off; the husbands of +the little girls would form a party to the rescue; the prisoners would drop +pieces of their dresses along the way; and then at a certain point of the +woods--it being the dead of night now and the little girls being bound to a +tree, and the Indians having fallen asleep beside their smouldering +campfires--the rescuers would rush in and there would be whoops and shrieks +and the taking of scalps and a happy return. Or some settlers would be shut +up in their fort. The only water to be had was from a spring outside the +walls, and around this the enemy skulked in the corn and grass. But their +husbands and sweethearts must not perish of thirst. So, with a prayer, a +tear, a final embrace, the little women marched out through the gates to the +spring in the very teeth of death and brought back water in their wooden +dinner-buckets. +Or, when the boys would become men with contests of running and pitching +quoits and wrestling, the girls would play wives and have a quilting, in a +house of green alder-bushes, or be capped and wrinkled grandmothers sitting +beside imaginary spinning-wheels and smoking imaginary pipes. + +Sometimes it was not Indian warfare but civil strife. One morning as many +as three Daniel Boones appeared on the playground at the same moment; and at +once there was a dreadful fight to ascertain which was the genuine Daniel. +This being decided, the spurious Daniels submitted to be: the one, Simon +Kenton; the other, General George Rogers Clark. + +And there was another game of history--more practical in its bearings--which +he had not taught them, but which they had taught him; they had played it +with him that very morning. +When he had stepped across the open to the school, he found that the older +boys, having formed themselves into a garrison for the defence of the +smaller boys and girls, had barricaded the door and barred and manned the +wooden windows: the schoolhouse had suddenly become a frontier station; they +were the pioneers; he was the invading Indians--let him attack them if he +dared! He did dare and that at once; for he knew that otherwise there would +be no school that day or as long as the white race on the inside remained +unconquered. So had ensued a rough-and-tumble scrimmage for fifteen minutes, +during which the babies within wailed aloud with real terror of the battle, +and he received some real knocks and whacks and punches through the +loop-holes of the stockade: the end being arrived at when the schoolhouse +door, by a terrible wrench from the outside, was torn entirely off its +wooden hinges; and the victory being attributed--as an Indian victory always +was in those days--to the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. + +With such an opening of the day, the academic influence over childhood may +soon be restored to forcible supremacy but will awaken little zest. Gray was +glad therefore on all accounts that this happened to be the day on which he +had promised to tell them of the battle of the Blue Licks. Thirteen years +before and forty miles away that most dreadful of all massacres had taken +place; and in the town were many mothers who still wept for their sons, many +widows who still dreamed of their young husbands, fallen that beautiful, +fatal August day beneath the oaks and the cedars, or floating down the +red-dyed river. All the morning he could see the expectation of this story +in their faces: a pair of distant, clearest eyes would be furtively lifted +to his, then quickly dropped; or another pair more steadily directed at him +through the backwoods loop-hole of two stockade fingers. + +At noon, then, having dismissed the smaller ones for their big recess, he +was standing amid the eager upturned faces of the others--bareheaded under +the brilliant sky of May. He had chosen the bank of the Town Fork, where it +crossed the common, as a place in which he should be freest from +interruption and best able to make his description of the battle-field well +understood. This stream flows unseen beneath the streets of the city now +with scarce rent enough to wash out its grimy channel; but then it flashed +broad and clear through the long valley of scattered cabins and orchards and +cornfields and patches of cane. + +It was a hazardous experiment with the rough jewels of those little minds. +They were still rather like diamonds rolling about on the bottom of +barbarian rivers than steadily set and mounted for the uses of civilization. + +He fixed his eyes upon a lad in his fifteenth year, the commandant of the +fort of the morning, who now stood at the water edge, watching him with +breathless attention. A brave, sunny face;--a big shaggy head holding a +mind in it as clear as a sphere of rock-crystal; already heated with vast +ambition--a leader in the school, afterwards to be a leader in the +nation--Richard Johnson. + +"Listen!" he cried; and when he spoke in, that tone he reduced everything +turbulent to peace. "I have brought you here to tell you of the battle of +the Blue Licks not because it was the last time, as you know, that an Indian +army ever invaded Kentucky; not because a hundred years from now or a +thousand years from now other school-boys and other teachers will be talking +of it still; not because the Kentuckians will some day assemble on the field +and set up a monument to their forefathers, your fathers and brothers; but +because there is a lesson in it for you to learn now while you are children. +A few years more and some of you boys will be old enough to fight for +Kentucky or for your country. Some of you will be common soldiers who will +have to obey the orders of your generals; some of you may be generals with +soldiers under you at the mercy of your commands. It may be worth your own +lives, it may save the lives of your soldiers, to heed this lesson now and +to remember it then. And all of you--whether you go into battles of that +sort or not--will have others; for the world has many kinds of fighting to +be done in it and each of you will have to do his share. And whatever that +share may be, you will need the same character, the same virtues, to +encounter it victorious; for all battles are won in the same way, all +conquerors are alike. This lesson, then, will help each of you to win, none +of you to lose. + +"Do you know what it was that brought about the awful massacre of the Blue +Licks? It was the folly of one officer. + +"Let the creek here be the Licking River. The Kentuckians, some on foot and +some on horse, but all tired and disordered and hurrying along, had just +reached the bank. Over on the other side--some distance back--the Indians +were hiding in the woods and waiting. No one knew exactly where they were; +every one knew they counted from seven hundred to a thousand. The +Kentuckians were a hundred and eighty-two. There was Boone with the famous +Boonsborough men, the very name of whom was a terror; there was Trigg with +men just as good from Harrodsburg; there was Todd, as good as either, with +the men from Lexington. More than a fourth of the whole were commissioned +officers, and more fearless men never faced an enemy. There was but one +among them whose courage had ever been doubted, and do you know what that +man did? +"After the Kentuckians had crossed the river to attack, been overpowered, +forced back to the river again, and were being shot down or cut down in the +water like helpless cattle, that man--his name was Benjamin Netherland--did +this: He was finely mounted. He had quickly recrossed the river and had +before him the open buffalo trace leading back home. About twenty other men +had crossed as quickly as he and were urging their horses toward this road. +But Netherland, having reached the opposite bank, wheeled his horse's head +toward the front of the battle, shouted and rallied the others, and sitting +there in full view and easy reach of the Indian army across the narrow +river, poured his volley into the foremost of the pursuers, who were cutting +down the Kentuckians in the river. He covered their retreat. He saved +their lives. + +"There was another soldier among them named Aaron Reynolds. He had had a +quarrel some days before with Colonel Patterson and there was bad blood +between them. During the retreat, he was galloping toward the ford. The +Indians were close behind. But as he ran, he came upon Colonel Patterson, +who had been wounded and, now exhausted, had fallen behind his comrades. +Reynolds sprang from his horse, helped the officer to mount, saw him escape, +and took his poor chance on foot. For this he fell into the hands of the +Indians. + +"That is the kind of men of whom that little army of a hundred and +eighty-two was made up--the oak forest of Kentucky. +"And yet, when they had reached the river in this pursuit and some twenty of +the officers had come out before the ranks to hold a council of war and the +wisest and the oldest were urging caution or delay, one of +them--McGary--suddenly waved his hat in the air, spurred his horse into the +river, and shouted: + +"'Let all who are not cowards follow me!' + +"They all followed; and then followed also the shame of defeat, the awful +massacre, the sorrow that lasts among us still, and the loss to Kentucky of +many a gallant young life that had helped to shape her destiny in the +nation. + +"Some day perhaps some historian will write it down that the Kentuckians +followed McGary because no man among them could endure such a taunt. Do not +believe him. No man among them even thought of the taunt: it had no meaning. +They followed him because they were too loyal to desert him and those who +went with him in his folly. Your fathers always stood together and fought +together as one man, or Kentucky would never have been conquered; and in no +battle of all the many that they ever fought did they ever leave a comrade +to perish because he had made a mistake or was in the wrong. + +"This, then, is your lesson from the battle of Blue Licks: Never go into a +battle merely to show that you are not a coward: that of itself shows what a +coward you are. + +"Do not misunderstand me! whether you be men or women, you will never do +anything in the world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the +mind--next to honor. It is your king. But the king must always have a good +cause. Many a good king has perished in a bad one; and this noblest virtue +of courage has perhaps ruined more of us than any other that we possess. You +know what character the old kings used always to have at their courts. I +have told you a great deal about him. It was the Fool. Do you know what +personage it is that Courage, the King, is so apt to have in the Court of +the Mind? It is the Fool also. Lay these words away; you will understand +them better when you are older and you will need to understand them very +well. Then also you will know what I mean when I say to you this morning +that the battle of the Blue Licks was the work of the Fool, jesting with the +King." + +He had gone to the field himself one Saturday not long before, walking +thoughtfully over it. He had had with him two of the Lexington militia who, +in the battle, had been near poor Todd, their colonel, while fighting like a +lion to the last and bleeding from many wounds. The recollection of it all +was very clear now, very poignant: the bright winding river, there +broadening at its ford; the wild and lonely aspect of the country round +about. On the farther bank the long lofty ridge of rock, trodden and licked +bare of vegetation for ages by the countless passing buffalo; blackened by +rain and sun; only the more desolate for a few dwarfish cedars and other +timber scant and dreary to the eye. Encircling this hill in somewhat the +shape of a horseshoe, a deep ravine heavily wooded and rank with grass and +underbrush. The Kentuckians, disorderly foot and horse, rushing in +foolhardiness to the top of this uncovered expanse of rock; the Indians, +twice, thrice, their number, engirdling its base, ringing them round with +hidden death. The whole tragedy repossessed his imagination and his +emotions. His face had grown pale, his voice took the measure and cadence of +an old-time minstrel's chant, his nervous fingers should have been able to +reach out and strike the chords of a harp.With uplifted finger he was going +on to impress them with another lesson: that in the battles which would be +sure to await them, they must be warned by this error of their fathers never +to be over-hasty or over-confident, never to go forward without knowing the +nature of the ground they were to tread, or throw themselves into a struggle +without measuring the force of the enemy. He was doing this when a child +came skipping joyously across the common, and pushing her way up to him +through the circle of his listeners, handed him a note. He read it, and in +an instant the great battle, hills, river, horse, rider, shrieks, groans, +all vanished from his mind as silently as a puff of white smoke from a +distant cannon. + +For a while he stood with his eyes fixed upon the paper, so absorbed as not +to note the surprise that had fallen upon the children. At length merely +saying, "I shall have to tell you the rest some other day," he walked +rapidly across the common in the direction from which the little messenger +had come. + +A few minutes later he stood at the door of Father Poythress, the Methodist +minister, asking for Amy. But she and Kitty had ridden away and would not +return till night. Leaving word that he would come to see her in the +evening, he turned away. + +The children were scattered: there could be no more of the battle that day. +But it was half an hour yet before his duties would recommence at the +school. As he walked slowly along debating with himself how he should employ +the time, a thought struck him; he hastened to the office of one of many +agents for the locating and selling of Kentucky lands, and spent the +interval in determining the titles to several tracts near town--an intricate +matter in those times. But he found one farm, the part of an older military +grant of the French and Indian wars, to which the title was unmistakably +direct. + +As soon as his school was out, he went to look at this property again, now +that he was thinking of buying it. He knew it very well already, his walks +having often brought him into its deep majestic woods; and he penetrated at +once to an open knoll sloping toward the west and threw himself down on the +deep green turf with the freedom of ownership. + +VI + +YES, this property would suit him; it would suit Amy. It was near town; it +was not far from Major Falconer's. He could build his house on the hill-top +where he was lying. At the foot of it, out of its limestone caverns, swelled +a bountiful spring. As he listened he could hear the water of the branch +that ran winding away from it toward the Elkhorn. That would be a pleasant +sound when he sat with her in their doorway of summer evenings. On that +southern slope he would plant his peach orchard, and he would have a +vineyard. On this side Amy could have her garden, have her flowers. Sloping +down from the front of the house to the branch would be their lawn, after he +had cleared away everything but a few of the noblest old trees: under one of +them, covered with a vine that fell in long green cascades from its summit +to the ground, he would arrange a wild-grape swing for her, to make good the +loss of the one she now had a" Major Falconer's. + +Thus, out of one detail after another, he constructed the whole vision of +the future, with the swiftness of desire, the unerring thoughtfulness of +love; and, having transformed the wilderness into his home, he feasted on +his banquet of ideas, his rich red wine of hopes and plans. + +One of the subtlest, most saddening effects of the entire absence of +possessions is the inevitable shrinkage of nature that must be undergone by +those who have nothing to own. When a man, by some misfortune, has suddenly +suffered the loss of his hands, much of the bewilderment and consternation +that quickly follow have their origin in the thought that he never again +shall be able to grasp. To his astonishment, he finds that no small part of +his range of mental activity and sense of power was involved in that +exercise alone. He has not lost merely his hands; much of his inner being +has been stricken into disuse. + +But the hand itself is only the rudest type of the universal necessity that +pervades us to take hold. The body is furnished with two; the mind, the +heart, the spirit--who shall number the invisible, the countless hands of +these? All growth, all strength, all uplift, all power to rise in the world +and to remain arisen, comes from the myriad hold we have taken upon higher +surrounding realities. + +Some time, wandering in a thinned wood, you may have happened upon an old +vine, the seed of which had long ago been dropped and had sprouted in an +open spot where there was no timber. Every May, in response to Nature's +joyful bidding that it yet shall rise, the vine has loosed the thousand +tendrils of its hope, those long, green, delicate fingers searching the +empty air. Every December you may see these turned stiff and brown, and +wound about themselves like spirals or knotted like the claw of a frozen +bird. Year after year the vine has grown only at the head, remaining +empty-handed; and the head itself, not being lifted always higher by +anything the hands have seized, has but moved hither and thither, back and +forth, like the head of a wounded snake in a path. Thus every summer you may +see the vine, fallen back and coiled upon itself, and piled up before you +like a low green mound, its own tomb; in winter a black heap, its own ruins. +So, it often is with the poorest, who live on at the head, remaining +empty-handed; fallen in and coiled back upon themselves, their own +inescapable tombs, their own unavertible ruins. +The prospect of having what to him was wealth had instantly bestowed upon +John Gray the liberation of his strength. It had untied the hands of his +idle powers; and the first thing he had reached fiercely out to grasp was +Amy--his share in the possession of women; the second thing was land--his +share in the possession of the earth. With these at the start, the one +unshakable under his foot, the other inseparable from his side, he had no +doubt that he should rise in the world and lay hold by steady degrees upon +all that he should care to have. Naturally now these two blent far on and +inseparably in the thoughts of one whose temperament doomed him always to be +planning and striving for the future. + +The last rays of the sun touched the summit of the knoll where he was lying. +Its setting was with great majesty and repose, depth after depth of cloud +opening inward as toward the presence of the infinite peace. The boughs of +the trees overhead were in blossom; there were blue and white wild-flowers +at his feet. As he looked about him, he said to himself in his solemn way +that the long hard winter of his youth had ended; the springtime of his +manhood was turning green like the woods. + +With this night came his betrothal. For years he had looked forward to that +as the highest white mountain peak of his life. As he drew near it now, his +thoughts made a pathway for his feet, covering it as with a fresh fall of +snow. Complete tenderness overcame him as he beheld Amy in this new sacred +relation; a look of religious reverence for her filled his eyes. He asked +himself what he had ever done to deserve all this.Perhaps it is the +instinctive trait of most of us to seek an explanation for any great +happiness as we are always prone to discuss the causes of our adversity. +Accordingly, and in accord with our differing points of view of the +universe, we declare of our joy that it is the gift of God to us despite our +shortcomings and our transgressions; or that it is our blind share of things +tossed out impersonally to us by the blind operation of the chances of life; +or that it is the clearest strictest logic of our own being and doing--the +natural vintage of our own grapes. + +Of all these, the one that most deeply touches the heart is the faith, that +a God above who alone knows and judges aright, still loves and has sent a +blessing. To such a believer the heavens seem to have opened above his head, +the Divine to have descended and returned; and left alone in the possession +of his joy, he lifts his softened eyes to the Light, the Life, the Love, +that has always guided him, always filled him, never forgotten him. + +This stark audacity of faith was the schoolmaster's. It belonged to him +through the Covenanter blood of his English forefathers and through his +Scotch mother; but it had surrounded him also in the burning spiritual +heroism of the time, when men wandered through the Western wilderness, girt +as with camel's hair and fed as on locusts, but carrying from cabin to +cabin, from post to post, through darkness and snow and storm the lonely +banner of the Christ and preaching the gospel of everlasting peace to those +who had never known any peace on earth. So that all his thoughts were linked +with the eternal; he had threaded the labyrinth of life, evermore awestruck +with its immensities and its mysteries; in his ear, he could plainly hear +immortality sounding like a muffled bell across a sea, now near, now farther +away, according as he was in danger or in safety. Therefore, his sudden +prosperity--Amy--marriage--happiness--all these meant to him that Providence +was blessing him. + +In the depth of the wood it had grown dark. With all his thoughts of her +sounding like the low notes of a cathedral organ, he rose and walked slowly +back to town. He did not care for his supper; he did not wish to speak with +any other person; the rude, coarse banter of the taverns and the streets +would in some way throw a stain on her. Luckily he reached his room +unaccosted; and then with care but without vanity having dressed himself in +his best, he took his way to the house of Father Poythress. + +VII + +HE was kept waiting for some time. More than once he heard in the next room +the sounds of smothered laughter and two voices, pitched in a confidential +tone: the one with persistent appeal, the other with persistent refusal. At +last there reached him the laughter of a merry agreement, and Amy entered +the room, holding Kitty Poythress by the hand. + +She had been looking all day for her lost bundle. Now she was tired; worried +over the loss of her things which had been bought by her aunt at great cost +and self-sacrifice; and disappointed that she should not be able to go to +the ball on Thursday evening. It was to be the most brilliant assemblage of +the aristocratic families of the town that had ever been known in the +wilderness and the first endeavour to transplant beyond the mountains the +old social elegance of Williamsburg, Annapolis, and Richmond. Not to be seen +in the dress that Mrs. Falconer, dreaming of her own past, had deftly +made--not to have her beauty reign absolute in that scene of lights and +dance and music--it was the long, slow crucifixion of all the impulses of +her gaiety and youth. + +She did not wish to see any one to-night, least of all John Gray with whom +she had had an engagement to go. No doubt he had come to ask why she had +broken it in the note which she had sent him that morning. She had not +given him any reason in the note; she did not intend to give him the reason +now. He would merely look at her in his grave, reproachful, exasperating way +and ask what was the difference: could she not wear some other dress? or +what great difference did it make whether she went at all? He was always +ready to take this manner of patient forbearance toward her, as though she +were one of his school children. To-night she was in no mood to have her +troubles treated as trifles or herself soothed like an infant that was +crying to be rocked. + +She walked slowly into the room, dragging Kitty behind her. She let him +press the tips of her unbending fingers, pouted, smiled faintly, dropped +upon a divan by Kitty's side, strengthened her hold on Kitty's hand, and +fixed her eyes on Kitty's hair. +"Aren't you tired?" she said, giving it an absorbed caressing stroke, with a +low laugh. "I am." +"I am going to look again to-morrow, Kitty," she continued, brightening up +with a decisive air, "and the next day and the next." She kept her face +turned aside from John and did not include him in the conversation. Women +who imagine themselves far finer ladies than this child was treat a man in +this way--rarely--very rarely--say, once in the same man's lifetime. + +"We are both so tired," she drowsily remarked at length, turning to John +after some further parley which he did not understand and tapping her mouth +prettily with the palm of her hand to fight away a yawn. "You know we've +been riding all day. And William Penn is at death's door with hunger. Poor +William Penn! I'm afraid he'll suffer to-night at the tavern stable. They +never take care of him and feed him as I do at home. He is so unhappy when +be is hungry; and when he is unhappy, I am. And he has to be rubbed down so +beautifully, or he doesn't shine." +The tallow candles, which had been lighted when he came, needed snuffing by +this time. The light was so dim that she could not see his face--blanched +with bewilderment and pain and anger. What she did see as she looked across +the room at him was his large black figure in an absent-minded awkward +posture and his big head held very straight and high as though it were +momentarily getting higher. He had remained simply silent. His silence +irritated her; and she knew she was treating him badly and that irritated +her with him all the more. She sent one of her light arrows at him barbed +with further mischief. + +"I wish, as you go back, you would stop at the stable and see whether they +have mistreated him in any way. He takes things so hard when they don't go +to suit him," and she turned to Kitty and laughed significantly. + +Then she heard him clear his throat, and in a voice shaking with passion, he +said: + +"Give your orders to a servant." +A moment of awkward silence followed. She did not recognize that voice as +his or such rude, unreasonable words. +"I suppose you want to know why I broke my engagement with you," she said, +turning toward him aggrievedly and as though the subject could no longer be +waived. "But I don't think you ought to ask for the reason. You ought to +accept it without knowing it." +"I do accept it. I had never meant to ask." + +He spoke as though the whole affair were not worth recalling. She could not +agree with him in this, and furthermore his manner administered a rebuke. + +"Oh, don't be too indifferent," she said sarcastically, looking to Kitty for +approval. If you cared to go to the party with me, you are supposed to be +disappointed." + +"I am disappointed," he replied briefly, but still with the tone of wishing +to be done with the subject. Amy rose and snuffed the candles. + +"And you really don't care to know why I broke my engagement?" she +persisted, returning to her seat and seeing that she worried him. + +"Not unless you should wish to tell me." + +"But you should wish to know, whether I tell you or not. Suppose it were not +a good reason?" + +"I hadn't supposed you'd give me a poor one." + +"At least, it's serious, Kitty." + +"I had never doubted it." + +"It might be amusing to you." + +"It could hardly be both." + +"Yes; it is both. It is serious and it is amusing." + +He made no reply but by an impatient gesture. + +"And you really don't wish to know?"He sat silent and still. +"Then, I'll tell you: I lost the only reason I had for going," and she and +Kitty exchanged a good deal of laughter of an innocent kind. +The mood and the motive with which he had sought her made him feel that he +was being unendurably trifled with and he rose. But at the same moment Kitty +effected an escape and he and Amy were left alone. +She looked quickly at the door through which Kitty had vanished, dropped her +arms at her sides and uttered a little sigh of inexpressible relief. + +"Sit down," she said, repeating her grimace at absent Kitty. + +"You are not going! I want to talk to you. Isn't Kitty dreadful?" + +Her voice and manner had changed. There was no one now before whom she could +act--no one to whom she could show that she could slight him, play with him. +Furthermore, she had gotten some relief from the tension of her ill humour +by what she had already said; and now she really wanted to see him. The ill +humour had not been very deep; nothing in her was very deep. And she was +perfectly sincere again--for the moment. What does one expect? + +"Don't look so solemn," she said with mock ruefulness. "You make me feel as +though you had come to baptize me, as though you had to wash away my sins. +Come here!" and she laid her hand invitingly on the chair that Kitty had +vacated at her side. + +He stood bolt upright in the middle of the room, looking down at her in +silence. Then he walked slowly over and took the seat. She folded her hands +over the back of her own chair, laid her cheek softly down on them and +looked up with a smile--subdued, submissive, fond, absolutely his. + +"Don't be cross!" she pleaded, with a low laugh full of maddening music to +him. + +He could not speak to her or look at her for anger and shame and +disappointment; so she withdrew one hand from under her cheek and folded it +softly over the back of his--his was pressed hard down on the cap of his +knee--and took hold of his big finders one by one, caressing them. + +"Don't be cross!" she pleaded. "Be good to me! I'm tired and unhappy!" + +Still he would not speak, or look at her; so she put her hand back under her +cheek again, and with a patient little sigh closed her eyes as though she +had done all she could. The next moment she leaned over and let her forehead +rest on the back of his hand."You are so cross!" she said. "I don't like +you!" + +"Amy!" he cried, turning fiercely on her and catching her hand cruelly in +his, "before I say anything else to you, you've got to promise me--"And then +he broke down and then went on again foolishly--,you've got to promise me +one thing now. You sha'n't treat me in one way when we are by ourselves and +go in another way when other people are present. If you love me, as you +always make me believe you do when we are alone, you must make the whole +world believe it!" + +"What right would I have to make the whole world believe I loved you?" she +asked, looking at him quizzically. + +"I'll give you the right!" +The rattle of china at the cupboard in the next room was heard. Amy started +up and skipped across the room to the candle on the mantelpiece. + +"If Kitty does come back in here--" she said, in a disappointed undertone; +and with the snuffers between her thumb and forefinger, she snipped them +bitingly several times at the door. +The door was opened slightly, a plate was thrust through, and a laughing +voice called apologetically: + +"Amy!" +"Come in here! Come in!" commanded Amy, delightedly; and as Kitty +reluctantly entered, she fixed upon her a telling look. "Upon my word," she +said, "what do you mean by treating me this way?" and catching Kitty's eye, +she made a grimace at John. + +Kitty offered the candy to John with the assurance that it was made out of +that year's maple sugar in their own camp. +"He never eats sweet things and he doesn't care for trifles: bring it here!" +And the girls seated themselves busily side by side on the opposite side of +the room. Amy bent over the plate and chose the largest, beautiful white +plait."Now there'll be a long silence," she said, holding it up between her +dainty fingers and settling herself back in her chair. "But, Kitty, you +talk. And if you do leave your company again!--" She threatened Kitty +charmingly. + +He was in his room again, thinking it all over. She had not known why he had +come: how could she know? To her it meant simply an ordinary call at an +unfortunate hour; for she was tired--he could see that--and worried--he +could see that also. And he!--had he ever been so solemn, so implacably in +earnest, so impatient of the playfulness which at another time he would have +found merely amusing? Why was he all at once growing so petty with her and +exacting? Little by little he went over the circumstances judicially, in an +effort to restore her to lovable supremacy over his imagination. + +His imagination--for his heart was not in it. He wrought out her entire +acquittal, but it did no good. Who at any time sounds the depths of the mind +which, unlike the sea, can regain calm on the surface and remain troubled by +a tempest at the bottom? What is the name of that imperial faculty dwelling +within it which can annul the decisions of the other associated powers? +After he had taken the entire blame upon himself, his rage and +disappointment were greater than ever. +Was it nothing for her to break her engagement with him and then to follow +it up with treatment like that? Was it nothing to force Kitty into the +parlour despite the silent understanding reached by all three long ago that +whenever he called at the Poythress home, he would see her alone? Was it +nothing to take advantage of his faithfulness to her, and treat him as +though he had no spirit? Was it nothing to be shallow and silly herself? + +Was it nothing--and ah! here was the trouble at the bottom of it all! Here +was the strain of conviction pressing sorely, steadily in upon him through +the tumult of his thoughts--was it nothing for her to be insincere? Did she +even know what sincerity was? Would he marry an insincere woman? Insincerity +was a growth not only ineradicable, but sure to spread over the nature as +one grew older. He knew young people over whose minds it had begun to creep +like the mere slip of a plant up a wall; old ones over whose minds it lay +like a poisonous creeper hiding a rotting ruin. To be married and sit +helplessly by and see this growth slowly sprouting outward from within, +enveloping the woman he loved, concealing her, dragging her down--an +unarrestable disease--was that to be his fate? + +Was it already taking palpable possession of Amy? Could he hide his eyes any +longer to the fact that he had felt its presence in her all the time--in its +barely discoverable stages? What else could explain her conduct in allowing +him, whenever they were alone, to think that she was fond of him, and then +scattering this belief to the winds whenever others were present? Was this +what Mrs. Falconer had meant? He could never feel any doubt of Mrs. +Falconer. Merely to think of her now had the effect of instantly clearing +the whole atmosphere for his baffled, bewildered mind.So the day ended. He +had been beaten, routed, and by forces how insignificant! Bitterly he +recalled his lesson to the children that morning. What a McGary he had +been--reckless, overconfident, knowing neither theplan nor the resources of +the enemy! He recalled his boast to Mrs. Falconer the day before, that he +had never been defeated and that now he would proceed to carry out the plans +of his life without interruption. +But to-morrow evening, Amy would not be going to the ball. She would be +alone. Then he would not go. He must find out all that he wished to know--or +all that he did not. +VIII + +THE evening of the ball had come at last.Not far from John's school on the +square stood another log cabin, from which another and much more splendid +light streamed out across the wilderness: this being the printing room and +book-bindery of the great Mr. John Bradford. His portrait, scrutinized now +from the distance and at the disadvantage of a hundred years, hands him down +to posterity as a bald-headed man with a seedy growth of hair sprouting +laterally from his temples, so that his ears look like little flat-boats +half hidden in little canebrakes; with mutton-chop whiskers growing far up +on the overhanging ledges of his cheek-bones and suggesting rather a daring +variety of lichen; with a long arched nose, running on its own hook in a +southwesterly direction; one eye a little higher than the other; a +protruding upper lip, as though he had behind it a set of the false teeth of +the time, which were fixed into the jaws by springs and hinges, all but +compelling a man to keep his mouth shut by main force; and a very short neck +with an overflowing jowl which weighed too heavily on his high shirt collar. + +Despite his maligning portrait a foremost personage of his day, of +indispensable substance, of invaluable port: Revolutionary soldier, Indian +warrior; editor and proprietor of the Kentucky Gazette, the first newspaper +in the wilderness; binder of its first books--some of his volumes still +surviving on musty, forgotten shelves; senatorial elector; almanac-maker, +taking his ideas from the greater Mr. Franklin of Philadelphia, as Mr. +Franklin may have derived his from the still greater Mr. Jonathan Swift of +London; appointed as chairman of the board of trustees to meet the first +governor of the State when he had ridden into the town three years before +and in behalf of the people of the new commonwealth which had been carried +at last triumphantly into the Union, to bid his excellency welcome in an +address conceived in the most sonorous English of the period; and afterwards +for many years author of the now famous "Notes," which will perhaps make his +name immortal among American historians. +On this evening of the ball at the home of General James Wilkinson, the +great Mr. Bradford was out of town, and that most unluckily; for the +occasion--in addition to all the pleasure that it would furnish to the +ladies--was designed as a means of calling together the leaders of the +movement to separate Kentucky from the Union; and the idea may have been, +that the great Mr. Bradford, having written one fine speech to celebrate her +entrance, could as easily turn out a finer one to celebrate her withdrawal. + +It must not be inferred that his absence had any political significance. He +had merely gone a few days previous to the little settlement at +Georgetown--named for the great George--to lay in a supply of paper for his +Weekly, and had been detained there by heavy local rains, not risking so dry +an article of merchandise either by pack-horse or open wagon under the +dripping trees. Paper was very scarce in the wilderness and no man could +afford to let a single piece get wet. + +In setting out on his journey, he had instructed his sole assistant--a young +man by the name of Charles O'Bannon--as to his duties in the meantime: he +was to cut some new capital letters out of a block of dog-wood in the +office, and also some small letters where the type fell short; to collect if +possible some unpaid subscriptions--this being one of the advantages that an +editor always takes of his own absence--in particular to call upon certain +merchants for arrears in advertisements; and he was to receive any lost +articles that might be sent in to be advertised, or return such as should be +called for by their owners: with other details appertaining to the +establishment. + +O'Bannon had performed his duties as he had been told--reserving for +himself, as always, the right of a personal construction. He had addressed a +written appeal to the nonpaying subscribers, declaring that the Gazette had +now become a Try-Weekly, since Mr. Bradford had to try hard every week to +get it out by the end; he had collected from several delinquent advertisers; +whittled out three new capital letters, and also the face of Mr. Bradford +and one of his legs; taken charge with especial interest of the department +of Lost and Found and was now ready for other duties. + +On this evening of the ball he was sitting in the office. + +In one corner of the room stood a worn handpress with two dog-skin +inking-balls. Between the logs of the wall near another corner a horizontal +iron bar had been driven, and from the end of this bar hung a saucer-shaped +iron lamp filled with bear-oil. Out of this oil stuck the end of a cotton +rag for a wick; which, being set on fire, filled the room with a strong +smell and a feeble, murky, flickering light. Under the lamp stood a plain +oak slab on two pairs of crosslegs; and on the slab were papers and letters, +a black ink-horn, some leaves of native tobacco, and a large gray-horn +drinking-cup--empty. Under the table was a lately emptied bottle.O'Bannon +sat in a rough chair before this drinking-cup, smoking a long tomahawk-pipe. +His head was tilted backward, his eyes followed the flight of smoke upward. + +That he expected to be at the party might have been inferred from his dress: +a blue broadcloth coat with yellow gilt buttons; a swan's-down waistcoat +with broad stripes of red and white; a pair of dove-coloured corded-velvet +pantaloons with three large yellow buttons on the hips; and a neckcloth of +fine white cam- bric.His figure was thickset, strong, cumbrous; his hair +black, curly, shining. His eyes, bold, vivacious, and now inflamed, were of +that rarely beautiful blue which is seen only in members of the Irish race. +His complexion was a blending of the lily and the rose. His lips were thick +and red under his short fuzzy moustache. His hands also were thick and soft, +always warm, and not very clean--on account of the dog-skin inking-balls. + +He had two ruling passions: the influence he thought himself entitled to +exert over women; and his disposition to play practical jokes on men. Both +the first and the second of these weaknesses grew out of his confidence that +he had nothing to fear from either sex. Nevertheless he had felt forced to +admit that his charms had never prevailed with Amy Falconer. He had often +wondered how she could resist; but she had resisted without the least +effort. Still, he pursued, and he had once told her with smiling candour +that if she did not mind the pursuit, he did not mind the chase. Only, he +never urged it into the presence of Mrs. Falconer, of whom alone he stood in +speechless, easily comprehensible awe. Perhaps to-night--as Amy had never +seen him in ball-dress--she might begin to succumb; he had just placed her +under obligation to him by an unexpected stroke of good fortune; and finally +he had executed one neat stratagem at the expense of Mr. Bradford and +another at the expense of John Gray. So that esteeming himself in a fair way +to gratify one passion and having already gratified the other, he leaned +back in his chair, smiling, smoking, drinking. + +He had just risen to pinch the wick in the lamp overhead when a knock +sounded on the door, and to his surprise and displeasure--for he thought he +had bolted it--there entered without waiting to be bidden a low, +broadchested, barefooted, blond fellow, his brown-tow breeches rolled up to +his knees, showing a pair of fine white calves; a clean shirt thrown open at +the neck and rolled up to the elbows, displaying a noble pair of arms; a +ruddy shine on his good-humoured face; a drenched look about his short, +thick, whitish hair; and a comfortable smell of soap emanating from his +entire person. + +Seeing him, O'Bannon looked less displeased; but keeping his seat and merely +taking the pipe from his lips, he said, with an air of sarcasm, "I would +have invited you to come in, Peter, but I see you have not waited for the +invitation." + +Peter deigned no reply; but walking forward, he clapped down on the oak slab +a round handful of shillings and pence. "Count it, and see if it's all +there," he said, taking a short cob pipe out of his mouth and planting his +other hand stoutly on his hip. +"What's this for?" O'Bannon spoke in a tone of wounded astonishment. + +"What do you suppose it's for? Didn't I hear you've been out collecting?" +"Well, you have had an advertisement running in the paper for some time." +"That's what it's for then! And what's more, I've got the money to pay for a +better one, whenever you'll write it." + +"Sit down, sit down, sit down!" O'Bannon jumped from his chair, hurried +across the room--a little unsteadily--emptied a pile of things on the floor, +and dragged back a heavy oak stool. "Sit down. And Peter?" he added +inquiringly, tapping his empty drinking-cup. + +Peter nodded his willingness. O'Bannoli drew a key from his pocket and shook +it temptingly under Peter's nose. Then he bolted the door and unlocked the +cupboard, displaying a shelf filled with bottles. + +"All for advertisements!" he said, waving his hand at the collection. "And a +joke on Mr. Bradford. Fourth-proof French brandy, Jamaica rum, Holland gin, +cherry bounce, Martinique cordial, Madeira, port, sherry, cider. All for +advertisements! Two or three of these dealers have been running bills up, +and to-day I stepped in and told them we'd submit to be paid in merchandise +of this kind. And here's the merchandise. What brand of merchandise will +you take?" +"We had better take what you have been taking." + +"As you please." He brought forward another drinking-cup and a bottle. + +"Hold on!" cried Peter, laying a hand on his arm. "My advertisement first!" + +"As you please." +"About twice as long as the other one," instructed Peter. +"As you please." O'Bannon set the bottle down, took up a goose-quill, and +drew a sheet of paper before him. + +"My business is increasing," prompted Peter still further, with a puzzled +look as to what should come next. "Put that in!" +"Of course," said O'Bannon. "I always put that in." + +He was thinking impatiently about the ball and he wrote out something +quickly and read it aloud with a thick, unsteady utterance: + +"'Mr. Peter Springle continues to carry on the blacksmith business opposite +the Sign of the Indian Queen. Mr. Springle cannot be rivalled in his shoeing +of horses. He keeps on hand a constant supply of axes, chains, and hoes, +which he will sell at prices usually asked--'" + +"Stop," interrupted Peter who had sniffed a strange, delicious odour of +personal praise in the second sentence. "You might say something more about +me, before you bring in the axes." + +"As you please." +"'Mr. Peter Springle executes his work with satisfaction and despatch; his +work is second to none in Kentucky; no one surpasses him; he is a noted +horseshoer; he does nothing but shoe horses.'" He looked at Peter +inquiringly. +"That sounds more like it," admitted Peter. + +"Is that enough?" + +"Oh, if that's all you can say!""'Mr. Springle devotes himself entirely to +the shoeing of fine horses; fine horses are often injured by neglect in +shoeing; Mr. Springle does not injure fine horses, but shoes them all around +with new shoes at one dollar for each horse.'" + +"Better," said Peter." Only, don't say so much about the horses! Say more +about--" + +"'Mr. Springle is the greatest blacksmith that ever left New Jersey--'""Or +that ever lived I'll New Jersey." + +O'Bannon rose and pinched the cotton wick, seized the bottle, and poured out +more liquor. + +"Peter," he said, squaring himself, "I'm going to let you into a secret. If +you were not drunk, I wouldn't tell you. You'll forget it by morning." + +"If I were half as drunk as you are, I couldn't listen," retorted Peter. "I +don't want to know any secrets. I tell everything I know." + +"You don't know any secrets? You don't know that last week Horatio Turpin +sold a ten dollar horse in front of your shop for a hundred because he +had--" + +"Oh, I know some secrets about horses," admitted Peter, carelessly. +"It's a secret about a horse I'm going to tell you," said O'Bannon. + +"Here is an advertisement that has been left to be inserted in the next +paper: 'Lost, on Tuesday evening, on the road between Frankfort and +Lexington, a bundle of clothes tied up in a blue-and-white checked cotton +neckerchief, and containing one white muslin dress, a pale-blue silk coat, +two thin white muslin handkerchiefs, one pair long kid gloves--straw +colour--one pair white kid shoes, two cambric handkerchiefs, and some other +things. Whoever will deliver said clothes to the printer, or give +information so that they can be got, will be liberally rewarded on +application to him.' + +"And here, Peter, is another advertisement. Found, on Tuesday evening, on +the road between Lexington and Frankfort, a bundle of clothes tied in a +blue-and-white neckerchief. The owner can recover property by calling on the +printer.'" + +He pushed the papers away from him. + +"Yesterday morning who should slip around here but Amy Falconer. And then, +in such a voice, she began. How she had come to town the day before, and had +brought her party dress. How the bundle was lost. How she had come to +inquire whether any one had left the clothes to be advertised; or whether I +wouldn't put an advertisement in the paper; or, if they were left at my +office before Thursday evening, whether I wouldn't send them to her at +once." + +"Ahem!" said Peter drily, but with moisture in his eyes. + +"She hadn't more than gone before who should come in here but a boy bringing +this same bundle of clothes with a note from John Gray, saying that he had +found them in the public road yesterday, and asking me to send them at once +to the owner, if I should hear who she was; if not, to advertise them." + +"That's no secret," said Peter contemptuously. + +"I might have sent that bundle straight to the owner of it. But, when I have +anything against a man, I always forgive him, only I get even with him +first." + +"What are you hammering at?" cried Peter, bringing his fist down on the +table. "Hit the nail on the head." + +"Now I've got no grudge against her," continued O'Bannon. "I'd hate her if I +could. I've tried hard enough, but I can't. She may treat me as she pleases: +it's all the same to me as soon as she smiles. But as for this redheaded +Scotch-Irishman--" + +"Stop!" said Peter. "Not a word against him!" O'Bannon stared. + +"He's no friend of yours," said he, reflectively. + +"He is!" + +"Oh, is he? Well, only the other day I heard him say that he thought a good +deal more of your shoes than he did of you," cried O'Bannon, laughing +sarcastically. + +Peter made no reply, but his neck seemed to swell and his face to be getting +purple. + +"And he's a friend of yours? I can't even play a little joke on him." +"Play your joke on him!" exclaimed Peter, "and when my time comes, I'll play +mine." +"When he sent the bundle here yesterday morning I could have returned it +straight to her. I locked it in that closet! 'You'll never go to the ball +with her,' I said, 'if I have to keep her away.' I set my trap. To-day I +hunted up Joseph Holden. 'Come by the office, as you are on your way to the +party to-night,' I said. 'I want to talk to you about a piece of land. Come +early; then we can go together.' When he came--just before you did--I said, +'Look here, did you know that Amy wouldn't be at the ball? She lost her +clothes as she was coming to town the other day, and somebody has just sent +them here to be advertised. I think I'd better take them around to her yet: +it's not too late.' 'I'll take them! I'll go with her myself!' he +cried,jumping up. + +"So she'll be there, he'll be there, I'll be there, we'll all be there--but +your John can hear about it in the morning." And O'Bannon arose slowly, but +unexpectedly sat down again. + +"You think I won't be there," he said threateningly to Peter. +"You think I'm drunk. I'll show you! I'll show you that I can walk--that I +can dance--dance by myself --do it all--by myself--furnish the music and do +the dancing." + +He began whistling "Sir Roger de Coverley," and stood up, but sank down +again and reached for the bottle. + +"Peter," he said with a soft smile, looking down at his gorgeous swan's-down +waistcoat and his well-shaped dove-coloured legs: "ain't I a beauty?" +"Yes, you are a beauty!" said Peter. + +Suddenly lifting one of his bare feet, he shot O'Bannon as by the action of +a catapult against the printing-press. + +He lay there all night. + +IV + +HOW fine a thing it would be if all the faculties of the mind could be +trained for the battles of life as a modern nation makes every man a +soldier. Some of these, as we know, are always engaged in active service; +but there are times when they need to be strengthened by others, +constituting a first reserve; and yet graver emergencies arise in the +marchings of every man when the last defences of land and hearth should be +ready to turn out: too often even then the entire disciplined strength of +his forces would count as a mere handful to the great allied powers of the +world and the devil. + +But so few of our faculties are of a truly military turn, and these wax +indolent and unwary from disuse like troops during long times of peace. We +all come to recognize sooner or later, of course, the unfailing little band +of them that form our standby, our battle-smoked campaigners, our Old Guard, +that dies, neversurrenders. Who of us also but knows his faithful artillery, +dragging along his big guns--and so liable to reach the scene after the +fighting is over? Who when worsted has not fought many a battle through +again merely to show how different the result would have been, if his +artillery had only arrived in time! Boom! boom! boom! Where are the enemy +now? And who does not take pride in his navy, sweeping the high seas of the +imagination but too often departed for some foreign port when the coast +defences need protecting? + +Beyond this general dismemberment of our resources do we not all feel the +presence within us of certain renegades? Does there not exist inside every +man a certain big, ferocious-looking faculty who is his drum major--loving +to strut at the head of a peaceful parade and twirl his bawble and roll his +eyes at the children and scowl back at the quiet intrepid fellows behind as +though they were his personal prisoners? Let but a skirmish threaten, and +our dear, ferocious, fat major--! not even in the rear--not even on the +field! Then there is a rattling little mannikin who sleeps in the barracks +of the brain and is good for nothing but to beat the cerebral drum. There is +a certain awkward squad--too easily identified--who have been drafted again +and again into service only to be in the way of every skilled manoeuvre, +only to be mustered out as raw recruits at the very end of life. And, +finally, there is a miscellaneous crowd of our faculties scattered far and +near at their humdrum peaceful occupations; so that if a quick call for war +be heard, these do but behave as a populace that rushes into a street to +gaze at the national guard already marching past, some of the spectators not +even grateful, not even cheering. + +All that day John had to fight a battle for which he had never been trained; +moreover he had been compelled to divide his forces: there was the far-off +solemn battle going on in his private thoughts; and there was the usual +siege of duties in the school. For once he would gladly have shirked the +latter; but the single compensation he always tried to wrest from the +disagreeable things of life was to do them in such a way that they would +never fester in his conscience like thorns broken off in the flesh. + +During the forenoon, therefore, by an effort which only those who have +experienced it can understand, he ordered off all communication with larger +troubles and confined himself in that stifling prison-house of the mind +where the perplexities and toils of childhood become enormous and everything +else in the world grows small. Up under the joists there was the terrible +struggle of a fly in a web, at first more and more violent, then ceasing in +a strain so fine that the ear could scarce take it; a bee came in one +window, went out another; a rat, sniffing greedily at its hole, crept toward +a crumb under a bench, ran back, crept nearer, seized it and was gone; a +toiling slate-pencil grated on its way as arduously as a wagon up a hill; he +had to teach a beginner its letters. These were the great happenings. At +noon the same child that had brought him a note on the day before came with +another: + +"Kitty is going to the ball with Horatio. I shall be alone. We can have our +talk uninterrupted. How unreasonable you are! Why don't you understand +things without wanting to have them explained? If you wish to go to the +ball, you can do this afterwards. Don't come till Kitty has gone." + +Duties in the school till near sunset, then letters. O'Bannon had told him +that Mr. Bradford's post-rider would leave at four o'clock next morning; if +he had letters to send, they must be deposited in the box that night. Gray +had letters of the utmost importance to write--to his lawyer regarding the +late decision in his will case, and to the secretary of the Democratic Club +in Philadelphia touching the revival of activity in the clubs throughout the +country on account of the expected treaty with England. + +After he had finished them, he strolled slowly about the dark town--past his +school-house, thinking that his teaching days would soon be over--past +Peter's blacksmith shop, thinking what a good fellow he always was--past Mr. +Bradford's editorial room, with a light under the door and the curtain drawn +across the window. Two or three times he lingered before show-windows of +merchandise. He had some taste in snuff-boxes, being the inheritor of +several from his Scotch and Irish ancestors, and there were a few in the new +silversmith's window which he found little to his liking. As he passed a +tavern, a group of Revolutionary officers, not yet gone to the ball, were +having a time of it over their pipes and memories; and he paused to hear one +finish a yarn of strong fibre about the battle of King's Mountain. Couples +went hurrying by him beautifully dressed. Once down a dark street he fancied +that he distinguished Amy's laughter ringing faintly out on the still air; +and once down another he clearly heard the long cry of a pet panther kept by +a young backwoods hunter. + +The Poythress homestead was wrapped in silence as he stepped upon the porch; +but the door was open, there was a light inside, and by means of this he +discovered, lying asleep on the threshold, a lad who was apprentice to the +new English silversmith of the town and a lodger at the minister's--the bond +of acquaintanceship being the memory of John Wesley who had sprinkled the +lad's father in England. + +John laid a hand on his shoulder and tried to break his slumber. He opened +his eyes at last and said, "Nobody at home," and went to sleep again. When +thoroughly aroused, he sat up. Mr. and Mrs. Poythress had been called away +to some sick person; they had asked him to sit up till they came back; he +wished they'd come; he didn't see how he was ever to learn how to make +watches if he couldn't get any sleep; and be lay down again. + +John aroused him again. + +"Miss Falconer is here; will you tell her I wish to see her?" + +The lad didn't open his eyes but said dreamily: + +"She's not here; she's gone to the party." + +John lifted him and set him on his feet. Then he put his hands on his +shoulders and shook him: + +"You are asleep! Wake up! Tell Miss Falconer I wish to see her." +The lad seized Gray by the arms and shook him with all his might. + +"You wake up," he cried. "I tell you she's gone to the party. Do you hear? +She's gone to the party! Now go away, will you? How am I ever to be a +silversmith, if I can't get any sleep?" And stretching himself once more on +the settee, he closed his eyes. + +John turned straight to the Wilkinsons'. His gait was not hurried; whatever +his face may have expressed was hidden by the darkness. The tense quietude +of his mind was like that of a summer tree, not one of whose thousands of +leaves quivers along the edge, but toward which a tempest is rolling in the +distance. + +The house was set close to the street. The windows were open; long bars of +light fell out; as he stepped forward to the threshold, the fiddlers struck +up "Sir Roger de Coverley"; the company parted in lines to the right and +left, leaving a vacant space down the middle of the room; and into this +vacant space he saw Joseph lead Amy and the two begin to dance. +She wore a white muslin dress--a little skillful work had restored its +freshness; a blue silk coat of the loveliest hue; a wide white lace tucker +caught across her round bosom with a bunch of cinnamon roses; and +straw-coloured kid gloves, reaching far up her snow-white arms. Her hair was +coiled high on the crown of her head and airily overtopped by a great +curiously carved silver-and-tortoise-shell comb; and under her dress played +the white mice of her feet. The tints of her skin were pearl and rose; her +red lips parted in smiles. She was radiant with excitement, happiness, +youth. She culled admiration, visiting all eyes with hers as a bee all +flowers. It was not the flowers she cared for. + +He did not see her dress; he did not recognize the garments that had hung on +the wall of his room. What he did see and continued to see was the fact that +she was there and dancing with Joseph. + +If he had stepped on a rattlesnake, he could not have been more horribly, +more miserably stung. He had the sense of being poisoned, as though actual +venom were coursing through his blood. There was one swift backward movement +of his mind over the chain of forerunning events. + +"She is a venomous little serpent!" he groaned aloud. "And I have been +crawling in the dust to her, to be stung like this!" He walked quietly into +the house. + +He sought his hostess first. He found her in the centre of a group of +ladies, wearing the toilet of the past Revolutionary period in the capitals +of the East. The vision dazzled him, bewildered him. But he swept his eye +over them with one feeling of heart-sickness and asked his hostess one +question: was Mrs. Falconer there? She was not. + +In another room he found his host, and a group of Revolutionary officers and +other tried historic men, surrounding the Governor. +They were discussing the letters that had passed between the President and +his Excellency for the suppression of a revolution in Kentucky. During this +spring of 1795 the news had reached Kentucky that Jay had at last concluded +a treaty with England. The ratification of this was to be followed by the +surrender of those terrible Northwestern posts that for twenty years had +been the source of destruction and despair to the single-handed, maddened, +or massacred Kentuckians. Behind those forts had rested the inexhaustible +power of the Indian confederacies, of Canada, of England. Out of them, +summer after summer, armies that knew no pity had swarmed down upon the +doggedly advancing line of the Anglo-Saxon frontiersmen. Against them, +sometimes unaided, sometimes with the aid of Virginia or of the National +Government, the pioneers hurled their frantic retaliating armies: Clarke and +Boone and Kenton often and often; Harmar followed by St. Clair; St. Clair +followed by Wayne. It was for the old failure to give aid against these that +Kentucky had hated Virginia and resolved to tear herself loose from the +mother State and either perish or triumph alone. It was for the failure to +give aid against these that Kentucky hated Washington, hated the East, hated +the National Government, and plotted to wrest Kentucky away from the Union, +and either make her an independent power or ally her with France or Spain. + +But over the sea now France--France that had come to the rescue of the +colonies in their struggle for independence--this same beautiful, passionate +France was fighting all Europe unaided and victorious. The spectacle had +amazed the world. In no other spot had sympathy been more fiercely kindled +than along that Western border where life was always tense with martial +passion. It had passed from station to station, like a torch blazing in the +darkness and with a two-forked fire--gratitude to France, hatred of +England--hatred rankling in a people who had come out of the very heart of +the English stock as you would hew the heart out of a tree. So that when, +two years before this, Citizen Genet, the ambassador of the French republic, +had landed at Charleston, been driven through the country to New York amid +the acclamations of French sympathizers, and disregarding the +President'sproclamation of neutrality, had begun to equip privateers and +enlist crews to act against the commerce of England and Spain, it was to the +backwoodsmen of Kentucky that he sent four agents, to enlist an army, +appoint a generalissimo, and descend upon the Spanish settlements at the +mouth of the Mississippi--those same hated settlements that had refused to +the Kentuckians the right of navigation for their commerce, thus shutting +them off from the world by water, as the mountains shut them off from the +world by land. + +Hence the Jacobin clubs that were formed in Kentucky: one at Lexington, a +second at Georgetown, a third at Paris. Hence the liberty poles in the +streets of the towns; the tricoloured cockades on the hats of the men; the +hot blood between the anti-federal and the federalist parties of the State. + +The actions of Citizen Genet had indeed been disavowed by his republic. But +the sympathy for France, the hatred of England and of Spain, had but grown +meantime; and when therefore in this spring of 1795 the news reached the +frontier that Jay had concluded a treaty with England--the very treaty that +would bring to the Kentuckians the end of all their troubles with the posts +of the Northwest--the flame of revolution blazed out with greater +brilliancy. + +During the hour that John Gray spent in that assemblage of men that night, +the talk led always to the same front of offence: the baser truckling to +England, an old enemy; the baser desertion of France, a friend. He listened +to one man of commanding eloquence, while he traced the treaty to the +attachment of Washington for aristocratic institutions; to another who +referred it to the jealousy felt by the Eastern congressmen regarding the +growth of the new power beyond the Alleghanies; to a third who foretold that +like all foregoing pledges it would leave Kentucky still exposed to the fury +of the Northern Indians; to a fourth who declared that let the treaty be +once ratified with Lord Granville, and in the same old faithless way, +nothing more would be done to extort from Spain for Kentucky the open +passage of the Mississippi. + +At any other time he would have borne his part in these discussions. Now he +scarcely heard them. All the forces of his mind were away, on another +battle-field and he longed to be absent with them, a field strewn with the +sorrowful carnage of ideal and hope and plan, home, happiness, love. He was +hardly aware that his own actions must seem unusual, until one of the older +men took him affectionately by the hand and said: + +"Marshall tells me that you teach school till sunset and read law till +sunrise; and tonight you come here with your eyes blazing and your skin as +pallid and dry as a monk's. Take off the leeches of the law for a good +month, John! They abstract too much blood. If the Senate ratifies in June +the treachery of Jay and Lord Granville, there will be more work than ever +for the Democratic Societies in this country, and nowhere more than in +Kentucky. We shall need you then more than the law needs you now, or than +you need it. Save yourself for the cause of your tricolour. You shall have a +chance to rub the velvet off your antlers." + +"We shall soon put him beyond the reach of his law," said a member of the +Transylvania Library Committee. "As soon as his school is out, we are going +to send him to ask subscriptions from the President, the Vice-President, and +others, and then on to Philadelphia to buy the books." + +A shadow fell upon the face of another officer, and in a lowered tone he +said, with cold emphasis: +"I am sorry that the citizens of this town should stoop to ask anything from +such a man as George Washington." + +The schoolmaster scarcely realized what he had done when he consented to act +as a secret emissary of the Jacobin Club of Lexington to the club in +Philadelphia during the summer. + +The political talk ended at last, the gentlemen returned to the ladies. He +found himself standing in a doorway beside an elderly man of the most +polished hearing and graceful manners, who was watching a minuet. + +"Ah!" he said, waving his hand with delight toward the scene. "This is +Virginia and Maryland brought into the West! It reminds me of the days when +I danced with Martha Custis and Dolly Madison. Some day, with a beginning +like this, Kentucky will be celebrated for its beautiful women. The +daughters and the grand-daughters and the great-granddaughters of such +mothers as these--" + +"And of fathers like these!" interposed one of the town trustees who came up +at that moment. "But for the sake of these ladies isn't it time we were +passing a law against the keeping of pet panthers? I heard the cry of one as +I came here to-night. What can we do with these young backwoods hunters? +Will civilization ever make pets of them--ever tame them?" +John felt some one touch his arm; it was Kitty with Horatio. Her cheeks were +like poppies; her good kind eyes welcomed him sincerely. + +"You here! I'm so glad. Haven't you seen Amy? She is in the other room with +Joseph. Have they explained everything? But we will loose our place--"she +cried, and with a sweet smile of adieu to him, and of warning to her +partner, she glided away. + +"We are entered for this horse race," remarked Mr. Turpin, lingering a +moment longer. "Weight for age, agreeable to the rules of New Market. Each +subscriber to pay one guinea, etc., etc., etc." He was known as the rising +young turfman of the town, having first run his horses down Water Street; +but future member of the first Jockey Club; so that in the full blossom of +his power he could name all the horses of his day with the pedigree of each: +beginning with Tiger by Tiger, and on through Sea Serpent by Shylock, and +Diamond by Brilliant, and Black Snake by Sky Lark: a type of man whom long +association with the refined and noble nature of the horse only vulgarizes +and disennobles. + +Once afterward Gray's glance fell on Amy and Joseph across the room. They +were looking at him and laughing at his expense and the sight burnt his eyes +as though hot needles had been run into them. They beckoned gaily, but he +gave no sign; and in a moment they were lost behind the shifting figures of +the company. While he was dancing, however, Joseph came up. + +"As soon as you get away, Amy wants to see you." + +Half and hour later he came a second time and drew Gray aside from a group +of gentlemen, speaking more seriously: "Amy wants to explain how all this +happened. Come at once." + +"There is nothing to explain," said John, with indifference. +Joseph answered reproachfully: +"This is foolish, John! When you know what has passed, you will not censure +her. And I could not have done otherwise." Despite his wish to be serious, +he could not help laughing for he was very happy himself. + +But to John Gray these reasonable words went for the very thing that they +did not mean. His mind had been forced to a false point of view; and from a +false point of view the truth itself always looks false. Moreover it was +intolerable that Joseph should be defending to him the very woman whom a few +hours before he had hoped to marry. +"There is no explanation needed from her," he replied, with the same +indifference. "I think I understand. What I do not understand I should +rather take for granted. But you, Joseph, you owe me an explanation. This +is not the place to give it." His face twitched, and he knotted the fingers +of his large hands together like bands of iron. "But by God I'll have it; +and if it is not a good one, you shall answer." His oath sounded like an +invocation to the Divine justice--not profanity. +Joseph fixed his quiet fearless eyes on Gray's. "I'll answer for myself--and +for her"--he replied and turned away. + +Still later Gray met her while dancing--the faint rose of her cheeks a shade +deeper, the dazzling whiteness of her skin more pearl-like with warmth, her +gaiety and happiness still mounting, her eyes still wandering among the men, +culling their admiration. + +"You haven't asked me to dance to-night. You haven't even let me tell you +why I had to come with Joseph, when I wanted to come with you." She gave a +little pout of annoyance and let her eyes rest on his with the old fondness. +"Don't you want to know why I broke my engagement with you?" And she danced +on, smiling back at him provokingly. +He did not show that he heard; and although they did not meet again, he was +made aware that a change had at last come over her. She was angry now. He +could hear her laughter oftener--laughter that was meant for his ear and she +was dancing oftener with Joseph. He looked at her repeatedly, but she +avoided his eyes. + +"I am playing a poor part by staying here!" he said with shame, and left the +house. + +After wandering aimlessly about the town for some two hours, he went +resolvedly back again and stood out in the darkness, looking in at her +through the windows. There she was, unwearied, happy, not feigning; and no +more affected by what had taken place between them than a candle is affected +by a scorched insect. So it seemed to him. + +This was the first time he had ever seen her at a ball. He had never +realized what powers she possessed in a field like this: what play, what +resources, what changes, what stratagems, what victories. He mournfully +missed for the first time certain things in himself that should have +corresponded with all those light and graceful things in her. +Perhaps what hurt him most were her eyes, always abroad searching for +admiration, forever filling the forever emptied honeycomb of self-love. + +With him love was a sacred, a grim, an inviolate selection. He would no more +have wished the woman he had chosen to seek indiscriminate admiration with +her eyes than with her lips or her waist. It implied the same fatal flaw in +her refinement, her modesty, her faithfulness, her high breeding. +A light wind stirred the leaves of the trees overhead. A few drops of rain +fell on his hat. He drew his hand heavily across his eyes and turned away. +Reaching his room, he dropped down into a chair before his open window and +sat gazing absently into the black east. + +Within he faced a yet blacker void--the ruined hopes on which the sun would +never rise again. + +It was the end of everything between him and Amy: that was his one thought. +It did not occur to him even to reflect whether he had been right or wrong, +rude or gentle: it was the end: nothing else appeared worth considering. + +Life to him meant a simple straightforward game played with a few well-known +principles. It must be as open as a chess-board: each player should see +every move of the other: and all who chose could look on. + +He was still very young. + +X +THE glimmer of gray dawn at last and he had never moved from his seat. A +fine, drizzling rain had set in. Clouds of mist brushed against the walls +of his cabin. In the stillness he could hear the big trees shedding their +drops from leaf to bending leaf and the musical tinkle of these as they took +their last leap into little pools below. +With the chilliness which misery brings he got up at last and wrapped his +weather-coat about him. If it were only day when he could go to his work and +try to forget! Restless, sleepless, unable to read, tired of sitting, driven +on by the desire to get rid of his own thoughts, he started out to walk. +As he passed his school-house he noticed that the door of it, always +fastened by a simple latch, now stood open; and he went over to see if +everything inside were in order. All his life, when any trouble had come +upon him, he had quickly returned to his nearest post of duty like a +soldier; and once in the school-room now, he threw himself down in his chair +with the sudden feeling that here in his familiar work he must still find +his home--the home of his mind and his affections--as so long in the past. +The mere aspect of the poor bare place had never been so kind. The very +walls appeared to open to him like a refuge, to enfold themselves around him +with friendly strength and understanding. + +He sat at the upper end of the room, gazing blankly through the doorway at +the gray light and clouds of white mist trailing. Once an object came into +the field of his vision. At the first glimpse he thought it a dog--long, +lean, skulking, prowling, tawny--on the scent of his tracks. Then the mist +passed over it. When he beheld it again it had approached nearer and was +creeping rapidly toward the door. His listless eyes grew fascinated by its +motions--its litheness, suppleness, grace, stealth, exquisite caution. Never +before had he seen a dog with the step of a cat. A second time the fog +closed over it, and then, advancing right out of the cloud with more +swiftness, more cunning, its large feet falling as lightly as flakes of +snow, the weight of its huge body borne forward as noiselessly as the +trailing mist, it came straight on. It reached the hickory block, which +formed the doorstep; it paused there an instant, with its fore quarters in +the doorway, one fore foot raised, the end of its long tail waving; and then +it stole just over the threshold and crouched, its head pressed down until +its long, whitish throat lay on the floor; its short, jagged ears set +forward stiffly like the broken points of a javelin; its dilated eye blazing +with steady green fire--as still as death. And then with his blood become as +ice in his veins from horror and all the strength gone out of him in a +deathlike faintness, the school- master realized that he was face to face +unarmed with a cougar, gaunt with famine and come for its kill. + +This dreaded animal, the panther or painter of the backwoodsman, which has +for its kindred the royal tiger and the fatal leopard of the Old World, the +beautiful ocelot and splendid unconquerable jaguar of the New, is now rarely +found in the Atlantic States or the fastnesses of the Alleghanies. It too +has crossed the Mississippi and is probably now best known as the savage +puma of more southern zones. But a hundred years ago it abounded throughout +the Western wilderness, making its deeper dens in the caverns of mountain +rocks, its lair in the impenetrable thickets of bramble and brakes of cane, +or close to miry swamps and watery everglades; and no other region was so +loved by it as the vast game park of the Indians, where reined a +semi-tropical splendour and luxuriance of vegetation and where, protected +from time immemorial by the Indian hunters themselves, all the other animals +thatconstitute its prey roved and ranged in unimaginable numbers. To the +earliest Kentuckians who cut their way into this, the most royal jungle of +the New World, to wrest it from the Indians and subdue it for wife and +child, it was the noiseless nocturnal cougar that filled their imaginations +with the last degree of dread. To them its cry--most peculiar and startling +at the love season, at other times described as like the wail of a child or +of a traveller lost in the woods--aroused more terror than the nearest bark +of the wolf; its stealth and cunning more than the strength and courage and +address of the bear; its attack more than the rush of the majestic, +resistless bison, or the furious pass with antlers lowered of the noble, +ambereyed, infuriated elk. Hidden as still as an adder in long grass of its +own hue, or squat on a log, or amid the foliage of a sloping tree, it waited +around the salt licks and the springs and along the woodland pathways for +the other wild creatures. It possessed the strength to kill and drag a +heifer to its lair; it would leap upon the horse of a traveller and hang +there unshaken, while with fang and claw it lacerated the hind quarters and +the flanks--as the tiger of India tries to hamstring its nobler, +unmanageable victims; or let an unwary bullock but sink a little way in a +swamp and it was upon him, rending him, devouring him, in his long agony. + +Some hunter once had encamped at the foot of a tree, cooked his supper, seen +his fire die out and lain down to sleep, with only the infinite solitude of +the woods for his blanket, with the dreary, dismal silence for his pillow. +Opening his eyes to look up for the last time at the peaceful stars, what he +perceived above him were two nearer stars set close together, burning with a +green light, never twinkling. Or another was startled out of sleep by the +terrible cry of his tethered horse. Or after a long, ominous growl, the +cougar had sprung against his tent, knocking it away as a squirrel would +knock the thin shell from a nut to reach the kernel; or at the edge of the +thicket of tall grass he had struck his foot against the skeleton of some +unknown hunter, dragged down long before. + +To such adventures with all their natural exaggeration John Gray had +listened many a time as they were recited by old hunters regarding earlier +days in the wilderness; for at this period it was thought that the cougar +had retreated even from the few cane-brakes that remained unexplored near +the settlements. But the deer, timidest of animals, with fatal persistence +returns again and again to its old-time ranges and coverts long after the +bison, the bear, and the elk have wisely abandoned theirs; and the cougar +besets the deer. + +It was these stories that he remembered now and that filled him with horror, +with the faintness of death. His turn had come at last, he said; and as to +the others, it had come without warning. He was too shackled with weakness +to cry out, to stand up. The windows on each side were fastened; there was +no escape. There was nothing in the room on which he could lay hold--no +weapon or piece of wood, or bar of iron. If a struggle took place, it would +be a clean contest between will and will, courage and courage, strength and +strength, the love of prey and the love of life.It was well for him that +this was not the first time he had ever faced death, as he had supposed; and +that the first thought that had rushed into his consciousness before +returned to him now. That thought was this: that death had come far too +soon, putting an end to his plans to live, to act, to succeed, to make a +great and a good place for himself in this world before he should leave it +for another. Out of this a second idea now liberated itself with incredible +quickness and spread through him like a living flame: it was his lifelong +attitude of victory, his lifelong determination that no matter what opposed +him he must conquer. Young as he was, this triumphant habit had already +yielded him its due result that growth of character which arises silently +within us, built up out of a myriad nameless elements--beginning at the very +bottom of the ocean of unconsciousness; growing as from cell to cell, atom +to atom--the mere dust of victorious experience--the hardening deposits of +the ever-living, ever-working, ever-rising will; until at last, based on +eternal quietude below and lifting its wreath of palms above the waves of +life, it stands finished, indestructible, our inward rock of defence against +every earthly storm. + +Soon his face was worth going far to see. He had grown perfectly calm. His +weakness had been followed by a sense of strength wholly extraordinary. His +old training in the rough athletics of the wilderness had made him supple, +agile, wary, long-winded. His eyes hadnever known what it was to be subdued; +he had never taken them from the cougar. + +Keeping them on it still, he rose slowly from the chair, realizing that his +chances would be better if he were in the middle of the room. He stepped +round in front of his table and walked two paces straight forward and then +paused, his face as white, as terrible, as death. At the instant of his +moving he could see the tense drawing in of all the muscles of the cougar +and the ripple of its skin, as its whole body quivered with excitement and +desire; and he knew that as soon as he stopped it would make its spring. + +With a growl that announces that all hiding and stealth are over, the leap +came. He had thrown his body slightly forward to meet it with the last +thought that whatever happened he must guard his throat. It was at this that +the cougar aimed, leaping almost perpendicularly, its widespread fore feet +reaching for his shoulders, while the hind feet grasped at his legs. The +under part of its body being thus exposed, he dealt it a blow with all his +strength--full in the belly with his foot, and hurled it backward. For a +second it crouched again, measuring him anew, then sprang again. Again he +struck, but this time the fore feet caught his arm as they passed backward; +the sharp, retractile nails tore their way across the back and palm of his +hand like dull knives and the blood gushed. Instantly the cougar leaped upon +the long, wooden desk that ran alone one side of the room, and from that +advantage, sprang again but he bent his body low so that it passed clean +over him. Instantly it was upon his desk at his back; and before he could +more than recover his balance and turn, it sprang for the fourth time. He +threw out his arm to save his throat, but the cougar had reached his left +shoulder, struck its claws deep into his heavy coat; and with a deafening +roar sounding close in his ears, had buried its fangs near the base of his +neck, until he heard them click as they met through his flesh. + +He staggered, but the desk behind caught him. Straightening himself up, and +grappling the panther with all his strength as he would a man, he turned +with it and bent it over the sharp edge of the ponderous desk, lower, lower, +trying to break its back. One of the fore feet was beginning to tear through +his clothing, and straightening himself up again, he reached down and caught +this foot and tried to bend it, break it. He threw himself with all his +force upon the floor, falling with the cougar under him, trying to crush it. +He staggered to his feet again, but stepped on his own blood and fell. And +then, feeling his blood trickling down his breast and his strength going, +with one last effort he put up his hands and seizing the throat, fastened +his fingers like iron rivets around the windpipe. And then--with the long, +loud, hoarse, despairing roar with which a man, his mouth half full of +water, sinks far out in the ocean--he fell again. +XI + +IT was ten o'clock that morning of mid-May. The rain was over. Clouds and +mists were gone, leaving an atmosphere of purest crystal. The sun floated a +globe of gold in the yielding blue. Above the wilderness on a dead treetop, +the perch of an eagle now flashing like a yellow weather-vane, a thrush +poured the spray-like far-falling fountain of his notes over upon the bowed +woods. Beneath him the dull green domes of the trees flashed as though +inlaid with gems, white and rose. Under these domes the wild grapevines, +climbing the forest arches as the oak of stone climbs the arches of a +cathedral, filled the ceiling and all the shadowy spaces between with fresh +outbursts of their voluptuous dew-born fragrance. And around the +rough-haired Satyr feet of these vines the wild hyacinth, too full of its +own honey to stand, fell back on its couch of moss waiting to be visited by +the singing bee. + +The whole woods emerged from the cloudy bath of Nature with the coolness, +the freshness, the immortal purity of Diana united to the roseate glow and +mortal tenderness of Venus; and haunted by two spirits: the chaste, unfading +youth of Endymion and the dust-born warmth and eagerness of Dionysus. + +Through these woods, feeling neither their heat nor their cold, secured by +Nature against any passion for either the cooling star or the inflaming +dust, rode Amy--slowly homeward from the ball. Yet lovelier, happier than +anything the forest held. She had pushed her bonnet entirely off so that it +hung by the strings at the back of her neck; and her face emerged from the +round sheath of it like a pink and white tulip, newly risen and bursting +forth. + +When she reached home, she turned the old horse loose with many pattings and +good-byes and promises of maple sugar later in the day; and then she bounded +away to the garden to her aunt, of whom, perhaps, she was more truly fond +than of any one in the world except herself. + +Mrs. Falconer had quickly left off work and was advancing very slowly--with +mingled haste and reluctance--to meet her. +"Aunt Jessica! Aunt Jessica!" cried Amy in a voice that rang like a small +silver bell, "I haven't seen you for two whole nights and three whole days!" +Placing her hands on Mrs. Falconer's shoulders, she kissed her once on each +cheek and twice playfully on the pearly tip of the chin; and then she looked +into her eyes as innocently as a perfect tulip might look at a perfect rose. + +Mrs. Falconer smilingly leaned forward and touched her lips to Amy's +forehead. The caress was as light as thistle-down--perhaps no warmer. + +"Three entire days!" she said chidingly. "It has been three months," and she +searched through Amy's eyes onward along the tortuous little passages of her +heart as a calm blue air might search the chambers of a cold beautiful +sea-shell. + +Each of these women instantly perceived that since they had parted a change +had taken place in the other; neither was aware that the other noticed the +change in herself. Mrs. Falconer had been dreading to find one in Amy when +she should come home; and it was the one she saw now that fell as a chill +upon her. Amy was triumphantly aware of a decisive change in herself, but +chose for the present, as she thought, to keep it hidden; and as for any +change in her aunt--that was an affair of less importance. + +"Why, Aunt Jessica!" she exclaimed indignantly, "I don't believe you are +glad to see me," and throwing her arms around Mrs. Falconer's neck, she +strained her closely. "But you poor dear auntie! Come, sit down. I'm going +to do all the work now--mine and yours, both. Oh! the beautiful gardening! +Rows and rows and rows! With all the other work beside. And me an idle +good-for-nothing!" + +The two were walking toward a rough bench placed under a tree inside the +picket fence. Amy had thrown her arm around Mrs. Falconer's waist. + +"But you went to the ball," said the elder woman. "You were not idle there, +I imagine. And a ball is good for a great deal. One ought to accomplish more +there than in a garden. Besides, you went with John Gray, and he is never +idle. Did--he--accomplish--nothing?""Indeed, he was not idle!" exclaimed Amy +with a jubilant laugh. "Indeed he did accomplish something--more than he +ever did in his life before!" + +Mrs. Falconer made no rejoinder; she was too poignantly saying to herself: + +"Ah! if it is too late, what will become of him? " + +The bench was short. Instinctively they seated themselves as far apart as +possible; and they turned their faces outward across the garden, not toward +each other as they had been used when sitting thus. + +The one was nineteen--the tulip: with springlike charm but perfectly hollow +and ready to be filled by east wind or west wind, north wind or south wind, +according as each blew last and hardest; the other thirty-six--the rose: in +its midsummer splendour with fold upon fold of delicate symmetric +structures, making a masterpiece. + +"Aunt Jessica," Amy began to say drily, as though this were to be her last +concession to a relationship now about to end, "I might as well tell you +everything that has happened, just as I've been used to doing since I was a +child--when I've done anything wrong." +She gave a faithful story of the carrying off of her party dress, which of +course had been missed and accounted for, the losing of it and the breaking +of her engagement with John; the return of it and her going to the ball with +Joseph. This brought her mind to the scenes of the night, and she abandoned +herself momentarily to the delight of reviving them. + +"Ah! if you had been there, Aunt Jessica! If they had seen you in a ball +dress as I've seen you without one: those shoulders! those arms! that skin! +You would have been a swan among the rough-necked, red-necked turkeys," and +Amy glanced a little enviously at a neck that rose out of the plain dress as +though turned by a sculptor. + +The sincere little compliment beat on Mrs. Falconer's ear like a wave upon a +stone. + +"But if you did not go with John Gray, you danced with him, you talked with +him?" + +"No," replied Amy, quickly growing grave, "I didn't dance with him. But we +talked yes--not much; it was a little too serious for many words," and she +sank into a mysterious silence, seeming even to forget herself in some new +recess of happiness. + +Mrs. Falconer was watching her. + +"Ah!" she murmured to herself. "It is too late! too late!" She passed her +fingers slowly across her brow with a feeling that life had turned ashen, +cold, barren."How is Kitty?" she asked quickly. +"Well--as always; and stupid." + +"She is always kind and good, isn't she? and faithful." + +"Kindness is not always interesting, unfortunately; and goodness is +dreadful, and her faithfulness bores me to death." + +"At least, she was your hostess, Amy." "I lent her my silk stockings or +she'd have had to wear cotton ones," exclaimed Amy, laughing. "We're even." + +"If you were merely paying for a lodging, you should have gone to the inn." + +"There was nobody at the tavern who could wear my silk stockings; and I had +spent all my money." + +"Don't you expect Kitty to return your visit? + +"I certainly do-- more's the pity. She has such big feet!" Amy put out her +toe and studied it with vixenish satisfaction. + +"Aunt Jessica," she observed at length, looking round at her aunt. "You +have to work too hard. And I have always been such a care to you. Wouldn't +you like to get rid of me?" + +Mrs. Falconer leaned quickly, imploringly, toward her. + +"Is that a threat, Amy?" + +Amy waited half a minute and then began with a composure that was tinged +with condescension: + +"You have had so much trouble in your life, Aunt Jessica; so much sorrow." + +Mrs. Falconer started and turned upon her niece her eyes that were always +exquisite with refinement. + +"Amy, have I ever spoken to you of the troubles of my life?" The reproof was +majestic in dignity and gentleness. + +"You have not." + +"Then will you never speak of them to me never again--while you live!" + +Amy began again with a dry practical voice, which had in it the sting of +revenge; her aunt's rebuke had nettled her. + +"At least, I have always been a trouble to you. You sew for me, cook for me, +make the garden for me, spin and weave for me, and worry about me. Uncle has +to work for me and support me." + +The turn of the conversation away from herself brought such relief that Mrs. +Falconer replied even warmly. + +"You have been a great pleasure to him and to me! The little I have done, +you have repaid a thousand fold. Think of us at night without you! Your +uncle on one side of the fireplace--me on the other, and you away! Think of +us at the table--him at one end, me at the other, and you away! Think of me +alone in the house all day, while he is in the fields! Child, I have +depended on you--more than you will ever understand!" she added to herself. + +"Aunt Jessica," observed Amy with the air of making a fine calculation, +"perhaps uncle would think more of you if I were not in the house." + +"Amy!" + +"Perhaps you would think more of him!" + +"Amy!" +"Perhaps if neither of you had me to depend on, you might depend more on +each other and be happier." + +"You speak to me in this way--on a subject like this! You'd better go!" + +"Aunt Jessica," replied Amy, never budging, "the time has been when I would +have done so. But it is too late now for you ever to tell me to leave your +presence. I am a woman! If I had not been, I shouldn't have said what I just +have." + +Mrs. Falconer looked at her in silence. This rare gentlewoman had too +profound a knowledge of the human heart not to realize that she was +completely vanquished. For where in this world is not refinement instantly +beaten by coarseness, gentleness by rudeness, all delicacy by all that is +indelicate? What can the finest consideration avail against no +consideration? the sweetest forbearance against intrusiveness? the beak of +the dove against the beak of the hawk? And yet all these may have their +victory; for when the finer and the baser metal are forced to struggle with +each other in the same field, the finer may always leave it. + +With unruffled dignity and with a voice that Amy had never heard--a voice +that brought the blood rushing into her cheeks--Mrs. Falconer replied:"Yes; +it is true: you are a woman. This is the first day that you have ever made +me feel this. For I have always known that as soon as you became one, you +would begin to speak to me as you have spoken. I shall never again request +you to leave my presence: when it becomes unavoidable, I shall leave yours." + +She rose and was moving away. Amy started up and caught her. + +"Aunt Jessica, I've something to tell you!" she cried, her face dyed scarlet +with the sting. + +Mrs. Falconer released herself gently and returned to her seat. + +"You know what I mean by what I said?" inquired Amy, still confused but +regaining self command rapidly. + +"I believe I know: you are engaged to be married." + +The words were very faint: they would have reached the subtlest ear with the +suggestiveness of a light dreary wind blowing over a desolation. + +"Yes; I am engaged to be married." + +Amy affirmed it with a definite stress. + +"It is this that has made you a woman? + +"It is this that has made me a woman." + +After the silence of a moment Mrs. Falconer inquired: + +"You do not expect to ask my consent--my advice?" + +"I certainly do not expect to ask your consent--your advice." + +Amy was taking her revenge now--and she always took it as soon as possible. + +"Nor your uncle's?" + +"Nor my uncle's." + +After another, longer silence: + +"Do you care to tell me how long this engagement has lasted?" + +"Certainly!--Since last night." + +"Thank you for telling me that. I think I must go back to my work now." + +She walked slowly away. Amy sat still, twirling her bonnet strings and +smiling to herself. + +This outburst of her new dignity--this initial assertion of her +womanhood--had come almost as unexpectedly to herself as to her aunt. She +had scarcely known it was in herself to do such a thing. Certain +restrictions had been chafing her for a long time: she had not dreamed that +they could so readily be set aside, that she had only to stamp her foot +violently down on another foot and the other foot would be jerked out of the +way. In the flush of elation, she thought of what had just taken place as +her Declaration of Independence. She kept on celebrating it in a sort of +intoxication at her own audacity: + +"I have thrown off the yoke of the Old Dynasty! Glory for the thirteen +colonies! A Revolution in half an hour! I'm the mother of a new country! +Washington, salute me!" + +Then, with perhaps somewhat the feeling of a pullet that has whipped a hen +in a barnyard and that after an interval will run all the way across the +barnyard to attack again and see whether the victory is complete, she rose +and went across the garden, bent on trying the virtue of a final peck. + +"But you haven't congratulated me, Aunt Jessica! You have turned your back +on the bride elect--you with all your fine manners! She presents herself +once more to your notice the future Mrs. Joseph Holden, Junior, to be +married one month from last night!" And unexpectedly standing in front of +Mrs. Falconer, Amy made one of her low bows which she had practised in the +minuet. But catching the sight of the face of her aunt, she cried +remorsefully: + +"Oh, I have been so rude to you, Aunt Jessica! Forgive me!" There was +something of the new sense of womanhood in her voice and of the sisterhood +in suffering which womanhood alone can bring. + +But Mrs. Falconer had not heard Amy's last exclamation. + +"What do you mean?" she asked with quick tremulous eagerness. She had +regained her firmness of demeanour, which alone should have turned back any +expression of sympathy before it could have been offered. + +"That I am to become Mrs. Joseph Holden--a month from last night," repeated +Amy bewitchingly. + +"You are serious?" + +"I am serious!" + +Mrs. Falconer did not take Amy's word: she searched her face and eyes with +one swift scrutiny that was like a merciless white flame of truth, scorching +away all sham, all play, all unreality. Then she dropped her head quickly, +so that her own face remained hidden, and silently plied her work. But how +the very earth about the rake, how the little roots and clods, seemed to +come to life and leap joyously into the air! All at once she dropped +everything and came over and took Amy's hand and kissed her cheek. Her +lovely eyes were glowing; her face looked as though it had upon it the rosy +shadow of the peach trees not far away. + +"I do congratulate you," she said sweetly, but with the reserve which Amy's +accession to womanhood and the entire conversation of the morning made an +unalterable barrier to her. "You have not needed advice: you have chosen +wisely. You shall have a beautiful wedding. I will make your dress myself. +The like of it will never have been seen in the wilderness. You shall have +all the finest linen in the weaving-room. Only a month! How shall we ever +get ready!--if we stand idling here! Oh, the work, the work!" she cried and +turned to hers with a dismissing smile--unable to trust herself to say more. + +"And I must go and take the things out of my bundle," cried Amy, catching +the contagion of all this and bounding away to the house. Some five minutes +later Mrs. Falconer glanced at the sun: it was eleven o'clock--time to be +getting dinner. + +When she reached her room, Amy was standing beside the bed, engaged in +lifting out of the bundle the finery now so redolent of the ball. +"Aunt Jessica," she remarked carelessly, without looking round, "I forgot to +tell you that John Gray had a fight with a panther in his schoolroom this +morning," and she gave several gossamer-like touches to the white lace +tucker. +Mrs. Falconer had seated herself in a chair to rest. She had taken off her +bonnet, and her fingers were unconsciously busy with the lustrous edges of +her heavy hair. At Amy's words her hands fell to her lap. But she had long +ago learned the value of silence and self-control when she was most deeply +moved: Amy had already surprised her once that morning. + +"The panther bit him in the shoulder close to the neck," continued Amy, +folding the tucker away and lifting out the blue silk coat. "They were on +the floor of the school-house in the last struggle when Erskine got there. +He had gone for Phoebe Lovejoy's cows, because it was raining and she +couldn't go herself; and he heard John as he was passing. He said his voice +sounded like the bellow of a dying bull." +"Is he much hurt? Where is he? Did you go to see him? ho dressed his wound? +Who is with him?" + +"They carried him home," said Amy, turning round to the light and pressing +the beautiful silk coat in against her figure with little kicks at the +skirt. "No; I didn't go; Joseph came round and told me. He didn't think the +wound was very dangerous--necessarily. One of his hands was terribly +clawed." + +"A panther? In town? In his schoolroom?"-- + +"You know Erskine keeps a pet panther. I heard him tell Mrs. Poythress it +was a female," said Amy with an apologetic icy, knowing little laugh. "And +he said this one had been prowling about in the edge of the canebrakes for +several days. He had been trying to get a shot at it. He says it was nearly +starved: that was why it wanted to eat John whole before breakfast." + +Amy turned back to the bed and shook out delicately the white muslin +dress--the dress that John had hung on the wall of his cabin--that had wound +itself around his figure so clingingly. + + +There was silence in the room. Amy had now reached the silk stockings; and +taking up one, she blew down into it and quickly peeped over the side, to +see whether it would fill out to life-size--with a mischievous wink. + +"I am going to him at once." + +Amy looked up in amazement. +"But, Aunt Jessica," she observed reproachfully; "who will get uncle's +dinner? You know I can't." +"Tell your uncle what has happened as soon as he comes." + +She had risen and was making some rapid preparations. + +"I want my dinner," said Amy ruefully, seating herself on the edge of the +bed and watching her aunt with disapproval. + +"You can't go now!" she exclaimed. "Uncle has the horses in the field." + +Mrs. Falconer turned to her with simple earnestness. + +"I hoped you would lend me your horse?" + +"But he is tired; and beside I want to use him this afternoon: Kitty and I +are going visiting." + +"Tell your uncle when he comes in," said Mrs. Falconer, turning in the +doorway a minute later, and speaking rapidly to her niece, but without the +least reproach, "tell your uncle that his friend is badly hurt. Tell him +that we do not know how badly. Tell him that I have gone to find out and to +do anything for him that I can. Tell him to follow me at once. He will +find me at his bedside. I am sorry about the dinner." + + +XII + +SEVERAL days had slipped by. + +At John's request they had moved his bed across the doorway of his cabin; +and stretched there, he could see the sun spring every morning out the +dimpled emerald ocean of the wilderness; and the moon follow at night, +silvering the soft ripples of the multitudinous leaves lapping the shores of +silence: days when the inner noises of life sounded like storms; nights when +everything within him lay as still as memory. + +His wounds had behaved well from the out-set. When he had put forth all his +frenzied despairing strength to throttle the cougar, it had let go its hold +only to sink its fangs more deeply into his flesh, thus increasing the +laceration; and there was also much laceration of the hand. But the rich +blood flowing in him was the purest; and among a people who for a quarter of +a century had been used to the treatment of wounds, there prevailed a rough +but genuine skill that stood him in good stead. To these hardy fighting +folk, as to him, it was a scratch and he would have liked to go on with his +teaching. Warned of the danger of inflammation, however, he took to his bed; +and according to our own nervous standards which seem to have intensified +pain for us beyond the comprehension of our forefathers, he was sick and a +great sufferer. + +Those long cool, sweet, brilliant days! Those long still, lonely, silvery +nights! His cabin stood near the crest of the hill that ran along the +southern edge of the settlement; and propped on his bed, he could look down +into the wide valley--into the town. The frame of his door became the frame +of many a living picture. Under a big shady tree at the creek-side, he could +see some of his children playing or fishing: their shouts and laughter were +borne to his ear; he could recognize their shrill voices--those always +masterful voices of boys at their games. Sometimes these little figures were +framed timidly just outside the door--the girls with small wilted posies, +the boys with inquiries. But there was no disguising the dread they all felt +that he might soon be well: he had felt himself once; he did not blame them. +Wee Jennie even came up with her slate one day and asked him to set her a +sum in multiplication; he did so; but he knew that she would rub it out as +soon as she could get out of sight, and he laughed quietly to himself at +this tiny casuist, who was trying so hard to deceive them both. + +Two or three times, now out in the sunlight, now under the shadow of the +trees, he saw an old white horse go slowly along the distant road; and a +pink skirt and a huge white bonnet--two or three times; but he watched for +it a thousand times till his eyes grew weary. + +One day Erskine brought the skin of the panther which he was preparing for +him, to take the place of the old one under his table. He brought his rifle +along also,--his "Betsy," as he always called it; which, however, he +declared was bewitched just now; and for a while John watched him curiously +as he nailed a target on a tree in front of John's door, drew on it the face +of the person whom he charged with having bewitched his gun, and then, +standing back, shot it with a silver bullet; after which, the spell being +now undone, he dug the bullet out of the tree again and went off to hunt +with confidence in his luck. + +And then the making of history was going on under his eyes down there in the +town, and many a thoughtful hour he studied that. The mere procession of +figures across his field of vision symbolized the march of destiny, the +onward sweep of the race, the winning of the continent. Now the barbaric +paint and plumes of some proud Indian, peaceably come to trade in pelts but +really to note the changes that had taken place in his great hunting ground, +loved and ranged of old beyond all others: this figure was the Past--the +old, old Past. Next, the picturesque, rugged outlines of some backwoods +rifleman, who with his fellows had dislodged and pushed the Indian westward: +this figure was the Present--the short-lived Present. Lastly, dislodging +this figure in turn and already pushing him westward as he had driven the +Indian, a third type of historic man, the fixed settler, the land-loving, +house-building, wife-bringing, child-getting, stock-breeding yeoman of the +new field and pasture: this was the figure of the endless Future. The +retreating wave of Indian life, the thin restless wave of frontier life, the +on-coming, all-burying wave of civilized life--he seemed to feel close to +him the mighty movements of the three. His own affair, the attack of the +panther, the last encounter between the cabin and the jungle looked to him +as typical of the conquest; and that he should have come out of the struggle +alive, and have owed his life to the young Indian fighter and hunter who had +sprung between him and the incarnate terror of the wilderness, affected his +imagination as an epitome of the whole winning of the West. + +One morning while the earth was still fresh with dew, the great Boone came +to inquire for him, and before he left, drew from the pocket of his hunting +shirt a well-worn little volume. + +"It has been my friend many a night," he said. "I have read it by many a +camp-fire. I had it in my pocket when I stood on the top of Indian Old +Fields and saw the blue grass lands for the first time. And when we +encamped on the creek there, I named it Lulbegrud in honour of my book. You +can read it while you have nothing else to do;" and he astounded John by +leaving in his hand Swift's story of adventures in new worlds. + +He had many other visitors: the Governor, Mr. Bradford, General Wilkinson, +the leaders in the French movement, all of whom were solicitous for his +welfare as a man, but also as their chosen emissary to the Jacobin Club of +Philadelphia. In truth it seemed to him that everyone in the town came +sooner or later, to take a turn at his bedside or wish him well. + +Except four persons: Amy did not come; nor Joseph, with whom he had +quarrelled and with whom he meant to settle his difference as soon as he +could get about; nor O'Bannon, whose practical joke had indirectly led to +the whole trouble; nor Peter, who toiled on at his forge with his wounded +vanity. + +Betrothals were not kept secret in those days and engagements were short. +But as he was sick and suffering, some of those who visited him forbore to +mention her name, much less to speak of the preparations now going forward +for her marriage with Joseph. Others, indeed, did begin to talk of her and +to pry; but he changed the subject quickly. + +And so he lay there with the old battle going on in his thoughts, never +knowing that she had promised to become the wife of another: fighting it all +over in his foolish, iron-minded way: some days hardening and saying he +would never look her in the face again; other days softening and resolving +to seek her out as soon as he grew well enough and learn whether the fault +of all this quarrel lay with him or wherein lay the truth: yet in all his +moods sore beset with doubts of her sincerity and at all times passing sore +over his defeat--defeat that always went so hard with him. + +Meantime one person was pondering his case with a solicitude that he wist +not of: the Reverend James Moore, the flute-playing Episcopal parson of the +town, within whose flock this marriage was to take place and who may have +regarded Amy as one of his most frisky wayward fleeces. Perhaps indeed as +not wearing a white spiritual fleece at all but as dyed a sort of +merino-brown in the matter of righteousness. + +He had long been fond of John--they both being pure-minded men, religious, +bookish, and bachelors; but their friendship caused one to think of the pine +and the palm: for the parson, with his cold bleak face, palish straight hair +put back behind white ears, and frozen smile, appeared always to be +inhabiting the arctic regions of life while John, though rooted in a +tropical soil of many passions, strove always to bear himself in character +like a palm, up-right, clean-cut; having no low or drooping branches; and +putting forth all the foliage and blossoms of the mind at the very summit of +his powers. +The parson and the school-master had often walked out to the Falconers' +together in the days when John imagined his suit to be faring prosperously; +and from Amy's conduct, and his too slight knowledge of the sex, this arctic +explorer had long since adjusted his frosted faculties to the notion that +she expected to become John's wife. He was sorry; it sent an extra chill +through the icebergs of his imagination; but perhaps he gathered comforting +warmth from the hope that some of John's whiteness would fall upon her and +that thus from being a blackish lambkin she would at least eventually turn +into a light-gray ewe. + +When the tidings reached his far-inward ear that she was to marry Joseph +instead of his friend, a general thaw set in over the entire landscape of +his nature: it was like spring along the southern fringes of Greenland. + +The error must not be inculcated here that the parson had no passions: he +had three-ruling ones: a passion for music, a passion for metaphysics, and a +passion for satirizing the other sex. + +Dropping in one afternoon and glancing with delicate indirection at John's +short shelf of books, he inquired whether he had finished with his Paley. +John said he had and the parson took it down to bear away with him. Laying +it across his stony knees as he sat down and piling his white hands on it, + +"Do you believe Paley?" he asked, turning upon John a pair of the most +beautiful eyes, which looked a little like moss agates. + +"I believe St. Paul," replied John, turning his own eyes fondly on his open +Testament. + +"Do you believe Paley?" insisted the parson, who would always have his +questions answered directly. + +"There's a good deal of Paley: what do you mean?" said John, laughing +evasively. + +"I mean his ground idea-the corner stone of his doctrine -his pou sto. I +mean do you believe that we can infer the existence and character of God +from any evidences of design that we see in the universe " + +"I'm not so sure about that," said John. "What we call the evidences of +design in the universe may be merely certain laws of our own minds, certain +inward necessities we are under to think of everything as having an order +and a plan and a cause. And these inner necessities may themselves rest on +nothing, may be wrong, may be deceiving us." + +"Oh, I don't mean that!" said the parson. "We've got to believe our own +minds. We've got to do that even to disbelieve them. If the mind says of +itself it is a liar, how does it know this to be true if it is a liar +itself? No; we have to believe our own minds whether they are right or +wrong. But what I mean is: can we, according to Paley, infer the existence +and character of God from anything we see?" +"It sounds reasonable," said John. +"Does it! Then suppose you apply this method of reasoning to a woman: can +you infer her existence from anything you see? Can you trace the evidences +of design there? Can you derive the slightest notion of her character from +her works?" +As the parson said this, he turned upon the sick man a look of such logical +triumph that John, who for days had been wearily trying to infer Amy's +character from what she had done, was seized with a fit of laughter--the +parson himself remaining perfectly grave. + +Another day he examined John's wound tenderly, and then sat down by him with +his beautiful moss-agate eyes emitting dangerous little sparkles. + +"It's a bad bite," he said, "the bite of a cat--felis concolor. They are a +bad family--these cats--the scratchers." He was holding John's wounded hand. +"So you've had your fight with a felis. A single encounter ought to be +enough! If some one hadn't happened to step in and save you!--What do you +suppose is the root of the idea universal in the consciousness of our race +that if a man had not been a man he'd have been a lion; and that if a woman +hadn't been a woman she'd have been a tigress? " + +"I don't believe there's any such idea universal in the consciousness of the +race," replied John, laughing. + +"It's universal in my consciousness," said the parson doggedly, "and my +consciousness is as valid as any other man's. But I'll ask you an easier +question: who of all men, do you suppose, knew most about women?" + +"Women or Woman?" inquired John. + +"Women," said the parson. "We'll drop the subject of Woman: she's beyond us! + +"I don't know," observed John. "St. Paul knew a good deal, and said some +necessary things." + +"St. Paul!" exclaimed the parson condescendingly. "He knew a few noble +Jewesses--superficially--with a scattering acquaintance among the pagan +sisters around the shores of the Mediterranean. As for what he wrote on +that subject--it may have been inspired by Heaven: it never could have been +inspired by the sex." +"Shakspeare, I suppose," said John. +"The man in the Arabian Nights," cried the parson, who may have been put in +mind of this character by his own attempts to furnish daily entertainment. +"He knew a thousand of them--intimately. And cut off the heads of nine +hundred and ninety-nine! The only reason he did not cut off the head of the +other was that he had learned enough: he could not endure to know any more. +All the evidence had come in: the case was closed." + +"I suppose there are men in the world," he continued, "who would find it +hard to stand a single disappointment about a woman. But think of a thousand +disappointments! A thousand attempts to find a good wife--just one woman who +could furnish a man a little rational companionship at night. Bluebeard also +must have been a well-informed person. And Henry the Eighth--there was a man +who had evidently picked up considerable knowledge and who made considerable +use of it. But to go back a moment to the idea of the felis family. Suppose +we do this: we'll begin to enumerate the qualities of the common house cat. +I'll think of the cat; you think of some woman; and we'll see what we come +to." + +"I'll not do it," said John. "She's too noble." + +"Just for fun!" + +"There's no fun in comparing a woman to a cat." + +"There is if she doesn't know it. Come, begin!" And the parson laid one long +forefinger on one long little finger and waited for the first specification. +"Fineness," said John, thinking of a certain woman. + +"Fondness for a nap," said the parson, thinking of a certain cat. + +"Grace," said John. +"Inability to express thanks," said the parson. + +"A beautiful form," said John."A desire to be stroked," said the parson. +"Sympathy," said John. +"Oh, no!" said the parson; "no cat has any sympathy. A dog has: a man is +more of a dog." +"Noble-mindedness," said John. + +"That will not do either," said the parson. "Cats are not noble-minded; it's +preposterous!" + +"Perfect case of manner," said John. + +"Perfect indifference of manner," said the parson." + +"No vanity," said John. +"No sense of humour," said the parson. + +"Plenty of wit," said John. + +"You keep on thinking too much about some woman," remonstrated the parson, +slightly exasperated. + +"Fastidiousness," said John. + +"Soft hands and beautiful nails," said the parson, nodding encouragingly. + +"A gentle footstep," said John with a softened look coming into his eyes. "A +quiet presence." + +"Beautiful taste in music," said John. + +"Oh! dreadful!" said the parson. "What on earth are you thinking about?" + +"The love of rugs and cushions," said John, groping desperately. +"The love of a lap," said the parson fluently. + +"The love of playing with its victim," said John, thinking of another woman. + +"Capital!" cried the parson. "That's the truest thing we've said. We'll not +spoil it by another word;" but he searched John's face covertly to see +whether this talk had beguiled him. + +All this satire meant nothing sour, or bitter, or ignoble with the parson. +It was merely the low, far-off play of the northern lights of his mind, +irradiating the long polar night of his bachelorhood. But even on the polar +night the sun rises--a little way; and the time came when he married--as one +might expect to find the flame of a volcano hidden away in a mountain of +Iceland spar. + +Toward the end of his illness, John lay one night inside his door, looking +soberly, sorrowfully out into the moonlight. A chair sat outside, and the +parson walked quietly up the green hill and took it. Then he laid his hat on +the grass; and passed his delicate hands slowly backward over his long fine +straight hair, on which the moonbeams at once fell with a luster as upon +still water or the finest satin. + +They talked awhile of the best things in life, as they commonly did. At +length the parson said in his unworldly way: + +"I have one thing against Aristotle: he said the effect of the flute was bad +and exciting. He was no true Greek. John, have you ever thought how much of +life can be expressed in terms of music? To me every civilization has given +out its distinct musical quality; the ages have their peculiar tones; each +century its key, its scale. For generations in Greece you can hear nothing +but the pipes; during other generations nothing but the lyre. Think of the +long, long time among the Romans when your ear is reached by the trumpet +alone. + +"Then again whole events in history come down to me with the effect of an +orchestra, playing in the distance; single lives sometimes like a great +solo. As for the people I know or have known, some have to me the sound of +brass, some the sound of wood, some the sound of strings. Only--so few, so +very, very few yield the perfect music of their kind. The brass is a little +too loud; the wood a little too muffled; the strings--some of the strings +are invariably broken. I know a big man who is nothing but a big drum; and I +know another whose whole existence has been a jig on a fiddle; and I know a +shrill little fellow who is a fife; and I know a brassy girl who is a pair +of cymbals; and once--once," repeated the parson whimsically, "I knew an old +maid who was a real living spinet. I even know another old maid now who is +nothing but an old music book--long ago sung through, learned by heart, and +laid aside: in a faded, wrinkled binding--yellowed paper stained by +tears--and haunted by an odour of rose-petals, crushed between the leaves of +memory: a genuine very thin and stiff collection of the rarest original +songs--not songs without words, but songs without sounds--the ballads of an +undiscovered heart, the hymns of an unanswered spirit." + +After a pause during which neither of the men spoke, the parson went on: + +"All Ireland--it is a harp! We know what Scotland is. John," he exclaimed, +suddenly turning toward the dark figure lying just inside the shadow, "you +are a discord of the bagpipe and the harp: there's the trouble with you. +Sometimes I can hear the harp alone in you, and then I like you; but when +the bagpipe begins, you are worse than a big bumblebee with a bad cold." + +"I know it," said John sorrowfully. "My only hope is that the harp will +outlast the bee." + +"At least that was a chord finely struck," said the parson warmly. After +another silence he went on. + +"Martin Luther--he was a cathedral organ. And so it goes. And so the whole +past sounds to me: it is the music of the world: it is the vast choir of the +ever-living dead." He gazed dreamily up at the heavens: "Plato! he is the +music of the stars." + +After a little while, bending over and looking at the earth and speaking in +a tone of unconscious humility, he added: + +"The most that we can do is to begin a strain that will swell the general +volume and last on after we have perished. As for me, when I am gone, I +should like the memory of my life to give out the sound of a flute." + +He slipped his hand softly into the breastpocket of his coat and more softly +drew something out. + +"Would you like a little music?" he asked shyly, his cold beautiful face all +at once taking on an expression of angelic sweetness. + +John quickly reached out and caught his hand in a long, crushing grip: he +knew this was the last proof the parson could ever have given him that he +loved him. And then as he lay back on his pillow, he turned his face back +into the dark cabin. + +Out upon the stillness of the night floated the parson's passion-- +silver-clear, but in an undertone of such peace, of such immortal +gentleness. It was as though the very beams of the far-off serenest moon, +falling upon his flute and dropping down into its interior through its +little round openings, were by his touch shorn of all their lustre, their +softness, their celestial energy, and made to reissue as music. It was as +though his flute had been stuffed with frozen Alpine blossoms and these had +been melted away by the passionate breath of his soul into the coldest +invisible flowers of sound. +At last, as though all these blossoms in his flute had been used up--blown +out upon the warm, moon-lit air as the snow-white fragrances of the ear--the +parson buried his face softly upon his elbow which rested on the back of his +chair. +And neither man spoke again. +XIII + +WHEN Mrs. Falconer had drawn near John's hut on the morning of his +misfortune, it was past noon despite all her anxious, sorrowful haste to +reach him. His wounds had been dressed. The crowd of people that had +gathered about his cabin were gone back to their occupations or their +homes--except a group that sat on the roots of a green tree several yards +from his door. Some of these were old wilderness folk living near by who had +offered to nurse him and otherwise to care for his comforts and needs. The +affair furnished them that renewed interest in themselves which is so liable +to revisit us when we have escaped a fellow-creature's suffering but can +relate good things about ourselves in like risks and dangers; and they were +drawing out their reminiscences now with unconscious gratitude for so +excellent an opportunity befalling them in these peaceful unadventurous +days. Several of John's boys lay in the grass and hung upon these +narratives. Now and then they cast awe-stricken glances at his door which +had been pushed to, that he might be quiet; or, if his pain would let him, +drop into a little sleep. They made it their especial care, when any +new-comer hurried past, to arrest him with the command that he must not go +in; and they would thus have stopped Mrs. Falconer but she put them gently +aside without heed or hearing. + +When she softly pushed the door open, John was not asleep. He lay in a +corner on his low hard bed of skins against the wall of logs-- his eyes wide +open, the hard white glare of the small shutter-less window falling on his +face. He turned to her the look of a dumb animal that can say nothing of why +it has been wounded or of how it is suffering; stretched out his hand +gratefully; and drew her toward him. She sat down on the edge of the bed, +folded her quivering fingers across his temples, smoothed back his heavy, +coarse, curling hair, and bending low over his eyes, rained down into them +the whole unuttered, tearless passion of her distress, her sympathy. +Major Falconer came for her within the hour and she left with him almost as +soon as he arrived. +When she was gone, John lay thinking of her. + +"What a nurse she is!" he said, remembering how she had concerned herself +solely his about life, his safety, his wounds. Once she had turned quickly: + +"Now you can't go away!" she had said with a smile that touched him deeply. + +"I wish you didn't have to go!" he had replied mourningfully, feeling his +sudden dependence on her. + +This was the first time she had ever been in room--with its poverty, its +bareness. She must have cast about it a look of delicate inquiry--as a woman +is apt to do in a singleman's abode; for when she came again, in addition to +pieces of soft old linen for bandages brought fresh cool fragrant +sheets--the work of her own looms; a better pillow with a pillow-case on it +that was delicious to his cheek; for he had his weakness about clean, white +linen. She put a curtain over the pitiless window. He saw a wild rose in a +glass beside his Testament. He discovered moccasin slippers beside his bed. + +"And here," she had said just before leaving, with her hand on a pile of +things and with an embarrassed laugh--keeping her face turned away--"here +are some towels." +Under the towels he found two night shirts--new ones. + +When she was gone, he lay thinking of her again. + +He had gratefully slipped on one of the shirts. He was feeling the new sense +of luxury that is imparted by a bed enriched with snow-white, sweet-smelling +pillows and sheets. The curtain over his window strained into his room a +light shadowy, restful. The flower on his table,--the transforming touch in +his room--her noble brooding tenderness--everything went into his gratitude, +his remembrance of her. But all this--he argued with a sudden taste for fine +discrimination--had not been done out of mere anxiety for his life: it was +not the barren solicitude of a nurse but the deliberate, luxurious regard of +a mother for his comfort: no doubt it represented the ungovernable overflow +of the maternal, long pent-up in her ungratified. And by this route he came +at last to a thought of her that novel for him--the pitying recollection of +her childlessness. + +"What a mother she would have been!" he said rebelliously. "The mother of +sons who would have become great through her--and greater through the memory +of her after she was gone." +When she came again, seeing him out of danger and seeing him comfortable, +she seated herself beside his table and opened her work."It isn't good for +you to talk much," she soon said reprovingly, "and I have to work--and to +think." + +And so he lay watching her--watching her beautiful fingers which never +seemed to rest in life--watching her quiet brow with its ripple of lustrous +hair forever suggesting to him how her lovely neck and shoulders would be +buried by it if its long light waves were but loosened. To have a woman +sitting by his table with her sewing--it turned his room into something +vaguely dreamed of heretofore: a home. She finished a sock for Major +Falconer and began on one of his shirts. He counted the stitches as they +went into a sleeve. They made him angry. And her face!--over it had come a +look of settled weariness; for perhaps if there is ever a time when a woman +forgets and the inward sorrow steals outward to the surface as an unwatched +shadow along a wall, it is when she sews. + +"What a wife she is!" he reflected enviously after she was gone; and he +tried not to think of certain matters in her life. "What a wife! How +unfaltering in duty!" + +The next time she came, it was early. She seemed to him to have bathed in +the freshness, the beauty, the delight of the morning. He had never seen her +so radiant, so young. She was like a woman who holds in her hand the +unopened casket of life--its jewels still ungazed on, still unworn. There +was some secret excitement in her as though the moment had at last come for +her to open it. She had but a few moments to spare. + +"I have brought you a book," she said, smiling and laying her cheek against +a rose newly placed by his Testament. For a moment she scrutinized him with +intense penetration. Then she added: + +"Will you read it wisely?" + +"I will if I am wise," he replied laughing. "Thank you," and he held out his +hand for the book eagerly. +She clasped it more tightly with the gayest laugh of irresolution. Her +colour deepened. A moment later, however, she recovered the simple and noble +seriousness to which she had grown used as the one habit of her life with +him. + +"You should have read it long ago," she said. "But it is not too late for +you. Perhaps now is your best time. It is a good book for a man, wounded as +you have been; and by the time you are well, you will need it more than you +have ever done. Hereafter you will always need it more." + +She spoke with partly hidden significance, as one who knows life may speak +to one who does not. +He eyed the book despairingly. + +"It is my old Bible of manhood," she continued with rich soberness, " part +worthless, part divine. Not Greek manhood--nor Roman manhood: they were too +pagan. Not Semitic manhood: that--in its ideal at least--was not pagan +enough. But something better than any of these--something that is +everything." +The subject struck inward to the very heart's root of his private life. He +listened as with breath arrested. + +"We know what the Greeks were before everything else," she said resolutely: +" hey were physical men: we think less of them spiritually in any sense of +the idea that is valued by us and of course we do not think of them at all +as gentlemen: that involves of course the highest courtesy to women. The +Jews were of all things spiritual in the type of their striving. Their +ancient system, and the system of the New Testament itself as it was soon +taught and passed down to us, struck a deadly blow at the development of the +body for its own sake--at physical beauty: and the highest development of +the body is what the race can never do without. It struck another blow at +the development of taste--at the luxury and grace of the intellect: which +also the race can never do without. But in this old book you will find the +starting-point of a new conception of ideal human life. It grew partly out +of the pagan; it grew partly out of the Christian; it added from its own age +something of its own. Nearly every nation of Europe has lived on it ever +since--as its ideal. The whole world is being nourished by that ideal more +and more. It is the only conception of itself that the race can never fall +away from without harm, because it is the ideal of its own perfection. You +know what I mean?" she asked a little imperiously as though she were talking +to a green boy. + +"What do you mean?" he asked wonderingly. She had never spoken to him in +this way. Her mood, the passionate, beautiful, embarrassed stress behind all +this, was a bewildering revelation. + +"I mean," she said, "that first of all things in this world a man must be a +man--with all the grace and vigour and, if possible, all the beauty of the +body. Then he must be a gentleman--with all the grace, the vigour, the good +taste of the mind. And then with both of these--no matter what his creed, +his dogmas, his superstitions, his religion--with both of these he must try +to live a beautiful life of the spirit." +He looked at her eagerly, gratefully. + +"You will find him all these," she resumed, dropping her eyes before his +gratitude which was much too personal. "You wil1 find all these in this +book: here are men who were men; here are men who were gentlemen; and here +are gentlemen who served the unfallen life of the spirit." + +She kept her eyes on the book. Her voice had become very grave and reverent. +She had grown more embarrassed, but at last she went on as though resolved +to finish: + +"So it ought to help you! It will help you. It will help you to be what you +are trying to be. There are things here that you have sought and have never +found. There are characters here whom you have wished to meet without ever +having known that they existed. If you will always live by what is best in +this book, love the best that it loves, hate what it hates, scorn what it +scorns, follow its ideals to the end of the world, to the end of your +life --" + +"Oh, but give it to me!" he cried, lifting himself impulsively on one elbow +and holding out his hand for it. +She came silently over to the bedside and placed it on his hand. He studied +the title wonderingly, wonderingly turned some of the leaves, and at last, +smiling with wonder still, looked up at her. And then he forgot the +book--forgot everything but her. + +Once upon a time he had been walking along a woodland path with his eyes +fixed on the ground in front of him as was his studious wont. In the path +itself there had not been one thing to catch his notice: only brown +dust--little stones--a twig--some blades of withered grass. + +Then all at once out of this dull, dead motley of harmonious nothingness, a +single gorgeous spot had revealed itself, swelled out, and disappeared: a +butterfly had opened its wings, laid bare their inside splendours, and +closed them again--presenting to the eye only the adaptive, protective, +exterior of those marvellous swinging doors of its life. He had wondered +then that Nature could so paint the two sides of this thinnest of all +canvases: the outside merely daubed over that it might resemble the dead and +common and worthless things amid which the creature had to live--a +masterwork of concealment; the inside designed and drawn and coloured with +lavish fullness of plan, grace of curve, marvel of hue--all for the purpose +of the exquisite self revelation which should come when the one great +invitation of existence was sought or was given. +As the young school-master now looked up--too quickly--at the woman who +stood over him, her eyes were like a butterfly's gorgeous wings that for an +instant had opened upon him and already were closing--closing upon the +hidden splendours of her nature--closing upon the power to receive upon +walls of beauty all the sunlight of the world. + +"What a woman!" he said to himself, strangely troubled a moment later when +she was gone. He had not looked at the book again. It lay forgotten by his +pillow. + +"What a woman!" he repeated, with a sigh that was like a groan. + +Her bringing of the book--her unusual conversation--her excitement--her +seriousness--the impression she made upon him that a new problem was +beginning to work itself out in her life--most of all that one startling +revelation of herself at the instant of turning away: all these occupied his +thoughts that day. + +She did not return the next or the next or the next. And, it was during +these long vacant hours that he began to weave curiously together all that +he had ever heard of her and of her past; until, in the end, he accomplished +something like a true restoration of her life--in the colour of his own +emotions. Then he fell to wandering up and down this long vista of scenes as +he might have sought unwearied secret gallery of pictures through which he +alone had the privilege of walking. + +At the far end of the vista he could behold her in her childhood as the +daughter of a cavalier land-holder in the valley of the James: an heiress of +a vast estate with its winding creeks and sunny bays, its tobacco +plantations worked by troops of slaves, its deer parks and open country for +the riding to hounds. There was the manor-house in the style of the grand +places of the English gentry from whom her father was descended; sloping +from the veranda to the river landing a wide lawn covered with the silvery +grass of the English parks, its walks bordered with hedges of box, its +summer-house festooned with vines, its terraces gay with the old familiar +shrubs and flowers loyally brought over from the mother land. He could see +her as, some bright summer morning, followed by a tame fawn, she bounded +down the lawn to the private landing where a slow frigate had stopped to +break bulk on its way to Williamsburg-perhaps to put out with other +furniture a little mahogany chair brought especially for herself over the +rocking sea from London or where some round-sterned packet from New England +or New Amsterdam was unloading its cargo of grain or hides or rum in +exchange for her father's tobacco. Perhaps to greet her father himself +returning from a long absence amid old scenes that still could draw him back +to England; or standing lonely on the pier, to watch in tears him and her +brothers--a vanishing group--as they waved her a last good-bye and drifted +slowly out to the blue ocean on their way "home" to school at Eton. + +He liked to dwell on the picture of her as a little school-girl herself: +sent fastidiously on her way, with long gloves covering her arms, a white +linen mask tied over her face to screen her complexion from tan, a sunbonnet +sewed tightly on her head to keep it secure from the capricious winds of +heaven and the more variable gusts of her own wilfulness; or on another +picture of her--as a lonely little lass--begging to be taken to court, where +she could marvel at her father, an awful judge in his wig and his robe of +scarlet and black velvet; or on a third picture of her--as when she was +marshalled into church behind a liveried servant bearing the family +prayer-book, sat in the raised pew upholstered in purple velvet, with its +canopy overhead and the gilt letters of the family name in front; and a +little farther away on the wall of the church the Lord's Prayer and the +Commandments put there by her father at the cost of two thousand pounds of +his best tobacco; finally to be preached to by a minister with whom her +father sometimes spilt wine on the table-cloth, and who had once fought a +successful duel behind his own sanctuary of peace and good will to all men. +Here succeeded other scenes; for as his interest deepened, he never grew +tired of this restorative image-building by which she could be brought +always more vividly before his imagination. + +Her childhood gone, then, he followed her as she glided along the shining +creeks from plantation to plantation in a canoe manned by singing black +oarsmen: or rode abroad followed by her greyhound, her face concealed by a +black velvet riding mask kept in place by a silver mouth-piece held between +her teeth; or when autumn waned, went rolling slowly along towards +Williamsburg or Annapolis in the great family coach of mahogany, with its +yellow facings, Venetian windows, projection lamps, and high seat for +footmen and coachman --there to take a house for the winter season--there to +give and to be given balls, where she trod the minuet, stiff in blue +brocade, her white shoulders rising out of a bodice hung with gems, her +beautiful head bearing aloft its tower of long white feathers. +Yet with most of her life passed at the great lonely country-house by the +bright river: qazing wistfully out of the deep-mullioned windows of diamond +panes; flitting up and down the wide staircase of carven oak; buried in its +library, with its wainscoted walls crossed with swords and hung with +portraits of soldierly faces: all of which pleased him best, he being a +home-lover. So that when facts were lacking, sometimes he would kindle true +fancies of her young life in this place: as when she reclined on mats and +cushions in the breeze-swept balls, fanned by a slave and reading the Tatler +or the Spectator; or if it were the chill twilights of October, perhaps came +in from a walk in the cool woods with a red leaf at her white throat, and +seated herself at the spinet, while a low blaze from the deep chimney seat +flickered over her face, and the low music flickered with the shadows; or +when the white tempests of winter raved outside, gave her nights to the +reading of "Tom Jones," by the light of myrtleberry candles on a +slender-legged mahogany table. + +But he had heard a great deal of her visits at the other great country +places of the day. Often at Greenway Court, where her father went to ride to +hounds with Lord Fairfax and Washington; at Carter's Grove; at the homes of +the Berkeleys, the Masons, the Spottswoods; once, indeed, at Castlewood +itself, where the stately Madam Esmond Warrington had placed her by her own +side at dinner and had kissed her check at leaving; but oftenest at Brandon +Mansion where one of her heroines had lived--Evelyn Byrd; so that, Sir +Godfrey Knell having painted that sad young lady, who now lies with a heavy +stone on her heavier heart in the dim old burying-ground at Westover, she +would have it that hers must be painted in the same identical fashion, with +herself sitting on a green bank, a cluster of roses in her hand, a +shepherd's crook across her knees. + +And then, just as she was fairly opening into the earliest flower of +womanhood, the sudden, awful end of all this half-barbaric, +half-aristocratic life--the revolt of the colonies, the outbreak of the +Revolution, the blaze of way that swept the land like a forest fire, and +that enveloped in its furies even the great house on the James. One of her +brothers turned Whig, and already gone impetuously away in his uniform of +buff and blue, to follow the fortunes of Washington; the other siding with +the "home" across the sea, and he too already ridden impetuously away in +scarlet. Her proud father, his heart long torn between these two and +between his two countries, pacing the great hall, his face flushed with +wine, his eyes turning confusedly, pitifully, on the soldierly portraits of +his ancestors; until at last he too was gone, to keep his sword and his +conscience loyal to his king. + +And then more dreadful years and still sadder times; as when one dark +morning toward daybreak, by the edge of a darker forest draped with snow +where the frozen dead lay thick, they found an officer's hat half filled +with snow, and near by, her father fallen face downward; and turning him +over, saw a bullet-hole over his breast, and the crimson of his blood on the +scarlet of his waistcoat; so departed, with manfulness out of this world and +leaving behind him some finer things than his debts and mortgages over dice +and cards and dogs and wine and lotteries. Then not long after that, the +manor-house on the James turned into the unkindest of battlefields; one +brother defending at the head of troops within, the other attacking at the +head of troops without; the snowy bedrooms becoming the red-stained wards of +a hospital; the staircase hacked by swords; the poor little spinet and the +slender-legged little mahogany tables overturned and smashed, the portraits +slashed, the library scattered. Then one night, seen from a distance, a vast +flame licking the low clouds; and afterwards a black ruin where the great +house had stood, and so the end of it all forever. + +During these years, she, herself, had been like a lily in a lake, never +uprooted, but buried out of sight beneath the storm that tosses the waves +back and forth. + +Then white and heavenly Peace again, and the liberty of the Anglo-Saxon race +in the New World. But with wounds harder to heal than those of the flesh; +with memories that were as sword-points broken off in the body; with glory +to brighten more and more, as time went on, but with starvation close at +hand. Virginia willing to pay her heroes but having naught wherewith to pay, +until the news comes from afar, that while all this has been going on in the +East, in the West the rude border-folk, the backwoodsmen of the Blue Ridge +and the Alleghanies, without generals, without commands, without help or +pay, or reward of any kind, but fighting of their own free will and dyeing +every step of their advance with their blood, had entered and conquered the +great neutral game-park of the Northern and the Southern Indians, and were +holding it against all plots: in the teeth of all comers and against the +frantic Indians themselves; against England, France, Spain,--a new land as +good as the best of old England--Kentucky! Into which already thousands upon +thousands were hurrying in search of homes --a new movement of the race--its +first spreading-out over the mighty continent upon its mightier destiny. + +So had come about her hasty marriage with her young officer, whom Virginia +rewarded for his service with land; so had followed the breaking of all +ties, to journey by his side into the wilderness, there to undergo hardship, +perhaps death itself after captivity and torture such that no man who has +ever loved a woman can even look another man in the face and name. + +Thus ever on and on unwittingly he wove the fibres of her life about him as +his shirt of destiny: following the threads nearer, always nearer, toward +the present, until he reached the day on which he had first met her on his +in the wilderness. From that time, he no longer relied upon hearsay, but +drew from his own knowledge of her to fill out and so far to end all these +fond tapestries of his memory and imagination. + +But as one who has traversed a long gallery of pictures, and, turning to +look back upon all that he has passed, sees a straight track narrowing away +into the dimming distance, and only the last few life scenes standing out +lustrous and clear, so the school-master, gazing down this long vista, +beheld at the far end of it a little girl, whom he did not know, playing on +the silvery ancestral lawns of the James; at the near end, watching by his +bedside on this rude border of the West, a woman who had become +indispensable to his friendship. + +More days passed, and still she did not return. His eagerness for her rose +and followed, and sorrowfully set with every sun. + +Meantime he read the book, beginning it with an effort through finding it +hard to withdraw his mind from his present. But soon he was clutching it +with a forgotten hand and lay on his bed for hours joined fast to it with +unreleasing eyes; draining its last words into his heart, with a thirst +newly begotten and growing always the more quenchless as it was always being +quenched. So that having finished it, he read it again, now seeing the high +end of it all from the low beginning. And then a third time, more +clingingly, more yearningly yet, thrice lighting the fire in his blood with +the same straw. Like a vital fire it was left in him at last, a red and +white of flame; the two flames forever hostile, and seeking each to burn the +other out. And while it stayed in him thus as a fire, it had also filled all +tissues of his being as water fills a sponge--not dead water a dead +sponge--but as a living sap runs through the living sponges of a young oak +on the edge of its summer. So that never should he be able to forget it; +never henceforth be the same in knowledge or heart or conscience; and +nevermore was the lone spiritual battle of his life, if haply waged at all, +to be fought out by him with the earlier, simpler weapons of his innocence +and his youth, but with all the might of a tempted man's high faith in the +beauty and the right and the divine supremacy of goodness. + +One morning his wounds had begun to require attention. No one had yet come +to him: it was hardly the customary hour: and moreover, by rising in bed he +could see that something unusual had drawn the people into the streets. The +news of a massacre on the western frontier, perhaps; the arrival of the +post-rider with angry despatches from the East; or the torch of revolution +thrown far northward from New Orleans. His face had flushed with feverish +waiting and he lay with his eyes turned restlessly toward the door. + +It was Mrs. Falconer who stepped forward to it with hesitation. But as soon +as she caught sight of him, she hurried to the bed. +"What is the trouble? Have you been worse?" + +"Oh, nothing! It is nothing." +"Why do you say that--to me?" + +"My shoulder. But it is hardly time for them to come yet." +She hesitated and her face showed how serious her struggle was. +"Let me," she said firmly. + +He looked up quickly, confusedly, at her with a refusal on his lips; but she +had already turned away to get the needful things in readiness, and he +suffered her, if for no other reason than to avoid letting her see the +painful rush of blood to his face. As she moved about the room, she spoke +only to ask unavoidable questions; he, only to answer them; and neither +looked at the other. + +Then he sat up in the bed and bared his neck and shoulder, one arm and half +his chest; and with his face crimson, turned his eyes away. She had been +among the women in the fort during that summer thirteen years before, when +the battle of the Blue Licks had been fought; and speaking in the quietest, +most natural of voices, she now began to describe how the wounded had +straggled in from the battle-field; one rifleman reeling on his horse and +held in his seat by the arm of a comrade, his bleeding, bandaged head on +that comrade's shoulder; another borne on a litter swung between two horses; +others --footmen--holding out just long enough to come into sight of the +fort, there to sink down; one, a mere youth, fallen a mile back in the hot +dusty buffalo trace with an unspoken message to some one in his brave, +beautiful, darkening eyes. But before this, she told him how the women had +watched all that night and the day previous inside the poor little +earth-mound of a defence against artillery, built by order of Jefferson and +costing $37.5O; the women taking as always the places of the men who were +gone away to the war; becoming as always the defenders of the land, of the +children, of those left behind sick or too old to fight. How from the black +edge of dawn they had strained their eyes in the direction of the battle +until at last a woman's cry of agony had rent the air as the first of the +wounded had ridden slowly into sight. How they had rushed forth through the +wooden gates and heard the tidings of it all and then had followed the +scenes and the things that could never be told for pity and grief and love +and sadness. + +After a little pause she began to speak of Major Falconer as the +school-master had never known her to speak; tremulously of his part in that +battle, a Revolutionary officer serving as a common backwoods soldier; +eloquently of his perfect courage then and always, of his perfect manliness; +and she ended by saying that the worst thing that could ever befall a woman +was to marry an unmanly man. + +"If any one single thing in life could ever have killed me," she said, "it +would have been that." + +With her last words she finished the dressing of his wounds. Spots of the +deepest rose were on her cheeks; her eyes were lighted with proud fire. +Confusedly he thanked her and, lying back on his pillow, closed his eyes and +turned his face away. + +When she had quickly gone he sat up in the bed again. He drew the book +guiltily from under his pillow, looked long and sorrowfully at it, and then +with a low cry of shame--the first that had ever burst from his lips--he +hurled it across the room and threw himself violently down again, with his +forehead against the logs, his eyes hidden, his face burning. + + +XIV + +THE first day that John felt strong enough to walk as far as that end of the +town, he was pulling himself unsteadily past the shop when he saw Peter and +turned in to rest and chat.The young blacksmith refused to speak to him. + +"Peter!" said John with a sad, shaky voice, holding out his hand, "have I +changed so much? Don't you know me?" + +"Yes; I know you," said Peter. "I wish I didn't." + +"I don't think I recognize you any more," replied John, after a moment of +silence. "What's the matter?" + +"Oh, you get along," said Peter. "Clear out!" + +John went inside and drank a gourd of water out of Peter's cool bucket, came +back with a stool and sat down squarely before him. + +"Now look here," he said with the candour which was always the first law of +nature with him, "what have I done to you?" + +Peter would neither look nor speak; but being powerless before kindness, he +was beginning to break down. + +"Out with it," said John. "What have I done?""You know what you've said." + +"What have I said about you?" asked John, now perceiving that some mischief +had been at work here. "Who told you I had said anything about you?" + +"It's no use for you to deny it." + +"Who told you?" + +"O'Bannon!" + +"O'Bannon!" exclaimed John with a frown. "I've never talked to O'Bannon +about you--about anything." + +"You haven't abused me?" said Peter, wheeling on the schoolmaster, eyes and +face and voice full of the suffering of his wounded self-love and of his +wounded affection. + +"I hope I've abused nobody!" said John proudly. + +"Come in here!" cried Peter, springing up and hurrying into his shop. + +Near the door stood a walnut tree with wide-spreading branches wearing the +fresh plumes of late May, plumes that hung down over the door and across the +windows, suffusing the interior with a soft twilight of green and brown +shadows. A shaft of sunbeams penetrating a crevice fell on the white neck of +a yellow collie that lay on the ground with his head on his paws, his eyes +fixed reproachfully on the heels of the horse outside, his ears turned back +toward his master. Beside him a box had been kicked over: tools and shoes +scattered. A faint line of blue smoke sagged from the dying coals of the +forge toward the door, creeping across the anvil bright as if tipped with +silver. And in one of the darkest corners of the shop, near a bucket of +water in which floated a huge brown gourd, Peter and John sat on a bench +while the story of O'Bannon's mischief-making was begun and finished. It was +told by Peter with much cordial rubbing of his elbows in the palms of his +hands and much light-hearted smoothing of his apron over his knees. At times +a cloud, passing beneath the sun, threw the shop into heavier shadow; and +then the school-master's dark figure faded into the tone of the sooty wall +behind him and only his face, with the contrast of its white linen collar +below and the bare discernible lights of his auburn hair above--his face, +proud, resolute, astounded, pallid, suffering--started out of the gloom like +a portrait from an old canvas. + +"And this is why you never came to see me." He had sprung up like a man made +well, and was holding Peter's hand and looking reproachfully into his eyes. + +"I'd have seen you dead first," cried Peter gaily, giving him a mighty slap +on the shoulder. "But wait! O'Bannon's not the only man who can play a +joke!" + +John hurriedly left the shop with a gesture which Peter did not understand. + +The web of deceptive circumstances that had been spun about him had been +brushed away at last: he saw the whole truth now--saw his own blindness, +blundering, folly, injustice. + +He was on his way to Amy already. + +When he had started out, he had thought he should walk around a little and +then lie down again. Now with his powerful stride come back to him, he had +soon passed the last house of the town and was nearing the edge of the +wilderness. He took the same straight short course of the afternoon on which +he had asked Mrs. Falconer's consent to his suit. As he hurried on, it +seemed to him a long time since then! What experiences he had undergone! +What had he not suffered! How he was changed! + +"Yes," he said over and over to himself, putting away all other thoughts in +a resolve to think of this nearest duty only. "If I've been unkind to her, +if I've been wrong, have I not suffered?" + +He had not gone far before his strength began to fail. He was forced to sit +down and rest. It was near sundown when he reached the clearing. + +"At last!" he said gratefully, with his old triumphant habit of carrying out +whatever he undertook. He had put out all his strength to get there. + +He passed the nearest field--the peach trees--the garden--and took the path +toward the house. + +"Where shall I find her?" he thought. "Where can I see her alone?" + +"Between him and the house stood a building of logs and plaster. It was a +single room used for the spinning and the weaving of which she had charge. +Many a time he had lain on the great oaken chest into which the homespun +cloth was stored while she sat by her spinning-wheel; many a talk they had +had there together, many a parting; and many a Saturday twilight he had put +his arms around her there and turned away for his lonely walk to town, +planning their future. "If she should only be in the weaving-room!" + +He stepped softly to the door and looked in. She was there-- standing near +the middle of the room with her face turned from him. The work of the day +was done. On one side were the spinning-wheels, farther on a loom; before +her a table on which the cloth was piled ready to be folded away; on the +other the great open chest into which she was about to store it. She had +paused in revery, her hands clasped behind her head. + +At the sight of her and with the remembrance of how he had misjudged and +mistreated her--most of all swept on by some lingering flood of the old +tenderness--he stepped forward put his arms softly around her, drew her +closely to him, and buried his check against hers: + +"Amy!" he murmured, his voice quivering his whole body trembling, his heart +knocking against his ribs like a stone. +She struggled out of his arms with a cry and recognizing him, drew her +figure up to its full height. Her eyes filled with passion, cold and +resentful. + +He made a gesture. + +"Wait!" he cried. "Listen." + +He laid bare everything--from his finding of the bundle to the evening of +the ball. + +He was standing by the doorway. A small window in the opposite wall of the +low room opened toward the West. Through this a crimson light fell upon his +face revealing its pallor, its storm, its struggle for calmness. + +She stood a few yards off with her face in shadow. As she had stepped +backward, one of her hands had struck against her spinning-wheel and now +rested on it; with the other she had caught the edge of the table. From the +spinning-wheel a thread of flax trailed to the ground; on the table lay a +pair of iron shears. + +As he stood looking at her facing him thus in cold half-shadowy anger--at +the spinning wheel with its trailing flax--at, the table with its iron +shears--at her hands stretched forth as if about to grasp the one and to lay +hold on the other--he shudderingly thought of the ancient arbitress of Life +and Death--Fate the mighty, the relentless. The fancy passed and was +succeeded by the sense of her youth and loveliness. She wore a dress of +coarse snow-white homespun, narrow in the skirt and fitting close to her +arms and neck and to the outlines of her form. Her hair was parted simply +over her low beautiful brow. There was nowhere a ribbon or a trifle of +adornment: and in that primitive, simple, fearless revelation of itself her +figure had the frankness of a statue. While he spoke the anger died out of +her face. But in its stead came something worse--hardness; and something +that was worse still--an expression of revenge. + +"If I was unfeeling with you," he implored, "only consider! You had broken +your engagement without giving any reason; I saw you at the party dancing +with Joseph; I believed myself trifled with, I said that if you could treat +in that way there was nothing you could say that I cared to hear. I was +blind to the truth; I was blinded by suffering. + +"If you suffered, it was your own fault," she replied, calm as the Fate that +holds the shears and the thread. "I wanted to explain to you why I broke my +engagement and why I went with Joseph: you refused to allow me." + +"But before that! Remember that I had gone to see you the night before. You +had a chance to explain then. But you did not explain. Still, I did not +doubt that your reason was good. I did not ask you to state it. But when I +saw you at the party with Joseph, was I not right, in thinking that the time +for an explanation had passed?" + +"No," she replied. "As long as I did not give any reason, you ought not to +have asked for one; but when I wished to give it, you should have been ready +to hear it." +He drew himself up quickly. + +"This is a poor pitiful misunderstanding. I say, forgive me! We will let it +pass. I had thought each of us was wrong--you first, I, afterward." +"I was not wrong either first or last!" + +"Think so if you must! Only, try to understand me! Amy, you know I've loved +you. You could never have acted toward me as you have, if you had not +believed that. And that night--the night you would not see me alone--I went +to ask you to marry me. I meant to ask you the next night. I am here to ask +you now! . . ." + +He told her of the necessity that had kept him from speaking sooner, of the +recent change which made it possible. He explained how he had waited and +planned and had shaped his whole life with the thought that she would share +it. She had listened with greater interest especially to what he had said +about the improvement in his fortunes. Her head had dropped slightly forward +as though she were thinking that after all perhaps she had made a mistake. +But she now lifted it with deliberateness: + +"And what right had you to be so sure all this time that I would marry you +whenever you asked me? What right had you to take it for granted that +whenever you were ready, I would be?" + +The hot flush of shame dyed his face that she could deal herself such a +wound and not even know it. + +He drew himself up again, sparing her: + +"I loved you. I could not love without hoping. I could not hope without +planning. Hoping, planning, striving,--everything!--it was all because I +loved you!" And then he waited, looking down on her in silence. + +She began to grow nervous. She had stooped to pick up the thread of flax and +was passing it slowly between her fingers. When he spoke again, his voice +showed that he shook like a man with a chill: +"I have said all I can say. I have offered all I have to offer. I am +waiting." + +Still the silence lasted for the new awe of him that began to fall upon her. +In ways she could not fathom she was beginning to feel that a change had +come over him during these weeks of their separation. He used more +gentleness with her: his voice, his manner, his whole bearing, had finer +courtesy; he had strangely ascended to some higher level of character, and +he spoke to her from this distance with a sadness that touched her +indefinably--with a larger manliness that had its quick effect. She covertly +lifted her eyes and beheld on his face a proud passion of beauty and of pain +beyond anything that she had ever thought possible to him or to any man. She +quickly dropped her head again; she shifted her position; a band seemed to +tighten around her throat; until, in a voice hardly to be heard, she +murmured falteringly: + +"I have promised to marry Joseph." + +He did not speak or move, but continued to stand leaning against the lintel +of the doorway, looking down on her. The colour was fading from the west +leaving it ashen white. And so standing in the dying radiance, he saw the +long bright day of his young hope come to its close; he drained to its dregs +his cup of bitterness she had prepared for him; learned his first lesson in +the victory of little things over the larger purposes of life, over the +nobler planning; bit the dust of the heart's first defeat and tragedy. + +She had caught up the iron shears in her nervousness and begun to cut the +flaxen thread; and in the silence of the room only the rusty click was now +heard as she clipped it, clipped it, clipped it. + +Then such a greater trembling seized her that she laid the shears back upon +the table. Still he did not move or speak, and there seemed to fall upon her +conscience--in insupportable burden until, as if by no will of her own, she +spoke again pitifully: + +"I didn't know that you cared so much for me. It isn't my fault. You had +never asked me, and he had already asked me twice." +He changed his position quickly so that the last light coming in through the +window could no longer betray his face. All at once his voice broke through +the darkness, so unlike itself that she started: + +"When did you give him this promise? I have no right to ask . . . when did +you give him this promise?" + +She answered as if by no will of her own:"The night of the ball--as we were +going home." + +She waited until she felt that she should sink to the ground. + +Then he spoke again as if rather to himself than to her, and with the +deepest sorrow and pity for them both: + +"If I had gone with you that night--if I had gone with you that night--and +had asked you--you would have married me." + +Her lips began to quiver and all that was in her to break down before +him--to yearn for him. In a voice neither could scarce hear she said: + +"I will marry you yet!" + +She listened. She waited, Out of the darkness she could distinguish not the +rustle of a movement, not a breath of sound; and at last cowering back into +herself with shame, she buried her face in her hands. + +Then she was aware that he had come forward and was standing over her. He +bent his head down so close that his lids touched her hair--so close that +his warm breath was on her forehead--and she felt rather than knew him +saying to himself, not to her: + +"Good-bye!" + +He passed like a tall spirit out of the door, and she heard his footsteps +die away along the path--die slowly away as of one who goes never to return. + + +XV + +A JEST may be the smallest pebble that was ever dropped into the sunny +mid-ocean of the mind; but sooner or later it sinks to a hard bottom, sooner +or later sends it ripples toward the shores where the caves of the fatal +passions yawn and roar for wreckage. It is the Comedy of speech that forever +dwells as Tragedy's fondest sister, sharing with her the same unmarked +domain; for the two are but identical forces of the mind in gentle and in +ungentle action as one atmosphere holds within itself unseparated the zephyr +and the storm. + +The following afternoon O'Bannon was ambling back to town--slowly and +awkwardly, he being a poor rider and dreading a horse's back as he would +have avoided its kick. He was returning from the paper mill at Georgetown +whither he had been sent by Mr. Bradford with an order for a further supply +of sheets. The errand had not been a congenial one; and he was thinking now +as often before that he would welcome any chance of leaving the editor's +service. +What he had always coveted since his coming into the wilderness was the +young master's school; for the Irish teacher, afterwards so well known a +figure in the West, was even at this time beginning to bend his mercurial +steps across the mountains. Out of his covetousness had sprung perhaps his +enmity toward the master, whom he further despised for his Scotch blood, and +in time had grown to dislike from motives of jealousy, and last of all to +hate for his simple purity. Many a man nurses a grudge of this kind against +his human brother and will take pains to punish him accordingly; for success +in virtue is as hard for certain natures to witness as success in anything +else will irritate those whose nerveless or impatient or ill-directed grasp +it has wisely eluded. + +On all accounts therefore it had fallen well to his purpose to make the +schoolmaster the dupe of a disagreeable jest. The jest had had unexpectedly +serious consequences: it had brought about the complete discomfiture of John +in his love affair; it had caused the trouble behind the troubled face with +which he had looked out upon every one during his illness. + +The two young men had never met since; but the one was under a cloud; the +other was refulgent with his petty triumph; and he had set his face all the +more toward any further aggressiveness that occasion should bring happily to +his hand. + +The mere road might have shamed him into manlier reflections. It was one of +the forest highways of the majestic bison opened ages before into what must +have been to them Nature's most gorgeous kingdom, her fairest, most magical +Babylon: with hanging gardens of verdure +everywhere swung from the tree-domes to the ground; with the earth one vast +rolling garden of softest verdure and crystal waters: an ancient Babylon of +the Western woods, most alluring and in the end most fatal to the luxurious, +wantoning wild creatures, which know no sin and are never found wanting. + +This old forest street of theirs, so broad, so roomy, so arched with hoary +trees, so silent now and filled with the pity and pathos of their ruin--it +may not after all have been marked out by them. But ages before they had +ever led their sluggish armies eastward to the Mississippi and, crossing, +had shaken its bright drops from their shaggy low-hung necks on the eastern +bank--ages before this, while the sun of human history was yet silvering the +dawn of the world--before Job's sheep lay sick in the land of Uz-- before a +lion had lain down to dream in the jungle where Babylon was to arise and to +become a name,--this old, old, old high road may have been a footpath of the +awful mastodon, who had torn his terrible way through the tangled, twisted, +gnarled and rooted fastnesses of the wilderness as lightly as a wild young +Cyclone out of the South tears his way through the ribboned corn. + +Ay, for ages the mastodon had trodden this dust. And, ay, for ages later the +bison. And, ay, for ages a people, over whose vanished towns and forts and +graves had grown the trees of a thousand years, holding in the mighty claws +of their roots the dust of those long, long secrets. And for centuries later +still along this path had crept or rushed or fled the Indians: now coming +from over the moon-loved, fragrant, passionate Southern mountains; now from +the sad frozen forests and steely marges of the Lakes: both eager for the +chase. For into this high road of the mastodon and the bison smaller +pathways entered from each side, as lesser watercourses run into a river: +the avenues of the round-horned elk, narrow, yet broad enough for the +tossing of his lordly antlers; the trails of the countless migrating +shuffling bear; the slender woodland alleys along which buck and doe and +fawn had sought the springs or crept tenderly from their breeding coverts or +fled like shadows in the race for life; the devious wolf-runs of the +maddened packs as they had sprung to the kill; the threadlike passages of +the stealthy fox; the tiny trickle of the squirrel, crossing, recrossing, +without number; and ever close beside all these, unseen, the grass-path or +the tree-path of the cougar. +Ay, both eager for the chase at first and then more eager for each other's +death for the sake of the whole chase: so that this immemorial game-trace +had become a war-path--a long dim forest street alive with the advance and +retreat of plume-bearing, vermilion-painted armies; and its rich black dust, +on which hereand there a few scars of sunlight now lay like stillest +thinnest yellow leaves, had been dyed from end to end with the red of the +heart. + +And last of all into this ancient woodland street of war one day there had +stepped a strange new-comer--the Anglo-Saxon. Fairhaired, blue-eyed, always +a lover of Land and of Woman and therefore of Home; in whose blood beat the +conquest of many a wilderness before this--the wilderness of Britain, the +wilderness of Normandy, the wildernesses of the Black, of the Hercinian +forest, the wilderness of the frosted marshes of the Elbe and the Rhine and +of the North Sea's wildest wandering foam and fury. + +Here white lover and red lover had metand fought: with the same high spirit +and overstrung will, scorn of danger, greed of pain; the same vehemence of +hatred and excess of revenge; the same ideal of a hero as a young man who +stands in the thick of carnage calm and unconscious of his wounds or rushes +gladly to any poetic beauty of death that is terrible and sublime. And +already the red lover was gone and the fair-haired lover stood the quiet +owner of the road, the last of all its long train of conquerors brute and +human--with his cabin near by, his wife smiling beside the spinning-wheel, +his baby crowing on the threshold. +History was thicker here than along the Appian Way and it might well have +stirred O'Bannon; but he rode shamblingly on, un-touched, unmindful. At +every bend his eye quickly swept along the stretch of road to the next turn; +for every man carried the eye of an eagle in his head in those days. + +At one point he pulled his horse up violently. A large buckeye tree stood on +the roadside a hundred yards ahead. Its large thick leaves already full at +this season, drew around the trunk a seamless robe of darkest green. But a +single slight rent had been made on one side as though a bough bad been +lately broken off to form an aperture commanding a view of the road; and +through this aperture he could see something black within-as black as a +crow's wing. + +O'Bannon sent his horse forward in the slowest walk: it was unshod; the +stroke of its hoofs was muffled by the dust; and he had approached quite +close, remaining himself unobserved, before he recognized the school-master. + +He was reclining against the trunk, his hat off, his eyes closed; in the +heavy shadows he looked white and sick and weak and troubled. Plainly he was +buried deep in his own thoughts. If he had broken off those low boughs in +order that he might obtain a view of the road, he had forgotten his own +purpose; if he had walked all the way out to this spot and was waiting, his +vigilance had grown lax, his aim slipped from him. + +Perhaps before his eyes the historic vision of the road had risen: that +crowded pageant, brute and human, all whose red passions, burning rights and +burning wrongs, frenzied fightings and awful deaths had left but the +sun-scarred dust, the silence of the woods clothing itself in green. And +from this panoramic survey it may have come to him to feel the shortness of +the day of his own life, the pitifulness of its earthly contentions, and +above everything else the sadness of the necessity laid upon him to come +down to the level of the cougar and the wolf. + +But as O'Bannon struck his horse and would have passed on, he sprang up +quickly enough and walked out into the middle of the road. When the horse's +head was near he quietly took hold of the reins and throwing his weight +slightly forward, brought it to a stop. + +"Let go!" exclaimed O'Bannon, furious and threatening. + +He did let go, and stepping backward three paces, he threw off his coat and +waistcoat and tossed them aside to the green bushes: the action was a +pathetic mark of his lifelong habit of economy in clothes: a coat must under +all circumstances be cared for. He tore off his neckcloth so that his high +shirt collar fell away from his neck, showing the purple scar of his wound; +and he girt his trousers in about his waist, as a laboring man will trim +himself for neat, quick, violent work. Then with a long stride he came round +to the side of the horse's head, laid his hand on its neck and looked +O'Bannon in the eyes: + +"At first I thought I'd wait till you got back to town. I wanted to catch +you on the street or, in a tavern where others could witness. I'm sorry. I'm +ashamed I ever wished any man to see me lay my hand on you. + +"Since you came out to Kentucky, have I ever crossed you? Thwarted you in +any plan or purpose? Wronged you in any act? Ill-used your name? By +anything I have thought or wished or done taken from the success of your +life or made success harder for you to win? + +"But you had hardly come out here before you began to attack me and you have +never stopped. Out of all this earth's prosperity you have envied me my +little share: you have tried to take away my school. With your own good name +gone, you have wished to befoul mine. With no force of character to rise in +the world, you have sought to drag me down. When I have avoided a brawl with +you, preferring to live my life in peace with every man, you have said I was +a coward, you unmanly slanderer! When I have desired to live the best life +I could, you have turned even that against me. You lied and you know you +lied--blackguard! You have laughed at the blood in my veins--the sacred +blood of my mother--" + +His words choked him. The Scotch blood, so slow to kindle like a mass of +cold anthracite, so terrible with heat to the last ashes, was burning in him +now with flameless fury. + +"I passed it all over, I only asked to go on my way and have you go yours. +But now--" He seemed to realize in an instant everything that he had +suffered in consequence of O'Bannon's last interference in his affairs. He +ground his teeth together and shook his head from side to side like an +animal that had seized its prey. + +"Get down!" he cried, throwing his head back. "I can't fight you as an equal +but I will give you one beating for the low dog you are." + +O'Bannon had listened immovable. He now threw the reins down and started to +throw his leg over the saddle but resumed his seat. "Let go!" he shouted. "I +will not be held and ordered." + +The school-master tightened his grasp on the reins. +"Get down! I don't trust you." + +O'Bannon held a short heavy whip. He threw this into the air and caught it +by the little end. + +The school-teacher sprang to seize it; but O'Bannon lifted it backward over +his shoulder, and then raising himself high in his stirrups, brought it +down. The master saw it coming and swerved so that it grazed his ear; but it +cut into the wound on his neck with a coarse, ugly, terrific blow and the +blood spurted. With a loud cry of agony and horror, he reeled and fell +backward dizzy and sick and nigh to fainting. The next moment in the deadly +silence of a wild beast attacking to kill, he was on his feet, seized the +whip before it could fall again, flung it away, caught O'Bannon's arm and +planting his foot against the horse's shoulder, threw his whole weight +backward. The saddle turned, the horse sprang aside, and he fell again, +pulling O'Bannon heavily down on him. + +There in the blood-dyed dust of the old woodland street, where bison and +elk, stag and lynx, wolf and cougar and bear had gored or torn each other +during the centuries before; there on the same level, glutting their +passion, their hatred, their revenge, the men fought out their strength--the +strength of that King of Beasts whose den is where it should be: in a man's +spirit. + +A few afternoons after this a group of rough young fellows were gathered at +Peter's shop. The talk had turned to the subject of the fight: and every one +had thrown his gibe at O'Bannon, who had taken it with equal good nature. +>From this they had chaffed him on his fondness for a practical joke and his +awkward riding; and out of this, he now being angry, grew a bet with Horatio +Turpin that he could ride the latter's filly, standing hitched to the fence +of the shop. He was to ride it three times around the enclosure, and touch +it once each time in the flank with the spur which the young horseman took +from his heel. + +At the first prick of it, the high-spirited mettlesome animal, scarcely +broken, reared and sprang forward, all but unseating him. He dropped the +reins and instinctively caught its mane, at the same time pressing his legs +more closely in against the animal's sides, thus driving the spur deeper. +They shouted to him to lie down, to fall off, as they saw the awful danger +ahead; for the maddened filly, having run wildly around the enclosure +several times, turned and rushed straight toward the low open doors of the +smithy and the pasture beyond. But he would not release his clutch; and with +his body bent a little forward, he received the +blow of the projecting shingles full on his head as the mare shot from under +him into the shop, scraping him off. + +They ran to him and lifted him out of the sooty dust and laid him on the +soft green grass. But of consciousness there was never to be more for him: +his jest had reached its end. + +XVI + +IT was early summer now. +In the depths of the greening woods the school-master lay reading: + +"And thus it passed on from Candlemass until after Easter that the month of +May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom and to bring forth +fruit; for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in +likewise, every lusty heart that is any manner a lover springeth and +flourisheth in lusty deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage--that +lusty month of May--in something to constrain him to some manner of thing +more in that month than in any other month. For diverse causes: For then all +herbs and trees renew a man and woman; and, in likewise, lovers call again +to their mind old gentleness and old service and many kind deeds that were +forgotten by negligence. For like as winter rasure doth always erase and +deface green summer, so fareth it by unstable love in man and woman. For in +many persons there is no stability;...for a little blast of winter's rasure, +anon we shall deface and lay apart true love (for little or naught), that +cost so much. This is no wisdom nor stability, but it is feebleness of +nature and great disworship whomever useth this. Therefore like as May month +flowereth and flourisheth in many gardens, so in likewise let every man of +worship flourish his heart in this world: first unto God, and next unto the +joy of them that he promised his faith unto; for there was never worshipful +man nor worshipful woman but they loved one better than the other. And +worship in arms may never be foiled; but first reserve the honour to God, +and secondly the quarrel must come of thy lady; and such love I call +virtuous love. But nowsdays men cannot love seven nights but they must have +all their desires... Right so fareth love nowadays, soon hot, soon cold: +this is no stability. But the old love was not so. Men and women could love +together seven years...and then was love truth and faithfulness. And lo! In +likewise was used love in King Arthur's days. Wherefore I liken love +nowadays unto summer and winter; for like the one is hot and the other cold, +so fareth love nowadays."....... + +He laid the book aside upon the grass, sat up, and mournfully looked about +him. Effort was usually needed to withdraw his mind from those low-down +shadowy centuries over into which of late by means of the book, as by means +of a bridge spanning a known and an unknown land, he had crossed, and +wonder-stricken had wandered; but these words brought him swiftly home to +the country of his own sorrow. +Unstable love! feebleness of nature! one blast of a cutting winter wind and +lo! green summer defaced: the very phrases seemed shaped by living lips +close to the ear of his experience. It was in this spot a few weeks ago +that he had planned his future with Amy: these were the acres he would buy; +on this hill-top he would build; here, home-sheltered, wife-anchored, the +warfare of his flesh and spirit ended, he could begin to put forth all his +strength upon the living of his life. +Had any frost ever killed the bud of nature's hope more unexpectedly than +this landscape now lay blackened before him? And had any summer ever cost +so much? What could strike a man as a more mortal wound than to lose the +woman he had loved and in losing her see her lose her loveliness? +As the end of it all, he now found himself sitting on the blasted rock of +his dreams in the depths of the greening woods. He was well again by this +time and conscious of that retightened grasp upon health and redder stir of +life with which the great Mother-nurse, if she but dearly love a man, will +tend him and mend him and set him on his feet again from a bed of wounds or +sickness. It had happened to him also that with this reflushing of his blood +there had reached him the voice of Summer advancing northward to all things +and making all things common in their awakening and their aim. + +He knew of old the pipe of this imperious Shepherd; sounding along the inner +vales of his being; herding him toward universal fellowship with seeding +grass and breeding herb and every heart-holding creature of the woods. He +perfectly recognized the sway of the thrilling pipe; he perfectly realized +the joy of the jubilant fellowship. And it was with eyes the more mournful +therefore that he gazed in purity about him at the universal miracle of old +life passing into new life, at the divinely appointed and divinely fulfilled +succession of forms, at the unrent mantle of the generations being visibly +woven around him under the golden goads of the sun. " ...for like as herbs +bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in likewise, every heart that is in +any manner a lover spingeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds." . . . But all +this must come, must spend itself, must pass him by, as a flaming pageant +dies away from a beholder who is forbidden to kindle his own torch and claim +his share of its innocent revels. He too had laid his plans to celebrate his +marriage at the full tide of the Earth's joy, and these plans had failed +him. + +But while the school-master thus was gloomily contemplating the end of his +relationship with Amy and her final removal from the future of his life, in +reality another and larger trouble was looming close ahead. +A second landscape had begun to beckon not like his poor little frost-killed +field, not of the earth at all, but lifted unattainable into the air, faint, +clear, elusive--the marriage of another woman. And how different she! He +felt sure that no winter's rasure would ever reach that land; no +instability, no feebleness of nature awaited him there; the loveliness of +its summer, now brooding at flood, would brood unharmed upon it to the +natural end. + +He buried his face guiltily in his hands as he tried to shut out the +remembrance of how persistently of late, whithersoever he had turned, this +second image had reappeared before him, growing always clearer, drawing +always nearer, summoning him more luringly. Already he had begun to know the +sensations of a traveller who is crossing sands with a parched tongue and a +weary foot, crossing toward a country that he will never reach, but that he +will stagger toward as long as he has strength to stand. +During the past several days--following his last interview with Amy--he had +realized for the first time how long and how plainly the figure of Mrs. +Falconer had been standing before him and upon how much loftier a level. +Many a time of old, while visiting the house, he had grown tired of Amy; but +he had never felt wearied by her. For Amy he was always making apologies to +his own conscience; she needed none. He had secretly hoped that in time Amy +would become more what he wished his wife to be; it would have pained him to +think of her as altered. Often he had left Amy's company with a grateful +sense of regaining the larger liberty of his own mind; by her he always felt +guided to his better self, he carried away her ideas with the hope of making +them his ideas, he was set on fire with a spiritual passion to do his utmost +in the higher strife of the world. + +For this he had long paid her the guiltless tribute of his reverence and +affection. And between his reverence and affection and all the forbidden +that lay beyond rose a barrier which not even his imagination had ever +consciously overleaped. Now the forbidding barrier had disappeared, and in +its place had appeared the forbidden bond--he knew not how or when. How +could he? Love, the Scarlet Spider, will in a night hang between two that +have been apart a web too fine for either to see; but the strength of both +will never avail to break it. + +Very curiously it had befallen him furthermore that just at the time when +all these changes were taking place around him and within him, she had +brought him the book that she had pressed with emphasis upon his attention. +In the backwoods settlements of Pennsylvania where his maternal Scotch-Irish +ancestors had settled and his own life been spent, very few volumes had +fallen into his hands. After coming to Kentucky not many more until of late: +so that of the world's history he was still a stinted and hungry student. +When,therefore, she had given him Malory's "LeMorte D'Arthur," it was the +first time that the ideals of chivalry had ever flashed their glorious light +upon him; for the first time the models of Christian manhood, on which +western Europe nourished itself for centuries, displayed themselves to his +imagination with the charm of story; he heard of Camelot, of the king, of +that company of men who strove with each other in arms, but strove also with +each other in grace of life and for the immortal mysteries of the spirit. +She had said that he should have read this book long before but that +henceforth he would always need it even more than in his past: that here +were some things he had looked for in the world and had never found; +characters such as he had always wished to grapple to himself as his abiding +comrades: that if he would love the best that it loved, hate what it hated, +scorn what it scorned, it would help him in the pursuit of his own ideals to +the end. +Of this and more he felt at once the truth, since of all earthly books known +to him this contained the most heavenly revelation of what a man may be in +manliness, in gentleness, and in goodness. And as he read the nobler +portions of the book, the nobler parts of his nature gave out their +immediate response. +Hungrily he hurried to and fro across the harvest of those fertile pages, +gathering of the white wheat of the spirit many a lustrous sheaf: the love +of courage, the love of courtesy, the love of honour, the love of high aims +and great actions, the love of the poor and the helpless, the love of a +spotless name and a spotless life, the love of kindred, the love of +friendship, the love of humility of spirit, the love of forgiveness, the +love of beauty, the love of love, the love of God. Surely, he said to +himself, within the band of these virtues lay not only a man's noblest life, +but the noblest life of the world. + +While fondling these, he failed not to notice how the great book, as though +it were a living mouth, spat its deathless scorn upon the things that he +also--in the imperfect measure of his powers--had always hated: all +cowardice of mind or body, all lying, all oppression, all unfaithfulness, +all secret revenge and hypocrisy and double-dealing: the smut of the heart +and mind. +But ah! the other things besides these. + +Sown among the white wheat of the spirit were the red tares of the flesh; +and as he strode back and forth through the harvest, he found himself +plucking these also with feverish vehemence. There were things here that he +had never seen in print: words that he had never even named to his secret +consciousness; thoughts and desires that he had put away from his soul with +many a struggle, many a prayer; stories of a kind that he had always +declined to hear when told in companies of men: all here, spelled out, +barefaced, without apology, without shame: the deposits of those old, old +moral voices and standards long since buried deep under the ever rising +level of the world's whitening holiness. +With utter guilt and shame he did not leave off till he had plucked the last +red tare; and having plucked them, he had hugged the whole inflaming bundle +against his blood--his blood now flushed with youth, flushed with health, +flushed with summer. + +And finally, in the midst of all these things, perhaps coloured by them, +there had come to him the first great awakening of his life in a love that +was forbidden. + +He upbraided himself the more bitterly for the influence of the book because +it was she who had placed both the good and the evil in his hand with +perfect confidence that he would lay hold on the one and remain unsoiled by +the other. She had remained spirit-proof herself against the influences that +tormented him; out of her own purity she had judged him. And yet, on the +other hand, with that terrible candour of mind which he used either for or +against himself as rigidly as for or against another person, he pleaded in +his own behalf that she had made a mistake in overestimating his strength, +in underestimating his temptations. How should she know that for years his +warfare had gone on direfully? How realize that almost daily he had stood as +at the dividing of two roads: the hard, narrow path ascending to the bleak +white peaks of the spirit; the broad, sweet, downward vistas of the flesh? +How foresee, therefore, that the book would only help to rend him in twain +with a mightier passion for each? + +He had been back at the school a week now. He had never dared go to see her. +Confront that luminous face with his darkened one? Deal such a soul the +wound of such dishonour? He knew very well that the slightest word or glance +of self-betrayal would bring on the immediate severance of her relationship +with him: her wifehood might be her martyrdom, but it was martyrdom +inviolate. And yet he felt that if he were once with her, he could not be +responsible for the consequences: he could foresee no degree of self-control +that would keep him from telling her that he loved her. He had been afraid +to go. +But ah, how her image drew him day and night, day and night! Slipping +between him and every other being, every other desire. Her voice kept +calling to him to come to her--a voice new, irresistible, that seemed to +issue from the deeps of Summer, from the deeps of Life, from the deeps of +Love, with its almighty justification. + +This was his first Saturday. To-day he had not even the school as a post of +duty, to which he might lash himself for safety. He had gone away from town +in an opposite direction from her home, burying himself alone in the forest. +But between him and that summoning voice he could put no distance. It sang +out afresh to him from the inviting silence of the woods as well as from its +innumerable voices. It sang to him reproachfully from the pages of the old +book: "In the lusty month of May lovers call again to their mind old +gentleness and old service and many deeds that were forgotten by +negligence:" he had never even gone to thank her for all her kindness to him +during his illness! + +Still he held out, wrestling with himself. At last Love itself, the +deceiver, snaringly pleaded that she alone could cure him of all this folly. +It had grown up wholly during his absence from her, no doubt by reason of +this. Many a time before be had gone to her about other troubles, and always +he had found her carrying that steady light of right-mindedness which had +scatteredhis darkness and revealed his better pathway. + +He sprang up and set off sternly through the woods. Goaded by love, he +fancied that the presence of the forbidden woman would restore him to his +old, blameless friendship. + +XVIII + +SHE was at work in the garden: he had long ago noted that she never idled. + +He approached the fence and leaned on it as when they had last talked +together; but his big Jacobin hat was pulled down over his eyes now. He was +afraid of his own voice, afraid of the sound of his knuckles, so that when +at last he had rapped on the fence, he hoped that she had not heard, so that +he could go away. + +"Knock louder," she called out from under her bonnet. "I'm not sure that I +heard you." + +How sunny her voice was, how pure and sweet and remote from any suspicion of +hovering harm! It unshackled him as from a dreadful nightmare. + +He broke into his old laugh--the first time since he had stood there +before--and frankly took off his hat. + +"How did you know who it was? You saw me coming!" + +"Did I? I don't like to contradict a stranger." + +"Am I a stranger?" + +"What makes a stranger? How long has it been since you were here?" + +"A lifetime," he replied gravely. +"You are still living! Will you walk into my parlour?" + +"Will you meet me at the door?" +It was so pleasant to seem gay, to say nothing, be nothing! She came +quietly over to the fence and gave him her hand with a little laugh." +"You have holiday of Saturdays. I have not, you see. But I can take a +recess: come in. You are looking well! Wounds agree with you." + +He went trembling round to the gate, passed in, and they sat down on the +bench. + +"How things grow in this soil," she said pointing to the garden. "It has +only been five or six weeks since you were here. Do you remember? I was +planting the seed: now look at the plants!" + +"I, too, was sowing that afternoon," he replied musingly. "But my harvest +ripened before yours; I have already reaped it." + +"What's that you are saying about me?" called out a hard, smooth voice from +over the fence at their back. "I don't like to miss anything!" + +Amy had a piece of sewing, which she proceeded to spread upon the fence. + +"Will you show me about this, Aunt Jessica?" + +She greeted John without embarrassment or discernible remembrance of their +last meeting. Her fine blond hair was frowsy and a button was missing at the +throat of her dress. (Some women begin to let themselves go after marriage; +some after the promise of marriage.) There were cake-crumbs also in one +corner of her mouth. +"These are some of my wedding clothes," she said to him prettily. "Aren't +they fine?" + +Mrs. Falconer drew her attention for a moment and they began to measure the +cloth over the back of her finger, counting the lengths under her breath. + +Amy took a pin from the bosom of her dress and picked between her pearly +teeth daintily. + +"Aunt Jessica," she suddenly inquired with mischievous look at John, "before +you were engaged to uncle, was there any one else you liked better?" + +With a terrible inward start, he shot a covert glance at her and dropped his +eyes. Mrs. Falconer's answer was playful and serene. + +"It has been a long time; it's hard to remember. But I've heard of such +cases." + +There was something in the reply that surprised Amy and she peeped under +Mrs. Falconer's bonnet to see what was going on. She had learned that a +great deal went on under that bonnet. +"Well, after you were engaged to him, was there anybody else?" + +"I don't think I remember. But I've known of such cases." + +Amy peeped again, and the better to see for herself hereafter, coolly lifted +the bonnet off. "Well, after you were married to him," she said, "was there +anybody else? I've known of such cases," she added, with a dry imitation of +the phrase. + +"You have made me forget my lengths," said Mrs. Falconer with unruffled +innocence. "I'll have to measure again." +Amy turned to John with sparkling eyes. +"Did you ever know a man who was in love with a married woman?" + +"Yes," said John, secretly writhing, but too truthful to say "no." + +"What did he do about it?" asked Amy. + +"I don't know," replied John, shortly. +"What do you think he ought to have done? What would you do?" asked Amy. +"I don't know," replied John, more coolly, turning away his confused face. + +Neither of you seems to know anything this afternoon," observed Amy, "and +I'd always been led to suppose that each of you knew everything." + +As she departed with her sewing, she turned to send a final arrow, with some +genuine feeling. +"I think I'll send for uncle to come and talk tome." + +"Stay and talk to us," Mrs. Falconer called to her with a sincere, pitying +laugh. "Come back!" + +Amy's questions had passed high over her head like a little flock of +chattering birds they had struck him low, like bullets. + +"Go on," she said quietly, when they were seated again, "what was it about +the harvest?" + +He could not reply at once; and she let him sit in silence, looking across +the garden while she took up her knitting from the end of the bench, and +leaning lightly toward him, measured a few rows of stitches across his +wrist. It gave way under her touch. + +"These are your mittens for next winter," she said softly, more softly than +he had ever heard her speak. And the quieting melody of her mere tone!--how +unlike that other voice which bored joyously into you as a bright gimlet +twists its unfeeling head into wood. He turned on her one quick, beautiful +look of gratitude. + +"What was it about the harvest?" she repeated, forbearing to return his +look, and thinking that all his embarrassment followed from the pain of +having thus met Amy. + +He began to speak very slowly: +"The last time I was here I boasted that I had yet to meet my first great +defeat in life . . . that there was nothing stronger in the world than a +man's will and purpose . . . that if ideals got shattered, we shattered them +. . . that I would go on doing with my life as I had planned, be what I +wished, have what I wanted." + +"Well?" she urged, busy with her needles. + +"I know better now." + +"Aren't you the better for knowing better?" +He made no reply; so that she began to say very simply and as a matter of +course: +"It's the defeat more than anything else that hurts you! Defeat is always +the hardest thing for you to stand, even in trifles. But don't you know that +we have to be defeated in order to succeed? Most of us spend half our lives +in fighting for things that would only destroy us if we got them. A man who +has never been defeated is usually a man who has been ruined. And, of +course," she added with light raillery, "of course there are things stronger +than the strongest will and purpose: the sum of other men's wills and +purposes, for instance. A single soldier may have all the will and purpose +to whip an army, but he doesn't do it. And a man may have all the will and +purpose to whip the world, walk over it rough-shod, shoulder it out of his +way as you'd like to do, but he doesn't do it. And of course we do not +shatter our ideals ourselves--always: a thousand things outside ourselves do +that for us. And what reason had you to say that you would have what you +wanted? Your wishes are not infallible. Suppose you craved the forbidden?" + +She looked over at him archly, but he jerked his face farther away. Then he +spoke out with the impulse to get away from her question: + +"I could stand to be worsted by great things. But the little ones, the low, +the coarse, the trivial! Ever since I was here last--beginning that very +night--I have been struggling like a beast with his foot in a trap. I don't +mean Amy!" he cried apologetically. + +"I'm glad you've discovered there are little things," she replied. "I had +feared you might never find that out. I'm not sure yet that you have. One of +your great troubles is that everything in life looks too large to you, too +serious, too important. You fight the gnats of the world as you fought your +panther. With you everything is a mortal combat. You run every butterfly +down and break it on an iron wheel; after you have broken it, it doesn't +matter: everything is as it was before, except that you have lost time and +strength. The only things that need trouble us very much are not the things +it is right to conquer, but the things it is wrong to conquer. If you ever +conquer in yourself anything that is right, that will be a real trouble for +you as long as you live--and for me!" + +He turned quickly and sat facing her, the muscles of his face moving +convulsively. She did not look at him, but went on: + +"The last time you were here, you told me that I did not appreciate Amy; +that I could not do her justice; but that no woman could ever understand why +a man loved any other woman." + +"Did I say that?" he muttered remorsefully. + +"It was because you did not appreciate he--it was because you would never be +able to do her justice--that I was so opposed to the marriage. And this was +largely a question of little things. I knew perfectly well that as soon as +you married Amy, you would begin to expect her to act as though she were +made of iron: so many pieces, so many wheels, so many cogs, so many +revolutions. All the inevitable little things that make up the most of her +life--that make up so large a part of every woman's life--the little moods, +the little play, little changes, little tempers and inconsistencies and +contradictions and falsities and hypocrisies which come every morning and go +every night,--all these would soon have been to you--oh! I'm afraid they'd +have been as big as a herd of buffalo! There would have been a bull fight +for every foible." + +She laughed out merrily, but she did not look at him. + +"Yes," she continued, trying to drain his cup for him, since he would not do +it himself, "you are the last man in the world to do a woman like Amy +justice. I'm afraid you will never do justice to any woman, unless you +change a good deal and learn a good deal. Perhaps no woman will ever +understand you--except me." + +She looked up at him now with the clearest fondness in her exquisite eyes. + +With a groan he suddenly leaned over and buried his face in his hands. His +hat fell over on the grass. Her knitting dropped to her lap, and one of her +hands went out quickly toward his big head, heavy with its shaggy reddish +mass of hair, which had grown long during his sickness. But at the first +touch she quickly withdrew it, and stooping over picked up his hat and put +it on her knees, and sat beside him silent and motionless. + +He straightened himself up a moment later, and keeping his face turned away +reached for his hat and drew it down over his eyes. + +"I can't tell you! You don't understand!" he said in a broken voice. + +"I understand everything. Amy has told me-poor little Amy! She is not wholly +to blame. I blame you more. You may have been in love with your idea of her, +but anything like that idea she never has been and never will be; and who is +responsible for your idea, then, but yourself? It is a mistake that many a +man makes; and when the woman disappoints him, he blames her, and deserts +her or makes her life a torment. Of course a woman may make the same +mistake; but, as a rule, women are better judges of men than men are of +women. Besides, if they find themselves mistaken, they bear their +disappointment better and show it less: they alone know their tragedy; it is +the unperceived that kills." + +The first tears that he had ever seen gathered and dimmed her eyes. She was +too proud either to acknowledge them or to hide them. Her lids fell quickly +to curtain them in, and the lashes received them in their long, thick +fringes. But she had suffered herself to go too far. + +"Ah, if you had loved her! loved her!" she cried with an intensity of +passion, a weary, immeasurable yearning, that seemed to come from a life in +death. The strength of that cry struck him as a rushing wind strikes a young +eagle on the breast, lifting him from his rock and setting him afloat on the +billows of a rising storm. His spirit mounted the spirit of her unmated +confession, rode it as its master, exulted in it as his element and his +home. But the stricken man remained motionless on the bench a few feet from +the woman, looking straight across the garden, with his hands clinched about +his knees, his hat hiding his eyes, his jaws set sternly with the last grip +of resolution. + +It was some time before either spoke. Then her voice was very quiet. + +"You found out your mistake in time; suppose it had been too late? But this +is all so sad; we will never speak of it again. Only you ought to feel that +from this time you can go on with the plans of your life uninterrupted. +Begin with all this as small defeat that means a larger victory! There is no +entanglement now, not a drawback; what a future! It does look as though you +might now have everything that you set your heart on." + +She glanced up at him with a mournful smile, and taking the knitting which +had lain forgotten in her lap leaned over again and measured the stitches +upon his wrist. + +"When do you start?" she asked, seeing a terrible trouble gathering in his +face and resolved to draw his thoughts to other things. + +"Next week." + +The knitting fell again. + +"And you have allowed all this time to go by without coming to see us! You +are to come everyday till you go: promise!" + +He had been repeating that he would not trust himself to come at all again, +except to say good-bye. + +"I can't promise that." + +"But we want you so much! The major wants you, I want you more than the +major. Why should meeting Amy be so hard? Remember how long it will be +before you get back. When will you be back?" + +He was thinking it were better never. + +"It is uncertain," he said. + +"I shall begin to look for you as soon as you are gone. I can hear your +horse's feet now, rustling in the leaves of October. But what will become of +me till then? Ah, you don't begin to realize how much you are to me!" + +"Oh!" + +He stretched his arms out into vacancy and folded them again quickly. + +"I'd better go." + +He stood up and walked several paces into the garden, where he feigned to be +looking at the work she had left. Was he to break down now? Was the strength +which he had relied on in so many temptations to fail him now, when his need +was sorest? + +In a few minutes he wheeled round to the bench and stopped full before her, +no longer avoiding her eyes. She had taken up the book which he had laid on +his end of the seat and was turning the pages. + +"Have you read it?" + +"Over and over." + +"Ah! I knew I could trust you! You never disappoint. Sit down a little +while." + +"I'd--better go!" + +"And haven't you a word? Bring this book back to me in silence? After all I +said to you? I want to know how you feel about it--all your thoughts." + +She looked up at him with a reproachful smile-- + +The blood had rushed guiltily into his face, and she seeing this, without +knowing what it meant, the blood rushed into hers. + +"I don't understand," she said proudly and coldly, dropping her eyes and +dropping her head a little forward before him, and soon becoming very pale, +as from a death-wound. + +He stood before her, trembling, trying to speak, trying not to speak. Then +he turned and strode rapidly away. + + +XVIII + +THE next morning the parson was standing before his scant congregation of +Episcopalians. + +It was the first body of these worshippers gathered together in the +wilderness mainly from the seaboard aristocracy of the Church of England. A +small frame building on the northern slope of the wide valley served them +for a meeting-house. No mystical half-lights there but the mystical +half-lights of Faith; no windows but the many-hued windows of Hope; no +arches but the vault of Love. What more did those men and women need in that +land, over-shadowed always by the horror of quick or +waiting death? + +In addition to his meagre flock many an unclaimed goat of the world fell +into that meek valley-path of Sunday mornings and came to hear, if not to +heed, the voice of this quiet shepherd; so that now, as be stood delivering +his final exhortation, his eyes ranged over wild, lawless, desperate +countenances, rimming him darkly around. They glowered in at him through the +door, where some sat upon the steps; others leaned in at the windows on each +side of the room. Over the closely packed rough heads of these he could see +others lounging further away on the grass beside their rifles, listening, +laughing and talking. Beyond these stretched near fields green with maize, +and cabins embosomed in orchards and gardens. Once a far-off band of +children rushed across his field of vision, playing at Indian warfare and +leaving in the bright air a cloud of dust from an old Indian war trail. + +As he observed it all--this singularly mixed concourse of God-fearing men +and women and of men and women who feared neither God nor man nor devil--as +he beheld the young fields and the young children and the sweet transition +of the whole land from bloodshed to innocence, the recollection of his +mission in it and of the message of his Master brough out upon his cold, +bleak, beautiful face the light of the Divine: so from a dark valley one may +sometime have seen a snow-clad peak of the Alps lit up with the rays of the +hidden sun. + +He had chosen for his text the words "My peace I give unto you," and long +before the closing sentences were reached, his voice was floating out with +silvery, flute-like clearness on the still air of the summer morning, +holding every soul, however unreclaimed, to intense and reverential silence: + +"It is now twenty years since you scaled the mountains and hewed your path +into this wilderness, never again to leave it. Since then you have known but +war. As I look into your faces, I see the scar of many a wound; but more +than the wounds I see are the wounds I do not see: of the body as well as of +the spirit--the lacerations of sorrow, the strokes of bereavement. So that +perhaps not one of you here but bears some brave visible or invisible sin of +this awful past and of his share in the common strife. Twenty years are a +long time to fight enemies of any kind, a long time to bold out against such +as you have faced; and had you not been a mighty people sprung from the +loins of a mighty race, no one of you would be here this day to worship the +God of your fathers in the faith of your fathers. The victory upon which you +are entering at last is never the reward of the feeble, the cowardly, the +faint-hearted. Out of your strength alone you have won your peace. + +"But, O my brethren, while your land is now at peace, are you at peace? In +the name of my Master, look each of you into his heart and answer: Is it not +still a wilderness? full of the wild beasts of the appetites? the favourite +hunting-ground of the passions? And is each of you, tried and faithful and +fearless soldier that he may be on every other field, is each of you doing +anything to conquer this?" + +"My cry to-day then is the war-cry of the spirit. Subdue the wilderness +within you! Step by step, little by little, as you have fought your way +across this land from the Eastern mountains to the Western river, driven out +every enemy and now hold it as your own, begin likewise to take possession +of the other until in the end you may rule it also. If you are feeble; if +fainthearted; if you do not bring into your lonely, silent, unwitnessed +battles every virtue that you have relied on in this outward warfare of +twenty years, you may never hope to come forth conquerors. By your strength, +your courage, patience, watchfulness, constancy,--by the in-most will and +beholden face of victory you are to overmaster the evil within yourselves as +you have overmastered the peril in Kentucky." + +"Then in truth you may dwell in green and tranquil pastures, where the will +of God broods like summer light. Then you may come to realize the meaning of +this promise of our Lord, 'My peace I give unto you': it is the gift of His +peace to those alone who have learned to hold in quietness their land of the +spirit." + +White, cold, aflame with holiness, he stood before them; and every beholder, +awe-stricken by the vision of that face, of a surety was thinking that this +man's life was behind his speech: whether in ease or agony, he had found for +his nature that victory of rest that was never to be taken from him. + +But even as he stood thus, the white splendour faded from his countenance, +leaving it shadowed with care. In one corner of the room, against the wall, +shielding his face from the light of the window with his big black hat and +the palm of his hand, sat the school-master. He was violently flushed, his +eyes swollen and cloudy, his hair tossed, his linen rumpled, his posture +bespeaking wretchedness and self-abandonment. Always in preaching the +parson had looked for the face of his friend; always it had been his +mainstay, interpreter, steadfast advocate in every plea for perfection of +life. But to-day it had been kept concealed from him; nor until he had +reached his closing exhortation, had the school-master once looked him in +the eye, and he had done so then in a most remarkable manner: snatching the +hat from before his face, straightening his big body up, and transfixing him +with an expression of such resentment and reproach, that among all the wild +faces before him, he could see none to match this one for disordered and +evil passion. If he could have harboured a conviction so monstrous, he would +have said that his words had pierced the owner of that face like a spear and +that he was writhing under the torture. + +As soon as he had pronounced the benediction he looked toward the corner +again, but the school-master had already left the room. Usually he waited +until the others were gone and the two men walked homeward together, +discussing the sermon. + +To-day the others slowly scattered, and the parson sat alone at the tipper +end of the room disappointed and troubled. + +John strode up to the door. + +"Are you ready?" he asked in a curt unnatural voice. + +"Ah!" The parson sprang up gladly. "I was hoping you'd come!" + +They started slowly off along the path, John walking unconsciously in it, +the parson stumbling along through the grass and weeds on one side. It had +been John's unvarying wont to yield the path to him. + +"It is easy to preach," he muttered with gloomy, sarcastic emphasis. + +"If you tried it once, you might think it easier to practise," retorted the +parson, laughing. + +"It might be easier to one who is not tempted." + +"It might be easier to one who is. No man is tempted beyond his strength, +but a sermon is often beyond his powers. I let you know, young man, that a +homily may come harder than a virtue." + +"How can you stand up and preach as you've been preaching, and then come out +of the church and laugh about it!" cried John angrily. + +"I'm not laughing about what I preached on," replied the parson with +gentleness. + +"You are in high spirits! You are gay! You are full of levity!" + +"I am full of gladness. I am happy: is that a sin?" + +John wheeled on him, stopping short, and pointing back to the church: + +"Suppose there'd been a man in that room who was trying to some +temptation--more terrible than you've ever known anything about. You'd made +him feel that you were speaking straight at him -bidding him do right where +it was so much easier to do wrong. You had helped him; he had waited to see +you alone, hoping to get more help. Then suppose he had found you as you are +now--full of your gladness! He wouldn't have believed in you! He'd have been +hardened." + +"If he'd been the right kind of man," replied the parson, quickly facing an +arraignment had the rancour of denunciation, "he ought to have been more +benefited by the sight of a glad man than the sound of a sad sermon. He'd +have found in me a man who practises what he preaches: I have conquered my +wilderness. But, I think," he added more gravely, "that if any such soul had +come to me in his trouble, I could have helped him: if he had let me know +what it was, he would have found that I could understand, could sympathize. +Still, I don't see why you should condemn my conduct by the test of +imaginary cases. I suppose I'm happy now because I'm glad to be with you," +and the parson looked the school-master a little reproachfully in the eyes. + +"And do you think I have no troubles?" said John, his lips trembling. He +turned away and the parson walked beside him. + +"You have two troubles to my certain knowledge," said he in the tone of one +bringing forward a piece of critical analysis that was rather mortifying to +exhibit. "The one is a woman and the other is John Calvin. If it's Amy, +throw it off and be a man. If it's Calvinism, throw it off and become an +Episcopalian." He laughed out despite himself. + +"Did you ever love a woman?" asked John gruffly. + +"Many a one--in the state of the first Adam!" + +"That's the reason you threw it off: many a one!" + +"Don't you know," inquired the parson with an air of exegetical candour, +"that no man can be miserable because some woman or other has flirted his +friend? That's the one trouble that every man laughs at--when it happens in +his neighbourhood, not in his own house!" + +The school-master made no reply. + +"Or if it is Calvin," continued the parson, "thank God, I can now laugh at +him, and so should you! Answer me one question: during the sermon, weren't +you thinking of the case of a man born in a wilderness of temptations that +he is foreordained never to conquer, and then foreordained to eternal +damnation because he didn't conquer it?" + +"No--no!" + +"Well, you'd better've been thinking about it! For that's what you believe. +And that's what makes life so hard and bitter and gloomy to you. I know! I +carried Calvinism around within me once: it was like an uncorked ink-bottle +in a rolling snowball: the farther you go, the blacker you get! Admit it +now," he continued in his highest key of rarefied persistency, "admit that +you were mourning over the babies in your school that will have to go to +hell! You'd better be getting some of your own: the Lord will take care of +other people's! Go to see Mrs. Falconer! See all you can of her. There's a +woman to bring you around!" + +They had reached the little bridge over the clear, swift Elkhorn. Their +paths diverged. John stopped at his companion's last words, and stood +looking at him with some pity. + +"I thank you for your sermon," he said huskily; "I hope to get some help +from that. But you!--you are making things harder for me every word you +utter. You don't understand and I can't tell you." + +He took the parson's cool delicate hand in his big hot one. + +Alone in the glow of the golden dusk of that day he was sitting outside his +cabin on the brow of the hill, overlooking the town in the valley. How +peaceful it lay in the Sunday evening light! The burden of the parson's +sermon weighed more heavily than ever on his spirit. He had but to turn his +eye down the valley and there, flashing in the sheen of sunset, flowed the +great spring, around the margin of which the first group of Western hunters +had camped for the night and given the place its name from one of the +battle-fields of the Revolution; up the valley he could see the roof under +which the Virginia aristocracy of the Church of England had consecrated +their first poor shrine. What history lay between the finding of that spring +and the building of that altar! Not the winning of the wilderness simply; +not alone its peace. That westward penetrating wedge of iron-browed, +iron-muscled, iron-hearted men, who were now beginning to be known as the +Kentuckians, had not only cleft a road for themselves; they had opened a +fresh highway for the tread of the nation and found a vaster heaven for the +Star of Empire. Already this youthful gigantic West was beginning to make +its voice heard from Quebec to New Orleans while beyond the sea the three +greatest kingdoms of Europe had grave and troubled thoughts of the +on-rushing power it foretokened and the unimaginably splendid future for the +Anglo-Saxon race that it forecast. + +He recalled the ardour with which he had followed the tramp of those wild +Westerners; footing it alone from the crest of the Cumberland; subsisting on +the game he could kill by the roadside; sleeping at night on his rifle in +some thicket of underbrush or cane; resolute to make his way to this new +frontier of the new republic in the new world; open his school, read law, +and begin his practice, and cast his destiny in with its heroic people. + +And now this was the last Sunday in a long time, perhaps forever, that he +should see it all--the valley, the town, the evening land, resting in its +peace. Before the end of another week his horse would be climbing the ranges +of the Alleghanies, bearing him on his way to Mount Vernon and thence to +Philadelphia. By outward compact he was going on one mission for the +Transylvania Library Committee and on another from his Democratic Society to +the political Clubs of the East. But in his own soul he knew he was going +likewise because it would give him the chance to fight his own battle out, +alone and far away. + +Fight it out here, he felt that he never could. He could neither live near +her and not see her, nor see her and not betray the truth. His whole life +had been a protest against the concealment either of his genuine dislikes or +his genuine affections. How closely he had come to the tragedy of a +confession, she to the tragedy of an understanding, the day before! Her +deathly pallor had haunted him ever since--that look of having suffered a +terrible wound. Perhaps she understood already. + +Then let her understand! Then at least he could go away better satisfied: if +he never came back, she would know: every year of that long separation, her +mind would be bearing him the pardoning companionship that every woman must +yield the man who has loved her, and still loves her, wrongfully and +hopelessly: of itself that knowledge would be a great deal to him during all +those years. + +Struggle against it as he would, the purpose was steadily gaining ground +within him to see her and if she did not now know everything then to tell +her the truth. The consequences would be a tragedy, but might it not be a +tragedy of another kind? For there were darker moments when he probed +strange recesses of life for him in the possibility that his confession +might open up a like confession from her. He had once believed Amy to be +true when she was untrue. Might he not be deceived here? Might she not +appear true, but in reality be untrue? If he were successfully concealing +his love from her, might she not be successfully concealing her love from +him? And if they found each other out, what then? + +At such moments all through him like an alarm bell sounded her warning: "The +only things that need trouble us very much are not the things it is right to +conquer but the things it is wrong to conquer. If you ever conquer anything +in yourself that is right, that will be a real trouble for you as long as +you live--and for me!" + +Had she meant this? But whatever mood was uppermost, of one thing he now +felt assured: that the sight of her made his silence more difficult. He had +fancied that her mere presence, her purity, her constancy, her loftiness of +nature would rebuke and rescue him from the evil in himself: it had only +stamped upon this the consciousness of reality. He had never even realized +until he saw her the last time how beautiful she was; the change in himself +had opened his eyes to this; and her greater tenderness toward him in their +talk of his departure, her dependence on his friendship, her coming +loneliness, the sense of a tragedy in her life--all these sweet half-mute +appeals to sympathy and affection had rioted in his memory every moment +since. + +Therefore it befell that the parson's sermon of the morning had dropped like +living coals on his conscience. It had sounded that familiar, lifelong, +best-loved, trumpet call of duty--the old note of joy in his strength +rightly and valiantly to be put forth--which had always kindled him and had +always been his boast. All the afternoon those living coals of divine +remonstrance had been burning into him deeper and deeper but in vain: they +could only torture, not persuade. For the first time in his life he had met +face to face the fully aroused worst passions of his own stubborn, defiant, +intractable nature: they too loved victory and were saying they would have +it. + +One by one the cabins disappeared in the darkness. One by one the stars +bloomed out yellow in their still meadows. Over the vast green sea of the +eastern wilderness the moon swung her silvery lamp, and up the valley +floated a wide veil of mist bedashed with silvery light. + +The parson climbed the crest of the hill, sat down, laid his hat on the +grass, and slipped his long sensitive fingers backward over his shining +hair. Neither man spoke at first; their friendship put them at ease. Nor +did the one notice the shrinking and dread which was the other's only +welcome. + +"Did you see the Falconers this morning?" + +The parson's tone was searching and troubled and gentler than it had been +earlier that day. + +"No." + +"They were looking for you. They thought you'd gone home and said they'd go +by for you. They expected you to go out with them to dinner. Haven't you +been there to-day?" + +"No." + +"I certainly supposed you'd go. I know they looked for you and must have +been disappointed. Isn't this your last Sunday?" + +"Yes." + +He answered absently. He was thinking that if she was looking for him, then +she had not understood and their relation still rested on the old innocent +footing. Whatever explanation of his conduct and leave-taking the day before +she had devised, it had not been in his disfavour. In all probability, she +had referred it, as she had referred everything else, to his affair with +Amy. His conscience smote him at the thought of her indestructible trust in +him. + +"If this is your last Sunday," resumed the parson in a voice rather +plaintive, "then this is our last Sunday night together. And that was my +last sermon. Well, it's not a bad one to take with you. By the time you get +back, you'll thank me more for it than you did this morning--if you heed +it." + +There was another silence before he continued, musingly: + +"What an expression a sermon will sometimes bring out on a man's face! +While I was preaching, I saw many a thing that no man knew I saw. It was as +though I were crossing actual wilderness-es; I met the wild beasts of +different souls, I crept up on the lurking savages of the passions. I +believe some of those men would have liked to confess to me. I wish they +had." + +He forbore to speak of John's black look, though it was of this that he was +most grievously thinking and would have led the way to have explained. But +no answer came." + +There was one face with no hidden guilt in it, no shame. I read into the +depths of that clear mind. It said: 'I have conquered my wilderness.' I have +never known another such woman as Mrs. Falconer. She never speaks of +herself; but when I am with her, I feel that the struggles of my life have +been nothing." + +"Yes," he continued, out of kindness trying to take no notice of his +companion's silence, "she holds in quietness her land of the spirit; but +there are battle-fields in her nature that fill me with awe by their +silence. I'd dread to be the person to cause her any further trouble in this +world." + +The schoolmaster started up, went into the cabin, and quickly came out +again. The parson, absorbed in his reflections, had not noticed: + +"You've thought I've not sympathized with you in your affair with Amy. It's +true. But if you'd ever loved this woman and failed, I could have +sympathized." + +"Why don't you raise the money to build a better church by getting up a +lottery?" asked John, breaking in harshly upon the parson's gentleness. + +The question brought on a short discussion of this method of aiding schools +and churches, then much in vogue. The parson rather favoured the plan (and +it is known that afterwards a better church was built for him through this +device); but his companion bore but a listless part in the talk: he was +balancing the chances, the honour and the dishonour, in a lottery of life. + +"You are not like yourself to-day," said the parson reproachfully after +silence had come on again. + +I know it," replied John freely, as if awaking at last. + +"Well, each of us has his troubles. Sometimes I have likened the human race +to a caravan of camels crossing a desert--each with sore on his hump and +each with his load so placed as to rub that sore. It is all right for the +back to bear its burden, but I don't think there should have been any sore!" + +"Let me ask you a question," said John, suddenly and earnestly. "Have there +ever been days in your life when, if you'd been the camel, you'd have thrown +the load and driver off?" + +"Ah!" said the parson keenly, but gave no answer. + +"Have there ever been days when you'd rather have done wrong than right?" + +"Yes; there have been such days--when I was young and wild." The confession +was reluctant. + +"Have you ever had a trouble, and everybody around you fell upon you in the +belief that it was something else?" + +"That has happened to me--I suppose to all of us." + +"Were you greatly helped by their misunderstanding you?" + +"I can't say that I was." + +"You would have been glad for them to know the truth, but you didn't choose +to tell them?" + +"Yes; I have gone through such an experience." + +"So that their sympathy was in effect ridiculous?" + +"That is true also." + +"If you have been through all this," said John conclusively, "then without +knowing anything more, you can understand why I am not like myself, as you +say, and haven't been lately." + +The parson moved his chair over beside the school-master's and took one of +his hands in both of his own, drawing it into his lap. + +"John," he said with affection, "I've been wrong: forgive me! And I can +respect your silence. But don't let anything come between us and keep it +from me. One question now on this our last Sunday night together: Have you +anything against me in this world?" + +"Not one thing! Have you anything against me?" + +"Not one thing!" + +Neither spoke for a while. Then the parson resumed: + +"I not only have nothing against you, but I've something to say; we might +never meet hereafter. You remember the woman who broke the alabaster box for +the feet of the Saviour while he was living--that most beautiful of all the +appreciations? And you know what we do? Let our fellow-beings carry their +crosses to their Calvarys, and after each has suffered his agony and entered +into his peace, we go out to him and break our alabaster boxes above his +stiff cold feet. I have always hoped that my religion might enable me to +break my alabaster box for the living who alone can need it--and who always +do need it. Here is mine for your feet, John: Of all the men I have ever +known, you are the most sincere; of them all I would soonest pick upon you +to do what is right; of them all you have the cleanest face, because you +have the most innocent heart; of them all you have the highest notions of +what a man may do and be in this life. I have drawn upon your strength ever +since I knew you. You have a great deal. It is fortunate; you will need a +great deal; for the world will always be a battle-field to you, but the +victory will be worth the fighting. And my last words to you are: fight it +out to the end; don't compromise with evil; don't lower your ideals or your +aims. If it can be any help to you to know it, I shall always be near you +in spirit when you are in trouble; if you ever need me, I will come; and if +my poor prayers can ever bring you a blessing, you shall have that." + +The parson turned his calm face up toward the firmament and tears glistened +in his eyes. Then perhaps from the old habit and need of following a sermon +with a hymn, he said quite simply: + +"Would you like a little music? It is the Good-bye of the Flute to you and a +pleasant journey." + +The school-master's head had dropped quickly upon his arms, which were +crossed over the back of his chair. While the parson was praising him, he +had put out his hand two or three times with wretched, imploring gestures. +Keeping his face still hidden, he moved his head now in token of assent; and +out upon the stillness of the night floated the Farewell of the Flute. + +But no sermon, nor friendship, nor music, nor voice of conscience, nor voice +of praise, nor ideals, nor any other earthly thing could stand this day +against the evil that was in him. The parson had scarce gone away through +the misty beams before he sprang up and seized his hat. + +There was no fog out on the clearing. He could not have said why he had +come. He only knew that he was there in the garden where he had parted from +her the day before. He sat on the bench where they had talked so often, he +strolled among her plants. How clear in the moonlight every leaf of the dark +green little things was, many of them holding white drops of dew on their +tips and edges! How plain the last shoe-prints where she had worked! How +peaceful the whole scene in every direction, how sacredly at rest! And the +cabin up there at the end of the garden where they were sleeping side by +side--how the moon poured its strongest light upon that: his eye could never +get away from it. So closely a man might live with a woman in this +seclusion! So entirely she must be his! + +His passions leaped like dogs against their chains when brought too near. +They began to draw him toward the cabin until at last he had come opposite +to it, his figure remaining hidden behind the fence and under the heavy +shadow of a group of the wilderness trees. Then it was that taking one step +further, he drew back. + +The low window of the cabin was open and she was sitting there near the foot +of her bed, perfectly still and looking out into the night. Her face rested +in one palm, her elbow on the window sill. Her nightgown had slipped down +from her arm. The only sleepless thing in all the peace of that summer +night: the yearning image of mated loneliness. + +He was so close that he could hear the loud regular breathing of a sleeper +on the bed just inside the shadow. Once the breathing stopped abruptly; and +a moment later, as though in reply to a command, he heard her say without +turning her head: + +"I am coming!" + +The voice was sweet and dutiful; but to an ear that could have divined +everything, so dead worn away with weariness. + +Then he saw an arm put forth. Then he heard the shutter being fastened on +the inside. + + +XIX + +THE closing day of school had come; and although he had waited in impatience +for the end, it was with a lump in his throat that he sat behind the desk +and ruler for the last time and looked out on the gleeful faces of the +children. No more toil and trouble between them and him from this time on; a +dismissal, and as far as he was concerned the scattering of the huddled +lambkins to the wide pastures and long cold mountain sides of the world. He +had grown so fond of them and he had grown so used to teach them by talking +to them, that his speech overflowed. But it had been his unbroken wont to +keep his troubles out of the schoolroom; and although the thought never left +him of the other parting to be faced that day, he spoke out bravely and +cheerily, with a smile: + +"This is the last day of school, and you know that to-morrow I am going away +and may never come back. Whether I do or not, I shall never teach again, so +that I am now saying good-bye to you for life. + +"What I wish to impress upon you once more is the kind of men and women your +fathers and mothers were and the kind of men and women you must become to be +worthy of them. I am not speaking so much to those of you whose parents have +not been long in Kentucky as to those whose parents were the first to fight +for the land until it was safe for others to follow and share it. Let me +tell you that nothing like that was ever done before in all this world. And +if, as I sit here, I can't help seeing that this one of you has no father +and this one no mother and this one neither father nor mother and that +almost none of you have both, still I cannot help saying, You ought to be +happy children! not that you have lost your parents, but that you have had +such parents to lose and to remember! + +"All of you are still too young to know fully what they have done and how +the whole world will some day speak of them. Still, you can understand some +things. For nowadays, when you go to your homes at night, you can lie down +and sleep without fear or danger. + +"And in the mornings your fathers go off to the fields to their work, your +mothers go off to theirs, you go off to yours, feeling sure that you will +all come together at night again. Some of you can remember when this was not +so. Your father would put his arms around you in the morning and you would +never see him again; your mother kissed you, and waved her hand to you as +she went out of the gate; and you never knew what became of her afterwards. + +"And don't you recollect how you little babes in the wilderness could never +go anywhere? If you heard wild turkeys gobbling just inside the forest, or +an owl hooting, or a paroquet screaming, or a fawn bleating, you were warned +never to go there; it was the trick of the Indians. You could never go near +a clump of high weeds, or a patch of cane, or a stump, or a fallen tree. You +must not go to the sugar camp, to get a good drink, or to a salt lick for a +pinch of salt, or to the field for an ear of corn, or even to the spring for +a bucket of water: so that you could have neither bread nor water nor sugar +nor salt. Always, always, it was the Indians. If you cried in the night, +your mother came over to you and whispered 'Hush! they are coming! They will +get you!' And you forgot your pain and clung to her neck and listened. + +"Now you are let alone, you go farther and farther away from your homes, you +can play hide-and-seek in the canebrakes, you can explore the woods, you +fish and you hunt, you are free for the land is safe. + +"And then only think, that by the time you are men and women, Kentucky will +no longer be the great wilderness it still is. There will be thousands and +thousands of people scattered over it; and the forest will be cut down--can +you ever believe that?--cut through and through, leaving some trees here and +some trees there. And the cane will be cut down: can you believe that? And +instead of buffalo and wild-cats and bears and wolves and panthers there +will be flocks of the whitest sheep, with little lambs frisking about on the +green spring meadows. And under the big shady trees in the pastures there +will be herds of red cattle, so gentle and with backs so soft and broad that +you could almost stretch yourselves out and go to sleep on them, and they +would never stop chewing their cuds. Only think of the hundreds of orchards +with their apple-blossoms and of the big ripe, golden apples on the trees in +the fall! It will be one of the quietest, gentlest lands that a people ever +owned; and this is the gift of your fathers who fought for it and of your +mothers who fought for it also. And you must never forget that you would +never have had such fathers, had you not had such mothers to stand by them +and to die with them. + +"This is what I have wished to teach you more than anything in your +books--that you may become men and women worthy of them and of what they +have left you. But while being the bravest kind of men and women, you should +try also to be gentle men and gentle women. You boys must get over your +rudeness and your roughness; that is all right in you now but it would be +all wrong in you afterwards. And the last and the best thing I have to say +to you is be good boys and grow up to be good men! That sounds very plain +and common but I can wish you nothing better for there is nothing better. As +for my little girls, they are good enough as they are! + +"I have talked a long time. God bless you everyone. I wish you long and +happy lives and I hope we may meet again. And now all of you must come and +shake hands with me and tell me good-bye." + +They started forward and swarmed toward him; only, as the foremost of them +rose and hid her from sight, little Jennie, with one mighty act of defiant +joy, hurled her arithmetic out of the window; and a chubby-cheeked veteran +on the end of the bench produced a big red apple from between his legs and +went for it with a smack of gastric rapture that made his toes curl and sent +his glance to the rafters. They swarmed on him, and he folded his arms +around the little ones and kissed them; the older boys, the warriors, brown +and barefoot, stepping sturdily forward one by one, and holding out a strong +hand that closed on his and held it, their eyes answering his sometimes with +clear calm trust and fondness, sometimes lowered and full of tears; other +little hands resting unconsciously on each of his shoulders, waiting for +their turns. Then there were softened echoes --gay voices, dying away in +one direction and another, and then--himself alone in the +room--school-master no longer. + +He waited till there was silence, sitting in his old erect way behind his +desk, the bight smile still on his face though his eyes were wet. Then, +with the thought that now he was to take leave of her, he suddenly leaned +forward and buried his face on his arms. + + +XX + +IN the Country of the Spirit there is a certain high table-land that lies +far on among the out-posts toward Eternity. Standing on that calm clear +height, where the sun shines ever though it shines coldly, the wayfarer may +look behind him at his own footprints of self-renunciation, below on his +dark zones of storm, and forward to the final land where the mystery, the +pain, and the yearning of his life will either be infinitely satisfied or +infinitely quieted. But no man can write a description of this place for +those who have never trodden it; by those who have, no description is +desired: their fullest speech is Silence. For here dwells the Love of which +there has never been any confession, from which there is no escape, for +which there is no hope: the love of a man for a woman who is bound to +another, or the love of a woman for a man who is bound to another. Many +there are who know what that means, and this is the reason why the land is +always thronged. But in the throng no one signals another; to walk there is +to be counted among the Unseen and the Alone. + +To this great wistful height of Silence he had struggled at last after all +his days of rising and falling, of climbing and slipping back. It was no +especial triumph for his own strength. His better strength had indeed gone +into it, and the older rightful habitudes of mind that always mean so much +to us when we are tried and tempted, and the old beautiful submission of +himself to the established laws of the world. But more than what these had +effected was what she herself had been to him and had done for him. Even his +discovery of her at the window that last night had had the effect of bidding +him stand off; for he saw there the loyalty and sacredness of wifehood that, +however full of suffering, at least asked for itself the privilege and the +dignity of suffering unnoticed. + +Thus he had come to realize that life had long been leading him blindfold, +until one recent day, snatching the bandage from his eyes, she had cried: +"Here is the parting of three ways, each way a tragedy: choose your way and +your tragedy!" + +If he confessed his love and found that she felt but friendship for him, +there was the first tragedy. The wrong in him would lack the answering wrong +in her, which sometimes, when the two are put together, so nearly makes up +the right. From her own point of view, he would merely be offering her a +delicate ineffaceable insult. If she had been the sort of woman by whose +vanity every conquest is welcomed as a tribute and pursued as an aim, he +could never have cared for her at all. Thus while his love took its very +origin from his belief of her nobility, he was premeditating the means of +having her prove to him that this did not exist. + +If he told her everything and surprised her love for him, there was the +second tragedy. For over there, beyond the scene of such a confession, he +could not behold her as anything else than a fatally lowered woman. The +agony of this, even as a possibil-ity, overwhelmed him in advance. To +require of her that she should have a nature of perfect loyalty and at the +same time to ask her to pronounce her own falseness--what happiness could +that bring to him? If she could be faithless to one man because she loved +another, could she not be false to the second, if in time she grew to love a +third? Out of the depths even of his loss of her the terrible cry was wrung +from him that no love could long be possible between him and any woman who +was not free to love him. + +And so at last, with that mingling of selfish and unselfish motives, which +is like the mixed blood of the heart itself, he had chosen the third +tragedy: the silence that would at least leave each of them blameless. And +so he had come finally to that high cold table-land where the sun of Love +shines rather as the white luminary of another world than the red quickener +of this. + +Over the lofty table-land of Kentucky the sky bent darkest blue, and was +filled with wistful, silvery light that afternoon as he walked out to the +Falconers'. His face had never looked so clear, so calm; his very linen +never so spotless, or so careful about his neck and wrists; and his eyes +held again their old beautiful light--saddened. + +>From away off he could descry her, walking about the yard in the pale +sunshine. He had expected to find her preoccupied as usual; but to-day she +was strolling restlessly to and fro in front of the house, quite near it and +quite idle. When she saw him coming, scarce aware of her own actions, she +went round the house and walked on quickly away from him. + +As he was following and passing the cabin, a hand was quickly put out and +the shutter drawn partly to. + +"How do you do!" + +That hard, smooth, gay little voice! + +"You mustn't come here! And don't you peep! When are you going?" + +He told her. + +"To-morrow! Why, have you forgotten that I'm married to-morrow! Aren't you +coming? Upon my word! I've given you to the widow Babcock, and you are to +ride in the procession with her. She has promised me not to laugh once on +the way or even to allude to anything cheerful! Be persuaded! . . . Well, +I'm sorry. I'll have to give your place to Peter, I suppose. And I'll tell +the widow she can be natural and gay: Peter'll not mind! Good-bye! I can't +shake hands with you." + +Behind the house, at the foot of the sloping hill, there was a spring such +as every pioneer sought to have near his home; and a little lower down, in +one corner of the yard, the water from this had broadened out into a small +pond. Dark-green sedgy cane grew thick around half the margin. + +One March day some seasons before, Major Falconer had brought down with his +rifle from out the turquoise sky a young lone-wandering swan. In those early +days the rivers and ponds of the wilderness served as resting places and +feeding-grounds for these unnumbered birds in their long flights between the +Southern waters and the Northern lakes. A wing of this one had been broken, +and out of her wide heaven of freedom and light she had floated down his +captive but with all her far-sweeping instincts throbbing on unabated. This +pool had been the only thing to remind her since of the blue-breasted waves +and the glad fellowship of her kind. On this she had passed her existence, +with a cry in the night now and then that no one heard, a lifting of the +wings that would never rise, an eye turned upward toward the turquoise sky +across which familiar voices called to each other, called down, and were +lost in the distance. + +As he followed down the hill, she was standing on the edge of the pond, +watching the swan feeding in the edge of the cane. He took her hand without +a word, and looked with clear unfaltering eyes down into her face, now +swanlike in whiteness. + +She withdrew her hand and gave him the gloves which she was holding in the +other. + +"I'm glad you thought enough of them to come for them." + +"I couldn't come! Don't blame me!" + +"I understand! Only I might have helped you in your trouble. If a friend +can't do that--may not do that! But it is too late now! You start for +Virginia tomorrow?" + +"To-morrow." + +"And to-morrow Amy marries, I lose you both the same day! You are going +straight to Mount Vernon?" + +"Straight to Mount Vernon." + +"Ah, to think that you will see Virginia so soon! I've been recalling a +great deal about Virginia during these days when you would not come to see +me. Now I've forgotten everything I meant to say!" + +They climbed the hill slowly. Two or three times she stopped and pressed her +hand over her heart. She tried to hide the sound of her quivering breath and +glanced up once to see whether he were observing. He was not. With his old +habit of sending his thoughts on into the future, fighting its distant +battles, feeling its far-off pain, he was less conscious of their parting +than of the years during which he might not see her again. It is the woman +who bursts the whole grape of sorrow against the irrepressible palate at +such a moment; to a man like him the same grape distils a vintage of +yearning that will brim the cup of memory many a time beside his lamp in the +final years. + +He would have passed the house, supposing they were to go to the familiar +seat in the garden; but a bench had been placed under a forest tree near the +door and she led the way to this. The significance of the action was lost on +him. + +"Yes," she continued, returning to a subject which furnished both an escape +and a concealment of her feelings, "I have been revisiting my girlhood. You +love Kentucky but I cannot make myself over." + +Her face grew full of the finest memories and all the fibres of her nature +were becoming more unstrung. He had made sure of his strength before he had +ever dared see her this day, had pitted his self-control against every +possible temptation to betray himself that could arise throughout their +parting; and it was this very composure, so unlocked for, that unconsciously +drove her to the opposite extreme. Shades of colour swept over her neck and +brow, as though she were setting under wind-tossed blossoming peach boughs. +Her lustrous, excited eyes seemed never able to withdraw themselves from his +whitened solemn face. Its mute repressed suffering touched her; its +calmness filled her with vague pain that at such a time he could be so calm. +And the current of her words ran swift, as a stream loosened at last from +some steep height."Sometime you might be in that part of Virginia. I should +like you to know the country there and the place where my father's house +stood. And when you see the Resident, I wish you would recall my father to +him. And you remember that one of my brothers was a favourite young officer +of his. I should like you to hear him speak of them both: he has not +forgotten. Ah! My father! He had his faults, but they were all the faults of +a gentleman. And the faults of my brothers were the faults of gentlemen. I +never saw my mother; but I know how genuine she was by the books she liked +and her dresses and her jewels, and the manner in which she had things put +away in the closets. One's childhood is everything! If I had not felt I was +all there was in the world to speak for my father and my mother and my +brothers! Ah, sometimes pride is the greatest of virtues!" + +He bowed his head in assent. + +With a swift transition she changed her voice and manner and the +conversation: +"That is enough about me. Have you thought that you will soon be talking to +the greatest man in the world--you who love ideals?" + +"I have not thought of it lately." +"You will think of it soon! And that reminds me: why did you go away as you +did the last time you were here--when I wanted to talk with you about the +book?" + +Her eyes questioned him imperiously. +"I cannot tell you: that is one of the things you'd better not wish to +understand. + +She continued to look at him, and when she spoke, her voice was full of +relief: +"It was the first time you ever did anything that I could not understand: I +could not read your face that day." +"Can you read it now?" he asked, smiling at her sorrowfully. +"Perfectly!" + +"What do you read?" + +"Everything that I have always liked you for most. Memories are a great deal +to me. Ah, if you had ever done anything to spoil yours!" +Do you think that if I loved a woman she would know it by looking at my +face?" +"You would tell her: that is your nature." + +"Would I? Should I?" + +"Why not?" +There was silence. +"Let me talk to you about the book," he cried suddenly. He closed his eyes +and passed one hand several times slowly across his forehead; then facing +her but with his arm resting on the back of the seat and his eyes shaded by +his hand he began: + +"You were right: it is a book I have needed. At first it appeared centuries +old to me and far away: the greatest gorgeous picture I had ever seen of +human life anywhere. I could never tell you of the regret with which it +filled me not to have lived in those days--of the longing to have been at +Camelot to have seen the King and to have served him; to have been friends +with the best of the Knights; to have taken their vows; to have gone out +with them to right what was wrong, to wrong nothing that was right." + +The words were wrung from him with slow terrible effort, as though he were +forcing himself to draw nearer and nearer some spot of supreme mental +struggle. She listened, stilled, as she had never been by any words of his. +At the same time she felt stifled--felt that she should have to cry +out--that he could be so deeply moved and so self-controlled. + +More slowly, with more composure, he went on. He was still turned toward +her, his hand shading the upper part of his face: + +"It was not until--not until--afterwards--that I got something more out of +it than all that--got what I suppose you meant. . . . suppose you meant that +the whole story was not far away from me but present here--its right and +wrong--its temptation; that there was no vow a man could take then that a +man must not take now; that every man still has his Camelot and his King, +still has to prove his courage and his strength to all men . . . and that +after he has proved these, he has--as his last, highest act of service in +the world. . . to lay them all down, give them all up, for the sake of--of +his spirit. You meant that I too, in my life, am to go in quest of the +Grail: is it all that?" + +The tears lay mute on her eyes. She rose quickly and walked away to the +garden. He followed her. When they had entered it, he strolled beside her +among the plants. + +"You must see them once more," she said. Her tone was perfectly quiet and +careless. Then she continued with animation: +"Some day you will not know this garden. When we are richer, you will see +what I shall do: with it, with the house, with everything! I do not live +altogether on memories: I have hopes." + +They came to the bench where they were used to talk, She sat down, and +waited until she could control the least tremor of her voice. Then she +turned upon him her noble eyes, the exquisite passionate tender light of +which no effort of the will could curtain in. Nor could any self-restraint +turn aside the electrical energy of her words:"I thought I should not let +you go away without saying something more to you about what has happened +lately with Amy. My interest in you, your future, your success, has caused +me to feel everything more than you can possibly realize. But I am not +thinking of this now: it is nothing, it will pass. What it has caused me to +see and to regret more than anything else is the power that life will have +to hurt you on account of the ideals that you have built up in secret. We +have been talking about Sir Thomas Malory and chivalry and ideals: there is +one thing you need to know--all of us need to know it--and to know it +well."Ideals are of two kinds. There are those that correspond to our +highest sense of perfection. They express what we might be were life, the +world, ourselves, all different, all better. Let these be high as they may! +They are not useless because unattainable. Life is not a failure because +they are never attained. God Himself requires of us the unattainable: 'Be ye +perfect, even as I am perfect! He could not do less. He commands perfection, +He forgives us that we are not perfect! Nor does He count us failures +because we have to be forgiven. Our ideals also demand of us perfection--the +impossible; but because we come far short of this we have no right to count +ourselves as failures. What are they like--ideals such as these? They are +like light-houses. But light-houses are not made to live in; neither can we +live in such ideals. I suppose they are meant to shine on us from afar, when +the sea of our life is dark and stormy, perhaps to remind us of a haven of +hope, as we drift or sink in shipwreck. All of your ideals are lighthouses. +"But there are ideals of another sort; it is these that you lack. As we +advance into life, out of larger experience of the world and of ourselves, +are unfolded the ideals of what will be possible to us if we make the best +use of the world and of ourselves, taken as we are. Let these be as high as +they may, they will always be lower than those others which are perhaps the +veiled intimations of our immortality. These will always be imperfect; but +life is not a failure because they are so. It is these that are to burn for +us, not like light-houses in the distance, but like candles in our hands. +For so many of us they are too much like candles!--the longer they burn, the +lower they burn, until before death they go out altogether! But I know that +it will not be thus with you. At first you will have disappoint-ments and +sufferings--the world on one side, unattainable ideals of perfection on the +other. But by degrees the comforting light of what you may actually do and +be in an imperfect world will shine close to you and all around you, more +and more. It is this that will lead you never to perfection, but always +toward it." + +He bowed his head: the only answer he could make. + +It was getting late. The sun at this moment passed behind the western +tree-tops. It was the old customary signal for him to go. They suddenly +looked at each other in that shadow. +"I shall always think of you for your last words to me," he said in a thick +voice, rising. +"Some day you will find the woman who will be a candle," she replied sadly, +rising also. Then with her lips trembling, she added piteously: + +"Oh, if you ever marry, don't make the mistake of treating the woman as an +ideal Treat her in every way as a human being exactly like yourself! With +the same weakness, the same strug-les, the same temptations! And as you have +some mercy on yourself despite your faults, have some mercy on her despite +hers." + +"Must I ever think of you as having been weak and tempted as I have been?" +he cried, the guilty blood rushing into his face in the old struggle to tell +her everything. +"Oh, as for me--what do you know of me!" she cried, laughing. And then more +quickly: +"I have read your face! What do you read in mine?" +He looked long into it: +"All that I have most wished to see in the face of any woman--except one +thing!" +"What is that? But don't tell me!" + +She turned away toward the garden gate. In silence they passed out--walking +toward the edge of the clearing. Half-way she paused. He lifted his hat and +held out his hand. She laid hers in it and they gave each other the long +clinging grasp of affection."Always be a good man," she said, tightening her +grasp and turning her face away. + +As he was hurrying off, she called to him in a voice full of emotion: + +"Come back!" + +He wheeled and walked towards her blindly. + +She scanned his face, feature by feature. + +"Take off your hat!" she said with a tremulous little laugh. He did so and +she looked at his forehead and his hair. + +"Go now, dear friend!" she said calmly but quickly. + +XXI + +It was the morning of the wedding. + +According to the usage of the time the marriage ceremony was to take place +early in the forenoon, in order that the guests, gathered in from distant +settlements of the wilderness, might have a day for festivity and still +reach home before night. Late in the afternoon the bridal couple, escorted +by many friends, were to ride into town to Joseph's house, and in the +evening there was to be a house-warming. + +The custom of the backwoods country ran that a man must not be left to build +his house alone; and one day some weeks before this wagons had begun to roll +in from this direction and that +direction out of the forest, hauling the logs for Joseph's cabin. +Then with loud laughter and the writhing of tough backs and the straining of +powerful arms and legs, men old, middle-aged, and young had raised the house +like overgrown boys at play, and then had returned to their own neglected +business: so that to him was left only the finishing.He had finished it and +furnished it for the simple scant needs of pioneer life.But on this, his +wedding morning, he had hardly left the town, escorted by friends on +horseback, before many who had variously excused themselves from going began +to issue from their homes: women carrying rolls of linen and pones of bread; +boys with huge joints of jerked meat and dried tongues of the buffalo, bear, +and deer. There was a noggin, a piggin, a churn, a homemade chair; there was +a quilt from a grandmother and a pioneer cradle--a mere trough scooped out +of a walnut log. An old pioneer sent the antlers of a stag for a hat-rack, +and a buffalo rug for the young pair to lie warm under of bitter, winter +nights; his wife sent a spinning-wheel and a bundle of shingles for +johnny-cakes. Some of the merchants gave packages of Philadelphia groceries; +some of the aristo-cratic families parted with heirlooms that had been +laboriously brought over the mountains--a cup and saucer of Sevres, a pair +of tall brass candlesticks, and a Venus -mirror framed in ebony. It was +about three o'clock in the afternoon when John Gray jumped on the back of a +strong trusty horse at the stable of the Indian Queen, leaned over to shake +the hands of the friends who had met there to see him off, and turned his +horse's head in the direction of the path that led to the Wilderness Road. + +But when he had gone about a mile, he struck into the forest at right angles +and rode across the country until he reached that green woodland pathway +which led from the home of the Falconers to the public road between +Lexington and Frankfort. He tied his horse some distance away, and walking +back, sat down on the roots of an oak and waited. + +It was a day when the beauty of the earth makes itself felt like ravishing +music that has no sound. The air, warm and full of summer fragrance, was of +that ethereal untinged clearness which spreads over all things the softness +of velvet. The far-vaulted heavens, so bountiful of light, were an +illimitable weightless curtain of pale-blue velvet; the rolling clouds were +of white velvet; the grass, the stems of bending wild flowers, the drooping +sprays of woodland foliage, were so many forms of emerald velvet; the +gnarled trunks of the trees were gray and brown velvet; the wings and +breasts of the birds, flitting hither and thither, were of gold and scarlet +velvet; the butterflies were stemless, floating velvet blossoms."Farewell, +Kentucky! farewell!" he said, looking about him at it all. +Two hours passed. The shadows were lengthening rapidly. Over the forest, +like the sigh of a spirit, swept from out the west the first intimation of +waning light, of the mysteries of coming darkness. At last there reached his +ear from far down the woodland path the sounds of voices and laughter--again +and again--louder and louder--and then through the low thick boughs he +caught glimpses of them coming. Now beneath the darker arches of the trees, +now across pale-green spaces shot by slanting sunbeams. Once there was a +halt and a merry outcry. Long grape-vines from opposite sides of the road +had been tied across it, and this barrier had to cut through. Then on they +came again: At the head of procession, astride an old horse that in his +better days had belonged to a mounted rifleman, rode the parson. He was +several yards ahead of the others and quite forgetful of them. The end of +his flute stuck neglectedly out of his waistcoat pocket; his bridle reins +lay slack on the neck of the drowsy beast; his hands were piled on the +pommel of the saddle as over his familiar pulpit; his dreamy moss-agate eyes +were on the tree-tops far ahead. In truth he was preparing a sermon on the +affection of one man for another and ransacking Scripture for illustrations; +and he meant to preach this the following Sunday when there would be some +one sadly missed among his hearers. Nevertheless he enjoyed great peace of +spirit this day: it was not John who rode behind him as the bridegroom: +otherwise he would as soon have returned to the town at the head of the +forces of Armageddon. + +Behind the parson came William Penn in the glory of a new bridle and saddle +and a blanket of crimson cloth; his coat smooth as satin, his mane a +tumbling cataract of white silk; bunches of wild roses at his ears; his +blue-black eyes never so soft, and seeming to lift his feet cautiously like +an elephant bearing an Indian princess. + +They were riding side by side, the young husband and wife. He keeping one +hand on the pommel of her saddle, thus holding them together; while with the +other he used his hat to fan his face, now hers, though his was the one that +needed it, she being cool and quietly radiant with the thoughts of her +triumph that day--the triumph of her wedding, of her own beauty. Furthermore +show was looking ahead to the house-warming that night when she would be +able to triumph again and also count her presents. + +Then came Major and Mrs. Falconer. Her face was hidden by a veil and as they +passed, it was held turned toward him: he was talking, uninterrupted. + +Then followed Horatio Turpin and Kitty Poythress; and then Erskine and his +betrothed, he with fresh feathers of the hawk and the scarlet tanager +gleaming in his cap above his swart, stern aquiline face. Then Peter, beside +the widow Babcock; he openly aflame and solicitous; she coy and discreetly +inviting, as is the wisdom of some. Then others and others and others--a +long gay pageant, filling the woods with merry voices and laughter. + +They passed and the sounds died away--passed on to the town awaiting the, to +the house-warming, and please God, to long life and some real affection and +happiness. + +Once he had expected to ride beside her at the head of this procession. +There had gone by him the vision of his own life as it was to have been. + +Long after the last sound had ceased in the distance he was sitting at the +root of the red oak. The sun set, the moon rose, he was there still. A loud, +impatient neigh from his horse aroused him. He sprang lightly up, meaning to +ride all night and not to draw rein until he had crossed the Kentucky River +and reached Traveller's Rest, the home of Governor Shelby, where he had been +invited to break his travel. + +All that nigh he rode and at sunrise was far away. Pausing on a height and +turning his horse's head, he sat a long time motion-less as a statue. Then +he struck his feet into its flank and all that day rode back again. + +The sun was striking the tree-tops as he neared the clearing. He could see +her across the garden. She sat quite still, her face turned toward the +horizon. Against her breast, opened but forgotten, lay a book. He could +recognize it. By that story she had judged him and wished to guide him. The +smile smote his eyes like the hilt of a knight's sword used as a Cross to +drive away the Evil One. For he knew the evil purpose with which he had +returned. + +And so he sat watching her until she rose and walked slowly to the house. + +XXII + +IT was early autumn when the first letters from him were received over the +mountains. All these had relation to Mount Vernon and his business there. + +To the Transylvania Library Committee he wrote that the President had mad a +liberal subscription for the buying of books and that the Vice-President and +other public men would be likely to contribute. + +His sonorous, pompous letter to a member of the Democratic Society was much +longer and in part as follows: + +"When I made know to the President who I was and where I came from, he +regarded me with a look at once so stern and so benign, that I felt like one +of my school-boys overtaken in some small rascality and was almost of a mind +to march straight to a corner of the room and stand with my face to the +wall. If he had seized me by the coat collar and trounced me well, I should +somehow have felt that he had the right. From the conversations that +followed I am led to believe that he knows the name of every prominent +member of the Democratic Society of Lexington, and that he understands +Kentucky affairs with regard to national and international complications as +no other living man. While questioning me on the subject, he had the manner +of one who, from conscientiousness, would further verify facts which he had +already tested. But what impressed me even more than his knowledge was his +justice; in illustration of which I shall never forget his saying, that the +part which Kentucky had taken, or had wished to take, in the Spanish and +French conspiracies had caused him greater solicitude than any other single +event since the foundation of the National Government; but that nowhere else +in America had the struggle for immediate self-government been so necessary +and so difficult, and that nowhere else were the mistakes of patriotic and +able men more natural or more to be judged with mildness. + +"I think I can quote his very words when he spoke of the foolish jealousies +and heartburnings, due to misrepresentations, that have influenced Kentucky +against the East as a section and against the Government as favouring it: +'The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and +comfort; and what is perhaps of still greater consequence, it must of +necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own +production to the weight, influence, and future maritime strength of the +Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of +interest, as One Nation.' + +"Memorable to me likewise was the language in which he proceeded to show +that this was true: + +"'The inhabitants of our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on +this head. They have seen in the negotiations by the Executive, and in the +unanimous ratification by the Senate of the treaty with Spain, and in the +universal satisfaction of that event throughout the United States, a +decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them of a +policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to +their interests in regard to the Mississippi. . . . Will they not henceforth +be deaf to those advisers, if such there are, who would sever them from +their Brethren and connect them with Aliens?' + +"I am frank to declare that, having enjoyed the high privilege of these +interviews with the President and been brought to judge rightly what through +ignorance I had judged amiss, I feel myself in honour bound to renounce my +past political convictions and to resign my membership in the Lexington +Democratic Society. Nor shall I join the Democratic Society of Philadelphia, +as had been my ardent purpose; and it will not be possible for me on +reaching that city to act as the emissary of the Kentucky Clubs. But I shall +lay before the Society the despatches of which I am the bearer. And will you +lay before yours the papers herewith enclosed, containing my formal +resignation with the grounds thereof carefully stated?" + +To Mrs. Falconer he wrote bouyantly: + +"I have crossed the Kentucky Alps, seen the American Caesar, carried away +some of his gold. I came, I saw, I overcame. How do you think I met the +President? I was riding toward Mount Vernon one quiet sunny afternoon and +unexpectedly came upon an old gentleman who was putting up some bars that +opened into a wheat-filed by the roadside. He had on long boots, corduroy +smalls, a speckled red jacket, blue coat with yellow buttons, and a +broad-brimmed hat. He held a hickory switch in his hand. An umbrella and a +long staff were attached to his saddle-bow. His limbs were so long, large, +and sinewy; his countenance so lofty, masculine, and contemplative; and +although he was of a presence so statue-like and venerable that my heart +with a great throb cried out, It is Washington!" + +"My dear friend," he wrote at the close, "it is of no little worth to me +that I should have come to Mount Vernon at this turning-point of my life. I +find myself uplifted to a plane of thought and feeling higher than has ever +been trod by me. When I began to draw near this place, I seemed to be +mounting higher, like a man ascending a mountain; and ever since my arrival +there has been this same sense of rising into a still loftier atmosphere, of +surveying a vaster horizon, of beholding the juster relations of surrounding +objects. + +"All this feeling has its origin in my contemplation of the character of the +President. You know that when a heavy sleet falls upon the Kentucky forest, +the great trees crack and split, or groan and stagger, with branches snapped +off or trailing. In adversity it is often so with men. But he is a vast +mountain-peak, always calm, always lofty, always resting upon a base that +nothing can shake; never higher, never lower, never changing; from every +quarter of the earth storms have rushed in and beaten upon him; but they +have passed; he is as he was. The heavens have emptied their sleets and +snows on his head,--these have made him look only purer, only the more +sublime. + +"From the spectacle of this great man thus bearing the great burdens of his +great life, a new standard of what is possible to human nature has been +raised within me. I have seen with my own eyes a man whom the adverse forces +of the world have not been able to wreck--a lover of perfection, who has so +wrought it out in his character that to know him is to be awed into +reverence of his virtues. I shall go away from him with nobler hopes of what +a man may do and be. + +"It is to you soley that I owe the honour of having enjoyed the personal +consideration of the President. His reception of me had been in the highest +degree ceremonious and distant; but upon my mentioning the names of father +and brother, his manner grew warm: I had touched that trait of affectionate +faithfulness with which he has always held on to every tie of kin and +friendship. That your father should have fought against him and your brother +under him made no difference in his memory. He had many questions to ask +regarding you--your happiness, your family--to some of which I could return +the answers that gave him pleasure or left him thoughtful. Upon my setting +out from Mount Vernon, his last words made me the bearer of his message to +you, the child of an old comrade and the sister or a gallant young soldier." + +Beyond this there was nothing personal in his letter and nothing as to his +return. + +When she next heard, he was in Philadelphia, giving his attention to the +choosing and shipment of the books. One piece of news, imparted in perfect +calmness by him, occasioned her acute disappointment. His expectation of +coming into possession of some ten thousand dollars had not quite been +realized. An appeal had been taken and the case was yet pending. He was +pleased neither with the good faith nor with the good sense of the counsel +engaged; and he would remain on the spot himself during the trial. He added +that he was lodging with a pleasant family. Then followed the long winter +during which all communication between the frontier and the seaboard was +interrupted. When spring returned at last and the earliest travel was +resumed, other letters came, announcing that the case had gone against him, +and that he had nothing. + +She sold at once all the new linen that had been woven, got together all the +money she otherwise could and despatched it with Major Falconer's consent, +begging him to make use of it for the sake of their friendship--not to be +foolish and proud: there were lawyers' fees it could help to pay, or other +plain practical needs it might cover. But when the post-rider returned, he +brought it all back with a letter of gratitude: only, he couldn't accept it. +And the messenger had been warned not to let it be known that he was in +prison for debt on account of these same suit expenses; for having from the +first formed a low opinion of his counsel's honour and ability and having +later expressed this opinion at the door of the court-room with a good deal +of fire and a good deal of contempt, and being furthermore unable and +unwilling to pay the exorbitant fee, he had been promptly clapped into jail +by the incensed attorney, as well for his poverty and for his temper and his +pride. + +In jail he spent that spring and summer and autumn. Then an important turn +was given to his history. It seems that among the commissions with which he +was charged on leaving Lexington was one from Edward West, the watchmaker +and inventor, who some time before, and long before Fulton, had made trial +of steam navigation with a small boat on the Town Fork of the Elkhorn, and +who desired to have his invention brought before the American Philosophical +Society of Philadelphia. He had therefore placed a full description of his +steamboat in John's hands with the request that he would enforce this with +the testimony of an eye-witness as to its having moved through water. At +this time, through Franklin's influence, the Society was keenly interested +in the work of inventors, having received also some years previous from +Hyacinthe de Magellan two hundred guineas to be used for rewarding the +authors of improvements and discoveries. Accordingly it took up the subject +of West's invention but desired to hear more regarding the success of the +experiment; and so requested John to appear before it at one of its +meetings. But upon looking for this obscure John and finding him in jail, +the committee were under the necessity of appearing before him. Whereupon, +grown interested in him and made acquainted with the ground of his +unreasonable imprisonment, some of the members effected his release--by +recourse to the attorney with certain well-direct threats that he could +easily be put into jail for his own debts. Not only this; but soon +afterwards the young Westerner was taken into the law-office of one of these +gentlemen, binding himself for a term of years. + +It was not until spring that he wrote he humorously of his days in jail; but +when it came to telling her of the other matter, the words refused to form +themselves before his will or his hand to shape them on the paper. He would +do this in the next letter, he said to himself mournfully. + +But early that winter Major Falconer had died, and his next letter was but a +short hurried reply to one from her, bringing him this intelligence. And +before he wrote again, certain grave events had happened that led him still +further to defer acquainting her with his new situation, new duties, new +plans. + +That same spring, then, during which he was entering upon his career in +Philadelphia, she too began really to live. And beginning to live, she began +to build--inwardly and outwardly; for what is all life but ceaseless inner +and outer building? + +As the first act, she sold one of the major's military grants, reserving the +ample, noble, parklike one on which she had passed existence up to this; and +near the cabin she laid the foundations of her house. Not the great +ancestral manor-house on the James and yet a seaboard aristocratic Virginia +country-place: two story brick with two-story front veranda of Corinthian +columns; wide hall, wide stairway; oak wood interior, hand-carved, massive; +sliding doors between the large library and large dining-room; great +bedrooms, great fireplaces, great brass fenders and fire-dogs, brass locks +and keys: full of elegance, spaciousness, comfort, rest. + +In every letter she sent him that spring and summer and early autumn, always +she had something to tell him about this house, about the room in it built +for him, about the negros she had bought, the land she was clearing, the +changes and improvements everywhere: as to many things she wanted his +advice. That year also she sent back to Virginia for flower-seed and shrub +and plants--the same old familiar ones that had grown on her father's lawn, +in the garden, about the walls, along the water--some of which had been +bought over from England: the flags, the lilies, honeysuckles, calacanthus, +snowdrops, roses--all of them. Speaking of this, she wrote him that of +course that most of these would have to be set out that autumn, and little +could be done for grounds till the following season; but the house!--it was +to be finished before winter set in. In the last of these letters, she ended +by saying: "I think I know now the very day you will be coming back. I can +hear your horse's feet rustling in the leaves of--I said--October; but I +will say November this time." + +His replies were unsatisfying. There had been the short, hurried, earnest +letter, speaking of Major Falconer's death: that was all right. But since +then a vague blinding mist had seemed to lie between her eyes and every +page. Something was kept hidden--some new trouble. "I shall understand +everything when he comes!" she would say to herself each time. "I can wait." +Her buoyancy was irrepressible. + +Late that autumn the house was finished--one of those early country-places +yet to be seen here and there on the landscape of Kentucky, marking the +building era of the aristocratic Virginians and renewing in the wilderness +the architecture of the James. + +She had taken such delight in furnishing her room: in the great bedstead +with its mighty posts, its high tester, its dainty, hiding curtains; such +delight in choosing, in bleaching, in weaving the linen for it! And the +pillowcases--how expectant they were on the two pillows now set side by side +at the head of the bed, with the delicate embroidery in the centre of each! +At first she had thought of working her initials within an oval-shaped vine; +but one day, her needle suddenly arrested in the air, she had simply worked +a rose. + +Late one afternoon, when the blue of Indian summer lay on the walls of the +forest like a still sweet veil, she came home from a walk in the woods. Her +feet had been rustling among the brown leaves and each time she had laughed. +At her round white throat she had pinned a scarlet leaf, from an old habit +of her girlhood. But was not Kentucky turning into Virginia? Was not +womanhood becoming girlhood again? She was still so young--only +thirty-eight. She had the right to be bringing in from the woods a bunch of +the purple violets of November. + +She sat down in her shadowy room before the deep fireplace; where there was +such comfort now, such loneliness. In early years at such hours she had like +to play. She resolved to get her a spinet. Yes; and she would have +myrtle-berry candles instead of tallow, and a slender-legged mahogany table +beside which to read again in the Spectator and "Tom Jones." As nearly as +she could she would bring back everything that she had been used to in her +childhood--was not all life still before her? If he were coming, it must be +soon, and she would know what had been keeping him--what it was that had +happened. She had walked to meet him so many times already. And the +heartless little gusts of wind, starting up among the leaves in the woods, +how often they had fooled her ear and left her white and trembling! + +The negro boy who had been sent to town on other business and to fetch the +mail, soon afterwards knocked and entered. There was a letter from him--a +short one and a paper. She read the letter and could not believe her own +eyes, could not believe her own mind. Then she opened the paper and read the +announcement of it printed there": he was married. + +That night in her bedroom--with the great clock measuring out life in the +corner--the red logs turning slowly to ashes--the crickets under the bricks +of the hearth singing of summer gone--that night, sitting by the +candle-stand, where his letter lay opened, in a nightgown white as white +samite, she loosened the folds of her heavy lustrous hair--wave upon +wave--until the edges that rippled over her forehead rippled down over her +knees. With the loosening of her hair somehow had come the loosening of her +tears. And with the loosening of her tears came the loosening of her hold +upon what she, until this night, had never acknowledged to herself--her love +for him, the belief that he had loved her. + +The next morning the parson, standing a white, cold shepherd before his +chilly wilderness flock, preached a sermon from the text: "I shall go softly +all my years." While the heads of the rest were bowed during the last +moments of prayer, she rose and slipped out. + +"Yes," she said to herself, gathering her veil closely about her face as she +alighted at the door of her house and the withered leaves of November were +whirled fiercely about her feet, "I shall go softly all my years." + +XXIII + +AFTER this the years were swept along. Fast came the changes in Kentucky. +The prophecy which John Gray had made to his school-children passed to its +realization and reality went far beyond it. In waves of migration, hundreds +upon hundreds of thousands of settlers of the Anglo-Saxon race hurried into +the wilderness and there jostled and shouldered each other in the race +passion of soil-owning and home-building; or always farther westward they +rushed, pushing the Indian back. Lexington became the chief manufacturing +town of the new civilization, thronged by merchants and fur-clad traders; +gathered into it were men and women making a society that would have been +brilliant in the capitals of the East; at its bar were heard illustrious +voices, the echoes of which are not yet dead, are past all dying; the genius +of young Jouett found for itself the secret of painting canvases so luminous +and true that never since in the history of the State have they been +equalled; the Transylvania University arose with lecturers famous enough to +be known in Europe: students of law and medicine travelled to it from all +parts of the land. + +John Gray's school-children grew to be men and women. For the men there were +no longer battles to fight in Kentucky, but there were the wars of the +Nation; and far away on the widening boundaries of the Republic they +conquered or failed and fell; as volunteers with Perry in the victory on +Lake Erie; in the awful massacre at the River Raisin; under Harrison at the +Thames; in the mud and darkness of the Mississippi at New Orleans, repelling +Pakenham's charge with Wellington's veteran, victory-flushed campaigners. + +The school-master's friend, the parson, he too had known his more peaceful +warfare, having married and become a manifold father. Of a truth it was +feared at one period that the parson was running altogether to prayers and +daughters. For it was remarked that with each birth, his petitions seemed +longer and his voice to rise from behind the chancel with a fresh wail as of +one who felt a growing grievance both against himself and the almighty. +Howbeit, innocently enough after the appearance of the fifth female infant, +one morning he preached the words: "No man knoweth what manner of creature +he is"; and was unaware that a sudden smile rippled over the faces of his +hearers. But it was not until later on when mother and six were packed into +one short pew at morning service, that they became known in a body as the +parson's Collect for all Sundays. + +Sometimes the little ones were divided and part of them sat in another pew +where there was a single occupant--a woman--childless. + +"Yes"," she had said, "I shall go softly all my years." + +The plants she had brought that summer from Virginia had long since become +old bushes. The Virginia Creeper had climbed to the tops of the trees. The +garden, though in the same spot, was another place now, with vine-heavy +arbours and sodden walks running between borders of flowers and +vegetables--daffodils and thyme--in the quaint Virginia fashion. There was a +lawn covered as the ancestral one had been with the feathery grass of +England. There was a park where the deer remained at home in their +wilderness. + +Crowning this landscape of comfort and good taste, stood the house. Often of +nights when its roof lay deep under snow and the eaves were bearded with +hoary icicles, there were candles twinkling at every window and the sounds +of music and dancing in the parlours. Once a year there was a great venison +supper in the dining-room, draped with holly and mistletoe. On Christmas eve +man a child's sock or stocking was hung--no one knew when or by whom--around +the shadowy chimney-seat of her room; and every Christmas morning the little +negros from the cabins knew to whom each of these belonged. In spring, +parties of young girls and youths came out from town for fishing parties and +picknicked in the lawn amid the dandelions and under the song of the +blackbird; during the summer, for days at a time, other gay company filled +the house; of autumns there were nutting parties in the russet woods. Other +guests also, not young, not gay. Aaron Burr was entertained there; there met +for counsel the foremost Western leaders in his magnificent conspiracy. More +than one great man of his day, middle-aged, unmarried, began his visits, +returned oftener for awhile--always alone--and one day drove away +disappointed. + +Through seasons and changes she had gone softly: never retreating from life +but drawing about her as closely as she could its ties, its sympathies, it +duties: in all things a character of the finest equipois, the truest +moderation. + +But these are women of the world--some of us men may have discerned one of +them in the sweep of our experiences--to whom the joy and the sorrow come +alike with quietness. For them there is neither the cry of sudden delight +nor the cry of sudden anguish. Gazing deep into their eyes, we are reminded +of the light of dim churches; hearing their voices, we dream of some +minstrel whose murmurs reach us imperfectly through his fortress wall; +beholding the sweetness of their faces, we are touched as by the appeal of +the mute flowers; merely meeting them in the street, we recall the +long-vanished image of the Divine Goodess. They are the women who have +missed happiness and who know it, but having failed of affection, give +themselves to duty. And so life never rises high and close about them as +about one who stands waist-deep in a wheat-field, gathering at will either +its poppies or its sheaves; it flows forever away as from one who pauses +waist-deep in a stream and hearkens rather to the rush of all things toward +the eternal deeps. It was into the company of theses quieter pilgrims that +she had passed: she had missed happiness twice. + +Her beauty had never failed. Nature had fought hard in her for all things; +and to the last youth of her womanhood it burned like an autumn rose which +some morning we may have found on the lawn under a dew that is turning to +ice. But when youth was gone, in the following years her face began to +reflect the freshness of Easter lilies. For prayer will in time make the +human countenance its own divinest alter; years upon years of true thoughts, +like ceaseless music shut up within, will vibrate along the nerves of +expression until the lines of the living instrument are drawn into +correspondence, and the harmony of visible form matches the unheard +harmonies of the mind. It was about this time also that there fell upon her +hair the earliest rays of the light which is the dawn of Eternal Morning. + +She had never ceased to watch his career as part of her very life. Time was +powerless to remove him farther from her than destiny had removed him long +before: it was always yesterday; the whole past with him seemed caught upon +the clearest mirror just at her back. Once or twice a year she received a +letter, books, papers, something; she had been kept informed of the birth of +his children. From other sources--his letters to the parson, traders between +Philadelphia and the West--she knew other things: he had risen in the world, +was a judge, often leading counsel in great cases, was almost a great man. +She planted her pride, her gratitude, her happiness, on this new soil: they +were the few seed that a woman in the final years will sow in a window-box +and cover the window-pane and watch and water and wake and think of in the +night--she who was used once to range the fields. + +But never from the first to last had she received a letter from him that was +transparent; the mystery stayed unlifted; she had to accept the constancy of +his friendship without its confidence. Question or chiding of course there +never was from her; inborn refinement alone would have kept her from +curiosity or prying; but she could not put away the conviction that the +concealment which he steadily adhered to was either delicately connected +with his marriage or registered but too plainly some downward change in +himself. Which was it, or was it both? Had he too missed happiness? Missed +it as she had--by a union with a perfectly commonplace, plodding, +unimaginative, unsympathetic, unrefined nature? And was it a mercy to be +able to remember him, not to know him? + +These thoughts filled her so often, so often! For into the busiest life--the +life that toils to shut out thought--the inevitable leisure will come; and +with the leisure will return the dreaded emptiness, the loneliness, the +never stifled need of sympathy, affection, companionship--for that world of +two outside of which every other human being is a stranger. And it was he +who entered into all these hours of hers as by a right that she had neither +the heart nor the strength to question. + +For behind everything else there was one thing more--deeper than anything +else, dearer, more sacred; the feeling she would never surrender that for a +while at least he had cared more for her than he had ever realized. + +One mild afternoon of autumn she was walking with quiet dignity around her +garden. She had just come from town where she had given to Jouett the last +sitting of her portrait, and she was richly dressed in the satin gown and +cap of lace which those who see the picture nowadays will remember. The +finishing of it had saddened her a little; she meant to leave it to him; and +she wondered whether, when he looked into the eyes of this portrait, he +would at last understand": she had tried to tell him the truth; it was the +truth that Jouett painted. + +Thus she was thinking of the past as usual; and once she paused in the very +spot where one sweet afternoon of May long ago he had leaned over the fence, +holding in his hand his big black had decorated with a Jacobin cockade, and +had asked her consent to marry Amy. Was not yonder the very maple, in the +shade of which he and she sat some weeks later while she had talked with him +about the ideals of life? She laughed, but she touched her handkerchief to +her eyes as she turned to pass on. Then she stopped abruptly. + +Coming down the garden walk toward her with a light rapid step, his head in +the air, a smile on his fresh noble face, an earnest look in his gray eyes, +was a tall young fellow of some eighteen years. A few feet off he lifted his +hat with a free, gallant air, uncovering a head of dark-red hair, closely +curling. + +"I beg your pardon, madam," he said, in a voice that fell on her ears like +music long remembered. "Is this Mrs. Falconer?" + +"Yes," she replied, beginning to tremble, "I am Mrs. Falconer." + +"Then I should like to introduce myself to you, dearest madam. I am John +Gray, the son of your old friend, and my father sends me to you to stay with +you if you will let me. And he desires me to deliver this letter." + +"John Gray!" she cried, running forward and searching his face. "You John +Gray! You! Take off your hat!" For a moment she looked at his forehead and +his hair; her eyes became blinded with tears. She threw her arms around his +neck with a sob and covered his face with kisses. + +"Madam," said the young fellow, stooping to pick up his hat, and laughing +outright at his own blushes and confusion, "I don't wonder that my father +thinks so much of you!" + +"I never did that to your father!" she retorted. Beneath the wrinkled ivory +of her skin a tinge of faintest pink appeared and disappeared. + +Half and hour later she was sitting at a western window. Young John Gray had +gone to the library to write to his father and mother, announcing his +arrival; and in her lap lay his father's letter which with tremulous fingers +she was now wiping her spectacles to read. In all these years she had never +allowed herself to think of her John Gray as having grown older; she saw him +still young, as when he used to lean over the garden fence. But now the +presence of this son had the effect of suddenly pushing the father far on +into life; and her heart ached with this first realization that he too must +have passed the climbing-point and have set his feet on the shaded downward +slope that leads to the quiet valley. + +His letter began lightly: + +"I send John to you with the wish that you will be to the son the same +inspiring soul you once were to the father. You will find him headstrong and +with great notions of what he is to be in the world. But he is warm-hearted +and clean-hearted. Let him do for you the things I used to do; let him hold +the yarn on his arms for you to wind off, and read to you your favourite +novels; he is a good reader for a young fellow. And will you get out your +spinning-wheel some night when the logs are in roaring in the fireplace and +let him hear its music? Will you some time with your hands make him a +johnny-cake on a new ash shingle? I want him to know a woman who can do all +things and still be a great lady. And lay upon him all the burdens that in +any way you can, so that he shall not think too much of what he may some day +do in life, but, of what he is actually doing. We get great reports of the +Transylvania University, of the bar of Lexington, of the civilization that I +foresaw would spring up in Kentucky; and I send John to you with the wish +that he hear lectures and afterward go into the office of some one whom I +shall name, and finally marry and settle there for life. You recall this as +the wish of my own; through John shall be done what I could not do. You see +how stubborn I am! I have given him the names of my school-children. He is +to find out those of them who still live there, and to tell me of those who +have passed away or been scattered. + +"I do not know; but if at the end of life I should be left alone here, +perhaps I shall make my way back to Kentucky to John, as the old tree falls +beside the young one." + +>From this point the tone of the letter changed. + +"And now I am going to open to you what no other eye has ever seen, must +ever see--one page in the book of my life." + +When she reached these words with a contraction of the heart and a loud +throbbing of the pulses in her ears, she got up and locked the letter in her +bureau. Then, commanding herself, she went to the dining-room, and with her +own hands prepared the supper table; got our her finest linen, glass, +silver; had the sconces lighted, extra candelabra brought in; gave orders +for especial dishes to be cooked; and when everything was served, seated her +guest at the foot of the table and let him preside as though it were his old +rightful place. Ah, how like his father he was! Several times when the +father's name was mentioned, he quite choked up with tears. + +At an early hour he sought rest from the fatigue of travel. She was left +alone. The house was quiet. She summoned the negro girl who slept on the +floor in her room and who was always with her of evenings: + +"You can go to the cabin till bedtime. And when you come in, don't make any +noise. And don't speak to me. I shall be asleep." + +Then seating herself beside the little candle stand which mercifully for her +had had shed its light on so many books in the great lonely bedchamber, she +re-read those last words: + +"And now I am going to open to you what no other eye has ever seen, must +ever see--one page in the book of my life: + +"Can you remember the summer I left Kentucky? On reaching Philadelphia I +called on a certain family consisting, as I afterwards ascertained, of +father, mother, and daughter; and being in search of lodgings, I was asked +to become a member of their household. This offer was embraced the more +eagerly because I was sick for a home that summer and in need of some kind +soul to lean on in my weakness. I had indeed been led for these reasons to +seek their acquaintance--the father and mother having known my own parents +even before I met them. You will thus understand how natural a haven with my +loneliness and amid such memories this house became to me, and upon what +grounds I stood in my association with its members from the beginning. + +"When the lawsuit went against me and I was wrongfully thrown into jail for +debt, their faithful interest only deepened. Very poor themselves, they +would yet have make any sacrifice in my behalf. During the months of my +imprisonment they were often with me, bringing every comfort and brightening +the dulness of many an hour. + +"Upon my release I returned gladly to their joyous household, welcomed I +could not say with what joyous affection. Soon afterwards I found a position +in the office of a law firm and got my start in life. + +"And now I cross the path of some things that cannot be written. But you who +know what my life and character had been will nobly understand: remember +your last words to me. + +"One day I offered my hand to the daughter. I told her the whole truth: that +there was some one else--not free; that no one could take the place of this +other was filling at the moment, and would always fill. Nevertheless, if she +would accept me on these conditions, everything that it was in my power to +promise she could have. + +"She said that in time she would win the rest. + +"A few weeks later that letter came from you, bringing the intelligence that +changed everything. (Do you remember my reply? I seem only this moment to +have dropped the pen.) As soon as I could control myself, I told her that +now you were free, that it was but justice and kindness alike to her and to +me that I should give here the chance to reconsider the engagement. A week +passed, I went again. I warned her how different the situation had become. I +could promise less than before--I could not say how little. A month later I +went again. + +"Ah, well--that is all! + +"The summer after my marriage I travelled to Virginia regarding a landsuit. +One day I rode far out of my course into the path of the country where you +lived. I remained some days strolling over the silent woods and fields, +noting the bushes on the lawn, such as you had carried over into Kentucky, +hunting out the quiet nooks where you were used to read in your girlhood. +Those long, sweet, sacred summer days alone with you there before you were +married! O Jessica! Jessica! Jessica! Jessica! And to this day the sight of +peach blossoms in the spring--the rustle of autumn leaves under my feet! Can +you recall the lines of Malory? 'Men and women could love together seven +years, and then was love truth and faithfulness.' How many more than seven +have I loved you!--you who never gave me anything but friendship, but who +would in time, I hope, have given me everything if I had come back. Ah, I +did come back! Many a time even now as soon as I have hurried through the +joyous gateways of sleep, I come back over the mountains to you as naturally +as though there had been no years to separate and to age. Let me tell you +all this! My very life would be incomplete without it! I owed something to +you long before I owed anything to another: a duty can never set aside a +duty. And as to what I have owed you since, it becomes more and more the +noblest earthly that I shall ever leave unpaid. I did not know you perfectly +when we parted: I was too young, too ignorant of the world, too ignorant of +many women. A man must have touched their coarseness in order to appreciate +their refinement; have been wounded by untruthfulness to understand their +delicate honour; he must have been driven to turn his eyes mercifully away +from their stain before he can ever look with all the reverence and +gratitude of his heart and soul upon their brows of chastity. + +"But of my life otherwise. I take it fir granted that you would know where I +stand, what I have become, whether I have kept faith with the ideals of my +youth. + +"I have succeeded, perhaps reached now what men call the highest point of +their worldly prosperity, made good my resolve that no human power should +defeat me. All that Macbeth had not I have: a quiet throne of my own, +children, wife, troops of friends, duties, honours, ease. There have been +times when with natural misgiving lest I had wandered too far these many +summers on a sea of glory, I have prepared for myself the lament of Wolsey +on his fall: yet ill fortune had not overwhelmed me or mine. + +"All this prosperity, as the mere fruit of my toil, has been less easy than +for many. I may not boast the Apostle that I have fought a good fight, but I +can say that I fought a hard one. The fight will always be hard for any man +who undertakes to conquer life with the few simple weapons I have used and +who will accept victory only upon such terms as I have demanded. For be my +success small or great, it has been won without inner compromise or other +form of self-abasement. No man can look me in the eyes and say I ever +wronged him for my own profit; none may charge that I have smiled on him in +order to use him, or call him my friend that I might make him do for me the +work of a servant. + +"Do not imagine I fail to realize that I have added my full share to the +general evil of the world: in part unconsciously, in part against my +conscious will. It is the knowledge of this influence of imperfection +forever flowing from myself to all others that has taught me charity with +all the wrongs that flow from others toward me. As I have clung to myself +despite the evil, so I have clung to the world despite all the evil that is +in the world. To lose faith in men, not humanity; to see justice go down and +not believe in the triumph of injustice; for every wrong that you weakly +deal another or another deals you to love more and more the fairness and +beauty of what is right; and so to turn with ever-increasing love from the +imperfection that is in us all to the Perfection that is above us all--the +perfection that is God: this is one of the ideals of actual duty that you +once said were to be as candles in my hand. Many a time this candle has gone +out; but as quickly as I could snatch any torch--with your sacred name on my +lips--it has been relighted. + +"My candles are all beginning to burn low now. For as we advance far on into +life, one by one our duties end, one by one the lights go out. Not much +ahead of me now must lurk the great mortal changes, coming always nearer, +always faster. As they approach, I look less to my candles, more toward my +candles, more toward my lighthouses--those distant unfailing beacons that +cast their rays over the stormy sea of this life from the calm ocean of the +Infinate. I know this: that if I should live to be an old man, my duties +ended and my candles gone, it is these that will shine in upon me in that +vacant darkness. And I have this belief: that if we did but recognize them +aright, these ideals at the close of life would become one with the ideals +of youth. We lost them as we left mortal youth behind; we regain them as we +enter upon youth immortal. + +"If I have kept unbroken faith with any of mine, thank you. And thank God!" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Choir Invisible, by James Lane Allen + diff --git a/2316.zip b/2316.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c53244c --- /dev/null +++ b/2316.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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