CHAPTER VII
THE INTRUDER
It was some weeks later that the gaunt form of a young man might have been seen stretched on the bed in one of the loft rooms. The place was very still. Upon the homespun curtains at the small window the flickering play of light and shade showed forth the drawing of a pine tree’s branches. An array of bowls and cups stood upon a small table and the small room bore the appearance of having been used for some time by one used to nursing a very ill patient.
Presently the young man opened his eyes wearily and looked around the room. He was very white and wan. His dark hair, which had been cropped close, was beginning to grow out in little wavy locks about his forehead. He lifted his hand feebly, and looked at its transparent thinness. “Where am I?” he asked weakly.
At his words Polly came forward and observed him closely. “Praise God, yer yersel’ again!” she exclaimed. “Now don’t say a word, me lad. Drink this, and go to sleep.”
The young man gazed at her wonderingly, but he obeyed so far as to drink from the cup which she held to his lips. “I don’t want to go to sleep. I want to know where I am,” he persisted. “It looks natural and yet it doesn’t.”
Polly set down her cup and smiled, the young man regarding her silently but with evident surprise. He took in every detail of her rough dress; he noted the thick hair which swept back in pretty curves from the low forehead, the steady gray eyes with their long dark lashes, the firm red lips. He closed his eyes, but opened them again, almost immediately. “You’re still here,” he said; “I thought you were a dream.”
Polly smiled again. “I’m a purty substantial dream. Do you feel better?”
“Yes, I suppose so; only I don’t know what has been the matter. Where am I? What has happened?”
Polly shook her head. “Don’t try to remember. You are here in good hands. All you have to do is to obey orders and try to get well and strong.”
“I begin to remember.” The patient spoke slowly as if recalling, gradually, certain events. “I came home and couldn’t get in; then somebody fired at me.” He looked at Polly inquiringly, and the blood mounted to the very roots of her hair.
“Yes, but you must wait till you are stronger to hear all about it,” she told him. “We do not know your name, and you do not know us. I am Polly O’Neill;that’s enough for you to know at one time. We’ll talk about the hows and whys later.”
She left the room and went downstairs where she at once sought out Agnes, beckoning to her with a look of mystery. “He’s got his mind again,” she said. “Now, what’s to be done? Do you suppose he’ll be telling it around that Polly O’Neill made a target of him?”
“Of course not. When we explain that he was breaking into our house, he will be glad enough to keep quiet about it; and if he does not, I think we shall have our own story to tell, and it will be believed.” Agnes gave her head a toss and Polly laughed.
“Very well, then,” said the latter, “since you are so high an’ mighty about it, suppose you go up with this dish of porridge an’ see what he has to say for himself.”
“Ah, but, Polly—”
“No ah buts; go right along,” and Polly gave her a good-humored push toward the table where the bowl of porridge stood.
“He’s a young man,” said Agnes, still hesitating.
“Yes, and good looking and nice spoken. He’ll not bite you,” returned Polly, blandly. “Go along with your porridge before it gets cold; and if he wants to talk, let him.”
Agnes, with bowl in hand, slowly mounted the stairs to the loft. On Polly’s best feather-bed, covered warmly with skins, lay the wounded man. His eyes were closed, but, at the sound of Agnes’s gentle voice, he openedthem. “Here is some porridge for you,” the girl said.
“Thank you, but I don’t care for it.”
“You must take it. Polly says so. She is the best nurse in the world.”
The young man smiled. “Well, if Polly says so, I suppose that settles it. Will you bring it close, and may I ask you to raise my head a little?”
Agnes pushed the pillow further under his shoulders and raised his head, holding the bowl while he drank his gruel.
“I’d like to sit up a little. I want to look out,” said the young man.
Agnes made a roll of some skins which she brought from the next room, and by their aid he was propped up; then she drew aside the curtain from the little window and stood waiting.
SHE DREW ASIDE THE CURTAIN FROM THE LITTLE WINDOW
SHE DREW ASIDE THE CURTAIN FROM THE LITTLE WINDOW
“It is good to see the outside world again,” he said. “It is familiar enough. I think it is time for explanations. Will you tell me how I came to be here, and why you are here, and who you all are? I’ve had glimpses of the reality of it all, though I suppose my mind has been wandering a bit, too. How long have I been in this bed?”
“Nearly three weeks.”
The young man gave an exclamation of surprise, and then, with a gentle wave of his hand, he said, “Don’t stand.” Agnes drew up a low stool. She was not very used to courtly ways and they embarrassed her, so shesat looking down at her brown hands folded on her lap, and wished she could think of some excuse to take her downstairs.
For some time there was silence, the girl feeling conscious that she was being steadfastly regarded by a pair of big brown eyes.
“I remember now,” the young man broke the silence by saying. “I have seen you before, and that good woman you speak of as Polly called you Nancy. That is one of the things I remember. I don’t know what came next, for I drifted off into that dreamy world I have been in for so long.”
“Yes, almost every one calls me Nancy, but my name is Agnes, Agnes Kennedy.”
“It is a pretty name. Mine is Parker Willett. The boys call me Park. Now will you tell me how long you have lived here and something about yourself?”
“We came from near Carlisle, Pennsylvania. My father had to give up our old home, and we came out here together more than a year, nearly two years, ago. We lived for a time in another settlement, but it was raided by the Indians and most of the houses were burned. My father was badly hurt at the same time, and he has never been the same since. Some of our good friends were coming this way, and my mother’s father some years ago settled not very far from Marietta. He left some property that we thought belonged to my mother, so we were going right there, but some one elseclaims it. Then Polly came, and we took up this land and built this little cabin; but when summer came, we were afraid of the Indians, and went back to the fort. We stayed there till we thought it would be safe to come back here, and so we came.”
“And found your home had been occupied?”
“Yes, but we thought it was Jerry Hunter who had been here. He said he would come and look after things once in a while.”
“It was I, you see.”
“Yes. What did you do it for? It wasn’t right to try to steal the home from other people.”
“No, it wasn’t; but you see I didn’t know I was stealing. I feel very much mortified that I should have persisted in getting in. It was this way: a man named Muirhead, over across the river, told me that if I were looking for a good place to settle that I could find it here, for there were some persons who had come from Pennsylvania and had put up a cabin and had begun to clear up, but they had given up the place and had gone back home, and I could have the place for the taking. I came over here and explored, and found it just as he said—the house shut up, and things pretty well cleared out, so I took possession.” He paused. “I was misled, because he said it was a man and his daughter, a young slip of a girl who couldn’t stand the rough country.”
“You say Muirhead was the name?”
“Yes.”
Agnes gave her head a defiant shake. “We might have known it,” she said.
“He told me further that he was in a position to know, because the people were relatives of his, and he had a half-interest in the place, but that there was plenty of land nearer home, and he’d not stand at that. I wondered a little, but it seemed all right, as he appeared to know all about it, and referred me to some persons who said he was all right and that he had lived here all his life. I thought myself lucky to get a place where there was already a house built, and did not inquire further. I expected to stay till I should find a piece of land I wanted to buy, and I would have paid Muirhead rent.”
Agnes was silent for a little while, then she said, “Then this Muirhead is not a friend of yours?”
“No, an acquaintance merely. I was directed to him by some one who said he knew all about the country, having been born and brought up near by.”
“So he was. He is my mother’s half-brother, and I think he would do anything to injure us. Every one says he has a right to the property on which he is living, but I don’t think so. He certainly ought not to have more than half, yet he takes it all, and I know my grandfather would have given my mother a share of whatever he had. But there is no use trying to fight it. I am only a girl, and father is not in a state to help, sothere is no one to do anything about it, but I feel sure that Humphrey Muirhead is trying to get us from the neighborhood, and he’ll do everything against us, and that is why he sent you here.”
“I see,” said Parker Willett, smiling, “though I think it was decidedly against me, too, as it turned out.”
“It was too bad that you should have suffered by his wickedness, though I didn’t mean that exactly as it sounded.”
“I know that. It is really the result of my own folly. I ought to have made further investigation, and I ought to have been less determined to get in. I lost my temper, and Polly, you know—her voice is not reassuring.”
Agnes laughed. “Dear Polly! her voice does go through one sometimes.”
“So does her shot,” returned Parker, with a wry face.
“She feels very sorry,” said Agnes, “though she says you brought it on yourself.”
“So I did. I acknowledge that.”
“She is a good shot, and it is a mercy you were not killed. Now don’t you think you’d better lie down again?”
It was quite evident that the patient was ready for a change of position, and Agnes, having made him comfortable, went down to Polly full of the information that had just been given her.
Polly listened attentively to what Agnes had to tell her. “I’d like to have Hump Muirhead on the end ofthis fork,” she said, brandishing her flesh fork in her hand. “I’d roast him over the coals, would I.”
“Oh, Polly, you’re as bad as the Indians.”
“Am I then? I am not. But a bad man needs a gridiron and brimstone; he’ll get it yet.”
“Oh, Polly!” Agnes’s shocked voice exclaimed again.
“Never you mind,” Polly went on; “he’ll get his deserts yet.” She sat for some time nursing her knees before the fire and then she burst out with: “I’m thinking, Nancy, that it ’ud be no so bad a thing to keep that young man with us when he gets well, and bechune us we may be able to trick that Muirhead yet.”
“But, Polly, we don’t know anything about him, and how can we tell that he is a good man, or that we’d like to have a perfect stranger to come right into the family?”
“Now isn’t that like a cautious Scot?” said Polly. “I suppose ye’d be wantin’ his character from his meenister, and another from his townfolks before ye’d give him the hand o’ friendship. He’s from Virginny, I kin tell by his trick of speakin’, and he’s a gentleman.”
“I think he is a gentleman,” said Agnes, thoughtfully, “for he is much more polite than the lads about here.”
“He’s new to the place; he’ll forgit it, give him time,” said Polly, complacently. “I’ll not be long in findin’ out whether he’s worth the keepin’ or no.” And intruth she laid her plans so well that by the time the winter was over, Parker Willett had become a member of the household. All his chivalric spirit was roused for the brave Polly, though she had been the cause of his long weeks of pain and weakness, and at first he felt inclined to resent any advances on Polly’s part. But her unfailing good humor and kindliness, and the hopeful spirit which bade her never give up looking for her missing husband, won his heart. Then, too, he felt a strange pity for Agnes, the young and helpless girl, so tender and devoted to her gentle father. Wild as a hawk was Agnes growing under Polly’s independent example, yet she was always womanly, sweet, and tender where her father was concerned. She might ride bareback on a wild young colt; she might go forth like a young Amazon, pistol in belt and knife in hand, but she would come back, fling herself from her horse, and sit down by her father gentle as a little child, trying to entertain him by talking of the dear old times.
“Agnes is a good little girl,” Mr. Kennedy would say. And Parker, who an hour before had seen this same Agnes stamping her foot at Polly, and in a rage at Jerry Hunter because he failed to do something she had requested, would smile to himself. “Poor little lass, she needs her mother,” was what Fergus Kennedy would say if Agnes were caught in one of her rages. “Where is your mother?” he would ask her wistfully.
Then would Agnes fly to him all gentleness, the firedying out of her eyes, and her voice as soft as a dove’s. “She’s comin’ father, dear,” she would tell him. “You know we have sent for her, and she will come very, very soon. And Sandy and Margret and Jock and Jessie,—you remember, father,—they’ll all be coming along before long.” Then she would look at Parker, as if to say, “Don’t you dare to contradict.” And the young man would not for the world have borne her a moment’s ill-will, though he might have been thinking her a little hypocrite and a lawless young creature who should be well lectured. As time went on they had many tiffs, for Parker loved to tease, and Agnes would brook no contradictions from any one but her father. Indeed, Jeanie M’Clean said she was no more like the lass she used to be back there at home, so gentle, so well behaved, and she did not see what had come over her.
“It’s all Polly O’Neill’s doings,” she declared to Archie, but Archie frowned and said Agnes was well enough, and that she had a right to say what she liked.
This was after a visit which Jeanie made one day to Agnes, coming upon her in a heated altercation with Parker. “I only wish Polly had hurt you worse than she did,” snapped the girl. “You shall not tease me. I will not stand it. I will let the chickens out when I want to.”
“But they play havoc in the garden and eat up the grain, too.”
“Plant more, then. Father does when I tell him.”
“You are unreasonable, Agnes.”
“Don’t call me Agnes. I am Miss Kennedy, if you please.”
“Miss Kennedy, then. You are unreasonable, for your fowls can be fed as well in their own enclosure as to be eating up the food we shall need for ourselves.”
“As if they could eat it all up.”
“They do not eat it all up, of course, and you know they do not have to be kept up all the year; they are free to roam where they will after the things have grown more, but we do not want them to destroy the seeds we have planted with so much care.”
“I don’t care; you shall not call me unreasonable.”
“Oh, Agnes!” Here Jeanie’s voice broke in. She had ridden over with David. “What does make you in such a temper?”
“This creature.” Agnes gave a magnificent wave of her hand to Parker Willett, who flashed an amused smile at Jeanie.
“Don’t mind her, Mr. Willett,” said Jeanie, as he helped her down from her horse. “She is a naughty girl at times.”
“Her father says she is a good little girl,” said Parker, teasingly, and Agnes bent an ominous look upon him.
“I’ll pay you up for that,” she said.
The young man smiled gravely. To his twenty-five years Agnes seemed still a little child, and he agreed with her father that the girl needed her mother. “Polly O’Neill, good, clever, kind-hearted though she might be, was no guardian for a young lass,” he said to himself. “The girl has been well brought up, but she will forget all her gentle ways in Polly’s company. I wish it could be managed to alter conditions for her. I’ve no right to interfere, but if she were my sister—” He struck his spade sharply into the earth, and then stood erect looking after Agnes as she disappeared into the cabin with Jeanie. At the other end of the truck patch he caught sight of Fergus Kennedy, his face wearing its usual mild, dazed expression. Parker had a genuine affection for his coworker, and he watched him now with a look of pity and concern. “Dear old fellow,” he murmured under his breath, “for your sake if not for the girl’s own I will do my best.” And from that time he took a greater interest in Agnes, in spite of the fact that she played many tricks upon him, and more than once angered him beyond endurance. Then he discussed the situation with Polly.
“That little girl is getting to be as wild as a hawk,” he ventured to say. “Do you think her mother would like to see her so?”
Polly gave her head a toss. “Why shouldn’t she be wild? It suits the country. She’ll not be like to wear silks and satins and be mincing about on high heels.She’ll be like to marry a settler lad—Archie M’Clean, no doubt.”
“But Archie is not so rough; he is quite serious and gentle.”
“All the more he’ll like the bright ways of the lassie. She’s young yet, Mr. Willett, an’ young things must have their fling. Leave her alone for a while, and she’ll sober down like the rest of us.” She gave a little chirrup of a laugh and glanced at the young man, who laughed in return.
“You have sobered down so entirely, Polly,” he said.
“Ye didn’t know me when I was a bit of a lass,” replied Polly, with a sly look.
“That is true; you must have been—” He shook his head, and Polly laughed again.
Society upon the frontier was decidedly mixed, and to Polly one was as good as another. She rather admired the handsome, courtly young Virginian, but she gave quite as much favor to rough, awkward Jerry Hunter, and, indeed, preferred his boisterous laugh and clumsy jokes to the more quiet conversation of Parker Willett.
As for Agnes, she accepted the fact of the young man’s presence with cheerfulness, except when her ire was raised by his teasing, and then she plied Polly with requests to send him off, but an hour later she would calm down and confess that it was a good arrangement all around, and that his clear head and busy hands would be greatly missed if he should leave them. Astime went on that ever present thought, “When mother comes,” took more and more possession of her, and colored all her plans for the future. She did not talk of these plans to Polly, but when she and her father were alone, she would let her thoughts run riot, and at these times, too, it seemed that Fergus Kennedy was more like his old self than outsiders believed he could ever be.
With Jeanie Agnes was now on good terms, for Jeanie, once she had confessed her interest in David, made Agnes herconfidante, and though David was shy and Jeanie coy, the affair was visibly progressing, and Agnes thought it probable that in a year or so there would be another home started in the settlement.
Archie of late was more serious than ever, and one day he propounded a question to Agnes which rather puzzled her. “Would ye like to marry a man who’d make ye a home back there in the east, Agnes?” he asked.
“And go back there with father? I don’t know, Archie. But there’s no such to marry me, and then there will be mother and the children.”
Archie nodded. “It’s a muckle one would have to do with such a family,” he said half to himself and with a sigh. “If he happened to be a puir meenister, it would be hard making out, though maybe—with a farm—”
“What are you talking about, Archie?” Agnes interrupted impatiently. “I never heard such maunderingtalk. Who’s a puir meenister, and what are you trying to say?”
Archie roused himself from his revery. “Oh, nothing, Agnes; I was but thinking.”
“You’re forever and the day thinking, and what comes of it?”
“Something may,” he replied. “Ye’d sober down then,” he said, looking at her speculatively.
“I can’t think what you mean. I’ll sober down for no one, unless it be my mother,” she added softly.
“Ah, your mother, yes.” And again Archie was plunged in thought so that Agnes flung herself off and declared to Jeanie that Archie was going daft.