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“We're in for a blow, I'm thinkin',” said David, looking down-river, with the children standing beside him, “and, bless me! there isn't a star to be seen. Who'd a-thought it after that sunset.”
Courage, seeing something in the distance, paid no attention to this last remark. “Mr. David, what's that?” she exclaimed, pointing in the direction in which she had been gazing.
“Sure it looks like a sail, Courage. Can it be that they're wantin' to get through, I wonder? What's a boat out for this time o' night, anyhow?” Then for several minutes all was silent.
“Listen,” said Sylvia at last; “doesn't that sound like rowing?”
“Yes it do,” said David, after listening intently, his hand to his ear. “I thought it didn't 'pear just like a sail-boat; howsomever, there's a white thing dangling to it that looks—” but here David was interrupted by a coarse voice calling out, “Hello there! Open the draw, will you?”
“Hello there!” David answered; “but what'll I open it for? Ye're rowin', aren't ye?”
“Yes, we're rowing to gain time, but there's a sail to the boat as plain as daylight, isn't there? Now hurry, man alive, and do as you're told; we've sprung aleak.”
“Sprung aleak! Then ye're fools not to make straight for the shore,” reasoned David.
“That's our lookout; but for land's sake! open the draw, instead of standing there talking all night,” and David, realizing that there may be danger for the men in longer parleying, puts his hand to the lever, hurriedly dispatching the children to close the gates at either end; and away they fly, eager to render a service often required of them when there was need for special expedition. Indeed, one can but wonder how David sometimes managed when alone, and a boat tacking against the wind had need to make the draw at precisely the right moment.
But to-night it happens that he is in too great haste, and while yet several yards from the gate, Courage, with horror, feels the draw beginning to move under her. “Wait,” she calls back to David, but her voice is weak with fear, and her feet seemed weighted. Oh, if she cannot reach the end in time to make the main bridge and close the gate, and some one should come driving on in the darkness, never seeing that the draw was open! At last she is at the edge, but only the tenth of a second more and it will be too late to jump. Shall she try it? It will be taking a dreadful risk. She may land right against the rail, be thrown back into the water, and no one know in time to hasten to her rescue. She hesitates.No—and thenyes, for an instantly deciding thought has come to her.
The draw swings clear of the bridge. The men in the boat, grumbling at everything, paddled clumsily through, while over the other gate, reached barely in time, Sylvia hangs breathless and trembling. At the same moment with Courage, she, too, felt the draw begin to move, but luckily chanced to be nearer her goal. Meanwhile, where is Courage? Not in the water, thank God, but prone upon the bridge above it, lying just where she fell when, as she jumped, the rail of the draw struck her feet and threw her roughly down upon it. She feels terribly jarred and bruised, and tries in vain to lift herself up. But, hark! is that the sound of horses on the road? Yes, surely, and they are coming nearer; and now they are on the bridge, and the gate—the gate is open. With one superhuman effort she struggles to her feet, reaches out for it, and swings it to. Then, leaning heavily against the rail, she utters one shrill, inarticulate scream. There is another scream almost as shrill in answer, and instantly a pair of ponies, brought to an alarmingly sudden standstill, rear high in the air beside her, and Courage, unable to stand another moment, drops in a limp little heap to the flooring.
“My darling, darling Courage!” whispers some one close bending above her.
“DearMiss Julia,” and a little hand all of a tremble gropes for Miss Julia's face in the darkness.
The draw swings back into place, and Sylvia is on it in a flash.
“Oh, you didn't gib us 'nough time,” she cries accusingly to David as she flies past. David instantly divines her meaning, for they both know Courage well enough to fear she may have run some terrible danger, and seizing the lantern, hanging midway in the draw, David follows Sylvia as fast as tottering limbs will carry him. What a sickening sensation sweeps over him as the horses loom up in the darkness and he sees a group of people crowding about something hung on the bridge!
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“She isn't deaded! she isn't deaded!” Sylvia joyfully calls out, and that moment the light from the lantern falls athwart a prostrate little figure in the midst of the group.
“I think I can get up now” are the words that meet David's ear, and an answering “God be praised!” escapes from his quivering lips. Then some one turns the heads of the quieted horses, and two ladies, one on either side of Courage, help her back to the house. Larry, who has heard the commotion, succeeds in getting dressed and out to the door just as the little party reach it. He starts alarmed and surprised at the sight of Courage, but fortunately is too blind to see the alarming stains of blood on her little white face, but the moment they enter the light the others are quick to see them. Courage is lifted into David's big rocker, and Larry, groping into his own room, brings a pillow for her back; Sylvia disappears and returns in a trice with a towel and a basin of water; Miss Julia, with shaking hands, measures something into a glass; the other lady, with a little help from Courage, removes the dust-begrimed coat, and then lays it very tenderly over a chair. And now the color begins to surge back into the little pale face. The cut under the curls, which is not severe enough to need a surgeon, is tightly bound, and then at last they all sit down to get their breath for a moment. The horses, which of course were none other than Miss Julia's gray ponies, are secured to a rail outside, and David brings a strange gentleman into the room.
“This is my brother, Courage,” says Miss Julia—“he has often heard me speak of you—and this lady is his wife.”
Courage smiles in acknowledgment of the introduction, for, indeed, she does not feel equal to talking yet, and so keeps perfectly quiet, listening to all the others—to David's reiterated self-accusations for forgetting, in his haste, to make sure that the children were clear of the draw; to Sylvia's excited account of the way she had “jes' ter scrabble” to get over in time; to Miss Julia's explanation of how they had set out at that late hour, and on a sudden impulse, to pay a call down at Elberon, and of how, in her eagerness to spend as little time as possible on the road, she had forgotten to walk the ponies over the draw; and then to her description of her terror when the scream smote her ears, and she reined in her ponies so suddenly as to almost throw them over backward; until, at last, Courage herself feels inclined to put in a little word of her own.
“And you didn't hear me call at all, Mr. David?” she asked in a low little voice.
“Never a word, darling—never a word. Oh, it's dreadful to think what might ha' happened, and I so careless!”
“It's all right now though, Mr. David,” Courage said comfortingly, “but it was terrible to have to jump at the last moment like that. I thought I couldn't at first, that no team would be likely to come over so late, and then—oh, it's wonderful how many things you can think just in a moment—I remembered that Miss Julia was over the draw, and I felt I must try to do it,” and Courage looked toward Miss Julia with eyes that said, “There is nothing in the world I would not try to do for you,” and then what did Miss Julia herself do but break right down and cry.
“Oh, why are you crying?” asked Courage, greatly troubled.
“Because I cannot help it, Courage. It was so brave to risk so much, and all for my sake, too.”
“But I was not really brave, Miss Julia. You see”—and as though fully convinced of the logic of her position—“I think I was not going to do it at all till I remembered about you. And if I hadn't, and even if no one had happened to come on the bridge, I should have been ashamed of it always every time any one called me Courage.”
“And so you are not going to take the least credit to yourself,” said Mr. Everett, Miss Julia's brother. “Well, you certainly are a most unheard-of little personage.”
Courage was not at all sure whether this was complimentary or otherwise, but no matter. She had not much thought or heed for anything beyond the fact that Miss Julia was crying, and she very much wished she wouldn't.
Meanwhile, Miss Julia's sister sat thinking her own thoughts with a sad, far-away look in her eyes. She knew that little blue coat so well, and this was not the first time she had come across it since, months before, she had sent it away, expecting never to see it again.
“Courage,” she asked at last in what seemed an opportune moment, “were you not on a lighter that was run into by the St. Johns a few weeks ago?”
“Why, yes,” answered Courage, surprised; “and were you the lady and the gentleman?” (glancing toward Mr. Everett).
“Yes; we wanted to learn your name, but you and Sylvia here both answered at once, so we could not make it out.”
“But why did you want to know?”
“Because I thought I recognized the little blue coat you had on, and now that I have seen you again, I feel sure of it. I think it must have been given to you by Miss Julia.”
“Why, yes,” said Courage; “and did you know the little girl it used to belong to?”
“It belonged to my own little girl, Courage.”
“To your little girl? Oh, I would love to have seen her wear it, it's such a beautiful coat! Did she mind having it given away?”
“Courage,” said Miss Julia sadly, “little Belle died last winter, and so there was no longer any need for it.”
“Oh, dat's how it was,” said practical Sylvia, who had listened attentively to every word. “We've spec'lated of 'en an' over—ain't we, Miss Courage?—why a jes-as-good-as-new coat was eber gib away.”
“Hush, Sylvia!” whispered Courage, feeling instinctively that this commonplace remark was untimely; and then by grace of the same beautiful intuition she asked gently, “Did it make you feel very badly to see your little Belle's coat on a strange little girl?”
“It almost frightened me. Courage, for Belle had auburn curls, too, and you seemed so like her as you stood there. Then, after a moment, when I had had time to think, I felt pretty sure it must be Belle's own coat that I saw.”
“I am sorry that I happened to have it on,” said Courage; “I would not like to have seen anything of my papa's on anybody else.”
“And so I thought,” said Mrs. Everett, wondering that a child should so apparently understand every phase of a great sorrow, “but I find I was mistaken,” and Mrs. Everett, moving her chair close beside Courage, took her little brown hand in hers, as she added: “More than once since that evening it has been on my lips to ask Miss Julia if she knew who was the owner of Belle's coat.”
“And more than once,” said Miss Julia, “it has been on my lips to tell without your asking, and then I feared only to start for you some train of sad thoughts.” Miss Julia by this time had gotten the best of her tears, and stood behind Courage affectionately stroking the beautiful wavy hair, for both she and Mrs. Everett were longing to give expression to the overpowering sense of gratitude welling up within them.
“Do you know what the black bow is for?” Courage asked of Mrs. Everett.
“I thought it was mourning for some one, perhaps.”
“Yes; it is mourning for my papa. A little girl told me I ought to wear all black clothes, but Miss Julia thought not; only she just tied this bow on for me the last day of sewing-school, because I wanted to have something that would tell that I was very lonely without him. Soldiers wear mourning like that, you know.”
All this while Larry had sat quietly on one side, his dimmed eyes resting proudly on Courage; but now he had something to say on his own account.
“It was all my fault, sir,” he began abruptly, addressing Mr. Everett—“that accident on the bay a few weeks back. I was losing my sight, and was just going to give up my life on the water when I found that Hugh Masterson had died, and that Courage there had set her heart on spending the summer with me on the boat. And so I tried for her sake to hold on a while longer, but it wa'nt no use, and I'd like to made an end to us all that evening. I wish sometime when ye're aboard the St. Johns ye'd have a word with the captain, and tell him how it all happened, and that Larry Starr has not touched a drop of liquor these twenty years; he thought I was drunk, you know, and no wonder.”
“Indeed I will, Larry, and only too gladly,” Mr. Everett promised, drawing closer to Larry's side, that they might talk further about it.
Not long after this Miss Julia made a move to go, not, however, you may be sure, until she had seen Courage tucked away in her own bed, and dropping off into the soundest sort of a sleep the moment her tired little head touched the pillow. But before Miss Julia actually gave the reins to her ponies for the homeward drive there was a vigorous hand-shaking on all sides, for the exciting experiences of the last hour had made them all feel very near to each other.
“Well, Julia, we must do something for that precious child,” said Mrs. Everett as soon as the ponies struck the dirt road, and it was less of an effort to speak than when their hoofs were clattering noisily on the bridge.
“And what had it best be?” asked Miss Julia, and yet with her own mind quite made up on the subject.
“Nothing less than to have her make her home with us always.”
“Nothing less,” said Miss Julia earnestly.
“Bless her brave heart! nothing less,” chimed in Mr. Everett; “but what will become of poor Larry?”
True enough! what would become of poor Larry? and would it be right to ask him to make such a sacrifice? It was not necessary, however, to discuss all the details of the beautiful plan just then, and even Mr. Everett, who had raised the question, had faith to believe that somehow or other everything could be satisfactorily arranged. For the remainder of the drive home not a word was spoken. People who have just been face to face with a great peril, and realize it, are likely to find thoughts in their hearts quite too deep for utterance and too solemn.
You may not happen to know what this “l'envoi” means. Neither do I exactly, only nowadays poets who try to make English poems like French ones put it at the head of their last verse; so I have a notion to follow their example and put it at the head of this last chapter.
As to its meaning as the poets use it, I find that even some pretty wise people are not able to enlighten us, so we'll have it mean just what we choose, and say that it stands for the winding up of a story by which you learn what became of all the people in it. At any rate, as that's what this chapter's to be, we'll press this mysterious little L'Envoi into service in lieu of such a long title. Confidentially, however, I have an idea that it isn't “the thing” to wind up a story at all. That to give you merely an intimation as to what probably happened to Courage, and to leave you wholly in ignorance as to the others, would be far more in keeping with modern story-telling; but why try to be modern unless it is more satisfactory? Then I imagine you really would like to know something more of the friends we have been summering with through these eight chapters, and besides, if someday you should yourself go driving over the South Shrewsbury draw, you would naturally expect to at least have a chat with David Starr, feeling that he was a fixture, whatever might have become of Larry and Courage and Sylvia. But alas! that cannot be, and you ought to know it beforehand. The same little house is there, and in summer weather the same boxes of geraniums, verbena, and portulaca line the rail in front of it, but the old man at present employed at the draw is as much of a stranger to me as to you.
It is several years now since that eventful night on the bridge, and all this while Courage has been living in Washington Square, for it had been easily arranged with Larry that she should make her home with Miss Julia and Mrs. Everett. Indeed, it had proved an immense relief to Larry's anxious heart to know that her future would be so well provided for, and it all came about at the right time, too, for the very next winter Larry died. He had not been feeling well for a few days, and Sylvia, who had been left behind at the bridge, wrote for Courage; and Courage, losing not a moment, came in time to care for him for two whole weeks before he passed away. His illness was not a painful one, and now that complete darkness had closed in about him, he had no great wish to live. The many mansions of the Father were very real to Larry, and the eyes that were blind to all on earth seemed to look with wondrous keenness of vision toward “the land that is very far off;” while to have Courage at his side in this last illness summed up every earthly desire that remained to him. He was buried in the cemetery over at Shrewsbury, and it was not long before a grave was dug for faithful Bruce, who seemed to lose all heart from the hour his master left him.
When Courage went back to Washington Square, the day after the funeral, Sylvia went with her, to assist in the care of a blessed Everett baby that had lately come to gladden every one in the home; and Sylvia was overjoyed to be once more under the same roof with Courage.
For a year or two after that David continued to keep the draw, living alone in the same way as before, which must have seemed a more lonely way than ever, with Larry out of the world and Courage and Sylvia quite the same as out of it, as far as he was concerned. But finally David had to give up. “The rheumatics,” as he said, “got hold of him so drefful bad that there was no help for it but that he must just go and be beholden to his daughter,” which, as you can imagine, must have been no little trial to independent old David.
And Courage! brave little Courage! just how does the world fare with her? Well, she is quite a young lady by this time, with the beautiful auburn curls twisted into a knot, and dresses that sometimes have trains to them, and yet she is just the same Courage still. It seems to Mr. and Mrs. Everett as though they could hardly have loved their own little Belle more, while to Miss Julia it seems as though she could not possibly live without her; and no one who truly knows Courage wonders at this for a moment. As for Courage herself, she looks up to Miss Julia with all the saint-like adoration of the old sewing-school days, and Miss Julia is every whit worthy of such loyal devotion. At the same time, they are the best of friends.
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During these five years of daily companionship Miss Julia has been unconsciously training Courage to be just such another noble woman as she is herself, and so they have been constantly growing nearer and still nearer to each other, if that were possible. They love the same books, they enjoy the same things, and now that regular school-life is over for Courage, they have the happiest sort of time together, day in and day out. Often, indeed, they have a very merry time of it, largely accounted for by the fact that Courage, being well and strong, as well as young, is often brimming over with a contagious buoyancy, sometimes called animal spirits, but to my thinking, it deserves a better name than that.
Everywhere that Miss Julia goes Courage goes too that is, if she is wanted (and seldom is she not), and one of the places where they go most frequently, and never empty-handed, is to a great hospital, where, since little lame Joe died, Mary Duff has become one of the sisters who give their lives to caring for sick children.
Courage even has a class next to Miss Julia's in the sewing-school where she used to be a scholar. Now and then she feels some little finger pointing at her, and knows well enough what is being said. One Saturday afternoon, when on her way to the chapel, she noticed two rather unkempt little specimens in close conference. “Yes, that's her,” she heard the smaller girl exclaim as she neared them, “and ain't she sweet and stylish! Well, she used to belong down here somewhere, but now she lives in a beautiful house with Miss Julia in Washington Square.”
“Like as not she didn't do nothin' to deserve it, either,” said the larger girl enviously, with a sullen shrug of her shoulders.
“Didn't do nothin'? Well, perhaps you don't know that she just saved Miss Julia's life; that's something, ain't it?” And with the color mantling forehead and cheeks Courage hurried on, grateful for the championship of her unknown little friend.
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