Illustration: Then he forgot all about the steps and counting time
When the music stopped, and they stood, breathless and laughing, at the dressing-room door, Ruth said:
"I thought Annette told me you were just learning to dance!"
"So I am," said Sandy; "but me heart never kept time for me before!"
When Annette joined them she looked up at Sandy and smiled.
"Poor f-fellow!" she said sympathetically. "What a perfectly horrid time you've had!"
THE NELSON HOME
Willowvale, the Nelson homestead, lay in the last curve of the river, just before it left the restrictions of town for the freedom of fields and meadows.
It was a quaint old house, all over honeysuckles and bow-windows and verandas, approached by an oleander-bordered walk, and sheltered by a wide circle of poplar-and oak-trees that had nodded both approval and disapproval over many generations of Nelsons.
In the dining-room, on the massive mahogany table, lunch was laid for three. Carter sat at the foot, absorbed in a newspaper, while at the head Mrs. Nelson languidly partook of her second biscuit. It was vulgar,in her estimation, for a lady to indulge in more than two biscuits at a meal.
When old Evan Nelson died six years before, he had left the bulk of his fortune to his two grandchildren, and a handsome allowance to his eldest son's widow, with the understanding that she was to take charge of Ruth until that young lady should become of age.
Mrs. Nelson accepted the trust with becoming resignation. The prospect of guiding a wealthy and obedient young person through the social labyrinth to an eligible marriage wakened certain faculties that had long lain dormant. It was not until the wealthy and obedient young person began to develop tastes of her own that she found the burden irksome.
Nine months of the year Ruth was at boarding-school, and the remaining three she insisted upon spending in the old home at Clayton, where Carter kept his dogs and horses and spent his summers. Hitherto Mrs. Nelson had compromised with her. Byadroit management she contrived to keep her, for weeks at a time, at various summer resorts, where she expected her to serve a sort of social apprenticeship which would fit her for her future career.
At nineteen Ruth developed alarming symptoms of obstinacy. Mrs. Nelson confessed tearfully to the rest of the family that it had existed in embryo for years. Instead of making the most of her first summer out of school, the foolish girl announced her intention of going to Willowvale for an indefinite stay.
It was indignation at this state of affairs that caused Mrs. Nelson to lose her appetite. Clayton was to her the limit of civilization; there was too much sunshine, too much fresh air, too much out of doors. She disliked nature in its crude state; she preferred it softened and toned down to drawing-room pitch.
She glanced up in disapproval as Ruth's laugh sounded in the hall.
"Rachel, tell her that lunch is waiting," she said to the colored girl at her side.
Carter looked up as Ruth came breezily into the room. She wore her riding-habit, and her hair was tossed by her brisk morning canter.
"You don't look as if you had danced all night," he said. "Did the mare behave herself?"
"She's a perfect beauty, Carter. I rode her round the old mill-dam, 'cross the ford, and back by the Hollises'. Now I'm perfectly famished. Some hot rolls, Rachel, and another croquette, and—and everything you have."
Mrs. Nelson picked several crumbs from the cloth and laid them carefully on her plate. "When I was a young lady I always slept after being out in the evening. I had a half-cup of coffee and one roll brought to me in bed, and I never rose until noon."
"But I hate to stay in bed," said Ruth; "and, besides, I hate to miss a half-day."
"Is there anything on for this afternoon?" asked Carter.
"Why, yes—" Ruth began, but her aunt finished for her:
"Now, Carter, it's too warm to be proposing anything more. You aren't well, and Ruth ought to stay at home and put cold cream on her face. It is getting so burned that her pink evening-dresses will be worse than useless. Besides, there is absolutely nothing to do in this stupid place. I feel as if I couldn't stand it all summer."
This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big, old-fashioned room and sighed.
"It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age!Whatdoyou suppose your dear grandfathercouldhave been thinking of?"
This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention.
"I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it."
Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes."
"Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly.
He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've bothered your head about me ever since you were born."
She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at him wistfully.
"The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he said, with a curl of the lip.
"Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson.
"I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I don't think I could ever bear to sell it."
"Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your deacute;but, you'll feel very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone."
Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love everything connected with it. The front gate, with its widewhite posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a park where she and Annette had played dolls, and once it had served as a burying-ground when Carter's sling brought down a sparrow. The ice house, with its steep roof, recalled a thrilling tobogganing experience when she was six. Grandfather had laughed over the torn gown, and bade her do it again.
It was the trees, though, that she loved best of all; for they were friendly old poplar-trees on which the bark formed itself into all sorts of curious eyes. One was a wicked old stepfather eye with a heavy lid; she remembered how she used to tiptoe past it and pretend to be afraid. Beyond, by the arbor, were two smaller trees, where a coquettish eye on one looked up to an adoring eye on the other. She had often built a romance about them as she watched them peeping at each other through the leaves.
Down behind the house the waving fields of blue-grass rippled away to the little river, where weeping willows hung their heads above the lazy water, and ferns reached up the banks to catch the flowers. And the fields and the river and the house and the trees were hers,—hers and Carter's,—and neither could sell without the consent of the other. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prospect of living alone in the old homestead failed to appal her.
"A letter came this morning," said Mrs. Nelson, tracing the crest on the silver creamer. "It's from your Aunt Elizabeth. She wants us to spend ten days with her at the shore. They have taken a handsome cottage next to the Warrentons. You remember young Mr. Warrenton, Ruth? He is a grandson of Commodore Warrenton."
"Warrenton? Oh, yes, I do remember him—the one that didn't have any neck."
Mrs. Nelson closed her eyes for a moment, as if praying for patience; then she went on: "Your Aunt Elizabeth thinks, as I do,that it is absurd for you to bury yourself down here. She wants you to meet people of your own class. Do you think you can be ready to start on Wednesday?"
"Why, we have been here only a week!" cried Ruth. "I am having such a good time, and—" she broke off impulsively. "But I know it's dull for you, Aunt Clara. You go, and leave me here with Carter. I'll do everything you say if you will only let me stay."
Carter laughed. "One would think that Ruth's sole aim in life was to cultivate Clayton—the distinguished, exclusive, aristocratic society of Clayton."
She put her hand on his arm and looked at him pleadingly: "Please don't laugh at me, Carter! I love it here, and I want to stay. You know Aunt Elizabeth; you know what her friends are like. They think I am queer. I can't be happy where they are."
Mrs. Nelson resorted to her smelling-bottle. "Of course my opinions are of noweight. I only wish to remind you that it would be most impolitic to offend your Aunt Elizabeth. She could introduce you into the most desirable set; and even if she is a little—" she searched a moment for a word—"a little liberal in her views, one can overlook that on account of her generosity. She is a very influential woman, Ruth, and a very wealthy one."
Ruth made a quick, impatient gesture. "I don't like her, Aunt Clara; and I don't want you to ask me to go there."
Mrs. Nelson folded her napkin with tragic deliberation. "Very well," she said; "it is not my place to urge it. I can only point out your duty and leave the rest to you. One thing I must speak about, and that is your associating so familiarly with these townspeople. They are impertinent; they take advantages, and forget who we are. Why, the blacksmith had the audacity to refer to the dear major as 'Bob.'"
"Old Uncle Dan?" asked Ruth, laughing. "I saw him yesterday, and he shook handswith me and said: 'Golly, sissy, how you've growed!'"
"Ruth," cried Mrs. Nelson, "how can you! Haven't youanyfamily pride?" The tears came to her eyes, for the invitation to visit the Hunter-Nelsons was one for which she had angled skilfully, and its summary dismissal was a sore trial to her.
In a moment Ruth was at her side, all contrition: "I'm sorry, Aunt Clara; I know I'm a disappointment to you. I'll try—"
Mrs. Nelson withdrew her hand and directed her injured reply to Carter. "I have done my duty by your sister. She has been given every advantage a young lady could desire. If she insists upon throwing away her opportunities, I can't help it. I suppose I am no longer to be consulted—no longer to be considered." She sought the seclusion of her pocket-handkerchief, and her pompadour swayed with emotion.
Ruth stood at the table, miserably pulling a rose to pieces. This discussion was an old one, but it lost none of its sting by repetition.Was she queer and obstinate and unreasonable?
"Ruth's all right," said Carter, seeing her discomfort. "She will have more sense when she is older. She's just got her little head turned by all the attention she has had since coming home. There isn't a boy in the county who wouldn't make love to her at the drop of her eyelash. She was the belle of the hop last night; had the boys about her three deep most of the time."
"The hop!" Mrs. Nelson so far forgot herself as to uncover one eye. "Don't speak of that wretched affair! The idea of her going! What do you suppose your Aunt Elizabeth would say? A country dance in a public hall!"
"I only dropped in for the last few dances," said Carter, pouring himself another glass of wine. "It was beastly hot and stupid."
"I danced every minute the music played," cried Ruth; "and when they played, 'Home, Sweet Home,' I couldhave begun and gone right through it again."
"By the way," said her brother, "didn't I see you dancing with that Kilday boy?"
"The last dance," said Ruth. "Why?"
"Oh, I was a little surprised, that's all."
Mrs. Nelson, scenting the suggestion in Carter's voice, was instantly alert.
"Who, pray, is Kilday?"
"Oh, Kilday isn't anybody; that's the trouble. If he had been, he would never have stayed with that old crank Judge Hollis. The judge thinks he is appointed by Providence to control this bright particular burg. He is even attempting to regulate me of late. The next time he interferes he'll hear from me."
"But Kilday?" urged Mrs. Nelson, feebly persistent.
"Oh, Kilday is good enough in his place. He's a first-class athlete, and has made a record up at the academy. But he was a peddler, you know—an Irish peddler; camehere three or four years ago with a pack on his back."
"And Ruth danced with him!" Mrs. Nelson's words were punctuated with horror.
Ruth looked up with blazing eyes. "Yes, I danced with him; why shouldn't I? You made me dance with Mr. Warrenton, last summer, when I told you he was drinking."
"But, my dear child, you forget who Mr. Warrenton is. And you actually danced with a peddler!" Her voice grew faint. "My dear, this must never occur again. You are young and easily imposed upon. I will accompany you everywhere in the future. Of course you need never recognize him hereafter. The impertinence of his addressing you!"
A step sounded on the gravel outside. Ruth ran to the window and spoke to some one below. "I'll be there as soon as I change my habit," she called.
"Who is it?" asked her aunt, hastily arranging her disturbed locks.
Ruth paused at the door. There was aslight tremor about her lips, but her eyes flashed their first open declaration of independence.
"It's Mr. Kilday," she said; "we are going out on the river."
There was an oppressive silence of ten minutes after she left, during which Carter smiled behind his paper and Mrs. Nelson gazed indignantly at the tea-pot. Then she tapped the bell.
"Rachel," she said impressively, "go to Miss Ruth's room and get her veil and gloves and sun-shade. Have Thomas take them to the boat-house at once."
UNDER THE WILLOWS
Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers.
Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream.
For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days—the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair.
Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits—he would brave them all. Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him.
Illustration: Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain
They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough.
Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the coolwater and watching the little circles that followed her fingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes.
But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They were deep as his love and bright as his hope.
Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question.
"It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimed contritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do they keep changing color like that all the time?"
Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously.
"I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly under here, isn't it?So cool and green! I was awfully cross when I came."
"You cross?"
She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt.
"A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with such ardor that she fled to another subject.
"I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was very weak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy."
"It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy.
"I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. It was a copy of one of Turner's."
"Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in London, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851."
She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed.
"It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones I liked best years ago."
"Where?"
"At the Olympian Exposition."
"I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe. Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere before you came here."
"Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water.
A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, and one, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there for a long rest.
"Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!"
"It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," said Sandy.
They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretended to be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy hadnot learned that unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained from echoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet.
"You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of one discovering a continent.
"I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence.
The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlight fell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind them with a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by the prow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume.
Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyes in a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back the dawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlish cheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertainbreath as her heart tried not to catch beat with his own.
"Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton says you know all sorts of quaint old songs."
"They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me in the old country."
"Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth.
Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began:
"Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted,Savourneen deelish, signan O!As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!—Savourneen deelish, signan O!"
"Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted,Savourneen deelish, signan O!As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!—Savourneen deelish, signan O!"
Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzled eyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon was shining. I remember the refrain perfectly."
Sandy remembered, too. In a moment hefelt himself an impostor and a cheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right to be there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-world tottering about him.
"Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth.
"No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you remember the first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?"
"That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by the railing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I was just a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneen deelish,' nor the way he sang it."
"Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily.
"No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was a boy—a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in a life-boat."
"He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "He stole onboard with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. He sneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. When they found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a little lady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all the years from then to now to thank her for it."
Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment. Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on:
"I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled, and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat the scraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, good man—God prosper his soul!—saw fit to give me a home and an education, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!"
For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of her family threwup a barrier between herself and this son of the soil.
"Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked.
"Why?" cried Sandy, too miserable to hold anything back. "Because I saw the name of the place on your bag at the pier. I came here for the chance of seeing you again, of knowing for sure there was something good and beautiful in the world to offset all the bad I'd seen. Every page I've learned has been for you, every wrong thought I've put out of me mind has been to make more room for you. I don't even ask ye to be my friend; I only ask to be yours, to see ye sometime, to talk to you, and to keep ye first in my heart and to serve ye to the end."
The vireo had stopped singing and was swinging on a bough above them.
Ruth sat very still and looked straight before her. She had never seen a soul laid bare before, and the sight thrilled andtroubled her. All the petty artifices which the world had taught her seemed useless before this shining candor.
"And—and you've remembered me all this time?" she asked, with a little tremble in her voice. "I did not know people cared like that."
"And you're not sorry?" persisted Sandy. "You'll let me be your friend?"
She held out her hand with an earnestness as deep as his own. In an instant he had caught it to his lips. All the bloom of the summer rushed to her cheeks, and she drew quickly away.
"Oh! but I'll take it back—I never meant it," cried Sandy, wild with remorse. "Me heart crossed the line ahead of me head, that was all. You've given me your friendship, and may the sorrow seize me if I ever ask for more!"
At this the vireo burst into such mocking, derisive laughter of song that they both looked up and smiled.
"He doesn't think you mean it," saidRuth; "but you must mean it, else I can't ever be your friend."
Sandy shook his fist at the bird.
"You spalpeen, you! If I had ye down here I'd throw ye out of the tree! But you mustn't believe him. I'll stick to my word as the wind to the tree-tops. No—I don't mean that. As the stream to the shore. No-"
He stopped and laughed. All figures of speech conspired to make him break his word.
Somewhere from out the forgotten world came six long, lingering strokes of a bell. Sandy and Ruth untied the canoe and paddled out into midstream, leaving the willow bower full of memories and the vireo still hopping about among the branches.
"I'll paddle you up to the bridge," said Ruth; "then you will be near the post-office."
Sandy's voice was breaking to say that she could paddle him up to the moon if she would only stay there between him and thesun, with her hair forming a halo about her face. But they were going down-stream, and all too soon he was stepping out of the canoe to earth again.
"And will I have to be waiting till the morrow to see you?" he asked, with his hand on the boat.
"To-morrow? Not until Sunday."
"But Sunday is a month off! You'll be coming for the mail?"
"We send for the mail," said Ruth, demurely.
"Then ye'll be sending in vain for yours. I'll hold it back till ye come yourself, if I lose my position for it."
Ruth put three feet of water between them, then she looked up with mischief in her eyes. "I don't want you to lose your position," she said.
"Then you'll come?"
"Perhaps."
Sandy watched her paddle away straight into the heart of the sun. He climbed the bank and waved her out of sight. He hadto use a maple branch, for his hat and handkerchief, not to mention less material possessions, were floating down-stream in the boat with Ruth.
"Hello, Kilday!" called Dr. Fenton from the road above. "Going up-town? I'll give you a lift."
Sandy turned and looked up at the doctor impatiently. The presence of other people in the world seemed an intrusion.
"I've been out to the Meeches' all afternoon," said the doctor, wearily, mopping his face with a red-bordered handkerchief.
"Is Martha worse?" asked Sandy, in quick alarm.
"No, she's better," said the doctor, gruffly; "she died at four o'clock."
THE VICTIM
Some poet has described love as a little glow and a little shiver; to Sandy it was more like a ravaging fire in his heart, which lighted up a world of such unutterable bliss that he cheerfully added fresh fuel to the flames that were consuming him. The one absorbing necessity of his existence was to see Ruth daily, and the amount of strategy, forethought, and subtilty with which he accomplished it argued well for his future ability at the bar.
In the long hours of the night Wisdom urged prudence; she presented all the facts in the case, and convinced him of his folly. But with the dawn he threw discretion tothe winds, and rushed valiantly forward, leading a forlorn hope under cover of a little Platonic flag of truce.
With all the fervor and intensity of his nature he tried to fit himself to Ruth's standards. Every unconscious suggestion that she let fall, through word, or gesture, or expression, he took to heart and profited by. With almost passionate earnestness he sought to be worthy of her. Fighting, climbing, struggling upward, he closed his eyes to the awful depth to which he would fall if his quest were vain.
Meanwhile his cheeks became hollow and he lost his appetite. The judge attributed it to Martha Meech's death; for Sandy's genuine grief and his continued kindness to the bereft neighbors confirmed an old suspicion. Mrs. Hollis thought it was malaria, and dosed him accordingly. It was Aunt Melvy who made note of his symptoms and diagnosed his case correctly.
"He's sparkin' some gal, Miss Sue; dat's what ails him," she said one eveningas she knelt on the sitting-room hearth to kindle the first fire of the season. "Dey ain't but two t'ings onder heaben dat'll keep a man f'om eatin'. One's a woman, t' other is lack ob food."
Judge Hollis looked over his glasses and smiled.
"Who do you think the lady is, Melvy?"
Aunt Melvy wagged her head knowingly as she held a paper across the fireplace to start the blaze.
"I ain't gwine tell no tales on Mist' Sandy. But yer can't fool dis heah ole nigger. I mind de signs; I knows mo' 'bout de young folks in dis heah town den dey t'ink I do. Fust t'ing you know, I'm gwine tell on some ob 'em, too. I 'spect de doctor would put' near die ef he knowed dat Miss Annette was a-havin' incandescent meetin's wif Carter Nelson 'most ever' day."
"Is Sandy after Annette, too?"
"No, sonny, no!" said Aunt Melvy, to whom all men were "sonny" until they died of old age. "Mist' Sandy he's aimin' athigh game. He's fix' his eyeball on de shore-'nough quality."
"Do you mean Ruth Nelson?" asked Mrs. Hollis, snapping her scissors sharply. "He surely wouldn't be fool enough to think she would look at him. Why, the Nelsons think they are the only aristocratic people that ever lived in Clayton. If they had paid less attention to their ancestors and more to their descendants, they might have had a better showing."
"I nebber said it was Miss Rufe," said Aunt Melvy from the doorway; "but den ag'in I don't say hit ain't."
"Well, I hope it's not," said the judge to his wife as he laid down his paper; "though I must say she is as pretty and friendly a girl as I ever saw. No matter how long she stays away, she is always glad to see everybody when she comes back. Some of old Evan's geniality must have come down to her."
"Geniality!" cried Mrs. Hollis. "It was mint-juleps and brandy and soda. He wasjust as snobbish as the rest of them when he was sober. If she has any good in her, it's from her mother's side of the house."
"I hope Sandy isn't interested there," went on the judge, thoughtfully. "It would not do him any good, and would spoil his taste for what he could get. How long has it been going on, Sue?"
"He's been acting foolish for a month, but it gets worse all the time. He moons around the house, with his head in the clouds, and sits up half the night hanging out of his window. He has raked out all those silly old poetry-books of yours, and I find them strewn all over the house. Here's one now; look at those pencil-marks all round the margin!"
"Some of the marks were there before," said the judge, as he read the title.
"Then there are more fools than one in the world. Here is where he has turned down a leaf. Now just read that bosh and nonsense!"
The judge took the book from her hand and read with a reminiscent smile:
"When cold in the earth lies the friend thou hast loved,Be his faults and his follies forgot by thee then;Or if from their slumber the veil be removed,Weep o'er them in silence and close it again.And, oh! if 't is pain to remember how farFrom the pathway of light he was tempted to roam,Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the starThat arose on his darkness and guided him home."
"When cold in the earth lies the friend thou hast loved,Be his faults and his follies forgot by thee then;Or if from their slumber the veil be removed,Weep o'er them in silence and close it again.And, oh! if 't is pain to remember how farFrom the pathway of light he was tempted to roam,Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the starThat arose on his darkness and guided him home."
The judge paused, with his eyes on the fire; then he said: "I think I'll wait up for the boy to-night, Sue. I want to tell him the good news myself. You haven't spoken of it?"
"No, indeed. I haven't seen him since breakfast. Melvy says he spends his spare time on the river. That's what's giving him the malaria, too, you mark my words."
It was after eleven when Sandy's step sounded on the porch. At the judge's call he opened the sitting-room door and stooddazed by the sudden light. The judge noticed that he was pale and dejected, and he suppressed a smile over the imaginary troubles of youth.
"What's the matter? Are you sick?" he asked.
"No, sir."
"Come in to the fire; it's a bit chilly these nights."
Sandy dropped listlessly into a chair, with his back to the light.
"There are several things I want to talk over," continued the judge. "One is about Ricks Wilson. He has behaved very badly ever since that affair in August. Everybody who goes near the jail comes away with reports of his threats against me. He seems to think I am holding his trial over until January, when the fact is I have been trying to get him released on your account. It is of no use, though; he will have to wait his turn."
"I'm sorry, sir," said Sandy, without looking up.
"Then there's Carter Nelson encouraging him in his feeling against me. It seems that Nelson wants the fellow to drive for him at the fall trots, and he has given me no end of trouble about getting him off. What an insolent fellow Nelson is! He talked very ugly in my office yesterday, and made various threats about making me regret any interference. I wouldn't have stood it from any one else; but Carter is hardly responsible. I have watched him from the time he was born. He came into the world with a mortal illness, and I doubt if he ever had a well day in his life. He's a degenerate, Sandy; he's bearing the sins of a long line of dissolute ancestors. We have to be patient with men like that; we have to look on them as we do on the insane."
He waited for some response, but, getting none, pulled his chair in confidential proximity and laid his hand on Sandy's knee. "However, that's neither here nor there," he said. "I have a surprise for you. Icouldn't let you go to bed without telling you about it. It's about your future, Sandy. I've been talking it over with Mr. Moseley, and he is confident—"
Suddenly Sandy rose and stood by the table.
"Don't be making any more plans for me," he said desperately; "I've made up me mind to enlist."
"Enlist! In the army?"
"Yes; I've got to get away. I must go so far that I can't come back; and, judge—I want to go to-morrow!"
"Is it money matters?"
A long silence followed—of the kind that ripens confidence. Presently Sandy lifted his haggard eyes: "It's nothing I'm ashamed of, judge; ye must take me word for that. It's like taking the heart out of me body to go, but I've made up me mind. Nothing on earth can change me purpose; I enlist on the morrow."
The judge looked at him long and earnestlyover his glasses, then he asked in calm, judicial tones: "Is her answer final?"
Sandy started from his chair. How finite intelligence could have discovered the innermost secret of his soul seemed little short of miraculous. But the relief of being able to pour out his feelings mastered all other considerations.
"Oh, sir, there was never a question. Like the angel she is, she let me be near her so long as I held my peace; but, fool that I am, I break me promise again and again. I can't keep silent when I see her. The truth would burst from me lips if I was dumb."
"And you think you would be better if you were out of her sight?"
"Is a starving man better when he is away from food?" asked Sandy, fiercely. "Heaven knows it's not of meself I'm thinking. It's breaking her tender heart to see me misery staring her in the face, and I'll put it out of her sight."
"Is it Ruth?" asked the judge.
Sandy assented with bowed head.
The judge got up and stood before the fire.
"Didn't you know," he began as kindly as he could put it, "that you were not in her—that is, that she was not of your—"
Sandy lifted blazing eyes, hot with the passion of youth.
"If she'd been in heaven and I'd been in hell, I'd have stretched out my arms to her still!"
Something in his eyes, in his voice, in his intensity, brought the judge to his side.
"How long has this thing been going on?" he asked seriously.
"Four years!"
"Before you came here?"
"Yes."
"You followed her here?"
"Yes."
Whereupon the judge gave vent to the one profane word in his vocabulary.
Then Sandy, having confided so far, made a clean breast of it, breaking downat the end when he tried to describe Ruth's goodness and the sorrow his misery had caused her.
When it was over the judge had hold of his hand and was bestowing large, indiscriminate pats upon his head and shoulders.
"It's hard luck, Sandy; hard luck. But you must brace up, boy. Everybody wants something in the world he can't get. We all go under, sooner or later, with some wish ungratified. Now I've always wanted—" he pressed his fingers on his lips for a moment, then went on—"the one thing I've wanted was a son. It seemed to me there was nothing else in the world would make up to me for that lack. I had money more than enough, and health and friends; but I wanted a boy. When you came I said to Sue: 'Let's keep him a while just to see how it would feel.' It's been worth while, Sandy; you have done me credit. It almost seemed as if the Lord didn't mean me to be disappointed, after all. And to-day, when Mr. Moseley said you ought to have a yearor two at the big university, I said: 'Why not? He's just like my own. I'll send him this year and next, and then he can come home and be a comfort to me all the rest of my days.' That's what I was sitting up to tell you, Sandy; but now—"
"And ye sha'n't be disappointed!" cried Sandy. "I'll go anywhere you say, do anything you wish. Only you wouldn't be asking me to stay here?"
"Not now, Sandy; not for a while."
"Never!—so long as she's here. I'll never bring me sorrow between her and the sun again-so help me, Heaven! And if the Lord gives me strength, I'll never see her face again, so long as I live!"
"Go to bed, boy; go to bed. You are tired out. We will ship you off to the university next week."
"Can't I be going to-morrow? Friday, then? I'd never dare trust meself over the week."
"Friday, then. But mind, no more prancing to-night; we must both go to bed."
Neither of them did so, however. Sandy went to his room and sat in his window, watching a tiny light that flickered, far across the valley, in the last bend of the river before it left the town. His muscles were tense, his nerves a-tingle, as he strained his eyes in the darkness to keep watch of the beacon. It was the last glimpse of home to a sailor who expected never to return.
Down in the sitting-room the judge was lost in the pages of a worn old copy of Tom Moore. He fingered the pages with a tenderness of other days, and lingered over the forgotten lines with a half-quizzical, half-sad smile on his lips. For he had been a lover once, and Sandy's romance stirred dead leaves in his heart that sent up a faint perfume of memory.
"Yes," he mused half aloud; "I marked that one too:
"Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the starThat arose on his darkness and guided him home."
"Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the starThat arose on his darkness and guided him home."
THE TRIALS OF AN ASSISTANT POSTMASTER
By all laws of mercy the post-master in a small town should be old and mentally near-sighted. Jimmy Reed was young and curious. He had even yielded to temptation once in removing a stamp on a letter from Annette Fenton to a strange suitor. Not that he wanted to delay the letter. He only wanted to know if she put tender messages under the stamp when she wrote to other people.
During the two years Sandy remained at the university, Jimmy handed his letters out of the post-office window to the judge once a week, following them half-way with his body to pick up the verbal crumbs of interest the judge might let fall while perusingthem. The supremacy which Sandy had established in the base-ball days had lent him a permanent halo in the eyes of the younger boys of Clayton. "Letter from Sandy this morning," Jimmy would announce, adding somewhat anxiously, "Ain't he on the team yet?"
The judge was obliging and easy-going, and he frequently gratified Jimmy's curiosity.
"No; he's studying pretty hard these days. He says he is through with athletics."
"Does he like it up there?"
"Oh, yes, yes; I guess he likes it well enough," the judge would answer tentatively; "but I am afraid he's working too hard."
"Looks like a pity to spoil such a good pitcher," said Jimmy, thoughtfully. "I never saw him lose but one game, and that nearly killed him."
"Disappointment goes hard with him," said the judge, and he sighed.
Jimmy's chronic interest developed into acute curiosity the second winter—about the time the Nelsons returned to Clayton after a long absence.
On Thanksgiving morning he found two letters bearing his hero's handwriting. One was to Judge Hollis and one to Miss Ruth Nelson. The next week there were also two, both of which went to Miss Nelson. After that it became a regular occurrence.
Jimmy recognized two letters a week from one person to one person as a danger-signal. His curiosity promptly rose to fever-heat. He even went so far as to weigh the letters, and roughly to calculate the number of pages in each. Once or twice he felt something hard inside, and upon submitting the envelop to his nose, he distinguished the faint fragrance of pressed flowers. It was perhaps a blessing in disguise that the duty of sorting the outgoing mail did not fall to his lot. One added bit of information would have resulted in spontaneous combustion.
By and by letters came daily, their weight increasing until they culminated, about Christmas-time, in a special-delivery letter which bristled under the importance of its extra stamp.
The same morning the telegraph operator stopped in to ask if the Nelsons had been in for their mail. "I have a message for Miss Nelson, but I thought they started for California this morning."
"It's to-morrow morning they go," said Jimmy. "I'll send the message out. I've got a special letter for her, and they can both go out by the same boy."
When the operator had gone, Jimmy promptly unfolded the yellow slip, which was innocent of envelop.