“Let us go to Olympus,” said King Gunther, who was drifting with his snow-maiden through the motley throng. “I may never have another chance of getting there,” he added jocosely.
“I am afraid I should not feel at home there,” answered the daughter of the Rhine; “you know I belong properly to the lower regions.”
“Then let us go to the lower regions,” retorted the king, gayly. “You needn’t go in search ofthe Elysian Fields; you carry them with you wherever you go.”
“Beware, your Majesty,” murmured the water-nymph, threateningly. “You are defying Fate. Creatures of my kind are dangerous to trifle with.”
“It is you who are trifling, not I,” he burst forth; “with me the joke has long ago become serious.”
He felt her arm trembling where it touched his; under the black fringe of her mask he saw her lips quiver, and her eyes shone with a strange, moist radiance. The crowd of gay maskers surged about them and the music whirled away over their heads unheeded, and broke in showers of rippling sound.
“Listen to me,” he whispered boldly, stooping to her level—but in the same moment a heavy hand was laid upon his neck and a burly, gray-bearded Jupiter stood before him with a great train of Olympian attendants.
“I love the daughters of this green earth,” said the king of the gods; “or I should say the green daughters of this black earth,” he corrected himself, touching with a caressing hand the green sea-weeds of the swan maiden’s drapery.
“Excuse me, Father Jupiter,” Grover began, knowing well, in spite of his chagrin, that pranks of this kind were perfectly legitimate; “you mix up the mythologies. This is not a classic nymph, but a Northern swan-maiden.”
“By my Olympian beard,” cried Jupiter, “that shows your barbaric taste, if you do not pronounce her classic.”
“I must insist,” Grover replied, “that to your pagan majesty a creature of Northern fable has no existence.”
“Then by my Ambrosian locks we will give her existence,” quoth the father of gods and men. “Mercury, my son,” he cried, pointing with his sceptre to a graceful youth with winged heels and cap, “change me quickly this maiden into something classic, but don’t change her too much or you will spoil a divine masterpiece.”
Mercury, with winged speed, came forward, waved his wand over the swan-maiden’s head, when behold! she vanished.
“Why, your magic is too potent, you rascal,” ejaculated Jupiter. “I didn’t tell you to make her invisible.”
He flourished his pasteboard sceptre in mock wrath above his head, dealt Mercury a resounding blow on the head, then marched on, followed by his immortal family and a jovial throng of leaf-crowned Bacchantes. Grover remained standing in the middle of the floor, hoping that, as the crowd dispersed, Miss Jones would naturally again seek him. But Miss Jones had apparently no such intention. She persistently remained invisible. At last, thinking that she had meant her allusion to the lower regions as a hint, he made his way to the head of the stairs and descended, not without difficulty, to the first floor. The dancing had commenced above and the multitude of scaly monsters who had haunted the deep, were lured by the airsof Strauss up into the abodes of the daylight. The submarine world was almost deserted (except by a huge lobster and a shark, who were drinking lemonade) when Grover entered upon his quest for the vanished water-nymph. He investigated two or three grottoes, with no result except to tear his cloak on an exposed nail and knock a hole in his helmet. He was just about to resort to a classical imprecation, when the necessity for it was suddenly dissipated. There stood the daughter of Rhine, wonderful to behold, in sweet converse with her chaperone, the black domino. The young man lost no time in making the ladies aware of his presence.
“I hope you are enjoying yourself, Frau Professorin,” he said, as he offered his arm, as a matter of course, to the swan-maiden.
“Oh, yes, I thank you. It takes very little to amuse an old woman like me,” she answered, pleasantly. “The music is good and the masks are very entertaining.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?” he queried politely, hoping from the bottom of his heart that she would say no.
“Don’t you bother about me,” was her amiable reply; “I will take care of myself. I only came to see you young people enjoy yourselves.”
He had evidently been unjust to the Frau Professorin, he reflected. She was a very charming old lady. He conceived a sudden affection for her. In a very blissful mood he strolled away under thegreat festoons of depending sea-weeds, giving now and then a little casual pat to the hand which lightly rested on his arm. By some chance they found themselves in a deserted stalactite cave, where the gas-jets gleamed softly from within emerald cones of glass and spread a strange magic glamour under the pendent arches.
“Let us sit down,” said Grover; and the swan-maiden, whose agitation probably forbade her to speak, silently accepted the invitation. “What a transformation love works in a woman,” he reflected ecstatically; “who would recognize in this sweet, docile creature the rebellious and headstrong girl of three months ago? I have long wished to tell you,” he continued aloud, seizing her hand and drawing her close up to him, “that my life would be barren as a desert without you. You have taught me by your sweet reserve, and your self-respecting coolness, first to esteem you highly, then to admire and at last to love you. Do not think even now that I take your consent for granted. I only hope that love, as strong and deep as mine, cannot fail to find some response. It is imperious, all-conquering; it fears no more resistance.”
There was obviously no occasion for such impassioned rhetoric. The swan-maiden had not the faintest idea of offering resistance. She slipped with a soft and charming suppleness into his embrace and received his ecstatic kisses without a murmur of protest. It was not until he made a movement to tear off her mask (whose dependingfringe was a great inconvenience) that she suddenly recovered her senses: with a startled cry she stayed his hand, cast a shy glance about her, jumped up and ran as fast as her feet could carry her. If she had been a real fairy, she could not have made a more rapid and unexpected exit. Grover was utterly dumbfounded. He thought of the old legends about knights who had been loved by mermaids whose kiss was death and their embrace eternal damnation. An uncanny feeling crept over him. But a cheerful second thought soon came to comfort him. He had heard from the best authorities that women were enigmatical and incalculable creatures who were most apt to do what was least expected of them. They had a perfect encyclopedia of eccentricities, if the novelists were to be trusted, and it was not to be expected that his brief acquaintance with the sex should have sufficed to master it. This was a profitable train of thought and one well worth pursuing. Therefore, instead of pursuing his nymph, he leaned back against the wall and pondered.
The nymph, in the meanwhile, after a hurried search below, ran to the dressing-room, where she flung herself weeping into the arms of the black domino.
“What in Heaven’s name is the matter, child?” inquired the latter. “Was he rude to you?”
“Not at all,” sobbed the nymph; “no-o-ot a-a-at all. Quite the co-o-on-tra-ry.”
“What then are you crying for?” asked the domino sympathetically.
“He kissed me, mother; he kissed me,” answered the nymph, weeping.
“You ought not to have allowed him to do that,” said the Frau Professorin, with mild reproach.
“How could I help it, mother? He talked so beautifully to me. He proposed to me. And I forgot that I was Miss Jones. I was only myself—and—”
A second flood of tears made the rest unintelligible.
“Are you sure he proposed to you, child?” queried the mother, after a pause.
“Quite sure, mother.”
“But then he must have known you. For why should he propose to Miss Jones, to whom he is already engaged?”
“That is what makes me so unhappy, mother, for now I shall never know whether I am engaged to him or not.”
“Leave that to me, child. I’ll find out.”
The next day Grover had an accident, which cost him upward of $200. He mixed something or other, which made a terrific racket and smashed no end ofretorts and bottles. When he entered the laboratory again after having trimmed off the scorched fringe of his whiskers, he found a big card nailed over his place, with the following inscription: “Smoking and being in love in this laboratory is strictly forbidden.” The prohibition in regard to smoking was in print; the rest was interpolated with a paint-brush. Grover looked around wrathfully upon the twenty or thirty backs which reared themselves against shelves of many-colored bottles; they bore all an expression of unconscious innocence.
The hour was approaching when he might without impropriety call upon hisfiancée. His toilet, however, needed some attention, after his recent experiment with explosives; and he hastened to his rooms to make himself presentable. On the table he found a letter, addressed in the usual high-shouldered characters of American girls. It read as follows:
My Dear Mr. Grover:Our engagement for mutual convenience being no longer convenient, I grant your request and hereby break it. I would have done so when you first asked me, only I enjoyed your embarrassment, and had, moreover, a desire to punish you for the liberty you took with a lady whom you had not seen until that moment. I trust we shall remain good friends. If you desire a scene of some sort, in order to advertise our changed relations to the household, you may call upon me this afternoon at three. You will understand that I do this only to save explanations. A quarrel, you know, ends everything; is so intelligible andsatisfactory; precludes questions and discourages curiosity. Accordingly, my dear sir, I will quarrel with you at 3:15 P.M., promptly, and remain,Sincerely your friend,Louise Jones.Leipsic, March 12, 187-.
My Dear Mr. Grover:Our engagement for mutual convenience being no longer convenient, I grant your request and hereby break it. I would have done so when you first asked me, only I enjoyed your embarrassment, and had, moreover, a desire to punish you for the liberty you took with a lady whom you had not seen until that moment. I trust we shall remain good friends. If you desire a scene of some sort, in order to advertise our changed relations to the household, you may call upon me this afternoon at three. You will understand that I do this only to save explanations. A quarrel, you know, ends everything; is so intelligible andsatisfactory; precludes questions and discourages curiosity. Accordingly, my dear sir, I will quarrel with you at 3:15 P.M., promptly, and remain,
Sincerely your friend,Louise Jones.
Leipsic, March 12, 187-.
Grover read this enigmatical epistle eleven times without deriving the slightest clue to its meaning. He read it aloud and he read it in silence, he analyzed, scrutinized and apostrophized it, but without avail. That feminine caprice could reach such alarming dimensions he had never dreamed. That she should want to break with him the morning after she had become really engaged to him could be accounted for by a variety of reasons. But that she should write him a cool and semi-humorous letter, showing no more agitation than one of Bret Harte’s heroes who is about to be hanged—that certainly capped the climax of eccentric behavior. And that, after her passionate protests! But hold on! What did she say yesterday that was so passionate? Curiously enough, he could not remember a word of what she had said. It began slowly to dawn upon him that, during the memorable scene, he had himself done all the talking. She had not uttered a syllable. It was odd, but probably not without precedent. Well, if she wanted her quarrel, she should have it promptly on the hour, and withéclat.
At 3:15 o’clock he rang the Professor’s door-bell, and was ushered into the drawing-room, where Miss Jones stood smiling sweetly upon him.
“I hope you didn’t misunderstand my note,” she said, seeing the troubled look in his eyes.
“Misunderstand it!” he ejaculated, with ill-suppressed indignation; “if I had arrived as far as misunderstanding it, I should have had respect for my intellect. I doubt if the seven sages could have interpreted it.”
“It wasn’t necessary that they should,” said Miss Jones imperturbably.
“But suppose they had made love to you?” he began, argumentatively.
“The seven sagesnevermade love to me,” remarked Miss Jones, perversely.
“But suppose you had kissed them?”
“Ineverkissed them!”
Miss Jones repelled this insinuation with indignant emphasis.
“It is utterly useless to argue with you,” he said, pacing the floor in agitation.
“Then I would not try.”
“You are cruel, vain, and heartless.”
“If those qualities were contagious, I should know where I got them.”
“You mean yesterday, when you kissed me!”
“I must decline to listen to such language. You will have the kindness to remember Mr. Grover, that from this moment our acquaintance is at an end.”
Miss Jones arose with flaming cheeks and eyes in which the unseen tears trembled; she made Mr. Grover a sweeping courtesy and moved with a good deal of superfluous stateliness toward the door. Hereturned her salute, though with much less dignity; then rushed forward to hold her back, but with an impatient gesture she shook off his grasp and hurried out.
“We met to quarrel in jest, and we did it in earnest,” he reflected grimly, as he picked up his hat and opened the door. There was a sudden, agitated rustle of skirts in the hall, and he was just in time to see Röschen’s back hair vanish into the dining-room.
Being engaged is said to be a very delightful thing. You fulfill a pleasant duty to society and one no less pleasant to yourself. In Germany particularly, the engaged state is one of great honor. You advertise the important event in the newspapers, above the marriages and births; you walk abroad with yourfiancéearm-in-arm (which is an inestimable privilege); you introduce her with much ceremony to your uncles and cousins and aunts; you receive congratulations—in short, you become a sort of public character, until some one else goes and follows your illustrious example. Then you become an old story and lapse into insignificance.
It was this ravishing vision of the engaged state,with its attendant festivities, which had excited Röschen’s imagination. She had seen herself a hundred times on Grover’s arm, making the round of her whole circle of acquaintance, and introducing him triumphantly to her pet enemies. He would, of course, at a hint from her, be gracious to those who had been kind to her, and politely snub those who had been disagreeable to her. There was a day of reckoning coming for those who had made sport of Röschen’s verses, a day of glorious revenge. But the trouble now was, that, although Röschen looked upon herself as engaged, and respected herself accordingly, she did not have the courage to claim herfiancé. She was, as it were, anonymously engaged. The uncertainty of the thing tortured her. She was more than once tempted to sit down and write to Mr. Grover, telling him that it was she to whom he was engaged; but the thought that he might, in that case, divine her plot always deterred her. That he had quarrelled with Miss Jones hardly simplified the matter; for a lover’s quarrel of that sort is never such a serious affair as the parties involved are apt to think. If only Miss Jones would have the inspiration to go to Berlin or to Stuttgart, or to Halifax, the road to Grover’s affections would be comparatively plain sailing. But Miss Jones, in spite of the most pointed hints regarding the superior musical advantages of other cities, persisted in remaining where she was. She practiced with an odious regularity and indefatigable zeal, which knew neither wearinessnor discouragement. She did not grow perceptibly thinner, nor did her complexion show the ravages of sorrow. It was unanimously resolved by the ladies of the household that she was a cold and heartless monster. If it hadn’t been for the fact that she paid forty dollars a month (which was put aside for dowries), she would have been told to pack her trunk.
This phase of feeling lasted about three weeks. Then the unfailing charm of Miss Jones’s affability began once more to assert itself. Röschen was seized with a sudden desire to kiss her; for she looked so irresistibly cool and lovely as she sat at the breakfast-table sipping her coffee, and propounding her neat little German sentences, which were always correct, though with a faint flavor of “Otto.” Röschen felt positive that those calm, intelligent eyes of Miss Jones’s read them all like a book; and instead of being indignant at such presumption, Röschen grew repentant. She yearned to fling herself at Miss Jones’s feet and confess all her wickedness. She would wear white, with a single red rose in her bosom likeLa Sonnambula. When she thought of all the heroines of history and romance who had renounced the men they loved, she too felt that she could rise to a like heroism in renouncing the man she didn’t love; for she did not, for one moment, deceive herself in regard to her sentiment for Grover. It was the engaged state she had been in love with; and he was merely a lay figure, convenient for the occasion—a puppet with whom sheenacted the scenes appropriate to the engaged condition.
She was yet pondering the problem, but had not yet nerved herself for action, when one day she was startled at the sound of Grover’s voice in the hall. He handed his card to the girl and inquired for the Frau Professorin. There was a council of war on the spot, and the Frau Professorin sent word that she was “not at home.” Grover then asked permission to see “the young ladies.” It was a very disappointing message; the plural number was especially disheartening. The sisters, however, were equal to the occasion. Minchen and Gretchen nobly declared that they were “out.” Accordingly there was nothing to do, except for Röschen to receive the visitor. She donned her white muslin, stuck a Jacqueminot rose in her bosom, and entered the drawing-room with a quaking heart. The young man shook hands with her without the faintest trace of embarrassment, and begged her to have the kindness to present his “adieux” to the family, as he had concluded to continue his studies in Berlin.
“And you are going to leave Leipsic!” she exclaimed, in astonishment.
“Naturally,” he replied: “I leave to-night.”
Röschen’s heart thumped as if it meant to work its way out through her ribs.
“Now or never!” it said, with an unmistakable plainness; “now or never!”
The Jacqueminot rose fell to the ground; Groverstooped to pick it up. Had he only said: “May I keep this as a souvenir of our friendship,” or something of that sort, she would at once have summoned courage to make her confession. But, instead of that, he gravely handed her back the rose and remarked that he was under great obligation to her father and mother for their kindness to him during his stay in the city. She knew of no appropriate reply to this observation until his silence forced her to invent one. “You have given us no opportunity of late to be either kind or unkind to you,” she said, with a blush, which made her feel hot all over.
“The circumstances are at fault, not I,” he answered, and got up to take his leave.
“Pardon me,” she said, grasping his hand with a desperate clutch; “I think I heard mother come in. I’ll be back in one moment.”
Several minutes elapsed, however, but neither Röschen nor the Frau Professorin appeared. Then a sudden sound of sobs was heard in the next room, and Grover, fearing that some one was in distress, hastily opened the door. There stood Miss Jones, grave and benign, stooping over the weeping Röschen, who was dramatically embracing her knees.
“Oh, it was I—it was I who made trouble between you,” sobbed the girl, flinging back her head and gazing imploringly up into Miss Jones’s face. “You are so good and noble, Louise, can you ever forgive me? Oh, I wish you would kill me, so that I never could do you any harm again.”
“That won’t be necessary, my dear,” said MissJones, soothingly, stroking the penitent’s hair and kissing her forehead; then, catching sight of Grover, she instantly recovered her dignity and disengaged herself from Röschen’s embrace. The latter, with a wildly despairing glance at the young man, sprang up and rushed out of the room.
Miss Jones and Grover stood face to face. The reverberation of Röschen’s excitement seemed to linger in the room, and they waited for it to pass away before speaking.
“I came to bid you good-bye,” he said at last; it did not occur to him that he had not come for that purpose.
“I am happy to have a chance to—to—beg your pardon,” replied Miss Jones, with a heroic determination to crucify her pride. “I was harsh and unjust to you. Röschen has told me all.”
“I wish she would tellmeall. I am as much in the dark as ever.”
“The girl to—to—whom you proposed in the grotto—was—was—not I,” she faltered, grasping the door-knob for support, and gazing into the mirror with a vain hope to hide her blushes.
He drew a long sigh of relief. That intelligence simplified existence enormously. He had had a hopeless feeling, of late, that life was too complex an affair for him to grapple with. Now, as by a flash, order was restored in his chaotic universe. He stood gazing in rapture at Miss Jones’s blushing face, which seemed angelic in its purity and its dignified maidenhood. That there dwelt a sweet young soulbehind those blameless features he felt blissfully convinced.
“Miss Jones,” he began, “if Miss Röschen has confessed to you, you know what I would have liked to say to you—that night in the grotto. Now, what would you have answered me?”
A little ray of mirth stole over the girl’s face, and vanished again.
“I should have said—no,” she remarked smilingly.
The orderly universe again tumbled into chaos. She was the veritable Sphinx, and he not the Œdipus to read her riddle.
“Then I will bid you good-bye,” he managed to stammer, extending an unwilling hand and again withdrawing it.
“Good-bye, Mr. Grover,” she said with heartless cheerfulness; “I hope it is not forever.”
“I am afraid it is,” he murmured sadly.
He took two steps toward the door, and laid his hand on the knob.
“Oh, by the way,” ejaculated the girl, with a sudden alarm in her voice; “that question you would have asked me in the grotto—why don’t you ask it now?”
“You said you would say no.”
He had turned about in unutterable astonishment.
“I didn’t say that,” she retorted gravely.
“What did you say then?”
“That I should have said Noin the grotto.”
The scene which followed was of a strictly private and confidential character; I fear Miss Jones would take me to task if I divulged it.
By Julia Schayer.
⁂Swinton’s Story-Teller, October 31, 1883.
The early darkness of a moonless winter night had fallen, nowhere more darkly and coldly than upon a certain small western town, whose houses were huddled together in the valley as if for mutual protection against the fierce winds sweeping through the trackless forests which surrounded it. Here and there the cheerful glow of lamp or fire shone from some uncurtained window, most brightly from the windows of the stores and saloons that occupied the centre of the town, whence issued also fitful sounds of talk and laughter. Otherwise the darkness was complete.
On the outskirts of the town, just at the foot of a steep hill, stood a cottage somewhat more pretentiously built than the others, and surrounded by something of a lawn, laid out with flower-beds and shrubbery, now almost buried in deep drifts ofsnow. From one window of this cottage, too, a most heartsome glow streamed out over the snow from a lamp placed, as could be seen, with loving intent upon the window-ledge, and out of the darkness there presently emerged the figure of a man, making his way up the foot-path toward the house, his feet ringing sharply against the hard-trodden snow.
Along one side of the house—planted without doubt to break the force of the northern gales—extended a grove of pines and firs, looking now, in the darkness, like the advance guard of a mighty host with banners slowly waving, and strange instruments giving forth weird, unearthly harmonies. As the man passed this spot he slackened his steps once or twice, and seemed to listen for some sound that had caught his ear, and again, when his foot was already on the lower step of the flight leading to the door, he stopped suddenly, his face turned toward the sombre wall of trees.
The light of the lamp illumined their slender trunks and lower boughs, leaving their tops wrapped in utter darkness. It also threw into strong relief the powerful figure of the man, and projected his shadow, huge, wavering and grotesque, across the intervening space. For an instant another shadow seemed to start forward from the mysterious recesses of the pines as if to meet this one, only to fall back and be gathered into the blackness beyond.
The man shrugged his broad shoulders, and,turning, entered the house. A fair, slender woman rose from her seat by the open fire, and went to him.
“Oh! Jamie,” she said, “here you are, at last! I’m so glad! I was so afraid something had happened?”
The man threw off his heavy coat with a good-humored laugh.
“Were you afraid I might blow away?” he asked, straightening his large figure. “Why are you always imagining vain things, like a foolish little wifie? I’m big enough to take care of myself, eh, lassie?”
The little wife answered with a smile of loving admiration.
“Come,” she said, “supper has been ready a long time, and Bab asleep this half-hour.”
She took the lamp from the window and set it on the table, where it shone full on her husband’s face. It was a fine, thoroughly English face, with high forehead, brilliant blue eyes, and thick curling hair and beard of a bright golden-brown. A handsome face, and a strong one, but for a womanish fulness of the ruddy lips, and a slight lack of firmness about the chin, which was concealed, however, by the luxuriant beard. It was a face which could, and habitually did, radiate amiability, good cheer, and intelligence, but which had a way of settling at times into stern and melancholy lines, curiously belying his assured carriage, and the sonorous ring of his ready laugh.
Very good to look at was James Dixon, and, as his townsmen unanimously admitted, in spite of his English birth, a good citizen, a shrewd politician, a generous neighbor, and, though at times a little reticent and abstracted, a companionable fellow altogether.
Even now, as he sat at his own table, one might have detected a kind of alertness in his eyes, as of a man ever on his guard, and what seemed almost a studied avoidance of his wife’s soft, persistent gaze, as she sat opposite him.
“Sh! What was that?” she suddenly exclaimed. There had been a faint sound outside the window. It had ceased now.
“It was nothing, Bab!” said her husband. “How nervous you are!”
Even as he spoke the sound was repeated, and he himself started now.
“I’m catching your nervousness, Bab,” he said, with a short laugh. “The wind is the very deuce to-night.”
At that moment a little girl in her nightgown ran out from the adjoining room, and with a gleeful cry sprang into his arms, her long yellow hair spreading itself over his shoulder.
“You see, dear old papa, Babwasn’tasleep!” she cried, covering his face with kisses.
“And whyisn’tBab asleep?” her father said, with an assumption of sternness.
“Because shecan’tsleep. The wind makes such a noise in the pines, and the icicles keep falling offthe eaves, and make such a pretty tinkling on the snow. Do you hear it? Hark!”
“The wind increases fearfully,” said the wife, going to the window and drawing the shade. “It is a bitter night.”
“Bad enough for anybody to be out in,” said Dixon, with the comfortable air of one safely housed. He moved his chair to the fire, and began fondling and playing with the pretty child on his knee. Her little face, however, had grown suddenly grave.
“What is it, pussy?” asked her father; “it looks so serious all at once.”
“I was thinking,” said the child, slowly; “I was wondering where the poor old man I saw up on the hill to-day would sleep to-night. Such a poor, poor man, so old and sick and ragged.”
“Bless the chick! What is she talking about now?”
“Some man she saw to-day when she was on the hill coasting with the others,” the mother said. “Some tramp, I suppose.”
“I have not heard of any in town,” said Dixon, with sudden thoughtfulness. “It isn’t the season for tramps. Oh!” he added, carelessly, as the child continued to look in his face, “some worthless old vagabond, I suppose, dearie. Don’t fret your little heart about him. He’ll find a warm nest in somebody’s hay-mow, no doubt.” But little Bab shook her head.
“I don’t think he was bad,” she said, softly, “only very sick and sorry. He asked me my name, and when I told him he laughed out so queer! And then I showed him our house, and told him maybe you’d give him some money, and then he laughed again, and then I—I got scared because the other girls had all run away, and I ran away, too.”
Her father had listened with strange intentness. His playfulness was extinguished, and his face looked all at once careworn and troubled.
“You’re a silly little lass,” he said, after a moment’s silence, “and you must not talk to strange men who ask questions. They might carry you off, you know.”
He held the child silently a little while longer, and then carried her back to her bed; after which he returned to his seat near the fire. His wife had already seated herself in her low chair, her face bent above the knitting in her hands. Outside the wind howled and roared, but in the room where these two sat all was, to the eye, calm, and sweet, and cosey. The fire glowed, and emitted cheerful little snaps and sparks, the clock ticked, and the knitting-needles clicked, and through the open door the child’s soft, regular breathing was distinctly audible. Suddenly the woman stirred and looked up, to find her husband’s eyes fixed upon her. Strangely enough they faltered, and turned away, but presently came back to hers again.
“You are very silent to-night, lassie,” he said, putting out his hand to stroke her fair girlish head. “Are you ill, or over-tired?”
She shook her head, and dropping the knitting from her hands, clasped them over her husband’s knee, and laid her cheek upon them.
“No,” she said, softly, “not ill, nor tired. Only somehow I have been thinking all day of old times and—of him!”
She dropped her voice to a whisper as she spoke the last words, and her husband felt the hands on his knee tremble. He said nothing, though his face grew dark, and his teeth shut over his lip tightly. “I have been wondering,” she went on, “what became of him, Jamie!—if he is still alive, and—” with a break in the soft voice—“if he has forgiven memypart in his suffering. Oh, Jamie!” she broke out passionately, throwing her arms about her husband, and raising her lovely, tearful face to his, “Oh, Jamie! I was so young and foolish when I promised to be his wife, and I had not even seen you then! Tell me, Jamie, was I so very, very wicked that I loved you best? Could I help it, Jamie?” She rose and threw herself upon his breast, sobbing like a child. She could not, through her tears, see the working of his face, nor the effort it caused him to speak. He tried to quiet her with caresses and all manner of fond epithets, and at last she lay still, with closed eyes, upon his shoulder.
A tremendous blast swept through the valley,shaking the cottage to its foundation, and shrieking down the chimney like a cry of despair.
“Great heavens!” Dixon muttered; “what a night!” Then, rousing himself, he added, “Come, lassie. Come rest, and promise me not to give way to such excitement again. You are not strong, and such moods are dangerous for you.”
They rose, and stood facing each other before the dying fire.
“One thing,” he said, seizing her hands, with a swift change of manner—“one thing, Barbara. Have you ever been sorry that you came with me—that you trusted me?”
She looked at him wonderingly, but with perfect love and trustfulness.
“Never, Jamie!” she said. “Never for one moment.”
“And whatever happens,” he went on, drawing her closer, “whatever happens, you are sure you neverwillbe sorry?”
“Quite sure, Jamie!”
He kissed her again and again, until she laughed at his lover-like vehemence.
“Any one would suppose we were about to be separated for years,” she said, playfully.
He laughed, too, but his face and voice were serious, as he said, firmly:
“Nothing shall separate us but death, lassie!”
... When Dixon left his house the next morning it was still intensely cold, but the windhad gone down, and the clumps of evergreens and shrubbery on the lawn were motionless as if painted there.
He stood a moment on the lower step drawing on his fur mittens, and, nodding at the child-face smiling at him from the window, then started to go. But at the first step his foot struck against some object which gave out a metallic sound, and stooping quickly, he raised from the snow a small pistol. One glance showed him that it was in perfect order, and every barrel loaded.
He remained for some time turning this object over and over in his hand, his nether lip drawn between his teeth. At last he glanced toward the window. The child was no longer there, but he saw now, what had before escaped his notice, that the snow beneath the window was broken and trodden by a man’s footprints. With a smothered exclamation Dixon bent an instant above these tracks, and then began tracing them carefully. He found where they led from the group of pines to the window; he found where they had first approached the house across the open fields from the hill beyond, direct and even, as of one with a fixed purpose; he found also where they had turned from the window in long, regular strides as of one in flight. These he followed to the foot of the hill, and across to the other side, where they seemed to lose themselves in the trackless forest. He stood here again for some moments, an ashy ring forming itself about his lips. Then, with a deep breath,he set his teeth together, thrust the pistol into his pocket, and turned toward the town. It was scarcely awake as yet. Smoke curled lazily upward from the chimneys, but hardly any one was stirring. Even about the door of that great commercial emporium known far and near as “Buckey’s,” the regular loafers had as yet no representative; and here, as elsewhere, the snow, which had drifted across the steps, was undisturbed.
A little beyond “Buckey’s” stood a neat frame structure, across whose entrance stretched a sign bearing the inscription:
“James Dixon, Justice of the Peace.”
This building Dixon entered. A boy who was steaming himself at the great stove in the centre of the room looked up with a duck of the head as the proprietor of the office entered, paying no further attention as he proceeded to divest himself of his outer garments and seat himself at his desk.
Apparently business at this time of the year was not pressing, for, beyond arranging some papers with legal headings, and glancing over a newspaper or two, Dixon did no work. The most of the time he sat industriously smoking, his eyes set upon the uncheerful winter landscape without. Once, when the boy was absent he took from his breast-pocket the pistol, and examined it again with a knitted brow; after which he locked it in a drawer of the desk, and resumed his pipe.
At noon he sent the boy away, and, locking the office-door, turned his face homeward. The townwas awake now, or as much so as it was likely to be. A few sleighs and sleds were standing before the doors of the saloons, and it appeared to Dixon that an unwonted excitement prevailed in and about “Buckey’s,” all the men visible being gathered before the familiar red door, and all talking at once in even louder tones than usual.
As Dixon came nearer, two of the men started forward and approached him.
“We was jest a-comin’ fur ye, Square,” said the foremost. “Thar’s a stranger in thar as won’t give no account of himself, an’ we was thinkin’——”
“Oh, quit foolin’,” said the other, roughly. “It’s nothing but a dead tramp. That’s all, Square,” and he shifted his quid to the other side of his mouth, composedly.
Dixon changed countenance. A little tremor ran through his frame.
“A tramp?” he repeated. “Dead?”
“Dead as a door-nail!” the man answered. “Froze brittle. Small an’ his boy found him this mornin’ in Crosse’s timber.”
They started on, giving Dixon precedence. It appeared to the men that he showed very small interest, and unaccountable deliberation. Even when they had reached Buckey’s, he mounted the steps slowly, standing an instant with his hands on the latch, as if indifferent, or reluctant. At last, with another impatient movement of the shoulders, he opened the door and went in. The crowdof rough, bearded men who filled the space between the counters and the stove, nodded respectfully and fell back.
That which they had surrounded lay stretched stark and stiff upon the bare floor. It was the body of a man which had been at some time sturdy and strong. Now it was pinched and wasted, and clad in thin, worn garments, and shoes that seemed ready to drop from the naked, frost-bitten feet. The unkempt iron-gray hair and beard gave the face, at first glance, a look of wildness, but, observing more closely, one saw that the features, though heavy, were not uncomely, and wore a look of extreme suffering, which even death had not been able to efface.
“Looks like a Inglishman, eh, Square?” said one of the men present.
Dixon did not seem to have heard him. He stood looking down upon the dead man without moving or speaking. The ashy ring had again shown itself about his lips, and was creeping slowly over his face.
“It’s the first as I’ve seen in these parts for many a year,” said another. “Our county ain’t pop’lar with that kind,” he added, grimly.
“He took a mighty oncomfortable time o’ year fur trampin’,” said a blear-eyed vagabond near the stove. “I’ve ben meditatin’ somethin’ o’ the kind myself, but reckon I’ll wait fur warm weather. My constitution is delikit.”
“Don’twait for warm weather, Shanks,” saidBuckey himself, leaning comfortably across the counter. “They’ll make it warm enough foryou, whenever ye go!”
At the laugh which followed this sally, Dixon started and looked around him, in a dazed sort of way. The laugh died out suddenly, and the men sank into a shame-faced silence, but even now he did not speak.
“They’s somethin’ in his breast pocket, Square,” said one of them, bending over the body. “Somethin’ like a book, or a——”
“Take it out, Slater,” said Dixon, in a voice at which all present started, and looked at him curiously.
The man did as ordered, producing from the tattered pocket a small, soiled blank-book, whose pages appeared to be closely written. He handed it to Dixon, who took it mechanically, and, opening it, appeared to glance at the contents at random.
Those nearest him saw his fingers close suddenly upon the book, and heard the sharp indrawn breath which he shut back between his teeth. He put his hand to his head again, and held it there while his eyes swept over the group of respectful but inquisitive faces.
“There is something here,” he said, holding the book before him, and speaking in the voice which had once before made them start—“there is something here I would like to look into. Let the—the body lie here until I come back.”
There was a murmur of assent, and he turned and left the store. They saw him stand a moment on the step outside, his face toward home. Then he turned in the opposite direction and disappeared.
Dixon entered his office, locked the door, and flung himself into his chair, the little book open before him. The ashen ring had widened until his whole face was like that of the dead. Not a muscle of his rigid face stirred as with desperate eyes he read on and on. Only the faint rustle of the leaves as he turned the pages, and his heavy breathing broke the silence. And this is what he read: