The week dragged through to a lifeless close, and the anxiety of those nearest Dale perceptibly increased. Unquestionably he was getting thinner, his eyes were deeper and more haunted. In vain did they urge him to rest but he turned a deaf ear to all entreaty.
The doctor had been expected since noon of the previous day, and every sound on the pike brought the old gentleman to his feet, peering hopefully through the trees. Each hour, from twelve on, had made him more restive. Throughout luncheon and dinner his gaze would repeatedly wander across the terrace to a strip of lane in view from the dining-room window; and he sat up late that night, still listening. So he had slept late this Sunday morning.
But Brent, aroused by an undercurrent of some strange excitement, awakened with the birds. He went softly down the hall for his tub and dressed with more than his usual care; all the while wanting to whistle, but desisting through deference to the sleeping household.
As he stepped out into the fresh early morning one might have remarked a noticeable change in him since the night he crossed twice to Bradford's cottage. His eyeswere clearer, the flesh upon his cheeks was firm and bronzed. He was a few pounds lighter, and this gave his face a clean-cut, chiselled look. His step was buoyant, and one instinctively knew that beneath the well-fitting clothes played a network of splendidly laced muscles. He threw back his head and took a deep, joyous breath of the cool pure air, then went on toward the chairs clustered in inviting comfort beneath the trees. But the grass and they were still wet, so he began strolling around the tanbark circle, following paths and brushing through dew-bathed spider webs stretched like spun glass across his way.
The picturesque old peach orchard was a wealth of blushing fruit, dropping from the over-weighted branches into a carpet of red clover. He went in here, and came out with his teeth buried in a luscious peach—leaning forward and wanting to laugh as its juice trickled over his chin. For not only were his hands occupied with other peaches, but he was pressing tightly beneath one arm a tin cylinder, three feet long and several inches in diameter. This was the thing Zack first noticed when that worthy appeared some half hour later.
"Good mawnin', Marse Brent," he bowed. "It sho'ly do look good to see you down so fresh an' early! What's dat cu'ious lookin' thing you got dar?"
"It's a lay-over-to-catch-meddlers, Uncle Zack."
"A lay over to do which?" he squinted.
"It has a present in it," Brent laughed. "Give me a match!"
He lit a cigarette, and the old fellow watched with afond expression which gradually drew up into a tangle of wrinkles.
"Doesn' you want me to fetch you a li'l julep fer a mawnin'-mawnin'? It'll make yoh breakfas' set mighty good arter all dem peaches, an' I ain' fixed you none for—why, it must be moh'n a month!"
"No, you old sinner, I'm through with your mawnin'-mawnin's; and if you bring any around I'll take you to the grindstone!"
Uncle Zack stroked his jaw and grinned.
"Sho! Dat ain' gwine do me no hahm now, 'caze mah onlies' toof's done drapped out."
"Then I'll get Miss Liz after you!"
"Lawd, Marse Brent," the old fellow grew serious, "you knows she ain' turr'ble no moh! She's jest as meller as dem peaches, an' only las' week give me a dollar 'caze I hadn' cyarried de Cunnel but one julep dat day!"
"Is the Colonel getting up?"
"Naw, sah, he ain' budged. He say he sleepin' better'n he uster."
"Zack, do you want to ride over to Mister Bob's for me before breakfast?"
"You knows I do—'foh breakfas', an' arter breakfas'!"
"Then get your mule—I'll have something for you to take."
While Zack was hurrying to the stables, Brent walked excitedly to the garden to pick a bouquet of flowers; but, although there were thousands of blossoms from whichto choose, their selection seemed a most difficult problem. More difficult, however, was a note he tried to write a few minutes later in the library; and Zack was waiting patiently before the third attempt—which happened to be the successful one—was sealed.
This he tied with the flowers to the mysterious cylinder and handed them to the grinning negro.
"Don't muss things up," he admonished. "And you know who to give them to!"
"I knows you ain' sendin' no flowers to Marse Bob or li'l Bip," the grin became broader.
Then Brent continued his walk. He felt that he could never be quiet again. The Colonel, when he came down, was too much occupied with his own thoughts to notice this restlessness, but, as a woman appeared to serve breakfast, he asked:
"Where is Zack?"
"I'm to blame," Brent answered. "I sent him over to Bob's with a little remembrance. This is Jane's birthday, you know!"
"Why, so it is!" But then he looked fixedly across at Brent, and began to raise up slowly out of his chair. "You didn't send the—the railroad?"
Brent nodded, whereupon the old gentleman threw down his napkin and the next instant they were clasped in each other's arms, dancing about the room, boisterously laughing, kicking, and greatly imperiling the furniture. As they stopped, Miss Liz was standing in the door, her hands up in an attitude of abject horror.
"My dear," the old gentleman panted, "Brent hasfinished the railroad and just this morning sent it over to Jane! We're celebrating!"
"Oh," she sank into her place with a sigh of relief, "I am so thankful it is no worse!"
"Worse! Why, God bless my—" but he checked himself in Miss Liz's presence.
"Did your father say you sent it to Jane?" she asked Brent, now thoroughly mystified, but sharing the happiness which could not be denied anyone in that room just then. "My dear boy, I am so glad!—and Dale will be so glad!"
"Where is Dale?" the men inquired.
Zack being away, and the maid not permitted in Bachelors' Belfry at this hour, Brent was for running up to call him, but the Colonel objected.
"He may be asleep, and that will do him more good than food which he can get at his pleasure!"
Immediately after breakfast Brent eluded the old gentleman and went out beyond the gate to watch for Zack. Up and down the cedar bordered avenue he walked, checking off the eternities which passed before the mule ambled into view.
"I wouldn' a-been so long, Marse Brent," Zack began apologizing and fumbling in his pocket for a note, "but Miss Jane jest nachelly taken a hour writin' dis!"
Now he was as impatient to be away from Zack as he had been for Zack to come. A few minutes later, down in the woodland pasture under a spreading beech, he stretched at full length in the bluegrass and reverently gazed at the little envelope. His own note had not calledfor an answer of great—indeed, of any—importance. (The first one had, and the second!—but the last was, he thought, a model of convention.) However, Zack had said she was a long time writing it;—at least, his eyes could lingeringly dwell over line after line, page after page, traced by her hand!
What did meet his eyes was:
"This is the happiest birthday I have ever known!"
He wondered if she, too, had found note writing difficult!
As the morning wore on he saw the family carriage, with Uncle Zack in his beaver hat, move toward the pike, and he surmised that the Colonel, Nancy and Miss Liz were going in state to pay their respects to Jane. Then he went slowly home. It was very quiet with them away. Someone back near the kitchen was turning an ice cream freezer, which produced a rather unpleasant suggestion of Sunday company, and a long and tiresome feast. He saw the upstairs maid.
"Where's Mister Dale?"
"He's done gone out, sah."
"How was he feeling?"
"I don' know, sah. I didn' see him!"
All of this was true, but Dale had gone out the previous evening, instead of today as the maid supposed when she found his bed in disorder. The mountaineer had regularly perpetrated this ruse each night before starting on his vigil, so, should he any morning be late getting home, the servant would merely suppose he had risen early. But, once snug in his hiding place nearTusk's cabin, he would fitfully yield to cat-naps—alternately dozing a few minutes and watching half an hour. That the first of these brief slumbers did not hold him in its soothing clasp throughout the night, was merely proof of his dominant purpose to remove every obstacle which would keep the school from opening in September. Yet he had become wretchedly in need of sleep; his eyes were bloodshot, and his pulse ran fast.
In another two hours Brent, through the library window, saw the carriage returning majestically along the pike. He glanced at the clock, then at the telephone, then softly closed the door and called Jane.
She took a few minutes to thank him again, graciously, conventionally; nor did she mention the present by name, because it was a good-naturedly accepted neighborhood fact that Miss Gregget listened. Then she told him the Colonel had been there, that Miss Liz had been there, that Nancy had been there; that they had stayed awhile, that they had left; she asked about Dale without giving him a chance to answer; she told him something bright Bip had said, something sagacious Mac had done—and all the while the carriage was coming nearer! He had never before known her to talk so volubly, so incessantly; but, instead of translating its reason, as a wise man might have done, he looked furtively at the circle and repeatedly tried to interrupt her. At last, in desperation, he said:
"They're coming up the porch, and I've only thirty seconds to ask you something!"
She was very quiet then.
"Will you go to the chapel with me this afternoon? Four o'clock?"
"Y—yes! I think it will be fun!"
"Fun! That's worse than 'audience' and 'pulpit'! Shall we ride or drive?"
"Let's ride."
"And Jane!"
Pause—"Yes?"
"It's my happiest birthday, too!"
She laughed. "How old are you, Brent?"
"My eyes have been open for a month;—how old does that make?"
"A very small infant!"
Miss Gregget snickered.
"Oh," Jane gasped.
"Damn," Brent growled, as both instruments clicked simultaneously.
Early that same morning as Jess approached the place where Dale was "laying out" near Tusk's cabin, he stopped a moment, listening; then gave the clear call of a quail. After waiting several minutes he whistled again, and as still no answer came he proceeded with extreme caution.
The sun was not yet up, but in the sky were bars of red that reached high above the mountains, and by this light he saw the watcher, face down upon the rocks, asleep. Nature, his god, had commanded, and he obeyed. Jess smiled, then noiselessly sat down to wait.
Noon came. The sheriff ate part of his lunch, lit his pipe, and settled back for a longer wait. He felt an infinite relief to see this strange man sleeping, for in his gruff make-up had grown a concern for the mountaineer approaching affection. Now he swore softly to himself that, even though Potter should come, he would let him pass rather than wake Dale.
But also during the morning his interest had been held by another thing. Idly facing the east, his gaze wandering over the scarred knobs or their wooded crests, he had gradually become aware of an occasional movement ona spur far up the side of Snarly. Squinting his eyes he could distinctly make out something, but whether it were man or beast he could not be sure. Certainly it moved more as a restless bear whose cub, doubtless unable to master the climb, whined somewhere below. He turned this over in his mind.
It was three o'clock when Dale stirred. The sheriff smiled as he watched Nature gradually remove her bandage from the sleeper, who now, instantly awake, sprang up in dismay.
"Gawd! What time is it?"
Jess held out his watch.
"I must a-slept eighteen hours," the mountaineer gasped, as though such a thing were scarcely in the range of possibility.
"An' real glad I am, too, Dale! We ain't lost nothin' by it, an' it's done you a heap of good. Here's a bite to eat!"
Dale attacked it ravenously, then took a deep breath and stretched.
"I feel like a catamount! Come on, Jess—where'll we hunt?"
"I was jest thinkin'! Whilst you slept, I seen somethin' looked like a bar up on that-ar spur!"
Dale wheeled and watched the place for several minutes.
"I don't see nothin'," he said, at last.
"'Cause it ain't been over to our side yet, that's why! But it's thar, all right—or, leastwise, it was thar!"
"Jess," the mountaineer spoke quickly, "last springI saw him there, too. Come on! Maybe—but I don't reckon it could be, if you thought it was a bear!"
"I don't neither; but thar ain't no tellin'! It's 'bout the only place weain'tbeen! I'll tie the dawg heah, so's if it is a b'ar he won't git cut up none!"
After a hard two-hour climb they reached a ledge seeming to run on a level with the spur, followed it a few hundred feet and, cautiously parting the branches, looked out. There was still too much foliage to permit them to see, and they crept nearer; this time coming to the base of the spur itself. But Jess, who was slightly in advance, drew back and silently cocked his rifle—an act which any mountaineer would rightfully interpret as a command for absolute silence. Together, now, they edged forward.
Barefooted, crawling aimlessly about on his hands and knees, wagging his head from side to side and mumbling, was Tusk—in truth, enough like a bear to excuse the sheriff's former uncertainty. He seemed to have no intimation of the watchers who had, in their surprise, advanced far enough to be in full view. Indeed, twice he crawled within ten feet of them, all the while wagging his head in a way that, were he able to see at all, must surely have disclosed them.
"Is he drunk?" Dale whispered, but Jess solemnly shook his head.
"Nope, he ain't drunk—leastways, that ain't the main trouble! He's plumb crazy with a fever, an' damn nigh starved to death! Look at his face an' cracked lips! Idon't know as we'd orter take 'im down to town, Dale;—maybe it's ketchin'!"
"Not take him! Not take him!" Dale cried in an angry voice. "Well,Iain't afraid of nothin' ketchin'! He won't get away from me again, I tell you!"
"Who said I was afeerd of ketchin' somethin'?" the sheriff answered, with a black frown. "I was thinkin' of other folks! Didn't you never try thinkin' a leetle bit of other folks, jest to see how it 'ud feel, Dale?"
A deep growl from Tusk made them turn again. He was quite still now, and listening; while his eyes, seeing but not seeing, stared at them, and his brows puckered as though trying to call back some hazy memory.
"Good Lawd," Jess whispered, "look at his foot an' leg! It must be blood-pisen, or gang-green, or somethin' like that, Dale!—that, an' a burnin' fever, an' not any too much sense at best, poh devil! Why, he don't know whar he's at! Tusk," the tender-hearted officer stepped out and called to him, "we've come up to help you some!"
A spasm of terror crossed the unfortunate man's face; but then he gave a curious sort of laugh and began to crawl awkwardly toward the point of the spur.
"Set down thar, Tusk," the sheriff called again, this time making ready to follow. "Set down, now, till I git out to you!"
Tusk laughed. A child crawling over a nursery floor might so have laughed if playfully chased by its nurse. But this misshapen hulk of humanity did not possess even the wisdom of a child. He only laughed and crawledfaster, looking back with an expression of mischievous cunning and extreme delight.
Jess saw the imminent danger of Tusk's direction. With one movement he uncocked his rifle and laid it on the ground, then sprang out upon the spur. He did not ask Dale to follow, for somehow it was borne in on him that the mountaineer, having come expressly to wreak vengeance, was making a concession now in remaining neutral.
"Wait thar!" he yelled. "Wait, you fool, afore you pitch over the side!"
The sheriff was running, as well as one could run on such an uncertain, dizzy place, for Tusk had given another cry of hysterical delight and was crawling with all his speed, looking over his shoulder at this new play-fellow who seemed to enter so readily into a game.
"For Gawd's sake," the sheriff screamed. "Stop, Tusk!—Stop!—Oh, my Lawd!"
He was alone upon the spur, his face averted. Dale came slowly out and joined him; listening, also, in the solitude of this wild place to the deep rumble of water far below them, where it rushed into the earth carrying all things to some mysterious subterranean sea. There had been no cry from Tusk as he fell, for doubtless he had thought the plunge but a continuation of the game.
Without speaking, Jess turned and picked up two old shoes which lay in grotesque attitudes on the rock. These he placed side by side, and with them a few scattered remnants of corn bread, an empty whiskey bottle and an old hat. It was a pathetic attempt to do something—to leave the disordered man's house in order; and he smiled quietly when Dale brought a cob pipe, a knife and a twist of "long green" tobacco, which he had found.
Silently, then, they made the descent and trudged homeward; Jess solemn, Dale excitedly happy. But the mountaineer was not going to Arden just yet;—first he must tell Jane that henceforth she could come without fear and help him with his lessons.
"Wall," the sheriff said, after another hour of walking, "if you're goin' to Flat Rock I'd better leave you heah, an' make my way to Arden. Our hunt's ended, right enough; an' Gawd have mercy on his poh, ign'rant soul!"
They shook hands, and once more the mountaineer hurried on.
The elaborate midday dinner at Arden had been dabbled at, or bolted with a rush which did scant justice to the cuisine of that hospitable establishment; for a restiveness obsessed the household which would not be denied. The Colonel was wishing for the return of Doctor Stone—and this happened to be the wish of Nancy. Brent cared little what took place if four o'clock would hurry around. Yet each shared in a vague apprehension for the mountaineer who, Zack told them, had not returned.
"He may have walked over to Bob's," the Colonel suggested, and the simple hearted servant, seeing his old master's distress of mind, unhesitatingly declared:
"Dat's jest whar he done gwine, Marse John, sho's youse bawned!"
This had brought relief, if not conviction.
Nevertheless, the old gentleman preferred to abandon his Sunday afternoon nap in favor of watching for Stone. Always, always now since yesterday morning, he found himself listening for hoofbeats—listening for the returning man of science who would bring a message of caution from the fountain head of Sunlight Patch; and, in this humor of expectancy, wandered out to the grouped chairs to be alone.
At half after three o'clock Brent came softly from the house, mounted his horse and started at a very slow walk around the tanbark circle. During this stealthy advance he watched with affectionate care to see that nothing disturbed the old gentleman, whose chin some time before had sunk peacefully to his breast. Still on the lookout for Stone, still vigilant and faithful to the interest of his mountain friend and guest, the Sunday afternoon nap of many years' indulgence had crept into his brain to claim its own.
For the first two or three miles after he and Jane turned out of Flat Rock their spirited animals were allowed to toss their heads and go for the pure joy of going. Mac dashed on in front, using every ounce of his sinew to keep that position. They were following the same lane, the same tangled aisle of rioting vines which he had one day likened to his life—a life in which his gardener had since been conscientiously employed.
She knew how conscientiously. Had Uncle Zack not daily poured it into Aunt Timmie's ears, still would she have known by a more convincing sense. She knew just when the gardener had entered the woods and pastures of his imaginings, cutting out the poison-ivy and pruning good things for greater promise. She had watched this with secret exultation; it hovered near her pillow in the nights, and touched her lips with song at waking time.
They reached the chapel and entered without a word. But on the threshold—where upon that other Sunday he had asked if this miracle might be performed for her sake and she had answered: "for your own!"—his eyeslooked seriously, deeply, down at her. She knew they were speaking for him, and while the service was in progress she wondered over and over if hers had answered.
Neither of these worshippers, who forgot to worship, was in a mood for talking as they came out and rode slowly home along the lane. Its evening peace seemed to be a continuance of the chapel's calm. The sun was low—balancing, as a red ball, on the hazy, distant hilltops. In three and a half minutes it would be down, leaving them in an afterglow of exquisite softness and touching the partially clouded western sky with a wealth of glory.
Plaintively across the fields could be heard the call of sheep, mellowed by the tinkle of their leader's bell. She could see them—little moving mushrooms on the pasture slope—and to her ears came the sound of someone letting down the stable bars. It suggested someone watching for her coming; someone letting down the bars and calling her into a place where she might be for all time safe.
"The days are getting short," he murmured, watching the last red segment slip from sight. "It won't be so very long before these old oaks are as red as that sky."
"I don't like to think of winter," she, too, spoke dreamily. "And see! It's sunset! Don't you think we should be getting home?"
"I suppose we should," he gloomily answered, though his heart was beating madly. "And in a few days I must think of hurrying home, too—of leaving this, all this," his hand waved toward the crimson west. "It will be as if I were emerging from a wonderful dream—from a crystal palace which will fall in little pieces; and I'll search and search for the rest of my life and never find it again! I shall miss my crystal palace!"
For a moment neither dared to speak. It was very still in the fragrant lane and their horses, which all this while had been walking slower, now stopped as though in obedience to some whispered voice. Leaning gently toward her, trembling before a depth of feeling which had never until this time been so stirred, he said hoarsely:
"I won't lose it! I can't lose it, Jane!"
Distantly—yet almost out of the air about them, as if it were the spirit of Kentucky speaking with ineffable gentleness through the gathering twilight—a quintette of negroes, somewhere across the valley, sang in mellow, minor harmonies:
"Weep no moh, mah lady;Oh, weep no moh, today!"
He could see that her eyes were swimming in an adorable moisture, and her face, touched by the dying day, seemed to be whispering out to him through a glorified mist.
"I can't live without it—now!" he was pleading desperately.
"Neither can I," she whispered.
Half an hour later, Mac was still sitting in the road, his head tilted inquiringly up at them: while the horses, still shoulder to shoulder, stood patiently champing their bits.
When Dale had parted with Jess the westering sun was still half an hour from setting. As he strode powerfully on, his heart bounded with the thought of reopened opportunity—much as it did after Jane left him one other sunset evening when he had been looking into this same sort of sky.
The little stream he followed soon crossed a narrow, tangled lane, and this he knew would lead out toward Flat Rock; but, as he turned into it, far down its shadowy aisle he saw Mac, tail up, smelling under a ledge of rock for chipmunks.
There was no reason why the mountaineer should have sought a hiding-place, except for the wildness in his being which pointed cautionward; or, perhaps, feeling that Jane, not unattended, would be soon in sight, he may have preferred a more auspicious moment to deliver his gladsome tidings. At any rate, without giving much thought to whys or wherefores, he gained the bank overlooking the road and nestled securely in its foliage. Slowly, then, Mac came on, neither seeing nor suspecting; and slowly after him two riders came into view, at the very instant that the red sun dropped from sight.
When they were almost below him, when he suddenlyrealized the indisputable truth that in Brent was an enemy to his ambitions more formidable than poor Tusk had been, a blinding rage swept through his brain which turned all things fiery as the west. Stealthily his hand felt over the ground for a stone large enough to crush this importunate engineer—this thief, who would steal his teacher and leave him stranded in a barren school! One was there, and his fingers, feverishly yet with caution, began to scratch away the loam which held it down. But then he hesitated. Had he not told her that the greatest call of all calls, whether it came from mountain peak or lowland, did not mean fight—it meant surrender? Had he not told her this himself? And so his fingers drew away from the rock. As he peered again through the bushes Brent was saying something about losing a crystal palace—Brent, who had so recently offered to take his place in jail! And then the horses stopped, shoulder to shoulder.
Was it a new glory which illumined the mountaineer's soul at this picture which followed there in the twilight? Was it something that had been reflected from the face and closed eyes of Jane, as Brent drew her into his arms? Had this glimpse of happiness, as he had never dreamed of happiness—this ineffable sweetness of first confessions—this heat of a kiss as pure as God's white crucible which would forever blend them into one being for His service;—had these drawn the scales from the mountaineer's eyes, as Saul's had been blinded at the roadside, and let him see all that had been one-sided, mean and narrow in his life?
It was dusk, and the horses, still shoulder to shoulder, had passed slowly on, when Dale left his place above the road. For a long time he watched where the shadows had closed behind them—now to be always behind them.
Thoughtfully, with steps of meditation, he crossed the fields and came within sight of the twinkling lights at Arden; then for a long while leaned his elbows on a fence and pondered over many things. When he started on there was a great understanding in his soul.
At a pasture near the house he stopped again, and sent a low, trembling call into the night. Listening, he heard the irregular galloping of aged Lucy, whinnying hopefully as she came, and finally rubbing her muzzle against him in unaffected delight. He must have surprised her then, for gently his arms went around her neck and more gently he said:
"Lucy, d'ye reckon ye kin tote me back ter Sunlight Patch?—me, 'n' a book 'r two? I got school larnin' enough ter help 'em for a good long time ter come; but thar's a new larnin', Lucy, I jest now larned—the greatest larnin' of hit all! D'ye reckon ye kin tote me back ter Sunlight Patch?—me, 'n' a book 'r two?"
Transcriber's note:Inconsistencies in dialect and hyphenation are as in the original.