CHAPTER XXXVIII
Professor Young knocked at the Skinner hut. Tess smiled at him from between the tatters of the curtain, and unlocked the door, standing, as her friend took the wooden rocker.
"Daddy air a-comin' home," she breathed timidly.
"Soon. Sit down, child. I have much to say to you.... We have discovered the murderer of the gamekeeper. We have positive proof that it was not your father."
Tess squatted on the floor, crossed her legs, and waited.
"Who were it?" she asked presently, as if afraid to speak.
"Ben Letts."
"The damn bloke!" she ejaculated, a dangerous light gathering in her eyes. "And he were a-lettin' Daddy be hung for his own dirty work! He air a wicked cuss, he air!"
"Ezra Longman saw him when he committed the murder," Young told her, watching the interest gather in the eager face. "Letts used your father's gun. That accounts for his having been accused."
Tess nodded her head.
"Ezy were here last night," she commented quietly. "He were sick."
"He was under my care for a long time," explained Young, "and last night escaped and walked home through the rain.... He is dead."
"Dead!" gasped Tess. "Dead!"
Impetuously she bent toward him, and finished:
"Ezy Longman ain't dead!"
"Yes, he is," replied Young. "He died in his father's hut, last night. I have just left there, and I feel heartily sorry for them both."
"Myry?... Did ye see Myry?"
"She's gone with Ben Letts."
"Gone where?"
"We don't know, but the officers are looking for them. I think the boy heard me tell the nurse that he would be held as a witness in your father's next trial. He must have warned Letts upon his arrival home, for—"
"He knowed Myry loved Ben," broke in Tess.
"That's what I thought," Young answered. "I found Longman and the mother mourning over the boy. They hope to hear from the girl soon."
"If Myry and Ben was in the storm last night—" began Tess.
"They may be dead," ended Young gravely. "Myra took her child with her. I found this note on the dead boy's bed, and brought it away with me. I would have liked to have put the boy on the witness-stand. Nevertheless, I hope to release your father on the evidence I have, without a trial."
For several moments silence reigned in the hut. The sun streamed through the window, and a steamer sent a shrill whistle over the lake, the sound echoing among the rocks. Tessibel was thinking of Ezra Longman; Professor Young was thinking of her.
Presently she leaned over, and took the letter from the man's hand, spelling out Myra's written message.
"Myry air a-writin' so dum well," she observed, handingit back, "that I can't make it out. What air she a-sayin'? You read it."
Young read the badly-spelled note.
"I knowed the brat was Ben Letts'," she said, after the man's voice had died away. "He were a cute kid."'
"We hope to find them all," interposed Young thoughtfully. "But, if we don't, the evidence I already have—this note, and the fact that the fisherman is a fugitive—will liberate your father. I shall go to Albany to-morrow to see the Governor. I am sure he will consider the evidence I have. Then we shall know."
"You think the man at Albany will give him to me?"
"Yes, indeed, I do! I would not raise your hopes if I did not. If you persuade your father to leave here—" He stopped and looked at her with a questioning glance.
"I tells him that the hut ain't his'n," she asserted abruptly.
"If you do go away, I shall try to get your father steady work in the city. Would you like that?"
"Yep," replied Tess, in a thick voice. "He wouldn't have to net no more. And he wouldn't have no more froze toes."
"Neither would you, Tess," answered Young.
Suddenly Tess saw the man staring at her arm, where several blue stripes, mingling with red, ran long from her shoulder.
"Heavens! child, what's the matter with your arm?"
The brown eyes clouded. Tess swept her jacket over the marks, and muttered,
"It ain't nothin'. I scratched it on some thorns."
Professor Young leaned forward, and tilted the little chin upward. Still the eyes remained upon the floor.
"Tess!" he pleaded. "Tess! Are you telling me the truth?"
"Nope; I's lyin' to ye."
She tossed her head up angrily.
"I had a damn good lickin'," she finished.
Young sprang forward, and grasped her arm.
"Who dared to mark you like that?" he exclaimed, standing her on her feet. "Wait. I want to see it. Who did it?"
He pushed back the sleeve, and stood analyzing the bruised shoulder and arm.
"Who did it?" he persisted, drawing a quick, sharp breath.
"Dominie Graves," muttered the girl.
"What!" Two deep creases marked the fine brow.
"He licked me," reiterated Tess, with an indifferent droop to her lids. "He had a right. I were a-stealin'."
"Tessibel! Tessibel! Look at me."
She swept him with a glance of truth.
"Are you—? Tess, I demand to know it all—all! Please, tell me about it!"
"There ain't much to tell," she returned; "only that I were a-stealin' from the Dominie's kitchen, and he licked me for it."
"What did you—steal?"
"Milk for the brat.... He can't starve, can he?"
Slowly Professor Young dropped her arm, gazing at her mutely.
"Ye ain't mad at me?" she ventured, watching him narrowly.
"No! I'm only sorry—infinitely sorry for you."
The tender tone in his voice, the mist rising in his eyes, brought Tess to his side.
"I thanks ye for all ye been a-doin' for Daddy and me," she said brokenly. "I does thank ye.... Don't look at me like that—it air a-hurtin' me."
The low voice, filled with unshed tears, rang with emotion.
A sudden inspiration seized Young.
"Child, if I bring your father back to you, will you—marry me?"
The unexpected question sent Tess staggering back; a tearful smile spread the red lips.
"Ye'r' batty," she said presently, with a dissenting shake of the red curls. "Ye'r' gone plumb crazy.... I's a squatter, nothin' but a squatter. I stays here with Daddy. I marries no man. See?"
The proud face of Frederick Graves rose before her. She turned away with a groan.
Young misinterpreted her expression.
"Circumstances have made you a squatter.... Sit down. I want to say more to you, Tess. Don't say you won't marry me, just yet. When your father comes home, we will talk to him about it.... I love you, child."
"My Daddy air a-wantin' me with him," faltered Tess. "He said oncet as how he wouldn't give me to nobody. Ezy Longman wanted me to marry him, but I hated him.... I don't now, though, 'cause he air dead."
"Tessibel, will you let me give you some money to buy milk for the strange little boy?"
"Somebody gived me some money after my lickin' last night, so I don't need none now."
A jealous feeling rose instantly in Young's heart.
"Who gave you money last night?"
"The student," replied Tess. "He said as how I shouldn't steal no more milk for the brat. I takes the student's money, I does."
A faint suspicion flashed over the lawyer.
"You told me the truth about the child belonging to a woman on the hill?"
Without answering his question, Tess stammered,
"Ye said as how ye trusted me, and I were happy because ye did.... Ain't ye trustin' me now?"
"Yes, child; but I am so bitterly unhappy over you, and my love for you makes me jealous—"
"Of the student?" queried Tess.
"Yes."
"Well, ye needn't care no more about him, 'cause he don't like me no more. He ain't never carin'—" She cut the words off with a snap. "I were a-goin' to lie then," she went on slowly. "He air a-carin', but—but—"
She dashed a loose curl from her eyes, and flung herself headlong upon the bed, with a burst of sobs that drew Young quickly to her.
"Tessibel Skinner, you love Frederick Graves?"
Tess straightened, and looked at him fearfully.
"Yep, I air a-lovin' him," she wailed.
"And he doesn't love you?"
"He be a-lovin' me, too." She was hardly able to utter the words.
"Then why do you weep, if you love him and he loves you?"
Tessibel's eyes settled upon the babe, yawning in the sun. Young followed her gaze.
"The child has separated you?" he said slowly.
"Yep."
"Why?"
"'Cause—'cause—"
All Teola's perfidy rushed over her in a twinkling. All the student's suffering stung her as if she had been struck in the face. She bounded from the bed, possessed of a dark spirit.
"A damn bloke air a-doin' it. It were a oath I took.... Will you go now?—Please!"
"Yes," assented Young. "But it is all a mystery to me. I cannot understand it."
And Tessibel, thinking of Teola, the child, and its dead father, muttered:
"I ain't understandin' it, nuther.... Good-bye."
Transfixed, Tess stood for many minutes where Young had left her. A shadow dropped upon the path. Teola, pale and ill, came toward her, and she did not move.
"My father and brother have gone to Ithaca, and I—Tessibel! Tess, don't look at me that way! Don't! don't!"
"You forgot to tell him," dropped from the squatter's lips.
"No, I didn't forget. Tessibel, I've tried, and I can't tell him.... I haven't the courage," she ejaculated, waiting long for a reply from the rigid girl. Her lips trembled as she faltered:
"My father was cruel to you, Tess!"
"I were a-stealin'," Tess muttered. "He wouldn't a whipped me if he—had knowed about it, would he?"
"No, no! He would have died first.... Tessibel, why didn't you tell him?"
"Didn't ye say it would kill the student if he knowed it? And I swored, didn't I? when the brat was borned, that I wouldn't tell—and I ain't no liar—leastwise about no brats. If it air told, the brat's ma's got to tell it," she finished.
Teola dropped beside her infant.
"I'm afraid to tell it. My father and brother have such confidence in me!" She shifted about, and looked at Tessibel. "We are going to move to the city, Saturday.... I have been thinking about the baby's milk—"
"I has money now," broke in Tess. "I don't have to steal no more. Daddy air a-comin' home soon, too."
"I know it. Father heard from Professor Young all about it. I am so glad for you, Tess. What will you say to him about the baby?"
"I dunno," grunted the squatter.
She answered no more of Teola's questions, but for a long time remained moodily looking, with narrowed eyes and burning heart, at the minister's daughter.
CHAPTER XXXIX
Two days later, on Friday evening, Teola slipped quietly from her home, and the Skinner hut opened to her timid knock. Tess had no more fear when visitors came. Ben Letts had gone with Myra, and Ezra Longman was dead.
The girls eyed each other for one embarrassed moment. The day for separation was at hand: Tess would face the lean winter, Teola the burden of a conscience in torment.
"Come in," muttered Tess.
"Tessibel," Teola burst out spontaneously, "we are going away to-morrow. I wish I were going to stay with you and the baby!"
Gloomily Tess scrutinized the young mother, checking an ejaculation that rose to her lips.
"I don't understand what you are going to do," said Teola. "Tess, do you think he is very ill? You do! I can see it in your face. Look how he yawns, and screws his mouth, and shuts his eyes! Oh, he is suffering, Tessibel!"
"Yep, he air sick," replied Tess, turning her back. She had grown to love the hapless thing, and knew that he suffered as all human beings suffer when they go slowly away to the mystery of mysteries.
Teola's next words brought her about sharply.
"Tessibel, do you—hate me?"
"Nope."
"Oh, what a coward I am! Frederick has forbidden me to come here."
"That air 'cause he air a good bloke," snorted Tess. "But if he knowed—"
"I can't get my breath when I think of telling him, Tess."
"He ain't to know never, then?" bounded from Tessibel's lips, the passion in the tones lowering the voice almost to a whisper.
"No," replied the young mother; "I can't tell him."
The squatter just caught the next words, "But I am going to die, too, Tess."
The conviction in the statement made Tess spring back.
"Ye ain't yet. Ye ain't goin' yet!"
"The doctor says I am very ill here." Teola placed her hand upon her chest. "I've had three hemorrhages. People ill like I am never get well. I don't want to—either," she ended brokenly.
She looked so forlorn, so thin and ill that Tess went awkwardly to her.
"I takes care of the brat if ye goes before him," said she.
"Thank you, dear," drifted from the depths of the child's box. "And forgive me all the sorrow I have caused you."
"I has forgivin' ye," assured Tess, seating herself. "I were—sorry about the student, though."
"I know, I know; and perhaps God won't forgive me, for I've been so wicked! I make up my mind every night, when I can't sleep, that I will tell; then in the daylight I am afraid."
Tess did not answer.
"I shall think every moment of the day about youtwo here. Oh, my precious baby! If I could only take him with me! That mark will never disappear," she concluded, rubbing the tiny red forehead with her fingers. "If he only goes when I do! God couldn't be so cruel as to let him live, with his face like that, and have neither father nor mother."
"Nope," replied Tess with decision. "He'll take the brat, too."
"Will he die soon, Tess?"
"Yep."
"Why do you think so? Why?"
"He air too thin to hold out much longer. He don't eat, nuther. He don't do nothin' but smack all day long on them sugar rags, like a suckin' calf. And there ain't no makin' him eat."
"But he doesn't cry much," argued Teola.
"That air 'cause he air so weak. Ma Moll were here with the hoss doctor, and they says he air to croak dum quick."
Teola raised her head, startled.
"Oh, I didn't know you had had a doctor. I was going to speak about it to-night." She dropped her eyes, reddened, and then added, "But the horse doctor, Tessibel?"
"Squatters allers has the hoss doctor—they air cheaper."
"But he can't die!" Teola moaned. "Not now—not yet! He has never been baptized. If he died now, he wouldn't go to Heaven!"
"Aw! shut up. He air a-goin' in faster'n any of them. Don't you worry yer head over that. God ain't that kind of a bloke that He wouldn't take in a sick brat what ain't never done no harm."
Tess had risen, and was standing over the child, Teola having placed him back in the bed.
"But you don't understand, Tess dear! You see, it's this way: the Bible says that if a child isn't baptized, he will go to a place where he must stay always. He won't go to Heaven. You understand?"
"Air the Bible a-sayin' that?"
"Yes."
"Won't he go to a place where God'll find him, if he ain't sprinkled?"
"No."
"That air strange. The poor brat air so blue, so shiverin'—he air so sick! Aw! Christ'll love him, 'cause he ain't got no friends."
Her eyes spread wide with infinite compassion as she contemplated the grave-shadowed child.
"Did the student tell ye that the Bible were a-sayin' that?" she asked peremptorily.
"Yes; and my father has often preached upon it. I know that it is true," insisted Teola. "A child must be cleansed of its original sin in the church.... You see? You see, Tess?"
"I don't see—I don't know, nuther. But what the student says air right. If the little kid ain't to see God's face 'less he air slapped on the head with water in the church, then the brat air got to be tooked there."
"But—but, Tess, is it possible?"
Again the squatter bent her head to gather the words.
"He air a-goin' to die," she replied with conviction, "and he has to be hit with the water, if he air a-goin' to die, don't he? Air that what ye means?"
Teola, dropping her face upon the babe, bowed her head in assent, and wept silently, until the cough thathad fastened itself upon the slender chest since the coming of the child, dried the tears.
Tess remained quiet until the paroxysm had passed.
"Air yer pappy a good sprinkler of brats?"
Teola nodded.
"Air it likely he would sprinkle this 'un'?"
"I don't think my father would turn away a dying babe that needed cleansing of its sin by the Holy Ghost."
"The Hully what? The student were a-talkin' 'bout him once."
"The Holy Ghost," explained Teola. "He lives in the church, and when a baby is baptized He comes and stands by the font, and when the water falls upon it, He takes away all the sin that it is born with."
Tess grunted disbelievingly.
"Can ye sees him?"
"No; He is a spirit."
"Ye mean that he air like the headless man from Haytes, and the squaw with her burnt brat?"
They were both down beside the babe again, Tess eying the mother eagerly.
"Oh, no, Tess! Those are but superstitions. This is the truth. No matter how little the child is, he won't go to a holy place if he isn't baptized."
"Air the Huly Ghost livin' only in the church?"
"Yes, He doesn't stay anywhere else."
"Who says it air true?"
"God."
"Your brother's God?"
"Yes."
"Then, of course, it air so. Why didn't ye say so before? Could the brat be sprinkled this comin' Sunday?"
"Yes; yes, it is baptismal Sunday. Deacon Hall's new baby is to be baptized, and lots of others, too!"
"Then yer brat air goin' to be sprinkled with 'em," decided Tessibel.
"Tess!" gasped Teola. "How? How?... I should die if I had to take him to the church."
"I takes him," replied Tess grimly. "I takes him, and I says to yer pappy, 'Dominie, I knows that ye don't like me nor my Daddy, but here air a brat what air sick to death.... He can't find God by hisself 'cause he air too little, and God won't try and find him if he ain't sprinkled. Will ye do it?'"
Teola shifted her position, and looked into the squatter's face. It was gleaming with heavenly resolve and uplifted faith.
"Tess, would you dare?" gasped she.
"Yep! The little brat has to go. I takes him."
The fisher-girl clambered to her feet, and shoved another log into the stove.
"It air a chilly night," she commented, "and the ghosts air a-howling like mad, 'cause Ma Moll's been here. She can raise spirits any time of night."
Teola evidently did not hear. Her eyes were fixed upon the face of the babe, her mouth twitching nervously at the corners. She wondered silently what her father would say when Tess presented the child for baptism on Sunday morning. She could imagine her own happiness after it was all over. She thought she would get better for a time. She remembered how her mother had worried over her cough, how her father had advised with the best doctors of the city; but they had gravely shaken their heads, saying that the girl might grow out of it; they hoped she would. But day by day she had seen herselfgrowing more and more slender, more and more fragile-looking. And, as Teola knelt over the child in the flickering candlelight, Tess shivered superstitiously. The young mother was so white that the squatter could almost have imagined her one of Ma Moll's ghosts.
"They be a-callin' ye from yer house," remarked Tess, after a long stillness.
"Yes, I hear them.... It is my father. But I am so tired that it seems as if I could never climb the hill. I'll see you a minute to-morrow, Tess.... If I can't, will you bring the baby to the church Sunday, at eleven o'clock?... Thank you, dear; thank you.... Good-bye, precious little Dan.... And—and forgive me, Tessibel!"
CHAPTER XL
Minister Graves watched his child painfully climb the front steps. He could see, even through the dim shadows, how thin she had become, how she panted for breath over the slight exertion of walking up the hill. A thought that stung him like a whip seized him, convulsing his heart and shaking his powerful frame as if he had been attacked by sudden ague. Was his daughter going to die? She could not die—God would not take her from him! He remembered Teola's birth, with a groan of pain: remembered how he had taken the dark-haired babe, so tiny and helpless, into his study alone, and had uttered the sincerest prayer of a father's life, that the blessings of Heaven would cover his new-found treasure and would guide the little footsteps during the whole bright future—her future must be bright, with his love to shield her. He could remember each succeeding day—his pride and ambitions for her—and now—
Teola paused on the top step, clinging to the veranda pillar. He came hastily to her, the darkness covering the emotions that had paled his face, and bent over the exhausted girl, kissing her lips tenderly.
"Teola, darling! My darling, why will you persist in being out at night?... See, now, how you are coughing.... Child, what would become of me, if anything should happen to you?"
Teola knew the heart of her father. He had sternly preached orthodox doctrine, had persecuted the squattersaccording to his beliefs; but he loved his children, and especially had he idolized her. The thought of the babe in the fisherman's hut sped through her mind, her father's consternation and horror if she should be compelled to tell her secret. But Tessibel stood in her place as mother to the little boy, and had taken an oath that nothing could force her to break. The squatter had been the scapegoat upon which had been heaped the sins of a girl no one had thought capable of doing wrong. Teola, resting in her father's arms, struggled with her conscience, trying to press down the moral weakness that had compelled her to keep the tragedy in the cabin quiet. The minister helped her to her chamber, and, after she had retired, went in and prayed with and for her. His voice, low and tender, with the exquisite tones of an orator, was strangely moved.
"Child," he groaned, "I would give much to see you in good health again."
"I shall never be better, dearest; never. I know now that I cannot—that I sha'n't—"
His hand covered her lips.
"If you want to break my heart, Teola," he cried, unnerved, "then say what you were going to. I can't, and won't, bear it! You are not yet eighteen. You've always been well until these past few weeks.... Oh, I wish your mother and I had never gone abroad—or that you had gone with us.... But you begged so hard to stay at home!"
Teola had coveted the chance to tell him of the little human link between Dan Jordan's life and hers. She raised herself on her pillow, the long hair mantling her shoulders and aureoling the death-like face.
"Father," she gasped. "Father! Let me tell yousomething about Tessibel Skinner. No! Don't put your fingers over my lips! Don't! Don't! Listen."
"Teola," interjected Graves gravely, "if you want to displease me—"
"She's so lonely," broke in the girl, her courage ebbing away under the bent brows of her father. "I thought—you—might help her."
"Go to sleep," replied the minister, "there's a good girl!... Good-night."
For a moment, Teola lay panting nervously. She had been so near the confession, so near telling her father about the little babe in the shanty. She slipped out of bed to the window. The wind still flung the dead leaves, whirling them to and fro in the orchard like willful spirits. The night had darkened until, to Teola, shivering and ill, it seemed alive with shadowy goblins which mocked at her.
She could just make out the dark line of the hut under the willow branches. A candlelight flickered a moment in the window, and was gone. Teola moaned long, muttering loving messages to the child cuddled in Tessibel's arms. She loved it, but could not bring it home—yet! At last sleep, a deep, fatigued sleep, enveloped her. She was too tired to dream.
After Tess was alone, she made ready for bed. The child whimpered drowsily. The squatter lifted it up with infinite tenderness, binding the rags more closely about the scrawny body.
"Ye don't amount to as much as the tuft on Kennedy's mare's tail," she said aloud. "Eat now, I says, or I opens yer mouth and pours it full."
The words, gathered from the vocabulary of the squatter,were harsh, but the emotion in the tones softened them.
"Ye air a-dyin' 'cause ye won't eat, kid, and ye have the smell of a dead rat, too. Yer lips be that blue—and yer mouth air like a baby-bird's.... Eat, I says, damn ye.... Will ye swallow that?"
She held the withered lips open, and filled the cavity with warm milk.
"Eat, I says," crooned the girl; "eat, and Tess takes ye tight—like this—and the rats can't bite ye, or the ghosts get ye till ye air dead. Tess loves ye, ye poor little brat."
The child, strangling for breath, gulped down a mouthful of milk, but the jaws set again, and the lips settled into a blue line. Tess prepared the sugar rag, putting in a large amount of sweet, and dipped it in the tea-pan in which she had warmed the milk. Then she allowed a little of the syrup to fall upon the lips. The mouth snapped upon it, and long after Tess had gathered the infant into her arms the smacking went on and on, until both slept. Neither heard the wind that rattled the hut boards, that rasped its endless sawing on the tin roof; neither heard the willow branches brushing to and fro against the rickety chimney. The child slept the sleep of a human creature moving silently toward death; and Tess the sleep of the exhausted.
The next morning she stood in the doorway, grimly watching the cottagers' boats, loaded with household goods, one by one as they passed. This time of year was prophetic of the coming winter, and told Tess a few more weeks would see the snow piled up about the hut andthe lake covered with ice. Deacon Hall's private launch steamed by, with huge piles of bedding heaped up on the bow. One after another of the summer residents disappeared in the inlet, and Tess was waiting for the hill-house people also to leave.
She heard Frederick's voice in the lane, and closed the door, pressing her face to the window. She saw him climb into his father's little yacht to make it ready for the summer's stock from the cottage. Teola, too, was on the shore, and Tess saw the girl turn longing eyes toward the hut. Then, with a boyish tug at his belt, Frederick started up the hill. His face in profile showed the squatter that he had changed—he was thinner, paler, and looked years older. Closer pressed the sweet face to the dirty pane, brighter grew the brown eyes. Drawn by his own desire, the student turned and looked at her. First an expression of eagerness leaped into his face; then one of sorrow settled upon it. He went on to the cottage without even nodding his head. He would soon come down with his father, mother and sister Babe, and Tess would see him no more.
She sank down upon the bed beside the sucking child, and did not hear the hut door open softly.
"Tess, Tess! It's Teola, dear. What is the matter?"
The squatter choked back her tears, and sat up.
"There ain't nothin' the matter," she replied sulkily. "I can cry if I wants to, can't I?"
"But, Tessibel, I have never seen you cry like that before, never! Is it money? Here, dear; here is a dollar. Father gave it to me. It will buy some milk, until I can send more. Oh, let me see my baby again. Darling little man! Your mother does love you, even if she must leave you. Tess, he looks worse than he didwhen I went home last night. You—you will bring him to the church to-morrow?"
"Yep."
"And, Tess, I left a lot of white cloths on the pear-tree near the barn. I could not bring them to you before, for Mother only sorted them out to throw away this morning. Oh, the baby looks so thin and ill, Tess!"
Tears trickled down upon the infant. Teola pressed her lips again and again to the thin mouth. The vivid mark was offering its crimson tinge sharply against the dead blue of the rest of the baby face.
"And, Tess," burst forth Teola, "how gladly I would give you a dress for yourself if I could, and a dress for him! You can't bring him like this to the church. You don't mind coming as you are?"
"Nope," came the bitter interruption from the squatter. "I don't need no clothes to have a brat sprinkled. I air a squatter, and squatters don't give—a hell about nothin'."
Her looks belied the words. With the dignity of a queen, the fine young head had settled back upon the broad shoulders sloping bare at the arms. The sweet face gave the lie to the hardened speech uttered from the grief she had just spent upon the bed.
"Don't speak like that, Tess! Don't! don't!" gasped Teola. "Some day, after the babe and I are dead—"
Teola had come close to the fisher-girl, her pale face thrust beseechingly forward. Tess hesitated; then flung out her arms and drew the minister's daughter into them. Her eyes were filled with awe indescribable.
"I's a mean brat to make ye say that," she faltered. "I brings the kid to-morry to the church. And, yes, I gets him a dress, too. See? And I buys milkfor him, and makes him eat, and he sleeps here," Tess pounded her own strong breast, and ended, "till his dead pappy and his ma come after him, poor little cuss."
Both girls cried softly, till Frederick's voice on the hill rang out sharply in answer to a question from his father. Teola kissed her babe over and over, drawing a small shawl about her shoulders, and picked a path out through the fish-bones on the floor. When Frederick returned to the boat, she was listlessly throwing small stones into the water.
CHAPTER XLI
Tessibel watched Minister Graves' yacht steam by the Hoghole, across the head of the lake and into the inlet. With it went the hopes of reconciliation with the student; the Dominie and his glowering glances of hatred; and Teola with her illness, leaving her the helpless babe.
She suddenly decided to share her secret with Mrs. Longman. She would beg a dress for little Dan to wear to the church for his baptism. She had stubbornly kept the presence of the child in her hut from her squatter friend, although Myra had usually had a way of worming into her innermost confidence. But Tess had given her oath and loyalty to Teola, and feared to tell the other girl the parentage of the child, lest Myra, who loved Ben Letts, should blab the truth to him.
During the weeks the babe had been with her, Tess had sent endless excuses about her absence to the Longman hut. She had to read the Bible; was waiting for someone to bring her a message from Daddy; fishing; getting ready for the winter; anything to keep Myra in ignorance of the tragedy being enacted in Skinner's hut. But now Myra was gone with Ben; Ezra was dead; and Mrs. Longman would not be curious about the little child.
She prepared the basket with the clean clothes that Teola had left on the tree, and, with the easy grace of a barefooted squatter, set out for the ragged rocks with bounding steps.
SHE TOSSED HER FACE UP TO THE SUN.SHE TOSSED HER FACE UP TO THE SUN.
Across the lake the patches of forest, shaded with the scarlet and green of dying leaves, relieved the bareness of the harvested wheat-fields. Tessibel had a passion for the tumbling waves, they seemed to speak an unknown language to her, but to-day the lake was smooth like polished, clear, blue glass, and the birds were racing in flocks over it from the north toward the south. Their flight was so rapid that the squatter paused and followed them with her eyes. One flock after another disappeared behind the college hill so quickly that Tess could scarcely bid them farewell. They were her summer friends, had filled the day with brilliant song, and the night with love-twitterings.
Tessibel's forest solitude and rambles, her communion with night things had passed, gone with the coming of Teola, gone with the care of the babe. A longing for her old free life came back to her. She stooped down and placed the basket upon the rocks, and, with her arms flung over her head, tossed her face up to the sun. Her soul was dreaming, and the dream changed the half-closed eyes from brown to black.
She stood silently, her gaze roving after the fleet-winged birds. They were leaving her to the winter—and the sick child.
But Daddy, dear old Daddy, was coming back home! She caught her breath. At that moment her father was the panacæa for all that she had suffered during the last few weeks. Tears welled into her eyes. Just then another great flock of black birds, huddling together, skimmed by through the clear air. Tess threw out her hands.
"Good-bye, good-bye!" she shouted, with conflictingemotions. "Come back again soon. It air lonely in the winter without ye."
As if the birds understood the longing in a kindred soul, the flock halted an instant, seemingly loath to go, circled their mass of black toward the sky, swept to the water's edge, poised for the fraction of a second, then shot towards the University hill, and disappeared.
With the light-heartedness of youth, Tess reached the Longman cabin. A silence reigned within which at first astonished her. The door was closed, and Satisfied was nowhere in sight. She paused before rapping, and looked to the shore for the boat. Disappointment shot through her: Satisfied and Mrs. Longman had gone to the city. Nevertheless, Tess tapped lightly, and then again. But no voice ordered her in. She lifted the latch, felt the door yield to her touch, and stepped inside. Four lean rats scurried cornerward, sinking from sight into dark holes; numbers of lizards tailed silently backward from the sunbeam slanting across the shanty door. But the sight was so usual to Tess that she merely turned her head slightly, and smiled as if to departing friends, and closed the door behind her. A long object stretched out upon a board arrested her steps. It was covered with a sheet, and the breathless gloom of the shanty caused Tess almost to drop the basket as she set it down. The silent, white thing on the board brought an exclamation of fear from her. With horror settling deep in her eyes she backed against the door. Did the sheet cover death? No; for Ezra had been carried to his grave the day before. The thought freed her from a terror that had gripped her senses at first. She took two steps forward, bentdown and looked under the board. Little streams of water had made dark tracks across the hut floor. The corners of the sheet were drenched through. This sent Tess back once more to the door. Would she dare lift the sheet? Controlling her fear by an effort, Tess gathered her courage together and crept again to the long board. With shaking fingers, she lifted the cloth, and drew it back gently. Then a horrified cry fell sharply from her lips, and she dropped it. Ben Letts and Myra Longman, hugged in each other's arms, lay dead before her.
Fascinated and trembling, she stood considering the livid squatters, no sound, after the first cry, issuing from her pale lips. The dead faces were so close to each other that a human hand could not pass between them. Upon the plain face of Myra rested a peaceful expression, as if she possessed a quietude she had never known before. Her eyes were closed, and one arm was tightly clasped about Ben's neck—the other about his waist. The storm had loosened the meager hair, had flung it in disorder over the fisher-girl's shoulders. Ben's brown teeth gleamed dark; the drawn lips were stretched wide, as if a pain, dreadful and torturing, had opened them never to be closed again. His two huge arms, twisted about the frail frame of the girl, were locked together by the horny fingers. To Tessibel it seemed that Myra smiled faintly in the possession of her longed-for happiness. She had Ben Letts at last, and forever—he was her gift of the storm, the eternal gift of a wild night. Myra had sought, and had found him.
The shanty door pushed open. Like one in a dream, Tess was still looking down upon the dead. Liftingher gaze, she saw Satisfied watching her, his eyes glowing with subdued pain.
"Myry air dead," he said, in a low voice, coming forward.
"Ben Letts, too," added the squatter girl.
"And the brat," finished Longman.
Tess, startled, lifted up her head.
"The brat! I had forgot him," she muttered. "He air dead, too?"
"Yep. He air here."
Longman drew down the sheet still further, exposing the lifeless baby. The thin little body lay between the father and mother.
For many minutes they surveyed the dead trio in rapt attention.
"Where air Myry's ma?" asked Tessibel presently.
"Back there, in Ezy's bed. She air sick, and so air Mammy Letts."
"Ezy were buried yesterday," ruminated Tess.
"Yep, and Myry be a-goin' to the same place. Ma and me air—alone."
There was something strangely pathetic in the quiet words, in the stolid, ugly face with its hard lines, in the mouth twitching at the corners as he spoke. Tess sprang toward him, and wound her strong young arms about him.
"Myry air happy," she burst forth; "happier than when she were livin' with you. She air with Ben Letts."
Satisfied, towering over her, blinked confusedly at her words. Puzzling, he drew his heavy brows down darkly.
"Myry were a-seekin' Ben," Tess went on hurriedly,"and the brat couldn't stay without its pa and ma. I says as how Myry air happy, Satisfied."
"She were a-lovin' Ben Letts?" The pain in his clouded blue eyes stung Tess to the heart. The grief of this lonely old man, bereft of his all, seemed the most tragic spectacle she had ever faced.
"Yep," she replied, trying to smile through her tears; "she were a-lovin' him, and were a-seekin' his lovin's all the time. It were only in the storm—she found what she were a-seekin'."
She turned her head sharply toward the dead.
"Ye can see she air a-smilin', Satisfied, can't ye? And Ben air a-huggin' her up to him. That air somethin' Myry wanted. And ye air a-goin' to leave them like that, ain't ye? Don't tear Ben's arms loose, 'cause Myry won't be happy if ye does. Can't ye put 'em in a box, just like they air?"
Longman made a protesting motion. Some fishermen had picked the two dead ones up, locked in each other's arms. And he himself had covered them with a sheet, without making an effort to part them. He had not thought of putting them in the squatters' cemetery together.
"And let the brat stay with 'em, too," Tess broke in on his reverie.
"Yep," he replied; "I lets 'em all stay together. What Myry seeked for and found, she can have for all of me."
The listening girl knew there was hatred in the father's tones for Ben Letts. Well, she had hated Ben too, but he was all Myra's now, and there was no more hatred for the ugly squatter in the heart of Tessibel.
"She air a-smilin', Satisfied," Tess said again.
Longman loosened Tessibel's arms, and, walking slowly forward, looked down upon his daughter.
"I hain't seed before that she were a-smilin'," he said, taking a long breath. "Ye says as how she air happy, Tess?"
"Yep; she air with Ben Letts."
"I air a-goin' in to tell her ma that Myry air happy," asserted Longman, with relief in his voice. "I thank ye, Tess, for tellin' me that she were. I weren't thinkin' of nothin' but the storm, the water, and the time that ma and me were a-sleepin' when Myry were a-dyin'. She air happy, ye air sure, Tess?"
"Yep, for she were a-seekin' Ben Letts. She told me as how—" Tessibel choked back the words.
"She told ye what?"
Tess was going to tell him of the night on the ragged rocks and of Myra's broken wrist, but, with a flashing glance at the dead woman, changed her mind. In her vivid imagination she thought that Myra was silently entreating her not to speak ill of the dead man in her arms.
"She told me that Ben were the brat's pa, and that—" her eyes gladdened as she finished—"she were a-lovin' him; and, Satisfied, when we air a-lovin', and lovin' damn hard, then ain't we happy when we air with them what we loves?"
She had come close to him, standing near the dead man and woman. The girl slipped her hand into Longman's reassuringly, as she asked the last question.
"Yep," replied Satisfied, disappearing into the back room.
Tessibel had forgotten the child in the basket. She turned her eyes toward it, and a movement of the covertold her that the little Dan was awake. She was bending over it when Longman appeared at her side.
"Mammy says as how ye air to come in, Tess," he said, his eyes falling upon the child. "Whose brat air it?" he asked, with no shadowing suspicion in his glance. "Where did ye get it, Tessibel?"
"I air a-carin' for it for a while. I comed, Satisfied——"
Could she ask these people in sore grief for a dress that the dead child on the board had worn?
"Ye comed for what?" asked the man.
"I air a-wantin' to take him to the church, and I ain't got no dress for him. Would Mammy Longman let me take one?"
"Yep. Go in, and tell her. She air in bed."
Tess covered the babe's face, and placed the basket on the table.
"I can't leave him in the hut," she explained; "the rats air too thick."
"Yes," was all Longman said, and he fell to thinking deeply.
Tess crept away to the back room.
"I comed to see ye, Mammy Longman, and——"
"Sit down on the bed," interrupted the tired voice. "Myry and Ezy air both gone. Satisfied says as how Myry air a-smilin' and as how ye said she were happy. Satisfied and me feels better, we does."
Tessibel choked back the welling tears.
The gray head resting upon a soiled pillow, the pale face turned toward the wall, which had not turned to her, struck Tess deeper than Satisfied's stolid grief.
"Ye be sure Myry air happy?" came the tired voice again.
"Yep."
Mrs. Longman threw her eyes on Tessibel.
"If she air happy, what air ye cryin' for?"
"'Cause it air lonely for ye and Satisfied without her and the brat. I knows, 'cause I ain't had Daddy in such a long time."
"We was lookin' for Myry back, but not like—"
Tess broke in upon her words.
"Mammy Longman, I air a-carin' for a little chap what ain't goin' to live, and I wants a dress to take him to the church. Will ye let me have one?"
Mrs. Longman sat up, a new interest dawning in her faded eyes.
"To a church? Why to a church? He ain't dead yet, air he?"
"Nope; but his ma wants him took to the church where the Huly Ghost air, to have the water put on him.... Can I take the dress?"
"Yep, Tess; take one from Myry's box. They ain't good, but our little brat wored them."
Aimlessly, she lay down again and ceased speaking, but whimpered until Tess left the room. The girl made her choice from the small stock of dresses that had been worn by the Longman family, and had at last descended to the little dead boy.
On her way home to the hut once more, Tess paused on the rocks. The spectacle at Longman's had filled her eyes with the shadow of longing. She had seen Myra clasped in the arms of the man she loved. Tessibel's thoughts flew to the student. She could imagine her own happiness if she had been in the storm, andFrederick had taken her in his arms, and they should have—
"I wish almost I was Myry," she moaned, "and the student was Ben Letts.... No, no! not that! not that!"
She sank under the burden of a new thought. Myra had sought, and had found—had searched for Ben in the storm, and had found him. Myra had had more faith than she had.
"Faith the size of a mustard-seed," flashed into her mind. Her own past unbelief pressed upon her, and the color fled from her cheeks, leaving them pale.
She opened the basket, and put her wistful face close to the sleeping child, her mental tension gone in her uprising faith.
"I thought as how ye were a-keepin' the student from me, but ye ain't. God ain't ready to let me have him. But he air a-goin' to let me have him some time. I air glad I got ye, and I hopes that ye live, too. Myry air got Ben Letts, and I air a-goin' to have—Frederick." She walked home in a reverie deep and sweet.