Charles Reubelt King, M.D.Physician and Surgeon
Charles Reubelt King, M.D.Physician and Surgeon
Doctor Longstreet, having retired, would certainly have more time for fishing, yarning, and philosophizing. For the matter of that, the chances were that he would be all the more irascible. This, however, would prove an amusement for Jean François. The old fellow's irony and wit were truest when brought forth under a passing flash of irritability.
The summer of a year ago Nance Gwyn had been in Europe. Now and then she had written Jean François humorous and amusing little letters. Shehad returned during the spring. Before she left she had grown into quite a beautiful and charming young woman, yet there still clung to her the spirit of her childhood.... He wondered if a year in Paris—his Paris—and Berlin, would spoil her. If she would become worldly, artificial, and conventionalized. He thought of her old simplicity, her open-mindedness, her frank disregard of the factitious, her courage to act, and realized that it would take a veritable revolution to even modify her temperament.
As for himself, he smiled as he rubbed his hand into his bushy beard, thinking that, though it scarcely seemed more than a year or two since he was thirty, yet in reality he had recently passed his fiftieth birthday. He would have to die some day, he reckoned. Yet if he had ever grown older at any period of his life he wasn't aware of it. Forever young, thought he, forever young!... Maybe we—Columbine, Rogue, and I—are the exceptions. What if we should never die? As long as we were lusty and the road was at the morning, why shouldwe care? Perhaps we are immortal!... And he pirouetted gaily like a première danseuse. Unlike the dancer, however, his caper was cut short midway. Rogue came to a sudden stop. A choking sob from someone seated directly in the center of the road just beneath the mare's nose brought him to earth.
He stooped and peered beneath the cart, beneath the mare at the obstruction. He saw the back of a woman, as she sat in the dust, with her head bowed in her hands. He reckoned her head was in her hands, for he could not see it. The back was shaking in accompaniment to tears or laughter, as to which of them he was uncertain. Doubtless both, it being a woman. Rogue smelled the object good humoredly and then turned her gaze inquiringly to her master. This was an unforeseen problem hitherto not dealt with in their varied experience as travelers. Jean François straightened up, smoothed his beard with his hands, gave his trousers a hitch at his belt, clearing his throat loudly and with ostentation. The shoulders in the road ceased theirsobbing movement long enough to perceptibly shrug.
"Damn!" ejaculated Jean François, beneath his breath.
Then, removing an ample bandanna handkerchief from his pocket, he signaled by a demonstrative blowing of his nose. This, producing no effect save to heighten the disturbance of the shoulders before him, encouraged him to call out:
"I beg your pardon, Madame."
There was no reply.
"Bite her, Rogue, you sacré pig of a zebra," he commanded, with mingled good humor and disgust showing in his voice as he, at the same time, stepped around the cart toward the cause of the disturbance.
As he approached, a rather disheveled young woman turned a tearful, laughing face toward him, and, not rising, cried somewhat trembly, yet merrily:
"Umbrellas to mend!... Umbrellas to mend!... Fine knacks for ladies. Within this pack are pins, points, laces, and gloves.... I am poet, pedler, andwandering troubadour. Fair ladies from their tears I rescue. A knight errant of the pack am I!"
Jean François threw up his hands in strong amazement, consternation upon every feature, and his tongue tied by surprise. A moment, that seemed to him as a nightmare in which he struggled in vain attempt for words, and then these expressions came with marvelous speed and versatility.
"Ventre de biche!... Sacré pig of a zebra!... By all the saints in paradise!" he cried with a hundred imprecations. Finally, as if exhausted, he asked rather meekly:
"From what star did you drop?... You little red-headed jade!"
Indeed it was Miss Nance Gwyn, about to cry, a little soiled and mussed, distractingly pretty, pointing a derisive finger as a baton, and shouting with laughter to the helpless and dumbfounded Jean François:
"Will you buy any tape,Or lace for your cape,My dainty duck, my dear-a?Any silk, any thread,Any toys for your head,Of the new'st and finest, finest wear-a?Come to the pedler,Money's a meddler,That doth utter all men's ware-a."
"Will you buy any tape,Or lace for your cape,My dainty duck, my dear-a?Any silk, any thread,Any toys for your head,Of the new'st and finest, finest wear-a?Come to the pedler,Money's a meddler,That doth utter all men's ware-a."
Columbine had been hauled to the side of the road and Rogue was allowed to nibble blue-grass at her pleasure. A fire had been kindled, and Jean François was broiling bacon speared on the end of a sharpened stick. A coffee-pot was steaming upon a few hot embers raked aside for that especial purpose. A great loaf of white bread lay on a cloth on the bottom of an upturned bucket. Nance, over behind the cart, was arranging her toilet. She had rummaged within the yellow depth of the van, filled with much pedlers' finery, and, among other necessities, discovered a small mirror. This she propped upon the hub against a spoke of the wheel. With its aid she readily set herself to rights.
Just as she appeared, fresh and resplendentas the morning itself, Jean François announced breakfast. He directed her to be seated on the bank of the turnpike, placed a clean board some two feet square upon her lap, and gave to her two slices of firm bread between which lay several strips of crisply cooked bacon. He then brought her a heavy china cup filled with delicious coffee. This, with sparkling cool water from a spring near the bridge, constituted his offering for the morning meal. After giving himself a like helping, they ate in silence. Once a farm wagon, in which three men rode, was driven by. As they passed, they stared very markedly. The pedler, usually so amiable, scowled furtively at them. Nance became uneasy, for Jean François had scarcely spoken to her since his torrent of French and English invectives which came so volubly upon his surprise at finding her unexpectedly. This was very unlike her old-time friend the umbrella man. She began to realize that it was a very delicate problem with which she had precipitately overwhelmed him. She wondered how he would solve it, yet wasindifferent enough not to offer any assistance.
After the meal, with his usual deliberateness, he drew Pierrett from his pocket, filled her with an adorable mixture, and, with a brand from the fire, proceeded to light her. As the blue smoke curled above his head, he leaned upon his elbow, otherwise his body lay at full length upon the earth, and, at last, looked at the petulant and unhappy Nance.
"Son," said he, without any apparent consideration of the sex implied by the title and as if he were subtly indicating the relationship which he wished them to assume; "son, tell me all about it."
"I ran away," exclaimed Nance in her most bewitching manner.
She had decided upon her method of procedure. She would be seductive, helpless, and appeal to his sympathy and chivalry. A course which he readily perceived was going to make his sexless comradeship rather difficult.
"To be sure, sir," was the reply. And then as if a bit alarmed:
"I sincerely hope that no one willthink for a moment that you have been kidnapped!"
"I shouldn't wonder if they did," she brightened in mischievous delight. "Wouldn't it be exceedingly funny?"
"It would," was the laconic reply, accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders.
Jean François removed Pierrett from his mouth. After examining the pipe carefully, he refilled it, and continued his smoke. Five minutes passed without a word, and then, looking up quite seriously at his charge, he said:
"See here, Nancy Bricktop, are you aware of the fact that you are no longer a ten-year-old child?"
Nance flushed, a trifle embarrassed.
"Anyone but myself," he continued, "would say you were pretty much of a grown-up woman.... My dear child—"
"Now, don't you 'my-dear-child' me," she cried tearfully. "All of them conspire against me, and you aren't a bit better!"
Jean François arose and placed his pipe in his pocket. He walked thelength of the cart a half dozen times. It appeared to be rather a bad beginning.
"Nance," said he, turning and for the first time showing sympathy in his voice and manner, "Come! Tell me all about it. Why did you run away?"
"I—I cannot tell you," she replied, dropping her head.
"O, but you must," said he. "You haven't stolen anything?"
"Perhaps," she smiled archly.
"Seriously, now little jade, forget that I have reminded you that you are grown up, for you are not. Just think of me as the old umbrella man of your barefoot years. I—"
"Of my barefoot years?" she exclaimed. "What do you know—"
"Of the years, my dear," he explained, "when you used to run barelegged and barefoot along the dusty road pleading to go gipsying with me. Do you remember?"
"That's part of why I'm here, Jean François," she said.
"Nance, Nance, Nance," he repeated, slightly exasperated, "go right along andtell me why you have left Oldmeadow, Doctor Longstreet, and—and the practise of medicine, and dropped like a lost star into my top-o'-the-morning?"
"Charles," said she tearfully.
"Ah, I thought so.... What has he done? Eloped with your Aunt Barbara?... Tell me, tell me!"
"Charles came home," she explained, looking into her lap, "after four or five years of college, imbued with the idea that I was his property.... He acted as if he owned me!" she blurted indignantly.
"Well, doesn't he?" asked Jean François, innocently.
"Doesn't he! Doesn't he!" she flung at him. "That's just what grandfather asked."
"And your Aunt Barbara?" he queried humorously.
"Aunt Barbara," she continued with fine sarcasm, "my precise, correct, conventional Aunt Barbara, who will not acknowledge, Jean François, that she has such vulgar things as legs; this dear, darling devotee of propriety actuallypointed to herself as a horrible example of a too-exacting young woman!... My Aunt Barbara is a silly old ass!"
"How you do mix your genders when you become excited, my dear-a."
"You're a goose!" she exclaimed. "A darling, old adorable goose.... You never liked my Aunt Barbara."
"But my question, Nance ... I thought things were all decided years ago. Do tell me."
"Dr. Charles Reubelt King," she pronounced the name with withering scorn, "was disgustingly presumptuous. He treated me as if he were feeling the pulse of the world and was just about to administer to it the particular pill which would cure all of its ills.... I despise pompousness, pedantry, and unconscious condescension in a man.... As for me—well, if he didn't say it, he acted it. I was nothing. I knew nothing. At my best I was but a red-headed spiritualized slave—and not always quite spiritualized!... I knew nothing!"
"It seems to hurt you pretty bad, Nance," he said mildly.
"What?... Nothing hurts me!"
"Do you, Bricktop?"
"Do I what?"
"Know anything?" asked Jean François.
"Certainly I do, and you know it, you horrid old pedler. Didn't I sense the real river and the road and the happy hills long, long ago?... And as for you, Monsieur, I know things about you of which our stupid Charles Reubelt has never dreamed. Shall I tell you things, Jean François?"
Jean François raised his hand in protest, shaking his head forbiddingly.
"Never mind," said he, good humoredly.
"Ah, Jean François," she exclaimed in a burst of tenderness, "I preferred the road and—"
"Finish your Dr. Charles, whom you must remember is quite young and possesses a new diploma," said he, interrupting her hastily.
"The undesirable part of it is," said she, obeying, "is that grandfather and Aunt Barbara are on his side. They sayhe is such a pretty, nice boy with such an acceptable family and promising prospects. All of which, so far as that is concerned, is true. They thought I should have led him to the altar accompanied by the Oldmeadow brass band, with me dancing in front as David did before the Ark of the Covenant."
"Nance," said Jean François, extending his hand to her, "you are always pretty nearly right. You might have shown more wisdom by not carrying things so far as to run away like a spoiled child.... Here's my hand. I'm with you.... Now tell me how you got here?"
While she entered into the details of her trip he busied himself with hitching Rogue to the cart and turning the face of the caravan about to the north. She had learned through a note, requiring an answer, which Jean François had written to Doctor Longstreet, that he would call about the first of June for his mail at the little town which lay behind them in the valley. She had arrived the night before, and, after learning at the post-office that he had not called, she, doubtlessvery foolishly, but with her old-time adventurous spirit, had started out to meet him.
"Come, let's be going," said he. And he helped her onto a little apron-like seat which projected over the shafts and had for a back the front of the body of the van.
"All right, Rogue," said Jean François for the second time that morning, and they were off.
Then it was Nance seemed to discover that they had turned and were going back up the hill from which he had descended only two hours before.
"Where are we going, Jean François?" she asked with slight alarm.
"Back to Dr. Charles Reubelt King," he smiled, "to teach him how not to be a fool!"
Nance frowned for a moment, but saw the old friendly strength restored to the face of the man walking at Rogue's flank, and with a contented little sigh she sank back into the comfortable cushions of Columbine.
Jean François was right when he called himself poet. Not that he was a maker of verse, for, if it were so, no one had ever seen a single rhyme. But that was his which was far better, perhaps, than writing. He possessed all of the wondrous, painful gifts of the builder of dreams. His was the sympathetic eye for beauty in her subtlest forms. Most men see only the outward and more materialistic things: he saw the deeper, truer meaning which lay at the heart of life. He found mysterious kinship in every living thing from the simplest wayside wild blossom to the complicated soul of man. He could clasp hands with an oak and feel the fine yet strong pulsations of unknown forces which gave personality to a hospitable greenwood. Every little scurrying animal that flew from his path he felt was a part ofthe great life, and, in a manner, a brother to men. He was a mystic; a lover of ancient lore and the tales of once-upon-a-time; a friend of elves, gnomes, fairies, fays, goblins, and children; and, with all of his knowledge of the world, was exceedingly childlike.
His year had been varied. At times he had worked at bitter tasks and known much of sorrow, despair, hunger, suffering, hardship. He had shared with the poor and loved them. Yet, withal, he had gone through life playing. Without needing a specific reason, he had entered into some of the most whimsical adventures imaginable. His fiftieth birthday found him still a child, making of some of the most serious problems a thing for play. And pray, why not? He filled his place, bore his burdens, but with the graciousness of buoyant youth unlearned in hopelessness and pessimism. He laughed along the way, and the gods, loving him, took care of him and made him happy. Is it any wonder that the elves, the fairies, the children came and ministered unto him? Do you think it anything strangethat the fays should light his fire by night, that the pixies should dance before him in the white moonlight, or that Puck should seal his eyes with magic juice of flower and send him laughing and joyous into the delectable land of dreams?... As I have said, Jean François was right when he called himself a poet.
All of this to help you understand something of the day Nance had as they loafed along the highway, through green sweet-smelling woodlands, by pasture, meadow, field, and plowman, over limpid swelling streams, all in the gentle welcome sunshine of early June. It was always to be remembered as the most wonderful day of all of her life.
For an hour or more after the start, being fatigued by her journey and the strain of her interview with Jean François, she slept. He walked quietly beside the van, now and then directing Rogue by a word, at times lost in thought, unconsciously gazing at the road at his feet; again, with sweeping glance, scanning the beauty of some purple valley watered by a silver thread of a river. Once, someladies driving by in an old phaeton became all agog upon seeing the sleeping girl upon the seat. They stopped the pedler and insisted upon his showing them his wares. He did this grudgingly, turning the rear of the cart toward them, apparently to make his goods more accessible, but in reality to hide Nance from their curious gaze. As they drove on, the more bold of them remarked:
"Your daughter is quite beautiful, sir."
"Thank you.... All right, Rogue," said he, and once more they were on the road.
As he walked this time, he studied Nance. She had grown very handsome, Jean François thought. She possessed charm. Her face was strikingly frank. Her hair was soft and sun-colored, with darker shadows here and there. Her eyes, being closed, showed more plainly the long black lashes and well-arched brows, which made her at once both blonde and brunette. The nose was slender, with sensitive and expressive nostrils. Her mouth was rather wide,with straight lips, the lower of which, like that of Herrick's Julia, seemed bee-stung. The features taken together gave her countenance an intellectual cast, softened and beautified by an air of childlike candor that, when fired by her sparkling, dancing, azure eyes, lent her a look seductive to intoxication. A certain abandon in her sleep brought out more evidently that she was round-limbed, beautifully shaped, and lithe, with lovely swelling breasts.
Jean François began to understand how Charles Reubelt might have been surprisingly in haste. He turned his gaze to the valleys. They were beautiful in a sheer primitive way, and, even if more awake, also decidedly more quieting subjects for one's admiration.
A little later, upon awakening, she insisted upon being allowed to get down beside him and walk on slightly ahead of the caravan. At last her dream had come true. She was idling downle long trimardwith Jean François, his Pierrett—a lady upon whom she laid no claim—Rogue, and Columbine. She pickedflowers; teased Rogue by pokes and inoffensive jabs; tantalized the pedler by asking a thousand childish questions, which he answered with becoming patience; ate voraciously and often; ran and jumped the brooks and insisted upon wading until she was threatened; smiled upon the staring, open-mouthed rustics; insisted upon showing goods at places he wished to hurry by, and, for the sake of selling, making outlandish bargains; and ever and anon breaking into song. At least a half dozen times did she sing the pedler's favorite air:
"Will you buy any tape,Or lace for your cape,My dainty ducky, my dear-a?"
"Will you buy any tape,Or lace for your cape,My dainty ducky, my dear-a?"
Once she caroled, much to Jean François' delight, an old song he had taught her as having been sung by the debonair Henry of Navarre. It especially pleased him because she sang in French:
"Morning bright,Rise to sight,—Glad am I thy face to see:One I love,All above,Has ruddy cheek like thee."Fainter farRoses are,Though with morning dew-drops bright;Ne'er was furSoft like her,Milk itself is not so white."When she sings,Soon she bringsListeners out from every cot;Pensive swainsHush their strains,—All their sorrows are forgot."She is fairPast compare;One small hand her waist can span.Eyes of light—Stars, though bright,Match those eyes you never can."Hebe blestOnce the bestFood of gods before her placed:When I sipHer red lip,I can still the nectar taste."
"Morning bright,Rise to sight,—Glad am I thy face to see:One I love,All above,Has ruddy cheek like thee.
"Fainter farRoses are,Though with morning dew-drops bright;Ne'er was furSoft like her,Milk itself is not so white.
"When she sings,Soon she bringsListeners out from every cot;Pensive swainsHush their strains,—All their sorrows are forgot.
"She is fairPast compare;One small hand her waist can span.Eyes of light—Stars, though bright,Match those eyes you never can.
"Hebe blestOnce the bestFood of gods before her placed:When I sipHer red lip,I can still the nectar taste."
In the middle of the afternoon they rested for about two hours in a little glade just off the road. It was here, near a branch, that Nance, while wandering about, discovered a rather curious old arrow-head with which she immediately ran to Jean François.
"That, my dear," said he, "is an elf-arrow."
"An elf-arrow?" she asked.
"Don't you know the elf people, Nance? Their dances and their songs?
"'That harp will make the elves of eveTheir dwelling in the moonlight leave,'"
"'That harp will make the elves of eveTheir dwelling in the moonlight leave,'"
he repeated.
"No," said she, "tell me of the elves."
Upon which he launched into whimsical tales concerning elfin-land and the merry little people of the night and the greenwood. It was a new world which he created for her. To be sure she had been reared on fairy tales—but they were without a semblance of fact. Here were chronicles of a real people as related by their friend. He was authority, for was he himself not an elf-child but a few generations removed?
"Comme extrait que je suis de fée," said Jean François, quoting his brother François Villon.
"Jean François," she said, when they had resumed their way, "did you know I believe that somewhere among my ancestorsthere must have been a wonderful gipsy woman? I can fancy her a slender, dark-skinned, black-haired girl with wander-longing in her eyes, loving some bully-rook of a young English gentleman, and, without a thought of to-morrow, allowing herself to be carried off to his home, a sort of stolen bride. Then," said she, "I see her later on, when he has settled down to a very respectable ale-drinking, big-paunched squire, eating her heart out for the roads, the camp, and the crimson sky of morning.... What do you think?"
"I think, young woman," said he, with a humorous twitching about his mouth, "that you must be mistaken. In the first place, such a maid as you describe could not be quite so badly fooled in her man.... In the second place, Nance, Charles isn't really half so stupid as you are making him out to be."
"O!" she exclaimed in hurt surprise.
For the next hour she kept well ahead of him, refusing to be inveigled into any topic of conversation whatever. She could have done nothing more in harmonywith his mood. Jean François wanted a time for thought. Night was coming on. There was a question upon his mind that made him laugh to himself when he realized its nature. It caused him to think of Aunt Barbara. He knew what she would have advised straightway.... What would Nance expect? Should he stop at the next farmhouse and leave her a victim for the spare bedroom? Heaven forbid! And yet—
He raised his eyes and with pleasure watched, as she walked with ample stride before him, the graceful, free motions of her body. After all how like a gipsy's were her movements. He thought of what she had just said concerning a woman who might have been her mother. This led him to wondering about her father and mother. He had never given her parentage a thought before. He knew that they were dead, and that Doctor Longstreet was certainly her grandfather. No elf-child, she. Yet there was a strain of wild, untamed blood in her that he could scarcely account for in the staid, conventionalfamily of which she was a member. For, notwithstanding his rebellion against Miss Barbara's sense of propriety, the old physician was distinctly the product of the civilization of the aristocratic South.
She is of herself complete, he thought, and no man's child. Then it suddenly occurred to him that she was just such a being to whom he would have loved to have been father. She was his child! The idea pleased him and he smiled. So far as concerned kith and kin he was alone in the world. Also had he not touched her sensitive mind and quickened it into a genuine understanding of the life of the highways, the woodland, and all of the birds therein, the river, the poetry of the starlight, the sunshine and the moonbeams? Had he not shown to her the ways of fairies and elf-kings?... In fact was she—the real, true, immortal she—not his creation? Did not the dominant spirit within her bear a close likeness to his own phantasmagoric soul? Indeed, in his own image he had fashioned her.... She was his child!... He would have her for his daughter. Noone could prevent.... He raised his head and called her.
She, who waited for him to catch up with her, saw a gentle, tender humor in his eyes, a sweet smile upon his lips, which bespoke confidence and trust. With childlike faith she put her hand in his and together they walked down the hill into the coming twilight.
In the dusk, near a little river which came tumbling down from the mountainside, they stopped and prepared their camp for the night. Rogue was unharnessed, led to water, and turned to roam where the grass seemed most toothsome. Jean François knew that she would be standing by the van at morning waiting with patience for her measure of oats. After building a crackling fire of sticks and limbs of dead trees, he went in search of a spring. Some minutes later a great black pot, taken from a hook beneath the cart, was swinging over the flames, the sparkling water beginning to bubble within it.
It was then the pedler climbed upon the wheel, removed the pair of steps from the top, adjusting them at the rear door so one might easily climb in and out of the cart. Next he proceeded toremove many things from the mysterious depths of Columbine. Nance stood by receiving them. Among many things were these: a smoke-cured old ham, doubtless taken in trade from some lusty farmer; a basket of eggs and a bucket of milk bought at the last farmhouse on the road; a huge loaf of what the housewives term "salt-rising" bread; a flagon of Burgundy wine; a skillet, a coffee-pot, and a teakettle. Then came bundles, boxes, and drawers containing the knick-knacks of the pedler's pack. These he lifted to the earth himself, placing them softly beneath a near-by tree, covering them with a heavy canvas. Afterward, from the front end of the almost empty small room, he produced bedding which he spread down upon one side of the floor. Next, from the side near the open door, he let down a table hinged to the wall and supported by a prop. Above it he hung a mirror; upon it he laid a brush, comb, and a basin; before it he placed an open camp-stool. He had done his best.... Turning to Nance with a characteristically elaborate bow, he said:
"Now, Titania, ascend the steps of your castle. To your right you will find your dressing-room; to the left, your bed-chamber. Your supper will be servedal fresco.... Will you deign to share it with me?"
"With all of my heart, Robin Goodfellow," cried Nance as she walked airily into Columbine.
Jean François poked the mysterious pot, fried ham, scrambled eggs, made coffee, and toasted bread. This they ate by the light of the fire and the stars.
After the meal the pedler filled his pipe, lighted it with an ember, and stretched himself full length upon the earth with his ugly red head propped by his arm. Nance sat gazing into the fire, her knees hugged against her stooping figure, a dream upon her face. The darkness about was intense. The light flickered in ghostly shadows upon the yellow sides and spokes of the van. The steady munching of Rogue, the occasional popping of the fire, the murmuring of the river with the melancholy song of a thousand insects, now loud, now still, asthe breeze came and went, made the sleepy music of the night.
Thus they sat for two hours, neither of them speaking a word. Jean François was occupied with a choice entertainment in which he often indulged. To begin with, in imagination he went over the whole matter of Nance's escapade with Doctor Longstreet and Charles King. He explained her temperament, defending her nobly with a delicate suggestion of his own attitude toward her. Then, again in fancy, he talked of young Dr. King to the jade. All to himself he became quite an old match-maker. This was followed by witnessing them as the occupants of the old home of the many pillars. Here his dreams took unusual liberty; he peopled the house with other and tinier folk than the father and mother.... Here he smiled as he thought of Nance's chagrin could she but see his mind. He looked up and caught her gaze bent upon him.
"Did you ever hear the story of 'The King of Bohemia and the Beggar from Bagdad'?" he asked as he knocked hispipe, to empty it, upon the heel of his boot, and dropped it into his pocket.
"Never," she said, looking at him interestingly. "If there isn't any moral to it, tell it."
"I'm afraid there is," said he. "It is about a sleepy monarch—"
"O," she exclaimed, light breaking on her face as she remembered an old trick of the childhood days which he had used a hundred times to send her and Charles to bed, "and you dream the tale?... I remember."
"That's right," said the pedler.
"But you say that I am now grown up.... The stars are very bright, the fire is in a friendly communicative mood, I think I shall go to my bed when it pleases me, Monsieur le debonair pedler!"
"Very well," said he, with his accustomed shrug of indifference. Then, after a moment's study of Nance, who had resumed her gazing into the fire:
"Of what has the fire been speaking to-night?... Yes?"
"I have been thinking all evening of babies," she replied with charming candor.
"What ever made you think of babies?" he asked quickly.
"Did you notice that dear dimpled little red one at the house where we bought the milk?" was her reply.
"I must confess that I did not see the little Indian," he answered.
"Just like a man," said Nance, ignoring his levity, a trifle of scorn in her voice.
"Little babies in the utterly helpless stage," was Jean François' remark, "have always been just without the limit of my appreciation."
"That's because you are a man," she explained.
"Great heavens!" he exclaimed. "'Because you are a man.'... 'Just like a man.' Nance, your phrases show intelligence! I might reply, 'Just like a woman.'... Bah, it positively sounds bourgeois.... Now, honest, lady, don't you really suppose that there are men who actually like infants in their crinkly state?"
"I've always wanted a baby," said Nance irrelevantly, "and some day I mean to have one."
"Thank God!" was Jean François' very serious ejaculation.
A moment later Nance was upon her feet ready to say good night and away to the pleasant land of sleep.
"Good night, dear Jean François," said she with gaiety. "May your dreams be of your beloved roads of Picardy."
She threw him an elfish kiss from her finger-tips and hastened into her airy improvised bedroom.
"And you, my daughter," murmured Jean François, as he turned upon his back and sought the stars between the interlacing boughs of the sheltering trees, "may you dream of Charles King, the old home of many pillars, of romping merry children, and a great love."
Thus it was the days flew by on romantic wings, each seemingly more filled with adventurous happiness than the last. Up with the promising rosy dawn, a mouthful of oats for the bonnie mare, a bit of bread and a draught of wine for the roadsters, the van packed, and heigh-ho for the alluring highway! It was a joyous, beautiful, glorious road with never a sigh nor a fret, for were they not homeward bound with hearts set to rights?
All day long they idled, never hurrying, stopping to gather flowers, fruit, or to admire a tree, a river, a valley, or a hill. Sometimes they fished for a dinner, or accepted the friendly invitation of a countryman to his table. Ever and anon they would sell a yard of lace, a ribbon, a trinket, a pack of thread. Often they sang, or chattered about kings and cabbagesand things. Nance walked the greater way, but occasionally, tiring, she climbed into the cradling arms of Columbine and from the apron-like seat drove Rogue. In the early afternoon they would rest for an hour or two, sometimes more, if they were tired and the shade enticing. An early nightfall always found them securely camped waiting only for the darkness in which to go to sleep, Nance to dream on her couch in the cart; the pedler to lie upon the soft sweet-scented earth beneath a sheltering tree.
Aye, but they were wonderful, never-to-be-forgotten days! Glad halcyon days! Happy days in Arcady. Days of strange and gentle adventures.... Upon long-sought, rare days life gives us a dream come true, whose realization is even more wonderful than was the fancy. Such days were these.
It was the third or fourth day of such a vagabondish journey that found them at nightfall approaching a beech wood. Here, hidden from the road, beside a clear cool branch, in a charming little dingle about a hundred yards from anold country meeting-house, they pitched their camp. After things were made snug, Jean François left for a house which could be seen a quarter of a mile away, proposing to buy eggs, cheese, and bread.
Left to herself, Nance discovered a quiet, limpid pool, not far from the van, which appeared to be some two or three feet deep. Testing its temperature with her hand and finding it pleasurable, she dropped her petticoats and stepped gracefully into the water. Her fair body against the dusky twilight seemed that of a naiad. As she stooped, from time to time, and sported in the kissing ripples of her own creation, the loveliness of her was such as to have held captive every faun the greenwood knew. Then she climbed upon the grassy bank and stood for the warm winds of summer to dry her. O, how wonderful it was to be free!
Was she not a part of the great life? Then she thought of the old days, and smiled as she covered her breasts with her hands and sought her clothing.
Upon dressing she stretched herself atfull length beneath a tree and, following her thoughts of the bygone times, began thinking of home folk, Oldmeadow, and Dr. Charles Reubelt King. In the light of the simple, primitive life she now led, coupled with many days of absence, his conduct did not appear quite as disagreeable as at first. Her grandfather was already forgiven. Of course dear conventional Aunt Barbara did not count. She laughed aloud when she thought of how shocked Oldmeadow would be when she came walking along the river road with Jean François. Then, for the first time, it occurred to her to wonder what her reception would be. She dwelt secure in the knowledge that she had been born and reared in the village. To have been an actual son or daughter of Oldmeadow was a virtue which would cover unnumbered sins. The world was judged harshly, but special privileges belonged to natives. Last of all she wondered if Dr. King would ever again dare to kiss her as he had the day before she ran away.
Suddenly she sat up, listening intently. She could hear Jean François talking tosomeone as he approached through the trees. She sprang to her feet, alarmed. No one had ever before intruded upon their seclusion, and she resented it now. She was in no very gracious mood for visitors as she stepped into the open that she might see at some distance the companion of the pedler.
There was with Jean François a tall, angular dusky-hued man who walked very erect and with a certain air of command. His forehead was noticeably high and broad; his thin hair as black as a gipsy's; his beard, of the same color, was neatly trimmed, soft, and fell to his waist; his brown eyes sparkled with humor and kindness.
"This gentleman," said Jean François, presenting him to Nance, "is the parson of the little church yonder. He lives in the cottage down the road and gave me this," indicating by a motion of his hand the provisions he was now spreading upon the grass.
Nance bowed and with some distrust inspected the visitor. He bowed graciously, smiling the while.
"I know your grandfather," he ventured in a pleasant voice, "and I have seen you in Oldmeadow."
"O, yes, I remember you," said Nance quickly, yet without thawing. "Grandfather likes you," she added. Then, frowning and with a touch of sarcasm:
"I suppose you will disapprove of me?"
"Why should I?" he inquired with surprise.
"You are a parson," she said.
"O, I'd forgotten," he laughed, showing a mouthful of splendid teeth. "I suppose I'd better lecture you?" he queried.
Nance laughed, too. His merriment was catching. Then suddenly, with a questioning glance of reproach at Jean François:
"You did not know I was here?"
"Certainly not," he replied. "I love the road."
He seemed to think this sufficient explanation. But Nance was a trifle puzzled.
"A preacher who loves the road," and she shook her head doubtfully. "If youlove it, why don't you follow it then?" She seemed to think that this was sufficient proof that at least he loved but little.
"Why don't you follow it?" she repeated with a touch of conclusiveness, as if no more could be said upon the subject. "St. Francis did.... I love it and I have chosen it. The road is my religion," here she looked up with a suggestion of defiance in her eyes as if anticipating his disapproval, but, upon seeing nothing save interest upon his face, she continued, "My camp-fires at night are a flaming offering upon his altar, the earth, to Pan.... Why don't you take the road?"
Nance was unconsciously posing a trifle.
"It calls me strongly sometimes," he replied, and his eyes became tender and sought the soft shadowy highway through the growing night. The wander-longing was in his face.... Then, quickly recalling himself, he exclaimed:
"Besides I have my work to do! It could not be done on the road.... At least," he hastily corrected, "I could notdo the task I have planned for myself." There was a simple, unconscious note of courage in his voice.
"Why?" asked Nance in wonder.
"There are many and profound reasons. It would not prove pleasant to speak of them. But for one of the least: Do you think," said he, "that vagabondia would mix with the average conventional church community?"
"Become the pastor of vagabondia," she suggested, smiling.
"It would be a hopeless task," he returned.
"How do you stand it?" she inquired, somewhat irrelevantly.
"Why, I've my home and my work," said he, now on the defensive. "It's only occasionally that I hunger for the traffic lands. Then, like to-night, I take my gipsying vicariously."
Jean François straightened up from his work over the fire.
"Jesus, the good Master," said he, "loved the roads, the Judean hills, the laughing Jordan, and to sleep out under the stars at night, did he not?"
"True," replied the parson.
"He possessed the genuine poetic spirit of vagabondia, my son," continued the pedler, who was older than the visitor. "He followed the roads and sought the hillsides for his couch. It's many a joyous, irresponsible, nomadic journey he made over the countryside. He loved the poor, the common people, the oppressed, the struggler—all save the struggler at the needle's eye—and the happy sunny hills of Arcady."
"I know, my friend," was the reply.
"I also know your point of view, comrade," said Jean François, suddenly melting into sympathy. "You are right. It could not be done. At least in America. You would have to either give up your walk or your talk. The people'd make you.... Let's see—they would call it a sort of highway heresy.... Now, things are vastly different in my sunny France."
"And in Paradise, too, I hope," smiled the parson, with good humor.
The supper had been removed from the fire, and awaited them spread temptinglyupon the grass. The three of them sat facing the flames so they might get the full light upon what the pedler termed Pan's table. They dropped their more serious subject, chattering playfully like a group of care-free children at play.... An hour later this new-found friend arose to go. He extended his hands to them, saying,
"Here's luck, love, and a prayer.... Good night."
They watched him walk leisurely down the road until he was lost from sight in the night. In the distance they could see the twinkling friendly light which called him to his home, and to his task. And they knew that he went gladly.
The next morning at half an hour after sunrise they passed the country church where the gentle parson preached and prayed, and took the rough and picturesque road down the hill for the village which lay beside the river a mile or more below. In those days it was known as the "Old Road," and was as rocky and impassable as it was interesting and adventurous. One never quite knew, as one rounded its many sharp turns, drove close to hazardous declivities and beneath great over-hanging boulders, whether one was to be wrecked by an approaching team, to fall to painful yawning depths, or crushed to an unrecognizable pulp. That no one was hurt was largely due to the fact that the danger was so apparent. At the bottom of the highway, dug and blasted from the hill side, there abided a smallvillage with the erudite and classical name of Milton.
Jean François was charmed with the old hill road. He lingered at each bend seeking glimpses of the valley away below—almost beneath. Upon every side grew great oaks, spreading beech, and tall, strong hickory. These trees appeared to have forced themselves from the very boulders which surrounded them, partaking of their solidity and massiveness. At intervals were patches of shrubby, ill-smelling "heavenly bushes." At one place, by peering through a ravine, he discovered a large old-fashioned farmhouse perched on the highest point above, guarding, like a sentinel, the small domain of the dead, the near-by community cemetery.
A final turn in the road brought them once more into sight of their beloved river, the magnificent Ohio, which they were to leave no more even to the journey's end. A few moments later they were passing through Milton. Once out on the smooth level turnpike which took them through Hunter's bottom on theCarrolton way, Jean François turned to Nance, who rode upon the seat, and began talking of their unusual visitor of the night before.
"Nance," said he, "I've been thinking very much about this parson. I have been wondering if he is right. That he does love the road, the dingle, and the gipsy's camp is easy to see. He loves them deeply. Yet he has deliberately foregone any opportunity to go over the hills with his pack. Think of it, my dear-a, he's preaching! He is a seeming paradox.... It is true his home keeps him. He has a four-gabled cottage set in a group of firs with a garden to the right, as you enter, and an orchard to the left. He has a wife who is comely and smiling, and three or four daughters about.... Now, lady, let me ask you a question?"
"Go on."
Jean François deftly filled and lighted his pipe before continuing.
"Nance," he said earnestly as he flicked the burning match into the dust, "I do not think I would make much of a preacher, do you?"
At first she was inclined to laugh. In one sense the question seemed absurdly ridiculous. Her devil-may-care, whimsical, light-o'-road, brother-o'-Pan, green-woodsy pedler of songs a parson!... But he was serious, so, repressing a smile, she answered him as gravely as she might.
"It is owing to what you call preaching, my dear-a," she replied. "If it is firstly, secondly, thirdly, fourthly, fifthly, sixthly—"
"Please to be serious," he interrupted.
"—Seventhly,ad finemand conclusion," she continued, "with the moral highly evident, like Dr. Thistlewood, Aunt Barbara's pastor, why I should say not."
She accompanied her remarks with a highly significant shrug of the shoulders which she had early learned from the pedler.
"What would you have?" he asked.
"But if it is fighting the battles of the poor, demanding justice for the hungry, being very gentle with folks,—and being natural—"
"Ah, that will do," he interrupted."Now, Nance, fancy, if you can, my being a priest, say, like Monsieur l'Abbé Picot."
Her eyes lighted with dancing mischief.
"That is very easy," she exclaimed. "You are now Monsieur Picot."
"Just fancy," he ejaculated, looking up quickly to catch her eye.
"O, certainly. Just imagine, you mean?"
"Yes, Nance, 'just imagine.'"
"Go on, Father," she said, with slight mockery.
"Now," said he, too serious himself to pay attention to her levity, "if I were the Abbé in the old house with my duty staring me in the face like an injured child, and a veritable hell of a conscience hacking at you continually for having left where you were doing something for somebody, and coming where you were helpless, your longing for just every-day human companionship, the road, and all, and all—what would you do?... What would you do, I ask?... What would a man do?"
For a space she walked in silence. Now she fully realized that he was evidently very sincere in his questionings. The seriousness of the whole thing to him was impressively apparent. Also her answer meant a great deal to him. She must have time. There must be no levity, no mockery, no play in her reply. It must come from her heart to his soul.... She turned to him:
"Dear old friend, you'll give me a little time?... Until to-night?"
"Until to-night," he repeated.
At nightfall they made a camp down on the gravel of the river bank just a short distance below the mouth of the Kentucky river. It was the last night, and each of them was thinking of it. There was a feeling of great sadness in the heart of Jean François, for he realized very surely that he must now renounce the chiefest joy of his life for the sake of the love he bore his friends. He reflected that such things had been done before by better men than he, and he dismissed the self-pity as beneath him.
Nance sat and watched the old Ohio. There is an extraordinary beauty about the river with the coming of the night. The sun goes down behind the hills slowly, as if sorrowful at leaving the silent waters. The great river glistens in a thousand peaceful shades that play at hide-and-seek among the ripples. When the west had ceased to wear the crimson mantle of her lord the water becomes a lucid green. Then, as twilight comes, the stream grows a somber gray, and more silent still, as the stars climb into the sky. The lights begin to appear in the windows of the homes among the trees and wink, solemn beacons by friendly hearths. The rumble of the paddle of a distant steamboat may be heard in melancholy cadence on the summer breezes. Finally the moon, as if uncertain of the way, comes peeping through the willows and casts her wake across the water.
The night had come.
Jean François came and sat beside her.
"Well, Nance?" said he.
"You asked me, my dear Jean François, what I would do were I Monsieurl'Abbé Picot and heard the call of Pan?"
"Yes."
"A call to the beautiful, the wholesome, the healthful for body and mind and soul, where I might meet my fellows and become their friend? Where I could and would at times bring gentleness and love into their lives? Where I should meet children and make them see? Women and teach them the value of life?... A road like that, my friend?"
"Yes, I think it is that kind of a road."
"Are you sure of it?"
"Yes, I am sure of it!"
"Well, Jean François," she said as she arose and gave him her hand for good night, "I would listen to Pan. I would take my pack and the long, splendid open road. I'd become the happy pedler. A pedler, I should say, if I were Monsieur l'Abbé Jacques Picot, of little joys for troubled hearts, heartsease for the sad, elfish tales for romping children, merry songs for lovers, and an exceeding great love for all of them.... That is as Ishould do, my friend.... Good night," and she was gone.
Jean François sat with his face hidden in his hands. He prayed a little, wept a little, and laughed between his praying and his weeping.
It was the last night.
For once the morning road was disturbed. Its happiness was feigned. The sun lay just as warm upon the field as the week before. The air was quite as soft, as scented, as full of the freshness of spring. The river was fully as beautiful as of old as it flowed lazily by with glorious sunlit waters. Yet, withal, happiness seemed to have fled.
If you had been upon a journey at this time on the way west from Oldmeadow, known as the river road, you would have met two travelers afoot following a horse and van. As you approached them it would easily be noticed that they were playfully chattering in an apparent abundance of spirits. Their greeting would have been one of marked good cheer. You would have felt singled out for their especial attention. Then, after passing, should you have turned to look at thestrange, grotesque figure of the man whom you had already marked as an extraordinary person, and at the genuine easy grace and beauty of the girl, whose startled, wistful face you had seen a moment before, there would have been awakened within you a sense of pity. A picturesque group you would have said, whose air of frivolity seemed but a masque beneath the veneer of which lay sorrow. You would have been right.... The road which one stumbles and falters along in the heart is not always so smooth and alluring as the road at one's feet. For once the great highway had lost its charm.... So, as you passed from hearing, there was a distinct note of sadness in the merry-tuned song which they joined their voices in singing.