David stood where his mother had left him, dazed, hurt, sad. He was desperately minded to leave all and flee back to the hills—back to the life he had left in Canada. He saw the clear, true look of Cassandra's eyes meeting his. His heart called for her; his soul cried out within him. He felt like one launched on an irresistible current which was sweeping him ever nearer to a maelstrom wherein he was inevitably to be swallowed up.
He perceived that to his mother the established order of things there in her little island was sacred—an arrangement to be still further upheld and solidified. She had suddenly become a part of a great system, intrusted with a care for its maintenance and stability, as one of its guardians. Before, it had mattered little to her, for she was not of it. Now it was very different.
Slowly David followed Clark to his own apartments. He had been given those of the old lord, his uncle. Everything about him was dark, massive, and rich, but without grace. His bags and boxes had been unpacked and his dinner suit laid in readiness, and Clark stood stiffly awaiting orders.
"Will you have a shave, my lord?"
The man's manner jarred on him. It was obsequious, and he hated it. Yet it was only the custom. Clark was simple-hearted and kindly, filling his little place in the upholding of the system of which he was a part; had his manner been different, a shade more familiar, David would have resented it and ordered him out,—but of this David was not conscious. In spite of his scruples, he was born and bred an aristocrat.
"No—a—I'll shave myself." Still the man waited, and, taking up David's coat, flicked a particle of dust from the collar. "I don't want anything. You may go."
"Thank you." Clark melted quietly out of the apartment.
"Thanks me for being rude to him," thought David, irritably; "I shall take pleasure in being rude to him. My God! What a farce life is over here! The whole thing is a farce."
He shaved himself and cut his chin, and when he appeared later with a patch of court-plaster thereon, Clark commented to himself on "his lordship's" inability to do the shaving properly.
As David thought over his mother's words—her outlook on life—his sister's idle aims—the companionships she must have and the kind of talk to which she must listen—he grew more and more annoyed. He contrasted it all with the past. His mother, who had been so noble and fine, seemed to have lost individuality, to have become only a segment of a circle which it was henceforth to be her highest care to keep intact. Laura must become a part of the same sacred ring, and he, too, must join hands with those who formed it and make it his duty to keep others out.
There were also other circles guarded and protected by this one—circles within circles—each smaller and more exclusive than the last. The object of the huge game of life over here seemed to be to keep the great mass of those whom they regarded as commonalty out of any one of the circles, while striving individually each to climb into the one next above, and more contracted. The most maddening thing of all was to find his grave, dignified mother drawn in and made a partaker in this meaningless strife.
Still essentially an outsider, David could look with larger vision—the far-seeing vision of the western land, the hilltops and the dividing sea,—and to him now the circles seemed verily the concentric rings of the maelstrom into which events were hurrying him. Would he be able to rise from the swirling flotsam and ride free?
The deeper philosophy underlying it all he as yet but vaguely understood; that the highest good for all could only be maintained by stability in the commonwealth; as the tremendous rock foundations of the earth are a support for the growth thereon of all perfection, all grace and beauty; that the concentric rings, when rightlyunderstood, should become a means of purification—of reward for true worth—of power for noblest service, and not for personal ambition and the unmolested gratification of vicious tastes.
David did not as yet know that his clear-seeing wife could help him to the attainment of his greatest possibilities, right here where he feared to bring her—the wife of whom he dare not tell his mother. Blinded by the world's estimates which he still had sense enough to despise, he did not know that the key to its deepest secrets lay in her heart, nor that of the two, her heritage of the large spirit and the inward-seeing eye direct to the Creator's meanings was the greater heritage.
Lady Thryng found it possible to have a few words with the lawyer before David appeared, and impressed upon him the necessity of interesting her son in this new field by showing him avenues for power and work.
"I don't quite understand the boy," she said. "After seeing the world and going his own way, I really thought he would outgrow that sort of moody sentimentalism, but it seems to be returning. He is quixotic enough to turn away from everything here and go back to Canada, unless you can awaken his interest."
"I see, I see," said the lawyer.
"Mere personal ambition will not satisfy him," added his mother, proudly. "He must see opportunities for service. He must understand that he is needed."
"I see. I understand. He must be dealt with along the line of his nobler impulses—ahem—ahem—" and David appeared.
His mother rose and took his arm to walk out to dinner, while Laura, who should have gone with Mr. Stretton, did not see his proffered arm, but, provokingly indifferent, strolled out by herself.
David, absorbed in his own thoughts, did not notice his sister's careless mien, but the mother observed the independent and boyish swing of her daughter's shoulders, and resented it with a slightly reproving glance after they were seated.
Laura lifted her eyebrows and one shoulder with an irritating half shrug. "What is it, mamma?" she asked, but Lady Thryng allowed the question to go unheeded, andturned her attention to the two gentlemen during the rest of the meal.
All through dinner David was haunted by Cassandra's talk with him, the night he dreamed she was being swept out of his arms forever by a swift, cold current which, from a little purling stream high up on a mountain top, had become a dark, relentless flood, overwhelming them utterly. What was she doing now? Did she know she was in that terrible flood? Was she really being swept from him? Ah, never, never! He would not allow it, if he must break all hearts but hers.
The meal progressed sombrely and heavily, with much ceremony, although they were so few. Was his mother practising for the future that she kept such rigid state? He suspected as much, and that Laura was being trained to the right way of carrying herself, but that and the real sorrow of the family over their bereavement made a most oppressive atmosphere. Might this be the shadow Cassandra had seen lying across their future? Only a passing cloud—a vapor; it must be only that.
Laura and her mother withdrew early, leaving David and the lawyer together, when Mr. Stretton immediately launched into talk of David's prospects and resources. In spite of himself, the gloom of the dinner hour slipped from him, and soon he was taking the liveliest interest in what might be possible for him here and now.
Although not one to be easily turned from a chosen path by outside influence, David yet had that almost fatal gift of the imaginative mind of seeing things from many sides, until at times they took on a kaleidoscopic reversibility. Now this unlooked-for development of his life opened to him a vista—new—and yet old, old as England herself.
While digging deep into the causes of his former discontent, he had come to strike his spade upon the rock foundations whereon all this complicated superstructure of English society and national life was builded. He saw that every nobleman inherited with his title and his lands a responsibility for the welfare of the whole people, from the poorest laborer in the ditch or the coal mine, to the head wearing the crown; and that it was the blindness of individuals like himself or his uncle before him, their misuse or unscrupulous indifference to and abuse of power, whichhad brought about those conditions under which the masses were writhing, and against which they were crying out. He saw that it was only by the earnest efforts of the few who did understand—the few who were not indifferent—that the stability of English government was still her glory.
At last he rose and lifted his arms high above his head, then dropped them to his side. "I see." He held up his head and looked off as he had done when he stood on the prow of the steamship, with the salt breeze tossing his hair. "A little of this came to me as I crossed the ocean, when I saw the green slopes of England again. I knew I loved her, and the old feeling of impotence that hounded me in the past, when I could do nothing but rebel, slipped from me. I felt what it might be to have power—to become effective instead of being obliged to chafe under the yoke of an imposed submission to things which are wrong—things which those who are in power might set right if they would. I believe, for a moment, Mr. Stretton, I felt it all."
He paused and bowed his head. All at once in the midst of his exaltation, he saw Cassandra standing white and still, as he had seen her on the hilltop before their little cabin, looking after him when he bade her good-by; and just as he then turned and went swiftly back to her, so now in his soul he turned to her yearningly and took her to his breast. Still penetrating the sweet, white halo of this vision, he heard the voice of Mr. Stretton deferentially droning on.
"And with your resources—the wealth which, with a little care and thought just now at this crucial moment, will be yours—"
Still David stood with bowed head.
"It is as if you were predestined, my lord, to step in at a critical time of your country's need—with brains, education, conscience, and wealth—with every obstacle swept away."
Still before him stood Cassandra, white and silent; he could see only her.
"Every obstacle swept away," repeated the lawyer.
"And Cassandra, God help her and me." David slowly turned, lifted a glass of wine from the table, and drank it."Well, so be it, so be it," he said aloud. "We'll join mother and Laura." At the door he paused, "You spoke of education—the learning of a physician is but little in the line of statesmanship. How soon will I be expected to take my seat?"
"If you ask my advice, my lord, I would say better wait a year. It will be advisable for you to go yourself to South Africa and look into your uncle's investments there—as a private individual, of course, not as a public servant. Two-thirds of the receipts have fallen off since the war; learn what may be saved from the wreckage, or if there be a wreckage. I'm inclined to think not all, for the investments were varied. Your uncle may have been a silent member, but he was certainly a man of good business judgment—" Mr. Stretton paused and coughed a little apologetically before adding: "Not an inherited talent, only—ah—cultivated—cultivated—you know. Good business judgment is not a trait inherent in our peerage, as a rule."
David was amused and entered the drawing-room with a smile on his face. His mother was pleased and rose instantly, coming forward with both hands extended to take his. He understood it as a welcome back to the family circle, the quiet talks and the evening lamp, less formal than the oppressive dinner had been. He held her hands thus offered and kissed the little anxious line on her brow, then playfully smoothed it with his finger.
"We mustn't let it become permanent, you know, mother."
"No, David. It will go now you are at home."
He did not know that his mother and Laura had been having a lively discussion apropos of the silent tilt at the dinner-table, his sister pleading for a return to the old ways, and a release from such state and ceremony. "At least while we are by ourselves, mamma. Anyway, I know David will just hate it, and I don't see what good a title is if we must become perfect slaves to it."
David crossed the room and sat down before the piano. "How strange this old place seems without the others—Bob, and the cousins, and uncle himself! We weren't admitted often—but—"
"Sh—sh—" said Laura, who had followed him andstood at his ride. "Don't remind mamma. She remembers too much—all the time. Play the 'King's Hunting Jig,' David. Remember how you used to play it for me every evening after dinner, when I was a girl?"
"Do I remember? Rather! I have done nothing with the piano since then—when you were a girl. I'll play it for you now, while you are a girl."
"But I really am grown up now, David. It's quite absurd for me to go about like this. It's only because mamma chooses to have it so. She even keeps a governess for me still."
"To her you are a child, and to me you are still a girl, and a mighty fine one."
"It's so good to have you back, David! You haven't forgotten the Jig! Where's your flute? Get it, and I'll accompany you. I can drum a little now—after a fashion. We'll let them talk."
So they amused themselves for the rest of the evening with music, and Lady Thryng's face lost the strained and harassed expression it had worn all during dinner, and took on a look of contentment. After this the days were spent by David in going over his uncle's large mass of papers and correspondence, with the aid of Mr. Stretton and a secretary. A colossal task it proved to be.
No one, even his lawyer, who had his confidence more than any one else, knew in what the old Lord Thryng's wealth really consisted, although Mr. Stretton surmised much of his surplus income of late years had been placed in Africa. As his papers had not been set in order or tabulated for years, every note, land loan, mortgage, and rental had to be unearthed slowly and laboriously from among a mass of written matter and figures, more or less worthless; for the old lord had a habit of saving every scrap of paper—the backs of notes and letters—for summing up accounts and jotting down memoranda and dates.
Certain hours of each day David devoted to this labor, collecting his papers in a small room opening off from the law chambers of Mr. Stretton, where for years his uncle had kept a private safe. Conscientiously he toiled at the monotonous task, until weeks, then months, slipped by, hardly noticed, ignoring all social life. When his motheror Laura broached the subject, he would say: "'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,' and this must be done first."
He was not unmindful of his wife during this interval, but wrote frequently, and, to guard against any danger of her being left without resources should something unforeseen befall him, he placed in Bishop Towers's hands the residue of money remaining to him in Canada, for Cassandra. He wrote her to use it as occasion required, and not to spare it, that it was hers without restriction. He sent her the names of books he wished she would read—that she should write the publishers for them. He begged her to do no more weaving for money—but only for her own amusement, and above all to trust and be happy, not to be sorrowful for this long delay, which he would cut as short as he could.
Much of his occupation he could not explain to her, and ofttimes it was hard to find matter for his letters; then he would revert to reminiscence. These were the letters she loved best and sometimes wept over, and these were the letters that often left him dreamy and sad, and sometimes made him distraught when his mother and Laura talked over their affairs, so utterly alien to his thoughts and longings.
Cassandra's replies were for the most part short, but they were sent with unfailing regularity, and always they seemed to bring with them a breath from her own mountain top—naïve—tender—absolutely trusting—often quaintly worded, and telling of the simple, innocent things of her life. He could see that she held herself in reserve, even as her nature was; a psychologic something was held back. He could not dream what it might be, but reasoned with himself that it was only that she found it harder to unveil her thoughts by means of the pen than in speech.
One day, as he rode alone in the park, he noticed that the leaf buds were swelling. What! Was spring upon them? A white fog was lifting, and every twig and stem held its tiny pearl of wetness. All the earth glistened and was clean and looked as if greenness was returning. He regarded the artificial effects around him, the long lines of trees and set clumps of shrubbery, and was seized with a desire well-nigh irresistible for the wild roads and ruggedsteeps—the wandering streams and sound of falling waters.
He saw it all again, the blossoming spring where Cassandra sat waiting for him, and he resolved to start without delay—to go to her and bring her back with him. All this sordid calculation of the amount of his fortune—his mother's and sister's shares—the annuities of poor dependents—stocks to be bought—interest to be invested—the government, and his future part therein, pah! It must wait! He would have his own. His heritage should not be his curse.
He returned in haste that day, only to learn that certain facts had been unearthed which necessitated a journey into Wales, where interests of the former Lady Thryng's estates were concerned. His uncle had inherited all from her with the exception of certain bequests to relatives with which he had been intrusted. Some of the records had been lost, and whether the beneficiaries were dead or not, none knew, but now and then letters came pleading for a continuance of former favors, and recalling obligations.
Mr. Stretton had been ill for a week, and now that the records were found, David must go, and go at once. The lawyer had many subjects for investigation to deliver to David. There was the death-bed request of an old nurse of his aunt, who had an annuity, that it be extended to her crippled granddaughter. She lived among the Cornish hills. Would he hunt the family up and learn if they were worthy or impostors? His uncle had been endlessly plagued with such importunities—and so on—and so on.
Yes, certainly David would go. He made a mental reservation that he would sail, without returning to London, and then make a clean breast of his affairs by letter to his mother. She had improved in health during the winter, and he thought his information would be received by her with more equanimity than it would have been earlier. Moreover, she had broached the subject of marriage to him more than once, but always in one of her most worldly moods, when he shrank from hearing Cassandra spoken of as he knew she would be—when he could not hear her discussed, nor reply with calmness to such questions as he knew must ensue.
David had little time to brood over his peculiar difficulty,as his short journey was full of business interest and new experiences. Yet the Cornish hills awoke in him a still greater eagerness for the mountains of his dreams, and, after securing his passage, he went to his hotel to prepare the letter to his mother.
It is marvellous what trivial events alter destinies. In this instance it was the yapping of a small dog which changed David's plans, and finally sent him to South Africa instead of America. While paying his bill at the hotel, a telegram was handed him, which he tore open as the clerk was counting out his change. He still held in his hand the letter to his mother which he was on the point of dropping in the letter-box at his elbow. Instead, he thrust it in his pocket, along with the crushed telegram, and, taking a cab, hastened to the steamship offices to cancel his date for sailing.
The message read: "Return with all speed to London. Mr. Stretton lying in the hospital with a fractured skull." Thus it was that Lady Tredwell's pet spaniel, old and vicious, yapping at the heels of Mr. Stretton's restive horse, while my lady's maid—who should have been leading him out for an airing—was absorbed in listening to the compliments of one of the park guards, played so dire a part in the affairs of David Thryng.
Cassandra, seated on the great hanging rock before her cabin, watched the sunrise where David had so often stood and waited for the dawn during his winter there alone. This morning the mists obscured the valleys and the base of the mountains, while the sky and the whole earth glowed with warm rose color.
Presently she rose and walked with lifted head into the cabin, and prepared to light a fire on the hearth. In the canvas room the bed was made smoothly, as she had made it the morning David left. No one had slept in it since, although Cassandra spent most of her days there. Everything he had used was carefully kept as he had left it. His microscope, covered from dust, stood with the last specimen still under the lens. A book they were reading together lay on the corner shelf, with the mark still in the place where they had read last.
After lighting the fire, she sat near it, watching the flames steal up from the small pile of fat pine chips underneath, sending up red tongues of fire, until the great logs were wrapped in the hot embrace of the flames, trembling, quivering, and leaping high in their mad joy, transmuting all they touched.
"It's like love," she murmured, and smiled. "Only it's quicker. It does in one hour what love takes a lifetime to do. Those logs might have lain on the ground and rotted if they'd been left alone, but now the fire just holds them and caresses them like, and they grow warm and glow like the sun, and give all they can while they last, until they're almost too bright to look at. I reckon God has been right good to me not to let me lie and rot my life away. He sent David to set my heart on fire, and I guess I can wait for him to come back to me in God's own time."
She rose and brought from the canvas room a basket ofwillow, woven in open-work pattern. It was a gift from Azalea, who had learned from her mother the art of basket weaving. Some said Azalea's grandmother was half Indian, and that it was from her they had learned their quaint patterns and shapes, and that she, and her Indian mother before her, had been famous basket weavers.
This pretty basket was filled with very delicate work of fine muslin, much finer than anything Cassandra had ever worked upon before. Her hands no longer showed signs of having been employed in rough, coarse tasks; they were soft and white. She placed the basket of dainty sewing on the same table which had served as an altar when she knelt beside David and was made his wife. It was serving as an altar still, bearing that basket of delicate work.
She had become absorbed in a book—not one of those David had suggested. It is doubtful, had he been there, whether he would have really liked to see her reading this one, although it was written by Thackeray, dear to all English hearts. It is more than probable that he would have thought his young wife hardly need be enlightened upon just the sort of things with whichVanity Fairenriches the understanding.
Be it how it may, Cassandra was readingVanity Fair, which she found in the box of books David had opened so long before. While she read she worked with her fingers, incessantly, at a piece of narrow lace, with a shuttle and very fine thread. This she did so mechanically that she could easily read at the same time by propping the book open on the table before her. For a long time she sat thus, growing more and more interested, until the fire burned low, and she rose to replenish it.
The logs were piled beside the door of the small kitchen David had built for her, and where he had placed the cook stove. She had come up early this morning, because she was sad over his last letter, in which he had told her of his disappointment in having to cancel his passage to America. Hopeful and cheery though the letter was, it had struck dismay to her heart; it was her way when sad, and longing for her husband, to go up to her little cabin—her own home—and think it all over alone and thus regain her equanimity.
Here she read and thought things out by herself. Whatstrange people they were over there! Or perhaps that was so long ago—they might have changed by this time. Surely they must have changed, or David would have said something about it. He never would become a lord, to be one of such people—never—never! It was not at all like David.
A figure appeared in the doorway. "Cassandra! What are you doing here all by yourself?"
It was Betty Towers. Cassandra ran joyfully forward and clasped the little woman in her arms. Almost carrying her in, she sat her by the pleasant open fire. Then, seeing Betty's eyes regarding her questioningly, she suddenly dropped into her own chair by the table, leaned her head upon her arms, and began to weep, silently.
In an instant Betty was kneeling by her side, holding the lovely head to her breast. "Dearest! You shan't cry. You shan't cry like that. Tell me all about it. Why on earth doesn't Doctor Thryng come home?"
Cassandra lifted her head and dried her tears. "He was coming. The last letter but one said he was to sail next day. Then last night came another saying the only man who could look after very important business for him had been thrown from his horse and hurt so bad he may die, and David had to give up his passage and go back to London. He may have to go to Africa. He felt right bad—but—"
"Goodness me, child! Why, he has no business now more important than you! What a chump!"
Cassandra stiffened proudly and drew away, taking up her shuttle and beginning her work calmly as if nothing had happened to destroy her composure.
"I've not written David—anything to disturb him—or make him hurry home."
"Oh, Cassandra, Cassandra! You're not treating either him or yourself fairly."
"For him—I can't help it; and for me, I don't care. Other women have got along as best they could in these mountains, and I can bear what they have borne."
"But why on earth haven't you told him?"
Cassandra bent her head lower over her bit of lace and was silent. Betty drew her chair nearer and put her arms about the drooping girl.
"Can't you tell me all about it, dear?"
"Not if you are going to blame David."
"I won't, you lovely thing! I can't, since he doesn't know—but why—"
"At first I couldn't speak. I tried, but I couldn't. Then he had to take Hoyle North, and I thought he would see for himself when he came back—or I could tell him by that time. Then came that dreadful news—you know—four, all dead. His brother and his two cousins all killed, and his uncle dying of grief; and he had to go to his mother or she might die, too, and then he found so much to do. Now, you know he has to be a—"
She was going to say "a lord," but, happening to glance down at her open book, the name of "Lord Steyne" caught her eye, and it seemed to her a title of disgrace. She must talk with David before she allowed him to be known as "a lord," so she ended hurriedly: "He has to be a different kind of a man, now—not a doctor. He has a great many things to do and look after. If I told him, he would leave everything and come to me, even if he ought not, and if he couldn't come, he would be troubled and unhappy. Why should I make him unhappy? When he does come home, he'll be glad—oh, so glad! Why need he know when the knowing will do no good, and when he will come to me as soon as he can, anyway?"
"You strange girl, Cassandra! You brave old dear! But he must come, that's all. It is his right to know and to come. I can tell him. Let me."
"No, no. Please, Mrs. Towers, you must not. He will come back as soon as he can; and now—now—he will be too late, since he—he did not sail when he meant to."
Betty rose with a set look about the mouth. "Unless we cable him, Cassandra. Would there be time in that case? Come, you must tell me."
"No, no," wailed the girl. "And now he must not know until he comes. It would be cruel. I will not let you write him or cable him either."
"Then what will you do?"
"Oh, I don't know. I'll think out a way. You'll help me think, but you must promise me not to write to David. I send him a letter every day, but I never tell him anything that would make him uneasy, because hehas very important business there for his mother and sister, even more than for himself. You see how bad I would be to write troubling things to him when he couldn't help me or come to me." A light broke over Betty Towers's face.
"I can think out a way, dear, of course I can. Just leave matters to me."
Thus it was that Doctor Hoyle received a letter in Betty's own impassioned and impulsive style, begging him, for love's sake, to leave all and come back to the mountains and his own little cabin, where Cassandra needed him.
"Never mind Doctor Thryng or anything surprising about his being absent; just come if you possibly can and hear what Cassandra has to say about it before you judge him. She is quaint and queer and wholly lovely. If you can bring little Hoyle with you, do so, for I fear his mother is grieving to see him. She wrote me a most peculiar and pathetic letter, saying her daughter was so silent about her affairs that she herself 'war nigh about dead fer worryin', and would I please come and see could I make Cass talk a leetle,' so you may be sure there is need of you. The winter is glorious in the mountains this year. Your appearance will set everything right at the Fall Place, and Cassandra will be safe."
Old Time, the unfailing, who always marches apace, bringing with him changes for good or evil, brought the dear old doctor back to the Fall Place—brought the small Adam Hoyle, with his queer little twisted neck and hunched back, drawn by harness and plaster into a much improved condition, although not straight yet—brought many letters from David filled with postponements and regrets therefor—and brought also a little son for Cassandra to hold to her bosom and dream and pray over.
And the dreams and the prayers travelled far—far, to the sunny-haired Englishman wrapped in the intricate affairs of a great estate. How much money would accrue? How should it be spent? What improvements should be made in their country home? When Laura's coming out should be? How many of her old companions might she retain? How many might she call friends? Howmany were to be hereafter thrust out as quite impossible? Should she be allowed a kennel, or should her sporting tendencies be discouraged?
All these things were forced upon David's consideration; how then could he return to his young wife, especially when he could not yet bring himself to say to his world that he had a young wife. Impatient he might be, nervous, and even irritable, but still what could he do? While there in the faraway hills sat Cassandra, loving him, brooding over him with serene and peaceful longing, holding his baby to her white breast, holding his baby's hand to her lips, full of courage, strong in her faith, patient in spirit, until as days and weeks passed she grew well and strong in body.
Being sadly in need of rest, the old doctor lingered on in the mountains until spring was well advanced. Slight of body, but vigorous and wiry, and as full of scientific enthusiasm as when he was thirty years younger, he tramped the hills, taking long walks and climbs alone, or shorter ones with Hoyle at his heels like a devoted dog, shrilling questions as he ran to keep up. These the good doctor answered according to his own code, or passed over as beyond possibility of reply with quizzical counter-questioning.
They sat together one day, eating their luncheon in the shelter of a great wall of rock, and below them lay a pool of clear water which trickled from a spring higher up. Now and then a bullfrog would sound his deep bass note, and all the time the high piping of the peepers made shrill accompaniment to their voices as they conversed.
The doctor had made an aquarium for Hoyle, using a great glass jar which he obtained from a druggist in Farington. They had come to-day on a quest for snails to eat the green growth, which had so covered the sides of the jar as to hide the interesting water world within from the boy's eyes. Many things had already occurred in that small world to set the boy thinking.
"Doctah Hoyle, you remembeh that thar quare bunch of leetle sticks an' stones you put in my 'quar'um first day you fixed hit up fer me?"
"Yes, yes."
"Well, the' is a right quare thing with a big hade comeouten hit, an' he done eat up some o' the leetle black bugs. I seed him jump quicker'n lightnin' at that leetlist fish only so long, an' try to bite a piece outen his fin—his lowest fin. What did he do that fer?"
"Why—why—he was hungry. He made his dinner off the little black bugs, and he wanted the fin for his dessert."
"I don't like that kind of a beast. Oncet he was a worm in a kind of a hole-box, an' then he turned into a leetle beast-crittah; an' what'll he be next?"
"Next—why, next he'll be a fly—a—a beautiful fly with four wings all blue and gold and green—"
"I seen them things flyin' round in the summeh. Hit's quare how things gits therselves changed that-a-way into somethin' else—from a worm into that beast-crittah an' then into one o' these here devil flies. You reckon hit'll eveh git changed into something diff'ent—some kind er a bird?"
"A bird? No, no. When he becomes a f—fly, he's finished and done for."
"P'r'aps ther is some folks that-a-way, too. You reckon that's what ails me?"
"You? Why,—why what ails you?"
"You reckon p'r'aps I mount git changed some way outen this here quare back I got, so't I can hol' my hade like otheh folks? Jes' go to sleep like, an' wake up straight like Frale?"
The old doctor turned and looked down a moment on the child sitting hunched at his side. His mouth worked as he meditated a reply.
"What would you do if you could c—arry your head straight like Frale? If you had been like him, you would be running a 'still' pretty soon. You never would have come to me to set you straight, and so you would n—never have seen all the pictures and the great cities. You are going to be a man before you know it, and—"
"And I'll do a heap o' things when I'm a man, too—but I wisht—I wisht— These here snails we b'en hunt'n', you reckon they're done growed to ther shells so they can't get out? What did God make 'em that-a-way fer?"
"It's all in the order of things. Everything has itsplace in the world and its work to do. They don't want to get out. They like to carry their bones on the outside of their bodies. They're made so. Yes, yes, all in the order of things. They like it."
"You reckon you can tell me hu' come God 'lowed me to have this-er lump on my back? Hit hain't in no ordeh o' things fer humans to be like I be."
The sceptical old man looked down on the child quizzically, yet sadly. His flexible mouth twitched to reply, but he was silent. Hoyle looked back into the old doctor's eyes with grave, direct gaze, and turned away. "You reckon why he done hit?"
"See here. Suppose—just suppose you were given your choice this minute to change places with Frale—Lord knows where he is now, or what he's doing—or be as you are and live your own life; which would you be? Think it over; think it out."
"Ef I had 'a' been straight, brother David never would 'a' took me up to you?"
"No—no—no. You would have been a—"
"You mean if a magic man should come by here an' just touch me so, an' change me into Frale, would I 'low him to do hit?"
"That's what I mean."
"I don't guess Frale, he'd like to be done that-a-way." The loving little chap nestled closer to the doctor's side. "I like you a heap, Doctah Hoyle. Frale, he fit brothah David—an' nigh about killed him. I reckon I rutheh be like I be, an' bide nigh Cass an' th' baby—an' have the 'quar'um—an' see maw—an' go with you. You reckon I can go back with you?"
"Go back? Of course—go back."
"Be I heap o' trouble to you? You reckon God 'lowed me to have this er hump, so't I could get to go an' bide whar you were at, like I done?"
A suspicious moisture gathered in the doctor's eyes, and he sprang up and went to examine earnestly a thorny shrub some paces away, while the child continued to pipe his questions, for the most part unanswerable. "You reckon God just gin my neck er twist so't brothah David would take me to Canada to you, an' so't maw'd 'low me to go? You reckon if I'm right good, He'll 'low meto make a picture o' th' ocean some day, like the one we seed in that big house? You reckon if I tried right hard I could paint a picture o' th' mountain, yandah—an' th' sea—an'—all the—all the—ships?"
The doctor laughed heartily and merrily. "Come, come. We must go home now to Cassandra and the baby. Paint? Of—of course you could paint! You could paint p—pictures enough to fill a house."
"We don't want no magic man, do we, Doctah Hoyle? I cried a heap after I seed myself in the big lookin'-glass down in Farington whar brothah David took me. I cried when hit war dark an' maw war sleepin'. Next time I reckon I bettah tell God much obleeged fer twistin' my hade 'roun' 'stead er cryin' an' takin' on like I been doin'. You reckon so, Doctah Hoyle?"
"Yes—yes—yes. I reckon so," said the doctor, meditatively, as they descended the trail. From that day the child's strength increased. Sunny and buoyant, he shook off the thought of his deformity, and his beauty-loving soul ceased introspective brooding and found delight in searching out beauty, and in his creative faculty.
Doctor Hoyle lingered until the last of the laurel bloom was gone, and the widow had become so absorbed in her grandchild as to make the parting much easier. Then he took the small Adam and departed for the North. Never did the kind old man dream that his frail and twisted little namesake would one day be the pride of his life and the comfort of his declining years.
"Hoyle sure do look a heap bettah'n when Doctah David took him off that day. Hit did seem like I'd nevah see him again. Don't you guess 'at he's beginnin' to grow some? Seems like he do."
The widow was seated on her little porch with the doctor, the evening before they left, and Cassandra, who, since the birth of the heir, had been living again in her own little cabin, had brought the baby down. He lay on his grandmother's lap quietly sleeping, while his mother gathered Hoyle's treasures, and packed his diminutive trunk. The boy followed her, chattering happily as she worked. She also had noticed the change in him, and suggested that perhaps, as he had gained such a start toward health, he need not return, but would do quite well at home.
"He's a care to you, Doctor, although you're that kind and patient,—I don't see how ever we can thank you enough for all you've done!" Then Hoyle, to their utter astonishment, threw himself on the ground at the doctor's feet and burst into bitter weeping.
"Why, son, are ye cryin' that-a-way so's you can get to go off an' leave maw here 'lone?" But he continued to weep, and at last explained to them that the "Lord done crooked him up that-a-way so't he could git to go an' learn to be a painter an' make a house full of pictures," and thatthe doctor had said he might. Doctor Hoyle lifted him to his knees with many assurances that he would keep his word, but for a long time the child sobbed hysterically, his face pressed against the old man's sleeve.
"What's that you sayin', child, 'bouts the Lord twistin' yer neck? Bettah lay sech as that to the devil, more'n likely."
At the mention of that sinister individual, the babe wakened and stretched out his plump, bare arms, with little pink fists tightly closed. He yawned a prodigious yawn for so small a countenance, and gazed vacantly in his grandmother's face. Then a look of intelligence crept into his eyes, and he smiled one of those sweet, evanescent smiles of infancy.
"Look at him now, laughin' at me that-a-way. He be the peartest I eveh did see. Cass, she sure be mean not to tell his fathah 'at he have a son, she sure be."
Cassandra came and tenderly took the babe in her arms and held him to her breast. "There, there. Sleep, honey son, sleep again," she cooed, swaying her body to the rhythm of her speech. "Sleep, honey son, sleep again."
"Don't you reckon she be mean to Doctah David, nevah to let on 'at he have a son, and he a-growin' that fast? You a-doin' his fathah mean, Cassandry." Still Cassandra swayed and sang.
"Sleep, honey son, sleep again."
"He nevah will forgive you when he finds out how you have done him. I can't make out what-all ails ye, nohow."
"Hush, mother. I'm just leaving his heart in peace. He'll come when he can, and then he'll forgive me."
As the doctor walked slowly at her side that evening, carrying the sleeping child back to her cabin, he also ventured a remonstrance, but without avail.
"It's hardly fair to his father—such a fine little chap. You—you have a monopoly of him this way, you know."
She flushed at the implication of selfishness, but said nothing.
"How—how is that? Don't you think so?" he persisted kindly.
"I reckon you can't feel what I feel, Doctor. Why should I make his heart troubled when he must stay there?David knows I hate it to bide so long without him. He—he knows. If he could get to come back, don't you guess he'd come right quick, anyway? Would he come any sooner for his son than for me?" It was the doctor's turn for silence. She asked again, this time with a tremor in her voice. "You reckon he would, Doctor?"
"No! Of—of course not," he cried.
"Then what would be the use of telling him, only to trouble him?"
"He—he might like to think about him—you know—might like it."
"He said he must go to Africa in May, so now he must have started—and our wedding was on May-day. Now it's the last of May; he must be there. He might be obliged to bide in that country a whole month—maybe two. It's so far away, and his letters take so long to come! Doctor, are they fighting there now? Sometimes I wake in the night and think what if he should die away off there in that far place—"
"No, no. That's done. Not fighting, thank God. Rest your heart in peace. Now, after I'm gone, don't stay up here alone too much. I'm a physician, and I know what's best for you."
She took the now soundly sleeping child from the doctor's arms and laid him on the bed in the canvas room. The day had been warm, and the fire was out in the great fireplace; the evening wind, light and cool, laden with sweet odors, swept through the cabin.
They talked late that night of Hoyle and his future, but never a word more of David. The old man thought he now understood her feeling, and respected it. She certainly had a right to one small weakness, this strong fair creature of the hills. Her husband must release himself from his absorbing cares and return simply for love of her—not at the call of his baby's wail.
So the doctor and his diminutive namesake drove contentedly away next morning in the great covered wagon, and Cassandra, standing by her mother's door, smiled and lifted her baby for one last embrace from his loving little uncle.
"I'm goin' to grow a big man, an' I'll teach him to make pictures—big ones," he called back.
"Yas, you'll do a heap. You bettah watch out to be right good and peart; that's what you bettah do."
David, not unmindful of affairs on the far-away mountain side, made it quite worth the while of the two cousins to stay on with the widow and run the small farm under Cassandra's directions, and she found herself fully occupied. She wrote David all the details: when and where things were planted—how the vines he had set on the hill slope were growing—how the pink rose he had brought from Hoke Belew's and planted by their threshold had grown to the top of the door, and had three sweet blossoms. She had shaken the petals of one between the pages of her letter on May-day, and sent it to remind him, she said.
Nearly a month later than he had intended to sail, David left England, overwhelmed with many small matters which seemed so great to his mother and sister, and burdened with duties imposed upon him by the realization that he had come into the possession of enormous wealth, more than he could comprehendingly estimate; and that he was now setting out to secure and prevent the loss of possibly double what he already possessed.
People gathered about him and presented him with worthy and unworthy opportunities for its disposal. They flocked to him in herds, with importunities and flatteries. The tower which he had built up with his ideals, and in which he had intrenched himself, was in danger of being undermined and toppled into ruins, burying his soul beneath the debris. When seated on the deck, the rose petals dropped into his hand as he tore open Cassandra's letter. Some, ere he could catch them, were caught up and blown away into the sea.
He held them and inhaled their sweetness, and everything seemed to find its true value and proportion and to fall into its right place. Again on the mountain top, with Cassandra at his side, he viewed in a perspective of varying gradations his life, his aims, and his possessions.
The personality of his young wife, of late a vague thing to him, distant and fair, and haloed about with sweet memories dimly discerned like a dream that is past, presented itself to him all at once vivid and clear, as if he held her in his arms with her head on his breast.
He heard again her voice with its quaint inflections and lingering tones. Their love for each other loomed large, and became for him at once the one truly vital thing in all his share of the universe. Had his body been endowed with the wings of his soul, he would have left all and gone to her; but, alas for the restrictions of matter! he was gliding rapidly away and away, farther from the immediate attainment. Yet was his tower strengthened wherein he had intrenched himself with his ideals. The withered rose petals had brought him exaltation of purpose.
In the mountains, July came with unusually sultry heat, yet the rich pocket of soil, watered by its never failing stream, suffered little from the drought. Weeds grew apace, and Cassandra had much ado to hold her cousin Cotton Caswell, easy-going and thriftless, to his task of keeping the small farm in order.
For a long time now, Cassandra had avoided those moments of far-seeing and brooding. Had not David said he feared them for her? In these days of waiting, she dreaded lest they show her something to which she would rather remain blind. In the evenings, looking over the hilltops from her rock, visions came to her out of the changing mists, but she put them from her and calmed her breast with the babe on her bosom, and solaced her longing by keeping all in readiness for David's return. Perhaps at any moment, with wind-lifted hair and buoyant smile, he might come up the laurel path.
For this reason she preferred living in her own cabin home, and, that she might not be alone at night, Martha Caswell or her brother slept on a cot in the large cabin room, but Cassandra cared little for their company. They might come or not as they chose. She was never afraid now that she was strong again and baby was well.
One evening sitting thus, her babe lying asleep on her knees and her heart over the sea, something caused her to start from her revery and look away from the blue distance, toward the cabin. There, a few paces away, regarding her intently, stalwart and dark, handsome and eager, stood Frale. Much older he seemed, more reckless he appeared, yet still a youth in his undisciplined impulse. She sat pale as death, unable to move, in breathless amazement.
He smiled upon her out of the gathering dusk. For some minutes he had been regarding her, and the tumult within him had become riotous with long restraint. He came swiftly forward and, ere she could turn her head, his arms were about her, and his lips upon hers, and she felt herself pinioned in her chair—nor, for guarding her baby unhurt by his vehemence, could she use her hands to hold him from her; nor for the suffocating beating of her heart could she cry out; neither would her cry have availed, for there were none near to hear her.
"Stop, Frale! I am not yours; stop, Frale," she implored.
"Yas, you are mine," he said, in his low drawl, lifting his head to gaze in her face. "You gin me your promise. That doctah man, he done gone an' lef' you all alone, and he ain't nevah goin' to come back to these here mountins."
She snatched her hands from the child on her knees, and, with sudden movement, pushed him violently; but he only held her closer, and it was as if she struggled against muscles of iron.
"Naw, you don't! I have you now, an' I won't nevah leave you go again." He had not been drinking, yet he was like one drunken, so long had he brooded and waited.
Rapidly she tried to think how she might gain control over him, when, wakened by the struggle, the babe wailed out and he started to his feet, his hands clutching into his hair as if he were struck with sudden fear. He had not noticed or given heed to what lay upon her knees, and the cry penetrated his heart like a knife.
A child! His child—that doctor's child? He hated the thought of it, and the old impulse to strike down anything or any creature that stood in his way seized him—the impulse that, unchecked, had made him a murderer. He could kill, kill! Cassandra gathered the little body to her heart and, standing still before him, looked into his eyes. Instinctively she knew that only calmness and faith in his right action would give her the mastery now, and with a prayer in her heart she spoke quietly.
"How came you here, Frale? You wrote mother you'd gone to Texas." His figure relaxed, and his arms dropped, but still he bent forward and gazed eagerly into her eyes.
"I come back when I heered he war gone. I come back right soon. Cate Irwin's wife writ me 'at he war gone; an' now she done tol' me he ain't nevah goin' to come back to these here mountins. Ev'ybody on the mountins knows that. He jes' have fooled you-all that-a-way, makin' out to marry you whilst he war in bed, like he couldn' stand on his feet, an' then gittin' up an' goin' off this-a-way, an' bidin' nigh on to a year. We don't 'low our women to be done that-a-way, like they war pore white trash. I come back fer you like I promised, an' you done gin me your promise, too. I reckon you won't go back on that now." He stepped nearer, and she clasped the babe closer, but did not flinch.
"Yes, Frale, you promised, and I—I—promised—to save you from yourself—to be a good man; but you broke yours. You didn't repent, and you went on drinking, and—then you tried to kill an innocent man when he was alone and unarmed; like a coward you shot him. I called back my words from God; I gave them to the man I loved—promise for promise, Frale."
"Yas, and curse for curse. You cursed me, Cass." He made one more step forward, but she stood her ground and lifted one hand above her head, the gesture he so well remembered.
"Keep back, Frale. I did not curse you. I let you go free, and no one followed you. Go back—farther—farther—or I will do it now— Oh, God—" He cowered, his arm before his eyes, and moved backward.
"Don't, Cass," he cried. For a moment she stood regally before him, her babe resting easily in the hollow of her arm. Then she slowly lowered her hand and spoke again, in quiet, distinct tones.
"Now, for that lie they have told you, I am going to my husband. I start to-morrow. He has sent me money to come to him. You tell that word all up and down the mountain side, wherever there bides one to hear."
She lifted her baby, pressing his little face to her cheek, and turning, walked slowly toward her cabin door.
"Cass," he called.
She paused. "Well, Frale?"
"Cass, you hev cursed me."
"No, Frale, it is the curse of Cain that rests on yoursoul. You brought it on you by your own hand. If you will live right and repent, Christ will take it off."
"Will you ask him for me, Cass? I sure hev lost you now—forever, Cass!"
"Yes, Frale. I'll ask him to cover up all this year out of your life. It has been full of mad badness. Be like you used to be, Frale, and leave off thinking on me this way. It is sin. Go marry somebody who can love you and care for you like you need, and come back here and do for mother like you used to. Giles Teasley can't pester you. He's half dead with his badness—drinking his own liquor."
She came to him, and, taking his hand, led him toward the laurel path. "Go down to mother now, Frale, and have supper and sleep in your own bed, like no evil had ever come into your neart," she pleaded. "The good is in you, Frale. God sees it, and I see it. Heed to me, Frale. Good-night."
Slowly, with bent head, he walked away.
Trembling, Cassandra laid her baby in the cradle Hoke Belew had made her, and, kneeling beside the rude little bed, she bowed her head over it and wept scalding, bitter tears. She felt herself shamed before the whole mountain side. Oh, why—why need David have left her so long—so long! The first reproach against him entered her heart, and at the same time she reasoned with herself.
He could not help it—surely he could not. He was good and true, and they should all know it if she had to lie for it. When she had sobbed herself into a measure of calmness, she heard a step cross the cabin floor. Quickly drying her tears, she rose and stood in the doorway of the canvas room, with dilated eyes and indrawn breath, peering into' the dusk, barring the way. It was only her mother.
"Why, mothah!" she cried, relieved and overjoyed.
"Have you seen Frale?"
"Yes, mothah. He was here. Sit down and get your breath. You have climbed too fast."
Her mother dropped into a chair and placed a small bundle on the table at her side.
"What-all is this Frale say you have told him? Have David writ fer you like Frale say? What-all have Fralebeen up to now? He come down creepin' like he a half-dade man—that soft an' quiet."
"I'm going to David, mother. You know he sent me money to use any way I choose, and I'm going." She caught her breath and faltered.
The mother rose and took her in her arms, and, drawing her head down to her wrinkled cheek, patted her softly.
"Thar, honey, thar. I reckon your ol' maw knows a heap more'n you think. You keep mighty still, but you can't fool her."
Cassandra drew herself together. "Why didn't Martha come up this evening?"
"She war makin' ready, in her triflin' slow way, an' then Frale come down an' said that word, an' I knew right quick 'at ther war somethin' behind—his way war that quare—so I told Marthy to set him out a good suppah, an' I'd stop up here myself this night. She war right glad to do hit. Fool, she be! I could see how she went plumb silly ovah Frale all to onc't."
"Mothah, you know right well what they're saying about David and me. Is it true, that word Frale said, that everyone says he nevah will come back?" The mother was silent. "That's all right, mothah. We'll pack up to-night, and I'll go down to Farington to-morrow. Mrs. Towahs will help me to start right."
She lighted candles and began to lay out her baby's wardrobe. "I haven't anything to put these in, but I can carry everything I need down there in baskets, and she will help me. They've always been that good to me—all my life."
"Cass, Cass, don't go," wailed her mother. "I'm afraid somethin'll happen you if you go that far away. If you could leave baby with me, Cass! Give hit up. Be ye 'feared o' Frale, honey?"
"No, mother, the man doesn't live that I'm afraid of." She paused, holding the candle in her hand, lighting her face that shone whitely out of the darkness. Her eyes glowed, and she held her head high. Then she turned again to her work, gathering her few small treasures and placing them on one of the highest shelves of the chimney cupboard. As she worked, she tried to say comforting things to her mother.
"I'll write to you every day, like David does me, mother. See? I've kept all his letters. They're in this box. I don't want to burn them because I love them; and I don't want any one else to read them; and I don't want to carry them with me because I'll have him there. Will you lock them in your box, mother, and if anything happens to me, will you sure—sure burn them?" She laid them on the table at her mother's elbow. "You promise, mothah?"
"Yas, Cass, yas."
"What's in that bundle, mothah?"
With trembling fingers the widow opened her parcel and displayed the silver teapot, from which the spout had been melted to be moulded into silver bullets.
"Thar," she said, holding it out by the handle, "hit's yourn. Farwell, he done that one day whilst I war gone, an' the last bullet war the one Frale used when he nigh killed your man. No, I reckon you nevah did see hit before, fer I've kept hit hid good. I knowed ther were somethin' to come outen hit some day. Hit do show your fathah come from some fine high fambly somewhar. I done showed hit to Doctah David, fer I 'lowed he mount know was hit wuth anything, but he seemed to set more by them two leetle books. He has them books yet, I reckon."
"Yes, he has them."
"When Frale told me you war a-goin' to David, I guessed 'at thar war somethin' 'at I'd ought to know, an' I clum up here right quick, fer if he war a-lyin', I meant to find out the reason why." She looked keenly in her daughter's face, which remained passive under the scrutiny.
"Has Frale been a-pesterin' you?"
"He did—some—at first; but I sent him away."
"I reckoned so. Now heark. You tell me straight, did David send fer ye, er didn't he?"
In silence Cassandra turned to her work, until it seemed as if the room were filled with the suspense of the unanswered question. Then she tried evasion.
"Why do you ask in that way, mothah?"
"Because if he sont fer ye, I'll help ye all I can; but if he didn't, I'll hinder ye, and ye'll bide right whar ye be."
"You won't do that, mothah."
"I sure will. If David haven't sont fer ye, an' ye go, ye'll have to walk ovah me to get thar, hear?"
The mother's voice was raised to a higher pitch than was her wont, and the little silver pot shook in her hand. Cassandra took it and regarded it without interest, absorbed in other thoughts. Then, throwing off her abstraction, she began questioning her mother about it, and why she had brought it to her now. The widow told all she knew, as she had told David, and pointed out the half obliterated coat of arms on the side.
"I've heered your paw say 'at ther war more pieces'n this, oncet, but this'n come straight to him from his grandpaw, an' now hit's yourn. If he have sont fer ye, take hit with ye. Hit may be wuth more'n you think fer now. I been told they do think a heap o' fambly ovah thar, jest like we do here in the mounting. Leastways, hit's all we do have—some of us. My fambly war all good stock, capable and peart; an' now heark to me. Wharevah you go, just you hold your hade up. The' hain't nothin' more despisable than a body 'at goes meachin' around like some old sheep-stealin' houn' dog. Now if he sure 'nough have sont fer ye, go, an' I'll help ye, but if he haven't, bide whar ye be."
Cassandra drew in her breath sharply, no longer able to evade the question, with her mother's keen eyes searching her face. All her reasons for going flashed through her mind in a moment's space of time. The book she had been reading—what were English people really like? And David—her David—her boy's father—what shameful things were they saying of him all over the mountain that Frale should dare come to her as he had done? She could not stay now; she would not. Her cheeks flamed, and she walked silently into the canvas room and stood by her baby's cradle. Her mother began wrapping up the silver pot.
"I guess I'll take this back an' lock hit up again. You sure hain't to go if ye can't give me that word."
Cassandra went quickly and took it from her mother's hand. "No, mother, give it to me. I told Frale David had sent for me, and I'm going."
"And he have sont fer ye?"
"Yes, mothah." Her reply was low as she turned again to her work.
"Waal, now, why couldn't you have give me that word first off? Hit's his right to have ye, an' I'll he'p ye. You'd ought to go to him if he can't come to you."
Instantly up and alert, putting bravely aside her own feelings at the thought of parting, the mother began helping her daughter; but long after they were finished and settled for the night, she lay wakeful and dreading the coming day.
Cassandra slept less, and lay quietly thinking, sorrowful that she must leave her home, and not a little anxious over what might be her future and what might be her fate in that strange land.
When at last she slept, she dreamed of the people she had met inVanity Fair, with David strangely mixed up among them, and Frale ever alert and watchful, moving wherever she moved, silently lingering near and never taking his eyes from her face.
In the morning, mother and daughter were up betimes, but no word was spoken between them to betoken hesitation or fear. Cassandra walked in a sort of dumb wonder at herself, and smouldering deep beneath the surface was a fierce resentment against those who, having known her from childhood, and receiving many favors and kindnesses from her, should now presume to so speak against her husband as to make Frale dare to approach her as he had. Oh, the burning shame of those kisses! The shame of the thought against David that pervaded her beloved mountains! For the sake of his good name, she would put away her pride and go to him.