When she had watched Sheriff Knox and his two companions ride out of sight, Auntie Sue turned slowly back into the house to face Judy, who stood accusingly in the kitchen doorway.
For what seemed a long time, the old gentlewoman and the deformed mountain girl stood silently looking at each other. Then Auntie Sue nervously crossed the room to lay the newspaper, which the Sheriff had given her, on the table beside her basket of sewing.
Without speaking, Judy followed her, watching every movement intently.
Turning to face her companion again, Auntie Sue stood, still speechless, clasping and unclasping her thin old hands.
Judy spoke in her shrill, drawling monotone: “You-all have sure fixed hit this here time, hain't you? Can't you-all see what a hell of a hole you've done got us inter?”
When Auntie Sue apparently could not reply, Judy continued: “Just as if hit wasn't more 'n enough for you-all ter go an' wear yourself plumb out a-takin' keer of that there ornery, no-'count feller, what I never ought ter dragged out of the river nohow. An', now, you-all got ter go an' just naturally lie like you did ter the Sheriff an' that there deteckertive man. I was plumb scared to death a-listenin' ter you through the crack in the kitchen door. I 'lowed every minute they'd ketch you, sure. My Lord-A'mighty! ma'm, can't you-all figger what'll happen ter weuns if they ever finds out that weuns done had him hid right here in this here house all the time? I never heard tell of such dad burned, fool doin's in all my born days! I sure wish ter God that there old John-boat had a-tuck him off down the river an' smashed him up agin Elbow Rock, like hit ort, an' not a-fetched him ter our door ter git weuns in jail for savin' his worthless, no-'count hide,—I sure do!”
“But, Judy, I never in all my life did such a thing before,” said Auntie Sue in a tremulous whisper, too overwrought to speak aloud.
“You-all ain't a-needin' ter do hit but onct, neither. Onct is sure a heap plenty for that there big Sheriff man. Just look what he did ter my pap! He's jailed pap seven times, that I kin rec'lect. God-A'mighty knows how many times he ketched him 'fore I was borned. An' pap, he didn't do so mighty much ary time, neither.”
“I just had to do it, Judy, dear,” protested Auntie Sue. “It seemed as if I simply could not tell the truth: something wouldn't let me.”
Judy, unheeding her companion's agitation, continued reviewing the situation: “An' just look at all the money you-all done lost!”
“Money?” questioned Auntie Sue.
“Yep, 'money:'—that there reward what they'd a-paid you-all if you-all hadn't a-lied like you did. I reckon as how there'd a-been as much, maybe, as what was in that there letter you-all done sent ter the bank an' ain't never heard tell of since. Hit's most likely clean gone by now, an' here you done gone an' throw'd this other away,—plumb throw'd hit away!”
At this, Auntie Sue's spirit suddenly flashed into fiery indignation.
“Judith Taylor,” she said sharply, “how can you suggest such a wicked thing? Why, I would—I would—DIE before I would accept a penny for doing such a thing!”
And it was Judy, now, who stood silent and abashed before the aroused Auntie Sue.
“Don't ever speak of such a thing again!” continued the old lady. “And remember, we must be more careful than ever, now, not to let any one—not a soul—know that Mr.—Mr.—Burns is in the house, or that we ever saw him!”
“That there deteckertive man said as how the feller's name was Brian Kent, didn't be?” muttered the sullen Judy.
“I don't care what the detective man said!” retorted Auntie Sue. “I am telling you that his name is Brian Burns, and you had better remember it! You had better remember, too, that if anybody ever finds out the truth about him, you and I will go right along to jail with him!”
“Yes, ma'm; I sure ain't aimin' ter forgit that,” replied the humbled Judy; and she slouched away to the kitchen.
Auntie Sue went to the door of Brian Kent's room. But, with her hand outstretched toward the latch, she hesitated. Had he heard? The Sheriff's voice had been so loud. She feared to enter, yet she knew that she must. At last, she knocked timidly, and, when there was no answer, knocked again, louder. Cautiously, she opened the door.
The man lay with his face to the wall,—to all appearances fast asleep.
She tiptoed to the bed, and stood looking down upon the stranger for whom, without a shadow of reason,—one would have said,—she had violated one of the most deeply rooted principles of her seventy years.
To Auntie Sue, daughter of New England Puritanism, and religious to the deeps of her being, a lie was abhorrent,—and she had lied,—deliberately, carefully, and with painstaking skill she had lied. She had not merely evaded the truth; she had lied,—and that to save a man of whom she knew nothing except that he was a fugitive from the law. And the strangest thing about it was this, that she was glad. She could not feel one twinge of regret for her sin. She could not even feel that she had, indeed, sinned. She had even a feeling of pride and triumph that she had lied so successfully. She was troubled, though, about this new and wholly unexpected development in her life. It had been so easy for her. She had lied so naturally, so instinctively.
She remembered how she had spoken to Brian Kent of the river and of life. She saw, now, that the river symbolized not only life as a whole, with its many ever-changing conditions and currents, amid which the individual must live;—the river symbolized, as truly, the individual life, with its ever-changing moods and motives,—its ever-varying and often-conflicting currents of instinct and training,—its infinite variety of intellectual deeps and shallows,—its gentle places of spiritual calm,—and its wild and turbulent rapids of dangerous passion.
“What hitherto unsuspected currents in her life-river,” she asked herself, “had carried her so easily into falsehood? What strange forces were these,” she wondered, “that had set her so suddenly against honesty and truthfulness and law and justice? And this stranger,—this wretched, haggard-faced, drunken creature, who had been brought by the mysterious currents of life to her door,—what was there in him that so compelled her protecting interest? What was it within him, deeply hidden under the repellent exterior of his being, that had so awakened in her that strange feeling of possession,—of motherhood?”
It was not strange that, in her mental and spiritual extremity, the dear old gentlewoman's life-long habit should lead her to kneel beside the stranger's bed and pray for understanding and guidance. It was significant that she did not ask her God to forgive the lie.
And, presently, as she prayed, she felt the man on the bed move. Then a hand lightly touched her hair. She remained very still for a little,—her head still bowed. The hand that touched so reverently the silvery gray hair trembled a little. Slowly, the old teacher raised her face to look at him; and the Irish blue eyes of Brian Kent were wide with wondering awe and glowing with a light that warmed her heart and strengthened her.
“Why did you do it?” he asked. “You wonderful, wonderful woman! Why did you do it?”
Slowly, she rose from her knees to sit beside him on the bed. “You heard?”
He nodded his head, not trusting himself to speak.
“I was afraid the Sheriff talked too loud,” she said.
“But, why did you do it?” he persisted.
“I think it was because I couldn't do anything else,” she answered, with her little chuckling laugh. Then she added, seriously: “How could I let them take you away? Are you not mine? Did not the river bring you to me?”
“I must tell you,” he answered, sadly, “that what the detective told you about me is true.”
“Yes?” she answered, smiling.
“I was a clerk in the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank,” he continued, “and I stole money,—for nearly a year I stole,—not large sums, but a little at a time. Then, when I knew that it was going to be discovered, I took quite a lot, and ran away.”
“Yes?” said Auntie Sue.
“Do you not care that I am a thief?” he questioned, wonderingly.
“Oh, yes; I care very much,” she returned. “But, you see, after all, your stealing is a little thing that can be made all right. Your being a thief is so small in comparison with other things which you might have been, but which you are not, and of so little importance in comparison with what you really ARE, that I can't feel so very bad about it.”
“But—but—my drinking,—my condition when—” He could not go on.
“Why, you see,” she answered, “I can't think of THAT man as being YOU at all. THAT was something that the accident of your being a thief did to you,—like catching cold, and being sick, after accidentally falling in the river.”
After a little silence, the man spoke, slowly: “I suppose every thief, when he is caught, says the same thing; but I really never wanted to do it. Circumstances—” he paused, biting his lip, and turning away.
“What was she like?” asked Auntie Sue, gently.
“She?” and his face reddened.
“Yes, I have observed that, to a man, 'circumstances' nearly always mean a woman. To a woman, of course, it is a man.”
“I cannot tell you about her, now,” he said. “Some day, perhaps, when I am further away from it. But she is not at all like you.”
And this answer, for some strange reason, brought a flush of pleasure to the face of the old schoolteacher.
“I did not mean for you to tell me now,” she returned. “I only wanted you to know that, even though I am an old maid, I can understand.”
She left him then, and went to attend to her simple household duties.
It was not until quite late in the evening that Auntie Sue took up the newspaper which Sheriff Knox had given her. Judy had retired to her room, and Brian Burns—as they had agreed he should be called—was fast asleep.
To-morrow, Brian was going to sit up. His clothing had been washed and ironed and pressed, and Auntie Sue was making some little repairs in the way of darning and buttons. She had finished, and was putting her needle and scissors in the sewing-basket on the table beside her, when she noticed the paper, which she had forgotten.
The article headed “BANK CLERK DISAPPEARS” was not long. It told, in a matter-of-fact, newspaper way, how Brian Kent had, at different times, covering a period of several months, taken various sums from the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank, and gave, so far as was then known, the accumulated amount which he had taken. The dishonest clerk had employed several methods in his operations; but the particular incident—read Auntie Sue—which had led to the exposure of Kent's stealings was the theft of a small sum of money in bank-notes, which had been sent to the bank in a letter by one of the bank's smaller depositors.
The newspaper fell from Auntie Sue's hand. Mechanically, she fingered the garment lying in her lap.
She, too, had sent a sum of money in a letter for deposit to her small account in this bank from which Brian Kent had stolen. She would not have sent the familiar paper currency of the United States that way; but, this money was in Argentine notes. Her brother from far-away Buenos Aires had sent it to her, saying that it would help to keep her during the closing years of her life; and she had added it to her small savings with a feeling of deepest gratitude that her last days were now fully provided for. And she had received from the bank no acknowledgment of her letter with its enclosures.
Taking up the paper with hands that trembled so she scarce could distinguish the words, she read the paragraph again.
Suddenly, she recalled the man's puzzled expression when she had told him her name, and she seemed to hear him say, again, “Wakefield? Wakefield? Where have I seen that name?”
She looked at the date of the paper. Beyond all doubt, the man sleeping there in the other room;—the man whom she had saved from a suicide's end in the river;—whom she had nursed through the hell of delirium tremens;—whom she had yearned over as over her own son, and for whom, to save from the just penalty of his crime, she had lied—beyond all doubt that man had robbed her of the money that was to have insured to her peace and comfort in the closing years of her life.
Carefully, Auntie Sue laid the garment she had just mended with such loving care, with the rest of Brian Kent's clothing, on the near-by chair. Rising, she went with slow, troubled step to the porch.
There was no moon, that night, to turn the waters of The Bend into a stream of silvery light. But the stars were shining bright and clear, and she could see the river where it made its dark, mysterious way between the walls of shadowy hills; and borne to her ears on the gentle night wind came the deep, thundering roar of the angry waters at Elbow Rock.
For a long time she stood there on the porch looking into the night, with the light from the open door of her little house behind her; and she felt very lonely, very tired, and very old. With her beautiful old face upturned to the infinite sky, where shining worlds are scattered in such lavish profusion, she listened, listened to the river that, with its countless and complex currents, swept so irresistibly onward along the way that was set for it by Him who swung those star-worlds in the limitless space of that mighty arch above. And something of the spirit that broods ever over the river must have entered into the soul of Auntie Sue. When she turned back into the house, there was a smile on her face, though her eyes were wet with tears.
Going to the chair that held Brian Kent's clothing, she took the garments in her arms and pressed them to her lips. Then she carried them to his room.
For some time she remained in that darkened chamber beside the sleeping man.
When she returned to the living-room, she again took up the newspaper. Very carefully, that her sleeping companions in the house might not hear her, she went to the kitchen, the paper in her hand. Very carefully, that no sound should betray her act, she burned the paper in the kitchen stove.
During the next few days, Brian Kent rapidly regained his strength. No one seeing the tall, self-possessed gentleman who sat with Auntie Sue on the porch overlooking the river, or strolled about the place, could have imagined him the wretchedly repulsive creature that Judy had dragged from the eddy so short a time before. And no one,—exempting, perhaps, detective Ross,—would have identified this bearded guest of Auntie Sue's as the absconding bank clerk for whose arrest a substantial reward was offered.
But Mr. Ross had departed from the Ozarks, to report to the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank that, to the best of his knowledge and belief, Brian Kent had been drowned. Homer T. Ward, himself, wrote Auntie Sue about the case, for the detective had told the bank president about his visit to the little log house by the river, and the banker knew that his old teacher would wish to hear the conclusion of the affair.
The facts upon which the detective based his conclusion that Brian Kent was dead, were, first of all, the man's general character, temperament, habits, and ambitions,—aside from his thefts from the bank,—prior to the time of his exposure and flight, and his known mental and physical condition at the time he disappeared from the hotel in the little river town of Borden.
The detective reasoned (and there are thousands of cases that could be cited to support his contention) that by such a man as Brian Kent,—knowing, as he must have known, the comparative certainty of his ultimate arrest and conviction, and being in a mental and nervous condition bordering on insanity, as a result of his constant brooding over his crime and the excessive drinking to which he had resorted for relief,—by such a man, death would almost inevitably be chosen rather than a life of humiliation and disgrace and imprisonment.
Acting upon the supposition, however, that the man had gone down the river in that missing boat, and that the appearance of suicide was planned by the fugitive to trick his pursuers, the detectives ascertained that he had provided no supplies for a trip down the river. The man would be compelled to seek food. The mountain country through which he must pass was sparsely settled, and for a distance that would have taken a boat many days to cover, the officers visited every house and cabin and camp on either side of the river without finding a trace of the hunted man. The river had been watched night and day. The net set by the Burns operatives touched every settlement and village for many miles around. And, finally, the battered and broken wreck of the lost boat had been found some two miles below Elbow Rock.
“. . . And so, my dear Auntie Sue,” Banker Ward wrote, in conclusion, “you may rest in peace, secure in the certainty that my thieving bank clerk is not lurking anywhere in your beautiful Ozarks to pounce down upon you unawares in your little house beside the river. The man is safely dead. There is no doubt about it. I regret, more than I can express, that you have been in any way disturbed by the affair. Please think no more about it.
“By the way, you made a great impression upon detective Ross. He was more than enthusiastic over your graciousness and your beauty. I never heard him talk so much before in all the years I have known him. Needless to say, I indorsed everything he said about the dearest old lady in the world, and then we celebrated by dining together and drinking a toast to Auntie Sue. . . .”
Auntie Sue went with the letter to Brian, and acquainted him with that part of the banker's communication which related to the absconding clerk; but, about her relation to the president of the Empire Consolidated Savings Bank, she said nothing.
“Isn't it splendid!” she finished, her face glowing with delight.
“Splendid?” he echoed, looking at her with grave, questioning eyes.
“Why, yes, of course!” she returned. “Aren't you glad to be so dead, under the circumstances? Think what it means! You are free, now. No horrid old detectives dogging your steps, or waiting behind every bush and tree to pounce upon you. There is nothing, now, to prevent your being the kind of man that you always meant to be,—and really ARE, too,—except for your—your accidental tumble in the river,” she finished with her low chuckling laugh. “And, some day,” she went on, with conviction, “when you have established yourself,—when you have asserted your REAL self, I mean,—and have paid back every penny of the money, Homer T. Ward and Mr. Ross and everybody will be glad that they didn't catch you before you had a chance to save yourself.”
“And you, Auntie Sue?” Brian's voice was deep with feeling: “And you?”
“Me? Oh, I am as glad, now, as I can ever be, because, you see, to me it is already done.”
For a long minute he looked at her without speaking, then turned his face away to gaze out over the river and the hills; but his eyes were the eyes of one who looks without seeing.
Slowly, he said: “I wish I could be sure. There was a time when I was—when I believed in myself. It seems to me, now, that it was years and years ago. I thought, then, that nothing could shake me in my purpose; that nothing could check me in my ambition. I saw myself going straight on to the goal I had set for myself as certainly as—well, as your river ever there goes on to the sea. But now—” He shook his head sadly.
Auntie Sue laughed. “You foolish boy. My river out there doesn't go straight at all. It meets all sorts of obstacles, and is beset by all sorts of conflicting influences, and so is forced to wind and twist and work its way along; but, the big, splendid thing about the river is that it keeps going on. It never stops to turn back. No matter what happens to it, it never stops. It goes on and on and on unto the very end, until it finally loses itself in the triumph of its own achievement,—the sea.”
“And you think that I can go on?” he asked, doubtingly.
“I know you can go on,” she answered with conviction.
“But, why are you so sure?”
“Perhaps,” she returned, smiling, “seventy years makes one sure of some things.”
Ho exclaimed passionately: “But you do not know—you cannot know—how my life, my dreams, my plans, my hopes, my—everything—has been broken into bits!”
She answered calmly, pointing to Elbow Rock: “Look there, Brian. See how the river is broken into bits. See how its smoothly flowing, onward sweep is suddenly changed to wild, chaotic turmoil; how it rages and fumes and frets and smashes itself against the rocks. But it goes on just the same. Life cannot be always calm and smoothly flowing like the peaceful Bend. But life can always go on. Life must always go on. And you will find, my dear boy, that a little way below Elbow Rock there is another quiet stretch.”
When he spoke again there was a note of almost reverence in his voice.
“Auntie Sue, was there ever a break in your life? Were your dreams and plans ever smashed into bits?”
For a little, she did not answer; then she said, bravely: “Yes, Brian; several times. Once,—years and years ago,—I do not know how I managed to go on. I felt, then, as you feel now; but, somehow, I managed, and so found the calm places. The last hard spot came quite recently.” She paused, wondering what he would do if she were to tell him how he himself had made the hard spot. “But, now,” she continued, “I am hoping that the rest of the way will be calm and untroubled.”
“I wish I could help to make it so!” he cried impulsively.
“Why, you can,” she returned quickly. “Of course you can. Perhaps that is why the current landed your boat at my garden, instead of carrying you on down the rapids to Elbow Rock. Who can say?”
A new light kindled in the man's eyes as his sensitive nature took fire at Auntie Sue's words. “I could do anything for a woman like you, Auntie Sue,” he said quietly, but with a conviction that left no room for doubt. “But you must tell me what I am to do.”
She answered: “You are simply to go on with your life—just as if no Elbow Rock had ever disturbed you; just as the river goes on—to the end.”
She left him, then, to think out his problem alone; for the teacher of so many years' experience was too wise not to know when a lesson was finished.
But when the end of the day was come, they again sat together on the porch and watched the miracle of the sunset hour. And no word was spoken by them, now, of life and its problems and its meanings. As one listens to the song of a bird without thought of musical notes or terms; as one senses the fragrance of a flower without thought of the chemistry of perfume; as one feels the presence of spring in the air without thought of the day of the week, so they were conscious of the beauty, the glory, and the peace of the evening.
Only when the soft darkness of the night lay over the land, and river and mountain and starry sky were veiled in dreamy mystery, did Auntie Sue speak: “Oh, it is so good to have some one to share it with,—some one who understands. I am very lonely, sometimes, Brian. I wonder if you know?”
“Yes, Auntie Sue, I know, for I have been lonely, too.”
And so the old gentlewoman, whose lifework was so nearly finished, and the man in the flush of his manhood years, whose life had been so nearly wrecked, were drawn very close by a something that came to them out of the beauty and the mystery of that hour.
The next day, Brian told Auntie Sue that he would leave on the morrow.
“Leave?” she echoed in dismay. “Why, Brian, where are you going?”
“I don't exactly know,” he returned; “but, of course, I must go somewhere, out into the world again.”
“And why must you 'go somewhere, out into the world again'?” she demanded.
“To work,” he answered, smiling. “If I am to go on, as you say, I must go where I can find something to do.”
“If that isn't just like you—you child!” cried the old teacher. “You are all alike,—you boys and girls. You all must have something to do; always, it is 'something to do'.”
“Well,” he returned, “and must we not have something to do?”
“You will do something, certainly,” she answered; “but, before you can DO anything that is worth doing, you must BE something. Life isn't DOING;—it is BEING.”
“I wonder if that was not the real reason for my wretched failures,” said Brian, thoughtfully.
“It is the real reason for most of our failures,” she returned. “And so you are not going to fail again. You are not going away somewhere, you don't know where, to do something you don't know what. You are going to stay right here, and just BE something. Then, when the time comes, you will do whatever is yours to do as naturally and as inevitably as the birds sing, as the blossoms come in the spring, or as the river finds its way to the sea.”
And more than ever Brian Kent felt in the presence of Auntie Sue as a little boy to whom the world had grown suddenly very big and very wonderful.
But, after a while, he shook his head, smiling wistfully. “No, no, Auntie Sue, that sounds all true and right enough, but it can't be. I must go just the same.”
“Why can't it be, Brian?”
“For one thing,” he returned, “I cannot risk the danger to you. After all, as long as I am living, there is a chance that my identity will be discovered, and you—no, no; I must not!”
“As for that,” she answered quickly, “the chances of your being identified are a thousand times greater if you go into the world again too soon. Some day, of course, you must go; but you are safer now right here. And”—she added quickly—“it would be no easier for me, dear boy, to—to—have it happen somewhere away from me. You are mine, you know, no matter where you go.”
“But, Auntie Sue,” he protested, “I am not a gentleman of means that I can do nothing indefinitely; neither am I capable of living upon your hospitality for an extended period. I must earn my bread and butter.”
The final sentence came with such a lifting of his head, such a look of stern decision, and such an air of pride, that the gentle old school-teacher laughed until her eyes were filled with tears; and Judy, at the crack in the kitchen door, wondered if the mistress of the little log house by the river were losing her mind.
“Oh, Brian! Brian!” cried Auntie Sue, wiping her eyes. “I knew you would come to the 'bread and butter' at last. That is where all our philosophies and reasonings and arguments come at last, don't they? Just 'bread and butter,' that is all. And I love you for it. Of course you can't live upon my hospitality,—and I couldn't let you if you would. And if you WOULD, I wouldn't let you if I could. I am no more a lady of means, my haughty sir, than you are a gentleman of independent fortune. The fact is, Brian, dear, I suspect that you and I are about the two poorest people in the world,—to be anything like as pretentiously respectable and properly proud as we are.”
When the man could make no reply, but only looked at her with a much-puzzled and still-proud expression, she continued, half-laughingly, but well pleased with him: “Please, Brian, don't look so haughtily injured. I had no intention of insulting you by offering charity. Far from it.”
Instantly, the man's face changed. He put out his hands protestingly, and his blue eyes filled, as he said, impulsively. “Auntie Sue, after what you have done for me, I—”
She answered quickly: “We are considering the future. What has been, is past. Our river is already far beyond that point in its journey. Don't let us try to turn the waters back. I promise you I am going to be very, very practical, and make you pay for EVERYTHING.”
Smiling, now, he waited for her to explain.
“I must tell you, first,” she began, “that, except for a very small amount in the—in a savings bank, I have nothing to provide for my last days except this little farm.”
“What a shame,” Brian Kent exclaimed, “that a woman like you can give her life to the public schools for barely enough salary to keep her alive during her active years, and then left in her old age with no means of support. It is a national disgrace.”
Auntie Sue chuckled with appreciation of the rather grim humor of the situation. What would Brian Kent, indignant at the public neglect of the school-teacher, say of the man who had robbed her of the money that was to provide for her closing years? “After all, most public sins are only individual sins at the last,” she said, musingly.
“I beg your pardon,” said Brian, not in the least seeing the relevancy of her words.
Auntie Sue came quickly back to her subject: “Only thirty acres of my little farm is under cultivation. The remaining fifty acres is wild timberland. If I could have that fifty acres also in cultivation, with the money that the timber would bring,—which would not be a great deal,—I would be fairly safe for the—for the rest of my evening,” she finished with a smile. “Do you see?”
“You mean that I—that you want me to stay here and work for you?”
“I mean,” she answered, “that, if you choose to stay for awhile, you need not feel that you would be accepting my hospitality as charity,” she returned gently. “I am not exactly offering you a job: I am only showing you how you could, without sacrificing your pride, remain in this quiet retreat for awhile before returning to the world.”
“It would be heaven, Auntie Sue,” he returned earnestly. “I want to stay so bad that I fear myself. Let me think it over until to-morrow. Let me be sure that I am doing the right thing, and not merely the thing I want to do.”
She liked his answer, and did not mention the subject again until Brian himself was ready. And, strangely enough, it was poor, twisted Judy who helped him to set matters straight.
Brian had walked along the river-bank below the house to a spot just above the point where the high bluff jutting out into the river-channel forms Elbow Rock.
The bank here is not so high above the roaring waters of the rapids, for the spur of the mountain which forms the cliff lies at a right angle to the river, and the greater part of the cliff is thus on the shore, with its height growing less and less as it merges into the main slope of the mountain-side. From the turn in the road, in front of the house, a footpath leads down the bank of the river to the cliff, and, climbing stairlike up the face of the steep bluff, zigzags down the easier slope of the down-river side, to come again into the road below. The road itself, below Elbow Rock, is forced by the steep side of the mountain-spur and the precipitous bluff to turn inland from the river, and so, climbing by an easier grade up past Tom Warden's place, crosses the ridge above the schoolhouse, and comes back down the mountain again in front of Auntie Sue's place, to its general course along the stream. The little path forms thus a convenient short cut for any one following the river road on foot.
Brian, seated on the river-bank a little way from the path where it starts up the bluff, was trying to decide whether it would be better for him to follow his desire and stay with Auntie Sue for a few weeks or months, or whether he should not, in spite of the land he might clear for her, return to the world where he could more quickly earn the money to pay back that which he had stolen.
And as he sat there, the man was conscious that he had reached one of those turning-points that are found in every life where results, momentous and far-reaching, are dependent upon comparatively unimportant and temporary issues. He could not have told why, and yet he felt a certainty that, for him, two widely separated futures were dependent upon his choice. Nor could he, by thinking, discover what those futures held for him, nor which he should choose. Even as his boat that night had hung on the edge of the eddy,—hesitating on the dividing-line between the two currents,—so the man himself now felt the pull of his life-currents, and hesitated,—undecided.
Looking toward the house, he thought how like the life offered by Auntie Sue was to the quiet waters of The Bend, and—his mind finished the simile—how like the life to which he would go was to the rapids at Elbow Rock; and, yet, he reflected, the waters could never reach the sea without enduring the turmoil of the rapids. And, again, the thought came, “The Bend is just as much the river as the troubled passage around the rock.”
When he had given up life, and, to all intent and purpose, had left life behind him, the river, without his will or knowledge, had mysteriously elected to save him from the death he had chosen as his only refuge from the utter ruin that had seemed so inevitable. As the currents of the river had carried his boat to the eddy at the foot of Auntie Sue's garden, the currents of life had mysteriously brought him to the saving influence of Auntie Sue herself. Should he push out again into the stream to face the danger he knew beset such a course? or should he wait for a season in the secure calm of the harbor she offered until he were stronger? Brian Kent knew, instinctively, that there was in the wisdom and love of Auntie Sue's philosophy and faith a strength that would, if he could make it his, insure his safe passage through every danger of life, and yet—The man's meditations were interrupted by a chance look toward the bluff which towered above him.
Judy was climbing the steep trail.
Curiously, Brian watched the deformed mountain girl as she made her way up the narrow, stairlike path, and her cutting words came back to him: “God-A'mighty and my drunken pap made me like I am. But you,—damn you!—you made yourself what you be.” And Auntie Sue had said that the all-important thing in life was not to DO something, but to BE something.
The girl, who had gained a point halfway to the top of the bluff, paused to look searchingly about, and Brian, who was half-hidden by the bushes, started to call to her, thinking she might be looking for him; but some impulse checked him and he remained silently watching her. Climbing hurriedly a little higher up the path Judy again stopped to look carefully around, as if searching the vicinity for some one. Then, once more, she went on until she stood on top of the cliff; and now, as she looked about over the surrounding country, she called: “Mr. Burns! Oh, Mr. Burns! Who-o-e-e! Mr. Burns!”
Brian's lips were parted to answer the call when something happened on top of the bluff which held him for the moment speechless.
From beyond where Judy stood on the brink of the cliff, a man's head and shoulders appeared. Brian saw the girl start and turn to face the newcomer as if in sudden fear. Then she whirled about to run. Before she could gain the point where the path starts down from the top, the man caught her and dragged her roughly back, so that the two disappeared from Brian's sight. Brian was halfway up the bluff when he heard the girl's shrill scream.
There was no sign of weakness, now, in the man that Judy had dragged from the river. He covered the remaining distance to the top in a breath. From among the bushes, a little way down the mountainside, came the sound of an angry voice mingled with Judy's pleading cries.
An instant more, and Brian reached the spot where poor Judy was crouching on the ground, begging the brute, who stood over her with menacing fists, not to hit her again.
The man was a vicious-looking creature, dressed in the rough garb of the mountaineer; dirty and unkempt, with evil, close-set eyes, and a scraggly beard that could not hide the wicked, snarling mouth.
He stood for a second looking at Brian, as if too surprised by the latter's sudden appearance to move; then he went down, felled by as clean a knockout as was ever delivered by an Irish fist.
“Are you hurt, Judy?” demanded Brian, as he lifted the girl to her feet. “Did he strike you?”
“He was sure a-fixin' ter lick me somethin' awful when you-all put in,” returned the poor girl, trembling with fear. “I know, 'cause he's done hit to me heaps er times before. He's my pap.”
“Your father!” exclaimed Brian.
Judy nodded;—then screamed: “Look out! He'll git you, sure!”
Judy's rescuer whirled, to see the man on the ground drawing a gun. A vigorous, well-directed kick, delivered in the nick of time, sent the gun whirling away into the bushes and rendered the native's right arm useless.
“Get up!” commanded Brian.
The man rose to his feet, and stood nursing his damaged wrist and scowling at Judy's companion.
“Are you this girl's father?”
“I reckon I am,” came the sullen reply. “I'm Jap Taylor, an' you-all are sure goin' to find that you can't come between a man an' his lawful child in these here mountains, mister,—if you-all be from the city.”
“And you will find that you can't strike a crippled girl in my presence, even if she is your daughter,—in these mountains or anywhere else,” retorted Brian. “What are you trying to do with her, anyway?”
“I aim ter take her back home with me, where she belongs.”
“Well, why didn't you go to the house for her like a man, instead of jumping on her out here in the woods!”
“Hit ain't none of your dad burned business as I can see,” came the sullen reply.
“I am making it my business, just the same,” returned Brian.
He turned to the girl, who had drawn back a little behind him. “Judy,” he said, kindly, “I think perhaps you better tell me about this.”
“Pap, he was a-layin' for me in the bresh 'cause he dassn't come to the house ter git me,” said the girl, fearfully.
“But, why does he fear to come to the house?” persisted Brian.
“'Cause he done give me ter Auntie Sue.”
“Gave you to Auntie Sue?” repeated the puzzled Brian.
Jap Taylor interrupted with, “I didn't sign ary paper, an'—”
“Shut up, you!” snapped Brian. “Go on, Judy.”
“Hit was a year last corn-plantin',” explained the girl. “My maw, she died. He used ter whip her, too. An' Auntie Sue was there helpin' weuns; an' Tom Warden an' some other folks they was there, too; an' they done fixed hit so that I was ter go an' live with Auntie Sue; an' pap, he give me ter her. He sure did, Mr. Burns, an' I ain't a-wantin' ter go with him, no more.”
The poor girl's shrill monotone broke, and her twisted body shook with her sobs.
“I didn't sign ary paper,” repeated Judy's father, with sullen stubbornness. “An' what's more, I sure ain't a-goin' ter. I 'lows as how she'll just go home an' work for me, like she ort, 'stead of livin' with that there old-maid schoolma'am. I'm her paw, I am, an' I reckon I got rights.”
He started toward the girl, who drew closer to Brian, and begged piteously: “Don't let him tech me! 'Fore God, Mr. Burns, he'll kill me, sure!”
Brian drew the girl behind him as he faced the father with a brief, “Get out!”
The mountaineer hesitated.
Brian went one step toward him: “Do you hear? Get out! And if you ever show your dirty face in this vicinity again, I'll not leave a whole bone in your worthless carcass!”
And Jap Taylor saw something in those Irish blue eyes that caused him to start off down the mountain toward the river below Elbow Rock.
When he had placed a safe distance between himself and the man who appeared so willing and able to make good his threat, Judy's father turned, and, shaking his uninjured fist at Brian, delivered a volley of curses, with: “I'll sure git you-all for this! Jap Taylor ain't a-lettin' no man come between him an' his'n. I'll fix you, an' I'll fix that there schoolma'am, too! She's nothin' but a damned old—”
But Brian started toward him, and Jap Taylor beat a hasty retreat.
“Never mind, Judy,” said Brian, when the native had disappeared in the brush and timber that covered the steep mountain-side. “I'll not let him touch you. Come, let us sit down and talk a little until you are yourself again. Auntie Sue must not see you like this. We don't want to let her know anything about it. You won't tell her, will you?”
“I ain't aimin' ter tell nobody,” said Judy, between sobs. “I sure ain't a-wantin' ter make no trouble,—not for Auntie Sue, nohow. She's been powerful good ter me.”
When they were seated on convenient rocks at the brink of the cliff overlooking the river, Judy gradually ceased crying, and presently said, in her normal, querulous monotone: “Did you-all mind what pap 'lowed he'd do ter Auntie Sue, Mr. Burns?”
“Yes, Judy; but don't worry, child. He is not going to harm any one while I am around.”
“You-all are aimin' ter stay then, be you? I'm sure powerful glad,” said Judy, simply.
Brian started. A new factor had suddenly been injected into his problem.
“I was powerful scared you-all was aimin' ter go away,” continued Judy. “Hit was that I was a-huntin' you-all to tell you 'bout, when pap he ketched me.”
“What were you going to tell me, Judy?”
“I 'lowed ter tell you-all 'bout Auntie Sue. She'd sure be powerful mad if she know'd I'd said anythin' ter you, but she's a-needin' somebody like you ter help her, mighty bad. She—she's done lost a heap of money, lately: hit was some she sent—”
Brian interrupted: “Wait a minute, Judy. You must not tell me anything about Auntie Sue's private affairs; you must not tell any one. Anything she wants me to know, she will tell me. Do you understand?” he finished with a reassuring smile.
“Yes, sir; I reckon you-all are 'bout right, an' I won't tell nobody nothin'. But 'tain't a-goin' ter hurt none ter say as how you-all ort ter stay, I reckon.”
“And why do you think I ought to stay, Judy?”
“'Cause of what Auntie Sue's done for you-all,—a-nursin' you when you was plumb crazy an' plumb dangerous from licker, an' a lyin' like she did ter the Sheriff an' that there deteckertive man,” returned Judy stoutly; “an' 'cause she's so old an' is a-needin' you-all ter help her; an' 'cause she is a-lovin' you like she does, an' is a-wantin' you-all ter stay so bad hit's mighty nigh a-makin' her plumb sick.”
Brian Kent did not answer. The mountain girl's words had revealed to him the selfishness of his own consideration of his problem so clearly that he was stunned. Why had he not, in his thinking, remembered the dear old gentlewoman who had saved him from a shameful death?
Judy went on: “Hit looks ter me like somebody just naturally's got ter take care of Auntie Sue, Mr. Burns. All her whole life she's a-been takin' care of everybody just like she tuck me, an' just like she tuck you-all, besides a heap of other ways; an' now she's so old and mighty nigh plumb wore out, hit sure looks like hit was time somebody was a-fixin' ter do somethin' for her. That was what I was a-huntin' you-all ter tell you when pap ketched me, Mr. Burns.”
“I am glad you told me, Judy;—very glad. You see, I was not thinking of things in just that way.”
“I 'lowed maybe you mightn't. Seems like folks mostly don't.”
“But it's all right, now!” Brian cried heartily. “You have settled it. I'll stay. We'll take care of Auntie Sue,—you and I, Judy. Come on, now; let's go to the house, and tell her. But we won't say anything about your father, Judy;—that would only make her unhappy; and we must never make Auntie Sue unhappy—never.” He was as eager and enthusiastic, now, as a schoolboy.
“'Course,” said Judy, solemnly; “'course you just naturally got ter stay an' take care of her now, after what pap's done said he'd do.”
“Yes, Judy; I've just naturally got to stay,” returned Brian.
Together they went down the steep cliff trail and to the little log house by the river to announce Brian's decision to Auntie Sue. They found the dear old lady in her favorite spot on the porch overlooking the river.
“Why, of course you will stay,” she returned, when Brian had told her. “The river brought you to me, and you know, my dear boy, the river is never wrong. Oh, yes, I know there are cross-currents and crooked spots and sand-bars and rocks and lots of places where it SEEMS to us to be wrong. But, just the same, it all goes on, all the time, toward the sea for which it starts when it first begins at some little spring away over there somewhere in the mountains. Of course you will stay with me, Brian,—until the river carries you on again.”