CHAPTER II.
Leola Mead sprang to the back of her mettlesome pony and almost flew down the mountain road, her great, dark eyes flashing with anger, her cheeks glowing crimson, her wealth of golden locks streaming like a ruddy banner on the breeze. Against the tight bodice of her riding habit her young bosom heaved tumultuously with the angry throbs of her heart, for Leola had just had a bitter quarrel with her guardian, and now gave vent to her excitement by giving free rein to Rex in a breakneck ride.
It was a lovely June morning in the mountains of West Virginia, all Nature at her sweetest and fairest, and Leola had been planning such a happy, happy day; but when she came out from breakfast ready for her morning canter, there stood her saturnine old guardian asking her to step into the library for a moment before she rode away.
Leola obeyed him, pouting, for she hated to lose time indoors this gladsome, golden day.
There was no love lost between her and her grim guardian, anyway, for he was a stern old man, reticent and mysterious, spending most of his time in a horrid laboratory up in the tower chamber of the rough old stone house, where the country folk said he was working either to wrest from Nature the secret of making gold, or the still greater mystery of distilling a magic elixir of life. About the neighborhood he got the sobriquet Wizard Hermann, and looked the character with his lean, stooping form, long black hair floating over his coat collar, strongly marked features and cunning mouth, while his keen, gray eyes, under bushy brows, seemed to pierce one through with their questioning gaze.
His ancestors had been pioneer Indian fighters, and the large house built of rough stone, just as taken from the quarry, dated back to the time when the red man roamed the almost unbroken forest.
In all the years while Leola had lived here with her governess in the lonely old house, she could not remember a caress from the mysterious, self-absorbedold man, who seemed to have no human interests or passions, and to care for no one but the dwarfish servitor who helped him in his laboratory, the only person he ever admitted within its precincts.
It was no wonder, then, that Leola followed Wizard Hermann unwillingly into the musty-smelling library, with its high walnut wainscot, dingy, green-stenciled walls, and side shelves lined with old leather volumes, while the bare oaken floor on which she trod was worn with the footsteps of successive generations who had passed from earth in the fullness of time and been gathered to their fathers.
In the somber room with its closed shutters Leola stood facing her grim guardian with the impatient air of some beautiful young princess giving audience to a vassal.
As he stood hesitating where to begin, with an unwonted diffidence, she said, coldly:
“Speak; tell me your wish at once, sir, for I must hurry. I have an engagement in town with my dressmaker.”
At those words Wizard Hermann’s gloomy brow cleared as if by magic, and quickly striking his lean, scarred hands together, he retorted, maliciously:
“An engagement with your dressmaker, eh, my proud lady? Very well, while you are there you may give the woman an order for your wedding gown.”
“Sir,” she uttered, in amazement, her cheeks reddening.
Wizard Hermann retorted, with a hoarse, sardonic laugh:
“I said give the woman an order for your wedding gown, Leola Mead, for you are to be married soon.”
Leola stared, speechlessly, a moment, wondering if the old man was losing his mind, and, taking advantage of her silence, he continued, with forced bravado:
“You look surprised, my haughty young lady, so I will explain. I have accepted a desirable proposal for your hand, and as you are plenty old enough to marry—nineteen your last birthday—I have named the wedding for a month from to-day.”
Leola, recovering her speech, cried, indignantly:
“Quite a cool proceeding on your part, sir, I must say, but I wish you to understand that I am not ready to marry yet.”
“That makes no difference to me, for you will have to obey me, Leola Mead, understand that,” he replied, with rising anger. “You are my ward, and in pursuance of my duty to you, I have accepted a man for your husband who worships the ground you walk upon and will spend money on you like water.”
Leola’s dark eyes blazed with indignation.
“You must surely be mad,” she cried, passionately. “The man I would choose for my husband must ask me for my hand, not you, sir. This is free America, you must remember, not France, where marriages are arranged by old people who have forgotten love and youth. I refuse the suitor you have chosen for me without even hearing his name!”
The old man muttered, sullenly.
“Marriage is the destiny of all young girls. You would not wish to grow into a sour old maid?”
“No, I do not intend to be an old maid, sir, but,” with a proud toss of her lovely head, “when I marry I shall choose the man myself, and it shall be for love, not money!”
“Money is the only thing worth having—money and long life,” he muttered, but Leola, with a contemptuous laugh, turned to go.
He sprang between her and the door, putting his back against it.
“I have not done telling you all about this matter yet,” he exclaimed, but Leola stamped her little foot in a fury, replying:
“I will not hear another word, I tell you, and you may as well let me go, and give up your foolish plans!”
“By Heaven, miss, you shall marry the man of my choice—I swear it!” cried the wizard, violently, but she answered, coldly:
“Pray let me hear no more such nonsense, Uncle Hermann. Granted you are my guardian, the law does not give you the power of marrying me to anyone against my will. No, not another word, or I shall think you are going insane, if not so already. Get away from that door, and let me out, or I shall scream for assistance or jump out of the window!”
“You would not dare do either!” he said.
Leola ran like a flash to the window, pushing back the creaking shutters, letting in a flood of June sunshine. The next moment she sprang to the high sill, crying, defiantly:
“Now, get away from that door or I will jump out!”
The old man muttered, incredulously: “You would break your neck!”
Leola answered, recklessly:
“I shall risk that unless you let me out of the door. Come, now, I will count ten. If you do not move before then I am gone,” and drawing her dainty little feet up into the window, and dangling them on the outside, she began counting in a clear, high voice:
“One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten!”
Wizard Hermann remained standing with his back toward the door, regardingher with an incredulous leer, never dreaming she would make the foolhardy leap, for from the window sill it was twenty feet to the ground.
But Leola was as good as her word.
While she counted she kept her flashing dark eyes full upon his stubborn face, and seeing that he did not move as the last word left her lips, she deliberately turned and sprang out upon the ground.
A cry of alarm shrilled over the old man’s lips, and he stood like one rooted to the spot, listening for the cry of pain that must announce the dread result of the perilous leap. Visions of Leola crippled or dead floated before his mind’s eye, and he muttered, savagely:
“Little vixen, if you have broken your neck it is your own fault! But if you live you shall marry the man of my choice one month from to-day, I swear it!”
The sound of her voice floated to him indistinctly—was it a laugh or a groan?
He hurried to the window, shaking with excitement.
There was Leola standing upright on the greensward, brushing her blue skirt, and humming a little song to herself.
“Are you hurt?” he quavered, anxiously, and she looked up, laughing maliciously:
“Hurt? Oh, no, not a bit!” she called back, gayly. “I just let myself go limply, and I came down like a cat on all fours in the grass and clover. I have fallen higher than that from trees many a time without hurting myself. It’s easy enough when you learn to go limp and not stiffen yourself; ha, ha!”
As he glared in amazement she waved her hand, audaciously, adding:
“You ought to try it yourself some time, Uncle Hermann! Well, good-bye, sir, and mind you don’t let me hear any more of this match-making business, unless you go and get married yourself!” and with that parting shot, the merry girl ran across the grass, a vision of youth and health and beauty, to where her pony was waiting, ready saddled, beneath a tree. Vaulting lightly to his back, without even waiting to fasten the loosened tresses of her ruddy hair, the wild young thing was off and away down the mountain road, her young bosom throbbing tumultuously, half with anger, half with mirth, at the rencontre with her guardian.
“The old silly, to think of marrying me off, without so much as by your leave! The idea!” she exclaimed aloud, adding, more soberly, “Not that I’d mind having a rich husband if he was handsome and winning, too, but how often I have heard it said that good looks and riches seldom go together, so if that’s the case I’d marry for love and let money go!”
Her fit of anger dissolving in the sunshine of sweet good nature, she hummed, as she galloped on, a fragment of a tender little love-song, sweet as it was sad:
“Honey flowers for the honey-comb,And the honey-bees from home.“A honey-comb and a honey-flowerAnd the bee shall have his hour.“A honeyed heart for the honey-comb.And the humming bee flies home.“A heavy heart in the honey-flower.And the bee has had his hour.”
“Honey flowers for the honey-comb,And the honey-bees from home.“A honey-comb and a honey-flowerAnd the bee shall have his hour.“A honeyed heart for the honey-comb.And the humming bee flies home.“A heavy heart in the honey-flower.And the bee has had his hour.”
“Honey flowers for the honey-comb,And the honey-bees from home.
“Honey flowers for the honey-comb,
And the honey-bees from home.
“A honey-comb and a honey-flowerAnd the bee shall have his hour.
“A honey-comb and a honey-flower
And the bee shall have his hour.
“A honeyed heart for the honey-comb.And the humming bee flies home.
“A honeyed heart for the honey-comb.
And the humming bee flies home.
“A heavy heart in the honey-flower.And the bee has had his hour.”
“A heavy heart in the honey-flower.
And the bee has had his hour.”
Suddenly the low song died on her lips, changing to a cry of alarm.
At a curve in the road she came suddenly upon a startling sight.
Rex just swerved aside from a runaway horse that was dragging behind it a shattered little runabout, in which stood upright a white-faced man, straining desperately upon the reins, trying to stop the maddened animal’s wild career.
Even in that terrible moment, with the black horse plunging madly forward to the imminent peril of the driver’s life, Leola saw, as by a flash, that the man was young and very, very handsome, and her heart throbbed with wild pain at his danger, for on one side the road sloped, precipitously, downward to a dangerous stream of water, and a plunge over that steep incline meant death in horrible form.
But what could avert the catastrophe, for it seemed as if nothing could restrain the plunging brute or turn aside his maddened course toward the crumbling edge of the yawning precipice that would instantly engulf both in ruin and death!
A cry of agony, “Oh, God, save him!” shrilled over her rosy lips.
Surely the listening angels heard the prayer, for suddenly she saw that there was one chance in a thousand to avert the threatening disaster—one chance, though with deadly peril to herself.
With a high heart of hope, and a courage that defied all the deadly risk, she dared the consequences, spurring Rex forward in front of the black horse with a clarion call on her lips that wrought what seemed like a miracle.
For at her voice, conjoined with a startled whinny from Rex, the terrified animal, plunging and rearing but an instant before, with upraised hoofs nearing the verge of the dangerous precipice, now stopped as if shot, trembling all over, while Leola, throwing out her arms, caught his neck and clung, clung, clung, with the energy of despair.