"They was that destitute," said Tom, "'twas a pity to see 'em."
"And they be grand folks, ye say?" said Polly Ann.
"Grand folks, I reckon. And helpless as babes on the Wilderness Trail.
They had two niggers--his nigger an' hers--and they was tuckered, too,
fer a fact.
"Lawsy!" exclaimed Polly Ann. "Be still, honey!" Taking a piece of
corn-pone from the cupboard, she bent over and thrust it between little
Peggy's chubby fingers "Be still, honey, and listen to what your Pa says.
Whar did ye find 'em, Tom?"
"'Twas Jim Ray found 'em," said Tom. "We went up to Crab Orchard,
accordin' to the Colonel's orders and we was thar three days. Ye ought
to hev seen the trash we turned back, Polly Ann! Most of 'em was scared
plum' crazy, and they was fer gittin 'out 'n Kaintuckee at any cost.
Some was fer fightin' their way through us."
"The skulks!" exclaimed Polly Ann. "They tried to kill ye? What did ye
do?"
Tom grinned, his mouth full of bacon.
"Do?" says he; "we shot a couple of 'em in the legs and arms, and bound
'em up again. They was in a t'arin' rage. I'm more afeard of a scar't
man,--a real scar't man--nor a rattler. They cussed us till they was
hoarse. Said they'd hev us hung, an' Clark, too. Said they hed a right
to go back to Virginny if they hed a mind."
"An' what did ye say?" demanded Polly Ann, pausing in her work, her eyes
flashing with resentment. "Did ye tell 'em they was cowards to want to
settle lands, and not fight for 'em? Other folks' lands, too."
"We didn't tell 'em nothin'," said Tom; "jest sent 'em kitin' back to the
stations whar they come from."
"I reckon they won't go foolin' with Clark's boys again," said Polly Ann,
resuming a vigorous rubbing of the skillet. "Ye was tellin' me about
these fine folks ye fetched home." She tossed her head in the direction
of the open door, and I wondered if the fine folks were outside.
"Oh, ay," said Tom, "they was comin' this way, from the Carolinys. Jim
Ray went out to look for a deer, and found 'em off 'n the trail. By the
etarnal, they WAS tuckered. HE was the wust, Jim said, lyin' down on a
bed of laurels she and the niggers made. She has sperrit, that woman.
Jim fed him, and he got up. She wouldn't eat nothin', and made Jim put
him on his hoss. She walked. I can't mek out why them aristocrats wants
to come to Kaintuckee. They're a sight too tender."
"Pore things!" said Polly Ann, compassionately. "So ye fetched 'em
home."
"They hadn't a place ter go," said he, "and I reckoned 'twould give 'em
time ter ketch breath, an' turn around. I told 'em livin' in Kaintuck
was kinder rough."
"Mercy!" said Polly Ann, "ter think that they was use' ter silver spoons,
and linen, and niggers ter wait on 'em. Tom, ye must shoot a turkey, and
I'll do my best to give 'em a good supper." Tom rose obediently, and
seized his coonskin hat. She stopped him with a word.
"Tom."
"Ay?"
"Mayhap--mayhap Davy would know 'em. He's been to Charlestown with the
gentry there."
"Mayhap," agreed Tom. "Pore little deevil," said he, "he's hed a hard
time."
"He'll be right again soon," said Polly Ann. "He's been sleepin' that
way, off and on, fer a week." Her voice faltered into a note of
tenderness as her eyes rested on me.
"I reckon we owe Davy a heap, Polly Ann," said he.
I was about to interrupt, but Polly Ann's next remark arrested me.
"Tom," said she, "he oughter be eddicated."
"Eddicated!" exclaimed Tom, with a kind of dismay.
"Yes, eddicated," she repeated. "He ain't like you and me. He's
different. He oughter be a lawyer, or somethin'."
Tom reflected.
"Ay," he answered, "the Colonel says that same thing. He oughter be sent
over the mountain to git l'arnin'."
"And we'll be missing him sore," said Polly Ann, with a sigh.
I wanted to speak then, but the words would not come.
"Whar hev they gone?" said Tom.
"To take a walk," said Polly Ann, and laughed. "The gentry has sech
fancies as that. Tom, I reckon I'll fly over to Mrs. McCann's an' beg
some of that prime bacon she has."
Tom picked up his ride, and they went out together. I lay for a long
time reflecting. To the strange guests whom Tom in the kindness of his
heart had brought back and befriended I gave little attention. I was
overwhelmed by the love which had just been revealed to me. And so I was
to be educated. It had been in my mind these many years, but I had never
spoken of it to Polly Ann. Dear Polly Ann! My eyes filled at the
thought that she herself had determined upon this sacrifice.
There were footsteps at the door, and these I heard, and heeded not.
Then there came a voice,--a woman's voice, modulated and trained in the
perfections of speech and in the art of treating things lightly. At the
sound of that voice I caught my breath.
"What a pastoral! Harry, if we have sought for virtue in the wilderness,
we have found it."
"When have we ever sought for virtue, Sarah?"
It was the man who answered and stirred another chord of my memory.
"When, indeed!" said the woman; "'tis a luxury that is denied us, I fear
me."
"Egad, we have run the gamut, all but that."
I thought the woman sighed.
"Our hosts are gone out," she said, "bless their simple souls! 'Tis
Arcady, Harry, 'where thieves do not break in and steal.' That's
Biblical, isn't it?" She paused, and joined in the man's laugh. "I
remember--" She stopped abruptly.
"Thieves!" said he, "not in our sense. And yet a fortnight ago this
sylvan retreat was the scene of murder and sudden death."
"Yes, Indians," said the woman; "but they are beaten off and forgotten.
Troubles do not last here. Did you see the boy? He's in there, in the
corner, getting well of a fearful hacking. Mrs. McChesney says he saved
her and her brats."
"Ay, McChesney told me," said the man. "Let's have a peep at him."
In they came, and I looked on the woman, and would have leaped from my
bed had the strength been in me. Superb she was, though her
close-fitting travelling gown of green cloth was frayed and torn by the
briers, and the beauty of her face enhanced by the marks of I know not
what trials and emotions. Little, dark-pencilled lines under the eyes
were nigh robbing these of the haughtiness I had once seen and hated.
Set high on her hair was a curving, green hat with a feather, ill-suited
to the wilderness.
I looked on the man. He was as ill-equipped as she. A London tailor
must have cut his suit of gray. A single band of linen, soiled by the
journey, was wound about his throat, and I remember oddly the buttons
stuck on his knees and cuffs, and these silk-embroidered in a criss-cross
pattern of lighter gray. Some had been torn off. As for his face, 'twas
as handsome as ever, for dissipation sat well upon it.
My thoughts flew back to that day long gone when a friendless boy rode up
a long drive to a pillared mansion. I saw again the picture. The horse
with the craning neck, the liveried servant at the bridle, the listless
young gentleman with the shiny boots reclining on the horse-block, and
above him, under the portico, the grand lady whose laugh had made me sad.
And I remembered, too, the wild, neglected lad who had been to me as a
brother, warm-hearted and generous, who had shared what he had with a
foundling, who had wept with me in my first great sorrow. Where was he?
For I was face to face once more with Mrs. Temple and Mr. Harry Riddle!
The lady started as she gazed at me, and her tired eyes widened. She
clutched Mr. Riddle's arm.
"Harry!" she cried, "Harry, he puts me in mind of--of some one--I cannot
think."
Mr. Riddle laughed nervously.
"There, there, Sally," says he, "all brats resemble somebody. I have
heard you say so a dozen times."
She turned upon him an appealing glance.
"Oh!" she said, with a little catch of her breath, "is there no such
thing as oblivion? Is there a place in the world that is not haunted? I
am cursed with memory."
"Or the lack of it," answered Mr. Riddle, pulling out a silver snuff-box
from his pocket and staring at it ruefully. "Damme, the snuff I fetched
from Paris is gone, all but a pinch. Here is a real tragedy."
"It was the same in Rome," the lady continued, unheeding, "when we met
the Izards, and at Venice that nasty Colonel Tarleton saw us at the
opera. In London we must needs run into the Manners from Maryland. In
Paris--"
"In Paris we were safe enough," Mr. Riddle threw in hastily.
"And why?" she flashed back at him.
He did not answer that.
"A truce with your fancies, madam," said he. "Behold a soul of good
nature! I have followed you through half the civilized countries of the
globe--none of them are good enough. You must needs cross the ocean
again, and come to the wilds. We nearly die on the trail, are picked up
by a Samaritan in buckskin and taken into the bosom of his worthy family.
And forsooth, you look at a backwoods urchin, and are nigh to swooning."
"Hush, Harry," she cried, starting forward and peering into my face; "he
will hear you."
"Tut!" said Harry, "what if he does? London and Paris are words to him.
We might as well be speaking French. And I'll take my oath he's
sleeping."
The corner where I lay was dark, for the cabin had no windows. And if my
life had depended upon speaking, I could have found no fit words then.
She turned from me, and her mood changed swiftly. For she laughed
lightly, musically, and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Perchance I am ghost-ridden," she said.
"They are not ghosts of a past happiness, at all events," he answered.
She sat down on a stool before the hearth, and clasping her fingers upon
her knee looked thoughtfully into the embers of the fire. Presently she
began to speak in a low, even voice, he looking down at her, his feet
apart, his hand thrust backward towards the heat.
"Harry," she said, "do you remember all our contrivances? How you used
to hold my hand in the garden under the table, while I talked brazenly to
Mr. Mason? And how jealous Jack Temple used to get?" She laughed again,
softly, always looking at the fire.
"Damnably jealous!" agreed Mr. Riddle, and yawned. "Served him devilish
right for marrying you. And he was a blind fool for five long years."
"Yes, blind," the lady agreed. "How could he have been so blind? How
well I recall the day he rode after us in the woods."
"'Twas the parson told, curse him!" said Mr. Riddle. "We should have
gone that night, if your courage had held."
"My courage!" she cried, flashing a look upwards, "my foresight. A
pretty mess we had made of it without my inheritance. 'Tis small enough,
the Lord knows. In Europe we should have been dregs. We should have
starved in the wilderness with you a-farming."
He looked down at her curiously.
"Devilish queer talk," said he, "but while we are in it, I wonder where
Temple is now. He got aboard the King's frigate with a price on his
head. Williams told me he saw him in London, at White's. Have--have you
ever heard, Sarah?"
She shook her head, her glance returning to the ashes.
"No," she answered.
"Faith," says Mr. Riddle, "he'll scarce turn up here."
She did not answer that, but sat motionless.
"He'll scarce turn up here, in these wilds," Mr. Riddle repeated, "and
what I am wondering, Sarah, is how the devil we are to live here."
"How do these good people live, who helped us when we were starving?"
Mr. Riddle flung his hand eloquently around the cabin. There was
something of disgust in the gesture.
"You see!" he said, "love in a cottage."
"But it is love," said the lady, in a low tone.
He broke into laughter.
"Sally," he cried, "I have visions of you gracing the board at which we
sat to-day, patting journey-cakes on the hearth, stewing squirrel broth
with the same pride that you once planned a rout. Cleaning the pots and
pans, and standing anxious at the doorway staring through a sunbonnet for
your lord and master."
"My lord and master!" said the lady, and there was so much of scorn in
the words that Mr. Riddle winced.
"Come," he said, "I grant now that you could make pans shine like
pier-glasses, that you could cook bacon to a turn--although I would have
laid an hundred guineas against it some years ago. What then? Are you
to be contented with four log walls? With the intellectual companionship
of the McChesneys and their friends? Are you to depend for excitement
upon the chances of having the hair neatly cut from your head by red
fiends? Come, we'll go back to the Rue St. Dominique, to the suppers and
the card parties of the countess. We'll be rid of regrets for a life
upon which we have turned our backs forever."
She shook her head, sadly.
"It's no use, Harry," said she, "we'll never be rid of regrets."
"We'll never have a barony like Temple Bow, and races every week, and
gentry round about. But, damn it, the Rebels have spoiled all that since
the war."
"Those are not the regrets I mean," answered Mrs. Temple.
"What then, in Heaven's name?" he cried. "You were not wont to be thus.
But now I vow you go beyond me. What then?"
She did not answer, but sat leaning forward over the hearth, he staring
at her in angry perplexity. A sound broke the afternoon stillness,--the
pattering of small, bare feet on the puncheons. A tremor shook the
woman's shoulders, and little Tom stood before her, a quaint figure in a
butternut smock, his blue eyes questioning. He laid a hand on her arm.
Then a strange thing happened. With a sudden impulse she turned and
flung her arms about the boy and strained him to her, and kissed his
brown hair. He struggled, but when she released him he sat very still on
her knee, looking into her face. For he was a solemn child. The lady
smiled at him, and there were two splashes like raindrops on her fair
cheeks.
As for Mr. Riddle, he went to the door, looked out, and took a last pinch
of snuff.
"Here is the mistress of the house coming back," he cried, "and singing
like the shepherdess in the opera."
It was Polly Ann indeed. At the sound of his mother's voice, little Tom
jumped down from the lady's lap and ran past Mr. Riddle at the door.
Mrs. Temple's thoughts were gone across the mountains.
"And what is that you have under your arm?" said Mr. Riddle, as he gave
back.
"I've fetched some prime bacon fer your supper, sir," said Polly Ann, all
rosy from her walk; "what I have ain't fit to give ye."
Mrs. Temple rose.
"My dear," she said, "what you have is too good for us. And if you do
such a thing again, I shall be very angry.
"Lord, ma'am," exclaimed Polly Ann, "and you use' ter dainties an' silver
an' linen! Tom is gone to try to git a turkey for ye." She paused, and
looked compassionately at the lady. "Bless ye, ma'am, ye're that
tuckered from the mountains! 'Tis a fearsome journey."
"Yes," said the lady, simply, "I am tired."
"Small wonder!" exclaimed Polly Ann. "To think what ye've been
through--yere husband near to dyin' afore yere eyes, and ye a-reskin'
yere own life to save him--so Tom tells me. When Tom goes out
a-fightin' red-skins I'm that fidgety I can't set still. I wouldn't let
him know what I feel fer the world. But well ye know the pain of it, who
love yere husband like that."
The lady would have smiled bravely, had the strength been given her. She
tried. And then, with a shudder, she hid her face in her hands.
"Oh, don't!" she exclaimed, "don't!"
Mr. Riddle went out.
"There, there, ma'am," she said, "I hedn't no right ter speak, and ye
fair worn out." She drew her gently into a chair. "Set down, ma'am, and
don't ye stir tell supper's ready." She brushed her eyes with her
sleeve, and, stepping briskly to my bed, bent over me. "Davy," she said,
"Davy, how be ye?"
"Davy!"
It was the lady's voice. She stood facing us, and never while I live
shall I forget that which I saw in her eyes. Some resemblance it bore to
the look of the hunted deer, but in the animal it is dumb, appealing.
Understanding made the look of the woman terrible to behold,--
understanding, ay, and courage. For she did not lack this last
quality. Polly Ann gave back in a kind of dismay, and I shivered.
"Yes," I answered, "I am David Ritchie."
"You--you dare to judge me!" she cried.
I knew not why she said this.
"To judge you?" I repeated.
"Yes, to judge me," she answered. "I know you, David Ritchie, and the
blood that runs in you. Your mother was a foolish--saint" (she laughed),
"who lifted her eyebrows when I married her brother, John Temple. That
was her condemnation of me, and it stung me more than had a thousand
sermons. A doting saint, because she followed your father into the
mountain wilds to her death for a whim of his. And your father. A
Calvinist fanatic who had no mercy on sin, save for that particular
weakness of his own--"
"Stop, Mrs. Temple!" I cried, lifting up in bed. And to my astonishment
she was silenced, looking at me in amazement. "You had your vengeance
when I came to you, when you turned from me with a lift of your shoulders
at the news of my father's death. And now--"
"And now?" she repeated questioningly.
"Now I thought you were changed," I said slowly, for the excitement was
telling on me.
"You listened!" she said.
"I pitied you."
"Oh, pity!" she cried. "My God, that you should pity me!" She
straightened, and summoned all the spirit that was in her. "I would
rather be called a name than have the pity of you and yours."
"You cannot change it, Mrs. Temple," I answered, and fell back on the
nettle-bark sheets. "You cannot change it," I heard myself repeating, as
though it were another's voice. And I knew that Polly Ann was bending
over me and calling me.
* * * * * * *
"Where did they go, Polly Ann?" I asked.
"Acrost the Mississippi, to the lands of the Spanish King," said Polly
Ann.
"And where in those dominions?" I demanded.
"John Saunders took 'em as far as the Falls," Polly Ann answered. "He
'lowed they was goin' to St. Louis. But they never said a word. I
reckon they'll be hunted as long as they live."
I had thought of them much as I lay on my back recovering from the
fever,--the fever for which Mrs. Temple was to blame. Yet I bore her no
malice. And many other thoughts I had, probing back into childhood
memories for the solving of problems there.
"I knowed ye come of gentlefolks, Davy," Polly Ann had said when we
talked together.
So I was first cousin to Nick, and nephew to that selfish gentleman, Mr.
Temple, in whose affectionate care I had been left in Charlestown by my
father. And my father? Who had he been? I remembered the speech that
he had used and taught me, and how his neighbors had dubbed him
"aristocrat." But Mrs. Temple was gone, and it was not in likelihood
that I should ever see her more.
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