The Crossing Part 48

"An' what did ye say?" demanded Polly Ann, pausing in her work, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng 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 n.i.g.g.e.rs 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, compa.s.sionately. "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 n.i.g.g.e.rs 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 c.o.o.nskin 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 b.u.t.tons 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 s.h.i.+ny 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.