A Book o' Nine Tales Part 27

There came a time when into the calm of the old house death rushed, with that dreadful precipitancy which always marks his coming, even when expected, and old Gran'sir' Welch, long past fourscore, was, in the quaint language of the King James version, gathered to his fathers.

In the gray dawn Ruth tapped softly at the hives of the bees which stood, straw-thatched, against the eastern end of the cottage, and announced the sad news, firmly believing that unless within twelve hours the swarms were told of death they would desert their homes. Then in the sunny autumn afternoon a funeral procession of boats trailed from the red cottage to the graveyard behind the church in the village, where slept such of his forefathers as the sea had spared to die in their beds. With evenly dipping oars went first the quaintly-shaped pinky bearing the coffin between two stout fisherman, one at prow and one at stern; while after followed the dories in which were the few nearer relatives who had come to attend the services at the house.

Ruth sat beside a cousin and listened half unconsciously to the plash of the oars and the rhythmic beat of the waves against the boat, looking back with tear-dimmed eyes to the red house until it was by distance blended with the dun country as the last spark dies amid the ashes. She was sad, and she felt that oppressive terror which the presence of death brings; yet her calm was not seriously or permanently shaken.

In their relentless, even course the years moved on, and one day in spring, when the rhodora was in all its glory, and the one bush of mountain-laurel in the wide plains, which had strayed into the heath like a lamb into the wilderness, was as white in the distance as a bunch of upland maybloom, again Ruth went softly and gravely to tell the bees that death had been in the red house, and the procession of boats, like the Egyptian train over the Lake of the Dead, bore away the mortal remains of faithful old Bethiah.

Ruth's relatives in the village tried to induce her now to come to them, and when she could not be moved to do this, urged her at least to have some one live with her. She was getting to be an old woman, they said among themselves, although in truth she was little past fifty, and since for that part of the world she was not ill-provided with worldly goods, there was no lack of those who were willing to take up their abode as her companion in the red house.

Ruth put all offers aside,--kindly, indeed, but decisively. She was pleased to live alone; not from a misanthropic dislike of her kind, but because it was so deep and inexhaustible a delight to her to brood happily among her plains. More and more she loved these umber wastes, over which cloud-shadows drifted like the darkening ripple of the wind on the sea. She knew all their ways, those mysterious paths which wind between the hillocks of deserted heaths as if worn with the constant pa.s.sing of invisible feet, and she was never weary of wandering among the ragged hummocks, breathing in the salt air from the sea and noting with happy eyes all the weeds and wild flowers, the shrubs that were too inconspicuous to be singled out at a distance, but which to the careful and loving observer revealed themselves as full of beauty. She was fond of the faint, sweet scents of the opening flowers in spring, of the dying gra.s.s in fall, of the burning peat when fires broke out sometimes to smoulder until the next rain. She never thought about her feelings or phrased the matter to herself, but she loved so perfectly these wastes which seemed so desolate that they were to her as kindred and home; perhaps even the maternal instinct which is inborn in every woman's breast found some not quite inadequate expression in her almost pa.s.sionate fondness for the great heath.

Her relatives spoke of her always as "odd," and were aggrieved that her ways should be different from theirs; but everything that continues comes in time to be accepted, and as the years went on Ruth's method of life came to seem proper because it had so long been the same. A brawny armed fisher cousin sailed over from the village every Sunday morning to see that all was well at the red house, and to bring whatever might be needed from the village store. Sometimes in winter he found her house half buried in snow, but he never could report that she appeared either discontented or sad.

It was of the coming of this emissary that Ruth was thinking on this Sat.u.r.day night in September where first this record found her. She had been reflecting much to-day about dying. In her walk about the heath she had come upon a dead bird, and the sight had suggested to her her own end. She acknowledged to herself that she was old, and for perhaps the only time in her life her thought had formulated a general truth. She had regarded the tiny corpse at her feet, and then, looking about upon the moors, it came over her how immortal is the youth of the world and how brief is man's life. The land about her was no older than when she had looked upon it with baby eyes. For a single instant a poignant taste of bitterness seemed set to her lips; then in a moment the very wide, changeless plain that had caused her pain seemed itself somehow to a.s.suage it.

To-night sitting here she admitted to herself that her strength had failed somewhat of late. Yes, she was old. It was almost half a century ago that that bold-eyed handsome stranger had compared the color in her cheeks to a clove pink. She smiled serenely, although her reflections were of age and death, so perfectly did she recall the sunny day and the air with which the sailor would have kissed her. Placid and content in the gathering dusk, she smiled her own grave, sweet smile, which it were scarcely too fanciful to liken to the odor of the clove pink of her garden-plot whose hue half a century ago had been in her cheek. She had but one regret in leaving life, and that was to leave her moorlands. She had found existence so pleasant and had been so well content that she could not understand why people so usually spoke of life as sad; but she could not think without pain of leaving the plains behind and going away to lie in the bleak hillside graveyard where slept her kinsfolk.

It had never occurred to her before to consider to which she held more strongly, her people or the wide brown stretches of open about her, but to-night she debated it with herself and decided it. She resolved to say to her cousin tomorrow that she wished her grave made in the plains.

Very likely her relatives would object. They had always thought her ideas strange; but they would surely let her have her way in this. She would even make some concessions and perhaps let Cousin Sarah come to live with her if they would agree to do as she wished about this. It would be so great a comfort to her to be a.s.sured that she was not in death to be separated from her dearly loved moors. She liked Sarah well enough, only that it was so pleasant to live alone with her bees and the plains. Besides, if she should chance to die alone, who would tell the bees? It would be a pity to have the fine swarms lost.

Suddenly she started up in the dusk, and without knowing clearly why she did it, she wrote on the bottom of the list of errands which she always made on Sat.u.r.day for her cousin her wish concerning her grave. The spot she mentioned was a knoll near the house, where the ground rose a little before it dipped into the sea. She reflected as she wrote that it was wiser to be prepared for whatever could happen, and, although she would not own it frankly even in these lonely musings, Ruth had felt strangely weak and worn to-day.

She frugally blew out the candle when her writing was done, and with calm content sat down again in her rocking-chair by the window darkening to "a glimmering square." She heard the sound of the sea and the low wind blowing over the wide plains; and, lulled by the soft sounds, she fell at last asleep.

The wind rose in the night, and it was afternoon when the cousin from the village came in sight of the red house. No smoke rose from its chimney, and as he tied his clumsy sail-boat to the low wharf where so long ago a yacht had been briefly fastened, a long wavering line of bees rose glistening from the straw-thatched hives, floating upward and away like the departing soul of mortal. Their mistress had been dead more than twelve hours and they had not been told. Perhaps it was a chance flight; perhaps they were seeking her serene spirit over the moors she loved so well.

Interlude Seventh.

THIRTEEN.

THIRTEEN.

[_The drawing-room of Mr. Sylva.n.u.s Potts Thompson, banker. Mr. Thompson and his wife, with ten guests, making a neat round dozen in all, are waiting the announcement of dinner. Enter Mr. Sylva.n.u.s Potts, a wealthy uncle from the country._]

_Mr. Potts._ I told the man there was no need to announce me; you knew I was coming next week, and a few days don't matter. How do you do, nephew? how do you do, Jane?

_Mr. Thompson._ Why, uncle, we did not expect you so soon, but we are always glad to see you, of course.

_Mrs. Thompson._ Yes, always, dear Uncle Sylva.n.u.s. How is everybody at home?

_Mr. P._ Oh, they're all well; you seem to be having a party, nephew?

_Mr. T._ Only a few friends to dinner. Let me introduce you.

[_He takes him on his arm and presents him to his guests. While this is being done, a sentimental, elderly young woman, with thin curls, after whispering impressively with her neighbor, glides up to the hostess, and holds a moment's conversation with that lady. Mrs. Thompson turns pale, and seems engaged in a mental calculation. Then she starts quickly toward her husband and draws him aside_]

_Mrs. T._ Sylva.n.u.s, do you know how many people there are in this room?

_Mr. T._ Oh, about a dozen, I suppose.

_Mrs. T._ About a dozen! There are thirteen, Sylva.n.u.s, thirteen!

_Mr. T._ Well, what of it?

_Mrs. T._ What of it! Why, we can't sit down to dinner with thirteen at table. Maria Smith says she should have a fit.

_Mr. T._ But she wouldn't, my dear; she's too fond of her dinner.

_Mrs. T._ Mr. Thompson, is it kind to speak so of my most particular friend?

_Mr. T._ But what does Maria expect us to do about it? Turn Uncle Sylva.n.u.s out of the house? Wasn't I named for him, and haven't I always been his favorite? Do you want me to be left out of his will?

_Mrs. T._ But something must be done. Don't you see everybody is whispering and counting? Can't we get somebody else?

_Servant_ (_who has entered unperceived_). There is a man downstairs, sir, wants you to sign something.

_Mr. T._ Ah, my dear, here's the very man,--young Jones. He's our new cas.h.i.+er, and a very clever fellow.

[_Exit Mr. Thompson. During his absence Mrs. Thompson communicates to Miss Smith the solution of the difficulty at which they have arrived.

Everybody has soon heard of it, so that on Mr. Thompson's return with Mr. Jones, the pair are greeted with much joking about the ill-luck which is thus averted. The necessary introductions take place._]

_Mr. Jones._ I am sure I am rejoiced at being instrumental in bringing good luck.

_Miss Smith._ You can certainly see how welcome you are, Mr. Jones.

_Mr. J._ But I fear it is not for myself, Miss Smith.

_Miss S._ That will undoubtedly come later, when we know you better.

_Mr. P._ I am glad you found somebody, nephew; for I must say I never would have given up my dinner for a foolish superst.i.tion; and as I came last and uninvited--

_Mrs. T._ (_relieved of her fears and remembering the will_) You are always invited to this house, Uncle Potts; and we would never hear of your going away.

_Mr. Robinson._ Well, it is all very well to call it a superst.i.tion, you know; but I knew--

[_Mr. Robinson proceeds to narrate a grewsome and melancholy tale, in which disaster and death resulted from the imprudence of sitting down with thirteen at table; half a dozen other guests begin simultaneously the relation of six more equally or even more grewsome and melancholy tales upon the same subject, when they are interrupted by the arrival of a note for Mr. Robinson._]

_Mr. R._ My dear Mrs. Thompson, I am so sorry, but my brother has telegraphed for me to come to him at once on a matter of the utmost importance. I regret--

_Mrs. T._ But Mr. Robinson, don't you see that--

_Servant._ Dinner is served.