Quicksilver Sue Part 13

She looked back along the road, but the river-fog was rising white and dense, and closed in behind them like a curtain.

"They can't see us, anyhow, whoever they are!" said Sue. "Why, it's exciting, Clarice! It's like the people in the forest in 'Midsummer-Night's Dream.' If we were only sure that these were nice people, we might call, and they could answer, and hunt round for us, and it would be fine."

"Oh, it's awful! It's just awful!" moaned Clarice; and she shook with real terror. "And the worst of it is, I can't walk any more. I can't, Sue! It's no use! I am going to faint--I know I am."

"Nonsense!" said Sue, stoutly, though her heart sank. "Keep up a little, Clarice, do! There is a watering-trough a little farther on, and we can bathe our feet. That will be a great help; and we must be nearly half-way home now."

But tight lacing and tight shoes are not nonsense. They are very real things, and poor Clarice was really suffering more than Sue had any idea of. The st.i.tch in her side was not imaginary this time. She stopped involuntarily to draw breath; and the footsteps behind them stopped too, and went on when they did. There was no longer any doubt; the girls were being followed.

Clarice began to cry again; and Sue set her teeth, and felt that a crisis was coming.

"Clarice," she said, "let me see if I can carry you! I think I can! I know the way Sir Bedivere did with King Arthur: he made broad his shoulders to receive his weight, you know, and round his neck he drew the languid hands--kind of pickaback, you see. You are not heavy; I think I can do it!"

And she actually took Clarice on her back, and staggered on perhaps a hundred yards--till they both came to the ground, bruised and breathless.

"I'm going to die!" said Clarice, doggedly. "I won't walk another step. I may just as well be murdered as plain die. I--can't see!" and the poor girl sank down, really half fainting.

Sue set her teeth hard. She dragged Clarice back from the road, and propped her against a tree, then took her stand in front of her. She felt no fear; the quicksilver ran riot in her veins. If she only had her dagger, the good sharp dagger paper-knife that she had worn in her boot for two whole months, while she was playing cow-boy! It hurt a good deal, and made holes in her stockings, so she had given it up.

What would she not give for it now! Or if she had something poisoned that she could hand to the people when they came up,--like Lucrezia Borgia,--and see them drop dead at her feet! But she had nothing!

Stop! yes! her hat-pin, the hat-pin Uncle James had sent her from Russia! Carefully, with a steady hand, she drew out the long, sharp steel pin, and felt its point; then set her back against the tree, and waited.

The footsteps behind the fog-curtain hesitated, stopped altogether.

There was a silence, but Sue's heart beat so loud, the sound seemed to fill the air. All at once, from the opposite direction came another sound, the sound of horses' hoofs, the rattle of wheels; and, as if at a signal, the footsteps came on again, quickened their pace, were close at hand. Two figures loomed through the white fog; paused, as if reconnoitering in the dim half-light. Then, at sight of Sue standing alone before her prostrate companion, they broke into a run, and came up at racing speed, panting.

"Anything wrong?" asked Tom.

"Because we're right here!" said Teddy.

"Right here, Quicksilver!" said Tom.

The hat-pin dropped from Sue's hand. A great sob rose and broke,--only one!--and then--oh! it didn't matter now if she was getting to be a big girl. Her arms were round Tom's neck, and her head was on his good broad brotherly shoulder, and she was crying and laughing and saying, "Oh, Tom! Oh, Tom!" over and over and over again, till that young gentleman began to be seriously alarmed.

"I say!" he said; "I wouldn't, Quicksilver! Come! I wouldn't if I were you! Teddy, you've got the handkerchief, haven't you? I had the peanuts, you know."

But Teddy, who was going to be a surgeon, was stooping over Clarice with keen professional interest.

"We might haul her down to the river and put her head in!" he said.

"This hat won't hold water any more; will yours? I say! don't they still bleed people sometimes, when they haven't got salts and things?

My knife is just as sharp!"

Poor Clarice started up with a faint scream. Altogether, these four were so absorbed that they never heard the approaching wheels, and Mr.

Hart almost ran over them before he could pull up his horse.

"Hallo!" he said. "What upon earth--now, Mary, Mary, do be careful, and wait till I--Dear me, sirs! What a set of children! Stand still, Jupiter!"

For Mary had scrambled down among wheels and legs, and had thrown herself upon Sue and Tom; and Teddy, abandoning Clarice, exhausted himself in a vain endeavor to get his short arms round the three.

"Oh, Mary, Mary! is it really you? Can you ever forgive me?"

"Sue! Sue, my Sue, don't talk so, dear! It is all my fault, for not telling Mammy this morning. Oh, Tom, you blessed boy, I might have known you would take care of her!"

"Young people," said Mr. Hart, bending over from the wagon, "perhaps if you would kindly get in, it might facilitate matters, and you can continue this highly interesting conversation as we go along. Other girl faint? Hand her here, Tom! Put your arm round my neck, my child--so! there we are!"

They jogged along in silence for a few minutes. Sue and Mary had nothing to say at first--in words, at least. They sat with their arms round each other's neck and their heads together. Now and then one would make a little murmur, and the other respond; but for the most part they were still, too full of joy to speak.

"What happened, Tom?" asked Mr. Hart, when he thought time enough had elapsed to quiet the excitement a little.

"Why, sir," said Tom, "we saw the girls, of course; but then we lost sight of them after the circus,--I don't know how" (Sue shuddered and Clarice moaned),--"so we went straight to the station. So when they didn't get there in time for the train, we thought we'd better wait and see how things were. So we followed them along--"

"Oh, Tom, we were so frightened!" cried Sue. "Of course you didn't know how frightened we were, Tom--but I had my hat-pin all ready to stick into you!"

"No! had you?" said Tom, chuckling.

"You young ninny!" said his father. "Why didn't you join the girls, instead of hanging behind and scaring them half to death?"

Tom hung his head. "I--it was awfully stupid!" he said. "Because I was a fool, sir, I suppose, and thought--"

"Because _I_ was a fool, Mr. Hart!" said Sue. "Because I had been wicked and hateful and ungrateful, and a Perfect Pig, and he knew it!"

Mrs. Hart sat at her window, sewing her seam and listening to the music she loved best, the music of children's voices. There were five of them, her own three and the two Penroses; and they were all sitting on the broad door-step, husking sweet corn and talking. Sue had just come over; she had been helping Katy, who had a lame arm. She looked pale and grave, for the adventure of two days before seemed still very near; yet her eyes were full of light as she looked from one to the other of the children, gazing as if she could not get her fill. Now and then she and Mary held out a hand and exchanged a silent squeeze that meant rivers of speech; but somehow Tom seemed to be doing most of the talking.

"Look at that!" he said, holding up an ear like glossy ivory, every row perfect as a baby's teeth. "Isn't that bully? Save the silk, Sue and Lily! We want to make wigs for the harvest feast to-night."

"Oh, tell me!" cried Sue, her eyes kindling. "A harvest feast? What fun!"

"Why, hasn't Mary told you? You and Lily are coming to tea, you know, and we thought we would make it a harvest tea. So we are all to wear corn-silk wigs, and we're going to put the candles in Jack-o'-lanterns--little ones, you know; squashes, of course, or apples."

"Apples will be best!" said Mary. "I have some pound sweets all picked out. We meant this for a surprise, you know, Tom, but never mind! It's really better fun for us all to know."

"Lots!" said Tom. "I forgot, though, about the surprise part. And then--it'll be full moon--we'll go out Jack-o'-lanterning, and that'll be no end; and then Mammy says we can roast chestnuts, and Father has the bonfire all ready, and we'll have a celebration. A Quicksilver Celebration, eh, Sue?"

"Oh, Tom!" said Sue. "Not Quicksilver any more; just stupid, stupid, grubby lead--and rusty, too!"

"Lead doesn't rust," said Teddy, gravely.

"This lead does! And--I've got something to read to you all. It is part of my penance, Mary. Yes, I will! It isn't all true, but part of it is."

She drew a letter from her pocket (it was written on pink paper, scented with cheap scent), and began to read:

"Miss Clarice Stephanotis Packard presents her compliments to Miss Susan Penrose, and tells her that I am going home to-morrow with my Papa, and I never shall come to this mean place any more. It is all my fault for a.s.soshating with my soshal inpheriars, and if you hadn't have poked your nose into my afairs, Miss Penrose, and put your old candy in my pew, I shoud not have been robbed and most murderd. The girl here says I could have the law of you to get back the money my mouse ring cost,--"

"What girl?" asked Mary.

Sue blushed hotly.

"The--the chambermaid," she said. "She--Clarice has made a kind of companion of her. She isn't a very nice girl, I'm afraid."

Then resuming the reading--