The new dweller in the country longs for the coming of May as the only truly gracious month of the New England spring. In a few seasons, however, he learns to regret April, for when that month has gone, and the curtain fairly rises on the Masque of Spring, while it seems as if the orchestra is but playing the overture, and while yet he is watching the drapery curtain of leafage unfold, the throng on foot and wing pass by, all madly whirling to the pipe of Pan as they follow the voice of the ages that guides them to their breeding haunts, lo and behold! spring promise has merged in the summer of fulfilment.
It was Brooke’s first knowledge of the coming of spring in wild nature. Spring in New York means a certain lassitude and enervation—the sun withers and the river winds chill alternately with exasperating inconsistency. The planted tulips put up their decorous heads in the parks at a certain date, much as the women in the streets don their flowery spring head-gear,—both are pleasing to the eye, yet there is nothing spontaneous or unexpected about either; while to come suddenly upon a mat of arbutus or catch the silvery gleam of a mass of bloodroot transfiguring the silence of the woodland, where the leaves of a dozen winters, graduating to leaf mould, muffle the tread, is an event. So every night Brooke longed for the next morning and its surprises, and every morning she was eager for sunset and the night voices. Not that she wished time away,—far from it,—but to her its passing also meant progress, the nearing a certain goal.
Sometimes it seemed to her that in a previous existence she had lived the life of the River Kingdom; perhaps it was the heredity moulded beside the Highland torrents that sang to her in the voice of the Moosatuk. On this last day of April, as she stood at the edge of the pasture, with wands of delicate cherry bloom waving softly between her and the river, like heralds ushering one into the presence of a monarch, the words from the song of the migrant bird, “Out of the South,” came to her lips, and she chanted them softly, watching the old horse holding a nose-to-nose conversation with a neighbour in the next field:—
Then, abandoning for the time the fight against the lure of a voice beyond her ken and a memory in which sweetness and pain were inextricably blended, she gave herself wholly up to the spell of the present.
Another happening that day lent wings to her spirit, though the thing was both practical and humble. Bisbee, the stableman, upon the strength of having seen the Sign of the Fox when it was at the blacksmith’s being framed in iron (for the rings had not held), ordered a sign for his newly completed stable, offering the generous price (to him) of twenty-five dollars for it, he to furnish the wood.
“There’s a regular horse painter over in Gordon will do me a race-horse in a sulky, driver included, for fifteen,” said Bisbee, a big, jolly, liberal man, whose rosy cheeks plainly told that they were not made in New England; “but he’s done that same one fer everybody within ten miles. Besides, what sense in a race-horse sign fer a family stable, say I? Give me something safe and assuring, yet not too safe!”
So Brooke had eagerly accepted the commission, for with the return of Keith West, two or three hours a day for work had become a joyful possibility, and she conceived the idea of painting the heads of two horses upon the sign-board he had sent up. One must represent a staid family horse, and the other a more speedy roadster, and as she looked across the pasture, the natural position of the two gossips by the stone fence gave her the motive in a flash. If she only had the board there, she might sketch in the grouping at once, she thought, and the light also was exactly as she would wish it. The sign was in the barn, but it was too heavy for her to carry, and Adam had gone up to Windy Hill for the day, to do double work, as Robert Stead was expecting Dr. Russell to go on their annual trouting excursion to Stony Guzzle the next day. Well, there was no help for it, but still Brooke gazed about as if expecting help would fall from the skies or spring Jack-in-a-box fashion from the ground. It was the latter that happened, for at that moment the head of the farmer-on-shares appeared above the fence of the potato field, where he had just completed his task of planting, and was about to follow along the little brook to the road.
As Brooke hesitated to ask him to do an errand that certainly had nothing to do with farming, he paused involuntarily. Meanwhile Brooke thought, “I can surely ask it as a courtesy such as any man would do me,” and said, “Good morning, Mr. Maarten” (she did not call him by his Christian name as she would have one distinctly in service, for instinct hinted to her that he might have been driven to his present vocation by hard luck), “would you do me a favour?”
Instantly the tools and potato bag were dropped, but he did not take the advantage of coming nearer, as he might easily have done.
Then Brooke explained her need in the frank way she had of taking people into her confidence, yet without gush or familiarity, that had always been one of her charms; and Maarten hastened to the barn while she went to the house for her chalk and sketching stool.
In an hour, after several false starts, Brooke had compassed the grouping and outline, though there was one curve in the neck of the young horse that displeased her. Hearing the pieman’s whistle out on the road, and remembering that this was the day when she was to accompany him on his route to “Sister-in-law Sairy Ann’s,” and knowing that Maarten would naturally have gone home to his dinner,—for he never brought it in a pail like other labourers, her informant being Enoch Fenton, who said he table-boarded at the best place in Gilead, and paid six dollars a week, and most likely had a big head,—she was demurring as to how she should get the sign back, for to leave it might tempt the cows to lick the chalk off. At this point she became conscious, through one of those swift half glances that tell so many tales, that Maarten was waiting a little beyond, and not only waiting, but watching her eagerly. Therefore, taking advantage of the circumstance, she laughingly apologized for asking two favours in one day, but would he carry the sign back to the little harness room, long disused, with a door of its own on the pasture side of the barn, where the sign could be kept free from hay dust?—adding, half aloud, as she took a final look at her work, “There is something wrong about the line of old Billy’s neck; it could not possibly twist like that.”
Point of view frequently has as much to do with our estimate of a thing as the value of the thing itself. Therefore Brooke’s progress of fifteen miles through the hill country in the pieman’s wagon brought her in touch with an entirely different side of the world of the woods than if she had driven over the same way with a party of guests who chattered inconsequently, or gone on horseback in the company of Stead, as she had done once or twice lately, for even the mild-mannered old horse required guiding and attention that banished the spirit of revery.
The pieman had covered his wares carefully, and rolled up the curtains all around, while the horse, dragging the loaded cart, proceeded perforce at a walk, so that Brooke, seated on a low chair, travelled with all the leisurely ease of an old-time queen in a palanquin. This pace brought her close to every feature of the Masque of Spring, face to face with the reality of it, and she could anticipate, and then realize, every detail in its fulness.
Her charioteer also was as much a child of nature and a part of it all as the big gray squirrels that raced along the fence-tops, while his simple and positive faith in the goodness of all created things, and his intense love and kinship with the wild brotherhood, opened a new world to Brooke, banishing for the time all care and responsibility and replacing it with the wholesome pleasure of the hour, born of the pure joy of mere living. When one has known trouble, and then felt this touch of peace, is it not the new Revelation of God, fitted to meet the needs and greeds of to-day, even as nineteen centuries ago the single-hearted Messenger brought his spiritual message to the material Oriental world?
They would travel a mile, perhaps, in entire silence, the pieman merely pulling up now and then, and pointing with his whip to a warm spot, where a group of silver-green ferns slowly unfolded and stretched their winter-cramped paws, or else, with finger raised, caution silence while the song of some elusive bird thrilled the air,—“Whitethroat,” “Fox-sparrow,” or “Oven-bird,” being his only words. Then a settlement of half a dozen houses, and a period of bustle, barter, and exchange of news would interrupt, and so on until, as the “peepers” began to tune up, and the sun called the warmth of the day swiftly after him, they turned into Sairy Ann’s yard.
After a keenly relished supper, Brooke and her guide stole out to the edge of a strip of woods that separated some grass meadows from a brawling trout stream running its downhill course a dozen miles before the Moosatuk received it. There, seated on a log, they waited as the twilight began to cast its mysterious spell. Presently a strange cry sounded through the gloom, was repeated, and echoed by others a second and a third time. Next a rush of wings, as if a bird was flung suddenly into the air, opening its wings at the same time. A sharp whirring sound followed, increasing as the wings that made it vanished skyward. Bending forward to watch the wonderful flight, until eye could not see it, in a moment Brooke was startled by the falling as of a bolt from the clouds close beside her, followed by a sweet musical whistle.
“First one’s down again,—see, he’s doin’ it over!” said the pieman, and the call and lunge were repeated as before. But this time the girl’s eye did not follow; the wonder and rush of it all was thrilling her from head to foot. She had seen the sky-dance of the woodcock, the free Walpurgis night’s festival of the American river woods, with wild flowers for bracken and hemlock boughs for witches’ brooms. Once more her toes tingled, music rang in her ears, sorrow and love both slipped away, and she was again the little girl playing at gypsy queen in her River Kingdom. That night Brooke slept deeply, but it was the sleep of dreams that comes from being drowned in a “best room” feather-bed for the first time, an experience both fearful and wonderful.
Instead of starting on his return trip at seven the next morning, as usual, the pieman’s advice was asked by his widowed relative concerning the buying of a cow, which was to be sold at auction that morning in the next village. For this one day at least Brooke was in no haste, and as the auction began at nine o’clock and was two miles distant, the pieman suggested that she might like to spend the time in the woods that they had skirted the previous night, and walk along the stream. Then, when she had gone as far as she chose, all she had to do was to follow the brook north again without fear of going astray, while by way of a lunch Sairy Ann gave her half a dozen mellow russet apples, the storing and keeping of which, in prime condition, well into the summer was a matter of great pride.
Nothing could have suited Brooke better than these few hours of perfect liberty,—she was responsible for nothing about her, not even for her presence there. The widow’s hens were cackling vigorously, and she laughed as she realized that, whether they broke their eggs or stole their nests, it was a matter of indifference to her. The revulsion from the tense responsibility of the past three months flew to her head like the subtle May wine of the Old World, her heart beat fast, she stretched her limbs, and then began to thread the woods toward the stream in a delicious waking dream.
Being guided by sound, she stood looking at the bits of drift that swirled by, the water drawing her eyes and holding them as a mirror does those who are near it.
In a few moments she noticed that, while there was a distinctly marked path among the rocks and stones along her side of the watercourse, the opposite bank was heavily brushed and almost impenetrable, while the sunlight came filtering through and danced upon the water in a way that entranced the artist in her. Choosing a mossy stump, and being thirsty, for the first thirst of spring is more keen than any that follows, she seated herself, buried her shoe tips in the deep moss, and taking an apple from her pocket bit into it deliberately, critically watching the juice ooze from the wound her teeth had made. As she munched, gazing at the sunbeams chasing the shadows over the water, she was startled by a ringing sound, as of metal striking stone. It was repeated several times before she located its direction, and as she did so, saw that the noise was made by the shoes of a horse, who was coming downstream, browsing along the foot-path, in the line of which she was seated.
A second glance showed her that it was Manfred, Stead’s horse, with bridle fastened loosely to the saddle, while a fishing basket attached to one side easily explained his presence. Seeing Brooke, he came quickly toward her with a friendly whinny and nosed the apple. Almost at the same time Robert Stead himself, in the water to the knees, slowly wading the somewhat treacherous shallows, and whipping the stream as he came, appeared from under the arch of overhanging hemlocks.
For a moment he did not seem to believe the sight of his own eyes, and then, rapidly reeling in his line, he looked out for the nearest landing spot and stood before Brooke, with an expression that might be interpreted either as one of surprise or resentment at having his sport thus interrupted. But then he had acquired a stern expression by practice. Brooke had often before thought he wore it as a mask, and his words were not angry, but almost playful.
“Eve, the apple, and a bit of Eden! But how did you come here and what are you doing?”
“Not Eve, because, as you will observe, I am not going to offer my apple to the only man in sight, but share it with a good sensible horse, who will not tell tales. I came up to the farm last night with Mr. Banks, the pieman, to see the woodcock dance, and I’m waiting here while he buys a cow for Sister-in-law Sairy Ann. As to what I am doing, I was eating an apple, but Manfred interrupted me; and now I’m going to begin another, and I’m very sorry that your simile prevents my offering one to you,—for they’re good,” and Brooke took a bite from a particularly fine specimen, a mischievous glance following her words.
Stead tethered the horse a few yards away and, coming back, threw himself down on the clean hemlock needles beside her. He felt suddenly relaxed, tired he would have called it, as if rigidity and strength had mysteriously left him.
“And you?” continued Brooke, “I see of course that you are fishing, by the two small trout in the basket; but how do you come to be so far away from home at eight in the morning, when Adam said that Dr. Russell was to visit you to-day?”
“Because Dr. Russell came on the mail train last night and is now whipping the west branch of the stream; in this narrow cut we interfered, and we shall meet a mile below at Stony Guzzle in the course of an hour.”
“Then you had better take to the water again, for I heard them saying last night that this stream takes two steps sideways for every one it goes forward, and that gives you a three-mile walk plus fishing!” said Brooke, with a perfectly frank unconcern that piqued the man to natural contradiction.
“Thank you for your prudent advice, but I would rather sit here, for once simply because I wish to, and trust to Manfred’s hoofs for catching up with the doctor!”
“Do you not always do what you wish?” asked Brooke, surprised at his changing mood, and feeling her way.
“Do you suppose that I can wish to lead the idle sort of life I do?” he asked quickly, looking up at her to compel a direct answer. “It is only because I have not a motive strong enough to make me break away, and desire of action is dead; but is that doing as one wishes?”
“Oh, I thought you loved it here at Gilead, and could not be happy out of sight of the river—I—at least that is—what I made of what Dr. Russell said,” stammered the girl, astonished at his vehemence in contrast to his usual deliberation.
“I do not know what he has said,—nothing unkind, that I warrant; but he does not know—no one does. Listen, Brooke, for I am minded to do what I have never done before—put my burden on some one else by sharing it, and tell you the real reason why I am as I am, which has never before passed my lips in words. No, you must be patient and listen,” he said, for Brooke had made a sudden movement as if to rise. Stead did not realize that he was perhaps spoiling the girl’s holiday; self-centred he was, at base an egotist, though an unconscious one; and to the fact that he regarded everything at the point where it touched himself could be laid the pith of all his unhappiness.
“Why do I tell you? I do not know, except that in all these years since, you are the first woman I have met whom I think would understand and who is also young enough to have mercy, and it is a matter for woman’s judgment. Yesterday a letter came to me from an old friend in my profession, asking me to overlook a bit of bridge work for him for a month or so in early summer, while he takes some needed rest. At the end he tells me of his plans for work, urges me to join him, and gives me what he words as ‘a last call back to life.’ All this has stirred up the sources of a stream I thought long dry; instead of putting it away, as I once did, as something done and gone, it tempts me, and I am strangely all at sea. I feel as if I only need some one in whose sincerity I could believe to say, ‘Go back to work,’ and I should go.”
“And leave the River Kingdom?” asked Brooke, looking up in alarm, her first thought, it must be said, being of the Cub’s schooling. “We should miss you so.”
Stead’s eye brightened, and taking her hand that was not busy with the apple and rested on the stump, he held it between his own. He himself did not analyze his motive, simply it gave him comfort and secured her attention. Then he said earnestly, solemnly it seemed to the girl, from whose eyes the merry banter of a few minutes before had passed, “Listen, Brooke, brave woman, who is fighting out her own problems to the shame of others such as I.
“When I was turning thirty and engineering a railway through a mountain region of the south, I met and loved a woman as heartily as a man may, but the passion seemed one-sided. She had given me a final answer, and I was preparing to go away, as gossips whispered there was ‘some one else,’ when the next day she recalled the no and made it yes.
“I was almost beside myself with surprise and joy, and after a brief month we were married, for my work was ended and I was going North. For ten years we led a charmed sort of life, a little girl soon coming to share it with us. We three, with José always as attendant, travelled wherever my work lay, sometimes living in houses, sometimes in tents, but always happy. Then the first grief came to me (it is nearly twelve years since)—my little Helen died, down near Oaklands, where we were summering. The illness came like a shot in the dark, without warning, and Dr. Russell, whom I then met for the first time, was powerless.
“After this my wife began to droop and grew sadder day by day. This was natural except for the fact that she sought to be alone and avoided me, until one day in a fit of bitter melancholy she told me the secret that had lain between us like a sword all through those married years.
“When I had first met her she had a lover, a wild, hot-blooded, handsome fellow of the south mining country,—for him she refused me! At the same time, unknown to her, he had committed a crime and the law was on his track. He took refuge, as they thought he would, in her vicinity, and she was watched to see if she would take him food or shelter him. To foil them she betrothed herself to me, and thus disarmed, the watchers left, and her lover escaped scot free.”
“But why didn’t she go too, or follow him?” interrupted Brooke.
“Because what she called her sense of honour forbade her, and she never meant that I should know,—she was willing to pay the price of the scamp’s life with her peace of mind.”
“How she must have loved him!” said Brooke, tears trembling in her voice; “I don’t see how she could have lived it down. To save the man you love by marrying another, even if it was the only way—oh, I am not brave enough to do such a thing, and so I must not judge her!”
For a moment a startled expression crossed Stead’s face, as if this side of the matter had never occurred to him; but again self conquered.
“Do you wonder that I cannot forget, and that nothing seems worth while when I know that in those years of seeming happiness I was the companion of a woman whose heart was never mine; who played her part to me, until the child’s death broke the capacity? Whom can I trust after that?”
“I do not think you could have really loved her as you thought,” said Brooke, looking at him simply with deep, quiet conviction in her voice, “for if you had you would have at least understood her. And at the worst I should think you would have flown to work instead of away from it.”
“It may be that you are right,” Stead said, after a long pause, in which the thoughts of both travelled far, but in different directions; “I have a mind to try, but I shall never go away permanently from the River Kingdom. Child, child! how strange it is that your words should have been so long on my lips before ever I met you! Will you wish me luck for a motive, if I go in June?”
“Yes,” answered Brooke, wondering about the time of day, for the shadows had shifted greatly.
“And be glad to see me when I return?”
“Of course,” said Brooke, frankly; then, as other words struggled on Stead’s lips, blocking each other by haste, the pieman’s bell warned her that he had returned and was ready to start. Giving the last apple to Manfred, she freed her hand, stretching it vigorously, for it was almost numb, sent a hasty message to Dr. Russell, and fled out into the open.
Robert Stead waited motionless for several minutes, looking after her; then, shaking himself as a horse does after a period of standing, he led Manfred to the wood road below, and prepared to make up for lost time. Yet for some strange reason he did not give the girl’s message to Dr. Russell, neither did he vouchsafe any explanation of the fact of there being only two trout in his basket, or prate about “fisherman’s luck” when the enthusiastic doctor showed ten beauties bedded in wet moss.
There was enough light left on Brooke’s return for a survey of house, garden, and barns. It is strange when one goes away but seldom, that to find everything in place on the return and people doing as usual comes as a certain surprise. She opened the door of the old harness room to peep at her sketch of the horses. After a careful survey, she said to herself, “It is certainly true that one cannot judge work justly at the time it is done. Yesterday the neck of the young horse seemed all awry, but to-day it has exactly the toss and turn I was striving for.”
As she closed the door she glanced down over the fields, but neither man nor horse was there, only a convocation of crows sitting on the fence. The pieman would doubtless have maintained that they were discussing among themselves the probable location of this season’s corn-fields.