"I think we'd better be going back now," she said. "Suppose Philip were to wake up and miss us?"
Channing had an odd and perfectly irrelevant thought of that bulge in the clergyman's hip-pocket.
"Bother Philip! You'd suppose the man was a sort of watch-dog. I believe you're afraid of me to-night," he teased, turning her face to his.
Her lips trembled as he kissed them. "It is so dark," she whispered.
"Little goose! Why should the darkness make a difference to you and me?"
"I don't know—but it does." Suddenly she pushed him away, and jumped to her feet. "Give me the matches, Mr. Channing. I want to light the lantern and go back."
He obeyed with a shrug, wondering just where and how he had blundered. A sense of artistic incompleteness mingled with a keen personal sense of chagrin. Did the girl care less for him than he had thought? Or was it merely the instinct of self-preservation that had warned her?
Now that the blood ran more coolly in his veins, he blushed to realize that the instinct had been right.
They went back into the ravine, which, as Jacqueline had prophesied, had become as dark as a pocket. Without the lantern they could not have seen a foot ahead of them, and even with the lantern their way was not easy. They stumbled along, still hand-in-hand and silent; but it was no longer the delicious, thrilling silence of the earlier adventure. The glamour of it seemed to have departed with the moon.
Jacqueline, stiff with an embarrassment she did not understand (she thought it the fault of the negligée and the stockingless feet) was eager to get back to the shelter of the crowded cabin. Channing was by this time as eager as herself, having discovered that riding-boots are not the most comfortable equipment for mountain tramping.
"There's our cornfield, at last!" said the girl, and both heaved sighs of relief.
They climbed laboriously toward the outline of corn stalks against the starlit sky, with a darker outline looming behind; but as they came into better sight of the cabin, she gave a cry of dismay.
"It's all lighted. Oh, Mr. Channing! They've missed us!"
"Damn!" said the author.
At that moment voices reached them: loud, drunken voices, mingled with laughter, and a snatch of song.
"Why—why!" muttered Channing, blankly. "That can't be our cabin!"
Nor was it. They had trusted to the wrong landmark.
They turned and hurried down into the ravine again. But Channing stumbled, and the sound reached the quick ears of the mountaineers above. There was a shout, in a voice suddenly sobered.
"Who's down thar?"
It was followed by the sharp ping of a bullet.
"Good gad, but they're shooting!" gasped Channing.
"They certainly are," said the girl, with a giggle. "It must be a still or something, and they think we're revenue officers!"
"Wh-what shall we do?"
"Run," she quoted him, laughing, and seizing his hand suited the action to the word. She seemed perfectly unafraid. "They won't get our range in the dark. Isn't this exciting?"
But the bullets followed them, too close for comfort.
"It's the lantern!" exclaimed Channing, and was about to drop it when the girl seized it out of his hand.
"Here—don't do that! We'd be wandering about in this ravine all night without it."
She looked at her companion in sheer surprise. It was her first experience of the type of man who loses his head in the presence of danger. Her voice became all at once quite motherly and kind.
"It's all right. You go ahead and I'll carry the lantern. They're probably too drunk to follow us," she reassured him.
Channing, to the after mortification of his entire life, obeyed without demur.
"It's all right," she repeated. "But go as fast as you can."
Shots were flying thick and fast about the lantern she held at arm's length. More than one grazed her closely.
"You great cowards up there!" she cried out in sudden anger. "Do you know you're shooting at a girl?"
There was a sudden silence. Then the shouts began again with a new note. "A gal, be ye? Boys, hit's a female down thar. Come on up, gal! Let's see what ye look like."
But the shots ceased, and the shouts came no nearer.
"Just as I thought—they 're too drunk to follow us," she said triumphantly. "Better get out of this neighborhood, though. Hurry on, Mr. Channing!"
"I'm afraid I can't," he said faintly. "You go without me."
She turned the light of the lantern full upon him, and saw that he was holding to a tree, swaying where he stood. There was a dark stain on his breeches, just above the knee, which spread even as she looked.
Without a word, she turned and began to run up the hillside again.
"Where are you going?" he cried.
"To get help. You are hurt."
"Those drunken brutes? Never!"
"They'll help us. I'm a woman."
"All the more reason—" he conquered his growing weakness, and put what force he could into his voice. "Jacqueline, I forbid you to go! Come here!"
She obeyed, wringing her hands. "But I don't know what to do for you!" she quavered.
"Listen! I must walk as far as I can, and when I'm done, you leave me, and run ahead for help. We can't be far from our own cabin now."
Channing had resumed his manhood, and it did not occur to the girl to argue with him. He was not a coward. He had merely been startled momentarily out of his self-control, unaccustomed as he was to physical danger. She realized this thankfully. The literary life does not prepare a man for the emergency of finding himself a target for bullets out of the dark.
Arm-in-arm they stumbled along the ravine. Soon he was obliged to lay an arm across her sturdy young shoulders, leaning upon her more heavily with each step. She felt the effort of his every motion, was aware of the labored breath with which he fought back his weakness. Still he struggled on. If she had loved him before, she adored him now.
"Oughtn't I to bandage it, or something?"
"No," he gasped. "It's not an artery, I think. Must get on. Almost done."
She was terrified. All the tenderness she had denied him that night rose in her, an overwhelming flood. As he faltered she urged him forward with crooning words, with caresses. "Just a little farther, that's my brave dear! We're almost there. It can't be far now, darling, beloved, my precious!"
He grew too faint to understand her words, but her will toward the last carried him on, step by step, she staring desperately at the skyline, looking for the cornfield that was to be her landmark.—Could they have passed it? Surely they had not come so long a way as this?
Suddenly the thought occurred to her that in starting back they might have entered the wrong ravine. There must be many such shallow fissures on the mountain-side. She heard near at hand the trickling of a spring, and stopped aghast. They had passed no spring on the way out. She was too thoroughly country-bred not to have taken note of running water instinctively, as animals do.
"Lost!" she whispered to herself; lost in wild country, between midnight and dawn, with a wounded man on her hands and—no stockings on! The choking giggle she gave was more than half hysteria.
Then, without a word, Channing pitched forward on his face.
That steadied her. In a moment she had brought water in her cupped hands from that providential spring, had found his pocket-knife, ripped up his trousers-leg, and bandaged the wound as coolly as Jemima herself might have done it, though the sight of the blood nauseated her. She bathed his face with a wet handkerchief, but his eyelids merely fluttered once and were still again. In a panic she lifted his head to her bosom, trying to warm his cheeks; kissed him on the lips again and again, violently, begging him to wake and speak to her. It is a pity that the collector of impressions was unable to appreciate these man[oe]uvers.
"What shall I do? What shall I do?" she moaned.
He had bade her leave him and run for help—but did she dare? Even as she considered it, there was a rustling in the underbrush, and startlingly near at hand sounded the eerie cry that had frightened her earlier in the night. It did not frighten her now, oddly enough. She regretted the pistol she had left in the cabin. Her hand tightened on the pocket-knife, however, and she placed herself between Channing and the direction of the sound.
"Go away! Get out of this! Scat!" she said firmly, flourishing her lantern.
For a tense moment she waited; but the cry was not repeated. It had put out of the question, however, any thought of leaving Channing there defenseless. There were wild-cats in these mountains, she knew, rattlesnakes, too, possibly bears; and even the foxes that barked far away at intervals were not to be trusted with an unconscious human smelling of fresh blood.
There seemed nothing better to do than shout for help, on the chance of somebody hearing her in this wild and desolate place. Through the ravine rang the golden voice that might one day enthrall the world, pitched to fill a wider auditorium than it had ever filled before. From side to side it rolled and echoed in musical cadences: "Help! Come! Somebody please hear me! Help!"
Birds awoke with startled twittering, and various creatures of the underbrush, which had been attracted to the light of the lantern, fled away in terror. She sent her voice in the direction of the cabin they had mistaken for their own. Drunk or not, there were men there, and she needed them.
But after some time, an answer came from the other side of the ravine, a little way beyond. A bobbing light appeared on the edge, and a faint halloa reached her.
"What's wrong down there?"
Jacqueline shouted: "Man hurt! Bleeding! Awfully!"
The lantern bobbed rapidly downward. Presently a man came into sight, stoop-shouldered and spectacled, and roughly dressed. He knelt beside Channing and examined him.
"Nothing broken. Just loss of blood. That's not a bad bandage. It will last till we get him up the hill. No need to cry, young lady," he added; for at the first sound of that pleasant, crisp, gentleman's voice, Jacqueline had broken into sobs. She knew that her immediate troubles were over.
CHAPTER XXVIII
The newcomer asked no questions, then or afterwards, but busied himself with a little satchel he carried. "Drink this, please," he said to Jacqueline in a moment.
It was aromatic ammonia, and she spluttered over it and stopped crying. Then he forced some between Channing's lips; and presently the wounded man's eyes opened, to Jacqueline's almost sick relief.
"There! Now you will do nicely, though you will not feel like climbing my hill, perhaps," the stranger said to him. He eyed Jacqueline speculatively. "Are you a muscular young lady? I think so."
"Yes, indeed!" She doubled up her arm boyishly to exhibit the swelling biceps.
He nodded. "Excellent. Then we must make him a ladies' chair, you and I. Fortunately he is not a large man."
Channing, however, was heavier than he looked. He was only conscious enough to keep his arms over their shoulders, otherwise unable to help them at all. They made slow progress. Frequently they had to put him down and rest, more for the stranger's sake than for Jacqueline's.
"I fear my biceps are less creditable than yours," he smiled once, panting a little. "Or it is the breath, perhaps. One grows older, unfortunately."
As he spoke he coughed slightly, and Jacqueline looked with quick understanding at his thin face. She had heard such a cough before. The White Plague was one of the enemies which Mrs. Kildare fought untiringly and unceasingly in her domain.
"I am afraid this effort is not good for you," she murmured.
He shrugged deprecatingly, as if to say, "What does it matter?"
The gesture was oddly familiar to Jacqueline. She had seen Philip Benoix shrug in just that way. Indeed, there were other things about this man that seemed oddly familiar. She looked at him, puzzled. The lantern showed him dressed in coarse jeans, unkempt, unshaven. Yet his clear, well-modulated, slightly accented speech proved him no genuine mountaineer. Perhaps the cough accounted for his presence in the mountains.—But his appearance of familiarity?
Suddenly Jacqueline placed him. It was the man she had seen outside the window of the meeting-house, listening so absorbedly to Philip's sermon.
"You're the school-teacher, aren't you?" she asked.
"At your service," he replied with a slight, courteous formality that again reminded her of Philip.
"I saw you at church to-night, and wondered why you did not come in."
"I am not a Christian," he explained.
"Oh, but that doesn't matter! That is just why Philip—Mr. Benoix, I mean—has come up here. To make Christians."
The other smiled faintly. "The few Christians of my acquaintance have been born, and not made.—Now, shall we start again?"
They came at last to the first of two small cabins, whose door the man kicked open. They deposited their now unconscious burden upon a bed, one of several that stood in a neat, white row, each with curtains about it.
"Why, it's a regular dormitory! Is yours a boarding-school?"
He shook his head. "My hospital extension. It is easier to take care of sick scholars here than at their homes, and I have often sick scholars. None at present, however. We have room here for several patients, as you see, and soon I hope to be able to build another house for women. Obstetrical cases," he explained, rather absently. While he spoke he was removing Channing's bandage. "Hum! The shot has fortunately missed the patella, but it must come out." He rose and began to build a fire in a small cook-stove at one end of the room. "When I have sterilized these instruments, young lady, we shall have a try for that bullet."
Jacqueline paled. "You mean you are going to—to cut him? Are you sure you know how?"
He smiled at her, "Quite sure. We mountain teachers have opportunity to learn many things."
"Including cooking," she said, with a wan attempt at raillery, remembering Brother Bates' gossip.
"Including cooking," he admitted gravely. "Wait until this coffee has boiled, and you shall see that I know one branch, at least, of my profession thoroughly."
He brought her a steaming cup in a moment, which she drained gratefully. "It's heavenly! May I have some more? Where did you learn to cook—from books?"
"From necessity. When I first came to the mountains, it seemed safer to cook than to be cooked for."
The girl was paying little attention. She watched Channing fearfully. He was still unconscious, livid; but the school-teacher appeared to feel no alarm. He went deftly and quite unhurried about his preparations, getting out a hypodermic syringe, a bottle of chloroform, placing certain instruments in the oven, others in boiling water.
Jacqueline shivered; but she went on with the conversation gallantly, striving to face the situation as her mother or Jemima would have faced it.
"I know one other man who can cook, but he's a minister, and they're always different, somehow. He learned in the mountains, too, by the way, because there was nobody but himself and his father to take care of his sick mother. He learned all sorts of things to help her ... how to sew on buttons, and mend clothes, and sweep—He can even darn stockings! And he's not a bit ashamed of it."
"I should think," murmured the other, "that he might be even proud of it. You find him unmanly, perhaps?"
"Unmanly! Philip?" The tone of her voice answered him. "Why, he's the manliest man I know!"
The teacher said nothing further; but she got the impression that he was listening, waiting for her to go on.
"Do you know," she said, "I feel as if I knew you, as if I might have known you all my life. Have I never seen you before?"
"I think not," he replied, in a low voice.—Who can tell how much is seen by little eyes newly opened upon the world? Perhaps vision is clearer then than afterwards, when speech and sound and crowding thoughts come to obscure it.
"Have you always lived in these mountains?"
He answered with a slight hesitation. "I came here seventeen years ago."
"And do you never go down to the lowlands?"
"No."
"Then I can't have known you before," she said disappointedly, "because I am only seventeen myself."
A shrewder observer—Jemima for instance—might have noted his hesitancy, might have realized that coming to a place does not imply remaining there continuously.
But Jacqueline was not shrewd. She took people literally, and understood just what they intended her to understand. The art of prevarication was unknown to her; though, as has been seen, she could lie upon occasion, with a large and primitive simplicity.
"Now then," said the teacher briskly. "If you are ready, young lady, we shall go after that bullet."
She shrank away, quivering, all her fine pretense at composure shattered. "O-oh, but you don't expect me to help you? I can't, I never can help with things like that! I'm not like mother and Jemmy. I couldn't bear it. He might groan! I can't stand it when they groan!"
The other frowned. "You are not a coward, I think, afraid of a little blood?"
"It's not the blood—though I don't like that a bit. It's the pain. It's when they groan. Please, please!—It's horrible enough when you don't care for them, but when you do—"
His face softened wonderfully. "Ah!—Yes. It is worse when you care, my dear; but all the more reason for helping. Come, I have no one else. You shall keep me from hurting him by holding this little cone over his face—see, how simple. He will certainly groan, and you will certainly bear it. Come, then!"
Jacqueline, sick and shivering, stuck to her post. "If Jemmy could only see me now!" was the thought with which she stiffened herself. She tried not to listen to the moaning voice—"They're killing me! Take it away. Oh, don't hurt me any more—"
"You said it wouldn't hurt him!" she muttered once, fiercely.
"And it does not—only his imagination. He has a vivid imagination, this chap."
"Of course he has!" She scented disrespect, and was quick to resent it. "He's a very famous author,—Mr. Percival Channing."
"So?" But the school-teacher did not appear to be greatly impressed. "A healthy-looking author, at least, which is in his favor. This should not give him any trouble.—Aha! Now we have it."
He held up the bullet for her to see.
"Now then," he added in a moment, "you shall go into my little guest-room there while I watch over our patient, and sleep like the heroine you are for many hours."
Jacqueline demurred indignantly. "Leave him? Indeed I won't! It's my place to nurse him, not yours. Go to sleep yourself!"
He did not venture to drive Woman out of her natural sphere.
"As you like. Just rest on one of these cots, then, while I attend to some further matters. I shall rouse you when I am ready to leave."
"You won't go far?"
"Oh, no. I shall be within call."
Jacqueline stretched herself luxuriously. The cot was very comfortable. "I shan't go to sleep, of course," she said....
Once during the night she stirred suddenly. "Philip will be worried," she murmured.
A quiet voice answered beside her, "No, I shall send word to him."
She lifted her heavy lids. "Oh, is that you, Phil?" she muttered contentedly, and dozed off again....
It was not such an odd mistake. The school-teacher, sitting there beside her, had taken off his spectacles, and the eyes she met when hers opened, were eyes she had known and trusted all her life; gleaming, kindly, quizzical eyes, astonishingly blue by contrast with a dark face.
He tried not to cough for fear of disturbing her. Until dawn and afterwards he sat there between the two beds, sometimes rising quietly to minister to Channing's needs, but for the most part gazing at the sleeping girl, hungrily, wistfully, often through a mist o£ tears; searching for resemblances, and finding them.
"Her child!" he whispered to himself. "Her little girl, the babe that was on her breast!—So like, and yet unlike. A hint of pliancy here, of weakness perhaps, that is not Kate. Wilfulness with Kate, never weakness—And already a woman, already come to the time of sacrifice. Her little girl!—"
He leaned over Channing, studying intently and anxiously the nervous, sensuous, intelligent face in its betraying relaxation of slumber. He shook his head presently, as if in doubt.
"But she will not see; perhaps she will never see. Yes, she is Kate's own child!" He sighed, and shrugged.
"At least there is Philip on guard," he said to himself, finally. "My sturdy, pious young Atlas, with the world so heavy on his shoulders!—"
The smile on the teacher's lips was mocking and sad, and very tender.
CHAPTER XXIX
It was broad daylight when Jacqueline was awakened by some one calling her by name, and shaking her none too gently.
"Come, come, Jacqueline, you must wake up, please! I have no time to waste."
She rubbed her eyes, yawning. "Let me alone, Phil! I'm half dead with sleep.—Heavens, where am I? Why are you so cross? Oh, Phil," she gasped, memory returning in a flood. "How is he? Is he conscious yet?"
"Who, Channing? Extremely conscious, I should say, and very much ashamed of himself. He is making an excellent breakfast in the next room."
His stern voice caused her to hang her head. "I suppose you're dreadfully mad at us, Reverend! Were you anxious?"
"Fortunately I didn't miss you till the school-teacher's messenger woke us with the news that you and Channing had been found lost in the woods somewhere. I've brought your clothes. It is a wonder you did not take pneumonia, wandering about half-dressed!"
She winced, and put out a wheedling hand, "My wrapper is just as warm as a dress, and—and it looks almost like one. See! it's—it's quite long, too, Phil!—I don't think he even noticed that my stockings weren't on."
"No?" He looked at her searchingly, and his face softened. The gaze that met his was deprecating and embarrassed, but frank as a child's.
"Still," she admitted, "it was a dreadful thing to do."
"It was a very silly thing to do, and as it turned out, very dangerous. These mountaineers are a wild lot, especially with a little moonshine in them. You might very well have been shot, instead of Channing."
"I wish I had been—oh, I wish I had been!" Her lip quivered. "You're so cross to me," she wailed, "and I've been through such a lot!"
He relented. "I don't mean to be cross, little girl. But you must see that I can't take the responsibility of such a madcap any longer. You will have to go back to civilization."
Her face fell. "Oh, Phil! You don't mean that you are going to give up the missionary expedition because of what I've done?"
"I do not," he said crisply. "I came to accomplish certain things up here, and I shan't leave till they are done. But I shall have to manage without my choir. You are going back to Storm, you and Mr. Channing."
"When must we go?" she asked meekly.
"To-day. At once."
"Oh, but Philip, we can't! Mr. Channing couldn't be moved so soon. His poor leg—"
"I'm afraid he will have to risk that valuable member for the good of the common cause. He is going to need much attention, that is plain, and we can't impose on this school-teacher."
"Oh, he won't mind!" interposed Jacqueline, eagerly. "He's as good as a doctor, and a perfect dear."
"'Dear' or not, he is a busy man, and we have no claim on his time. Channing himself wants to go down to the neighborhood of genuine doctors, I fancy. He seems to be alarmed for fear of blood-poison developing." Despite himself, Philip's lip curled a little.
"I don't believe you're one bit sorry for Mr. Channing!"
"Now that you mention it," murmured Philip, "I don't believe I am. It serves him damned right!" He turned on his heel and left the room.
But later when she came out to him, dressed and abjectly penitent, he spoke more gently. "Jacky dear, I've got to interfere once more in something that is perhaps not my business. How do matters stand between you and our author friend? Has he decided yet whether he wants to marry you?"
The hot blood rushed into her cheeks. "Why—why, I don't know," she stammered, "He never—Philip Benoix, that certainly is not your business! The idea!"
"Whatever is your mother's business I make mine," he said quietly. "Jacqueline, since you have tied my hands, I want you to promise me one thing. As soon as you get back, I want you to tell your mother everything about this affair with Channing."
Her head went up angrily. "I'll promise no such thing! What has mother to do with it? When Mr. Channing is ready," she said very stiffly, "I daresay he will speak to my mother himself, without any prompting from you."
It was her turn to walk away, outraged dignity in every motion.
Philip looked after her ruefully. "Of course she won't tell Kate, and I can't, and it would never occur to that dear woman to watch one of her own daughters.—I do wish," he muttered, "that Jemima were at home!"
It was an odd fact that many people who usually took young Jemima Kildare's existence very much for granted had a way of wishing for her suddenly when any emergency arose.
Jacqueline's dignity did not carry her far. She came back in a moment to ask humbly, "How am I ever to get Mr. Channing down to the railroad? He can't ride, and wheels are out of the question on that rough trail. Philip, really, he'll have to stay here till the wound is healed. It won't be any trouble for the teacher. I'll look after him myself."
"I think not," said Philip, grimly. "You will be safe at Storm by nightfall."
"You don't seem to realize that he is terribly wounded!"
"By no means 'terribly.' The school-teacher—who seems to be a capable person as well as a 'dear'—has made a very good job of removing the bullet, and there's no temperature. Believe me, your imaginative friend will manage to survive this affair. Everything is settled. Brother Bates will stay and see the school-teacher, and arrange with him about the mule-litter for Channing. He will go down with you himself, and see you safely into the train. Sorry I can't, but I'm expected on the other side of the mountain this morning for a 'buryin,' and as the deceased has been awaiting the occasion for several months—underground, I trust,—I don't like to postpone it any longer."
"Won't you even wait till we start?" she asked forlornly.
"I can't. Sorry not to see that school-teacher, too. He has gone off somewhere on an errand, the old woman in charge here says. Doesn't know when he will be back. I must be off."
"Aren't you going to say good-by to Mr. Channing?"
"I have already said good-by, and other things, to Mr. Channing," said Philip, grimly. "Au revoir, little girl."
He rode up the trail at a lope, passing as he went a group of laurel bushes, behind which, had he looked more closely, he might have detected the crouching figure of a man, who watched him wistfully out of sight. The teacher's errand had not taken him far.
When Philip stopped at the schoolhouse again that evening on his return from the "buryin'," he found it deserted. There was a sign on the door. "School closed for a week. Gone fishing."
"A casual sort of school-teacher, this," said Philip, disappointed. "A regular gadabout! I'm afraid I shan't see him at all. What did you say his name was?"
The man Anse, who was his companion, eyed Philip impassively. "Dunno as I said. Dunno as I ever heerd tell. We calls him 'Teacher' hereabouts."
"Do you mean to say you've never asked his name?" demanded Philip.
"Folks hereabouts ain't much on axin' questions," remarked Anse. "'T ain't allus healthy, Preacher."
Philip felt oddly rebuked.
CHAPTER XXX
As if Philip's wish had materialized her, it was Jemima herself who met Jacqueline and Channing at the Storm station late that night; Jemima, fully equipped for the occasion, ambulance and all, brisk and important and even sympathetic in a professional sort of way.
Jacqueline hailed her with mingled feelings of relief and sisterly pleasure, complicated with certain misgivings as to her future freedom.
"Why, Jemmy! I thought you were going to stay with that Mrs. Lawton at least three weeks."
"Lucky I didn't," remarked her sister succinctly. "I had just got home when your telegram to mother came, telling about the accident, so of course I took charge of things. Mother wanted to come herself, but she seemed rather tired, so I made her stop at home. The doctor will be there to meet us."
Channing saw the improvised ambulance with thanksgiving. The journey back to civilization was a chapter in his experience which he had no wish to repeat....
It had started gaily enough, Channing quite comfortable in a sort of litter swung between two mules, led at a foot-pace by the versatile peddler and a silent young mountaineer, a son of their former host, Anse. The school-teacher rode with them to the foot of the mountain, to make sure of the bandages, and Jacqueline brought up the procession on her mule.
Before they started, Channing spoke a few appreciative if rather patronizing words to the school-master. "You've been awfully kind and clever about this. A surgeon could not have done better. You really ought to charge me a whopping big price, you know." He put his hand into his pocket, suggestively.
The other raised his eyebrows. "My services were not professional, Mr. Channing. I make no charge for them. It is all part of my day's work."
"Oh, but really—" insisted the author.
"Of course if you've plenty of money, you may pay what you like," added the teacher indifferently, and went back into the schoolhouse for something he had forgotten.
Channing grinned. "Of course! I've never seen services yet, professional or otherwise, that could not be paid for. What do you think I ought to give him?"
It was to Jacqueline he spoke, but the Apostle answered: "You don't give him nothin', son. You puts what you kin in this here box for the Hospital."
He obligingly lifted down a box with a slit in it, that hung beside the schoolhouse door, bearing the inscription, "Hospital Fund." He rattled it as he did so. "It's gettin' real heavy," he commented with satisfaction. "Reck'n there must 'a' bin a lot of sick folks lately. Teacher must be pleased."
Channing lifted his eyebrows at Jacqueline. "Do you mean to say he leaves a box of money hanging outside his door at the mercy of any passing stranger?"
"Why not?" asked the teacher himself, reappearing.
"Very few strangers do pass, and though my neighbors have their failings, dishonesty is not one of them. Besides, it is their own money. They have given it."
"Rather an ambitious idea of yours, isn't it, a hospital in these wilds?"
"The name is more ambitious than the idea, Mr. Channing. What I hope to build is merely another small cabin for women, on the other side of my schoolhouse, and perhaps later an isolated building for contagious cases."
"And who is to care for your patients?"
"Oh, I have plenty of assistance. Some of the women have become excellent nurses, and one or two of the boys show a distinct aptitude for medicine. We shall make doctors of them yet." He broke off apologetically. "You will think that I have a partiality for hygienic matters, and perhaps I have. It is my theory that most crime is traceable to physical causes; to disease; and as most disease is the result of ignorance—" he shrugged. "You will see why I consider hygiene an important part of my school curriculum."
Channing was looking at him curiously. His manner had lost its patronage. "May I ask," he said, "whether the State finances this institution of yours?"
"No. The nearest school supplied by the State is miles away, over roads which for part of the year are almost impassable. That is why I happened to settle here."
"Then who does finance it? Yourself?"
The teacher smiled. "It is not 'financed' at all, nor does it need to be. My pupils supply me with food and fuel and free labor, in return for which I share with them what 'book-larnin'' I happen to possess. And I wish there were more of it! What few books are needed I manage to provide. Mine is more a practical course than an academic one, you see."
Jacqueline had been listening with deep interest, her face a-glow. "And yet you think you are not a Christian!" she said softly. "Why, you are doing just such a thing as Christ might have done Himself."
"In a more up-to-date manner, I hope, young lady," shrugged the teacher. "We have gone far in 1900 years."
Jacqueline subsided, shocked. She wished Philip were there to put this irreverent person in his place.
"Have you never," questioned Channing, "considered asking for help from outside? Rich people go in for this sort of thing a great deal nowadays. It is quite a fashionable philanthropy."
"I have no acquaintance among rich people," said the other, "and I do not think my neighbors would care to accept philanthropy. They are proud."
Channing said, rather nicely, "If they are proud, they will understand that I prefer to pay for value received." He slipped into the box a bill whose denomination made the Apostle's eyes open wide.
"Fifty dollars!" he exclaimed in awe, "That's right, son—'Give up all thou hast and follow Me.' 'It is harder fer a rich man to enter into heaven than fer a camuel to go thoo the eye of a needle.' That's the way to git religion!—"
The teacher bowed, gravely. "The Woman's Ward is now an accomplished fact. Thank you, Mr. Channing."
For the first part of the journey down the mountain, the author had rather enjoyed the novel role of uncomplaining sufferer. The teacher's presence was both stimulating and reassuring. After he turned back, however, with a final look at the bandages, reaction set in. The sufferer's cheerfulness relapsed into a wincing silence, broken occasionally by faint groans, when a stumble on the part of his bearers set loose all the various aches that racked his body.
These aches were the result of exhaustion rather than of his wound; but he did not know this, nor did Jacqueline. The literary imagination pictured him in the last stages of blood-poison, and groans became more frequent. He could have found no surer way of appealing to Jacqueline's tenderness. She was one of the women to whom weakness is a thing irresistible. Her moment of ugly doubt when her lover showed panic under fire had passed instantly with a realization of his dependence upon her. To give is the instinct of such natures, maternal in their very essence. The fact that Channing seemed to need her had always been his chief hold on her fancy.
She walked beside him most of the way, leading her mule, so that she might hold his hand; yearning over him, suffering far more than he suffered, crooning tender words of encouragement.
"I wish," she said once, passionately, "that you were littler, that you were small enough to carry in my arms, so that nothing could hurt you!"—a sentiment which drew a glance of sympathy from even the stolid young mountaineer at the mule's head, and which set old Brother Bates to thinking wistfully of the long, long road that lay between him and the ministrations of his wife, Sally.
But the author was too far gone in anxiety and bone-weariness to care to linger just then in any primrose path of dalliance. He even wished heartily, if inaudibly, that the girl would be quiet and leave him alone.
Therefore, the final sight of Jemima and her business-like ambulance was a most welcome one.
He demurred politely when he heard where he was to be taken. "I ought not to impose on your mother's hospitality! Couldn't you get me to Farwell's house?"
"And who would take care of you there—men-servants? Nonsense!" said Jemima, briskly. "Mother wouldn't hear of it, and neither would I. Don't talk now. Just drink your coffee." (She had brought it hot in a thermos bottle.) "And thank your stars you weren't killed outright in those wild mountains. What an expedition!—feckless Jacky, that dreamer Philip, and a mad peddler! It never would have happened if I'd been at home.—Get up in front with the driver, Jack."
But this usurpation of her rights and privileges was more than the younger one could bear.
"Feckless I may be, Jemmy Kildare," she cried hotly, "but it was me who defended Mr. Channing from bears and things, me who helped with the operation, me who brought him home all by myself! And it's me he wants now—don't you, dear? Sit up in front yourself, smarty!"
Jemima obeyed, lifting astonished eyebrows. All the way to Storm her eyebrows fluttered up and down like flags in a gale of wind. She listened with straining ears to certain whisperings behind her; to certain silences more pregnant than whispering.
"So-o!" she thought. "That's what the child is up to! Calling him 'dear!' That's why she wouldn't go visiting.—Have mother and I been blind?"
CHAPTER XXXI
Channing began to be aware, despite the hospitality and comfort which were provided for him in overflowing measure, that he was seeing very little of Jacqueline under her mother's roof. In the ten days he had been there they had managed hardly more than as many minutes alone together. It was as if the entire household were entered into a coalition against them.
No sooner would Jacqueline slip into his room in the morning, bearing a dainty breakfast tray upon which she lavished all of her growing domestic artistry, than the series of interruptions began. First it would be the Madam herself, off on her rounds of inspection, but stopping long enough for a few minutes' chat with her guest. She would be followed by the elderly, apologetic housewoman, to put his things in order, answering Jacqueline's imperious demand for haste with an humble "Yais 'm, Miss Jacky, I's hurryin' fas' as a pusson kin go, but de Madam wouldn't like it a bit ef I skimped comp'ny's room."
Then would come, perhaps, Big Liza the cook, to enquire for "comp'ny's" health with elephantine coquetries; then Lige, erstwhile stable-boy and butler, now promoted to the proud role of valet, requesting orders for the day, and lingering with an appreciative ear for the conversation of his betters.
When these were out of the way, a firm tap at the door revealed Jemima, book in hand or with a basket of sewing, announcing quietly that she now had an hour or so at Mr. Channing's disposal; whereupon Jacqueline would give up in despair and flounce away, or resign herself to listen, seated behind her sister's back where she could make faces at it unseen except by the invalid.
The afternoons were quite as bad, the family solicitude being augmented by the presence of visitors, the most frequent of whom was Farwell; and in the evenings all sat together about the great fireplace in the hall—for the nights were growing chill—playing games, or listening to Jacqueline's music, or telling stories like children, until nine o'clock; at which hour Mrs. Kildare assembled her household, white and black, read a few prayers in a firm but inattentive manner, and sent everybody to bed.
The life had a simple charm which Channing savored with due appreciation; but it gave him very little of Jacqueline, and both thought longingly of the Ruin, at present inaccessible. In one thing Jemima's inexperience played her false. To a man of Channing's temperament, occasional and tantalizing glimpses of the inamorata had an allure that unrestricted intercourse might soon have lessened. But considering her youth, Jemima was doing very well indeed.
Mag Henderson was the lovers' only ally. Notes still passed between them with a frequency which eluded Jemima's vigilance; and notes make very good fuel for a fire, if there is none better available.
One of these, extracted by Channing from his napkin under the very eye of the enemy, read:
Jemmy is certainly taking notice. Look out! We must put her off the track somehow. Couldn't you make love to her—a little? Not much, and, oh, please, never before me, because I just couldn't bear it!—This is a kiss. O
Channing appreciated this Machiavellian policy, and endeavored to put it into practice; but without success.
Nothing doing! (He wrote in answer). There's a look in that cool, greenish eye that sheds Cupid's darts like chain armor. If I must make love to any one but you, darling, it will have to be your mother. She's human. I tell you no man living would have the courage to breathe airy nothings into your sister's ear more than once.—Here's two kisses. O O
"Poor Jemmy!" thought Jacqueline, gently, when she read this.
"Poor Jemmy," indeed. Possibly she had made some such discovery for herself.
The time came when the author reluctantly admitted to himself that he had no further excuse to trespass upon Mrs. Kildare's hospitality. From the first he had been able to limp about the house, pale but courageous; now he found it difficult even to limp with any conviction. At last Farwell quite bluntly advised him that he would better be moving on.
"Your book is calling you, eh, what? If not, it ought to be. The old 'un is looking rather firm, if you ask me. Polite, of course, even cordial—it would not enter the creed of these people to be anything else, so long as one is under their roof. But firm, nevertheless."
Channing started. "You don't think she's on?"
Farwell shrugged—a gesture carefully done from the model of Philip Benoix. "How did you explain your accident up there?"
"Told her we happened to be prowling about the hillside, and ran upon a moonshine still that didn't like us."
"Did you mention the hour of your innocent ramble?"
Charming flushed. "It was an innocent ramble, you know.—I did not mention the hour, however."
"What about Benoix? He and Mrs. Kildare are very thick."
Channing flushed again. The memory of his last conversation with the clergyman rankled. "Benoix's not the talking sort," he muttered. "Besides, he's still up in the mountains, arranging about a mission or something."
Farwell looked at him thoughtfully. "Not the talking sort—you're right, he's the acting sort. Typical Kentuckian and all that. His father's a convicted 'killer,' by the way."
"Oh, shut up!" said the author, inelegantly. "What if I have made love to Jacqueline? Does every girl who gets love made to her have to be led forthwith to the altar? The notorious Mrs. Kildare would hardly be a squeamish mama, I think. Why, she's got a common woman of the streets here in the house as a sort of maid-companion to her young daughters! What can you expect?"
"Nevertheless," demanded his friend, significantly, "how much have you seen of the girl since you have been here? You know, and I know, that the most squeamish of mamas are ladies who happen to be acquainted with the ropes themselves. Verbum sap.—Besides, there is your uncle. Might he have—er—conversed too freely, perhaps?"
Channing stirred uneasily. "He regards the recent episode, to which I suppose you refer, as somewhat of a blot upon the family escutcheon. It isn't likely he would mention it. But you're right—perhaps it behooves me to be moving before all is lost.—Damn it, Morty," he said savagely, "what an ass I have made of myself!"
He put his face in his hands, and groaned.
The actor regarded him curiously.
"Hard hit, eh? But you've been hard hit before, and got over it. Cheer up!"
"That's it," grunted Channing. "I will get over it, and—I don't want to, Morty! Every fellow's got a best time in his life. This is mine, and I know it. I want it to last. She's—she's sweet, I tell you! I could marry a girl like that...."
The other whistled. "Well, why not? She'd wait."
"She might—but what about me?" Channing spoke with a sort of desperation. "You know me! If I go away from her, I'm bound to get over it. If I don't go away from her—" he broke off, and walked restlessly around the room, limping occasionally from force of habit. "It's easy enough for a cold-blooded chap like you to say 'wait.' But she doesn't help me, she doesn't help me! You phlegmatic people don't know how emotion, even the sight of emotion, goes to the head—or you'd never be actors. You wouldn't dare.—I am mad about her now, absolutely mad about her. Absurd, isn't it?" He gave a forlorn laugh. "In the words of the classic, 'I want what I want—when I want it.'"
Farwell was quite unconsciously and methodically making mental notes of his friend's gestures and expressions for future use. "The old boy's in earnest for once," he thought; and congratulated himself anew that he himself was no genius, merely a person with a knack for imitation, and a habit of keeping his finger on the pulse of the public. It puzzled him that a man who knew his own weaknesses so thoroughly should make no effort to deny or conquer them. Channing seemed to observe his ego as casually as if it belonged to a stranger; and with as little attempt to interfere with it. That, thought Farwell, must be one of the earmarks of genius. Mere men like himself, when they choose to fracture what rules have been laid down for them, do it as blindly as possible, with an ostrich-like hiding of their heads in the sand; but genius sees exactly what it is about, and does it just the same.—So ran the cogitations of Mr. Farwell.
"What would you do if you were I?" asked Channing, appealingly.
"Me? I'd go away from here while the going is good."
"Away from Storm, you mean?"
"Away from Kentucky."
Channing groaned. "Damn it all, I will, then! Though it's going to play hob with my book.—No time like the present. I'll go back with you to-day, Morty, and put my things together.—It 's been the best time of my life!" he sighed, already beginning to dramatize himself as the self-denying Spartan.
He sought out his hostess in her office an hour later, and confessed to her that he had no longer any excuse for remaining under her roof.
"We authors are such slaves," he murmured. "I must get back to my native habitat, like a bear to its cave." (he had almost said "wounded bear.")
"You are leaving Kentucky, then?"
"Yes, after a few days at Holiday Hill to get my things together."
"You are sure you are quite well and strong again?" she asked slowly.
"I fear I am. Better than I've ever been in my life, and fatter, alas! thanks to your excellent cook."
She did not give him an answering smile. "I am glad of that, because I should not like any guest, above all Jim Thorpe's nephew, to leave my house until he was quite ready to do so.—And I have been waiting," she added, very quietly, "until you were quite well and strong to speak to you about a certain matter."
His tongue went dry in his mouth; a sensation that reminded him of episodes in his schooldays, when circumstances led him not infrequently into the office of the headmaster.
Mrs. Kildare said quite suddenly, "I understand that you are courting my daughter Jacqueline, Mr. Channing."
For the moment a reply failed him. He had not expected quite such a lack of delicacy.
She went on. "Something my daughter Jemima noticed led us to that conclusion. Perhaps she was mistaken? You will understand, Mr. Channing, that I must be father as well as mother to my children."
She paused again; and still the usually fluent Channing had not found his voice.
"I thought it best," she went on, "to write to my friend Professor Thorpe, who introduced you to our house. Be kind enough to read his reply."
Channing took the letter, and made pretense of reading it, though he was only too well aware of its contents.