"'Do you think it fordable?'
"'I do not know.' Like a fool, I said, 'I will ride down the road and get a nearer look.' He would be much obliged. I rode Hoodoo down an icy hill with a sharp lookout for their pickets. As I rode, I slipped my revolver out and let it hang at my wrist. I rode on cautiously. About a quarter of a mile from the creek I made up my mind that I had gone far enough. The creek was frozen, as I might have known, and the colonel too. As I checked Hoodoo a shot rang out from a clump of pines on my right and a horseman leaped into the road some twenty yards in front of me. I fired and missed him. He turned and rode pretty fast toward the bridge, turning to fire as he went. I like a fool rode after him. We exchanged shot after shot. He was on the farther end of the bridge when he pulled up his horse and stopped short. He held up a hand; I felt for my sword, having emptied my revolver. It was rather ridiculous. By George! the man was laughing. We were not fifty feet apart when I reined up Hoodoo. We had each fired six shots in vain—I had counted his.
"He called out, 'A rather pretty duel, sir. Don't ride over the bridge.' A picket shot from the left singing over my head rather emphasized his warning. 'It would not be fair—you would ride right into my pickets.' It was an unusual bit of chivalry.
"I called out, 'Thank you, I hope I have not hit you. May I ask your name?'
"'I am at your service. I am'—here Captain John wrote merrily—'Scheherazade who says—
"Being now sleepy, the Caliph will hear the amazing sequel to-morrow night or later.
"There you have my adventure all but the end. If I do not hear more of
Miss Grey's personal adventures she will never—never, hear the name.
"JOHN PENHALLOW."
He laughed outright as he closed and directed the envelope. I suppose, he wrote in his diary, that as there are several Leilas, there are also several John Penhallows, and I am just now the mischievous lad who was so much younger than Miss Grey. Would she laugh over the lesson of his letter or be angry, or cry a little and feel ill-treated, or—and even that was possible—say it was of no moment who the man was. He felt the gaiety which in some men who have not the mere brute courage of the bull-dog is apt to follow for many hours the escape from a great danger. The boylike mischief of his letter was in part due to some return of the cheerful mood which possessed him after the morning's risks. He went out to question the night of the weather. As he looked over the snow and then up at the mighty clock-work of the stars, he responded slowly to the awe this silentness of immeasurable forces was apt to produce; a perfect engine at the mills in noiseless motion always had upon him the same effect. As he moved, his knee reminded him of the morning's escape. When he rode away from the bridge, with attentions from the enemy's pickets following and came near the waiting colonel, his horse came down and like his rider suffered for the fall on frozen ground.
There was just then for a time less work than usual for the engineers, and he had begun to feel troubled by the fact that two weeks had gone by since Leila wrote, without a home letter. Then it came and was brief:
"DEAR JOHN: I have truly no better and no worse news to send about dear Uncle Jim and this saddened home. To be quite frank with you, your letter made me realize what is hardly felt as here in our home we become used to war news. I thought less of your mischievous attempt to torment my curiosity than of your personal danger, and yet I know too well what are the constant risks in your engineer duties, for I have found among Uncle Jim's books accounts of the siege of Sevastopol. As to your naughty ending, I do not care who the man was—why should I? I doubt if you really know.
"I am,
Your seriously indifferent
LEILA GREY.
"P.S. I am ashamed to admit that I reopened my letter to tell you I fibbed large. Please not to tease me any more."
He replied at once:
"DEAR LEILA: I am off to the front as usual. The man was Henry Grey. An amazing encounter! I had never seen him, as you may know. I did not wait to reply to him because the Rebel pickets were not so considerate as their colonel. I recalled Uncle Jim's casual mention of Henry Grey as a rather light-minded, quixotic man. I am glad he is, but imagine what a tragedy failed to materialize because two men were awkward with the pistol. But what a strange meeting too! It is not the only case. A captain I know took his own brother prisoner last month; the Rebel would not shake hands with him. Do not tell Aunt Ann—or rather, do what seems best to you. I trust you, of course. The encounter made me want to know your uncle in some far-off happier day.
"In haste, Yours,
"JOHN PENHALLOW."
CHAPTER XXIX
When late in March Grant about to move left the engineer brigade at City Point, the need to corduroy the rain-soaked roads called some of the corps to the front, and among them John Penhallow. As usual when unoccupied they were set free to volunteer for staff duty. It thus chanced that Penhallow found himself for a time an extra aide to General John Parke.
The guarded outer lines of the defences of Petersburg included forests with here and there open spaces and clumps of trees. More than a half mile away from the enemy, on rising ground, amid bushes and trees, lay the army corps of General Parke. It was far into the night. The men were comfortably asleep, for on this second of April, the air was no longer chilly and there were no tents up. In the mid-centre of the corps-line behind the ridge a huge fire marked the headquarters. As the great logs blazed high, they cast radiating shadows of tree trunks, which were and were not as the fire rose or fell. Horses tied to the trees moved uneasily when from far and near came the clamour of guns. Now and then a man sat up in the darkness and listened, but this was some new recruit. For the most of the sleepers the roar of guns was less disturbing than the surly mosquitoes and the sonorous trumpeting of a noisy neighbour. Aides dismounted near the one small tent in the wood shadows, and coming out mounted horses as tired as the riders and rode away into the night. Here and there apart black servants and orderlies slept the deep sleep of irresponsibility and among them Josiah. Beside the deserted fire John Penhallow sat smoking. A hand fell on his shoulder.
"Halloa, Blake!" he said, "where did you come from?"
"I am on Wright's staff. I am waiting for a note I am to carry. There will be no sleep for me to-night. We shall attack at dawn—a square frontal attack through slashes, chevaux-de-frises and parapets; but the men are keen for it, and we shall win."
"I think so—the game is nearly played out."
"I am sorry for them, Penhallow."
"And I. I was thinking when you came of the pleasant West Point friends who may be in those woods yonder, and of the coming agony of that wonderful crumbling host of brave men, and of my uncle's friend, Robert Lee. I shall be a happy man when I can take their hands again."
"How many will be left?" said Blake.
"God knows—we shall, I hope, live to be proud of them."
"My friend Francis sees always the humorous side of war—I cannot."
"It does have—oh, very rarely—its humorous side," returned Penhallow, "but not often for me. His mocking way of seeing things is doubly unpleasant because no man in the army is more in earnest. This orchestra of snoring men would amuse him."
As Blake sat down, he said, "I wonder if they are talking the language of that land—that nightly bourne from which we bring back so little. Listen to them!"
"That's so like you, Blake. I was reflecting too when you came on the good luck I had at the North Anna when you pulled me out. Mark Rivers once said that I was good at making acquaintances, but slow at making friendships."
"Thank you," said Blake, understanding him readily. "I am somewhat like you."
The solemnity of the night and of the fate-laden hours had opened for a minute the minds of two men as reserved and reticent as are most well-bred Americans, who as a rule lack the strange out-spoken frankness of our English kin.
"Oh! here is my summons," said Blake. "Good luck to you, Penhallow. I have about the closing of this war a kind of fear I have never had before."
"That is natural enough," returned Penhallow, "and I fancy it is not uncommon. Let us part with a more pleasant thought. You will come and shoot with me at Grey Pine in the fall? Bye-bye."
Blake rode away. His friend deep in thought and unable to sleep watched the dying fire. The night hours ran on. Obedient to habit he wound his watch. "Not asleep," said a pleasant voice. He rose to face the slight figure and gently smiling face of General Parke.
"What time is it, Penhallow?"
"Four o'clock, sir."
"I have sent back Captain Blake with a word to General Wright, but he will have too long a ride. I want you to carry this same request. By taking the short cut in front of our lines, you can get there in a third of the time. You will keep this side of our pickets to where our line turns, then go through them and down the slope a bit. For a short distance you will be near the clump of trees on the right. If it is picketed—there are no pickets nearer—you will have to ride hard. Once past the angle of their line you are safe. Am I clear?"
"Certainly, sir. There is some marshy ground—I climbed a tree and looked it over yesterday—it won't stop the men, but may slow a horse."
"I see. Here is my note."
Penhallow tucked it in his belt and roused Josiah. "See to the girth," he said. "Is Hoodoo in good order?"
"Yes, sir. Where you going, Master John?"
"A little errand. Make haste."
"I know those little errands," said the black. "The good Lord care for him," he murmured, as the man he loved best was lost in the darkness.
He was aware of the great danger of his errand and was at once in that state of intensity of attention which sharpens every sense. He rode for the fourth of a mile between the long lines of infantry now astir here and there, and then an officer saw him through their picket-line. "Good luck to you!" he said. "I think the Rebs have no outlying pickets, but the woods are full of them."
Penhallow rode down a slight incline, and remembering that the marsh lower down might be difficult turned aside and came on a deep gully. The night was still dark, but a faint glow to eastward made haste desirable. The gully, as he rode beside it, flattened out, but at once he felt that his horse was in trouble on marshy ground. He dismounted and led him, but always the better footing lay nearer to the clump of trees. He made up his mind to ride for it. While on foot he had been as yet hardly visible. A shot from the salient group of trees decided him. He mounted and touched Hoodoo with the spur. The horse bounded forwards too quickly to sink in the boggy ground. Then a dozen shots told the rider he had been seen. Something like the feeling of a blow from a stick was felt as his left arm fell with gripped reins, and the right arm also dropped. Hoodoo pitched forward, rose with a gallant effort, and sinking down rolled to left upon the rider's leg.
The horse lay still. Penhallow's first sensation was astonishment; then he began to make efforts to get free. His arms were of no use. He tried to stir his horse with the spur of the free foot. It had no effect. Something must be wrong with him. He had himself a feeling of weakness he could not comprehend, aware that he had no wound of the trunk. His useless arms made all effort vain, and the left foot under the weight of the horse began to feel numb. The position struck him as past help until our people charged. He thought of Francis's axiom that there was nothing so entirely tragic as to be without some marginalia of humour. The lad smiled at his use of the word. His own situation appealed to him as ridiculous—a man with a horse on him waiting for an army to lift it off.
The left elbow began to recover from the early insensibility of shock and to be painful. Then in the dim light, as he lifted his head, he was aware of a Rebel soldier in front covering him with a revolver. Penhallow cried out with promptness, "I surrender—and I am shot through both arms."
The soldier said, "You are not worth taking—guess you'll keep till we lick the Yanks," and walking around the helpless officer he appropriated his revolver.
"Can you get my horse up?" said John.
"Horse up! I want your boots."
"Well, pull them off—I can't."
"Oh, don't you bother, I'll get them." With this he knelt down and began on the boot which belonged to the leg projecting beneath the horse. "Darn it! They're just my size." As he tugged at it, Hoodoo dying and convulsed struck out with his fore legs and caught the unlucky soldier full in the belly. The man gave a wild cry and staggering back fell.
Penhallow craned over the horse's body and broke into laughter. It hurt his arm, but he gasped with fierce joy, "Francis would call him a freebooter." Then he fell back and quite helpless listened. Unable to turn his head, he heard behind him the wild rush of men. Leaping over horse and man they went by. He got a look to right and left. They tore through the slashes, dropping fast and facing a furious fusillade were lost to sight in the underbrush. "By George! they've won," he exclaimed and fell back. "They must have carried the parapet." He waited. In about a half hour a party of men in grey went by. An officer in blue cried out, "Up the hill, you beggars!" More of the grey men followed—a battle-grimed mob of hundreds.
"Halloa!" called Penhallow. "Get this horse up. Put your hand in my pocket and you will find fifty dollars." They stopped short and a half dozen men lifted the dead animal. "Thank you, set me on my feet," said Penhallow. "Empty my pockets—I can't use my arms." They did it well, and taking also his watch went on their way well pleased.
John stood still, the blood tingling in his numb foot. "Halloa!" he cried, as the stretcher-bearers and surgeons came near. A headquarters surgeon said, "We thought you were killed. Can you walk?"
"No—hit in both arms—why the deuce can't I walk?"
"Shock, I suppose."
A half hour later he was in a hospital tent and a grim old army surgeon handling his arms. "Right arm flesh-wound—left elbow smashed. You will likely have to lose the arm."
"No, I won't," said Penhallow, "I'd as leave die."
"Don't talk nonsense. They all say that. See you again."
"You will get ten dollars," said John to a hospital orderly, "if you will find Captain Blake of General Wright's staff."
"I'll do it, sir."
Presently his arms having been dressed, he was made comfortable with morphia. At dusk next morning his friend Blake sat down beside his cot. "Are you badly hurt?" he said. A certain tenderness in the voice was like a revelation of some qualities unknown before.
"I do not know. For about the first time in my life I am suffering pain—I mean constant pain, with a devilish variety in it too. The same ball, I believe, went through some muscle in the right arm and smashed my left elbow. It's a queer experience. The surgeon-in-charge informed me that I would probably lose the arm. The younger surgeon says the ball will become what he calls encysted. They probed and couldn't find it. Isn't that Josiah I hear?"
"Yes, I will bring him in."
In a moment they came back. "My God! Master John, I been looking for you all night and this morning I found Hoodoo dead. Didn't I say he'd bring you bad luck. Oh, my!—are you hurt bad?"
"Less noise there," said an assistant surgeon, "or get out of this."
"He'll be quiet," said Blake, "and you will have the decency to be less rough." The indignant doctor walked away.
"Poor Hoodoo—he did his best," murmured John. "Get me out of this,
Blake. It's a hell of suffering. Take me to Tom McGregor at City Point."
"I will, but now I must go. General Parke hopes you are doing well. You will be mentioned in his despatches."
"That is of no moment—get me to McGregor. Hang the flies—I can't fight them."
John never forgot the ambulance and the rough railway ride to City Point, nor his pleasure when at rest in the officers' pavilion he waited for his old playmate. As I write I see, as he saw, the long familiar ward, the neat cots, the busy orderlies. He waited with the impatience of increasing pain. "Well, Tom," he said, with an effort to appear gay, "here's your chance at last to get even."
McGregor made brief reply as he uncovered the wounded joint. Then he said gravely, "A little ether—I will get out the ball."
"No ether, Tom, I can stand it. Now get to work."
"I shall hurt you horribly."
"No ether," he repeated. "Go on, Tom."
McGregor sat beside him with a finger on the bounding pulse and understood its meaning and the tale it told. "It will not be long, John," and then with attention so concentrated as not even to note the one stir of the tortured body or to hear the long-drawn groan of pain, he rose to his feet. "All right, John—it's only a slug—lucky it was not a musket ball." He laid a tender hand on the sweating brow, shot a dose of morphia into the right arm, and added, "You will get well with a stiff joint. Now go to sleep. The right arm is sound, a flesh-wound."
"Thanks," said John, "we are even now, Tom. Captain Blake telegraphed your father, Tom—but write, please."
"To whom, John?"
"To Leila—but do not alarm them."
"I will write. In a week or two you must go home. That is the medicine you need most. You will still have some pain, but you will not lose the arm."
"Thank you—but what of the army? I am a bit confused as to time. Parke attacked on the second of April, I think. What day is this?"
"Oh, they got out of Petersburg that night—out of Richmond too. Lee is done for—a day or two will end it."
"Thank God," murmured John, "but I am so sorry for Lee."
"Can't say I am."
"Oh, that blessed morphia!"
"Well, go to sleep—I will see you again shortly. I have other fellows to look after. In a few minutes you will be easy. Draw the fly-nets, orderly."
Of all that followed John Penhallow in later years remembered most distinctly the half hour of astonishing relief from pain. As his senses one by one went off guard, he seemed to himself to be watching with increase of ease the departure of some material tormentor. In after years he recalled with far less readiness the days of varied torment which required more and more morphia. Why I know not, the remembrance of pain as time goes by is far less permanent than that of relief or of an hour of radiant happiness. Long days of suffering followed as the tortured nerves recorded their far-spread effects in the waste of the body and that failure of emotional control which even the most courageous feel when long under the tyranny of continuous pain. McGregor watched him with anxiety and such help as was possible. On the tenth of April John awakened after a night of assisted sleep to find himself nearly free from pain. Tom came early into the ward.
"Good news, John," he said. "Lee has surrendered. You look better. Your resignation will be accepted, and I have a leave of absence. Economy is the rule. We are sending the wounded north in ship-loads. Home! Home! old fellow, in a week."
The man on the cot looked up. "You have a letter, I see," and as he spoke broke into childlike tears, for so did long suffering deal with the most self-controlled in those terrible years, which we do well to forgive, and to remember with pride not for ourselves alone. The child-man on the bed murmured, "Home was too much for me."
The surgeon who loved him well said, "Read your letter—you are not the only man in this ward whom pain has made a baby. Home will complete your cure—home!"
"Thank you, Tom." He turned to the letter and using the one half-useful hand opened it with difficulty. What he first felt was disappointment at the brevity of the letter. He was what Blake called home-hungry. With acute perception, being himself a homeless man, Blake made his diagnosis of that form of heart-ache which too often adds a perilously depressing agency to the more material disasters of war. Pain, fever, the inevitable ward odours, the easier neighbour in the next bed who was of a mind to be social, the flies—those Virginia flies more wily than Lee's troopers—and even trifling annoyances made Penhallow irritable. He became a burden to hospital stewards and over-worked orderlies, and now the first look at Leila's letter disturbed him, and as he read he became indignant:
"DEAR JOHN: Mr. Blake's telegram telling us of your wound caused us some anxiety, which was made less by Dr. McGregor's somewhat hastily written letter. Aunt Ann thought it was excusable in so busy a man. Poor Uncle Jim on hearing it said, 'Yes, yes—why didn't John write—can't be much the matter.' This shows you his sad failure. He has not mentioned it since.
"It is a relief to us to know that you were not dangerously hurt. It seems as if this sad war and its consequences were near to end. Let us hear soon. Aunt Ann promises to write to you at once.
"Yours truly,
"LEILA GREY."
He threw the letter down, and forgetting that he had asked Blake and the doctor not to alarm his people, was overcome by the coldness of Leila's letter. He lay still, and with eyes quite too full felt that life had for him little of that which once made it sweet with what all men hold most dear. He would have been relieved if he could have seen Leila when alone she read and read again McGregor's letter, and read with fear between the lines of carefully guarded words what he would not say and for days much feared to say. She sat down and wrote to John a letter of such tender anxiety as was she felt a confession she was of no mind to make. He was in no danger. Had he been, she would have written even more frankly. But her trouble about her uncle was fed from day to day by what her aunt could not or would not see, and it was a nearer calamity and more and more distressing. Then she sat thinking what was John like now. She saw the slight figure, so young and still so thoughtful, as she had smiled in her larger experience of men when they had sat and played years ago with violets on the hillside of West Point. No, she was unprepared to commit herself for life, for would he too be of the same mind? For a moment she stood still indecisive, then she tore up her too tender letter and wrote the brief note which so troubled him. She sent it and then was sorry she had not obeyed the impulse of the kindlier hour.
The nobler woman instinct is apt to be armed by nature for defensive warfare. If she has imagination, she has in hours of doubt some sense of humiliation in the vast surrender of marriage. This accounts for certain of the cases of celibate women, who miss the complete life and have no ready traitor within the guarded fortress to open the way to love. Some such instinctive limitations beset Leila Grey. The sorrow of a great, a nearer and constant affection came to her aid. To think of anything like love, even if again it questioned her, was out of the question while before her eyes James Penhallow was fading in mind.
John Penhallow was shortly relieved by McGregor's order that he should get some exercise. It enabled him to escape the early surgical visit and the diverse odours of surgical dressings which lingered in the long ward while breakfast was being served. There were more uneasy sleepers than he in the ward and much pain, and crippled men with little to look forward to. The suffering he saw and could not lessen had been for John one of the depressing agencies of this hospital life. The ward was quiet when he awoke at dawn of April 13th. He quickly summoned an orderly and endured the daily humiliation of being dressed like a baby. He found Josiah waiting with the camp-chair at the door as he came out of the ward.
"How you feeling, Master John?"
"Rather better. What time is it? That Reb stole my watch." Even yet it was amusing. He laughed at the remembrance of having been relieved by the prisoners of purse and watch.
For Josiah to extract his own watch was as McGregor said something like a surgical operation. "It's not goin', Master John. It's been losing time—like it wasn't accountable. What's it called watch for if it don't watch?"
This faintly amused John. He said no more, but sat enjoying the early morning quiet, the long hazy reaches of the James River, the awakening of life here and there, and the early stir among the gun-boats.
"Get me some coffee, Josiah," he said. "I am like your watch, losing time and everything else."
Josiah stood over him. His unnatural depression troubled a simple mind made sensitive by a limitless affection and dog-like power to feel without comprehending the moods of the master.
"Captain John, you was sayin' to me yesterday you was most unfortunate. I just went away and kept a kind of thinkin' about it."
"Well, what conclusion did you come to?" He spoke wearily.
"Oh, I just wondered if you'd like to change with me—guess you wouldn't for all the pain?"
Surprised at the man's reflection, John looked up at the black kindly face. "Get me some coffee."
"Yes, sir—what's that?" The morning gun rang out the sunrise hour.
"What's that, sir?" The flag was being hoisted on the slope below them.
"It's stopped at half-mast, sir! Who's dead now?"
"Go and ask, Josiah." McGregor came up as he spoke.
"The President was killed last night, John, by an assassin!"
"Lincoln killed!"
"Yes—I will tell you by and by—now this is all we know. I must make my rounds. We leave to-morrow for home."
John sat alone. This measureless calamity had at once on the thoughtful young soldier the effect of lessening the influences of his over-sensitive surrender to pain and its attendant power to weaken self-control. Like others, in the turmoil of war he had given too little thought to the Promethean torment of a great soul chained to the rock of duty—the man to whom like the Christ "the common people listened gladly." He looked back over his own physical suffering with sense of shame at his defeat, and sat up in his chair as if with a call on his worn frame to assert the power of a soul to hear and answer the summons of a great example.
"Thank you, Josiah," he said cheerfully. "No coffee is like yours to set a fellow up." A greater tonic was acting. "We go home to-morrow."
"That's good. Listen, sir—what's that?"
"Minute guns, Josiah. Have you heard the news?"
"Yes, sir—it's awful; but we are going home to Westways."
CHAPTER XXX
As the trains went northward crowded with more or less damaged officers and men, John Penhallow in his faded engineer uniform showed signs of renewed vitality. He chatted in his old companionable way with the other home-bound volunteers, and as they went through Baltimore related to McGregor with some merriment his bloodless duel with Mrs. Penhallow's Rebel brother Henry. The doctor watched him with the most friendly satisfaction and with such pride as a florist may have in his prospering flowers. The colour of health was returning to the pale face and there was evidently relief from excessive pain. He heard, too, as they chatted, of John's regrets that his simple engineer dress was not as neat as he would have desired and of whether his aunt would dislike it. Wearing the station of Westways Crossing, John fell into a laughing account of his first arrival and of the meeting with Leila. The home-tonic was of use and he was glad with gay gladness that the war was over.
As the train stopped, he said as he got out, "There is no carriage—you telegraphed, McGregor?"
"Yes, I did, but the service is, I fancy, snowed under just now with messages. I will walk on and have them send for you."
"No," said John, "I am quite able to walk. Come along."
"Are you really able?"
"Yes—we'll take it easy."
"There isn't much left of you to carry what remains."
"My legs are all right, Tom." He led the way through the woods until they came out on the avenue. "Think of it, Tom,—it is close to nine years since first I left Grey Pine for the Point."
In the afternoon of this sunny day late in April the Colonel sat on the porch with his wife. Below them on the step Rivers was reading aloud the detailed account of Lincoln's death. Leila coming out of the house was first to see the tall thin figure in dark undress uniform. She was thankful for an unwatched moment of ability to gain entire self-command. It was needed. She helped herself by her cry of joyous recognition.
"Aunt Ann! Aunt Ann!" she cried, "there is Dr. McGregor and—and John and
Josiah." The aunt cast a look of anxiety at the expressionless face of
James Penhallow, as he rose to his feet, saying, "Why wasn't I told?"
"We did not know, sir," said Rivers, dropping the paper as he went down the steps to meet the new-comer.
Then the wasted figure with the left arm in a sling was in Ann
Penhallow's embrace.
"My God!" he said, "but it's good to be at home." As he spoke he turned to the Colonel who had risen.
"Got hit, John? It runs in the family. Once had a Sioux arrow through my arm. Glad to see you. Want to be fed up a bit. Lord! but you're lean." He said no more, but sat down again without appearance of interest.
Rivers made John welcome with a pleasant word, and Leila coming forward took his hand, saying quietly, "We hardly looked for you to-day, but it is none too soon." Then she turned to McGregor, "We have much to thank you for. You will stay to dine?"
John, still too sensitive, was troubled as he realized his uncle's condition, and felt that there was something in Leila's manner which was unlike that of the far-remembered Leila of other days. She had urged McGregor to stay and dine, and then added, "But, of course, that pleasure must wait—you will want to see your father. He is so proud of you—as we all are."
"That is a pleasant welcome, Miss Leila; and, dear Mrs. Penhallow, I do not want a carriage, I prefer to walk. I will see you, John, and that lame arm to-morrow. Good-bye, Colonel."
The master of Grey Pine said, "Nice young man! Ann ought to kill the fatted calf. Tell John not to be late for dinner."
"It is all right, James," said Mrs. Ann, "all right."
Rivers watched with pain the vacant face of the Colonel. This mental failure constantly recalled the days of anguish when with despair he had seen all who were dear to him one after another die mentally before their merciful exit from life.
"John must be tired," he said. Leila, who noted on the young soldier's face the effect of sudden realization of his useless state said, "Your room is ready, John."
"Yes," said John, "I should like to rest before dinner."
With a word as to the fatigue of his journey, Leila followed him into the well-remembered hall.
"Good heavens, Leila. It seems an age since I was here. Send up Josiah.
I am like a baby and need him to help me."
She looked after him pitifully as he went up the stairs. "Surely," she thought, "we have paid dearly our debt to the country."
He came down at six o'clock, still in his undress uniform, but thinking that his aunt would not like it. In a day or two he would have the civilian clothes he had ordered in Philadelphia. He need have had no such anxiety; she was indifferent to all but her husband, who sat at table speechless, while Leila and John too consciously manufactured talk of the home and the mills—and the ending of the war. After the meal Ann began her patient efforts to interest the Colonel with a game of cards and then of backgammon. It seemed only to make him irritable, and he said at last, "I think I must go to bed."
"Certainly, dear." She went with him upstairs, saying, "Good-night, children."
"She will not return, John. This is what goes on day after day."
"It is very sad—I did not fully comprehend his condition."
"He is often far worse, and complains of his head or is resolutely—I should say obstinately—bent on some folly, such as walking to the mills and advising them. Aunt Ann never contradicts him—what he wants, she wants. Not the most reasonable opposition is of any use."
"Does he never ride, Leila?"
"Never, and is vexed when Dr. McGregor calls to see him and advises a consultation. Once we had a distressing outbreak."
"And yet," said John, "there should have been other advice long ago.
Somehow there must be."
"Mr. Rivers has urged it and made him angry; as for Aunt Ann, she sees only the bright side of his case and humours him as she would a sick child."
"She is greatly changed, Leila. I hardly know how to state it. She has a look of—well, of something spiritual in her face."
"Yes, that is true. Are you in pain, John?" she added.
"Yes—not in great pain, but enough. For two weeks I did suffer horribly."
"John! Oh, my poor Jack! We never knew—is it so bad?"
"Yes, imagine a toothache in your elbow with a variety of torments in the whole arm."
"I can't imagine. I never had a toothache—in fact, I hardly know the sensation of serious pain."
"Well, I broke down under it, Leila. I became depressed and quite foolishly hopeless. Some day I will tell you what helped me out of a morass of melancholy."
"Tell me now."
"No, I must go to bed. I am getting better and will get off with a stiff elbow, so Tom says. At first they talked of amputation. That was awful. Good-night!"
It was none too soon. She was still unsure of herself, and although no word of tender approach had disturbed her as he talked, and she was glad of that, the tense look of pain, the reserve of his hospital confession of suffering nearly broke down her guarded attitude. As he passed out of view at the turn of the stairs, she murmured, "Oh, if only Uncle Jim were well."
Josiah came at the call of the bell. She detained him. She asked, "How was the Captain wounded? No one wrote of how it happened."
"Well, missy, he would ride a horse called Hoodoo—it was just the bad luck of that brute done it." Josiah's account was graphic and clear enough. John Penhallow's character lost nothing as interpreted by Josiah.
"It was a dangerous errand, I suppose."
"Yes, Miss Leila. You see, when they know about a man that he somehow don't mind bullets and will go straight to where he's sent, they're very apt to get him killed. At the first shot he ought to have tumbled off and played possum till it was dark."
"But then," said Leila, "he would have been too late with General Parke's message."
"Of course, Master John couldn't sham dead like I would.—I don't despise bullets like he does. Once before he had orders to go somewhere, and couldn't get across a river. He was as mad as a wet hen."
"A wet hen—delightful! Did he do it?"
"Guess you don't know him! When Master John wants anything, well, he's a terrible wanter—always was that way even when he was a boy—when he wants anything, he gets it."
"Indeed! does he? I think he is waiting for you, Josiah."
The black's conclusive summary hardened the young woman's heart. She sat a while smiling, then took up a book and failed to become interested.
As John became familiar with the altered life of a household once happy and in pleasant relation to the outer world, he felt as Leila had done the depressing influence of a home in which the caprices of an invalid life were constantly to be considered. Meanwhile his own spare figure gained flesh, and on one sunny morning—he long remembered it—he was rather suddenly free from pain, and with only the stiff elbow was, as McGregor described it, "discharged cured."
For some time he had been feeling that in bodily vigour and sense of being his normal self he had been rapidly gaining ground. The relief from the thraldom of pain brought a sudden uplift of spirits and a feeling of having been born anew into an inheritance of renewed strength and of senses sharpened beyond what he had ever known. A certain activity of happiness like a bodily springtime comes with such a convalescence. Ceasing to feel the despotism of self-attention, he began to recover his natural good sense and to watch with more care his uncle's state, his aunt's want of consideration for any one but James Penhallow, and the effect upon Leila of this abnormal existence. He began to understand that to surely win this sad girl-heart there must be a patient siege, and above all something done for the master of Grey Pine. He recognized with love's impatience the beauty of this young life amid the difficulties of the Colonel's moods and Ann Penhallow's ill-concealed jealousy. A great passion may be a very selfish thing, or in the nobler natures rise so high on the wings of love that it casts like the singing lark no shadow on the earth. He could wait and respect with patient affection the sense of duty which perhaps—ah! that perhaps—made love a thing which must wait—yes, and wait too with helpful service where she too had nobly served.
When the day came for his first venture on a horse and he rode through the young leafage of June, no enterprise seemed impossible. How could he be of use to her and these dear people to whom he owed so much? War had been costly, but it had taught him that devotion to the duty of the hour which is one of the best lessons of that terrible schoolmaster. There was, as he saw every day, no overruling common sense in the household of Grey Pine, and no apparent possibility of reasonable control. Just now it was worse than ever, and he meant to talk it over with the two McGregors. With Josiah riding behind him, he left a message here and there in the village, laughing and jesting, with a word of sympathy where the war had left its cruel memories. He had been in the little town very often since his return, but never before when free from pain or with the pleasant consciousness that he had it in his power to be to these friends of his childhood what the Colonel had been. He talked to Joe Grace, left a message for Pole's son, and then rode on to his appointment.
He sat down with father and son in the unchanged surroundings of the untidy office; even the flies were busy as before on the old man's tempting bald head.
"Well, John," said the doctor, "what's up now? The Squire won't see me at all." Tom sat still and listened.
"There are two things to consider, and I want your advice; but, first, I want to say that there is no head to that family. I wonder how Leila stands it. I mean that your advice shall be taken about a consultation with Prof. Askew."
"You want my advice? Do you, indeed! Mrs. Penhallow will ask the
Colonel's opinion, he will swear, and the matter is at an end."
"I mean to have that consultation," said John. Tom laughed and nodded approval.
"It's no use, John, none," said the older man.
"We shall see about that. Do you approve?—that is my question."
"If that's the form of advice you want, why, of course—yes—but count me out."
"Count me in, John," said the younger surgeon. "I know what Askew will say and what should have been done long ago."
"An operation?" asked his father.
"Yes, sir, an operation."
"Too late!"
"Well," said John, "he gets no worse; a week or two will make no difference, I presume."
"None," said Dr. McGregor.
"It may," said Tom.
"Well, it may have to wait. Just now there is a very serious question. Aunt Ann made last night the wild suggestion that the Colonel might be amused if we had one of those rummage-sales with which she used to delight the village. Uncle Jim at once declared it to be the thing he would like best. Aunt Ann said we must see about it at once. Her satisfaction in finding an amusement which the Colonel fancied was really childlike. Leila said nothing, nor did I. In fact, the proposal came about when I happened unluckily to say what a fine chance Uncle Sam had for a rummage-sale after a forced march or a fight. I recall having said much the same thing long ago in a letter to Leila."
"Then there's nothing to be done just now, John," remarked Tom McGregor, "but I cannot conceive of anything more likely to affect badly a disordered brain."
The older man was silent until John asked, "Is it worth while to talk to
Aunt Ann about it—advise against it?"
"Quite useless, John. I advise you and Leila quietly to assist your aunt, and like as not the Colonel may forget all about it in a day or two."
"No, Doctor. To-day he had Billy up with him in the attic bringing down whatever he can find, useful or useless."
With little satisfaction from this talk, John rode homeward. Sitting in the saddle at the post-office door, he called for the mail. Mrs. Crocker, of undiminished bulk and rosiness, came out.
"How's your arm, Captain? I bet it's more use than mine. The rheumatism have took to permanent boarding in my right shoulder—and no glory like you got to show for it."
"I could do without the glory."
"No, you couldn't. If I was a man, I'd be glad to swap; you've got to make believe a bit, but the town's proud of you. I guess some one will soon have to look after them Penhallow mills." Mrs. Crocker put a detaining hand on his bridle reins.
"Yes, yes," said John absently, glancing well pleased over a kind letter of inquiry from General Parke. "Well, what else, Mrs. Crocker?"
"The Colonel quite give me a shock this morning. He's not been here—no, not once—since he came home. Well, he walked in quite spry and told me there was to be a rummage-sale in a week, and I was to put up a notice and tell everybody. Why, Mr. John, he was that natural. He went away laughing because I offered to sell my old man—twenty-five cents a pound. I did notice he don't walk right."
"Yes, I have noticed that; but this notion of a rummage-sale has seemed to make him better. Now, suppose you let my reins go."
"Oh, Mr. John, don't be in such a hurry. It's surely a responsible place, this post-office; I don't ever get time for a quiet talk."
"Well, Mrs. Crocker, now is your chance."
"That's real good of you. I was wanting to ask if you ever heard anything of Peter Lamb. He wrote to his mother he was in the army, and then that was the end of it. She keeps on writing once a week, and the letters come back stamped 'not found.' I guess he's wandering somewhere."
"Like enough. I went to see her last week, but I could not give her any comfort. She couldn't have a worse thing happen than for Peter to come home."
"Well, Captain John, when you come to have babies of your own, you'll find mothers are a curious kind of animal."
"Mothers!" laughed John. "I hope there won't be more than one. Now, I really must go."
"Oh, just one more real bit of news. Lawyer Swallow's wife was here yesterday with another man to settle up her husband's business."
"Is he dead?"
"They say so, but you can't believe everything you hear. Now, don't hurry. What most killed Swallow was just this: He hated Pole like poison, and when he got a five hundred dollar mortgage-grip on Pole's pasture meadow, he kept that butcher-man real uneasy. When you were all away, Swallow began to squeeze—what those lawyers call 'foreclose.' It's just some lawyer word for robbery."
"It's pretty bad, Mrs. Crocker, but two people are waiting for you and this isn't exactly Government business."
"Got to hear the end, Captain."
"I suppose so—what next?" Dixy wondered why the spur touched him even lightly.
"Pole, he told Mrs. Penhallow all about it, and she wasn't as glad to help her meat-man as she was to bother Swallow, so she took over the mortgage. When the Squire first came home from Washington and wasn't like he was later, she told him, of course. Now everybody knows Pole's ways, and so the Squire he says to me—he was awful amused—'Mrs. Crocker, I asked Mrs. Penhallow how Pole was going to pay her.' She said she did put that at Pole, and he said it wouldn't take long to eat up that debt at Grey Pine. He wouldn't have dared to speak like that to your aunt if she hadn't got to be so meek-like, what with war and bother." By this time Dixy was with reason displeased and so restless that Mrs. Crocker let the reins drop, but as John Penhallow rode away she cried, "The price of meats at Grey Pine has been going up ever since, until Miss Leila—" The rest was lost to the Captain. He rode away laughing as he reflected on what share of Pole's debt he was to devour.
CHAPTER XXXI
The bustle and folly of a rummage-sale was once in every two or three years a frolic altogether pleasant to quiet Westways. It enabled Ann Penhallow and other wise women to get rid of worn-out garments and other trash dear to the male mind. When Leila complained of the disturbing antecedents of a rummage-sale, Mrs. Crocker, contributive of unasked wisdom, remarked, "Men have habits, and women don't; women have blind instincts. You'll find that out when you're married. You see marriage is a kind of voyage of discovery. You just remember that and begin early to keep your young man from storing away useless clothes and the like. That's where a rummage-sale comes in handy."
Leila laughed. "Why not sell the unsatisfactory young man, Mrs. Crocker?"
"Well, that ain't a bad idea," said the post-mistress slyly, "if he's a damaged article—a rummage-sale of husbands not up to sample."
"A very useful idea," said the young woman. "Good-bye."
In the afternoon a day later, Leila, making her escape from her aunt's busy collections, slipped away into the woods alone. The solitude of the early woodland days of summer were what she needed, and the chance they gave for such tranquil reflection as the disturbance and restless state of her home just now made it rarely possible to secure. She tried to put aside her increasing anxiety about her uncle and had more difficulty in dealing with John Penhallow and his over-quiet friendliness. She thought too of her own coldly-worded letters and of the suffering of which she had been kept so long ignorant. He had loved her once; did he now? She was annoyed to hear the voice of Mark Rivers.
"So, Leila, you have run away, and I do not wonder. This turmoil is most distressing."
"Yes, yes—and everything—those years of war and what it has brought us—and my dear Uncle Jim—and how is it to end? Let us talk of something else. I came here to be—well, to see if I could find peace of soul and what these silent forests have often given me, strength to take up again the cares and troubles of life." He did not excuse his intrusion nor seem to notice the obvious suggestions, but fell upon their personal application to himself.
"They have never done that for me," he said sadly. "There is some defect in my nature—some want. I have no such relation to nature; it is speechless to me—mute, and I never needed more what I fail to find in myself. The war and its duties gave me the only entire happiness I have had for years." Then he added, in a curiously contemplative manner, "It does seem as if a man had a right to some undisturbed happiness in life. I must go. I leave you to the quiet of the woods."
"I am sorry," she said, "I am sorry that you are able to imply that you have never known happiness. Surely you cannot mean that." It was all she could say. His look of profound melancholy hurt her, for like all who knew Mark Rivers well, she loved, respected and admired him.
He made no explanatory reply, but after a brief silence said, "I must go,
Leila, where there are both duties and dangers—not—no, not in cities."
"I trust you do not mean to leave us—surely not!"
"No, not yet—not while I can be of use to these dear friends."
As she moved on at his side or before him, he saw too well the easy grace of her strong young virgin form, the great blue eyes, the expressive tenderness of features which told of dumb sympathy with what she had no knowledge to understand. He longed to say, "I love you and am condemned by my conscience to ask no return." It would only add to his unhappiness and disturb a relation which even in its incompleteness was dear to him. The human yearning to confess, to win even the sad luxury of pity beset the man. In his constant habit of introspection, he had become unobservant and had no least idea that the two young people he loved so well were nearing what was to him forever impossible.
"Let me sit down," he said unwilling to leave her; "I am tired." He was terribly afraid of himself and shaken by a storm of passion, which left his sensitive body feeble.
She sat down with him on a great trunk wrecked a century ago. "Are you not well?" she asked, observing the paleness of his face.
"No, it is nothing. I am not very well, but it is nothing of moment. Don't let it trouble you—I am much as usual. I want, Leila, what I cannot get—what I ought not to get." Even this approach to fuller confession relieved him.
"What is there, my dear Mr. Rivers, you cannot get? Oh! you are a man to envy with your hold on men, your power to charm, your eloquence. I have heard Dr. McGregor talk of what you were among the wounded and the dying on the firing-line. Don't you know that you are one of God's helpful messengers, an interpreter into terms of human thought and words of what men need to-day, when—"
"No, no," he broke in, lifting a hand of dissenting protest. The flushed young face as she spoke, his sense of being nobly considered by this earnest young woman had again made him feel how just the little more would have set free in ardent words what he was honestly striving to control.
"Thank you, my dear Leila, I could wish I were all you think I am; but were it all true, there would remain things that sweeten life and which must always be forbidden to me."
He rose to his feet once again master of his troubled soul. "I leave you," he said, "and your tireless youth to your walk. We cannot have everything, I must be contented in some moment of self-delusion to half believe the half of what you credit me with."
"Then," cried Leila, laughing, "you would have only a fourth."
"Ah! I taught you arithmetic too well." He too laughed as he turned away. Laughter was rare with him and to smile frequent. He walked slowly away to the rectory and for two days was not seen at Grey Pine.
Leila, more at ease and relieved by the final gay banter, strolled into the solemn quiet of the pines the Squire had so successfully freed from underbrush and left in royal solitude. At the door of the old log-cabin she lay down on the dry floor of pine-needles. The quick interchange of talk had given her no chance to consider, as now she reviewed in thoughtful illumination, what had seemed to her strange. She tried to recall exactly what he had said. Of a sudden she knew, and was startled to know. She had come into possession of the power of a woman innocent of intention to inflict pain on a strong and high-minded man. A lower nature might have felt some sense of triumph. It left her with no feeling but the utmost distress and pitiful thinking of what had gone wrong in this man's life. Once before she had been thus puzzled. The relief of her walk was gone. She gathered some imperfect comfort in the thought that she might not have been justified in her conclusions regarding a man who was in so many ways an unexplained personality.
During the next few days the village was in a state of anticipative pleasure and of effort to find for the rummage-sale articles which were damaged or useless. At Grey Pine John and Leila Grey were the only unexcited persons. She was too troubled in divers ways to enjoy the amusement to be had out of what delighted every one else except John Penhallow. To please his aunt he made some small and peculiar offerings, and daily went away to the mills to meet and consult with the Colonel's former partners. He was out of humour with his world, saw trouble ahead if he did as he meant to do, and as there was an east wind howling through the pines, his wounded arm was recording the storm in dull aches or sharp twinges. He smoked, I fear, too much during these days of preparation for the rummage-sale, and rode hard; while Leila within the dismantled house was all day long like the quiet steadying flywheel in some noisy machinery. What with Billy as the over-excited Colonel's aide and her aunt aggrieved by a word of critical comment on her husband's actions, Leila had need of all the qualities required in a household where, as it seemed to her, it was hard to keep tongue or temper quiet.
Mr. Rivers towards the end of the week came in often, and would, of course, see that the Sunday school hall was made ready for the sale. He would make some contributions and help to arrange the articles for the sale. The Colonel's continuity of childlike interest deceived him into sharing the belief of Ann Penhallow, who was, Leila thought, unreasonably elated. Meanwhile Leila felt as a kind of desertion John's successive days of absence. Where was he? What was he doing? Once she would have asked frankly why he left to her the burden of cares he ought to have been eager to share, while Mark Rivers was so steadily helpful. When Ann Penhallow asked him to act as salesman, he said that he was at her disposal. The Colonel declared that was just the thing, and John must uncover and announce the articles to be sold. He said, "How long ago was the last sale? Wasn't it last year?"
"No, dear, not so lately."
"I must have forgotten. Perhaps, Rivers, we might sell a few useless people. What would Leila fetch in the marriage market?" Ann somewhat annoyed said nothing; nor did Rivers like it. The Colonel continued, "Might sell John—badly damaged."
"I must go," said Rivers. "I have my sermon to think over. I mean to use the text you gave me, Leila, some two weeks ago."
Sunday went by, and Tuesday, the day of the sale, came with a return of the east wind and a cold downpour of rain. The Colonel and Billy were busy late in the day; Mrs. Ann was tired; while John in some pain was silent at dinner. The carriage took the Colonel and his wife to the hall. He was now quiet and answered curtly the too frequent questions about how he felt.
"We will send back for you, Leila," said her aunt.
"No, I want to walk there with John."
The Captain looked up surprised, "Why, yes, with pleasure."
She came down in her rain-cloak. "Take a large umbrella, John. How it blows!"
As they set off in the face of a rain-whipped wind, he said, "Take my arm, Leila—the other side—the sound arm."
"You were in pain at dinner, John."
"It is my familiar devil, the east wind, but don't talk of it."
She understood him, and returned, "I will not if you don't wish me to talk of it. Where have you been all these uneasy days?"
"Oh, at the mills. Uncle refuses to speak of business and I am trying to understand the situation—some one must."
"I see—you must explain it all to me later."
"I will. One of the mill men of my Corps needed help. I have asked Tom to see him. How depressed Mr. Rivers seems. Gracious, how it rains!"
"Yes, he is at his worst. I am sorry you missed his sermon on Sunday—it was great. He talked about Lincoln, and used a text I gave him some time ago."
"What was it?"
"It is in Exodus: 'Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself.'"
John's ready imagination began for a silent moment to play with the words. "How did he use it, Leila?"
"Oh, he told the preceding story briefly, and then his great seeking eyes wandered a little and he said, 'Think how the uplift of God's eagles' wings enlarged their horizon!' Then he seemed to me to have the idea that they might not comprehend, so he made one of those eloquent pauses and went on to say, 'You can all, like Lincoln, rise as he rose from the lesser things of a hard life to see more widely and more surely the duties of life. The eagle-wings of God's uplifting power are for you, for me, for all of us.' He made them understand."
"I am sorry I missed it. I spent the Sunday morning with my engineer."
"Aren't you getting wet, John?"
"No. How did he end?"
"What I did not like was the dwelling on Lincoln's melancholy, and the effort it must have cost him—at times. It seemed to me, John, as if he was preaching to himself. I wonder if clergymen often preach to themselves. Some of us have to. The sketch of Lincoln's life was to me a wonder of terse biography. At the close he did not dwell on the murder, but just said—'Then—and then, my friends, God took him to himself.'"
"Thank you, Leila. What a lot of wagons—we must have half the county—and in this rain too."
"Now, John, you hate this affair, and so do I; but the Westways people think it great fun, and in the last few years they have had very little."
"Ni moi non plus, Mademoiselle Grey."
"Yes, yes," she said, "I know, John, but make it go—make it gay, John.
It will soon be over."
"I will try." They left their wet garments in an empty outer room and entering by a side door stood beside the raised platform at the end of the crowded hall.
Quite a hundred villagers or farming people, young and old, filled the room, and the air was oppressively heavy. At one end on a raised platform the Colonel was seated, and near by his wife well pleased to see him smiling as he recognized here and there some of the farmers who had been the playmates of his youth. John stood by the long table on which, covered by sheets, lay the articles for sale. Rivers came forward to the front of the platform, leaving Leila, who declined to sit down, at one side with Mr. Grace and the two McGregors.
The murmur of voices ceased; there was an appearance of expectant attention. Rivers raised a hand, and said, "You are all, I am sure, most glad to welcome the friend who like others among you has paid so dearly for keeping unbroken the union of the States." Loud applause followed, as he paused. "An occasion like this brings together young and old for good-humoured fun, and may remind you of a similar meeting years ago. This is to be a rummage-auction of useful things out of use, and of useless things. If you will explain why anybody wants useless things I shall know why some of you come to hear me preach or"—with a slight pause—"my friend, Grace." Every one laughed, and John and Leila alike felt that Rivers had struck the right note.
"Captain John Penhallow"—loud plaudits—"Captain John Penhallow will mention the articles for sale. Now, as you see, they are all hidden—some of them I have never seen. Whoever makes the highest bid of the sale for the most useless article will collect the whole product—the whole proceeds of the sale, and"—he laughed—"will pay it over to the girl about to be married."
This was really great fun, and even John felt some relief as the hall rang with merry laughter. Only Tom McGregor was grave while he watched the Colonel. As Rivers spoke, Colonel Penhallow stood up, swayed a little, straightened his tall figure, and waving Rivers aside said, "I shall now conduct this sale." This was only a pleasant surprise to the audience, and was welcomed with noisy hands.
The two McGregors exchanged looks of anxious alarm as the Colonel said,
"Now, John!" Mrs. Penhallow smiled approval.
John uncovered a corner of the nearest sheet and brought out a clock without hands. "First article! Who'll bid? I think the hands have all struck like the mill-hands down East. Five cents—do I hear ten? Going—gone," cried the Colonel.
A rag doll came next and brought a penny. There was high bidding over a heavy band-box. When it went for half a dollar to Mrs. Crocker and was found to contain a shrivelled pumpkin of last year's crop, the audience wildly congratulated the post-mistress.
John, who was now thoroughly in the spirit of their fun, produced two large apples. "Now what daughter of Eve will bid," said the elated Colonel. Leila laughing bid fifty cents. "Going—gone."
"Look out for the serpent, Miss Grey," said Grace.
Leila handed the apples to a small girl, who losing no time followed Eve's remote example. "Oh, mother!" she cried, "it's got a five-dollar piece in it—most broke my new tooth."
"The root of all evil," said Grace.
There were pots that were cracked or bottomless, old novels, and to the evident dismay of John a favourite smoking jacket. Ann clapped her hands with delight as John shook at her a finger of reproach. Then came tied up in paper, which John unrolled, the long-forgotten cane of his youth, and how it got there the Squire or Billy may have known. John bid, but at a warning signal from Leila gave up, as she recaptured her property. There were other apples, with and without money; and so with fun and merriment the sale went on to Westways' satisfaction.
"What's this," said John, with an unpleasant shock of annoyance as he uncovered the Colonel's war-worn uniform. He hesitated, looking towards his uncle who seemed bewildered. "That's that rascal, Billy—it's a mistake," exclaimed the Colonel.
"No, sir," shouted Billy, "Squire told me to take 'em. There's a sword too. Squire said it wasn't any use now."
No one laughed; it was obviously one of Billy's blunders. John put the worn uniform and the sword aside and threw a cover over them. It was an unpleasant reminder of the Colonel's state of mind and disturbed the little group at one side of the stage. John made haste to get away from it.
"Last article for sale—it's large and must be bought covered up. Who will bid?" Amid laughter the bids rose. At a dollar and ten cents it fell to Mrs. Pole, and proved when uncovered to be another band-box. Mrs. Pole came forward, and Ann Penhallow pleased to have been able to amuse her husband said, "We are curious, Mrs. Pole, open it." Mrs. Pole obeyed, and as she held up the rolled package it dropped into the unmistakable form of a man's breeches.
Westways exploded into wild applause, understanding joyously this freak of fortune. Mrs. Pole joined in their merriment, and the carpenter punched the butcher in the ribs for emphasis, as he said, "How's that, Pole?" The butcher made use of unpleasant language, as John relieved said, "The sale is over. You can settle with Mr. Grace." As he spoke he moved over to where Leila stood beside the two McGregors.
The people rose and put on their cloaks preparing to leave. Then John heard Tom McGregor say, "Look out, father! Something is going to happen."
The Colonel moved forward unsteadily. His face flushed, grew pale, and something like a grimace distorted his features, as he said, "The sale is not over, sit down."
People took their places again wondering what was to come. Then with the clear ringing voice the cavalry lines knew in far-away Indian wars, he cried, "We will now sell the most useless article in Westways. Who'll buy silly Billy?"
"Can't sell me," piped out Billy's thin voice as he fled in alarm, amid laughter.
"The sale is over, uncle," said John.
"No, sir—don't interrupt. I'd like to sell Swallow."
This was much to their taste. "Guess he's sold a many of us," cried an old farmer.
"Why, he's dead," said Mrs. Crocker.
The Colonel's gaze wandered. The little group of friends became hopelessly uneasy; even Mrs. Ann ceased to smile. "You stand up, Polly Somers—you are the handsomest girl in the county," which was quite true.
The girl, who was near by, sat still embarrassed. "Get up," said
Penhallow sharply.
"She's withdrawed these three months," cried a ready-witted young farmer.
"Oh, is she? Well, then, we will go on." Tom McGregor went quietly up the two steps to the platform. All those who were near to the much-loved master of Grey Pine stood still aware of something wrong and unable to interfere. Rivers alone moved towards him and was put aside by an authoritative gesture. The moment of silence was oppressive, and Leila was hardly conscious of the movement which carried her up beside Dr. McGregor to the level of the platform.
"Oh, do something," she whispered; "please do something."
"It is useless—this can't last."
"Uncle Jim," she exclaimed in her despair, and what more she would have urged was unheard or unsaid as the Colonel turned towards her and cried, "One more for sale!"