The pleasure of her society was worth some physical discomfort, and I couldn't complain if I did feel for a week or more as if I had been given a sound drubbing. One day, after we had finished a series of games—in which mine was second-best record—who should appear, laboriously rumbling by, but my well-nigh forgotten friend Antaeus.
“What an uncouth piece of mechanism that is!” she exclaimed, turning to look at him—“a sort of caricature of a locomotive, one might say. A veritable snail for traveling, too, isn't it?”
“Yes; his—I mean it's—best speed does not exceed five miles an hour, I am told. A man might walk as fast as that with a little exertion.”
“I wonder if it is a pleasant mode of riding—in a steam-roller?” she said, half musing, her gaze still resting on Antaeus. “At least one would have plenty of leisure for viewing the scenery along the way. I should rather like to try a short ride on it.”
“Should you, really,” I asked, doubting whether or not she was in earnest.
“Yes, indeed, I should.” If she had been half in jest before she was serious now. “It would be a new experience.”
“Hardly an agreeable one for a lady, though,” I commented.
“Oh, that would be a secondary consideration,” she returned with a shrug. “I should value the experience as an experience, and I should be glad to have it to put on my list.”
I looked inquisitive and she proceeded to explain.
“I keep a diary—not a regulation school girl's diary, in which one feels bound to write something every single day of the year, whether there is anything worth recording or not—but a collection of memoranda in which I take a good deal of satisfaction. Mine is a classified diary and is contained in about a dozen different books which began as mere covers with nothing between. By putting in leaves when there was occasion the volumes grew until now several of them have attained to a very respectable thickness.”
“Might I ask, without indiscretion, for a hint as to the nature of their contents, or would that be——”
“Certainly; there is no secret about them. In fact I have been known to show their pages to certain of my friends, and, to be quite honest, I am rather proud of them. As far as I can recollect now, they are labeled with these titles: 'Books I have read, Places I have visited, Notable personages I have seen, Odd or eccentric characters I have met, Strange sights I have seen, Curious dishes of which I have eaten, Rides I have taken——”
“Do you mean,” I interposed, “that every time you take a ride you enter an account of it in your collection?”
“I mean that whenever I ride in or on any unusual sort of conveyance I make a note of it. That particular book dates far back into my childhood. The idea of starting it was suggested to me by a ride I took on a tame ostrich in South Africa.”
My increased respect for a young lady who had ridden upon an ostrich near, if not actually in his native desert, will be understood by the untraveled.
“You have seen something of the world,” I remarked.
“Yes,” she admitted; “I have been about with my father a great deal. An uncle of mine, who abhors what he calls globe-trotting, tells people, with a look of mock commiseration on his face, that I have been everywhere except at the North Pole and in a Trappist monastery. A slight exaggeration that, and yet not so very far from the truth either. I have visited most of the inhabited countries of the globe, I think, and I have had a chance to try riding in a good many peculiar conveyances. I have ridden on an elephant in India, on a dromedary in Egypt, in a sort of horse-litter in Persia, in a man-carriage in Japan, in a sledge on bare ground at Funchal, on a log-raft down the Rhine, on an Indian's back in Mexico, in the cab of a locomotive on the Southern Pacific, in a fast newspaper train out of New York, on an open car moved by gravity—and moved very fast, too—on that wonderful railroad in Peru, on a small landslide among the White Mountains, in a dwelling-house being moved through the streets of this town, in—— but I will spare you further enumeration.''
“I hope, however, that you will let me read the catalogue for myself some time. I no longer wonder that so successful a collector should be eager for an additional specimen. I happen to have some little acquaintance with the man who runs our steam-roller; perhaps I could arrange to have your wish for a ride gratified.”
“Oh, if you only could!” she exclaimed, looking so hopefully expectant that I secretly vowed the thing should come to pass or I would know the most unanswerable of reasons why.
I had learned that Antaeus was neither a native nor a naturalized citizen of our town, but that he owed allegiance to a firm of contractors in a distant city, whose delegate and sole representative here was the Driver; consequently if I could prevail upon him to lend Antaeus I need apprehend no interference from the town authorities.
I began upon the Driver the next forenoon. My persuasiveness took a conventional form, for, not being gifted with an oily tongue, I was forced to trust for success in a great measure upon my chance of stupefying the Driver's conscience with the fumes of several superfine cigars. I spent about two hours in company with Antaeus, taking many turns up and down the street with him for the special purpose of observing his manners and customs. With the advice and consent of his guardian I learned to start, to stop, to reverse, and to steer to my own satisfaction. I had intended to broach the important question that day, but, fearing I might not yet have sufficiently blunted the Driver's moral sensibilities, my courage failed at the critical moment and I permitted myself the expensive luxury of procrastination.
The next day I found the task no easier, and so put it off again, but on the day after I awakened to the fact that delays are dangerous and made the fateful plunge. I frankly told the Driver the whole story, under the belief that he would be less likely to refuse the petition of a lady than one made in my own name.
If he had suspected all the while, from my persistent attentions, that I had an axe to grind he did not mortify me by showing it. He accepted my fifth cigar as he had my first, with an air of supposing it to be offered from motives of the most disinterested friendliness.
I did not meet with success in the outset. The Driver had grave doubts as to the propriety of “loaning” a steam-roller. Had he been a Frenchman he might reasonably have urged that, like a tooth-brush, ça ne se prête pas. However, I overcame his scruples in the end, and, probably in the belief that “if it were done 'twere well it were done quickly,” he agreed to deliver Antaeus into my charge that evening.
Accordingly, not long after sunset, I went across the street and called for the young lady. I realized fully that her father and mother would not have approved of our escapade, but they were absent from home and I tried to believe it was not my duty to stand toward her in loco parentium. She was a bit wilful too, and I feared my remonstrances would do no good unless I carried them to the extreme of refusing my assistance, which, after my ready offer of it, would have been uncivil and unkind.
At an unfrequented spot, on a broad highway, near the outskirts of the town, Antaeus and the Driver—the former under head of steam, and both smoking—were awaiting us. We met them there by appointment at nine o'clock. After many instructions and cautions touching the fire, the water, the steam, the use of the levers, the necessity of keeping a sharp lookout ahead, etc., the Driver left me in sole command, as proud as a boy with his first bicycle.
“You find you have got into rather close quarters here, don't you?” said I, as I perched myself upon the high seat, from which the machine was most conveniently directed.
“The passenger accommodations might be more spacious, but all things considered I hardly think I shall complain,” laughingly returned my companion, who had seated herself on one of the coal-boxes behind me. “I took the precaution not to wear my best frock, so I can stow myself away in small compass without fear of damage.”
Having in mind the trouble I had taken, her delight in the novelty of her situation was highly gratifying to me. She eagerly asked about the functions of the various levers, try-cocks, and gauges, and insisted upon being allowed to experiment with them, as well as with the steering gear, herself. The knowledge, she said, might be useful to her in the future. Antaeus proved to be entirely docile and allowed himself to be guided as easily as a well-broken flesh and blood horse. The big fly-wheel revolved, the fussy little piston pumped up and down with an ado that seemed absurd considering the slow progress resulting, the steam fretted and hissed, the three massive rollers bore with all their might upon the hard surface of the macadam, and thus crunching, clanking, thumping and rattling, we sluggishly made our way into the obscurity of the night.
By and by, in the course of our journey, we came to a gentle rise, the ascent of which made Antaeus puff rather laboriously. For a moment my passenger looked slightly uneasy. “Why does it do that?” she asked.
“The exertion of going up hill makes him breathe a little hard, naturally,” I answered, reassuring her. “He is feeling in fine condition, though,” I added, inspecting the steam-gauge by the light of my lantern; “the effect of a plentiful supply of oats, doubtless.”
“You speak of it as he,” she said, questioningly.
“Certainly; why not?” I retorted. “He seems to me unequivocally masculine.”
“True,” she assented; “still in personifying inanimate objects, are they not more frequently made members of the other sex?”
“Undoubtedly they are, but it strikes me as a ridiculous custom—particularly in the case of great machines. No engine, however big, black or ungainly, but it must be spoken of by the feminine pronoun. It is hardly a compliment to your sex, is it? Think of the incongruity of putting, for instance, a huge steamboat, named for the president of the company, into the feminine gender!”
She laughed at my fancy, but her merriment did not wound my sensibilities. “So it's—I beg pardon, his—name is Antaeus, is it?”
“Yes, in honor of that old giant—do you recollect?—whom Hercules overcame.”
“By lifting him quite off the ground, because as often as he came in contact with Mother Earth his strength was renewed? Yes, I recall the story, and I can see a certain propriety in the name. I rather think this fellow, if he were to be lifted off the ground, could scarcely use his great strength to advantage. Imagine him turned upon his back like a huge beetle, kicking about frantically into the air to no purpose!”
“Undoubtedly he gets his grip from his contact with the earth,” said I. “As a flying-machine he would hardly be a success.”
“Doesn't it strike you that he is almost unnecessarily deliberate?” she queried, presently, with a slight show of impatience; evidently the novelty of the adventure was beginning to wear off.
“More so than usual for the reason that we are ascending an incline; but you must remember that Antaeus was not built for speed,” returned I, defending my friend.
“Evidently not. He belongs to the plodders—the slow and sure sort. He would be entered for a race in the tortoise class probably. Fancy an absconding cashier trying to escape from justice in a steam-roller! It would be funny, wouldn't it?”
I agreed with her that it would be very funny. “Or imagine an eloping couple fleeing before an irate father on such a conveyance!” I suggested, with a consciousness of blushing in the dark for the audacity of the conceit.
“Now, that is good!” she exclaimed, seizing on my idea with an eagerness that showed how far her thoughts were from taking the direction in which mine had dared to stray. “What a situation for a modern realistic, sensational drama!”
“It might be worked up into something rather impressive, I should think. In these days of bringing steamboats, pile-drivers, fire-engines, real water, and railway trains in upon the stage I don't know why a steam-roller might not be given a chance.”
“Why not?” she cried, waxing enthusiastic. “Picture the scene. Enter lovers on 'steam-roller, followed by incensed father in—in——”
“In an electric-car,” I supplied experimentally.
“Pshaw! don't be foolish!” she exclaimed thanklessly. “Followed by father in a light gig, drawn by a spirited horse. Overtakes lovers—demands his daughter—young man respectfully declines to give her up. Old gentleman prepares to come and take her. Is about to descend from gig when steamroller whistles, spirited horse begins to prance, he is obliged to keep tight hold of reins——”
“Very good!” I put in approvingly. “Stern parent threatens direst vengeance, horse cavorts alarmingly, parent rages unavailingly, resolute lover pushes throttle wide open with one hand and retains firm grip upon the helm with the other.”
“While the devoted loveress, with her own dainty hands, shovels in coal and encourages him to stand firm——”
“By the way, that reminds me of something,” I interrupted and, getting off my elevated seat, I bent down and opened the furnace-door; “I rather think I should have given Antaeus his supper before now.”
In truth, I had neglected the fire altogether too long. I hastily threw in more coal, but it was already too late to avert the consequences of my forgetfulness. The pressure of steam was diminishing and continued to diminish in spite of all my efforts to prevent it. Back fell the indicator upon the dial, and more and more slowly worked the machinery as the power behind it became less and less.
“We shall not reach the top of the hill at the present rate,” remarked my companion. “The vital spark appears to be in danger of extinction, so to speak.”
“In very great danger,” I sorrowfully assented as, with one last feeble effort, Antaeus wearily gave up the struggle.
“Nor is that the worst of it,” I added, filled with a sudden apprehension.
“What do you mean?” she asked, disquieted by my manner, though not yet divining the inevitable outcome of the existing state of affairs.
“You had better descend to terra firma unless you want to go back down hill faster than you came up,” I replied significantly.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, comprehending the danger.
“Yes; the attraction of gravitation is going to take us back a deal faster than Antaeus ever traveled before. Shall I help you out?”
“Can't you put on the brakes?”
“There are none; the builders of this machine did not foresee such a contingency as this. It was not to be supposed that Antaeus ever would fall into the unskillful hands of a bungling, blundering amateur,” said I, calling up hard names for myself from out of the depths of my humiliation.
“Don't reproach yourself,” she begged; “it is I who am to be blamed.”
“Shall I not help you out before it is too late?” I interposed, as Antaeus began to gather way.
“What are you going to do,” she demanded.
“Oh, I shall stick to the ship,” I answered grimly.
“But you will get hurt if you do,” she objected.
“Antaeus will get hurt if I don't. Come!”
“No; I shall stay on board, too,” she declared heroically. “Now don't try and persuade me to desert, for I shall not do it. Can't I be of some use?”
Seeing that she was firm in her resolve to stand by me, I gratefully accepted her offer of assistance, which indeed, was of considerable value. It was important that I should keep a firm hold upon the steering wheel, to prevent the craft from yawing, and, unless I were to be continually screwing my head about in a very painful position, I could not very well see the road over which we were traveling. From a position between the coal-boxes behind me—now the front of the conveyance—she could keep a look-out and pass the word to me when it became necessary to correct the deviations in our course. Without her help, it is more than probable that I should have run Antaeus ignominiottsly, perhaps disastrously, into a ditch before reaching the foot of the incline. Even as it was, I had my hands full.
During the ride, which certainly was one of the most disquieting, mentally and physically, that I ever have taken, we said very little to each other. I gripped the wheel, and she grasped the iron sides of the coal-bunkers, between which she stood, opening her lips only to call, “right! left!” or “steady!” as I had hastily instructed her to do for my guidance in steering. So we rumbled and rattled and jolted on down the hill, at continually increasing speed, until at length we reached the base, and I drew a deep breath of relief at knowing that the worst was over.
Arrived upon a level, our momentum gradually expended itself. From an estimated ten-mile rate—which had seemed terrific—we slowed to a five, to a three, to a one, to a snail's pace, and then something occurred which, although not threatening any danger to us personally, filled our minds with the liveliest anxiety for the safety of others. Antaeus came to a stand-still just across the railway track.
“Well?” said my passenger, inquiringly.
“Well,” I returned, blankly, as I pulled my watch from my pocket, “this is—interesting, to say the least.”
“Are there—how about trains?” she queried anxiously.
During the jolting of our forced—and forcible—descent our lantern had gone out; but there was an electric lamp near, and by its light I managed to read the hour upon my watch-dial.
“There is a train leaving the city at ten, due here at ten-seventeen; it now lacks five minutes of that. I must go to the station and report that the way is blocked. I am sorry to leave you—or would you prefer going while I wait here?”
“I think it will be better for you to go.”
“Very well, then; I'll not be long.”
This promise of mine was ill-advised. I hurried up the track to the station, only to find it locked and deserted. It was not the principal station of the town, being one of the half-dozen smaller ones strung at short intervals along the line. In all probability it would not be opened until a few minutes before train-time. As I knew the outcoming train would stop at that station, and thus give me a chance to warn the engineer of the obstruction ahead, I did not feel particularly alarmed at not finding the agent at once. Still I was conscious of some nervous uneasiness while awaiting his arrival.
At last he came leisurely across the street, jingling his keys as he walked. As soon as he stepped foot upon the platform I went to 'him and began to tell my story. I had not proceeded far with it ere he interrupted me with a startled ejaculation.
“Great Scott! The White Mountain express!”
“What? What do you mean?” I gasped,
“New train—put on yesterday—passes here on the way in at ten-ten, and it's more than that now!” he exclaimed in staccato, as he hastily unlocked the station door, and, putting in his hand, seized a red lantern that had been sitting ready lighted on the floor within.
He did not waste any more time with me, but rushed along to the end of the platform, and then began to run with all his might down the track. I succeeded in following him at not too great a distance, although I was turning sick and giddy with all sorts of horrible apprehensions. Visions of a frightful wreck photographed themselves on my brain, the shrieks of the dying sounded prophetically in my ears, and in the midst of it all I was selfishly deploring the fact that I should be called on to pay the damages—at least to Antaeus—and wondering if I could contrive to get a hardware discount off the market price of steam-rollers.
The crossing was still hidden from us around a curve when a shrill whistling broke upon my startled ears.
“T-o-o-t!—t-o-o-t! Toot! toot!”
The agent uttered an explosive invocation to the Deity, and added in tones of despair:
“We're too late; she's onto us!”
Still we staggered mechanically forward, until suddenly, with a cry of warning, the agent sprang aside, and the express went thundering by.
“See here, young man,” my companion exclaimed angrily, “if this is a put-up job——”
“But it is not!” I interposed with indignant protest. “I don't understand it any better than you do. Certainly I left Ant—the roller sprawled across both tracks.”
“Well, I guess it ain't there now,” dryly remarked the agent, watching the rear lights of the fast-receding train, until they were swallowed up in the glare of the “local's” head-light. “I must run back,” he added, recalled to a sense of his duties. “You take this lantern and go and see if the outward track is clear. Stand between the rails and swing the lantern if it ain't. I'll tell the engineer to go slow and be on the lookout.”
In another minute I was at the crossing. I looked up and down the street for Antaeus, but neither he nor the young lady were to be seen. If that Hercules of a locomotive actually had lifted him into the air and carried him off his absence could not have been more conspicuous. But naturally such a feat>could not have been accomplished, nor had it been attempted.
The real explanation of the mysterious disappearance was this. During my absence the fire under the boiler had been getting up, until finally enough steam had made to start the machinery and so the roller had been enabled to roll itself away out of danger.
I was about to start toward town, under the supposition that Antaeus had taken that direction, when I chanced to recollect that with the levers as I had left them he naturally must go just the opposite way—that is, retrace the course over which he had lately come. Accordingly I set out on the run toward the hill. Near the foot of it I found him, diagonaled off the road-side with his nose against a tree, loudly hissing in impotent rage at the unwelcome bar to his progress.
I jumped into the engineer's place, reversed the machinery, and without very much trouble succeeded in getting him back into the road and started on the homeward way. I was putting to myself an uneasy question as to the whereabouts of my passenger, when, to my relief, I heard her voice close at hand.
“Is it all right?” she inquired anxiously; “I feared it was going to blow up or something, it made such a horribly distressing noise.”
“That very noise was a guarantee that he was not going to blow up,” I replied, bringing Antaeus to a stop. “He was merely getting rid of superfluous steam through the safety-.valve. I am very glad to find you again. Will you ride? I think we shall get on smoothly this time.”
Rather hesitatingly she allowed me to help her in. Then, after taking the precaution to add some fuel to the fire, and to inspect the steam and water indicators by the light of my borrowed red lantern, I opened the throttle and started on again.
“Did the train frighten you?” I bethought myself to ask, presently.
“Oh, don't speak of it,” she returned with a shudder; “I heard it coming from two or three miles away, and when it got nearer and nearer and you did not return I was almost frantic. But I couldn't do anything. I don't think it was more than a quarter of a mile distant, with the light gleaming along the rails and making it seem even nearer, when the roller began to move—but, oh, how slowly! I thought I should—well, if my hair hasn't turned gray from that scare it never will do so until the natural time for it comes, I am sure.”
“Well, the old fellow got off in time, evidently.”
“Yes; but with hardly a second to spare. He hadn't cleared the rails of the other track when the train passed. It was a frightfully narrow margin.”
“You were not on board all this while, I hope.”
“Oh, no; that would have been too foolhardy. But when I saw it was making off I didn't want it—I mean him—to go careering and cavorting about the country alone, so I climbed up and tried to take command. You showed me how to use the reversing-lever, and it all seemed easy when you were here, but when I was alone I didn't dare touch it for fear something disastrous would happen. All I ventured to do was to take the wheel and keep, him in the road—or rather try to do so, for I didn't succeed very well. My strength was not equal to it. He swerved a little and then got to going more and more on the bias, until at last, despite all I could do to the contrary, he ran off against a tree and was obliged to stop. Soon afterward that hissing noise began, and, fearing an explosion, I ran and got behind the wall on the other side of the street, and then—then you came. I don't think I ever was more rejoiced to see anybody in all my life.”
I resisted a temptation to make a speech, which, however much in earnest I was, might have sounded silly, and contented myself with remarking that I was glad to have arrived in such good time, and I turned my attention to the taking of her—and Antaeus—safe home.
I could not get to sleep after going to bed that night. The evening's experience of itself was hardly a soporific, but there was yet another matter to occupy my thoughts and prevent my sleeping. Should I venture at the next favorable opportunity to put a certain question to a certain person? If I did so what answer should I receive? I hoped and I feared and I doubted concerning the sentiments of the said certain person toward my unworthy self. I revolved the thing in my mind until there seemed to be little else there but revolution. Progress in any direction, certainly there was none. My body was hardly less restless than my mind.
At three o'clock it flashed across me like a revelation, that I was hungry. I had eaten a light supper hours ago, and now my stomach was eloquent with emptiness; while the blood which should be doing good service there was pulsing madly about in my brain to no purpose. I went down stairs and inspected the contents of the ice-chest. Roast pork and brown bread make rather a hearty late supper, but breakfast time was so near I thought I would risk them—and a good deal of them.
Returning to my room, I set a lamp upon a stand at the head of the bed and, taking the first book that came to hand—it chanced to be an Italian grammar—I began to read. I had gone as far in the introduction as “CC like t-ch in hatchet,” when I grew drowsy. I laid down the book, my eyelids drooped, and there is good circumstantial evidence that a moment later I fell asleep, lying on my back with the upper half of my body bent into the form of a bow.
My slumbers were visited by a dream—a nightmare, composed, I estimate, of cold roast pork and brown bread, uncomfortable bodily position, the memory of certain occurrences in my past history, and an event to be described later. In this dream Antaeus figured largely. He seemed to come rolling across the bed, and me, until he had stopped upon my chest and stomach.
“What are you doing?” I asked in alarm. “Do you know you are crushing me? Get away!”
“I dare say I am. I weigh fifteen tons,” Antaeus replied, heavily jocose. “I say,” he continued with a burst of anger, “you are an honorable, high-minded sort of person, you are. What do you mean by treating me so? Have you forgotten our compact? I have given you every chance man could ask for with her; what have you done for me in return? Nothing. Even worse than nothing. To faithlessness you have added treachery. Not content with deceiving me, you have sought to destroy me. I suppose you hoped to see my débris strewn along the iron way.”
I was conscience-stricken by his accusations; but I could refute a part of them. “Oh, no! oh, no!” I protested, “it was an accident, I assure you. So far from desiring such a thing, I declare that I cannot even imagine your being reduced to débris. I——”
“Bah!” roared Antaeus, and in his rage he began to belch forth smoke—smoke so thick and black that I thought I should be stifled by it. In another moment I awoke gasping.
One feature of my dream was a reality—the smoke. The room was filled with it, and there were flames beside. As nearly as I can guess, the situation on which I opened my eyes had been thus brought about. While I slept the wind had risen and, pushing inward the shade at the open window, had pressed it against the small, unstable stand until the latter had been tipped over, bringing the lighted lamp to the floor. The muslin curtains had caught fire; from them the straw matting, kerosene-soaked, had flamed up, so that now a pretty lively blaze was in progress.
I sprang off the bed, made a snatch at some of my clothes, and got out of the room as soon as possible. After I had helped save everything portable, that could be saved without risk to life, I went and stood before the house in the cool air of the early dawn and watched the struggle between flames and flood. In the midst of my perturbation I noticed something that struck me as being worthy of remark. I had left Antaeus at the edge of the roadway before our gate; now the fire-engine, Electra, had been drawn up beside him. He was maintaining strict silence, but I hoped he was being well entertained, for Electra kept up an incessant buzzing—woman like, quite willing to do all of the talking. At any rate my share of our compact was now fulfilled; Antaeus and I were quits.
In the later morning I saw the young lady. My misfortunes called forth from her expressions of sincerest pity; indeed, she bitterly reproached herself for having been the direct cause of them. When I described my narrow escape from death by suffocation, she grew so pale that I thought she must feel considerable interest in me, although I immediately reflected that it could not be very pleasant to have one's next-door neighbor roasted alive.
By-and-by I told her of my two dreams, and of the way in which I finally kept faith with Antaeus.
“It is a shame that you had to burn up your house to do it,” she commented, “when a brush-heap might have answered the purpose quite as well.”
I thought—or I hoped—that the time had come for making a decisive move with some chance of its being effective. I furtively possessed myself of her hand.
“I should not regret the house so much,” said I, “if I might hope you would deign to extend to me the favor with which Electra has made Antaeus happy.”
This was bunglingly put, but she understood me well enough, although she murmured in reply:
“You have it already; we are—acquainted. Surely you don't want—anything—more.”
But she did not withdraw her hand.
I have just heard that the town fathers contemplate purchasing Antaeus and giving him a permanent residence “within our borders.” If this report be true, I shall use all my influence—from motives of gratitude—to have him lodged beside the engine-house, so that he may be near his bewitching Electra.
AVING completed his breakfast, Mr. Percy Darley seated himself in a n easy-chair, facing the cheerful grate-fire of ruddy anthracite, placed his toes upon the fender, and relapsed into a thoughtful contemplation of Leonard's letter.
“You had best come, my dear boy,” said the letter. “It is a sleepy little town—one of those idyllic Acadian places of which you used to rave when you were tired of the city and fretful at her ways. We can smoke our pipes and chat over the old days, before a fire in my big, old-fashioned grate. There is a noble stretch of clear ice here now. Our little river is frozen over, solid and safe, and the darkest prospects do not foreshadow another fall of snow for a fortnight. The sleighing is superb; and, as Madeline Bridges says, 'the nights are splendid.' Pack up your traps and come.”
The invitation was an alluring one, thought Darley. His head ached, and his heart was sick of the everlasting round of parties and calls and suppers. What a vision of beatific rest that idea of a chat over old times! Ah, dear old times of childhood and youth, when our tears are as ephemeral as our spendthrift dimes!
There seemed to be only one rational preclusion—to wit, Miss Charteris. Not that he thought Miss Charteris would personally object to his absence, but, rather, that he had an objection to leaving Miss Charteris. Miss Charteris was an heiress, and a handsome woman; to be brief, Miss Charteris being rich, and our friend Darley having the millstone of debt about his neck, he had determined, if possible, to wed her. If he went away, however, at this period of his acquaintance, when the heiress and he were becoming fast friends, some one else would doubtless step into the easy shoes of attention.
So Darley went down into the city and telegraphed his friend Leonard that he would be in Dutton on the evening train. He thought he should like to see Miss Charteris, however, before going. He walked back slowly along a particularly favorite drive of hers, and presently met this young lady with her stylish little turn-out, looking very radiant and happy on this bright winter morning.
There was some one with her—a fact Darley noticed with no great feeling of pleasure. It was not a strange thing; but, following the course of things as they had been for the past few weeks, it should have been Darley himself. This morning it was a sallow, dark young man whom Darley did not remember having seen before.
Darley explained that he was about to leave town for a few weeks, as soon as Miss Charteris had drawn up alongside the pavement to wish him goodmorning. Then she introduced him to her companion. “A very old friend—Mr. Severance—just arrived from Australia.”
“Dear old Dutton!” said Miss Charteris, looking reminiscent. “You must not break any trusting hearts down there, Mr. Darley; for the Dutton maids are not only lovely, but proverbially trusting.”
“You know Dutton, then?” Darley answered, surprised.
“Oh, yes! I have a very dear aunt in Dutton—oh, but you will see! I spent some of my happiest days there. So did you, I think, Lawrence.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Severance reflectively, “days almost as happy as the present day. Don't you think, Mr. Darley, that a man's best years cluster round the age of ten?”
Darley could not help agreeing to this. All men, provided their youth has been happy, think so. Darley said good-by, and walked on.
Who was this fellow Severance? She called him Lawrence—Lawrence, by Jove! There was something in it—rather old schoolmates, too, they had been, and what might they not be now? It was more pique than disappointment which caused Darley to wish momentarily that he was not scheduled for Dutton. However, he must stand the hazard of the die.
His things were soon packed; he also supplied himself with a box of the cigars Leonard and he used to love in “the days that are no more,” and a copy of “Outing.” And ten hours later the train, with a jovial roar, ran into the little town, where the lights gleamed cozily against the snowy background, and the sleigh-bells seemed to bid him a merry, musical welcome.
A short, erect, trimly built man with a finely chiseled face and a brown skin that seemed to breathe of pine woods and great wide, sunlit rivers grasped Darley's hand as he stepped to the platform.
“Well, old man!” exclaimed the brown man, cheerily. “Awfully glad you've come! Come this way! Here we are, Joseph! Step in!”
“By Jove! it is wintry here, isn't it?” said Darley, as he slid under the buffalo robes. “What a peerless night!”
After supper the two men made themselves thoroughly comfortable in great leather chairs before Leonard's promised fire, and smoked and chatted.
“You look just the same, old boy,” said Leonard, scanning Darley carefully. “But the hair is a little thin in front there, and I think I see the growing spot of baldness, as Ike Marvel has it. Did you ever read that great book of his, 'A Bachelor's Reveries?' No? Well, you should. I find it sweetest company. Yes, you are the same old sobersides—a great deal deeper than you look, as the little boy said when he fell into the well. And not married yet, eh?”
“Who, the little boy?”
“No; you, you rogue! I should have thought you would have gone off long ago.”
“Why?”
“A hard question to answer. Are we not always in a condition of mild wonder that our friends have not gone over to the married ranks, when we ourselves have not? However, from floating gossip—that tongue's flotsam—I have heard that you meditate going over.”
“Eh?” said Darley, pricking up his ears.
“Why,” answered Leonard, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, “Beau Brummel cannot pay court to a beauty without the world knowing it! I, even I, have heard of Miss Bella Charteris. She is not the sort of girl, if I may make so bold, that I would have imagined you pinning yourself to. I should have thought some quiet, sober, angelic little woman like——”
“Like who?”
“Well, I was going to say like her sister,” said Leonard softly, bending his head over his pipe as he slowly refilled it. “But you do not know her sister, I think.”
“Why, I did not even know Miss Charteris had a sister!” exclaimed Dar-ley in amazement.
“No? Why, Miss Florence Charteris lives here—in Dutton!”
“Miss Charteris mentioned an aunt, and hinted at some one else whom she said I would see, now that I think of it.”
“Irony, I suppose,” said Leonard quietly, smiling a queer little smile. “Yes, Miss Charteris the second lives in Dutton: a quaint, gray little life, good, patient, and God-like. She is the sweet angel of Dutton. But tell me, Percy, are you in love with your Miss Charteris?”
“I am afraid she is not my Miss Charteris,” said Darley, smiling. “And to be candid with you, Jack, I am not in love with her—for which, perhaps, I should be thankful. However, if Miss Charteris does accept me, which I think is highly improbable, I shall marry her for money.”
Leonard shook his head. “I thought that was the way the wind lay,” he said sagaciously. “Don't do it,” he added tersely, after a pause. “Take an old fool's advice—don't do it. I think you would only live to regret having sold yourself into bondage. That is what it would amount to in your case. You are not built upon rough enough lines, I know, not to care at having your poverty sneered at and constantly thrown in your face. It is a puzzle to me how any man with any sense of independence and honor can sell himself, as some men do; and it is beyond my understanding how you, with your fine feelings and high ideal of manhood, ever thought of such a thing.”
This was certainly rubbing it in, Dar-ley thought. But, then, Leonard was such an exceptionally odd fellow, with his one-man-in-a-million code of chivalry and his ethical eccentricities. Still, Darley shrunk at the castigation, because he knew that the feelings that prompted it were sincere.
“But I am terribly in debt, Jack,” he said, almost deprecatingly. “What is there left for me to do?”
“What is there left? The opportunity to fight it out!” retorted Leonard. “Retrench. In a year, or two at most, unless you are hopelessly insolvent, if you live without the profitless pleasures that have brought you to this pass, you can come out triumphantly independent.”
Darley shook his head. “I am afraid I could not stand the strain, Jack,” he answered, almost sadly. “A fellow of your caliber might. How is it, by the way, that you yourself are still in single harness?”
Leonard was silent, gazing in the coals with almost a melancholy air.
“Perhaps I should not say so,” he said at last, “yet you have been so frank with me; but I do not like the subject when applied to myself. However, there is but one answer, which is embodied in that one word that hangs like a pall before the eyes of the young literary aspirant—refused. I shall always be single, Darley. Always the same old solitary sixpence, with my rods and guns and dogs and books. Not bad companions, all of them, when used well—faithful, too. Eh, Rosy?”
The beautiful hound addressed raised her head and looked pathetically at her master, rubbing her nose in a sympathetic way against his leg.
Darley felt deeply interested. “What was the trouble, old fellow?” he ventured.
“The whole story is contained in that one word—refused. I never cared for but one woman; and she did not care for me—at least, not enough to marry. Which was, after all, the most natural thing in the world, I suppose. I could not blame her, could I, since I would only marry for love myself? It is not much of a story, is it?”
“On the contrary, I think there is a great deal in it!” answered Darley, warmly. “I think I see that you loved this woman as only men with hearts like yours can love—once and for all.”
“Loved her? My love has no past participle, Darley! I shall always love her! I shall always think her the sweetest woman in the world, and the best! There is no other like her—God bless her! But you are sleepy, old fellow; and even Rosy is yawning and thinks it is time all decent people went to bed. Let us have one of the old-time horns, one of those old camp-fire nips—and then to bed. To-morrow you shall see our little town. By the way, did you bring your skates?”
“Skates! I haven't seen one for five years.”
“Never mind. I have a dozen pairs, and I dare say we can fit you. Do you curl? No? Well, you shall learn. We have the finest rink within a hundred miles. Here's your room, old fellow! Good-night, and rosy dreams and slumbers bright, as Sir Walter says.”
The days passed happily for Darley. The ice was perfect; and though he had not skated for years, his old power over the art came swiftly back. The river was one glaring, narrow, indefinite sheet of incomparable ice. Then there was the curling-rink, of which Leonard was an ardent devotee. It is a quiet, satisfying sport, this “roaring” game, and has peculiar charms for the man who has turned forty. The snow-bird shooting was good, too, out in the broad white fields beyond the town. And one glittering night the pair drove out into the country, and went on a hunt after some depredatory foxes with some farmers. They did not get the foxes; but they had a jolly supper at the farm-house, and an eight-hand reel in the kitchen, which Darley thoroughly enjoyed—more, he affirmed to his black-eyed partner, than any ball in the city he had ever attended.
One morning, Leonard having some business to detain him, Darley went off alone for the customary spin down the river. Skating out of the town and away past the white fields and the farmhouses, he presently espied a small feminine figure ahead of him, gliding quietly along. Suddenly the figure tripped and fell. One skate had come off and flew out to the center of the ice.
Darley sped to the rescue. The little figure in gray made a futile attempt to rise.