Chapter VIII: Part 8

The old lady declined to receive Mrs. Northrup from that time until the day of her death, about four years later, but when her will was opened it was found that she had left $200,000 to her niece, Eleanor Van Zandt, “as a mark of respect for her truth, courage and _artistic ability_,” and $10,000 for a monument “to that gallant soldier and true gentleman, John Northrup, who died on the field of Gettysburg in the defense of his country's flag.” Nell designed the monument, and every Decoration Day she puts a saddle made of flowers on the old lady's grave. But to my tale.

Harry Van Zandt, at the time of which I write, was about twenty-six, tall, broad shouldered, athletic, brown as to eyes, hair, skin and pointed beard, an engineer and architect by profession, an advanced and liberal thinker for so young a man, full of high spirits, though with a depth and earnestness of purpose very refreshing in these days when selfish indifference is the rule, and altogether a manly, honorable, self reliant and energetic young fellow. He had charming manners, reverenced all women, rich or poor, proud or humble, and treated old people with an affectionate deference that won him many friends.

The steamer had changed her course to the left rather sharply, heading for her wharf, when a Long Lake boat, with a woman at the sculls and a young man holding the tiller ropes, crossed our bow and floated by within fifteen feet of us. I did not need the quick, “There she is! Look, Harry!” from Mr. Northrup to know that it was Miss Solander. She had turned her head slightly toward them to bow, and the setting sun shone squarely in her face, making the wonderful amber hair seem a nimbus of golden light against the dark background of her huge Gainsborough hat.

A more perfectly, harmoniously, radiantly beautiful girl I have never seen. Her coloring was simply marvelous, and I inclined to Mrs. Northrup's opinion that it must be artificial. It is impossible to give an adequate description of her--the wonderful child-woman. A face of rounded and exquisite contours, the skin of that warmest, richest, brunette type that is almost dusky; cheeks that had the soft, tender, velvety bloom of a sun-kissed peach; a charming mouth, scarlet as a flower, ripe, luscious, sensitive, ready to curve with sweet, swift laughter or to droop with grief. Her eyes, in the glimpse I had of her, I took to be black or a very dark brown, but later I found they were of that rare deep blue that becomes violet by an artificial light, and, indeed, owing to the length and thickness of the dark lashes, it was not easy at any time to determine their exact color, much less shade. Well, she was more nearly perfect than any other human thing I ever hope to see.

From her gold-flax curls' most marvelous shine,

Down to her lithe and delicate feet,

There was not a curve nor a waving line

But moved in a harmony firm and sweet.

As she passed from view I looked down at the trio below me. Mrs. Northrup was regarding her brother curiously, and I don't think either she or I was at all surprised when he turned, his face aglow with enthusiasm, and said: “What a lovely girl!” Then, with quick change of tone, “Who is that man with her?”

“Lovely as a Prang,” remarked my lady, dryly. “The man is your hated rival, of whom you are already madly jealous. He is young, beautiful and rich, dances divinely, speaks _real_ English and has very nearly a tablespoonful of brains--not that he needs such a preponderance of brain, for he has enough money to make a social success of a jibbering idiot. His name is Francis Floyd-Jones, but we speak of him affectionately as 'Fluggeon,' and those that know him best sometimes lovingly refer to him as 'Balaam's Ass'--but you'll like him, Harry.”

Van Zandt's reply I did not hear, as I discreetly moved away; but I heard both men laugh, and I joined them heartily when at a safe distance.

When we landed I found we were all bound for the same hotel, a capital one, named for and kept by one of a famous hotel-keeping family. The Northrups' little girl, a madcap child of six, was on the lawn waiting the return of her parents and the arrival of her uncle, of whom she was evidently very fond, although she abandoned him speedily in order to hug and kiss his superb Irish setter, Blarney, who licked the small imp's face calmly and appeared in his grave dog's way genuinely glad to see her.

Ethel, as I found out in a day or two, had taken one of those intense fancies that children do occasionally to almost entire strangers to “the lady in rouge,” and would escape to her whenever chance permitted. Poor Mrs. Northrup! Her ranks were deserters to the enemy. Her husband openly admired the gorgeously-tinted girl, her child simply worshipped her, her brother had palpably fallen in love at first sight, and, when we came out from dinner, it was found that Blarney had dumbly sworn allegiance to the violet of two zones and could with difficulty be induced to leave her. The dog's infatuation was put to-practical service by his master during the next few weeks, for that astute young gentleman, when unable to discover the whereabouts of his idol by peering and prowling, would take one of Blarney's silky ears in his hand and whisper, “Go, find her, boy,” which the clever animal promptly proceeded to do, usually successfully, though often the search would receive a check on the edge of the lake and be resumed after a run of a mile on the island.

Madame Nell and I soon discovered that we had a host of common friends in New York and Washington, and that an uncle on her mother's side (poor Dick Whitney, who was lost on the _Ville de Havre_) had been a classmate of mine at Harvard forty odd years before. These kindly young people were as good and affectionate to me as though I had been a relative, and the heart of a lonely old man went out to them gratefully and lovingly.

By the way, I am tempted to repeat a compliment that I overheard toward the end of the summer, because it was the pleasantest and heartiest I ever had paid to me, or rather about me. Charge it to the garrulity of age or simple conceit, but here it is:

I came up behind them one dark night on the piazza, just as Mrs. Northrop turned to her husband and said: “Do you know, Tom, dear, I think Dr. Zobel is the very nicest old man I ever knew; he has the head of a sage and the fresh, pure heart of a little child.”

There was a hop that first evening in the large drawing room of the hotel, and a little while before the music began I wandered in to find three or four small groups talking and laughing, among them Van Zandt and his sister. She made room for me on the sofa, and said I should be her attendant cavalier, as she did not intend to dance. We chatted a bit and then madame began a running commentary on the people as they entered.

“The Robinsons--papa, mamma and daughter. Papa looketh upon the wine when it is red. Mamma is a devout Catholic. Daughter openly defies both parents and, I am convinced, hath a devil. I have ventured to rename them 'Rum, Romanism and Rebellion.'”

“What De Quincy would call 'an overt act of alliteration,' Nell,” said Van Zandt, and added: “Who is the imposing-looking old girl leading the small, meek man?”

“Where? Oh! of course. The lion and the lamb. Mrs. Colter is literary, writes things, reads Browning understanding (happy woman!), quotes Greek to people that never harmed her, and herds the lamb, who never has any capers in his sauce, and who is, I am told, her third matrimonial venture.”

“A fulfillness of prophecy,” murmured Harry, “'And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together.'”

“Harry, you are incorrigible. The young man of peculiarly unwholesome appearance who has just sneaked in is, I am morally certain, Uriah Heep, though he says his name is Penrose. That [as a handsome old lady of large proportions came into the room] is Miss Eldridge. She is very nice, but is omnipresent, so we call her 'The Almighty,' Her escort is Mr. Hinton; he is the biggest, jolliest and--except my Tom--the bestnatured man here. Everyone calls him 'Jumbo' or 'Billy' Look out for him, Buz; he is another rival and determined to have the chromo at any price. There she is with 'Buttons' in tow, and the disconsolate 'Wafer' vainly endeavoring to console himself with his divinity's aunt.”

The young gentlemen were aptly named. The first, a handsome young West Pointer on furlough, in all the glory of cadet gray and a multitude of bell buttons; the other, a pleasant-faced fellow, surprisingly tall and thin. Nell had introduced Van Zandt and me to Miss Solander and her aunt shortly after dinner, and I had had a very pleasant chat with the stately, whitehaired old lady, who was so proud and fond of her exquisite niece. She was Mr. Solander's sister and the widow of Captain Dupont of the French Navy.

Several friends of Mrs. Northrup joined her, and Van Zandt excused himself and went to make one of the little group of men around Miss Solander, followed by a parting injunction from his sister to remember that benzine would remove paint spots if applied while they were fresh.

Beautiful as this flower-faced girl was at all times, by lamp light and in evening dress she was lovely beyond all power of words to express, and as I came to know her I found that her beauty was not alone in her superb coloring, in the perfect lines of her face and figure or in her exuberant health, but was in her life; for she was--and is--that rare, sweet thing, a womanly woman, brave, strong, gentle, generous, pure of heart and clean of thought, a lover of truth, a hater of meanness, with a mind broadened by travel and burnished by attrition; and she carried, moreover, a cloak of charity of such wide and ample fold that it fell lovingly over even the follies and frailties of those weaker ones of her own sex and was proof against the arrows of envy.

With old people and children she was a great favorite; the men were her enthusiastic admirers, and a good half dozen of them were helplessly, hopelessly, over head and ears in love with her; but a number of the young married women and girls professed strong disapproval of her, on similar grounds to those outlined by Mrs. Northrup on the steamer, though I had my private suspicions that, in some cases at least, they were a trifle jealous of the attention she received from the men, who, as is generally the case at summer resorts, were not overabundant. Mrs. Northrup's dislike was an honest one, for she firmly believed the girl was artificial, and having carefully avoided an intimacy knew but little of the lovely nature and bright mind that no one was better fitted to appreciated than she.

Besides, Madame Nell was a born matchmaker and wanted her adored brother to marry her particular friend and crony, Miss Carrie Belmont, a brighteyed, keen-witted, merry little soul, who took nothing seriously except medicine and had about as much fixedness of purpose as a month-old kitten. To a man like Van Zandt, who needed both the curb and spur of a mentality as strong and earnest as his own, she would have been about as valuable a helpmeet as was poor little Dora to David Copperfield. But Nell was fond of the pretty, clever little creature, felt sure (as our mothers and sisters, God bless 'em! always do) that her brother was thoroughly incapable of picking out the right kind of a wife, and weeks before he came had perceived in Miss Solander's marvelous loveliness a dangerous and powerful factor in the personal equations she wished to make equal to each other, so that by the transposition of matrimony they should become one.

Of course this knowledge came to me gradually; but even that first evening, as Van Zandt and Miss Solander passed near us in the waltz, I could see that he was wonderfully taken with his fair partner. For the next few days he was more or less the victim of some little sisterly traps that were set with great tact and amused Northrup and me immensely. Then my young gentleman escaped and made great running, distancing “Buttons,” “The Wafer,” “Balaam's Ass,” and the rest of what Nell called the “fry,” and crowding Hinton closely for what each felt was his life's race for a prize that might be for neither of them. They were a nice, manly, generous pair of rivals, and I never saw either take an unfair advantage of the other. I remember one day I was fishing, when they both rushed down to their boats and started for the island at racing stroke. Just as they were abreast of me Van Zandt, who was leading, broke a rowlock, and Hinton forged ahead; but the moment he saw what had occurred he backed water, tossed Harry an extra rowlock, waited until he had put it in, and then away they went again.

Which was the favored one it was for some time difficult to decide, as the girl was evidently used to a great deal of attention, and accepted it gracefully and even gratefully; but yet somehow as though it was a matter of course. She took many things as matters of course, by the way, among others her beauty, of which she was as little vain as a flower is of its color or perfume, and she labored under the pleasant delusion that men liked her simply because she could dance and ride and row and shoot and play tennis. There was another thing she played beside tennis, and that was the banjo, and it seemed to me that her rich, flexible contralto, the liquid tingle of the banjo and the Spanish words of the song she loved best to sing, made a harmony as soft and sweet as the fragrant, moonlit nights of her Southern home.

Until I read the generous and intelligent praise of the banjo by the gifted pen of America's greatest writer of romance, I had been rather diffident of expressing my liking for this charming instrument, partly because it was rather impressed upon me by my parents, who were a little tinged with Puritanism, that it was low, and partly because a musical friend, whose opinion in matters harmonic I always deferred to, disliked it; but, under the rose, I thought it delicious, and many years ago I used to wander pretty often to a beer garden in New York, where an old darky named Horace touched the strings with a master's hand and drew from them the half sad, half merry, but wholly sweet melodies of his child-hearted race, which always struck some responsive chord in me that no other music ever did.

There was a good deal of musical talent in the three hotels that summer. Miss Solander, Miss Belmont, Hinton and Van Zandt were a capital quartet; Mrs. Robinson was an accomplished pianist and accompanist; a young girl from Troy sang Irish songs to a zither delightfully; “Buttons” gave us the lays of West Point, and “Balaam's Ass,” as Mrs. Northrup expressed it, “really brayed very melodiously.”

Van Zandt had one decided advantage over the other men in his wooing, for he had brought his own saddle horse with him, and as Miss Solander had hers, a beautiful and very fast bay mare, and was an enthusiastic horsewoman, riding nearly every day, wet or dry, he frequently managed to be her escort.

They asked me to go with them one morning for a long ride through the mountains, and as it was not impossible that we might see a deer or some birds Miss Viola took her repeating shotgun, a pretty and close-shooting little weapon with which she was very expert, and Van Zandt and I our Stevens rifles.

My mount was the best to be had in the village, and was a strong, slow animal, intended by nature to grace a plow.

It was a grand day, crisp and clear, and the first level stretch of road we came to my young companions decided to have a race. Away they went, Blarney and I at an increasing interval behind them. At a turn in the road, about a quarter of a mile ahead, Harry's big gray was leading the mare by a good length, and when they rejoined me Miss Solander acknowledged her defeat handsomely, but put in a saving clause for her pet by adding, “She runs her best when frightened. I don't think even your splendid gray could catch her if we saw a bear.”

Harry laughed pleasantly, said he imagined his horse, too, might develop unexpected speed under such circumstances, and we cantered on. A little before noon we left the main road and struck into a bridle path that led through a dense pine forest, utterly impassable by reason of fallen trees and underbush, except on the narrow trail. We had not gone far when our way seemed barred by a huge dead pine that had fallen slantingly across the path and rested on a great boulder on the other side. It was too high to jump near the roots without great danger and the triangular opening by the rock did not look high enough for a horse to go through. However, we dismounted and managed to get the animals through, though there was very little room to spare.

In about half a mile we came to the edge of the wood, and the trail widened out to ten or twelve feet, bordered by a dense second growth of ash. Perhaps a thousand yards farther on Blarney became excited over some fresh tracks in the sandy soil, which we found were those of a deer that had passed only a few minutes before, as was shown by a clump of fern that was slowly straightening its crushed and bent fronds by the side of the narrow road. Miss Solander and I halted, while Harry rode quietly on ahead after Blarney, who was acting rather queerly, I thought, following the deer track for a few feet, then pausing, with nose in the air and bristling back, to snuff the air and growl. Van Zandt spoke to him, and the dog went steadily and slowly forward. He was a clever beast and the only setter I ever saw that could hunt all kinds of game well. Miss Solander promptly emptied the magazine of her shotgun, and refilled it with wire cartridges loaded with “buck and ball.”

I was watching Van Zandt, who was a few hundred feet away, when there was a crashing noise in the brush, and midway between him and us a good-sized black bear stepped out on the trail. My horse made a buck jump that nearly unseated me and backed half his length into the bush. Bang! Bang! went Miss Viola's gun. The bear stumbled, gave a roar of pain and rage, and started for us. The mare plunged wildly, wheeled about sharply and flew back by the way we came. The brute I rode was paralyzed with terror and I could not budge him, nor did I dare to shoot for fear of hitting Van Zandt, and my position of course kept his rifle silent. But he took in the situation at a glance, fired in the air, gave a yell that a panther might have envied, and came toward us at a gallop.

The bear turned to look at this new enemy, and rose promptly on his hind legs to receive him. I saw the gray swerve slightly, heard a savage “Jump, ------ you!” from Van Zandt, saw his spurs go home, and then the great horse rise to the leap and skim over the bear in a splendid arch. Blarney, who was just behind his master, was not so fortunate. He lit fairly on the bear, and was sadly scratched and bitten before he got away. Van Zandt shouted, “I must catch her before she gets to the fallen tree!” and went by me like a whirlwind. It was not much over a mile, she had a hundred yards and more the start of him, and the mare was going like the wind. I fired a shot as soon as the gray passed me, and the report seemed to rouse my horse, who, oblivious to spur and voice, had cowered shivering in the brush, for he shook himself, snorted, took a last look at the bear, which was preparing to join the procession, turned tail and fled, developing speed of which I would not have believed him capable.

It was a horrible ride, not on account of the bear, which might have been a mouse for all the thought I gave it, but because there, ahead of me, in that narrow road, a beautiful girl, just blossoming into splendid womanhood, was rushing to an awful, ghastly death, and a few cruel yards behind her the man that loved her and would so gladly have given his life for hers. Oh, how my heart ached for him, and how I wished the old man that was third in that terrible race might die instead of that sweet child-woman! Could he overtake her? He was spurring fiercely and the gray was doing his best; but though the gap between them was closing, it was closing slowly--and we had entered the wood. Yes, he was surely gaining now, sixty feet more and he would have her. But there was the tree, and he couldn't reach her in time. I covered my eyes with my hands and turned sick and faint. Then came back to me in a man's voice grown shrill with agony, one word, and following it crash! crash! in rapid succession, and again the sound of the hurrying hoof beats.

I opened my eyes. Was I blinded by my tears? There were no dreadful bundles under the tree. Then that word, with its fierce, imperious note of command, which had conveyed no meaning to me in that first awful moment, came through the porch of the outer ear, where it had lingered, into the brain, and I understood--“Jump!” He had taken the one chance left to them at the last moment, shrieked his order at her, and she had obeyed, lifting her mare to a leap that looked impossible. He had followed her, and they had cleared it safely, for I could see their heads over the fallen trunk. I checked my horse, dismounted, led him through the opening and galloped on again.

In a few moments I had the pleasure of seeing the gray range up alongside of the mare and Van Zandt seize her bridle. I joined them and found they were sound in life and limb. Harry was standing by the mare's head, quieting her, and somehow he had gotten possession of a little gauntleted hand and was looking at the girl with a world of love in his fine eyes. She was quite pale, but her face was steadfast and strong, and in it as she met Van Zandt's look frankly was the dawning of something that she was unaware of yet, something that, if she lived would crown her lover's life with happiness “sweet beyond compare”--and my old heart was glad for them both.

Neither Blarney nor the bear was in sight, and as I had hung on to my rifle half unconsciously I proposed going back to look for the dog, but they insisted on accompanying me, and Miss Solander showed her own gun in its carbine holster with the flap buttoned. I tell you it took nerve for a girl on a runaway horse to do that bit of work. Well, we went cautiously back, Van Zandt holding a strap fastened to the mare's bridle, and I on ahead. Nothing in sight until we got out of the wood and had made a slight turn. Then we saw Blarney, very ragged and bloody, but with an air of proud ownership, sniffing around the dead body of the bear. We had some trouble in bringing up the horses, but managed it finally.

Everyone seemed to feel after that that Van Zandt would win and wear the violet. Even Mrs. Northrup was preparing to bow gracefully to the inevitable, when Ethel came on the scene in the rôle of “enfante terrible” and spoke her little piece.

It was a lovely summer afternoon. The next day, Monday, was Miss Viola's twenty-first birthday; her father was to arrive by the evening boat, and several of the young men had planned rowing and sailing races in her honor. Mr. and Mrs. Northrup, Miss Belmont, Hinton and I were chatting in a little summer house just by the edge of the lake, and a few feet away, Viola, Harry and Ethel were skipping flat stones over the water. In a pause in our talk, which had been of Byron, just after someone had quoted:

She was his life,

The ocean to the river of his thoughts,

Which terminated all,

We were all looking at the trio outside and speculating probably upon the future of two of them, when we saw Ethel seize Miss Solander's hand, look up at her adoringly, and heard her say, in her childish pipes: “You're so pretty! Why does mamma called you 'the colored lady?' You're not a nigger, are you?”

The girl flushed painfully, but stooped, kissed the child and, looking straight at Mrs. Northrup, said very gently: “No, dear; and if mamma knew me better she would not think I was colored.” Then she turned, bowed slightly and walked rapidly up the beach. Nell burst into tears, Van Zandt muttered something that didn't sound like a prayer and tore after his lady love. Northrup was so startled and angry that, instead of comforting his wife, he gave her a little shake and exploded with: “It's too ----- ---------- bad! A nice mess you and the brat have made of things!” Then, as the ludicrous side of the affair appealed to his fun-loving nature: “To save time, I'll spank Ethel while you roll out the crust of a nice, re: “To save time, I'll spank Ethel while you roll out the crust of a nice, big humble pie.”

Hinton and Miss Belmont slunk off, and I was preparing to follow them, when the unhappy little woman sobbed out, “Oh, Doctor, please, please don't go! Stay and tell me what to do. Tom's so nasty--if you laugh, Tom dear, I'll kill you.” So I stayed, and while we were consulting what was best to do Van Zandt came quietly into the summer house, his face and tightly-closed lips ashen, and his eyes the eyes of a strong man in pain. Nell rushed at him, exclaiming: “My poor Harry, my darling brother! I am so sorry; try to forgive me!”

He put her away from him with no show of anger, but very coldly, and then, very evenly and in an emotionless, mechanical sort of way, he said: “I have asked Miss Solander to be my wife. She refused me. I hope you are satisfied. I give you my word of honor that I will never forgive you, nor speak to you, until she accepts your apology and my love--and that will be never,” he added, heavily, and half under his breath. There was no doubt that he meant it and would stick to it, and his sister, who knew he never broke his word, after one appealing look at him, threw herself in her husband's arms and sobbed miserably. I followed the boy and took an old man's privilege. He listened patiently and thanked me affectionately, but it was of no use. Then I tried to find Miss Viola, and came across Nell on the same quest; but no one saw her until the next afternoon.

Monday was cloudy and windy, a real gray day. The races were to begin at 3 o'clock, and the entire community was gathered on the shore of the lake. Both Miss Solander and Van Zandt were entered, and I knew their pride would make them show up. The first race was for ladies in Long Lake boats over a half mile course and return, six entries, a handicap of one hundred yards on Miss Solander and fifty on Mrs. Claggett. Viola beat it handsomely and then rowed directly across to the island, where she would have a good view of the sailing race, though I think her object was more to escape the crowd.

After an interval of a few minutes three canoes, manned by Hinton, Van Zandt and another man, came up to the starter's boat.

The canoes got away together, Van Zandt to leeward. They had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when a squall from the opposite shore struck them, and the canoe with the violet pennant (Harry's) went over like a flash, the other two, with loose sheets, running before the wind. Mrs. Northrup screamed, and so did several other women; but Van Zandt was a capital swimmer, and I expected every moment to see him on the bottom of the canoe.

Half a dozen men started in rowboats, but one shot out from the island and fairly flew for the capsized craft. It was Viola, and we saw her, when she reached her goal, stand up, shake off her outer skirts and dive. I had a powerful glass, and when she came up I saw she had him and was trying to reach her boat, which was drifting away. She gave that up and struggled toward the canoe. They went down, and then the rescue boats hid them. It seemed an eternity before two boats pulled swiftly toward us. In the first was Van Zandt, a nasty cut on his head and unconscious, but breathing faintly. In the next, held in the arms of poor “Buttons,” whose tears were dropping on her lovely white face, was the sweet child-woman, all the wonderful rose tints gone from lip and cheek and in its place the sad, cold hue of death. There was no sign of vitality, and I was hopeless from the first; but we were still working over her when the steamer came in, and the next thing we knew there was a heart-broken cry and her father had her in his arms.

Was it the bitter agony and yearning love in that strong man's cry that called back the fleeing life, or was it the sudden jar of lifting her and the fierce clasp of her father's arms that started the stilled lungs? I do not know; but, physician though I am, I incline to the former solution. Whatever may have been the cause there was a faint flutter in pulse and breast, and we renewed our efforts. In half an hour she was breathing softly and the color was coming back to her bonny face. Her father carried her up to the hotel and her aunt and Mrs. Northrup got her to bed. She recovered rapidly, but Van Zandt was pretty ill for about a week, and positively refused to see his sister.

Well, I suppose it was officious and meddlesome in me, but one day when I knew where Violante was I took Nell's hand in my arm and brought them together. In a few minutes they were crying over each other in real womanly fashion, and I prowled off. In about ten minutes little Nell, her eyes shining with happiness, hunted me up and said, “I want you to take me to Harry.” She showed me in her hand a beautiful and curious ring, which I knew was the engagement ring of Miss Viola's mother. Harry was sitting in an easy chair, with his back to the door, when we entered, and, without turning his head, he asked, “Is that you, Doctor?”

I answered him, and then Nell stole up behind him, dropped the great ruby in his lap, and whispered, with a sob in her voice, “With my dear sister Violante's love.” Harry looked at the ring stupidly for an instant, then Nell came around in front of him, and he pulled her down into his arms without a word. And I stole away with wet eyes and a glad heart, and told the news to Tom and Carrie and that prince of good fellows, “Jumbo” Hinton.

That is about all. Mr. Solander gave his consent and something more substantial, and two months later I went to the wedding of “The Lady in Rouge.”

THE BREAKING OF WINTER, By Patience Stapleton

|That's the fust funerel I've went to sence I was a gal, but that I drove to the graveyard.”

“I dunno as that done the corp enny good.”

“An' seems all to onc't I miss old Tige,” muttered the first speaker half to herself.

It was snowing now, a fine mist sifting down on deep-drifted stone-walls and hard, shining roads, and the tinkle of sleigh-bells, as a far-away black line wound over the hill to the bleak graveyard, sounded musical and sweet in the muffled air. Two black figures in the dazzling white landscape left the traveled road and ploughed heavily along a lane leading to a grove of maples, cold and naked in the winter scene.

“They say Ann Kirk left a good prop'ty,” said the first speaker, a woman of fifty, with sharp black eyes, red cheeks, few wrinkles and fewer gray hairs in the black waves under her pumpkin hood. She pulled her worn fur cape around her neck and took a new grasp on her shawl, pinning it tight. “Ann an' me used to take a sight of comfort driving old Tige.”

The man, her companion, grunted and went sturdily ahead. He was enveloped in a big overcoat, a scarf wound around his neck and a moth-eaten fur cap pulled down over his ears. His blue eyes were watery from the cold, his nose and chin peaked and purple, and frost clung to the short gray beard about his mouth.

“Who'll git the prop'ty?” panted the woman. She held her gown up in front, disclosing a pair of blue socks drawn over her shoes.

“Relashuns, I s'pose.”

“She was alius so savin', keepin' drip-pins for fryin', and sfellin' nearly every mite of butter they made; an' I've heered the Boston relashuns was extravagant. Her sister hed on a black silk to the funerel to ride to the grave in; I guess they are well-to-do.”

“Dunno,” gruffly.

Somehow then the woman remembered that glossy silk, and that she had never had one. Then this sister's husband, how attentive he was leading his wife out to the sleigh, and she had seen them walking arm-in-arm the past summer, when no man in Corinth ever offered his arm to his wife unless it were to a funeral and they were first mourners. “Silas never give me his arm but the fust Sunday we were merried,” she thought; “bein' kind to wimmen wan't never the Loweirs way.” A sharp pain in her side made her catch her breath and stop a moment, but the man paid no heed to her distress. At the end of a meadow on a little rise looking down a long, shady lane, stood a gray old farm-house, to which age had given picturesqueness and beauty, and here Maria Lowell had lived the thirty years of her married life. She unlocked the door and went into the cold kitchen where the fire had died down. A lean cat came purring from under the table, and the old clock seemed to tick more cheerily now the mistress had returned.

“A buryin' on Christmas Eve, the minister said, and how sad it were, and I felt like tellin' him Ann an' me never knowed Christmas from enny other day, even to vittles, for turkeys fetched better prices then, an' we sold ourn.” She went into a frozen bedroom, for Corinth folks would have thought a man crazy to have a fire in a sleeping-room except in sickness; she folded her shawl and cape and laid them carefully on the feather bed, covered with its gay quilt, the fruit of her lonely hours. Mechanically she set about getting supper, stirring the fire, putting a pan of soda biscuits in to bake, and setting a dish of dried-apple sauce and a plate of ginger cookies on the table. “Berried on Chrismus Eve, but little she ever thought of it, nor me, and little of it Jimmy hed here to home.”

She looked at her biscuits, slammed the oven door, glanced cautiously around to see if Silas, who had gone to milk the cow, were coming; then drawing her thin lips tighter, went back into the cold bedroom. With ruthless hand tearing open an old wound, she unlocked a drawer in the old mahogany bureau and took out something rolled in a handkerchief--only a tiny vase, blue and gilt, woefully cheap, laughed at by the cultured, scorned by the children of today. She held it tenderly in her cold hand and brought back the memory that would never die. It was years and years ago in that very room, and a little child came in holding one chubby hand behind him, and he looked at her with her own bright eyes under his curly hair. “Muver, Jimmy's got a s'prise.” She remembered she told him crossly to go out of the cold room and not bother her. She remembered, too, that his lip quivered, the lip that had yet the baby curve. “It was a present, muver, like the minister sed. I got candy on the tree, but you didn't git nawthin', and I buyed you this with my berry money.” The poor little vase in that warm chubby hand--ay, she forgot nothing now; she told him he was silly to spend good money on trash, and flung the vase aside, but that grieved childish face came back always. Ah, it would never fade away, it had returned for a quarter of a century. “I never was used to young ones,” she said aloud, “nor kindness,” but that would not heal the wound; no self-apology could. She went hurriedly to the kitchen, for Silas was stamping the snow off his feet in the entry.

“I got fifty dollars for old Tige,” he said, as he poured his tea into his saucer to cool; “he was wuth it, the honest old creetur!”

The little black-eyed woman did not answer; she only tightened her lips. Over the mantel where the open fireplace had been bricked up, was a picture in a narrow black frame, a colored print of Washington on a fine white horse, and maidens strewing flowers in his pathway.

“When Tige was feelin' good,” continued Silas, “he'd a monstrous likeness to thet hoss in the pictur, monstrous! held his hed high an' pranced; done you good to see him in Bath when them hosses tried to parss him; you'd a thort he was a four-year-old! chock full of pride. The hackman sed he was a good 'un, but run down; I don't 'low to overfeed stock when they ain't wurkin'.”

“Ourn has the name of bein' half starved,” muttered the woman.

Silas looked at her in some surprise. “I ginerelly gits good prices for 'em all the same.”

“We ginerelly overreach every one!”

“Goin' to Ann's funerel hez sorter upset ye, M'ri. Lord, how old Tige would cavort when Jim would ride him; throw out his heels like a colt. I never told the hackman Tige was eighteen year old. I ain't over pertikler in a hoss trade, like everybody else. He wun't last long I calc'late now, for them hack horses is used hard, standin' out late nights in the cold an'----”

“Was the Wilkins place sold out ter-day?” said the woman hastily, with agonizing impatience to divert his thoughts to something else.

“Yes, it were,” chuckled Silas, handing his cup for more tea, “an' they'll have ter move ter Bosting. You was ginning me for bein' mean, how'd you like to be turned outer doors? Ef I do say it, there ain't no money due on my prop'ty, nor never was.”

“Who air you savin' it fur?” said Maria, quietly. She sat with downcast eyes tapping her spoon idly on her saucer; she had eaten nothing.

“Fur myself,” he growled, pushing his chair back. He lit a pipe and began to smoke, his feet at the oven door.

Outside it was quite dark, snow and night falling together in a dense black pall. Over the lonely roads drifted the snow, and no footfall marred it. Through drear, silent forests it sifted, sifted down, clung to cheery evergreens, and clasped shining summer trees that had no thought for winter woes; it was heaped high over the glazed brooks that sang, deep down, songs of summer time and gladness, like happy, good old folks whose hearts are ever young and joyous. Over the wide Kennebec, in the line of blue the ferry-boat kept open, the flakes dropped, dropped and made no blurr, like the cellar builders of temples and palaces, the rank and file, the millions of good, unknown dead, unmentioned in history or the Bible. The waves seething in the confined path crackled the false ice around the edges, leaped upon it in miniature breakers, and swirled far underneath with hoarse murmur. In the dark water something dark rose and fell with the tide. Was there a human being drifting to death in the icy sea? The speck made no outcry; it battled nobly with nature's mighty force. Surely and slowly the high wharfs and the lights of Bath faded; nearer grew the woods of Corinth, the ferry landing and the tavern-keeper's lamp.

“I heered suthin' on the ferry slip,” said a little old man in the tavern, holding his hand behind his ear.

“Nawthin', night's too black,” said the tavern-keeper; “you're alius a hearin' what no one else do, Beaman.”

No star nor human eye had seen the black speck on the wild water, and no hand lent it aid to land.

In ugly silence Silas smoked his pipe, while equally still, Maria washed the dishes. She stepped to throw the dish-water outside the door and then she heard a sound. The night was so quiet a noise traveled miles. What was it, that steady smothered thud up the lane where so seldom a stranger came? Was it only the beating of her heart after all? She shut the door behind her and hurried out, wrapping her wet cold hands in her apron. Suddenly there came a long, joyful neigh!

“How on airth did that critter git home?” cried Silas, jumping to his feet.

Nearer, nearer, in a grand gallop, with tense muscles and quivering limbs, with upraised head and flying mane, with eager eyes, nearer, in great leaps thrusting time and distance far behind, came that apparition of the night.

“Oh, my God!” cried the woman wildly, “old Tige has come home--come home to this place, and there is one living thing that loves it!”

The light flared out from the open door. “How on airth did he git across the river?” said Silas, querulously. “An' how am I goin' to git him back in this weather?”

There he stood, the noble old horse that her boy had raised from a colt, had ridden, had given to her when he went away. “Mother,” her boy had said, “be good to old Tige. If ever father wants to sell him, don't you let him. I'd come back from my grave if the old horse was abused--the only thing I loved, that loved me in this place I cannot call a home. Remember he has been so faithful.”

Ay, he had been faithful, in long, hot summer days, in wide, weary fields, in breaking the stony soil for others' harvest, in bringing wood from the far forest, in every way of burden and work.

He stood quivering with cold, covered with ice, panting after his wild gallop; but he was home, poor brute mind! That old farm was his home: he had frolicked in its green fields as a colt, had carried a merryvoiced young master, had worked and rested in that old place; he might be ill-treated and starved, he did not grieve, he did not question, for it was home! He could not understand why this time the old master had not taken him away; never before had he been left in Bath. In his brute way he reasoned he had been forgotten, and when his chance came, leaped from the barn, running as horse never ran before, plunged off the wharf into the black waves, swam across and galloped to his home.

“If there is a God in Heaven, that horse shall not go back!” cried the woman fiercely; “if you take him from here again it shall be over my dead body! Ay, you may well look feared; for thirty years I have frozen my heart, even to my own son, and now the end's come. It needed that faithful brute to teach me; it needed that one poor creature that loved me and this place, to open the flood-gates. Let me pass, and I warn you to keep away from me. Women go mad in this lonely, starved life. Ay, you are a man, but I am stronger now than you ever were. I've been taught all my life to mind men, to be driven by them, and to-night is a rising of the weak. Put me in the asylum, as other wives are, but tonight my boy's horse shall be treated as never before.”

“But M'ri,” he said, trembling, “there, there now, let me git the lantern, you're white as a sheet! We'll keep him if you say so; why hadn't you told me afore?”

She flung him aside, lit the lantern and then ran up to an attic chamber under the eaves. “M'ri, you hain't goin' to kill yourself?” he quavered, waiting at the foot of the stairs. She was back in a moment, her arms full of blankets.

“What on airth!”

“Let me alone, Silas Lowell, these were my weddin' blankets. I've saved 'em thirty years in the cedar chist for this. They was too good for you and me; they air too poor fur my boy's horse.”

“But there's a good hoss blanket in the barn.”

“The law don't give you these; it mebbe gives you me, but these is mine.”

She flung by him, and he heard the barn door rattle back. He put on his coat and went miserably after her, “M'ri, here's yer shawl, you'll git yer death.” The barn lit by the lantern revealed two astonished oxen, a mild-eyed cow, a line of hens roosting on an old hayrack and Maria rubbing the frozen sides of the white horse. “Put yer shawl on, M'ri, you'll git yer death.”

“An' you'd lose my work, eh? Leave me, I say, I'm burning up; I never will be cold till I'm dead. I can die! there is death 'lowed us poor critters, an' coffins to pay fur, and grave lots.”

Silas picked up a piece of flannel and began to rub the horse. In ghastly quiet the two worked, the man patching the woman, and looking timorously at the axe in the corner. One woman in the neighborhood, living on a cross-road where no one ever came, had gone mad and jnur-dered her husband, but “M'ri” had always been so clear-headed! Then the woman went and began piling hay in the empty stall.

“You ain't goin' to use thet good hay fur beddin,' be ye, M'ri?” asked Silas in pathetic anxiety.

“I tell you let me be. Who has a better right to this? His labor cut it and hauled it; this is a time when the laborer shall git his hire.”

Silas went on rubbing, listening in painful silence to the click of the lock on the grain bin, and the swish of oats being poured into a trough.

“Don't give him too much, M'ri,” he pleaded humbly, “I don't mean ter be savin', but he'll eat hisself to death.”

“The first that ever did on this place,” laughed the woman wildly.

Then standing on the milking-stool she piled the blankets on the grateful horse, then led him to the stall where she stood and watched him eat. “I never see you so free 'round a hoss afore,” said Silas; “you used to be skeered of 'em, he might kick ye.”

“He wouldn't because he ain't a man,” she answered shrilly; “it's only men that gives blows for kindness!”

“Land of the living!” cried Silas, as a step sounded on the floor, and a queer figure came slowly into the glare of light by the lantern, a figure that had a Rembrandt effect in the shadow--an old man, lean and tall, shrouded in a long coat and bearing on his back a heavy basket.

“You can't be a human creetur, comin' here to-night,” said Maria; “mebbe you're the Santy Claus Jim used to tell on as the boys told him; no man in his senses would come to Sile Lowell's fur shelter.”

“M'ri's upsot,” said Silas meekly, taking the lantern with trembling hand; “I guess you've got off the road; the tavern's two mile down toward the river.”

“You've followed the right road,” said Maria; “you've come at a day of reck'nin'; everythin' in the house, the best, you shall have.”

She snatched the light from Silas and slammed the barn door, leaving Tige contentedly champing his oats, wondering if he was still dreaming, and if his wild swim had been a nightmare followed by a vision of plenty. In the kitchen Maria filled the stove, lit two lamps and began making new tea.

“Thet was a good strong drorin' we hed fur supper, M'ri,” said Silas, plaintively, keenly conscious of previous economies; “'pears to me you don't need no new.” She paid no heed to him, but set the table with the best dishes, the preserves--Silas noted with a groan--and then with quick, skillful hand began cutting generous slices of ham.

“I hope you're hungry, sir?” she asked eagerly.

“Wal, I be, marm,” said the stranger; “an' if it ain't no trouble, I'll set this ere basket nigh the stove, there's things in it as will spile. I be consederable hungry, ain't eat a bite sence yesterd'y.”

Silas's face grew longer and longer; he looked at the hamper hopefully. That might contain a peddler's outfit and “M'ri” could get paid that way.

“An' I hain't money nor nawthin' to pay fur my vittles 'less there was wood-sawin' to be done.”

“Wood's all sawed,” said Silas bitterly.

“I wouldn't take a cent,” went on Maria, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. “Ann Kirk thet hed the name of bein' as mean as me, was berried to day, and folks that keered nawthin' fur her is a goin' to hev her money an' make it fly. They say 'round here no grass will ever grow on her grave, fur ev'ry blade will be blarsted by the curses of the poor.”

“M'ri, you a perfessed Christian!” cried Silas.

“There's good folks unperfessed,” interposed the stranger; “but I dunno but a near Christian is better nor a spendthrift one as fetches up at the poorhouse.”

“Right you air!” said Silas, almost affably feeling he had an advocate.

The stranger was tall and bony, with a thin, wrinkled face bronzed by wind and weather, with a goatee and mustache of pale brown hair, and a sparse growth of the same above a high bald forehead; his eyes were a faded brown, too, and curiously wistful in expression. His clothing was worn and poor, his hands work-hardened, and he stooped slightly. When the meal was ready he drew up to the table, Maria plying him with food.

“Would you rather have coffee?” she asked.

“Now you've got me, marm, but land! tea'll do.”

“I should think it would,” snarled Silas; but his grumbling was silenced in the grinding of the coffee mill. When the ap-appetizing odor floated from the stove, Silas sniffed it, and his stomach began to yearn. “You put in a solid cup full,” he muttered, trying to worry himself into refusing it.

“We want a lot,” laughed Maria.

“Set up an' eat,” called the stranger cheerily; “let's make a banquet; it's Chrismus Eve!”

“That ham do smell powerful good,” muttered Silas, unconsciously drawing his chair up to the table, where the stranger handed him a plate and passed the ham. Maria went on frying eggs, as if, thought her husband, “they warn't twenty-five cents a dozen,” and then ran down into the cellar, returning panting and good-humored with a pan of apples and a jug of cider; then into the pantry, bringing a tin box out of which she took a cake.

“That's pound cake, M'ri,” cried Silas, aghast, holding his knife and fork upraised in mute horror. She went on cutting thick slices, humming under her breath.