IN WHICH BROOKE SINGS AND TALKS IN A LIGHT AND TRIFLING MANNER.
Brooke and Talbot had thus emerged from the Valley of the Shadow of
Death, but that shadow still rested upon them. Their sudden
deliverance had left them both alike overwhelmed; and as they stood
apart, not speaking, not even looking at one another, there was a
struggle in the mind of each which made it hard indeed for them to
regain any kind of self-control. The vision of death which had been
before them had disclosed to each the inmost soul of the other, and
had led to revelations of feeling that might not have been made under
any other circumstances. They had both alike expected death; they had
said to one another their last and truest words; they had given
expression to their most secret and sacred confidences; they had
bidden their most solemn and most tender farewells; but the moment
which had threatened to be the last of life, had passed away leaving
them still in the land of the living--leaving them together as
before, bound by the new and imperishable tie of a common memory, for
neither could forget all that had been said, and felt, and done by
the other.
[Illustration: "The 'Priest' Was Standing Directly In Front Of Brooke."]
After the events of the morning, Lopez had gone away with the greater
part of his followers, leaving behind a guard of about half a dozen,
as before. The noise of these movements had aroused the two
prisoners, and they had gone to the window to look out, seeking
rather to distract their thoughts than to satisfy anything like
curiosity. From this window they had watched these proceedings in
silence, standing close beside each other, with their eyes turned to
the scene outside, but with thoughts wandering elsewhere. At length
all had gone except the guard, and the last of the band had been
swallowed up by the intervening hills. There was nothing more to be
seen outside or to serve as a pretence for keeping their looks from
following their thoughts.
Their eyes met. It was a deep and an eloquent look, full of unuttered
meaning, which each turned upon the other; and each seemed to read in
the eyes of the other all the secrets of the heart; and standing thus
they looked into one another's hearts.
It was Brooke who spoke first.
"I wonder," said he, in a low, gentle voice--"I wonder, Talbot, if
you had that look when you placed yourself in front of me and faced
their levelled rifles. If so, Talbot, lad, I don't wonder that the
soldiers paused; for they say that the calm eye of man can tame the
wild beast or the fury of the maniac; and so your eyes tamed the
madness of these fierce ruffians. Was your look then, Talbot, as
calm and as firm as it is now?"
"It was fixed," said Talbot, in a gentle voice, "unalterably. But it
was not their rifles that I saw; it seemed then as though I saw the
other world."
A short silence followed, and then Brooke spoke again, in a voice
which was very weak and tremulous.
"And you, Talbot, stood before their bullets, offering your life for
mine!"
The accents of his voice seemed to quiver with suppressed passion and
infinite tenderness.
"It was only a fair exchange," said Talbot, slowly; and her voice
thrilled, as she spoke, through the heart of Brooke as he went over
to her to listen; "for you were giving up your own life for me."
There was silence now for some time, during which their eyes were
fastened upon one another. At length Brooke drew a long breath and
turned away. Then he began abruptly to sing one of his droll songs.
His voice was faint at first, but grew stronger as he went on:
"Billy Taylor was a gay young rover,
Full of mirth and full of glee;
And his mind he did discover
To a maid of low degree.
Rite follalol-lol-lol-lol-lido,
Rite follalol-lol-lol-lol-lay."
"You see," continued he, "my way is to sing while I can. There are
too many times in life when you can't sing 'Billy Taylor.' Then you
may retire to your corner, and wear sackcloth and ashes. Such a time
is coming, Talbot, lad, when the strain of 'Billy Taylor' shall be
heard no more. But so long as I can I'll sing:
"'But this maiden had a parient,
Who was very stern to she.
"Fly, oh, fly, my dearest darter,
From the wiles of your Billee!"
Rite follalol-lol-lol-lol-lido,
Rite follalol-lol-lol-lol-lay.'"
During this little diversion of Brooke's Talbot said nothing. It was,
as he said, his way, and Talbot had grown accustomed to it. A long
silence followed, after which Brooke once more addressed her.
"Talbot," said he, "we have been acquainted only two or three days,
and we have told one another all that is in our hearts. So it seems
as if we had been friends for a long time. Yes, Talbot; if I were to
count over all the friends of all my life, I could not find one like
you--no, not one. And now, if we both escape and you go back to your
people, how strange it will be never to meet again."
"Never to meet again!" repeated Talbot; and an expression as of sharp
and sudden pain flashed over her face. "You do not mean to say that
you will never come to me?"
"Come to you!" repeated Brooke, and he gave that short laugh of his.
"Oh yes--I'll come, of course, and I'll leave my card; and perhaps
you'll be 'not at home,' or perhaps I'll be asked to call again, or
perhaps--"
Talbot smiled, and Brooke, catching her eye, smiled also, and stopped
abruptly.
Then followed another silence, which, however, unlike most of such
periods, was not at all embarrassing.
"Have you noticed," said Talbot, at length, "that they have left the
same small guard which they left before?"
"Oh yes; but what of that?"
"Don't you think that now, after what has happened, they might be far
less strict, and be open to a moderate bribe?"
"Bribe? And why?" asked Brooke.
"Why? why?" repeated Talbot, in surprise. "Why, to escape--to get our
freedom."
"But suppose I don't want my freedom?" said Brooke.
"Not want it? What do you mean? Do you suppose that I may not be
strong enough for the journey? Don't be afraid of that. I feel strong
enough now for any effort. I'll fly with you--anywhere, Brooke."
"Fly?" said Brooke; "fly? What, and take you to your friends? And
then what? Why, then--a long good-bye! Talbot, I'm too infernally
selfish. I'll tell you a secret. Now that the worst is over--now that
there doesn't seem to be any real danger--I'll confess that I enjoy
this. I don't want it to end. I feel not only like singing, but like
dancing. I want to be always living in a tower, or an old windmill,
or anywhere--so long as I can look up and see you, I don't want
anything more in the world. And when I look up and see Talbot no
more--why, then I'll stop singing. For what will life be worth then,
when all its sunlight, and bloom, and sweetness, and joy are over,
and when they are all past and gone forever? Life! why, Talbot, lad, I
never began to know what life could be till I saw you; and do you
ask me now to put an end to our friendship?"
This was what Brooke said, and then he turned off into a song:
"Then this maiden wiped her eyelids
With her pocket-handkerchee;
Though I grow a yaller spinster
I will stick to my Billee!
Rite follalol-lol-lol-lol-lido,
Rite follalol-lol-lol-lol-lay."
After this there followed another prolonged silence. Talbot was now
the first to speak.
"Brooke," said she, in her low, soft, tremulous voice, which had died
down almost to a whisper, "we know the secrets of one another's
hearts. Oh, Brooke! Brooke! why have we never met before? Oh, Brooke!
how strangely we have drifted together! How much we have learned
about each other! Is Fate so bitter as to make us drift away,
after--after--"
Her voice died away altogether, and she turned her face aside and
bowed down her head.
Brooke looked at her for a moment, and seemed about to take her hand,
but he conquered this impulse and resolutely averted his eyes.
"Don't know, I'm sure," said he, at last, with an affectation of airy
indifference.
"It would take a man with a head as long as a horse to answer such a
question as that. Talbot, lad, you shouldn't plunge so deep into the
mysteries of being."
After this there was another silence, and then Talbot looked up at
Brooke with her deep, dark glance, and began to speak in a calm
voice, which, however, did not fail to thrill through the heart of
Brooke as he listened.
"Brooke," said she, "you have your own way. Your way is to conceal a
most tender and pitying heart under a rough or at least an
indifferent manner--to hide the deepest feeling under a careless
smile, and pretend to be most volatile and flippant when you are most
serious. You can perform heroic actions as though they were the
merest trifles, and lay down your life for a friend with an idle
jest. You make nothing of yourself and all of others. You can suffer,
and pretend that you enjoy it; and when your heart is breaking, you
can force your voice to troll out verses from old songs as though
your chief occupation in life were nonsense, and that alone. And this
is the man," continued Talbot, in a dreamy tone, like that of one
soliloquizing--"this is the man that I found by chance in my
distress; the man that responded to my very first appeal by the offer
of his life; that went into the jaws of death merely to bring me
food; the man that gave up all the world for me--his duty, his love,
his life; the man that has no other purpose now but to save me, and
who, when his whole frame is quivering with anguish, can smile, and
sing, and--"
"Well, what of it?" interrupted Brooke, harshly. "What of it, oh,
thou searcher of hearts? And, moreover, as to nonsense, don't you
know what the poet says?
"'A little nonsense now and then
Is relished by the wisest men.'
Moreover, and, yea, more, as to smiles and laughter, don't you know
what another poet says?--Shakspeare, for instance:
"''Tis better to laugh than be sighing;'
or, as Lord Bacon, or Plato, or somebody else says, 'Laugh and grow
fat.' And didn't John Bunyan prefer the House of Mirth to the House
of Mourning?
"'John Bunyan was a tinker bold,
His name we all delight in;
All day he tinkered pots and pans,
All night he stuck to writin'.
In Bedford streets bold Johnny toiled,
An ordinary tinker;
In Bedford jail bold Johnny wrote--
Old England's wisest thinker.
About the Pilgrims Johnny wrote,
Who made the emigration;
And the Pilgrim Fathers they became
Of the glorious Yankee nation.
Ad urbem ivit Doodlius cum
Caballo et calone,
Ornavit plnma pilenm
Et diiit:--Maccaroni!'
"Excuse me," he continued; "you don't understand dog-Latin, do you,
Talbot?"
"No," said she, with a smile, "but I understand you, Brooke."
"Well," said Brooke, "but apart from the great question of one
another which is just now fixing us on the rack, or on the wheel, or
pressing us to any other kind of torment, and considering the great
subject of mirthfulness merely in the abstract, do you not see how
true it is that it is and must be the salt of life, that it preserves
all living men from sourness, and decay, and moral death? Now,
there's Watts, for instance--Isaac Watts, you know, author of that
great work, 'Watts's Divine Hymns and Spiritual Songs for Infant
Minds,' or it may have been 'Watts's Divine Songs and Spiritual Hymns
for Infant Mind.' I really don't remember. It's of no consequence.
Now, what was Watts? Why, on my side altogether. Read his works.
Consult him in all emergencies. If anything's on your mind, go and
find Watts on the mind. It'll do you good. And as the song says:
"'Oh, the Reverend Isaac Watts, D.D.,
Was a wonderful boy at rhyme;
So let every old bachelor fill up his glass
And go in for a glorious time.
_Chorus_.--Let dogs delight
To bark and bite,
But we'll be jolly, my lads, to-night.'"
During this last little diversion Brooke never turned his eyes toward
Talbot. She was close by his side; but he stood looking out of the
window, and in that attitude kept rattling on in his most nonsensical
way. It was only in this one fact of his careful manner of eluding
the grasp, so to speak, of Talbot's eyes, that an observer might
discern anything but the most careless gayety. To Talbot, however,
there was something beneath all this, which was very plainly visible;
and to her, with her profound insight into Brooke's deeper nature,
all this nonsense offered nothing that was repellent; on the
contrary, she found it most touching and most sad. It seemed to her
like the effort of a strong man to rid himself of an overmastering
feeling--a feeling deep within him that struggled forever upward and
would not be repressed. It rose up constantly, seeking to break
through all bounds; yet still he struggled against it; and still, as
he felt himself grow weaker in the conflict, he sought refuge in
fresh outbursts of unmeaning words. But amidst it all Talbot saw
nothing except the man who had gone forth to die for her, and in all
his words heard nothing except the utterance of that which proved the
very intensity of his feelings.
"Oh yes," continued Brooke, "there are lots of authorities to be
quoted in favor of mirthfulness. I've already mentioned Bunyan and
Watts. I'll give you all the rest of the old divines.
"'Oh, Baxter is the boy for me,
So fall of merriment and glee:
And when I want a funny man,
I turn to any old Puritan:--
A Puritan,
A funny man,
I read the works of a Puritan!
Among the Puritan divines
Old Cotton Mather brightest shines,
And he could be a funny man,
Because he was a Puritan:--
A Puritan,
A funny man,
Old Mather was a Puritan!
The old Blue-Laws, of all the best,
Od Calvin made in solemn jest;
For fun he never could tolerate.
Unless established by the State:--
A Puritan,
A funny man,
John Calvin was a Puritan!"
This eccentric song Brooke droned out in nasal tones and with a
lachrymose whine to the strangest tune that ever was heard. At its
close he heaved a sigh, and said:
"Well, it's dry work singing hymns all by myself, and you won't even
'jine' in the choruses, and so--I'll stop the machine."
Saying this, he turned away and went to the opposite side of the
small loft, where he sat down with his head against the wall.
"Does any lady or gentleman present object to smoking?" said he,
after a brief pause, as he drew forth his pipe and smoking materials.
"Because I propose to take a smoke, and I should like to know, just
out of curiosity."
To this Talbot made no reply, but sat down opposite Brooke, in the
same attitude, and watched him as he smoked, which he proceeded to do
without any further delay.
"You don't smoke, I believe, sir," said he, with all gravity.
Talbot said nothing.
"Well," said Brooke, "I wouldn't advise you to begin;" and with that
he went on puffing away.
Brooke at last finished his smoke, after which he put his pipe in his
pocket, and then, throwing his head back, sat with his eyes
obstinately fixed on the ceiling.
Talbot remained in the same attitude, without moving. She had kept
her eyes all this time fixed on Brooke, and knew that he was avoiding
her glance. All the same, however, she continued watching him, and
was waiting patiently till she should catch his eye. But Brooke, as
though aware of her purpose, avoided her, and still locked away.
Thus these two sat in utter silence for a long time.
It was Talbot who first broke the silence.
"Brooke," said she, in a soft, low voice, which sounded like a sigh.
"Well, Talbot," said Brooke, in a voice which was strangely altered
from the somewhat hard tones of forced gayety in which he had last
been speaking.
"Brooke," said Talbot, "I am miserable."
Brooke was silent for a time. He made a movement, then checked
himself, and then said,
"Are you? Odd, too, isn't it?"
"I am miserable," said Talbot again; "and it is strange, for your
life has been saved, and we are out of immediate danger. Yet I am now
more miserable than I was last night when your life was in danger.
Can you tell me why it is so, Brooke?"
Again Brooke made a movement, which he checked, as before, by a
strong impulse.
"Give it up," said he, shortly.
"I know," said Talbot. "I'll tell you. It was this," and her voice
dropped as she spoke to a lower tone. "Last night I had made up my
mind to die for you, Brooke."
Brooke drew a long breath. For an instant his eyes lowered. They
caught the gaze which Talbot had fixed on him--deep, intense,
unfathomable. It was but for a moment, and then it was as though he
made a violent effort, and tore them away.
One of his hands caught at the other, and held it in a tight grip.
"Too much Talbot in that," he said at length, in a harsh voice. "If
you go on dying for people, what'll become of you?"
"And now," continued Talbot, in a dreamy way--"now, when suspense and
danger seem over, I am miserable--simply miserable, Brooke. Why
should my mind have such strange alternations, feelings so
contradictory, so unreasonable? I ought to be happy--why am I not?"
"Now," said Brooke, in the same harsh tone as before, "you're
beginning to talk metaphysics, and I'm all at sea there."
Talbot was silent.
Brooke began to sing:
"How doth the little busy bee
Improve the shining hour.
But I prefer
The caterpil-ler
That feeds on the self-same flower.
The bee he slaves for all his life;--
Not so the other one;
For he soars to the sky,
A butterfly,
Ere half his days are done."
Silence now followed for a very long time. It was at length broken by
Brooke.
"Talbot," said he, in a soft, low voice.
"Well, Brooke," said Talbot.
"Will you be silent if I say something?"
"Yes, Brooke."
"Not speak a word?"
"No, Brooke."
"Not move an inch?"
"No, Brooke."
"Well," said Brooke, on second thoughts, "I think I won't say it."
Talbot said nothing.
Brooke sat looking away, as usual, but now, at last, his eyes, which
had so long avoided hers, sank down till they met her gaze. They
rested there, and these two sat in silence, regarding one another
with a strange, sad look of longing, as though there was between them
a barrier over which they dared not pass. And that barrier arose
there, invisible yet impassable--the pledge of honor and fidelity
already given by each to another, at the thought of which they had
now to crush down the surging passions within.
"Talbot," said Brooke once more.
"Well, Brooke," was the answer.
"Oh, Talbot! Talbot! Do you know what I wish to say?"
"Yes, Brooke," said Talbot. "I know it. I know it--all."
"Well, I will say it," said Brooke, "for I cannot keep it. Oh,
Talbot! it is this--it is part of my Puritan education, perhaps. Oh,
Talbot"--and his eyes rested on hers with a devouring gaze, and his
voice trembled and died out into almost inaudible tones--"oh, Talbot,
my younger brother Talbot! Very pleasant hast thou been unto me. Thy
love to me is wonderful--passing the love of women!"
Talbot was true to her promise. She did not move an inch and she did
not speak a word. But her eyes were fixed upon his; and in those eyes
Brooke saw once again what he had seen before--the look of a love
that had already shown itself stronger than life.
* * *
It was evening.
Suddenly there arose a noise outside. Brooke started up and went to
the window, where he stood looking out. It was Lopez, with all his
followers, who were returning.
Brooke, in his usual fashion, sang:
"Oh, little Jack he climbed so high,
Up the beanstalk into the sky,
And there he saw an ogre grim
A comin' to make mince-meat of him.
Singing fe-fi-fo-fum--
I smell the blood of nu Englishmun!"