ANOTHER VAIN JOURNEY
Elizabeth stood still, the lamp shaking in her hand. When at last she
had taken the few steps between her and her bureau and had set down the
lamp it seemed to her that she had accomplished a great feat.
They commanded her to bring back “the paper.” What paper? Was it the
will she had written for the poor old woman? Herbert’s safety should
not be jeopardized for that! It lay on the beam in her house. What had
they done with Herbert? Had they carried him to some cave or den, or to
some dreadful cabin like the one she had visited? Would they torture
him, starve him?
Elizabeth quite lost her head. She looked again into the stable to
convince herself that Joe was really not there. Then she started into
the blackness of the wood road. As she went, she called, and the
echo from the higher hill broken by the trees answered her faintly,
“Herbert! Herbert!” Or was it a voice mocking her distress?
Before she had gone half a mile, she realized that nothing was to be
gained by this procedure. She was not sure that she was still in the
road; she had walked into trees, and long shoots of crow’s-foot, which
grew only in the deeper woods, reached out and grasped her ankles. If
she lost the road, she would have to spend the night in the woods and
that would not profit Herbert. She must start back while she was still
sure that she could extricate herself.
Once more she seemed to hear voices, and called. If Herbert were near,
he would answer. But when she stopped and listened, she heard only the
murmuring wind.
Again she grew terror-stricken and started to run. There was no unhappy
situation in Herbert’s life from which she had not rescued him, whether
it was from the small ills of childhood or the more serious troubles
of his later days. She blamed herself now for having expected too much
of him. He was still frail and she had required him to take the part of
a strong man. For the past few weeks there had been not a coldness, but
a silence between them. She should have told him the full extent of the
hatred for their grandfather or she should not have left him alone.
Then she started to run. Now the road was comparatively smooth and she
knew each turn. He must be at home. This was not the day of brigands!
Surely she would find him watching for her, worried because she had not
come!
But Herbert was not at home. The old house was grim and silent and
empty.
Common sense directed that she should go at once for help. But who
would help her on this inhospitable hill? Would people not rather
rejoice in her misfortune? Who would venture now, at night, into the
neighborhood of the mountaineers of whom every one was afraid by day?
She thought of the words of the farmer. “There are things you’d better
just let be, like weasels and skunks.”
She remembered all that Colonel Thomas had told her of them, of their
certain aim, of their indifference to authority. It would be far better
to negotiate with them herself, to go alone and make any concession to
bring Herbert back. Then she and Herbert would flee from the home of
their ancestors never, never to return.
It was now almost midnight and the distance to dawn was not long.
Elizabeth sat all night at the window, listening, and certain that
she heard occasionally the sound of a footstep. At the first sign of
daylight she would start and go on foot to the old cabin and thence
into the mountaineers’ settlement.
Just before daylight she heard a sound and saw a dark form emerge from
the woods. She leaned far out the window to see as well as she could.
At first she thought it was Herbert, but it proved to be too large an
object to be human. When she recognized old Joe, she rushed out and
took him by the bridle. He was dull of vision and feeble of step and
therefore ill-equipped to make his way alone through thickets and over
rocks, but eventually instinct had brought him home, though he had
suffered cruelly on the journey. His skin was torn by briars, his knees
were bleeding from numerous falls.
Elizabeth caught the bridle. In the dim light she could see that it had
been severed apparently by a knife. She talked to him as she fed him
and brushed him gently.
“Oh, you poor Joe, you’ve got to start out again! I’m sorry for you,
but I’ve got to go as fast as I can!”
In the first gray light she climbed on old Joe’s back. He gave a
resentful whinny and then started into the woods in which he had
recently had such perilous adventure. Once he snorted as though in
alarm, and Elizabeth looked round sharply. But she could see no
dangerous object, and Joe could not speak to tell her of a guard asleep
under a tree.
Little by little the woods grew gray; then the trunks of the trees
turned pale gold. The chorus of the birds sounded from the tree-tops
and from every thicket. It was the moment in which the cheerful heart
is most uplifted.
But Elizabeth grew more anxious. She really expected that she would
see Herbert, making his way homeward, but she heard no human sound,
saw no human being until she came in sight of the little cabin. The
road-makers were not at work, and the last bend of the road seemed like
a door which would close behind her. No living soul would know where
she was or where Herbert was, except their enemies. She had left no
clue in the house, for she had carried with her in her pocket even the
notice which she had found upon the floor.
When she came in sight of the cabin she heard Mammy Sheldon crying. Did
the poor soul cry all the time, or did her ear warn her of the approach
of a step, and did she then begin to sob and moan? She recognized
Elizabeth and made a frantic effort to lift herself on her elbow.
“Don’t give it to him! Don’t give it to him!”
Elizabeth went close to the bed.
“What is it he wants?”
“He wants my last testament, so as to tear it up or burn it an’ to
have the money to spend for a gun. My money to be buried decent with a
preacher an’ the singin’ of psalms. Don’t give it to him! Don’t give it
to him!”
Elizabeth could see on the beam above her head the edge of the white
paper, still undisturbed.
“Where is my brother?”
Mammy Sheldon looked long at Elizabeth. Into her eyes came a look of
crazy cunning.
“They shot him,” said she. “Of course they shot him! It was right
outside this door.”
Elizabeth laughed hysterically.
“What nonsense! They did not shoot him! Where is he? I helped you; now
you help me.”
The old woman laid her head down on her poor pillow. She began to cry
once more about a decent burial. Whether she was trying to deceive, or
whether her mind could not hold an idea more than a moment, it was hard
to say.
Elizabeth walked to the door and looked out. The tall trees, the
glimpses of sky, the brown earth covered with a carpet of pine needles
and dead leaves--this was surely no place of execution! Only the
loneliness and the dreadful sound were ominous; there was no bird’s
song, even in the early morning, loud enough to make itself heard above
the wild sobbing.
Elizabeth went back to the bed.
“Where is my brother?” she demanded. “They must have come to the house
yesterday and compelled him to come with them.”
The old woman did not answer.
“They want a paper. Is it the paper that I wrote for you?”
The mention of the “testament” caught Mammy Sheldon’s attention.
“Don’t give it to them! They’ll take my money and bury me like a dog.
Don’t give it to them; oh, please, oh, please!”
“I shan’t if you tell me what they have done with my brother.”
“They don’t tell me what they do. I’m away off yere from ’em. But
they’ll get their pay! Their children’ll treat ’em as they’ve treated
me!”
“Where are the people that feed you and take care of you?”
“Buried,” answered Mammy Sheldon. “Dead and buried.”
“They are not dead and buried! Some one brought you food within the
last few days.”
But no further answer was to be had from the old woman. She seemed now
to be asleep.
Elizabeth stood for a moment considering. Then she reached up and
pushed the will a little farther back on the beam. There it could not
be seen, but she could direct them where to find it. She would pay the
old woman’s funeral expenses if they destroyed the will and if she died
penniless. Forty dollars was nothing compared to the precious life
which might now be in danger.
Clambering to old Joe’s back, Elizabeth started to go farther into
the woods. For herself she had not the least fear. If she could only
see Sheldon and find what they wanted of her! Sometimes she bravely
determined to hold out against them even if it were only the will which
they wanted. The old woman should do with her money what she chose,
they should not coerce her! They would get tired and let Herbert go;
they would not risk their lives for the sake of forty dollars! If
she gave them the will, she would only be doing what all the other
inhabitants had been doing for generations, ignoring their crimes for
fear of reprisal and giving them a free hand. It was no wonder they had
no fear of God or man!
But they had actually carried off her brother! It was difficult to hold
to any principle when one remembered that!
As she rode on, looking eagerly from side to side, another suspicion
entered her mind. Was it possible that they suspected Old Mammy Sheldon
of having revealed some secret of the past, some hidden crime? The
farmer had said that they would not stop at murder. The old woman had
talked about some one who was shot and buried. Elizabeth shuddered.
Presently she came to a place where the dim road divided, one fork
going toward the right, the other bending toward the left. There was
nothing which indicated the way to the mountaineers’ settlement, except
that the right-hand road seemed to run against an almost perpendicular
section of the mountain-side. The lay of the land seemed to indicate
that that road did not go far.
Selecting the road to the left, she rode on, not noticing at first the
gradual descent. Nor did she hear back of her the sound of hurried
footsteps. The man at whose sleeping presence Joe had snorted, paused,
panting, at the fork of the road where she had paused. He looked up and
down the road into the forest, and even, in a foolish way, up into the
air. Then he ran on to the right.
Presently Elizabeth began to be doubtful about her choice, but she
decided to ride a little farther. When at last she was about to turn
back, she found that she had been riding for a few rods in a little
glade and that the road had vanished, either having ended, or having
turned imperceptibly in another direction. She gave Joe a free rein,
but Joe seemed to have no wisdom about wood roads.
Now she shed a few tears. She was afraid to go upward for fear that she
would be more hopelessly lost. If she went directly downward, using the
slope of the mountain for her guide, she would be going each moment
farther away from Herbert. But that seemed to be the only possible
course to follow. Dismounting, she led old Joe, who slipped and slid
and frequently whinnied his distress. She would find her way home, and
then there should be no further delay in calling Colonel Thomas’s
constabulary to her aid. It was criminal to have delayed so long.
Once, when she stopped to let Joe rest, she was confident that
she heard, dim and far away, the sound of a gunshot. There was no
following shot and she was not sure that she was not mistaken, but the
possibilities suggested by the sound horrified her. She rose and took
the unwilling Joe by the bridle and went on over stones and rocks. She
saw masses of arbutus plants and beautiful carpets of pine leaves with
a pattern of trailing crow’s-foot; she passed through stretches of
cathedral woods. She saw strange flowers which looked like orchids and
high, deep thickets of rhododendron, set with pale blossoms. A month
ago she would have exclaimed with delight; now she scarcely observed
them, or said to herself while she looked, “We are going away.” Late
in the afternoon she saw suddenly a stone fence and a weed-grown field
and recognized her own property. Then the old house showed through the
trees and she pulled Joe rapidly forward.
“Herbert!” she called, “Herbert! Herbert!”
But no Herbert answered.
After stabling old Joe, she hurried to the kitchen. She would get a
bite to eat, then she would smooth her hair and change her dress and go
directly to the road, there to beg a ride from the first passer-by. Old
Joe could not have carried her for a square. Her spirits rose. If there
was something one could do the situation was more tolerable.
When she opened the door of her room, she saw that a new scrap of paper
lay on the floor. With trembling hand she took it up:
Him in exchang for the paper. It will be wuss for you if you git any
one.
She sat down heavily on the edge of her bed. The thought of the
constabulary riding to her aid had all the afternoon sustained her.
Then she lifted her head.
“I _will_ go,” said she. “They won’t shoot me, that is certain.”
She looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was untidy and sifted
over it were twigs and dust and the pollen of flowers; her face was
soiled and scratched, her eyes looked wild. She made as rapid a toilet
as she could, and then she started out. It was already almost dark, so
long had been her dreary journey. She started to run.
Then she stopped. She might have been uncertain in the afternoon
whether or not she had heard the sound of a gunshot, but now there
was no mistaking. It seemed to her that the bullet passed immediately
before her, that she heard its whistle. It said to her as distinctly as
if a voice had spoken, “Stay where you are!”
She went back to the house. Only a fool would have gone on after that
sort of warning. But she did not go indoors. She stood on the step and
called.
“Come here and talk to me. I’ll listen to what you have to say! Don’t
hide like a coward!”
But there was no answer. Perhaps when it was still darker they would
come. She sat down in her corner of the step and leaned her head
against the wall. She would be here if they came, she would--she
would--her head nodded and she was asleep.
When she woke it was in answer to an abrupt summons. She heard
simultaneously another shot and a little sharp crack and some object
fell from above upon her head. She thought it was a fluttering bird
and put up her hand. But the texture of the object was that of cloth.
It was the flag which had been shot at! Elizabeth stood with it in
her hands. Colonel Thomas had said that the mountaineers had been
in sympathy with the enemies of their country. Was this generation
traitorous also? Every fiber of her being stiffened with resentment.
Yet, alas! John Baring--
Again she stood on the step and called angrily.
“Come and tell me what you want! Don’t hide like a coward!”
But whether the watcher was deaf, or whether he was merely a sentinel
without power to act or to answer, he made no response.
She carried the flag into the house and lighting the lamp, examined it.
In it were half a dozen bullet-holes. Then she ate a hastily prepared
breakfast and set out into the woods. Once more daybreak was at hand,
and this time she would not miss the road to the settlement.