nothing; I write the crude facts as I know them. She has black hair and
eyes; she is very white and slender, with nestling ways. She is not
very learned or rich, but patrician and proud; all agree that she is
beautiful. She is debonair and sweet, and when I think of you she is
nothing to me--nothing!
But I tried to love her just in love’s despite; and she was happy in the
main, and I was half-resigned. I stifle when I think of that.
How pitiful it all was!
Often she leaned, touched my shoulder, and spoke with downcast eyes:--
“Do you really love me?”
“Very tenderly.”
“Passionately?”
“Passionately.”
“With all your heart?”
“With all my heart.”
“Forever?”
“Forever.”
She mistrusted me no more than the day mistrusts the sun.
And one night I sat late in my room, thinking. It was cold; the wild
wind arose, hissing in the stark trees. Out in the cold sky the stars
shone white and multitudinous. There came to me a wanton mood; I floated
with it, pensive and relaxed. I had no wish to change it, but desired
only to sit peacefully through the midnight until sleep should come, to
lightly conjecture and mildly reflect, to clasp my knees by the fire and
await the fortunes of the hour. Life had grown trivial.
And by degrees the thoughts of you came intensely and possessed me. That
was the night I wrote you that mad long letter of adoration and despair.
Ah, you were to me impossible! I had been half-resigned. But that night
passion reigned. It was my dearest tribute just to tell you of the love
I had for you. If it was madness, it was a sweet madness.
I thought when your letter would come I would sit for a while with it
in my hand, and dream the sweet, the terrible, the improbable,--before I
opened it to read your kind wording (I knew it would be kind) of what my
despair taught me to expect.
Then the wires shot stupefying joy.
“_Everything! Why did you wait so long? Come to me now--at once! I give
you all!_”
I had the message there at the street. I gazed blankly. Then with
realization came tumultuous sweetness that was pain. Doris, across the
way, stopped singing.
“Good news, Roger?”
“The best, and the worst!”
“Oh! Tell me about it, when I come.”
...Do your eyebrows slope, and your lips upcurl?
I have written it all out. When she comes (she is coming soon) I shall
tell her all, as I have told you. This is to be the blackest hour of my
life. I have made up my mind to tell her the truth. It is her right. But
my heart has so often failed me. If this is tenderness, why what a false
tenderness it is!
I have no more hopes of you now than I had when I wrote you. But I
belong to you, and will always belong to you, just for your once loving,
even though you despise me, now and forever.
I shall tell her frankly, extenuating nothing. _For I will have no more
lies_. On that I am resolved.
Anne, I do not truly live without you, and I crave the intensest living.
I think of you always as I saw you first--tall and fair, with the gold
across your temples, and the museful, wistful mouth with its serious
thinking silences and then its soft rapid speech, and the eyes, the blue
eyes, that had for me such exquisite language. You are repose--Heaven!
And I am in a hell of my own making, and, dearest, I could not help it!
Ah, I am pleading! I did not mean to plead.
Did you have a dream of me, as noble, say? Here am I, who love life
because of you, who love you more than that life or my hope of heaven.
But what to you is such a love?
She is coming soon, and I shall tell her. I say I shall have no more
deception. I am yours--yours! I dare not write the prayer that is in my
heart. I cannot say farewell. Remember, when you despise me worst, I am
yours!
II--FROM DORIS
The letter sent with this was found sealed and bearing your name and
address in the room where Roger died yesterday. He had spoken of you
so often that I came almost to know you. That is why I am writing
this note; you were his friend, and one so noble as he must have noble
friends. I thought for a moment I would ask you to let me read the
letter; but I could not bear to see it and know that it was his last,
and written to another.--The trouble was his heart. Will you be present?
I cannot write any more for crying.
III--THE TWO WOMEN
Said Doris: “You are just as I pictured you. May I call you just Anne?
How long they prayed! I did not know you would come. I could not think
who you were, standing beside his grave so beautiful and tearless.
I could not see well for weeping, and the wind was cold, and my head
ached. Oh, the wan face! The black clothes--I did not like the black.
I wanted to lie down there with him and be covered up. The clay was
so cold and wet. Oh, how cold my heart grew! Did you think they prayed
long? I was so cold!”
“I have never been told how he died,” said Anne.
“I entered the library, where he was waiting for me,” Doris replied. “It
was near twilight. He sat by the window, looking out. When I came in he
turned and his face was pale. The room was cold. The fire had gone out.
I never saw him pale before; I was frightened and cried out. He came
to re-assure me, and his face was so pale! He looked at me long and
anxiously--so anxiously. I did not understand this look, it was so
strange. It hurt me because I did not understand it. Now I know it was
physical suffering. He went back to the window and sank into his chair.
‘Are you not ill?’ I asked. He answered, ‘A little,’ and added, ‘It will
pass.’ But he did not speak at all or touch me, and when I stroked
his forehead he leaned suddenly forward, his face in his arms, on the
window-sill, and would not answer me. I ran out to tell them he was ill.
When the doctor came I was told he was dead. They gave me his letter to
send you, and tell you.”
“You do not wish,” said Anne, “to read the letter?”
Doris did not reply.
“It would make you less able to realize that he is--gone,” said Anne,
gently.
“Yes,” said Doris, “and then it was to you,--not me.”
The other’s face was suffused with tender pity. She spoke impulsively,
and yet with a timorous boldness, as one who ventures upon hazardous and
novel ways:--
“Doris, he loved you with all his heart!”
“He told you?”
“Yes.”
“He spoke of you so often, Anne. We shall always be friends.”
“Yes, always.”
“You are sure he loved me so?” The girl’s mouth tremored at the corners.
“He did not tell me often enough.”
“He loved you dearly,” said Anne.
“Ah, if you knew what sweet comfort you give! You are sure?--quite
sure?”
“He loved you with all his heart,” repeated Anne.
“I will go, Anne. I thank you so much! I think I can weep again, now.
For a while, goodbye. Give me both your hands, and kiss me.”
THE DEAD OAK
By Anna Vernon Dorsey
THE November day was drawing to a close. The shadows were deepening
in the pine forest that lay on one side of the sandy road. On the other
side, the corn-stalks stood in level rows against the yellow of the
sunset. My horse limped painfully, for he had cast a shoe several hours
since, and my hurried ride through a thinly inhabited part of lower
Maryland, with which I was unfamiliar, had so far brought me near no
blacksmith’s shop. Great, then, was my relief, on passing the wood, to
find a three-cross-roads, and a small house with a shed from which rang
the measured stroke of the anvil, while the square of the door was ruddy
with the forge fire.
After calling loudly and waiting in vain for a reply, I dismounted. Just
then the blacksmith came to the door,--a big, low-browed, long-haired
fellow, of few words. After examining my horse’s feet, he announced that
it would be necessary to replace not only the missing shoe, but also
three others.
As he proceeded slowly to work, I saw that there was before me the
prospect of a long wait which did not promise to be agreeable, for the
man was either surly or stupid, and gave out monosyllabic replies in
answer to my questions about the country. A dreary country it was, that
through which I was passing,--flat, sandy, impoverished, the virtue
having been tilled out of the soil for two hundred years. Now that the
old landed proprietors had departed to the cities, the majority of
the inhabitants were miserable poor whites and negroes, principally
fishermen and oystermen. Here and there one came across a relic of the
past,--an old manor-house, ruined or deserted, the property generally of
one man, a former overseer, who seemed to own most of the country.
And yet there was a charm of the past over this low-lying land,--a blaze
of glory in the west, reflected in the broad river that almost lapped
the roots of the huge pine forests that grew along its banks.
As I stood at the door of the smithy, looking eastward, I could see only
one exception to this sombre monotony of pines. On the roadside, in
the middle of a dense sweep of meadows, entirely isolated, stood a huge
oak-tree, the only one of its kind to be seen for miles around.
“That must be a pretty old tree,” I remarked.
“The Dead Oak? Many a hundred years old, I reckon.”
“It doesn’t look dead to me,” I answered; “it has a dense foliage.”
“That’s what they call it,--the Dead Oak. A man hung himself to it three
years ago,” said the smith, with some show of animation.
“One of the neighborhood?”
“No; a stranger round here. Nobody ever could find out where he come
from,--Washington likely. The niggers say it’s ha’nted.”
“How is that?” I asked, much interested.
“Don’t know; just ha’nted,” said the man gruffly, relapsing into silence
amid a fire of sparks.
Leaving my taciturn companion, I sauntered down to the road, my steps
turning intuitively in the direction of the old tree.
A chill wind came from the river, and a flight of crows with harsh
cries arose from its branches, as it stood, the central landmark in the
stretch of meadows. On one side of the road was a zigzag rail fence, and
on the topmost rail of this, under the tree, I seated myself. The lowest
branches almost touched my head, and the dry and dense foliage rustled
with every breeze.
Just beyond were two wooden posts, the entrance of a carriage-way
leading through a corn-field to what I had not noticed before, a large
house far back from the road. As I sat there, facing the afterglow of
the sunset, I became aware of the figure of an old negro coming slowly
through the corn-rows, through the gate,--a bent negro with bushy white
hair. Taking off his rabbit-skin cap, with a courtly bow he seated
himself on the roots of the tree.
For some moments we sat there in silence, the old man, with his hands
folded, gazing into the west.
“Good evening, uncle,” I ventured to remark. “Do you live near here?”
“Not far away,--up dat a-way,” waving his hand indefinitely in the
direction of the shadowy mansion.
“Have you lived here long?” I asked.
“Many an’ many a year,” he responded wearily. “Ebber sence I cum inter
de world. I belonged to Mars’ Brooke up yonder.”
“Then you must know about the man who hung himself here three years
ago?”
“He war n’t no man,” said the old darky sternly. “He wuz first quality,
my young gen’leman. I ought ter know, kase I buried him bofe times.”
At these words, suddenly a thrill ran over me, a sense of mystery,
something accursed brooding over this desolate spot.
“What do you mean?” I demanded. “Who was he?”
“Befo’ de Lord, boss, I don’ know, an’ nobody else does. It came about
dis ‘er’ way: De first time wuz years an’ years ago. Dar wuz good times
in de country den. De quality had n’t all gone away an’ sol’ de ole
places to oberseers an’ po’ white trash. Mars’ Harry Brooke wuz keepin’
bachelor’s hall up dar, an’ many’s de high ol’ times and junketings dey
had. Well, one night dey had a gran’ time, a-drinkin’ an’ a-carryin’ on,
he an’ de udder young gemlemens.’Bout day de party bruk up, kase de wuz
sober enuff den ter ride home. I wuz a young chap den, an’ I wuz runnin’
on in front ter open de gate, bar’footed, from de door, kase it war hot
weather den, like Injum summer. When I open’ de gate I scrich out ‘O
Gord!’ an’ I like ter fall ter de groun’, kase dar, wid his face all
white an’ orful ‘gainst de red leabes, a-lookin’ me right in de eyes,
wuz a man tied to der branch, wid a white han’chif aroun’ his neck. It
didn’t take me long ter jump fo’ward an’ take him down, an’ when de
gemlemen rid up dar he wuz a-lyin’ on de groun’ an’ me a-settin’ right
hyar on dis same stump wid his curly head on my knees. He war n’t quite
dead an’ his han’ kotch mine, an’ his beautiful brown eyes closed a
minute, an’ he gasped like an’ died. All de gemlemen dat came up an’
stan’ ‘roun’, dey say dey nebber see any one so handsom’ ez my young man
wuz, jes like one er de marble statues in de parlor, wid a eagle nose,
an’ a mouth many a young lady must ‘a’ kissed. But dose days wuz ober fur
him far ebber,--yes, mon.
“De quarest thing wuz, he didn’t hab nuthin’ on but a shirt, an’ dat wuz
de fines’ quality, real linin, embroidered, but no mark or sign on it
ter tell whar he cum from. Nobody ain’t nebber seed him befo’ in dis
part ob de kentry. Mars’ Harry sont all ober the kentry, clar up ter
Washin’ton an’ Baltimor’, but nobody cum fo’ward ter claim him, so he
wuz buried. De parson say he can’t be buried in de cons’crated groun’,
kus he mus’ ‘a’ kill hisself, so me an’ anudder man buried him in de
medder, under dis tree, right nigh whar you is a-settin’.”
The old man’s narrative ran on monotonously. It seemed as natural, as
much a part of the scene, as the croaking of the frogs in the deepening
twilight, in which it seemed that I could almost see that white face
with its aquiline nose and large brown eyes.
“Dat wuz long ago, long ago,” the old man resumed, “long ago. De War
come an’ went, an’ Mars’ Harry wuz killed, an’ de firs’ people lef’ de
kentry and de kentry wuz like new-made sod, dirt up’ards; but I nebber
fo’got my young gemleman, real quality, hangin’ hyar in dis tree, away
from all his people. Well, boss, many years parse, an’ Mars’ Harry’s
oberseer done bought de ole place up dar. One night ‘bout three years ago
dey gib one er dese hyar big abricultural suppers, an’ dey set dare all
night eatin’ an’ drinkin’ like dere betters used ter do. It wuz de same
time er year, but misty an’ damp an’ in de early mornin’ I wuz comin’
long de road an’ I see a crowd gaddered aroun’ de tree, jus’ like it wuz
dat udder mornin’ long time ago. When I come up, boss, for Gord! dar wuz
my young, beautiful gemleman a-lyin’ on de groun’, stiff an’ stark, in
his shirt, wid dat hankerchief ‘roun’ his neck. I wuz glad ter see him
ag’in, but he war n’t nearly alive, like he wuz befo’. De doctor wuz
dere, an’ he felt him an’ he say, ‘Dis man bin dead fo’ days. Who has
hang dis corpse to dis tree? Who is de man?’ Jes’ like dey say befo’,
‘Who is de man?’ Nobody remember’ him ‘cept’n’ me. De ole crowd dat wuz
dere befor’, de quality, dey all parsed ‘way, what wid de War an’ one
thing ur nudder, all gone but me. But I nebber said nuthin’ ter be
called ole crazy nigger,--no, mon. Dare he wuz, shore ‘nuff, de same
eagle nose an’ brown eyes an’ curls, de same leetle scratch, like de
razor done scratch him on de chin. I knowed him, an’ I cyarried him;
none er dem common folks ain’t fetched him. Dey abertised eberywhar,
but nobody ain’t answer.’ ’Case dey can’t. Dey war n’t nobody lef’ ter
answer ‘cept me,” and the old man gave an eerie chuckle. “De doctors an’
de lawyers talk it all ober, but dey cay n’t agree, an’ de parson, one
er dese hyar new kind, he say he kin be buried in de churchyard, but de
people make a fuss, kase he mought er bin a su’cide. So I helped bury
him ag’in. Seems like I wuz specially ‘pinted ter be his body-sarvant;
dis time it’s right outside de churchyard, an’ nobody don’t know it’s
him but me, kase dey all passed away.”
A pale, watery moon had emerged, the wind soughed among the pine-trees,
and away off an owl hooted.
“De nex’ time I’s gwine to bury him right in de churchyard. He gwine
ter come once mo’, an’ I ain’t gwine ter die till den, an’ dat time he’s
gwine ter be buried in de churchyard, and he won’t come no mo’, an’ den
I’ll pass away.”
A shout came through the dusk from the smithy:
“Say, mister, come; here’s your horse.” The other words were
indistinguishable. I arose and started up the road reluctantly, longing
to know more of the mystery. The old man again removed his cap, and so
I left him, motionless, seated in the shadows, facing the faint glow in
the west. My horse was ready when I reached the forge, the blacksmith
standing dark and massive in the doorway. “An old negro has just been
telling me a remarkable story,” I said after mounting; “that there have
been two suicides found hanging to the old oak, one long ago.”
“Can’t say,” answered the blacksmith, impassively and stolidly. “Ain’t
lived here very long myself. Always been called the ‘Dead Oak’ ever
since I knowed it.”
“Well, do you know an old negro with a bushy white head and beard, who
lives near the Brooke House? Who is he?”
“Might be old Sam, or Lige, or Cash. Lots of ‘em round here,” answered
the man, and that was all he would say.
I mounted and rode off rapidly, for there were still six hours of travel
before reaching my destination.
The moonlight was faint and chill, silvering the dry foliage of the old
tree. I drew rein under it, and peered vainly into the shadows for the
darker outlines of the old negro; he had disappeared, but it seemed to
me he was still present, sitting on the gnarled root, with the pallid
face of that young old corpse against his knee, waiting.
The owl hooted. A faint light shone from the dim mansion in the fields,
and I pressed on through a belt of low pines. When some distance on my
way I turned and looked back. The glow of the smithy was hidden. All the
low stretch of land was folded in twilight, and against the pale sky the
Dead Oak stood spectral and alone.
THE MAKING OF MONSIEUR LESCARBOT’S BALLAD
By William Holloway, Jr.
T was a stormy evening of March, 1611. All day snow had fallen in a
white whirlwind on Port Royal, winning one by one its points of vantage,
and submerging each in turn relentlessly, till now the tiny colony had
almost vanished in the drifts.
Signs of outline there were none. The great stone gateway at the
southeast, carven above with the fleur-de-lis, was dim and shapeless
even to the sentry in the guard-room beside it; the bastion to the
southwest, its four cannon quite buried, melted vaguely into the
darkness. Snow lay everywhere. The gabled houses were turned into white
misshapen monsters, and strange fantastic mounds stretched across
the Square. Even the flag of France in the centre, beneath which
the Seigneur of Port Royal stood each year to greet his vassals, had
suffered with the rest, the wind having wrapped it tightly about its
staff, and the interminable flakes blotted out its lilies.
It was ten by the clock, and the colonists long since abed, so that,
save for the blink of the sentry’s candle, a stranger passing by the
guard-room would have seen no sign of life. But that was only because a
giant drift hid the great hall of the seigneurie from sight, for there
a few of them were still awake and drinking deep, in honor of the coming
to Acadie of the Duc de Montpelier, cousin of the king.
Within the long wainscoted room, Poutrincourt, Seigneur of Port Royal,
sat musing before a huge log fire, with his thin white hands spread out
to the mellow heat. His face, delicately contoured and crossed by
many lines, gleamed with a ruddy hue while the flames roared up the
high-arched chimney; when they sank low again, it had the likeness of
an ashen mask against the blackness of his silken doublet. He was clad
entirely in black, even to his ruffles. His head was sunken on his
breast. And thus he sat gazing at the fire, his shadow on the wall
behind keeping time grotesquely to the leaping flames.
To his left Marc Lescarbot, the poet of the colony, listened across a
bowl of muscat to one of Imbert’s endless stories. He was tall and thin,
with dreamy gray eyes; there were girlish dimples on his cheeks.
Just now, however, his face was flushed and his fingers played
nervously about his girdle, for Imbert, after a fashion of his own, was
emphasizing the narrative with reckless flourishings of his naked sword.
But even then, with the point almost upon his breast, Monsieur Lescarbot
by no means lost his urbanity, for his smile, albeit a trifle anxious,
was still most wondrous sweet. As for Imbert, the story he was telling
had excited him beyond control. It was as if his wild sea-roving days
had returned. His black eyes flashed fiercely from out his red, scarred
face; his rubicund lips were protruded; his massive left hand was twined
in the coarse black hair that overhung his forehead. As the firelight
danced athwart him he seemed to Lescarbot, always fanciful, much like
the gods on the bowls of the Indian lobster-claw pipes, so broad was his
short, squat body and so flaming red his face.
On the right at a small table the Seigneur’s son, Biencourt, and the
Duc de Montpelier played at dice; the one eagerly, as if mindful of
his growing pile of pistoles, the other in listless unconcern. And this
difference the appearance of the two enhanced, for while Biencourt was
tall, blue-eyed, and smooth and fresh of face, the duc was short and
dark, with glittering black eyes and a pale, wearied countenance. And
whereas Biencourt was bravely dressed in doublet and hose of soft blue
satin, the duc wore a black velvet that harmonized sombrely with his
paleness and his listlessness. He had but that day reached Acadie from
France, yet the sight of the forest life about him, the fur-clad lackeys
and strange Indian relics, seemed scarcely to stir his pulses. Instead
he sat in silence by the table, carelessly toying with his white, ringed
hands.
The round ended and Biencourt swept in his gains. “Doubles?” he cried.
The duc nodded and pushed forward his stake.
“It was then the English came aboard us, Monsieur Lescarbot,” roared
Imbert, waving his sword, “and I leave you to judge how fierce the
fighting was with half our men already dead. The deck was a red
shambles, and in the midst stood Pierre Euston, blood from head to
heel.”
“It is worthy of a ballad,” murmured his hearer.
The duc shivered and drew nearer the fire. “Do ballads flourish in this
frozen land?” he asked, with a languid lift of his black eyebrows.
Poutrincourt started from his reverie. “Lescarbot is a famous poet,
monsieur le duc. For a ballad or love-song I know few to equal him.”
A blush reddened the poet’s dimpled cheeks. “The wilderness is full of
subjects,” said he, modestly.
The wind was rising higher and the stout oaken door rattled clamorously
to the white gusts. His highness the Duc de Montpelier shivered again
and looked about him somewhat curiously at the quaintly carven doors
and the bearskins and heads of deer that hung upon the dark wainscoted
walls.
“It was then I came up from the lower deck,” went on Imbert, “and side
by side Pierre Euston and I charged together. Ah! Pierre was a brave
fighter in those days, I warrant you, and together we swept the decks
before us. And droll enough work it was, with the wounded dogs of
English laying their swords about our heels as we passed.”
“It was scoundrelly work,” broke in Biencourt, balancing his dice-box
on his fingers. “Nothing would please me better than a meeting with this
droll gentleman, this Pierre Euston.”
Half seriously, half amusedly, the quondam pirate shrugged his great
shoulders. “Tush! I was but a lad,” he said in a tone of apology, “and I
took no share beyond the fighting.”
The dicing went on. The duc threw and lost again and impassively as ever
filled his silver flagon from the pitcher on the long oaken table behind
him. “To your next ballad, Monsieur Lescarbot,” he said, politely.
But the wine was scarce half way to his lips ere there came a strange
interruption. The door opened slowly from without, and a woman entered,
an infant in her arms.
In after years, when alone with Imbert in the ruined fort, that scene
came back to Biencourt with startling vividness. Once again he beheld
the long room dyed red in the glow of the fire; once more he saw them
as they started to their feet and stood staring blankly at the stranger.
And much cause was there to stare, for women in Port Royal this winter
there were none,--least of all grand ladies, such as each movement
showed this to be,--while beyond the fort lay naught but a savage,
unbroken wilderness. And Biencourt remembered standing thus while one
might slowly count ten.
The duc was the first to speak. “You are cold, madame,” he said softly.
“You must drink some wine.” And, flagon in hand, he approached her.