THE QUEST OF THE SOLDIER
Several bleak days were followed by a little June weather in October.
A somnolent influence rested everywhere. Above the undulation of land
on the horizon were the clouds, like heavenly hills, reflecting their
radiance on those earthly elevations. The celestial mountains and
valleys gave wondrous perspective to the outlook, and around them lay
an atmosphere, unreal and idyllic.
On such a morning Susan stood at a turn in the road, gazing after a
departing vehicle with ill-concealed satisfaction and yet withal some
dubiousness. Now that the plan, suggested by Mauville, had not
miscarried, certain misgivings arose, for there is a conscience in the
culmination wanting in the conception of an act. As the partial
realization of the situation swept over her, she gave a gasp, and
then, the vehicle having meanwhile vanished, a desperate spirit of
bravado replaced her momentary apprehension. She even laughed
nervously as she waved her handkerchief in the direction the coach
had taken: "_Bon voyage!_"
But as the words fell from the smiling lips, her eyes became
thoughtful and her hand fell to her side; it occurred to Susan she
would be obliged to divert suspicion from herself. The curling lips
straightened; she turned abruptly and hastened toward the town. But
her footsteps soon lagged and she paused thoughtfully.
"If I reach the hotel too soon," she murmured, "they may overtake
him."
So she stopped at the wayside, attracted by the brilliant cardinal
flowers, humming as she plucked them, but ever and anon glancing
around guiltily. The absurd thought came to her that the bright autumn
blossoms were red, the hue of sin, and she threw them on the sward,
and unconsciously rubbed her hands on her dress.
Still she lingered, however, vaguely mindful she was adding to her
burden of ill-doing, but finally again started slowly toward the
village, hurrying as she approached the hotel, where she encountered
the soldier on the veranda. Her distressed countenance and haste
proclaimed her a messenger of disaster.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she exclaimed excitedly. "Where is Mr. Barnes?"
"What is the matter, Miss Duran?" Suspecting very little was the
matter, for Susan was nothing, if not all of a twitter.
"Constance has been carried off!"
"Carried off!" He regarded her as if he thought she had lost her
senses.
"Yes; abducted!"
"Abducted! By whom?"
"I--I did not see his face!" she gasped. "And it is all my fault!
I asked her to take a walk! Oh, what shall I do?" Wringing her hands
in anguish that was half real. "We kept on and on--it was so
pleasant!--until we had passed far beyond the outskirts of the
village. At a turn in the road stood a coach--a cloak was thrown
over my head by some one behind--I must have fainted, and, when I
recovered, she was gone. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"
"When did it happen?" As he spoke the young man left the veranda.
Grazing contentedly near the porch was his horse and Saint-Prosper's
hand now rested on the bridle.
"I can't tell how long I was unconscious," said the seemingly
hysterical young woman, "but I hurried here as soon as I recovered
myself."
"Where did it occur? Down the road you came?"
"Ye-es."
Saint-Prosper vaulted into the saddle. "Tell the manager to see a
magistrate," he said.
"But you're not going to follow them alone?" began Susan. "Oh dear, I
feel quite faint again! If you would please help me into the--"
By way of answer, the other touched his horse deeply with the spur and
the mettlesome animal reared and plunged, then, recalled by the sharp
voice of the rider, galloped wildly down the road. Susan observed the
sudden departure with mingled emotions.
"How quixotic!" she thought discontentedly. "But he won't catch them,"
came the consoling afterthought, as she turned to seek the manager.
Soon the soldier, whose spirited dash down the main thoroughfare had
awakened some misgivings in the little town, was beyond the precincts
of village scrutiny. The country road was hard, although marked by
deep cuts from traffic during a rainy spell, and the horse's hoofs
rang out with exhilarating rhythm. Regardless of all save the distance
traversed, the rider yet forbore to press the pace, relaxing only
when, after a considerable interval, he came to another road and drew
rein at the fork. One way to the right ran gently through the valley,
apparently terminating in the luxuriant foliage, while the other, like
a winding, murky stream, stretched out over a more level tract of
land.
Which thoroughfare had the coach taken? Dismounting, the young man
hastily examined the ground, but the earth was so dry and firm, and
the tracks of wheels so many, it was impossible to distinguish the old
marks from the new. Even sign-post there was none; the roads diverged,
and the soldier could but blindly surmise their destination, selecting
after some hesitation the thoroughfare running into the gorgeous,
autumnal painted forest.
He had gone no inconsiderable distance when his doubts were abruptly
confirmed. Reaching an opening, bright as the chapel of a darkened
monastery, he discerned a farmer in a buckboard approaching from the
opposite direction. The swift pace of the rider and the leisurely jog
of the team soon brought them together.
"Did you pass a coach down the road?" asked the soldier.
"No-a," said the farmer, deliberately, as his fat horses instinctively
stood stock still; "didn't pass nobody."
"Have you come far?"
"A good ways."
"You would have met a coach, if it had passed here an hour ago?"
"I guess I would," said the man. "This road leads straight across the
country."
"Where does the other road at the fork go?"
"To the patroon village. There's a reform orator there to-day and a
barn-burners' camp-fire."
Without waiting to thank his informant, Saint-Prosper pulled his horse
quickly around, while the man in the buckboard gradually got under
way, until he had once more attained a comfortable, slow gait. Indeed,
by the time his team had settled down to a sleepy jog, in keeping with
the dreamy haze, hanging upon the upland, his questioner was far down
the road.
When, however, the soldier once more reached the fork, and took the
winding way across a more level country, he moderated his pace,
realizing the need of husbanding his horse's powers of endurance.
The country seemed at peace, as though no dissension nor heated
passions could exist within that pastoral province. And yet, not far
distant, lay the domains of the patroons, the hot-bed of the two
opposing branches of the Democratic party: The "hunkers," or
conservative-minded men, and the "barn-burners," or progressive
reformers, who sympathized with the anti-renters.
After impatiently riding an hour or more through this delectable
region, the horseman drew near the patroon village, a cluster of
houses amid the hills and meadows. Here the land barons had originally
built for the tenants comfortable houses and ample barns, saw and
grist mills. But the old homes had crumbled away, and that rugged
ancestry of dwellings had been replaced by a new generation of houses,
with clapboards, staring green blinds and flimsy verandas.
In the historic market place, as Saint-Prosper rode down the street,
were assembled a number of lease-holders of both sexes and all ages,
from the puny babe in arms to the decrepit crone and hoary grand-sire,
listening to the flowing tongue of a rustic speech-maker. This forum
of the people was shaded by a sextette of well-grown elms. The
platform of the local Demosthenes stood in a corner near the street.
"'Woe to thee, O Moab! Thou art undone, O people of Chemosh,' if you
light not the torch of equal rights!" exclaimed the platform patterer
as Saint-Prosper drew near. "Awake, sons of the free soil! Now is the
time to make a stand! Forswear all allegiance to the new patroon;
this Southern libertine and despot from the land of slavery!"
The grandam wagged her head approvingly; the patriarch stroked his
beard with acquiescence and strong men clenched their fists as the
spokesman mouthed their real or fancied wrongs. It was an earnest,
implacable crowd; men with lowering brows merely glanced at the
soldier as he rode forward; women gazed more intently, but were
quickly lured back by the tripping phrases of the mellifluous
speaker.
On the outskirts of the gathering, near the road, stood a tall,
beetling individual whom Saint-Prosper addressed, reining in his horse
near the wooden rail, which answered for a fence.
"Dinna ye ken I'm listening?" impatiently retorted the other, with a
fierce frown. "Gang your way, mon," he added, churlishly, as he turned
his back.
Judging from the wrathful faces directed toward him, the lease-holders
esteemed Saint-Prosper a political disturber, affiliating with the
other faction of the Democratic party, and bent, perhaps, on creating
dissension at the tenants' camp-fire. The soldier's impatience and
anger were ready to leap forth at a word; he wheeled fiercely upon the
weedy Scot, to demand peremptorily the information so uncivilly
withheld, when a gust of wind blowing something light down the road
caused his horse to shy suddenly and the rider to glance at what had
frightened the animal. After a brief scrutiny, he dismounted quickly
and examined more attentively the object,--a pamphlet with a red
cover, upon which appeared the printed design of the conventional
Greek masks of Tragedy and Comedy, and beneath, the title, "The
Honeymoon." The bright binding, albeit soiled by the dusty road, and
the fluttering of the leaves in the breeze had startled the horse and
incidentally attracted the attention of his master. Across the somber
mask of melancholy was traced in buoyant hand the name of the young
actress.
But the soldier needed not the confirmation, for had he not noticed
this same prompt book in her lap on the journey of the chariot? It was
a mute, but eloquent message. Could she have spoken more plainly if
she had written with ink and posted the missive with one of those new
bronze-hued portraits of Franklin, called stamps by the government and
"sticking plaster" by the people? Undoubtedly she had hoped the
manager was following her when she intrusted the message to that
erratic postman, Chance, who plied his vocation long before the black
Washington or the bronze Franklin was a talisman of more or less
uncertain delivery.
The soldier, without a moment's hesitation, thrust the pamphlet inside
his coat, flung himself on his horse, and, turning from the
market-place, dashed down the road.