A MEETING
The New Springs had been so christened about a hundred years before,
when a restless pioneer family had moved westward and upward from the
Old Springs, thirty miles away, at the foot of the great forest-clad
range. The New Springs had been a deer-lick, and apparently, from
the number of arrowheads forever being unearthed, a known region
to the Indians. Now the Indians were gone, and the deer fast, fast
withdrawing. Occasionally buck or doe was shot, but for the most part
they were phantoms of the past. So with the bear who used to come down
to the corncribs in the lonely clearings. Bear Mountain still rose dark
blue, like a wall, and the stark cliff called Bear's Den caught the
first ray of the sun, but the bears themselves were seldom seen. They
also were phantoms of the past. But the fish stayed in the mountain
streams. There were many streams and many fish,--bright, speckled
mountain trout, darting and flashing among pools and cascades, now seen
in the sunlight, now lurking by fern-crowned rocks, in the shadow of
the dark hemlock spruce. The region was Fisherman's Paradise.
It was almost an all-day's climb from the nearest railway station to
the New Springs. You took the stage in the first freshness of the
morning; you went gaily along for a few miles through a fair grazing
country; then the stage began to climb, and it climbed and climbed
until you wondered where and when the thing was going to stop. Every
now and then driver and passengers got down and walked. Here it was
shady, with wonderful banks of rhododendron, with ferns and overhanging
trees, and here it was sunny and hot, with the wood scrub or burned,
and the only interesting growth huckleberries and huckleberries and
huckleberries, dwarf under the blazing sun, with butterflies flitting
over them. Up here you had wonderful views; you saw a sea of mountains,
tremendous, motionless waves; the orb as it had wrinkled when man
and beast and herb were not. At last, somewhere on the long crest,
having been told that you must bring luncheon with you and having
provided yourself at the railway station with cold bread and fruit
and hard-boiled eggs, you had luncheon. It was eaten near a bubbling
spring with a water-trough at which the horses were drinking, and eaten
with the most tremendous appetite. By now you were convinced that the
air up here was blowing through a champagne bottle. Luncheon over and
the horses rested, on went the stage. Quite in the mid-afternoon you
began to go down the mountain. Somewhat later, in a turn by a buckwheat
field waving white in the summer wind, the driver would point with his
whip--"Right down there--there's the New Springs! Be there in an hour
now."
It might be "right down there," but still the New Springs was pretty
high in the world, away, away above sea level. You always slept at
the New Springs under blankets, you nearly always had a fire in the
evening; even the heat of the midday sun in the dog days was only
a dry, delightful warmth. Hardly anywhere did the stars shine so
brightly, the air was so rare and fine.
The New Springs boasted no imposing dwellings. There was a hotel,
of faint, old, red brick, with a pillared verandah, and there were
half a dozen one-story frame cottages, each with a small porch and
growing over it its individual vine. Honeysuckle clambered over one,
and hops over another, and a scarlet bean over a third, and so on.
There was an ice-cold sulphur spring where the bubbles were always
rising, and around it was built a rustic pavilion. Also there existed
a much-out-of-repair bowling-alley.
"Yes, there's the New Springs," said the driver, pointing with his
whip. "But, Lord! it stopped being new a long time ago."
There were hardly any passengers to-day; only three in fact: two women
and a man. All three were young enough to accomplish with enjoyment
a great deal of walking up the long mountain. They had laughed and
talked together, though of very nothings as became just-met folk. The
birds and the bees and butterflies, the flowers, the air, and the view
had been the chief subjects of comment. Now, back in the stage for
the descent, they held in their hands flowers and ferns and branches
covered with ripe huckleberries which they detached from the stems,
lifted to their lips and ate. The two women were friends, coming, so
they now explained to their fellow-traveller, from a distance to this
little out-of-the-way place. The brother of one, it seemed, was a great
fisherman and came often. He was not here this year; he was travelling
in Palestine; but he had advised his sister, who was a little broken
down and wanted a quiet place to work in, to come here. She said,
jubilantly, that if the air was always going to be like this she was
glad she had come. It had seemed funny, at first, to think of coming
South for the summer--though her friend was half-Southern and didn't
mind.
"I'm wondering," said the fellow-traveller, with an effect of
gallantry, "what in the world the work can be! The very latest thing,
I suppose, in fancy-work--or perhaps you do pastels?"
Elizabeth Eden looked at him with her very candid grey eyes. "I'm doing
a book of statistics--women and children in industry."
"And I," said the other, Marie Caton, "I teach English to immigrant
girls. We are both Settlement workers."
Laydon prided himself on his ability quickly to shift sail. "Oh!" he
said; "a Settlement! That's an idea that hasn't got down to us yet.
We are rather lazy, I suppose.--I was reading, though, an excellent
article upon Settlements in one of the current magazines only the
other day. Ladies, especially, seem to be going in for that kind of
work;--of course, it is, when you think of it, only an extension of
their historic function as 'loaf-giver.' Charity and Woman--they're
almost synonymous."
"That's a magnificent compliment--or meant to be!" said Marie Caton.
Her eyes were dancing. "I wonder what you'd say if I said that
charity--charity in your sense--is one of woman's worst weaknesses?
Thank God Settlements, bad as they are, aren't charity!"
"Look at the view, Marie," said Elizabeth. "And, oh! feel that wind!
Isn't it divine?"
"Winds blow from all four points at oncet up here," said the driver.
"Ain't many people at the New Springs this summer. Fish don't bite,
or everybody's gone to the World's Fair, or something or other! Ain't
more'n forty people, countin' children."
"What kind of people are they? Do the women fish, too?"
"No, ma'am, not much. It's the husbands and brothers and fathers
does the fishing mostly--though there's Mrs. Josslyn. _She_ fishes.
The others just sit around in rocking-chairs, I reckon, and crochet.
Them that has children looks after them, and them that hasn't listens
to them that has. Then it's a fine air for the health; fine air and
fine water. A lot of tired people come. Then there's others get into
the habit of meeting friends here. Being on the border, as it were,
it's convenient for more states than one. Colonel Ashendyne, for
instance,--he comes because General Argyle and Judge Black and he made
a pact in the war that if they lived through they'd spend a month
together every two years until they died. They've kept it faithful, and
because Judge Black's a great fisherman, and General Argyle likes the
juleps they make here, and Colonel Ashendyne knew the place when he was
a boy, they pitched on the New Springs. When they're here together,
they're the three Kings.--Git up thar, Dandy!--This year the Colonel's
got his daughter and granddaughter with him."
Laydon nodded, looking animated and handsome. "I know the Ashendynes.
Indeed--but that is neither here nor there. The Ashendynes," he
explained for the benefit of the two foreigners, "are one of our
oldest families, with connections everywhere; not wealthy,--we have
very little wealth, you know,--but old, very widespread and honoured.
A number of them in the past were really famous. It might be said of
the Ashendynes as it was said of an English family--'All the sons were
brave and all the daughters virtuous.'"
"You seem," said Marie Caton, "to have a profound acquaintance with the
best literature."
Laydon disclaimed it with a modest shake of the head. "Oh, only so-so!
However, literature is my profession. I have a chair of Belles-Lettres."
"That is interesting," said Elizabeth in her friendly voice. "Is it
your vacation? Are you a fisherman, too?"
"Oh, I fish a little on occasion! But I am not what you call a great
fisherman. And I was never at the New Springs before." He gave a
half-boyish, embarrassed laugh. "To tell the truth, I am one of those
persons who've come because another person happens to be here--"
"Oh!" said Marie Caton, "I see!" She began presently to hum beneath her
breath--
"Gin a body meet a body,
Comin' through the rye--"
"Oh, what a rough piece of road!"
"It ain't often mended," said the driver. "They say times is
changing,--there was a fellow through here last summer said they was
changing so rapid they made you dizzy,--but there ain't much change
gotten round to Bear Mountain. I remember that identical rut there when
I was just a little shaver.--Look out, now, on that side, and you'll
see the New Springs again! We ain't more'n a mile an' a half away now.
The ladies often walk up here to see the sunset."
"There's one coming up the road now," said Marie Caton, "In a green
gingham and a shady hat."
"That," said the driver, "'ll be Miss Hagar--Colonel Ashendyne's
granddaughter. She and me's great friends. Come by here 'most any
evenin' and you'll find her sittin' on the big rock there, lookin' away
to Kingdom Come."
"Stop a minute," spoke Laydon, "and let me out here. I know Miss
Ashendyne. I'll wait here to meet her and walk back to the Springs with
her."
He lifted his hat to his fellow-travellers and the stage went on
without him. "A nice, clean-looking man," said Elizabeth who was
inveterate at finding good; "not very original, but then who is?"
"I can't answer it," said Marie promptly. "Now we'll see the girl!
She's coming up straight and light, like a right mountain climber."
The stage met and passed Hagar, she and the driver exchanging
"Good-evenings!" The stage lumbered on down the slope. "I liked her
looks," said Marie. "Now, they're meeting--"
"Don't look back."
"All right, I won't. I'd like such consideration myself.--Betsy, Betsy!
You are going to get strong enough at the New Springs to throw every
statistic between Canada and Mexico!"
Back beside the big rock at the bend of the road, Hagar and Laydon met.
"There isn't any one to see!" he exclaimed, and would have taken her in
his arms.
She evaded his grasp, putting out her hand and a light staff which
she carried. "No, Mr. Laydon! Wait--wait--" Stepping backward to the
rock by the wayside she sat down upon it, behind her all the waves of
the Endless Mountains. "I only got your letter yesterday. It had been
delayed. If I had had it in time, I should have written to you not to
come."
"I told you in it," smiled Laydon, "that I was not afraid of your
grandfather. He can't eat me. The New Springs is as much mine to come
to as it is his. I had just three days before I go to ---- to see about
that opening there. The idea came to me that if I could really see him
and talk to him, he might become reconciled. And then, dear little
girl! I wanted to see you! I couldn't resist--"
As he spoke he moved toward her again. She shook her head and put out
again the hand with the staff. "No. That is over.... I came up here
to meet you because I wanted to find out--to know--to be certain, at
once--"
"To find out--to know--to be certain of what?" He smiled. "That I am
just the same?--That I love you still?"
"To be certain," said Hagar, "that I was mistaken.... I have got my
certainty."
"I wish," said Laydon, after a pause, "that I knew what you were
driving at. There was something in your last month's letter, and for
the matter of that in the month before, that struck cold. Have I
offended you in any way, Hagar?"
"You have not been to blame," said Hagar. "I don't think either of
us was to blame. I think it was an honest mistake. I think we took a
passing lightning flash for the sun in heaven.... Mr. Laydon, that
evening in the parlour at Eglantine and the morning after, when we
walked to the gate, and the road was sunny and lonely and the bells
were ringing, oh, then I am sure I loved you--" She drew her hand
across brow and eyes. "Or, if not you, I loved--Love! But after that,
oh, steadily after that, it lessened--"
"'Lessened'!--You mean that you are not in love with me as you were?"
"I am not in love with you at all. I was in love with you, or.... I
was in love. I am not now." She struck her staff against the rock. "I
almost hope I'll never be in love again!"
Across from a cleared hillside, steep and grassy, came a tinkling of
sheep-bells. The sun hung low in the west and the trees cast shadows
across the road. A vireo was singing in a walnut tree, a chipmunk ran
along a bit of old rail fence. A zephyr brought an odour dank and rich,
from the aged forest that hung above.
"I think," said Laydon, "that you are treating me very badly."
"Am I? I am sorry.... You mustn't think that I haven't been wretched
over all this. But it would be treating you badly, indeed, if I were
such a coward as to let it go on." She looked at him oddly. "Will you
be--Are you much hurt?"
"I--I--" said Laydon. "I do not think you quite conceive what you are
saying, nor what such a cool pronunciamento must mean to a man! Hurt?
Yes, I am hurt. My pride--my confidence in you--my assurance that I had
your heart and that you had put your life in my keeping--the love that
I truly felt for you--"
"'Felt.'--You loved me, loving you. Oh," said Hagar, "I feel so old--so
old!"
"I loved you sincerely. I imperilled my position for you--to a certain
extent, all my prospects in life. I had delightful visions of the day
when we should be finally together--the home you would make--the love
and protection I should give you--"
"You are honest," said Hagar, "and I like honesty. If I have done
you any wrong at all, if I have made life any harder for you, if I
have destroyed any ideals, if I have done you the least harm, I very
heartily beg your pardon."
Laydon drew from his pocket a small box and opened it. "I had brought
you that--"
Hagar took it in her hand and looked at it. "It is lovely!" she said.
"A diamond and a sapphire! And it isn't going to be wasted. You keep
it. Sooner or later you'll surely need it. You couldn't have bought a
prettier one." She looked up with a soft, bright, almost maternal face.
"You don't know how much happier I am having faced it, and said it, and
had it over with! And you--I don't believe you are so unhappy! Now are
you--now are you?"
"You have put me in an absurd position. What am I to say--"
"To people? Nothing--or what you please. I will tell grandfather
myself, to-night--and Aunt Serena. I shall tell them that you have
behaved extremely well, and that it was all my fault. Or no! I shall
tell them that we both found out that we had been mistaken, for I think
that that is the truth. And that we have had an explanation, and are
now and for always just well-wishers and common friends and nothing
more. I am going to try--I think that now maybe I can do it--to get
grandfather to treat you properly. There is nobody else here whose
business it is, or who knows anything about it--and you have only
three days anyway. There are some pleasant people, and you'll meet
them. It isn't going to be awkward, indeed, it isn't--"
"By George!" said Laydon, "if you aren't the coolest.... Of course,
if this is the way you feel, it may be wisest not to link my life
with--Naturally a man wants entire love, admiration, and confidence--"
"Just so," said Hagar. "And you'll find some one to feel all that. And
now let's walk to the New Springs."