LIGHT DAWNS
After Stone and Henry had disappeared through the woods, Dudley did not
long ponder over the late discussion; he found in his environment too
much food for other thought. He was on the same spot where, ten months
before, he had first been alone with Abby Patterson. Yonder was the
fallen log upon which she had sat toying with a spray of goldenrod, her
white bonnet beside her, the soft wind playing with her brown hair, the
sunlight through the overhanging boughs dancing over her head and
hands, and making little patches of brightness on her lavender gown.
The pungent odor of mint was in the air now as then when she had
gathered some for her uncle's glass of toddy. The water sparkled and
danced in the sunshine, trickling down the mossy rocks into the spring,
and yonder in the cleft was the old gourd from which he had poured
water on her hands.
Somewhere in his reading he had come across the story of the man who
always "thanked God for the blessings that passed over his head." Often
in the last few weeks he had had a dim consciousness that perhaps it
was best for both that Abby had not yielded to his pleadings; but
hitherto he had thrust the thought from him, as though it were
disloyalty to Abby and to love. But though the recollection of Abby had
still a tender, half-sad sweetness, Dudley's nature was too vigorous
and buoyant long to give way to melancholy and vain regrets. As he lay
there in the forest solitude, a renewed hopefulness filled his soul,
and he felt that he, too, could thank God for the blessing that had
passed him by. He got up, intending to return to the encampment, but a
recollection of something Abby had said in their last interview, about
his being blind to the good that fate was ready to bestow upon him,
suddenly arrested him. "What could she have meant?" he wondered, as he
seated himself on a stump, pulled his hat over his eyes, and, with a
stick in his hand, idly traced lines and figures in the dust at his
feet.
A slight noise presently made him look up, and there, standing under
the big oak on the little prominence above him--just where she had
stood that October afternoon, beckoning to him and Abby--was Betsy,
again looking down upon him. She did not beckon this time; but as he
looked up she turned quickly away, though not before he had caught the
wistful, steadfast look in her eyes, and had seen the quick flush that
covered her face.
Like lightning came the thought, "Was it Betsy whom Abby meant?" and as
quickly the truth was flashed upon him with all the force of an
electric shock. In an instant, old things had passed away, and a tumult
of feeling stronger than anything he had ever known leaped into life.
It was not alone the realization of Betsy's love, coming to him in that
flash of intuition, that set his nerves tingling and made the hot blood
pulse madly through his veins; but, with a rapture that approximated
pain in its intensity, there rushed into his soul an answering love,
tender, deep and fixed.
It is supposed by many people that man's love is founded upon
uncertainty as to any answering passion in the woman's heart, and that
a true woman never gives her love unsought; but there is more proof to
warrant the contrary belief--that it is her love, unspoken, carefully
hidden from all eyes, yet revealed by the mysterious telepathy of
spiritual sympathy, that calls his love into being. A man of noble,
generous nature is often thus kindled into responsiveness, and his love
thus evoked is often the most reverent and the most lasting.
In a moment Abner had to some extent regained his self-possession,
though his pulses still beat riotously. He hastened after Betsy, who
turned as he approached, her face still flushed, her eyes glowing with
unwonted fire. She greeted him in her usual nonchalant manner, and
walked demurely beside him, swinging her bonnet carelessly.
"You seem to have forgotten, sir, that a big camp-meeting is in
progress in these woods. You reminded me of Daniel Boone or Simon
Kenton, sitting on that stump with your 'monarch-of-all-I-survey' air,
as though you were alone in the heart of some vast wilderness of which
you were the sole proprietor. What schemes were you hatching? and what
were you doing with that stick? Working out some abstruse mathematical
problem, or calculating how much money your year's crops will bring?
This is no time for such worldly thoughts, while all these hair-lifting
wonders are occurring yonder. Your leisure moments should be employed
in pious meditation, or in repenting of your sins."
Too much agitated by the revelation which had just come to him to
answer her light banter, he walked silently by her side. She, surprised
by his silence, glanced into his face. What she saw there arrested her
footsteps and brought a startled look into her eyes. For a moment they
stood still in the pathway, gazing into each other's faces--soul
revealed to soul in the look. Then her eyes fell, a trembling seized
her, and a wave of crimson swept over cheeks and brow and throat. In a
voice hoarse with feeling, he exclaimed, "Betty! Betty!" and stretched
out his arms toward her. Tremblingly she threw out her hands as though
to repel his approach; and then, turning from him, ran down the path
toward the encampment.
Abner was in no mood for the noise and excitement of the "revival"; so
he turned aside into a ravine where many of the campers' horses were
tethered. Here he encountered Henry, to whom he said abruptly, saddling
his mare as he spoke, "I'm sick of all this; I'm going for a gallop."
"It's a pity to miss to-night's service," Henry answered. "The camp
breaks up to-morrow."
"No matter," Dudley replied as he sprang into the saddle. "I'm off
now."
"Better take a snack before you go. You must be hungry," called Henry,
but Dudley, already beyond the ravine, gave no heed.
In his overwrought mood hunger and slumber were equally impossible, and
the quiet of his attic room would have been as intolerable as the glare
of the torchlights and the singing, shouting, and wild ravings of the
encampment. He rode on and on through the moonlight, over hills and
fields and roads, until his mare, flecked with foam, was breathing
uneasily. Then he allowed the reins to drop loosely over her neck, and
rode slowly back until he reached his own unfinished cabin. But the air
of the unused house was oppressive, and the walls seemed to stifle him.
Freeing the mare of saddle and bridle, and turning her out to graze, he
threw himself down on the sward in front of the house. Even then he
could not sleep, but for a long time lay gazing into the clear,
star-studded sky; for the sudden broadening of the perspective of his
future kept him wide awake. He wondered at his long blindness, and with
an agony of uncertainty questioned whether Betsy's sympathetic
comprehension of his old feeling for her cousin might not now hinder
the fulfillment of his dearest hope. But at last the solemn serenity of
the summer night stilled his unquiet spirit, and he fell asleep.
When he awoke, the flaming radiance in the eastern sky indicated
another sultry day; but at this early hour there was a dewy freshness
in the air, and all nature was astir and joyous. Upon the bark of a
hickory-tree a crimson-crested woodpecker was tapping for his
breakfast; under the edge of a half-decayed stump a colony of ants had
already begun the day's labor. Lark and bee were on the wing; squirrels
ran up and down the trunk of a big elm, leaping from branch to branch,
where redbird, thrush and linnet were making the woods merry with their
morning concert.