A green lane, little used, but deeply rutted, led up from the wharf to
the main street of Westings Landing. The village was silent, with no
sign of life, except here and there a glimmer from a candle-lit window.
From the pale sky overhead came the strange twang of swooping
night-hawks, as of harp-strings suddenly but firmly plucked. In the
intervals between these irregular and always unexpected notes was heard
the persistent rhythm of a whippoorwill, softly threshing the dusk with
his phantom song. Barbara felt the whole scene to be unreal, her
companions unreal, herself most unreal of all. Could it be that she
was the girl who had that same morning run away, that same morning made
so brave and triumphant a start upon so splendid a venture? Now,
somehow, she felt rather than understood the folly of it. The fact
that she would have missed her Uncle Bob if she had succeeded in her
plan took out of it all the zest, and it became to her a very
ridiculous plan indeed. But her change of attitude was emotional
rather than intellectual. She was convinced in mood, not in mind.
Only she felt herself on the sudden a very small, tired girl, who
deserved to be punished, and wanted to go to bed. Her conviction of
childishness was heightened by the fact that Robert, who was walking
just ahead with Doctor Jim, in grave discussion, seemed not only to
have suddenly grown up, but to have quite forgotten her once imperious
but now discredited existence. Her exhaustion, her reaction, her
defeat, her disappointment in Robert, these all at once translated
themselves into a sense of hopeless loneliness. She seized the large,
kind hand of Doctor John, who walked in silence by her side, and clung
to him.
Presently Doctor John felt hot tears streaming copiously down his
fingers. Without a word, he snatched her up into his arms, carrying
her as if she were a baby; and shaking with voiceless sobs, she buried
her small, wet face in his comforting neck. She felt as if she wanted
to cry wildly, deliciously, for hours and hours. But she managed to
remember that even a very small girl may be heavy to carry over a rough
road in the dusk, when the man who carries her has had a hard day's
work chasing her. And, furthermore, she thought how very, very little,
how poor and pitiful a heroine she would seem in Robert's eyes if he
should chance to remember her existence and look back! She pulled
herself together with a fierce effort, and choked down her sobs.
"Thank you so much, dear Doctor John!" she whispered in his ear. "I'm
better now, and you must put me down. I'm too heavy."
"Tut, tut, sweetheart!" growled Doctor John, softly; "you bide where
you are, and rest. _You_ heavy!"
"But,"--she persisted, with a little earthward wriggle to show she
meant it,--"I want to get down now, please! I don't want to look like
quite such a baby. Doctor John!"
"Tut, tut!" but he set her down, nevertheless, and kept comforting hold
of one cold little hand. Doctor John was quick in his sympathetic
comprehension of women and children, and tolerant of what most men
would account mere whim. In a moment he leaned down close to her ear,
and whispered:
"What are you but a baby, after all,--a tired out, bad baby,
sweetheart? But we'll just keep that a secret between you and me, and
not let Jim Pigeon or Master Robert even guess at it!" And Barbara
squeezed his hand violently in both of hers by way of answer.
At this moment, Doctor Jim and Robert, reaching the corner of the
street, turned and waited for them to come up. Doctor Jim had
Barbara's precious basket of kittens on his arm, while Robert was
carrying her little red bundle, which he now handed over to Doctor
John. A certain reluctance with which he gave it up was quite lost
upon Barbara in her unwonted humility and depression; and it was a very
white, wistful little face which she turned glimmeringly upon him as he
bowed over her hand.
"Why are you leaving us here, Robert?" she asked, in a small voice,
most unlike the wilful tone with which she had talked to him in the
canoe.
"My way lies down the street, sweet mistress," said the boy. "Your
horses, Doctor Jim tells me, are waiting for you at the Blue Boar
yonder. This has been a wonderful day for me. When you think of it,
will you try to remember me kindly as one who would ever be your most
devoted, humble servant?"
Delighted by this elaborate courtesy, so rehabilitating to her
self-esteem, Barbara began to feel herself almost herself again. She
thought, with a sudden prickling heat of shame, of how childish she had
been during all the past year,--and she almost fifteen! And here was
Robert, who was certainly very grown-up, treating her with a deference
which he would never dream of paying to a mere little girl! She
resolved to justify his deference, to conceal her pet childishnesses
till time should mature them away; yet even as she registered this
resolve, she registered a vague but deeper one, that she would cling
for ever to every childish taste and pleasure in spite of the very
utmost that time could do. But the feeling that came uppermost and
found expression was a sharp little pang at something in his words
which sounded as if he were bidding farewell for a long, indefinite
time.
"But I shall see you again soon, sha'n't I, Robert?" she exclaimed,
impulsively. "You'll come over to Second Westings right away, won't
you, and meet Uncle Bob?"
"Yes," said the boy, bowing low again, and speaking with a mixture of
hesitation and triumph, "I am promising myself that pleasure, Mistress
Barbara, within a very few days. You see--Doctor Jim--he has been so
kind--"
"To be sure," broke in Doctor Jim, with an emphasis to preclude any
discussion of consistency,--"I've asked the lad over to visit us, John.
Richard's son!-- And his heart's in the right place,--and his head,
too,--eh, what? We'll see that Mistress Mehitable is not too hard on
him,--eh, what? You know you're not going to be too hard on the boy
yourself, John Pigeon, for all you've been so uncommonly unpleasant to
him!"
Doctor John chuckled softly, and squeezed Barbara's left hand, which he
had retained while she was receiving Robert's adieux.
"Tut, tut, Jim! You know well enough we've got to pardon anything in
breeches, young or old, that gets led into mischief by this little limb
o' darkness here. It's a peck of trouble she's been getting you and me
into, time and time again. You needn't make excuses for Robert to me,
Jim Pigeon. At least, not yet!"
"Thank you, sir," said Robert, a little stiffly, not relishing a
pleasantry at Barbara's expense, though Barbara herself had broken into
a peal of gay laughter, flattered at Doctor John's implications, and
comforted to know that Robert was not slipping beyond her reach.
"Thank you, indeed, sir; but I have no excuse; I was fully committed to
Mistress Barbara's venture, and I'm just as much to blame as she is!"
Barbara's heart glowed. This was the kind of unreasonable championship
she adored. But truth compelled her to protest.
"Oh, no, no, Robert, not at all! It wasn't you that ran away from Aunt
Hitty, and took the canoe, and persuaded a nice, civil gentleman whom
you'd never seen before in your life to do a perfectly crazy thing like
you read of in story-books--" But, as she paused for breath, Doctor
Jim, too impatient to be amused, interrupted her:
"Well, well, Robert, you and Barbara can settle all that between you
some other time. We must get away. Good night--good night. My best
compliments to your honoured grandmother! And ride over the first day
you can, lad!"
And Doctor John, shaking his head sorrowfully, exclaimed:
"Tut, tut, tut! How small a petticoat can turn how great a brain! I
see trouble ahead for you, Bobby!"
"I shall be so glad to see you at my aunt's, Robert!" cried Barbara,
over her shoulder, as they moved up the street toward the Blue Boar and
the waiting horses. Robert, standing hat in hand, gazed after them
till they were swallowed up in the shadows. Still he waited, till a
pulse of light across the gloom and the sound of the inn door closing
told him that he was alone under the night. Then, suddenly, he became
conscious of the lonely, wonderful night sounds, and suddenly the night
perfumes sank into his heart. The spicy breaths from the clover field
and blossoming thicket, cooled with dew, gave him a strange
intoxication as he drew them into the depths of his lungs. The pulsing
rhythm of the whippoorwill seemed to time itself to the pulsing of his
heart and translate it to the terms of an impassioned, inarticulate
chant. The plucked harp-strings sounding from time to time in the
hidden heights of the sky set all his nerves vibrating mystically.
Walking as if in a dream, he came to the door of the cottage where he
had planned to stay the night. Then he turned on a swift impulse,
hurried back to the landing, launched Barbara's canoe, and, without
consciousness of weariness or hunger, paddled all the way back to Gault
House against the current.