Miss Alathea, on the day after the great race, sat waiting for the
Colonel in the handsome old library of Woodlawn, worrying about her
unconventionalities of the preceding day. When she heard his voice, out
in the hall, telling Neb to carry certain bundles into the library and
knew, of course, that he would follow after them almost immediately, her
heart throbbed fiercely in her bosom. She shrank back into a window
recess, too embarrassed to face him without first pausing to gather up
her courage.
"Put 'em there, Neb," said the Colonel, pointing to the table, and then,
after the packages had been arranged to suit him: "Here, take this, and
drink to the jockey that rode Queen Bess."
"T'ankee, Marse Cunnel, t'ankee," Neb replied, pocketing the tip. "Oh,
warn't it gran'? An' yo' climbed de tree, arter all!"
"Sh! Clear out, you rascal!"
Neb did not go at once, but, with the boldness of an old and privileged
retainer, stood there, chuckling. "Climbed de tree!" he gurgled. "An'
so did Miss 'Lethe!"
With this he slapped his knee, and, laughing boisterously, left the room
as the embarrassed lady of the house stepped out of her concealment.
"Ah, Miss 'Lethe," said the Colonel, "good morning."
"I expected you back from Lexington last night, Colonel." She looked at
him reproachfully.
"Stayed over to celebrate, my dear," the Colonel answered. "Stayed to
celebrate the victory." With a beaming face he advanced upon the lady,
plainly planning an embrace.
But she eluded him. "Wait a moment, Colonel. On what did you celebrate?"
The Colonel laughed. "Oh, I didn't forget. I celebrated on ginger-ale
and soda-pop."
Miss Alathea smiled with happy satisfaction. She eluded him no longer,
but, herself, went to him and bestowed the kiss.
"I doubt if my stomach ever recovers from the insult," said the Colonel,
delighted by the kiss but remembering the mildness of the beverages
which had marked his jubilation. "Miss 'Lethe, a julep--a
mint-julep--before I perish."
With a smile she crossed the room to where, upon the side-board (a
side-board is an adjunct of all well-regulated libraries in old
Kentucky), a snowy damask cloth concealed glorious somethings. With a
graceful sweep she took it from them and revealed three juleps in their
glory of green-crowns. "Look, Colonel!"
"Three! Great heavens!" the Colonel cried, delighted. He took one and
disposed of it in haste.
"I mixed them myself," Miss 'Lethe said.
The Colonel drank another, but less rapidly.
"Remember," she said, warningly, "three and no more!"
"Yes, yes," he granted. "I must save the other one." It was difficult to
sip it, for Miss Alathea's juleps were like nectar to his thirsty
palate, but he restrained himself and drank of this last ambrosial glass
with great deliberation, trying to make it last as long as possible.
"What are all those bundles, Colonel?" asked Miss Alathea, pointing to
the packages which old Neb had brought in.
"They're for Madge. She bought them yesterday." He sighed. "Ah, will you
ever forget yesterday?"
"Oh, don't speak of it!"
"Can't help it." The Colonel waxed enthusiastic at the mere memory of
the great occasion. "Whoopee!" he cried. "What a race it was!"
"To think," said Miss Alathea, "that I--_I_--should enter a race-track!"
"To think that _I_--should stay out of one!"
"It was all your fault, Colonel," said Miss Alathea. "In your excitement
after the race you grasped my hand and I was compelled to follow."
"How strange!" exclaimed the Colonel, slowly, with a slight smile
tickling at the corners of his mouth. "At times I fancied you were in
the lead, I following."
"Colonel," said the lady slowly, "perhaps I might as well confess. I've
made a discovery. The sin isn't so much in looking at the horses
run--it's in betting on them. That's where souls are lost."
"And likewise money," said the Colonel, nodding, gravely.
"So, Colonel, if you'll promise not to bet, I've no objection to your
attending the races in moderation."
In delighted amazement the Colonel forgot that that last julep could be
brought to a quick end by hurried management and took a hasty and a
mammoth swallow. "What!" he cried. "Can I believe it? Miss 'Lethe,
you're an angel! It's the last drop in my cup of happiness!"
Miss Alathea shyly smiled--smiled, indeed, a bit shame-facedly. "There's
one condition, Colonel--that you take me along--yes, to watch over you."
"Take you with me?" said the Colonel. He paused in puzzled contemplation
of her for an instant. "Oh, I catch on. You'll go with the children to
see the animals!" He laughed. "You rather like it." He became
enthusiastic. "No more knot-holes or trees for us! At last--two souls
with but a single thought, two hearts that beat when Queen Bess won!
Here's to our future happiness!"
He raised the glass and would have drunk from it, but, now, alas! the
glass was empty. It surprised and grieved him, but, when Miss Alathea
held her hand out, quietly, for the vessel which had held the final
julep but which now held it no longer, he yielded it up gracefully nor
asked her to refill it.
As Miss Alathea placed the empty glass upon the side-board Madge entered
from the hallway. She ran up to the Colonel. "I heard you'd come," she
said, "an' couldn't wait. Say, air it all fixed about Queen Bess?"
"Fixed?" cried the gallant horseman. "Well I should remark! Queen Bess
is sold and paid for and a draft for the assessment forwarded to the
Company. Inside of a year Frank will have the income of a prince."
"All," said Miss Alathea, "owing to that mysterious jockey who
disappeared immediately after the race. Oh, I'd like to kiss that boy!"
"If you did, I should not be jealous," said the Colonel with an air of
generosity.
"Miss 'Lethe, kiss me. Won't I do as well?" Madge asked, going to her.
Miss Alathea kissed her, but was still thinking of the unknown jockey,
who, in the nick of time, had come from nowhere, materialized from
nothing, to save the day for Frank by riding Queen Bess to victory. "I
feel as if I must know his name," she said. "Madge, help me persuade the
Colonel to tell us." She went to him and petted him. "Colonel, you will
not refuse me!"
Madge looked at him apprehensively, warningly. "An' I reckon you won't
refuse me, Colonel." Then, going close to him, she whispered: "Remember,
mum's the word!"
"Away, you tempters, away!" the Colonel cried, and waved them from him.
"It's a professional secret, and I've promised to keep it on the honor
of a Kentucky gentleman--just as I promised you, Miss 'Lethe."
"As you promised me? That's enough, Colonel--not another word!"
Madge nodded, smilingly. "That's right, Colonel. Mustn't break your
word." Just then she caught sight of the bundles which the Colonel had
had Neb bring in. "Oh, are them my bundles, Colonel?"
"Every one of them."
The girl hurried to the mysteriously fascinating packages and began
investigation of their contents. "Thank ye, thank ye!" she exclaimed,
while she was busy with the wrappings. "Awful good of you to bring 'em."
Then, to Miss Alathea in explanation: "Things I bought yesterday, Miss
'Lethe, all by myself. Jus' went wild. Reckon I'll let you an' th'
Colonel see 'em." She took a large, dressed doll out of its wrappings.
"Look at that!"
"What a beauty!" cried the Colonel.
"Can talk, too." Madge pressed the wondrous puppet's shirred silk chest.
"Ma-ma," it cried. "Ma-ma."
"Never had nothin' but a rag-doll, myself," the girl went on, delighted
by their approval of this automatic wonder. "'Tain't for me. It's for a
little girl as lives up in th' mountings."
From the doll she turned to an amazing jumping-jack, the next treasure
taken from the packages. She pulled the toy's animating strings and
watched its antics with delight. "Mos' as lively as a Kentucky Colonel
climbin' a tree," said she, and laughed roguishly at the horseman. "Oh,
I heard of it; I heard of it."
The Colonel tried in vain to protest, Madge's laughter kept up merrily,
as she took an old-fashioned carpet-sack from quite the biggest of the
bundles and began to pack her purchases in it, until the Colonel and
Miss Alathea left the room, gaily protesting at her ridicule.
Instantly all of the signs of high elation vanished from the girl's
face. She drooped. Left alone, it quickly became plain that her recent
animation had been forced, unreal. "Well I guess I'd better not open up
th' other bundles," she said listlessly. "I'll pack 'em as they be. It's
time I started too. I'm goin' back to the mountings." Softly she hummed
the air the darkies had been singing when she came into the room.
"Weep no more, my lady, oh, weep no more to-day,
I will sing one song of my old Kentucky home,
Then my old Kentucky home, good-night!"
There was infinite pathos in her half-unconscious rendition of the
plaintive, darkey melody. To the mountain girl the moment was full of
sadness. She had come down from her mountains to save the man she loved
from the assassin's bullet and had saved him, not from that alone, but
from a crushing blow to hope and fortune. Her work was done. All that
now was left to her was to go back to her little cabin, hiding the
secret of her love for him in her sore heart, enshrining, there, the
memory of every minute she had ever passed with him as holy memories to
comfort her in days to come. Melancholy thoughts pressed on her hard.
Frank entered.
He stopped short in the doorway, looking with amazement at her work of
packing for departure.
"Why, Madge!" said he. "What does this mean? Packing up! Surely you're
not going away!" There was a thrill of real distress in his pleasant,
vibrant voice which comforted her.
"Yes, I'm going back to th' mountings. I was ... goin' afore, but I
couldn't miss that hoss-race."
"Madge," he cried impulsively, "you must not and you shall not go. I
cannot bear to think of you wasting your life in the lonely mountains.
Madge, your land will make you rich, and with your brightness you could
study and learn. Education will make you an ornament to any society."
She shook her head. "As fur as I can see," said she, "society ain't what
it is cracked up to be. I don't seem to have no hankerin' after it. Oh,
o' course, I'd like to have all this softness an' pootiness around me,
always; I'd like to go out in th' world an' see th' wonders as I've
heard of; but I don't think that 'u'd satisfy me. I'd still be hankerin'
an' thirstin' arter somethin' that I couldn't have. There's been a
feelin' in my heart, ever sence I come here, that'll take th' air o' th'
mountings to cl'ar away. Like enough, up there among th' wild things
that love me, amongst th' rocks an' hills, I'll find th' rest an' peace
I ain't had since I come away."
The youth looked at her with wide, worried eyes. He had not thought the
situation out in any very careful detail; but he had, at no time,
contemplated her immediate departure. Now that it seemed imminent it
brought his feelings to a focus, showed him, instantly, that he could
not bear to have this mountain maiden who had done so much for him thus
vanish from his life. A realization that he loved her deeply, tenderly,
unchangeably rushed over him. That she was a child of nature, uneducated
and unaccustomed to the world he knew became a matter of but small
importance to him as he stood there watching her, while, sadly but
deliberately, she kept on with her work of packing in the carpet-bag her
small possessions and the many gifts which she had purchased in the city
for the children of her "mountings." That the world which he had ever
thought his world might laugh at her and ridicule him if he married her
he knew, but, suddenly, this seemed of little consequence. The errors in
her education could be readily corrected and her heart and instincts
were more nearly right, already, than those of any lowland girl whom he
had ever known.
"Madge," he cried, "I cannot give you up! I love you!"
The girl's hands stopped their busy work among the bundles. Her cheeks
paled and her lips parted to a gasping little intake of breath. It had
not, once, occurred to her modest, self-sacrificing mind that, even as
the bluegrass gentleman had found her heart and taken it forever and
forever to be his own, no matter where she was or how great might the
distance be which separated them, so, also, had his heart really and
forever passed to her, the simple, unlettered and untrained little
maiden of the wilderness. It seemed impossible, incredible.
"You love me!"
"Yes, I love you as I never have, as I never can love any other woman.
Madge, dearest, I want you for my wife!"
The great desire, the certainty that if he did not win her then all
other triumphs would be empty, meaningless, had come suddenly upon him,
but it had come with overwhelming force. His voice was vibrant with a
passion which surprised himself.
"No, no; it can never be!" she said tremulously. Her heart was in a
turmoil, her hands trembled with excitement. Ah, it was hard for her to
put away from her the brilliant vista which had opened there before her
startled eyes! But she was sure that she must do it; that if she loved
this man she must forswear him for his own dear sake. What right had
she, a mountain-girl, to come down there to the bluegrass to shame him
in the face of friends and foes by her ignorance and awkwardness? Her
heart yearned toward him with a warmth and fervor which she had not
known as possible to human longings, but--no, no, for his sake she must
give him up, as, for his sake, she had made the long, desperate journey
from the mountains to save him from Joe Lorey's bullet, as, for his
sake, shrinking and dismayed, conscious that in doing it she might very
well be sacrificing his respect for her, she had donned the blouse and
breeches of a jockey, yesterday, to ride his mare to victory when none
other had been there to save the day for him. That had been a sacrifice
almost beyond the power of words to tell--a sacrifice of modesty; now
came an even greater one, but one which, none the less, must certainly
be made. "No, no," said she again, "it can never, never be!"
"But I want you--just as you are! What do I care for the world, without
you, or for what it says, so long as you are mine?"
A flood of bitterness rushed to her heart. Ah, why, why, had fate made
it so necessary that, to save him, she must do what, yesterday, she had
been forced to do!
"You're thinkin' of my ignorance, an' such," she said, with sad eyes
bent upon the gifts which, now, although she looked at them, she did not
see and had forgotten. "But there's more nor that as stands between us,
Mr. Frank."
"You mean you don't love me?"
"No, no; oh, what air th' use o' denyin' it? I love you! It's that--it's
that that drives me from you, an' that breaks--my--heart!"
He went close to her and tried to take her hands in his. "Madge, dear,"
he said softly, "I want you to listen to me. I tell you I shall not let
any foolish pride or any fears for the future stand in the way of our
happiness. When I thought, a moment ago, that I might lose you forever,
I saw what my life would be without you; and, now that I know you love
me, nothing shall come between us. Madge, dear heart, I want you to put
your hand in mine."
She drew away, but it was plain that she was sorely tempted. "Ah, if I
only dared!" said she.
"Come, Madge, darling!" he said fervently, opening his arms to fold her
to his heart.
"No, no," she said, "it wouldn't be right." The Colonel's words: "We'd
think it an eternal shame and a disgrace for one of our women to ride a
race in a costume such as you have on," rang in her mind and filled her
with despair. "The Colonel said--" she began, weakly.
"Oh, damn the Colonel!" Frank cried angrily, wondering why any one
should meddle with his heart-affairs.
And as he spoke the Colonel entered hurriedly, evidently bearing news of
import.
Startled by the young man's earnest words, he stopped short in
astonishment. "Why--what's that, sir?" he exclaimed amazed, and then,
seeing clearly that he had broken in upon a fervent sentimental
situation and unwilling to believe that Frank could really have meant
him when he had been so emphatic, turned his thoughts, again, to the
news which had brought him in such haste.
"I say," he said, excitedly, "I've been cross-examining that rascal,
Ike, and I've found out who smuggled the whiskey to him."
"Who was it?" Madge and Frank cried almost in unison.
"That double-distilled, three-ply scoundrel, Horace Holton," said the
Colonel, angrily.
"Holton!" Frank exclaimed. "I wouldn't have believed it!"
"I would," Madge commented.
"I'll find him and settle with him for it!" Frank angrily exclaimed.
"I'm afraid that's easier said than done," the Colonel answered, "but
I'm with you, and we'll do our best."
Through the windows came the noise of baying hounds. It instantly
attracted their attention, as it ever will that of Kentuckians. "What's
that? A fox-hunt?"
Frank had hurried to the window and was looking out. "No," he answered,
in incredulous amazement, "it's Holton and his gang. They're hunting Joe
Lorey with dogs!"
Madge hurried to his side, distressed beyond the power of words to tell.
"Oh, oh!" she cried. "They're coming this way, and--and--who's that?"
As she spoke Joe Lorey dashed up, breathless to the window.