woman o' his class would marry him now. No woman likes to think her
man's guilty o' breakin' the law, eh? You-all wouldn' like yo' husband
to be a moonshiner, would ye?"
The man's body leaned towards the girl, and he fixed her with a cruel
stare from which she seemed unable to move her eyes. Seated as he was,
he looked like a huge snake upreared to strike.
He went on mercilessly. "O' co'se ye wouldn'. Ah expect you'd never
hol' up yo' haid ag'in. What woman can when her man's that-a-way?"
"Oh, dry up, Pink," cried Bud. "You-all make me feel like Ah had the
constable after me now, 'n Lawd knows hit ain' _me_ that's raced 'em
through these woods."
Pink acknowledged the shot with a grunt.
Melissa rose to go, and Bud picked up the baby and handed it to her.
"Hit's her busy day fo' sleepin', ain' hit?" he said, poking a blunt
finger into the soft cheek.
"I must go, too," said Bob, "or my mother'll jar me up for being late."
"Good-by," said Bud, genially. "Stop by ag'in some time."
"Miss Sydney's been so busy she ain' rode over here fo' a long time.
Will you-all give mah love to her, please?" said Melissa, timidly.
"'N mine," Pink started to add, but a dangerous look in Bob's eye
induced him to change it to "'N mah _re_-gards to Mr. Baron," though
his grin remained unaltered.
XII
Illumination
For the first time since the beginning of his illness, von Rittenheim
was walking unassisted towards the cluster of trees on the Oakwood
lawn, beneath whose shelter rugs and low chairs and a tea-table made a
summer sitting-room. Mrs. Carroll, who already was established in the
shade, watched anxiously her guest's feeble approach.
"You should have let the nurse or James come with you," she called to
him. "It's too far for you to walk alone."
"Ah, dear Mrs. Carroll, it is so good not to have that admirable nurse
or the good Uncle Yimmy with me."
He let himself down carefully into a big chair.
"And you see that not yet do I disdain cushions. The down of that
pr-rovident bird, the eider duck, makes a substitute for the flesh that
ought to pad my poor bones. Thank you, Uncle Yimmy," to the old negro,
who had just set down the tea-tray, "thank you, yes, one more pillow
behind my shoulders."
"You'll have tea?"
"May I have tea? Is it possible that I r-return in one same day to two
examples of independence? I walk abr-road alone, and I say again to my
dear Mrs. Carroll, 'I thank you. It does me pleasure to accept a cup of
tea from your hands.'" He held up his own hand against the sun. "A
little worse for the wear, my hand, eh? But still of use."
A slight change of position brought into view the field at the foot of
the knoll upon whose top they were. Friedrich sat upright in his chair,
while a flush tinged his worn cheeks.
"What makes Miss Sydney down there?" he cried.
"Sydney? Oh, she is breaking some of the colts; teaching them to jump,
I think she said, to-day."
Mrs. Carroll adjusted her eye-glasses. Two negro grooms were setting up
a low hurdle with wings, while two small black boys dangled joyously
from the halters of a couple of young horses, and a third bore Sydney's
saddle upon his head.
"Is it Bob Mor-rgan with Miss Sydney?" asked Friedrich, wistfully, as
the girl walked across the field beside a man who was leading a tall
gray, already saddled.
"Yes, that's Bob. A huge fellow, isn't he?"
"And fear you not that Miss Sydney should ride those so wild colts?"
"Not now. I used to be frightened to death, but I've seen her and Bob
down there doing that for so many years that I've learned not to be
afraid. She rides really very well, you know, and Bob is careful of
her."
"He would be."
Von Rittenheim sighed, and leaned back with closed eyes. He wished with
all his soul that it were he down in the field fitting the saddle--that
_dear_ side-saddle--to that dancing creature; that it were he who was
responsible for the safety of Sydney.
"Bob gives her a lead over, you see, on his horse, which is a
well-trained animal."
Friedrich opened his eyes in time to see the gray take off neatly.
Sydney followed, and lifted her mount so cleverly that he had leaped
his first hurdle before he knew what he was doing. The watchers on the
knoll could see Bob, sitting on his horse at one side, clap his hands
in approval, while the pickaninnies turned cartwheels in the grass.
"She does r-ride most beautifully, Miss Sydney. It is truly pleasurable
to see her," murmured von Rittenheim, though his expression was one of
approval rather than delight.
"Do you know, Mrs. Carroll, have I told you how much this _Aussicht--view_,
is it not?--and the position of your house make me to think of my home?
It is on the edge of the Schwarzwald, and we look down from the Schloss
into a valley, oh, so lovely! with trees and a little r-river."
"A much wilder prospect than we have here at Oakwood."
"But not more beautiful, and the feeling is the same."
A vulgar emotion assailed the well-kept precincts of Mrs. Carroll's
mind. Curiosity, commonplace curiosity surged within her. She yielded
to its force.
"How could you bear to leave it?"
"It was the old pr-reference of the man in the window of the burning
castle,--behind, the flames r-roaring mightily, and below, the spears
of his enemies."
"A choice between evils."
"Yes, if you will for-rgive my calling your country an evil. I was
unhappy--too unhappy to stay where every day I saw something to make me
worse; and that evil was gr-reater than to banish myself, even though I
do love my country dearly."
"Was it necessary for you to come so far? Could you not find peace in
your own land?"
"I thought not. You see--if I do not weary you I will tell you. Shall I
tell you?"
"You never weary me," returned Mrs. Carroll, heartily. "I shall
consider that you do me an honor if you care to speak to me about
yourself."
"It shall be only a little," began Friedrich, repenting of his
expansiveness. "Perhaps I have told you that I am the older of my
family. I have one br-rother four years younger. Our parents are dead
several years, and Maximilian is married two years ago with Hilda von
Arnim."
"You spoke of them both when you were ill; in your delirium, you know."
"Of Max and Hilda? What did I say?"
A sharp note was in Friedrich's voice.
"My dear Baron, I must make the humiliating confession that long disuse
has impaired sadly my understanding of German. If you should speak to
me very slowly, probably I could comprehend you, but at that time you
were not speaking slowly."
"My nurses?"
"Neither of them speaks a word of anything but English."
"It is an escape," he murmured. "Forgive me, _gnaedige Frau_. It is a
startle to think that perhaps you have given to the world your heart's
thoughts."
"Be reassured. It was only the names, Max and Hilda, that we
understood."
"When my tr-rouble came to me, it was unbearable to stay at the
Schloss, so I must go away. Yet Maximilian was not able to pr-reserve
the estate as it should be kept. He is not r-rich, Max, and he is a
little what you call swift, eh? He spends much."
"I see."
"So if I leave him to care for the Schloss I must leave him also my
incomings, and, if I act so, I cannot live myself in my own country
where I have friends of the army and of society; where I have a--what
is it?--a stand?"
"Position?"
"Yes, yes, a position to hold up. I must go where it concerns nobody if
I am changed in purse. So to America I came, it is about two years
since, and for one year I tr-ravelled everywhere to see where I liked
best, and for the diversion also, for I was most sad. Then my money
grew down so small that I saw I must stop, so to this lovely land I
happened, and I bought my little farm. But, alas! I fear I am not a
farmer. Still, I shall learn. I am determined of that."
"I'm sure you will. You haven't had a chance yet."
"And this year, what can I do? I am so misfortunate as to be away and
sick at the time of planting."
"You won't be without some little return, for when we found that you
would be ill so long we let your fields to two men who have planted
them, and will pay you one-third of their crop of corn. That's the
customary rent here, and it will keep your mule through next winter, at
any rate."
"Now, that is truly kind and thoughtful. It is, indeed, fr-riendly!"
"You must thank Dr. Morgan for that arrangement."
Von Rittenheim sat erect and stared at the little old lady before him.
A look of confused and struggling recollection was called into life by
her words.
"I must thank--whom?"
The spirit of the gallant adventurer who had been Mrs. Carroll's
immigrant ancestor to the Virginia wilds pushed her on to dare the
situation. She also sat upright, and the two faced each other
undauntedly.
"You must thank Dr. Morgan for that kindness, and for others even
greater."
"Dr. Mor-rgan?"
Clearer remembrance brought with it the old feeling of suspicion and
its accompanying look of hatred, which distorted Friedrich's handsome
face.
"Yes, Dr. Morgan. I want you to listen to what I am going to tell you.
You are well enough now to hear the truth."
"It is your right, madam, to say to me what you may like."
Von Rittenheim turned his stern face towards the training-field, and
kept his eyes upon the moving forms that shifted below him.
Mrs. Carroll was unabashed.
"Dr. Morgan is an old and tried friend of mine and of all my family. He
has seen life come and go at Oakwood. He rejoiced with us at Sydney's
birth, and he was my chief help and support when her father and mother
left us two here together, alone."
With a certain tenderness--the yearning that a man feels to protect the
feeble and the helpless--Friedrich turned his softened eyes towards
her.
"I tell you this because I can say truthfully that I know him to be
faithful in friendship and incapable of treachery."
Friedrich turned again with tightened lips to his contemplation of the
meadow.
"We heard of your being summoned to court and for what purpose."
Mrs. Carroll stopped, for a grayness settled over the young man's face,
and the eyes that he turned upon hers were filled with horror.
"You had forgotten?"
"Yes, I had forgotten."
All the pride went out of him, as the fading of the sun's flush leaves
the evening clouds without illumination and dull.
"I had for-rgotten, but now I r-remember. It comes back to me. Yes, now
I r-remember all--all."
He turned away his face both from her and from the field below, and
rested his cheek on his hand. Mrs. Carroll noticed the thinness of his
wrist, and her heart misgave her.
"Shall I go on?"
"If it please you."
"Bob Morgan went into Asheville to follow your career in behalf of all
your friends here."
Von Rittenheim's head fell lower.
"He was in the court-room when you were----"
The old lady hesitated and watched von Rittenheim sharply. She was
doubtful of his strength after all.
"When I was--yes, continue, please," he said, with muffled voice.
"When you were sentenced."
She hastened on, pretending not to hear the groan that followed her
revelation.
"He galloped out here at once as fast as he could, and told us about
it--his father and me. He feared an illness for you then--you looked
not yourself, he said. We decided that it was best for you to come here
to Oakwood. We could not bear to think of your going to the hospital."
Friedrich felt vaguely across the table for the plump little hand of
his hostess, and pressed it blindly.
"They drove into town that same afternoon, Dr. Morgan in our carriage,
and Bob in his buggy, and found you in the--found you very ill."
"Found me where?"
"You were delirious even then."
"Found me where?"
Friedrich pushed aside the cups and placed both elbows on the table. He
seemed to Mrs. Carroll to have grown haggard since she had begun her
recital.
"Found me where?" he repeated for the third time.
"You insist?"
"It is my r-right."
"They found you in--in the jail."
Mrs. Carroll turned away from the wretched man before her and sobbed
undisguisedly. On them fell a quiet pregnant with emotion. The hush was
broken by the crash of a tea-cup upon which Friedrich's fingers had
happened to fall.
"Bob secured the nurses and drove one of them out in the buggy, and the
Doctor and the other one brought you in the carriage."
"Why did they let me go from the--jail?"
"The Doctor paid your fine."
Often during the preceding weeks Mrs. Carroll had thought of this
conversation with von Rittenheim, and the statement that she had just
made always had figured as the climax of her argument in the Doctor's
behalf. Now she felt no pleasure in it. The man before her was too
crushed for her to exult over. He made no comment, merely said,
reflectively,--
"Yes, there was a fine. It comes to me,--'one hundred dollars or three
months.' It is the last thing I r-remember."
"You were dangerously ill by the time you reached Oakwood, and for
three days Dr. Morgan left you only to visit his other patients.
Between the attacks of stupor you talked a great deal, usually in
German, but occasionally in English. From what you said then, and what
Dr. Morgan remembered of conversations you had had with him, and from
what Bob learned in Asheville, we gathered that you thought that when
Dr. and Mrs. Morgan met the marshal on the road after they had been to
your house, they betrayed you to him, and your arrest was the
consequence. Is that so?"
Von Rittenheim nodded. "Yes, it is so."
"I hope it will come to you as clearly as we see it who are the
Doctor's friends, that he is incapable of such a thing."
"Dear lady, even already I think I see it. I r-remember darkly my
trial; how the officer told of his trick to entr-rap me into selling.
Ah, dear Mrs. Carroll, I was anxious to despair from my so unusual
poverty, and I was hungry, and bitten with shame for my weakness--and
hopeless."
Unconsciously his eyes turned to the field below, where Sydney's hair
gleamed red bronze in the sunset light. She was dismissing the men and
horses. A great wall seemed to von Rittenheim to spring up between
them, a wall made thick by his folly, and high by his disgrace, and
strong by his weakness.
"Though I am shameful to say such things as if they were excuses,
nothing excuses me. I am without justification. I say so most humbly to
you."
Weakly he leaned back among his cushions. Mrs. Carroll glanced at him
and hurried on.
"When the first fury of the disease was spent, you seemed distressed at
the sight of the Doctor, though you did not recognize him fully; so,
though he has not failed to come here twice each day, it is through the
nurses' reports and Bob's that he has been treating you. He can do so
much better for you now if you will see him."
"If I will see him?" he repeated. "Yes, I can at least make some little
amends for my folly--my distr-rust. But can I win back ever my
self-r-respect, so that you and other people can r-respect me? So
that----"
He stopped as Sydney's voice reached him. She was coming up the hill,
laughing with Bob.
Von Rittenheim looked appealingly at Mrs. Carroll.
"Sydney," she called, "go on to the house, dear, with Bob, and send
James here."
She rose and laid her hand tenderly on the bent head.
"Stay here a while. It is still quite warm enough for you."
She went slowly across the lawn and disappeared beneath the veranda's
roses. A level ray from the setting sun touched Friedrich's fair hair
with gold, and went on to be splintered into a thousand tiny shafts
against the swelling side of the silver cream-jug.
XIII
Reconciliation
The sunshine of a clear June day was beating upon the gravel of the
driveway, and a few woolly clouds, the forerunners of the early
afternoon's daily shower, clung over the tops of the southern
mountains.
Behind the screen of vines and climbing roses that sheltered the porch
von Rittenheim sat reading a New York paper of two days before. It was
the morning after his explanation with Mrs. Carroll, and the emotional
outcome of the talk had been a state of abasement of soul that had
sapped his little store of strength. His thin hands shook weakly, and
he continually changed his position, and glanced expectantly at the
long window which opened upon the gallery.
Sydney's voice inside the house made him clutch his paper nervously.
She spoke loudly, as in warning.
"The Baron? You'll find him on the porch, Dr. Morgan. The nurse says
he didn't sleep very well last night."
"He didn't? We must mend that." And the Doctor stepped from the window
and approached his long-unseen patient.
Von Rittenheim looked up into the wrinkled brown face with its shrewd,
kind eyes, and covered his own eyes with his hand.
"You know?" he asked, brokenly. "Mrs. Carroll has told you?" He felt
his other hand taken into a cordial grasp.
"Mrs. Carroll has told me that she has described to you all the
happenings of yo' illness that had escaped yo' attention, so to speak.
Curious troubles, these brain affairs, aren't they? Make you feel as if
you'd been on an excursion outside of yo'self for a while, and had to
hear all the home news when you got back."
Von Rittenheim grew composed as the Doctor rambled on.
"She has not told you," he said, insistently, "of my so deep r-regret
for the injustice that I made towards you. I can never do atonement for
my br-rutal behavior, for my unjust suspiciousness. That you can take
my hand shows much par-rdon in you."
"Now, don't talk about that any more, Baron. It ain't worth it," Dr.
Morgan replied, awkwardly. "Ah don't guess that circumstances looked
very favorable to me. Anyway, you-all can please me best now by doing
credit to my doctoring skill. Quit having the appearance of a skeleton
just as quick as you can."
"I'll try," answered Friedrich, meekly.
"And don't worry too much over what's gone by," went on the Doctor,
clumsily. "Breaking the law's breaking the law, Ah'm not denying that;
but it makes a lot of difference what the motive is, and you've
suffered your share of punishment, too. It's the right of every man to
begin afresh. Avoid mud and give yo' horse a firm take-off, and he'll
leap as clean as a whistle for you. Lawd, Ah'm getting plumb
religious," he ejaculated, wiping his face.
Friedrich's knowledge of English was put to a test, but he listened
with his eyes as well as his ears, and nodded slowly.
"I think I understand," he said. "But do you think that people--my
fr-riends"--his eyes turned towards the house--"that my friends can
overlook it--can ever think of me as they used to think of me?"
"Oh, I reckon she will," replied Dr. Morgan, with a smile that
disconcerted von Rittenheim and drove him to a new topic.
"You will for-rgive me if I do talk some business with you," he said,
hastily.
"Do you feel well enough?"
"Oh, yes. I shall feel much better when I have cleared my mind of all
these things. I want to say to you that I do much appr-reciate, also,
besides your kindness, all the money that you have paid, and--no, let
me talk, please, Herr Doctor--and I must tell you that I shall write
to-day to Germany for a r-remittance. There is a sum which I can have.
Yes, I see you look, wondering that I have lived so poor. Well, I
explain to you that I have sworn that I would not use it for myself--I
have another use for it--so long as I am well and can earn enough for
living; but now I am not well, and I have expenses in the past weeks,
and I must live until I grow str-rong to work in some way; so am I
justified to myself to send for the money, you see."
"Fix it any way you like," said the Doctor, cheerily, "only remember
that if it ain't convenient to pay up _ever_,--why, just banish it from
your mind, and Ah'll never think of it again, Ah promise you. Now, is
that all?" he asked, as he leaned towards his patient and put a
practised finger on his pulse. "Yes? Then Ah'd like to know where that
Sydney is with that egg-nog. Here, you Sydney," he cried, putting his
head into the house and letting his cracked voice echo into the
darkness. "What kind of a nurse are you? How do you expect to rise in
the profession, miss, if you don't have an egg-nog ready the instant
yo' patient happens to think of it? Oh, here you are! Well, sit down
here, then, and see that the Baron takes every drop of that, and don't
tire him out with yo' chatter. Do you understand?"
After which burst he kissed her, and disappeared into the house. Sydney
turned blushing to the Baron, and laughed at his wistful look.
"Age has its compensations," he said, as he took the tumbler from her.
"But I do not begrudge the good Doctor all the happiness that comes to
him. He is a most generous man."
"He's a darling!"
"A darling? Ah, yes. I should not have used that word for _him_, but I
agree with the sentiment."
"You are critical this morning. Don't you ever allow yourself any
liberty of speech in German? Do you always say exactly what you mean,
and use exactly the right word?"
"Oh, Miss Sydney, you describe to me a pig--no, a pr-rig person. Surely
I use many picture words in my thinking of--well, just to illustrate
what I mean, I will say, in my thinking of _you_!"
Sydney moved her position so that her face was partly hidden behind the
back of the Baron's wheeled chair.
"Now, there is _Schatz_," went on Friedrich, sipping his egg-nog
placidly, but keeping a wary eye upon the bit of pink cheek that was
still within his range of vision. "I like to think of you as
_Schatz_,"--there was a danger-betokening movement of the glowing
head,--"because you are such a treasure to your grandmother."
He paused a moment, but there was no reply.
"And _Perle_--it is a pretty word, _Perle_--it makes you to think of
the r-radiance of the moon, so pure, so soft. Yes," he went on,
hastily, "_Perle_ r-rhymes with _Erle_--that means an alder-tree--and
that r-reminds me of you."
"I must say I fail to see the resemblance," came an injured voice from
behind the chair.
"Not see? Oh, Miss Sydney, surely--with your cleverness! Listen to
this, then; perhaps you like it better that I call you my--I mean
_a_--_Rose_."
"That's because my hair is red."
"It is a white r-rose that always figures in my mind. A beautiful white
r-rose with a heart of gold."
By a dexterous touch upon one wheel he whirled his chair about so that
he saw her downcast face.
"A heart full of goodness to others is it, and of courage, and of
love."
He was leaning eagerly towards her. She lifted her eyes with an effort,
and met his. Then he remembered.
"Yes," he continued, hurriedly, "full of love for the poor and the
desolate."
Sydney rose.
"Your pretty figures do me too much honor," she said, unsteadily, and
went into the house with lingering tread and look.
Friedrich gazed after her.
"God knows I would be counted among the poor and the desolate," he
cried, softly, to himself. "But I must not speak again of this until I
am more worthy to stand before her--if ever that can be!"
XIV
The Fourth of July
That the settle-_ment_ celebrated the Fourth of July was not due to an
exuberance of patriotism, but to the mercantile spirit of Uncle Jimmy's
son, Pete.
Pete was married, and lived in one of the cottages on the Oakwood
estate, where he worked intermittently, sandwiching between thin slices
of manual labor thick layers of less legitimate emprise.
Independence Day, as the anniversary of the birth of our country's
liberty, is not celebrated with enthusiasm in the South. It meets with
more cordial acceptance when regarded as another opportunity for
knocking off work.
Pete's plan catered to all conditions of conscience, from the seared
commodity that asked no excuse for playing to the scrupulous article
that considered justification necessary, and found it in the
infrequency of such amusement.
He advertised far and wide, by placards in the scattered stores and
post-offices that cling near the railway stations and dot the Haywood
Road on the other side of the river, a--
GANDER PULIN
FORTH OF JULY
AT 5 OCLOCK.
FRADYS FEILD.
"I always make a point of going to these outdoor gatherings of the
country people," explained Mrs. Carroll to the Baron, as they drove
towards the field. "I think they like to have me."
Von Rittenheim had insisted upon going home to his cabin a few days
before, since which time the old lady had missed him grievously. He was
not yet strong enough to take the five-mile ride to Oakwood on his
mule, and she had made the gander-pulling an excuse to go to his cabin
to see how his housekeeping was progressing, and to take him for a
drive.