THE RIDE DOWN THE QUIET ROAD
“How do you keep Easter at home, Beth? I mean how _did_ you keep Easter
in your old home, Beth? We intend this to be home to you now and
henceforth, you know.” Mrs. Cortlandt smiled at Beth over a book which
she held, but which, plainly, did not engage her attention.
“Keep Easter?” echoed Beth searching her memory for the right answer.
“Why, I don’t know. We----Sometimes the daffodils are out, sometimes
they’re not. Janie and I color eggs; just a few. Aunt Rebecca never
likes me to use many. She thinks the colors and pictures hurt the eggs
for eating, but they really don’t. When Easter comes in April hens
are apt to be setting, so eggs are rather scarce. But coloring them
doesn’t do a bit of harm, if only Aunt Rebecca thought so. She says
it takes away her appetite to see red rabbits, and rabbits in coats,
and blue stripes, and pink flowers, on her breakfast egg. I asked her
to scramble it, or poach it, so she wouldn’t see the decorations. She
thought I was saucy, but I didn’t once think of being. You can get
lovely designs and colors in a package, eight colors and a hundred
pictures for five cents, and you can make shaded colors and change
around a lot with the eight sheets. I’d like to fix eggs for everybody,
but it’s no use!” Beth shook her head over the unreasonableness of
Aunt Rebecca. “Janie and I do them for each other, though, and we fix
up a strawberry basket nest with tissue papers and leave it on each
other’s back porch. A German girl showed us about it; the Easter rabbit
lays the eggs there, you see! It’s quite nice. We don’t do anything
else special, unless it is to wear our straw hat for the first time,
and open our collection boxes in Sunday-school. Oh, yes! We all get a
growing geranium slip, or some plant in Sunday-school that day.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound exciting!” laughed Alys.
“What a talker you are, Bethikins, when once you are set going!” Aunt
Alida laughed too. “We should have gone into the country for Easter; we
usually do, but your Uncle Jim thought that you would like this Easter
in town. We shall not be likely to spend the next one here. You will
probably be in Virginia with us next Easter, at Old Point Comfort, or
at the North Carolina mountains, or the Jersey coast; not in New York,
anyway. So your uncle wants you to see the bright New York Easter this
year. I hope you realize what a personage you are, small Beth, changing
all our habits in this way!”
“I--I think I feel sorry about it,” said Beth in a small voice.
“You needn’t, dear; I shall enjoy it greatly,” said Mrs. Cortlandt
hastily. “It doesn’t seem possible that the Shrove night ball is
already five weeks past!”
“The prince hasn’t gone home, has he?” asked Beth.
“No, but he sails this week,” said Aunt Alida. “We dined with him at
Mrs. Huntley’s last night. He asked most kindly after my four young
people and said that he meant to see you again before he sailed. But
he is scarcely allowed to rest from being entertained and seeing the
country, so I’m not sure you will see him. He came here purposely to
look into some aspects of our industrial conditions and his final
visits to institutions of reform are crowding upon him thick and fast.”
“He’s very nice, very,” said Beth with pensive emphasis. “It’s rather
sad to think that we can’t see him again after he gets to England. Even
if you went there, Aunt Alida, you couldn’t see him as if he weren’t
’way off in some palace, could you? And I’m pretty sure he would like
Trump. He looks and acts like a person who would love a pony like
Trump. I wish he could come here and go to see him before he goes back
and sits in the shadow of the throne.”
Natalie fairly shrieked at this speech. “The shadow of the throne!
Beth, for pity’s sake, what makes you say such queer, fearfully funny
things?” she gasped. “And who is going to sit in it, the prince or
Trump?”
Beth laughed. “Maybe it might be Trump, if the prince saw him and fell
in love with him. I suppose you couldn’t refuse a prince your pony and
be polite. It’s called being in the shadow of the throne in books,” she
added.
“You will see the prince when you go to England; ‘the shadow of the
throne’ will lift long enough for that. We shall go over when Natalie
is twenty; she will be presented at court then. But we’re likely to go
before. The prince and his brothers and sisters rode ponies at your
age; they are on the retired list, enjoying pasturage and comfort now,
for the sake of past service. The prince is a famous rider; you were
right in thinking he would be interested in Trump. Just a moment,
children; I am called.”
Aunt Alida shut her handkerchief into her book and went over to the
telephone that stood on the small teakwood table near her couch; they
were gathered in Aunt Alida’s sitting-room.
“Yes. Mrs. Cortlandt, yes. Oh! No, I didn’t know when you spoke. We
were that instant speaking of you, prince,” she said and the girls
looked at one another and Beth leaned forward with sudden interest in
her eyes.
“How exceedingly kind you are!” exclaimed Mrs. Cortlandt, after she
had silently listened, with eyes and lips smiling, to the voice at the
other end of the wire, which the children could not hear. “Yes, they
all ride. Certainly they may. Without any chaperon, no grown person?
Not even me? I think you will be a more than sufficient chaperon! May
I send a groom, in case of trouble of any sort? Thank you. At eleven?
They shall be ready. I will have their mounts here. Indeed I am
grateful, prince, and I can assure you of a blissful quartette of young
things when they are told of your invitation. Good-bye, prince. Once
more my sincerest thanks.”
Aunt Alida rang off and turned to the three girls, her face alight with
her great tidings.
“Wasn’t that a coincidence, dear lassies? Could you guess who
telephoned, with what message?” she demanded breathlessly.
“The prince wants us to ride with him!” cried Natalie, Alys and Beth,
as if it were a carefully rehearsed trio.
“Precisely that!” Aunt Alida clapped her hands, laughing as though
the guess were a brilliant triumph. “At eleven to-morrow! Not a grown
person with you, but the prince! He says he wants it to be a youthful
frolic, just as he rode with his sisters and brothers. So you are
going. You must take him out on our Quiet Road, as we call it. I
believe I will have a lunch put up, to be hung in a pannier over some
one’s saddle! I’m certain the prince would enjoy its flavor, eaten
out-of-doors, informally. You will show him Trump, Bethie!”
“Aunt Alida, I can make fudge rather splendidly. Do you think I might
make some to take with us?” Beth asked anxiously.
“I’m not sure the cook would allow it, dear; I certainly would, but he
is--formidable is a mild, safe word!” Aunt Alida said.
“Mrs. Hodgman has a gas stove in her rooms; I saw it,” cried Beth.
“If you would let me make it, Aunt Alida, it would be fine to eat out
under a tree, and when I went home, and made fudge for the girls, I’d
say I was Fudge Maker to the Royal Family--like the labels on English
gelatines and needles and things!”
“Oh, Beth, you are a scream!” cried Alys. “How you mix up! I wouldn’t
care to be like a label myself.”
“Beth’s meaning is clear,” laughed her aunt. “Bless your heart,
Bethikins, if you can win Mrs. Hodgman over, I’ve no objections to your
making anything you like.”
“Mrs. Hodgman never has to be won over; she is always ’way over when
you ask her a favor,” said Beth, as she ran off to ask the housekeeper
this favor.
She ran into Dirk in the doorway. “You’ve got Hodgie’s measure, all
right,” he remarked, hearing what Beth had just said. “I was around
seeing Ken Appleton’s new printing-press,” he added, replying to the
inquiry in his mother’s eyes. “Anything up?”
Beth wheeled in the doorway, where she had lingered to hear what Dirk
would say to the plan for the morrow, and she joined the other two
girls in telling him about it.
“Well, that is nifty!” Dirk said. “We’ll have a great time; not better
than when we ride with father that way, though! The prince is a nice
chap. He’s a little like Bob Leonard. Wish he could go, too!”
Alys laughed, but Natalie colored and said spiritedly: “I think Mr.
Leonard is something like the prince, too. They’re both so real, not
thinking of themselves at all. I believe Mr. Leonard’s more like a
prince than the prince is.”
“So are you--like a real sort, I mean,” approved Dirk warmly.
“Well, if I’m going to make fudge----” Beth suggested and departed on
her own implication that it was time she was off.
Mrs. Hodgman was not merely willing to have Beth at work in her rooms:
she welcomed her coming. Beth instinctively felt that the housekeeper
had a sorrowful life-story lying behind her present. Kind as Aunt Alida
was, the little girl suspected that Mrs. Hodgman was often lonely in
a position that made her one with neither servants nor employer. To
suspect a heartache and to try to relieve it were one with sweet Beth.
Mrs. Hodgman had grown to love her dearly for the sunshine Beth did not
forget to bring to her by frequent visits as she sat alone.
Beth triumphantly made her fudge, beating it so long that she risked
being late to dinner, but, as she explained to Mrs. Hodgman, “princely
fudge must be the best ever.” It was. Aunt Alida gave her a captivating
box for it and Beth went to bed early, to be ready and fresh for the
Event.
Natalie, Alys and Beth were waiting in their riding habits before
half-past ten, trying not to fume and fuss that it was but half-past
ten. The horses were waiting in the courtyard fifteen minutes ahead of
time, Tim in charge. He was to ride with the party.
Beth slipped down and tied a bow of wide satin ribbon on Trump’s
bridle, on the head strap. It stood up between his ears precisely like
a wide bow on the top of a small girl’s head; the effect intoxicated
Beth. She kissed her pony frantically.
“I put it there in honor of the prince--red, for the English flag, you
know,” she explained to Tim. “But isn’t it just wildly becoming to him?”
“Sure, a green bow would be the right one, Miss Beth,” said Tim, with
his twinkle. “Trump’s for Home Rule and the lovely green isle, an’ it’s
none of the English red he’d be wearin’, give him his choice in the
matter: St. Patrick’s day just past, more by token.”
“Oh, well, I suppose what he really likes is the red, white and blue,
but I know he is glad to honor the prince’s flag to-day,” retorted
Beth, tearing herself away from the pony, who cocked his eye after her
under his bang and big red bow in a manner that made going difficult.
The prince was punctual to the minute. He was riding a noble English
hunting horse, lent him by one of his American friends, and he sat him
with the strength and grace that is the perfection of horsemanship.
At the last moment Alys and Beth felt embarrassed to go down to greet
their royal escort and hung back. But Natalie and Dirk led the way with
quiet confidence, Dirk because he felt no shyness, taking the prince
for granted, as he took Mr. Leonard; Natalie, because she was endowed
with so much of her mother’s instinctive tact that her one thought was
to set the prince at ease with them, the young Americans, to whom he
had undertaken to be kind.
The prince sprang from his horse and stood bareheaded, waiting, when
the door opened and Mrs. Cortlandt came out, followed by her four young
people.
“Quite ready? That’s right,” cried the prince, after he had greeted
Mrs. Cortlandt. “We must be off immediately, then. Ah, what noble
horses!” he added. “That Kentucky type cannot be surpassed under
saddle. And the little beggar from the Shetland isles! Now, could that
belong to Judith Shakespeare?”
His merry smile set Beth at ease completely. She shook her head hard.
“That’s Trump; he belongs to Beth Bristead,” she said.
“Let Beth Bristead mount him, then, and off we go! Let me give you a
hand, Miss Natalie, Miss Alys and Beth Bristead.”
The prince held his hand for Natalie’s foot and swung her into the
saddle, then Alys. But Beth gave her hands to Tim and was jumped into
the saddle and sat laughing on Trump when the prince was ready to do
her like service.
“This red bow is for the English flag,” Beth explained, touching the
end of Trump’s flaring decoration, with much of its color leaping into
her cheeks.
“My word!” The prince laughed, swinging into his own saddle. “Indeed
I’m flattered! I wish I had thought to tie red, white and blue on this
chap of mine, but I’m stupid. Will your brother Dick--Dirk--precede, to
guide us? Let us take a country road, if it does not need too long to
get on one from your narrow city, which seems to be spreading out over
the country, northward, like jam on a long stick of Italian bread.”
“Oh, isn’t that just what it does!” cried Natalie appreciatively. She
and Beth rode with the prince, Alys and Dirk preceded them, Tim in the
rear.
“We were going to take you on what we call the Quiet Road. There is a
piece of good woods still standing about seven miles out; we love it,
sir--prince----” Natalie stammered at the end of her sentence, not
knowing what was the proper form of address for a young girl like her
to use toward a royal personage.
“The Quiet Road sounds like the very thing,” approved the prince. “And
we are all comrades of the road to-day. Formality must be laid aside. I
shall call you all by your first names: I’ve got them right? Natalie,
Alys, Beth and Dirk? I thought so. I have quite a lot of names, six
Christian names, besides a few family ones. It isn’t just the thing, I
suppose, for young people to call an old gentleman, twenty-seven years
old, by an unset first name, so to speak. So, as I am one of the United
States’ English cousins, perhaps you would better call me Cousin Hal.
My mother called me Hal, when I was a small chap. Henry is one of my
names, you know. Do you agree?”
“If--if you say it is respectful,” said Natalie, looking so lovely as
she blushed that the prince’s eyes reflected it.
“Couldn’t we make believe that you are Prince Hal--you are, of
course--I mean the old one, and that we are riding back after the
battle of Agincourt?” asked Beth.
“Such a child for history and for playing at it!” exclaimed “Cousin
Hal.” “Surely, if you like. Just you wait till I get home and crush
my nieces and nephews, telling them of the little American who knows
English history so well and never loses a chance to bring it to life!
I’ll shame them, the scamps!”
“Would you tell us about them--Cousin Hal?” Natalie’s voice trembled,
but she bravely brought out the alarming name.
“Bravo, pretty Natalie!” cried “Cousin Hal.” “What a jolly morning
we’re having! There’s nothing like a young party like this, on
horseback! I’ll tell you all I can about the children at home; they’re
nice children.”
Whereupon the prince began to tell them of “the children at home.” As
he talked he showed them a portrait of a merry, sensible, well-trained
group of youngsters, brave, dutiful, but full of human nature. His
listeners almost forgot, after a while, that the boy so like Dirk in
his traits was the heir to the throne. Alys and Dirk fell back to hear
the story. It was plain to be seen that this prince was a fond uncle
and that he liked nothing better than frolics with the king’s children,
his nieces and nephews.
It was a beautiful morning, late in March. The air was full of the
damp warmth of open ground; the odors of earth and flowing sap were
upon its gentle movement. As the horsemen rode out “the Quiet Road”
bluebirds, robins, song sparrows, peewees, the chorusing blackbirds
uttered delicious notes from low growths along the stone rows.
“We turn in here, Cousin Hal,” said Natalie, indicating with her stock
a road that looked like a lane, leading nowhere. “Perhaps it isn’t
too damp to sit on a log for a little while. Mama had a tiny luncheon
put up, mostly for the fun of eating it out-of-doors. Tim has it in a
hamper on the front of his saddle.”
“Now I call that downright good news and most kind of Mrs. Cortlandt!
She must be as good as she is beautiful, as the story-books say,
and that is a strong statement in her case, for she is wonderfully
handsome. I, for one, am a bit keen set; how about you, Dirk?” cried
the prince, slapping his riding boot boyishly.
“I’m always hungry, pretty much. It’s this way: When you’re riding you
could eat a bite every time the horse puts a hoof down, but you can
just as well let it go till you’re back, because nothing fills you up,
anyway,” said Dirk, so seriously that they all laughed.
It was a pretty little glade to which the children conducted their
older comrade. Here they tethered the horses and found for themselves
two or three logs of various lengths upon which it seemed prudent to
sit; they were sun-dried and time-cured and much of their bark had
peeled away.
“Now, Tim, my man, where’s that hamper we’ve heard about?” asked the
prince.
“Here it is, sir,” said Tim, bringing it forward.
It was a small hamper, necessarily, to be carried on a horse, but
it was carefully packed, with great judgment, and its contents were
exactly right and exactly enough to take the edge comfortably off a
riding appetite and yet not spoil the meal that would be served on the
riders’ return. Beth’s fudge was the dessert.
“How delicious!” cried “Cousin Hal”--he seemed like Cousin Hal
now!--taking a big bite out of the middle of a sandwich of thin roast
beef and crisp lettuce. “Isn’t it fine to get off like this and be
allowed to eat without plates or forks, just as they ate in Eden?”
“Do you feel that way, too?” cried Beth, delighted to share an
experience. “I think if they would put people out in the woods and let
them eat pieces of pie and things in their fingers, they’d never have
to get tonics in bottles, nor doctors.”
“Beth, there spake wisdom!” “Cousin Hal” accepted a large triangle of
fudge as he spoke and rolled up his eyes at the first bite in a way
that sent Dirk heels over head in a somersault. “Though truth compels
me to state that meals under almost any circumstances do not come amiss
with me.” He arose, brushing crumbs out of the folds of his trousers
where they were tucked into his boots. “I’m going to put that scamp of
a Trump through a trick or so and teach him a new one. I’ve sugar in my
pocket to reward him, if he gets the idea. My word, but that fine fudge
makes one thirsty!”
“Oh, there’s a fine spring here. To think we forgot it!” cried Beth.
“Dirk and Tim will fetch water.”
“Not they, not without me!” cried “Cousin Hal.” “Isn’t this a free
day in which I’m not to be shown deference? Take me with you, Dirk,
Tim. I shall drink from the spring with this cup!” He held up his palms
together, made hollow.
When the spring had quenched the thirst of them all the prince put
Trump through his brief repertory of accomplishments. Then he taught
him to “waltz.” It was not a precise waltz, to be sure, but as the
prince danced in spiral curves, softly whistling a waltz, the pony,
after a few failures, followed him remarkably. Beth was in ecstasy.
“I never, never saw anything so wonderful!” she cried. “Isn’t he
clever? And how can you make him?”
“I have a sort of understanding with all horse-flesh,” said the
prince, rewarding Trump with sugar and rubbing his ears as the pony
affectionately nuzzled him. “In the regiment, my regiment, they get me
to reason with a horse that is troublesome and he nearly always harkens
to me.”
“Are you in the army?” asked Dirk with intense interest.
“Yes, Dirk. You see, in a way, I was rather born to it. They made
me an officer when I was a small lad. I had no choice but to do
what was cut out for me--not that I don’t like it,” said the prince
quietly. “That brings me to what I wanted to say. This has been such
a delightful morning, don’t you think, that I for one would like
something lasting to come of it. I was turning over in my mind the
night after the ball what I could do to prove to you how much I enjoyed
meeting you up in the gallery and what friends we were. I thought of
asking you to ride with me as the best thing I could devise, for it
would cement our friendship by making us really well acquainted. Then,
that wasn’t enough; I wanted something more, to remember the riding
by. It would go on like an endless chain, at that rate, now wouldn’t
it?” he paused to laugh. “But here it stops: not our friendship,
but souvenirs of it--for a time, I mean. I really did not know what
to suggest to myself to get, or to do, in memory of to-day. Then it
flashed upon me. Like Archimedes, don’t you know, I sat up and cried
Eureka! What do you think I invented?”
“I don’t see how any one could possibly guess what you would think of,
you think of everything wonderful and different,” cried Beth fervently,
as the prince looked at her.
She was burning with admiring affection for this friend who turned the
every-day world into a tale of absorbing interest and who could also
teach Trump to waltz.
“Well, let me tell you!” cried the prince, one hand patting Beth’s
shoulder in acknowledgment of her enthusiasm. “I decided to found an
order! Don’t you know? Like the Order of the Golden Fleece, or our own
Order of the Garter, with an insignia, a badge, don’t you know, and an
object. What do you say to it?”
“Sure; it’ll be fine! Of course we don’t know anything about it yet,
but it’ll be fine,” cried Dirk with the most flattering confidence.
“It would be fine to have an army like you, Dirk; ready to follow
wherever one leads!” laughed the prince. “My idea is something in the
way of such a loyal army. You see lots of people never ask what they
ought to do, but only what they want to do in this world. It leads to
no end of mischief. Sometimes two people want to do exactly opposite
things, two people, I mean, who stand in such relation to each other
that whatever one does makes the other happy or wretched, blessed or
ruined, according to which course the first one takes. No one is free
in this world; we’re all tied and bound together by all sorts of fine
lines and there is no greater nonsense talked than to say that any of
us is free to go on as he pleases, regardless of others, or of the
obligations of his position in society and toward his country. It’s
my idea that happiness can come to each of us and to the world only
when people stop to think, if there’s a question to decide, not what
is pleasant, but what is right; not what they _want_, but what they
_ought_ to do. So I should like to found a little order over here
in the United States of five members, Natalie, Alys, Dirk, Beth and
myself, to be called the Order of the Strong Hearted. The members
pledge themselves to aim to do their duty every time, regardless of
whether it is hard or easy, and not to talk about it, nor make a fuss,
but to do it, as becomes the strong of heart. And here is our insignia,
if you approve it.”
[Illustration: THE PRINCE SLIPPED A RING UPON EACH HAND.]
The prince, looking flushed by his own earnestness and embarrassed in
setting forth what, after all, was a high ideal, told in simple words,
produced from his pocket four small boxes. Opening them he displayed
four rings, curiously wrought, of a beautiful design, each one set with
a dark oriental sapphire, cut oblong.
“Oh!” gasped the four children, too delighted and impressed to say more.
“I had the rings made,” explained the prince. “The sapphire represents
the true blue of loyalty and love. The carving--see the design? Links,
twisted and intertwisted to signify that no one stands alone. The rings
are suited now to your fourth fingers, I’m sure, so, as your hands
grow, they will come to be right for the smallest finger, where they
will really look best. Will you let me confer upon you the Order of the
Strong Hearted and invest you with its insignia?”
“Yes,” said Natalie and Beth together.
One by one they came in turn to the prince and he slipped a ring upon
each hand, saying: “I invest you with the Order of the Strong Hearted.
When the hour comes for choice, you are to choose the right, your life
long, doing your duty bravely, as becomes the Strong of Heart.”
It was almost a solemn little ceremony. It was a royal right to found
an order and to invest its members with its insignia. Beth felt
uplifted, awed, but profoundly happy. This was not making believe, yet
it held all the charm of the best making believe, combined with reality.
“Now, shall we ride back again?” suggested the prince. “It is the
worst of pleasant things that they must end, but, on the other hand, it
is the best of unpleasant things, and so we come to an average good.”
They rode back rapidly. Once more the prince, who, as he told them of
his new Order, seemed every inch a prince, was once more “Cousin Hal,”
the merry, boyish comrade of the day.
They reached home in good time, but the prince bade them farewell at
the door.
“I can’t possibly come in, thank you, Mrs. Cortlandt. I assure you it
would be a great pleasure to me, but I fear I am already late to an
engagement to lunch. Good-bye, my dear little cousins. Some day you
will visit me in England. It is not good-bye for always, you know!”
He stood bareheaded under the porte-cochère and took both hands of each
of the Cortlandts and Beth in a hearty farewell clasp. He held Beth’s
hands for a moment longer than the others. Then he stooped and kissed
her cool cheek.
“Good-bye, dear little Beth,” he said. “You are a sweet, old-fashioned
little girl and I hope you will be a happy woman, as I know you will be
a good and charming one.”
Then he sprang upon his beautiful horse and was gone. Beth walked into
the house in a dazed way, turning the ring upon her finger.
“He was a king’s son,” she said. “If it weren’t for this ring I could
not believe it had all happened! He is the best, the splendidest, and
he is gone! Oh, why do people have to come, like falling stars, right
out of nothing and then go away into it?” Tears stood in her eyes. Aunt
Alida kissed them away.
“It was a beautiful little adventure, dearest,” she said. “Natalie
has told me of the Order of the Strong Hearted. The prince has done
a really lovely thing in establishing it. You cannot know now how
far-reaching it may be in its consequences on your life and character.
I am profoundly grateful to him, and I think he is, in the highest
sense, a nobleman.”
Three days later the paper announced that the prince had sailed.
But he had left behind him rings upon four growing hands and a deep
impression, a noble ideal, in four impressionable, unfolding hearts.