It was the morning of the wedding.
According to the usage of the time the marriage ceremony was to take place
early in the forenoon, in order that the guests, gathered in from distant
settlements of the wilderness, might have a day for festivity and still
reach home before night. Late in the afternoon the bridal couple, escorted
by many friends, were to ride into town to Joseph's house, and in the
evening there was to be a house-warming.
The custom of the backwoods country ran that a man must not be left to build
his house alone; and one day some weeks before this wagons had begun to roll
in from this direction and that
direction out of the forest, hauling the logs for Joseph's cabin.
Then with loud laughter and the writhing of tough backs and the straining of
powerful arms and legs, men old, middle-aged, and young had raised the house
like overgrown boys at play, and then had returned to their own neglected
business: so that to him was left only the finishing.He had finished it and
furnished it for the simple scant needs of pioneer life.But on this, his
wedding morning, he had hardly left the town, escorted by friends on
horseback, before many who had variously excused themselves from going began
to issue from their homes: women carrying rolls of linen and pones of bread;
boys with huge joints of jerked meat and dried tongues of the buffalo, bear,
and deer. There was a noggin, a piggin, a churn, a homemade chair; there was
a quilt from a grandmother and a pioneer cradle--a mere trough scooped out
of a walnut log. An old pioneer sent the antlers of a stag for a hat-rack,
and a buffalo rug for the young pair to lie warm under of bitter, winter
nights; his wife sent a spinning-wheel and a bundle of shingles for
johnny-cakes. Some of the merchants gave packages of Philadelphia groceries;
some of the aristo-cratic families parted with heirlooms that had been
laboriously brought over the mountains--a cup and saucer of Sevres, a pair
of tall brass candlesticks, and a Venus -mirror framed in ebony. It was
about three o'clock in the afternoon when John Gray jumped on the back of a
strong trusty horse at the stable of the Indian Queen, leaned over to shake
the hands of the friends who had met there to see him off, and turned his
horse's head in the direction of the path that led to the Wilderness Road.
But when he had gone about a mile, he struck into the forest at right angles
and rode across the country until he reached that green woodland pathway
which led from the home of the Falconers to the public road between
Lexington and Frankfort. He tied his horse some distance away, and walking
back, sat down on the roots of an oak and waited.
It was a day when the beauty of the earth makes itself felt like ravishing
music that has no sound. The air, warm and full of summer fragrance, was of
that ethereal untinged clearness which spreads over all things the softness
of velvet. The far-vaulted heavens, so bountiful of light, were an
illimitable weightless curtain of pale-blue velvet; the rolling clouds were
of white velvet; the grass, the stems of bending wild flowers, the drooping
sprays of woodland foliage, were so many forms of emerald velvet; the
gnarled trunks of the trees were gray and brown velvet; the wings and
breasts of the birds, flitting hither and thither, were of gold and scarlet
velvet; the butterflies were stemless, floating velvet blossoms."Farewell,
Kentucky! farewell!" he said, looking about him at it all.
Two hours passed. The shadows were lengthening rapidly. Over the forest,
like the sigh of a spirit, swept from out the west the first intimation of
waning light, of the mysteries of coming darkness. At last there reached his
ear from far down the woodland path the sounds of voices and laughter--again
and again--louder and louder--and then through the low thick boughs he
caught glimpses of them coming. Now beneath the darker arches of the trees,
now across pale-green spaces shot by slanting sunbeams. Once there was a
halt and a merry outcry. Long grape-vines from opposite sides of the road
had been tied across it, and this barrier had to cut through. Then on they
came again: At the head of procession, astride an old horse that in his
better days had belonged to a mounted rifleman, rode the parson. He was
several yards ahead of the others and quite forgetful of them. The end of
his flute stuck neglectedly out of his waistcoat pocket; his bridle reins
lay slack on the neck of the drowsy beast; his hands were piled on the
pommel of the saddle as over his familiar pulpit; his dreamy moss-agate eyes
were on the tree-tops far ahead. In truth he was preparing a sermon on the
affection of one man for another and ransacking Scripture for illustrations;
and he meant to preach this the following Sunday when there would be some
one sadly missed among his hearers. Nevertheless he enjoyed great peace of
spirit this day: it was not John who rode behind him as the bridegroom:
otherwise he would as soon have returned to the town at the head of the
forces of Armageddon.
Behind the parson came William Penn in the glory of a new bridle and saddle
and a blanket of crimson cloth; his coat smooth as satin, his mane a
tumbling cataract of white silk; bunches of wild roses at his ears; his
blue-black eyes never so soft, and seeming to lift his feet cautiously like
an elephant bearing an Indian princess.
They were riding side by side, the young husband and wife. He keeping one
hand on the pommel of her saddle, thus holding them together; while with the
other he used his hat to fan his face, now hers, though his was the one that
needed it, she being cool and quietly radiant with the thoughts of her
triumph that day--the triumph of her wedding, of her own beauty. Furthermore
show was looking ahead to the house-warming that night when she would be
able to triumph again and also count her presents.
Then came Major and Mrs. Falconer. Her face was hidden by a veil and as they
passed, it was held turned toward him: he was talking, uninterrupted.
Then followed Horatio Turpin and Kitty Poythress; and then Erskine and his
betrothed, he with fresh feathers of the hawk and the scarlet tanager
gleaming in his cap above his swart, stern aquiline face. Then Peter, beside
the widow Babcock; he openly aflame and solicitous; she coy and discreetly
inviting, as is the wisdom of some. Then others and others and others--a
long gay pageant, filling the woods with merry voices and laughter.
They passed and the sounds died away--passed on to the town awaiting the, to
the house-warming, and please God, to long life and some real affection and
happiness.
Once he had expected to ride beside her at the head of this procession.
There had gone by him the vision of his own life as it was to have been.
Long after the last sound had ceased in the distance he was sitting at the
root of the red oak. The sun set, the moon rose, he was there still. A loud,
impatient neigh from his horse aroused him. He sprang lightly up, meaning to
ride all night and not to draw rein until he had crossed the Kentucky River
and reached Traveller's Rest, the home of Governor Shelby, where he had been
invited to break his travel.
All that nigh he rode and at sunrise was far away. Pausing on a height and
turning his horse's head, he sat a long time motion-less as a statue. Then
he struck his feet into its flank and all that day rode back again.
The sun was striking the tree-tops as he neared the clearing. He could see
her across the garden. She sat quite still, her face turned toward the
horizon. Against her breast, opened but forgotten, lay a book. He could
recognize it. By that story she had judged him and wished to guide him. The
smile smote his eyes like the hilt of a knight's sword used as a Cross to
drive away the Evil One. For he knew the evil purpose with which he had
returned.
And so he sat watching her until she rose and walked slowly to the house.