Anton Farwell had, little by little, accepted the fate of those who,
deprived of many blessings, learn to depend on a few. As the remaining
senses are sharpened by the loss of one, so in this man's life the
cramping process, begun by his own wrongdoing, and prolonged and
completed by other conditions, had the effect of focussing all his power
on the atoms that went to the making up of the daily record of his days.
Had he kept a diary it would have been interesting from its very lack of
large interest. And yet, with all this narrowing down, a certain fineness
and purpose evolved that were both touching and inspiring. He never
complained, not even to himself. After recognizing the power which
Ledyard held in his life, he relinquished the one hope that had held him
to the past. Then, for a year or two, the light of the doctor's contempt,
which had been turned on him, took the zest from the small efforts he had
made for better living and caused him to distrust himself. He saw himself
what he knew Ledyard thought him--a mean, cowardly creature, and yet, in
his better moments, he knew this was not so.
"Men have made friends of mice and insects in prison," he argued; "they
have kept their reason by so doing; why, in heaven's name, shouldn't I
play with these people here and make life possible?"
But try as he might he found his courage failing, and more and more he
dwelt apart and clung to the few--Priscilla Glenn, Mary McAdam, and old
Jerry McAlpin--who regarded him in the light of a priest to whom they
might confess freely.
Then one of Farwell's dogs died and he was genuinely anxious at the
effect this had upon him.
"So this is what I've come to!" he muttered as he buried the poor brute,
while the tears fell from his eyes and the other dog whined dolorously
beside him--"broken hearted over--a mongrel!" But he got another dog!
For a time Farwell vigorously set himself against depending upon
Priscilla Glenn as a support in his narrowing sphere. Many things
threatened such a friendship--Nathaniel, Jerry-Jo, and the girl
herself--for Priscilla, during the first years of Nathaniel's relaxed
severity, was like a bee sipping every flower, and Farwell was not at
all confident that anything he had to give would hold even her passing
interest for long. Then, too, like a many-wounded creature, he dreaded
a new danger, even though for a moment it gave promise of comfort. But
finally Priscilla got her bearings and more and more brought all her
powers to bear upon one ambition.
The childish madness that prompted her to run away from anything that
hurt or angered her, gradually disappeared, and in its place came a staid
determination to seek her fortunes, soon, in some place distant from
Kenmore.
The tourists opened a new vista to her, but many of them, with stupid
ignorance, mistook her position and traditions. She was offered
occupations as cook, maid, or laundress. She had sense of humour enough
to laugh at these, and often wished she dared repeat them for her
father's edification.
"The daughter of the King of Lonely Farm," she said to Farwell one day
with her mocking smile and comical courtesy "is bidden to the service of
Mrs. Flighty High as skivvy. If this comes to the king's ears, 'twill
mean the head of Mrs. Flighty High!"
Farwell joined her in her amusement and felt the charm of her coming
womanhood.
"But there is one up at the Lodge," Priscilla went on more gravely, "who
is not such a wild fool. She has a sick baby, and for two nights she and
I have watched and tended together. She says I have the touch and nature
of the true nurse and she has told me how in the States, and England,
too, they train young girls in this work. She says we Canadians are in
great demand, and the calling is a wonderful one, Master Farwell."
This interested Anton Farwell a good deal and he and Priscilla discussed
it often after the woman who had just broached it had departed. It seemed
such a normal, natural opening for Priscilla if the time really came for
her to go away. The doubt that she would eventually go was slight in
Farwell's heart. He, keener than others, saw the closing-in of
conditions. He was not blind to Jerry-Jo's primitive attempts to attract
the girl's attention, but he was not deceived. When the moment came that
Priscilla recognized the half-breed's real thought, Farwell knew her
quick impulse would, as of old, be to fly away. She was like a wild bird,
he often pondered; she would give to great lengths, flutter close, and
love tenderly, but no restraining or harsh touch could do aught but set
her to flight.
At twenty-three Jerry-Jo surlily and passionately came to the conclusion
that he must in some way capture his prize. Other youths were wearing
gaudy ties and imperilling their Sunday bests; he was letting precious
time slip. Then, too, by Farwell's advice, old Jerry was growing rigid
along financial lines, and at last the _States_ took definite shape in
Jerry-Jo's mind, but he meant to have Priscilla before he heeded the
lure. With all his brazen conceit and daring he intuitively knew that
the girl had never thought of him as he thought of her, and he dared not
awaken her by legitimate means. Quite in keeping with his unrestrained
nature, he plotted, indirectly, to secure what otherwise might escape
him. Fully realizing Nathaniel's attitude toward his daughter, counting
his distorted conceptions and foolish pride, Jerry-Jo began to construct
an obstacle that would shut Priscilla from her father's protection and
cause her to accept what others had to offer--others, being always and
ever, himself!
Once Lonely Farm was closed to the girl, other houses in the serenely
moral In-Place would inevitably slam their doors. The cunning of the
half-breed was diabolic in its sureness. Anton Farwell could not assume
responsibility for Priscilla if all Kenmore turned its back on her, and
in that hour the girl would, of course, come running or crawling--never
dancing--to him, Jerry-Jo!
It was all for her own good, the evil fellow thought.
"I'll be kind to her when I get her. I'm only playing her with the hook
in her mouth."
But Jerry-Jo was scheming without considering the Lure, which never was
long absent from Priscilla's mind at that time.
One early September afternoon Priscilla presented herself at Farwell's
cabin in so startling a manner that she roused the man as nothing
previously in his association with her had ever done.
He was sitting at the west window of his living-room, his back toward the
door leading to the Green. For a wonder, what he was reading had absorbed
him, and he was far and away from the In-Place. He had taken to fine, old
literature lately and had found, to his delight, that his mind was
capable of appreciating it.
"Wisdom, slow product of laborious years,
The only fruit that life's cold winter bears,
Thy sacred seeds in vain in youth we lay,
By the fierce storm of passion torn away;
Should some remain in rich, gen'rous soil,
They long lie hid, and must be raised with toil;
Faintly they struggle with inclement skies,
No sooner born than the poor planter dies."
With such word-comfort did Farwell dig, from other's experiences, crude
guidings for himself! And at that moment a stir outside the open door
caused him to turn and confront what, in the excited moment, seemed an
apparition from the past, which, for him, was sealed and barred.
"Good Lord!" he ejaculated under his breath and started to his feet. A
visitor from the Lodge apparently had descended upon him.
"I beg pardon," he said aloud, and then a laugh, familiar and ringing,
brought the colour to his pale, thin face.
The girl came in, threw back the veil from her merry face, and confronted
Farwell.
"Miss Priscilla Glenn, sir! Behold her in the battered finery of the
place she is going to--to grace some day!"
Then Priscilla wheeled about lightly and displayed her gown to Farwell's
astonished eyes.
"Cast-offs," she explained; "the Honourable Mrs. Jones from the States
left them with Mrs. McAlpin for the poor. Just imagine the 'poor'
glinting around in this gay silk gown all frayed at the hem and in holes
under the arms! The hat and veil, too, go with the smart frock; likewise
the scarf of rainbow colours. But, oh! Mr. Farwell, how do I look as a
real lady in my damaged outfit?"
Farwell stared without speaking. He had grown so used to the change in
the girl since the time when he had prevailed upon Glenn to loosen the
rein upon her, that the even stream of their intercourse had been
unruffled. He had passed from teacher to friendly guide, from guide to
good comrade; but here he was suddenly confronting her--man to woman!
All his misfortune and limitations had but erected a shield of age about
him beneath which smouldered dangerously, but unconsciously, all the
forbidden and denied passions and sentiments of a male creature of early
middle life.
In thinking afterward of the shock Priscilla gave him, Farwell was always
glad to remember that his first thought was for her, her danger, her
need.
"I declare!" he exclaimed. "I did not know you, Priscilla Glenn."
His tone had a new ring in it, a vibration of defence--the astonished
male on guard against the attack of a subtle force whose power he could
not estimate.
"And no wonder. I did not know myself when I first saw myself. Do you
know, Mr. Farwell, I never thought about my--my face, much, but it is
really a--very nice face, isn't it? As faces go, I mean?"
"Yes," Farwell returned, looking at her critically and speaking slowly.
"Yes, you are very--beautiful. I had not thought of it before, either."
"Drop me down, now, in the States, Mr. Farwell, and I fancy that with my
looks and my dancing I might--well, go! What do you think?"
She was preening herself before a small mirror and did not notice the
elderly man, who, under her fascination, was being transformed.
"You're a regular Frankenstein," he muttered, while the consciousness
of the blue eyes in the dusky skin, the long slenderness of her body,
and the hue of her strange hair grew upon him. "Do you know what a
Frankenstein is?"
"No." And now Priscilla, weary of her play and self-contemplation, turned
about and took a chair opposite Farwell. "Tell me."
So he told her, but she shook her head.
"You've only helped me to find myself; you did not make me," she said
with a little sigh. "Oh, Mr. Farwell, I do--much thinking up at Lonely
Farm. The winters are long, and the nights, too. You know there is a
queer little plant beside the spring at the foot of our garden; it has
roots long enough and thick enough for a thing twice its size. It grew
strong and sure underground before it ventured up. It blossomed last
summer; an odd flower it had. I think I am like that. You've taught me
to--well, know myself. I shall not shame you, Master Farwell. You know we
of the lonesome In-Place make friends with strange objects; everything in
nature talks to us, if we will but listen. You have taught me to listen,
too. Back a piece in the woods are a strong young hemlock and a little
white birch. For years I have watched and tended them. When I was a small
girl I likened the hemlock to you, sir, and there was I, leaning and
huddling close to you, like the ghostly stripling of the woods. Well, I
noticed to-day, Mr. Farwell, the birch stands quite securely; it doesn't
bend for support on the hemlock, but it is standing friendly all the
same. I think"--and here Priscilla clasped her hands close and
outstretched them--"I think I am soon going away!"
Her eyes were tear-dimmed, her face very earnest.
"I wish--you would give up the childish folly, Priscilla." A fear rose
in Farwell's eyes. "What could you, such an one as you have become, do
out--in the States? It is madness--sheer, brutal madness."
Priscilla shook her head.
"You think it childish folly? Why, I have never lost sight of it for a
day. You have not understood me if you have imagined that. I have always
known I must go. Lately I have felt the nearness of the going, and it is
the _how_ to break away and begin that puzzle me. I am ready."
"Priscilla, you are a wild child still, playing with dangerous tools.
You cannot comprehend the trouble into which you are willing, in your
blindness, to plunge. Why, you are a--a woman; a beautiful one! Do you
know what the world does with such, unless they are guarded and
protected?"
"What does it do?" The true eyes held Farwell commandingly, and with a
sense of dismay he looked back at the only world he really knew: the
world of his own ungoverned passions and selfishness. A kind of shame
came over him, and he felt he was no safe guide. There were worlds and
worlds! He had sold his birthright; this woman, bent upon finding hers,
might inherit a fairer kingdom.
"What does it do, Master Farwell?"
"I do not know. It depends upon--you. It is like a great quarry--I have
read somewhere something like this--we must all mould and chisel our
characters; some of us crush them and chip them. It isn't always the
world's fault. God help us!"
Priscilla looked at him with large, shining eyes and the maternal in her
rose to the call of his sad recognition of failure where she was to go
with such brave courage.
"Do not fear for me," she said gently; "'twould be a poor return if I
failed, after all you have done for me."
"I--what have I done?"
"Everything. Have you ever thought what sort I would have been had Lonely
Farm been my only training?" she smiled faintly, and her girlish face, in
the setting of the faded hat and soiled veil, struck Farwell again by its
change, which now seemed to have settled into permanency. Of course it
was only the ridiculous fashion of the world he once knew, but he could
not free himself of the fancy that Priscilla was more her real self in
the shabby trappings than she had ever been in the absurd costumes of the
In-Place.
With the acceptance of the fact that the girl really meant to get away
and at once, a wave of dreariness swept over him. He thought of the time
on ahead when his last vital interest would be taken from him. Then he
aroused from his stupor and brought his mind to bear upon the inevitable;
the here and now.
"It's a big drop in your ambition, Priscilla," he said; "you used to
think you could dance your way to your throne."
"There is no throne now, Master Farwell. I'm just thinking all the time
of My Road."
"But there's the Heart's Desire at the end, you know."
"Yes; but I do not think I would want it to be a throne."
"What then?"
"Oh! love--my own life--the giving and giving just where I long to give.
It's splendid to tramp along your road, if it _is_ your road, and be
jolly and friendly with those you care for. It will all be so different
from Kenmore, where one has to take what one must."
"I wonder how Jerry-Jo will feel about all this?"
"Jerry-Jo! And what right has he to think at all--about me?"
The girl's eyes flashed with mischief and daring.
"Jerry-Jo!" she laughed with amusement. "Just big, Indian-boy Jerry-Jo!
We've played together and quarrelled together, but you're all wrong,
Master Farwell, if you think he cares about me! He knows better than
that--far, far, better."
But even as she spoke the light and fun left her eyes. She looked older,
more thoughtful.
"Isn't it queer?" she said after a pause.
"What, Priscilla?"
"Oh, life and people and the things that go to their making? You're quite
wrong about Jerry-Jo. I'm sure you're wrong."
Then suddenly she sprang up.
"I must go," she said abruptly; "go and exchange these rags for my own
plain things. I only wanted to surprise you, sir; and how deadly serious
we have grown."
She passed out of the cottage without a word more. Farwell watched her
across the Green and up to the Lodge. He was disturbed and restless. The
old fever of escape overcame him. With the thought of Priscilla's flight
into the open, he strained against the trap that Ledyard had caught him
in. The guide who, he knew, never permitted him to escape his vigilance,
became a new and alarming obstacle, and Farwell set his teeth grimly.
Then he muttered:
"Curse him! curse him!" and an emotion which he had believed was long
since dead rose hotly in his consciousness. Before the dread spectre,
suddenly imbued with vitality, Farwell reeled and covered his face.
Murder was in his heart--the old madness of desire to wipe out, by any
means, that which barred his way to what he wanted.
"My God!" he moaned; "my God! I--I thought I--was master. I thought it
was dead in me."
Farwell ate no evening meal that night. Early he closed and locked his
outer door, drew the dark green shades, and lighted his lamp. His hands
were clammy and cold, and he could not blot out with book or violin the
horror of Charles Martin's face as it looked up at him that night so long
ago. Way on toward morning Farwell paced his room trying to forget, but
he could not.
But Priscilla, after leaving Farwell, dressed again in her plain
serviceable gown and hat, had made her way toward the farm. Her happy,
light-hearted mood was past; she felt unaccountably gloomy, and as she
walked on she sought to explain herself to herself, and presently
Jerry-Jo came into focus and would not stir from her contemplation. Yes,
it was Jerry-Jo's personality that disturbed her, and it was Farwell's
words that had torn the shield she herself had erected, and set the truth
free. Yes, she had played with Jerry-Jo; she had tested her coquetry and
charm upon him for lack of better material. In her outbreaks of youthful
spirits she had claimed him as prey because the others of his sex were
less desirable. Jerry-Jo had that subtle, physical attraction that
responded to her youthful allurements, but the young fellow himself,
taken seriously, repelled her, and Farwell had taken Jerry-Jo seriously!
That was it! She was no longer a child. She was a woman and must remember
it. Undoubtedly Jerry-Jo himself had never given the matter a moment's
deep thought. Well, she must take care that he never did. Jerry-Jo in
earnest would be unbearable.
And then, just as she reached the pasture bars separating her father's
farm from the red rock highway, Jerry-Jo McAlpin strode in sight from the
wood path into which the highway ran. She waited for him and gave him a
nervous smile as he came near. His first words startled her out of her
dull mood.
"I've been up to the Hill Place. Him and her's there for a few days."
"Him and her!" Priscilla repeated, her face flushing. "Oh, him and her!"
"Sure!" McAlpin was holding her with a hard, fixed gaze.
In the mesh that was closing about Priscilla, strangely enough names
were always largely eliminated. They might have altered her course later
on, might have held her to the past, but Kenmore dealt briefly with
personalities and visualized whatever it could. The name Travers had
rarely, if ever, been spoken in Priscilla's presence. "The Hill Place
folks" was the title found sufficient for general use.
"And I was remembering," Jerry-Jo went on, "how once you said you wanted
to thank him for--for the books. We might take the canoe, come to-morrow,
and the day is fine, and pay a visit."
Still Priscilla did not notice the gleam in McAlpin's keen eyes.
"Oh! if I only dared, Jerry-Jo! What an adventure it would be, to be
sure. And how good of you to think of it."
"What hinders?"
"Father would never forgive me!"
"And are you always to be at the beck and whistle of your father even in
your pleasures?"
Priscilla was in just the attitude of mind to receive this suggestion
with appreciation.
"There's no reason why I shouldn't go if I want to," she said with an
uplift of her head.
"And--don't you want to?" Jerry-Jo's eyes were taking in the loveliness
of the raised face as the setting sun fell upon it.
"Yes, I do want to! I'll go, Jerry-Jo."
Then McAlpin came close to her and said in a low voice:
"Priscilla, give us a kiss for pay."
So taken out of herself was the girl, so overpowered by the excitement
of adventure, that before she realized her part in the small drama of
passionate youth, she gave a mocking laugh and twisted her lips saucily.
Jerry-Jo had her in his arms on the instant, and the hot kiss he pressed
on her mouth roused her to fury.
"If you ever touch me again," she whispered, struggling into freedom,
"I'll hate you to the last day of my life!"
So had she spoken to her father years ago; so would she always speak when
her reservations were threatened. "I declare I am afraid to go with you
to-morrow."
McAlpin fell back in shamed contrition.
"You need not be afraid," he muttered. "I reckon I was bidding
you--good-bye. Him and me is different. Once you see him and he sees you,
it's good-bye to Jerry-Jo McAlpin."
Something in the words and tone of humility brought Priscilla, with a
bound, back to a kindlier mood. After all, it was a tribute that McAlpin
was paying her. She must hold him in check, that was all.
They parted with no great change. There had been a flurry, but it had
served to clear the atmosphere--for her at least.
But Nathaniel, that evening in the kitchen, managed to arouse in the girl
the one state of mind needed to drive her on her course.
"What was the meaning of that scuffling by the bars a time back?" he
asked, eyeing Priscilla with the old look of suspicious antagonism. Every
nerve in the girl's body twitched with resentment and her spirit flared
forth. She shielded herself behind the one flimsy subterfuge that Glenn
could never understand or tolerate.
"A kiss you mean. What's a kiss? You call that a scuffle?"
Theodora, who was washing the tea dishes while Priscilla wiped them, took
her usual course and began to cry dispiritedly and forlornly.
"What's between you and--McAlpin?" Nathaniel asked, scowling darkly.
"Between us? What need for anything between us?"
Priscilla ceased smiling and looked defiant.
"Maybe you better marry that half-breed and have done with it."
"It's more like--would _he_ marry me?"
This was unfortunate.
"And why not?" Nathaniel shook the ashes from his pipe angrily. "A little
more such performance as I saw to-day and no decent man will marry you!
As for Jerry-Jo, he'll marry you if I say so! You foul my nest, miss, and
out you go!"
"Husband! husband!" And with this Theodora dropped a cup, one of Glenn's
mother's cups, and somehow this added fire to his fury.
"And when the time comes, wife, you make your choice: Go with her, who
you have trained into what she is, or stay with me who has been defied in
his own home, by them nearest and closest to him."
Priscilla breathed fast and hard. The tangible wall of misunderstanding
between her and her father stifled her to-night as it never had before.
Again she realized the finality of something--the breaking of the old
ties, the helpless sense of groping for what lay hidden, but none the
less real, just on before.