SETTERS OF SNARES
The month of Lucy Dean’s stay spread itself over the entire summer, and
before she left the fragrance of wild grapes came from the river woods,
and the blue ribbon binding the tasselled grasses of the moist meadows
was loomed of Puritan fringed gentian instead of royal fleur-de-lis. Time
was when Lucy’s protracted presence, under like circumstances, would
have been a strain, akin to moving in a comedy of rapid action, where
every actor must be on the alert to take his cue. But to this restless,
high-strung woman love had come as a clarifier, like the magic electric
touch that vitalizes the air after the summer storm has passed, and makes
the breath come more freely.
As she became an open book to her friend, their relative positions
altered, and the transparent Brooke of old in her turn became a mystery
to Lucy, while Stead fairly piqued her to the point of anger. She thought
she knew at least the eyemarks of masculine devotion, and before Stead’s
June departure she had read them in all their changefulness when his
eyes rested upon Brooke, and wondered if she were wholly blind, or
seeing it unwillingly, feigned blindness. Time would tell, she thought,
for judging by herself, she knew that, to some moods at least, separation
is the searcher of hearts in doubt. All visible signs, however, had
failed, as on the return the visits, though hardly less frequent, seemed
to lack the personal spontaneity of before, and to come under the family
or merely casual order. Still this might be accounted for by the fact
that Stead was absorbed in the designing of a serious piece of work of
some magnitude, and the remote hermitage had become the destination of
men of divers sorts,—old friends who had been held almost forcibly aloof
and new professional acquaintances.
Dr. Russell, who had been at too great a distance to divine the intimate
reason of the revulsion, laid it wholly to the humanizing effect of the
general companionship and contact with the wholesome, firm-purposed
family life of the homestead, and he rejoiced exceedingly that at last
his friend had, as it were, separated self from shelf, and stood aside
from the self-inflicted gloom of his own shadow. But one day, chancing
upon Stead in New York, and reading a different, yet deeper, suffering,
purged of old selfishness, in his face, his habit of mental diagnosis,
tinged with kindly philosophy, was at an equal loss with Lucy’s lightning
intuition.
As to Brooke, she walked straight forward, almost mechanically,
throughout those summer days, filled alike with work and sunshine. The
anxiety of the winter had been to know if the new life could possibly
become a permanence. Now life under the Sign of the Fox seemed a thing
assured; and yet the days seemed longer labourwise now than before, for
though Brooke could read the material future, she did not know herself.
The culmination of Stead’s friendship pained her, almost haunted her,
though chiefly because it had laid bare the needs of her own heart. Ideal
and real alike had grown intangible. Even Lorenz’ picture seemed to look
at her in reproach, and the giant shadow of the farmer-on-shares crossed
the fields less frequently now that the growing time was past. It seemed,
too, that Enoch Fenton’s words were proving true, for the man had grown
gaunt under the scorching sun and toil, and Bisbee duly reported that his
plans had fallen through about his sweetheart and settling, and that he
was going to the old country before winter.
As to Lucy’s proposed descent upon the farmer-on-shares, begun in a
spirit of teasing and continued purely through curiosity, it was, as she
afterward termed it, “a regular toboggan slide”; and no matter in what
way or from where she approached him, without the least apparent effort
on his part, he was immediately at the farthest possible point away from
her. So that a one-sided wager she had made with Brooke, who professed
complete ignorance, that she could tell the colour of his eyes and what
he would look like without his “barbarous beard” at first sight, remained
unproven,—for Lucy there was no near-by first sight at all.
From the West homestead Lucy Dean had gone to Gordon to visit Mrs. Parks.
After she had been away a week the early twilight saw her coming up the
cross-road from Gilead station, driven by the ubiquitous Bisbee boy in
the same buggy that had brought Ashton the night of the storm.
No one was ever wholly surprised at any action on Lucy’s part, and when
Mrs. Lawton and Brooke noticed that the buggy had driven away again, they
concluded that Lucy had come to bid them good-by before returning home,
as the papers were full of the return of the new Mrs. Dean to New York,
of the satisfaction of their friends in general, and of the popularity of
the couple. They themselves were both dubious as to how Lucy would enjoy
being even temporarily only a daughter in the house where she had reigned
supreme; and though Mr. Dean had cordially approved of Lucy’s engagement,
it was well understood that it must necessarily be a long one.
After the greetings were over, and Lucy learned their thoughts of her
coming, she did not appear as much at ease as usual.
“The fact is,” she began abruptly, “I haven’t come to say good-by; I’m
stopping with Mrs. Parks until she goes to town, for the Senator has to
be away, and we hit it off nicely together. I’ve taught the heir apparent
endless tricks, so that he can outrank any baby of the social circus, and
consequently of course they adore me.
“I’ve come to bid Tom good-by, for he is suddenly being sent abroad to
report socially, politically, and otherwise on that Congress at The
Hague. Of course it isn’t exactly the work of city editor, but he knows
the ground and languages and all of that, besides which it will be good
for him in every way, and he sails on Saturday!”
“But where is he?” asked Brooke, too much puzzled to be surprised. “We
have not seen him, and how do you expect to meet him here when he knows
that you are in Gordon? though I’ve often thought it safest to look for
you where you are not, for there is where you are usually to be found,”
and then they both laughed at the Irish bull Brooke had perpetrated.
“The telephone, my dear—from Gordon to New York—price one dollar! He
wired frugally: ‘Sail for Hague Saturday, will be in Gordon to-night,’
upon which I called him up, and limited his trip to Gilead, supper at
the Sign of the Fox, afterward the Commercial Hotel by the depot, unless
_urgently_ requested by Mrs. Lawton to pass the night in the wasp room
with the black walnut furniture! Unfortunately, as you have no ’phone, I
could not inform you of the arrangement until I came in person,” and even
Adam Lawton joined quietly in the laugh that followed Lucy’s audacious
confession.
“There will be a ’phone here for you to announce your marriage next
summer, if you grow impatient of watching and waiting,” said Brooke
mischievously; “so many people have asked us to have it that they may
send orders with less trouble, and then both Cousin Keith and mother
think that it would be real economy of both time and material for us to
know when large parties are driving out.”
Tom Brownell came duly, and Mrs. Lawton almost purred with content as
she saw the pair of strong young faces at the tea-table, happy with the
tender happiness that is refined by a coming parting for anticipated
good. Again the two paced up and down the path beside the house in the
moonlight, but this time it was the young hunter’s moon, curved as a
powder-horn, and hurrying early to bed after his sun mother, that looked
narrowly between the trees athwart the western sky.
“It will be a splendid trip for you,—nothing could be better,” said
Lucy, brightening; “you’ve not had a month out of the city these two
years past.”
“It would be better if it were to be our wedding journey,” answered
Brownell; “being engaged may be an excitement and stimulant to the
sluggish, but for us the calmness of certainty would be far better; but
as it is, dear, I am more than thankful for my half-loaf.”
Lucy did not speak for a few moments, and then, turning swiftly and
putting both hands on his shoulders, in her old earnest fashion, said,
transfixing him with her black eyes, in which mischief and pleading now
struggled for mastery: “If a thing would be better, it is wrong not to do
it, for we are bound to do our best. It shall be our wedding journey. How
much money have you of your very own?”
Stunned into plain fact-telling, Brownell named a sum of less than three
thousand dollars, accumulated of extras and contributions to magazines.
“Good! I have as much more of my half year’s allowance, which papa always
pays in advance; it will do very nicely!”
“But Lucy, you wonder, I will not take a wedding trip or travel on your
money!”
“Certainly not; yours will be more than enough for two months! I will
save mine for the suburban cottage furniture on our return, and I can
paper a not too big room beautifully myself, if the paper has stripes
to guide by. Miss Keith taught Brooke and me this past summer, and we
practised on the pantry, which looks quite well, because when the shelves
were put back they hid the bubbles, where our arms ached and we didn’t
rub the paper smooth.”
“But think a moment, sweetheart,” almost gasped Brownell, who felt that
he was on the full run downstream toward rapids for which he had not a
paddle adjusted to shoot in safety. “Where shall we be married? This is
Wednesday,—there are only three days! How about your father? and then,
clothes?—women always need clothes! Don’t think I am objecting; it’s
only that I will not take unfair advantage of your warm-heartedness,” he
added, as a shadow of disappointment lurked on her piquant face.
“Where? Here, to-morrow, at the Sign of the Fox, father and company to be
bidden by telephone; they can arrive at three-forty, and go on to Gordon
later. As to clothes—oh, Tom! all women have clothes enough in which to
follow their heart’s desire, and I have trunks full!”
Then that slim young hunter’s moon (which should have been in bed)
thought some one called him softly, and, looking back, saw what would
have lured his godmother Diana from her hunting trail of solitude!
For the second time that season the personal affairs of Lucy and Brownell
electrified the sober old house by their rapidity, and each one received
the news quite differently. Miss Keith rushed for the raisin jar and
began seeding with might and main, and handled the spice boxes until
they rattled, for it would take all the early morning hours to bake the
wedding cake, and all the early afternoon to cool it.
The Cub was in his element, as, with Billy harnessed to the buggy,
he escorted Tom Brownell to the telephone office and the parson’s.
Brooke and Lucy opened a great chest in the attic, where some gowns of
past luxury were stowed away, to find a muslin for Brooke’s part of
bridesmaid; while Mrs. Lawton, thinking as ever first of her husband,
told him of the happenings with her hand resting on his, to secure
attention, and at the same time wondered, somewhat apprehensively,
how the sight of his old friend in the flower of his prosperity would
affect him. She need not have troubled, for Adam Lawton dwelt in that
strange between-land called Peace, where life is made up of apathy and
simple comfort, and was content, a state altogether different from the
triumphant peace that follows work achieved or victory won.
So it came about that the next afternoon at five, in the little library
of the homestead, two strong human identities merged, and Lucy, no
longer Lucy Dean, in her dark red travelling gown, her bouquet made by
Brooke of fleece-white garden chrysanthemums, turning to her father,
clasped her arms about his neck with a new fervour, and whispered, “You
see I’m still following your lead, you dear old daddy, so have a care!”
Then, led by Brownell, she went to the screened porch, gay with bright
leaves and berries, to cut the wedding cake, which, both well baked and
safely cooled, crowned the hastily improvised collation. Tatters and Pam
appeared wearing white neck bows, and the only outsiders were Mrs. Parks
and Charlie Ashton, the mysterious coming of whom no one could fathom,
and of which he emphatically declined to tell. Although Brooke watched
him wistfully and lingered after the others had left for Gilead station,
he made no sign.
It was three months since Lorenz had sent word or token. Was it, after
all, only an illusion? Brooke even began to doubt if Ashton’s was really
the hand that had forwarded the letters from Lorenz. She was minded
to ask him outright, but while she hesitated the moment passed, for,
entering Mrs. Parks’s landau, he returned with her to Gordon. Looking
up at the Sign of the Fox, her talisman, as she passed under it and in
at the gate, she wondered if it would ever see another wedding, and
smiled in spite of her own thoughts, and at the possible comic answer
to them as she looked up the path and saw the parson, lately installed,
an unencumbered man of sixty, taking his fourth cup of tea, alternating
lemon and cream, while Miss Keith twittered about him with the eatables,
and gave a deeply freckled blush at some remark he made in stowing a
small, flat package of wedding cake in his waistcoat pocket. Thus does
hope often triumph over experience.
* * * * *
Again it was the hunting season, and Dr. Russell would soon come for his
autumn holiday. Stead waited for him with more than usual eagerness,
being in pitiful want of companionship in which he need no longer play a
part that was growing every day more impossible and intolerable. Brooke
desired to see the doctor, and learn if possible how far her father’s
steady and rational improvement might be trusted; and Miss Keith,
remembering some past advice of his, began to feel tremulously that
possibly before another visit she might need a fresh instalment, and so
resolved to be forehanded.
Much game had been let loose during the past few years in the hill
country in a sportsmanlike effort to restock it as far as might be, and
when this is done there follows the pot-hunter with his snares. Robert
Stead, always an enemy of these slouching malefactors of wood and brush
lot, had this season announced that he was prepared to give the tribe no
quarter. The very day before the doctor’s expected arrival he had covered
their shooting grounds quite thoroughly, and after breaking numerous
snares, set with the utmost boldness on his own immediate land, he took
his gun and ambushed himself at dusk, telling José and two constables,
whom he had summoned from the village, to be in readiness to come to him
whenever the signal gun was fired, indicating the different routes that
they were to take to make a capture the most likely.
Sunset came, and another hour passed, when a single report called the
watchers; but as they circled in the direction of the sound, they did not
meet the flash of Stead’s dark lantern as agreed, and heard no crash of
bushes as of men in sudden flight,—nothing but darkness and deep silence.
José, the half-breed, bloodhound by nature, with even more of the animal
instinct than human intelligence, the outcome of the trailing instinct
coupled with much adventure, at once scented calamity. Was the gun the
master’s or was it another’s? To him it had a heavy, muffled sound, and
besides, it was not the discharge of both barrels, as agreed upon.
Returning quickly to the lodge, he seized the lantern and a flask of
brandy, and locating the foot-path his master had purposed to take, stole
carefully along it, the others following in his wake.
Suddenly he paused and lowered the lantern; before him, stretched between
two trees, was what is called a foot-snare, a thin, stiff cord, well-nigh
invisible, which was fastened across the path between the trees at such
a height as to the most surely throw the passer. José cut this with a
muttered curse and hurried on. Twenty yards farther he found another;
still following the path, his nostrils began to quiver and his eyes to
dilate, as if he felt a presence he could not see. A low groan made him
bound forward, and he almost fell upon the form of his master, doubled
upon the ground, head upon breast, where, in coming up the path, the
third snare had thrown him.
Raising him in haste, one of the men stepped backward on his gun, and lo!
the tale was told. The lurch of the sudden fall had reversed the weapon
and pitched it against a tree bole, which, striking the cocked hammer,
had discharged the gun, shooting its owner in the chest.
Laying him on the moss, José attempted to stanch the bleeding, which
came also from the lips. “It is the lungs,” he muttered, and making
the sign of the cross above his master, he poured some brandy down his
throat, giving a grunt of satisfaction when it was swallowed. Awkward in
emergency, yet the constables made stalwart bearers, and between them,
guided by José, they carried Stead—now truly Silent—to the lodge, pausing
now and then to reassure themselves, by his laboured breathing, that he
was alive.
Once there, José used all the skill of the half-savage to make his
master comfortable, one of the men bearing him company, while the other,
leaving the rig in which they had come to Windy Hill, took Stead’s horse
Manfred and rode against time for the Gilead doctor, who, also being a
hunter and a firm friend of both men, telegraphed to Dr. Russell before
starting on his drive.
* * * * *
The next morning, when news of the accident reached the homestead, Brooke
was already on her way by train to Gordon to buy the weekly supplies
according to her habit, and Mrs. Lawton, driven by Adam, wild with grief
at the calamity to this friend, started for Stead’s home.
Arriving at Windy Hill by ten o’clock, they found Dr. Russell there, so
that, with Dr. Love and José, who would not leave his master’s side, as
nurse, and a coloured woman of the neighbourhood in the kitchen, material
help was not needed; while as for personal sympathy, though Stead was
quiet and perfectly conscious, Dr. Russell, who came into the book-strewn
den to greet them, told them gently but firmly that the strain on the
emotions would be most dangerous for Stead, as the wound from the
scattered shot must prove fatal, rally as he might, and that he wished to
arrange some business affairs as soon as might be. If later in the day
he had the strength and the desire to see his friends, they would send
down a messenger.
So mother and son drove home in silence to break the news to Brooke on
her return, and Mrs. Lawton cautioned Adam that it must be done most
gradually, for even Brooke’s mother did not know how far beyond the
outward friendship her feelings might be involved, or even but what some
deeper understanding was either foreshadowed or might actually bind them.
* * * * *
Dr. Russell had been alone with Stead for half an hour, José keeping
jealous guard outside the door, where, lying upon the floor, he dozed
lightly, worn out with the night’s reflected suffering.
Gradually the heart history of the last six months was revealed to the
good physician, who, half sitting, half kneeling, by the narrow bed,
hands clasped before him, eyes half closed as if to shut away outside
things, might easily have passed for a purely spiritual confessor. Yet
in the fact of closing his eyes lay his only power to keep back tears.
Twice he essayed to speak and stopped, and then said gently, “A year ago
you said that you would willingly give the rest of life if you could only
feel and care once more. At least that wish has been granted.”
“Yes, and I rejoice in it, even now,” Stead answered slowly and
painfully. “What now lies before me is to take the means and give, as
far as it will do so, all that I have to secure the rest and comfort of
the woman who gave me the power to care, but could not grant me more.
There is paper in the desk, good friend, so now sit and write as I
dictate. Black Hannah and the doctor outside shall be the witnesses.”
Then came to Dr. Russell the hardest task of all, to argue with one
dying, but he did not flinch. “Stop for a moment, Robert, and think, led
by your new power of caring. If Brooke could not take your love, do you
think that she would take your money? Would not the idea hurt that same
brave tenderness that kindled you to life? Think of some other way.”
“She said that there was ‘some one else,’ but that ‘he did not know.’
Some day his eyes will open, for God will not allow a steadfast heart
like Brooke’s to be shut out of life.”
A struggle seemed to pass over Stead’s face that left a blueness about
the lips and the eyes, that quivered and closed. Dr. Russell gave him a
stimulant and waited in silence.
Presently the eyes opened and he spoke deliberately, as one reciting a
hard lesson. “Then let me leave all in trust to you for the man Brooke
Lawton marries, not to be known or given until their wedding day, when
you must tell him all, and if he is struggling with life,—as I have
a feeling that he is, for nothing else could keep him from such a
woman,—for her sake he will take the gift as from man to man.”
“And if the day does not come, or he refuses?” asked Dr. Russell, joy at
the man’s final unselfishness beaming from his face.
“After ten years, then let it become a part of the endowment of your
hospital, in memory of the two Helens, my daughter and her mother.”
Thus the will was made with due regard to formality, making the doctor
holder of a trust, the details of which were contained in sealed
instructions to keep privacy; a certain sum being set aside to furnish
the faithful José with an annuity; Stead’s lodge, guns, fishing
rods, books, and furniture to Dr. Russell for his convenience as a
shooting-box; his saddle-horse to Adam; and his pictures and his two dogs
to Brooke herself, for these last were really the possessions he most
prized. Then Dr. Love and Hannah Morley signed as witnesses, they having,
as is needful, no part in the will.
* * * * *
For a short time Robert Stead seemed better, as if a load was lifted from
his brain, but Dr. Russell was not deceived by it, while his heightening
colour spoke of increasing fever.
About two o’clock Stead asked the time, and that he might be lifted up to
see the river, that, far below in the distance, flashed by between the
trees. But his sight no longer carried. Presently he said, “Do you think
that Brooke would come here for one single moment?—would it be too hard
for her to bear?”
“No; I have sent the horses for her, and she should be here at once. Yes,
I see them now coming up the lower hill.”
Brooke entered alone, as Dr. Russell had asked, and led by him went to
the bedside, gently taking the single hand that lay upon the counterpane,
the other arm being bandaged at the shoulder. She knew by Dr. Russell’s
face that there was perfect mutual knowledge, and that she might be
herself without fear of misunderstanding.
Slipping down to her knees, to relieve the tension of stooping, neither
spoke, for what is there to say when each knows the other’s grief and
helplessness? Stead fastened his eyes upon her face with fading vision
that still saw through and beyond.
“I cannot see the River Kingdom, it has faded from me, but you have
come to me from it,” he said at last. Then looking toward Dr. Russell,
he added, “Open the window, please, that I may hear the rushing of the
water.”
“You could not hear it, there has been no rain this fall and the river
is still; it is only in the spring flood that the waters rush noisily,”
answered Dr. Russell, watching the man apprehensively.
Again a space of silence, and Stead murmured, “What was that about still
waters?—a hymn or prayer or something of the sort. I used to know it when
I was a little chap—my mother taught it me!”
Dr. Russell glanced at Brooke. Did she understand, and could she bear
the strain and answer? Yes,—leaning forward, she repeated softly, close
to his ear: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to
lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He
restoreth my soul: he leadeth me—”
Here the grasp of Stead’s hand tightened, so that she paused abruptly,
and turning toward her, he cried—“Child, child! that is what you have
done—you have restored my soul to me!” and answering the unconscious
appeal in the pleading eyes, Brooke, without hesitation, kissed him on
the lips. Then, obeying a sign from Dr. Russell, she arose and passed
quickly from the room.
The next day Robert Stead died, and to Brooke it seemed as if a hush
must fall over all the River Kingdom,—the hawks stop sailing to and fro,
the keen October wind rest from blowing, and the meadowlarks in the low
fields cease their song. Yet it was not so, for this is not the law of
life, which must forever be triumphant over the other law.
After a time people who had missed and wondered about Stead and Brooke
concluded that they had been mistaken; the little gifts of the will were
the natural ones to friends and neighbours, and the trust placed in Dr.
Russell’s hands was natural, and doubtless for charity, and there was no
one in the Hill Country who would deny his fitness to hold it.