The sun was close to the uneven sweep of the wilderness. Through its
slanting rays the river poured like a flood of gold. The negroes were on
the way singing from the fields. Cries, chaffing, and the musical
clanking of trace-chains came from the barnyard. Hungry cattle were
lowing and full-uddered mothers were mooing answers to bawling calves. A
peacock screamed from a distant tree and sailed forth, full-spread--a
great gleaming winged jewel of the air. In crises the nerves tighten
like violin strings, the memory-plates turn abnormally sensitive--and
Erskine was not to forget that hour.
The house was still and not a soul was in sight as the three, still
silent, walked up the great path. When they were near the portico Harry
came out. He looked worried and anxious.
"Where's Barbara?" asked her father.
"Locked in her room."
"Let her alone," said Colonel Dale gently. Like brother and cousin,
Harry and Hugh were merely irritated by the late revelation, but the
father was shocked that his child was no longer a child. Erskine
remembered the girl as she waited for Grey's coming at the sun-dial, her
face as she walked with him up the path. For a moment the two boys stood
in moody silence. Harry took the rapiers in and put them in their place
on the wall. Hugh quietly disappeared. Erskine, with a word of apology,
went to his room, and Colonel Dale sat down on the porch alone.
As the dusk gathered, Erskine, looking gloomily through his window, saw
the girl flutter like a white moth past the box-hedge and down the path.
A moment later he saw the tall form of Colonel Dale follow her--and both
passed from sight. On the thick turf the colonel's feet too were
noiseless, and when Barbara stopped at the sun-dial he too paused. Her
hands were caught tight and her drawn young face was lifted to the
yellow disk just rising from the far forest gloom. She was unhappy, and
the colonel's heart ached sorely, for any unhappiness of hers always
trebled his own.
"Little girl!" he called, and no lover's voice could have been more
gentle. "Come here!"
She turned and saw him, with arms outstretched, the low moon lighting
all the tenderness in his fine old face, and she flew to him and fell to
weeping on his breast. In wise silence he stroked her hair until she
grew a little calmer.
"What's the matter, little daughter?"
"I--I--don't know."
"I understand. You were quite right to send him away, but you did not
want him harmed."
"I--I--didn't want anybody harmed."
"I know. It's too bad, but none of us seem quite to trust him."
"That's it," she sobbed; "I don't either, and yet----"
"I know. I know. My little girl must be wise and brave, and maybe it
will all pass and she will be glad. But she must be brave. Mother is not
well and she must not be made unhappy too. She must not know. Can't my
little girl come back to the house now? She must be hostess and this is
Erskine's last night." She looked up, brushing away her tears.
"His last night?" Ah, wise old colonel!
"Yes--he goes to-morrow to join Captain Clark at Williamsburg on his
foolish campaign in the Northwest. We might never see him again."
"Oh, father!"
"Well, it isn't that bad, but my little girl must be very nice to him.
He seems to be very unhappy, too."
Barbara looked thoughtful, but there was no pretense of not
understanding.
"I'm sorry," she said. She took her father's arm, and when they reached
the steps Erskine saw her smiling. And smiling, almost gay, she was at
supper, sitting with exquisite dignity in her mother's place. Harry and
Hugh looked amazed, and her father, who knew the bit of tempered steel
she was, smiled his encouragement proudly. Of Erskine, who sat at her
right, she asked many questions about the coming campaign. Captain Clark
had said he would go with a hundred men if he could get no more. The
rallying-point would be the fort in Kentucky where he had first come
back to his own people, and Dave Yandell would be captain of a company.
He himself was going as guide, though he hoped to act as soldier as
well. Perhaps they might bring back the Hair-Buyer, General Hamilton, a
prisoner to Williamsburg, and then he would join Harry and Hugh in the
militia if the war came south and Virginia were invaded, as some
prophesied, by Tarleton's White Rangers, who had been ravaging the
Carolinas. After supper the little lady excused herself with a smiling
courtesy to go to her mother, and Erskine found himself in the moonlight
on the big portico with Colonel Dale alone.
"Erskine," he said, "you make it very difficult for me to keep your
secret. Hugh alone seems to suspect--he must have got the idea from Grey,
but I have warned him to say nothing. The others seem not to have
thought of the matter at all. It was a boyish impulse of generosity
which you may regret----"
"Never," interrupted the boy. "I have no use--less than ever now."
"Nevertheless," the colonel went on, "I regard myself as merely your
steward, and I must tell you one thing. Mr. Jefferson, as you know, is
always at open war with people like us. His hand is against coach and
four, silver plate, and aristocrat. He is fighting now against the law
that gives property to the eldest son, and he will pass the bill. His
argument is rather amusing. He says if you will show him that the eldest
son eats more, wears more, and does more work than his brothers, he will
grant that that son is entitled to more. He wants to blot out all
distinctions of class. He can't do that, but he will pass this bill."
"I hope he will," muttered Erskine.
"Barbara would not accept your sacrifice nor would any of us, and it is
only fair that I should warn you that some day, if you should change
your mind, and I were no longer living, you might be too late."
"Please don't, Uncle Harry. It is done--done. Of course, it wasn't fair
for me to consider Barbara alone, but she will be fair and you
understand. I wish you would regard the whole matter as though I didn't
exist."
"I can't do that, my boy. I am your steward and when you want anything
you have only to let me know!" Erskine shook his head.
"I don't want anything--I need very little, and when I'm in the woods, as
I expect to be most of the time, I need nothing at all." Colonel Dale
rose.
"I wish you would go to college at Williamsburg for a year or two to
better fit yourself--in case----"
"I'd like to go--to learn to fence," smiled the boy, and the colonel
smiled too.
"You'll certainly need to know that, if you are going to be as reckless
as you were today." Erskine's eyes darkened.
"Uncle Harry, you may think me foolish, but I don't like or trust Grey.
What was he doing with those British traders out in the Northwest?--he
was not buying furs. It's absurd. Why was he hand in glove with Lord
Dunmore?"
"Lord Dunmore had a daughter," was the dry reply, and Erskine flung out
a gesture that made words unnecessary. Colonel Dale crossed the porch
and put his hand on the lad's shoulders.
"Erskine," he said, "don't worry--and--don't give up hope. Be patient,
wait, come back to us. Go to William and Mary. Fit yourself to be one of
us in all ways. Then everything may yet come out in the only way that
would be fitting and right." The boy blushed, and the colonel went on
earnestly:
"I can think of nothing in the world that would make me quite so happy."
"It's no use," the boy said tremblingly, "but I'll never forget what you
have just said as long as I live, and, no matter what becomes of me,
I'll love Barbara as long as I live. But, even if things were otherwise,
I'd never risk making her unhappy even by trying. I'm not fit for her
nor for this life. I'll never forget the goodness of all of you to me--I
can't explain--but I can't get over my life in the woods and among the
Indians. Why, but for all of you I might have gone back to them--I would
yet. I can't explain, but I get choked and I can't breathe--such a
longing for the woods comes over me and I can't help me. I must _go_--and
nothing can hold me."
"Your father was that way," said Colonel Dale sadly. "You may get over
it, but he never did. And it must be harder for you because of your
early associations. Blow out the lights in the hall. You needn't bolt
the door. Good night, and God bless you." And the kindly gentleman was
gone.
Erskine sat where he was. The house was still and there were no noises
from the horses and cattle in the barn--none from roosting peacock,
turkey, and hen. From the far-away quarters came faintly the merry,
mellow notes of a fiddle, and farther still the song of some courting
negro returning home. A drowsy bird twittered in an ancient elm at the
corner of the house. The flowers drooped in the moonlight which bathed
the great path, streamed across the great river, and on up to its source
in the great yellow disk floating in majestic serenity high in the
cloudless sky. And that path, those flowers, that house, the barn, the
cattle, sheep, and hogs, those grain-fields and grassy acres, even those
singing black folk, were all--all his if he but said the words. The
thought was no temptation--it was a mighty wonder that such a thing could
be. And that was all it was--a wonder--to him, but to them it was the
world. Without it all, what would they do? Perhaps Mr. Jefferson might
soon solve the problem for him. Perhaps he might not return from that
wild campaign against the British and the Indians--he might get killed.
And then a thought gripped him and held him fast--_he need not come
back_. That mighty wilderness beyond the mountains was his real home--out
there was his real life. He need not come back, and they would never
know. Then came a thought that almost made him groan. There was a light
step in the hall, and Barbara came swiftly out and dropped on the
topmost step with her chin in both hands. Almost at once she seemed to
feel his presence, for she turned her head quickly.
"Erskine!" As quickly he rose, embarrassed beyond speech.
"Come here! Why, you look guilty--what have you been thinking?" He was
startled by her intuition, but he recovered himself swiftly.
"I suppose I will always feel guilty if I have made you unhappy."
"You haven't made me unhappy. I don't know what you have made me. Papa
says a girl does not understand and no man can, but he does better than
anybody. You saw how I felt if you had killed him, but you don't know
how I would have felt if he had killed you. I don't myself."
She began patting her hands gently and helplessly together, and again
she dropped her chin into them with her eyes lifted to the moon.
"I shall be very unhappy when you are gone. I wish you were not going,
but I know that you are--you can't help it." Again he was startled.
"Whenever you look at that moon over in that dark wilderness, I wish you
would please think of your little cousin--will you?" She turned eagerly
and he was too moved to speak--he only bowed his head as for a prayer or
a benediction.
"You don't know how often our thoughts will cross, and that will be a
great comfort to me. Sometimes I am afraid. There is a wild strain on my
mother's side, and it is in me. Papa knows it and he is wise--so wise--I
am afraid I may sometimes do something very foolish, and it won't be
_me_ at all. It will be somebody that died long ago." She put both her
hands over both his and held them tight.
"I never, never distrusted you. I trust you more than anybody else in
the whole world except my father, and he might be away or"--she gave a
little sob--"he might get killed. I want you to make me a promise."
"Anything," said the boy huskily.
"I want you to promise me that, no matter when, no matter where you are,
if I need you and send for you you will come." And Indian-like he put
his forehead on both her little hands.
"Thank you. I must go now." Bewildered and dazed, the boy rose and
awkwardly put out his hand.
"Kiss me good-by." She put her arms about his neck, and for the first
time in his life the boy's lips met a woman's. For a moment she put her
face against his and at his ear was a whisper.
"Good-by, Erskine!" And she was gone--swiftly--leaving the boy in a dizzy
world of falling stars through which a white light leaped to heights his
soul had never dreamed.