But the adventure of her walk had not come to an end yet.
The path widened into a grass-grown road. The day was so hot she
regretted she hadn't brought her sunshade, but she walked with light
buoyant steps, unreflecting,--amused by the antics of two blue, belated
butterflies who, not perished with the summer, convinced it had come
back a little, danced ahead of her chasing the shadows; they fluttered
to the right and to the left, and came at last to rest upon a withered
mullen stalk a few yards in advance of her. Ruth watched them while they
sought greedily, making a rapid tour of the dried stem, for some lone
flower upon which to replenish their hungry attenuated little stomachs.
She almost held her breath, as she paused to watch the quest and she
wished she might, by a wave of her stick, restore fresh succulence to
the weeds, when--
“Halt, stop!” cried a voice.
Instinctively, Ruth shrank back.
“There's a snake ahead of you--there--just across the path. Don't move!”
cried the voice.
Miss Adgate stood perfectly still. She saw a man run by her; she heard
the sharp report of a gun. The smell of gunpowder filled her nostrils
and the terror of the sudden cry made her feel sick.
“There he is!” cried the owner of the voice.
An excited young man presented upon the muzzle of his gun a viscous two
feet of snake, an object that limply resembled the straight, flat limb
of a tree. “A copperhead. 'Tis the only deadly dangerous beast in these
harmless woods. As I'm alive, if you had put your foot on him you would,
indeed, have found him deadly.”
He extended the flabby thing for Ruth's inspection, but the young lady
looked away--her arm instinctively went out to clutch at something.
“No cause for fright, Miss Adgate,” said the young chap. He proffered a
hand to steady her. “I'm afraid I gave you a terrible scare,” he added,
apologetic, and he looked at her with concern, “but that was better
than the bite. You're quite white; sit down a moment. You'll soon feel
better.”
Ruth covered her face with her hands.
“Thank God!” she said, with an involuntary shudder, but she did not sit
down.
“Are there many of those creatures in the woods?” she asked, but she
felt ashamed of her weakness.
“No, especially not at this time of year. The warm sun brought this
one out. You should never walk about here in low shoes, though, Miss
Adgate.”
“You know my name,” Ruth said, surprised.
“I take it for granted you're General Adgate's niece, having a walk
through your woods. The whole town knows you arrived last night,”
answered the young man, with a bow, smiling at her.
His smile was pleasant, he looked at her with friendly interest.
In shabby tweeds and a pair of leggings, a game-bag slung over his
shoulder, he was evidently out for a day's shooting.
“Don't think I'm a trespasser, though I can't show you my permit. But
your uncle and I are old friends,” he vouchsafed. “I'm privileged, I
must tell you, to shoot here when I like. In fact, I rather fancy
the quail you sat down to at supper last night was the product of my
game-bag.”
It occurred to Ruth that this remark came somehow with bad taste--the
speaker's eyes shone, however, with so kindly a light she hadn't the
heart to resent it.
“You are a marvellous shot,” was all she said.
“I served under your uncle in the Cuban War,” the young man told her.
“We had sharp fighting then, Miss Adgate. But we're well drilled, here
in Oldbridge--not a man jack of us but can pick an ace on a playing
card at fifty paces. That's all due to your uncle who supervises the
rifle-practice at the Armoury, to say nothing of coaching us in military
tactics, which he's past master in.”
“Ah!” said Ruth, interested. “I supposed he was the most peaceable of
retired military men.”
“Peaceable and retired if you like. But in times of peace, prepare for
war.... The way we are made to answer up to call on drill nights would
cause your blood to freeze, Miss Adgate.”
“_Ma ché!_ I thought I'd come to a quiet, sleepy New England town where
all was love and peace! The day after I arrive I learn I am in a hotbed
of militarism,” laughed Ruth.
“You're right,” the young man replied seriously, striding beside her.
“General Adgate, you see, has been through two wars. He received
his brevet of General in the war between the North and the South. He
realises the importance of preparing for emergencies, now that we've
taken our place among the nations. He's a splendid chap. Not one of us
but would walk or fight our way to death for him.... And it's always
been so. Why, they tell this story when he was just a Captain, in
the War of Secession. The enemy was pouring bomb and shell into his
entrenchments. He ordered his soldiers on their bellies, and in the
midst of the cannonading up he got, stood,--coolly lighting a cigarette:
'Now, my men,' said he, 'rush for them!' The men rose in a body, leapt
the entrenchments, fell upon the enemy. Of course the enemy was routed!
we captured and brought back guns and ammunition with cheers to camp.
Then it was, I believe, he was breveted General Adgate.”
Ruth had a shiver of pride as she listened. “But now,” continued her
informant, “worse luck, in these cowardly moneyed times, there's no
fun to be got out of war! You stand up, of course, to be slaughtered
wholesale. Now--the best shot has little hope of bringing down his
man--there's nothing to practise on but quail and partridge in the old
General's woods.”
“And snakes,” put in Ruth, laughing.
“Snakes,” repeated the young fellow, with a merry laugh. “Thrice blessed
copperheads!” went his mental reservation,--so quickly is youth inflamed
in America. “But a bounty's on every one of these wretches, Miss
Adgate,” he said aloud (and Ruth, fortunately, perhaps, was not a mind
reader.) “They've almost disappeared. Truth is, like the rest of us,
this one came out to welcome you, poor devil, and he's met with a sad
end! Since the new law a snake may not look at a lady.”
They had reached, as they strolled, the foot of the Adgate hill. As they
neared the gate the young man paused.
“I must bid you good-bye,” said he, lifting his hat, “it's long past
noon,--almost your luncheon hour.”
“Oh,” Ruth suggested, “since you and my uncle are friends won't you come
in to us for lunch? You shall go back to your shooting, your rescuing of
damsels, when we've refreshed you. I dare say there's some of that quail
left,” she added, with an occult smile.
“Miss Adgate,”--the young man visibly struggled with temptation....
“Miss Adgate,” he looked into the pretty flushed face and he felt
himself smitten to the heart's core. “That's very good of you; I'm
afraid, though, you don't know our New England customs. You've a
hospitable, beautiful English habit, but you've not been here long
enough to know that we don't ask folk unexpected-like to lunch; not
unless they're blood relatives or bosom friends. Tradition, ceremony,
convention forbid it and a gorgon more awful still. Her name
is--Maria-Jane!”
“Oh!...” Ruth laughed. “But she's paid for that! It is part of her
duty....”
“Ah, _dear_ Miss Adgate, you won't find it easy. Love won't buy them,
money won't purchase them, though I dare say,--you'll have a way with
you will make them see black white. But if you risk asking me, I won't,
and for your sake--accept--though I'm horribly tempted to. Besides,
think of it, tradition, ceremony, convention.”
Ruth felt herself getting angry. Here was a youth she didn't care
twopence for, who had done her more than a civility, but who presumed to
instruct her in a provincial code of manners. She would show him she was
mistress of her household--then be done with him.
“What ceremony, what convention?” she demanded coldly.
“Oh,” the young man replied undaunted, “no one wants his neighbour to
know he sits down to a joint, a couple of vegetables and apple pie for
his midday meal. We make such a lot of fuss here when we ask people to
eat with us.”
“But that's precisely the staple of every one's luncheon in England,
from Commoner to Lord,” cried Ruth. “No one makes a secret of it--it's
called the children's dinner. Whatever frills may be added, there or
here, the joint, the vegetables and the pudding, which amounts to the
pie, are invariably present and the most patronised. I assure you it's
the luncheon every one ought to eat. And now,” she commanded, “open
the gate and shut it behind you, and be satisfied to partake of our
vegetables, our joint and our pudding without further ado.”
“I accept,” said the delighted young fellow. “But if General Adgate
turns me out-o'-doors, I shall bend to the New England custom I was
brought up in and not hold you responsible for my discomfiture.”
They ascended the hill, over the softest, greenest turf; they went under
the apple trees despoiled of apples,--passed through the rustic gate,
and entered the garden. To the youth, the garden was all fragrant of
blossoms which must have burst into flower over night. Such delusive
things have a trick of happening, in New England, to an old garden, to
welcome the desired person, and Ruth, though she didn't suspect it, had
already become the desired person in the eyes of her victim. The syringa
tree under which they went spread for them a miraculous white canopy;
the white pinks threw forth aromatic scents which penetrated by the door
into the house as Ruth brought her companion to General Adgate, seated
before a rousing wood fire reading his newspapers in the drawing-room.