A LANE AT TWILIGHT
The elaborate midday dinner at Arden had been dabbled at, or bolted with
a rush which did scant justice to the cuisine of that hospitable
establishment; for a restiveness obsessed the household which would not
be denied. The Colonel was wishing for the return of Doctor Stone--and
this happened to be the wish of Nancy. Brent cared little what took
place if four o'clock would hurry around. Yet each shared in a vague
apprehension for the mountaineer who, Zack told them, had not returned.
"He may have walked over to Bob's," the Colonel suggested, and the
simple hearted servant, seeing his old master's distress of mind,
unhesitatingly declared:
"Dat's jest whar he done gwine, Marse John, sho's youse bawned!"
This had brought relief, if not conviction.
Nevertheless, the old gentleman preferred to abandon his Sunday
afternoon nap in favor of watching for Stone. Always, always now since
yesterday morning, he found himself listening for hoofbeats--listening
for the returning man of science who would bring a message of caution
from the fountain head of Sunlight Patch; and, in this humor of
expectancy, wandered out to the grouped chairs to be alone.
At half after three o'clock Brent came softly from the house, mounted
his horse and started at a very slow walk around the tanbark circle.
During this stealthy advance he watched with affectionate care to see
that nothing disturbed the old gentleman, whose chin some time before
had sunk peacefully to his breast. Still on the lookout for Stone, still
vigilant and faithful to the interest of his mountain friend and guest,
the Sunday afternoon nap of many years' indulgence had crept into his
brain to claim its own.
For the first two or three miles after he and Jane turned out of Flat
Rock their spirited animals were allowed to toss their heads and go for
the pure joy of going. Mac dashed on in front, using every ounce of his
sinew to keep that position. They were following the same lane, the same
tangled aisle of rioting vines which he had one day likened to his
life--a life in which his gardener had since been conscientiously
employed.
She knew how conscientiously. Had Uncle Zack not daily poured it into
Aunt Timmie's ears, still would she have known by a more convincing
sense. She knew just when the gardener had entered the woods and
pastures of his imaginings, cutting out the poison-ivy and pruning good
things for greater promise. She had watched this with secret exultation;
it hovered near her pillow in the nights, and touched her lips with song
at waking time.
They reached the chapel and entered without a word. But on the
threshold--where upon that other Sunday he had asked if this miracle
might be performed for her sake and she had answered: "for your
own!"--his eyes looked seriously, deeply, down at her. She knew they
were speaking for him, and while the service was in progress she
wondered over and over if hers had answered.
Neither of these worshippers, who forgot to worship, was in a mood for
talking as they came out and rode slowly home along the lane. Its
evening peace seemed to be a continuance of the chapel's calm. The sun
was low--balancing, as a red ball, on the hazy, distant hilltops. In
three and a half minutes it would be down, leaving them in an afterglow
of exquisite softness and touching the partially clouded western sky
with a wealth of glory.
Plaintively across the fields could be heard the call of sheep, mellowed
by the tinkle of their leader's bell. She could see them--little moving
mushrooms on the pasture slope--and to her ears came the sound of
someone letting down the stable bars. It suggested someone watching for
her coming; someone letting down the bars and calling her into a place
where she might be for all time safe.
"The days are getting short," he murmured, watching the last red segment
slip from sight. "It won't be so very long before these old oaks are as
red as that sky."
"I don't like to think of winter," she, too, spoke dreamily. "And see!
It's sunset! Don't you think we should be getting home?"
"I suppose we should," he gloomily answered, though his heart was
beating madly. "And in a few days I must think of hurrying home, too--of
leaving this, all this," his hand waved toward the crimson west. "It
will be as if I were emerging from a wonderful dream--from a crystal
palace which will fall in little pieces; and I'll search and search for
the rest of my life and never find it again! I shall miss my crystal
palace!"
For a moment neither dared to speak. It was very still in the fragrant
lane and their horses, which all this while had been walking slower, now
stopped as though in obedience to some whispered voice. Leaning gently
toward her, trembling before a depth of feeling which had never until
this time been so stirred, he said hoarsely:
"I won't lose it! I can't lose it, Jane!"
Distantly--yet almost out of the air about them, as if it were the
spirit of Kentucky speaking with ineffable gentleness through the
gathering twilight--a quintette of negroes, somewhere across the valley,
sang in mellow, minor harmonies:
"Weep no moh, mah lady;
Oh, weep no moh, today!"
He could see that her eyes were swimming in an adorable moisture, and
her face, touched by the dying day, seemed to be whispering out to him
through a glorified mist.
"I can't live without it--now!" he was pleading desperately.
"Neither can I," she whispered.
Half an hour later, Mac was still sitting in the road, his head tilted
inquiringly up at them: while the horses, still shoulder to shoulder,
stood patiently champing their bits.