There was some quiet, but rapid, mavoeuvring at Bellemeade during
the ensuring half hour, which ended in five disgusted and sullen
tramps being captured, and locked securely in an outhouse pending
the coming of the morning and retribution. For another result, the
visiting young gentlemen had secured the unqualified worship of the
visiting young ladies by their distinguished and heroic conduct.
For still another, behold Whistling Dick, the hero, seated at the
planter's table, feasting upon viands his experience had never
before included, and waited upon by admiring femininity in shapes
of such beauty and "swellness" that even his ever-full mouth could
scarcely prevent him from whistling. He was made to disclose in
detail his adventure with the evil gang of Boston Harry, and how he
cunningly wrote the note and wrapped it around the stone and placed
it at the toe of the stocking, and, watching his chance, sent it
silently, with a wonderful centrifugal momentum, like a comet, at
one of the big lighted windows of the dining-room.
The planter vowed that the wanderer should wander no more; that his
was a goodness and an honesty that should be rewarded, and that
a debt of gratitude had been made that must be paid; for had he
not saved them from a doubtless imminent loss, and maybe a greater
calamity? He assured Whistling Dick that he might consider himself a
charge upon the honour of Bellemeade; that a position suited to his
powers would be found for him at once, and hinted that the way would
be heartily smoothed for him to rise to as high places of emolument
and trust as the plantation afforded.
But now, they said, he must be weary, and the immediate thing to
consider was rest and sleep. So the mistress spoke to a servant,
and Whistling Dick was conducted to a room in the wing of the house
occupied by the servants. To this room, in a few minutes, was
brought a portable tin bathtub filled with water, which was placed
on a piece of oiled cloth upon the floor. There the vagrant was left
to pass the night.
By the light of a candle he examined the room. A bed, with the
covers neatly turned back, revealed snowy pillows and sheets. A
worn, but clean, red carpet covered the floor. There was a dresser
with a beveled mirror, a washstand with a flowered bowl and pitcher;
the two or three chairs were softly upholstered. A little table held
books, papers, and a day-old cluster of roses in a jar. There were
towels on a rack and soap in a white dish.
Whistling Dick set his candle on a chair and placed his hat
carefully under the table. After satisfying what we must suppose to
have been his curiosity by a sober scrutiny, he removed his coat,
folded it, and laid it upon the floor, near the wall, as far as
possible from the unused bathtub. Taking his coat for a pillow, he
stretched himself luxuriously upon the carpet.
When, on Christmas morning, the first streaks of dawn broke above
the marshes, Whistling Dick awoke, and reached instinctively for his
hat. Then he remembered that the skirts of Fortune had swept him
into their folds on the night previous, and he went to the window
and raised it, to let the fresh breath of the morning cool his brow
and fix the yet dream-like memory of his good luck within his brain.
As he stood there, certain dread and ominous sounds pierced the
fearful hollow of his ear.
The force of plantation workers, eager to complete the shortened
task allotted to them, were all astir. The mighty din of the ogre
Labour shook the earth, and the poor tattered and forever disguised
Prince in search of his fortune held tight to the window-sill even
in the enchanted castle, and trembled.
Already from the bosom of the mill came the thunder of rolling
barrels of sugar, and (prison-like sounds) there was a great
rattling of chains as the mules were harried with stimulant
imprecations to their places by the waggon-tongues. A little vicious
"dummy" engine, with a train of flat cars in tow, stewed and fumed
on the plantation tap of the narrow-gauge railroad, and a toiling,
hurrying, hallooing stream of workers were dimly seen in the half
darkness loading the train with the weekly output of sugar. Here was
a poem; an epic--nay, a tragedy--with work, the curse of the world,
for its theme.
The December air was frosty, but the sweat broke out upon Whistling
Dick's face. He thrust his head out of the window, and looked down.
Fifteen feet below him, against the wall of the house, he could make
out that a border of flowers grew, and by that token he overhung a
bed of soft earth.
Softly as a burglar goes, he clambered out upon the sill, lowered
himself until he hung by his hands alone, and then dropped safely.
No one seemed to be about upon this side of the house. He dodged
low, and skimmed swiftly across the yard to the low fence. It was an
easy matter to vault this, for a terror urged him such as lifts the
gazelle over the thorn bush when the lion pursues. A crash through
the dew-drenched weeds on the roadside, a clutching, slippery rush
up the grassy side of the levee to the footpath at the summit,
and--he was free!
The east was blushing and brightening. The wind, himself a vagrant
rover, saluted his brother upon the cheek. Some wild geese, high
above, gave cry. A rabbit skipped along the path before him, free
to turn to the right or to the left as his mood should send him.
The river slid past, and certainly no one could tell the ultimate
abiding place of its waters.
A small, ruffled, brown-breasted bird, sitting upon a dog-wood
sapling, began a soft, throaty, tender little piping in praise of
the dew which entices foolish worms from their holes; but suddenly
he stopped, and sat with his head turned sidewise, listening.
From the path along the levee there burst forth a jubilant,
stirring, buoyant, thrilling whistle, loud and keen and clear as the
cleanest notes of the piccolo. The soaring sound rippled and trilled
and arpeggioed as the songs of wild birds do not; but it had a
wild free grace that, in a way, reminded the small, brown bird of
something familiar, but exactly what he could not tell. There was
in it the bird call, or reveille, that all birds know; but a great
waste of lavish, unmeaning things that art had added and arranged,
besides, and that were quite puzzling and strange; and the little
brown bird sat with his head on one side until the sound died away
in the distance.
The little bird did not know that the part of that strange warbling
that he understood was just what kept the warbler without his
breakfast; but he knew very well that the part he did not understand
did not concern him, so he gave a little flutter of his wings and
swooped down like a brown bullet upon a big fat worm that was
wriggling along the levee path.