WAITING AND WATCHING.
That night, long after the party at "Norston's Rest" had returned from
the hunt, John Storms, a farmer on the estate, who stood at the door
of his house chafing and annoyed by the disappearance of his son with
the new horse that had just been purchased, heard an unequal tramping
of hoofs and a strange sound of pain from the neighboring stable-yard.
Taking a lantern, for it was after dark, he went out and was startled
by the limping approach of the poor hunter, that had found its way
home and was wandering about the enclosure with the bridle dragging
under his feet, and empty stirrups swinging from the torn saddle.
The old man had been made sullen and angry enough by the unauthorized
disappearance of his son with the new purchase; but when he saw the
empty saddle and disabled condition of the lamed animal, a sudden
panic seized upon him. He hurried into the house with strange pallor
on his sunburned face and a tremor of the knees, which made him glad
to drop into a chair when he reached the kitchen, where his wife was
moving about her work with the same feverish restlessness that had
ended so painfully with him.
The woman, startled by his appearance, came up to him in subdued
agitation.
"It is only that the new beast has come home lamed, and with the
saddle empty," he said, in reply to her look. "I must go to the
village, or find some of the grooms. Keep up a good heart, dame, till
I come back."
"Is he hurt? Oh, John! is there any sign that our lad has come to
harm?" questioned the poor woman, shaking from head to foot, as she
supported herself by the back of the chair from which her husband
started in haste to be off.
"I will soon know--I will soon know"--was his answer. "God help us!"
"God help us!" repeated the woman, dropping helplessly down into the
chair, as her husband put on his hat and went hurriedly through the
door; and there she sat trembling until another sound of pain, that
seemed mournfully human, reached her from the stable-yard.
This appeal to her compassion divided somewhat the agony of her fears,
and strengthened her for kindly exertion. "Poor beast," she thought,
"no one is taking care of him."
She looked around; no aid was near. The tired farm-hands had gone to
bed, or wandered off to the village. She was rather glad of that. It
was something that she could appease her own anxiety by giving help to
anything in distress. Taking up the lantern, which was still alight,
she went toward the stable, and there limping out of the darkness met
the wounded horse. An active housewife like Mrs. Storms required no
help in relieving the animal of its trappings. She unbuckled the
girth, took off the saddle, and passed her hand gently down the fore
leg, that shrunk and quivered even under that slight touch.
"It is a sprain, and a bad one," she thought, leading the poor beast
into his stall, where he lay down wearily; "but no bones are broken.
Oh, if he could only speak now and tell me if my lad is
alive--or--or--Oh, my God, have mercy upon me, have mercy upon me!"
Here the poor woman leaned her shoulder against the side of the stall,
and a burning moisture broke into her eyes, filling them with pain;
for this woman was given to endurance, and, with such, weeping is
seldom a relief; but looking downward at the pathetic and almost human
appeal in the great wild eyes of the wounded horse, tears partaking of
compassion as well as grief swelled into drops and ran down her face
in comforting abundance. So, patting the poor beast on his soiled
neck, she went to the house again and heating some decoction of leaves
that she gathered from under the garden wall, came back with her
lantern and bathed the swollen limb until the horse laid his head upon
the straw, and bore the slackened pain with patience.
It was a pity that some other work of mercy did not present itself to
assuage the suspense that was becoming almost unendurable to a woman
waiting to know of the life or death of her only son. She could not
sit down in her accustomed place and wait, but turned from the
threshold heart-sick, and, still holding the lantern, wandered up and
down a lane that ran half a mile before it reached the highway--up and
down until it seemed to her as if unnumbered hours had passed since
she had seen her husband go forth to learn whether she was a childless
mother or not. "Would he never come?"
She grew weary at last, and went into the house, looking older by ten
years than she had done before that shock came, and there she sat,
perfectly still, gazing into the fire. Once or twice she turned her
eyes drearily on a wicker basketful of work, where a sock, she had
been darning before her husband came in, lay uppermost, with a
threaded darning needle thrust through the heel, but it seemed ages
since she had laid the work down, and she had no will to take it up;
for the thought that her son might never need the sock again pierced
her like a knife.
Turning from the agony of this thought she would fasten her sad eyes
on the smouldering coals as they crumbled into ashes, starting and
shivering when some chance noise outside awoke new anguish of
expectation.
The sound she dared not listen for came at last. A man's footstep,
slow and heavy, turned from the lane and paused at the kitchen door.
She did not move, she could not breathe, but sat there mute and still,
waiting.
The door opened, and John Storms entered the kitchen where his wife
sat. She was afraid to look on his face, and kept her eyes on the
fire, shivering inwardly. He came across the room and laid his hand on
her shoulder. Then she gave a start, and looked in her husband's face:
it was sullenly dark.
"He is not dead?" she cried out; seeing more anger than grief in the
wrathful eyes. "My son is not dead?"
"No, not dead; keep your mind easy about that; but he and I will have
a reckoning afore the day breaks, and one he shall remember to his
dying day. So I warn you keep out of it for this time: I mean to be
master now."
Here Storms seated himself in an empty chair near the fire, and
stretching both feet out on the hearth, thrust a hand into each pocket
of his corduroy dress. With the inconsistency of a rough nature, he
had allowed the anguish and fright that had seized upon him with the
first idea of his son's danger to harden into bitterness and wrath
against the young man, the moment he learned that all his
apprehensions had been groundless. Even the pale, pitiful face of his
wife had no softening effect upon him.
"He is alive--but you say nothing more. Tell me is our son maimed--is
he hurt?"
"Hurt! He deserves to have his neck broken. I tell you the lad is
getting beyond our management--wandering about after the gentry up
yonder as if he belonged with them; going after the hunt and almost
getting his neck broke on the new horse that fell short of his leap at
a wall with a ditch on t'other side, that the best hunter in Sir
Noel's stables couldn't'a' cleared."
"Oh, father! you heard that; but was he much hurt? Why didn't they
bring him home at once?" cried the mother, with a fever of dread in
her eyes.
"Hurt! not half so much as he deserves to be," answered the man,
roughly. "Why, that horse may be laid up for a month; besides, at his
best, there isn't a day's farm-work under his shining hide. The lad
cheated us in the buying of him, a hunter past his prime--that is what
has been put upon me, and serves me right for trusting him."
"But you will not tell me, is our Richard hurt?" cried the woman, in a
voice naturally mild, but now sharp with anxiety.
"Hurt! not he. Only made a laughing-stock for the grooms and
whippers-in who saw him cast head over heels into a ditch, and farther
on in the day trudging home afoot."
The woman fell back in her chair with a deep sigh of relief.
"Then he was not hurt. Oh, father! why could ye not tell me this at
first?"
"Because ye are aye so foolish o'er the lad, cosseting a strapping
grown-up loon as if he was a baby; that is what'll be his ruin in the
end."
"He is our only son," pleaded the mother.
"Aye, and thankful I am that we have no more of the same kind."
"Oh, father!"
"There, there; don't anger me, woman. The things I heard down yonder
have put me about more than a bit. The lad will be coming home, and a
good sound rating he shall have."
Here farmer Storms thrust his feet still farther out on the hearth,
and sat watching the fire with a sullen frown growing darker and
darker on his face.
As the time wore on, Mrs. Storms saw that he became more and more
irritated. His hands worked restlessly in his pockets, and, from time
to time, he cast dark looks at the door.
These signs of ill humor made the woman anxious.
"It is going on to twelve," she said, looking at the brazen face of an
old upright clock that stood in a corner of the kitchen. "I am tired."
"What keeps ye from bed, then? As for me, I'll not quit this chair
till Dick comes home."
Mrs. Storms drew back into her chair and folded both hands on her lap.
She was evidently afraid that her husband and son should meet while
the former was in that state of mind.
"I wonder where he is stopping," she said, unconsciously speaking
aloud.
"At the public. Where else can he harbor at this time of night? When
Dick is missing one is safe to look for him there."
"It may be that he has stopped in at Jessup's. I am sure that pretty
Ruth could draw him from the public any day."
"But it'll not be long, as things are going, before Jessup 'll forbid
him the house. The girl has high thoughts of herself, with all her
soft ways, and will have a good bit of money when her god-mother dies
and the old gardener has done with his. If Dick goes on at this pace
some one else will be sure to step in, and there isn't such another
match for him in the whole county."
"But he may be coming from the gardener's cottage now," suggested the
mother. "Young men do not always give it out at home when they visit
their sweethearts. You remember--"
Here a smile, full of pleasant memories, softened the old man's face,
and his hard hand stole into his wife's lap, searching shyly for hers.
"Maybe I do forget them times more than I ought, wife; but no one can
say I ever went by your house to spend a night at the ale-house--now,
can they?"
"But Dick may not do it either," pleaded the mother.
"I tell you, wife, there is no use blinding ourselves: the young man
spends half his time treating the lazy fellows of the neighborhood,
for no one else has so much money."
The old lady sighed heavily.
"Worse than that! he joins in all the low sports of the place. Why, he
is training rat-terriers in the stable and game-chickens in the
barnyard. I caught him fighting them this very morning."
"Oh, John!" exclaimed the woman, ready to accuse any one rather than
her only child; "if you had only listened to me when we took him out
of school, and given him a bit more learning."
"He's got more learning by half than I ever had," answered the old
man, moodily.
"But you had your way to make and no time for much study; but we are
well-to-do in the world, and our son need not work the farm like us."
"I don't know but you are right, old woman. Dick never will make a
good farm-hand. He wants to be master or nothing."
"Hark--he is coming!" answered the wife, brightening up and laying her
hand on the old man's arm.