Guy Rivers Part 10

"It may be as you believe, Guy; but, as I saw nothing in his manner or countenance affording ground for such a belief, I can not but conceive it to have been because of the activity of your suspicions that you discovered his. I did not perceive that he looked upon you with more curiosity than upon any other at table; though, if he had done so, I should by no means have been disposed to wonder; for at this time, and since your face has been so tightly bandaged, you have a most villanously attractive visage. It carries with it, though you do regard it with so much favor, a full and satisfactory reason for observance, without rendering necessary any reference to any more serious matter than itself. On the road, I take it, he saw quite too little of either of us to be able well to determine what was what, or who was who, either then or now. The pa.s.sage was dark, our disguises good, and the long hair and monstrous whiskers which you wore did the rest. I have no apprehensions, and see not that you need have any."

"I would not rest in this confidence--let us make sure that if he knows anything he shall say nothing," was the significant reply of Rivers.

"Guy, you are too fierce and furious. When there's a necessity, do you see, for using teeth, you know me to be always ready; but I will not be for ever at this sort of work. If I were to let you have your way you'd bring the whole country down upon us. There will be time enough when we see a reason for it to tie up this young man's tongue."

"I see--I see!--you are ever thus--ever risking our chance upon contingencies when you might build strongly upon certainties. You are perpetually trying the strength of the rope, when a like trouble would render it a sure hold-fast. Rather than have the possibility of this thing being blabbed, I would--"

"Hush--hark!" said Munro, placing his hand upon the arm of his companion, and drawing him deeper into the copse, at the moment that Forrester, who had just left the chamber of Ralph, emerged from the tavern into the open air. The outlaw had not placed himself within the shadow of the trees in time sufficient to escape the searching gaze of the woodman, who, seeing the movement and only seeing one person, leaped nimbly forward with a light footstep, speaking thus as he approached:

"h.e.l.lo! there--who's that--the pedler, sure. Have at you, Bunce!"

seizing as he spoke the arm of the retreating figure, who briefly and sternly addressed him as follows:--

"It is well, Mr. Forrester, that he you have taken in hand is almost as quiet in temper as the pedler you mistake him for else your position might prove uncomfortable. Take your fingers from my arm, if you please."

"Oh, it's you, Guy Rivers--and you here too, Munro, making love to one another, I reckon, for want of better stuff. Well, who'd have thought to find you two squatting here in the bushes! Would you believe it now, I took you for the Yankee--not meaning any offence though."

"As I am not the Yankee, however, Mr. Forrester, you will I suppose, withdraw your hand," said the other, with a manner sufficiently haughty for the stomach of the person addressed.

"Oh, to be sure, since you wish it, and are not the pedler," returned the other, with a manner rather looking, in the country phrase, to "a squaring off for a fight"--"but you needn't be so gruff about it. You are on business, I suppose, and so I leave you."

"A troublesome fool, who is disposed to be insolent," said Rivers, after Forrester's departure.

"d.a.m.n him!" was the exclamation of the latter, on leaving the copse--"I feel very much like putting my fingers on his throat; and shall do it, too, before he gets better manners!"

The dialogue between the original parties was resumed.

"I tell you again, Munro--it is not by any means the wisest policy to reckon and guess and calculate that matters will go on smoothly, when we have it in our own power to make them certainly go on so. We must leave nothing to guess-work, and a single blow will readily teach this youth the proper way to be quiet."

"Why, what do you drive at, Guy. What would you do--what should be done?"

"Beef--beef--beef! mere beef! How dull you are to-night! were you in yon gloomy and thick edifice (pointing to the prison which frowned in perspective before them), with irons on your hands, and with the prospect through its narrow-grated loopholes, of the gallows-tree, at every turning before you, it might be matter of wonder even to yourself that you should have needed any advice by which to avoid such a risk and prospect."

"Look you, Guy--I stand in no greater danger than yourself of the prospect of which you speak. The subject is, at best, an ugly one, and I do not care to hear it spoken of by you, above all other people. If you want me to talk civilly with you, you must learn yourself to keep a civil tongue in your head. I don't seek to quarrel with anybody, but I will not submit to be threatened with the penalties of the rogue by one who is a d.a.m.ned sight greater rogue than myself."

"You call things by their plainest names, Wat, at least," said the other, with a tone moderated duly for the purpose of soothing down the bristles he had made to rise--"but you mistake me quite. I meant no threat; I only sought to show you how much we were at the mercy of a single word from a wanton and head-strong youth. I will not say confidently that he remembers me, but he had some opportunities for seeing my face, and looked into it closely enough. I can meet any fate with fearlessness, but should rather avoid it, at all risks, when it's in my power to do so."

"You are too suspicious, quite, Guy, even for our business. I am older than you, and have seen something more of the world: suspicion and caution are not the habit with young men like this. They are free enough, and confiding enough, and in this lies our success. It is only the old man--the experienced in human affairs, that looks out for traps and pitfalls. It is for the outlaw--for you and me--to suspect all; to look with fear even upon one another, when a common interest, and perhaps a common fate, ought to bind us together. This being our habit, arising as it must from our profession, it is natural but not reasonable to refer a like spirit to all other persons. We are wrong in this, and you are wrong in regard to this youth--not that I care to save him, for if he but looks or winks awry, I shall silence him myself, without speech or stroke from you being necessary. But I do not think he made out your features, and do not think he looked for them. He had no time for it, after the onset, and you were well enough disguised before. If he had made out anything, he would have shown it to-night; but, saving a little stiffness, which belongs to all these young men from Carolina, I saw nothing in his manner that looked at all out of the way."

"Well, Munro, you are bent on having the thing as you please. You will find, when too late, that your counsel will end in having us all in a hobble."

"Pshaw! you are growing old and timid since this adventure. You begin to doubt your own powers of defence. You find your arguments failing; and you fear that, when the time comes, you will not plead with your old spirit, though for the extrication of your own instead of the neck of your neighbor."

"Perhaps so--but, if there be no reason for apprehension, there is something due to me in the way of revenge. Is the fellow to hurl me down, and trench my cheek in this manner, and escape without hurt?"

The eyes of the speaker glared with a deadly fury, as he indicated in this sentence another motive for his persevering hostility to Colleton--an hostility for which, as subsequent pa.s.sages will show, he had even a better reason than the unpleasing wound in his face; which, nevertheless, was in itself, strange as it may appear, a considerable eyesore to its proprietor. Munro evidently understood this only in part; and, unaccustomed to attribute a desire to shed blood to any other than a motive of gain or safety, and without any idea of mortified pride or pa.s.sion being productive of a thirst unaccountable to his mind, except in this manner, he proceeded thus, in a sentence, the dull simplicity of which only the more provoked the ire of his companion--

"What do you think to do, Guy--what recompense would you seek to have--what would satisfy you?"

The hand of Rivers grasped convulsively that of the questioner as he spoke, his eyes were protruded closely into his face, his voice was thick, choking and husky, and his words tremulous, as he replied,

"His blood--his blood!"

The landlord started back with undisguised horror from his glance.

Though familiar with scenes of violence and crime, and callous in their performance, there was more of the Mammon than the Moloch in his spirit, and he shuddered at the fiendlike look that met his own. The other proceeded:--

"The trench in my cheek is nothing to that within my soul. I tell you.

Munro, I hate the boy--I hate him with a hatred that must have a tiger-draught from his veins, and even then I will not be satisfied. But why talk I to you thus, when he is almost in my grasp; and there is neither let nor hinderance? Sleeps he not in yon room to the northeast?"

"He does, Guy--but it must not be! I must not risk all for your pa.s.sion, which seems to me, as weak as it is without adequate provocation. I care nothing for the youth, and you know it; but I will not run the thousand risks which your temper is for ever bringing upon me. There is nothing to be gained, and a great deal to be lost by it, at this time. As for the scar--that, I think, is fairly a part of the business, and is not properly a subject of personal revenge. It belongs to the adventure, and you should not have engaged in it, without a due reference to its possible consequences."

"You shall not keep me back by such objections as these. Do I not know how little you care for the risk--how little you can lose by it?"

"True, I can lose little, but I have other reasons; and, however it may surprise you, those reasons spring from a desire for your good rather than my own."

"For my good?" replied the other, with an inquiring sneer.

"Yes, for your good, or rather for Lucy's. You wish to marry her. She is a sweet child, and an orphan. She merits a far better man than you; and, bound as I am to give her to you, I am deeply bound to myself and to her, to make you as worthy of her as possible, and to give her as many chances for happiness as I can."

An incredulous smile played for a second upon the lips of the outlaw, succeeded quickly, however, by the savage expression, which, from being that most congenial to his feelings, had become that most habitual to his face.

"I can not be deceived by words like these," was his reply, as he stepped quickly from under the boughs which had sheltered them and made toward the house.

"Think not to pursue this matter, Guy, on your life. I will not permit it; not now, at least, if I have to strike for the youth myself."

Thus spoke the landlord, as he advanced in the same direction. Both were deeply roused, and, though not reckless alike, Munro was a man quite as decisive in character as his companion was ferocious and vindictive.

What might have been the result of their present position, had it not undergone a new interruption, might not well be foreseen. The sash of one of the apartments of the building devoted to the family was suddenly thrown up, and a soft and plaintive voice, accompanying the wandering and broken strains of a guitar, rose sweetly into song upon the ear.

"'Tis Lucy--the poor girl! Stay, Guy, and hear her music. She does not often sing now-a-days. She is quite melancholy, and it's a long time since I've heard her guitar. She sings and plays sweetly; her poor father had her taught everything before he failed, for he was very proud of her, as well he might be."

They sunk again into the covert, the outlaw muttering sullenly at the interruption which had come between him and his purposes. The music touched him not, for he betrayed no consciousness; when, after a few brief preliminary notes on the instrument, the musician breathed forth the little ballad which follows:--

LUCY'S SONG.

I.

"I met thy glance of scorn, And then my anguish slept, But, when the crowd was gone, I turned away and wept.

II.

"I could not bear the frown Of one who thus could move, And feel that all my fault, Was only too much love.

III.

"I ask not if thy heart Hath aught for mine in store, Yet, let me love thee still, If thou canst yield no more.

IV.

"Let me unchidden gaze, Still, on the heaven I see, Though all its happy rays Be still denied to me."