The Fortunes of Oliver Horn Part 25

"Oh, we are so glad to welcome you!" Then turning to her companion she said: "Mother, this is Mr. Horn, who has been so good to me all summer."

The old lady--she was very deaf--cupped one hand behind her ear, and with a gracious smile extended the other to Oliver.

"I am so pleased you came, sir, and I want to thank you for being so kind to our daughter. Her brother John could not go with her, and husband and I are most too old to leave home now." The voice was as sweet and musical as a child's, not the high-keyed, strained tone of most deaf people. When they all stood on the porch level Margaret touched Oliver's arm.

"Speak slowly and distinctly, Ollie," she whispered, "then mother can hear you."

Oliver smiled in a.s.sent, took the old lady's thin fingers, and with a cordiality the more p.r.o.nounced because of a certain guilty sense he had for his feeling of repugnance to her father, said:

"Oh, but think what a delight it was for me to be with her. Every day we painted together, and you can't imagine how much she taught me; you know there is n.o.body in the Academy cla.s.s who draws as well as your daughter." A light broke in Margaret's eyes at this, but she let him go on. "She has told you, of course, of all the good times we have had while we were at work" (Margaret had, but not all of them). "It is I who should thank YOU, not only for letting Miss Margaret stay so long, but for wanting me to come to you here in your beautiful home. It is my first visit to this--but you are standing, I beg your pardon," and he looked about for a chair.

There was only one chair on the porch--it was under Silas Grant.

"No, don't disturb yourself, Mr. Horn; I prefer standing," Mrs. Grant answered, with a deprecatory gesture as if to detain Oliver. No one in Brookfield ever intruded on Silas Grant's rights to his chair, not even his wife.

Silas heard, but he did not move; he had performed his duty as host; it was the women-folk's turn now to be pleasant. What he wanted was to be let alone. All this was in his face, as he sat hunched up between the arms of the splint rocker.

Despite the old lady's protest, Oliver made a step toward the seated man. His impulse was to suggest to his host that the lady whom he had honored by making his wife was at the moment standing on her two little feet while the lord of the manor was quietly reposing upon the only chair on the piazza, a fact doubtless forgotten by his Imperial Highness.

Mr. Grant had read at a glance the workings of the young man's mind, and knew exactly what Oliver wanted, but he did not move. Something in the bend of Oliver's back as he bowed to his wife had irritated him. He had rarely met Southerners of Oliver's cla.s.s--never one so young--and was unfamiliar with their ways. This one, he thought, had evidently copied the airs of a dancing-master; the wave of Oliver's hand--it was Richard's in reality, as were all the boy's gestures--and the fine speech he had just made to his wife, proved it. Instantly the instinctive doubt of the Puritan questioning the sincerity of whatever is gracious or spontaneous, was roused in Silas's mind. From that moment he became suspicious of the boy's genuineness.

The old lady, however, was still gazing into the boy's face, unconscious of what either her husband or her guest was thinking.

"I am so glad you like our mountains, Mr. Horn," she continued. "Mr.

Lowell wrote his beautiful lines, 'What is so Rare as a Day in June,'

in our village, and Mr. Longfellow never lets a summer pa.s.s without spending a week with us. And you had a comfortable ride down the mountains, and were the views enjoyable?"

"Oh, too beautiful for words!" It was Margaret this time, not the scenery; he could not take his eyes from her, as he caught the beauty of her throat against the soft white of her dress, and the exquisite tint of the October rose in contrast with the autumnal browns of her hair. Never had he dreamed she could be so lovely. He could not believe for one moment that she was the Margaret he had known; any one of the Margarets, in fact. Certainly not that one of the Academy school in blue gingham with her drawing-board in her lap, alone, self-poised, and unapproachable, among a group of art-students; or that other one in a rough mountain-skirt, stout-shoes, and a tam-o'-shanter, the gay and fearless companion, the comrade, the co-worker. This Margaret was a vision in white, with arms bare to the elbow--oh, such beautiful arms!

and the grace and poise of a d.u.c.h.ess--a Margaret to be reverenced as well as loved--a woman to bend low to.

During this episode, in which Silas sat studying the various expressions that flitted across Oliver's face, Mr. Grant s.h.i.+fted uneasily in his chair. At last his jaws closed with a snap, while the two tufts of cotton-wool, drawn together by a frown, deeper than any which had yet crossed his face, made a straight line of white. Oliver's enthusiastic outburst and the gesture which accompanied it had removed Silas Grant's last doubt. His mind was now made up.

The young fellow, however, rattled on, oblivious now of everything about him but the joy of Margaret's presence.

"The view from the bend of the road was especially fine--" he burst forth again, his eyes still on hers. "You remember, Miss Margaret, your telling me to look out for it?" (he couldn't stand another minute of this unless she joined in the talk). "In my own part of the State we have no great mountains nor any lovely brooks full of trout. And the quant.i.ty of deer that are killed every winter about here quite astonishes me. Why, Mr. Pollard's son Hank, so he told me, shot fourteen last winter, and there were over one hundred killed around Moose Hillock. You see, our coast is flat, and many of the farms in my section run down to the water. We have, it is true, a good deal of game, but nothing like what you have here," and he shrugged his shoulders, and laughed lightly as if in apology for referring to such things in view of all the wealth of the mountains about him.

"What kind of game have you got?" asked Mr. Grant, twisting his head and looking at Oliver from under the straight line of cotton-wool.

Oliver turned his head toward the speaker. "Oh, wild geese, and canvas-back ducks and--"

"And negroes?" There was a harsh note in Silas's voice which sounded like a saw when it clogs in a knot, but Oliver did not notice it. He was too happy to notice anything but the girl beside him.

"Oh, yes, plenty of them," and he threw back his head, laughing this time until every tooth flashed white.

"You hunt them, too, don't you? With dogs, most of the time, I hear."

There was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice now.

The boy's face sobered in an instant. He felt as if someone had shot at him from behind a tree.

"Not that I ever saw, sir," he answered, quickly, straightening himself, a peculiar light in his eyes. "We love ours."

"Love 'em? Well, you don't treat 'em as if you loved 'em."

Margaret saw the cloud on Oliver's face and made a step toward her father.

"Mr. Horn lives in the city, father, and never sees such things."

"Well, if he does he knows all about it. You own negroes, don't you?"

The voice was louder; the manner a trifle more insistent. Oliver could hardly keep his temper. Only Margaret's anxious face held him in check.

"No; not now, sir--my father freed all of his." The tones were thin and cold. Margaret had never heard any such sound before from those laughing lips.

Silas Grant was leaning forward out of his chair. The iron jaw was doing the talking now.

"Where are these negroes?" he persisted.

"Two of them are living with us, sir. They are in my father's house now."

"Rather s.h.i.+ftless kind of help, I guess. You've got to watch 'em all the time, I hear. Steal everything they get their hands on, don't they?" This was said with a dry, hard laugh that was meant to be conciliatory--as if he expected Oliver to agree with him now that he had had his say.

Oliver turned quickly toward his host's chair. For a moment he was so stunned and hurt that he could hardly trust himself to speak. He looked up and saw the expression of pain on Margaret's face, and instantly remembered where he was and who was offending him.

"Our house-servants, Mr. Grant, are part of our home," he said, in a low, determined voice, without a trace of anger. "Old Malachi, who was my father's body-servant, and who is now our butler, is as much beloved by everyone as if he were one of the family. For myself, I can never remember the time when I did not love Malachi."

Before her father could answer, Margaret had her hand on Oliver's shoulder.

"Don't tell all your good stories to father now," she said, with a grateful smile. "Wait until after dinner, when we can all hear them.

Come, Mr. Horn, I know you want to get the dust out of your eyes." Then in an aside, "Don't mind him, Ollie. It's only father's way, and he's the dearest father in the world when you understand him," and she pressed his arm meaningly as they walked to the door.

Before they reached the threshold the gate swung to with a click, and a young man with a scythe slung over his shoulder strode up the path. He was in the garb of a farm-hand; trousers tucked into his boots, s.h.i.+rt open at the throat, and head covered by a coa.r.s.e straw hat. This shaded a good-natured, sun-burnt face, lighted by two bright blue eyes.

"Oh, here comes my brother John," Margaret cried. "Hurry up, John--here's Mr. Horn."

The young man quickened his pace, stopped long enough to hang the scythe on the porch-rail, lifted his hat from his head, and, running up the short flight of steps, held out his hand cordially to Oliver, who advanced to meet him.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Horn. Madge has told us all about you. Excuse my rig--we are short of men on the farm, and I took hold. I'm glad of the chance, for I get precious little exercise since I left college. You came from East Branch by morning stage, I suppose? Oh, is that your trunk dumped out in the road? What a duffer I was not to know. Wait a minute--I'll bring it in," and he sprang down the steps.

"No, let me," cried Oliver, running after him. He had not thought of his trunk since he had helped stow it in the boot outside Ezra Pollard's gate--but then he had been on his way to Margaret's!

"No, you won't. Stay where you are--don't let him come, Madge."

The two young men raced down the path, Juno scampering after them.

John, who could outrun any man at Dartmouth, vaulted over the fence and had hold of the bra.s.s handle before Oliver could open the gate.

"Fair-play!" cried Oliver, and they each grasped a handle--either one could have held it out at arm's length with one hand--and brought it up the garden-path, puffing away in pantomime as if it weighed a ton, and into the house. There they deposited it in the bedroom that was to be Oliver's during the two days of his visit at Brookfield Farm, Margaret clapping her hands in high glee, and her mother holding back the door for them to pa.s.s in.

Silas Grant watched the young fellows until they disappeared inside the door, lifted himself slowly from his seat by his long arms, stretched himself, with a yawn, to his full height, and said aloud to himself as he pushed his chair back against the wall:

"His father's got a negro for body-servant, has he, and a negro for butler--just like 'em. They all want somebody to wait on 'em."