The Shield of Silence Part 5

"There seem to be more downs than ups on this road," the girl said, in order to cover a groan. "It will be awful after dark."

"Dark or light, ma'am," Jed returned, "it's all the same to me, ma'am. I know dese little ole humps like I know my fingers and toes, ma'am."

"Do--do you always. .h.i.t the same humps?" Jed was. .h.i.tting one now, squarely.

"Mostly, ma'am; but I'm studyin' to get there before dark, ma'am. If Was.h.i.+ngton now, ma'am"--Jed indicated the sleeker of the two horses--"had the ginger, so to speak, ma'am, as Lincoln has got--why, ma'am, the River Road would be flyin' out behind, ma'am, like it war a tail of a kite."

Meredith managed to give a weak laugh and, as the wagon hit another hump, she edged toward Jed. After a few moments he felt her head against his shoulder--from suffering and exhaustion she fell into a brief and troubled sleep.

Like one carved from rock, Jed held his position while a reverent expression grew upon his face.

The glow showed yellow through the western sky, The Gap was growing purplish and dim, and just then, across a foot bridge over the river, a hurrying, bent form appeared. It swayed perilously--Jed heard a muttered curse.

"Gawd A'mighty," he breathed, "it's ole Aunt Becky come back to add to trubble after us-all hopin' she was daid--or something."

Becky was coming toward the road, bending over the bundle she bore; she paused, looked down, and then darted ahead right in the path of the horses. They reared and something snapped.

Meredith awoke and sat up with a cry.

"What is the matter?" she asked. "An accident?"

"'Tain't nothin' so bad as an accident, ma'am," Jed rea.s.sured her, "but I don't take no chances with Lincoln's hind hoofs, ma'am, an' somethin'

done cracked in dat quarter."

The pause gave Aunt Becky time to reach Ridge House and play her part in the scheme of things.

Panting and well nigh exhausted, the old woman staggered on and was thankful to see at her journey's end that but one light shone in the quiet house. The light was in the living room where Angela sat alone waiting for Meredith Thornton. She had quite forgotten, in her growingly anxious hours, all about poor Becky and her sorrows. So now, when the long window, opening on the west porch, swayed inward, she started up with outstretched arms--and confronted Becky.

"I've brung hit!" Becky staggered to a chair, uninvited, and sat down with her burden, wrapped in a dirty, old quilt, upon her knees.

Angela sat down also--she was speechless and frightened. She watched the old woman unfold the coverings, and she saw the form of a sleeping new-born baby exposed to the heat and light of the fire. She tried to say something, to get control of herself, but she only succeeded in bending nearer the apparition.

"Zalie she c.u.m las' night like I told you she would. She's daid now--Zalie is. I don buried her at sun-up--an' I want it tole--if it ever is tole--that the child was buried long o' Zalie. She done planned while she was a-dying.

"I told her what you-all promised an' she went real content-like after that."

There was sodden despair in Becky's voice.

"Who--is the father of this child?"

The commonplace question, under the strain, sounded trivial--but it was rung from Angela's dismay.

Becky gave a rough laugh.

"Not the agony o' death an' the fear o' h.e.l.l could wring that out of Zalie," she said. Then: "Yo' ain't goin' back on yo' promise, are yo'?"

Sister Angela rallied. At any moment the wheels on the road might end her time for considering poor Becky.

"You mean," she whispered, "that you renounce--this child; give it to me, now? You mean--that I must find a home for it?"

"Yo' done promised--an' it eased Zalie at the end."

Angela reached for the child--she was calm and self-possessed at last.

This was not the first child she had rescued.

"It is--a girl?" she asked, lifting the tiny form.

"Hit's a girl. Give hit a chance."

"I will." Then Angela wrapped the child in the old quilt and turned toward the door.

"Will you wait until I return?" she paused to ask, but Becky, her eyes on that picture of the Good Shepherd, replied:

"No--I don let go!"

With that she pa.s.sed as noiselessly from the room as if she were but a shadow sinking into the darkness outside.

Angela went upstairs and knocked at Sister Constance's door. Sister Constance was alert at once. Every faculty of hers was trained to respond intelligently to taps on the door in the middle of the night.

"This is--a child--a mountain child," whispered Sister Angela. "It has been left here. Take it into the west wing and tell no one of its presence until we know whether it will be claimed!"

"Very well, Sister." Constance folded the child to her ample breast; the maternal in her gave the training she had received a divine quality. The baby stirred, stretched out its little limbs, and opened its vague, sleep-filled eyes as if at last something worthy of response had appealed to it.

Sister Angela stood in the cold, dark hall listening, and when the door of the west wing chamber closed, she felt, once more, secure. Sister Angela was never able to describe afterward the state of mind that made the happenings of the next few hours seem like flaming pillars against a dead blur of sensation.

There was the sound of wheels. That set every nerve tense.

Meredith was in her arms--clinging, sobbing, and repeating:

"He must never have my child, Sister. Promise, promise!"

"I promise, my darling. I promise." Angela heard herself saying the words as if they proceeded from the lips of a stranger.

"Has Doris come?"

"Not yet. She will be here soon."

"I can trust you and Doris. Doris knows. And now--I let go!"

Where had Sister Angela heard those words before? They went whirling through her brain as if on a mighty wheel.

"I have--let go!"

Then followed terrible hours in the guest chamber with Sister Constance repeating over and over: "It is a perfectly plain case. All is well."

Finally, there was quiet, and then that cry that has power to move the world's heart, a plaintive wail weighted with relinquishment and--acceptance. Meredith's little daughter was born just as the clock below chimed four.

"I will take it to the west wing," Constance said. "Call me if you need me."