The Battle Ground Part 34

"Do you think I might speak to him?" she persisted eagerly.

"My dear girl, do you want to have your head bitten off for your pains? His temper is positively tremendous. By Jove, I didn't know he had it in him after all these years; I thought he had worn it out on dear Aunt Molly. And Beau, by the way, isn't going to be the only one to suffer for his daring, which makes me wish that he had chosen to embrace the saintly instead of the heroic virtues. I confess that I could find it in my heart to prefer less of David and more of Job."

"How can you?" remonstrated Betty. She pressed her hands together and looked wistfully up at him. "But what are you going to do about it?" she demanded.

For a moment his eyes dwelt on her.

"Betty, Betty, how you care!" he exclaimed.

"Care?" she laughed impatiently. "Oh, I care, but what good does that do?"

"Would you care as much for me, I wonder?" She smiled up at him and shook her head.

"No, I shouldn't, Champe," she answered honestly.

He turned his gaze away from her, and looked through the dim old window panes out upon the cl.u.s.tered elm boughs.

"Well, I'll do this much," he said in a cheerful voice. "I'll ride to the tavern this morning and find out how the land lies there. I'll see Beau, and I'll do my best for him, and for you, Betty." She put out her hand and touched his arm. "Dear Champe!" she exclaimed impulsively.

"Oh, I dare say," he scoffed, "but is there any message?"

"Tell him to come back," she answered, "to come back now, or when he will."

"Or when he will," he repeated smiling, and went down to order his horse.

At the tavern he found Jack Hicks and a neighbouring farmer or two, seated upon the porch discussing the raid upon Harper's Ferry. They would have drawn him into the talk, but he asked at once for Dan, and upon learning the room in which he lodged, ran up the narrow stair and rapped upon the door. Then, without waiting for a response, he burst into the room with outstretched hand. "Why, they've put you into a tenpin alley," were his words of greeting.

With a laugh Dan sprang up from his chair beside the window. "What on earth are you doing here, old man?" he asked.

"Well, just at present I'm trying to pull you out of the hole you've stumbled into. I say, in the name of all that's rational, why did you allow yourself to get into such a sc.r.a.pe?"

Dan sat down again and motioned to a split-bottomed chair he had used for a footstool.

"There's no use going into that," he replied frowning, "I raised the row and I'm ready to bear the consequences."

"Ah, that's the point, my dear fellow; Aunt Molly and I have been bearing them all the morning."

"Of course, I'm sorry for that, but I may as well tell you now that things are settled so far as I am concerned. I've been kicked out and I wouldn't go back again if they came for me in a golden chariot."

"I hardly think that's likely to happen," was Champe's cheerful rejoinder.

"The old gentleman has had his temper touched, as, I dare say, you're aware, and, as ill-luck would have it, he saw you on the stagecoach this morning. My dear Beau, you ought to have crawled under the box."

"Nonsense!" protested Dan, "it's no concern of his." He turned his flushed boyish face angrily away.

Champe looked at him steadily with a twinkle in his eyes. "Well, I hope your independence will come b.u.t.tered," he remarked. "I doubt if you will find the taste of dry bread to your liking. By the way, do you intend to enter Jack Hicks's household?"

"For a fortnight, perhaps. I've written to Judge Compton, and if he'll take me into his office, I shall study law."

Champe gave a long whistle. "I should have supposed that your taste would be for tailoring," he observed, "your genius for the fas.h.i.+ons is immense."

"I hope to cultivate that also," said Dan, smiling, as he glanced at his coat.

"What? on bread and cheese and Blackstone?"

"Oh, Blackstone! I never heard he wasn't a well-dressed old chap."

"At least you'll take half my allowance?"

Dan shook his head. "Not a cent--not a copper cent."

"But how will you live, man?"

"Oh, somehow," he laughed carelessly. "I'll live somehow."

"It's rather a shame, you know," responded Champe, "but there's one thing of which I am very sure--the old gentleman will come round. We'll make him do it, Aunt Molly and I--and Betty."

Dan started.

"Betty sent you a message, by the way," pursued Champe, looking through the window. "It was something about coming home; she says you are to come home now--or when you will." He rose and took up his hat and riding-whip.

"Or when I will," said Dan, rising also. "Tell her--no, don't tell her anything--what's the use?"

"She doesn't need telling," responded Champe, going toward the door; and he added as they went together down the stair, "She always understands without words, somehow."

Dan followed him into the yard, and watched him, from under the oaks beside the empty stagecoach, as he mounted and rode away.

"For heaven's sake, remember my warning," said Champe, turning in the saddle, "and don't insist upon eating dry bread if you're offered b.u.t.ter."

"And you will look after Aunt Molly and Betty?" Dan rejoined.

"Oh, I'll look after them," replied the other lightly, and rode off at an amble.

Dan looked after the horse and rider until they pa.s.sed slowly out of sight; then, coming back to the porch, he sat down among the farmers, and listened, abstractedly, to the drawling voice of Jack Hicks.

When Champe reached Cheric.o.ke, he saw Betty looking for him from Aunt Emmeline's window seat; and as he dismounted, she ran out and joined him upon the steps.

"And you saw him?" she asked breathlessly.

"It was pleasant to think that you came to meet me for my own sake," he returned; and at her impatient gesture, caught her hand and looked into her eyes.

"I saw him, my dear," he said, "and he was in a temper that would have proved his descent had he been lost in infancy."

She eagerly questioned him, and he answered with forbearing amus.e.m.e.nt. "Is that all?" she asked at last, and when he nodded, smiling, she went up to Mrs. Lightfoot's bedside and besought her "to make the Major listen to reason."

"He never listened to it in his life, my child," the old lady replied, "and I think it is hardly to be expected of him that he should begin at his present age." Then she gathered, bit by bit, the news that Champe had brought, and ended by remarking that "the ways of men and boys were past finding out."

"Do you think the Major will ever forgive him?" asked Betty, hopelessly.

"He never forgave poor Jane," answered Mrs. Lightfoot, her voice breaking at the mention of her daughter. "But whether he forgives him or not, the silly boy must be made to come home; and as soon as I am out of this bed, I must get into the coach and drive to that G.o.d-forsaken tavern. After ten years, nothing will content them, I suppose, but that I should jolt my bones to pieces."