Judith of the Cumberlands Part 30

She knelt beside the bed, and when the Lusk girls, frightened at her long absence, crept timidly in to look for her, they found her strangling pa.s.sionate sobs in its white covering.

"It's most twelve o'clock, Jude," whimpered Cliantha.

"Hit's come on to rain," supplied Pendrilla piteously, and a gusty spatter on the small-paned window confirmed her words, as the three girls went back into the room where the candle stood in the middle of the floor with the three portions of bread and salt about it.

The pale little sisters glanced at each other, and then at Judith, wistfully, timorously, almost more in terror of her than of their anomalous situation, this new, unknown Judith who scarce answered when she was spoken to, who continually failed them, who looked so strangely about her and wept so much.

"Pendrilly an' me has done put our pins in close to the bottom," Cliantha explained deprecatingly. "Hit wouldn't do any good to have Andy an' Jeff come trompin' in here--though I sh.o.r.e would love to see either or both of 'em this minute," she concluded forlornly, as they set the door ajar and the long slanting lines of rain began to drive obliquely in at the opening.

"Push the candle back whar the draught won't git a fair chance at it,"

quavered Pendrilla. "We're obliged to have the do' open, or what comes cain't git in. An' we mustn't ne'er a one of us say a word from now on, or hit'll break the charm."

Judith moved the candle and bent to thrust her pin in, close to the top where the melting wax might soon free it, concentrating all her soul in a pa.s.sionate cry that Creed should come to her or send her some sign. Then she crouched on the floor next to Pendrilla and nearest to the door, and the three waited with pale faces.

The wavering light of the candle, shaken by gusts which brought puffs of mist in with them, projected huge, grotesque shadows of the three heads, and set them dancing upon the walls. The hound-pup raised his head, c.o.c.ked his ears dubiously, and whined under his breath.

"What's that?" gasped Cliantha. "Didn't you-all hear somethin'?"

Judith was staring at the candle flame and made no reply. Her big dark eyes had the look of one self-hypnotised.

"Oh, Lordy! Ye ortn't to talk at a dumb supper--but I thort I hearn somebody walkin' out thar in the rain!" chattered Pendrilla.

The old house creaked and groaned in the rising autumn storm, as old houses do. The rain drummed on the roof like fingers tapping. The wind stripped dry leaves from the bough, or scooped them up out of the hollows where they lay, and carried them across the window, or drove them along the porch, in a gliding, whispering flight that was infinitely eerie.

In their terror the girls looked to Judith. They saw that she was not with them. Her gaze was on the pin in the candle. Back over her heart swept the sweetness of her first meeting with Creed. She could see him stand talking to her, the lifted face, the blue eyes--should she ever see them again?

Then suddenly the flame twisted and bent, the tallow melted swiftly on one side, and Judith's pin fell to the floor.

"Hit's a-comin'!" hissed Cliantha frantically.

"Oh, Lord! I wish 't we hadn't--" Pendrilla moaned.

The dog uttered a protesting sound between a growl and a yelp. He raised on his forelegs, and the hair of his head and neck bristled.

Outside, a heavy stumbling step came up the walk. It halted at the half-open door. That door was flung back, and in the square of dripping darkness stood Creed Bonbright, his face death white, his eyes wide and fixed, the rain gemming his uncovered yellow hair.

A moment he stood so, and the three stared at him. Then with a swish of leaves in the wind and a spatter of rain in their faces, the candle blew out. The girls screamed and sprang up. The hound backed into his corner and barked furiously. Whatever it was, it had crossed the threshold and was in the room with them.

"Jude--Jude!" shrieked Cliantha. "Run! Come on, Pendrilly!"

Judith felt a wavering wet hand fumbling toward her in the darkness. It clasped hers; the arm went around her; she raised her face, and the cold lips of the visitant met her warm tremulous ones.

For an instant she had no thought but that Creed had returned from the dead to claim her--and she was willing to go. Then she was aware of a swift rush, as the fleeing girls went past them, and the patter of the hound's feet following. Slowly the newcomer's weight sagged against her; he crumpled and went to the floor, dragging her down in his fall.

"Girls! Clianthy! Pendrilly!" she cried as she crouched there, clinging to the prostrate form. "Don't leave me--it's Creed himself. You got to he'p me!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The door was flung back and in the darkness stood Creed Bonbright."]

But the girls were gone like frightened hares. As she got to her feet in the doorway she could hear the sound of their flying footsteps down the lane. All was dead still in the room behind her, yet only an ear as fine as hers could have distinguished those light, receding footfalls that finally melted into the far mult.i.tudinous whisper and rustle of the storm.

She turned back in the dark and knelt down beside him, pa.s.sing a light, tender hand over his face and chest. He breathed. He was a living man.

"Creed," she whispered loud and desperately. There was no movement or response.

"Creed," raising her voice. "O my G.o.d! Creed, darlin' cain't you hear me?

It's me. It's Jude--poor Jude that loves you so--cain't you answer her?"

There came no reply. She lifted the cold hand, and when she let go of it, it fell. She leaped to her feet in sudden fear that he might die while she delayed here. With trembling fingers she struck a match and lit her candle. Her eye fell on the two pins the girls had thrust in it and named for Andy and Jeff. With a swift motion she plucked them out and threw them on the floor. She looked from the prostrate figure to the bed in the corner. No--she couldn't lift him to lay him there; but she ran and brought pillows and covers, raising his head upon the one, lapping him softly in the other.

When all was done that she could do, there was the instant need to hurry home for help. She hated terribly to leave him alone in the dark, yet a lighted candle with a man so ill was a risk that she dared not run--he might move about and set the house on fire. When she closed the darkened room with its stark figure lying under the white covers, her heart sank and sank. She must turn the key upon him. There was no good in hesitating. Only her strong will, her high courage, sustained her as she locked the door, and turning ran, with feet that love and terror winged, toward her own home. The rain drenched her; the darkness seemed a thing palpable; she slipped and fell, got to her feet and ran on. Jephthah Turrentine, asleep in his own cabin, heard the sound of beating palms against his door, and a voice outside in the dark and the rain that cried upon him.

"Uncle Jep! Uncle Jep! For G.o.d's sake get up quick and help me. Creed Bonbright's come home to his house, and I think he's dead or dyin' over there."

Chapter XXIV

A Case of Walking Typhoid

"Uh--_huh_!" said the old man as he straightened up after a long examination of Creed. "I thort so. He's got a case o' walkin' typhoid, an' looks like he's been on his feet with it till hit's plumb wore him out."

He stood staring down at the prostrate figure, which had neither sound nor movement, the fluttering breath of which seemed scarcely to stir the chest.

"Walkin' typhoid," he repeated. "I've met up with some several in my lifetime. Cur'ous things. His wound looks to be healed. Reckon he's been puny along ever sence he got that ball in his shoulder, and hit's ended up in this here spell of fever."

"Will he die, Uncle Jep?" whispered Judith, crouching beside him, her dark eyes roving desperately from the still form to her uncle's countenance. "What must we do for him?"

"N-no--I reckon he has a chance," hesitated Jephthah. Then, glancing at her white, miserable face, "an' ef he has, hit's to git him away from here an' into bed right. Lord, I wish 't the boys had been home to he'p us out. Well, we'll have to do the best we can."

As he spoke he put the word into action, getting a length of home-made carpet to put in the bottom of the waggon before he should lay in the feather-bed upon which Creed was to rest. As he worked, despite the look of acute anxiety, the old man's eye was brighter, his step was freer, his head was borne more erect, than Judith had seen it since the trouble came.

Silent, efficient, careful, experienced, he managed with her help to lift the unconscious man into the waggon and place him, his head in Judith's lap, for the journey home.

"You mind now, Judy," he admonished, almost sternly, "ef he comes to hisse'f you speak to him mighty quiet and pleasant-like. Don't you set to cryin'--don't you make no fuss. 'Tain't every gal I'd trust thisaway.

Nothin' worse for a sick man than to get him excited." He took the lines and drove with infinite care and caution, walking beside the horse.

But his warning was unnecessary; Creed never roused from the lethargy in which his senses were locked. They got him safely home, the old man undressed him and laid him comfortably in that big show-bed in the front room that was given to any guest of honour.

Morning was breaking when Judith, coming into the kitchen, found Andy and Jeff sitting by the fire, and Dilsey Rust in charge.

"Yo' uncle sont fer me," the old woman said. "He 'lowed he needed yo'

he'p takin' keer o' Bonbright."

Judith sat with Creed while the others had breakfast. When her uncle went out, closing the door softly behind him, leaving her alone with her recovered treasure, she went and knelt down by the bed, and looked at its silent occupant with a bursting heart.

Here was Creed, Creed for whom she had longed and prayed. He had come back to her. She stared at the wasted face, the transparent temples where the blue veins showed through, the black circles beneath the lashes of the closed eyes. No, no, this was not Creed, this dying man who mocked her longing with a semblance of her lover's return!