Audrey Part 2

As he spoke he pushed his horse through the tall reeds to the bank of the stream. Here in the open, away from the shadow of the trees, the full moon had changed the night-time into a wonderful, silver day. Narrow above and belows the stream widened before him into a fairy basin, rimmed with reeds, unruffled, crystal-clear, stiller than a dream. The trees that grew upon the farther side were faint gray clouds in the moonlight, and the gold of the fireflies was very pale. From over the water, out of the heart of the moonlit wood, came the song of a mockingbird, a tumultuous ecstasy, possessing the air and making elfin the night.

Haward backed his horse from the reeds to the oak beneath which waited the negro. "'Tis plain that we have lost our way, Juba," he said, with a laugh. "If you were an Indian, we should turn and straightway retrace our steps to the blazed trees. Being what you are, you are more valuable in the tobacco fields than in the forest. Perhaps this is the stream which flows by the cabin in the valley. We'll follow it down, and so arrive, at least, at a conclusion."

They dismounted, and, leading their horses, followed the stream for some distance, to arrive at the conclusion that it was not the one beside which they had dined that day. When they were certain of this, they turned and made their way back to the line of reeds which they had broken to mark their starting-point. By now the moon was high, and the mockingbird in the wood across the water was singing madly. Turning from the still, moonlit sheet, the silent reeds, the clear mimicker in the slumbrous wood, the two wayfarers plunged into the darkness beneath the spreading branches of the oak-trees. They could not have ridden far from the pines; in a very little while they might reach and recognize the path which they should tread.

An hour later, the great trees, oak and chestnut, beech and poplar, suddenly gave way to saplings, many, close-set, and overrun with grapevines. So dense was the growth, so unyielding the curtain of vines, that men and horses were brought to a halt as before a fortress wall.

Again they turned, and, skirting that stubborn network, came upon a swamp, where leafless trees, white as leprosy, stood up like ghosts from the water that gleamed between the lily-pads. Leaving the swamp they climbed a hill, and at the summit found only the moon and the stars and a long plateau of sighing gra.s.s. Behind them were the great mountains; before them, lesser heights, wooded hills, narrow valleys, each like its fellow, each indistinct and shadowy, with no sign of human tenant.

Haward gazed at the climbing moon and at the wide and universal dimness of the world beneath; then turned to the negro, and pointed to a few low trees growing at the eastern end of the plateau.

"Fasten the horses there, Juba," he said. "We will wait upon this hilltop until morning. When the light comes, we may be able to see the clearing or the smoke from the cabin."

When the horses had been tethered, master and man lay down upon the gra.s.s.

It was so still upon the hilltop, and the heavens pressed so closely, that the slave grew restless and strove to make talk. Failing in this, he began to croon a savage, mournful air, and presently, forgetting himself, to sing outright.

"Be quiet!" ordered his master. "There may be Indians abroad."

The song came to an end as abruptly as it lad begun, and the singer, having nothing better to do, went fast asleep. His companion, more wakeful, lay with his hands behind his head and his eyes upon the splendor of the firmament. Lying so, he could not see the valleys nor the looming mountains. There were only the dome of the sky, the gra.s.s, and himself.

He stared at the moon, and made pictures of her shadowy places; then fell to thinking of the morrow, and of the possibility that after all he might never find again the cabin in the valley. While he laughed at this supposition, yet he played with it. He was in a mood to think the loss of the trail of the expedition no great matter. The woods were full of game, the waters of fish; he and Juba had only to keep their faces to the eastward, and a fortnight at most would bring them to the settlements. But the valleys folded among the hills were many; what if the one he sought should still elude him? What if the cabin, the sugar-tree, the crystal stream, had sunk from sight, like the city in one of Monsieur Gralland's fantastic tales? Perhaps they had done so,--the spot had all the air of a bit of fairyland,--and the woodland maid was gone to walk with the elves.

Well, perchance for her it would be better so. And yet it would be pleasant if she should climb the hillside now and sit beside him, with her shy dark eyes and floating hair. Her hair was long and fine, and the wind would lift it; her face was fair, and another than the wind should kiss it. The night would not then be so slow in going.

He turned upon his side, and looked along the gra.s.sy summit to the woods upon the opposite slope and to the distant mountains. Dull silver, immutable, perpetual, they reared themselves to meet the moonbeams.

Between him and those stern and changeless fronts, pallid as with snows, stretched the gray woods. The moon shone very brightly, and there was no wind. So unearthly was the quiet of the night, so solemn the light, so high and still and calm the universe around him, that awe fell upon his soul. It was well to lie upon the hilltop and guess at the riddle of the world; now dimly to see the meaning, now to lose it quite, to wonder, to think of death. The easy consciousness that for him death was scores of years away, that he should not meet the spectre until the wine was all drunken, the garlands withered, and he, the guest, ready to depart, made these speculations not at all unpleasing. He looked at his hand, blanched by the moonlight, lying beside him upon the gra.s.s, and thought how like a dead hand it seemed, and what if he could not move it, nor his body, nor could ever rise from the gra.s.s, but must lie there upon the lonely hilltop in the untrodden wilderness, until that which had ridden and hunted and pa.s.sed so buoyantly through life should become but a few dry bones, a handful of dust. He was of his time, and its laxness of principle and conduct; if he held within himself the potential scholar, statesman, and philosopher, there were also the skeptic, the egotist, and the libertine.

He followed the fas.h.i.+on and disbelieved much, but he knew that if he died to-night his soul would not stay with his body upon the hilltop. He wondered, somewhat grimly, what it would do when so much that had clothed it round--pride of life, love of pleasure, desire, ambition--should be plucked away. Poor soul! Surely it would feel itself something shrunken, stripped of warmth, s.h.i.+veringly bare to all the winds of heaven. The radiance of the moon usurped the sky, but behind that veil of light the invisible and mult.i.tudinous stars were s.h.i.+ning. Beyond those stars were other stars, beyond those yet others; on and on went the stars, wise men said. Beyond them all, what then? And where was the place of the soul?

What would it do? What heaven or h.e.l.l would it find or make for itself?

Guesswork all!

The silver pomp of the night began to be oppressive to him. There was beauty, but it was a beauty cold and distant, infinitely withdrawn from man and his concerns. Woods and mountains held aloof, communing with the stars. They were kindred and of one house; it was man who was alien, a stranger and alone. The hilltop cared not that he lay thereon; the gra.s.s would grow as greenly when he was in his grave; all his tragedies since time began he might reenact there below, and the mountains would not bend to look.

He flung his arm across his eyes to shut out the moonlight, and tried to sleep. Finding the attempt a vain one, and that the night pressed more and more heavily upon him, he sat up with the intention of shaking the negro awake, and so providing himself with other company than his own thoughts.

His eyes had been upon the mountains, but now, with the sudden movement, he faced the eastern horizon and a long cleft between the hills. Far down this opening something was on fire, burning fiercely and redly. Some one must have put torch to the forest; and yet it did not burn as trees burn.

It was like a bonfire ... it was a bonfire in a clearing! There were not woods about it, but a field--and the glint of water--

The negro, awakened by foot and voice, sprang up, and stood bewildered beside his master. "It is the valley that we have been seeking, Juba,"

said the latter, speaking rapidly and low. "That burning pile is the cabin, and 't is like that there are Indians between us and it! Leave the horses; we shall go faster without them. Look to the priming of your gun, and make no noise. Now!"

Rapidly descending the hill, they threw themselves into the woods at its base. Here they could not see the fire, but now and then, as they ran, they caught the glow, far down the lines of trees. Though they went swiftly they went warily as well, keeping an eye and ear open and muskets ready. But there was no sound other than their own quick footfalls upon the floor of rotting leaves, or the eager brus.h.i.+ng of their bodies through occasional undergrowth; no sight but the serried trees and the checkered light and shade upon the ground.

They came to the shallow stream that flashed through the valley, and crossing it found themselves on cleared ground, with only a long strip of corn between them and what had been a home for English folk. It was that no longer: for lack of fuel the flames were dying down; there was only a charred and smoking pile, out of which leaped here and there a red tongue.

Haward had expected to hear a noise of savage triumph, and to see dark figures moving about their handiwork. There was no noise, and the moonlight showed no living being. The night was changelessly still and bright; the tragedy had been played, and the mountains and the hills and the running water had not looked.

It took but a few minutes to break through the rustling corn and reach the smouldering logs. Once before them, there seemed naught to do but to stand and stare at the ruin, until a tongue of flame caught upon a piece of uncharred wood, and showed them the body of the pioneer lying at a little distance from the stone that had formed his doorstep. At a sign from Haward the negro went and turned it over, then, let it sink again into the seared gra.s.s. "Two arrows, Ma.r.s.e Duke," he said, coming back to the other's side. "An' they've taken his scalp."

Three times Haward made the round of the yet burning heap. Was it only ruined and fallen walls, or was it a funeral pyre as well? To know, he must wait for the day and until the fire had burned itself out. If the former were the case, if the dead man alone kept the valley, then now, through the forest and the moonlight, captives were being haled to some Indian village, and to a fate more terrible than that of the man who lay there upon the gra.s.s with an arrow through his heart.

If the girl were still alive, yet was she dead to him. He was no Quixote to tilt with windmills. Had a way to rescue her lain fair before him, he would have risked his life without a thought. But the woods were deep and pathless, and only an Indian could find and keep a trail by night. To challenge the wilderness; to strike blindly at the forest, now here, now there; to dare all, and know that it was hopeless daring,--a madman might do this for love. But it was only Haward's fancy that had been touched, and if he lacked not courage, neither did he lack a certain cool good sense which divided for him the possible from that which was impossible, and therefore not to be undertaken.

Turning from the ruin, he walked across the trampled sward to the sugar-tree in whose shade, in the golden afternoon, he had sung to his companions and to a simple girl. Idle and happy and far from harm had the valley seemed.

"Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather."

Suddenly he found that he was trembling, and that a sensation of faintness and of dull and sick revolt against all things under the stars was upon him. Sitting down in the shadow of the tree, he rested his face in his hands and shut his eyes, preferring the darkness within to that outer night which hid not and cared not, which was so coldly at peace. He was young, and though stories of such dismal things as that before him were part of the stock in trade of every ancient, garrulous man or woman of his acquaintance, they had been for him but tales; not horrible truths to stare him in the face. He had seen his father die; but he had died, in his bed, and like one who went to sleep.

The negro had followed him, and now stood with his eyes upon the dying flames, muttering to himself some heathenish charm. When it was ended, he looked about him uneasily for a time; then bent and plucked his master by the sleeve. "We cyarn' do nothin' here, Ma.r.s.e Duke," he whispered. "An'

the wolves may get the horses."

With a laugh and a groan, the young man rose to his feet. "That is true, Juba," he said. "It's all over here,--we were too late. And it's not a pleasant place to lie awake in, waiting for the morning. We'll go back to the hilltop."

Leaving the tree, they struck across the gra.s.s and entered the strip of corn. Something low and dark that had lain upon the ground started up before them, and ran down the narrow way between the stalks. Haward made after it and caught it.

"Child!" he cried. "Where are the others?"

The child had struggled for a moment, desperately if weakly, but at the sound of his voice she lay still in his grasp, with her eyes upon his face. In the moonlight each could see the other quite plainly. Raising her in his arms, Haward bore her to the brink of the stream, laved her face and chafed the small, cold hands.

"Now tell me, Audrey," he said at last. "Audrey is your name, isn't it?

Cry, if you like, child, but try to tell me."

Audrey did not cry. She was very, very tired, and she wanted to go to sleep. "The Indians came," she told him in a whisper, with her head upon his breast. "We all waked up, and father fired at them through the hole in the door. Then they broke the door down, and he went outside, and they killed him. Mother put me under the bed, and told me to stay there, and to make no noise. Then the Indians came in at the door, and killed her and Molly and Robin. I don't remember anything after that,--maybe I went to sleep. When I was awake again the Indians were gone, but there was fire and smoke everywhere. I was afraid of the fire, and so I crept from under the bed, and kissed mother and Molly and Robin, and left them lying in the cabin, and came away."

She sighed with weariness, and the hand with which she put back her dark hair that had fallen over her face was almost too heavy to lift. "I sat beside father and watched the fire," she said. "And then I heard you and the black man coming over the stones in the stream. I thought that you were Indians, and I went and hid in the corn."

Her voice failed, and her eyelids drooped. In some anxiety Haward watched her breathing and felt for the pulse in the slight brown wrist; then, satisfied, he lifted the light burden, and, nodding to the negro to go before, recommenced his progress to the hill which he had left an hour agone.

It was not far away. He could see the bare summit above the treetops, and in a little while they were upon its slope. A minute more and they came to the clump of trees, and found the horses in safety, Haward paused to take from the roll strapped behind his saddle a riding cloak; then, leaving the negro with the horses, climbed to the gra.s.sy level. Here he spread the cloak upon the ground, and laid the sleeping child upon it, which done, he stood and looked at his new-found charge for a moment; then turning, began to pace up and down upon the hilltop.

It was necessary to decide upon a course of action. They had the horses, the two muskets, powder and shot. The earth was dry and warm, and the skies were cloudless. Was it best to push on to Germanna, or was it best to wait down there in the valley for the return of the Governor and his party? They would come that way, that was certain, and would look to find him there. If they found only the ruined cabin, they might think him dead or taken by the Indians, and an attempt to seek him, as dangerous, perhaps, as fruitless, might be made. He decided that he would wait.

To-morrow he would take Juba and the horses and the child and go down into the valley; not back to the sugar-tree and that yet smouldering pyre, but to the woods on this side of the stream.

This plan thought out, he went; and took his seat beside the child. She was moaning in her sleep, and he bent over and soothed her. When she was quiet he still kept her hand in his, as he sat there waiting for the dawn.

He gave the child small thought. Together he and Juba must care for her until they could rejoin the expedition: then the Governor, who was so fond of children, might take her in hand, and give her for nurse old Dominick, who was as gentle as a woman. Once at Germanna perhaps some scolding _Hausfrau_ would take her, for the sake of the scrubbing and lifting to be gotten out of those small hands and that slender frame. If not, she must on to Williamsburgh and the keeping of the vestry there. The next Orphan Court would bind her to some master or mistress who might (or might not) be kind to her, and so there would be an end to the matter.

The day was breaking. Moon and stars were gone, and the east was dull pink, like faded roses. A ribbon of silver mist, marking the course of the stream below, drew itself like a serpent through the woods that were changing from gray to green. The dank smell of early morning rose from the dew-drenched earth, and in the countless trees of the forest the birds began to sing.

A word or phrase which is as common and familiar as our hand may, in some one minute of time, take on a significance and present a face so keen and strange that it is as if we had never met it before. An Orphan Court!

Again he said the words to himself, and then aloud. No doubt the law did its best for the fatherless and motherless, for such waifs and strays as that which lay beside him. When it bound out children, it was most emphatic that they should be fed and clothed and taught; not starved or beaten unduly, or let to grow up ignorant as negroes. Sometimes the law was obeyed, sometimes not.

The roses in the east bloomed again, and the pink of their petals melted into the clear blue of the upper skies. Because their beauty compelled him Haward looked at the heavens. The Court of the Orphan!... _When my father and my mother forsake, me, the Lord taketh me up_. Haward acknowledged with surprise that portions of the Psalter did somehow stick in the memory.

The face of the child was dark and thin, but the eyes were large and there was promise in the mouth. It was a pity--

He looked at her again, and suddenly resolved that he, Marmaduke Haward, would provide for her future. When they met once more, he should tell the Governor and his brother adventurers as much; and if they chose to laugh, why, let them do so! He would take the child to Williamsburgh with him, and get some woman to tend her until he could find kind and decent folk with whom to bestow her. There were the new minister of Fair View parish and his wife,--they might do. He would give them two thousand pounds of sweet-scented a year for the child's maintenance. Oh, she should be well cared for! He would--if he thought of it--send her gifts from London; and when she was grown, and asked in marriage, he would give her for dowry a hundred acres of land.

As the strengthening rays of the sun, s.h.i.+ning alike upon the just and the unjust, warmed his body, so his own benevolence warmed his heart. He knew that he was doing a generous thing, and his soul felt in tune with the beamy light, the caroling of the birds, the freshness and fragrance of the morning. When at last the child awoke, and, the recollection of the night coming full upon her, clung to him, weeping and trembling, he put his arm around her and comforted her with all the pet names his memory could conjure up.