Prisoners of Hope Part 5

"Yes," said Patricia.

"A breaking heart."

"A breaking heart!"

Margery nodded. "Yes," she said. "I thought it would surprise you. I find many things, looking for Paradise. The other day I found a brown pixie sitting beneath a mushroom, and he told me curious things. But a breaking heart is different. I know all about it, for once upon a time my heart broke; but mine was soft and easy to break. It was as soft and weak as a baby's wrist, a little, tender, helpless thing, you know, that melts under your kisses. But this heart that I found will take a long time to break. Proud anger will strengthen it at first; but one string will snap, and then another, and another, until, at last--" she swept her arms abroad with a wild and desolate gesture.

"What does she mean?" asked Sir Charles.

"I do not know," answered Patricia.

Margery rose and took up her leafy staff.

"Come," she said. "Come and see the breaking heart."

"O Patricia!" cried Betty, "do not go with her!"

"Why not?" asked Patricia resolutely. "Come, cousin, let us find out what she means. We will go with you, Margery; but you must not take us far. It grows late."

Margery laughed weirdly. "It is never late for Margery. There is a star far up in heaven that is sorry for Margery, and it s.h.i.+nes for her, bright, bright, all night long, that she may not miss the road to Paradise."

She glided in front of them, and moved rapidly down the dim alley of trees, her feet seeming scarce to touch the short gra.s.s, and the long green wreaths, stirred by the wind, coiling and uncoiling around her staff like serpents. Patricia, with Betty and Sir Charles, followed her closely. She led them out of the mulberry grove, through a small vineyard, and into a patch of corn, beyond which could be seen the gleam of water, faintly pink from the faded sunset.

"She is taking us towards the quarters!" exclaimed Patricia. "Margery!

Margery!"

But Margery held on, moving swiftly through the waist-deep corn. Betty looked down with a little sigh at her dainty shoes, which were suffering by their contact with the dew-laden leaves of pumpkins and mac.o.c.ks. Sir Charles put aside the long corn blades with his cane, and so made a way for the girls. He felt mildly curious and somewhat bored.

Suddenly they emerged upon the banks of the inlet, within a hundred yards of the quarters. Patricia would have spoken, but Margery put her finger to her lips and flitted on towards the row of cabins.

Before them stretched a long, narrow lane, sandy and barren, with a pine-tree rising here and there. Rude cabins, windowless and with mud chimneys, faced each other across the lane. Half way down was an open s.p.a.ce, or small square, in the centre of which stood a dead tree with a board nailed across its trunk at about a man's height from the ground.

In either end of the board was cut a round hole big enough for a man's hand to be squeezed through, and above hung a heavy stick with leathern thongs tied to it, the whole forming a pillory and whipping-post, rude, but satisfactory.

It was almost dark. The larger stars had come out, and the fireflies began to sparkle restlessly. The wind sighed in the pines, and a strong salt smell came from the sea. Overhead a whip-poor-will uttered its mournful cry.

The long day's work, from sunrise to sunset, was over, and the population of the quarter had drifted in from the fields of tobacco and maize, the boats, the carpenter's shop, the forge, the mill, the stables, and barns. Hard-earned rest was theirs, and they were prepared to enjoy it. It was supper-time. In the square a great fire of brush-wood had been kindled, and around it squatted a ring of negroes, busy with bowls of loblolly and great chunks of corn bread. They chattered like monkeys, and one who had finished his mess raised a chant in which one note was a yell of triumph, the next a long-drawn plaintive wail. The rich barbaric voice filled the night. A figure, rising, tossed aside an empty bowl, and began to dance in the red firelight.

The white men ate at their cabin doors, sitting upon logs of wood, or in groups of three or four messed at tables made by stretching planks from one tree-stump to another. It was meat-day; and they, too, made merry.

From the women's cabins also came shrill laughter. s.n.a.t.c.hes of song arose, altercations that suddenly began and as suddenly ceased, a babel of voices in many fas.h.i.+ons of speech. Broad Yorks.h.i.+re contended with the thin nasal tones of the c.o.c.kney; the man from the banks of the Tweed thrust cautious sarcasms at the man from Galway. A mulatto, the color of pale amber, spoke sonorous Spanish to an olive-hued piece of drift-wood from Florida. An Indian indulged in a monologue in a tongue of a faraway tribe of the Blue Mountains.

The glare from the fire and from flaring pine-knots played fitfully over the motley throng, now bringing out in strong relief some one face or figure, then plunging it into profoundest shadow. It burnished the high forehead and scalp lock of the Indian, and made to gleam intensely the gold earring in the ear of the mulatto. The scarlet cloth wound about the head of a Turk seemed to turn to actual flame. Under the baleful light vacant faces of dully honest English rustics became malignant, while the negro, dancing with long, outstretched arms and uncouth swayings to and fro, appeared a mirthful fiend.

The three gentlefolk and their mad conductress gazed from out the shadow and at a safe distance. Sir Charles Carew, a man of taste, felt strong artistic pleasure in the Rembrandtesque scene before him--the leaping light, the weird shadows, resolving themselves into figures posed with savage freedom, the dancing satyr, the sombre pines above, and, beyond the pines, the stillness of the stars. Betty drew a little shuddering breath, and her hand went to clasp Patricia's. The latter was looking steadily upward at the slender crescent moon.

"Do not look, Betty," she said quietly. "I do not. It is a horror to me--a horror. I am going back," she said, turning.

But she had reckoned without Margery, who caught her by the arm. "Come,"

she said imperiously. "Come and see the breaking heart!" Patricia hesitated, then yielded to curiosity and the insistent pressure of the skeleton fingers.

The cabins nearest them were deserted, their occupants having joined themselves to the groups further down the lane where the firelight beat strongest and the torches were more numerous. With no more sound than a moth would make, flitting through the dusk, the mad woman led them to the outermost of these cabins. Within five paces of the door she stopped and pointed a long forefinger.

"The breaking heart!" she said in a triumphant whisper.

A man lay, face downwards, in the coa.r.s.e and scanty gra.s.s. One arm was bent beneath his forehead, the other was outstretched, the hand clenched. It was the att.i.tude of one who has flung himself down in dumb, despairing misery. As they looked, he gave a long gasping sob that shook his whole frame, then lay quiet.

A burst of revelry came down the lane. The man raised his head impatiently, then let it drop again upon his arm.

Patricia turned and walked quickly back the way they had come. Betty and Sir Charles followed her; Margery, her whim gratified, had vanished into the darkness of the pines.

No one spoke until they were again amidst the wet and rustling corn.

Then said Betty with tears in her voice, "O Patricia, darling! there is so much misery in the world, fair and peaceful as it looks to-night.

That poor man!"

"That 'poor man,' Betty," answered Patricia in a hard voice, "is a criminal, a felon, guilty of some dreadful, sordid thing, a gaol-bird reclaimed from the gallows and sent here to pollute the air we breathe."

"It was the convict, Landless, was it not?" asked Sir Charles.

"Yes."

"But, Patricia," said the gentle Betty, "whatever he may have done, he is wretched now."

"He has sowed the wind; let him reap the whirlwind," said Patricia steadily.

They went on to the house and into the great room where the myrtle candles were burning softly, the dimity curtains shutting out the night.

Mrs. Lettice was at the spinet, with Captain Laramore to turn the leaves of her song book, and the Governor, with the chess table out and the pieces in battle array, awaited (he said) the arrival of the Princess of the Castle in the Air.

CHAPTER V

IN THE THREE-MILE FIELD

In a far corner of the Three-mile Field Landless bent over tobacco plant after tobacco plant, patiently removing the little green shoots or "suckers" from the parent stem.

His back and limbs ached from the unaccustomed stooping, the fierce suns.h.i.+ne beat upon his head, the blood pounded behind his temples, his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth,--and the noontide rest was still two hours away. As, with a gasp of weariness, he straightened himself, the endless plain of green rose and fell to his dazzled eyes in misty billows. The most robust rustic required several months of seasoning before he and the Virginia climate became friends, and this man was still weak from privation and confinement in prison and in the noisome hold of the s.h.i.+p.

He turned his weary eyes from the vivid gold green of the fields to the shadows of the forest. It lay within a few yards of him, just on the other side of a little stream and a rail fence that zigzagged in gray lines hung with creepers. At the moment he defined happiness as a plunge into the cool, perfumed darkness, a luxurious flinging of a tired body upon the carpet of pine needles, a shutting out, forever, of the suns.h.i.+ne.

Suddenly he felt that eyes were upon him, and his glance traveled from the fringe of trees to meet that of an Indian seated upon a log in an angle of the fence.

He was a man of gigantic stature, dressed in coa.r.s.e canvas breeches, and with a handkerchief of gaudy dye twisted about his head. His bold features wore the usual Indian expression of saturnine imperturbability, and he half sat, half reclined upon the log as motionless as a piece of carven bronze, staring at Landless with large, inscrutable eyes.

Landless, staring in return, saw something else. The rank growth of weeds in which the log was sunk moved ever so slightly. There was a flash as of a swiftly drawn rapier, and something long and mottled hung for an instant upon the shoulder of the Indian, and then dropped into its lair again.

With a sudden lithe twist of his body, the savage flung himself upon it, and holding it down with one hand, with the other beat the life out with a heavy stick. The creature was killed by the first stroke, but he continued to rain vindictive blows upon it until it was mashed to a pulp. Then, with a serenely impa.s.sive mien, he resumed his seat upon the log.

Landless sprang across the stream, and went up to him.