 | CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE FIRST CHANCE. Outpost |  |
34. CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE FIRST CHANCE.
Mr. Brown had been a week at Outpost, and, at breakfast
one morning, announced his departure for the succeeding
day.
“And if you feel able to ride so far, Dora,” continued
he, “perhaps you will show me the way to the curious
mounds we heard of from Dr. Gershom.”
“They are full ten miles from here, he said,” remarked
Kitty disapprovingly.
“To-day is the 24th, isn't it, Dora? the 24th of August?”
inquired Karl; and Dora, if no other of his auditors, saw
the connection between this remark and the proposed long
ride with Mr. Brown.
“Yes, Karl; it is the 24th: and I think we can make
a party for the mounds, Mr. Brown. Kitty, wouldn't
you like to go? and, Karl, can't you take a holiday? Sunshine
might stay with Mehitable for once; mightn't she?”
“No; because she speaks too loud, and through her nose:
quietly.
“But have we horses enough?” asked Kitty with animation.
“That is easily settled,” interposed Karl eagerly. “I
will fix Sunshine's pillion upon Major, and Dora can ride
behind me. Then Kitty can take Max, and Mr. Brown will
ride his own horse.”
“Oh! there is no need of Major's carrying double,” said
Dora hastily. “Seth can spare Sally as well as not, and
Kitty can ride her better than she can Max.”
At this decision, Kitty looked a little vexed, and Karl a
little discomfited; while Mr. Brown bent over his plate to
hide a sudden gleam of humor in his dark eyes. As they
all rose from table, Karl passed close to his cousin, and
whispered, —
“I want to speak to you before we go.”
Dora made no answer; nor, in the busy hour before they
started, could her cousin find opportunity for a single private
word. Nor was he more successful in the bold push
made by him, so soon as they had started, for the place beside
Dora; for she, thinking just then of some important
communication for Kitty's ear, reined her pony close to
on out of earshot. Karl obeyed the mandate with something
less than his usual amiability, and was riding on in
advance of the whole party, when he found himself detained
by Mr. Brown, who asked some trifling question about the
road, and then attempted a conversation upon the crops and
other ordinary topics for a few moments; until, unable to
contend with the indifference, if not impatience, Karl was at
no trouble to conceal, he remained silent for a moment, and
then said abruptly, —
“Windsor, this is not soldierly or manly.”
Karl looked at him, but made no reply.
“We both know what is in the other's mind,” continued
Mr. Brown, “and we know that we cannot both succeed;
but that is no reason for ill feeling toward each other. If
we were Don Quixotes, we might fight; if we were
gamesters, we might throw for the first chance: but as we
are, I trust, Christian gentlemen, we owe each other every
kindly feeling short of a wish for success.”
“Yes: you can hardly expect that of me; and I'm sure
I don't of you,” said Karl, half laughing.
“No: that were inconsistent with a true earnestness of
purpose,” said Mr. Brown. “And, after all, the girl we
because he asks her. She will decide between us fairly and
justly.”
“Then let me have the first chance, since you think it no
advantage,” said Karl impetuously.
Mr. Brown smiled grimly.
“Is there not some proverb about age before merit?”
asked he. “Besides, you have had more than four years to
ask your question in, and can very well wait a few hours
longer. I came to Iowa on purpose to ask mine, and shall
go away to-morrow.”
“I don't see, sir, but you saints are just as obstinate in
getting what you want as we sinners,” said the younger
man petulantly.
The chaplain laughed outright.
“A man at thirty has seldom subdued his worldly passions
and intentions to the degree of sainthood,” said he.
“And I will not deny that my heart is very much engaged
in this matter. However, I will be generous, and you may
take your chance first.”
He reined in his steed as he spoke, and, waiting beside
the road until the young ladies came up, made some remark
to Kitty relating to a question she had asked him concerning
and, by turning into the track beside her, rather obliged
Dora to ride forward to the turn of the road, where Karl
awaited her. But Kitty's satisfaction in the decided intention
Mr. Brown had shown of speaking to her was rather
dampened by perceiving how frequently his attention wandered
from what she was saying, and how earnestly his eyes
were fixed upon the two figures riding briskly in advance.
“If he can only look at Dora, why don't he go and ride
with her?” muttered Kitty; and, as her companion turned
his eyes inquiringly upon her, she asked aloud, —
“Are you pretty quick at hearing, Mr. Brown?”
“Not especially. Why?”
“Oh! I thought you looked as if you would like to hear
what Charlie is saying to Dora.”
“And you thought it was very rude of me to be so inattentive
to you,” added Mr. Brown, bending his dark eyes
upon her with a smile.
Kitty colored guiltily, and answered hastily, —
“Oh dear, no! I'm used to finding myself of no account
beside Dora.”
Mr. Brown looked again at her, and then, with a sudden
association of ideas, asked, —
“Kitty, are you going to tell me, before I go away, what
made you feel so badly the day I came and found you in
the wood?”
Again Kitty's face glowed beneath his gaze, and her
bright black eyes drooped in rare confusion. She was
about to answer hastily and coldly, but found herself checked
by a softer impulse. Why should she not tell him somewhat
of the trouble at her heart, and so win at least sympathy
and pity, if nothing more? So she said in a low
voice, —
“No one cares much for me, I think.”
“No one? — not your brother?”
Kitty raised her eyes to the far vista point where Karl
and Dora vanished into the forest, their horses moving close
to each other's side, and then brought them back to the face
of her companion. The look was eloquent, and he said, —
“Yes; but by and by, perhaps, he will not be so engrossed.”
The young girl raised her head with a superb gesture.
“To wait for by and by, when some one else has done
with him, is not my idea of love.”
Mr. Brown looked at her more attentively, and smiled.
“I think the day will come when some man will love you
but of honest admiration, which fell like sunlight upon the
waste places of poor Kitty's heart.
“Oh! I'm not good enough, or smart enough, or good-looking
enough. He never will,” replied she hastily, and
then colored crimson again at the meaning beneath her
words.
Again Mr. Brown keenly eyed her, and asked, —
“He? Do you mean some one in particular? No: forgive
me. I have no right to ask such a question. I am
only your friend, not a father confessor.”
Kitty, dumb with confusion and a sudden terror, made no
effor to reply; and, after a moment, Mr. Brown led the way
to a quiet conversation upon the young girl's previous life,
her early pursuits and affections, and finally to the passionate
love and regret for her dead mother, in which he found
the key to all she was and all she might be. So employed,
the psychological student even forgot his own affairs, and for
half an hour hardly remembered Dora riding on beside
Karl, who, like the cowardly bather, dallying first with one
foot and then the other in the water's edge, and losing all
his courage before the final plunge, had talked with her of
almost every thing beneath the sun, and worn out his own
full upon him, —
“Karl, be honest and straightforward. it is kinder to
us both.”
The young man heaved a sigh of relief.
“That's it, Dora. There isn't another such girl in the
world. Don't you know, in camp I used to say I relied
upon you for protection, and for making a man of me
instead of an idle boy? O Dora! there's nothing you
couldn't do with me.”
He spoke the last words in an imploring voice, and fixed
his eyes upon her averted face. Then, as she did not speak,
he went on: —
“It isn't any thing I can offer you, Dora, except the
chance of doing good: I know that well enough. What I
am, you know; but what I might become to please you, none
of us can know. And I do love you so, Dora! I know
it sounds bald and silly to say just these few words; but
they mean so much to me! and I've meant it so long and so
heartly! No; don't speak just yet: I want to make you
feel first, if I can, how dreadfully in earnest I am. When I
first saw you there at your old home, and you took care of
me so tenderly, and looked at me so pityingly out of your
camp, you know — O Dora Darling! you cannot say but
you knew how dearly I grew to love you even then: and
when I found you were my own kin; and when you came
to my own home, and my mother took you to her heart, and
thanked God for having given her another daughter, and
such a daughter; and when I saw your daily life among us,
and saw how noble, and how unselfish, and how true and
brave, you were through all the sorrow, and the trials, and
the loneliness, and the petty spite and insults, you had to
endure; and then here, where you are like a wise and
gracious queen among her subjects, — O Dora! what is
there in you that does not call forth my highest love, my
truest reverence? and what better could life do for me than
to grant me the privilege of worshipping and following you
all my days, and making myself into just what sort of
man would suit you best?”
And the true-hearted young fellow felt his words strike
home to his own soul so earnestly, that he could add to
them nothing of the flood of tenderness and homage swelling
there, but only looked at his cousin piteously; while
she, with drooping head and averted eyes, rode on for a few
moments in silence, and then said softly, —
“I hoped, dear Karl, you would never speak of it again.
We have been so happy the last year!” —
“O Dora!” interposed the young man in a voice of
agony, “never say you are going to refuse me!” Happy!
yes, I have been happy, because I have looked forward to
this day, and though it might be the beginning of a life
to which this has been but the gray dawn before the sunrise.
You have been so kind to me, so frank and affectionate!
and all the time you knew — oh! you must have
known — what was in my heart. Yes; and, if it had not
been for this meddling parson's visit” —
“Hush, Karl!” interrupted Dora decisively. “I will
not have you unjust or ungenerous to a man far nobler
and purer and wiser than either you or I. Mr. Brown's
visit has nothing to do with what I say to-day; nor did I
know, as you think I did, that you would again ask me
the question you asked a year ago. I only remembered
it, when, last week, you reminded me of the date; and I
only let you speak to-day, because it is better for us both
to say out all that is in our hearts, and then to let the
matter rest.”
She paused a moment, and recommenced in a lower and
more tender voice: —
“I am so sorry, Karl, to give you pain! If the only
trouble was that I don't want to marry you, I wouldn't
mind saying yes; for I love you very much: only I don't
believe it is the way girls commonly love the men they
marry. But it wouldn't be right.”
“Not right! Oh! why not right, Dora?”
“Because it would spoil both of us. You ask me to
make any thing of you I like; but that is not the way. It
is you yourself that must make a man of yourself. If
I should try to do it, I should only make a puppet of you,
and a conceited, tyrannical woman of myself. It would
not be good for me to rule as you want me to do; and
surely no man would deliberately say it would be good for
him to be ruled, and that by his wife.”
There was a touch of scorn in the tone of the last words;
and Karl's cheek flushed hotly, as he said, —
“It's hard that you should despise me for loving you so
well that I am ready to forget pride and manly dignity,
and every thing else, for the sake of it.”
“No; but, Karl, don't you see yourself what an injury
such a love must be to you? Forget pride and manly
dignity and self-respect do you say? A true love, a good
love, would make you cherish them as you never did before;
is in you, so that you might feel yourself worthy of that love.
O Karl! never again offer to put yourself under the foot
of any woman, but wait till you meet one whom you can
hold by the hand, and lead along, keeping equal step with
yourself, and both pressing forward to a common goal.”
She turned her face upon him, all aglow with a noble
enthusiasm far above the maiden bashfulness that but now
had held it averted, and extended her hand, saying, —
“Come, dear Karl, forget this idle dream. Be once
more my brother and my helper. Trust me, no one cares
more for you so than I; not Kitty herself.”
He took the hand, put it to his lips, then rode on silently.
Dora's kind eyes sought his again and again, but vainly.
His face, pale and somewhat stern, gave no clew to the
feelings within: the mouth, more firmly set than its wont,
seemed sealed to love forever.
For the first time in all the interview, Dora found herself
troubled and perplexed. Here was nothing to soothe,
nothing to combat, nothing to answer or to silence; and her
womanly sympathies fluttered about this manly reticence
like a humming-bird around a flower frozen into the heart
of an iceberg.
At last, she spoke; and her voice had grown almost
caressing in its softness: —
“You're not angry with me, Karl?”
He glanced at her, then away.
“Certainly not, Dora. On the contrary, I am much
obliged to you.”
“Obliged to me!” exclaimed Dora, her feminine pique
just touched a trifle. “What, for saying no?”
“For showing me that I am a fool. It was time I
knew it, and I had rather hear it from you than any one.
Why should you care for me? I am not a man to respect,
like Mr. Brown, or one to admire, like Mr. Burroughs, —
I suppose it will be one of them; but I only hope either one
may give you half — No matter, wait here a moment in
the shade. I am going back to speak to Kitty.”
Her sharply wheeled his horse as he spoke, and was gone.
Dora looked after him in sorrowful perplexity, and then
tears gathered in her eyes; but, before they could fall, the
unswerving rectitude underlying her whole nature came
to its relief, and she dashed them away, murmuring, —
“But I was right.”
| CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE FIRST CHANCE. Outpost | |