 | CHAPTER XVIII.
IN THE DEPTHS. Opening a chestnut burr |  |
18. CHAPTER XVIII.
IN THE DEPTHS.
AFTER the departure of their strange guide,
who had befriended them the best she could,
Gregory at once went to the house and knocked.
There was a movement within, and a quavering voice
asked:
“Who is there?”
“Friends who have lost their way, and need
shelter.”
“I don't know about lettin' strangers in this
time o' night,” answered the voice.
“There are only two of us,” said Annie. “Perhaps
you know who Miss Walton is. I entreat you
to let us in.”
“Miss Walton, Miss Walton, sartin, I know who
she is. But I can't believe she's here.”
“Our wagon broke down this afternoon, and we
have lost our way,” explained Gregory.
Again there was a stir inside, and soon a glimmer
of light. After a few moments the door was opened
slightly, and a woman's voice asked apprehensively:
“Be you sure it's Miss Walton?”
“Yes,” said Annie, “you need have no fears.
Hold the light, and see for yourself.”
This the woman did, and, apparently satisfied,
gave them admittance at once.
She seemed quite aged, and a few gray locks
straggled out from under her dingy cap, which suggested
anything but a halo around her wrinkled,
withered face. A ragged calico wrapper encased
her tall gaunt form, and altogether she did not make
a very promising hostess.
Before she could ask her unexpected guests any
further questions, the cry of a whippowill was again
heard three times. She listened with a started,
frightened manner. The sounds were repeated, and
she seemed satisfied.
“Isn't it rather late in the season for whippowills?”
asked Annie uneasily, for this bird's note,
now heard again, seemed like a signal.
“I dunno nothin' about whippowills,” said the
woman stolidly. “The pesky bird kind o' started
me at first. Don't like to hear 'em round. They
bring bad luck. I can't do much for you, Miss Walton,
in this poor place. But such as 'tis you're welcome
to stay. My son has been off haulin' wood—
guess he won't be back now afore to-morrow.”
“When do you think he will come?” asked
Annie anxiously.
“Well, not much afore night, I guess.”
“What will my poor father do?” moaned Annie.
“He will be out all night looking for us.”
“Sure now, will he though?” said the woman,
showing some traces of anxiety herself. “Well,
Miss, you'll have to stay till my son gits back, for
house.”
There was nothing to do but wait patiently till
morning. The woman showed Gregory up into a
loft over the one room of the house, saying:
“Here's where my son sleeps. It's the best I
can do, though I s'pose you ain't used to such
beds.”
He threw his exhausted form on the wretched
couch, and soon found respite in troubled sleep.
Annie dozed away the night in a creaky old
rocking-chair, the nearest approach to a thing of
comfort that the hovel contained. The old woman
seemingly had been so “started” that she needed
the sedative of a short clay pipe, highly colored
indeed, still a connoisseur in meerschaums would
scarcely covet it. This she would remove from her
mouth from time to time, as she crouched on a low
stool in the chimney corner, to shake her head
ominously. Perhaps she knew more about whippowills
than she admitted. At last it seemed that
the fumes, that half strangled Annie, had their wonted
effect, and she hobbled to her bed and was soon
giving discordant evidence of her peace. Annie
then noiselessly opened a window, that she too might
breathe.
When Gregory woke the next morning, it was
broad day. He felt so stiff and ill he could scarcely
move, and with difficulty made his way to the room
below. The old woman was at the stove, frying
some sputtering pork, and its rank odor was most
clubs.
“Where is Miss Walton?” he asked in quick
alarm.
“Only gone to the spring after water,” replied
the woman shortly. “Why didn't you git up and
git it for her?”
“I would if I had known,” he muttered, and he
escaped from the intolerable air of the room to the
door, where he met Annie, fresh and rosy from her
morning walk and toilet at the brook that brawled
down the ravine.
“Mr. Gregory, you look quite ill,” she exclaimed.
“I am so sorry it has all happened.”
He looked at her wonderingly, and then said: “I
see you look as if nothing had happened. I am ill,
Miss Walton, and I wish I were dead. You cannot
feel toward me half the contempt I have for myself.”
“Now, honestly, Mr. Gregory, I have no contempt
for you at all.”
He turned away and shook his head dejectedly.
“But I mean what I say,” she continued earnestly.
“Then it is your goodness, and not my desert.”
“As I told you last night, so again I sincerely
say, I think I understand you better than you do
yourself.”
“You are mistaken,” he answered with gloomy
emphasis. “Your intuitions are quick, I admit. I
there are some things I am glad to think that you
never can understand. You can never know what a
proud man suffers when he has utterly lost hope and
self-respect. Though I acted so mean a part myself,
I can still appreciate your nobleness, courage, and
fidelity to conscience. I thought such heroism belonged
only to the past.”
“Mr. Gregory, I wish I could make you understand
me,” said Annie with real distress in her tone.
“I am not brave, I was more afraid than you.
Indeed, I was in an agony of fear. I refused that
man's demand because I was compelled to. If you
looked at things as I do, you would have done the
same.”
“Please say no more, Miss Walton,” said he, his
face distorted by an expression of intense self-loathing.
“Do not try to palliate my course. I would
much rather you would call my cowardly selfishness
and lack of principle by their right names. The best
thing I can do for the world is to get out of it, and
from present feelings, this `good-riddance' will soon
occur. Will you excuse me if I sit down?” And he
sank upon the door-step in utter weakness.
Annie had placed her pail of water on the step
and forgotten it in her wish to cheer and help this
bitterly wounded spirit.
“Mr. Gregory,” she said earnestly, “you are
indeed ill in body and mind, and you take a wrong
and morbid view of everything. My heart aches to
show you how complete and perfect a remedy there
with thirst with that brook yonder running—”
“There is no remedy for me,” interrupted he
almost harshly. Then he added in a weary tone,
pressing his hand on his throbbing brow: “Forgive
me, Miss Walton, you see what I am. Please waste
no more thought on me.”
“If yer want any breakfast to-day, yer better
bring that water,” called the old woman from within.
Annie gave him a troubled, anxious look, and
then silently carried in the pail.
“Have you any tea?” she asked, not liking the
odor of the coffee.
“Mighty little,” was the short answer.
“Please let me have some, and I will send you a
pound of our best in its place,” said Annie.
“I hain't such a fool as to lose that bargain,” and
the old woman hobbled with alacrity to a cupboard;
but to Annie's dismay the hidden treasure had been
hoarded too near the even more prized tobacco, and
seemed redolent with the rank odor of some unsavory
preparation of that remarkable weed which is conjured
into so many and diverse forms. But she
brewed a little as best she could before eating any
breakfast herself, and brought it to Gregory as he
still sat on the step leaning against the door-post.
“Please swallow this as medicine,” she said.
“Indeed, Miss Walton, I cannot,” he replied.
“Please do,” she urged, “as a favor to me. I
made it myself; and I can't eat any breakfast till I
have seen you take this.”
He at once complied, though with a wry face.
“There,” said she with a touch of playfulness.
“I have seldom received a stronger compliment.
After this compliance I think I could venture to ask
anything of you.”
“The tea is like myself,” he answered. “You
brought to it skilled hands and pure spring water,
and yet from the nature of the thing itself, it was a
villanous compound. Please don't ask me to take
any more. Perhaps you have heard an old saying:
`Like dislikes like.'”
She determined that he should not yield to his
morbid despondency, but had too much tact to argue
with him; therefore she said kindly: “We never did
agree very well, Mr. Gregory, and don't now. But
before many hours I hope I can give you a cup of
tea and something with it more to your taste. I
must admit that I am ready even for this dreadful
breakfast, that threatens to destroy my powers of
digestion in one fatal hour. You see what a poor
subject I am for romance,” and she smilingly turned
away to a meal that gave her a glimpse of how the
“other half of the world lives.”
Before she had finished, the sound of wheels and
horses' hoofs coming rapidly up the glen brought
her to the door, and with joy she recognized a near
neighbor of her father's, a sturdy, kind-hearted farmer,
who had joined in the search for the missing
ones the moment he learned, in the dawn of that
morning, that they had not returned.
He gave a glad shout as he saw Annie's form in
like that of an angel.
All are beautiful to those they help.
“Your father is in a dreadful state, Miss Annie,”
said Farmer Jones; “but I told him if he would only
stay home and wait, I, and a few other neighbors,
would soon find you. He was up at the foot of the
mountain ever since twelve o'clock last night. Then
he came home to see if you hadn't returned some
other way. I'm usually out as as soon as it's light,
so I hailed him as he passed and asked what on
earth he was up for at that time of day. He told
me his trouble, so I hitched up my light wagon and
got to your house as soon as he did. When he
found you hadn't come yet, he was for starting right
for the mountains, but I saw he wasn't fit, so I says,
`Mr. Walton, you'll just miss 'em. They've taken a
wrong road, or the wagon has broken down, but
they'll be home before ten o'clock. Now send Jeff
up the road you expected them on. I'll send Mr.
Harris, who lives just beyond me, out on the road
they took first. My horse is fast, and I'll go round
up this valley, and in this way we'll soon scour every
road;' and so with much coaxing I got him to promise
to stay till I returned. So jump in quick, and I'll
have you home in little over an hour.”
“But we can't leave Mr. Gregory here. Let him
go first. He is ill, and needs attention at once.”
“Miss Walton, please return at once to your
father,” said Walter quickly. “It is your duty. I
can wait.”
“No, Mr. Gregory, it would not be right to leave
you here, feeling as you do. As soon as father
knows I am safe his mind will be at rest. I am perfectly
well, and you have no idea how ill you look.”
“Miss Walton,” said Gregory, in a tone that was
almost harsh in its decisiveness, “I will not return
now.”
“I am real sorry,” said Mr. Jones, “that my
wagon is not larger, but I took the best thing that I
had for fast driving over rough roads. Come, Miss
Walton, your friend has settled it, and if he is sick he
had better come more slowly in an easier carriage.”
After cordially thanking the old woman for such
rude hospitality as she had bestowed, and renewing
her promise to send ample recompense, she turned
with gentle courtesy to Gregory and assured him
that he would not have to wait long.
He gave her a quick, searching look, and said:
“Miss Walton, I do not understand how you can
speak to me in this way. But go at once. Do not
keep your father in suspense any longer.”
“I hope we will find you better when we come
for you,” she said kindly.
“It were better your found me dead,” he said in
sudden harshness, but which was toward himself, not
her.
So she understood it, and, waving her hand encouragingly,
was driven rapidly away.
As they rode along she related to Mr. Jones the
events already known to the reader, but carefully
shielding Gregory from blame. She also satisfied
man by stating so frankly all it was proper for him
to know that he had no suspicion of anything concealed.
She explained his last and unusual expression
by dwelling with truth on the fact that Gregory
appeared seriously ill and was deeply depressed in
spirits.
Mr. Walton received his daughter with a joy
beyond words. She was the idol of his heart—the
one object on earth that almost rivalled his “treasure
in heaven.” His mind had dwelt in agonized suspense
on a thousand possibilities of evil during the
prolonged hours of her absence, and now that he
clasped her again, and was assured of her safety, he
lifted his eyes heavenward with heart overflowing
with gratitude.
But Annie's success in keeping up before him
was brief. The strain had been a little too severe.
She soon gave way to nervous prostration and headache,
and was compelled to retire to her room
instead of returning for Gregory as she had intended.
But he was promptly sent for, Miss Eulie going in
her place, and taking every appliance possible for
his comfort.
She found him in Mrs. Tompkins's hovel, sitting in
the creaky arm-chair that Annie had occupied the
night before, and enduring with a white grim face
the increasing suffering of his illness. He seemed
to have reached the depths of despair, and, believing
Indian stoicism.
Many, in their suicidal blindness and remorse,
pass sentence upon themselves, and weakly deliver
their souls into the keeping of that inexorable jailer,
Despair, forgetting the possibilities—nay, certainties
of good that ever dwell in God. If man had no
better friend than himself, his prospects would be
sombre indeed. Many a one has condemned himself
and sunk into the apathy of death, but He who came
to seek and save the lost has lifted him with the
arms of forgiving love, and helped him back to the
safety and happiness of the fold. Satan only, never
the Saviour, bids the sinner despair.
But poor Gregory was taking advice from his
enemy, and not his Friend. During the long hours
of pain and almost mortal weakness of that dreary
morning, he acknowledged himself vanquished—utterly
defeated in the battle of life. As old monkish
legends teach, the devil might have carried him off
bodily and he would not have resisted. In his prostrated
nature, but one element of strength was apparent,
a perverted pride that rose like a shattered,
blackened shaft, the remaining prominent relic of
seemingly utter ruin.
At first he coldly declined the cordial and nourishment
Miss Eulie brought, and said, with a quietness
that did not comport with the meaning of his
words, that she had better leave him to himself, and
that Mrs. Tompkins's son could have a grave ready
required.
Miss Eulie was shocked, finding in these words
and his general appearance proof that he was more
seriously ill than anticipated.
He was indeed; but his malady was rather that
of a morbid mind depressing an enfeebled body,
than actual disease. But mental distress could
speedily kill a man like Gregory.
Miss Eulie soon brought him to terms by saying,
“Mr. Gregory, you see I am alone. Mr. Walton
was too exhausted to accompany me, and Annie
did not send any of the neighbors, as she thought
the presence of strangers would be irksome to you.”
“She said she would come herself, but she has
had time to think and judge me rightly,” muttered
he, interrupting her.
“No, Mr. Gregory,” Miss Eulie hastened to say;
“you do her wrong. She was too ill to come, as
she intended and wished, and so with many anxious
charges sent me in her place. I am but a woman
and dependent on your courtesy. I cannot compel
you to go with me. But I am sure you will not
wrong my brother's hospitality, and make Miss Walton's
passing indisposition serious, by refusing to
come with me. If you did, she would rise from her
sick-bed, and come herself.”
Gregory at once rose and said, “I can make
no excuse for myself. I seem fated to do and
say the worst things possible under the circumstances.”
“You are ill,” said Miss Eulie kindly, as if that
explained everything.
Declining aid, he tottered to the carriage, into
which Jeff, with some curious surmises, speedily
helped him.
Miss Eulie made good Annie's promises to Mrs.
Tompkins fourfold, and left the shrivelled dame
with a large supply of one of the elements of her
heaven—tea, and with the means of purchasing the
other—tobacco, besides other and more substantial
additions to the old woman's meagre larder.
Gregory was averse to conversation during the
long, slow ride. The jolting, even of the easy cushioned
carriage, was exceedingly painful, and by the
time they reached home he was quite exhausted.
Leaning on Mr. Walton's arm he at once went to
his room, and at their urgent entreaties forced himself
to take a little of the dainty supper that was
forthcoming. But their kindly solicitude was courteously
but coldly repelled. Acting reluctantly
upon his plainly manifested wish, they soon left him
to himself, as after his first eager inquiry after Miss
Walton it seemed a source of pain to see or speak
to any one.
At first his arm-chair and cheery wood fire
formed a pale reflection of something like comfort,
but every bone in his body ached from the recent
cold he had taken. He had just fever enough to
increase the distortion of the images of his morbid
and excited mind. Hour after hour he sat, with
grim white face and fixed stare, scourging himself
and self-disgust. But an old and terrible emeny was
stealing on him to change the nature of his torment
—neuralgic headache; and before morning he was
walking the floor in agony, a sad type, while the
world slept and nature rested, of that large class, all
whose relations, physical and moral, are a jangling
discord.
| CHAPTER XVIII.
IN THE DEPTHS. Opening a chestnut burr | |