Chapter XVI: On the Bridge

All through July the growing heat of summer forced the people of the low country up into the mountains in search of an altitude where humidity is not a factor in the sum total of suffering. Every evening's six o'clock train brought families of travellers, glad to escape from the steaming heat of Charleston or Savannah, or ready to run the risk of the fever-killing frost coming too late for the beginning of the New Orleans schools. They emerged dishevelled and weary from the hot cars. The elders counted children, nurses, and luggage; the children sat down at once upon the ground and took off their shoes and stockings.

By the first of August the whole Asheville plateau was transformed from its winter state.

The large towns were filled with pretty, pale girls, gay in muslins and ribbons and big hats, who danced and drank soda-water in the mornings and danced again in the evenings, or went on drag-rides, and flirted at all hours.

The small hotels in the country were full of the same girls, chaperoned by gay mammas, who played whist six hours a day, while their charges found temperate amusement in walking to the post-office in the cool, purple dusk, and in dancing--chiefly with each other--after supper.

The proportion of men to girls was the usual summer ratio. Nice discriminations of extreme age or extreme youth counted for little against ability to dance. The girl with brothers of almost any size was popular among her kind, and the girl who "grabbed" was held in cordial contempt.

Woe be unto the youth who really fell in love. His courtship was the cynosure of all eyes. Its progress was reported hourly. His presence was noted and his absence commented upon. His ardor was gauged by the thermometer of many eyes, and the barometer of hotel partisanship betrayed the storms of love.

The Neighborhood awoke from its winter sleep. Every house had its guests, and there were constant gayeties both by day and evening.

The first moon of August, by lighting the dark forest roads, became responsible for nightly festivities. On one of the earliest evenings of the month she looked down upon carriages and horsemen making their way to the French Broad, where Fletcher's Bridge crosses the river. The Schuylers, with Sydney and John, were in the Oakwood surrey, while Vandeborough cantered behind to take care of the horses "while de white folkses eats."

The Cotswold party filled a three-seated buckboard and a surrey, and rejoiced further in outriders. Baron von Rittenheim bestrode his mule. The Delaunays brought a carriage-load of girls, who laughed a great deal in the soft, full voices the far South gives her daughters. From the Hugers' party came scraps of talk about "the City," and the "Isle of Palms."

There was a wagon-load of people from the Buck Mountain House, too, friends of the Hugers.

By Sydney's command the picnic fire was built by the river's bank in a large field, whose openness showed the quick march across the heavens of the rising moon.

Every one brought a stick to lay on the blazing pile. Bob and one of the Delaunay girls fetched water from a spring that hid its coolness under a shelving rock in the forest across the road. Susy McRae made the coffee, hindered by John's advice, more voluble than useful. Tom Schuyler was instructed in the proper method of propping up a broiler before the blaze, so that the chicken might cook without exacting a human burnt offering. Patton volunteered for the task of getting the potatoes into the ashes. The rest of the girls laid the table-cloths on the ground, and opened the baskets, and the rest of the men hunted up logs for seats, and brought the cushions and rugs from the carriages.

Sydney dominated the scene, giving a clever suggestion to Tom, encouraging Susy to disregard John's teasing, which threatened some harm to the coffee, sympathizing with Patton over a burn, and showing Katrina how to cook bacon on a long forked stick.

After the meal was eaten and complacency filled them, she it was who sent their suppers to the coachmen, and who packed up baskets and folded cloths, aided by von Rittenheim and Bob.

"Oh, do stop doing that, Sydney," cried Mildred Huger. "You make us all feel so mean not to be helping you, and you know it isn't necessary right now."

"Yes, come and sit by me, Sydney," said John. "I've been saving a place, and it'll be a treat for you."

"Wait a few minutes, Sydney," said Tom, "and you shall have my valuable help."

"There, it's all done, dear people," cried Sydney, "and we can watch the moon with a clear conscience."

"Will you not come with me to the bridge to see it?" begged Friedrich, in a low voice. "Ah, do come!"

Bob, who had been about to ask the same thing, turned away and stretched himself at Mildred Huger's feet. Susy softly touched her guitar, suggesting popular airs, and voices took up the tunes, now stopping to say something funny and to laugh while others carried on the song, now joining in an energetic chorus. On the outskirts of the circle farthest from the dying fire sat the couples in whom the soft night and the moonlight and the music were arousing sentiment. More than one young fellow watched Friedrich and Sydney as they disappeared behind the willows on the bank, and wished that he had been the first to suggest the bridge, and envied the two their vantage point.

They stood side by side upon its hoof-worn planks. Under their feet swept the musical flow of the stream, molten silver in the moonlight as it slid towards them, a sparkling, dancing mist of tossing diamonds as it fled away over the stones of the rough bottom.

They faced the wonderful glory of the moon. Her hand was on the bar at first, and his beside it. After a moment he glanced at the tempting nearness, and put his in the pocket of his jacket. Then he turned his back upon the moon, and leaned on the railing by her, facing the lesser splendor that was to him as dazzling.

"Will you for-rgive me if I spoil the beauty of this per-rfect night by speaking to you a little about--myself?"

His voice was serious. Sydney looked at him and turned away her head. Her lips trembled.

"I have not the r-right to force upon you a subject so unwor-rthy. But I think it is just that you should know--that all my friends should know--what work I am going to tr-ry now to do to retr-rieve myself. Ah, you make the little gesture that means 'Say not that word.' But you will let me say just this one time ever-ything I want to, if you please. When I say 'retr-rieve myself,' I understand well that nothing can destr-roy the fact that my name is wr-ritten on those books over there,"--he waved his hand in the direction of Asheville,--"and I know well that for my fault all my life I shall suffer in one way or another. But I can tr-ruly say, in God's sight,"--he stood bareheaded, and faced again the heaven's pomp,--"that I have r-repented my weakness most bitterly, both for what it did lead me to, and because such weakness in itself is shameful."

Sydney lifted to his her eyes blurred with tears.

"Don't," she whispered, hoarsely.

"_Ach_, Heaven help me, look not at me like that," he cried; "I cannot bear ever-ything!"

Silence lay between them after this cry of pain. Friedrich began again, very low.

"I see now clearly what I saw not at the time,--that my weakness came upon me fr-rom my own lack of str-rength to make an effort. I was cr-rushed by a gr-rief when I left my land to come to America. I allowed it to paralyze my will. I let myself dr-rift, not caring enough about what became of me to exert myself to ward off poverty. Poverty never had been mine,--I did not r-realize it, but I did know well the meaning of self-r-respect and honor, and it was base of me to permit my will so to sink."

Again he paused.

"I tire you? You let me go on?"

Sydney's face looked white in the moonlight. She assented by a motion of the head.

"Even when I knew--you--"

Sydney gazed down at the scintillant water. Von Rittenheim did not turn to her, and went on, steadily,--

"--and admired your beauty and your sweetness--for-rgive me that I say these things so baldly--and wondered at the r-responsibilities you assumed, and at the care you took of every needing person who came near you--even fr-rom you whom I admired and--whom I admired with all my str-rength, I did not learn the lesson that was before my eyes."

"How can you say all this to me, Baron? You must not."

"You will do me the justice to listen just a pair of minutes longer. Now I see it all clearly; now I have a purpose in my life. It is to make you look upon me with r-respect,--with so much r-respect that you will for-rget that on one of those turned-over pages of my life there is a blot."

"And you have chosen to seek your salvation through work! It is a fine spirit, Baron, and the American gospel--though perhaps you may not like it the more on that account."

"You are an American."

Sydney blushed and laughed,--her sweet, rich laugh. She was glad to be a little farther away from tragedy.

"Shall I tell you my plan? You will see how I am practical! My salvation lies in the unpoetic shape of--cattle."

"Cattle?"

"I have some money for which I sent to Germany; some that I felt it r-right to use if I should be in gr-reat need of it, but which I should not have sent for except that I was ill. With this money and my little farm I go into partnership with young Mr. McRae. His father gives to him one-half of his so large estate. On his place and mine we r-raise a cr-rop which we feed to our cr-reatures."

"Where are they to come from?"

"Some we do r-raise ourselves, and some we buy here and there, every-where in these mountains where we can find two or three colts--no, calves."

"Will there be a sufficient market to justify you?"

"How wonderful for business are you! Yes, we think so. Alr-ready have we an or-rder to send a whole carload of steers to R-richmond."

"Really? You've really begun?"

"Yes, I take much pr-ride to say that we have begun two days ago. Patton is to buy the calves at first, he does so well understand the folk of the mountains; and later, when I talk more accurately English, then I shall help him. Until then my part is on the farms."

"I think it is admirable! It will give you so much to do and to interest you. You are sure to succeed."

She smiled at him generously and with perfect sympathy. Her white dress shone cool against the purple sky, and her face rose radiant above.

Von Rittenheim leaned over her as she sat on the bridge's railing. On the road, not far away Susy McRae's guitar betrayed her approach, and John Wendell's barytone hummed the air that she was picking. Von Rittenheim put his foot on the topmost bar and leaned his elbow on his uplifted knee. By his position Sydney was screened entirely from the oncomers.

"I seem to have a gr-reat deal to say to-night. Now I shall tell you a little stor-ry."

His tone was gay, but Sydney saw that his eyes were grave.

"Does it begin 'Once upon a time'?" she fenced.

"_Ja. Es war einmal_ a knight, who led a happy life in his own country until a gr-rief came to him which he thought the most ter-rible sorrow that could come to anybody. He learned better afterwards, but at the time it seemed to him not to be endured. So he left his home and became a wanderer over the earth. And for many months he r-roamed, and nothing ever made him for-rget his tr-rouble until one day he saw a beautiful pr-rincess. Ah, she was a most lovely pr-rincess, with a face like a r-rose, and teeth like pearls, and a heart that was a tr-reasure of goodness."

Friedrich warmed with his subject. He was looking his fill on the downcast face before him, while Sydney pulled at the little handkerchief in her lap, and carefully smoothed out a corner of it on her knee.

"As soon as he saw her the knight knew that his old tr-rouble was not what he had thought it. And he knew also at once what would be the gr-reatest happiness that life could give him. He determined to win this happiness if he could, but first he had to pr-rove himself to the pr-rincess that he was a knight of cour-rage and not a weakling. So he told her of his purpose and begged of her a favor that he might wear it on his heart."

There was a pause, so long that Sydney asked, still with downcast head,--

"How does the story end?"

"I know not."

"You don't know?"

"I never learned it any farther. What do you think comes next?"

"I don't--I think----"

Bravely she raised her eyes to his, and stood before him, blushing divinely.

"I think she gave him a token and bade him Godspeed." And Friedrich found himself with a morsel of cambric in his hand, which he kissed passionately, while Sydney was walking towards the bridge's end, answering Susy's cry.

"Here I am. Is it time to go?"

And John was answering,--

"Mrs. Carroll warned us to go home early on account of the dance to-morrow night."

Laughing and singing they went through the moonlight, some with the happy hearts they had brought, others saddened by some of the whimsies of Fortune that seem lurking to spoil our joy when most we exult. Gladdest of all the blissful ones rode Friedrich von Rittenheim. At the cross-roads he waved a gay "good-by" to the Oakwood surrey as it bore away from him the lady of his love. He stopped his mule and looked long after it, and threw a kiss at its bulky form as it plunged into the wood.

He did not put on his cap again, but stuffed it into his pocket, and trotted on towards home with the moonlight shining on his fair hair. The good creature between his knees felt his exhilaration and broke into a short canter as an expression of sympathy with his master's humor. The negroes whose cabins he passed pulled the clothes over their heads, whispering "Hants!" as he galloped by, singing "Dixie" at the top of his lungs.

Sydney had taught it to him, the stirring song, and he brought it out roundly,--

"Oh, I wees' I was in the land of cotton,
The good old times are not for-rgotten,
Look away, look away, look away,
Deexie Land."