Chapter VI: Part 6

"Ay, weel, to be sure, lassie," broke in Tammas, and I caught the pleased look that seemed part of his countenance that night as if now his heart's desire had already come to pass, "ay, weel, to be sure, for our Mr. Jack will always be our Mr. Jack to us, lassie." ...

It was the last waltz. Eloise beckoned to me, and when I reached her, she opened her arms and I took her in mine. I could not speak, my heart beating almost strangled me. I held her tight, and into the sweetness of the music and the lure of the waltz came again all the past sweetness from her girlhood up, all blending in memory with the perfume of her hair, the whiteness of her throat, and the firm supple touch of her lithe, strong body against mine. Again she was my Little Sister and comrade of the long past. My life, my love, my all that I dreamed and hoped, danced with her in that last dance....

I felt her heart beating against mine. Her breathing was a sob. I felt her wilt, her limbs give way beneath her, her arms hang limp, her head fall back. I carried her in my arms to the sofa....

"A little ice water," said my Aunt Lucretia. When I looked up Colonel Goff stood over her bathing her face. "I should not have let her dance so much--it was all too much for her." He bent again, stroking the beautiful hair. I could not see more for my anger.

In the cool air outside I came to myself. My anger died, all but my own bitterness. I saw the long line of carriages and the men sleeping on boxes, and then I heard a nicker, a friendly little recalling whinny from Satan's stall, and the next instant I had swung into his saddle, and touched my heel to his flank.

I saw the grooms on the boxes sit up, and stare into the night, for straight to the banks of a little creek I rode him, not down the old road. He leaped high into the air, enjoying even more than I did the glory of the risk and jump. He swept like a whirlwind through the gate. The mad ride home soothed me.

*CHAPTER XIX*

*THE HIGH JUMP*

From the crush of the great crowds around the grand stand at the race-course, lining up far down the in-field, and jamming the betting sheds, I saw my Aunt Lucretia forcing her sorrel horse through the gathering. She had been a familiar figure at every fair and race meeting as far back as I could remember. No secretary for twenty years had questioned her judgment or her orders; they were too glad to have her help. I was in the judges' stand helping them out. I had ridden over early, leaving Satan to my Aunt's stable boy, who had already worked him out with a stiff gallop of two miles, and rubbed him down for the hurdle race and the high jump.

My Aunt Lucretia rode up close to the little canopied stand and beckoned to me. "Ever see such a crowd?" she said, smiling proudly. "I told Roswick this special high jump and hurdle would draw 'em. I'll bet there are twenty thousand people in that crowd."

"What is the programme?" I asked indifferently, though I knew it as well as she. I had come out under protest with myself as it were; I would rather have been deep in the heart of my wood where I might not see Eloise. I had tossed all night on my bed. If I dozed it was only to awaken, feeling that I held Eloise fainting in my arms. I did not want to see her, for in my heart, since I last danced, there had been such a tempest of conflicting emotions as made me pace the floor all night; and by day I knew not my own mind. Yet somehow it was not all sorrow. For I knew now that Eloise loved me and at thought of it my heart almost burst with gladness. Gladness was mingled so with sorrow that I wondered if both were not sweeter for the mingling.

"Colonel Goff and I have put up a few three-foot hurdles," my Aunt said, sweeping the track with her hand, "and he and Eloise and a few of the younger people are going to gallop over them just for fun. Goff really wants to show off his record-breaking jumper and his _fiancee_ at the same time," she said, smiling carelessly at me. "The hurdles will be for any of them who care to go over them, but the high jump," and she pointed to a movable gate of bars, flanked with high panels on each side, "will be put across the wire at the finish for Goff and his hunter only," and she laughed, winking at me slyly. "The record is five feet six; Goff thinks that is what he is going after again; but I've put up another bar for fun. I want to see Goff's imported record-breaking 'lepper,' as he calls him, break his blooming knees on that top bar."

I turned impatiently. "Aunt Lucretia, that's dangerous, six feet--and under the whip, after a mile dash!"

Aunt Lucretia smiled. "None of them is supposed to go after the high jump but the Colonel, and he swears he can do it. H-u-s-h!" she whispered. "Not a word of this. Just let Eloise fix him. I've been twenty years arguing with him about importing these worthless brutes and the superiority of our own horses, now I am going to make him pay for his obstinacy--s-sh! There they come now," and she pointed to the in-field, through which a jolly group of riders came, society people mostly, girls and boys and members of the hunting club who were out for the mile gallop over the short hurdles.

"There are ten couples of them in all," she said, "our smartest boys and girls. Many of them will not even try the low hurdles and none of them the high jump except the Colonel."

"You ought not to try it," I said resolutely. "Don't you know that nothing can keep Eloise and Satan from trying that gate of bars?"

"Of course," said my Aunt, "but Goff doesn't know it, and that is where he will part with his ducats. He has even forgotten the bet, he has been so happy; but I'll remind him. He hasn't the least idea that Satan could jump over his shadow in the road. O-h, no!"

As we talked they rode up. "Now see here," said Colonel Goff to his crowd, as he lined them up, "some of these hurdles are going to take a bit of going, and you boys must give the ladies the front, for your dust might blind the horses to the hurdles and make them rush over them with chances for bad tumbles and broken knees. We'll finish the last quarter flat; but I'll go over the gate and bars here for exhibition. It's a pretty stiff affair and will take a bit of going, so the rest of you will please be so kind as to give me the lead here and an open field; just hack around this last quarter, following me, and dodge the gate. There's plenty of room."

The Colonel sat his horse near me as I stood, watch in hand in the judges' stand. Eloise had not looked my way. She sat her great, steel-limbed mount as unconcernedly as if she were going on a fox chase. The others were laughing and excited, the untried horses nervous and restless, but Satan stood still, looking as if carved out of the black granite of the hills. Eloise glanced up and saw me. I turned my head quickly, but she came over, her face pale, but her eyes smiling kindly into mine. The old fun was in them, the old daring, colt-breaking fun I had not seen there since my return.

"Jack," she said, laughing, "if I could only get you behind the barn to split my skirts again; this side-saddle is too heavy." She was looking me bravely in the eye, laughing as she said it. Then all at once I saw all the make-believe go out of her face and her eyes fall before mine.

Riding up softly she whispered, "Jack, do you remember the Story of Atalanta?"

I nodded.

"If he doesn't beat me this mile, and over that high jump he shall never have me, I have told him so."

There are little things even in big events that count more than the big things themselves. I sat utterly wretched. I heard her calling her horse pet names, and saw her rubbing his neck with her whip. I saw the old daring nervousness that showed in the very shoulders of her, the keen, fine play of her eyes, and the white lines that lay like a rim of moonlight around the red of her lips. The next five minutes were spent by the starter telling of the record of Goff's horse.

They lined up ready for the word. It was I who gave it. Instantly from Eloise, even in the thunder of the great leap of her horse I saw two fingers fly to her lips in a kiss to me in her old daring, fun-loving way. "Go!" I had cried.

"But I am coming back, Jack. Good-by."

The Colonel's horse, trained as he was, strode easily ahead of the noisy, awkward bunch. I saw Eloise turn Satan loose, and in an instant he had collared the imported one. They went over the first hurdle like a pair, the field behind Nestor and Satan running neck and neck. With my glasses I could see that Goff was smiling in the delight of the race she was giving him. They were not going fast--it was more of a gallop--for the Colonel set the pace to suit the slower field of amateurs behind him. They mounted the last hurdle together, and came into the back stretch for the last quarter of the mile. The six-foot gate sat in the middle of the track. The judges rose and stood with their timers in their hands. I heard the grand stand hum and buzz with expectancy.

"Now, hold back!" shouted Goff to all as he turned his horse loose in the stretch. "Give me the right of way!"

He came the last quarter with great speed, and then I saw the grand stand rise to its feet, and a wild roar followed, for Eloise had passed him as a full-set yacht a tug, headed straight for the bars. I heard Goff shouting to her; he had lost his head in the fear for her safety. They rose for the leap, Eloise two lengths ahead. I saw Satan rise high, true to his stride, high up--straight up, his great form silhouetted against the sky, Eloise smiling, triumphantly, beautifully, splendidly lifting him over.

It was Goff's horse that did it. In the excitement his rider did not hold him true; he wavered a moment, dodged faint-heartedly, ducked, shied the perilous leap before him, and, bolting, struck the nigh post of the movable gate, hurling it forward ten feet, full under the flanks of Satan, who had cleared it. It caught him cruelly as he came down, under the flanks, making him turn a summersault, hurling Eloise into the fence. I heard the grand stand groan.

It was I who held her lifeless form in my arms....

I remember but little of the tent and the surgeons. I heard someone say, "_She'll die, her back is broken!_"

A horse, riderless, had followed us to the tent's very door; he had thrust his head in, whinnying. It broke my heart to feel his cold nose against my cheek. It was then I led him away, so blinded by tears that I did not see where we went.

*III*

*THE HICKORY'S SON*

*CHAPTER I*

*"LOVE IS NOT LOVE THAT ALTERS WHEN IT ALTERATION FINDS"*

Three weeks after Eloise was injured and while her life was yet despaired of by the physician, my Aunt Lucretia came to me. I was sitting on the rustic bench beneath the hickories. Night after night I had sat there, watching the light from her window, and the coming and going of the physician and nurses. To-day there had been a consultation. My Aunt had sent for a famous surgeon of Philadelphia, and all afternoon he had been in the sick room. When I saw my Aunt I knew that his decision had been reached, and though I sat still, apparently calm, my heart was smothered within me. She said very distinctly, "It's her spine, Jack, he says she will never walk again."

I found myself an hour afterwards taking the old path to the dairy. I saw the light from Tammas's cottage shining far out into the night. I was wandering around numbed, stunned. As I passed the paddock I heard Satan whinny appealingly to me. From the little window in his stall he had thrust out his great head. This was the horse we had all feared, and had cruelly misnamed. The great vicious horse that had almost killed the groom, that had only been conquered by one woman, had his head on my shoulder and was whinnying softly. I knew that he was begging for news of Eloise, and for sympathy; and, dumb as he was, he knew that I would understand.

"She insists that she must see you to-night," said my Aunt Lucretia, when I reached the house.

She led me up the old, familiar stairs, and down the great hall to Eloise's room. She stopped at the door.

"You will find her very brave," said my Aunt, "very brave, and so must you be," she added, giving me a quick look.

Then she opened the door, and I stood looking at Eloise, with drawn, tied lips, and a great choking in my throat, trying to return the smile she was giving me from among her pillows. I stood still, I could not move, my limbs seemed to have caught the dead numbness of my heart.

"I want you right here by me a moment, Jack," she said calmly. "You'll let him sit on the side of the bed, Miss Rose, just a moment. I'll not exert myself."

She was more beautiful than ever. Her brave body had lost none of its suppleness and grace; her face shone, and over the pillow her hair was massed in great red-gold waves against the white of the linen.

"See," she said, taking my hand, "see, Jack, I can move my head and both my arms. Isn't that fine? And the doctor says I shall always be able to do that, and, well--" she smiled, "he says there is no reason why I should not outlive all of you to be an old woman. A crippled old woman--"

I turned my head quickly. As she had spoken I saw again the brave, beautiful creature, coming in head-long flight at the six-foot bar, and the triumphant smile that lit her face, sky-lined forever in my memory, as she lifted her horse almost straight up towards the sky.

She was speaking now to the nurse. "If you please, just a moment Miss Rose--Aunt Lucretia, I would like to speak to Jack alone. I shall not exert myself." I heard them go out. "There! I have been thinking, Jack, all these weeks--one can think so very much lying in bed, and see so very, very far. I have been thinking and seeing, Jack. It's so easy to think and so hard to see. But--but--I have prayed, too, about it--to help me see. Praying is seeing's eyesight, Jack. I want you to promise me something. It is what I have seen in my prayer--it is the last thing I shall ever ask of you--for you have done me so many favors, dear Jack."

I could not speak.

"The Earl--Colonel Goff--they let me see him to-day. It hurt me more than my own hurt to see the poor man suffer so in the blame he puts upon himself for the accident. He won't see, Jack,--he can't--that it was God's way of settling it--God's way. For He alone knew how foolish I was--how wicked to sell myself as I did--and how my heart, though I did not know it till that day, Jack--has always been yours!"

I took her in my arms, my face pressed against her cheek.

She lay still, patting my face with her hand and saying: "I am--it is--well, it seems also to be one of God's ways:

'We look before and after
And pine for what is not.'"

I heard her try to laugh in her old, brave way. She was looking again into my eyes, and I sat holding her hand.

"But Colonel Goff," she went on, "gentleman that he is, thinks he must settle the account for his blundering ride, and begs me to marry him anyway; I, a cripple for life. He forgets that God balanced it when he stopped me from the sin of selling my heart for--for--his bauble--

"I have sent him away satisfied, Jack. I believe he would love me truly," and she smiled, "now that he sees that I cannot ride. Love me for myself and not for my riding; but I shall love only you, Jack, till I die--the old crippled woman."

She was silent for a moment. "And the compensation for my admitting it--you know it is costing me something--you don't know how hard it is for me to say it first, Jack; but the compensation I claim, will you give it to your little lame girl? It is this, and now nod your head, say '_yes_' Jack. I've seen--Elsie loves you, and you must--you must marry the child. She is everything you want, and you half-way love her already. It will be easy now, Jack, promise it; for your sake--for both your sakes, I'm asking. Promise me, Jack, I want to see you happy."

She had my hand against her cheek, fondling it. Her eyes had never seemed so beautiful.

"Do you remember the kind of love I said I had for you that first night after I came home?" She pressed my hand against her cheek again. "And the kind you said you'd never felt, but would give your life to feel?" Again I felt the pressure. "That kind which I told you of, and which I have had for you all the time, is that kind that Shakespeare told of when he said:

"'Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.'

"That's the kind I have for you, Eloise--have always had; and do you remember the love you said you wanted, you'd give your life for, yourself, your soul and your body. '_I, who wish it so, to be widowed of it all my life_'--those were your words. How they cut into my heart--that love, Eloise, can't you see? Don't you know that it is yours and you are widowed of it no longer?"

She put her arms around my neck and pulled my face down to hers, smothering her mouth in my kisses.

"Oh, Jack, why did you say it--see it? Why did you not let me fool myself--fool you? Why--and--oh, if you had only not seen it--not let me know you saw it! Love? Don't you know now that the kind I said I'd have is as I said it was? Worth life--worth death--worth all--worth all--then God help me, Jack, if I sin--God forgive me, but I'd rather hold it to my heart a helpless cripple that I am--hold it never to satisfy it--never to know what it means, helpless, bed-ridden cripple that I am than to be the well, strong thing I was without it. Oh, Jack, don't you know now what I mean?"

She kissed me again and again, holding my cheek to hers.

"Good-by, you'll not see me again, Jack, so good-by, Jack, forever. And in time, though you'll never forget me nor cease to love me, you will do as I said; for yours is youth and love and strength, and they must be mated. When you can think of me without tears, without sorrow or pity, but as one who has lived and is gone--only as the memory of a sweet dream that might have been--then, dear, dear Jack, remember the last request I made of you, remember to make Elsie happy; and in time--in time, Jack, oh, what a love-maker he is! be happy yourself. Hold me a moment, just a moment to your heart--then--kiss me again and say with me the little prayer Aunt Lucretia used to make us say, holding hands in the long ago."

Holding her face against mine, and with clasped hands as of old, we said:

"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take."

Although the words of Eloise came to me again and again as I rode home that night, I was never so happy, nor so hopeful. Yet she had said, "Good-by, good-by, Jack, I shall never see you again."

"I shall see her to-morrow night," my heart kept saying over and over. "I will not give her up; I will marry her, if I have to carry her in my arms through life!"

But the next night when I rode over my grandfather met me at the door. He greeted me with petulant indifference. Both Eloise and Aunt Lucretia had left that morning--where, he did not know. She was a hopeless cripple with a broken spine, and was carried away in a cot to some institution where she might be cared for properly for the balance of her life. I forgave the old man because he was old--the reiterated statement that he had made allowance for her care himself, for although she was no blood kin, and had no claim upon him, she had been with him all her life, and was a ward of his daughter.

I could learn nothing from the servants. Aunt Lucretia, Eloise, and the nurse had gone. They had carried Eloise in a cot to the train and boarded it. It was Thomas, the driver, who gave me Aunt Lucretia's letter. She wrote, "I have thought it all over, Jack, and this is the only thing to do. All of them are agreed, that she can never walk again. To keep her at home will only make life a tragedy to you both. It is best that you never see her again, nor she you. Sentiment is one thing, and life another. Sometimes they go together, and it is well. But when they cannot, when sentiment lives and that love of nature which reproduces life is dead, it is folly to quibble, for the loss of being is the loss of life. Be sensible, brave, and manly as you have always been and forget Eloise. Changed conditions change one's life. You must change yours. I have a request to make. I shall be at home in a month, but I do not want you ever to mention Eloise to me, for I shall not tell you where she is. This is hard, but I am doing it for your good, as I have always done, my dear boy. When I return if she is alive you may write to her, since she has begged me so, and this is the only one happiness the poor child will have in her stunted life, and I will see that she gets the letters, though she can never reply. It is best to forget."

The little note Eloise sent brought tears. It was a heart's-ease that Aunt Lucretia had evidently gathered for her, and under it was written, "_I am widowed of love but I am wedded. Forgive me, forget me, but love me always, Jack, as I shall you--Eloise._"

*CHAPTER II*

*A DREAM AND ITS ENDING*

In my grief at the going of Eloise I remember little of what I did in the next few days. Then I received a note from Colonel Goff asking me to ride over to The Manor, as both he and Elsie wanted to see me.

On the way I stopped to see Tammas and Marget. In their worship of Elsie I believe they thought only of her and her happiness. They had certainly not understood about my relations with Eloise. Their happiness was plain to be seen, the very laughter which at times broke over their honest faces told me clearly their pride and happiness in the turn affairs had taken with Elsie and me.

But despite my efforts not to show what was crushing my heart, they perceived that something was very seriously wrong with me.

"Ay, Jackie, 'tis a hard time you have been having, my lad," said Tammas, "and it's unreasonable to think the old General would turn you out of home like this; but the final word in the book of every honest man's life is the word good, and you'll not be losing out in the end--na, na."

"I think you are going now to see our lassie," said Marget, smiling slyly, "and sure, Jackie, if ever man had recompense in the sweetness of love 'tis you. Never have I seen anything sae near an angel of light in spirit and sae beautiful in body, since she came up the hill to us that evening with her doubts all gone; ay, it is Tammas and I who are as happy as you, Jackie!"

She sighed. "I dinna ken that it's a' gladness," she went on; "for the Earl is preparing to leave soon for his estate in the auld country, and he wants us to gang wi' him--of course--but--" and she looked at me gravely as if seeking answer.

But I only shook my head sadly. "I do not know, Marget--I do not know. My plans--you see--Aunt Lucretia and Eloise--that awful accident!"

Marget started to speak, but Tammas stopped her quickly, whispering to her, "Wheest, wumman, dinna ye see, dinna ye understaun--she was as his ain sister. It's that that's saddening him." And then he added louder, "Eh, but it was a terrible thing--she that was sae young an' daring and sae bonnie--to be an invalid a' her days--the bold beautiful thing that loved life sae weel! An' it's a' but upset the Earl. I hae never kent him to be sae troubled, for he was unco fond o' her, an' a grand Countess she wad hae made him. An' to think it was his ain horse! The puir man is nearly daft!"

I was silent. I could not speak. For once the kindly talk of these two good folks annoyed me. Marget saw this, and with a motherly tenderness that touched me deeply, said, "Weel--weel, Jackie, dinna take it sae to heart. When you go to her ain land an' see what you have won in oor lassie, ye'll be sayin' with Rabbie Burns that 'tis the only place to live and love in. But awa' ye gang," she said, giving me a gentle push; "it's near supper time a' ready an' fine I ken that she an' the Earl are wanting ye at The Manor. For three days she has come ower here, wondering whit wey ye had na come; she kens aboot the accident an' is sorrowfu', tae, but she's sae keen to see ye, Jackie, an' she'll be a bit o' comfort till ye if ye will."

Colonel Goff was already making preparations for his going. I found him more quiet and serious than I had ever seen him. I understood that he would give anything in the world to undo the accident, and that he now found that he cared more for Eloise since she was lost to us than he had himself known, and that, like me, he was in total ignorance as to where Aunt Lucretia had taken her.

"Jack, Jack!" he kept repeating as he walked the floor, "I can never forgive myself! That beastly, beastly ride! To have loved horses as I have all my life, to have done so much for them and their sport and to have my pride in them all thrown away and the whole of my life changed like that! ... There is Elsie--go with her, Jack--the child wants you!" he added as he headed towards his stable.

I pitied him, but I pitied myself more. For, looking at him, hearing him talk, I saw that he did not know and would never know. God had not made him to know as Eloise and I knew, not even as Elsie would know. In spite of all that had passed before him, and all that he had seen, he did not know that as he talked of Eloise it was I who was suffering most. He did not even see remotely that it was I who loved her, not he.... There are fish in the deep sea which carry their own electric light.... There are others there which have not even eyes! ...

Elsie was openly happy all the afternoon with me. Such dreams as she had dreamt of our future! Such dreams as had come true even in her own castle!

I let her talk and plan for our future. I did not know what it all meant, whither Fate was hurrying me. I could not see the end, but I knew that the end would be well. For the real architect of our lives is God. The very shadow of our doubt becomes pictures done in beauty.

It takes shadows to make pictures. In the foreground of every shadow already stands the picture from His hand. And as for the sorrows sent of Him, they are not sorrows; rather are they crowns of Great Joy for brows chosen of Martyrdom.... So I let her dream and love and plan, knowing that whatever was coming to me would be good, that behind the Wish of our own little dreams lay the larger Will of the Great Dreamer....

In the afternoon I had slipped away to a place where two great maples threw their shadows across the lawn. I was tired, and my heart was full of conflicts. I wanted to think of Eloise.

It was a quiet, sweet place. Then I heard Elsie coming, full of happiness, to judge from the very tread of her feet on the grass.

I was lying half propped against a tree. Looking up I saw she was kneeling above me, her eyes laughing as she shyly peeped from behind the trunk. There was a sofa pillow in her hands and she was trying to place it under my head. "You must sleep, now," she said softly. "You are so tired and hollow-cheeked, Jack, my bonnie Jack. I am going to begin to learn now to take care of you. I will come to waken you in an hour, then we are going to drive into town, father and you and me!"

She lingered a moment slyly; then stooped to kiss my forehead and was gone.

I had not come to sleep, I had come to think of Eloise, to dream of her once more. I took her note from my pocket; I kissed it and with tears I read it. "_I was widowed of love but I am wedded. Forgive me, forget me, but love me always, Jack, as I shall you,--Eloise._" How strange it is, this joy-sorrow! There can be but one explanation of it: down the endless chain of our ancestry so much sorrow has come that the taint of it lies sweetly in the pedigree of our own breast.

I kissed the withered heart's-ease. Later I must have fallen asleep...

It was Colonel Goff who wakened me, coming on a run.

"Quick, Jack!" he cried.

I was up in an instant. He stood beside me panting, almost faint. He held a little slip in his hand. His face was white, his lips drawn, but a battle coolness that went like cold steel into my own soul was in his voice.

"Elsie, Jack! Stone's River bridge--you may save her yet! She is drowning herself! Your horse, quick! I'll follow as best I can!"

Instantly I understood. I glanced down. Eloise's note was gone. Elsie's hat lay on the grass instead.

Satan had been saddled for my ride to town and stood at the rack. In two quick leaps I was by his side. The next minute I held the reins.

"If you ever rode in your life," I heard her father saying behind me, "if you ever rode in your life, Jack! You may save her yet--straight down the pike to the bridge!"

The horse seemed to know. He wheeled as the reins went over his head, pivoted, as I'd seen him so often do, on two legs, for quickness, up into the air, wheeling.

I held a good clutch on the pommel and as I rose his own great bound jerked me like a bolt into the saddle. I saw the old butler, bare-headed, running to open the gate, and Colonel Goff panting, helpless, crossing the grass. But even Satan knew we'd lose if we waited. It was only a four-foot rock wall; it was play for him to clear it. He landed squarely and already in a full run.

The bridge was a mile away. It was made of iron and its sides were protected by a railing. It was high where the pike reached it, spanning a gorge cut through the hills.

A rock fence ran along the pike up to the bridge on each side. There the bluff was sheer twenty feet straight down to the river. Satan ran like a tube of quick-silver down the long white pathway of the pike. As we flashed up the slope leading to it, I caught just a glimpse of a white gown going over the bridge from the middle railing. I had to throw all my weight on his left rein to send him over the rock fence at the foot of the bridge and I knew when he felt my heel go into his flank and my pull that shot his great game head into the fence, that he thought I was crazy, was sending us both to death!

But he never faltered. It all depended on how he cleared that four-foot fence and the twenty feet down to the river. I knew when he rose for the leap that he expected firm ground on the other side. Would he balk, falter and fail me when he saw?

I drove my heel into him. I felt him quiver just a moment beneath me. Then I held my breath. A white figure floated midway of the river before me. Up went his head, the water only flashed beneath him twenty full feet below. I watched the play of his ears for his thoughts. If they fluttered, wavered, showed fright, I knew he would balk and quit. For an instant I saw them flutter back and forth, little tell-tales of surprise, then down they came angrily, glued to his neck as one grits one's teeth in a crisis, and he shot over the wall, balanced squarely, holding himself superbly, down!

I clutched the pommel with both hands, locking my legs under his chest as we struck the stinging, biting waters and went under. It seemed long before we came up and I could see the white gown going down again. I clutched it with one hand, drawing her head clear of the water against my breast. I felt the horse moving easily beneath me. Would he see the great bluffs and understand, or would he strike straight across for them and drown us all, whirling round and round, trying to find a passway up straight walls of rock? It all lay with him. It was correct instinct now or death.

I threw the reins over his head, crying, "_Go out--your way, Satan!_"

It was his good sense that saved us, his instinct rather, that is greater than sense. He lost no strength in useless floundering against steep walls for a landing. He seemed to know instantly. I felt him moving beneath me down stream while I held Elsie safe. Two, three, four hundred feet he swam, the great game chap, till we passed the bluff; then he floundered up and out on the bank like a great dog, shaking himself.

*CHAPTER III*

*THE AWAKENING*

It was Colonel Goff who met me at the door of The Manor when I called the next night. Marget and Tammas were both there, silent, and with awed, sorrowful faces. Two doctors were in the house, for Elsie's life and mind lay in the balance, and it seemed that a straw would turn them either way.

It was Marget who spoke first. "Ay, Jackie--Jackie--'tis as I hinted to you, lad," said she, "it was in the blood of the Carfaxes, and but for your ride and leap, lad, our lassie had done what two of her grandames, two of the ladies of Carfax, did before her."

Tammas, tears standing in his eyes, could only hold my hand.

Colonel Goff led me into the library. For a while he was silent, his stolid face expressionless. Then he said very quietly, "Jack, the chances are all against her, one way or the other; it looks as if my little lassie is doomed to go the way of her house. If she survives the shock I am afraid her mind will not; that is what is hinging now, that is why we have sent for you again. It is only a chance--one chance in ten--but the doctors thought--as the shock that unminded her came through you, that you might--"

I nodded. "I understand. I would give my life for her."

He pressed my hand, his voice choking. "You proved that, my boy, you proved that. How you escaped, how that horse ever cleared that fence and cliff--

"Jack," he went on, turning impulsively, "I am a blunt man, plain and not farseeing in things like all of these, that have come to me so swift and fast. I don't mean these accidents--I'm used to them--life and the whole little game of it is all a blind chance. I have taken mine all my life--and--and--well, they've always been against me, Jack--always, even now. I've lost--always--even as I shall lose now--Elsie. The great hand of Fate that flings the dice for us has always thrown them loaded for me--Jack."

He was silent. I thought of God and the Butterfly. I pitied him, seeing nothing as he did.

"No, I am not farseeing--not farseeing--in things like the other side of all this--not the blind chance side which has always been mine--but the side you make yourself, someway, somehow, like this."

He drew a blurred and crumpled note from his pocket. It was Eloise's. I had seen it last when, holding it to my breast, I had fallen asleep that afternoon under the trees.

"This kind of a little thing, Jack," he said, handing me the little relic. "I am a blundering fool--and I have to tell you so--to tell you what an unseeing fool I have been. I see it all now--and yet I'd never have seen. I found this clutched in Elsie's hand. This was her shock--this was my folly--my unseeing folly. No, no," he cried quickly, seeing I was about to say something. "No, no, Jack, I see it all--don't say a word. You've been a man all through it--a white man, Jack. I am not talking to put you on trial. I'm passing judgment on myself for your sake, my boy; that you may understand what a selfish, unseeing fool I have been.

"Well, it's down to this--it's all past--let it go," he added. "But Elsie--she is of the living present. You must help me, help me a little yet awhile Jack--till--till the crisis is past."

I pressed his hand silently. "Thank you," he said simply, "and now just a word of explanation. This trouble of hers runs in the blood of the Carfaxes. My grandmother, my own sister, went this way. They are keyed high, and if a shock like this comes, it's death or an unbalancing. When she read that," he said, "which unseeing one that I have been, was all my fault, when she read it, Jack, she lost her reason, she was temporarily insane when she made that leap. She is conscious now and stronger; but still she remembers nothing up to that mental shock, the shock of that note, that showed her all, and--oh well, I'm only a blunt kind of a man--I can't tell it--you alone could do that. But it's this now, Jack, you go in and talk to her. You stay with her--till we get her right--and we've a chance to yet--Jack, until we get her right--just let her believe--believe-- Oh, you know, Jack!"

The tears were in his eyes as he led me into Elsie's room.

Tammas and Marget were by the bed. Elsie lay amid her pillows, a strange startled look in her eyes.

"You and the old people, Jack," whispered the doctor, rising and taking Goff by the arm, "you all just talk to her, get her back to the dairy and the old ways again, if you can. If she can be quieted and her mind bridged over the shock, she'll be all right again. And to-night will tell," he added quietly, "so be very calm. I have given her all the morphine she'll stand, tried everything, but if she can't be made to sleep she'll lose her mind and if she doesn't sleep to-night her mind is doomed."

I was not certain, but I had always suspected that I possessed the power of suggestion. I had felt it in dealing with dumb animals and weaker people.

I sat by her, talking to her in the old way. "It is Jack, Elsie," I said, "your own Jack. We've met in our old trysting place. We are under our old trees, and Tammas and Marget are here and you are tired and are going to sleep while your head is on my lap. I'll watch you sleep--sleep now," I said softly, stroking her forehead.

There was a deep sigh, then the frightened wild look died out of her eyes and with a smile like her old one she slept.

The doctor beckoned me. "That's good," he said in the hallway. "Just let the nurse and Marget stay with her, let her sleep all night if she will."

"But I will have to waken her," I said.

He smiled. "Oh no; she'll waken herself."

"I'll stay here all night, Colonel Goff," I assured her father.

"Thank you, Jack," he said, his face brightening for the first time. "Of course you will stay with her."

"The crisis will come with her awakening," said the doctor. "She will awaken sound of mind and at death's door, or she will awaken to live, her mind gone. It is all in her sleeping, and to-night will decide it. I will retire, waken me if I am needed."

All night Colonel Goff and I sat up. Every little while we went into her room to see Elsie sleeping, Marget by her side, the nurse asleep on the cot.

Twice the doctor came in. "Her pulse and temperature are normal," he would say. "That's good. Let her sleep."

But Colonel Goff and I could not sleep. All night he smoked, talked and walked the floor. He told me his life's story, and in the hopefulness of Elsie's sleeping he seemed to have taken a new hold of things. "If the hand that has flung the loaded dice for me all my life will only give me one clean deal now," he cried, as he paced the floor with his steady military stride.

"It will," I said, "Colonel Goff. It gives a clean deal to a clean heart always, and yours is a different heart now. I see it; you are a different man now. Now, I would give my very life for you and my poor little Elsie."

There was deep emotion in the man before me, his eyes were moist. "Great God, Jack, do you mean that, man? Do you know you have said it? It is even so--I see it--have seen it all night--wondering, how--

"God help me," he went on, "and save Elsie as He has saved me--from myself--through it all. I see it now--through all my life--my own fool will, my obstinacy, madness, sin--unseeingness: brought me through it all, back to my own, my family name, my earldom--my own--Great God, think of it--what has been done to unseeing, uncaring me! How much I have received--how little I have earned!"

I left him a strong man pacing the floor, his face aglow with a new life.

Elsie had slept twelve hours.

"We can't awaken her," said the doctor as I went in after a short sleep. "I suspect you possess unconsciously hypnotic power, Jack. It all looks like it. You must awaken her if you can. I don't wish to use heroic means."

"If I have," I said, "I am not aware of it. But let me talk to her. And if you please I would rather only Marget stayed."

"Surely," he said nodding. "If she wakens we want no one with her but you. And you'll just keep her thinking she's at her old place by the dairy."

I sat down by her, taking her hand in the old way. She was smiling in her sleep. Then I said laughingly in her ear, slapping her cheek with the back of my hand, "Wake up, little Heart's Ease; we are going to the spring. It's Jack. I will not go unless you go with me, to gather the Bluebells of Scotland on the hills--come--wake up!"

Instantly she sat up, her blue eyes resting calmly on me.

"Jack," she said, putting her arms about my neck, "I had wondered--I have worried because--for so long a time I seem not to be able to remember--where you were."

I laughed. "Nonsense; you have only dreamed a bad dream last night," said I.

Marget was bustling around the room pretending to clean up. Her voice choked so that she could scarcely speak and yet she said bravely, "Surely, Elsie. It is as Mr. Jack says. You've been sick a little and had bad dreams."

Elsie clung to me sobbing. "Jack, my bonny Jack," she said, "it's good of you, but I am all right now; I am strong again, so much stronger than you would ever believe."

"You must not let yourself think of anything unpleasant," I said quietly, "for my sake now, Elsie, and daddy's."

"I couldn't, Jack," she said with all her old frank candor, "with you here. It all came because I thought you were gone. Call Daddy in," she said firmly, "I want to talk to you all."

Colonel Goff was already in the room, the smile on his face telling of his great joy. He knelt by the bedside, kissing her. He was laughing boyishly. "Bless me, but my Lady Elsie is feeling fine, isn't she?" said he.

Elsie nodded happily.

"And you and I have been so blind, Daddy," she said, laying her hand on mine. "So blind, both of us. Now, you know what we are going to do? I am going to be very strong and well in a few days and then we are all going to our English home, you and me, Marget and Tammas, and we are going to find Eloise. Find her, Daddy, and make her well--for Jack--if it takes half of all that earldom of yours."

Colonel Goff kissed her again and again, and reaching out, gripped my hand. "Thank God, Jack! Elsie," he added, "you're not to talk now, but sleep again. I'll do as you say."

"Now look here," she said in her old teasing way, "don't you for a moment--don't you try any funny things on me. I'm as well as any of you, and I'm going to get up, right soon. And I don't want ever to hear of that dream I had again," she said, raising a commanding little finger at us.

"We have both been very foolish, Daddy, you and me," she went on, "foolish and unseeing; but now we're both going to be very sensible and brave, so you'll all go out but Marget, and Mr. Jack." She turned to me, her eyes smiling in the old way, "You'll kiss me good-by now till you come to see us at Carfax Hall--you and--and--" She clasped my neck, kissing me quickly, "Good-by, my bonny, bonny Prince! I'll bring her back to you, see if I don't!"

*CHAPTER IV*

*THE CALL OF THE DRUM*

The Tennessee troops were to make a last parade before leaving for the war in the Philippines.

All the night before they left a strange, weird feeling had been upon me. For hours I could not sleep, and when I did it seemed as if I were going down a dimly remembered path, hearing a far-off call in far-away mountains, the battle cry of my ancient Aryan people rallying against the Mongrel and the Mongol. Then I awoke with the fire of battle in my heart and the hot sweat of the conflict beaded over my face, to call it a dream. But it was no dream. There are dreams, and there is that which is more than dreams. There is the spirit's walk into wayside lands.

I rose and dressed. I went out for calmness among my trees. They had been my friends, my thousand-voiced leaf-whispering friends. But in this strange feeling, this fighting mood which, despite all my efforts, had overwhelmed me, I cared for them no longer. And they scorned me. Not one leaf whispered to me. I had not one friend among them. They were no longer my brothers in green. They were merely trees. My soul had been torn up to its very roots by the Hand that had planted it and told to grow into another soul or die!

Everything I had held to in life had reversed itself on me. Every star-enthroned truth which I had worshipped had fallen to earth, a clay idol to mock me with its grinning lying lips of dirt! I had been turned out from my home unjustly; the love of my very life was gone, dead, perhaps; and Elsie--

Nothing since the tragedy that had fallen to Eloise had cut into my soul like that nightmare leap over a rock wall into cold air and the stinging whirl of yellow water and the glory of her courage and unselfishness as she had said, "I'll bring her back to you, Jack--see if I don't!"

And there had been the good-by of Tammas and Marget. Tammas could not speak, he could only hold my hand with tears in his eyes. But Marget spoke, kissing me for the first and last time. "Ay, but our Jackie, good-by, 'tis God that stirs up the nest of His eagles. An' so God bide ye, lad. God bless and God guide ye--for 'tis God that leads ye, Jackie!"

At the cabin Dr. Gottlieb had tried to explain to me the great book he was writing, which was called "The Effect of the Insect Pollen-Gatherers on Flower Life."

But I would have none of it. I could not listen. I slipped out, knowing he could read it all night to the big arm chair I had sat in, and not know it was empty.

The drum was calling to me--I who had been for peace, for trees, for love, for poems, I knew I must now fight or my soul would die within me, die like a Chinese foot in its wooden shoe.

I saddled Satan and rode over to the Hermitage. Was it this horse, this brave-souled, unafraid brute that had sent the fighting spirit into me, since my first touch of him? For on him I felt that I could ride over a regiment. I walked alone in the moonlight over the grounds of the Hermitage.

How bulwarked, restful and yet martial-walled was the old brick mansion! And down the long avenues of cedars which ran from the gate to the home, I met the fighting ghosts of my ancestors.

Was it a dream or not? But what is the difference, since they are the same. What is the difference?

If a child comes into your home, smiling, from out the sunshine, is it any more your child than the one which enters from out the still, dead night, motherless and homeless, a fantastic waif, but your very own?

I had walked through the old-fashioned garden, rose bordered and lined with hollyhocks and rare old pinks that Aunt Rachel loved. And I had stood bareheaded before the tomb of the old warrior and his bride. I had gone across the meadow to the log cabin they had loved best of all....

Then, very plainly I saw the great fireplace light up with the blaze of hickory logs, and the shadows come and go across the smoked rafters above. And before that fire sat the slim, grim, sword-faced fighter and lover, with a child on one knee and a lamb on the other, even as old Parton had told it.