Madelon Part 20

"On one condition," said Lot Gordon.

"What?"

"That you marry me."

Madelon gasped. "You?"

Lot laughed faintly, stretching his ghastly mouth. "You think it is an offer of wedlock from a churchyard knight," he said.

"What are you talking about, Lot Gordon?"

"Marry me!"

"Marry you? I am going to prison to-day for stabbing you. If you die, I die for your murder. Marriage between us? You are mad, Lot Gordon."

Lot Gordon opened his mouth to speak, but he coughed instead. He half raised himself feebly, and his cough shook the bed. Madelon waited until he lay back, gasping.

"You are mad to talk so," she said again, but her voice was softer.

"No madder--than--my ancestors made me," Lot stammered, feebly. Great drops of sweat stood on his forehead.

Madelon stood looking at him. He lay still, breathing hard, for a little; then he spoke again. "Say you will marry me, and I will clear him," he said, "or else--strike as you will. But all will believe that Burr struck the first blow and you the second for love of him, and though he be not hung, the mark of the noose will be round his neck in folks' fancies so long as he draws the breath of life."

"I will marry you," said Madelon.

"Don't cheat yourself," Lot went on, in his disjointed sentences, broken with the rise of the cough in his throat. "This wound may not be--mortal--after all, and a man lives--long, sometimes, when he's sore put to it for breath. The spark of life dies hard, and you may fan it into a blaze again. All the doctor's nostrums may not stir my poor dying flesh--but give the spirit--what it craves--and 'tis sometimes--strong enough--to gallop the flesh where it will. Lord, I've seen a tree blossom in the fall, when 'twas warm enough. It may be a long life we'll--live together, Madelon. Don't--cheat--yourself into--thinking you'll be my widow, instead of--my wife. My wife you may be, and--the mother of my children."

Madelon moved towards him with a curious, pus.h.i.+ng motion, as if she thrust out of her way her own will. She bent over him her white face, holding her body aloof. "I will marry you, come what will. Now, set him free."

Great tears stood in Lot's eyes. "Oh," he whispered, "you think only of him. I love you better than he does, Madelon."

"Set him free," said she, in a hard voice.

Lot heaved a great sigh, and rolled his eyes feebly about towards the door.

"Find--Margaret Bean," he began; and with that Margaret Bean, who had kept the door ajar, slid out softly, "and tell her--to send her husband to--Parson Fair, and--Jonas Hapgood, and she--must go the other way for--the doctor. Tell them to come at once."

With that Lot fell to coughing again, but Madelon went out quickly, and found Margaret Bean in the kitchen mixing gruel.

"Mr. Gordon wishes your husband to go at once for Parson Fair and Jonas Hapgood, and you for the doctor," said she.

"Is he took worse?" asked Margaret Bean, innocently, with a quick sniff of apprehension.

"No, he is no worse, but he wishes to see them. He said to go at once."

Margaret Bean cast an injured eye at the window, all blurred with the clinging shreds of the storm. "I don't see how I can get out in this awful storm nohow," she said. "I've got rheumatism now. Why can't _he_ go to see 'em all, I'd like to know?"

"The doctor lives a quarter of a mile the other way. It will save time."

Margaret Bean looked at the gruel. "I've got to make this gruel for him."

"I will make it. Get your shawl, quick."

"It ain't b'iled."

"I tell you I will make it."

"Why can't _he_ go to both places?"

"I will go myself!" Madelon cried, suddenly. She had been bewildered, or that would have occurred to her before. She had never been one to send where she could go, but for the time Lot Gordon's will had overcome hers. "Tell your husband to go to the parson's and the sheriff's, quick, and I will go for the doctor," said she, and was flas.h.i.+ng out of the yard in her red cloak before Margaret Bean had time to turn herself about from the prospect of her own going. Then she ordered her husband imperiously into his boots and great-coat and tippet, and sent him forth.

She finished the gruel, and took it in to the sick man, and fed him with hard thrusts of the spoon. Lot looked about feebly for Madelon, and Margaret Bean replied to the look, in her husky voice, "She's gone, instead of me. I've got rheumatism too bad to venture out in such a storm and get my petticoats bedraggled." She spoke with a little whine of defiant crying, but Lot took no notice. He was exhausted. After he had eaten the gruel, he pointed to the chimney-cupboard.

"What is it ye want?" said she.

Lot pointed.

"How do I know what ye want when ye jest p'int like that?"

But there came then a look into Lot Gordon's eyes as expressive as a word, and Margaret Bean crossed over to the chimney-cupboard, and got out the brandy-flask and a wine-gla.s.s and some loaf-sugar. She mixed a little dose of the brandy and sugar, and would have fed it to the sick man as she had the gruel, but he motioned her aside, raised himself with an effort, and drank it down eagerly. Then he lay still, and soon a faint flush came into his face. Margaret Bean went back into the kitchen and mixed some bread, with her eye upon the window.

Presently there was a wild gallop and great clash of bells past the window, and a shout at the door. Margaret Bean put on her little blue shawl and opened it when the shout had been twice repeated. Old David Hautville sat there in his sleigh, keeping a tight rein on his tugging roan. "My daughter here?" he shouted. "Whoa, there!"

"There's sick folks here," said Margaret Bean, s.h.i.+vering in the doorway. "You hadn't ought to holler so." Her tearful eyes were more frankly hostile than usual. She had always looked down from her own slight eminence of life upon these Hautvilles, and now was full of scorn that her master was to marry one of them.

"I want to know if my daughter is here," said David Hautville, and he did not lower his voice. It sounded like a hoa.r.s.e bellow of wrath, coming out of the white whirl of snow. His fur coat was all crusted with snow, his great mustache heavy with it; the roan plunged in a rising cloud of it.

"No, she ain't here," replied Margaret Bean, and her weak voice seemed by its very ant.i.thesis to express the utmost scorn and disgust at the brutality of the other.

"Has she been here?"

"Yes, she's been here." Margaret made as though to shut the door, but David Hautville stopped her.

"Did she start for home?"

"You'd better ask somebody that knows more about it."

"Where did she go?"

"You'd better ask somebody that knows about it!" repeated Margaret Bean, in her malicious meekness. Then she shut the door.

David Hautville, with a great "whoa!" leaped out of the sleigh. He led up the roan with a fierce pull to the fence, and tied her there.

Then he strode into the house, and through the entry to Lot's room, with no ceremony.

"Where is my daughter?" he demanded, standing at Lot's bedside in his great fur coat, all bristling with points of snow.

"She'll be back presently," answered Lot. His voice was a little stronger; there were two red spots on his cheeks.

"Where's she gone?"