Madelon Part 8

"Father, you will?"

"I'll fix it all right. Don't you worry."

"Father, you promise?"

"I'll do everything I can. Don't you worry, Madelon. You'd better go in and get supper now. I'll go along to the house with you and get the lantern. It's getting too dark to do the work here."

David drew his daughter along, out of the barn, across the snowy yard to the house, she pleading frantically all the way, he soothing her with his sudden wisdom of a.s.sent and evasion.

The hearth fire was blazing high when Madelon entered the kitchen.

The red glare of it was on her white face, upturned to her father's with one last pleading of despair. She clutched his arm and shook his great frame to and fro.

"Father, promise me you'll go over to New Salem to-night and tell them to set him free and take me instead! Father!"

"We'll see about it, Madelon," answered David Hautville. There was a tone in his voice which she had never heard before. It might have come unconsciously to himself from some memory, so old that it was itself forgotten, of his dead wife's voice over the child in her cradle. Some echo of it might have yet lingered in the old father's soul, through something finer than his instinct for sweet sounds from human throat and viol--through his ear for love.

"Get the supper now, and we'll see about it," said David Hautville.

He began fumbling with clumsy fingers, all unused to women's gear, at the string of this daughter's cloak; but she pulled herself away from him suddenly, and the old hard lines came into her face. "We'll say no more about it," said she. She lit a candle quickly at the hearth fire, and was out of the room to put away her cloak and hood. Her father lighted his lantern slowly and went back to the barn, plodding meditatively through the snowy track, with the melting mood still strong upon him. He was disposed to carry matters now with a high and tender hand with the girl to bring her to reason, and he brought all his crude diplomacy to bear upon the matter.

When he reached the barn his son Eugene stood in the doorway. He had just come from the woods, and the smell of wounded cedar-trees was strong about him. He stood leaning upon his axe as if it were a staff. "Who's been out with the mare?" he asked.

"Your sister."

"Where?"

"To New Salem."

"To see _him_?"

David nodded grimly. His lantern cast a pale circle of light on the snow about them.

"About--that?"

"To get him to own up she did it."

Eugene Hautville stared at his father, scowling his handsome dark brows. He was the most graceful mannered of all the Hautville sons, and by some accounted the best-looking.

"Is she crazy?" he said.

"No, she's a woman," returned his father, with a strange accent of contempt and toleration.

"Did the coward lay it to her when she gave him the chance?" demanded Eugene.

"No; she said he wouldn't, to s.h.i.+eld her."

Eugene moved his axe suddenly; the lantern-light struck it, and there was a bright flash of sharp steel in their eyes. "s.h.i.+eld her!" he cried out, with an oath. "I wish I could meet him in the path once.

I'd give him a taste before they put the rope 'round his neck, the lying murderer!"

David nodded his head in savage a.s.sent.

"What's going to be done with Madelon?" cried Eugene, fiercely.

"I've been thinking--" said his father, slowly.

"No sister of mine shall go about rolling herself in the dust at that fellow's feet if I can help it."

"I've been thinking--would you lock her in her chamber a spell?"

"Lock Madelon in her chamber! She'd get out or she'd beat her brains out against the wall."

"I don't know but she would," a.s.sented David, perplexedly. "You can't count on a woman when they rise up. She might go away a spell."

"Where?"

"We might send her somewhere."

Eugene laughed. The roan mare was pawing in her stall. Now and then she pounded the floor with a clattering thud like an iron flail.

"How far do you suppose that mare would go if you tried to send her anywhere?" he asked.

"Maybe Madelon wouldn't go."

"You'd have to halter the mare," said Eugene, "and drag her half the way and stand from under, or she'd trample you down the other."

Eugene, although his words were strong, spoke quite softly, lowering his sweet tenor. From where they stood they could see Madelon moving to and fro behind the kitchen windows preparing supper.

"I don't know what to do," said David, after a pause.

"Watch her," returned Eugene, quietly.

"Watch her?"

"Yes. I've been under cover days before now watching for a pretty white fox or a deer I wanted." Eugene laughed pleasantly.

"Will you?"

"I'll stay by the house to-morrow. She sha'n't go about accusing herself of murder to save the man that's jilted her if I can help it." As he spoke Eugene's handsome face darkened again vindictively.

He hated Burr Gordon for another reason of his own that n.o.body suspected.

Suddenly Abner Hautville came running into the yard. "Who is it there?" he called out. "Is that you, father? That you, Eugene?

h.e.l.lo!"

"h.e.l.lo!" Eugene called back. "What's the matter?"

Abner come panting alongside. He had run from the village, and, vigorous as he was, breath came hard in the thin air. It was a very cold night.

"Where have they gone?" he demanded.

"Who?"