The Eye of Dread Part 35

"Have you look, how I use but the one crutch, 'Arry King? Soon will I again walk on my foot, very well. I have so many times to thank you.

Now of mamma we must speak. She thinks only, every day, every hour, of my father. If we shall speak the truth to her--I do not know. What she will do--we cannot tell. No. And it is well to keep her heart from too much sorrow. For Sir Kildene, he must not be afflicted by us--my mamma and I. We have take from him his house, and he is banish--all for us, to make pleasant, and what we can do is little, so little--and if my mamma sit always silent when we should be gay to each other and make happy the days, is not good, and all his peace will be gone. Now talk to me a little of your thoughts, 'Arry King."

"My thoughts must be like yours, Amalia, if I would have them wise.

It's best to leave her as undisturbed as possible until spring. The months will go by rapidly. He will not be troubled. Then we can take her to some place, where I will see to it that you are cared for--"

The horse suddenly stopped and settled back on his haunches and lifted his head, looking wildly about. Harry sprang to the bridle, but he did not try to get away, and only stood quivering and breathing loudly as if in the direst fear, and leaned close to Harry for protection.

"What ails you? Good horse." Harry petted and coaxed, but he refused to move on, and showed every sign of frantic fear. "I can't think what possesses him. He's afraid, but of what?"

"There! There!" cried Amalia, pointing to the top of the trail at the cliff. "It's the beast. I have read of it--so terrible! Ah!"

"Surely. That's a mountain lion; Goldbug scented him before he rounded the cliff. They're cowards; never fear." He shouted and flung his arm in the air, but did not dare let the bridle rein go for fear the horse would bolt with her. For a moment the beast stood regarding them, then turned and trotted off in a leisurely fas.h.i.+on.

"'Arry, take my hand one minute. I am like the horse, afraid. If that animal had come when we were alone on the mountain in that night--it is my heart that will not stand still."

"Don't be afraid now. He's gone. He was hunting there where I was last night, and no doubt he smells the horses that came up the mountain early this morning. It is the snow that has driven him out of the canon to hunt for food." He let her cling to his hand and stood quietly, petting and soothing the horse.

"All night? 'Arry King, you were there all night? Why?" she s.h.i.+vered, and, bending down, looked steadily in his eyes.

"I had a fire. There was no danger. There is more danger for me in--"

he cut his words short. "Shall we go on now? Or would you rather turn back?"

She drew herself up and released his hand; still she trembled. "I will be brave like you are brave. If you so desire, we go on."

"You are really braver than I. Then we'll go a few steps farther." But the horse would not go on. He snorted and quivered and pulled back.

Harry looked up at Amalia. She sat calmly waiting, but was very pale.

Then he yielded to the horse, and, turning, led him back toward the cabin. She drew a long sigh of relief then, and glanced at him, and they both laughed.

"You see I am the coward, to only make believe I am not afraid. I am very afraid, and now more than always will I be afraid when that you go to hunt. 'Arry King, go no more alone." Her voice was low and pleading. "There is much to do. I will teach you to speak the French, like you have once said you wish to learn. Then is the book to write.

Is much to do that is very pleasant. But of those wild lions on the hills, they are not for a man to fight alone." He restrained the horse, and walked slowly at her side, his hand on the pommel of the saddle, but did not speak. "You promise not? All night you stay in the cold, where is danger, and how may I know you will not again do such a thing? All is beautiful here, and great happiness may be if--if that you do no tragedy." So sweetly did she plead he could no longer remain silent.

"There is only one happiness for me in life, Amalia, and that is forbidden me. I have expiation to make before I may ask happiness of heaven. You have been most patient with my silences--always--will you be patient still--and--understand?"

She drew in her breath sharply and turned her face away from him, and for a moment was silent; then she spoke. Her voice was very low, and very sweet. "What is right, that must be. Always."

Then they spoke again of Madam Manovska, and Amalia opened her heart to him as never before. It seemed as if she would turn his thoughts from whatever sorrow might be hanging over him, and impress him with the feeling that no matter what might be the cause of his reserve, or what wrong he might have done, her faith in him remained unshaken. It was a sweet return for his stammered confession.

CHAPTER XXIII

A DISCOURSE ON LYING

All day Larry Kildene slept, hardly waking long enough toward nightfall to drink his broth, but the next day he was refreshed and merry.

"Leave Madam Manovska alone," he admonished Harry. "Take Amalia off for another ride, and I'll go down to the cabin, and if there's a way to set her mind at rest about her husband, I'll find it. I'd not be willing to take an oath on what I may tell her, but it will be satisfying, never fear."

The ride was a short one, for the air was chill, and there were more signs of snow, but when they returned to the cabin, they found Larry seated by the fire, drinking a brew of Madam's tea and conversing with her joyously about his trip and what he had seen of the new railroad. It was curious how he had succeeded in bringing her to take an interest in things quite alien to her. The very atmosphere of the cabin seemed to be cleared by his presence, big, genial, and all-embracing. Certainly nothing of the recluse appeared in his demeanor. Only when they were alone in their own quarters did he show occasionally a longing for the old condition of unmolested tranquillity. To go to his dinner at a set hour, no matter how well prepared it might be, annoyed him.

"There's no reason in life why they should get a meal ready merely because a timepiece says twelve o'clock. Let them wait until a man's hungry," he would grumble. Then, arrived at the cabin, he would be all courtesy and geniality.

When Harry rallied him on his inconsistency, he gravely replied: "An Irish gentleman is an Irish gentleman the world over, no matter where you find him, in court, camp, or wilderness; it's all one to him. Why do you think I brought that mirror you shave by all the way up the mountain? Why, to have a body to look at now and again, and to blarney, just that I might not forget the trick. What was the good of that, do you ask? Look at yourself, man. You're a dour Scotchman, that's what you are, and you keep your humor done up in a wet blanket, and when it glints out of the corner of your eye a bit, you draw down the corners of your mouth to belie it. What's the good of that, now?

The world's a rough place to walk in for the most part, especially for women, and if a man carries a smile on his face and a bit of blarney on the tip of his tongue, he smooths the way for them. Now, there's Madam Manovska. What would you and Amalia have done to her? Driven her clean out of her head with your bungling. In a case like hers you must be very discreet, and lead her around, by the way she wants to go, to a place of safety."

Harry smiled. Since his avowal to Amalia of his determination to make expiation for the crime that clouded his life, he had grown more cheerful and less restrained in manner. He would accept the present happiness, and so far as he could without wrong to her, he would fill his hours with the joy of her companions.h.i.+p, and his love should dominate him, and his heart should revel in the thought of her, and her nearness to him; then when the spring should come and melt the snowy barriers between him and the world below, he would go down and make his expiation, drinking the bitter cup to the dregs.

This happy imprisonment on the mountain top with these two refined women and this kindly man with the friendly heart and splendid body and brain, he deemed worth a lifetime spent more sordidly. Here and now, he felt himself able to weigh true values, and learned that the usual ambitions of mortals--houses and gear and places of precedence--could become the end of existence only to those whose desires had become distorted by the world's estimates. Now he understood how a man might live for a woman's smile, or give his life for the touch of her hand, and how he might hunger for the pressing of children's lips to his own. The warm friends.h.i.+ps of life grew to their true proportions in the vast scheme of things, as he looked in the big man's eyes and answered his kindly banter.

"I see. It takes a genius to be a discreet and wise liar. Amalia's lacking there--for me, I might learn. Now pocket your blarney long enough to tell me why you called me a Scotchman."

"How would I know the difference between a broncho and a mule? By the earmarks, boy. I've lived in the world long enough to know men. If there be only a drop of Scotch blood in a man, he shows it. Like the mule he brays at the wrong time, or he settles back and stands when he should go forward. Oh, there's many a sign to enlighten the wise."

He rose and knocked the ashes from his pipe and thrust it in his pocket and began to look over his pack, which had not been opened. Two good-sized sacks hung on either side of the pack mule had held most of his purchases, all carefully tied in separate bundles. The good man had not been sparing of his gold. Since he had so long exiled himself, having no use for what he had acc.u.mulated, he had now reveled in spending.

"We're to live like lords and ladies, now, Harry. I've two silver plates, and they're for the ladies. For us, we'll eat off the tin as before. And silver mugs for their drink. See? I would have got them china but it's too likely to break. Now, here's a luxury I've brought, and it was heavy to carry, too. Here's twenty-four panes of gla.s.s. I carried them, twelve on each side of my horse, like that, slung so, see? That's two windows of two sash each, and six panes to a sash. Oh, they're small, but see what a luxury for the women to do their pretty work by. And there's work for you, to be making the sash. I've done my share of that sort of thing in building the cabin for you, and then--young man--I'll set you to digging out the gold. That's work that'll put the worth of your body to the test, and the day will come when you'll need it."

"I doubt my ever having much need of gold, but whatever you set me at I'll do to the best of my ability."

"You may have your doubts, but I have none. Men are like bees; they must ever be laying by something, even if they have no use for it." As Larry talked he continued to sort over his purchases, and Harry looked on, astounded at their variety and number.

While apparently oblivious of the younger man's interest, and absorbed in his occupation, whistling, and turning the bundles over in his hands as he tallied them off, he now and then shot a keen glance in his companion's face. He had noticed the change in Harry, and was alert to learn the cause. He found him more talkative, more eager and awake. He suspected Harry had pa.s.sed through some mental crisis, but of what nature he was at a loss to determine. Certainly it had made him a more agreeable companion than the gloom of his former manner.

"I'll dig for the gold, indeed I will, but I'd like to go on a hunt now and then. I'd like a shot at the beast we saw sniffing over the spot where I sat all night waiting for you to appear. It will no longer be safe for Amalia to wander about alone as she did before she hurt her ankle."

"The creature was after sheep. He'll find his prey growing scarcer now that the railroad is so near. In ten years or less these mountain sheep will be extinct. That's the result of civilization, my boy."

"I'd like to shoot this panther, though."

"We'll have to set a bait for him--and that means a deer or a sheep must go. We'll do it soon, too."

"You've reconciled Madam Manovska to your coming home without her husband! I didn't think it possible. Give me a lesson in diplomacy, will you?"

"Wait till I light my pipe. Now. First, you must know there are several kinds of lying, and you must learn which kinds are permissible--and otherwise." With his pipe between his teeth, Larry stood, a mock gravity about his mouth, and a humorous twinkle in his eyes, while he looked down on Harry, and told off the lies on his fingers.

"First, there's the fool's lie--you'll know it because there's no purpose in it, and there's the rogue's lie,--and as we're neither fools nor rogues we'll cla.s.s them both as--otherwise; then there's the lie of pride, and, as that goes along with the fool's lie, we'll throw it out with the--otherwise--and the coward's lie also goes with the otherwise." Larry shook his fingers as if he tossed the four lies off from their tips, and began again. "Now. Here's the friend's lie--a man risks his soul to save a friend--good--or to help him out of trouble--very well. And then there's the lover's lie, it's what a lad tells his sweetheart--that goes along with what she tells him--and comes by way of nature--"

"Or you might cla.s.s it along with your own blarney."

"Let be, lad. I'm teaching you the diplomacy, now. Then there's the lie of shame, and the lie of sorrow, wherein a man puts by, for his own loved one's sake, or his self-respect, what's better covered; that, too, comes by way of nature, even as a dog crawls away to die alone, and we'll accept it. Now comes the lie of the man who would tell a good tale for the amus.e.m.e.nt of his friends; very well, the nature of man loves it, so we'll count it in, and along with it comes a host of little lies like the sportsman's lie and the traveler's lie--they all help to make life merry, and the world can ill do without them. But now comes the lie of circ.u.mspection. You must learn to lie it without lying. See? It's the lie of wisdom, and it's a very subtle thing, and easily abused. If a man uses it for a selfish cause and merely to pervert the truth, it's a black lie, and one of the very worst. Or he may use it in a good cause, and it's fairly white. It must be used with discrimination. That's the lie I used for the poor Madam down there."

"But what did you say?"

"She says to me, 'And where is my 'usband?' I reply, 'Madam, your husband is in a very safe and secret place,'--and that is true enough--'where his enemies will never find him,'--and for all we know that is also true. 'But I cannot understand why he did not come to me.

That is not like my 'usband.' 'No, Madam, it is not. But man must do what he must, and the way was too long and arduous for his strength; he could not take the long, weary climb.' And no more could he, true enough. 'No, Madam, you cannot go to him, nor he come to you, for the danger of the way and the wild beasts that are abroad looking for food.' And what more true than that, for did not her daughter see one hunting for food?

"So she covers her face with her hand and rocks herself back and forth, and now, lad, here's where the blarney comes in. It's to tell her of the worth of her husband, and what a loss it would be to the world if he were to die on the trail, and what he would suffer if he thought she were unhappy, and then in the ardor of my speech comes the straight lie. I told her that he was writing the story of his life and that it was to be a great work which would bring about a tremendous revolution of justice and would bring confusion to his enemies, until at last she holds up her head proudly and speaks of his wonderful intellect and goodness. Then she says: 'He cannot come to me, very good. He is not strong enough--no. I go to him to-morrow.' Think of that, man! What I had to meet, and it was all to go over again. I would call it very circ.u.mspect lying and in a good cause, too, to comfort the poor soul. I told her of the snow, and how surely she would die by the way and make her husband very sad, he who was now happy in the writing of his book, and that to do so would break his heart and cause his own death,--while to wait until spring in peace would be wiser, because she might then descend the mountain in perfect safety. So now she sits sewing and making things no man understands the use of. She showed me the blouse she has made for you. Now, that is the best medicine for her sick brain. They're great women, these two. If we must have women about, we're in luck to have women of their quality."