In the Valley Part 9

"Oh, I am reminded!"

It was Daisy who cried out, and with visible excitement. Then she clapped her hand to her mouth with a pretty gesture; then she said:

"Or no! I will not tell you yet. It is so famous a secret, it must come out little by little. Tell me, papa, did you know that this Mr. Cross up at the Hall--Lady Berenicia's husband--is a cousin to the old Major who brought me to you, out of the rout at Kouarie?"

"Is _that_ your secret, miss? I knew it hours ago."

"How wise! And perhaps you knew that the Major became a Colonel, and then a General, and died last winter, poor man."

"Alas, yes, poor Tony! I heard that too from his cousin. Heigh-ho! We all walk that way."

Daisy bent forward to kiss the old man. "Not you, for many a long year, papa. And now tell me, did not this Major--_my_ Major, though I do not remember him--take up a patent of land here, or hereabouts, through Sir William, while he was on this side of the water?"

"Why, we should be on his land now," said Mr. Stewart, reining up the horse.

We sat thus in the moonlight while he pointed out to us, as nearly as he knew them, the confines of the Cross patent. To the left of us, over a tract covered thick with low, gnarled undergrowth, the estate stretched beyond the brow of the hill, distant a mile or more. On our right, masked by a dense tangle of fir-boughs, lay a ravine, also a part of the property. We could hear, as we pa.s.sed there, the gurgle of the water running at the gulf's bottom, on its way to the great leap over the rock wall, farther down, of which I have already written.

"Yes, this was what Tony Cross took up. I doubt he ever saw it. Why do you ask, girl?"

"_Now_ for my secret," said Daisy. "The Major's elder son, Digby, inherits the English house and lands. The other son, Philip--the boy you fought with, Douw--is given this American land, and money to clear and settle it.

He sailed with the others--he is in New York--he is coming here to live!"

"We'll make him welcome," cried Mr. Stewart, heartily.

"I hope his temper is bettered since last he was here," was the civillest comment I could screw my tongue to.

Clouds dimmed the radiance of the moon, threatening darkness, and we quickened our pace. There was no further talk on the homeward ride.

Chapter XI.

As I Make My Adieux Mr. Philip Comes In.

When the eventful day of departure came, what with the last packing, the searches to see that nothing should be forgotten, the awkwardness and slowness of hands unnerved by the excitement of a great occasion, it was high noon before I was ready to start. I stood idly in the hall, while my aunt put final touches to my traps, my mind swinging like a pendulum between fear that Mr. Cross, whom I was to join at Caughnawaga, would be vexed at my delay, and genuine pain at leaving my dear home and its inmates, now that the hour had arrived.

I had made my farewells over at my mother's house the previous day, dutifully kissing her and all the sisters who happened to be at home, but without much emotion on either side. Blood is thicker than water, the adage runs. Perhaps that is why it flowed so calmly in all our Dutch veins while we said good-by. But here in my adopted home--my true home--my heart quivered and sank at thought of departure.

"I could not have chosen a better or safer man for you to travel with than Jonathan Cross," Mr. Stewart was saying to me. "He does not look on all things as I do, perhaps, for our breeding was as different as the desk is different from the drum. But he is honest and courteous, well informed after his way, and as like what you will be later on as two peas in a pod.

You were born for a trader, a merchant, a man of affairs; and you will be at a good school with him."

He went on in his grave, affectionate manner, telling me in a hundred indirect ways that I belonged to the useful rather than to the ornamental order of mankind, with never a thought in his good heart of wounding my feelings, or of letting me know that in his inmost soul he would have preferred me to be a soldier or an idler with race-horses and a velvet coat. Nor did he wound me, for I had too great a love for him, and yet felt too thorough a knowledge of myself to allow the two to clash. I listened silently, with tears almost ready at my eyes, but with thoughts vagrantly straying from his words to the garden outside.

Tulp was to go with me, and his parents and kin were filling the air with advice and lamentations in about equal measure, and all in the major key.

Their shouts and wailing--they could not have made more ado if he had just been sold to Jamaica--came through the open door. It was not of this din I thought, though, nor of the cart which the negroes, while they wept, were piling high with my goods, and which I could see in the highway beyond.

I was thinking of Daisy, my sweet sister, who had gone into the garden to gather a nosegay for me.

Through the door I could see her among the bushes, her lithe form bending in the quest of blossoms. Were it midsummer, I thought, and the garden filled with the whole season's wealth of flowers, it could hold nothing more beautiful than she. Perhaps there was some shadow of my moody fit, the evening after the dinner at the Hall, remaining to sadden my thoughts of parting from her. I cannot tell. I only know that they were indeed sad thoughts. I caught myself wondering if she would miss me much--this dear girl who had known no life in which I had not had daily share. Yes, the tears _were_ coming, I felt. I wrung my good old patron's hand, and turned my head away.

There came a clattering of hoofs on the road and the sound of male voices.

Tulp ran in agape with the tidings that Sir John and a strange gentleman had ridden up, and desired to see Mr. Stewart. We at once walked out to the garden, a little relieved perhaps by the interruption.

Both visitors had had time to alight and leave their horses outside the wall. The younger Johnson stood in the centre path of the garden, presenting his companion to Daisy, who, surprised at her task, and with her back to us, was courtesying. Even to the nape of her neck she was blus.h.i.+ng.

There was enough for her to blush at. The stranger was bowing very low, putting one hand up to his breast. With the other he had taken her fingers and raised them formally to his lips. This was not a custom in our parts.

Sir William did it now and then on state occasions, but young men, particularly strangers, did not.

As we advanced, this gallant morning-caller drew himself up and turned toward us. You may be sure I looked him over attentively.

I have seen few handsomer young men. In a way, so far as light hair, blue eyes, ruddy and regular face went, he was not unlike Sir John. But he was much taller, and his neck and shoulders were squared proudly--a trick Johnson never learned. The fine effect of his figure was enhanced by a fawn-colored top-coat, with a graceful little cape falling over the shoulders. His clothes beneath, from the garnet coat with mother-of-pearl b.u.t.tons down to his s.h.i.+ning Hessians, all fitted him as if he had been run into them as into a mould. He held his hat, a glossy sugar-loaf beaver, in one hand, along with whip and gloves. The other hand, white and shapely in its ruffles, he stretched out now toward Mr. Stewart with a free, pleasant gesture.

"With my father's oldest friend," he said, "I must not wait for ceremony.

I am Philip Cross, from England, and I hope you will be my friend, sir, now that my father is gone."

That this speech found instant favor need not be doubted. Mr. Stewart shook him again and again by the hand, and warmly bade him welcome to the Valley and the Cedars a dozen times in as many breaths. Young Cross managed to explain between these cordial e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, that he had journeyed up from New York with the youthful Stephen Watts--to whose sister Sir John was already betrothed; that they had reached Guy Park the previous evening; that Watts was too wearied this morning to think of stirring out, but that hardly illness itself could have prevented him, Cross, from promptly paying his respects to his father's ancient comrade.

The young man spoke easily and fluently, looking Mr. Stewart frankly in the eye, with smiling sincerity in glance and tone. He went on:

"How changed everything is roundabout!--all save you, who look scarcely older or less strong. When I was here as a boy it was winter, cold and bleak. There was a stockade surrounded by wilderness then, I remember, and a log-house hardly bigger than the fireplace inside it. Where we stand now the ground was covered with brush and chips, half hidden by snow.

Now--_presto!_ there is a mansion in the midst of fields, and a garden neatly made, and"--turning with a bow to Daisy--"a fair mistress for them all, who would adorn any palace or park in Europe, and whom I remember as a frightened little baby, with stockings either one of which would have held her entire."

"I saw the cart laden outside," put in Sir John, "and fancied perhaps we should miss you."

"Why, no," said Mr. Stewart; "I had forgotten for the moment that this was a house of mourning. Douw is starting to the Lake country this very day.

Mr. Cross, you must remember my boy, my Douw?"

The young Englishman turned toward me, as I was indicated by Mr. Stewart's gesture. He looked me over briefly, with a half-smile about his eyes, nodded to me, and said:

"You were the Dutch boy with the ap.r.o.n, weren't you?"

I a.s.sented by a sign of the head, as slight as I could politely make it.

"Oh, yes, I recall you quite distinctly. I used to make my brother Digby laugh by telling about your ap.r.o.ns. He made quite a good picture of you in one of them, drawn from my descriptions. We had a fort of snow, too, did we not? and I beat you, or you me, I forget which. I got snow down the back of my neck, I know, and s.h.i.+vered all the way to the fort."

He turned lightly at this to Mr. Stewart, and began conversation again. I went over to where Daisy stood, by the edge of the flower-bed.

"I must go now, dear sister," I said. The words were choking me.

We walked slowly to the house, she and I. When I had said good-by to my aunt, and gathered together my hat, coats, and the like, I stood speechless, looking at Daisy. The moment was here, and I had no word for it which did not seem a mockery.

She raised herself on tiptoe to be kissed. "Good-by, big brother," she said, softly. "Come back to us well and strong, and altogether homesick, won't you? It will not be like home, without you, to either of us."

And so the farewells were all made, and I stood in the road prepared to mount. Tulp was already on the cart, along with another negro who was to bring back my horse and the vehicle after we had embarked in the boats.

There was nothing more to say--time pressed--yet I lingered dumb and irresolute. At the moment I seemed to be exchanging everything for nothing--committing domestic suicide. I looked at them both, the girl and the old man, with the gloomy thought that I might never lay eyes on them again. I dare say I wore my grief upon my face, for Mr. Stewart tried cheerily to hearten me with, "Courage, lad! We shall all be waiting for you, rejoiced to welcome you back safe and sound."