The Light in the Clearing Part 48

"No ye ain't, nuther," he answered. "Leastways there ain't no reason why ye should be."

My horse, impatient as ever to find the end of the road, hurried me along and in a moment or two we were down under the pine grove that surrounded the house of old Squire Fullerton--a big, stone house with a graveled road around it. A great black dog came barking and growling at me from the front porch. I rode around the house and he followed. Beyond the windows I could see the gleam of candle-light and moving figures. A man came out of the back door as I neared it.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

"My name is Barton Baynes from St. Lawrence County. Kate Fullerton is my friend and I wish to see her."

"Come up to the steps, sor. Don't git off yer horse--'til I've chained the dog. Kate'll be out in a minute."

He chained the dog to the hitching post and as he did so a loud, long, wailing cry broke the silence of the house. It put me in mind of the complaint of the d.a.m.ned which I remembered hearing the minister describe years before at the little schoolhouse in Lickitysplit. How it harrowed me!

The man went into the house. Soon he came out of the door with a lighted candle in his hand, a woman following. How vividly I remember the little murmur of delight that came from her lips when he held the candle so that its light fell upon my face! I jumped off my horse and gave the reins to the man and put my arms around the poor woman, whom I loved for her sorrows and for my debt to her, and rained kisses upon her withered cheek. Oh G.o.d! what a moment it was for both of us!

The way she held me to her breast and patted my shoulder and said "my boy!"--in a low, faint, treble voice so like that of a child--it is one of the best memories that I take with me into the new life now so near, from which there is no returning.

"My boy!'" Did it mean that she had appointed me to be a kind of proxy for the one she had lost and that she had given to me the affection which G.o.d had stored in her heart for him? Of that, I know only what may be conveyed by strong but unspoken a.s.surance.

She led me into the house. She looked very neat now--in a black gown over which was a spotless white ap.r.o.n and collar of lace--and much more slender than when I had seen her last. She took me into a large room in the front of the house with a carpet and furniture, handsome once but now worn and decrepit. Old, time-stained engravings of scenes from the Bible, framed in wood, hung on the walls.

She gave me a chair by the candle-stand and sat near me and looked into my face with a smile of satisfaction. In a moment she pointed toward the west with that forefinger, which in my presence had cut down her enemy, and whispered the one word:

"News?"

I told all that I had heard from home and of my life in Cobleskill but observed, presently, a faraway look in her eyes and judged that she was not hearing me. Again she whispered:

"Sally?"

"She has been at school in Albany for a year," I said. "She is at home now and I am going to see her."

"You love Sally?" she whispered.

"Better than I love my life."

Again she whispered: "Get married!"

"We hope to in 1844. I have agreed to meet her by the big pine tree on the river bank at eleven o'clock the third of June, 1844. We are looking forward to that day."

A kind of shadow seemed to come out of her spirit and rest upon her face and for a moment she looked very solemn. I suppose that she divined the meaning of all that. She shook her head and whispered:

"Money thirst!"

A tall, slim woman entered the room then and said that supper was ready.

Kate rose with a smile and I followed her into the dining-room where two tables were spread. One had certain dishes on it and a white cover, frayed and worn. She led me to the other table which was neatly covered with snowy linen. The tall woman served a supper on deep, blue china, cooked as only they could cook in old New England. Meanwhile I could hear the voice of the aged squire--a weird, empty, inhuman voice it was, utterly cut off from his intelligence. It came out of the troubled depths of his misery.

So that house--the scene of his great sin which would presently lie down with him in the dust--was flooded, a hundred times a day, by the unhappy spirit of its master. In the dead of the night I heard its despair echoing through the silent chambers.

Kate said little as we ate, or as we sat together in the shabby, great room after supper, but she seemed to enjoy my talk and I went into the details of my personal history. How those years of suffering and silence had warped her soul and body in a way of speaking! They were a poor fit in any company now. Her tongue had lost its taste for speech I doubt not; her voice was gone, although I had heard a low plaintive murmur in the words "my boy."

The look of her face, even while I was speaking, indicated that her thoughts wandered restlessly, in the gloomy desert of her past. I thought of that gay bird--like youth of hers of which the old man with the scythe had told me and wondered. As I was thinking of this there came a cry from the aged squire so loud and doleful that it startled me and I turned and looked toward the open door.

Kate rose and came to my side and leaning toward my ear whispered:

"It is my father. He is always thinking of when I was a girl. He wants me."

She bade me good night and left the room. Doubtless it was the outraged, departed spirit of that golden time which was haunting the old squire. A Bible lay on the table near me and I sat reading it for an hour or so. A tall clock in a corner solemnly tolled the hour of nine. In came the tall woman and asked in the brogue of the Irish:

"Would ye like to go to bed?"

"Yes, I am tired."

She took a candle and led me up a broad oaken stairway and into a room of the most generous proportions. A big four-post bedstead, draped in white, stood against a wall. The bed, sheeted in old linen, had quilted covers. The room was noticeably clean; its furniture of old mahogany and its carpet comparatively unworn.

When I was undressed I dreaded to put out the candle. For the first time in years I had a kind of child-fear of the night. But I went to bed at last and slept rather fitfully, waking often when the cries of the old squire came flooding through the walls. How I longed for the light of morning! It came at last and I rose and dressed and seeing the hired man in the yard, went out-of-doors. He was a good-natured Irishman.

"I'm glad o' the sight o' ye this fine mornin'," said he. "It's a pleasure to see any one that has all their senses--sure it is."

I went with him to the stable yard where he did his milking and talked of his long service with the squire.

"We was glad when he wrote for Kate to come," he said. "But, sure, I don't think it's done him any good. He's gone wild since she got here.

He was always fond o' his family spite o' all they say. Did ye see the second table in the dinin'-room? Sure, that's stood there ever since his first wife et her last meal on it, just as it was then, sor--the same cloth, the same dishes, the same sugar in the bowl, the same pickles in the jar. He was like one o' them big rocks in the field there--ye couldn't move him when he put his foot down."

Kate met me at the door when I went back into the house and kissed my cheek and again I heard those half-spoken words, "My boy." I ate my breakfast with her and when I was about to get into my saddle at the door I gave her a hug and, as she tenderly patted my cheek, a smile lighted her countenance so that it seemed to s.h.i.+ne upon me. I have never forgotten its serenity and sweetness.

CHAPTER XVIII

I START IN A LONG WAY

I journeyed to Canton in the midst of the haying season. After the long stretches of forest road we hurried along between fragrant fields of drying hay. At each tavern we first entered the barroom where the landlord--always a well-dressed man of much dignity and filled with the news of the time, that being a part of his entertainment--received us with cheerful words. His housekeeper was there and a.s.signed our quarters for the night. Our evenings were spent playing cards or backgammon or listening to the chatter of our host by the fireside. At our last stop on the road I opened my trunk and put on my best suit of clothes.

We reached Canton at six o'clock in the evening of a beautiful summer day. I went at once to call upon the Dunkelbergs and learned from a man at work in the dooryard that they had gone away for the summer. How keen was my disappointment! I went to the tavern and got my supper and then over to Ashery Lane to see Michael Hacket and his family. I found the schoolmaster playing his violin.

"Now G.o.d be praised--here is Bart!" he exclaimed as he put down his instrument and took my hands in his. "I've heard, my boy, how bravely ye've weathered the capes an' I'm proud o' ye--that I am!"

I wondered what he meant for a second and then asked:

"How go these days with you?"

"Swift as the weaver's shuttle," he answered. "Sit you down, while I call the family. They're out in the kitchen putting the dishes away.

Many hands make light labor."

They came quickly and gathered about me--a noisy, happy group. The younger children kissed me and sat on my knees and gave me the small news of the neighborhood.

How good were the look of those friendly faces and the full-hearted pleasure of the whole family at my coming!

"What a joy for the spare room!" exclaimed the schoolmaster. "Sure I wouldn't wonder if the old bed was dancin' on its four legs this very minute."