Round Anvil Rock A Romance

XVIII

THE GEN­TLEST ARE THE BRAVEST

The boy stood star­ing af­ter him in dazed alarm. He could not com­pre­hend the cause of his friend's sud­den ag­ita­tion and abrupt de­par­ture, but they filled him with vague, help­less ter­ror. He did not know what to do till he sud­den­ly felt the ur­gen­cy of the mes­sage to Ruth, and the thought of her made him turn and start run­ning back to Cedar House.

As he went, he in­stinc­tive­ly tried to calm him­self; he was fast learn­ing to hide the emo­tion which was al­ways shak­ing him. On reach­ing the door he paused for a mo­ment, and strove hard to con­trol his pant­ing breath. He al­most hoped that this might prove to be mere­ly one of the fan­cies which were con­stant­ly sway­ing him. And then there was an in­stinc­tive feel­ing that it would be best not to tell any one ex­cept Ruth what had oc­curred. The mean­ing of the mes­sage to her was not yet clear to him, but he nev­er­the­less felt it to be some­thing which she might not wish oth­ers to hear. He did not re­mem­ber that the mes­sage was not to be giv­en her un­less Paul failed to come back. There had not been time for Paul to im­press this up­on him, and it was nat­ural enough that the boy, star­tled and fright­ened, should not have not­ed all that was said.

His one aim now was to get a word alone with Ruth, and hasti­ly look­ing round the room, he saw her sit­ting near the hearth. But there was no chance to ap­proach her, or to speak with­out be­ing over­heard by the whole fam­ily. Ev­ery mem­ber of the house­hold was present, it be­ing the evening hour when all house­holds come clos­est to­geth­er around the fire­side. The sup­per-​ta­ble was laid, and a ser­vant moved about light­ing the lamps and can­dles. William Press­ley was sit­ting near Ruth, but it was she who had last tak­en a seat and he was silent, save as some timid ad­vance from her com­pelled him to make a cold­ly civ­il re­ply. His re­sent­ment was as im­pla­ca­ble as ev­er; the wound to his self-​love had on­ly grown deep­er with nurs­ing, as it al­ways does with a na­ture like his. The break­ing of the en­gage­ment was with him, now, mere­ly a ques­tion of time­li­ness, of dis­cre­tion and ex­pe­di­en­cy. In these mat­ters he was not con­sid­er­ing Ruth's feel­ings as she was con­sid­er­ing his, de­spite her own most ea­ger wish to be free. He was think­ing first of the light in which he, him­self, would be placed. Af­ter this he was con­sid­er­ing Philip Al­ston's view of his con­duct. Know­ing that he wished the mar­riage to take place, William Press­ley felt rea­son­ably sure that Philip Al­ston would be dis­pleased at any breach, and that he would make his dis­plea­sure felt, should the first move­ment to­ward the break­ing of the en­gage­ment come from him­self. The dis­plea­sure of Philip Al­ston was not a thing to be light­ly in­curred at any time. No one knew this bet­ter than William Press­ley, and he saw it to be par­tic­ular­ly un­de­sir­able to dis­please him and pos­si­bly in­cur his en­mi­ty, just at the mo­ment when his good-​will might be use­ful in the mat­ter of the ap­point­ment. William Press­ley did not be­lieve Philip Al­ston's in­flu­ence to be at all es­sen­tial--mer­it was in his opin­ion the on­ly es­sen­tial. Still it seemed best, un­der the cir­cum­stances, to let the en­gage­ment stand till a time more aus­pi­cious for break­ing it. And then his sore self-​love found some balm in the girl's self-​re­proach, which he saw plain­ly enough, with­out un­der­stand­ing it in the least. It was like him to con­sid­er the ef­fect which the break­ing of the en­gage­ment might have on his po­lit­ical prospects, and to post­pone it on the bare chance of its af­fect­ing them ad­verse­ly. But it was still more like him mere­ly to post­pone it with an im­mov­able de­ter­mi­na­tion in his mind, ut­ter­ly un­af­fect­ed by all the girl's win­ning gen­tle­ness and open re­gret. And it was most of all like him nev­er for an in­stant to al­low any thought of Philip Al­ston's for­tune to make him wa­ver. All the gold in the world could have done noth­ing to make William Press­ley for­get, or for­give, the wound which his self-​love had re­ceived.

She con­tin­ued for a while in her shy, gen­tle ef­forts to win him back to some­thing like the old friend­li­ness, which had ex­ist­ed be­tween them be­fore they had be­come en­gaged to be mar­ried. It was this which she longed to have re­stored, with her crav­ing for af­fec­tion and her dread of hard feel­ing. But de­spair­ing at last, she arose with a sigh and went to the hearth, and be­gan talk­ing to the two old ladies, who left off quar­relling when she came, as they near­ly al­ways did. From the hearth she turned to the sup­per-​ta­ble, to give it the del­icate fin­ish­ing touch­es, and then there was a gen­er­al move­ment as the fam­ily set­tled in­to their places.

It seemed to David that the meal would nev­er end, that he should nev­er be able to tell Ruth. As he sat look­ing down at his un­tast­ed food, and had time to think, he came grad­ual­ly to un­der­stand some­thing of the mean­ing of the young doc­tor's sud­den ag­ita­tion, his solemn mes­sage, and his hur­ried de­par­ture. The boy could not keep his dis­tress out of his face, and Ruth saw it in her first glance at him across the ta­ble. In the shad­ows of the room she had not seen him dis­tinct­ly un­til now, and the sight of his trou­ble touched her as it nev­er failed to do even when she be­lieved it to be imag­inary. As soon as pos­si­ble she left the ta­ble and went to the door, glanc­ing at him over her shoul­der. He fol­lowed in­stant­ly and, pass­ing her swift­ly as she stood in the door­way, he beck­oned her to come out­side.

“What is it?” she asked, run­ning to him.

She grasped his arm and turned white and be­gan to trem­ble, not know­ing what she feared. There was some­thing in his look, and some­thing in her own heart, which told her that this was no boy­ish whim or fan­cy, such as she was of­ten called to com­fort and be­guile for him. She could not see his face dis­tinct­ly enough to gath­er any­thing from look­ing at him; they were stand­ing be­yond the broad band of light stream­ing from the open door. But there was no need for sight; he poured out the sto­ry al­most in a breath, end­ing with Paul's mes­sage to her. And she un­der­stood more than he had said, far more than he could ev­er say or un­der­stand, be­fore the words had fair­ly left his lips. The div­ina­tion of a wom­an's love--that mar­vel­lous white light--flashed the whole truth, and she ut­tered a smoth­ered cry as she saw it. So cry­ing out, she shrank away from him, and threw off his hand and struck at him fierce­ly, like some soft lit­tle wild thing sud­den­ly hurt.

“How could you? Why did you tell him?” she cried. “I hate you. I'll hate you for this as long as I live. You have sent him to his death--you med­dler, you sim­ple­ton! And you don't even know what you have done. You have sent him to his death, I tell you! Yes, that's what you have done, and I will nev­er for­give you while I breathe. He has gone to warn the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al, and he will be killed, too. You heard what un­cle said about the dan­ger. What are the rob­bers or the coun­try to me--be­side him? What do I care about what hap­pens to the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al? I wouldn't care if ev­ery oth­er man in the world was ly­ing dead, this minute, if I could know that he was safe. Oh! Oh! And you knew that he and the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al were friends. You knew he would go to help him. And yet you told him--and he is gone--”

She broke in­to a help­less pas­sion of weep­ing so piti­ful that the boy could do noth­ing but go to her and take her in his arms. She did not re­sist; her anger was in­stant­ly melt­ed in grief. Her arms went round his neck, and she sob­bing­ly im­plored his par­don.

“For­give me--for­give me. I didn't know--I don't know what I am say­ing. Oh! my heart is break­ing, David! Help me--help me to think! We must do some­thing--we mustn't stand here cry­ing like this. Think! Think! Help me to think what we can do.”

She pushed him away and stood press­ing her trem­bling hands hard against her tem­ples, try­ing des­per­ate­ly to clear her thoughts. The thought of call­ing on any one in the house did not cross her mind. There was noth­ing to ex­pect from the judge; he had fall­en asleep in his chair at the ta­ble. William Press­ley would not be­lieve there was any dan­ger. He nev­er be­lieved in any trou­ble or ag­ita­tion. It would on­ly an­noy him. In­deed, she scarce­ly thought of him at all. She caught the boy's arm wild­ly, with her tears sud­den­ly dried.

“Why don't you say some­thing--do some­thing!” she cried bit­ter­ly, “You are no bet­ter than, a girl your­self.”

She turned to­ward the house and ran a few steps on­ly to come fly­ing back.

“I have thought of some­thing--you must go af­ter him! That's what you must do! He may be wound­ed. He may need you to help him. Sure­ly you could fight if you tried. I could, my­self! And you will try, dear, I know you will, for my sake. Come! Run! Run! Let's go to the sta­ble and get the pony. He goes fast.”

Her pas­sion­ate ex­cite­ment swept them along, and she and the boy were now run­ning to­ward the sta­ble, hand in hand, hard­ly know­ing what they did. Her head was bare, her white dress and her del­icate slip­pers were very thin, and the chill of the au­tum­nal night was al­ready com­ing on. But she thought of none of these things, felt none of them, and did not stop at the door of the sta­ble, al­though she had nev­er en­tered it be­fore, and it was now very dark with­in. But there was noth­ing for her to fear, she knew all about the hors­es, as ev­ery girl of the coun­try did, since rid­ing was a part of the life of the wilder­ness. Keep­ing close to David's side, she fol­lowed him to the pony's stall, and when she heard him take down the sad­dle and bri­dle that hung over­head, her hands ea­ger­ly went out in the dark­ness to help him buck­le the girth.

“There! You will ride as fast as you can--I know you will. And you will help him fight. Make haste. Why didn't we think to get your ri­fle? Oh, why! You are very slow. There! Isn't it ready?”

But as the boy start­ed to lead the pony from the sta­ble, a sud­den thought flashed through her mind, and she act­ed up­on it as quick­ly as she grasped it.

“Let me have the pony,” she gasped. “You can get one of the oth­er hors­es for your­self. Make haste! I must have the pony be­cause he is all ready. Hur­ry! Hur­ry! I have just thought--un­cle Philip will help us. He can do any­thing. He will do any­thing in the world for me if I can on­ly reach him. He is near­ly al­ways com­ing to Cedar House about this time. I am go­ing to meet him. Ev­ery­thing will be safe and right if I can find him and tell him. Help me up to the sad­dle, quick! quick!”

They were now out of the sta­ble and could see each oth­er dim­ly. He ex­claimed in af­fright, grasp­ing her skirt and hold­ing her back when she at­tempt­ed to mount.

“It's my sad­dle, too, you couldn't ride that!” he cried.

“What dif­fer­ence does the sad­dle make? I have rid­den it many a time--and many a time with­out any. If you will not--”

She caught the pom­mel, and he, see­ing how ut­ter­ly use­less it was to con­tend fur­ther, now held out his hand and she set her foot in his palm. With a leap and a swift, lithe turn of one knee un­der the oth­er she was seat­ed in his sad­dle as eas­ily and firm­ly as if it had been her own, and grasped the reins.

“Fol­low as quick­ly as you can,” she called back over her shoul­der. “I am go­ing to meet un­cle Philip in the buf­fa­lo path be­yond Anvil Rock.”

And then the pony sprang away and was run­ning in­to the falling night.