CHAPTER II
THE COURT OF THE ORPHAN
An hour before dusk found the company that had dined in the valley makingtheir way up the dry bed of a stream, through a gorge which cleft a lineof precipitous hills. On either hand the bank rose steeply, giving nofooting for man or beast. The road was a difficult one; for here a tall,fern-crowned rock left but a narrow passage between itself and the shaggyhillside, and there smooth and slippery ledges, mounting one above theother, spanned the way. In places, too, the drought had left pools ofdark, still water, difficult to avoid, and not infrequently the entireparty must come to a halt while the axemen cleared from the path a fallenbirch or hemlock. Every man was afoot, none caring to risk a fall upon therocks or into the black, cold water of the pools. The hoofs of the horsesand the spurs of the men clanked against the stones; now and then one ofthe heavily laden packhorses stumbled and was sworn at, and once a warningrattle, issuing from a rank growth of fern on the hillside, caused amomentary commotion. There was no more laughter, or whistling, or callingfrom the van to the rear guard. The way was arduous, and every man mustwatch his footsteps; moreover, the last rays of the sun were gilding thehilltops above them, and the level that should form their camping-placemust be reached before the falling of the night.
The sunlight had all but faded from the heights, when one of the company,stumbling over a round and mossy rock, measured his length upon theground, amid his own oaths at his mishap, and the exclamations of the manimmediately in his rear, whose progress he had thus unceremoniouslyblocked. The horse of the fallen man, startled by the dragging at thereins, reared and plunged, and in a moment the entire column was indisorder. When the frightened animals were at last quieted, and the linere-formed, the Governor called out to know who it was that had fallen, andwhether any damage had been suffered.
"It was Mr. Haward, sir!" cried two or three; and presently the injuredgentleman himself, limping painfully, and with one side of his fine greencoat all stained by reason of contact with a bit of muddy ground, appearedbefore his Excellency.
"I have had a cursed mishap,--saving your presence, sir," he explained."The right ankle is, I fear, badly sprained. The pain, is exquisite, and Iknow not how I am to climb mountains."
The Governor uttered an exclamation of concern: "Unfortunate! Dr. Robinsonmust look to the hurt at once."
"Your Excellency forgets my dispute with Dr. Robinson as to the dose ofJesuit bark for my servant," said the sufferer blandly. "Were I _inextremis_ I should not apply to him for relief."
"I'll lay my life that you are not _in extremis_ now," retorted thedoctor. "If ever I saw a man with a sprained ankle keep his color somarvelously, or heard him speak in so composed a tone! The pain must be ofa very unusual degree indeed!"
"It is," answered Mr. Haward calmly. "I cannot possibly go on in thiscondition, your Excellency, nor can I dream of allowing my unluckyaccident to delay this worshipful company in their ascent of themountains. I will therefore take my servant and ride slowly back to thecabin which we left this afternoon. Doubtless the worthy pioneer will giveme shelter until my foot is healed, and I will rejoin your Excellency uponyour return through the valley."
As he spoke, for the greater ease of the injured member, he leaned againsta towering lock. He was a handsome youth, with a trick of keeping anunmoved countenance under even such a fire of laughter and exclamation asgreeted his announcement.
"And for this you would lose the passing of the Appalachian Mountains!"cried Spotswood. "Why, man! from those heights we may almost see LakeErie; may find out how near we are to the French, how easily the mountainsmay be traversed, what promise of success should his Majesty determine toplant settlements beyond them or to hold the mountain passes! There isservice to be done and honor to be gained, and you would lag behindbecause of a wrenched ankle! Zoons, sir! at Blenheim I charged a wholeregiment of Frenchmen, with a wound in my breast into which you might havethrust your hand!"
The younger man shrugged his shoulders. "Beggars may not be choosers," hesaid coolly. "The sunlight is fast fading, and if we would be out of thisgorge before nightfall we must make no further tarrying. I have yourExcellency's permission to depart?"
One of the gentlemen made a low-voiced but audible remark to his neighbor,and another hummed a line from a love song. The horses moved impatientlyamongst the loose stones, and the rangers began to mutter that nightwould be upon them before they reached a safer footing.
"Mr. Haward! Mr. Haward!" said the Governor sternly. "It is in my mindthat you meditate inflicting a greater harm than you have received. Let metell you, sir, if you think to so repay a simple-minded hospitality"--
Mr. Haward's eyes narrowed. "I own Colonel Spotswood for Governor ofVirginia," he said, speaking slowly, as was his wont when he was angry."His office does not, I think, extend farther than that. As for thesepleasant-minded gentlemen who are not protected by their rank I beg toinform them that in my fall my sword arm suffered no whit."
Turning, he beckoned to a negro who had worked his way from the servantsin the rear, along the line of rangers, to the outskirts of the group ofgentlemen gathered around the Governor and the injured man. "Juba," heordered, "draw your horse and mine to one side. Your Excellency, may Iagain remind you that it draws toward nightfall, and that this road willbe no pleasant one to travel in the dark?"
What he said was true; moreover, upon the setting out of the expedition ithad been laughingly agreed that any gentleman who might find his spiritsdashed by the dangers and difficulties of the way should be at liberty atany time to turn his back upon the mountains, and his face toward safetyand the settlements. The Governor frowned, bit his lips, but finally burstinto unwilling laughter.
"You are a very young gentleman, Mr. Marmaduke Haward!" he cried. "Wereyou a little younger, I know what ointment I should prescribe for yourhurt. Go your ways with your broken ankle; but if, when I come again tothe cabin in the valley, I find that your own injury has not contentedyou, look to it that I do not make you build a bridge across the bayitself! Gentlemen, Mr. Haward is bent upon intrusting his cure to otherand softer hands than Dr. Robinson's, and the expedition must go forwardwithout him. We sorrow to lose him from our number, but we know betterthan to reason with--ahem!--a twisted ankle. _En avant_, gentlemen! Mr.Haward, pray have a care of yourself. I would advise that the ankle bewell bandaged, and that you stir not from the chimney corner"--
"I thank your Excellency for your advice," said Mr. Haward imperturbably,"and will consider of taking it. I wish your Excellency and these merrygentlemen a most complete victory over the mountains, from which conquestI will no longer detain you."
He bowed as he spoke, and began to move, slowly and haltingly, across thewidth of the rocky way to where his negro stood with the two horses.
"Mr. Haward!" called the Governor.
The recreant turned his head. "Your Excellency?"
"It was the right foot, was it not?" queried his sometime leader. "Ah, Ithought so! Then it were best not to limp with the left."
Homeric laughter shook the air; but while Mr. Haward laughed not, neitherdid he frown or blush. "I will remember, sir," he said simply, and at oncebegan to limp with the proper foot. When he reached the bank he turned,and, standing with his arm around his horse's neck, watched the companywhich he had so summarily deserted, as it put itself into motion and wentslowly past him up its dusky road. The laughter and bantering farewellsmoved him not; he could at will draw a line around himself across whichfew things could step. Not far away the bed of the stream turned, and ahillside, dark with hemlock, closed the view. He watched the train passhim, reach this bend, and disappear. The axemen and the four Meherrins,the Governor and the gentlemen of the Horseshoe, the rangers, thenegroes,--all were gone at last. With that passing, and with the ceasingof the laughter and the trampling, came the twilight. A whippoorwill beganto call, and the wind sighed in the trees. Juba, the negro, moved closerto his master; then upon an impulse stooped, and lifting above his head agreat ro
ck, threw it with might into one of the shallow pools. Thecrashing sound broke the spell of the loneliness and quiet that had fallenupon the place. The white man drew his breath, shrugged his shoulders, andturned his horse's head down the way up which he had so lately come.
The cabin in the valley was not three miles away. Down this ravine to alevel place of pines, through the pines to a strip of sassafras and apoisoned field, past these into a dark, rich wood of mighty trees linkedtogether with the ripening grape, then three low hills, then the valleyand the cabin and a pair of starry eyes. It was full moon. Once out fromunder the stifling walls of the ravine, and the silver would tremblethrough the leaves, and show the path beneath. The trees, too, that theyhad blazed,--with white wood pointing to white wood, the backward wayshould be easy.
The earth, rising sheer in darkness on either hand, shut in the bed of thestream. In the warm, scented dusk the locusts shrilled in the trees, andfar up the gorge the whippoorwill called and called. The air was filledwith the gold of fireflies, a maze of spangles, now darkening, nowbrightening, restless and bewildering. The small, round pools caught thelight from the yet faintly colored sky, and gleamed among the rocks; astar shone out, and a hot wind, heavy with the smell of the forest, movedthe hemlock boughs and rustled in the laurels.
The white man and the negro, each leading his horse, picked their way withcaution among the pitfalls of the rocky and uneven road. With the passingof the Governor and his train a sudden cure had been wrought, for nowHaward's step was as firm and light as it had been before his fall. Thenegro looked at him once or twice with a puzzled face, but made no commentand received no enlightenment. Indeed, so difficult was their way thatthey were left but scant leisure for speech. Moment by moment the darknessdeepened, and once Haward's horse came to its knees, crashing down amongthe rocks and awakening every echo.
The way, if hard, was short. The hills fell farther apart, the banksbecame low and broad, and fair in front, between two slender pines, shoneout the great round moon. Leaving the bed of the stream, the two menentered a pine wood, dim and fragrant and easy to thread. The moon rosehigher, and the light fell in wide shafts between trees that stood wellapart, with no vines to grapple one to another or undergrowth to pressabout their knees.
There needed no watchfulness: the ground was smooth, the light was fair;no motion save the pale flicker of the fireflies, no sound save the sighof the night wind in the boughs that were so high overhead. Master andman, riding slowly and steadily onward through a wood that seemedinterminably the same, came at last to think of other things than the roadwhich they were traveling. Their hands lost grasp upon the reins, andtheir eyes, ceasing to glance now here, now there, gazed steadfastly downthe gray and dreamlike vista before them, and saw no longer hole andbranch, moonlight and the white scars that the axe had made for guidance.The vision of the slave was of supper at the quarters, of the scraping ofthe fiddle in the red firelight, of the dancing and the singing. The whiteman saw, at first, only a girl's face, shy and innocent,--the face of thewoodland maid who had fired his fancy, who was drawing him through thewilderness back to the cabin in the valley. But after a while, in the graystillness, he lost the face, and suddenly thought, instead, of the stonethat was to cover his father's grave. The ship that was to bring thegreat, dark, carven slab should be in by now; the day after his return toWilliamsburgh the stone must be put in place, covering in the green sodand that which lay below. _Here, lieth in the hope of a joyfulresurrection_--
His mind left the grave in the churchyard at Williamsburgh, and visitedthe great plantation of which he was now sole master. There was the house,foursquare, high-roofed, many-windowed, built of dark red brick thatglowed behind the veil of the walnuts and the oaks. There, too, were thequarters,--the home quarter, that at the creek, that on the ridge. Fiftywhite servants, three hundred slaves,--and he was the master. Thehoneysuckles in the garden that had been his father's pride, the shiningexpanse of the river, the ship--his ship, the Golden Rose--that was totake him home to England,--he forgot the night and the forest, and sawthese things quite plainly. Then he fell to thinking of London and thesweets that he meant to taste, the heady wine of youth and life that hemeant to drain to the lees. He was young; he could spare the years. Oneday he would come back to Virginia, to the dim old garden and quiet house.His factor would give account, and he would settle down in the red brickhouse, with the tobacco to the north and east, the corn to the west, andto the south the mighty river,--the river silvered by the moon, the riverthat lay just beyond him, gleaming through the trees--
Startled by the sudden tightening of the reins, or by the tearing of somefrightened thing through the canes that beset the low, miry bank, thehorse sprang aside; then stood trembling with pricked ears. The white manstared at the stream; turned in his saddle and stared at the tree trunks,the patches of moonlight, and the impenetrable shadow that closed eachvista. "The blazed trees!" he exclaimed at last. "How long since we sawone?"
The slave shook his head. "Juba forgot to look. He was away by a riverthat he knew."
"We have passed from out the pines," said Haward. "These are oaks. Butwhat is that water, and how far we are out of our reckoning the Lord onlyknows!"
As he spoke he pushed his horse through the tall reeds to the bank of thestream. Here in the open, away from the shadow of the trees, the full moonhad changed the night-time into a wonderful, silver day. Narrow above andbelows the stream widened before him into a fairy basin, rimmed withreeds, unruffled, crystal-clear, stiller than a dream. The trees that grewupon the farther side were faint gray clouds in the moonlight, and thegold of the fireflies was very pale. From over the water, out of the heartof the moonlit wood, came the song of a mockingbird, a tumultuous ecstasy,possessing the air and making elfin the night.
Haward backed his horse from the reeds to the oak beneath which waited thenegro. "'Tis plain that we have lost our way, Juba," he said, with alaugh. "If you were an Indian, we should turn and straightway retrace oursteps to the blazed trees. Being what you are, you are more valuable inthe tobacco fields than in the forest. Perhaps this is the stream whichflows by the cabin in the valley. We'll follow it down, and so arrive, atleast, at a conclusion."
They dismounted, and, leading their horses, followed the stream for somedistance, to arrive at the conclusion that it was not the one beside whichthey had dined that day. When they were certain of this, they turned andmade their way back to the line of reeds which they had broken to marktheir starting-point. By now the moon was high, and the mockingbird in thewood across the water was singing madly. Turning from the still, moonlitsheet, the silent reeds, the clear mimicker in the slumbrous wood, the twowayfarers plunged into the darkness beneath the spreading branches of theoak-trees. They could not have ridden far from the pines; in a very littlewhile they might reach and recognize the path which they should tread.
An hour later, the great trees, oak and chestnut, beech and poplar,suddenly gave way to saplings, many, close-set, and overrun withgrapevines. So dense was the growth, so unyielding the curtain of vines,that men and horses were brought to a halt as before a fortress wall.Again they turned, and, skirting that stubborn network, came upon a swamp,where leafless trees, white as leprosy, stood up like ghosts from thewater that gleamed between the lily-pads. Leaving the swamp they climbed ahill, and at the summit found only the moon and the stars and a longplateau of sighing grass. Behind them were the great mountains; beforethem, lesser heights, wooded hills, narrow valleys, each like its fellow,each indistinct and shadowy, with no sign of human tenant.
Haward gazed at the climbing moon and at the wide and universal dimness ofthe world beneath; then turned to the negro, and pointed to a few lowtrees growing at the eastern end of the plateau.
"Fasten the horses there, Juba," he said. "We will wait upon this hilltopuntil morning. When the light comes, we may be able to see the clearing orthe smoke from the cabin."
When the horses had been tethered, master and man lay down upon the grass.It was so s
till upon the hilltop, and the heavens pressed so closely, thatthe slave grew restless and strove to make talk. Failing in this, he beganto croon a savage, mournful air, and presently, forgetting himself, tosing outright.
"Be quiet!" ordered his master. "There may be Indians abroad."
The song came to an end as abruptly as it lad begun, and the singer,having nothing better to do, went fast asleep. His companion, morewakeful, lay with his hands behind his head and his eyes upon the splendorof the firmament. Lying so, he could not see the valleys nor the loomingmountains. There were only the dome of the sky, the grass, and himself.He stared at the moon, and made pictures of her shadowy places; then fellto thinking of the morrow, and of the possibility that after all he mightnever find again the cabin in the valley. While he laughed at thissupposition, yet he played with it. He was in a mood to think the loss ofthe trail of the expedition no great matter. The woods were full of game,the waters of fish; he and Juba had only to keep their faces to theeastward, and a fortnight at most would bring them to the settlements. Butthe valleys folded among the hills were many; what if the one he soughtshould still elude him? What if the cabin, the sugar-tree, the crystalstream, had sunk from sight, like the city in one of Monsieur Gralland'sfantastic tales? Perhaps they had done so,--the spot had all the air of abit of fairyland,--and the woodland maid was gone to walk with the elves.Well, perchance for her it would be better so. And yet it would bepleasant if she should climb the hillside now and sit beside him, with hershy dark eyes and floating hair. Her hair was long and fine, and the windwould lift it; her face was fair, and another than the wind should kissit. The night would not then be so slow in going.
He turned upon his side, and looked along the grassy summit to the woodsupon the opposite slope and to the distant mountains. Dull silver,immutable, perpetual, they reared themselves to meet the moonbeams.Between him and those stern and changeless fronts, pallid as with snows,stretched the gray woods. The moon shone very brightly, and there was nowind. So unearthly was the quiet of the night, so solemn the light, sohigh and still and calm the universe around him, that awe fell upon hissoul. It was well to lie upon the hilltop and guess at the riddle of theworld; now dimly to see the meaning, now to lose it quite, to wonder, tothink of death. The easy consciousness that for him death was scores ofyears away, that he should not meet the spectre until the wine was alldrunken, the garlands withered, and he, the guest, ready to depart, madethese speculations not at all unpleasing. He looked at his hand, blanchedby the moonlight, lying beside him upon the grass, and thought how like adead hand it seemed, and what if he could not move it, nor his body, norcould ever rise from the grass, but must lie there upon the lonely hilltopin the untrodden wilderness, until that which had ridden and hunted andpassed so buoyantly through life should become but a few dry bones, ahandful of dust. He was of his time, and its laxness of principle andconduct; if he held within himself the potential scholar, statesman, andphilosopher, there were also the skeptic, the egotist, and the libertine.He followed the fashion and disbelieved much, but he knew that if he diedto-night his soul would not stay with his body upon the hilltop. Hewondered, somewhat grimly, what it would do when so much that had clothedit round--pride of life, love of pleasure, desire, ambition--should beplucked away. Poor soul! Surely it would feel itself something shrunken,stripped of warmth, shiveringly bare to all the winds of heaven. Theradiance of the moon usurped the sky, but behind that veil of light theinvisible and multitudinous stars were shining. Beyond those stars wereother stars, beyond those yet others; on and on went the stars, wise mensaid. Beyond them all, what then? And where was the place of the soul?What would it do? What heaven or hell would it find or make for itself?Guesswork all!
The silver pomp of the night began to be oppressive to him. There wasbeauty, but it was a beauty cold and distant, infinitely withdrawn fromman and his concerns. Woods and mountains held aloof, communing with thestars. They were kindred and of one house; it was man who was alien, astranger and alone. The hilltop cared not that he lay thereon; the grasswould grow as greenly when he was in his grave; all his tragedies sincetime began he might reenact there below, and the mountains would not bendto look.
He flung his arm across his eyes to shut out the moonlight, and tried tosleep. Finding the attempt a vain one, and that the night pressed more andmore heavily upon him, he sat up with the intention of shaking the negroawake, and so providing himself with other company than his own thoughts.
His eyes had been upon the mountains, but now, with the sudden movement,he faced the eastern horizon and a long cleft between the hills. Far downthis opening something was on fire, burning fiercely and redly. Some onemust have put torch to the forest; and yet it did not burn as trees burn.It was like a bonfire ... it was a bonfire in a clearing! There were notwoods about it, but a field--and the glint of water--
The negro, awakened by foot and voice, sprang up, and stood bewilderedbeside his master. "It is the valley that we have been seeking, Juba,"said the latter, speaking rapidly and low. "That burning pile is thecabin, and 't is like that there are Indians between us and it! Leave thehorses; we shall go faster without them. Look to the priming of your gun,and make no noise. Now!"
Rapidly descending the hill, they threw themselves into the woods at itsbase. Here they could not see the fire, but now and then, as they ran,they caught the glow, far down the lines of trees. Though they wentswiftly they went warily as well, keeping an eye and ear open and musketsready. But there was no sound other than their own quick footfalls uponthe floor of rotting leaves, or the eager brushing of their bodies throughoccasional undergrowth; no sight but the serried trees and the checkeredlight and shade upon the ground.
They came to the shallow stream that flashed through the valley, andcrossing it found themselves on cleared ground, with only a long strip ofcorn between them and what had been a home for English folk. It was thatno longer: for lack of fuel the flames were dying down; there was only acharred and smoking pile, out of which leaped here and there a red tongue.
Haward had expected to hear a noise of savage triumph, and to see darkfigures moving about their handiwork. There was no noise, and themoonlight showed no living being. The night was changelessly still andbright; the tragedy had been played, and the mountains and the hills andthe running water had not looked.
It took but a few minutes to break through the rustling corn and reach thesmouldering logs. Once before them, there seemed naught to do but to standand stare at the ruin, until a tongue of flame caught upon a piece ofuncharred wood, and showed them the body of the pioneer lying at a littledistance from the stone that had formed his doorstep. At a sign fromHaward the negro went and turned it over, then, let it sink again into theseared grass. "Two arrows, Marse Duke," he said, coming back to theother's side. "An' they've taken his scalp."
Three times Haward made the round of the yet burning heap. Was it onlyruined and fallen walls, or was it a funeral pyre as well? To know, hemust wait for the day and until the fire had burned itself out. If theformer were the case, if the dead man alone kept the valley, then now,through the forest and the moonlight, captives were being haled to someIndian village, and to a fate more terrible than that of the man who laythere upon the grass with an arrow through his heart.
If the girl were still alive, yet was she dead to him. He was no Quixoteto tilt with windmills. Had a way to rescue her lain fair before him, hewould have risked his life without a thought. But the woods were deep andpathless, and only an Indian could find and keep a trail by night. Tochallenge the wilderness; to strike blindly at the forest, now here, nowthere; to dare all, and know that it was hopeless daring,--a madman mightdo this for love. But it was only Haward's fancy that had been touched,and if he lacked not courage, neither did he lack a certain cool goodsense which divided for him the possible from that which was impossible,and therefore not to be undertaken.
Turning from the ruin, he walked across the trampled sward to thesugar-tree in whose shade, in the golden afternoon, he had
sung to hiscompanions and to a simple girl. Idle and happy and far from harm had thevalley seemed.
"Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather."
Suddenly he found that he was trembling, and that a sensation of faintnessand of dull and sick revolt against all things under the stars was uponhim. Sitting down in the shadow of the tree, he rested his face in hishands and shut his eyes, preferring the darkness within to that outernight which hid not and cared not, which was so coldly at peace. He wasyoung, and though stories of such dismal things as that before him werepart of the stock in trade of every ancient, garrulous man or woman of hisacquaintance, they had been for him but tales; not horrible truths tostare him in the face. He had seen his father die; but he had died, in hisbed, and like one who went to sleep.
The negro had followed him, and now stood with his eyes upon the dyingflames, muttering to himself some heathenish charm. When it was ended, helooked about him uneasily for a time; then bent and plucked his master bythe sleeve. "We cyarn' do nothin' here, Marse Duke," he whispered. "An'the wolves may get the horses."
With a laugh and a groan, the young man rose to his feet. "That is true,Juba," he said. "It's all over here,--we were too late. And it's not apleasant place to lie awake in, waiting for the morning. We'll go back tothe hilltop."
Leaving the tree, they struck across the grass and entered the strip ofcorn. Something low and dark that had lain upon the ground started upbefore them, and ran down the narrow way between the stalks. Haward madeafter it and caught it.
"Child!" he cried. "Where are the others?"
The child had struggled for a moment, desperately if weakly, but at thesound of his voice she lay still in his grasp, with her eyes upon hisface. In the moonlight each could see the other quite plainly. Raising herin his arms, Haward bore her to the brink of the stream, laved her faceand chafed the small, cold hands.
"Now tell me, Audrey," he said at last. "Audrey is your name, isn't it?Cry, if you like, child, but try to tell me."
Audrey did not cry. She was very, very tired, and she wanted to go tosleep. "The Indians came," she told him in a whisper, with her head uponhis breast. "We all waked up, and father fired at them through the hole inthe door. Then they broke the door down, and he went outside, and theykilled him. Mother put me under the bed, and told me to stay there, and tomake no noise. Then the Indians came in at the door, and killed her andMolly and Robin. I don't remember anything after that,--maybe I went tosleep. When I was awake again the Indians were gone, but there was fireand smoke everywhere. I was afraid of the fire, and so I crept from underthe bed, and kissed mother and Molly and Robin, and left them lying in thecabin, and came away."
She sighed with weariness, and the hand with which she put back her darkhair that had fallen over her face was almost too heavy to lift. "I satbeside father and watched the fire," she said. "And then I heard you andthe black man coming over the stones in the stream. I thought that youwere Indians, and I went and hid in the corn."
Her voice failed, and her eyelids drooped. In some anxiety Haward watchedher breathing and felt for the pulse in the slight brown wrist; then,satisfied, he lifted the light burden, and, nodding to the negro to gobefore, recommenced his progress to the hill which he had left an houragone.
It was not far away. He could see the bare summit above the treetops, andin a little while they were upon its slope. A minute more and they came tothe clump of trees, and found the horses in safety, Haward paused to takefrom the roll strapped behind his saddle a riding cloak; then, leaving thenegro with the horses, climbed to the grassy level. Here he spread thecloak upon the ground, and laid the sleeping child upon it, which done, hestood and looked at his new-found charge for a moment; then turning, beganto pace up and down upon the hilltop.
It was necessary to decide upon a course of action. They had the horses,the two muskets, powder and shot. The earth was dry and warm, and theskies were cloudless. Was it best to push on to Germanna, or was it bestto wait down there in the valley for the return of the Governor and hisparty? They would come that way, that was certain, and would look to findhim there. If they found only the ruined cabin, they might think him deador taken by the Indians, and an attempt to seek him, as dangerous,perhaps, as fruitless, might be made. He decided that he would wait.To-morrow he would take Juba and the horses and the child and go down intothe valley; not back to the sugar-tree and that yet smouldering pyre, butto the woods on this side of the stream.
This plan thought out, he went; and took his seat beside the child. Shewas moaning in her sleep, and he bent over and soothed her. When she wasquiet he still kept her hand in his, as he sat there waiting for the dawn.He gave the child small thought. Together he and Juba must care for heruntil they could rejoin the expedition: then the Governor, who was so fondof children, might take her in hand, and give her for nurse old Dominick,who was as gentle as a woman. Once at Germanna perhaps some scolding_Hausfrau_ would take her, for the sake of the scrubbing and lifting to begotten out of those small hands and that slender frame. If not, she muston to Williamsburgh and the keeping of the vestry there. The next OrphanCourt would bind her to some master or mistress who might (or might not)be kind to her, and so there would be an end to the matter.
The day was breaking. Moon and stars were gone, and the east was dullpink, like faded roses. A ribbon of silver mist, marking the course of thestream below, drew itself like a serpent through the woods that werechanging from gray to green. The dank smell of early morning rose from thedew-drenched earth, and in the countless trees of the forest the birdsbegan to sing.
A word or phrase which is as common and familiar as our hand may, in someone minute of time, take on a significance and present a face so keen andstrange that it is as if we had never met it before. An Orphan Court!Again he said the words to himself, and then aloud. No doubt the law didits best for the fatherless and motherless, for such waifs and strays asthat which lay beside him. When it bound out children, it was mostemphatic that they should be fed and clothed and taught; not starved orbeaten unduly, or let to grow up ignorant as negroes. Sometimes the lawwas obeyed, sometimes not.
The roses in the east bloomed again, and the pink of their petals meltedinto the clear blue of the upper skies. Because their beauty compelled himHaward looked at the heavens. The Court of the Orphan!... _When my fatherand my mother forsake, me, the Lord taketh me up_. Haward acknowledgedwith surprise that portions of the Psalter did somehow stick in thememory.
The face of the child was dark and thin, but the eyes were large and therewas promise in the mouth. It was a pity--
He looked at her again, and suddenly resolved that he, Marmaduke Haward,would provide for her future. When they met once more, he should tell theGovernor and his brother adventurers as much; and if they chose to laugh,why, let them do so! He would take the child to Williamsburgh with him,and get some woman to tend her until he could find kind and decent folkwith whom to bestow her. There were the new minister of Fair View parishand his wife,--they might do. He would give them two thousand pounds ofsweet-scented a year for the child's maintenance. Oh, she should be wellcared for! He would--if he thought of it--send her gifts from London; andwhen she was grown, and asked in marriage, he would give her for dowry ahundred acres of land.
As the strengthening rays of the sun, shining alike upon the just and theunjust, warmed his body, so his own benevolence warmed his heart. He knewthat he was doing a generous thing, and his soul felt in tune with thebeamy light, the caroling of the birds, the freshness and fragrance of themorning. When at last the child awoke, and, the recollection of the nightcoming full upon her, clung to him, weeping and trembling, he put his armaround her and comforted her with all the pet names his memory couldconjure up.