The Flaming Jewel, Robert W. Chambers [reading tree txt] 📗

"To dear Captain Darragh, our champion and friend—

"It is difficult for me, Monsieur, to express my happiness and my deep gratitude in the so cold formality of the written page.

"Alas, sir, it will be still more difficult to find words for it when again I have the happiness of greeting you in proper person.

"Valentine has told you everything, she warns me, and I am, therefore, somewhat at a loss to know what I should write to you.

"Yet, I know very well what I would write if I dare. It is this: that I wish you to know—although it may not pass the censor—that I am most impatient to see you, Monsieur. Not because of kindness past, nor with an unworthy expectation of benefits to come. But because of friendship,—the deepest, sincerest of my whole life.

"Is it not modest of a young girl to say this? Yes, surely all the world which was once en régle , formal, artificial, has been burnt out of our hearts by this so frightful calamity which has overwhelmed the world with fire and blood.

"If ever on earth there was a time when we might venture to express with candour what is hidden within our minds and hearts, it would seem, Monsieur, that the time is now.

"True, I have known you only for one day and one evening. Yet, what happened to the world in that brief space of time—and to us, Monsieur—brought us together as though our meeting were but a blessed reunion after the happy intimacy of many years.... I speak, Monsieur, for myself. May I hope that I speak, also, for you?

"With a heart too full to thank you, and with expectations indescribable—but with courage, always, for any event,—I take my leave of you at the foot of this page. Like death—I trust—my adieu is not the end, but the beginning. It is not farewell; it is a greeting to him whom I most honour in all the world.... And would willingly obey if he shall command. And otherwise—all else that in his mind—and heart—he might desire.

"Theodorica."

It was the most beautiful love-letter any man ever received in all the history of love.

And it had passed the censor.

It was afternoon when Darragh awoke in his bunk, stiff, sore, confused in mind and battered in body.

However, when he recollected where he was he got out of bed in a hurry and jerked aside the window curtains.

The day was magnificent; a sky of royal azure overhead, and everywhere the silver pillars of the birches supporting their splendid canopy of ochre, orange, and burnt-gold.

Wier, hearing him astir, came in.

"How long have you been back! Did you meet the ladies with your flivver?" demanded Darragh, impatiently.

"I got to Five Lakes station just as the train came in. The young ladies were the only passengers who got out. I waited to get their two steamer trunks and then I drove them to Harrod Place——"

"How did they seem, Ralph—worn-out—worried—ill?"

Wier laughed: "No, sir, they looked very pretty and lively to me. They seemed delighted to get here. They talked to each other in some foreign tongue—Russian, I should say—at least, it sounded like what we heard over in Siberia, Captain——"

"It was Russian.... You go on and tell me while I take another hot bath!——"

Wier followed him into the bath-room and vaulted to a seat on the deep set window-sill:

"—When they weren't talking Russian and laughing they talked to me and admired the woods and mountains. I had to tell them everything—they wanted to see buffalo and Indians. And when I told them there weren't any, enquired for bears and panthers.

"We saw two deer on the Scaur, and a woodchuck near the house; I thought they'd jump out of the flivver——"

He began to laugh at the recollection: "No, sir, they didn't act tired and sad; they said they were crazy to get into their knickerbockers and go to look for you——"

"Where did you say I was?" asked Darragh, drying himself vigorously.

"Out in the woods, somewhere. The last I saw of them, Mrs. Ray had their hand-bags and Jerry and Tom were shouldering their trunks."

"I'm going up there right away," interrupted Darragh excitedly. "—Good heavens, Ralph, I haven't any clothes here, have I?"

"No, sir. But those you wore last night are dry——"

"Confound it! I meant to send some decent clothes here—— All right; get me those duds I wore yesterday—and a bite to eat! I'm in a hurry, Ralph——"

He ate while dressing, disgustedly arraying himself in the grey shirt, breeches, and laced boots which weather, water, rock, and brier had not improved.

In a pathetic attempt to spruce up, he knotted the red bandanna around his neck and pinched Salzar's slouch hat into a peak.

"I look like a hootch-running Wop," he said. "Maybe I can get into the house before I meet the ladies——"

"You look like one of Clinch's bums," remarked Wier with native honesty.

Darragh, chagrined, went to his bunk, pulled the morocco case from under the pillow, and shoved it into the bosom of his flannel shirt.

"That's the main thing anyway," he thought. Then, turning to Wier, he asked whether Eve and Stormont had awakened.

It appeared that Trooper Stormont had saddled up and cantered away shortly after sunrise, leaving word that he must hunt up his comrade, Trooper Lannis, at Ghost Lake.

"They're coming back this evening," added Wier. "He asked you to look out for Clinch's step-daughter."

"She's all right here. Can't you keep an eye on her, Ralph?"

"I'm stripping trout, sir. I'll be around here to cook dinner for her when she wakes up."

Darragh glanced across the brook at the hatchery. It was only a few yards away. He nodded and started for the veranda:

"That'll be all right," he said. "Nobody is coming here to bother her.... And don't let her leave, Ralph, till I get back——"

"Very well, sir. But suppose she takes it into her head to leave——"

Darragh called back, gaily: "She can't: she hasn't any clothes!" And away he strode in the gorgeous sunshine of a magnificent autumn day, all the clean and vigorous youth of him afire in anticipation of a reunion which the letter from his lady-love had transfigured into a tryst.

For, in that amazing courtship of a single day, he never dreamed that he had won the heart of that sad, white-faced, hungry child in rags—silken tatters still stained with the blood of massacre,—the very soles of her shoes still charred by the embers of her own home.

Yet, that is what must have happened in a single day and evening. Life passes swiftly during such periods. Minutes lengthen into days; hours into years. The soul finds itself.

Then mind and heart become twin prophets,—clairvoyant concerning what hides behind the veil; comprehending with divine clair-audience what the Three Sisters whisper there—hearing even the whirr of the spindle—the very snipping of the Eternal Shears!

The soul finds itself; the mind knows itself; the heart perfectly understands.

He had not spoken to this young girl of love. The blood of friends and servants was still rusty on her skirt's ragged hem.

Yet, that night, when at last in safety she had said good-bye to the man who had secured it for her, he knew that he was in love with her. And, at such crises, the veil that hides hearts becomes transparent.

At that instant he had seen and known. Afterward he had dared not believe that he had known.

But hers had been a purer courage.

As he strode on, the comprehension of her candour, her honesty, the sweet bravery that had conceived, created, and sent that letter, thrilled this young man until his heavy boots sprouted wings, and the trail he followed was but a path of rosy clouds over which he floated heavenward.

About half an hour later he came to his senses with a distinct shock.

Straight ahead of him on the trail, and coming directly toward him, moved a figure in knickers and belted tweed.

Flecked sunlight slanted on the stranger's