Why, son, we wouldn't ever a-been father and son at all, only for the sweet trustfulness of yo' dear motheh. Think o' that, son; you an' me neveh bein' any relation to each otheh!"

The rider's bosom heaved. But the next moment he was hearkening. A distant strain of human mirth came softly from farther up in the wooded hills; one and no more, as if those who made it had descended from some swell of the land into one of its tangled hollows. He listened in vain.

All he heard was that beloved long-lost voice saying once more in his lonely heart, "Make haste and grow, son." He put in the spur.

Down a long slope, up a sudden rise, over a level curve where a fox-squirrel leaped into the road and scampered along it; up again, down into a hollow, across the ridge beyond--so he was going, when voices sounded again, then hoofs and wheels, and flashing and darkling in the woodland's afternoon shadows came a party of four, two under hats, two under bonnets, drawn by Bulger's handsome trotters in Garnet's carryall.

Garnet drove. Beside him sat Mrs. March luminous with satisfaction, and on the back seat with Bulger was a small thin woman whose flaxen hair was flattened in quince-seed waves on her pretty temples, and whom John knew slightly as Mrs. Gamble. Bulger and the ladies waved hands. Only Garnet's smile showed restraint.

In the board meeting of the night before, though surprise and annoyance at John's presence and att.i.tude were obvious, only the Major and he had openly struck fire. When Gamble, Garnet, and Bulger were left alone, Bulger, who had all along been silent, remarked to Garnet:

"I never drive with a whip. There's lots of horse in a young fellow like March, and I never blame a horse for not liking what he don't understand. I give him lump-sugar. If he's vicious, that's another thing; but when he's only nervous--Got a match, Gamble?--Thanks. Now, I'll tell you what let's do first thing to-morrow morning." And this, with one or two happy modifications suggested by Garnet and Gamble, was now being done.

LXVIII.

FAREWELL, WIDEWOOD

John was lost in a conflict of strong emotions. Sore beset, he forced them all aside for the moment and yielded only to a grateful wonder as he looked upon his pretty mother with her lap full of spring flowers.

For the first time in their acquaintance her shapely ear was not waiting to receive, nor her refined lips to reject, his usual rough apologies.

Her tone of resignation was almost playful as she said that the first news of his return had come to her through her present kind companions.

Mrs. Gamble put in that she had induced Mrs. March to join them, on their return from their mountain drive, by telling her that her son was so full of his work in his, her, and their common interest, that she could not expect him to come to her.

"And you all were bringing mother in to see me?" exclaimed John.

"Certing!" said blithe Mrs. Gamble, while Garnet faltered a smiling disclaimer, and the son wondered what hidden influence was making endurable to his mother the company of a woman who declared he would soon have this wilderness turned into a "frewtful garding." But as Mrs.

Gamble turned from him and engaged Mrs. March's and Bulger's attention, Garnet gave him a beckoning nod, and as he came round, the Major leaned out and softly said, with a most amiable dignity:

"We were really looking for you, too. Don't you want, just for three or four hours, to forget last night's discord and come along with Sister March and us? We've got a pleasant surprise for her, and we'll enjoy it more, and so will she, if you take part in it."

"Why, Major Garnet--hm!--I can forget; I only can't recede, sir.

But----"

"Better speak a little lower."

"Yes, sir. Where's mother going with you, sir? I suppose she knows that, of course?"

"O yes, she knows that. President Gamble and his wife have invited a few of us--the two Miss Kinsingtons, Mademoiselle, Brother and Sister Tombs, Proudfit, Sister Proudfit, Launcelot Halliday, and Fannie----"

"Professor Pettigrew?" asked John.

"No, just a few of us--to a sort of literary evening. But Sister March doesn't know that I've been asked to read a number of her poems; you'll be expected to recite others, and the evening will close with the announcement that we--that is, Mrs. Gamble, Bulger, and I--I'm afraid you'll think we've taken a great liberty in your absence, Brother March; I----"

"What have you been doing, Major Garnet?"

"Why, John, we've outrun your intended efforts and--partly by mail, partly by telegraph--the news only came this morning--we've found Sister March a publisher."

"Why, Major Garnet!" whispered John, with girlish tenderness. Tears sprang to his eyes.

"They're a new house, just starting," continued Garnet, "but they'll print the poems at once."

"In Boston or New York?" interrupted John.

"Pittsburg."

"But how did they decide, Major, without seeing the poems?"

"They didn't; Sister March loaned me some of her duplicates."

"I hope you got good terms, did you?"

"Excellent. Thirty-three and a third per cent. royalty after the first five thousand. Why, John, Dixie alone will want that many."

John "reckoned so" and backed his horse. Mrs. Gamble ratified the Major's invitation, and the horseman replied to the smiling four that he must go home for one or two matters, but would make haste to join them in Suez. As Garnet lifted the reins Mrs. March settled herself anew at his side with a sweet glance into his face which disturbed her son, it seemed so fondly personal. But this disquietude quickly left him as he rode away, when he remembered the Major's daughter having lifted just such a look at himself, for whom, manifestly, she cared nothing, except in the most colorless way.

Daphne Jane, at Widewood, swinging on the garden-gate and cackling airily to a parting visitor, slipped to the ground as Widewood's master suddenly appeared, although just then the first light-hearted smile of that day broke upon his face. It was the parting visitor, also mounted, whose presence pleased him in a degree so unexpected even to himself that he promptly abated his first show of delight.

"Why, Johanna, you important adjunct! To what are we indebted for"--the tone grew vacant--"this--pleasure?" His gay look darkened to one of swift reflection and crushing inference. "Do--do you want to see me?" he blurted, and somewhere under her dark skin Johanna blushed. "No, of course you don't."

As he dismounted--"Jane," he said, "you no need to come in; finish your confab." Upstairs he tried to recall the errand that had brought him there, but Barbara's maid filled all his thought. He saw her from a window and silently addressed her.

"You're not yourself! You're your mistress and you know it! You're she, come all the way back from the land of snow to counsel me; and you're welcome. There's balm, at least, in a sweet woman's counsel, womanly given. Balm; ah, me! neither she nor I have any right--O! what am I looking for in this drawer?--No, I'll take just this word from her and then no more!" Down-stairs he paused an instant in pa.s.sing his mother's portrait. "No, dear," he said, "we'll mix nothing else with our one good dream--Widewood filled with happy homes and this one, with just you and me in it, the happiest of them all!"

On the gate Daphne Jane still prattled, but after half a dozen false starts Johanna, for gentle shame's sake, had felt obliged to go. Her horse paced off briskly, and a less alert nature than Daphne Jane's would have fancied her soon far on her way. As John came forth again he saw no sign that his mother's maid, slowly walking toward the house with her eyes down, was not engaged in some pious self-examination, instead of listening down the mountain road with both ears. But she easily guessed he was doing the same thing.

"Well, Jane," he said as he loosed his bridle from the fence, "been writing something for Johanna?" and when she said, "Ya.s.s, seh," he knew the bashful lie was part of her complicity in a matter she did not understand, but only hoped it was some rascality. A secret delight filled her bosom as he mounted and walked his horse out of sight. She stopped with lifted head and let her joy tell itself in a smiling whisper:

"Trott'n'!" She hearkened again; the smile widened; the voice rose: "Gallopin'!" Her eyes dilated merrily and she cried aloud:

"Ga-allopin', ga-allopin', lippetty-clip, down Zigzag Hill!" Her smile became a laugh, the laugh a song, the song a dance which joined the lightness of a b.u.t.terfly with the grace of a girl whose mothers had never worn a staylace, and she ran with tossing arms and willowy undulations to kiss her image in Daphne's gla.s.s.

With a hundred or so of small stones rattling at his horse's heels John reached the foot of "Zigzag Hill," turned with the forest road once or twice more, noticed, by the tracks, that Johanna's horse was walking, and at another angle saw her just ahead timorously working her animal sidewise to the edge of the way.

"Johanna," he began as he dashed up--"O!--don't get scared--didn't you come out here in hopes to somehow let me know"--he took on a look of angry distress--"that the Suez folks are talking?"

The girl started and stammered, but the young man knitted his brows worse. "Umhm. That's all right." His horse leaped so that he had to look back to see her, as he added more kindly:

"I'm much obliged to you, Johanna--Good-by."

The face he had thus taken by surprise tried, too late, to smile away the signs that its owner was grieved and hurt. A few rods farther on John wheeled around and trotted back. Her pulse bounded with grat.i.tude.

"Johanna, of course, if I stay here I shall keep entirely out of Mrs.

Ravenel's sight, or----"

The girl made a despairing gesture that brought John's frown again.