CHAPTER XXVII

IN WHICH THE OLD DOCTOR AND LITTLE HOYLE COME BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS

Ca.s.sandra, seated on the great hanging rock before her cabin, watched the sunrise where David had so often stood and waited for the dawn during his winter there alone. This morning the mists obscured the valleys and the base of the mountains, while the sky and the whole earth glowed with warm rose color.

Presently she rose and walked with lifted head into the cabin, and prepared to light a fire on the hearth. In the canvas room the bed was made smoothly, as she had made it the morning David left. No one had slept in it since, although Ca.s.sandra spent most of her days there.

Everything he had used was carefully kept as he had left it. His microscope, covered from dust, stood with the last specimen still under the lens. A book they were reading together lay on the corner shelf, with the mark still in the place where they had read last.

After lighting the fire, she sat near it, watching the flames steal up from the small pile of fat pine chips underneath, sending up red tongues of fire, until the great logs were wrapped in the hot embrace of the flames, trembling, quivering, and leaping high in their mad joy, trans.m.u.ting all they touched.

"It's like love," she murmured, and smiled. "Only it's quicker. It does in one hour what love takes a lifetime to do. Those logs might have lain on the ground and rotted if they'd been left alone, but now the fire just holds them and caresses them like, and they grow warm and glow like the sun, and give all they can while they last, until they're almost too bright to look at. I reckon G.o.d has been right good to me not to let me lie and rot my life away. He sent David to set my heart on fire, and I guess I can wait for him to come back to me in G.o.d's own time."

She rose and brought from the canvas room a basket of willow, woven in open-work pattern. It was a gift from Azalea, who had learned from her mother the art of basket weaving. Some said Azalea's grandmother was half Indian, and that it was from her they had learned their quaint patterns and shapes, and that she, and her Indian mother before her, had been famous basket weavers.

This pretty basket was filled with very delicate work of fine muslin, much finer than anything Ca.s.sandra had ever worked upon before. Her hands no longer showed signs of having been employed in rough, coa.r.s.e tasks; they were soft and white. She placed the basket of dainty sewing on the same table which had served as an altar when she knelt beside David and was made his wife. It was serving as an altar still, bearing that basket of delicate work.

She had become absorbed in a book--not one of those David had suggested.

It is doubtful, had he been there, whether he would have really liked to see her reading this one, although it was written by Thackeray, dear to all English hearts. It is more than probable that he would have thought his young wife hardly need be enlightened upon just the sort of things with which _Vanity Fair_ enriches the understanding.

Be it how it may, Ca.s.sandra was reading _Vanity Fair_, which she found in the box of books David had opened so long before. While she read she worked with her fingers, incessantly, at a piece of narrow lace, with a shuttle and very fine thread. This she did so mechanically that she could easily read at the same time by propping the book open on the table before her. For a long time she sat thus, growing more and more interested, until the fire burned low, and she rose to replenish it.

The logs were piled beside the door of the small kitchen David had built for her, and where he had placed the cook stove. She had come up early this morning, because she was sad over his last letter, in which he had told her of his disappointment in having to cancel his pa.s.sage to America. Hopeful and cheery though the letter was, it had struck dismay to her heart; it was her way when sad, and longing for her husband, to go up to her little cabin--her own home--and think it all over alone and thus regain her equanimity.

Here she read and thought things out by herself. What strange people they were over there! Or perhaps that was so long ago--they might have changed by this time. Surely they must have changed, or David would have said something about it. He never would become a lord, to be one of such people--never--never! It was not at all like David.

A figure appeared in the doorway. "Ca.s.sandra! What are you doing here all by yourself?"

It was Betty Towers. Ca.s.sandra ran joyfully forward and clasped the little woman in her arms. Almost carrying her in, she sat her by the pleasant open fire. Then, seeing Betty's eyes regarding her questioningly, she suddenly dropped into her own chair by the table, leaned her head upon her arms, and began to weep, silently.

In an instant Betty was kneeling by her side, holding the lovely head to her breast. "Dearest! You shan't cry. You shan't cry like that. Tell me all about it. Why on earth doesn't Doctor Thryng come home?"

Ca.s.sandra lifted her head and dried her tears. "He was coming. The last letter but one said he was to sail next day. Then last night came another saying the only man who could look after very important business for him had been thrown from his horse and hurt so bad he may die, and David had to give up his pa.s.sage and go back to London. He may have to go to Africa. He felt right bad--but--"

"Goodness me, child! Why, he has no business now more important than you! What a chump!"

Ca.s.sandra stiffened proudly and drew away, taking up her shuttle and beginning her work calmly as if nothing had happened to destroy her composure.

"I've not written David--anything to disturb him--or make him hurry home."

"Oh, Ca.s.sandra, Ca.s.sandra! You're not treating either him or yourself fairly."

"For him--I can't help it; and for me, I don't care. Other women have got along as best they could in these mountains, and I can bear what they have borne."

"But why on earth haven't you told him?"

Ca.s.sandra bent her head lower over her bit of lace and was silent. Betty drew her chair nearer and put her arms about the drooping girl.

"Can't you tell me all about it, dear?"

"Not if you are going to blame David."

"I won't, you lovely thing! I can't, since he doesn't know--but why--"

"At first I couldn't speak. I tried, but I couldn't. Then he had to take Hoyle North, and I thought he would see for himself when he came back--or I could tell him by that time. Then came that dreadful news--you know--four, all dead. His brother and his two cousins all killed, and his uncle dying of grief; and he had to go to his mother or she might die, too, and then he found so much to do. Now, you know he has to be a--"

She was going to say "a lord," but, happening to glance down at her open book, the name of "Lord Steyne" caught her eye, and it seemed to her a t.i.tle of disgrace. She must talk with David before she allowed him to be known as "a lord," so she ended hurriedly: "He has to be a different kind of a man, now--not a doctor. He has a great many things to do and look after. If I told him, he would leave everything and come to me, even if he ought not, and if he couldn't come, he would be troubled and unhappy. Why should I make him unhappy? When he does come home, he'll be glad--oh, so glad! Why need he know when the knowing will do no good, and when he will come to me as soon as he can, anyway?"

"You strange girl, Ca.s.sandra! You brave old dear! But he must come, that's all. It is his right to know and to come. I can tell him. Let me."

"No, no. Please, Mrs. Towers, you must not. He will come back as soon as he can; and now--now--he will be too late, since he--he did not sail when he meant to."

Betty rose with a set look about the mouth. "Unless we cable him, Ca.s.sandra. Would there be time in that case? Come, you must tell me."

"No, no," wailed the girl. "And now he must not know until he comes. It would be cruel. I will not let you write him or cable him either."

"Then what will you do?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'll think out a way. You'll help me think, but you must promise me not to write to David. I send him a letter every day, but I never tell him anything that would make him uneasy, because he has very important business there for his mother and sister, even more than for himself. You see how bad I would be to write troubling things to him when he couldn't help me or come to me." A light broke over Betty Towers's face.

"I can think out a way, dear, of course I can. Just leave matters to me."

Thus it was that Doctor Hoyle received a letter in Betty's own impa.s.sioned and impulsive style, begging him, for love's sake, to leave all and come back to the mountains and his own little cabin, where Ca.s.sandra needed him.

"Never mind Doctor Thryng or anything surprising about his being absent; just come if you possibly can and hear what Ca.s.sandra has to say about it before you judge him. She is quaint and queer and wholly lovely. If you can bring little Hoyle with you, do so, for I fear his mother is grieving to see him. She wrote me a most peculiar and pathetic letter, saying her daughter was so silent about her affairs that she herself 'war nigh about dead fer worryin', and would I please come and see could I make Ca.s.s talk a leetle,' so you may be sure there is need of you. The winter is glorious in the mountains this year. Your appearance will set everything right at the Fall Place, and Ca.s.sandra will be safe."

Old Time, the unfailing, who always marches apace, bringing with him changes for good or evil, brought the dear old doctor back to the Fall Place--brought the small Adam Hoyle, with his queer little twisted neck and hunched back, drawn by harness and plaster into a much improved condition, although not straight yet--brought many letters from David filled with postponements and regrets therefor--and brought also a little son for Ca.s.sandra to hold to her bosom and dream and pray over.

And the dreams and the prayers travelled far--far, to the sunny-haired Englishman wrapped in the intricate affairs of a great estate. How much money would accrue? How should it be spent? What improvements should be made in their country home? When Laura's coming out should be? How many of her old companions might she retain? How many might she call friends?

How many were to be hereafter thrust out as quite impossible? Should she be allowed a kennel, or should her sporting tendencies be discouraged?

All these things were forced upon David's consideration; how then could he return to his young wife, especially when he could not yet bring himself to say to his world that he had a young wife. Impatient he might be, nervous, and even irritable, but still what could he do? While there in the faraway hills sat Ca.s.sandra, loving him, brooding over him with serene and peaceful longing, holding his baby to her white breast, holding his baby's hand to her lips, full of courage, strong in her faith, patient in spirit, until as days and weeks pa.s.sed she grew well and strong in body.

Being sadly in need of rest, the old doctor lingered on in the mountains until spring was well advanced. Slight of body, but vigorous and wiry, and as full of scientific enthusiasm as when he was thirty years younger, he tramped the hills, taking long walks and climbs alone, or shorter ones with Hoyle at his heels like a devoted dog, shrilling questions as he ran to keep up. These the good doctor answered according to his own code, or pa.s.sed over as beyond possibility of reply with quizzical counter-questioning.

They sat together one day, eating their luncheon in the shelter of a great wall of rock, and below them lay a pool of clear water which trickled from a spring higher up. Now and then a bullfrog would sound his deep ba.s.s note, and all the time the high piping of the peepers made shrill accompaniment to their voices as they conversed.

The doctor had made an aquarium for Hoyle, using a great gla.s.s jar which he obtained from a druggist in Farington. They had come to-day on a quest for snails to eat the green growth, which had so covered the sides of the jar as to hide the interesting water world within from the boy's eyes. Many things had already occurred in that small world to set the boy thinking.

"Doctah Hoyle, you remembeh that thar quare bunch of leetle sticks an'

stones you put in my 'quar'um first day you fixed hit up fer me?"

"Yes, yes."

"Well, the' is a right quare thing with a big hade come outen hit, an'

he done eat up some o' the leetle black bugs. I seed him jump quicker'n lightnin' at that leetlist fish only so long, an' try to bite a piece outen his fin--his lowest fin. What did he do that fer?"