A Rich Man's Relatives Volume III Part 5

"Ralph!" Martha cried at last in genuine alarm. She had known him in feverish moods before, which violent motion and exertion had been able to relieve, but she never before had seen him act and look as now. She feared for his sanity, and kept silence while she could, trusting to his out-wearing the fit; but in time it seemed to her that their lives were in danger, they were liable to be thrown out at any moment, and succour was miles away. "Ralph!" and she laid her hand on his sleeve.

"Where are you going? Where do you want to take us? You will break down the horse and throw us out upon the road, if you do not mind.

Look at him!--he seems fit to drop."

Ralph started, and but for his wife the reins would have slipped from his hand. He was like one awakened from a horrid dream, roused to what is going on around him. He checked the horse, brought him to a walk, and shortly stopped. The relief he experienced at the moment he was disturbed was inexpressible, he could have laughed and babbled with delight; but then, too quickly, he recollected. There was something to conceal as well as to forget; he must guard his every word and movement. By-and-by unheeded incidents might be re-called, and pieced together into a web of circ.u.mstantial evidence from which it would be impossible to escape. He must command himself.

"It's the heat, Martha, the heat. My head has been turning round all day. Wonder if I can have had a slight sunstroke? It was well you spoke; I must have been asleep--sleeping with my eyes open, and driving like mad. Poor Catchfly! I've nearly killed him. What will Gerald say to me for ruining his nag? Too bad! Really I did not know what I was doing. You should have spoken an hour ago, Martha."

"How could I, Ralph? You have not spoken a word since we came out. I did not know what might be the matter. It was only when Catchfly began to look as if he must drop, and the road got stony, and I saw the gravel pits by the wayside, that I began to fear for our necks and spoke. Where are you going? Where are we?"

"I do not know where we are. As to where I am going, it can only be _back again_, if we can find the way."

"We must 'light then, and give the poor beast an hour or two's rest, at any rate. See how used up he is! It will be no wonder if he goes lame; and see, he has lost a shoe!"

"We must get out of this sun-beaten road, at any rate, into the shade.

There is a grove by the road-side, a mile on the way back. See it? A sugar-bush[1] it looks like from here. There must be a homestead not far from it. We may hire a fresh horse there, perhaps, and let them bring home Catchfly to-morrow."

In time the sugar-bush was reached, and by-and-by, the farmer's house.

The way seemed long, they traversed it so slowly, for Catchfly fell lame as he began to cool; and they had to alight and lead him ere the end.

In consideration of money paid, the farmer complied with their wishes.

Catchfly was liberated from the shafts, and another horse took his place--a horse which had toiled all day in the turnip field, and at his best was not remarkable for speed. They were condemned to sit up helplessly behind, while this patient beast trudged wearily along the road. The day waned into twilight, and Martha's patience died out with the light.

"Say! Ralph, you can go home and have your dinner. I've had enough of buggy-riding for one day. Let me out here, at Miss Stanley's gate, she'll give me a cup of tea. After dinner you can send up Gerald to bring me home."

"I don't feel hungry either," answered Ralph. "It will be dull without you. I'll go in, too, and bring you home myself by-and-by."

The ladies were sitting in the dusk without candles. Penelope drowsed over some knitting by the window, while Matilda and Muriel played old duets from memory; the former seemingly without much interest or attention, though she still kept on playing, notwithstanding Muriel's frequent exclamations that she had gone astray. The window was darkened for an instant, but the music still went on, hurrying just a little, perhaps, to reach its close. It was only a lady who had come and sat down by Penelope, speaking softly, as if unwilling to interrupt. And then, through the other window there entered a man, the dark outline of whose figure alone was seen against the dimly-lighted garden, and the music ceased, for Matilda had risen.

"Mr. Considine--at last. And we have been looking for you since two o'clock. The horses harnessed, lunch baskets packed, everything ready.

What an apology you have got to make us! I really do not think Penelope can bring herself to forgive you, whatever you say."

Ralph gasped and started, stopped short, looked wildly behind him, and catching hold of a chair to steady himself, dropped into it in a momentary palsy of fright.

"Mr. Herkimer!" Matilda corrected herself, "What a ridiculous mistake!" and she coloured, perhaps, but it was growing dark, and no inquisitive eye was near. "You seem quite faint with the heat. Muriel, get him some wine and water. And Martha! I did not observe you come in. Mr. Herkimer seems quite poorly."

"He has been out of sorts all day. Biliousness and the heat combined.

No! You did not observe _me_. It was impossible to mistake _my_ shadow for Considine's."

Ralph started and stamped his foot. That man's name again; and _he_ striving so strenuously to forget!

"Are you worse? Ralph," asked Martha, noticing his movement. "I wonder, Matilda, you should mistake Ralph for Considine. They are both men, that is all the resemblance I can see between them." And Martha smiled.

"We expected Mr. Considine, that is all. We have been looking for him since two o'clock. He has not come, and he has not sent. I never knew him serve us so before. He is so very particular in general."

"I should think so. Depend upon it there is some good reason, or a message has miscarried."

Ralph writhed. Why _would_ they speak of the man? It seemed as if they could speak of no one else. And yet they did not know, and they must not know. n.o.body must know; and he must exert a vigorous control upon himself. How was it that control should be needed at all? What weakness was this that had fallen on him? He did not understand it.

About a man already dead--done with; non-existent; wiped like a cipher from a slate--vanished and disappeared?

CHAPTER VII.

RESCUE.

The wooded islands which closed the river view from St. Euphrase, shut out from sight the homestead of Farmer Belmore lower down the stream.

Only the unreclaimed outskirts of his land could be seen from the village, repeating the s.h.a.ggy bush of the islands upon the farther sh.o.r.e, and carrying it backward and upward to the sky line. A dense umbrageous bush it was, containing much choice timber, a resort of game, and also, in the warm weather, of tramps, at times, and specimens of the rougher dwellers in the city, who sought in its leafy recesses temporary change of abode, to the loss of neighbouring gardens and hen-roosts. The farmer, however, was safe while the depredators dwelt upon his land, by tacit understanding; and therefore he made a point of closing his eyes, and never was cognizant of their presence.

At this moment a gang of gypsies[2] were encamped in Belmore's bush.

Their waggons, tents, and children had lain there for a week or two, while the men scoured the surrounding country, selling horses, and picking them up, the screws in honest trade, the others as might happen: for strays were certainly not unfrequent about the time of their visits, though none were ever traced into their hands, which is not remarkable, as who would look for a Canadian colt in New York State, or a New York one in Ohio or Kentucky?

These people, like other European products transported to America, have thriven luxuriantly. They have ceased to be tinkers, though fortune-telling is still practised by the women; their donkeys have been exchanged for waggons and horses, and they traverse the settled States from the Gulf of Mexico to the St. Lawrence, following the warm weather northward, as the red-birds and wild canaries do, and returning South again when summer is over, in time to avoid the cold.

Their native love of wandering finds a wider range in their new country, and they are comparatively wealthy, though still, as ever, they live in the open air and apart from their fellow men.

The morning fires were alight in the gypsy camp near the river bank.

The meal was over, but the children and the dogs still brawled and scrambled for the sc.r.a.ps. The women, and such young men as were not away, had dispersed themselves along the woody banks to fish or bathe; and old Jess, the mother of the gang, sat smoking her corn-cob pipe upon a fallen pine which stretched far out, dabbing its humbled plumage in the current, and raising murmurs for its downfall in the lapping of the water among its boughs. Jess sat and smoked in the pleasant morning air, so full of warmth and sunshine and gentle sound, watching the smoke-rings vanish into air and thinking the pa.s.sive unconscious thoughts of physical well-being, the thoughts which want no words because they call for no expression. The ox knows them, ruminating in his meadow; and mankind, innocent of printed lore, and under no stress to act or say, must know them too, in their harmonious vagueness, bringing the luxury and refreshment of perfect sleep, without the diminishment of sleep's unconsciousness.

The even movement of the glancing water called up in a day-dream the images of bygone things--her childhood and youth in England, her voyage across the sea, her husband and her sons; and then her husband's death, as he was fording Licken River in a freshet, riding an unruly horse. The current before her seemed to swell and darken and grow turbid as she recalled the affrighted beast plunging and floundering through the swirling flood, swerve suddenly aside, losing his footing, and roll over, disappearing in a vortex, and by-and-by emerge alone and struggle up the bank. It was a long time since it all had happened; the very recollection had ceased to be present in her daily life, with its cares and enjoyments so completely of the present--the affairs of her numerous descendants and their hangers-on, over whom she would fain retain authority as much as might be; and its equivalent, the money, in her own hands.

This morning it felt different, the long ago seemed more actual than the present as she sat and smoked, her grizzled hair hanging in wisps upon her shoulders, and her sun-bonnet of yellow gingham pushed back upon her head. A something in the water, surging up through the surface and sinking again, leaving rings upon the current coming down, caught her eye as she sat gazing up stream. It might only be a log, but yet, how it carried back her thoughts to her old man hurried down on that Licken freshet into the muddy Ohio, and rolling on and on for hundreds of miles through the yellow oozy water, till the body stuck fast in a clay-bank and was hid for ever. It might be a log; but no, it was not, for now she saw white hair, which spread and shrank again, as it sank and rose in the water. A horse, was it? or an ox, with a hide worth stripping off to sell? but no--it was a man! She could see it plainly now, as it drifted near, and she felt the thud as it struck against the branches of her tree, branches which caught it and blocked its forward course. A man! and still alive, perhaps, for there was a redness as from oozing blood around. She threw her pipe away, and shouting to those within hail, she leaped into the water and waded out with the a.s.sistance of her tree. A youth had hurried to her aid, the water did not reach above his chest, and their united efforts drew the body ash.o.r.e.

"A fine clean-limbed man," sighed Jess, comparing him with her own old man, whom partial hap, alas, had carried away for ever. "A fine strapping man, but never so spry as thy own grandfer. Will. _He was_ the man, but he's away; let's see to this c.o.o.n. Hm----" a smothered exclamation, and a suspicious glance at Will, to see if he had observed her pull a diamond ring from the drowned man's finger; but Will's attention was drawn to something else at the moment.

"He ain't come by's end fair, granny," he said; "see to the blood on's back--running still, by gum! The man maybe ain't dead, granny."

Granny slipped the ring into her mouth for safety, till she should find leisure and privacy to conceal it elsewhere, and then resumed her interest in the drowned man.

"Runnin' sure, the blood is, Will. And shot he's been. I heard the crack of a gun up stream the now, I reckon, but I gave no heed. Lay down his head, lad, and lift his feet. Help shake the water out of him, and roll him round. There was none by to roll thy poor grandfer the day he fell in Licken River. Never fear to hurt him, lad! The man can't feel, and more's the pity. Shake him well and roll him round, keep down his head, and let the filthy water run off his stommick."

There was little of that same fluid ever privileged to enter Jess's anatomy, or, indeed to come near her person, save in the inevitable form of rain or a fordable stream.

It was a rough and uncouth process of resuscitation, in which the others, as they gathered about, joined with energy, chafing the limbs, rubbing, rolling, and kneading; but fortunately for himself Considine was unconscious of the liberties which the gypsies were taking with his person; a brown skinned black-eyed rabble, pawing, and pulling, and fingering him all over, without diffidence or any respect.

The warm sun and the vigorous handling had their effect at last, a sigh escaped from the inactive chest, and by-and-by another, and then old Jess had him carried into the bush and laid on her own bed in one of the waggons, where she practised such surgery as she knew in the way of binding up his wound, poured a quant.i.ty of whisky down his throat, and left him to sleep.

Just then some of the gypsies, who had come on the boat lying grounded among the weedy shallows round the island, brought it ash.o.r.e; and Considine's towels and clothing were appropriated and divided among the gang, who then pushed the boat back into the stream and let it drift. When this was done, the camp sank back into rest and leisure.

The people wandered off into the bush, to spend the summer day as liked them best, some to stretch themselves in the shadow, others to bask in the sun, while the children picked berries or snared birds, a happy and unsophisticated crew, till the lengthening shadows of afternoon warned the women to prepare supper against the return of their men.

The men returned earlier than was expected. A shrill whistle rang through the bush as they appeared, which brought in the stragglers from every direction to hover round the fire and snuff in expectancy the savoury odours which issued from the bubbling pots.

Reuben, the chief man, led Jess aside, muttering to her a rambling story of his troubles during the day, which she listened to with impatience and disgust.

"As usual, Reuben, al'us getting in a row along of them strays you pick up and let join us. Thou'lt have the hull country raised agin us ere long, and we shan't know whar to go--us as were so well liked every whar a while back."

"It was yourself let him wive with Sall, mother; and you've no call to cast it up to me. A fine thing it would have been to let the pore wench go off with her lad, all alone; and her the handiest gal to tell a fortn' 'twixt here and Allegany. Needs must when the devil drives, so we let the c.o.o.n stay. And there's no harm in the lad as I kin see, 'cep' that he's kind o' soft like, and not peart. He's cl'ar off the now, and he's makin' for the Lines, but, like's not, they'll be down here the morrow to look for him, and there's a many thing's round this camp as wuddn't be good for sheriff's men to see. We mun cl'ar out, mother; cl'ar out the night."

"I have a half-drownded man in the waggon wi' me, lad--I pulled him out o' th' water myself, for the love o' your old dad as is drownded and gone this many a year--and what am I to do with 'n, think you?"