At the Crossroads Part 20

"What's a-going on?" she asked. Peneluna turned and laid her hand on the girl's shoulder; her face softened--but Jan-an could not see that.

"Child"--the old voice fell to a whisper--"I ain't going to expect too much of yer--G.o.d Almighty made yer out of a skimpy pattern, I know, but what He did give yer can be helped along by using it for them yer love. Child, watch there!"

A long crooked forefinger pointed to the shack, the windows of which were already darkened--for Larry had drawn the shades!

"Watch early and late there! Keep your mouth shut, except to me.

Jan-an, I can trust yer?"

The girl was growing nervous.

"Yes'm," she blurted suddenly and then fell to weeping. "I keep feelin' things like wings a-touching of me," she muttered. "I hate the feelin'. When nothing ain't happened ever, what's the reason it has ter begin now?"

It was nearly midnight when Peneluna sat down by her fireside to think. She had cooked a meal for Larry and carried it to him; she had soothed and fed Jan-an and put her to bed on a cot near the bed upon which old Philander Sniff had once rested, and now Peneluna, with Sniff's old Bible on her knees, felt safe to think and read, and it seemed as if the wings Jan-an had sensed were touching her! The book was marked at pa.s.sages that had appealed to the old man. Often, after Mary-Clare had read to him and left, thinking that she had made no impression, the trembling, gnarled hand had pencilled the words to be reread in lonely moments.

Peneluna had never read the Bible from choice; indeed, her education had been so limited as to be negligible, but lately these pencilled marks had become tremendously significant to her. She was able, somehow, to follow Philander Sniff closely, catching sight of him, now and again, in an illumined way guided by the Bible verses. It was like the blind leading the blind, to be sure, and often it seemed a blind trail, but occasionally Peneluna could pause and take a long breath while she beheld the vision that must have helped her friend upon his isolated way.

To-night, however, she was tired and puzzled and worried. She kept reverting to Larry: her eyes only lighted on the printed words before her; her thoughts drifted.

What had been going on in the Forest? Why was the storm breaking?

But suddenly a verse more heavily marked than the others stayed her:

And a highway shall be there, and a way and it shall be called the way of holiness. The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

Over and over Peneluna read and pondered; more and more she puzzled.

"Land o' love!" she muttered at last. "Now these here words mean something particular. Seems like they must get into me with their meaning if I hold to 'em long enough. Lord! I don't see how folks can enjoy religion when you have to swallow it without tasting it."

But so powerful is suggestion through words, that presently the old woman became hypnotized by them. They sprang out at her like flashes--one by one. "Highway"--she could grasp that. "A way and it shall be called"--these words ran into each other but--the "way" held.

"The wayfarer"--well! that was easy; all folks taking to the highway were wayfarers--"though fools shall not err therein."

Peneluna, without realizing it, was on The Highway over which all pa.s.s, living, seeing, feeling, and storing up experience. In old Philander's quiet memory-haunted room she was pausing and looking back; groping forward--understanding as she had never understood before!

At times, catching the meaning of what the present held, her old face quivered as a child's does that is lost, and she would _think back_, holding to some word or look that gave her courage again to fix her eyes ahead.

"So! so!" she would nod and mutter. "So! so!" It was like meeting others on The Highway, greeting them, and then going on alone!

That was the hurt of it all--she was alone. If only there had been someone to hold her hand, to help her when she stumbled, but no! she was like a creature in a land of shadowy ghosts. Ghosts whom she knew; who knew her, but they could not linger long with her.

More than the others, Philander persisted, but perhaps that was because of the pencilled words. They were guide-posts he had left for her. And strangest of all, this pa.s.sing to and fro on The Highway seemed to concern Larry Rivers most of all. Larry, who, during all the years, had meant nothing more to King's Forest than that he was the old doctor's son, Mary-Clare's husband, and Maclin's secret employee.

Larry, asleep in the shack next door, had taken on new proportions. He meant, for the first time, to Peneluna, a person to whom she owed something by virtue of knowledge. Knowledge! What really did she know?

How did she know it? She did not question--she accepted and became responsible in a deep and grateful manner. She must remember about Larry. Remember all she could--it would help her now.

The trouble, Peneluna knew, began with Larry's mother. Larry's mother had wrecked the old doctor's life; had driven him to King's Forest. No one had ever told Peneluna this--but she knew it. It did not matter what that woman had done, she had hurt a man cruelly. Once the old doctor had said to Peneluna--it came sharply back, now, like a call from a wayfarer:

"Miss Pen, it is because of such women as you and Aunt Polly that men _can_ keep their faith."

That was when Larry was desperately ill and Polly Heathcote and Peneluna were nursing him--he was a little boy then, home on a vacation. It was because of the woman that neither of them had ever known that they tried to mother the boy--but Larry was difficult, he had queer streaks. Again Peneluna looked back, back to some of the difficult streaks.

Once Larry had stolen! He had gone, too, when quite a child, to the tavern! He had tasted the liquor, made the men laugh! The old doctor had been in a sad state at that time and Larry had been sent to school.

After that, well, Peneluna could not recall Larry distinctly for many years. She knew the old doctor clung to him pa.s.sionately; went occasionally to see him, came back troubled; came back looking older each time and depending more upon Mary-Clare, whose love and devotion could smooth the sadness from his face.

Then that night, the marriage night of Mary-Clare! Peneluna had been near the old doctor when Larry bent to catch the distorted words that were but whispered. She knew, she seemed always to have known, that Larry had lied; he had _not_ understood anything.

Peneluna had tried to interfere, but she was always fumbling; she could patiently wait, but action, with her, was slow.

And then Maclin! Since Maclin came and bought the mines _and_ Larry--oh! what did it all mean? Had things been slumbering, needing only a touch?

And who was this man at the inn? Was he the Touch? What was going to happen in this dull, sluggish life of King's Forest?

The night was growing old, old! Peneluna, too, was old and tired. The Highway was fraught with terrors for her; the ghosts frightened her.

They were trying to make her understand what she must _do_, now that they had shown her The Way. She must keep the old doctor's son from Maclin if she could and from the stranger at the inn, if she had need.

If trouble came she must defend her own.

The weary woman nodded; her eyes closed; the Book slipped from her lap and lay like a "light unto her feet." She had, somehow, got an understanding of Larry Rivers: she believed that through his "difficult streaks" Maclin had got a hold upon him; was using him now for evil ends. It was for her, for all who loved the old doctor, to shield, at any cost, the doctor's son. That Larry was unworthy did not weigh with Peneluna. Where she gave, she gave with abandon.

CHAPTER VIII

Aunt Polly came into the living-room of the inn noiselessly, but Peter, at the fireside, opened his eyes. Nothing could have driven him to bed earlier, but he appeared to have been sleeping for hours.

Polly's gla.s.ses adorned the top of her head. This was significant.

When she had arrived at any definite conclusion she pushed her spectacles away as though her physical vision and her spiritual were one and the same.

"Time, Polly?" Peter yawned.

"Going on to 'leven."

"He come in?"

Full well Peter knew that he had not!

"No, Peter, and his evening meal is drying up in the oven--I had creamed oysters, too. Creamed oysters are his specials."

"Scandalous, your goings on with this young man!" Peter sat up and stretched. Then he smiled at his sister.

"Well, Peter, all my life I've had to take s.n.a.t.c.hes and sc.r.a.ps out of other folks' lives when I could get them; and I declare I've managed to patch together a real Lady's Delight-pattern sort of quilt to huddle under when I'm cold and tired."

"Tired now, Polly?"

"Not exactly tired, brother, but sort of rigid. Feel as if I was braced for something. I've often had that feeling."

"Women! women!" muttered Peter, and threw on another log.