Barbara Ladd Part 6

"Right, my lad!" exclaimed Doctor Jim, much mollified by this att.i.tude.

"That's my old friend Richard's son speaking now. And I doubt not that our little mistress here will see to it that the invitation is forthcoming in good season,--eh, what?"

There was a doubtful expression on Barbara's face, over the lack of instantaneous obedience to her will on the part of her champion; but Robert, encouraged by Doctor Jim's commendation, now made a bold proposal.

"If you would be so kind, sir," he suggested, diffidently, "I should like to go down with you to the Landing, where I can lodge very well for the night at the house of an old servant of my grandmother's. It will be a long and difficult tramp for me up the sh.o.r.e now, in the dark, and with no road through the woods. By going with you to the Landing I might be of some service, to paddle the canoe. She will be an awkward craft to tow; and Mistress Barbara is very tired, I perceive."

"Sly young dog!" growled Doctor John. "But, seeing that he is Richard's son, we'll have to take him along with us as far as the Landing, eh, Jim?"

"Let him work his pa.s.sage, then!" roared Doctor Jim. "Let him paddle the canoe, and Barbara, and her kittens, and all her contraptions,--and we'll see about not being too hard on him when we come to tell his grandmother!"

This arrangement was highly satisfactory to all concerned. The gloom fell from Robert's face, and his mouth grew boyish and happy as he paddled on in musing silence. He kept the canoe alongside of the boat, just out of reach of the oars, so that Barbara could talk conveniently with Doctor John and Doctor Jim, which she did in the most usual manner in the world, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But presently, upon a lull in the conversation came the voice of Robert, who had been thinking about Barbara's life at Second Westings.

"Is not Mistress Ladd a very harsh, tyrannical sort of woman?" he inquired, solicitously.

There was a huge roar from Doctor Jim, which made even Barbara jump, inured though she was to these explosions.

"I'd have you remember, young sir, that you are speaking of the gentlest, sweetest, truest, most gracious lady that ever lived, for whose little shoes you are not worthy to sweep the ground!"

Robert stared in confusion, too astonished to be at once ready with an apology. Before he could gather his wits, Doctor John spoke up, more gently. He was no less loyal a champion to Mistress Mehitable than was Doctor Jim, but with him his humour was ever at hand to a.s.suage his wrath. Subduing his great tones to a quizzical and confidential half-whisper, that feigned itself not meant for Barbara's ears, he said, amiably:

"My son, when you come to know well this little firebrand of ours, whom we have just plucked from a watery burning, this sower of dissension in our good village of Second Westings, I doubt not that you will spare a moiety of your sympathies for that very n.o.ble lady, Mistress Ladd. In truth, for all her tears and anxiety on this mad little maid's account, I have a misgiving that we are doing the sweet lady no great kindness in taking Mistress Barbara back to her. A pretty gallant you are, to undertake to carry a lady off, and then make a mess of it, and leave her embarra.s.sed friends to straighten out the snarl!"

Under this daunting blend of rebuke and raillery, Robert fell into a deeper confusion. He floundered through a few awkward phrases of deprecation and apology, but Barbara cut in upon his struggles without mercy. The gibes of Doctor John troubled her not a whit, but one thing which he had said captured her interest.

"_Did_ Aunt Hitty _really_ cry when she found I had gone away? Did she really feel so badly about it? I thought she would be rather glad!"

"She was in great grief, bitter grief, Barbara. Do you think no one has feelings but yourself?" answered Doctor Jim, with some severity.

This pertinent question Barbara ignored. She turned to Robert.

"You must understand, Robert," she explained with care, "that Aunt Hitty is not really cruel to me,--at least she never intends to be.

But she and I do not understand each other, and so we can't get on!"

"You will simply have to learn some of the rudiments of obedience and self-control, Barbara," said Doctor Jim. Never had he spoken to her so severely before, and she was amazed. But she saw that this time she had gone very near to forfeiting the sympathy of her most faithful allies. Perhaps, after all, she _was_ in the wrong to run away. The suspicion only made her the more obstinate.

"I don't think one ought to obey any one, except one's father and mother," she proclaimed rebelliously. "One's father and mother, if they are good, and wise, and kind," she added, still further enlarging her freedom.

"And the king!" added Robert, sententiously. He flung out the word as a shibboleth.

There was a moment of silence. Barbara darted upon him a glance of petulant disappointment. Doctor John laughed hugely. But as for Doctor Jim, his face underwent a swift change, as he scanned the boy with new interest.

"Well said, well said; spoken as Richard's boy should speak, as a Gault should ever speak!" he thundered, in high approval. "I am sorry if I seemed abrupt a moment ago, Robert. Pardon my quick temper. I see your heart is in the right place, and you have not let them stuff your head with pestilent and plebeian heresies. Yes, yes, you must certainly come to Second Westings. I shall be honoured if my old friend's son will be my guest!"

From that moment dated a friendship between Robert and Doctor Jim which no after vicissitude was ever able to disturb.

But Barbara was of another mind.

"King George is just a stupid old tyrant, and I hate him!" she exclaimed. "I'm sorry, Robert, you have not quite so much sense as I thought you had. I'm really disappointed in you. But there are _some_ nice Tories! You know even dear Doctor Jim is a Tory, though we can't see why, and he's just as lovely as if he were on the right side. So you may come to Second Westings,--though you must promise not to argue with me. But I know, Robert, I sha'n't like you now so well as I thought I was going to!"

"Let the young people fight it out, eh, Jim?" said Doctor John, greatly amused. "Let them fight it out between them!" Then, suddenly grave, he added, "G.o.d grant the differences now distracting our colonies grow not beyond the point of children's quarrels!"

Doctor Jim shook his head sorrowfully.

"There's trouble ahead, John. I feel it coming. This is a stiff-necked and disloyal people, and I have a foreboding. There's a sword in the air, John!"

"It's surely a stiff-necked king, Jim," muttered Doctor John.

"The sword of a Gault will ever leap from its scabbard to serve the king!" said Robert, loftily, his grave eyes aglow with exaltation.

As he made this proclamation of his faith, devoting himself to a cause of which she disapproved, and quite ignoring her feelings in the matter, Barbara felt a sudden pang of loneliness. She seemed forgotten, or, at least, grown secondary and trivial.

"Do let us hurry home to Uncle Bob!" she pleaded, her voice pathetic, her eyes tired and dissatisfied.

Then silence, with the twilight, descended upon the voyaging company; and in a little while, coming noiselessly to the landing-place, they stepped ash.o.r.e into the dewy, sweet-smelling weeds and the evening peace.

CHAPTER X.

A green lane, little used, but deeply rutted, led up from the wharf to the main street of Westings Landing. The village was silent, with no sign of life, except here and there a glimmer from a candle-lit window.

From the pale sky overhead came the strange tw.a.n.g of swooping night-hawks, as of harp-strings suddenly but firmly plucked. In the intervals between these irregular and always unexpected notes was heard the persistent rhythm of a whippoorwill, softly threshing the dusk with his phantom song. Barbara felt the whole scene to be unreal, her companions unreal, herself most unreal of all. Could it be that she was the girl who had that same morning run away, that same morning made so brave and triumphant a start upon so splendid a venture? Now, somehow, she felt rather than understood the folly of it. The fact that she would have missed her Uncle Bob if she had succeeded in her plan took out of it all the zest, and it became to her a very ridiculous plan indeed. But her change of att.i.tude was emotional rather than intellectual. She was convinced in mood, not in mind.

Only she felt herself on the sudden a very small, tired girl, who deserved to be punished, and wanted to go to bed. Her conviction of childishness was heightened by the fact that Robert, who was walking just ahead with Doctor Jim, in grave discussion, seemed not only to have suddenly grown up, but to have quite forgotten her once imperious but now discredited existence. Her exhaustion, her reaction, her defeat, her disappointment in Robert, these all at once translated themselves into a sense of hopeless loneliness. She seized the large, kind hand of Doctor John, who walked in silence by her side, and clung to him.

Presently Doctor John felt hot tears streaming copiously down his fingers. Without a word, he s.n.a.t.c.hed her up into his arms, carrying her as if she were a baby; and shaking with voiceless sobs, she buried her small, wet face in his comforting neck. She felt as if she wanted to cry wildly, deliciously, for hours and hours. But she managed to remember that even a very small girl may be heavy to carry over a rough road in the dusk, when the man who carries her has had a hard day's work chasing her. And, furthermore, she thought how very, very little, how poor and pitiful a heroine she would seem in Robert's eyes if he should chance to remember her existence and look back! She pulled herself together with a fierce effort, and choked down her sobs.

"Thank you so much, dear Doctor John!" she whispered in his ear. "I'm better now, and you must put me down. I'm too heavy."

"Tut, tut, sweetheart!" growled Doctor John, softly; "you bide where you are, and rest. _You_ heavy!"

"But,"--she persisted, with a little earthward wriggle to show she meant it,--"I want to get down now, please! I don't want to look like quite such a baby. Doctor John!"

"Tut, tut!" but he set her down, nevertheless, and kept comforting hold of one cold little hand. Doctor John was quick in his sympathetic comprehension of women and children, and tolerant of what most men would account mere whim. In a moment he leaned down close to her ear, and whispered:

"What are you but a baby, after all,--a tired out, bad baby, sweetheart? But we'll just keep that a secret between you and me, and not let Jim Pigeon or Master Robert even guess at it!" And Barbara squeezed his hand violently in both of hers by way of answer.

At this moment, Doctor Jim and Robert, reaching the corner of the street, turned and waited for them to come up. Doctor Jim had Barbara's precious basket of kittens on his arm, while Robert was carrying her little red bundle, which he now handed over to Doctor John. A certain reluctance with which he gave it up was quite lost upon Barbara in her unwonted humility and depression; and it was a very white, wistful little face which she turned glimmeringly upon him as he bowed over her hand.

"Why are you leaving us here, Robert?" she asked, in a small voice, most unlike the wilful tone with which she had talked to him in the canoe.

"My way lies down the street, sweet mistress," said the boy. "Your horses, Doctor Jim tells me, are waiting for you at the Blue Boar yonder. This has been a wonderful day for me. When you think of it, will you try to remember me kindly as one who would ever be your most devoted, humble servant?"

Delighted by this elaborate courtesy, so rehabilitating to her self-esteem, Barbara began to feel herself almost herself again. She thought, with a sudden p.r.i.c.kling heat of shame, of how childish she had been during all the past year,--and she almost fifteen! And here was Robert, who was certainly very grown-up, treating her with a deference which he would never dream of paying to a mere little girl! She resolved to justify his deference, to conceal her pet childishnesses till time should mature them away; yet even as she registered this resolve, she registered a vague but deeper one, that she would cling for ever to every childish taste and pleasure in spite of the very utmost that time could do. But the feeling that came uppermost and found expression was a sharp little pang at something in his words which sounded as if he were bidding farewell for a long, indefinite time.

"But I shall see you again soon, sha'n't I, Robert?" she exclaimed, impulsively. "You'll come over to Second Westings right away, won't you, and meet Uncle Bob?"

"Yes," said the boy, bowing low again, and speaking with a mixture of hesitation and triumph, "I am promising myself that pleasure, Mistress Barbara, within a very few days. You see--Doctor Jim--he has been so kind--"

"To be sure," broke in Doctor Jim, with an emphasis to preclude any discussion of consistency,--"I've asked the lad over to visit us, John.