Cape Cod Folks Part 28

I think I told her then that when I had my house on the hill, she should be the housekeeper to guard my keys and conduct my affairs; "that is, my dear, attend to all the little practical details connected with living,"

and Rebecca, to whom my castles on the Hill were never castles in the air, but who believed most implicitly that I would, sooner or later, perform all things that ever I dreamed of doing, accepted her prospective matronship with a becoming sense of its advantage and dignity.

Eagle Hill was haunted by a horse, a pure white horse--not Lovell's--with a flowing mane and tail, and a beautiful arched neck. His motions, the Wallencampers said, were most fiery and graceful. Occasionally he paused and fell back, quivering on his haunches, looked this way and that, and then, with a wild plunge, swept on again, swifter than before. Every true Wallencamper could both see and hear the "white horse" when, at night, clearly outlined against the sky, he galloped back and forth along the very summit of the hill.

It was on one of the blackest nights of the season that the fuel, which less grand and poetic souls would doubtless have reserved for another winter's use, was borne in jubilant triumph by the Wallencampers up the sides of this sacred and ill.u.s.trious steep, and there consumed in a most glorious conflagration. The spectacle was appalling. At intervals in the roaring and crackling of the flames was heard the roar of the near ocean, while the familiar features of the landscape and the faces of the encircling spectators, stood out with unreal and terrible distinctness in the h.e.l.lish light.

Emily, who had coughed all the way climbing up the hill, stood stirring the fire with a long pole, and making reckless and facetious remarks the while, which, uttered in the midst of that unearthly scene, struck me cold with horror.

"Come, Bachelder," said she; "git onto the end of my pole, and I'll hold ye over there a while. Ye might as well be gittin' used to it!"

"Heh! yes," said Bachelor Lot. "But what I'm a thinkin' is, you'd ought to have a subordinate. I never heered--heh!--of putting a person of such importance in the Kingdom--heh!--however efficient--into the position of Fire Tender!"

"Crazy Silvy" was at the bonfire. I had never seen her before. Silvy did not go out on ordinary occasions. I watched her as she stood with a scant, thin shawl thrown over her head, looking intently into the flames, shivering often, and smiling as she moved her lips in apparently delightful conversation with herself.

Some of the children essayed to tease her; she seemed quite unconscious of their efforts, but I turned and spoke to them rather sharply. The next time I looked up, her strange, smiling eyes were fixed full on my face.

I glanced away quickly, with a nervous shiver, and moved a little farther off. As I did so, Silvy, regarding me in that same dreamily contemplative manner, walked toward me a step or two, and as I continued to move away, she walked slowly after me.

My acquaintance with the unconfined insane had not been extensive enough to allow me to regard her motions with that mingled amus.e.m.e.nt and curiosity, which was the only sentiment expressed on the countenances of the Wallencampers who stood watching us; but I concluded that it was better to face about, and meet my pursuer with an air of fearlessness. I did so, and held out my hand to her as she came up.

"How do you do, Silvy?" I said.

"Oh, no!" said Silvy, thrusting her hands behind her, laughing softly, and shaking her head. "Not with the queen of heaven! Not with the queen of heaven!"

I thought I detected Emily's derisive influence in this poor, simple creature's words. Silvy was so perfectly mild and harmless in appearance, however, that I began to feel rea.s.sured.

"I've heard about you, Silvy," I continued, cheerfully. "I'm the teacher, you know. You've heard them speak of the teacher?"

"So glad," continued Silvy, in the same low, cooing tone; "so glad to meet the queen of heaven."

"Hush!" said I then. "You mustn't say that again. Draw your shawl up tighter." For in spite of the bonfire, the wind was blowing cold on the hill.

While I spoke Silvy had become absorbed in watching the fire again. I would have walked quietly away, but as I turned to go she thrust her head toward me quickly and whispered:--

"Wait! don't--you--ever--tell!"

Silvy put her hand to her lips.

"No," said I, smiling.

"Silvy never told," she went on; "except to you. You've got a key.

Silvy's got a key. She keeps things all locked up, Silvy does. Emily don't have any key. She talks--she talks all over--don't you tell--but Silvy lives with Emily--so bad," said Silvy, heaving a gentle sigh and speaking in a tone of the deepest confidence; "so bad not to have any key."

"That's true, I think," said I, beginning to find my strange companion rather interesting.

"Yes." Silvy nodded her head several times as though we understood, we two, and she was delighted to have discovered the fact.

Then her eyes wandered again to the fire, and she resumed her happy, smiling conversation with herself.

I thought she had forgotten me, or concluded not to unlock anything with her key, when she turned slowly and looked at me, and seemed to gather up the lost train of her ideas in my face.

"Silvy watched the fishermen at Emily's," she went on. "They said, 'Poor Silvy!' 'See you again next time, Silvy!' They are very p'lite, thank you, and they laugh once. 'Ha! ha!' But David Rollin, he laughs twice.

'Ha! ha!' and behind his sleeve, too. Such things are d.a.m.nable!"

Silvy's dulcet tones ran over that hard word with the mildest and softest of accents.

"And they bring wine," she continued. "Silvy cl'ared off the table one night. She heard 'em sing, and they says to him, 'What about pretty Beck?' and he says 'We must have a little fun, you know, ha! ha!' and then, 'ha! ha!' behind his sleeve. Now if Silvy could keep it all together, you'd straighten it out maybe. Silvy can't straighten it out.

Where did she hear so much, I wonder! She hears too much, Silvy does."

She knitted her brows in pitiful perplexity.

"You were talking about the fishermen," said I.

"No," said Silvy, shaking her head; "about Beck. She never says, 'Crazy Silvy! There she goes! Look at Silvy!' She says, 'Come and see me, Silvy,' so. So soft spoken. Silvy loves her."

"I love her, too," I said, gently; for Silvy had paused again, and was knitting her brows in that painful manner, as though the effort to think gave her actual physical suffering.

"Silvy knows! Silvy knows!" She exclaimed suddenly, her face all smooth and softly smiling now. "Never--you--trust a neat man," impressively.

"Never you trust 'em--for why? They wasn't made so. G.o.d made 'em. G.o.d made 'em to clutter. And there was that Dave Rollin. He was always a'

hangin' things up. He was always foldin' of 'em. He was always a hangin'

'em up in his room. Silvy knows. But there was a piece of writin' got over behind the bury. And it didn't fall. But it stuck. Silvy knows. She reads writin'. She reads it over and over. He didn't love Beck any more.

But he's afraid. And he'll give money. 'Oh, go anywhere! Only keep still, Beck. For Heaven's sake, keep still.' Why, she wouldn't hurt him! Beck wouldn't hurt him," said Silvy, in a slow tone full of wonder.

"He needn't be afraid. But Silvy won't tell him so. Why not? Oh, she likes to be amused. Silvy likes to be amused!

"Silvy knows! Silvy knows!" She continued, after another terrible pause.

"She set eyes on you, standin' there. That's the one, she says, and she says it a long time. That's the queen of Heaven. She wouldn't hurt Silvy, poor Silvy! She's got a key. So she'll straighten it out maybe. Silvy can't, she's so tired. When Silvy got up in the mornin', it was early.

Oh, so still! And a bird was flyin' up--up. Silvy couldn't see--so far to heaven. It made Silvy cry. So strange not to be any tired in the mornin'."

Silvy made a last painful effort to collect her thoughts, before her face resumed its habitual, far away, half smiling expression.

Then she said, "Silvy comes up the hill all alone. Not the way them others, and she see the fire burnin'. But it was dark in the bush. Silvy heard 'em talkin' terribly. It was Beck and George Olver. 'I'll make an honest home for you, Beck.' And she says, terribly, she no deserve. And he says, she better than him, and won't she come? And she cries so, 'My heart is broke!' And how good to live with him she knows, now--so honest and true--but she no fit, and, oh, 'My heart is broke! my heart is broke!'"

The scene, the vividness of these words had not yet faded in the least from Silvy's memory.

"Then," said she; "they keep on talkin', terribly. But Silvy--she hears so much--poor Silvy! She goes 'round very still, 'nother way. Silvy's tired."

And, as unceremoniously as she had approached me, she turned and walked slowly back to her old position before the fire. She did not look at me.

She seemed to have become utterly unconscious of my presence. The scant, thin shawl had fallen back from her head. She shivered as she stood gazing into the flames, but the dreamy expression was ever in her eyes and the soft laugh on her lips, as she continued murmuring to herself.

The Wallencampers were not content to let the fire go out after the first grand illumination. They were bringing up more brush from the landward side of the hill, amid a confusion of wild shouts and excited laughter.

I found Rebecca among a group of girls.

"When you go home to-night," I said; "I want you to step in and see me.

Come up to my room."

"Yes," said Rebecca, and I noticed how pale she turned in the fire-light.

I did not say any more to her, then.