Darrel of the Blessed Isles Part 36

"G.o.d bless thee, boy! thou'rt come to a great law--who drains the cup of another's happiness shall find it bitter, but who drains the cup of another's bitterness shall find it sweet."

A silence followed, in which Trove sat looking at the old man whose words were like those of a prophet. "I have no longer any right to seek my father," he thought. "And, though I meet him face to face, I must let him go his way."

Suddenly there came a rap at the door, and when Darrel opened it, they saw only a letter hanging to the latch. It contained these words, but no signature:--

"There'll be a bonfire and some fun to-night at twelve, in the middle of Cook's field. Messrs. Trove and Darrel are invited."

"Curious," said Darrel. "It has the look o' mischief."

"Oh, it's only the boys and a bit of skylarking," said Trove.

"Let's go and see what's up--it's near the time."

The streets were dark and silent as they left the shop. They went up a street beyond the village limits and looked off in Cook's field but saw no light there. While they stood looking a flame rose and spread. Soon they could see figures in the light, and, climbing the fence, they hastened across an open pasture. Coming near they saw a score of men with masks upon their faces.

"Give him the tar and feathers," said a strange voice.

"Not if he will confess an' seek forgiveness," another answered.

"Down to your knees, man, an' make no outcry, an' see you repeat the words carefully, as I speak them, or you go home in tar and feathers."

They could hear the sound of a scuffle, and, shortly, the phrases of a prayer spoken by one voice and repeated by another.

They were far back in the gloom, but could hear each word of that which follows: "O G.o.d, forgive me--I am a liar and a hypocrite--I have the tongue of scandal and deceit--I have robbed the poor--I have defamed the good--and, Lord, I am sick--with the rottenness of my own heart. And hereafter--I will cheat no more--and speak no evil of any one--Amen."

"Now, go to your home, Riley Brooke," said the voice, "an'

hereafter mind your tongue, or you shall ride a rail in tar and feathers."

They could see the crowd scatter, and some pa.s.sed near them, running away in the darkness.

"Stoop there an' say not a word," the tinker whispered, crouching in the gra.s.s.

When all were out of hearing, they started for the little shop.

"Hereafter," said Darrel, as they walked along, "G.o.d send he be more careful with the happiness of other men. I do a.s.sure thee, boy, it is bitter, bitter, bitter."

XXVIII

Darrel at Robin's Inn

Trove had much to help him,--youth, a cheerful temperament, a counsellor of unfailing wisdom. Long after they were gone he recalled the sadness and worry of those days with satisfaction, for, thereafter, the shock of trouble was never able to surprise and overthrow him.

After due examination he had been kept in bail to wait the action of the grand jury, soon to meet. Now there were none thought him guilty--save one or two afflicted with the evil tongue. It seemed to him a dead issue and gave him no worry. One thing, however, preyed upon his peace,--the knowledge that his father was a thief.

A conviction was ever boring in upon him that he had no right to love Polly. A base injustice it would be, he thought, to marry her without telling what he had no right to tell. But he was ever hoping for some word of his father--news that might set him free.

He had planned to visit Polly, and on a certain day Darrel was to meet him at Robin's Inn. The young man waited, in some doubt of his duty, and that day came--one of the late summer--when he and Darrel went afoot to the Inn, crossing hill and valley, as the crow flies, stopping here and there at isles of shadow in a hot amber sea of light. They sat long to hear the droning in the stubble and let their thought drift slowly as the ship becalmed.

"Some days," said Darrel, "the soul in me is like a toy skiff, tossing in the ripples of a duck pond an' mayhap stranding on a reed or lily. An' then," he added, with kindling eye and voice, "she is a great ship, her sails league long an' high, her masthead raking the stars, her hull in the infinite sea."

"Well," said Trove, sighing, "I'm still in the ripples of the duck pond."

"An' see they do not swamp thee," said Darrel, with a smile that seemed to say, "Poor weakling, your trouble is only as the ripples of a tiny pool." They went on slowly, over green pastures, halting at a brook in the woods. There, again, they rested in a cool shade of pines, Darrel lighting his pipe.

"I envy thee, boy," said the tinker, "entering on thy life-work in this great land--a country blest o' G.o.d. To thee all high things are possible. Where I was born, let a poor lad have great hope in him, an' all--ay, all--even those he loved, rose up to cry him down. Here in this land all cheer an' bid him G.o.d-speed. An' here is to be the great theatre o' the world's action. Many of high hope in the broad earth shall come, an' here they shall do their work. An' its spirit shall spread like the rising waters, ay, it shall flood the world, boy, it shall flood the world."

Trove made no reply, but he thought much and deeply of what the tinker said. They lay back a while on the needle carpet, thinking.

They could hear the murmur of the brook and a woodp.e.c.k.e.r drumming on a dead tree.

"Me head is busy as yon woodp.e.c.k.e.r's," Darrel went on. "It's the soul fire in this great, free garden o' G.o.d--it's America. Have ye felt it, boy?"

"Yes; it is in your eyes and on your tongue," said Trove.

"Ah boy! 'tis only G.o.d's oxygen. Think o' the poor fools withering on cracker barrels in Hillsborough an' wearing away 'the lag end o'

their lewdness.' I have no patience with the like o' them, I'd rather be a butcher's clerk an' carry with me the redolence o' ham."

In Hillsborough, where all spoke of him as an odd man of great learning, there were none, saving Trove and two or three others, that knew the tinker well, for he took no part in the roaring gossip of shop and store.

"Hath it ever occurred to thee," said Darrel, as they walked along, "that a fool is blind to his folly, a wise man to his wisdom?"

When they were through the edge of the wilderness and came out on Cedar Hill, and saw, below them, the great, round shadow of Robin's Inn, they began to hasten their steps. They could see Polly reading a book under the big tree.

"What ho! the little queen," said Darrel, as they came near, "Now, put upon her brow 'an odorous chaplet o' sweet summer buds.'"

She came to meet them in a pretty pink dress and slippers and white stockings.

"Fair lady, I bring thee flowers," said Darrel, handing her a bouquet. "They are from the great garden o' the fields."

"And I bring a crown," said Trove, as he kissed her and put a wreath of clover and wild roses on her brow.

"I thought something dreadful had happened," said Polly, with tears in her eyes. "For three days I've been dressed up waiting."

"An' a grand dress it is," said Barrel, surveying her pretty figure.

"I've nearly worn it out waiting," said she, looking down, her voice trembling.

"Tut, tut, girl--'tis a lovely dress," the tinker insisted.

"It is one my mother wore when she was a girl," said Polly, proudly. "It was made over."

"O--oh! G.o.d love thee, child!" said the tinker, in a tone of great admiration. "'Tis beautiful."

"And, you came through the woods?" said Polly.

"Through wood and field," was Trove's answer.

"I wonder you knew the way."

"The little G.o.d o' love--he shot his arrows, an' we followed them as the hunter follows the bee," said Darrel.