Fashion and Famine Part 15

A few weeks after the events already related in the course of our story, a plain, one-horse chaise came slowly along the highway, and bent its course toward the ferry. The scow had been hauled up beneath a clump of willows, and two old men sat in the shade, waiting for customers.

They saw the chaise, and instantly sprang to work, pushing the scow out into the stream, and bringing it up with a clumsy sweep against the carriage track.

The chaise contained two persons; one was a female, in a neat, unostentatious travelling dress, and with her face partially concealed by a green veil. The old men had never travelled far beyond the river which afforded them support, but there was something in the air and general appearance of the lady, which aroused them to an unusual degree of curiosity.

The man, too--there was much in his air and dress to attract observation; a degree of rustic awkwardness, mingled with self-confidence and a sort of rude strength, that struck the old men as unnatural and foreign. The chaise was soon recognized as belonging to the landlord in a neighboring village; but the two persons who rode in it puzzled them exceedingly. The man in the chaise drove at once into the scow, and, stepping out, he took his horse by the bit.

"Now move on!" he said, addressing the old men with the air of one who understood the place and its customs. "If the horse stands steady, I will lend a hand directly."

"Oh, he's steady enough; we've rowed the critter across here more than once; he ain't shiey, that horse ain't," answered one of the men, ready to open a conversation on any subject.

"That may be, but I'll hold him just now and see how he stands the water."

There was nothing in this to open a fresh vein of conversation; so, taking up their poles, the two old men pushed their lumbering craft into the river, casting now and then a furtive glance at the lady, who had drawn her veil aside, and sat with her eyes fixed on the opposite sh.o.r.e, apparently unmindful of their scrutiny.

"Purty, ain't she?" whispered one of the men.

The other nodded his head.

"A sort of nat'ral look about her," continued the man, drawing back, as if to give a fresh plunge with his pole.

"Just so," was the rejoinder.

The lady, who had, up to this time, kept her eyes eagerly bent on the little village to which they seemed creeping over the water, suddenly addressed them--

"There are three houses in the valley now--that nearest the water, to whom does it belong?"

"That, ma'am! oh, that's the new tavern; the sign isn't so well seen when the leaves are out, yet if you look close, it's swinging to that ar willow agin the house."

The lady cast a glance toward the willow, then her eyes seemed to pierce into the depths of the valley. Beyond the tavern lay an apple orchard, and back of that rose the roof of an old gray house. The ridge and heavy stone chimney alone were visible; but the old building seemed to fascinate her gaze--she bent forward, her hands were clasped, her features grew visibly pale. She cast an earnest look at the old man, and attempted to speak; but the effort only made her parted lips turn a shade whiter. She uttered no sound.

"You needn't be afraid, ma'am, there's no arthly danger here!" said one of the men, mistaking the source of her emotion. "I've been on this ferry sixteen years, and no accident, has ever happened in my time. You couldn't drown here if you was to try."

The lady looked at him with a faint quivering smile, that died gently away as her gaze became more earnest. She dwelt upon his withered old face, as if trying to study out some familiar feature in its hard lines.

"Sixteen years!" she said, and the smile returned, but with an additional tinge of sadness, "sixteen years!"

"It seems a long time to you, like enough; but wait till you get old as I am, and see how short it is."

The lady did not reply; but sinking back into her seat, drew the veil over her face.

All this time, the traveller, who still held the horse by the bit, had been regarding the lady with no ordinary appearance of anxiety. He overheard the whispers pa.s.sing between the ferrymen, and seemed annoyed by their import. He was evidently ill at ease. When the scow ran with a grating noise upon the sh.o.r.e, he gave the usual fare in silence, and entering the chaise with a swinging leap, drove toward the tavern.

The landlord, who had just arisen from an early supper, washed down by a cup of hard cider, came indolently from the front stoop and held the horse while the travellers dismounted.

"Want to bait the horse?" he inquired, pointing toward a wooden trough built against the huge trunk of the willow.

"Put him up--we shall stay all night, replied the guest."

The landlord's face expanded; it was not often that his house was honored by travellers of a higher grade than the teamsters, who brought private fare for man and horse with them; the same bag usually containing oats or corn in one end, and a box of baked beans, a loaf of bread, and a wedge of dried beef in the other--man and beast dividing accommodations equally on the journey.

"Oats or gra.s.s?" cried the good man, excited by the rich prospects before him.

"Both, with two rooms--supper for the lady in her own chamber--for me, anywhere."

"Supper!" cried the landlord, with a crest-fallen look, "supper! We haven't a morsel of fresh meat, nor a chicken on the place."

"But there is trout in the brook, I suppose," answered the traveller.

"Wal, how did you know that? Been in these parts afore mebby."

"These hills are full of trout streams, everybody knows that, who ever heard of the state," was the courteous reply. "If you have a pole and line handy perhaps I can help you."

"There is one in the porch--I'll just turn out the horse, and show you the way."

The traveller seemed glad to be relieved from observation. He turned hurriedly away, and taking a rude fishing-rod from the porch went round the house, and crossing a meadow behind it, came out upon the banks of a mountain stream, that marked the precipitous boundaries of the valley. A wild, sparkling brook it was--broken up by rocks sinking into deep, placid pools, and leaping away through the witch-hazels and brake leaves that overhung it with a soft, gushing murmur so sweet and cheerful, that it seemed like the sunshine laughing, as it was drawn away to the hill shadows.

Jacob Strong looked up and down the stream with a sad countenance. "How natural everything seems," he muttered. "She used to sit here on this very stone, with her little fish-pole, and send me off yonder after box-wood blossoms and wild honeysuckles, while she dipped her feet in and out of the water, just to hurry me back again. Those white little feet--how I did love to see her go barefooted! By and by, as she grew older, how she would laugh at my awkward way of baiting her hook--she didn't know what made my hand tremble--no, nor never will!"

Jacob sat down upon the stone on which his eyes had been riveted. With his face resting between his hands, an elbow supported by each knee, and his feet buried in a hollow choked up with wood moss, he fell into one of those profound reveries, that twine every fibre of the heart around the past. The fishing rod lay at his feet, unheeded. Just beneath his eye, was a deep pool, translucent as liquid diamond, and sleeping at the bottom, were three or four fine trout, floating upon their fins, with their mottled sides now and then sending a soft rainbow gleam through the water.

At another time, Jacob, who had been a famous angler in his day, would have been excited by this fine prospect of sport; but now those delicate creatures, balancing themselves in the waves, scarcely won a pa.s.sing notice. They only served to remind him more vividly of the long ago.

He was aroused by the landlord, who came up the stream, pole in hand, baiting his hook as he walked along. He cast two fine trout, strung upon a forked hazel twig, on the moss at Jacob's feet, and dropped his hook into the pool.

Jacob watched him with singular interest. His eyes gleamed as he saw the man pull his fly with a calm, steady hand over the surface of the water, now dropping it softly down, now aiding it to float lazily on the surface, then allowing it to sink insidiously before the graceful creatures, that it had as yet failed to excite.

All at once, a n.o.ble trout, that had been sleeping beneath a tuft of gra.s.s over which the water flowed, darted into the pool with a swiftness that left a ripple behind him, and leaped to the fly. Jacob almost uttered a groan, as he saw the beautiful creature lifted from the wave, his fins quivering, his jewelled sides glistening with water drops, and every wild evolution full of graceful agony. He was drawing a parallel between the tortured trout and a human being, whose history filled his heart. This it was that wrung the groan from his heart.

"This will do!" said the landlord, gently patting the damp sides of his prize, and thrusting the hazel twig under his gills. "You're sartin of a supper, sir, and a good one too--they'll be hissing on the gridiron long before you get to the house, I reckon, without you make up your mind to go along with me."

"Not yet; I will try my luck further up the stream," answered Jacob, and s.n.a.t.c.hing up the rod, he plunged through a clump of elders, and disappeared on the opposite bank. But the man was scarcely out of sight, when he returned again and resumed his old position.

Again he fell into thought--deep and painful thought. You could see it in the quiver of his rude features, in the mistiness that gathered over his eyes.

The afternoon shadows were beginning to lengthen across the valley, but they only served to plunge poor Jacob into memories still more bitter and profound. Everything within sight seemed clamoring to him of the past. Near by was a clover-field ruddy with blossoms, and broken with clumps and ridges of golden b.u.t.ter-cups and swamp lilies. Again the little girl stood before him--a fair, sweet child, with chestnut curls and large earnest eyes, who had waited in a corner of the fence, while he gathered armsful of these field-blossoms, for her to toss about in the sunshine. On the other hand lay an apple orchard, with half a dozen tall pear trees, ranging along the fence. He remembered climbing those trees a hundred times up to the very top, where the pears were most golden and ripe. He could almost hear the rich fruit as it went tumbling and rustling through the leaves, down to the snow-white ap.r.o.n held up to receive it. That ringing shout of laughter, as the ap.r.o.n gave way beneath its luscious burden--it rang through his heart again, and made a child of him.

The shadows grew deeper upon the valley, dew began to fall, and every gush of air that swept over the fields, became more and more fragrant.

Still Jacob dwelt with the past. The lady at the inn was forgotten. He was roaming amid those sweet scenes with that wild, mischievous, beautiful girl, when a hand fell upon his shoulder.

He started up and began to tremble as if caught in some deep offence.

"Madam--oh, madam! what brought you here?"

"I could not stay in that new house, Jacob. It was so close I could not breathe. The air of this valley penetrates my very heart--but I cannot shed a tear. Is it so with you, Jacob Strong?"

Jacob turned his head away; he could not all at once arouse himself from the deep delirium of his memories; his strong brain ached with the sudden transition her presence had forced upon it. Ada looked searchingly up the valley, and made a step forward.

"Where are you going, madam, not up yonder--not to the old house?"