Hills of the Shatemuc Part 83

"I'd like to see him --"

And then the sounds of sc.r.a.ping feet entering the house.

"I'd like to go somewheres that I could see a fire, too," said the strange voice. "Ben ridin' all night, and got to set off again, you see, directly."

And Mrs. Nettley turned her cakes in a great hurry, as her brother pushed open the door and let the intruder in.

He took off his hat as he came, shewing a head that had seen some sixty winters, thinly dressed with yellow hair but not at all grey. The face was strong and Yankee-marked with shrewdness and reserve. His hat was wet and his shoulders, which had no protection of an overcoat.

"Do you wish to see Mr. Landholm in his room?" said Mr.

Inchbald. "He's just coming down to breakfast."

"That'll do as well," said the stranger nodding. "And stop -- you may give him this -- maybe he'd as lieve have it up there."

Mr. Inchbald looked at the letter handed him, the outside of which at least told no tales; but his sister with a woman's quick instinct had already asked,

"Is anything the matter?"

"Matter?" -- said the stranger, -- "well, yes. -- He's wanted to hum."

Both brother and sister stood now forgetting everything, both saying in a breath,

"Wanted, what for?"

"Well -- there's sickness --"

"His father?"

"No, his mother."

Mrs. Nettley threw down her slice and ran out of the room. Mr.

Inchbald turned away slowly in the other direction. The stranger, left alone, took a knife from the table and dished the neglected cakes, and sat down to dry himself between them and the coffee.

Mr. Inchbald slowly mounted the stairs to Winthrop's door, met the pleasant face that met him there, and gave the letter.

"I was coming to ask you down to breakfast with us, Mr.

Landholm; but somebody has just come with that for you, and wishes you to have it at once."

The pleasant face grew grave, and the seal was broken, and the letter unfolded. It was a folio half sheet, of coa.r.s.e yellowish paper, near the upper end of which a very few lines were irregularly written.

"My dear son

"It is with great pain I write to tell you that you must leave all and hasten home if you would see your mother. Friend Underhill will take this to you, and your shortest way will be, probably, to hire a horse in M. and travel night and day; as the time of the boat is uncertain and the stage does not make very good time -- Her illness has been so short that we did not know it was necessary to alarm you before. My dear son, come without delay --

"Your father,

"W. Landholm."

Mr. Inchbald watched the face and manner of his friend as he read, and after he read, these few words, -- but the one expressed only gravity, the other, action. Mr. Inchbald felt he could do nothing, and slowly went down stairs again to Mr.

Underhill. He found him still over the fire between the cakes and the coffee. But Mr. Inchbald totally forgot to be hospitable, and not a word was said till Winthrop came in and he and the letter-bringer had wrung each other's hand, with a brief 'how d' ye do.'

"How did you leave them, Mr. Underhill?"

"Well -- they were wantin' you pretty bad --"

"Did _she_ send for me?"

"Well -- no -- I guess not," said the other with something of hesitancy, or of consideration, in his speech. Winthrop stood silent a moment.

"I shall take horse immediately. You will go -- how?"

"May as well ride along with you," said Mr. Underhill, settling his coat. "I'm wet -- a trifle -- but may as well ride it off as any way. Start now?"

"Have you breakfasted?"

"Well -- no, I hain't had time, you see -- I come straight to you."

"Mr. Inchbald, I must go to the office a few minutes -- will you give my friend a mouthful?"

"But yourself, Mr. Landholm?"

"I have had breakfast."

Mr. Inchbald did his duty as host then; but though his guest used despatch, the 'mouthful' was hardly a hungry man's breakfast when Winthrop was back again. In a few minutes more the two were mounted and on their way up the right bank of the river.

They rode silently. At least if Mr. Underhill's wonted talkativeness found vent at all, it was more than Winthrop was able ever to recollect. He could remember nothing of the ride but his own thoughts; and it seemed to him afterwards that they must have been stunning as well as deafening; so vague and so blended was the impression of them mixed up with the impression of everything else. It was what Mr. Underhill called 'falling weather'; the rain dropped lightly, or by turns changing to mist hung over the river and wreathed itself about the hills, and often stood across his path; as if to bid the eye turn inward, for s.p.a.ce to range without it might not have. And pa.s.sing all the other journeys he had made up and down that road, some of them on horseback as he was now, Winthrop's thoughts went back to that first one, when through ill weather and discouragement he had left the home he was now seeking, to enter upon his great-world career. Why did they so? He had been that road in the rain since; he had been there in all weathers; he had been there often with as desponding a heart as brought him down that first time; which indeed did not despond at all then, though it felt the weight of life's undertakings and drawbacks. And the warm rain, and yellow, sun-coloured mist of this April day, had no likeness to the cold, pitiless, pelting December storm. Yet pa.s.sing all the times between, his mind went back constantly to that first one. He felt over again, though as in a dream, its steps of loneliness and heart-sinking -- its misty looking forward -- and most especially that Bible word '_Now_' -- which his little sister's finger had pointed out to him. He remembered how constantly that day it came back to him in everything he looked at, -- from the hills, from the river, from the beat of the horses' hoofs, from the falling rain. 'Now' -- 'now' -- he remembered how he had felt it that day; he had almost forgotten it since; but now it came up again to his mind as if that day had been but yesterday. What brought it there? Was it the unrecognized, unallowed sense, that the one of all the world who most longed to have him obey that word, might be to- day beyond seeing him obey it -- for ever? Was it possibly, that pa.s.sing over the bridge of Mirza's vision he suddenly saw himself by the side of one of the open trap-doors, and felt that some stay, some security he needed, before his own foot should open one for itself? He did not ask; he did not try to order the confused sweep of feeling which for the time pa.s.sed over him; one dread idea for the time held mastery of all others, and kept that day's ride all on the edge of that open trap-door. Whose foot had gone down there? -- And under that thought, -- woven in with the various tapestry of shower and sunshine, meadow and hillside, that clothed his day's journey to the sense, -- were the images of that day in December -- that final leaving of home and his mother, that rainy cold ride on the stage-coach, Winnie's open Bible, and the 'Now,' to which her finger, his mother's prayers, and his own conscience, had pointed all the day long.

It made no difference, that as they went on, this April day changed from rain and mist to the most brilliant sunshine. The mists rolled away, down the river and along the gulleys of the mountains; the clouds scattered from off the blue sky, which looked down clear, fair, and soft, as if Mirza's bridge were never under it. The little puddles of water sparkled in the sunshine and reflected the blue; the roads made haste to dry; the softest of spring airs wafted down from the hill-sides a spicy remembrance of budding shoots and the drawn-out sweetness of pine and fir and hemlock and cedar. The day grew sultrily warm. But though sunlight and spring winds carried their tokens to memory's gates and left them there, they were taken no note of at the time, by one traveller, and the other had no mental apparatus fine enough to gather them up.

He had feeling or delicacy enough of another kind, however, to keep him quiet. He sometimes looked at Winthrop; never spoke to him. Almost never; if he spoke at all, it was in some aside or counsel-taking with himself about the weather, the way, or the prospect and management of the farming along the river.

They stopped only to bait or to rest their horses; even at those times Mr. Underhill restrained himself not only from talking to Winthrop but from talking before him; and except when his companion was at a distance, kept as quiet as he.

Winthrop asked no questions.

The road grew hilly, and in some places rough, trying to the horses; and by the time they were fairly among the mountain land that stood down far south from Wut-a-qut-o, the sun was nearing the fair broken horizon line of the western sh.o.r.e. The miles were long now, when they were no longer many; the road was more and more steep and difficult; the horses weary. The sun travelled faster than they did. A gentler sunlight never lay in spring-time upon those hills and river; it made the bitter turmoil and dread of the way seem the more harsh and ungentle. Their last stopping-place was at Cowslip's Mill -- on the spot where seven years before, Winthrop had met the stage- coach and its consignment of ladies.

"The horses must have a minute here -- and a bite," said Mr.

Underhill letting himself slowly down from his beast; -- "lose no time by it."

For a change of posture Winthrop threw himself off, and stood leaning on the saddle, while his travelling companion and Mr.

Cowslip came up the rise bringing water and food to the horses. No more than a grave nod was exchanged between Winthrop and his old neighbour; neither said one word; and as soon as the buckets were empty the travellers were on their way again.

It was but a little way now. The sun had gone behind the mountain, the wind had died, the perfect stillness and loveliness of evening light was over hill and river and the home land, as the riders came out from the woods upon the foot of the bay and saw it all before them. A cloudless sky, -- the white clear western light where the sun had been, -- the bright sleeping water, -- the sweet lights and shades on Wut-a-qut-o and its neighbour hills, the lower and darker promontory throwing itself across the landscape; and from one spot, that half-seen centre of the picture, the little brown speck on Shah-wee-tah, -- a thin, thin wreath of smoke slowly went up.

Winthrop for one moment looked, and then rode on sharply and Mr. Underhill was fain to bear him company. They had rounded the bay -- they had ridden over the promontory neck -- they were within a little of home, -- when Winthrop suddenly drew bridle.

Mr. Underhill stopped. Winthrop turned towards him, and asked the question not asked till then.

"How is it at home, Mr. Underhill?"