In Old Kentucky Part 28

The girl was frightened at the length to which she had permitted her ill-temper to carry her. "Oh, no, Frank," she hastily corrected, "I didn't mean that. Of course I am your friend."

"Thank you, Barbara," said he, with a calmness which was maddening to her. "I am sure we understand each other, now." And then, still further maddening her: "I must go now, and look after Madge and dear Queen Bess. I never should forgive myself if anything should happen to the girl. But nothing will. See how splendidly she rides!"

The girl upon the horse, as if conscious of his anxiety about her, now turned her mount back toward the field-end where the onlookers were loosely grouped and came toward them at a slow and gentle canter--a gait which none had ever seen Queen Bess take before, when a stranger was upon her back. She leaped from the mare by Layson's side, and Neb, ever anxious for the welfare of his equine darling, began work without delay at rubbing Queen Bess down.

"Reckon you'll never forgive me," Madge apologized to Layson, "but I just couldn't help it. Never even saw a mare like her, afore. My pony's no-whar alongside of her. I felt like an angel sittin' on a cloud an'

sailin' straight to heaven!" She turned and petted the black beauty.

"Oh, you darling!"

"Got to take her in, now," Neb said, preparing to lead the mare away. He spoke apologetically as if the girl had rights which, now, should be consulted. He had never made a like concession in the past to anyone except his master.

"Go 'way, go 'way," said Madge, taking the reins from his black hand.

"Ain't no use o' leadin' her--you jest watch her foller me!"

She looped the reins about the mare's arched neck, started off, and, without so much as flicking her long tail, Queen Bess fell in behind, obedient to her cooing, murmurous calls.

Frank laughed. "If," he said to the whole party, "you wish to have a look at the mare's quarters, I think Neb will now admit us."

All but the Colonel started toward the stable, but he hesitated, looking toward Miss Alathea. While the others had been spellbound by the girl and horse, he, the most enthusiastic horseman of them all, had been divided in attention between them and the lady whose notice he attracted, now, by means of sundry hems and haws.

"Miss 'Lethe, just a moment," he said softly. She paused and then went up to him. He held out a newspaper, suddenly at a loss for words, now that there was a prospect of a moment with her wholly uninterrupted.

"Here," said he, a little panicky, "is a full account of the revival, sermon and all. Make your hair stand on end to read it."

She took the paper, undeceived by his small subterfuge to gain attention, but interested, as she always was in such things, in the account of the revival. "This really is interesting." She sat down on the bench, as they reached the stable-yard again, and pored above the newspaper.

In the meantime the Colonel tried to screw his courage to the sticking point. "Colonel Sandusky Doolittle," he adjured himself, "if you don't say it now, then you forever hold your peace, that's all!" He went to his buggy, which had been brought to the stable yard, and from underneath its seat took a box containing a bouquet of sweet, old-fashioned flowers. Miss Alathea, absorbed in the account of the revival, did not notice him at all. "This will do the business," he reflected. "Now, Sandusky Doolittle, keep cool, keep cool!" Nervously, as he gazed at her, his fingers worked among the flowers, dismembering them unconsciously. "A Kentucky Colonel," he was saying to himself in scorn, "afraid of a woman!" His fingers tore the flowers with new activity as his nervousness increased, making sad work with the magnificent bouquet. "Of course she is an angel," he reflected, and then, with a grim humor, "or will be before I ask her, if I wait another twenty years! But I shall ask her, I shall ask her!" He stepped toward her boldly, but paused before her in a wordless panic when he had approached within a yard. "Heavens!" he thought. "My heart is going at a one-forty gait and the jockey's lost the reins. I'll be over the fence in another minute if I don't hold tight! But I have got to do it, this time." He dropped the stems of the flowers, still bound together by their lengths of wide white ribbon, into the elaborate box from which, so lately, he had taken them in their uninjured beauty, not noting the sad wreck which his too nervous fingers had produced, put on the cover and approached still nearer. With the box held toward her bashfully, he managed, then, another step or two. "Miss 'Lethe," he said stammering, "lawn party to-night--bouquet for you--brought it from Lexington--for you--for you, you know."

The Colonel never was embarra.s.sed save when he was endeavoring to propose marriage to Miss Alathea and he always was embarra.s.sed then. She recognized the situation from the mere tone of his voice and looked up hopefully.

"Oh, Colonel, how kind!" said she, as she held delighted hands out for the box. "I know it is beautiful."

"It was quite the best I could do, Miss 'Lethe," said the Colonel.

"You have such splendid taste! I'm sure it's lovely." She opened the box and looked, expectantly, within. "Why, Colonel," she cried, disappointed, "where are--where are the flowers?"

"Why--why--why," he stammered, and then saw the mutilated blossoms on the ground around him. "Why, I don't know--don't know," said he. "'Don't ask me."

She was rummaging among the stems, nonplussed. "Why, here's a note!" she said.

"Thank heaven!" the Colonel thought, "the note's there yet!" Then, growing bold: "Miss 'Lethe, if you've a kindly feeling for me in your heart, read that note; but don't you get excited; keep cool, keep cool!"

"Why, certainly," said she. "I see no cause for excitement." She unfolded the note and read, aloud, and very slowly, for the Colonel's hand was not too easy to decipher. "'My dear, dear Miss 'Lethe: Woman without her man is a savage.'" She looked up, naturally astonished by this unusual statement. "Why, Colonel," she exclaimed, "what can you mean by saying woman is a savage without her man?"

He stood appalled for just a second and then realized the error into which his ardor had misled him. "Great Scott!" he cried. "I forgot to put in the commas! It ought to read this way: 'Woman, without her, man is a savage.' Go on, Miss 'Lethe, please go on."

She read again: "'I feel that it is time for me to become civilized--in other words, to come in out of the wet. To me you have been, for twenty years, the embodiment of woman's truth, purity and goodness. But const.i.tutional timidity and chronic financial depression, due to the race-track, have hitherto kept me silent.'" Miss 'Lethe looked up at him with a strange expression on her face. "Colonel," she exclaimed, "what does this mean?"

"Go on, Miss 'Lethe," was the answer, "please go on, go on." He made a mighty effort to secure control of his unruly nerves, and, almost unconsciously, while her head was bent above the note, took a small flask from his pocket and imbibed from it. It steadied him.

She read again: "'I am convinced that my interest in the company will yield me a competence; accordingly, behold me at your feet!'"

Miss 'Lethe looked down somewhat mischievously. She did not see the Colonel where his note declared he would be. She glanced again at the paper in her hands and saw a word which, at first, had quite escaped attention. "'Metaphorically,'" she read, and then the signature: "'Colonel Sandusky Doolittle.'"

"Colonel!" she exclaimed.

"Miss 'Lethe," he replied, and, discovering that the flask was still in plain view in his hand, slipped it into his sidepocket upside down.

"Colonel, put that bottle right side up and listen to me," she said calmly. "Do you really love me?"

"Do I love you? With a fervor--er--a--pa.s.sion--er--will you excuse me if I smoke?" He took a black cigar from his vest pocket, in another effort to control his nerves, and lighted it as might an automatic smoker.

"I am going to put you to the proof," said she. "Could you, for my sake, come down from ten cigars a day to five?"

The Colonel was dismayed. "To five cigars a day! Impossible!" He caught himself. That scarcely was the way to answer the request of the woman he adored so fervently. "I mean," he hastily corrected, "is--is that all?"

He made a motion as if to throw away the weed he had just lighted, but thought better of it. "I will make the descent to-morrow," he said earnestly.

"Could you restrict yourself to three mint-julips, daily?"

"Three! A man couldn't live on three! He'd have to--have to take such poisons as--as cold water into his system."

"Remember, Colonel, I would mix them."

"That settles it! Three goes!" He fervently reached toward her, plainly planning to embrace her.

"Wait, Colonel," she exclaimed, "there is one more condition. Could you, for my sake, promise never to enter another race-track?"

He started back from her in horror. "Never enter another race-tack! I, Colonel Sandusky Doolittle, known everywhere, from Maine to California, as a plunger, give up the absorbing pa.s.sion of my life!"

"Remember what you said to Frank," said she. "'It's a delusion and a snare.' But, of course, if you think more of a delusion than you do of me--"

"No; hang it!" cried the Colonel, "I think more of you. Twenty years--the longest race on record and a win in sight! I'll not lose by a balk at the finish! I promise you, Miss 'Lethe, on the honor of a Kentuckian."

"Then, Colonel, I must confess, I have loved you, also, for every one of those long twenty years."

"Twenty years!" He turned his head aside and muttered: "What a d.a.m.ned fool I have been!" Then, to her, he said, exultantly: "Aha! A neck ahead!"

It is difficult to say what would have happened, then, if Madge, Holton, Barbara and Frank had not come from the stable, chattering about Queen Bess.

CHAPTER XIV

Joe Lorey, mad with wrath, his heart filled with the l.u.s.t of killing for revenge, infuriated to the point where he felt need of neither food nor sleep, yet made less rapid time down the rough mountain paths than had the girl. Love-lent wings are swifter than an impulse born of hatred and resentment can be. She had flown upon such wings to save the man who filled her innocent thoughts with longing; Joe had gone clumsily, despite his cunning as a mountaineer, for leaden, murderous thoughts had weighed him down, hampering the quickness of his wit, delaying his fleet feet, confusing the alertness of his watchfulness for faint-limned trails, loose areas perilous of slides upon steep slopes. Indeed, though hate had driven him, Joe Lorey never in his life had made so very slow a journey to the bluegra.s.s as that which he had started on from his wrecked still, with hatred of Frank Layson, who he thought had viciously betrayed him, blazing in his heart.

Hours after the light-footed girl, spurred by her fear for one whom she but dimly guessed that she had learned to love, had arrived at the bluegra.s.s mansion and been welcomed by the owner of Queen Bess, the mountaineer reached the confines of the splendid farm, and lurked there, waiting for night-fall to make his entrance into the house grounds safe.

The rough youth's mental state was pitiable. Tragedy had pursued him, almost from his life's beginning, he reflected, as he furtively awaited opportunity for the revenge which he had planned. The fierce feud of the mountains had robbed him of his parents, and, with them, of the best years of his youth; the rough life of the mountains had robbed his strong young manhood of those opportunities which, he dimly realized, might have made him different and better; when love for sweet Madge Brierly had come to him, Fate had brought up from the bluegra.s.s the young stranger, who, with his superior learning, polished manner and smooth speech, had found the conquest of the girl (Joe bitterly reflected) all too easy; and finally had come the crowning, black disaster--the betrayal of his still to the agents of the government, its destruction and his transformation from a free man of the mountains into a furtive outlaw.