Narcissa or the Road to Rome Part 3

She started up, shrinking as if from some cruel sting. "I must go and tell him!" she cried. "I lied to him, though I didn't know it was a lie. I must go and find him, and tell him I didn't mean to."

"Tell who?" cried the pedlar, catching her by the arm. "What is it troubles you so, Narcissy? Who did you lie to, I should like to know?

Don't believe she could tell a decent lie if 'twas to save her own soul," she added to herself.

But Narcissa did not heed her.

She had taken down her sunbonnet from a nail, and was tying it under her chin with trembling fingers, with a feverish haste that took no note of anything.

"Where are you going?" cried Mrs. Transom, now beginning to be frightened at the girl's distracted looks. "You're never going out of the house feeling like this? You'll have a fit of sickness, sure as you're alive, and then where'll you be? and 'tis all foolishness, too, I'll be bound. I can't understand a word you say. And there's a storm coming up, too. I see it as I was coming along, and was reckoning on finding shelter here when I fust stopped to speak to the old gentleman. There, hear the thunder this very minute! Narcissy! Why, good land of deliverance, she's gone!"

The storm came on very suddenly,--first, a low bank of cloud heaving in sight on the western horizon, long and misshapen, like the back of a kraken; then the whole monster revealed, rising across the sky, tossing monstrous arms about, showing ugly tints of yellow, ugly depths of purple and black.

There was no lightning at first, only low mutterings of thunder, and every now and then a pale lifting of the darkness, as if the monster were opening his cavernous jaws, showing glimpses of dim horror within. Then, of a sudden, with no note of warning, the whole sky sprang into flame, the whole air was a roar and a bellow, deafening the ears, stunning the senses,--and the storm broke over the road to Rome.

The rain struck aslant, driving a spray before it, as of a mountain stream. In five minutes no road was to be seen,--only a long stretch of brown water, hissing and writhing under the scourge of the rain and wind. A horse came plodding carefully along, crouching together as well as he could, picking his way through the water. The two men in the buggy behind him were crouching, too, and trying to hide behind the rubber boot. It was some comfort to think that they were trying to keep dry, though both knew that they were already drenched to the skin.

"It's lucky for me that I met you," said the younger of the two, shaking himself, and sending a shower of spray in all directions.

"P'r'aps 'tis just as well," replied the other man, with a chuckle.

"You'd hardly have known yourself from a muskrat by this time, if you'd had to foot it from Rome here. Been stoppin' there?"

"Stopping as long as I cared to," said the youth, who was no other than our friend Romulus Patten. "I got there last night, and was good and ready to come away this morning. I'm travelling for Brown's Nurseries, and there don't seem to be any call for any of our goods in Rome. Stone-crop's the only plant they raise much of, I guess."

"Well, that's so," said the elder man. "That's so, every time. I never knew but one man that could make anything grow in Rome, and he carted all the dirt three miles, over from North Podley, before he could make a seed grow. Yes, sir, he did so. Mighty poor country up that way.

Some say the Rome folks don't see any garden-truck from year's end to year's end, and that if you ask a Rome girl to cook you up a mess of string beans, she takes the store beans and runs 'em on a string, and boils 'em that way; but I dono. I'm from Vi-enny way myself."

"My gracious! what's that?"

The whole world had turned to livid white for a moment, dazzling and blinding them; but still they had seen something on the road, something like a human form, torn and buffeted by the wind and the furious rain, but staggering on towards them with uncertain steps.

"My G.o.d! it's a woman!" cried Romulus Patten. "Stop your horse, and let me get out. A woman, alone in this storm!"

He sprang to the ground, and holding his arm before his face to keep off the blinding rain, made his way towards the forlorn figure splashing through the water, now ankle deep in the road, stumbling, often on the point of falling.

"Hold up, lady!" he called out, in his cheery voice. "There's friends here! Hold up just a minute!"

At the sound of his voice the woman stopped and seemed to shudder and clasp her hands. "I never meant it!" she cried out wildly. "I can't see you, I'm most blind, but I know your voice. I never meant to lie to you about Rome. I--thought--'twas all true; and when I found out, I--came--to tell you. I never meant to send you there on a lie."

"Narcissa!" cried Romulus Patten. "Oh, Lord! Oh, you poor little thing! and you thought I didn't know? I'd ought to be shot, that's what I ought to be. Here, you poor little thing, let me take your hands! They're like wet ice, and you're shivering all over. Oh, dear me! come with me, and get right into this buggy out of the rain. Oh, Lord! and I let you go on thinking I didn't know!"

Half leading, half carrying her, he made his way to the buggy, and then fairly lifted her in his strong young arms to lay her on the seat; but here an obstacle was interposed in the shape of another arm as strong as his, and a good deal bigger. "Easy, there!" said the owner of the buggy. "Seems to me you're makin' yourself rather too free, young feller. Do you think I'm goin' to have that gal brought in here, runnin' all the rivers of Babylon? Who in Jerusalem is she, anyway? Some of your folks?"

Romulus Patten's face was streaming with cold rain, but he flushed as if a flame had swept over him.

"She's the young lady I'm going to marry," he said. "Will you take her in, or shall I carry her home this way?"

"Now you're talking!" the stranger said, removing his arm and making way. "Why didn't you speak up before, sonny? Here, give me a holt of her!" He lifted Narcissa gently into the buggy, and drew her close to his side, laying her head well up on his shoulder so that she could breathe easily. "Family man," he explained. "Gals of my own. Now you reach under the seat there, and bring out a shawl you'll find."

Romulus obeyed, and half angry, half pleased, watched the stranger as he deftly wrapped the shawl round the fainting girl, and put her dripping hair tenderly off her face.

"Allers take a shawl along," he explained further. "Wife enjoys poor health, and have to be ready for a change of wind. Comes in handy, don't it? Now get in, young feller, and tell me where to drive to. You needn't look down in the mouth, either, 'cause you don't know everything in creation yet. Time enough to learn, and you're likely to learn easy, I should say.

"And you rest comfortable, my dear," he added, speaking to Narcissa as if she were a small child. "Here's your friend alongside of you, and you're just as safe as you would be in the best stuffed chair in the settin'-room at home. Fetch your breath, like a good girl, and try to look about you."

But Narcissa heard never a word, for she had fainted.

An hour later, Romulus Patten and Mrs. Transom were sitting by Narcissa's bedside, watching her. She had fallen into a deep, childlike sleep, and their low voices did not disturb her.

"The old gentleman was so mad he was all cheesed up," the pedlar was saying. "There! I was fairly sorry for him, old weasel as he is; so I let him go on for a spell, till he was clean tuckered out, and then I e'en took him up and put him to bed, same as if he was a child. Glad enough he was to get there too, if he was mad. Then I took and made him some warm drink, and gave him to understand I'd stay by till Narcissy come back, and here I be. And now, young man," she added, fixing her keen blue eyes on Romulus's face, "I've got a word to say to you. You let fall something when you was bringin' this child in--I won't say that I wasn't mighty glad to see her, and you, too,--but you let on something about keepin' company with her. Now, I want to know right here, what you meant, and who you are, and all about it. Oh, you may look at my pants much as you're a mind to. I come of good folks, and I dress as seems fit to me, and I don't care in any way, shape, or manner what folks say or think. I've been snoopin' round some, since I put that old man to bed, and I found the family Bible; and this child is the lawful daughter of my cousin, Narcissy Merrill, that I haven't heard of this twenty years. Bein' so, I'm goin' to stand by her, as is right and proper; so, now I'll hear what you've got to say. I've as good a right to do for her as that old skimp-jack in there, if he is her father's uncle."

Romulus Patten spoke out frankly. He had "taken to" Narcissa from the first moment he saw her. When was that? Well, it wasn't long ago, it was true. It was only yesterday; but he wasn't one to change, and he had never seen a girl yet that he would look twice at. And when she came, in all that awful storm, just to tell him,--here the young man choked a little, and the woman liked him the better for it,--he made up his mind then, he went on, all in a minute, that she should be his wife; and she should, if so be she was willing. He would go back to the place and see if he could get a job in the garden; he might have had one now, but he was some tired and had thought it would rest him to travel a spell. He would quit travelling now, and had little doubt that he could have a good place.

He knew of a pleasant rent--in that part of the country a hired tenement is known as a "rent"--with four rooms, that belonged to a friend of his, and he could get that, he guessed. In short, the sooner Narcissa got away from Uncle Pinker the better, in his opinion, and he was ready to take her, the first day she would go. That was all he had to say for himself; but he presumed Mr. Brown would give him a character if he was asked. He had worked for Browns three years, and had no reason to think they weren't satisfied with him.

When Romulus had finished his little speech, which left him flushed and tremulous, yet with a brave light in his eyes, and a tender look as he glanced towards his love where she lay sleeping quietly, Mrs.

Transom gazed at him for a while in silence; then she held out her hand and grasped his heartily.

"I guess you'll do," she said. "I guess you're the right sort. Now, I'll tell you what. You go along and get your place, and see about your rent. Don't engage it, but get the refusal of it, if it belongs to a friend, as you say. Then you come back here and find your girl all well and peart again, and you say your say, and let her say hers.

You don't want to take advantage of her being sick and weakly now--now, you no need to flare up! I say you don't want to, and I mean it. You'll need a box of my salve, if you're so thin-skinned as all that comes to.

"You go along, I say, and when you come back, come over to my place, Tupham Corner, third house from the cross-road, white house with a yeller door. Everybody knows Mis' Transom's house. You'll find your gal there, and you'll marry her there, with her mother's cousin to stand up with her. There, don't be scairt! Pity some gals haven't got the trick of blushin' as you have, young man. I've got as good a black silk as any in Tupham or Cyrus, and n.o.body's goin' to say 'Bloomer Joe' round where my own folks live, you'd better believe. What say?

Like my idee, or have you got a better one yourself?"

"You're real good!" Romulus cried. "Poor little Narcissa! It does seem as if she had found all her friends at once, and she never having any in her life before, as you may say. I tell you, Mis' Transom, I'll treat her as well as I know how. If she was a queen, she shouldn't have any more care than what I'll give her. I--I think a sight of her!" he added simply. "Seems as if she always belonged to me, somehow."

"That's right!" said Mrs. Transom, who was as romantic as any lady in silk and satin. "That's right, young man. We'll get her away from this old rathole, and then I guess it'll be a good while before either you or I travels this way again, hey?"

"I don't know as I have anything to say against the country," said Romulus Patten, with another loving look at the sleeper. "It isn't exactly the place to sell trees, but yet there's good things to be found on this road,--the road to Rome."

IN VERONA.

IN VERONA.

First of all, let me correct the mistaken impression that my t.i.tle cannot fail to make upon the patient reader. On reading the words, "In Verona," his mind instantly conjures up a vision of white palaces; of narrow streets across which the tall houses nod at each other, hinting at the mysteries they dare not reveal; of ancient fountains, embowered in myrtle and laurel; finally, of Juliet's tomb, and a thousand memories of the immortal lovers.

All this is natural, but it will not do. Here in Verona are no fountains, but half a dozen old well-sweeps, and all the rest cuc.u.mber-wood pumps; no palaces, but neat white houses with green blinds, and flowers in their front-yards; no laurel, but good honest sunflowers instead; finally, no tomb of Juliet, for our Juliet did not die; briefly, and to have done with mystery, our Verona is in the State of Maine.

I have often wondered what manner of men they were, who named the towns in the good old State. Lyceum teachers for the most part, one would think,--men who had read books, and whose hearts yearned for the historic glories of the old world, glories which their narrow lives might never see. So, disagreeing with this same Juliet in the matter of names, they did what they could, and not being able to go to Europe, did their best to bring Europe over into their own new country. So we have here in Maine Rome and Paris, Palermo and Vi-enny (miscalled "Vienna" by pedants, and those thinking themselves better than other people), Berlin Falls and South China,--in fact, half the continent to choose from, all in our own door-yard, as it were.