Opening a Chestnut Burr Part 23

"Well, then, while there is breath left, Miss Walton shall have the benefit of it."

"May we not rest a few minutes?" asked Annie. "I too am very tired."

"Yes, before long at the place where you must pa.s.s the night."

The path soon came out in another wheel-track, which seemed to lead down a deep ravine. Descending this a little way, they reached an opening in which was the dusky outline of a small house.

"Here we part," said their guide, taking Annie's hand, while Gregory sank exhausted on a rock near. "The old woman and her son who live in that house will give you shelter, and to-morrow you must find your best way home. This seems poor return for your kindness, but it's in keeping with my miserable life, which is as dark and wild as the unknown flinty path we came. After all, things have turned out far better than they might have done. Vight was expecting some one, and so had the dog within doors. He would have torn you to pieces had he been without as usual."

"Lead this life no longer. Stay with us, and I will help you to better things," said Annie, earnestly.

The look of intense longing on the woman's face as the light of the flickering lantern fell on it would haunt Annie to her dying day.

"Oh that I might!" she groaned. "Oh that I might! A more fearful bondage never cursed a human soul!"

"And why can you not?" pleaded Annie, putting her hand on the trembling woman's shoulder. "You have seen better days. You were meant for a good and n.o.ble life. You can't sin unfeelingly. Then why sin at all? Break these chains, and by and by peace in this life and heaven in the life to come will reward you."

The woman sat down by the roadside, and for a moment her whole frame seemed convulsed with sobs. At last she said, brokenly, "You plead as my good angel did before it left me--but it's no use--it's too late. I have indeed seen better days, pure, happy days; and so has he. We once stood high in the respect of all. But he fell, and I fell in ways I can't explain. You cannot understand, that as love binds with silken cords, so crime may bind with iron chains. No more--say no more. You only torment me," she broke in, harshly, as Annie was about to speak again. "You cannot understand. How could you? We love, hate, and fear each other at the same time, and death only can part us. But that may soon--that may soon;" and she clenched her hands with a dark look.

"But enough of this. I have too much to do to tire myself this way. You must go to that house; I cannot. Old Mrs. Tompkins and her son will give you shelter. I don't wish them to get into trouble. There will be a close investigation into all this. I know what your father's disposition is. And now farewell. The only good thing about me is, I shall still pray for you, the only one who has ever treated me like a woman since--since--since I fell into h.e.l.l," she said in a low, hoa.r.s.e tone, and printing a pa.s.sionate kiss on Annie's hand, she blew out her light, and vanished in the darkness.

It seemed to swallow her up, and become a type of the mystery and fate that enshrouded the forlorn creature. Beyond the bare fact that she took the train the following morning with the man she called "Vight,"

Annie never heard of her again. Still there was hope for the wretched wanderer. However dark and hidden her paths, the eyes of a merciful G.o.d ever followed her, and to that G.o.d Annie prayed often in her behalf.

NOTE--This chapter has some historic basis. The man called "Vight" is not altogether an imaginary character, for a desperate and successful counterfeiter dwelt for a time among the mountains on the Hudson, plying his nefarious trade. It is said that he took life more than once to escape detection.

CHAPTER XVIII

IN THE DEPTHS

After the departure of their strange guide, who had befriended them as best she could, Gregory at once went to the house and knocked. There was a movement within, and a quavering voice asked, "Who's there?"

"Friends who have lost their way, and need shelter."

"I don't know about lettin' strangers in this time o' night," answered the voice.

"There are only two of us," said Annie. "Perhaps you know who Miss Walton is. I entreat you to let us in."

"Miss Walton, Miss Walton, sartin, I know who she is. But I can't believe she's here."

"Our wagon broke down this afternoon, and we have lost our way,"

explained Gregory.

Again there was a stir inside, and soon a glimmer of light. After a few moments the door was opened slightly, and a woman's voice asked, apprehensively, "Be you sure it's Miss Walton?"

"Yes," said Annie, "you need have no fears. Hold the light, and see for yourself."

This the woman did, and, apparently satisfied, gave them admittance at once.

She seemed quite aged, and a few gray locks straggled out from under her dingy cap, which suggested anything but a halo around her wrinkled, withered face. A ragged calico wrapper incased her tall, gaunt form, and altogether she did not make a promising hostess.

Before she could ask her unexpected guests any further questions, the cry of a whippoorwill was again heard three times. She listened with a startled, frightened manner. The sounds were repeated, and she seemed satisfied:

"Isn't it rather late in the season for whippoorwills?" asked Annie, uneasily, for this bird's note, now heard again, seemed like a signal.

"I dunno nothin' about whippoorwills," said the woman, stolidly. "The pesky bird kind o' started me at first. Don't like to hear 'em round.

They bring bad luck. I can't do much for you, Miss Walton, in this poor place. But such as 'tis you're welcome to stay. My son has been off haulin' wood; guess he won't be back now afore to-morrow."

"When do you think he will come?" asked Annie, anxiously.

"Well, not much afore night, I guess."

"What will my poor father do?" moaned Annie. "He will be out all night looking for us."

"Sure now, will he though?" said the woman, showing some traces of anxiety herself. "Well, miss, you'll have to stay till my son gits back, for it's a long way round through the valley to your house."

There was nothing to do but wait patiently till morning. The woman showed Gregory up into a loft over the one room of the house, saying, "Here's where my son sleeps. It's the best I can do, though I s'pose you ain't used to such beds."

He threw his exhausted form on the wretched couch, and soon found respite in troubled sleep.

Annie dozed away the night in a creaky old rocking-chair, the nearest approach to a thing of comfort that the hovel contained. The old woman had evidently been so "started" that she needed the sedative of a short clay pipe, highly colored indeed, still a connoisseur in meerschaums would scarcely covet it. This she would remove from her mouth now and then, as she crouched on a low stool in the chimney-corner, to shake her head ominously. Perhaps she knew more about whippoorwills than she admitted. At last it seemed that the fumes, which half strangled Annie, had their wonted effect, and she hobbled to her bed and was soon giving discordant evidence of her peace. Annie then noiselessly opened a window, that she too might breathe.

When Gregory waked next morning, it was broad day. He felt so stiff and ill he could scarcely move, and with difficulty made his way to the room below. The old woman was at the stove, frying some sputtering pork, and its rank odor was most repulsive to the fastidious habitue of metropolitan clubs.

"Where is Miss Walton?" he asked, in quick alarm.

"Only gone to the spring after water," replied the woman, shortly. "Why didn't you git up and git it for her?"

"I would if I had known," he muttered, and he escaped from the intolerable air of the room to the door, where he met Annie, fresh and rosy from her morning walk and her toilet at the brook that brawled down the ravine.

"Mr. Gregory, you are certainly ill," she exclaimed. "I am so sorry it has all happened!"

He looked at her wonderingly, and then said, "You appear as if nothing had happened. I am ill, Miss Walton, and I wish I were dead. You can not feel toward me half the contempt I have for myself."

"Now, honestly, Mr. Gregory, I have no contempt for you at all."

He turned away and shook his head dejectedly.

"But I mean what I say," she continued, earnestly.

"Then it is your goodness, and not my desert."

"As I told you last night, so again I sincerely say, I think I understand you better than you do yourself."