The Reign Of Law Part 22

"This will do your cold good," she said, tasting the stew out of a spoon which she brought in her other hand, and setting it down on the hot hearth. Then she stood looking a little fearfully at her son, who had not moved. Ah, that is woman's way! She incites men to a difficulty, and then appears innocently on the battle-field with bandages for the belligerents. How many of the quarrels of this world has she caused--and how few ever witnessed!

David was sick in heart and body and kept his chair and made no reply.

His mother suddenly turned, feeling a cold draft on her back, and observed the broken window-pane and the flapping sheet of paper.

"There's putty and gla.s.s in the store-room: why don't you put that pane of gla.s.s in?"

"I will sometime," said David, absently. She went over to his bed and beat up the bolster and made everything ready for him.

"You ought to have clean sheets and pillow-cases," she remarked confidently; "the negroes are worthless. Good night," she said, with her hand on the door, looking back at him timidly.

He sprang up and went over to her. "Oh, mother! mother! mother!" he cried, and then he checked the useless words that came rushing in a flood.

"Good night! and thank you for coming. Good night! Be careful, I'll bring the candle, the stairway is dark. Good night!"

"Oh, Gabriella! Gabriella!" he murmured as he went back to his table.

He buried his head on his arms a moment, then, starting up, threw off his clothes, drank the mixture, and got into bed.

XX

At dead of night out in a lonely country, what sound freezes the blood like the quick cry of an animal seized and being killed? The fright, the pain, the despair: whosoever has heard these notes has listened to the wild death-music of Nature, ages old.

On the still frozen air near two or three o'clock of next morning, such a cry rang out from inside the barn. There were the short rushes to and fro, round and round; then violent leapings against the door, the troughs, and sides of the stable; then mad plunging, struggling, panting; then a long, terrified, weakened wail, which told everything beyond the clearness of words.

Up in his room, perfectly dark, for the coals in the grate were now sparkless, David was lying on his back, sleeping heavily and bathed in perspiration. Overheated, he had pushed the bed covers off from his throat; he had hollowed the pillow away from his face. So deep was the stillness of the house and of the night air outside, that almost the first sounds had reached his ear and sunk down into his brain: he stirred slightly. As the tumult grew louder, he tossed his head from side to side uneasily, and muttered a question in his broken dreams.

And now the barn was in an uproar; and the dog, chained at his kennel behind the house, was howling, roaring to get loose. Would he never waken? Would the tragedy which he himself had unwittingly planned and staged be played to its end without his hearing a word? (So often it is that way in life.) At last, as one who has long tugged at his own sleep, striving to rend it as a smothering blanket and burst through into free air, he sat up in bed, confused, listening.

"Dogs!" he exclaimed, grinding his teeth.

He was out of bed in an instant, groping for his clothes. It seemed he would never find them. As he dressed, he muttered remorsefully to himself:--"I simply put them into a trap."

When he had drawn on socks, boots, and trousers, he slipped into his overcoat, felt for his hat, and hurried down. He released the dog, which instantly was off in a noiseless run, and followed, b.u.t.toning the coat about him as he went: the air was like ice against his bare, hot throat. Another moment and he could hear the dogs fighting. When he reached the door of the shed and threw it open, the flock of sheep bounded out past him in a wild rush for the open. He stepped inside, searching around with his foot as he groped. Presently it struck against something large and soft close to the wall in a corner. He reached down and taking it by the legs, pulled the sheep out into the moonlight, several yards across the snow: a red track followed, as though made with a broad dripping brush.

David stood looking down at it and kicked it two or three times.

"Did it make any difference to you whether your life were taken by dog or man? The dog killing you from instinct and famine; a man killing you as a luxury and with a fine calculation? And who is to blame now for your death, if blame there be? I who went to college instead of building a stable? Or the storm which deprived these prowlers of nearer food and started them on a far hunt, desperate with hunger? Or man who took you from wild Nature and made you more defenceless under his keeping? Or Nature herself who edged the tooth and the mind of the dog-wolf in the beginning that he might lengthen his life by shortening yours? Where and with what purpose began on this planet the taking of life that there might be life? Poor questions that never troubled you, poor sheep! But that follow, as his shadow, pondering Man, who no more knows the reason of it all than you did."

The fighting of the dogs had for the first few moments sounded farther and farther away, retreating through the barn and thence into the lot; and by and by the shepherd ran around and stood before David, awaiting orders. David seized the sheep by the feet and dragged it into the saddle-house; sent the dog to watch the rest of the flock; and ran back to the house, drawing his overcoat more tightly about him. As quickly as possible he got into bed and covered up warmly. Something caused him to recollect just then the case of one of the Bible students.

"Now I am in for it," he said.

And this made him think of his great masters and of Gabriella; and he lay there very anxious in the night.

XXI

Twilight had three times descended on the drear land. Three times Gabriella, standing at her windows and looking out upon the snow and ice, had seen everything disappear. How softly white were the snow-covered trees; how soft the black that thickened about them till they were effaced. Gabriella thought of them as still perfectly white out there in the darkness. Three evenings with her face against the pane she had watched for a familiar figure to stalk towering up the yard path, and no familiar figure had come. Three evenings she had returned to her firelight, and sat before it with an ear on guard for the sound of a familiar step on the porch below; but no step had been heard.

On the first night she had all but hoped that he would not seek her; the avowal of their love for each other had well-nigh left it an unendurable joy. But the second night she had begun to expect him confidently; and when the hour had pa.s.sed and he had not come, Gabriella sat long before her fire with a new wound--she who had felt so many. By the third day she had reviewed all that she had ever heard of him or known of him: gathered it all afresh as a beautiful thing for receiving him with when he should come to her that night. Going early to her room she had taken her chair to the window and with her face close to the pane had watched again--watched that white yard; and again nothing moved in that white yard but the darkness.

She sprang up and began to walk to and fro.

"If he does not come to-night, something has happened. I know, I know, I know! Something is wrong. My heart is not mistaken. Oh, if anything were to happen to HIM! I must not think of it! I have borne many things; but THAT! I must not think of it!"

She sank into her chair with her ear strained toward the porch below.

For a long time there was no sound. Then she heard the noise of heavy boots--a tapping of the toes against the pillars, to knock off the snow, and then the slow creaking of soles across the frozen boards. She started up. "It is some one else," she cried, wringing her hands.

"Something has happened to him."

She stopped still in the middle of the room, her arms dropped at her sides, her eyes stretched wide.

The house girl's steps were heard running upstairs. Gabriella jerked the door open in her face.

"What is the matter?" she cried.

A negro man had come with a message for her. The girl looked frightened.

Gabriella ran past her down into the hall. "What is the matter?" she asked.

His Ma.r.s.e David had sent for her and wanted her to come at once. He had brought a horse for her.

"Is he ill--seriously ill?" He had had a bad cold and was worse.

"The doctor--has he sent for the doctor?"

The negro said that he was to take her back first and then go for the doctor.

"Go at once."

It was very dark, he urged, and slippery.

"Go on for the doctor! Where have you left the horse?"

The horse was at the stiles. The negro insisted that it would be better for him to go back with her.

"Don't lose time," she said, "and don't keep me waiting. Go! as quickly as you can!"

The negro cautioned her to dismount at the frozen creek.

When Gabriella, perhaps an hour later, knocked at the side door of David's home,--his father's and mother's room,--there was no summons to enter. She turned the k.n.o.b and walked in. The room was empty; the fire had burned low; a cat lay on the hearthstones. It raised its head halfway and looked at her through the narrow slits of its yellow eyes and curled the tip of its tail--the cat which is never inconvenienced, which shares all comforts and no troubles. She sat down in a chair, overcome with excitement and hesitating what to do. In a moment she noticed that the door opening on the foot of the staircase stood ajar.

It led to his room. Not a sound reached her from above. She summoned all her self-control, mounted the stairway, and entered.

The two negro women were standing inside with their backs to the door.

On one side of the bed sat David's mother, on the other his father.