The Soldier of the Valley Part 7

Luther repeated his account of the book and the story of Brother Matthias Pennel. He told Perry of Sister Flora and her saintly character, and of the devastation by the fierce king of the Bengal jungle. He brought us again to where the frail little woman determined to fight death with death. And here, in low, rumbling tones, letter by letter, word by word, we took up the narrative of the adventurous Dunker brother.

"Thus armed with only a heavy elephant rifle, the property of the foreign missionary society, and clad only in grace, Flora Martin began her lonely vigil on the roof of the mission-house, which is used both as a dwelling and Sunday-school by those who are carrying light to the heathen in Ballerraderad, which, we must remember, is one of the most populous provinces in all Injy. This combined dwelling and church edifice stands at the far end of the little village, and as the lonely Indian moon was just rising above the horizon, Sister Flora heard a series of catlike footsteps along the veranda beneath her--for we must remember that in this part of our globe the nights are strangely still and the sounds therefore carry for a great distance. Breathlessly Flora Martin, mindful of the slumbering innocent charges sleeping below her, and over whom she was watching, leaned out over the roof, rifle in hand. The footsteps came nearer and nearer and----"

There was a gentle rat-tat-tat on the door. It was so gentle that Luther thought his ears were deceiving him, for while he stopped reading, he made no motion to rise, but sat listening. Again they came, three polite taps, seeming to say, "I should like to get in, but pray don't disturb yourself."

"Come in," shouted the old preacher, not even looking around, for he still seemed to doubt his sense of hearing.

The door opened quietly and Mr. Robert Weston appeared before us. Mary had slipped from her place to meet him, and in Weston's greeting to her I had my first lesson in what the world calls manner. How clumsy seemed my own excuses for coming at all, compared to his pleasure at finding her at home! He had been looking forward all afternoon to seeing her again. As he shook hands with Luther, he was so hearty that the old man took his guest by the shoulders and declared fervidly that he was rejoiced that he had come. Weston did not glare at Perry Thomas, nor at me either. We but added to his pleasure. Truly his cup of joy was overflowing! And the famine in India--indeed--indeed! The subject was one which interested him deeply, and if Mr. Warden cared for it, he would send him several books on the far East which he had in his library at home. He hoped that in return he might some time have the pleasure of reading carefully, cover to cover, the fat volume that Luther had spread across his knees. Meantime, he would insist on not interrupting. But Mary must be comfortably seated before he could take the place on the settee that Luther had arranged for him, and he must hear all over again the story of the book, of Brother Matthias Pennel and Sister Flora Martin. How I envied him! What must Perry and I seem beside this lanky man with his kindly, easy ways! Perry, of course, did not see it. He was smiling, for Weston was telling him that he had stood at the Thomas gate for a half hour the very evening before, listening to the strains of a violin. He hoped to hear that melody again, when Mr. Warden had finished the story of the brave missionary of Ballerraderad.

The Dunker preacher was beaming. He forgot the great doctrine of humility, and declared that "Mister" Weston should have the volume that very night. There was nothing better to give a clear view of the character of the work than Brother Matthias Pennel's account of the heroism of Sister Flora. So we composed ourselves again to hear of the battle to the death between the n.o.ble missionary woman and the mighty Bengal.

"Nearer and nearer came the footsteps," read Luther, pausing at each word to make sure of it. "Furder and furder out over the top of the mission-house leaned Sister Flora, and as she leaned she thought how much depended on her that night; for she must remember that there were sleeping within the walls of the mission-house forty-seven children, thirty of which were females under the age of eleven years, and seventeen males, of whom not one-half had reached the age of nine years. Next she saw a dark object crouching below her. She saw two fiery eyes; she saw the tiger gather himself preparatory to springing.

She----"

Perry Thomas's knock had been ponderous, thunderous, and clumsy.

Weston's had been self-a.s.sured, but polite. Now came a series of raps, now loud, now low, now quick, now slow, keeping time to a martial air.

Evidently there was a rollicking fellow outside. No one moved. We sat there, all five of us, eyes wide open in surprise, trying to guess, who this could be playing tunes on the door, and never seeking to solve the simple problem by turning the k.n.o.b.

It was Tim. There was a sudden oppressive silence. Then he entered, gravely bowing.

"Good evening, Mr. Warden," he said mockingly. "You have a delightful way here of greeting the stranger at your gate, closing your ears to his appeals and letting him break in. And Miss Warden too--why, this is a surprise. I had supposed you'd be at a ball. And Mr.

Weston--delighted--I'm sure----"

"What, Mark?" There was genuine surprise in Tim's voice as he saw me sitting quietly in the shadow. His mock elegance disappeared, and he stood gaping at me. "I thought you'd gone to see Mr. Weston," he blurted out.

"He came to see me instead," said Mary laughing. "And so did Mr.

Weston and Mr. Thomas, and so I hope you did. And if you sit down there by Uncle Luther and be quiet, you shall hear about the famine in India."

Tim just filled the settee. In my dark corner, in my comfortable chair, I could smile to myself as I watched his plight and that of his companions. I could not see Mary well, for the lamp and the long table separated us, but I fancied that in her retreat she, too, was laughing.

Poor Tim had the end of the bench. He sat very erect, with his head up, his eyes on the wall before him, his folded hands resting on his knees, after the company manner of Black Log. Mr. Perry Thomas, at the other end, was his counterpart, only the orator drew his chin into his collar, furrowed his brow, and gazed wisely at the floor. He was where Mary could see him!

Weston had none of our stiff, formal ways, but was making himself as much at home as possible in such trying circ.u.mstances. He spread out all over the narrow s.p.a.ce allotted him between Luther and my brother.

But curiously enough, he really seemed interested. It was he who told, in greatest detail, to Tim the story of Brother Matthias Pennel and of the trials of the saintly Flora Martin. When he had recounted her adventures to the very instant she caught the gleam of the tiger's eyes, he calmly swung one lank leg over the knee of the other, slid down in his seat so he could hook his head on the hard back, and said, cheerily, "Now, Mr. Warden, go on reading and let no one interrupt."

Perry was coughing feebly, as he always does when he is plotting to speak.

"No, no," cried Weston in protest; "I insist, Mr. Thomas, that you stay and play the violin to us when we have heard the end of this interesting story."

It was with mingled feelings that I regarded Brother Matthias Pennel.

As I had stood on the tavern porch that night, looking up the white road that led to Mary's home, I had dared to picture to myself a different scene from the one before me. From that scene Luther Warden had been removed entirely. Of Robert Weston, of Perry Thomas, of Tim, I had taken no account. They had not even been dreamed of, for Mary and I were to sit alone in the quiet of the evening. The flash of her eyes was to be for me--for me their softer glowing. At my calling the rich flames would blaze on her cheeks. I was to light those flames. I was to fan them this way and that way. I was to smother them, kindle them, quench them. Playing with the fire of a woman's face! Dangerous work, that! And up the white road I had hobbled to the fire, as a simple child crawls to it. But Luther Warden was there to guard me with Brother Matthias Pennel, and in my inmost heart I hated them both for it. Then Perry Thomas blundered in, and compared to him, old Luther and his learned brother were endurable. As to Robert Weston, I knew that beside him Matthias Pennel was my dearest friend. Then Tim came! and as I looked at the long settee where Luther was droning on and on through the story of Sister Flora, where Perry Thomas seemed to sit beneath the judgment seat, where Weston shifted wearily to and fro, where Tim was suffering the tortures of the thumb-screw, I cried to my inmost self, "Verily, Brother Matthias, thou art a mighty joker!"

It took a long time to kill that tiger. There was so much recalling to be done, so much remembering needed, and reviewing of statistics concerning the flora and the fauna of the far East, that when at last the rifle's cry rang out on the still night air, which, as we had learned, in India carries sound to a much greater distance than in our cold, Northern climes; when the mighty Bengal reeled and fell dying, and Sister Flora sprang from her hiding place on the roof to sing a hymn of praise; when all this had been told, Luther Warden banged the book shut, arose, and looked at the clock.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The tiger story.]

"Mighty souls!" he cried. "It's long past bed-time. It's half-past nine."

Back over the white road we went, Weston and Perry, Tim and I.

"Good-night, boys!" called the strange man cheerily from the gloom of the tavern porch.

It was the first word he had spoken on our walk home.

"Is it two million five hundred and sixty thousand, or two hundred and fifty-six thousand persons that are bitten annually by snakes in India?" cried Tim, suddenly awaking from his moody silence.

"You can go back to-morrow and find out," came from the porch.

"Good-night, Mr. Weston," returned my brother sharply.

Perry Thomas parted from us at the gate, and we stood watching his retreating figure till we lost it at the bend. Then we went in.

Standing at the foot of the stairs, with a lighted candle in his hand, Tim turned suddenly to me and said, "I thought you were going to see Weston."

"I thought you were sitting at home waiting for me to get back," I retorted.

"Can I help you upstairs?" he said.

"No, I'm going to sit awhile and smoke," I answered jauntily, "and talk--to Captain."

VII

Tim was leaving the valley. We tied his tin trunk on the back of the buggy and he climbed to the seat beside me. Tip Pulsifer handed him a great cylindrical parcel, bound in a newspaper, and my brother held it reverently in his lap; for it was a chocolate cake, six layers high, that Mrs. Tip had baked from the scanty contents of the Pulsifer flour barrel. Tim was going to the city, and all the city people Mrs. Tip had ever seen were lean, quick-moving and nervous, a condition which she concluded was induced by starvation. So she had done her best to provide Tim against want. Her mind was the mind of Six Stars. All the village was about the buggy. Josiah Nummler had rowed down from his hill-top, and the bulge in Tim's pocket was caused by the half dozen fine pippins which the old man had brought as his farewell gift. Even Theophilus Jones left the store unguarded, and hurried over when the moment arrived that the village was to see the last of its favorite son. Mrs. Tip Pulsifer is always red about the eyes, and no way was left her to show her emotion but to toss her ap.r.o.n convulsively over her face and swing Cevery wildly to and fro, so that the infant's cries arose above the chorus of "good-bys" as we drove away.

"Farewell, comrade." We heard Aaron Kallaberger's stentorian tones as we clattered around the bend. "Head up--eyes front--for'a'd!"

Tim turned and waved his hat to the little company at the gate, to all the friends he had ever known, to the best he ever was to know; to Mrs.

Bolum and her Isaac, feebly waving the hands that had so often helped him in time of boyish trouble; to Nanny Pulsifer and Tip; to all the worthies of the store.

Tim was off to war. He was going to take part in a greater battle than I had ever seen, for I had been one of thousands who had marched together on a common enemy. He was going forth as did Launcelot and Galahad, alone, to meet his enemies at every turn, to be sore pressed, and bruised and wounded; not to be as I was, a part of a machine, but to be the machine and the G.o.d in it, too. How I envied him! He was going forth to encounter many strange adventures, and while he was in the press, laying about him in all the glory of his strength, fighting his way against a mob, to fame and fortune, I should be dozing life away with Captain.

"Did it feel that way when you left?" said Tim. He spoke for the first time when we pa.s.sed the tannery lane, and his voice was a wee bit husky.

"I suppose it's the same with everybody when they turn the bend," I answered.

"That's it exactly--at the turn in the road--when you can't see home any more--when you'd give all the world to turn back, but dare not."

Tim had faced about and was looking over the valley as we climbed the long slope of the ridge. "It's just like being torn in two, isn't it?"

he said.

"Naturally," said I. "Home and home people are as much a part of you as head and limbs. When I dragged you away, binding you here in the buggy with your tin trunk and your ambition, something had to snap."

"And it snapped at the bend," Tim said grimly; "when I saw the last of the house and the rambo tree at the end of the orchard."

My brother took to whistling. He started away bravely with a rollicking air, keeping time to the creaking of the buggy and the slow crunching of the horse's feet on the gravel road. Even that failed him. We were at the crest of the hill; we were turning another bend; we were in the woods, and through the trees he had a last look at Black Log. And it's such a little valley, too, that it would hardly seem worth looking back on when the rich fields of Kishikoquillas roll away before one! The lone pine on the stone cap of Gander k.n.o.b waved its farewell, and we clattered down the long slope into the great world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He had a last look back at Black Log.]