The Windy Hill Part 19

"Here is the deed that you made out, Jasper, for the house and the land that you gave up to me. I put it in my pocket yesterday morning; it seems a year ago. The purpose I had then is something that I would rather forget, if I ever can. But this is what I do with it now."

He tore the heavy paper into pieces, smaller and smaller, as though he could not demolish completely enough the record of what he had demanded. The breeze from the garden sent the sc.r.a.ps fluttering over the table and across the rug, it carried the round, red seal along the tablecloth and dropped it into Janet's lap.

"Tom will have to make out some official papers," he said, "but I want you to understand this fully, that there among those fragments lies the end of this whole affair."

Cousin Jasper was about to speak, but Tom Brighton broke in ahead of him.

"It has turned out better than we could have hoped, Anthony," he began, "so that we can all agree to let bygones be bygones."

Anthony Crawford turned very slowly and looked, with those penetrating gray eyes, at Oliver.

"We owe a great deal to these children here," he said, "and as for one of them----"

Convinced that something was about to be said of him, Oliver got up quickly, pretending that it was merely because he had finished his breakfast and wished to be excused, hurried across the room, and slipped out through one of the long windows that opened on the terrace. He could still hear Anthony Crawford's voice, however, in the room behind him saying:

"It was these children who found the leak in the dike; it was Oliver who thought of going to look for it. It was Oliver who saw through me, saw that I had not a shred of honor or honesty behind my claim and told me what I was."

The boy moved farther away from the window so that he could not hear and stood, his hands clenched on the terrace rail, looking out over the garden, across the pools of color and stretches of green lawn, over the wall and down the white road that led away the length of the valley. No matter what words they might speak of him they could never make him forget how he had walked away down that road, meaning to leave all this vaguely understood trouble behind him. Only a chance meeting, the Beeman's friendly smile, the interest of a story that had caught him for a moment, and all would have been changed. No, there should be no words of praise for him.

The voices were louder behind him, for the three men were pa.s.sing through the library, and Cousin Jasper was speaking just within.

"We still have to talk over this matter of rebuilding the dike," he said. "We must have your advice in that, Anthony."

"Go into the study," Anthony Crawford replied. "I must speak to Oliver for a moment."

He came out through the window while the others walked on together.

Oliver turned to face him.

"I am going now," Anthony said quietly. "I thought you would be ready to help me when it was time."

Oliver reddened when he remembered the promptness of his offer the evening before.

"Do you need to go," he said awkwardly, "when you are friends again with every one here? Even the men in the valley don't hate you," he added bluntly, "after what you did last night. I believe Cousin Jasper will want you to stay."

"If I let him tell me so, I will not go," the other replied quickly.

"It must be this minute, while my mind is still made up, or never. I will write to Martha to follow, I cannot even trust myself to wait for her. It is better that I should go, better for them, in the study there, better for the community, for myself, even better for you, Oliver, I know. Come," he insisted, as the boy still hesitated, "my confidence in you will be less great if you do not tell me that you know it also."

"Yes," returned Oliver grudgingly at last. "Yes, I know it too."

They drove away down the rain-washed, empty road with the early morning wind rushing about their ears. As they climbed to the highest ridge, Anthony Crawford stood up to look back down the sun-filled, green length of Medford Valley. Yet he did not speak until they had reached the station, with the train thundering in just as they drew up beside the platform.

"Good-by, Oliver," he said briefly.

The boy knew that the word of farewell was not for him but for all that the man was leaving--friends, memories, the place that he had loved in his strange, crooked way, all that he was putting behind him forever. A bell rang, a voice shouted the unintelligible something that stands for "All aboard," the train ground into motion, and he was gone.

Almost every one in Medford Valley must have slept that morning through the long hours until far past noon. But by four o'clock Oliver had slumbered all his weariness away, and so had Janet. They were restless after their excitement of the night before, and they found the house very still and with Cousin Jasper nowhere visible. They went out to the garage, got into the car, and set off along the familiar way toward the Windy Hill.

"Just to see if they are there," as Oliver said to Janet.

They came up the slope through the gra.s.s and saw the blue wood smoke rising lazily above them, unmistakable signal that the Beeman was at work. Polly greeted them gayly, for she, like them, was quite refreshed by the hours of slumber that had pa.s.sed. Her father still looked weary, as though he had spent the interval in troubled thought rather than sleep, but he hailed them cheerily. All up and down the hill was a subdued and busy humming, for the day after rain is the best of all seasons for bees to gather honey.

"We thought we must find out what the storm had done to our hives,"

the Beeman said. "Only three were blown over, but there must have been a great commotion. Now we have everything set to rights and we are not in the mood, to tell the truth, for a great deal more work to-day."

"Are you too tired," Janet asked, "for--for a story?"

"No," he answered, "stories come easily for a man who has had training as Polly's father. I thought there was no one like her for demanding stories, but you are just such another."

They sat down on the gra.s.s with the broad shadow of the oak tree lying all about them and stretching farther and farther as the afternoon sun moved down the sky. They had chosen the steeper slope of the hill so that they could look down upon the whole length of the winding stream, the scattered house-tops, and the wide green of those gardenlike stretches that still lay, safe and serene, ripening their grain beside the river. The Beeman's eyes moved up and down the valley, resting longest upon the slope opposite, where the yellow farmhouse stood at the edge of its grove of trees and showed its wide gray roof, its white thread of pathway leading up to the door, its row of broad windows that were beginning to flash and shine under the touch of the level rays of the sun.

"Poor Anthony," he said slowly at last, "to be banished from a place he loved so much. And yet a person thinks it a little thing when he first confuses right with wrong!"

He drew a long breath and then turned to the girls with his old cheery smile.

"A story?" he repeated. "It will not be like the others, a tale from old dusty chronicles of Medford Valley, to tell you things that you should know. We have lived the last chapter of that tale and now we will go on to something new."

Oliver leaned back luxuriously in the gra.s.s, to stare up at the clear sky and the dark outline of the oak tree, clear-cut against the blue.

Its heavy branches were just stirring in the unfailing breeze that blew in from the sea, and its rustling mingled sleepily with the Beeman's voice as he began:

"Once upon a time----"