A Speckled Bird

They reached Greyledge at noon, accompanied by the middle-aged nurse commended by the matron of a hospital in the neighboring city. At the sound of carriage wheels on the stone driveway, the dogs greeted them from the kennels in the stable yard, and several peals from the front door bell rang through the closed house before the butler, pipe in hand, opened the door. Speechless from astonishment, he staggered back.

"Good morning, Hawkins. How is Amos Lea?"

"About the same, ma'am, the doctor says. Mrs. Herriott, I hope you will excuse the looks of things. If I had known you were coming I would have lighted the furnace and warmed the house and been nearer ready. There is not a female on the place. Della was that prudish she went with her aunt."

"Did Mrs. Orr leave all the keys with you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Bring them to me and show me where they belong. Is Rivers here?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am; also his cousin Nelson, who helps with the horses and dogs; and David Green, the under gardener."

"Hawkins, you know Mrs. Mitchell; she came with me on a visit before my marriage; and this is Mrs. Adams, who will nurse Amos for the present. Open the house and make fires in the 'blue room' and two other bedrooms. I shall be here only a short while, and you must do the best you can for us as regards meals. When the time comes for feeding the dogs I wish to be notified. I am afraid they have forgotten me."

"If you please, ma'am, what is the news from Mr. Herriott? When I saw you I felt sure he must be coming home shortly. We count the days till we see him."

"I am sorry, Hawkins, but no news reaches me now. It has been a long, dreary, dreadful time. I came because Mrs. Orr telegraphed me some one was needed here to look after the sick. Ma-Lila, will you go upstairs with Mrs. Adams while I see Amos?"

Near the gardener's cottage she met David Green, with a bowl of broth in his hands and a scowl on his sunburned face.

"How are you, David? Hearing that Amos is sick, I have brought a good nurse to stay with him till the housekeeper returns. What is the matter with him?"

"Madam, it is mostly crankiness now, in my opinion. Last fall he had a spell of fever that left him ailing, and in January he fell into inflammatory rheumatism that made him as helpless as a baby and fractious as a bull pup. But he got better of it, and able to hobble around his room on crutches. Like the mule he is, he would creep down to the green-houses, hunting something to scold me about, and his crutch slipped on the ice and he hurt his hip joint. The doctor orders him to keep still and not move that leg, but, madam, he shuffles around in his bed for all the world like hyenas in a circus cage. We men take him up as easy as can be and lay him on a cot and change his clothes; but cranky! Cross! The angels couldn't please him. I guess he is sore, and when we jar and hurt him, instead of cursing us with a wholesome, honest oath we are used to, he throws up his arms, rolls back his eyes till they are all white balls, and shouts to the Lord to set Jezreel's hounds, and Og, and the rest of the Bible beasts, and the imps of Belial upon us! He calls us 'godless goats,' and we don't set up to be religious, but he passes for pious and stands high in his church, and it makes us feel creepy, because we don't know when the Lord might happen to listen to him. You know, madam, he has got a strong pull on the master. Mr. Herriott humors his whims, and now he is away we are doing our best for Amos. Every other night I leave my family, three miles away, and sleep here in his room. Mrs. Herriott, I have come to the conclusion that if the master does not get home soon the old man will fret himself to death. Day and night he prays for him. Every morning we bring him a paper, and his poor hands shake while he holds it and searches for news of the vessel, as a pointer hunts partridges. My wife is a first-class cook, and, thinking to please him, she made and sent him this broth. Just now, when he tasted it, the corners of his mouth went nearly to his ears, and he asked me please to pour it into Tzar's pan as I passed the kennel. If I had my choice, I would rather nurse a bucketful of hornets."

"I am glad you have all been so good to him; you especially, who have a wife and children to claim you. I hope Mr. Herriott can soon be at home, and he will thank you. Now your responsibility ceases, because I have employed a good nurse, trained in a hospital, who will know what is best for him and make him obey the doctor's directions. David, I am sure you men will be considerate and respectful while she remains."

At the door of the gardener's house, Snap dashed out, barking viciously. She called his name twice and held out her hand, but, eyeing her suspiciously, he growled and retreated across the threshold. Propped with pillows, Amos was on a cot near the hearth, and a newspaper lay across his knees. The room was bright with sunshine, and when Eglah entered, clad in black, her long crêpe veil thrown back and falling nearly to the floor, the old man stared at her and almost shrieked:

"Has the Lord God taken my lad? You wear widow's black for him?"

"No, Amos. The Lord God took my father, and my mourning is for him."

He threw up his arms.

"God be praised!"

After a moment, he added apologetically:

"Madam, I mean I am thankful Noel is spared. You see, I think only of the boy."

She drew a chair to the cot and took one of the gardener's wasted, gnarled hands in hers.

"I did not hear of your sickness till three days ago, and I came at once, to see if I could not make you more comfortable while Mrs. Orr is away."

"It makes no difference about my worn-out old body – that is a crippled hulk. My mind is in torment because of the lad's danger. Where is he now? In the ice on land, or locked up in the ship of the ungodly name, that can never break loose from the bergs leaning over her? Tell me, was your news later than my letter?"

He dragged from his bosom two worn, soiled envelopes and held them towards her. One was postmarked St. John, N. B., the other Dundee, Scotland. As she opened them a bunch of yellow poppies and a little square of moss fell into her lap. She glanced at the dates. The oldest was from Upernavik, soon after the vessel reached Greenland; the most recent was from off Cape Alexander, where the "Ahvungah" was frozen in.

"No, Amos, your news is the latest I have heard."

Her voice quivered, and replacing the flowers in an envelope, she laid the unread letters on the cot.

"Was your last letter from him the same date as mine?"

"No; it was earlier."

The cold, light-grey eyes in their deep, sunken sockets probed hers like steel.

"Madam, it was your fault he went away."

"No, his word was pledged before our marriage, and I am not responsible for this journey. I did all that was possible to keep him."

Amos leaned forward and grasped her wrist.

"You know you are to blame. What was it you did to him? That night you came – a bride – I saw when he took you from the carriage everything had gone wrong with him. I knew what that grip of his mouth and that red spark in his eyes meant. You did him some wrong."

She shook her head, and, even in his wrath, the hopeless sorrow in her eyes touched him.

"You struck him a bitter, hard blow somewhere. You see, since he was a year old and his mother died, I have watched him. His father was away with his railroads and his mines out West, and Susan and I had the care of him till he was put to his books and had a tutor to teach him Latin. They set him at that stupid business too early. I made his kites, and played marbles with him, and sailed his little boats, and – " His voice broke, and he paused to steady it.

"He was always truthful, and honorable, and generous, but – may the Lord have mercy on him – he was born with the temper of Beelzebub. Not from his mother did he get it, but from his hard old father, Fergus Herriott, who somehow managed to keep himself under check-rein and bit. He never punished the lad but once, and that was when the devil possessed the child. He was barely ten years old. He fell into a terrible rage with Susan about the fit of a bathing suit she made for him, and kicked the clothes into the lake. Then he turned on her like a son of Belial with rough, ugly, sinful language till she cried. His father happened to be in the boat house near by. He came out, took him by the shoulders and shook him, ordering him to apologize instantly to his nurse. The boy set his teeth and shook his head.

"'If you do not apologize properly to her, I shall thrash you.'

"The lad's eyes blazed.

"'As you are my father, you will do as you like, sir.'

"Then and there he thrashed him, Susan howling, but not a sound from him. Mr. Herriott sent him to his room, and ordered Susan not to go near him. There were several railroad officials to dinner that day, and they staid late. Susan sat yonder by the window, crying fit to break her heart, when the lad walked in and went close to her. She held out her arms, and the tears ran down her cheeks.

"'Susan, I am sorry I was such a beast. I am ashamed of what I said, and I beg your pardon. Dear Susan, forgive me.'

"My poor wife, how she hugged and petted him, only he never would let any one kiss him on his lips. As he sat in her lap, with one arm around her neck, his face was deadly white and his eyes looked like two red stars; the devil had not loosed his grip. Then his father called at the doorstep, 'Amos, is Noel here?' When the old man came in, the boy was standing in the middle of the floor, with his hands behind him, and Susan ran forward.

"'If you please, Mr. Herriott, I am sure he is not well. I thought so at the lake side, and he is feverish. His head is hot.'

"'Yes, Susan. Truly his head is too hot. Come, my son.'

"He held out his hand, but Noel did not move. His father went to him, put an arm around him, and forced him away. Next morning the doctor was sent for, found him in a raging fever; said it was measles, but Susan knew better. For a week Mr. Herriott never left that room, even for his meals, and he chastised him no more. Each day he was prouder and fonder of the boy. Madam, I am telling you all this that you may be sure I make no mistakes about him. He was hard hit the day he went away. There is a place far around the beach bend, a stone bench, where he has fought battles with himself since he wore frilled shirts. It is his stamping-ground when his blood is up, and the devil squats at his ears. Now I want to know why he spent his last night at home down there alone?"

His bony hand tightened its grip like the claw of an eagle on her wrist, and beneath the shaggy white brows his keen, fiery eyes demanded answer.

"Madam, you drove him there."

"Mr. Herriott was very angry with me. Unintentionally I had wounded him, and he did not forgive me; I fear he never will. He is not to blame. I did what seemed right and necessary at the time, but afterward I found I had made a terrible mistake. It is all my fault, not his. Amos, I am very unhappy, far more so than Mr. Herriott; but some matters I discuss with no one, and you must ask me no more questions."

"Of course he was not to blame; he never is. You did not read his letters." He held them toward her.

"No, they were intended solely for you."

"But I am more than willing you should see what he says about the God-forsaken den of bears and wolves where he is blundering around in the dark."

"Thank you, Amos, but they would only distress me."

Watching her pale, beautiful face, the old man sighed.

"Madam, if you are not to blame for his going on this wild, godless chase, I must not feel so bitter against his young wife as I have done. Dear lad! The very last words he spoke to me that day at the gate were, 'If I never come back, do all you can for Mrs. Herriott, for my sake. Amos, I have loved her since she was ten years old.'"

There was a tap at the door, and the doctor entered. Eglah rose and drew her veil over her face, but Amos clutched her sleeve.

"Doctor, this is Mrs. Herriott, the lad's wife."

"I am glad to see you here, doctor. Knowing Mrs. Orr was called away, I have a trained nurse, who will help you get Amos Lea out of bed. I shall send her at once to you for instructions."

Without attempting to analyze her complex emotions, Eglah surrendered herself to the strange new comfort of wandering hour after hour about the house, where every nook and corner babbled of the owner. Despite her efforts to placate and win the dogs, they sullenly rejected her overtures, echoing the repudiation of their master, and watching her with suspicious enmity. On the second afternoon the doctor and nurse assured her the gardener would soon be relieved by electricity, massage, and tonics, and when a letter from Mrs. Orr to Hawkins announced her expected return two days later, there seemed no reason for prolonging Eglah's visit. She wished to avoid an interview with the housekeeper, and arranged to start south a few hours earlier than the time fixed for her arrival. In the stone cottage she spent a portion of each day; had gone carefully over Arctic maps and charts with Amos, outlining the probable course of the exploring party. She explained some terms, and gave him a duplicate of the calendar she had made for herself, whereby he could tell when and how long the moon shone, what day the sun set, and when, after months, it would rise again. As the old man watched through his silver spectacles the sad, worn, pallid face, and realized that she too suffered, his resentful antipathy diminished, and Mr. Herriott's farewell charge began to invest her with an unexpected sanctity.

The last day of her stay was unusually warm for the season, and after reading to the sick man and leaving a bunch of jonquils near his cot, Eglah went quite late in the afternoon for a farewell walk along the beach. She coaxed the dogs unavailingly. Pilot, the collie, followed as far as the stone stile, and then deserted her. Beyond the end of the curve, where silver poplars came to the water's edge, she found a white marble seat, shaped like a horseshoe, with broad arms and an arched back elaborately carved. Winter rains had rippled and drifted the sand over its feet, and across one corner a bramble strayed. It was here Mr. Herriott had spent his last night at home. She brushed aside dead leaves, sat down, and plucked away the encroaching vine. Deep in her heart sang his final words to Amos: "I have loved her since she was ten years old." Living or dead, he was hers; angry and estranged, but hers – always hers.

She thought of what life might have been with him here, remembered the warm, close clasp of his hand, the lover light in his fine eyes that was a caress that first hour on the cars; and recalling the last moment, when he strained her to his breast, her fair face flushed, her sad heart thrilled. Now that beautiful "might have been" lay irrecoverable as the "lost land of Lyonnesse," under its transparent shroud, and haunting echoes of tender tones tolled faintly, like buried bells of Folge Fond.

The day had been sultry, but the wind rose with the full, red moon that swung now above the cliffs, a globe of burnished copper, taking on the glory of gold as it climbed higher, and from some distant belfry a vesper benediction, low and sweet, slowly drifted over the great lake. The water, glassy an hour before, thrilled and swelled in answer to the fingers of the wind, as a viol to the touch of its bow, and wavelets widened, shimmered as they ran. An eastbound schooner, all sails set, midway from shore to horizon, followed the path of light like a gigantic white moth fluttering upward to the moon. Where did her rays find Mr. Herriott to-night? Sleeping his last sleep in the wind-carved marble sepulchre of glittering sastrugi, with that white moon of the "Great Ice" silvering the face now so dear to his abandoned wife? Or frozen and embalmed under the lee of towering blue hummocks, in the grim shadow of looming iron-bound shores? Or dying of starvation in a lampless, rent, ruined, iglooyah, with only Innuit corpses encircling him?

She fell on her knees, bowed her head on the seat, and prayed as never before for his safety.

The wind freshened from the south, and far away in some mountain lair thunder growled. Eglah looked long at the beautiful curve of the land, at the shivering poplars turning white in anticipation of storm, at the irregular outline of the old stone pile projecting its spectral shadow on the shining water lapping the terrace wall. Two hours later a gale swept the lake, and under bluish glare of lightning the waves showed their flashing teeth.

With fine feminine instinct that penetrates far below the surface, yet gives no hint of the depths, Eliza divined that the unhappy woman desired unbroken solitude, and the foster-mother went early to her own bedroom.

Slowly Eglah mounted the spiral stairs that led to the billiard room and thence to the tower. The former was dark, and as she placed her candle on the table something fluttered and fell. It was a Chiriqui quetzal, perched upon a small slab brought from Palenque and fastened as a bracket above the fireplace. She picked it up, smoothed the brilliant, drooping feathers, and set it securely on the table, but a legend she had associated with it made her shiver as she opened the door and stepped into the tower.

High above her, and just under the roof, the great lamp with its reflector threw light far out over the tossing waste of water, kindling crowns of fire where the wave crests broke. She sat down on a wooden bench at one of the open arches, and watched the departing cloud fringe of the storm rushing from the far, sweet, throbbing South, to the icy silence of a more distant North; listened to the fitful moan of tired waves, trying to sob themselves to rest. Would the fleet föhn reach Greenland, melt the blue cables strong as steel that held iceberg ranges, domed with frosted silver – open the yellow eyes of poppies, and waft the ivory gulls back to weary watchers? Often a blessing there, it was sometimes a curse. Could that fierce, hot, southern breath battle against the ceaseless wind, snow-laden even in sunshine, that sweeps forever from palæocrystic seas across the white desolation of the great ice cap? Persistent study of Northern travels had so completely filled Eglah's mind with Arctic images, that by an inevitable magnetism every change of atmospheric conditions pointed to the Pole.

As the night waned, the moon emerged from ragged clouds, and gradually the lake quieted to its wonted crooning monologue, broken only by the strophe and antistrophe of startled water-fowl scattered by the storm. Eglah heard the clock strike two, and went down to the billiard room. The candle was flickering, and in its spasmodic light the eyes of the Quiché holy bird had a preternatural, sinister glitter. She hurried downstairs and locked herself in the den, the master's favorite room. Cabinets were sealed, busts shrouded in cambric hoods, pictures veiled. Only Mr. Herriott's desk remained as she remembered it, and here, with her arms crossed on the morocco cover and her face hidden upon them, she watched the night depart, saw the dawn of the day that would take her away forever from the home she had learned to love too late.

CHAPTER XXV

Heavy are the brakes with which suspense and anxious longing clog the wheels of time, yet seasons end; the spokes spin and come again, insistent reminders to waiting watchers of the endless, inexorable procession of years.

An early frost had hastened autumnal effects usually due a month later, and the atmosphere was crisp and sparkling. White oaks, maples, and sweet gums rustled their amber leaves sprinkled with red, black gums swung scarlet torches from every bough, wild grape vines festooned supporting trees with fluttering lace-of-gold, and crimson and bronze berry-brambles had colored warmly under the first frost kiss. Close to the little wire gate of the Dingle a tulip tree shook its burnished, brocaded banners, and in and around its branches coiled a muscadine, hung with glossy, purplish-black clusters that filled the air with delicious, challenging fragrance.

With an unopened roll of newspapers in her hand, Eglah leaned for some moments on the gate, admiring the superb vestments of yellow and red that nature hung out to bar the cold – a small cloud island of ruby near the horizon against which an acacia etched its slender lines, and listening to the song of a mocking-bird, that rose like a flute above the whistle of a partridge astray in feathery broom sedge. On the orchard slope Mrs. Mitchell, basket in hand, groped and peered amid tufts of golden-rod, hunting a belated brood of young turkeys. Eglah passed through the gate, went into the mill, and found a seat on one of the circular grinding stones. The wall had partly fallen on the west side, and the glow of a sinking sun lighted the dusty, cobwebbed rafters that upheld what remained of the roof. The chant of a portion of the stream rolling from mossy rocks to the ruined, sluggish race was low and soothing as a lullaby.

It had been a sad day, marking two years since the evening in the library when Judge Kent had been stricken; the beginning of a slow death. Dwelling upon the indelible incidents, an acute pain was added to the chronic ache from which his daughter's heart was never free. While missing her father sorely in her sorrowful isolation, she realized that death had come at the behest of mercy. As long as he lived his enemies could assail him at any moment; now he was comparatively safe under the snow of his native hills. If it were possible to recall him, she would not; she preferred to suffer alone that he might rest in peace. Two days before she had gone for a few hours to Y – to see in his favorite church the recently completed tall, arched window, ablaze with rose, purple, crimson, and emerald glass, erected by her, "To the glory of God and in memory of Allison Kent."

Depressed and heartsick, she often sought the solitude of the mill, but in the grey gloom of the rafters above her head a pair of wrens had dwelt for several seasons, and now resented her presence, twittering their protest. Opening the New York and Boston papers, she glanced over one and laid it aside. Unfolding another, her fingers clutched the sheet, where headlines had been reprinted from an English journal:

"RETURN OF THE 'AHVUNGAH.'"

"After an absence of more than two years, the 'Ahvungah' has brought back the scientific explorers who, having investigated the phenomena of Arctic midnights, are glad to return to less rigorous temperatures. The second winter the vessel, while frozen in, was lifted upon ice hummocks in Whale Sound. Deeming the 'Ahvungah' fast until early summer, some of the party, availing themselves of a continuously shining, two weeks' moon, and in order to avoid sun glare later in the season, made a sledging trip inland over the 'Great Ice,' – the Sermiksoak, but the loss of their dogs cut short the journey. During their absence the floe holding the vessel had been broken from the shore-ice by some upheaval unusual at that season, and had drifted many miles. While travelling on the 'ice-foot' to overtake the 'Ahvungah,' the members of the sledging party suffered very severely. Only two deaths occurred during the long voyage; a sailor was drowned in attempting to jump across a lead that closed suddenly after he fell, and the meteorologist, Herr Sprotmund, succumbed to heart disease while climbing a glacier. The 'Ahvungah' touched here only long enough to land the surgeon, Dr. Klinehurst, and the mail for America, then went on to The Hague. It was learned from the surgeon that two gentlemen of the party preferred to remain in Polar regions at least another year – Professor Roy, the palæontologist, and Mr. Herriott, of New York, who is much interested in ethnography. Having studied the Eskimos of the Greenland coast, they crossed to the west shore of Smith's Sound, and will make their way slowly through Ellesmere Land, hunting traces of an Innuit tribe they believe to be the descendants of the Onkilon of Siberia. These gentlemen expect to meet whalers next year somewhere along the west coast, but should their plan fail, still another winter will imprison them."

Until this spasm of pain seized her heart, Eglah had not realized or acknowledged that she cherished any hope, save that God would preserve the life of the man who so completely renounced her. If she had vaguely trusted time might soften and remove his bitterness, she understood at last the mockery of a delusion that she had unconsciously indulged. Above the evensong of the rippling water at her feet, rang his passionate words that last day in the carriage: "I shall try not to come home." To escape the possibility of proximity to her he had plunged into unknown wilds, where only the trails of foxes, wolves, bears, could thread the silent desolation, and at all hazards he would keep the promise of his farewell note: "Your path in future shall be spared my shadow." Wandering into the jaws of death, rather than see her again; for how elusive, how slender, the chances of meeting whalers. As in a mirage she seemed to see him on the colonnade at Nutwood, as he stood looking with eloquent, happy eyes at her, assuring her father: "When I know she is waiting at home for me, do you suppose all the ice in Greenland can shut me away from her?" And now the Arctic Circle would hold his chosen grave, because she could never cross it. The mail for America held no word for her; but doubtless kind messages had come to an old man whose sunken eyes would shine with delight over tidings from "the lad."