In the Midst of Alarms

He knew he was defeated. Dejectedly he turned to the fence, climbing slowly over where he had leaped so lightly a few minutes before, and walked down the road, cursing his fate. Although he admitted he was a coward for talking to her as he had done about his wrecked life, yet he knew now that every word he had spoken was true. What did the future hold out to him? Not even the incentive to live. He found himself walking toward the tent, but, not wishing to meet Renmark in his present frame of mind, he turned and came out on the Ridge Road. He was tired and broken, and resolved to stay in camp until they arrested him. Then perhaps she might have some pity on him. Who was the other man she loved? or had she merely said that to give finality to her refusal? In his present mood he pictured the worst, and imagined her the wife of some neighboring farmer—perhaps even of Stoliker. These country girls, he said to himself, never believed a man was worth looking at unless he owned a farm. He would save his money, and buy up the whole neighborhood; then she would realize what she had missed. He climbed up on the fence beside the road, and sat on the top rail, with his heels resting on a lower one, so that he might enjoy his misery without the fatigue of walking. His vivid imagination pictured himself as the owner in a few years’ time of a large section of that part of the country, with mortgages on a good deal of the remainder, including the farm owned by Margaret’s husband. He saw her now, a farmer’s faded wife, coming to him and begging for further time in which to pay the seven per cent. due. He knew he would act magnanimously on such an occasion, and grandly give her husband all the time he required. Perhaps then she would realize the mistake she had made. Or perhaps fame, rather than riches, would be his line. His name would ring throughout the land. He might become a great politician, and bankrupt Canada with a rigid tariff law. The unfairness of making the whole innocent people suffer for the inconsiderate act of one of them did not occur to him at the moment, for he was humiliated and hurt. There is no bitterness like that which assails the man who has been rejected by the girl he adores—while it lasts. His eye wandered toward the black mass of the Howard house. It was as dark as his thoughts. He turned his head slowly around, and, like a bright star of hope, there glimmered up the road a flickering light from the Bartletts’ parlor window. Although time had stopped as far as he was concerned, he was convinced it could not be very late, or the Bartletts would have gone to bed. It is always difficult to realize that the greatest of catastrophes are generally over in a few minutes. It seemed an age since he walked so hopefully away from the tent. As he looked at the light the thought struck him that perhaps Kitty was alone in the parlor. She at least would not have treated him so badly as the other girl; and—and she was pretty, too, come to think of it. He always did like a blonde better than a brunette.

A fence rail is not a comfortable seat. It is used in some parts of the country in such a manner as to impress the sitter with the fact of its extreme discomfort, and as a gentle hint that his presence is not wanted in that immediate neighborhood. Yates recollected this, with a smile, as he slid off and stumbled into the ditch by the side of the road. His mind had been so preoccupied that he had forgotten about the ditch. As he walked along the road toward the star that guided him he remembered he had recklessly offered Miss Kitty to the callous professor. After all, no one knew about the episode of a short time before except himself and Margaret, and he felt convinced she was not a girl to boast of her conquests. Anyhow, it didn’t matter. A man is surely master of himself.

As he neared the window he looked in. People are not particular about lowering the blinds in the country. He was rather disappointed to see Mrs. Bartlett sitting there knitting, like the industrious woman she was. Still it was consoling to note that none of the men-folks were present, and that Kitty, with her fluffy hair half concealing her face, sat reading a book he had lent to her. He rapped at the door, and it was opened by Mrs. Bartlett, with some surprise.

“For the land’s sake! is that you, Mr. Yates?”

“It is.”

“Come right in. Why, what’s the matter with you? You look as if you had lost your best friend. Ah, I see how it is,”—Yates started,—“you have run out of provisions, and are very likely as hungry as a bear.”

“You’ve hit it first time, Mrs. Bartlett. I dropped around to see if I could borrow a loaf of bread. We don’t bake till to-morrow.”

Mrs. Bartlett laughed.

“Nice baking you would do if you tried it. I’ll get you a loaf in a minute. Are you sure one is enough?”

“Quite enough, thank you.”

The good woman bustled out to the other room for the loaf, and Yates made good use of her temporary absence.

“Kitty,” he whispered, “I want to see you alone for a few minutes. I’ll wait for you at the gate. Can you slip out?”

Kitty blushed very red and nodded.

“They have a warrant out for my arrest, and I’m off to-morrow before they can serve it. But I couldn’t go without seeing you. You’ll come, sure?”

Again Kitty nodded, after looking up at him in alarm when he spoke of the warrant. Before anything further could be said Mrs. Bartlett came in, and Kitty was absorbed in her book.

“Won’t you have something to eat now before you go back?”

“Oh, no, thank you, Mrs. Bartlett. You see, the professor is waiting for me.”

“Let him wait, if he didn’t have sense enough to come.”

“He didn’t. I offered him the chance.”

“It won’t take us a moment to set the table. It is not the least trouble.”

“Really, Mrs. Bartlett, you are very kind. I am not in the slightest degree hungry now. I am merely taking some thought of the morrow. No; I must be going, and thank you very much.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Bartlett, seeing him to the door, “if there’s anything you want, come to me, and I will let you have it if it’s in the house.”

“You are too good to me,” said the young man with genuine feeling, “and I don’t deserve it; but I may remind you of your promise—to-morrow.”

“See that you do,” she answered. “Good-night.”

Yates waited at the gate, placing the loaf on the post, where he forgot it, much to the astonishment of the donor in the morning. He did not have to wait long, for Kitty came around the house somewhat shrinkingly, as one who was doing the most wicked thing that had been done since the world began. Yates hastened to meet her, clasping one of her unresisting hands in his.

“I must be off to-morrow,” he began.

“I am very sorry,” answered Kitty in a whisper.

“Ah, Kitty, you are not half so sorry as I am. But I intend to come back, if you will let me. Kitty, you remember that talk we had in the kitchen, when we—when there was an interruption, and when I had to go away with our friend Stoliker?”

Kitty indicated that she remembered it.

“Well, of course you know what I wanted to say to you. Of course you know what I want to say to you now.”

It seemed, however, that in this he was mistaken, for Kitty had not the slightest idea, and wanted to go into the house, for it was late, and her mother would miss her.

“Kitty, you darling little humbug, you know that I love you. You must know that I have loved you ever since the first day I saw you, when you laughed at me. Kitty, I want you to marry me and make something of me, if that is possible. I am a worthless fellow, not half good enough for a little pet like you; but, Kitty, if you will only say ‘yes,’ I will try, and try hard, to be a better man than I have ever been before.”

Kitty did not say “yes” but she placed her disengaged hand, warm and soft, upon his, and Yates was not the man to have any hesitation about what to do next. To practical people it may seem an astonishing thing that, the object of the interview being happily accomplished, there should be any need of prolonging it; yet the two lingered there, and he told her much of his past life, and of how lonely and sordid it had been because he had no one to care for him—at which her pretty eyes filled with tears. She felt proud and happy to think she had won the first great love of a talented man’s life, and hoped she would make him happy, and in a measure atone for the emptiness of the life that had gone before. She prayed that he might always be as fond of her as he was then, and resolved to be worthy of him if she could.

Strange to say, her wishes have been amply fulfilled, and few wives are as happy or as proud of their husbands as Kitty Yates. The one woman who might have put the drop of bitterness in her cup of life merely kissed her tenderly when Kitty told her of the great joy that had come to her, and said she was sure she would be happy; and thus for the second time Margaret told the thing that was not, but for once Margaret was wrong in her fears.

Yates walked to the tent a glorified man, leaving his loaf on the gatepost behind him. Few realize that it is quite as pleasant to be loved as to love. The verb “to love” has many conjugations. The earth he trod was like no other ground he had ever walked upon. The magic of the June night was never so enchanting before. He strode along with his head and his thoughts in the clouds, and the Providence that cares for the intoxicated looked after him, and saw that the accepted lover came to no harm. He leaped the fence without even putting his hand to it, and then was brought to earth again by the picture of a man sitting with his head in his hands beside a dying fire.

CHAPTER XXIII

Yates stood for a moment regarding the dejected attitude of his friend.

“Hello, old man!” he cried, “you have the most ‘hark-from-the-tombs’ appearance I ever saw. What’s the matter?”

Renmark looked up.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?”

“Of course it’s I. Been expecting anybody else?”

“No. I have been waiting for you, and thinking of a variety of things.”

“You look it. Well, Renny, congratulate me, my boy. She’s mine, and I’m hers—which are two ways of stating the same delightful fact. I’m up in a balloon, Renny. I’m engaged to the prettiest, sweetest, and most delightful girl there is from the Atlantic to the Pacific. What d’ye think of that? Say, Renmark, there’s nothing on earth like it. You ought to reform and go in for being in love. It would make a man of you. Champagne isn’t to be compared to it. Get up here and dance, and don’t sit there like a bear nursing a sore paw. Do you comprehend that I am to be married to the darlingest girl that lives?”

“God help her!”

“That’s what I say. Every day of her life, bless her! But I don’t say it quite in that tone, Renmark. What’s the matter with you? One would think you were in love with the girl yourself, if such a thing were possible.”

“Why is it not possible?”

“If that is a conundrum, I can answer it the first time. Because you are a fossil. You are too good, Renny; therefore dull and uninteresting. Now, there is nothing a woman likes so much as to reclaim a man. It always annoys a woman to know that the man she is interested in has a past with which she has had nothing to do. If he is wicked and she can sort of make him over, like an old dress, she revels in the process. She flatters herself she makes a new man of him, and thinks she owns that new man by right of manufacture. We owe it to the sex, Renny, to give ‘em a chance at reforming us. I have known men who hated tobacco take to smoking merely to give it up joyfully for the sake of the women they loved. Now, if a man is perfect to begin with, what is a dear, ministering angel of a woman to do with him? Manifestly nothing. The trouble with you, Renny, is that you are too evidently ruled by a good and well-trained conscience, and naturally all women you meet intuitively see this, and have no use for you. A little wickedness would be the making of you.”

“You think, then, that if a man’s impulse is to do what his conscience tells him is wrong, he should follow his impulse, and not his conscience?”

“You state the case with unnecessary seriousness. I believe that an occasional blow-out is good for a man. But if you ever have an impulse of that kind, I think you should give way to it for once, just to see how it feels. A man who is too good gets conceited about himself.”

“I half believe you are right, Mr. Yates,” said the professor, rising. “I will act on your advice, and, as you put it, see how it feels. My conscience tells me that I should congratulate you, and wish you a long and happy life with the girl you have—I won’t say chosen, but tossed up for. The natural man in me, on the other hand, urges me to break every bone in your worthless body. Throw off your coat, Yates.”

“Oh, I say, Renmark, you’re crazy.”

“Perhaps so. Be all the more on your guard, if you believe it. A lunatic is sometimes dangerous.”

“Oh, go away. You’re dreaming. You’re talking in your sleep. What! Fight? Tonight? Nonsense!”

“Do you want me to strike you before you are ready?”

“No, Renny, no. My wants are always modest. I don’t wish to fight at all, especially to-night. I’m a reformed man, I tell you. I have no desire to bid good-by to my best girl with a black eye to-morrow.”

“Then stop talking, if you can, and defend yourself.”

“It’s impossible to fight here in the dark. Don’t flatter yourself for a moment that I am afraid. You just spar with yourself and get limbered up, while I put some wood on the fire. This is too ridiculous.”

Yates gathered some fuel, and managed to coax the dying embers into a blaze.

“There,” he said, “that’s better. Now, let me have a look at you. In the name of wonder, Renny, what do you want to fight me for to-night?”

“I refuse to give my reason.”

“Then I refuse to fight. I’ll run, and I can beat you in a foot race any day in the week. Why, you’re worse than her father. He at least let me know why he fought me.”

“Whose father?”

“Kitty’s father, of course—my future father-in-law. And that’s another ordeal ahead of me. I haven’t spoken to the old man yet, and I need all my fighting grit for that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Isn’t my language plain? It usually is.”

“To whom are you engaged? As I understand your talk, it is to Miss Bartlett. Am I right?”

“Right as rain, Renny. This fire is dying down again. Say, can’t we postpone our fracas until daylight? I don’t want to gather any more wood. Besides, one of us is sure to be knocked into the fire, and thus ruin whatever is left of our clothes. What do you say?”

“Say? I say I am an idiot.”

“Hello! reason is returning, Renny. I perfectly agree with you.”

“Thank you. Then you did not propose to Mar—to Miss Howard?”

“Now, you touch upon a sore spot, Renmark, that I am trying to forget. You remember the unfortunate toss-up; in fact, I think you referred to it a moment ago, and you were justly indignant about it at the time. Well, I don’t care to talk much about the sequel; but, as you know the beginning, you will have to know the end, because I want to wring a sacred promise from you. You are never to mention this episode of the toss-up, or of my confession, to any living soul. The telling of it might do harm, and it couldn’t possibly do any good. Will you promise?”

“Certainly. But do not tell me unless you wish to.”

“I don’t exactly yearn to talk about it, but it is better you should understand how the land lies, so you won’t make any mistake. Not on my account, you know, but I would not like it to come to Kitty’s ears. Yes, I proposed to Margaret—first. She wouldn’t look at me. Can you credit that?”

“Well, now that you mention it, I–”

“Exactly. I see you can credit it. Well, I couldn’t at first; but Margaret knows her own mind, there’s no question about that. Say! she’s in love with some other fellow. I found out that much.”

“You asked her, I presume.”

“Well, it’s my profession to find out things; and, naturally, if I do that for my paper, it is not likely I am going to be behindhand when it comes to myself. She denied it at first, but admitted it afterward, and then bolted.”

“You must have used great tact and delicacy.”

“See here, Renmark; I’m not going to stand any of your sneering. I told you this was a sore subject with me. I’m not telling you because I like to, but because I have to. Don’t put me in fighting humor, Mr. Renmark. If I talk fight, I won’t begin for no reason and then back out for no reason. I’ll go on.”

“I’ll be discreet, and beg to take back all I said. What else?”

“Nothing else. Isn’t that enough? It was more than enough for me—at the time. I tell you, Renmark, I spent a pretty bad half hour sitting on the fence and thinking about it.”

“So long as that?”

Yates rose from the fire indignantly.

“I take that back, too,” cried the professor hastily. “I didn’t mean it.”

“It strikes me you’ve become awfully funny all of a sudden. Don’t you think it’s about time we took to our bunks? It’s late.”

Renmark agreed with him but did not turn in. He walked to the friendly fence, laid his arms along the top rail, and gazed at the friendly stars. He had not noticed before how lovely the night was, with its impressive stillness, as if the world had stopped, as a steamer stops in mid-ocean. After quieting his troubled spirit with the restful stars he climbed the fence and walked down the road, taking little heed of the direction. The still night was a soothing companion. He came at last to a sleeping village of wooden houses, and through the center of the town ran a single line of rails, an iron link connecting the unknown hamlet with all civilization. A red and a green light glimmered down the line, giving the only indication that a train ever came that way. As he went a mile or two farther the cool breath of the great lake made itself felt, and after crossing a field he suddenly came upon the water, finding all further progress in that direction barred. Huge sand dunes formed the shore, covered with sighing pines. At the foot of the dunes stretched a broad beach of firm sand, dimly visible in contrast with the darker water; and at long intervals fell the light ripple of the languid summer waves, running up the beach with a half-asleep whisper, that became softer and softer until it was merged in the silence beyond. Far out on the dark waters a point of light, like a floating star, showed where a steamer was slowly making her way; and so still was the night that he felt rather than heard her pulsating engines. It was the only sign of life visible from that enchanted bay—the bay of the silver beach.

Renmark threw himself down on the soft sand at the foot of a dune. The point of light gradually worked its way to the west, following, doubtless unconsciously, the star of empire, and disappeared around the headland, taking with it a certain vague sense of companionship. But the world is very small, and a man is never quite as much alone as he thinks he is. Renmark heard the low hoot of an owl among the trees, which cry he was astonished to hear answered from the water. He sat up and listened. Presently there grated on the sand the keel of a boat, and someone stepped ashore. From the woods there emerged the shadowy forms of three men. Nothing was said, but they got silently into the boat, which might have been Charon’s craft for all he could see of it. The rattle of the rowlocks and the plash of oars followed, while a voice cautioned the rowers to make less noise. It was evident that some belated fugitives were eluding the authorities of both countries. Renmark thought, with a smile, that if Yates were in his place he would at least give them a fright. A sharp command to an imaginary company to load and fire would travel far on such a night, and would give the rowers a few moments of great discomfort. Renmark, however, did not shout, but treated the episode as part of the mystical dream, and lay down on the sand again. He noticed that the water in the east seemed to feel the approach of morning even before the sky. Gradually the day dawned, a slowly lightening gray at first, until the coming sun spattered a filmy cloud with gold and crimson. Renmark watched the glory of the sunrise, took one lingering look at the curved beauty of the bay shore, shook the sand from his clothing, and started back for the village and the camp beyond.

The village was astir when he reached it. He was surprised to see Stoliker on horseback in front of one of the taverns. Two assistants were with him, also seated on horses. The constable seemed disturbed by the sight of Renmark, but he was there to do his duty.

“Hello!” he cried, “you’re up early. I have a warrant for the arrest of your friend: I suppose you won’t tell me where he is?”

“You can’t expect me to give any information that will get a friend into trouble, can you? especially as he has done nothing.”

“That’s as may turn out before a jury,” said one of the assistants gravely.

“Yes,” assented, Stoliker, winking quietly at the professor. “That is for judge and jury to determine—not you.”

“Well,” said Renmark, “I will not inform about anybody, unless I am compelled to do so, but I may save you some trouble by telling where I have been and what I have seen. I am on my way back from the lake. If you go down there, you will still see the mark of a boat’s keel on the sand, and probably footprints. A boat came over from the other shore in the night, and a man got on board. I don’t say who the man was, and I had nothing to do with the matter in any way except as a spectator. That is all the information I have to give.”

Stoliker turned to his assistants, and nodded. “What did I tell you?” he asked. “We were right on his track.”

“You said the railroad,” grumbled the man who had spoken before.

“Well, we were within two miles of him. Let us go down to the lake and see the traces. Then we can return the warrant.”

Renmark found Yates still asleep in the tent. He prepared breakfast without disturbing him. When the meal was ready, he roused the reporter and told him of his meeting with Stoliker, advising him to get back to New York without delay.

Yates yawned sleepily.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ve been dreaming it all out. I’ll get father-in-law to tote me out to Fort Erie to-night.”

“Do you think it will be safe to put it off so long?”

“Safer than trying to get away during the day. After breakfast I’m going down to the Bartlett homestead. Must have a talk with the old folks, you know. I’ll spend the rest of the day making up for that interview by talking with Kitty. Stoliker will never search for me there, and, now that he thinks I’m gone, he will likely make a visit to the tent. Stoliker is a good fellow, but his strong point is duty, you know; and if he’s certain I’m gone, he’ll give his country the worth of its money by searching. I won’t be back for dinner, so you can put in your time reading my Dime Novels. I make no reflections on your cooking, Renny, now that the vacation is over; but I have my preferences, and they incline toward a final meal with the Bartletts. If I were you, I’d have a nap. You look tired out.”

“I am,” said the professor.

Renmark intended to lie down for a few moments until Yates was clear of the camp, after which he determined to pay a visit; but Nature, when she got him locked up in sleep, took her revenge. He did not hear Stoliker and his satellites search the premises, just as Yates had predicted they would; and when he finally awoke, he found to his astonishment that it was nearly dark. But he was all the better for his sleep, and he attended to his personal appearance with more than ordinary care.

Old Hiram Bartlett accepted the situation with the patient and grim stolidity of a man who takes a blow dealt him by a Providence known by him to be inscrutable. What he had done to deserve it was beyond his comprehension. He silently hitched up his horses, and, for the first time in his life, drove into Fort Erie without any reasonable excuse for going there. He tied his team at the usual corner, after which he sat at one of the taverns and drank strong waters that had no apparent effect on him. He even went so far as to smoke two native cigars; and a man who can do that can do anything. To bring up a daughter who would deliberately accept a man from “the States,” and to have a wife who would aid and abet such an action, giving comfort and support to the enemy, seemed to him traitorous to all the traditions of 1812, or any other date in the history of the two countries. At times wild ideas of getting blind full, and going home to break every breakable thing in the house, rose in his mind; but prudence whispered that he had to live all the rest of his life with his wife, and he realized that this scheme of vengeance had its drawbacks. Finally, he untied his patient team, after paying his bill, and drove silently home, not having returned, even by a nod, any of the salutations tendered to him that day. He was somewhat relieved to find no questions were asked, and that his wife recognized the fact that he was passing through a crisis. Nevertheless, there was a steely glitter in her eye under which he uneasily quailed, for it told him a line had been reached which it would not be well for him to cross. She forgave, but it must not go any further.