CHAPTER XXXIX IN WHICH WE LISTEN TO A SONG
IT was like a May morning, so mild was the air, so gay the sunshine,when the mist had risen. Wild flowers were blooming, and here and thereunfolding leaves made a delicate fretwork against a deep blue sky.The wind did not blow; everywhere were stillness soft and sweet, dewyfreshness, careless peace.
Hour after hour I walked slowly through the woodland, pausing now andthen to look from side to side. It was idle going, wandering in a desertwith no guiding star. The place where I would be might lie to the east,to the west. In the wide enshrouding forest I might have passed it by.I believed not that I had done so. Surely, surely I should have known;surely the voice that lived only in my heart would have called to me tostay.
Beside a newly felled tree, in a glade starred with small white flowers,I came upon the bodies of a man and a boy, so hacked, so hewn, so robbedof all comeliness, that at the sight the heart stood still and the braingrew sick. Farther on was a clearing, and in its midst the charred andblackened walls of what had been a home. I crossed the freshly turnedearth, and looked in at the cabin door with the stillness and thesunshine. A woman lay dead upon the floor, her outstretched handclenched upon the foot of a cradle. I entered the room, and, lookingwithin the cradle, found that the babe had not been spared. Taking upthe little waxen body with the blood upon its innocent breast, I laidit within the mother's arms, and went my way over the sunny doorstep andthe earth that had been made ready for planting. A white butterfly--thefirst of the year--fluttered before me; then rose through a mist ofgreen and passed from my sight.
The sun climbed higher into the deep blue sky. Save where grew pines orcedars there were no shadowy places in the forest. The slight green ofuncurling leaves, the airy scarlet of the maples, the bare branches ofthe tardier trees, opposed no barrier to the sunlight. It streamed intothe world below the treetops, and lay warm upon the dead leaves and thegreen moss and the fragile wild flowers. There was a noise of birds,and a fox barked. All was lightness, gayety, and warmth; the sap wasrunning, the heyday of the spring at hand. Ah! to be riding with her,to be going home through the fairy forest, the sunshine, and thesinging!... The happy miles to Weyanoke, the smell of the sassafras inits woods, the house all lit and trimmed. The fire kindled, the wineupon the table... Diccon's welcoming face, and his hand upon BlackLamoral's bridle; the minister, too, maybe, with his great heart and hiskindly eyes; her hand in mine, her head upon my breast--
The vision faded. Never, never, never for me a home-coming such as that,so deep, so dear, so sweet. The men who were my friends, the woman whomI loved, had gone into a far country. This world was not their home.They had crossed the threshold while I lagged behind. The door was shut,and without were the night and I.
With the fading of the vision came a sudden consciousness of a presencein the forest other than my own. I turned sharply, and saw an Indianwalking with me, step for step, but with a space between us of earth andbrown tree trunks and drooping branches. For a moment I thought thathe was a shadow, not substance; then I stood still, waiting for him tospeak or to draw nearer. At the first glimpse of the bronze figure I hadtouched my sword, but when I saw who it was I let my hand fall. He toopaused, but he did not offer to speak. With his hand upon a great bow,he waited, motionless in the sunlight. A minute or more thus; then Iwalked on with my eyes upon him.
At once he addressed himself to motion, not speaking or making any signor lessening the distance between us, but moving as I moved through thelight and shade, the warmth and stillness, of the forest. For a timeI kept my eyes upon him, but soon I was back with my dreams again. Itseemed not worth while to wonder why he walked with me, who was now themortal foe of the people to whom he had returned.
From the river bank, the sycamore, and the boat that I had fastenedthere, I had gone northward toward the Pamunkey; from the clearing andthe ruined cabin with the dead within it, I had turned to the eastward.Now, in that hopeless wandering, I would have faced the north again. Butthe Indian who had made himself my traveling companion stopped short,and pointed to the east. I looked at him, and thought that he knew,maybe, of some war party between us and the Pamunkey, and would saveme from it. A listlessness had come upon me, and I obeyed the pointingfinger.
So, estranged and silent, with two spears' length of earth between us,we went on until we came to a quiet stream flowing between low, darkbanks. Again I would have turned to the northward, but the son ofPowhatan, gliding before me, set his face down the stream, toward theriver I had left. A minute in which I tried to think and could not,because in my ears was the singing of the birds at Weyanoke; then Ifollowed him.
How long I walked in a dream, hand in hand with the sweetness of thepast, I do not know; but when the present and its anguish weighedagain upon my heart it was darker, colder, stiller, in the forest. Thesoundless stream was bright no longer; the golden sunshine that had lainupon the earth was all gathered up; the earth was dark and smooth andbare, with not a flower; the tree trunks were many and straight andtall. Above were no longer brown branch and blue sky, but a deep andsombre green, thick woven, keeping out the sunlight like a pall. I stoodstill and gazed around me, and knew the place.
To me, whose heart was haunted, the dismal wood, the charmed silence,the withdrawal of the light, were less than nothing. All day I hadlooked for one sight of horror; yea, had longed to come at last upon it,to fall beside it, to embrace it with my arms. There, there, though itshould be some fair and sunny spot, there would be my haunted wood. Asfor this place of gloom and stillness, it fell in with my mood. Morewelcome than the mocking sunshine were this cold and solemn light, thisdeathlike silence, these ranged pines. It was a place in which to thinkof life as a slight thing and scarcely worth the while, given withoutthe asking, spent in turmoil, strife, suffering, and longings all invain. Easily laid down, too,--so easily laid down that the wonder was--
I looked at the ghostly wood, and at the dull stream, and at my handupon the hilt of the sword that I had drawn halfway from the scabbard.The life within that hand I had not asked for. Why should I stand likea soldier left to guard a thing not worth the guarding; seeinghis comrades march homeward, hearing a cry to him from his distanthearthstone?
I drew my sword well-nigh from its sheath; and then of a sudden I sawthe matter in a truer light; knew that I was indeed the soldier, andwilled to be neither coward nor deserter. The blade dropped back intothe scabbard with a clang, and, straightening myself, I walked on besidethe sluggish stream deep into the haunted wood.
Presently it occurred to me to glance aside at the Indian who had keptpace with me through the forest. He was not there; he walked with me nolonger; save for myself there seemed no breathing creature in the dimwood. I looked to right and left, and saw only the tall, straight pinesand the needle-strewn ground. How long he had been gone I could nottell. He might have left me when first we came to the pines, for mydreams had held me, and I had not looked his way.
There was that in the twilight place, or in the strangeness, the horror,and the yearning that had kept company with me that day, or in the dullweariness of a mind and body overwrought of late, which made thoughtimpossible. I went on down the stream toward the river, because itchanced that my face was set in that direction.
How dark was the shadow of the pines, how lifeless the earth beneath,how faint and far away the blue that showed here and there through riftsin the heavy roof of foliage! The stream bending to one side I turnedwith it, and there before me stood the minister!
I do not know what strangled cry burst from me. The earth was rocking,all the wood a glare of light. As for him, at the sight of me andthe sound of my voice he had staggered back against a tree; but now,recovering himself, he ran to me and put his great arms about me. "Fromthe power of the dog, from the lion's mouth," he cried brokenly. "Andthey slew thee not, Ralph, the heathen who took thee away! Yesternight Ilearned that you lived, but I looked not for you here."
I scarce heard or marked what he was saying, and found no
time in whichto wonder at his knowledge that I had not perished. I only saw thathe was alone, and that in the evening wood there was no sign of otherliving creature.
"Yea, they slew me not, Jeremy," I said. "I would that they had done so.And you are alone? I am glad that you died not, my friend; yes, faith,I am very glad that one escaped. Tell me about it, and I will sit hereupon the bank and listen. Was it done in this wood? A gloomy deathbed,friend, for one so young and fair. She should have died to soft music,in the sunshine, with flowers about her."
With an exclamation he put me from him, but kept his hand upon my armand his steady eyes upon my face.
"She loved laughter and sunshine and sweet songs," I continued. "Shecan never know them in this wood. They are outside; they are outside theworld, I think. It is sad, is it not? Faith, I think it is the saddestthing I have ever known."
He clapped his other hand upon my shoulder. "Wake, man!" he commanded."If thou shouldst go mad now--Wake! thy brain is turning. Hold tothyself. Stand fast, as thou art soldier and Christian! Ralph, sheis not dead. She will wear flowers,--thy flowers,--sing, laugh, movethrough the sunshine of earth for many and many a year, please God! Artlistening, Ralph? Canst hear what I am saying?"
"I hear," I said at last, "but I do not well understand."
He pushed me back against a pine, and held me there with his hands uponmy shoulders. "Listen," he said, speaking rapidly and keeping hiseyes upon mine. "All those days that you were gone, when all the worlddeclared you dead, she believed you living. She saw party after partycome back without you, and she believed that you were left behind in theforest. Also she knew that the George waited but for the search to bequite given over, and for my Lord Carnal's recovery. She had been toldthat the King's command might not be defied, that the Governor had nochoice but to send her from Virginia. Ralph, I watched her, and I knewthat she meant not to go upon that ship. Three nights agone she stolefrom the Governor's house, and, passing through the gates that thesleeping warder had left unfastened, went toward the forest. I saw herand followed her, and at the edge of the forest I spoke to her. I stayedher not, I brought her not back, Ralph, because I was convinced that anI did so she would die. I knew of no great danger, and I trusted in theLord to show me what to do, step by step, and how to guide her gentlyback when she was weary of wandering,--when, worn out, she was willingto give up the quest for the dead. Art following me, Ralph?"
"Yes," I answered, and took my hand from my eyes. "I was nigh mad,Jeremy, for my faith was not like hers. I have looked on Death too muchof late, and yesterday all men believed that he had come to dwell in theforest and had swept clean his house before him. But you escaped, youboth escaped"--
"God's hand was over us," he said reverently. "This is the way of it.She had been ill, you know, and of late she had taken no thought of foodor sleep. She was so weak, we had to go so slowly, and so winding wasour path, who knew not the country, that the evening found us not farupon our way, if way we had. We came to a cabin in a clearing, and theywhose home it was gave us shelter for the night. In the morning, whenthe father and son would go forth to their work we walked with them.When they came to the trees they meant to fell we bade them good-by, andwent on alone. We had not gone an hundred paces when, looking back, wesaw three Indians start from the dimness of the forest and set upon andslay the man and the boy. That murder done they gave chase to me, whocaught up thy wife and ran for both our lives. When I saw that they werelight of foot and would overtake me, I set my burden down, and, drawinga sword that I had with me, went back to meet them halfway. Ralph, Islew all three,--may the Lord have mercy on my soul! I knew not what tothink of that attack, the peace with the Indians being so profound, andI began to fear for thy wife's safety. She knew not the woods, and Imanaged to turn our steps back toward Jamestown without her knowledgethat I did so. It was about midday when we saw the gleam of the riverthrough the trees before us, and heard the sound of firing and of agreat yelling. I made her crouch within a thicket, while I myself wentforward to reconnoitre, and well-nigh stumbled into the midst of anarmy. Yelling, painted, maddened, brandishing their weapons toward thetown, human hair dabbled with blood at the belts of many--in the name ofGod, Ralph, what is the meaning of it all?"
"It means," I said, "that yesterday they rose against us and slew us bythe hundred. The town was warned and is safe. Go on."
"I crept back to madam," he continued, "and hurried her away from thatdangerous neighborhood. We found a growth of bushes and hid ourselveswithin it, and just in time, for from the north came a great band ofpicked warriors, tall and black and wondrously feathered, fresh to thefray, whatever the fray might be. They joined themselves to the impsupon the river bank, and presently we heard another great din with morefiring and more yelling. Well, to make a long story short, we crouchedthere in the bushes until late afternoon, not knowing what was thematter, and not daring to venture forth to find out. The woman of thecabin at which we had slept had given us a packet of bread and meat, sowe were not without food, but the time was long. And then of a suddenthe wood around us was filled with the heathen, band after band, comingfrom the river, stealing like serpents this way and that into the depthsof the forest. They saw us not in the thick bushes; maybe it was becauseof the prayers which I said with might and main. At last the distanceswallowed them, the forest seemed clear, no sound, no motion. Long wewaited, but with the sunset we stole from the bushes and down an aisleof the forest toward the river, rounded a little wood of cedar, andcame full upon perhaps fifty of the savages"--He paused to draw a greatbreath and to raise his brows after a fashion that he had.
"Go on, go on!" I cried. "What did you do? You have said that she isalive and safe!"
"She is," he answered, "but no thanks to me, though I did set lustilyupon that painted fry. Who led them, d' ye think, Ralph? Who saved usfrom those bloody hands?"
A light broke in upon me. "I know," I said. "And he brought you here"--
"Ay, he sent away the devils whose color he is, worse luck! He told usthat there were Indians, not of his tribe, between us and the town. Ifwe went on we should fall into their hands. But there was a place thatwas shunned by the Indian as by the white man: we could bide there untilthe morrow, when we might find the woods clear. He guided us to thisdismal wood that was not altogether strange to us. Ay, he told her thatyou were alive. He said no more than that; all at once, when we werewell within the wood and the twilight was about us, he was gone."
He ceased to speak, and stood regarding me with a smile upon his ruggedface. I took his hand and raised it to my lips. "I owe you more than Ican ever pay," I said. "Where is she, my friend?"
"Not far away," he answered. "We sought the centre of the wood, andbecause she was so chilled and weary and shaken I did dare to build afire there. Not a foe has come against us, and we waited but for thedusk of this evening to try to make the town. I came down to the streamjust now to find, if I could, how near we were to the river"--
He broke off, made a gesture with his hand toward one of the long aislesof pine trees, and then, with a muttered "God bless you both," left me,and going a little way down the stream, stood with his back to a greattree and his eyes upon the slow, deep water.
She was coming. I watched the slight figure grow out of the dusk betweenthe trees, and the darkness in which I had walked of late fell away. Thewood that had been so gloomy was a place of sunlight and song; had redroses sprung up around me I had felt no wonder. She came softly andslowly, with bent head and hanging arms, not knowing that I was near.I went not to meet her,--it was my fancy to have her come to mestill,--but when she raised her eyes and saw me I fell upon my knees.
For a moment she stood still, with her hands at her bosom; then, softlyand slowly through the dusky wood, she came to me and touched me uponthe shoulder. "Art come to take me home?" she asked. "I have wept andprayed and waited long, but now the spring is here and the woods aregrowing green."
I took her hands and bowed my head upon them. "I believed thee dead,"I sai
d. "I thought that thou hadst gone home, indeed, and I was left inthe world alone. I can never tell thee how I love thee."
"I need no telling," she answered. "I am glad that I did so forget mywomanhood as to come to Virginia on such an errand; glad that they didlaugh at and insult me in the meadow at Jamestown, for else thou mightsthave given me no thought; very heartily glad that thou didst buy me withthy handful of tobacco. With all my heart I love thee, my knight, mylover, my lord and husband"--Her voice broke, and I felt the tremblingof her frame. "I love not thy tears upon my hands," she murmured. "Ihave wandered far and am weary. Wilt rise and put thy arm around me andlead me home?"
I stood up, and she came to my arms like a tired bird to its nest. Ibent my head, and kissed her upon the brow, the blue-veined eyelids, theperfect lips. "I love thee," I said. "The song is old, but it is sweet.See! I wear thy color, my lady."
The hand that had touched the ribbon upon my arm stole upwards to mylips. "An old song, but a sweet one," she said. "I love thee. I willalways love thee. My head may lie upon thy breast, but my heart lies atthy feet."
There was joy in the haunted wood, deep peace, quiet thankfulness, aspringtime of the heart,--not riotous like the May, but fair and graveand tender like the young world in the sunshine without the pines. Ourlips met again, and then, with my arm around her, we moved to the giantpine beneath which stood the minister. He turned at our approach, andlooked at us with a quiet and tender smile, though the water stoodin his eyes. "'Heaviness may endure for a night,'" he said, "'but joycometh in the morning.' I thank God for you both."
"Last summer, in the green meadow, we knelt before you while you blessedus, Jeremy," I answered. "Bless us now again, true friend and man ofGod."
He laid his hands upon our bowed heads and blessed us, and then we threemoved through the dismal wood and beside the sluggish stream down tothe great bright river. Ere we reached it the pines had fallen away, thehaunted wood was behind us, our steps were set through a fairy world ofgreening bough and springing bloom. The blue sky laughed above, the latesunshine barred our path with gold. When we came to the river it lay insilver at our feet, making low music amongst its reeds.
I had bethought me of the boat which I had fastened that morning to thesycamore between us and the town, and now we moved along the river bankuntil we should come to the tree. Though we walked through an enemy'scountry we saw no foe. Stillness and peace encompassed us; it was like abeautiful dream from which one fears no wakening.
As we went, I told them, speaking low, for we knew not if we were yetin safety, of the slaughter that had been made and of Diccon. My wifeshuddered and wept, and the minister drew long breaths while his handsopened and closed. And then, when she asked me, I told of how I had beentrapped to the ruined hut that night and of all that had followed.When I had done she turned within my arm and clung to me with her facehidden. I kissed her and comforted her, and presently we came to thesycamore tree reaching out over the clear water, and to the boat that Ihad fastened there.
The sunset was nigh at hand, and all the west was pink. The wind haddied away, and the river lay like tinted glass between the dark bordersof the forest. Above the sky was blue, while in the south rose cloudsthat were like pillars, tall and golden. The air was soft as silk; therewas no sound other than the ripple of the water about our keel and thelow dash of the oars. The minister rowed, while I sat idle beside mylove. He would have it so, and I made slight demur.
We left the bank behind us and glided into the midstream, for it was aswell to be out of arrowshot. The shadow of the forest was gone; stilland bright around us lay the mighty river. When at length the boat headturned to the west, we saw far up the stream the roofs of Jamestown,dark against the rosy sky.
"There is a ship going home," said the minister.
We to whom he spoke looked with him down the river, and saw a tall shipwith her prow to the ocean. All her sails were set; the last rays of thesinking sun struck against her poop windows and made of them a half-moonof fire. She went slowly, for the wind was light, but she went surely,away from the new land back to the old, down the stately river to thebay and the wide ocean, and to the burial at sea of one upon her. Withher pearly sails and the line of flame color beneath, she lookeda dwindling cloud; a little while, and she would be claimed of thedistance and the dusk.
"It is the George," I said.
The lady who sat beside me caught her breath. "Ay, sweetheart," I wenton. "She carries one for whom she waited. He has gone from out our lifeforever."
She uttered a low cry and turned to me, trembling, her lips parted, hereyes eloquent. "We will not speak of him," I said. "As if he were deadlet his name rest between us. I have another thing to tell thee, dearheart, dear court lady masking as a waiting damsel, dear ward of theKing whom his Majesty hath thundered against for so many weary months.Would it grieve thee to go home, after all?"
"Home?" she asked. "To Weyanoke? That would not grieve me."
"Not to Weyanoke, but to England," I said. "The George is gone, butthree days since the Esperance came in. When she sails again I thinkthat we must go."
She gazed at me with a whitening face. "And you?" she whispered. "Howwill you go? In chains?"
I took her clasped hands, parted them, and drew her arms around my neck."Ay," I answered, "I will go in chains that I care not to have broken.My dear love, I think that the summer lies fair before us. Listen whileI tell thee of news that the Esperance brought."
While I told of new orders from the Company to the Governor and of myletter from Buckingham, the minister rested upon his oars that he mighthear the better. When I had ceased to speak he bent to them again, andhis tireless strength sent us swiftly over the glassy water toward thetown that was no longer distant. "I am more glad than I can tell you,Ralph and Jocelyn," he said, and the smile with which he spoke made hisface beautiful.
The light streaming to us from the ruddy west laid roses in the cheeksof the sometime ward of the King, and the low wind lifted the dark hairfrom her forehead. Her head was on my breast, her hand in mine; we carednot to speak, we were so happy. On her finger was her wedding ring, thering that was only a link torn from the gold chain Prince Maurice hadgiven me. When she saw my eyes upon it, she raised her hand and kissedthe rude circlet.
The hue of the sunset lingered in cloud and water, and in the paleheavens above the rose and purple shone the evening star. The cloudlikeship at which we had gazed was gone into the distance and the twilight;we saw her no more. Broad between its blackening shores stretched theJames, mirroring the bloom in the west, the silver star, the lights uponthe Esperance that lay between us and the town. Aboard her the marinerswere singing, and their song of the sea floated over the water to us,sweetly and like a love song. We passed the ship unhailed, and glided onto the haven where we would be. The singing behind us died away, but thesong in our hearts kept on. All things die not: while the soul lives,love lives: the song may be now gay, now plaintive, but it is deathless.
To Have and to Hold Page 39
