CHAPTER XXXIII
THE FALL OF THE LEAF
Days passed, and the forest put on a beauty, austere, yet fantastic,bizarre. Above it hung a pale blue sky; within it, a perpetual, paleblue haze, through which blazed the scarlet and gold of the trees--greatbonfires which did not warm, flaming pyres which were never consumed.Morning and evening a shroud of chill, white mist fell upon them, orthey would have mocked the sunrise and the sunset. Along the summit oflow hills ran a comb of fire--the scarlet of the sumach, leaf and berry;underfoot were crimson vines like trails and splashes of blood; into thestreams from which the wanderers stooped to drink, fell the gold of thesycamore. From the hills they looked down upon a red and yellow world, agorgeous bourgeoning and blossoming that put the spring to shame, a seaof splendor with here and there a dark-green isle of cedar or of pine.Day after day saw the same calm blue sky, the same blue haze, the sameslow drifting of crimson and gold to earth. The winds did not blow, andthe murmur of the forest was hushed. All sound seemed muffled andremote. The deer passed noiseless down the long aisles, the beaver andthe otter slipped noiseless into the stream, the bear rolled itsshambling bulk away from human neighborhood like a shapeless shadow. Attimes vast flocks of wild pigeons darkened the air, but they passed likea cloud. The singing birds were gone. Only at night did sound awake,for then the wolves howled, and the infrequent scream of the pantherchilled the blood, and the fires which the wanderers must needs buildroared and crackled through the darkness. In the daytime beauty, vastand melancholy; in the night, shadows and mysteries, the voice of wildbeasts and the stillness of the stars; at all times an enemy, they knewnot how far away or how near at hand, behind them.
Through this world which seemed more a phantasm than a reality, Landlessand Patricia fared, and were happy. All passion, all fear, all mistrustand anger slept in that enchanted calm. They never spoke of the past,they had well-nigh ceased to think of it. When they knelt upon the turfbeside some crystal brook, and drank of the water which seemed red wineor molten gold according to the nature of the trees above it, it mighthave been the water of Lethe.
In the illimitable forest, too, in the monotony of sunshine and shade,of glade and dell, of crystal streams and tiny valleys, each thecounterpart of the other, in dense woods and grassy savannahs; in theyesterday so like to-day, and the to-day so like to-morrow, there was nohint of the future. It was enchanted ground, where to-morrow must alwaysbe like to-day. They kept their faces to the east, and they walked eachday as many leagues as her strength would permit, and Landless,imitating as best he could the dead Susquehannock, took all precautionsto cover their trail; but that done all was done, and they put carebehind them. Landless, walking in a dream, knew that it was a dream, andsaid to himself, "I must awaken, but not yet. I will dream and be happyyet a little while." But Patricia dreamt and knew it not. She kept herwonted state, or, rather, with a quiet insistence he kept it for her. Henever addressed her save as "Madam," and he cared for her comfort, andin all things bore himself towards her with the formal courtesy he wouldhave shown a queen. He said to himself, "Godfrey Landless, GodfreyLandless, thou mayst forget much, perhaps, for a little while; but notthis! If thou dost, thou art no honorable man."
Master of himself, he walked beside her, cared for her, tended her,guarded her, served her as if he had been a knight-errant out of aromance, and she a distressed princess. And she rewarded him with adelicate kindliness, and a perfectly trustful, childlike dependence uponhis strength, wisdom, and resource. All her bearing towards him wasmarked by an inexpressible charm, half-playful, wholly gracious andwomanly. The lady of the manor was gone, and in her place moved thePatricia Verney of the enchanted forest--a very different creature.
Thus they fared through the dying summer, and were happy in the presentof soft sunshine, tender haze, fantastic beauty. Sometimes they walkedin silence, too truly companions to feel the need of words; at othertimes they talked, and the hours flew past, for they both had wit,intelligence, quick fancy, high imagination. Sometimes their laughterrang through the glades of the forest, and set the squirrels in the oaksto chattering; sometimes in the melancholy grace of the evening when thepurple twilight sank through the trees, and the large stars came out oneby one, they spoke of grave things, of the mysteries of life and death,of the soul and its hereafter. She had early noticed that he never laydown at night without having first silently prayed. There had been atime when she would have laughed at this as Puritan hypocrisy, but now,one dark night, when the noises of the forest were loud about them, andthe wind rushed through the trees, she came close to him and kneltbeside him. Thenceforward each night, before they lay down beside theirfire, and when from out the darkness came all weird and mournful sounds,when the owl hooted, and the catamount screamed, and the long howl ofthe wolf was answered by its fellow, he stood with bared head, and in afew short, simple words commended them both to God. "I will both lay medown in peace and sleep, for Thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell insafety."
There came a day when they sat down to rest upon the dark, smooth groundin a belt of pines, and looked between rows of stately columns to where,in the distance, the arcade was closed by a broken and confused glory ofcrimson oak and yellow maple. Landless told her that it was like gazingat a rose window down the long nave of a cathedral.
"I have never seen a cathedral," she said; "I have dreamed of them,though, of your Milton's 'dim religious light,' and of the rollingmusic."
"I have seen many," he answered. "But none of them are to me what theabbey at Westminster is. If you should ever see it--"
Something in her face stopped him; there was a silence, and then he saidquietly:--
"When you shall see it, is perhaps better, madam?"
"Yes," she answered, gazing before her with wide fixed eyes.
He did not finish his sentence, and neither spoke again until they hadleft the pines and were forcing their way through the tall grass andreeds of a wide savannah. They came to a small, clear stream, dottedwith wild fowl and mirroring the pale blue sky, and he lifted her in hisarms as was his wont and bore her through the shallow water. As he sether gently down upon the other side, she said in a low voice, "I thoughtyou knew. Had it not been for that night, that night which sets us here,you and me,--I should be now in London, at Whitehall, at some masque orpageant perhaps. I should be all clad in brocade and jewels, not likethis--" She touched her ragged gown as she spoke, then burst intostrange laughter. "But God disposes! And you--"
"I should be in a place which is never mentioned at Court, madam," saidLandless grimly. "The grave, to wit. Unless indeed his Excellencyproposed hanging me in chains."
She cried out as though she had been struck. "Don't!" she saidpassionately. "Don't speak to me so! I will not bear it!" and ran pasthim into the woods beyond the savannah.
When he came up with her he found her lying on a mossy bank with herface hidden.
"Madam," he said, kneeling beside her, "forgive me."
She lifted a colorless face from her hands. "How far are we from theSettlements?" she demanded.
"I do not know, madam. Some twenty leagues, probably, from the frontierposts."
"How far from the friendly tribes?"
"Something less than that distance."
"Then when we reach them, sir," she said imperiously, "you are to leaveme with them at one of the villages above the falls."
"To leave you there!"
"Yes. You will tell them that I am the daughter of one of the palefacechiefs, of one whom the great white chief calls 'brother,' and then theywill not dare to harm me or to detain me. They will send me down theriver to the nearest post, and the men there will bring me on toJamestown, and so home."
"And why may not I bring you on to Jamestown--and so home?" demandedLandless with a smile.
"Because--because--you _know_ that you are lost if you return to theSettlements."
"And nevertheless I shall return," he said with another smile.
She struck her hands together. "You will
be mad--mad! If you had notbeen their leader!--but as it is, there is no hope. Leave me with thefriendly Indians, then go yourself to the northward. Make for NewAmsterdam. God will carry you through the Indians as he has done so far.I will pray to him that he do so. Ah, promise me that you will go!"
Landless took her hand and kissed it. "Were you in absolute safety,madam," he said gently, "and if it were not for one other thing, I wouldgo, because you wish it, and because I would save you any pang, howeverslight, that you might feel for the fate of one who was, who is, yourservant--your slave. I would go from you, and because it else mightgrieve you, I would strive to keep my life through the forest, throughthe winter--"
"Ah, the winter!" she cried. "I had forgotten that winter will come."
"But to do that which you propose," he continued, "to leave you to themercy of fierce and treacherous Indians, but half subdued, friends tothe whites only because they must--it is out of the question. To leaveyou at a frontier post among rude trappers and traders, or at some halfsavage pioneer's, is equally impossible. What tale would you have totell Colonel Verney? 'The Ricahecrians carried me into the BlueMountains. There your servant Landless found me and brought me a longdistance towards my home. But at the last, to save his own neck, forfeitto the State, he left me, still in the wilderness and in danger, andwent his way.' My honor, madam, is my own, and I choose not so to stainit. Again: I must be the witness to your story. You have wandered formany weeks in a wilderness, far beyond the ken of your friends. To yourworld, madam, I am a rebel, traitor and convict, a wretch capable of anybaseness, of any crime. If I go back with you, throwing myself into thepower of Governor and Council, at least I shall be credited with havingso borne myself towards my master's daughter as to fear nothing fromtheir hands on that score. The idle and censorious cannot choose butbelieve when you say, 'I am come scatheless through weeks of daily andhourly companionship with this man. Rebel and traitor and gaol-birdthough he be, he never injured me in word, thought, or deed....' For allthese reasons, madam, we must be companions still."
She had covered her face while he was speaking, and she kept it hiddenwhen he had finished. The slowly lengthening shadows of the trees hadbarred the little glade with black when he spoke again. It was only toask in his usual voice if she were rested and ready to continue theirjourney.
She raised her head and looked at him with swimming eyes, then held outtwo trembling hands. He took them, helped her to her feet, and beforereleasing them, bent and touched them with his lips. Then side by sideand in silence they traveled on through the halcyon calm of the worldaround them.
Prisoners of Hope: A Tale of Colonial Virginia Page 33
