CHAPTER III.

IN THE WAY OF HISTORY.

About the time these events were taking place at the farm, the manager and part owner thereof was striding over the fields at a good round pace on his way to the nearest village.

A tall, well-formed man of about twenty-six or twenty-seven years, marching along with head erect and shoulders set well back; long, very long legs incased in trousers of the all-pervading gray homespun; close-fitting sack coat of the same material buttoned closely around him; a peakless round cap set somewhat jauntily over the curly brown hair--that was James, or, more commonly, “Jim,” Bright.

If you had seen him now, as his long legs carried him over the ground at the rate of a good four miles an hour, you might have taken him to be anything rather than a small farmer. He had the erect figure and careless grace of a trained athlete--more like a soldier than a farmer, you would have thought.

There was something in his commanding figure and watchful eye that caused an undefined wonder that he should be content to bury himself in this barren region; something incongruous, too, in the idea of coupling reaping, plowing, and the petty daily routine of the small farmer with that strong, upright figure and firm face.

But he _was_ a farmer for all that, and a good one, too, albeit somewhat original in his methods. “A clever boy,” the neighbors thought, and then they would shake their heads doubtfully. They could not understand him; but they all respected him, and the greater part of them liked him.

He was unlike the rest in all he did--and in all he said, too, for the matter of that.

The worthy pastor of the little country church had given him up long ago, called him an atheist, and shook his head sorrowfully when the young man’s name was mentioned in his presence.

Yet Jim Bright paid a good share of the meagre salary doled out to this same pastor, and was generally the first one to be called upon for aid when more than the usual destitution prevailed.

“He is not a Christian, I am afraid,” sighed the minister, in a tone of genuine sorrow. “I wish he was, for he is good.”

And so it was with the rest. They could not understand this young man’s ideas; did not, as a rule, approve of his methods; but they would all unite in admitting that both Jim Bright and his sister were good, and in this homely phrase they bestowed the greatest praise possible. They were not to blame that they could not understand him better.

James and Norine Bright had lived all their lives on that little mountainside farm. They had begun life in that modest cottage, and had taken their first view of this world from its little pinched-up windows. The windows were small, and the cottage itself was small. The farm was small, Jim thought; and, in fact, the only object of any size--with the exception of the mountains in front of it--was the big red barn behind it. That was large, and it needed to be; for although the farm was small, being somewhat less than fifty acres, it had been brought, after years of care, to a very high state of production, and the big red barn, large as it was, had hardly room enough to store away the wheat, oats, corn, and other grains and grasses that were annually carted through its swinging doors.

Oh, a very productive farm was the Bright farm, quite a marvel of a farm in that region of poor land; but the old men of the neighborhood would shake their heads sagely when they mentioned it.

“A good bit of land, that, but not cultivated as old Pat Bright used to cultivate it.”

It was he, the grandfather of these two, who had first started to hew a competence out of this land. He it was that built the little cottage and the big barn, and very little had been done, the neighbors would tell you, to improve the place since old Pat died.

For the father of these two had been a gentleman, and not at all adapted to the management of a farm--a gentleman indeed, inasmuch as he had been well born--one of the old Darlings of Virginia--well reared, and so far as the requirements of this workaday world went, perfectly helpless. But still he had been a gentleman, and so there was no wonder that his family had been greatly shocked when he lost his head and his heart to pretty Nora Bright.

Not much of a loss, perhaps, but a great shock to the family; for Pat Bright was undoubtedly ignorant--a “clod-hopper,” I believe they called him, in their refined, gentlemanly way--and so, of course, they could expect nothing better of his daughter than that she should try, in her ignorant way, to captivate a gentleman.

Of course it was all right for James to amuse himself with this poor girl; but the idea of marriage was not to be thought of. But as this gentlemanly family were down in Virginia and pretty Nora Bright among the mountains of Pennsylvania, they were not in a position to use their family influence effectively.

But they published their ukase for all that, which was to the effect that James must relinquish this artful girl, or be banished forever from the family.

But James did not relinquish the girl, being commonplace and ungentlemanly enough to marry her after having won her heart. So he submitted to being banished with as good grace as possible.

Only once in all those years had that banishment been broken. That was shortly after the birth of Norine. Then, indeed, they had received a visit from his only sister. The visit was of very short duration, in fact, not longer than one short half-hour. It had been long enough, however, to permit of many bitter words on both sides, and to complete the banishment forever.

It had done more than that. It had made this man so bitterly ashamed of his sister’s heartless proposition, that he resented it by banishing the name, as the family had already banished him. And from that day, James Darling was satisfied to become plain James Bright; and so in time, old Pat being obliged to die, whether he wanted to or not, was well enough satisfied with his children to leave them the farm that he had struggled so hard to obtain.

And his daughter had been satisfied to work for and wait on her gentlemanly husband--whom it is presumed she loved--and to care for and educate her two children, whom she adored, until at last she was obliged to die too; and then this gentleman, knowing that thereafter he would be obliged to wait upon himself, was better satisfied to join his wife; so without having injured the world one particle by his gentlemanly sojourn in it, he died. As for the good he had done--well, that was nearly as hard to define as was the injury. He had been an honorable man, of high breeding, and he had left the impress of his better qualities upon his children, and without troubling himself greatly about their education, he had instilled into them something of the grace and gentle manners that he had been accustomed to in polite society. It might be doubted that he had benefited them much in this. It had only served as yet to make them conspicuous. They spoke a different language from their neighbors; Norine alone retaining a slight, almost imperceptible trace of the soft Gaelic of her mother’s tongue--just enough to give at times a quaint piquancy to her conversation.

In all other points they were essentially well-bred, with a taste for reading polite literature not altogether compatible with their surroundings.

Their father, apparently, had never noticed the incongruity of this, for he died pleased with the thought that his son would be a gentleman, and his daughter a lady, in the highest and best meaning of the terms.

And so this brother and sister had become the joint owners of the Bright farm, and in all these years the writ of banishment had never been annulled.

It had often served as a topic of conversation between the brother and sister, and for years they had felt very bitter against their father’s family; but as they grew older, and the family in question grew smaller, until at last it had dwindled down to this one sister of their father’s, they had grown charitable over the wrongs that had caused them no suffering, until at last they had determined on making this poor, lonesome old woman an offer of peace and forgetfulness.

They always thought of her as poor and lonesome, though they knew nothing about her beyond the fact that she was old and unmarried. That was sufficient, Norine thought; and she must be very lonesome indeed. And so it was decided that they would write to her and invite her to pay them a visit.

But here they found two difficulties to contend with. First, they had to find her address; that took them a matter of six months; and then they had to write the letter, and that took them nearly as long.

There never was such a difficult task, Norine thought; and Jim smoked innumerable pipes over it, and wasted enough paper to have lasted him a lifetime of ordinary correspondence.

For, you see, they had pride themselves, and while they were willing, nay, anxious, to conciliate this old woman, they had not the slightest idea of admitting anything that could be considered as a reflection on the course adopted by their parents.

“You see, Jim, it has got to be done some time, and we may as well get it over now,” said Norine, one evening, as they sat by the fire. “So suppose we just sit down and write a simple letter of invitation, and say nothing at all about the old misery?”

“Well, Norry,” replied Jim, “you sit down and write your simple letter of invitation, and if it proves satisfactory, I will mail it for you, and you can have all the honor.”

“Yes, and all the work and worry, too, you lazy thing,” pouted Norine. “But I will write it,” she said, stamping her little foot energetically, “if it is only to get it done.”

And she made a great show of setting out writing materials, knitting her brows meanwhile with a vast assumption of importance.

“Jim,” she said, after she had sat and stared at the lamp for a few minutes, “would you call her your dear aunt?”

“No,” said Jim, “I think not.”

“Why, Jim?”

“Because,” said Jim, “I should consider it presumptuous to use terms of endearment in addressing a total stranger.”

“Now, Jim,” said Norine coaxingly, “how would you address her?”

“How would ‘Aunt Darling’ do?” suggested Jim.

“‘Dear Aunt Darling,’” corrected Norine; “that will do, Jim. Now, what next?”

“Well,” replied Jim, rising and filling his pipe, “if I was doing the writing, I should probably know what was coming next; but as you are doing it, I have not the slightest idea.”

“Now, Jim, don’t be mean,” coaxed Norine; “you might help a little, you know.”

But Jim would not help, and sauntered out to do his chores, leaving Norine alone in her perplexity. She managed to emerge, however, by the time he returned, with the following result:

“DEAR AUNT DARLING: My brother and I have tried so often to write to you without succeeding, that I have determined to make the attempt alone this time. We know, dear aunt, that you never forgave our poor, dear mother for having married your brother, and we are sorry for it.

“But years have passed since then, and they are both dead. I do not mean to ask your forgiveness for them--I only want to tell you how happy we are--my brother and I--and how very much we want to love you, if you will only let us.

“You must be very lonesome, dear aunt, and I hope you will come to us. We have plenty of everything, and we wish to share with you, and will try very hard to make you happy.

“Forget what has passed, dear aunt. Come to us, and let us love you and care for you. Believe me, you will be very welcome. Your niece,

“NORINE BRIGHT.”

“There, Jim,” she said nervously, “please don’t laugh at it, for I feel sure that aunt will understand what I mean. Seal it up and direct it for me, that’s a good Jim.”

He took the letter from her hand, and coolly opened it.

“That is pretty good, Norry,” he said, with condescending patronage; “almost as good as I could do myself; only”--and he hesitated a little--“don’t you think you are a trifle too affectionate to an entire stranger?”

“She is our aunt, dear,” replied Norine.

“Yes, I know that, and I don’t mind giving her a little of my bountiful affection, seeing my sister does not need it all; but, you see, I would like to know how she will take it first. I would not care to have my offers rejected.”

“I don’t think she will reject our offers,” said Norine softly. “Anyway, I am willing to risk it; so seal it up, like a good boy.”

Jim did as she wished without further parley, and the next day went to the village for the purpose of mailing it.

And so it came about in this chapter of accidents that, on his return from this charitable errand, he found a strange gentleman at his house. At present, the strange gentleman was too ill to do any harm; but I do not think that Jim was greatly pleased to find him there.

It was long after noon before Norine had finished her baking and other household duties, and resumed her place in the sick man’s chamber. He was awake, and Norine could not fail to see the flush of pleasure that welcomed her arrival.

“Was there anything he would like?” she inquired.

“Yes, a drink.”

Norine gave him a drink of some cooling mixture, and sat down by the table with her sewing. The stranger, after many struggles, succeeded in turning himself so he could see her face, and for some time lay silently watching her. At last, catching her eyes when they were raised from her work, he beckoned to her weakly.

“What is your name?” he demanded abruptly, when she approached the bed.

Norine informed him soothingly, perhaps blushingly.

“Norine!” he repeated softly--“Norine! That is an Irish name. But you are not Irish?”

Norine shook her head.

“I was born in this room,” she said.

The stranger stared thoughtfully at her for a moment.

“It is a pretty name,” he said. “I like it.”

And with that candid, albeit somewhat egotistical declaration, he sank to sleep.