Part 10

"I see now clearly what I saw not at the time,--that my weakness came upon me fr-rom my own lack of str-rength to make an effort. I was cr-rushed by a gr-rief when I left my land to come to America. I allowed it to paralyze my will. I let myself dr-rift, not caring enough about what became of me to exert myself to ward off poverty. Poverty never had been mine,--I did not r-realize it, but I did know well the meaning of self-r-respect and honor, and it was base of me to permit my will so to sink."

Again he paused.

"I tire you? You let me go on?"

Sydney's face looked white in the moonlight. She assented by a motion of the head.

"Even when I knew--you--"

Sydney gazed down at the scintillant water. Von Rittenheim did not turn to her, and went on, steadily,--

"--and admired your beauty and your sweetness--for-rgive me that I say these things so baldly--and wondered at the r-responsibilities you assumed, and at the care you took of every needing person who came near you--even fr-rom you whom I admired and--whom I admired with all my str-rength, I did not learn the lesson that was before my eyes."

"How can you say all this to me, Baron? You must not."

"You will do me the justice to listen just a pair of minutes longer. Now I see it all clearly; now I have a purpose in my life. It is to make you look upon me with r-respect,--with so much r-respect that you will for-rget that on one of those turned-over pages of my life there is a blot."

"And you have chosen to seek your salvation through work! It is a fine spirit, Baron, and the American gospel--though perhaps you may not like it the more on that account."

"You are an American."

Sydney blushed and laughed,--her sweet, rich laugh. She was glad to be a little farther away from tragedy.

"Shall I tell you my plan? You will see how I am practical! My salvation lies in the unpoetic shape of--cattle."

"Cattle?"

"I have some money for which I sent to Germany; some that I felt it r-right to use if I should be in gr-reat need of it, but which I should not have sent for except that I was ill. With this money and my little farm I go into partnership with young Mr. McRae. His father gives to him one-half of his so large estate. On his place and mine we r-raise a cr-rop which we feed to our cr-reatures."

"Where are they to come from?"

"Some we do r-raise ourselves, and some we buy here and there, every-where in these mountains where we can find two or three colts--no, calves."

"Will there be a sufficient market to justify you?"

"How wonderful for business are you! Yes, we think so. Alr-ready have we an or-rder to send a whole carload of steers to R-richmond."

"Really? You've really begun?"

"Yes, I take much pr-ride to say that we have begun two days ago. Patton is to buy the calves at first, he does so well understand the folk of the mountains; and later, when I talk more accurately English, then I shall help him. Until then my part is on the farms."

"I think it is admirable! It will give you so much to do and to interest you. You are sure to succeed."

She smiled at him generously and with perfect sympathy. Her white dress shone cool against the purple sky, and her face rose radiant above.

Von Rittenheim leaned over her as she sat on the bridge's railing. On the road, not far away Susy McRae's guitar betrayed her approach, and John Wendell's barytone hummed the air that she was picking. Von Rittenheim put his foot on the topmost bar and leaned his elbow on his uplifted knee. By his position Sydney was screened entirely from the oncomers.

"I seem to have a gr-reat deal to say to-night. Now I shall tell you a little stor-ry."

His tone was gay, but Sydney saw that his eyes were grave.

"Does it begin 'Once upon a time'?" she fenced.

"_Ja. Es war einmal_ a knight, who led a happy life in his own country until a gr-rief came to him which he thought the most ter-rible sorrow that could come to anybody. He learned better afterwards, but at the time it seemed to him not to be endured. So he left his home and became a wanderer over the earth. And for many months he r-roamed, and nothing ever made him for-rget his tr-rouble until one day he saw a beautiful pr-rincess. Ah, she was a most lovely pr-rincess, with a face like a r-rose, and teeth like pearls, and a heart that was a tr-reasure of goodness."

Friedrich warmed with his subject. He was looking his fill on the downcast face before him, while Sydney pulled at the little handkerchief in her lap, and carefully smoothed out a corner of it on her knee.

"As soon as he saw her the knight knew that his old tr-rouble was not what he had thought it. And he knew also at once what would be the gr-reatest happiness that life could give him. He determined to win this happiness if he could, but first he had to pr-rove himself to the pr-rincess that he was a knight of cour-rage and not a weakling. So he told her of his purpose and begged of her a favor that he might wear it on his heart."

There was a pause, so long that Sydney asked, still with downcast head,--

"How does the story end?"

"I know not."

"You don't know?"

"I never learned it any farther. What do you think comes next?"

"I don't--I think----"

Bravely she raised her eyes to his, and stood before him, blushing divinely.

"I think she gave him a token and bade him Godspeed." And Friedrich found himself with a morsel of cambric in his hand, which he kissed passionately, while Sydney was walking towards the bridge's end, answering Susy's cry.

"Here I am. Is it time to go?"

And John was answering,--

"Mrs. Carroll warned us to go home early on account of the dance to-morrow night."

Laughing and singing they went through the moonlight, some with the happy hearts they had brought, others saddened by some of the whimsies of Fortune that seem lurking to spoil our joy when most we exult. Gladdest of all the blissful ones rode Friedrich von Rittenheim. At the cross-roads he waved a gay "good-by" to the Oakwood surrey as it bore away from him the lady of his love. He stopped his mule and looked long after it, and threw a kiss at its bulky form as it plunged into the wood.

He did not put on his cap again, but stuffed it into his pocket, and trotted on towards home with the moonlight shining on his fair hair. The good creature between his knees felt his exhilaration and broke into a short canter as an expression of sympathy with his master's humor. The negroes whose cabins he passed pulled the clothes over their heads, whispering "Hants!" as he galloped by, singing "Dixie" at the top of his lungs.

Sydney had taught it to him, the stirring song, and he brought it out roundly,--

"Oh, I wees' I was in the land of cotton, The good old times are not for-rgotten, Look away, look away, look away, Deexie Land."

XVII

Out of a Clear Sky

There came to von Rittenheim as he stabled his mule, with many a tender pat upon his coarse coat, one of those times of spiritual insight when we see ourselves as after a long absence we look with scrutiny upon once familiar objects. A perception of new growth filled him with surprise, as we look at the seedling under the window, and notice of a sudden that it has grown to be a sapling. With the scrutiny and the perception came a comprehension of new power, such as we feel objectively when our child asserts himself, and we understand in a flash that the man is born within him, and that the days of childhood are past.

The remembrance of the months of regret and sorrow that had followed upon his coming to America struck him with nausea. The thought of his long ineptitude for the life which he had adopted voluntarily gave him a feeling of self-contempt. The inertness of his will disgusted him.

And then all this disgust and contempt was swept away by a great wave of courage and determination and strength. He tingled with the consciousness that once more there had come to him the intrepidity with which his youth had faced the future, the will-power to take up life again, and the force to work and to win.

Reverently he thanked God for each increment of might that pulsed through him, as he struck a match and lighted his lamp,--so automatically the commonplace actions of life are performed while the spirit surges within.

Reverently he thanked God for the love that filled him, and for the hope of return that had come to him. Then he stretched his arms upward to their fullest height, merely for the sake of feeling his physical strength, and broke into a torrent of tender German epithets,--_Englein Geliebte_, _Herzenfreude_, _Liebling_. He took out the little handkerchief and kissed it again and again, and walked restlessly about his room, too glad and too happy to be quiet.

The nickel clock upon the mantel-shelf struck eleven, and at the same time something like the sound of wheels penetrated his exaltation. He stopped in his march and listened. No one could have turned by mistake into his road in such brilliant moonlight, yet he knew no one who would visit him at that hour. He thought it possible that some one was taking the back road to Bud's cabin, so he made no move until the vehicle stopped before his house. Then he stepped hastily into his bedroom and slipped his revolver into his pocket before he responded to a gentle rap.

Flinging back the door he saw standing on the porch a woman, a girl, about whom the breeze blew a scarf of thin black stuff. Two trembling hands were held out to him as if to implore a greeting, and a white face looked up from its dark inwrapment like the face of a wistful child. The moon, sailing high in the zenith, cast no light beneath the porch's roof, and von Rittenheim stood unrecognizing.

She spoke in German.

"Friedrich, you do not know me?"

"Hilda!"

There was dismay in his tone and surprise unspeakable. He made no offer to take her hands, and they sank at her side. The driver seeing that his fare had found whom she sought, deposited her trunk and a valise upon the floor of the porch, with a succession of heavy thumps, and drove off with a relieved "Good-night," to which he received no response.

"Friedrich, your welcome is not cordial. Surely you know me? You called me 'Hilda.'"

"Yes, I know you. You are Hilda," he repeated, dully. "Why are you here?"

"Won't you ask me in and let me tell you?"

"I beg your pardon." He stepped back that she might pass him. "You have surprised me almost out of my senses--entirely out of my manners, as you see."

He gave her a splint chair--one of the two which were the room's complement--and stood before her. His arm lay on the mantel-shelf, his fingers clutching its edge until the nails grew white. The girl took off her heavy black bonnet and laid it on the table. The lamp behind her shone through the golden hair that made a halo around her face, the face of a child, unworldly, confiding. The only mark of maturity about her was the straight line of a determined mouth.

Friedrich spoke first.

"You are wearing black. Is it Max?"

The great, innocent blue eyes filled with tears.

"Yes, it is Max."

"Poor child!"

A shiver passed over the girl.

"And poor Max! When was it?"

"Five months ago."

"Five months ago? You can't mean that! Five months ago! Why wasn't I told?"

"I hadn't your address."

"Max had it."

"I looked through all his papers and found nothing."

"Herr Stapfer, my lawyer, had it."

"I applied to him, and he gave me an address in Texas that you had sent him a year ago."

"It is true. I believe I never wrote to him after I settled here until last June."

"Yes, it was in June that I heard from him again that you were here, and ill. I begged him not to tell you of Max's death. I did not know how ill you were, and I feared for you. Then I decided to come myself to find you--and care for you if you needed care."

"Your aunt?"

"She is dead. I have no one now--but you."

Silence fell on them. The little figure with the dark robes of her mourning clinging about her, rose and stood before him, her linked fingers twisting nervously together.

"You will let me stay? You told me once--you swore it, do you remember?--that your life was mine; that I had but to tell you of my need. You remember?"

"Yes, I remember."

His eyes were on the ground and never met her steady gaze, but she seemed satisfied with what she saw. Her hands stopped their nervous play.

She looked curiously about the room.

"This is a hunting-lodge, I suppose. But you must not think I care. I shall get on very well. And may I go to my room now?"

Von Rittenheim was startled into activity by the simple request.

"I think you must wait until some preparation is made. I will go and fetch a woman who will look after you. You will not be afraid if I leave you alone for a few minutes?"

"Entirely alone?"

"Yes. There is no one here. But see, I leave you my pistol, and you can lock the door on the inside, and when I come back I will call in German. No one else near here knows a word of German."

"Shall I be safe?"

"Perfectly--even without those precautions. I will hurry."

He stood an instant outside the door listening to the noise of the key in the lock. Then he turned in the direction of the Yarebroughs', and ran feverishly along the path.

His knock upon the door was answered by a sleepy "Who's that?" and the click of a gun's hammer. Von Rittenheim explained his identity, and Bud responded by opening the door an ungenerous crack. The Baron told his necessity,--how his sister-in-law had arrived unexpectedly, and would Mrs. Yarebrough be so good, so _very_ good, as to go back with him and see if she could make her comfortable, and spend the rest of the night there?

Bud shut the door, and Friedrich heard the sound of discussion. Kindness of heart and curiosity to see the strange lady triumphed over the claims of sleep, and Bud opened the door again to call through the crevice,--

"She'll go, Mr. Baron."

It was almost midnight when they reached the cabin, Friedrich and the whole Yarebrough family; for Sydney Melissa could not be left behind, and Bud had a curiosity of his own. Von Rittenheim spoke in German and the door was unlocked. He made a hasty explanation to Hilda concerning the number of his escort.

Melissa stared with all her eyes at the childish beauty before her.

"Oh, Mr. Baron," she cried, with sudden courage, "Ah'd like to take care of her, she's so little an' pretty. Ah don' min' hit a bit, Bud; truly Ah'm honin' to," in unconscious confession of her previous timidity. "You-all go long back with Bud, Mr. Baron, 'n Ah'll make her comfortable. Will ye have yo' trunk in here, ma'am?"

To Hilda's answer, "Yes, if you please," in faltering English, Melissa cried, in ecstasy,--

"Don' she speak pretty! Now, Bud, you tote in the lady's trunk, 'n then go. She's tired." And the usually timid country girl entered into her new _rôle_ of care-taker with extraordinary zest.

Friedrich approached his sister-in-law.

"Good-night," he said. "You will be quite safe. Have no fear."

She held out her hand to him. He hesitated a moment, and then took it in a brief clasp.

"Good-night," was all she said.

Declining Bud's offer of shelter, von Rittenheim bade him farewell, and strode into the darkness of the forest. Yarebrough looked after him, puzzled and disapproving.

"He ain' none so glad to see his sister-in-law," he pondered. "Ah wonner what hit all means."

Friedrich took no heed of his way beyond a numb feeling of pleasure when it grew steeper and rougher. He had left the trail long since, but he was stayed by no obstacle, was arrested by no barrier of Nature's make. A lizard asleep on a tiny ledge of rock, jutting from a cliff, scuttled away in fright as a man in sudden onslaught scaled its face. A pair of cotton-tails bobbed from one thicket to another in wildest terror as he came breaking through. A trout, floating in a rocky basin of the brook, fled with a dexterous flip of fin and tail to the protecting shelter of an overhanging root, as the placid pool was agitated by the passage of an enemy, following the course of the stream as the path of least resistance.

To all these sights and sounds Friedrich was blind and deaf. He spoke no word. It was as if he were deprived of every power but that of motion. He plunged on like a man of old pursued by the Erinyes.

Though he was unconscious of fatigue, the mad pace began to tell on him, and his muscles cried for quarter. At such times he rushed either to the right or left, going along the side of the mountain until he found an easier upward passage, but always ascending, never turning down the slope; always fleeing from the pursuing wretchedness; always subtly conscious of the futility of flight.

So mounts a small bird into the air, pursued by a hawk. Higher and higher he flies, straight up into the blue, hoping that the wind may blow him far beyond his pursuer's reach, believing that the light atmosphere that suffices to support his frail body may be too tenuous to uphold his heavier enemy. Hoping thus and believing; but realizing at last the unequal contests between their strengths, the failing of his own force, the fateful, certain, deadly approach of the antagonist whose power it is useless to oppose.

One above the other two shelves of rock arose, like two steps of a giant's staircase. Friedrich's exhausted body sank upon the moss of the upper, and the bracken and small shrubs closed over him, as if to shield him in their gentle embrace from the trouble that had driven him to their care. He lay on his back, staring with unseeing eyes at the tree-leaves far above his head, black against the sky's purple.

His mind seemed to be exhausted with his body. It moved with painful slowness, and groped vaguely after the things of memory.

Was it yesterday--when was it that he had seen Sydney moving about in the yellow firelight? Had he not--yes, he was sure he had--led her under the willow-trees and on to the old bridge, with the glistering glory under their feet, and the moon in splendor above them? And had she given him--no, of course not--but yes, what was this? He pressed to his lips the scrap of lace from his pocket. And there had been one splendid hour of hope and strength and courage--one hour when the past had fallen away from him and the future opened to his sight a not impassable avenue.

The moon cast level shadows as the great planet rolled towards the western hills. Friedrich fancied himself in Germany, far back in the long ago, when he was madly in love with Hilda. The story unfolded before him like a panorama of some one else's life. It was, indeed, he who had loved Hilda, but he felt not a flutter of the emotion now. _Now_ he knew what real love was. Yet this ardent, jealous lover was he, and she had jilted him for Maximilian. He went over again the old arguments in her behalf. Why shouldn't she prefer Max--gay, handsome old Max? He was nearer her age, and he had just had a legacy from his Aunt Brigitta, whose favorite he had been. Of course, that reason did not count. But he was gay and handsome and younger. Surely those three excuses were enough.

That wedding day! Should he ever forget it? He had thought to go away, but that would have been unkind to Max, and perhaps have put Hilda in a wrong light in the eyes of those who knew them. No, he was the head of the family. His duty was to sit through the wedding-breakfast which her aunt gave to the bride, and to preside at the feast that welcomed the pair to Schloss Rittenheim. Though the old love could not enter him again, the old torture came back poignantly.

After the feast was over and the guests had gone, he had found himself with her in a recessed window, looking down upon a carriage rolling away in the moonlight. He had taken her hands, and had compelled her gaze. She looked so fragile, so helpless, as he thought of his brother's carelessness and love of self, and he swore a solemn oath to stand ready to help her and to care for her, if ever need should be. Max, a little uncertain in speech and gait, had called her then, and Friedrich had ordered a horse, and had ridden recklessly into the forest--on and on and on.

For a whole month he had endured the torture of greeting her calmly every morning, and of lifting her tiny white hand to his lips every night, and then he had decided that there was no reason for such crucifixion, and he had come to America.

And in America he had met the princess--the splendid princess!

The moon sank behind the mountains, and with its disappearance Friedrich slept.

XVIII

Business Plans

Through the early morning's shifting mist--the haze that foretells a fine day--two men felt their way up the side of Buzzard Mountain. They followed no path,--indeed, there are few trails to follow,--but they climbed steadily on, as if they knew well their way, and as if speed were of importance.

With all their perseverance they could not cover much ground, for the ascent is sharp enough to clutch the lungs, and the mist covered for them a world of stumbling-blocks.

"H'm," grunted the leader, Pink Pressley. "They oughter be a black oak about here with a varmint hole in hit."

He stopped and peered about him through the gloom, while Bud, his companion, took the opportunity to lay his burden upon the ground while he wiped his forehead with a blue handkerchief. He made no response to his friend's remarks, but wore the air of one who does what he is bid, and follows where he is led. Pink swung himself into motion again.

"Ah reckon we ain' high enough, yet," he growled, and swore softly as he struck his foot against an unseen stone.

"Hang ye, don' do that," he cried, angrily, as he heard the breaking of a branch behind him. "Why don' ye blaze yo' way right along, or mark yo' path with a rope? Do you wan' the whole settle-_ment_ follerin' us up here?"

With praiseworthy discretion Bud still refrained from speech. A