CHAPTER VI.

A STRANGE STORY.

Eugene and his friend dined on the Ledge, and discussed plans and projects for the future. No doubt they enjoyed the dinner, the sea air having given them sharp appetites, and the conversation was very interesting, for they were in full sympathy with each other. Dick desired to know whether his friend had made any progress in his love affair, and Eugene, fully believing that he had said enough to make an impression upon the mind and heart of Mary, assured him that he had taken his first step, and had accomplished all that could be expected in one brief interview.

They returned to the cottage, and the evening was devoted to the contemplated European tour, in which Eugene was to be accompanied by his mother and sister. It was arranged that the family should depart about the first of September. The next day, the young men tried the trout in the brooks, and continued for a week to divide their time between the sea and the land--riding and walking, fishing, gunning, and sailing. Although it was vacation to the lawyer, and the hours were given up to amusement, the future, with its stupendous projects, could not be avoided; and when the week was ended, the details of the enterprise before them had been so well elaborated that it only remained to do what had been agreed upon.

During this period of relaxation, Eugene had twice been to The Great Bell; but on both occasions he found Mr. Eliot Buckstone there, walking on the beach with Mary. Now, Eugene, without any positive prejudice against the artist, had but a very indifferent opinion of him. He did not think Mr. Buckstone was a person who could be agreeable to Mary; and so far from being disturbed by the intimacy which had grown up between them, he rather pitied the fair girl because she was compelled to endure so much of the painter’s society. He concluded that the fellow, as he contemptuously called him, was taking advantage of the service he had rendered to Mary, and was making the most of it, while she, poor girl, was actually undergoing his persecution rather than subject herself to the charge of ingratitude by declining to see him.

This week had been a stormy one in the dilapidated mansion on The Great Bell. Though the artist had kept away from the house, he could not conceal himself from the vengeance of Captain Kingman, who was drinking even more deeply than usual. He saw that his daughter was meeting her new-found friend every day in some part of the island, and the wretched girl was consequently subjected to the severest and most brutal treatment. He had even struck her; and human nature could endure no more. On the day after the first visit of Mr. Buckstone at the house, her brother Ross had sailed upon a fishing voyage, and she had no one to stand between her and the wrath of her drunken father.

Captain Kingman was so incensed against her, that all his thoughts seemed to be centred in wreaking his vengeance. He was maddened by the demon of the cup, and there was no limit to his fury. On the night which completed Dick Birch’s week of vacation with his friend, Mary had retired at her usual hour. Her father was not in the house at the time; he was carousing in a low groggery at the Port. It appeared that some one, who had seen Mary with the artist on the beach that afternoon, informed him of the fact. He was heard to swear that he would kill her as soon as he got home; but those present at these drunken orgies regarded the words only as a threat.

At midnight, Captain Kingman reached his miserable home. Whether he intended to execute his threat or not, he went up stairs to the chamber of his daughter. The door was fastened; but he broke it open, and seizing the poor girl by the hair, he dragged her from the bed, and with horrid imprecations repeated his threat. Mary was fearfully alarmed; she screamed in mortal terror, and Mrs. Kingman came to her assistance. His wife, by drawing the vengeance of the brute upon herself, enabled Mary to escape. He pursued her, but in his present condition, it was not difficult to avoid him. As soon as he had given up the chase, she returned to her room, and dressed herself. She suffered agonies which cannot be described. Her power of endurance had reached its utmost limit.

Kneeling down by her bed, she prayed for strength and guidance. There was no friend but God upon whom she could throw herself in her sorrow and fear. She could no longer remain in the house, for her life was in peril. Her father had threatened to kill her in his insane passion. It would be tempting him and exposing herself to stay another hour; it would be cruel to both of them. Packing up her scanty wardrobe in a bundle, and taking the few valuables she possessed, including a small sum of money, she crept softly down the stairs. She had decided to leave her wretched home, never more to return while her father lived.

In the entry below she met Mrs. Kingman, who was hardly less terrified than the daughter. The poor woman was suffering almost as much as Mary--not as much, for her nature was less gentle and sensitive. Without a word which might be overheard by the drunken father, they left the house, and walked towards the landing-place.

“Where are you going to, Mary?” sobbed Mrs. Kingman, glancing uneasily at the house in the gloom of the night.

“I hardly know, mother; I cannot spend another night in that house.”

“I don’t blame you, child; it ain’t in natur to stand sich treatment. If it wan’t for the children, I’d go too.”

“I wish Ross were at home, mother; he could tell me what to do,” moaned poor Mary, gazing vacantly at the stars, which looked so bright and happy, while she was so sad and miserable.

“I wish he was. I don’t think I can stand it much longer; but the Lord knows, what can I do?”

“I will tell you, mother. You must have him taken care of. It is terrible, I know, and I have always struggled against the thought.”

“What do you mean, Mary?”

“You must have him arrested.”

“Arrested! My gracious! It would be as much as my life is worth. I should no more dare to do it than I should to cut my head off.”

“I’m sorry to leave you, mother; and I wouldn’t do so, if I didn’t think it was best for you as well as for me. He is terribly incensed against me.”

“I know he is, child. Perhaps he will behave better if you go off for a while.”

“I hope he will. I am willing to suffer if it will do any good; but my presence here only makes him worse. I must go.”

“But where are you goin, child?”

“I don’t know, mother. I suppose I shall find a place.”

“Can’t you find some place to stop over to the Port?”

“Perhaps I can.”

“Well, God bless you, child. You’ve allus been a good gal, and deserve to be well used.”

Mrs. Kingman, still weeping, returned to the house to pass the rest of the night in terror and misery, as she had passed many a night before.

Mary walked to the landing-place, and sat down upon a rock by the shore. The present and future were full of darkness and she knew not whither to turn. She was a lone wanderer in the desert, and there was no friendly oasis to welcome her. By turns she wept and prayed, but there seemed to be no healing balm in her tears or her prayers. She knew not where to go. She had friends, as the world calls them,--many friends, perhaps,--but none to whom she felt like appealing in her present desperate condition. Her pride revolted at the thought of becoming a supplicant before those with whom she had walked as an equal, though there were hundreds in yonder slumbering villages, who would gladly have taken her to their hearts, and poured out of their plenty into her lap. There were hundreds who would joyfully have given her a home, and protection from her wrathful parent, beneath their roofs. Mary was too proud to ask favors of this kind. She was capable and self-reliant, and loathed the thought of dependence.

The gloomy hours wore slowly away, and the daylight gleamed in the east. She had determined to take the morning train for a large town, a few miles distant from Poppleton, where she hoped to procure a situation as a teacher, or at least as an employee in one of the factories.

As soon as it was light enough, she got into the boat, to row across the channel to the village. She intended to carry her bundle to the house of a poor woman, whom she had served in the past, and having purchased a travelling-bag, pack her things in readiness for the journey. She could then take the stage, and depart respectably, without exciting idle remarks among her acquaintances, if she met any of them. Her pride was not conquered even by her intense anguish.

She had not rowed half way across the channel which divides The Great Bell from the main land, before she heard the voice of Mr. Buckstone. He was an early riser during his vacation, if at no other time, and had taken a boat for his morning exercise. Mary trembled when she recognized him. Many times had she thought of him during her lonely vigil on the shore. He had been a kind and tender friend, and he knew more of what happened at her father’s house than any other person outside of the family. He had not spoken to her so gently and so lovingly without producing in her heart an impression--just the impression he intended to produce. But, in spite of the interest, and even affection, with which she regarded the artist, she would have preferred to leave Poppleton without his knowledge.

He had spoken of love to her; he had uttered the vows and protestations of an enthusiastic admirer. He had pleaded with her, as a lover pleads, for her heart and hand; but she had made him no definite answer. Though she was not insensible to his love, though she was even deeply moved by his earnest devotion, she did not feel that she yet loved him well enough to be his wife. Eugene Hungerford, all hopeless and distant as he now was to her, could not be wholly forgotten, though she had ceased to think of him as she had thought before he so prudently proclaimed himself to be only her “friend.”

Mary was in that state of terror, doubt, and agony which rendered a near and dear friend almost a necessity to her. Her sorrows were too weighty to be borne alone. Under the smile of prosperity, with no boding clouds threatening her, she might never have favored the suit of Eliot Buckstone. As it was, she was disposed to do so; and now, as she was fleeing in grief and misery from the home of her childhood, and from the wrath of him who should have been her strongest friend, he stepped into her path. Not thus, borne down by the shadow of all earth’s calamities, would she have met him; not here and now would she have listened to his impassioned eloquence, for her heart was weak with suffering, her strength was exhausted by the pressure of misery; not thus would she have heard and decided the question upon which hung all the issues of the unseen future. She was weak in body, but weaker in spirit under the accumulated trials and terrors that beset her.

“You are an early bird, Mary, as well as myself,” said Mr. Buckstone, as he threw his skiff alongside her boat.

She made no reply, for her sorrows choked her utterance. Without ceremony, he leaped into the boat, securing the skiff astern.

“Are you going to the Port, Mary?” he asked, as he gently took the oars from her grasp, and assisted her to a seat farther aft.

“Yes.”

“You are up very early.”

She could not speak.

“What is the matter, Mary? You can tell me, you know, for I am familiar with affairs over at the house,” he continued. “Something has happened, Mary.”

His gentleness, his tenderness were more than she could bear, and she bent down her head, and wept like a child.

“Won’t you tell me what it is, Mary?”

“I cannot, Mr. Buckstone,” she sobbed. “Don’t go to the village now. I cannot be seen as I am.”

He turned the boat’s head towards the Point, and waited till the torrent of her grief had spent itself.

“O, Mr. Buckstone!” exclaimed she, suddenly raising her head, and gazing earnestly at him.

“What has happened, Mary? Won’t you tell me?”

“I cannot stay at home any longer. I shall not dare to enter my father’s house again.”

“I feared it would come to this. Where are you going?”

“To Newington.”

“Have you friends there?”

“I shall find friends,” she answered, evasively.

Then she told him what had occurred during the night; and for an hour, until the sun had risen far above the heaving waters, they talked of the past and the present. There was a future which was still nearer to the thoughts of Eliot Buckstone. What he had spoken before, he spoke again. Once more he told his story of love, and begged her, in her present extremity, to give him the legal right to become her friend and protector. Now he spoke to more willing ears than ever before. Without saying that she loved him with her whole heart and soul, she accepted his proffered love; and when she had done so, the great black clouds seemed to be rolled back, and she smiled upon him.

“Mine, mine, forever!” said the rapturous artist, as he seated himself by her side in the boat, and passing his arm around her waist, he imprinted upon her lips the first kiss.

“Will you always love me thus?” she replied, feeling that, if he did, he would soon become to her more than all the world beside, if he was not now.

“Always, Mary, always! There shall be no change, or suspicion of change, in me--never, Mary! I have loved you with all my heart from the first moment I saw you. When I looked into the boat, still struggling for breath, I was almost petrified by the vision of loveliness which greeted me. Mary, I had seen you thousands of times before.”

“Seen me before?”

“In my dreams of paradise! In my visions of the glorious and the beautiful of earth! I have seen you on my canvas ere the pencil had traced a line, and I would have given my life for the power to transfer my bright ideal upon its waiting surface. But even fairer than the thought is the loving, breathing being I press to my heart;” and he suited the action to the word.

“I am afraid this is too poetic to be real,” replied she, her confidence in the man she had accepted not increased by the glowing strains in which he spoke.

“It is all real. I see you; I touch you. Mary, you know not what I have felt, what I have hoped and feared, how I have trembled for myself, since I first saw you. Mary, let me live for you. I ask nothing better of this world; and if I have you in the next, I can dream of no purer happiness.”

“But I am a wanderer and an outcast now,” she said, looking sad again.

“Not a wanderer, and you can never be an outcast from my heart, Mary.”

“I have no place to lay my head. Let us go to the village now. I would have gone without your knowledge, but Providence has thrown you into my path. Let us return now, Mr.----”

“Eliot,” he interposed.

“Eliot! I will go on my way rejoicing now. When I reach Newington, I will write to you, and then----”

“No, Mary, you shall not go to Newington, or anywhere else, without me,” protested Mr. Buckstone, earnestly. “I should be a villain if I permitted you, in our present relations, to expose yourself to the perils and privations which would surround you in a strange place, where you had none to care for you.”

“But what shall I do? I cannot go home. My father would kill me if he knew what has just transpired,” added she, as she glanced inquiringly into his face.

“Neither go home, nor go to Newington alone,” he continued; and it was evident from his look and his manner, that he had a proposition to make, though there was some embarrassment about mentioning it.

“I must do something.”

“Of course you must, Mary.”

“What shall I do?”

“You shall be my wife before the sun goes down to-night, Mary!” exclaimed he, rapturously.

She shrank from him, apparently offended, while her cheeks were redder than the sun when he rose from his watery bed.

“Don’t shrink from me, Mary. I meant no harm.”

It was some time before he could restore her to her former self-possession.

“Mary, I love you with all my soul. I could die for you this moment, even without possessing you for a single instant. You don’t think I would propose anything which I did not believe was best for you?”

“No, Eliot, I do not.”

“If you had even the humblest home, I could wait without a murmur whole years. But you are alone in the world, without a roof to cover you, without a friend to comfort you. You are mine; but what can I do for you? I cannot even give you a shelter. I cannot even conduct you to a place of safety, without subjecting you to the breath of slander.”

It was kind of him, harsh and abrupt as the proposition had seemed. He meant well, she thought, and she did not reproach him when he again brought up the subject. Mr. Buckstone argued the question like a lawyer, and in the end he overcame all her maidenly scruples. Her situation was a desperate one, and if she was to be the wife of this man, it might as well be to-day, as a year hence. She consented, unwillingly, shrinkingly, almost revoltingly, but she consented.

“We shall reach Boston by half past two, and Providence by six. I have friends there, and you shall be a bride before the sun goes down,” he added, exultingly, pressing her to his bosom. “We have no time to spare;” and he took up the oars, and pulled up the river again.

Landing, he carried her bundle to the hotel. A valise was purchased for her use, and she was soon employed in packing it with her clothing. Her breakfast was sent to her room. A private vehicle was procured, and they hastened to the railroad station at Poppleton Mills. But they were seen together; seen to depart together, with the valise and other baggage; seen together at the hotel. If the whole truth was not known to the busybodies of Poppleton, it was fully surmised.

And on this morning, as Eliot Buckstone and his intended bride were speeding on their way to Providence, Eugene and his friend commenced the work which they had planned during the week of vacation. All the laborers that could be procured at the Port and at the Mills were employed upon the projected roads through Pine Hill. A practical man had been engaged to superintend the operations.

Eugene was not content with this beginning: he and Dick were hastening down to the Port, intent upon purchasing a ruined mansion, in which swarmed a dozen Irish families. There was no great difficulty in the way, and the estate was at once secured. Half of one night during the preceding week had been spent in perfecting a plan for the model house, and our practical philanthropist was impatient to have the building in progress. The parties next went to the office of Squire Perkins to have the deeds drawn.

“There is a strange story circulating through the place this morning, Mr. Hungerford,” said the squire, after he had satisfactorily ridiculed the fancy of his former student for purchasing Irish shanties.

“There are always strange stories circulating,” replied Eugene, indifferently, for he was too intent upon the business before him to be moved by the reports of the village gossips.

“They say that Mr. Buckstone, the artist, left town rather suddenly this forenoon,” continued the squire.

“Indeed? Where has he gone?”

“Nobody knows. They say Captain Kingman’s oldest daughter has gone with him.”

“Mary?” gasped Eugene, starting back with horror.

“So they say.”

“So they say! Who says so?” demanded Eugene, fiercely.

“Well, perhaps twenty people saw them go. Why, what’s the matter, Mr. Hungerford?”

“Nothing, nothing,” replied he, struggling to recover his self-possession. “Is that a fact?”

“I didn’t see them go; but that’s what they all say, and I suppose there can be no doubt of it.”

Eugene felt giddy and sick. The story was too terrible and revolting for him to believe, and while he struggled with the tumultuous emotions that rolled up from his heart, he refused to credit it.

“They say this Buckstone isn’t any better than he ought to be,” proceeded the matter-of-fact squire, opening the old deed by which he was to draw the new one. “There was a gentleman from New York up here last week who said he was a notorious rascal. I think he said Buckstone ran away with another man’s wife, and there was----”

“My God!” groaned Eugene, rushing madly out of the office, followed by Dick Birch.

“What’s the matter with him?” demanded the honest squire, with no little perturbation, as he jumped out of his chair; and he had not a suspicion that he was rending the very soul of Eugene by his words.

“He seemed to be struck up all in a heap,” replied the late owner of the Milesian hovel.

“Bless me! now I think of it, Hungerford was rather fond of that Kingman girl. I’m sorry,” continued the squire, rubbing his bald head vigorously. “She was a nice girl, and it’s a pity any harm should come to her;” and sadly worried by the shock he had given the young man, he turned again to the deed.