Chapter 12

LIGHT DAWNS

After Stone and Henry had disappeared through the woods, Dudley did not long ponder over the late discussion; he found in his environment too much food for other thought. He was on the same spot where, ten months before, he had first been alone with Abby Patterson. Yonder was the fallen log upon which she had sat toying with a spray of goldenrod, her white bonnet beside her, the soft wind playing with her brown hair, the sunlight through the overhanging boughs dancing over her head and hands, and making little patches of brightness on her lavender gown. The pungent odor of mint was in the air now as then when she had gathered some for her uncle's glass of toddy. The water sparkled and danced in the sunshine, trickling down the mossy rocks into the spring, and yonder in the cleft was the old gourd from which he had poured water on her hands.

Somewhere in his reading he had come across the story of the man who always "thanked God for the blessings that passed over his head." Often in the last few weeks he had had a dim consciousness that perhaps it was best for both that Abby had not yielded to his pleadings; but hitherto he had thrust the thought from him, as though it were disloyalty to Abby and to love. But though the recollection of Abby had still a tender, half-sad sweetness, Dudley's nature was too vigorous and buoyant long to give way to melancholy and vain regrets. As he lay there in the forest solitude, a renewed hopefulness filled his soul, and he felt that he, too, could thank God for the blessing that had passed him by. He got up, intending to return to the encampment, but a recollection of something Abby had said in their last interview, about his being blind to the good that fate was ready to bestow upon him, suddenly arrested him. "What could she have meant?" he wondered, as he seated himself on a stump, pulled his hat over his eyes, and, with a stick in his hand, idly traced lines and figures in the dust at his feet.

A slight noise presently made him look up, and there, standing under the big oak on the little prominence above him--just where she had stood that October afternoon, beckoning to him and Abby--was Betsy, again looking down upon him. She did not beckon this time; but as he looked up she turned quickly away, though not before he had caught the wistful, steadfast look in her eyes, and had seen the quick flush that covered her face.

Like lightning came the thought, "Was it Betsy whom Abby meant?" and as quickly the truth was flashed upon him with all the force of an electric shock. In an instant, old things had passed away, and a tumult of feeling stronger than anything he had ever known leaped into life. It was not alone the realization of Betsy's love, coming to him in that flash of intuition, that set his nerves tingling and made the hot blood pulse madly through his veins; but, with a rapture that approximated pain in its intensity, there rushed into his soul an answering love, tender, deep and fixed.

It is supposed by many people that man's love is founded upon uncertainty as to any answering passion in the woman's heart, and that a true woman never gives her love unsought; but there is more proof to warrant the contrary belief--that it is her love, unspoken, carefully hidden from all eyes, yet revealed by the mysterious telepathy of spiritual sympathy, that calls his love into being. A man of noble, generous nature is often thus kindled into responsiveness, and his love thus evoked is often the most reverent and the most lasting.

In a moment Abner had to some extent regained his self-possession, though his pulses still beat riotously. He hastened after Betsy, who turned as he approached, her face still flushed, her eyes glowing with unwonted fire. She greeted him in her usual nonchalant manner, and walked demurely beside him, swinging her bonnet carelessly.

"You seem to have forgotten, sir, that a big camp-meeting is in progress in these woods. You reminded me of Daniel Boone or Simon Kenton, sitting on that stump with your 'monarch-of-all-I-survey' air, as though you were alone in the heart of some vast wilderness of which you were the sole proprietor. What schemes were you hatching? and what were you doing with that stick? Working out some abstruse mathematical problem, or calculating how much money your year's crops will bring? This is no time for such worldly thoughts, while all these hair-lifting wonders are occurring yonder. Your leisure moments should be employed in pious meditation, or in repenting of your sins."

Too much agitated by the revelation which had just come to him to answer her light banter, he walked silently by her side. She, surprised by his silence, glanced into his face. What she saw there arrested her footsteps and brought a startled look into her eyes. For a moment they stood still in the pathway, gazing into each other's faces--soul revealed to soul in the look. Then her eyes fell, a trembling seized her, and a wave of crimson swept over cheeks and brow and throat. In a voice hoarse with feeling, he exclaimed, "Betty! Betty!" and stretched out his arms toward her. Tremblingly she threw out her hands as though to repel his approach; and then, turning from him, ran down the path toward the encampment.

Abner was in no mood for the noise and excitement of the "revival"; so he turned aside into a ravine where many of the campers' horses were tethered. Here he encountered Henry, to whom he said abruptly, saddling his mare as he spoke, "I'm sick of all this; I'm going for a gallop."

"It's a pity to miss to-night's service," Henry answered. "The camp breaks up to-morrow."

"No matter," Dudley replied as he sprang into the saddle. "I'm off now."

"Better take a snack before you go. You must be hungry," called Henry, but Dudley, already beyond the ravine, gave no heed.

In his overwrought mood hunger and slumber were equally impossible, and the quiet of his attic room would have been as intolerable as the glare of the torchlights and the singing, shouting, and wild ravings of the encampment. He rode on and on through the moonlight, over hills and fields and roads, until his mare, flecked with foam, was breathing uneasily. Then he allowed the reins to drop loosely over her neck, and rode slowly back until he reached his own unfinished cabin. But the air of the unused house was oppressive, and the walls seemed to stifle him. Freeing the mare of saddle and bridle, and turning her out to graze, he threw himself down on the sward in front of the house. Even then he could not sleep, but for a long time lay gazing into the clear, star-studded sky; for the sudden broadening of the perspective of his future kept him wide awake. He wondered at his long blindness, and with an agony of uncertainty questioned whether Betsy's sympathetic comprehension of his old feeling for her cousin might not now hinder the fulfillment of his dearest hope. But at last the solemn serenity of the summer night stilled his unquiet spirit, and he fell asleep.

When he awoke, the flaming radiance in the eastern sky indicated another sultry day; but at this early hour there was a dewy freshness in the air, and all nature was astir and joyous. Upon the bark of a hickory-tree a crimson-crested woodpecker was tapping for his breakfast; under the edge of a half-decayed stump a colony of ants had already begun the day's labor. Lark and bee were on the wing; squirrels ran up and down the trunk of a big elm, leaping from branch to branch, where redbird, thrush and linnet were making the woods merry with their morning concert.