CHAPTER XI.

Flea's horse threw up his head with a jerk, and wheeled partly around at the jerk upon the bridle; his rider flushed crimson, then grew white.

"Father!" she gasped. "What did you say? Miss Emily! _my_ Miss Emily is going to marry that man?"

"So it is said, lassie. I'm afraid it is true. There has been talk of it all winter, but I don't think the Major had any idea of how things were going until lately. Early in May Mr. Tayloe left Greenfield and went to board at Mr. Thompson's. Of course his moving from Greenfield, where he was so intimate, set tongues wagging; and then it came out that he and Miss Emily were engaged, and that her father opposed the match. I have asked no questions, but I cannot help seeing that the Major is not himself, and how he is ageing."

"I don't see how Miss Emily can disobey such a good father," said Flea, indignantly. "His little finger-nail is worth more than forty thousand Jack Tayloes. If she knows how her father feels, she will surely give up all notion of that little--monster!"

Her father looked amused.

"He isn't a monster, but a well-born, well-educated gentleman, not bad-looking, and with a voice like a church organ. Your mother says he sang his way into Miss Emily's heart. I wonder the Major didn't suspect what might come of all their music and horseback rides and walks together; but he is so open-hearted and aboveboard himself that he probably set it down to young folks' natural enjoyment in each other's society. It hurts me to see him take it so hard. Miss Emily will be of age in a few months, and she can then marry anybody she chooses. Except that he has a hasty temper and an ugly way of showing it, I don't know that there is anything against him. She will have money enough for both. Her grandmother left her a nice little fortune, besides what the Major can give her."

"Nothing against him!" burst forth Flea, passionately. "He is the wickedest man ever created. Mean, spiteful, deceitful, and cruel as a tiger. He looks like a tiger when his eyebrows draw together and his mouth draws up and the roots of his nose draw in. To think of his daring to lift his eyes to my sweet, pretty, darling Miss Emily! If I were her brother, I'd shoot him sooner than he should have her."

"Lassie! lassie! That is strong language."

"Not half as strong as he deserves, father. You don't guess what a creature he is. Aunt Jean never wrote to you about it, for she did not want to distress you; but poor Dee couldn't go to school for a month after he went to Philadelphia. He had terrible pains in his head and was sick at the stomach all the time, and she had him examined by a great doctor there, who said he had been seriously injured by so much beating on the head--that a little more of it would have made him an idiot. That monster of cruelty used to whack the poor boy every day with his heavy ruler, because he was slow at his lessons. Dee cannot study long now without having a sick headache. He can never be a learned scholar. And I did _so_ hope he would be a distinguished man! Instead of getting married, Mr. Tayloe ought to be put into the penitentiary. He deserves hanging--and worse."

The rush of hot words choked her. Her father patted her shoulder soothingly.

"Don't take it so to heart, dear child. It isn't like you to fly into such a passion."

"I never knew that I had a bad temper until he brought it out." Flea could not be quieted. "He would have made me as wicked as himself if I hadn't fallen sick from his treatment of me, and then gone home with Aunt Jean. He will break Miss Emily's heart. He enjoys torturing helpless things, as a cat likes to torture a mouse. Where is he now that the school is closed for vacation?"

"I think he has gone home. I have not seen or heard of him for a week and more."

"I hope he will never come back. I hope he will die while he is away!" uttered Flea, savagely.

"Fie! fie on you!" said her father, trying to look stern. "You'll make me afraid of you if you get so bloodthirsty. Never meddle with people's love-affairs, chick. It's worse than putting your fingers 'twixt bark and tree. Miss Emily knows her own business, and has a fine high spirit of her own."

They were at the outer gate of the avenue leading to Greenfield, and he drew rein.

"Would you mind riding with me as far as the stables? I won't keep you long. Or, perhaps you will go up to the house and see the ladies? They always ask kindly after you."

Mrs. Duncombe was not at home, said a small darky who was pretending to sweep one corner of the piazza. "Miss 'Liza and Miss Em'ly is out-o'-doors somewhar," he added, staring at her until the round black eyes almost slipped out of the lids.

"Don't you know me, Peter?" asked Flea, kindly.

"Yaas, 'm. But you done got mighty pretty sence you been away."

Flea's head was higher, her heart and step lighter, with natural pleasure in the honest praise, as she ran down the steps to look for the young ladies. She had determined to reason with Miss Emily, and could go about it in better style as the well-dressed niece of her Philadelphia aunt than the shabby child of the overseer would have presumed to do. She was glad she had grown prettier. She wanted to look like a lady.

In crossing the lawn she saw, midway in the broad avenue cutting the grounds in two, what brought her courage down on the run and her hopes with it. She turned aside hastily into an arbor thickly draped with vines to take counsel with herself as to her next movement. Miss Emily, dressed in white, a garden hat set jauntily above her curls, sat upon a settee by Mr. Tayloe. Across the avenue Miss Eliza occupied another settee, and seemed absorbed in a book. Miss Emily was holding a handkerchief to her eyes, while Mr. Tayloe talked earnestly to her. Groups of children were playing on the other side of the lawn. Mr. Tayloe must be pretty confident of his ground to show himself in the sight of so many people.

After five minutes of embarrassed waiting, Flea was on the point of going back to her horse unobserved, when Mr. Tayloe got up, stepped across the avenue, and shook hands in brotherly fashion with Miss Eliza, then, Miss Emily at his side, strolled down the walk in the direction of Flea's hiding-place. They passed so near to it that she could have knocked his hat off with her riding-whip. He was serious, but as bland as the plait between his eyebrows would allow him to look. He was talking low and impressively.

"All you have to do is to be resolute," was all Flea could hear.

"That is more easily said than done," Miss Emily began. The rest was lost to the eavesdropper.

Her blood was at the boiling-point by the time the young lady returned alone. A smile hovered about her red lips, although her eyes were still moist. Flea stepped out of the arbor.

"Miss Emily!"

"Mercy on us!" in a faint scream. "Why, it is Flea Grigsby, as sure as I'm alive! Did you drop from the clouds? How you have grown, and how _nice_ you look! Ain't you going to kiss me, child?"

The caress was almost wasted upon the excited girl.

"Miss Emily"--driving straight at the point--"I have something particular to say to you. Won't you come in here?"

Miss Emily followed her into the summer-house, dropped upon a seat, and drew her dress aside to make room for her guest.

Flea spoke hurriedly, but her voice did not shake. She was too much wrought up to be diffident. "Miss Emily! they tell me you are going to marry Mr. Tayloe. You don't know how I love you. I can't remember the time when I didn't love and almost worship you. You've always been so kind and sweet that I couldn't have helped loving you even if you hadn't been so beautiful."

Miss Emily leaned back on the bench, well pleased and smiling.

"Oh, _come_ now, you've learned how to flatter in Philadelphia," she simpered, hitting Flea with the handkerchief that had wiped the tears from the blue eyes a little while ago. "And _who_, I should like to know, has been fibbing to you about my getting married?"

Flea seized upon both the pretty hands, her face one flash of ecstasy.

"I might have known it couldn't be true. Oh-h-h!" heaving a long, quivering sigh of relief. "If you only knew what I suffered when I heard you were to marry him! I couldn't bear the thought."

"You jealous little puss!"

Flea had sunk to her knees upon the gravelly floor of the arbor, and was gazing worshipfully into her idol's face. It was like the coming true of another fairy dream when the dainty white hands were laid one on each side of her flashed cheeks, and Miss Emily kissed her between the eyes.

"You unreasonable little _monkey_! Do you want me to die an old _maid_? I declare"--inspecting the braided front of the habit-waist--"you look _real_ fashionable. And you used to be _such_ a tomboy that your poor mother threatened to make oznaburg frocks for you. But go on. Then you won't let me marry anybody?"

"I didn't mean that," Flea protested. "But I heard that you were engaged to Mr. Tayloe, and it made me perfectly miserable, and I felt that if I could talk to you for five minutes you would change your mind. I'm so happy that it is nothing but a gossip's story."

"What have you against poor Mr. Tayloe besides his admiration for a foolish little nobody like me?"

Flea raised herself on her knees to bring her eyes on a level with her companion's. Her young face darkened.

"You are not foolish or a nobody. You would be foolish if you were to marry that meanest, cruelest, hardest-hearted of all men. And you would be a nobody--worse than a nobody--when once he had you in his power. Your brothers can tell you how he used to whip the boys and ferule the girls' hands until they were blistered, and he grinning all the time. He tortures people for the love of torturing. He is a bully, and a coward, and a demon."

"Are you calling Mr. Tayloe all those names?" interposed the listener, tartly.

"Yes, Miss Em--"

Before she could utter another syllable her idol drew away to get a better reach, and slapped her with all her might, first upon one cheek, then upon the other, until her astonished ears rang like an alarm-bell, then pushed her off so violently that she fell backward to the ground. Springing up, wild with shock and horror of it all, she faced a red-haired fury with glaring eyes and distorted features.

"You impudent, low-lived minx!" said tones as vulgar as those of a scolding negress. "You ought to be tied up and whipped until you take back every word you have said. Who are _you_ that you come here to insult a gentleman in a lady's hearing? This comes of my taking notice of a low-down overseer's daughter, who is meaner than the dirt under my feet! Begone! and if you ever show your face here again I'll set the dogs on you!"

Flea did not quite know where she was or what she was doing until she found herself in the saddle, gathering up the reins, and telling the negro who had brought the horse up to the inner gate for her to "tell Mr. Grigsby he would find her waiting for him under the big oak-tree on the road."

She managed to get the words out without breaking down, and galloped along the avenue as if the dogs were already on her heels.

Her father rejoined her in less than half an hour. She sat motionless upon the horse under the tree. The reins lay upon the docile animal's neck, and he was grazing in quiet satisfaction, unnoticed by his mistress. Mr. Grigsby must have remarked her white face and swollen eyes had he been less engrossed in his own thoughts.

"Ready, lassie?" was all he said, and "Yes, father," was her only reply.

They jogged, side by side, for a mile before either spoke again. The bitterest cup Experience had ever held to poor Flea's lips was pressed to them now, and the draught was the very wine of astonishment to her soul. Five months with Aunt Jean and in a Philadelphia school had not cured her of ambitious dreams. Miss Emily had still stood with her as the loveliest, daintiest, and gentlest of women. She had described her to her schoolmates as her "patron saint" and her "guardian angel." She had not doubted what would be the outcome of the plain talk she had sought with her angel. Miss Emily would be shocked at first, perhaps incredulous, but in the end she would fall weeping upon her neck, and sob in her ear, "My benefactress! from what an abyss of misery you have saved me!"

Her dream had crashed into dust and ashes about her head. Something was gone forever out of her past, present, and future. There was no Miss Emily in all time for her, and, worst of all, there never had been. The shrill coarseness of the angry woman's speech, her inflamed face and threatening eyes, haunted Flea like a nightmare.

Her father aroused himself at length. "I am a dull companion for you, lassie," he said, threading her horse's mane with his fingers. "But something has gone wrong--'agley,' as we Scotchmen say--at Greenfield that's set me to thinking about other wrong-doings that took place months ago. The dairy was robbed last night of a matter of fifty pounds of butter. The dogs made no noise, so the thieves were not strangers. The Major and Mr. Robert Duncombe searched the plantation this morning, and found nothing. The thieves, most likely, had a boat on the shore, and made off with the butter up to Richmond. You noticed, didn't you, as we rode by to-day that the haunted house had been pulled down?"

"No, sir," answered Flea, in a dull tone. She had not seemed to listen until he asked the question.

"You used to sing a song about it when you had the fever," resumed the father, in a would-be sprightly manner.

"It began,

"'It stands beside the weedy way,'

"and was really tolerable poetry as far as it went. It was queer it should run in your head just then when the Major and I had just found that the cabin was used as a hiding-place for stolen goods. It was a sort of robbers' cave, and we suspected the Fogg family to be the robbers. Mr Tayloe's watch and chain, that he had lost the day before in the school-house, were there in a bag packed to be carried off. You recollect that Mrs. Fogg was at the school-house that day!"

Flea gave no sign of interest or surprise. She only said, in sullen bitterness, "I am sorry he ever found it."

"My child!"

"I am, father! I suppose I am wicked for feeling it, but I wish him all the harm in the world. The Foggs may be thieves and liars and a hundred other dreadful things. The worst of them is a saint compared with him."

"We will let that pass. I promised once never to speak of that day again. I beg your pardon, my dear," said the father, gravely. There was no use in arguing against the girl's prejudice, in which, to tell the truth, he was beginning to share. "I was about to say that some strong measures must be taken to find out if the Foggs are really the ring-leaders of this gang, with the negroes to help them, or if this wretched family do all the stealing themselves. They have been tolerably quiet since the cabin was cleared out and pulled down, but this dairy business looks as if they were beginning business again. If we meet the Major on the road, I will speak to him about it. I wish now I had looked him up in the swamp when we saw Nell."

They relapsed into silence. The country was stilling into the hush of a summer noon. But for the indescribable consciousness of the growth of green and flowering things that fills June days and nights--something which is not motion and surely is not rest, and is, most of all, like the full, slow, contented breathing of the world on which we live and that lives with us--everything except themselves and their horses seemed to be asleep as they passed into the grass-grown swamp road.

"The day is getting hot," observed Mr. Grigsby, presently, "if the breeze should die away entirely we may expect a thunder-storm this afternoon."

At that instant the neigh of a horse, clear and prolonged, pierced the noon-tide; another moment brought them again in sight of the low-hung gig and mare they had seen in the same spot an hour and a half ago. Nell had not stirred from her tracks, except to paw up the earth about her front right foot in anxiety or impatience. She looked around and neighed piteously.

"Nell is getting hungry, poor thing!" said the overseer, stopping to pat her glossy neck. "The flies are troubling her, too. That is the worst of a blooded horse. The skin is as thin as a baby's. So, old lady!" and she threw her head down and up, and again whinnied. He went on brushing off the flies from her head and sides while he talked. "These swamp-flies bite sharply. Any other horse would try to get away. She is the best-broken beast in the State. If a cannon were fired off at her ear she would jump, but she'd never run. The Major broke her himself. It's odd where he is all this time."

A vague uneasiness took hold of him. He looked about him anxiously.

A large spruce-tree lay within ten feet of the gig. The branchy top had bent saplings and bushes down in its fall; the ground for many yards around was strewed with leaves and twigs. Flea glanced idly at the lower end of the trunk. She did not wish to meet Major Duncombe with the memory of the encounter with his daughter fresh in her mind. Still, if her father meant to wait for him, she had no choice. She could never tell how she chanced to notice that the trunk was hollow, and had been partly cut through by the axe. Beyond the cut the wood and bark were splintered roughly.

"Do you suppose he could have been here when that tree fell?" she said. "Could that have been what we heard as we came through the woods this morning? Oh, father!"

He looked in the direction of her pointing finger, threw himself from his saddle, and hurried into the swamp.

A man's hat lying just beyond the branches of the fallen tree had attracted Flea's eye. When she had slipped from her horse and followed her father into the thicket, he was tearing away the boughs in frantic haste from Major Duncombe's face. The upper part of the prostrate trunk lay right across his chest.

It must have killed him instantly.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

RICK DALE.

BY KIRK MUNROE.