Part 11

But she had turned and was receiving the newly arrived and merry crowd behind us.

My Aunt held to some customs which she permitted none of the innovations of society to alter. One was that her balls must open with the Virginia Reel. I saw her coming and understood.

"Jack," she nodded, commandingly, "we are ready, you and Eloise open it up."

Eloise stood behind her smiling. She placed both her hands in mine and together we glided to the head of the line. We stood holding hands and waiting for the music. Coming closer, my Aunt smiled and whispered, "I wish you two children could see what a fine pair you make. Pedigree counts even in a Virginia Reel, and you two were bred for it."

We both laughed.

"Look into that mirror across yonder," she laughed, "and see how much better I am at pairing off people than they are themselves."

We glanced across and saw Goff and a fat lady from town.

"They are matched perfectly," said my Aunt Lucretia, "both grass-fed."

"Please don't, Aunt Lucretia," said Eloise, "that isn't fair. You are trying your best to keep me from being a countess." Then she added suddenly, "Oh, Jack, tell me about Satan. You don't know how I've missed him. Where have you two been?"

"In the wood together. No--n-o--you shall never have him, such a horse--such a comrade."

Eloise pouted. "You'll see. Why Colonel Goff has promised I shall take him to England with me. And Jack--how about his exercise? My heart is set on beating him in that hurdle race, and Aunt Lucretia would have apoplexy if she lost that bet."

"Oh, he's hard enough. I rode him two hundred miles to Obion County and back. I honestly believe he could run across the county to-morrow; and jump! I am glad you mentioned it---it was wonderful--he is foolish about me. It is because he knows I love you, dear," I said, whispering in her ear.

"Please don't, Jack, you only hurt me."

"I was across a small ravine from him one day, had hitched him and was looking at some timber. He broke his halter and came to me. I heard his calling neigh and I answered him, and he came to me, clearing a ten-foot ravine in a jump."

Eloise clapped her hands, and my Aunt, who had come up and heard it, smiled. Then she said, with her usual red-tape accuracy, "I hope you took the measurements. Was it really ten feet, Jack?"

"I measured it," I said, "and it was nearly bottomless. If one foot had missed--"

My Aunt nodded to Eloise. "That little branch in Cumberland Park is only ten across from bank to bank. Oh, we'll play it on his lordship fine! Come!"

There was a crash of music. With radiant cheeks and eyes that I saw many a night afterwards in my dreams, and a proud smile she went with me down the line.

There was a pretty surprise for us at the supper. We had filed into the dining hall. My grandfather sat alone, his hair white under the candles. On the right of him stood Eloise and Colonel Goff, and the long line of expectant guests stood around down the long table.

My grandfather rapped, and, raising his glass, proposed a toast to the future Earl and Countess of Carfax. There was a burst of applause. The guests lifted their glasses.

"My friends," said Colonel Goff, bravely, when the room became quiet, "I came to you years ago, an exiled Englishman, and I found a home here, following my old commander from the war. I came lonely and alone. I go back with a sorrow in my heart at leaving many friends behind, but instead of going alone, I return taking with me one who will be the peer of any countess of the long line of Carfax."

He turned, bowing grandly to Eloise, who, pale, and with trembling lips listened. I could see her breast faltering with quickened breathing. Her parted lips panted for air, even though she stood beaming graciously to the greeting. "I have another announcement to make," he went on very quietly, "and I think it right that I do it now, that I may be just to myself, to the good people who have reared her, and to my child whom I love. My coming here was not altogether purposeless. You will understand when I introduce to you my daughter, Lady Elsie."

There was a stir at the lower end of the table, and I saw my Aunt Lucretia open the folding doors and Tammas followed by Marget enter. Elsie followed, her face ablaze with that beauty which was always hers when excited. She was more like an angel of light than a girl, and around her neck and in her hair were the jewels of the house of Carfax.

Goff met and kissed her, and very simply and sweetly she advanced and kissed Eloise, graciously, almost unconsciously, a kiss both of love and tribute. She stood between them, bowing and smiling so graciously down the table that her breeding was evident.

All who knew her loved her, and for the next ten minutes they thronged around her with kisses and congratulations.

I did not go, for there were tears in my eyes and a great choking in my throat. When I looked up Tammas and Marget were standing by me, Tammas making a bold effort at winking his tears away and smiling. He mopped his brow vigorously, and said mechanically, "'Tis a bonny night for us, a bonny night and a glorious for our lassie!"

"Ay, weel," said Marget between her sobs, "but dinna she look it--like her ain sweet mother? Oh, but she was that bonny, and 'tis she, our lassie, Tammas, can be looking down on her this blessed minute, her bairn who has come into her own."

Then Elsie saw us and came quietly forward. She clasped me impulsively around the neck and kissed me, whispering, "Oh, it is mine, Jack, that I felt but could not tell. 'Tis the unattainable come true, and now, Jack, dear Jack, that I am Lady Elsie, now that I am worthy of you--" she could not speak. Her lips were deadly white as if with faintness. I held her, stroking her hair.

"You were always worthy of anyone, sweet one. Be brave, be brave, now," I whispered, "and go back to your father's side."

I looked up to find Eloise's eyes upon me, and a strange understanding in their depths.

"I am staying with papa, at The Manor now," said Elsie as she left me and Marget. "You will not let it keep you from coming to see me often, will you, Jack?"

"Ay, weel, to be sure, lassie," broke in Tammas, and I caught the pleased look that seemed part of his countenance that night as if now his heart's desire had already come to pass, "ay, weel, to be sure, for our Mr. Jack will always be our Mr. Jack to us, lassie." ...

It was the last waltz. Eloise beckoned to me, and when I reached her, she opened her arms and I took her in mine. I could not speak, my heart beating almost strangled me. I held her tight, and into the sweetness of the music and the lure of the waltz came again all the past sweetness from her girlhood up, all blending in memory with the perfume of her hair, the whiteness of her throat, and the firm supple touch of her lithe, strong body against mine. Again she was my Little Sister and comrade of the long past. My life, my love, my all that I dreamed and hoped, danced with her in that last dance....

I felt her heart beating against mine. Her breathing was a sob. I felt her wilt, her limbs give way beneath her, her arms hang limp, her head fall back. I carried her in my arms to the sofa....

"A little ice water," said my Aunt Lucretia. When I looked up Colonel Goff stood over her bathing her face. "I should not have let her dance so much--it was all too much for her." He bent again, stroking the beautiful hair. I could not see more for my anger.

In the cool air outside I came to myself. My anger died, all but my own bitterness. I saw the long line of carriages and the men sleeping on boxes, and then I heard a nicker, a friendly little recalling whinny from Satan's stall, and the next instant I had swung into his saddle, and touched my heel to his flank.

I saw the grooms on the boxes sit up, and stare into the night, for straight to the banks of a little creek I rode him, not down the old road. He leaped high into the air, enjoying even more than I did the glory of the risk and jump. He swept like a whirlwind through the gate. The mad ride home soothed me.

*CHAPTER XIX*

*THE HIGH JUMP*

From the crush of the great crowds around the grand stand at the race-course, lining up far down the in-field, and jamming the betting sheds, I saw my Aunt Lucretia forcing her sorrel horse through the gathering. She had been a familiar figure at every fair and race meeting as far back as I could remember. No secretary for twenty years had questioned her judgment or her orders; they were too glad to have her help. I was in the judges' stand helping them out. I had ridden over early, leaving Satan to my Aunt's stable boy, who had already worked him out with a stiff gallop of two miles, and rubbed him down for the hurdle race and the high jump.

My Aunt Lucretia rode up close to the little canopied stand and beckoned to me. "Ever see such a crowd?" she said, smiling proudly. "I told Roswick this special high jump and hurdle would draw 'em. I'll bet there are twenty thousand people in that crowd."

"What is the programme?" I asked indifferently, though I knew it as well as she. I had come out under protest with myself as it were; I would rather have been deep in the heart of my wood where I might not see Eloise. I had tossed all night on my bed. If I dozed it was only to awaken, feeling that I held Eloise fainting in my arms. I did not want to see her, for in my heart, since I last danced, there had been such a tempest of conflicting emotions as made me pace the floor all night; and by day I knew not my own mind. Yet somehow it was not all sorrow. For I knew now that Eloise loved me and at thought of it my heart almost burst with gladness. Gladness was mingled so with sorrow that I wondered if both were not sweeter for the mingling.

"Colonel Goff and I have put up a few three-foot hurdles," my Aunt said, sweeping the track with her hand, "and he and Eloise and a few of the younger people are going to gallop over them just for fun. Goff really wants to show off his record-breaking jumper and his _fiancee_ at the same time," she said, smiling carelessly at me. "The hurdles will be for any of them who care to go over them, but the high jump," and she pointed to a movable gate of bars, flanked with high panels on each side, "will be put across the wire at the finish for Goff and his hunter only," and she laughed, winking at me slyly. "The record is five feet six; Goff thinks that is what he is going after again; but I've put up another bar for fun. I want to see Goff's imported record-breaking 'lepper,' as he calls him, break his blooming knees on that top bar."

I turned impatiently. "Aunt Lucretia, that's dangerous, six feet--and under the whip, after a mile dash!"

Aunt Lucretia smiled. "None of them is supposed to go after the high jump but the Colonel, and he swears he can do it. H-u-s-h!" she whispered. "Not a word of this. Just let Eloise fix him. I've been twenty years arguing with him about importing these worthless brutes and the superiority of our own horses, now I am going to make him pay for his obstinacy--s-sh! There they come now," and she pointed to the in-field, through which a jolly group of riders came, society people mostly, girls and boys and members of the hunting club who were out for the mile gallop over the short hurdles.

"There are ten couples of them in all," she said, "our smartest boys and girls. Many of them will not even try the low hurdles and none of them the high jump except the Colonel."

"You ought not to try it," I said resolutely. "Don't you know that nothing can keep Eloise and Satan from trying that gate of bars?"

"Of course," said my Aunt, "but Goff doesn't know it, and that is where he will part with his ducats. He has even forgotten the bet, he has been so happy; but I'll remind him. He hasn't the least idea that Satan could jump over his shadow in the road. O-h, no!"

As we talked they rode up. "Now see here," said Colonel Goff to his crowd, as he lined them up, "some of these hurdles are going to take a bit of going, and you boys must give the ladies the front, for your dust might blind the horses to the hurdles and make them rush over them with chances for bad tumbles and broken knees. We'll finish the last quarter flat; but I'll go over the gate and bars here for exhibition. It's a pretty stiff affair and will take a bit of going, so the rest of you will please be so kind as to give me the lead here and an open field; just hack around this last quarter, following me, and dodge the gate. There's plenty of room."

The Colonel sat his horse near me as I stood, watch in hand in the judges' stand. Eloise had not looked my way. She sat her great, steel-limbed mount as unconcernedly as if she were going on a fox chase. The others were laughing and excited, the untried horses nervous and restless, but Satan stood still, looking as if carved out of the black granite of the hills. Eloise glanced up and saw me. I turned my head quickly, but she came over, her face pale, but her eyes smiling kindly into mine. The old fun was in them, the old daring, colt-breaking fun I had not seen there since my return.

"Jack," she said, laughing, "if I could only get you behind the barn to split my skirts again; this side-saddle is too heavy." She was looking me bravely in the eye, laughing as she said it. Then all at once I saw all the make-believe go out of her face and her eyes fall before mine.

Riding up softly she whispered, "Jack, do you remember the Story of Atalanta?"

I nodded.

"If he doesn't beat me this mile, and over that high jump he shall never have me, I have told him so."

There are little things even in big events that count more than the big things themselves. I sat utterly wretched. I heard her calling her horse pet names, and saw her rubbing his neck with her whip. I saw the old daring nervousness that showed in the very shoulders of her, the keen, fine play of her eyes, and the white lines that lay like a rim of moonlight around the red of her lips. The next five minutes were spent by the starter telling of the record of Goff's horse.

They lined up ready for the word. It was I who gave it. Instantly from Eloise, even in the thunder of the great leap of her horse I saw two fingers fly to her lips in a kiss to me in her old daring, fun-loving way. "Go!" I had cried.

"But I am coming back, Jack. Good-by."

The Colonel's horse, trained as he was, strode easily ahead of the noisy, awkward bunch. I saw Eloise turn Satan loose, and in an instant he had collared the imported one. They went over the first hurdle like a pair, the field behind Nestor and Satan running neck and neck. With my glasses I could see that Goff was smiling in the delight of the race she was giving him. They were not going fast--it was more of a gallop--for the Colonel set the pace to suit the slower field of amateurs behind him. They mounted the last hurdle together, and came into the back stretch for the last quarter of the mile. The six-foot gate sat in the middle of the track. The judges rose and stood with their timers in their hands. I heard the grand stand hum and buzz with expectancy.

"Now, hold back!" shouted Goff to all as he turned his horse loose in the stretch. "Give me the right of way!"

He came the last quarter with great speed, and then I saw the grand stand rise to its feet, and a wild roar followed, for Eloise had passed him as a full-set yacht a tug, headed straight for the bars. I heard Goff shouting to her; he had lost his head in the fear for her safety. They rose for the leap, Eloise two lengths ahead. I saw Satan rise high, true to his stride, high up--straight up, his great form silhouetted against the sky, Eloise smiling, triumphantly, beautifully, splendidly lifting him over.

It was Goff's horse that did it. In the excitement his rider did not hold him true; he wavered a moment, dodged faint-heartedly, ducked, shied the perilous leap before him, and, bolting, struck the nigh post of the movable gate, hurling it forward ten feet, full under the flanks of Satan, who had cleared it. It caught him cruelly as he came down, under the flanks, making him turn a summersault, hurling Eloise into the fence. I heard the grand stand groan.

It was I who held her lifeless form in my arms....

I remember but little of the tent and the surgeons. I heard someone say, "_She'll die, her back is broken!_"

A horse, riderless, had followed us to the tent's very door; he had thrust his head in, whinnying. It broke my heart to feel his cold nose against my cheek. It was then I led him away, so blinded by tears that I did not see where we went.

*III*

*THE HICKORY'S SON*

*CHAPTER I*

*"LOVE IS NOT LOVE THAT ALTERS WHEN IT ALTERATION FINDS"*

Three weeks after Eloise was injured and while her life was yet despaired of by the physician, my Aunt Lucretia came to me. I was sitting on the rustic bench beneath the hickories. Night after night I had sat there, watching the light from her window, and the coming and going of the physician and nurses. To-day there had been a consultation. My Aunt had sent for a famous surgeon of Philadelphia, and all afternoon he had been in the sick room. When I saw my Aunt I knew that his decision had been reached, and though I sat still, apparently calm, my heart was smothered within me. She said very distinctly, "It's her spine, Jack, he says she will never walk again."

I found myself an hour afterwards taking the old path to the dairy. I saw the light from Tammas's cottage shining far out into the night. I was wandering around numbed, stunned. As I passed the paddock I heard Satan whinny appealingly to me. From the little window in his stall he had thrust out his great head. This was the horse we had all feared, and had cruelly misnamed. The great vicious horse that had almost killed the groom, that had only been conquered by one woman, had his head on my shoulder and was whinnying softly. I knew that he was begging for news of Eloise, and for sympathy; and, dumb as he was, he knew that I would understand.

"She insists that she must see you to-night," said my Aunt Lucretia, when I reached the house.

She led me up the old, familiar stairs, and down the great hall to Eloise's room. She stopped at the door.

"You will find her very brave," said my Aunt, "very brave, and so must you be," she added, giving me a quick look.

Then she opened the door, and I stood looking at Eloise, with drawn, tied lips, and a great choking in my throat, trying to return the smile she was giving me from among her pillows. I stood still, I could not move, my limbs seemed to have caught the dead numbness of my heart.

"I want you right here by me a moment, Jack," she said calmly. "You'll let him sit on the side of the bed, Miss Rose, just a moment. I'll not exert myself."

She was more beautiful than ever. Her brave body had lost none of its suppleness and grace; her face shone, and over the pillow her hair was massed in great red-gold waves against the white of the linen.

"See," she said, taking my hand, "see, Jack, I can move my head and both my arms. Isn't that fine? And the doctor says I shall always be able to do that, and, well--" she smiled, "he says there is no reason why I should not outlive all of you to be an old woman. A crippled old woman--"

I turned my head quickly. As she had spoken I saw again the brave, beautiful creature, coming in head-long flight at the six-foot bar, and the triumphant smile that lit her face, sky-lined forever in my memory, as she lifted her horse almost straight up towards the sky.

She was speaking now to the nurse. "If you please, just a moment Miss Rose--Aunt Lucretia, I would like to speak to Jack alone. I shall not exert myself." I heard them go out. "There! I have been thinking, Jack, all these weeks--one can think so very much lying in bed, and see so very, very far. I have been thinking and seeing, Jack. It's so easy to think and so hard to see. But--but--I have prayed, too, about it--to help me see. Praying is seeing's eyesight, Jack. I want you to promise me something. It is what I have seen in my prayer--it is the last thing I shall ever ask of you--for you have done me so many favors, dear Jack."

I could not speak.

"The Earl--Colonel Goff--they let me see him to-day. It hurt me more than my own hurt to see the poor man suffer so in the blame he puts upon himself for the accident. He won't see, Jack,--he can't--that it was God's way of settling it--God's way. For He alone knew how foolish I was--how wicked to sell myself as I did--and how my heart, though I did not know it till that day, Jack--has always been yours!"

I took her in my arms, my face pressed against her cheek.

She lay still, patting my face with her hand and saying: "I am--it is--well, it seems also to be one of God's ways:

'We look before and after And pine for what is not.'"

I heard her try to laugh in her old, brave way. She was looking again into my eyes, and I sat holding her hand.

"But Colonel Goff," she went on, "gentleman that he is, thinks he must settle the account for his blundering ride, and begs me to marry him anyway; I, a cripple for life. He forgets that God balanced it when he stopped me from the sin of selling my heart for--for--his bauble--

"I have sent him away satisfied, Jack. I believe he would love me truly," and she smiled, "now that he sees that I cannot ride. Love me for myself and not for my riding; but I shall love only you, Jack, till I die--the old crippled woman."

She was silent for a moment. "And the compensation for my admitting it--you know it is costing me something--you don't know how hard it is for me to say it first, Jack; but the compensation I claim, will you give it to your little lame girl? It is this, and now nod your head, say '_yes_' Jack. I've seen--Elsie loves you, and you must--you must marry the child. She is everything you want, and you half-way love her already. It will be easy now, Jack, promise it; for your sake--for both your sakes, I'm asking. Promise me, Jack, I want to see you happy."

She had my hand against her cheek, fondling it. Her eyes had never seemed so beautiful.

"Do you remember the kind of love I said I had for you that first night after I came home?" She pressed my hand against her cheek again. "And the kind you said you'd never felt, but would give your life to feel?" Again I felt the pressure. "That kind which I told you of, and which I have had for you all the time, is that kind that Shakespeare told of when he said:

"'Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.'

"That's the kind I have for you, Eloise--have always had; and do you remember the love you said you wanted, you'd give your life for, yourself, your soul and your body. '_I, who wish it so, to be widowed of it all my life_'--those were your words. How they cut into my heart--that love, Eloise, can't you see? Don't you know that it is yours and you are widowed of it no longer?"

She put her arms around my neck and pulled my face down to hers, smothering her mouth in my kisses.

"Oh, Jack, why did you say it--see it? Why did you not let me fool myself--fool you? Why--and--oh, if you had only not seen it--not let me know you saw it! Love? Don't you know now that the kind I said I'd have is as I said it was? Worth life--worth death--worth all--worth all--then God help me, Jack, if I sin--God forgive me, but I'd rather hold it to my heart a helpless cripple that I am--hold it never to satisfy it--never to know what it means, helpless, bed-ridden cripple that I am than to be the well, strong thing I was without it. Oh, Jack, don't you know now what I mean?"

She kissed me again and again, holding my cheek to hers.