Chapter 12

"Wy, Miss Sally," cried the boy, a great, painful reluctance in his voice, "that old varmint Grierson writtend another letter to Unc' Bernique an' had a man hold it up an' not mail it till las' week. Then he lay daown an' died. An' here las' week the letter to Unc' Bernique was mailed, aouter ole Grierson's grave like--an' Unc Bernique he's jes got it, an' it tells him that ole Grierson died las' September an' that he writtend your father to say so."

"I don't understand that, Piney. Mr. Grierson died last September and has written letters since he died, you are getting it all mixed, aren't you?"

Very slowly and laboriously Piney told then what he knew, told it over and over until she had comprehended it, whether she believed it or not. When the boy had finished she was leaning back on the bench, dull and pale.

"But it isn't true," she said, with white lips. "And Mr. Steering, Piney,--has Uncle Bernique told Mr. Steering this fantastic tale?"

"Yes'm."

"And what did Mr. Steering say and do, Piney?"

The memory of what Steering had said and done seemed to come on to Piney like an inspiration. "Miss Sally, he set his jaw an' he ketched Unc' Bernique by the arm an' helt him an' made him swear like this, 'You by your love for Piney's young mother, I by my love for Salome Madeira, that never, s'help us God, will you or I carry word of this to Crittenton Madeira and his daughter Salome'--sumpin like that, Miss Sally. I don' adzackly remember the words."

The dulness had all gone out of her eyes, the colour beat back into her cheeks. She had forgotten Crittenton Madeira. "'I by my love for Salome'--are you sure, Piney?"

"I'm sure, Miss Sally. An' so I thought as wuzn't nobody else to tell you, I'd tell you. I d'n know as I done rat," the boy's face was all a-quiver, too, as he looked up at the girl on the misty heights of her passion. His self-abnegation, his young heroism made him for the moment as finely luminous as she was. Sally Madeira took his head between her hands and gazed into his eyes tenderly, caressingly, and there was in her touch something large and sweet and tender that comforted and soothed the boy while it made his heart leap within him.

"Ah, Darling," she said, "how bitter-sweet it is, this loving! But be patient. Some day it will all seem right." She took her hands away from him and stood up straightly.

"I'm going in to my father now, Piney. There's a mistake somewhere. You wait for me here until I get it all explained. Wait here till I come back."

She went off toward the house then, a fragrant shower of orchard blossoms falling upon her and shutting her away from the boy's eyes as she went.

_Chapter Sixteen_

MADEIRA'S PEACE

Sally Madeira crept to the door of her father's study and listened. In the pallid light that was stealing up to her from Piney's story her face was shadowy, with hurtful doubt, ashamed fear, and she steadied herself by the wall with hands that shook. She had stopped to put on a white gown that her father loved and her lustrous hair lay banded closely, a halo, about her shapely head. Her face looked like a saint's.

"It is not so much to save Bruce Steering's inheritance for him, it's to save my father for myself." Her lips moved stiffly as she whispered. "My old dream-father, my idol, I cannot live without him!" As she opened the door and passed in, she felt as though he had been away on a long journey and that this might be the hour of his return.

Inside Madeira sat at his desk, Bruce Grierson's letter spread out before him, the ghost of his torture. At night he heard it move, with a spectral rustling, under his pillow where he kept it. By day it writhed, a small, hot thing, over his heart. He had tried again and again to destroy it. Everything else that had got in his way he had destroyed, but this he had not destroyed. He was trying to destroy it now, but he returned it to his pocket, unable to destroy it, ruled by it, when he raised his eyes and saw his daughter before him. She had not been without foresight even in her shame and sorrow. She had taken great pains to gown herself especially for him, especially to establish her influence over him. He held out his arms to her lovingly. In the sickness of soul and body now upon him he had turned more and more to her; she had to be with him almost constantly.

"You look so sweet," he said. "You are sweetest like this. I love you like this." Despite the relief that came when with her, he talked nervously, his mouth jerking. His hands wandered to her head, and he held her face and peered at her. "Sally, I wish I was a girl like you," he said, "girls look so peaceful. Business tangles a man,--just to have peace, Sally."

"It will come Father, it will come. Father, Piney rode in from the hills just now, and he brought me news."

He could feel the tremor of her lithe body against his breast, and he moved quickly and uneasily, suspecting danger. His dreams had so long been terror-fraught that he was all nerves and suspicion. "News of what, Sally?" The whitest, deadest voice, for so simple a question; on his face the most awful strain! She drew back on his knee and looked at him steadily, lovingly, and his eyes dropped and his hands began to drum on the chair-arm.

"Father," she said, "Piney has heard a long story. He was hid on the bluff-side, up at Redbud, and he heard a letter read at the shack there, a dead man's letter."

"A dead--oh, God bless you--wait--Sally, did that move? eh, what foolishness is this, a dead man's letter? What dead man? eh? what dead man?"

"Bruce Grierson, father."

"They lie! They lie! Let them prove it!"

"Ah, that was what I told Piney, Father! I knew, I knew that you could explain it. And you can now, and you will, Father?" She was really beseeching him to rise up against her and the accusation against him, rise up in a great storm of indignation; she was praying that he would do that, expecting that he would, so firm were her convictions of his nobility. She drew back a little, to give him room, as it were; her hands fell upon his knee, and she leaned from him the better to see him, her face aglow with her fierce hope, her big belief, while she waited for that storm, that outraged denial, that tremendous vindication. And while she waited, erect, hopeful, eager, he shrank in upon himself; crumpled and wrinkled in upon himself until he looked weazened and small.

"Let them prove it, let them," a whining mumble.

"They will not, Father." She was leaning toward him again, her face quiet as the first frightened dawn of a grey morning; her voice was beaten and sad, but she went on dauntlessly. "The letter was to Uncle Bernique, Father. And Bruce Steering read it. And though it told him that he was the owner of the Tigmores, he and Uncle Bernique will not prove it." For a moment she paused, and then, with some new purpose on her face, she began again, "There was an oath to make all sure that they would not prove it. Listen, Father, these were the words of the oath: 'Swear, I by my love for Salome Madeira, you by your love for Piney's young mother, that never, so help us God, shall one or the other of us carry word of this thing to anyone, least of all to Crittenton Madeira and his daughter, Salome!'"

"Ah-h-h!" The words of the oath seemed to bring Madeira his first brief respite in a long torture. The girl shivered at such relief, then went on resolutely:

"So now you see, Father, everything is safe. I have come to let you know that everything is safe, that you need not be troubled, sleeping or waking, any more about this thing. You may keep the Tigmores as long as you will," the light of her eyes beat upon him like a rain of pure gold, "you may be as rich as you like, Father. Mr. Steering is to leave here; you need never be dispossessed during your lifetime. It is all safe and sure. Uncle Bernique will not tell, Mr. Steering will not tell, Piney will not tell, I shall make no sign." The tragic strength of her endeavour to make him see that it was all with him; to leave it all to him; if so be that the better part were to be chosen, to make him choose it for himself; re-establish himself in so much as was possible for her loving regard, was in the hot clasp of the young hand that she laid upon him, the sweet earnestness of the face that leaned toward him. It was a strange fight, a battle of vast forces. He began to shake like an aspen leaf, but his eyes lifted to hers presently, to drink from them as from a fountain of life. His lips moved.

"Just to have peace," he gasped hoarsely, "take that letter--take it from my pocket--send it to Steering."

"Father!" It was the cry of victory well won. "Father! I am so glad!" over and over again. "All my life, Father, I have expected the good thing to happen because of you, the right thing, I am so glad!" Laughing, crying, she kissed him, took the letter and stole to the door. "Piney shall be its bearer," she cried as she went, "Piney shall take it; he will say the very best that there is to say!"

She ran out, and the door swung quickly behind her, so that she did not see that he put his hand over his empty pocket and held his heart with a great relief; then pitched forward suddenly, his head on the desk, a look of late-come, profound peace on his face.

_Chapter Seventeen_

JUST A BOY

It was not quite dark when Piney left Miss Sally Madeira in the garden back of Madeira Place, the Grierson letter in the inside band of his hat. The pretty spring day had closed in grey and sullen, and a high wind tore through the bluffs. Up in Canaan people were going anxiously to their windows, and trying to decide what was about to happen out there in that whirl of dust and wind and high-spattering rain. Down at Madeira Place it was grey, windy, and damp, but the rain had not come on yet. Piney went down the bridle-path from the Madeira grounds and out into the river road at a gallop, and the pony sped on like mad toward the little shack down stream at Redbud. All the way Piney kept a watch on the Di, which was sucking and booming. Long before he reached Redbud the boy had begun to hope that Steering had not put through his evening programme to that last number of going back to Redbud by water, after the haunting visit to the waters about Madeira Place. The river seemed very black and restless with the long urge of the spring rains within her. Now and again, he called loudly, prompted by some fear, he knew not what:

"Steerin'! Steerin'! Steerin'!"

He reached Redbud by and by, to find no Steering, only the little empty shack. The lean bunks, swaddled roughly in their bedding, looked strangely deserted. Piney sat down on Steering's bunk for a moment to take breath. Once his hand patted the covers, and once he stooped down and clung to the pillow.

"Oh, may God bless you! For I love him, my dear Piney! Bless you, for I love him, my dear Piney!" he kept saying over and over, with an hysterical quaver in his voice, his lips pale and moving constantly. "Oh, may God bless you, for I love him, my dear Piney!" It was what Salome Madeira had said to him when he had left her, a white, angelic figure, swaying a little toward him, there in the garden back of Madeira Place. "Oh, may God--for I love him!"

The odour of Bruce's cigars hung about the shack. Piney jumped up suddenly and went down close to the Di to wait and think. At Redbud the river seemed fiercer than farther up-stream. One of the two skiffs that rocked there usually was there now, swashing up and down in the current, but the other was gone. There was a strong eddy in front of Redbud. The bar, Singing Sand, and the Deerlick Rocks choked up the bed of the river and made the water dash vehemently through a narrow channel. Logs went by and branches of trees. Piney paced the bank in a rising fever of impatience, calling, calling; but for a long time his call was without avail, the wind roared so defeatingly in the trees. Close into Deerlick Rocks drifted a great fleet of logs.

"Mist' Steerin'! Mist' Steerin'!" The sweet tenor broke again and again, but again and again Piney pitched a vast effort into it. And, at last, an answer:

"Halloo! That you, Uncle Bernique? I've been----" The voice was wind-blown, and slipped weakly away.

"It's ME! Where are you?" No answer. "Where are you? Hi! Is that you by the bar? Lif' your han' above the drif'-wood! Cayn't you lif' your han'?"

A hand shot up from the back of a log that was well hidden by other flotsam, then fell back weakly. "Ay, here I am! Dead-beat, Piney----" A long roar of wind shut off the rest.

"Hold to your log. I'm a-comin'! comin'! comin'!" The tenor rang and rang across the water as Piney loosed the skiff from its moorings, took up the oars, and pushed out into the Di. With the force in that whirl of black water he realised that there was danger; the skiff trembled and leaped as though some wrathful Ægir caught and shook it. It was well for Steering that Piney was strong, with the strength of the hills and the woods and the quiet.

As he went on some sort of revulsion seized Piney. He stopped calling and began to mutter blackly. "Wisht you'd draown! Wisht you uz dead! Wish-to-hell, you never needa been!"

The log, with its one lamed passenger was drifting slowly in toward Singing Sand, and Piney came on, hard after it. When he reached it at last, Steering was quite speechless, but, with the boy's help, scrambled into the skiff, where he slipped like water to the bottom, the fight back being altogether Piney's.

When Steering could talk at all, he gasped out how it had happened. He had gone much farther up than Madeira Place, and had not put his boat about until two hours before; and then only because a great many logs were coming down, and he decided that he did not want to be caught among them when night should drop. He had got along all right until a log smashed into his skiff and overturned him. He thought he must have struck his head as he went over. At any rate, things were very mixed for a good while. He knew that he had swum for what seemed to be hours, and that then he had realised that he was numb, and had used what little strength he had left to climb upon another log that passed him. He had been on it ever since, flat out, an eternity.

Piney was getting the skiff inshore fast, as Steering talked, and once Steering stopped to admire his youthful vigour. He was a strong man himself, and it was a new sensation to lie weakly admiring strength in somebody else. "Do you know, Piney, I'm dead-beat," he whispered.

"You've had a good deal to stan' in more ways than one to-day," replied Piney.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Steering.

"We're a'most in."

It was only a few minutes later that Piney effected his landing, and, river-lashed and dripping, both scrambled out and fell on the bank by the Redbud shack. For a little while, even Piney was past any further exertion, but when he could use himself again, he got up agilely, hunted up dry wood and made a roaring fire. The twilight had closed into night now; the rain had shifted with the wind and passed by Redbud. Piney brought a blanket from the shack and wrapped Steering in it. Before the fire, Steering lay with his eyes shut for a time, a smile on his face. "You are precious good to stand by me like this, Piney," he said once. "Where have you been for so long, you stingy nigger? Why have you cut me lately?"

"Well, I--oh, I d'n know adzackly." Piney's voice was flat, his face tragic. He was heaping wood on the fire, and in the yellow flare he looked pale with the exhaustion of his work on the river and the excitement under which he was labouring. During this last half hour that he had been working hard to save Steering, taking care of him, helping him, he had had another revulsion of feeling that had swung him up close to his hero again. But crisis was still following crisis in his emotions.

"Well, you turned up at just the right minute for me, Piney. How did you happen along?"

"Oh, I wuz a-huntin' fer you, I reckon. I wuz sent aout to hunt fer you. I gotta letter fer you,--f'm--f'm Miss Madeira."

Steering opened his drowsy eyes and regarded Piney.

"Yes, I have. I gotta letter fer you. Y'see, Miss Sally, she's found aout sumpin--sumpin that you didn' want her to find aout." The fire leaped and crackled; Bruce leaned away from its scorch, nearer to Piney. "Y'see, she knows abaout the Tigmores naow," went on Piney steadily. "Unc' Bernique didn' tell her. I told her."

"Piney!" Steering, warm with wrath, turned upon Piney savagely, "You little fool! You brutal little fool!" he cried fiercely. "It's a good thing that you're just a boy, Piney--and you, _you_! profess to love----"

"Mist' Steerin'." Piney had a man's dignity all in a minute. "I didn' ast you fer no leave to tell her, an' I don't ast you fer nothin' naow. But she had to know. I hearn Unc' Bernique tellin' you abaout that Grierson letter. I hearn you read the letter. I hearn you an' Unc' Bernique swear. Then I swore, too. Then I went an' told her. And then she saw her father, an' she leffen it to her father to make things right, an' he's made things right. She told me I wuz to tell you that. She showed him that he was safe to keep the Tigmores if he wanted to keep 'em, but he didn't want to keep 'em. She told me to tell you that. An' she told me to give you this letter." Piney's young body rocked now with a hushed, sobbing fervour; he lifted his peaked hat from his head, took the letter from the inner band, and pushed it into Bruce's hand. "This letter kim to her father a long time ago, and she ast me to ast you to think of her father abaout it gentle as you can--an' I'm a-astin' you to think of him gentle," the lad's voice suddenly rose shrilly, and he jumped to his feet, "an' I'm _a-bustin'_ to have you say you won't think of him gentle, er sumpin 'at I cayn't stan' an 'll hit you fer! I'm jesta boy, Mist' Steerin', but good God!"

Bruce got to his feet, too. When he caught Piney's flaming eye at last, they stood and faced each other a great moment, then Bruce put his hand out.

"Piney," he said, "I wish I were half the man that you are."

"Oh, Mist' Steerin'! Mist' Steerin'!" On Bruce's shoulder, he sobbed like a child until the terrific strain that he had been on for hours slackened, and he could talk again.

"She's waitin' fer you," he said at last. "She's up yonder in the garden, waitin'. She loves you, Mist' Steerin'. Don't you go fergit that, with y'all's pride an' all. She loves you."

"What? What's that you are saying, Piney?"

"She loves you. I know it, Mist' Steerin'. An' I'm a-tellin' ev' durn thing I know!" declared Piney vehemently, with a high-toned, stubborn self-justification in his voice.

"Dog-on you, old man," Bruce said, turning to grip Piney's hand again. He had it in mind to say a great many other things, in the way of appreciation, thanks, enthusiasms, but all he said was "dog-on you, old man, dog-on you," gripping Piney's hand as he said it. "You make yourself comfortable here in the shack to-night, will you, old man, and I'll go on up there. They are in a little trouble over this up there, Piney." Steering tore the Grierson letter to bits as he spoke, and, then, his eyes wet and shining, he found Piney's pony and went to her in the garden.

Piney lay back on the ground beside the fire. The glow fell squarely over his features, relaxed and softened now. He looked very hopefully and comfortingly young. There was a big, shy gratification on his face.

"'Old _man_,'" he muttered once or twice. "'Old _man_.'" A little sob shivered through him. He got up quickly and went into the shack bunk, where he fell asleep at once--because he was so young--and dreamed fine dreams of Italy--because he, too, was fine.

_Chapter Eighteen_

A PRETTY PRECARIOUSNESS

As Bruce galloped up the river road toward Madeira Place, he found himself so weak with excitement and physical exhaustion, that he had to bow over the saddle-horn and cling there, like an old man. It was a ride to remember. Once he raised his head and looked out into the night. The storm had broken, and high in the quivering heavens the moon shone with a wild, palpitant glory. In the north and east the clouds had gathered with a mighty up-piling, from which the eye sank back affrighted, it towered so near heaven. The trees along the river, the shaking, shimmering river itself, were all shot with light. It was a grand scene, but removed, turbulent, unreal. Steering's strength failed him again, and he fell back over the saddle and hung on. There come times in a man's life, good times as well as bad times, when he can do nothing but hang on. On these dizzying peaks of happiness, Steering scarcely dared let himself look beyond the pony's nose. He was so high up, so near the consummation of--oh--of everything. It would be ridiculously easy to set matters straight now, in one way or another. She loved him! If that were true, it would make everything else come right. And that was true. Piney had been sure of it, and Piney had just left her. Everything else, all life, could be made to close around that salient, delicate fact like the rose-leaves close around the heart of the rose. Let her father keep the hills; he did not care, if he could have the girl. He did not care about anything, if he could have the girl. And he could have the girl. Thank God for that.

Little by little he began to allow himself a meagre consciousness that he was drawing nearer, nearer! Now, just below the grounds of Madeira Place! Now, up along the bridle-path! Now, at the garden gate!

He leaned over the pony's head, slipped the gate latch, and passed into the garden. Dismounting, he tied the pony, and turned toward the house. Dark, in the shadow of the trees behind it, the house lay very quiet, unlighted, infinitely peaceful. In front of the negro cabin at the side of the house, Bruce could see Samson, his chair tilted against the cabin wall, his pipe in his mouth, his bare feet swinging contentedly. From inside the cabin came the low croon of Samson's fat black wife. Some hens clucked sleepily in the hen-house. With the moonlight disintegrated and softened by the trees, everything up toward the house breathed peace. Out here in the garden, however, where the gold light beat down straightly, there was a sense of waiting, unrest, sweet and tumultuous. Out here in the garden it was glorious, but it was not peaceful. What was it that was responsible for that misty halation of incompleteness, longing? the shaking breath of the wide-lipped roses? the secrets within the bowed slender lilies? the tortured joy of the whole garden life of fragrance and beauty?

Over by the old vine-covered stump there was a gleam of white, swaying a little, breathing a little, it seemed, and Steering went toward it, strength coming back into his limbs, his head lifting as he came, his arms outheld.

"I hoped that you would come, Mr. Steering. I have been waiting a long time for you," she said, not moving, her eyes meeting his, something in her face, her rigidity, stopping him. Her hands were pale and still on the grey-green of the vines; her face had caught the wild, gold gleam of the moon. "I wanted to tell you myself about that letter, Mr. Steering. I wanted to tell you myself about the Tigmores being yours. I have grown afraid, out here in the dark, that Piney might not have been able to make you understand, might have misled you in some way about--what I said. I was very much excited when I talked to Piney, Mr. Steering, and I am not sure that I made it clear to him that I am very glad indeed that the hills are yours at last; glad because we are--or have been--such good friends, Mr. Steering, glad for that reason--for friendship's sake, and for nothing," her voice wandered, and the beat of her low broad breast was girlishly pitiful, "else, but friend----" she could not go on.