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Opening a Chestnut Burr

<h2 id="id01091" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XVIII</h2> <h5 id="id01092">IN THE DEPTHS</h5> After the departure of their strange guide, who had befriended them as best she could, Gregory at once went to the house and knocked. There was a movement within, and a quavering voice asked, "Who's there?" "Friends who have lost their way, and need shelter." "I don't know about lettin' strangers in this time o' night," answered the voice. "There are only two of us," said Annie. "Perhaps you know who Miss Walton is. I entreat you to let us in." "Miss Walton, Miss Walton, sartin, I know who she is. But I can't believe she's here." "Our wagon broke down this afternoon, and we have lost our way," explained Gregory. Again there was a stir inside, and soon a glimmer of light. After a few moments the door was opened slightly, and a woman's voice asked, apprehensively, "Be you sure it's Miss Walton?" "Yes," said Annie, "you need have no fears. Hold the light, and see for yourself." This the woman did, and, apparently satisfied, gave them admittance at once. She seemed quite aged, and a few gray locks straggled out from under her dingy cap, which suggested anything but a halo around her wrinkled, withered face. A ragged calico wrapper incased her tall, gaunt form, and altogether she did not make a promising hostess. Before she could ask her unexpected guests any further questions, the cry of a whippoorwill was again heard three times. She listened with a startled, frightened manner. The sounds were repeated, and she seemed satisfied: "Isn't it rather late in the season for whippoorwills?" asked Annie, uneasily, for this bird's note, now heard again, seemed like a signal. "I dunno nothin' about whippoorwills," said the woman, stolidly. "The pesky bird kind o' started me at first. Don't like to hear 'em round. They bring bad luck. I can't do much for you, Miss Walton, in this poor place. But such as 'tis you're welcome to stay. My son has been off haulin' wood; guess he won't be back now afore to-morrow." "When do you think he will come?" asked Annie, anxiously. "Well, not much afore night, I guess." "What will my poor father do?" moaned Annie. "He will be out all night looking for us." "Sure now, will he though?" said the woman, showing some traces of anxiety herself. "Well, miss, you'll have to stay till my son gits back, for it's a long way round through the valley to your house." There was nothing to do but wait patiently till morning. The woman showed Gregory up into a loft over the one room of the house, saying, "Here's where my son sleeps. It's the best I can do, though I s'pose you ain't used to such beds." He threw his exhausted form on the wretched couch, and soon found respite in troubled sleep. Annie dozed away the night in a creaky old rocking-chair, the nearest approach to a thing of comfort that the hovel contained. The old woman had evidently been so "started" that she needed the sedative of a short clay pipe, highly colored indeed, still a connoisseur in meerschaums would scarcely covet it. This she would remove from her mouth now and then, as she crouched on a low stool in the chimney-corner, to shake her head ominously. Perhaps she knew more about whippoorwills than she admitted. At last it seemed that the fumes, which half strangled Annie, had their wonted effect, and she hobbled to her bed and was soon giving discordant evidence of her peace. Annie then noiselessly opened a window, that she too might breathe. When Gregory waked next morning, it was broad day. He felt so stiff and ill he could scarcely move, and with difficulty made his way to the room below. The old woman was at the stove, frying some sputtering pork, and its rank odor was most repulsive to the fastidious habitue of metropolitan clubs. "Where is Miss Walton?" he asked, in quick alarm. "Only gone to the spring after water," replied the woman, shortly. "Why didn't you git up and git it for her?" "I would if I had known," he muttered, and he escaped from the intolerable air of the room to the door, where he met Annie, fresh and rosy from her morning walk and her toilet at the brook that brawled down the ravine. "Mr. Gregory, you are certainly ill," she exclaimed. "I am so sorry it has all happened!" He looked at her wonderingly, and then said, "You appear as if nothing had happened. I am ill, Miss Walton, and I wish I were dead. You can not feel toward me half the contempt I have for myself." "Now, honestly, Mr. Gregory, I have no contempt for you at all." He turned away and shook his head dejectedly. "But I mean what I say," she continued, earnestly. "Then it is your goodness, and not my desert." "As I told you last night, so again I sincerely say, I think I understand you better than you do yourself." "You are mistaken," he answered, with gloomy emphasis. "Your intuitions are quick, I admit. I have never known your equal in that respect. But there are some things I am glad to think you never can understand. You can never know what a proud man suffers when he has utterly lost hope and self-respect. Though I acted so mean a part myself, I can still appreciate your nobleness, courage, and fidelity to conscience. I thought such heroism belonged only to the past." "Mr. Gregory, I wish I could make you understand me," said Annie, with real distress in her tone. "I am not brave; I was more afraid than you. Indeed, I was in an agony of fear. I refused that man's demand because I was compelled to. If you looked at things as I do, you would have done the same." "Please say no more, Miss Walton," said he, his face distorted by an expression of intense self-loathing. "Do not try to palliate my course. I would much rather you would call my cowardly selfishness and lack of principle by their right names. The best thing I can do for the world is to get out of it, and from present feelings, this 'good-riddance' will soon occur. Will you excuse me if I sit down?" and he sank upon the door-step in utter weakness. Annie had placed her pail of water on the door-step and forgotten it in her wish to cheer and help this bitterly wounded spirit. "Mr. Gregory," she said, earnestly, "you are indeed ill in body and mind, and you take a wrong and morbid view of everything. My heart aches to show you how complete and perfect a remedy there is for all this. It almost seems as if you were dying from thirst with that brook yonder running—" "There is no remedy for me," interrupted he, almost harshly. Then he added in a weary tone, pressing his hand on his throbbing brow, "Forgive me, Miss Walton; you see what I am. Please waste no more thought on me." "If yer want any breakfast to-day, yer better bring that water," called the old woman from within. Annie gave him a troubled, anxious look, and then silently carried in the pail. "Have you any tea?" she asked, not liking the odor of the coffee. "Mighty little," was the short answer. "Please let me have some, and I will send you a pound of our best in its place," said Annie. "I hain't such a fool as to lose that bargain," and the old woman hobbled with alacrity to a cupboard; but to Annie's dismay the hidden treasure had been hoarded too near the even more prized tobacco, and seemed redolent of the rank odor of some unsavory preparation of that remarkable weed which is conjured into so many and such diverse forms. But she brewed a little as best she could before eating any breakfast herself, and brought it to Gregory as he still sat on the step, leaning against the door-post. "Please swallow this as medicine," she said. "Indeed, Miss Walton, I cannot," he replied. "Please do," she urged, "as a favor to me. I made it myself; and I can't eat any breakfast till I have seen you take this." He at once complied, though with a wry face. "There," said she, with a touch of playfulness, "I have seldom received a stronger compliment. After this compliance I think I could venture to ask anything of you." "The tea is like myself," he answered. "You brought to it skilled hands and pure spring water, and yet, from the nature of the thing itself, it was a villanous compound. Please don't ask me to take any more. Perhaps you have heard an old saying, 'Like dislikes like.'" She determined that he should not yield to this morbid despondency, but had too much tact to argue with him; therefore she said, kindly, "We never did agree very well, Mr. Gregory, and don't now. But before many hours I hope I can give you a cup of tea and something with it more to your taste. I must admit that I am ready even for this dreadful breakfast, that threatens to destroy my powers of digestion in one fatal hour. You see what a poor subject I am for romance;" and she smilingly turned away to a meal that gave her a glimpse of how the "other half of the world lives." Before she had finished, the sound of wheels and horses' hoofs coming rapidly up the glen brought her to the door, and with joy she recognized a near neighbor of her father's, a sturdy, kind-hearted farmer, who had joined in the search for the missing ones the moment he learned, in the dawn of that morning, that they had not returned. He gave a glad shout as he saw Annie's form in the doorway, and to her his broad, honest face was like that of an angel. All are beautiful to those they help. "Your father is in a dreadful state, Miss Annie," said Farmer Jones; "but I told him if he would only stay at home and wait, I, and a few other neighbors, would soon find you. He was up at the foot of the mountain ever since twelve o'clock last night. Then he came home to see if you hadn't returned some other way. I'm usually out as soon as it's light, so I hailed him as he passed and asked what on earth he was up for at that time of day. He told me his trouble, so I hitched up my light wagon and got to your house as soon as he did. When he found you hadn't come yet, he was for starting right for the mountains, but I saw he wasn't fit, so I says, 'Mr. Walton, you'll just miss 'em. They've taken a wrong road, or the wagon has broken down, but they'll be home before ten o'clock. Now send Jeff up the road you expected them on. I'll send Mr. Harris, who lives just beyond me, out on the road they took first. My horse is fast, and I'll go round up this valley, and in this way we'll soon scour every road;' and so with much coaxing I got him to promise to stay till I returned. So jump in quick, and I'll have you home in little over an hour." "But we can't leave Mr. Gregory here. Let him go first. He is ill, and needs attention immediately." "Miss Walton, please return at once to your father," said Gregory, quickly. "It is your duty. I can wait." "No, Mr. Gregory, it would not be right to leave you here, feeling as you do. As soon as father knows I am safe his mind will be at rest. I am perfectly well, and you have no idea how ill you look." "Miss Walton," said Gregory, in a tone that was almost harsh in its decisiveness, "I will not return now." "I am real sorry," said Mr. Jones, "that my wagon is not larger, but I took the best thing that I had for fast driving over rough roads. Come, Miss Walton, your friend has settled it, and if he is sick he had better come more slowly in an easier carriage." After cordially thanking the old woman for such rude hospitality as she had bestowed, and renewing her promise to send ample recompense, she turned with gentle courtesy to Gregory and assured him that he would not have long to wait. He gave her a quick, searching look, and said, "Miss Walton, I do not understand how you can speak to me in this way. But go at once. Do not keep your father in suspense any longer." "I hope we shall find you better when we come for you," she said, kindly. "It were better if you found me dead," he said, in sudden harshness, but it was toward himself, not her. So she understood it, and waving her hand encouragingly, was rapidly driven away. As they rode along she related to Mr. Jones the events already known to the reader, but carefully shielded Gregory from blame. She also satisfied her companion's evident curiosity about the young man by stating so frankly all it was proper for him to know that he had no suspicion of anything concealed. She explained his last and unusual expression by dwelling with truth on the fact that Gregory appeared seriously ill and was deeply depressed in spirits. Mr. Walton received his daughter with a joy beyond words. She was the idol of his heart—the one object on earth that almost rivalled his "treasures in heaven." His mind had dwelt in agonized suspense on a thousand possibilities of evil during the prolonged hours of her absence, and now that he clasped her again, and was assured of her safety, he lifted his eyes heavenward with overflowing gratitude in his heart. But Annie's success in keeping up before him was brief. The strain had been a little too severe. She soon gave way to nervous prostration and headache, and was compelled to retire to her room instead of returning for Gregory as she had intended. But he was promptly sent for, Miss Eulie going in her place, and taking every appliance possible for his comfort. She found him in Mrs. Tompkins's hovel, sitting in the creaky arm-chair that Annie had occupied the night before, and enduring with a white, grim face the increasing suffering of his illness. He seemed to have reached the depths of despair, and, believing the end near, determined to meet it with more than Indian stoicism. Many, in their suicidal blindness and remorse, pass sentence upon themselves, and weakly deliver their souls into the keeping of that inexorable jailer, Despair, forgetting the possibilities—nay, certainties—of good that ever dwell in God. If man had no better friend than himself, his prospects would be sombre indeed. Many a one has condemned himself and sunk into the apathy of death, but He who came to seek and to save the lost has lifted him with the arms of forgiving love, and helped him back to the safety and happiness of the fold. Satan only, never the Saviour, bids the sinner despair. But poor Gregory was taking advice from his enemy and not from his Friend. During the long hours of pain and almost mortal weakness of that dreary morning, he acknowledged himself vanquished—utterly defeated in the battle of life. As old monkish legends teach, the devil might have carried him off bodily and he would not have resisted. In his prostrated nature, but one element of strength was apparent—a perverted pride that rose like a shattered, blackened shaft, the one prominent relic of seemingly utter ruin. At first he coldly declined the cordial and nourishment Miss Eulie brought, and said, with a quietness that did not comport with the meaning of his words, that she had better leave him to himself, for he would not make trouble for any one much longer. Miss Eulie was shocked, finding in these words and in his general appearance proof that he was more seriously ill than she had anticipated. He was indeed; but his malady was rather that of a morbid mind depressing an enfeebled body than actual disease. But mental distress could speedily kill a man like Gregory. Miss Eulie soon brought him to terms by saying, "Mr. Gregory, you see I am alone. Mr. Walton was too exhausted to accompany me, and Annie did not send any of the neighbors, as she thought the presence of strangers would be irksome to you." "She said she would come herself, but she has had time to think and judge me rightly," muttered he, interrupting her. "No, Mr. Gregory," Miss Eulie hastened to say; "you do her wrong. She was too ill to come, as she intended and wished to do, and so with many anxious charges sent me in her place. I am but a woman, and dependent on your courtesy. I cannot compel you to go with me. But I am sure you will not wrong my brother's hospitality, and make Miss Walton's passing indisposition serious, by refusing to come with me. If you did she would rise from her sick bed and come herself." Gregory at once rose and said, "I can make no excuse for myself. I seem fated to do and say the worst things possible under the circumstances." "You are ill," said Miss Eulie, kindly, as if that explained everything. Declining aid, he tottered to the carriage, into which Jeff, with some curious surmises, helped him. Miss Eulie made good Annie's promises to Mrs. Tompkins fourfold, and left the shrivelled dame with a large supply of one of the elements of her heaven—tea, and with the means of purchasing the other—tobacco, besides more substantial additions to the old woman's meagre larder. Gregory was averse to conversation during the long, slow ride. The jolting, even of the easy cushioned carriage, was exceedingly painful, and by the time they reached home he was quite exhausted. Leaning on Mr. Walton's arm he at once went to his room, and at their urgent entreaties forced himself to take a little of the dainty supper that was forthcoming. But their kindly solicitude was courteously but coldly repelled. Acting reluctantly upon his plainly manifested wish, they soon left him to himself, as after his first eager inquiry concerning Miss Walton it seemed a source of pain to him to see or speak to any one. At first his arm-chair and the cheery wood-fire formed a pale reflection of something like comfort, but every bone in his body ached from the recent cold he had taken. He had just fever enough to increase the distortion of the images of his morbid and excited mind. Hour after hour he sat with grim white face and fixed stare, scourging himself with the triple scorpion-whip of remorse, vain regret, and self-disgust. But an old and terrible enemy was stealing on him to change the nature of his torment—neuralgic headache; and before morning he was walking the floor in agony, a sad type, while the world slept and nature rested, of that large class, all whose relations, physical and moral, are a jangling discord. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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