CHAPTER IX
PURSUING THE POSSUM
And as if in sympathy with the heart of the pursued possum, thethermometer began to fall in the afternoon and by night had established aclear, cold, windless condition of weather. The start for the Cliffs wasto be made from the fork of the River Road, where cars, horses, traps andhampers were to be left with the servants, who by half past nine werealready in an excited group around a blazing, dry oak fire, over whichtwo score plump birds were ready to be roasted, attended by theautocratic Tempie. Jeff piled high with brush a huge log whoseheart was being burned out for the baking of sundry potatoes, while thearoma from the barbecue pit was maddening to even a ten o'clock appetite,and no estimate could be made of what damage would be done after themidnight return from the trail of the wily tree fruit.
David Kildare as usual was M.F.H. and his voice rang out as clearlyagainst the tall pines, while he welcomed the cars and traps full ofexcited hunters, as if he had not been speaking in a crowded hall for anhour or two.
Mrs. Cherry Lawrence arrived early, accompanied by the distinguishedsuffragist, who was as alert for sensations new as if she had been one ofan exploration party into the heart of darkest Africa. They were attendedby Tom and also the suave Hobson, who was all attentions but whosemaneuvers in the direction of Caroline Darrah were pitiably fruitless.He was seconded in his attentions to the stranger by David with his mostfascinating manner, and Mrs. Cherry sparkled and glowed at him withsubdued witchery, while Tom sulked close at her side.
Polly and young Boston had trailed Mrs. Buchanan's car on horses andPhoebe was intent on pinning up the d?butante's habit skirt to acomfortable scramble length. Billy Bob fairly bubbled over with glee andMilly, who had come to assist Mrs. Matilda in overlooking thepreparations for the feast for the returned hunters, was already busyassembling hampers and cases on a flat rock over behind the largest fire.Her anxious heart was at rest about her nestlings, for Caroline's maid,Annette, had gone French mad over the babies and had begged the privilegeof keeping Mammy Betty company in her watch beside the cots.
"Come here, Caroline, child," called David from behind the farthest fire,"let me look at you! Seems to me you are in for a good freezing." And hedrew her into the light of the blaze.
She was kilted and booted and coated and belted in the most beautiful andwholly correct attire for the hunt that could possibly have beencontrived; that is, for a sedate cross-country bird stalk or a decoroustrap shooting, but for a long night scramble over the frozen ground shewas insufficiently clad. The other girls all wore heavy golf skirts andcoats and were muffled to their eyes; even the big-bug lady wore aknitted comforter high round her throat. Without doubt Caroline wouldhave been in for a cold deal, if David had not been more than equal toany occasion.
"Here, Andy, skin out of that sweater and get into that extra buckskin inmy electric," he said, and forthwith began without ceremony to assistAndrew Sevier in peeling off a soft, white, high-collared sweater hewore, and in less time than it took to think it he had slipped it overCaroline's protesting head, pulled it down around her slim hips almost towhere her kilts met her boots and rolled the collar up under her eyes.Then he immediately turned his attention to the arrival of the mongrelsleuths, each accompanied by a white-toothed negro of renownedcoon-fighting, possum-catching proclivities, whom he had assembled fromthe Old Harpeth to lead the hunt, thus leaving Caroline and Andrew alonefor the moment on the far side of the fire.
"Indeed, I'm not going to have your sweater!" she protested, beginning todivest herself of the borrowed garment, but not knowing exactly how tocrawl out of its soft embrace.
"Please, oh, please do!" he exclaimed quickly, and as he spoke he caughther hand away, that had begun to tug at the collar.
"I wouldn't keep it for the world--and have you cold, but--I can't getout," she answered with a laugh. "Please show me or call for help."
And as she pleaded Andrew Sevier towered beside her, tall and slender,while the cold breeze with its pine-laden breath ruffled his whiteshirt-sleeves across his arms. Caroline Darrah in the embrace of hisclinging apparel was a sight that sent the blood through his veins at arate that warred with the winds, and his eyes drank deeply. The colormounted under her eyes and with the unconsciousness of a child shenestled her chin in the woolly folds about the neck as she turned herface from the firelight.
"Well, then, get David's coat from the car," she pleaded.
"Will you stand back in the shadow of that tree until I do?" he asked.
He had caught across the fire a glimpse of the restive Hobson and asudden mad desire prompted him to snatch this one joy from Fate, comewhat would--just a few hours with her under the winter stars, when lifeseemed to offer so little in the count of the years.
"Why, yes, of course! Did you think I'd dare go out in the dark alone,without you?" and her joyous ingenuous casting of herself upon hisprotection was positively poignant. "Hurry, please, because I--don't wantanybody to find me before you come!" After which request it took him verylittle time to run across the lot and vault the fence into the road wherethe electric stood.
"It's so uncertain how things arrange themselves sometimes, some places,"she remarked to herself as she caught sight of the movements of thefoiled Hobson, whose search had now become an open maneuver.
Suddenly she laid her cheek against the arm of the sweater and sniffed itwith her delicate nose--yes, there was the undeniable fragrance of themajor's Seven Oaks heart-leaf. "He steals the tobacco, too," she againremarked to herself as she caught sight of him skirting the fires ashe returned.
Just at this moment a pandemonium of yelps, barks, bays and yells brokeforth up the ravine and declared the hunt on.
"Everybody follow the dogs and keep within hearing distance! We'll waitfor the trailers to come up when we tree before we shake down!" shoutedDavid as with one accord the whole company plunged into the woods.
Away from the fire, the starlight, which was beginning to be reinforcedby the glow from a late old moon, was bright enough to keep the rush upthe ravine, over log and boulder, through tangle and across open, a nottoo dangerous foray.
The first hurdle was a six-rail fence that snaked its way between afrozen meadow and a woods lot. David stationed himself on the far side ofthe lowest and strongest panel and proceeded to swing down the girls whomHob and Tom persuaded to the top rail.
The champion for the rights of women took long and much assistance forthe mount and entrusted her somewhat bulky self to the strong arms ofDavid Kildare with a feminine dependence that almost succeeded incracking those stalwart supports.
Polly climbed two rails, put her hand on the top and vaulted like a boyalmost into the embrace of young Massachusetts and together they racedafter the dogs, who were adding tumult to the hitherto pandemonium of thehot trail.
Tom Cantrell managed Mrs. Cherry most deftly and seemed anxious to directDavid in the landing though she was most willing to trust it entirely tohim. After hurrying Phoebe to the top rail he vaulted lightly to the sideof David and departed in haste, taking the reluctant widow with him bymain force.
Phoebe perched herself on the top of the fence, which brought her headsomewhat above the level of David's, and seemed in no hurry to descend inorder to be at the shake-down, which from the shouts and yelps seemedimminent.
"Ready, or want to rest a minute?" asked David gently; but his eyeslooked past hers and there was the shadow of reserve in his voice.
"No," answered Phoebe, "but you must be tired so I'll just slip down,"and she essayed to cheat him with the utmost treachery. David neitherspoke nor looked at her directly but took her quietly in his arms andswung her to the ground beside him.
Now this was not the first pursuit of the possum that had been attendedby Phoebe in the company of David Kildare, and she was prepared for theaudacious hint of a squeeze, with which he usually took his toll andwhich she always ignored utterly with reproving intent; the morereproving on the one or two occasions when she had been tempted intoy
ielding to the caress for the remotest fraction of a second. But forevery snub in the fence events that had been pulled off between them inthe past years, David was fully revenged by the impassive landing ofPhoebe on the dry and frozen grass at his side. Revenged--and there wassomething over that was cutting into her adamant heart like a two-edgemarble saw.
But Phoebe had been born a thoroughbred and it was head up and run as shesaw in a second, so she smiled up at him and said in a perfectly friendlytone:
"I really don't think we'd better wait for Caroline and Andrew. Do let'shurry, for they've treed, and I think those dogs will go mad in amoment!" And together they disappeared in the woodland.
Around a tall tree that stood on the slope of the hill they found a scenethat was uproar rampant. Five maddened dogs gazed aloft into the gnarledbranches of the persimmon king and danced and jumped to the accompanimentof one another's insane yelps. A half-dozen negro boys were in the sameattitude and state of mind, and the tension was immense.
Polly gasped and giggled and the suffrage lady almost became entangledwith the waltzing dogs in her endeavor to sight the quarry.
"Dar he am!" exclaimed the blackest satyr, and he pointed to one of thelower limbs from which there hung by the tail the most pathetic littlebunch of bristles imaginable. "Le'me shake him down, Mister David, Ifoun' him!"
"All right, shin up, but mind the limbs," answered David. "And you, Jake,get the dogs in hand! We want to take home possums, not full dogs!"
And like an agile ape the darky swung himself up and out on the low limb."Here he come!" he shouted, and ducked to give a jerk that shook thewhole limb.
The dogs danced and Polly squealed, while the rotund lady managed to stepon young Back Bay's toes and almost forgot to "beg pardon," but Mr.Possum hung on by his long rat-tail with the greatest serenity.
"Buck up thar, nigger, shake dat whole tree; dis here ain't nocake-walk," one of his confr?res yelled, and the sally was caught with aloud guffaw.
Thus urged the darky braced himself and succeeded in putting the wholetree into a commotion, at the height of which there was a crash and ascramble from the top limb and in a second a ball of gray fur descendedon his woolly head, knocked him off his perch and crashed with him tothe ground. Then there ensued a raging battle in which were involved fivedogs, a long darky and a ring-tailed streak of coon lightning, whichwhirled and bit and scratched itself free and plunged into the darknessbefore the astonished hunters could get more than a glimpse of the m?l?e.
"Coon, coon!" yelled the negroes, and scattered into the woods at theheels of the discountenanced dogs. Mr. Possum, saved by the stiff fightput up by his ring-tailed woods-brother, had taken this opportunity ofunhanging himself and departing into parts unknown, perhaps a still morewily citizen after his threatened extinction.
In a few minutes from up the hill came another tumult, and Jake raised along shout of "two possums," which served to hasten the scramble of therest of the party through the underbrush to a breathless pace.
Another gray ball hung to another limb and this time the derisive Jakesucceeded in the shake-down and the bagging amid the most breathlessexcitement. It was a sight to see the sophisticated little animal lielike dead and be picked up and handled in a state of seeming lifelessrigidity--a display of self-control that seemed to argue a superiority ofinstinct over reason.
After this opening event the hunt swept on with a rapidly mounting countand a heavier and heavier bag.
And, too, it was just as well that no one in particular, save thedefrauded Hobson, who was obliged to conceal his chagrin, was especiallymindful of the whereabouts of Caroline and the poet. In fact, it wouldhave been difficult for them to have located themselves in answer to awireless inquiry.
Andrew had started out from the hiding tree with the intention of cuttingacross the trail of the hunters at right angles a little up the ravine,and he had trusted to a six-year-old remembrance of the lay of the landas he led the way across the frosty meadow and up the ridge at a briskpace. Caroline swung lithely along beside him and in the matter of fencestook Polly's policy of a hand up and then a high vault, which made forpractically no delay. They skirted the tangle of buck bushes and came outon the edge of the cliff just as the hunt swept by at their feet and onup the creek bed. They were both breathless and tingling with theexertion of their climb.
"There they go--left behind--no catching them!" exclaimed Andrew. "Nopossum for you, and this is your hunt! I'm most awfully sorry!"
"Don't you suppose they will save me one?" asked Caroline composedly, andas she spoke she walked to the edge of the bluff and looked down into thedark ravine interestedly.
"You don't want the possum, child, you want to see it caught. The negroesget the little beasts; it's the bagging that's the excitement!" Andrewregarded her with amused interest.
"I don't seem to care to see things caught," she answered. "I'm alwayssorry for them. I would let them all go if I got the chance--all caughtthings." A little crackle in the bushes at her side made her move nearerto him.
"I believe you would--release any 'caught thing'--if you could," he saidwith a note of bitterness in his voice that she failed to detect. A coldwind swept across the meadow and he swung around so his broad shouldersscreened her from its tingle. Her eyes gazed out over the valley at theirfeet.
"This is the edge of the world," she said softly. "Do you remember yourlittle verses about the death of the stars?" She turned and raised hereyes to his. "We are holding a death-watch beside them now as the mooncomes up over the ridge there. When I read the poem I felt breathless toget out somewhere high up and away from things--and watch."
"I was 'high up' when I wrote them," answered Andrew with a laugh. "Lookover there on the hill--see those two old locusts? They are fern palmsand those scrub oaks are palmettos. The white frost makes the meadow alagoon and this rock is the pier of my bridge where I came out to watchone night to test the force of a freshet. Over there the light from Mrs.Matilda's fires is the construction camp and beyond that hill is mybungalow. That's the same old moon that's rising relentlessly to murderthe stars again. Do you want to stay and watch the tragedy--or hunt?"
Without a word Caroline sank down on the dried leaves that lay in a drifton the edge of the bluff. Andrew crouched close beside her to thewindward. And the ruthless old moon that was putting the stars out ofbusiness by the second was not in the least abashed to find them gazingat her as she blustered up over the ridge, round and red with exertion.
"Were you alone on that pier?" asked Caroline with the utmost na?vet?, asshe snuggled down deeper into the collar of the sweater.
"I'm generally alone--in most ways," answered Andrew, the suspicion of alaugh covering the sadness in his tone. "I seem to see myself goingthrough life alone unless something happens--quick!" The bitter notesounded plainly this time and cut with an ache into her consciousness.
"I've been a little lonely, too--always, until just lately and now Idon't feel that way at all;" she looked at him thoughtfully with moonliteyes that were deep like sapphires. "I wonder why?"
Andrew Sevier's heart stopped dead still for a second and then began topound in his breast as if entrapped. For the moment his voice was utterlyuseless and he prayed helplessly for a meed of self-control that mightaid him to gain a sane footing.
Then just at that moment the old genie of the forests, who gloats throughthe seasons over myriads of wooings that are carried on in the fastnessesof his green woods, sounded a long, low, guttural groan that rose to ablood-curdling shriek, from the branches just above the head of themoon-mad man and girl. For an instrument he used the throat of an enragedold hoot-owl, perturbed by the intrusion of the noise of the distant huntand the low-voiced conversation on his wonted privacy.
And the experienced ancient succeeded in precipitating the crisis of thesituation with magical promptness, for Caroline sprang to her feet,turned with a shudder and buried her head in Andrew's hunting coatsomewhere near the left string for cartridge loops. She clung to
him inabject terror.
"Sweetheart!" he exclaimed, giving her a little shake, "it's only a crossold owl--don't be frightened," and he raised her cheek against his ownand drew her nearer. But Caroline trembled and clung and seemed unable toface the situation. Andrew essayed further reassurance by turning hishead until his lips pressed a tentative kiss against the curve of herchin.
"He can't get you," he entreated and managed a still closer embrace.
"Is he still there?" came in a muffled voice from against his neck whereCaroline had again buried her head at a slight crackling from the darkbranches overhead.
"I think he is, bless him!" answered Andrew, and this time the kissmanaged a landing on the warm lips under the eyes raised to his.
And then ensued several breathless moments while the world reeled aroundand the vital elemental force that is sometimes cruel, sometimes kind,turned the wheel of their universe.
"I'm not frightened any more," Caroline at last managed to say as sheprepared to withdraw, not too decisively, from her strong-armed refuge.
"He's still there," warned Andrew Sevier with a happy laugh, and Carolineyielded again for a second, then drew his arms aside.
"Thank you--I'm not afraid any more--of anything," she said, laughinginto his eyes, "and I really think we had better try to get back to campand supper, for I don't hear the dogs any longer. We don't want to belost like the 'babes in the woods' and left to die out here, do we?"
"Are you sure we haven't gone and stumbled into heaven, anyway?" demandedAndrew.
He then proceeded to roll the collar of her sweater higher about her earsand to pull the long sleeves down over her hands. He even bent to stretchthe garment an inch or two nearer the tops of her boots.
"Are you cold?" he demanded anxiously, for a stiff wind had risen andblew upon them with icy breath.
"Not a single bit," she answered, submitting herself to his anxiousministrations with her most engaging six-going-on-seven manner. Then shecaught one of his fumbling hands in hers and pressed it to her cheek fora moment.
"Now," she said, "we can never be lonely any more, can we? I'm going torace you down the hill, across the meadow and over three fences tosupper!" And before he could stay her she had flitted through the bushesand was running on before him, slim and fleet.
He caught her in time to swing her over the first fence and capture anelusive caress. The second barrier she vaulted and eluded him entirely,but from the top of the last she bent and gave him his kiss as he liftedher down. In another moment they had joined the circle around thecrackling fire, where they were greeted with the wildest hilarity andoverwhelmed with food and banter.
"Did you people ever hear of the man who bought a fifty-dollar coon dog,took him out to hunt the first night, almost cried because he thought hehad lost him down a sink hole, hunted all night for him, came home in thedaylight and found pup asleep under the kitchen stove?" demanded David ashe filled two long glasses with a simmering decoction, from which arosethe aroma of baked apples, spices, and some of the major's eighty-sixcorn heart. "Caroline is my point to my little story. Have you two beensitting in Mrs. Matilda's car or mine, or did you roost for a time on thefence over there in the dark?"
"Please, David, please hush and give me a bird and a biscuit--I'mhungry," answered Caroline as she sank on a cushion beside Mrs. Buchanan.
"According to the ink slingers of all times you ought not to be; but Andyhas already got outside of two sandwiches, so I suppose you are due onesmall bird. That cake is grand, beautiful. I've put it away to eat all bymyself to-morrow. Andrew Sevier doesn't need any. He wouldn't know cakefrom corn-pone--he's moonstruck."
Just at this point a well-aimed pine-cone glanced off David's collar andhe settled down to the business in hand, which was the disposal of abursting and perfectly hot potato, handed fresh from the coals by theattentive Jeff.
And it was more than an hour later that the tired hunters wended theirway back to the city. Polly was so sleepy that she could hardly sit herhorse and was in a subdued and utterly fascinating mood, with which shedid an irreparable amount of damage to the stranger within her gatesas she rode along the moonlit pike, and for which she had later to makeanswer. The woman's champion dozed in the tonneau and only David had thespirit to sing as they whirled along.
Hadn't Phoebe stirred the sugar into his cup of coffee and then in anabsolutely absent-minded manner tasted it before she had come around thefire to hand it to him? It had been a standing argument between them foryears as to a man's right to this small attention, which they both teasedMrs. Matilda for bestowing upon the major. It was an insignificant,inconsequent little ceremony in itself but it fired a train in David'smind, made for healing the wound in his heart and brought itsconsequences. Another reconstruction campaign began to shape its policyin the mind of David Kildare which had to do with the molding of thedestiny of the high-headed young woman of his affections, rather thanwith the amelioration of conditions in his native city. So, high andclear he sang the call of the mocking-bird with its ecstasies and itsminors.
But late as it was, after he had landed his guests at their doors, he hada long talk over the phone with the clerk of his headquarters and sent ahalf-dozen telegrams before he turned into his room. When he switched onhis lights he saw that Andrew stood by the window looking out into thenight. His face was so drawn and white as he turned that David startedand reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder.
"Dave," he said, "I'm a blackguard and a coward--don't touch me!"
"What is it, Andrew?" asked David as he laid his arm across the tenseshoulders.
"I thought I was strong and dared to stay--now I know I'm a coward andcouldn't go. I'll have to sneak away and leave her--hurt!" His voice waslow and toned with an unspeakable scorn of himself.
"Andy," asked David, as he swung him around to face him, "was CarolineDarrah too much for you--and the moon?"
"There's nothing to say about it, David, nothing! I have only made ithard for her: and killed myself for myself forever. She's a child andshe'll forget. You'll see to her, won't you?"
"What are you going to do now?" asked David sternly.
"Cut and run--cowards always do," answered Andrew bitterly. "I am goingto stay and see you through this election, for it's too late to turn thepress matters over to any one else--and I'm going to pray to find someway to make it easier for her before I leave her. I'm afraid some dayshe'll find out--and not understand why I went."
"Why do you go, Andrew?" asked David as he faced this friend withcompelling eyes. "If it's pride that takes you, better give it up! It'sdeadly for you both, for she's more of a woman than you think--she'llsuffer."
"David, do you think she would have me if she knew what I put asideto take her--_and his millions_? Could Peters Brown's heiress everhave anything but contempt for me? When it comes to her she mustunderstand--and not think I held it against her!"
"Tell her, Andrew; let her decide! It's her right now!"
"Never," answered Andrew passionately. "She is just beginning to losesome of her sensitiveness among us and this is the worst of all thethings she has felt were between her and her people. It is the only thinghe covered and hid from her. I'll _never_ tell her--I'll go--and shewill forget!" In his voice there was the note of finality that isunmistakable from man to man. He turned toward his room as he finishedspeaking.
"Then, boy," said David as he held him back for a second in the bend ofhis arm, a tenderness in voice and clasp, "go if you must; but we'vethree days yet. The gods can get mighty busy in that many hours if theypull on a woman's side--which they always do. Good night!"
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