Air Trust

by George Allan England

  CHAPTER XV.

  AN HOUR AND A PARTING.

  Arriving at the sugar-house, tired yet strong, Gabriel put the woundedgirl down, quickly raked together a few armfuls of dead leaves, in themost sheltered corner of the ramshackle structure, and laid the heavyauto-robe upon this improvised bed. Then he helped his patient to liedown, there, and bade her wait till he got water to wash and dress hercut.

  "Don't worry about anything," he reassured her. "You're alive, andthat's the main thing, now. I'll see you through with this, whateverhappens. Just keep calm, and don't let anything distress you!"

  She looked at him with big, anxious eyes--eyes where still the fulllight of understanding had not yet returned.

  "It--it all happened so suddenly!" she managed to articulate. "He wasdrunk--the chauffeur. The car ran away. Where is it? Where isHerrick--the man?"

  "I don't know," Gabriel lied promptly and with force. Not for worldswould he have excited her with the truth. "Never you mind about that.Just lie still, now, till I come back!"

  Already, among the rusty utensils that had served for the"sugaring-off," the previous spring, he had routed out a tin pail. Hekicked a quantity of leaves in under the sheet-iron open stove, flungsome sticks atop of them, and started a little blaze. Warm water, hereflected, would serve better than cold in removing that clotting bloodand dressing the hurt.

  Then, saying no further word, but filled with admiration for the girl'spluck, he seized the pail and started for water.

  "Nerve?" he said to himself, as he ran down the road toward a littlebrook he remembered having crossed, a few hundred yards to southward."Nerve, indeed! Not one complaint about her own injuries! Not a word oflamentation! If this isn't a thoroughbred, whoever or whatever she is, Inever saw one!"

  He returned, presently, with the pail nearly full of cold and sparklingwater. Ignoring rust, he made her drink as deeply as she would, and thenset a dipperful of water on the now hot sheet-iron.

  Then, tearing a strip off the shawl, he made ready for his work as anamateur physician.

  "Tell me," said he, kneeling there beside her in the hut which wasalready beginning to grow dusk, "except for this cut on your forehead,do you feel any injury? Think you've got any broken bones? See if youcan move your legs and arms, all right."

  She obeyed.

  "Nothing broken, I guess," she answered. "What a miracle! Please leaveme, now. I can wash my own hurt. Go--go find Herrick! He needs you worsethan I do!"

  "No he doesn't!" blurted Gabriel with such conviction that sheunderstood.

  "You mean?" she queried, as he brought the dipper of now tepid water toher side. "He--he's dead?"

  He hesitated to answer.

  "Dead! Yes, I understand!" she interpreted his silence. "You needn'ttell me. I know!"

  He nodded.

  "Yes," said he. "Your chauffeur has paid the penalty of trying to drivea six-cylinder car with alcohol. Now, think no more of him! Here, let mesee how badly you're cut."

  "Let me sit up, first," she begged. "I--I'm not hurt enough to be lyinghere like--like an invalid!"

  She tried to rise, but with a strong hand on her shoulder he forced herback. She shuddered, with the horror of the chauffeur's death strongupon her.

  "Please lie still," he begged. "You've had a terrific shock, and havelived through it by a miracle, indeed. You're wounded and stillbleeding. You _must_ be quiet!"

  The tone in his voice admitted no argument. Submissive now to hisgreater strength, this daughter of wealth and power lay back, closed hertired eyes and let the revolutionist, the proletarian, minister to her.

  Dipping the piece of shawl into the warm water, he deftly moistened thedried blood on her brow and cheek, and washed it all away. He cleansedher sullied hair, as well, and laid it back from the wound.

  "Tell me if I hurt you, now," he bade, gently as a woman. "I've got towash the cut itself."

  She answered nothing, but lay quite still. And so, hardly wincing, shelet him lave the jagged wound that stretched from her right temple upinto the first tendrils of the glorious red-gold hair.

  "H'm!" thought Gabriel, as he now observed the cut with closeattention. "I'm afraid there'll have to be some stitches taken here!"But of this he said nothing. All he told her was: "Nothing to worryover. You'll be as good as new in a few days. As a miracle, it's _some_miracle!"

  Having completed the cleansing of the cut, he fetched his knapsack andproduced a clean handkerchief, which he folded and laid over the wound.This pad he secured in place by a long bandage cut from the edge of theshawl and tied securely round her shapely head.

  "There," said he, surveying his improvisation with considerablesatisfaction. "Now you'll do, till we can undertake the next thing.Sorry I haven't any brandy to give you, or anything of that sort. Thefact is, I don't use it, and have none with me. How do you feel, now?"

  She opened her eyes and looked up at him with the ghost of a smile onher pale lips.

  "Oh, much, much better, thank you!" she answered. "I don't need anybrandy. I'm--awfully strong, really. In a little while I'll be allright. Just give me a little more water, and--and tell me--who are you?"

  "Who am I?" he queried, holding up her head while she drank from the tincup he had now taken from his knapsack. "I? Oh, just an out-of-work.Nobody of any interest to you!"

  A certain tinge of bitterness crept into his voice. In health, he knew,a woman of this class would not suffer him even to touch her hand.

  "_Don't_ ask me who I am, please. And I--I won't ask _your_ name. We'reof different worlds, I guess. But for the moment, Fate has levelled thebarriers. Just let it go at that. And now, if you can stay here, allright; perhaps I can hike back to the next house, below here, andtelephone, and summon help."

  "How far is it?" she asked, looking at him with wonder in her lovelyeyes--wonder, and new thoughts, and a strange kind of longing to knowmore of this extraordinary man, so strong, so gentle, so unwilling todivulge himself or ask her name.

  "How far?" he repeated. "Oh, four or five miles. I can make it in notime. And with luck, I can have an auto and a doctor here before dark.Well, does that suit you?"

  "Don't go, please," she answered. "I--I may be still a little weak andfoolish, but--somehow, I don't want to be left alone. I want to be keptfrom remembering, from thinking of those last, awful moments when thecar was running away; when it struck the wall, at the turn; when I wasthrown out, and--and knew no more. Don't go just yet," the girlentreated, covering her eyes with both hands, as though to shut out thehorrible vision of the catastrophe.

  "All right," Gabriel answered. "Just as you please. Only, if I stay, youmust promise to stop thinking about the accident, and try to pulltogether."

  "I promise," she agreed, looking at him with strange eyes. "Oh dear,"she added, with feminine inconsequentiality, "my hair's all down, andLord knows where the pins are!"

  He smiled to himself as she managed, with the aid of such few hairpinsas remained, to coil the coppery meshes once more round her head andeven somewhat over the bandage, and secure them in place.

  At sight of his face as he watched her, she too smiled wanly--the firsttime he had seen a real smile on her mouth.

  "I'm only a woman, after all," she apologized. "You don't understand.You can't. But no matter. Tell me--why need you go, at all?"

  "Why? For help, of course."

  "There's sure to be a motor, or something, along this road, before verylong," she answered. "Put up some signal or other, to stop it. That willsave you a long, long walk, and save me from--remembering! I need youhere with me," she added earnestly. "Don't go--please!"

  "All right, as you will," the man made reply. "I'll rig a danger-signalon the road; and then all we can do will be to wait."

  This plan he immediately put into effect, setting his knapsack in themiddle of the road and piling up brush and limbs of trees about it.

  "There," he said to himself, as he surveyed the result, "no car will getby _that_, without noticing it!"

 
; Then he returned to the sugar-house, some hundred yards back from thehighway in the grove, now already beginning to grow dim with the shadowsof approaching nightfall. The glowing coals of the fire gleamed redly,through the rough place. The girl, still lying on her bed of leaves andauto-robes, with the mutilated shawl drawn over her, looked up at himwith an expression of trust and gratitude. For a second, only one,something quick and vital gripped at the wanderer's heart--some vague,intangible longing for a home and a woman, a longing old as our race,deep-planted in the inmost citadel of every man's soul. But,half-impatiently, he drove the thought away, dismissed it, and, smilingdown at her with cheerful eyes and white, even teeth, said reassuringly:

  "Everything's all right now. The first machine that passes, will takeyou to civilization."

  "And you?" she asked. "What of you, then?"

  "Me? Oh, I'll hike," he answered. "I'll plug along just as I was doingwhen I found you."

  "Where to?"

  "Oh, north."

  "What for?"

  "Work. Please don't question me. I'd rather you wouldn't."

  She pondered a moment.

  "Are you--what they call a--workingman?" she presently resumed.

  "Yes," said he. "Why?"

  "And are you happy?"

  "Yes. In a way. Or shall be, when I've done what I mean to do."

  "But--forgive me--you're very poor?"

  "Not at all! I have, at this present moment, more than eighteen dollarsin my pocket, and I have _these_!"

  He showed her his two hands, big and sinewed, capable and strong.

  "Eighteen dollars," she mused, half to herself. "Why, I have spent that,and more, for a single ounce of a new perfume--something very rare, youknow, from Japan."

  "Indeed? Well, don't tell _me_," he replied. "I'm not interested in howyou spend money, but how you get it."

  "Get it? Oh, father gives me my allowance, that's all."

  "And he squeezes it out of the common people?"

  She glanced at him quickly.

  "You--you aren't a Socialist, into the bargain, are you?" she inquired.

  "At your service," he bowed.

  "This is strange, strange indeed," she said. "Tell me your name."

  "No," he refused. "I'd still rather not. Nor shall I ask yours. Pleasedon't volunteer it."

  Came a moment's silence, there in the darkening hut, with the fire-glowred upon their faces.

  "Happy," said the girl. "You say you're happy. While I--"

  "Are not unhappy, surely?" asked Gabriel, leaning forward as he satthere beside her, and gazing keenly into her face.

  "How should I know?" she answered. "Unhappy? No, perhaps not. Butvacant--empty--futile!"

  "Yes, I believe you," Gabriel judged. "You tell me no news. And as youare, you will ever be. You will live so and die so. No, I won't preach.I won't proselytize. I won't even explain. It would be useless. You areone pole, I the other. And the world--the whole wide world--liesbetween!"

  Suddenly she spoke.

  "You're a Socialist," said she. "What does it mean to be a Socialist?"

  He shook his head.

  "You couldn't understand, if I told you," he answered.

  "Why not?"

  "Oh, because your ideas and environments and interests and everythinghave been so different from mine--because you're what you are--becauseyou can never be anything else."

  "You mean Socialism is something beyond my understanding?" she demanded,piqued. "Of course, that's nonsense. I'm a human being. I've got brains,haven't I? I can understand a scheme of dividing up, or levelling down,or whatever it is, even if I can't believe in it!"

  He smiled oddly.

  "You've just proved, by what you've said," he answered slowly, "thatyour whole concepts are mistaken. Socialism isn't anything like what youthink it is, and if I should try to explain it, you'd raise ten thousandfutile objections, and beg the question, and defeat my object ofexplanation by your very inability to get the point of view. So yousee--"

  "I see that I want to know more!" she exclaimed, with determination. "Ifthere's any branch of human knowledge that lies outside my reasoningpowers, it's time I found that fact out. I thought Socialists were wild,crazy, erratic cranks; but if you're one, then I seem to have beenwrong. You look rational enough, and you talk in an eminently sanemanner."

  "Thank you," he replied, ironically.

  "Don't be sarcastic!" she retorted. "I only meant--"

  "It's all right, anyhow," said he. "You've simply got the old, stupid,wornout ideas of your class. You can't grasp this new ideal, risingthrough the ruck and waste and sin and misery of the present system. Idon't blame you. You're a product of your environment. You can't helpit. With that environment, how can you sense the newer and more vitalideas of the day?"

  For a moment she fixed eager eyes on him, in silence. Then asked she:

  "Ideals? You mean that Socialism has ideals, and that it's not all amatter of tearing down and dividing up, and destroying everything goodand noble and right--all the accumulated wisdom and resources of theworld?"

  He laughed heartily.

  "Who handed you that bunk?" he demanded.

  "Father told me Socialism was all that, and more,"

  "What's your father's business?"

  "Why, investments, stocks, bonds, industrial development and all thatsort of thing."

  "Hm!" he grunted. "I thought as much!"

  "You mean that father misinformed me?"

  "Rather!"

  "Well, if he did, what is Socialism?"

  "Socialism," answered the young man slowly, while he fixed his eyes onthe smouldering fire, "Socialism is a political movement, a concept oflife, a philosophy, an interpretation, a prophecy, an ideal. It embraceshistory, economics, science, art, religion, literature and every phaseof human activity. It explains life, points the way to better things,gives us hope, strengthens the weary and heavy-laden, bids us lookupward and onward, and constitutes the most sublime ideal ever conceivedby the soul of man!"

  "Can this be true?" the girl demanded, astonished.

  "Not only can, but is! Socialism would free the world from slavery andslaves, from war, poverty, prostitution, vice and crime; would cleansethe sores of our rotting capitalism, would loose the gyves from thefettered hands of mankind, would bid the imprisoned soul of man awake tonobler and to purer things! How? The answer to that would take me weeks.You would have to read and study many books, to learn the entire truth.But I am telling you the substance of the ideal--a realizable ideal, andno chimera--when I say that Socialism sums up all that is good, andbanishes all that is evil! And do you wonder that I love and serve it,all my life?"

  She peered at him in wonder.

  "You serve it? How?" she demanded.

  "By spreading it abroad; by speaking for it, working for it, fightingfor it! By the spoken and the printed word! By every act and throughevery means whereby I can bring it nearer and nearer realization!"

  "You're a dreamer, a visionary, a fanatic!" she exclaimed.

  "You think so? No, I can't agree. Time will judge that matter.Meanwhile, I travel up and down the earth, spreading Socialism."

  "And what do you get out of it, personally?"

  "I? What do you mean? I never thought of that question."

  "I mean, money. What do you make out of it?"

  He laughed heartily.

  "I get a few jail-sentences, once in a while; now and then a crack overthe head with a policeman's billy, or maybe a peek down the muzzle of arifle. I get--"

  "You mean that you're a martyr?"

  "By no means! I've never even thought of being called such. This is aprivilege, this propaganda of ours. It's the greatest privilege in theworld--bringing the word of life and hope and joy to a crushed, bleedingand despairing world!"

  She thought a moment, in silence.

  "You're a poet, I believe!" said she.

  "No, not that. Only a worker in the ranks."

  "But do you write poetry?"

 
"I write verses. You'd hardly call them poetry!"

  "Verses? About Socialism?"

  "Sometimes."

  "Will you give me some?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Tell me some of them."

  "Of course not! I can't recite my verses! They aren't worth botheringyou with!"

  "That's for me to judge. Let me hear something of that kind. If you onlyknew how terribly much you interest me!"

  "You mean that?"

  "Of course I do! Please let me hear something you've written!"

  He pondered a moment, then in his well-modulated, deep-toned voicebegan:

  _HESPERIDES_.

  I.

  My feet, used to pine-needles, moss and turf, And the gray boulders at the lip o' the sea, Where the cold brine jets up its creamy surf, Now tread once more these city ways, unloved by me, Hateful and hot, gross with iniquity. And so I grieve, Grieve when I wake, or at high blinding noon Or when the moon Mocks this sad Ninevah where the throngs weave Their jostling ways by day, their paths by night; Where darkness is not--where the streets burn bright With hectic fevers, eloquent of death! I gasp for breath.... Visions have I, visions! So sweet they seem That from this welter of men and things I turn, to dream Of the dim Wood-world, calling out to me. Where forest-virgins I half glimpse, half see With cool mysterious fingers beckoning! Where vine-wreathed woodland altars sunlit burn, Or Dryads dance their mystic rounds and sing, Sing high, sing low, with magic cadences That once the wild oaks of Dodona heard; And every wood-note bids me burst asunder The bonds that hold me from the leaf-hid bird. I quaff thee, O Nepenthe! Ah, the wonder Grows, that there be who buy their wealth, their ease By damning serfs to cities, hot and blurred, Far from thy golden quest, Hesperides!...

  II.

  I see this August sun again Sheer up high heaven wheel his angry way; And hordes of men Bleared with unrestful sleep rise up another day, Their bodies racked with aftermaths of toil. Over the city, in each gasping street, Shudders a haze of heat, Reverberant from pillar, span and plinth. Once more, cribbed in this monstrous labyrinth Sacrificed to the Minotaur of Greed Men bear the turmoil, glare, sweat, brute inharmonies; Denial of each simplest human need, Loss of life's meaning as day lags on day; And my rebellious spirit rises, flies In dreams to the green quiet wood away, Away! Away!

  III.

  And now, and now...I feel the forest-moss... Come! On these moss-beds let me lie with Pan, Twined with the ivy-vine in tendrill'd curls, And I will hold all gold, that hampers man, Only the ashes of base, barren dross! On with the love-dance of the pagan girls! The pagan girls with lips all rosy-red, With breasts upgirt and foreheads garlanded, With fair white foreheads nobly garlanded! With sandalled feet that weave the magic ring! Now...let them sing, And I will pipe a tune that all may hear, To bid them mind the time of my wild rhyme; To warn profaning feet lest they draw near. Away! Away! Beware these mystic trees! Who dares to quest you now, Hesperides?

  IV.

  Great men of song, what sing ye? Woodland meadows? Rocks, trees and rills where sunlight glints to gold? Sing ye the hills, adown whose sides blue shadows Creep when the westering day is growing old? Sing ye the brooks where in the purling shallows The small fish dart and gleam? Sing ye the pale green tresses of the willows That stoop to kiss the stream? Or sing ye burning streets, foul with the breath Of sweatshop, tenement, where endlessly Spawned swarms of folk serve tyrant masters twain-- Profit, and his twin-brother, grinning Death? Where millions toil, hedged off from aught save pain? Far from thee ever, O mine Arcady?...

  His voice ceased and silence fell between the man and woman in the oldsugar-house. Gabriel sat there by the dying fire, which cast its ruddylight over his strongly virile face, and gazed into the coals. The girl,lying on the rude bed, her face eager, her slim strong hands tightlyclasped, had almost forgotten to breathe.

  At last she spoke.

  "That--that is wonderful!" she cried, a tremor of enthusiasm in hervoice.

  He shook his head.

  "No compliments, please," said he.

  "I'm not complimenting you! I think it _is_ wonderful. You're a truepoet!"

  "I wish I were--so I might use it all for Socialism!"

  "You could make a fortune, if you'd work for some paper ormagazine--some regular one, I mean, not Socialist."

  He shook his head.

  "Dead sea fruit," he answered. "Fairy gold, fading in the clutch,worthless through and through. No, if my work has any merit, it's allfor Socialism, now and ever!"

  Silence again. Neither now found a word to say, but their eyes met andread each other; and a kind of solemn hush seemed to lie over theirhearts.

  Then, as they sat there, looking each at each--for now the girl hadraised herself on the crude bed and was supporting herself with onehand--a sudden sound of a motor, on the road, awakened them from theirmusing.

  Came the raucous wail of a siren. Then the engine-exhaust ceased; and avoice, raised in some annoyance, hailed loudly through the maple-grove:

  "Hello! Hello? What's wrong here?"

  Gabriel stepped to the sugar-house door:

  "Here! Come here!" he shouted in a ringing voice that echoed wildly frombetween his hollowed palms.

  As the motorist still sat there, uncomprehending, Gabriel made his waytoward the road.

  "Accident here," said he. "Girl in here, injured. Can you take her tothe nearest town, at once? She needs a doctor."

  Instantly the man was out of his car, and hastening toward Gabriel.

  "Eh? What?" he asked. "Anything serious?"

  In a few words, Gabriel told him the outlines of the tale.

  "The quicker you get the girl to a town, and let her have a doctor andcommunication with her family, the better," he concluded.

  "Right! I'll do all in my power," said the other, a rather stout,well-to-do, vulgar-looking man.

  "Good! This way, then!"

  The man followed Gabriel to the sugar-house. They found the girl alreadyon her feet, standing there a bit unsteadily, but with determination tobe game, in every feature.

  Five minutes later she was in the new-comer's car, which had been turnedaround and now was headed back toward Haverstraw. The shawl and robeserving her as wraps, she was made comfortable in the tonneau.

  "Think you can stand it, all right?" asked Gabriel, as he took in histhe hand she extended. "In half an hour, you'll be under a doctor'scare, and your father will be on his way toward you."

  She nodded, and for a second tightened the grasp of her hand.

  "I--I'm not even going to know who you are?" she asked, a strange tonein her voice.

  "No," he answered. "And now, good luck, and good-bye!"

  "Good-bye," she echoed, her voice almost inaudible. "I--I won't forgetyou."

  He made no answer, but only smiled in a peculiar way.

  Then, as the car rolled slowly forward, their hands separated.

  Gabriel, bareheaded and with level gaze, stood there in the middle ofthe great highway, looking after her. A minute, under the darkeningarches of the forest road, he saw her, still. Then the car swung rounda bend, and vanished.

  Had she waved her hand at him? He could not tell. Motionless he stood, awhile, then cleared away the barrier of branches that obstructed theroad, took up his knapsack, and with slow steps returned to thesugar-house.

  Almost on the threshold, a white something caught his eye. He picked itup. Her handkerchief! A moment he held the dainty, filmy thing in hisrough hand. A vague perfume reached his nostrils, disquieting andseductive.

  "More than eighteen dollars an ounce, perhaps!" he exclaimed, withsudden bitterness; but still he did not throw the handkerchief away.Instead, he looked at it more keenly. In one corner, the fading lightjust showed him some initials. He studied them, a mom
ent.

  "C. J. F." he read. Then, yielding to a sudden impulse, hefolded the kerchief and put it in his pocket.

  He entered the sugar-house, to make sure, before departing, that he hadleft no danger of fire behind him.

  Another impulse bade him sit down on a rough box, there, before thedying embers. He gazed at the bed of leaves, a while, immersed inthought, then filled his pipe and lighted it with a glowing brand, andsat there--while the night came--smoking and musing, in a reverie.

  The overpowering lure of the woman who had lain in his arms, as he hadborne her thither; her breath upon his face; the perfume of her, evenher blood that he had washed away--all these were working on his senses,still. But most of all he seemed to see her eyes, there in theember-lit gloom, and hear her voice, and feel her lithe young body andher breast against his breast.

  For a long time he sat there, thinking, dreaming, smoking, till the lastshred of tobacco was burned out in the heel of his briar; till the lastember had winked and died under the old sheet-iron stove.

  At last, with a peculiar laugh, he rose, slung the knapsack once more onhis shoulders, settled his cap upon his head, and made ready to depart.

  But still, one moment, he lingered in the doorway. Lingered and lookedback, as though in his mind's eye he would have borne the place awaywith him forever.

  Suddenly he stooped, picked up a leaf from the bed where she had lain,and put that, too, in his pocket where the kerchief was.

  Then, looking no more behind him, he strode off across the maple-grove,through which, now, the first pale stars were glimmering. He reached theroad again, swung to the north, and, striking into his long marchingstride, pushed onward northward, away and away into the soft Junetwilight.