The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding

by Annie F. Johnston

  CHAPTER XI

  THE END OF SEVERAL THINGS

  THE old Colonel was in the library, telling for the hundredth time tothe small listener on his knee the story of the battle that had takenhis right arm. For since Wardo had found that his father's father was inthe same wild charge against the Yankees, and had fought like a tigertill a wound in the head and another in the knee sent him to the rear ona stretcher, he could not hear the story often enough. And that led toother tales of things that had happened when the two soldier-friendswere schoolboys. It puzzled Wardo to find any resemblance between themischievous boy whom the Colonel referred to as Cy Bannon, and thedignified judge whose picture hung on the wall of the Colonel's den.

  "Oh, his name was Cyrus Edward then, just as yours is now," explainedthe Colonel when he finally understood the difficulty. "But it was toolong a name for such a grasshopper of a lad. He'd have been out ofsight before you could say it all. So they cut it down to Cy, just asyours is cut to Wardo."

  "Will I be Judge Cywus Edwa'd Bannon then when I'm gwoed up?" askedWardo.

  The seriousness of the big innocent eyes fixed on him made the Colonelmove uneasily. "Heaven knows," he muttered. "_I_ don't. But it's to behoped you'll take after him instead of the one next in line ofsuccession."

  The question made such a profound impression on him he could not shakeit off, and acting on the impulse of the moment he decided to take it tothe Judge himself for an answer. He would show him the winsome littlelad who bore his name. He would demand of him what right he had towithhold from him the protection and shelter that was his heritage. Thechild's father had been cast off in proud scorn for his profligate ways.Secretly the Colonel had always thought that his old friend had shirkedresponsibility, and that the open repudiation of him by his family hadgiven Ned his final downward shove.

  It made no difference to the Colonel that Ned's name was a forbidden onein the household. _He'd_ tell Cy Bannon a few things. Then his facesoftened and he smiled a trifle foolishly, muttering something about itsbeing a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The Judge might comeback at him with the argument that he had been just as harsh with hisown child for far less cause; but that would only give him a chance tourge a reconciliation on the ground that _he_ had surrenderedgracefully, and had been glad of it ever since. Cy would be a mightyqueer sort of man, he concluded, if he could hold out against such alittle grandson as Wardo. He was a child to walk into anybody'saffections.

  Lloyd had left the pair so deeply absorbed in war-stories, that she wassurprised on her return to the library a little later, to find no traceof either of them. They'd gone for a trolley ride Walker told her, andexpected to be gone most of the morning. So relieved of herresponsibility Lloyd made a longer visit in Rollington than usual. Thecrisis had been passed some time now, and Ida was so much better she wasbeginning to talk about Wardo's return. She would be able to sit up in afew days. As Lloyd entertained her with accounts of Wardo's sayings anddoings she realized more and more what a large place he had come to fillin the household, and how sorely they would all miss him when they hadto give him up. Ida's future looked so hopeless. It would be a long timebefore she would be strong enough to begin sewing again. She talkedwearily of the burden she must assume as soon as possible, and Lloydcame away weighed down with a sense of the injustice and wrong in theworld and her helplessness to right it.

  It was nearly noon when she reached the house. Wardo, who had just comein with her grandfather, rushed down the steps to meet her, his sailorhat on the back of his head, and his arms outstretched to give her gladwelcome. He clasped her around the knees, and put up his face to bekissed. His morning's adventures made him feel that he had been away anage. Then his voice trembling with the importance of his news, heannounced the three things of his visit which had made the mostimpression on him.

  "I saw the place on my gwan'fahvah's head where the Yankee bullet hithim, wite over his eye! An' the Colonel he shaked his stick at mygwan'fahvah, and got wed in the face when he talked." Then digging downinto the mite of a pocket that graced his blouse, he triumphantlybrought out the third item, a silver dollar that Judge Bannon had givenhim.

  By this time the Colonel had come out, and in answer to Lloyd's excitedquestions confessed the truth of Wardo's tale. He _had_ shaken his stickat the Judge. They had had a stormy interview and he lost his temper. Hewas sorry at first that he had taken Wardo, the child was so frightened,but it proved a good move, for his appealing little face pleaded hiscause better than anything else could have done, and in the end theJudge was completely won over by his handsome little namesake.

  "_And_," concluded the Colonel triumphantly, "he's promised to take Nedback and give him one more chance. He'll keep the lad and his mother inany event, and he's to send for them just as soon as she's able to bemoved."

  "Oh, you blessed old peace-makah!" cried Lloyd running up the steps tothrow her arms around his neck and give him as rapturous a hug as Wardohad given her. "You're a perfect darling, and you've made me so happy Idon't know what to do or say. I believe I'm as happy as Ida will be whenshe heahs it, and I'm going ovah there the minute I've had lunch, totell her. You're a public benefactah and everything else in thedictionary that's extra nice and fine."

  It was joy to the Colonel to have his praises sung like that, and hewent around the rest of the week with a self-satisfied virtuous feelingthat kept him beaming benignly on everything and everybody. In such anangelic humour was he, that Walker confided to Mom Beck that he was"right sma'ht worried 'bout ole Marse."

  It was a day of surprises for the whole family. On Lloyd's return fromher second visit to Rollington, about the middle of the afternoon, shesaw Jack Ware on the rear platform of the trolley-car, which passed thecarriage when she was nearly home. He had arrived two days sooner thanany one expected he could. Taller, broader and browner by far than theslim lad who waved her farewell from the Wigwam, he was unmistakably thesame Jack, and she would have recognized him anywhere.

  The second glance showed her father standing just behind him. They bothleaned out and waved their hats as they passed the carriage. A momentlater they were stepping off the car opposite the entrance gate, andwaiting for her to come up.

  "Anothah knight comes riding," she thought with a smile, wondering whatput the whimsical notion in her head, for she did not count Jack inthat class. He was simply her good comrade of the plains, nothingpicturesque about _him_.

  "I don't suppose there could be about the modern knight," she thought,amused that such fancies should come to her. "His only thought is to'get there.' When young Lochinvar comes out of the West now, his 'steed_is_ the best' from that standpoint, but you can't make the pictuahs andpoems out of trolley-cars that you can out of hawses in those old-timefancy trappings."

  Stepping out of the carriage, she sent it on ahead and turned to Jackwith such a cordial welcome that he reddened with pleasure under thebrown of his sunburned cheeks.

  "This is my 'Promised Land' as well as Mary's," he said as they walkedslowly towards the house, and he paused to look up at the grand oldtrees arching over them. "You've no idea how I've looked forward toseeing all this. Mother always pictured it as a sort of Beulah land.Then Joyce took up the same tune, and lastly Mary. She's the mostenthusiastic of all, and sat up till midnight the day she found I wascoming, to make a list of all the things she said I mustn't fail to seeor ask about."

  Taking a memorandum book from his pocket he opened it and held it outfor Lloyd and her father to see. There were three pages whereon Mary hadset down instructions for him to follow. Lloyd laughed as she glanced atthe head-line.

  THINGS TO DO WITHOUT FAIL

  1 Make Mr. Rob Moore's acquaintance, and see Oaklea.

  2 See The Beeches and all Mrs. Walton's curios, especially the bells of Luzon and mother-of-pearl fire-screen.

  3 See if Elise Walton is as pretty as she used to be, and notice how she does her hair now.

  4 Ask Lloyd to play on
the harp and sing the Dove Song, when the candles are lighted in the drawing-room.

  The list was such a long one that Lloyd did not read farther, butglanced at the page headed--

  THINGS NOT SO IMPORTANT, BUT I'D LIKE TO KNOW

  1 Ask about Girlie Dinsmore if you have a chance. Is she as much of a baby as ever?

  2 What has become of that horrid Bernice Howe?

  3 Does Betty still correspond with the "Pilgrim Father?"

  4 Look in the book-case on the north side of the library, and copy the name of that book on Spiders.

  5 Find out all you can about the man Allison is going to marry.

  There were a dozen similar items.

  "Isn't that characteristic of Mary?" exclaimed Lloyd. "She's such a deahlittle bunch of curiosity. Maybe I oughtn't to call it that. A live,intense interest in everything and everybody would be moah like it. Butonly twenty-foah hours to do it all in! How can we manage it?"

  "Not even that," answered Mr. Sherman, "for part of it must be spentwith the stock-holders."

  "And you couldn't stay longah?" began Lloyd.

  "No, I'm due back at the mines very shortly, and I want to make a flyingvisit to Joyce in New York before I return, and stop over at Annapolisfor a glimpse of Holland. You know I've never been East before, and Iwant to make the most of it."

  "Well," said Lloyd, planning rapidly as they walked on. "We'll crowdjust as much as possible into this one evening. There'll be time for adrive befoah dinnah, that will give you a bird's-eye view of the Valley,and a short call at Oaklea and The Beeches. We can ansah Mary'squestions as we drive along. Befoah we start I'll telephone in to townand ask Rob to come ovah and take dinnah with you to-night, and we'llask the Waltons to come ovah--"

  She would have paused just there even if they had not reached the houseand her sentence been interrupted by Jack's introduction to her motherand Betty, for as she mentioned telephoning it flashed across her whatLeland had telephoned her, not to make any engagement for that evening,that he wanted to see her alone.

  "But suahly," she thought, "he'll undahstand that that is impossibleundah the circumstances--the only night Jack will be heah."

  The next few hours flew by as if winged. They caught Lloyd up out of thedream-world in which she had been living and thoroughly wakened her. Itwas such a busy, breezy world from Jack's outlook, so much to do and seeand conquer. As she listened to his description of the little miningcamp that had grown into a town in the short time he had been there, andthen to the enthusiastic plans he unfolded to her father of what themine owners might do to develop and civilize it, she found herselfregarding this young Aladdin of the West with growing consideration.

  He and Rob found mutual interests from the moment of meeting. She notedwith surprise how oddly alike they were in their views. She hadn't knownbefore that Rob was interested in so many things that she knew nothingabout, political situations and Juvenile Court reforms, and trusts andunions and all those things. But then she had scarcely seen him since hehad taken a man's place in the world. Good old Rob! She was proud of theway he was discussing these things with Jack and her father and theColonel. There was a note of authority in what he said that the oldermen respected. But it did seem so funny for him to be talking ofanything weightier than tennis and skating and his Latin exams, orcollege scrapes. He talked almost as well as Leland Harcourt sheadmitted.

  After dinner Jack took out his memorandum and crossed off all the itemsthat had been attended to. While they were laughing over Mary'squestions and dictating answers for him to write lest he forget them,the Waltons arrived with Gay, who had been spending the day with them.A little later Alex Shelby followed. He was on Mary's list, and had anumber of messages to send to the little girl who had amused him sogreatly at Eugenia's wedding with her quaint speeches and unexpectedquestions.

  From the sound of voices and the number of people in the drawing-room,one might have imagined that a reception was in full swing when LelandHarcourt came up on the porch. Lloyd, recognizing his step, hurried outto meet him and explain why she had been unable to grant his request.She ushered him into the drawing-room to meet their guest, anxious thatthey should be favourably impressed with each other. One could alwayscount on Leland for doing the graceful thing socially she thoughtcomplacently, but this one time he failed her.

  He had been at the house so constantly all summer that she did not thinkit necessary to make any special effort for his entertainment now, otherthan to draw him into the conversation with Jack and Rob. They were thecomparative strangers and she was giving them the most of her attention.Rob had been at the house only twice that summer. He was as interestedas she in hearing about Joyce and Mary, so when she found that Lelanddid not seem to care to talk, she went back to their formerconversation, recalling the duck hunt, the picnic at Hole-in-the-rock,and their dinner at "Coffe Al's" with Phil Tremont.

  Everybody else was talking. Everybody else seemed in good spirits butLeland Harcourt. Lloyd could almost feel his silence it became somarked.

  "He's sulky," she thought. "It's just his horrid jealousy cropping outlike his brothah Jameson's. He doesn't want me to be nice to my oldestand deahest friends. I wish he wouldn't act that way."

  Then she sang, since it was next in order on Mary's memorandum, andwhile she sang, although she did not once look at him directly, she wasuncomfortably conscious that his eyes were fixed on her with thedetermined gaze which they always wore when he had some resolve which heintended to carry out at all hazards.

  As she turned from the harp he was the first to rise and place a chairfor her. Bending over her he said, under cover of the applause, "I'llnot be put off any longer. You must let me see you a few minutes just assoon as I can make an opportunity for you to slip out of the room."

  Low as his voice was, Rob, who was sitting just behind him, heard whathe said, and then something else that he added in Spanish. Just a word,but it seemed to carry some potent appeal, for with a slight flush sherose. Leland made the opportunity he wished, by saying to Jack that oneof the pleasures not to be missed was hearing Gay play the violin. Ofcourse Jack immediately asked for the nocturne which he suggested, andGay, always obliging, at once complied.

  Under cover of the music Leland stepped into the hall, holding theportiere aside with a bow for Lloyd to pass through. Rob's glancefollowed them across the hall, across the moonlighted porch to theavenue, where the locust shadows fell dense and black. Then he turnedhis attention resolutely to the music, listening as if in raptenjoyment, but in reality never hearing a note.

  The nocturne came to an end, and there was an encore and still anotherbefore Lloyd came back into the room. She was alone, and Rob, in onequick glance, saw that all the bright colour had left her face. She wasgripping her little lace fan nervously, and her hazel eyes had deepenedalmost to black as they always did under the strain of unusualexcitement or emotion. He was sure that she was very near tears, andwith his usual impulse to shield her from all that was unpleasant, hemoved his chair so that no one else saw her agitation and began talkingvolubly about the first thing he could think of. It happened to be MaryWare's method of getting rid of an unwelcome guest by playing Fox andStork, and as she listened to the lengthy story he purposely made of it,she had time to regain her composure before any one else came up.

  Afterwards he heard her explaining to Mrs. Walton, "Mistah Harcourt hadto leave early, and didn't want to break up the pah'ty by coming in tosay good night."

  When Rob heard next day that Leland was leaving the Valley at once for atrip to South America, he thought he understood the cause of Lloyd'sagitation. It distressed her to have him go so far away. He had beenpositive for some time that there was some understanding between them.Now this confirmed his suspicions.

  Lloyd was grieved over the parting, but not to the extent Rob imagined.Many a night after, she sat curled up on the window-seat in her room,looking down through the trees to the place where she had
stood withLeland the night she bade him good-bye. She had not dreamed of such astormy interview as that, she had not imagined any wooing could be soimpassioned, reaching to such heights and depths. He hadn't paid theslightest attention when she tried to stop him, but had assertedtriumphantly that he always got what he started out to win, and thatthis was a matter of life and death, and he'd win her love or die in theattempt. Sometimes, in thinking it over, she was afraid he would makehis threats true, and then sometimes she thought with a quick indrawnbreath, remembering how his wild protestations had thrilled her, that itwould have been sweet to listen if she could only have been sure that itwas right. He vowed he would come back when he could prove to her thathe had won the accolade which she seemed to think was so essential, butshe did not look for him. In her heart she said that the one realromance of her life was at an end.

  Everything seemed to come to an end just then. Jack left the nextmorning, and before the close of the week Wardo was taken away. Ida wasable to be moved to the old Bannon homestead near Anchorage. Although itwas the one great thing Lloyd had wished for, she missed her littlecharge at every turn, and the days stretched out ahead of her long andempty.

  The first of September Betty went away with Elise Walton under her wing,happy in the fact that she was to enter Freshman at Warwick Hall, wherethe older girls had had such glorious times. The next day the Harcourtsclosed the Cabin and went back to San Antonio. Gay spent her last nightin the Valley at The Locusts, and there were more bed-time confidencesbefore they fell asleep, long after midnight.

  "Seems as if the end of the summah brings the end of everything," sighedLloyd regretfully.

  "It's more like the beginning of everything for you," contradicted Gay."You'll be beginning your shopping soon, and your trips to the tailorand the dressmaker and the milliner, and you know you'll enjoy gettingall the lovely clothes you're to have as a debutante. It'll be as muchfun as planning a trousseau. Then there'll be your debut party in yourAunt Jane's lovely big town house, and all the rest that's to follow.It'll be just _grand_! A regular procession of social successes andtriumphs.

  "And as for Leland," she continued, mentioning him for the first timesince his departure. "You needn't worry about _that_. Of course we knewwhat had happened just as soon as he bounced in looking like athunder-cloud, and announced his intention of leaving next morning.We'd seen it coming on all summer. Jameson is tickled to death over it,for this trip to South America is one he has been wanting him to takefor a long time. They have some property there that needs looking after,and he thinks now that his ambition is roused he'll take some interestin things."

  "But no mattah what he does," said Lloyd firmly, "I'll nevah change mymind. I don't want to get married, Gay," she added almost tearfully. "Iread a story the othah day, the diary of a young girl that made me thinkof myself. She said, 'I don't want to be married. Just to be loved andadored and written to and crowned Queen of Somebody's heart.' Of co'seany girl wants _that_."

  "That's just the way I feel," confided Gay after a moment's pause. Then,"You've been so busy this summer with your own affairs I don't supposeyou've noticed what's been going on around you; but I'm afraid I've gotmyself into a pickle. You see I've already invited Kitty down to SanAntonio to spend Lent with me, and I've written to Frank Percival abouther, and told her about him and got them interested in each other. Youknow ever since I've been so intimate with Kitty I've wanted her tomarry Frank, so that she'd always live near me. And now--now I'm not sosure that I'm going to live there myself."

  "You dreadful little match-makah," laughed Lloyd, so amused by Gay'sconfession that she never thought to inquire what had caused her changeof mind about her own residence. "You oughtn't to meddle in such things.Just look what a pickle you got _me_ into. If you hadn't made me promisewhat you did about being nice to Mistah Harcourt, and told him thethings you did about me, we'd nevah have had the scene we did, and wouldhave been good friends always. But look what you've done. Sent him on ahopeless chase aftah a shadow, for he says he'll nevah change his mind,and I _know_ I won't change mine."

  Gay giggled. "When an irresistible force meets an immovable body, what_does_ happen? I've always wondered."

  "Just what will happen when Mistah Harcourt comes back," was Lloyd'sdignified answer. "_I'll_ not be moved."

  "And he's not to be resisted," said Gay. "So there we go in the same oldcircle. But I'm glad for some reasons that you're so determined, for ifI _should_ make up my mind to live in the Valley then I'd be glad youwere here instead of in San Antonio."

  "Oh, are you all going to buy the Cabin?" exclaimed Lloyd, sitting up inbed in her eagerness. "How lovely."

  "No, 'we all' are not," confessed Gay. "I _knew_ you didn't have anyidea of what was going on this summer. But--well, you know who my first'Knight of the Looking-glass' was. He says the Scripture says that 'thefirst shall be last,' and he insists he is _both_. He wants to buy theCabin some day, so that my little mirror can hang there always, up amongthe roses where he first saw me. It _would_ be sweet and romantic,wouldn't it? But it doesn't seem exactly fair to Kitty to get her tiedup down there and then skip out and leave her."

  "Kitty isn't tied up yet, by a long shot," laughed Lloyd, who found ithard to take Gay's shy confession seriously. "But I can't get used tothis lightning change in you. You were so suah you'd not have any Darbyand Joan emotions in yours while 'Life is May.' You've talked all summahagainst early marriages."

  "I'm not an 'immovable body' like you. And I would be a little nearergray hairs if we waited for two years as we'd certainly have to do, buteven if we didn't wait it wouldn't be the same as it is with Lucy andJameson, and some other young married people I know. Alex is so_different_. Well, he is," she insisted indignantly. "What are youlaughing at? You know he's different."

  "Yes, I do know it," answered Lloyd, instantly sobered by herrealization of the fact that Gay was no longer joking, but was layingbare her heart's dearest secret. "He's a deah, good fellow, and he'll bejust as loving and true and sweet to you always as the old Doctah is toAunt Alicia. Nobody could want moah than that I'm suah. So heah's myblessing and the hope that you'll live to keep yoah Golden Wedding ashappily as they are going to do." She leaned over and kissed hertenderly.

  They talked so late that night that Gay almost missed her train nextmorning, but as she scrambled breathlessly on to the rear platform shecalled back happily, "What's the odds, even if it did make me late? Itwas such a nice wind-up to such a glorious summer."