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THE ROAD AT MIDNIGHT
When Dan went down into the shadows of the road, he stopped short before hereached the end of the stone wall, and turned for his last look atChericoke. He saw the long old house, with its peaked roof over which theelm boughs arched, the white stretch of drive before the door, and theleaves drifting ceaselessly against the yellow squares of the librarywindows. As he looked Betty came slowly from the shadow by the gate, whereshe had lingered, and crossed the lighted spaces amid the falling leaves.On the threshold, as she turned to throw a glance into the night, it seemedto him, for a single instant, that her eyes plunged through the darknessinto his own. Then, while his heart still bounded with the hope, the dooropened, and shut after her, and she was gone.
For a moment he saw only blackness--so sharp was the quick shutting off ofthe indoor light. The vague shapes upon the lawn showed like mere drawingsin outline, the road became a pallid blur in the formless distance, and theshine of the lamplight on the drive shifted and grew dim as if a curtainhad dropped across the windows. Like a white thread on the blackness he sawthe glimmer beneath his grandmother's shutters, and it was as if he hadlooked in from the high top of an elm and seen her lying with her candle onher breast.
As he stood there the silence of the old house knocked upon his heart likesound--and quick fears sprang up within him of a sudden death, or of Bettyweeping for him somewhere alone in the stillness. The long roof under thewaving elm boughs lost, for a heartbeat, the likeness of his home, andbecame, as the clouds thickened in the sky, but a great mound of earth overwhich the wind blew and the dead leaves fell.
But at last when he turned away and followed the branch road, his racialtemperament had triumphed over the forebodings of the moment; and with theflicker of a smile upon his lips, he started briskly toward the turnpike.As the mind in the first ecstasy of a high passion is purified from thestain of mere emotion, so the Major, and the Major's anger, were forgotten,and his own bitter resentment swept as suddenly from his thoughts. He wasoverpowered and uplifted by the one supreme feeling from which he stilltrembled. All else seemed childish and of small significance beside thememory of Betty's lips upon his own. What room had he for anger when he wasfilled to overflowing with the presence of love?
The branch road ran out abruptly into the turnpike, and once off thefamiliar way by his grandfather's stone wall, he felt the blackness of thenight close round him like a vault. Without a lantern there was small hopeof striking the tavern or the tavern road till morning. To go on meant anight upon the roadside or in the fields.
As he stretched out his arm, groping in the blackness, he struck suddenlyupon the body of the blasted tree, and coming round it, his eyes caught thered light of free Levi's fire, and he heard the sound of a hammer fallingupon heated iron. The little path was somewhere in the darkness, and as hevainly sought for it, he stumbled over a row of stripped and headlesscornstalks which ran up to the cabin door. Once upon the smooth stonebefore the threshold, he gave a boyish whistle and lifted his hand toknock. "It is I, Uncle Levi--there are no 'hants' about," he cried.
The hammer was thrown aside, and fell upon the stones, and a momentafterward, the door flew back quickly, showing the blanched face of freeLevi and the bright glow of the hearth. "Dis yer ain' no time fur pranks,"said the old man, angrily. "Ain't yer ever gwine ter grow up, yit?" and headded, slowly, "Praise de Lawd hit's you instid er de devil."
"Oh, it's I, sure enough," returned Dan, lightly, as he came into thecabin. "I'm on my way to Merry Oaks Tavern, Uncle Levi,--it's ten milesoff, you know, and this blessed night is no better than an ink-pot. I'dpositively be ashamed to send such a night down on a respectable planet.It's that old lantern of yours I want, by the way, and in case it doesn'tturn up again, take this to buy a new one. No, I can't rest to-night. Thisis my working time, and I must be up and doing." He reached for the rustyold lantern behind the door, and lighted it, laughing as he did so. Hisface was pale, and there was a nervous tremor in his hands, but his voicehad lost none of its old heartiness. "Ah, that's it, old man," he said,when the light was ready. "We'll shake hands in case it's a long parting.This is a jolly world. Uncle Levi,--good-by, and God bless you," and,leaving the old man speechless on the hearth, he closed the door and wentout into the night.
On the turnpike again, with the lantern swinging in his hand, he walkedrapidly in the direction of the tavern road, throwing quick flashes oflight before his footsteps. Behind him he heard the falling of free Levi'shammer, and knew that the old negro was toiling at his rude forge for thebread which he would to-morrow eat in freedom.
With the word he tossed back his hair and quickened his steps, as if hewere leaving servitude behind him in the house at Chericoke; and, as theanger blazed up within his heart he found pleasure in the knowledge that atlast he was starting out to level his own road. Under the clouds on thelong turnpike it all seemed so easy--as easy as the falling of free Levi'shammer, which had faded in the distance.
What was it, after all? A year or two of struggle and of attainment, and hewould come back flushed with success, to clasp Betty in his arms. In adozen different ways he pictured to himself the possible manner of thathome-coming, obliterating the year or two that lay between. He saw himselfa great lawyer from a little reading and a single speech, or a judge uponhis bench, famed for his classic learning and his grave decisions. He hadonly to choose, he felt, and he might be anything--had they not told him soat college? did not even his grandfather admit it? He had only tochoose--and, oh, he would choose well--he would choose to be a man, and tocome riding back with his honours thick upon him.
Looking ahead, he saw himself a few years hence, as he rode leisurelyhomeward up the turnpike, while the stray countrymen he met took off theirharvest hats, and stared wonderingly long after he was gone. He saw theGovernor hastening to the road to shake his hand, he saw his grandfatherbowed with the sense of his injustice, tremulous with the flutter of hispride; and, best of all, he saw Betty--Betty, with the rays of lightbeneath her lashes, coming straight across the drive into his arms.
And then all else faded slowly from him to give place to Betty, and he sawher growing, changing, brightening, as he had seen her from her childhoodup. The small white figure in the moonlight, the merry little playmate,hanging on his footsteps, eager to run his errands, the slender girl, withthe red braids and the proud shy eyes, and the woman who knelt upon thehearth in Aunt Ailsey's cabin, smiling up at him as she dried herhair--all gathered round him now illuminated against the darkness of thenight. Betty, Betty,--he whispered her name softly beneath his breath, hespoke it aloud in the silence of the turnpike, he even cried it out againstthe mountains, and waited for the echo--Betty, Betty. There was not onlysweetness in the thought of her, there was strength also. The hand that hadheld him back when he would have gone out blindly in his passion was thehand of a woman, not of a girl--of a woman who could face life smilingbecause she felt deep in herself the power to conquer it. Two days ago shehad been but the girl he loved, to-night, with her kisses on his lips, shehad become for him at once a shield and a religion. He looked outward andsaw her influence a light upon his pathway; he turned his gaze within andfound her a part of the sacred forces of his life--of his wistfulchildhood, his boyish purity, and the memory of his mother.
He had passed Uplands, and now, as he followed the tavern way, he held theflash of his lantern near the ground, and went slowly by the crumblinghollows in the strip of "corduroy" road. There was a thick carpet of moistleaves underfoot, and above the wind played lightly among the overhangingbranches. His lantern made a shining circle in the midst of a surroundingblackness, and where the light fell the scattered autumn leaves sent outgold and scarlet flashes that came and went as quickly as a flame. Once anowl flew across his path, and startled by the lantern, blindly flutteredoff again. Somewhere in the distance he heard the short bark of a fox; thenit died away, and there was no sound except the ceaseless rustle of thetrees.
By the time he ca
me out of the wood upon the open road, his high spiritshad gone suddenly down, and the visions of an hour ago showed stale andlifeless to his clouded eyes. After a day's ride and a poor dinner, theten-mile walk had left him with aching limbs, and a growing conviction thatdespite his former aspirations, he was fast going to the devil along thetavern road. When at last he swung open the whitewashed gate before theinn, and threw the light of his lantern on the great oaks in the yard, therelief he felt was hardly brighter than despair, and it made very littledifference, he grimly told himself, whether he put up for the night or keptthe road forever. With a clatter he went into the little wooden porch andknocked upon the door.
He was still knocking when a window was raised suddenly above him, and aman's voice called out, "if he wanted a place for night-hawks to go on tohell." Then, being evidently a garrulous body, the speaker leanedcomfortably upon the sill, and sent down a string of remarks, which Danpromptly shortened with an oath.
"Hold your tongue, Jack Hicks," he cried, angrily, "and come down and openthis door before I break it in. I've walked ten miles to-night and I can'tstand here till morning. How long has it been since you had a guest?"
"There was six of 'em changin' stages this mornin'," drawled Jack, inreply, still hanging from the sill. "I gave 'em a dinner of fried chickenand battercakes, and two of 'em being Yankees hadn't never tasted itbefo'--and a month ago one dropped in to spend the night--"
He broke off hastily, for his wife had joined him at the window, and as Danlooked up with the flash of the lantern in his face, she gave a cry andcalled his name.
"Put on your clothes and go down, you fool," she said, "it's Mr. Dan--don'tyou see it's Mr. Dan, and he's as white as yo' nightshirt. Go down, I tellyou,--go down and let him in." There was a skurrying in the room and on thestaircase, and a moment later the door was flung open and a lamp flashed inthe darkness.
"Walk in, suh, walk right in," said Jack Hicks, hospitably, "day or nightyou're welcome--as welcome as the Major himself." He drew back and stoodwith the lamplight full upon him--a loose, ill-proportioned figure, with aflabby face and pale blue eyes set under swollen lids.
"I want something to eat, Jack," returned Dan, as he entered and put downhis lantern, "and a place to sleep--in fact I want anything you have tooffer."
Then, as Mrs. Hicks appeared upon the stair, he greeted her, despite hisweariness, with something of his old jesting manner. "I am begging asupper," he remarked affably, as he shook her hand, "and I may as wellconfess, by the way, that I am positively starving."
The woman beamed upon him, as women always did, and while she led the wayinto the little dining room, and set out the cold meat and bread upon theoil-cloth covering of the table, she asked him eager questions about theMajor and Mrs. Lightfoot, which he aroused himself to parry with a tiredlaugh. She was tall and thin, with a wrinkled brown face, and a row of curlpapers about her forehead. Her faded calico wrapper hung loosely over hernightgown, and he saw her bare feet through the cracks in her worn-outleather slippers.
"The poor young gentleman is all but dead," she said at last. "You give himhis supper, Jack, and I'll go right up to fix his room. To think of hiswalkin' ten miles in the pitch blackness--the poor young gentleman."
She went out, her run down slippers flapping on the stair, and Dan, as heate his ham and bread, listened impatiently to the drawling voice of JackHicks, who discussed the condition of the country while he drew apple ciderfrom a keg into a white china pitcher. As he talked, his fat face shonewith a drowsy good-humour, and his puffed lids winked sleepily over hisexpressionless blue eyes. He moved heavily as if his limbs were forevercoming in the way of his intentions.
"Yes, suh, I never was one of them folks as ain't satisfied unless they'realways a-fussin'," he remarked, as he placed the pitcher upon the table."Thar's a sight of them kind in these here parts, but I ain't one of 'em.Lord, Lord, I tell 'em, befo' you git ready to jump out of the fryin' pan,you'd better make mighty sure you ain't fixin' to land yo'self in the fire.That's what I always had agin these here abolitionists as used to comepokin' round here--they ain't never learned to set down an' cross tharhands, an' leave the Lord to mind his own business. Bless my soul, I reckonthey'd have wanted to have a hand in that little fuss of Lucifer's ifthey'd been alive--that's what I tell 'em, suh. An' now thar's all thistalk about the freein' of the niggers--free? What are they goin' to do with'em after they're done set 'em free? Ain't they the sons of Ham? I ask 'em;an' warn't they made to be servants of servants like the Bible says? It's abold man that goes plum agin the Bible, and flies smack into the face ofGod Almighty--it's a bold man, an' he ain't me, suh. What I say is, if theLord can stand it, I reckon the rest of the country--"
He paused to draw breath, and Dan laid down his knife and fork and pushedback his chair. "Before you begin again, Jack," he said coolly, "will youspare enough wind to carry me upstairs?"
"That's what I tell 'em," pursued Jack amiably, as he lighted a candle andled the way into the hall. "They used to come down here every once in awhile an' try to draw me out; and one of 'em 'most got a coat of tar an'feathers for meddlin' with my man Lacy; but if the Lord--here we are, herewe are."
He stopped upon the landing and opened the door of a long room, in whichMrs. Hicks was putting the last touches to the bed. She stopped as Dan camein, and by the pale flicker of a tallow candle stood looking at him fromthe threshold. "If you'll jest knock on the floor when you wake up, I'llknow when to send yo' hot water," she said, "and if thar's anything elseyou want, you can jest knock agin."
With a smile he thanked her and promised to remember; and then as she wentout into the hall, he bolted the door, and threw himself into a chairbeside the window. Sleep had quite deserted him, and the dawn was on themountains when at last he lay down and closed his eyes.
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