_ BOOK TWO
CHAPTER XVII. ADOPTING A FAMILY
As the two men walked down toward the cabin they saw Amalia standing beside the door in the sunlight which now streamed through a rift in the clouds, gazing up at the towering mountain and listening to the falling water. She spied them and came swiftly to them, extending both hands in a sweet, gracious impulsiveness, and began speaking rapidly even before she reached them.
"Ah! So beautiful is your home! It is so much that I would say to you of gratitude in my heart--it is like a river flowing swiftly to tell you--Ah! I cannot say it all--and we come and intrude ourselves upon you thus that you have no place where to go for your own sleeping--Is not? Yes, I know it. So must we think quickly how we may unburden you of us--my mother and myself--only that she yet is sleeping that strange sleep that seems still not like sleep. Let me that I serve you, sir?"
Larry Kildene looked on her glowing, upturned face, gathering his slower wits for some response to her swift speech, while she turned to the younger man, grasping his hands in the same manner and not ceasing the flow of her utterance.
"And you, at such severe labor and great danger, have found this noble man, and have sent him to us--to you do we owe what never can we pay--it is thus while we live must we always thank you in our hearts. And to this place--so
won-n-der-ful--Ah! Beautiful like heaven--Is not? Yes, and the sweet sound always in the air--like heaven and the sound of wings--to stop here even for this night is to make those sorrowful thoughts lie still and for a while speak nothing."
As she turned from one to the other, addressing each in turn, warm lights flashed in her eyes through tears, like stars in a deep pool. Her dark hair rolled back from her smooth oval forehead in heavy coils, and over her head and knotted under her perfect chin, outlining its curve, was a silken peasant handkerchief with a crimson border of the richest hue, while about the neck of her colorless, closely fitted gown was a piece of exquisite hand-wrought lace. She stood before them, a vision from the old world, full of innate ladyhood, simple as a peasant, at once appealing and dominating, impulsive, yet shy. Her beautiful enunciation, her inverted and quaintly turned English, alive with poetry, was typical of her whole personality, a sweet and strange mixture of the high-bred aristocrat and the simple directness and strength of the peasant.
The two men made stumbling and embarrassed replies. That tender and beautiful quality of chivalry toward women, belonging by nature to undefiled manhood, was awakened in them, and as one being, not two, they would have laid their all at her feet. This, indeed, they literally did. The small, one-room cabin, which had so long served for Larry Kildene's palace, was given over entirely to the two women, and the men made their own abode in the shed where they had slept.
This they accomplished by creating a new room, by extending the roof-covered space Larry had used for his stable and the storing of fodder, far enough along under the great overhanging rock to allow of comfortable bunks, a place to walk about, and a fireplace also. The labor involved in the making of this room was a boon to Harry King.
Upon the old stone boat which Larry had used for a similar purpose he hauled stones gathered from the rock ledge and built therewith a chimney, and with the few tools in the big man's store he made seats out of hewn logs, and a rude table. This work was left to him by the older man purposely, while he occupied himself with the gathering in of the garden stuff for themselves and for the animals. A matter that troubled his good heart not a little was that of providing for the coming winter enough food supply for his suddenly acquired family. Of grain and fodder he thought he had enough for animals kept in idleness, as he still had stores gathered in previous years for his own horse. But for these women, he must not allow them to suffer the least privation.
It was not the question of food alone that disturbed him. At last he laid his troubles before Harry King.
"You know, lad, it won't be so long before the snow will be down on us, and I'm thinking what shall we do with them when the long winter days set in." He nodded his head toward the cabin. "It's already getting too cold for them to sit out of doors as they do. I should have windows in my cabin--if I could get the glass up here. They can't live there in the darkness, with the snow banked around them, with nothing to use their fingers on as women like to do. Now, if they had cloth or thread--but what use had I for such things? They're not among my stores. I did not lay out to make it a home for women. The mother will get farther and farther astray with her dreams if she has nothing to do such as women like."
"I think we should ask them--or ask Amalia, she is wise. Have you enough to keep them on--of food?"
"Of food, yes. Such as it is. No flour, but plenty of good wheat and corn. I always pound it up and bake it, but it is coarse fare for women. There's plenty of game for the hunting, and easy got, but it's something to think about we'll need, else we'll all go loony."
"You have lived long here alone and seem sound of mind,--except for--" Harry King smiled, "except for a certain unworldliness that would pass for lunacy in the world below these heights."
"Let alone, son. I've usually had my own way for these years and have formed the habit, but I've had my times. At the best it's a sort of lunacy that takes a man away from his fellows, especially an Irishman. Maybe you'll discover for yourself before we part--but it's not to the point now. I'm asking you how we can keep the mother from brooding and the daughter happy? She's asking to be sent away to earn money for her mother. She thinks she can take her mother with her to the nearest place on that new railroad you tell me of, and so on to some town. I tell her, no. And if she goes, and leaves her mother here--bless you--what would we do with her? Why, the woman would go yonder and jump over the cliff."
"Oh, it would never do to listen to her. It would never do for her to try living in a city earning her bread--not while--" Harry King paused and turned a white, drawn face toward the mountain. Larry watched him. "I can do nothing." He threw out his hands with a sudden downward movement. "I, a criminal in hiding! My manhood is of no avail! My God!"
"Remember, lad, the women have need of you right here. I'm keeping you on this mountain at my valuation, not yours. I have need of you, and your past is not to intrude in this place, and when you go out in the world again, as you will, when the right time comes, you'll know how to meet--and face--your life--or death, as a man should.
"Hold yourself with a firm hand, and do the work of the days as they come. It's all the Lord gives us to do at any time. If I only had books--now,--they would help us,--but where to get them--or how? We'll even go and ask the women, as you advise."
They all ate together in the little cabin, as was their habit, a meal prepared by Amalia, and carefully set out with all the dishes the cabin afforded: so few that there were not enough to serve all at once, but eked out by wooden blocks, and small lace serviettes taken from Amalia's store of linen. At noon one day Larry Kildene spoke his anxieties for their welfare, and cleverly managed to make the theme a gay one.
"Where's the use in adopting a family if you don't get society out of them? The question I ask is, when the winter shuts us in, what are we going to do for sport--work--what you will? It's indoor sport I'm meaning, for Harry and I have the hunting and providing in the daytime. No, never you ask me what I was doing before you came. I was my own master then--"
"And now you are ours? That is good, Sir Kildene. You have to say what to do, and me, I accept to do what you advise. Is not?"
Amalia turned to Larry and smiled, and whenever Amalia smiled, her mother would smile also, and nod her head as if to approve, although she usually sat in silence.
"Yours to command," said Larry, bowing.
"He's master of us all, but it's yours to direct, Lady Amalia."
"Oh, me, Mr. 'Arry. It is better for me I make for you both sufficient to eat, so all goes well. I think I have heard men are always pleased of much that is excellent to eat and drink."
"Now, listen. We have only a short time before the heavy snows will come down on us, and then there will be no chance whatever to get supplies of any sort before spring. How far is the road completed now, Harry?"
"It should be well past Cheyenne by now. They must be working toward Laramie rapidly. If--if--you think best, I will go down and get supplies--whatever can be found there."
"No. I have a plan. There's enough for one man to do here finishing the jobs I have laid out, but one of us can very well be spared, and as you have wakened me from my long sleep, and stirred my old bones to life, and as I know best how to travel in this region, I'll take the mule along, and go myself. I have a fancy for traveling by rail again. You ladies make out a list of all you need, and I'll fill the order, in so far as the stations have the articles. If I can't find the right things at one station, I may at another, even if I go back East for them."
"Ah, but, Sir Kildene, it is that we have no money. If but we could get from the wagon the great box, there have we enough of things to give us labor for all the winter. It is the lovely lace I make. A little of the thread I have here, but not sufficient for long. So, too, there is my father's violin. It made me much heart pain to leave it--for me, I play a little,--and there is also of cloth such as men wear--not of great quantity--but enough that I can make for you--something--a little--maybe, Mr. 'Arry he like well some good shirt of wool--as we make for our peasant--Is not?" Harry looked down on his worn gray shirt sleeves, then into her eyes, and on the instant his own fell. She took it for simple embarrassment, and spoke on.
"Yes. To go with us and help us so long and terrible a way, it has made very torn your apparel."
"It makes that we improve him, could we obtain the box," said the mother, speaking for the first time that day. Her voice was so deep and full that it was almost masculine, but her modulations were refined and most agreeable.
Amalia laughed for very gladness that her mother at last showed enough interest in what was being said to speak.
"Ah, mamma, to improve--it is to make better the mind--the heart--but of this has Mr. 'Arry no need. Is not, Sir Kildene? I call you always Sir as title to nobleness of character. We have, in our country, to inherit title, but here to make it of such character. It is well, I think so."
Poor Larry Kildene had his own moment of embarrassment, but with her swift appreciation of their moods she talked rapidly on, leaving the compliment to fall as it would, and turning their thoughts to the subject in hand. "But the box, mamma, it is heavy, and it is far down on the terrible plain. If that you should try to obtain it, Sir Kildene: Ah, I cannot!--Even to think of the peril is a hurt in my heart. It must even lie there."
"And the men 'rouge'--"
"Yes. Of the red men--those Indian--of them I have great fear."
"The danger from them is past, now. If the road is beyond Cheyenne, it must have reached Laramie or nearly so, and they would hang around the stations, picking up what they can, but the government has them in hand as never before. They would not dare interfere with white men anywhere near the road. I've dreamed of a railroad to connect the two oceans, but never expected to see it in my lifetime. I've taken a notion to go and see it--just to look at it,--to try to be reconciled to it."
"Reconciled? It is to like it, you mean--Sir Kildene? Is it not
won-n-derful--the achievement?"
"Oh, yes, the achievement, as you say. But other things will follow, and the plains will no longer keep men at bay. The money grabbers will pour in, and all the scum of creation will flock toward the setting sun. Then, too, I shall hate to see the wild animals that have their own rights killed in unsportsmanlike manner, and annihilated, as they are wherever men can easily reach them. Men are wasteful and bad. I've seen things in the wild places of the earth--and in the places where men flock together in hoards--and where they think they are most civilized, and the result has been what you see here,--a man living alone with a horse for companionship, and the voice of the winds and the falling water to fill his soul. Go to. Go to."
Larry Kildene rose and stood a moment in the cabin door, then sauntered out in the sun, and off toward the fall. He had need to think a while alone. His companions knew this necessity was on him, and said nothing--only looked at each other, and took up the question of their needs for the winter.
"Mr. 'Arry, is it possible to reach with safety a station? I mean is time yet to go and return before the snows? Here are no deadly wolves as in my own country--but is much else to make dangerous the way."
"There must be time or he would not propose it. I don't know about the snows here."
"I have seen that Sir Kildene drinks with most pleasure the coffee, but is little left--or not enough for all--to drink it. My mother and I we drink with more pleasure the tea, and of tea we ourselves have a little. It is possible also I make of things more palatable if I have the sugar, but is very little here. I have searched well, the foods placed here. Is it that Sir Kildene has other places where are such articles?"
"All he has is in the bins against the wall yonder."
"Here is the key he gave me, and I have look well, but is not enough to last but for one through all the months of winter. Ah, poor man! We have come and eat his food like the wolves of the wild country at home, is not? I have make each day of the coffee for him, yes, a good drink, and for you not so good--forgive,--but for me and my mother, only to pretend, that it might last for him. It is right so. We have gone without more than to have no coffee, and this is not privation. To have too much is bad for the soul."
Amalia's mother seemed to have withdrawn herself from them and sat gazing into the smoking logs, apparently not hearing their conversation. Harry King for the second time that day looked in Amalia's eyes. It was a moment of forgetfulness. He had forbidden himself this privilege except when courtesy demanded.
"You forgive--that I put--little coffee in your drink?"
"Forgive? Forgive?"
He murmured questioningly as if he hardly comprehended her meaning, as indeed he did not. His mind was going over the days since first he saw her, toiling to gather enough sagebrush to cook a drop of tea for her father, and striving to conceal from him that she, herself, was taking none, and barely tasting her hard biscuit that there might be enough to keep life in her parents. As she sat before him now, in her worn, mended, dark dress with the wonderful lace at the throat, and her thin hands lying on the crimson-bordered kerchief in her lap,--her fingers playing with the fringe, he still looked in her eyes and murmured, "Forgive?"
"Ah, Mr. 'Arry, your mind is sleeping and has gone to dream. Listen to me. If one goes to the plain, quickly he must go. I make with haste this naming of things to eat. It is sad we must always eat--eat. In heaven maybe is not so." She wandered a moment about the cabin, then laughed for the second time. "Is no paper on which to write."
"There is no need of paper; he'll remember. Just mention them over. Coffee,--is there any tea beside that you have?"
"No, but no need. I name it not."
"Tea is light and easily brought. What else?"
"And paper. I ask for that but for me to write my little romance of all this--forgive--it is for occupation in the long winter. You also must write of your experiences--perhaps--of your history of--of--You like it not? Why, Mr. 'Arry! It is to make work for the mind. The mind must work--work--or die. The hands--well. I make lace with the hands--but for the mind is music--or the books--but here are no books--good--we make them. So, paper I ask, and of crayon--Alas! It is in the box! What to do?"
"Listen. We'll have that box, and bring it here on the mountain. I'll get it."
"Ah, no! No. Will you break my heart?" She seized his arm and looked in his eyes, her own brimming with tears. Then she flung up her arms in her dramatic way, and covered her eyes. "I can see it all so terrible. If you should go there and the Indian strike you dead--or the snow come too soon and kill you with the cold--in the great drift lying white--all the terrible hours never to see you again--Ah, no!"
In that instant his heart leaped toward her and the blood roared in his ears. He would have clasped her to him, but he only stood rigidly still. "Hands off, murderer!" The words seemed shouted at him by his own conscience. "I would rather die--than that you should not have your box," was all he said, and left the cabin. He, too, had need to think things out alone. _