Part 10 (1/2)

It soon dawned on me that this surprising young woman was as nimble with her feet as a schoolboy. She scampered away from me in a way to put me on my mettle, and she must have run nearly half a mile before I could come up with her. I touched her on the shoulder lightly, crying ”Caught!”

”There is no getting rid of you,” she answered.

”Oh, but there is, as you will discover,” I said. ”Once with your kin-people, you will see no more of me.” I was vexed, but my ill-humor seemed to add to her high spirits, and she talked away quite blithely.

When we came to the door it was open, and the mother, who had been kind to me, stood there waiting. She was crying and wringing her hands, and, for a moment, I thought she had been maltreated by those whose duty it was to raid the house. But her trouble was of quite another kind.

”What have you done with her?” she asked.

”She is here with me,” I replied. But when I turned to confirm my words, Jane Ryder had disappeared. I could only stare at the woman blankly and protest that she had been at my side a moment ago before.

”I knew it!” wailed the woman. ”First comes you to wheedle her away, and then come your companions to search the house for her. I knew how it would be. I never knew but one man you could trust with a woman, and he was so palsied that a child could push him over. And the little fool was fond of you, too.” And with that she wailed louder than ever.

”But, my good woman----” I began.

”Don't good woman me!” she cried. ”You don't look like that kind of a man, but I knew it; I knew how it would be!”

”Fiddlesticks and frog's eggs!” I cried. ”Stop your crying. She is here somewhere. You know well enough that I wouldn't have returned without her. She came to the door with me. I'd have you to know, madam, that I'm not the man you take me for. Do you think I'd injure a hair of her head? It is you that have injured her by allowing her to masquerade as a man--a little thing like that, with n.o.body to advise her. You are her mother and pretend to be fond of her; why didn't you advise her against all this? Why didn't you take a hickory to her and compel her to remember her s.e.x? You are the cause of it all--yes, you!”

I spoke in a very loud tone, for I was very angry, and I knew that the only way to contend with a woman was to make more noise than she could.

Just as I was about to continue my railing protest, Jane Ryder came through an inner door, dressed, as she should be, in the garb of her s.e.x. Her toilette would have been complete but for the fact that in her haste her hair had fallen loose from its fastenings and now flowed over her shoulders and down to her waist, black as night and as s.h.i.+ny as silk.

”I thank you both for your good opinions,” she said, making a mock courtesy, ”especially the chivalrous Mr. Carroll Shannon, with his straps, and his hickories, and his riding-whips, and I hope he will soon get a woman on whom he can use them all.”

”Oh, Jane! Jane!” cried the other, ”why will you worry those who love you? Why will you try them so?”

The young woman's face fell at that, and she seemed to be very contrite. She went quickly across the room and never paused until she found herself in the woman's arms, and showed her love by so many quaint and delicate little caresses, and had such a dainty and bewitching way about her, that no human could have held out against her. The woman's face had cleared on the instant and was no more clouded with grief and anxiety. ”You see how she is,” said the woman to me; ”hurting you to the heart one minute and making you forget it the next.”

”I see,” I replied; ”but you should control her. You should make her remember who and what she is, and not permit her to go about as a man or boy. Don't you know how dangerous it is?”

”Oh, but she's her own mistress,” the woman explained. ”She can wheedle, and no one can say her nay. But I'm glad she went away to-night, though I was terribly afraid for her. She had no more than got out of hearing before there came a pack of troopers, and nothing must do but they must search the whole house from top to bottom. They were hunting for Leroy, too, and if she had been here there would have been trouble.”

”What did I tell you?” I exclaimed. ”I captured her ahead of them, carried her to General Forrest, and now she is my prisoner. I am responsible for her.”

”I believe I had rather the others had captured me,” Jane Ryder declared. The woman looked at me and shook her head, as much as to say, ”Never believe her.”

”Why did you trouble yourself?” Jane Ryder inquired. ”I am sure I never gave you any cause to worry yourself about me. If you think you have done me a service you were never more mistaken in your life. You have simply destroyed my usefulness for the time being; but you have given me an opportunity to show you what I think of your intermeddling.”

”Jane! you know that he has meddled with you only for your own good,”

said the older woman. ”You ought to thank him on your knees.”

”On my knees!” she exclaimed angrily. ”On my knees! I dare say he would like to see me on my knees before him, but he'll see me dead first.” I was surprised at the heat she showed over the matter.

”Your mother,” I said, ”has simply used an unfortunate expression. You owe me nothing--and if you owed me everything a kind word would more than repay me.”

She bit her lip, but made no reply. ”It's her way,” explained the mother, ”and I'm free to say it's a very poor way. It has always been her way. Love her and she'll hurt you; do her a favor and she'll pretend to despise you. Her kind words are as scarce as pearls among the poor. Scarce, but when they are spoken they make up for all the rest. Don't be angry with her; a big man like you shouldn't care what a child like her says.”

”Child! I am older than he is,” said Jane Ryder.

”But age is not age unless it has experience and judgment,” remarked the older woman, serenely. ”Without them, age is another form of childishness.”

”What are you going to do with me?” asked Jane Ryder, turning to me.