Part 72 (2/2)

”Is--Ann--here?” he whispered faintly.

”Yes, Dear, I am here, right close beside you. Can't you feel my hands?”

His head turned feebly, and his fingers sought hers.

”I have been--wretchedly--wicked!”

His voice was so low that Horace did not catch the words; but Scraggy heard, and crawled from Lem to Miss Sh.e.l.lington's side.

”Missus, will ye tell my little boy-brat that his mammy be here? Will ye say as how I loved him--him and Lemmy, allers?”

Her haggard face was close to Ann's, and the latter took in every word of the low-spoken pet.i.tion. Miss Sh.e.l.lington bent over the dying man.

”Everett,” she said brokenly, ”your own mother is here, and she wants you to speak to her.”

Brimbecomb partly rose, and, in scanning those in the hut, his eyes fell upon Screech Owl. The tense agony seemed for an instant to leave his face, and it fell into more boyish lines.

”Little 'un--pretty little 'un,” whispered Scraggy ”yer mammy loves ye, and Lemmy loved ye, too, if he did hit ye!”

Screech Owl hung over him many minutes in a breathless silence; but when Vandecar came in Everett, too, was dead. Then, at last, Scraggy moved toward the door, and, with the same wild cry that had haunted the settlement for so many years, sprang out into the night.

From her hiding place in the gulch, Scraggy saw Vandecar and the rest mount the hill. When they had disappeared, she slunk down the lane and made straight for Lon's hut. With dread in her eyes, she stood for sometime before the dark shanty, and then swayed forward to the window.

When she reached it, superst.i.tion forced her back; but love proved stronger than fear, and she looked into the room. So dark was it within that she could see only the white mound on the floor--the mound made by the dead father and son. They were hers--all that was left of the men she had loved always! Scraggy tried the door; but found it locked. Then she attempted to move the window; but it, too, had been fastened. With a stone she hammered out the gla.s.s, making an opening through which she dragged her body. As she stood there in silent gloom, the very air seemed to hang heavy with death. In the dark Scraggy broke out into sobs, and was seized with spasms of s.h.i.+vering; she had no strength to move forward or backward.

But again love drove her on, and some seconds pa.s.sed before she found matches to light the candle. When the dim flame lighted up the room, she turned slowly to the middle of the floor. Tremblingly she drew down the covering and looked upon her dead. They were hers--these men were hers even in death! Chokingly she stifled her sobs, and then the decision came to her that she would keep a night vigil until break of day. Of the two, Screech Owl knew not which she loved better.

”Ye both be dead,” she moaned, looking first at Lem then at Everett; ”dead so ye'll never breathe no more! But Scraggy loves ye.... G.o.d! ye nuther one of ye knows how she loves ye! There weren't no men in the hull world as good as ye both was.... Lemmy didn't know ye was his, little 'un, and ye didn't know Lemmy were yer daddy. I'll stay with ye both till the day.”

Saying this, she crouched low between Crabbe and Brimbecomb, and, encircling each neck with an arm, thrust her face down close between them.

Lon Cronk's old clock on the shelf ticked out the minutes into the somberness of the hut. The waves of the lake, breaking ceaselessly upon the sh.o.r.e, softened the harsh, uneven croaks of the marsh-frogs with their harmony. Through the broken window drifted the night noises, and the wind fluttered the candle-flame weakly. Suddenly Screech Owl thought she heard a voice--a voice filled with tender sympathy and pathos.

Without disengaging her arms, she lifted herself and searched with dim eyes even the corners of the hut. Misty forms shaded to ghost-gray seemed to steal out and group themselves about her dead. She took her arm from Everett and brushed back the straggling locks that blurred her sight.

The voice spoke again, p.r.o.nouncing her name in low, even tones. Once more she wound her arm about Everett, and pressed herself down between her beloveds. Her eyes, protruding and fearful, saw the candlelight grow dimmer.

”Lemmy, Lemmy,” she gasped between hard-coming breaths, ”I'm comin'

after ye and our pretty boy! Wherever ye both be--I come--”

A film gathered over Scraggy's eyes, and her words were cut short by the pain of the intermittent flutterings of her heart. She fell lower, and with a last weak effort drew the heads closer together. Then Scraggy's spirit, which had ever sought her lover and her son, took flight out into the vast expanse of the universe, to find Everett and Lem.

Governor Vandecar bent over his wife.

”Darling,” he murmured, ”I have brought you back your other baby. Won't you turn and--look at--her?”

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