Part 7 (1/2)
”Do you think you could build a fire on the hearth yonder?” I asked. ”I am afraid I am hardly capable of helping you as yet; but we must have light in this gloomy old hole, or it is bound to craze us both. Take those broken chairs if you find nothing better.”
She instantly did as I bade her, moving here and there about the room until she gathered together the materials necessary, but keeping carefully away from where the dead dog lay, until in a brief s.p.a.ce of time the welcome flame leaped up in the wide black chimney, and cast its red glare all over the little room. The activity did her good, the light flooding the gloomy apartment yielded renewed courage, and there was a cheerier sound in her voice as she came back to me.
”The great ugly brute!” she exclaimed, looking at the form in the centre of the floor.
”He was certainly heavy enough to have been a bear,” I replied, clinching my teeth in pain, ”and sufficiently savage.”
I viewed her now for the first time clearly, and the memory will remain with me till I die. How distinctly that entire picture stands forth with the mist of all these years between! The low-ceiled room, devoid of all furniture save of the rudest and most primitive kind; the bare logs forming the walls, unrelieved in their rough ugliness, except as here and there sundry unshapely garments dangled from wooden pegs; the rough deal table, with a few cheap dishes piled upon one end of it; the dead dog lying across the earthen floor; and over all the leap of 'ruddy flame as the newly kindled fire gathered way, leaving weird shadows here and there, yet steadily forcing them back, and flooding the whole interior with a cheery glow.
She had flung aside the blue and yellow cloak which, during the long hours of our night ride had so completely shrouded her, and stood before me dressed in some soft clinging stuff of a delicate brown color, so cut and fas.h.i.+oned as to most become her rounded, graceful form. About her neck a narrow strip of creamy lace was fitted, the full throat rendered whiter by the contrast, while at her wrists a similar ornament alone served to relieve the simple plainness of her attire.
The flaming fire lighted up her face, making it seem to flush with the dancing glow, which sparkled like diamonds in her eyes, and touched with ruddy light the dark, dishevelled hair. Hers was a young, fair face,--a face to love and trust forever, yet with a pride in it, and a certain firmness also that somehow was good to see. All this I noted with one quick upward glance, and with a sudden thrill of the heart such as I had never known before.
CHAPTER VII
A DISCIPLE OF SIR WALTER
I have no doubt she wished me to see her thus. Every woman worth the winning is a bit of a coquette, and none can be utterly disdainful of the lesson their mirror tells. But even as I gazed upon her, my admiration deeper than my pain, the arch expression of her face changed; there came a sudden rush of pity, of anxiety into those clear, challenging eyes, and with one quick step she drew nearer and bent above me.
”Oh, Captain Wayne,” she cried, her warm, womanly heart conquering all prejudice, ”you are badly hurt and bleeding. Why did you not tell me?
Please let me aid you.”
”I fear I must,” I replied grimly. ”I would gladly spare you, for indeed I do not believe my injury sufficiently serious to cause alarm, but I find I have only one arm I can use at present; the brute got his teeth into the other.”
The tender compa.s.sion within her eyes was most pleasant to see.
”Oh, believe me, I can do it.” She spoke bravely, a st.u.r.dy ring of confidence in the voice, although at the thought her face paled. ”I have been in the hospitals at Baltimore, and taken care of wounded soldiers. If there was only some water here!”
She glanced about, dreading the possibility of having to go forth into the night alone in search of a spring or well.
”I think you will find a pail on the bench yonder,” I said, for from where I leaned against the wall I could see out into the shed. ”It was doubtless left for the dog to drink from.”
She came back with it, tearing down a cloth from off a peg in the wall as she pa.s.sed, and then, wearing a resolute air of authority, knelt beside me, and with rapid fingers flung back my jacket, unfastening the rough army s.h.i.+rt, and laid bare, so far as was possible, the lacerated shoulder.
It gave me intense pain, for the s.h.i.+rt had become matted to the wound by drying blood, so that in spite of her soft touch and my own clinched teeth a slight groan broke from my lips.
”Forgive me,” she said anxiously, ”but I fear I can never dress it in this way. We must remove your jacket and cut away the sleeve of your s.h.i.+rt.”
It was an agonizing operation, for it has often seemed to me that the more superficial the wound the greater the pain experienced in dealing with it, and the perspiration stood in beads upon my forehead as she worked quickly and with skill. At last the disagreeable task was accomplished, the wounded shoulder completely bared. Her face was deathly white now, and she s.h.i.+elded her eyes with her hand.
”Oh, what a horrible wound!” she exclaimed, almost sobbing. ”How that great brute must have hurt you!”
”The wound is not so serious as it appears,” I replied rea.s.suringly, and glad myself to feel that I spoke the truth, ”but I confess the pain is intense, and makes me feel somewhat faint. It was not so much the mere bite of the dog, but unfortunately he got his teeth into an old wound and tore it open.”
”An old wound?”
”Yes; I received a Minie ball there at Gettysburg, and although the bullet was extracted, the wound never properly healed.”