Part 47 (1/2)

”I am glad you have all been so good to him; you especially, who have a wife and children to claim you. I hope Mr. Herriott can soon be at home, and he will thank you. Now your responsibility ceases, because I have employed a good nurse, trained in a hospital, who will know what is best for him and make him obey the doctor's directions. David, I am sure you men will be considerate and respectful while she remains.”

At the door of the gardener's house, Snap dashed out, barking viciously.

She called his name twice and held out her hand, but, eyeing her suspiciously, he growled and retreated across the threshold. Propped with pillows, Amos was on a cot near the hearth, and a newspaper lay across his knees. The room was bright with suns.h.i.+ne, and when Eglah entered, clad in black, her long crepe veil thrown back and falling nearly to the floor, the old man stared at her and almost shrieked:

”Has the Lord G.o.d taken my lad? You wear widow's black for him?”

”No, Amos. The Lord G.o.d took my father, and my mourning is for him.”

He threw up his arms.

”G.o.d be praised!”

After a moment, he added apologetically:

”Madam, I mean I am thankful Noel is spared. You see, I think only of the boy.”

She drew a chair to the cot and took one of the gardener's wasted, gnarled hands in hers.

”I did not hear of your sickness till three days ago, and I came at once, to see if I could not make you more comfortable while Mrs. Orr is away.”

”It makes no difference about my worn-out old body--that is a crippled hulk. My mind is in torment because of the lad's danger. Where is he now? In the ice on land, or locked up in the s.h.i.+p of the unG.o.dly name, that can never break loose from the bergs leaning over her? Tell me, was your news later than my letter?”

He dragged from his bosom two worn, soiled envelopes and held them towards her. One was postmarked St. John, N. B., the other Dundee, Scotland. As she opened them a bunch of yellow poppies and a little square of moss fell into her lap. She glanced at the dates. The oldest was from Upernavik, soon after the vessel reached Greenland; the most recent was from off Cape Alexander, where the ”Ahvungah” was frozen in.

”No, Amos, your news is the latest I have heard.”

Her voice quivered, and replacing the flowers in an envelope, she laid the unread letters on the cot.

”Was your last letter from him the same date as mine?”

”No; it was earlier.”

The cold, light-grey eyes in their deep, sunken sockets probed hers like steel.

”Madam, it was your fault he went away.”

”No, his word was pledged before our marriage, and I am not responsible for this journey. I did all that was possible to keep him.”

Amos leaned forward and grasped her wrist.

”You know you are to blame. What was it you did to him? That night you came--a bride--I saw when he took you from the carriage everything had gone wrong with him. I knew what that grip of his mouth and that red spark in his eyes meant. You did him some wrong.”

She shook her head, and, even in his wrath, the hopeless sorrow in her eyes touched him.

”You struck him a bitter, hard blow somewhere. You see, since he was a year old and his mother died, I have watched him. His father was away with his railroads and his mines out West, and Susan and I had the care of him till he was put to his books and had a tutor to teach him Latin.

They set him at that stupid business too early. I made his kites, and played marbles with him, and sailed his little boats, and--” His voice broke, and he paused to steady it.

”He was always truthful, and honorable, and generous, but--may the Lord have mercy on him--he was born with the temper of Beelzebub. Not from his mother did he get it, but from his hard old father, Fergus Herriott, who somehow managed to keep himself under check-rein and bit. He never punished the lad but once, and that was when the devil possessed the child. He was barely ten years old. He fell into a terrible rage with Susan about the fit of a bathing suit she made for him, and kicked the clothes into the lake. Then he turned on her like a son of Belial with rough, ugly, sinful language till she cried. His father happened to be in the boat house near by. He came out, took him by the shoulders and shook him, ordering him to apologize instantly to his nurse. The boy set his teeth and shook his head.

”'If you do not apologize properly to her, I shall thrash you.'