CHAPTER XXVI.
LOST.
March and sugar making had gone, and Bart had completed his scanty arrangements to depart also; and no matter what the future might have for him, he knew that he was now leaving Newbury; that whatever might happen, his home would certainly be elsewhere; although it would forever remain the best, and perhaps sole home of his heart and memory.
What he could do for his mother he had done. His limited wardrobe was packed. He went to the pond, to all the dear and cherished places in the woods; and one night he was guilty of the folly, as he knew it was, of wandering up the State road, past Judge Markham's house. He did not pretend to himself that it was not with the hope of seeing Julia, but he only passed the darkened house where she lived, and went disappointed away. He would go on the morrow, and when it came, he sent his trunk up to Hiccox's, intending to walk down in the evening, and intercept the stage, as Henry had done.
He went again to his brother's grave, and there, on its head, was an almost fresh wreath of wild flowers! He was unmanned; and, kneeling, touched the dead children of the Spring with his lips, and dropped tears upon them. How grateful he was that a watchful love was there to care for this consecrated place, and he felt that he could not go that night. What mattered one day? He would wait till to-morrow, he thought, but was restless and undecided. George left him at the cemetery, and went to the post-office, and was to have gone with Edward to see him off, on the stage. As the time to leave approached, Bart found his disinclination to go even stronger; and he finally told his mother he would remain until the next day.
She, unwomanlike, did not like the idea of his yielding to this reluctance to go. "He was ready, nothing detained him, why not have the final pain of going over at once?"
He made no reply, but lounged restlessly about.
At about nine o'clock George came bursting in, with his eyes flashing, and his golden hair wet with perspiration; and catching his breath, and reducing and restraining his voice, cried out: "Julia Markham is lost in the woods, and they can't find her!" The words struck Bart like electricity, and at once made him his best self.
"Lost, George?" taking him by both hands, and speaking coolly, "tell me all about it."
A few great gasps had relieved George, and the cool, firm hands of
Bart had fully restored his quick wits.
"She and Nell Roberts had been to Coe's, and Orville started to go home with Julia, and he did go down to Judge Markham's fields, where he left her."
"Well?"
"She did not go home, nor anywhere, and they have been looking for her, all through the woods, everywhere."
"All through what woods, Georgie?"
"Down between Coe's and the State road."
"They will never find her there; there is a new chopping, back of Judge Markham's fields, which she mistook for the fields, and when she found out the mistake she turned back to the old road, and I will wager the world that she went into 'the woods,' confused and lost." After a moment—"Mother, put some of your wine in my hunting-flask, and give me something that can be eaten. Edward, bring me two of those bundles of hickory; and George, let me have your hatchet and belt."
He spoke in his ordinary voice, but he looked like one inspired. Throwing off his coat, and arraying himself in a red "wamus," and replacing his boots with heavy, close-fitting brogans, he was ready.
"Boys," said he, "go about and notify all in the neighborhood to meet at Markham's, at daylight; and tell them for God's sake, if she is not found, to form a line, and sweep through the west woods. If I am not back by daylight, push out and do all you can. Mother, don't be anxious for me. If it storms and grows cold, you know I am a born woodsman. I know now what kept me."
"I am anxious, Barton, only that you may find her. God go with you!"
With the other things, Edward placed in his hands a long wax taper, made for the sugar camp, lighted, and with a kiss to his mother, and a cheery good-night to the boys, he sprang out.
As Julia did not return at dark, her father and mother supposed she had stopped with Nell Roberts. Mrs. Markham remembered the adventure which signalized her last walk from Coe's, and was anxious; and the Judge went down to Roberts's for her. Nell had been home one hour, and said Orville had gone home with Julia. A messenger was hurried off to Coe's, and word was sent through the neighborhood, to call out the men and boys. It had been years since an alarm and a hunt for the lost had occurred. The messenger returned with young Coe, who said that he went with Miss Markham to within sight of her father's fields, when she insisted that he should return, and he did.
Cool and collected, the Judge and his party, with lanterns and torches, accompanied by Coe, proceeded to the point where he parted with Julia, when it was discovered that what she had mistaken for her father's fields, was a new opening in the woods, a considerable distance back from them. It was supposed that in endeavoring to find a passage through, or around the fallen timber, she had lost her way. Obviously, if she went back towards the old road, which was a broad opening through the woods, she would in no event cross it, and must be somewhere within the forest, east of it, and between the State road and the one which led from it to Coe's. Through these woods, with flashing torch and gleaming lantern, with shout and loud halloa, the Judge and his now numerous party swept. As often as a dry tree or combustible matter was found, it was set on fire, there being no danger of burning over the forest, wet with the rains of Spring.
This forest covered hundreds of acres, traversed by streams and gullies, and rocky precipices, rendered difficult of passage by fallen trees, thickets, twining vines and briers.
The weather had been intensely hot for the season, ominously so, for the last two days, and on this day, the sun, after hanging like a fiery ball in the thickening heavens, disappeared at mid-afternoon, in the dark mass of vapor that gathered in the lower atmosphere. The night came on early, with a black darkness, and while there was no wind, there was a low, humming moan in the air, as if to warn of coming tempest, and the atmosphere was already chill with the approaching change.