A MOUNTAIN IDYL—THE GIRL AND THE BOY.
On a fine day near the end of October, several years before the opening of this story, the express train from the southwest was speeding on toward North End. In one of the middle cars, which was not crowded, nor, indeed, quite full, sat a girl and a boy—both dressed in deep mourning, and both in charge of a tall, stout gentleman, also in deep mourning. These children were Corona, aged seven, and Sylvanus, aged four, orphans and co-heirs of John Haught, a millionaire merchant of San Francisco, and of his wife, Felicia, only daughter of Aaron and Deborah Rockharrt, of Rockhold. They had lost their parents during the prevalence of an epidemic fever, and had been left to the guardianship of Aaron Rockharrt. They were now coming, in charge of their Uncle Fabian—who had been sent to fetch them—to their grandparents' house, which was to be their home during their minority.
In front of these children sat a man of middle age and a boy of about twelve years. They seemed to belong to the honorable order of working men. Their clothing was old, worn and travel-stained. They had been picked up only at the last past station, and looked as if they had tramped a long way—weary and dejected. Each wore on his battered hat a little wisp of a dusty black crape band. This was a circumstance which much interested the little girl, Corona, who had a longer memory than her baby brother, and had not yet done grieving after her father and her mother, and she wanted to speak to the poor boy, and to tell him how very sorry she was for him, but was much too timid for such a venture. Neither the boy nor the man looked behind them, and so the children never saw their faces during the ride to North End. Both parties got out at the station. The Rockhold carriage was waiting for Fabian and his charges. Nothing was waiting for the tramp and his son. Mr. Fabian looked at them, and took in the whole situation. He put his nephew and niece into the carriage, told the coachman to wait for him, and then went up to the tramps.
"Looking for work?" he said, addressing the elder.
"Yes, sir," replied the latter, touching his old hat. "I have come a long way to look for it, and I am bound now for Rockharrt & Sons' Locomotive Works. Could you be so kind as to direct me where to find them?"
"About three miles down this side of the river. You cannot miss them if you follow this road. Stay—I am one of the firm. We have rather more men than we want just now, but I will give you a line to our manager, and he will find a place for you, and the boy, also," said plausible, good-natured, lying, dishonest Fabian Rockharrt, as he drew a card from his pocket and just wrote above his name:
"Take the bearer and his boy on."
Then on the opposite side of the card he wrote the superscription: "Timothy Ryland, Manager North End Foundries."
He gave this to the tramp, who touched his hat again, and led off his boy for their long walk to the works.
Fabian Rockharrt, with his nephew and niece, reached Rockland two hours later.
Aaron Rockharrt and his younger son, Clarence, were absent, at the works; but little Mrs. Rockharrt was at home.
Little Cora became the constant companion of the grandmother, who found her well advanced in learning for a child of seven years. She could read, write a little, and do easy sums in the first four simple rules of arithmetic.
A school room was fitted up on the first floor back of the Rockhold mansion. A nursery governess was found by advertisement.
She was a young and beautiful girl of the wax doll order of beauty, and of not more than sixteen years of age. In person she was tall, slim and fair, with red cheeks, blue eyes and yellow hair. Her very name, as well as her presence, was full of the aromas of Araby the Blest. It was Rose Flowers.
Rose smiled and bloomed and beamed on all, but most of all on Mr. Fabian, who was at that time a very handsome and fascinating man of no more than thirty, and to do her justice, she brought her young pupils well on in elementary education.
No more was seen or heard of the tramp and his boy, who had come to seek work at the foundries. They seemed to have been forgotten even by the little girl whose sympathies had been touched by their appearance on the train with their own party.
But early in February a catastrophe occurred which brought them back most painfully to, her memory. There was an explosion in the foundry, by which the man was instantly killed.
"Uncle Clarence," asked Cora of that person, "where is the boy belonging to the poor man that was killed? You know they came in the cars with us to North End Station. Oh! and they were so poor! Oh, and the boy had a bit of old crape on his old hat! Oh, and I know he had no mother! But I don't know whether the man was his father or his uncle. But, oh, Uncle Clarence, dear, where is the boy?"
"I don't know anything about the boy, little one, but I will inquire and tell you. I think the little chap has two more friends left, dear. You are one. I am the other."
"Oh, Uncle Clarence, you are a dear ducky-ducky-darling! And when I am a grown-up woman, I will marry you."
"Oh! well, all right, if you remain in the same mind, and—"
"I will never, never change my mind. I love you better than I do anybody in the world, except Sylvan and grandma, and Miss Flowers and Tip!"
Clarence kept his word with the child about making inquiries as to the fate of the boy in whom she was interested.
The boy was motherless, and, by the death of his father, had been left utterly destitute. He had found a home with Scythia Woods, an eccentric woman, who lived in a hut on the mountain side, half way between North End and Rockhold, and he supported himself in a poor way by running errands and doing little jobs about the works.
Little Cora Haught listened to this account of the poor, friendless, self-reliant lad with the deepest sympathy.
"Uncle Clarence," she pleaded, "you are so rich. Why don't you give that poor boy clothes, and shoes, and hats, and all he ought to have?"
"My good little girl, nothing would give me more delight, but that fellow would see Rockharrt & Sons swallowed up by an earthquake before he would take a cent from them that he had not earned."
"Oh, I like that—that is grand! But why don't you take him on and give him good pay?"
"But, my dear, he is a boy, and cannot do regular heavy work. He is quite uneducated, and cannot do any other except what he does."
Two months later, one lovely spring day, she saw him again for the first time since their meeting on the train six months previous. He came to Rockhold one Saturday afternoon to bring a letter from the manager to the head of the firm. He came to the back door which opened from the porch. He sent in his letter by the servant who came at his knock, and he said he was to wait for an answer. Cora, in the back parlor, saw him, recognized him, and ran out to speak to him.
Perhaps the tiny lady had some faint idea of the duties and responsibilities of wealth and station. So she spoke to the boy.
"Are you Regulas Rothsay?" she inquired, in a soft tone.
"Yes, miss," replied the boy.
There was an awkward pause, and then the little girl said slowly:
"You won't let anybody give you anything, although you have no father nor mother. Now, why won't you?"
"Because, I can work for all I want, all—but—" the boy began, and then stopped.
"You have all but what?"
"A little schooling."
"Here's the answer, Rule! You are to run right away as fast as you can and take it to Mr. Ryland," said a servant, coming out upon the porch and handing a letter to the boy.
It was a week after this interview with the lad before Cora saw him again.
He was on the lawn in front of the house. She was at the window of the front drawing room. As soon as she espied him she ran out to speak to him, and eagerly begged that she might teach him to read.
The boy, surprised at the suddenness and the character of such an offer, blushed, thanked the little lady, and declined, then hesitated, reflected, and then, half reluctantly, half gratefully, consented.
Cora was delighted, and frankly expressed her joy.
"Oh, Regulas, I am so glad! Now every afternoon when I have done my lessons—I am in Comly's first speller, Peter Parley's first book of history, and first book of geography, and I am as far as short division in arithmetic, and round hand in the copy book—so as soon as I get through with my lessons, and you get through with your work, you come to this back porch, where I play, and I will bring my old primer and white slate, and I will teach you. If you get here before I do, you wait for me. I will never be long away. If I get here before you, I will wait for you," she concluded.
The Iron King, Mr. Fabian, or Mr. Clarence, passing out of the back door for an afternoon stroll in the grounds, would see the little lady seated in one of the large Quaker chairs, her feet dangling over its edge, busy with her doll's dresses, and furtively watching her pupil, who, seated before her on one of the long piazza benches, would be poring over his primer or his slate.
As time went on every one began to wonder at the earnestness and constancy of this childish friendship.
So the lessons went on through all the spring and summer and early autumn of that year.
Before the leaves had fallen Regulas had learned all she could teach him.
Then their parting came about naturally, inevitably. When the weather grew cold, the lessons could no longer be given out on the exposed piazza, and the little teacher could not be permitted to bring her rough and ragged pupil into the house.
Cora begged of her kind Uncle Clarence some of his old school books, which she knew to be among the rubbish of the garret, which was her own rainy-day play room in summer, and offered the books to the boy as a loan from herself, because she dared not offer the lad a gift.
Later, she loaned him a "Boy's Life of Benjamin Franklin." It was that book, perhaps, that decided the boy's destiny. He read it with avidity, with enthusiasm. The impression made upon his mind was so deep and intense that his heart became fired with a fine ambition. He longed to tread in the steps of Benjamin Franklin—to become a printer, to rise to position and power, to do great and good things for his country and for humanity. He brooded over all this.
To begin, he resolved to become a printer.
So, when the spring opened, he came to Rockhold and bade good-by to his little friend, and went, at the age of fourteen, to the city to seek his fortune, walking all the way, and taking with him testimonials as to his character for truth, honesty, and industry.
There were at that time three printing offices in that city. Rule applied to the first and to the second without success, but when he applied to the third—the office of the Watch—and showed his credentials, the proprietor took him on.
He and his little friend corresponded regularly from month to month.
No one objected to this letter writing, any more than to the lesson giving. It was but the charity of the little lady given for the encouragement of the poor, struggling orphan boy.
It was nearly four years after the departure of Rule from the works at North End to seek his fortune in a printing office of the neighboring city. He had never yet returned to see his friends, though his correspondence with Cora had been kept up.
In the four years that Rose Flowers had lived at Rockhold she had won the hearts of all the household, from the master down to the meanest drudge. She was, indeed, the fragrance of the house. All admired her much and loved her more, and yet—
And yet in every mind there was a latent distrust of her, which seemed unjust, and for which all who felt it reproached themselves—in every mind but one.
The Iron King felt no distrust of the submissive, beautiful creature, whom he continually held up to other members of his family as the very model of perfect womanhood.
He did not see, he said, why she should now, when it was finally decided that Cora should be sent to the young ladies' institute, at the city, why Rose should leave the house. She might remain as companion for Mrs. Rockharrt. But when this was proposed to Miss Flowers, the young governess explained, with much regret, that, not anticipating this generous offer, she had already secured another situation.
With tears in her beautiful eyes, Rose Flowers took the old man's hand and pressed it to her heart and then to her lips as she bent her head and cooed:
"I will remember all you have told me—all the wise and good counsel you have ever given me, all the precious acts of kindness you have ever shown me. And when I cease to remember them, sir, may heaven forget me!"
"There, there, my child. You are a baby—a mere baby!" said the Iron King, as he patted her on the head and left her.
This interview occurred a few days before Christmas.
It was now Christmas morning, nearly four years after the departure of Rule Rothsay. It was a fine clear, cold day. Bright with color was the village of North End, where all the houses were decorated with holly, and the people, in their Sunday clothes, were out in the streets on their way to the church, which had been beautifully decorated for the occasion.
The Rockharrt family—with the exception of old Aaron Rockharrt, who did not choose to turn out that day, and Miss Rose Flowers, who stayed home to keep him company and to wait on him—came early in their capacious and comfortable family carriage. They had a large, square, handsomely upholstered pew in the right-hand upper corner of the church.
When they were all quietly settled in their seats and the voluntary was going on, the elders of the party bowed their heads to offer up their preliminary prayers. But Cora, girl-like, looked about her, letting her glances wander over the well-filled pews, and then up toward the galleries. A moment later she suddenly gave a little start and half-suppressed exclamation of delight.
Mrs. Rockharrt, who had finished her prayer, looked around in surprise at the girl, who had committed this unusual indecorum.
"Oh, grandma, it is Rule! Rule, up there in the boys' gallery—look!" Cora whispered, in eager delight.
The old lady raised her eyes and recognized Regulas Rothsay—but so well grown, so well dressed, and well looking as to be hardly recognizable, except from his strong, characteristic head and face. He wore a neatly fitting suit of dark-blue cloth; neat woolen gloves covered his large hands; his hair was trimmed and as nicely dressed as such rough, tawny locks could be.
At length the beautiful service was finished, and the congregation filed out of the church into the yard, where all immediately began shaking hands with each other.
Presently Cora saw the youth come out of the church, look earnestly about him until he descried her party, and then walk directly toward her.
"Oh, Rule, I am so glad to see you! When did you get here? Why didn't you come straight to Rockhold? Why didn't you write and tell me you were coming?" Cora eagerly demanded, as she met him, and hurrying question upon question before giving him time to answer the first one.
The youth raised his cap and bowed to the elder members of the party before answering the girl. Then he said:
"I did not know that I could come until an hour before I started. I came by the midnight express, and reached here just in time for church. I have not seen, or I should say, I have not spoken to, any one here yet except yourself.
"Last evening, being Friday evening, we were at work very late on our Saturday's supplement, and a Christmas story in it. Very often we have to work on Christmas night, if the next day is a week day; and every Sunday night—that is, from twelve midnight, when the Sabbath ends—we have to work to get out Monday morning's paper."
"Oh, yes; of course," said Fabian.
"Well, I never have had a whole holiday since I have been in the Watch office; but last night, about half-past ten, after the paper had gone to press, the foreman came to me, paid my wages up to the first of January, and told me that I need not return to the office at midnight after Sunday, but might have leave of absence until Monday morning, so as to have time to go and spend Christmas with my friends if I wished to do so."
Just then Clarence Rockharrt joined them and said, anxiously:
"Mother, dear, I think you had better get into the carriage. It is very bleak out here, and you might take cold."
Mrs. Rockharrt at once took the arm of her youngest and best-beloved son and let him lead her away to the spot where the comfortable family coach awaited them.
Mr. Fabian started to follow with Cora.
"Come with us to the carriage door, Rule," said the girl, looking back and stretching her hand out toward the youth.
"Yes! Come!" added pleasant Mr. Fabian.
Regulas touched his hat and followed. Fabian put his niece in the seat beside her grandmother, and then turned to the youth and inquired:
"What are you going to do with yourself to-day?"
"I shall go down to my old home, sir, Mother Scythia's hut."
"Oh! Ah! Yes; I remember. You are going to stop there?"
"Yes, sir; but I shall try to see all old friends to-day or to-morrow, and I should like to go to Rockhold to thank all the friends there who have been kind to me, and to tell Mrs. Rockharrt and Miss Cora, who were kindest of all, how I have got on in the city."
"Certainly! Certainly, Rule! Come whenever you like! And see here! It is a long, rough road from here to old Scythia's Roost, which is right on our way to Rockhold. Sorry we cannot offer you a seat in the carriage but you see there are but four seats and there are already five people to fill them."
"Oh, sir, I should not expect such a thing," said the youth.
"But I was about to say if you will mount to a seat beside the coachman, you will be heartily welcome to what used to be my own 'most favoryte' perch in my younger days. And we can set you down at the foot of the path leading up to old Scythia's hut," concluded Mr. Fabian.
"Oh, do, Rule! Please do!" pleaded Cora.
Regulas, with his sturdy independence of spirit, would most likely have declined this favor had not the girl's beseeching face and voice persuaded him to accept it.
"I thank you very much, sir," he said, and promptly climbed to the seat.
Three miles down the road the carriage was pulled up at the foot of the highest point of the mountain range, and Rule came down from his perch beside the coachman, stepped up to the carriage window, took off his hat, thanked the occupants for his ride, and then drew a neat, white inch-square parcel from his vest pocket, and holding it modestly, said:
"I hope you will accept this, Miss Cora."
The girl took it with a smile, but before she could open her lips to express her thanks, the youth had bowed, turned from the carriage, and was speeding his way up the rough mountain path, springing from crag to crag up to the ledge on which old Scythia's hut stood.
Cora opened the parcel and found an inch-square little casket of red morocco. She opened this with a spring, and found a small gold heart reposing in a bed of white satin.
"How pretty it is!" she said softly to herself, as she took the trinket from its case. "Look, grandma, what Rule has brought me for a Christmas gift! A little gold heart! A pure gold heart! His is a pure gold heart, is it not?" she added, earnestly, as she placed the trinket in the lady's hand.
Mrs. Rockharrt looked at it with interest, and then passed it on to her eldest son.
The ride was continued, and presently the carriage was driven off the boat and up the avenue leading to the house. As the vehicle drew up before the front doors, a pretty picture might have been seen through the drawing-room windows.
A bright fireside, an old man reclining in his luxurious arm-chair; a beautiful girl seated on a hassock at his feet, reading to him, and at intervals lifting her lovely blue eyes in childish adoration to his face. They might have been grandfather and granddaughter, but they were, in fact, old Aaron Rockharrt and Miss Rose Flowers—Merlin and Vivien again, except that the Iron King was rather a rugged and unmanageable Merlin.
Meanwhile, Regulas Rothsay had climbed the rugged mountain path that led to Scythia's hut. On the back of the broad shelf of rock on which the hut stood was a hollow in the side of the precipice. Scythia had cleared out this hollow of all its natural litter. Before this apartment she had built another room, with no better material than fragments of rock found on the spot, and filled in with earth, moss and twigs. She had roofed this over with branches of evergreens piled thick and high, to keep off rain and sun. A heavy buffalo robe, fastened with large wooden pins at its top to the roof of the hut, served for a door. There was no window. In the inner or cavernous apartment she had built a rude fire-place and chimney going up through a hole in the rock. A pallet of rough furs and coarse blankets lay in one corner of this room, and a few rude cooking utensils occupied another. In the outer room there was a rough oak table and two chairs.
Up before the edge of this natural shelf on which the hut stood appeared the tops of a thicket of pine trees that grew on the mountain side fifty feet below. Up behind this shelf arose other pines, height above height, until their highest tops seemed to pierce the clouds.
When Rule reached this shelf, he found the tops of the pine trees, the ground, and the hut all covered with snow.
"Good morning, mother! A merry Christmas to you!" said Rule, gayly.
"I hope you have made yourself as comfortable as possible in this place," said the youth, anxiously.
"Yes, Rule! always as happy and as much at ease as my past will permit."
"Oh! what is—what was this terrible past?" inquired the youth—not for the first time.
"It was, it is, and it ever will be! This past will be present and future so long as I live on this earth. And some day, when time and strife and woe have made you strong and hard and stern, I will lift the veil and show you its horrible face! But not now, my boy! not now! Come in."
As the weird woman said this she led the way into the hut, where the rude table stood covered with a coarse white cloth and adorned with two white plates and two pairs of steel knives and forks. Here the Christmas dinner was eaten, and afterward the two began a close conversation.
"Mother," said the youth, "I shall have to leave here to-morrow night. I should go away so much more contented if I could see you living down in the village among people. Here you are dwelling alone, far from human help if you should require it. The winter coming on!"
"Rule! I hate the village! I hate the haunts of human beings! I love the wilderness and the wild creatures that are around me!"
"But, mother, if you should be taken ill up here alone!"
"I should get well or die; and it would not in the least matter which."
"But you might linger, you might suffer."
"I am used to suffering, and however long I might linger, the end would come at last. Recovery or death, it would not matter which."
"Oh, Mother Scythia!" said the youth, in a voice full of distress.
"Rule! I am as happy here as my past will permit me to be. I abhor the haunts of the human! I love the solitude of the wilderness. The time may come when you too, lad, shall hate the haunts of the human and long for the lair of the lion! You will rise, Rule! As sure as flame leaps to the air, you will rise! The fire within you will kindle into flame! You will rise! But—beware the love of woman and the pride of place! See! Listen!"
The face of the weird woman changed—became ashen gray, her form became rigid, her eyes were fixed, her gaze was afar off in distant space.
"What is it, mother?" anxiously demanded the youth.
"I see your future and the emblem of your future—a splendid meteor, soaring up from the earth to the sky, filling space with light and glory! Dazzling a million of eyes, then dropping down, down, down into darkness and nothingness! That is you!"
"Mother Scythia!" exclaimed the youth, in troubled tones.
The weird woman never turned her head, nor withdrew her fearful, far-off stare into futurity.
"That is you. You are but a poor apprentice. But from this year you will soar, and soar, and soar to the zenith of place and power among your fellows! You will be the blazing meteor of the day! You will dazzle all eyes by the splendor of your success, and then, 'in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye,' you will drop into night, and nothingness, and be heard of no more!"
"Mother! Mother Scythia! Wake up! You are dreaming!" said Rule, laying his hand on the woman's shoulder and gently shaking her.
"Oh, what is this? Rule! What is it?"
"You have been dreaming, Mother Scythia."
"Have I?" said the woman, putting her hands to her forehead and stroking away the raven locks that over-shadowed it.
And gradually she recovered from her trance and returned to her normal condition. When Rule was quite sure that she was all right again, he said:
"Mother Scythia, I am going to Rockhold to see the friends there who have been kind to me. But I will come back to spend the night with you."
"Well, lad, go. Why should I try to hinder you? You must work out your destiny and bear your doom," she said, wearily, with her forehead bowed upon her hands, as if she felt the heavy prophetic cloud still over-shadowing and oppressing her.
"Mother Scythia, why do you speak so solemnly of me, and I only in my nineteenth year?" gravely inquired the youth, who, though he had been accustomed to the weird woman's strange moods and stranger words and deemed them little less than the betrayals of insanity, yet now felt unaccountably troubled by them.
"Yes; you are young, but the years fly fast; and I—I see the future in the present. But go, my boy! enjoy the good of the present—your best days, lad!—and come back this evening and you shall find your pallet of sweet boughs and soft blankets ready for you," she said.
Rule stooped and kissed her corrugated forehead and then left the hut.
The sun was setting behind the mountain, which threw a dark shadow over Scythia's Ledge and Rule's path, as he ran springing from rock to rock down the precipice to the river's side. It was dark when he reached the spot. But the lights from the windows of Rockhold on the opposite shore gleamed out upon the snow with splendid effect.
Every window in the front of the building was shining with light that streamed out upon the snow; for the shutters had been left unclosed on purpose, this Christmas night.
Rule crossed the ferry and went, as he had been used to go, to the back door, opening on the back porch, where, four years before, Cora used to keep school for her one pupil. He rapped at the door, and Sylvan sprang up and opened it. He was warmly welcomed, and spent a pleasant evening. The rest of his vacation was spent in a way equally pleasant, and at seven a.m., Monday, Rule was at work, type-setting in the Watch office.
On the third of January following that Christmas there were three departures from Rockhold. Miss Rose Flowers went East to enter upon her new engagement. Corona Haught, in charge of her grandmother and her Uncle Clarence, went West to enter the Young Ladies' Institute, in the capital, and Master Sylvanus Haught went North, in the care of his Uncle Fabian, to enter a boy's school.