CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE FIRST CHANCE.
MR. BROWN had been a week at Outpost, and, at breakfast one morning, announced his departure for the succeeding day.
"And if you feel able to ride so far, Dora," continued he, "perhaps you will show me the way to the curious mounds we heard of from Dr. Gershom."
"They are full ten miles from here, he said," remarked Kitty disapprovingly.
"To-day is the 24th, isn't it, Dora? the 24th of August?" inquired Karl; and Dora, if no other of his auditors, saw the connection between this remark and the proposed long ride with Mr. Brown.
"Yes, Karl; it is the 24th: and I think we can make a party for the mounds, Mr. Brown. Kitty, wouldn't you like to go? and, Karl, can't you take a holiday? Sunshine might stay with Mehitable for once; mightn't she?"
"No; because she speaks too loud, and through her nose: but I'll stay with Argus and the woods," said Sunshine quietly.
"But have we horses enough?" asked Kitty with animation.
"That is easily settled," interposed Karl eagerly. "I will fix
Sunshine's pillion upon Major, and Dora can ride behind me. Then
Kitty can take Max, and Mr. Brown will ride his own horse."
"Oh! there is no need of Major's carrying double," said Dora hastily. "Seth can spare Sally as well as not, and Kitty can ride her better than she can Max."
At this decision, Kitty looked a little vexed, and Karl a little discomfited; while Mr. Brown bent over his plate to hide a sudden gleam of humor in his dark eyes. As they all rose from table, Karl passed close to his cousin, and whispered,—
"I want to speak to you before we go."
Dora made no answer; nor, in the busy hour before they started, could her cousin find opportunity for a single private word. Nor was he more successful in the bold push made by him, so soon as they had started, for the place beside Dora; for she, thinking just then of some important communication for Kitty's ear, reined her pony close to that younger lady's, and good-humoredly desired him to ride on out of earshot. Karl obeyed the mandate with something less than his usual amiability, and was riding on in advance of the whole party, when he found himself detained by Mr. Brown, who asked some trifling, question about the road, and then attempted a conversation upon the crops and other ordinary topics for a few moments; until, unable to contend with the indifference, if not impatience, Karl was at no trouble to conceal, he remained silent for a moment, and then said abruptly,—
"Windsor, this is not soldierly or manly."
Karl looked at him, but made no reply.
"We both know what is in the other's mind," continued Mr. Brown, and we know that we cannot both succeed; but that is no reason for ill feeling toward each other. If we were Don Quixotes, we might fight; if we were gamesters, we might throw for the first chance: but as we are, I trust, Christian gentlemen, we owe each other every kindly feeling short of a wish for success."
"Yes: you can hardly expect that of me; and I'm sure I don't of you," said Karl, half laughing.
"No: that were inconsistent with a true earnestness of purpose," said Mr. Brown. "And, after all, the girl we both love is no such weakling as to accept a man simply because he asks her. She will decide between us fairly and justly."
"Then let me have the first chance, since you think it no advantage," said Karl impetuously.
Mr. Brown smiled grimly.
"Is there not some proverb about age before merit?" asked he. "Besides, you have had more than four years to ask your question in, and can very well wait a few hours longer. I came to Iowa on purpose to ask mine, and shall go away to-morrow."
"I don't see, sir, but you saints are just as obstinate in getting what you want as we sinners," said the younger man petulantly.
The chaplain laughed outright.
"A man at thirty has seldom subdued his worldly passions and intentions to the degree of sainthood," said he. "And I will not deny that my heart is very much engaged in this matter. However, I will be generous, and you may take your chance first."
He reined in his steed as he spoke, and, waiting beside the road until the young ladies came up, made some remark to Kitty relating to a question she had asked him concerning Virginian roads as compared with those of the West, and, by turning into the track beside her, rather obliged Dora to ride forward to the turn of the road, where Karl awaited her. But Kitty's satisfaction in the decided intention Mr. Brown had shown of speaking to her was rather dampened by perceiving how frequently his attention wandered from what she was saying, and how earnestly his eyes were fixed upon the two figures riding briskly in advance.
"If he can only look at Dora, why don't he go and ride with her?" muttered Kitty; and, as her companion turned his eyes inquiringly upon her, she asked aloud,—
"Are you pretty quick at hearing, Mr. Brown?"
"Not especially. Why?"
"Oh! I thought you looked as if you would like to hear what Charlie is saying to Dora."
"And you thought it was very rude of me to be so inattentive to you," added Mr. Brown, bending his dark eyes upon her with a smile.
Kitty colored guiltily, and answered hastily,—
"Oh dear, no! I'm used to finding myself of no account beside Dora."
Mr. Brown looked again at her, and then, with a sudden association of ideas, asked,—
"Kitty, are you going to tell me, before I go away, what made you feel so badly the day I came and found you in the wood?"
Again Kitty's face glowed beneath his gaze, and her bright black eyes drooped in rare confusion. She was about to answer hastily and coldly, but found herself checked by a softer impulse. Why should she not tell him somewhat of the trouble at her heart, and so win at least sympathy and pity, if nothing more? So she said in a low voice,—
"No one cares much for me, I think."
"No one?-not your brother?"
Kitty raised her eyes to the far vista point where Karl and Dora vanished into the forest, their horses moving close to each other's side, and then brought them back to the face of her companion. The look was eloquent, and he said,—
"Yes; but by and by, perhaps, he will not be so engrossed."
The young girl raised her head with a superb gesture.
"To wait for by and by, when some one else has done with him, is not my idea of love."
Mr. Brown looked at her more attentively, and smiled.
"I think the day will come when some man will love you first and best of all," said he, in a tone, not of flattery, but of honest admiration, which fell like sunlight upon the waste places of poor Kitty's heart.
"Oh! I'm not good enough, or smart enough, or good-looking enough. He never will," replied she hastily, and then colored crimson again at the meaning beneath her words.
Again Mr. Brown keenly eyed her, and asked,—
"He? Do you mean some one in particular? No: forgive me. I have no right to ask such a question. I am only your friend, not a father confessor."
Kitty, dumb with confusion and a sudden terror, made no effort to reply; and, after a moment, Mr. Brown led the way to a quiet conversation upon the young girl's previous life, her early pursuits and affections, and finally to the passionate love and regret for her dead mother, in which he found the key to all she was and all she might be. So employed, the psychological student even forgot his own affairs, and for half an hour hardly remembered Dora riding on beside Karl, who, like the cowardly bather, dallying first with one foot and then the other in the water's edge, and losing all his courage before the final plunge, had talked with her of almost every thing beneath the sun, and worn out his own patience and hers, before she said, turning her clear eyes full upon him,—
"Karl, be honest and straightforward. It is kinder to us both."
The young man heaved a sigh of relief.
"That's it, Dora. There isn't another such girl in the world. Don't you know, in camp I used to say I relied upon you for protection, and for making a man of me instead of an idle boy? O Dora! there's nothing you couldn't do with me."
He spoke the last words in an imploring voice, and fixed his eyes upon her averted face. Then, as she did not speak, he went on:—
"It isn't any thing I can offer you, Dora, except the chance of doing good: I know that well enough. What I am, you know; but what I might become to please you none of us can know. And I do love you so, Dora! I know it sounds bald and silly to say just those few words; but they mean so much to me! and I've meant it so long and so heartily! No; don't speak just yet: I want to make you feel first, if I can, how dreadfully in earnest I am. When I first saw you there at your old home, and you took care of me so tenderly, and looked at me, so pityingly out of your great brown eyes, my heart warmed to you; and then in camp, you know-O Dora Darling! you cannot say but you knew how dearly I grew to love you even then: and when I found you were my own kin; and when you came to my own home, and my mother took you to her heart, and thanked God for having given her another daughter, and such a daughter; and when I saw your daily life among us, and saw how noble, and how unselfish, and how true, and brave, you were through all the sorrow, and the trials, and the loneliness, and the petty spite and insults, you had to endure; and then here, where you are like a wise and gracious queen among her subjects,—O Dora! what is there in you that does not call forth my highest love, my truest reverence? and what better could life do for me than to grant me the privilege of worshipping and following you all my days, and making myself into just what sort of man would suit you best?"
And the true-hearted young fellow felt his words strike home to his own soul so earnestly that he could add to them nothing of the flood of tenderness and homage swelling there, but only looked at his cousin piteously; while she, with drooping head and averted eyes, rode on for a few moments in silence, and then said softly,—
"I hoped, dear Karl, you would never speak of it again. We have been so happy the last year!"—
"O Dora!" interposed the young man in a voice of agony, "never say you are going to refuse me! Happy! yes, I have been happy, because I have looked forward to this day, and thought it might be the beginning of a life to which this has been but the gray dawn before the sunrise. You have been so kind to me, so frank and affectionate! and all the time you knew-oh! you must have known-what was in my heart. Yes; and, if it had not been for this meddling parson's visit"—
"Hush, Karl!" interrupted Dora decisively. "I will not have you unjust or ungenerous to a man far nobler and purer and wiser than either you or I. Mr. Brown's visit has nothing to do with what I say to-day; nor did I know, as you think I did, that you would again ask me the question you asked a year ago. I only remembered it, when, last week, you reminded me of the date; and I only let you speak to-day, because it is better for us both to say out all that is in our hearts, and then to let the matter rest."
She, paused a moment, and recommenced in a lower and more tender voice:—
"I am so sorry, Karl, to give you pain! If the only trouble was that I don't want to marry you, I wouldn't mind saying no; for I love you very much: only I don't believe it is the way girls commonly love the men they marry. But it wouldn't be right."
"Not right! Oh! why not right, Dora?"
"Because it would spoil both of us. You ask me to make any thing of you I like; but that is not the way. It is you yourself that must make a man of yourself. If I should try to do it, I should only make a puppet of you, and a conceited, tyrannical woman of myself. It would not be good for me to rule as you want me to do; and surely no man would deliberately say it would be good for him to be ruled, and that by his wife."
There was a touch of scorn in the tone of the last words; and Karl's check flushed hotly, as he said,—
"It's hard that you should despise me for loving you so well that I am ready to forget pride and manly dignity, and every thing else, for the sake of it."
"No; but, Karl, don't you see yourself what an injury such a love must be to you? Forget pride and manly dignity and self-respect do you say? A true love, a good love, would make you cherish them as you never did before; would make you claim and hold every inch of manhood that is in you, so that you might feel yourself worthy of that love. O, Karl! never again offer to put yourself under the foot of any woman, but wait till you meet one whom you can hold by the hand, and lead along, keeping equal step with yourself, and both pressing forward to a common goal."
She turned her face upon him, all aglow with a noble enthusiasm far above the maiden bashfulness that but now had held it averted, and extended her hand, saying,—
"Come, dear Karl, forget this idle dream. Be once more my brother and my helper. Trust me, no one cares more for you so than I; not Kitty herself."
He took the hand, put it to his lips, then rode on silently.
Dora's kind eyes sought his again and again, but vainly. His face, pale and somewhat stern gave no clew to the feelings within: the mouth, more firmly set than its wont, seemed sealed to love forever.
For the first time in all the interview, Dora found herself troubled and perplexed. Here was nothing to soothe, nothing to combat, nothing to answer or to silence; and her womanly sympathies fluttered about this manly reticence like a humming-bird around a flower frozen into the heart of an iceberg.
At last, she spoke; and her voice had grown almost caressing in its softness:—
"You're not angry with me, Karl?"
He glanced at her, then away.
"Certainly not, Dora. On the contrary, I am much obliged to you."
"Obliged to me!" exclaimed Dora; her feminine pique just touched a trifle. "What, for saying no?"
"For showing me that I am a fool. It was time I knew it, and I had rather hear it from you than any one. Why should you care for me? I am not a man to respect, like Mr. Brown, or one to admire, like Mr. Burroughs,—I suppose it will be one of them; but I only hope either one may give you half—No matter, wait here a moment in the shade. I am going back to speak to Kitty."
He sharply wheeled his horse as he spoke, and was gone. Dora looked after him in sorrowful perplexity, and then tears gathered in her eyes; but, before they could fall, the unswerving rectitude underlying her whole nature came to its relief, and she dashed them away, murmuring,—
"But I was right."