At last the house was still, and the juggler, having endured an agony of suspense in his determination to suppress all demonstrations of interest in New Helvetia, lest the intuition of the two women should divine the cause from even so slight indicia as might baffle reason, found himself free from question and surmise and comment. He was off in the darkness, with a furtive noiseless speed, like some wild errant thing of the night, native to the woods. He had a sense of the shadow and of the sheen of a fair young moon in the wilderness; he knew that the air was dank and cool and that the dew fell; he took note mechanically of the savage densities of the wilds when he heard the shrill blood-curdling quavering of a catamount’s scream, and he laid his grasp on the handle of a sharp bowie-knife that he wore in his belt, which he had bought for a juggling trick that he had not played at the curtailed performance in the schoolhouse, and he wished that it were instead Tubal Cain’s shooting-iron. But beyond this his mind was a blank. He did not think; he did not feel; his every capacity was concentrated upon his gait and the speed that he made. He did not know how short a time had elapsed when the series of points of yellow light from the ballroom windows, like a chain of glowing topaz, shone through the black darkness and the misty tremulous dimness of the moon. His teeth were set; he was fit to fall; he paused only a moment, leaning on the rail of the bridge to draw a deep breath and relax his muscles. Then he came on, swift, silent, steady, to the veranda.
Around the doors, outside the ballroom, were crowded figures, whose dusky faces and ivory teeth caught the light from within and attested the enjoyment of the servants of the place as spectators of the scene. He saw through an aperture, as one of them moved aside, a humble back bench against the wall, on which sat two or three of the mountaineers of the vicinity, calmly and stolidly looking on, without more facial expression of opinion than Indians might have manifested. He would not join this group, lest she might notice him in their company, which he repudiated, as if his similarity of aspect were not his reliance to save all that he and men of his kind held dear. The windows were too high from the ground to afford a glimpse of the interior; he stood irresolute for a moment, with the strains of the waltz music vibrating in his very heart-strings. Suddenly he marked how the ground rose toward the further end of the building. The last two windows evidently were partially blockaded by the slope so close without, and could serve only purposes of ventilation. Responsive to the thought, he climbed the steep slant, dark, dewy, and solitary, and, lying in the soft lush grass, looked down upon the illuminated ballroom.
At first he did not see her. With his heart thumping much after the fashion of the bass viol, till it seemed to beat in his ears, he gazed on the details of a scene such as he had thought never to look upon again. He recognized with a sort of community spirit and pleasure how well the frolicsome youth had utilized their slender opportunities, so far from the emporiums of civilization. Great branching ferns had adequately enough supplied the place of palms, their fronds waving lightly from the walls in every whirling breeze from the flight of the dance. Infinite lengths of vines—the Virginia creeper, the ground ivy, and the wild grape—twined about the pillars, and festooned the ceiling, the band-stand, and the chandeliers. For the first time he was made aware of the decorative values of the blackberry, when it is red, and, paradoxically, green. The unripe scarlet clusters were everywhere massed amidst the vines with an effect as brilliant as holly. All the aisles of the surrounding woods had been explored for wild flowers. Here and there were tables laden with great masses of delicate blossoms, and from time to time young couples paused in their aimless strolling back and forth,—for the music had ceased for the nonce,—and examined specimens, and disputed over varieties, and apparently disparaged one another’s slender scraps of botany.
The band, high in their cage,—prosperous, pompous darkies, of lofty manners, but entertaining with an air of courteous condescension any request which might be preferred, in regard to the music, by the young guests of the hotel,—looked down upon the scene complacently. Against the walls were ranged the chaperons in their most festal black attire, enhanced by fine old lace and fragile glittering fans and a somewhat dazzling display of diamonds. The portly husbands and fathers, fitting very snugly in their dress suits, hovered about these borders with that freshened relish of scenes of youthful festivity which somehow seems increased in proportion as the possibility and privilege of participation are withdrawn. Some of the younger gentlemen also wore merely the ordinary evening dress, the difficulty of evolving a fancy costume, or a secret aversion to the characters they had represented in the tableaux, warranting this departure from the spirit of the occasion.
Everywhere, however, the younger feminine element blossomed out in poetic guise. Here and there fluttered fairies with the silver-flecked game wings that Royce had seen a-making, and Titania still wore her crown, although Bottom had thrown his pasteboard head out of the window, and was now a grave and sedate young American citizen. Red Riding-Hood and the Wolf still made the grand tour in amicable company, and Pocahontas, in a fawn-tinted cycling-skirt and leggings and a red blanket bedizened with all the borrowed beads and feathers that the Springs could afford, was esteemed characteristic indeed. Davy Crockett had a real coonskin cap which he had bought for lucre from a mountaineer, and which he intended to take home as a souvenir of the Great Smokies, although he was fain to carry it now by the tail because of the heat; but he invariably put it on and drew himself up to his tableau estimate of importance whenever one of the elderly ladies clutched at him, as he passed, to inquire if he were certainly sure that the long and ancient flintlock (borrowed) which he bore over his shoulder was unloaded. There had evidently been a tableau representing Flora’s court or similar blooming theme, since so many personified flowers were wasting their sweetness on the unobservant and unaccustomed air. The wild rose was in several shades of fleecy pink, festooned with her own garlands. A wallflower—a dashing blonde—was in brown and yellow, and had half the men in the room around her.
Suddenly—Lucien Royce’s heart gave a great throb and seemed to stand still, for, on the arm of her last partner, coming slowly down the room until she stood in the full glow of the nearest chandelier, all in white, in shining white satin, with a grace and dignity which embellished her youth, was she whom he had so longed to see. Her bare arms and shoulders were of a soft whiteness that made the tone of the satin by contrast glazing and hard. Her delicate head, with its black hair arranged close and high, had the pose of a lily on its stalk. Scattered amid the dense dark tresses diamonds glittered and quivered like dewdrops. Her face had that flower-like look not uncommon among the type of the very fair women with dark hair from the extreme South. Over the white satin was some filmy thin material, like the delicate tissues of a corolla; and only when he had marked these liliaceous similitudes did he observe that it was the Chilhowee lily which she had chosen to represent. Now and again that most ethereal flower showed amongst the folds of her skirt. A cluster as fragile as a dream lay on her bosom, and in her hand she carried a single blossom, poetic and perfect, trembling on its long stalk.
There rose upon the air a soft welling out of the music. The band was playing “Home, Sweet Home.” She had moved out of the range of his vision. There was a murmur of voices on the veranda as the crowd emerged. The lights were abruptly quenched in darkness. And he laid his head face downward in the deep grass and wished he might never lift it again.
XII.
Owen Haines spent many a lonely hour, in these days, at the foot of a great tree in the woods, riving poplar shingles. Near by in the green and gold glinting of the breeze-swept undergrowth another great tree lay prone on the ground. The space around him was covered with the chips hewn from its hole,—an illuminated yellow-hued carpet in the soft wavering emerald shadows. The smooth shingles, piled close at hand, multiplied rapidly as the sharp blade glided swiftly through the poplar fibres. From time to time he glanced up expectantly, vainly looking for Absalom Tynes; for it had once been the wont of the young preacher to lie here on the clean fresh chips and talk through much of the sunlit days to his friend, who welcomed him as a desert might welcome a summer shower. He would talk on the subject nearest the hearts of both, his primitive theology,—a subject from which Owen Haines was otherwise debarred, as no other ministerial magnate would condescend to hold conversation on such a theme with the laughing-stock of the meetings, whose aspirations it was held to be a duty in the cause of religion to discourage and destroy if might be. Only Tynes understood him, hoped for him, felt with him. But Tynes was now at the schoolhouse in the Cove, listening in fascinated interest to the juggler as he recited from memory, and himself reading in eager and earnest docility, copying his master’s methods.
Therefore, when the step of a man sounded along the bosky path which Haines had worn to his working-place, and he looked up with eager anticipation, he encountered only disappointment at the sight of Peter Knowles approaching through the leaves.