Annie Laurie and Azalea

by Elia Wilkinson Peattie

He went on, stumbling over roots, half-starting at deep shadows, and reached the summit. Here the trees had been cut away, and though the songs of those beneath him surged up to his ears, he presently found himself standing beneath the clear sky, perfectly sheltered from view. There was a scythe-like young moon, well toward the zenith, and a few pale stars. The weather had softened and warmed and spring was sending her sweet messages abroad. He stood for a moment looking upward; then he cast himself on the ground, with his face to the earth, and in the solitude his sharp suffering gave vent to itself in sobs.

Nor was it alone for the shame and sorrow of the present that he wept. It seemed as if all the tears he had held back during his lonely and baffled boyhood had their way now and streamed from his eyes. He cried blindly, passionately. He emptied his soul of grief. And then he sat up weakly and looked around him. The whippoorwills were calling to each other. Distant hounds were barking. The delicate little moon was running her fragile skiff over the sky-sea toward its western port. It was night, and the world was asleep. What was it Annie Laurie sang?

“All are sleeping, weary heart.
Thou, thou only sleepless art.”

He hoped she was sleeping—that poor Annie Laurie, who was having so much trouble, and none of it in any way her fault. And had she, too, been suspecting him? Had she held this terrible idea of his father and kept it to herself? Had she come to his house that day she had been so kind and good, to see what they were like—the Disbrows? He seemed to be on fire from head to foot with shame. Back and forth, like wild beasts pacing, raged his thoughts. He had no idea of the passage of time. Only the stars kept moving on, beautifully, in their wonderful order, and the wind, growing chillier now, blew upon him, and still the whippoorwills called. By and by the color of the world began to change. Something strange happened to the night—it grew pale, thin, transparent. The birds began stirring about, making soft noises. The cattle lowed in the near-by fields. Then a kind of milky lightness, delicate as one of Carin’s scarfs, drifted up into the sky. Presently it turned a soft pink; then rosy red; then it was edged with orange and embroidered with saffron. It was sunup, and Sam Disbrow faced the most important day of his life.

He had to make up his mind whether he was a coward or a brave man—whether he was going to run away or stay and fight. And he didn’t know. As he got dizzily to his feet, he hadn’t an idea which he was. But the colors in the sky seemed to be cheering him on like trumpets. Something wild, strange and splendid swept into his spirit—something that made him feel as if he were about to set out on a march with brave men—men who could die for an idea. It was as if he had swung into the ranks, and his leader had shouted “Forward, march!”

Sam went down the hill, and struck a road on the far side of it. He followed it to a farmhouse and asked if he might have some breakfast. They gave him good bacon and corn bread, butter and milk. He ate like one famished, and then, having learned the schedule of the trains, and that he had barely time to catch the next one bound toward Lee, he ran as hard as he could to the distant station. The train drew in while he was yet a block away, but he sent out a shout that startled the engineer in his cab. Good-naturedly, they held the train for him. He swung on the rear platform. And, though he could not forget for a moment all that he was going back to, still he was indefinably happy.

“Forward, march,” his invisible leader had commanded. Sam did not stop to find a name for this leader—to call him God. He obeyed, and having placed himself under marching orders, he fell asleep, and when the conductor called him at Lee, arose refreshed, and went out to fight his battle.

There were not many persons on the street. A mid-forenoon quietude rested over the little town. A few neighbors Sam did meet, but they had no chance to turn the cold shoulder to him this morning for he hardly saw them. He was bent for home, and he strode forward with no thought of anything but meeting his father face to face and hurling at him the question:

“Did you take Simeon Pace’s money?”

He forgot that he was a son, and must pay a son’s deference, or that Hector Disbrow, suspected of being a thief, was his father. He felt as if his soul must put that inquiry to the soul of the man. And on his answer depended honor, happiness, everything.