As they rode up to the front of the Crawford, the whole end of the piazza was full of new-comers and late sojourners, watching the return of those who had preceded or followed them—an idle, listless sort of gathering, showing more curiosity than welcome, such as the traveller by rail or steamboat sees crowding every platform at the expected time of the arrival of a train and every pier at the hour for the coming in of a boat. Cries of: "All safe, eh?" "Glad to see you back again!" "Hope you had a pleasant day!" and "Well, how did you like Mount Washington?" broke from twenty lips in a moment, mingled with replies and non-replies that came simultaneously: "Oh, you ought to have gone up with us!" "My horse carried me like a bird!" (the last remark, presumably, from a fat man of two hundred and sixty, whom not even an elephant could have borne in that suggestively buoyant manner), "Never was such a day for going up, in the world!" "Safe, eh? Yes, why not?" (that from a person, no doubt, who had really been prodigiously scared at some period of the ride), and the one inevitable pendant: "Oh, you have no idea what an adventure we have had!—one of the ladies came near being killed—tell you all about it by-and-bye," etc., etc.
Horace Townsend, who had been riding the last mile very much like a man in a dream and really with the formal charge of Clara Vanderlyn entirely abandoned to her chosen protector—Horace Townsend heard all this, as if he heard through miles of distance or at a long period of time after the utterance. For his eyes were busy and they absorbed all his sensations. He had recognized, at the first moment of riding up, among the crowd of persons on the piazza, the dark, proud eyes and beautiful face and stately form of Margaret Hayley, leaning on the arm of that man whom he had not by any means learned to love since his advent in the mountains—Captain Hector Coles, V. A. D. C. They had waited clear weather before starting from the Profile, and come through that day while his party had been absent up the mountains: he realized all at a thought, and realized that whatever he was himself to endure of trial lay much nearer than he had before believed. Disguised and indeed disfigured as the lawyer was, in common with all the other members of the cavalcade, to such a degree that only observation and study could penetrate the masquerade,—it was not at all strange that the lady failed to meet his eye with an answering glance of recognition; and he felt rather grateful than the reverse, for the moment, that his disguise was so effectual. While Clara Vanderlyn, a third time within one week the passive heroine of the mountains, was being lifted from her saddle by half a dozen officious hands, and while the rest of the party were gabbling as they alighted,—he slipped quietly from his horse behind one corner of the piazza, threw his rein to one of the stable-boys, and disappeared through the hall, up-stairs to his chamber.
He did not again make his appearance until supper was on the tables and the battle of knives-and-forks going on with that vigor born of mountain air. Most of the visitors at the house, the voyagers of the day included, were already seated; and among them was Clara Vanderlyn, apparently no whit the worse for her day's adventure, her brother at one and her mother at the other side. A little further down the table, on the same side, sat Halstead Rowan, occupying the same seat of the evening before. He had evidently dropped back from his familiar standing with the lady, the moment they came within the atmosphere of Mrs. Vanderlyn and the great republic of voices at the Crawford; but quite as evidently he had not yet fallen away from his last-won position as a hero, for his face was continually flushing, as he ate, with the modesty of a girl's, when the whispers and nods and pointings of interest and admiration were made so plain that they reached his eye and ear. The adventure of the day was undeniably the topic of the evening, and Halstead Rowan was the hero; and it may be imagined how much this knowledge and the inevitable corollary that some one else was not the hero, added to the comfort of the late-comer at table.
Margaret Hayley, Mrs. Burton Hayley and Captain Hector Coles were also at supper, but they had nearly finished when Townsend took his seat. They rose the moment after, and as they did so the lawyer, now once more so arrayed as to display his own proper person, caught the eye of Margaret. She nodded and smiled, yes, smiled!—in answer to his bow across the table; and he could almost have taken his professional oath that a quick sparkle came to her eye when she saw him, then died away as quickly as if compelled back by a strong will. Mrs. Burton Hayley did not seem to see him at all; but Captain Coles signified that he did so, by a glance of such new-born contempt blended with old hatred, as he should never have wasted upon any one except a national enemy whom he had just defeated in arms. The party swept down the room, and very soon after the others whom we have noted also rose and disappeared, leaving Horace Townsend discussing his supper with what appetite he might. It may be consoling to some curious persons to know that that appetite was by no means contemptible, and that he did not falter in physique if restless unquiet and anxiety made a prey of his mind.
Half an hour after, he was smoking his cigar on the piazza, none whom he knew within view; and he strolled out into the edge of the wood to the right of the house, to enjoy (if enjoyment it could be called) solitude, gloom and darkness. The path he followed led him eventually round in a circle and brought him back to the edge again, only a few yards from the house and near the spot where the two huge bears were moving about, dense black spots in the twilight. There was a rude bench beneath the trees not far from what might have been called their "orbit" (especially as they are sometimes "stars" at the menageries); and on that bench he discovered three figures. He was but a little distance away when he first saw them and that they were two ladies and a gentleman; and he was still nearer before he became aware that they were the Hayleys, mother and daughter, with their inevitable attendant and cavalier.
They were in conversation, not toning it so low as if they had any particular anxiety against its being overheard; and yet Horace Townsend, much as he might have wished to know every word that came from the lips of at least one of the three, might have passed on without listening intentionally to one utterance, if he had not chanced to hear that they were discussing the event of the day. That fact literally chained him to the root of the tree near which he was standing—he was so anxious to know what version of the affair had already been circulated and given credence among the three or four hundred visitors at the Crawford, and especially among the particular three of that number.
It has before been said, we fancy, by that widely-known writer, "Anonymous," that listeners do not always hear any notable good of themselves. And Horace Townsend, in stopping to play the eaves-dropper, at least partially illustrated the saying. He heard a version of the Gulf of Mexico affair, from the lips of Captain Coles, calculated to make him, if he had any sensitiveness of nature and a spark of the fighting propensity, kill himself or the narrator.
"I think I have heard enough of it," Margaret Hayley was saying, as Townsend came within hearing. "I really do not know that Miss Vanderlyn, though a pleasant girl enough, is of so much consequence that the whole house should go crazy over one of her little mishaps in riding."
"A little mishap!" echoed the Captain. "Phew!—if I am not very much mistaken it was a big mishap—just a hair's-breadth between saving her life and losing it!"
"Is it possible?" said Mrs. Burton Hayley. "Why dear me, Captain Coles!—that is very interesting, especially if her being saved was providential. Did you hear the particulars, then?"