“Do something,” screamed Mr. Follet; “I can’t have the boy’s blood on my hands!”
Then Mrs. Follet with her gentle strength made him quiet down enough to tell them particulars, and she learned that Mr. Follet was to have gone after a load of hay, and coming back would stop at the edge of the wood leading to old man Greely’s, walk into the woods a piece to meet the men, and then, if the coast was clear, they’d hide the liquor in the hay load. At the end she said:
“You must go, Nancy–––”
“Yes,” cried Mr. Follet, “you must go, child, and save Steve. Jim Sutton will know you. They won’t touch you, and they’ll believe you. I was a fool ever to have anything to do with that moonshine business!”
But Nancy was already out of the room flying for the stable. There was no thought of riding habit or saddle. Throwing a bridle over Gyp’s head, she sprang upon his back and like the wind the two rushed forth into the midnight stillness. Would she be in time to save him? It had been so long since he left the house. Oh, would she be too late? She urged Gyp wildly on and on, along the road directly towards the Greely woods, where she would find the moonshiners, and perhaps,––oh, perhaps! God only knew what else she might find.
Every throbbing pulse beat became a prayer that she might be in time to save him.
Meanwhile Steve, upon leaving Mr. Follet, had not gone out into the street, but crossing the lawn into the driveway he went past the stable to the wood back of the house from whence he had come so many years ago. His mind and heart were in a tumult. He scarcely thought where he was going till he suddenly became conscious that he was in the old wood where he had rescued Nancy so long ago. Little Nancy! And he had loved her ever since consciously or unconsciously. But she was completely lost to him now,––that was final. The fair dream-structure which had risen anew that afternoon had fallen again in a tragic moment’s space. The mountain blood in 207 Mr. Follet would never forget or forgive. He must leave the place forever. He was adrift again in the world. There would never be tender home ties for him,––he could never love another, no one could be a part of his very self like little Nancy. He dropped down upon a little seat which he had fixed there for her in the old days, and was lost in depressed thought, taking no note of how long he remained.
The stillness of the wood quieted him finally, as it had always done, and he remembered his old friends the Greelys. They would be glad to have him come in for breakfast in the morning, and for the night he would sleep in the Greely woods. He would feel very near to Nancy there, for that spot was hallowed by her memory as no other for him. He rose and made his way over into the road which led to the wood.