Miss Ayr of Virginia, & other stories

by Julia Magruder

A longing for the old isolation of freedom came upon him. They might have it once again! He reached for his violin and bow and put them into the case. Then, still holding the child pressed close against him, he took up the case with his free hand, and went out of the opened door.

It was a mild, overcast summer day. The very act of getting out of doors exhilarated and strengthened him. He spoke gay and encouraging words to the child, as he carried her down the little, well-worn path which led to the river, without going in sight of the house. They had often gone along this path together, and when he reached the bank and loosed the little boat tied there, and put Rose-Jewel down on the cushion in the bottom, with the violin against her feet, they were only re-enacting old familiar scenes of companionship and delight.

Eastin took up the small paddle that lay in the boat, and pushed out into the stream. The river was perfectly placid on days like this, and it was his delight to get off with the child a little way from land and to play to her. The boat scarcely moved upon the water, and they did not go out far enough to get into the current. It was in the wide and sleepy part of the stream above the narrows.

The child had grown completely quiet now, and looked up at him with a face of unclouded happiness as he laid down the paddle and took his violin out of its case. He put it in perfect tune, and then, with that radiant presence opposite him, began to play.

On his own heart the shadow of a great dread hung heavy. He felt that this hour separated the dear and beautiful past from a future full of pain and wrangling, and even of cruelty and harshness. He would have to make a desperate fight with his wife for the soul and body of the child, and he felt that everything was against him. It was inevitable that he should be conquered, and what would it all mean to his darling? He looked into her beautiful, confiding little face, and it almost broke his heart. He resolved that she should be happy, for this hour, at least.

He played to her gay dance music, and she clapped her hands in time to it, and rocked her little body about, until the boat moved with her motion, and made them seem to be dancing. Eastin helped this effect by patting his foot and shaking his head, and answering audibly her little cries of glee. He passed from waltz to polka, and from polka to galop, the child, conforming to every change of time; and Eastin, remembering that it was their last free hour together, got intoxicated with the delight of it, and bewildered by the thought of its fleetingness played faster and faster, nodding his head in time to Rose-Jewel’s motions, and never taking his eyes from her face.

At last, with a final scrape of the bow, the exciting measure ended, and he dropped his arms with a wild and breathless laugh, to which the child responded.

But how was it that, although both their tired bodies had grown still and relaxed, that sense of movement continued? Eastin felt a spasm of fear at his heart, and looking about him he discovered that they were far from the shore, and in the very center of the stream, whose current was bearing them rapidly onward, and every moment becoming stronger and swifter. He realized, in one awful instant, that they had been drifting for some time, and were quickly getting into the narrows. He looked ahead and could see the high cliffs of rocks on either side, which, for unknown ages of time, had been the impregnable bounds of that crowding torrent of waves and spray and bubbling foam that rushed onward to the falls below.

He reached for the little paddle, but he felt it would be useless. Every moment the motion was becoming stronger and more irresistible. He scarcely felt the thin planks between him and the seething stream below. He put out the paddle, but one blow from that bounding water knocked it from his hand and hurled it away, and he could see it tossed from wave to wave with a sportive motion that seemed to mock him.

Suddenly a thought occurred to him, at which his heart gave a great bound, and a light, as it had been from heaven, overspread his face. He knew that rescue was impossible, and the idea that God had planned for him and for Rose-Jewel this release from the pain of earth and this entrance into the glory of heaven swept over him with a wave of joy. There were no words that he had ever said more devoutly than, “I believe in the forgiveness of sins,” and he knew Rose-Jewel was already a companion for the angels. The vision of a certain ecstacy and bliss shone all around about him. O the freedom of it, the rapture, the music! Even the dread of physical death was nothing to him. Rose-Jewel would be his companion, and the journey would be short!