Round Anvil Rock: A Romance

by Nancy Huston Banks

The three had scarcely entered the great room of Cedar House that evening, when the judge asked the boy to go on an errand to a neighbor's. This was to take some seed wheat which the judge had promised to send for the fall sowing. The growing of wheat was still an interesting and important experiment which was exciting the whole country. There had been good corn in abundance from the first; on those deep, rich, river-bottom lands the grains had but to reach the fertile earth to produce an hundred bushels to the acre. But the settlers were tired of eating corn-bread; their wives and children were pining for the delicate white loaves made from the sweet fine wheat which they had eaten in their old Virginia homes. So that the culture of the best wheat had lately become a vital question, and this new seed was making a stir of eager interest throughout the region. Philip Alston had given it to the judge, and he, in turn, was dividing it among the neighbors. Each grain was accordingly treasured and valued like a grain of gold, and the judge cautioned the boy to be careful in tying the bag; wheat in the grain is a slippery thing to handle, and he wished none of this to be lost.

"You must have a good, strong string—one that can't slip," said Ruth, in her thoughtful, housewifely way. "Let me think—what kind would be best?"

"Here!" the judge drew out his wallet, and took off the string that bound it. "You may use this, David, but take care not to lose it. This is the strongest, finest strip of doeskin—"

Ruth's sweet laughter chimed in, "It looks like minkskin—it's so black!" touching it gingerly with the tips of her fingers.

The judge laughed, too. Everything that she said and did pleased him. But he cautioned the boy again not to lose the string, and to be careful to bring it back. William Pressley looked on in grave, indifferent silence. A slight frown gathered on his brow when he saw Ruth trying the knot, to make sure of its firmness, after the bag was tied. His gaze darkened somewhat and followed her when she went to the door to see the boy set out; and he watched her stand looking after him, with her hands raised to shield her eyes from the rays of the setting sun. It displeased William to see her show such regard for any one of so little importance—the personality of the boy did not enter into the matter. While gazing at her in this cold disapproval, he noted with increased annoyance that she then turned and looked long and wistfully toward the forest path. It did not occur to him that she might be expecting or wishing to see some one riding along the path. He was merely irritated at what seemed to him an indication of unseemly restlessness and empty-mindedness. To his mind the unusual and the unseemly were always one and the same. And it was eminently unseemly in his eyes that the woman who was to be his wife should wish to look away from the spot in which he was sitting. And then, his displeasure turned to anger when Ruth, after standing still and gazing up the forest path, till he felt that he must go out to her and utter the reproof that was on his lips, did not come back to her seat by his side, but began instead to play with the swan.

He sat motionless and silent, calmly biding his time to express the disapproval which such childish behavior made incumbent upon him. Cold, hard anger like his can always wait; and waiting only makes it colder and harder; there is never heat enough in it to melt its merciless ice.

A sudden darkening of the sky sent her into the house at last, and even then she did not return to her proper place by his side. She did not even look at him, but spoke to the judge who was just leaving the great room to go to the cabin which he used as his bedroom and office. Ruth begged him not to start out, saying that the storm seemed so near that it might break before he could reach the cabin. But he went on with a smiling shake of his head, after a glance at the dark clouds which were gathering blackly on the other side of the river behind the spectral cottonwoods, now bare of leaves and ghostly white.

"Did David have to go through the big deadening, William?" she asked suddenly, speaking over her shoulder, without leaving her anxious post in the doorway, though the wind was whipping her skirts about her slender figure and loosing her long, black hair. "I wish he would come. He should be back by this time. I am afraid—the great trees fall so in a storm. Father Orin and the doctor, too, often ride through there. And it is such a dangerous place when the wind blows. Oh!" with a cry of relief, "there's David now! Here he comes. David, David dear—I am so glad!"

She sprang down the steps and ran to meet the boy. The rush of the rising storm kept from hearing William Pressley's call for her to come back. He stood still for a moment, hesitating, and then, seeing that she flew on, he followed and overtook her just as she reached David, who was getting down from the pony and taking the empty bag from the saddle. The wind was now very violent, and the darkened air was thick with the dead leaves of the forest swirling into the river which was already lashed into waves and dashing against the shore. Waterfowl flew landward with frightened cries; a low, dark cloud was being drawn up the stream over the ashen face of the water—a strange, thick, terrible black curtain, shaken by the tempest and bordered by the lightning—pressed onward by the resistless powers of the air.

There was a lull just as William Pressley reached Ruth's side. It was one of those tense spaces which are among the greatest terrors of a storm by reason of their suddenness, their stillness, and their suspense. He grasped her hand, and she clung to his as she would have clung to anything that she chanced to touch in her fright. He said rather sternly that she must come to the house at once, and she turned obediently, following the motion of his hand rather than the meaning of his words. He spoke to David also, without looking at the boy, but she was clinging to him and hiding her face on his arm whenever the lightning flashed, and did not notice what he had said until he repeated his words:—