The Strollers

CHAPTER XI

THE QUEST OF THE SOLDIER

Several bleak days were followed by a little June weather in October. A somnolent influence rested everywhere. Above the undulation of land on the horizon were the clouds, like heavenly hills, reflecting their radiance on those earthly elevations. The celestial mountains and valleys gave wondrous perspective to the outlook, and around them lay an atmosphere, unreal and idyllic.

On such a morning Susan stood at a turn in the road, gazing after a departing vehicle with ill-concealed satisfaction and yet withal some dubiousness. Now that the plan, suggested by Mauville, had not miscarried, certain misgivings arose, for there is a conscience in the culmination wanting in the conception of an act. As the partial realization of the situation swept over her, she gave a gasp, and then, the vehicle having meanwhile vanished, a desperate spirit of bravado replaced her momentary apprehension. She even laughed nervously as she waved her handkerchief in the direction the coach had taken: “Bon voyage!”

But as the words fell from the smiling lips, her eyes became thoughtful and her hand fell to her side; it occurred to Susan she would be obliged to divert suspicion from herself. The curling lips straightened; she turned abruptly and hastened toward the town. But her footsteps soon lagged and she paused thoughtfully.

“If I reach the hotel too soon,” she murmured, “they may overtake him.”

So she stopped at the wayside, attracted by the brilliant cardinal flowers, humming as she plucked them, but ever and anon glancing around guiltily. The absurd thought came to her that the bright autumn blossoms were red, the hue of sin, and she threw them on the sward, and unconsciously rubbed her hands on her dress.

Still she lingered, however, vaguely mindful she was adding to her burden of ill-doing, but finally again started slowly toward the village, hurrying as she approached the hotel, where she encountered the soldier on the veranda. Her distressed countenance and haste proclaimed her a messenger of disaster.

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” she exclaimed excitedly. “Where is Mr. Barnes?”

“What is the matter, Miss Duran?” Suspecting very little was the matter, for Susan was nothing, if not all of a twitter.

“Constance has been carried off!”

“Carried off!” He regarded her as if he thought she had lost her senses.

“Yes; abducted!”

“Abducted! By whom?”

“I–I did not see his face!” she gasped. “And it is all my fault! I asked her to take a walk! Oh, what shall I do?” Wringing her hands in anguish that was half real. “We kept on and on–it was so pleasant!–until we had passed far beyond the outskirts of the village. At a turn in the road stood a coach–a cloak was thrown over my head by some one behind–I must have fainted, and, when I recovered, she was gone. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”

“When did it happen?” As he spoke the young man left the veranda. Grazing contentedly near the porch was his horse and Saint-Prosper’s hand now rested on the bridle.

“I can’t tell how long I was unconscious,” said the seemingly hysterical young woman, “but I hurried here as soon as I recovered myself.”

“Where did it occur? Down the road you came?”

“Ye-es.”

Saint-Prosper vaulted into the saddle. “Tell the manager to see a magistrate,” he said.

“But you’re not going to follow them alone?” began Susan. “Oh dear, I feel quite faint again! If you would please help me into the–”

By way of answer, the other touched his horse deeply with the spur and the mettlesome animal reared and plunged, then, recalled by the sharp voice of the rider, galloped wildly down the road. Susan observed the sudden departure with mingled emotions.

“How quixotic!” she thought discontentedly. “But he won’t catch them,” came the consoling afterthought, as she turned to seek the manager.

Soon the soldier, whose spirited dash down the main thoroughfare had awakened some misgivings in the little town, was beyond the precincts of village scrutiny. The country road was hard, although marked by deep cuts from traffic during a rainy spell, and the horse’s hoofs rang out with exhilarating rhythm. Regardless of all save the distance traversed, the rider yet forbore to press the pace, relaxing only when, after a considerable interval, he came to another road and drew rein at the fork. One way to the right ran gently through the valley, apparently terminating in the luxuriant foliage, while the other, like a winding, murky stream, stretched out over a more level tract of land.

Which thoroughfare had the coach taken? Dismounting, the young man hastily examined the ground, but the earth was so dry and firm, and the tracks of wheels so many, it was impossible to distinguish the old marks from the new. Even sign-post there was none; the roads diverged, and the soldier could but blindly surmise their destination, selecting after some hesitation the thoroughfare running into the gorgeous, autumnal painted forest.

He had gone no inconsiderable distance when his doubts were abruptly confirmed. Reaching an opening, bright as the chapel of a darkened monastery, he discerned a farmer in a buckboard approaching from the opposite direction. The swift pace of the rider and the leisurely jog of the team soon brought them together.

“Did you pass a coach down the road?” asked the soldier.

“No-a,” said the farmer, deliberately, as his fat horses instinctively stood stock still; “didn’t pass nobody.”

“Have you come far?”

“A good ways.”

“You would have met a coach, if it had passed here an hour ago?”

“I guess I would,” said the man. “This road leads straight across the country.”

“Where does the other road at the fork go?”

“To the patroon village. There’s a reform orator there to-day and a barn-burners’ camp-fire.”

Without waiting to thank his informant, Saint-Prosper pulled his horse quickly around, while the man in the buckboard gradually got under way, until he had once more attained a comfortable, slow gait. Indeed, by the time his team had settled down to a sleepy jog, in keeping with the dreamy haze, hanging upon the upland, his questioner was far down the road.

When, however, the soldier once more reached the fork, and took the winding way across a more level country, he moderated his pace, realizing the need of husbanding his horse’s powers of endurance. The country seemed at peace, as though no dissension nor heated passions could exist within that pastoral province. And yet, not far distant, lay the domains of the patroons, the hot-bed of the two opposing branches of the Democratic party: The “hunkers,” or conservative-minded men, and the “barn-burners,” or progressive reformers, who sympathized with the anti-renters.

After impatiently riding an hour or more through this delectable region, the horseman drew near the patroon village, a cluster of houses amid the hills and meadows. Here the land barons had originally built for the tenants comfortable houses and ample barns, saw and grist mills. But the old homes had crumbled away, and that rugged ancestry of dwellings had been replaced by a new generation of houses, with clapboards, staring green blinds and flimsy verandas.

In the historic market place, as Saint-Prosper rode down the street, were assembled a number of lease-holders of both sexes and all ages, from the puny babe in arms to the decrepit crone and hoary grand-sire, listening to the flowing tongue of a rustic speech-maker. This forum of the people was shaded by a sextette of well-grown elms. The platform of the local Demosthenes stood in a corner near the street.

“‘Woe to thee, O Moab! Thou art undone, O people of Chemosh,’ if you light not the torch of equal rights!” exclaimed the platform patterer as Saint-Prosper drew near. “Awake, sons of the free soil! Now is the time to make a stand! Forswear all allegiance to the new patroon; this Southern libertine and despot from the land of slavery!”

The grandam wagged her head approvingly; the patriarch stroked his beard with acquiescence and strong men clenched their fists as the spokesman mouthed their real or fancied wrongs. It was an earnest, implacable crowd; men with lowering brows merely glanced at the soldier as he rode forward; women gazed more intently, but were quickly lured back by the tripping phrases of the mellifluous speaker.

On the outskirts of the gathering, near the road, stood a tall, beetling individual whom Saint-Prosper addressed, reining in his horse near the wooden rail, which answered for a fence.

“Dinna ye ken I’m listening?” impatiently retorted the other, with a fierce frown. “Gang your way, mon,” he added, churlishly, as he turned his back.

Judging from the wrathful faces directed toward him, the lease-holders esteemed Saint-Prosper a political disturber, affiliating with the other faction of the Democratic party, and bent, perhaps, on creating dissension at the tenants’ camp-fire. The soldier’s impatience and anger were ready to leap forth at a word; he wheeled fiercely upon the weedy Scot, to demand peremptorily the information so uncivilly withheld, when a gust of wind blowing something light down the road caused his horse to shy suddenly and the rider to glance at what had frightened the animal. After a brief scrutiny, he dismounted quickly and examined more attentively the object,–a pamphlet with a red cover, upon which appeared the printed design of the conventional Greek masks of Tragedy and Comedy, and beneath, the title, “The Honeymoon.” The bright binding, albeit soiled by the dusty road, and the fluttering of the leaves in the breeze had startled the horse and incidentally attracted the attention of his master. Across the somber mask of melancholy was traced in buoyant hand the name of the young actress.

But the soldier needed not the confirmation, for had he not noticed this same prompt book in her lap on the journey of the chariot? It was a mute, but eloquent message. Could she have spoken more plainly if she had written with ink and posted the missive with one of those new bronze-hued portraits of Franklin, called stamps by the government and “sticking plaster” by the people? Undoubtedly she had hoped the manager was following her when she intrusted the message to that erratic postman, Chance, who plied his vocation long before the black Washington or the bronze Franklin was a talisman of more or less uncertain delivery.

The soldier, without a moment’s hesitation, thrust the pamphlet inside his coat, flung himself on his horse, and, turning from the market-place, dashed down the road.

CHAPTER XII

AN ECCENTRIC JAILER

“For a man who can’t abide the sex, this is a predicament,” muttered the patroon’s jackal, as the coach in which he found himself sped rapidly along the highway. “Here am I as much an abductor as my lord who whipped his lady from England to the colonies!” Gloomily regarding a motionless figure on the seat opposite, and a face like ivory against the dark cushions. “Curse the story; telling it led to this! How white she is; like driven snow; almost as if–”

And Scroggs, whose countenance lost a shade of its natural flush, going from flame-color to salmon hue, bent with sudden apprehension over a small hand which hung from the seat.

“No; it’s only a swoon,” he continued, relieved, feeling her wrist with his knobby fingers. “How she struggled! If it hadn’t been for smothering her with the cloak–but the job’s done and that’s the end of it.”

Settling back in his seat he watched her discontentedly, alternately protesting against the adventure, and consoling himself weakly with the remembrance of the retainer; weighing the risks, and the patroon’s ability to gloss over the matter; now finding the former unduly obtrusive, again comforted with the assurance of the power pre-empted by the land barons. Moreover, the task was half-accomplished, and it would be idle to recede now.

“Why couldn’t the patroon have remained content with his bottle?” he grumbled. “But his mind must needs run to this frivolous and irrational proceeding! There’s something reasonable in pilfering a purse, but carrying off a woman–Yet she’s a handsome baggage.”

Over the half-recumbent figure swept his glance, pausing as he surveyed her face, across which flowed a tress of hair loosened in the struggle. Save for the unusual pallor of her cheek, she might have been sleeping, but as he watched her the lashes slowly lifted, and he sullenly nerved himself for the encounter. At the aspect of those bead-like eyes, resolute although ill at ease, like a snake striving to charm an adversary, a tremor of half-recollection shone in her gaze and the color flooded her face. Mechanically, sweeping back the straggling lock of hair, she raised herself without removing her eyes. He who had expected a tempest of tears shifted uneasily, even irritably, from that steady stare, until, finding the silence intolerable, he burst out:

“Well, ma’am, am I a bugbear?”

In her dazed condition she probably did not hear his words; or, if she did, set no meaning to them, Her glance, however, strayed to the narrow window, and then wandered back to the well-worn interior of the coach. Suddenly, as the startling realization of her position came to her, she uttered a loud cry, sprang toward the door, and, with nervous fingers, strove to open it. The man’s face became more rubicund as he placed a detaining hand on her shoulder, and roughly thrust her toward the seat.

“Make the best of it!” he exclaimed peremptorily. “You’d better, for I’m not to be trifled with.”

Recoiling from his touch, she held herself aloof with such aversion, a sneer crossed his face, and he observed glumly:

“Oh, I’m not a viper! If you’re put out, so am I.”

“Who are you?” she demanded, breathlessly.

“That’s an incriminating question, Ma’am,” he replied. “In this case, though, the witness has no objection to answering. I’m your humble servant.”

His forced drollery was more obnoxious than his ill-humor, and, awakening her impatience, restored in a measure her courage. He was but a pitiful object, after all, with his flame-colored visage, and short, crouching figure; and, as her thoughts passed from the brutal part he had played on the road to her present situation, she exclaimed with more anger than apprehension:

“Perhaps you will tell me the meaning of this outrage–your smothering me–forcing me into this coach–and driving away–where?”

His face became once more downcast and moody. Driven into a corner by her swift words, his glance met hers fairly; he drummed his fingers together.

“There’s no occasion to show your temper, Miss,” he said reflectively. “I’m a bit touchy myself to-day; ‘sudden and quick in quarrel.’ You see I know my Shakespeare, Ma’am. Let us talk about that great poet and the parts you, as an actress, prefer–”

“Can I get an answer from you?” she cried, subduing her dread.

“What is it you asked?”

“As if you did not know!” she returned, her lip trembling with impatience and loathing.

“Yes; I remember.” Sharply. “You asked where we were driving? Across the country. What is the meaning of this–outrage, I believe you called it? All actions spring from two sources–Cupid and cupidity. The rest of the riddle you’ll have to guess.” Gazing insolently into her face, with his hands on his knees.

“But you have told me nothing,” she replied, striving to remain mistress of herself and to hide her apprehension.

“Do you call that nothing? You have the approximate cause–causa causans. Was it Cupid? No, for like Bacon, your sex’s ‘fantastical’ charms move me not.”

This sally put him in better temper with himself. She was helpless, and he experienced a churlish satisfaction in her condition.

“What was it, then? Cupidity. Do you know what poverty is like in this barren region?” he cried harshly. “The weapons of education only unfit you for the plow. You stint, pinch, live on nothing!” He rubbed his dry hands together. “It was crumbs and scraps under the parsimonious régime; but now the prodigal has come into his own and believes in honest wages and a merry life.”

Wonderingly she listened, the scene like a grotesque dream, with the ever-moving coach, the lonely road, the dark woods, and–so near, she could almost place her hand upon him–this man, muttering and mumbling. He had offered her the key of the mystery, but she had failed to use it. His ambiguous, loose talk, only perplexed and alarmed her; the explanation was none at all.

As he watched her out of the corner of his eye, weighing doubt and uncertainty, new ideas assailed him. After all she had spirit, courage! Moreover, she was an actress, and the patroon was madly in love with her.

“If we were only leagued together, how we could strip him!” he thought.

His head dropped contemplatively to his breast, and for a long interval he remained silent, abstracted, while the old springless coach, with many a jolt and jar, covered mile after mile; up the hills, crowned with bush and timber; across the table land; over the plank bridges spanning the brooks and rivulets. More reconciled to his part and her presence, his lips once or twice parted as if he were about to speak, but closed again. He even smiled, showing his amber-hued teeth, nodding his head in a friendly fashion, as to say: “It’ll come out all right, Madam; all right for both of us!” Which, indeed, was his thought. She believed him unsettled, bereft of reason, and, although, he was manifestly growing less hostile, his surveillance became almost unbearable. At every moment she felt him regarding her like a lynx, and endeavored therefore to keep perfectly still. What would her strange warder do next? It was not an alarming act, however. He consulted a massive watch, remarking:

“It’s lunch time and over! With your permission, I’ll take a bite and a drop. Will you join me?”

She turned her head away, and, not disconcerted by her curt refusal, he drew a wicker box from beneath a seat and opened it. His reference to a “bite and a drop” was obviously figurative, especially the “drop,” which grew to the dimensions of a pint, which he swallowed quickly. Perhaps the flavor of the wine made him less attentive to his prisoner, for as he lifted the receptacle to his lips, she thrust her arms through the window and a play book dropped from her hand, a possible clue for any one who might follow the coach. For some time she had been awaiting this opportunity and when it came, the carriage was entering a village.

Scroggs finished his cup. “You see, we’re provided for,” he began. Here the bottle fell from his hand.

“The patroon village!” he exclaimed in consternation. “I’d forgotten we were so close! And they’re all gathered in the square, too!”

He cast a quick glance at her. “You’re all ready to call for help,” he sneered, “but I’m not ready to part company yet.”

Hastily drawing up one of the wooden shutters, he placed himself near the other window, observing fiercely; “I don’t propose you shall undo what’s being done for you. Let me hear from you”–jerking his finger toward the square–“and I’ll not answer for what I’ll do.” But in spite of his admonition he read such determination in her eyes, he felt himself baffled.

“You intend to make trouble!” he cried. And putting his head suddenly through the window, he called to the driver: “Whip the horses through the market place!”

As the affrighted animals sprang forward he blocked the window, placing one hand on her shoulder. He felt her escape from his grasp, but not daring to leave his post, he leaned out of the window when they were opposite the square, and shook his fist at the anti-renters, exclaiming:

“I’ll arrest every mother’s son of you! I’ll evict you–jail you for stealing rent!”

Drowned by the answering uproar, “The patroon’s dog!” “Bullets for deputies!” the emissary of the land baron continued to threaten the throng with his fist, until well out of ear-shot, and, thanks to the level road, beyond reach of their resentment. Not that they strove to follow him far, for they thought the jackal had taken leave of his senses. Laughter mingled with their jeers at the absurd figure he presented, fulminating and flying at the same time. But there was no defiance left in him when they were beyond the village, and he fell back into his seat, his face now ash-colored.

“If they’d stopped us my life wouldn’t have been worth the asking,” he muttered hoarsely. “But I did it!” Triumphantly gazing at the young girl who, trembling with excitement, leaned against the side of the coach. “I see you managed to get down the shutter. I hope you heard your own voice. I didn’t; and, what’s more, I’m sure they didn’t!”

With fingers he could hardly control he opened a second bottle, dispensed with the formality of a glass, and set the neck to his lips, repeating the operation until it was empty, when he tossed it out of the window to be shattered against a rock, after which he sank again into a semblance of meditation.

Disappointed over her ineffectual efforts, overcome by the strain, the young girl for the time relaxed all further attempt. Unseen, unheard, she had stood at her window! She had tried to open the door, but it resisted her frantic efforts, and then the din had died away and left her weak, powerless, hardly conscious of the hateful voice of her companion from time to time addressing her.

But fortunately he preferred the gross practice of draining the cup to the fine art of conversation. Left to the poor company of her thoughts, she dwelt upon the miscarriage of her design, and the slender chance of assistance. They would probably pass through no more villages and if they did, he would undoubtedly find means to prevent her making herself known. Unless–and a glimmer of hope flickered through her thoughts!–her warder carried his potations to a point where vigilance ceased to be a virtue. Inconsiderately he stopped at the crucial juncture, with all the signs of contentment and none of drowsiness.

So minutes resolved themselves into hours and the day wore on. Watching the sun-rays bathe the top of the forest below them, she noted how fast the silver disk was descending. The day which had seemed interminable now appeared but too short, and she would gladly have recalled those fleeting hours. Ignorant of the direction in which they had been traveling, she realized that the driver had been unsparing and the distance covered not inconsiderable. The mystery of the assault, the obscurity of the purpose and the vagueness of their destination were unknown quantities which, added to the declining of the day and the brewing terrors of the night, were well calculated to terrify and crush her.

Despairingly, she observed how the sun dipped, and ever dipped toward the west, when suddenly a sound afar rekindled her fainting spirits. Listening more attentively, she was assured imagination had not deceived her; it was the faint patter of a horse’s hoofs. Nearer it drew; quicker beat her pulses. Moreover, it was the rat-a-tat of galloping. Some one was pursuing the coach on horseback. Impatient to glance behind, she only refrained for prudential reasons.

Immersed in his own grape-vine castle her jailer was unmindful of the approaching rider, and she turned her face from him that he might not read her exultation. Closer resounded the beating hoofs, but her impatience outstripped the pursuer, and she was almost impelled to rush to the window.

Who was the horseman? Was it Barnes? Saint-Prosper? The latter’s name had quickly suggested itself to her.

Although the rider, whoever he might be, continued to gain ground, to her companion, the approaching clatter was inseparable from the noise of the vehicle, and it was not until the horseman was nearly abreast, and the cadence of the galloping resolved itself into clangor, that the dreamer awoke with an imprecation. As he sprang to his feet, thus rudely disturbed, a figure on horseback dashed by and a stern voice called to the driver:

“Stop the coach!”

Probably the command was given over the persuasive point of a weapon, for the animals were drawn up with a quick jerk and came to a standstill in the middle of the road. Menacing and abusive, as the vehicle stopped, the warder’s hand sought one of his pockets, when the young girl impetuously caught his arm, clinging to it tenaciously.

“Quick!–Mr. Saint-Prosper!” she cried, recognizing, as she thought, the voice of the soldier.