The Mistress of Bonaventure

CHAPTER XXVII

ILLUMINATION

The binders were clanking through the wheat when I next met Haldane at Crane Valley. Having embarked upon his new career with characteristic energy, he rode over from Bonaventure with his daughter to watch our harvesting, and incidentally came near bewildering me with his questions. Some of them were hard to answer, and I felt a trace of irritation, as well as surprise, that a few hours' observation should enable him to hit upon the best means of overcoming difficulties which had cost me months of experimenting to discover.

Thorn, I remember, stared at him in wonder, and afterwards observed: "You and I have just got to keep on trying until we find out the best way of fixing things, and if our way's certain, it's often expensive. That man just chews on his cigar, and it comes to him. When I take up my located land and get worried about the money, I'm going to try cigar-smoking."

"You will have considerably less of it if you experiment with the brand that Haldane keeps," I answered, jerking the lines, and my binder rolled on again behind the weary team. When each minute was worth a silver coin, we dare not spare the beasts, and I had worn out four of them in as many days, and then sat almost nodding in the driving seat, with a deep sense of satisfaction in my heart which I was too tired to express.

Oat sheaves ridging the bleached prairie blazed in yellow ranks before my heavy eyes, and each heave of the binder's arms flung out behind me a truss of golden wheat. The glare was blinding, for we worked under the full heat of a scorching afternoon, as we had done, and would do, by the pale light of the moon. Thick dust rolled about us, clogging my lashes and fouling the coats of the beasts, while the crackle of the flinty stems, the rasp of shearing knives, the rhythm of trampling hoofs, and the clink of metal throbbing harmoniously through the drowsy heat, were flung back by other machines at work across the grain. There is, however, a limit to human powers, and I must have been driving mechanically, and nearly asleep, when a clicking warned me that it was time to fit another spool of twine. I remember that during the operation I envied the endurance of the soulless, but otherwise almost human, machine.

Steel came up with his binder before it was completed, a creak and thud and tinkle swelling in musical crescendo as the jaded team loomed nearer through the dust. There was a flash of varnished wood that rose and fell, and twinkling metal, and I saw the driver sitting stiffly with hands, that were almost blackened, clenched on the lines, peering straight before him out of half-closed eyes, while the moisture that ran from his forehead washed copper-tinted channels through the grime. It was by an effort he held himself to his task; but that was nothing unusual, for the prairie does not yield up her riches lightly, and by the golden wake he left behind him the effort was justified. The earth had been fruitful that season, and harvest had not failed; while, having sown in deep dejection, uncertain who would reap, it was a small thing to strain one's strength to the utmost to gather the bounteous yield. We were already free, and every revolution of the binder's arms set us so much farther on the road to prosperity.

Twice I jerked the lines, but the team stood still; and I was preparing to encourage them more vigorously, when Haldane and his daughter approached. Both had insisted on my leaving them to their own devices, and now Lucille appeared to regard the beasts and myself compassionately.

"They look very tired, and they have done so much," she said, glancing down the long rows of piled-up grain. "Is not that sufficient to justify your resting a little?"

"I am afraid not," I answered with a somewhat rueful smile. "You see, prosperity has made us greedy, while all the grain cut up to the present belongs to Lane."

The girl looked indignant – Haldane thoughtful. "I have been wondering whether you would feel inclined to contest his claim for the balance of the debt," he said. "Considering that he has taken from you twice the value of his loan, and the story in Miss Redmond's book, you might be ethically and legally justified."

"No," I said. "I made the bargain, and I intend to keep my part of it. That accomplished, I shall have the fewer scruples about using every effort to utterly crush the man. All we cut henceforward is my own, and I can only repeat that I should be glad to devote every bushel to help forward his defeat."

"I think you are right," said Lucille Haldane, with a trace of pride in her approval, though her eyes were mischievous as she continued: "It is, however, unfortunate you are so very busy, because, as father is riding, and as the team are a little wild, we hoped you would drive them home for me."

I climbed down from the iron saddle, shouting to Steel, and Lucille smiled demurely. "We could not tear you away from that machine when you would grudge every minute," she said. "Remember that Bonaventure is a long way off, and, even if we allowed it, you could hardly return before to-morrow."

I nevertheless fancied she was pleased at my eagerness, and, for Haldane had passed on, I felt suddenly oppressed by the recognition of what I owed her. Yet had it been possible I should not have lightened the debt. I looked down at her gravely, noticing how young and fresh and slender she seemed – bright as the blaze of sunshine in which she stood – and then I pointed towards the long ranks of sheaves and the sea of stately ears.

"I am not in the least inconsistent, and should not be if every moment were thrice as precious," I said. "I remember most plainly that you gave me all this. Strange as it may seem, it is, nevertheless, perfectly true."

The girl blushed prettily, and then glanced from me towards the tired horses and the standing machine, after which her eyes rested with approval on the stalwart form of Thorn, who came up urging on his plodding team.

"It would be something to be proud of, if one could believe you, Rancher; but I am not wholly pleased with the last part of the speech," she said, with a faint, half-mocking inclination of the head. "I can guess what you are thinking, and you are a trifle slow to learn. Women are very well in their own place, are they not? However, you find it perplexing when they will not stay there, but, because some of them grow tired of breathing incense, they descend and interfere in masculine affairs. It is truly strange that there should be more forces in the world than those centered in big dusty men and splendid horses!"

"You must be a witch; but I am learning by degrees," I said. And the girl laughed merrily.

"You have not progressed very far, to judge by the comparison. Witches were usually pictured as malevolent, old, and ugly."

"I meant a beneficent fairy; but the surprise was not quite unnatural," I said. "Who could suspect in such a slender and fragile person the power she possesses to banish gloom and poverty? Legions of men and horses could not accomplish so much."

"Now you go too far in the opposite direction," and my companion shook her head. "It is the sense of balance you need."

The sun-blaze turned the clustered hair under her wide hat into the likeness of burnished gold – the gold of our own Northwest, with a coppery warmth in it – but the light in her hazel eyes eclipsed its brilliancy. The lithe figure fitted its gorgeous background of yellow radiancy, and again I felt all my pulses quicken as I paid Haldane's daughter silent homage. Magnificent as the wheat, alike to eye and understanding, when one remembered its mission, her presence seemed the crown and complement of all that splendid field. It was hard to refrain from telling her so, and possibly my voice was not pitched quite in its normal key when I said: "It is short of the truth, but there is just one thing I should like to know, and that is whether any other motive than pure benevolence prompted you."

"Why?"

Then I answered boldly: "Because it would be worth the rest to fancy that in some small measure it was due to individual goodwill towards Rancher Ormesby."

The girl looked away from me across the grain, and, as she turned her head, it was with a thrill of pleasure, which may not have been wholly artistic, that I noticed the polished whiteness of her neck and a dainty, pink-tinted little ear that peeped out from the clusters of her hair. Then she laughed, perhaps at Thorn, who argued quaintly, if forcibly, with his reluctant beasts, and turned to me.

"If you desire another motive, you may conclude, as you heard before, that it was love of justice; which really ought to satisfy you."

"It is a creditable one," I answered. "But I fear that it does not."

We left Crane Valley shortly, Haldane on horseback, his daughter – because something had gone wrong with the Bonaventure vehicle – beside me in our light wagon, which, if it in no way resembled the cumbrous contrivance bearing that name in England, was, I was uneasily conscious, by no means overclean. On the way we met the threshers, and stronger teams hauling the machines towards Crane Valley, for our threshing is done mostly in the field. We stopped to bid them hurry, and Haldane, learning they had met Gordon, whom he desired to see, bade us proceed while he looked for the rancher. I was not sorry to do so, and accordingly it was without him that we approached the dip to the Sweetwater hollow.

The afternoon was waning, and the air very still. The tiny birch leaves had ceased their whispering; but the sound of running water came musically out of their cool shadow. All the winding valley was rolled in green, an oasis of verdure in the sweep of white-bleached prairie; and, pulling the team up between the first of the slender trunks, I pointed down towards the half-seen lane of sliding water.

"I might never have known you if it had not been for a trifling accident by yonder willow clump," I said. "I remember your sister suggested that very night that our meeting might be the first scene of a drama, and, considering all that has happened since then, her prediction has proved strangely accurate."

Lucille Haldane nodded. "It is a coincidence that I was thinking of the same thing, and wondering, now that the play must be drawing towards its close, what the end will be. The meeting must, however, have been unlucky for you, because all your troubles date from that beginning."

"And my privileges," I answered, smiling. "The present is at least a happy augury. When I met Boone beside the river there was not a leaf on the birches, and their branches were moaning under a blast which makes one shiver from mere recollection. Remember the harvest at Crane Valley, and look down on yonder shining water and cool greenery. It was you who brought us the sunshine, and even the memory of the dark days is now melting like that night's snow."

"That is exaggerated sentiment, and I have heard invertebrate youths in the cities say such things more neatly," commented the girl, with an air of mock severity, and then glanced dreamily into the hollow; while, as silence succeeded, fate sent a little sting-fly to take a part – as, to confound man's contriving, trifles often do – in ending the play. The team were ill-broken broncos which had already given me trouble, and when the fly bored with envenomed proboscis through the hide of one, the beast flung up his head and kicked savagely.

The reins which I held loosely were whisked away, and before it was possible to recover them both horses had bolted. The light wagon lurched giddily, and the next moment it swept like a toboggan down the declivity.

"Hold fast!" I shouted, leaning recklessly down; and the first shock of enervating consternation vanished when I gripped the reins. Still, there was cold fear at my heart when, bracing both feet against the wagon-front, I strove uselessly to master the team. The brutes' mouths seemed made of iron, impervious to the bit; the slope was long and steep; birches and willows straggled athwart it everywhere; and the soil was treacherous. I could not break them from the gallop, and not daring to risk the sharp bends of the zigzag trail, I let them go straight for the slide of water in the bottom of the hollow.

It was not the first time I had been run away with. A fall from a stumbling horse or a wagon upset is a very common and, considering the half-tamed beasts we use, by no means surprising accident in our country; but at first it was only by a fierce effort I shook off an almost overmastering terror as I contemplated the danger to my companion. I hazarded one glance at her and saw that her face was white and set, then dare look at nothing but the reeling trees ahead. I strained every sinew to swing the team clear of them. Sometimes the beasts responded, sometimes they did not, and it was by a miracle the trunks went by. The wagon bounced more wildly, the slope grew steeper, and even if I could have checked the team this would only have precipitated a catastrophe. So, helpless, I clung to the reins until the end came suddenly.

Several birches barred our way; the brutes would swerve neither to right nor to left; and with a hoarse shout of warning I strove desperately to hold them straight for the one passage, wondering whether there was room enough in the narrow gap between the trunks. It was immediately evident that there was not. Simultaneously with a heavy shock, the wagon appeared to dissolve beneath me and I was hurled bodily into the air. Fortunately I alighted upon soft ground, headforemost, and perhaps, for that reason, escaped serious injury. It is possible that, in different circumstances, I might have lain still partly stupefied, or spent some time in ascertaining whether any bones had broken; but, as it was, I sprang to the overturned wagon, breathless with fear.

Lucille Haldane lay, mercifully, just clear of it, a pitiful white figure, and my heart stood still as I bent over her. She was pale and limp as a crushed lily, and as beautiful; and it was with awe I dropped on one knee beside her. There was no sign of any breathing, coldness seemed to emanate from her waxlike skin, and though I had seen many accidents, I dare scarcely venture to lay a finger on the slackly throbbing artery in her wrist. Then I groaned aloud, borne down with an overwhelming grief, for with the suddenness of a lightning flash I knew the words spoken but such a little while ago had been more than true. It was she who had brought all the sunshine and sweetness into my life. Reason and power of action returned with the knowledge, and I started for the river at a breathless run, smashing savagely through every cluster of dwarf willows which barred my way, filled my hat with the cold water, and, returning, dashed it on her face. The action appeared brutal, but terror was stronger than any sentimental fancies then, and I dare neglect no chance with that precious life at stake.

The slender form moved a little, and it was with relief unspeakable I heard a fluttering sigh; then I raised the wet head upon my knee, and fell to chafing the cold hands vigorously. The time may have been five minutes, or less, but I had never spent such long days in my life as those seconds while I waited, quivering in every limb, for some further sign of returning animation. It was very still in the hollow, and the song of the hurrying water maddened me. Its monotonous cadence might drown the faint breathing for which I listened with such intensity. Even in that space of agony two other incidents flashed through my memory, and I understood my fear during the dark voyage, and on the moonlit night when the cars lurched across the bridge. Life would be very empty if the breath died out of that tender, shaken body.

The suspense was mercifully ended. Lucille Haldane half opened her eyes, and looked up at me without recognition, closed them, and caught at her breath audibly, while I held her hands fast in a restraining grasp. Then, as she looked up again, the blood came back, mantling the clear skin, and she said, brokenly: "I fell out of the wagon, did I not? How long have I been here? – and my head is wet. I – I must get up."

I still held one hand fast; but, stooping, slipped one arm beneath her shoulder and raised her a little. "You must wait another few moments first."

The girl appeared reluctant, but made no resistance, and when finally I raised her to her feet I found it was necessary to lean against a birch trunk to hide the fit of trembling that seized me.

"I am not much hurt," she said; and my voice broke as I interjected: "Thank God for it!"

I fancied that Lucille Haldane, shaken as she was, flashed a swift sidelong glance at me, and that the returning color did not diminish in her cheek; then she said hurriedly: "Yes, I am not hurt, but I see the horses yonder, and you had better make sure of them. We are still some distance from home."

I turned without further speech, and found the vicious brutes, which had broken the wagon-pole, held fast by the tangled gear which had fouled a fallen tree. It was almost with satisfaction I saw the bolter had lamed himself badly. There was a change in Lucille Haldane when I led them back. She had recovered her faculties, but not her old frank friendliness, and said, almost sharply: "The wagon is useless. What do you propose to do?"

"To fold up the rug in the box and make some kind of saddle for you," I said, and proceeded to do so, cutting up the gear, which was almost new, so recklessly that my companion seemed even then surprised.

"Do you know that you are destroying a good many dollars' worth of harness?" she asked.

"It would not greatly matter if I spoiled a dozen sets so long as you reached home safely, and it is a very small fine for my carelessness," I answered. "I should never have forgiven myself if you had been injured; but are you – quite – sure that you are none the worse?"

"I do not think I am much the better," said the girl. "Still, I am not badly hurt, and it was not your fault."

Though still languid in her movements, she seemed chary of accepting much assistance when I helped her into the improvised saddle, and then, because the other horse was useless, I waded through the ford with my hand on the bridle. It was some distance to Bonaventure, and my companion was not communicative, but I did not find the silence irksome. Conflicting emotions would have made me slow of speech, and I was content with the fact that she rode beside me whole in limb and unspoiled in beauty. Indeed, so much had the sight of her lying white and apparently lifeless impressed me that I cast many apprehensive glances in her direction before I could convince myself that all was well.

Haldane, who overtook us, desired me to remain at Bonaventure; but every pair of hands was needed at Crane Valley, and I wished for solitude. So, stiffly mounting a borrowed horse, I set off homeward across the prairie. I had risen at three that morning, after an insufficient rest, and was worn out in body, but clear in mind, for a time, at least, while the brilliancy of the starshine and the silence of the waste helped me to think. I was by turns thankful, ashamed, dejected, and eager to clutch at an elusive hope. Illumination had followed disillusion, and I knew at last that even while I was uplifted by vain imaginings, Lucille Haldane had, little by little, and unwittingly, extended her dominion over my heart. I had, it seemed, spent the best years of my life striving after an unattainable and shadowy ideal, while perhaps the real living substance, endowed with the best of all pertaining to flesh and blood, lay within my grasp. It was true that the mistress of Bonaventure was much too good for me; but with all her graces she was of like fiber to us, and her few weaknesses rendered her more desirable in proof of the fact. That Beatrice Haldane was worthy of all adulation remained equally true; but it was hard to comprehend how, blinded by folly, I had mistaken the respect I paid her for the warm tide of passion which now pulsed through me. Neither was the latter of sudden origin, for, looking back, I could see how, little by little, and imperceptibly, admiration, gratitude, and tenderness, had merged into it until terror opened my eyes and full understanding came at last.