Books: Opening a Chestnut Burr

E >> Edward Payson Roe >> Opening a Chestnut Burr

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"Friends who have lost their way, and need shelter."

"I don't know about lettin' strangers in this time o' night," answered
the voice.

"There are only two of us," said Annie. "Perhaps you know who Miss
Walton is. I entreat you to let us in."

"Miss Walton, Miss Walton, sartin, I know who she is. But I can't
believe she's here."

"Our wagon broke down this afternoon, and we have lost our way,"
explained Gregory.

Again there was a stir inside, and soon a glimmer of light. After a
few moments the door was opened slightly, and a woman's voice asked,
apprehensively, "Be you sure it's Miss Walton?"

"Yes," said Annie, "you need have no fears. Hold the light, and see
for yourself."

This the woman did, and, apparently satisfied, gave them admittance at
once.

She seemed quite aged, and a few gray locks straggled out from under
her dingy cap, which suggested anything but a halo around her
wrinkled, withered face. A ragged calico wrapper incased her tall,
gaunt form, and altogether she did not make a promising hostess.

Before she could ask her unexpected guests any further questions, the
cry of a whippoorwill was again heard three times. She listened with a
startled, frightened manner. The sounds were repeated, and she seemed
satisfied:

"Isn't it rather late in the season for whippoorwills?" asked Annie,
uneasily, for this bird's note, now heard again, seemed like a signal.

"I dunno nothin' about whippoorwills," said the woman, stolidly. "The
pesky bird kind o' started me at first. Don't like to hear 'em round.
They bring bad luck. I can't do much for you, Miss Walton, in this
poor place. But such as 'tis you're welcome to stay. My son has been
off haulin' wood; guess he won't be back now afore to-morrow."

"When do you think he will come?" asked Annie, anxiously.

"Well, not much afore night, I guess."

"What will my poor father do?" moaned Annie. "He will be out all night
looking for us."

"Sure now, will he though?" said the woman, showing some traces of
anxiety herself. "Well, miss, you'll have to stay till my son gits
back, for it's a long way round through the valley to your house."

There was nothing to do but wait patiently till morning. The woman
showed Gregory up into a loft over the one room of the house, saying,
"Here's where my son sleeps. It's the best I can do, though I s'pose
you ain't used to such beds."

He threw his exhausted form on the wretched couch, and soon found
respite in troubled sleep.

Annie dozed away the night in a creaky old rocking-chair, the nearest
approach to a thing of comfort that the hovel contained. The old woman
had evidently been so "started" that she needed the sedative of a
short clay pipe, highly colored indeed, still a connoisseur in
meerschaums would scarcely covet it. This she would remove from her
mouth now and then, as she crouched on a low stool in the chimney-
corner, to shake her head ominously. Perhaps she knew more about
whippoorwills than she admitted. At last it seemed that the fumes,
which half strangled Annie, had their wonted effect, and she hobbled
to her bed and was soon giving discordant evidence of her peace. Annie
then noiselessly opened a window, that she too might breathe.

When Gregory waked next morning, it was broad day. He felt so stiff
and ill he could scarcely move, and with difficulty made his way to
the room below. The old woman was at the stove, frying some sputtering
pork, and its rank odor was most repulsive to the fastidious habitue
of metropolitan clubs.

"Where is Miss Walton?" he asked, in quick alarm.

"Only gone to the spring after water," replied the woman, shortly.
"Why didn't you git up and git it for her?"

"I would if I had known," he muttered, and he escaped from the
intolerable air of the room to the door, where he met Annie, fresh and
rosy from her morning walk and her toilet at the brook that brawled
down the ravine.

"Mr. Gregory, you are certainly ill," she exclaimed. "I am so sorry it
has all happened!"

He looked at her wonderingly, and then said, "You appear as if nothing
had happened. I am ill, Miss Walton, and I wish I were dead. You can
not feel toward me half the contempt I have for myself."

"Now, honestly, Mr. Gregory, I have no contempt for you at all."

He turned away and shook his head dejectedly.

"But I mean what I say," she continued, earnestly.

"Then it is your goodness, and not my desert."

"As I told you last night, so again I sincerely say, I think I
understand you better than you do yourself."

"You are mistaken," he answered, with gloomy emphasis. "Your
intuitions are quick, I admit. I have never known your equal in that
respect. But there are some things I am glad to think you never can
understand. You can never know what a proud man suffers when he has
utterly lost hope and self-respect. Though I acted so mean a part
myself, I can still appreciate your nobleness, courage, and fidelity
to conscience. I thought such heroism belonged only to the past."

"Mr. Gregory, I wish I could make you understand me," said Annie, with
real distress in her tone. "I am not brave; I was more afraid than
you. Indeed, I was in an agony of fear. I refused that man's demand
because I was compelled to. If you looked at things as I do, you would
have done the same."

"Please say no more, Miss Walton," said he, his face distorted by an
expression of intense self-loathing. "Do not try to palliate my
course. I would much rather you would call my cowardly selfishness and
lack of principle by their right names. The best thing I can do for
the world is to get out of it, and from present feelings, this 'good-
riddance' will soon occur. Will you excuse me if I sit down?" and he
sank upon the door-step in utter weakness.

Annie had placed her pail of water on the door-step and forgotten it
in her wish to cheer and help this bitterly wounded spirit.

"Mr. Gregory," she said, earnestly, "you are indeed ill in body and
mind, and you take a wrong and morbid view of everything. My heart
aches to show you how complete and perfect a remedy there is for all
this. It almost seems as if you were dying from thirst with that brook
yonder running--"

"There is no remedy for me," interrupted he, almost harshly. Then he
added in a weary tone, pressing his hand on his throbbing brow,
"Forgive me, Miss Walton; you see what I am. Please waste no more
thought on me."

"If yer want any breakfast to-day, yer better bring that water,"
called the old woman from within.

Annie gave him a troubled, anxious look, and then silently carried in
the pail.

"Have you any tea?" she asked, not liking the odor of the coffee.

"Mighty little," was the short answer.

"Please let me have some, and I will send you a pound of our best in
its place," said Annie.

"I hain't such a fool as to lose that bargain," and the old woman
hobbled with alacrity to a cupboard; but to Annie's dismay the hidden
treasure had been hoarded too near the even more prized tobacco, and
seemed redolent of the rank odor of some unsavory preparation of that
remarkable weed which is conjured into so many and such diverse forms.
But she brewed a little as best she could before eating any breakfast
herself, and brought it to Gregory as he still sat on the step,
leaning against the door-post.

"Please swallow this as medicine," she said.

"Indeed, Miss Walton, I cannot," he replied.

"Please do," she urged, "as a favor to me. I made it myself; and I
can't eat any breakfast till I have seen you take this."

He at once complied, though with a wry face.

"There," said she, with a touch of playfulness, "I have seldom
received a stronger compliment. After this compliance I think I could
venture to ask anything of you."

"The tea is like myself," he answered. "You brought to it skilled
hands and pure spring water, and yet, from the nature of the thing
itself, it was a villanous compound. Please don't ask me to take any
more. Perhaps you have heard an old saying, 'Like dislikes like.'"

She determined that he should not yield to this morbid despondency,
but had too much tact to argue with him; therefore she said, kindly,
"We never did agree very well, Mr. Gregory, and don't now. But before
many hours I hope I can give you a cup of tea and something with it
more to your taste. I must admit that I am ready even for this
dreadful breakfast, that threatens to destroy my powers of digestion
in one fatal hour. You see what a poor subject I am for romance;" and
she smilingly turned away to a meal that gave her a glimpse of how the
"other half of the world lives."

Before she had finished, the sound of wheels and horses' hoofs coming
rapidly up the glen brought her to the door, and with joy she
recognized a near neighbor of her father's, a sturdy, kind-hearted
farmer, who had joined in the search for the missing ones the moment
he learned, in the dawn of that morning, that they had not returned.

He gave a glad shout as he saw Annie's form in the doorway, and to her
his broad, honest face was like that of an angel. All are beautiful to
those they help.

"Your father is in a dreadful state, Miss Annie," said Farmer Jones;
"but I told him if he would only stay at home and wait, I, and a few
other neighbors, would soon find you. He was up at the foot of the
mountain ever since twelve o'clock last night. Then he came home to
see if you hadn't returned some other way. I'm usually out as soon as
it's light, so I hailed him as he passed and asked what on earth he
was up for at that time of day. He told me his trouble, so I hitched
up my light wagon and got to your house as soon as he did. When he
found you hadn't come yet, he was for starting right for the
mountains, but I saw he wasn't fit, so I says, 'Mr. Walton, you'll
just miss 'em. They've taken a wrong road, or the wagon has broken
down, but they'll be home before ten o'clock. Now send Jeff up the
road you expected them on. I'll send Mr. Harris, who lives just beyond
me, out on the road they took first. My horse is fast, and I'll go
round up this valley, and in this way we'll soon scour every road;'
and so with much coaxing I got him to promise to stay till I returned.
So jump in quick, and I'll have you home in little over an hour."

"But we can't leave Mr. Gregory here. Let him go first. He is ill, and
needs attention immediately."

"Miss Walton, please return at once to your father," said Gregory,
quickly. "It is your duty. I can wait."

"No, Mr. Gregory, it would not be right to leave you here, feeling as
you do. As soon as father knows I am safe his mind will be at rest. I
am perfectly well, and you have no idea how ill you look."

"Miss Walton," said Gregory, in a tone that was almost harsh in its
decisiveness, "I will not return now."

"I am real sorry," said Mr. Jones, "that my wagon is not larger, but I
took the best thing that I had for fast driving over rough roads.
Come, Miss Walton, your friend has settled it, and if he is sick he
had better come more slowly in an easier carriage."

After cordially thanking the old woman for such rude hospitality as
she had bestowed, and renewing her promise to send ample recompense,
she turned with gentle courtesy to Gregory and assured him that he
would not have long to wait.

He gave her a quick, searching look, and said, "Miss Walton, I do not
understand how you can speak to me in this way. But go at once. Do not
keep your father in suspense any longer."

"I hope we shall find you better when we come for you," she said,
kindly.

"It were better if you found me dead," he said, in sudden harshness,
but it was toward himself, not her.

So she understood it, and waving her hand encouragingly, was rapidly
driven away.

As they rode along she related to Mr. Jones the events already known
to the reader, but carefully shielded Gregory from blame. She also
satisfied her companion's evident curiosity about the young man by
stating so frankly all it was proper for him to know that he had no
suspicion of anything concealed. She explained his last and unusual
expression by dwelling with truth on the fact that Gregory appeared
seriously ill and was deeply depressed in spirits.

Mr. Walton received his daughter with a joy beyond words. She was the
idol of his heart--the one object on earth that almost rivalled his
"treasures in heaven." His mind had dwelt in agonized suspense on a
thousand possibilities of evil during the prolonged hours of her
absence, and now that he clasped her again, and was assured of her
safety, he lifted his eyes heavenward with overflowing gratitude in
his heart.

But Annie's success in keeping up before him was brief. The strain had
been a little too severe. She soon gave way to nervous prostration and
headache, and was compelled to retire to her room instead of returning
for Gregory as she had intended. But he was promptly sent for, Miss
Eulie going in her place, and taking every appliance possible for his
comfort.

She found him in Mrs. Tompkins's hovel, sitting in the creaky arm-
chair that Annie had occupied the night before, and enduring with a
white, grim face the increasing suffering of his illness. He seemed to
have reached the depths of despair, and, believing the end near,
determined to meet it with more than Indian stoicism.

Many, in their suicidal blindness and remorse, pass sentence upon
themselves, and weakly deliver their souls into the keeping of that
inexorable jailer, Despair, forgetting the possibilities--nay,
certainties--of good that ever dwell in God. If man had no better
friend than himself, his prospects would be sombre indeed. Many a one
has condemned himself and sunk into the apathy of death, but He who
came to seek and to save the lost has lifted him with the arms of
forgiving love, and helped him back to the safety and happiness of the
fold. Satan only, _never the Saviour_, bids the sinner despair. But
poor Gregory was taking advice from his enemy and not from his Friend.
During the long hours of pain and almost mortal weakness of that
dreary morning, he acknowledged himself vanquished--utterly defeated
in the battle of life. As old monkish legends teach, the devil might
have carried him off bodily and he would not have resisted. In his
prostrated nature, but one element of strength was apparent--a
perverted pride that rose like a shattered, blackened shaft, the one
prominent relic of seemingly utter ruin.

At first he coldly declined the cordial and nourishment Miss Eulie
brought, and said, with a quietness that did not comport with the
meaning of his words, that she had better leave him to himself, for he
would not make trouble for any one much longer.

Miss Eulie was shocked, finding in these words and in his general
appearance proof that he was more seriously ill than she had
anticipated.

He was indeed; but his malady was rather that of a morbid mind
depressing an enfeebled body than actual disease. But mental distress
could speedily kill a man like Gregory.

Miss Eulie soon brought him to terms by saying, "Mr. Gregory, you see
I am alone. Mr. Walton was too exhausted to accompany me, and Annie
did not send any of the neighbors, as she thought the presence of
strangers would be irksome to you."

"She said she would come herself, but she has had time to think and
judge me rightly," muttered he, interrupting her.

"No, Mr. Gregory," Miss Eulie hastened to say; "you do her wrong. She
was too ill to come, as she intended and wished to do, and so with
many anxious charges sent me in her place. I am but a woman, and
dependent on your courtesy. I cannot compel you to go with me. But I
am sure you will not wrong my brother's hospitality, and make Miss
Walton's passing indisposition serious, by refusing to come with me.
If you did she would rise from her sick bed and come herself."

Gregory at once rose and said, "I can make no excuse for myself. I
seem fated to do and say the worst things possible under the
circumstances."

"You are ill," said Miss Eulie, kindly, as if that explained
everything.

Declining aid, he tottered to the carriage, into which Jeff, with some
curious surmises, helped him.

Miss Eulie made good Annie's promises to Mrs. Tompkins fourfold, and
left the shrivelled dame with a large supply of one of the elements of
her heaven--tea, and with the means of purchasing the other--tobacco,
besides more substantial additions to the old woman's meagre larder.

Gregory was averse to conversation during the long, slow ride. The
jolting, even of the easy cushioned carriage, was exceedingly painful,
and by the time they reached home he was quite exhausted. Leaning on
Mr. Walton's arm he at once went to his room, and at their urgent
entreaties forced himself to take a little of the dainty supper that
was forthcoming. But their kindly solicitude was courteously but
coldly repelled. Acting reluctantly upon his plainly manifested wish,
they soon left him to himself, as after his first eager inquiry
concerning Miss Walton it seemed a source of pain to him to see or
speak to any one.

At first his arm-chair and the cheery wood-fire formed a pale
reflection of something like comfort, but every bone in his body ached
from the recent cold he had taken. He had just fever enough to
increase the distortion of the images of his morbid and excited mind.
Hour after hour he sat with grim white face and fixed stare, scourging
himself with the triple scorpion-whip of remorse, vain regret, and
self-disgust. But an old and terrible enemy was stealing on him to
change the nature of his torment--neuralgic headache; and before
morning he was walking the floor in agony, a sad type, while the world
slept and nature rested, of that large class, all whose relations,
physical and moral, are a jangling discord.

CHAPTER XIX

MISS WALTON MADE OF DIFFERENT CLAY FROM OTHERS

Simple remedies and prolonged rest were sufficient to restore Annie
after the serious shock and strain she had sustained. She rose even
earlier than usual, and hastily dressed that she might resume her
wonted place as mistress of her father's household. In view of her
recent peril and the remediless loss he might have suffered, she was
doubly grateful for the privilege of ministering to his wants and
filling his declining years with cheer and comfort.

She had not been awake long before Gregory's irregular steps in the
adjoining room aroused her attention and caused anxious surmises. But
she was inclined to think that his restlessness resulted from mental
distress rather than physical. Still she did not pity him less, but
rather more. Though so young, she knew that the "wounded spirit" often
inflicts the keener agony. Her strong womanly nature was deeply moved
in his behalf. As we have seen, it was her disposition to be helpful
and sustaining, rather than clinging and dependent. She had a heart
"at leisure from itself, to soothe and sympathize." From the depths of
her soul she pitied Gregory and wished to help him out of a state
which the psalmist with quaint force describes as "a horrible pit and
the miry clay."

She was a very practical reformer, and determined that a dainty
breakfast should minister to the outer man before she sought to apply
a subtler balm to the inner. Trusting not even to Zibbie's established
skill, she prepared with her own hands some inviting delicacies, and
soon that which might have tempted the most exacting of epicures was
ready.

Mr. Walton shared the delight of the children at seeing Annie bustling
round again as the good genius of their home, and Miss Eulie's little
sighs of content were as frequent as the ripples on the shore. Miss
Eulie could sigh and wipe a tear from the corner of her eye in the
most cheerful and hope-inspiring way, for somehow her face shone with
an inward radiance, and, even in the midst of sorrow and when wet with
tears, reminded one of a lantern on a stormy night, which, covered
with rain-drops, still gives light and comfort.

Breakfast was ready, but Gregory did not appear. Hannah, the waitress,
was sent to his room, and in response to her quiet knock he said,
sharply, "Well?"

"Breakfast is waiting."

"I do not wish any," was the answer, in a tone that seemed resentful,
but was only an expression of the intolerable pain he was suffering.
Hannah came down with a scared look and said she "guessed something
was amiss with Mr. Gregory."

Annie looked significantly at her father, who immediately ascended to
his guest's door.

"Mr. Gregory, may I come in?" he asked.

"Do not trouble yourself. I shall be better soon," was the response.

The door was unlocked, and Mr. Walton entered, and saw at once that a
gentle but strong will must control the sufferer for his own good.
Mental and nervous excitement had driven him close to the line where
reason and his own will wavered in their decisions, and his irregular,
tottering steps became the type of the whole man. His eyes were wild
and bloodshot. A ghastly pallor gave his haggard face the look of
death. A damp dullness pervaded the heavy air of the room, which in
his unrest he had greatly disordered. The fire had died out, and he
had not even tried to kindle it again. His broodings had been so deep
and painful during the earlier part of the night that he had been
oblivious of his surroundings, and then physical anguish became so
sharp that all small elements of discomfort were unnoted.

With fatherly solicitude Mr. Waiton stepped up to his guest, who stood
staring at him as if he were an intruder, and taking his cold hand,
said, "Mr. Gregory, you must come with me."

"Where?"

"To the sitting-room, where we can take care of you and relieve you.
Come, I'm your physician for the time being, and doctors must be
obeyed."

Gregory had not undressed the night before, and, wrapped in his rich
dressing-gown and with dishevelled hair, he mechanically followed his
host to the room below and was placed on the lounge.

"Annie has prepared you a nice little breakfast. Won't you let me
bring it to you?" said Mr. Waiton, cheerily.

"No," said Gregory, abruptly, and pressing his hands upon his
throbbing temples, "the very thought of eating is horrible. Please
leave me. Indeed I cannot endure even your kindly presence."

Mr. Walton looked perplexed and scarcely knew what to do, but after a
moment said, "Really, Mr. Gregory, you are very ill. I think I had
better send for our physician at once."

"I insist that you do not," said his guest, starting up. "What could a
stupid country doctor do for me, with his owl-like examination of my
tongue and clammy fingering of my pulse, but drive me mad? I must be
alone."

"Father," said Annie, in a firm and quiet voice, "I will be both nurse
and physician to Mr. Gregory this morning. If I fail, you may send for
a doctor."

Unperceived she had entered, and from Gregory's manner and words
understood his condition.

"Miss Waiton," said Gregory, hastily, "I give you warning. I am not
even the poor weak self you have known before, and I beg you leave me
till this nervous headache passes off, if it ever does. I can't
control myself at such times, and this is the worst attack I ever had.
I am low enough in your esteem. Do not add to my pain by being present
now at the time of my greatest weakness."

"Mr. Gregory," she replied, "you may speak and act your worst, but you
shall not escape me this morning. It's woman's place to remove pain,
not fly from it. So you must submit with the best grace you can. If
after I have done all in my power you prefer the doctor and another
nurse, I will give way, but now you have no choice."

Gregory fell back on the sofa with a groan and a muttered oath. At a
sign from his daughter, Mr. Walton reluctantly and doubtfully passed
through the open door into the parlor, where he was joined by Miss
Eulie.

Annie quietly stepped to the hearth and stirred the fire to a cheerful
blaze. She then went to the parlor and brought the afghan, and without
so much as saying, "by your leave," spread it over his chilled form.

Gregory felt himself helpless, but there was something soothing in
this assertion of her strong will, and like a sick child he was better
the moment he ceased to chafe and struggle.

She left the room a few moments, and even between the surges of pain
he was curious as to what she would do next. He soon learned with a
thrill of hope that he was to experience the magnetism of her touch,
and to know the power of the hand that had seemed alive in his grasp
on the day of their chestnutting expedition. Annie returned with a
quaint little bottle of German cologne, and, taking a seat quietly by
his side, began bathing his aching temples.

"You treat me like a child," he said, petulantly.

"I hope for a while you will be content to act like one," she replied.

"I may, like a very bad one."

"No matter," she said, with a laugh that was the very antidote of
morbidness; "I am accustomed to manage children."

But in a very brief time he had no disposition to shrink from her
touch or presence. Her hand upon his brow seemed to communicate her
own strong, restful life; his temples throbbed less and less
violently. Silent and wondering he lay very still, conscious that by
some subtle power she was exorcising the demons of pain. His hurried
breathing became regular; his hands unclinched; his form, which had
been tense and rigid, relaxed into a position of comfort. He felt that
he was under some beneficent spell, and for an hour scarcely moved
lest he should break it and his torment return. Annie was equally
silent, but with a smile saw the effects of her ministry. At last she
looked into his face, and said, with an arch smile, "Shall I send for
Doctor Bludgeon and Sairy Gamp to take my place?"

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