Books: Her Weight in Gold
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George Barr McCutcheon >> Her Weight in Gold
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"Oh, would you do that?" she asked, suddenly seeing her way clear.
Yet, in spite of all, her composure deserted her and she blurted it
out, turning red again. "I am dying to ride to 'Big Fork' tomorrow,
but I have no one to accompany me. Would you like to go?" Then to
herself, "What a fool he thinks me!"
"Gladly; but, are we sure there are no stray Indians about?" he asked,
rather quickly.
"He is afraid," she thought, with strange disappointment. "If you are
afraid, we will not go," she said a trifle coldly.
"Afraid? Not for myself, but for you. We will go if you like, and I
should rejoice to meet all of the Indians in Virginia if it will
please you."
So they made their plans, and she was so loth to leave him that he was
forced to remind her that they had passed the home of Lucy Gaines a
full furlong or more. He left her at the door, his heart exultant,
hers all a-flutter.
The next afternoon the two rode forth from Jamestown and into the
forest, following the well-made road which led to the westward beneath
the red and yellowing oaks. Half an hour previous to their departure
five young men had ridden from the home of Lucy Gaines, strange
bundles strapped to their saddles. Above all things, they had
cautioned Kate to demand the Captain's proof of marksmanship at a
point near Big Fork.
It was with some consternation, notwithstanding all the plotting, that
Kate observed the big pistols at the Captain's side and the heavy
sword which jangled against his leg. That jangling sword gave her the
tremors, and she cast many furtive glances toward its chain and
scabbard. At last she was compelled to ask:
"How can you, I pray, use such a monstrous sword, Captain Studdiford?
It must have been made for a giant." "It was; it was my great-great-
grand-father's over a century ago. See! It is serviceable, even in my
weak hand." He pulled the gleaming blade, long and heavy, from its
scabbard, and swept it downward through the air so fiercely that it
resembled a wide sheet of silver. Kate's blue eyes grew wide with
apprehension, a cold chill seized upon her and her ruddy face paled.
He returned the weapon to its sheath with such a forceful crash that
she started violently in her saddle, her little teeth clicking in
sheer affright.
"I could cleave a man's skull in twain as easily as you can cut an
apple. Would that we could meet a warlike Indian that I could show you
how it merits my praise."
"Goodness!" gasped Kate hopelessly. "You would not strike a--a--man
with it, would you?"
"If he were an enemy. For you, loved one, I could cut down an army."
Their horses drew more closely side by side and the fierce, strong
hand was gently laid upon her trembling fingers. Tenderly clasping the
little one the big one raised it until it touched the lips of him who
leaned across to kiss it. Their eyes met as he raised his head. His
were full of love, hers with a pleading dread, the uncertain quiver
between love and fear. Without a word he dropped the hand, suddenly
sick at heart.
"I could die for her and she despises me," he groaned to himself.
"Oh, what have I--have we done?" she thought, a thousand fears
gathering in her heart. "He is no coward and he will kill one of them!
How can I tell him--how can I save their lives? He will despise me!
That awful sword! A man's skull! Oh, dear! He called me loved one! How
big and strong he is! He called me--how can I keep him from using the
sword? The pistols I can manage and--perhaps they will not be there.
He will kill them all--horror upon horror! What have I done? Oh!" the
last exclamation was so loud and so sudden that the pale Captain
turned quickly.
"What is it? What is it?"
She laughed wildly, even gleefully, almost in the face of her
companion.
"Nothing--nothing at all!" she cried.
"I am glad to have afforded you amusement, Mistress Fortune. You may
tear my heart to shreds."
Her manner changed instantly. Tears flew to the blue eyes and her hand
crept toward him.
"Forgive me, pray, Captain Studdiford, I--I did not mean to hurt you.
I--I--am very foolish, very unkind. You must hate me," she faltered.
"Hate you! How could I? You do not love me--why should I have hoped? I
can but blame myself." Her hand had fallen to her side because he had
not touched it. "And it is our last afternoon together."
"Last?" she repeated, faintly.
"Yes; for I shall not see you again."
"Oh--you--you--do not mean that!"
"I have asked to be transferred to Willamsburg. I--I have not one
friend in Jamestown; why should I stay here?" he cried bitterly.
"But you have," she exclaimed, eagerly; "you have. I am your friend."
"Friend! That is not what I ask of you," he said, almost gruffly.
Silence, broken only by the clatter of the hoofs upon the road
followed his words. In her confusion she had forgotten the terrible
sword, but it recurred to her, and, with it, the thought which had
given birth to her untimely mirth, the thought that was to lead her
from the chief predicament into which she had been cast. She would ask
the Captain to turn back to Jamestown at once, avoiding the
possibility of conflict.
"Captain Studdiford, I believe we had better turn back." Her face grew
crimson beneath his calm gaze. "As you like. You will grant me time to
adjust my saddle girth; it is slipping," he said coolly, dismounting
without another word.
They were fully three miles from the village, and in a dense piece of
forest. On either side of the narrow road grew the thickest of
underbrush with the great, gaunt trees stretching above like silent
sentinels. The girl's mind was chaos; her thoughts were changing and
interchanging like leaves before the whirling wind. She knew that she
admired this man, and that something even sweeter was beginning to
throb its way into her heart. A half smile came to her troubled face
as she thought of the war-painted plotters two miles away, waiting to
make a coward of her hero. A touch of remorse came to her as she
remembered her part in the play, and that the plot would have been
carried out had she not seen the great swing of that fearful sword.
What havoc it would have wrought! And he was to leave Jamestown!
Without a friend, he had said. How could he say that?
In the midst of these varying thoughts she allowed her softening eyes
to wander from him toward the trees above and the straggling brush
beneath their knotty limbs. A suppressed scream called the Captain's
attention to her staring eyes. They were blinking with consternation.
Deep in the underbrush she had seen the form of an Indian warrior!
Horrors! The sword!
"What do you see?" cried he, staring toward the now deserted brush.
"Nothing--nothing!" she gasped. "Yes--I mean, that red bird! See? Do
shoot it for me--I must have it! Isn't it beautiful?" She was
excitedly pointing toward a red bird in the top branches of a big oak.
He drew his pistols and deliberately aimed with one of them. The shot
missed and the bird darted away.
"Oh, goodness!" she cried. "Try the other one!"
"But the bird is gone."
"Is it? So it is--but, quick! See if you can cut off that twig up
there--the one with three red leaves. I wager you cannot! Quick, and
then we will ride for home."
"Why are you so excited?"
"I am not the least bit excited--I never am! Why do you not shoot at
that twig?"
"You try it," he surprised her by saying, pushing a pistol into her
hand. Without a word or aim she blazed away at the sky and his
firearms were useless. She handed the smoking pistol to him with a
laugh.
"Would it not be awful if Indians came upon us!" she cried, with
strange exultation. "But mount, and race with me to the spring!"
As the Captain placed his foot in the stirrup a yell burst from the
thicket, an arrow whizzed above their heads, and a half-a-dozen,
fierce warriors were dashing toward them.
"Do not use your sword!" she screamed.
Before the bewildered soldier could catch his breath an ugly brave was
in the road, not ten feet away, knife in hand. Out whizzed the sword!
Kate screamed in agony, clasping her hand over her eyes.
"They are friends! Do not strike!"
But it was too late. The streak of steel cut the air. A sickening
thud, a gurgling howl, and the assailant fell, his head half severed
from his body. An instant later the big Englishman was in his saddle.
A second slash and an Indian at his side went down beneath the
ancestral blade!
The two horses plunged forward as a brawny redskin grasped her arm and
she felt herself being dragged to the ground. Then a hand clasped her
other arm, a big form leaned over behind her, far across the back of
her horse. She heard the hiss of something cutting the air, the crash
as of splitting wood, a scream, of agony and the Indian's ruthless
grasp was loosened. Her horse stumbled and seemed to totter beneath
her, but again that arm from aloft exerted itself and it seemed as if
she were being lifted to the tree tops. Almost before she could
realise it she was upon another horse, clasped in the arm of its
rider, and they were off like the wind.
Suddenly she felt the form of the man who held her so closely drop
forward with a groan and then straighten again slowly. Exultant yells
came from behind them, several arrows whizzed past, and then naught
was heard but the thunder of the horse's hoofs upon the frozen road.
As her eyes opened involuntarily, terror possessing them, they fell
upon the scene far behind. Two hundred yards away her own horse lay
struggling in the road, two human forms stretched near it, another
dragging itself to the roadside. Three feathered Indians were some
fifty yards nearer, gesticulating wildly. Her brain whirred and
buzzed, and--consciousness was lost!
When she regained her senses she was lying upon the ground. With
feeble eyes she glanced wonderingly about. To a tree near by a horse
was hitched, beneath her body were the blankets from the horse and
certain garments from the back of man. All was as a dream; she could
account for nothing. Studdiford was leaning against the big oak,
coatless and as pale as a ghost. Deep lines stretched across his brow
and down his mouth; his eyes were closed, as if in pain.
An involuntary moan escaped her lips, and the Captain was at her side
almost before it had died away. She was crying.
"Oh, what have I done! What have I done!"
"Calm, yourself, dearest! You are safe--entirely so. See, we are
alone, far from those devils. It is but a mile to Jamestown. Be brave
and we will soon be at home," he murmured hoarsely, kneeling at her
side and lifting her to a sitting posture.
"Home! I can never go home! Oh, God, you do not know--you do not
know!"
"There--there! Now, be quiet."
"How could you know? I am a murderess--I am the wretch! Kill me; I
cannot live!" she wailed.
"Hush!" he cautioned, lovingly.
"You could not know--you did not know them, Captain Studdiford!" she
cried, sitting bolt upright, glaring wildly about her, then
shudderingly plunging her white face against his shoulder. "They were
not Indians," she almost whispered.
"Not Indians!" he gasped.
"God forgive me--no! It was all a trick--to test your courage--forgive
me--to test--to test--oh! and I allowed you to kill them!"
"Speak! Go on! What do you mean?" "They were our friends--not Indians!
My dearest friends! Oh, how is it that I am not struck dead for this?
Please heaven, let me die!" she wailed.
"My God!" he exclaimed, after the first bewildering shock. "A trick--
and I have killed--oh, it cannot be true!" He leaped to his feet,
allowing her to fall from his side to the ground, where she lay, a
wretched, shivering heap. With a ferocious oath he snatched the big
sword from the ground and turned upon her, with eyes blazing, muscles
quivering.
She was looking up at him, those wide blue eyes gleaming piteously.
"Kill me!" she murmured, and closed the eyes to await the stroke.
His big arm relaxed, the sword fell from his nerveless grasp, clanging
to the ground.
When she reopened her eyes after an age of suspense she saw him
leaning against the tree, his body shaking with sobs. A second glance
and she started to her feet alarmed.
His broad back was covered with blood. Near his left shoulder the
clothing was torn and an ugly, gaping wound leered at her.
"Oh," she gasped; "you--you are hurt!"
"Hurt!" he groaned. "They have killed me! You have killed me--you and
your friends. I hope you--are--satisfied--with--your--see?" As he sank
to the ground, he pointed feebly to the cruel arrow which he had torn
from his side. It lay not far away, grim and bloody.
The horrified girl glanced at it helplessly and then at the
unconscious man, unable to realise. Then she cried aloud in her agony
and threw herself upon the prostrate form, moaning:
"Dead! Dead! Speak to me, Ralph--look up! I love you--I worship you!
You shall not leave me!"
She kissed the pallid face, caressed the chilling head, sobbing:
"Forgive me--forgive me!"
An hour afterward the clatter of hoofs upon the road aroused her from
the semi-conscious condition into which her grief had thrown her.
Through the gathering darkness she saw horsemen approaching--Indian
riders! A moment later they were dismounting at her side, and well-
known voices were calling to her:
"Are you hurt?"
"What has happened?"
"Killed? My God!"
It was Farring, Trask and the other plotters, reeking with excitement.
Their horses were wet from the fierceness with which they had been
ridden.
"Do not touch him! You have killed him!" she cried, striving to shield
the body from Farring's anxious touch.
"Killed him? Good God, Kate! where did you meet them!" cried Farring,
as Trask pulled her from Studdiford's side.
"Are you not dead?" she finally whispered to the men.
"We? He killed three of them--split their heads! But the wretches put
an arrow into him, after all. What a dreadful thing we have done!
Fairly tricked him to his death!" cried poor Trask.
"Then--then it was not you?" cried Kate.
"Heavens, no! We found the Indians dragging their dead from the road,
three miles back, and knew that something terrible had happened.
"Thank God! I am spared that! But he must not die--he shall not! I
love him. Do you hear? I love him!"
For three weeks the victim of that ill-fated trick hung between life
and death. Surgery was crude in the colonies, and the first evidence
of restoration was due more to his rugged constitution than to the
skill of his doctors. The poor fellow rolled and tossed upon one of
Mrs. Fortune's soft beds, oblivious to the kind offices of those about
him. They had taken him there at Kate's command, and she had worn
herself to a shadow with anguish, love and penitence. She watched him
by day and by night--in her restless dreams; her whole existence was
in the tossing victim of her folly. Every twitch of that pain-stricken
body seemed to show her that he was shrinking from her in hatred. Her
pretty face was white and drawn, the blue eyes dark and pitiful, the
merry mouth, plaintive in its hopelessness.
And those jovial tricksters--those who had jeered over his lack of
courage, the testing of which they had undertaken! They were smitten
by their own curses, haunted by their own shame. The fiery Trask, the
polished Farring, the ingenious Holmes, with all of Jamestown, prayed
for his recovery, and spared no pains to bring to life and health the
man who had won that which they had relinquished hope of having--
Kate's love. They were tender, sympathetic, helpful--true men and
good.
Kate could not forget the look of disgust she had seen upon
Studdiford's face as he stood above her with the great sword in his
hand. His first thought had been to kill her!
Sitting beside him, bathing the fevered brow, caressing the rumpled
hair, holding his restless hands, she could feel her heart thumping
like lead, so heavy had it grown in the fear of his awakening.
Finally the doctors told her that he would recover, that the fever was
broken. Then came the day when he slept, cool and quiet, no trace of
fever, no sign of pain.
It was then that Kate forsook him, burying herself in her distant
room, guilty and heart-broken, fearing above all things on earth, the
first repellent glance he would bestow upon her. Once, while he slept,
she peered through his door, going back to her room and her spinning
with tears blinding the plaintive blue eyes.
At last, one day, her mother came from the Captain's room and said to
her gently:
"Kate, Captain Studdiford asks why you do not come to see him. He
tells me that for three days he has suffered because you have been so
unkind. Go to him, dear; he promises he will not plead his love if it
is so distasteful to you!"
Distasteful! The girl grew faint with wonder. Her limbs trembled, her
lips parted, her eyes blurred and her ears roared with the rush of
blood from her heart.
"Mother!" she whispered, at last, steadying herself against the wall.
"Are you sure, Mother?"
"That he wants you? My child, his eyes fill with tears when he thinks
of you. I have seen them moisten as he lies looking from the window."
But Kate was gone.
When Mrs. Fortune opened the door to the sick man's room soon
afterward she drew back quickly, closed it again, and, lifting her
eyes aloft, murmured:
"God make them happy!"
MR. HAMSHAW'S LOVE AFFAIR
Mr. Hamshaw was short, bald, pudgy--and fifty-seven. Besides all this,
he was a bachelor, and one jolly one, at the time when this narrative
opens. He lived in apartments pretty well downtown, where he was
looked after with scrupulous care by a Japanese valet and an Irish
"cook-lady." Mr. Hamshaw was forever discharging his valet and forever
re-engaging him. Sago persistently refused to leave at the hour set
for his departure, and Mr. Hamshaw finally came to discharge him every
evening in order that he might be sure to find him at his post in the
morning. Regularly, he would call Sago into the den, very red in the
face over some wholly imaginary provocation.
"This ends it, Sago! You go! I've stood it as long as I can--or will.
You leave the place tonight, sir--bag and baggage. I don't want to see
your face again. Understand?"
"Yes, sir; very well, sir" Sago would respond with perfect equanimity.
Sago engaged to be very, very English at such distinguished times.
"You go tonight."
"Yes, Mr. Hamshaw. May I ask what I have done to displease you, sir!"
"Never mind, sir! I'll tell you tomorrow. Don't bother me about it
today. And, say, if you don't press this dinner coat of mine before
tomorrow night I'll discharge you without a recommendation."
"Very good, sir."
Once when Sago threatened to leave unless Ellen, the cook, was
dismissed, poor Mr. Hamshaw had a most uncomfortable half-hour. Young
Mr. Goodrich from the bank was dining with him at the time. Now it was
quite as hard to get rid of Ellen, notwithstanding the fact that she
was constantly on the verge of leaving of her own accord, as it was to
discharge Sago. The host prayed down to his comfortable boots that the
threats of Sago might not grow louder than confidential hisses as he
passed behind his chair in the capacity of butler, but he was counting
without Ellen. There was a long, painful interval between courses, and
then Ellen marched in from the kitchen, majestically attired for the
street.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Hamshaw, but this time I go for fair. It's
aither me or the Chinee-"
"Blawst yer eyes!" snarled Sago in his very best English, mightily
incensed.
"But, Ellen--" began Mr. Hamshaw, bowled over.
"Don't beg me to stay," she cried, glaring at Sago, who glared back
safely from behind Mr. Goodrich's chair. "The dago has insulted me for
the last toime. I'm sorry, sor, it had to come roight in the middle of
dinner, sor, but it couldn't wait."
"Can't you subdue yourself till morning, Ellen? It is--"
"I can subjue meself, sor, but who the divil is to subjue the Malay?
He's gone too far this--"
"I've only been doing my duty, sir," inserted Sago, drawing the salad
spoon through his hand very much as a Samurai would have drawn a
sword. "Ellen she--I mean her didn't--"
"Never mind, never mind," groaned Mr. Hamshaw, at bay. "You may both
go. I fire--I discharge both of you! I'm sure, Mr. Goodrich, you will
overlook this unfortunate--"
"Discharge me, sor?" half shrieked Ellen. "I never was discharged from
a place in me loife. I won't stand for it! I'll lave, but I'll not be
discharged. It's Sago that has to be discharged--not me."
"Discharge both of them, Mr. Hamshaw," advised Goodrich amiably. "I
know where you can get an excellent cook and--"
"Oh, you do, eh? With recommindations, too, I suppose!" sniffed Ellen
in a fine flare.
"The very best, my good woman."
"Well, I'd loike to see them," announced Ellen loyally. "No wan can
cook for Mr. Hamshaw unless she gives the best of characters."
"She's a Japanese woman," explained Mr. Goodrich, "and they're said to
be the best cooks in the world."
"The divil a step will I take out of this place to make way for a
haythen Jap." Shebegan taking off her hat. "I'll have the squab on in
a minute, Mr. Hamshaw, and I'll serve it, too." This last with a
deadly look at Sago. "He says he'll quit if I don't. Well, I don't!"
"Will you make the dressing for the salad, sir, or shall I?" politely
inquired Sago, ignoring Ellen completely.
"Have you decided to stay long enough for that purpose?" demanded Mr.
Hamshaw.
"I have given notice, sir, that Ellen has to go," said Sago soberly.
"And I refuse to go for the loikes of you," retorted Ellen with great
dignity.
"Then, Mr. Hamshaw, I shall remain until she does go. But go she
must."
"I'll go when I get good and ready, Mr. Sago."
"We'll have the squab now, Sago," said Mr. Hamshaw.
"Very good, sir."
It was quite an old story among the members of the club, especially
those who knew Mr. Hamshaw intimately, that he had once felt the
inclination to take unto himself a wife. That, of course, was years
and years ago, and it is hardly necessary to remark that the young
woman, whoever she may have been, was not possessed of a responsive
inclination. Result: Mr. Hamshaw not only refrained from marrying any
one in all the subsequent years but astutely prevented any one from
marrying him. It was quite true that at fifty-seven he was not a thing
of beauty, but he had a heart of gold and was beloved by all the men
and children who knew him. Certainly it is quite doubtful if he could
have been all this had he married even the woman of his choice.
One day there came to the big apartment-house where lived Mr. Hamshaw
and his two servants a most uncommon hullabaloo and sensation. It was
an unheard-of proceeding for a tenant to move out of this amiable and
exclusive establishment, and naturally, it was impossible for any one
to move in. Of course, however, such contingencies as births,
weddings, and funerals could not be provided against, and it was due
entirely to the advent of a bride that the aforesaid uproar occurred.
A widower on the second floor took unto himself a widow, and she was
now being moved in with all her goods and chattels.
It would appear that the new Mrs. Gladding did not approve of her
husband's furniture, his servants, or his own flesh and blood. As a
consequence, they were departing jointly, and in their stead came
substitutes from her former apartments in Eads Avenue. Mr. Gladding's
two grown-up sons were shuffled off to bachelor quarters downtown and
their rooms were turned over to Mrs. Gladding's two grown-up
daughters--just out in society. The transfer was over at last, and, to
the intense gratification of Mr. Hamshaw, the big building saw the
last of its moving-vans, its plumbers and decorators, and the new
Gladdings were as quietly ensconced as the old had been. It was not
until the end of the second week thereafter that Mr. Hamshaw had his
first glimpse of the two debutantes--the young Misses Frost.
But that one glimpse was his undoing.
All those years of constancy to his original inclination were blotted
out as if by magic. His primeval affection was uprooted, turned over,
and then jolted unceremoniously out of existence. One divided glimpse
had restored vigour to his waning passion and it flamed with all the
fury of coals that have smouldered long and lazily. The one
distressing condition attached to this pleasant and refreshing
restoration was the fact that he succumbed not to one, but to both of
the Misses Frost--succumbed heartily and bodily, without the faintest
hope of discrimination. He was in love with both at first sight. For
the life of him he could not tell which he had seen first.
That very evening at the dinner hour he rode up and down in the
elevator no less than a dozen times, and each time as he passed the
second floor he hopefully but surreptitiously peered forth at the
Gladdings' door. Once the car stopped to take some one on at this
floor, and his dear old heart gave an enormous throb of anticipation,
turning to disappointment an instant later when a messenger-boy
slouched in.
"Find 'em at home?" asked the elevator-boy.
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