Charles King

“ But I am not good enough for her,” he said, humbly. “I have been a worthless beggar all these years——”
“You can prove your worth,” said Leonard, warmly. “And you must, if you marry Florence Charteris. I know you are not worthless; but you must let the good come to the surface.”
“I shall work,” answered Darley, earnestly. “I begin to feel now the approving glow that comes to a man when he anticipates marrying a woman he loves. But why should I anticipate? I have not the slightest reason to believe that Miss Charteris cares a jot for me!” ”

“ She did not look round, though she knew that Herne the Hunter stood frowning behind, but trembled in silence as he went on with increasing energy:
“What does that face remind you of? See you aught beneath that beauty but treachery without pity, duplicity without shame? Lo! the pity and the shame you should have felt have recoiled upon me—me, who alone have suffered.” He broke off abruptly, as though choked by emotion. She dared not face him; she felt incapable of a reply. After a pause, he resumed, passionately: “Oh! Alice, Alice! The dead rest, yet the living dead can only endure. ”

“ The sun glittered on the long steel tube. The silence for an instant was so profound that the birds could be heard singing in the woods and the cawing of the crows in the corn fields near by sounded harsh to the ear. For an instant the sturdy champion stood as if molded in metal, his long hair falling over his gun stock, against which his tanned cheek was closely pressed. Not a sound passed the lips of the assembly, and when the rifle report came it sent a twinge to many a heart.
“Dang it!” ejaculated Lawson, as he lowered his gun and peered through the rising smoke toward the target. ”

“ Below, the river gently brawled-; there was a misty darkness around, and the gleam of a lantern held before a dear and familiar form.
“Husband—is it you?” she murmured.
“Yes, yes,” said Captain Renfro, “I thought I had lost you. You owe your life to Herne the Hunter. In fact, but for him I would have been overwhelmed myself.”
“Where is he?” she asked feebly.
“The men are searching for him. Just as one of them got hold of you, he fell back—something must have struck him, and the flood swept him off. I tell you, Alice, that man—crazy or not—is a hero. ”

“ Leonard,” ventured Miss Charteris. There was just the slightest suspicion of jealousy in her tone, which Darley did not notice. Was it because he had inadvertently attributed his loneliness at leaving to his friend's kindness, and not paid her that little tribute of homage which women love? But who knoweth the heart of woman? Darley longed to tell her why he should feel lonely when he came to say good-by; but he did not wish to garnish such a declaration with quotations from poets. Let a man speak from the inspiration of the moment when he tells his love, or hints at it. ”

“ Florence shall have it the day you marry Lawrence Severance.'”
Darley started as if stung. “Eh?” he exclaimed, “I don't understand!”
“Then listen. 'Oh, ho!' quoth Lawrence, when he grew up and understood the story. 'So that is the way of love, is it? Well, there are more fortunes than Aunt Mary's in the world.' And away went Lawrence, nothing daunted, to win—what I hear he has won—double the fortune that Bella, in marrying him, hands over to me.”
“Then you mean to say that this—money comes to you; that you are a rich woman, in fact?” Darley's tone was almost bitten. ”

“ Straight before him among the faded greens and bewildering browns of the lily-pads was a motionless, elongated brown object very like the curved back of a beaver, and a foot or more from it, in the shadow of a clump of grass, something shone with a peculiar liquid gleam. It was an eye—a great, round, wild eye—staring full into his own—the eye of a moose—and the curving object like the back of a beaver was naught else than the enormous nose, or muffle, of a full-grown bull. ”

“ In point of fact a horse who dreads a gun gets more and more terror stricken as the hunt goes on, the mere sight of a deer, the cocking of a gun even, sufficing to set him off into plungings that grow day by day more violent. This none should have known better than Blount; for never, by any chance, did he ride to the hunt with an animal that would “stand fire.” The discharge of his gun, the rise of a buck even, was always the opening of a circus with him. ”

“ Darley felt touched—not so much at the words, but at the way in which they were spoken, gently, deeply, as if breathing of sincereness. But he did not distinguish anything beyond that in the grave eulogy to Leonard and himself.
At length the lights had to be brought in, and Darley rose to go.
“You said you felt it unfortunate that I should be unable to skate, because you had been hoping to see me often,” said Miss Charteris. She was conscious of a slight flush, but she went bravely on. In certain circumstances a woman has to be what prudes call bold. ”

“ Here in the road lay the major, bleeding from cuts and bruises, with every breath knocked out of his battered body; yonder, his hands 'clinched in the death agony, the stiffening form of the driver—plucky to the last. Twenty yards away down the road, all in a heap, lay one poor soldier shot through the head, and now past praying for. One of the others was bleeding from a gash along the cheek where a bullet had zipped its way, and Edwards shouted in vain for Staines to join them; the clerk had disappeared. ”

“ Into the bowels of the mountains she felt her way until a gleam of light shone ahead. She hastened forward round a shoulder of rock into a roomy aperture branching from the main cavern. The boy lay upon a pallet of skins, while Herne the Hunter fixed the flaring pine-knot he had lighted into a crevice of the rock. Then he started a fire, drew out of another crevice some cold cooked meat and filled a gourd with water from a spring that trickled out at one end of the cave.
“Eat,” he said, waving his hand. “Eat—that ye may not die. The more unfit to live, the less prepared for death. Eat!” ”

“ He always did when a woman was in the question. “You can't walk,” he said; “I shall have to carry you.”
Miss Charteris' pale cheeks assumed a rapid flush. “I can walk,” she said, hastily.
“Very well,” said Darley, gently. “Take my arm.”
A few painful steps proved to Miss Charteris that she could walk, at the expense of excruciating agony. So, being a sensible little soul, she stopped.
“You see, it is impossible,” said her knight. “You will have to let me carry you, Miss Charteris. I beg your pardon for not introducing myself. I am Mr. Percy Darley, a guest at Mr. John Leonard's.” ”

“ My love has no past participle, Darley! I shall always love her! I shall always think her the sweetest woman in the world, and the best! There is no other like her—God bless her! But you are sleepy, old fellow; and even Rosy is yawning and thinks it is time all decent people went to bed. Let us have one of the old-time horns, one of those old camp-fire nips—and then to bed. ”

“ Here was fresh food for wifely alarm. Herne had never met her husband, yet the latter's name would make known his relationship to herself. She shuddered over the possibilities that might result from their sojourn together—far from aid—in those wild mountains, and made herself wretched for a week in consequence.
Meanwhile the transient fine weather passed; the rains once more descended, and the peaks of Nantahalah were invisible for days amid a whirl of vapor. The boom of the river, the grinding of forest limbs, the shriek of the wind, made life unusually dreary at the camp. ”

“ I say, what an awful bother about the house of the sportsman is the toddling tot of a baby! He is always getting hold of your gun swab for a fish pole or to bang the dog about. Putting holes in your fish basket with a big nail or a table knife is a supreme source of delight to him. He has a mania for planting carpet tacks in your hunting boots. Making smokestacks for mud houses with your brass shells is a passion with him. If he can get hold of your ammunition to make paste of the powder, and pulp of the wads, and a hopeless mixture of the shot, he is simply in his element. ”

“ The days passed happily for Darley. The ice was perfect; and though he had not skated for years, his old power over the art came swiftly back. The river was one glaring, narrow, indefinite sheet of incomparable ice. Then there was the curling-rink, of which Leonard was an ardent devotee. It is a quiet, satisfying sport, this “roaring” game, and has peculiar charms for the man who has turned forty. The snow-bird shooting was good, too, out in the broad white fields beyond the town. ”

“ It appears incredible that any man in his senses would take two such ani-malson such an expedition, but there never was but one Blount. Beverly carried the gun, his chief the torch, consisting of “lightwood” knots blazing in the bowl of a long-handled frying pan. The handle, resting on the right shoulder, was held somewhat depressed, so that the light should shine above the head of the huntsman, illumining the woods in his front. The sportsman, slowly waving the handle to and fro, peers intently into the darkness in quest of the gleaming eyes of some staring buck. ”

“ The color mounted to the lieutenant's
“Why not?”
“Ask yourself; ask your conscience, Adriance. You have told her that he, Staines, was a liar. You have virtually told her that you were engaged to no woman. You have inspired a sentiment, perhaps a passion, in that young girl's heart, and you're going there to defend her—a thing that I can do much better than you, now that you are a cripple. Then, think, my boy, I have known you six years; I have never known you to say or do a mean or unmanly thing. I'm an old fogy—an old fool perhaps—but I like to think most women pure and some men honest. ”

“ Intuitively I divined that Electra must be the steam fire-engine. Big, brawny Antaeus was in love! The ludicrousness of the notion did not strike me then as it did afterward. On the contrary, it seemed to be one of the most natural things imaginable.
“Yes,” he said, in response to my thoughts, “I am passionately enamored of her. I desire unutterably to gain her friendship, her esteem, her love—even though she may scorn me. I realize that her station in life is far above mine. ”

“ The watcher shrank back, while Herne the Hunter brushed blindly by, leaving Bible and rifle on the rock without. Then the wanderer, slipping out, fled down the narrow trail as though there were less peril from the dizzy cliffs around than in the society of the strange man whose fancies peopled these solitudes with such soul-harrowing phantoms.
Thus for years Herne the Hunter had been a mystery, a fear, and a fascination to the mountaineers; recoiling from men, abhorring women, rebuffing curiosity, yet' at times strangely tender, sad, and ever morbidly religious. ”

“ As quick as a flash of lightning Dick had thrown his arm round struggling Melissa and imprinted a warm kiss on her lips. Then the workers applauded vociferously, and Melissa sat, suffused with crimson, between sullen Bill Miller and beaming Dick Martin. Bagley showed plainly that Dick's action and the applause of all had roused his dislike for Dick even deeper than ever.
“I'm knowed to be a man o' my word,” he fumed, white in the face and glancing round the ring of upturned faces. “I'm firm as firm kin be, I mought say as the rock o' Bralty, when I take a notion. ”

“ Just as I turned the corner, on a run, with both of my colts on a shooting level—for, by the way, it is always best to come upon your enemy suddenly and surprise him before he knows you are there—I saw several bodies in the street, and in the distance some dozen men retreating. I stopped near by the first body I came to; and to my horror I saw it was the still warm corpse of Senor Bustino. As I paused and stooped to more closely examine, I thought I could detect the lingering smell of that hellish convict's tobacco. ”

“ Are we not always in a condition of mild wonder that our friends have not gone over to the married ranks, when we ourselves have not? However, from floating gossip—that tongue's flotsam—I have heard that you meditate going over.”
“Eh?” said Darley, pricking up his ears.
“Why,” answered Leonard, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, “Beau Brummel cannot pay court to a beauty without the world knowing it! I, even I, have heard of Miss Bella Charteris. She is not the sort of girl, if I may make so bold, that I would have imagined you pinning yourself to. ”

“ Then he cautiously approached, his heart beating quickly and his knees trembling a little, perhaps from weakness. Hark! Faint, soft and clear, there rose upon the evening air the liquid notes of a guitar. It was she then—it was Isabel awaiting his coming, aye, signaling softly to call him to her. What could it mean but that she loved and longed to see him? A moment more and he was at the doorway, the very spot where he had surprised her that well-remembered night. The plaintive tinkle of the guitar continued, and there in the dark corner was the dim, white-robed form. ”

“ As a rule it may be depended upon to afford no end of stillness, and little else. And to be rowed up by a hired guide on a lake to within a few feet of a poor, helpless buck, swimming for dear life, and blow out his brains is almost as bad as shooting pheasants in an English preserve or poultry in a barnyard. Under all these methods deer hunting lacks what is the conspicuous charm of partridge (quail) shooting—vivid and continuous excitement. ”

“ Bella was the Miss Charteris of the city. He did not know whether to feel glad or indifferent, but he was free of the gentlest touch of spleen. A woman will be conscious of a twinge of pique when she hears that a man with whom she has had some little love affair has married some one else. But Darley was not conscious of any such sensation.
“It was very quiet,” continued Miss Charteris. “At least, I gather so from the paper which tells me of it. Bella never writes me, and not even on this occasion has she done so. However, she is now Mrs. Lawrence Severance.” ”