Nance

“ A few moments later, as we hurried into the open, I noticed that Nance was actually growing. It had never occurred to me that she would ever be any larger than the day she first thrust herself through my crack in the fence. As she passed with her grandfather, Jean François, and Mr. Appleblossom, she nodded to me quite as if she were an equal. In my humiliation I quite forgot to walk on my hands, a feat I was holding in reserve. Instead, off I skipped down to the river and "went-in" by myself. I felt that the world was very unappreciative and unsympathetic. ”

“ And Nance, the independent, scoffing, high-headed Nance, who up to this time had waged successful warfare, offensive as well as defensive, against the invading masculine, forgot for one transcendent second everything in the world except the touch of those ardent lips on hers and the warm clasp of the arm about her yielding shoulders. ”

“ But, as we have said, in spite of all these difficulties and in spite of the deep-hidden dismay which his nervous, querulous mood excited in her, Nance was full of a thrilling and inexpressible happiness during these Autumn days. She loved the roar of the great wind—the north-west wind—in chimneys and house-tops at night. She loved the drifting of the dead leaves along the muddy roads. She loved the long swishing murmur of the rushes growing by the dyke paths as they bent their feathery heads over the wet banks or bowed in melancholy rhythm across the rain-filled ditches. ”

“ Nance—Nance—I have been like a worshipper without, laying my forehead to the sill. All the things I have dreamed of I find in you—the strength, the sweetness, the courage. You are beautiful as few women in this world are beautiful—and you are too good for any man. But I—have dared to love you.”
He ceased and turned his lips against her cheek.
For Nance Allison the stars were singing together at the dawn of creation, the glory of the spheres had appeared before her.
“Answer me, girl,” said Brand Fair tremulously, “tell me what’s in your heart.” ”

“ He was a prodigious favourite with all ranks; and then all of us thought of his poor young wife, so spotless, and so completely wrapped up in him. "Oh, who will tell Nance of this?" said another non-commissioned officer, his principal companion. "Poor Nance!" cried the soldiers, one and all; so true is it that virtue is respected, and a virtuous woman nowhere more beloved than among British soldiers. ”

“ Very abruptly, so it seemed, Nance stood before him. There was a look of mischief in her dancing eyes, a droop of mock timidity about her mouth, and a round, flushed, dimpled cheek was held for his lips. As the other girls were always inclined to let him alone, this was a part of the game he had not anticipated. Just as a drowning man thinks in a second of every wicked act of his [Pg 55] life, so the boy thought of every worm he had ever put on her, of every pinch, every twitch of her hair, of every bit of tantalizing of which he had ever been guilty. ”

“ Eh, deary me, to think that life should run to such a puddle! And I remember long syne when I was strong, and the blood all hot and good about me, and I loved to run, too—deary me, to run! Well, that’s all by. You’d better pray to be took early, Nance, and not live on till you get to be like me, and are robbed in your grey old age, your cold, shivering, dark old age, that’s like a winter’s morning”; and he bitterly shuddered, spreading his hands before the fire.
“Come now,” said Nance, “the more you say the less you’ll like it, Uncle Jonathan ”

“ Gradually their answers grew from monosyllables into sentences, until, by the time the lemonade was ready to serve, Nance was completely thawed out and Dan was getting soft around the edges. Things were on the way to positive conviviality when Mrs. Purdy suddenly turned to Nance and asked her where she went to Sunday school.
Now Sunday school had no charms for Nance. On the one occasion when curiosity had induced her to follow the stream of well-dressed children into the side door of the cathedral, she had met with disillusion. ”

“ Raughty had happened to be present and Nance felt she would never forget her gratitude to this excellent man for the genial and ironical way he reduced them to silence.
“I’m glad you have invented,” he would say to them, “so free and inexpensive a way of getting born. You’ve only to give us a little more independence and death will be equally satisfactory.” ”

“ Into the scented room, with its candles shining from their silver sconces, Lady Royd came, tremulous and white of face, from watching Oliphant of Muirhouse ride out.
“Nance, my dear, I—I am tired,” she said.
“I think we all are,” Nance answered, rising from the spinet with a deference that had no heart in it.
“Oh, you’re querulous, and so am I,” said the other, with a shrewd glance at the girl’s face. “If our men could see us now—our men who fight for us—they would be astonished, Nance. We’re so little like their dreams of us. ”

“ The river itself talked to the boulders in its bed, and the little winds that drew up the myriad defiles were sweet with the fragrance of pines and that nameless scent of water which cannot be described. All these things were the joy of life to Nance.
She loved them with a passion whose force she did not comprehend. They were what sweetened her hard and ceaseless toil, what made of each new day in her monotonous round something to be met with eager gladness, to be lived through joyfully, missing nothing of the promise of dawn, the fulfillment of noon, the blessing of twilight. ”

“ The second night of Nance's illness Martin was sitting alone by her side, as Quabee had gone back to her own lodge for a much-needed rest. The faithfulness and self-denial of the young Indian woman made a deep impression upon his mind. No mother could have been more attentive to her sick child than was Quabee to this motherless girl. Martin sat very still with his head bent low, but with ears keenly alert to Nance's heavy breathing. He tried to be brave and hope for the best. ”

“ Life, being his gift, was dear to him. And don't forget Mohammed, Nance, that fine old barbarian with the heart of a passionate child, counselling men to live a good life and to strive after the mercy of God by fasting, charity and prayer, calling this the 'Key of Paradise.' He went after a poor blind man whom he had at first rebuffed, saying 'He is thrice welcome on whose account my Lord hath reprimanded me.' He was a fine, stubborn old believer, Nance. ”

“ If we fail and the Sky Line people stay in the country, I beg you, Nance, to leave Nameless River. Take your mother and Bud—and—and Sonny—and go away to a more civilized spot. You can make another start. There’s a little money in a New York bank for the boy—the papers in the package will explain—and I know you love him——”
But Nance laid her face on his breast and fell to weeping, so that Fair anathematized himself for his grave words.
“It seems,” she said, sobbing, “that we have reached the bottom—of all things—hope—and—and strength—and happiness. ”

“ Those are times when you feel you must tell it, Nance—when the God-consciousness comes."
"Oh, Bernal, if you could—if you could come back to do what your grandfather really wanted you to do— to preach something worth while!"
"I doubt the need for my message, Nance. I need for myself a God that could no more spare a Hottentot than a Pope—but I doubt if the world does. No one would listen to me—I'm only a dreamer. Once when I was small they gave me a candy cane for Christmas. It was a thing I had long worshipped in shop-windows —actually worshipped as the primitive man worshipped his idol. ”

“ So they stood there, in the cold and ruddy gloaming, and were helpless to find speech together. All that lay deep in [204] Nance, secure beneath each day’s indignities, went out to this heir of Windyhough. His view of life was hers; his roots were in the soil, tilled lovingly by far-back fathers, that breeds the strong plants of chivalry. And yet—and yet he was so fitful in his moods, so apart from the needs of every day, so galling to the women who looked, as a matter of course, for their men to go out into the open. ”

“ I made a failure in life years ago, and so fled into the wilderness to be far off from people who knew what I had done. To them I am a bad man. But, oh, Nance, I would give anything to be what I once was! How happy I should be to be able to go out into the world and not shrink back from the looks of men and women. But there, I did not mean to tell you this. You will wonder what it all means."
"Don't, don't talk that way, daddy," and Nance placed her hand in his as she spoke. "You are not a bad man. I don't care what people say or think. They do not know you as I do. ”

“ For the most part Nance's leisure half-hours were spent with Mr. Demry, discussing a most exciting project. He was contemplating the unheard-of festivity of a Christmas party, and the whole alley was buzzing with it. Even the big boys in Dan's gang were going to take part. There were to be pirates and fairies and ogres, and Nance was to be the princess and do a fancy dance in a petticoat trimmed with silver paper, and wear a tinsel crown. ”

“ The sympathy which Jean François expected was not forthcoming.
"I've been thinking a great deal to-day," said he, "about the parson we had at camp the other evening."
"I thought that was all settled last night," she exclaimed in surprise.
"No, it is not, Nance. At least not yet.... He was right, I tell you. For him, in his work and his home lay his task and his happiness. There was the better part. He understood the road. His love of it made you his sister, me his brother. He will always be kinder, gentler, and purer of soul, Nance, because he knows the wander-longing. ”

“ Nance found herself questioning the meaning of this impulse. If she distrusted one man and felt drawn toward the other, did not this spiritual phenomenon suggest some deep and instinctive truth? It contradicted the things that she had been told about Jasper. If he was a bad man why should she think of him now that she needed help?
It was in a mood of doubt and unrest that she idled round her terrace garden, looking at the faces of the pansies, pulling up weeds, and putting a stick here and there to a head-heavy flower. The sound of footsteps made her start self-consciously. ”

“ Now Nance had one of those large natures that bears no malice, and is ready to give of its best when an estranged friend stretches out an appealing hand. Her father had become to her a weak and pathetic old man whom the rough virility of younger men shouldered into a corner. ”

“ They reckon to be done to-night,” says Nance. “Benny’s there, of course, and Bruv and Sandy; Flo and Bonny have been there most of the time, and . . . Hugh is helping.” Nance hesitated a little before that last name, and it seemed to me she blushed ever so slightly, too. If she did, however, Mother took no notice.
“That’s good. And how’s the ducks?” said she.
“There, now!” replies Nance ruefully. “I do wish you hadn’t asked; I was hoping to break it to you gently. All gone, mother! Poor Waddle, all her babies gone! Rats, we think; so we’ve moved Toddle and her little lot. But oh, Mother! ”

“ And Nance, in this mood of hers, was passionately at war with him. Until to-day he had been her bond-slave, gay when she willed it, foolish and out of heart when she flouted him. And now her reign was ended. Rupert did not know it yet; but Nance, with the intuition that seems to do women little service, was aware that she had lost for the time being a cavalier and found instead a master.
“You can handle a musket,” he said dryly. “Good-night, Nance—and remember to keep your head low above the sill. The men outside can aim straight, too.” ”

“ By six o'clock the last bottle was packed, and Nance washed the blood and dirt off her hands and forced her swollen, aching feet into her shoes. She jerked her jacket and tam-o'-shanter from the long row of hooks, and half blind with weariness, joined the throng of women and girls that jostled one another down the stairs. Every muscle of her body ached, and her whole soul was hot with rebellion. She told herself passionately that nothing in the world could induce her to come back; she was through with factory work forever. ”

“ Nance's eyes were big with wonder as she walked by Nurse Marion's side from the shore of the lake up to the hospital. They did not go by way of the river, but landed near the steamer, and thus passed through the busiest part of the town. Quabee kept close behind Nance, and seemed to pay no attention to the curious glances which were cast upon her.
Never before had Nance been brought into contact with so many people. When the stampede had taken place, and the prospectors and miners passed into the Quaska region, she had been astonished at the number of men she saw. ”

“ Out there in the mountains, Nance, I thought about these things a long time—the years went before I knew it. At first I stayed with this healing chap, only after a while he started back to teach again and they found him dead. He believed he had a mission to save the world, and that he would live until he accomplished it. ”

“ His long, lean, hatless figure assumed so emphatic and strange an appearance as he crossed the intervening sands that Linda burst into peals of laughter.
“I wish they’d run away from him,” she cried. “We should see a race! Who are they? Does he know them?”
Nance made no reply, but Miss Doorm, who had been watching the incident with sardonic interest, muttered under her breath, “It’s begun, has it? Soon enough, in all conscience!”
Nance turned sharply upon her. “What do you mean, Rachel? Does Adrian know them? Do you know who they are?” ”

“ No mark nor token separates north from south or east from west. On all sides the same reeds, the same meadows, the same gates, the same stunted willow-trees, the same desolate marsh pools, the same vast and receding horizons. The mind has nothing to rest itself upon except the general expanse, and the general expanse seems as boundless as infinity.
Nance and her sister were not, of course, far enough away from their familiar haunts to get the complete “fen-terror,” but, aided by the darkness, the power of the thing was by no means unfelt. ”