The Eye of Dread

“He was sae bonny, Ellen, and that like his mither ’twould melt the hairt oot o’ ye to look on him.”

“Ha’e ye no mair to tell me? Surely it never took ye these ten days to find oot what ye ha’e tell’t.”

“The man was a kind sort o’ a body, an’ he took me oot to eat wi’ him at a cafy, an’ he paid it himsel’, but I’m thinkin’ his purse was sair empty whan he got through wi’ it. I could na’ help it. Men are vera masterfu’ bodies. I made it up to him though, for I bided a day or twa at the hotel, an’ went to the room,–the pentin’ room whaur I found him–there was whaur he stayed, for he was keepin’ things as they were, he said, for the one who was to come into they things–Robert Kater had left there–ye’ll find oot aboot them whan ye read the letter–an’ I made it as clean as ye’r han’ before I left him. He made a dour face whan he came in an’ found me at it, but I’m thinkin’ he came to like it after a’, for I heard him whustlin’ to himsel’ as I went down the stair after tellin’ him good-by.

“Gin ye had seen the dirt I took oot o’ that room, Ellen, ye would a’ held up ye’r two han’s in horror. There were crusts an’ bones behind the pictures standin’ against the wa’ that the rats an’ mice had been gnawin’ there, an’ there were bottles on a shelf, old an’ empty an’ covered wi’ cobwebs an’ dust, an’ the floor was so thick wi’ dirt it had to be scrapit, an’ what wi’ old papers an’ rags I had a great basket full taken awa–let be a bundle o’ shirts that needed mendin’. I took the shirts to the hotel, an’ there I mended them until they were guid enough to wear, an’ sent them back. So there was as guid as the price o’ the denner he gave me, an’ naethin said. Noo read the letter an’ ye’ll see why I’m greetin’. Richard’s gone to Ameriky to perjure his soul. He says it was to gie himsel’ up to the law, but from the letter to Hester it’s likely his courage failed him. There’s naethin’ to mak’ o’t but that–an’ he sae bonny an’ sweet, like his mither.”

Jean Craigmile threw her apron over her head and rocked herself back and forth, while Ellen set down her cup and reluctantly opened the letter–many pages, in a long business envelope. She sighed as she took them out.

“It’s a waefu’ thing how much trouble an’ sorrow a man body brings intil the world wi’ him. Noo there’s Richard, trailin’ sorrow after him whaurever he goes.”

“But ye mind it came from Katherine first, marryin’ wi’ Larry Kildene an’ rinnin’ awa’ wi’ him,” replied Jean.

“It was Larry huntit her oot whaur she had been brought for safety.”

They both sat in silence while Ellen read the letter to the very end. At last, with a long, indrawn sigh, she spoke.

“It’s no like a lad that could write sic a letter, to perjure his soul. No won’er ye greet, Jean. He’s gi’en ye everything he possesses, wi’ one o’ the twa pictures in the Salon! Think o’t! An’ a’ he got fra’ the ones he sold, except enough to take him to America. Ye canna’ tak’ it.”

“No. I ha’e gi’en them to the Englishman wha’ has his room. I could na’ tak them.” Jean continued to sway back and forth with her apron over her head.

“Ye ha’e gi’en them awa’! All they pictures pented by yer ain niece’s son! An’ twa’ acceptit by the Salon! Child, child! I’d no think it o’ ye.” Ellen leaned forward in her chair reprovingly, with the letter crushed in her lap.

“I told him to keep them safe, as he was doin’, an’ if he got no word fra’ me after sax months,–he was to bide in the room wi’ them–they were his.”

“Weel, ye’re wiser than I thought ye.”

For a long time they sat in silence, until at last Ellen took up the letter to read it again, and began with the date at the head.

“Jean,” she cried, holding it out to her sister and pointing to the date with shaking finger. “Wull ye look at that noo! Are we both daft? It’s no possible for him to ha’ gotten there before that letter was written to Hester. Look ye, Jean! Look ye! Here ’tis the third day o’ June it was written by his own hand.”

“Count it oot, Ellen, count it oot! Here’s the calendar almanac. Noo we’ll ha’e it. It’s twa weeks since Hester an’ I left an’ she got the letter the day before that, an’ that’s fifteen days–”

“An’ it takes twa weeks mair for a boat to cross the ocean, an’ that gives fourteen days mair before that letter to Hester was written, an’ three days fra’ Liverpool here, pits it back to seventeen days,–an’ fifteen days–mak’s thirty-two days,–an’ here’ it’s nearin’ the last o’ June–”

“Jean! Whan Hester’s frien’ was writin’ that letter to Hester, Richard was just sailin’ fra France! Thank the Lord!”

“Thank the Lord!” ejaculated her sister, fervently. “Ellen, it’s you for havin’ the head to think it oot, thank the Lord!” And now the dear soul wept again for very gladness.

Ellen folded her hands in her lap complaisantly and nodded her head. “Ye’ve a good head, yersel’, Jean, but ye aye let yersel’ get excitet. Noo, it’s only for us to bide in peace an’ quiet an’ know that the earth is the Lord’s an’ the fullness thereof until we hear fra’ Hester.”

“An’ may the Lord pit it in her hairt to write soon!”

While the good Craigmiles of Aberdeen were composing themselves to the hopeful view that Ellen’s discovery of the date had given them, Larry Kildene and Amalia were seated in a car, luxurious for that day, speeding eastward over the desert across which Amalia and her father and mother had fled in fear and privation so short a time before. She gazed through the plate-glass windows and watched the quivering heat waves rising from the burning sands. Well she knew those terrible plains! She saw the bleaching bones of animals that had fallen by the way, even as their own had fallen, and her eyes filled. She remembered how Harry King had come to them one day, riding on his yellow horse–riding out of the setting sun toward them, and how his companionship had comforted them and his courage and help had saved them more than once,–and how, had it not been for him, their bones, too, might be lying there now, whitening in the heat. Oh, Harry, Harry King! She who had once crossed those very plains behind a jaded team now felt that the rushing train was crawling like a snail.

Larry Kildene, seated facing her and watching her, leaned forward and touched her hand. “We’re going at an awful pace,” he said. “To think of ever crossing these plains with the speed of the wind!”

She smiled a wan smile. “Yes, that is so. But it still is very slowly we go when I measure with my thoughts the swiftness. In my thoughts we should fly–fly!”

“It will be only three days to Chicago from here, and then one night at a hotel to rest and clean up, and the next day we are there–in Leauvite–think of it! We’re an hour late by the schedule, so better think of something else. We’ll reach an eating station soon. Get ready, for there will be a rush, and we’ll not have a chance for a good meal again for no one knows how long. Maybe you’re not hungry, but I could eat a mule. I like this, do you know, traveling in comfort! To think of me–going home to save Peter’s bank!” He chuckled to himself a moment; then resumed: “And that’s equivalent to saving the man’s life. Well, it’s a poor way for a man to go through life, able to see no way but his own way. It narrows his vision and shortens his reach–for, see, let him find his way closed to him, and whoop! he’s at an end.”

Again Larry sat and watched her, as he silently chuckled over his present situation. Again he reached out and patted her hand, and again she smiled at him, but he knew where her thoughts were. Harry King had been gone but a short time when Madam Manovska, in spite of Amalia’s watchfulness, wandered away for the last time. On this occasion she did not go toward the fall, but went along the trail toward the plains below. It was nearly evening when she eluded Amalia and left the cabin. Frantically they searched for her all night, riding through the darkness, carrying torches and calling in all directions, as far as they supposed her feet could have carried her, but did not find her until early morning, lying peacefully under a little scrub pine, far down the trail. By her side lay her husband’s worn coat, with the lining torn away, and a small heap of ashes and charred papers. She had been destroying the documents he had guarded so long. She would not leave them to witness against him. Tenderly they took her up and carried her back to the cabin and laid her in her bunk, but she only babbled of “Paul,” telling happily that she had seen him, and that he was coming up the trail after her, and that now they would live on the mountain in peace and go no more to Poland–and quickly after that she dropped to sleep again and never woke. She was with “Paul” at last. Then Amalia dressed her in the black silk Larry had brought her, and they carried her down the trail and laid her in a grave beside that of her husband, and there Larry read the prayers of the English church over the two lonely graves, while Amalia knelt at his side. When they went down the trail to take the train, after receiving Betty’s letter, they marked the place with a cross which Larry had made.

Truth to tell, as they sat in the car, facing each other, Larry himself was sad, although he tried to keep Amalia’s thoughts cheerful. At last she woke to the thought that it was only for her he maintained that forced light-heartedness, and the realization came to her that he also had cause for sorrow on leaving the spot where he had so long lived in peace, to go to a friend in trouble. The thought helped her, and she began to converse with Larry instead of sitting silently, wrapped in her own griefs. Because her heart was with Harry King,–filled with anxiety for him,–she talked mostly of him, and that pleased Larry well; for he, too, had need to speak of Harry.

“Now there is a character for you, as fine and sweet as a woman and strong, too! I’ve seen enough of men to know the best of them when I find them. I saw it in him the moment I got him up to my cabin and laid him in my bunk. He–he–minded me of one that’s gone.” His voice dropped to the undertone of reminiscence. “Of one that’s long gone–long gone.”

“Could you tell me about it, a little–just a very little?” Amalia leaned toward him pleadingly. It was the first time she had ever asked of Larry Kildene or Harry King a question that might seem like seeking to know a thing purposely kept from her. But her intuitive nature told her the time had now come when Larry longed to speak of himself, and the loneliness of his soul pleaded for him.

“It’s little indeed I can tell you, for it’s little he ever told me,–but it came to me–more than once–more than once–that he might be my own son.”

Amalia recoiled with a shock of surprise. She drew in her breath and looked in his eyes eloquently. “Oh! Oh! And you never asked him? No?”

“Not in so many words, no. But I–I–came near enough to give him the chance to tell the truth, if he would, but he had reasons of his own, and he would not.”

“Then–where we go now–to him–you have been to that place before? Not?”

“I have.”

“And he–he knows it? Not?”

“He knows it well. I told him it was there I left my son–my little son–but he would say nothing. I was not even sure he knew the place until these letters came to me. He has as yet written me no word, only the message he sent me in his letter to you–that he will some time write me.” Then Larry took Betty’s letter from his pocket and turned it over and over, sadly. “This letter tells me more than all else, but it sets me strangely adrift in my thoughts. It’s not at all like what I had thought it might be.”

Amalia leaned forward eagerly. “Oh, tell me more–a little, what you thought might be.”

“This letter has added more to the heartache than all else that could be. Either Harry King is my son–Richard Kildene–or he is the son of the man who hated me and brought me sorrow. There you see the reason he would tell me nothing. He could not.”

“But how is it that you do not know your own son? It is so strange.”

Larry’s eyes filled as he looked off over the arid plains. “It’s a long story–that. I told it to him once to try to stir his heart toward me, but it was of no use, and I’ll not tell it now–but this. I’d never looked on my boy since I held him in my arms–a heartbroken man–until he came to me there–that is, if he were he. But if Harry King is my son, then he is all the more a liar and a coward–if the claim against him is true. I can’t have it so.”

“It is not so. He is no liar and no coward.” Amalia spoke with finality.

“I tell you if he is not my son, then he is the son of the man who hated me–but even that man will not own him as his son. The little girl who wrote this letter to me–she pleads with me to come on and set them all right: but even she who loved him–who has loved him, can urge no proof beyond her own consciousness, as to his identity; it is beyond my understanding.”

“The little girl–she–she has loved your son–she has loved Harry–Harry King? Whom has she loved?” Amalia only breathed the question.

“She has not said. I only read between the lines.”

“How is it so–you read between lines? What is it you read?”

Larry saw he was making a mistake and resumed hurriedly: “I’ll tell you what little I know later, and we will go there and find out the rest, but it may be more to my sorrow than my joy. Perhaps that’s why I’m taking you there–to be a help to me–I don’t know. I have a friend there who will take us both in, and who will understand as no one else.”

“I go to neither my joy nor my sorrow. They are of the world. I will be no more of the world–but I will live only in love–to the Christ. So may I find in my heart peace–as the sweet sisters who guarded me in my childhood away from danger when that my father and mother were in fear and sorrow living–they told me there only may one find peace from sorrow. I will go to them–perhaps–perhaps–they will take me–again–I do not know. But I will go first with you, Sir Kildene, wherever you wish me to go. For you are my friend–now, as no one else. But for you, I am on earth forever alone.”

CHAPTER XXXV

THE TRIAL