XXVII Dixie
Gray Eagle was trotting briskly along the road over which another hand had guided him so often,—the Oakwood carriage-way. On his back sat Friedrich, erectly vigorous, singing for the trees’ benefit,—
“Oh, I wees’ I was in Deexie,
Look away, look away!
In Deexie Land I take my stand,
To live and die in Deexie.”
The aspen fluttered its yellow leaves in applause, and the sourwood threw at him by the breeze’s hand a cluster of its scarlet foliage. The mouse-gray goldenrod nodded approval of his mood, and the oak-trees swung their yet green boughs in sympathy with his light-hearted onward rush.
The air was cool and warm, and bright and mellow, and all the contradictions that make October the month of the year’s mature perfection; that middle age of the seasons, when the blossoms of folly are past, and the fruits of the will are ripened, and the chill of bare winter is still in the future.
Occasionally, in sheer exuberance, von Rittenheim rose high in his stirrups and gave a whoop of gladness that made Gray Eagle skip in sympathetic deviation from his usual long stride.
It was during one of these upstandings, when his head was brought above its customary level, that Friedrich saw a girl running away from the carriage-road down the lane that led to the sheep-farm. The sunshine burned on her brilliant head, and Gray Eagle found his glad career brought to a sudden close, and his amusement abruptly reduced to the occupation of nibbling the stem of the young tree to which he was tied. He watched his rider’s long legs vault over the gate, and pondered wisely on the similarity of interests of his two masters, for he, too, now descried a flash of color in the distance.
Sydney’s race ended beneath a huge oak, against which she leaned, breathless and laughing, and faced her pursuer, who was close upon her. The musical ring of his rowelled spurs ceased as he grasped her hands.
“Unartiges Mädchen! Do you intend never to let me see you again? Tell me what you mean by it.”
Not a word said Sydney—only laughed at him provokingly.
“I am of a mind to punish you,” he cried, drawing her towards him, and leaning over her. He looked determined, and Sydney surrendered her silence with dignified haste.
“No, no, don’t,” she said, in reply to his gesture rather than his words. “I’ll tell you anything. What do you want to know?”
“First, wherefore you were r-running down here.”
“To escape from you.”
“Tr-ruly?”
He dropped her hands and looked cut to the heart; so hurt that Sydney hastened to apply ointment to the wound.
“But I was walking on the carriage-road to meet you.”
“You were?” Friedrich’s gloomy face was alive again. “Then why did you r-run?”
“I don’t know. For the same reason a kitten won’t come when she’s called, I suppose.”
“Even though she wants to?”
“Who knows what a kitten wants?”
“It would give me the gr-reatest of pleasure, Miss Car-roll, to shake you!”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“It is such a hard blow to my vanity that you r-ran. See, I tr-ry to comfort myself in this question: Perhaps you did not know it was I whose horse you heard?”
“Of course I knew it was you.”
“Oh, Sydney, dear Sydney, did your heart tell you that your lover was on the r-road?”
The girl blushed hotly at this bold speech, but she declined to be sentimental.
“Not at all,” she said. “There was other evidence. Who else could sing like you, ‘Oh, I wees’ I was in Deexie’?”
Her mimicry of his pronunciation was so good, and at the same time so absurd, that they both laughed joyously.
They walked slowly towards the gate, behind which Gray Eagle was waiting with what patience he might.
“Tell me, my pr-rincess, why have you not allowed me to see you since that evening, though I have come every day?”
“That terrible evening! Oh, Friedrich——”
“Say that again!”
“What? Friedrich?”
“Yes. Now just one time more.”
“How absurd you are, Friedrich!”
“I thank you. Now tell me.”
“Why, for the first day or two there was so much to do in getting them away in their different directions—Hilda and John. Grandmother has had a letter from John, from Palm Beach. He has joined Baron von Sternburg there. And then—oh, Friedrich, perhaps it was foolish, but I could not feel as if we ought to be happy, you and I, so soon after that.”
“What a dear, sensitive child you are! And you thought the time of mourning was up to-day, did you?”
“No, but—you won’t make fun of me if I tell you?”
“I have al-ways supposed that it was you who teased me.”
“But you might think it was funny ever so many years from now!”
“Ah, now there are going to be years in the future. Only a little while ago the future was made up of thousands and thousands and thousands of inter-rminable days.”
“I know.”
“You felt it so, too?”
“Yes. That’s the reason why—you won’t ever laugh at me, will you?—I wanted the years to begin to-day. I couldn’t wait another twenty-four hours.”
“My dar-rling!”
They stopped, and Friedrich drew her gently into his arms.
“Will you let me kiss you?”
She lifted her face trustfully to his, and Gray Eagle watched them gravely over the gate.
“I wees’ I could make you know what you are to me, my pr-rincess, what it means that you give yourself to me. It is not merely that I love you, my dar-rling, with all the strength that has been gathering in me while the years were adding themselves to my age. And it is not only that I think you are per-rfect, so lovely in the char-racter, and so clever, and so beautiful, my dear white r-rose. It means, besides those things, that you have saved me from the sin of letting my poor powers grow weaker; that you have changed me from a plaything of chance into a man of will and action. I am bor-rn again, my heart’s joy, into a world of force and possibility, and you are the queen of the world, most pr-recious.”
She laid her bright head against his breast.
“Will you not say something to me, heart’s dear-rest?”
“I am too happy, dear, to speak.”
“And I am too happy to keep still!”
They released Gray Eagle from his bondage, and walked along the carriage-road towards the house.
“After all, Friedrich, it was Bob who gave us to each other.”
“Twice over, dear. He sent me to von Sternburg, and he saved my life for—us.”
“Poor Hilda!”
“Poor Bob!”
The End