AFTER more than three months spent in hospitals, Wully came home the next March, honorably discharged from the army. His father met him at the end of the railroad, and before dawn they started westward over the all but impassable paths called roads. Rain began falling when the sun should have begun shining. Hour after slow hour of the morning their horses strained and plunged and splashed through deep, black mud. At every slough the men alighted to pull and tug at the sunken wagon, and returned bemired to their wet blankets. From noon till dusk they rode on, pulling grain sacks helmetwise down over their caps to protect the back of their necks from trickles of water, rearranging their soaked garments, hearing, when their voices fell silent, only the splashing of the horses’ feet down into the thawed mud, and the sucking of the water around hoofs reluctantly lifted to take the next step. Darkness set in early, but they made the ford while there was still a soggy twilight. More soaked, more dripping, they went on, peering into the wall of blackness which settled down in front of them. They were hungry. They were tired. They were chilled to the bone. Wully’s teeth chattered in spite of all he could do to prevent them. And they were both immeasurably[36] happy. On they went, caressing the fine joy in their hearts. The father had his son home safe from battles. The son, each shivering step, was nearing the queen of the afternoon light. At half-past eight they drew near the welcoming lighted window towards which they had strained their eyes so eagerly. If the boy had had a lesser mother, if he had been well, he would have gone on through the four miles of pouring darkness to Chirstie. But here was shelter and rest for his feebleness, a fire, food, light, a mother, and the children, caresses sprung from the warmest places in human hearts—all things, in short, that a man needs, except one. It seemed that the very kitchen breathed in great, deep sighs of thankfulness and content, this great night of its life, the night Wully got home from the army. The younger children sat watching him till they sank down from their chairs asleep, for no one thought to send them away to bed.
He had so many things to tell them that he forgot how weary he was. Now that his danger was over, he had no need of minimizing for his mother’s sake the discomforts he had been suffering. He said feelingly what he thought of a government that couldn’t get letters from a soldier’s home in Iowa to a military hospital in New Orleans. He shouldn’t have minded the fever so much if he could have heard from home, and if he had been stronger he would likely have been more sensible about not getting letters. It seemed to him he had been confined in a madhouse devised for his torture.[37] He would have preferred a battle months long to those endless, helpless, sick-minded days. And now he never wanted to speak of that time or hear of it again as long as he lived.
Young Peter had torn his coat half off his back at play that day, and it must be mended before school time next morning. It was a piece of patching not long or difficult, but his mother laid it down to look at her Wully—she laid it down and took it again a dozen times before it was done. She couldn’t deny her eyes the sight of his white, thin, beautiful face. He ought to go to bed. She could see that. She urged him to again and again, as they sat around the stove. But he had always one more thing to tell as he started to go. He had never written in full about getting back to his regiment after his last visit home, had he? Well, when he got back, there was not an officer left whom he had known. And the one to whom he had to tell his tale of escaping from his guard—oh, he was a new man, most hated by the boys—he had put Wully and two others in prison in the loft of a barn, on bread and water. And every night the guard, who knew them, used to hand up on the end of bayonets all the food they could desire. And the officer heard of it, and was more angry. He was a man who raged. And he changed the guard, and yet the men who hated his being there, in place of the colonel they had liked, Wully’s friends, managed some way to feed the prisoners, so that really in the loft they had nothing to do but to sleep well-fed,[38] and rest. And presently the new colonel waxed more raging and swearing, and sent the three away to another place to be disciplined, sent them—guess where, of all places—to Colonel Ingersoll for punishment!
“What? Not that infidel!”
Yes, exactly, and that was just how Wully had felt about it! The prisoners made Wully their spokesman in the first hearing. Colonel Ingersoll listened to them kindly till he had finished speaking. He had a boil on the back of his neck and was not able to turn his head, and he sat there, just looking at Wully, a long time, too long, Wully began to fear. And then he said:
“I wouldn’t punish you if you were my man, McLaughlin. And I don’t see why I should because you aren’t.” And he called an orderly and told him to take the men to a mess.
“Ingersoll did that? That infidel?”
“Yes.”
His mother was leaning forward, Peter’s coat forgotten.
“Yon’s a grand man,” she cried with conviction.
“He’s an infidel,” her husband reminded her.
“He’s a grand man for a’ that!” she asserted.
“But he’s an infidel!”
“He’s a grand man, I’m telling you, for a’ that!” After that, every time she sang the antichrist’s praise to her neighbors she had the last word of characterization. (After all, her family had not been Covenanters.) Presently she laid the coat[39] down again—the children were in bed now, and Wully, too, with only his father and mother beside him in the kitchen.
“Your father told you about Jeannie’s death, Wully?” His father had told him briefly about it on the way home. He didn’t say to his mother that the news had thrilled him with the certainty that now his plans could have no opposition, since Chirstie was left quite unprotected, and must be needing him. He was ashamed of the hope he had had from it, when he saw his mother’s face harden with grief and resentment as she went on to relate the details of her friend’s death, a death grim enough to be in keeping with Jeannie’s life. For her part, she hoped to live till Alex McNair got home, till she could get one good chance to tell him what she thought of him! Oh, it had been altogether a terrible winter, almost as bad as that worst early one, just one fierce-driven blizzard after another. Jeannie had known in that darkening afternoon that it was no common illness coming over her. Chirstie, terrified by her isolation, had begged to be allowed at once to go for her aunt. But even then so thick was the storm raging that from the window she could not see the barn, and to venture out into the storm could mean only death. As the night had hurled itself upon the poor little shelter, almost hidden under drifts, and the maniac wind unchecked by a tree, unhindered by a considerable hill for a thousand miles, tore on in its deadly course, inside the cabin where the candle[40] flickered gustily out, Jeannie had whispered to her children that she was dying. One thing they must promise her so that she might die in peace. They must not venture out for help, even in the morning, unless the storm was over. She lay then moaning inarticulately, which was frightful for the children, but not so frightful as the silence that followed, when they could in no way make her answer their cries of agony. All that night Chirstie sat watching beside her, relighting the candle, while the other children slept. In the quieted morning she had helped her brother dig an entrance to the stable, and together they had got the horse out. She had wrapped him as securely as possible, and sent him across the blinding snow to his uncle’s, John Keith’s. And when Aunt Libby finally got there, she found the baby playing on the floor, the dinner cooking on the stove, and Chirstie on her mother’s bed unconscious.
Tears were running down Isobel McLaughlin’s face as she finished. Though she never doubted that God was infinitely kind, she wondered at times why that something else, called life, or nature, should be so cruel. She wondered why it was that while with her all things prospered, with the good Jeannie nothing ever refrained from turning itself into tragedy. And besides all that, now that the spring seemed coming, that stubborn girl Chirstie, refusing longer to stay with her Aunt Libby, had suddenly taken her small brother and sister, and gone back to her empty house, and there she was,[41] living alone, with no company but occasionally a neighboring girl, or her distressed Aunt Libby. Wully’s mother had gone to her, and begged her to come and stay with her. Other faithful friends had invited her to their home, but they had begged and pleaded in vain. Chirstie would listen to no one. It was a most unfitting and dangerous thing, a young girl like that alone there. She kept saying her father would be home any day now, but Isobel McLaughlin would prophesy that he would not be back till he had a new wife to bring with him. They would all see whether she was right about that or not!
Wully, the ardent, jumped instantly to the hope that Chirstie had known he was coming, and had gone back to the cabin to be there alone to receive him. That was the explanation of her “stubbornness” and indeed it was a brave thing for a girl to do for her lover. Alone there she would be this rainy night, grieving for her mother and waiting for him! Of course she would marry him at once! He would put in a crop there for her father. Tomorrow, not later than the next day, at most, they would be married! He slept but excitedly that night....
In the morning it was still raining. Breakfast and worship over, he went to the barn, where the men were setting about those rainy-day tasks which all well-regulated farms have in waiting. In the old thatched barn, three sides of which were stacked slough grass, his father was greasing the[42] wagon’s axles; Andy was repairing the rope ox harness; Peter and Hughie were struggling to lift wee Sarah into their playhouse cave in a haystack side of the barn, and having at length all but upset the wagon on themselves, propped up as it was by only three wheels, they had to be shooed away to play on the cleaner floor of the new barn. Wully took up a hoe that needed sharpening for the weeding of the corn that was to be planted. They talked of the new machine that was being made for the corn planting. Wully answered absent-mindedly that he had seen one in Davenport once. He spoke with one eye on the hoe, and one on the heavens. After an hour’s waiting, the sky still forbade a journey. But his father, presently, looking up from his work, saw him climbing on a horse, wrapping himself in bedraggled blankets as best he might, against the downpour. He naturally asked in surprise:
“Wherever are you going, Wully?”
Wully replied:
“Just down the road!”
Fancy that, now! A McLaughlin answering his father in a tone that implied that what he asked was none of his business! But it was Wully who was answering, just home after four years of absence. His father was amused. The thought came gradually into his slow mind that there would be a lassie in this. A feverish man wasn’t riding out through a rain like that one without some very good reason. What lassie would it be? He must ask his wife about it.
[43]The path which Wully took required caution, but the cause demanded speed. The way seemed to have stretched out incredibly since he had last gone over it. After riding a hundred miles or so, he got to the little shanty of a barn on the McNair place. Chirstie’s twelve-year-old brother Dod was there, and Wully gave his horse to his care. That horse had to be watched carefully, Wully vowed. He had never seen such tricks as it had been doing on the way over. Dod must not take his eyes from it. Wully hurried to the house.
The door of the house opened, and— Oh, damn, and all other oaths!—Scotch and army! Chirstie’s aunt stood there in it, Libby Keith. She was Wully’s aunt, too, that sister of his father’s who had married Jeannie McNair’s brother, John Keith! This was the first time that Wully had wanted really to curse an aunt, though he liked this one but dutifully. She saw him, and her voice fell in dismay.
“Lawsie me!” she bewailed. “I thought it was my Peter!”
Bad enough to be taken for her Peter at any time! And she had to stand there stupidly a moment, to recover from the disappointment, as it were, and then looking straight at him, it was like her to ask:
“Is it you, Wully?” As if she couldn’t see that it was! Standing there filling the door, hiding the room from him! “Whatever is the matter?”
Where was the girl? Was his aunt a permanent[44] blockade? He came vigorously towards her, hurrying her slow cordiality. There she was! There was Chirstie! She had seen him. He went towards her——
And she shrank away from him!
Not only had she not an impulse of welcome, she shrank away from him! She gave him her hand because she couldn’t help herself.
“Chirstie!” he faltered.
“Are you back?” she asked. She pulled her hand away in a panic. “It’s a fine day,” he heard her murmur.
It was the bitterest day of his life! He sat down weakly. Men stagger down helplessly that way when bullets go through them. The damnable aunt began now welcoming him fondly. He didn’t know what he was answering her. It couldn’t be possible, could it, that Chirstie didn’t want to see him? She had taken a seat just as far away from him as the room permitted. She sat about her knitting industriously. Sometimes she raised her eyes to look into the fire, but never once did she raise them to satisfy Wully’s hunger. His eagerness, her refusal, became apparent at length to even the stupid aunt. She understood that Wully had got home only the night before, and in the morning, rain and all, had ridden over to see the girl who didn’t want to see him. He really was looking very ill. Well, well! Isobel McLaughlin would have been mightily “set up” by such a match. If Chirstie had not been Peter’s own cousin, Libby Keith[45] would have liked nothing better than the girl for her son. She had fancied at times her son had thought of it, too. Her sympathy was with the soldier. She rose heavily after really only a few minutes, and said:
“I doubt the setting hens have left the nests, Chirstie.”
She put a shawl over her head, and went to the door, and closed it after her. Wully jumped to his feet, and went to bend down over his sweetheart.
“What’s the matter, Chirstie? What’s the matter? What have I done?”
She shrank back into her chair.
“You haven’t forgotten! You remember that afternoon! I thought now that you are alone here, we needn’t wait!”
“Sit down in your chair!” she commanded. “Don’t!”
He didn’t. He couldn’t.
“You’re in my light!”
He drew back only a little way.
“I didn’t say it all, but you know! Didn’t you get my letters either?”
She moved farther away from him. “Now that I think of it, I guess I did. I got one or two.” She looked as if she was trying to recall something trivial!
He stood absolutely dazed, looking at her hard face. Then she said:
“It’s near dinner time. You’ll be going back.”
“I will not!” he cried, outraged. “I came for[46] you, Chirstie! I thought we could be married right away. That’s what I meant. You knew that!” He bent over her again, and she struggled away angrily. She went to the door, and called:
“Auntie! Wully’s going! Do you want to see him?”
Aunt Libby came heavily in. She urged him to stay for dinner. At least she would make him something hot. Why, he was all wet from the ride!
“Don’t bother about me!” he said angrily, hardly knowing his own voice. “I just rode over to see a calf of Stevenson’s. I’ll be on my way!” Out of the house he rushed, leaving his aunt to meditate upon her theories.
Turning back, he saw, through tears, that the girl was looking after him. He wouldn’t ride towards the Stevensons. He would ride straight home, and she would know why he had come. He was chilling severely now, from the shock of her denial, from rage and humiliation and sorrow. He hardly knew whether it was tears or rain in his face. “Fool!” he kept saying to himself. Fool that he had been! Why had he ever taken so much for granted? He had had only a little letter from her, a shy letter. But he had never doubted she wrote often to him, letters which, like his mother’s, had never reached him. Of course she had never really said that she would wait for him. She had never promised. But that was what that afternoon meant to him. It must be that some other man had won her. They must all be wanting her. While[47] he had been lying in that hospital, living only on the dreams of their lovemaking, some other man had taken his place against her face. Or could it be that the tragic death of her mother had made her cold? It was no use trying to imagine that, for what ordinary, unkissed girl of the neighborhood would not have given him a decent welcome home? A mere acquaintance would have been more glad to see him back than she had been. Glad! She had not only not been glad. She had shrunk away in fear, and dread, even disgust. If it had been but mourning for her mother, she would have come to him. If he had been disconsolate, he would have known where to go for comfort! He had simply been a fool to suppose he had won her. Still, there was that afternoon to justify his hope. Could it be possible that that had meant nothing to her? Could he believe that that had been to her an accustomed experience? If only her face had blossomed just a little for him, that was all he would have asked. He could have waited, respecting her bereavement. But that shrinking away, that fear—what could he make of that? And he had supposed, fool that he was, that she felt toward him somewhat as he had felt toward her! She wanted nothing of him but his absence. All the family would hear now of his visit from Aunt Libby. Not that he would mind that, if only she had welcomed it! The wound was sickening him.