CHAPTER XI
The sky was just reddening when I came down next morning and commenced to get my gun and accoutrements, to try my hand at hunting. Father called me as I was about to leave the house, and told me to come to the back door. There I found a negro boy, thirteen or fourteen years of age, in his shirt sleeves, a clean white shirt, and copperas checked pants, held up by suspenders of the same cloth, fastened on them by little sticks; one hand resting up against the house, and one bare foot scratching the top of the other.
“John,” said father, as I came out in the porch, gun in hand, “this is Reuben, one of Hannah’s children. You may take him for your valet. He knows all the best hunting and fishing places around here. When you go to Goldsboro’ you can get him some more suitable livery.”
“Thank you, sir; he will suit me exactly. How do you like it, Reuben?”
Reuben could only snicker and rub his hand on the weather boarding, as an acknowledgment of his favor.
“I am about to start hunting now; can you carry me to a place where I can kill some squirrels?”
“Yes, sir; ef I c’n git Unker Jack’s Trip, and go over ‘gin the big spring field, you kin find a sight on ’em.”
“Well, run and get Trip, and come on.”
He ran down to the quarters, and soon came back with a little blue-spotted, curl-tailed dog, which he declared could “find ’em eben ef dey wan’t dere!”
After getting over fences, jumping ditches, tramping through dewy grass, and breaking through wet corn till my feet were drenched and my clothes saturated, we at last struck the woods. What splendid woods they were for hunting. Dignified, patriarchal oaks, matronly cedars, young dandy hickories, love-sick maiden-pines, that sighed in the breeze, and families of saplings! Reuben here thought we would find the game, and told Trip to “look about.” The little canine obeyed, and was soon out of sight.
We moved cautiously about, listening; nor did we have to wait very long before Reuben recognized his short, quick bark, and, with the ejaculation, “dat’s him,” ran rapidly towards the place. I followed as fast as the nature of the undergrowth would permit, and we soon found Trip sitting on his tail, under a large oak, whose thick leaves concealed all but the lowest branches. I looked long and vainly towards the top; nothing could I see but the deep green leaves. Reuben, however, got off some distance from the tree, and, walking backwards, and looking with hand-shaded eyes, soon cried out, “Yon he is; cum year, marse John; you c’n see ‘im.” I ran eagerly to him, and gazed intently to where he pointed, and by his continued indications of the exact limb and fork, I was at last persuaded that I did see a small gray knot near the body of the tree. I levelled my gun and fired; all was still for awhile, and then the shot came pattering back on the trees a little way off. Another shot, and the gray knot ran out to the end of the limb.
“Dat’s him; I know’d it was,” shouted Reuben, while I was so much excited I could hardly load. Before I could get the shot down the squirrel sprang from the tree to another, the slender twigs bending under him, and the wet leaves showering down the dew. But Reuben and Trip were watching, and soon found him in a fairer place. I now aim more carefully, and fire; he falls several feet, then catches and recovers himself; another barrel, and he turns under limb, holding on by his feet. Before I can load again he slowly releases, foot by foot, his hold upon the limb, and comes tumbling headlong down, striking the ground with a heavy sound. Reuben and Trip are in great glee over it, while I look on with assumed indifference, for it is my first squirrel, though I had played great destruction among the rice birds near town.
I was just putting the caps on my gun when I was startled by the report of another gun close at hand. I soon heard the thumping of the ramrod, and a little while after the bushes parted, and the long figure of Ben Bemby emerged, his gray eyes gleaming under a broad wool hat without any band, and his scarred lip drawn into a smile. A large bunch of squirrels hung in his hand, and a long single-barrel gun rested on his shoulder.
“Mornin’. What luck?” he said, resting his gun on the ground, and throwing back his hat to wipe the perspiration from his forehead with his forefinger.
“One fine fellow,” I said, holding my trophy up.
Ben chuckled a little, and said:
“Four shots to one; that’s sorter bad. I got seven outer nine. That ere little pop-stick of yourn won’t reach these trees.”
I did not fancy any slur on the shooting qualities of my gun, which was a very handsome Wesley Richards, a present from father the winter before, and I offered to prove that it would shoot as far as his.
“Jumerlacky! Why, I can fetch a squrl when he is outer sight with this old gun.”
“How do you aim at him?” I inquired, smiling at his earnestness.
“I just git me a hicker nut hull, with the print where a squrl’s been a cuttin’, and rub it in the shot, and when I fire, don’t keer which way I takes sight, the shot goes right arter the squrl what cut the nut, and all I got to do is to look roun’ and see what tree he’s a gwine to fall from.”
I expressed a great desire to see his gun perform, and asked if he had killed any that morning without seeing them.
“Not ‘zactly,” he replied, changing his squirrels from one hand to the other; “but one run up such a high tree he got t’other side of a cloud.”
“How did you get at him?”
“Jus’ shot wher he went thew; when he drapped he was right smarten wet, an’ it rained purtty peart thew the shot holes in the cloud.”
“Which one of those was it?” I asked, pointing to the bunch in his hand.
“This here biggest un,” he said, holding him up by the tail.
“Why, he doesn’t seem to be wet now?”
“Nor; he dried, like, comin’ thew the air.”
I was uncertain whether he was a little flighty or was trying to quiz me, thinking I was city-green, and a look into his laughing grey eye rather confirming this last supposition, I was about to change the conversation, when Trip’s bark a little way off in the woods called our attention to him. We found the squirrel in the very top of a tree that did almost seem in the clouds.
“Lemme see you knock him out wi’ your little double-bar’l toot-a-poo.”
With the steadiest aim I could command, I gave him both barrels, one after the other, with no result whatever, my piece being a short bird gun, and the tree top an immense distance from the ground.
Ben said, “Now, let the old gal speak,” and sighting the old brown barrel a second, he fired. The squirrel made a frantic leap into the air, and fell right into Trip’s mouth. Reuben was in a dance of excitement, but felt that he must take my gun’s part.
“Marse John’s gun’s new; ‘taint got used to shootin’ yet.”
“What d’you know ‘bout guns, you little devil’s ink ball?” said Ben, turning to Reuben; “why d’nt you open your mouth when Satan was a paintin’ you, and git some black on your teeth. Well, Mr. Smith, less knock along todes home; its mos’ your breakfus time.”
“Won’t you go and take breakfast with me?”
“Nor, siree. Th’ old man said I was fool ‘nough last night to last a seas’n; but I’ll come in short to see them ladies agin, for sho’ they’re fine ‘uns.”
“You must be sure to come. You think they are pretty, do you?”
“Well, I do exactly that thing. I’ve got a gal nigh here I thought was some on purtty, but she ain’t a pint cup to these here.”
“Which do you think is the best looking?”
“That’s ‘bout as hard to tell as buyin’ knives. That ere curly head un is five mules and a bunch er bells, and ef ‘twant for t’other would beat the world; but that black-eyed un, wh’sh! She c’n jus’ look at you, and make you set still forever. Why, you c’n run er fishin’ pole in her eyes up to the hand’l and never tech bott’m.”
“Polyphemus would be a mole to her, if her eyes were as deep as that,” I replied, laughing at his extravagance.
“I never heerd of Polly Whatchoucallem, but ef she looked like this ere wun, I’d trade Viney Dodge for her, and giv ’em boot.”
“I expect Miss Viney will soon have cause for jealousy?”
“Nor, siree. Miss Kerlotter, I think the old lady sed her name was, is a darned sight too fine for me. You can’t sew silk truck on to homespun; and Viney suits my cloth the bes’, for she’s three treddle sarge, and a thread to spare.”
There was a fork here in the path, and we separated. I reached home just as the family were sitting down to breakfast. I exhibited my game, and was complimented for my skill.
After breakfast I went to the library, while the girls busied themselves aiding mother in her domestic arrangements. Before leaving the table they made me promise to take them fishing in the evening, or rather Lulie did, for Carlotta expressed her preference for remaining at home with mother, and I saw in her face that her intuitive tact had taught her that I preferred to be alone with Lulie. She was tenderly devoted to mother, and would often leave gay, frolicsome Lulie to sit by her, and talk on “grown up” subjects, as Lulie would call them. With father she was reserved, though respectful and grateful, and studied to please him in every way. Toward me she was gentle and kind, but shy, as if she was afraid of being teased about me.
I cannot describe my feelings for her. There was a thrill every time I met those great black eyes that I had never felt before, but I could not call it love, for Lulie engrossed all there was of that in my nature.
There was a magnetism about her that affected me strongly, and made me feel that, were we at all intimate, she would possess an unbounded influence over me, and that its exercise would constitute my supreme happiness.
The tender pity and brotherly love I had expected to feel were all gone, for she did not need them; the vast resources of her own deep soul, and the sympathy and love of mother, seemed to be enough for her. In all my thoughts I could only long for her friendship, and I felt that if I could awaken in her an interest in me as a friend, so that I could go to her ear and tell my troubles or joys, I would be the happier. In the common converse of our family circle I always looked to her first after my remarks, and her smile was a far greater reward to me than Lulie’s, perhaps because it meant more. And if I had done wrong I would rather ten times Lulie should know it than Carlotta; yet, with all these feelings, resembling so much indices of love, there was no spark of it in my heart. Her very beauty seemed to fix a great gulf between us, and down in my soul I felt that she would never love me, except as a member of the same family. With these thoughts came the image of Lulie – bright, laughing Lulie – whose heart I could get so near to, if I could not call it mine; who was something human, like myself, and whom I loved so tenderly without the slightest shade of awe. And I longed for the time when I could tell her of it.
CHAPTER XII
The afternoon was still and sultry, as I gazed out of my window, leaning on the sill, and waiting for Reuben to bring my fishing poles and bait.
From the corn fields in the distance a trembling haze was continually rising, and I could hear the occasional song of the negroes, as they moved behind their plows slowly up and down the long green rows. In the yard all was still; the chickens, with palpitating throats, were lying under the bushes, flirting the cool dark earth up into their feathers; and the ducks were gathered around the cool trough at the well, bubbling the water with their bills, and shaking their wings as if they wished to dive in it, if the trough were just wide enough; the bull-dog, at the door of his kennel, was lying on his side, with his head stretched out on the earth, from which he would raise it constantly to snap at the flies biting his flanks. A solitary peacock, with his tail all pulled out for the feathers, was sitting on the fence, with his blue neck and coroneted head reverted, as if gazing at the absence of his plumage. Down at the quarters I could catch the changing hum of the spinning wheel, making echo to the nasal minor strains of a negro woman at the wash tub. Everything was calculated to inspire reverie, and I leaned there, thinking of the cool shady bank of the creek, and of Lulie and myself sitting there alone; and musing on the pleasure of the evening, and wondering if anything would occur to mar it, I drew my eyes from the scenes in the yard, and gazed down the side of the house, noticing every little dent in the planking and the dark rain marks under the nails; and dropping bits of paper at a lazy red wasp that was crawling slowly up the weather-boarding. Reuben, passing under my window with the poles and a gourd full of worms, broke my reverie, and taking my hat and gloves I went down stairs, where Lulie was already awaiting me, looking sweeter than ever in a pink gingham sun-bonnet. Holding an umbrella carefully over her, Reuben leading the way with the poles, I went down the avenue through a long lane, down a wooded hill, and stopped at “de bes’ fishin’ hole on de creek,” as Reuben called it. ‘Twas a steep grassy bank under a large sycamore, at a sudden curve in the stream, where the water, running down heedlessly, struck the bank, and hurried off with many a curling dimple of confusion for its carelessness. After Reuben had undone and baited our lines, I dismissed him, and we both took our seats, pole in hand.
The thick branches overhead made an impervious shade, except where they opened here and there to let a little ray of sunlight dance upon the water. The lines, serpent-like, curled down from the poles, and the painted float circled up and down the eddy, but with no other motion but what the water gave. Presently Lulie’s stood still, then bobbed under and up, while the water rings retreated from it as if afraid; again it goes down, and Lulie – like all lady fishers – gave the pole such a jerk that the line and its hooked victim were lodged in the branches above. All my efforts to disengage it were unavailing till, at last, I broke off the line, and threw pieces of stick at the little fish till I battered it down, its mouth torn out by the hook, and its shining scales all beaten off. Lulie took her little victim in her hand very tenderly, and almost shed tears over it. She declared she would never come fishing again; that it was mean and cruel to catch the poor little creatures out of the water when they were so happy.
“And, John,” she continued, “I am so sorry I broke your hook and line, when you had fixed it up so nicely for me; I know you are really mad with me about it.”
I did not notice her remark about the hook and line, but said (winding the broken line around the pole, and laying it behind us on the grass):
“Your compassion and pity for the little fish are so sweet, Lulie, that I wish I could be transformed into one, like another Indur.”
The old roguish twinkle came back to her eyes as she said:
“You can have my compassion now if you will be caught like this fish.”
“You know how quickly I would be, Lulie, but all your lines are occupied.”
“No, indeed, John, you are the one in fault; but, then, you are completely fastened by a hook baited with a pair of dark Cuban eyes.”
“Of course, Lulie, you refer to Carlotta; you are entirely mistaken; she is only a sister, and a very reserved and distant sister at that. I admire her beauty, but cannot love her.”
“Well, you look at her as if you did, any way, and I feel every time that we three are together, that you are wishing I had not come up here to spoil your pleasure, and be in the way.”
“Lulie!” I said softly, as I sat down by her on the cool green moss, and as I said it a hot flush came over my face, for I felt there was no retreat after such a tone, and that I must now tell her what I had been hinting at by action and word through my life from a child. She, too, well knew what I meant, for she dropped her eyes from mine, and laying down the little fish, commenced to pick from her finger, with great earnestness and effort, a bright scale that adhered to it.
“Let me get it off,” I said, taking her hand and flipping off the scale, but still keeping the hand in mine; “Lulie, I am holding the hand of the only girl in the world that I love. It is no jest now, but solemn earnest truth. Darling, your own heart tells you how I have idolized you from a child, and my heart tells me how I adore you now. Sometimes I have felt that you did not care for me, and my despair has been worse than eternal death; at other times I’ve thought, perhaps, you did return my love, and the happiness would have been supreme but for the dread uncertainty. But oh! Lulie, I can endure it no longer; tell me, dearest, if you – ”
She drew her hand suddenly from mine, and placing both hands over her eyes, she burst into convulsive sobbing. I put my arm around her, and tried to take her hands from her eyes. She turned towards me, putting both arms around my neck, laid her face, streaming with tears, on my shoulder, and cried as if her little heart would break. I sat still, supporting her, and not knowing what to do or say. Gradually her hands relaxed their clasp, and she raised her head from my shoulder, and, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, which she tremblingly drew forth, said, with a tear-hoarse voice and a great sob:
“Oh! – John!”
“Lulie, darling,” I said, gazing at her tenderly, “have I distressed you so much, and is it painful to you to know that I love you?”
“Yes, yes, dear John, the deepest pain, because – because I cannot love you in return.”
“Not love me! Oh, Lulie! After all the years of fondest fidelity!”
“John, I do love you as the dearest friend I have on earth; as the one of all others in whom I can confide most implicitly; and because I love and esteem you so dearly your avowal of love causes me such intense pain. I could tell another I did not love him without remorse, but I know your noble heart is so truly in earnest, and its love is so sincere, that it almost kills me to turn it away and to offer only in return that bitterest of all words – friendship. But, John, by all the magnanimity of your generous nature, I beseech you not to hate me now, but hold me still as the same little Lulie of the nursery, when our hearts knew love as only childhood’s friendship.”
I sat as if in a dream, and only murmured:
“Hate you, Lulie! Never! never!”
After a long pause, I at length said:
“Lulie, darling – for you will permit me to call you so this evening, at least – the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I see so plainly what a blind, blind fool I have been to grope on in vague belief that you loved me. The fault has not been yours, for your actions have told me a thousand times that my hopes were vain; but well, indeed, is Cupid always pictured blind. And, darling, before we dismiss this subject forever, I want to thank you for the grief, and I know ‘twas real, that you felt in rejecting my proffered love. Had you heartlessly cast it aside ‘twould have crushed me too deeply for fortitude. And for our friendship, I vow before high Heaven it shall be deepened; and truer than a brother, with the devotion of an unrequited yet undying love, will I prove myself your friend.”
“Thank you. Oh! a thousand times thank you, John.”
“But, dearest Lulie,” I continued, “while my heart is bleeding, let me tear it all it may be torn. Tell me, do you love Frank Paning? Does he hold what I would give my life to win? Do not fear to hurt me now.”
“John, dear John, do not ask me;” and her frame commenced trembling violently again.
“‘Tis as I expected,” I said, bitterly. “But, oh! this is the keenest pain of all. Frank Paning! To know that he may hold your hand, and feel it throb its love to his; that he may gaze into your eyes and read your love for him; that he may know that Lulie, my darling, my idol, is his alone; while I – Oh, Lulie, I’d rather you’d love the veriest dog that laps the dust around your door than Frank Paning.”
“Hush! hush! for the love of mercy hush!” she said, putting up her hand.
“Lulie, I cannot, will not hush. We will never talk together again as we do now; and, as that dearest friend you have termed me, I wish to warn you. He is not worthy of your love.”
She laid down the bonnet string, which she had been crimping in her fingers while I was talking, and looking straight at me, the least perceptible frown on her brow, and a flush on her cheek, said:
“John, I know you too well to believe you capable of meanly trying to injure a rival simply because of his success. I do you the justice to believe you sincere in your opinions, but your judgment is warped by prejudice; you cannot know him as I do, or you would love and trust him.”
“My dear Lulie, it is because I know him far better than you do that I warn you against him. I expect you to believe that all I say in regard to him is the fruit of my disappointment, but I must, ere we close this subject forever, tell you why he is unworthy, and why I warn you against him. And I trust, as you believe in my honor, you will not think I am influenced by any hope of thus supplanting him in your favor. I bow to your decision of this evening as final, nor would I cause you to revoke it, if I could, by maligning him.”
“John, I believe you; and I thank you more than I can tell for your intended kindness, but ‘tis better that we speak no further on this subject. It might beget unpleasant feelings, and I would not feel, nor have you feel, one shade of anger, for the world. My heart is sad enough when I think what a change one hour has wrought. No more the same John and Lulie we have ever been; no more the same playful attentions you have always paid me, nor the same thoughtless encouragement I have given. Respectful courtesy now our only intercourse. Oh, how little did I think, when I lightly returned your looks and smiles of love, to what it all would lead!”
“Lulie, darling, I cannot feel anger toward you, whatever you do; but, even if you hate me for it, I must tell you of Frank Paning. He is utterly destitute of principle. He does not love you, and if he did would only love you as his slave. He is tyrannical and overbearing, yet sycophantic in his nature, imposing on the weak and cringing to the strong. He is free and forward in the presence of ladies, and impure and slanderous in his remarks about them behind their backs. I have known him to leave a company of ladies, and then, for the mere applause of a vulgar throng, make witticisms on their appearance and manners that would have caused a blush in Cyprus. He does not bear a proper respect for you, for I have heard him publicly boast of your love, and make remarks that I have been forced to resent.”
“John, do not revile him any more. You perhaps mean well, but ‘tis an utter waste of breath. For years I have loved and trusted him; and if an angel were to stand upon the rippling water there and warn me, I would not believe Frank false. When I gave him my heart I gave him my life, and, though you and all the world turn against him, I will cling to him and trust him, and when he spurns me I will die.”
“May God protect you, Lulie, my own love, from all wrong,” and I kissed gently and respectfully her dear, soft cheek, henceforth to be for other lips. She did not reproach me, but sat gazing at the dancing sunlight on the water. I rose and took up the pole that we had left set in the bank. A fish had hung itself upon the hook, and, utterly exhausted by its unheeded efforts to disengage itself, came up from the water limp and motionless. Putting it on our string, and tying up our tackle, I assisted Lulie over the rail fence, and we ascended the hill and walked up the lane in silence.
Reader! did you ever love earnestly and devotedly? Did you ever, after months, perhaps years, of doubt and hesitation, at last make up your mind to declare it? and did you ever have it rejected, perhaps kindly, perhaps cruelly? If so, you know what I felt then.
So bitterly disappointed, so deeply humiliated to have confessed yourself so conceitedly mistaken, and such a wild despair in your heart as you think how she will greet another with her smiles, while you, poor fool, are forgotten; how another’s arms will fold her, another’s lips press hers! Oh! there’s a world of sad meaning in those exquisite lines of Tennyson’s:
“And sweet as those by hopeless Fancy feigned,
On lips that are for others.”
Again, before we reached home, we assured each other of our kind feelings, and agreed to act as nearly as possible in the same old way.
When we reached the house the others were at tea, the table being placed in the hall, without lamps, as the sun was hardly down. After being rallied for our solitary fish we took our seats, and father, taking from his pocket a bundle of letters, ran over them, and tossed one to me. I excused myself, and read it at the table. How my face burned and my hand shook as I found it was from Paning himself! His father and mother had gone to South Carolina, leaving him to devote the balance of his vacation to study. He had gotten lonely keeping house by himself, had written to Ned to join him, and they were coming up to spend a couple of weeks with me. They would not wait for my reply, as they knew I would be glad to see them, but would leave Wilmington by the next train.
I sat looking at the bold handwriting till the letters danced on the page, and father said:
“John, that is the longest letter I ever saw to be written on one page. We have nearly finished tea while you have been reading it. From whom can it be?”
“It is from Frank Paning, sir. He and Ned Cheyleigh are coming up to spend a week or two with me.”
I could not look at Lulie, as I said this, but I knew her face was bent over her tea, with the blood scarcely beneath the skin.
“I am glad of that,” said mother, “for your sake, John; you will then have some company in your rambles.”
I laughed as well as I could, and said “yes, indeed!”
“And while I think of it,” said father, taking another paper from his pocket, “here is a railroad receipt for a horse, shipped from Baltimore. He will be at Goldsboro’ to-morrow, and as you will go over for the boys, you can bring him home with you.”
I assented, but asked what he wanted with another horse when he already had several he did not use.
“But this is something extra, my son, and I did not buy him for myself, but for a friend of mine. You will find his name on the bill of shipment.”
I looked at it again, and saw that the Bay line had received, in good order, but subject to a score of risks, one horse, to be sent to John Smith, Jr., at Goldsboro’, N. C. I thanked him with all the gratitude I could command under the conflict of feelings, and we all went out to the front porch, and sat there till the twilight darkened into night. Carlotta, with Lulie, took her seat on the steps, and I could hear her rich voice even laughing heartily at times as they talked together in low tones. I was glad that she was resuming her cheerfulness, and felt that I ought to join them, and not be so silent and moody in my own home. But I somehow wanted to be near mother to-night, and let her hand caress my head, because I was in trouble.