The Strollers

The remoteness of the situation gave the very boldness of his plan feasibility. Was he not his own magistrate in his own province? Why, then, he had thought, waste the golden moments? He had but one heed now; a study of physical beauty, against a crimson background.

“To think of such loveliness lost in the wilderness!” he said, softly. “The gates of art should all open to you. Why should you play to rustic bumpkins, when the world of fashion would gladly receive you? I am a poor prophet if you would not be a success in town. It is not always easy to get a hearing, to procure an audience, but means could be found. Soon your name would be on every one’s lips. Your art is fresh. The jaded world likes freshness. The cynical town runs to artless art as an antidote to its own poison. Most of the players are wrinkled and worn. A young face will seem like a new-grown white rose.”

She did not answer; unresponsive as a statue, she did not move. The sun shot beneath an obstructing branch, and long, searching shafts found access to the room. Mauville moved forward impetuously, until he stood on the verge of the sunlight on the satinwood floor.

“May I not devote myself to this cause, Constance?” he continued. “You are naturally resentful toward me now. But can I not show you that I have your welfare at heart? If you were as ambitious as you are attractive, what might you not do? Art is long; our days are short; youth flies like a summer day.”

His glance sought hers questioningly; still no reply; only a wave of blood surged over her neck and brow, while her eyes fell. Then the glow receded, leaving her white as a snow image.

“Come,” he urged. “May I not find for you those opportunities?”

He put out his eager hand as if to touch her. Then suddenly the figure in the window came to life and shrank back, with widely opened eyes fixed upon his face. His gaze could not withstand hers, man of the world though he was, and his free manner was replaced by something resembling momentary embarrassment. Conscious of this new and annoying feeling, his egotism rose in arms, as if protesting against the novel sensation, and his next words were correspondingly violent.

“Put off your stage manners!” he exclaimed. “You are here at my pleasure. It was no whim, my carrying you off. After you left I went to the manor, where I tried to forget you. But nights of revelry–why should I not confess it?–could not efface your memory.” His voice unconsciously sank to unreserved candor. “Your presence filled these halls. I could no longer say: Why should I trouble myself about one who has no thought for me?”

Breathing hard, he paused, gazing beyond her, as though renewing the memories of that period.

“Learning you were in the neighboring town,” he continued, “I went there, with no further purpose than to see you. On the journey perhaps I indulged in foolish fancies. How would you receive me? Would you be pleased; annoyed? So I tempted my fancy with air-castles like the most unsophisticated lover. But you had no word of welcome; scarcely listened to me, and hurried away! I could not win you as I desired; the next best way was this.”

He concluded with an impassioned gesture, his gaze eagerly seeking the first sign of lenity or favor on her part, but his confession seemed futile. Her eyes, suggestive of tender possibilities, expressed now but coldness and obduracy. In a revulsion of feeling he forgot the distance separating the buskined from the fashionable world; the tragic scatterlings from the conventions of Vanity Fair! He forgot all save that she was to him now the one unparagoned entirety, overriding other memories.

“Will not a life of devotion atone for this day, Constance?” he cried. “Do you know how far-reaching are these lands? All the afternoon you drove through them, and they extend as wide in the other direction. These–my name–are yours!”

A shade of color swept over her brow.

“Answer me,” he urged.

“Drive back and I will answer you.”

“Drive back and you will laugh at me,” he retorted, moodily. “You would make a woman’s bargain with me.”

“Is yours a man’s with me?” Contemptuously.

“What more can I do?”

“Undo what you have done. Take me back!”

“I would cut a nice figure doing that! No; you shall stay here.”

He spoke angrily; her disdain at his proposal not only injured his pride but awoke his animosity. On the other hand, his words demonstrated she had not improved her own position. If he meant to keep her there he could do so, and opposition made him only more obstinate, more determined to press his advantage. Had she been more politic–Juliana off the stage as well as on–she, whose artifice was glossed by artlessness–

Her lashes drooped; her attitude became less aggressive; her eyes, from beneath their dark curtains, rested on him for a moment. What it was in that glance so effective is not susceptible to analysis. Was it the appeal that awakened the quixotic sense of honor; the helplessness arousing compassion; the irresistible quality of a brimming eye so fatal to masculine calculation and positiveness? Whatever it was, it dispelled the contraction on the land baron’s face, and–despite his threats, vows!–he was swayed by a look.

“Forgive me,” he said, tenderly.

“You will drive back?”

“Yes; I will win you in your own way, fairly and honestly! I will take you back, though the whole country laughs at me. Win or lose, back we go, for–I love you!” And impetuously he threw his arm around her waist.

Simulation could not stand the test; it was no longer acting, but reality; she had set herself to a rôle she could not perform. Hating him for that free touch, she forcibly extricated herself with an exclamation and an expression of countenance there was no mistaking. From Mauville’s face the glad light died; he regarded her once more cruelly, vindictively.

“You dropped the mask too soon,” he said, coldly. “I was not prepared for rehearsal, although you were perfect. You are even a better actress than I thought you, than which”–mockingly–“I can pay you no better compliment.”

She looked at him with such scorn he laughed, though his eyes flashed.

“Bravo!” he exclaimed.

While thus confronting each other a footfall sounded without, the door burst open, and the driver of the coach, with features drawn by fear, unceremoniously entered the room. The patroon turned on him enraged, but the latter without noticing his master’s displeasure, exclaimed hurriedly:

“The anti-renters are coming!”

The actress uttered a slight cry and stepped toward the window, when she was drawn back by an irresistible force.

“Pardon me,” said a hard voice, from which all passing compunction had vanished. “Be kind enough to come with me.”

“I will follow you, but–” Her face expressed the rest.

“This way then!”

He released her and together they mounted the stairway. For a long time a gentle footfall had not passed those various landings; not since the ladies in hoops, with powdered hair, had ascended or descended, with attendant cavaliers, bewigged, beruffled, bedizened. The land baron conducted his companion to a distant room up stairs, the door of which he threw open.

“Go in there,” he said curtly.

She hesitated on the threshold. So remote was it from the main part of the great manor, the apartment had all the requirements of a prison.

“You needn’t fear,” he continued, reading her thoughts. “I’m not going to be separated from you–yet! But we can see what is going on here.”

Again she mutely obeyed him, and entered the room. It was a commodious apartment, where an excellent view was offered of the surrounding country on three sides. But looking from the window to discern his assailants, Mauville could see nothing save the fields and openings, fringed by the dark groves. The out-houses and barns were but dimly outlined, while scattered trees here and there dotted the open spaces with small, dark patches. A single streak of red yet lingered in the west. A tiny spot, moving through the obscurity, proved to be a cow, peacefully wandering over the dewy grass. The whirring sound of a diving night-hawk gave evidence that a thing of life was inspecting the scene from a higher point of vantage.

From that narrow, dark crimson ribbon, left behind by the flaunting sun, a faint reflection entered the great open windows of the chamber and revealed Mauville gazing without, pistol in hand; Constance leaning against the curtains and the driver of the coach standing in the center of the room, quaking inwardly and shaking outwardly. This last-named had found an old blunderbuss somewhere, useful once undoubtedly, but of questionable service now.

Meanwhile Oly-koeks had not returned. Having faithfully closed and locked all the iron shutters, he had crept out of a cellar window and voluntarily resigned as care-taker of the manor, with its burden of dangers and vexations. With characteristic prudence, he had timed the period of his departure with the beginning of the end in the fortunes of the old patroon principality. The storm-cloud, gathering during the life of Mauville’s predecessor, was now ready to burst, the impending catastrophe hastened by the heir’s want of discretion and his failure to adjust difficulties amicably. That small shadow, followed by a smaller shadow, passing through the field, were none other than Oly-koeks and Oloffe, who grew more and more imperceptible until they were finally swallowed up and seemingly lost forever in the darkness of the fringe of the forest.

A branch of a tree grated against the window as Mauville looked out over the peaceful vale to the ribbon of red that was being slowly withdrawn as by some mysterious hand. Gradually this adornment, growing shorter and shorter, was wound up while the shadows of the out-houses became deeper and the meadow lands appeared to recede in the distance. As he scanned the surrounding garden, the land baron’s eye fell upon an indistinct figure stealing slowly across the sward in the partial darkness. This object was immediately followed by another and yet another. To the observer’s surprise they wore the headgear of Indians.

Suddenly the patroon heard the note of the whippoorwill, the nocturnal songster that mourns unseen. It was succeeded by the sharp tones of a saw-whet and the distinct mew of a cat-bird. A wild pigeon began to coo softly in another direction and was answered by a thrush. The listener vaguely realized that all this unexpected melody came from the Indians, who had by this time surrounded the house and who took this method of communicating with one another.

An interval of portentous silence was followed by a loud knocking at the front door, which din reverberated through the hall, echoing and re-echoing the vigorous summons. Mauville at this leaned from the window and as he did so, there arose a hooting from the sward as though bedlam had broken loose. Maintaining his post, the heir called out:

“What do you want, men?”

At these words the demonstration became more turbulent, and, amid the threatening hubbub, voices arose, showing too well the purpose of the gathering. Aroused to a fever of excitement by the shooting of the tenants, they were no longer skulking, stealthy Indians, but a riotous assemblage of anti-renters, expressing their determination in an ominous chorus:

“Hang the land baron!”

In the midst of this far from reassuring uproar a voice arose like a trumpet:

“We are the messengers of the Lord, made strong by His wrath!”