The Fatal Cord, and The Falcon Rover

“Mean, darnation! ye’re eyether mad, gurl, or else talkin’ like a chile. D’ye know what refusin’ means?”

“I have not thought of it.”

“But I hev, over an’ over agin. It means beggary – preehap sturvation, for myself as well as you.”

“I’d rather starve than marry Alf Brandon.”

“Ye woud, woud ye? Then ye may hev a chance o’t, sooner’n ye think for. Ye’ve got an idea yur ole dad’s well to do; an’ so think a good many other folks. Thar’s been a house built, an’ a clarin’ made; but neyther’s been paid for. Jerry Rook don’t know the day he may hev to up sticks, an’ go back agin to some durned old crib o’ a cabin.”

“Father! I was as happy in our old cabin as I’ve ever been in this fine house. Ay, far happier.”

“Yer war, war ye? But I warn’t – not by a long chalk; and I don’t want to squat in any o’ yer shanties agin – not if I kin keep out o’ ’em. Hyar’s a plan by which yur may be rich for the rest o’ yur life; an’ thur’d be no need for me starvin’ eyther. Alf Brandon kums in for a good plantation, wi’ three score niggers on it; an’ thur’s nothin’ to hinder yur from bein’ mistress o’ the hul lot.”

“I don’t wish it.”

“But I do; an’ I mean to hev it so. Don’t git it in yur head, good-lookin’ as yur may think yurself, thet the world air a stick o’ sugar-candy an’ ye’ve got nothin’ to do but suck it. I tell yur, gurl, I’ve drifted into difeequilties. I’ve had some rasources you know nothin’ beout; but I can’t tell the day the supplies may be stopt, an’ then we’ve got to go under. Now, d’ye unnerstan’ me?”

“Indeed, father, I know nothing of your affairs. How should I? But I am sure I should never be happy as the wife of Alfred Brandon.”

“An’ why? What hev yur get agin him? He’s a good-lookin’ feller – doggoned good-lookin’.”

“It has nothing to do with his looks.”

“What then? His karracktur, I s’pose?”

“You know it is not good.”

“Dum karracktur! What signify that? Ef all the young weemen in these parts war to wait till they got a husband o’ good karracktur, they’d stay a long spell single, I reck’n. Alf Brandon ain’t no worse nor other people; an’, what’s o’ far more konsequince, he air richer than most. Ye’d be a fool, gurl, a dod-rotted eedyit, not to jump at the chance. An’ don’t you get it into yur head that I’m gwine to let it slip. Willin’ or not, ye’ve got to be the wife o’ Alf Brandon. Refuse? an’ by the Eturnal, ye shall be no longer my darter? Ye hear that?”

“I hear you, father. It is very painful to hear you; and painful, too, for me to tell you, that your threat cannot change me. I’m sure I have been obedient to you in everything else. Why should you force me to this?”

“Wal,” said the hardened man, apparently relenting, “I acknowledge ye’ve been a good gurl; but why shed yur now speil all the chances o’ our gettin’ a good livin’ by yur obstinateness in bizness? I tell ye that my affairs air jest at this time a leetle preecarious. I owe Alf Brandon money – a good grist o’t – an’ now his father’s dead he may be on me for’t. Beside, you’re o’ full age, an’ oughter be spliced to somebody. Who’s better’n Alf Brandon?”

Had Jerry arrived a little sooner at his house, or approached it with greater caution, he might have received a more satisfactory answer to his question. As it was, he got none, his daughter remaining silent, as if not caring to venture a reply.

She had averted her eyes, displaying some slight embarrassment. Something of this the old man must have noticed, as evinced by the remark that followed: —

“Poor white, ye ain’t a gwine to marry wi’ my consent – I don’t care what be his karracktur; an’ ef ye’ve been makin’ a fool o’ yurself wi’ sich, an’ gin any promise, ye’ve got to get out o’ it best way ye kin.”

Neither was there any rejoinder to this; he sat for a time in silence, as if reflecting on the probability of some such complication.

He had never heard of his daughter having bestowed her heart on any one; and, indeed, she had gained some celebrity for having so long kept it to herself.

For all that, it might have been secretly surrendered; and this would, perhaps, account for her aversion to the man he most wished her to marry.

“I heerd a shot as I war coming along the road. It war the crack o’ a rifle, an’ sounded as ef ’twar somewhar near the house. Hez anybody been hyar?”

The question was but a corollary to the train of thought he had been pursuing.

Fortunately for the young girl, it admitted of an evasive answer, under the circumstances excusable.

“There has been no one at the house since you left. There was a shot though; I heard it myself.”

“Whar away?”

“I think down by the creek – maybe in the woods beyond the orchard.”

“Thar ain’t nothin’ in them woods, ’ceptin’ squrrl. Who’s been squrrl shootin’ this time o’ day?”

“Some boys, perhaps?”

“Boys! Hey! what’s that dog a draggin’ out from ’mong the peach trees? Snake, by the Eturnal! – a rattler too! The hound ain’t killed that varmint himself?”

The old hunter, yielding to curiosity, or some undeclared impulse, stepped down from the porch, and out to where the hound had come to a stop, and was standing by the body of the snake.

Driving the dog aside, he stooped over the dead reptile to examine it.

“Shot through the skull!” he muttered to himself; “an’ wi’ a rifle, o’ sixty to the pound. That ere’s been a hunter’s gun. Who ked it be? It’s been done this side of the crik, too; seems as the dog hain’t wetted a hair in fetchin’ o’t.”

Turning along the trail of the snake – which, to his experienced eye, was discernible in the grass – he followed it, till he came to the spot where the snake had been killed.

“Shot hyar for sartin. Yes; thar’s the score o’ the bullet arter it had passed through the varmint’s brainpan; an’ thar’s the shoe track o’ him as fired the shot. No boy that; but a full growed man! Who the durnation hez been trespassin’ ’mong my peach trees?”

He bent down over the track, and carefully scrutinised them. Then rising erect, he followed them to the bank of the creek, where he saw the same footprints, more conspicuously outlined in the mud.

“Stranger for sartin!” muttered he; “no sich futmark as that ’beout these settlements – not as I know on. Who the durnation kin it a-been?”

It was strange he should take so much trouble about a circumstance so slight; or show such anxiety to discover who had been the intruder. He was evidently uneasy about something of more importance to him than the trespass among his peach trees.

“That gurl must a heerd the shot plainer than she’s been tellin’ me o’, an’ seed more’n she’s confessed to. Thar’s somethin’ on her mind, I hain’t been able to make out any how. She shall be put thro’ a chapter o’ kattykism.”

“Lena, gurl!” he continued, going back towards the porch, still occupied by his daughter; “d’ye mean to say ye seed nobody beout hyar to-day?”

“I see some one now,” said she; by the rarest bit of good luck enabled to evade giving an answer to the question.

“See some un now! Whar?”

“There, a friend of yours, coming along the lane.”

“Alf Brandon!” exclaimed the old hunter, hurrying forth to receive the individual then announced; and who, astride a sleek horse, was seen riding leisurely in the direction of the house.

For Lena Rook it was an opportune arrival; and, for a time at least, she was spared that threatened “chapter o’ kattykism.”

Story 1-Chapter XVIII.

An Angry Admirer

For the first time in her life, Lena Rook saw Alfred Brandon approach her father’s house without a feeling of pain or repulsion.