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Place Beyond The Winds

<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> Life settled into calm after the storm and subsequent happenings. Mary McAdam, having done what she felt she must do, grimly set her house in order and prepared for a new career. The bar, cleansed and altered, became her private apartment. With the courage and endurance of a martyr she determined to fight her battle out where there would be the least encouragement or comfort. "I'll drink to the dregs," she said to Mary Terhune, who gave up her profession to share the solitude and fortunes of the White Fish; "but while I'm drinking there's no crime in serving my kind. Come summer I'll open my doors to tourists and keep the kind of house a woman—and a God-bepraised widow one at that—should keep. Time was when the best would not come to me, the bar being against their liking. Well, the best may come now and find peace." "'Tis a changed woman you are, Mrs. McAdam." "No, just a stricken one, Mary. When I sit by those empty graves back of the pasture lot I seem to know that I must do the work of my boys as well as my own—and the time's short! I'm over sixty." "And looking forty, Mrs. McAdam." The manners of her trade clung to Mrs. Terhune. "The shell doesn't count, Mary, if the heart of you is old and worn." The people from the Far Hill Place returned early to town that year, and Anton Farwell breathed easier and sunk back into his old life when he knew they were gone. In resurrecting the man Farwell once was, Ledyard had all but slain the man he had, perforce, become. Whether former characteristics were dead or not, who could tell? But certainly with temptation removed, with the routine of a bleak, uninteresting existence his only choice, Farwell was a harmless creature. Gradually he had found solace in the commonplaces that surrounded him. Like a person relieved of mortal agony he was grateful for semi-invalidism. Previous to Ledyard's recognition of him he had sunk to a monotonous indifference, waiting, he realized now, for the time when he might safely shake off his disguise and slip away to what was once his own. Now, with his exit from Kenmore barred, he found that he no longer could return to his stupor; he was alert, keen, and restless. In the past he had often forced himself to exercise in order that he might be ready to journey on when the time of release came. His walks to the distant town, his long hours on the water, had all been preparations for the final leave-taking from his living tomb. But now that he had no need of lashing himself into action, he found himself always on the move. He worked early and late at trifling tasks that occupied his hands while sharpening his wits. With shades drawn at night, he drew, with pencil and paper, plans of escape. He must choose a calm spell after a storm; he would take his launch, with a rowboat behind, to the Fox Portage. He'd set his launch free and shoulder his boat. Once he reached the Little Bay, he'd take his chances for an outgoing steamer. He'd have plenty of money and a glib story of a bad connection. It would go. He must defeat Ledyard. Then he would tear the sheets of paper in bits, toss them on the coals, and laugh bitterly as he realized that he was imprisoned forever. Foolish as all this was, it had its effect upon the man. He played with the thought as a child might play with a forbidden toy. Then he decided to test the matter. He would have to buy clothes and provisions for the winter—he always made a pilgrimage about this time. There would be a letter from Boswell, too. There always was one in September. So on a certain morning Farwell turned the key in his lock and quite naturally set forth with a sense of exaltation and freedom he had imagined he would never feel again. Followed by his dogs, he went to his boat, which happened just then to be tied at the ricketty dock of the White Fish. "It's off for a tramp you are, maybe?" asked Mrs. McAdam from her doorway. "God keep you, Mr. Farwell, and bring you back safe and sound." At this Farwell paused. "I think I'll leave the dogs behind," he said. "I may wish to hurry back, and a brace of dogs, keen on scents and full of spirits, is a handicap on a journey." "Sure I'll feed and care for the two, and welcome, and if their staying behind brings you quicker home, 'tis a good piece of work I'm doing for Kenmore." With this Mary McAdam came down to the boat and looked keenly at Farwell. "Are you well?" she asked with a gentleness new and touching. "'Tis pale you look, and thin, I'm thinking. I'm getting to depend upon you, and the thought of anything happening to you grieves the heart of me. In all Kenmore there's no one as I lean on like you. There be nights when I look out toward your house and see your light a-shining when all else is dark, and say to myself, 'The master and me' over and over, and I'm less lonely." For a moment Farwell could not speak. Once an inward desire to laugh, to scoff, would have driven him to supernatural gravity; now he merely smiled with grave pleasure, and said: "A tramp will do me good, Mrs. McAdam. Thank you. I'll take your words with me for comfort and cheer." The first night Farwell slept beside his fire, not ten miles from Kenmore. He had revelled in his freedom all day, had played like a boy, often retracing his steps, carefully using the same footprints, and laughing as he imagined the confusion of any one trying to follow him; the vague somebody being always Ledyard. After a frugal meal, Farwell smoked his pipe, even attempted a snatch of rollicking song, then, rolling himself in a blanket, fell into natural and happy slumber. At four he awoke with the creeping sensation of unexplainable fear. He first thought some animal was prowling near, and, raising himself on his elbow, looked keenly about. The appearance of the fire puzzled him. It looked as if fresh wood had been laid upon it, but, as no one was in sight he concluded that his own wood had been damp, and, therefore, had burned slower. He did not sleep again, however, and his excited thoughts trailed back to his past and the one woman who had magically caught and held all the best that was in him. To what point of vantage had she, poor, disabled little soul, drifted? The world was a hard enough place for a woman, God knew, and for her, with her sudden-born determination to rise above the squalor of her early youth, it would be a serious problem. Boswell told him so little. He could count on his fingers the few sharp facts his friend had given him with the promise that if conditions changed he should know, but if all remained well, he might be secure in his faith and hope for the future. The future! Was there any future for him except Kenmore? And if she heard now that he was alive, had only seemed dead for her safety and his own, would she come to him and share the dun-coloured life of the In-Place? She was alive; she was faithful. Boswell was making her comfortable with Farwell's money. She was accepting less and less because she was winning her way to independence in an honourable line. Since no man had entered her life after Farwell's death was reported, Farwell could readily see why. Over and over, that first night in the woods, Farwell rehearsed these facts for comfort's sake. Suppose he made an escape. Suppose he lost himself in the city's labyrinth—what then? And then, just at daybreak, a vivid and sharp memory of the woman's face came to him as he had last seen it pressed against the bars of his cell. Behind the squares of metal it shone like an angel's. Fair, pitiful, wonder-filled eyes, and quivering mouth. All day the picture haunted him and seemed to draw him toward it. He walked twenty miles that day and came at sunset to a dense jungle where he made his camp and stretched himself exhaustedly before the fire. Sleep did not come easily to him; he was too excited and nerve worn. The white face checked by iron bars would not fade, and in the red glow of the flames it began to look wan and haggard, as if the day had tired it and it could find no rest or comfort. The feeling of suffocation Ledyard had managed to create, returned to him. He grew nervous, ill at ease, and fearful. Then he fell to moralizing. He was not often given to that, or introspection. Longing and alternate hope and despair had been his comrades and bedfellows, but he rarely indulged in calm consideration. Smoking his pipe, stretched wearily on the moss, he wondered if men knew how much they punished while fulfilling their ideals of justice? "If only the sense of vindictiveness could be left out," he thought; "the Lord knows they have it all in their power once the key is turned on us. I deserved all they meant to inflict, but no human being deserves all that was given unconsciously." Then Farwell relived his life, while the wood crumbled to ashes and the moon came up over the hills. A misguided, misspent boyhood; too much money; too little common sense; then the fling in the open with every emotion and desire uncurbed. Well, he had to learn his lesson and God knew he had; but why, in the working of things, shouldn't one be given a chance to prove the well-learned task; an opportunity, while among the living, to settle the question? However, such fancies were idle, and Farwell shook the ashes from his pipe and gave a humorous shrug. It would be a fine piece of work to slip from the clutches of the past and make good! This idea caused him to tremble. Surely no one would look for him in the camp of the upright. Walking the paths of the clean and sane he would be more surely secure from detection than anywhere else on earth. That was what his past had done for him. The truth of this sank into the lonely man's soul with sickening finality. And as he realized it, and compared it with the fact of his youth, he groaned. What an infernal fool he had been! What fools all such fellows were who, like him, wasted everything in their determination to make the unreal, real. He did not now desire to be a drivelling repentant; he wanted, God knew he really wanted, a chance to be decent and live; but in order to live he must go on acting a part and cringing and hiding. These thoughts led nowhere and unfitted him for his journey, so he made the fire safe, lay down beside it, and slept as many a better man would have given much to sleep. At four he awoke as on the previous night. So quietly, however, did he open his eyes that he took by surprise a man crouching by the fire as if stealing a bit of warmth. Farwell turned over, and the two eyed each other with wide, penetrating gaze. Tough Pine, the guide, finding himself discovered, grinned sheepishly; he was loathing himself for being taken off guard, and muttered: "Me share fire? me helped keep it." Farwell raised himself on his elbow, all the light and courage gone from his face. It was the old story, the dream of freedom and—the prison bars! "Where are you going?" he asked, though he knew full well. "Where—you go? There, Pine go! Pine—good friend and good guide." They questioned each other no more. Farwell finished his errand in dull fashion, bought his goods, found a letter, long waiting him, read all the papers he could lay hands on, and then set his face toward Kenmore. And that winter he devoted himself as he never had before to the simple people who were the means of keeping him sane. Upon this newly restricted and devastated horizon Priscilla Glenn loomed large and vital. With Nathaniel's loosened rein and Theodora's restored faith, the girl developed wonderfully. Farwell made no more objection to her dancing or her flights of fancy. He fiddled for her and fed the flame of her imagination. She was the sunniest creature he had ever known; the bleak life of Lonely Farm had spurred her to greater lengths of self-defence; nothing could daunt her. She had an absorbing curiosity about life, out and beyond the Kenmore confines; and more to keep his own memory clear than to satisfy Priscilla, Farwell set himself to the task of educating the girl in ways that would have appalled Nathaniel and reduced Theodora again to tears and apprehension. The bare room of the master's house was the stage upon which were set, in turn, the scenes of distant city life. Vicariously Priscilla learned the manners of a "real lady" under the most trying circumstances. Farwell told her of plays, operas, and, over his deal table, they chatted in brilliant restaurants. They walked gay streets and stood bewildered before flashing shop windows. It was all dangerous, but fascinating, and in the playing of the game Farwell grew old and drawn, while Priscilla gradually came into her Heart's Desire of delight. "My Road!" she proudly thought. "My Road!" The old poem was recalled and was often repeated like a litany, while life became more and more vital and thrilling with dull Kenmore as a background and setting. Just about this time Jerry-Jo took to wearing his Sunday suit on week days, thus proclaiming his aspirations and awaking the ribald jests of his particular set. Mary Terhune, now partner of Mrs. McAdam, took note of Jerry-Jo's appearance, and, on a certain afternoon in midwinter, when she, Long Jean, and Mary McAdam sat by the range in the White Fish kitchen, fanned a lively bit of gossip into flame. "Trade's a bit poor these days, eh, Jean?" Jean grunted over her cup of green tea. "Not so many children born as once was, eh? What you make of it, Jean—the woman getting heady or—which?" Mary McAdam broke in. "What with poverty and the terrors of losing them, there's enough born to my thinking. Time was when the young 'uns happened; they're thought more on, these days. Women should have a say. If there's one thing a man should keep his tongue off it's this matter of families!" To this outrageous sentiment the listeners replied merely by two audible gulps of tea, and then Mary Terhune found grace to remark: "You certainly do talk most wonderful things, Mary McAdam. You be an ornament to your sex, but only such women as you can grip them audacious ideas. Let them be sowed broadcast and——" "Where would me, and such as me, be?" Long Jean muttered, defending her profession. Mrs. Terhune tactfully turned the conversation: "Have you noticed the change in Jerry-Jo McAlpin?" she asked with a mysterious shake of her head. "Any change for the better would be welcome," Mrs. McAdam retorted. "Have another cup, Jean? Strong or weak?" "Strong. I says often, says I, that unless tea curls your tongue you might just as well take water. When I'm on duty I keep a pot on the back of the stove week in and week out; it do brace me powerful." Mrs. McAdam poured the tea into the outstretched cup and proceeded to discuss Jerry-Jo. "Why doesn't the scamp go to the States and find himself instead of worrying old Jerry's very life out of him—the vampire!" "He may have it in his mind," soothed Mary Terhune, "but the lad's deep and far seeing like his Injun mother—beg pardon, Jean, the term's a compliment, God save me!" "You've saved your face, Mrs. Terhune. Go on!" Jean had begun to resent, but the explanation mollified her. "More tea," she said quietly, "and you might stir the dregs a mite, Mrs. McAdam; it's plain sinful to let the strength go to waste." "If I was Theodora Glenn," Mary Terhune went on, monotonously stirring the cold liquid in her cup, "I'd have my eye on that girl of hers." And now the ingredients were prepared for the mixing! "What's Priscilla Glenn got to do with Jerry-Jo McAlpin?" Mrs. McAdam asked sharply, fixing her little ferret eyes on the speaker. Long Jean bridled again and interjected: "And for why not? Young folks is young folks, and there ain't too many boys for the gels. What with the States and the toll to death, the gels can't be too particular, not casting my flings at Jerry-Jo, either. He's a handsome lad and will get a footing some day. Glenn's girl ain't none too good for him; he'd bring her to her senses. All that dancing and fiddle-scraping at Master Farwell's is not to my liking. The goings-on are evil-looking to my mind. The girl always was a parcel of whim-whams—made up of odds and ends, as it was, of her fore-runners. What all the children of the Glenns might have been—Priscilla is!" "So Jerry-Jo's fixed his bold eyes on the girl?" asked Mary McAdam. "It bodes no good for her. She's a sunny creature and mighty taking in her ways. I wish her no ill, and I hate to think of Jerry-Jo shadowing her life till she forgets to dance and sing. For my part, I wish the master were twenty-five years younger and could play for the lass to dance to the end of their days." "And a poor outlook for me!" grumbled Jean humorously. "Another cup of the tea, Mary Terhune, and make it stronger. I begin to feel the bitter in my toes." And while this talk and more like it was permeating Kenmore, Jerry-Jo, adorned and uncomfortable, did his own thinking and planned his own plans after the manner of his mixed inheritance. He could not settle to any task or give heed to any temptation from the States until he had made Priscilla secure. The girl's age in no wise daunted McAlpin. His eighteen years were all that were to be considered; he knew what he wanted, what he meant to have. He could wait, he could bide the fulfillment of his hopes, but one big, compelling subject at a time was all he could master. He secretly and furiously objected to the dancing and visits in Farwell's cottage. He was ashamed to voice this feeling, for Farwell was his friend and had taught him all he knew, but Farwell's age did not in the least blind Jerry-Jo to the fact that he was a man, and he did not enjoy seeing Priscilla so free and easy with any other of the male sex, be he ancient enough to topple into the grave. "She'll dance for me—for me!" the young fellow ground his teeth. "I'll make her forget to prance and grin unless she does it for me. The master's just training her away from me and putting notions in her head. I'll take her to the States—maybe her dancing will help us both there. I don't mean to drudge as Jamsie Hornby does! Better things for me!" Sex attraction swayed Jerry-Jo madly in those days and he thought it love, as many a better man had done before him. The blood of his mother controlled him largely and he wished that he might carry the girl off to his wigwam, and, at his leisure, with beads and blankets, or other less tangible methods, win her and conquer her. But present conditions held the boy in check and compelled him to adopt more modern tactics. He stole, when he couldn't beg, from his poor father all the money Jerry wrenched from an occasional day's work. With this he bought books for Priscilla, vaguely realizing that these would most interest her, but his selection often made her laugh. Piqued by her indifference, Jerry-Jo plotted a thing that led, later, to tragic results. Remembering the favour Priscilla had long ago shown for the book from Far Hill Place, he decided to utilize the taste of the absent owner, and the owner himself, for his own ends, not realizing that Priscilla had never connected the cripple Jerry-Jo had described, with the musician of the magic summer afternoon that had set her life in new currents. It was an easy matter to enter the Far Hill Place, and, where one was not troubled with conscience, a simple thing to select at random, but with economy, books from the well-filled shelves. These gifts presently found their way to Priscilla, cunningly disguised as mail packages. Inadvertently the very book Priscilla had once cried over came to her and touched her strangely. "Why should he send me these—send me this?" she asked Jerry-Jo, who had brought the package to her. "He always wanted you to have it. I told you that; he remembers, I suppose, and wants you to have it. He said it was more yours than his." To test her Jerry-Jo was hiding behind Travers. "I'd walk a hundred miles over the rock on bare feet to thank him," the girl replied, her big eyes shining. And with the words there entered into Jerry-Jo's distorted imagination a concrete and lasting jealousy of poor Dick Travers, who was innocent of any actual memory of Priscilla Glenn. Travers at that time was studying as few college men do, always with the spur of lost years and a big ambition lashing him on. During that winter the stolen books from the Far Hill Place caused Priscilla much wonderment and some little embarrassment. She had to keep them secret owing to her father's sentiment, and, for some reason, she did not confide in Farwell. This new and unexpected interest in her life was so foreign to anything with which the master had to do that she felt no inclination to share it. "But I cannot understand," she often said to Jerry-Jo. "I'd like to write to him. Do you think you could find out for me where he is? That he should even remember me! I would not have him think me so ungrateful as I must seem." She and Jerry-Jo were in the path leading to Lonely Farm from Kenmore as she spoke, and suddenly something the young fellow said brought her to a sharp standstill. "Oh! I suppose, after your cutting up in the woods that day he wants to make you remember him." This was an outburst that Jerry-Jo permitted himself without forethought. He was using Travers as an old tribeman might have used torture, to test his own bravery and endurance, but the effect upon Priscilla was so startling and unexpected that he fell back bewildered. "In—the—the—woods?" she gasped. "Sure. That time your father drove you home." For a full moment Priscilla stared helplessly, then she began to see light. "Do you mean," she gasped, "that he who made me dance—was the boy of the Hill Place?" "As if you did not know it!" Jerry-Jo grunted. "But Jerry-Jo you said he—that boy was a poor, twisted thing, ugly past all belief, while he who played and laughed that day was like an angel of light just showing me the way to heaven!" And now Jerry-Jo's dark face was not pleasant to look upon. "Can't a twisted thing become straight?" he muttered; "can't a devil trap himself out like an—an angel?" "Oh! Jerry-Jo, he who played for me in the woods could never have been evil. Why, all his life he had been making himself into something big and fine. He put into words the things I had always thought and dreamed about—an ideal was what he called it! And to think I never knew! And he remembered and wanted to be kind! I shall worship him now while I live. And when he comes back to the Hill Place I will go and thank him, even if my father should kill me. I shall never be happy until I can explain. What a stupid he must think me!" After that the secret became the sacredest thing in Priscilla's life and the most tormenting in Jerry-Jo's. They were both at ages when such an occurrence would appeal to a girl's sentimentality and a young man's hatred. The family did not return to the Hill Place for many summers, and only once during the following years did Priscilla's name pass Travers's lips. Apropos of something they were talking about he said to Helen Travers: "I wonder what has become of that little dancing dervish up in Canada? She wasn't plain, ordinary stuff, but I suppose she'll be knocked into shape. Maybe that half-breed, Jerry-Jo, will get her when she's been reduced to his level. There are not girls enough to go around up there, I fancy. That little thing, though, was too spiritual to be crushed and remodelled. As she danced that day, her scarlet cape flying out in the breeze, she looked like a living flame darting up from the red rock. And those awful words she uttered—poor little pagan! Jerry-Jo told me afterward what the lure of the States meant: it's a provincial expression. Mother, if the lure should ever control that girl of Lonely Farm I wish we might greet her, for safety's sake." But it was not likely that either of the Traverses for a moment conceived of the reality of Priscilla leaving the In-Place, and in time even the memory of her became blurred to Dick by the eternal verities of his strenuous young life. Gradually his lameness disappeared until a slight hesitation at times was all that remained. Five years of college, two abroad—one with Helen, one with Doctor Ledyard—and then Richard Thornton Travers (Helen had, when he went to college, insisted for the first time upon the middle name) hung out his modest sign—it looked brazenly glaring to him—under that of Thomas R. Ledyard, and nervously awaited the first call upon him. He was twenty-five when he started life, and Priscilla Glenn, back in forgotten Kenmore, was nearing nineteen, with Jerry-Jo in hot pursuit behind her. As to Anton Farwell, there was no doubt about his age now. Not even the very old called him young, and there was a pathos about him that attracted the attention of those with whom he had lived so long. "He looks haunted," Mary Terhune ventured; "he starts at times when one speaks sudden, real pitiful like. The look of his eyes, too, has the queer flash of them as sees forward as well as back. Do you mind, Mrs. McAdam, how 'tis said that them as comes nigh to drowning have a glimpse on before as well as the picture of all that has past?" "I've heard the same," nodded Mary McAdam. "Belike the master remembers and often looks to the end of his journey. Well, he's been a good harmless sort, as men go. He's kept the children out of trouble far more than one could expect, and he's been a merciful creature to humans and beasts. I wonder what he had in his life before he washed up from the La Belle?" All this seemed to end the discussion. Mary McAdam was an important personage about that time. The White Fish Lodge had become famous. Without bar or special privilege of any sort, the house was patronized by the best class of tourist. Mary was a born proprietress, and, while she extracted the last penny due her, always gave full value in return. She and Mary Terhune did the cooking; a bevy of clean, young Indian girls from Wyland Island served as waitresses and maids, their quaint, keen reserve was charming, and no better public house could have been found on the Little or Big Bay. Priscilla drifted to the Lodge as naturally as a flower turns to the sun. The easy-going people, the laughter and merriment appealed strongly to her, and again did she cause Jerry-Jo serious displeasure and arouse her father's lurking suspicions. "Watch her! watch her!" was his warning, and Theodora returned to her fears and tears. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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