Read Ebook: The Master-Knot of Human Fate by Meredith Ellis

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Ebook has 387 lines and 24534 words, and 8 pages

It took some time to capture the wounded animals, bind up their hurts, and get them down the pathway leading to the beach. For there was a beach, the best one they had found on the Eastern coast, and as they put the goat and her kids down in the grass, Adam said tentatively, "If you are not afraid, I can go home and get the horses and the sleds. It isn't a great way, and I believe I can be back in three hours,--I'm sure I can if the beach goes as close to our park as I think."

Robin acquiesced, and as soon as he was gone began gathering driftwood. When she had quite a little heap she made a fire with the coals they carried in the pot. It is doubtless more romantic to build a fire by striking flint rocks together, but a pot of coals has its uses in a matchless universe. Then she found a long, stout club, and put one end in the fire, where it smouldered sullenly.

"There now," she said conclusively, "if my bear acquaintance calls, I will present him with 'the red flower.' I didn't learn the 'Jungle Books' by heart for nothing."

Meanwhile Adam was striding over the beach at a rate that brought him to the little cove and the high wall of rocks that shut them in on the south in a little over an hour. Two of the pups had gone with him, and they raced on ahead, as he came in sight of the house. Everything seemed to have an air of welcome, and the horses whinnied joyfully when he called them from the gateway.

The pathetic placard was still there, and he crumpled it in his hand, and went in and opened the windows. He milked one of the cows, and gathering some green stuff in the garden started back with the team and the sleds. Once down the steep decline, and over the rocks at the south, they went on rapidly.

Although he had wasted no time, it was past one o'clock when he saw her familiar figure afar off. She hurried to meet him. They had not been separated so long before that year, and realized the unconscious strain in the sudden revulsion. They said nothing of this, however, though they clasped hands for a moment. Then Robin spoke to the horses, and stroked their necks, as they bent their heads and rubbed against her affectionately.

She had spread their table on a broad, flat rock, but before they had their own meal, she warmed some of the milk, and they gave the kids their first lesson in drinking out of a bucket. Afterward it took but a few moments to strike camp. The burros were already packed, and the goat with her kids, all hobbled, were placed in the sled, and the cavalcade started on its way.

Cling to thy home! If there the meanest shed Yield thee a hearth and a shelter for thy head, And some poor plot, with vegetables stored, Be all that Heaven allots thee for thy board, Unsavory bread, and herbs that scatter'd grow Wild on the river-brink, or mountain-brow; Yet e'en this cheerless mansion shall provide More heart's repose than all the world beside.

LEONIDAS.

"Do you know, Adam," said Robin, when they had walked a mile in silence, "do you know that you are a fraud?"

"Well, yes," he responded, "but I didn't know you knew it. Is the discovery recent?"

"Never mind about dates, but tell me why you didn't use the rifle instead of the lariat? What did you take it for?"

"I took it for your peace of mind. I didn't use it for several good and substantial and sentimental reasons. To reverse them, this last year I have grown to understand your horror of killing things. We have done very well without sacrificing any of our dependents; in fact, it would seem like murder to slaughter the animals about us. And it's such a little world it seems a pity to kill off any of its inhabitants. To tell the truth, I hope the bear got away all right. This is maudlin, I know, but I don't want my hand first to bring death on all there is left of earth. Incidentally,--there are no cartridges."

He stopped the horses, while Robin readjusted the kids to make them more comfortable, and took the lame one in her arms, then they moved on.

Presently she said, "I am so glad of these kids!"

There was so much enthusiasm in her voice that Adam laughed and asked why, and she answered:--

"Like you, I have sound and sentimental reasons. The sound one is that we shall need their fleece unless,--why, goodness gracious, Adam, there is a baking-powder can of flax in the dresser, and I never thought till this moment that we can plant it."

"True," answered Adam, "but given flax or fleece, what would you do with it?"

"Spin it," she answered sententiously. "Of course you think I can't, but it happens that I once lived, when I was a little girl, very near to an old woman. I don't refer to her age, but her ideas. She carded and spun and wove and dyed all the family clothing. She made her own soap and wouldn't have a stove in the house. She had eight children, too, and they all of them turned out badly. I used to go there off and on; I think she looked on me as a kind of sinful amusement. Anyhow, she told me the world was going to ruin, and the women were poor 'doless' creatures, who couldn't spin a hank of yarn, or gin a pound of cotton, or heel a sock. She shook her head over me when she found I couldn't knit, but she set a garter for me at once, and during the seven or eight years that I went by her door on my way to school she taught me all those marvelous accomplishments. I daresay I have forgotten them."

"What are the sentimental reasons?" asked Adam.

She looked at the kid as it nestled against her shoulder.

"I have a fancy," she said, "that Nannette and her children are going to minister to a mind diseased, and help pluck a rooted sorrow from the brain. The world was getting too healthy. Has it ever struck you that we have neither of us been sick for a day this year? I have had to mother the chickens, but there has been no suffering. I'm not glad to have pain come into the world, but it is good to be able to alleviate it. We will put Nannette in a sling till her leg has a chance to set, and by the time it is well she won't want to leave us. As for the kids, I expect they will be like the plague of frogs, and we shall find them in our beds and our ovens and our kneading troughs. Oh, Adam, there is the house! Doesn't it look dear and homey?"

She put the kid back on the sled, and ran on, pointing out this and that, the growth of the corn, the afternoon radiance, till they reached their doorway. Then there were a thousand things to do. First Nannette was made comfortable in the stable; then the chickens were summoned to a meal of yellow corn, and when Lassie drove the cows into the barnyard, each was congratulated in turn upon her calf, and those interesting, if wobbly, bovine infants were carefully inspected. After supper they sat down before the fire, very tired, but the nearest happy they had been in a year. The dogs were lying about them, and the thump, thump of first one tail and then another told the story of canine content, while the kittens walked over them impartially.

"What a strange thing human nature is!" Adam said. "The only thing needed to make our life perfect is that it shall not last. The moment, if that moment ever comes, when it is real no more, it will become ideal."

"I know," she said dreamily. "Things in the world used to be too good to be true. This must cease to be, to be good at all."

Yet if Hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none. Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.

POE.

"It is the first of May," said Adam. "It is a year ago to-day. Shall we pass the gateway?"

"Not now," answered Robin. "Wait till afternoon. I am so busy this morning."

She was sitting at the table teaching half a dozen little chickens to appreciate hard-boiled egg. The wounded kid was lying in her lap, one arm was about it, and an adventurous kitten looked over her shoulder. As she tapped on the board with one slender forefinger, the chickens, hearing their mother's bill, began picking up the fragments of egg. She had rounded out wonderfully in a year, and Adam realized for the first time that she was a very beautiful woman.

"Suppose," she went on, "you begin your book to-day. Write your description of a year ago. It will never be so plain again. There is plenty of time before we go. Besides, if it is a dream, we shall want the written record to show what dreams may come."

Adam hesitated a moment, then went to his desk. She had said truly, the events of that day would never again be so clear, and as he began to record them they marshaled themselves before him, until he found himself writing with a dramatic power that fascinated and amazed him.

It must have been some time afterward that Robin stole in and set a glass of milk, some biscuit and strawberries, down on the desk beside him and then went out, taking the dogs with her. He did not notice another sound until she called him to supper.

While he did the evening work Robin dressed herself in the garments she had worn the year before. As soon as she could make others she had put them aside, awaiting the awakening or the rescue.

The heavy cloth skirt and the silk waist were put on with a strange reluctance. Years ago the old doctor in "The Guardian Angel" said our china became our tombstones, but surely our garments may become the graveyards of our emotions, and hold sharp or sweet remembrances long after they are past wearing. In spite of some tan Robin found the face that looked back at her from her mirror infinitely more attractive than it had been the year before.

Adam started a little when he saw her. Then he drew her hand through his arm, and they went to the gateway. As he opened the gate she turned and looked back. The sun was behind the mountains, and the shadows were long and dark. They heard the sounds of the various creatures settling into quiet for the night, and Adam sent back all the dogs but Lassie. They went slowly and wistfully. Robin stooped and kissed Prince on his white forehead. As Adam closed the gate, she said half fearfully, "Shall we ever see them again?" But he did not answer. He took her hand and led her to the boulder.

Far as the eye could reach they saw what they expected to see. Half a mile away the sea rolled in on a tolerably level beach; here it thundered and roared against a sheer cliff. Among the rocks they could see the nests of many wild-fowl, and gulls flew by them. They sat down on the rock and waited until midnight. Then they went home. The dogs received them obstreperously, and the kid from its corner bleated faintly. Robin bent over it anxiously, then warmed some milk and fed it. When Adam came in with some fresh water she was swinging slowly to and fro in the rocker, singing softly an absurd nursery song:--

"Sleep, baby, sleep. The stars they are the sheep; The big moon is the shepherdess; The little stars are the lambs, I guess. Sleep, baby, sleep."

"It needed to be cuddled," she said in as matter-of-fact a voice as if all lambs were sung to sleep regularly. "You know dear old Professor Carter said there would have been no wild animals if we hadn't made them so; but now, if you will, you can put her with Nannie."

When he came back she had gone into her room. There was nothing more for either of them to say. There was nothing to do, except to hope for a sail, since they no longer hoped for an awakening.

Speech is but broken light upon the depth Of the unspoken.

GEORGE ELIOT.

The work on the book progressed rather slowly. Often Adam had to refer to Robin when his memory was at fault. At first she had gone away, to leave him alone with his work, but as he referred to her more frequently, she sat with him, sewing while he wrote, a frame of morning-glories back of her, or reading with the keen enjoyment of one who renews a pleasure long foregone. When he seemed to be going on smoothly, she sometimes stole away and gave herself up to long hours with her violin.

One afternoon she tapped on his casement. His work was lagging, and he rose gladly and went out with her. They walked up the path and through the gateway to their boulder, and sat down.

"Talk to me," said Adam.

She shook her head. "About what, most worshipful seigneur? For I am but a worm of the dust before thee, and all my tales are of the homely tasks of baking and brewing. Naught is there worthy to be set down in thy book." Then, with a sudden change of manner, "Oh, Adam, there are eighteen new chickens to-day! The Plymouth Rock hen stole a nest, and they came off this morning. And there is some news too. The flax is in bloom. It is so pretty."

"When do you expect to weave your first linen?" asked Adam.

"Oh, I don't know, but it is good to know there will be some to weave. Do you remember Andersen's story of the flax? I was thinking of it this morning as I pulled out some weeds, and how when it was pulled up and cut and hackled, it said: 'One cannot always have good times. One must make one's experience, and so one comes to know something;' and when it is woven and cut up and made into garments, it still says, 'If I have suffered something, I have been made into something. I am happiest of all. That is a real blessing. Now I shall be of some use in the world, and that is right, that is a true pleasure.'"

"If one only knew he was to be of some use," Adam said wearily; "if we could see the justification of our suffering."

"Then we should be as gods," answered Robin. "I like the song of the flax, 'content, content;' and when the linen is worn out, it is again tortured and beaten until it becomes paper whereon an eternal word is written. I used to wonder why Andersen was given to children; not that I wouldn't have them read him, but he is one of the profound thinkers of the world. No one had Andersen clubs, or professed to find deep and wonderful esoteric truths in his stories, but they are there. Do you remember my girls' club down on--I don't think there were any streets, but the inhabitants called the place 'Kerry Patch'?"

"Why, no," said Adam, "I didn't know you had one; why didn't you tell me?"

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