Silas Strong 40

Silas Strong 40

"Silas Strong--speak t' me. I can't--I can't spare ye nohow--I can't

spare ye."

 

The children knelt by her and called with frightened voices: "Uncle

Silas! Uncle Silas!" Strong began to move. Those beloved voices had

seemed to call him back. He put his hand on the head of Sinth and drew

it close to him.

 

"B-better times!" he whispered. "B-better times, I tell ye, s-sis!"

 

He struggled to his knees.

 

"S-say," he said to Master, "I've been shot. T-tie yer

han'kerchief r-round my arm quick." The young man tied his handkerchief

as directed. Then Strong tried to rise, but his weight bore him down.

 

"Lie still," said Master. "I can carry you." He took the rope from Zeb's

collar and looped it over the breast of the helpless man and drew its

ends under his arms and knotted them. Then, while Sinth supported her

brother, the young man reached backward over his shoulders and, grasping

the rope, lifted his friend so their backs were against each other, and,

leaning under his burden, struggled on with it, the others following.

 

It was a toilsome, painful journey to Harris's. But what is impossible

when the strong heart of youth, warmed with dauntless courage, turns

to its task? We that wonder as we look backward may venture to put the

query, but dare not answer it.

 

Often Master fell to his knees and there steadied himself a moment with

heaving breast, then tightened his thews again and rose and measured the

way with slow, staggering feet.

 

An hour or so later a clear-voiced call rang through the noisy wind.

They stopped and listened.

 

"Somebody coming," said Master.

 

He answered with, a loud halloo as they went on wearily. Soon they saw

some one approaching in the dusky trail.

 

"Who's there?" the young man asked.

 

"Edith Dunmore," was the answer that trembled with gladness. "Oh, sir! I

would have gone through the fire."

 

"I know," said he, "you would have gone through the fire."

 

"For--for you," she added, brokenly.

 

Master dared not lay down his burden. He toiled on, his heart so full

that he could not answer. The girl walked beside him for a moment of

solemn, suggestive silence. She could dimly see the prostrate body of

Strong on the back of her lover, and understood. What a singular and

noble restraint was in that meeting!

 

"I love you--I love you, and I want to help you," she said, as she

walked beside him.

 

"Help Miss Strong," he answered. "She is badly burned."

 

Little Sue was overcome with weariness and fear, and could not be

comforted.

 

The maiden carried her with one arm and with the other supported Sinth.

So, slowly, they made their way over the rough trail.

 

"How came you here?" Master inquired, presently.

 

"We saw the fire coming and hurried to Slender Lake, and fled in boats

and came down the river."

 

When, late in the night, the little band of lovers reeled across the

dimlit clearing, it was in sore distress. Their feet dragged, their

hearts and bodies stooped with heaviness. A company of woods-folk, who

stood in front of Harris's looking off at the fire, ran to meet them.

They lifted the dragging Emperor and helped the young man carry him

in-doors. Master was no sooner relieved of his burden than he fell

exhausted on the floor.

 

Edith Dunmore knelt by him and raised his hands to her lips. She helped

him rise, and then for a moment they stood and trembled in each other's

arms, and were like unto the oak and the vine that clings to it.

 

Dunmore and his mother stood looking at them. The white-haired man had

taken the children in his arms.

 

"I thought she went to bed and to sleep long ago," he muttered.

 

"Without her we should have perished," said the old lady. .

 

"Yes, and she shall have her way," he answered. "One might as well try

to keep the deer out of the lily-pads." He kissed the boy and girl, and

added, with a sigh, "This world is for the young."

 

 

 

 

XXXVI

 

ALL stood aghast for a moment in the light of the lamps around the bed

of Strong. His clothes were burned, bloody, and torn--they lay in rags

upon him. His face and hands were swollen; part of his hair and beard

had been shorn off in the storm of fire through which he had fought his

way. He spoke not, but there was the grim record of his fight with

the flames--of the terrible punishment they had put upon him while the

sturdy old lover sought his friends. All hands made haste to do what

they could for him and for the woman he had carried out of the fire of

the pit.

 

He had told Master that Annette was waiting for him at the Falls. The

young man sent Harris to bring her with horse and buckboard.

 

Strong lay like one dead while they gave him spirits and bathed his face

and hands in oil. Soon he revived a little.

 

"It's Business," he muttered.

 

In a moment his thoughts began to wander in a curious delirium filled

with suggestions of the old cheerfulness. He sang, feebly:

 

"The briers are above my head, the brakes above

 

my knee,

 

An' the bark is gettin' kind o' blue upon the ven'son-

 

tree."

 

Rain had begun falling and daylight was on the window-panes.

 

The dethroned Emperor continued to sing fragments of old songs so

familiar to all who knew him.

 

"It was in the summer-time when I sailed, when I

 

sailed,"

 

he sang. Socky stood by the bed of his uncle with a sad face.

 

"Th-thumbs down," Strong demanded, faintly. Master went out on the

little veranda and looked down the road. He could hear the voice of his

friend singing:

 

"The green groves are gone from the hills, Maggie."

 

"It is true," thought the young man as he looked off at the smouldering

woods. "They are gone and so are the green hearts."

 

Annette came presently and Strong rose on his elbow and looked at her.

 

"Ann," he called, as she knelt by his bedside. "To-day--to-day! It's

n-no' some day any m-more. It's to-day."

 

He sank back on his pillow when he saw her tears, and whispered, almost

doubtfully, "Better t-times!"

 

He leaned forward and put up his hands as if to relieve the pressure of

his pack-straps, and in a moment he had gone out of hearing on a

trail that leads to the "better times" he had hoped for, let us try to

believe.

 

So ends the history of Silas Strong, guide, contriver, lover of the

woods and streams, of honor and good-fellowship. He was never to bow his

head before the dreaded tyrant of this world. We may be glad of that,

and remember gratefully and with renewed thought of our own standing

that Strong was ahead.

 

A curious procession made its way out of the woods that morning. Socky

and Sue walked ahead. Master and Edith and her father followed. Then

came the boat-jumper with Sinth and all that remained of Silas Strong in

it; then the buckboard that carried Harris and old Mrs. Dunmore and the

servants. Slowly they made their way towards the sown land.

 

"What ye cryin' fer?" a stranger asked the children as he passed them.

 

"Our Uncle Silas died," was the all-sufficient reply of Socky.

 

Soon they could hear the roar of the saws.

 

"Look!" said Dunmore to his daughter, as they came in sight of the mill

chimney. "There's the edge of the great world."

 

He looked thoughtfully at the children a moment and added:

 

"It all reminds me of the words of a mighty teacher, 'A little child

shall lead them.'"

 

And what of Migley and the rest? Word of his harshness in driving Sinth

and the children out of their home had travelled over the land, and

not all the king's money could have saved him. Master went to the

Legislature--where God prosper him!--and the young lumberman was

condemned to obscurity.

 

Master and Edith live at Clear Lake most of the year, and the cranes

have brought them a young fairy regarded by Socky and Sue, who often

visit there, with deep interest and affection. Sinth will spend the rest

of her days, probably, in the home of Gordon at Benson Falls.

 

As to Annette, like many daughters of the Puritan, she lives with a

memory, and her hope is still and all in that "some day," gone now into

the land of faith and mystery.

 

The once beautiful valley of Rainbow was turned into black ruins that

night of the fire. Soon a "game pirate," who had "blabbed" in a spree,

was arrested for the crime of causing it. The authorities promised to