The Eye of Dread. Erskine Payne

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СКАЧАТЬ here, your mother was my dearest friend. You never knew her, but I loved her–and her loss was much to me. Richard, why didn’t you consult us?”

      “I hadn’t any one but you and your husband to care. Oh, Aunt Hester loves me, of course, and is awfully good to me–but the Elder–I always feel somehow as if he expects me to go to the bad. He never had any use for my father, I guess. Was my father–was–he no good? Don’t mind telling me the truth: I ought to know.”

      “Your father was not so well known here, but he was, in Bertrand’s estimation, a royal Irish gentleman. We both liked him; no one could help it. Never think hardly of him.”

      “Why has he never cared for me? Why have I never known him?”

      “There was a quarrel–or–some unpleasantness between your uncle and him; it’s an old thing.”

      Richard’s lip quivered an instant, then he drew himself up and smiled on her, then he stooped and kissed her. “Some of us must go; we can’t let this nation be broken up. Some men must give their lives for it; and I’m one of those who ought to go, for I have no one to mourn for me. Half the class has enlisted.”

      “I venture to say you suggested it, too?”

      “Well–yes.”

      “And Peter Junior was the first to follow you?”

      “Well, yes! I’m sorry–because of Aunt Hester–but we always do pull together, you know. See here, let’s not think of it in this way. There are other ways. Perhaps I’ll come back with straps on my shoulders and marry Betty some day.”

      “God grant you may; that is, if you come back as you left us. You understand me? The same boy?”

      “I do and I will,” he said gravely.

      That was a happy hour they spent at the evening meal, and many an evening afterwards, when hardship and weariness had made the lads seem more rugged and years older, they spoke of it and lived it over.

      CHAPTER III

      A MOTHER’S STRUGGLE

      “Come, Lady, come. You’re slow this morning.” Mary Ballard drove a steady, well-bred, chestnut mare with whom she was on most friendly terms. Usually her carryall was filled with children, for she kept no help, and when she went abroad, she must perforce take the children with her or spend an unquiet hour or two while leaving them behind. This morning she had left the children at home, and carried in their stead a basket of fruit and flowers on the seat beside her. “Come, Lady, come; just hurry a little.” She touched the mare with the whip, a delicate reminder to haste, which Lady assumed to be a fly and treated as such with a switch of her tail.

      The way seemed long to Mary Ballard this morning, and the sun beating down on the parched fields made the air quiver with heat. The unpaved road was heavy with dust, and the mare seemed to drag her feet through it unnecessarily as she jogged along. Mary was anxious and dreaded the visit she must make. She would be glad when it was over. What could she say to the stricken woman who spent her time behind closed blinds? Presently she left the dust behind and drove along under the maple trees that lined the village street, over cool roads that were kept well sprinkled.

      The Craigmiles lived on the main street of the town in the most dignified of the well-built homes of cream-colored brick, with a wide front stoop and white columns at the entrance. Mary was shown into the parlor by a neat serving maid, who stepped softly as if she were afraid of waking some one. The room was dark and cool, but the air seemed heavy with a lingering musky odor. The dark furniture was set stiffly back against the walls, the floor was covered with a velvet carpet of rich, dark colors, and oil portraits were hung about in heavy gold frames.

      Mary looked up at two of these portraits with pride, and rebelled that the light was so shut out that they must always be seen in the obscurity, for Bertrand had painted them, and she considered them her husband’s best work. In the painting of them and the long sittings required the intimacy between the two families had begun. Really it had begun before that, for there were other paintings in that home–portraits, old and fine, which Elder Craigmile’s father had brought over from Scotland when he came to the new world to establish a new home. These paintings were the pride of Elder Craigmile’s heart, and the delight of Bertrand Ballard’s artist soul.

      To Bertrand they were a discovery–an oasis in a desert. One day the banker had called him in to look at a canvas that was falling to pieces with age, in the hope that the artist might have the skill to restore it. From that day the intimacy began, and a warm friendship sprang up between the two families, founded on Bertrand’s love for the old works of art, wherein the ancestors of Peter Craigmile, Senior, looked out from their frames with a dignity and warmth and grace rarely to be met with in this new western land.

      Bertrand’s heart leaped with joy as he gazed on one of them, the one he had been called on to save if possible. “This must be a genuine Reynolds. Ah! They could paint, those old fellows!” he cried.

      “Genuine Reynolds? Why, man, it is! it is! You are a true artist. You knew it in a moment.” Peter Senior’s heart was immediately filled with admiration for the younger man. “Yes, they were a good family–the Craigmiles of Aberdeen. My father brought all the old portraits coming to him to this country to keep the family traditions alive. It’s a good thing–a good thing!”

      “She was a beautiful woman, the original of that portrait.”

      “She was a great beauty, indeed. Her husband took her to London to have it done by the great painter. Ah, the Scotch lasses were fine! Look at that color! You don’t see that here, no?”

      “Our American women are too pale, for the most part; but then again, your men are too red.”

      “Ah! Beef and red wine! Beef and red wine! With us in Scotland it was good oatcakes and home-brew–and the air. The air of the Scotch hills and the sea. You don’t have such air here, I’ve often heard my father say. I’ve spent the greater part of my life here, so it’s mostly the traditions I have–they and the portraits.”

      Thus it came about that owing to his desire to keep up the line of family portraits, Peter Craigmile engaged the artist to paint the picture of his gentle, sweet-faced wife. She was painted seated, a little son on either side of her; and now in the dimness she looked out from the heavy gold frame, a half smile playing about her lips, on her lap an open book, and about the low-cut crimson velvet bodice rare old lace pinned at the bosom with a large brooch of wrought gold, framing a delicately cut cameo.

      As Mary Ballard sat in the parlor waiting, she looked up in the dusky light at this picture. Ah, yes! Her Bertrand also was a great painter. If only he could be where he might become known and appreciated! She sighed for another reason, also, as she regarded it: because the two little sons clasped by the mother’s arms were both gone. Sunny-haired Scotch laddies they were, with fair, wide brows, each in kilt and plaid, with bare knees and ruddy cheeks. What delight her husband had taken in painting it! And now the mother mourned unceasingly the loss of those little sons, and of one other whom Mary had never seen, and of whom they had no likeness. It was indeed hard that the one son left them,–their firstborn,–their hope and pride, should now be going away to leave them, going perhaps to his death.

      The door opened and a shadow swept slowly across the room. Always pale and in black–wrapped in her mourning the shadow of sorrow never left this mother; and now it seemed to envelop even Mary Ballard, bright and warm of nature as she was.

      Hester Craigmile barely smiled as she held out her slender, blue-veined hand.

      “It СКАЧАТЬ