_CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT_
He brought Glani to a halt. They had left the sight of the meadow,though they could still hear the snorting of the oxen at their labor, adistant sound. Here, on one side of the road, the forest tumbled backfrom a swale of ground across which a tiny stream leaped and flashedwith crooked speed, and the ground seemed littered with bright gold, soclosely were the yellow wild flowers packed.
"Two days ago," said David, "they were only buds. See them now!"
He slipped from his horse and, stooping, rose again in a moment with hishands full of the yellow blossoms.
"They have a fragrance that makes them seem far away," he said. "See!"
He tossed the flowers at her; the wind caught them and spangled her hairand her clothes with them, and she breathed a rare perfume. David fellto clapping his hands and laughing like a child at the picture she made.She had never liked him so well as she did at this moment. She had neverpitied him as she did now; she was not wise enough to shrink from thatemotion.
"It was made for you--this place."
And before she could move to defend herself he had raised her strongly,lightly from the saddle, and placed her on the knoll in the thickest ofthe flowers. He stood back to view his work, nodding his satisfaction,and she, looking up at him, felt the old sense of helplessness sweepover her. Every now and then David Eden overwhelmed her like aninescapable destiny; there was something foredoomed about the valley andabout him.
"I knew you would look like this," he was saying. "How do men make ajewel seem more beautiful? They set it in gold! And so with you, Ruth.Your hair against the gold is darker and richer and more like piles andcoils of shadow. Your face against the gold is the transparent white,with a bloom in it. Your hands are half lost in the softness of thatgold. And to think that is a picture you can never see! But I forget."
His face grew dark.
"Here I have stumbled again, and yet I started with strong vows andresolves. My brother Benjamin warned me!"
It shocked her for a reason she could not analyze to hear the big mancall Connor his brother. Connor, the gambler, the schemer! And here wasDavid Eden with the green of the trees behind, his feet in the goldenwild flowers, and the blue sky behind his head. Brother to Ben Connor?
"And how did he warn you?" she asked.
"That I must not talk to you of yourself, because, he said, it shamesyou. Is that true?"
"I suppose it is," she murmured. Yet she was a little indignant becauseConnor had presumed to interfere. She knew he could only have done it tosave her from embarrassment, but she rebelled at the thought of Connoras her conversational guardian.
Put a guard over David of Eden, and what would he be? Just like a scoreof callow youths whom she had known, scattering foolish commonplaces,trying to make their dull eyes tell her flattering things which they hadnot brains enough to put into words.
"I am sorry," said David, sighing. "It is hard to stand here and seeyou, and not talk of what I see. When the sun rises the birds sing inthe trees; when I see you words come up to my teeth."
He made a grimace. "Well, I'll shut them in. Have I been very wrong inmy talk to you?"
"I think you haven't talked to many women," said Ruth. "And--most men donot talk as you do."
"Most men are fools," answered the egoist. "What I say to you is thetruth, but if the truth offends you I shall talk of other things."
He threw himself on the ground sullenly. "Of what shall I talk?"
"Of nothing, perhaps. Listen!"
For the great quiet of the valley was falling on her, and the distancesover which her eyes reached filled her with the delightful sense ofsilence. There were deep blue mountains piled against the paler sky;down the slope and through the trees the river was untarnished, solid,silver; in the boughs behind her the wind whispered and then stopped tolisten likewise. There was a faint ache in her heart at the thought thatshe had not known such things all her life. She knew then what gave theface of David of Eden its solemnity. She leaned a little toward him."Now tell me about yourself. What you have done."
"Of anything but that."
"Why not?"
"No more than I want you to tell me about yourself and what you havedone. What you feel, what you think from time to time, I wish to know; Iam very happy to know. I fit in those bits of you to the picture I havemade."
Once more the egoist was talking!
"But to have you tell me of what you have done--that is not pleasant. Ido not wish to know that you have talked to other men and smiled onthem. I do not wish to know of a single happy day you spent before youcame to the Garden of Eden. But I shall tell you of the four men who aremy masters if you wish."
"Tell me of them if you will."
"Very well. John was the beginning. He died before I came. Of the othersMatthew was my chief friend. He was very old and thin. His wrist wassmaller than yours, almost. His hair was a white mist. In the eveningthere seemed to be a pale moonshine around his face.
"He was very small and old--so old that sometimes I thought he would dryup or dissolve and disappear. Toward the last, before God called him,Matthew grew weak, and his voice was faint, yet it was never sharp orshaken. Also, until the very end his eyes were young, for his heart wasyoung.
"That was Matthew. He was like you. He liked the silence. 'Listen,' hewould say. 'The great stillness is the voice; God is speaking.' Then hewould raise one thin finger and we caught our breath and listened.
"Do you see him?"
"I see him, and I wish that I had known him."
"Of the others, Luke was taller than I. He had yellow hair as long andas coarse as the mane of a yellow horse. When he rode around the lake wecould hear him coming for a great distance by his singing, for his voicewas as strong as the neigh of Glani. I have only to close my eyes, and Ican hear that singing of Luke from beside the lake. Ah, he was a hugeman! The horses sweated under him.
"His beard was long; it came to the middle of his belly; it had a greatblunt square end. Once I angered him. I crept to him when he slept--Iwas a small boy then--and I trimmed the beard down to a point.
"When Luke wakened he felt the beard and sat for a long time looking atme. I was so afraid that I grew numb, I remember. Then he went to theRoom of Silence. When he came out his anger was gone, but he punishedme. He took me to the lake and caught me by the heels and swung mearound his head. When he loosened his fingers I shot into the air like alight stone. The water flashed under me, and when I struck the surfaceseemed solid. I thought it was death, for my senses went out, but Lukewaded in and dragged me back to the shore. However, his beard remainedpointed till he died."
He chuckled at the memory.
"Paul reproved Luke for what he had done. Paul was a big man, also, buthe was short, and his bigness lay in his breadth. He had no hair, and hestood under Luke nodding so that the sun flashed back and forth on hisbald head. He told Luke that I might have been killed.
"'Better teach him sober manners now,' said Luke, 'than be a jester toknock at the gate of God.'
"This Paul was wonderfully silent. He was born unhappy and nothing couldmake him smile. He used to wander through the valley alone in the middleof winter, half dead with cold and eating nothing. In those times, evenLuke was not strong enough to make him come home to us.
"I know that for ten days at one time he had gone without speech. Forthat reason he loved to have Joseph with him, because Joseph understoodsigns.
"But when silence left him, Paul was great in speech. Luke spoke in aloud voice and Matthew beautifully, but Paul was terrible. He would fallon his knees in an agony and pray to God for salvation for us and forhimself. While he kneeled he seemed to grow in size. He filled the room.And his words were like whips. They made me think of all my sins. Thatis how I remember Paul, kneeling, with his long arms thrown over hishead.
"Matthew died in the evening just as the moon rose. He was sittingbeside me. He put his hand in mine. After a while I felt that the handwas cold, and when I looked at Mat
thew his head had fallen.
"Paul died in a drift of snow. We always knew that he had been on hisknees praying when the storms struck him and he would not rise until hehad finished the prayer.
"Luke bowed his head one day at the table and died without a sound--inspite of all his strength.
"All these men have not really died out of the valley. They are here,like mists; they are faces of thin air. Sometimes when I sit alone at mytable, I can almost see a spirit-hand like that of Matthew rise with ashadow-glass of wine.
"But shall I tell you a strange thing? Since you came into the valley,these mist-images of my dead masters grow faint and thinner than ever."
"You will remember me, also, when I have gone?"
"Do not speak of it! But yes, if you should go, every spring, when theseyellow flowers blossom, you would return to me and sit as you aresitting now. However you are young, yet there are ways. After Matthewdied, for a long time I kept fresh flowers in his room and kept hismemory fresh with them. But," he repeated, "you are young. Do not talkof death!"
"Not of death, but of leaving the Garden."
He stared gravely at her, and flushed.
"You are tormenting me as I used to torment my masters when I was a boy.But it is wrong to anger me. Besides I shall not let you go."
"Not _let_ me go?"
"Am I a fool?" he asked hotly. "Why should I let you go?"
"You could not keep me."
It brought him to his feet with a start.
"What will free you?"
"Your own honor, David."
His head fell.
"It is true. Yes, it is true. But let us ride on. I no longer am pleasedwith this place. It is tarnished; there are unhappy thoughts here!"
"What a child he is!" thought the girl, as she climbed into the saddleagain. "A selfish, terrible, wonderful child!"
It seemed, after that, that the purpose of David was to show thebeauties of the Garden to her until she could not brook the thought ofleaving. He told her what grew in each meadow and what could be reapedfrom it.
He told her what fish were caught in the river and the lake. He talkedof the trees. He swung down from Glani, holding with hand and heel, andpicked strange flowers and showed them to her.
"What a place for a house!" she said, when, near the north wall, theypassed a hill that overlooked the entire length of the valley.
"I shall build you a house there," said David eagerly. "I shall build itof strong rock. Would that make you happy? Very tall, with great rooms."
An impish desire to mock him came to her.
"Do you know what I'm used to? It's a boarding house where I live in alittle back bedroom, and they call us to meals with a bell."
The humor of this situation entirely failed to appeal to him.
"I also," he said, "have a bell. And it shall be used to call you todinner, if you wish."
He was so grave that she did not dare to laugh. But for some reason thatmoment of bantering brought the big fellow much closer to her than hehad been before. And when she saw him so docile to her wishes, for allhis strength and his mastery, the only thing that kept her from openingher heart to him, and despising the game which she and Connor wereplaying with him, was the warning of the gambler.
"I've heard a young buck talk to a young squaw--before he married her.The same line of junk!"
Connor must be right. He came from the great city.
But before that ride was over she was repeating that warning very muchas Odysseus used the flower of Hermes against the arts of Circe. For theGarden of Eden, as they came back to the house after the circuit, seemedto her very much like a little kingdom, and the monarch thereof wasinviting her in dumb-show to be the queen of the realm.