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CHAPTER XXVIII

Down-stairs the woman was moving about her work, stopping now and then for a moment to listen to the sounds overhead.

"Why don't they get to bed and to sleep!" she muttered at length with an oath. "Bill and the boys must be sharp set for their supper and will come in most ready to take my head off. 'Tain't no fault o' mine, but that'll not make no difference. Well, I'll call 'em anyhow, for them fellers ain't comin' down agin to-night."

So saying she set her light in the window and hurried her culinary operations, for she was getting ready a second and more plentiful meal than the one she had set before the travellers.

Ere many moments four men, great broad-shouldered, brawny, rough looking fellows, on whose faces ignorance, vice and cruelty were plainly stamped, came creeping stealthily in at the open door.

"Well, old girl, what have you bagged?" asked the eldest, in whom we recognize Bill Shark, the confederate of Brannon and Lyttleton. "I conclude it's somethin', since we've been kept a starvin' till this time o' night."

His tone, though suppressed, was savage, and his look angry and sullen.

She held up a warning finger.

"Hush-sh-sh! they're up and awake yit. More quiet, boys. Let up now, and go to work. The vittles is all on table."

"Are ye a goin' to tell me what I asked?" demanded her husband in a fierce undertone, as he sat down and began helping himself liberally to the smoking viands, but looking more at her than at them.

"It's him," she answered, with a slight chuckle; "and he's as nice lookin' and soft spoken a chap as ever you see."

"An' what o' that?" sneered one of the sons. "His purty face ain't a goin' to save him."

"Maybe not, Abner; but I'm afeard they're too strong fur ye."

"How many?"

"Six, countin' the nigger, and one on 'em's Tom Johnson."

This announcement was received with a volley of oaths and curses, not loud but deep, Bill adding:

"He'll count two at least."

"The other two fellers'll have to come and lend a hand whether or no," said Abner gloomily. "Don't you let 'em off, dad. With them and Brannon we'll be seven. And if we come on 'em asleep, why, we'll not have such hard work, I take it."

"Time they were asleep now. How long since they went up there?"

There was an angry gleam in Bill's eyes as he turned them upon his wife.

"Long enough to have got to sleep twic't over, I should think. But they hain't done it. Hark! they're a movin' about, and talkin' too, I believe."

"Then you didn't mind my orders, and ought to be licked."

A volley of oaths followed, and he half rose from his chair and seized her by the arm.

But his sons interfered.

"Are you mad, old man?" pulling him back into his seat; "we'll not have a ghost of a chance if you kick up a row now."

He yielded, though with an ill grace, and the woman, not in the least disconcerted by his brutal behavior, said in her ordinary tone, as she replenished his empty cup:

"'Twasn't no fault o' mine, Bill; I'd a drugged 'em, every one, if that nigger would a took his eyes off o' me for a single moment; but it did beat all, the way he watched me back and forad and all the time. I hadn't the least mite of a chance."

This explanation seemed to appease the man's wrath, and the meal was concluded without further disturbance.

A whispered consultation followed; then two of the younger ruffians went out and plunged into the forest in the direction from whence they had come.

At no very great distance they came out upon a little clearing where stood a tiny cabin, roughly but strongly built of unhewn logs, no window save an aperture scarce a foot square near the roof, and the one door, of solid oak planks, furnished with heavy bolts and bars upon the outside.

This was the prison intended by Lyttleton for the safe keeping of Clendenin, the man to whom he owed his life.

Heretofore it had been used by the Sharks as a depository for their ill-gotten gains.

Near at hand, but concealed from view by the thick undergrowth, the Englishman and his valet lay sleeping upon the ground, wrapped each in his blanket, and with sword and gun within reach of his hand.

A few minutes' search disclosed their whereabouts to the Sharks, and it was no gentle waking that ensued.

"Ho! rouse up, I tell ye, and wake your master!" growled Abner, touching Hans with his foot. "You're both wanted at the house."

"Yaas," grunted Hans, sleepily, "but I dinks you petter leaves mynheer to dake his sleep."

"What is it? What's wanted this time of night?" demanded Lyttleton, starting up and glancing about him in no amiable mood.

"You're wanted," was the gruff, unceremonious reply. "Game's bagged, but such a lot we must come on 'em as strong as possible."

"What! you've got Clendenin?"

Lyttleton's tone was jubilant.

"Humph! he's there, but he ain't took yet, and there's four more stout fellows beside the nigger, and one on 'ems ekal to any two o' us. So come along, both o' ye."

"No," said Lyttleton, "you have undertaken the job, and it's no part of my plan to assist in the fray. I'll pay liberally when it's done; but as I told you in the first place, I can't have Clendenin get sight of either my face or that of my valet."

"Black your faces, or tie a handkercher over 'em," suggested Abner's brother.

"No; he'd recognize our voices."

"You're a – coward," sneered Abner. "No use argufying with the white-livered critter, Josh. He won't git his job done, 'tain't likely, if he don't help, that's all. Come on back. P'raps Brannon's there by now, and if the fellers'll only quiet down to sleep, I for one am willin' to try it for the sake o' the plunder, and the cash we'll have in hand afore we let these ere chaps have their way with the one they're wantin' to git shut of."

"What a vulgar wretch!" muttered Lyttleton, in a tone of extreme disgust, as the two ruffians turned and left the spot to make their way rapidly back to the house.

They found Brannon there, waiting with the others for the slight occasional sounds overhead to cease, as they dared not make the desired attack with their intended victims awake and prepared to meet and repel it.

But they waited in vain; our travellers hearing men's voices, conversing in subdued tones in the room below, understood for what they were waiting, and not wishing for a fight, took care to let them know that they had not all succumbed to sleep.

In fact the hunter, listening intently with his ear to a crack in the floor, heard the woman say, "Not yet, they're not asleep yet, for I hear 'em movin'."

"Ye do, eh?" he growled in undertone, "well, ye'll likely keep on a hearin' it till them he wolves o' yourn goes back to their den in the woods."

At last as a faint streak of dawn began to show itself above the eastern horizon, the ruffians drew close together and held a whispered consultation, the result of which was the decision to give up attacking here, leave at once, and hastening on ahead of the travellers, post themselves at a certain spot favorable for an ambuscade, where they would play the highwayman, "relieving the fellers o' their plunder," as they expressed it, and letting them go with their lives if they were wise enough not to show fight, but taking Clendenin prisoner for the sake of slaking Brannon's thirst for revenge and obtaining Lyttleton's offered reward.

The first part of their plan was at once put into execution, and with no small sense of relief our travellers heard them depart.

"Up, boys, now's our time," said the hunter; "day's breakin', the thieves has left for the present, and we'd best git out o' this instanter."

The others being of the same opinion, they hastily gathered up their guns and saddle-bags, unbarred the door, and as nearly in a body as might be, the hunter taking the lead, descended the step-ladder to the room below.

The woman nodding in her chair beside the smouldering embers of the fire, was its only occupant.

She started up, saying, "Why you're airly, ain't ye? I hadn't thought of gettin' breakfast yet."

"Never mind, we don't want any, mother," said Johnson dryly.

"Why, ye ain't goin' a'ready? ye'd better stay for breakfast. I'll not be long gettin' it."

"No," they answered, "we must start at once."

"Ye didn't sleep much, I think," she remarked sullenly, following them to the door.

"How do you know?" queried Johnson, giving her a sharp look.

"Oh, I was up myself, and I heard ye movin' around."

Clendenin stepped back to enquire, and pay her charges for the entertainment of the party, and thought she eyed him strangely during that transaction, with a sort of repressed eagerness and cupidity, and somewhat as if she were trying to estimate his strength, and calculate whether she dare measure it with her own, and would gain anything thereby.

He puzzled over it for a moment as he hastened to rejoin his companions, who were at the stable busied in saddling their horses, then dismissed it from his thoughts with the conclusion that it was his purse she wanted to secure.

It was now quite light and the sun began to show his face above the treetops, as they mounted and away, felicitating themselves on their fortunate escape.

"I see now," said Kenneth in tones of thankfulness, "why that seemingly unfortunate delay was sent me. It was certainly a special providence."

"Ho, comrades!" cried the hunter, suddenly reining in his steed across the path so as to bring the whole party to a halt. "I have a thought!"

"Better keep it for a nest egg then, Tom," laughed Collins, overflowing with animal spirits in view of their recent deliverance.

"No, I hadn't, Sam; I'd better by half use it to save our plunder, if not our lives. You must know, lads, that Tom Johnson's no stranger to these here woods, and knows the trail better'n the doc there, and the rest o' you readin' men, knows a book."

"Now, Tom, my boy, that hasn't an over modest sound. But what's that thought of yours? Let's have it at once."

"Listen then. About six or seven miles furder on, there's a place where the trail runs through a little valley, between two hills that's covered thick with trees and bushes; and now I tell you them cut-throats is just lyin' in wait there, Injun style, to ketch us between two fires as we come along."

"Then what's to be done?" was asked in various tones of inquiry and dismay.

"Why, we'll just keep out o' the trap. I'll take ye round it. I know the way, and though it'll give us a few more miles, and hard ones at that, it'll be better than makin' ourselves a target, or rather half a dozen of 'em, for those scoundrels to shoot at. Won't it?"

"Yes, yes," from all the voices in unison.

The hunter wheeled his horse and galloped on, the rest following in single file.

He kept the trail for a while, then struck off into the thick woods, and for a couple of hours they had a toilsome time, pushing their way through thickets, leaping logs and fording one or two streams; then taking the ordinary trail again, beyond the point of danger, they were able to go forward with comparative ease and comfort.

With the purpose to make his assaulting party as strong as possible, Bill Shark sent Brannon to urge Lyttleton and his valet to join them where they were to lie in ambush.

Lyttleton once again roused from slumber, received the messenger surlily, declined to go with him, but fearful of the consequences of utter refusal to comply with the demand, for the message was couched in terms that make it such, promised to join them shortly, after refreshing himself with food; and made Brannon describe the locality and manner of reaching it so particularly as to enable him to find it without a guide.

The moment Brannon was out of earshot, Lyttleton turned to his valet.

"What say you, Hans, are those fellows to be trusted not to turn on us, if it happens to suit their fancy, after they have finished with the other party?"

"Mynheer, I dinks dey is von bad lot."

"Then we won't put ourselves in their power. Listen; we will not join them, but will hide in some place where we can watch their proceedings unknown to them; and if events don't turn out as we could wish, we will slip away through the woods and continue our journey, and so escape their hands. Now kindle a fire and prepare me a cup of strong coffee."

With no small difficulty, and damage to their clothing from thorns and briers, master and man at length succeeded in taking up a position advantageous for the carrying out of Lyttleton's plans. Shark's party had divided, posting themselves three on one side of the little valley, three on the other, and less than half way up the hills.

Lyttleton's ambush was on the eastern of the two hills, considerably higher up, where from behind a screen of bushes and interlacing vines he could see all that might occur in the valley below.

He found, to his satisfaction, that he could also overhear whatever was said by the ruffians in an ordinary tone of voice.

The first sound that greeted his ear was a sullen growl from the elder Shark, familiarly styled Bill.

"What's a-keepin' that thar confounded Britisher and his Dutchman? I tell you, lads, they're a brace o' cowards and don't mean to take no share o' this here fray. I'd go after 'em and give 'em a lesson if I was sure o' gettin' back in time, but the other fellers may be along now any minnit."

"I likes to send de lie de droat down off dot von pig schoundrel!" muttered Hans, laying his hand on the hunting-knife in his belt.

An imperative gesture from Lyttleton commanded silence.

Brannon was saying something in answer to Bill's remark, but the tones were so low that Lyttleton could catch only a word here and there, not enough to learn its purport.

A long silence followed, broken occasionally by a muttered oath or exclamation of impatience, then a low-toned consultation, which resulted in the despatching of one of the younger villains to reconnoitre and try to discover why their intended victims delayed their appearance.

Another long waiting, and then the scout returned.

"Been all the way back to the house," he reported, loud enough for every word to reach the listeners above, "and not a sign of 'em to be seen. The old woman says they left thar at sun-up, so if any o' you kin tell what's become of 'em it's more'n I kin."

"Must ha' smelt a rat somehow, and pushed through the woods another way," cried Bill, pouring out a volley of oaths and curses so blasphemous, and in tones so ferocious, that Lyttleton's blood almost curdled in his veins.

Then his heart nearly stood still with affright as the ruffian went on, in the same savage tones:

"Well, there ain't no use in waitin' here no longer. They've got off safe and sound, and we not a penny the richer; but there's that Britisher, with a pocket full of tin that'll come as good to us as the other fellers'. Let's hunt him up and help ourselves. Easy work it'll be, six agin two."

Hans and his master exchanged glances. Lyttleton held up a finger in token of silence, and again they strained their ears to hear the talk going on below.

The ruffians seemed to be of one mind in regard to robbing him, impelled to it by their cupidity and their indignation at his failure to join them according to promise.

Fortunately for him they had no suspicion of his vicinity, and presently set off in a body to search for him at the scene of his late bivouac.

The moment they were out of sight and hearing he and Hans rose, scrambled down the hill, mounted their horses, which they had left at its foot, concealed in the thick wood, and striking into the trail at the nearest point, pushed on their way eastward with all possible despatch.

CHAPTER XXIX

Clendenin's heart beat quickly between hope and fear. He was nearing the home of his childhood and knew not in what state he should find the dear ones there, for he had had no later news of them than that contained in the letter written so many weeks ago, and received the night before he left Chillicothe.

He had pressed on as rapidly as circumstances would allow, yet the journey had been long and tedious, made to seem doubly so by his haste and anxiety; for faith was not always strong enough to triumph over doubts and fears.

He had passed the previous night some ten miles west of Glen Forest, and taking an early start entered the little valley two hours before noon.

It was a sweet, bright summer day, trees dressed in their richest robes of green, wild wood flowers scattered in lavish profusion on every side, fields clothed in verdure, the air filled with the music of birds and insects, the bleating of sheep, the lowing of kine, and the fretting, gurgling, and babbling of the mountain stream, as it danced and sparkled in the sun.

Each familiar scene had charms for Kenneth's eye, yet he lingered not a moment, but urged Romeo to a brisk canter, until, as he came in sight of the house, his eye was suddenly caught by the gleam of something white among the trees that bordered the rivulet.

He halted, looked more closely at the object, then hastily dismounted, and, giving the bridle into Zeb's hands, bade him go on to the house and say that he was with Miss Marian, and they would both come in presently.

Marian had wandered out an hour ago to the spot where she and Lyttleton had sat together for the last time, on the day he bade her a final good-bye.

It had been her favorite resort ever since. Thither she would carry book or work, or go to sit with folded hands and dream away the time that seemed so long, so very, very long till he would come again.

That was all she was doing now, seated on the grass with her arms clasped about Caius's neck, her cheek resting on his head, and her eyes fixed with mournful gaze upon the rippling water at her feet.

Kenneth drew near with so noiseless a step that she knew not of his coming, and he had leisure to study her face for several minutes while she was entirely unconscious of his scrutiny.

His breast heaved, his lip quivered, and his eyes filled as he gazed; for a sad change had come over the fair, young face since last he looked upon it, the bloom was all gone from cheek and lip, the temple looked sunken, the eyes unnaturally large, and, oh, the unfathomable depth of sadness in them! And the slight girlish figure had lost its roundness; the small, shapely hands were very thin and white.

A bird suddenly swooped down from a tree and skimmed along just above the stream. Caius uttered a short, sharp bark and made a spring toward it, and with a deep sigh Marian awoke, released him, and turning her eyes in Kenneth's direction gave a joyful cry.

In a moment she was clasped in his arms, her head pillowed on his breast, with convulsive sobbing and floods of tears, while he held her close and soothed her with tender words and caresses.

"O, Kenneth, how glad I am you have come at last!" she said when she could command her voice. "It seemed so long, so very long that we had to wait; and yet you are here sooner than mother thought you could come."

"I made all the haste I could, dear child," he answered, "starting early the morning after the letter reached me with the news that you were not well. What ails you, Marian, dear?"

"I'm not sick, Kenneth," she said, a vivid blush suddenly suffusing her cheek.

"But you have grown very thin and pale, and do not seem strong," he said, regarding her with tender, sorrowful scrutiny. "Something is amiss with you, and surely you will tell me what it is, that I may try to relieve you?"

She only hid her face on his shoulder with a fresh burst of weeping.

A terrible fear oppressed him as he went on questioning her about the symptoms of her disease, she still insisting that she had no pain and was not sick, though she could not deny loss of appetite, weakness and palpitation of the heart upon slight exertion.

At length her reserve gave way before his loving solicitude; for she had been wont to confide her childish joys and sorrows to him in the old days before he went to Ohio, and could tell him now what she would not breathe to any other creature.

"O, Kenneth!" she cried, "can't you see that my body is not sick, that it's my heart that is breaking?"

His very lips grew white.

"What can you mean, my poor, poor child?" he asked huskily, drawing her closer to him with a quick protecting gesture, as if he would shield her from the threatened danger.

"Oh," she cried in bitter despairing tones, "I thought he loved me, he said it with his eyes and with his tongue; he said I was the sweetest, fairest, dearest girl he ever saw, and he promised to come again in a year at the very farthest; but more than a year has gone by and never a word from him."

His first emotion as he listened to this burst of anguish was utter astonishment; the next the fear that she was not in her right mind, for he had every reason to suppose that she had never met other than to exchange the merest civilities of life with any man.

Her mother had no suspicion of the real cause of her child's suffering. Marian had not confided in her, had never mentioned Lyttleton's name; and the death of the Misses Burns, followed very shortly by the removal to a distance of their maid Kitty, had left no one in the neighborhood who had been cognizant of even that small part of the intercourse between Marian and Lyttleton of which Woodland was the scene.

But the ice once broken, the pent up waters of the poor child's anguish speedily swept away every barrier of reserve, and the whole sad story was poured out into Kenneth's sympathizing ear.

It brought relief from the fear for her reason, but filled his heart with grief and pity for her, mingled with burning indignation against the author of her woe.

"And who is this wretch?" he cried in tones quivering with intense emotion.

The answer was so low that he bent his ear almost to her lips to catch it.

"Lyttleton!" he exclaimed, "Lysander Lyttleton? I know the man; and Marian, my poor deceived and wronged little sister, he is utterly unworthy of even your friendship; 'twould be the consorting of the dove with the vulture."

She gave a sharp cry of pain.

"O, Kenneth, Kenneth, you can't mean it?"

It was hard to see her suffer, but best that she should know the truth at once. In a few brief sentences, carefully worded to spare her as much as possible, he told of Lyttleton's approaching marriage.

She did not cry out again, but asked, in a tone of quiet despair, to whom.

It cost Kenneth an effort to speak Nell's name, and something in his voice thrilled his listener with an instant consciousness of what she was to him.

She lifted her face to his, the wet eyes full of tender pity.

"You, too, Kenneth, my poor dear Kenneth?" she said in low, tremulous tones, "has he wronged you too? Then he is cast out of my heart forever. I cannot love one so base, so unworthy."

But with the last words her head went down upon his shoulder again with a passionate burst of weeping.

A storm of feeling swept over Kenneth as he held her close, not speaking, for he could find no words, but softly smoothing her hair, gently pressing one of the small, thin hands which he had taken in his.

He could not forgive Lyttleton at that moment, he felt that he could crush him under foot as he would a viper that had stung this precious little sister, and poisoned two other lives. His own must be dark and dreary without sweet Nell, and what better could hers be, passed in the society of such a wretch, nay, more, in the closest union with him.

Alas! alas! hers was the saddest fate of all, and none the less to be pitied because she had in some measure brought it upon herself.

In some measure? Ah, was he utterly blameless, Kenneth Clendenin?

The question came to him with a sharp pang of self-reproach. He had won her affection, his lips had never breathed a syllable of love. Then who was he that he should be so fierce against this other transgressor?

The tempest of emotion had spent itself, and Marian lay pale and exhausted in his arms, trembling like a leaf.

Very gently he raised her, and bidding her cling about his neck, bore her in those strong arms to the house, Caius running on before to announce their coming.

Mrs. Clendenin met them in the porch, her face full of anxiety and alarm.

"Kenneth! what is it?"

"She is wearied out now, mother, but will be better soon. Let me lay her in her bed."

She had already fallen into the sleep of utter exhaustion. He placed her comfortably on the bed, while the mother drew down the blinds and Caius stretched himself on the floor by her side.

"Kenneth, my dear boy, oh, what a comfort to have you here again!" whispered Mrs. Clendenin, as they clasped each other in a long, tender embrace.

Leaving Caius to watch the slumbers of their dear one, they withdrew to the sitting-room.

"What do you think of her?" There was another, an unspoken question in the mother's pleading anxious eyes.

Kenneth's answer to it was, "Let your poor heart be at rest, mother, it is not that."

A cloud of care, of deep and sore anxiety lifted from her brow, and she wept tears of joy and thankfulness.

"Anything but that," she sighed, "any other burden seems light in comparison with that. But, Kenneth, the child is certainly ill, have you discovered the cause of her malady?"

"Yes," he said, "and have brought her a cure which, though it must be painful at first, will, I doubt not, prove effectual in the end."

Then he repeated Marian's story, having won her consent that he should do so, and added his own knowledge of Lyttleton.

The mother's surprise was not less than his had been, and her tears fell fast over the sorrows of her sweet and gentle child.

"I take blame to myself for leaving her alone," she said, "and yet it was what seemed best at the time."

"I would not have you do so, mother, dear," he said, gazing tenderly into the patient yet troubled face whereon sorrow and care had left their deep and lasting traces, "no blame rightfully belongs to you; and let me say for your consolation, that if I read her aright, there is one drop of sweetness in this otherwise bitter cup, she will never love again."

She gave him one earnest look, then dropping her eyes, seemed lost in thought for several minutes.

"Yes," she said at length, "I think you are right. And she has passed this trying ordeal safely?"

"Yes."

Clasping her hands in her lap and lifting her eyes to heaven, "I thank thee, oh my Father, for that," she murmured in tones so low that the words scarcely reached Kenneth's ear.

He stood looking down upon her with loving, compassionate eyes. Ah, if it were but in his power to remove every thorn from her path!

That might not be, but her face had resumed its wonted expression of sweet and calm submission. She glanced up at him, her fine eyes full of affectionate pride.

"You have told me nothing yet of yourself, Kenneth. How fares it with you, my boy? Sit down here by my side and open all your heart to me as you used to do. I see you have something to tell," she added, watching the changes of his countenance as he took the offered chair, "something of joy and something of sorrow."

"Yes, mother, I have learned that long sought secret, and it brings me both gladness and grief," he answered with emotion.

"You have found her?" she asked in almost breathless, half credulous astonishment.

"Yes, mother, Reumah Clark, and – "

"Wait one moment," she faltered, pressing her hand to her heart.

He knelt at her side and threw an arm about her waist. She laid her head on his shoulder, heaving a gentle sigh.

"Now," she whispered, "tell me all. Oh, that terrible, terrible day. I can never recall it without a shudder."

His story did not go back to the scenes of that dreadful day on which he first saw the light. He merely gave a brief account of his interview with Reumah Clark, confining himself chiefly to her explanation of the mark which proved his identity, and her assertion that she had looked for and seen it at the time of his birth.

Mrs. Clendenin raised her head, showing a face radiant with joy and thankfulness.

"Oh, my dear boy, what glad news for you, what a burden removed! And yet – Ah, I am not the happy mother of such a son!" and her eyes filled with tears.

"No, that is the bitter drop in the cup, sweet mother, for I must still call you so, unless you forbid it. And, thank God, we are of the same blood."

"Yes, yes, my own mother's child by birth, mine own by adoption, we are very near and dear to one another," she whispered, clinging to him in a close and tender embrace.

For a moment there was utter silence between them, then she spoke musingly, as if half talking to him, half thinking aloud.

"I have often wondered over that mark, but could find no clue to it, for my mother never mentioned the occurrence to me, and I knew nothing of the mark upon Clark's arm. Ah, had I known, how much of anxiety and mental suffering might have been spared us both!"

"Yes," he assented with almost a groan, thinking of his lost love.

She saw the anguish in his face and with tender questioning at length drew the whole story from him.

"Do not despair," she said when he had finished, "I think the man has told you a falsehood. I understand woman's nature better than you can, and such a girl as you have described would never give herself to such a man. And now the seal is taken from your lips and you may declare your love and sue for hers in return. Ah, my dear boy, I trust happy days are in store for you even on this side of Jordan."

She looked into his eyes with hers so full of loving pride, tender sympathy and joyful anticipation, that hope revived in his desponding heart.