The Bishop of Cottontown: A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills
He put his arms around her and drew her to him closer, and she did
not resist--but as a child would, hers also she wound around his neck
and whispered:
"My lion! Oh, kill me--kill me--let me die with you!"
"Child--my precious one--my--oh, God, and you--forgive me this. But
let me kiss you once and dream--dream it is she"--
She felt his kisses on her hair, her eyes.
"Good-bye--Alice--Alice--good-bye--forever--"
He released her, but she clung to him sobbing. Her head lay on his
breast, and she shook in the agony of it all.
"You will forgive me, some day--when you know--how I loved her," he
gasped, white and with a bitter light in his face.
She looked up: "I would die," she said simply, "for a love like
that."
They heard the steps of a man approaching the house. She sat down on
the old sofa pale, trembling and with bitterness in her heart.
Travis walked to the door and opened it:
"Come in, Clay," he said quietly. "I am glad that my man found you.
We have been waiting for you."
"I finished that survey and came as fast as I could. Your man rode on
to The Gaffs, but I came here as you wrote me to do," and Clay came
in quietly, speaking as he walked to the fire.
CHAPTER XIX
FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH
He came in as naturally as if the house were still inhabited, though
he saw the emptiness of it all, and guessed the cause. But when he
saw Helen, a flushed surprise beamed through his eyes and he gave her
his hand.
"Helen!--why, this is unexpected--quite unusual, I must say."
She did not speak, as she gave him her hand, but smiled sadly. It
meant: "Mr. Travis will tell you all. I know nothing. It is all his
planning."
Clay sat down in an old chair by the fire and warmed his hands,
looking thoughtfully at the two, now and then, and wonderingly. He
was not surprised when Travis said:
"I sent for you hurriedly, as one who I knew was a friend of Miss
Conway. A crisis has arisen in her affairs to-day in which it is
necessary for her friends to act."
"Why, yes, I suppose I can guess," said Clay thoughtfully and
watching Helen closely all the while as he glanced around the empty
room. "I was only waiting. Why, you see--"
Helen flushed scarlet and looked appealingly at Travis. But he broke
in on Clay without noticing her.
"Yes, I knew you were only waiting. I think I understand you, but you
know the trouble with nearly every good intention is that it waits
too long."
Clay reddened.
Helen arose and, coming over, stood by Travis, her face pale, her
eyes shining. "I beg--I entreat--please, say no more. Clay," she said
turning on him with flushed face, "I did not know you were coming. I
did not know where you were. Like all the others, I supposed you too
had--had deserted me."
"Why, I was sent off in a hurry to--" he started.
"Mr. Travis told me to-night," she interrupted. "I understand now.
But really, it makes no difference to me now. Since--since--"
"Now look here," broke in Travis with feigned lightness,--"I am not
going to let you two lovers misunderstand each other. I have planned
it all out and I want you both to make me happy by listening to one
older, one who admires you both and sincerely wishes to see you
happy. Things have happened at your house," he said addressing
Clay--"things which will surprise you when you reach home--things
that affect you and me and Miss Conway. Now I know that you love her,
and have loved her a long time, and that only--"
"Only our poverty," said Clay thankfully to Travis for breaking the
ice for him.
Helen stood up quickly--a smile on her lips: "Don't you both think
that before this bargain and sale goes further you had better get the
consent of the one to be sold?" She turned to Clay.
"Don't you think you have queer ideas of love--of winning a woman's
love--in this way? And you"--she said turning to Travis--"Oh you
_know_ better."
Travis arose with a smile half joyous, half serious, and Clay was so
embarrassed that he mopped his brow as if he were plowing in the sun.
"Why, really, Helen--I--you know--I have spoken to you--you know, and
but for my--"
"Poverty"--said Helen taking up the word--"And what were poverty to
me, if I loved a man? I'd love him the more for it. If he were dying
broken-hearted, wrecked--even in disgrace,--"
Travis flushed and looked at her admiringly, while the joyous light
flashed yet deeper in his eyes.
"Come," he said. "I have arranged all. I am not going to give you
young people an excuse to defer your happiness longer." He turned to
Clay: "I shall show you something which you have been on the track of
for some time. I have my lantern in the buggy, and we will have to
walk a mile or more. But it is pleasant to-night, and the walk will
do us all good. Come."
They both arose wonderingly--Helen came over and put her hand on his
arm: "I will go," she whispered, "if there be no more of that talk."
He smiled. "You must do as I say. Am I not now your guardian? Bring
your leathern sack with your hammer and geological tools," he
remarked to Clay.
Clay arose hastily, and they went out of the old house and across the
fields. Past the boundaries of Millwood they walked, Travis silently
leading, and Clay following with Helen, who could not speak, so
momentous it all seemed. She saw only Travis's fine square
shoulders, and erect, sinewy form, going before them, into the night
of shadows, of trees, of rocks, of the great peak of the mountain,
silent and dark.
He did not speak. He walked in silent thought. They passed the
boundary line of Millwood, and then down a slight ravine he led them
to the ragged, flinty hill, on which the old preacher's cabin stood
on their right.
"Now," he said stopping--"if I am correct, Clay, this hill is the old
Bishop's," pointing to his right where the cabin stood, "and over
here is what is left of Westmoreland. This gulch divides them. This
range really runs into Westmoreland," he said with a sweep of his
hand toward it. "Get your bearings," he smiled to Clay, "for I want
you to tell whose fortune this is."
He lit his lantern and walking forward struck away some weeds and
vines which partially concealed the mouth of a small opening in the
hillside caused by a landslide. It was difficult going at first, but
as they went further the opening grew larger, and as the light
flashed on its walls, Clay stopped in admiration and shouted:
"Look--look--there it is!"
Before them running right and left--for the cave had split it in two,
lay the solid vein of coal, shining in the light, and throwing back
splinters of ebony, to Clay more beautiful than gold.
Travis watched him with an amused smile as he hastily took off his
satchel and struck a piece off the ledge. Helen stood wondering,
looking not at Clay, but at Travis, and her eyes shone brilliantly
and full of proud splendor.
Clay forgot that they were there. He measured the ledge. He chipped
off piece after piece and examined it closely. "I never dreamed it
would be here, in this shape," he said at last. "Look!--and fully
eight feet, solid. This hill is full of it. The old preacher will
find it hard to spend his wealth."
"But that is not all," said Travis; "see how the dip runs--see the
vein--this way." He pointed to the left.
Clay paled: "That means--it is remarkable--very remarkable. Why, this
vein should not have been here. It is too low to be in the
Carboniferous." He suddenly stopped: "But here it is--contrary to all
my data and--and--why really it takes the low range of the poor land
of Westmoreland. It--it--will make me rich."
"You haven't seen all," said Travis--"look!" He turned and walked to
another part of the small cave, where the bank had broken, and there
gleamed, not the black, but the red--the earth full of rich ore.
Clay picked up one eagerly.
"The finest iron ore!--who--who--ever heard of such a freak of
nature?"
"And the lime rock is all over the valley," said Travis, "and that
means, coal, iron and lime--"
"Furnaces--why, of course--furnaces and wealth. Helen, I--I--it will
make Westmoreland rich. Now, in all earnestness--in all sincerity I
can tell you--"
"Do not tell me anything, Clay--please do not. You do not
understand. You can never understand." Her eyes were following
Travis, who had walked off pretending to be examining the cave. Then
she gave a shriek which sounded frightfully intense as it echoed
around.
Travis turned quickly and saw standing between him and them a gaunt,
savage thing, with froth in its mouth and saliva-dripping lips. At
first he thought it was a panther, so low it crouched to spring; but
almost instantly he recognized Jud Carpenter's dog. Then it began to
creep uncertainly, staggeringly forward, toward Clay and Helen, its
neck drawn and contracted in the paroxysms of rabies; its deadly
eyes, staring, unearthly yellow in the lantern light. Within two
yards of Clay, who stood helpless with fear and uncertainty, it
crouched to spring, growling and snapping at its own sides, and Helen
screamed again as she saw Travis's quick, lithe figure spring forward
and, grasping the dog by the throat from behind, fling himself with
crushing force on the brute, choking it as he fell.
Total darkness--for in his rush Travis threw aside his lantern--and
it seemed an age to Helen as she heard the terrible fight for life
going on at her feet, the struggles and howls of the dog, the
snapping of the huge teeth, the stinging sand thrown up into her
face. Then after a while all was still, and then very quietly from
Travis:
"A match, Clay--light the lantern! I have choked him to death."
Under the light he arose, his clothes torn with tooth and fang of the
gaunt dog, which lay silent. He stood up hot and flushed, and then
turned pallid, and for a moment staggered as he saw the blood
trickling from his left arm.
Helen stood by him terror-eyed, trembling, crushed,--with a terrible
sickening fear.
"He was mad," said Travis gently, "and I fear he has bitten me,
though I managed to jump on him before he bit you two."
He took off his coat--blood was on his shirt sleeve and had run down
his arm. Helen, pale and with a great sob in her throat, rolled up
the sleeve, Travis submitting, with a strange pallor in his face and
the new light in his eyes.
His bare arm came up strong and white. Above the elbow, near the
shoulder, the blood still flowed where the fangs had sunk.
"There is only one chance to save me," he said quietly, "and that, a
slim one. It bleeds--if I could only get my lips to it--"
He tried to expostulate, to push her off, as he felt her lips against
his naked arm. But she clung there sucking out the virus. He felt her
tears fall on his arm. He heard her murmur:
"My dying lion--my dying lion!"
He bent and whispered: "You are risking your own life for me, Helen!
Life for life--death for death!"
It was too much even for his great strength, and when he recovered
himself he was sitting on the sand of the little cave. How long she
had clung to his arm he did not know, but it had ceased to pain him
and her own handkerchief was tied around it.
He staggered out, a terrible pallor on his face, as he said: "Not
this way--not to go this way. Oh, God, your blow--I care not for
death, but, oh, not this death?"
"Clay," he said after a while--"Take her--take her to your mother and
sister to-night. I must bid you both good-night, ay, and good-bye.
See, you walk only across the field there--that is Westmoreland."
He turned, but he felt some one clinging to his hand, in the dark. He
looked down at her, at the white, drawn face, beautiful with a
terrible pain: "Take me--take me," she begged--"with you--to the end
of the world--oh, I love you and I care not who knows."