text stringlengths 3 516 |
|---|
at another time when i was fourteen years old we had just left fort ellis on the assiniboine river and my youngest uncle had selected a fine spot for our night camp |
many of the indians believed that one may be born more than once and there were some who claimed to have full knowledge of a former incarnation |
there was a well known sioux war prophet who lived in the middle of the last century so that he is still remembered by the old men of his band |
she herself should have been a poem a lyric in a white gown and green scarf coming to him through the long grass under the blossomed boughs |
her hands should have been full of bluebells and she should have held them up to his face in maidenly defence as he sprang forward to take her in his arms |
you see that she knew exactly how a tryst is conducted in the pages of the standard poets and of the cheaper weekly journals |
she had to the full limit allowed of her reading and her environment the literary sense |
and curiously enough she was hardly curious at all about what he might have to say |
she only wished for may and the orchard instead of january and the dingy dusty waiting room the plain faced preoccupied travellers the dim desolate weather |
the setting of the scene seemed to her all important |
it was bitterly cold but the embankment was more romantic than a railway carriage |
he had been late he had offered no excuse no explanation |
but here the only thing that occurred to her was to stop and look in one of the shops till he should ask her what she was looking at |
the keen wind thrust itself even inside the high collar of her jacket |
her hands and feet were aching with cold |
she would have shared his sorrow and shown herself half wife half angel from heaven in this dark hour |
she said how frightfully cold it is |
and yesterday i had a letter from her and she seems to expect to think and i thought i ought to tell you darling |
a shock of unbelievable relief tingled through her so that was all what was it compared with her fears |
what opinion would he form of the purity of her mind the innocence of her soul if an incident like this failed to shock her deeply |
following the tingle of relief came a sharp sickening pinch of jealousy and mortification these inspired her |
i don't wonder you were afraid to tell me she began you don't love me you've never loved me i was an idiot to believe you did |
those four true words wounded her more than all the rest |
couldn't help it then how can i ever trust you |
do you think i'm not sorry now |
no it's only painful for both of us |
i didn't think a decent man could do such things she was pulling on her gloves go home and gloat over it all |
he stood up suddenly do you mean it |
are you really going to throw me over for a thing like this |
and he strode down between the marble tables and out by the swing door it was a very good exit |
at the corner he remembered that he had gone away without paying for the tea and his natural impulse was to go back and remedy that error |
he checked the silly impulse |
so he enlisted and went to south africa and he never came home covered with medals and glory which was rather his idea to the few simple words of explanation that would have made all straight and repaid her and him for all the past |
the last strains of the ill treated ill fated intermezzo had died away and after them had died away also the rumbling of the wheels of the murderous barrel organ that had so gaily executed that along with the nine other tunes of its repertory to the admiration of the housemaid at the window of the house opposite and th... |
the young man drew a deep breath of relief and lighted the wax candles in the solid silver candlesticks on his writing table for now the late summer dusk was falling and that organ please heaven made full the measure of the day's appointed torture |
then there was silence then a sigh and the sound of light moving feet on the gravel |
and again he listened with a quiet pleasure |
never had any act seemed so impossible |
there is a seat in the garden at the side of the house again she hesitated |
then she turned towards the quarter indicated and disappeared round the laurel bushes |
look here he said this is all nonsense you know you are tired out and there's something wrong what is it |
do drink this and then tell me perhaps i can help you |
he hurriedly cut cake and pressed it upon her |
he had no time to think but he was aware that this was the most exciting adventure that had ever happened to him |
is it only that you're poor why that's nothing i'm poor too she laughed |
her little foot tapped the gravel impatiently |
he told me to stay on at the hotel and i did and then one night when i was at the theatre my maid a horrid french thing we got in paris packed up all my trunks and took all my money and paid the bill and went |
she said again you are kind |
well then i went into lodgings that wicked woman had left me one street suit and to day they turned me out because my money was all gone |
let me think he said oh how glad i am that you happened to come this way |
i shall lock up all the doors and windows in the house and then i shall give you my latch key and you can let yourself in and stay the night here there is no one in the house |
i will catch the night train and bring my mother up to morrow then we will see what can be done |
you see papa's so very rich and at home they expect me to to get acquainted with dukes and things and she stopped |
it wasn't i who said that said the girl smiling but that's so anyhow and then she sighed |
all the same he added irrelevantly you shall have the latch key |
you are kind she said for the third time and reached her hand out to him he did not kiss it then only took it in his and felt how small and cold it was then it was taken away |
the lady and the guitar certainly passed the night at hill view villa but when his mother very angry and very frightened came up with him at about noon the house looked just as usual and no one was there but the charwoman |
the silver is all right thank goodness she said but your banjo girl has taken a pair of your sister's silk stockings and those new shoes of hers with the silver buckles and she's left these |
it was plain that his castanet girl his mother and sister took a pleasure in crediting her daily with some fresh and unpleasing instrument could have had neither taste money nor honesty to such a point as this |
when she said good night to beenie and went to her chamber over that where the loved parent and friend would fall asleep no more she felt as if she went walking along to her tomb |
at the time mary had noted nothing of these things now she saw them all as for the first time in minute detail while slowly she went up the stair and through the narrowed ways and heard the same wind that raved alike about the new grave and the old house into which latter for all the bales banked against the walls it f... |
when she opened the door of it the bright fire which beenie undesired had kindled there startled her the room looked unnatural uncanny because it was cheerful |
she stood for a moment on the hearth and in sad dreamy mood listened to the howling swoops of the wind making the house quiver and shake |
this was her dream as nearly as she could recall it when she came to herself after waking from it with a cry |
she was one of a large company at a house where she had never been before a beautiful house with a large garden behind |
it was a summer night and the guests were wandering in and out at will and through house and garden amid lovely things of all colors and odors |
but she knew nobody and wandered alone in the garden oppressed with something she did not understand |
at the end of it she was in a place of tombs |
she entered and the servants soft footed and silent were busy carrying away the vessels of hospitality and restoring order as if already they prepared for another company on the morrow no one heeded her |
she was lost lost utterly with an eternal loss |
she knew nothing of the place had nowhere to go nowhere she wanted to go had not a thought to tell her what question to ask if she met a living soul |
but living soul there could be none to meet |
she had lost him years and years before and now she saw him he was there and she knew him |
he came to her side and she gave him no greeting |
i know it and there is no waking |
the old time was but a thicker dream and this is truer because more shadowy |
her only life was that she was lost |
shall i pour out my soul into the ear of a mist a fume from my own brain |
thus was she borne away captive of her dead neither willing nor unwilling of life and death equally careless |
with that came a pang of intense pain |
chapter seven the homecoming |
colonel leonidas talbot regarded the white flag with feelings in which triumph and sadness were mingled strangely |
but the emotions of harry and his comrades were for the moment those of victory only |
boats put out both from the fort and the shore |
the smoke itself which had formed a vast cloud over harbor forts and city was now drifting out to sea leaving all things etched sharply in the dazzling sunlight of a southern spring day |
that white flag and those boats going out mean that sumter is ours |
but the negotiations were soon completed |
all the amenities were preserved between the captured garrison and their captors |
the great state of virginia mother of presidents went out of the union at last and north carolina tennessee and arkansas followed her but maryland kentucky and missouri still hung in the balance |
lincoln had called for volunteers to put down a rebellion but harry heard everywhere in charleston that the confederacy was now secure |
the progress of president davis to the new capital set in the very face of the foe was to be one huge triumph of faith and loyalty |
there was not a single note of gloom |
europe which must have its cotton would favor the success of the south |
an extraordinary wave of emotion swept over the south carrying everybody with it |
beauregard at once wrote an order |
colonel kenton writes wisely |
we need kentucky and i understand that a very little more may bring the state to us go with your father i understand that you have been a brave young soldier here and may you do as well up there |
harry feeling pride but not showing it saluted and left the room going at once to madame delaunay's where he had left his baggage |
he intended to leave early in the morning but first he sought his friends and told them good bye |
harry gave his farewells with deep and genuine regret |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.