in the weeks before they moved into the cottage, there were moments when life presented itself to rosamund in more difficult guise than she had dreamed it ever wore. hitherto, it had been easy enough for her to take up her abode in one place or another, as fancy led her; in new york, in georgia, in europe, there were always people to smooth the way—servants to make everything ready and comfortable, mother or sister or one person or another to set in motion the many wheels of the household clockwork. she had never given a thought to the machinery of life; it had seemed as simple as to breathe the free air. not even cecilia's warnings had touched upon the rudimentary difficulties she found she had to meet. before the furniture arrived, there was the first cleaning of the little house to be done, and no one to do it! the summer people and their servants had departed; the hotels were closed; the mountaineers held themselves haughtily aloof from domestic service. eleanor would have known, but mrs. hetherbee kept her from day to day; and aunt sue was taking her own time in leaving georgia. grace tobet and yetta were always ready to do what they could, but they were as untrained as rosamund herself in the methods of doing things as she had been used to having them. yet they were the only ones she could find to help her, and she spent her days in a toil so unaccustomed as to leave her breaking with fatigue. she was ashamed to find how inadequate she was for such elemental things; and disgust at her own limitations, added to aching fatigue of body, left her little able to stand against the opposition she was beginning to encounter from everyone.
pa cary, gentlest of souls, became set in disapproval as firmly as the doctor; and some undivulged, disquieting information increased ogilvie's first distrust of the plan. at last even mother cary somewhat shamefacedly agreed with them.
"i don't know as it wouldn't be better to shut up the house and stay right here with us, honey," she said. "pap keeps tellin' me it ain't safe for ye there alone, jest women and children. i reckon that colored man wouldn't skeer anybody off. there's rough people in the mountings. they're used to folks summerin' here; but pap says, what with all this talk of the gov'ment's men bein' around, some are sayin' you know too much about the doin's o' this part of the country."
rosamund knew the futility of expressing her indignation. she only felt that her die was cast, arrangements irrevocably made, that she must go on. surely it was innocent enough to spend a winter in the mountains, to keep a waif of a girl out of harm's way, and give healing happiness to a child and a beloved woman. that her heart held other motive only the secret flaming of her cheeks attested. she told herself that the mountain people could not be so foolish as to disbelieve their own senses, and determined to prove herself to them. in time they must come to believe in her honesty and sincerity of purpose, in her friendship for them and her loyalty. it was largely their distrust of the world beyond their close horizon that held them in bondage to their own passions. to enlighten them, to free them, would be well worth while for anyone. she said as much to ogilvie, who nevertheless continued to shake his head and warn her.
with the departure of the last "foreigner" the mountaineers were more frequently seen. during the summer rosamund and yetta had walked miles on the strange, dimly marked paths through the woods, paths as vague and deserted as if trodden only by timid wild feet trembling towards secret drinking places; never had they met another soul upon them. but now, occasionally, they encountered lank women or timid children, who peered with half-frightened eyes out of the depths of slat bonnets, and sometimes said "howdy" in passing. the allen children no longer ran away at sight of her, and their mother, now well enough to be about the house, watched eagerly for rosamund's visits; she had hopes of making more friends among the women, through mrs. allen and grace tobet. several times, too, mother cary had visitors; and a little school in the valley drew children from the hillsides in varying numbers. as she went back and forth between the little brown house and the carys', the people she passed stared at her curiously; the women, she thought, were not unfriendly, but the men seemed distrustful and surly.
"why do they look at me in that way?" she asked grace tobet, on an afternoon when they were hastening homeward in the twilight. "the men all look at me as if i were some hateful thing—a spy, perhaps, or a—a snake! it hurts me to have them look at me in that way! no one ever did before! i don't deserve it!"
but before grace could reply a thing happened that hurt rosamund far more, that shook her to the depths of her pride and courage. something struck her upon the arm, something that stung and bruised—a stone, thrown from the wood-side bushes with accurate aim. she cried out with physical pain and pain that was also mental, and sprang towards grace. someone moved off up the mountain, careless of the crackling undergrowth.
grace had her arms about rosamund on the instant, and her answering cry was almost as quick.
"what is it? what ails ye?" she besought the trembling one within her sheltering arms.
rosamund's breath was coming in little sobbing gasps. "oh—o—oh! something—struck me—a stone, i think!"
from the wan spiritless creature that she usually was, grace flashed into a wild passion of anger. often before she had reminded rosamund of a sodden leaf, wind-blown and colorless; now she was a flame, vivid, devouring, like the hot blasts that mow down the mountain forests.
"i'll kill anyone that harms ye!" she cried; and raising her voice to a shriek called to the woods that hid the thrower of the stone:
"come out! come out in the open! coward! ye coward! come out here and let yerself be seen!"
a jeering laugh answered, and grace would have sprung in pursuit; but rosamund grasped her.
"no, no!" she cried. "don't, grace! don't! let him go!"
the mountain woman, panting, fiery, would have broken away from the restraining hands; but rosamund, inspired, cried:
"you wouldn't leave me here alone?"
and as a forest creature, quick to defend her young, is quick to caress, grace forebore vengeance to hold her friend in a closer embrace.
"he struck ye! you come up here to live with us, and make friends with us, like doctor ogilvie, and they go and say you spy out on them! oh—" her voice echoed from the mountains—"i'll kill anyone that harms ye!"
"don't say that! perhaps he did not mean to——"
"he meant it, whoever it was! stones don't fly up from the ground, do they? i know—i know what they say, the lazy cowards—i know, i've heerd 'em——"
she paused; a new terror came into her eyes. "miss rose! miss rose! don't ye go thinkin' 'twas joe throwed——"
suddenly her head dropped upon rosamund's shoulder, and the straining arms held her more closely. "miss rose, even if 'twas joe——"
"grace! oh, hush! you don't know what you are saying! you must not think that—it couldn't be true!"
"couldn't it? you never saw my baby. he came home drunk, 'struck by lightnin''—that's what they call it, so's not to lay blame on themselves. he fell on her. that's how 'twas. she was a-crawlin' over the sill to meet him—her daddy. an' he fell on her——"
"put away those thoughts, grace! put away that memory! grace—look at me! you must—not——"
"i'm lookin' at ye. that's what makes me remember. it ain't much to you, maybe, to be friends with me. but it's a heap to me, to be friends with you. oh—" she threw her arms above her head, and her bitter cry rang out. "oh, curse the stills! curse 'em, curse 'em! first 'twas my baby, an' now—if anyone harms you, even so be 'twas joe, i'll kill him!"
it was a devotion undreamed of. their friendship had progressed insensibly. there had been long talks, when grace's apparent simplicity had made it easy for rosamund to open her heart, as far as in her lay; and she had been glad enough to feed the other's hunger for knowledge with tales of the things she had seen in the world, as grace called all that lay beyond the barrier of the mountains. yet it had been, as grace herself had rightly said, not a very large part of life to rosamund; all the stranger was the revelation of what their friendship meant to grace.
it was long before she could bind grace to secrecy; for grace believed that safety lay in making known the dastardly attack of the afternoon. rosamund denied that actual danger could exist, that the attacks—if such there might be—could possibly go farther; and she very well knew that if to-day's were made known it would put an end to all her plans for the winter, now progressed so far.
yet all that night she lay awake. it was a dreadful thing to know herself suspected, distrusted, perhaps hated; why, she asked herself, could the mountaineers not read her innocence in the very fact of her remaining openly among them? they did not suspect ogilvie; why, then, should they look upon her innocent self as a spy?
but morning found her with all terrors gone. pride of race and knowledge of good intentions had come to sustain her.
in gold, in gems, it is friction which produces brilliancy; in the finer grades of humanity it is opposition, anxiety, suffering, even misfortune, which bring out inherent noble qualities that might else remain undiscovered. the fine courage of high race rosamund had always possessed, but it lay hidden within her until the sting of an unseen enemy brought it to light. fatigue and doubts and half-developed fears fell from her in the night; with the coming of the day she found herself strong in courage, in resourcefulness.
ogilvie met her, later in the morning, coming from the post office at the summit, and white rosy stopped of her own accord until rosamund had seated herself in the buggy.
"you look less tired," he said.
she laughed. "i'm not tired at all! i feel as if i could move mountains, even these mountains; i believe i could even move the people on them!"
he looked at her more keenly, and wondered what had caused her elation. his anxiety for her—and something else—was too great to permit of a smile in answer to hers.
"it is never too late to mend your ways!" he suggested. "i hope it's a change of mind that's making you so pleased with yourself!"
she laughed again, merrily. "it may be a change of mind," she said, "but it isn't a change of intention."
she waited for his question, but he only looked grimly at white rosy's joggling ears.
"don't you want to know what i mean?" she asked.
"yes," he said shortly.
rosamund glanced at him. "dear me!" she remarked, and was provokingly silent until, at last, he turned towards her.
"please!" he begged.
"let's talk of something else," she said, and turned her face away from him to hide her dimples. "i don't in the least want to bore you with my affairs. you've been so kind!"
at that he shook his head, tumbled the old cap into the back of the buggy, and ran his fingers through his hair. he heaved a deep breath, and said, in the helpless tone of the bewildered male, "oh, lord!"
then she turned towards him and laughed aloud. "i won't tease any more," she cried. "you and father cary almost frightened me, for a day or two, with your warnings and forebodings. last night i was ready to give up the brown house and telegraph mrs. reeves not to come. this morning i have telegraphed her to hurry!"
his face became more stern. "i don't like it. i don't approve of it. you may take my word for it, there will be trouble if you go to live in that place, an unprotected household of women."
"oh, but we shall not be an unprotected household of women! we are going to have good old uncle matt, my old nurse's husband! surely i told you? although," she thought to herself, "if old matt saw a man with a gun i believe he'd crawl under the bed!"
the doctor looked a little relieved. "well, that is the best thing you've planned yet," he said. "i had intended coming twice a day and taking care of your furnace myself; but matt—did you say the man's name was matt?—will be on the spot."
"mercy!" she exclaimed. "i never once thought of the furnace!"
"i imagined as much," he said, dryly.
"oh, well," she retorted, as he stopped before the brown cottage, "you would never have remembered to come! white rosy would have had just one more thing on her mind!"
