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BY WILLIAM WILFRED CAMPBELL.

I.

“Well, I’ll be jiggered, if them oxen don’t move faster, if I’ll get this plowin’ done this side o’ Christmas. How my legs do ache, sure enough. Whoa, Buck! back, Brindle! Consarn you, if you ain’t too lazy to stop.”

The speaker was a tall, loose-boned young man, with a freckled face and bright red hair. All that short October afternoon he had slowly and silently wended back and forth at the tail of the rude plow, behind those thin, melancholy oxen, who mournfully chewed their cuds and whisked the flies with their tails, turning over the obstinate soil on that stony hill-side field.

Loosening the chain from the plow to free the oxen, and throwing his rude whip on a dark, up-turned furrow, he sat down on one of the large boulders that loomed out of the otherwise rich soil of the small lake-side farm, and drawing a soiled book from the pocket of a rough jacket that lay on the stone, he opened it and began to read. It was an old copy of the poems of Thomas Campbell, one of the noblest of the old poets, now nearly forgotten, but whose martial, patriotic and religious verses had already stirred a life beneath the uncultured exterior of this rough young Canadian.

As he turned over the leaves, the late afternoon sun reflected a certain manly kindliness in the uncouthness of his face, lit up as it now was by the spirit of the verses he was reading. Now and again he would look up and shout a “Whoa, Buck! back, Brindle! Consarn you animals,” at the melancholy oxen, who rattled the chain on the rocky ground, as they browsed the fireweed and other rank herbage that sprang up where the plow had missed the edge of the field.

But evidently his mood for poetry this afternoon was not lasting, for he presently began to turn over the leaves hastily until he came to the fly-leaf, on which was scrawled in a rude crazy chirography—“Elias Gale, his book,” and underneath—“Steal not this book for fear of shame, for here you see the owner’s ——,” then there was a break, and underneath:—

This ran well on to the next page, and then beneath, as if he were practising a copy-plate, was repeated a feminine name, “Lizzie Crandal, Lizzie Crandal, Liz., Liz., Lizzie Crandal,” and then:—

And underneath, in a scratchy girlish hand, “Lizzie Crandall.” This evidently had been written a long time, and was almost obliterated by thumbing and age, but it seemed the one poem of the book for him, as he sat there gazing at it, the words “Lizzie Crandall” repeating themselves in flaming letters all over the page. For Elias Gale, as all the world of Scratch’s Point knew, was in love, and that, too with the prettiest girl, and the lightest-hearted, in all the lake country round. She had promised, as a light-hearted pretty girl would do, to become his wife some time after the coming new year, and poor Elias’ simple, trusting heart was all one dream of happiness and hope. And he certainly had a right to be happy, for a face like a blossom in fairness had Lizzie Crandall, daughter of Joe Crandall, down at the shore farm. She had shyly and coyly promised this one night some time in the spring, when he had taken her home from a meeting in the log school-house, for she really liked him, as no one could help doing, for his quiet and dogged earnestness and steadfastness, and his goodness to his widowed mother, with whom he lived alone. But it hardly could be said that Lizzie was in love with him, or, if she was, she was not aware of it.

Ever since that time Elias and his mother had been getting all ready for the wedding. He had worked unusually hard this summer, and had added certain new comforts to the rough but cosy little farm-house. He had been more than particular as to the fattening of the two hogs, and in the laying up of butter from the single cow, having even stinted himself for the purpose. And often in the evenings, when he and his mother would talk things over, she, in her rough, motherly kindness, would say, this or that “is for you and Lizzie,” and then honest but bashful Elias would blush up confusedly and go out under the dusky stars that blinked in the dimness of lake and shore, and dream over his great happiness. He looked forward to the time when, in the mid winter, he would hitch up Buck and Brindle and carry Lizzie on his rude sledge through the long woods to the nearest village, where they would be married,—and then the trip home again, the party at Lizzie’s home, and then how he would bring her up here to his own home to happiness and love. And the glad, innocent joy all this gave him made the summer and early autumn go as a dream. He was the one human figure in the bleak wilderness of the landscape as he sat dreaming this beautiful, old, yet ever new, poem of human love and hope. No sound broke the stillness of the autumn air, save the rattling of the chain as Buck and Brindle crowded each other among the briars and fire-wood, and the distant subdued sound of wild life from the woods and shore below. Some distance behind him, farther up the little farm, loomed the roof of his humble home, and far below, beyond the breathing edge of forest, lay a smoky glimpse of the great lake gleaming under the fast-westering sun.

Elias’ reverie was abruptly broken into by the sound of distant music, and, looking up, he espied the form of a man coming down the road that led past the farm to the lake below. He was sauntering along, with a fiddle held close beneath his chin, playing to himself snatches of dance music and tunes of songs; but suddenly seeing Elias sitting on his stone, he sprang over the log fence and approached with great strides of his long legs. He was a tall, fine-looking young fellow, with handsome, straight features, rich, black, curly hair, and a devil-may-care expression in his dark eyes. But there was a coarse, sinister look in his face that suggested reckless dissipation. He wore a gaudily-embroidered shirt, with a red sash at his waist, and there was a contemptuous sneer on his handsome, dissipated face at Elias’ uncouth appearance, as he ejaculated:—

“I’ll be hanged if it ain’t ’Lias Gale. Know’d you when I first seen you, by your red hair,—sittin’ like a woodpecker on your stone, moonin’ same as ever. Ain’t writin’ poetry on the stone, air you? Weighin’ etarnity and consequences same as ever? Thinkin’ ain’t faded any of the red out’n yer head, has it, ’Lias? Seems you don’t know me,”—and with an ironical laugh he held out his hand, for Elias let his book drop and came forward pale as ashes.

“God in heaven; it ain’t you, Jim Rummage, come back from the dead?” he asked, suddenly.

“The same an’ no other,” said that gentleman, lightly. “Didn’t think I’d grown into such a fine lookin’ feller, did you, ’Lias?”

“Well, no, Jim; but the old folks, Jim, they took on awful bad; near broke their hearts. It’s nigh on three years since the news came, an’ yer mother ain’t been real well since. You might a wrote or somethin.”

“Well, I might if I’d a thought of it, ’Lias; but I didn’t, you see.”

Then, as if slightly ashamed beneath the reproach in Elias’ honest face. “Thought I’d surprise them—prodigal son, fatted calf, etcetery. There ain’t no truth in that about a ‘rollin’ stone gatherin no moss.’ Here you’ve been a grubbin’ like a fool, as you always were, on this darned old rock heap, an me—well, I’ve enjoyed life; and look at us now,”—with a glance of contemptuous comparison of his appearance and that of Elias.

“I don’t grudge no man his luck,” said Elias coldly, for something in the other’s sinister appearance and sentiments jarred on him.

“I’m glad as you ain’t dead, Jim, an glad for your folks’ sake, that is, if you mean well by them. No, Jim, I don’t grudge you nothin’, not even the lickin’ I give you years agone.”

“O, we’re on a different footin’ now, ’Lias,” he laughed back, but a quick, evil light passed over his face at the remembrance.

“Well, what brought you back, any ways,” said Elias. “Was it sorrer for your folks, Jim?”

“No, not that; do you think I’m a ninny? No, somethin better’n that; somethin I heerd, what’s called attraction: hey! ’Lias!”

Just then he noticed the book, and, picking it up, opened at the fly leaf. “D—— it, if that ain’t the name of the beauty I come to see,—Lizzie Crandall. What?” for he noticed the quick, dark flush on Elias’ face at the name, “you hain’t weak there, too, air ye, ’Lias? Bless us, what a joke, but wait till she sees me:” and with another contemptuous laugh he strode across the field, bounded over the fence and soon disappeared down the road to the lake, a road which led to his home and past Joe Crandall’s doorway. As soon as he reached the road he commenced fiddling, but the music which before had sounded sweet to Elias’ ear now seemed a hideous medley of jarring sounds.

II.

Elias stood listening until the sound of the fiddle was lost in the woods below; his first feeling was one of anger, and he wished he had struck Jim Rummage to the earth. Then this was succeeded by a vague sensation of sadness, for he did not like the idea of that man’s having gone down there where his love was, with his sinister good looks, and especially after his having acknowledged her to be the object of his return,—whether in joke or not, Elias did not know, nor did he care to know; it was enough to his love-wakened instinct that such a man was in the vicinity.

He came back to reality with a start. The evening had deepened down; it was growing chilly, and he had to do his chores; but there was a cold feeling at his heart, as if the icy hand of the coming winter had reached out of the future and touched him there.

Returning the book to his pocket with a sigh, he put on his jacket, and went in search of the oxen. By the clink of the chain he soon found them in the briars, and leaving the plow in the half-finished furrow he drove the patient beasts slowly up the hill to the barnyard, through the lonesome shadows of the dusk.

“My! boy! y’ ain’t ill, air you?” said a rough but motherly voice, as he strode, with a worn look, under the doorway into the kitchen, where in the twilight she was preparing his evening meal.

“I’ve strange news for you, mother,” he said quietly, as he sat down and put his long legs under the table. “Jim Rummage has come back.”

“You don’t tell! Him as was drowned?”

She started back in the dusk, almost spilling the bowl of bread and milk she was placing before him.

“Yes, mother. I scarce know’d him at first—he was dressed fine-like, an was playin’ a fiddle; but it’s him and no mistake.”

“I thought as I heerd fiddlin’ somewhars. My, won’t the old folks feel good!”

She leaned her hands on the table, and bent over towards him. “An they having put up a marble ter him, ‘sacred to mem’ry of James Rummage, who was lost in a storm. The Lord give and the Lord tooketh away; blessed be the name o’ the Lord.’ ”

“They won’t feel so awful good when the newness of his comin’ has worn off, mother.” Then he added wearily, “I’m thinkin’ it were better for them an others, too, if he were lyin’ under that very stone at this minit; and, mother, God forgive me, but I wish he were,” and he leaned his head on his arms and groaned.

“ ’Lias, boy, what an awful wish! seems like murder; Lord save us, boy, what’s wrong?”

“I’m afraid, mother, as Jim’s a bad lot.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, ’Lias,” she returned; “sorry for his folks; but, ’Lias, boy,”—and she came over and placed her hand on his head,—“what’s that ter you? You look as if you had seen a ghost.”

“I b’leeve I have mother; only it’s a ghost of the future. O mother!” he sobbed, with his head on the table. “O mother! he said he’d come after my Lizzie.”

“I didn’t think as I’d live to see Elias Gale jealous of any travellin’ scamp” (there was reproach and reproof in her voice) “an him a Rummage.”

“O, mother, you don’t understand, he’s so fine lookin’, an I am not, an I wouldn’t blame Lizzie. I’m afraid as I’ve been selfish ter want her. I don’t think as a girl like Lizzie could really love a feller like me. Seems as if the angels wer’nt good ’nough for her, an you know as Joe Crandall never really liked the idea. A feller like Jim Rummage would hev a better chance with him, an you know as I’d die if I were ter lose her now. I b’leeve I’d turn into a devil. There, mother, I’ve been weak; I couldn’t help it. It all come so suddent on me, but it’s over now. I’ll go and think it out.” And wiping his eyes with his rough sleeve he rose and went past her out into the dusk.

“ ’Lias!” she called, “come back an hev yer supper. ’Lias, ’Lias!”

He came back and put his head in at the door.

“You’ve been so strong all along, every one respects you, ’Lias; an now your not goin’ ter—not for my sake, ’Lias, you’ll not do nothin’?”

“Mother, you know me too well,” he answered. “Then I love her too well for that,”—and he was gone.

She gazed at the doorway for a moment, then at the untouched bread and milk, and, with a deep sigh, sadly went about her work of getting things ready for the night.

Poor Elias wandered out into the dark, and the love in his heart led him down the road through the swampy woods that lay between him and Joe Crandall’s.

All about him lay the dreamy, frosty gleam of the autumn night, and soon over the breathing forest edge would drift in the wintry, fire-fleeced moon. Noises of happy nature from wood, upland and shore struck with no response on his unconscious ear. Love and despair filled his heart. His despair told him it was no use to go and see her; but something else, perhaps a kind of under sense we all have that leads us at times, made him go on. After walking about a mile and a half through the gloomy swamp, he reached a bald sand-hill, and so came into the moon-light, which was now in its first pallid, ghostly dawn, and at the same time into sight of Crandall’s house. It was a large, low shanty, built of logs and drift-wood from the shore, and stood near the road, in the moon-light. As he had come up the hill, his heart smote his side, for he already heard the weird sounds of that cursed fiddle, and knew that his worst fears were realized. Not caring to go in as he now felt, and instinctively knowing that his presence would be out of place, he turned to go back into the darkness; then he changed his mind, and creeping along the log fence in the dark, he stole up like a thief to the house from the side where the shadows were. A dog came round the corner with a low growl, but when he recognized Elias, he licked his hand and grovelled at his feet, as dogs do who trust honest, kind-hearted men. As he drew near the window, the sounds of the fiddle grew louder, mingled with the shuffle of feet as in dancing, and an occasional laugh or other burst of merriment, and, looking in, a sight met his gaze which he never quite forgot, connected as it was with all that was near and dear to his being. The room was cleared for dancing, and two or three young couple were circling round in the middle of the floor in the mazes of a country dance. Mrs. Crandall, another woman, and the children, were congregated near the stove, silently enjoying the scene. Beside the table, from which the tea dishes were not yet removed, sat Joe Crandall, with a flask beside him, evidently in the best of spirits, and right opposite the window where poor Elias stood sat Jim Rummage, fiddling away for all he was worth, his eyes fastened with a basilisk glance on the up-turned, radiant face of Lizzie Crandall, who sat near him, seemingly entranced. There was a light on her face when Rummage would fix his eyes on her, which reminded Elias, in his dazed condition, of a bird in the power of a snake.

How long he stayed there he never really knew, but after a while Rummage bent forward and spoke some words to Lizzie, and, giving the fiddle to Crandall to play, he took Lizzie’s hand, and they joined the dancers. Elias waited to see no more; his heart was broken, and with a groan he turned away into the darkness, giving a last glance at the fair face of the girl he loved, but who, he felt, was his no more.

He was not weak or faint-hearted. He was brave enough to have frightened the other man from the field, had he cared to do so, but he was one of those simple, single-souled men, who love from the depths of their being, and whose love renders them unselfish. Then he could not help comparing himself unfavorably—poor, simple fellow—with the other man. He saw his ugliness and uncouthness beside Rummage’s strange, wild beauty of face.

“Why did I ever dream of such a thing?” he groaned, as he stumbled down the road into the swamp. “What am I but a clod for her ter marry!” Everything now appeared in a different light to him; all wakened by one thing, his lover’s heart did see, amid all his stupidity, that this man, with his sinister attractiveness, had wakened a light in his love’s eyes such as he had never seen there before. He never fully realized all his feelings as he went home that night; but if any feeling was uppermost, it was self-contempt; his very home and surroundings, though almost as good as Crandall’s, and better kept, seemed demeaned by his ownership.

It was late when he got home, but his mother had left a light for him, and his bowl of bread and milk still remained where he had left it. He gazed at it all in a stupid manner, and muttered, “Ter think of bringin’ her ter a place like this”—and all the sweet, humble, home comforts, all the simple preparations for the wedding, became petty in comparison with his love’s idea of her worth. He went to a little drawer where he kept things most sacred to him, and took out some little trinkets in the way of cheap jewelry he had got for her, and fumbled them over, in a dazed way, in his great toil-blistered hands; then, with a stifled sob, he put them back, closed the drawer, and, taking the candle, stole into his mother’s bedroom; and there she lay, his poor old mother, in restful sleep, with the lines of care and age that each year deepened on her forehead. Then he turned in silence, and, blowing out the candle, crept up through the dark to his own bed in the loft above.

Days drifted into weeks, and still Elias went bravely, with breaking heart, the dreary routine of his rude farm life. He determined to keep up heart, if possible, for his mother’s sake, though life to him had become an empty blank of days succeeding dreary days. All that once was of deepest interest now seemed an effort for him to accomplish. He read no more poetry now, and only two lines ran through his brain in a mad way at times:—

“ ’Twas just so with my future,” he would say, “she was too good for the likes of me.”

But he worked harder than ever, poor fellow; and on the whole the work was good for him; it helped to keep him from thinking. For he was human after all, and it was hard work to keep down the devil in him when he heard now and again rumors of the doings down at the shore farm.

What made it worse for Elias were the remarks the neighbors made, not to him, but to his mother, and he knew she felt it badly. But one afternoon a garrulous old neighbor came ostensibly to enquire about a pig he had lost.

“Wall, ’Lias, I’d never a b’leeved it. An’ you ’gaged ter her, too, an’ the time all set; but he’s a mighty hansum feller, and Joe’s mighty pleased too; but (noting the young man’s face) I s’pose ye don’t keer to talk of it. Sorry fer ye, ’Lias, but they says as it’s ter come off soon. Hain’t got any baccy, hev ye? Oh, I fergot, ye don’t chew. Ye oughter chew, ’Lias; it’s good for the narves, and mighty consolin’.”

But Elias had left him in disgust, and was half across the field before the last sentence was finished.

“Wall, I’ll be d——d,” was all the little old man could say, as he hobbled off.

With all his strength and despair, Elias could not help at times looking back into his lost Eden, and, bad as he felt, he would go to meeting on Sundays. Here, at any rate, nobody could prevent his getting a glimpse of her face. But it was sorry comfort, and generally Jim Rummage would come with the family. Elias had never been at Crandall’s since that eventful night, and had made up his mind never to go again. It would do no good, he thought, and only bring pain to both families.

One afternoon, late in the autumn, when the leaves had almost forsaken the trees, and the forest floors were strewn with the summer’s foliage, Mrs. Gale asked Elias to go and get her some water from a certain spring, which was supposed to have medicinal properties. She had sprained her ankle, and though she did not complain much, because of Elias’ overpowering trouble, yet he knew it caused her more suffering than she acknowledged. This spring, as she and Elias knew, was situated in a small grove of maples in the centre of a great blackberry patch, and had been a common resort for the young people of the settlement, and many a time Elias and Lizzie had been there together, and she knew it was like opening a wound to ask him to go now, especially on this dreary afternoon, but she really needed the water, or thought she did. She had never, but once, mentioned Lizzie’s name to him since that one night, but now she broke down and sobbed, as she said, “I wouldn’t hev asked ye, ’Lias, but I need it, my poor boy. God help you;” and Elias, not being able to contain himself, took the pail and strode off.

It was a bright, frosty afternoon, and the sun was shining, but there was a lonesome wind among the trees,—a sense of broken-heartedness for the dead summer,—that touched Elias’ sympathetic heart. He went on and on, sadly and silently, until at last, after half an hour’s walk, he came to the edge of the patch, and, taking a path he knew, arrived at the spring. As he approached, if he had only had his eyes about him, he would have noticed a girl’s figure standing by the spring, in the shade of the trees; but as he drew near, the figure disappeared in the bushes.

The place and its associations were too much for him, for instead of filling his pail and retracing his steps, he sat down on a decayed log, and buried his face in his hands, and great tears trickled through them and fell to the ground.

He did not know how long he had been sitting in this way, when he felt a pair of soft arms wind about him, and a long-lost voice was whispering and sobbing in his ear: “ ’Lias, darling! you’ve suffered all this fer me, an’ you so good and strong.” Then it seemed like a dream that he had his lost love in his arms once more, with her flower-like face looking up into his, and then buried in burning blushes on his shoulder, and the poor fellow was weeping for very joy or madness, he could not tell which.

“O, ’Lias, I’ve been so wicked.”

“No, you hain’t, Lizzie,” he could just say, “I didn’t blame you. I know’d it, Lizzie, I could never make you love me as he did.”

“You’re wrong and yet you’re right, ’Lias. He never made me love him; but I was a girl then, ’Lias, an’ it was the girl as was carried away by his ways; but the woman was always true to you, ’Lias, though I did not know it till lately. Father was favorable ter him, too, but I told him I’d rather die than marry a bad man. O, ’Lias, your soul seems to look at me right out of your eyes!”

But all poor Elias could do was to hold her in his arms and dream his happiness, while the benediction of love came upon them from the afternoon until it seemed the old pulse of summer throbbed once more in the dried-up sap of the drear autumnal woods.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

A cover was created for this eBook and is placed in the public domain.

[The end of Love’s Tragedy at Scratch’s Point, by William Wilfred Campbell.]