In the Border Country | Page 3

acts as if there were nobody in the carriage!"
They looked fearfully at each other.
"He will stop surely--somewhere," said the other, but her heart felt chilled. She could not think--she dared not.
They trotted swiftly on; her companion's eyes were fixed ahead of her, her lips moved.
"Hail Mary!" she muttered, and then, "now and at the hour of our death!"
"Don't say that, don't!" she begged the woman, but still the mutterings went on. The door of the carriage swung open; the horses dropped to a walk. All around were trees and grass; great rocks lined the driveway.
"I could slip behind the bushes and my gown would not be noticed," she thought feverishly, "for I cannot bear to hear her," and as the carriage almost halted she swung herself easily down from the low step.
"Now and at the hour of our death!" she heard as the carriage rolled on, and shuddered when the coachman slammed the door upon that pale, crazed creature.
Behind the bushes she was well screened, and the few people that drove and walked through the wild, beautiful woodland never looked in her direction. Once a couple, intertwined and deep in each other's eyes, almost ran against her, but though she drew away, startled and apologizing, they walked on with no reply to her excuses.
Her heart sank strangely.
"I wish they had spoken to me," she whispered to herself. "I wish I could think better--I know there is something wrong. The next person I meet I will ask----"
But she walked steadily away from the great driveway, deeper and deeper into the wood.
"In a moment I will stop and think this out--in a moment," she murmured, but she did not stop; she ran like a hunted animal, farther and farther.
The wood was utterly quiet. Sometimes a little furry beast slipped across the narrow path she ran along, sometimes a large bird flapped heavily into the air ahead of her; but no person walked or called.
Soon a great fatigue seized her, and hunger. She moved languidly; her legs seemed to walk of themselves.
"I must eat--I must rest," she moaned, "but why did they not speak to me?"
At last she realized that she could drag herself no farther, that she was alone and lost, fearful and worn out, in a dense wood.
"I will get to that little path," she said, trembling, "and there I will drop, and if I must think, I must."
She staggered up the little path, and it lead to a tiny hut, the colour of the four great trees that stood about it. Its door hung wide open, and in the middle of it, on a low stool, there sat an old woman, wrapped in a long cloak, looking kindly at her.
She threw herself across the threshold and fell upon the earthen floor.
"Oh, will you speak to me? Will you see me? Pray, pray answer me!" she cried.
"And why should I not see you, my child?" said the old woman.
She gasped with joy.
"I don't know--I thought--the coachman slammed the door--I don't know what I thought! It was terrible!" she panted.
"I know, I know," said the old woman; "but you are here now. You can rest now. It took you a long time, you are so strong. Look, I have a bed for you!"
She looked, and in the corner of the hut was a couch of pine boughs, odorous and soft.
"You may lie on my cloak," said the old woman, and spread it on the springy couch. She dropped on it.
"Oh, I ache!--every bone in me aches!" she sobbed, and for the first time she wept.
"That is right," said the old woman, and soothed her with her hand, "now sleep, and I will have something for you when you wake."
Her body sank, relaxed, upon the soft boughs, and it was as if a sponge were wiped across her mind, and she slept.
Time passed over her; she had no way of knowing if they were minutes or hours that ran by.
When she awoke, a gentle, steady humming filled the air; a murmurous, musical sound that calmed every sense. It was like the turning of a great wheel or the rocking of an old cradle.
"What is that?" she asked faintly.
"They are my bees, child," said the old woman. "They have come home."
She was slender, with brown eyes like brook water, and though she was wrinkled finely, she was straight and strong, for she lifted up her guest and half carried her to the opposite corner of the hut.
"Now wash," she said, "and then you must eat."
A cold, deep spring welled up in that corner, and as she plunged her face into it she opened her hot eyes to let the icy water cool them--and gazed at the white moon far below her and the small stars.
All space seemed spread before her and she drew out,