Lodusky | Page 8

spent upon the mountain side together. When they stopped to rest, Lennox flung himself upon the ground at Rebecca's feet, and lay looking up at the far away blue of the sky in which a slow-flying bird circled lazily. Rebecca, with a cluster of pink and white laurel in her hand, proceeded with a metaphysical and poetical harangue she had previously begun.
"To my eyes," she said, "it has a pathetic air of loneliness--pathetic and yet not exactly sorrowful. It knows nothing but its own pure, brave, silent life. It is only pathetic to a worldling--worldlings like us. How fallen we must be to find a life desolate because it has only nature for a companion!"
She stopped with an idle laugh, waiting for an ironical reply from the "worldling" at her feet; but he remained silent, still looking upward at the clear, deep blue.
As she glanced toward him she saw something lying upon the grass between them, and bent to pick it up. It was the sketch which he had forgotten and which had slipped from the portfolio.
"You have dropped something," she said, and seeing what it was, uttered an exclamation of pleasure.
He came back to earth with a start, and, recognizing the sketch, looked more than half irritated.
"Oh, it is that, is it?" he said.
"It is perfect!" she exclaimed. "What a pictare it will make!"
"It is not to be a picture," he answered. "It was not intended to be anything more than a sketch."
"But why not?" she asked. "It is too good to lose. You never had such a model in your life before."
"No," he answered grudgingly.
The hand with which Rebecca held the sketch dropped. She turned her attention to her lover, and a speculative interest grew in her face.
"That girl"--she said slowly, after a mental summing up occupying a few seconds--"that girl irritates you--irritates you."
He laughed faintly.
"I believe she does," he replied; "yes, 'irritates' is the word to use."
And yet if this were true, his first act upon returning home was a singular one.
He was rather late, but the girl Lodusky was sitting in the moonlight at the door. He stopped and spoke to her.
"If I should wish to paint you," he said rather coldly, "would you do me the favor of sitting to me?"
She did not answer him at once, but seemed to weigh his words as she looked out across the moonlight.
"Ye mean, will I let ye put me in a picter?" she said at last.
He nodded.
"Yes," she answered.
"I reckon he told ye he was a-paintin' Dusk's picter," "Mis'" Harney said to her boarders a week later.
"Mr. Lennox?" returned Rebecca; "yes, he told us."
"I thort so," nodding benignly. "Waal now, Dusk'll make a powerful nice picter if she don't git contrairy. The trouble with Dusk is her a-gittin' contrairy. She's as like old Hance Dunbar as she kin be. I mean in some ways. Lord knows, 'twouldn't do to say she was like him in everythin'."
Naturally, Miss Noble made some inquiries into the nature of old Hance Dunbar's "contrairiness." Secretly, she had a desire to account for Lodusky according to established theory.
"I wonder ye haint heern of him," said Mis Harney. "He was just awful--old Hance! He was Nath's daddy, an' Lord! the wickedest feller! Folks was afeared of him. No one darsn't to go a-nigh him when he'd git mad--a-rippin' 'n' a-rearin' 'n' a-chargin'.. 'N' he never got no religion, mind ye; he died jest that a-way. He was allers a hankerin' arter seein' the world, 'n' he went off an' stayed off a right smart while,--nine or ten year,--'n' lived in all sorts o' ways in them big cities. When he come back he was a sight to see, sick 'n' pore 'n' holler-eyed, but as wicked as ever. Dusk was a little thing 'n' he was a old man, but he'd laugh 'n' tell her to take care of her face 'n' be a smart gal. He was drefful sick at last 'n' suffered a heap, 'n' one day he got up offen his bed 'n' tuk down Nath's gun 'n' shot hisself as cool as could be. He hadn't no patience, 'n' he said, 'When a G--derned man had lived through what he had 'n' then wouldn't die, it was time to kill him.' Seems like it sorter 'counts fur Dusk; she don't git her cur'usness from her own folks; Nath an' Mandy's mighty clever, both on 'em."
"Perhaps it does 'count for Dusk," Rebecca said, after telling the tale to Lennox. "It must be a fearful thing to have such blood in one's veins and feel it on fire. Let us," she continued with a smile, "be as charitable as possible."
When the picture was fairly under way, Lennox's visits to the Harneys' cabin were somewhat less frequent. The mood in which she found