Round Anvil Rock | Page 4

do something for him--something to cheer
him--who does everything for me. It must be very sad to be alone and
old. It grieves me to see him riding away to that desolate cabin,
especially on stormy nights. But he never will let me come to his house,
though I beg and beg. He says it is too rough, and that too many strange
men are coming and going on business."
"Yes; too many strange men on very strange business."
She did not hear or notice what he said, because the sound of horses'
feet echoing behind them just at that moment caused her to turn her
head. Two horsemen were riding along the river bank, but they were a
long way off and about turning into the forest path as her gaze fell upon
them. She stood still, silently looking after them till they disappeared
among the trees.
"Father Orin and Toby will get home before dark to-night. That is
something uncommon," she said with a smile.
Toby was the priest's horse, but no one ever spoke of the one without

thinking of the other; and then, Toby's was a distinct and widely
recognized personality.
"But who is the stranger with them, David? Oh, I remember! It must be
the new doctor,--the young doctor who has lately come and who is
curing the Cold Plague. The Sisters told me. They said that he and
Father Orin often visited the sick together and were already great
friends. How tall he is--even taller than Father Orin, and broader
shouldered. I should like to see his face. And how straight he sits in the
saddle. You would expect a man who holds himself so to carry a lance
and tilt fearlessly at everything that he thought was wrong."
She turned, quickly tossing the willow branches aside and laughing
gayly. "There now, that will set you off thinking of your knights again!
But you must not. Truly, you must not. For it is quite true, dear; you are
a dreamer, a poet. You do indeed belong to the Arcadian Hills. You
should be there now, playing a gentle shepherd's pipe and herding his
peaceful flocks. And instead--alas!"--she looked at him in perplexity
which was partly real and partly assumed--"instead you are here in this
awful wilderness, carrying a rifle longer and heavier than yourself, and
trying to pretend that you like to kill wild beasts, or can endure to hurt
any living thing."
David said nothing; there seemed to be no response for him to make.
When a well-grown youth of eighteen or thereabouts is spoken to by a
girl near his own age as he had just been spoken to by Ruth, he rarely
finds anything to say. No words could do justice to what he feels. And
there is nothing for him to do either, unless it be to take refuge in a
dignified silence which disdains the slightest notice of the offence. This
was what David resorted to, and, bending down, he calmly and quietly
raised his forgotten rifle from the ground to his shoulder. He did it very
slowly and impressively, however, in the hope that Ruth might realize
the fact that he had killed the buck whose huge horns made the rifle's
rest on his cabin walls. But she saw and realized only that he was
wounded, and instantly darted toward him like a swallow. She caught
his rigid rifle arm and clung to it, looking up in his set face. Her blue
eyes were already filling with tears while the smile was still on her lips.

That was Ruth's way; her smiles and tears were even closer together
than most women's are; she was nearly always quiveringly poised
between gayety and sadness; like a living sunbeam continually
glancing across life's shadows.
"What is it, David, dear?" she pleaded, with her sweet lips close to his
ear. "What foolish thing have I said? You must know--whatever it
was--that it was all in fun. Why, I wouldn't have you different, dear, if I
could! I couldn't love you so much if you were not just what you are.
And yet," sighing, "it might be better for you."
She laid her head against his shoulder and drew closer to him in that
soft little nestling way of hers. David looked straight over the lovely
head, keeping his grim gaze as high as he could. He knew how it would
be if his stern gray eyes were to meet Ruth's wet blue ones. He was still
a boy, but trying to be a man--and beginning to understand. No man
with his heart in the right place could hold out against her pretty
coaxing. It was sweet enough to wile the very birds out of the trees. It
made no difference that he had been