The Ordeal | Page 8

out imperiously in the sad, murky atmosphere and echoed back,
shrilly sweet, from the great crags. The stable lantern showed him thus
gallantly mounted, against the purple and brown shadows of the
background, his white linen frock clasped low by his red leather belt,
his cherubic legs, with his short half hose and his red shoes, sticking
stiffly out at an angle of forty-five degrees, his golden curls blowing
high on his head, his face pink with joy and laughter. The light shone
too in the big, astonished eyes of the fine animal he bestrode, now and
then turning his head inquisitively toward Briscoe--who stood close by
with a cautious grasp on the skirts of the little boy--as if wondering to
feel the clutch of the infantile hands on his mane and the tempestuous
beat of the little feet as Archie cried out his urgency to speed.
Archie would not willingly have relinquished this joy till dawn, and the

problem how to get him peaceably off the horse became critical. He
had repeatedly declined to dismount, when at length a lucky inspiration
visited Briscoe. The amiable host called for an ear of corn, and with
this he lured the little horseman to descend, in order to feed a "poor
pig" represented as in the last stages of famine and dependent solely on
the ministrations of the small guest. Here renewed delights expanded,
for the "poor pig" became lively and almost "gamesome," being greatly
astonished by the light and men and the repast at this hour of the night.
As he was one of those gormands who decline no good thing, he
affably accepted Archie's offering, so graciously indeed that the little
fellow called for another ear of corn more amply to relieve the porcine
distresses, the detail of which had much appealed to his tender heart. It
seemed as if the choice of the good Mr. Briscoe lay between the fiction
of riding an endless race or playing the Samaritan to the afflicted pig,
when in the midst of Archie's noisy beatitudes sleep fell upon him
unaware, like a thief in the night. As he waited for the groom to
reappear with the second relay of refreshments, Briscoe felt the tense
little body in his clasp grow limp and collapse; the eager head with its
long golden curls drooped down on his shoulder; the shout, already
projected on the air, quavered and failed midway, giving place to a
deep-drawn sigh, and young Royston was fairly eclipsed for the night,
translated doubtless to an unexplored land of dreams where horses and
pigs and revenue officers and mountains ran riot together "in much
admired disorder." Briscoe bore him tenderly in his arms to the house,
and, after transferring him to his nurse, rejoined with Bayne the ladies
in the hall.
Here they found a change of sentiment prevailing. Although failing in
no observance of courtesy, Mrs. Briscoe had been a little less than
complaisant toward the departed guest. This had been vaguely
perceptible to Briscoe at the time, but now she gency constrained him."
"I don't see why you should have asked him to dine," she said to her
husband. "He was difficult to persuade, and only your urgency
constrained him."
Her face was uncharacteristically petulant and anxious as she stood on

the broad hearth at one side of the massive mantelpiece, one hand lifted
to the high shelf; her red cloth gown with the amber-tinted gleams of
the lines of otter fur showed richly in the blended light of fire and lamp.
Her eyes seemed to shrink from the window, at which nevertheless she
glanced ever and anon.
"I delight in the solitude here, and I have never felt afraid, but I think
that since this disastrous raid that revenue officer is in danger in this
region from the moonshiners, and that his presence at our house will
bring enmity on us. It really makes me apprehensive. It was not prudent
to entertain him, and certainly not at all necessary--it was almost
against his will, in fact."
"Well, well, he is gone now," returned Briscoe easily, lifting the lid of
the piano and beginning to play a favorite air. But she would not quit
the subject.
"While you three were at the stable I thought I heard a step on the
veranda--you need not laugh--Lillian heard it as well as I. Then, when
you were so long coming back, I went upstairs to get a little shawl to
send out to you to put over Archie as you came across the yard--the
mists are so dank--and I saw--I am sure I saw--just for a minute--a light
flicker from the hotel across the ravine."
Briscoe, his hands crashing out involuntarily a discordant chord, looked
over his shoulder with widening eyes. "Why, Gladys, there is