Mary Greenway McClelland - Princess

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The evening freshened as the sun went down, a vagrant breeze stole out
from some leafy covert and disported itself blithely. The big Irish
setter moved from the corner to the top step, and ceased yawning. An
old colored man appearing from behind the house took his way across the
lawn in quest of the colts. The dog, with his interest in life
reawakened, bounded off the steps prepared to lend valuable assistance,
but was diverted from this laudable object by the approach of two
gentlemen who must be welcomed riotously.

Pocahontas, rising, advanced out of the shadow to meet them--Jim Byrd,
and a tall broad-shouldered man with a great silky red beard, her
brother-in-law, Mr. Royall Garnett.

CHAPTER IV.

After a joyous exchange of greeting with her brother-in-law, of whom
she was unusually fond, and a sweet, gracious welcome to her old
play-fellow, Pocahontas withdrew to tell her mother of their arrival,
and to assure herself that every thing was perfectly arranged for Jim's
last meal among them.

Through some strange deficiency in herself, she was unable to give him
what he most desired, but what she could give him she lavished royally.
She wore her prettiest dress in his honor, and adorned it with his
favorite flowers, forgetful in her eagerness to please him, that this
might make things harder for him. She ordered all the dishes she knew
he liked for tea, and spent a couple of hours in the hot kitchen that
scorching morning preparing a cake that he always praised. With eager
haste she took from its glass-doored cabinet the rare old Mason china,
and rifled the garden of roses to fill the quaint century old
punch-bowl for the center of the table. All things possible should be
done to make Jim feel himself, that night, the honored guest, the
person of most importance in their world. It was an heirloom--the
Mason china--quaint and curious, and most highly prized. There was a
superstition--how originated none knew--that the breakage of a piece,
whether by design or accident, foreboded misfortune to the house of
Mason. Very carefully it was always kept, being only used on rare
occasions when special honor was intended. During the civil war it had
lain securely hidden in a heavy box under the brick pavement of one of
the cellar rooms, thereby escaping dire vicissitudes. Many pieces had
been broken, said to have been followed in every case by calamities
harder to endure than the loss of precious porcelain, but much of it
still remained. In design it was unique, in execution wonderful, and
its history was romantic.

In the olden time a rich and fanciful Mason had visited the colonies
with one of the expeditions sent out by the Virginia Company of London.
He was an artist of no mean repute, and during his stay in the new
world had made sketches of the strange beautiful scenery, and studies
from the wild picturesque life which captivated his imagination.

After his return to England, he perfected these drawings from memory,
and some years later crossed over to France, and had them transferred
to china at fabulous cost. The result was very beautiful, for each
piece showed small but exquisite portrayals of life and scenery in the
new world. The scenes were varied, and depicted in soft, glowing
colors, and with a finish that made each a gem.

On one cup a hunter followed the chase through the silent forest;
another showed a dusky maiden dreaming beside a waterfall; a third, a
group of deer resting in a sunny valley; a fourth, a circle of braves
around a council fire.

When, in after years, the grandson of the artist had married a bride
with Indian blood in her veins, the punch-bowl had been added as a
special compliment to the lady, and the china had been sent a wedding
gift from the Masons of England, to the Masons of Virginia. The bowl
was very graceful, and contained on one side a lovely representation of
the landing at Jamestown, with the tranquil, smiling river, the vessel
in the offing, and the group of friendly red men on the shore; on the
other was, of course, depicted the rescue of Captain John Smith by the
Indian girl. The bowl was finished at top and bottom with wreaths of
Virginia creepers, forest leaves and blossoms.

To bring out this precious heirloom in honor of a guest was making him
of consequence indeed.

Jim knew all about it, and when he caught sight of the pretty tea-table
he understood the girl's intention and shot a quick, grateful glance
across to her from his brown eyes. A whimsical memory of a superb
breakfast he had once seen served to a man about to be hanged obtruded
itself, but he banished it loyally. As betook the cup with the
dreaming maiden on it from Mrs. Mason's hand, he said gratefully:

"How good of you to have out the beautiful old china in my honor. When
I was a boy, I always imagined that coffee from these cups tasted
different--had a woodsy, adventurous flavor. I think so still."

It was a merry meal, despite the shadow in the background, for the
gentlemen taking their cue from Pocahontas vied with each other in
talking nonsense, and depicting ridiculous phases of camp life in the
tropics with Jim always for the hero of the scene. And Jim, shaking
off the dismal emotions peculiar to farewell visits, responded
gallantly, defending himself from each sportive attack, and illumining
his exile with such rays of promise as occurred to him. He knew these
old friends were sorry to lose him, and trying to lessen the wrench of
parting; and being a quiet, self-controlled man--more given to action
than speech, and with a deep abhorrence of scenes, he appreciated their
efforts.

After tea, Berkeley and Royall lit their pipes and strolled out toward
the stables, leaving Jim and Pocahontas alone together on the porch.
The girl leaned back in her chair silently, not trying to make
conversation any more, and Jim sat on the steps at her feet, letting
his eyes follow wistfully the slope of the lawn, and the flow of the
river. Presently, without turning his head, he asked her to walk with
him down to the old willows by the riverside, for a farewell look on
the scene so dear to him, and Pocahontas rose instantly and slipped her
hand within his proffered arm.

Down by the river, where the lawn bent softly to the wooing of the
water, stood two ancient willows of unusual size: they were gnarled
with age, but vigorous and long limbed. The story ran that once a
Pocahontas Mason, the lady of the manor here, had lovers twain--twin
brothers who being also Masons were her distant cousins. One she
loved, and one she did not, but both loved her, and being passionate
men both swore that they would have her, come what might; and cause any
man that came between, most bloodily to rue it. Between the brothers
there arose quarrels, and ill feeling, which afflicted the lady, who
was a good woman, and averse to breaking the peace of families. That
brothers--twin-brothers, should be scowling venomously at each other
because of her, appeared a grievous thing, and she set herself to mend
it. By marrying the man she loved, she could end the affair at once,
but his brother would never forgive him, and before love had maddened
them the men had been friends as well as brothers. She gauged their
characters thoughtfully, and hit upon a plan--which, at the expense of
some self-sacrifice, would arrange the matter peacefully. Bidding both
lovers attend her one day, she brought them to this spot, and cutting
two willow wands of exactly the same length and thickness she stuck
them deep into the moist soil, and announced her decision. They would
wait three years, she said, and at the end of that time the man whose
tree had grown the strongest, should come and claim his answer. She
would attend to both willows herself, giving to each the same care, and
treating them with equal fairness. Then she made the men shake hands
in amity once more, and swear to abide by her decision.

The story further tells that both willows flourished finely, but that
in the last year the true love's tree outstripped its mate, as was
right and proper. As the lady had anticipated, when the term of
probation expired only one of the twins appeared to claim an answer to
his suit. And in the pocket of the constant man, when he kissed his
own true love, lay a letter, from across the seas, full of brotherly
affection and congratulation.

This little story was a favorite with Pocahontas, and she was fond of
relating how her great-great-grandmother by a little wit and generous
self-sacrifice, averted a feud between brothers, and kept family peace
unbroken.

The trees were always called "The Lovers," and under their sweeping
branches the young people were fond of gathering on moonlit summer
evenings.

Pocahontas seated herself under the larger tree on the dry, warm grass,
and Jim leaned against the rugged trunk, silently drinking in, with his
eyes, the still beauty of the night--the silvery sheen of the water,
the pure bend of the sky, the slope of the lawn, and the gray
tranquillity of the old house in the background. And as he gazed,
there awoke in his breast, adding to its pain, that weary yearning
which men call home-sickness.

With a shuddering sigh and a movement of the strong shoulders as though
some burden were settling down upon them, Jim dropped himself to the
ground beside his companion, and suffered her gently to possess herself
of his tobacco pouch and pipe. The girl felt that the peacefulness of
the scene jarred upon his mood, and set herself to soothe him into
harmony with himself and nature. Jim watched the white fingers deftly
fill the bowl, and strike the match for him; then he took it from her
hand and breathed softly through the curved stem until the fire circled
brightly round, and the tobacco all was burning. He leaned back on his
elbow and sent the smoke out in long quiet wreaths, and Pocahontas,
with her hands folded together in her lap, watched it rise and vanish
dreamily.

"I wonder," she murmured presently, "if the nights out there--in
Mexico, I mean--can be more beautiful than this. I have read
descriptions, and dreamed dreams, but I can't imagine any thing more
perfect than that stretch of water shimmering in the moonlight, and the
dark outline of the trees yonder against the sky."

"It's more than beautiful; it's _home_." Jim's voice shook a little.
"Do you know, Princess, that whenever the memory of home comes to me
out yonder in the tropics, it will be just this picture, I shall always
see. The river, the lights and shadows on the lawn, the old gray
house, and _you_, with the flowers on your breast, and the moonlight on
your dear face. Don't be afraid, or move away; I'm not going to make
love to you--all that is over; but your face must always be to me the
fairest and sweetest on earth." He paused a moment, and then added,
looking steadily away from her; "I want to tell you--this last time I
may ever have an opportunity of speaking to you alone--that you are
never to blame yourself for what has come and gone. It's been no fault
of yours. You could no more help my loving you than I could help it
myself; or than you could make yourself love me in return."

"Oh, Jim, dear!" spoke the girl, quickly and penitently, "I do love
you. I do, indeed."

"I know it, Princess, in exactly the same way you love Roy Garnett, and
immeasurably less than you love Berkeley. That isn't what I wanted,
dear. I'm a dull fellow, slow at understanding things, and I can't put
my thoughts into graceful, fluent language; but I know what love is,
and what I wanted you to feel is very different. Don't be unhappy
about it--or me. I'll worry through the pain in time, or grow
accustomed to it. It's tough, just at first, but I'll pull through
somehow. It shall not spoil my life either, although it must mar it; a
man must be a pitiful fellow, who lets himself go to the bad because
the woman he loves won't have him. God means every man to hold up his
own weight in this world. I'd as soon knock a woman down as throw the
blame of a wasted life upon her."

Pocahontas listened with her eyes on the folded hands in her lap,
realizing for the first time how deeply the man beside her loved her.
Would any other man ever love her with such grand unselfishness, she
wondered, ever give all, receive nothing in return, and still give on.
_Why_ could not she love him? Why was her heart still and speechless,
and only her mind responsive. He was worthy of any woman's love; why
could not she give him hers?

Ask the question how she would, the answer was always the same. She
did not love him; she could not love him; but the reason was beyond her.

After a little while Jim spoke again: "When you were a little girl," he
said, "I always was your knight. In all our plays, and troubles, it
was always _me_ you wanted. My boat was the one you liked best, and my
dog and horse would come to your whistle as quickly as to mine. I was
the one always to care for you and carry out your will. That can never
be again, I know, but don't forget me, Princess. Let the thought of
your old friend come to you sometimes, not to trouble you, only to
remind you when things are hard and rough, and you need comfort, that
there's a heart in the world that would shed its last drop to help you."

With quick impulse Pocahontas leaned forward and caught his hand in
hers, and before he could divine her intention, bent her head and laid
her soft, warm lips against it. When she lifted her eyes to his there
were tears in them, and her voice trembled as she said: "I will think
of you often, old friend; of how noble you are, and how unselfish. You
have been generous to me all my life; far more generous than I have
ever deserved."

As they arose, to return to the house, the jasmin blossom fell from the
girl's hair to the ground at Jim's feet; he stooped and raised it.
"May I keep it?" he said.

She bowed her head, silently.

CHAPTER V.

In the dining-room at Lanarth stood Pocahontas, an expression of
comical dismay upon her face, a pile of dusty volumes on the floor at
her feet. The bookcase in the recess by the fireplace, with yawning
doors and empty shelves, stood swept and garnished, awaiting
re-possession. In a frenzy of untimely cleanliness, she had torn all
the books from the repose of years, and now that the deed was beyond
recall, she was a prey to disgust, and given over to repentance. The
morning promised to be sultry, and the pile was very big; outside bugs
and bees and other wise things hummed and sang in leafy places; the
leaves on the magnolias were motionless, and the air asleep. A
butterfly, passing to his siesta on the bosom of a rose, paused an
instant on the window ledge to contemplate her foolishness; the flowers
in the borders hung their heads. Berkeley passed the open window,
looking cool and fresh in summer clothing, and Pocahontas, catching
sight of him, put her fingers to her lips and whistled sharply to
attract his attention, which being done, she followed up the advantage
with pantomimic gestures, indicative of despair, and need of swift
assistance. Berkeley turned good-naturedly, and came in to the rescue,
but when he discovered the service required of him, he regarded it with
aversion, and showed a mean desire to retreat, which unworthiness was
promptly detected by Pocahontas, and as promptly frustrated.

"Do help me, Berkeley," she entreated. "They must all be put in place
again before dinner, and it only wants a quarter to one now. I can't
do it all before half-past two, to save my life, unless you help me.
You know, mother dislikes a messy, littered room, and I've got your
favorite pudding for dessert. Oh, dear! I'm tired to death already,
and it's _so_ warm!" The rising inflection of her voice conveyed an
impression of heat intense enough to drive an engine.

"What made you do it?" inquired Berkeley, in a tone calculated to make
her sensible of folly.

"Mother asked me to dust the books sometime ago, but I neglected it,
and this morning when the sun shone on them I saw that their condition
was disgraceful. I was so much disgusted with my untidiness, that I
dragged them all out on the impulse of the moment, and only realized
how hot it was, and how I hated it, after the deed was done. Come,
Berke, do help me. I'm so tired."

Thus adjured, Berkeley laid aside his coat, for lifting is warm work
with the sun at the meridian. The empty shirt sleeve had a forlorn and
piteous look as it hung crumpled and slightly twisted by his side.
Berkeley caught it with his other hand and thrust the cuff in the
waistband of his trowsers. He was well used to his loss, and
apparently indifferent to it, but the dangling of the empty sleeve
worried him; the arm was gone close up at the shoulder.

Then the pair fell to work briskly, dusting, arranging, re-arranging
and chatting pleasantly. Pocahontas plied the duster and her brother
sorted the books and replaced them on the shelves. The sun shone in
royally, until Pocahontas served a writ of ejectment on his majesty by
closing all the shutters; and the sun promptly eluded it by peeping in
between the bars. A little vagrant breeze stole in, full of idleness
and mischief, and meddled with the books--fluttering the leaves of "The
Faery Queen," which lay on its back wide open, lifting up the pages,
and flirting them over roguishly as though bent on finding secrets.
The little noise attracted the girl's attention, and she raised the
book and wiped the covers with her duster. As she slapped it lightly
with her hand to get out all the dust, a letter slipped from among the
leaves and fell to the floor near Berkeley's feet.

"Where did this come from?" he inquired, as he picked it up.

"Out of this book," she answered, holding up the volume in her hand.
"It fell out while I was dusting; some one must have left it in to mark
a place. It must have been in the book for years; see how soiled it
is. Whose is it?"

There is something in the unexpected finding of a stray letter which
stimulates curiosity, and Berkeley turned it in his hand to read the
address. The envelope was soiled like the coat of a traveler, and the
letter was crumpled as though a hand had closed over it roughly. The
writing was distinct and clerkly. "Berkeley Mason, Esq., Wintergreen,
---- Co., Virginia." Mr. Mason examined the blurred, indistinct
postmark. "Point"--something, it seemed to be; and on the other side,
Washington, plain enough, and the date, May, 1865. What letter had
been forwarded him from the seat of government in the spring of '65?
Then memory unfolded itself like a map whose spring is loosened.

Seating himself in an easy chair, he drew the letter from its envelope,
unfolding it slowly against his knee. It was a half-sheet of ordinary
commercial paper and the lines upon it numbered, perhaps, a dozen.
Mason winced at sight of the heading as though an old wound had been
pressed. His sister, leaning over the back of his chair, read with
him; putting out a hand across his shoulder to help him straighten the
page. It ran thus:

POINT LOOKOUT,

May --, 1865.

TO BERKELEY MASON, ESQ., Virginia.

SIR--A Confederate soldier, now a prisoner of war at this place, giving
his name as Temple Mason, is lying in the prison hospital at the point
of death. He was too ill to be sent south with the general transfer,
and in compliance with his urgent request, I write again--the third
time, to inform you of his condition. He can't last much longer, and
in event of his dying without hearing from his friends, he will be
buried in the common cemetery connected with the prison, and his
identity, in all probability, lost. This is what he appears to dread,
and he entreats that you will come to him, in God's name, if you are
still alive. The utmost dispatch will be necessary.

Respectfully,

PERCIVAL SMITH, B. G. U. S. A.

Comdt., U. S. P., Point Lookout.

Mason returned the letter to its envelope and leaned back in his chair
thinking. It was one of the many messages of sorrow that had winged
their way through the country in the weeks following the close of the
war; one of the murmurs of pain that had swelled the funeral dirge
vibrating through the land.

Pocahontas came and seated herself on her brother's knee, gazing at him
with wide gray eyes filled with inquiry. "When did this come? I never
saw it before," she questioned, gravely.

Then with troubled brow, and voice that grew husky at times, he went
over for her the sad story of the last months of the last year of that
unhappy and fateful struggle. In the autumn of '64 their brother
Temple, a lad of seventeen, had been taken prisoner, with others of his
troop, while making a reconnoissance, and they had been unable to
discover either his condition or place of incarceration. Mason,
himself, had been at home on sick leave, weak and worn with the loss of
his arm and a saber cut across his head. All through the winter and
spring, while calamity followed calamity with stunning rapidity, the
wearing anxiety about Temple continued, made more intolerable by the
contradictory reports of his fate brought by passing soldiers.
Finally, this letter had arrived and converted a dread fear into a
worse certainty.

It had been handed to Roy Garnett by a Federal officer at Richmond, and
Roy had ridden straight down with it all those weary miles, feeling
curiously certain that it contained news of Temple, and sharing their
anxiety to the full. Roy had been stanch and helpful in their trouble,
aiding in the hurried preparations for the journey, and accompanying
the wounded man, and the pale, resolute mother on their desperate
mission. Then came the hideous journey, the arrival at the prison, the
fearful questioning, the relief akin to pain of the reply; the
interview with the bluff, kindly commandant, who took their hands
heartily and rendered them every assistance in his power. Then, in the
rough hospital of the hostile prison, the strange, sad waiting for the
end, followed by the stranger, sadder home-coming. It was a pitiful
story, common enough both north and south--but none the less pitiful
for its commonness.

With her head down on her brother's shoulder, Pocahontas sobbed
convulsively. She was familiar with the outlines of the tale, and knew
vaguely of the weeks of anxiety that had lined her mother's gentle face
and silvered her brown hair, but of all particulars she was ignorant.
She had been very young at the time these sad events occurred; the
young brother sleeping in the shadow of the cedars in the old
burying-ground was scarcely more than a name to her, and the memories
of her childhood had faded somewhat, crowded out by the cheerful
realities of her glad girl-life.

When she broke the silence, it was very softly. "Berkeley," she said,
"it was kindly done of that Federal officer to let us know. This is
the third letter he wrote about poor Temple; the others must have
miscarried."

"They did; and this one only reached us just in time. You see,
communication with the south in those early days was more than
uncertain. If Roy hadn't happened to be in Richmond, it's a question
whether I should have received this one. It was kindly done, as you
say, and this General Smith was a kindly man. I shall never forget his
consideration for my mother, nor the kindness he showed poor Temple.
But for his aid we could hardly have managed at the last, in spite of
Roy's efforts. We owe him a debt of gratitude I'd fain repay. God
bless him!"

"Amen!" echoed Pocahontas, softly.

CHAPTER VI.

One bright, crisp morning about the middle of October, Pocahontas stood
in the back yard surrounded by a large flock of turkeys. They were
handsome birds of all shades, from lightish red to deep glossy black;
the sunlight on their plumage made flashes of iridescent color, green,
purple, and blue, and that royal shade which seems to combine and
reflect the glory of all three. Their heads were bent picking up the
corn their mistress threw from the little basket in her hand, but
occasionally the great gobblers would pause in their meal, and puff
themselves out and spread their tails and throw their crimson heads
back against their shining feathers, and proudly strut backward and
forward, to the admiration, doubtless, of their mates.

Turkeys were the young lady's specialty, and on them alone of all the
denizens of the poultry yard did she bestow her personal attention.
From the thrilling moment in early spring when she scribbled the date
of its arrival on the first egg, until the full-grown birds were handed
over to Aunt Rachel to be fattened for the table, the turkeys were her
particular charge, and each morning and afternoon saw her sally forth,
armed with a pan full of curds, or a loaf of brown bread, for her flock.

Her usual attendant, on these occasions, was a little colored boy named
Sawney--the last of a line of Sawneys extending back to the dining-room
servant of Pocahontas's great-grandmother. The economy in nomenclature
on a southern plantation in the olden time was worthy of Dandie Dinmont
himself. The Sawney in question was a grandson of Aunt Rachel, and an
utterly abominable little darkey, inky black, grotesque, and spoiled to
a degree. He was devoted to Pocahontas, and much addicted to following
her about, wherever she would allow him. At feeding-time he always
appeared as duly as the turkeys, for Pocahontas never forgot to put a
biscuit, or a lump of sugar, in her pocket for him.

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