Barbara

by Annie Robertson Nixon*

Was there any mail, Eben?"

And leaning over the little wicket gate, dark locks falling about her in pretty, care-less tresses, Barbara looked wistfully down the shady street and then up at the tossing elms, where the busy birds were chattering. And, sad to relate, a frown of discontent crept over Barbara's white brow.

"No, there were no letters for the Leightons," said Eben in a savage mood. "I made special inquiries for you," and Eben's lower lip trembled a little, and his voice softened wonderfully for him. "I suppose you are anxious to get away from the old place, Miss Barbara?"

"Yes, I am," said Miss Leighton sharply, with an imperial air. "I am sick of it all. I should be glad to go anywhere from here."

Eben made no reply. He looked down at the tangled curls, the soft, wistful brown eyes, the dimpled hands clasped over the mesh of honeysuckles—then away over the tops of the snowy balsams toward the great world where Barbara's heart was. He was thinking with one cruel pang which gripped his heart at that moment of what life would be at the farm without Barbara. He had tried of late to live without connecting her in any way with his days and nights, his duties, his hardships and his joys, but he had made sorry work of it. It gave Eben a fright to know how much everything depended on this proud, spoiled beauty, whose dream now was to get away from such as he —the common folks around Larborough.

Barbara at eighteen had a great longing for that gay world of which she had read in summer evenings when sitting under the musky vines in the farm-house porch, or when lying amid the cowslips in the meadow where, under a growing weight of care, Eben toiled with great brown hands in the capacity of help to the Widow Leighton. Eben was as much part and parcel of the place as the crumbling head-stones in the little graveyard on the hill, where all the dead Leightons were lying. No one ever dreamed of his going away, although his merits were acknowledged, and it was admitted that the boy had grown into a strong, handsome man, with shrewd capacities as a financier, and a turn for machinery. A great many of the village had dropped into the habit of addressing him lately as Mr. Hexford, and Eben's muscles commanded respect. He had a little snuggery in the barn he called his workshop, where at odd hours on rainy days he tinkered with lathes and pulleys and edged tools. When his farm work had been tidied up and the cows had been milked and turned into the green woodlands again, Eben shut himself up in his workshop and pottered over his numerous inventions and thought of what great possibilities might have been his if he had been born something better than Mr. Leighton's farm hand. He realised sensibly that there were still possibilities for him out yonder before the dark line of elms and firs which he could see from his study window. But his benefactor had died and left all the tangled threads of his affairs for young Hexford to unravel, and he could not have deserted Mrs Leighton and the girls—Barbara and Theo. It would not have been right or manly. Things were going straight now, however; the farm was in a prosperous condition, and even an indifferent manager could have kept the wheels moving which Eben had fixed in their places. But Eben remained on at the farm while the sea-sons waxed and waned, and the girls were growing into fine, tall young women, with restless yearnings for a busier life than was to be had at Larborough.

He had expected that a girl so pretty as Barbara would be some time leaving so dull a place, but he nevertheless felt a wild, savage pain at his heart when he learned that a letter had been sent to a distant aunt to see if she would not look after Barbara while she enjoyed the advantages of a finishing school for young ladies. The longest summer days would fade into short summer nights, and bye-and-bye, when the first yellow leaves would be dropping into pools and hollows, Barbara would go away—perhaps for ever.

Eben was too much of a man to sigh, and too muscular to do without his supper, but he fell into the habit of taking long walks alone, or of sitting under the honeysuckles on the porch where he could see the moon rise, and where he could hear the young ladies singing rather plaintive songs, accompanied by the cracked strains of the old harpsichord in the best room. He had just plucked the first round full rose of May, and, twirling it thoughtfully in his fingers as he strolled down the garden path to his work-shop, when he heard the breezy flutter of a muslin robe and light footfall behind him on the gravel walk. He turned with a blaze of fire in his black eyes and the rose extended. His hand dropped to his side. It was Theo who came rapidly after him, swinging a white sun-bonnet by one string.

Theo was a saucy, petulant, provoking young person of sixteen, whose pranks and whims had often tried Eben's temper sorely—having him stop the harvesting to saddle Rudolf her pony, or meddle with his tools and upset his newest invention. But Theo's eyes were such lovely blue and her smile so bewitching that Eben had not the heart to scold; besides he had humored her in all her wilfulness himself, and there was the faintest resemblance to Barbara in the brow and dimpled chin which tied him hand and foot.

"Oh, what a lovely thing!" said Theo, coveting the rose and stretching out her plump little hand. "Is it for me?"

"No," said Eben rather gruffly. "I've had an eye on this bud for some time. I noticed that your Lady Isabels are in fine condition. You will have a cluster of them by the day after tomorrow."

"Well, you old stingy, I suppose you don't mind running down to the mail for me; I forgot what Barbara asked me to do, and I shall get a scolding from mamma, who can't have Bab crossed in anything, you know."

"I shall have to go down and see Nanson about the wagon gear anyway to-night, and I can just as well stop at the Post Office. Is it the letter from—from New Haven?" And Eben very thoughtlessly bit off the leaves of the rose and mangled them with his strong white teeth.

Yes, it was the letter from New Haven, and Eben was charged to bring up a new novel, and some pink sewing silk and eighteen celluloid buttons, by Theo, who ran after him to suggest chocolate caramels in case the letter failed.

It was a sort of satisfaction to him that the letter did fail. But it hurt him to see Barbara's disappointment. He had remembered Theo's womanish little errands, and he still held the rose, which he laid now on Barbara's clasped hands. For all she had grown to hate the old place, she loved its old-fashioned, big fluffy roses as fondly as when a child, and Eben had braided a long garland of them for her out of the finest and best.

She caressed the rose, and twisted it in among the curling locks, where it nestled just against her cheek. Eben flushed and paled as he remembered how he had laid his heart in the heart of that rose.

"The letter will be here to-morrow," he said, gently; "I am going down the first thing in the morning. The young ladies around Larborough are not to be without a gallant this season. A handsome young man from New York has come down to stay some weeks in the neighborhood; I met him with Dr. Ormsby in the gig."

Eben was not slow to note this bit of news awakened a faint show of interest in Barbara.

"What was he like?" said Barbara, blushing a little. "I trust he is an acquisition. Did he look like a gentleman?"

Yes, he looked like one, Eben was compelled to admit that he did, and that he wore elegant clothes, and had slender, soft white hands, which Eben had not.

Days after this, Eben, in an agony of jealous anguish, was compelled to accord the stranger a great many other advantages and accomplishments. He rode well, was a good shot, talked fluently, sketched passably, understood women, and was Miss Leighton's most ardent admirer.

Eben foresaw all this, and yet once, when their mingled voices floated out to his little den, he brought down a hammer wrathfully and smashed his thumb-nail. Morning and night he saddled and brought round horses for Barbara and Mr. Ney, and went away to his work in the hot fields, while they were cantering down the shady roads, and Mrs. Leighton and Theo were beating eggs in the buttery, and getting up rare dishes for tea. The letter had come from New Haven, and Barbara had answered briefly that she could not go until some time later. She had never looked so animated and beautiful as now. She rarely saw Eben, sending him her requests by her sister, and Eben went on at his inventions, feeling as if every blow of his chisel drove out a piece of his heart's core. And though he would have scorned the idea, Eben had grown wonderfully haggard and pale, with great dark circles under his eyes, since Dr. Ormsby had introduced Edgar Ney to the Leightons. He took little pride in the knowledge that he was the better man of the two, but he did not know that he could crush New with one hand into a limp, shape-less mass, and he wondered sometimes why he did not. One day he was seized with a fit of trembling. He was pruning a pear tree when he looked up and Barbara stood before him, in her habit, switching at the mottled butterflies that fluttered on the hollyhocks and around Eben's brown hands.

"How pale and ill you look, Eben." It was the least she could say, and it was the truth. Eben's heart beat madly for a moment and then went on slowly.

"I am not one to get ill, Miss Barbara; I am not browned so much as usual, perhaps."

His "Miss Barbara" sounded oddly, and his looks belied his words. She looked down at the ground and said nervously:

"I hope you will not argue with me this morning, Eben, but I have set my heart on riding the colt, 'Tam O'Shanter,' to the falls. I am not in the least afraid."

"But I am," said Eben calmly. "l can-not permit you to risk your life with that vicious colt."

"Mr. Ney will take care of his viciousness," Barbara answered, a trifle insolently.

"Mr. Ney may ride 'O'Shanter,' and welcome, but I cannot consent for you to."

"Then I must do it without your consent. Be so kind as to have the colt around in a quarter of an hour."

Eben finished his pear tree and went into the shop to wash his hands of blood. He had cut himself to the bone. Barbara and Ney sat in the porch reading from the "Princess," when the horses appeared. The colt sherried and reared when Barbara sprang lightly in her saddle. An admirable horsewoman, she held her own finely, and Eben stood as if rooted to the ground until a turn in the road hid them from sight, then, like a deer, he set off down a footway toward where the railway crossed the road, as with horror he remembered that the morning express would come down in ten minutes. The riders had stopped by the way to permit Mr. Nay to dis-mount and gather the first cardinals for Barbara. As they trotted sharply down the road the roar of the train was heard just beyond the curve. Maddened with terror, the wild young horse Barbara rose reared, plunged, and sprang away from the other horse and darted down the cut toward the train. With a hoarse shout to "sit firm," Eben rushed out from the copse and flung himself under his hoofs. He caught the bit in his bands, and then a violent kick made him drop like a log. Some wood-choppers came to the rescue, and as they lifted Barbara off the train thundered by. Eben was picked up for dead, and even Mr. Ney declared he was a brave fellow.

In an agony of grief and remorse, Barbara hung near him all those tedious days, when Eben's mind wandered, and he muttered troubled, incoherent sentences, in which, poor fellow, he told all his hopes and fears. He was now indeed haggard and ghostly pale, with an ugly scar in his left temple, his eye badly hurt, and his hands lay weak and nerveless on the coverlet. The first moment of sanity and consciousness which came made him sigh and wish that he had remained oblivious to life and its miseries. It was Barbara who leaned on him with her great brown eyes filled with tears.

"Oh, Eben, how can you bear to look at me? You can never forgive me!"

"You would not say that if you knew what is in my heart."

"Cannot you tell me, Eben? I am so wretched."

"I am sorry for that; I must not tell you, Barbara. I cannot suffer more than I have."

"Then, shall I tell you something?" and she hid her face in the pillow. He put out his hand and touched her head caressingly.

"I have been very wilful and very unhappy, Eben. I would have given my life to save yours, as you gave yours for me."

"But, Barbara, oh Barbara, my darling, I gave mine because I loved you better than life, than Heaven. I would rather have died than live to lose you for ever."

"But you will not lose me." Her arms stole tenderly around him, and she laid her cheek against his. "I owe my life to you, and it is yours."

"Barbara, think what you are saying. I shall be mad enough to think that you care for me!"

"Eben, my love, you are all the world to me. Cannot you see that this is so?"

"My own!"

With one great effort, and a spasm of his old strength, Eben pressed her to his heart.

"And you never meant to marry Ney?"

"I am afraid I only meant to make you jealous," said Barbara, with her old sauciness.

"I shall mend now, fast enough, but not until you have promised to abide by what I say, my darling."

"I promise solemnly."

"Then, we shall be married to-morrow."

Warragul Guardian and Buln Buln and Narracan Shire Advocate, Thursday 9 December 1880, supplement page 2

* Authorship given as such in another newspaper.