Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 34, Number 250, 17 July 1909 — Page 6

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UT all at once there came a rustling in the thick foliage, a parting of the branches at her left, and Miss Seymour became aware that a horse and rider had intruded upon her special sanctuary of sorry. Her ; half-startled, half-indignant look vanished as she recognized them. The horse was such a little horse, the rider such a light wisp of a boy. The fact that he bore a lance and shield, and wore a dress doubtless intended to be warlike, did not awaken special alarm in the bosom of Miss Seymour, wh veins bore the blood of kings. "Oh, it's you, Robin T she saiu gently. "You almost frightened me." The boy lowered his lance and looked down into the face of this "fair ladye" who, being alone in those deep forests, might need a true knight's protection. "I am not Robin Hood," he said in his quaint, mature way, "not any more,. I am Sir Galahad in search of the Holy Grail. I must conquer many things to win it, and I also redress wrong." : Miss Seymour smiled a gentle approval. "Oh, I beg your pardon I didn't know. You have been Robin Hood so long, and you are still wearing the Lincoln green, you see, and " "Yes, I know. I did not have the armor for Galahad, only a shield that mama once used in a part she played and brought with her to hang in my room. " She is going to get me a suit of armor when we go back to town this Autumn. Dick Mr. Calverly, I mean made me the lance." "Miss Seymour's lips tightened the least bit. "Your mama and Mr. Calverly are very good to you," she said. "Oh, yes! Mama lets me do just what I want" to. She came to the Adirondack and brought the pony and ever so many things, just for me. It's dull for for her. Mama always has so many friends at Narragansett and Atlantic City, and they are always so good to me. Here there is only Dick I call him Dick because mama does, and he likes me to and then he's the best of them all. He told me about Galahad and the Grail, and isn't this a nice lance? I must ride very slowly with . it through the wjpds. Knights always do, Dick says, and I like being Galahad better than Robin Hood, because, you see, Robin Hood wasn't really noble, only just brave, but Sir Galahad was good, and he was brave, too. Dick says he was without fear and without reproach, and he went forth to con.quer evil and relieve distress. I just loves Mr. Calverly, and so does mama. I wish he was my papa. Why don't you love him, too, Miss Seymour? He's so good and so handsome. When he told me about Sir Galahad and the Grail, mama said that with armor he would look the part exactly. And then he's so jolly. Don't you like men who are handsome and brave and jolly, Miss Seymour?" It had been a curious study her fine patrician face as the girl listened to the frail little knight's quaint, childish prattle. At one moment hard, almost fierce at the next tender to the point of tears. The hidden regions of her heart were as battle-ground. Her voice refused to steady itself for reply. Sir Galahad slipped from his horse and stood before her, leaning on his lance. The sun filtered through the interlacing green and laid a patch of glory on his silken hair.' His eyes burned brightly. The effort of dismounting had heightened the bloom on his wasted cheek. So rare and beautiful he was so near the border of a land invisible withal so earnest in the part he played, he might easily have been a gentle knight of dreams, finding adventures in far, dim regions and along enchanted ways. The girl's heart melted in a wave of tenderness and motherly sympathy as she looked at him. She had been a dreamer herself a dweller in the lands of golden mist. Such a little while ago she had awakened. She would forget and dream again with the little knight. "And how did you find your way to my bower?" she asked. "Here? Oh, I have been here often. Sometimes when I was Robin Hood I gathered my men here little John, Friar Tuck and all the rest of them. I aways sat on that stone, where 'you are, and we talked of our adventures. " Something in his manner recalled the woman in MSss Seymour." "I suppose you are like your father," the said. ...- The boy hesitated. "But mama thinks I am like her, too. She says I will make a great actor some day. He died, you know, in California, before I can remember." He was thoughtful a moment, then he added "I wouldn't be afraid to die. Knights never are, you know; and mama and Dick said I looked like a real knight when I rodeUnconsciously Miss Seymour's hand pressed hard against her bosom. The picture of the tall, happyhearted fellow who had won her love, standing by the . pretty, frivolous womanthe gifted actress who seemed to attract all men the heartless - coquette, in whose life the one true spot seemed her fondness for this little lad who was fading out of it, had made the innocent words as an arrow in her heart Yet the bitterness was gone. In her eyes were tears ready to brim over. , "Oh," she said, "you are indeed a knight t A chevalier without fear and without reproach. But I think you are Parsifal, rather than Galahad, for Parsifal was without knowledge of wrong." The boy hesitated for a moment, i "We saw Parsifal at Bayreuth last year," he said. "I did not like it when he killed the swan." . "But he killed it innocently. He was unconscious of cruelty as unconscious as you would be." "And are you Kundry? When you sit as you do

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now, on that stone, with the moss and vines on it, and all the vines around you, you are like Kundry in her car in the second part, you know. -And she was beautiful like you." Involuntarily she caught him to her bosom. "No! oh, no! I am not Kundry. Oh, my little lad!" He rested upon her shoulder. He was not a robust knight. "But you are acting her part. Kundry put her arms around Parsifal and kissed him. What makes you

cry She laid her cheek to the little knight's and smoothed his shining hair. Always herself a lonely child, a dweller in books and fantasies, high-strung and emotional, she had an impulse now to hold fast to the thin little hand that lay in hers and follow with him across the purple hills "to the island valley of Avalon, where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow." "What makes you cry?" he asked again. She laid her face on his shoulder that he made firm and manly for her sake. "Perhaps it is because I am happy," she faltered, "in finding so pure a knight. You shall be my champion and do battle for me. There is something that besets mesomething I am afraid of. It is a demon a monster with green eyes. It was here just before you came. You have driven him away, but he may come back! You shall be my knight, my Galahad, to slay him. You shall wear my color upon your sleeve as you ride through the enchanted wood." She drew a gay ribbon from her neck and tied it about his arm. The lad regarded it proudly and caught up the fallen lance. "Don't you think I ought to wait for him here?" he asked. "No, but you may come again if you don't find him. You must ride now. A canter on such a beautiful day will make you strong for conquest. It is only a little way through to the road." The boy's eyes shone with happiness. Miss Seymour, remembering her own strange childhood, wondered how much of this play was real to the ill, imaginative lad. "I have two errands now," he said proudly "two things to do before I can win the Holy Grail: one for you and one for Dick." , "You have one for Mr. Calverly?" t The little knight had leaned his lance against the pony's saddle and was preparing to mount. "Yes, one for Dick. I am to kill a giant for him the giant Despair." A flush reddened Miss Seymour's face, followed by slight pallor. "Did Dick say that?" "Yes., Mama said it first, though, and laughed. But Dick didn't, so I know he meant it, just as you do about the dragon. Your dragon won't die a natural death, will it?" "I no, I'm afraid not Why do you ask that?" "Well, mama asked Dick if he didn't think his giant might, and said I'd better make haste to find it." The sunlight of romance and the warmth of tenderness had fled from the girl's heart and left it cold. She hardly noticed her fragile knight as he mounted his pony and headed toward the woodland road. "Good-by," he waved, the gay -ribbon fluttering on his arm. "I am going down beyond the bridge. Maybe I shall find the giant and the dragon there. Goodby, fair ladye!" he added quaintly. She rose as by a sudden impulse, and, seizing his hand, drew his face down until his lips lay against her cheek. "Good-by, true knight," she answered, and added a word of caution about carrying his lance to avoid the trees. But the note in her voice that only a moment before had made him so valiant was no longer there. He rode away without looking behind, and a moment later she had dropped back on the mossy stone seat, the old human bitterness, and grief, and resentment, all that go to make up'a woman's jealousy, rankling in her heart. The light breeze lifted the leaves, and moved the long, slender branches above her. The sun, mottling at her feet, changed and rippled. Little vistas opened here and there before her, showing the stately trees or the fallen giants of long ago, mantled now with emerald moss or a tangle of vine and bloom. She had loved these woods this wonderful mountain forest, its primeval glory, its leaping brooks, its lofty summits, Tahawus and Algonquin with their marvel of shifting lights and changing hues. Seen through the glamour of youth and romance, it had been to her a veritable enchanted land, wherein true knights in shining armor might ride to perilous adventure. In the early days of her coming she had dreamed these things. Then, when he had come, she, who had never been moved by any human being before, had all at once looked into his face and loved him, and as freely as the Maid of Astolat had set his image forever in her heart. Tall he was and handsome and strong, a man of the world, with light and merry speech, yet with a soul that had seemed full of sympathy, and tenderness, and truth, and understanding. Of course, she had idealized him. Leading him through the haunts and glens she had found, and looking at his manly figure and into his handsome face, she had seen him as a true and brave knight whojwas to do valiant battle for her with the world of unkind things. What a romantic fool she had been! Her knight had proven a Lancelot, indeed. Her love-dream had been as the shimmer of sunlight upon the leaves. She had wakened suddenly to find it gone. Her ideal had become a myth. Her only knight was a little dying boy, riding through a land of make-believe to the quiet gates of dusk. She reviewed, as she had done a hundred times before, the matter of her estrangement with Richard, or Dick, as he had taught her to call him. She set herself as an individual apart and went unsparingly over

the details. She must find wherein the fault had been hers, wherein she had demanded too much or given too little, wherein she had taken offence unduly and resented without cause. Considering herself as she believed she did from the standpoint of another woman, she decided as she had always decided that she had played fairly; that she had been within her rights; that Dick, even had he been sincere, had no right to demand that she wait his bidding or be at his beck and calL Her pride and her dignity had been justly resentful He was a big boy she had called him that herself but he was a man, too, with knowledge of the world and the heart of womankind. He knew that the heart of a woman a woman worthy of love and trust is proud and uncompromising. Especially should he have known it of a woman like her a woman of race and traditions, who had kept her ideals unspotted from the world whose heart no man had ever moved before. He must have known these things, and he must have honored them if oh, that was the shame and misery of it all! if he had been sincere. How petty and trivial and wretched had been the end, and that was why. He had not been sincere. He had been just a big boy, playing with her. When the other had come, he had shown that. Doubtless he had known that she was coming. Perhaps he had only been filling in time until she came. Perhaps oh, how miserable and ashamed she was how ashamed and humiliated! And then, being a woman a woman of race and traditions and ideals and being all alone in her sanctuary of sorrow, she gave way, and wept and sobbed as if she had been just a little broken-hearted mountain girl whose lover had been won away. Even the trees and the birds that called and flitted in and out amid the branches above her must not witness the depths of her self-abasement. Turning, she bqried her face in her arms and so bedewed the fragrant moss with her tears. Then her sobs ceased and her eyes dried, but she did not move. She had put aside her sorrow and her self-analysis to plan a course of action. She could not stay in this place. The other would remain for the Summer the child had said so. The man also would remain, of course. She must go. And it would be running away everybody would see

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that. Her pride scorched her at the thought But she must do it she could not stay here. The words of Elaine's father recurred to her, "Being so very wilful, you must go." And this in turn recalled the fact of her own mother. How could she explain to her? The invalid woman loved the place and it had benefited her. Thank Heaven, she had been told nothing of this silly romance. She must know nothing of it now. There must be some other excuse for going. She must invent something she who never in her life had paltered with the truth never had found need to excuse herself for any action. The hot blood of pride and race, the old noblesse oblige of her fathers, burned through her veins until they bubbled with indignation. The little sanctuary had become very still. The breeze no longer stirred the leaves about her, and a curious note had come into the call of the birds. The girl with her face still hidden did not notice these things. She did not know that the sunlight had suddenly vanished from the vines, that the gold in the branches had faded to sombre green, that an ominous gloom had fallen upon the woods. The blackness that had gathered over Tahawus she did not see, nor the crinkle of lightning that parted it. Even when . the thunder rumbled down the mountain, it did not find its way into her consciousness. It was only when at last there came a rustling and a parting of the bushes close by, and the touch of a hand upon her arm, that she started up to find herself face to face with the man she loved. For an instant she stared at him a little stupidly. The place his sudden appearance the dimness about them; she did not immediately comprehend. Then presently she rose, and stood very straight and composed before him. "What is it?" she demanded. "What do you want of me?"V ? COPYRIGHT, rp$

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"I am looking for the little lad," he answered. "He came this way, don't you know, and it is going to storm. His mother thought he might not get back in time. Of course he would, but she's worried, don't you see, and Miss Seymour inclined her head, very slightly. "I sec," she said, "but what have I to do with it? He is not here. Why do you wait?" "Well, you know, Clara that is Miss Seymour, I thought you were asleep, and 1 well, 1 didn't w uit you to get wet, of course." Once more she accorded him a slight acknowledgment. "It was kind of you. Perhaps I may repay you by telling you that the boy was here not so long ago. You may find him by the bridge trying to do your errand." "My errand? You mean " "Yes, he told me about it it was to slay the giant Despair." An eager expression flashed over the young man's handsome face. He half extended his hand. "Oh, then you you must realize " . "Perfectly. You sent him away that your giant might die a natural death." "Clara!" he had not meant to' say it. She had not meant to shew that she cared or had given the matter a thought. Her cheeks burned with humiliation and anger. "Kindly remember that I am Miss Seymour," she commanded, "and you should go at once. The storm is getting closer." Still he lingered. "But you have got it all wrong," he protested. "I did not mean what you think I did. I never have. You have been wrong, and unjust, and cruel, all along. You " "I know," she interrupted. "It was wrong not tamely to let you forget your engagements and keep me waiting and ridiculous before other people, while you galloped on some absurd errand for another woman. It Was unjust not to let you keep me standing on the piazza in my riding habit while, under a pretense of giving her child an airing, you rowed an actress up and down the lake. It was cruel not to let you become

J AM SIX GALAHAD IN SEARCH OF THE HOLY CXAIL altogether oblivious of me because a woman whom the world happens to be talking about suddenly came into the limelight of your gallantry. Oh, yes, I have been wrong and cruel and unjust, as you say. But I have been much more. I have been just a fool to let you play at romance with me, while you were waiting for someone who better understood the game." Miss Seymour's eyes were flashing, but she did not fail to note that the handsome, boyish face before her , had become at first crimson and then very white. "Clara," he said, very gently and gravely, "upon my soul I never looked at it in that way. I suppose that I have done all that you say, and perhaps I deserve everything that you could say. Only, I don't think you quite understand. , I have known Mabel Fenton for years, and I have played with the little chap ever since he was a baby." Tom Fenton was a good deal older than I was, but he was one of the best friends I ever had. Tom's wife was always just what she is now, but she does the best that's in her. She was good to him at the end, and she's good to the boy. I've always chaffed with her even when Tom was alive. I somehow never, thought of your caring, and then, when you turned me off, why I had to talk to somebody." The anger in the girl's eyes had become a look of half-scornful amusement that was not pleasant. "Oh, yes, of course," she began and then there came a bright electric glare between them, and a few seconds later heavy thunder rolled down the mountain. Miss Seymour's expression changed to one of alarm. "You must go for the little fellow at once," she said. "He went through to the road,, and down beyond the bridge. You ought to go and meet him." She turned in the direction of the inn. bat he stopped her. "Come through to the road," he said. "It will be hard going in the woods if it begins to rain.' She hesitated a moment, then obeyed. They did not

speak again, as they followed a sort of open way that at some time might have been a path, leading to the hotel road. Ihe flashes came faster now. and the roll of thunder' was almost continuous. Presently heavy drops of rain struck the leaves about them. The woods became almost dark. A heavy wind tossed the tree tops. They groped through, stumbling over logs or ia tangled vines. Presently the man. who was ahead, stopped, "Listen l" he, said. "I hear horses feet." They could not see through, but they heard a quick, light gallop just beyond the bushes that lined the road. "That's the boy. I know the pony's a roar of thunder drowned the rest of the sentence. lie had passed before they pushed into the open way, and was turning the bend that led to the little noun tain inn. They got just a glimpse of him in the strange, weird dusk of the tempest, and then suddenly, exactly in front of them it seemed, there came a blinding electric glare, followed instantly by a rending shock ' and a wild downpour of rain. Half stunned, the girl seized her companion's arm. Standing thus, they caught the tierce snorting of a frightened horse, and a moment later the pony came dashing past them ia the gloom, his saddle empty. Just beyond the bend they found the little knight. He lay at the side of the road his shield under him his slender lance broken in two. It was rough and stony there, and a trickle of blood crossed his pure white forehead and was lost in his long, golden locks. The man would have caught him up, but the girl put him aside. -No!" she cried. "No! He is my little knight my brave Galahad my Parsifal of the pure white ' soul! See, he wears my color on his arm. She gathered the frail wisp of a body in her strong, young arms and bent forward with rapid steps, breasting the rain, while the lightning flared constantly, and the thunder rolled about them. "But you must let me take himH her companion shouted, lifting his voice above the tumult. "Yon are not strong enough. We shall go faster!" Yet she would not yield him, bat only clasped him closer to her breast, wailing iucohcrcntly, overwrought

with long pent emotion and the wfldnetf of the tWRpett. "No, no! You cannot take him away I He is say one true knight! He is not yours or hers be is mine I He called me his ladye and he kissed me and rode away, wearing my color on his sleeve!" Again he would have taken him from her. But she turned aside, almost as one distraught. "Oh! go away. You have been all to blame you and she. You ent him on a fool's errand! No, no, it was I! I sent him! He. wanted to stay with me! I could have kept him at my skier But her strength failed presently. Her cecnpanion caught her as she tottered with the load, and hearing the burden in bis own powerful arms, they made their way through the tempest to the inn. Up a narrow stair they passed the man with his burden ahead, the girl following silently close behind. Gently they laid him down wounded and wet with ram the little knight of the GraiL His lance was broken, his shield and charger gone. Only a brave bit of ribbon still shone on his drabbled sleeve. Then he who had borne him home went riding swiftly toward the big hotel a mile beyond for a doctor, while behind at the inn two women his mother and his "fair ladye" bent over the knight's bed to catch the flutter of his breath and the feeble measure of his brave, pure heart. The tempest had passed and the clouds had rolled away. The son resting on the slope of Tahawus hud a parting glory upon the hills. Alone in a corner of the dim upper parlor at the inn, a girl with a patridaa face, with half-unconscious vision, watched the marvel of the passing day. The soft step behind her she did not hear. Then an arm was laid over her shoulder and she looked up into a man's tear-wet eyes. He bent down and kissed her. Then he drew her to his heart. "Our little knight has won die GraH." fee snLL

By Harriett Prescott Spofford