With tears in her beautiful eyes, Rose Flowers took the old man"s hand and pressed it to her heart and then to her lips as she bent her head and cooed:
"I will remember all you have told me--all the wise and good counsel you have ever given me, all the precious acts of kindness you have ever shown me. And when I cease to remember them, sir, may heaven forget me!"
"There, there, my child. You are a baby--a mere baby!" said the Iron King, as he patted her on the head and left her.
This interview occurred a few days before Christmas.
It was now Christmas morning, nearly four years after the departure of Rule Rothsay. It was a fine clear, cold day. Bright with color was the village of North End, where all the houses were decorated with holly, and the people, in their Sunday clothes, were out in the streets on their way to the church, which had been beautifully decorated for the occasion.
The Rockharrt family--with the exception of old Aaron Rockharrt, who did not choose to turn out that day, and Miss Rose Flowers, who stayed home to keep him company and to wait on him--came early in their capacious and comfortable family carriage. They had a large, square, handsomely upholstered pew in the right-hand upper corner of the church.
When they were all quietly settled in their seats and the voluntary was going on, the elders of the party bowed their heads to offer up their preliminary prayers. But Cora, girl-like, looked about her, letting her glances wander over the well-filled pews, and then up toward the galleries. A moment later she suddenly gave a little start and half-suppressed exclamation of delight.
Mrs. Rockharrt, who had finished her prayer, looked around in surprise at the girl, who had committed this unusual indecorum.
"Oh, grandma, it is Rule! Rule, up there in the boys" gallery--look!"
Cora whispered, in eager delight.
The old lady raised her eyes and recognized Regulas Rothsay--but so well grown, so well dressed, and well looking as to be hardly recognizable, except from his strong, characteristic head and face. He wore a neatly fitting suit of dark-blue cloth; neat woolen gloves covered his large hands; his hair was trimmed and as nicely dressed as such rough, tawny locks could be.
At length the beautiful service was finished, and the congregation filed out of the church into the yard, where all immediately began shaking hands with each other.
Presently Cora saw the youth come out of the church, look earnestly about him until he descried her party, and then walk directly toward her.
"Oh, Rule, I am so glad to see you! When did you get here? Why didn"t you come straight to Rockhold? Why didn"t you write and tell me you were coming?" Cora eagerly demanded, as she met him, and hurrying question upon question before giving him time to answer the first one.
The youth raised his cap and bowed to the elder members of the party before answering the girl. Then he said:
"I did not know that I could come until an hour before I started. I came by the midnight express, and reached here just in time for church. I have not seen, or I should say, I have not spoken to, any one here yet except yourself.
"Last evening, being Friday evening, we were at work very late on our Sat.u.r.day"s supplement, and a Christmas story in it. Very often we have to work on Christmas night, if the next day is a week day; and every Sunday night--that is, from twelve midnight, when the Sabbath ends--we have to work to get out Monday morning"s paper."
"Oh, yes; of course," said Fabian.
"Well, I never have had a whole holiday since I have been in the _Watch_ office; but last night, about half-past ten, after the paper had gone to press, the foreman came to me, paid my wages up to the first of January, and told me that I need not return to the office at midnight after Sunday, but might have leave of absence until Monday morning, so as to have time to go and spend Christmas with my friends if I wished to do so."
Just then Clarence Rockharrt joined them and said, anxiously:
"Mother, dear, I think you had better get into the carriage. It is very bleak out here, and you might take cold."
Mrs. Rockharrt at once took the arm of her youngest and best-beloved son and let him lead her away to the spot where the comfortable family coach awaited them.
Mr. Fabian started to follow with Cora.
"Come with us to the carriage door, Rule," said the girl, looking back and stretching her hand out toward the youth.
"Yes! Come!" added pleasant Mr. Fabian.
Regulas touched his hat and followed. Fabian put his niece in the seat beside her grandmother, and then turned to the youth and inquired:
"What are you going to do with yourself to-day?"
"I shall go down to my old home, sir, Mother Scythia"s hut."
"Oh! Ah! Yes; I remember. You are going to stop there?"
"Yes, sir; but I shall try to see all old friends to-day or to-morrow, and I should like to go to Rockhold to thank all the friends there who have been kind to me, and to tell Mrs. Rockharrt and Miss Cora, who were kindest of all, how I have got on in the city."
"Certainly! Certainly, Rule! Come whenever you like! And see here! It is a long, rough road from here to old Scythia"s Roost, which is right on our way to Rockhold. Sorry we cannot offer you a seat in the carriage but you see there are but four seats and there are already five people to fill them."
"Oh, sir, I should not expect such a thing," said the youth.
"But I was about to say if you will mount to a seat beside the coachman, you will be heartily welcome to what used to be my own "most favoryte"
perch in my younger days. And we can set you down at the foot of the path leading up to old Scythia"s hut," concluded Mr. Fabian.
"Oh, do, Rule! Please do!" pleaded Cora.
Regulas, with his st.u.r.dy independence of spirit, would most likely have declined this favor had not the girl"s beseeching face and voice persuaded him to accept it.
"I thank you very much, sir," he said, and promptly climbed to the seat.
Three miles down the road the carriage was pulled up at the foot of the highest point of the mountain range, and Rule came down from his perch beside the coachman, stepped up to the carriage window, took off his hat, thanked the occupants for his ride, and then drew a neat, white inch-square parcel from his vest pocket, and holding it modestly, said:
"I hope you will accept this, Miss Cora."
The girl took it with a smile, but before she could open her lips to express her thanks, the youth had bowed, turned from the carriage, and was speeding his way up the rough mountain path, springing from crag to crag up to the ledge on which old Scythia"s hut stood.
Cora opened the parcel and found an inch-square little casket of red morocco. She opened this with a spring, and found a small gold heart reposing in a bed of white satin.
"How pretty it is!" she said softly to herself, as she took the trinket from its case. "Look, grandma, what Rule has brought me for a Christmas gift! A little gold heart! A pure gold heart! His is a pure gold heart, is it not?" she added, earnestly, as she placed the trinket in the lady"s hand.
Mrs. Rockharrt looked at it with interest, and then pa.s.sed it on to her eldest son.
The ride was continued, and presently the carriage was driven off the boat and up the avenue leading to the house. As the vehicle drew up before the front doors, a pretty picture might have been seen through the drawing-room windows.
A bright fireside, an old man reclining in his luxurious arm-chair; a beautiful girl seated on a ha.s.sock at his feet, reading to him, and at intervals lifting her lovely blue eyes in childish adoration to his face. They might have been grandfather and granddaughter, but they were, in fact, old Aaron Rockharrt and Miss Rose Flowers--Merlin and Vivien again, except that the Iron King was rather a rugged and unmanageable Merlin.
Meanwhile, Regulas Rothsay had climbed the rugged mountain path that led to Scythia"s hut. On the back of the broad shelf of rock on which the hut stood was a hollow in the side of the precipice. Scythia had cleared out this hollow of all its natural litter. Before this apartment she had built another room, with no better material than fragments of rock found on the spot, and filled in with earth, moss and twigs. She had roofed this over with branches of evergreens piled thick and high, to keep off rain and sun. A heavy buffalo robe, fastened with large wooden pins at its top to the roof of the hut, served for a door. There was no window.
In the inner or cavernous apartment she had built a rude fire-place and chimney going up through a hole in the rock. A pallet of rough furs and coa.r.s.e blankets lay in one corner of this room, and a few rude cooking utensils occupied another. In the outer room there was a rough oak table and two chairs.
Up before the edge of this natural shelf on which the hut stood appeared the tops of a thicket of pine trees that grew on the mountain side fifty feet below. Up behind this shelf arose other pines, height above height, until their highest tops seemed to pierce the clouds.
When Rule reached this shelf, he found the tops of the pine trees, the ground, and the hut all covered with snow.
"Good morning, mother! A merry Christmas to you!" said Rule, gayly.