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He could merely tell them the truth and leave the rest to the argument of time. "But I cannot believe it, Rowan! I cannot!" Mrs. Meredith sat regarding' her elder son with incredulity and distress. The shock of the news was for certain reasons even greater to him; so that he could not yet command himself sufficiently to comfort her.
General Graham with his company, and some troops from Rowan county, surprised and captured a guard at Hart's Mill, one mile and a-half from Hillsboro, where the British army then lay, and the same day joined Colonel Lee's forces. On the next day, under General Pickens, he was in the action against Colonel Pyles, who commanded about three hundred and fifty Tories on their way to join Tarleton.
Then a sudden desire mastered him: to possess the purple of her bluebell bouquet. He knew she would not pick it up again when he was gone; so he returned, stood in that theatre of Fate beneath the rowan, saw where her body had pressed the grass, and found the fading flowers. Then he turned to tramp home, with the truth gnawing his heart at last.
He perceived that commonplace counsel would be better than no counsel at all. "Isabel," he asked, "are you suffering because you have wronged Rowan or because you think he has wronged you?" "No, no, no," she cried, covering her face with her hands, "I have not wronged him! I have not wronged any one! He has wronged me!" "Did he ever wrong you before?" "No, he never wronged me before.
At length he said: "I shall go straight to Rowan and ask him." "No!" she cried, laying her hand heavily on his arm, "Isabel bound me to secrecy. She does not wish this to be known." "Ah!" he exclaimed, angry at being entrapped into a broken confidence, "then Miss Isabel binds me also: I shall honor her wish," and he rose. She kept her seat but yawned so that he might notice it.
"It's strange that I have never seen your garden. Are there any trees in it?" He sat like a half-empty sack of grain, and slowly, with an effort, he raised his head. "What did you say?" "Have you any trees in your garden?" "There's a holly bush in the front and one of those thin trees that have berries red berries." "A rowan! Oh, I'm glad you have a rowan!"
"Well," said Rowan, in his inimitable manner, "I thought it would be a good thing to get that taken to show up the kind of civilization that they had in Everett." Dr. E. J. Brown, a Seattle dentist, and Thomas Horner, Seattle attorney, corroborated Rowan's testimony as to the condition of his back.
In it she told me that there were stories in circulation about Rowan. I have come home to find out what these stories are. On the way from the station I stopped at Mrs. Osborn's, and she told me. Grandmother, this is your work." Mrs. Conyers pushed down the thumb of her glove. "Have I denied it? But why do you attempt to deny that it is also your work?"
The presentation was made by Mr. David Rowan, president, who read on the occasion an address prepared by the Council of the Association, in which the following passages occurred: "The valuable assistance which you have constantly given for the advancement of the Institution since its foundation in the year 1757, the admirable manner in which, during three sessions, you presided over its deliberations, the distinction which your papers, and the part you have taken in the discussions, imparted to the proceedings, have placed the Institution under a debt of gratitude to you that we all feel cannot be adequately repaid by anything that it is in our power to do.
But again I say I am not your judge, and when I picture you as Gavin saw you first, a bare-legged witch dancing up Windyghoul, rowan berries in your black hair, and on your finger a jewel the little minister could not have bought with five years of toil, the shadows on my pages lift, and I cannot wonder that Gavin loved you. Often I say to myself that this is to be Gavin's story, not mine.
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