It was a fortnight later, it was August, and it was dusk. Having dined, the men had stepped forth through open windows to smoke upon their lawns, the ladies, not far off, snuffing the fragrance wafted through the gloom, or, Canadian-wise, setting out on visitations to their neighbours' precincts, or receiving uninvited raiders on their own; the middle-aged to sit and fan and gossip lazily, the young to sing or even dance, chasing the sultry oppression with active exercise, as youth alone is privileged to do.
Jordan had dined, and his shadowy figure would show now and then sharp against the sky, to be lost momentarily again on the dim background of surrounding trees. Only the red spark of his cigar was always seen, travelling back and forth fitfully across the dusky vagueness. Now it would flash out bright and travel briskly, and then anon it would dwindle and grow dim in rusty redness, creeping along or even stationary for a while, starting again into brightness and hurried movement--signs of pre-occupation, doubt, and suppressed excitement in the smoker.
"Ho! Jordan." The hail came suddenly out of the dimness; the light of another cigar drawing near gradually, like the drowsy flight of a belated beetle, being the only sign that Jordan was no longer alone. He started, pulling briskly at his cigar till it glowed and lighted up not only his own features, but those of Ralph Herkimer, who now stood before him.
"Herkimer! Most pleased to see you. Will you--will you come in?"
"No, I had rather join you here in your stroll and smoke, if you don't mind," lighting a fresh cigar as he spoke.
"Well? And are you sorry now you took my advice?" he went on when the process of lighting up was completed. "The difference between the rise we brought about and the impending collapse which you foresaw--and which would inevitably have taken place if your original block of the stock and Rouget's, which I believe you now hold, had all been offered at once. Must be a little fortune."
"Scarcely that, perhaps, but I admit it has turned out a very pretty thing, and does you the very highest credit as a financial engineer. But tell me, how long will this boom last?"
"Till the bubble is pricked, of course--provided the offerings at one time are not more than can be easily absorbed. You can choke even a hungry dog by stuffing too big pieces down his throat."
"Will the price go higher yet?"
"Naturally, if we restrict the supply."
"Fact is, I am holding, still. Nevercouldbring myself to sell on a rising market. I should feel as if I paid every after advance out of my own pocket. But I mean to begin to-morrow--moderately, that is."
"Right," said Ralph between two puffs. He had himself "unloaded" a week before, and had little faith in the future; but it seemed unnecessary to mention that.
"And there is no fear of the ugly rumours coming out again? If the men are seen hanging idle about the tap-rooms, for example, will it not excite inquiry?--from those blockheads with hammers, for instance, who are prowling about the neighbourhood, and trying to get at our people to treat and pump them?"
"The men speak mostly French, the prowlers English. There is safety in that. The men are good Catholics, too; M. le Curé recommended many of them, and they think the English want to tamper with their religion, so they give them a wide berth."
"But how do you keep them busy? And how long can you keep it up?"
"I am getting all who are likely to be troublesome away to Montana, engaging them for a mining concern, which, if it could be found, would no doubt employ them. The men cannot get back from Montana before Fall."
"Bright idea, that. But there are Podevin and the two others. They will blab, I fear, as soon as they succeed in selling out."
"Podevin won't. You made sure of him at the board meeting, when you told him that if it were known the directors would be indictable for fraud. Or was it that fool Webb said it? Podevin and Belmore have sold out, I know, but they are too frightened, both, to say a word. I have seen them come out of the notary's more than once, and doubt not they are conveying their property to their respective wives. I pity Belmore if he does; his wife is Catholic and a devotee, she is sure to leave it all to the church for the benefit of his heretical soul. The other fellow is your--I mean our--real danger. He is as obstinate and as stupid as a pig, and he thinks it would bewrongto save himself, as the rest are doing, while at the same time he bears us a grudge for leading him into the scrape. He has been to me in town several times, but I can make nothing of him, and I fear he is up to some virtuous devilment or another. The fool has honour enough to fit out a township, common cad though he be. Wish I had known sooner."
"Hm! Then I must make haste and get out of the sinking boat."
"Take care you do not founder the whole thing in your panic. Unload by degrees--only so much each day, and, if possible, a little less than is asked for. That will keep the price up, and the quotations of daily transactions will preserve confidence."
"I owe you thanks, Ralph, for your suggestions. So far they have been most valuable. I shall not soon forget how wisely you encouraged me to hold on. I only wish I could reciprocate your favours; but that is not to be hoped. You know all the ropes so much better than I do. Take the will for the deed, old man! and if--by good fortune--if ever----"
"But you can, my dear Jordan, you really can--and I am glad to know that your goodwill is equal to the test; though indeed it is nothing I am asking after all--nothing to cost you anything."
"Name it," mumbled Jordan with a good deal less effusion than he had been indulging in the minute before, though still as cordially as the staccato shock to his nerves would allow. To say truth, he felt not unlike the sportive mouse, which, in pure lightness of heart, has nibbled through the thread whose yielding liberates the spring which catches and holds as in a vice. What wonder that instinctively he should wriggle to withdraw, the moment he felt himself being held, even to a position of his own choosing? Bitten by his own teeth, he would have felt less foolish--less like the stag entangled by his own antlers in a thicket, to wait the coming of the hunter and his hounds.
Ralph noted the change in manner and tone; and the humour of it, causing inward laughter, made the smoke he was inhaling lose its way, and brought on a fit of coughing.
"I want you to pay up Gerald's fortune at once," he said at length. "It wants not much more than a year, you know, to the time fixed. He is of age, and he is my partner, so we shall both be responsible. I am Gerald's next heir, too, so it can have no bad consequences for you, besides being a great convenience to us."
The tumult in Jordan's circulation had had time to subside, and his voice had grown even again. It was more mellifluously soothing now than even its professional wont. "How I wish it had been something else," he said; "something within the bounds of possibility. It distresses me to--but----"
"Quite so, my friend. The usual way of the world. Anything that is not wanted you would have felt it a privilege to do. Is it not so?--even to pulling out your eyes, only you know I am not a cannibal and prefer oysters; so they would be of no use."
"Really, my dear Ralph, you must not put it in that way, you know. Indeed, you have no right to say so. Just think----"
"Oh, I know--quite so--by all means, if you wish it. I know better than chop arguments with a lawyer. That would be worse than an altercation with a woman. He is not satisfied, like her, with thelastword, he must have the best of it as well. But the facts remain."
"Is that not an admission, my friend, that you know your position will not bear examination?"
"Look out for your own position, friend Jordan! I have a presentiment it would not be impossible to knock that over like a house of cards on the Stock Exchange to-morrow morning, however easily you might overthrow me in argument to-night."
"I used the word 'position' to express your statement of the case, my dear fellow; I meant nothing offensive."
"And what sort of statement would you make of your own case if I were to dismiss all the miners to-morrow open the gates, and let the world in to see?"
"Pray do be calm, Ralph, and don't grow excited, I had almost said violent. You forget that I am only one of two. I can do nothing alone."
"I know it; but you can persuade your brother trustee, I believe, as I cannot. Besides, he will say, like you, that he is one of two; so I make sure of you before approaching him. Now, what do you say?--My Canadian interests are in a mess. I have washed my hands of those mines--I can ruin you, observe, if I like, without hurting myself--I am already deeply dipped in Pikes Peak and Montanas and I must throw in all the rest I have to save what is there already. My interests are across the lines now, and I mean to be there myself also. So you see I can have no personal interest in sparing you, and I have no doubt that Webb's fear of a criminal prosecution of the directors will come true."
"I am not a director."
"It would be proved that you attended the meetings and influenced the board in favour of every irregularity--and there are plenty of irregularities, I can tell you. The others will insist, you may depend upon it, on the pleasure of your company with them in the dock; and, for myself, I don't see why they shouldn't. I imagine that weak chest of yours will need at least six months to recuperate in Florida--but there will not be time for you to save your fortune and get away if you do not listen to reason----" "You force me to speak plainly," he added, as Jordan stopped short in his walk and dropped heavily upon a garden seat, deprived of strength to stand upright. His cigar had dropped from between his teeth, and he sat a mere black shadow in the dusk till Ralph, pulling his own smouldering spark, into brilliancy, bent near and saw how sickly pale his visage had become.
"What say you, Jordan? How are we to arrange?"
"It will take time to realize and gather in. The accounts, extending over eighteen years as they do, are voluminous and complicated; it will take time to make them up. You see it is nearly two years yet till the time for handing over the trust, so there has appeared to be no hurry so far; but it will take months to get the thing into shape."
"I see. And you know that within a week or two I shall be across the lines, and that it will be a couple of years at least before I shall care to revisit Canada. Now, really, my friend, do you take me for the sort of person it is worth while talking such slop to? Hand me the securities as they are; I am surely as well able to negotiate them as you can be."
"I could transfer you those mining shares, of course, if you wished it. Yes! That will simplify matters; part of them, I mean, the second part."
"Mining shares? Come now, that's a rum un. My uncle's estate don't hold a dollar's worth of them. You forget the transfer books lie in my office, and I could not have overlooked Considine's name either for himself or as trustee. Our company is not in his line. He knows too much and too little for that class of investment. But I see! and it is what I might have suspected from your sudden rise in the world, only that I did not think you could have got round Considine--I knowIcould not. I admire your management, Jordan. I really do, you must have finessed very cleverly to nobble old Cerberus like that! A good slice of the money has passed through your hands, we may infer; and, of course, as would happen with any one else--I don't blame you, mind--it has got a little confused and mixed up, as it were, amongst your own, which is natural; and I do not mind accommodating you as far as may be. We will take, say, half of your holding--the first half--and it to be sold before you disturb the rest. We will take it at par, and give you credit for it. What else will you give us?"
"Par? Man alive! I bought Rouget's at a premium, and I have been holding the whole ever so long, with the risk of its falling all the time. You must take it at the market value, say a hundred and seventy-six."
"Whose money is it? By your own admission? And do you not receive a pension under the will for looking after it? If the price had gone down, would you have made good the loss?"
"You have no right to insinuate that I would have done anything improper. However, I will not yield to so outrageous a demand. No man in his senses would; especially when you have no more business with it than the parish priest, for two years to come."
"You will force me, however unwillingly, to make Gerald file a petition to have your trusteeship overhauled; with the affidavit I can make in support the court cannot possibly refuse."
"I shall have an information lodged againstyoufor swindling before the petition can be heard. Who will mind your affidavit after that?"
"Good for you, old man. A stale mate! It does one good to play a match against you, Jordan; it brightens one's wits. Well now, can we make a truce? If I do my best to gain you time to realize, and promise to keep Gerald quiet for the next two years, will you get me that money out of Considine's hands? How much is it, by-the-way?"
"Half. We divided the property to avoid the endless consultations, each agreeing to do his best with half, and trust the other."
"Well, get Considine to hand over, and you shall be left undisturbed."
"I don't believe he will do it."
"Will you try to persuade him?"
"Yes."
"Come, then, we will find him at Podevin's, and have it out before we sleep."
"He is not there. I saw him walk past as I sat down to dinner; gone to Miss Stanley's, I fancy, as usual."
"He will be back before long, now; let us go down and wait."
"Better wait here, there are always inquisitive loafers around there. Come in and sit down, the moon is rising. He will not leave his friends till it is high enough to light him home."
Considine retired early to his chamber by the river-side. The moon was up and emerging in lucent clearness from the bands of dimming haze which joined the transparent heaven to the grosser earth. There was no wind, only a stealing deliciousness on the sweet night air, lulled by faint whispering among the aspen leaves hard by, and the lapping of the waters round the boat-house. It was far too good a time to waste in the unconsciousness of sleep: merely to exist and feel was tranquil joy. He extinguished his lamp, threw off his coat, and lighting a pipe, sat by the open window, and puffed and dreamed.
Swiftly the stream swept by beneath the casement, each swirling eddy touched with a ring of moonlight, and wavy gleaming lines threading the dusky current in its course, showing the volume and the swiftness and the might--like time, like life, like fate. And yet it was not gloomy. The flickering lustre brightened as the moon rose higher, and Considine's eye rested meditatively upon the scene. The river, it seemed to him, was not unlike the passing of his own existence, with something cold and something solitary in it, issuing from one obscurity, and hurrying onward to another--nothing but a passing, and yet not all a cheerless one.
A gentle influence, it seemed to him, was shining just then onhislife also, one as pure and good as the beams upon the passing tide, but like that, far off, and cool, and unapproachable. The swellings of the current seemed to leap and glance up, longing and responsive, but the Lady Moon smiled back still in the same cool gentle brightness, coming never the nearer, however the waves might flicker and burn in impotent desire and longing. Matilda, too, was very far away. The sense of yearning to be near her had long been in his soul; it had germinated and grown so gradually that he had not known its presence, till at length in its spreading it grew into his thought, and he knew that he desired.
Yet to disturb the pleasant present by a word seemed far too hazardous--too like hurling a stone into the stream and breaking up the radiance. Better, perhaps, be content to bear in silence the cool reflection in his bosom, than, in leaping to catch the reality, lose even the shadow. When the pulses sober down to the steady task of living--when the turbulence, the cascades, and rainbows of the upper reaches of life are past, and the even stream has entered on the level country of middle age, love grows less confident and bold even in those better natures which alone retain the capacity of loving. Familiarity with disappointment makes man less willing to tempt his fate, and he clings more eagerly to such good as the gods vouchsafe, knowing its rarity and his own weakness to hold fast. "Better enjoy the friendship," thought Considine, "than tamper with and disturb it by futile endeavours to warm it into love;" and he drew a long breath; and somehow the air seemed to have grown dim, though in truth it was only a film of cloud stealing athwart the moon.
He rose and stretched himself, and yawned, and concluded that now it was time to turn in, when a tap at the door of his chamber surprised him.
"Who is there? Ha! Jordan? Glad to see you. And Herkimer! Let me light the lamp. How fortunate I had not gone to bed. Oh, no apology! Should have been sorry to miss you both. Smoking I see. So am I. Brandy and water? Bless my soul, the ice has nearly all melted. Enough? Glad of that--or here is soda if you prefer. Splendid night, is it not?" and so on. His visitors' flow of talk seemed blocked in a strange way for persons who had taken the trouble to visit him so late. He jerked out his disjointed sentences in answer to nods and monosyllables, doing his best to fulfil the rites of hospitality under difficulties.
Smoke, brightened by brandy and soda, however, had its perfect work at last. It dispensed, for one thing, with talk for talking sake, till its own soothing and clarifying influence had time to act; for is not the cloud blown by a fellow-smoker companionable and sufficient without a word? Then Jordan, clearing his voice with a preliminary cough, began:
"You are surprised, Considine, to see us at this hour; but Herkimer thought it our only chance of finding you alone. You popular bachelors are so run after. Fact is, Herkimer says that it would be of advantage to them to have young Gerald's fortune paid up at once, instead of waiting for the short remainder of the twenty years to run out. After talking it over, I am free to confess that much may be said in favour of his view; and, indeed, he has quite brought me round, so I agreed to come with him and assure you of my willingness to join you in acceding. Young Gerald, you will remember, is of age now, and can legally confirm his father's demand. They are partners in business, and nearest of kin to each other, and can give us a full and complete acquittance of our responsibilities, which, speaking for myself, I shall be thankful to be rid of; for candidly I am not as young as I have been, and I grow lazy, I suppose, as well as fat, and I find my own concerns require all the attention I have to bestow. It has been a long and an onerous trust, and I dare say that, like myself, you will not be sorry to be rid of it."
"I need scarcely say," observed Ralph, "that Gerald sees the importance to our affairs of winding up the trust at once, as strongly as I do. He has no desire, though, that the trustees should be deprived of their commission for management before the expiration of the twenty years. On the contrary, he appreciates their services so highly that it is his wish to make the allowance permanent, by granting them a capital sum sufficient to represent at eight per cent their emolument from the property."
When Jordan began to speak Considine had set down his pipe and lay back in his chair, his left foot across his right knee, stroking it with his hand, while he fixed his eyes upon the speaker. When Ralph began, an incipient frown hovered about his eyebrows, the blood rose hotly to his forehead as the speaker proceeded, and he sat bolt upright, with fingers clenched and lips compressed, ere the conclusion was reached; when he answered in a voice of suppressed indignation:
"I am humiliated, Mr. Herkimer, that you should have felt at liberty to speak as you have done. Your words might be taken to imply an insinuation against Jordan's probity and my own, for which I am certain that neither I nor he have given occasion. Take back what you have said, or I, for one, must decline to say a word upon the subject of your demand."
"My dear general!" cried Ralph in amazement, not untouched with scorn for the "canting old prig" who could pretend that the mode of earning a dollar made any difference in its value. "You have completely misunderstood me, I do assure you. No idea could have been farther from my mind, or indeed from the mind of any one who knows as I do your delicate sense of honour. I really must protest against your entertaining so erroneous an impression; and it seems hard that I should be prevented from expressing my boy's sense, and my own, of your assiduous attention to our interests."
"That will be time enough after you know what we have done," answered Considine dryly. "At present you know nothing, nor can, till the accounts of the estate have been made up, and submitted to your examination. However, as you agree to take back the promise of a consideration for violating the trust reposed in us, no more need be said."
"Violating the trust!" remonstrated Jordan. "And who, pray, my dear Considine, uses unguarded language now?"
"Not I. Remember the terms of the will, if you please, Mr. Jordan."
"Technically, my dear sir, and verbally, I will not dispute your accuracy; but more than that is due to the intentions of a testator, from friends, and among friends."
"You think you know Gerald's intentions better than he did himself, then? For my part, I have thought the will a model of clearness."
"Think of the circumstances, general--the present circumstances--and all that has occurred since the will was made."
"Nothing has occurred for which the will did not provide."
"Excuse me, general. Gerald has come of age, he has gone into business, he sees a use to which he can turn his inheritance. What right haveweto balk him, and keep him out of his own?"
"I deny that it is his own, or can be, till the time appointed has arrived."
"Literally speaking, of course, your position cannot be gainsaid; but consider the circumstances, as I say. When the will was made, there was every chance that quite another person would inherit. That person would have received the money before reaching majority. It seems therefore unfair, and contrary to the testator's wish, that Gerald should have to wait."
"I don't see it. What if that other should appear and claim the inheritance?"
"Is it likely?"
"It is possible. Again, Gerald may die within the next year-and-a-half. We should be personally liable then to the heirs."
"His father is one of them, his three aunts are the others--all our friends of long standing. From what you know of them, you can have no misgiving as to our old friend Ralph's doing what is right by those ladies. Had the testator been alive he could not but have been glad to confide them to the care of so good a fellow as his nephew Ralph."
"That is just where I must beg to differ. I knew old Gerald most intimately, and I have the best ground for being sure that he would not."
"There it is, Considine! You have always had a kind of grudge against me. You know you have," said Ralph.
"Not at all, sir. Search your memory, and I defy you to produce one token of ill-will. Did I not prove myself a useful friend at Natchez?"
"Never mind Natchez," growled Ralph sulkily.
"Did we not do business together for years after the war?--business by whichyouprofited as much as I did? Have I ever made use of an unfriendly or disrespectful word in your presence?"
"You have thought and looked them; and you know it."
"Men are not held responsible for thoughts and looks. They cannot help them. But let us close all this at once. It is contrary to the letter of the will to do as you propose, gentlemen, and I will not take the responsibility. I believe, too, it will be for the young man's own interest that he should come into possession later, when his hands may be less trammelled by business engagements."
It was useless to say more. The schemers speedily took their leave, Ralph growling and muttering under his breath about pig-headed ramrods, while Jordan reflected pensively what an impracticable old Spartan he would have to reckon with, if ever his peculiar method of trusteeship should come up for discussion. "Not a business man," he muttered to himself. "Emphatically not!"
"If he were to die now, would not the whole be in your hands?" asked Ralph.
"Undoubtedly. Why?"
"It just struck me, when we were up there, and he was holding forth by the open window--and the river outside so swift and deep."
Jordan started.
"By G-- I could have pushed him out, and there would have been an end. But you're chicken-hearted, Jordan. You could not be counted on to keep quiet."
"I would rather not be present at such a transaction, certainly," and Jordan felt a creeping run up his spine. What a desperate fellow the man must be! He must speak him fair and keep out of his clutches. Considine was impracticable, he thought again, and Ralph was violent. If the two came in collision, what loss would it be to him? Either of them might some day become troublesome. The thought shot through his mind, and the sickly faintness, bred of suggested murder, tingled into a glee of terrified exultation, which made him tremble, and the very teeth rattle in his jaw.
"It would be all right? Would it not?" asked Ralph.
"Ye--ye--yes. But really, my dear friend, is it necessary to take me into your confidence? Considine bathes in the river every morning, by-the-way--you may count on my eagerness to forward your views--in any--contingency--but----"
"Quite so, Jordan. I'm to play cat, am I, to your monkey, for the chestnuts? Very well. I won't compromise you. You weren't born to be hanged--a deal more likely to die a sneak-thief's death in a penitentiary hospital! Bathes every morning, does he, in the river? Good-night. Sound sleep and pleasant dreams."
It was a summer morning, between six and seven. The last thread of mist has melted in the warming air, air suffused with sunshine and crisp with a lingering freshness from the night; the banks all dewy, and the river asparkle in the slanting light.
Considine stepped into a skiff in the boat-house beneath his chamber, and shot out into the stream to take his morning plunge. Then lingeringly snuffing the sweet cool air and surveying the upward moving banks as he drifted down, with fingers idling among the intricacies of buttons, and talking aloud, he leisurely undressed himself for his swim:
"Can that be the glitter of a gunbarrel in the sun? It is--reminds one of the sharpshooters on the Rappahannock river during the war. What can the fellow be skulking for, like that, among the bushes? He remembers it's the close season for duck perhaps; but he might take courage, and stand boldly forth this morning; there is not one on the river to pop at, as far as I can see. I must give the Game Preserving Association a hint when I go to town, though. Well! here goes. One--two--three!" He dived into the river, and the bracing coolness licked his languid limbs into a new feeling of firmness and strength.
Regaining the surface, and shaking his eyes clear of the dripping hair, he turned to survey his sportsman, now standing full in view.
"Ralph Herkimer!--and taking aim!--last night--I understand. My God!--if he aims straight--I'm done for."
The skiff had drifted on in front during his gambols, and he now struck out with all his might to gain its side and interpose it between himself and danger; but he never reached it. A flash and a puff of smoke upon the shore, a crack, and a stinging sensation in the shoulder, paralyzing the arm, and he went under water. Rising presently, he struck out anew, straining every sinew to overtake the boat, and almost reaching it, when he lifted the sound arm to lay hold--lifted it too soon. It fell short, fell back on the water, and he plunged headforemost to the bottom. His head may have struck upon a sunken rock, or--or anything. He struggled, feeling himself drowning, and then he grew drowsy, his consciousness grew vague and dreamlike, and then there was an end. The current swept onward undisturbed, and the empty boat drifted down stream towards the sedgy islands, where the river took a turn, and was lost from view.
Ralph Herkimer stood upon the shore watching with an intentness which left him deaf and impervious to every other impression. The rifle had slipped from his shoulder, the butt rested on the ground, and a thread of smoke still crept out from the barrel. His hand supported it mechanically. His perceptions were out upon the river. The victim was hit, he saw so much, and when he sank, Ralph drew a breath of infinite relief between his tight-set teeth; but still he could not turn away his eyes.
The head emerged above the tide again. What?--and he was wounded?--and yet about to escape!--and it would be known that it was he--Ralph--who had fired. He must not let him escape--and yet, to fire again? The first shot, being unlooked for, would pass unnoticed; the next, all ears along the river being now aroused, would surely be observed. He clutched the rifle, with one barrel still to fire, and watched the swimmer. How heavily he floundered through the water, yet with what desperate force; and, really, he was gaining on the boat. If he should reach it the deed would be out--everything known--and it would then be too late to shoot. A boat with a corpse--an empty boat, with blood-stains, would be enough to set the law and the detectives to work. He lifted the gun, but his heart beat far too wildly to take aim. His eyes were clouded, his hands shook; while out in the stream the swimmer could be seen in frantic effort struggling along and gaining on the boat.
And now it seems to Ralph there is no choice. Hemustfire again, or the swimmer will gain the boat, and everything be known. Why should his hand tremble now? When did he ever fail to knock a squirrel from the tree? Has he not shot a bear in his time? Is not the danger of letting this man escape worse than any mischief the bear could have done him? and yet----
Ha! The swimmer rises in the water, throwing out his arm as though to grasp the boat. It is beyond his reach. He falls forward in the tide and disappears. A foot is seen above the water for an instant, and is gone. The boat drifts onward all alone. The gun has not gone off, and Ralph sinks on the bank, panting and weak in the revulsion of excitement. His eyes follow the drifting boat and watch the even glassy flowing in its wake, but the waters part not asunder any more. No head emerges panting and struggling to disturb the mirrored lustre reflected from the morning clouds. The thing is done.
Ralph Herkimer was late for breakfast. He had been out with his gun; for Gerald, setting out to catch an early train for town, came on him stepping from the shrubbery to gain the verandah and his own dressing-room window--met him right in the face, to his own no small surprise, and not, apparently, to the satisfaction of his parent.
"Ducks! Father? Ain't you three weeks ahead of time?"
"Sparrows! my son. We shall not have a black cherry left, for those blasted English sparrows."
"And you took the rifle? That would have been putting a big blast with a vengeance into one of their little persons. Head, claws, feathers, would have been blown to the four winds. The rest would be nowhere."
"Humph," grunted Ralph in surly wise, entering his open window without further parley.
"Old man must be out of sorts this morning," said the son, proceeding on his way. "Never saw him so grumpy of a morning before. And to take a rifle to the sparrows! He must have gone out half awake--taken it up without noticing, and been ashamed at being seen--stolen back, no doubt, before Solomon Sprout would arrive with his spade and barrow. Solomon isn't an early bird by any means. I suppose no gardener is. Has the whole day before him to potter about the place. Solomon would have laughed at the rifle, and told us about blowing Sepoys away from the cannon's mouth when he was soldiering in 'Indy.'"
Ralph was very late for breakfast. He had rung for his man, and sent him for sherry and bitters, and then dismissed him, peremptorily refusing to be shaved, or to be bothered in any way.
Nine o'clock. Mrs. Martha sat by her coffeepot, but her spouse did not appear. She rang for Joseph, and inquired for his master, but he could only say that he had rung for sherry and bitters, refused to be shaved, and ordered him out of the room.
"He's out of sorts," soliloquized Mrs. Martha. "Smoked too many cigars with Jordan last night, that's what's the matter! What fools the men are! Making themselves sick with nasty tobacco, just for manners to one another! I'm sure they don't really like it. I've known the time when Ralph would sit the whole evening with me and Gerald--Gerald was a baby then--and never a cigar. Just a few peaches before going to bed, and a Boston cracker. Heigh-ho! I was young then, to be sure, and better looking, but I don't suppose that signifies to Ralph. I am sure I likehimas well, and think him as fine a man as ever I did; and why would he not think the same of me? It's just that eternalbusiness!The men are that dead set on it they think of nothing else, and they make believe to like tobacco to be with one another, and keep the women away, that they may talk business. The weary, weary business! Whatever good has it done us? The richer we get, the harder Ralph seems to work, and the less I see of him. But I'll keep him at home to-day, anyhow. See if I don't."
With a cup of coffee and a piece of toast, she hastened to her husband's room.
"Well, Ralph? Still up? I fancied you must have lain down again. Drink your coffee. It will do you good. Dear me! How pale and limp you look."
"Nonsense! I'm all right."
"Not you. You must not think of going to town to-day. We'll hang a hammock on the shady side of the house and you can swing there. The river view feels cool, and there always comes a breeze up from the water. Joseph!"
"Bid him hang the hammock in the front of the house, Martha. It amuses one to see who comes and goes. Yes; I shall stay at home with you to-day. I don't feel up to much--yesterday's heat, I suppose. Bid him hang the hammock up in front."
"There's no shade worth speaking of on that side till the afternoon. You'll broil yourself with the glare off the flower beds. The west verandah is the place at this hour, and there's the pleasant outlook over the river."
"River be d----d. It makes me giddy to look at it this morning. My head seems all aswim."
"Bilious--the brandy and cigars last night. You nevercouldstand much of that, Ralph. It's not for you! Leave it to the dull fellows who want brightening. You have too many nerves to agree with stimulants in quantity."
"Don't preach, Martha, my good soul. My head is splitting. Open the window wider, and close the blinds. Now leave me, please; I think I could sleep. Send Joseph with the brandy and some soda-water and ice."
"A hair of the dog that bit you, eh? My poor old man. But I think you would be better without it," and she laid her cool hand on his forehead as he lay.
It was the touch that of all things soothed and softened him the most. In the hurry of life and the scramble for its prizes he had long outgrown the early transports of the honeymoon, real though they had been at the time--as real as it was in his nature to experience. The light of her eye had less power to kindle a response within him; it shone more dimly, doubtless, than of old, and his receptive organ--heart, call it?--had toughened with the years, and was too occupied with greed to hold much else. Her bright and sensible talk, grown familiar, had ceased to interest; but the touch of that cool, soft, firm, and sympathetic hand upon his brow, had still the old power to soothe and charm away pain and care. She was so true, and strong, and faithful; and a healing virtue dwelt for him in her touch--the one truly good and holy nature he had ever believed in. And she believed so thoroughly in him--the only one, perhaps, who did, in all the world--except their boy--and he had only learnt the faith fromher.
She believed in him, and she was good and true. His brow revelled in the cool, soft, firm touch. He could have pressed it as a dog will rub against his mistress's caressing palm, but that he was ashamed of the one still lingering softness in his nature. Remembering the chicaneries of his money-making career, how glad he was she did not know them; and yet he felt a rogue in gaining this testimony of her faith, more than in all the swervings from uprightness he had ever been guilty of. And the morning's work. For the fraction of an instant it had been less present with him in the luxury of that caress. What would she think of that, if ever she came to know? He guessed the horror she would feel, though, strictly speaking, he felt no horror in himself. Would he ever come to feel any? he wondered. It was merely a dull, stupid consciousness as yet that he was not as other men; that they would none of him if they but knew; that he was separate from the rest of his kind. And she? Her hand appeared to burn him at the thought. He felt spattered and sticky with the dead man's blood, and it was soiling her clean pure hand. If she knew it, she would renounce him. Shrinkingly he turned his head beneath her touch, and the gentle wife, pained at perceiving her caress grow irksome, stole silently from the room.
"Alas! How they had been drifting apart through all the years!" thought Martha. "The world had come between, a broadening wedge pressing them ever more and more asunder. Ralph had never been unkind, but how slowly, yet steadily, he had been growing not to care. He had so many other things to think on." She, who sat at home with her thoughts, and still cherished the old fancies of her girlhood, grew hungry at the heart with the old hunger for a perfect love; and the food had grown sparer and slighter while her mind and soul had been waxing with the years--for a woman's heart need not wither with her complexion--and now, when she sought sign of love, what got she? A roll of bank bills--a handful of Dead Sea fruit--or costly trinkets which had no value now that the eyes she would have pleased did not care to look. Still, until now, he had submitted to her caress; she had even pleased herself by fancying that he liked it, he had submitted always so calmly. Now he had shrunk from her--turned away his head. "Alas! she was growing old," she thought, "he had ceased to care for her save as his housekeeper and Gerald's mother. How hard the men were, and utterly selfish!" She wiped her eyes a little, and went about her morning occupations. At least he should never know that she had suffered this wound. He should never know that she had observed a change. But never again should he have the opportunity to spurn. She would give him his way.
Ralph spent his morning in a semi-invalid fashion strange to one of his habits. "What was the matter with him?" he asked himself, "and what was he afraid of?" To both queries he answered positively "nothing." Yet the oppression on his spirits would not lift, and there was a tremor or dismay at his heart which would not be calmed or reassured. Why would not the man roll over and have done, and let there be an end, as there was with the squirrel and the bear he recollected?
Of moral sense Ralph may be said to have had as little as any one living in the civilized state. He certainly had not enough to trouble sleep or digestion, and might have been warranted impervious to remorse. With little benevolence, and without imagination, he was insensible to pain or misery beyond the circumference of his own cherished hide, as had been shown by his pleasure in the torture and ill-usage of his uncle's slaves. He had even prided himself on being proof to such phantasies as limit other men in working out their will; and if not brave, he had at least the judgment which reduces danger to its true dimensions. He surveyed his position now, The probabilities were in his favour. Who could have seen him? Who suspect him? It was unlikely at that hour that any one had, seeing he had fired but once. In his position nobody would suspect him, even if he had been seen and were accused. He need only say he had seen a bird on the water, and, having the gun in his hand, after frightening the sparrows from his cherry trees hard by, he had let fly. Jordan could testify to his spending the previous evening amicably with the deceased, and no one could suggest a reason for the deed. Possibly, too, the body being in mid-stream would be carried down. Once in the St. Laurence it was safe to be carried over the Lachine Rapids, or rendered unrecognizable by mere lapse of time. Danger, he told himself, there was none, and yet the gloom upon his spirits would not lift. Not all the brandy and soda he could swallow availed to cheer him.
There is a social atmosphere in which we live, a subtile sense of the general sentiment of our fellows, which no obtuseness of the nerves, no clearness of the understanding, can be wholly proof against. We breathe it, and live in it, and are of it, exceptional endowment counting for but little in opposition. The sanctity of human life, and the solidarity of each member with the rest of the community as far as mere existence goes, are sentiments so derived--foregone conclusions which nobody disputes, and nobody finds it necessary to assert. They go without saying, and are in the basis of our notions. And now, as a murderer, Ralph felt himself in the position of a lurking wolf, liable to be found out at any moment, and hooted from the company of men. He was already of a different kind from his fellows--a man apart and outside of human sympathy. If it were known, whom would he have to depend on? Would not his closest intimates be ready to assist the sheriff in bringing him to punishment? The loneliness weighed on him. Brandy would not lighten it. The rush of that detestable river was in his ears, and would not be expelled, nor the swift glassy sweeping of the tide be obliterated from his view, use his eyes or close them as he might.
"Let me take you for a drive, Martha," he called out at last. "A long drive in the sun and wind, I think, will do me good."