As Uncle Thatcher ran, so ran his neighbors. Bounding across fields, leaping fences, rolling down the sandy face of the bluff, they arrived breathlessly before a small wooden hut at the foot of a sand dune, a little distance up from the edge of the beach—the boat-house of the whaling company. Their captain, having good legs and wind, timely notice and theshortest distance to travel, was, as usual, first to reach the goal, and by the time the crew arrived, had already thrown open the large double doors which constituted the entire front of the hut, revealing within a completely fitted whale-boat that stood chocked upon ways that ran down into the surf. There was too much excitement, and too little breath among the eager men who joined him, for waste of words. Each knew his place and busied himself with the duties pertaining to it. One looked to the harpoons. Another saw that the lance was in its place, and the lashing of its wooden cap thrown off. A third was careful to see that the long line, nicely coiled in its tub, was free from loops or kinks in the coil. By this time all the crew were assembled, and grasping the thwarts of the boat, from beneath which the chocks were kicked out, ran her swiftly down to the water's edge and launched her, springing in over her sides as she rode out upon a receding wave. Uncle Thatcher sat in the stern. The bow oar was held by Lem Pawlett, a sturdy young fellow who had earned by his strength, skill, and courage the envied post of harpooner.
Once launched, the men rested on their oars a few moments, and looked up inquiringly to the man on horseback, as if awaiting a signal from him. During this brief period of inaction, a little good-natured chaffing passed between the younger men in the boat and their disappointed neighbors who came too late to take places at the oars. All belonged to the same company, but only the first comers were, by their rules, allowed to man the boat. The crew would have fatigue, peril, possibly death to encounter, but they would also have the excitement of the chase and a somewhat greater share of the profits, in the event of success, than those who remained behind; so there was always a great effort made by every man to be first to catch the signal of the mounted lookout, who was on the bluffs all day long—and first, if possible, to reach the boat-house.
"Aha! There's Dan!" exclaimed one in the boat. "This is the third time, hand-running, that he has missed going out. It looks as if he was afraid since we tackled that finback."
"If you couldn't run any better than you can row, I'd beat you here every time," retorted Dan.
"I dreamed last night of rolling a bar'l of oil," remarked a middle-aged man in the crew, "and I'd a swore this morning that I'd be after a whale before the day was over. I never knowed it to fail."
"And then," answered one on shore, "you came down and sat on the beach all day, waiting for the signal. It isn't fair to play dreams on the rest of us that way, is it boys?"
"No. We've got to pull him out of bed at daylight hereafter, and swear him on what he dreamed the night before."
"You'd better not try it. I keep a gun."
"But you don't know how to load it. You want to come right out of that boat now, and start fair, Billy."
"I'll run you fifty yards on the beach for your place, Billy."
"That wasn't what the dream meant, Billy."
"What did it mean then?"
"Why, that you were going to find a bar'l of rum in the Napeague sedge next light of the moon."
There was a general laugh, for Billy's operations against the peace and dignity of the customs authorities were, like those of Uncle Thatcher, an open secret among his neighbors.
Suddenly Uncle Thatcher raised his hand, and all were silent, turning their eyes to the man on the bluff, who was looking through a glass outupon the sea, while holding his little red flag extended at arm's length and still. After a few moments he raised the bit of bunting twice above his head, held it motionless for an instant, pointing toward the east, then waved it once.
"She blows and breaches two points south of east, and a mile away," exclaimed Uncle Thatcher, translating the language of the flag. "Pull, boys! Pull away!"
With arrow-like swiftness the boat darted from the shore; but hardly a sound, as the oars plied rapidly in the rowlocks and the ashen blades bent in the heaving billows, could have been heard a half-dozen yards away. Nearer and nearer they drew to the whale, and by this time the rowers were panting with their exertions; but not a man lost his stroke, and not a word was uttered save the captain's low and earnest caution: "Harder a port." Although so close to the monster that they could hear it blow, not one of the crew turned his head.
"Up bow!" commanded the captain.
In an instant Lem Pawlett, throwing his oar into the boat, was upon his feet, with a harpoon poised in both hands above his head, his face toward the bow. He was within four or five fathoms of the whale. Another stroke of the oars reduced the distance to two; and then, with a mighty effort, he launched the keen-pointed iron into the huge, black, shining mass that lay before him. Quick as thought the harpooner was in his seat, oar in hand, ready to respond to the instantaneously given order, "Back all!" And the boat seemed to spring away from its dangerous proximity to the whale, almost as if its motion was a recoil from Lem's powerful stroke. The huge creature, thus rudely startled, leaped clear of the water, in sudden fright and pain; then darted straight downward toward the bottom. And now ensued the most anxious moments of the chase. The line attached to the harpoon ran out from its coil in the tub abaft of 'midships, around the logger-head astern, and thence forward, between the men as they sat at their oars, and over a roller in the bow, following the fleeing whale so fast that it fairly hissed. Lem sat ready with a hatchet in his hand to cut it, if necessary, as it might at any moment be, to save a man's life. For, should a kink or loop occur in that swift speeding rope, and catch one of the crew by arm, or leg, or neck, it would either kill him at once or hurl him, like a stone from a sling, into the sea, were it not quickly severed.
Fortunately for his hunters, nature has placed the whale under two serious disadvantages. His field of vision is so limited, owing to the position of his eyes, that it is not difficult to approach him closely if his pursuers are cautious to keep back of his flukes; and he must, from time to time, come to the surface to breathe. However deep and far he may plough his way beneath the waves, his enemies know that it is only a question of time when he will have to come up and subject himself to another attack; and however mighty his energies, he must eventually succumb, if the harpoon holds and the line is not cut.
Down, down went the tortured animal, until the men began to cast anxious glances at the supply of line remaining in the tub. But presently the speed slackened. The whale was coming up again. Having once more taken breath, and made a violent but vain effort to shake himself free by beating the waves with his huge flukes and tail, the leviathan started off at his highest speed, swimming near the surface. The boat, following in his wake, dragged along with such velocity that great sheets of water and crests of foam leaped from her bows, and the crew weredrenched with spray. Suddenly he again "sounded," as his diving toward the bottom is technically termed by whalers. But this time his stay beneath the surface was less prolonged. He was becoming exhausted. Still he continued to make prodigious struggles to escape.
At length he lay quivering upon the surface, resting. Swiftly, once more, the boat approached him, and Uncle Thatcher, jumping from his place at the stern, stepped lightly forward upon the seats, carrying the lance, a long, keen-edged and pointed blade of steel. It is the post of honor, which belongs of right to the officer in command of a whale-boat, to give thecoup-de-graceto the whale, to launch this steel "into his life." With strong and practiced arms Uncle Thatcher drove the weapon deep into the monster's vitals, and so quick was he that he was enabled to strike with effect a second time before the "flurry," or death-struggle, began, and the boat again backed away. As if mad with agony and despair, the dying mountain of flesh beat the water about him into foam; rushed frantically to and fro, seeming to seek his enemies; rolled over and over; all the while, whenever he spouted, throwing crimson torrents of his life-blood into the air. Gradually he became weaker and weaker; at last was still. The victory was won.
Slowly and laboriously the crew towed the enormous carcass to the beach, followed closely by the back fins of several large sharks, attracted to the place by the scent of the whale's blood.
A novel and animated scene was presented at the beach the night after the capture of the whale. On a grassy little plateau that sloped gently down between two low sand-dunes toward the sea, was erected a rude shed, beneath which, set in brick-work furnaces over bright wood fires, were two huge kettles for the "trying out" of the oil from the whale's blubber. Aboard whaling ships it is customary to leave the blubber to "ripen" for several days, in close rooms, before it is put into the kettles, as this, it has been ascertained, increases the yield of oil; but the shore whalemen rarely do this. They simply begin at once with the tenderest and most easily treated portions, and by the time they get through, unaccustomed olfactories in the vicinity generally attest that the "ripening" process has been perfected.
Half-a-dozen boys fed the furnaces—first with wood, and later with blubber "scraps," or "cracklings." When not doing that, they scuffled with each other, wrestled on the grass, shouted with gleeful excitement, and unceasingly munched corn and doughnuts cooked in the boiling oil. By the ruddy light of a bonfire before the shed, men cut in strips, with blubber-spades, the enormous masses and slabs of fat, stripped off the whale's carcass down in the surf, and dragged up here on a low, broad-wheeled wagon, drawn by two scraggy horses. Other men carried those strips inside the shed, where one who sat at a raised bench, with a two-handled knife, "minced" them for the kettles. Still others tended the kettles; skimming out, from time to time, the crisp, brown "cracklings," and adding other masses of fat in their stead; sometimes ladling the oil into barrels. When not otherwise busy, they chewed cracklings. Several women came with panfuls of sweet dough, twisted in curious shapes,which, when thrown into the seething oil, were quickly converted into the toothsome doughnuts in which the boys so much delighted.
At one side laid a great pile of black, fibrous, ragged-looking material, dug from the mouth of the whale, the "ballein," which, when carefully cleaned, dried, split, and otherwise prepared, is known as the whalebone of commerce and corsets.
The work went on with unabated vigor all that night, and all the next day, and gave promise of continuing even three or four days longer, for the "trying out" of the oil from a big whale, as this one was, is no light task.
On the evening of the second day a well-dressed stranger appeared at the scene of operations, inquiring for Mr. Thatcher; and upon finding the grim old veteran—who had as yet taken no rest since starting in pursuit of the whale—introduced himself as a friend of Silas's, from Boston, and expressed an earnest desire to meet the young man.
"Why, he is in Boston," said Uncle Thatcher.
"He was, but has left there, and I expected to meet him here," replied the stranger.
"Here?"
"Yes. I was out of town when he went away, rather suddenly, and so did not see him, unfortunately. But he left word for me that he was going to New York to look for a better job, and would pay a visit to his father's on the way."
"So you knew him well in Boston, did you?"
"Yes; oh, yes; knew him very well. He was quite a friend of mine."
"He was doing well, I suppose? Working and keeping steady?"
The father's voice faltered slightly; he hesitated a little, and picked up a bit of crackling, which he munched as a cover to his anxiety, while he looked wistfully at the stranger.
The man from Boston seemed just a little embarrassed, but only for an instant, when he answered very reassuringly: "Steady? Oh, yes. Steady as a deacon." Muttering to himself, "some deacons, at least."
"Working at ship-carpentering, I believe?"
"Oh, yes. Certainly. A fine ship-carpenter he is, too."
"When did you see him last?"
"H'm. Well, let me see. It must have been—yes, it was two weeks ago yesterday. I'm quite disappointed not to find him here."
"He may have stopped over somewhere on the road a day or two; and if you're in no hurry, and will wait for him, you are welcome to stop with me. I'll give you Silas's own room."
"Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Thatcher; but I have already made other arrangements. I have promised to go over and stop with a friend in the village, and after I have looked on a little while at your very interesting industry here, I think I'll go back there, and return to-morrow. Silas may have come by that time."
"Very well. Suit yourself, sir, Mr. ——; I didn't rightly catch your name—Mr. ——?"
"Ketchum, Mr. Thatcher, Ketchum."
"Mr. Ketchum. Glad to know you, Mr. Ketchum. Glad to know any friend of my son Silas's."
"Thank you, sir."
"Make yourself as comfortable as you can, and will you have a little something to take, to keep the cold out?"
Mr. Ketchum said he would not object to having "a little of somethingto take," and Uncle Thatcher brought it out of a fence corner, from among the weeds, in a stone jug, with a corn-cob stopper. But Silas's friend from Boston was surprised to find that the jug contained delicious "double-canned" St. Croix rum, old and of magnificent flavor, and very accurately and shrewdly thought to himself, "These beach-combers never paid the duty on liquor like that; smugglers here, I'd bet my life."
He went over and stood near the kettles.
"Was this considered a very large whale?" he asked the man who was stirring the oil.
"Well, pretty fair-sized."
"What do you call pretty fair-sized?"
"Well, a whale eighty feet long is a pretty fair size."
"Was this one eighty feet long?"
"No."
"How long was he, then?"
"About sixty-five feet."
"Do you ever really get them eighty feet long?"
"Oh, yes. I've killed whales ninety feet long."
"I've seen 'em a hundred feet long," volunteered the man who was mincing the blubber.
"I've know'd 'em to be a hundred and twenty feet long in the Indian Ocean," put in another, lifting a pile of minced blubber on a four-tined fork, and tossing it into a kettle.
"Whales is ketched a hundred and fifty feet long," said a solemn-looking man, who stood leaning on the handle of his blubber-spade just outside the shed.
A little silence fell upon the group, which Mr. Ketchum was the first to break, again addressing the man at the kettle, asking him:
"How much oil will you get out of this one?"
"About eighty bar'ls, I guess."
"He must have been pretty fat."
"Well, so-so."
"How much have you obtained from one whale?"
"I've seen a hundred bar'ls took."
"I've helped to 'try out' one hundred and fifty bar'ls from one whale," said the mincer.
"Right whales, full-grown, not uncommon gives one hundred and seventy-five bar'ls, and sperms has been known to give as high as two hundred and twenty," spoke up the man with the fork.
The solemn blubber cutter once more came to the front, leaning on his spade, and said oracularly: "I've know'd 'em yield two hundred and fifty bar'ls."
The relators of solid facts inside the shed perceived that they had no chance as long as that untrammelled person with the blubber-spade had the advantage of the last call every time, and so relapsed into taciturnity.
Uncle Thatcher did not somehow like the look of Silas's Boston friend, though he could not tell why, and felt relieved when Mr. Ketchum at length took his departure for the village. But when he went home at midnight to take a little much-needed rest, he was almost convinced that he saw the figure of the stranger near a clump of bushes a little distance from the doorway.
The next morning Mr. Ketchum came, again, with seemingly unabated interest in the process of trying out whale's blubber, and remained about the shed all day, waiting with inexhaustible patience for his friend Silas.
That third evening, at an early hour, Uncle Thatcher said that he felt worn out and believed he would go home to bed, as the little sleep he had caught the night before had not done him any good. Thereupon Mr. Ketchum said that he, too, felt tired, and would go back to the village at once. Yet two hours afterward Mary Wallace saw, near her uncle's house, a man who, from his description, seemed to be Silas's Boston friend. Uncle Thatcher became very uneasy. A feeling like a presentiment of some impending calamity oppressed him and kept him awake.
While he lay thus, silent and watchful, by the side of his snoring spouse, he heard a slight rasping noise, as of a window being cautiously raised, in an adjoining room at the back of the house. Rising noiselessly, and passing to the apartment whence the sound proceeded, he reached it just in time to encounter a man who had that moment entered by the window and, clutching the intruder, was about to deal him a blow, when his hand was stayed by the man saying in a hoarsely suppressed, yet familiar voice:
"Look out, dad, it's me!"
Silas had come home. The unhappy father sank down upon a chair and was silent for a few moments, mastering his agitation before he could control his voice to demand:
"Why do you come in this way, like a thief in the night?"
"I didn't want to wake the family up," answered Silas, in a sulky tone.
"Where do you come from?"
"Boston."
"Why did you leave there?"
"I heard of a chance for a better job in New York, and am going down there."
"Have you been working steadily in Boston, and behaving yourself as you promised me you would?"
"Of course."
There was a ring of insincerity in the young man's voice that did not escape his father's notice.
"Did you expect to meet a friend here?"
"Why of course, dad; I always expect to meet you as a friend."
"I mean a friend of yours from Boston."
"From Boston? No. Why?"
"There is a man here looking for you; has been here two days; says he is a friend of yours."
Silas dropped into a chair and in a low voice muttered an oath.
"Sit still there until I get a light. I want to have a look at you," said Uncle Thatcher, rising.
"No, no, dad. Don't get a light, or—wait a bit. I'll fix it."
Silas quickly stripped of its blankets a spare bed that stood in the room and carefully hung them up over the window upon the shade-roller, so as to prevent any ray of light straggling through to the outside. His father waited patiently until this preparation was complete and then went to the kitchen, whence he returned in a few moments with a lighted candle.
"Silas, you've been lying to me," was his first exclamation at sight of his son.
"Well, what do you want to ask a feller so many questions for?" was the scapegrace's dogged reply.
"You have, you young scoundrel. Your face isn't that of an honest working-man, and your hands—let me see them! Yes, as I expected. Honest toil makes hands hard, and rough, and big, as mine are. Yours are not so. Now tell me the truth about what you've been doing, and what you are up to now—if you can tell the truth—or I'll break your back, you scamp."
"Well. There's no use a-makin' a fuss about it. I was at work. Not at ship-carpentering, but at tending bar. I couldn't get anything else to do. And I got into a little bit of trouble. That's all."
"'That's all,' eh? What sort of trouble?"
Silas hesitated; the old man, as he well knew by experience, was almost certain to look through his most adroitly constructed lies, and he did not dare to tell the truth.
"I didn't do nothin'," said he at length, sullenly. "It was some of the rest of the boys, and I was mixed up with them, as they were friends of mine—and—I was afraid of being arrested—by mistake. That's all."
"Ah! And 'that's all,' eh? And what did your friends, 'the boys,' do?"
"I dunno."
Uncle Thatcher gripped his son by the shoulder and stood silently regarding him for a few moments, as if debating with himself whether to carry out his threat or not. Then his hand dropped, and he said:
"Something tells me not to ask you. You'll either lie to me, or you'll tell me some truth that, coming from your lips, would sicken my heart with shame that you are my son."
"I didn't do nothin', I tell you."
"No more uncalled-for falsehoods, Silas. You have come here for money, haven't you?"
"If you have a few dollars to spare, I'd like to have some. I'm broke."
"I don't know why I should waste any more money on you."
"I've always acted like a friend to you, dad. I could have made a good stake turnin' up your smugglin' business here, but I never did," replied Silas in a suggestive tone.
His father looked at him with a countenance full of disgust, and answered grimly: "Oh, it's hush-money you're after, is it?"
"Well, no; I didn't exactly mean that, dad. But I want to borrow a few dollars."
"And when you get them, you'll leave?"
"Yes."
Uncle Thatcher left the room. As soon as he was alone Silas proceeded to make a strange toilette. Drawing a bottle of some fluid from his pocket, he poured its contents sparingly upon a comb that he found on the bureau and vigorously combed his hair with it. From sandy brown his head quickly became an intense black. Then hunting up his father's razor, which he knew was kept in that room, he speedily removed his red moustache and goatee. While doing this before the mirror, he noticed his eyebrows and carefully blackened them. Last of all, he put a false black beard, which he drew from one of his pockets, upon his chin.
His father, returning with a roll of bank-notes in his hand, started with surprise at sight of Silas's transformation, and the look of disgust deepened on his face; but he made no remark upon it and Silas wasted no time inoffering any explanation. Greedily the young man clutched the pile of money that was silently extended to him, saying as he did so:
"If that friend of mine from Boston turns up again, try to keep him hanging around here for a few days, if you can, and don't tell anybody that I've been here. And now I'll be off."
"Do you wish to see your mother?"
"No. It's no use. She needn't know I've been here. She'd be sure to chatter about it. Women are never to be trusted."
"How are you going?"
"The way I came."
"Through the window?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Well, it's the most direct road to the boat I've left lying in the cove, and I don't care about going out at the front door, which my dear friend from Boston, if he's the man I think he is, will probably be watching at this moment."
He made a movement towards the candle to extinguish it.
"Stop!" said the old man. "Before you go I have a few words to say to you. This may be the last time I shall ever see you. I am almost tempted to say that I hope it may be, for fear I may next have to see you in a felon's cell, or perhaps on the gallows, as I can only expect a dark and terrible fate for you. I have done all that lay in my power to make a decent man of you, and what are you? A hunted fugitive, disguised to evade an officer who seeks to arrest you for some crime, for such I understand now to be the mission of the man who has been here inquiring for you. Now, I never want you to come back here, or remind me of your existence until you can do so in open day, with a clear conscience and without fear of any man. I have given you there two hundred dollars, and it's all you'll ever get from me, alive or dead, if your life does not entirely change. Nor will you ever be able to squeeze any hush-money from me again. I smuggled, because I was eager to amass money to leave to my son. I will never do so any more. That source of income gone will still leave me enough for my lifetime, which will be sufficient, since I have no hope of you; but I will have none to waste on a criminal profligate—not another dollar. I'm not a poor man, it is true, but neither am I rich one, with thousands that I don't know what to do with, like the Van Deusts. All I have—"
"Like the Van Deusts?" interrupted Silas. "Have they got so much money?"
"All I have," continued the old man without noticing the interruption, "has been gained by hard work and risk, and you have squandered viciously enough of my earnings."
"Where did the Van Deusts get their money?"
"A distant relative left them a fortune of I don't know how many thousands. But that is nothing to you. Pay attention to what I am telling you. Hereafter you will have to provide for yourself. Choose your own way to do it, but I warn you that you will find an honest way the best. I did hope to see you marry Mary Wallace. She has a little money coming to her, that I managed to get saved for her out of the wreck of her father's estate, of which she knows nothing. I thought it might as well be kept in the family. But she is a good girl and I can never again have the face to urge her to take the hand of my son until he proves to me thathe is worthy of a decent man's, or woman's regard. And now, there's your way. Take it, and go."
"No hard feelin's I hope, dad," growled the young man sullenly, offering his hand.
"'Hard feelings,' no. Grief and shame, yes. Go! And the best blessing I can give you is, may God save you from the gallows."
Silas shuddered, dropped the extended hand which his father had not taken, turned to the light and blew it out. Then he took down the blankets from the window, carefully and noiselessly raised the sash, jumped out into the darkness and disappeared.
Uncle Thatcher stood for a long time at the window listening, waiting, fearing; but no unusual sound reached his ears.
The next morning he found Silas's friend from Boston already at the trying-out shed when he arrived there, although it was yet only dawn; and leading him a little to one side, put to him the direct question:
"What did you wish to arrest my son for?"
Mr. Ketchum started slightly, looked sharply at his questioner, and then as if comprehending that, however the old man's knowledge of his errand was obtained, further attempts at concealment would be useless, replied: "Burglary."
The days grew long and hot; bees came humming in at open windows; wild roses bloomed along the roadsides; the blackberries were turning from red to their riper hue; and the smell of new-mown hay was in the air. But still, though weeks had passed since Silas's disappearance in the darkness, no one but Uncle Thatcher knew aught of his son's visit, not even his lean, hard-visaged wife, who sometimes wondered "why the boy didn't write," but to whom, on that subject, he made no reply. He seemed to grow older and more careworn, day by day, but locked his pain and grief in his own breast closely. Not only did he cease from all attempts to influence Mary in his son's behalf, but even, one day, when he overheard her aunt chiding her sharply for her repulsion of Silas's suit, he said roughly:
"Let the girl alone. She is old enough to choose for herself."
Mary could not understand the change that had come over him, but was very glad of it, from whatever cause it sprang.
Dorn had been back twice from West Indian voyages and was again away. After probably two more voyages they were to be married. It was all arranged. He had picked out the schooner he intended to buy and knew her price. He had selected the place he proposed purchasing to build their home, and already—through Lem Pawlett, who acted under Ruth's directions, at Mary's instigation—knew what it would cost him; a modest sum sufficiently within his means. And he even confessed that he had already bought a lot of furniture and stored it in New Haven, in one of Mr. Merriwether's lofts. Yet in all these negotiations and preparations, Dorn had not once been seen in the vicinity of Easthampton by anybody but his betrothed. Her years of struggle with Uncle and Aunt Thatcher on the subject of Silas had inspired her with an overpowering dread of what they might say or do, if they knew that she actually contemplated the definitely conclusive step of marrying somebody else thantheir boy; and yielding to her earnest petitions, Dorn had consented to keep himself carefully out of sight, until such time as he was ready to come for her with a pair of fleet horses and carry her off to Sag Harbor, to make her his wife.
"But I'm sure I don't know what to make of Uncle Thatcher," said Mary to her friend Ruth, in the course of one of their little confidential evening chats in the woods, "for he is kinder to me than he ever was before, and never once speaks to me about Silas. Sometimes I even think he might not make much fuss about it if I were to marry Dorn right under his nose."
"Don't you trust him for that, Mary. There's no telling how these men will act, especially the old ones. As a rule, the quieter a man is the slyer he is, and the more he means mischief. Oh, I tell you, I've studied Lem, and—But I haven't told you what Lem is going to do. You know, I suppose, that poor Mrs. Richards has heard at last from her brother in Philadelphia, and he has sent for her to come to him and bring her children, and she's going away."
"Yes. I heard Uncle Thatcher talking about it to-day."
"Well, that will leave the Van Deust's lower farm without a tenant; though it hasn't had one, as you may say, since Richards ran away; but then the Van Deusts let her live along on it and do the best she could; and I guess that must have been Jacob's doings that she was allowed to, for I believe that old curmudgeon Peter would have turned her out when she couldn't pay the rent, if he'd had his own way about it; and I never did like his looks, anyway, for I never heard of his having a good word or a pleasant face for any woman yet; and I think when a man always looks savage when he sees a woman he—"
"Oh, Ruth! Do go a little slower! You are the wildest talker. And you do get a person so mixed up."
"And I get mixed myself sometimes, too. Where was I? Oh, I was saying that Mrs. Richards was going away, and the Van Deust's lower farm would be to let. Well, Lem is going up to the Van Deust's to-morrow morning to get the lease of it, if he can, and Squire Bodley is going to be his security; and as soon as he gets it, you must try to be ready, dear, so that we can all get married at the same time, for Lem is in an awful hurry—and maybe I don't care about waiting a great while longer myself, either."
"And neither do we," exclaimed a cheery, hearty voice at her elbow, as Dorn stepped forward and put his arm around Mary's waist.
"Oh, you, Dorn Hackett!" cried Ruth, with a little scream. "How you do frighten a person!"
"So you've been eaves-dropping, have you, sir?" said Mary, looking up archly at her lover.
"No. I was just standing here waiting, in hope of seeing you, and you girls were so busy talking that you walked right up to me."
"And how do you come to be at my elbow when I thought you were far away at sea?"
"We sailed three days ahead of time, and made a much quicker trip than usual, so that I am over a week ahead of the time Mr. Merriwether looked for me. As I was in port, of course I embraced the first opportunity, when I could leave the schooner in charge of the mate, and came to see my Mary."
"How good you are, Dorn," whispered the happy girl, pressing his hands, and with the love-light in her eyes.
"And how much I love you!" he whispered in reply.
"I guess I'd better be getting along home," suggested Ruth, stopping in the path, in readiness to turn back.
"Don't let me drive you away," replied Dorn, gallantly. "It has been a long time since we have met, and I have not yet even asked how you are."
"Oh, you see I'm quite well, and you haven't really appeared to me to be gone away at all, so far as I was concerned, for I've heard so much about you all the time."
"Now, Ruth, are you going to tell tales?" protested Mary.
"Oh, no. I'm no chatterer. Not the least bit. But I know when I'm in the road, and I know it now. Two are company and three are not. And I see signs of its getting too warm here for me. So good night, good folks. I'll leave you to make your arrangements."
"So as not to keep you waiting a great while," retorted Dorn, mischievously.
The merry little maiden blushed and laughed as she turned and ran away down the path.
"What a lucky chance that I have found you, darling!" said the young man low and tenderly, drawing his beloved closely to his side and walking slowly with her. "And it was only a chance; for of course you didn't expect me. But if I had not met you here I think I should have stormed Castle Thatcher to get sight of you. I do not believe I could have waited until another evening."
"I wonder if you were so impatient all the three long years you were away?"
"No, of course I was not, for I knew just how long a time I had to look forward to of separation from you, and made my mind up to it. A man should always be able to make his mind up to bear philosophically what he knows is inevitable. It is only when he is disappointed in what he has every reason to expect, that he has any right to growl. I've always had a great deal of sympathy with the old prophet who got so mad about the worm. He had made up his mind, no doubt, to stand like a philosopher the heat of the sun when he hadn't any shelter, though he did feel the heat mighty bad. But when he got a good shade over him, and was comfortable, it was enough to make a saint mad to have a malicious grub come along and cut down his vine."
"Yes, dear; I think you've got the story fixed up your own way, and are, maybe, not altogether sound upon its moral. But no matter now. When do you go away again?"
"We will not sail for a week or ten days, probably, so that I'll have a chance to come over and see you again, once at least, before we go. The owner wants me to wait for the completion of a cargo, and they can't be got together before about the time he expected me back, which, as I have already told you, I have forestalled by a week."
"What is the cargo that you speak of as 'they'?"
"Mules. And I hate 'em," he replied savagely.
"You hate them? Why?"
"Well, of all the satanic brutes, the mule is the worst. He has the cunning and the malice of an imp. Every minute he is awake he is either planning or executing some mischief, and he's always awake. My crew will need a barrel of arnica and an acre of sticking-plaster to cure them of the bites and kicks they'll get from those mules before they are landed in the West Indies. And I suppose we'll have to wear out a wagon-load ofhoop-poles on the brutes to keep them from rolling the schooner upside down."
"Why, Dorn! How could they do that?"
"Easily enough. When we are loading them we have to run lines from the mast-heads to the wharf, to keep them from rolling her over there. When they are shipped, they have to be tied, head to head, along a beam running fore and aft, as close as they can well stand. By a concerted arrangement among themselves, those on one side will sway their bodies as far back as they can, and those on the opposite will sway forward. Then they will reverse the motion; and so they'll go alternately—singing with their sweet voices while they are at it—backward and forward, giving their motion to the vessel, and rolling her more and more every moment; and they would very soon have her on her beam ends if we didn't wade in among them with hoop-poles to divert them from their fun. And they are liable to play that game any minute, day or night. Oh, I've taken out one load of mules and know what to expect of them."
"Dorn, 'a man should always be able to make his mind up to bear philosophically what he knows is inevitable.'"
"Come, I give up. Let's don't talk about mules any more, little Mollie. I get mad when I think about them—even if they do pay well. But I have a pleasanter topic. Something to tell you."
"And that is?"
"That immediately upon my next return home, which will be in about six weeks, or seven, at the farthest, we will be married."
When at length Mary's lover left her that evening and she returned home, she was surprised to find Aunt Thatcher sitting on the front door step.
"Mary Wallace, I want to know where you've been all this night?" demanded the shrewish woman in a shrill key.
"I—met Ruth Lenox—and—we talked and walked," answered Mary hesitatingly, and with very natural evasion of the searching inquiry.
"And you've got the face to stand there and tell me that? Well, I expected it of you, and made an errand over to Mrs. Lenox's myself, and Ruth was at home, where a decent young girl should be at night, with Lem Pawlett sitting beside her on the porch. So I've caught you in one story, have I? Now I ask you again where you've been, and I want to hear what you've got to say for yourself. Not that I expect to believe a word you say, but I want to hear what kind of a story a young woman can make up for herself after being out all night, nobody knows where, or who with."
"Oh, aunt! I have not been out all night. It is only nine o'clock."
"It's ten minutes past nine," retorted the shrew, craning her long neck around over her shoulder to see the face of the tall clock that stood against the wall near the bureau, upon which a solitary tallow candle gave a smoky yellow light.
"Where have you been? I want to know," she demanded again. "Gallivanting around with some young man, I suppose. I shouldn't wonder if that Dorn Hackett that you were so much took up with three years ago, had come snooping around again. Has he? Eh? Why don't you answer me?"
"I—I—have nothing to say, aunt."
"Oho! you've 'nothing to say,'" sneered Aunt Thatcher, mimicking the girl. "Well, I shouldn't think you would have, after such goings on. I believe in my soul you've been with that fellow to-night. Can you look me in the face and tell me you haven't?"
No, Mary could not look her in the face, or anywhere else, and lie about it, for she was not accustomed to falsehood, so she held her peace.
"Yes, I thought so," continued the termagent, with a snarl of malicious triumph. "I thought so. And I know what will come of it. Oh, yes. But you needn't think to stay in my house when everybody comes to know of your disgrace. You can trapse after your lover, who'll be gone far enough by that time, no doubt. And what would Silas think of you if he knew of your conduct? Do you suppose my boy would ever look at a girl that get's herself talked about as you will? You shameless—"
"Shut up! There's been enough of this jaw and too much," suddenly interrupted Uncle Thatcher's rough voice, as he himself appeared in the door, looking in his night-dress of close-fitting shirt and drawers even bonier, longer, and more angular than ordinarily; like the silhouette of a skeleton almost.
"I don't care! I will speak!" snapped his vixenish wife, turning to face him.
"And ef you do I'll choke you."
"You would? You'd raise your hand to the mother of Silas?"
"Yes, and wring your blasted neck if you don't mind me when I tell you to shut up."
Whether Uncle Thatcher had ever found force necessary to maintain his authority in the household or not, was best known to him and his wife; but at all events she did not seem to regard his threat as an idle one, for with a snort of baffled rage she sprang up and rushed into the house, without uttering another word.
Mary was standing with her back toward the door, with her hands covering her face, and crying. Uncle Thatcher laid one of his big hands on her shoulder and patting it gently, as he would have soothed a horse, said to her:
"Come, little girl. Don't cry any more. I ain't a going to have you plagued out of your life about that cuss. Go to bed now. And just tell me if she tries to worry you any more."
He disappeared inside the door, and Mary, wiping her eyes, followed him, passing to her little room, but sleep was slow in coming to her hot eyes and her last waking thought was:
"Who did uncle mean by 'that cuss'? Was it Dorn or Silas?"
But at length the weary lids closed and in happy dreamland, far away from care, and fear, and strife, she wandered with her lover.
The night wore slowly on. Incoming billows of the rising tide moaned sullenly upon the sandy beach and sent a rustling hiss through the shivering reeds and rushes in marshy inlets; whippoorwills piped from the cover of the leafy wood and drowsy cocks, awaking at the midnight hour, called to each other from their barn-yard roosts. All other sounds of motion and of life were hushed, save that an owl darted in sudden fright from one of the Van Deust elms, at sight of a pale-faced man who sprang out of a back window of the old homestead and ran down the lane, looking back over his shoulder and wiping blood from his hands, as he ran.
It was on the morning succeeding that night, that Lem Pawlett and Squire Bodley made the discovery of the murder of Jacob Van Deust, as has already been described. As the reader will remember, the neighbors assembled about the corpse of the murdered man, believed that they had grounds for suspecting Peter Van Deust of the assassination of his brother, and even discussed the advisability of his arrest. He, unconscious of the ugly rumors afloat about him, and regardless of the dark looks of those by whom he was surrounded, lay upon his face in his room, weeping as one without hope for the lifelong companion so cruelly reft from his side. He had never known, until death parted them, how dear to him was his gentle-hearted brother and how very lonely the world would be without him. And every unkind passionate word he had uttered, and every selfish thought to which the evil promptings of avarice had given birth in his heart, since that unlucky fortune came them, seemed now to rise up before him like an accusing ghost, so that the old man, burying his face in his hands, sobbed aloud:
"Oh, Jacob, Jacob! I am so sorry for it all."
Perhaps the spirit freed from that weak lump of clay in the crimson pool, might have heard the cry and, knowing the true meaning and the penitence of the sorrowing heart, have well forgiven; but a neighbor, leaning against the door-post and peering curiously in at the grief-stricken old man, turned quickly to his comrade without the threshold and exclaimed in a low excited whisper:
"Gosh! Joe. He's just as good as owned up that he did it, and says he's 'sorry for it' now, 'cause he's scared of being found out."
And then by the time this had been repeated to a half-dozen—as it was in little more than as many minutes—those who heard the story last, learned that Peter had just made to somebody a full confession of having murdered his brother. But in the very height of the excitement to which this gave rise, Lem Pawlett, who was still prying about the room, with something of an instinctive detective genius guiding his movements, made an important discovery.
Drawing aside the figured chintz curtains that hung close over the back window of the dead man's room, he noticed that a mud-wasp's nest of clay had fallen to the sill, from the place where the insect had stuck it in the angle of the sash and frame of the window, two or three feet above. Knowing how firmly the ingenious little builders of those houses are accustomed to place them, he recognized that some unusual violence must have been employed to break it loose. That it had not been intentionally knocked down was probable, else the clay would not have been left littering the window sill. That the mischief had been freshly done, was manifest. He tried the sash, and found that it could easily be lifted. Its only fastening had been a nail, thrust into a hole in the frame above the sash; but rust had corroded the nail to merely a thin rotten wire. The head of it came off in his fingers, when he felt it, and he observed that it had been broken, with what seemed a fresh fracture, just where it entered the frame. It must, he thought, have been broken by some one lifting the sash from without, as a person opening the window from the inside would have beenlikely to pull it out first, as a matter of convenience. He raised the sash fully, and uttered an exclamation of surprise, the first sound that had called anybody's attention to his investigations.
There, plain to be seen in the soft black wood of the old sill, were two deep dents that appeared to have been made by some flat, square-edged metal instrument, an inch wide. The one beneath that side of the sash upon which the nail was broken off, was a little the deepest. Upon the bottom of the sash, on the outer side, were two deep impressions corresponding with the dents in the sill, and seemingly made by the same instrument, which, as Lem judged, was some sort of a stout chisel, used as a lever. All the marks were fresh.
The loose earth of the little garden just beneath the window, where the drip of the eaves had kept it soft and damp, showed the treading there of feet shod in high-heeled and square-toed shoes, or boots, such as might have been made for city wear, and not at all like those worn in the country. Following those tracks, they led Lem, and the crowd now at his elbow, to a point where the weight of a person crossing the rickety old "worm" fence had broken a rotten rail; and, near by, one of the high-heeled shoes had trodden down the stem of a lily that was in its path. The fracture of the rail was fresh, and the lily, broken from its stem and lying on the humid earth, was not yet withered. But the high heel had crushed one of its snowy petals.
In the lane, outside the fence, the tracks were lost.
The importance of these discoveries was at once apparent, even to the dullest of comprehension; and there was no longer a question in the minds of any but that the murder had been committed by some burglar who had entered through the window, and that old Peter was innocent. The reflection that there was in the community some one capable of such an awful deed, or that somebody from the wicked world outside had come among them to strike so terrible a blow, sent a thrill of mingled horror and fear through all present.
"Gracious alive!" exclaimed a very old man, whose hollow cheeks, sunken and bleary eyes, white hair, and tottering limbs suggested that the least possible thing of which he could be robbed was his remnant of life, "we are none of us safe in our beds with such goings on!"
"No. But the man who did this must be found and punished," responded Lem Pawlett, excitedly.
"Sake's a mercy! Who can ever find out such things? The man that did it isn't going to tell on hisself!"
"God's finger will point him out," said Squire Bodley, solemnly.
"Well, maybe so. But—I dunno," murmured the old man, whose faith in Providence seemed somewhat shaky.
Squire Bodley picked out a jury, and announced to all assembled that he would hold the inquest at his office in the village one week from that date, at six o'clock in the afternoon, at which time he hoped any person who might meanwhile become cognizant of any new facts that might have even the smallest possible bearing upon the subject to be investigated, would come before him and make them known. And—as it is always the theory among country people that a crime among them must have been perpetrated by some one from the nearest city—he exhorted all to use their utmost diligence to learn whether any suspicious strangers had lately been seen in the neighborhood.
That afternoon he despatched a message to New York, requesting the assistance of an experienced professional detective, to aid in dissipatingthe mystery that seemed to overhang the murder of poor old Jacob Van Deust, who, on the second day after his death, was laid away among the dust of many other Van Deusts in the village graveyard.
During the week preceding the inquest, the Van Deust murder was the constant theme of conversation through all the country-side; and when the important day arrived upon which Squire Bodley proposed to begin the official investigation into the affair, people came thronging into Easthampton from all directions; on horseback, afoot, in old-fashioned carryalls, and upon rough farm-wagons; as if every homestead within ten or fifteen miles around had been emptied for the occasion. It was not mere curiosity by which they were actuated, but an earnest and widely-spread desire to aid in the discovery and procure the punishment of the assassin; for in those days there was no community on Long Island, as there has since appeared to be, in which murder would be popularly winked at and condoned, and its perpetrators, though known, permitted to go unscathed of justice.
Squire Bodley's office was a small, one-story building, without any other partitions than a railing that shut in about one-third of it, where his table customarily stood. The sign "Lumber" over its one door, indicated that the worthy magistrate did not confine his energies to his judicial duties. There were three windows—one opposite the door and one in each end—of such a good convenient height from the ground that a man standing outside could rest his elbows on either of the sills, and witness comfortably all that transpired within. Long before the hour for the commencement of the proceedings, the space outside the railing was densely packed; the lower halves of the windows were filled with elbows and heads; and as many people as could find standing room within sight or hearing, upon wagons drawn up near the windows and door, were already perched and waiting, while many late comers wandered uneasily about, watching for some one in the front racks to give out through sheer exhaustion, and resign his advantageous place.
As a preliminary proceeding, the Squire had his sashes removed entirely from their frames, and carried away to a place of safety; but even yet the little room was oppressively hot and close. Then candles had to be brought and lighted, for although it was midsummer, when the days are long, this evening was cloudy, and but little of the dull light could penetrate through the crowded windows. So it was that it was almost seven o'clock when the Squire finally got himself seated at his table, with three candles, pen, ink and paper before him, that he might write down the evidence, and called the first witness.
That first witness was Lemuel Pawlett, who was somewhat abashed by his position, and had a little difficulty, at first, in understanding that he was required to give a circumstantial account of the finding of the body of the murdered man, and what followed thereupon.
"Why, you know all about it, Squire, as well as I do. You were with me. What's the use of telling you?"
"But I have to write down your statement, as your evidence, Lem, not simply for my own knowledge, but for others, to promote the ends ofjustice. Go ahead and tell your story as if you were telling it to these people here, and never mind what I know about it."
"All right, Squire;" and Lem, turning his back upon the Squire, began reciting the affair to the audience. "Him and I went up to Van Deust's a week ago to-day—"
"Who do you mean by 'him?' Who accompanied you?"
"Why, you! You yourself, Squire, you know you did!"
But at length the little difficulty of starting him aright was overcome, and then Lem went ahead, telling his story in a plain, straightforward way, and the Squire duly wrote it all down.
Two neighbors corroborated Lem's narration of the finding of the traces of the burglarious entry and the flight of the assassin.
Deacon Harkins volunteered testimony as to having overheard quarrels and interchange of threats of violence between the Van Deust brothers more than once. At this old Peter, who sat near the Squire, became greatly excited. Springing to his feet, trembling with emotion, and with his voice pitched to a high, unnatural key, he cried:
"Yes, it is true. I did threaten my brother—God forgive me!—more than once. I was mean enough, cruel enough, wicked enough to say harsh, spiteful things to wound that gentle soul; but I never meant him harm. No. The One above, who reads all hearts, knows well that I would rather my right hand withered, rather put it into the fire and burn it off than raise it against Jacob's life. We wrangled sometimes, as old men will—no,hedidn't, the fault was all mine. And oh, to think that he is gone, without my being able to ask him to forgive me!"
His voice broke, and he dropped exhausted upon a chair, letting his face fall forward upon his arms, on the end of the Squire's table, where he wept bitterly.
"Arthur Wiltsey!" called the Squire.
A stout, plainly dressed, and honest looking countryman took the stand, and, having been sworn, testified:
"Last Thursday afternoon—"
"The day succeeding the discovery of the murder of Jacob Van Deust?" interrupted Squire Bodley.
"Yes, sir. The day after the murder. I was passing through the neck of woods on the lower end of my place—"
"How far is your place from the Van Deusts'?" asked the Squire.
"Why, you know, Squire, as well as I do! I bought the place off you."
"Never mind about what I know. Tell us what you know. How far is your place from the Van Deusts'?"
"About a mile and a half."
"Very well. About a mile and a half. Go on."
"When near a path that makes a short cut to the Babylon road, I found these things. They were lying among some huckleberry bushes, and the white bag was the first thing that caught my eye. Afterwards I saw the other."
As he spoke he drew from his pocket and deposited upon the Squire's table, two objects: an old worn-out sheepskin wallet, and an empty canvas bag about nine inches long by three in width, and tied around with a bit of fishing line.
"The bit of string," continued the witness, "was a few feet away from the other things; but I judged it might belong to them, and fetched it along."
"Have you ever seen these things before, Mr. Van Deust?" asked Squire Bodley.
The old man who, buried in his freshly-awakened grief and remorse, had paid no attention to what was going on until he was called by name, looked up dazedly. The Squire pushed before him the objects found by the witness. He looked at them for a few moments, silently and without moving, as if fascinated by them; then slowly reached out his trembling hands, and took them up.
"Yes," he said, with an effort, after having carefully examined them, "I recognize them. They belonged to my brother Jacob—his wallet and coin bag. And I know that the wallet, at least, was in his possession the day before he was found dead."
Absolute stillness reigned in the dense crowd from the commencement of Farmer Wiltsey's testimony until the conclusion of Peter Van Deust's identification of his brother's property; and then such a buzz of exclamations, and remarks, and conjectures broke out that the Squire was compelled to rap vigorously on his table, and call "Order!" and "Silence!" more than once before he could proceed with the business. But there was little more to be offered.
One man thought he had heard a horse galloping down the Babylon road about one o'clock on the morning of the discovery of the murder, but he did not know if anybody was on the horse, and was not even positive that it was a horse he heard; it might have been a cow. So his evidence went for nothing.
Peter Van Deust testified, very briefly, that the last time he saw his brother alive was about half-past nine o'clock on the night of his death. An old gentleman, a friend from New York—their lawyer in fact—had visited them in the afternoon on business, and had gone away a little while after supper. Then they sat up somewhat later than usual, talking over what they would do with their lower farm, which would be left without a tenant when the Richards family moved away. He had looked at the clock when he went to bed, and knew it was half-past nine. Jacob was then in his usual health and spirits, except that he complained a little of a slight cough, and it was the witness's impression that his brother, after going to bed, had called old Betsy to prepare him something to alleviate that. But he was not very sure about that, as he was almost asleep at the time, and had not thought to speak to Betsy about it since.
Squire Bodley hesitated as to whether he should press any inquiry about the friend from New York, and cast an inquiring look at a stranger who sat near him. But the stranger, who seemed to understand perfectly what he would have asked, made a slight negative sign. Still the Squire was not satisfied and, leaning over to him, whispered:
"That New Yorker must have been there nearer the time of the murder than anybody else outside the family; most likely knew the old man had money in the house, and just where it was kept; may have laid around until all was quiet, and then gone back to—"
"It's quite possible he did," interrupted the stranger, in a tone audible only to the Squire, "and I'm not losing sight of it; but it won't do to bring out too much on the inquest. He might get wind of the suspicion against him and skip. Never show your hand if you want to win."
"All right," assented the Squire, doubtfully, "if you say so."
"Oh, yes, it's all right. Keep it shady, and I promise you the man from New York will be turned up in good time."
Peter Van Deust's evidence was closed.
Black Betsy was the last witness. She said that on the night of the murder, at about half-past ten o'clock, Jacob called her up to prepare him something for his cough. She was lying down at the time, but not asleep, as rheumatism mostly troubled her a good deal in the early part of the night, and went to him as soon as he called. Having made for him a cough mixture of honey, vinegar, and rum, she gave it to him; he bade her good-night, and she went back to bed. Being asked how she knew it was half-past ten when he called her, she said that she knew it by the line of the full moonshine on her floor, and was positive that she could not have been more than ten minutes wrong at farthest. After returning to her bed the rheumatism kept her awake about an hour, she supposed, or maybe an hour and a half. Then she dropped asleep, and did not awake until called up by Squire Bodley and Mr. Pawlett. Her hearing, she affirmed, was very good, and she was sure that from the time she gave Jacob his medicine until she went to sleep there were no unusual noises about the house.
Squire Bodley adjourned the inquest for another week, in the hope that there might be discovered in the interim some further evidence, and his sweltering office was quickly cleared of jury, witnesses, and auditors, all save one man, the stranger to whom he had whispered while Peter Van Deust was on the stand. That person, a ruddy, smooth-faced man of medium height, and probably forty or forty-five years of age, with nothing distinctive about his appearance except, perhaps, a pair of very keen gray eyes, was the detective who had been sent from New York to apply his sagacity to ferreting out, if possible, the robber and assassin of Jacob Van Deust.
"Well, Mr. Turner," said the Squire, lighting his one remaining candle by the flickering flame of the last surviving of the three that had melted and guttered down to the sockets of the candlesticks, "I guess this will be light enough for us to see to talk a little by. What do you think of the case?"
"It isn't so blind as some I've had hold of, and cleared up, too; but it is dark enough, nevertheless. All I can see that we may say we think we know is, that the old man was killed, probably after 11:30 or 12 o'clock at night, by a burglar who got into his window by means of a jimmy and who, after killing him and robbing the premises, escaped by the Babylon road, most likely."
"I neglected to bring it out when he was on the stand, but Peter has told me that some other articles besides the money are missing; a set of garnet jewellery belonging to his mother that Jacob always kept in his room; an old silver watch and a heavy square onyx seal, with a foul anchor cut on one side of it. None of them of any great value."
"It's just as well you didn't mention them; just as well or better. Such things, if looked for quietly, and nothing said about them, are sometimes valuable clues. And it is well you didn't ask about the lawyer from New York. All these are things we will have to look into quietly. There's nothing like doing things quietly. The great trouble about inquests, generally is, that they bring out the very things which put criminals on theirguard, and so make the detective's work all the harder—sometimes even baffle him altogether."
"Squire, are you busy?" demanded a sharp nasal voice.
The two men looking up, and shading the candlelight from their eyes with their hands, saw standing in the door a tall, thin, scraggy-looking woman, wearing a sun-bonnet.
"No, not particularly. Walk in, Mrs. Thatcher, walk in. What can I do for you?" replied the Squire.
The woman came forward with shuffling, hesitating steps; paused, made a furtive attempt to poke up out of sight the wisp of unkempt sandy hair, dangling in its accustomed place on the back of her neck; and finally answered, with a doubtful look at the stranger:
"Well, I had something to tell you, private-like, about that murder."
"Indeed! Well, you can speak right out before this gentleman. He is helping me to inquire into it. But why, if you have anything to tell, did you not come up to the inquest?"
"I didn't care to speak before so many folks; and I thought it would be better to tell you quietly."
"And what is it you have to tell me?"
"I expect, Squire, I know who killed Jake Van Deust."
"The deuce you do!" exclaimed the detective, bouncing in his seat.
"Yes, sir; I was told what the Squire said a week ago to-day about suspicious strangers in the neighborhood, and I thought to myself, I know of one, and I ought to tell him."
"Well?"
"Well, it's a young man who used to live in this neighborhood, but who disappeared—ran away, I guess, for some reason best known to himself—about three years ago or a little better. He's been back lately, hiding around in the woods and meeting a foolish girl—"
"Aha!" interrupted the detective, with a chuckle, and rubbing his hands; "if there's a girl in the case, we'll have him, sure."
"Yes, sir, a foolish girl, who don't know the sin and the shame of what she's a-doing. And as far as I can find out, he has kept himself out of sight of everybody but her. But he was about the neighborhood late on the night that Jake Van Deust was killed—that I'm sure of; and met the girl that night—I know he did."
"And who is the girl?"
"My niece, Mary Wallace, sir. The more's the pity!"
"And the young man?"
"His name is Dorman Hackett."
Squire Bodley gave a gasp of surprise. He remembered Dorn Hackett as a strong, handsome orphan lad who had grown up almost to manhood in the neighborhood; a young fellow with a fine, frank, courageous face, and of whom he had never before heard an evil word; but he remembered, too, now that he came to think of it, that he had not seen the young fellow for a long time; and sighed to think that even the best boys sometimes grow up to be very wicked men when exposed to the temptations of vicious life in the great cities, and it was possible that Dorn Hackett, like many others, "had gone to the bad."
"You say that this young man has been away for three years?" asked the detective.
"He hasn't dared to let anybody here, except that girl, see his face for that long."
"And of course you know nothing of where he has been, and what he has been doing all that time?"
"No; how should I? Loafing around New York, I dare say. Such characters mostly goes there."
"Around New York, eh? If he's a New York thief, I'll be sure to know him. If we only knew what he's been doing."
"What would a fellow be likely to be doing who has no trade, and no money, and no home, and no respectable friends, and nobody to see to him?" snapped Aunt Thatcher.
"He might have told your niece."
"If he did, she wouldn't be likely to tell me. It's as much as I could do to find out that he was sneaking around here in the woods, late on the night Jake Van Deust was killed."
"She met him that night, did she?"
"Yes, she did."
"What kind of a looking person in this Hackett?"
"A big, ugly, red-headed fellow, with a face like a bull-dog."
Squire Bodley smiled gently to himself, thinking how such a description would be apt to assist the detective. He had penetration enough to discern that there was some animus in the woman's mind stronger than a mere desire to aid the ends of justice; but said nothing about it at the time, feeling a little timid about seeming to interfere in the work of the professional detective.
When Mr. Turner and the squire had both thanked Mrs. Thatcher for her "valuable information," she took her departure, and the two men were left alone to discuss the course to be pursued. Squire Bodley had a very good opinion of Mary Wallace; and if he had had his own way would have directly questioned her about her lover; but against that course the detective strenuously protested. Direct ways are never the chosen methods of the professional fishers of men.