XXVIII
IT was two days after this that Judge Hollis came into Caleb’s little office and found him at work in his shirt sleeves. The table and desk were covered with papers and open telegrams. The judge eyed the place critically. Order showed in the neat pigeonholes and the rows of packed shelves.
“In two years you’ll have me beat,� remarked the judge, “then I’ll take down my shingle.�
Caleb smiled wearily. “You forget that this only shows how far behindhand I am,� he replied; “you were never on trial for your life, Judge.�
The old man shook his head. “No,� he said, “and I was never the most conspicuous figure in the State. Caleb, you’ve been threatened?�
“Some letters, yes,� the younger man admitted, without emotion, “from cranks, I fancy.�
“No,� said the judge flatly, “there’s feeling. Some of these ignorant people have got a notion that your campaign against Eaton, your attack on his company, destroyed his credit and drove him to the wall. They’ve got the idea that he’d have saved himself, and their investments, if you’d let him be. They’re wild about it; money loss goes to the quick, when a man can’t pay for his bacon he wants a scapegoat.The better sort know it’s not your doing, and, I’ll say it for ’em, the newspapers have been decent, but there’s feeling, Caleb; you’d better go armed.�
Caleb laughed. “Judge, I was bred a Quaker. I only used my pistol here in self-defense; I never went out with one in my pocket in my life.�
The judge rubbed his chin. “You’d better now,� he remarked shortly.
Caleb leaned back in his chair and looked out of the window thoughtfully. “I wonder what my father would have said to his son carrying weapons?� he reflected, amused.
“Good deal better than to get a hole in you,� the judge retorted; “you know how to use it!�
Trench colored. “My blood was up, Judge,� he said, “a mob’s a cowardly thing; I never felt such disgust in my life.�
“Humph!� ejaculated the judge eloquently.
Caleb smiled involuntarily. “I don’t think there’s any danger,� he said pleasantly.
“Of course not!� snapped the judge. “Trench, why don’t you clear up this talk about that kid in yonder? Cheyney knows who the father is; make him tell. By the Lord Harry,� he added, thumping the table with his fist, “I wanted it out in court.�
Caleb Trench turned slightly away, his face inscrutable. “Judge,� he said, “I wouldn’t stir a finger. I took in the kid just as I took in the dog. Let them talk.�
The judge stared at him angrily, uncomprehendingly.“I reckon you’re a crank,� he said; “you’re worse than David Royall.�
“How is the colonel to-day?� Caleb asked, to change the subject; he knew, for he had asked Dr. Cheyney over the telephone.
“He’s better,� retorted the judge shortly; “you’re not, and you’ll be worse if you don’t watch out. There are snakes in the grass.�
Caleb smiled. “Judge,� he said, “if I listened to any one in the world I would to you; I’m not ungrateful.�
“Nonsense!� retorted the judge, and jammed his hat down harder than usual.
At the door he stopped and waved his cane aggressively. “I’ve warned you,� he said harshly, “and if you were not an idiot, sir, you’d make Cheyney speak. It’s some dratted crank of his about his professional honor!�
“How about a lawyer’s, Judge?� asked Caleb, amused.
“Humph!� grunted the old man, and went out and slammed the door.
Later that afternoon business took Caleb up to Cresset’s Corners to see Aaron Todd. He had been twice to Broad Acres to inquire for Colonel Royall without seeing Diana; he had refrained from asking for her. Dr. Cheyney had told him that she would not leave her father, and he knew that, as yet, he could scarcely express all he felt about the ordeal of her testimony. He had forborne to account forthat time to spare her the publicity of the witness-stand, and his very silence only made her evidence more significant. To see her and thank her without saying all that was in his heart was no easy matter. He had driven back his love for her, and battled against it, denied it a right to exist, because he knew that she regarded him as an inferior. But now, by her own act, when she acknowledged him as her friend and defended him at the cost of a hundred uncharitable rumors, it seemed that he might have misunderstood her natural pride of birth and affluence for a repugnance to his poverty. When their eyes met in the court-room with that inevitable shock of mutual feeling that leaves a startled certainty behind it, he had felt almost sure that she loved him. But since then he had plunged back again into his old doubts, arguing that her testimony had been merely a matter of duty, and that his own feeling had deceived him into imagining that her heart was likewise touched. He had no right to suppose that her evidence was otherwise than involuntary, the exact rendering of the truth to save a man’s life. If he went further and believed that she loved him, he was overstepping the bounds of probability. Love is an involuntary passion, says an honored moralist: we cannot help it, but we can starve it out. And Caleb had set himself to starve it out but it may be said that he found the battle an unequal one. He was like a man who had walked persistently, and of his own choice, in a sullen fog, and saw suddenly,through a vast rent in the mist, the golden sunshine of another day. The fog of his doubts and his unbelief had lifted on that afternoon in court, only to settle down again in denser gloom.
Meanwhile, the tumult of battle went on. He was once more leading the anti-Eaton forces, leading them triumphantly now, and crash after crash in financial circles told of the complete collapse of that bubble which had been called the Eaton Investment Company. There is no keener incentive to anger than money loss, as Judge Hollis said; there were many who cried out against Caleb as the instigator of an investigation which had culminated in almost universal ruin in the county. The wave of popularity that had swept around him at the hour of his acquittal was receding, and leaving him beached on the sands of public criticism.
None of these things, however, greatly troubled the man himself; he pursued his course with the same determination with which he had begun it. He had foreseen unpopularity and met it with unshaken purpose. What immediately concerned him was his plain duty, and his experience at the time of his arrest and trial had inspired him with a pessimistic unbelief in the clamorous plaudits of the masses. For, in a day, he had dropped from the height of the popularity of his Cresset speech to the degradation of a despised and suspected prisoner. Like all those who have tasted the vicissitudes of life, they had no longer the same terrors for him. He was stronger inhis position now than ever, his reputation was already growing beyond the borders of the State, but he was less popular in doing an unwelcome duty than he had been as the exponent of the new theories of investigation. A vivid recollection of all that had passed in the last few weeks stirred his mind as he walked up the trail to Broad Acres. Shot, who had become devoted to Sammy, had followed him only a little way and then returned to his new playmate, so Caleb was alone. He had avoided the road and ascended the trail, because the woodland solitudes left his mind free to his own meditations, and the bleak and russet aspect of the woods, the naked trees and the brown leaves underfoot, in some delicate and subtle manner, harmonized with his sober mood. The keen blue of the river below him and the purple of the distant hills rested his eyes. He swung on, his long easy stride carrying him fast, and in a few moments he saw Kingdom-Come leaning on the fence at the side of the Broad Acres vegetable garden. The negro was stripping the leaves off a cauliflower and gazing curiously at Caleb Trench.
“How’s the colonel?� Caleb asked, stopping a moment, and his glance wandered toward the old house where even the jingo tree had dropped its last golden leaves upon the grass.
“He’s bettah, suh,� said Kingdom, “so de doctah says. I’se not so sure; seems mighty po’ly ter me, Mistah Trench.�
Caleb remembered that a negro never admits perfecthealth and felt reassured. “Say to the colonel that I would be glad to be of any service to him,� he said, and wanted to add Diana’s name but restrained the impulse.
“I sho will, Mistah Trench,� said Kingdom. “Cool day, suh, gwine ter be cold, too; de moon dun hangs ter de north.�
“I suppose that’s an infallible sign,� smiled Trench, as he turned away.
“Fo’ de Lawd, ain’t yo’ nebber heerd dat?� Kingdom patted the cauliflower affectionately, having squared off the remaining green petals. “De moon hung north means cold, suh, an’ south et means hot, jest ez sho’ ez yo’ gets er disappintment ef yo hangs annything on er doah knob.�
“I’ll try to remember both signs,� said Caleb good-naturedly.
“Miss Diana’s up in de woods,� volunteered the negro, with that innocence which sits so naturally on a black face.
Caleb made no reply this time. He walked on, choosing the road, nor did he look again toward the house. He had the unpleasant consciousness that the negro had read him as easily as he himself read more profound riddles in the exact sciences.
He passed the last confines of Broad Acres and turned, involuntarily, into the trail which led him to the spot where he had stood months before with Diana and told her that he loved her. Afterwards he had wondered at himself, that his pride had notrevolted at the confession, yet he had never altogether repented of it. There had been some comfort in telling her the truth, the naked truth. He recalled the look in her eyes in the court-room! He put that thought steadily away and walked rapidly on. Another turn would show him the long glimpse of Paradise Ridge. Before him the trail ascended under sweeping hemlock boughs, beside him the brush rose breast high. Once he thought he heard a crackle of twigs and turned sharply, but there was no one in sight. Then, looking ahead, he saw Diana Royall.
She was coming down the path alone, and the sunset sky behind her darkened the outlines of her tall young figure until it was silhouetted against the sky. He noticed that her dress was gray and that her large black hat framed the fair oval of her face. As she drew nearer he was aware of the gravity and sweetness of her expression. As yet the distance was too great for speech and he did not hurry his step; there was, perhaps, more joy in the thought of this meeting than in its accomplishment. But he saw nothing but this picture, the mellow sky behind it, the hemlock boughs above.
Then, quite suddenly, he felt a stinging shock and heard a loud report, as he reeled and fell back into darkness, the vision going out as though a great black sponge had effaced life itself.
Diana rushed to him; she had seen more than he, but no warning of hers would have reached him in time, and now she did not think of herself, or of anypossible danger. She dropped on her knees beside him and bent down to look into his face. His eyes were closed; she could not tell if he breathed, and even while she looked she saw a dark red stain on the breast of his coat. She uttered a low cry, and tried to raise his head on her arm. She realized at last the power that his very presence exerted, the influence that he had had over her from the very first, that had made her yield again and again to a sense of his mastery. She loved him. She no longer tried to deny it to herself, and she felt that it was to her shame that no accusation against him could shake her in her devotion. Whatever he had been she loved him; whatever his faults, in her eyes there must be, there would be, an extenuation; whatever his sins she could forgive them! Class prejudice counted for nothing; she was his, and nothing in the world mattered to her in that one blind moment of agony for his life.
“Oh, God,� she prayed softly, “spare me this!�
She was in despair, his head lay heavy on her arm, his blood stained her hands, and she was alone. The wind stirred and a dead leaf fluttered down. How still it was! To leave him and run for help seemed her only resource, but to leave him! She could not do it! She thought him dead, but not a tear came to her dry eyes; she looked down at his white face and marked the lines of trouble and anxiety, the resolution of the locked mouth and jaw. Did he breathe? “Oh, God!� she prayed again.
She remembered, too, that it was here that he had told her so abruptly that he loved her. She, too, remembered that moment in the court-room, and a dry sob of anguish shook her from head to foot. She bent down suddenly and kissed him, but she could not shed a tear.
Then, in the stillness, she heard wheels, and laying him gently down, she ran through the underbrush and reached the road just below the fork. It was Dr. Cheyney’s old buggy, and she cried to him that Caleb Trench was shot and lying wounded in the trail. The old man got down and followed her without a word, his lips set. They came up the trail and found Trench lying as she had left him; he did not seem to breathe. Dr. Cheyney knelt down and made a brief examination, then he looked for something to stop the bleeding. Diana gave him a long light scarf she had worn around her throat; she was quick and deft in her touch and worked steadily to help the doctor; she had mastered herself. The old man fumbling over Caleb drew out a bit of blood-stained paper and glanced at it. Then he went on with his task.
“Is he living?� Diana murmured at last.
“I reckon I wouldn’t do this if he wasn’t,� snapped the doctor. Then he rose from his knees. “You get into the buggy, Diana, and drive down to the house for help; telephone to the hospital, we’ll want a stretcher.�
“He’s coming to our house,� said Diana.
Dr. Cheyney gave her a grim look. “All right,� he said, “but a stretcher and two men. I wonder who in hell did this?� he added fiercely.
Diana had risen from her knees. “Zeb Bartlett,� she said. “I saw him too late to cry a warning.�
Dr. Cheyney’s face changed sharply. He handed the paper he had taken from Trench to Diana. “I reckon that’s yours—now run!� he commanded.
It seemed hours to Diana before she got help there. In reality it was twenty minutes. The negroes improvised a stretcher and carried Caleb solemnly down the hill and across the long lawns. Diana had gone ahead to prepare the great west room for him, and when they brought him in, still unconscious, the white bed was ready and the long table for the operation, and she had telephoned for another surgeon from the hospital. At eight o’clock that night they had found the bullet and removed it, and there was a fighting chance for life.
Diana, who had waited on the stairs to know the worst, said nothing. In her own room she had looked at the blood-stained paper which Dr. Cheyney had so strangely given her. Across it was written her own name in her bold handwriting. She looked at it strangely, and then with a stinging sense of shame; it was the receipt for six cents with which she had mocked him long ago. And he had carried it all this time! Diana laid her head down on her arms and burst into tears.