AT the end of the main street, as he rode homeward, Paul saw Ethel Mayfield coming toward him, her head down as if in deep thought. His first impulse was to turn aside, to avoid meeting her, but he saw that such a thing would be unpardonable. In spite of the weight that was on him, he felt the warm blood of embarrassment rushing to his face as the distance shortened between them.
There was a sweet, startled look of concern in her childish eyes as she raised them to him.
“Stop a minute,” she said; and as he awkwardly drew rein she continued: “I've just heard about your father. Two men were talking over there by a fence on the side of the road and I listened. Oh, it is awful, awful! I am so sorry for you, for they say you loved him so much, an' were always so good to him.”
A strange sense of confused helplessness surged over Paul. As she looked up at him so frankly he feared that she would read in his face the fact that she had been in his mind almost constantly since their meeting that day in the meadow. This disturbed him, and also the realization that common politeness demanded some sort of reply in accord with the refinement of her easy expression of sympathy. But that was beyond him. He felt his blood beating into his eyes. She appeared like a spirit thing poised upon an evanescent cloud; not for him save in fancy, not for any boy outside of dreams. In sheer desperation, and under the intuition that he ought not to sit on his horse while she stood, he dismounted.
“Thank you, thank you.” He seemed to hear the words as if they were spoken by other lips than his own, and again he had the exquisite sense of nearness to her, which had so enthralled him before. A wondrous, delectable force seemed to radiate from her and play upon his whole enraptured being.
“I have never seen any one die,” she went on, “and they say you were there alone with him. Oh, how very sad, and you—you are not much older than I am. Sad things are coming to you very early. I wish I could say something, or do something, Paul, but I don't really know how. I'm just a girl. My mother seems to know what to say at such times, but I don't. Grief like this simply overpowers me. I feel as if—as if I must cry, I'm so sorry for you.”
He saw her pretty lips quivering, her glorious eyes filling, and he dug the toe of his worn shoe into the sand of the road. He was becoming conscious of the tattered appearance of his working-clothes, his saddleless horse, his rough, perspiring hands and cuffless wrists. How odd that she, who was so daintily dressed, so wholly detached from his sordid life, could stand talking to him so kindly, so intimately!
“You are very good—very!” he stammered. “Better than anybody else. If they were all like you it wouldn't seem so—so bad.”
“It may seem forward of me and bold,” Ethel returned, “for really we have only been together once before, and yet (I don't know howyoufeel)—butIfeel, somehow, Paul, as if we were very old friends. I admire you because you are brave and strong. You are not like—like the boys in Atlanta. You are different (uncle says you are not afraid of anything on earth). You know a girl could not keep from wantingthatsort of a friend. I don't mean that I'd want to see you hurt ever—ever; but it is nice for a girl to feel that she has a friend who would take any risk for her. My mother says I get a lot of notions that are not good for me out of novels. Well, I don't know how that is, but I like you, and I am very, very sad about your father. If I had not met you here I would have written you a note. Can you tell me when—when he is to be buried?”
He told her that the funeral would be at the village church the next day, and therewith his voice broke, and for the first time his heart heaved and his eyes filled.
“I wanted to know because I am going to send some flowers,” she said; and then, observing the signs of his emotion and his averted face, she suddenly and impulsively caught his hand and pressed it between both of her own. “Don't, don't cry!” she pleaded. “I couldn't stand to see it!” Her own lashes were wet and her sweet mouth was drawn tight. “Oh, I wish there was something I could do or say, but I can't think of a thing. Yes, there is one thing, and it must help, because the Bible and the wisest men say it will at such times. I have been praying for you, and I am going to keep on doing it. Paul, from what you said the other day, I suppose you—have never been converted?”
He shook his head, swallowed, but kept his face turned away, conscious that it was distorted by contending emotions.
“I have been,” she said, still pressing his hand, “and, O Paul, it was glorious! It happened at a camp-meeting where mother took me and my cousin, Jennie Buford, in the country below Atlanta, last summer. It was all so wonderful—the singing, shouting, and praying. I was so happy that I felt like flying. Since then I have felt so good and secure and contented. The Bible is full of meaning to me now. I love to read it when I am alone in my room. It is beautiful when you begin to understand it, and know that it is actually the Word of our Creator. I am sure I shall lead a Christian life, as my mother is doing. It has made Jennie happy, too. We are like two twins, you know. We have been together nearly every day since we were babies. There is only a fence between our houses in Atlanta, and she sleeps with me or I with her every night. She was sick last winter, and they thought she was going to die. She thought so, too; she told me so, but would not tell her mother because she would be so broken-hearted. I prayed for Jennie all that night—all night. I hardly stopped a minute.”
“And she didn't die?” Paul looked at her with a glance of mild incredulity in his eyes.
“No; the doctor said she was better and she got well. It would have killed me if she had been taken, I love her so much. We are so much alike that I often read her thoughts and she reads mine. Many and many a time we have told each other exactly what we were thinking about.”
“Thought transference,” he said. “I've read about that. It may be true.”
Ethel now released his hand and flushed slightly. “Excuse me,” she faltered, her lashes touching her cheeks. “I hardly knew what I was doing.”
It was his turn to color now, and they stood awkwardly facing each other. She, however, recovered herself quickly.
“I am going to pray for you more and more now,” she went on, soothingly. “It will surely help you. I know that God answers prayers when they are made in the right spirit. He must help you bear this sorrow, and He will—He will.”
“Thank you, thank you,” Paul muttered, his wavering eyes on the road leading between zigzag rail fences on to his home. “I must be going now. I've got a good many things to attend to.”
“Of course, I know—I know,” Ethel responded, gravely.
A wagon was approaching from the direction of the village. It was drawn by two sturdy mules, which thrust their hoofs into the dust of the road so deeply that a constant cloud of the fine particles hovered over the vehicle. A negro man wearing a tattered straw hat, soiled shirt and trousers, and without shoes, was driving. Ethel caught Paul's hand impulsively, and drew him and his horse to the side of the road.
“Wait till they pass,” she said. “Oh, what nasty dust!”
She saw him staring at the wagon, a rigid look on his face. “It's the coffin,” he explained. “It is going out home.”
The wagon rumbled on. There was an unpainted wooden box behind the negro's seat, and on it rested a plain walnut coffin, thickly coated with dust. The sun had warmed the new varnish, and there was an odor of it in the air.
“Oh, it is so sad!” Paul caught the words from the averted lips of his companion. “I wish I could do something, or say something, but I can't.”
Again his despair fell upon him. As he mounted his horse it seemed to him that he was a moving thing that was dead in all its parts. He couldn't remember that he had ever tipped his hat to any one in his life, and yet he did so now gracefully enough. He felt that he ought to reply to the words she had so feelingly uttered, but the muscles of his throat had tightened. A great sob was welling up within him and threatening to burst. He started his horse, and with his back to her, his head bent toward the animal's neck, he slowly rode away.
“Poor boy!” Ethel said, as the mules, the wagon, the coffin, and Paul floated and vanished in the mist before her eyes. She turned and moved on toward the village, her head lowered, softly crying and earnestly praying.
ACCORDING to rural custom the young men and young women of the neighborhood came that evening to keep watch over Ralph Rundel's body. In an open coffin resting on two chairs, it occupied the center of the room in which he died.
Amanda had been busy all day cooking dainties—pies, cakes, custards, and making cider from apples gathered in the orchard. She had swept and dusted the house throughout, put the candles into their places, cleaned and filled the lamps, and altered her black dress to fit the slender form of her sister, who had been in her room all day, refusing to show herself to the constant stream of curious, inquiring visitors—men, women, and children who sat about the front and rear doors, leaned on the fences of the yard and cow-lot, and even invaded the kitchen.
As for Paul, no one seemed to notice him, and of sympathy for him little was expressed. Mute and dejected he moved about, attending to his father's former duties as well as his own.
The night fell. The stars came out. There was a low hum of good cheer and merriment from the assembled company inside. To escape it, Paul slipped behind the house and threw himself down on the grass sward beneath the apple-trees. His awful sorrow, weird and gruesome, for which there was no outlet, gave him actual physical pain.
There was singing within the house. The young persons were practising hymns for the funeral service the next day. Mistakes were made, and there was merry, spontaneous laughter, which grated on the boy's ears. He buried his face in the cool, fragrant grass, and thus subdued the rising sob of which he was ashamed. In his mind's eye he saw the exquisite face of Ethel Mayfield, but even it held scant comfort, for how could such as she belong to such deplorable surroundings? The tones of her gentle voice, as she promised to pray for him, seemed a part of some vague dream from which sordid fact had roused him.
“Prayers?” he sneered. “What puny mortal could pray this away, or undo the damnable thing even by the weight of a hair? There isn't any God to pray to—there isn't anything but pain, torment, and death.” There was a tentative step on the grass. Amanda was groping her way around the well. He saw her peering here and there in the shadows under the trees. “Oh!” she exclaimed, on seeing him, as he suddenly sat up and turned his face toward her. “You gave me a scare. At sech a time a body is apt to think they see ghosts, whether they do or not. I've been lookin' high an' low for you, an' axin' the company whar you was at. You hain't had no supper, have you?”
He answered briefly in the negative.
“Well, come on in the kitchen,” she pursued. “I've kept some 'taters and pork-chops hot, an' thar's plenty o' cold buttermilk.”
“I don't want anything,” he said, impatiently, and even roughly. “I couldn't swallow a bite to save my life—not to save my life, I couldn't!”
Her hands on her hips, Amanda stared down at him. “This ain't a-goin' to do, Paul,” she gently protested. “This ain't no time for you to pout an' be cranky. You are our only man now. Yore ma's shet up in her room with a mad cryin' spell every half-hour, an' I have to lay down my work an' run, pacify, an' pet 'er. She's got all sorts o' finicky notions in 'er head that folks are a-talkin' about her an' a certain party. She heard 'em a-laughin' in thar jest now, an' actually started in to give 'em a piece o' 'er mind. I got to 'er in time—thank the Lord! She's now in bed cryin' like 'er heart is broke.”
“Huh, I see, I see!” Paul sniffed. “An' well she may be afraid o' talk, an'youtoo, for bringing her up as you have. Folks say she's jest a doll, and she is—she is, and a fool flimsy one at that!”
“I ain't a-goin' to listen to you, boy,” Amanda broke in, firmly. “You are too young an' inexperienced to talk that way about the woman that fetched you into the world an' gave you what life you got. If your ma was petted an' sp'ilt, that wasmyfault, not her'n, an' bein' sp'ilt only makes sech things as this go harder with 'er. If her an' yore pa wasn't the most lovin' match that could be imagined, that wasn't her fault, nor his'n either. God made 'em both, an' for all I know He may have fetched 'em together, an' in makin' a mess o' that He didn't act no wuss than in lettin' some other folks—folks that I know about—live a lifetime withoutanysort o' try at the game. Now, jest shet up, an' he'p me tote this sad thing through. I got to go set the table for them folks, an' then I'll slide into bed. Whar do you intend to sleep? That's what I wanted to see you about. That crowd has got yore room. I can lay you a pallet down on the floor in the kitchen. It would be sort o' hard, but—”
“I'm going to stay outside,” he told her. “I'm going down to the haystack. The house is too hot, anyway; I couldn't go to sleep in there with all that ding-dong and racket.”
“Well, I'm goin' in,” answered Amanda, who was really not listening to his observations. “It won't hurt you to sleep out once on such a warm night, anyway, an' theyaremaking' a lot o' noise. They don't get many such chances through the year. It is the fust time I've fixed for young folks in a long time. Thar's one pair in thar”—Amanda tittered—“that will set up housekeepin' inside o' six months. Mark my predictions. I ketched 'em a-huggin' on the front steps as I come out.”
When his aunt left him Paul threw himself back on the grass and gazed up at the sky and the far-off blinking stars. How unreal seemed the dead face and stark form of his father as he had last looked upon it! Could it be actually all that was left of the gentle, kindly and patient parent who had always been so dear? Whence had flown the soft, halting voice, the flash of the eye, the only caressing touch Paul had ever known? That—that thing in there boxed and ready for burial was all there ever was, or ever could be again, of a wonderfully appealing personality, and to-morrow even that would sink out of sight forever and forever.
There was an audible footfall at the fence near the farther side of the cottage. Paul sat up and stared through the semi-darkness. It was a tall, slender figure of a man in a broad-brimmed hat. He was cautiously moving along the fence, as if trying to look into the room where the corpse lay. Suddenly a stream of light from within fell on his face. It was Jeff Warren. Paul sprang to his feet and stood panting, his muscles drawn.
“Don't, don't!” a voice within him seemed to caution him. “Not now—not now! Be ashamed!” At this juncture some one called out in a low, subdued tone:
“Is that you, Jeff?”
“Yes, Andy. Kin I come in thar with you all?”
“I dunno; wait a minute, Jeff.” Andrew Warner emerged from the shadow of the house and advanced to the fence. “I railly don't believe I would, Jeff, if I was you. We've got a-plenty, an' they all intend to spend the night.”
“I see, I see. Well, I didn't know how you was fixed, an' I heard you all a-singin' clean across the bottom. Say, Andy, Mrs. Rundel ain't in thar with you, is she?”
“No, we hain't any of us seed 'er; she's been shet up tight all day.”
There was a noticeable pause. Paul crept closer and stood behind a trunk of an apple-tree, the branches of which, laden with unripe fruit, almost touched the ground. He could still see the two men, and their voices were quite audible.
“I see, I see.” Jeff Warren was speaking now. “Have you heard anybody say—do you happen to know, Andy, how she is—takin' it?”
“Purty hard, purty hard, it looks like, Jeff. We've heard 'er cryin' an' takin' on several times; she seems powerful upset.”
“I see, I see,” Warren repeated, and Paul saw him lean toward his companion. “Say, Andy, I want you to do me a favor, if you will. I want you to git Mrs. Rundel to come out here a minute—jest a minute. You needn't let on to anybody else. The little woman must be awful troubled, an' me an' her are powerful good friends. I reckon if you told 'er I was out here, maybe she—”
Paul saw the other man turn his head and stand, staring irresolutely at the house. “I can't do that, Jeff,” he was heard to say presently. “That may be all right from the way you look at it, but I don't want no hand in such. If I was you, I'd wait—that's all, I'd wait. Out of respect for what folks would say or think, I'd put it off. Seems to me like she'd want that 'erse'f—in fact, I'm shore any sensible woman would.”
“All right, Andy, all right!” Warren answered, awkwardly, as his hand tugged at his mustache. “I was jest sorter bothered, that's all. I'll take yore advice. I know you are a friend an' mean well. I'll go home an' git to bed. As you say, I kin afford to wait. What surprises me is to hear you say she's takin' on. I reckon she's sorter upset by havin' a death in the house. Rafe was at the end o' his string, anyway; you know that as well as I do.”
“If the poor fellow had lived he would have called you to taw,” was the significant and yet not unfriendly reply. “The devil's light was in his eye, Jeff. Rafe Rundel was talkin' a lot an' growin' wuss an' wuss.”
“I knowed all that, too,” Warren was heard to say. “His wife kept me posted. Well, well, so long, Andy! I'll git to bed.”
“Not now, not now!” Paul's inner voice cautioned, as with actual lips, and invisible hands seemed to detain him. “Wait, wait; there is plenty of time!” He leaned against the tree and saw Warren's form disappear in the starlight. The man's confident whistle came back on the hot, still air as he strode along the road, becoming more and more indistinct in the misty distance.
Paul went down to the hay-field, looking here and there for a bed to lie upon. Presently he found a heap of freshly cut, succulent clover, full of the crushed perfume of the white and pink blossoms, and damp and cool with the dew. Upon this lair he sank, his tense young face upturned to the stars. How he loathed the silly woman who had borne him! How he detested the happy-go-lucky man who had caught her fancy! How he yearned for the living presence of the dead! His throat felt tight. Unshed tears seemed to trickle down within him. There was a dull aching about his heart. Again, as in a dream, the gentle face of Ethel Mayfield came before him. Her voice was as sweet and soothing as transcendent music. The lovely child had said she was going to pray for him. Perhaps even now she was doing so; and she had declared that prayers were answered. The belief was silly. It was like an inexperienced little city girl to entertain such thoughts, yet what she had said and the way she had said it were strangely comforting. A fiercely fought sob broke within him. Tears swept down his cheeks and trickled into the clover. The pain within him lessened. He became drowsy. The vision of the child with her beautiful hair and eyes became an airy, floating thing; the heavens were full of sweet musical laughter. Ethel seemed to be taken up into a sunlit cloud, and for a moment was hidden from view. Then he saw her returning. She was not alone. Holding her hand was Ralph Rundel—Ralph Rundel transfigured, spirit-like, and yet himself. He was full of the glow of youth. There were no lines, no shadows in his face. His body was erect; he was smiling at his son in a fathomless, eternal way.
“If they tell you I'm dead, don't you believe a word of it,” he said. “For I ain't—I ain't!”
Paul awoke with a start. The moon was rising; the whole landscape was flooded with the pale light of a reflected day. Subdued laughter and the drone of voices came from the window of the room where the body lay.
EARLY in the morning following the funeral Hoag sent Cato with a message to Paul. There was some work to be done, and the boy was to come at once and see about it. Mrs. Rundel, in her black dress, was near and heard the negro speaking, but she turned indifferently into her room and closed the door.
“Well, I'd go,” Amanda advised her nephew. “Mopin' around home like this won't do any good. At sech a time a body ought to keep the hands an' feet an' even the brain busy. I'd go stark crazy if I'd allow myself to set an' brood. It seems to me that I see yore pore pa's white face everywhar I turn, an' when I ain't seein' that I seem to hear his voice talkin' like nothin' out o' the way had happened. I even git a whiff o' his tobacco now an' then. Do you know, I think maybe death is made horrible like this to warn each of us of what is ahead. Me'n you, as little as we count on it, have got to be put away exactly like Rafe was, an' we may not have any more notice than he had, neither. Some o' the sanctified folks doubt whar he's gone, but I don't—much. Somehow I can't believe that he's gone to a bad place, because he had sech a hard time of it here for sech a long, long time. His pride was cut to the quick, an' he had a lot more o' that than most folks knowed about. Of course, you can't remember his young sparkin' days like I do. He used to dress as fine as a fiddle an' held his head powerful high; but time, an' poverty, an' trouble, an' one thing or other, kept pullin' it down an' down, till it struck the pillow he died on. Well, well, he's gone, an' we 'll miss 'im. I shall, I know, for I already do, an' they say the worst time ain't always right after the buryin'. Thar's always a stir and excitement over puttin' a person away that keeps you from lookin' the thing square in the face.”
Fires of anger and resentment were smoldering in the boy's breast, but he said nothing, and turned down the road to Hoag's. He found the planter moving about in the bark-strewn tan-yard between the vats, the black contents of which were on a level with the ground. He was giving blunt orders to three or four negroes who were piling up and sorting out a great heap of green hides. The day was dry and hot, and a disagreeable odor of decaying flesh was on the still air. He noticed Paul, and carelessly nodded, but for a moment was too busy to speak to him. He held a note-book in his hand, in which he had found some mistakes of record and calculations. They were his own errors, but he was no less angry for that. Finally he approached Paul, and as he moved was actively scratching, erasing, stabbing the paper with his pencil, and muttering oaths.
“How the hell can I do head-work,” he growled, giving the boy a blazing glance, “an' have to watch these black devils like a hawk all the time? The minute my back is turned they set down an' sulk an' shirk. They need a thousand lashes on their bare backs. That's the only thing they understand. Look how that whelp, Sambo, is skulkin'. I hit 'im with a piece o' plank just now, an' he thinks he's threatening me. Huh! I know 'em from the ground up. Did Cato tell you I wanted to see you?”
“Yes, an' I come right over,” Paul stolidly replied.
Hoag closed his note-book, keeping the pencil between the leaves, and thrust it into his pocket. “I saw you comin' back from the graveyard yesterday, an' I decided I'd try to find regular work for you. I kin always depend on you gittin' a job done, an' that's sayin' a lot. You hain't got a lazy bone in your body, if I do say it, an' it will be the makin' of you in the long run. Now, my mill-race has washed in till the flow is gittin' sluggish an' thin. The bottom of it, for fully a quarter of a mile, has got to be shoveled out an' lowered to an even grade. It will take you a month at least, but it will be regular work. The dam's all right, so we don't have to bother with that. I want you to come over every day after breakfast, an' then go to my house for yore dinner. It will save you the walk home, an' you kin git in more time. How would you like the job at the old wages?”
“I'm willin',” Paul answered, listlessly.
“Well, pick you out a spade in the tool-house right now, an' go to the dam an' begin to work toward the mill. The mill's shut down, an' the race bed's just wet enough to make the shovelin' soft. Some o' the banks are purty steep an' you 'll have to throw purty high, but you are equal to it.”
Paul went at once to the mill-dam. The work was really arduous, but the spot was shaded by thickly foliaged trees, and the shallow water, in which he stood in his bare feet, cooled his blood. Bending under his heavy implement filled with the heavier mud he worked like a machine, the sweat streaming from him, and constantly conscious of that strange, aching vacancy in his heart which nothing could fill.
At noon he put down his spade and went to Hoag's, as he had often done before, for his lunch. No one else was in the dining-room, and Mrs. Tilton brought him his dinner, putting it before him in a gentle, motherly way.
“I told Aunt Dilly to let me wait on you,” she said, a note of sympathy creeping into her voice. “I was sorry I couldn't get out to the funeral yesterday. I've got Jackie to watch now, an' he's just gettin' on his feet, after his spell. His mother ain't a bit well, either; she ain't touched hardly a bite since he was so bad off. I think she ought to go to Atlanta to consult a special doctor, but Jim won't hear to it. He says, when a body gits too sick for home treatment their natural time's come, anyway, an' the money would be throwed away. I wish I could tell you how sorry I am about your pa. I know how much you both thought of each other. La, he used to come here while you was choppin' wood on the mountain, an' set in the kitchen door an' talk an' talk with tears in his old eyes about how sorry he was not to be stronger, so you wouldn't have to work so hard. He said you was the best boy that ever lived. Now, I'm just goin' to shet up,” Mrs. Tilton said, regretfully. “I see you are about to cry.” She went to the window quickly and looked out into the yard. “I see Jackie makin' his mud-pies. Oh,” she turned to Paul, “thar's something I wanted to say. You left your gun here t'other day. It's loaded, an' I don't like to see it around. Jackie might git hold of it. I wish you would take it home.”
“I'll take it to work with me now,” Paul promised, “and take it home from there.”
Paul toiled diligently that afternoon till the sun was down. He had just come out of the water, put on his shoes, and with his gun under his arm was starting home, when Hoag appeared on the embankment of the race and surveyed the work which had been done.
“Good, good; prime, prime!” he said, approvingly. “You've done as much as a couple of buck niggers would have done in twice the time. Keep up that lick an' you 'll reach the sluice earlier than I counted on. I won't split hairs with you on the pay for this job. If it goes through at this rate I'll tack on something extra.”
Paul said nothing. He tried to feel grateful for the praise he had received, but he was too tired in body and mind to care for anything. Throughout the long day he had constantly deliberated over the thought that it would now be impossible for him to continue the life he was leading. With the death of his father his heart and soul seemed to have died.
Hoag joined him as he walked homeward, the gun under his arm.
“I could see the graveyard from the hill yesterday,” he remarked, “an' I picked you out in the bunch. You looked powerfully lonely, an' the thought struck me that you was about the only real mourner. Women don't grieve for any but their own babies, an' them two from your house would have acted about the same at any other funeral. I was sorry for your daddy, Paul. He never made much headway in the world, but he deserved a better shake o' the dice. In his last days he toted an awful load. He used to talk purty free to me—just like a child would at times. He talked purty plain tome, I reckon, because he knowed I hain't a speck o' use for the damn snake-in-the-grass that was takin' sech a low, underhanded advantage of him behind his back. You needn't repeat this; I'm tellin' it just to you in private. If—you see, Paul—if it ever does come to words betwixt me an' Jeff Warren, I'll have to shoot 'im as I would a dog, an' a thing like that is troublesome, especially when I look on 'im as mud under my feet. I'd hate to have to stand trial for killin' a puppy, an' the law would demandsomeform-o' settlement.. Your pa would have killed 'im if he lived. I was lookin' for it every day; he was lyin' low for his chance. Preachers, slobberin' revivalists, an' fools like old Tye will talk to you about turnin' the other cheek; but the great, all-important first law of life is to fight for what you git, hold on to it when you git it, an' mash hell out of everything that tries to run over you. That's been my rule, an' it works like a charm. If I'd been your daddy I'd have shot that dirty whelp two months ago.”
They had reached the pointwheretheir ways parted. The gray twilight was thickening. Hoag's big white house gleamed through the trees surrounding it. There were lights in the kitchen and diningroom. All Nature seemed preparing for sleep. The tinkling of sheep and cow bells came drowsily to the ear; the church-bell, a creaking, cast-iron affair, was ringing for the singing-class to meet.
“Well, so long,” Hoag finished, with a wave of his fat hand in the dusk. “Set in bright an' early in the momin' an' let's see how many yards you'll wipe out before sundown.”
Paul walked on, so weary now that the gun he was carrying almost slipped from his inert arm. Presently his own home came into view, beyond the field of corn. Ralph Rundel had planted and hoed so feebly. Paul's heart sank into the very ooze of despair. How incongruous was the thought that his father would not be at the gate to meet him, as had been his habit for so many years! The boy stopped in a corner of the rail fence at the roadside and leaned on his gun. An indescribable pain, which was at once physical and mental, had his whole young being in a crushing grasp. The kitchen door was open, and the red logs of an open fire shone out on the sward about the house. Tree-frogs were snarling, fireflies were flashing here and there over the dewy meadows like tiny, short-lived meteors. Paul heaved a sigh, stifled a groan, bit his lip, and trudged on.
As he got nearer to the house, he suddenly became aware of the fact that two figures, that of a man and a woman, were standing at the bars of the barnyard. He recognized the white-clad form on the inside as his mother's. The tall, slender man with the broad hat and square shoulders was Jeff Warren—that would have been plain even if his voice in some indistinct utterance had not been heard. The blood of fury, goaded to the point of insanity, raged within the youth. He felt its close, hot pressure above his eyes, and a red veil fell before his sight. Hoag's recent words rang in his ears. Revenge, revenge! Yes, that was the only thing worth having. Paul bent lower. His gun trailed the ground like the gun of a pioneer hunter. He crept silently forward, keeping the fence between him and the pair, till he was close enough to overhear the colloquy. It was Jeff Warren's voice and his suave, daredevil tone.
“Oh, I know the boy hates me. I've seed it in the little scamp's face many a time. Rafe must 'a' put 'im up to it when his mind was so flighty; but we'll straighten him out between us when we git things runnin' smooth. He'll think I'm a rip-snortin' stepdaddy whenIgit through with 'im.”
The hot pressure on Paul's brain increased. Pausing in a corner of the fence, he grasped his gun in both hands and cocked it with tense, determined fingers. His father's dead face rose before him. It seemed to smile approvingly. Hoag's words came to him like the advice of an oracle. He strained his ears to hear what his mother was saying, but her low utterance failed to reach him. Jeff Warren was turning away, his broad hat gallantly swung toward the ground.
“Well, I'll see you ag'in 'fore long,” he said merrily. “I know how you feel, but all that will soon wear off. We kin wait a decent time, but I'm in the race, I tell you. I'll talk all them notions out o' your purty head.”
Paul saw his mother vanish in the dusk, and, merrily intoning the tune of a hymn, Warren came on toward Paul. On he Strode, still swinging his hat. Paul heard him softly chuckling.
“Halt, you dirty coward!” Paul cried, as he stepped in front of him, the gun leveled at the broad chest.
“What—what? Good God!” Warren gasped. “Put down that gun, you young fool! Drop it, I say, or I'll—”
Warren was about to spring forward as the only means of self-protection, but before he could do so there was a flash, a ringing report, a puff of smoke, and with a groan Warren bent forward, his hands on his breast. He swayed back and forth, groaning. He reeled, tottered sideways, made a strenuous effort to keep erect, then fell forward, gasping audibly, and lay still.
Paul lowered his gun, and for a moment stood looking at the fallen man. His blood was wildly beating in his heart and brain. There was a barking of dogs far and near. Glancing toward the house, he noticed the forms of his mother and aunt framed by the kitchen doorway, the firelight behind them.
“It may be somebody shootin' bats”—Amanda's voice held a distinct note of alarm—“but I was shore I heard somebody speak sharp-like just before the shot was fired. Let's run down thar an' look.”
They dropped out of sight. Paul heard the patter of their feet, knew they were coming, and, for no reason which he could fathom, he retreated in the direction from which he had come. As if in a flash he caught and held the idea that, having done his duty, he would turn himself over to an officer of the law, as he had read of men doing in similar circumstances.
He had gone only a few hundred yards when he heard the two women screaming loudly; and why he did so he could not have explained, but he quickened his gait into a slow, bewildered sort of trot, the gun still in his hands. Perhaps it was due to the thought that he wanted voluntarily to give himself up before any one should accuse him of trying to flee. He was nearing Hoag's barn, and thinking of making a short cut to the village across the fields, when a man suddenly burst from the thicket at the side of the road and faced him. It was Hoag himself.
“Hold thar!” he cried, staring through the dusk at Paul. “What's all that screamin' mean? I heard a gun go off, an' rememberin' that you—say, did you—Good God! What you comin' back this way for?”
“I've killed Jeff Warren,” Paul answered, calmly. “I'm goin' to Grayson to give myself up.”
“Good Lord, you don't say—why, why—” Hoag's voice trailed away into silence, silence broken only by the voices of the two women in the distance calling for help.
“Yes, I shot 'im—you know why; you yourself said—”
Hoag suddenly laid a trembling hand on Paul's arm. The boy had never seen his employer turn pale before, or show so much agitation. “Looky' here, you didn't go an'—an' do that because I—on account o' anythingIsaid. Shorely you didn't—shorely you didn't! Come into the thicket, quick! Folks will be passin' here in a minute. Them fool women will rip the'r lungs out. Say, you didn't reallykill'im, did you—actually kill 'im?”
Paul avoided his eyes. “You go back there an' see if I didn't,” he said, doggedly.
Hoag stared incredulously for a moment, then, with a firm grip on Paul's arm, he drew him deeper into the thicket.
“Something's got to be done,” he panted. “If you give yourself up for trial they will worm out o' you that I said—that I was talkin' to you, an'—Looky' here, boy, do you know what this means? Are you plumb out o' your senses?”
“I don't carewhatit means,” Paul retorted. “I've puthimout o' the way for good and all.”
“Good Lord, you are a cool un! Wait here; don't stir! I'll come back. I'll run down thar to make sure.”
Hoag moved excitedly toward the road. He had just reached it when a man came running past at full speed in the direction of the village. “Hold, hold!” Hoag cried. “What's wrong?”
The runner slackened his speed a little; but did not stop. It was Abe Langston.
“Somebody's shot Jeff Warren down thar by the fence. He's as dead as a door-nail. I'm goin' to send out the alarm an' git the sheriff.”
In a cloud of self-raised dust Langston dashed away. Hoag stood hesitating for a moment, then turned back to Paul, finding him seated on the decaying trunk of a fallen tree, the gun resting on his slender knees. Hoag stood before him.
“You've got to git out o' this,” he panted, excitedly. “You've done a thing that the court will hold you responsible for. I ain't sure you was justified nohow. The fellow was just in love, that's all. A jury will call it unprovoked, cold-blood, deliberate, what-not. You ain't in no fix to fight it, an' you'd be a plumb idiot to stay here an' let 'em lay hold of you.' The only sensible thing for you to do is to show a clean pair o' heels, an' git out for good an' all. You don't seem overly satisfied here with them women on your hands nohow, an' the world is big and wide. I don't want my name used—mind that. If youdogit caught an' fetched back, I hope you'll have the decency not to lug me an' this advice in even under oath. I'm tryin' to help you. Make a bee-line through the mountains to North Carolina an' board the first train. Throw that gun down. Don't be caught red-handed; it would be a plumb give-away.”
“What's the use?” Paul shifted his feet, and raised his sullen eyes.
“Thar's a heap o' use,” Hoag returned, impatiently. “You may not think so now, but you will after you've laid in that dang dirty jail in town, an' been tuck to court to be gazed at by the public, with no money to pay fees with, no friends on hand, an' nothin' before you but to be hung by the neck till you are dead, dead, dead. Take my advice. Git away off some'r's in the world, change your name, burn yore bridges behind you, an' start life 'new all for yoreself without any load like the one you've always had like a millstone round your neck.”
Paul rose to his feet, rested the stock of his gun on the trunk of the tree; he looked off through the twilight wistfully.
“You really think that would be best?” he faltered.
“It certainly will, if you kin manage to git away,” Hoag said. “Why, if you stay here, you will be in a damn sight wuss fix than the skunk you shot. He's out o'histrouble, but if you stay here yours will just be beginnin'.”
“Well, I'll go,” Paul consented. “I can get away all right. I know the woods and mountains.”
“Well, throw your gun down behind that log an make off. Say, if they press you hard on your way through the country, an' you find yourself near the farms of Tad Barton, Press Talcot, Joe Thomas, or old man Jimmy Webb, say this to 'em—tell 'em I said—No, I won't give you no password. I haven't got the right to do it without due form. It's ag'in' the rules; but you tell either of 'em that I said put you out of sight, give you grub or a place to sleep, an' that I said pass you along to the railroad. Got any money? Here is five dollars. I owe you that much, anyway, and it's all I happen to have in my pocket. Now, you hit the grit.”
Paul took the money and indifferently thrust it into his pocket. Hoag held out his hand. “I don't want you to go away with the idea that I had anything much ag'in' the feller you shot; that's done away with now. We've had one or two little scraps, but they didn't amount to anything. Say”—Hoag pointed to the creek—“if I was you I'd wade along that watercourse for a mile or two. The sheriff might take a notion to put bloodhounds on your track, an' the stream will wash away the scent. Good-by. Make the best of it. I'd ask you to drop me a line, but that wouldn't be safe for me or you either. Cut this section clean out—it's been tough on you, anyway. You can make a livin'. You've got a great head on you for learnin'—I've heard plenty o' sensible folk say so. Good-by.” They parted. Hoag went deliberately toward the constantly growing group where Jeff Warren had fallen. He had almost reached it when he met Aunt Dilly, who had been anxiously inquiring for him. She was whimpering and wiping her eyes on her apron.
“Oh, Marse Hoag,” she cried, “I'se been searchin' fer you everwhar. Dey want you up at de house right off.”
“Want me? What's the matter?”
“I dunno, suh; but Miz Hoag drapped off ter sleep-like in 'er chair, en her ma cayn't wake 'er up. Cato done run fer de doctor. Suppen's wrong, suh, suppen powerful wrong. Hit don't look lak des er faintin' spell.”
Hoag stifled an oath of impatience, glanced at the silent group, hesitated a moment, and then turned homeward. At the gate he saw Mrs. Tilton waving her hands wildly in a signal for him to hurry.
“She's dead!” she sobbed. “She's growing cold.” Hoag passed through the gate which she held open.
“Keep the baby away,” he said. “There is no use lettin' 'im look at her. He's too young to—to see a thing like that.”