The whistle of the Cannery at Sabbath Valley blew a relief blast five minutes ahead of midnight in deference to the church chimes, and the night shift which had been working overtime on account of a consignment of tomatoes that would not keep till Monday, poured joyously out into the road and scattered to their various homes.
The outmost of these homegoers, Tom McMertrie and Jim Rafferty, who lived at the other extreme of the village, came upon a crippled car, coughing and crawling toward them in front of the Graveyard. Its driver, much sobered by lack of stimulant, and frequent necessity for getting out and pushing his car over hard bits of road, called to them noisily.
The two workmen, pleasant of mood, ready for a joke, not altogether averse to helping if this proved to be “the right guy,” halted and stepped into the road just to look the poor noble car over. It was the lure of the fine machine.
“Met with an accident?” Jim remarked affably, as if it were something to enjoy.
“Had toire thrubble?” added Tom, punching the collapsed tires.
The questions seemed to anger the driver, who demanded loftily:
“Where's your garage?”
“Garage? Oh, we haven't any garage,” said Jim pleasantly, with a mute twinkle in his Irish eye.
“No garage? Haven't any garage! What town is this,—if you call it a town?”
“Why, mon, this is Sawbeth Volley! Shorely ye've heard of Sawbeth Volley!”
“No, I never heard of it!” said the stranger contemptuously, “but from what I've seen of it so far I should say it ought to be called Hell's Pit! Well, what do you do when you want your car fixed?”
“Well, we don't hoppen to hove a cyar,” said Tom with a meditative air, stooping to examine the spokes of a wheel, “Boot, ef we hod mon, I'm thenkin' we'dfixit!”
Jim gave a flicker of a chuckle in his throat, but kept his outward gravity. The stranger eyed the two malevolently, helplessly, and began once more, holding his rage with a cold voice.
“Well, how much do you want to fix my car?” he asked, thrusting his hand into his pocket and bringing out an affluent wallet.
The men straightened up and eyed him coldly. Jim turned indifferently away and stepped back to the sidewalk. Tom lifted his chin and replied kindly:
“Why, Mon, it's theSawbeth,didn't ye know? I'm s'proised at ye! It's the Sawbeth, an' this is Sawbeth Volley! We don't wurruk on the Sawbeth day in Sawbeth Volley. Whist! Hear thot, mon?”
He lifted his hand and from the stone belfry near-by came the solemn tone of the chime, pealing out a full round of melody, and then tolling solemnly twelve slow strokes. There was something almost uncanny about it that held the stranger still, as if an unseen presence with a convincing voice had been invoked. The young man sat under the spell till the full complement of the ringing was finished, the workman with his hand up holding attention, and Jim Rafferty quietly enjoying it all from the curb stone.
When the last sweet resonance had died out, the Scotchman's hand went slowly down, and the stranger burst forth with an oath:
“Well, can you tell me where I can go to get fixed up? I've wasted enough time already.”
“I should say from whut I've seen of ye, mon, that yer roight in thot statement, and if I was to advoise I'd say go right up to the parson, His loight's still burnin' in the windo next beyant the tchurtch, so ye'll not be disturbin' him. Not that he'd moind. He'll fix ye up ef anybody cun; though I'm doubtin' yer in a bad wy, only wy ye tak it. Good-night to ye, the winda wi' the leight, mon, roight next beyant the tchurtch!”
The car began its coughing and spluttering, and slowly jerked itself into motion, its driver going angrily on his unthankful way. The two workmen watching him with amused expressions, waited in the shadow of a tree till the car came to a stop again in front of the parsonage, and a tall young fellow got out and looked toward the lighted window.
“Oh, boy! He's going in!” gasped Jim, slapping his companion silently on the back. “Whatt'll Mr. Severn think, Tommy?”
“It'll do the fresh laddie gude,” quoth Tom, a trifle abashed but ready to stand by his guns, “I'm thenkin' he's one of them what feels they owns the airth, an' is bound to step on all worms of the dust whut comes in thur wy. But Jim, mon, we better be steppin' on, fer tomorra's the Sawbeth ya ken, an' it wuddent be gude for our souls if the parson shud cum out to investigate.” Chuckling away into the silent street they disappeared, while Laurence Shafton stalked angrily up the little path and pounded loudly on the quaint knocker of the parsonage.
The minister was on his knees beside his desk, praying for the soul of the wandering lad who had been dear to him for years. He had finished his preparation for the coming day, and his heart was full of a great longing. As he poured out his desire he forgot the hour and his need for rest. It was often in such companionship he forgot all else. He was that kind of a man.
But he came to his feet on the instant with the knock, and was ready to go out on any errand of mercy that was needing him. It was not an unusual thing for a knock to come interrupting his midnight devotions. Sometimes the call would be to go far out on the mountain to some one who was in distress, or dying.
The minister swung the door wide and peered into the night pleasantly almost as if to welcome an unexpected guest. In the sudden flood of the porch light his face was illumined, and behind him the pretty living room gave a sweet homely setting. The stranger stood for an instant blinking, half astonished; then the memory of his rendezvous at break of day brought back his irritation at the delay.
“Are you Parsons?” he demanded, just as if “Parsons” were at fault that he had not been on hand before.
“Parsons?” said Mr. Severn reflectively. “I don't recall anyone of that name hereabouts. Perhaps you are on the wrong road. There is a Parsons at Monopoly.”
“Parsons is the name. Aren't you Parsons? A couple of men down the road said you were, and that you could fix me up. They said right next the church and that your light was still burning.” The visitor's tone was belligerent.
Severn's face cleared with a smile.
“Oh, they must have said 'Parson,' they often call me that. Come in. What can I do for you?”
The young man eyed him coldly and made no move to enter.
“Parson or Parsons, it makes no difference does it? Mr. Parson, if you're so particular then, come out and look at my car. It seems to be in bad shape, and be quick about it. I've got over two hundred miles to make before daybreak, so get a hustle on. I'll pay you well if you don't waste any time.”
A queer look descended upon the minister in twinkles of amusement around his eyes and lips much like the smile that Tom MacMertrie had worn, only there was not a rag of hurt pride about it. With entire pleasantness he said:
“Just wait a moment till I get a light.”
As he turned to go Shafton called after him:
“Oh, by the way, got anything to drink? I'm thirsty as the devil.”
Severn turned, instant hospitality in his face.
“What will you have? Water or milk? Plenty of both.”
He smiled and Shafton looked at him in haughty amazement.
“Man! I said I wanted something todrink!” he thundered, “but don't stand there all night doddering. I've got to get started!”
A slight lifting of the chin, a trifle of steel in the kind eyes, a shade of coolness in the voice, as the clear comprehension of heaven had sifted the visitor, and the minister said, almost sternly:
“Oh, I see,” and disappeared through a swinging door into the pantry.
It was about this time that Lynn Severn awoke to near consciousness and wondered what kind of a queer noisy guest her father had now.
The minister was gone sometime and the guest grew impatient, stamping up and down the piazza and kicking a porch rocker out of his path. He looked at his watch and frowned, wondering how near he was to the end of his detour, and then he started in pursuit of his man, tramping through the Severn house as if it were a public garage, and almost running into the minister as he swung the door open. Severn was approaching with a lighted lantern in one hand and a plate of brown bread and butter, with a cup of steaming coffee in his other hand.
Laurence Shafton stopped abruptly, a curse on his lips, but something, either the genial face of the minister, or the aroma of the coffee, silenced him. And indeed there was something about Graham Severn that was worth looking at. Tall and well built, with a face at once strong and sweet, and with a certain luminousness about it that almost seemed like transparency to let the spirit shine through, although there was nothing frail about his well cut features.
Laurence Shafton, looking into the frank kind eyes of the minister suddenly became aware that this man had taken a great deal of trouble for him. He hadn't brought any liquor, probably because he did not know enough of the world to understand what it was he wanted, or because he was playing a joke. As he looked into those eyes and noted with his half befuddled senses the twinkle playing at the corners he was not quite sure but the joke was on himself. But however it was the coffee smelled good and he took it and blundered out a brief “Thanks.”
Eating his brown bread and butter, the like of which had never entered his pampered lips before, and taking great swoops of the hot strong coffee he followed this strange new kind of a man out to the car in the moonlight, paying little heed to the careful examination that ensued, being so accustomed to ordering all his needs supplied and finding them forthcoming without delay.
Finally the minister straightened up:
“I'm afraid you won't go many miles to-night. You've burned out your bearings!”
“Hell!” remarked the young gentleman pausing before the last swallow of coffee.
“Oh, you won't find it so bad as that, I imagine,” answered the steady voice of the minister. “I can give you a bed and take care of you over to-morrow, and perhaps Sandy McPherson can fix you up Monday, although I doubt it. He'd have to make new bearings, or you'd have to send for some to the factory.”
But Lawrence Shafton did not wait to hear the suggestions. He stormed up and down the sidewalk in front of the parsonage and let forth such a stream of choice language as had not been heard in that locality in many a long year. The minister's voice, cool, stern, commanding, broke in upon his ravings.
“I think that will be about all, sir!”
Laurence Shafton stopped and stared at the minister's lifted hand, not because he was overawed, simply because never before in the whole of his twenty-four years had any one dared lift voice to him in a tone of command or reproof. He could not believe his ears, and his anger rose hotly. He opened his mouth to tell this insignificant person who he was and where to get off, and a few other common arguments of gentlemen of his class, but the minister had a surprising height as he stood in the moonlight, and there was that something strange and spiritual about him that seemed to meet the intention and disarm it. His jaw dropped, and he could not utter the words he had been about to speak. This was insufferable—! But there was that raised hand. It seemed like some one not of this world quite. He wasn't afraid, because it wasn't in him to be afraid. That was his pose, not afraid of those he considered his inferiors, and he did not consider that anyone was his superior. But somehow this was something new in his experience. A man like this! It was almost as if his mere being there demanded a certain homage. It was queer. The young man passed a hand over his hot forehead and tried to think. Then the minister's voice went calmly on. It was almost as if he had not said that other at all. Perhaps he had not. Perhaps he dreamed it or imagined it. Perhaps he had been taking too much liquor and this was one of the symptoms—! Yet there still ringing in his ears—well his soul anyway,—were those quiet words, “That will be about all, sir!” Sternly. As if he had arightto speak that wayto him! To Laurence Shafton, son of the great Wilson J. Shafton, of New York! He looked up at the man again and found a sort of respect for him dawning in himself. It was queer, but the man was—well, interesting. What was this he was saying?
“I am sorry”—just as if he had never rebuked him at all, “I am sorry that there seems to be no other way. If I had a car I would take you to the nearest railway station, but there are no trains to-night, not even twenty miles away until six in the morning. There are only four cars owned in the village. Two are gone off on a summer trip, the third is out of commission being repaired, and the fourth belongs to the doctor, who happens to be away on the mountain to-night attending a dying man. You see how it is.”
The young man opened his mouth to curse once more, and strangely enough closed it again: Somehow cursing seemed to have lost its force.
“There is just one chance,” went on the minister thoughtfully, “that a young man who was visiting his mother to-day may still be here. I can call up and find out. He would take you I know.”
Almost humbly the great man's son followed the minister back to the house and listened anxiously while he called a number on the telephone.
“Is that you Mrs. Carter? I'm sorry if I have disturbed you. What? You hadn't gone to bed yet? Oh, waiting for Mark? Then he isn't there? That's what I called up for. There is some one here in trouble, needing to be taken to Monopoly. I was sure Mark would help him out if possible. Yes, please, if he comes soon, ask him to call me. Just leave a note for him, can't you? I wouldn't sit up. Mark will take good care of himself. Yes, of course, that's the mother of it. Well, good-night, Mrs. Carter.”
The young man strode angrily out to the door, muttering—but no words were distinct. He wanted to be away from the compelling calmness of those eyes that seemed to search him through. He dashed out the screen door, letting it slam behind him, and down the steps, intending tomakehis car go on at all odds until he reached another town somewhere. It had gone so far, it could go on a little farther perhaps. This country parson did not know about cars, how should he?
And then somewhere right on the top step he made a false step and slipped, or was it his blindness of rage? He caught at the vines with frantic hands, but as if they laughed at him they slipped from his grasp. His feet clattered against the step trying for footing, but he was too near the edge, and he went down straight into a little rocky nook where ferns and violets were growing, and a sharp jagged rock stuck up and bit him viciously as he slid and struggled for a firm footing again. Then an ugly twist of his ankle, and he lay in a humiliating heap in the shadow of the vines on the lawn, crying out and beginning to curse with the pain that gripped him in sharp teeth, and stung through his whole excitable inflamed being.
The minister was there almost at once, bending over him. Somehow he felt as if he were in the power of somebody greater than he had ever met before. It was almost like meeting God out on the road somewhere. The minister stooped and picked him up, lightly, as if he had been a feather, and carried him like a baby, thrown partly over his shoulder; up the steps, and into that blasted house again. Into the bright light that sickened him and made the pain leap up and bring a mighty faintness.
He laid him almost tenderly upon a soft couch, and straightened the pillows about him, seeming to know just how every bone felt, and how every nerve quivered, and then he asked a few questions in a quiet voice. “What happened? Was it your ankle? Here? Orhere?All right. Just be patient a minute, I'll have you all fixed up. This was my job over in France you know. No, don't move. It won't hurt long. It was right here you said. Now, wait till I get my bottle of lotion.”
He was back in an instant with bandages, and bottle, and seemed to know just how to get off a shoe with the least trouble.
An hour later the scion of a great New York family lay sleeping in the minister's study, the old couch made up with cool sheets, and the swollen ankle comfortably bandaged with cool wet cloths. Outside in the moonlight the crippled car stood alone, and Sabbath Valley slept, while the bells chimed out a single solemn stroke.
Billy was doing some rapid thinking while he stood motionless in the bushes. It seemed a half hour, but in reality it was but a few seconds before he heard a low whistle. The men piled rapidly into the car with furtive looks on either side into the dark.
Billy gave a wavering glance toward the looming house in the darkness where the motionless figure had been left. Was it a dead man lying there alone, or was he only doped. But what could he do in the dark without tools or flash? He decided to stick with the machine, for he had no desire to foot it home, and anyway, with his bicycle he would be far more independent. Besides, there was the perfectly good automobile to think about. If the man was dead he couldn't be any deader. If he was only doped it would be some time before he came to, and before these keepers could get back he would have time to do something. Billy never doubted his responsibility in the matter. It was only a question of expediency. If he could just “get these guys with the goods on them,” he would be perfectly satisfied.
He made a dash for his seat at the back while the car was turning, and they were off at a brisk pace down the mountain, not waiting this time to double on their tracks, but splashing through the Creek only once and on up to the road again.
Like an uneasy fever in his veins meantime, went and came a vision of that limp inert figure of the man being carried into the haunted house as it stood out in the flare of the flash light, one arm hanging heavily. What did that hand and arm remind him of? Oh—h! The time when Mark was knocked cold at the Thanksgiving Day Football game last year. Mark's hand and arm had looked like that—he had held his fingers like that—when they picked him up. Mark had the base-ball hand! Of course that rich guy might have been an athlete too, they were sometimes. And of course Mark was right now at home and in bed, where Billy wished he was also, but somehow the memory of that still dark “knocked cold” attitude, and that hanging hand and arm would not leave him. He frowned in the dark and wished this business was over. Mark was the only living soul Billy felt he could ever tell about this night's escapade, and he wasn't sure he could tell him, but he knew if he did that Mark would understand.
Billy watched anxiously for a streak of light in the East, but none had come as yet. The moon had left the earth darker than darkness when it went.
He tried to think what he should do. His bicycle was lying in the bushes and he ought to get it before daylight. If they went near the station he would drop off and pick it up. Then he would scuttle through the woods and get to the Crossroads, and beat it down to the Blue Duck Tavern. That was the only place open all night where he could telephone. He didn't like to go to the Blue Duck Tavern on account of his aunt. She had once made him promise most solemnly, bringing in something about his dead mother, that he would never go to the Blue Duck Tavern. But this was a case of necessity, and dead mothers, if they cared at all, ought to understand. He had a deep underlying faith in the principle of what a mother—at any rate a dead mother—would be like. And anyhow, this wasn't the kind of “going” to the Tavern his aunt had meant. He was keeping the spirit of the promise if not the letter. In his code the spirit meant much more than the letter—at least on this occasion. There were often times when he rigidly adhered to the letter and let the spirit take care of itself, but this was not one.
But if, on the other hand they did not take Pat all the way back to the crossing by the station it would be even better for him, for the road on which they now were passed within a quarter of a mile of the Blue Duck Tavern, and he could easily beat the car to the state line, by dropping off and running.
But suddenly and without warning it became apparent that Pat was to be let out to walk to the station crossing, and Billy had only a second to decide what to do, while Pat lumbered swearing down from the car. If he got off now he would have to wait till Pat was far ahead before he dared go after his wheel, and he would lose so much time there would be no use in trying to save the car. On the other hand if he stayed on the car he was liable to be seen by Pat, and perhaps caught. However, this seemed the only possible way to keep the car from destruction and loss, so he wriggled himself into his seat more firmly, tucked his legs painfully up under him, covered his face with his cap, and hid his hands in his pockets.
“You've plenty of time,” raged Pat, “You've only a little five miles run left. It's a good half hour before light. You're a pair of cowards, that's whut ye are, and so I'll tell Sam. If I get fired fer not being there fer the early milk train, there'll be no more fat jobs fer youse. Now be sure ye do as you're told. Leave the car in the first field beyond the woods after ye cross the state line, lift yer flash light and wink three times, count three slow, and wink three times more.Then beat it!And doncha ferget to go feed that guy! We don't want he should die on us.”
The engine began to mutter. Pat with a farewell string of oaths rolled off down the road, too sleepy to look behind, and Billy held his breath and ducked low till the rolling Pat was one with the deep gray of the morning.
The first streak of light was beginning to show in the East, and the all-night revellers at the Blue Duck were in the last stages of going home after a more than usually exciting season, when Billy like the hardened promise-breaker he felt himself to be, boldly slid in at the door and disappeared inside the telephone booth behind the last row of tables in the corner. For leave it to a boy, even though he be not a frequenter of a place, to know where everything needful is to be found!
He had to wait several minutes to get the Chief of Police in Economy, and while he waited two gaunt habitues of the Tavern slid into seats at the table to the left of the booth, ordered drinks and began to discuss something in a low tone. Billy paid no heed till he happened to hear his friend's name:
“Yep, I seen Mark come in with Cherry early in the evening. He set right over there and gotter some drink. The girl was mad because he wouldn't get her what she wanted to drink. I happened to be settin' direckly in front and I heard her gassin' about it. She tossed her head and made her eyes look little and ugly like a pig, and once she got up to go, and he grabbed her hands and made her set down; and just set there fer sometime alookin' at her hard an' holdin' her han's and chewin' the rag at her. I don't know what all they was sayin,' fer he talked mighty low, an' Ike called me to take a hand in the game over tother side the room, so I didn't know no more till I see him an' Cherry beatin' it out the side door, an' Dolphin standin' over acrost by the desk lampin' 'em with his ugly look, an' pretty quick, Dolph he slid out the other door an' was gone quite some time. When he come back Cherry was with him, laughin' and makin' eyes, and vampin' away like she always does, an' him an' her danced a lot after that—”
A voice on the end of the wire broke in upon this amazing conversation, and Billy with difficulty adjusted his jaded mind, to the matter in hand:
“'Z'is the Chief? Say, Chief, a coupla guys stole a machine—Holes-Mowbrays—license number 6362656-W—Got that? New York tag. They're on their way over to the State Line beyond the Cross Roads. They're gonta run her in the field just beyond the woods, you know. They're gonta give a flash light signal to their pal, three winks, count three slow, and three winks more, and then beat it. Then some guy is gonta wreck the machine. It's up to you and your men to hold the machine till I get the owner there. He don't know it's pinched yet, but I know where to find him, an' he'll have the license and can identify it. Where'll I find you? Station House? 'Conomy? Sure! I'll be there soon's I get'im. What's that? I? Oh, I'm just a kid that happened to get wise. My name? Oh rats! That don't cut any ice now! You get on yer job! They must be almost there by now. I gotta beat it! Gub-bye!”
Billy was all there even if he had been up all night. He hung up with a click, for he was anxious to hear what the men were saying. They had finished their glasses and were preparing to leave. The old one was gabbling on in a querrilous gossipy tone:
“Well, it'll go hard with Mark Carter if the man dies. Everybody knows he was here, and unless he can prove an alibi—!”
They were crawling reluctantly out of their haunts now, and Billy could catch but one more sentence:
“Well, I'm sorry fer his ma. I used to go to school with Mrs. Carter when we were kids.”
They were gone out and the room suddenly showed empty. The waiter was fastening the shutters. In a moment more he would be locked in. Billy made a silent dash among the tables and slid out the door while the waiter's back was turned. The two men were ambling slowly down the road toward Economy. Billy started on a dead run. His rubber soled shoes made no echo and he was too light on his feet to make a thud. He disappeared into the grayness like a spirit. He had more cause than ever now for hurry. Mark! Mark! His beloved Mark Carter! What must he do about it? Must he tell Mark? Or did Mark perhaps know? What had happened anyway? There had evidently been a shooting. That Cherry Fenner was mixed up in it. Billy knew her only by sight. She always grinned at him and said: “Hello, Billee!” in her pretty dimpled way. He didn't care for her himself. He had accepted her as a part of life, a necessary evil. She wore her hair queer, and had very short tight skirts, and high heels. She painted her face and vamped, but that was her affair. He had heretofore tolerated her because she seemed in some way to be under Mark Carter's recent protection. Therefore he had growled “Ello!” grimly whenever she accosted him and let it go at that. If it had come to a show down he would have stood up for her because he knew that Mark would, that was all. Mark knew his own business. Far be it from Billy to criticize his hero's reasons. Perhaps it was one of Mark's weaknesses. It was up to him. That was the code of a “white man” as Billy had learned it from “the fellas.”
But this was a different matter. This involved Mark's honor. It was up to him to find Mark!
Billy did not take the High road down from his detour. He cut across below the Crossroads, over rough ground, among the underbrush, and parting the low growing trees was lost in the gloom of the woods. But he knew every inch of ground within twenty miles around, and darkness did not take away his sense of direction. He crashed along among the branches, making steady headway toward the spot where he had left his bicycle, puffing and panting, his face streaked with dirt, his eyes bleared and haggard, his whole lithe young body straining forward and fighting against the dire weariness that was upon him, for it was not often that he stayed up all night. Aunt Saxon saw to that much at least.
The sky was growing rosy now, and he could hear the rumbling of the milk train. It was late. Pat would not lose his job this time, for he must have had plenty of time to get back to the station. Billy wormed himself under cover as the train approached, and bided his time. Cautiously, peering from behind the huckleberry growth, he watched Pat slamming the milk cans around. He could see his bicycle lying like a dark skeleton of a thing against the gravel bank. It was lucky he got there before day, for Pat would have been sure to see it, and it might have given him an idea that Billy had gone with the automobile.
The milk train came suddenly in sight through the tunnel, like a lighted thread going through a needle. It rumbled up to the station. There was a rattling of milk cans, empty ones being put on, full cans being put off, grumbling of Pat at the train hands, loud retorts of the train hands, the engine puffed and wheezed like a fat old lady going upstairs and stopping on every landing to rest. Then slamming of car doors, a whistle, the snort of the engine as it took up its way again out toward the rosy sky, its headlight weird like a sick candle against the dawn, its tail light winking with a leer and mocking at the mountains as it clattered away like a row of gray ducks lifting webbed feet and flinging back space to the station.
Pat rolled the loaded truck to the other platform ready for the Lake train at seven, and went in to a much needed rest. He slammed the door with a finality that gave Billy relief. The boy waited a moment more in the gathering dawn, and then made a dash for the open, salvaging his bicycle, and diving back into the undergrowth.
For a quarter of a mile he and the wheel like two comrades raced under branches, and threaded their way between trees. Then he came out into the Highroad and mounting his wheel rode into the world just as the sun shot up and touched the day with wonder.
He rode into the silent sleeping village of Sabbath Valley just as the bells from the church chimed out gently, as bells should do on a Sabbath morning when people are at rest, “One! Two! Three! Four! Five!”
Sabbath Valley looked great as he pedalled silently down the street. Even the old squeak of the back wheel seemed to be holding its breath for the occasion.
He coasted past the church and down the gentle incline in front of the parsonage and Joneses, and the Littles and Browns and Gibsons. Like a shadow of the night passing he slid past the Fowlers and Tiptons and Duncannons, and fastened his eyes on the little white fence with the white pillared gate where Mrs. Carter lived. Was that a light in the kitchen window? And the barn that Mark used for his garage when he was at home, was the door open? He couldn't quite see for the cyringa bush hid it from the road. With a furtive glance up and down the street he wheeled in at the driveway, and rode up under the shadow of the green shuttered white house.
He dismounted silently, stealthily, rested his wheel against the trunk of a cherry tree, and with keen eyes for every window, glanced up to the open one above which he knew belonged to Mark's room. Strong grimy fingers went to his lips and a low cautious whistle, more like a bird call issued forth, musical as any wild note.
The white muslin curtains wavered back and forth in the summer breeze, and for a moment he thought a head was about to appear for a soft stirring noise had seemed to move within the house somewhere, but the curtains swayed on and no Mark appeared. Then he suddenly was aware of a white face confronting him at the downstairs window directly opposite to him, white and scared and—was it accusing? And suddenly he began to tremble. Not all the events of the night had made him tremble, but now he trembled, it was Mark's mother, and she had pink rims to her eyes, and little damp crimples around her mouth and eyes for all the world like Aunt Saxon's. She looked—she looked exactly as though she had not slept all night. Her nose was thin and red, and her eyes had that awful blue that eyes get that have been much washed with tears. The soft waves of her hair drooped thinly, and the coil behind showed more threads of silver than of brown in the morning sun that shot through the branches of the cherry tree. She had a frightened look, as if Billy had brought some awful news, or as if it was his fault, he could not tell which, and he began to feel that choking sensation and that goneness in the pit of his stomach that Aunt Saxon always gave him when she looked frightened at something he had done or was going to do. Added to this was that sudden premonition, and a memory of that drooping still figure in the dark up on the mountain.
Mrs. Carter sat down the candle on a shelf and raised the window:
“Is that you Billy?” she asked, and there were tears in her voice.
Billy had a brief appalling revelation of Mothers the world over. Did all Mothers—women—act like that when they werefools? Fools is what he called them in his mind. Yet in spite of himself and his rage and trembling he felt a sudden tenderness for this crumply, tired, ghastly little pink rimmed mother, apprehensive of the worst as was plain to see. Billy recalled like a flash the old man at the Blue Duck saying, “I'm sorry for his ma. I used to go to school with her.” He looked at the faded face with the pink rims and trembling lips and had a vision of a brown haired little girl at a desk, and old Si Appleby a teasing boy in the desk opposite. It came over him that some day he would be an old man somewhere telling how he went to school—! And then he asked:
“Where's Mark? Up yet?”
She shook her head apprehensively, withholdingly.
Billy had a thought that perhaps some one had beat him to it with news from the Blue Duck, but he put it from him. There were tears in her eyes and one was straggling down between the crimples of her cheeks where it looked as if she had lain on the folds of her handkerchief all night. There came a new tenderness in his voice. This wasMark'smother, and this was the way she felt. Well, of course it was silly, but she was Mark'smother.
“Man up the mountain had n'accident. I thought Mark ud he'p. He always does,” explained Billy awkwardly with a feeling that he ought to account for his early visit.
“Yes, of course, Mark would like to help!” purred his mother comforted at the very thought of every day life and Mark going about as usual, “But—” and the apprehension flew into her eyes again, “He isn't home. Billy, he hasn't come home at all last night! I'm frightened to death! I've sat up all night! I can't think what's happened—! There's so many hold-ups and Mark will carry his money loose in his trousers pocket—!”
Billy blanched but lied beautifully up to the occasion even as he would have liked to have somebody lie for him to Aunt Saxon:
“Aw! That's nothing! Doncha worry. He tol' me he might have t'stay down t'Unity all night. There's a fella down there that likes him a lot, an' they had somekinduva blowout in their church last night. He mightuv had ta take some girl home out of town ya know, and stayed over with the fella.”
Mrs. Carter's face relaxed a shade:
“Yes, I've tried to think that—!”
“Well, doncha worry, Mizz Carter, I'll lookim up fer ya, I know 'bout where he might be.”
“Oh, thank you Billy,” her face wreathed in wavering smiles brought another thought of school days and life and how queer it was that grown folks had been children sometime and children had to be grown folks.
“Billy, Mark likes you very much. I'm sure he won't mind your knowing that I'm worried, but you know how boys don't like to have their mothers worry, so you needn't say anything to Mark that I said I was worried, need you? You understand Billy. I'm notreallyworried you know. Mark was always a good boy.”
“Aw sure!” said Billy with a knowing wink. “He's a prince! You leave it t'me, Mizz Carter!”
“Thank you, Billy. I'll do something for you sometime. But how's it come you're up so early? You haven't had your breakfast yet have you?”
She eyed his weary young face with a motherly anxiety:
“Naw, I didn't have no time to stop fer breakfast,” Billy spoke importantly, “Got this call about the sick guy and had to beat it. Say, you don't happen to know Mark's license number do you? It might help a lot, savin' time 'f'I could tell his car at sight. Save stoppin' to ast.”
“Well, now, I don't really—” said the woman ruminatively, “let me see. There was six and six, there were a lot of sixes if I remember—”
“Oh, well, it don't matter—” Billy grasped his wheel and prepared to leave.
“Wait, Billy, you must have something to eat—”
“Aw, naw, I can't wait! Gotta beat it! Might miss 'im!”
“Well, just a bite. Here, I'll get you some cookies!”
She vanished, and he realized for the first time that he was hungry. Cookies sounded good.
She returned with a brimming glass of milk and a plate of cookies. She stuffed the cookies in his pockets, while he drank the milk.
“Say,—” said he after a long sweet draught of the foaming milk, “Ya, aint got enny more you cud spare fer that sick guy, have ya? Wait, I'll save this. Got a bottle?”
“Indeed you won't, Billy Gaston. You just drink that every drop. I'll get you another bottle to take with you. I got extra last night 'count of Mark being home, and then he didn't drink it. He always likes a drink of milk last thing before he goes to bed.”
She vanished and returned with a quart of milk cold off the ice. She wrapped it well with newspapers, and Billy packed it safely into the little basket on his wheel. Then he bethought him of another need.
“Say, m'y I go inta the g'rage an' get a screw driver? Screw loose on m'wheel.”
She nodded and he vanished into the open barn door. Well he knew where Mark kept his tools. He picked out a small pointed saw, a neat little auger and a file and stowed them hurriedly under the milk bottle. Thus reinforced without and within, he mounted his faithful steed and sped away to the hills.
The morning sun had shot up several degrees during his delay, and Sabbath Valley lay like a thing new born in its glory. On the belfry a purple dove sat glistening, green and gold ripples on her neck, turning her head proudly from side to side as Billy rode by, and when he topped the first hill across the valley the bells rang out six sweet strokes as if to remind him that Sunday School was not far off and he must hurry back. But Billy was trying to think how he should get into that locked house, and wondering whether the kidnappers would have returned to feed their captive yet. He realized that he must be wary, although his instinct told him that they would wait for dark, besides, he had hopes that they might have been “pinched.”
Nevertheless he approached the old house cautiously, skirting the mountain to avoid Pleasant Valley, and walking a mile or two through thick undergrowth, sometimes with difficulty propelling the faithful machine.
Arrived in sight he studied the surroundings carefully, harbored his wheel where it would not be discovered and was yet easily available, and after reconnoitering stole out of covert.
The house stood gaunt and grim against the smiling morning. Its shuttered windows giving an expression of blindness or the repellant mask of death. A dead house, that was what it was. Its doors and windows closed on the tragedy that had been enacted within its massive stone walls. It seemed more like a fortress than a house where warm human faces had once looked forth, and where laughter and pleasant words had once sounded out. To pass it had always stirred a sense of mystery and weirdness. To approach it thus with the intention of entering to find that still limp figure of a man gave a most overpowering sense of awe. Billy looked up with wide eyes, the deep shadows under them standing out in the clear light of the morning and giving him a strangely old aspect as if he had jumped over at least ten years during the night. Warily he circled the house, keeping close to the shrubbery at first and listening as a squirrel might have done, then gradually drawing nearer. He noticed that the down stairs shutters were solid iron with a little half moon peep hole at the top. Those upstairs were solid below and fitted with slats above, but the slats were closed of all the front windows, and all but two of the back ones, which were turned upward so that one could not see the glass. The doors, both back and front, were locked, and unshakable, of solid oak and very thick. A Yale lock with a new look gave all entrance at the front an impossible look. The back door was equally impregnable unless he set to work with his auger and saw and took out a heavy oak panel.
He got down to the ground and began to examine the cellar windows. They seemed to be fitted with iron bars set into the solid masonry. He went all around the house and found each one unshakable, until he reached the last at the back. There he found a bit of stone cracked and loosened and it gave him an idea. He set to work with his few tools, and finally succeeded in loosening one rusted bar. He was much hindered in his work by the necessity of keeping a constant watch out, and by his attempts to be quiet. There was no telling when Link and Shorty might come to feed their captive and he must not be discovered.
It was slow work picking away at the stone, filing away at the rusty iron, but the bars were so close together that three must be removed before he could hope to crawl through, and even then he might be able to get no further than the cellar. The guy that fixed this house up for a prison knew what he was about.
Faintly across the mountains came the echo of bells, or were they in the boy's own soul? He worked away in the hot sun, the perspiration rolling down his weary dirty face, and sometimes his soul fainted within him. Bells, and the sweet quiet church with the pleasant daily faces about and the hum of Sunday School beginning! How far away that all seemed to him now as he filed and picked, and sweated, and kept up a strange something in his soul half yearning, half fierce dread, that might have been like praying only the burden of its yearning seemed to be expressed in but a single word, “Mark! Mark!”
At last the third bar came loose and with a great sigh that was almost like a sob, the boy tore it out, and cleared the way. Then carefully gathering his effects, tools, milk bottle and cap together, he let them down into the dungeon-like blackness of the cellar, and crept in after them, taking the precaution to set up in place the iron bars once more and leave no trace of his entrance.
Pausing cautiously to listen he ventured to strike a match, mentally belaboring himself at the wasteful way in which he had always used his flash light which was now so much needed and out of commission. The cellar was large, running under the whole house, with heavy rafters and looming coal pits. A scurrying rat started a few lumps of coal in the slide, and a cobwebby rope hung ominously from one cross beam, giving him a passing shudder. It seemed as if the spirit of the past had arisen to challenge his entrance thus. He took a few steps forward toward a dim staircase he sighted at the farther end, and then a sudden noise sent his heart beating fast. He extinguished the match and stood in the darkness listening with straining ears. That was surely a step he heard on the floor above!