"That which I have done has made me very happy. If that is justification, I am entirely justified."
"I require no other explanation," old Thompson answered. "From a little child you have been dutiful, sensible, and capable, and though my selfishness rebels because I am to lose you, a father's love is stronger than selfishness, and I am glad you have found a husband you regard as worthy of your affection. You have drawn a prize, sir."
He looked at Dorris as a defeated man might look at his rival when he thought it necessary to hide his mortification, and offer congratulations which he did not feel.
"There is no doubt of it," Dorris promptly answered.
"She is very much like her mother," old Thompson continued, "and her mother was the best woman in ten thousand. If I gave her a task to perform, she did it in a manner which pleased me, and she was always a pleasant surprise.Thisis a surprise, but I find no fault; I cannot regret that Annie knows the happiness of a young wife. I am a rough man, but I made her mother a very happy woman, and in remembrance of that I am glad the daughter has found a husband she can honor. I have so much confidence in the girl's good sense that I do not question her judgment, and I wish you joy with all my heart."
He took both their hands in his for a moment, and hurried away, Dorris and his wife watching him until he disappeared in a bend of the street, when they went into the house to make their peace with the Ancient Maiden.
As Thompson Benton hurried along toward his store, swinging the respectable-looking iron key in his hand, who can know the regret he felt to lose his child? His practical mind would not help him now, and he must have felt that the only creature in all the world he cared for had deserted him, for the old forget the enthusiasm of the young.
It was a fortunate circumstance that the day was bad and customers few, for they would not have been treated well had they appeared.
Allan Dorris and his wife had been up in the hills watching the sunset, and at dusk were returning leisurely home. They were very fond of the unfrequented locality where he had first declared his passion, and when the weather was fine they frequently visited it to imagine themselves lovers again, which was easy enough, for as man and wife they got along amazingly well. And now, when they were returning at nightfall, a shadow crept after them; from bush to rock, and from tree to shrub, crawling and stealing along like a beast watching its prey.
Pretty Annie Dorris, prettier than ever before, was expressing a fear in her winning way that their happiness was too great to last, and that something dreadful would happen to them. But she had no suspicion of the lurking, creeping shadow which had hurried forward, and now stood almost within arm's length, as her husband replied,—
"I have been so discontented all my life, and am so contented now, that I believe the Fates will guard me from it in pity. It is not much that I ask; a country girl to be my wife, and love me—nothing more. And it will always be my endeavor to be so useful to the country girl that she will be happy, too, so that the simple boon of peace is not too much to ask when it will make two people entirely happy. I cheerfully give up my place in the strife for greatness and riches in which men seem to be always engaged, and will be content with the good health and plenty which my simple life here will bring me. As for a living, I can make that easy enough; I am making more even now than we can possibly spend. I hope your fears are not substantial."
The country girl had her arm through her husband's, and she looked up into his face with such a troubled expression that he stopped in the road.
"It may be that I am fearful only because I love you so much," she said. "It almost kills me when I think that any harm might happen to you."
"I am glad to hear you say that," he replied, "but you are always saying something which pleases me. You look handsome to-night; you look prettier now than before you were married, and I think more of you. You don't fade out, and I love you for that; you are as fresh and as girlish as you ever were before we were married. I think it an evidence of good blood."
"Now you are pleasing me," his wife said laughingly. "I have feared very often that you would not like me so well when you knew me better, and that you would finally tire of me."
"But I don't," Dorris replied. "The more I know of you the better I like you. It's not usual, but I am more in love after marriage than I was before."
"I have mingled so little with women," the wife said seriously, "that I sometimes fear that I am not like others of my sex in manners and dress and inclination. Did you ever notice it?"
"I think I have," he said.
She turned upon him with mock fierceness, and pretended to be very indignant.
"Because you are not like other women, who act by rule, and are nearly all alike, is the reason I have no greater ambition than to be tied to your apron-strings," he said. "I think your freshness and originality are your greatest charms."
"Long before I ever thought of becoming a wife myself," she said, seriously again, "I noticed that most men seemed to lack a knowledge of women; that they regarded them as angels while they were girls, and were disappointed because they turned out to be women as wives. I am not unjust, but I have thought the women were partly responsible for this, since many of them exhibit themselves like dolls, and pretend to be more than they are. This is the reason why I am pleased that you are not disappointed in me."
"As to your being an angel," he laughingly replied, "I know you are not one, and I am glad of it. I have an idea that an angel would soon tire of me, and fly away in disgust, to warn its companions that men were not worth saving. There are some women so amiable that no matter to what extent their affairs go wrong, they cannot muster up enough energetic regret to cause them to supply a remedy. I am not so fond of amiability as to desire it at that price. Whenever you find capacity you will find temper, and I imagine that it would be dangerous to stir you up, for you are as capable a woman as ever I knew.Haven'tyou temper?"
"Plenty of it; too much," she answered.
They both laughed at this frank confession, and Dorris took occasion to say that there was not a spark of it in his nature, though there was temper written in every line of his countenance, and that he would have been an ugly man when once fully aroused was certain.
They walked on again, and the shadow followed, as if anxious to hear what they were saying.
"I can't account for it myself," Dorris continued, "but I enjoy your company as much now as I did before we were married. It does me as much good to talk love to you; I suppose it must be because you deserve it. The fact that you are as careful to look well as you ever did may have something to do with it, but it is certainly the case. I have heard men abused a great deal for neglecting their wives after marriage, but it never occurs to me to neglect you. I don't want to neglect you; I think too much of you. If I should fail to be as considerate of you as you are of me, I know that I would no longer receive the full measure of your confidence and love, which is such a comfort to me, therefore it is my first ambition to be just and honest with you in everything. The ambition affords me a great deal of pleasure, too, for I am never so well satisfied as when in your company. With you by my side, there is nothing else that I crave in this world or the next."
"O Allan! Nothing in the next?"
They had seated themselves on a rough seat in a sort of park on the hillside, and Dorris considered the matter.
"Well, if you go to heaven, I want to go. Of course you will go, for you are good enough, therefore I intend to do the best I can, so that, when we come to be judged, the Master will realize how much we love each other, and conclude not to separate us. But I depend on you; He will let me in to please you—not because I deserve it."
"I know you do not think as I do about it," she answered, "but it is possible that you have not investigated as I have. I am not a foolish girl, but a serious woman, and have studied and thought a great deal, and I am certain there is something more than this life. I have never mentioned the subject to you before, because I know that a great many come to dislike religion because they hear so much of it from persons no better than themselves, but everything teaches us that we shall live again, and it worries me a great deal because you think lightly about a matter which seems so dreadfully serious. My mother's faith convinces me of it, though I cannot tell you why. I am not prepared, as she was, by a long life of purity to receive the evidence; but promise me that you will think about it, and not combat your own judgment."
"I have never thought about it much, and investigated but little," he answered. "It has always been natural for me to think of the grave as the end of everything, so far as I am concerned. But I have confidence in your intelligence and judgment; if you have investigated, and believe, that is enough for me;Ibelieve. Please do not worry about it any more; I will try very hard to remain with you."
He said it lightly, yet there was enough seriousness in his manner to convince her that his love for her was honest, even if his religion was not.
"Religion is not natural with me: I feel no necessity for it or lack of it," he said again. "But I have no objection to it; on the contrary, I have always liked the idea, but I lack the necessary faith. It would be pleasant for me to believe that, in the next country, a day's journey removed, good gifts might be found; but if I could not believe it, I could not be reasonably blamed for my refusal to attempt the journey. I might even regret that the accounts were not true; but I would not insist that theyweretrue against my honest convictions, because Ihopedthey were. I am religious enough in sentiment, but my brain is an inexorable skeptic. Nothing is more pleasing to me than the promise of your faith. What a blessed hope it is, that after death you will live in a land of perpetual summer; and exist forever with your friends where there is only peace and content! I am sure I can never see as much of you as I want to in this life, and I cannot tell you how much I hope we will be reunited beyond the grave, and live forever to love each other, even as we do now. I am willing to make any sacrifice necessary to ensure this future; it would be a pleasure for me to make greater sacrifices than are required, according to common rumor, for they are not at all exacting, except in the particular of faith; but that I lack, to a most alarming extent, though I cannot help it. You cannot have faith because it is your duty any more than you can love because it is your duty. I only regret that I cannot be religious as naturally as I love you, but I cannot, though I try because you want me to. I want to believe that men do not grow old and become a burden to themselves and those around them; but I know differently, and while I hope that there will be a resurrection, I know that those who have gone away on the journey which begins with death send back no messenger, and that nothing is known of heaven except the declaration of pious people that they believe in it. I love to hear the laughter of children, but it does not convince me that all the world is in a laughing mood, and that there are no tears. No one can find fault with your religion except that they cannot believe in it. Everything in nature teaches us that we will return to dust, and that we will be resurrected only as dust by the idle winds. You don't mind that I speak freely?"
"No."
"I have tried all my life to convince myself that I possessed the spark of immortality, but my stubborn brain resists the attempt. All my reasoning convinces me that I live for the same reason that my horse exists. I am superior to the faithful animal only in intelligence, for in physical organization I am only an animal. When an animal dies, I see its body dwindle away until there is nothing left; it becomes dust again. Ihopethat I may share a different fate, but Ibelievethat I shall pass away in precisely the same manner. Understand me; I want to be religious, but I cannot be. There are some people—I suppose there are a great many, though I never knew but one personally—who ought to live forever; they are too rare to die. You are one of them, but I fear you will be lost to the world in the course of nature. You ought to be preserved for the good you can accomplish by playing the organ. I never believe in heaven so much as when I am in the back pews listening to your music. There is more religion in the old organ when you are at the keyboard than in all the people who listen to it put together; and I sometimes think that those who write the music and the songs are inspired, though when you know them, their personal characters do not encourage that impression."
She put her hand to his mouth as if to stop him, but he pushed it away with a laugh, and continued,—
"Let me finish, that you may know what I really am, and then I will never mention the subject again. But don't think me worse than other men for my unbelief; they nearly all think as I do, though only the bad ones say so. All good men rejoice that there is a pleasing hope in religion, and encourage it all they can, but only a few of them have your faith."
"All be well yet, Allan," the wife answered. "You have promised to try and get rid of your unbelief, and I know that you will be honest in it. The Master whom I serve next to you—I fear I am becoming very wicked myself, for you are more to me than everything else—"
"There it is again," Dorris said, looking at her, half laughing. "That expression wasn't studied, I know, but it pleases me greatly. You are always at it, though you have a right to now."
"He is more considerate than any of us imagine, and if He knows you did not believe, He will also know that you could not, and did not intend any disrespect."
"There is something in that," he answered. "I loved you before I knew you, though I did not believe you existed."
"But youdidfind me. Is it not possible that you will find Him, though you do not believe He exists?"
"That is worth thinking about. The next time I take a long ride into the country I will think it over, if I can get you out of my mind long enough. One thing, however, is certain; I want to follow you, wherever that leads me. Let me add, too, that in what I have said I intend no disrespect. It would be impudent in me, a single pebble in the sands surrounding the shores of eternity, to speak ill of a faith which is held by so many thousands of intelligent and worthy people. I speak freely to you, as my wife, my confidant, that you may know what I am."
"But you are leading, Allan, and I am following," she said. "You are kind enough to believe that my future is assured, but it is not unless you are saved. You can save both of us by saving yourself. If we were at the judgment now, and you should be cast out, I would follow you. I might be of some use to you even there."
"That's horrible to think about," he replied, rising to his feet; "but it pleases me. Anyway, little woman, we get along delightfully here; I hope we will always be as well off as we are now. If the next world affords me as much pleasure as this one has during the past three months, I shall be more than satisfied. It is said that a man is very happy when he is in love, and I am growing more in love with my wife every day. I suppose it is because I never was in love before. I have had extensive experience in everything else; I know a little of everything else. This may be the reason why my honeymoon lasts so long."
"When I met you that afternoon, out in the hills," she answered, "you were such an expert at love-making that I was at first afraid of you. If ever man made a desperate, cunning love to a woman, you made it to me; but I soon got over my timidity, and knew you were only desperately in earnest, which made me love you until I went mad. I had nothing to give you but myself, and that I gave so readily that I sometimes fear—when you are away from me; I never think of it at any other time—that you accuse me for it."
"It so happened," he answered, "that you did exactly what I wanted you to do, though I am not surprised at it now, since discovering how naturally you do a hundred things a day to please me. Accuse you?"
He laughed good-naturedly at the thought.
"Instead of that, it is the boast of my life that my sweetheart, my vision which came true, had so much confidence in me that she placed herself in my keeping without conditions or promises. You are the hope I have had all my life; you are the heaven I have coveted; and don't suppose that I find fault because the realization is better than the dream. When you go to heaven, and find that it is a better place than you imagined, you will not accuse the Master of a lack of propriety because he is more forgiving of your faults than you expected; nor do I. Dismiss that thought forever, to oblige me, and believe, instead, that your single fault turned out to be my greatest blessing. If I made desperate love to you up in the hills, it was natural, for I had no previous experience. I cannot remember that I ever was a young man; I was first a child, and then a man with grave responsibilities. But the fancy I told you about—the Maid of Air—I always loved it until I found you."
Putting her arm through his, they walked toward the town, and the shadow emerged from a clump of bushes within a few feet of where they had been sitting. The married lovers walked on, unconscious of the presence; and occasionally the laugh of Mrs. Dorris came to the shadow on the wind, which caused it to listen anxiously, and creep on after them again.
In turning out of the path that led up into the hills, and coming into the road, Dorris and his wife met Tug and Silas, who were loitering about, as usual; Tug in front, carrying the gun, and Silas lagging behind.
"What now?" Dorris said good-naturedly, on coming up with them. "What are you up to to-night?"
"On a Wednesday night," Tug replied, putting the stock of the gun on the ground, and turning his head to one side to get a square sight at the woman, "the woods are full of rabbits. We are out looking for them."
"Why on Wednesday night?"
Tug removed his gaze from Mrs. Dorris to Silas.
"When do we find our game?" he inquired.
"On Wednesday; at night," the little man answered meekly.
"I don't know how it is, myself," Tug continued, this time taking a shot at Dorris; "but Wednesday it is. You are both looking mighty well."
They thanked him for his politeness, and added that they were feeling well.
"They didn't think much of you when you came," he said, pointing a finger at Dorris, which looked like a pistol, "but they have changed their minds. Even Reverend Wilton says you will do; it's the first kind word he ever said of anybody. It came out—Silas, how did it come out?"
"Like a tooth," Silas answered, who had been standing by with his hands in his pockets.
"Like abacktooth, you told me. Come now, didn't you say a back tooth?"
Silas muttered something which was accepted as an acknowledgment, and Tug went on,—
"Why didn't you say so, then? Why do you want to put it on me in the presence of the lady? But Reverend Wilton never said anything bad about you, or anybody else; he's too lazy for that. I only wonder that he didn't drop over from exhaustion when he said you'd do. Well, I should say youwoulddo; eh, pretty girl?"
Annie Dorris made no other answer than to cling closer to her husband, and Tug regarded them with apparent pleasure.
"And there's Uncle Ponsonboy. Silas, what does Uncle Ponsonboy say?"
"He says that Mr. Dorris is a man of promise," Davy answered.
"Oh,doeshe? Well, he's not the kind of a man of promise, Uncle Ponsonboy is, who has been promising to distinguish himself for forty years. Old Albert reminds me of a nephew of my wife's. I supported him four years in idleness, but he was always boasting that he was able to take care of himself, and thatheasked favors of nobody. He used to fill up on my bread and meat, and lounge in front of my fire, and declare that he never knew solid content until he began to make his own living, although he did nothing except to write to his folks, and say that they needn't worry about him,—hewas able to take care of himself. But the old lady holds out against you."
Tug swallowed a laugh with a great effort, apparently locking it up with a spring lock, for there was a click in his throat as he took aim at Dorris again and continued, but not before his scalp had returned to its place after crawling over on his forehead to look at the smile,—
"I am glad of that, though. The old lady and I never agree on anything. I like the devil because she hates him. I shall be quite content in purg if she fails to like it."
Allan Dorris looked puzzled for a moment.
"Oh, purgatory," he said, finishing the abbreviation, and turning to his wife, who laughed at the idea, "we were talking about that just before you came up."
"Neither of you need worry aboutthat," Tug said. "Youare all right. I am the devil's partner, and I know. But if youshouldhappen down there by any mischance, I will give you the best accommodations the place affords. If there is an ice-box there, you shall have a room in it; but no ice-water for the old lady. I insist on that condition."
They were very much amused at his odd talk, and promised that his instructions should be obeyed in case they became his guests.
"But why are you the devil's partner?" Dorris asked.
"He must have assistants, of course," Tug replied, "and I shall make application to enter his service as soon as I arrive. I want to get even with Uncle Ponsonboy."
Tug locked up a laugh again with a sharp click of the lock, and his scalp hurried back to its place on learning that it was a false alarm.
"I want to get a note from him to this effect: 'Dear Tug: For the sake of old acquaintance, send me a drop of water.' Whereupon I will take my iron pen in hand, and reply: 'Uncle Ponsonboy: Drink your tears.' Then I will instruct one of my devilish assistants to lock him up, and never let him see the cheerful light of the fires again. As the door closes, I will say to him, as I now say to you,—Good-night."
Tug and Silas walked toward the hills, and Dorris and his wife toward the town, but the shadow no longer followed them; it had disappeared.
In case the shadow came back that night to prowl around The Locks, and peer in at the windows, it found a determined-looking man on guard, carrying a wicked-looking gun.
Had the eyes of the shadow followed the feet of the man, it would have noted that they walked around the stone wall at regular intervals, and that they stopped occasionally, as if listening; it would have seen them strolling leisurely away at the first approach of dawn, carrying the gun and Tug's burly body with them.
The rain had been falling at intervals for weeks, and the sluggish river, which usually crawled at the foot of the town in quiet submission, had become a dangerous torrent. Long since out of its banks, its waters poured through the bottoms with an angry roar, and at night those who gathered on the brink in the town to mark its steady rising could hear cries of distress from the heavy timber, the firing of guns, and other alarms.
For two days parties had been out with boats of every description, rescuing those who believed that the waters would soon go down, and remained until escape was impossible, imprisoned in the upper rooms of their houses; and each returning party brought the most distressing news yet heard of the havoc wrought by the flood. Reaching from hill to hill, the angry waters ploughed up fair fields like heavy shot fired in battle, and crept into pretty homes to destroy in a night the work of years, wresting treasures from their fastenings with remorseless fury, and hurrying away with them like living thieves.
The citizens of Davy's Bend feared that the sun had been drowned by the flood in the heavens, as the people were being drowned by the flood in the bottoms, for its kindly face had not appeared in two weeks. The roads and lanes in the country, highways no longer, were abandoned to the rain and the mist, for no travellers ventured upon them, and if the town had been dull before, it was now doubly so, giving the people abundance of time in which to recount their miseries. Men who ventured out in wagons told wonderful tales, on their return, of the reign of the waters, for insignificant streams which had long been regarded with familiar contempt had become dangerous rivers, roaring and crashing through fruitful fields in mad haste to join the floods. Great lakes occupied the low places for so many days that the people feared the land itself had floated away, leaving caverns in the place of their fields, and there was distress in the country as well as in the town. Rude boats to ply upon the newly arrived waters were hastily constructed by men who did not know how to use them, never having lived near a navigable stream, but there seemed a chance for them to learn, for the waters increased steadily every hour.
As they lay in their beds at night, if they wakened and found that the rain had ceased, the people of the town hoped that the end had come at last, and that the waters would soon subside, but before they had framed their congratulations, the gentle patter of the rain was heard on their roofs once more, which continued through the long night, ceasing only occasionally, that the cries of distress and the alarms from the bottom might be heard, whereupon the rain commenced again with joyful vigor, sure that its fury was not without result.
The rocky hills above and below the town were oozy and wet; and those who roamed about heard great splashes in the water, and knew that portions of the bluff were tumbling into the river, as if tired of being steady and reliable while everything else was failing, and anxious to join the tide and aid in the general destruction, as well as to get away from a place which seemed so unfortunate.
The mild river, patient and uncomplaining so long, was master now, and it roared like a monster proud of its conquest, and declaring its intention to be wicked and fierce forever. The observers could not understand, so great was the awful flood, how the waters could ever subside, for surely all the lower country must have been flooded days before, and even those who lived in the hills were filled with grave apprehensions.
Every morning the simple registers, which the people put up along the creeks and sloughs, showed an alarming rise, and they feared that if the rain continued the earth itself would become liquid at last, and resolve itself into a vast sea without shores.
No one knew how the news came, but there seemed to be whispers in the air that in the upper country the flood was even worse than at Davy's Bend, which added to the general apprehension, and many believed that the rainbow was about to prove faithless at last. Houses of a pattern barely familiar to the people occasionally floated past the town in the current, and in one of them rode a man who refused to leave his property when the relief boats put off to him; for he said that he came from hundreds of miles above, and that since the world seemed to be turning into water, he preferred his strange craft to the crumbling hills. As he floated away, stark mad from excitement, fear, and hunger, he called back to the men to follow if they valued their lives; for a wave twenty feet high was coming down the river, carrying the towns along the bluffs with it.
Bridges which had been built across gullies in the highlands were seen hurrying by every hour, and it seemed that the hill on which Davy's Bend was built would shortly tremble, and start slowly down the river, at last gratifying the ambition of the people to get away.
Among those distressed by the unfortunate condition of those living in the bottoms were Allan Dorris and his wife, safe in their home above the town. The people seemed so fearful that the rain would never cease that they neglected to get sick, and Dr. Dorris would have greatly enjoyed the uninterrupted days he was permitted to spend with his pretty wife but for the distress around him.
The dripping from the eaves of The Locks at night—he thought of it again—reminded him of the dripping from the coffin of a body packed in ice, which he was commissioned to watch, and long before day he left his bed and walked the floor. His wife soon joined him, and they looked out of the window at the blank darkness.
"How it reminds me of the first night I came here," he said. "But what a different man I am! Then I cursed my existence, and was so disturbed in mind that night was a season of terror. I dreaded its approach as heartily then as I now hail it as a season of repose, and every day I have new reason to rejoice that I am alive. What a fortunate fellow I am! I can sleep nine hours out of every night, and arise every morning entirely refreshed, not a day older. I am content now to lie down at night, and let the world wag, or quarrel, or do whatever it likes, for the only part of it I care for is beside me. Sometimes I waken, and forget you for a moment, when I wonder how I ever induced such sound sleep to come to my eyes; but when I remember it all, I feel like cheering, and go off into dreamland again with the comfort of a healthy child. It is a wonderful change, and you are responsible for it all; you have made one man entirely happy, if you have accomplished nothing else."
As they stood by the window, he had his arms around her, and when she looked up at him he kissed her tenderly on the forehead.
"Our marriage has brought no more happiness to you than it has to me," she answered. "Since you became my husband, I have known only content and gladness, except when I become childish and fear you are surrounded by some grave danger. If I could charge you with a wish I could think of nothing to ask."
"Who would harm me? Who would dare?" he asked.
His wife thought to herself, as she looked at him, that it would be a dangerous undertaking to attempt to do him an injury. There were few men his equal in physical strength, and he could hold her out at arm's length.
"Danger is a game that two can play at," he said, and there was a frown on his face so fierce as to indicate that some one who was his enemy had come into his mind. "I have seen the day when I would have allowed almost any one the privilege of taking my life, if it would have afforded them pleasure, but let them keep out of my way now! The tiger fighting for her whelps would not be fiercer than I, if attacked. I have more to live for than any other man in the world, and I would fight, not only with desperation, but with skill and wickedness. If any one wants my life, let him see that he does not lose his own in attempting to take it."
Allan Dorris had been oppressed with a vague fear ever since his marriage that his long period of rest meant a calamity at last, though he had always tried to argue the notion out of his wife's mind. He had often felt that he was watched, though he had seen nothing, heard nothing, to warrant this belief. He could not explain it to himself; but frequently while walking about the town he turned his head in quick alarm, and looked about as if expecting an attack. Once he felt so ill at ease at night, so thoroughly convinced that something was wrong, that he left his wife quietly sleeping, and crawled under the trees in The Locks' yard for an hour, with a loaded pistol in his hand. But he had seen nothing, heard nothing, and his own actions were so much like the presence he half expected to find, that he was ashamed of them, and laughed at his fears.
But the dark night and the cheerless rain brought the old dread into his mind, and he said to his wife,—
"We are all surrounded by danger, though I am as exempt from it as other men, but if I should meet with an accident some time—I take many long rides at night, and I have often been in places when a single misstep of my horse would have resulted in death—I want you to know that your husband was an honorable man. I have my faults, and I have regrets; but as the world goes I am an honest man. Your love for me, which is as pure and good as it can be, has had as much warrant as other wives have for their love. It was never intended that a perfect man or woman should exist on this earth, as a reproach to all the other inhabitants, and I have my faults; but I have as clear a conscience as it was intended that the average man should have."
"I am sure of that," his wife answered. "You always impress me as being a fair man, and this was one reason why I forget myself in loving you. I did not believe you would be unjust to anyone; surely not to one you loved."
"I believe I am entitled to the compliment you pay me," he replied. "I know myself so well that a compliment which I do not deserve does not please me; but I deserve the good opinion you have just expressed. I have known people whose inclinations were usually right; but mine were usually wrong—either that, or I have been so situated that, by reason of hasty conclusions, duty has always been a task; but notwithstanding this I have always tried to be honest and fair in everything. It sometimes happens that a man is so situated that if he would be just to himself he must be unjust to others. I may have been in that situation, and there may be those who believe that I have wronged them; but I am sure that an honest judge would acquit me of blame. I have often wanted to tell you my brief and unimportant history; but you have preferred not to hear it. While I admire you for this exhibition of trust in me, I have often wondered that your woman's curiosity did not covet the secret."
"It is not a secret since you offer to tell it to me," she replied. "But I prefer not to know it now. You once said to me that every life has its sorrow; mine is the belief that I know what your history is; but I prefer to hope that I am wrong rather than know my conjecture is right."
He looked at her with incredulity, and was about to inquire what she knew, when she continued:
"You never speak to me that I do not get a scrap of your past history; I read you as easily as I read a book. But I knew it when I became your wife, and I think less of it now than ever; you are so kind to me that I think I shall forget it altogether in time. It is scarcely a sorrow; rather a regret, as I regret during my present happy life that I am growing old. Sometimes I think I love you all the more because of your misfortune, though I never think of it when I am with you; it is only when I am alone that it occupies my mind."
"You are sure that you have not made it worse than it is?"
"Quite sure."
"Who was in the right?"
"You were."
"That much is true, anyway," he answered, looking out at the torrent in the river, which the approaching daylight now made visible. "I formerly had a habit of talking in my sleep; you may have learned something in that way."
"A great deal," she replied. "I learned your name."
For the first time since she had known him he seemed confused, and there was a flush of mortification in his face. He picked up a scrap of paper and pencil which were lying on a table near them, and handing them to her, said,—
"Write it."
Without the slightest hesitation, she wrote quickly on the paper, and handed it back to him. He looked at it with a queer smile, tore up the scrap, and said,—
"That would have come out in the story you refused to hear. I have never deceived you in anything."
"Except in this," she answered, putting her arms around him. "You are a much better man than I believed you were when we were first acquainted; you have deceived me in that. My married life could not be happier than it is."
"I do not take much credit to myself that we are content as husband and wife," he replied. "I think the fact that we are mated has a great deal to do with it. There are a great many worthy people—for the world is full of good women, if not of good men—who live in the greatest wretchedness; who are as unhappy in their married relations as we are happy. I have known excellent men married to excellent wives, who are wretched, as I have known two excellent men to fail as partners in business. You and I were fortunate in our alliance. It often occurs to me that Mrs. Armsby should have had a better husband, poor woman. How many brave, capable men there are in the world who would rejoice in the possession of such a wife; worthy, honest men who made a mistake only in marrying the wrong woman, and who will die believing there is nothing in the world worth living for, as I believed before I met you. Everyone who is out in the world a great deal knows such men, and pities them, as I do; for when I contrast my past with my present, I regret that others, more deserving than I, cannot enjoy the contentment which love brings. You and I are not phenomenal people in any respect, but we are man and wife in the fullest sense of the term; and others might enjoy the peace we enjoy were they equally fortunate in their love affairs. It is a grand old world for you and I, and those like us, but it is a hell for those who have been coaxed into unsuitable marriages by the devil."
"There is as much bitterness in your voice now as there was when you said to me in the church that you were going away never to come back," his wife said, looking at him with keen apprehension.
"I am a different man now to what I was then," he replied, with his old good-nature. "Have you never remarked it?"
"Often; every time I hear you speak."
"I find that there are splendid people even in Davy's Bend, and I imagine that when the mind is not tortured they may be found anywhere. In my visits to the homes of Davy's Bend, I hear it said in every quarter that surely the neighbors are the best people in the world, and their kindness in sickness and death cause me to believe that as a rule the people are very good, unless you chain two antagonistic spirits together, and demand that they be content. I know so much of the weakness of my race—because it happens to be my business—that I wonder they are as industrious and honorable as I find them. This never occurred to me before, and I think it is evidence that I am a changed man; that I am more charitable than I ever was before, and better."
They both looked out the window in silence again. A misty morning, threatening rain, and the river before them like a sea.
"I must do something to help those who are imprisoned in their homes by the flood," Allan Dorris said, as if a sight of the river had suggested it to him. "I will go down where boats are to be had presently, and row over into the timber. Do you see that line of trees?"
Below the town, in the river bend, a long line of trees made out into the channel, which were on dry land in ordinary times, but the point was covered now, for the flood occupied the bottom from bluff to bluff. He pointed this out, and when his wife saw the place he referred to, she nodded her head.
"My boat will be carried down the stream by the strong current, and I will probably enter the timber there. I will wave my good-by to you from that point."
He went out soon after to prepare for the trip, and during his absence his wife hurriedly prepared his breakfast; and when he came back he wore coat and boots of rubber.
"What a wonderful housekeeper you are," he said, as he sat down to the table. "No difference what I crave, you supply it before I have time to worry because of the lack of it. But it is so in everything; I never want to do a thing but that I find you are of the same mind. It is very easy to spoil a boy, but I think the girls are naturally so good that they turn out well without much attention. You had no mother to teach you, but you took charge of my house with as much good grace and ease as though you had been driven to it all your life. I think a great deal more of your sex because of my acquaintance with you. If my wife is not the most wonderful woman in the world, I shall never know it."
"I am almost ashamed to say it after your kind remark," his wife replied, "but I am afraid I do not want you to go over into the bottoms. The thought of it fills me with dread, though I know you ought to go."
"And why not?" he said cheerfully. "I may be able to rescue some unfortunate over there, and there is nothing dangerous in the journey. I shall return before the night comes on,—no fear of that; but before I go I want to tell you again how much my marriage with you has done for me. I want you to keep it in your mind while I am away, that you may understand why I am glad to return. Until I came here and met you, I was as discontented as a man could possibly be, and I am very grateful to you. A life of toil and misery was my lot until you came to my rescue, and I thank you for your kindness to me. It occurred to me while I was out of the room just now, that the shadow under the trees is very much like the shadow I intended to penetrate when you came to me that dark night and blessed me. Once you came into the room where I was lying down, after returning from the country, though I was not asleep as you supposed. The gentle manner in which you touched my forehead with your lips; that was love—I have thought about it a thousand times since, and been thankful. The human body I despise, because of my familiarity with it; but such a love as yours is divine. I only regret that it is not more general. Love is the only thing in life worth having; if a man who lacks it is not discontented, he is like an idiot who is always laughing, not realizing his condition. Some people I have known suggested depravity by their general appearance; you think of your own faults from looking at them, and feel ashamed; but it makes me ambitious to look at you, and every day since I have known you I have been a better man than I was the day before."
He had finished his repast by this time, and they walked out to the front door together, arm in arm, like lovers.
"I have heard it said," he continued, as he tied up his rubber boots and made final preparations for starting, "that if a wife is too good to her husband, he will finally come to dislike her.Youare too good to me, I suppose, but it never occurs to me to dislike you for it; on the contrary, it causes me to resolve to be worthy of your thoughtfulness. It will do me good to go into the shadow for a day; I will appreciate the sunshine all the more when I return. But if I should not return—if an accident should happen to me, which is always possible anywhere—my last thought would be thankfulness for the happiness of the past three months."
"But you do not anticipate danger?" she said, grasping his arm, as if to lead him back into the house.
"There is no danger," he replied. "Even if my boat should fail me, I could swim back to you from the farthest point, for I love you so much. You have never seen my reserve strength in action; if a possibility of being separated from you should present itself, I imagine I should greatly surprise my enemies. Never fear; I shall come back in good time. I believe that should I get killed, my body would float against the current and hug the bank at the point nearest The Locks."
He kissed her quickly and hurried away, and his form was soon lost in the bend of the street.
How dark it was under the trees! The increasing dull daylight brightened everything save the darkness under the trees; nothing could relieve that. What if he should go into it never to return, as he had intended the night they were married! No, no, no; she wrung her hands at that thought, and ran towards the door, as if intending to pursue him and bring him back before he could enter it. But Allan was strong and trusty, and he would come back to laugh at her childish fears as she took his dripping garments at the close of the day, and listened to an account of his adventures,—no fear of that.
A half hour later she saw a boat with a single rower put out from the town, and make slow headway against the strong current to the other shore. Was he going alone? It was not dangerous; she persuaded herself of that, but she thought it must be very lonesome rowing about in such a flood; and he should not go out again, for he would do anything she wished, and she would ask it as a favor.
Why had she neglected to think of this, and ask him to go with others? But it was too late now, for the rower soon reached the line of trees he had pointed out to her from the window, waved his white handkerchief, which looked like a signal of danger, and disappeared into the shadow.
The first rays of the bad morning, as it looked in at Mr. Whittle's window, found that worthy busily engaged in cleaning and scouring his gun. It was not yet his bedtime, for of late he spent all of every night, instead of part of it, in prowling about—bent on mischief,hesaid, but Silas Davy knew that Tug had a fierce desire to protect Allan Dorris, for whom he had taken such a strange fancy, from harm; and that night after night, whether the weather was good or bad, his friend kept watch around The Locks, carrying his gun in readiness for instant use. Silas usually kept him company until he became sleepy, and knew that he must return in order to keep awake and attend to his work the next day; but Tug, who slept during the day, seldom deserted his post. He may have left his beat occasionally for an hour or two, but only to creep carefully up into the hills back of the house, where he crouched and listened beside the paths, and then crept back again.
A good many times he walked down to the hotel, always choosing an hour when he knew Silas would be alone in the kitchen, on which occasions he never failed to take a shot with his eyes up the alleys, and into all the dark places; but he did not remain long, so that almost every night, when Silas went to bed, he had the satisfaction of knowing that if the shadow should attempt to harm Allan Dorris, there would be an explosion loud enough to alarm the town.
Silas, who had been out on the bottoms the day before, came in late in the evening, and, throwing himself on the bed, he slept so soundly that when Tug appeared, late in the morning, from one of his vagrant tramps, he was not aroused. And there he lay now, in his clothes, sound asleep, his face as innocent as a child's, as his mind was.
As Tug scoured away on the gun, rubbing off the rust and dirt, he occasionally looked at Silas, and the thought no doubt occurred to him, that if there ever was a thoroughly unselfish, incapable, kind-hearted fellow, there he was, on the bed, asleep, and resting well.
"He'll soon be awake, though," Tug said aloud, looking up at the window, and noting the increasing light. "He can't sleep when it's light enough for him to work. He has been driven to it by his hard masters until he knows nothing else, and he has a habit of getting up at daylight which he can never overcome. Silas was ruined by too much work; I was ruined by too little of it, I suppose. Anyway, I'm ruined; nobody disputes that. I am so ornery that I am becoming ashamed of myself."
Mr. Whittle meditated a moment, and then putting down his gun he walked over to a piece of looking-glass, which was tacked against the wall, and took a long look at himself. The inspection was apparently unsatisfactory, for he shook his fist at the reflection, made a face at it, and muttered ill-humoredly as he walked back to his chair.
"If Davy didn't forget so easy," Mr. Whittle said aloud again, rubbing away on the gun-barrel, "what a fine man he would be! If he could make money as easily as he is good-natured, he would be a fine fellow; but they say he works to no purpose, and must have somebody to watch him, though he means well,—everybody says that. If Davy should be told to turn a crank, he would do it better than anybody, and keep at it longer; but the men who make money not only work hard, but use judgment, and Davy lacks judgment, poor fellow; they all say that. If the hotel should ketch afire he wouldn't put it out unless somebody told him to; he wouldn't think of it. But he means as well as any man in America; I can cheerfully say that for him. An ordinary man never opens his mouth without saying something mean; but if ever I heard Davy say a mean thing, or knew him to do a mean thing, may I become a preacher. Well, the talents must be divided, I suppose; for no person seems to combine any two of them.Iknow enough, but somebody else has the honesty, the industry, the decency, etc., which I lack. Unfortunately, it does not follow that a sensible man is a square man or a good man. I'd rather trust a fool for honesty than a man with a big head, any day. The worst crimes I have ever heard of were the work of men cursed with more brains than conscience. I thought he couldn't sleep long after the sun was up."
Looking over at his sleeping partner, he saw that he was becoming uneasy, and soon he sat up on the edge of the bed, and looked around in bewilderment as he rubbed his eyes.
"Well, rogue, how do you feel?" Tug inquired, stopping his scouring.
"What time is it?" Davy inquired, with a show of excitement, and getting on his feet without answering the question.
"I should say it was five o'clock, Wednesday morning," Tug replied, looking out at the window, and then back at his companion, as if wondering at his nervousness. "Why?"
"I meant to remain awake to tell you of it last night," Silas replied hurriedly; "but I was so tired, from rowing all day, that I dropped off to sleep soon after I came in. I have seen the shadow!"
Tug sprang up from the low chair in which he had been sitting, and began to nervously fumble through his pockets, as if looking for ammunition.
"I was out in the bottoms with Armsby, yesterday," Davy continued, "and twice we passed a man rowing about alone. We were not very close to him, but I am sure it was the shadow, and that he meant mischief. Each time when we encountered him he rowed away rapidly, and when Armsby hailed him he paid no attention."
Tug was much concerned over this news, for, after finding his ammunition, he went to loading his gun with great vigor.
"Could you see his short ear?" he stopped to inquire, after ramming down a great quantity of powder.
"No, his left side was from me, but I am sure it was the same man. And I am sure that the boat in which he rowed was the same one you took the little woman out of. I hurried here as fast as I could to tell you, but when I lay down on the bed to wait for you, I fell asleep. Armsby made me row all day while he kept a look-out for ducks. I am sorry I fell asleep."
Silas rubbed his sore arms, and looked very meek, but Tug was too busy making arrangements to go out to notice him.
"The impudence of the scoundrel," he said, as he poured in the shot. "I never thought to look for him in daylight. Which way did he go?"
Tug peered into the tube of the gun with his big eye, before capping it, as if expecting to find his enemy crouching down in the powder, but finding that the powder primed, he put on a cap, and stood ready to go out.
"Into the woods," Silas answered. "When we first met him, he was rowing toward town, but on seeing us he turned the other way. That was about noon, and just before night we saw him again, coming toward town as before, but he pulled off to the right when he met us, and disappeared under the trees. I expected you in every moment when I fell asleep, or I would have gone up to The Locks, and told Allan Dorris. We ought to tell him about this man, Tug. His appearance here so regularly means trouble. Within a year we have seen him a dozen times, and each time he has been lurking around Allan Dorris. We really ought to do something."
In the emergency Silas did what he had done a hundred times in other emergencies—he said that something should be done, and folded his hands.
"Ain't Itryingto do something?" his companion answered testily. "Haven't I tried my best to shoot him? What more can I do? But he has only been here seven times. Here is the record."
He handed the gun over to Silas, who saw for the first time that there were seven notches cut in the stock, the particularly long one representing the time that Tug had shot at the shadow, and missed.
The men had talked of warning Dorris a great many times before, but Tug had always argued that it was unnecessary; that it would only render him nervous and suspicious, whereas he was now contented, and very useful to the townspeople and his young wife. Silas had always been in favor of putting his friend on his guard against an enemy who seemed to come and go with the night, but Tug had stubbornly held out against it, and perhaps this was the reason he guarded The Locks so faithfully. Sometimes he would only hear a noise in the underbrush; at other times he saw a crouching figure, but before deciding to fire at it, it would disappear, but there was always something to convince him that his old enemy was still occasionally lurking about the town. A few times he had seen him openly, as has been narrated, but there was always something in the way of the accomplishment of the purpose nearest his heart; the only purpose of his life. He did not know himself why he had taken such an interest in Dorris, nor had he ever attempted to explain it to Silas, but he admired the man, and the only ambition he had ever acknowledged was connected with the safety of the person he admired, according to his own confession, next to Rum and Devilishness, for not even Davy out-ranked the owner of The Locks in Tug's callous heart. And Dorris himself was not more pleased when his wife was praised than was the rusty old lawyer, and at her suggestion he had worked whenever he could get it to do during the winter which had just passed; at copying, drawing legal papers, and at keeping books, for he was competent at any of these occupations. It is probable that had she asked him to go to work as a day laborer he would have consented, for she was kind to him in a great many ways, and often invited him to visit The Locks, when he appeared looking very much like a scarecrow, the result of his attempts at fixing up, and using his great eye, after arriving, to look around for refreshments, for he was always hungry. Being a noted character, when it became known that he had "reformed," and that he was patronized by the Dorrises, a great many others took pains to patronize him, and give him work of the kind he was willing to do, for he was still very particular in this respect. When at The Locks, if he threatened to drink too much, Mrs. Dorris took his glass and kept it, although her husband was usually in favor of "turning him on," as Tug expressed it, for he was very amusing when a little tipsy, and kept them in continued laughter by his dignified oddity.
"I will tell him to-day," Tug said, taking the gun into his own hands again. "He must not go into the bottoms unless accompanied by a party, and as he hasn't been over yet, he may take it into his head to go to-day. I will tell him in an hour; he won't be up before that time."
"Do you know, Tug," Silas said, "what I think of you?"
"Well, out with it. Let's have it."
"I think you are a better man than you pretend."
"It's a lie!" his companion replied fiercely, hitting the table a hard blow with his clenched fist. "It's a lie!"
"I have often thought it was very much to your credit that you took such an interest in a hunted man," Davy said, "who is shadowed by a cowardly enemy, but perhaps I am mistaken—I usually am; it's not important."
Tug hung his head in mortification at this suggestion, and for once in his life neglected to be indifferent and dignified at the same time, which was possible with him, if with no one else.
"Whoever accuses me of being a good man," he said finally, "wrongs me. When I made the discovery a good many years ago that I could never hope to become anything, I made up my mind to distinguish myself for shiftlessness. I despise a common man, therefore I am an uncommonly proficient loafer. I am better known in this town than some of your respectable men, and I don't have to work so hard. There are men here, and plenty of them, who have worked all their lives, and who have no more than I have, which is nothing. They expect that there is a great deal in the future for them, but I have sense enough to know there is nothing very great in the future for any of us, therefore I live as my fancy dictates. I am a natural-born vagrant; most of us are, but most of us do not say so. I despise five-cent respectability, therefore I am a dollar vagrant, and will pass for that anywhere. I had enough of good people when I was married to one of them; my wife was aGood Woman."
"I hope I haven't offended you," the meek little man said, looking at his fierce companion in alarm. "I didn't mean any disrespect."
"Oh, you needn't take it back," Tug retorted. "You've gone too far. It's all right; but let me tell you the truth for once in my life—I believe I never did before. I expect it will set me to coughing, but I will try it. My wife hasn't a relative in the world that I know of; certainly I never met any of them. The only objection I have to her is that she isGood. She is soGoodthat she is a bore; goodness is a fault, and a grave one with her. She couldn't possibly be more disagreeable than she is, and her fault is, she isGood. When there is a dry spell, she wants to get up a rain, and whether it rains or not, you are expected to give her credit for philanthropy. When it is too cold, she moans about the poor people who are suffering, and those who are around her must accept this as noble, or be called wicked, or heartless, or something else. She even has aGoodway of gossiping about people, and I despise her for no other reason than that she isGood. I can't tolerate her; she makes my feet cold."
Tug had uttered the wordgoodin each instance like an oath, and Davy cowered under his cold stare as though fearinghemight begood, and was about to be accused of it.
"Everything she does is right; everything you do is wrong,—there you have the old women in a mouthful," the outraged husband continued. "She is always jumping on you for not beingGood, and for your refusal to see goodness in her; and no one around her sees a moment's peace, for she badgers them to death for their neglect to rid the earth of sin, or some other trifling matter like that. She neglects herself in the most shameful manner to moan about Rampant Rum, or the Vitality of Vice, for I never saw her ears clean, and if ever you find her with clean finger-nails, look out for the pigs, for they will fly. If she is aGood Woman, then hurrah for the devil. The fat, the lean, the long, the short, the ugly;theygo into theGoodbusiness, for I never knew anyone who could attract attention in the ordinary way to engage in it, and when a woman becomes too fat for society, or too plain to be admired, she goes to yelling that she is better than anybody else, and wants everybody to behave, although they may be behaving all right already. The good-looking and amiable ones remain at home, where they belong, and I admire them for it. Had I been a rich man, the old women would have remained with me, and calledthatgood, but since I was a friendless devil, and a worthless vagabond, she left me, and calledthatgood; I hope she is the only woman of that kind in the world. Look how she treats little Ben! Does she act like a mother toward him? Don't I have to take all the care of him, and look after him, and attend to his bringing up? Is it common for mothers to neglect their own ragged children, and weep over fat and contented people? That's what she does; therefore, if you are a friend of mine, don't call meGood."
Silas was not taking as much interest in the recital as he would have done under other circumstances, for he was thinking of Allan Dorris; but Tug was determined to talk about the "old womern."
"When we were first married," he continued, "I told her some sort of a lie about myself; a simple sort of a yarn about nothing, and only intended to earn cheap glory for myself. In some way she found me out, for she is always poking her nose around smelling for sin; and, until I could stand it no longer and finally left her, she was continually asking me for additional particulars of the fictitious incident I had related. I say she found me out; I don't know it, but I always believed she did, and that she only asked these questions to hear me lie, and gloat over her own virtue. The story I told her was about saving a man's life, and as he afterwards came to Davy's Bend, and knew the old womern, I felt sure that she had found me out. After that she asked me a thousand questions about it, and every time I invented a new lie to go with the first one. Did she do this because she wasGood? You bet she didn't; she did it to convince herself that she wasGood, and that I wasBad; but I tell you that, average me up, I am as good as she is, and I am perfectly worthless."
Picking up a rickety chair which stood near him, Mr. Whittle smashed it to pieces on the floor, after a tremendous pounding and racket, which was one of his ways of expressing anger.
Silas was very much impressed by this ferocious proceeding, and looked on in meek astonishment until his companion was seated again.
"Isn't it time for you to go to The Locks?" he asked.
"Sure enough," Tug said. "I am going up there this morning. I'll go now."
Without further words, he picked up his gun, and started out, going over the hills to avoid the frequented streets. He had made up his mind to make a full breast of the story, so he walked along leisurely, thinking that he had a genuine surprise in store for his friend.
Arriving at The Locks' gate, he blew the whistle, which was always looking out into Dorris' room like an eye, and waited for an answer. It came soon after; the cheerful voice of Annie Dorris, inquiring what was wanted.
"It's me,—Tug," he answered, "I want to see Dr. Dorris."
"He left an hour ago, to go over into the bottoms," was the reply. "Anything urgent?"
"Oh, no," the man replied, as he swallowed a great lump which came up into his throat. "Nothing urgent; I only wanted him to pull a tooth."
With long strides at first, Tug started for the river, but after he was out of sight from The Locks, he ran like a man pursued, and arriving at the place where the ferry was tied up, making steam for the day's work, he seized the first boat within his reach, and pushed off into the stream. The owner of it called to him to come back, as he wanted the boat himself; but Tug paid no attention, except to row the harder, and soon disappeared under the trees.