REACHING the depot in the edge of the town where there were only three or four cottages, a hotel of the lowest class, and a negro dive masquerading as a restaurant, at which fried spring chicken, hot biscuits, and a cup of coffee were advertised on a crude placard for twenty-five cents, he met few signs of wakefulness. At a switch near a water-tank with a dripping spout a watchman stood with a dingy lantern. Walton moved over to him.
“South-bound freight on time?” he asked.
The man looked at him indifferently. “I heard her blow at the crossing,” he answered. “There! can't you hear her rumble?”
“Who's the conductor?”
“Jack Thomas, if he didn't lay over at Red Hill to spend Sunday with his folks.”
“I want to speak to him. Where will his cab stop?” The man had filled his short pipe, and he took the globe off his lantern to light it. “The engine will water here at the tank,” he said, gruffly. “The cab will stop down near the tool-house on account of the length of the train—a lot of empty fruit-cars going South.”
“All right; thank you.” Walton moved away, and leaned against a stack of cross-ties near the tool-house. He could now quite clearly hear the rumble of the coming train. There was a wide stretch of old cotton and corn fields, now barren and out of use, between him and the train, and across them presently shot the wavering gleam of the engine's headlight. On it came, growing larger and steadier till it had passed him, and with the harsh creaking of brakes on massive, groaning wheels the locomotive came to a stop. The side door of the caboose was open. A man holding a lantern lightly swung himself to the ground, and peered up at a brake-man on the roof of the car.
“Unwind her, and run to the other end!” he ordered. “You needn't hang around my cab all night. I haven't a drop to drink.”
“All right, Cap,” and, jumping from car to car on the foot-boards overhead, the brakeman disappeared in the cloud of steam and smoke which the locomotive was belching forth.
“Hello, Jack!” Walton came forward.
“Hello! Good Lord, Fred, what are you doing down here this time of night? I thought you fellows had a game on every Sunday. I was just wishing I had enough boodle ahead to lay over and walk away with some Stafford coin. I want to get even for the last hold-up you blacklegs gave me.”
“I'm dead broke, Jack, old man,” Walton said, avoiding the eyes of his friend. “I want to get to Atlanta before the morning train, and I wondered—”
“If I'd take you? Of course I will. I'm sorry to hear you are broke, though, for we might pass the time with a game. It's down-grade,” he laughed, impulsively; “we might turn old No. 12 over to the fireman, and get the engineer and brakeman to come in and try a round.”
“I wouldn't trust myself with three railroad men,” Walton tried to jest, “even if I hadn't sworn off.”
“What! again? Oh, thatisa joke!” Thomas laughed. “You Stafford chaps say you swear off, then practice night and day, and stick it to the first galoot that comes along. Oh, I am on!” There was a sound of rushing water from the tank ahead. In the dim light in the locomotive they could see the fireman on the tender astride of the swinging pipe.
“I'm glad you will take me along, Jack,” Walton replied. “I want to get to Atlanta, and haven't a cent on earth. The truth is, I am in bad shape.”
“I've heard you sing that song before,” the conductor replied, with an incredulous smile. He raised his lantern till the yellow light fell on Walton's face, and he stared in astonishment. “Why, really, youdolook kind o' bunged up. What's the matter, old chap?”
“I'm simply down and out, Jack, that's the sum and substance of it. I am down and out. When do you start?”
“In a minute. I've got to run clean round the train and examine my door-seals. Climb in. I'll swing on as we leave the yard. Make yourself comfortable. Huh! you are done for, eh? Thatisa joke!”
Climbing the iron step, Walton found himself in the caboose. It was dimly lighted by a lamp in a curved tin holder on the wall over a crude desk with pigeonholes. Here the conductor kept a pencil tied to a string, and some yellow blanks for reports and telegrams. There was a hard, smooth, backless bench near the door, and a narrow cot with wooden sides and ends. On an inverted box stood a tin pitcher, a wash-basin, and a cake of coarse yellow soap. On a hook hung a soiled towel; a pair of blue overalls, a white shirt, and a tattered raincoat were suspended at the sport of the wind and motion of the car on other hooks along the wall.
There was a harsh, snarling sound as the hinged water-pipe was drawn up on its chains; the clanging of a bell; the shriek of the locomotive's whistle; a quickening succession of jerks, communicated from bumper to bumper, and the train was off. Walton was glad to be alone with the desolate pain that clutched him now with renewed force. He wanted no human eye to witness his misery. Away off there, beyond the hills, in its shroud of mystic moonlight, lay the town he now loved with a yearning which all but tore his heart from his body. He was looking at the old place for the last time unless, unless—and his blood ran cold at the thought—unless he was brought back by the officers of the law to answer for his crime. Yes, that might be his fate, after all. A city so well policed as Atlanta would prove a poor hiding-place for a penniless fugitive. A telegram from Stafford would put the authorities on the alert, and escape would be impossible. And no sentimental reasons would check prompt action on the part of old Simon Walton. In his rage over the discovery of the unexpected loss of such a large amount of ever-needed cash, he would balk at nothing. Of family pride he had little—certainly not pride strong enough to make him a party to the concealment of crime, even in his own blood.
“If I have to be the daddy of a thief,” Fred imagined his saying, “I'd rather be the daddy of one under lock and key, where he could be controlled like any other sort of maniac.”
Yes, he must make good his escape, the young man reflected; there was no other way. Escape meant a chance, at least, for reformation and atonement, and he must reform—he must atone.
The train was rounding a curve. A sudden and deeper pain shot through him, for on a hill, in a grove not far off, he saw the roof, gables, windows, and walls of a country house he well knew. It was there, at a house-party, that he had been thrown for the first time with Margaret Dearing and had learned to love her. His eyes were blinded by tears he could not restrain as he tried to descry the exact spot among the trees where he and she had sat that glorious morning in early autumn.
“God have mercy!” He leaned against the side of the car and groaned. Even now she knew of his ruin. Her brother had already prepared her for the news, which would spread through the town like wild-fire. She knew, and her proud brow was burning under the shame of having trusted a coward and a knave to the extent of having had her name coupled with his. He stood in the centre of the car, swayed back and forth by its ruthless motion. Those merciless wheels, grinding so close beneath, would end it all. It would be an easy thing to swing himself under the car door till he was over the rail and then let go—let go!He shuddered, and turned cold from head to foot.
There was a thumping overhead as some one leaped from the roof of the car ahead to that of the caboose. There was a scraping of soles and heels on the tin covering, a step on the iron ladder by the door, and the conductor lunged into the car.
“Got on by the very skin of my teeth,” he said, with a merry oath. “We are on the down-grade, and we started quick. But why don't you take a seat?” He raised his lantern, and the rays fell full on Walton's pallid face. “Say, old man, are you as hard hit as all that?”
“It couldn't be harder, Jack,” Walton said. “I am at the end of my rope.”
“Well, I am sorry—I'm real sorry,” the conductor declared. “I'll tell you what to do. It's a tough ride to Atlanta, along with our stops and sidings and waits on through trains. There won't be a soul in the bunk to-night. Throw off your things and crawl in.”
“But that'syourbed,” Walton protested, thoughtful, even in his misery, of his friend's comfort.
“Not for to-night it isn't,” Thomas affirmed, as he hung up his lantern and drew a stool to the desk. “I've got to be up till daybreak. Crawl in, I tell you!” Walton sat down on the edge of the cot, a trembling hand went to his necktie. In the rays of the yellow light he looked as though he were about to faint.
“Hold on, wait!” Thomas chuckled. “I'll physic you all right.” He raised the top of his desk and drew out a flask of whiskey. “It is actually the smoothest article that ever slid down a human throat,” he laughed, as he shook the flask and extended it to his guest. “Take a pull at it, and you will have dreams of Paradise.”
“I don't care for it right now, Jack,” Walton returned. “I may ask for it later. Whiskey always keeps me awake.”
“Well, I've got to sit up,” the conductor said, “so here's looking at you. I've got the dandiest thirst that mortal ever owned. You've heard about the feller who told the prohibitionist that he didn't want to get rid of his. Well, I'm that way about mine. If a man went round paying for thirsts, he couldn't buy mine for all the money in the State. I've got it trained till it walks a chalk-line. I go without a drink sometimes for days at a time, just so she will get good and ripe and have a sort of clinging rasp on her. But no joking, old man, I don't like your looks. I've seen you kind of blue before, but I never saw you plumb flabbergasted like this. You say you are broke. I don't happen to have anything in my pocket right now, but I reckon I could draw a little pay in advance from our agent in Atlanta, and—”
“I don't want to borrow any money, Jack, thank you just the same,” Walton said. “When I get to Atlanta I'll look around and see what will turn up.” And, stifling a groan of despair, he sank back on the cot.
“All right, old man,” the conductor responded. “Now, go to sleep. You need rest.” He turned the wick of the lamp down and pushed his lantern into a corner, so that its light would not fall on the face of his guest. Then he slid the bench to the open door, lighted his pipe, and fell into a revery.
THE cot was hard and narrow, and it had sides of unpadded boards. For hours Fred lay pretending to be asleep, that he might shirk the sheer torture of conversation with his friend. Through partly closed eyelids he watched the railroad man as he sat in the doorway looking out at the rapidly shifting night view. When a station was reached the conductor would spring up, and with his lantern swinging in his hand he would descend to the ground and wave his light or call out an order to a switchman or the man at the brakes. Then the creaking, mechanical reptile would crawl along and speed away again. Several times the miserable passenger dozed off into most delectable dreams. In them he was always with Margaret in some fragrant spot among flowers, by flowing streams, and in wondrous sunshine. Once he saw General Sylvester and his grim old father in congenial converse together, while he and Margaret stood hand in hand near by, and then his beautiful, haughty sweetheart put her arms about the grizzled neck of the man who had never known affection and kissed him. But she was fading away, as was the erect old soldier, and the dreamer found himself before his father at the old man's desk in the bank. And now Simon Walton's face was dark as night. A ledger lay open before him. “Five thousand dollars of my hard-earned money!” the old man shrieked. “And you deliberately stole it from my vault! Thief! Thief! Thief!” Simon's lips continued to move, but no sound save a dismal, mechanical rumbling issued. There was a long scream of the steam-whistle, a thunderous bumping of cars one against another, the rasping rattle of brake-chains, a glare of yellow light, and Fred saw Thomas standing over him, his lantern's rays thrown downward.
“In the yard at last, old chap,” the conductor said, as he took his lantern apart and blew out the flame, “but don't you get up. You haven't had enough sleep, and it is only five o'clock. You didn't rest well in that blamed bunk. You kept rolling and jabbering in your sleep. I've got to run up-town, but the cab will stand right here on the side-track all day, and you can leave it whenever you like. I'll be about the general freight-office till noon, and if you want me, look me up.”
“All right. You are mighty good, Jack,” the wanderer said, appalled and stupefied by his sudden awakening to the grim reality of his condition.
When the conductor had left, and unable, through sheer mental agony, to go back to sleep, Walton crawled out of the bunk and stood up. His legs, arms, and neck were stiff, and twinges of pain darted through his muscles as he moved. Standing in the open door, he looked out over the vast stretch of railway tracks. The gray light of dawn shrouded everything. Over the tops of cars, heaps of old scrap-iron, blinking vari-colored signal-lights, and bridges which spanned the tracks he saw the spectre-like outlines of the State Capitol's drab dome, and farther to the left the tall office-buildings in the centre of the city.
Just then a man came round the end of the car, and, with a start of surprise, recognized him. It was a railway mail-carrier who had once lived at Stafford. “Why, hello, Fred!” he cried, rubbing his eyes, for he had just risen from his bed. “What are you doing down this way at break of day?”
Walton hesitated; a tinge of color came into his pale face.
“Ran down for a trip with Jack Thomas,” he answered; “this is his cab.”
“Oh yes—I see. WhereisJack?”
“Had to go up-town.”
“You haven't had your breakfast yet, I'll bet. Come on and take a snack with me. There is a good all-night eating-house up by the Viaduct.”
“Thanks, I've got to hang around here for a while.”
“Well, so long!” the man said, with a backward look of perplexity, as he moved away. “I'll see you uptown, I reckon.”
Walton stood down on the ground and looked about him; then he saw something that drove him back into the car. It was a policeman in uniform a hundred yards away. He seemed to emerge from the cattle-yard on the left, and was walking along slowly, looking under cars and trying their sliding doors. He would stoop to the cross-ties and peer carefully at the trucks, and move on again to repeat the process at each car of the long train, the engine of which was fired for leaving. Walton sank to a seat on the cot; the man was searching for him. There would be no escape. Presently a feeling of relief came to him in the reflection that his fears were ungrounded, for his father, not having read the letter he had left on his desk, could not yet know of his flight. The old man never went to the bank earlier than eight in the morning, and it could not now be later than five. Yes, the officer was looking for some one else. The fugitive breathed more freely for a few minutes; then another shock quickly followed the first. It was now plain—horribly plain. His father, having sent him to the bank for a statement of his account the evening before, had waited up for him, his impatience and suspicion growing as the hours passed. Old Simon could not have slept while a matter of that nature remained unsettled. He had waited, pacing the floor of his room, till nine; till ten; till eleven; and then, full of gravest alarm as to the safety of his funds, he had gone down to the bank to ascertain the cause of the delay. In his mind's eye, Fred saw the grim old financier as he stalked muttering through the silent streets of the slumbering town. He saw him open the big door of the bank, and heard his disappointed growl as he faced the darkness. Old Simon, with fumbling hands, found and struck a match; then he groped his way back to his office and lighted the gas. Fred saw him as he stared round the room, and, with the gasp of an animal, pounced on the letter he had written; he saw, as if he had been on the spot, the distorted, terrified face of the bewildered old miser. Then what had he done? He had gone quaking and whimpering to the home of the sheriff near by; he had waked the officer by pounding on the door, and ordered the immediate pursuit of his son as an absconding thief. The telegram had left Stafford before midnight; it had passed the fugitive as he slept, and the policeman now looking under the cars was only one of scores who were bent upon hunting him down. Yes, it was all over. There was nothing left now but to be taken back to Stafford, handcuffed as a common felon. He crept to the car door and looked out. The policeman had paused in his search, and was coming directly across to him. A feeling of odd and almost soothing resignation came over the young man; at any rate, he would not hide like a coward. He was guilty, and he would take his punishment. So he sank upon the bench at the door and calmly eyed the officer as he crossed the tracks, playfully swinging the polished club which was strapped to his wrist.
“Good-morning!” the man said, looking up. “You are not the conductor of this train, are you?”
“No,” Fred answered, wonderingly; “he's just gone up-town.”
The policeman swung his club. “Got a match in your pocket? I want to smoke so bad I can taste it.”
Walton fumbled in his pocket and produced some matches, and, still wondering, he reached over and put them into the extended hand. The man in uniform was young, clear of skin and eye, and had a good face—a face which Walton no longer dreaded, which, indeed, he felt that he could like.
“Tough job I'm on now, you can bet your life,” the policeman said, as he struck the match on the iron ladder of the car and applied it to a half-smoked cigar.
“What sort of job is it?” Walton asked.
“Why, you see,” the man explained, “the railroads of the State have had no end of trouble with hoboes here lately. The dirty tramps are forever stealing rides. At this time of year they are as thick as flies on the trucks, brakes, and bumpers. They fall off when they get to sleep, and are killed; they break in the cars, and steal the freight; and a gang of them have been known to throw rocks at the train-crew, and raise hell generally. So, as a last resort, the roads determined to make cases against every one that could be caught, and they are sending them up by the hundreds, and for good long terms, too. They are never able to pay the fines, you see, and they have to work it out in the coal-mines or turpentine camps. Now and then a big mistake is made, of course; for many a good man has been sent up for only trying to reach a place where he could get honest employment. But the law is no respecter of persons. Let a man without money to pay his fine be caught stealing a ride throughthistown, and nothing in God's world will save him. The feathers of a jail-bird stick mighty tight, you know, and after one gets out he never makes any headway.”
“They are not well treated, either, I have heard,” Walton put in.
“You bet they are not,” the policeman said, looking across the tracks. “Gee! did you see that? I think I've got one now. I saw a fellow peep out right over there.”
He darted off, club in hand, and Walton saw him disappear between two cars, and heard his stern voice cry: “Come out of there, young man! Don't make me crawl under after you! Come on, the game is up!”
Walton descended to the ground and crossed over to the policeman just as a young man with a grimy face and tousled hair emerged from behind the heavy wheels. He did not appear to be more than twenty years of age, and his clothing, even to his hat and necktie, indicated that he was not an ordinary tramp. He stared in a bewildered way at the blue coat, brass buttons, and helmet-shaped hat.
“For God's sake, don't send me up, policeman!” he pleaded, in a piteous tone. “I am out of money, and want to get through by way of New Orleans to Oklahoma. I am out of work and trying to reach Gate City, where I can get a job.”
“I've got nothing to do with that,” the policeman said, curtly. “I'm put here to arrest you fellows—that's my duty, and I've caught you in the act.”
“O God, have mercy!” Walton heard the boy muttering to himself. “I can't stand it! I'd rather die, and be done with it!”
He looked at the officer again, and his lips seemed to be trying to frame some further appeal, but, as if realizing the utter futility of such a course, he simply hung his head and was silent.
Walton, who liked the boy's looks, suddenly felt a rebellious impulse rise and struggle within him. It was the quality which, in spite of his faults, had endeared him to his many friends.
“Look here, old man,” he said to the policeman, “law or no law, duty or no duty, you can't take the responsibility of this thing on your shoulders. I'm a fair judge of men, and I am sure it would be wrong to send this boy up. You know he is only doing what you or I would do if hard luck drove us to it. Say, old man, I'm dead broke myself, I haven't a dollar in my pocket, and I am out of a job besides; but I've got a good solid gold watch in my pocket, and if you will let him go I'll give it to you.”
The officer wavered; he stared, speechless, for a moment, colored high, then shrugged his shoulders.
“I reckon my dutydoesallow me to sorter discriminate,” he faltered. “I haven't seen the chap actually riding, either. But I won't take any bribes—I wouldn't take one fromyou, anyway. You are about as white a chap as I've run across in many a day, and I'm going to drop the dang thing. God knows, I don't want your watch! But, say, don't getmeinto trouble. I've got a family to support, and I must hold my job. Get the fellow out of the freight-yards before the town wakes up. There are cops on our force who would drag him in by the heels. Car-grease like he's got smeared all over him is a dead give-away. Say, young man, take a fool's advice: get out on the country roads. You'll make it all right among the farms.”
“You won't take the watch, then?” Fred held the timepiece toward him, its golden chain swinging.
“No, I don't want it. But hurry up! Get him out of the yards!”
“Come on, and I'll show you the way,” Walton said to the boy, when the officer had gone. And without a word, so overjoyed was he by the sudden turn in his favor, the begrimed youth dumbly followed his rescuer across the tracks to a quiet little street bordered by diminutive cottages.
On they trudged through street after street till, just as the first rays of sunlight were breaking through the clouds, they found the open country before them. For miles and miles it stretched away to blue hills in the vague, misty distance.
“I can make out all right now,” the boy said, with a grateful glance at his rescuer, as they paused. “I don't want to take you farther out of your way. God knows, I'll not forget your kindness till my dying day. You don't know what you've saved me from. I'd have killed myself rather than be sent up. I've heard what those places are like. If you will tell me your name and where your home is, I'll write back to you.”
Walton's eyes met those of his companion. “Huh!” he said, gloomily, “I'm as homeless as you are, my boy. The truth is, I don't know where to turn, myself, and really the thought of parting with you, for some reason or other, hurts me. I need a companion worse than I ever did in my life. Say, will you let me go with you?”
“WillI?” and the grimy face filled with emotion, the big brown eyes glistened with unshed tears. “God knows, I'd rather have you than any one else, and I certainly am lonely enough!” The blackened hand went out and clasped Walton's, and, face to face, these new friends in adversity stood and silently vowed fidelity. “What is your name?” Fred asked.
“Dick Warren,” the younger said. “I am from Kentucky—Louisville. I've got no close kin, and no money. I was a telegraph operator in Memphis till a month ago, but lost my job. Long-distance telephone is killing my business. I heard of Gate City—they say it is booming. I want to go there.”
“I'll join you,” Walton said. “I've heard of it, too. Those, new towns are all right.”
“You didn't tell me your name,” Dick suggested.
“Oh, I forgot; why, it's Fred—it's Frederic Spencer.” He had given the seldom-used part of his Christian name, that of his maternal grandfather. “Some day I'll tell you all about myself, but not now—not now. Are you hungry, Dick?”
The boy nodded slowly. It looked as if he were afraid that an admission of the whole truth might further discommode his new friend. “A little bit,” he said, “but I can make out for a while.”
“We'll try a farm-house farther on,” Walton said, with an appreciative glance at the weary face before him. “I'll have to have a cup of coffee or I'll drop in my tracks.”
The sun, now above the tree-tops, was beginning to beat fiercely upon them, and threatening much in the way of heat and sultry temperature later in the day. The activity of his mind and sympathies in behalf of his companion had in a measure dulled Walton's sense of his own condition, but as he trudged along by his companion the whole circumstance of his flight and the far-reaching consequences of his act came upon him anew. The agony within him now seemed to ooze from his body like a material substance, clogging his utterance and shackling his feet.
THAT morning, about nine o'clock, old Simon Walton rode down to his bank in the one-horse buggy of antiquated type which had come into his possession years before in the foreclosure of a mortgage given by a poor farmer, and which, with its rusty springs and uncouth appearance, was quite in keeping with the character of its present owner.
The bookkeepers were busy at their special duties, and scarcely gave him a glance over their ponderous ledgers as he came in at the front and walked to his desk in the rear. Hanging up his old slouch hat, and seating himself in his big revolving chair, his eyes fell on a stack of letters addressed to him. Rapidly shifting them through his stiff fingers, his attention was drawn to the only one which bore no stamp or postmark. He recognized the writing, and as he held it frowningly before him, his confidential clerk, Toby Lassiter, a colorless and bald young man of medium height, sparse mutton-chop whiskers, and soft, shrinking gray eyes, entered with a slip of paper.
“The cotton quotations you wanted, Mr. Walton,” he said, in the discreet tone he used to the banker on all occasions, lest he might by accident expose to other ears matters his cautious master wished to be kept private.
“Oh yes.” Then, as Lassiter was softly slipping away: “But hold on, Toby! Have you seen Fred this morning?”
“No, sir, he hasn't been around yet. In fact, Mr. Walton, I wanted to ask you. Only three of us carry keys to the front door—you and me and Fred; and when I was opening up this morning I found that somebody had pushed one of them under the door.”
“Well, I've gotmine,” old Simon said, with a slow, wondering stare. “Oh, wait! this note is from him; maybe he—” The banker, with fumbling fingers, tore open the envelope and began to read. The waiting clerk heard him utter a gasp. It was followed by a low, subdued groan, and looking like a corpse momentarily electrified into a semblance of life, the old man rose to his feet, the half-read confession clutched in his sinewy fingers.
“He's gone!” he gasped. “He's taken five thousand dollars of the bank's funds, and made off!”
“Oh, Mr. Walton, do,dobe quiet!” Lassiter whispered, warningly, as he laid his hands on the arms of his employer, and gently urged him to sit down. The banker obeyed as an automaton might, his wrinkled face beneath his shaggy eyebrows wildly distorted, his lips parted, showing his yellow jagged teeth, his breath coming and going in spasmodic gasps. Every hair on his head seemed to stand dry and harsh by itself as he ran his prong-like fingers upward through the bushy mass.
“Five thousand—five thousand—five thousand!” he groaned; “the low, ungrateful thief; and at a time when he knew it would hamper us and maybe bring on a crash. Look y' here, Toby, and be quick about it! Run and get the sheriff—if you can't find him fetch the deputy! Then see if the telegraph office is open. I'll jail that scamp before night! I want my money! I want my money! He's no son of mine! I gave him fair warning, as you know, to let up in his damnable course, and he snapped his card-flipping fingers in my face. Hurry up! He can't be far off; we'll nab him before the day is over. Run!”
But the clerk lingered. “Mr. Walton,” he began, falteringly, “I never have refused to obey your orders, but Fred ain't quite as bad as—really, you oughtn't to handle the boy that way. He's been a good friend to me, and I'd hate to think I'd stand by and see you take a step like this, mad as you are, when if you'd only be calm a minute, surely you'd realize—”
“Am I the head of this bank oryou?” old Walton broke in, as he rose and stood quivering and clinging with both hands to the back of his unsteady chair. “Go and do as I tell you, or, by the God over our heads, I'll send you about your business!”.
“All right, Mr. Walton,” the clerk yielded, “I'll do it!”
White as death could have made him, Lassiter passed out at a door on the side of the building and gained the street without being seen by the workers in the counting-room.
“Poor Fred!” he muttered. “He's too good at heart to be treated this way, and he's not arealthief, either. Folks have told him all his life that he had a right to more of the old man's money than he was getting, and he didn't think it was stealing.”
On a corner he saw Bill Johnston, the sheriff, a man about forty-five years of age, who wore great heavy top-boots, a broad-brimmed hat, and had sharp brown eyes and a waxed and twisted mustache. With considerable reluctance, Toby went up to him.
“Mr. Walton wants to see you, Bill,” he said. “He's in his office in the bank.”
“Well, I can't come for ten minutes yet, anyway,” the sheriff said, not removing his steady gaze from a group of men round a mountain wagon in a vacant lot across the street, where, on a high hoarding of planks, glaring new circus bills were posted. “The boys are about to smell out a keg of wild-cat whiskey in that gang of mossbacks. They may need me any minute. Tell the old man I'll be along as soon as I can.”
Lassiter went back to the bank and gained his employer's presence without attracting the attention of any of the clerks. He found the shaggy head prone on the desk, the long arms hanging down at either side. For a moment Toby thought the banker was a victim of heart-failure, and stood stricken with horror. But he was reassured by a low groan from the almost inert human mass.
“Good Lord,” he heard the banker praying, “scourge him! Don't heed his cries and promises! He has lied to me, he'll lie to you!” Therewith Simon raised his blearing eyes, now fixed and bloodshot in their sockets.
“Well?” he growled, impatiently.
“Johnston is coming right away,” Lassiter said, and he approached the old man and leaned over him. “Mr. Walton, once when you were very mad with the other bank, you remember, and was about to take action against them, I got your ear, and showed you that in a suit at court you'd have to make certain showings of a private nature that would injure our interests, and you admitted that I was right, and—and decided to let the matter blow over. You've said several times since then that I was right, and—”
“Well, what the devil has that got to do withthis?” Walton thundered.
“I'll tell you, Mr. Walton—now wait one minute, just one minute,” Lassiter urged: “you know how excitable depositors are. Don't you see if the report goes out that you have actually turned Fred over to the law for a big defalcation that folks will get the impression that you are in a shaky condition? The other bank would make it appear ten times as bad as it is, and we might have a frightful run on us. We are all right, solid enough, the Lord knows, but money—readymoney—is hard to get. There never has been a time when it would be as hard to stand under a run as right now. We are getting ahead of the other bank, and they are as mad as Tucker. They wouldn't want anything better than a chance like this to—”
“You mean?—great God, Toby, you are right! It would ruin us—absolutely wreck us! I see it—I see it as plain as day!”
There was a sound of heavy steps in the corridor outside.
“It is the sheriff,” Toby whispered, “but I didn't tell him what you wanted. Don't act now, Mr. Walton; for God's sake, don't!”
“Tell him to wait a minute,” the banker panted. But it was too late; the sheriff, with his usual lack of ceremony, was already pushing the door open.
“Hello, old man!” Johnston said, and he came in with a swinging stride. “I hope you are not scared about what I owe you; I'll get it up all right. Money is owing to me, and—”
“No, it wasn't that—it wasn't that.” Walton's rigid face was forced into a smile that fairly distorted it and set the observant officer wondering. “The truth is, Johnston, I thought I needed your services, but I find I'm mistaken. That's all, Johnston, I was mistaken. I've decided to let it pass—to let it pass, you know.”
“All right, old man,” the sheriff replied, as his puzzled glance swept the two disturbed faces before him. “I don't care just so you don't garnishee my salary for what I owe you.”
Outside, as he joined a group of idlers on the corner, he remarked, with a broad, knowing smile and a twinkle of the eye: “That old note-shaver in there thinks he can fool me. He sent Toby Lassiter out just now as white as a preacher's Sunday shirt to ask me to see him. I found him looking like a staring idiot, and was informed that it was a false alarm. False nothing! I'll give you boys a tip. I'll bet that gay and festive Fred is up to some fresh devilment. You watch out and you'll hear something drop, if I am any judge. I saw Fred last night headed for the railroad. He didn't see me. I was hiding behind a fence, watching him. I think he boarded a freight-train; I am not sure.”
AS was only natural in a town of the size of Stafford, the sudden departure of Fred Walton, under circumstances no one seemed able to explain, caused wide and growing comment. A railroad man who had returned from Atlanta informed an eager cluster of idlers in the big office of the main hotel of the place that Fred had been seen lurking about the freight-yards in the city at early daylight, evidently trying to avoid being seen. The report went out, too—and no less authority accompanied it than the word of Fred's stepmother, who, admitting the fact that she hated the young man, could not be charged with originating a direct lie—that Fred had gone without “a thread to wear,” except what he had on when leaving. The town did not need to be told that in that detail alone lay ample evidence of the gravity of the case, even if it were not said—on good authority, too—that old Simon Walton, immediately on discovering the flight, had called in Bill Johnston to consult with him. Had he taken awaymoney?That was the question designedly put by Walton's business rivals, and that was the question which one and all declared the old man and Toby Lassiter had promptly denied. No, it was something else; that was quite plain.
Mrs. Barry heard the news at the fence the next afternoon from the voluble tongue of a poor washerwoman, a Mrs. Chumley, who, since the downfall of her only daughter, and the handsome girl's adoption of a life of prostitution in Augusta, had lived on alone in a cottage adjoining Mrs. Barry's, and who, as she cleansed the linen of her neighbors for a living, besmirched their characters as her only available solace. She was fond of hinting darkly that if disgrace had come to her family bydiscovery, it hovered—ready to drop at any minute—over the heads of people not a bit better, and who were far too stuck-up for their own safety.
“You certainly ought to be glad the scamp's gone,” she remarked to Mrs. Barry, as she leaned her bare, crinkled arms on the fence when she unctuously told the news. “I never liked to see him hanging round Dora. A body would see him one day over there at that big fine house with Miss Margaret, whose high-priced ruffles I've got in the tub right now, and the next bending his head to enter your lowly door. Things as wide apart as them two naturally are won't hitch, neighbor, that's all—they won't hitch.”
“Yes, I'm glad he's gone,” Mrs. Barry admitted, with the indiscretion most persons had under the plausible eye and guiding tone of the gossip. “Dora says he had a kind heart, and that she's sorry for him in all his ups and downs; but, as you say, no good could come of their being together so much, at least, and it is better to have it end.”
“The postman left a letter for you-all this morning, didn't he?” was a question Mrs. Chumley had evidently been holding in reserve.
“No, there wasn't anything. Dora went out to the fence to see if he had any mail, but he didn't.”
“Huh, that's strange!” Mrs. Chumley's purposely averted glance came back to the wrinkled face of her neighbor, and remained fixed there in a direct and probing stare. “That's queer, for I certainly saw him hand her a letter over the fence as plain as I see that tub of suds. I saw her reading it, too.”
“You must be mistaken.” Mrs. Barry's face had changed. There were splotches of pallor in her gaunt cheeks.
“No, I couldn't be. I don't make mistakes in things of that sort—not ofthatsort.”
Mrs. Barry was silent. She was forced to admit that if any pair of earthly eyes could detect a hidden thing those eyes were now eagerly blinking under the sinister brows before her. As she stared into the reddish, freckled face, certain long-subdued fears rose within her. She felt faint, and had a sensation as if all visible objects were whirling around her. Then she became anchored by something in the gossip's glance which, had she has been less afraid, she would have taken as direct insult. It was as if the washerwoman were saying: “Well, you know I can sympathize with you. I have been through it all.”
“She came back in the house after the postman had gone on,” Mrs. Barry faltered, “and told me there wasn't any letter.”
The poor woman felt that her defence, if defence it might be called, was falling on wilfully closed ears, and again she was conscious of that rocking, floating sensation. The round, red visage of the washerwoman seemed to recede from her; there was a sound as of roaring water in her ears. But through it all the insistent voice of her tormentor beat into her consciousness.
“If she didn't show it to you, shehidit; I'm dead sure of that. Shehidit. I have been watching your girl, Mrs. Barry, for several weeks, and I'm free to say that something has gone wrong with her. A body can see it in the drooping way she has in moving about. The day you sent her over for the salt I thought, on my soul, she'd drop in her tracks before she left the kitchen. Maybe the letter was to tell her where the scamp was going, or—or—well, there could be lots a fellow like that might say at such a time. But I'll be bound, he was putting her off. They all do. It is man-nature.”
“I am sure she didn'tgetany letter,” Mrs. Barry said, and she now tore herself away, conscious of her overwhelming disadvantage in the adroit woman's hands.
“Well, you'll find out I'm right,” was the shot which struck her in the back as she turned the corner of the cottage. “If you don't believe me, you can ask the postman; there he is—coming down the street right now.”
But Mrs. Barry did not pause. She went into the house and closed her door. She stood in the middle of the room like a creature deprived of animation. Through the parted curtains of an open window she heard the washerwoman call out to the man in uniform:
“I just had a bet up with Mrs. Barry, Sim Carter! She must think I'm blind. I told her you left a letter at her house this morning, and she says she never saw hair nor hide of it.”
“It is there all right,” the man laughed. “I gave it to Miss Dora.”
“That's what I told her. I say, Sim Carter, have they heard anything more yet about—” But the postman was gone.
Through the window, by stooping and peering forth, Mrs. Barry could see him crossing the street to the next house. With a heart as heavy as lead she went into the parlor; Dora was not there. She passed on to the kitchen; no one was there, either. There was something incongruous in the contented aspect of the fat, gray cat lying and purring in the sunlight on the door-sill. Bliss like that under the coat of a mere dumb brute when she had this to bear—this lurking, insinuating, maddening thing, which had been creeping slowly upon her night and day until it had assumed the shape and size of a monster of mental and spiritual torture.
She went on to Dora's room, where she found the girl seated on her bed. The great, long-lashed, somnolent eyes, over the exquisite beauty of which men and women had marvelled, were red as from weeping. She gave her mother, as the old woman stood in the doorway, a weary, despondent glance, and then, half startled, looked down. Mrs. Barry saw the charred remains of a sheet of writing-paper in the open fireplace, and a fresh pang darted through her.
“Did you need me, mother?” Dora inquired, softly, in the musical voice so many had admired, and which to-day sounded sweeter, more appealing, than ever before.
“Mrs. Chumley says you got a letter from the postman this morning,” Mrs. Barry said, tremblingly.
The girl seemed to hesitate just an instant; then she nodded, mutely.
“Who was it from, daughter?”
“Mother, I don't want to say—even to you. I have reasons why—”
“It was from Fred Walton! You need not deny it.”
Dora made no protest; she simply dropped her eyes to her lap, and sat motionless.
“You knew he had left, didn't you?”
“Yes, mother. I knew he was gone.”
“And while the whole town is wondering why he went, you know, I suppose?”
“I don't feel that I have the right to talk about it, mother.”
“Well, I sha'n't urge you!” And the older woman shambled away, now bearing doubts which were heavier and more maddening than ever.
“Something's wrong—very, very wrong—or she wouldn't droop like that,” she said. “Oh, God have mercy, I'm actually afraid to question my own child! I am afraid to even do that!”
The sun went down, the night came on; workingmen, women, and children passed along on their homeward way from the cotton and woolen mills, carrying their dinner-pails. The very cheerfulness of their faces, lightness of step, and merry jesting with one another sent shafts of misery to the heart of the brooding woman. When she had put the supper on the table she went to the daughter's room and told her it was ready.
“Some of your art pupils came to the gate just now, didn't they?” she inquired.
“Yes,” the girl answered. “Sally and Mary Hill wanted to know if I'd go sketching with them to the swamp to-morrow afternoon.”
“And are you going?”
“I told them I'd let them know in the morning.” Dora was at her place at the side of the table, and she felt her mother's despondent gaze turned on her.
“You told them you'd let them know! Why, don't you know already? I thought you liked to go out that way. Some of your best studies were made at the swamp.”
“I was feeling so badly,” the girl sighed, “that I didn't have the heart to promise. I can never work to any advantage if I am not in the mood for it.”
“Oh!thatis it!” They both sat down. “You ought to fight against languor at this time of the year. I never let an ache or pain keep me from work. Sometimes merely being busy seems to help one. Your father used to stick at his easel as long as the light would hold out. He used to say the time would come when the whole world would admire your painting, and you reallyareimproving.”
Dora sighed, but said nothing.
Mrs. Barry passed her a cup of coffee. “Here, drink this down while it is hot,” she advised. “I made it strong. It will do you good.”
“Thank you, mother, you are very kind to me.” Dora drank some of the coffee, and daintily munched a piece of buttered toast. In the afternoon light, which fell through a western window, Mrs. Barry saw a deeply troubled look on the wan face—a certain nervous twitching of the tapering fingers.
Presently Dora pushed back her chair and rose.
“I don't care for anything else,” she said, avoiding her mother's eyes.
“But you haven't eaten anything at all,” Mrs. Barry protested, anxiously.
“I can't eat—I simply can't,” Dora said, with strange and desperate frankness. “I'm too miserable. Oh, mother, mother, pity me! pity me!”
Mrs. Barry sat motionless, her head, with its scant hair, now supported by her two sinewy hands. She saw her daughter turn away, and, with dragging feet, go on to her bedroom.
“God, have mercy!” she moaned. “She's as good as admitted it. What else could she have meant? Oh, God, what else—what else? She must know what I am afraid of. Oh, my baby!—my poor, poor baby!”
She rose from her untasted meal and followed her child, not noticing, in the gathering dusk, that Mrs. Chumley had entered the outer door, and was treading softly and with bated breath in her wake. She found the girl standing at a window, dumb and pale, looking out into the yard.
“You must tell me everything, daughter,” Mrs. Barry said. “I can't sleep to-night unless you do. I am afraid I am going mad. Tell me, tell me!”
“Oh, mother, mother, how can I?”
“You are ruined!” Mrs. Barry groaned. “Tell me I am right—you are ruined!”
With a cry, Dora turned and threw herself on the bed, and with her face hidden in a pillow she burst into dry sobs.
“Make her tell you the whole thing,” Mrs. Chumley spoke up, as she stood in the doorway. “Have it out of her, and be done with it; that's the course I took.”
Mrs. Barry turned upon her, but no anger or resentment over the intrusion stirred the dregs of her despair. A faint shock came to her with the thought that now all Stafford would know the truth, but it was followed by the realization that, after all, concealment would not lessen in any degree the horror of the disaster.
“Come away!” she heard herself imploring the gossip. “Let her alone! I won't have folks bothering her. She's got enough to bear as it is, without having people prying. Come away, come away!”
Mrs. Chumley suffered herself to be led to the outer door.
“All right. I came over to return the cup of sugar you lent me; I left it in the kitchen. I am much obliged, and I'm as sorry for you as one woman could be for another. Good-night.”
Mrs. Barry went to the supper-table, and, as it was growing dark, she lighted a lamp. She proceeded to wash and dry and put away the dishes. No one would have suspected that such a deadening blow had been dealt her to have looked in on her at this moment, as she moved dumbly about the room, her head and face hidden by the gingham sunbonnet she had put on. It was a badge of humility—a thing she vaguely fancied hid her maternal shame from eyes which she already felt prying.
Her task finished, she stood for a moment hesitatingly; then she blew out the lamp and crept softly to the door of her daughter's room. Bending her head, she listened at the keyhole. No sound came to her ears, and she softly lifted the latch and went in. Dora still lay on the bed, her arms clutching the pillow, her face out of view in the darkened room.
“Darling, I haven't come to scold you, don't think that,” the old woman said, most tenderly, as she sat down on the edge of the bed and took her daughter's tear-damp hand. “This calamity has fallen on both of us, just as the death of your dear father did so far away from home, and just as many other hard things have come to us. I shall stand by you through it all. It is not the first time a poor young girl has been misled. Nothing is left for us but to do our duty to the best of our ability in the sight of Heaven. I shall not press you to tell me a thing, either. My knowing particulars wouldn't better matters at all. It is done, and that is enough. Now, go to sleep, baby girl, and don't give way to despair. Good-night.”
Dora sat up, extended her arms, and for a moment the two remained locked in a tight, sobbing embrace. Neither spoke after that. Tenderly releasing her daughter's twining arms, Mrs. Barry went out and softly closed the door. In her own room, in utter darkness, she undressed. Before retiring, and with the sunbonnet still on her head, she knelt beside a chair in the room and started to pray, but somehow the needed words failed to come. Prayer is born in hope in some sort of faith, at least, but this lone widow, brave as her front appeared, had neither.
“Oh, Edwin!” she suddenly cried out, “she was your idol, your little pet; you used to say, as she sat on your knee in the firelight at night, that she was born to be lucky and happy. You said her beauty, genius, and gentleness would draw the world to her feet. You hoped all that for her, Edwin, and yet there she is bowed down in the greatest shame and sorrow that can fall to a young girl's lot. On the day you left never to return, you told me of the great Virginia family from which she was descended, and said that some day we'd be grandparents of children that would make us proud. Poor, dear Edwin!—that was only one of your pretty dreams—ourgrandchild, if God lets it come, won't even have a name of its own, and may bear this curse through a long life to its grave. Oh, Edwin!—my gentle, loving husband—you are here by my side to-night, aren't you? You are here putting your dear spirit arms about me, trying to comfort me, and you will help her, too, dear husband, as you are helping me. Hold up the sweet, stricken child. Fill her dark life with your own unrealized dreams. Give her something—anythingto help her bear her burden! That's my prayer to you, Edwin—to you, and to God!”
She went to her bed and threw herself down. Tears welled up in her, but she forced them back, and, dry-eyed and still, she lay with her wrinkled face near to the wall.