CHAPTER XXVIIDaddy Skinner's Death
It was Saturday evening, three days after Tessibel Skinner had been churched from Hayt's Chapel. The night wind called forth moaning complaints from the willow trees. The rasping of their bare limbs against the tin roof of the cottage did not disturb Daddy Skinner struggling for breath in the room below. All the familiar night-noises kept a death vigil with the squatter girl.
A sound outside made her lift her head. Kennedy's brindle bull was scratching to come in. She rose, went to the door and opened it. Pete ambled over the threshold and curled down by the stove.
"Anythin' the matter, brat?" whispered Andy.
"No, I were lettin' in the dog," explained Tess, resuming her seat beside Daddy Skinner who was stretched, dying, on her cot. She had moved him from the back room into the warm kitchen, and at that moment he was sleeping restlessly. The sight of his working face brought a quick hand to Tessibel's lips, and her white teeth set deeply into the upraised knuckles to help stifle the groans. Every trouble of her own sank into insignificance before the calamity facing her. Many times Tess had viewed death afar off, but not until the past three days had it threatened her own loved ones. In that hour she was experiencing the extremity of sorrow, and each aching nerve in her body seemed to possess a stabbing volition of its own, for again and again the torturing points stung her flesh like whips.
For three long days she had managed somehow to uphold the dear, dying father. No word had come from Deforrest Young, and Tess felt sure he had returned twenty-four hours before. Perhaps Waldstricker had robbed her of her dearest friend. Bitterly pained, the girl realized what the loss would mean to her. Yet shehad no censure in her heart for Deforrest Young; indeed no bitterness for Frederick Graves; only a deep, deep gratitude to the one, and a great, overwhelming love for the other. And while thinking of what an empty void her life was becoming, Tess saw her father's head turn and his lids lift heavily.
"Daddy!" she murmured, but if he heard, he did not heed. He was gazing steadily at something over and beyond her head, and then he smiled at it. In superstitious dread, the squatter girl glanced where the faded eyes were directed. What had he seen? A face, perhaps, or the passing shade that always haunted a squatter shanty when some one was dying, but then, many times she, too, had seen faces in the rafters up there among the dry nets.
"My pretty brat," were the words that brought her startled eyes back to her father. Her throat filling with heavy sobs, she went over and kissed him stormily. The horny, stiff fingers gathered a few of her red curls and drew them slowly upward until parched lips touched them, while tears stole from under withered lids, and Tess cried out in sharp anguish.
"Daddy Skinner, I can't live without ye!" she moaned, cupping his face with her hands. "Take Tessibel with ye; take 'er, please!"
She cuddled at his side, lifted one of his heavy arms and put it around her in pleading anguish. Just then it seemed as if it would put off the approach of death if she insisted on staying within the broad grasp of Daddy Skinner's arms.
She was wiping away his tears, tenderly touching the dying face with faltering fingers.
"I saw yer ma," choked Skinner thickly, and he smiled again.
Tess turned her head, a dreadful sinking in her soul. Her mother's face, then, was what Daddy had seen away off up there among the rafters. The mother who had died so long ago had come after her dear one. Drawing one tense set of fingers backward across her cheek, Tess stood up quickly. Perhaps—perhaps—
She threw a glance at the ceiling. Daddy Skinner had seen her mother. They were going away together.If they would but take her with them! She turned unsteadily to go she knew not where, but the sound of her father's voice brought her quickly back.
"Brat," he faltered, "lean down—I want to tell ye somethin'."
Tess bent her ear close to the thick blue lips.
"I air here, Daddy! Tess air here," she mourned.
Long, laboring breaths moved the red curls hanging about the girl's rigid face.
"I said as how I air here, Daddy," she murmured again, touching him.
But Daddy Skinner was once more gazing into the dark rafters, his jaws apart, the greyness of death settling about his mouth.
"Daddy! Daddy!" screamed Tess. "Don't look like that! Don't go away—oh, Daddy, please!... Andy! Andy!"
The dwarf slipped down the ladder, and dropped at the side of the bed. The dog roused from his nap by the stove was already there, nuzzling his tawny head against his distressed friend, while he made inarticulate sounds of sympathy in his deep throat.
"Pal Skinner!" Andy cried, white with apprehension. "Give us a word, old horse."
Placing his hand upon Pete's collar, the dwarf drew him, with a word of command, to the floor beside him.
The dying fisherman looked from his prison friend to his daughter. He lifted a limp hand, and it rested upon the girl's bowed head. The other he dropped heavily on Andy Bishop's shoulder. It was as if he were giving to them both his parting benediction. In mechanical sequence the dwarf counted the dying man's mouth open and shut five times before the struggling voice came forth.
"I were goin' to say somethin' to ye, Tess," he then gasped, moistening his lips. "Gimme a—drink—of water."
Andy held the cup while Orn drank. He struggled to swallow, belching forth hot breath.
"When I air gone, brat dear," he articulated huskily, "stay in the shanty an' take care of Andy till there ain't no more danger fer 'im. Ye'll promise me, Tess?"
She enclosed his hand in hers and held it to her lips.
"I were a wantin' to go with you and Mummy, Daddy," she sobbed. "I air always lonely in the shanty without ye—but if ye say, 'Stay with Andy,' then I stays."
"That air what I says, brat, darlin'," panted Skinner.
Then for many minutes he was lost in the terrible struggle of strong life against the grip of death. Tess wound her arms about his neck and lifted the great head to her breast. She stared at his changing face as at an advancing ghost.
He seemed to be slipping slowly into the great beyond, and she was powerless to hold him back.
How many times had Daddy Skinner spoken of dying! How many times had she heard him agree with Andy that death was better than life any day! But at those times she had beaten back the muttered words of her father and the dwarf. Ah, in those days, death had been far away, kept off by happiness unsurpassed!
"It air hard fer some folks to die," wailed the fisherman. "An' so easy fer uthers. Me—now me—Oh, God, oh, brat-love, let me go! I hurt so! I hurt awful—let me go!"
The heart of the tortured, sobbing girl seemed to be bursting from its pain and suspense. Her beloved father wanted to go away—to follow the wraith mother beckoning from the rafters. How could she open her arms and allow him to leave her alone in the shanty!
"Help me, brat-love," sighed Daddy Skinner once more. "Help yer old sick daddy!"
Help him! How could she? Hitherto Tessibel's faith had loyally responded to every demand upon her. But she couldn't help her daddy die! She knew not how! Then, as if drawn by some invisible power, her eyes lifted, piercing the shadows among the time-dried nets. And there, for one small moment, she saw—she saw a face, a young, girlish face, infinitely sweet, smiling down upon her.
"It air the Mummy!" she cried, her voice vibrant with love. "I air goin' to help 'im, darlin'."
Buoyantly her mind gripped the old-time faith, the redoubtable faith that had opened wide Auburn Prison, that had restored to her arms this same adored father. She had helped him then—and oh, to help him now! His great cry, "God, Tessibel, let me be goin'!" rang in her ears. Her gaze was glued to his face. Terror and pain were strangling his throat until his eyes grew death-dark in the struggle. Tessibel lifted her ashen face, wildly working in entreaty. Oh, for a little faith! Faith the size of a grain of mustard seed! And Daddy Skinner would be gone to that place beyond the clouds and the blue, where suffering is not. Did he, could he, believe? Did she, could she, believe, too? Then in a blinding flash, she remembered the mysterious dawning of her own faith. Enduring sublime suffering, she bent once more and drew her father's heavy head to her breast.
"Daddy! Darlin' old, good Daddy, look at yer dear brat, an' listen to 'er."
"I air a listenin', my girl," he said between set teeth. She put her head directly in line with her father's vision.
"Look at me, Daddy," she craved tremulously, "an' listen to me. Can't ye remember how ye came back from Auburn like the innercent man ye were?"
"Yep," whispered Skinner.
"'Twere the Christ on the cross helped ye, Daddy. Ye air wishin' to go away now with my mummy, huh?"
"Yep," groaned Skinner. "God, aw kind, merciful God, let me go!"
Tess laid him gently back on the pillow. A bright light flashed into her soul. The red in her eyes turning almost to black.
"Then go, my darlin'! Go, Daddy," she moaned, rising and looking upward. "Take 'im, Mummy, little love-mummy, take 'im back to Heaven with ye."
Inspired by that smiling face in the rafters, Tessibel opened her lips and began to sing,
"Rescue the Perishin';Care for the Dyin'."
It was a glorious strain that echoed and reechoed around and around the shanty kitchen. It gathered within its heavenly power the moaning of the wind andthe haunting noises of the tin-rusted roof. Even the weeping willows, bowing their mournful heads in sympathy, could no longer be heard in their endless chant.
Strangely stirred, Pete struggled up, disregarding the dwarf's desire to detain him. He placed his forefeet on the edge of the bed, lifting his head to the girl's shoulder. Responsive to the pressure of his body, she threw her arm around him. Gravely the golden eyes of the great dog regarded his suffering master on the cot as the tender melody of the song continued to fill the shanty.
Tessibel ever afterwards remembered Daddy Skinner's eyes as for those last few moments he lay looking at her. They were kindly, tender, smiling, as he watched her lips moving in the song he'd always loved to hear her sing.
He seemed to realize that she was singing him into the very presence of the Savior of the world—into the presence of Him who was leading Tessibel Skinner and her squatter father through their garden of Gethsemane.
"Rescue the Perishin';Care for the Dyin'."
On and on she sang, and on and on the dying man gropingly felt his way to Eternity. Sometimes he smiled at her; sometimes at the wraith in the rafters. But not for one moment did the voice of the little singer cease its insistent cry for a complete rescue.
The dwarf was silent, his shining face reflecting the peace and security of which the squatter girl sang.
"Rescue the Perishin';Care for the Dyin'."
The beautiful voice did not falter. Suddenly the powerful lungs of the fisherman gathered in one long, last breath, and when it came forth to meet Tessibel's song, the broad shoulders dropped back, the chest receded, the smile faded from the gray eyes—and Daddy Skinner was dead.
He had died listening to those appealing, melodious words, "Rescue the Perishin'; Care for the Dyin'." That sudden collapsing change in the gaunt figure seemed to freeze the very song on Tessibel's lips. Hervoice trailed to a limp wail, as if an icy hand had caught her throat. Silence succeeded silence. Even the storm seemed for an instant to still its raging roar, then Pete threw back his head and howled his grief. As his resonant cries filled the shack and mingled with the turmoil of the elements, Tess clung to the dog, staring with horrified eyes at the huge beloved form crushed and crumpled upon the cot. Death had come and gone. The mystery in the shadowy rafters had taken Daddy Skinner away.
The dwarf raised his head and looked at Tess. Slowly he leaned over and pressed his lips to Orn Skinner's brow, and as he rose, he lifted the girl's rigid arm from the tawny back and seized the dog by the collar to quiet him.
Then came one of those unthinkable, weird cries, a nightmarish cry from the girl's throat, and—as God tempereth the wind to the shorn lamb, so in Divine pity he covered Tess of the Storm Country with mental oblivion.
CHAPTER XXVIIIYoung Discovers Andy
During the minutes Daddy Skinner lay grappling with death, Ebenezer Waldstricker sat in his handsome drawing room with an open Bible on his knee, talking to his wife.
"I've explained to you time and time again, Helen," said he impatiently, "why I struck her and I'm not sorry I did it."
"It seems awful, though," replied his wife, reflectively.
Waldstricker frowned into the wistful face.
"Why awful when the Bible ordered me to do it? I've given you the Master's own words to verify it. Didn't he say, 'Let the man without sin first cast a stone?'"
Mrs. Waldstricker raised her eyes to her husband's face.
"But Ebenezer—"
"There's no argument, my dear," the man interrupted. "I tell you I know whereof I speak. It came to me like a flash on Wednesday in the church ... I had to show the world a man—a man without sin."
Helen stared back at him in amazement. Her husband had never before expressed himself in quite such bombastic terms, and, oh, dear, she knew he was good; but for any human being to claim to be without sin! She'd never heard of such a thing.
"But, dearest," she argued pleadingly and partly rising, "are you sure?"
"I have no doubt about it," interpolated Ebenezer, striking his chest emphatically. "As I said, I know whereof I speak."
Helen sank down again.
"I'm glad you can explain it, dear," she murmured dubiously. "It'll be easier for you to make Deforrest understand about it when he comes. He's so wrappedup in that girl.... He'll be here in a few minutes, I think, if the train's on time."
"I'll make him understand all right," answered Ebenezer.
The words had scarcely left his lips before both husband and wife heard the approach of sleigh-bells.
"He's coming now," said Mrs. Waldstricker, and she rose and started to the window.
"Sit down and don't look as if you were going to die," her husband commanded. "But perhaps you'd better go to your room while I'm explaining the thing to him."
When Deforrest Young opened the door and walked in, his face was wreathed in smiles.
"Well, hello, everybody," he cried heartily. "It's an awful night."
Ebenezer rose and extended his hand.
"So 'tis," he agreed.
Helen went forward quickly and helped slip the snow-covered coat from Deforrest's shoulders. At the same time she lifted her lips for a kiss. How she adored this brother of hers, and how anxiously she desired he should be satisfied with Ebenezer's account of the church proceedings.
"I'm lucky to be home for Sunday," remarked Deforrest. "I was afraid the case wouldn't close before day after tomorrow. But the jury came in last night, and everything was quickly closed up."
"We read about it in the paper," said his sister sympathetically. "It must have been a harrowing thing to go through."
"It certainly was! But the acquittal helped. The woman is very young and without friends, and I was glad to get it for her."
"But she's bad!" cut in Waldstricker. "Every paper said she was guilty."
"But the jury pronounced her innocent," exclaimed the lawyer, "so that puts an end to the argument!"
Ebenezer fingered the leaves of the book he held.
"I've the happenings of a week to tell you, Deforrest," he stated deliberately, as if dismissing the former subject.
Professor Young bent down and slipped off his overshoes.
"I'm awfully tired, old chap," said he. "Won't they keep till morning? I'd like a bite to eat, and then—then bed." He smiled at his sister. "How about something to eat, sis, dear?"
"Helen, go see about supper for your brother," ordered Ebenezer.
Mrs. Waldstricker, seemingly glad to escape, left the room quickly.
"Fire ahead, Eb," said Young. "I suppose I might as well hear it now as any time."
"You sent Parson Griggs a letter for me to vote in your name?"
"Of course," responded Young. "I knew Helen was interested in the Christmas festival, and I thought you'd do as well as I."
"And so I did, brother," replied Ebenezer, pompously, "and your vote turned the tide into the channel God wanted it. Some members allowed their human feelings to run away with 'em."
Ebenezer's mysterious words suddenly awakened Deforrest's interest.
"Has something out of the ordinary occurred?" he queried.
"Yes," assured Eb, "but I've attended to it all right!"
Professor Young sighed.
"That's good! There, now, I'll sit by the grate and warm up while you tell me about it."
He dropped into a large chair, and extended his feet to the cheerful blaze. Waldstricker paused before making his explanation. At length:
"We put a member out of the church last Wednesday," said he, steadily.
Deforrest Young turned completely around and stared at his brother-in-law.
"Put a member out of the church!" he repeated, thunder-struck. "Why church a member?... Thatisout of the ordinary, I should say. What'd he do?"
"It wasn't a man, 'twas a woman."
"Well, for God's sake!" Deforrest's voice was low,deep, and filled with disgust. "I hope you men didn't make a mess of yourselves.... What happened?... Some girl kissed her sweetheart under the pine trees?"
The elder glanced over the top of his brother-in-law's head.
"Worse than that!" said he. "Much worse than that!... We churched a Magdalene!"
It took an appreciable length of time for Young's tall figure to rise from the chair. He turned around and stood with his back to the fire.
"I didn't know we had a Magdalene in the church," he commented drily, and then more impetuously, "Oh, Lord, why don't you spit it out and not beat all around the bush telling me?"
There was something about Ebenezer's slow manner of approaching the point that made Young impatient. In the meantime his mind was rapidly running over the women in the Hayt's congregation.
Waldstricker got up, too, drawing his big frame to its full height.
"We churched—Well, the fact is,—We churched Tessibel Skinner."
When the name fell upon Deforrest Young's ears, every muscle in his body became rigid, making him taller by inches.
"Tessibel Skinner?" he repeated mechanically, as if he'd heard awry. "Did you say Tessibel Skinner?"
Waldstricker took a long breath. Deforrest was receiving the action of the church with better grace than he had anticipated.
"Yes, Tessibel Skinner!" he repeated. "She's with child."
In the awful minute after the torturing words had fallen from the other man's lips, Deforrest Young felt as if he must tear the lie from the speaker's throat. For it was a lie! God! What a lie! A lie told against Heaven's best—the best girl in all the world. Without a word, he reached for his overcoat.
"What're you going to do?" demanded Ebenezer, a little perturbed. "You needn't see her.... She's been justly dealt with."
There was no answer from the tall lawyer. Only one thing was in Deforrest Young's mind—to go to Tessibel Skinner. He gave no thought to the wild night, no care for his own fatigue and hunger. Disdaining another glance at Ebenezer, he whirled to go. Helen's pale face appearing in the doorway made him pause.
"Deforrest," she quivered. "Deforrest, dear, oh, don't go out tonight! Stay and let Ebenezer tell you about it, do please! The church has done all it could—it must be all right if the church did it, Forrie."
Then Young's wrath broke loose....
"All right? All right?" he thundered. "The church has done all it can, eh? Well, by God!" He turned a livid face from one to the other. "What a cursed outrage!"
Waldstricker cried out, horrified.
"Man, man, what are you saying!... Howdareyou provoke the wrath of God!... How dare you question the decision of the church! Besides, I tell you she's a Magdalene. She's been justly punished. I attended to it myself."
Then Young saw clearly that the church action had but expressed his brother-in-law's will. He knew his implacable hatred of the squatters and particularly of Tessibel. He recognized that revenge had prompted him. Pushing the protesting elder aside, he ejaculated:
"You pious hypocrite! Get out of my way," and was gone.
The bitter winter wind nipped at Young as he strode down the steps and battled his way to the stables. Waldstricker's words were pounding at his brain like a hammer. What had they done to Tess? He remembered Ebenezer had said that his vote—his own delegated vote—had turned the tide against his pretty child!
He had no mercy for the stumbling horse as he spurred down the long drive, into the public thoroughfare, and thence to the shore road. When he came opposite to his own closed, uninhabited house, he could see by straining his eyes the dusky shadow of the willow trees shrouding the Skinner home.
A glimmer of light struggled from the curtainedwindow of the hut. With desperate haste he tied his horse to the fence post. He could scarcely stop to spread over the animal the blanket he'd brought for the purpose.
Then as he waded through the snow and rounded the mud cellar a dog's mournful howling, pierced and punctuated by a girl's shrill, heart-broken cry, fell upon his startled ears. In another minute he had flung himself against the shanty door and forced it open. Kennedy's bulldog greeted him, growling, and beyond him, stretched out upon the body of her dead father, lay Tess. Hovering over her, chattering, was Andy Bishop, the dwarf, the condemned murderer of Ebenezer Waldstricker, Sr.
CHAPTER XXIXThe Vigil
During Professor Young's instant of hesitation on the threshold, the wind gusted sheets of snow into the Skinner shanty. Quieting the dog by a low-spoken word, Deforrest stepped in and closed the door against the storm. The acrid smoke drawn from the stove by the back-draft, filled the room,—a choking cloud.
Andy stared at the intruder for an instant, and then turned again to the girl lying unconscious upon the body of her father.
Young's vision comprehended the whole tragedy. He pulled off his cap and gloves and shook the snow from his shoulders. Advanced to the bedside, a glance satisfied him that the squatter was dead and that Tess had fainted. He had recognized the dwarf the minute he saw him, and heartsick with apprehension, he wondered what he was doing there.
"Get up," said he. "Let me look at her."
The dwarf moved aside hesitatingly.
"Air she dead, too?" he whimpered.
"Bring me some water," commanded Young.
Andy went to the pail, dipped a portion of water into a small basin, and waddled back with it.
"Her daddy air dead," he offered. "Ye can see he air dead."
"Yes!" nodded Young, taking the dish.
He did not speak again until Tess groaned, and opened her eyes. She made a half struggle to sit up, and Young lifted her to her feet.
"Lean on me," he said gently.
Tess stared at him, incredulously. He had come after all! Relief crumpled her up in his arms.
"Daddy air dead," she whispered.
"Yes, dear," soothed Young. "There, lean your head on my shoulder, poor little broken baby."
His tones were so tender, so soft! They went to the heart of the stricken dwarf, and like a hurt child he burst into tears. Professor Young turned and looked at him.
"Don't do that," he said huskily. "Sit down—don't cry!"
Without moving from her position, Tess said, "Andy, Andy, dear, git on up in the garret a few minutes, will ye?"
The dwarf crept to the ladder, and Deforrest let him go. A dozen questions leapt to the lawyer's lips at the same time, but the girl against his breast looked so desperately ill he had no heart to ply them. Tess lifted her lids heavily.
"Ye won't tell nobody he air here?" she gulped.
"How long has he been here?" asked Young, instead of answering her question.
"Ever since spring," sighed Tessibel.
"Was he here that day when Mr. Waldstricker and my sister—"
"Yep." The girl's whisper was very low.
"And when Burnett came too, I suppose?"
"Yep, I hid 'im ... Daddy loved 'im, Daddy did."
She began to cry softly. Her confession had taken her mind back to the huge figure on the bed.
"I wanted to go with Daddy," she sobbed. "I didn't know—I thought I couldn't live without 'im."
Stooping, Deforrest gathered the mourning little one into his arms, and seating himself in the big rocker, pressed his cheek against her hair in sympathy. Patiently he waited, holding her thus while the mercy of her flowing tears dulled the first sharp edge of her grief.
Bye and bye the sobs ceased, and a faint, catchy little voice struggled up through the red curls to the man's ears.
"Ye air awful good to me, you air. Oh, I needed ye so, and I feared—I feared mebbe ye wasn't never comin' again!"
"My dear, my dear," Young soothed, much moved. Then he rose and placed her in the chair. "You sit here and tell me about it."
Bravely she looked into the friendly face, a doleful smile quivering on her lips.
"The first thing I want to know," she asked, "what air ye goin' to do 'bout Andy?"
Professor Young had anticipated this question.
"Until I've had more time to think about it, and until after the funeral anyway, I'll keep your secret," he reassured her kindly.
"An' ye won't say anythin' to nobody 'bout 'im till ye talk with me again?" she queried, fearfully.
"That's what I mean, Tess," Young answered.
"Ye air so good to me, ye air," sighed Tess, satisfied.
"Child," began Young a moment later, "can you bear to tell me about it, now?"
"About Daddy?" asked Tess, "or about the other—"
The lawyer's nod, responsive to the latter half of her question, reawakened the suffering girl's memory of the horror of the church meeting.
"It were so awful," she said after a pregnant pause. "I mean—Mr. Waldstricker—"
"What about it? Tell me," Young interrupted, as the gentle voice hesitated.
"See ... this!" she murmured, turning her head.
Young's eyes caught the red of the wound on her neck.
"He did that!... How?" he ejaculated fiercely.
"He hit me with a piece of—coal!" answered Tess, sinking back, very white.
"No, no; God, no!" he cried desperately. "He couldn't have done that!"
"He said I were ... bad," interrupted Tess, very low. She bowed her head, and the man, stunned, made no move toward her. His muscles seemed powerless, and he had no volition to comfort her. He could not erase from his mind that horrid picture her few direct words had brought before him. "But ...youair trustin' me!" was the way Tess brought him back to himself.
"Then it's true what—what—"
His tongue grew parched.
"Yep, but trust me, please!" cried Tess.
Trust her! Believe in her with her confession ringingin his ears. God, if he did not love her, it wouldn't be so hard to believe, to trust, to help. But with this fierce jealousy stabbing at his heart, he felt he must know more—all. His mind went back to that time when she had come to him with a child in a basket, and her plea had been the same, "Oh, trust me! Please trust me!"
"If you could only ... tell me ... something," he groaned.
"It air true what Mr. Waldstricker hit me fer," bowed Tess, swallowing hard, "but I can't say nothin' 'bout it, I can't! I ain't able to tell nothin' more'n that!"
Young still stood several feet from her.
"I must do something to help you," he implored. "Won't you even tell me when it—it will be, Tessibel?"
Through her tense fingers the girl murmured a stifled "March."
March—scarce three months away! He would have given five years of his life to have had her tell him the truth about this thing that had crushed her. He made a nervous movement with his fingers to his hair.
"You are bound by a promise?" he demanded sharply.
A white, uplifted, pained face was his answer.
"You'll tell me some day, if you can," he said, going swiftly to her.
"Yes," whispered Tess.
And then for a long time nothing was heard in the hut but the winter without, the growls and mutterings of the bulldog in his sleep by the stove, and a sob now and then from the dwarf in the garret.
The healing silence of a common love in the presence of a common grief settled upon the strangely matched couple. The little squatter girl, with her shameful secret, and the great lawyer and teacher, kept solemn vigil over the body of Daddy Skinner.
Daddy Skinner was buried. All the arrangement in connection with the obsequies devolved upon Professor Young. It was he who brought the girl back to the shanty in her simple, clinging, black gown, and after the carriage had delivered them at the hut door, carried her, almost unconscious, into the house and laid hergently upon her bed. Then he closed the door and sat down beside her. It was perhaps an hour later when she lifted her eyes appealingly.
"I air awful glad ye stayed with me," she choked.
"Tess,"—Young's voice shook.... "Will you let me talk to you a little and not feel I'm intruding upon your sorrows or your secrets?"
"Ye wouldn't do anythin' what wasn't right," murmured the girl, under her breath.
For some moments he smoothed her burning forehead. Then he lifted her hand and held it in his.
"Tessibel," he began.
"What?"
"First, tell me about the little man in the garret."
"There ain't nothin' much to tell," she responded, shaking her head. "When he got out of Auburn, he come here and asked me an' Daddy to take care of 'im, an' we done it, that air all."
"I see, dear—and—and you didn't think the law required you to give him up?"
Tess moved her head negatively on the pillow.
"Sure not, or I'd a done it long ago. The law—what do I care 'bout the law?... It air always puttin' innercent men in jail. That air all the law air fer."
"But this man is a murderer," Young tried to explain to her.
But Tessibel's gesture, both hands raised, palms outward, expressed her dissent.
"They said as how Daddy were a murderer, too," she retorted, "but you found out he weren't, didn't ye?"
Young, not able to gainsay this, nodded his head.
"How long are you going to keep him here?" he asked presently.
Tess sent him a glance pathetically sad and discouraged.
"I don't know. The poor little duffer hain't no friends. He ain't no other place to go where old Eb won't git 'im."
Young thought of his brother-in-law. He realized immediately with what joy that stern disciplinarian would snatch the little man back into Auburn prison.Doubtless, too, he would visit his rage on the girl who'd shielded him.
"Ye helped Daddy git out o' jail," Tess whispered. "Couldn't ye keep Andy out?"
Deforrest Young turned his face to the ceiling. A pair of gleaming eyes were staring down upon him from the square hole.
"Come down here, you," he said peremptorily.
Andy slid down the ladder and squatted himself beside the cot. Young considered the boyish face some time in silence.
"What made you kill Waldstricker?" he demanded.
Andy shook his head.
"I never done it, mister," he denied positively.
"Tell me how it happened! If I'm going to help you, you must tell me the truth."
This wasn't what Young had intended to say at all.
"Andy ain't a liar," came from Tess.
"Tell me every word," urged Young.
The dwarf curled himself into a little ball and began.
"Well, us was all in a saloon at the Inlet, an' old Waldstricker, he come in with a nuther man, an' they both got a drink an' t'uther man went out. Me an' Owen Bennet were settin' at the table, ... Waldstricker he says somethin' nasty 'bout squatters an' ... Owen went fer 'im. Waldstricker pulled 'is gun. I knocked it out o' his hand an' Owen grabbed it up offen the floor an' sent a bullet right through Waldstricker's heart. Then us uns beat it, I mean me an' Owen, an' when they caught us ... he put the shootin' on me. I didn't do it, an' Owen knows I didn't."
Young was very quiet during this recital. He was considering the eager, boyish, upraised face.
"I hope ye believe me, mister—sir—please do," Andy pleaded.
Deforrest Young crossed his legs, smoothed his hair with one hand, and sat back in his chair.
"I think I do," he nodded presently. "Only I am placed in a very peculiar position. By rights I ought to send you back—then help you afterward if I can."
Tessibel sat up, her eyes wildly frightened.
"Ye couldn't do that!" she cried. "Ye couldn't dothat! Don't ye remember a day on the rocks, when I was awful sad, an' you said, 'Tess, if ye ever want me to do anything for ye, come and tell me.' Didn't ye say it?"
Young bowed his head.
"I air askin' it now," said Tess, throwing out her hand. "I air beggin' ye not to send Andy back. Let 'im stay with me. I promised Daddy I'd take care of 'im."
"Lie down again and be quiet, child," urged Deforrest, sadly. "You don't want to make yourself sick.... Hush, you mustn't cry!... Oh, child dear, will you please stop shaking that way?"
He had forgotten that when Tess loved any one, she would battle until her death before she gave him up.
"Then don't send little Andy back, an' I'll be awful good," she pleaded.
Young sat for some time, one hand on Tessibel's, the other beating a tatoo on the arm of Daddy's wooden rocker.
"I suppose," he said at length, as if speaking to himself, "I'll be highly criticized if any one finds out about this irregular proceeding. Nevertheless—" He turned to Tess. "I'll go quietly to work and see what I can do. In the meantime, dear child, you can't stay here in this house."
"But I promised Daddy I'd take care of Andy here, an' I air goin' to. Him and me can live here all right."
Young sighed. There was the same stubborn tone in her voice she had used in those days when her father was away in prison, and he had argued with her to leave the settlement.
"Well, at any rate," he said after a while, "I'll take time to consider it, and then we'll decide something."
Ten minutes later he was riding slowly up the hill, and as the past panoramied across his mind ... and evolved itself into the present, he shook his head. Tessibel had separated him from his family, had made him a stranger to his best friends. Would she now, by holding to Waldstricker's convicted murderer, deprive him of his honor?
CHAPTER XXXSandy Comes to Grief
The Skinner home was resting in its winter calm. Daddy Skinner was gone. Andy still crept about the dark garret, and Tessibel passed her days in study, performing the few duties the small shack required.
When Deforrest Young had gone away a few days after Daddy's funeral, he'd smiled into her eyes and had bidden her to be of good courage. Henceforth, he said, she was to be his charge. She felt a little lighter hearted. It made her happier, too, to think he knew about Andy Bishop and was going to help him.
The only person she feared was Sandy Letts. She'd not seen him since that day in the church when he had tried to draw her nearer the minister. Bitterly angry, she knew he must be. That he had delayed his revenge so long seemed to her rather menacing than comforting.
Her mind was drifting back over all the events of the past few months, when a shadow passed over the curtain at the window. She stole to the door and placed her ear to the latch. From that position she could plainly hear creeping footsteps crawling closer.
With her ear glued to the crack, she listened. There was no sound now of walking. The outsider was listening, too. Suddenly, he knocked heavily. Tess glanced to the garret. The dwarf's face was not in sight. Then the knock came again.
"Who air there?" Tess called, her breath catching.
There was no answer, save another knock.
Tessibel spoke once more. After a pause, Sandy Letts' voice came gruffly to her.
"Open the door, Tess. It air me, Sandy."
"What do ye want?" demanded Tess.
Sandy growled inarticulately, gave a kick to the floor, and rattled the latch.
"I want to come in, I said. I air goin' to talk to ye!"
Tessibel thought of Ben Letts and of how he, too, had demanded entrance to her home in just such a manner as his cousin was doing now. She glanced about for something with which to protect herself if needed. She wished with all her soul the brindle bull were with her then in the shanty.
Sandy gave another rough pull at the latch-string.
"Open the door, Tess," he growled again, "or I'll bust it down."
Tess knew Sandy would carry out his threat, and, if he broke down the door, his temper would be worse than now. She muttered a prayer to quiet the terror in her heart, and slipped up the bar. Sandy, gun in hand, stepped into the kitchen, and Tess closed the door.
"What do ye want, Sandy?" she questioned.
"I want to talk to ye, what do ye 'spose I want?" he flung out, swaggering his shoulders.
"Well, sit down," invited Tess, seeking to propitiate. "Ye knowed Daddy was dead, didn't ye, Sandy?"
"I can set down without bein' asked," grunted the squatter, dropping into a chair. "Sure I knowed yer pa's flew the coop."
"What'd ye want?" Tess asked again after a moment.
"I've come to settle with ye for somethin'," said Letts.
"I ain't done nothin'," replied Tess.
Sandy threw out an angry hand.
"Ye have, too, ye have, too! Didn't I want ye for my woman, and didn't ye go an'—"
"I said ye couldn't have me," interrupted the girl. "Folks ain't havin' everythin' they want in this world, Sandy."
"Then ye turned me down in the church afore Waldstricker," went on Sandy. "Ye might've been glad to marry a decent man after what ye'd done. But ye ups and says, 'I won't!' An' I've come to ask the reason why."
Tess walked across the shanty kitchen and sat on the edge of the cot. Sandy followed her with his eyes, his face growing crimson as he gazed at her.
"I air here for two things," he continued. "To find out the name of that man Waldstricker asked ye 'bout—"
Tessibel's low voice stopped his impudent speech.
"I couldn't tell ye that, Sandy, not even if ye killed me," she murmured. "What was t'uther thing?"
"I air goin' to take ye away with me fer my woman. But ye needn't think I air goin' to marry ye decent like I would in the church t'uther day, fer I won't."
Tessibel, weary and aching, grew cold with fear. She knew the squatter would keep his word, if he could. He would abuse her as Ben had tried to when her father was in Auburn unless help came. Then remembering all the days she had lived and suffered and still'd been saved from Sandy and his like, she breathed a deep sigh.
"I couldn't go with ye, Sandy," she explained.
A cruel expression set Sandy's large, sensuous mouth.
"Ye'll be glad to go with me when I git done with ye." He placed his gun against the chair and stood up. "First, I want to know what made ye act like that in the church fer. Don't ye know me well 'nough to think I'd get ye sooner or later. Ye knowed yer Daddy couldn't always live in the shack. Ye might better took me while ye could. I would jest have beat ye a bit fer yer cussedness, then mebbe after a while I'd fergive ye. But now—"
Tessibel's struggling to her feet broke off the man's volubility. She was so frightened that almost without thought she circled toward the door. Sandy got up and placed himself directly in front of her.
"No, ye don't git out o' here," he sneered, "not till I git through with ye. Jest make up yer mind to that."
Sandy was moving toward her, his eyes gleaming with rage. What could she do? She threw a hasty glance about the shanty. She knew Andy was under the straw tick in the garret and could not hear the low conversation going on in the kitchen.
As if in answer to her agonized prayer, another shadow passed the curtained window. Sandy had not seen it or he would not have thrust forth his great arms and snatched her to him. Tess uttered a scream. In another moment Jake Brewer sprang into the kitchen and was looking from Tessibel to the angry squatter.
Sandy pushed the girl roughly on to the cot—took two steps toward Brewer, his manner threatening.
"What ye sneakin' 'bout here fer?" he growled out.
Jake grinned slowly.
"I allers come in to see Tess," he replied. "What were ye doin', Sandy?"
"I air goin' to take Tessibel to be my woman," muttered Letts.
Jake glanced at the pallid girl.
"Oh, well, I swan! So that air it, eh?"
"Nope," Tess got out through her chattering teeth. Then all the pent-up rage in her body broke loose. "I ain't wantin' to be his woman. I want to be let alone in my shack! Oh, Jake, won't ye make Sandy go away and let me be?"
Sandy laughed evilly.
"It'd take a bigger man'n Jake," he remarked.
Brewer, unruffled, seated himself with the slow manner of a squatter.
"I don't say as how I air very big," replied Jake, crossing his legs, "but I guess no man'll take Tess long's she don't want to go, when I air here, Sandy."
Letts shook a threatening fist.
"Get out o' here, Jake," he growled, going toward the other man. "If ye don't, I'll make it worse fer ye! Git out, I say!"
"Shan't do it. Now, Sandy, I ain't no woman to be 'fraid of you, so just hold yer horses till us uns talk this out. Ye say ye want Tess fer your'n, an' Tess, she don't want ye, now what ye goin' to do?"
"I air a goin' to take her jest the same," snarled Letts.
But thinking better of placing his hands on the other man, he went to his chair and sat down. Tess, too, drew a little sigh of relief. Then the three sat for several quiet seconds looking from one to the other. At length, Tess broke out.
"Sandy said he'd keep away an' wait till he caught Andy Bishop afore he come to git me."
Sandy glared at her.
"But I told ye if ye had a nuther man hangin' round I'd fix both of ye, an' I'm goin' to keep my word," he snapped back.
"Ye can't fix any one but me, Sandy, 'cause ye don'tknow nobody else to hurt, do ye," she interrupted him.
"It air easy fer a man like me to choke the name out of ye, brat," replied Letts, blinking his eyes at her. "I'd be likin' nothin' better."
Jake moved his big boots back and forth several times.
"I wouldn't try it if I was you, Sandy," he cautioned, "'cause ye know uther folks might be interferin' with ye."
Sandy's throat emitted a deep, doglike growl as he clambered to his feet.
"I'll do it now, dam ye both," he barked back in ugly defiance.
Jake was on his feet before Letts could take a forward step and had placed himself between the big squatter and the girl.
That afternoon when Jake came back to see Tessibel, she threw a quick question at him.
"Air he dead, Jake?"
"Lordy, no, Tess, 'course not! He's tougher'n cow's tripe.... Sit down, brat, an' I'll tell ye about it.... Don't be shakin' so. It were like this! I was stoppin' Sandy from tryin' to git ye an' when I pushed 'im back, he kicked his own gun an' got a bullet in his big, fat leg, that air all."
"It was awful," cried Tess, wiping away her tears.
A slight smile played around Jake's lips, and showed a few of his dark teeth.
"Brat," he chuckled, "Sandy ain't done to his death by no means, an' you didn't have nothin' to do with it, nuther did I. 'Twere his own cussedness that put that bullet in his leg. There air one blessed thing, he won't be comin' round here for a long time yet botherin' you; so cheer up, an' be glad ye air a livin'."
Then Jake went away, leaving the girl and the little man in the garret, comforted and happier than they had been in many a day.