Mr. Harkutt coughed. It looks as if that blamed wind had blown suthin loose in the store, he said affectedly. I reckon Ill go and see. He hesitated a moment and then disappeared in the passage. Yet even here he stood irresolute, looking at the closed door behind him, and passing his hand over his still flushed face. Presently he slowly and abstractedly ascended the flight of steps, entered the smaller passage that led to the back door of the shop and opened it.
He was at first a little startled at the halo of light from the still glowing stove, which the greater obscurity of the long room had heightened rather than diminished. Then he passed behind the counter, but here the box of biscuits which occupied the centre and cast a shadow over it compelled him to grope vaguely for what he sought. Then he stopped suddenly, the paper he had just found dropping from his fingers, and said sharply,
Whos there?
Me, pop.
John Milton?
Yes, sir.
What the devil are you doin there, sir?
Readin.
It was true. The boy was half reclining in a most distorted posture on two chairs, his figure in deep shadow, but his book was raised above his head so as to catch the red glow of the stove on the printed page. Even then his fathers angry interruption scarcely diverted his preoccupation; he raised himself in his chair mechanically, with his eyes still fixed on his book. Seeing which his father quickly regained the paper, but continued his objurgation.
How dare you? Clear off to bed, will you! Do you hear me? Pretty goins on, he added as if to justify his indignation. Sneakin in here andand lyin round at this time o night! Why, if I hadnt come in here to
What? asked the boy mechanically, catching vaguely at the unfinished sentence and staring automatically at the paper in his fathers hand.
Nothin, sir! Go to bed, I tell you! Will you? What are you standin gawpin at? continued Harkutt furiously.
The boy regained his feet slowly and passed his father, but not without noticing with the same listless yet ineffaceable perception of childhood that he was hurriedly concealing the paper in his pocket. With the same youthful inconsequence, wondering at this more than at the interruption, which was no novel event, he went slowly out of the room.
Harkutt listened to the retreating tread of his bare feet in the passage and then carefully locked the door. Taking the paper from his pocket, and borrowing the idea he had just objurgated in his son, he turned it towards the dull glow of the stove and attempted to read it. But perhaps lacking the patience as well as the keener sight of youth, he was forced to relight the candle which he had left on the counter, and reperused the paper. Yes! there was certainly no mistake! Here was the actual description of the property which the surveyor had just indicated as the future terminus of the new railroad, and here it was conveyed to himDaniel Harkutt! What was that? Somebody knocking? What did this continual interruption mean? An odd superstitious fear now mingled with his irritation.
The sound appeared to come from the front shutters. It suddenly occurred to him that the light might be visible through the crevices. He hurriedly extinguished it, and went to the door.
Whos there?
Me,Peters. Want to speak to you.
Mr. Harkutt with evident reluctance drew the bolts. The wind, still boisterous and besieging, did the rest, and precipitately propelled Peters through the carefully guarded opening. But his surprise at finding himself in the darkness seemed to forestall any explanation of his visit.
Well, he said with an odd mingling of reproach and suspicion. I declare I saw a light here just this minit! Thats queer.
Yes, I put it out just now. I was goin away, replied Harkutt, with ill-disguised impatience.
What! been here ever since?
No, said Harkutt curtly.
Well, I want to speak to ye about Lige. Seein the candle shinin through the chinks I thought he might be still with ye. If he aint, it looks bad. Light up, cant ye! I want to show you something.
There was a peremptoriness in his tone that struck Harkutt disagreeably, but observing that he was carrying something in his hand, he somewhat nervously re-lit the candle and faced him. Peters had a hat in his hand. It was Liges!
Bout an hour after we fellers left here, said Peters, I heard the rattlin of hoofs on the road, and then it seemed to stop just by my house. I went out with a lantern, and, darn my skin! if there warnt Liges hoss, the saddle empty, and Lige nowhere! I looked round and called himbut nothing were to be seen. Thinkin he might have slipped offtho ez a general rule drunken men dont, and he is a good riderI followed down the road, lookin for him. I kept on follerin it down to your run, half a mile below.
But, began Harkutt, with a quick nervous laugh, you dont reckon that because of that he
Hold on! said Peters, grimly producing a revolver from his side-pocket with the stock and barrel clogged and streaked with mud. I found THAT too,and look! one barrel discharged! And, he added hurriedly, as approaching a climax, look ye,what I natrally took for wet from the raininside that hatwasblood!
Nonsense! said Harkutt, putting the hat aside with a new fastidiousness. You dont think
I think, said Peters, lowering his voice, I think, by God! HES BIN AND DONE IT!
No!
Sure! Oh, its all very well for Billings and the rest of that conceited crowd to sneer and sling their ideas of Lige genrally as they did jess now here,but Id like em to see THAT. It was difficult to tell if Mr. Peters triumphant delight in confuting his late companions theories had not even usurped in his mind the importance of the news he brought, as it had of any human sympathy with it.
Look here, returned Harkutt earnestly, yet with a singularly cleared brow and a more natural manner. You ought to take them things over to Squire Kerbys, right off, and show em to him. You kin tell him how you left Lige here, and say that I can prove by my daughter that he went away about ten minutes after,at least, not more than fifteen. Like all unprofessional humanity, Mr. Harkutt had an exaggerated conception of the majesty of unimportant detail in the eye of the law. Id go with you myself, he added quickly, but Ive got companystrangershere.
How did he look when he left,kinder wild? suggested Peters.
Harkutt had begun to feel the prudence of present reticence. Well, he said, cautiously, YOU saw how he looked.
You wasnt rough with him?that might have sent him off, you know, said Peters.
No, said Harkutt, forgetting himself in a quick indignation, no, I not only treated him to another drink, but gave himhe stopped suddenly and awkwardly.
Eh? said Peters.
Some good advice,you know, said Harkutt, hastily. But come, youd better hurry over to the squires. You know YOUVE made the discovery; YOUR evidence is important, and theres a law that obliges you to give information at once.
The excitement of discovery and the triumph over his disputants being spent, Peters, after the Sidon fashion, evidently did not relish activity as a duty. You know, he said dubiously, he mightnt be dead, after all.
Harkutt became a trifle distant. You know your own opinion of the thing, he replied after a pause. Youve circumstantial evidence enough to see the squire, and set others to work on it; and, he added significantly, youve done your share then, and can wipe your hands of it, eh?
Harkutt became a trifle distant. You know your own opinion of the thing, he replied after a pause. Youve circumstantial evidence enough to see the squire, and set others to work on it; and, he added significantly, youve done your share then, and can wipe your hands of it, eh?
Thats so, said Peters, eagerly. Ill just run over to the squire.
And on account of the women folks, you know, and the strangers here, Ill say nothin about it to-night, added Harkutt.
Peters nodded his head, and taking up the hat of the unfortunate Elijah with a certain hesitation, as if he feared it had already lost its dramatic intensity as a witness, disappeared into the storm and darkness again. A lurking gust of wind lying in ambush somewhere seemed to swoop down on him as if to prevent further indecision and whirl him away in the direction of the justices house; and Mr. Harkutt shut the door, bolted it, and walked aimlessly back to the counter.
From a slow, deliberate and cautious man, he seemed to have changed within an hour to an irresolute and capricious one. He took the paper from his pocket, and, unlocking the money drawer of his counter, folded into a small compass that which now seemed to be the last testament of Elijah Curtis, and placed it in a recess. Then he went to the back door and paused, then returned, reopened the money drawer, took out the paper and again buttoned it in his hip pocket, standing by the stove and staring abstractedly at the dull glow of the fire. He even went through the mechanical process of raking down the ashes,solely to gain time and as an excuse for delaying some other necessary action.
He was thinking what he should do. Had the question of his right to retain and make use of that paper been squarely offered to him an hour ago, he would without doubt have decided that he ought not to keep it. Even now, looking at it as an abstract principle, he did not deceive himself in the least. But Nature has the reprehensible habit of not presenting these questions to us squarely and fairly, and it is remarkable that in most of our offending the abstract principle is never the direct issue. Mr. Harkutt was conscious of having been unwillingly led step by step into a difficult, not to say dishonest, situation, and against his own seeking. He had never asked Elijah to sell him the property; he had distinctly declined it; it had even been forced upon him as security for the pittance he so freely gave him. This proved (to himself) that he himself was honest; it was only the circumstances that were queer. Of course if Elijah had lived, he, Harkutt, might have tried to drive some bargain with him before the news of the railroad survey came outfor THAT was only business. But now that Elijah was dead, who would be a penny the worse or better but himself if he chose to consider the whole thing as a lucky speculation, and his gift of five dollars as the price he paid for it? Nobody could think that he had calculated upon Liges suicide, any more than that the property would become valuable. In fact if it came to that, if Lige had really contemplated killing himself as a hopeless bankrupt after taking Harkutts money as a loan, it was a swindle on hisHarkuttsgood-nature. He worked himself into a rage, which he felt was innately virtuous, at this tyranny of cold principle over his own warm-hearted instincts, but if it came to the LAW, hed stand by law and not sentiment. Hed just let themby which he vaguely meant the world, Tasajara, and possibly his own consciencesee that he wasnt a sentimental fool, and hed freeze on to that paper and that property!
Only he ought to have spoken out before. He ought to have told the surveyor at once that he owned the land. He ought to have said: Why, thats my land. I bought it of that drunken Lige Curtis for a song and out of charity. Yes, that was the only real trouble, and that came from his own goodness, his own extravagant sense of justice and right,his own cursed good-nature. Yet, on second thoughts, he didnt know why he was obliged to tell the surveyor. Time enough when the company wanted to buy the land. As soon as it was settled that Lige was dead hed openly claim the property. But what if he wasnt dead? or they couldnt find his body? or he had only disappeared? His plain, matter-of-fact face contracted and darkened. Of course he couldnt ask the company to wait for him to settle that point. He had the power to dispose of the property under that paper, andhe should do it. If Lige turned up, that was another matter, and he and Lige could arrange it between them. He was quite firm here, and oddly enough quite relieved in getting rid of what appeared only a simple question of detail. He never suspected that he was contemplating the one irretrievable step, and summarily dismissing the whole ethical question.
He turned away from the stove, opened the back door, and walked with a more determined step through the passage to the sitting-room. But here he halted again on the threshold with a quick return of his old habits of caution. The door was slightly open; apparently his angry outbreak of an hour ago had not affected the spirits of his daughters, for he could hear their hilarious voices mingling with those of the strangers. They were evidently still fortune-telling, but this time it was the prophetic and divining accents of Mr. Rice addressed to Clementina which were now plainly audible.
I see heaps of money and a great many friends in the change that is coming to you. Dear me! how many suitors! But I cannot promise you any marriage as brilliant as my friend has just offered your sister. You may be certain, however, that youll have your own choice in this, as you have in all things.
Thank you for nothing, said Clementinas voice. But what are those horrid black cards beside them?thats trouble, Im sure.
Not for you, though near you. Perhaps some one you dont care much for and dont understand will have a heap of trouble on your account,yes, on account of these very riches; see, he follows the ten of diamonds. It may be a suitor; it may be some one now in the house, perhaps.
He means himself, Miss Clementina, struck in Grants voice laughingly.
Youre not listening, Miss Harkutt, said Rice with half-serious reproach. Perhaps you know who it is?
But Miss Clementinas reply was simply a hurried recognition of her fathers pale face that here suddenly confronted her with the opening door.
Why, its father!
CHAPER III
In his strange mental condition even the change from Harkutts feeble candle to the outer darkness for a moment blinded Elijah Curtis, yet it was part of that mental condition that he kept moving steadily forward as in a trance or dream, though at first purposelessly. Then it occurred to him that he was really looking for his horse, and that the animal was not there. This for a moment confused and frightened him, first with the supposition that he had not brought him at all, but that it was part of his delusion; secondly, with the conviction that without his horse he could neither proceed on the course suggested by Harkutt, nor take another more vague one that was dimly in his mind. Yet in his hopeless vacillation it seemed a relief that now neither was practicable, and that he need do nothing. Perhaps it was a mysterious providence!
The explanation, however, was much simpler. The horse had been taken by the luxurious and indolent Billings unknown to his companions. Overcome at the dreadful prospect of walking home in that weather, this perfect product of lethargic Sidon had artfully allowed Peters and Wingate to precede him, and, cautiously unloosing the tethered animal, had safely passed them in the darkness. When he gained his own inclosure he had lazily dismounted, and, with a sharp cut on the mustangs haunches, sent him galloping back to rejoin his master, with what result has been already told by the unsuspecting Peters in the preceding chapter.