CHAPTER XIX

THE SQUIRE AND DAVID TAKE A JOURNEY BY NIGHT

ON Saturday evening David returned to Millerstown and for the second time in his life entered his father's house--his house now--by the front door. There were friendly lights here and there; the squire, who had met him at the train, slipped a kindly hand under his arm as they ascended the steps and crossed the porch. To the squire the Hartmans were queer, unhuman. But David looked worn and miserable; perhaps they suffered more than one thought. In his first confusion after the disappearance of the communion service, John Hartman had behaved so strangely toward his old friend that the squire had avoided him as a burnt child avoids the fire. But that was long ago, and here was this boy come home to his mother's funeral. The squire patted David's shoulder as they entered the door.

David glanced with a shiver toward the room upon the left where he had caught the first glimpse of the bed upon which his father lay. But the door was closed; Cassie had not been moved from the catafalque upon which she died.

From the dim end of the long hall, a short figure advanced to meet the two men. It was not Katy, who had resigned her place, but Bevy, who had come to stay until the funeral was over. Bevy shook hands with David solemnly, looking up at him with awe, as the owner of farms and orchards and this great house and unreckoned bank stock. She had spread his supper in the kitchen, and the squire sat with him while he ate. Then the two men went upstairs together.

In Cassie's room a light burned faintly. The squire turned it higher and then looked at David.

"Shall I go down, David?"

"No," said David.

The squire crossed the room slowly and laid back the cover from Cassie's face; then both men stood still, looking first at the figure on the bed, then at each other. Cassie had always been beautiful, but now an unearthly loveliness lighted her face. Her dark hair was braided high on her head; her broad forehead with its beautifully arched brows seemed to shed an actual radiance. David had never observed his mother's beauty, but now, in the last few months, he had wakened to aspects to which he had been blind. He had seen beautiful women; he could compare them with his mother as she lay before him. He looked at her hands, still shapely in spite of the hard toil of her life, folded now across her quiet breast; he noted the shape of her forehead; he saw the smile with which she seemed to be contemplating some secret and lovely thing.

Upon the squire the sight of Cassie made a deep impression. Tears came into his eyes, and he shook his head as though before him lay an unfathomable mystery. He felt about her as he might have felt about some young person cut off in youth. Here was extraordinary promise, here was pitiful blight. The squire had observed human nature in many unusual and pathetic situations, here was the most pathetic of all. The Hartmans could not be understood.

Then the squire, glancing at David, went out and closed the door and left him with his mother.

In dumb confusion, David stood by the great bed. More vaguely, the squire's puzzle was his also. His mother had had an empty life--it should not have been empty. He could not understand her, he could not understand his father. They had put him away from them. The old resentful, heart-breaking misery came back; he had no people, he had no one who loved him. Then resentment faded and grief filled him. Like a lover, refused, rejected, he knelt down beside the great bed.

"Oh, mother!" cried David, again and again. "Oh, mother, mother!" Then the old, unanswered, unanswerable cry, "Speak to me!"

From the great bed came no sign. David rose presently and laid back the cover over the smiling lips and turned the light low and went down to join the squire. Composedly he made plans with him for the funeral. The squire announced that he and Bevy had come to take up their abode unless David wished to be alone. The squire looked at David, startled. In the last year David had grown more than ever like his parents; he had his mother's features and his father's deep gray eyes and thickly curling hair.

"When you are through your school, you must settle down in Millerstown," said the squire. "There ought to be little folks here in this house."

David's heart leaped, then sank back to its place. He had cured himself of Katy Gaumer; such flashes were only meaningless recollections of past habit.

"I am thinking of studying law," he told the squire. "That will keep me in school three years more. And then I couldn't practice law in Millerstown."

"The Hartmans are not lawyers," said the squire. "The Hartmans are farmers. You would have plenty to keep you busy, David."

If old habit caused David to look for Katy Gaumer, David's eyes were not gratified by what they sought. Neither before his mother's funeral nor afterward did she appear. Bevy had removed her few belongings from David's room before he returned; there remained in the Hartman house no evidence of her presence. Bevy said that Katy was tired, that she lay all day on the settle in her uncle's kitchen. Bevy longed to pour out to David an account of Katy's treatment at the hands of Alvin Koehler, prospective church member though he was. But she had been forbidden by the squire to open her lips on the subject; and, besides, David Hartman, the heir to all this magnificence, could hardly be expected to take an interest in one who had demeaned herself to become his mother's servant. Nevertheless, a wild scheme formed itself in Bevy's mind.

"Sometimes Katy cries," reported Bevy sentimentally to David. "It seems as though this brought back everything about her gran'mom and everything. Yesterday she was real sick, but to-day she complains better again. Katy has had a good deal of trouble in this world."

David frowned. He was going back to college in the morning; his bag was already packed. Katy had been in the house until the time of his mother's death; she should have asked him to come to see her. Old habit tempted him to play once more with fire.

"I would like to see Katy," he said now to Bevy.

"Well!" Bevy faced him with arms akimbo, her little eyes sparkling. "I will tell Katy that she shall come here once this evening."

"No," answered David, who had got beyond the simple ways of Millerstown. "Ask her whether I may come to see her this evening."

"Of course, you can come to see her!" cried Bevy. "I will just tell her you are coming."

But Bevy returned with an astonishing message. Bevy was amazed at Katy's temerity. She had planned that she would suggest to Edwin's Sally that she and Edwin go to bed and leave the kitchen to David and Katy.

"She only cried and said you should not come. Sally said I must leave her alone. She said the squire said and Edwin said that Katy must be left alone. Katy is not herself."

In June David returned to Millerstown with trunks and boxes to stay for the summer, at least. Upon his face a fresh record was written. He looked older, his lips were more firmly set. His last term had been easy; he had permitted himself holidays; he had visited New York, had seen great ships, had climbed great buildings, had learned, or thought that he had learned, that money can buy anything in the world. He had talked for defiance' sake with the pretty girl who had told him so sweetly long ago that the college town was glad of his presence. The pretty girl smiled upon him even more sweetly; it was clear to David's eyes that his blunder was nothing to her. He talked to other girls; it was equally clear that they were glad to forget any blunders of the past. He had not yet made up his mind what he would do with this great world which he could buy. Its evil was as plain to him as its good, but he meant to have all of it. It was as though David gathered together the pipe and cards flung into the tree-tops from the Sheep Stable.

It was late in the afternoon when he arrived in Millerstown. Main Street lay quiet and golden in the sunshine. It was supper time and the Millerstonians were indoors. Few persons saw him come, and those few stood in too great awe of him to invite him to their houses. He met Katy Gaumer as he turned the corner sharply, and Katy gasped and looked at him somberly, standing still in a strange way to let him pass. She answered his greeting without lifting her head. Old habit made David grit his teeth.

Upon her doorstep sat the little Improved New Mennonite, her supper finished. She was prettier than ever. By nature a manager, she had reduced Alvin's financial and other troubles to their simplest terms, and there was now hope of a happy issue from them. Alvin himself, though at peace, was not exactly happy. He had been held so diligently to his work, he had been compelled to dress so plainly that he was much depressed in spirit. Red neckties were now anathema; masculine adherents of the sect of the Improved New Mennonites, indeed, abjured neckties altogether, and Alvin feared that the black one to which he was reduced would presently also be taken from him. In her practical way Essie had long since decided that the rented house in the village could not be considered as an abode, but that the little house on the mountain-side must be returned to.

To the side of the little Mennonite came David when he had opened the windows of his house. The place was desolate. The baffling sense of his mother's presence, even the consciousness of his father's, so long past, were intolerable. He would not endure this discomfort. He was young, ought to have happiness, would have it. Essie Hill was lovely to look at, she admired him, she was a woman; he would go and talk to Essie. He wished that he had brought her a present, but he could order one for her. If he stayed in Millerstown this summer Essie would be a pleasant diversion.

From the doorstep Essie looked up at him. Then, as he prepared to sit down beside her, she drew away, blushing primly.

"I am going to be married," said she. "I think I ought to tell you."

David grew suddenly pale. If a pigeon had turned from his caress to attack him with talons, if a board from his walk had arisen to smite him, he could not have been more astounded.

"To whom?" said he.

"I am going to marry Alvin."

"Alvin who?" asked David, bewildered.

"Alvin Koehler."

Then was David's pride wounded! He wished Essie well with a steady voice, however, and went on to the post-office and back to his house and sat down on the dark back porch. How he hated them all, these miserable people, but how he hated most of all Alvin Koehler. It was not, he remembered, the first time that Alvin had been preferred to him. He thought again of William, gibbering and praying in the corner of the almshouse garden. God had put him there. It was a proof that God existed that he had punished Alvin's father. And Alvin should be punished, too. David knew of the mortgage among his father's papers. It was only by his father's grace that the Koehlers had been allowed to live so long on the mountain-side. That house should continue in their possession no longer. Other schemes for revenge came into his mind. He sat miserably, his head buried in his hands as though he were a tramp waiting for food instead of the heir of the house come home to take possession.

He did not hear the sound of a step on the brick walk. Suddenly, a girl screamed lightly and he lifted his head, then sprang to his feet.

"What is it?" he cried to the ghostly figure. "Who are you?"

"I didn't mean to scream," said Katy Gaumer. "I didn't see you at first and I was frightened. I thought it was some stranger."

"It is I," said David, gruffly. Katy's figure had seemed like an apparition in the dim light; he had been horribly startled.

"I want to see you, David," said Katy, hesitatingly. "I have something I must talk to you about."

"I'll make a light inside."

"I'd rather talk here," said Katy. "I'll sit here on the step. I don't believe any one will come."

David offered her a chair. The blood was pounding in his temples, his wrists felt weak.

Katy had already seated herself on the low step. David sat on a chair on the porch; he could see her as she propped her elbows on her knees and made a cup for her chin with her hands. David breathed deeply; old habit was reasserting itself. Then he saw that Katy was trembling; to his amazement he heard her crying.

"You aren't well, Katy!"

"Yes," said Katy. "But I have a duty to do. It is hard. It nearly kills me."

David's thoughts leaped wildly from one possibility to another. What had she done? What could she have done? Here was Katy in a new light, weeping, distressed.

"What is it, Katy? Don't be afraid to tell me."

"I am afraid to tell you." Katy turned her white face toward him. "But I must tell you. It has been on my mind day and night. I have tried to think of another way, but I cannot."

"But what is it?"

"When I was a little girl and lived with my grandfather and grandmother, I used to run away, and one day I ran away to the church. Alvin Koehler's father was there plastering the wall, and I watched him, and after a while I went to sleep in a pew. When I woke up Alvin's father was gone, but your father was there, David."

David gave a great start.

"You cannot say anything to me against my father!"

"But I must tell you, David. You will have to decide what is to be done. I haven't told the squire or any one, but you must know. It has been on my mind all this time. I can't rest or sleep any more. I went up to your father and he spoke roughly to me, and then I ran out and went home to my grandmother. She laughed at me and said your father was only chasing me home where I ought to be. After a while I believed it. Then Alvin Koehler's father got up at the funeral and talked about the communion set and I didn't believe such a thing for a minute, not a minute. Alvin is not--is not--very honest--and I never believed it."

"You didn't believe what?" said David with a dry throat. "What in this world are you talking about?"

"I didn't believe for a minute that your father would have anything to do with taking the communion set. I--"

"He didn't have anything to do with it," cried David. "What nonsense is this?"

Katy covered her face with her hands. She went on mechanically as though she had prepared what she had to say.

"Before your mother died and the preacher came to give her communion, he lifted the cup high in the air and the light shone on it. Then I remembered everything that I had forgotten, how I had run away to the church and everything, and I knew that your father had the shining cup in his hand when I ran up to him. That was what I wanted--the shining cup. He was there with it in his hand; it is as plain as if it were now."

"I do not believe you!"

To this Katy returned no answer.

"Why didn't you tell it long ago?"

"I didn't remember this part till that night," said Katy, patiently. "But I couldn't come and tell you then! I have thought over this and prayed over it. If I could bear it for you, I would, David. But I can't."

"I do not believe you," said David. "You imagined it. What could my father have wanted with the communion service? What could he have done with it?"

"There was a hole in the wall and he pushed it in quickly."

"A hole in the wall!"

"Alvin's father was mending the wall. There used to be a window there. I asked the squire about the window. Alvin's father was closing it up."

Into David's mind came a sickening recollection of the wild-eyed, desperate figure which had risen to shout out the terrible accusation.

"I do not believe it," he said again. "You have always helped Alvin Koehler. You helped him dishonestly in school. You are trying to help him now."

Katy's head bent a little lower over her knees.

"He does not even have sense enough to care for you or to be grateful to you."

Katy rose from her place on the low step. With a gasp she started down the walk.

"What are you going to do about it?" cried David, hoarsely.

"Nothing," answered Katy.

"You are going now to tell the squire!"

"No," said Katy, "I am not going to tell any one."

"Then why did you come here?" David followed her to the gate. "You have made trouble, you are always making trouble. If you are not going to do anything about it, why did you come here?"

"I had to tell you," insisted Katy, woefully. "Can't you see that I had to tell you?"

"It is not true," said David again. "If you think I will do anything against my father's name you are mistaken. You--"

But Katy had gone. He heard the familiar click of the gate, he heard her steps quicken. She was running away as from a house of plague.

Then David hid his face in his arms and sat long alone on the porch. He saw his father's stern face. His father had gone about--this there was no denying--like a man with a heavy load upon his heart. But that he should have had anything to do with the theft of a communion service, that he should even have touched it, that he, himself, knowing the truth, should have allowed another to be suspected--this was monstrous.

With rapid step David went up and down the porch. He would go away from Millerstown forever, that was certain. He would sell his house, his farms; he would shake the dust of the place from his feet. But first he would clear the mind of Katy Gaumer from this outrageous suspicion and make it impossible for the slander to travel farther. As he made his plans, he stood still at the top of the porch steps, his head bent. Then he lifted his head with a sudden motion. There was for an instant a strangeness in the air, a sense of human presence. David felt blessed in his endeavor.

A few moments later he opened the door of the squire's office.

The squire, busy with his favorite occupation, the planning of a journey, sat with his feet comfortably elevated on the table. He let his chair slam to the floor and came forward to meet his guest.

"Well, David, now you are a graduate! Let me look at you! Now you are to stay with us. Why, David!" The squire stared at the countenance before him. "Are you in trouble?"

"Yes," answered David.

With the squire in his chair behind the desk, himself on the old settle, David told his story.

"Katy Gaumer came to the house this evening and told me a strange thing. She says that she saw my father with the communion cup in his hand the day that the service disappeared from the church."

"The communion cup?" repeated the squire, startled almost out of his wits. "What communion cup?"

"The one that disappeared."

The squire gasped.

"Katy saw him!" Here was Katy again, Katy who had seemed to them all to be such a promising child, Katy who was determined to go away to school, Katy who helped young rascals from her poverty, Katy who now would not study, who refused to do anything but sit dismally about! "Katy Gaumer," he repeated. "Our Katy?"

"Yes, Katy Gaumer," said David. "She says she was a little child and that she ran away from her grandmother to the church and saw my father put the silver cup into a hole made by plastering up the window."

"Impossible!" cried the squire. "Nonsense! Humbug! The girl is crazy. It couldn't be!"

David looked at him and drew a deep breath.

"That was what I said. Then I thought of Koehler, and of how he had gone mad, and I knew my father would wish it investigated."

An electric shock tingled the squire's sensorium. He remembered the contorted face, the trembling hands, the terrible earnestness with which Koehler made his attack upon the dead man.

"What is your plan, David?" he asked.

"I thought we might get the key of the church and go out there and look about. It's bright moonlight and I believe we can see without making a light. I don't believe I can sleep until I have been out there and have looked about. I suppose we will have to get a key from the preacher."

"I have a key," said the squire. "But let us wait till to-morrow, David."

"I must go to-night," insisted David.

Only once were words exchanged on the journey. The two men went out the village street, past Grandfather Gaumer's, where a hundred sweet odors saluted them from the garden and where Katy lay weeping on her bed, to the path along the pike, between the open fields.

"You knew my father," said David. "Such a thing could not have been possible."

"I knew him from a boy," answered the squire heartily and honestly. "Such a thing could not have been possible."

"Had Koehler ever made this accusation before the time of my father's funeral?"

"He made it to the preacher after the service disappeared, but the preacher told him he must be still."

"Could Koehler have had any motive for taking it himself?"

"He was a poor man," answered the squire. "But he was simple and honest--all the Koehlers were."

"What do you suppose became of it?"

"I have always supposed that some one sneaked in while Koehler was away for a minute. A tramp could easily have walked in."

"Did my father never say that he had been in the church that afternoon?"

"Not that I know of."

The church door opened easily and quietly, the church was dim and silent. The tall, narrow windows, fitted with clear glass, let in the light of the moon upon the high pulpit, the oaken pews, the bare floor. The pulpit and the Bible were draped with protecting covers of white which made the church seem more ghostly and mysterious. Katy Gaumer in certain moods would have been enchanted.

Together the two men looked at the smooth wall beside the pulpit.

"It doesn't seem as if that wall could ever have been broken," said David in a low voice. "Was the window there?"

"Yes," answered the squire. "There was a window there. But William Koehler was a fine plasterer. The window went almost from ceiling to floor."

"We would have to have a pickaxe and other tools. And we would have to ask for permission to open it. And all Millerstown would have to know," said David.

The squire pondered for an instant. "We would if we opened it from this side. But the Sunday School is built against the other side, and there there is only a little thin wainscoting to break through. It could be taken out and put back easily. There are tools here in the church somewhere."

The squire returned to the vestibule and opened the door of a cupboard.

"Here is a whole basket of tools. I do not like to make a light or every one will see. Millerstown is wonderful curious." The squire's light tone sounded strangely in the silence of the church, strangely to David and strangely to himself. "Don't you think, David"--the squire had his hand on the knob of the Sunday-School room door--"don't you think we had better wait till to-morrow?"

"No," answered David.

The squire passed on into the little Sunday-School room and David followed him.

"It's brighter here." The squire measured the wainscoting with his eye. "The old window ought to be about here. Sit down, David."

David obeyed, trembling.

"I don't believe I could open it," said he.

"Of course not!" answered the squire, cheerfully. "Do not worry, David. That silver has been melted this long time."

The squire thrust a chisel into a crevice and lifted out a section of wainscoting, then another. When three or four narrow strips were removed, he thrust his hand into the aperture. The moonlight grew brighter as the moon cleared the upper boughs of the old cherry trees outside the Sunday-School building; it shone upon a curious scene, the old man at his strange task, the young man watching so eagerly.

"There can't be anything here," said the squire, cheerfully. "There can't be. This might just as well be made into a book cupboard for the Sunday School; it is wasted space. It's queer we never thought of that. You see the church wall is four bricks thick here, and William's wall only one brick. It--"

The squire ceased suddenly to speak. His exploring hand had only now reached the bottom of the deep hole; it came into contact with a substance different from the fallen rubble which he expected to touch. David heard his voice die away, saw him start.

"What is it, sir?"

"There is something here," answered the squire.

David looked at the yawning hole with what courage he could muster. The squire thrust in his hand a little deeper, and groped about. Then, from the pit from which John Hartman might have lifted them easily had not all thought been paralyzed, he drew in their gray bag a pitcher, black with tarnish, and a silver plate, and set them on the floor beside him, and then a silver chalice. Still feeling about, he touched a paper and that, too, he lifted out and laid on the floor with the silver vessels.

Then, silently, he and David looked at each other.