Part 12

“I reckon thar's no doubt about it,” answered Porter. “Pole Baker's roarin' drunk, an' that always indicates that some'n' good or bad's happened to him or his friends. Thar hain't no money in Floyd's find. The Atlanta man's on the ragged edge; in fact, some say he never would 'a' confessed to the crime ef he hadn't heard that Nelson was well-to-do. I dunno. I hardly ever laugh, but I mighty nigh split my sides while Jim Carden was pokin' fun at 'em all. Jim says all the bon-tons in this section has been treatin' Floyd like a runt pig till now. The Duncans had a big blow-out at the'r house last night. Miss Evelyn's got some Atlanta gals an' boys thar at a house-party, an' the shindig was a big event. Jim said he was standin' nigh Floyd yesterday when he got his invite, an' that Nelson was about to refuse p'int-blank to go, beca'se he'd never been axed thar before he got his blood certificate; but Jim said Pole Baker was standin' thar about half-shot, swayin' back an' forth agin the desk, an' Pole up an' told Floyd that he'd have to accept--that he was as good as any in the land, an' to refuse a thing o' that sort would belittle 'im; an' so Nelson put on a b'iled shirt an' a dicky cravat an' went. Jim said his wife run over with a passle o' other women to help about the dinin'-room an' kitchen, an' that Floyd was the high-cockalorum of the whole bunch. He said all the women was at his heels, an' that nothin' was talked except the high an' mighty grandeur that's come an' gone among the Nelsons an' Floyds. Jim said Floyd looked like he wanted to crawl through a knot-hole in the floor. I'll say this fer that feller--blood or no blood, he hain't no dem fool, an' you mark my words, this thing hain't a-goin' to spile 'im nuther. You let a man make hisse'f in life, an' he hain't a-goin' daft about the flabby, ready-made sort.”

“You wait and see,” Mrs. Porter said, a sneer on her lips, as she critically eyed Cynthia's face. “A man that's as bad as he is, to begin with, will be worse when he is run after like that.”

“I dunno,” said Porter, his mouth full of beans. “I seed 'im give old Johnson Blare a cut this mornin' that tickled me powerful. The old skunk got out o' his rickety buggy in front o' the store an' went in to congratulate Floyd. I knowed what he was up to, an' follered 'im back to the desk. He told Floyd that he was a sort o' far-off cousin o' the Nelsons, an' that he was prouder of that fact than anything else in the world. I seed Floyd was mad as he looked at the old fellow with his high collar an' frazzley necktie. 'I'm gittin' tired o' the whole business,' Floyd said to 'im. 'I want to be appreciated, if I deserve it, for my _own_ sake, an' not on account o' my dead kinsfolk.' An' that certainly did squelch old Blare. He shook all over when he went out.”

“I suppose Nelson Floyd will end up by marrying Evelyn Duncan or some of the Prices,” Mrs. Porter said, significantly, as she fastened her lynx eye on Cynthia's shrinking face.

“That seems to be the talk, anyway,” Porter admitted. “She belongs to the doll-faced, bandbox variety. She'd be a nice little trick to dandle on a fellow's knee, but that's about all she'd be good for.” After the meal was over, Mrs. Porter followed Cynthia out into the kitchen, whither the girl was taking a big pan full of soiled dishes.

“This ought to make you very careful, Cynthia,” she said.

“I don't know what you mean, mother.” The girl looked up coldly.

“Well, _I_ know what I mean,” said Mrs. Porter. “People seem to think this will bring about a sort of change in Nelson Floyd's way of living. We are really as good as anybody in this county, but we are poor, and others are rich, and have more social advantages. Evelyn Duncan always has snubbed you girls around here, and no young man has been going in both sets. So far nobody that I know of has talked unkindly about you and Nelson Floyd, but they would be more apt to now than ever. How that thing about the mill ever escaped--”

“Mother, don't bring that up again!” Cynthia said, almost fiercely. “I have heard enough of it. I can't stand any more.”

“Well, you know what I mean, and you have my warning,” said Mrs. Porter, sternly, “and that's all I can do. As good and respectable a young man as ever lived wants to marry you, and the worst rake in the county has been paying you questionable attentions. The first thing you know, Mr. Hillhouse will get disgusted, and--”

But Cynthia had left her work and gone out into the yard. With a face quite pale and set, she went through the orchard, climbed over the brier-grown rail-fence, and crossed the field and pasture to Pole Baker's house. Mrs. Baker, pale and bedraggled, with a ten-months-old baby on her arm, stood on the little porch of the cottage. At her feet the other children were playing.

“You've heard o' my trouble, I kin see that,” the married woman said, as the girl opened the gate. “Come in out o' the sun.”

“Yes, I've heard,” said Cynthia, “and I came as soon as I could.”

They went into the poorly furnished bedroom, with its bare floor belittered with the playthings of the children, and sat down in the straight-backed, rockerless chairs.

“You mustn't notice the way things look,” sighed Mrs. Baker. “The truth is, Cynthia, I haven't had the heart to lay my hand to a thing. Pole's been away three nights and three days now, and I don't know what has happened to him. He's quick tempered and gets into quarrels when he's drinkin'. He may be in jail in Darley, or away off some'rs on the railroad.”

“I know, I know,” said Cynthia. “Let me hold the baby; you look as if you are about to drop.”

“I didn't sleep an hour last night,” said Mrs. Baker, as she relinquished the child. “I don't want to complain. He's so good-hearted, Cynthia, and he can't help it to save his life. He's the kindest, sweetest man in the world when he's all right; but these sprees mighty nigh kill me. Take my advice an' don't marry a drinkin' man fer all you do. No--no, not even if you love 'im! It's easier to tear one out o' your heart before you have children by 'im, an' God knows a pore woman ought to have _some_ happiness and peace of mind. If Pole don't come home to-day I'm afraid I'll go crazy. Pore little Billy kept wakin' up last night and askin' about his papa. He can't understand. He fairly worships his father.”

“We must hope for the best,” Cynthia said, sympathetically, and she drew the baby up close to her face and kissed it tenderly.

Late in the afternoon Cynthia went home. She helped her mother prepare supper, and after it was over she followed the example of the others and retired to her room. For an hour she sat sewing at her table, every now and then stifling a sigh. She rose and looked out of her window, at the wing of the house on the left. It was dark; the family were already asleep. She would undress and go to bed, but she knew she would lie awake for a long time, and that she dreaded.

Just then a sound broke the stillness of the night. Ah, she knew it so well! She sank back into her chair, quivering from head to foot in excitement. It was the whippoorwill call. It came again, more insistent, more pleading, but Cynthia sat motionless. Again it came; this time it was as if the weird notes were full of aggrieved inquiry. What was the matter? Why was she delaying? Cynthia rose, moved to the door of her room, but with her hand on the latch she paused. Then she turned back to her table and blew out her light, and began to disrobe in the darkness. No, she would not go in that manner to him again--never--never! To expect such a thing of Evelyn Duncan would not have entered his mind. Her mother was right. Evelyn Duncan was one thing in his estimation--she another. In the darkness she got into bed and drew the covering over her head that she might shut out the sound, for it pained her. There was silence for several minutes, then she heard the night bird's call farther away in the direction of the swamp. Floyd was going home. For hours she lay awake, unable to sleep. Once she sat upright with a start. Perhaps that would be the end. Perhaps she had driven him away, when if only she had obeyed the promptings of her heart he and she might--but he was gone, and, according to her mother's cautious view, she had acted for the best; and yet how could she ever forget the vast respect with which he had treated her that night at the mill? If he had been a bad man he would have shown it then. But he wasn't; he was good and thoughtful of her feelings. And he had come to-night full of his recent discovery. He wanted to tell her all about it, as he had told her of other things touching his inner life, and she had repulsed him--driven him away--to Evelyn Duncan. A sob struggled up in her bosom and forced its way to the surface.

XII

A WEEK later Pole Baker came back from Darley on foot. He was covered with dust, his clothing was soiled and torn, his hair unkempt. He looked thinner; his big eyes seemed to burn in their sockets as if fed by the slow oil of despair. He paused at the well at the court-house to get a drink of water. He drank copiously from the big wooden bucket, and wiped his mouth on the back of his dusty hand. It was a very quiet afternoon at Springtown; scarcely any one was in sight. Pole moved over to the steps of the public building and sat down in abject indecision. “The Lord knows I ort to go on home to Sally an' the childem,” he groaned, “but how kin I?--how kin I?”

He sat there for half an hour, his head hanging, his great hands twitching nervously. Presently a shadow fell on the ground before him, and, looking up, he saw a negro boy extending a letter to him.

“A man told me ter give you dis here, Mr. Baker,” the boy said.

“What man?” Pole asked, as he took the communication.

“I didn't know 'im, suh. I never seed 'im before. He looked ter me like a mountain man. He was ridin' a little white mule, an' as soon as he gimme de letter an' tol me whar you was a settin' he whipped his mule an' rid off.”

Pole held the letter in his hand till the boy had gone, then he tore the envelope open and read it. It slipped from his inert fingers to the ground, and Pole, with glaring eyes, picked it up and read it again and again. To him it was worse than a death-blow.

_“Pole Baker,” it began; “we, the Mountain-side White Cap Association, beg leave to inform you that we have sat in council at three separate meetings on your case of protracted drunkenness and family neglect. If any other man in the county had done as you have, he would have met with punishment long ago, but your friends put in excuses for you and postponed it. However, we met again last night and decided that it was our duty to act in your case. For ten days now your wife, a sweet, patient woman, has been verging on to despair through you. We hold that no living man has a right to tie a good woman to him by cords of love and pity and then torture her on the rack night and day just to gratify a beastly appetite. This step is being taken with great regret, and by men not known to you, but who admire you in many ways and like you. Punishment has been dealt out here in the mountains to good effect, as you yourself have been heard to admit, and we confidently believe that after we have acted in your case you will be a better man to them that are dependent on you. To-night at eight o'clock sharp our body will be at the gum spring, half-way between your farm and the court-house. If you are there to meet us, the disagreeable matter of whipping you will be done there, out of sight and hearing of your wife and children; if not, we will have to do as we have done in the case of other men, go to your house and take you out. We earnestly hope you will meet us, and that you will be prepared to make us promises that you will keep._

“_Respectfully,_

“_The Mountain-side White Cap Association._”

Pole stared at the ground for a long time; the veins of his neck and brow stood out as if from physical torture. He looked about him suddenly in a spasm of effort to think of some escape from his impending doom. There was Nelson Floyd. He would grant him any request. He could draw upon the young merchant for unlimited funds, and before the fated hour arrived he could be far away from the country and his wife and children. A great lump rose inside of him and tore itself outward through his throat. No, he couldn't leave them; it was further out of his power now than ever. Besides, had he not brought all this on himself? Was not the threatened punishment equally as just in his case as it had been in the case of others among his neighbors? He rose to his feet. There was nothing left for him to do but to go home, and--yes, meet the White Caps at the appointed place and take what was coming to him bravely. Shoot? Defend his rights? Kill the men who were taking the part of those he himself had sworn to love and stand by?--no! The punishment?--yes; but after that, to his confused brain, all was a painful blank. His wife and children had always comforted him in trouble, but could they do so now? Would not the sight of their anxious faces only add to his load of remorse? As he went along the road towards his home, his rugged breast rose and expanded under his ragged shirt and then slowly fell. He was a dead man alive--a breathing, rotting horror in his own sight. A shudder went over him; he heard the commanding voice of the leader of the outlaws; he felt the lash and braced himself for another blow, which he hoped would cut deep enough to pierce the festering agony within him. Then his lower lip began to quiver, and tears came into his great, glaring eyes. He was beginning to pity himself, for, when all had been said and done, could he really have acted differently? Had God actually given him the moral and physical strength to avoid the pits into which he had stumbled with the helplessness of a little child?

The road led him into the depths of a wood where the boughs of mighty trees arched overhead and obscured the sunlit sky. He envied a squirrel bounding unhindered to its nest. Nature seemed to hold out her vast, soothing arms to him. He wanted to sink into them and sob out his pent-up agony. In the deepest part of the wood, where rugged cliffs bordered the road, he came to the spring mentioned in the letter. Here he paused and looked about him. On this spot the most awful experience of his rugged life would be enacted.

With a shudder he passed on. The trees grew less dense, and then on a rise ahead of him he saw his humble cottage, like a cheerless blot on the green lush-sward about it. He wanted now to search the face of his wife. For ten days, the letter said, she had suffered. She had suffered so much that the neighbors had taken up her cause--they had taken it up when he--great God!--when he loved her and the children with every tortured cord of his being! They had come to his wife's aid against him, her prime enemy. Yes, they should whip him, and he would tell them while they were at it to lay it on--to lay it on! and God sanction the cause.

He entered the gate. His wife was sitting in the little hall, a wooden bowl in her lap, shelling pease; on a blanket at her feet lay the baby. He went up the steps and stood in the doorway. She raised her eyes and saw him, and then lowered her head, saying nothing, though she was deathly pale. He stared helplessly for a moment, and then went out behind the house and sat down in a chair under a tree, near his beehives and his bent-toothed, stone-weighted harrow. A deeper feeling of despair had come over him, for it was the first time his wife had ever refused to greet him in some way or other on his return home. On the banks of a spring branch below the barn, he saw his older children playing, but he could not bear the sight of them, and, with his elbows on his knees, he covered his face with his hands. The memory came to him of men who had killed themselves when in deep trouble, but he brushed the thought away. They were shirking cowards. For half an hour he sat thus. He heard the children laughing as they continued their romp up and down the stream. Then his wife slowly came out to him. She was still pale, and it seemed to him that she was thinner than she had ever been before.

“Pole, darlin',” she began, with a catch in her voice, “some o' the neighbors has been tellin' me that I ort not to be kind an' good to you when you come home after you've done us this away, an' I acknowledge I did try just now to act sorter cold, but I can't. Oh, Pole, I ain't mad at you, darlin'! My heart is so full o' joy at seein' you back home, safe an' sound, that I don't know what to do. I know you are sorry, darlin', fer you always are, an' you look more downcast than I ever seed you in all my life. Oh, Pole, I've suffered, I'll admit, but that can't equal my joy right now at seein' you home with that sweet, sorry look in yore eyes. Pole, darlin', won't you kiss me? You would ef I hadn't turned from you as I did in the house jest now. Don't--don't blame me! I hardly knowed what I was doin'.”

A sob rose in him and burst. She saw his emotion, and put her arms around his neck.

“It was that meddlesome old Mrs. Snodgrass who put me up to actin' that away,” she said, tenderly. “But I'll never do it ag'in. The idea! An' me ever' bit as happy as I was the day we married one another! Thar comes little Billy, as hard as he kin move his little fat legs. Wipe yore eyes, Pole; don't let him see you a-cryin'. He'd remember it all his life--childern are so quar. Thar, wipe 'em on my apron--no, le' _me_ do it. He's axed about you a hundred times a day. The neighbors' childern talked before him an' made him wonder.”

The child, red in the face and panting, ran into his father's outstretched arms.

“Whar you been, papa?” he asked.

“Over to Darley, Billy,” Pole managed to say.

“Are you goin' to stay at home any more, papa?” was the next query.

“Yes, Billy--I hope so. What have you childern been playing with down at the branch?”

“Johnny made a boat, papa, but it wouldn't swim. It sunk when he put sand on it. Will you make me a boat, papa?”

“Yes, Billy.”

“When, papa?”

“To-morrow, Billy.” Pole pressed his rough face to the child's smooth, perspiring brow, and then put him down. “Now run and play,” he said.

“I've put on some coffee to boil,” said Mrs. Baker when the child had left. “I know you want some. Pole, you look all unstrung. I never seed you so nervous. Yore hands are twitchin', an' I never seed sech a awful look in yore face. Don't you want me to cook some'n' special fer you to eat, Pole?”

“Not a thing, Sally,” he gulped. “The coffee is enough.”

She went into the house and came back with it. As she drew near he noted that the sun was fast going down; the shadow of the hill, to the west of the cottage, was creeping rapidly across the level field below. It would soon be eight o'clock, and then--

“Here it is,” said Sally, at his elbow. “It's as strong as I could make it. It will steady your nerves. Oh, Pole, I'm so glad you got back! I couldn't have gone through another night like the others. It would have killed me.”

He raised the coffee-cup to keep from seeing her wistful, dark-ringed eyes.

Night came on apace. He sat in his chair while she busied herself with heeding and putting the children to bed. Her voice rang with joy and relief as she spoke to them; once she sang a bar of an old ballad. It vividly recalled their courtship days. He moved his chair to the porch. He sat there awhile, and then went to feed his horse and cattle, telling himself, the while, that he had made his wife do his work for the past ten days that he might sink to the level of a beast.

After supper the two sat together in the moonlight on the porch, he silent, she talkative and full of joy. The old-fashioned clock on the mantel within struck seven. He waited about half an hour longer, and then he rose to his feet.

“I want to go to the store and see Nelson Floyd,” he said. “I'll be back inside of an hour, sure.”

She stared at him irresolutely for a moment, then she uttered a low groan.

“Oh, Pole, Pole, Pole! I don't want you to go,” she cried. “You know why. If you get whar any liquor is now, you--you may go off again. Stay with me, Pole! I'll give you some strong coffee. I'll do anything ruther than have you out o' my sight now that you are safe at home. You won't spile all my happiness by goin' off again. Will you, darlin'?”

He caught her wrist with his left hand and held his right steadily upward.

“I'll swear to you, Sally, before God, that I won't tetch a single drop, and that I'll be back inside of an hour. You kin trust me now, Sally. You never heard me speak this way before.”

Their eyes met. “Yes, I kin trust you when you talk that away,” she said. “Don't be gone longer than an hour, Pole. I'll set right here on the porch and wait for you.”

“All right. I'll keep my word, Sally.”

Out at the gate he passed, moving away, his head down, his long arms swinging disconsolately at his sides. When out of sight of the cottage he quickened his step. He must not be late. They must not, under any circumstances, come nearer to his house than the spring, and he must try to secure their promise not to let his degradation reach the ears of his wife and children. He could not stand that.

XXIII

REACHING the appointed place, he sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree to wait. By-and-by he heard voices in the distance, and then the tramp, tramp of footsteps. A dark blur appeared in the moonlight on the road. It was a body of men numbering between twenty-five and thirty. They were all afoot, and, by way of precaution against identification, they wore white caps over their heads, with holes for the eyes. In their mouths they had stuffed wads of cotton to muffle and disguise their voices.

“Well, I see you've acted sensible, Baker,” said a man who seemed in the lead. “Some o' the boys 'lowed you'd cut an' shoot; but you hain't armed, are you, Pole?”

“No, I hain't armed, Joe Dilworthy.”

“Huh, you think you know me!” the speaker said, with a start.

“Yes, I know you,” answered Pole. “I'd know you anywhar in the world by yore shape an' voice.”

“Well, you may _think_ I'm anybody you like,” returned the masked man. “That's neither here nur thar. I've been app'inted to do the talkin' to-night, Pole, an' I want to say, at the start, that this is the most disagreeable job that this association ever tackled. Yore case has been up before our body time after time, an' some'n' always throwed it out, fer you've got stacks an' stacks o' friends. But action was finally tuck, an' here we are. Pole, do you know any valid reason why you shouldn't be treated 'ike other malefactors in these mountains?”

There was silence. Pole's head was hanging down. They could not see his face in the moonlight.

“No, I don't see no reason,” the condemned man finally said. “I'm here to meet you, to tell you that I deserve more'n you fellows could lay on me ef you begun now an' kept up a steady lick till the last one of you was fagged out. The only trouble, gentlemen, is that I hain't a-goin' to _feel_ the lash. Thar's a pain inside o' me so keen an' fur down that what you do jest to my body won't count. You are the friends of my wife an' childern; you are better friends to 'em than I've been, an' I want you to strip me to my dirty hide an' whip my duty into me, ef that is possible. The only thing I would ask is to spare my folks the knowledge of it, ef you kin see it that away. Keep this thing quiet--jest amongst us. I may be able to brace up an' try to do right in the future, but I don't believe I kin ef they know o' my humiliation.

“I don't ax that as a favor to myself, you understand, gentlemen, but to them you are befriendin'--a weak woman an' helpless little childern.”