Chapter 35

IN WHICH, JIM ENLARGES HIS ACCOMMODATIONS AND ADOPTS A VIOLENT METHOD OF SECURING BOARDERS.

When Jim Fenton waked from his long and refreshing sleep, after his weary tramp and his row upon the river, the sun was shining brightly, the blue-birds were singing, the partridges were drumming, and a red squirrel, which even Turk would not disturb, was looking for provisions in his cabin, or eyeing him saucily from one of the beams over his head. He lay for a moment, stretching his huge limbs and rubbing his eyes, thinking over what he had undertaken, and exclaiming at last: "Well, Jim, ye've got a big contrack," he jumped up, and, striking a fire, cooked his breakfast.

His first work was to make an addition to his accommodations for lodgers, and he set about it in thorough earnest. Before noon he had stripped bark enough from the trees in his vicinity to cover a building as large as his own. The question with him was whether he should put up an addition to his cabin, or hide a new building somewhere behind the trees in his vicinity. In case of pursuit, his lodgers would need a cover, and this he knew he could not give them in his cabin; for all who were in the habit of visiting the woods were familiar with that structure, and would certainly notice any addition to it, and be curious about it. Twenty rods away there was a thicket of hemlock, and by removing two or three trees in its center, he could successfully hide from any but the most inquisitive observation the cabin he proposed to erect. His conclusion was quickly arrived at, and before he slept that night the trees were down, the frame was up, and the bark was gathered. The next day sufficed to make the cabin habitable; but he lingered about the work for several days, putting up various appointments of convenience, building a broad bed of hemlock boughs, so deep and fragrant and inviting, that he wondered he had never undertaken to do as much for himself as he had thus gladly done for others, and making sure that there was no crevice at which the storms of spring and summer could force an entrance.

When he could do no more, he looked it over with approval and said: "Thar! If I'd a done that for Miss Butterworth, I couldn't 'a' done better nor that." Then he went back to his cabin muttering: "I wonder what she'd 'a' said if she'd hearn that little speech o' mine!"

What remained for Jim to do was to make provision to feed his boarders. His trusty rifle stood in the corner of his cabin, and Jim had but to take it in his hand to excite the expectations of his dog, and to receive from him, in language as plain as an eager whine and a wagging tail could express, an offer of assistance. Before night there hung in front of his cabin a buck, dragged with difficulty through the woods from the place where he had shot him. A good part of the following day was spent in cutting from the carcass every ounce of flesh, and packing it into pails, to be stowed in a spring whose water, summer and winter alike, was almost at the freezing point.

"He'll need a good deal o' lookin' arter, and I shan't hunt much the fust few days," said Jim to himself; "an' as for flour, there's a sack on't, an' as for pertaters, we shan't want many on 'em till they come agin, an' as for salt pork, there's a whole bar'l buried, an' as for the rest, let me alone!"

Jim had put off the removal for ten days, partly to get time for all his preparations, and partly that the rapidly advancing spring might give him warmer weather for the removal of a delicate patient. He found, however, at the conclusion of his labors, that he had two or three spare days on his hands. His mind was too busy and too much excited by his enterprise to permit him to engage in any regular employment, and he roamed around the woods, or sat whittling in the sun, or smoked, or thought of Miss Butterworth. It was strange how, when the business upon his hands was suspended, he went back again and again, to his brief interview with that little woman. He thought of her eyes full of tears, of her sympathy with the poor, of her smart and saucy speech when he parted with her, and he said again and again to himself, what he said on that occasion: "she's a genuine creetur!" and the last time he said it, on the day before his projected expedition, he added: "an' who knows!"

Then a bright idea seized him, and taking out a huge jack-knife, he went through the hemlocks to his new cabin, and there carved into the slabs of bark that constituted its door, the words "Number Ten." This was the crowning grace of that interesting structure. He looked at it close, and then from a distance, and then he went back chuckling to his cabin, to pass his night in dreams of fast driving before the fury of all Sevenoaks, with Phipps and his gray trotters in advance.

Early on Friday morning preceding his proposed descent upon the poor-house, he gave his orders to Turk.

"I'm goin' away, Turk," said he. "I'm goin' away agin. Ye was a good dog when I went away afore, and ye berhaved a good deal more like a Christian nor a Turk. Look out for this 'ere cabin, and look out for yerself. I'm a goin' to bring back a sick man, an' a little feller to play with ye. Now, ole feller, won't that be jolly? Ye must'n't make no noise when I come--understand?"

Turk wagged his tail in assent, and Jim departed, believing that his dog had understood every word as completely as if he were a man. "Good-bye--here's hopin'," said Jim, waving his hand to Turk as he pushed his boat from the bank, and disappeared down the river. The dog watched him until he passed from sight, and then went back to the cabin to mope away the period of his master's absence.

Jim sat in the stern of his little boat, guiding and propelling it with his paddle. Flocks of ducks rose before him, and swashed down with a fluttering ricochet into the water again, beyond the shot of his rifle. A fish-hawk, perched above his last year's nest, sat on a dead limb and watched him as he glided by. A blue heron rose among the reeds, looked at him quietly, and then hid behind a tree. A muskrat swam shoreward from his track, with only his nose above water. A deer, feeding among the lily-pads, looked up, snorted, and then wheeled and plunged into the woods. All these things he saw, but they made no more impression upon his memory than is left upon the canvas by the projected images of a magic-lantern. His mind was occupied by his scheme, which had never seemed so serious a matter as when he had started upon its fulfilment. All the possibilities of immediate detection and efficient pursuit presented themselves to him. He had no respect for Thomas Buffum, yet there was the thought that he was taking away from him one of the sources of his income. He would not like to have Buffum suppose that he could be guilty of a mean act, or capable of making an ungrateful return for hospitality. Still he did not doubt his own motives, or his ability to do good to Paul Benedict and his boy.

It was nearly ten miles from Jim's cabin, down the winding river, to the point where he was to hide his boat, and take to the road which would lead him to the house of Mike Conlin, half way to Sevenoaks. Remembering before he started that the blind cart-road over which he must bring his patient was obstructed at various points by fallen trees, he brought along his axe, and found himself obliged to spend the whole day on his walk, and in clearing the road for the passage of a wagon. It was six o'clock before he reached Mike's house, the outermost post of the "settlement," which embraced in its definition the presence of women and children.

"Be gorry," said Mike, who had long been looking for him, "I was afeared ye'd gi'en it up. The old horse is ready this two hours. I've took more nor three quarts o' dander out iv 'is hide, and gi'en 'im four quarts o' water and a pail iv oats, an' he'll go."

Mike nodded his head as if he were profoundly sure of it. Jim had used horses in his life, in the old days of lumbering and logging, and was quite at home with them. He had had many a drive with Mike, and knew the animal he would be required to handle--a large, hardy, raw-boned creature, that had endured much in Mike's hands, and was quite equal to the present emergency.

As soon as Jim had eaten his supper, and Mike's wife had put up for him food enough to last him and such accessions to his party as he expected to secure during the night, and supplied him abundantly with wrappings, he went to the stable, mounted the low, strong wagon before which Mike had placed the horse, and with a hearty "good luck to ye!" from the Irishman ringing in his ears, started on the road to Sevenoaks. This portion of the way was easy. The road was worn somewhat, and moderately well kept; and there was nothing to interfere with the steady jog which measured the distance at the rate of six miles an hour. For three steady hours he went on, the horse no more worried than if he had been standing in the stable. At nine o'clock the lights in the farmers' cottages by the wayside were extinguished, and the families they held were in bed. Then the road began to grow dim, and the sky to become dark. The fickle spring weather gave promise of rain. Jim shuddered at the thought of the exposure to which, in a shower, his delicate friend would be subjected, but thought that if he could but get him to the wagon, and cover him well before its onset, he could shield him from harm.

The town clock was striking ten as he drove up to the stump where he was to meet Benedict's boy. He stopped and whistled. A whistle came back in reply, and a dark little object crept out from behind the stump, and came up to the wagon.

"Harry, how's your pa?" said Jim.

"He's been very bad to-day," said Harry. "He says he's going to Abraham's bosom on a visit, and he's been walking around in his room, and wondering why you don't come for him."

"Who did he say that to?" inquired Jim.

"To me," replied the boy. "And he told me not to speak to Mr. Buffum about it."

Jim breathed a sigh of relief, and saying "All right!" he leaped from the wagon. Then taking out a heavy blanket, he said:

"Now, Harry, you jest stand by the old feller's head till I git back to ye. He's out o' the road, an' ye needn't stir if any body comes along."

Harry went up to the old horse, patted his nose and his breast, and told him he was good. The creature seemed to understand it, and gave him no trouble. Jim then stalked off noiselessly into the darkness, and the boy waited with a trembling and expectant heart.

Jim reached the poor-house, and stood still in the middle of the road between the two establishments. The lights in both had been extinguished, and stillness reigned in that portion occupied by Thomas Buffum and his family. The darkness was so great that Jim could almost feel it. No lights were visible except in the village at the foot of the hill, and these were distant and feeble, through an open window--left open that the asthmatic keeper of the establishment might be supplied with breath--he heard a stertorous snore. On the other side matters were not so silent. There were groans, and yells, and gabble from the reeking and sleepless patients, who had been penned up for the long and terrible night. Concluding that every thing was as safe for his operations as it would become at any time, he slowly felt his way to the door of the ward which held Paul Benedict, and found it fastened on the outside, as he had anticipated. Lifting the bar from the iron arms that held it, and pushing back the bolt, he silently opened the door. Whether the darkness within was greater than that without, or whether the preternaturally quickened ears of the patients detected the manipulations of the fastenings, he did not know, but he was conscious at once that the tumult within was hushed. It was apparent that they had been visited in the night before, and that the accustomed intruder had come on no gentle errand.. There was not a sound as Jim felt his way along from stall to stall, sickened almost to retching by the insufferable stench that reached his nostrils and poisoned every inspiration.

On the morning of his previous visit he had taken all the bearings with reference to an expedition in the darkness, and so, feeling his way along the hall, he had little difficulty in finding the cell in which he had left his old friend.

Jim tried the door, but found it locked. His great fear was that the lock would be changed, but it had not been meddled with, and had either been furnished with a new key, or had been locked with a skeleton. He slipped the stolen key in, and the bolt slid back. Opening the outer door, he tried the inner, but the key did not fit the lock. Here was a difficulty not entirely unexpected, but seeming to be insurmountable. He quietly went back to the door of entrance, and as quietly closed it, that no sound of violence might reach and wake the inmates of the house across the road. Then he returned, and whispered in a low voice to the inmate:

"Paul Benedict, give us your benediction."

"Jim," responded the man in a whisper, so light that it could reach no ear but his own.

"Don't make no noise, not even if I sh'd make consid'able," said Jim.

Then, grasping the bars with both hands, he gave the door a sudden pull, into which he put all the might of his huge frame. A thousand pounds would not have measured it, and the door yielded, not at the bolt, but at the hinges. Screws deeply imbedded were pulled out bodily. A second lighter wrench completed the task, and the door was noiselessly set aside, though Jim was trembling in every muscle.

Benedict stood at the door.

"Here's the robe that Abram sent ye," said Jim, throwing over the poor man's shoulders an ample blanket; and putting one of his large arms around him, he led him shuffling out of the hall, and shut and bolted the door.

He had no sooner done this, than the bedlam inside broke loose. There were yells, and howls, and curses, but Jim did not stop for these. Dizzied with his effort, enveloped in thick darkness, and the wind which preceded the approaching shower blowing a fierce gale, he was obliged to stop a moment to make sure that he was walking in the right direction. He saw the lights of the village, and, finding the road, managed to keep on it until he reached the horse, that had become uneasy under the premonitory tumult of the storm. Lifting Benedict into the wagon as if he had been a child, he wrapped him warmly, and put the boy in behind him, to kneel and see that his father did not fall out. Then he turned the horse around, and started toward Number Nine. The horse knew the road, and was furnished with keener vision than the man who drove him. Jim was aware of this, and letting the reins lie loose upon his back, the animal struck into a long, swinging trot, in prospect of home and another "pail iv oats."

They had not gone a mile when the gathering tempest came down upon them. It rained in torrents, the lightning illuminated the whole region again and again, and the thunder cracked, and boomed, and rolled off among the woods and hills, as if the day of doom had come.

The war of the elements harmonized strangely with the weird fancies of the weak man who sat at Jim's side. He rode in perfect silence for miles. At last the wind went down, and the rain settled to a steady fall.

"They were pretty angry about my going," said he, feebly.

"Yes," said Jim, "they behaved purty car'less, but I'm too many for 'em."

"Does Father Abraham know I'm coming?" inquired Benedict. "Does he expect me to-night?"

"Yes," responded Jim, "an' he'd 'a' sent afore, but he's jest wore out with company. He's a mighty good-natered man, an' I tell 'im they take the advantage of 'im. But I've posted 'im 'bout ye, and ye're all right."

"Is it very far to the gulf?" inquired Benedict.

"Yes, it's a good deal of a drive, but when ye git there, ye can jest lay right down in the boat, an' go to sleep. I'll wake ye up, ye know, when we run in."

The miles slid behind into the darkness, and, at last, the rain subsiding somewhat, Jim stopped, partly to rest his smoking horse, and partly to feed his half-famished companions. Benedict ate mechanically the food that Jim fished out of the basket with a careful hand, and the boy ate as only boys can eat. Jim himself was hungry, and nearly finished what they left.

At two o'clock in the morning, they descried Mike Conlin's light, and in ten minutes the reeking horse and the drenched inmates of the wagon drove up to the door. Mike was waiting to receive them.

"Mike, this is my particular friend, Benedict. Take 'im in, an' dry 'im. An' this is 'is boy. Toast 'im both sides--brown."

A large, pleasant fire was blazing on Mike's humble hearth, and with sundry cheerful remarks he placed his guests before it, relieving them of their soaked wrappings. Then he went to the stable, and fed and groomed his horse, and returned eagerly, to chat with Jim, who sat steaming before the fire, as if he had just been lifted from a hot bath.

"What place is this, Jim?" said Mr. Benedict.

"This is the half-way house," responded that personage, without looking up.

"Why, this is purgatory, isn't it?" inquired Benedict.

"Yes, Mike is a Catholic, an' all his folks; an' he's got to stay here a good while, an' he's jest settled down an' gone to housekeepin'."

"Is it far to the gulf, now?"

"Twenty mile, and the road is rougher nor a--"

"'Ah, it's no twinty mile," responded Mike, "an' the road is jist lovely--jist lovely; an' afore ye start I'm goin' to give ye a drap that 'll make ye think so."

They sat a whole hour before the fire, and then Mike mixed the draught he had promised to the poor patient. It was not a heavy one, but, for the time, it lifted the man so far out of his weakness that he could sleep, and the moment his brain felt the stimulus, he dropped into a slumber so profound that when the time of departure came he could not be awakened. As there was no time to be lost, a bed was procured from a spare chamber, with pillows; the wagon was brought to the door, and the man was carried out as unconscious as if he were in his last slumber, and tenderly put to bed in the wagon. Jim declined the dram that Mike urged upon him, for he had need of all his wits, and slowly walked the horse away on the road to his boat. If Benedict had been wide awake and well, he could not have traveled the road safely faster than a walk; and the sleep, and the bed which it rendered necessary, became the happiest accidents of the journey.

For two long hours the horse plodded along the stony and uneven road, and then the light began to redden in the east, and Jim could see the road sufficiently to increase his speed with safety. It was not until long after the sun had risen that Benedict awoke, and found himself too weak to rise. Jim gave him more food, answered his anxious inquiries in his own way, and managed to keep him upon his bed, from which he constantly tried to rise in response to his wandering impulses. It was nearly noon when they found themselves at the river; and the preparations for embarkation were quickly made. The horse was tied and fed, the wagon unfastened, and the whole establishment was left for Mike to reclaim, according to the arrangement that Jim had made with him.

The woodsman saw that his patient would not be able to sit, and so felt himself compelled to take along the bed. Arranging this with the pillows in the bow of his boat, and placing Benedict upon it, with his boy at his feet, he shoved off, and started up the stream.

After running along against the current for a mile, Benedict having quietly rested meantime, looked up and said weakly:

"Jim, is this the gulf?"

"Yes," responded Jim, cheerfully. "This is the gulf, and a purty place 'tis too. I've seed a sight o' worser places nor this."

"It's very beautiful," responded Benedict. "We must be getting pretty near."

"It's not very fur now," said Jim.

The poor, wandering mind was trying to realize the heavenly scenes that it believed were about to burst upon its vision. The quiet, sunlit water, the trees still bare but bourgeoning, the songs of birds, the blue sky across which fleecy clouds were peacefully floating, the breezes that kissed his fevered cheek, the fragrance of the bordering evergreens, and the electric air that entered his lungs so long accustomed to the poisonous fetor of his cell, were well calculated to foster his delusion, and to fill his soul with a peace to which it had long been a stranger. An exquisite languor stole upon him, and under the pressure of his long fatigue, his eyelids fell, and he dropped into a quiet slumber.

When the boy saw that his father was asleep, he crept back to Jim and said:

"Mr. Fenton, I don't think it's right for you to tell papa such lies."

"Call me Jim. The Doctor called me 'Mr. Fenton,' and it 'most killed me."

"Well, Jim."

"Now, that sounds like it. You jest look a here, my boy. Your pa ain't livin' in this world now, an' what's true to him is a lie to us, an' what's true to us is a lie to him. I jest go into his world and say what's true whar he lives. Isn't that right?"

This vein of casuistry was new to the boy, and he was staggered.

"When your pa gits well agin, an' here's hopin,' Jim Fenton an' he will be together in their brains, ye know, and then they won't be talkin' like a couple of jay-birds, and I won't lie to him no more nor I would to you."

The lad's troubled mind was satisfied, and he crept back to his father's feet, where he lay until he discovered Turk, whining and wagging his tail in front of the little hillock that was crowned by Jim's cabin.

The long, hard, weird journey was at an end. The boat came up broadside to the shore, and Jim leaped out, and showered as many caresses upon his dog as he received from the faithful brute.