Part 8

The congregation that day in the little church of the bended weather-vane, where Hagar's cross-roads meet, heard certain ancient hymns sung as never before in the church of the bended weather-vane. “Rock of Ages, cleft for me,” pleaded the silken voice, like a visitant invisible, floating from fluted pillar to fluted pillar, calling at some unseen door, “Let me in! Ah, let me in!” Somewhat too much of rose leaves and purple garments in the voice for that simple, steadfast music. The spirit seemed pleading rather for gratification than rest. The congregation stopped singing, save Mrs. Cullom, who flatted comfortably on unnoticed. Deacon Crockett frowned ominously over his glasses at a scandalous scene and a woman too conspicuous; Captain David Brett showed all the places where he had no teeth; Mr. Royce looked down from the pulpit troubled with strange thoughts, and Miss Hettie Royce dropped her veil over her face, remembering her youth.

How should Mignon know she was not expected to be on exhibition in that curious place? Of course people should be silent and listen when an artist sings. Mignon hardly remembered a time when she was not more or less on exhibition. That volatile young lady cantered along the Windless Mountain Road somewhat after twelve o'clock not in a very good humor. She recognized the ill humor, considered ill humor a thing both unpleasant and unnecessary and attributed it to an empty stomach; dismounted before an orchard and swung herself over the wall reckless of where her skirts went or where they did not.

“Them apples is mine,” growled a gray-bearded person behind a barn-yard fence.

“Then why didn't you get them for me, pig?” returned Mignon sharply, and departed with more than her small hands could conveniently carry, leaving the gray-bearded person turning the question over dubiously in his mind.

It happened to have occurred to Sanderson that certain business of his own pointed to Back Meadows that Sunday morning. The up-train on Sunday does not leave till after eleven, and he took the valley road on the red stallion of uncertain temper. The inhabitants of Wyantenaug Valley heard no more carolling voices, or fitful rush and clatter of hoofs. The red stallion covered his miles with a steady stride and the rider kept his emotions, aesthetic or otherwise, to himself. The twain swung into the Hollow about eleven o'clock, and Sanderson presently found himself in his leathern chair debating a question at issue with the lady of the spiritual eyes. What passed between them is their own secret, quite hopeless of discovery, with one end of it on the other side of the “valley of the shadow,” and the other buried in close coverts of Sanderson reserve. When the door-bell rang and Susan appearing bumped her head against the casing and announced, “Mr. Joe, it's a red-haired gentleman,” having no dramatic instinct, he passed into the dining-room without salutation to the lady of the spiritual eyes.

“How are you, Scott? Sit down,” he drawled placidly.

“I suppose you know what I'm here for,” said the other, with evident self-restraint.

“Can't say I do,” returned Sanderson, cheerfully. “It needn't be anything in particular, need it?” He sat down, stretched his legs under the dining-room table and his arms on top of it. Manager Scott paced the floor nervously. Suddenly he stooped, picked up something and flung it on the table--a strip of thin gray veil. “You can save yourself a lie, Mr. Sanderson.”

Sanderson gravely regarded the delicate article which seemed to be put forth both as an accusation and a proof of something. Then he leaned forward and rang the bell. “I will overlook that implication for the present, Mr. Scott,” he remarked. “If it's a bluff, it's a good one. I take it it is n't. Susan, has any one been here this morning?” as that maiden tumbled into the room in a general tangle of feet.

“Yes, sir, and she's gone. My! She ain't comin' back to dinner! Lady rode the little mare and she went to church with Miss Sanderson.”

“Mademoiselle Mignon,” drawled Sanderson, turning to Manager Scott, “asked permission to ride the mare this morning. I was not aware she intended making an excursion to Back Meadows or I should have asked permission to attend her. It seems she went to Hagar with my aunt and proposes to ride back to Hamilton from there. It's my turn now, old man, and I'd like to know what was the necessity of making your visit so very tragic.”

“Oh, I presume I'm an ass,” returned the other, with a noticeable nervous twitching of the mouth and fingers, “and I presume I owe you an apology. I shall probably shoot the man that comes between Mignon and me, if he doesn't shoot first, which is all very asinine.”

“Quite irrespective of what mademoiselle may think about it?”

“Oh, quite.”

“Well,” said Sanderson, after a pause, “I rather sympathize with your way of looking at it. I shouldn't wonder if I had some of that primeval brutality myself.”

“Look here, Sanderson,” said the manager. “Without going into humiliating details as to how I came by the fact, which I don't know why you take so much pains to conceal, I know as well as you do that the issue is between you and me.”

“You don't mean to threaten, do you, Scott?”

“Oh, no. I'm going back to Hamilton. I was looking for a row, and you don't give me enough to go on.”

“Can't do it just now, old man,” said Sanderson, gently, shaking hands with him at the door. “I'll let you know when I can. In that case we 'll have it out between us.”

The manager strode off across the Hollow and down the Gorge to the valley station, and Sanderson mounted and took the road to Hagar. He passed the village about one. The red stallion thundered through the pine avenues at the foot of Windless and swept around the curve into Wyantenaug Valley, but it was not till within a few miles of Hamilton that the speedy little mare, even bothered as she was by her rider's infirmity of purpose, allowed herself to be overtaken. The road there turned away from the river and went covered with crisp autumn leaves through chestnut woods. Mignon looked up and laughed, and the two horses fell sympathetically into a walk.

“Don't you think you owe me an explanation?” asked Sanderson, in a low tone.

“Indeed, sir, I owe you nothing, not even for this ride. It was paid for,” rippled the silken voice, and stopped suddenly in a little sob. Sanderson turned quickly and bent over her.

“By the living God,” he said solemnly, “I swear I love you. What barrier is strong enough to face that?”

“It is because you do not know me, that. Listen, Joe. I have not been what you call good nor pure in the past and shall not in the future. No, hush. I know what I am and what I shall be always. If I swore by your living God that I loved you now, it would not mean that I should to-morrow, and the next day, oh, not at all. There are no deeps in me, nor what you call a faith or principle in life. Listen, Joe. That lady whose portrait I saw is your guardian angel. Look, I reverence now. To-morrow I shall mock both her and you. This that I speak now is only a mood. The wind is now one thing and then quite another, Joe. It has no centre and no soul. I am an artist, sir. I have moods but no character. Morals! I have none. They go like the whiff of the breeze. Nothing that I do lowers or lifts me. It passes through me and that is all. Do you not understand?” which indeed was hard to do, for the brown eyes were very soft and deep.

“If any one else had told me this,” said Sanderson, between his teeth, “man or woman, it would never have been said but once.”

“It is harder for you than for me, for to-morrow I shall not care and you, you will care perhaps a long time. You are fast like these hills. Listen. Now, sir, this is our last ride together. We are a cavalier and his lady. They are gallant and gay. They wear life and love and death in their hair like flowers. They smile and will not let their hearts be sad, for they say, 'It is cowardly to be sad: it is brave only to smile.' Is it not so?”

Sanderson's New England reserve fled far away, and he bent over her hand.

“It shall be as you say.”

And to-morrow seemed far enough away, and an hour had its eternal value. But the steady old hills could not understand that kind of chronology.

TWO ROADS THAT MEET IN SALEM

|The Salem Road is a dusty road. Perhaps it is not really any dustier than other roads, but it is straighter than most roads about Hagar. You can see more of it at a time, and in that way you can see more dust. Along this road one day many years ago came Dr. Wye of Salem in his buggy, which leaned over on one side; and the dust was all over the buggy-top, all over the big, gray, plodding horse, and all over the doctor's hat and coat. He was tired and drowsy, but you would not have suspected it; for he was a red-faced, sturdy man, with a beard cut square, as if he never compromised with anything. He sat up straight and solid, so as not to compromise with the tipping of the buggy.

“Come, Billy,” said the doctor, “no nonsense, now.”

He prided himself on being a strict man, who would put up with no nonsense, but every one knew better. Billy, the gray horse, knew as well as any one.

“Come now, Billy, get along.”

A tall, dusty, black-bearded man rose up beside the road, and Billy stopped immediately.

A large pack lay against the bank.

“You ain't seen a yeller dog?”

“No,” said the doctor, gruffly. He was provoked with Billy. “There aren't any yellow dogs around here.”

“He hadn't no tail,” persisted the stranger, wistfully. “And there were a boy a-holdin' him. He chopped it off when he were little.”

“Who chopped it off?”

“Hey? He's a little cuss, but the dog's a good dog.”

“Get up, Billy,” growled the doctor. “All boys are little cusses. I have n't seen any yellow dog. Nonsense! I wonder he did n't ask if I'd seen the tail.”

But somehow the doctor could not get rid of the man's face, and he found himself looking along the roadside for boys that were distinctly “little cusses” and yellow dogs without tails, all the rest of the day.

In the evening twilight he drove into Salem village. Very cool and pleasant looked the little white house among the trees. Mother Wye stood on the porch in her white apron and cap, watching for him. She was flying signals of distress--if the word were not too strong--she was even agitated. He tramped up the steps reassuringly.

“Oh,” whispered Mother Wye, “you've no idea, Ned! There's a boy and a dog, a very large dog, my dear, on the back steps.”

“Well,” said the doctor, gallantly, “they've no business to be anywhere frightening my little mother. We'll tell them to do something else.” The doctor tramped sturdily around to the back steps, Mother Wye following much comforted.

The dog was actually a yellow dog without any tail to speak of--a large, genial-looking dog, nevertheless; the boy, a black-eyed boy, very grave and indifferent, with a face somewhat thin and long. “Without doubt,” thought the doctor, “a little cuss. Hullo,” he said aloud, “I met a man looking for you.”

The boy scrutinized him with settled gravity. “He's not much account,” he said calmly. “I'd rather stay here.”

“Oh, you would!” grumbled the doctor. “Must think I want somebody around all the time to frighten this lady. Nice folks you are, you and your dog.”

The boy turned quickly and took off his cap. “I beg your pardon, madam,” he said with a smile that was singularly sudden and winning. The action was so elderly and sedate, so very courtly, surprising, and incongruous, that the doctor slapped his knee and laughed uproariously; and Mother Wye went through an immediate revulsion, to feel herself permeated with motherly desires. The boy went on unmoved.

“He's an easy dog, ma'am. His name's Poison, but he never does anything;”--which started the doctor off again.

“They said you wanted a boy.”

“Ah,” said the doctor, growing grave, “that's true; but you're not the boy.”

The boy seemed to think him plainly mistaken. “Stuff!” growled the doctor, “I want a boy I can send all around the country. I know a dozen boys that know the country, and that I know all about. I don't want you. Besides,” he added, “he said you were a little cuss.”

The boy paid no attention to the last remark. “I'll find it out. Other boys are thick-headed.”

“That's true,” the doctor admitted; “they are thick-headed.” Indeed this young person's serenity and confidence quite staggered him. A new diplomatic idea seemed to occur to the young person. He turned to Mother Wye and said gravely: “Will you pull Poison's ear, ma'am, so he'll know it's all right?”

Mother Wye, with some trepidation, pulled Poison's ear, and Poison wagged the whole back end of himself to make up for a tail, signifying things that were amicable, while the doctor tugged at his beard and objected to nonsense.

“Well, young man, we'll see what you have to say for yourself. Tut! tut! mother,”--to Mrs. Wye's murmur of remonstrance,--“we'll have no nonsense. This is a practical matter;” and he tramped sturdily into the house, followed by the serious boy, the amicable dog, and the appeased, in fact the quite melted, Mother Wye.

“Now, boy,” said the doctor, “what's your name?”

“Jack.”

“Jack what? Is that other fellow your father?”

“I reckon maybe he is,” returned Jack, with a gloomy frown. “His name's Baker. He peddles.”

The doctor tugged at his beard and muttered that “at any rate there appeared to be no nonsense about it. But he's looking for you,” he said. “He'll take you away.”

“He's looking for the dog,” said Jack, calmly. “He can't have him.”

The East End Road, which circles the eastern end of the Cattle Ridge, is not at all like the Salem Road. It is wilder and crookeder, to begin with, but that is a superficial matter. It passes through thick woods, dips into gullies, and changes continually, while along the Salem Road there is just the smoky haze on the meadows and dust in the chalices of the flowers; there too the distance blinks stupidly and speculation comes to nothing. But the real point is this: the Salem Road leads straight to Hagar and stops there; the East End Road goes over somewhere among the northern hills and splits up into innumerable side roads, roads that lead to doorways, roads that run into footpaths and dwindle away in despair, roads of which it must be said with sorrow that there was doubt in Salem whether they ever ended or led anywhere. Hence arose the tale that all things which were strange and new, at least all things which were to be feared, came into Salem over the East End Road; just as in Hagar they came down from the Cattle Ridge and went away to the south beyond Windless Mountain.

Along this road, a month later than the last incident, came the black-bearded peddler with his pack, whistling; and indeed his pack, though large, seemed to weigh singularly little; also the peddler seemed to be in a very peaceful frame of mind. And along this road too came the plodding gray horse, with the serious boy driving, and the yellow dog in the rear; all at a pace which slowly but surely overtook the peddler. The peddler, reaching a quiet place where a bank of ferns bordered the brushwood, sat down and waited, whistling. The dog, catching sight of him, came forward with a rush, wagging the back end of himself; and Billy, the gray horse, came gently to a standstill.

“How goes it?” said the peddler, pausing a moment in his whistling. “Pretty good?”

“Mostly.”

The peddler took a cigar-case from his pocket, a cigar wrapped in tin-foil from the case, and lay back lazily among the ferns, putting his long thin hands behind his head. “My notion was,” he murmured, “that it would take a month, a month would be enough.”

The serious boy said nothing, but sat with his chin on his fists looking down the road meditatively.

“My notion was,” went on the peddler, “that a doctor's boy, particularly that doctor's boy, would get into all the best houses around--learn the lay of things tolerably neat. That was my notion. Good notion, wasn't it, Jack?” Jack muttered a subdued assent. The peddler glanced at him critically. “For instance now, that big square house on the hill north of Hagar.”

Jack shook his head. “Nothing in it. Old man, name Map, rich enough, furniture done up in cloth, valuables stored in Hamilton; clock or two maybe; nothing in it.”

“Ah,” said the other, “just so;” and again he glanced critically through his half-closed eyes. “But there are others.” Again Jack muttered a subdued assent.

“Good?”

“Good enough.”

The apparent peddler smoked, quite at his ease among the ferns, and seemed resolved that the boy should break the silence next.

“Are you banking on this business, dad?” said the latter, finally.

“Ah--why, no, Jack, not really. It's a sort of notion, I admit.” He lifted one knee lazily over the other. “I'm not shoving you, Jack. State the case.” A long silence followed, to which the conversation of the two seemed well accustomed.

“I never knew anything like that down there,” nodding in the direction of Salem. “Those people.--It's different.”

“That's so,” assented the apparent peddler, critically. “I reckon it is. We make a point not to be low. Polish is our strong point, Jack. But we're not in society. We are not, in a way, on speaking terms with society.”

“It ain't that.”

“Isn't,” corrected the other, gently. “Isn't, Jack. But I rather think it is.”

“Well,” said Jack, “it's different, and”--with gloomy decision--“it's better.”

The apparent peddler whistled no more, but lay back among the ferns and gazed up at the drooping leaves overhead. The gray horse whisked at the wood-gnats and looked around now and again inquiringly. The yellow dog cocked his head on one side as if he had an opinion worth listening to if it were only called for.

“I suppose now,” said the apparent peddler, softly, “I suppose now they're pretty cosy. I suppose they say prayers.”

“You bet.”.

“You mean that they do, Jack. I suppose,” he went on dreamily, “I suppose the old lady has white hair and knits stockings.”

“She does that,” said Jack, enthusiastically, “and pincushions and mats.”

“And pincushions and mats. That's so.”

The lowing of cattle came up to them from hidden meadows below; for the afternoon was drawing near its close and the cattle were uneasy. The chimney and roof of a farmhouse were just visible through a break in the sloping woods. The smoke that mounted from the chimney seemed to linger lovingly over the roof, like a symbol of peace, blessing the hearth from which it came. The sentimental outcast puffed his excellent cigar meditatively, now and again taking it out to remark, “Pincushions and mats!” indicating the constancy of his thoughts.

The serious boy motioned in the direction of Salem. “I think I'll stay there,” he said. “It's better.”

“Reckon I know how you feel, Jack,--know how you feel. Give me my lowly thatched cottage, and that sort of thing.” After a longer silence still, he sat up and threw away his cigar. “Well, Jack, if you see your way--a--if I were you, Jack,” he said slowly, “I wouldn't go half and half; I'd go the whole bill. I'd turn on the hose and inquire for the ten commandments, that's what I'd do.” He came and leaned lazily on the carriage wheel. “That isn't very plain. It's like this. You don't exactly abolish the old man; you just imagine him comfortably buried; that's it, comfortably buried, with an epitaph,--flourishy, Jack, flourishy, stating”--here his eyes roamed meditatively along Billy's well-padded spine--“stating, in a general way, that he made a point of polish.”

The serious boy's lip trembled slightly. He seemed to be seeking some method of expression. Finally he said: “I'll trade knives with you, dad. It's six blades”; and the two silently exchanged knives.

Then Billy, the gray horse, plodded down the hill through the woods, and the apparent peddler plodded up. At one turn in the road can be seen the white houses of Salem across the valley; and here he paused, leaning on the single pole that guarded the edge. After a time he roused himself again, swung his pack to his shoulder, and disappeared over the crest of the hill whistling.

The shadows deepened swiftly in the woods; they lengthened in the open valley, filling the hollows, climbed the hill to Salem, and made dusky Dr. Wye's little porch and his tiny office duskier still. The office was so tiny that portly Judge Carter of Gilead seemed nearly to fill it, leaving small space for the doctor. For this or some other reason the doctor seemed uncomfortable, quite oppressed and borne down, and remonstrating with the oppression. The judge was a man of some splendor, with gold eye-glasses and cane.

“There really is no doubt about it,” he was saying, with a magnificent finger on the doctor's knee, “no doubt at all.”

The conversation seemed to be most absorbing. The doctor pulled his beard abstractedly and frowned.

The serious boy drove by outside in the dusk, and after a while came up from the bam. He sat down on the edge of the porch to think things over, and the judge's voice rolled on oracularly. Jack hardly knew yet what his thoughts were; and this was a state of mind that he was not accustomed to put up with, because muddle-headedness was a thing that he especially despised. “You don't exactly abolish the old man,” he kept hearing the peddler say; “you just imagine him comfortably buried--with an epitaph--flourishy--stating--”

“Clever, very,” said the judge. “Merriwether was telling me--won't catch him, too clever--Merri-wether says--remarkable--interesting scamp, very.” The doctor growled some inaudible objection.

“Why did he show himself!” exclaimed the judge. “Why, see here. Observe the refined cleverness of it! It roused your interest, didn't it? It was unique, amusing. Chances are ten to one you would n't have taken the boy without it. Why, look here--”

“Stuff!”--Here the doctor raised his voice angrily. “The boy ran away from him, of course.”

“Maybe, doctor, maybe,” said the judge, soothingly. “But there are other things--looks shady--consider the man is known. Dangerous, doctor, dangerous, very. You ought to be careful.” Then the words were a mere murmur.

Jack sat still on the porch, with his chin on his hands. Overhead the night-hawks called, and now and then one came down with a whiz of swooping wings. Presently he heard the chairs scrape; he rose, slipped around to the back porch and into the kitchen.

The little bronze clock in the dining-room had just told its largest stint of hours,--and very hard work it made of it. It was a great trial to the clock to have to rouse itself and bluster so. It did not mind telling time in a quiet way. But then, every profession has its trials. It settled itself again to stare with round, astonished face at the table in the centre of the room.

Jack sat at the table by a dim lamp, the house dark and silent all around him, writing a letter. He leaned his head down almost on a level with the paper.

“I herd him and you,” he wrote in a round hand with many blots. “I lied and so did he I mean dad. I can lie good. Dad sed I must learn the ten comandments. The ten comandments says diferent things. You neednt be afrad. There dont anithing happen cep to me. I do love Mother Wye tru.” The clock went on telling the time in the way that it liked to do, tick-tick-tick. Overhead the doctor slept a troubled sleep, and in Gilead Judge Carter slept a sound sleep of good digestion.

Far off the Salem Road led westward straight to Hagar, and stopped, and the moonlight lay over it all the way; but the East End Road led through the shadows and deep night over among the northern hills, and split up into many roads, some of which did not seem ever to end, or lead anywhere.

Jack dropped from the window skilfully, noiselessly, and slid away in the moonlight. At the Corners he did not hesitate, but took the East End Road.

A VISIBLE JUDGMENT