Tess of the Storm Country Part 50

"He ain't a-goin' to get out!"

"Yep, he air; sure he air."

"Air he a-knowin' of yer brat?" Ben was staring at the child.

Tess stared back at him. She had forgotten that she had intimated that the baby was hers.

"I ain't tellin' Daddy nothin'.... His troubles be enough for _him_."

Her tone was low and bitter. She turned the babe with its back to the heat to gain time. She had almost decided to run away--she could not face Myra's fate.

"This durn stove ain't got no fire in it," she said, laying Baby Dan in the box. "I's a-goin' for a stick of wood!"

As Tessibel walked past him, Ben did not stop her--squatters never saved steps for their women. The girl flung open the door, but hesitated on the threshold. During the instant of her indecision, a silent panorama of night pa.s.sed before her. Heavy rain clouds dipped almost to the dark water, obscuring the city and the University hill beyond. A great steamer attached to a number of ca.n.a.l boats lay as a thin black line in the center of the lake. An owl left the branches of the hut tree and circled into the safety of the sh.o.r.e willows, and a stealthy barn cat, with thread-like legs, crept from the water's edge toward the lane with a trailing dead fish in his jaws. He turned glistening green eyes upon Tess, and leapt away with his treasure.

Oh! to be out once more in the darkness with the child--out among G.o.d's creatures, her creatures, there she would be safe--safe from Myra's terror.

Glancing back at little Dan, she saw his large gray eyes fixed gravely upon the candlelight. To leave him there was like sending him into the jaws of death. To take him was impossible. She turned back, closed the door with a gasp, and faced Ben Letts.

He was at her side in a moment.

"I air got ye now," sounded in her ear like the roar of the sea. She felt the man crush her in his arms, felt the thick lips upon her face.

"Ye think ye be such a smart kid that ye needn't never mind what a man says to ye. I knows that brat don't belong to yerself. I ain't seed ye all summer for nothin'. Tell me, whose air he?"

Tess wrenched herself free, and sent forth scream after scream. A h.o.r.n.y hand left a red mark across the fair face. It was the right of the fisherman to beat the woman he loved.... Tessibel Skinner was feeling for the first time the aggressiveness of the male.

"Ben, Ben, I tells ye the truth if ye wait a minute."

Ben relaxed his hold a little, and the girl continued:

"The brat ain't mine--it air a woman's on the hill. She didn't like it, and gave it to me, with a little money, till Daddy comes back."

"Whose brat air it?"

"A woman's I says, a-livin' on the hill."

The words struggled through the fishy hand.

"Ye'll take it back to her to-night, ye does; then ye comes with me to the shanty. Yer Daddy ain't a-comin' here no more."

Suddenly Tess heard footsteps crus.h.i.+ng the pebbles near the hut. She could be saved, if she-- She wrenched her face upward, and screamed,

"Rescue ther peris.h.i.+n'!"

The words were sent out in such a strain of agony that Ben Letts thrust his fingers to her throat. With an oath he closed them together.

"I loves ye, ye hussy; that air why I chokes ye!"

The room whirled around before Tessibel's gaze. She tried to draw her breath beneath the tightening grasp. The door burst open, and Frederick Graves received a desperate look of entreaty from the squatter-girl.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

The babe smacked loudly. The September wind whirled its rain and dead willow leaves over the hut floor. A rasping sound, like the filing of a saw, came from the tin roof.

Frederick Graves took in the scene with one sharp glance. He saw the fisherman, in ugly doggedness, towering over the small figure of the squatter-girl. Then he flung himself upon Ben Letts. He tore Ben's fingers from Tessibel's neck, leaving the skin reddened and scratched by the nails. Tess sank to the floor. The student's fist came down with a stunning blow upon the partly upturned face of the squatter Ben, and the fellow tumbled over.

"Stand up," said Frederick to Tessibel, lifting her gently to her feet.

Her hand fluttered to her eyes, then to her throat. Still dizzy from the choking, she sank into the rocking-chair.

"What were you two fighting over?" demanded Frederick impetuously.

Tess gathered her senses at the sound of his voice.

"He were a-tryin' to make me come to his shanty with him--to be his'n--and I ain't a-goin'!"

She whimpered a little, but choked back the tears, and raged:

"A squatter-girl can't live a minute without some d.a.m.n bloke wants to take her from her Daddy's shanty.... I ain't a-goin', I says!"

How brave she felt, with the student near! for there was an expression upon his face that gave her courage. He looked so strong, so brave--and he had come when she had prayed. Something took from her the terror of the night when she had proclaimed her motherhood to him. Perhaps Teola had told him the truth. When he had turned from her in the agony of the confession, he had scorned her with his proud, dark eyes. Now he threw her the same protective glance that she had received before the tragedy.

The silence in the room became oppressive.

"I ain't a-goin'," she said again, to break it.

Ben was upon the floor. He feared to rise, for Frederick stood threateningly over him.

"She goes to my shanty," insisted Ben, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g his face to peep through the swollen lids. "She and the brat goes to my hut.... I air its pappy!"

Frederick staggered back against the door with a groan, Tess catching her breath in a sob. She could not exonerate herself because of Teola; she knew from Frederick's emotion at Ben's a.s.sertion that his sister had not told him. But he should not believe the lie that Letts had uttered.

She saw the fine face of the student fall into his hands, and shudder after shudder run over the giant frame. Ben Letts leered at him with his twisted face, as a demon might at a soul in torment. The boy suffered for her--that was enough. The front portion of her skirt had been almost torn away in her struggle, and unconsciously she lifted it, and pinned a thorn more closely in its place. But for an instant she held back the words ready upon her tongue, and with one long step she reached Frederick, placing her hand upon his arm.

"Don't touch me, please," he shuddered. "It's awful--awful! And I--I loved you so!"

"Haw!" chuckled Ben, settling back against the child's box. "I says as how the gal comes to my shanty. She brings the brat to its pa."

Frederick moodily considered the ugly face. The sneer that accompanied the declaration roused his rage; the brute had sealed the doom of Tessibel Skinner. Again the student was oblivious of his love for the profession he had chosen; forgot that the one book he had studied more than any other taught him that the G.o.d he wors.h.i.+ped would avenge all wrong. In one step he was upon the fisherman. He lifted Orn Skinner's stool, and brought it down with a crash upon Ben's head.

Tess uttered a sharp, frightened cry, speeding to interrupt another blow.

"Get out of the way," cried the student, pus.h.i.+ng her from him. "I am going to kill him!"