The Second Chance Part 23

"Excuse me, Mr. Braden," she said, "I was almost forgetting. Mr.

Cavers, I know had not enough with him to pay for ... all this." She motioned toward Bill's dead face. "This ... must have cost a lot."

She handed him some silver. "It is all I have with me to-day ... I hope it is enough. I know Mr. Cavers would not like to leave a debt ... like this."

Mechanically Sandy Braden took the money, then dropping it as if it burned him, he turned away and went slowly up the road that he had come, reeling unsteadily. A three-seated democrat, filled with drunken men, was just driving away from his stable. They were a crowd from Howard, who had been drinking heavily at his bar all the afternoon. They drove away,--madly las.h.i.+ng their horses into a gallop.

Sandy Braden hid in a clump of poplars until they got past him.

Looking back toward the river he could see Mrs. Cavers kneeling beside her husband, and even at that distance he fancied he could see Bill's dead face looking into hers, and begging her to understand.

Just as the democrat pa.s.sed pants burst into maudlin song:

"Who's the best man in this town?

Sandy Braden, Sandy Braden.

Who's the best man in this town?

Sandy Braden, Sandy Braden."

And then it was that Sandy Braden fell p.r.o.ne upon the ground and buried his face in the cool, green gra.s.s, crying: "G.o.d be merciful to me, a sinner!"

When the victorious lacrosse team came down the street, they were followed by a madly cheering throng. They went straight to the hotel, where, by the courtesy of the proprietor, they had always been given rooms in which to dress.

Bob Steele met them at the office door, all smiles and congratulations, in spite of a badly blackened eye.

"Come on in, boys!" he called. "It's my treat. Walk right in."

Most of the boys needed no second invitation. Bud Perkins hesitated.

His father was just behind him. "Take a little Schlitz, Buddie. That won't hurt you," he said.

Bud went in with the others. Every one was in the gayest humour. The bartender called in the porter to help him to serve the crowd. The gla.s.ses were being filled when a sudden hush fell on the bar-room, for Sandy Braden, with a face as ghastly as the one he had just left on the river-bank, came in the back door.

He raised his hand with a gesture of authority. "Don't drink it, boys!" he said. "It has killed one man to-day. Don't touch it."

Even the bartender turned pale, and there was a moment of intense silence. Just then some one rushed in and shouted the news of Bill Cavers's death. The crowd fell away until Sandy Braden and the bartender were left face to face.

"How much have you in the business here, Bob?" he asked in a perfectly controlled voice.

The bartender told him.

He took a cheque-book from his pocket and hastily made out a cheque.

"Now, go," he said, as he gave it to him. "I will not be needing a man in here any more."

He took the keys from his pocket and locked the back door. Then coming out into the office, where there were a few stragglers lounging in the chairs, he carefully locked the door leading into the bar.

"I'm done, boys," he said shortly. "I've quit the business."

CHAPTER XX

ON THE QUIET HILLSIDE

They shall go out no more, oh ye, Who speak earth's farewell thro' your tears, Who see your cherished ones go forth And come not back, thro' weary years.

There is a place-there is a sh.o.r.e From which they shall go out no more.

_----Kate Tucker Goode._

WHEN sympathetic neighbours came to stay with Mrs. Cavers that night, and "sit up" with the dead man, she gently refused their kind offer.

"It is kind of you, dear friends," she said, "but I would rather stay alone to-night. It is the last thing I can do for him, and I shall not be lonely. I've sat here plenty of nights waiting for him, not knowing how he would come home--often afraid he would be frozen to death or kicked by the horses--but to-night he is safe from all that, and I am not worrying about him at all. I've got him all to myself, now, and I want to sit here with him, just him and me. Take Libby Anne with you, Martha. I am thinking of a sweet verse that seems to suit me now: 'They shall go out no more.' That's my comfort now; he is safe from so many things."

The next day was the funeral, a cloudless day of glittering suns.h.i.+ne and bright blue sky. The neighbours came for miles; for Bill's death and the closing of the bar had made a profound impression.

"I wonder will Sandy Braden come," Thomas Perkins said, as he tied his horse to a seeder in the yard. "Bill was a good customer of his, and I wouldn't be surprised if Sandy came."

"You're a good guesser, Thomas," another man said, "for here he comes."

"Sandy'll open up again, I think," said George Steadman, "in a few days, when he gets over this a little. He's foolish if he doesn't, with the busy time just startin', and money beginnin' to move."

"Well, I don't know," said Sam Motherwell. "From what I hear, Sandy says he's got his medicine, and won't take chances on getting any more. It'll be a good thing for the town if he has closed for keeps.

Sandy has made thousands of dollars over his bar."

"Well," George Steadman said; in his most generous tone, "I don't begrudge it to him. Sandy's a decent fellow, and he certainly never made it out of me or mine. He's a fool if he closes up now, but if he does, some one else will open up. I believe a bar is a help to the town all right!"

"It hasn't been much of a help here," Thomas Perkins said, waving his hand at the untidy barnyard.

"Oh, well, this is an exception. There's always some man like Bill that don't know when to quit. This business here is pretty rough on me, though," Mr. Steadman said, in a truly grieved tone; "losin' my tenant just before harvest; but I blame n.o.body but Bill himself. He hasn't used me square, you all know that."

"Stop, George, stop!" The broad Scotch of Roderick Ray's voice had not been heard before in the conversation. "Hoo hae we used Bill? He was aye fond o' it an' aye drank it to his hurt an' couldna stop.

What hae we done to help him? Dye think it fair to leave a trap-door open for a child to fall doon? An' if ye found him greetin' at the bottom, wad ye no tak him up an' shut the door? Puir Bill, we found him greetin' an' bruised an' sore mony times, but nane o' us had the humanity to try to shut the door until he fell once too often, an'

could rise na more, an' now Sandy himsel' has shamed us a', an' I tell ye, he'll no open it again, for he has better bluid in him nor that; and our sins will lie upon our own heads if we ever let yon death-trap be opened again!"

Just then Sandy Braden, wearing a black suit, drove into the yard and tied up his horse.

The little house was filled to overflowing with women; the men stood bareheaded around the door. Mrs. Cavers sat beside the coffin with an arm around Libby Anne. Mrs. Steadman, with the cerise roses still nodding in her hat, said on the way home that it did seem queer to her that Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne did not shed a tear. Mrs.

Steadman did not understand that there is a limit even to tears and that Libby Anne in her short years had seen sadder sights than even this.

The Reverend John Burrell conducted the funeral.

"Shall we gather at the river?" he gave out as the first hymn. Some sang it falteringly; they had their own ideas of Bill's chances in the next world, and did not consider the "river" just the proper figure of speech to describe it.

The minister then read that old story of the poor man who went down to Jericho and fell among thieves. Mr. Burrell's long experience with men had made him a plain and pointed speaker, and given him that rare gift, convincing earnestness. Now he laid his hand on the coffin and spoke in a clear, ringing voice, that carried easily to every person in the house and to those who stood around the door.

"Here is a man who is a victim of our laws," he said, in beginning.

"This is not an exceptional case. Men are being ruthlessly murdered every day from the same cause; this is not the only home that it has darkened. It is going on all over this land and all the time because we are willing, for the sake of a few dollars' revenue, to allow one man to grow rich on the failings of others. We know the consequences of this; we know that men will be killed, body and soul, that women will go broken-hearted, that little children will be cheated of their childhood. This scene to-day--the dead man in his coffin, the sad-faced wife and child, the open grave on the hillside--is a part of the Traffic. They belong to the business just as much as the sparkling decanters and the sign above the door. Every one of you, no doubt, has foretold this day. I wonder have you done anything to prevent it? Let none of us presume to judge the brother who has gone.

I would rather take my chances before the judgment-seat of G.o.d with him, the victim, who has paid for his folly with his life, than with any one of you who have made this thing possible. 'Ye who are strong ought to bear the infirmity of the weak.' I do not know how it will be with this man when he comes to give an account of himself to G.o.d, but I do know that G.o.d is a loving, tender Father, who deals justly and loves mercy, and in that thought to-day we rest and hope. Let us pray."