The Jucklins Part 21

"Oh, it is a part of your nature to suppress yourself. Do you know that I expect great things of you? I do."

"I know one thing that I'm going to do--I am going to buy the old house and a narrow strip of land--the path and the spring. That's all I want--the house, the path and the spring, with just a little strip running a short distance down the brook where the moss is so thick. I have the promise of money from Perdue, and I think that I can borrow some of Conkwright. Yes, I must have the house and the path and the spring and the strip of moss-land that lies along the branch. It will be merely a poetic possession, but such possessions are the richest to one who has a soul; and no one with a soul will bid against me. It is a mean man that would bid against a sentiment."

"You must be nearly worn out," she said, when for some distance we had walked in silence.

"I may be, but I don't know it yet. And so long as I don't know it, why, of course, I don't care."

For a long time we said nothing. Her hand was on my arm, but I scarcely felt its weight, except when we came upon places where the road was rough; and I wished that the way were rougher, that I might feel her dependence upon me. Once she stepped into a deep rut, and I caught her about the waist, but when I had lifted her out, she gently released herself. She said that the road was rougher than she had ever before found it, and I was ready to swear that it was the most delightful highway that my feet had trod; indeed, I did swear it, but she warned me not to use such strong language when I meant to convey but a weak compliment.

"Let us walk faster," she said. "It is away past midnight. I do believe it's nearly day. Can you see your watch?"

"Yes, but I can't see the time."

"n.o.body can see time, Mr. Teacher of Children."

"But I could not tell the time even if I were to hold the lantern to the watch."

"Oh, of course you could. Why do you talk that way?"

"I am moved to talk that way because I know that the watch, being in sympathy with me, refuses to record time when I am with you--it frightens off the minutes in an ecstasy."

"Nonsense, Mr. Hawes. I do believe daylight is coming. What a night we have pa.s.sed, and here I am unable to realize it, and mother is heart-broken over our disgrace. But I suppose it will fall upon me and crush me when we have gone away. My brother sentenced to the penitentiary! To myself I have repeated these words over and over and yet they don't strike me."

"Perhaps it is because your mind is on some one else," I replied, with a return of my feeling of bitterness.

With a pressure gentle and yet forgetful her hand had been resting on my arm, but in an instant the pressure was gone like a bird fluttering from a bough, and out in the road she was walking alone.

"I earnestly beg your pardon. I scarcely knew what I was saying. Won't you please take my arm?"

"To be compelled to drop it again before we have gone a hundred yards?"

"No, to drop it when we have reached the gate. Won't you, please? I don't deny that I am a fool. I have always been a fool. My father said so and he was right. Everybody made fun of me because I was so easily cheated; and you ought to be willing to forgive a man who was born a failure. Whenever there has been a mistake to be made I have made it.

Once I was caught in a storm and when I came in dripping, my father said that I hadn't sense enough to come in out of the rain. But I am stronger with every one else than I am with you, and----"

She was laughing at me; but it was a laugh of sympathy, of forgiveness, and I caught her hand and placed it upon my arm. And so we walked along in silence, she pressing my arm when the road was rough. Daylight was coming and we could see the house, dark and lonesome beyond the black ravine.

"What a peculiar man the General is," I said, feeling the growing heaviness of the silence. "I can hardly place him; but I believe he has a kind heart."

"Yes," she replied, "he is kind and brave and generous, but over it all is a weakness."

"And he is of a type that is fast disappearing," said I. "A few years more and his cla.s.s will be but a memory, and then will come almost a forgetfulness, but later on he will reappear as a caricature from the pen of some careless and unsympathetic writer."

We had crossed the ravine and were now at the gate, and here I halted.

"What, aren't you going in?" she asked, looking up at me, and in the dim light I could see her face, pale and sad.

"No," I answered, "I am going to town."

"At this hour, and when you are so tired?"

"The horse is rested, and as for myself, my duty must give me vigor."

"I don't understand you. What can you do in town?"

"I can bear the divinest of tidings--I can tell Alf that Millie loves him."

She stood looking down, and, bending over her, I kissed her hair, and oh, the heaven of that moment, at the gate, in the dawn; and oh, the thrilling perfume of her hair, damp with the dew brushed from the vine and the leaf of the spice-wood bush. And there, without a word, I left her, her white hands clasped on her bosom; and over the roadway I galloped with a message on my lips and incense in my soul.

CHAPTER XVI.

The sun was an hour above the tree-tops when I rode up to the livery-stable, and the town was lazily astir. Merchants were sprinkling the brick pavements in front of their stores, and on the public square was a bon-fire of trash swept from the court-house. I hastened to the jail, and for the first time the jailer hesitated when I applied for admission. My eagerness, apparent to every one, appeared to be mistrusted by him, and he shook his head. I told him that he might go in with me, that my mission was simply to deliver a message.

"The man has been sentenced," said he, "and I don't know what good a message can do him. I am ordered to be very strict. Some time ago a man was in this jail, sentenced to the penitentiary, but he didn't go--a friend came in and left him some pizen. And are you sure you ain't got no pizen about you."

"You may search me."

"But I don't know pizen when I see it. Man's got a right to kill himself, I reckon, but he ain't got no right to rob me of my position as jailer, and that's what it would do. Write down your message and I'll take it to him."

"That would take too long. The judge has granted him a new trial and surely he wouldn't want to kill himself now."

"Well, I reckon you're right, but still we have to be mighty particular.

I don't know, either but you might be taking him some whisky. Man's got a right to drink whisky, it's true, but it don't speak well for the morals and religious standin' of a jailer if he's got a lot of drunken prisoners on hand; so, if you've got a bottle about you anywhere you'd better let me take it."

"I've got no bottle."

"That so? Didn't know but you might have one. Prohibition has struck this town putty hard, you know. Search yourself and see if you hain't got a bottle."

"Don't you suppose I know whether I've got one or not? But if you want one you shall have it."

"S-h-e-e! Don't talk so loud. There's nothin' that sharpens a man's ears like prohibition. Say," he whispered, "a good bottle costs about a dollar."

"Here's your dollar. It's my last cent, but you shall have it."

"Oh, it ain't my principle to rob a man," he said as he took the money.

"But I do need a little licker this mornin'. Why, I'm so dry I couldn't whistle to a dog. No pizen, you understand," he added, with a wink, as he opened the door.

The drawing of the bolts must have aroused Alf from sleep, for when I stepped into the corridor he was sitting on the edge of his bed, rubbing his eyes.

"h.e.l.loa, is that you, Bill? What are you doing here this time of day?

Why, I haven't had breakfast yet."

"I have come to tell you something, and I want you to be quiet while I tell it."

"That's all right, old man. Go ahead. I can stand anything now."

I told him of the scene in the sitting-room, of the walk to the General's house--told him all except that kiss at the gate. He uttered not a word; he had taken hold of the bars and was standing with his head resting upon his arms--had gradually found this position, and now I could not see his face. Long I stood there, waiting, but he spoke not.