The Deliverance Part 21

"So you were too sick to start for school this morning, eh?"

pursued Fletcher, hurt and angry. "Only well enough to go traipsing through the bushes after a pack of brutes?"

"I had a headache, but it got better. May I go up now to wash my hands?"

For an instant Fletcher regarded him in a brooding silence; then, with that remorseless cruelty which is the strangest manifestation of wounded love, he loosened upon the boy's head all the violence of his smothered wrath.

"You'll do nothing of the kind! I ain't done with you yet, and when I am I reckon you will know it. Mark my words, if you warn't such a girlish looking chap I'd take my horsewhip to your shoulders in a jiffy. So this is the return I get, is it, for all my trouble with you since the day you were born! Tricks and lies are all the reward I'm to expect, I reckon. Well, you'll learn-- once for all, now--that when you undertake to fool me it's a clear waste of time. I've found out whar you've been to-day, and I know you've been sneaking across the county with that darn Blake!"

The boy looked at him steadily, first with speechless terror, then with a cowed and sullen rage. The glare in Fletcher's eyes fascinated him, and he stood motionless on his spot of carpet as if he were held there in an invisible vise. Weakling as he was, he had been humoured too long to bear the lash submissively at last, and beneath the tumult of words that overwhelmed him he felt his anger flow like an infusion of courage in his veins. The greater share of love was still on his grandfather's side, and the knowledge of this lent a sullen defiance to his voice.

"You bl.u.s.ter so I can't hear," he said, blinking fast to shut out the other's eyes. "If I did go with Christopher Blake, what's the harm in it? I only lied because you make such a fuss it gives me a headache."

"It's the first fuss I ever made with you, I reckon," returned Fletcher, softening before the accusation. "If I ever fussed with you before, sonny, you may make mighty certain you deserved it."

"You frighten me half to death when you rage so," persisted the boy, s.n.a.t.c.hing craftily at his advantage.

"There, there, we'll get it over," said Fletcher, quieting instantly. "I didn't mean to scare you that way, but the truth is it put me in a pa.s.sion to hear of you mixing up with that scamp Blake. Jest keep clear of him and I'll ask nothing more of you.

You may chase all your rabbits between here and kingdom come for aught I care, but if I ever see you alongside of Christopher Blake again, I tell you, I'll lick you until you're black and blue. And now hurry up and git your supper and go to bed, for you start to school to-morrow morning at sunrise."

Will flushed, and stood blinking his eyes in the lamplight.

"I don't want to go to school, grandpa," he said persuasively.

"That's a pity, sonny, because you've got to go whether you like it or not. Your Aunt Saidie has gone and packed your things, and I'll give you a month's pocket money to start with."

"But I'd rather stay at home and study with Mr. Morrison. Then I could follow after the hounds in the afternoon and keep out in the fresh air, as the doctor said I must."

"Now, now, we've had enough of this," said Fletcher decisively.

"You'll do what I say, mind you, and you'll do it quick. No haggling over it, do you hear?"

Will looked at him sullenly, nerved by that reckless anger which so often pa.s.ses for pure daring.

"If you make me go you'll be sorry, grandpa," he said, choking.

Fletcher swallowed an uneasy laugh, strangled over it, and finally spat it out with a wad of tobacco.

"Why, what blamed maggot have you got in your head, son?" he inquired, laying his heavy hand on the boy's shoulder. "You didn't use to hate school so, and, as sure as you're born, you'll find it first rate sport when you get back. It's this Blake business, that's what it is--he's gone and stuffed you plum full of notions. Look here, now, you don't want to grow up to be a dunce like him, do you?"

He had touched the raw at last, and Will broke out pa.s.sionately in revolt, inflamed by a boyish admiration for his own bravado.

"He's got a lot more sense than anybody about here, "he cried, backing against the door and holding tightly to the handle; "and if he doesn't know that plaguey Greek it's because he says there isn't any use in it. Why, he can shoot a bird on the wing over his shoulder, and mount a horse at full gallop, and tell stories that make you creep all over. He's not a dunce, grandpa; he's my friend, and I like him!"

The last words came in a sudden spurt, for, feeling his artificial courage ooze out of him, the boy had started in a run from the room. He had barely crossed the threshold, however, when Fletcher reached out with a strong grip and pulled him back, swinging him slowly round until the two stood face to face.

"Now, here's one thing flat," said the man in a husky voice, if I ever see or hear of you opening your mouth to that rascal again, I'll thrash you until you haven't a sound bone in your body.

You'd better go up now and say your prayers."

As he released his grasp, the boy struck out at him with a nerveless gesture and then shot like an arrow through the hall and out into the twilight. At the moment his terror of Fletcher was forgotten in the paroxysm of his anger. Short sobs broke from him as he ran, and presently his breath came in pants like those of an overdriven horse; but still, without slackening his pace, he sped on to the old ice-pond and then wheeled past the turning into the sunken road. Not until he had reached the long gate before the Blake cottage did he stop short suddenly and stand, grasping his moist s.h.i.+rt collar, in an effort to quiet his convulsed breathing.

The hounds greeted him with a single bay, and at the noise Cynthia came out upon the porch and then down into the gravelled path between the old rose-bushes.

"What do you wish?" she demanded stiffly, standing severe and erect in her faded silk.

"I must speak to Christopher--I must!" gasped the boy, breathing hard. "I am going away tomorrow, and this is my last chance."

"Well, he's in the stable, I believe," replied Cynthia coolly.

"If you want him, you must go there to look for him, and be sure not to make a noise when you pa.s.s the house." Then, as he darted away, her eyes followed him with a weary aversion.

Will pa.s.sed the kitchen and the woodpile and, turning into a little path that led from the well, came to the open door of the rudely built stable. A dim light fell in a square across the threshold, and looking inside he saw that a lantern was hanging from a nail above the nearest stall and that within the circle of its illumination Christopher was busily currying the old gray mare.

At the boy's entrance he paused for an instant, glanced carelessly over the side of the stall, and then went on with his work.

"Playing night-owl, eh?" he remarked indifferently. "There's no rubbing-down for you to do, I reckon."

"There's a darn sight worse," returned the boy, throwing out the oath with a conscious swagger as he braced himself against the ladder that ran up to the loft.

His tone arrested Christopher's hand, and, lifting his head, the young man stood attentively regarding him, one arm lying upon the broad back of the old mare.

"Why, what's up now?" he questioned with a smile. Some fine chaff, which he had brought down from the loft, still clung to his hair and clothes and darkened his upper lip like a mustache.

"Grandpa's found it out and he's hopping," said the boy. "I always told you he would be, you know, and now it's come. If he ever catches me with you again he swears he'll give it to me like h.e.l.l. He pressed tightly against the ladder and wagged his head defiantly. "But he needn't think he can bully me like that--not if I know it!"

"Well, he mustn't catch you again," returned Christopher, not troubling to soften his scorn of such cheap heroics; "we must manage better next time. Did you think to remind him, by the way, that I once took the trouble to save your life?"

"That's a fact, I didn't think of it. What would he have said, I wonder?"

Christopher raised his eyebrows. "Knocked your front teeth out, perhaps. He's like that, isn't he?"

"Oh, he's awfully fond of me, you know," protested the boy; "but it's his meddling ways that I can't stand. What business is it of his who my friends are? He hasn't got to take up with 'em, has he? Why, what he hates is for me to want to be with anybody but himself or Aunt Saidie. He'd like to keep me dangling all day to his coat tails, but it's not fair, and I won't have it. I'll show him whether I'm to be kept a kid forever or not!"

"There's spirit for you!" drawled Christopher with a laugh, as he applied the currycomb to the mare's flank.

"You just wait till you hear the worst," returned the other, with evident pride in the thunderbolt about to be delivered. "He swears he's going to send me to school tomorrow at sunrise."

"You don't say so?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Christopher.

"Oh, but he'll do it, too--the only way to get around him is to fall ill, and I can't work that tomorrow. I played the trick last week and he saw through it. I've got to go, that's certain; but I'm going to make him sorry enough before he's done. Why couldn't he let me keep on studying with Mr. Morrison, as the doctor said I ought to? What's the use of this blamed old Latin and Greek, anyway? n.o.body about here knows them, and why should I set myself up for a precious numbskull of a scholar? I'd rather be a crack shot like you any day! I tell you one thing," he finished, sucking in his breath in a way that had annoyed Christopher from the first, "I've half a mind to run away or fall ill after I get there!"

Christopher turned suddenly, slapped the mare on the flank, and came out of the stall, the currycomb still in his hand. His s.h.i.+rt sleeves were rolled above his elbows, and the muscles of his arms stood out like cords under the sunburned skin, which showed a paler bronze from the wrists up. He was flushed from leaning over, and his clothes smelled strongly of the stable.

"If you do, come to me, " he said lightly, "and I'll hide you in the barn till the storm blows over. It wouldn't last long, I reckon."

"Bless you, no; when he's scared I can do anything with him. Why, he was as soft as mush after the horses ran away with me, though he'd threatened to thrash me if I touched the reins. Oh, I say it's a shame we never had that 'possum hunt!"

Christopher turned down his s.h.i.+rt sleeves and brushed the chaff from his face.

"What do you say about to-night?" he inquired, with something like a sneer. "We couldn't go far, of course, and we'd have to borrow Tom Spade's hounds--mine are tired out--but we might have a short run about midnight, get a 'possum or so, and be in our beds before daybreak. Shall we try it?"

The boy wavered, struggling between his desire for the chase and his fear of Fletcher.