The Captain's Toll-Gate Part 40

The captain put both his hands in his pockets, and his face grew somewhat dark. "Why do you want to see me?" he asked.

She looked at him steadily for a moment, and then answered, speaking very quietly. "I found that Mr. Lancaster had arrived in town, and had gone to your house, and that he was in such a hurry that he walked. So I immediately hired a buggy to come out here. I am very glad I met you."

"But what in the name of common sense," exclaimed the captain, "did you come to see me for? What difference does it make to you whether Mr.

Lancaster is here or not? What have you got to do with me and my affairs, anyway?"

She smiled a smile which was very quiet and flat. "Now, don't get angry," she said. "We can talk over things in a friendly way just as well as not, and it will be a great deal better to do it. And I'd rather talk here in the public road than anywhere else; it's more private."

"I don't want a word to say to you," said the captain, preparing to move on. "I have nothing at all to do with you."

"Ah," said Miss Port, with another smile, "but I think you have. You've got to marry me, you know."

Then the captain stopped suddenly. He opened his mouth, but he could find no immediate words.

"Yes, indeed," said Miss Port, now speaking quietly; "and when I saw Mr.

Lancaster had come to town, I knew that I must see you at once. Of course, he has come to take away your niece, and that's the best thing to be done, for she wouldn't want to keep on livin' here where so many people have known her. At first I thought that would be a very good thing, for you would be separated from her, and that's what you need and deserve. Young men are young men, and they are often a good deal kinder than they would be if they stopped to think. But a person of mature age is different. He would know what is due to himself and his standing in society. At least, that is what I did think. But it suddenly flashed on me that they might want to get away as quick as they could--which would be proper, dear knows--and it would be just like you to go with them.

And so I came right out."

The captain had listened to all this because he very much wanted to know what she had to say, but now he exclaimed: "Do you suppose I shall pay any attention to all the gossip about my affairs?"

"Now, don't go on like that," said Miss Port; "it doesn't do any good, and if you'll only keep quiet, and think pleasantly about it, there will be no trouble at all. You know you've got to marry me; that's settled.

Everybody knows about it, and has known about it for years. I didn't press the matter while father was alive because I knew it would worry him. But now I'm going to do it. Not in any anger or bad feelin', but gently, and as firmly as if I was that tree. I don't want to go to any law, but if I have to do it, I'll do it. I've got my proofs and my witnesses, and I'm all right. The people of your own house are witnesses. And there are ever so many more."

"Woman!" cried the captain, "don't you say another word! And don't you ever dare to speak to me again! I'm not going away, and my niece is not going away; and I a.s.sure you that I hate and despise you so much that all the law in the world couldn't make me marry you. Although you know as well as I do that all you've been saying has no sense or truth in it."

Miss Port did not get angry. With wonderful self-repression she controlled her feelings. She knew that if she lost that control there would be an end to everything. She grew pale, but she spoke more gently than before. "You know"--she was about to say "John," but she thought she would better not--"that what I say about determination and all that, I simply say because you do not come to meet me half-way, as I would have you do. All I want is to get you to acknowledge my rights, to defend me from ridicule. You know that I am now alone in the world, and have no one to look to but you--to whom I always expected to look when father died--and if you should carry out your cruel words, and should turn from me as if I was a stranger and a n.o.body, after all these years of visitin' and attention from you, which everybody knows about, and has talked about, I could never expect anybody else--you bein' gone--to step forward--"

At this the face of the captain cleared, and as he gazed upon the unpleasant face and figure of this weather-worn spinster, the idea that any one with matrimonial intentions should "step forward," as she put it, struck him as being so extremely ludicrous that he burst out laughing.

Then leaped into fire every nervelet of Miss Maria Port. "Laugh at me, do you?" cried she. "I'll give you something to laugh at! And if you 're going to stand up for that thing you have in your house, that murderess--"

She said no more. The captain stepped up to her with a smothered curse so that she moved back, frightened. But he did nothing. He was too enraged to speak. She was a woman, and he could not strike her to the ground. Before her sallow venom he was helpless. He was a man and she was a woman, and he could do nothing at all. He was too angry to stay there another second, and, without a word, he left her, walking with great strides toward the town.

Miss Maria Port stood looking after him, panting a little, for her excitement had been great. Then, with a yellow light in her eyes, she hurried toward her vehicle, which had stopped.

As Captain Asher strode into town he asked himself over and over again what should he do? How should he punish this wildcat--this ruthless creature, who spat venom at the one he loved best in the world, and who threatened him with her wicked claws? In his mind he looked from side to side for help; some one must fight his battle for him; he could not fight a woman. He had not reached town when he thought of Mrs. Faulkner, the wife of the Methodist minister. He knew her; she and her husband had been among the friends who had come out to see him; and she was a woman.

He would go directly to her, and ask her advice.

The captain was not shown into the parlor of the parsonage, but into the minister's study, that gentleman being away. He heard a great sound of talking as he pa.s.sed the parlor door, and it was not long before Mrs.

Faulkner came in. He hesitated as she greeted him.

"You have company," he said, "but can I see you for a very few minutes?

It is important."

"Of course you can," said she, closing the study door. "Our Dorcas Society meets here to-day, but we have not yet come to order. I shall be glad to hear what you have to say."

So they sat down, and he told her what he had to say, and as she listened she grew very angry. When she heard the epithet which had been applied to Olive she sprang to her feet. "The wretch!" she cried.

"Now, you see, Mrs. Faulkner," said the captain, "I can do nothing at all myself, and there is no way to make use of the law; that would be horrible for Olive, and it could not be done; and so I have come to ask help of you. I don't see that any other man could do more than I could do."

Mrs. Faulkner sat silent for a few minutes. "I am so glad you came to me," she said presently. "I have always known Miss Port as a scandal-monger and a mischief-maker, but I never thought of her as a wicked woman. This persecution of you is shameful, but when I think of your niece it is past belief! You are right, Captain Asher; it must be a woman who must take up your cause. In fact," said she after a moment's thought, "it must be women. Yes, sir." And as she spoke her face flushed with enthusiasm. "I am going to take up your cause, and my friends in there, the ladies of the Dorcas Society, will stand by me, I know. I don't know what we shall do, but we are going to stand by you and your niece."

Here was a friend worth having. The captain was very much affected, and was moved with unusual grat.i.tude. He had been used to fighting his own battles in this world, and here was some one coming forward to fight for him.

There came upon him a feeling that it would be a shame to let this true lady take up a combat which she did not wholly understand. He made up his mind in an instant that he would not care what danger might be threatened to other people, or to trade, or to society, he would be true to this lady, to Olive, and to himself. He would tell her the whole story. She should know what Olive had done, and how little his poor girl deserved the shameful treatment she had received.

Mrs. Faulkner listened with pale amazement; she trembled from head to foot as she sat.

"And you must tell no one but your husband," said the captain. "This is a state secret, and he must promise to keep it before you tell."

She promised everything. She would be so proud to tell her husband.

When the captain had gone, Mrs. Faulkner, in a very unusual state of mind, went into the parlor, took the chair, and putting aside all other business, told to the eagerly receptive members the story of Miss Port and Captain Asher. How she had persecuted him, and maligned him, and of the shameful way in which she had spoken of his niece. But not one word did she tell of the story of the two gentlemen in the barouche, and of the air-gun. She was wild to tell everything, but she was a good woman.

"Now, ladies," said Mrs. Faulkner, "in my opinion, the thing for us to do is to go to see Maria Port; tell her what we think of her; and have all this wickedness stopped."

Without debate it was unanimously agreed that the president's plan should be carried out. And within ten minutes the whole Dorcas Society of eleven members started out in double file to visit the house of Maria Port.

_CHAPTER x.x.xV_

_The Dorcas on Guard._

Miss Port had not been home very long and was up in her bedroom, which looked out on the street, when she heard the sound of many feet, and, hurrying to the window, and glancing through the partly open shutters, she saw that a company of women were entering the gate into her front yard. She did not recognize them, because she was not familiar with the tops of their hats; and besides, she was afraid she might be seen if she stopped at the window; so she hurried to the stairway and listened.

There were two great knocks at the door--entirely too loud--and when the servant-maid appeared she heard a voice which she recognized as that of Mrs. Faulkner inquiring for her. Instantly she withdrew into her chamber and waited, her countenance all alertness.

When the maid came up to inform her that Mrs. Faulkner and a lot of ladies were down-stairs, and wanted to see her, Miss Port knit her brows, and shut her lips tightly. She could not connect this visit of so many Glenford ladies with anything definite; and yet her conscience told her that their business in some way concerned Captain Asher. He had had time to see them, and now they had come to see her; probably to induce her to relinquish her claims upon him. As this thought came into her mind she grew angry at their impudence, and, seating herself in a rocking-chair, she told the servant to inform the ladies that she had just reached home, and that it was not convenient for her to receive them at present.

Mrs. Faulkner sent hack a message that, in that case, they would wait; and all the ladies seated themselves in the Port parlor.

"The impudence!" said Miss Port to herself; "but if they like waitin,'

they can wait, I guess they'll get enough of it!"

So Maria Port sat in her room and the ladies sat in the parlor below; and they sat, and they sat, and they sat, and at last it began to grow dark.

"I guess they'll be wantin' their suppers," said Maria, "but they'll go and get them without seein' me. It's no more convenient for me to go down now than when they first came."

There had been, and there was, a great deal of conversation down in the parlor, but it was carried on in such a low tone that, to her great regret, Miss Port could not catch a word of it.

"Now," said Mrs. Pilsbury, "I must go home, for my husband will want his supper and the children must be attended to."

"And so must I," said Mrs. Barney and Mrs. Sloan. They would really like very much to stay and see what would happen next, but they had families.

"Ladies," said Mrs. Faulkner, "of course, we can't all stay here and wait for that woman; but I propose that three of us shall stay and that the rest shall go home. I'll be one to stay. And then, in an hour three of you come back, and let us go and get our suppers. In this way we can keep a committee here all the time. All night, if necessary. When I come back I will bring a candlestick and some candles, for, of course, we don't want to light her lamps. If she should come down while I am away, I'd like some one to run over and tell me. It's such a little way."

At this the ladies arose, and there was a great rustling and chattering, and the face of Miss Maria, in the room above, gleamed with triumph.