The Light in the Clearing Part 39

I remember well the look of the venerable Judge Cady as he p.r.o.nounced the sentence of death upon Amos Grimshaw. A ray of sunlight slanting through a window in the late afternoon fell upon his gracious countenance, s.h.i.+ning also, with the softer light of his spirit. Slowly, solemnly, kindly, he spoke the words of doom. It was his way of saying them that first made me feel the dignity and majesty of the law. The kind and fatherly tone of his voice put me in mind of that Supremest Court which is above all question and which was swiftly to enter judgment in this matter and in others related to it.

Slowly the crowd moved out of the court room. Benjamin Grimshaw rose and calmly whispered to his lawyer. He had not spoken to his son or seemed to notice him since the trial had begun, nor did he now. Many had shed tears that day, but not he. Mr. Grimshaw never showed but one emotion--that of anger. He was angry now. His face was hard and stern.

He muttered as he walked out of the court room, his cane briskly beating the floor. I and others followed him, moved by differing motives. I was sorry for him and if I had dared I should have told him that. I was amazed to see how st.u.r.dily he stood under this blow--like a mighty oak in a storm. The look of him thrilled me--it suggested that something was going to happen.

The Silent Woman--as ragged as ever--was waiting on the steps. Out went her bony finger as he came down. He turned and struck at her with his cane and shouted in a shrill voice that rang out like a trumpet in his frenzy:

"_Go 'way from me. Take her away, somebody. I can't stan' it. She's killin' me. Take her away. Take her away. Take her away._"

His face turned purple and then white. He reeled and fell headlong, like a tree severed from its roots, and lay still on the hard, stone pavement. It seemed as if snow were falling on his face--it grew so white. The Silent Woman stood as still as he, pointing at him with her finger, her look unchanged. People came running toward us. I lifted the head of Mr. Grimshaw and laid it on my knee. It felt like the head of the stranger in Rattleroad. Old Kate bent over and looked at the eyelids of the man, which fluttered faintly and were still.

"Dead!" she muttered.

Then, as if her work were finished, she turned and made her way through the crowd and walked slowly down the street. Men stood aside to let her pa.s.s, as if they felt the power of her spirit and feared the touch of her garments.

Two or three men had run to the house of the nearest doctor. The crowd thickened. As I sat looking down at the dead face in my lap, a lawyer who had come out of the court room pressed near me and bent over and looked at the set eyes of Benjamin Grimshaw and said:

"She floored him at last. I knew she would. He tried not to see her, but I tell ye that bony old finger of hers burnt a hole in him. He couldn't stand it. I knew he'd blow up some day under the strain. She got him at last."

"Who got him?" another asked.

"Rovin' Kate. She killed him pointing her finger at him--so."

"She's got an evil eye. Everybody's afraid o' the crazy ol' Trollope!"

"Nonsense! She isn't half as crazy as the most of us," said the lawyer.

"In my opinion she had a good reason for pointing her finger at that man. She came from the same town he did over in Vermont. Ye don't know what happened there."

The doctor arrived. The crowds made way for him. He knelt beside the still figure and made the tests. He rose and shook his head, saying:

"It's all over. Let one o' these boys go down and bring the undertaker."

Benjamin Grimshaw, the richest man in the towns.h.i.+p, was dead, and I have yet to hear of any mourners.

Three days later I saw his body lowered into its grave. The little, broken-spirited wife stood there with the same sad smile on her face that I had noted when I first saw her in the hills. Rovin' Kate was there in the clothes she had worn Christmas day. She was greatly changed. Her hair was neatly combed. The wild look had left her eyes.

She was like one whose back is relieved of a heavy burden. Her lips moved as she scattered little red squares of paper into the grave. I suppose they thought it a crazy whim of hers--they who saw her do it. I thought that I understood the curious bit of symbolism and so did the schoolmaster, who stood beside me. Doubtless the pieces of paper numbered her curses.

"The scarlet sins of his youth are lying down with him in the dust,"

Hacket whispered as we walked away together.

END OF BOOK TWO

BOOK THREE

Which is the Story of the Chosen Ways

CHAPTER XV

UNCLE PEABODY'S WAY AND MINE

I am old and love my ease and sometimes dare to think that I have earned it. Why do I impose upon myself the task of writing down these memories, searching them and many notes and records with great care so that in every voice and deed the time shall speak? My first care has been that neither vanity nor pride should mar a word of all these I have written or shall write. So I keep my name from you, dear reader, for there is nothing you can give me that I want. I have learned my lesson in that distant time and, having learned it, give you the things I stand for and keep myself under a mask. These things urge me to my task. I do it that I may give to you--my countrymen--the best fruitage of the great garden of my youth and save it from the cold storage of unknowing history.

It is a bad thing to be under a heavy obligation to one's self of which, thank G.o.d, I am now acquitted. I have known men who were their own worst creditors. Everything they earned went swiftly to satisfy the demands of Vanity or Pride or Appet.i.te. I have seen them literally put out of house and home, thrown neck and crop into the street, as it were, by one or the other of these heartless creditors--each a grasping usurer with unjust claims.

I remember that Rodney Barnes called for my chest and me that fine morning in early June when I was to go back to the hills, my year's work in school being ended. I elected to walk, and the schoolmaster went with me five miles or more across the flats to the slope of the high country.

I felt very wise with that year's learning in my head. Doubtless the best of it had come not in school. It had taken me close to the great stage and in a way lifted the curtain. I was most attentive, knowing that presently I should get my part.

"I've been thinking, Bart, o' your work in the last year," said the schoolmaster as we walked. "Ye have studied six books and one--G.o.d help ye! An' I think ye have got more out o' the one than ye have out o' the six."

In a moment of silence that followed I counted the books on my fingers: Latin, Arithmetic, Algebra, Grammar, Geography, History. What was this one book he referred to?

"It's G.o.d's book o' life, boy, an' I should say ye'd done very well in it."

After a little he asked: "Have ye ever heard of a man who had the Grimshaws?"

I shook my head as I looked at him, not knowing just what he was driving at.

"Sure, it's a serious illness an' it has two phases. First there's the Grimshaw o' greed--swinish, heartless greed--the other is the Grimshaw o' vanity--the strutter, with sword at belt, who would have men bow or flee before him."

That is all he said of that seventh book and it was enough.

"Soon the Senator will be coming," he remarked presently. "I have a long letter from him and he asks about you and your aunt and uncle. I think that he is fond o' you, boy."

"I wish you would let me know when he comes," I said.

"I am sure he will let you know, and, by the way, I have heard from another friend o' yours, my lad. Ye're a lucky one to have so many friends--sure ye are. Here, I'll show ye the letter. There's no reason why I shouldn't. Ye will know its writer, probably. I do not."

So saying he handed me this letter:

"CANTERBURY, VT., June 1.

"DEAR SIR--I am interested in the boy Barton Baynes. Good words about him have been flying around like pigeons. When school is out I would like to hear from you, what is the record? What do you think of the soul in him? What kind of work is best for it? If you will let me maybe I can help the plans of G.o.d a little. That is my business and yours. Thanking you for reading this, I am, as ever,

"G.o.d's humble servant, KATE FULLERTON."

"Why, this is the writing of the Silent Woman," I said before I had read the letter half through.

"Rovin' Kate?"

"Roving Kate; I never knew her other name, but I saw her handwriting long ago."

"But look--this is a neatly written, well-worded letter an' the sheet is as white and clean as the new snow. Uncanny woman! They say she carries the power o' G.o.d in her right hand. So do all the wronged. I tell ye, lad, there's only one thing in the world that's sacred."