Captivating Mary Carstairs Part 46

"We-ell," he said in answer to Varney's question, "we're humping along--just humping along. Time's so confoundedly short, though. You know, Larry, this business the other night is proving the best card we've got. Fact. I haven't tried to tell you how worked up the people have been about your--accident, and how most of them don't stand for it for a minute. It's pretty well understood around town that politics was back of it all in some way, though n.o.body can state a single fact, and I've scoured the town for evidence without finding a sc.r.a.p. Anyway, it's the solemn fact, and the committee can prove it, that that feeling is bringing over a lot of votes that we never could have reached otherwise with a long distance 'phone."

"Praise be that they're coming over, anyhow."

"This fight," continued Peter, absorbedly, "is confoundedly interesting because it is typical of what's going on all over the country. Hunston is just a dingy little microcosm of the whole United States of America.

You can't blame these poor beggars here much, afraid of their jobs as they are. It takes courage to make a break for virtue when the devil's holding you by your bread and meat. But--well, I'd hate like the mischief to lose, particularly since we've managed to come in for such a beautiful lot of lime-light. You know this fight is being watched all over the country, since that trouble? And hang it, it does make a difference when the a.s.sociated Press carries half a column about you every night. Do you remember that first night in Hunston, Larry," he continued, "when you said that our part in the town's affairs must be that of quiet onlookers only? Quiet onlookers! And now everybody in the country is playing quiet onlookers on us. Our names are household words in California, and I'm credibly informed that they're naming babies after you all through the middle West. Funny, isn't it?"

Varney a.s.sented with a laugh. Presently he said rather constrainedly: "Peter--I want you to tell me a little about that night. Who was caught?"

Peter named the two. "They wouldn't testify," he explained, "and I couldn't. Old Orrick was the only man I spotted. He will get punished for a.s.sault. I don't see that they've got a case against British. He was knocked out when the porch fell, and he hadn't done a thing then, except yell probably. You can't hang a man for yelling in this State."

"No. Did you--you--was anybody killed?"

"Bless your heart, no!" cried Peter. "Why, it was only a little old kicking-match and hair-pulling, you know, hardly worse than a college rush."

Varney looked suddenly and strangely relieved.

"I'm mighty glad to hear that," he said, and presently added: "Have you seen--Smith?"

"Smith! He went to New York some days ago. I remember--it was the very day you pulled up and got well. Why, what about him?"

"Didn't you know? He was there that night," said Varney. "Right in the thick of it, helping me."

"Helping _you_! Smith!"

Varney nodded. "The minute they closed in on me," he said after a moment, "and we all bunched together, I felt that there was somebody in there fighting on my side. Pretty soon I heard a voice in my ear, it said: '_Keep on your pins as long as you can: these dogs'll trample you if they get you down_.' I said, 'Is that you, Smith?' and he laughed and said, '_Still on my studies_.' Then somebody hit me over the head with something, and I went down and he went with me. He had one arm around me, I remember. I've been thinking, ever since I could think at all, that they might--might have finished him. I believe he saved my life, Smith did."

"Well--bully for him!" said Peter slowly, much impressed. "What on earth struck him to do that, do you suppose? Well, well! I'll certainly look that old boy up in New York and shake him by the hand."

There was a considerable silence. At just the moment when Varney was about to put another question, Peter opened his mouth and answered it.

"However," he said, an irrepressible note of irritation creeping into his honest voice, "even that was not the strangest thing that happened that night. Not by a long shot."

Varney's gaze fixed with sudden interest. "Higginson? You don't mean to say that he turned up?"

"I do. And got away with it again--confound his soul!"

"What happened? Any more dirty work? Did anything get into the papers?"

"No--oh, no! You've got that sized up wrong, Larry. He's no yellow journalist or anything like that. He's only the slickest underground worker this town ever saw--with his confounded apologetic, worried-looking mask of a face. As for more dirty work--well, I guess the bloodshed the other night scared him up so--"

"But go on and tell me! Where'd you see him? What did you say and--"

"Sitting in our front parlor, if you please, like a dear old friend of the family."

The remembrance of the way he had been affronted and outwitted chafed Peter's spirit uncontrollably. He rose and began pacing up and down the little porch, hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets.

"About an hour after we put you to bed," he exploded, "I slipped downstairs to tell Hare to keep everybody off the place. However, a lot of people had already come in. I glanced in at the parlor and it seemed full of them--Mrs. Carstairs and Mrs. Marne--they were the first to get here after Hare's delegation--Hammerton and another man from the _Gazette_, the committeemen, and several I'd never laid eyes on before.

Well, there in a corner, looking like a hired mourner at a n.i.g.g.e.r funeral, sat that fellow Higginson. You could have knocked me flat with a pin feather. I'm as sure as I stand here that it was he who worked up that mob for Ryan, and the whole dirty scheme--and then coming around with his tongue in his cheek to inquire after the victim! Can you beat that gall?"

"Not easily. What happened?"

"They asked me how you were. I told'em. Then I said before the room-full: 'I was very sorry to find you out this afternoon, Mr.

Higginson, when I called at your hotel.' The fellow looked white as a sheet and mumbled something I couldn't catch. Well--I couldn't smash him there before all the women, so I said: 'Please don't go away this time until I see you. I'm most anxious to have a little private conversation with you.' Oh, of course that was a mistake--I hate to think about it!

But--well, I was a good deal worried just then," he explained, rather sheepishly, "and fact is, for the minute I wasn't thinking very much about Higginson. I needn't add that he had sneaked when I came down again. Had the cheek to leave behind a message with Hare saying he regretted to miss me, but felt it his duty to escort the ladies home."

Varney, though he had grounds for animosity which Peter never even guessed, laughed aloud. But it was a brief laugh, which quickly faded.

"And he's never been seen or heard of from that day to this? Well, for my part," he went on, rather constrainedly, "I'm almost ready to believe the man's a myth--a mere personification of evil--an allegorical name for the powers of darkness--"

"Myth!" cried Peter. "You'll see! Why, he's certain to turn up again, Larry--absolutely certain. You couldn't keep him away with a flock of cannon. If he doesn't come before, it's dead sure that he'll appear among us again on election day--four days from now--just to see the results of his pretty work. And when he does--"

"Well?" said Varney, amused through his own heartsoreness by Peter's vehemence. "When he does?"

"I've got two men watching every train, day and night," said Peter.

"When Higginson sets foot in this town again, one man trails him, and the other runs for me.... Well, I'm a generous and forbearing man, Larry, and I recall that you havn't had much fun here. I'll--yes, hang it all!--I'll bring the old rogue to you, dead or alive, and stand by in silence while you speak him your little piece."

CHAPTER XXIII

IN WHICH VARNEY, AFTER ALL, REDEEMS HIS PROMISE

From the roaring ovation which followed Peter's brief remarks there emerged again the sudden, clean-cut silence. Mayor Hare--Mayor by the narrowest margin in the heaviest vote ever cast in that town--stood upon the improvised little stand and looked out over the packed square. He rested one small hand upon the gay-clothed rail, and many people saw that it quivered. The showy "demonstration" of Peter's planning, brilliantly launched the moment the count was announced--the imported bra.s.s-band, the triumphal procession with the bugles, the streamers and the flag-wrapped carriages, and now the rostrum ready set and waiting in the heart of the dense crowd--all had taken him completely by surprise.

His face showed it; yet he was not thinking of that exactly. All at once the Mayor's mind had harked back to another moment, not so many days before, when he had stood in this square to make a speech; and at the rushing thought of the great contrast between that moment and this, there rose in him a sense of gratefulness so deep that it took palpable form, and stuck, suffocatingly, in his throat.

The square swam before his blinded eyes. He took off his gla.s.ses and wiped them frankly. Stiff formality left him, without a nod at parting, carrying along the "few remarks" he had nervously thrown together in his Roman progress up Main Street.

"The modesty of the man who has just addressed you," he began unsteadily, "will deceive no one. You all know what I owe to him--what our town owes to him. You all know that if I am almost too proud and too happy to speak at all just now, it is because a kindly chance sent Mr.

Maginnis to Hunston."

Cheers, more cheers, and yet again cheers; cheers running on and on as though they never meant to stop; spontaneous waves of applause that meant, what nearly all knew, that Maginnis personally had captured Hunston, and that his efficiency with a chair-leg had reared him into a kind of demi-G.o.d among certain rough fellows of the baser sort.

The speaker was resuming, not yet through with his tributes. His eye flitting over the shouting crowd had fallen upon a face.

"I know that both honesty and logic were on the side which Mr. Maginnis, coming here a stranger, elected to support. But honesty does not always make a winning cause, nor does logic. What I may call sympathy is often better than both. The splendid help that we got from Mr. Maginnis received this supplement. Sympathy came to aid Reform. A brutal outrage sullied the name of our town--an outrage which, there is sad reason to believe, was born of politics. The victim of that outrage, and the hero of that terrible night, is happily with us to-day.... I will not offend him with any words of praise. But may I not say in the market-place what is the truism of the committee-room ... that when this gentleman did what he did, he brought to Reform the sympathy which ... has made me Mayor of Hunston."

Every eye followed the direction of the speaker's glance and his grave bow; and by the chance of good position, it happened that nearly all could see. Upon a dingy porch, a few yards up the Main Street side of the square, stood a tall, young man leaning on a cane, a wide felt hat shading a rather badly marked face. And--there was no possibility of any mistake--it was Jim Hackley's porch that he stood upon, and--yes--it was Jim Hackley himself, a sober and genial Jim Hackley, who stood by his side, in intimate pose, and grinning somewhat sheepishly into the glare of fame which suddenly enveloped him.

What part Hackley had borne in the events to which the orator had referred was never officially known, but it may be said without exaggeration that there had been suspicions abroad against him. His present friendliness with the victim of those events, therefore, seemed the gauge and symbol of penitence and reconciliation.

It was the first time that Hunston had seen Varney since the night he was hurt, and the first time that most of Hunston had ever seen him. The story of his deeds and his sufferings, doubtless considerably embellished and known to every one, made him a figure of keen popular interest, and the cheers and hand-clappings now were thunderous, compelling him to lift his hat again and again. Some even started a swift descent upon the Hackley residence with the evident intention of carrying the young man to the stand on their shoulders. But Hackley came down to his gate to meet them and buffeted them away, explaining loudly, like an old friend and generally acknowledged sponsor: "He ain't up to it to-day, boys! Stand back!"

"Go on with your speech," said Peter in a fierce undertone to Hare.

"He's going to faint."

"Let us give honor to whom honor is due," cried Hare, hastily, and so resumed his remarks.