Every Man for Himself Part 36

For a long time, if days may be long, Jehoshaphat Rudd lived in the fear of constables and jails, which were the law, to be commanded by the wealth of old John Wull; and for the self-same period-the days being longer because of the impatience of hate-old John Wull lived in expectation of his revenge. Jehoshaphat Rudd lowed he'd stand by, anyhow, an' _go_ t' jail, if 'twas needful t' maintain the rights o'

man. Ay, _he'd_ go t' jail, an' be whipped an' starved, as the imagination promised, but he'd be jiggered if he'd "_'pologize_." Old John Wull kept grim watch upon the winds; for upon the way the wind blew depended the movement of the ice, and the clearing of the sea, and the first voyage of the mail-boat. He was glad that he had been robbed; so glad that he rubbed his lean, transparent hands until the flush of life appeared to surprise him; so glad that he chuckled until his housekeeper feared his false teeth would by some dreadful mischance vanish within him. Jail? ay, he'd put Jehoshaphat Rudd in jail; but he would forgive the others, that they might continue to fish and to consume food. In jail, ecod! t' be fed on bread an' water, t' be locked up, t' wear stripes, t' make brooms, t' lie there so long that the last little Rudd would find its own father a stranger when 'twas all over with. 'Twould be fair warning t' the malcontent o' the folk; they would bide quiet hereafter. All the people would toil and trade; they would complain no more. John Wull was glad that the imprudence of Jehoshaphat Rudd had provided him with power to restore the ancient peace to Satan's Trap.

One day in the spring, when the bergs and great floes of the open had been blown to sea, and the snow was gone from the slopes of the hills, and the sun was out, and the earth was warm and yellow and merrily dripping, old John Wull attempted a pa.s.sage of the harbor by the ice, which there had lingered, confined. It was only to cross the narrows from Haul-Away Head to Daddy Tool's Point, no more than a stone's throw for a stout lad. The ice had been broken into pans by a stiff breeze from the west, and was then moving with the wind, close-packed, bound out to sea, there to be dispersed and dissolved. It ran sluggishly through the narrows, sc.r.a.ping the rocks of the head and of the point; the heave of the sea slipped underneath and billowed the way, and the outermost pans of ice broke from the press and went off with the waves.

But the feet of old John Wull were practised; he essayed the crossing without concern-indeed, with an absent mind. Presently he stopped to rest; and he stared out to sea, musing; and when again he looked about, the sea had softly torn the pan from the pack.

Old John Wull was adrift, and bound out.

"Ahoy, you, Jehoshaphat!" he shouted. "Jehoshaphat! Oh, Jehoshaphat!"

Jehoshaphat came to the door of his cottage on Daddy Tool's Point.

"Launch that rodney,"[1] Wull directed, "an' put me on sh.o.r.e. An'

lively, man," he complained. "I'll be cotchin' cold out here."

With the help of Timothy Yule, who chanced to be gossiping in the kitchen, Jehoshaphat Rudd got the rodney in the open water by the stage-head. What with paddling and much hearty hauling and pushing, they had the little craft across the barrier of ice in the narrows before the wind had blown old John Wull a generous rod out to sea.

"Timothy, lad," Jehoshaphat whispered, "I 'low you better stay here."

Timothy kept to the ice.

"You been wonderful slow," growled Wull. "Come 'round t' the lee side, you dunderhead! Think I wants t' get my feet wet?"

"No, sir," Jehoshaphat protested. "Oh no; I wouldn't have you do that an I could _help_ it."

The harbor folk were congregating on Haul-Away Head and Daddy Tool's Point. 'Twas an agreeable excitement to see John Wull in a mess-in a ludicrous predicament, which made him helpless before their eyes. They whispered, they smiled behind their hands, they chuckled inwardly.

Jehoshaphat pulled to the lee side of the pan.

"Come 'longside," said Wull.

Jehoshaphat dawdled.

"Come 'longside, you fool!" Wull roared. "Think I can leap three fathom?"

"No, sir; oh no; no, indeed."

"Then come 'longside."

Jehoshaphat sighed.

"Come in here, you crazy pauper!" Wull screamed, stamping his rage.

"Come in here an' put me ash.o.r.e!"

"Mister Wull!"

Wull eyed the man in amazement.

"Labor," said Jehoshaphat, gently, "is gone up."

Timothy Yule laughed, but on Haul-Away Head and Daddy Tool's Point the folk kept silent; nor did old John Wull, on the departing pan, utter a sound.

"Sky high," Jehoshaphat concluded.

The sun was broadly, warmly shining, the sky was blue; but the wind was rising smartly, and far off over the hills of Satan's Trap, beyond the wilderness that was known, it was turning gray and tumultuous. Old John Wull scowled, wheeled, and looked away to sea; he did not see the ominous color and writhing in the west.

"We don't want no law, Mister Wull," Jehoshaphat continued, "at Satan's Trap."

Wull would not attend.

"Not law," Jehoshaphat repeated; "for we knows well enough at Satan's Trap," said he, "what's fair as atween men. You jus' leave the law stay t' St. John's, sir, where he's t' home. He isn't fair, by no means; an'

we don't want un here t' make trouble."

The trader's back was still turned.

"An', Mister Wull," Jehoshaphat entreated, his face falling like a child's, "don't you have no hard feelin' over this. Ah, now, _don't_!"

he pleaded. "You won't, will you? For we isn't got no hate for you, Mister Wull, an' we isn't got no greed for ourselves. We just wants what's fair-just what's fair." He added: "Just on'y that. We likes t'

see you have your milk an' b.u.t.ter an' fresh beef an' nuts an' whiskey.

_We_ don't want them things, for they isn't ours by rights. All we wants is just on'y fair play. We don't want no law, sir: for, ecod!"

Jehoshaphat declared, scratching his head in bewilderment, "the law looks after them that _has_, so far as I _knows_, sir, an' don't know nothin' about them that _hasn't_. An' we don't want un here at Satan's Trap. We won't _have_ un! We-we-why, ecod! we-we can't _'low_ it! We'd be ashamed of ourselves an we 'lowed you t' fetch the law t' Satan's Trap t' wrong us. We're free men, isn't we?" he demanded, indignantly.

"Isn't we? Ecod! I 'low we _is_! You think, John Wull," he continued, in wrath, "that _you_ can do what you like with _we_ just because you an'

the likes o' you is gone an' got a law? You can't! You can't! An' you can't, just because we won't _'low_ it."

It was an incendiary speech.

"No, you can't!" Timothy Yule screamed from the ice, "you robber, you thief, you whale's pup! _I'll_ tell you what I thinks o' you. You can't scare _me_. I wants that meadow you stole from my father. I wants that meadow-"

"Timothy," Jehoshaphat interrupted, quietly, "you're a fool. Shut your mouth!"

Tom Lower, the lazy, wasteful Tom Lower, ran down to the sh.o.r.e of Haul-Away Head, and stamped his feet, and shook his fist. "I wants your cow an' your raisins an' your candy! We got you down, you robber! An'

I'll _have_ your red house; I'll have your wool blankets; I'll have your-"

"Tom Lower," Jehoshaphat roared, rising in wrath, "I'll floor you for that! That I will-next time I cotch you out."

John Wull turned half-way around and grinned.

"Mister Wull," Jehoshaphat asked, propitiatingly, "won't you be put ash.o.r.e?"

"Not at the price."

"I 'low, then, sir," said Jehoshaphat, in some impatience, "that you might as well be comfortable while you makes up your mind. Here!" He cast a square of tarpaulin on the ice, and chancing to discover Timothy Yule's jacket, he added that. "There!" he grunted, with satisfaction; "you'll be sittin' soft an' dry while you does your thinkin'. Don't be long, sir-not overlong. _Please_ don't, sir," he begged; "for it looks t' me-it looks wonderful t' me-like a spurt o' weather."

John Wull spread the tarpaulin.

"An' when you gets through considerin' of the question," said Jehoshaphat, suggestively, "an' is come t' my way o' thinkin', why all you got t' do is lift your little finger, an' I'll put you ash.o.r.e"-a gust of wind whipped past-"if I'm able," Jehoshaphat added.

Pan and boat drifted out from the coast, a slow course, which in an hour had reduced the harbor folk to black pygmies on the low rocks to windward. Jehoshaphat paddled patiently in the wake of the ice. Often he raised his head, in apprehension, to read the signs in the west; and he sighed a deal, and sometimes muttered to himself. Old John Wull was squatted on the tarpaulin, with Timothy Yule's jacket for a cushion, his great-coat wrapped close about him, his cap pulled over his ears, his arms folded. The withered old fellow was as lean and blue and rigid and staring as a frozen corpse.