Horace Chase Part 27

Several persons were now in the court-yard; men had hurried out. Two women joined them, and looked up. But when they saw the swaying figure above, they ran back to the shelter of the hall, veiling their eyes and shuddering. In a few moments all the women in the house had gathered in this lower hall, frightened and tearful.

Chase, meanwhile, outside, was pulling off his socks. "Get ladders," he said, quickly, to the other men. "I'm going up. I'll try to hold him."

"Oh, how _can_ you get there?" asked Mrs. Nightingale, sobbing.

"The same way he did," Chase answered, as he ran up the stairs.

The men remonstrated. Two of them hurried after him. But he was ahead, and, mounting to the sill of Jared's window, he stepped outside. Then, not allowing himself to look at anything but the apex directly above him, he walked slowly and evenly towards it up the steep incline, his head and shoulders bent forward, his bare feet clinging to the moss-grown shingles, while at intervals he touched with the tips of his fingers the shingles that faced him, as a means of steadying himself.

Down in the court-yard no word was now spoken. But the gazers drew their breath audibly. Jared appeared to be unaware of any one below; his eyes, though wide open, did not see the man who was approaching. Chase perceived this, as soon as he himself had reached the top, and he instantly took advantage of it; he moved straight towards Jared on his hands and knees along the line of the ridge-pole. When he had come within reach, he let himself slip down a few inches to a chimney that was near; then, putting his left arm round this chimney as a support, he stretched the right upward, and with a sudden grasp seized the other man, throwing him down and pinning him with one and the same motion.

Jared fell on his back, half across the ridge, with his head hanging over one slope and his legs and feet over the other; it was this position which enabled Chase to hold him down. The madman (his frenzy came from a violent form of inflammation of the brain) struggled desperately. His strength seemed so prodigious that to the watchers below it appeared impossible that the rescuer could save him, or even save himself. The steep roof had no parapet; and the cruel pavement below was stone; the two bodies, grappled in a death-clutch, must go down together.

"Oh, _pray_! Pray to G.o.d!" called a woman's voice from the court below.

She spoke to Chase. But at that moment nothing in him could be spared from his own immense effort; not only all the powers of his body, but of his heart and mind and soul as well, were concentrated upon the one thing he had to do. He accomplished it; feeling his arm growing weak, he made a tremendous and final attempt to jam down still harder the breast he grasped, and the blow (for it amounted to a blow) reduced Jared to unconsciousness; his hands fell back, his ravings ceased. His strength had been merely the fict.i.tious force of fever; in reality he was weak.

The ladders came. Both men were saved.

"Come, now, if the roof had been only three inches above the ground--how then?" Chase said, impatiently, as, after the visit of a doctor and the arrival of two nurses, he came down for a hasty breakfast in Mrs.

Nightingale's dining-room, where the boarders began to shake hands with him, enthusiastically. "The thing itself was simple enough; all that was necessary was to act as though it _was_ only three inches."

CHAPTER XV

A week later, early in the evening, a four-horse stage was coming slowly down the last mile or two of road above the little North Carolina village of Old Fort at the eastern base of the Blue Ridge. It was a creaking, crazy vehicle, thickly encrusted with red clay. But as it had pounded all the way from Asheville by the abominable mountain-road, no doubt it had cause to be vociferous and tarnished. Above, the stars were shining brightly; and the forest also appeared to be starlit, owing to the myriads of fire-flies that gleamed like sparks against the dark trees.

A man who was coming up the road hailed the stage as it approached.

"h.e.l.lo! Is Mr. Hill inside? The Rev. Mr. Hill of Asheville?"

"Yes," answered a voice from the back seat of the vehicle, and a head appeared at the window. "What--Mr. Chase? Is that you?" And, opening the door, Malachi Hill, with his bag in his hand, jumped out.

"I came up the road, thinking I might meet you," Horace Chase explained.

"Let's walk; there's something I want to talk over." They went on together, leaving the stage behind. "I've got a new idea," Chase began.

"What do you say to going up to New York to get my wife? I had intended to go for her myself, as you know, starting from here to-night, as soon as I had put the other ladies in your charge, to take back to Asheville.

But Mrs. Franklin looks pretty bad; and Dolly--she might have one of her attacks. And, take it altogether, I've begun to feel that it's my business to go with 'em all the way. For it's a long drive over the mountains at best, and though the night's fine so far, there's no moon, and the road is always awful. I have four men from Raleigh along--the undertaker (who is a d.a.m.n fool, always talking), and his a.s.sistants; and so there'll be four teams--a wagon, the two carriages, and the hea.r.s.e. I guess I know the most about horses, and if you can fix it so as to take my place, I'll see 'em through."

"Certainly. I am anxious to help in any way you think best," answered Malachi. "I wish I could start at once! But the stage is so late to-night that, of course, the train has gone?"

"That's just it--I kept it," Chase answered; "I knew one of us would want to take it. You'll have to wait over at Salisbury in the usual stupid way. But as Ruth can't be here in time for the funeral, it's not of vital importance. The only thing that riles me is that, owing to that confounded useless wait, you can't be on the dock to meet her when her steamer comes in at New York; you won't be able to get there in time.

There'll be people, of course--I've telegraphed. But no one she knows as well as she knows you."

Reaching the village, they walked quickly towards the railroad and finished their talk as they stood beside the waiting train. There was no station, the rails simply came to an end in the main street. A small frame structure, which bore the inscription "Blue Ridge Hotel," faced the end of the rails.

"He's in there," said Chase, in a low tone, indicating a lighted window of this house; "that room on the ground-floor. And the old lady--she is sitting there beside him. She is quiet, she doesn't say anything. But she just sits there."

"Mrs. Jared and Miss Dolly are with her, aren't they?" said the young clergyman.

"Well, Dolly is keeping Gen in the other room across the hall as much as she _can_. For Dolly tells me that her mother likes best to sit there alone. Women, you know, about their sons--sometimes they're queer!"

remarked Chase.

"The mother's love--yes," Malachi answered, his voice uncertain for a moment. He swallowed. "There isn't a man who doesn't feel, sooner or later, after it has gone, that he hasn't prized it half enough--that it was the best thing he had! It was brain-fever, wasn't it?" he went on, hurriedly, to cover his emotion. For he, too, had been an only son.

"Yes, and bad. He was raving; he knocked down one of the doctors. After the fever left him, it was just possible, they told me, that he might have pulled through, if he had only been stronger. But he was played out to begin with; I discovered that myself as soon as I reached Raleigh.

Gen got there in time to see him. But the old lady was too late; and pretty hard lines for her! She kept telegraphing from different stations as she and Dolly hurried up from Charleston; and I did my best to hearten her by messages that met her here and there; but she missed it.

By only half an hour. When I saw that it had come--that he was sinking and she wouldn't find him alive--I went out and just cursed, cursed the luck! For Gen had his last words, and everything. And his poor old mother had nothing at all."

Here the conductor came up.

"Ready?" said Chase. "All right, here's your through ticket, Hill--the one I bought for myself. And inside the envelope is a memorandum, with the number and street of our house in New York, and other items. I'm no end obliged to you for going." They shook hands cordially. "When you come back, don't let my wife travel straight through," added the husband. "Make her stop over and sleep."

"I'll do my best," answered Hill, as the train started. In deference to the mourning party which it had brought westward, there was no whistle, no ringing of the bell; the locomotive moved quietly away, and the clergyman, standing on the rear platform, holding on by the handle of the door, watched as long as he could see it the lighted window of the room where lay all that was mortal of Jared Franklin.

An hour later the funeral procession started up the mountain. First, there was a wagon, with the undertaker and his three a.s.sistants. Then followed the large, heavy hea.r.s.e drawn by four horses. Next came a carriage containing Mrs. Franklin and Dolly; and, finally, a second carriage for Genevieve and Horace Chase.

"Poor mamma is sadly changed," commented Genevieve to her companion.

"She insisted upon being left alone with the remains at the hotel, you know; and now she wishes her carriage to be as near the hea.r.s.e as possible. Fortunately, these things are very unimportant to me, Horace.

I do not feel, as they do, that Jay is _here_. My husband has gone--gone to a better world. He knew that he was going; he said good-bye to me so tenderly. He was always so--_so_ kind." And covering her face, Genevieve gave way to tears.

"Yes, he thought the world and all of you, Gen. There's no doubt about that," Chase answered.

He did full justice to the sobbing woman by his side. He was more just to her than her husband's family had ever been, or ever could be; he had known her as a child, and he comprehended that according to her nature and according to her unyielding beliefs as to what was best, she had tried to be a good wife. In addition (as he was a man himself), he thought that it was to her credit that her husband had always been fond of her, that he had remained devoted to her to the last. "That doesn't go for nothing!" he said to himself.

The ascent began. The carriages plunged into holes and lurched out of them; they jolted across bits of corduroy; now and then, when the track followed a gorge, they forded a brook. The curves were slippery, owing to the red clay. Then, without warning, in the midst of mud would come an unexpected sharp grind of the wheels over an exposed ledge of bare rock. Before midnight clouds had obscured the stars and it grew very dark. But the lamps on the carriages burned brightly, and a negro was sent on in advance carrying a pitch-pine torch.

In the middle of the night, at the top of the pa.s.s, there was a halt.

Chase had made Genevieve comfortable with cushions and shawls, and soon after their second start she fell asleep. Perceiving this, he drew up the window on her side, and then, opening the carriage-door softly, he got out; it was easy to do it, as all the horses were walking. Making a detour through the underbrush, so that he should not be seen by Mrs.

Franklin and Dolly in case they were awake, he appeared by the side of the hea.r.s.e.

"Don't stop," he said to the driver, in a low tone; "I'm going to get up there beside you." He climbed up and took the reins. "I'll drive the rest of the way, or at least as far as the outskirts of the town. For between here and there are all the worst places. You go on and join that fellow in front. You might carry a second torch; you'll find some in the wagon."

The driver of the hea.r.s.e, an Asheville negro, who knew Chase, gave up his seat gladly. There were bad holes ahead, and there was a newly mended place which was a little uncertain; he would not have minded taking the stage over that place (none of the Blue Ridge drivers minded taking the stage anywhere), but he was superst.i.tious about a hea.r.s.e.

"Fo' de Lawd, I'm glad to be red of it!" he confided to the other negro, as they went on together in advance with their flaring torches. "It slips an' slews when dey ain't no 'casion! Sump'n mighty quare 'bout it, I tell you _dat_!"

Presently the plateau came to an end, and the descent began. Rain was now falling. The four vehicles moved slowly on, winding down the zigzags very cautiously in the darkness, slipping and swaying as they went.

After half an hour of this progress, the torch-bearers in front came hurrying back to give warning that the rain had loosened the temporary repairs of the mended place, so that its edge had given away; for about one hundred and forty yards, therefore, the track was dangerously narrow and undefended, with the sheer precipice on one side and the high cliff on the other; in addition, the roadway slanted towards this verge, and the clay was very slippery.

Chase immediately sent word back to the drivers of the carriages behind to advance as slowly as was possible, but not to stop, for that might waken the ladies; then, jumping down from the hea.r.s.e, and leaving one of the negroes in charge of his team, he hurried forward to make a personal inspection. The broken shelf, without its parapet, certainly looked precarious; so much so that the driver of the wagon, when he came up, hesitated. Chase, ordering him down, took his place, and drove the wagon across himself. Whereupon the verbose undertaker began to thank him.

"Don't worry; I didn't do it for _you_" answered Chase, grimly. "If you'd gone over, you'd have carried away more of the track; that was all." Going back, he resumed his place on the hea.r.s.e. Then speaking to his horses, he guided them on to the shelf. Here he stood, in order to see more clearly, the men on the far side watching him breathlessly, and trying meanwhile (at a safe distance) to aid him as much as they could, by holding their torches high. The ponderous hea.r.s.e began to slip by its own weight towards the verge. Then, with strong hand, Chase sent his team sharply towards the cliff that towered above them, and kept them grinding against it as they advanced, the two on the inside fairly rubbing the rock, until, by main strength, the four together had dragged their load away. But in a minute or two it began over again. It happened not once merely, but four times. And, the last time, the hind wheels slipped so far, in spite of Chase's efforts, that it seemed as if they would inevitably go over, and drag the struggling horses with them. But Chase was as bold a driver as he was speculator. How he inspired them, the horror-stricken watchers could not discover; but the four bays, bounding sharply round together, sprang in a heap, as it were, at the rocky wall on the left, the leaders rearing, the others on top of them; and by this wild leap, the wheels (one of them was already over) were violently jerked away. It was done at last; the dark, ponderous car stood in safety on the other side, and the spectators, breathing again, rubbed down the wet horses. Then Horace Chase went back on foot, and, in turn, drove the two carriages across. Through these last two transits not a word was spoken by any one; he mounted soundlessly, so that Genevieve slept on undisturbed, and Mrs. Franklin and Dolly, unaware of the danger or of the new hand on the reins, continued to gaze vaguely at the darkness outside, their thoughts pursuing their own course. Finally, leaving one of the negroes on guard to warn other travellers of the wash-out and its perils, Chase resumed his place on the hea.r.s.e, and the four vehicles continued their slow progress down the mountain.

After a while, the first vague clearness preceding dawn appeared; the rain ceased. Happening to turn his head fifteen minutes later, he was startled to see, in the dim light, the figure of a woman beside the hea.r.s.e. It was Mrs. Franklin. The road was now smoother, and she walked steadily on, keeping up with the walk of the horses. As the light grew clearer, she saw who the driver was, and her eyes met his with recognition. But her rigid face seemed to have no power for further expression; it was set in lines that could not alter. Chase, on his side, bowed gravely, taking off his hat; and he did not put it on again, he left it on the seat by his side. He made no attempt to stop her, to persuade her to return to her carriage; he recognized the presence of one of those moods which, when they take possession of a woman, no power on earth can alter.

As they came to the first outlying houses of Asheville, he gave up his place to the negro driver, and getting down on the other side of the hea.r.s.e, away from Mrs. Franklin, he went back for a moment to Dolly.

"You must let her do it! _Don't_ try to prevent her," Dolly said, imperatively, in a low tone, the instant she saw him at the carriage door.