Madelon Part 40

"We ain't goin' to have a man murdered to death in our midst by no French and Injuns nowadays and let it slide," proclaimed a fiery spirit in the store one night. Then when the door opened and Abner Hautville, dark and warlike in his carriage as any fighting chief, appeared, the man asked ostentatiously for a "quart of m'la.s.ses, and not so black and gritty as the last was nuther," transferring the rancor in his tone to an inoffensive object with Machiavellian policy.

However, Margaret Bean's husband was in the store that night, and heard it all. He had been sent thither for a half-pound of ginger, and told not to linger; but linger he did, disposing his old bones with a stiff fling upon a handy half-barrel and listening to every word with a shrewd sense, for which no one would have given him credit, that he could by repet.i.tion and enlargement, if necessary, appease his wife's wrath at his delay. The workings of the human mind towards selfish ends even in the simplest organization have an art beyond all mechanism, and can astonish the wisest when revealed.

n.o.body who saw old man Bean pottering homeward that night, his back bent with age, yet moving with a childlike shuffle, carrying his parcel of ginger with tight clutch lest he drop it, like one whose weariness of body must make up for feebleness of mind, dreamed what a diplomat he was in his humble walk of life, and what an adept still in doubles and turns and twists and dodges towards his own petty ends.

A sweeter morsel than any sugar old man Bean, overborne with a sense of naughtiness and disobedience, like a child, carried home to his wife to quiet her chiding tongue.

Hardly had he entered the door when he heard afar the swift rattle of her starched skirts, like a very warning note of hostility, and cut in ahead of her reproaches with a triumphant manner.

"Pretty doin's there's goin' to be," said he; "never was nothin' like it in this town. That's what I stayed for. Thought ye'd orter know."

"What do you mean?" asked Margaret Bean, staring.

"Ye know what the doctor says about _him_?" The old man jerked his head towards the door.

Margaret nodded.

"Well, they're goin' to have 'em both hung for murder the minute he draws his last breath."

"Can't till they're tried," said Margaret, with a sniff of scorn at her husband's lack of legal knowledge.

"Well, they're goin' to clap 'em into jail the minute they git home, an' keep 'em there till they can hang 'em," persisted old man Bean.

"They ain't."

"I tell ye they are!"

Old man Bean had a cup of tea, plentifully sweetened with mola.s.ses, made from the ginger which he had purchased, and went to bed happy and peaceful, as one who has worked innocently and well his small powers to his own advantage; and soon after that Lot also heard the news which he had brought.

Margaret Bean said to herself that it was her duty; and her duty, and a great devouring thirst of curiosity, overcame her natural fear of injuring the sick man.

Lot Gordon was still in bed, but propped up on pillows, with a candle on the stand at his side, reading one of his leather-covered books.

Margaret Bean shrank back when she had delivered herself of her news, for the flash in Lot's eyes was like lightning; and she waited in trembling certainty as for thunder.

"I tell ye 'tis a lie!" cried Lot Gordon. "Do ye hear, 'tis a lie! Go yourself and tell them so from me. The wound has naught to do with this. It was naught but a scratch, for I had not courage enough to strike deep, much as I wanted to be quit of the world and the fools in it. Go you down to the store and tell the gossips that have no affairs of their own, and must needs pry on their neighbors so. Dare any one of them to turn knife on his own flesh for the first time and strike deeper! The next time I'll do better. Tell them so! The fools!

Sodom and Gomorrah, and fire from Heaven for wickedness! Lord, why not fire from Heaven for d.a.m.ned foolishness, that does more harm to the world than the shattering of all the commandments into stone-dust!"

"I felt that 'twas my duty to let you know, sir," stammered Margaret Bean, backing farther and farther away from him.

"Tell the fools that I say, and I'll swear to it, and so will the doctor swear, that 'twas not the wound that has been my ailment, but my cursed lungs; but if 'twas 'twould be naught to them, for I struck the blow myself. I tell you that neither the one nor the other of them struck the blow--it was I. Do you hear? It was I!"

"Yes, sir," said Margaret Bean, trembling, her eyes big, her white face elongated in her starched cap ruffles.

"Go to bed!" said Lot, savagely, and the old woman scuttled out, glad to be gone.

Never before had Lot addressed her so. "I believe he did do it himself," she told her husband next morning, for she could not wake him to intelligence that night; "he's jest ugly 'nough to."

The next day at early dawn Lot's bell, which was kept on his stand beside the bed, in case he should be worse in the night and need a.s.sistance, tinkled sharply.

"Send your husband after the doctor," Lot ordered, peremptorily, when Margaret answered it; and presently early risers saw old man Bean advancing in a rapid shuffle towards the doctor's, and soon the doctor himself whirled past, his back bent to the rapid motion of his gig. The report that Lot Gordon was worse went through the village like wildfire. A crowd collected in the store as soon as the shutters were down; there was a knot of men before the lawyer's office waiting for him to come; and several hot-headed young fellows pressed into the stable and urged upon Silas Beers that he should keep the old white racer in readiness for an emergency that day, and also several others which, if not as fleet, had good staying powers.

When the doctor entered Lot Gordon's chamber Margaret Bean followed, tremblingly officious, in his wake, with a bowl and spoon in hand.

"I want to see the doctor alone," said Lot; and the old woman retreated before his coldly imperious order. "Stay out in the kitchen," ordered Lot, further, "and don't come through the entry; I shall hear you if you do."

"Yes, sir," replied Margaret Bean, and obeyed, nor dared listen at the door, as was her wont, so terrified was she lest Lot could indeed hear and had heard in times past.

The doctor, redolent of herbs and drugs, set his medicine-chest on the floor, and advanced upon Lot, who waved him back with a half-laugh.

"Lord, let's have none of that nonsense this morning," he said. "Sit down; I want to talk to you."

The doctor was gray and unshaven and haggard as ever, from a midnight vigil, the crumbs of his hasty breakfast were on his waistcoat; his eyes were bright as steel under heavy, frowning brows.

"Are ye worse? Has it come on again?" he demanded.

"No; sit down."

The doctor s.n.a.t.c.hed up his medicine-chest with a surly exclamation.

"Where are you going?" asked Lot.

"Back to my breakfast. I'll not be called out for nothing by you or any other man after I've been out all night. If you want a gossip, get the parson; he's got time enough on his hands. A man don't have to work so many hours a day saving souls as he does saving bodies."

Lot laughed. "And neither souls nor bodies saved by either of you, after all," said he, "for the Lord saves the one, if he has so ordained it; and as for the other, your nostrums only work so long as death does not choose to come."

"Have it your own way; save your own soul and your own body, as ye please, for all me," said the doctor, who was adjudged capable when crossed of being surly to a dying man; and he made for the door.

"For G.o.d's sake stop," cried Lot, "and come back here and listen! I did not call you for nothing. The lives and deaths of more than one are at stake; come back here!"

The doctor clamped his medicine-chest hard on the floor. "Be quick about it, then," said he, and sat down in a chair at Lot's bedside.

Lot fumbled under his pillow and produced a folded paper which he handed to the doctor. "I want you to sign this," said he.

The doctor scowled over the paper, got out his iron-bowed spectacles, adjusted them, and read aloud:

"I, Justinus Emmons, practising doctor of medicine, do hereby declare that the death of Lot Gordon of Ware Centre will, when it takes place, be due to phthisis, and phthisis alone, and not in any degree, however small, to the wound inflicted by himself some months since.

And, furthermore, I declare that his death will follow from the natural progress of the disease of phthisis, which has not in any respect been accelerated by his self-inflicted wound."

"You want me to sign this, do you?" said the doctor.

"I will call in Margaret Bean and her husband for witnesses," said Lot.

"You think I am going to sign this?"

"I want it in addition to the certificate of the cause of death which you will have to make out after my decease. 'Tis an unnecessary formality, but I would have it so," Lot returned.

The doctor dashed the paper on the bed. "If you think I am going to subscribe to a lie for you, or any other man, you're mistaken," he cried. "It was enough for me to hold my tongue when you made that fool statement of yours that wouldn't have deceived a man with the brains of an ox."