Rayton: A Backwoods Mystery Part 2

Jim Harley groaned. "Davy, you are all wrong," he said gloomily.

"Hang it all, man, don't be a fool! Don't go and make things worse for me. I don't know just how Nell feels for you, but I like you first-rate--pretty near as well as any young fellow I've ever met.

But--but it's for your own good, Davy. It's about that card going to you, don't you see? That sounds crazy--but I'm not crazy."

"The card? Dang the card!" returned David. "What d'ye take me for, Jim Harley, to try to scare me with such fool talk as that? You acted darn well to-night, I must say; but I guess I see your game. You've invented some sort of fairy story to try to scare me away from Nell. And so you marked that card. Red crosses on a card! D'ye take me for a darn, ignorant Injun or half-breed? Oh, you can't fool me! You want to catch that hee-haw Englishman for Nell, I guess."

Harley grabbed the younger man by the shoulder with fingers like the jaws of a fox trap for strength. "You blasted young idiot!" he cried, his voice trembling with anger. "D'ye think I'd take the trouble to monkey with cards, and all that sort of tommyrot, if I wanted to scare you away from my sister? No, David Marsh, I'd just tell you to keep clear--and if you didn't I'd knock the stuffin' out of you. I guess you know me well enough to believe _that_."

"I don't know what to believe," returned David sulkily, "except that you're actin' more like a darn, crazy half-breed than a white man, to-night. Let go my shoulder, anyhow, or maybe you'll learn that two can play at that game."

Jim loosed his grip, and let his arm fall to his side. For a full minute they faced each other in silence in the chill half dark of the October night, there on the desolate backwoods road. David Marsh broke the silence.

"I don't want to fight with you, Jim," he said, "but--but I must say this talk of yours about that confounded card, and the way you are actin' to-night, and--and what you just said about Nell--makes me mad as a bobcat. If you can tell me what it is you're drivin' at, for Heaven's sake tell me quick! I don't want to think you've gone nutty, Jim, and no more do I want to think--to think----"

"What?" asked Harley sharply.

"That you're a liar."

"If you think that, you'd better keep it to yourself!"

"Well, then, I don't think it. But, jumpin' Moses, I must think _something_!"

"I've asked you to keep away from my house, and my sister," returned Harley, "so perhaps I had better explain things to you, as well as I can. Then you can judge for yourself if I'm doing right or not. You'll laugh, I guess--and maybe I'll laugh myself, to-morrow morning. But, first of all, Davy, you must give me your word to keep what I tell you to yourself. Maybe I'll have to tell it to Rayton, if Nell don't object, because of the row I kicked up in his house. That would be only polite, I suppose."

"I'll keep quiet, Jim."

"Let's walk along, to keep warm," said Harley. "It's a long story, Davy, and I guess you'll think it a mighty foolish one."

"Fire away," returned Marsh. "Foolishness is in the air to-night, I reckon."

"Well," began the other slowly, "it starts with my mother's mother.

That's kind of a long jump backward, but it can't be helped. It's the way it was told to me. My mother's mother was a pretty fine young woman, I guess, and her parents weren't just the common run--they came from Boston and settled in St. John about the time George Washington got up and hit the other George that smack over the head which we've all read about. Well, the girl grew up a regular beauty, to judge by the way the young fellows carried on about her. Two men led all the others in the running, though. One was a Spaniard, and t'other was an Englishman; and, after a while, it looked as if the Englishman was getting along with the girl better than the Spaniard. The Spaniard called himself a count, or something of that kind.

"One night, at one of those parties the men used to have in those days, after they'd all eaten and drunk about as much as they could hold, they sat down to play cards. I don't know what the game was, but I do know that they used to bet a horse, or a gold watch, or a few acres of land as quick as us fellows will bet five white beans. Well, it happened that the Spanish count and the young Englishman--he was a navy officer, I've heard--and two more were at the same table. Pretty soon the navy officer got a card dealt to him with _two red crosses_ marked on it. I forgot what card it was.

"Well, they didn't make any fuss about it, and went on with the game; but when they were thinking of going home the count got the young fellow by the elbow and whispered something in his ear. The other men didn't hear what it was that he whispered, but every one in the room heard the navy officer's answer--and the lad who afterward married my mother's mother was one of the fellows that heard it. What the Englishman yelled was: 'That's what it means in your country, is it! The devil take you, and your lies, and your d.a.m.n monkey tricks!' Yes, that's what he yelled, right into the count's yellow face. They drank a terrible lot of liquor in those days. More than was good for them, I reckon."

Jim Harley paused. "It sounds like a crazy sort of yarn to be telling,"

he said apologetically.

"Go ahead," said David Marsh. "It's a fine yarn, Jim--and your folks must have been pretty big potatoes. It's better than a book. What was it the count whispered to the navy officer?"

"_That_ they never found out," replied Jim. "But the officer told a friend of his--the fellow who got the girl, after all--that the Spaniard was trying to bluff him out of the game--not out of the game of cards, but away from the girl. Anyhow, the count up and let fly a gla.s.s of liquor fair into the Englishman's face, just the way it's written in stories. Then there was a rumpus, the Spaniard spitting like a cat, and the other lad trying to smack him in the eye with his fist. But fists weren't considered good enough to fight with, in those days, and it wasn't polite just to pitch in when you felt like it. So they went right out, and off to a field at the edge of the town, and fought a duel with pistols. It was a moonlight night. It looked as if the Spanish count fired half a second too soon--anyhow, he put a hole smash through the Englishman's head. Well, that was too much for the other lads, drunk as most of them were, and they went up to the count and told him that if he wasn't out of the country before sunrise they'd hang him up by the neck like any common murderer. So he went. And he never came back again, as far as I ever heard."

"I guess that happened quite a while ago," said Marsh.

"Yes, a good many years ago. But I've heard that the old lady talked about it to the day of her death."

"And who was the man she married?"

"Just my grandfather--my mother's father. He was a young lawyer, or something of that kind."

"Well," said Marsh, with a sigh of relief, "that's nothing but ancient history. I wouldn't believe more than half of that even if I had been taught it in school, out of a book. If that's all you've got to say against the red crosses then they don't worry me a mite. Anyway, where's the Spanish count? You'll have to dig up a Spanish count, Jim, afore you can get any change out of me with little red crosses on a playin' card."

"Yes, that is ancient history," replied Harley, "and I won't swear to the truth of it. The duel is true enough, though, for my own father saw it written down in the records. But you've not heard the whole story yet, Davy. The real thing--the part that bothers me--is yet to come."

"By the great horn spoon!" exclaimed Marsh. "And it must be near ten o'clock! Hurry up with the rest of it, Jim--and if it's not any worse than what you've told I'll think you've been makin' a fool of me."

"The rest of the story is about my own father--and my own mother," said Harley. "Nell and I don't talk about it, even to each other; and this is the first time it's been told to any one outside the family. I'd almost forgotten it--till I saw that card to-night. Then it jumped into my mind like--like a flash from h.e.l.l's flames."

David Marsh felt a sudden embarra.s.sment, and quick chill at his heart.

"Maybe you'd rather not tell it, Jim," he said. "If it's anything bad I'll take your word for it."

"It is bad enough," returned the other, "but it is not disgraceful. I must tell it to you, Davy, and then you can think over what happened to-night and work it out for yourself. It's only right that you should know all that I can tell you--and then, if you think it all foolishness, it's your own funeral."

David could not see his companion's face in the darkness, though he fairly strained his eyes to make it out. He wet his dry lips with his tongue. "I'm listening," he said, and forced an uneasy laugh.

"My mother lived in St. John with her parents, until she married, and moved over to the Miramichi," began Harley. "My father's home was in St.

John, too, when he was a young fellow; but he was a sailor in those days and so spent most of his time at sea. He was a smart lad, and no mistake--mate of a foreign-goin' bark when he was nineteen and skipper when he was twenty-one. His schooling had been good, and he owned some shares in the ship, so he wasn't one of the common run of sh.e.l.lbacks.

"When he first met my mother he was layin' off a voyage to recover from a dose of malarial fever that had got into his blood down in Brazil. He saw her at a party of some kind; and, not being troubled with shyness, he went right after her. She was a beauty, I guess, like her mother before her--and, like her mother again, there was a whole bunch of young fellows courting her. My father, though, was a fine, upstanding lad, with good looks, fine manners, and a dashing way in everything he did.

So he sailed right in; but he didn't have everything all his own way, at first.

"I've heard my mother say that, Sunday evenings, as many as six young men would call at her father's house--and she was the only girl, mind you. But they'd all pretend to be pleased to see each other, and there would be singing, and piano playing, and cake and wine--yes, and the old gent would invite one or two of them into his library to smoke his cigars, and the old lady would talk away to the rest of them about the grand times in St. John when she was young. Sometimes she'd tell about how the navy officer and the Spanish count fought about her--and, of course, she'd mention the queer marks on the card. She called it a romantic story.

"Well, it wasn't long before my father thought he had the other fellows beaten out, so he popped the question. My mother said 'Yes'--and so the old people announced the engagement. They were pretty stylish, you see.

My father was all cured of his malarial fever, by this time, and ready for sea again. About a week after my mother had given him her promise, and only a few days before he expected to have his ship ready for a voyage to the West Indies, he was walking home about ten o'clock in the evening and met a bunch of his friends. They were going to have supper at a hotel and then finish the night at card playing. Well, my father was a light-hearted lad, with a pocketful of money and a taste for jolly company; so he joined the gang. The game they played was whist. Suddenly my father jumped to his feet, his face as red as fire, and tore one of the cards into little bits and flung them on the floor.

"'You may consider that a joke--whoever did it--but it's a d.a.m.n poor joke!' he cried. He was a good man, but sometimes he got boiling mad.

Some of the lads asked him what was the trouble, and one young fellow picked up the sc.r.a.ps of the torn card and found the two red crosses.

'Some one here knows what the trouble is,' yelled my father, 'and if he'll just stand up and confess to his ungentlemanly joke, I'll smack him across the face for his trouble.'

"n.o.body stood up, you may bet your hat on that; but when the lad who had picked up the sc.r.a.ps of card began handing them around, a lot of them began to laugh and jeer, and make fun of the sailor. Most of them had heard the old lady tell about the Spanish count, you know. 'Better make your will,' said one. 'That's a dangerous family to monkey with,' said another. 'Glad I'm not in your boots.' 'It's the Spaniard's ghost.'

'Better break it off, Tom, and look 'round for a safer wife.' 'The other chap who got the red marks was a sailor, too.'

"And so they shouted things at him until he was mad enough to kill somebody. But he couldn't tackle them all. So he called them a lot of hard names. He told them that the sailors aboard his ship had a better idea of a joke and better manners than they had. They began to quiet down, then, and some of them looked mighty red in the face, for every lad there considered himself something pretty extra when it came to style and manners. My father finished by saying that the trick they had played and the things they had said to him were insults to two ladies who had never done any of them a shadow of harm. Most of them jumped up and yelled that they knew nothing about any trick, and hadn't meant to insult any one; but my father just glared and sneered at them, and left the room. He was just a skipper of a sailing ship, but he had been brought up with pretty strict notions about manners, and insults, and those kinds of things.

"He had just reached the street when one of the others--a lad called Jackson--came jumping after him and grabbed him by the back of the neck.

This Jackson was as white as paper, he was that mad. 'I'll teach you your proper place, you d.a.m.n fo'castle swine!' he yelled, striking my father in the face with his free hand. Well, my father jerked himself clear and give him one on the jaw that put him to sleep for an hour or two."

At this, Harley halted in his talk, and his walk, at one and the same moment, and began to cut tobacco for his pipe.

"Go ahead!" exclaimed young Marsh.

"Well, all that row was kept quiet," continued Harley. "My father sailed away--and then came a report that pieces of the wreck of his ship had gone ash.o.r.e on the Bahamas. Then people who knew about the marked card began to talk. It looked as if what the Spanish count had said, in the old days--or what people supposed he had said--had some truth in it. His girl--she who was afterward my mother--nearly went crazy. Then, one fine day, my father turned up, sound as a bell--the only survivor of the wreck of his ship. He got his share of the underwriter's money, and invested it in a one-third interest in another and smaller vessel. He had no trouble in getting the job of skipper of her; but he had plenty of trouble with his sweetheart and her parents, for they were all sure that the red crosses were really the marks of the devil and had caused the loss of his ship. My father laughed at them; and well he might, since his ship had gone down in a hurricane that had wrecked half a dozen other vessels, and he was the only man to be saved from all his crew. 'If the devil had anything to do with it,' he said, 'he certainly made a mess of it.' But it took him a whole week to calm them down and get the girl's promise to marry him on his return from his next voyage.

"On the very night before he was to sail, when he was on his way to the ship from saying good-by to my mother and the old people, a man sprang out from behind a pile of lumber on one of the wharves, and struck at him; but my father jumped back in time and struck in return with a loaded stick which he carried. The man let a yelp of pain out of him, and ran up the wharf to the dark streets of the city. My father struck a light and presently found something that he had heard drop on the planks when the fellow yelped--a long knife with a point sharp as a needle.