The Bondboy Part 30

On the hopes and ambitions of those early days the colonel had realized, in a small way, something in the measure of a man who sets to work with the intention of making a million and finds himself content at last to count his gains by hundreds. He had taken up politics as a spice to the placid life of art, and once had represented his district in the state a.s.sembly, and four times had been elected county clerk. Then he had retired on his honors, with a competence from his early investments and an undivided ambition to paint corn.

Through all those years he had watched the struggles of Peter Newbolt, who never seemed able to kick a foothold in the steps of success, and he had seen him die at last, with his unrealized schemes of life around him. And now Peter's boy was in jail, charged with slaying old Isom Chase. Death had its compensations, at the worst, reflected the colonel.

It had spared Peter this crowning disgrace.

That boy must be a throw-back, thought the colonel, to the ambuscading, feud-fighting men on his mother's side. The Newbolts never had been accused of crime back in Kentucky. There they had been the legislators, the judges, the governors, and senators. Yes, thought the colonel, coming around the corner of the house, lifting the fragrant bunch of mint to his face and pausing a step while he drank its breath; yes, the boy must be a throw-back. It wasn't in the Newbolt blood to do a thing like that.

The colonel heard the front gate close sharply, drawn to by the stone weight which he had arranged for that purpose, having in mind the guarding of his mint-bed from the incursions of dogs. He wondered who could be coming in so early, and hastened forward to see. A woman was coming up the walk toward the house.

She was tall, and soberly clad, and wore a little shawl over her head, which she held at her chin with one hand. The other hand she extended toward the colonel with a gesture of self-depreciation and appeal as she hurried forward in long strides.

"Colonel Price, Colonel Price, sir! Can I speak to you a minute?" she asked, her voice halting from the shortness of breath.

"Certainly, ma'am; I am at your command," said the colonel.

"Colonel, you don't know me," said she, a little inflection of disappointment in her tone.

She stood before him, and the little shawl over her hair fell back to her shoulders. Her clothing was poor, her feet were covered with dust.

She cast her hand out again in that little movement of appeal.

"Mrs. Newbolt, Peter Newbolt's widow, upon my soul!" exclaimed the colonel, shocked by his own slow recognition. "I beg your pardon, madam.

I didn't know you at first, it has been so long since I saw you. But I was thinking of you only the minute past."

"Oh, I'm in such trouble, Colonel Price!" said she.

Colonel Price took her by the arm with tender friendliness.

"Come in and rest and refresh yourself," said he. "You surely didn't walk over here?"

"Yes, it's only a step," said she.

"Five or six miles, I should say," ventured the colonel.

"Oh, no, only four. Have you heard about my boy Joe?"

The colonel admitted that he had heard of his arrest.

"I've come over to ask your advice on what to do," said she, "and I hope it won't bother you much, Colonel Price. Joe and me we haven't got a friend in this world!"

"I will consider it a duty and a pleasure to a.s.sist the boy in any way I can," said the colonel in perfunctory form. "But first come in, have some breakfast, and then we'll talk it over. I'll have to apologize for Miss Price. I'm afraid she's abed yet," said he, opening the door, showing his visitor into the parlor.

"I'm awful early," said Mrs. Newbolt hesitating at the door. "It's shameful to come around disturbin' folks at this hour. But when a body's in trouble, Colonel Price, time seems long."

"It's the same with all of us," said he. "But Miss Price will be down presently. I think I hear her now. Just step in, ma'am."

She looked deprecatingly at her dusty shoes, standing there in the parlor door, her skirts gathered back from them.

"If I could wipe some of this dust off," said she.

"Never mind that; we are all made of it," the colonel said. "I'll have the woman set you out some breakfast; afterward we'll talk about the boy."

"I thank you kindly, Colonel Price, but I already et, long ago, what little I had stomach for," said she.

"Then if you will excuse me for a moment, madam?" begged the colonel, seeing her seated stiffly in an upholstered chair.

She half rose in acknowledgment of his bow, awkward and embarra.s.sed.

"You're excusable, sir," said she.

The colonel dashed away down the hall. She was only a mountain woman, certainly, but she was a lady by virtue of having been a gentleman's wife. And she had caught him without a coat!

Mrs. Newbolt sat stiffly in the parlor in surroundings which were of the first magnitude of grandeur to her, with corn pictures adorning the walls along with some of the colonel's early transgressions in landscapes, and the portraits of colonels in the family line who had gone before. That was the kind of fixings Joe would like, thought she, nodding her serious head; just the kind of things that Joe would enjoy and understand, like a gentleman born to it.

"Well, he comes by it honest," said she aloud.

Colonel Price did not keep her waiting long. He came back in a black coat that was quite as grand as Judge Little's, and almost as long. That garment was the mark of fashion and gentility in that part of the country in those days, a style that has outlived many of the hearty old gentlemen who did it honor, and has descended even to this day with their sons.

"My son's innocent of what they lay to him, Colonel Price," said Mrs.

Newbolt, with impressive dignity which lifted her immediately in the colonel's regard.

Even an inferior woman could not a.s.sociate with a superior man that long without some of his gentility pa.s.sing to her, thought he. Colonel Price inclined his head gravely.

"Madam, Peter Newbolt's son never would commit a crime, much less the crime of murder," he said, yet with more sincerity in his words, perhaps, than lay in his heart.

"I only ask you to hold back your decision on him till you can learn the truth," said she, unconsciously pa.s.sing over the colonel's declaration of confidence. "You don't remember Joe maybe, for he was only a little shaver the last time you stopped at our house when you was canva.s.sin'

for office. That's been ten or 'leven--maybe more--years ago. Joe, he's growed considerable since then."

"They do, they shoot up," said the colonel encouragingly.

"Yes; but Joe he's nothing like me. He runs after his father's side of the family, and he's a great big man in size now, Colonel Price; but he's as soft at heart as a dove."

So she talked on, telling him what she knew. When she had finished laying the case of Joe before him, the colonel sat thinking it over a bit, one hand in his beard, his head slightly bowed. Mrs. Newbolt watched him with anxious eyes. Presently he looked at her and smiled. A great load of uncertainty went up from her heart in a sigh.

"The first thing to do is to get him a lawyer, and the best one we can nail," the colonel said.

She nodded, her face losing its worried tension.

"And the next thing is for Joe to make a clean breast of everything, holding back nothing that took place between him and Isom that night."

"I'll tell him to do it," said she eagerly, "and I know he will when I tell him you said he must."

"I'll go over to the sheriff's with you and see him," said the colonel, avoiding the use of the word "jail" with a delicacy that was his own.

"I'm beholden to you, Colonel Price, for all your great kindness," said she.

There had been no delay in the matter of returning an indictment against Joe. The grand jury was in session at that time, opportunely for all concerned, and on the day that Joe was taken to the county jail the case was laid before that body by the prosecuting attorney. Before the grand jury adjourned that day's business a true bill had been returned against Joe Newbolt, charging him with the murder of Isom Chase.

There was in Shelbyville at that time a lawyer who had mounted to his profession like a conqueror, over the heads of his fellow-townsmen as stepping-stones. Perhaps it would be nearer the mark to say that the chins of the men of Shelbyville were the rungs in this ladder, for the lawyer had risen from the barber's chair. He had shaved and sheared his way from that ancient trade, in which he had been respected as an able hand, to the equally ancient profession, in which he was cutting a rather ludicrous and lumbering figure.