The Cottage of Delight Part 43

John rose and started to his own room. "I'll have you up in time for your train," he said. "Get a good sleep. You will need it before starting on a long journey like yours. Good night."

"Good night, my boy, good night," Cavanaugh said.

From his own room, where John sat smoking in the dark, he saw the light go out in Cavanaugh's room. He listened, expecting to hear the bed creak as it always did when the old man got upon it, but now there was no sound. There was silence for nearly half an hour, and then the telltale creaking came. John understood. Had he had a watch and a light, he could, to a second, have timed one of the saddest and most unselfish of prayers.

"Poor, dear old Sam!" he muttered, and began to undress for bed.

CHAPTER V

After Cavanaugh's departure the time hung heavy over John. He seldom heard from Dora, and, as business happened to be rather quiet, he really was too inactive for one of his introspective temperament. When not at work he spent the time altogether in the company of Binks, who seemed to have become actually human in his fidelity and affection.

One day, having to inspect a finished building on Washington Heights, not far from Dyckman Street, he took the dog along. And when the work was over he and Binks strolled down to the Hudson and walked along the sh.o.r.e. It was a warm day, and men, women, and children were fishing and bathing in the clear water.

Presently a spot was reached that looked inviting, and John decided to eat the lunch there that he had brought along. So, seating himself on a water-worn boulder, he opened his parcel and fed Binks as he himself ate.

Across the river in a bluish haze towered the Palisades, and on either side of him in the distance jutted out from the sh.o.r.e he was on long, slender, gray and yellow boat-houses with their pile-anch.o.r.ed floats. On his right at the water's edge was a group of Italians, picnicking together. There were the four heads of two families, stocky laboring-men, fat housewives, and young girls and boys. They had made a fire of driftwood on the rocks, and John could see a great pot of something stewing, and smelled the aroma of coffee and broiled sausages. The boys and girls had put on foreign-looking bathing-suits and, with tiny water-wings under their arms, were splashing about, trying to learn to swim.

"Binks, old chap," John said, aloud, as had become a habit of his, "there are some deep holes where those silly people are. Those kids may get beyond their depth. I hope the men can swim."

The Italians had a guitar. Some one played it, and native songs were sung. They were very happy. John told himself that it might be some sort of reunion of close friends or relatives. There were so many shouts of merriment in Italian, loud commands to the children from their mothers, and joyous retorts from the bathers, that John failed to hear a shrill cry of alarm from their midst. It was Binks, indeed, who suddenly p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, barked, and began to run toward the picnickers. At first, absorbed in reflection, John paid no attention to the dog's antics, but, as Binks continued to bark excitedly, he stood up and looked toward the bathers. The children now ash.o.r.e were screaming, women were shouting, waving their hands, and with their clothing on the two men were wading out into the water which from the pa.s.sage of a great steamer was rolling like the surf of an ocean. That the men could not swim John saw at once, and he ran down the sh.o.r.e toward them.

"For G.o.d's sake, meester, save her! save my daughter!" a man screamed.

"Me no swim! Dere, dere!" and he pointed to a pair of water-wings floating in a circle of bubbles thirty feet from the rocks.

John was a good swimmer, and, throwing off his coat, he plunged in at once, but Binks, who had been taught to spring into water and fetch back such things as sticks or a ball thrown in, and had sighted the water-wings, was several yards ahead of him.

"Dere, dere! My G.o.d! she's up de third time!" shrieked the girl's father. "Catch her, meester, catch her! It's de last time--de last time!"

On a curling swell John saw the girl's head and shoulders above the water. She was going down again, and a great rolling wave was close upon her. John saw that he could not reach her in time, and he saw something else that filled him with horror. Binks, with the captured water-wings in his mouth, was within the girl's reach, and she grasped him and dragged him under. There was a gurgling struggle, widening rings filled with bubbles floated on the swaying water, and nothing was seen of the girl or the dog.

A wail of despair rang out from the sh.o.r.e; men, women, and children ran to and fro, screaming. John was soon over the spot where the girl and dog had disappeared, and, exhausting the air from his lungs, he dived down as far as he could. He kept his eyes open, and moving from him in the murky depths he could not quite reach for lack of breath he saw the blue dress of the girl. That Binks was in her dying clutch he well knew.

The buoyancy of John's body raised him to the top sooner than he wished, and when he appeared with nothing in his grasp the screams from the sh.o.r.e were louder than ever.

"Again! again! meester!" the father yelled, "farther up. O G.o.d! O G.o.d!"

Again John dived. This time he went quite to the bottom and crawled along from rock to rock, keeping himself down by the clutch of his hands. But to no avail. He saw nothing and was fairly bursting for lack of breath. The progress upward seemed endless, and when the surface was reached he was almost dead from exhaustion. But he dived again and again. Binks was drowning, he kept thinking, and there was little else in his mind. When he had dived unsuccessfully a dozen times a man arrived in a rowboat from one of the boat-houses with a rope and grappling-irons. Taking John into the boat, the two began to drag the river over the fatal spot. The man held the oars and John the rope.

"She's been under fifteen minutes," the boatman said. "There is little chance now, even if we get her up. My G.o.d! what fools those greasers are! Eating, drinking, and singing while their kid was going down!"

John had time to observe the group on the sh.o.r.e now. The mother of the girl had fainted, and the other woman was fanning her as she lay on the rocks, unsheltered from the sun. The children, in their wet suits, stood crying l.u.s.tily.

"We can't do anything now," the boatman said when another five minutes had pa.s.sed. "She is done for, but we'd as well keep on the job to satisfy 'em. The tow has taken her out, most likely."

Ten minutes more. Even the group on the sh.o.r.e seemed to have given up hope. However, the irons caught. It might be a rock, John thought, but the object yielded gently. "Hold! Not so hard!" John ordered. "You might pull it loose. I've caught something!"

Carefully he drew in the rope. He saw the blue dress through several feet of water, and, reaching down, he caught it with his hand. A moment later and the drowned girl, with Binks clutched in her death-grip, was drawn into the boat.

A scream of joy from the reviving mother of the girl rent the air.

Having been unconscious of the pa.s.sage of time, she evidently thought her child might yet be alive. As the boatman gently pulled toward the rocks, John disengaged Binks from the stiff fingers, and held him in his lap.

"Poor mut!" the boatman said. "She choked the life out of him. They are always like that--they will grab at a floating chip. Turn the girl's head down, will you, and let the water run out? There may be a speck of life left, but I think she is as dead as a mackerel."

Putting Binks aside, John obeyed. The girl's face was purple, her lips foaming. The rocks reached, the two Italian men, their yellow faces stamped with agony, were ready up to their waists in water to take the girl ash.o.r.e.

John knew nothing about what is called "first aid to the drowning," and so, with his dead pet in his arms, he climbed up the rocks. Men were gathering from the two boat-houses. He heard somebody say, "There is a cop and a doctor!" The screaming women, the sobbing children, the awed questions of spectators just arrived, fell on closed ears, as far as John was concerned. Picking up his coat, he wrapped it about Binks and bore him homeward. Looking back, he saw the doctor examining the body on the rocks. John sat down alone in the sun. He told himself that he would let his clothing dry on him as he walked homeward. But what was to be done about the body of his pet? He couldn't take it home with him, and he knew of no burial-ground for dogs. He sat down on the sh.o.r.e to think it out. His mind was in a queer jumble of resentment and resigned despair. How could Binks actually be dead? How could he go home without him? And yet the wet, limp object with the bulging, glazed eyes and distorted muzzle was all that was left of the loving, vivacious animal to which he had been so warmly linked.

The doctor was coming back. He pa.s.sed John, and then paused. "Is that the dog she drowned?" he asked, bending down sympathetically and stroking the animal's coat.

"Yes. How is the girl?" John asked.

"Dead," was the answer, and the doctor stood erect and walked away.

For several hours John remained on the sh.o.r.e. He saw the Italians bearing the girl's body away, followed by the women and children. Then a thought came to him. There was a dense strip of sloping wooded land between the river and the nearest street, and in the midst of it stood a tall oak. At the foot of this tree he would bury Binks's remains. The oak would be a landmark that he could easily single out again. He found some newspapers, and, wrapping up the body in them, he dug a grave and put his pet into it.

The sun was going down above the New Jersey cliffs when the rite was ended. The great disk was as red as living coals of fire. A tree with shooting branches and stark trunk three miles away was clearly outlined across its face. A big excursion-steamer bound for Albany was pa.s.sing.

The surface of the river was sprinkled with sail-boats and varicolored canoes. From somewhere on the water came the clear, joyous tones of a cornet. Some player was putting his soul into his music. John walked down to one of the boat-houses. Men were fishing from the float. At a crude bar he bought a cigar and lighted it. He asked about the fishing of one of the fishermen and apathetically listened while the man talked of rods, reels, lines, sinkers, and bait. John did not want to go home.

The thought of the hot, close, and lonely house, in his present frame of mind, was repellent. He wondered if he was giving way to sickly sentimentality, for he had a desire to pa.s.s that night in the wood in solitary vigil over the grave of his loved companion.

Presently he shrugged his shoulders and started homeward. "Be a man, John Trott!" he said, with closed lips. "Why shouldn't Binks die?--everybody has to die sooner or later. What does it matter? The only thing that matters is to bear your burden like a soldier and a man."

CHAPTER VI

Dear John [so ran the first letter from Cavanaugh after the latter returned to Ridgeville]--I hardly know how to begin this letter. Since I got home I declare everything here seems awfully tame. That was a wonderful visit I had as I look back on it. I wish it could have gone on forever. I am glad I saw you, for a lot of reasons. You were lonely and blue, my boy. Even your partner spoke to me about you. He said since Dora left that you was really in danger of a nervous breakdown. Mrs. McGwire and her oldest girl said the same thing. They were all worried about you, and so am I.

I've got a confession to make, and the sooner it is made the better I'll feel. John, you know how a town like this one is. The folks here love to gossip about anything they can pick up, and I'm going to tell you that when it got circulated among some of your old work friends that I'd gone to New York a few of them began to nose about and make inquiries. They thought it was such a peculiar thing, you see, for a man of my age and habits to do that they kept talking and talking and joking and what not. Then, as might have been expected, Todd Williams, who you remember thought he saw you on the train in New York, put his finger into the pie. He told it about that he was now more sure than ever that it was you he saw on the train and that I had gone up there to see you. That did the job, and I don't know what to do about it. Folks meet me on the street and ask about you as if it was a settled fact that you never died in that wreck, and, with their eyes staring straight into mine, I don't know what to do or say. John, I don't know how to lie with a sober face. The more I shifted about and tried to get out of it the more they believed it, till now, no matter what I say, they only laugh and make fun and say that I'm keeping something back. So please tell me what to do. The truth is that the facts, if they get out, will never harm you in any way. It is now so long since you left that only a very few that used to know you are alive or here. The fever for going West struck most of your old friends and they moved away. I really think that I'd advise you not to keep the truth back any longer. Questions are asked about what came of Dora, and if I say that she is married and gone away it will end all sorts of idle speculations.

If I've got you into a fix in this matter please forgive me, for it all came about through no intention of mine. If I could lie as straight as some contractors can beat down the price of material or wages, I'd have got you out of this, but I'm getting old and I'm like a baby in the hands of these mouthing, tattling folks. Oh, how I wish you could come down here! You'd not feel as bad about all that has happened if you'd come down and visit me and my wife, and throw it off like an old worn-out coat. What a joy it would be to give you a room and see you seated at our humble board! Think it over, my boy. Life is short at best, and we ought to spend part of it with the folks that really love us, and we love you, John--both of us do.

John sat down in his room one night to answer this letter, but, though he tried very hard, he could think of little to say. Cavanaugh's simple phrases had sounded his deepest emotional depths, and yet he could not bring himself to write an appropriate response. He started to mention the death of Binks, but gave that up. That, he argued, would only cause his old friend to be the more deeply concerned over his welfare. So he wrote the most cheerful letter of which he was capable, about his activity in business matters, and his ability to look on the bright side of such things as the absence of Dora and his unmarried state. He ended the letter with this:

Yes, I fully agree with you in regard to a frank and truthful statement about my being alive, etc. I understand the situation and don't blame you at all. Tell every one who cares to inquire that the newspaper report was a mistake and that you saw me while you were here. I want to see you and your wife as badly as you want to see me, but I'm afraid I cannot come down, now, at any rate.

CHAPTER VII

Joel Eperson sat on his small one-horse wagon, which was loaded with fire-wood. He was taking the wood to Cavanaugh's from the small farm he was renting two miles from Ridgeville. Joel had aged remarkably. Young as he was, his thin hair and beard were becoming gray, and his sallow face was seamed with lines of worry and care. His clothing was of the cheapest material and threadbare, and yet faultlessly clean. As he got down at the front gate Cavanaugh and his wife, who were seated under an apple-tree at the side of the house, came around to meet him.