The Deliverance Part 28

"Why were you such a fool as to go at him?" inquired Christopher, glancing up at his evenly hanging rows of tobacco, and then coming outside to lock the door. "You'll never get a reputation as a fighter if you are always jumping on men over your own size.

Now, next time I should advise you to try your spirit on Sol Peterkin."

"Oh, it was all about Molly," explained Will frankly. "I told Fred that he was a big blackguard to use the girl so, and then he called me a 'white-livered liar.'"

"I heard him," remarked Christopher quietly.

"Well, I don't care what he says--he is a blackguard. I'm glad you knocked him down, too; it was no more than he deserved."

"I didn't do it on Molly Peterkin's account, you know. Tobacco takes up quite enough of my time without my entering the lists as a champion of light women. But if you aren't man enough to fight your own battles, I suppose I'll have to keep my muscle in proper shape."

Will smarted from the words, and the corners of his mouth took a dogged droop.

"I don't see how you expect me to be a match for Fred Turner," he returned angrily.

"Why, I don't expect it," replied Christopher coolly, as he turned the key in the padlock, drew it out, and slipped it into his pocket. "I expect you merely to keep away from him, that's all."

Will stared at him in perplexity. "What a devil of a humour you are in!" he exclaimed.

"Am I?" Christopher broke into a laugh. "You are accustomed to the sunny temper of your grandfather. How is he to-day? In his usual cheerful vein?"

"Oh, he's awful," answered the boy, relieved at the change of subject. "If you could only have heard him yesterday! Somebody told him about the fight at the store, and, as luck would have it, he found out that Molly Peterkin was at the bottom of it all.

When he called me into his room and locked the door I knew something was up; and sure enough, we had blood and thunder for two mortal hours. He threatened to sell the horses and the hounds, and to put me at the plough, if I ever so much as looked at the girl again--'gal,' he called her, and a 'brazen wench.'

That is the way he talks, you know."

"I know," Christopher nodded gravely.

"But the funny part is, that the thing that made him hottest was your knocking over Fred Turner. That he simply couldn't stand.

Why, he'd have paid Fred fifty dollars down to thrash me black and blue, he said. He called you--Oh, he has a great store of pet names!"

"What?" asked Christopher, for the other caught himself up suddenly.

"Nothing much--he's always doing it, you know."

"You needn't trouble yourself on my account. I'm familiar with his use of words."

"Oh, he called you 'a crazy pauper who ought to be in gaol.'"

"He did, did he? Well, for once in his life he drew it mild."

Then he gave a long whistle and kicked away a rock in the path. "

"'A crazy pauper who ought to be in gaol.' I've a pretty good-sized debt to settle with your grandfather, when I come to think of it."

"Just suppose you were in my place now," insisted Will. "Then I reckon you'd have cause forswearing, sure enough. I tell you I couldn't get out of that room yesterday until I promised him I'd turn over a new leaf--that I'd start in with Mr. Morrison to-morrow, and dig away at Latin and Greek until I go to the university next fall."

Christopher turned quickly.

"To-morrow?" he repeated. "Why, that's the day I had planned we'd go hunting. Make Morrison's Friday."

The boy wavered.

"Can't we go another day?" he asked. "He's so awfully set on to-morrow. I'd have to be mighty sharp to fool him again."

"Oh, well, but it's the only day I've free. There's a lot of fall ploughing to do; then the apples are ready to be gathered; and I must take some corn to the mill before the week's up. I've wasted too much time with you as it is. It's the only wealth I have, you see."

"Then I'll go--I'll go," declared Will, jumping to a decision.

"There'll be a terrific fuss if he finds it out, but perhaps he won't. I'll bring my gun over to the barn to-night, and get Zebbadee to meet us with the hounds at the bend in the road.

Well, I must get back now. I don't want him to suspect I've seen you to-day."

He started off at a rapid pace, and Christopher, turning in the other direction, went to bring the horses from the distant pasture. It was a mellow afternoon, and a golden haze wrapped the broad meadow, filled with autumn wild flowers, and the little bricked-up graveyard on the low, green hill. As he swung himself over the bars at the end of the path he saw Lila and Jim Weatherby gathering goldenrod in the center of the field. When they caught sight of him, Jim laid his handful of blossoms in a big basket on the ground and came to join him on his way to the pasture.

"They are for Mrs. Blake's fireplace," he remarked with a friendly smile, as he glanced back at Lila standing knee-deep amid the October flowers.

"It's a queer idea," observed Christopher, finding himself at a loss for a reply.

Jim strolled on leisurely, s.n.a.t.c.hing at the heads of wild carrot as he pa.s.sed.

"There's something I've wanted to tell you, Christopher," he said after a moment, turning his pleasant, manly face upon the other.

"Is that so?" asked Christopher, with a sudden desire to avert the impending responsibility. "Oh, but I hardly think I'm the proper person, " he added, laughing.

Jim met his eyes squarely.

"I'm a plain man," he said slowly, "and though I'm not ashamed of it, I know, of course, that my family have always been plain people. As things are, I had no business on earth to fall in love with your sister, but all the same it's what I've gone and done."

Christopher nodded and walked on.

"Well, I suppose it's what I should have done, too, in your place," he returned quietly.

"I've reproached myself for it often enough," pursued Jim; "but when all is said, how can a man prevent a thing like that? I might as well try to shut my eyes to the sun when it is shining straight on me. Why, everybody else seems dull and lifeless when I look at her--and I seem such a brute myself that I hardly dare touch her hand. All I ask is to be her servant until I die."

It took courage to speak such words, and Christopher, knowing it, stopped midway of the little path and regarded Jim with the rare smile which gave a boyish brightness to his face.

"By George, you are a trump!" he said heartily. "And as far as that goes, you're good enough for Lila or for anybody else. It isn't that, you see; it's only--"

"I know," finished Jim quietly and without resentment; "it's my grandfather. Your sister, Cynthia, told me, and I reckon it's all natural, but somehow I can't make myself ashamed of the old man-- nor is Lila, for that matter. He was an honest, upright body as ever you saw, and he never did a mean thing in his life, though he lived to be almost ninety."

"You're right," said Christopher, flushing suddenly; "and as far as I'm concerned, I'd let Lila marry you to-morrow; but as for mother, she would simply never consent. The idea would be impossible to her, and we could never explain things; you must see that yourself."

"I see," replied Jim readily; "but the main point is that you yourself would have no objection to our marriage, provided it were possible."

"Not a bit; not a bit."

He held out his hand, and Jim shook it warmly before he picked up his basket and went to rejoin Lila.

Turning in the path, Christopher saw the girl, who was sitting alone on the lowered bars, rise and wave a spray of goldenrod above her head. Then, as the lovers met, she laid her hand upon Jim's arm and lifted her glowing face as if to read his words before he uttered them. Something in the happy surrender of her gesture, or in the brooding mystery of the Indian summer, when one seemed to hear the earth turn in the stillness, touched Christopher with a sudden melancholy, and it appeared to him when he went on again that a shadow had fallen over the brightness of the autumn fields. Disturbed by the unrest which follows any illuminating vision of ideal beauty, he asked himself almost angrily, in an effort to divert his thoughts, if it were possible that he was weakening in his purpose, since he no longer found the old zest in his hatred of Fletcher. The deadness of his emotions had then affected this one also--the single feeling which he had told himself would be eternal; and the old nervous thrill, so like the thrill of violent love, no longer troubled him when he chanced to meet his enemy face to face. To-day he held Will Fletcher absolutely in his hand, he knew; in a few year's at most his debt to Fletcher would probably be cancelled; the man and the boy would then be held together by blood ties like two snarling hounds in the leash--and yet, when all was said, what would the final outcome yield of satisfaction? As he put the question he knew that he could meet it only by evasion, and his inherited apathy enfeebled him even while he demanded an answer of himself.

As the months went on, his indifference to success or failure pervaded him like a physical lethargy, and he played his game so recklessly at last that he sometimes caught himself wondering if it were, after all, worth a single flicker of the candle. He still saw Will Fletcher daily; but when the spring came he ceased consciously, rather from weariness than from any n.o.bler sentiment, to exert an influence which he felt to be harmful to the boy. For four years he had wrought tirelessly to compa.s.s the ruin of Fletcher's ambition; and now, when he had but to stretch forth his arm for the final blow, he admitted impatiently that what he lacked was the impulsive energy the deed required.

He was still in this mood when, one afternoon in April, as he was driving his oxen to the store, he met Fletcher in the road behind the pair of bays. At sight of him the old man's temper slipped control, and at the end of a few minutes they were quarrelling as to who should be the one to turn aside.