The Deliverance Part 29

"Git out of the road, will you?" cried Fletcher, half rising from his seat and jerking at the reins until the horses reared. "Drive your brutes into the bushes and let me pa.s.s!"

"If you think I'm going to swerve an inch out of my road to oblige you, Bill Fletcher, you are almost as big a fool as you are a rascal," replied Christopher in a cool voice, as he brought his team to a halt and placed himself at the head of it with his long rawhide whip in his hand.

As he stood there he had the appearance of taking his time as lightly as did the Olympian deities; and it was clear that he would wait patiently until the sun set and rose again rather than yield one jot or t.i.ttle of his right upon the muddy road. While he gazed placidly over Fletcher's head into the golden distance, he removed his big straw hat and began fanning his heated face.

There followed a noisy upbraiding from Fletcher, which ended by his driving madly into the underbrush and almost overturning the heavy carriage. As he pa.s.sed, he leaned from his seat and slashed his whip furiously into Christopher's face; then he drove on at a wild pace, bringing the horses in a shiver, and flecked with foam, into the gravelled drive before the Hall.

The bright flower-beds and the calm white pillars were all in sunshine, and Miss Saidie, with a little, green wateringpot in her hand, was sprinkling a tub of crocuses beside the steps.

"You look fl.u.s.tered, Brother Bill," she observed, as Fletcher threw the reins to a Negro servant and came up to where she stood.

"Oh, I've just had some words with that darned Blake," returned Fletcher, chewing the end of his mustache, as he did when he was in a rage. "I met him as I drove up the road and he had the impudence to keep his ox-cart standing plumb still while I tore through the briers. It's the third time this thing has happened, and I'll be even with him for it yet."

"I'm sure he must be a very rude person," remarked Miss Saidie, pinching off a withered blossom and putting it in her pocket to keep from throwing it on the trim gra.s.s. "For my part, I've never been able to see what satisfaction people git out of being ill-mannered. It takes twice as long as it does to be polite, and it's not nearly so good for the digestion afterward."

Fletcher listened to her with a scowl. "Well, if you ever get anything but curses from Christopher Blake, I'd like to hear of it," he said, with a coa.r.s.e laugh.

Why, he was really quite civil to me the other day when I pa.s.sed him," replied Miss Saidie, facing Fletcher with her hand resting on the belt of her ap.r.o.n. "I was in the phaeton, and he got down off his wagon and picked up my whip. I declare, it almost took my breath away, but when I thanked him he raised his hat and spoke very pleasantly."

"Oh, you and your everlasting excuses!" sneered Fletcher, going up the steps and turning on the porch to look down upon her. "I tell you I've had as many of 'em as I'm going to stand. This is my house, and what I say in it has got to be the last word. If you squirt any more of that blamed water around here the place will rot to pieces under our very feet."

Miss Saidie placed her watering-pot on the step and lifted to him the look of amiable wonder which he found more irritating than a sharp retort.

"I forgot to tell you that Susan Spade has been waiting to speak to you," she remarked, as if their previous conversation had been of the friendliest nature.

"Oh, drat her! What does she want?"

"She wouldn't tell me--it was for you alone, she said. That was a good half-hour ago, and she's been waiting in your setting-room ever sence. She's such a sharp-tongued woman I wonder how Tom manages to put up with her."

"Well, if he does, I won't," growled Fletcher, as he went in to meet his visitor.

Mrs. Spade, wearing a severe manner and a freshly starched purple calico, was sitting straight and stiff on the edge of the cretonne-covered lounge, and as he entered she rose to receive him with a visible unbending of her person. She was a lank woman, with a long, scrawny figure which appeared to have run entirely to muscle, and very full skirts that always sagged below the belt-line in the back. Her face was like that of a man-- large-featured, impressive, and not without a ruddy masculine comeliness.

"It's my duty that's brought me, Mr. Fletcher," she began, as they shook hands. "You kin see very well yo'self that it's not a pleasure, as far as that goes, for if it had been I never should have come-not if I yearned and pined till I was sore. I never saw a pleasure in my life that didn't lead astray, an' I've got the eye of suspicion on the most harmless-lookin' one that goes. As I tell Tom--though he won't believe it--the only way to be sartain you're followin' yo' duty in this world is to find out the thing you hate most to do an' then do it with all yo' might. That rule has taken me through life, suh: it married me to Tom Spade, an'

it's brought me here to-day. 'Don't you go up thar blabbin' on Will Fletcher,' said Tom, when I was tyin' on my bonnet. 'You needn't say one word mo' about it,' was my reply. 'I know the Lord's way, an' I know mine. I've wrastled with this in pra'r, an' I tell you when the Lord turns anybody's stomach so dead agin a piece of business, it means most likely that it's the very thing they've got to swallow down."

"Oh, Will!" gasped Fletcher, dropping suddenly into his armchair.

"Please come to the point at once, ma'am, and let me hear what the rascal has done last."

"I'm comin', suh; I'm comin'," Mrs. Spade hastened to a.s.sure him.

"Yes, Tom an' I hev talked it all down to the very bone, but I wouldn't trust a man's judgment on morals any mo' than I would on matchin' calico. Right an' wrong don't look the same to 'em by lamplight as they do by day, an' if thar conscience ain't set plum' in the pupils of thar eyes, I don't know whar 'tis, that's sho'. But, thank heaven, I ain't one of those that's always findin' an excuse for people--not even if the backslider be my own husband. Thar's got to be some few folks on the side of decency, an' I'm one of 'em. Virtue's a slippery thing--that's how I look at it--an' if you don't git a good grip on it an'

watch it with a mighty stern eye it's precious apt to wriggle through yo' fingers. I'm an honest woman, Mr. Fletcher, an' I wouldn't blush to own it in the presence of the King of England

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Fletcher, with a brutal laugh; "do you mean to tell me the precious young fool has fallen in love with you?"

"Me, suh? If he had, a broomstick an' a spar' rib or so would have been all you'd ever found of him agin. I've never yit laid eyes on the man I couldn't settle with a single sweep, an' when a lone woman comes to wantin' a protector, I've never seen the husband that could hold a candle to a good stout broom. That's what I said to Jinnie when she got herself engaged to Fred Boxley. 'Married or single,' I said, 'gal, wife, or widow, a broom is yo' best friend.'"

Fletcher twisted impatiently in his chair.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, stop your drivelling," he blurted out at last, "and tell me in plain language what the boy has done."

"Oh, I don't know what he's done or what he hasn't," rejoined Mrs. Spade, "but I've watched him courtin' Molly Peterkin till I told Tom this thing had to stop or I would stop it. If thar's a p'isonous snake or lizard in this country, suh, it's that tow-headed huzzy of Sol Peterkin's; an' if thar's a s.e.x on this earth that I ain't go no patience with, it's the woman s.e.x. A man may slip an' slide a little because he was made that way, but when it comes to a woman she's got to w'ar whalebones in her clothes when I'm aroun'. Lord! Lord! What's the use of bein'

honest if you can't p'int yo' finger at them that ain't? Virtue gits mighty little in the way of gewgaws in this world, an' I reckon it's got to make things up in the way it feels when it looks at them that's gone astray--"

"Molly Peterkin!" gasped Fletcher, striking the arm of his chair a blow that almost shattered it. "Christopher Blake was bad enough, and now it's Molly Peterkin! Out of the frying-pan right spang into the fire. Oh, you did me a good turn in coming, Mrs.

Spade. I'll forgive you the news you brought, and I'll even forgive you your blasted chatter. How long has this thing been going on, do you know?"

"That I don't, suh, that I don't; though I've been pryin' an'

peekin' mighty close. All I know is, that every blessed evenin'

for the last two weeks I've seen 'em walkin' together in the lane that leads to Sol's. This here ain't goin' to keep up one day mo'; that's what I put my foot down on yestiddy. I'd stop it if I didn't have nothin' agin that gal but the colour of her hair. I don' know how 'tis, suh, but I've always had the feelin' that thar's somethin' indecent about yaller hair, an' if I'd been born with it I'd have stuck my head into a bowl of pitch befo' I'd have gone flauntin' those corn-ta.s.sels in the eyes of every man I met. Thar's nothin' in the looks of me that's goin' to make a man regret he's got a wife if I can help it; an' mark my word, Mr.

Fletcher, if they had dyed Molly Peterkin's hair black she might have been a self-respectin' woman an' a hater of men this very day. A light character an' a light head go precious well together, an' when you set one a good sober colour the other's pretty apt to follow."

Fletcher rose from his chair and stood gripping the table hard.

"Have you any reason to think--does it look likely--that young Blake has had a hand in this?" he asked.

"Who? Mr. Christopher? Why, I don't believe he could tell a petticoat from a pair of breeches to save his soul. He ain't got no fancy for corn-ta.s.sels and blue ribbons, I kin tell you that.

It's good honest women that are the mothers of families that he takes to, an' even then it ain't no mo' than 'How are you, Mrs.

Spade? A fine mornin'!'"

"Well, thar's one thing you may be sartain of," returned Fletcher, breaking in upon her, "and that is that this whole business is as good as settled. I leave here with the boy to-morrow morning at sunrise, and he doesn't set foot agin in this county until he's gone straight through the university. I'll drag him clean across the broad ocean before he shall do it."

Then, as Mrs. Spade took a noisy departure, he stood, without listening to her, gazing morosely down upon the pattern of the carpet.

CHAPTER V. The Happiness of Tucker

Early in the following November, Jim Weatherby, returning from the cross-roads one rainy afternoon, brought Christopher a long, wailing letter from Will.

"Oh, I've had to walk a chalk-line, sure enough," he wrote, "since that awful day we left home in a pouring rain, with grandpa wearing a whole thunderstorm on his forehead. It has been cram, cram, cram ever since, I can tell you, and here I am now, just started at the university, with my head still buzzing with the noise of those confounded ancients. If grandpa hadn't gone when he did, I declare I believe he would have ended by driving me clean crazy. Since he left I've had time to take a look about me, and I find there's a good deal of fun to be got here, after all. How I'll manage to mix it in with Greek I don't see, but luck's with me, you know--I've found that out--so I shan't bother.

"By the way, I wish you would make Molly Peterkin understand how it was I came away so hastily. Tell her I haven't forgotten her, and give her the little turquoise pin I'm sending. It just matches her eyes. Be sure to let me know if she's as pretty as ever."

By the next mail the turquoise brooch arrived, and Christopher, putting it in his pocket, went over to Sol Peterkin's to bear the message to the girl. As it happened, she was swinging on the little sagging gate when he came up the lane, and at sight of him her eyebrows shot up under her flaxen curls, which hung low upon her forehead. She was a pretty, soulless little animal, coloured like peach-blossoms, and with a great deal of that soft insipidity which is usually found in a boy's ideal of maiden innocence.

"Why, I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw you," she said, arranging her curls over her left shoulder with a conscious simper.

The old Blake gallantry rose to meet her challenging eyes, and he regarded her smilingly a moment before he answered.

"Well, I could hardly believe mine, you know," he responded carelessly. "I thought for an instant that a big b.u.t.terfly had alighted on the gate."

She pouted prettily.

"Won't you come in?" she asked after a moment, with an embarra.s.sed air, as she remembered that he was one of the "real Blakes" for whom her father used to work.

A light retort was on his lips, but while he looked at her a little weary frown darkened her shallow eyes, and with the peculiar sympathy for all those oppressed by man or nature which was but one expression of his many-sided temperament he quickly changed the tone of his reply. At the instant it seemed to him that Molly Peterkin and himself stood together defrauded of their rightful heritage of life; and as his thought broadened he felt suddenly the pathos of her forlorn little figure, of her foolish blue eyes, of her trivial vanities, of her girlish beauty, soiled and worn by common handling. A look very like compa.s.sion was in his face, and the girl, seeing it, reddened angrily and kicked at a loose pebble in the path. When he went away a moment later he left a careless message for Sol about the tobacco crop, and the little white box containing the turquoise brooch was still in his pocket.

That afternoon the trinket went back to Will with a curt letter.