The Deliverance Part 33

"Oh, we can't marry here, of course, but we're going on to Washington to-morrow--all our plans are made, and that's why I came to see you. I want to borrow your horses to take us to the crossroads at midnight. "

Seizing him by the shoulder, Christopher shook him roughly in a powerful grasp.

"Wake up," he said impatiently; "you are either drunk or asleep, and you're going headlong to the devil. If you do this thing you'll be ashamed of it in two weeks." Then he released him, laughing as he watched him totter and regain his balance. "But if you're bent on being an a.s.s, then, for heaven's sake, go and be one," he added irritably.

A shiver pa.s.sed through Will, and he stuttered an instant before he could form his words.

"She told me you'd say that," he replied. "She told me you'd always hated her."

"Hate her? Nonsense! She isn't worth it. I'd as soon hate a white kitten. As far as that goes, I've nothing against the girl, and I don't doubt she'd be a much better wife than most men deserve.

I'm not prating about virtue, mind you; I'm only urging common sense. You're too young and too big a fool to marry anybody."

"Well, you disapprove of her, at any rate--you're against her, and that's why I haven't talked about her before. She's the most beautiful creature alive, I tell you, and I wouldn't give her up if to keep her meant I'd be a beggar."

"It will mean that, most likely."

Turning away, Will drew a small flask from his pocket and, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the stopper, raised the bottle to his lips. "I'd go mad but for this," he said; "that's why I've carried it about with me for the last week. It's the only thing that drives away this horrible depression."

As he drank, Christopher regarded him curiously, noting that the whisky lent animation to his face and an unnatural l.u.s.ter to his eyes. The sunburn on his forehead appeared to deepen all at once, and there was a bright red flush across his cheeks.

"You won't take my advice," said Christopher at last, "but I can't help telling you that unless you're raving mad you'd better drop the whole affair as soon as possible."

"Not now--not now, " protested Will gaily, consumed by an artificial energy. "Don't preach to me while the taste of a drink is still in my mouth, for there's no heart so strong as the one whisky puts into a man. When I feel my courage oozing from my fingers I can reinforce it in less time than it takes to sneak away."

Growing boisterous, he a.s.sumed a ridiculous swagger, and broke into a fragment of a college song. Until morning he would not probably become himself again, and, knowing this, Christopher desisted helplessly from his efforts at persuasion.

"You will lend me the horses?" asked Will, keeping closely to his point.

"Are you steady enough?"

"Of course--of course, " he stretched out his hands and moved a pace or two away; "and besides, Dolly drives like old Nick."

"Well, I'll see," said Christopher, and going to the window, he flung back the rude shutter and looked out into the August night.

The warm air touched his face like a fragrant breath, and from the darkness a big white moth flew over his shoulder to where the lantern burned dimly on the floor.

"I may take them?" urged Will again, pulling him by the sleeve.

At the words Christopher turned and walked slowly back across the barn.

"Yes, I'll lend them to you," he answered, without meeting the other's eyes.

"You're a jolly good chap; I always knew it, " cried Will heartily. "I'll take them out at midnight, when there's a good moon, and get Jerry Green to drive them back to-morrow. Hurrah!

It's the best night's work you ever did!"

He went out hurriedly, still singing his college song, and Christopher, without moving from his place, stood watching the big white moth that circled dizzily about the lantern. At the instant he regretted that Will had appealed to him--regretted even that he had promised him the horses. He wished it had all come about without his knowledge--that Fletcher's punishment and Will's ruin had been wrought less directly by his own intervention. Next he told himself that he would have stopped this thing had it been possible, and then with the thought he became clearly aware that it was still in his power to prevent the marriage. He had but to walk across the fields to Fletcher's door, and before sunrise the foolish pair would be safely home again. Will would probably be sent off to recover, and Molly would go back to making b.u.t.ter and to flirting with Fred Turner.

On the other hand, let the marriage but take place--let him keep silent until the morning--and the revenge of which he had dreamed since childhood would be accomplished at a single stroke. Bill Fletcher's many sins would find him out in a night.

The big moth, fluttering aimlessly from the lantern, flew suddenly in his face, and the touch startled him from his abstraction. With a laugh he shook the responsibility from his shoulders, and then, as he hesitated again for a breath, the racial instinct arose, as usual, to decide the issue.

Taking a dime from his pocket, he tossed it lightly in the air and waited for it to fall.

"Heads for me, tails for Fletcher."

The coin spun for an instant in the gloom above him and then dropped noiselessly to the floor. When he lifted the lantern and bent over it he saw that the head lay uppermost.

CHAPTER VIII. In Which Christopher Triumphs

When he entered the house a little later Cynthia met him in the kitchen doorway with an anxious frown.

"I heard a noise, Christopher. What was it?"

"A man wanted me about something. How is mother resting?"

"Not well. Her dreams trouble her. She grows weaker every day, and the few hours she insists upon spending in her chair tire her dreadfully."

"There is nothing that she needs, you say?"

"No; nothing. She has never felt our poverty for an instant."

The furrow between his eyebrows grew deeper.

"And you?" he asked abruptly, regarding her fixedly with his intent gaze. "What under heaven are you up to at this hour?"

Glancing down at the ironing-board before her, she flushed painfully through the drawn grayness of her face.

"I had a little ironing to do," she answered, "and I wanted it all finished to-night. Mother needs me in the day."

Pushing her aside, he seized the iron and ran it in a few hasty strokes over the rough-dry garment which she had spread on the board. "Go to bed and leave these things alone," he insisted.

"Oh, Christopher, you'll spoil it!" cried Cynthia, clutching his arm.

He returned the iron to the stand and met her reproachful look with a gesture of annoyance. "Well, I'm going to sleep, if you aren't," he said, and treading as lightly as possible in his heavy boots, went along the little platform and upstairs to his garret room.

Once inside, he undressed hastily and flung himself upon the bed, but his thoughts spun like a top, and wild visions of Will, of Fletcher, and of Molly Peterkin whirled confusedly through his brain. When at last he lost consciousness for a time, it was to dream restlessly of the cry of a hare that the hounds had caught and mangled. The scream of the creature came to him from a thick wood, which was intersected by innumerable small green paths, and when he tried vainly to go to the rescue he lost himself again and again in the wilderness of trails. Back and forth he turned in the twilight, crushing down the underbrush and striking in a frenzy at the forked boughs the trees wrapped about him, while suddenly the piteous voice became that of a woman in distress.

Then, with a great effort, he fought his way through the wood, to see the mangled hare change slowly into Maria Fletcher, who opened her eyes to ask him why he hunted her to death.

He awoke in a cold sweat, and, sitting up in bed, leaned for air toward the open window. A dull ache gnawed at his heart, and his lips were parched as if from fever. Again it seemed to him that Maria entreated him across the distance.

When he came down at sunrise he found Jerry Green awaiting him with the horses, and learned in answer to his questions that the lovers had taken a light wagon at the cross-roads and driven on to town.

"They were that bent on gittin' thar that they couldn't even wait for the stage, " the man told him. "Well, they're a merry pair, an' I hope good will come of it--seein' as 'tain't no harm to hope."

"Oh, they think so now, at any rate," Christopher replied, as he turned away to unharness the patient horses.

At breakfast, an hour or two later, he learned that his mother was in one of her high humours, and that, awaking early and prattling merrily of the past, she insisted that they should dress her immediately in her black brocade. When the meal was over he carried her from her bed to the old oak chair, in which she managed to keep upright among her pillows. Her gallant spirit was still youthful and undaunted, and the many infirmities of her body were powerless to distort the cheerful memories behind her sightless eyes.