The Incendiary Part 32

"A vitriol-throwing case?" asked s.h.a.garach.

"Read it for yourself," said the detective.

"At my leisure. We may as well start."

"Has any one a compa.s.s?" asked McCausland.

"Nonsense," replied Dr. Silsby. "Do I need a compa.s.s with the flora to guide me? There is the fern bed ahead of us, and, by the way, I think I'll gather a few more specimens."

"Not now, doctor," remonstrated s.h.a.garach, and the frightened women echoed him.

"Tut, tut," said the botanist. "Have I slept out o' night in the woods since I was so high to be frightened by a little miscalculation of time? Who asked you to come?" he said to the followers, and the coolness with which he rooted up several ferns actually rea.s.sured his timid companions. "I'll take your newspapers to wrap them in," said he to one of the boys, but McCausland interposed.

"Something else, doctor."

"My hands, then," said the botanist, cheerfully. And in fact he guided them out by his trained remembrance of the vegetation he had pa.s.sed almost as quickly and surely as the hound had led them in by his scent.

It was then Miss Senda Wesner proved to s.h.a.garach that for all her reputation as a chatterbox she could be prudent on occasion. For she selected a moment when s.h.a.garach was bringing up the rear, to slip off the arms of her escort and pluck the lawyer's sleeve.

"Do you know who he was, Mr. s.h.a.garach?" she asked.

"Who?"

"The crazy man, I saw him plainly on the top of the rock. It was the peddler in the green cart that used to come to Prof. Arnold's."

CHAPTER XLIII.

AN OLD SINGING SOLDIER.

"What will remind me of the summer while you are away, dear?" Robert had said to Emily one morning, little thinking that the sweet girl would treasure the saying for a whole day and end with a pitiful accusation to herself of "selfishness" for leaving him. Could she have consulted her own wish she would have put off the excursion then and there, but a stateroom had already been booked in the Yarmouth, Beulah Ware was looking forward joyfully to the trip and Dr. Eustis' orders had been imperative. So good Mrs. Barlow sensibly stamped her foot at the notion of her daughter's withdrawal and the maternal fiat went forth finally and irrevocably that Emily must go.

But Emily determined that while she was away the bare cell in murderers' row should not wholly lack touches of the midsummer of whose pa.s.sing glories Robert, their loyal votary, was cruelly denied a glimpse.

And so one day the carpenter came and plotted off a s.p.a.ce over a foot wide at the side of the cell, and the florist followed with a load of beautiful long sods rolled up like jelly cake, and little potted plants all in bloom. And the sods were laid down in the trough the carpenter had made, and places scooped out with a trowel for the roots of the plants, and presto, there was a flower bed all along the side that got the sunshine, for Robert's window faced toward the south.

There were twiggy verbenas and fuchsias of tropic coloring, the nappy-leaved rose geranium, less highly rouged than its scarlet-flowered sisters, and blue oxalis along the border, plaintively appealing for notice with its spray of tiny stars. And lest these should not insinuate the odor of the country sufficiently into Robert's senses a pot of sweet basil was suspended from the ceiling to give out fragrance like the live coal in an acolyte's censer. Robert had complained of sleeplessness. What was better for this than a pillow stuffed with prunings of a fir-balsam at night and a sweet-clover cushion by day, when he sat at his table and wrote down his thoughts on "The Parisian Police Theory of Concentration of Crime," or some other such momentous topic.

But the last day, when the finishing touch had been placed on this narrow bower, over which the shadow of the scaffold so imminently hung, while Emily was sprinkling the beds with her watering-jar, Robert had laid aside his pen and was drawing forth sweet music from the violin.

"How divine it will be, Emily," he said. "The ocean sail and the week at beautiful Digby!"

"I wish you were coming, Robert," she answered, sadly.

"We may arrange a voyage in September. That is the month of glory in the provinces."

Robert had never admitted entertaining a doubt as to his acquittal. It must have been the confinement and the ignominy that had worn him down and converted his nights into carnivals of restless thought.

"But I will be with you in imagination," he added, while Emily silently poured the fine spouting streams over thirsty leaf and flower. Poor little green prisoners! They, too, would miss the air and the sunshine and, perhaps, would reproach her, when she returned, with wilted stalks and withering petals.

While she hung her head a far-away voice stole over the high jailyard wall, through the narrow cell window, into the lover's ears. It was a tenor voice, not without reminiscences of bygone sweetness, though worn, and still powerful as if from incessant use. Something in its tones told the listeners that it was no common youth of the city trolling a s.n.a.t.c.h. For when do such sing, except in derision of song, with grating irony that is ashamed of the feelings to which true song gives expression? We are ashamed of our best impulses and proud of our worst, we cynical city folk! But this was a street singer, a minstrel, musical and sincere. Straining their attention, the lovers caught here and there the import of this ballad. Or was it a ballad repeated by rote? Was it not rather a recitative improvised as the impulse came, both words and music?

He sang of the southward march of armed battalions. Their ranks were full, their banners untattered, and the men shouted watchwords of joy when they beheld the battle-ground before them. A great chieftain stood mounted and motioned them into place with his brandished sword. Grant! Grim Grant! They echoed his name. Then came the thunder of artillery from distant hills, and the lines of the enemy's rifles were seen glistening as they advanced. The defenders did not linger, but rushed forward to meet them and their embrace was the death-lock of t.i.tans. Hurrah, the chivalry of the south give way! It is cavalry Sheridan who routs them! Then the sun stood at its meridian. It was the noon of all glory, for the northern crusaders, doing battle in the just cause. Oh, the chase, the rallies, the heroic stands, and the joyful return, with plunder! But the corpse-strewn field checked their paean. Sire and son lay clasped in death, facing each other. The garb of one was gray, of the other blue. Ambulances issued empty from the hospital tents, and rode back groaning with the wounded. Nurses knelt with water cups at the dying hero's side. And until night closed over, sorrow mingled with joy in that bivouac by the fresh-fought field.

A loud salvo of applause told that the singer was done. Emily could see in her mind's eye the ring at the sidewalk edge, arrested in the course of meaner thoughts or idle vacuity by his heart-moving story. The gift of Homer, in a humble degree, was his; and men to-day are not unlike what they were 3,000 years ago. Robert had long since hushed his violin and stood with bow suspended in air.

"Emily!" he said in a strange tone.

She looked at him and started. He was eying her so eagerly.

"Emily!" he repeated.

The bow dropped from his hand. He reached forward as if he would touch her.

"What is it, Robert?" she asked.

"The water-lily. You are still wearing it?"

"Still wearing it, Robert. I put it on this morning."

Robert uttered a cry.

"It comes back! It comes back!" he said. "The old singing soldier that I met at the park gate. He is blind and wears a brown shade over one eye. His hair is white when he takes off his cap and pa.s.ses among the crowd. I see him again! I see it all!"

Robert's gaze was far away. He was not looking at Emily, yet he heard her voice.

"When was this all, Robert?"

"That day, the day of the fire. I could not remember before."

She repressed a throb of joy. Was it indeed returning? G.o.d was good. He had at last answered her prayers.

"And the water-lily, Robert?"

"Do you not remember, Emily, that I brought you one that evening? It was the first of the season, I told you."

"I do--I do!"

"Search out the old gardener, who lives in the lodge at the west angle of the park. He will remember. 'This is the first of the season,' he said. He will remember the date. He will have kept some memorandum."

"And you talked with him, Robert?"

"We are friends of old. He will remember the incident--our stroll into the glen where the little pond glistens, my noting the one white flower floating among the pads, our poling the flat-bottomed boat from the bank and the courteous speech of presentation he made. 'For your sweetheart,' he said. Oh, it is as plain to me now as the sound of my own voice, Emily. How could I ever have forgotten?"

"It is Providence who sent us the old singing soldier," said Emily. "Let us thank Him for His mercy."

Then Robert ran over detail after detail of that afternoon, when he rambled from the house, burdened with the fresh grief of his uncle's death--seeing little, hearing little, mechanically following a familiar route, all his outer senses m.u.f.fled, as it were. The great shock of the calamity when he came home late at night had canceled even the feeble impressions that lingered, and not till the voice of the old singing soldier came to his ears once more was the impediment removed.

Now the events rushed upon him, few in number, but clearly, microscopically outlined. The sight of the lily brought up the image of the gardener. He could no longer be suspected of hiding himself after the fire or of secret escape with confederates, or of other conduct that might require concealment and a mask of affected forgetfulness.

"The last link of his chain is broken," said Emily, joyfully, meaning, no doubt, the great inspector's. This happy turn of affairs reconciled her more than anything else to her vacation trip, and it was a gladsome farewell the sweethearts took that day.

On her way through the city she heard again the chant of the old singing soldier and a gush of grat.i.tude impelled her to follow him. He was indeed blind and wore the brown shade as Robert had described. A little girl clung to his coat and guided him when he walked, and the cap he held out bore the initials of the Grand Army and was ribboned with silver cord. The bystanders stared at the sweet-faced lady who laid a bill in the maiden's hand and hurried off without waiting for her "Thank you," hurried off to acquaint s.h.a.garach of the glad, good news.

It was not until she reached the upper flight of the office stairs that she remembered that it was s.h.a.garach's suggestion that she wear a pond-lily now and then so as to start if possible the clogged wheels of her lover's recollection, as we shake a stopped watch to make it go.

There was a similar case, too, in "The Diseases of Memory."

"But it was heaven," she said, "that brought us the old singing soldier."

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE OCEAN NIGHT.

"Tristram!"

The artist started at his sister's voice. He had been lounging over the steamer's side watching a full-rigged ship in the offing. Its majestic sails glistened as white as snow, but the heaving motion from bow to stern was apparent even at that distance. For the sea was all hills and hollows, and the Yarmouth herself lay darkened under the shadow of a cloud.

"Let me break in on your reverie. This is my brother--Miss Barlow--Miss Ware."

"We shall have a storm," said Tristram, after the formalities.

"Oh, I hope not," cried all three ladies. They had become acquainted while watching the patent log on the saloon-deck stern, which Beulah Ware, who knew almost everything, had explained for Rosalie's information.

"It was due when we started," said Tristram.

"And you never told me," cried Rosalie.

"You would have postponed the trip, my dear."

"Make everything tight," came the cheery voice of the captain. "Get your wraps on, ladies. It's going to pour in a hurry."

"Do let us remain outside," cried Beulah. "I've nothing on that will spoil, under a waterproof."

The others a.s.sented, and Tristram and Beulah disappeared for a few moments, returning with mackintoshes and rubber cloaks.

"There, you look like fisher folk," said Tristram, when the ladies had pulled the cowls of their glazed garments over their heads.

"And romantic for the first time, I suppose," said Rosalie. "Tristram is a great stickler for barbarism, you know."

"Esthetically," said Tristram.

"He has positive ideas."

"Of negative value."

The rain had begun to spatter the deck beneath them and the cool wind was working its own will with their garments. They were almost alone on the quarter-deck. An officer eyed them loftily.

"That is the first mate," said Tristram.

"How can you tell?" asked Rosalie.

"Because he is so far off. The captain is always approachable. The first mate is rather distant, the second mate more so. The third mate is rarely visible to the naked eye."

"Hear that bell," cried Emily.

A ding-dong clangor resounded through the ship.

"Supper! All hands to supper!" piped the steward. "Early supper! Captain's orders! Early supper!"

"Hang the captain's orders!" said Tristram. "This is better than supper."

But the foamy crest of a great wave that was level with the bow was caught just then by the wind and hurled up in their faces. The ladies sputtered, drenched with the spray, and the water seethed at their feet. Of course they shrieked and there was nothing for it but to descend and repair to their staterooms to prepare for the supper.

The dishes were clattering and dancing like marionettes. Capt. Keen had acted wisely in ordering an early supper. If the sea increased it would soon be impossible to eat at all.

"Isn't this superb?" cried the enthusiast again, as the vessel perceptibly rose under them, but she fell so suddenly that he probably bit his tongue. At least for a moment his eloquence abated.

"Now to go above again," he said when at last the tipping of the dishes made satisfactory eating no longer possible. "What a rare quality portability is! The portable arts--music and poetry; the portable instruments--fiddles, flutes, etc.; the portable eatables (excuse the unhappy jingle)--oranges, bananas, biscuits."

Suiting the word to the action, he laid in a liberal supply himself and pressed as much more on each of the ladies. He was not so unpractical as he seemed, our friend Tristram, with all his badinage and transparent sophistries.

"But you are not seriously going out on deck?" cried his sister in some alarm, when he made for the stairs.

"And surely you are not going to remain in?" answered Tristram in feigned astonishment. "Lose this glorious sea picture? Atmosphere, nature's own murk; canvas, infinity; music furnished by old Boreas himself, master of Beethoven and Rubinstein; accompaniments, night, sleet, danger and the lightning."

"I fear we are philistines," said Beulah Ware; "we prefer painted storms and the mimic thunders of the symphony."

"Accompaniment, dry dresses," added Rosalie. Whereupon Tristram gallantly saw the ladies housed in his sister's cabin and left them, lunching on his portable eatables, but not a little anxious while he himself climbed up to his perch on the quarter-deck. The sea tumbled over the steamer when she cut her way into a billow, but Tristram had drawn on thick boots and felt prepared to rough it.

"Better lash yourself down," cried the captain warningly. The artist's answer was lost in the tempest.

There was little sleep for the pa.s.sengers on the Yarmouth that night. Stewards and matrons pa.s.sed about rea.s.suring them. The boat was seaworthy; everything was locked in; they could lie on their pillows with an absolute certainty of rising on the morrow with the Nova Scotia sh.o.r.e in view. Only they wouldn't. They dared not. And as Rosalie looked as timid as any one, her new acquaintances conspired to remain with her in her stateroom, all three sharing the two cots and getting what naps they could.