The Just and the Unjust Part 44

His bloodshot eyes, fixed and staring, seemed starting from their sockets.

"The facts you want to know are hidden here!" He struck his hand savagely against his breast and lurched half-way across the room, then he swung about and once more faced the judge. "Why haven't you had the wisdom to keep out of this,--or have you expected to find some one it would be easier to p.r.o.nounce sentence on than North? Did you think it would be Gilmore?"

He scowled down on his father. It was appalling and unnatural, after all his frightful suffering, his fear, and his remorse which never left him, that his safety should be jeopardized by his own father! He had only asked that the law be left to deal with John North, who, he believed, had so wronged him that no death he could die would atone for the injury he had done.

Slowly but inexorably the full significance of Marshall's words dawned on the judge. He had risen from his chair dumb and terror-stricken. For a moment they stood without speech, each staring into the other's face.

Presently the judge stole to Marshall's side.

"Tell me that I misunderstand you!" he whispered in entreaty, resting a tremulous hand on his son's arm.

But the latter was bitterly resentful. His father had forced this confession, from him, he had given him no choice!

"Why should I tell you that now?" he asked, as he roughly shook off his father's hand.

"Tell me I misunderstand you!" repeated the judge, in a tone of abject entreaty.

"It's too late!" said Marshall, his voice a mere whisper between parched lips. He tossed up his arms in a gesture that betokened his utter weariness of soul. "My G.o.d, how I've suffered!" he said chokingly, and his eyes were wet with the sudden anguish of self-pity.

"Marshall!"

The judge spoke in protest of his words. Marshall turned abruptly from him and crossed the room. The spirit of his fierce resentment was dying within him, for, after all, what did it signify how his father learned his secret!

From the parlor there still came the strains of light music; these and Marshall's echoing tread as he strode to and fro, filled in the ghastly silence that succeeded. Then at length he paused before his father, and once more they looked deep into each other's eyes, and the little s.p.a.ce between was for both as an open grave filled with dead things--hopes, ambitions, future days and months and years--days and months and years when they should be for ever mindful of his crime! For henceforth they were to dwell in the chill of this direful shadow that would tower above all the concerns of life whether great or small; that would add despair to every sorrow, and take the very soul and substance from every joy.

The judge dropped into his chair, but his wavering glance still searched his son's face for some sign that should tell him, not what he already knew but what he hoped might be,--that Marshall was either drunk or crazed; but he only saw there the reflection of his own terror. He buried his head in his hands and bitter age-worn sobs shook his bent shoulders. After a moment of sullen waiting for him to recover, Marshall approached and touched him on the arm.

"Father--" he whispered gently.

The judge glanced up.

"It's a lie, Marshall!"

But Marshall only stared at him until the judge again covered his face with his hands.

When he glanced up a few moments later, he found himself alone. Marshall had stolen from the room.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SHRIMPLIN TO THE RESCUE

Beyond the flats and the railroad tracks and over across the new high, iron bridge, was a low-lying region much affected by the drivers of dump-carts, whose activity was visibly attested by the cinders, the ashes, the tin cans, the staved-in barrels and the lidless boxes that everywhere met the eye.

On the verge of this waste, which civilization had builded and shaped with its discarded odds and ends, were the meager beginnings of a poor suburb. Here an enterprising landlord had erected a solitary row of slab-sided dwellings of a uniform ugliness; and had given to each a single coat of yellow paint of such exceeding thinness, that it was possible to determine by the whiter daubs of putty showing through, just where every nail had been driven.

Only the very poorest or the most shiftless of Mount Hope's population found a refuge in this quarter. The Montgomerys being strictly eligible, it was but natural that Joe should have taken up his abode here on the day the first of the eight houses had been finished. Joe was burdened by no troublesome convictions touching the advantages of a gravelly soil or a southern exposure, and the word sanitation had it been spoken in his presence would have conveyed no meaning to his mind. He had never heard of germs, and he had as little prejudice concerning stagnant water as he had predilection for clear water. He knew in a general way that all water was wet, but further than this he gave the element no thought.

Thus it came about that his was the very oldest family seated in this delectable spot. The young Montgomerys could with perfect propriety claim precedence at all the stagnant pools that offered superior advantages as yielding a rich harvest of tadpoles. While the mature intelligence might have considered these miniature lakes as highly undesirable, the young Montgomerys were not unmindful of their blessings. As babies, clothed in shapeless garments, they launched upon the green slime their tiny fleet of chips, and, grown a little older, it was here they waded in the happy summer days. The very dump-carts came and went like perpetual argosies, bringing riches--discarded furniture and cast-off clothing--to their very door.

In merciful defiance of those hidden perils that lurk where sanitation and hygiene are unpractised sciences, Joe's numerous family throve and multiplied. The baby carriage which had held his firstborn,--Arthur, now aged fourteen,--was still in use, the l.u.s.ter of its paint much dimmed and its upholstery but a memory. It had trundled a succession of little Montgomerys among the cinder piles; indeed, it was almost a feature of the landscape, for Joe's family was his chiefest contribution to the wealth of his country.

There had been periods varying from a few days to a few weeks when the Montgomerys were sole tenants of that row of slab-sided houses; their poverty being a fixed condition, they were merely sometimes poorer. No transient gleam of a larger prosperity had ever illuminated the horizon of their lives, and they had never been tempted to move to other parts of the town where the ground and the rents were higher.

Residents of this locality, not being burdened with any means of locomotion beyond their own legs, usually came and went by way of the high iron bridge; their legal right of way however was by a neglected thoroughfare that had ambitiously set out to be a street, but having failed of its intention, presently dwindled to a pleasant country road which not far beyond crossed the river by the old wooden bridge below the depot.

It was the iron bridge which Mrs. Montgomery, escorted by the daring Shrimplin, had crossed that fateful night of her interview with Judge Langham, and it was toward it that her glance was turned for many days after in the hope that she might see Joe's bulk of bone and muscle as he slouched in the direction of the home and family he had so wanted only forsaken. But a veil of mystery obscured every fact that bore on the handy-man's disappearance; no eye penetrated it, no hand lifted it.

Soon after Montgomery's disappearance his deserted wife fell upon evil times indeed. In spite of her bravest efforts the rent fell hopelessly in arrears. For a time her pride kept her away from the Shrimplins, who might have helped her. To go to the little lamplighter's was to hear bitter truths about her husband; Mr. Shrimplin's denunciations were especially fierce and scathing, for here he felt that righteousness was all on his side and that in abusing the absconding Joe he was performing a moral act.

But at last Nellie's fortunes reached a crisis. An obdurate landlord set her few poor belongings in the gutter. Even in the most prosperous days their roof-tree had flourished but precariously and now it was down and level with the dust; seeing which Mrs. Montgomery placed her youngest in the ancient vehicle which had trundled all that generation of Montgomerys, drew her ap.r.o.n before her eyes and wept. But quickly rallying to the need for immediate action she swallowed her pride and sent Arthur in quest of his uncle, who was well fitted by sobriety, industry and thrift, to cope with such a crisis.

Mr. Shrimplin's only weaknesses were such as spring from an eager childlike vanity, and a nature as shy as a fawn's of whatever held even a suggestion of danger. To Custer he could brag of crimes he had never committed, but an unpaid butcher's bill would have robbed him of his sleep; also he wore a very tender heart in his narrow chest, though he did his best to hide it by a.s.suming a bold and hardy air and by garnishing his conversation with what he counted the very flower of a brutal worldly cynicism.

Thus it was that when Arthur had found his uncle and had stated his case, Mr. Shrimplin instantly summoned to his aid all his redoubtable powers of speech and fell to cursing the recreant husband and father.

Having eased himself in this manner, and not wishing Arthur to be entirely unmindful of his vast superiority, he called the boy's attention to the undeniable fact that he, Shrimplin, could have been kicked out of doors and Joe Montgomery would not have lifted a hand to save him. Yet all this while the little lamplighter, with the boy at his heels, was moving rapidly across the flats.

From the town end of the bridge, youthful eyes had descried his coming and the word was quickly pa.s.sed that the uncle of all the little Montgomerys was approaching, presumably with philanthropic intent. This rumor instantly stimulated an interest on the part of the adult population, an interest which had somewhat languished owing to the incapacity of human nature to sustain an emotional climax for any considerable length of time. Untidy women and idle-looking men with the rust of inaction consuming them, quickly appeared on the scene, and when the little lamplighter descended from the railway tracks it was to be greeted with something like an ovation at the hands of his sister-in-law's neighbors.

His ears caught the murmur of approval that pa.s.sed from lip to lip and out of the very tail of his bleached eyes he noted the expression of satisfaction that was on every face. Even the previously obdurate landlord met him with words of apology and conciliation. It was a happy moment for Mr. Shrimplin, but not by so much as the flicker of an eyelash did he betray that this was so. He had considered himself such a public character since the night of the McBride murder that he now deemed it inc.u.mbent to preserve a stoic manner; the admiration of his fellows could win nothing from the sternness of his nature, so he ignored the neighbors, while he was barely civil to the landlord. The big roll of bills which, with something of a flourish, he produced from the pocket of his greasy overalls, settled the rent, and the neighbors noted with bated breath that the size of this roll was not perceptibly diminished by the transaction.

Presently Mr. Shrimplin found himself standing alone with Nellie; the landlord had departed with his money, while the neighbors, having devoted the greater part of the day to a sympathetic interest in Mrs.

Montgomery's fortunes, now had leisure for their own affairs.

"Why didn't you send for me sooner?" demanded the little man with some asperity. "No sense in having your things put out like this when you only got to put them back again!"

"If Joe was only here this would never have happened!" said Mrs.

Montgomery, giving way to copious tears.

But Mr. Shrimplin seemed not so sure of this. The settling of the handy-man's difficulties had been one of the few extravagances he had permitted himself. His glance now fell on the small occupant of the decrepit baby carriage, and he gave a start of astonishment.

"Lord!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, pointing to the child. "You don't mean to tell me that's yours, too?"

"Three weeks next Sunday," said Mrs. Montgomery.

"Another one,--well, I don't wonder you've kept still about it! What's the use of bringing children into the world when you can't half take care of 'em?"

"I didn't keep still about it,--only I had so much to worry me!" said Nellie, with a shadowy sort of resentment at the little lamplighter's words and manner.

"It's a nice-looking baby!" admitted Mr. Shrimplin, relenting.

"It's a boy, see--he's got his father's eyes and nose--"

"I don't know about the eyes, but the nose is a durn sight whiter than Joe's! Maybe, though, when it's Joe's age it will use the same brand of paint."

"What you got it in for Joe for? He never done nothing to you!" said Joe's wife, with palpable offense.