The Mystery of the Locks Part 22

He went out soon after to prepare for the trip, and during his absence his wife hurriedly prepared his breakfast; and when he came back he wore coat and boots of rubber.

"What a wonderful housekeeper you are," he said, as he sat down to the table. "No difference what I crave, you supply it before I have time to worry because of the lack of it. But it is so in everything; I never want to do a thing but that I find you are of the same mind. It is very easy to spoil a boy, but I think the girls are naturally so good that they turn out well without much attention. You had no mother to teach you, but you took charge of my house with as much good grace and ease as though you had been driven to it all your life. I think a great deal more of your s.e.x because of my acquaintance with you. If my wife is not the most wonderful woman in the world, I shall never know it."

"I am almost ashamed to say it after your kind remark," his wife replied, "but I am afraid I do not want you to go over into the bottoms.

The thought of it fills me with dread, though I know you ought to go."

"And why not?" he said cheerfully. "I may be able to rescue some unfortunate over there, and there is nothing dangerous in the journey. I shall return before the night comes on,--no fear of that; but before I go I want to tell you again how much my marriage with you has done for me. I want you to keep it in your mind while I am away, that you may understand why I am glad to return. Until I came here and met you, I was as discontented as a man could possibly be, and I am very grateful to you. A life of toil and misery was my lot until you came to my rescue, and I thank you for your kindness to me. It occurred to me while I was out of the room just now, that the shadow under the trees is very much like the shadow I intended to penetrate when you came to me that dark night and blessed me. Once you came into the room where I was lying down, after returning from the country, though I was not asleep as you supposed. The gentle manner in which you touched my forehead with your lips; that was love--I have thought about it a thousand times since, and been thankful. The human body I despise, because of my familiarity with it; but such a love as yours is divine. I only regret that it is not more general. Love is the only thing in life worth having; if a man who lacks it is not discontented, he is like an idiot who is always laughing, not realizing his condition. Some people I have known suggested depravity by their general appearance; you think of your own faults from looking at them, and feel ashamed; but it makes me ambitious to look at you, and every day since I have known you I have been a better man than I was the day before."

He had finished his repast by this time, and they walked out to the front door together, arm in arm, like lovers.

"I have heard it said," he continued, as he tied up his rubber boots and made final preparations for starting, "that if a wife is too good to her husband, he will finally come to dislike her. _You_ are too good to me, I suppose, but it never occurs to me to dislike you for it; on the contrary, it causes me to resolve to be worthy of your thoughtfulness.

It will do me good to go into the shadow for a day; I will appreciate the sunshine all the more when I return. But if I should not return--if an accident should happen to me, which is always possible anywhere--my last thought would be thankfulness for the happiness of the past three months."

"But you do not antic.i.p.ate danger?" she said, grasping his arm, as if to lead him back into the house.

"There is no danger," he replied. "Even if my boat should fail me, I could swim back to you from the farthest point, for I love you so much.

You have never seen my reserve strength in action; if a possibility of being separated from you should present itself, I imagine I should greatly surprise my enemies. Never fear; I shall come back in good time.

I believe that should I get killed, my body would float against the current and hug the bank at the point nearest The Locks."

He kissed her quickly and hurried away, and his form was soon lost in the bend of the street.

How dark it was under the trees! The increasing dull daylight brightened everything save the darkness under the trees; nothing could relieve that. What if he should go into it never to return, as he had intended the night they were married! No, no, no; she wrung her hands at that thought, and ran towards the door, as if intending to pursue him and bring him back before he could enter it. But Allan was strong and trusty, and he would come back to laugh at her childish fears as she took his dripping garments at the close of the day, and listened to an account of his adventures,--no fear of that.

A half hour later she saw a boat with a single rower put out from the town, and make slow headway against the strong current to the other sh.o.r.e. Was he going alone? It was not dangerous; she persuaded herself of that, but she thought it must be very lonesome rowing about in such a flood; and he should not go out again, for he would do anything she wished, and she would ask it as a favor.

Why had she neglected to think of this, and ask him to go with others?

But it was too late now, for the rower soon reached the line of trees he had pointed out to her from the window, waved his white handkerchief, which looked like a signal of danger, and disappeared into the shadow.

CHAPTER XIX.

MR. WHITTLE MAKES A CONFESSION.

The first rays of the bad morning, as it looked in at Mr. Whittle's window, found that worthy busily engaged in cleaning and scouring his gun. It was not yet his bedtime, for of late he spent all of every night, instead of part of it, in prowling about--bent on mischief, _he_ said, but Silas Davy knew that Tug had a fierce desire to protect Allan Dorris, for whom he had taken such a strange fancy, from harm; and that night after night, whether the weather was good or bad, his friend kept watch around The Locks, carrying his gun in readiness for instant use.

Silas usually kept him company until he became sleepy, and knew that he must return in order to keep awake and attend to his work the next day; but Tug, who slept during the day, seldom deserted his post. He may have left his beat occasionally for an hour or two, but only to creep carefully up into the hills back of the house, where he crouched and listened beside the paths, and then crept back again.

A good many times he walked down to the hotel, always choosing an hour when he knew Silas would be alone in the kitchen, on which occasions he never failed to take a shot with his eyes up the alleys, and into all the dark places; but he did not remain long, so that almost every night, when Silas went to bed, he had the satisfaction of knowing that if the shadow should attempt to harm Allan Dorris, there would be an explosion loud enough to alarm the town.

Silas, who had been out on the bottoms the day before, came in late in the evening, and, throwing himself on the bed, he slept so soundly that when Tug appeared, late in the morning, from one of his vagrant tramps, he was not aroused. And there he lay now, in his clothes, sound asleep, his face as innocent as a child's, as his mind was.

As Tug scoured away on the gun, rubbing off the rust and dirt, he occasionally looked at Silas, and the thought no doubt occurred to him, that if there ever was a thoroughly unselfish, incapable, kind-hearted fellow, there he was, on the bed, asleep, and resting well.

"He'll soon be awake, though," Tug said aloud, looking up at the window, and noting the increasing light. "He can't sleep when it's light enough for him to work. He has been driven to it by his hard masters until he knows nothing else, and he has a habit of getting up at daylight which he can never overcome. Silas was ruined by too much work; I was ruined by too little of it, I suppose. Anyway, I'm ruined; n.o.body disputes that. I am so ornery that I am becoming ashamed of myself."

Mr. Whittle meditated a moment, and then putting down his gun he walked over to a piece of looking-gla.s.s, which was tacked against the wall, and took a long look at himself. The inspection was apparently unsatisfactory, for he shook his fist at the reflection, made a face at it, and muttered ill-humoredly as he walked back to his chair.

"If Davy didn't forget so easy," Mr. Whittle said aloud again, rubbing away on the gun-barrel, "what a fine man he would be! If he could make money as easily as he is good-natured, he would be a fine fellow; but they say he works to no purpose, and must have somebody to watch him, though he means well,--everybody says that. If Davy should be told to turn a crank, he would do it better than anybody, and keep at it longer; but the men who make money not only work hard, but use judgment, and Davy lacks judgment, poor fellow; they all say that. If the hotel should ketch afire he wouldn't put it out unless somebody told him to; he wouldn't think of it. But he means as well as any man in America; I can cheerfully say that for him. An ordinary man never opens his mouth without saying something mean; but if ever I heard Davy say a mean thing, or knew him to do a mean thing, may I become a preacher. Well, the talents must be divided, I suppose; for no person seems to combine any two of them. _I_ know enough, but somebody else has the honesty, the industry, the decency, etc., which I lack. Unfortunately, it does not follow that a sensible man is a square man or a good man. I'd rather trust a fool for honesty than a man with a big head, any day. The worst crimes I have ever heard of were the work of men cursed with more brains than conscience. I thought he couldn't sleep long after the sun was up."

Looking over at his sleeping partner, he saw that he was becoming uneasy, and soon he sat up on the edge of the bed, and looked around in bewilderment as he rubbed his eyes.

"Well, rogue, how do you feel?" Tug inquired, stopping his scouring.

"What time is it?" Davy inquired, with a show of excitement, and getting on his feet without answering the question.

"I should say it was five o'clock, Wednesday morning," Tug replied, looking out at the window, and then back at his companion, as if wondering at his nervousness. "Why?"

"I meant to remain awake to tell you of it last night," Silas replied hurriedly; "but I was so tired, from rowing all day, that I dropped off to sleep soon after I came in. I have seen the shadow!"

Tug sprang up from the low chair in which he had been sitting, and began to nervously fumble through his pockets, as if looking for ammunition.

"I was out in the bottoms with Armsby, yesterday," Davy continued, "and twice we pa.s.sed a man rowing about alone. We were not very close to him, but I am sure it was the shadow, and that he meant mischief. Each time when we encountered him he rowed away rapidly, and when Armsby hailed him he paid no attention."

Tug was much concerned over this news, for, after finding his ammunition, he went to loading his gun with great vigor.

"Could you see his short ear?" he stopped to inquire, after ramming down a great quant.i.ty of powder.

"No, his left side was from me, but I am sure it was the same man. And I am sure that the boat in which he rowed was the same one you took the little woman out of. I hurried here as fast as I could to tell you, but when I lay down on the bed to wait for you, I fell asleep. Armsby made me row all day while he kept a look-out for ducks. I am sorry I fell asleep."

Silas rubbed his sore arms, and looked very meek, but Tug was too busy making arrangements to go out to notice him.

"The impudence of the scoundrel," he said, as he poured in the shot. "I never thought to look for him in daylight. Which way did he go?"

Tug peered into the tube of the gun with his big eye, before capping it, as if expecting to find his enemy crouching down in the powder, but finding that the powder primed, he put on a cap, and stood ready to go out.

"Into the woods," Silas answered. "When we first met him, he was rowing toward town, but on seeing us he turned the other way. That was about noon, and just before night we saw him again, coming toward town as before, but he pulled off to the right when he met us, and disappeared under the trees. I expected you in every moment when I fell asleep, or I would have gone up to The Locks, and told Allan Dorris. We ought to tell him about this man, Tug. His appearance here so regularly means trouble.

Within a year we have seen him a dozen times, and each time he has been lurking around Allan Dorris. We really ought to do something."

In the emergency Silas did what he had done a hundred times in other emergencies--he said that something should be done, and folded his hands.

"Ain't I _trying_ to do something?" his companion answered testily.

"Haven't I tried my best to shoot him? What more can I do? But he has only been here seven times. Here is the record."

He handed the gun over to Silas, who saw for the first time that there were seven notches cut in the stock, the particularly long one representing the time that Tug had shot at the shadow, and missed.

The men had talked of warning Dorris a great many times before, but Tug had always argued that it was unnecessary; that it would only render him nervous and suspicious, whereas he was now contented, and very useful to the townspeople and his young wife. Silas had always been in favor of putting his friend on his guard against an enemy who seemed to come and go with the night, but Tug had stubbornly held out against it, and perhaps this was the reason he guarded The Locks so faithfully.

Sometimes he would only hear a noise in the underbrush; at other times he saw a crouching figure, but before deciding to fire at it, it would disappear, but there was always something to convince him that his old enemy was still occasionally lurking about the town. A few times he had seen him openly, as has been narrated, but there was always something in the way of the accomplishment of the purpose nearest his heart; the only purpose of his life. He did not know himself why he had taken such an interest in Dorris, nor had he ever attempted to explain it to Silas, but he admired the man, and the only ambition he had ever acknowledged was connected with the safety of the person he admired, according to his own confession, next to Rum and Devilishness, for not even Davy out-ranked the owner of The Locks in Tug's callous heart. And Dorris himself was not more pleased when his wife was praised than was the rusty old lawyer, and at her suggestion he had worked whenever he could get it to do during the winter which had just pa.s.sed; at copying, drawing legal papers, and at keeping books, for he was competent at any of these occupations. It is probable that had she asked him to go to work as a day laborer he would have consented, for she was kind to him in a great many ways, and often invited him to visit The Locks, when he appeared looking very much like a scarecrow, the result of his attempts at fixing up, and using his great eye, after arriving, to look around for refreshments, for he was always hungry. Being a noted character, when it became known that he had "reformed," and that he was patronized by the Dorrises, a great many others took pains to patronize him, and give him work of the kind he was willing to do, for he was still very particular in this respect. When at The Locks, if he threatened to drink too much, Mrs. Dorris took his gla.s.s and kept it, although her husband was usually in favor of "turning him on," as Tug expressed it, for he was very amusing when a little tipsy, and kept them in continued laughter by his dignified oddity.

"I will tell him to-day," Tug said, taking the gun into his own hands again. "He must not go into the bottoms unless accompanied by a party, and as he hasn't been over yet, he may take it into his head to go to-day. I will tell him in an hour; he won't be up before that time."

"Do you know, Tug," Silas said, "what I think of you?"

"Well, out with it. Let's have it."

"I think you are a better man than you pretend."

"It's a lie!" his companion replied fiercely, hitting the table a hard blow with his clenched fist. "It's a lie!"