The Prodigal Judge Part 28

"It's like pouring water on a duck's back to talk to you, Price; nothing strikes in."

"On the contrary, I am at all times ready to listen to reason from any quarter, but I've studied this matter in its many-sided aspect. I won't say we might not do better in Memphis, but we must consider the boy. No; if I can find a vacant house in Raleigh, I wouldn't ask a finer spot in which to spend the afternoon of my life."

"Afternoon?" snapped Mahaffy irritably.

"That's right--carp--! But you can't relegate me! You can't shove me away from the portal of hope--metaphorically speaking, I'm on the stoop; it may be G.o.d's pleasure that I enter; there's a place for gray heads--and there's a respectable slice of life after the meridian is pa.s.sed."

"Humph!" said Mahaffy.

"I've made my impression; I've been thrown with cultivated minds quick to recognize superiority; I've met with deference and consideration."

"Aren't you forgetting the boy?" inquired Mahaffy. "No, sir! I regard my obligations where he is concerned as a sacred trust to be administered in a lofty and impersonal manner. If his friends--if Miss Malroy, for instance--cares to make me the instrument of her benefactions, I'll not be disposed to stand on my dignity; but his education shall be my care.

I'll make such a lawyer of him as America has not seen before! I don't ask you to accept my own opinion of my fitness to do this, but two gentlemen with whom I talked this evening--one of them was the justice of the peace--were pleased to say that they had never heard such illuminating comments on the criminal law. I quoted the Greeks and Romans to 'em, sir; I gave 'em the salient points on mediaeval law; and they were dumfounded and speechless. I reckon they'd never heard such an exposition of fundamental principles; I showed 'em the germ and I showed 'em fruition. d.a.m.n it, sir, they were overwhelmed by the array of facts I marshaled for 'em. They said they'd never met with such erudition--no more they had, for I boiled down thirty years of study into ten minutes of talk! I flogged 'em with facts, and then we drank--" The judge smacked his lips. "It is this free-handed hospitality I like; it's this that gives life its gala aspect."

He forgot former experiences; but without this kindly refusal of memory to perform its wonted functions, the world would have been a chill place indeed for Sloc.u.m Price. But Mahaffy, keen and anxious, with doubt in every gla.s.s he drained, a lurking devil to grin at him above the rim, could see only the end of their brief hour of welcome. This made the present moment as bitter as the last.

"I have a theory, Solomon, that I shall be handsomely supported by my new friends. They'll s.n.a.t.c.h at the opportunity."

"I see 'em s.n.a.t.c.hing, Mr. Price," said Mahaffy grimly.

"That's right--go on and plant doubt in my heart if you can! You're as hopeless as the grave side!" cried the judge, a spasm of rage shaking him.

"The thing for us to do--you and I, Price--is to clear out of here,"

said Mahaffy.

"But what of the boy?"

"Leave him with his friends."

"How do you know Miss Malroy would be willing to a.s.sume his care? It's scandalous the way you leap at conclusions. No, Solomon, no--I won't shirk a single irksome responsibility," and the judge's voice shook with suppressed emotion. Mahaffy laughed. "There you go again, Solomon, with that indecent mirth of yours! Friendship aside, you grow more offensive every day." The judge paused and then resumed. "I understand there's a federal judgeship vacant here. The president--" Mr. Mahaffy gave him a furtive leer. "I tell you General Jackson was my friend--we were brothers, sir--I stood at his side on the glorious blood-wet field of New Orleans! You don't believe me--"

"Price, you've made more demands on my stock of credulity than any man I've ever known!"

The judge became somber-faced.

"Unparalleled misfortune overtook me--I stepped aside, but the world never waits; I was a cog discarded from the mechanism of society--" He was so pleased with the metaphor that he repeated it.

"Look here, Price, you talk as though you were a modern job; what's the matter anyhow?--have you got boils?"

The judge froze into stony silence. Well, Mahaffy could sneer--he would show him! This was the last ditch and he proposed to descend into it, it was something to be able to demand the final word of fate--but he instantly recalled that he had been playing at hide-and-seek with inevitable consequences for something like a quarter of a century; it had been a triumph merely to exist. Mahaffy having eased his conscience, rolled over and promptly went to sleep. Flat on his back, the judge stared up at the wide blue arch of the heavens and rehea.r.s.ed those promises which in the last twenty years he had made and broken times without number. He planned no sweeping reforms, his system of morality being little more than a series of graceful compromises with himself.

He must not get hopelessly in debt; he must not get helplessly drunk.

Dealing candidly with his own soul in the silence, he presently came to the belief that this might be done without special hardship. Then suddenly the rusted name-plate on Hannibal's old rifle danced again before his burning eyes, and a bitter sense of hurt and loss struck through him. He saw himself as he was, a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, the utter travesty of all he should have been; he dropped his arm across his face.

The first rift of light in the sky found the judge stirring; it found him in his usual cheerful frame of mind. He disposed of his toilet and breakfast with the greatest expedition.

"Will you stroll into town with me, Solomon?" he asked, when they had eaten. Mahaffy shook his head, his air was still plainly hostile. "Then let your prayers follow me, for I'm off!" said the judge.

Ten minutes' walk brought him to the door of the city tavern, where he found Mr. Pegloe directing the activities of a small colored boy who was mopping out his bar. To him the judge made known his needs.

"Goin' to locate, are you?" said Mr. Pegloe.

"My friends urge it, sir, and I have taken the matter under consideration," answered the judge.

"Sho, do you know any folks hereabouts?" asked Mr. Pegloe.

"Not many," said the judge, with reserve.

"Well, the only empty house in town is right over yonder; it belongs to young Charley Norton out at Thicket Point Plantation."

"Ah-h!" said the judge.

The house Mr. Pegloe had pointed out was a small frame building; it stood directly on the street, with a narrow porch across the front, and a shed addition at the back. The judge scuttled over to it. With his hands clasped under the tails of his coat he walked twice about the building, stopping to peer in at all the windows, then he paused and took stock of his surroundings. Over the way was Pegloe's City Tavern; farther up the street was the court-house, a square wooden box with a crib that housed a cracked bell, rising from a gable end. The judge's pulse quickened. What a location, and what a fortunate chance that Mr.

Norton was the owner of this most desirable tenement.

He must see him at once. As he turned away to recross the street and learn from Mr. Pegloe by what road Thicket Point might be reached, Norton himself galloped into the village. Catching sight of the judge, he reined in his horse and swung himself from the saddle.

"I was hoping, sir, I might find you," he said, as they met before the tavern.

"A wish I should have echoed had I been aware of it!" responded the judge. "I was about to do myself the honor to wait upon you at your plantation."

"Then I have saved you a long walk," said Norton. He surveyed the judge rather dubiously, but listened with great civility and kindness as he explained the business that would have taken him to Thicket Point.

"The house is quite at your service, sir," he said, at length.

"The rent--" began the judge. He had great natural delicacy always in mentioning matters of a financial nature.

But Mr. Norton, with a delicacy equal to his own, entreated him not to mention the rent. The house had come to him as boot in a trade. It had been occupied by a doctor and a lawyer; these gentlemen had each decamped between two days, heavily in debt at the stores and taverns, especially the taverns.

"I can't honestly say they owed me, since I never expected to get anything out of them; however, they both left some furniture, all that was necessary for the kind of housekeeping they did, for they were single gentlemen and drew the bulk of their nourishment from Pegloe's bar. I'll turn the establishment over to you with the greatest pleasure in the world, and wish you better luck than your predecessors had--you'll offend me if you refer to the rent again!"

And thus handsomely did Charley Norton acquit himself of the mission he had undertaken at Betty Malroy's request.

That same morning Tom Ware and Captain Murrell were seated in the small detached building at Belle Plain, known as the office, where the former spent most of his time when not in the saddle. Whatever the planter's vices, and he was reputed to possess a fair working knowledge of good and evil, no one had ever charged him with hypocrisy. His emotions lay close to the surface and wrote themselves on his unprepossessing exterior with an impartial touch. He had felt no pleasure when Murrell rode into the yard, and he had welcomed him according to the dictates of his mood, which was one of surly reticence.

"So your sister doesn't like me, Tom--that's on your mind this morning, is it?" Murrell was saying, as he watched his friend out of the corner of his eyes.

"She was mad enough, the way you pushed in on us at Boggs' yesterday.

What happened back in North Carolina, Murrell, anyhow?"

"Never you mind what happened."

"Well, it's none of my business, I reckon; she'll have to look out for herself, she's nothing to me but a pest sand a nuisance--I've been more bothered since she came back than I've been in years! I'd give a good deal to be rid of her," said Ware, greatly depressed as he recalled the extraordinary demands Betty had made.

"Make it worth my while and I'll take her off your hands," and Murrell laughed.

Tom favored him with a sullen stare.

"You'd better get rid of that notion--of all fool nonsense, this love business is the worst! I can't see the slightest d.a.m.n difference between one good looking girl and another. I wish every one was as sensible as I am," he lamented. "I wouldn't miss a meal, or ten minutes' sleep, on account of any woman in creation," and Ware shook his head.