The Prodigal Judge Part 58

"Wait!" cried Hicks. "You go to Colonel Fentress."

"Let him up, Mr. Cavendish; that's all we want to mow," said the judge.

CHAPTER XXIX. COLONEL FENTRESS

The judge had not forgotten his ghost, the ghost he had seen in Mr.

Saul's office that day he went to the court-house on business for Charley Norton. Working or idling--princ.i.p.ally the latter--drunk or sober--princ.i.p.ally the former--the ghost, otherwise Colonel Fentress, had preserved a place in his thoughts, and now as he moved stolidly up the drive toward Fentress' big white house on the hill with Mahaffy, Cavendish, and Yancy trailing in his wake, memories of what had once been living and vital crowded in upon him. Some sense of the wreck that littered the long years, and the shame of the open shame that had swept away pride and self-respect, came back to him out of the past.

He only paused when he stood on the portico before Fentress' open door.

He glanced about him at the wide fields, bounded by the distant timber lands that hid gloomy bottoms, at the great log barns in the hollow to his right; at the huddle of whitewashed cabins beyond; then with his big fist he reached in and pounded on the door. The blows echoed loudly through the silent house, and an instant later Fentress' tall, spare figure was seen advancing from the far end of the hall.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"Judge Price--Colonel Fentress" said the judge.

"Judge Price," uncertainly, and still advancing.

"I had flattered myself that you must have heard of me," said the judge.

"I think I have," said Fentress, pausing now.

"He thinks he has!" muttered the judge under his breath.

"Will you come in?" it was more a question than an invitation.

"If you are at liberty." The colonel bowed. "Allow me," the judge continued. "Colonel Fentress--Mr. Mahaffy, Mr. Yancy and Mr. Cavendish."

Again the colonel bowed.

"Will you step into the library?"

"Very good," and the judge followed the colonel briskly down the hall.

When they entered the library Fentress turned and took stock of his guests. Mahaffy he had seen before; Yancy and Cavendish were of course strangers to him, but their appearance explained them; last of all his glance shifted to the judge. He had heard something of those activities by means of which Sloc.u.m Price had striven to distinguish himself, and he had a certain curiosity respecting the man. It was immediately satisfied. The judge had reached a degree of shabbiness seldom equaled, and but for his mellow, effulgent personality might well have pa.s.sed for a common vagabond; and if his dress advertised the state of his finances, his face explained his habits. No misconception was possible about either.

"May I offer you a gla.s.s of liquor?" asked Fentress, breaking the silence. He stepped to the walnut centertable where there was a decanter and gla.s.ses. By a gesture the judge declined the invitation. Whereat the colonel looked surprised, but not so surprised as Mahaffy. There was another silence.

"I don't think we ever met before?" observed Fentress. There was something in the fixed stare his visitor was bending upon him that he found disquieting, just why, he could not have told.

But that fixed stare of the judge's continued. No, the man had not changed--he had grown older certainly, but age had not come ungracefully; he became the glossy broadcloth and spotless linen he wore. Here was a man who could command the good things of life, using them with a rational temperance. The room itself was in harmony with his character; it was plain but rich in its appointments, at once his library and his office, while the well-filled cases ranged about the walls showed his tastes to be in the main scholarly and intellectual.

"How long have you lived here?" asked the judge abruptly. Fentress seemed to hesitate; but the judge's glance, compelling and insistent, demanded an answer.

"Ten years."

"You have known many men of all cla.s.ses as a lawyer and a planter?" said the judge. Fentress inclined his head. The judge took a step nearer him. "People have a great trick of coming and going in these western states--all sorts of d.a.m.ned riffraff drift in and out of these new lands." A deadly earnestness lifted the judge's words above mere rudeness. Fentress, cold and distant, made no reply. "For the past twenty years I have been looking for a man by the name of Gatewood--David Gatewood." Disciplined as he was, the colonel started violently. "Ever heard of him, Fentress?" demanded the judge with a savage scowl.

"What's all this to me?" The words came with a gasp from Fentress'

twitching lips. The judge looked at him moody and frowning.

"I have reason to think this man Gatewood came to west Tennessee," he said.

"If so, I have never heard of him."

"Perhaps not under that name--at any rate you are going to hear of him now. This man Gatewood, who between ourselves was a d.a.m.ned scoundrel"--the colonel winced--"this man Gatewood had a friend who threw money and business in his way--a planter he was, same as Gatewood.

A sort of partnership existed between the pair. It proved an expensive enterprise for Gatewood's friend, since he came to trust the d.a.m.ned scoundrel more and more as time pa.s.sed--even large sums of his money were in Gatewood's hands--" the judge paused. Fentress' countenance was like stone, as expressionless and as rigid.

By the door stood Mahaffy with Yancy and Cavendish; they understood that what was obscure and meaningless to them held a tragic significance to these two men. The judge's heavy face, ordinarily battered and debauched, but infinitely good-natured, bore now the markings of deep pa.s.sion, and the voice that rumbled forth from his capacious chest came to their ears like distant thunder.

"This friend of Gatewood's had a wife--" The judge's voice broke, emotion shook him like a leaf, he was tearing open his wounds. He reached over and poured himself a drink, sucking it down with greedy lips. "There was a wife--" he whirled about on his heel and faced Fentress again. "There was a wife, Fentress--" he fixed Fentress with his blazing eyes.

"A wife and child. Well, one day Gatewood and the wife were missing.

Under the circ.u.mstances Gatewood's friend was well rid of the pair--he should have been grateful, but he wasn't, for his wife took his child, a daughter; and Gatewood a trifle of thirty thousand dollars his friend had intrusted to him!"

There was another silence.

"At a later day I met this man who had been betrayed by his wife and robbed by his friend. He had fallen out of the race--drink had done for him--there was just one thing he seemed to care about and that was the fate of his child, but maybe he was only curious there. He wondered if she had lived, and married--" Once more the judge paused.

"What's all this to me?" asked Fentress.

"Are you sure it's nothing to you?" demanded the judge hoa.r.s.ely.

"Understand this, Fentress. Gatewood's treachery brought ruin to at least two lives. It caused the woman's father to hide his face from the world, it wasn't enough for him that his friends believed his daughter dead; he knew differently and the shame of that knowledge ate into his soul. It cost the husband his place in the world, too--in the end it made of him a vagabond and a penniless wanderer."

"This is nothing to me," said Fentress.

"Wait!" cried the judge. "About six years ago the woman was seen at her father's home in North Carolina. I reckon Gatewood had cast her off. She didn't go back empty-handed. She had run away from her husband with a child--a girl; after a lapse of twenty years she returned to her father with a boy of two or three. There are two questions that must be answered when I find Gatewood: what became of the woman and what became of the child; are they living or dead; did the daughter grow up and marry and have a son? When I get my answer it will be time enough to think of Gatewood's punishment!" The judge leaned forward across the table, bringing his face close to Fentress' face. "Look at me--do you know me now?"

But Fentress' expression never altered. The judge fell back a step.

"Fentress, I want the boy," he said quietly.

"What boy?"

"My grandson."

"You are mad! What do I know of him--or you?" Fentress was gaining courage from the sound of his own voice.

"You know who he is and where he is. Your business relations with General Ware have put you on the track of the Quintard lands in this state. You intend to use the boy to gather them in."

"You're mad!" repeated Fentress.

"Unless you bring him to me inside of twenty-four hours I'll smash you!" roared the judge. "Your name isn't Fentress, it's Gatewood; you've stolen the name of Fentress, just as you have stolen other things.

What's come of Turberville's wife and child? What's come of Turberville's money? d.a.m.n your soul! I want my grandson! I'll pull you down and leave you stripped and bare! I'll tell the world the false friend you've been--the thief you are! I'll strip you and turn you out of these doors as naked as when you entered the world!" The judge seemed to tower above Fentress, the man had shot up out of his deep debas.e.m.e.nt.

"Choose! Choose!" he thundered, his s.h.a.ggy brows bent in a menacing frown.

"I know nothing about the boy," said Fentress slowly.