The Ramrodders Part 18

"I'll take you," said the man; "but what sticks me is that you didn't stay right on board that train. It stops at Burnside regular, and it don't stop here at all."

"But it stopped to-day," remarked the Duke.

"I know it did, and that's what sticks me again."

The old man rose from the table and smiled down on him.

"Here's a good cigar, brother. I've often worked out many a puzzle while having a bang-up smoke."

He invited Harlan by a nod of the head, and they went out and strolled in the maple grove behind the house.

"I suppose you think by this time, bub, that I'm in my second childhood, and playing dime novel. But there are some things in politics that have to be done as gentle and careful as picking a rose petal off a school-ma'am's shoulder." The Duke chuckled and smoked for a time. "When I've had a job of that sort to do I haven't even talked to myself, Harlan. So you mustn't think I'm distrustful of you because I don't tell you what's on."

"I'm willing to wait," said his grandson.

"Learn your lesson, Harlan--the one I'm trying to teach you now. I never knew but one man who could keep his mouth shut under all circ.u.mstances when he felt it was his duty to do so. That was old Ben Holt. He's dead now. He fell off a bridge on his way to church and didn't holler 'Help!'

for fear of breaking the Sabbath. You don't find any more of that kind in these days--not in political matters. I'm not distrusting you, I say, but I'm teaching you the lesson. Keep your mouth shut till it's time to open it. I'm drawing this thing here strong on you, so as to impress it.

As for the other fellows--if I had got off the train at Burnside to-day the news would have been in every afternoon paper in the State. They'd only need that one fact to build fifty stories on--all different. _Most_ of those stories would have hurt; there'd have been one guess, at least, that would kill the scheme. Sit down here, and let's take it easy."

He sat at the foot of a tree, his broad straw hat beside him. He leaned his head against the trunk, and gazed upward and away from his grandson.

When the question came it was so irrelevant, so astonishing, that the young man gasped without replying.

"Harlan, how do you stand with the Kavanagh girl?"

The old man smoked on in the silence without removing his gaze from the leaves above his head.

"I want to confess to you, my boy, that your old grandfather made rather a disgraceful exhibition of himself the other day. But as I said then, a man will thrash and swear at a hornet and make an a.s.s of himself, generally, in the operation. The impudent little fool didn't realize what a big matter she was trifling with."

"Grandfather," protested Harlan, manfully, "that's no way to speak of a young lady. You ask me how I stand? I stand this way--I'll not have the child mentioned in any such manner--not in my hearing; and that's with all respect to you, sir."

"Young lady--child? Well, which is she?"

"I don't know," confessed Harlan, ingenuously. "And it doesn't make much difference."

"Sort of ashamed of me, aren't you?" inquired his grandfather. "A man that you've seen all the politicians catering to the last day or so, and small enough to bandy insults with a snippet of a girl! Well, bub, there's a lot of childishness in human nature. It breaks out once in a while. Cuss a tack, and grin and bear an amputation! We'll let the girl alone. I don't seem to get in right when she is mentioned. But I wanted to have you tell me that you don't intend to marry Dennis Kavanagh's daughter. You can't afford to do that, boy! Not with your prospects. And now I'm not saying anything against the girl. We'll leave her out, I say. It's just that she isn't the kind of a woman--when she gets to be a woman--that I want to see mated with you." He burst out: "Dammit, Harlan, I can see where you're going to land in this State if you'll let your old gramp have free rein! And the right kind of a wife is half the battle in what you're going into."

"Have you got that right kind picked out for me--along with the rest?

You talk as though you had."

It was said almost in the tone of insult. It might have been the tone--it might have been that the taunt touched upon the truth: Thelismer Thornton's face flushed. He did not seem to find reply easy.

"There's only this to say, grandfather. I know you're interested in me and in seeing me get ahead in the world. You pushed me into politics, and I'm trying to make good. I'm glad you did it--I'll say that now. I see opportunities ahead if I stay square and honest. But don't you try to push me into marriage. I'm going to do my own choosing there. And that doesn't mean that I'm in love with Clare Kavanagh, or intend to marry Clare Kavanagh, or want to marry her--or that she wants to marry me. That's straight, and I don't want to talk about it any more."

He stood up, and his tone was defiant.

"You'd better take a walk, bub," commended the Duke, quietly. "I'm going to nap for a little while. We may be up late to-night."

He picked up his hat and canted it over his face. "Get back here as early as five o'clock," he said, from under its brim.

They were away in the farmer's carryall at that hour, after a supper of bread-and-milk.

In the edge of the village of Burnside the Duke ordered a halt, and stepped down from the carriage. The evening had settled in and it was dark under the elms.

"Here's five dollars, brother. You've used us all right, and now so long to you."

"But I hain't got you to nowhere yet!" protested the farmer. He had finally decided in his own mind that these were railroad managers planning projects, with an eye on his own farm. He wanted to carry them where he could exhibit them to some one who could inform him.

But the Duke promptly drew Harlan along into the shadows, and a farmer hampered with a two-seated carriage is not equipped for the trail. They heard the complaining squeal of iron against iron as he turned to go back home.

"We've come here to call on a man," stated the Duke, after they had walked for a little time.

"On ex-Governor Waymouth, I suppose," Harlan suggested, quietly.

The old man chuckled.

"How long have you been suspecting that?"

"Ever since I heard Burnside mentioned, of course."

"Good! You guessed and kept still about it. You've got the makings of a politician, and you are learning fast. Now what do you suppose I'm sneaking up on Varden Waymouth in this way for?"

"You said I'd see for myself when the time came. I'm in no hurry, grandfather."

The Duke patted Harlan's shoulder. "You're one of my kind, that's sure, boy. I haven't got to put any patent time-lock onto your tongue. And I can't say that of many chaps in this State. You're a safe man to have along. Come on!"

The house was back from the street a bit--a modest mansion of brick, dignifiedly old. Tall twin columns flanked the front door and supported the roof of the porch. Harlan had never seen the residence of General Waymouth before, but that exterior seemed fitted to the man, such as he knew him to be.

He admitted them himself, when they had waited a few moments after sounding alarm with the ancient knocker. Framed in the door, he was a picturesque figure. His abundant white hair hung straight down over his ears, and curled outward at the ends; his short beard was snowy, but there was healthful ruddiness on his face, and though his figure, tall above the average, stooped a bit, he walked briskly ahead of them into the library, crying delighted welcome over his shoulder. His meeting with Thelismer Thornton had been almost an embrace.

"And this boosting big chap is Harlan--my grand-baby, Vard! Guess you used to see him at 'The Barracks' when he was smaller. Since then he's been trying to outgrow one of our spruce-trees."

The ex-Governor gave Harlan his left hand. The empty sleeve of the right arm was pinned to the shoulder.

"The old Yankee stock doesn't need a step-ladder to stand on to light the moon, so they used to say."

He rolled chairs close to each other and urged them to sit, with the anxious hospitality of the old man who has grown to prize the narrowing circle of his intimates.

"Smoke, Thelismer," he pleaded. "Stretch out and smoke. I always like to see you smoke. You take so much comfort. I sometimes wish I'd learned to smoke. Old age gets lonely once in a while. Perhaps a good cigar might be a consolation."

"So you do get lonesome sometimes, Vard?" inquired the Duke.

"It's a lonesome age when you're eighty, comrade. You probably find it so yourself. There are so few of one's old friends that live to be eighty."

Then they fell into discourse, eager, wistful reminiscences such as come to the lips of old friends who meet infrequently. The young man, sitting close in the circle, listened appreciatively. This courtly old soldier, lawyer, Governor, and kindly gentleman had been to him since boyhood, as he had to the understanding youth of his State, an ideal knight of the old regime. And so the hours slipped past, and he sat listening.

The calm night outside was breathlessly still, except for the drone of insects at the screens, attracted by the glow of the library lamp. A steeple clock clanged its ten sonorous strokes, and still the old men chatted on, and the Duke had not hinted at his errand.

The General suddenly remembered that he had in the cellar some home-made wine, and he asked the young man to come with him, as lamp-bearer.