The Bondboy Page 29

  And Joe Newbolt drew a long, free breath, while relief moved over his troubled face like a waking wind at dawn. He leaned back in his chair, taking another long breath, as if life had just been granted him at a moment when hope seemed gone.

  The effect of that sudden warning had been stunning. For a few seconds the principals in the dramatic picture held their poses, as if standing for the camera. And then the lowering tempest in Judge Maxwell’s face broke.

  “Mr. Sheriff, find out who that was and bring him or her forward!” he commanded.

  There was no need for the sheriff to search on Joe’s behalf. Quick as a bolt his eyes had found her, and doubt was consumed in the glance which passed between them. Now he knew all that he had struggled to know of everything. First of all, there stood the justification of his long endurance. He had been right. She had understood, and her opinion was valid against the world.

  Even as the judge was speaking, Alice Price rose.

  “It was I, sir,” she confessed, no shame in her manner, no contrition in her voice.

  But the ladies in the court-room were shocked for her, as ladies the world over are shocked when one of their sisters does an unaccountably human thing. They made their feelings public by scandalized aspirations, suppressed oh-h-hs, and deprecative shakings of the heads.

  The male portion of the audience was moved in another direction. Their faces were blank with stunned surprise, with little gleams of admiration moving a forest of whiskers here and there whose owners did not know who the speaker was.

  But to everybody who knew Alice Price the thing was unaccountable. It was worse than interrupting the preacher in the middle of a prayer, and the last thing that Alice Price, with all her breeding, blood and education would have been expected to do. That was what came of leveling oneself to the plane of common people and “pore” folks, and visiting them in jail, they said to one another through their wide-stretched eyes.

  Alice went forward and stood before the railing. The prosecuting attorney drew out a chair and offered it to Mrs. Newbolt, who sat, staring at Alice with no man knew what in her heart. Her face was a strange index of disappointment, surprise, and vexation. She said nothing, and Hammer, glowing with the dawning of hope of something that he could not well define, squared around and gave Alice a large, fat smile.

  Judge Maxwell regarded her with more surprise than severity, it appeared. He adjusted his glasses, bowed his neck to look over them, frowned, and cleared his throat. And poor old Colonel Price, overwhelmed entirely by this untoward breach of his daughter’s, stood beside Captain Taylor shaking his old white head as if he was undone forever.

  “I am surprised at this demonstration, Miss Price,” said the judge. “Coming from one of your standing in this community, it is doubly shocking, for your position in society should be, of itself, a guarantee of your loyalty to the established organization of order. It should be your endeavor to uphold rather than defeat, the ends of justice.

  “The defendant at the bar has the benefit of counsel, who is competent, we believe, to advise him. Your admonition was altogether out of place. I am pained and humiliated for you, Miss Price.

  “This breach is one which could not, ordinarily, be passed over simply with a reprimand. But, allowing for the impetuosity of youth, and the emotion of the moment, the court will excuse you with this. Similar outbreaks must be guarded against, and any further demonstration will be dealt with severely. Gentlemen, proceed with the case.”

  Alice stood through the judge’s lecture unflinchingly. Her face was pale, for she realized the enormity of her transgression, but there was neither fear nor regret in her heart. She met the judge’s eyes with honest courage, and bowed her head in acknowledgment of his leniency when he dismissed her.

  From her seat she smiled, faintly above the tremor of her breast, to Joe. She was not ashamed of what she had done, she had no defense to make for her words. Love is its own justification, it wants no advocate to plead for it before the bar of established usage. Its statutes have needed no revision since the beginning, they will stand unchanged until the end.

  The prosecuting attorney had seen his castle fall, demolished and beyond hope of repair, before a charge from the soft lips of a simple girl. Long and hard as he had labored to build it up, and encompass Joe within it, it was in ruins now, and he had no heart to set his hand to the task of raising it again that day. He asked for an adjournment to morning, which the weary judge granted readily.

  People moved out of the room with less haste and noise than usual, for the wonder, and the puzzle, of what they had heard and seen was over them.

  What was the aim of that girl in shutting that big, gangling, raw-boned boy’s mouth just when he was opening it to speak, and to speak the very words which they had sat there patiently for days to hear? What was he to Alice Price, and what did she know of the secret which he had been keeping shut behind his stubborn lips all that time? That was what they wanted to know, and that was what troubled them because they could not make it out at all.

  Colonel Price made his way forward against the outpouring stream to Alice. He adjusted her cloak around her shoulders, and whispered to her. She was very pale still, but her eyes were fearless and bright, and they followed Joe Newbolt with a tender caress as the sheriff led him out, his handcuffs in his pocket, the prisoner’s long arms swinging free.

  Ollie and her mother were standing near Colonel Price and Alice, waiting for them to move along and open the passage to the aisle. As Alice turned from looking after Joe, the eyes of the young women met, and again Ollie felt the cold stern question which Alice seemed to ask her, and to insist with unsparing hardness that she answer.

  A little way along Alice turned her head and held Ollie’s eyes with her own again. As plain as words they said to the young widow who cringed at her florid mother’s side:

  “You slinking, miserable, trembling coward, I can see right down to the bottom of your heart!”

  Joe returned to his cell with new vigor in his step, new warmth in his breast, and a new hope in his jaded soul. There was no doubt now, no groping for a sustaining hand. Alice had understood him, and Alice alone, when all the world assailed him for his secret, and would have torn it from his lips in shame. She had given him the sympathy, for the lack of which he must have fallen; the support, for the want of which he must have been lost.

  For a trying moment that afternoon he had forgotten, almost, that he was a gentleman, and under a gentleman’s obligation. There had been so much uncertainty, and fear, and so many clouded days. But a man had no excuse, he contended in his new strength, even under the direst pressure, to lose sight of the fact that he was a gentleman. Morgan had done that. Morgan had not come. But perhaps Morgan was not a gentleman at all. That would account for a great deal, everything, in fact.

  There would be a way out without Morgan now. Since Alice understood, there would be shown a way. He should not perish on account of Morgan, and even though he never came it would not matter greatly, now that Alice understood.

  He was serene, peaceful, and unworried, as he had not been for one moment since the inquest. The point of daylight had come again into his dark perspective; it was growing and gleaming with the promise and cheer of a star.

  Colonel Price had no word of censure for his daughter as they held their way homeward, and no word of comment on her extraordinary and immodest–according to the colonel’s view–conduct fell from his lips until they were free from the crowd. Then the colonel:

  “Well, Alice?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Why did you do it–why didn’t you let him tell it, child? They’ll hang him now, I tell you, they’ll hang that boy as sure as sundown! And he’s no more guilty of that old man’s death than I am.”

  “No, he isn’t,” said she.

  “Then why didn’t you let him talk, Alice? What do you know?”

  “I don’t know anything–anything that would be evidence,” she replied. “But he’s been a
man all through this cruel trial, and I’d rather see him die a man than live a coward!”

  “They’ll hang that boy, Alice,” said the colonel, shaking his head sadly. “Nothing short of a miracle can save him now.”

  “No, they’ll never do that,” said she, in quiet faith.

  The colonel looked at her with an impatient frown.

  “What’s to save him, child?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted, thoughtfully. Then she proceeded, with an earnestness that was almost passionate: “It isn’t for himself that he’s keeping silent–I’m not afraid for him on account of what they wanted to make him tell! Can’t you see that, Father, don’t you understand?”

  “No,” said the colonel, striking the pavement sharply with his stick, “I’ll be switched if I do! But I know this bad business has taken hold of you, Alice, and changed you around until you’re nothing like the girl I used to have.

  “It’s too melancholy and sordid for you to be mixed up in. I don’t like it. We’ve done what we can for the boy, and if he wants to be stubborn and run his neck into the noose on account of some fool thing or another that he thinks nobody’s got a right to know, I don’t see where you’re called on to shove him along on his road. And that’s what this thing that you’ve done today amounts to, as far as I can see.”

  “I’m sorry that you’re displeased with me, Father,” said she, but with precious little indication of humility in her voice, “but I’d do the same thing over again tomorrow. Joe didn’t want to tell it. What he needed just then was a friend.”

  That night after supper, when Colonel Price sat in the library gazing into the coals, Alice came in softly and put her arm about his shoulders, nestling her head against his, her cheek warm against his temple.

  “You think I’m a bold, brazen creature, Father, I’m afraid,” she said.

  “The farthest thing from it in this world,” said he. “I’ve been thinking over it, and I know that you were right. It’s inscrutable to me, Alice; I lack that God-given intuition that a woman has for such things. But I know that you were right, and time and events will justify you.”

  “You remember that both Mr. Hammer and Mr. Lucas asked Joe and Mrs. Chase a good deal about a book-agent boarder, Curtis Morgan?” said she.

  “Only in the way of incidental questioning,” he said. “Why?”

  “Don’t you remember him? He was that tall, fair man who sold us the History of the World, wasn’t he?”

  “Why, it is the same name,” said the colonel. “He was a man with a quick eye and a most curious jumble of fragmentary knowledge on many subjects, from roses to rattlesnakes. Yes, I remember the fellow very well, since you speak of him.”

  “Yes. And he had little fair curls growing close to his eyes,” said she. “It’s the same man, I’m certain of that.”

  “Why, what difference does it make?” asked he.

  “Not any–in particular–I suppose,” she sighed.

  The colonel stroked her hair.

  “Well, Alice, you’re taking this thing too much at heart, anyhow,” he said.

  Later that night, long after Joe Newbolt had wearied himself in pacing up and down his cell, with the glow of his new hope growing brighter as his legs grew heavier, Alice sat by her window, gazing with fixed eyes into the dark.

  On her lips there was a name and a message, which she sent out from her heart with all the dynamic intensity of her strong, young being. A name and a message; and she sped them from her lips into the night, to roam the world like a searching wind.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE SHADOW OF A DREAM

  Judge Little was moving about mysteriously. It was said that he had found track of Isom’s heir, and that the county was to have its second great sensation soon.

  Judge Little did not confirm this report, but, like the middling-good politician that he was, he entered no denial. As long as the public is uncertain either way, its suspense is more exquisite, the pleasure of the final revelation is more sweet.

  Riding home from the trial on the day that Joe made his appearance on the witness-stand, Sol Greening fell in with the judge and, with his nose primed to follow the scent of any new gossip, Sol worked his way into the matter of the will.

  “Well, I hear you’ve got track of Isom’s boy at last, Judge?” said he, pulling up close beside the judge’s mount, so the sound of the horses’ feet sucking loose from the clay of the muddy road would not cheat him out of a word.

  Judge Little rode a low, yellow horse, commonly called a “buckskin” in that country. He had come to town unprovided with a rubber coat, and his long black garment of ordinary wear was damp from the blowing mists which presaged the coming rain. In order to save the skirts of it, in which the precious and mysterious pockets were, the judge had gathered them up about his waist, as an old woman gathers her skirts on wash-day. He sat in the saddle, holding them that way with one hand, while he handled the reins with the other.

  “All things are possible,” returned the judge, his tight old mouth screwed up after the words, as if more stood in the door and required the utmost vigilance to prevent them popping forth.

  Sol admitted that all things were indeed possible, although he had his doubts about the probability of a great many he could name. But he was wise enough to know that one must agree with a man if one desires to get into his warm favor, and it was his purpose on that ride to milk Judge Little of whatever information tickling his vanity, as an ant tickles an aphis, would cause him to yield.

  “Well, he’s got a right smart property waitin’ him when he comes,” said Sol, feeling important and comfortable just to talk of all that Isom left.

  “A considerable,” agreed the judge.

  “Say forty or fifty thousand worth, heh?”

  “Nearer seventy or eighty, the way land’s advancing in this county,” corrected the judge.

  Sol whistled his amazement. There was no word in his vocabulary as eloquent as that.

  “Well, all I got to say is that if it was me he left it to, it wouldn’t take no searchin’ to find me,” he said. “Is he married?”

  “Very likely he is married,” said the judge, with that portentous repression and caution behind his words which some people are able to use with such mysterious effect.

  “Shades of catnip!” said Sol.

  They rode on a little way in silence, Sol being quite exhausted on account of his consuming surprise over what he believed himself to be finding out. Presently he returned to his prying, and asked:

  “Can Ollie come in for her dower rights in case the court lets Isom’s will stand?”

  “That is a question,” replied the judge, deliberating at his pause and sucking in his cheeks, “which will have to be decided.”

  “Does he favor Isom any?” asked Sol.

  “Who?” queried the judge.

  “Isom’s boy.”

  “There doubtless is some resemblance–it is only natural that there should be a resemblance between father and son,” nodded the judge. “But as for myself, I cannot say.”

  “You ain’t seen him, heh?” said Sol, eyeing him sharply.

  “Not exactly,” allowed the judge.

  “Land o’ Moab!” said Sol.

  They rode on another eighty rods without a word between them.

  “Got his picture, I reckon?” asked Sol at last, sounding the judge’s face all the while with his eager eyes.

  “I turn off here,” said the judge. “I’m takin’ the short cut over the ford and through Miller’s place. Looks like the rain would thicken.”

  He gave Sol good day, and turned off into a brush-grown road which plunged into the woods.

  Sol went on his way, stirred by comfortable emotions. What a story he meant to spread next day at the county-seat; what a piece of news he was going to be the source of, indeed!

  Of course, Sol had no knowledge of what was going forward at the county farm that very afternoon, even the very
hour when Joe Newbolt was sweating blood on the witness stand, If he had known, it is not likely that he would have waited until morning to spread the tale abroad.

  This is what it was.

  Ollie’s lawyer was there in consultation with Uncle John Owens regarding Isom’s will. Consultation is the word, for it had come to that felicitous pass between them. Uncle John could communicate his thoughts freely to his fellow-beings again, and receive theirs intelligently.

  All this had been wrought not by a miracle, but by the systematic preparation of the attorney, who was determined to sound the secret which lay locked in that silent mind. If Isom had a son when that will was made a generation back, Uncle John Owens was the man who knew it, and the only living man.

  In pursuit of this mystery, the lawyer had caused to be printed many little strips of cardboard in the language of the blind. These covered all the ground that he desired to explore, from preliminaries to climax, with every pertinent question which his fertile mind could shape, and every answer which he felt was due to Uncle John to satisfy his curiosity and inform him fully of what had transpired.

  The attorney had been waiting for Uncle John to become proficient enough in his new reading to proceed without difficulty. He had provided the patriarch with a large slate, which gave him comfortable room for his big characters. Several days before that which the lawyer had set for the exploration of the mystery of Isom Chase’s heir, they had reached a perfect footing of understanding.

  Uncle John was a new man. For several weeks he had been making great progress with the New Testament, printed in letters for the blind, which had come on the attorney’s order speedily. It was an immense volume, as big as a barn-door, as Uncle John facetiously wrote on his slate, and when he read it he sat at the table littered over with his interlocked rings of wood, and his figures of beast and female angels or demons, which, not yet determined.

  The sun had come out for him again, at the clouded end of his life. It reached him through the points of his fingers, and warmed him to the farthest spot, and its welcome was the greater because his night had been long and its rising late.