“Ye hev got no call ter treat me that-a-way, Eli. Ye hev never hed no
call ter be afeard o’ me.”
The constable had forgotten his threat of serving papers on “a harnt.” He
trembled violently. He could hardly stand. He tottered to a bowlder near
by, and sat down. As he hesitatingly looked up at Jepson and cast his
eyes down once more, there was visible in his expression a surprise that
his old friend should still be standing there.
“I hev always wished ye well,” Jepson declared, with a swelling heart.
“Thanky, sir, thanky kindly,” said Eli Strobe, with a faltering tongue
and uncharacteristic humility.
Jepson detected something in the tone which he did not understand. He
cast a sharp glance at his interlocutor as he demanded, “Don’t ye know
me?” fearing that Strobe’s mental derangement included a failure of
recognition of familiar things and faces.
“Oh, mighty well, mighty well indeed,” the constable hastened to assure
him.
There was a momentary silence. Jepson hardly comprehended the restraint
which irked him. Whatever of pain he had anticipated in the interview,
he had never expected aught like this. He noticed that Strobe more than
once cast his eyes down the long winding curves of the red clay road,
stretching so far under the metallic lustre of that darkly yellow sky.
The constable was, however, too heavy a man to attempt flight, too far
spent by the agitation that rent his breath and heaved in his broad
chest. His judgment was still very excellent, and he adjusted himself
anew on the bowlder.
“Ef I ain’t wanted,” said Jepson, with a flare of his wonted arrogant
spirit, “say the word, an’ I’ll make myse’f sca’ce. I jes’ ’lowed,
though, ez mebbe ye mought hev a mind fur a few words, bein’ ez ye an’ me
war always frien’ly tergether. But I ain’t one ter want ter bide whar I
hev no place.”
Eli Strobe’s face could hardly have expressed more definitely than it did
his relief at this intimation that the termination of the interview was
subject to his wishes. He was, however, bent on insuring this if civility
might suffice. In all his political experience he had never shown more
suavity than now, when he said, with tremulous haste,—
“I’m obligated by yer comp’ny, sir.” Then he added, in a more natural
tone, “I hev been wonderin’ a heap ’bout’n ye lately,—I hev been studyin’
’bout’n ye mighty nigh all the time.”
“Nobody hev tole me that,” said Jepson, wondering to find him so
friendly, and still struggling with that vague, undiscriminated restraint
that hampered the conversation.
“I reckon nobody else hev viewed ye,” Eli Strobe said quickly, not
without a certain anxiety. Ambition was an elastic passion in his breast.
He was already piquing himself upon his unique opportunity, forgetting
Rathburn’s experience.
Jepson keenly felt the obvious fact that Marcella never mentioned him at
home. But it was only another pang, and he said doggedly to himself that
he knew so many pangs, another might hardly matter. He did not answer
directly. He said presently,—
“What war ye a-wonderin’ ’bout?”
“Ef—ef”—said Eli Strobe, a keen curiosity glancing out from under the
brim of his hat, contending with a fear of giving offense—“ef ye ever
’sociate now with them folks ye useter be so tuk up with, G’liath, an’
David, an’ Sol’mon, an’ them.”
Jepson hesitated.
“I wouldn’t call it ’sociatin’”—he paused—“not edzac’ly.”
“They be sorter stuck up, eh?” said Eli Strobe, with a grin of relish.
“I never did b’lieve ez worldly pride dies out ’fore ye git ter the nex’
worl’. It’s the main part o’ some folks. It’s all the soul they hev got,
thar pride,—the rest is body.”
Jepson, dazed somewhat by the queer turn the conversation had taken,
stood silent, till he was suddenly interrogated anew.
“Do ye set ez much store on Sol’mon ez ye useter?”
“I hev hed no call ter change my mind,” Jepson replied wonderingly, for
the eagerness of Strobe’s interest in gossiping of these antique worthies
was very fresh and immediate.
“Smart man?” Strobe nodded his own head as he asked the question, willing
to be convinced.
“That ain’t the word fur it,” said Jepson, the fascination of the subject
reasserting itself even in this stress of anxiety, “I hev been studyin’ a
heap lately ’bout the house he built”—
“Thar, now, what did I tell ye ’bout pride?” Eli Strobe broke in. “I’ll
be bound Sol’mon kerried the mem’ry o’ that thar house o’ his’n plumb
ter the house not built with hands; an’ he ain’t the fust ez clings ter
worldly deeds, an’ I’ll be bound he won’t be the las’.” He paused, with
a sudden look of consciousness on his face. The parallel was too patent
to escape the notice of so clever a man, ignorant though he was. He was
realizing that the important pride incident to the office of constable of
Broomsedge Cove was hardly meet equipment to bear to the golden shores.
But he was sturdily hopeful. “I’ll cure myself o’ that ’fore I land on
the further side o’ Jordan,” he muttered to himself with a chuckle, for
the humorous suggestions of the prospect did not altogether escape him.
“I ain’t goin’ ter cut no comical figger ’mongst the saints through pride
o’ bein’ constable o’ Brumsaidge. Naw, sir! Pa’son an’ me hev got ter
winnow me o’ that sure.”
The parson might have esteemed it a more difficult task, but Eli
Strobe, with a cheerfulness predicated on the possibility of securing
a spiritual mind in good season for spiritual needs, began to expand
into more personal curiosity; for Goliath and Solomon were, after all,
far-away subjects to his contemplation. Politics, perhaps, had rendered
him suspicious, and he had become inured to doubting on principle a
man’s claims for himself. He cast his old distrustful sidelong glance
at Jepson, freighted with a wish to say more than he dared,—to elicit
protestations by insinuating that his friend had not been so placed in
the other world as to know whether Solomon was as “smart” as he had been
proclaimed to be, or to associate with the best of the Biblical worthies.
“Do ye like yer new abidin’ place ez well ez yer old?” Strobe demanded.
“A hundred times better,” declared Jepson. “I ’lowed at fust I couldn’t
bide thar”—Strobe pricked up his gossip-loving ears—“through so many
old thoughts o’ old times. But I be useter ’em agin now, an’ they don’t
hender me none.”
Again there was silence. A star was shining in the yellow west beside a
flake of purple cloud. Mists shivered about the crags. High amongst them
a screech-owl shrilled.
“I wisht ye’d kem an’ spen’ the night”—Jepson began; he paused abruptly,
for Eli Strobe had sprung to his feet, with a white face, in which fear
and resolution were oddly blended; he was wrestling with a frightful old
superstition of the lures of a ghost to lead to hell; if he should follow
the spectre for a step, he fancied himself lost—“or,” added Jepson, “bide
ter supper.”
“Naw, naw!” Eli Strobe declined promptly. Then remembering his sedulous
civility, he continued: “They’ll be waitin’ fur me at home,—an’ mam an’
Marcelly air powerful partic’lar. I’ll meet up with ye agin somewhar, I
reckon. Good-night.”
Jepson stood in puzzled doubt, as the constable took his way with
athletic swiftness down the homeward path. More than once Strobe looked
backward, to see the motionless figure standing bareheaded amongst the
crags and the shifting mists, and turned instantly and walked on more
swiftly than before.
He was out of breath, and pale and chilly, when he reached home. Marcella
and Isabel were awaiting him in the passage between the two rooms, and
while the younger daughter ran in to announce his return to Mrs. Strobe,
Marcella came down the steps to meet him.
“Whar hev ye been, dad, so late?” she asked.
“Marcelly,” he said in a mysterious, low tone, as they stood together on
the porch, beneath the skeleton vines that flapped drearily in the wind,
“I dunno what got inter me this evenin’. I tuk ter misdoubtin’ ef—ef Teck
Jepson ever war kilt”—her heart gave a great joyous bound—“ef he ever
war dead. An’ I started out ter go ter that leetle graveyard o’ his folks
whar ye tole me he war buried,”—she convulsively clutched his arm,—“ter
see fur myse’f ef thar war enny new grave thar.”
“An’—an’—what did ye find?” she cried, elated.
He stared down at her in the closing dusk, bewildered by her voice and
manner. His tones were more huskily mysterious still. “I never got
thar—fur I met his harnt”—She gave a sharp exclamation, and then caught
one hand to her lips, as if to restrain the scream that might otherwise
escape.
“Tell on,” she said.
“Waal, I hed some words with the harnt; an’ ’twar comical how much ’twar
like Teck, a-settin’ up ter ’sociate with Sol’mon an’ them, whenst from
some words he let drap I know he war in the t’other place. I know Teck.
He could hev been mighty interestin’ this evenin’, ef he would. He tried
ter git me ter foller him, but I war too smart fur him,—tellin’ me how
proud Sol’mon air o’ the house he built.”
“Dad,” the girl gasped, mindful of the impending inquisition of lunacy,
“I ain’t axed ye fur nuthin’ fur a good while. Promise me one thing.”
“Waal, Marcelly?” he replied expectantly, but cautious.
“Promise me ye won’t tell nobody ’bout yer seein’ the harnt.”
His countenance fell. It was a sensation to retail, to make him the
joyful cynosure of all the gossips, when he should be once more able to
join his cronies at the forge or the store. But her pleading eyes were
on his face; his paternal heart stirred, and his affection could compass
even such self-denial.
“Waal, Marcelly, I promise—though”—
She would not wait for argument. “An’, dad, ef ennybody axes ye how ye
know Teck Jepson air dead, say yer darter Marcelly tole ye whar he war
buried.”
“Yes,” he interrupted, with his burly bass chuckle, “an’ I’ll say I
’lowed they wouldn’t hev buried him ’thout he war dead.”
The white light of the newly kindled tallow dip within the room streamed
out amongst the dusky brown shadows, and he went cheerfully in to his
supper.