"'F I may make so bold"--the thick voice of Rob Grimes floated back on a
beery chuckle--"some doxy be a-bouncing under him this 'ere moment.
Boy's had the look of a stud colt come a year now--blarst it to Jesus,
you can't 'old 'em beyant a certain age."
"None of that!" said Mr. Hibbs, who for courtesy would never have spoken
so to Grimes in the presence of Mr. John Kenny of Roxbury. Rob grunted,
uncrushed. "Reuben, hath Benjamin spoke any word to you lately to
suggest a disturbance or over-concern with--hm--with----"
"With the mounting of smocks? No, sir."
"Reuben, I await your apology. I remind you that your favored position
doth neither protect nor justify you in assuming the conversation of a
roustabout. From evil speech evil conduct. I am waiting."
"I'm sorry, sir," said Reuben, and discovered distractedly that he was,
a little. Shocking Mr. Hibbs was too cheap a victory. "I'm truly sorry,
Mr. Hibbs. I do speak heedless, and will try to mend."
The great shadow of Gideon Hibbs grunted forgiveness. It almost always
did. Uncle John, Reuben thought, is another who forgives much, and why
did I never think of _that_ before? It seemed to him that Uncle John,
frail and gouty and gray, was somehow closely with them here in the
dark. Some day, he thought, I shall be old--well, the devil with that!
Why think now of poor old Reuben Cory?
Because Ben will go where I cannot? Because an old man must regret the
flowers he never touched, mornings when he never saw the sun?
But if it is to be medicine--why, then I shall be going where he will
not. "_If I said, however, that living is a journey_"--oh, Mr. Welland,
what else could it be, and every morning a misty crossroads?
"Reuben--could Benjamin by chance have overindulged in liquor?"
"I doubt it, sir. Last Monday he did and so did I, but away from home I
believe Ben would be careful."
Rob Grimes snorted. Clearing his pug nose, maybe.
"You do reassure me somewhat."
Rob Grimes was calling back: "Mind a puddle here! Och--too bad! Best go
about, gentlemen!"
Reuben had already seen what lay under the glow of Rob's lantern, the
horrible bulge of the puffed belly, the straightened legs, the obscene
pool of blood at the nostrils. "Still warm," said Rob, kneeling, running
a hand down the miserable neck, in pity or perhaps only regret at the
waste of something useful. "Not of Roxbury," he said. "Know every-each
nag in the village. A chapman's likely, some louse-eaten chapman bound
he'd drag the last half-mile out of the poor old fart. Shit, look at
them ribs! A'n't had a fair meal in months."
"Reuben! What ails thee, boy?"
"Nothing," said Reuben, vomiting.
"Well"--Rob Grimes was ignoring the commotion--"well, the knackers'll be
along for 'm in the morning." The old man strode on a short way to wait,
his squat back shutting the lantern light from the corpse as he studied
the windy night.
"Let me be!" said Reuben, wincing at the sympathy of Mr. Hibbs' arm. "I
can't help it. It's the blood, that's all."
"So? Why, only the other day you cut your hand, and bound it up
yourself, no-way troubled."
"That was my blood."
"Mm. But----"
"Let me be! _Will_ you go on, Rob?"
Grimes walked on, maintaining silence for which Reuben loved him. Reuben
hurried, wanting to draw nearer that moving island of light.
"Sometimes," said Mr. Hibbs gently, "I imagine I can sense it, when you
have fallen to thinking of Deerfield."
"I try not to think of it overmuch."
"That's best of course." Mr. Hibbs sighed, as one whose overture of
kindness has been rejected, and Reuben was ashamed. "As you know, I call
myself a Seeker, the name I borrow from Mr. Roger Williams whose memory
I revere; many would not even call me a good Christian. But I would
venture to suggest, Reuben, that God is with you, his ways past finding
out."
"You are very kind, sir." And Reuben thought in a continuing
astonishment: As a matter of fact, he is.... He wished Rob Grimes would
set a stronger pace, but his best intelligence told him that the old
man's sturdy plodding was actually not slow, considering the darkness,
the need for sheltering the lantern and sending its light from side to
side so that they might watch both the right and the left of the road.
Maybe they were lost, the three of them, and always had been lost, lost
but following some difficult thread of purpose in this windy dark. In a
kindlier night they could have found the Great Bear slanting toward the
North Star. In a kindlier night there would have been no cause to fear,
as in this wilderness Reuben knew he was afraid.
"In my own life," said Hibbs, "I have not seen much of violence. I
cannot pretend to know how it was for you three years ago, except I know
it to be a thing beyond words of comfort. Nevertheless allow me to say,
Reuben, that your life, yours and Benjamin's, is yet at the spring."