the gates of the city hospital in Rouen. A short distance ahead, the
lamps of a cab, drawn up at the curbing, made two dull orange sparks
under the electric light swinging over the street. A cigarette described
a brief parabola as it was tossed from the brougham, and a short young
man jumped out and entered the gates, then paused and spoke to the
driver of the cab.
“Did you bring Mr. Barrett here?”
“Yes, sir,” answered the driver; “him and two other gentlemen.”
Lighting another cigarette, from which he drew but two inspirations
before he threw it away, the young man proceeded quickly up the walk.
As he ascended the short flight of steps which led to the main doors,
he panted a little, in a way which suggested that (although his
white waistcoat outlined an ellipse still respectable) a crescendo of
portliness was playing diminuendo with his youth. And, though his
walk was brisk, it was not lively. The expression of his very red face
indicated that his briskness was spurred by anxiety, and a fattish groan
he emitted on the top step added the impression that his comfortable
body protested against the mental spur. In the hall he removed his
narrow-brimmed straw hat and presented a rotund and amiable head,
from the top of which his auburn hair seemed to retire with a sense of
defeat; it fell back, however, not in confusion, but in perfect order,
and the sparse pink mist left upon his crown gave, by a supreme effort,
an effect of arrangement, so that an imaginative observer would have
declared that there was a part down the middle. The gentleman's plump
face bore a grave and troubled expression, and gravity and trouble were
patent in all the lines of his figure and in every gesture; in the way
he turned his head; in the uneasy shifting of his hat from one hand to
the other and in his fanning himself with it in a nervous fashion;
and in his small, blue eyes, which did not twinkle behind his rimless
glasses and looked unused to not twinkling. His gravity clothed him
like an ill-fitting coat; or, possibly, he might have reminded the
imaginative observer, just now conjured up, of a music-box set to
turning its cylinder backwards.
He spoke to an attendant, and was directed to an office, which he
entered without delay. There were five men in the room, three of them
engaged in conversation near the door; another, a young surgeon, was
writing at a desk; the fifth drowsily nodding on a sofa. The newcomer
bowed as he entered.
“Mr. Barrett?” he said inquiringly.
One of the men near the door turned about. “Yes, sir,” he answered, with
a stem disfavor of the applicant; a disfavor possibly a perquisite of
his office. “What's wanted?”
“I think I have met you,” returned the other. “My name is Meredith.”
Mr. Barrett probably did not locate the meeting, but the name proved
an open sesame to his geniality, for he melted at once, and saying: “Of
course, of course, Mr. Meredith; did you want a talk with me?” clasped
the young man's hand confidentially in his, and, with an appearance
of assuring him that whatever the atrocity which had occurred in the
Meredith household it should be discreetly handled and hushed up,
indicated a disposition to conduct him toward a more appropriate
apartment for the rehearsal of scandal. The young man accepted the
hand-clasp with some resignation, but rejected the suggestion of
privacy.
“A telegram from Plattville reached me half an hour ago,” he said. “I
should have had it sooner, but I have been in the country all day.”
The two men who had been talking with the superintendent turned quickly,
and stared at the speaker. He went on: “Mr. Harkless was an old--and--”
He broke off, with a sudden, sharp choking, and for a moment was unable
to control an emotion that seemed, for some reason, as surprising and
unbefitting, in a person of his rubicund presence, as was his gravity.
An astonished tear glittered in the corner of his eye. The grief of
the gayer sorts of stout people appears, sometimes, to dumfound even
themselves. The young man took off his glasses and wiped them slowly.
“--An old and very dear friend of mine.” He replaced the glasses
insecurely upon his nose. “I telephoned to your headquarters, and they
said you had come here.”
“Yes, sir; yes, sir,” the superintendent of police responded,
cheerfully. “These two gentlemen are from Plattville; Mr. Smith just
got in. They mighty near had big trouble down there to-day, but I guess
we'll settle things for 'em up here. Let me make you acquainted with my
friend, Mr. Smith, and my friend, Mr. Homer. Gentlemen, my friend, Mr.
Meredith, one of our well-known citizens.”
“You hear it from the police, gentlemen,” added Mr. Meredith, perking up
a little. “I know Dr. Gay.” He nodded to the surgeon.
“I suppose you have heard some of the circumstances--those that we've
given out,” said Barrett.
“I read the account in the evening paper. I had heard of Harkless, of
Carlow, before; but it never occurred to me that it was my friend--I had
heard he was abroad--until I got this telegram from a relative of mine
who happened to be down there.”
“Well,” said the superintendent, “your friend made a mighty good fight
before he gave up. The Teller, that's the man we've got out here, he's
so hacked up and shot and battered his mother wouldn't know him, if she
wanted to; at least, that's what Gay, here, says. We haven't seen him,
because the doctors have been at him ever since he was found, and they
expect to do some more tonight, when we've had our interview with
him, if he lives long enough. One of my sergeants found him in, the
freight-yards about four-o'clock and sent him here in the ambulance;
knew it was Teller, because he was stowed away in one of the empty cars
that came from Plattville last night, and Slattery--that's his running
mate, the one we caught with the coat and hat--gave in that they beat
their way on that freight. I guess Slattery let this one do most of the
fighting; he ain't scratched; but Mr. Harkless certainly made it hot for
the Teller.”
“My relative believes that Mr. Harkless is still alive,” said Meredith.
Mr. Barrett permitted himself an indulgent smile. He had the air of
having long ago discovered everything which anybody might wish to know,
and of knowing a great deal which he held in reserve because it was
necessary to suppress many facts for a purpose far beyond his auditor's
comprehension, though a very simple matter to himself.
“Well, hardly, I expect,” he replied, easily. “No; he's hardly alive.”
“Oh, don't say that,” said Meredith.
“I'm afraid Mr. Barrett has to say it,” broke in Warren Smith. “We're up
here to see this fellow before he dies, to try and get him to tell what
disposal they made of the----”
“Ah!” Meredith shivered. “I believe I'd rather he said the other than to
hear you say that.”
Mr. Horner felt the need of defending a fellow-townsman, and came to the
rescue, flushing painfully. “It's mighty bad, I know,” said the sheriff
of Carlow, the shadows of his honest, rough face falling in a solemn
pattern; “I reckon we hate to say it as much as you hate to hear it;
and Warren really didn't get the word out. It's stuck in our throats all
day; and I don't recollect as I heard a single man say it before I
left our city this morning. Our folks thought a great deal of him, Mr.
Meredith; I don't believe there's any thinks more. But it's come to that
now; you can't hardly see no chance left. We be'n sweating this other
man, Slattery, but we can't break him down. Jest tells us to go to”--the
sheriff paused, evidently deterred by the thought that swear-words were
unbefitting a hospital--“to the other place, and shets his jaw up tight.
The one up here is called the Teller, as Mr. Barrett says; his name's
Jerry the Teller. Well, we told Slattery that Jerry had died and left a
confession; tried to make him think there wasn't no hope fer him, and he
might as well up and tell his share; might git off easier; warned him to
look out for a mob if he didn't, maybe, and so on, but it never bothered
him at all. He's nervy, all right. Told us to go--that is, he said it
again--and swore the Teller was on his way to Chicago, swore he seen him
git on the train. Wouldn't say another word tell he got a lawyer. So,
'soon as it was any use, we come up here--they reckon he'll come to
before he dies. We'll be glad to have you go in with us,” Horner said
kindly. “I reckon it's all the same to Mr. Barrett.”
“He will die, will he, Gay?” Meredith asked, turning to the surgeon.
“Oh, not necessarily,” the young man replied, yawning slightly behind
his hand, and too long accustomed to straightforward questions to be
shocked at an evident wish for a direct reply. “His chances are better,
because they'll hang him if he gets well. They took the ball and a good
deal of shot out of his side, and there's a lot more for afterwhile, if
he lasts. He's been off the table an hour, and he's still going.”
“That's in his favor, isn't it?” said Meredith. “And extraordinary,
too?” If young Dr. Gay perceived a slur in these interrogations he
betrayed no exterior appreciation of it.
“Shot!” exclaimed Homer. “Shot! I knowed there'd be'n a pistol used,
though where they got it beats me--we stripped 'em--and it wasn't Mr.
Harkless's; he never carried one. But a shot-gun!”
An attendant entered and spoke to the surgeon, and Gay rose wearily,
touched the drowsy young man on the shoulder, and led the way to the
door. “You can come now,” he said to the others; “though I doubt its
being any good to you. He's delirious.”
They went down a long hall and up a narrow corridor, then stepped softly
into a small, quiet ward.
There was a pungent smell of chemicals in the room; the light was low,
and the dimness was imbued with a thick, confused murmur, incoherent
whisperings that came from a cot in the corner. It was the only cot in
use in the ward, and Meredith was conscious of a terror that made him
dread, to look at it, to go near it. Beside it a nurse sat silent, and
upon it feebly tossed the racked body of him whom Barrett had called
Jerry the Teller.
The head was a shapeless bundle, so swathed it was with bandages
and cloths, and what part of the face was visible was discolored and
pigmented with drugs. Stretched under the white sheet the man looked
immensely tall--as Horner saw with vague misgiving--and he lay in an
odd, inhuman fashion, as though he had been all broken to pieces.
His attempts to move were constantly soothed by the nurse, and he
as constantly renewed such attempts; and one hand, though torn and
bandaged, was not to be restrained from a wandering, restless movement
which Meredith felt to be pathetic. He had entered the room with a flare
of hate for the thug whom he had come to see die, and who had struck
down the old friend whose nearness he had never known until it was too
late. But at first sight of the broken figure he felt all animosity fall
away from him; only awe remained, and a growing, traitorous pity as he
watched the long, white fingers of the Teller “pick at the coverlet.”
The man was muttering rapid fragments of words, and syllables.
“Somehow I feel a sense of wrong,” Meredith whispered to Gay. “I feel as
if I had done the fellow to death myself, as if it were all out of gear.
I know, now, how Henry felt over the great Guisard. My God, how tall he
looks! That doesn't seem to me like a thug's hand.”
The surgeon nodded. “Of course, if there's a mistake to be made, you can
count on Barrett and his sergeants to make it. I doubt if this is their
man. When they found him what clothes he wore were torn and stained; but
they had been good once, especially the linen.”
Barrett bent over the recumbent figure. “See here. Jerry,” he said, “I
want to talk to you a little. Rouse up, will you? I want to talk to you
as a friend.”
The incoherent muttering continued.
“See here, Jerry!” repeated Barrett, more sharply. “Jerry! rouse up,
will you? We don't want any fooling; understand that, Jerry!” He dropped
his hand on the man's shoulder and shook him slightly. The Teller
uttered a short, gasping cry.
“Let me,” said Gay, and swiftly interposed. Bending over the cot, he
said in a pleasant, soft voice: “It's all right, old man; it's all
right. Slattery wants to know what you did with that man down at
Plattville, when you got through with him. He can't remember, and he
thinks there was money left on him. Slattery's head was hurt--he can't
remember. He'll go shares with you, when he gets it. Slattery's going to
stand by you, if he can get the money.”
The Teller only tried to move his free hand to the shoulder Barrett had
shaken.
“Slattery wants to know,” repeated the surgeon, gently moving the hand
back upon the sheet. “He'll divvy up, when he gets it. He'll stand by
you, old man.”
“Would you please not mind,” whispered the Teller faintly, “would
you please not mind if you took care not to brush against my shoulder
again?”
The surgeon drew back with an exclamation; but the Teller's whisper
gathered strength, and they heard him murmuring oddly to himself.
Meredith moved forward.
“What's that?” he asked, with a startled gesture.
“Seems to be trying to sing, or something,” said Barrett, bending over
to listen. The Teller swung his arm heavily over the side of the cot,
the fingers never ceasing their painful twitching, and Gay leaned down
and gently moved the cloths so that the white, scarred lips were free.
They moved steadily; they seemed to be framing the semblance of an old
ballad that Meredith knew; the whisper grew more distinct, and it became
a rich but broken voice, and they heard it singing, like the sound of
some far, halting minstrelsy:
“Wave willows--murmur waters--golden sunbeams smile, Earthly
music--cannot waken--lovely--Annie Lisle.”
“My God!” cried Tom Meredith.
The bandaged hand waved jauntily over the Teller's head. “Ah, men,” he
said, almost clearly, and tried to lift himself on his arm, “I tell
you it's a grand eleven we have this year! There will be little left of
anything that stands against them. Did you see Jim Romley ride over his
man this afternoon?”
As the voice grew clearer the sheriff stepped forward, but Tom Meredith,
with a loud exclamation of grief, threw himself on his knees beside
the cot and seized the wandering fingers in his own. “John!” he cried.
“John! Is it _you_?”
The voice went on rapidly, not heeding him: “Ah, you needn't howl; I'd
have been as much use at right as that Sophomore. Well, laugh away, you
Indians! If it hadn't been for this ankle--but it seems to be my chest
that's hurt--and side--not that it matters, you know; the Sophomore's
just as good, or better. It's only my egotism. Yes, it must be
the side--and chest--and head--all over, I believe. Not that it
matters--I'll try again next year--next year I'll make it a daily, Helen
said, not that I should call you Helen--I mean Miss--Miss--Fisbee--no,
Sherwood--but I've always thought Helen was the prettiest name in the
world--you'll forgive me?--And please tell Parker there's no more
copy, and won't be--I wouldn't grind out another stick to save
his immortal--yes, yes, a daily--she said-ah, I never made a good
trade--no--they can't come seven miles--but I'll finish _you_, Skillett,
first; I know _you_! I know nearly all of you! Now let's sing 'Annie
Lisle.'” He lifted his hand as if to beat the time for a chorus.
“Oh, John, John!” cried Tom Meredith, and sobbed outright. “My boy--my
boy--old friend----” The cry of the classmate was like that of a mother,
for it was his old idol and hero who lay helpless and broken before him.
The brougham lamps and the apathetic sparks of the cab gleamed in front
of the hospital till daylight. Two other pairs of lamps joined them
in the earliest of the small hours, these subjoined to two deep-hooded
phaetons, from each of which quickly descended a gentleman with a beard,
an air of eminence, and a small, ominous black box. The air of eminence
was justified by the haste with which Meredith had sent for them, and by
their wide repute. They arrived almost simultaneously, and hastily shook
hands as they made their way to the ward down the long hall and up the
narrow corridor. They had a short conversation with Gay and a word
with the nurse, then turned the others out of the room by a practiced
innuendo of manner. They stayed a long time in the room without opening
the door. Meredith paced the hall alone, sometimes stopping to speak
to Warren Smith; but the two officials of peace sat together in dumb
consternation and astonishment. The sleepy young man relaxed himself
resignedly upon a bench in the hall had returned to the dormance from
which he had been roused. The big hospital was very still. Now and then
a nurse went through the hall, carrying something, and sometimes a
neat young physician passed cheerfully along, looking as if he had many
patients who were well enough to testify to his skill, but sick enough
to pay for it. Outside, through the open front doors, the crickets
chirped.
Meredith went out on the steps, and breathed the cool night air. A
slender taint of drugs hung everywhere about the building, and the
almost imperceptible permeation sickened him; it was deadly, he thought,
and imbued with a hideous portent of suffering. That John Harkless, of
all men, should lie stifled with ether, and bandaged and splintered,
and smeared with horrible unguents, while they stabbed and slashed
and tortured him, and made an outrage and a sin of that grand, big,
dexterous body of his! Meredith shuddered. The lights in the little
ward were turned up, and they seemed to shine from a chamber of
horrors, while he waited, as a brother might have waited outside the
Inquisition--if, indeed, a brother would have been allowed to wait
outside the Inquisition.
Alas, he had found John Harkless! He had “lost track” of him as men
sometimes do lose track of their best beloved, but it had always been a
comfort to know that Harkless _was_--somewhere, a comfort without which
he could hardly have got along. Like others he had been waiting for John
to turn up--on top, of course; for people would always believe in him
so, that he would be shoved ahead, no matter how much he hung back
himself--but Meredith had not expected him to turn up in Indiana. He had
heard vaguely that Harkless was abroad, and he had a general expectation
that people would hear of him over there some day, with papers like the
“Times” beseeching him to go on missions. And he found him here, in his
own home, a stranger, alone and dying, receiving what ministrations were
reserved for Jerry the Teller. But it was Helen Sherwood who had found
him. He wondered how much those two had seen of each other, down there
in Plattville. If they had liked each other, and Harkless could have
lived, he thought it might have simplified some things for Helen. “Poor
Helen!” he exclaimed aloud. Her telegram had a ring, even in the barren
four sentences. He wondered how much they had liked each other. Perhaps
she would wish to come at once. When those fellows came out of the room
he would send her a word by telegraph.
When they came out--ah! he did not want them to come out; he was afraid.
They were an eternity--why didn't they come? No; he hoped they would not
come, just now. In a little time, in a few minutes, even, he would not
dread a few words so much; but _now_ he couldn't quite bear to be told
he had found his friend only to lose him, the man he had always most
needed, wanted, loved. Everybody had always cared for Harkless, wherever
he went. That _he_ had always cared for everybody was part of the
reason, maybe. Meredith remembered, now, hearing a man who had spent a
day in Plattville on business speak of him: “They've got a young fellow
down there who'll be Governor in a few years. He's a sort of dictator;
and runs the party all over that part of the State to suit his own sweet
will, just by sheer personality. And there isn't a man in that district
who wouldn't cheerfully lie down in the mud to let him pass over dry.
It's that young Harkless, you know; owns the 'Herald,' the paper
that downed McCune and smashed those imitation 'White-Caps' in Carlow
County.” Meredith had been momentarily struck by the coincidence of the
name, but his notion of Harkless was so inseparably connected with
what was (to his mind) a handsome and more spacious--certainly more
illuminated--field of action, that the idea that this might be his
friend never entered his head. Helen had said something once--he could
not remember what--that made him think she had half suspected it, and
he had laughed. He thought of the whimsical fate that had taken her to
Plattville, of the reason for her going, and the old thought came to
him that the world is, after all, so very small. He looked up at the
twinkling stars; they were reassuring and kind. Under their benignancy
no loss could befall, no fate miscarry--for in his last thought he felt
his vision opened, for the moment, to perceive a fine tracery of fate.
“Ah, that would be too beautiful!” he said.
And then he shivered; for his name was spoken from within.
It was soon plain to him that he need not have feared a few words, for
he did not in the least understand those with which the eminent surgeons
favored him; and they at once took their departure. He did understand,
however, what Horner told him. Mr. Barrett, Warren Smith, and the sleepy
young man had reentered the ward; and Horner was following, but waited
for Meredith. Somehow, the look of the sheriff's Sunday coat, wrinkling
forlornly from his broad, bent shoulders, was both touching and solemn.
He said simply: “He's conscious and not out of his head. They're gone in
to take his ante-mortem statement,” and they went into the room.
Harkless's eyes were bandaged. The lawyer was speaking to him, and as
Horner went awkwardly toward the cot. Warren said something indicative
of the sheriff's presence, and the hand on the sheet made a formless
motion which Horner understood, for he took the pale fingers in his own,
very gently, and then set them back. Smith turned toward Meredith, but
the latter made a gesture which forbade the attorney to speak of him,
and went to a corner and sat down with his head in his hands.
The sleepy young man opened a notebook and shook a stylographic pen so
that the ink might flow freely. The lawyer, briefly and with unlegal
agitation, administered an oath, to which Harkless responded feebly, and
then there was silence.
“Now, Mr. Harkless, if you please,” said Barrett, insinuatingly; “if you
feel like telling us as much as you can about it?”
He answered in a low, rather indistinct voice, very deliberately,
pausing before almost every word. It was easy work for the sleepy
stenographer.
“I understand. I don't want to go off my head again before I finish.
Of course I know why you want this. If it were only for myself I should
tell you nothing, because, if I am to leave, I should like it better if
no one were punished. But that's a bad community over there; they are
everlastingly worrying our people; they have always been a bother to
us, and it's time it was stopped for good. I don't believe very much
in punishment, but you can't do a great deal of reforming with the
Cross-Roaders unless you catch them young--very young, before they're
weaned--they wean them on whiskey, I think. I realize you needn't have
sworn me for me to tell you this.”
Homer and Smith had started at the mention of the Cross-Roads, but they
subdued their ejaculations, while Mr. Barrett looked as if he had known
it, of course. The room was still, save for the dim voice and the soft
transcribings of the stylographic pen.
“I left Judge Briscoe's, and went west on the pike to a big tree. It
rained, and I stepped under the tree for shelter. There was a man on the
other side of the fence. It was Bob Skillett. He was carrying his gown
and hood--I suppose it was that--on his arm. Then I saw two others a
little farther east, in the middle of the road; and I think they had
followed me from the Briscoes', or near there. They had their foolish
regalia on, as all the rest had,--there was plenty of lightning to see.
The two in the road were simply standing there in the rain, looking
at me through the eye-holes in their hoods. I knew there were
others--plenty--but I thought they were coming from behind me--the west.
“I wanted to get home--the court-house yard was good enough for me--so I
started east, toward town. I passed the two gentlemen; and one fell down
as I went by him, but the other fired a shot as a signal, and I got
his hood off his face for it--I stopped long enough--and it was Force
Johnson. I know him well. Then I ran, and they followed. A little ahead
of me I saw six or eight of them spread across the road. I knew I'd have
a time getting through, so I jumped the fence to cut across the fields,
and I lit in a swarm of them--it had rained them just where I jumped. I
set my back to the fence, but one of the fellows in the road leaned over
and smashed my head in, rather--with the butt of a gun, I believe. I
came out from the fence and they made a little circle around me. No
one said anything. I saw they had ropes and saplings, and I didn't want
that, exactly, so I went into them. I got a good many hoods off before
it was over, and I can swear to quite a number besides those I told
you.”
He named the men, slowly and carefully. Then he went on: “I think
they gave up the notion of whipping. We all got into a bunch, and they
couldn't clear to shoot without hitting some of their own: and there was
a lot of gouging and kicking--one fellow nearly got my left eye, and
I tried to tear him apart and he screamed so that I think he was hurt.
Once or twice I thought I might get away, but somebody hammered me over
the head and face again, and I got dizzy; and then they all jumped away
from me suddenly, and Bob Skillett stepped up--and--shot me. He waited
for a good flurry of lightning, and I was slow tumbling down. Some one
else fired a shot-gun, I think--I can't be sure--about the same time,
from the side. I tried to get up, but I couldn't, and then they got
together, for a consultation. The man I had hurt--I didn't recognize
him--came and looked at me. He was nursing himself all over; and
groaned; and I laughed, I--at any rate, my arm was lying stretched out
on the grass, and he stamped his heel into my hand, and after a little
of that I quit feeling.
“I'm not quite clear about what happened afterwards. They went away, not
far, I think. There's an old shed, a cattle-shelter, near there, and
I think the storm drove them under it to wait for a slack. It seemed a
long time. Sometimes I was conscious, sometimes I wasn't. I thought
I might be drowned, but I suppose the rain was good for me. Then I
remember being in motion, being dragged and carried a long way. They
took me up a steep, short slope, and set me down near the top. I knew
that was the railroad embankment, and I thought they meant to lay me
across the track, but it didn't occur to them, I suppose--they are not
familiar with melodrama--and a long time after that I felt and heard a
great banging and rattling under me and all about me, and it came to me
that they had disposed of me by hoisting me into an empty freight-car.
The odd part of it was that the car wasn't empty, for there were two men
already in it, and I knew them by what they said to me.
“They were the two shell-men who cheated Hartley Bowlder, and they
weren't vindictive; they even seemed to be trying to help me a little,
though perhaps they were only stealing my clothes, and maybe they
thought for them to do anything unpleasant would be superfluous; I could
see that they thought I was done for, and that they had been hiding in
the car when I was put there. I asked them to try to call the train
men for me, but they wouldn't listen, or else I couldn't make myself
understood. That's all. The rest is a blur. I haven't known anything
more until those surgeons were here. Please tell me how long ago it
happened. I shall not die, I think; there are a good many things I want
to know about.” He moved restlessly and the nurse soothed him.
Meredith rose and left the room with a noiseless step. He went out
to the stars again, and looked to them to check the storm of rage and
sorrow that buffeted his bosom. He understood lynching, now the thing
was home to him, and his feeling was no inspiration of a fear lest the
law miscarry; it was the itch to get his own hand on the rope. Horner
came out presently, and whispered a long, broad, profound curse upon
the men of the Cross-Roads, and Meredith's gratitude to him was keen.
Barrett went away, soon after, leaving the cab for the gentlemen from
Plattville. Meredith had a strange, unreasonable desire to kick Barrett,
possibly for his sergeant's sake. Warren Smith sat in the ward with the
nurse and Gay, and the room was very quiet. It was a long vigil.
They were only waiting.
At five o'clock he was still alive--just that, Smith came out to say.
Meredith sent his driver with a telegram to Helen which would give
Plattville the news that Harkless was found and was not yet gone from
them. Homer took the cab and left for the station; there was a train,
and there were things for him to do in Carlow. At noon Meredith sent
a second telegram to Helen, as barren of detail as the first: he was
alive--was a little improved. This telegram did not reach her, for she
was on the way to Rouen, and half of the population of Carlow--at least,
so it appeared to the unhappy conductor of the accommodation--was with
her.
They seemed to feel that they could camp in the hospital halls and
corridors, and they were an incalculable worry to the authorities. More
came on every train, and nearly all brought flowers, and jelly, and
chickens for preparing broth, and they insisted that the two latter
delicacies be fed to the patient at once. Meredith was possessed by an
unaccountable responsibility for them all, and invited a great many to
stay at his own house. They were still in ignorance of the truth about
the Cross-Roads, and some of them spent the day (it was Sunday) in
planning an assault upon the Rouen jail for the purpose of lynching
Slattery in case Harkless's condition did not improve at once. Those who
had heard his statement kept close mouths until the story appeared
in full in the Rouen papers on Monday morning; but by that time every
member of the Cross-Roads White-Caps was lodged in the Rouen jail with
Slattery. Homer and a heavily armed posse rode over to the muddy corners
on Sunday night, and the sheriff discovered that he might have taken the
Skilletts and Johnsons single-handed and unarmed. Their nerve was
gone; they were shaken and afraid; and, to employ a figure somewhat
inappropriate to their sullen, glad surrender, they fell upon his neck
in their relief at finding the law touching them. They had no wish to
hear “John Brown's Body” again. They wanted to get inside of a strong
jail, and to throw themselves on the mercy of the court as soon as
possible. And those whom Harkless had not recognized delayed not to give
themselves up; they did not desire to remain in Six-Cross-Roads. Bob
Skillett, Force Johnson, and one or two others needed the care of a
physician badly, and one man was suffering from a severely wrenched
back. Homer had a train stopped at a crossing, so that his prisoners
need not be taken through Plattville, and he brought them all safely
to Rouen. Had there chanced any one to ride through the deserted
Cross-Roads the next morning, passing the trampled fields and the
charred ruins of the two shanties to the east, and listening to the
lamentations of the women and children, he would have declared that at
last the old score had been paid, and that Six-Cross-Roads was wiped
out.
The Carlow folks were deeply impressed with the two eminent surgeons,
of whom some of them had heard, and on Tuesday, the bulletins marking
considerable encouragement, most of them decided to temporarily risk the
editor of the “Herald” to such capable hands, and they returned quietly
to their homes; only a few were delayed in reaching Carlow by travelling
to the first station in the opposite direction before they succeeded in
planting themselves on the proper train.
Meanwhile, the object of their solicitude tossed and burned on his bed
of pain. He was delirious most of the time, and, in the intervals of
half-consciousness, found that his desire to live, very strong at first,
had disappeared; he did not care much about anything except rest--he
wanted peace. In his wanderings he was almost always back in his college
days, beholding them in an unhappy, distorted fashion. He would lie
asprawl on the sward with the others, listening to the Seniors singing
on the steps, and, all at once, the old, kindly faces would expand
enormously and press over him with hideous mouthings, and an ugly Senior
in cap and gown would stamp him and grind a spiked heel into his hand;
then they would toss him high into air that was all flames, and he would
fall and fall through the raging heat, seeing the cool earth far beneath
him, but never able to get down to it again. And then he was driven
miles and miles by dusky figures, through a rain of boiling water; and
at other times the whole universe was a vast, hot brass bell, and it
gave off a huge, continuous roar and hum, while he was a mere point of
consciousness floating in the exact centre of the heat and sound waves,
and he listened, listened for years, to the awful, brazen hum from which
there could be no escape; at the same time it seemed to him that he was
only a Freshman on the slippery roof of the tower, trying to steal the
clapper of the chapel bell.
Finally he came to what he would have considered a lucid interval, had
it not appeared that Helen Sherwood was whispering to Tom Meredith at
the foot of his bed. This he knew to be a fictitious presentation of
his fever, for was she not by this time away and away for foreign lands?
And, also, Tom Meredith was a slim young thing, and not the middle-aged
youth with an undeniable stomach and a baldish head, who, by the
grotesque necromancy of his hallucinations, assumed a preposterous
likeness to his old friend. He waved his hand to the figures and they
vanished like figments of a dream; but all the same the vision had been
realistic enough for the lady to look exquisitely pretty. No one could
help wishing to stay in a world which contained as charming a picture as
that.
And then, too quickly, the moment of clearness passed; and he was
troubled about the “Herald,” beseeching those near him to put copies
of the paper in his hands, threatening angrily to believe they were
deceiving him, that his paper had suspended, if the three issues of
the week were not instantly produced. What did they mean by keeping the
truth from him? He knew the “Herald” had not come out. Who was there to
get it out in his absence? He raised himself on his elbow and struggled
to be up; and they had hard work to quiet him.
But the next night Meredith waited near his bedside, haggard and
dishevelled. Harkless had been lying in a long stupor; suddenly he
spoke, quite loudly, and the young surgeon, Gay, who leaned over him,
remembered the words and the tone all his life.
“Away and away--across the waters,” said John Harkless. “She was
here--once--in June.”
“What is it, John?” whispered Meredith, huskily. “You're easier, aren't
you?”
And John smiled a little, as if, for an instant, his swathed eyes
penetrated the bandages, and saw and knew his old friend again.
That same night a friend of Rodney McCune's sent a telegram from Rouen:
“He is dying. His paper is dead. Your name goes before convention in
September.”