“I fight you? Why?” he asked slowly. And then he laughed. “You are so
funny! Ho! ho! You’ll be the death of me! He! he! he! Oh! Ho! ho! ho!”
What would you? It was past endurance. By the blood of Judas, how I
hated him! Then there was that name—Claverhouse! What a name! Wasn’t it
absurd? Claverhouse! Merciful heaven, WHY Claverhouse? Again and again I
asked myself that question. I should not have minded Smith, or Brown,
or Jones—but CLAVERHOUSE! I leave it to you. Repeat it to
yourself—Claverhouse. Just listen to the ridiculous sound of
it—Claverhouse! Should a man live with such a name? I ask of you. “No,”
you say. And “No” said I.
But I bethought me of his mortgage. What of his crops and barn
destroyed, I knew he would be unable to meet it. So I got a shrewd,
close-mouthed, tight-fisted money-lender to get the mortgage
transferred to him. I did not appear but through this agent I forced
the foreclosure, and but few days (no more, believe me, than the law
allowed) were given John Claverhouse to remove his goods and chattels
from the premises. Then I strolled down to see how he took it, for
he had lived there upward of twenty years. But he met me with his
saucer-eyes twinkling, and the light glowing and spreading in his face
till it was as a full-risen moon.
“Ha! ha! ha!” he laughed. “The funniest tike, that youngster of mine!
Did you ever hear the like? Let me tell you. He was down playing by the
edge of the river when a piece of the bank caved in and splashed him. ‘O
papa!’ he cried; ‘a great big puddle flewed up and hit me.’”
He stopped and waited for me to join him in his infernal glee.
“I don’t see any laugh in it,” I said shortly, and I know my face went
sour.
He regarded me with wonderment, and then came the damnable light,
glowing and spreading, as I have described it, till his face shone soft
and warm, like the summer moon, and then the laugh—“Ha! ha! That’s
funny! You don’t see it, eh? He! he! Ho! ho! ho! He doesn’t see it! Why,
look here. You know a puddle—”
But I turned on my heel and left him. That was the last. I could stand
it no longer. The thing must end right there, I thought, curse him! The
earth should be quit of him. And as I went over the hill, I could hear
his monstrous laugh reverberating against the sky.
Now, I pride myself on doing things neatly, and when I resolved to kill
John Claverhouse I had it in mind to do so in such fashion that I should
not look back upon it and feel ashamed. I hate bungling, and I hate
brutality. To me there is something repugnant in merely striking a man
with one’s naked fist—faugh! it is sickening! So, to shoot, or stab,
or club John Claverhouse (oh, that name!) did not appeal to me. And not
only was I impelled to do it neatly and artistically, but also in such
manner that not the slightest possible suspicion could be directed
against me.
To this end I bent my intellect, and, after a week of profound
incubation, I hatched the scheme. Then I set to work. I bought a water
spaniel bitch, five months old, and devoted my whole attention to her
training. Had any one spied upon me, they would have remarked that this
training consisted entirely of one thing—RETRIEVING. I taught the dog,
which I called “Bellona,” to fetch sticks I threw into the water, and
not only to fetch, but to fetch at once, without mouthing or playing
with them. The point was that she was to stop for nothing, but to
deliver the stick in all haste. I made a practice of running away and
leaving her to chase me, with the stick in her mouth, till she caught
me. She was a bright animal, and took to the game with such eagerness
that I was soon content.
After that, at the first casual opportunity, I presented Bellona to
John Claverhouse. I knew what I was about, for I was aware of a little
weakness of his, and of a little private sinning of which he was
regularly and inveterately guilty.
“No,” he said, when I placed the end of the rope in his hand. “No, you
don’t mean it.” And his mouth opened wide and he grinned all over his
damnable moon-face.
“I—I kind of thought, somehow, you didn’t like me,” he explained.
“Wasn’t it funny for me to make such a mistake?” And at the thought he
held his sides with laughter.
“What is her name?” he managed to ask between paroxysms.
“Bellona,” I said.
“He! he!” he tittered. “What a funny name.”
I gritted my teeth, for his mirth put them on edge, and snapped out
between them, “She was the wife of Mars, you know.”
Then the light of the full moon began to suffuse his face, until he
exploded with: “That was my other dog. Well, I guess she’s a widow now.
Oh! Ho! ho! E! he! he! Ho!” he whooped after me, and I turned and fled
swiftly over the hill.
The week passed by, and on Saturday evening I said to him, “You go away
Monday, don’t you?”
He nodded his head and grinned.
“Then you won’t have another chance to get a mess of those trout you
just ‘dote’ on.”
But he did not notice the sneer. “Oh, I don’t know,” he chuckled. “I’m
going up to-morrow to try pretty hard.”
Thus was assurance made doubly sure, and I went back to my house hugging
myself with rapture.
Early next morning I saw him go by with a dip-net and gunnysack, and
Bellona trotting at his heels. I knew where he was bound, and cut out
by the back pasture and climbed through the underbrush to the top of the
mountain. Keeping carefully out of sight, I followed the crest along
for a couple of miles to a natural amphitheatre in the hills, where the
little river raced down out of a gorge and stopped for breath in a large
and placid rock-bound pool. That was the spot! I sat down on the croup
of the mountain, where I could see all that occurred, and lighted my
pipe.
Ere many minutes had passed, John Claverhouse came plodding up the bed
of the stream. Bellona was ambling about him, and they were in high
feather, her short, snappy barks mingling with his deeper chest-notes.
Arrived at the pool, he threw down the dip-net and sack, and drew from
his hip-pocket what looked like a large, fat candle. But I knew it to
be a stick of “giant”; for such was his method of catching trout. He
dynamited them. He attached the fuse by wrapping the “giant” tightly
in a piece of cotton. Then he ignited the fuse and tossed the explosive
into the pool.
Like a flash, Bellona was into the pool after it. I could have shrieked
aloud for joy. Claverhouse yelled at her, but without avail. He pelted
her with clods and rocks, but she swam steadily on till she got the
stick of “giant” in her mouth, when she whirled about and headed for
shore. Then, for the first time, he realized his danger, and started to
run. As foreseen and planned by me, she made the bank and took out after
him. Oh, I tell you, it was great! As I have said, the pool lay in a
sort of amphitheatre. Above and below, the stream could be crossed
on stepping-stones. And around and around, up and down and across the
stones, raced Claverhouse and Bellona. I could never have believed
that such an ungainly man could run so fast. But run he did, Bellona
hot-footed after him, and gaining. And then, just as she caught up,
he in full stride, and she leaping with nose at his knee, there was a
sudden flash, a burst of smoke, a terrific detonation, and where man and
dog had been the instant before there was naught to be seen but a big
hole in the ground.
“Death from accident while engaged in illegal fishing.” That was the
verdict of the coroner’s jury; and that is why I pride myself on the
neat and artistic way in which I finished off John Claverhouse. There
was no bungling, no brutality; nothing of which to be ashamed in
the whole transaction, as I am sure you will agree. No more does his
infernal laugh go echoing among the hills, and no more does his fat
moon-face rise up to vex me. My days are peaceful now, and my night’s
sleep deep.