In the barroom of the Brookville House the flaring kerosene lamp lit up
a group of men and half-grown boys, who had strayed in out of the chill
darkness to warm themselves around the great stove in the middle of the
floor. The wooden armchairs, which in summer made a forum of the
tavern’s side piazza, had been brought in and ranged in a wide
semicircle about the stove, marking the formal opening of the winter
session. In the central chair sat the large figure of Judge Fulsom,
puffing clouds of smoke from a calabash pipe; his twinkling eyes
looking forth over his fat, creased cheeks roved impartially about the
circle of excited faces.
“I can understand all right about Andrew Bolton’s turning up,” one man
was saying. “He was bound to turn up sooner or later. I seen him
myself, day before yesterday, going down street. Thinks I, ‘Who can
that be?’ There was something kind of queer about the way he dragged
his feet. What you going to do about it, Judge? Have we got to put up
with having a jailbird, as crazy as a loon into the bargain, living
right here in our midst?”
“In luxury and idleness, like he was a captain of industry,” drawled
another man who was eating hot dog and sipping beer. “That’s what
strikes me kind of hard, Judge, in luxury and idleness, while the rest
of us has to work.”
Judge Fulsom gave an inarticulate grunt and smoked on imperturbably.
“Set down, boys; set down,” ordered a small man in a red sweater under
a corduroy coat. “Give the Jedge a chance! He ain’t going to deliver no
opinion whilst you boys are rammaging around. Set down and let the
Jedge take th’ floor.”
A general scraping of chair legs and a shuffling of uneasy feet
followed this exhortation; still no word from the huge, impassive
figure in the central chair. The oily-faced young man behind the bar
improved the opportunity by washing a dozen or so glasses, setting them
down showily on a tin tray in view of the company.
“Quit that noise, Cholley!” exhorted the small man in the red sweater;
“we want order in the court room—eh, Jedge?”
“What I’d like to know is where she got all that money of hers,” piped
an old man, with a mottled complexion and bleary eyes.
“Sure enough; where’d she get it?” chimed in half a dozen voices at
once.
“She’s Andrew Bolton’s daughter,” said the first speaker. “And she’s
been setting up for a fine lady, doing stunts for charity. How about
our town hall an’ our lov-elly library, an’ our be-utiful drinking
fountain, and the new shingles on our church roof? You don’t want to
ask too many questions, Lute.”
“Don’t I?” cried the man, who was eating hot dog. “You all know _me!_
I ain’t a-going to stand for no grab-game. If she’s got money, it’s
more than likely the old fox salted it down before they ketched him.
It’s our money; that’s whose money ’tis, if you want to know!”
And he swallowed his mouthful with a slow, menacing glance which swept
the entire circle.
“Now, Lucius,” began Judge Fulsom, removing the pipe from his mouth,
“go slow! No use in talk without proof.”
“But what have you got to say, Jedge? Where’d she get all that money
she’s been flamming about with, and that grand house, better than new,
with all the latest improvements. Wa’n’t we some jays to be took in
like we was by a little, white-faced chit like her? Couldn’t see
through a grindstone with a hole in it! Bolton House.... And an
automobile to fetch the old jailbird home in. Wa’n’t it lovely?”
A low growl ran around the circle.
“Durn you, Lute! Don’t you see the Jedge has something to say?”
demanded the man behind the bar.
Judge Fulsom slowly tapped his pipe on the arm of his chair. “If you
all will keep still a second and let me speak,” he began.
“I want my rights,” interrupted a man with a hoarse crow.
“Your rights!” shouted the Judge. “You’ve got no right to a damned
thing but a good horsewhipping!”
“I’ve got my rights to the money other folks are keeping, I’ll let you
know!”
Then the Judge fairly bellowed, as he got slowly to his feet:
“I tell you once for all, the whole damned lot of you,” he shouted,
“that every man, woman and child in Brookville has been paid,
compensated, remunerated and requited in full for every cent he, she or
it lost in the Andrew Bolton bank failure.”
There was a snarl of dissent.
“You all better go slow, and hold your tongues, and mind your own
business. Remember what I say; that girl does not owe a red cent in
this town, neither does her father. She’s paid in full, and you’ve
spent a lot of it in here, too!” The Judge wiped his red face.
“Oh, come on, Jedge; you don’t want to be hard on the house,” protested
the man in the red sweater, waving his arms as frantically as a freight
brakeman. “Say, you boys! don’t ye git excited! The Jedge didn’t mean
that; you got him kind of het up with argufying.... Down in front,
boys! You, Lute—”
But it was too late: half a dozen voices were shouting at once. There
was a simultaneous descent upon the bar, with loud demands for liquor
of the sort Lute Parsons filled up on. Then the raucous voice of the
ringleader pierced the tumult.
“Come on, boys! Let’s go out to the old place and get our rights off
that gal of Bolton’s!”
“That’s th’ stuff, Lute!” yelled the others, clashing their glasses
wildly. “Come on! Come on, everybody!”
In vain Judge Fulsom hammered on the bar and called for order in the
court room. The majesty of the law, as embodied in his great bulk,
appeared to have lost its power. Even his faithful henchman in the red
sweater had joined the rioters and was yelling wildly for his rights.
Somebody flung wide the door, and the barroom emptied itself into the
night, leaving the oily young man at his post of duty gazing fearfully
at the purple face of Judge Fulsom, who stood staring, as if stupefied,
at the overturned chairs, the broken glasses and the empty darkness
outside.
“Say, Jedge, them boys was sure some excited,” ventured the bartender
timidly. “You don’t s’pose—”
The big man put himself slowly into motion.
“I’ll get th’ constable,” he growled. “I—I’ll run ’em in; and I’ll give
Lute Parsons the full extent of the law, if it’s the last thing I do on
earth. I—I’ll teach them!—I’ll give them all they’re lookin’ for.”
And he, too, went out, leaving the door swinging in the cold wind.
At the corner, still meditating vengeance for this affront to his
dignity, Judge Fulsom almost collided with the hurrying figure of a man
approaching in the opposite direction.
“Hello!” he challenged sharply. “Where you goin’ so fast, my friend?”
“Evening, Judge,” responded the man, giving the other a wide margin.
“Oh, it’s Jim Dodge—eh? Say, Jim, did you meet any of the boys on the
road?”
“What boys?”
“Why, we got into a little discussion over to the Brookville House
about this Andrew Bolton business—his coming back unexpected, you know;
and some of the boys seemed to think they hadn’t got all that was
coming to them by rights. Lute Parsons he gets kind of worked up after
about three or four glasses, and he sicked the boys onto going out
there, and—”
“Going out—where? In the name of Heaven, what do you mean, Judge?”
“I told ’em to keep cool and— Say, don’t be in a hurry, Jim. I had an
awful good mind to call out Hank Simonson to run a few of ’em in. But I
dunno as the boys’ll do any real harm. They wouldn’t dare. They know
_me_, and they know—”
“Do you mean that drunken mob was headed for Bolton House? Why, Good
Lord, man, she’s there practically alone!”
“Well, perhaps you’d better see if you can get some help,” began the
Judge, whose easy-going disposition was already balking at effort.
But Jim Dodge, shouting back a few trenchant directions, had already
disappeared, running at top speed.
There was a short cut to Bolton House, across plowed fields and through
a patch of woodland. Jim Dodge ran all the way, wading a brook, swollen
with the recent rains, tearing his way through thickets of brush and
bramble, the twinkling lights in the top story of the distant house
leading him on. Once he paused for an instant, thinking he heard the
clamor of rude voices borne on the wind; then plunged forward again,
his flying feet seemingly weighted with lead; and all the while an
agonizing picture of Lydia, white and helpless, facing the crowd of
drunken men flitted before his eyes.
Now he had reached the wall at the rear of the gardens; had clambered
over it, dropping to his feet in the midst of a climbing rose which
clutched at him with its thorny branches; had run across an acre of
kitchen garden and leaped the low-growing hedge which divided it from
the sunken flower garden he had made for Lydia. Here were more
rosebushes and an interminable space broken by walks and a sundial,
masked by shrubs, with which he collided violently. There was no
mistaking the clamor from the front of the house; the rioters had
reached their quarry first! Not stopping to consider what one man,
single-handed and unarmed, could do against a score of drunken
opponents, the young man rounded the corner of the big house just as
the door was flung wide and the slim figure of Lydia stood outlined
against the bright interior.
“What do you want, men?” she called out, in her clear, fearless voice.
“What has happened?”
There was a confused murmur of voices in reply. Most of the men were
decent enough fellows, when sober. Some one was heard to suggest a
retreat: “No need to scare the young lady. ’Tain’t her fault!”
“Aw! shut up, you coward!” shouted another. “We want our money!”
“Where did you get yer money?” demanded a third. “You tell us that,
young woman. That’s what we’re after!”
“Where’s the old thief? ...We want Andrew Bolton!”
Then from somewhere in the darkness a pebble flung by a reckless hand
shattered a pane of glass. At sound of the crash all pretense of
decency and order seemed abandoned. The spirit of the pack broke loose!
Just what happened from the moment when he leaped upon the portico,
wrenching loose a piece of iron pipe which formed the support of a
giant wistaria, Jim Dodge could never afterward recall in precise
detail. A sort of wild rage seized him; he struck right and left among
the dark figures swarming up the steps. There were cries, shouts,
curses, flying stones; then he had dragged Lydia inside and bolted the
heavy door between them and the ugly clamor without.
She faced him where he stood, breathing hard, his back against the
barred door.
“They were saying—” she whispered, her face still and white. “My God!
What do they think I’ve done?”
“They’re drunk,” he explained. “It was only a miserable rabble from the
barroom in the village. But if you’d been here alone—!”
She shook her head.
“I recognized the man who spoke first; his name is Parsons. There were
others, too, who worked on the place here in the summer.... They have
heard?”
He nodded, unable to speak because of something which rose in his
throat choking him. Then he saw a thin trickle of red oozing from under
the fair hair above her temple, and the blood hammered in his ears.
“You are hurt!” he said thickly. “The devils struck you!”
“It’s nothing—a stone, perhaps.”
Something in the sorrowful look she gave him broke down the flimsy
barrier between them.
“Lydia—Lydia!” he cried, holding out his arms.
She clung to him like a child. They stood so for a moment, listening to
the sounds from without. There were still occasional shouts and the
altercation of loud, angry voices; but this was momently growing
fainter; presently it died away altogether.
She stirred in his arms and he stooped to look into her face.
“I—Father will be frightened,” she murmured, drawing away from him with
a quick decided movement. “You must let me go.”
“Not until I have told you, Lydia! I am poor, rough—not worthy to touch
you—but I love you with my whole heart and soul, Lydia. You must let me
take care of you. You need me, dear.”
Tears overflowed her eyes, quiet, patient tears; but she answered
steadily.
“Can’t you see that I—I am different from other women? I have only one
thing to live for. I must go to him.... You had forgotten—him.”
In vain he protested, arguing his case with all lover’s skill and
ingenuity. She shook her head.
“Sometime you will forgive me that one moment of weakness,” she said
sadly. “I was frightened and—tired.”
He followed her upstairs in gloomy silence. The old man, she was
telling him hurriedly, would be terrified. She must reassure him; and
tomorrow they would go away together for a long journey. She could see
now that she had made a cruel mistake in bringing him to Brookville.
But there was no answer in response to her repeated tapping at his
door; and suddenly the remembrance of that stooping shadow came back to
him.
“Let me go in,” he said, pushing her gently aside.
The lights, turned high in the quiet room, revealed only emptiness and
disorder; drawers and wardrobes pulled wide, scattered garments
apparently dropped at random on chairs and tables. The carpet, drawn
aside in one corner, disclosed a shallow aperture in the floor, from
which the boards had been lifted.
“Why— What?” stammered the girl, all the high courage gone from her
face. “What has happened?”
He picked up a box—a common cigar box—from amid the litter of abandoned
clothing. It was quite empty save for a solitary slip of greenish paper
which had somehow adhered to the bottom.
Lydia clutched the box in both trembling hands, staring with piteous
eyes at the damning evidence of that bit of paper.
“Money!” she whispered. “He must have hidden it before—before— Oh,
father, father!”
[Illustration] “Money!” she whispered. “He must have hidden it
before—before—”