Ruth Lenox was, just at this time, on a brief visit to the house of a
married brother, who lived near Babylon; so that Mary was not able to
consult with her only confidante until the second day after Billy
Prangle's visit. Who could tell the agony of mind she felt during that
time as the leaden hours dragged slowly by? It seemed to her fearful
and excited imagination as if at any moment she was liable to hear of
her lover's capture and imprisonment, and she was powerless to do
aught to save him. One hope only suggested itself to her mind: that he
might have sailed away from New Haven before his pursuers could reach
him, and that by the time of his return from the West Indies the real
murderer might be discovered, and the foul suspicion against Dorn
entirely dissipated. But she was not left to cherish in peace even
that small germ of comfort, for Aunt Thatcher, with the astuteness and
malice of a feminine fiend--and if there is a distinction of sex among
the devils, the female ones must surely be far the worst--divined that
the sailor who visited Mary had come from Dorn, or in his interest,
and embittered every hour of the poor girl's life by the wagging of
her venomous tongue. As soon as Billy had gone away she demanded to
know what his business was; and receiving no reply--for Mary felt that
she would rather have died than give her aunt the satisfaction of
knowing the hideous intelligence he brought--proceeded to treat the
subject in her own lively fashion.
"Oho! So you don't want to tell! Well, I don't wonder at it. I'd be
ashamed, too, if I was in your place. But I can guess without your
telling me. It's some word from Dorn Hackett, I'll be bound. Wants you
to go and take up with him while he's in port, maybe. If you do, you
needn't think to come back here with your disgrace. I s'pose he thinks
he's got a heap of money now. Did he let you know how much he got by
killing old Jake Van Deust?"
"Oh, aunt!" exclaimed Mary. "You know that is a wicked falsehood! You
know Dorn never would have done such a thing!"
"Don't tell me I lie, you impudent, deceitful, good-for-nothing hussy!
Don't you dare to talk back to me! I know what I know! Oh, I'll have
the satisfaction of seeing him hanged yet!"
Mary burst into tears and left the house. That bit of dialogue was a
sample of what the heart-sick miserable girl had to endure constantly
when Uncle Thatcher was not present. When he was by, the vixen did
not dare to torment her victim, and Mary might have had a stop put to
the woman's malignant attacks had she appealed to him; but from that
extreme measure she revolted.
When Ruth returned home Mary hastened to her with her load of
troubles, and was not disappointed in her expectation of sympathy and
consolation.
"Don't you be afraid, dear," said little Ruth, in a very confident and
protecting tone. "It will be all right. You'll see that it will. I'll
make Lem fix it."
"Lem?"
"Yes. He shall go and find out who did kill Mr. Van Deust, and then
I'm sure there can't be any more talk about Dorn. And I know, just as
well as anything, that it was all started by that spiteful, wicked old
aunt of yours. Lem told me, the night before I went away, that he saw
her go into the Squire's office the evening of the inquest, after
everybody else was gone but a strange man, and she stayed a long time;
and I'd just risk my neck on it that that was the time she put him up
to the notion of Dorn doing it. And I think he might have had more
sense--a man like him, who has known him from he was a boy, and no
stranger to what she is. But don't be afraid, dear. I'll start Lem
right out to catch the real murderer, and I'll tell him I won't marry
him until he finds him; and that'll bring him to his senses, I guess,
for he's getting in an awful hurry about it."
Ruth was very earnest and emphatic, and her friend understood and was
comforted by her, although it was not always easy to comprehend the
breathless torrent of words that the energetic little maid poured
forth, with reckless disregard alike of punctuation and of pronouns,
when she became excited, as she now was.
Lem was very reluctant to undertake the task that Ruth sought to
impose upon him.
"It ain't my business," he protested, "and I don't know anything about
it. I wouldn't even know how to begin. How would I look going around
the country asking people, 'who killed Jake Van Deust?' And I swon I
don't know any other way to tackle the job. Squire Bodley told me he's
got a real sharp fellow from New York at work--a chap that makes a
business of catching thieves and murderers, and knows all about it.
And I might do no end of mischief if I went to meddling."
"Now don't talk to me that way, Lem Pawlett. I won't have it. You've
got a heap more sense than you give yourself credit for, and more than
most people would think, to look at you, I must say. Wasn't it you
that found the marks on the window, and tracked the murderer out to
the lane? Of course it was. None of them gawks standing around saw
anything until you showed it to them. And as for that smart chap from
New York--why, he's the very one that went and bleated out his
business to a lot of sailors in New London,--Dorn's friends all of
them,--and they thrashed him, and served him right, too. And that's
how we come to know about his being after Dorn, which, if he had any
sense, he wouldn't be. And you've got to find some way to clear Dorn
for Mary's sake, or I'll never forgive you, and I won't marry you
until Dorn and Mary can stand up with us, and--so there, now."
Lem started home that evening, after his interview with Ruth, in a
very despondent mood, and at a much earlier hour than usual, almost
inclined to rebel against her authority, yet feeling that he must
eventually succumb to her will. As he strolled moodily down the
village street, wondering "what on earth" he should do, and thinking,
as he subsequently confessed, that perhaps it might be as well to
amuse Ruth by letting her imagine him very busy in Dorn's affairs,
while he simply left matters to take their own course, confiding in
Dorn coming out all right somehow, at last, his attention was
attracted to the presence of an unwonted number of persons in the
principal store, and the prevalence among them of some unusual
excitement. Entering to learn what was going on he was just in time
to hear the mail-rider, who had arrived but a little before, conclude
a sentence with the words "and so he's in Sag Harbor jail already."
"Who's in jail?" Lem demanded, with a sinking at the heart, for he
well knew that no idle putting off would do for Ruth if her friend's
lover were really locked up.
"Dorn Hackett," replied the mail-rider, proud of his news, and glad to
have the opportunity of repetition to a new auditor,--"for the murder
and robbery of Jacob Van Deust."
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Lem.
"It's so, I tell you. They caught him in New Haven last night. If
they'd missed him until to-day, he'd have been off for the West
Indies; but a New York officer, who got on his track in New London,
caught him. And they say he fought like a tiger. Both the officer's
eyes are blacked; but one of 'em is a little staler color than the
other, and I guess he must have been in two musses lately. Anyhow, he
had two New Haven constables to help him to put handcuffs on Dorn, and
then they brought him over in a sloop; and so he's in Sag Harbor jail
already."
"Him that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. The
Lord wouldn't let him escape," snuffled Deacon Harkins from his perch
on the sugar barrel.
"That's what comes of young men leaving their homes where they were
brought up, and going off to the big cities to make their fortunes and
get into evil ways," sagely observed the store-keeper, reflectively,
chipping off a bit of cheese for himself.
"Yes." "That's so." "Just what a body might have expected," murmured
several voices.
"How do they know he did it?" asked Lem, in an aggressive tone,
resenting the willing acceptance of Dorn's probable guilt, which was
manifestly the disposition of the group about him.
"Ain't he arrested? What more d'ye want?" retorted Deacon Harkins.
"Oh! That's reason enough for you, is it? That's the sort of a
Christian you are! Condemn a man before he's tried! Hang him on
suspicion! As if the law never got hold of the wrong person! Well, I
don't believe Dorn Hackett was the chap that ever would have done such
a deed, and I don't care if he was arrested a hundred times, I'd bet
my life no jury but a jury of Deacon Harkins's would ever find him
guilty."
"There goes another young man I don't never expect any good of,"
remarked Deacon Harkins, in a self-satisfied tone, as though his
condemnation quite settled the here and the hereafter of Lem Pawlett,
as that young man, having "said his say," strode out angrily, and went
on his way.
But Lem heard him not, and would have cared little if he had, for just
then his mind was busy with a new and firm resolve.
"I'll do it," he muttered to himself, "to spite that consarned old
deacon, who never was known to have a good word for anybody, as much
as to please Ruth! I'll save Dorn Hackett; by the great horn spoon, I
will!"