After he had parted with Solomon Mahaffy the judge applied himself
diligently to shaping that miracle-working document which he was
preparing as an offset to whatever risk he ran in meeting Fentress. As
sanguine as he was sanguinary he confidently expected to survive the
encounter, yet it was well to provide for a possible emergency--had he
not his grandson's future to consider? While thus occupied he saw the
afternoon stage arrive and depart from before the City Tavern.
Half an hour later Mr. Wesley, the postmaster, came sauntering up the
street. In his hand he carried a letter.
“Howdy,” he drawled, from just beyond the judge's open door.
The judge glanced up, his quill pen poised aloft.
“Good evening, sir; won't you step inside and be seated?” he asked
graciously. His dealings with the United States mail service were of the
most insignificant description, and in personally delivering a letter,
if this was what had brought him there, he felt Mr. Wesley had reached
the limit of official courtesy and despatch.
“Well, sir; it looks like you'd never told us more than two-thirds of
the truth!” said the postmaster. He surveyed the judge curiously.
“I am complimented by your opinion of my veracity,” responded that
gentleman promptly. “I consider two-thirds an enormously high per cent
to have achieved.”
“There is something in that, too,” agreed Mr. Wesley. “Who is Colonel
Slocum Price Turberville?”
The judge started up from his chair.
“I have that honor,” said he, bowing.
“Well, here's a letter come in addressed like that, and as you've been
using part of the name I am willing to assume you're legally entitled
to the rest of it. It clears up a point that off and on has troubled me
considerable. I can only wonder I wa'n't smarter.”
“What point, may I ask?”
“Why, about the time you hung out your shingle here, some one wrote a
letter to General Jackson. It was mailed after night, and when I seen it
in the morning I was clean beat. I couldn't locate the handwriting and
yet I kept that letter back a couple of days and give it all my spare
time. It ain't that I'm one of your spying sort--there's nothing of the
Yankee about me!”
“Certainly not,” agreed the judge.
“Candid, Judge, I reckon you wrote that letter, seeing this one comes
under a frank from Washington. No, sir--I couldn't make out who was
corresponding with the president and it worried me, not knowing, more
than anything I've had to contend against since I came into office. I
calculate there ain't a postmaster in the United States takes a more
personal interest in the service than me. I've frequently set patrons
right when they was in doubt as to the date they had mailed such and
such a letter.” As Mr. Wesley sometimes canceled as many as three or
four stamps in a single day he might have been pardoned his pride in a
brain which thus lightly dealt with the burden of official business. He
surrendered the letter with marked reluctance.
“Your surmise is correct,” said the judge with dignity. “I had occasion
to write my friend, General Jackson, and unless I am greatly mistaken I
have my answer here.” And with a fine air of indifference he tossed the
letter on the table.
“And do you know Old Hickory?” cried Mr. Wesley.
“Why not? Does it surprise you?” inquired the judge. It was only his
innate courtesy which restrained him from kicking the postmaster into
the street, so intense was his desire to be rid of him.
“No, I don't know as it does, judge. Naturally a public man like him is
in the way of meeting with all sorts. A politician can't afford to be
too blame particular. Well, next time you write you might just send
him my regards--G. W. M. de L. Wesley's regards--there was considerable
contention over my getting this office; I reckon he ain't forgot. There
was speeches made, I understand the lie was passed between two United
States senators, and that a quid of tobacco was throwed in anger.”
Having thus clearly established the fact that he was a more or less
national character, Mr. Wesley took himself off.
When he had disappeared from sight down the street, the judge closed the
door. Then he picked up the letter. For along minute he held it in his
hand, uncertain, fearful, while his mind slipped back into the past
until his inward searching vision ferreted out a handsome soldierly
figure--his own.
“That's what Jackson remembers if he remembers anything!” he muttered,
as with trembling fingers he broke the seal. Almost instantly a smile
overspread his battered features. He hitched his chin higher and squared
his ponderous shoulders. “I am not forgotten--no, damn it--no!” he
exulted under his breath, “recalls me with sincere esteem and considers
my services to the country as well worthy of recognition--” the judge
breathed deep. What would Mahaffy find to say now! Certainly this was
well calculated to disturb the sour cynicism of his friend. His bleared
eyes brimmed. After all his groping he had touched hands with the
realities at last! Even a federal judgeship, though not an office of the
first repute in the south had its dignity--it signified something! He
would make Solomon his clerk! The judge reached for his hat. Mahaffy
must know at once that fortune had mended for them. Why, at that moment
he was actually in receipt of an income!
He sat down, the better to enjoy the unique sensation. Taxes were being
levied and collected with no other end in view than his stipend--his
ardent fancy saw the whole machinery of government in operation for his
benefit. It was a singular feeling he experienced. Then promptly his
spendthrift brain became active. He needed clothes--so did Mahaffy--so
did his grandson; they must take a larger house; he would buy himself a
man servant; these were pressing necessities as he now viewed them.
Once again he reached for his hat, the desire to rush off to Belle Plain
was overmastering.
“I reckon I'd be justified in hiring a conveyance from Pegloe,” he
thought, but just here he had a saving memory of his unfinished task;
that claimed precedence and he resumed his pen.
An hour later Pegloe's black boy presented himself to the judge. He
came bearing a gift, and the gift appropriately enough was a square
case bottle of respectable size. The judge was greatly touched by
this attention, but he began by making a most temperate use of the
tavern-keeper's offering; then as the formidable document he was
preparing took shape under his hand he more and more lost that feeling
of Spartan fortitude which had at first sustained him in the presence of
temptation. He wrote and sipped in complete and quiet luxury, and when
at last he had exhausted the contents of the bottle it occurred to him
that it would be only proper personally to convey his thanks to Pegloe.
Perhaps he was not uninspired in this by ulterior hopes; if so, they
were richly rewarded. The resources of the City Tavern were suddenly
placed at his disposal. He attributed this to a variety of causes all
good and sufficient, but the real reason never suggested itself,
indeed it was of such a perfidious nature that the judge, open and
generous-minded, could not have grasped it.
By six o'clock he was undeniably drunk; at eight he was sounding
still deeper depths of inebriety with only the most confused memory of
impending events; at ten he collapsed and was borne up-stairs by Pegloe
and his black boy to a remote chamber in the kitchen wing. Here he was
undressed and put to bed, and the tavernkeeper, making a bundle of his
clothes, retired from the room, locking the door after him, and the
judge was doubly a prisoner.
Rousing at last from a heavy dreamless sleep the judge was aware of a
faint impalpable light in his room, the ashen light of a dull October
dawn. He was aware, too, of a feeling of profound depression. He knew
this was the aftermath of indulgence and that he might look forward
to forty-eight hours of utter misery of soul, and, groaning aloud, he
closed his eyes, Sleep was the thing if he could compass it. Instead,
his memory quickened. Something was to happen at sunup--he could not
recall what it was to be, though he distinctly remembered that Mahaffy
had spoken of this very matter--Mahaffy, the austere and implacable, the
disembodied conscience whose fealty to duty had somehow survived his own
spiritual ruin, so that he had become a sort of moral sign-post, ever
pointing the way yet never going it himself. The judge lay still and
thought deeply as the light intensified itself. What was it that Mahaffy
had said he was to do at sun-up? The very hour accented his suspicions.
Probably it was no more than some cheerless obligation to be met, or
Mahaffy would not have been so concerned about it. Eventually he decided
to refer everything to Mahaffy. He spoke his friend's name weakly and in
a shaking voice, but received no answer.
“Solomon!” he repeated, and shifting his position, looked in what should
have been the direction of the shake-down bed his friend occupied.
Neither the bed nor Mahaffy were there. The judge gasped he wondered if
this were not a premonition of certain hallucinations to which he was
not a stranger. Then all in a flash he remembered Fentress and the
meeting at Boggs', something of how the evening had been spent, and a
spasm of regret shook him.
“I had other things to think of. This must never happen again!” he told
himself remorsefully.
He was wide-awake now. Doubtless Pegloe had put him to bed. Well, that
had been thoughtful of Pegloe--he would not forget him--the City Tavern
should continue to enjoy his patronage. It would be something for Pegloe
to boast of that judge Slocum Price Turberville always made his place
headquarters when in Raleigh. Feeling that he had already conferred
wealth and distinction on the fortunate Pegloe the judge thrust his fat
legs over the side of his bed and stood erect. Stooping he reached for
his clothes. He confidently expected to find them on the floor, but
his hand merely swept an uncarpeted waste. The judge was profoundly
astonished.
“Maybe I've got 'em on, I don't recall taking them off!” he thought
hopefully. He moved uncertainly in the direction of the window where the
light showed him his own bare extremities. He reverted to his original
idea that his clothes were scattered about the floor.
He was beginning to experience a great sense of haste, it was two miles
to Boggs' and Fentress would be there at sun-up. Finally he abandoned
his quest of the missing garments and turned to the door. To say that
he was amazed when he found it locked would have most inadequately
described his emotions. Breathing deep, he fell back a step or two, and
then with all the vigor he could muster launched himself at the door.
But it resisted him. “It's bolted on the other side!” he muttered, the
full measure of Pegloe's perfidy revealing itself to his mind.
He was aghast. It was a plot to discredit him. Pegloe's hospitality had
been inspired by his enemy, for Pegloe was Fentress' tenant.
Again he attacked the door; he believed it might be possible to force it
from its hinges, but Pegloe had done his work too well for that, and at
last, spent and breathless, the judge dropped down on the edge of his
bed to consider the situation. He was without clothes and he was a
prisoner, yet his mind rose splendidly to meet the difficulties that
beset him. His greatest activities were reserved for what appeared to be
only a season of despair. He armed himself with a threelegged stool he
had found and turned once more to the door, but the stout planks stood
firm under his blows.
“Unless I get out of here in time I'm a ruined man!” thought the judge.
“After this Fentress will refuse to meet me!”
The window next engaged his attention. That, too, Pegloe had taken the
precaution to fasten, but a single savage blow of the stool shattered
glass and sash and left an empty space that framed the dawn's red glow.
The judge looked out and shook his head dubiously. It was twelve feet or
more to the ground, a risky drop for a gentleman of his years and build.
The judge considered making a rope of his bedding and lowering himself
to the ground by means of it, he remembered to have read of captives in
that interesting French prison, the Bastille, who did this. However, an
equally ingenious but much more simple use for his bedding occurred to
him; it would form a soft and yielding substance on which to alight.
He gathered it up into his arms, feather-tick and all, and pushed it
through the window, then he wriggled out across the ledge, feet first,
and lowering himself to the full length of his arms, dropped.
He landed squarely on the rolled-up bed with a jar that shook him to his
center. Almost gaily he snatched up a quilt, draping it about him after
the manner of a Roman, toga, and thus lightly habited, started across
Mr. Pegloe's truck-patch, his one thought Boggs' and the sun. It would
have served no purpose to have gone home, since his entire wardrobe,
except for the shirt on his back, was in the tavern-keeper's possession,
besides he had not a moment to lose, for the sun was peeping at him over
the horizon.
Unobserved he gained the edge of the town and the highroad that led past
Boggs' and stole a fearful glance over his shoulder. The sun was clear
of the treetops, he could even feel the lifeless dust grow warm beneath
his feet; and wrapping the quilt closer about him he broke into a
labored run.
Some twenty minutes later Boggs' came in sight. He experienced a moment
of doubt--suppose Fentress had been there and gone! It was a hideous
thought and the judge groaned. Then at the other end of the meadow near
the woods he distinguished several men, Fentress and his friends beyond
question. The judge laughed aloud. In spite of everything he was keeping
his engagement, he was plucking his triumph out of the very dregs of
failure. The judge threw himself over the fence, a corner of the quilt
caught on one of the rails; he turned to release it, and in that instant
two pistol shots rang out sharply in the morning air.