It would be hard to analyze the emotions with which Morton had
listened to Kike's hot exhortation. In vain he argued with himself
that a man need not be a Methodist and "go shouting and crying all
over the country," in order to be good. He knew that Kike's life was
better than his own, and that he had not force enough to break his
habits and associations unless he did so by putting himself into
direct antagonism with them. He inwardly condemned himself for his
fear of Lumsden, and he inly cursed Kike for telling him the blunt
truth about himself. But ever as there came the impulse to close the
conflict and be at peace with himself by "putting himself boldly on
the Lord's side," as Kike phrased it, he thought of Patty, whose
aristocratic Virginia pride would regard marriage with a Methodist as
worse than death.
And so, in mortal terror, lest he should yield to his emotions so far
as to compromise himself, he rushed out of the crowd, hurried home,
took down his rifle, and rode away, intent only on getting out of the
excitement.
As he rode away from home he met Captain Lumsden hurrying from the
meeting with the jerks, and leading his horse--the contortions of his
body not allowing him to ride. With every step he took he grew more
and more furious. Seeing Morton, he endeavored to vent his passion
upon him.
"Why didn't--you--blow--why didn't--why didn't you blow your tin
horns, this----" but at this point the jerks became so violent as to
throw off his hat and shut off all utterance, and he only gnashed his
teeth and hurried on with irregular steps toward home, leaving Morton
to gauge the degree of the Captain's wrath by the involuntary
distortion of his visage.
Goodwin rode listlessly forward, caring little whither he went;
endeavoring only to allay the excitement, of his conscience, and to
imagine some sort of future in which he might hope to return and win
Patty in spite of Lumsden's opposition. Night found him in front of
the "City Hotel," in the county-seat village of Jonesville; and he
was rejoiced to find there, on some political errand, Mr. Burchard,
whom he had met awhile before at Wilkins', in the character of a
candidate for sheriff.
"How do you do, Mr. Morton? Howdy do?" said Burchard, cordially,
having only heard Morton's first name and mistaking it for his last.
"I'm lucky to meet you in this town. Do you live over this way? I
thought you lived in our county and 'lectioneered you--expecting to
get your vote."
[Illustration: GAMBLING.]
The conjunction of Morton and Burchard on a Sunday evening (or any
other) meant a game at cards, and as Burchard was the more skillful
and just now in great need of funds, it meant that all the contents
of Morton's pockets should soon transfer themselves to Burchard's,
the more that Morton in his contending with the religious excitement
of the morning rushed easily into the opposite excitement of
gambling. The violent awakening of a religious revival has a sharp
polarity--it has sent many a man headlong to the devil. When Morton
had frantically bet and lost all his money, he proceeded to bet his
rifle, then his grandfather's watch--an ancient time-piece, that
Burchard examined with much curiosity. Having lost this, he staked
his pocket-knife, his hat, his coat, and offered to put up his boots,
but Burchard refused them. The madness of gambling was on the young
man, however. He had no difficulty in persuading Burchard to take
his mare as security for a hundred dollars, which he proceeded to
gamble away by the easy process of winning once and losing twice.
When the last dollar was gone, his face was very white and calm. He
leaned back in the chair and looked at Burchard a moment or two in
silence.
"Burchard," said he, at last, "I'm a picked goose. I don't know
whether I've got any brains or not. But if you'll lend me the rifle
you won long enough for me to have a farewell shot, I'll find out
what's inside this good-for-nothing cocoa-nut of mine."
Burchard was not without generous traits, and he was alarmed. "Come,
Mr. Morton, don't be desperate. The luck's against you, but you'll
have better another time. Here's your hat and coat, and you're
welcome. I've been flat of my back many a time, but I've always
found a way out. I'll pay your bill here to-morrow morning. Don't
think of doing anything desperate. There's plenty to live for yet.
You'll break some girl's heart if you kill yourself, maybe."
This thrust hurt Morton keenly. But Burchard was determined to
divert him from his suicidal impulse.
"Come, old fellow, you're excited. Come out into the air. Now,
don't kill yourself. You looked troubled when you got here. I take
it, there's some trouble at home. Now, if there is"--here Burchard
hesitated--"if there is trouble at home, I can put you on the track
of a band of fellows that have been in trouble themselves. They help
one another. Of course, I haven't anything to do with them; but
they'll be mighty glad to get a hold of a fellow like you, that's a
good shot and not afraid."
For a moment even outlawry seemed attractive to Morton, so utterly
had hope died out of his heart. But only for a moment; then his
moral sense recoiled.
"No; I'd rather shoot myself than kill somebody else. I can't take
that road, Mr. Burchard."
"Of course you can't," said Burchard, affecting to laugh. "I knew
you wouldn't. But I wanted to turn your thoughts away from bullets
and all that. Now, Mr. Morton----"
"My name's not Morton. My last name is Goodwin--Morton Goodwin."
This correction was made as a man always attends to trifles when he
is trying to decide a momentous question.
"Morton Goodwin?" said Burchard, looking at him keenly, as the two
stood together in the moonlight. Then, after pausing a moment, he
added: "I had a crony by the name of Lew Goodwin, once. Devilish
hard case he was, but good-hearted. Got killed in a fight in
Pittsburg."
"He was my brother," said Morton.
"Your brother? thunder! You don't mean it. Let's see; he told me
once his father's name was Moses--no; Job. Yes, that's it--Job. Is
that your father's name?"
"Yes."
"I reckon the old folks must a took Lew's deviltry hard. Didn't kill
'em, did it?"
"No."
"Both alive yet?"
"Yes."
"And now you want to kill both of 'em by committing suicide. You
ought to think a little of your mother----"
"Shut your mouth," said Morton, turning fiercely on Burchard; for he
suddenly saw a vision of the agony his mother must suffer.
"Oh! don't get mad. I'm going to let you have back your horse and
gun, only you must give me a bill of sale so that I may be sure you
won't gamble them away to somebody else. You must redeem them on
your honor in six months, with a hundred and twenty-five dollars.
I'll do that much for the sake of my old friend, Lew Goodwin, who
stood by me in many a tight place, and was a good-hearted fellow
after all."
Morton accepted this little respite, and Burchard left the tavern.
As it was now past midnight, Goodwin did not go to bed. At two
o'clock he gave Dolly corn, and before daylight he rode out of the
village. But not toward home. His gambling and losses would be
speedily reported at home and to Captain Lumsden. And moreover, Kike
would persecute him worse than ever. He rode out of town in the
direction opposite to that he would have taken in returning to
Hissawachee, and he only knew that it was opposite. He was trying
what so many other men have tried in vain to do--to run away from
himself.
But not the fleetest Arabian charger, nor the swiftest lightning
express, ever yet enabled a man to leave a disagreeable self behind.
The wise man knows better, and turns round and faces it.
About noon Morton, who had followed an obscure and circuitous trail
of which he knew nothing, drew near to a low log-house with deer's
horns over the door, a sign that the cabin was devoted to hotel
purposes--a place where a stranger might get a little food, a place
to rest on the floor, and plenty of whiskey. There were a dozen
horses hitched to trees about it, and Goodwin got down and went in
from a spirit of idle curiosity. Certainly the place was not
attractive. The landlord had a cut-throat way of looking closely at
a guest from under his eye-brows; the guests all wore black beards,
and Morton soon found reason to suspect that these beards were not
indigenous. He was himself the object of much disagreeable scrutiny,
but he could hardly restrain a mischievous smile at thought of the
disappointment to which any highwayman was doomed who should attempt
to rob him in his present penniless condition. The very worst that
could happen would be the loss of Dolly and his rifle. It soon
occurred to him that this lonely place was none other than "Brewer's
Hole," one of the favorite resorts of Micajah Harp's noted band of
desperadoes, a place into which few honest men ever ventured.
One of the men presently stepped to the window, rested his foot upon
the low sill, and taking up a piece of chalk, drew a line from the
toe to the top of his boot.* Several others imitated him; and
Morton, in a spirit of reckless mischief and adventure, took the
chalk and marked his right boot in the same way.
* In relating this incident, I give the local tradition as it is yet
told in the neighborhood. It does not seem that chalking one's boot
is a very prudent mode of recognizing the members of a secret band,
but I do not suppose that men who follow a highwayman's life are very
wise people.
"Will you drink?" said the man who had first chalked his boot.
Goodwin accepted the invitation, and as they stood near together,
Morton could plainly discover the falseness of his companion's beard.
Presently the man fixed his eyes on Goodwin and asked, in an
indifferent tone: "Cut or carry?"
"Carry," answered Morton, not knowing the meaning of the lingo, but
finding himself in a predicament from which there was no escape but
by drifting with the current. A few minutes later a bag, which
seemed to contain some hundreds of dollars, was thrust into his hand,
and Morton, not knowing what to do with it, thought best to "carry"
it off. He mounted his mare and rode away in a direction opposite to
that in which he had come. He had not gone more than three miles
when he met Burchard.
"Why, Burchard, how did you come here?"
"Oh, I came by a short cut."
But Burchard did not say that he had traveled in the night, to avoid
observation.
"Hello! Goodwin," cried Burchard, "you've got chalk on your boot! I
hope you haven't joined the--"
"Well, I'll tell you, Burchard, how that come. I found the greatest
set of disguised cut-throats you ever saw, at this little hole back
here. You hadn't better go there, if you don't want to be relieved
of all the money you got last night. I saw them chalking their
boots, and I chalked mine, just to see what would come of it. And
here's what come of it;" and with that, Morton showed his bag of
money. "Now," he said, "if I could find the right owner of this
money, I'd give it to him; but I take it he's buried in some holler,
without nary coffin or grave-stone. I 'low to pay you what I owe
you, and take the rest out to Vincennes, or somewheres else, and use
it for a nest-egg. 'Finders, keepers,' you know."
Burchard looked at him darkly a moment. "Look here, Morton--Goodwin,
I mean. You'll lose your head, if you fool with chalk that way. If
you don't give that money up to the first man that asks for it, you
are a dead man. They can't be fooled for long. They'll be after
you. There's no way now but to hold on to it and give it up to the
first man that asks; and if he don't shoot first, you'll be lucky.
I'm going down this trail a way. I want to see old Brewer. He's got
a good deal of political influence. Good-bye!"
Morton rode forward uneasily until he came to a place two miles
farther on, where another trail joined the one he was traveling.
Here there stood a man with a huge beard, a blanket over his
shoulders, holes cut through for arms, after the frontier fashion, a
belt with pistols and knives, and a bearskin cap. The stranger
stepped up to him, reaching out his hand and saying nothing. Morton
was only too glad to give up the money. And he set Dolly off at her
best pace, seeking to get as far as possible from the head-quarters
of the cut-or-carry gang. He could not but wonder how Burchard
should seem to know them so well. He did not much like the thought
that Burchard's forbearance had bound him to support that gentleman's
political aspirations when he had opportunity. This friendly
relation with thieves was not what he would have liked to see in a
favorite candidate, but a cursed fatality seemed to be dragging down
all his high aspirations. It was like one of those old legends he
had heard his mother recite, of men who had begun by little bargains
with the devil, and had presently found themselves involved in evil
entanglements on every hand.
_CHAPTER XVI._