FORTUNE AND MISFORTUNE.
On the same evening, a scene of a very different character occurred,
in which certain personages of this history were actors. In order to
describe it, we must return to the company of sportsmen whom Gilbert
Potter left at the Hammer-and-Trowel Tavern, late in the afternoon.
No sooner had he departed than the sneers of the young bucks, who
felt themselves humiliated by his unexpected success, became loud and
frequent. Mr. Alfred Barton, who seemed to care little for the general
dissatisfaction, was finally reproached with having introduced such an
unfit personage at a gentleman's hunt; whereupon he turned impatiently,
and retorted:
“There were no particular invitations sent out, as all of you know.
Anybody that had a horse, and knew how to manage him, was welcome.
Zounds! if you fellows are afraid to take hedges, am I to blame for
that? A hunter's a hunter, though he's born on the wrong side of the
marriage certificate.”
“That's the talk, Squire!” cried Fortune, giving his friend a hearty
slap between the shoulders. “I've seen riding in my day,” he continued,
“both down in Loudon and on the Eastern Shore--men born with spurs on
their heels, and I tell you this Potter could hold his own, even with
the Lees and the Tollivers. We took the hedge together, while you were
making a round of I don't know how many miles on the road; and I never
saw a thing neater done. If you thought there was anything unfair about
him, why didn't you head him off?”
“Yes, damme,” echoed Mr. Barton, bringing down his fist upon the bar,
so that the glasses jumped, “why didn't you head him off?” Mr. Barton's
face was suspiciously flushed, and he was more excited than the occasion
justified.
There was no answer to the question, except that which none of the young
bucks dared to make.
“Well, I've had about enough of this,” said Mr. Joel Ferris, turning on
his heel; “who's for home?”
“Me!” answered three or four, with more readiness than grammar. Some of
the steadier young farmers, who had come for an afternoon's recreation,
caring little who was first in at the death, sat awhile and exchanged
opinions about crops and cattle; but Barton and Fortune kept together,
whispering much, and occasionally bursting into fits of uproarious
laughter. The former was so captivated by his new friend, that before
he knew it every guest was gone. The landlord had lighted two or three
tallow candles, and now approached with the question:
“Will you have supper, gentlemen?”
“That depends on what you've got,” said Fortune.
This was not language to which the host was accustomed. His guests were
also his fellow-citizens: if they patronized him, he accommodated them,
and the account was balanced. His meals were as good as anybody's,
though he thought it that shouldn't, and people so very particular might
stay away. But he was a mild, amiable man, and Fortune's keen eye and
dazzling teeth had a powerful effect upon him. He answered civilly, in
spite of an inward protest:
“There's ham and eggs, and frizzled beef.”
“Nothing could be better!” Fortune exclaimed, jumping up. “Come
'Squire--if I stay over Sunday with you, you must at least take supper
at my expense.”
Mr. Barton tried to recollect whether he had invited his friend to spend
Sunday with him. It must be so, of course; only, he could not remember
when he had spoken, or what words he had used. It would be very
pleasant, he confessed, but for one thing; and how was he to get over
the difficulty?
However, here they were, at the table, Fortune heaping his plate like a
bountiful host, and talking so delightfully about horses and hounds, and
drinking-bouts, and all those wild experiences which have such a
charm for bachelors of forty-five or fifty, that it was impossible to
determine in his mind what he should do.
After the supper, they charged themselves with a few additional
potations, to keep off the chill of the night air, mounted their horses,
and took the New-Garden road. A good deal of confidential whispering had
preceded their departure.
“They're off on a lark,” the landlord remarked to himself, as they rode
away, “and it's a shame, in men of their age.”
After riding a mile, they reached the cross-road on the left, which the
hunters had followed, and Fortune, who was a little in advance, turned
into it.
“After what I told you, 'Squire,” said he, “you won't wonder that I know
the country so well. Let us push on; it's not more than two miles. I
would be very clear of showing you one of my nests, if you were not such
a good fellow. But mum's the word, you know.”
“Never fear,” Barton answered, somewhat thickly; “I'm an old bird,
Fortune.”
“That you are! Men like you and me are not made of the same stuff as
those young nincompoops; we can follow a trail without giving tongue at
every jump.”
Highly flattered, Barton rode nearer, and gave his friend an
affectionate punch in the side. Fortune answered with an arm around his
waist and a tight hug, and so they rode onward through the darkness.
They had advanced for somewhat more than a mile on the cross-road, and
found themselves in a hollow, with tall, and added in a low, significant
tone, “If you stir from this spot in less than one hour, you are a dead
man.”
Then he rode on, whistling “Money Musk” as he went. Once or twice he
stopped, as if to listen, and Barton's heart ceased to beat; but by
degrees the sound of his horse's hoofs died away. The silence that
succeeded was full of terrors. Barton's horse became restive, and he
would have dismounted and held him, but for the weakness in every joint
which made him think that his body was falling asunder. Now and then
a leaf rustled, or the scent of some animal, unperceived by his own
nostrils, caused his horse to snort and stamp. The air was raw and sent
a fearful chill through his blood. Moreover, how was he to measure the
hour? His watch was gone; he might have guessed by the stars, but
the sky was overcast. Fortune and Sandy Flash--for there were two
individuals in his bewildered brain--would surely fulfil their threat if
he stirred before the appointed time. What under heaven should he do?
Wait; that was all; and he waited until it seemed that morning must be
near at hand. Then, turning his horse, he rode back very slowly towards
the New-Garden road, and after many panics, to the Hammer-and-Trowel.
There was still light in the bar-room; should the door open, he would
be seen. He put spurs to his horse and dashed past. Once in motion, it
seemed that he was pursued, and along Tuffkenamon went the race, until
his horse, panting and exhausted, paused to drink at Redley Creek. They
had gone to bed at the Unicorn; he drew a long breath, and felt that the
danger was over. In five minutes more he was at home.
Putting his horse in the stable, he stole quietly to the house, pulled
off his boots in the wood-shed, and entered by a back way through the
kitchen. Here he warmed his chill frame before the hot ashes, and then
very gently and cautiously felt his way to bed in the dark.
The next morning, being Sunday, the whole household, servants and all,
slept an hour later than usual, as was then the country custom. Giles,
the old soldier, was the first to appear. He made the fire in the
kitchen, put on the water to boil, and then attended to the feeding of
the cattle at the barn. When this was accomplished, he returned to the
house and entered a bedroom adjoining the kitchen, on the ground-floor.
Here slept “Old-man Barton,” as he was generally called,--Alfred's
father, by name Abiah, and now eighty-five years of age. For many years
he had been a paralytic, and unable to walk, but the disease had not
affected his business capacity. He was the hardest, shrewdest, and
cunningest miser in the county. There was not a penny of the income
and expenditure of the farm, for any year, which he could not account
for,--not a date of a deed, bond, or note of hand, which he had ever
given or received, that was not indelibly burnt upon his memory. No one,
not even his sons, knew precisely how much he was worth. The old lawyer
in Chester, who had charge of much of his investments, was as shrewd as
himself, and when he made his annual visit, the first week in April,
the doors were not only closed, but everybody was banished from hearing
distance so long as he remained.
Giles assisted in washing and dressing the old man, then seated him in a
rude arm-chair, resting on clumsy wooden castors, and poured out for
him a small wine-glass full of raw brandy. Once or twice a year, usually
after the payment of delayed interest, Giles received a share of the
brandy; but he never learned to expect it. Then a long hickory staff
was placed in the old man's hand, and his arm-chair was rolled into the
kitchen, to a certain station between the fire and the southern window,
where he would be out of the way of his daughter Ann, yet could measure
with his eye every bit of lard she put into the frying-pan, and every
spoonful of molasses that entered into the composition of her pies.
She had already set the table for breakfast. The bacon and sliced
potatoes were frying in separate pans, and Ann herself was lifting the
lid of the tin coffee-pot, to see whether the beverage had “come to a
boil,” when the old man entered, or, strictly speaking, _was_ entered.
As his chair rolled into the light, the hideousness, not the grace and
serenity of old age, was revealed. His white hair, thin and half-combed,
straggled over the dark-red, purple-veined skin of his head; his cheeks
were flabby bags of bristly, wrinkled leather; his mouth was a sunken,
irregular slit, losing itself in the hanging folds at the corners, and
even the life, gathered into his small, restless gray eyes, was half
quenched under the red and heavy edges of the lids. The third and fourth
fingers of his hands were crooked upon the skinny palms, beyond any
power to open them.
When Ann--a gaunt spinster of fifty-five--had placed the coffee on
the table, the old man looked around, and asked with a snarl: “Where's
Alfred?”
“Not up yet, but you needn't wait, father.”
“Wait?” was all he said, yet she understood the tone, and wheeled him
to the table. As soon as his plate was filled, he bent forward over it,
rested his elbows on the cloth, and commenced feeding himself with hands
that trembled so violently that he could with great difficulty bring
the food to his mouth. But he resented all offers of assistance,
which implied any weakness beyond that of the infirmity which it was
impossible for him to conceal. His meals were weary tasks, but he shook
and jerked through them, and would have gone away hungry rather than
acknowledge the infirmity of his great age.
Breakfast was nearly over before Alfred Barton made his appearance. No
truant school-boy ever dreaded the master's eye as he dreaded to appear
before his father that Sunday morning. His sleep had been broken
and restless; the teeth of Sandy Flash had again grinned at him in
nightmare-dreams, and when he came to put on his clothes, the sense
of emptiness in his breast-pocket and watch-fob impressed him like a
violent physical pain. His loss was bad enough, but the inability to
conceal it caused him even greater distress.
Buttoning his coat over the double void, and trying to assume his usual
air, he went down to the kitchen and commenced his breakfast. Whenever
he looked up, he found his father's eyes fixed upon him, and before a
word had been spoken, he felt that he had already betrayed something,
and that the truth would follow, sooner or later. A wicked wish crossed
his mind, but was instantly suppressed, for fear lest that, also, should
be discovered.
After Ann had cleared the table, and retired to her own room in order
to array herself in the black cloth gown which she had worn every Sunday
for the past fifteen years, the old man said, or rather wheezed out the
words,--
“Kennett, meetin'?”
“Not to-day,” said his son, “I've a sort of chill from yesterday.” And
he folded his arms and shivered very naturally.
“Did Ferris pay you?” the old man again asked.
“Y--yes.”
“Where's the money?”
There was the question, and it must be faced. Alfred Barton worked the
farm “on shares,” and was held to a strict account by his father, not
only for half of all the grain and produce sold, but of all the horses
and cattle raised, as well as those which were bought on speculation.
On his share he managed--thanks to the niggardly system enforced in the
house--not only to gratify his vulgar taste for display, but even to lay
aside small sums from time to time. It was a convenient arrangement, but
might be annulled any time when the old man should choose, and Alfred
knew that a prompt division of the profits would be his surest guarantee
of permanence.
“I have not the money with me,” he answered, desperately, after a pause,
during which he felt his father's gaze travelling over him, from head to
foot.
“Why not! You haven't spent it?” The latter question was a croaking
shriek, which seemed to forebode, while it scarcely admitted, the
possibility of such an enormity.
“I spent only four shillings, father, but--but--but the money's all
gone!”
The crooked fingers clutched the hickory staff, as if eager to wield
it; the sunken gray eyes shot forth angry fire, and the broken figure
uncurved and straightened itself with a wrathful curiosity.
“Sandy Flash robbed me on the way home,” said the son, and now that the
truth was out, he seemed to pluck up a little courage.
“What, what, what!” chattered the old man, incredulously; “no lies, boy,
no lies!”
The son unbuttoned his coat, and showed his empty watch-fob. Then he
gave an account of the robbery, not strictly correct in all its details,
but near enough for his father to know, without discovering inaccuracies
at a later day. The hickory-stick was shaken once or twice during the
recital, but it did not fall upon the culprit--though this correction
(so the gossip of the neighborhood ran) had more than once been
administered within the previous ten years. As Alfred Barton told his
story, it was hardly a case for anger on the father's part, so he took
his revenge in another way.
“This comes o' your races and your expensive company,” he growled, after
a few incoherent sniffs and snarls; “but I don't lose my half of
the horse. No, no! I'm not paid till the money's been handed over.
Twenty-five dollars, remember!--and soon, that I don't lose the use of
it too long. As for _your_ money and the watch, I've nothing to do with
them. I've got along without a watch for eighty-five years, and I never
wore as smart a coat as that in my born days. Young men understood how
to save, in my time.”
Secretly, however, the old man was flattered by his son's love of
display, and enjoyed his swaggering air, although nothing would have
induced him to confess the fact. His own father had come to Pennsylvania
as a servant of one of the first settlers, and the reverence which he
had felt, as a boy, for the members of the Quaker and farmer aristocracy
of the neighborhood, had now developed into a late vanity to see his
own family acknowledged as the equals of the descendants of the former.
Alfred had long since discovered that when he happened to return home
from the society of the Falconers, or the Caswells, or the Carsons, the
old man was in an unusual good-humor. At such times, the son felt sure
that he was put down for a large slice of the inheritance.
After turning the stick over and over in his skinny hands, and pressing
the top of it against his toothless gums, the old man again spoke.
“See here, you're old enough now to lead a steady life. You might ha'
had a farm o' your own, like Elisha, if you'd done as well. A very fair
bit o' money he married,--very fair,--but I don't say you couldn't do as
well, or, maybe, better.”
“I've been thinking of that, myself,” the son replied.
“Have you? Why don't you step up to her then? Ten thousand dollars
aren't to be had every day, and you needn't expect to get it without the
askin'! Where molasses is dropped, you'll always find more than one fly.
Others than you have got their eyes on the girl.”
The son's eyes opened tolerably wide when the old man began to speak,
but a spark of intelligence presently flashed into them, and an
expression of cunning ran over his face.
“Don't be anxious, daddy!” said he, with assumed playfulness; “she's not
a girl to take the first that offers. She has a mind of her own,--with
her the more haste the less speed. I know what I'm about; I have my top
eye open, and when there's a good chance, you won't find me sneaking
behind the wood-house.”
“Well, well!” muttered the old man, “we'll see,--we'll see! A good
family, too,--not that I care for that. My family's as good as the next.
But if you let her slip, boy”--and here he brought down the end of his
stick with a significant whack, upon the floor. “This I'll tell you,”
he added, without finishing the broken sentence, “that whether you're a
rich man or a beggar, depends on yourself. The more you have, the more
you'll get; remember that! Bring me my brandy!”
Alfred Barton knew the exact value of his father's words. Having already
neglected, or, at least, failed to succeed, in regard to two matches
which his father had proposed, he understood the risk to his inheritance
which was implied by a third failure. And yet, looking at the subject
soberly, there was not the slightest prospect of success. Martha Deane
was the girl in the old man's mind, and an instinct, stronger than his
vanity, told him that she never would, or could, be his wife. But, in
spite of that, it must be his business to create a contrary impression,
and keep it alive as long as possible,--perhaps until--until--
We all know what was in his mind. Until the old man should die.