_O, thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no,
name to be known by, let us call thee, devil!_
--SHAKESPEARE
WHEN Lloyd Fenneben could think again, the waters had receded, the
rock ledge had turned to a pillow under his head, the river bank was a
straight white hospital wall, sunlight and sweet air for the darkness
and the rain, and Norrie Wream was beside him instead of the brutal
stranger. His heavy black hair was shorn away and his head was bound
with much soft cotton stuffs. His left arm was full of prickles, as if
the blood had just resumed circulation.
“And meantime?” he said, looking up at Elinor.
“Yes, meantime, it's June time,” Elinor replied.
“Well, and what of Sunrise? Did we--”
“Oh, yes, we did. The college first. The ruling passion, strong in the
hospital. When a Wream gets to kingdom-come, he always asks Saint
Peter first for a mortar board and gown instead of a crown and wings.”
Norrie's eyes were shining. “And he's a little particular about the
lining of the wings, too--Purple, for Law; White, for Letters; Blue,
for Philosophy; Red, for Divinity. Take this quieting powder. College
presidents should be seen and not heard.” She smilingly silenced him.
Under her gentle ministrations, Dr. Fenneben could picture what comfort
might be in store for Vincent Burgess in a day, doubtless only two years
away. He resented Joshua Wream's estimate of Elinor. Surely Joshua had
never seen her in the place of nurse.
“Now, meantime, Uncle Lloyd,” Elinor was saying, “commencement passed
off beautifully under Acting-Dean Burgess, considering how sad and
heavy-hearted everybody was. The trustees want to raise Professor
Burgess's salary next year--he's so competent.”
Lloyd Fenneben's eyes were not bandaged, and as he looked at Elinor he
wondered at her utter lack of reserve and sentiment, when she spoke of
Burgess in such a frank, matter-of-fact way. When he was in love years
ago--but times must have changed.
“The arrangements for next year are all looked after. Everything will be
done exactly as you would have it done. There's not one thing to put a
worry into that cotton round your head.”
“Good! Now, tell me of 'beforehand.'” His smile was as charming as ever.
“In your fever you've been telling us about a one-armed man who had
two arms to push people into the river, of his wanting you to save some
child's life, and of your stumbling over the stone. That's all we know
about that. Bond Saxon and Professor Burgess found you in the water at
the north bend in the Walnut close to that hermit woman's house. Either
you fell in, or somebody pushed you down the bank, headforemost, and
you struck a ledge of rock.” Elinor's eyes were full of tears now. “You
would have been drowned, if that white-haired woman had n't jumped in
and held your head above water while she clung to the bushes with one
hand. Her dog helped, too, like a real hero. It stood on the bank and
held to her shawl that she had fastened round you to hold you. And the
river was rising so fast, too. It was awful. I don't know just how it
was all managed, Uncle Lloyd, but it was managed between the woman and
her dog at first, and Professor Burgess and Bond Saxon at last, and
you are safe now, and on the high road, the very elevated tracks, to
recovery. When your fever was the highest, the doctors kept telling me
about your splendid constitution and your temperate life. You must get
well now.”
She bent over him and softly caressed his hand.
“Where is that woman now? Dennie Saxon asked me once to do something for
her in her loneliness. She got ahead of my negligence and did something
for me, it seems.”
“She left Lagonda Ledge the very day they rushed us up here to the
hospital. Is n't she strange? And she is so gentle and sweet, but so
sad. I never saw such apathetic face as hers, Uncle Lloyd.”
“When did you see her?” Fenneben asked.
“She came to ask after you. Nobody thought you would get over it.”
Elinor's voice trembled. “The fever was burning you up and it took three
doctors to hold you. I saw her face when Dennie Saxon said they thought
you wouldn't pull through. Your own sister couldn't have turned whiter,
Uncle Lloyd.”
“And the one-armed man I seemed to remember?”
“I don't know. I've been too busy to ask many questions. Lagonda Ledge
is in mourning for you. It will run up the flag above half-mast when I
write how much better you are. Bond Saxon has a theory that some thief
wanted to rob you and decoyed you away on pretense of helping somebody
out of the river. You are an easy mark, Uncle.”
“Why should Bond Saxon have a theory? And how did he know where to find
me? And how did that gray-haired woman and her dog happen in on the
scene just then? This is a grim sort of dime novel business, Norrie.
Things don't fall out this way in real life unless there is some reason
back of them. I think I'll bear investigating.”
“I think so myself--you or your romantic rescuing squad. You might call
the dog to the witness stand first, for he was the first on the scene.
I forgot though that the dog is dead. They found him down the river
with his throat cut. The plot thickens.” Elinor's frivolous spirit was
returning with the lessening of care.
“Tell me about the ball game,” Fenneben said next.
“Oh, it rained for hours and hours, and there wasn't any train service
for Lagonda Ledge for a week, and all the Inter-Collegiate Athletic
events for the season were called off for Sun rise-by-the-Walnut.”
“And the students, generally?” Dr. Fenneben questioned.
“Mr. Trench will be back,” Elinor exclaimed, “and folks have just found
out that it's old Trench who's keeping that crippled boy in school, the
one they call 'Limpy.' Trench rustles jobs for him and divides his own
income for college expenses with the boy for the rest of the cost. I
don't know how the story got out, but I asked him about it when he was
up here to see you. He just grinned and drawled lazily, 'I can save a
little on shoe leather, that some fellows wear out hurrying so, and I
don't burst up so many hats with a swelled head as some do. So I keep a
little extra change on these accounts. We're going down to Oklahoma when
we graduate. Limpy's going to be a Methodist preacher and I a stockman.
I'll keep him in raw material for converts out of the cowboys I'll have
to handle.' Isn't old Trenchy a hero? He says Dean Funnybone showed him
how to think about somebody else beside Trench a little bit.”
“Oh, yes; Trench is a hero and I've known about that whole thing for a
long while,” the Dean asserted. “And Victor Burleigh?”
A shadow in the beautiful dark eyes, a half-tone lowering of the voice,
and a general indifference of manner, as Elinor answered:
“I'm sure I don't know anything about him, except that he's coming back
next year.”
Dr. Fenneben read the whole story in the words and manner of the answer,
and he smiled grimly as he thought of Burgess and of the conflict of
Wream against Wream if Elinor and his brother Joshua ever came to the
clash of arms. But he was too weak now to direct matters.
And meantime, while Lagonda Ledge was holding its breath in anxiety and
dread, and all the churches were joining in union prayer service for the
life of their beloved Dean Fenneben, and the college year was ending
in a halting between hope and dread--meantime, the same queries of Dr.
Fenneben as to motives were also queries in Professor Burgess' mind.
To the school and the town Dr. Fenneben's recovery was the only thing
asked for. There was as yet no clew regarding the cause of the assault.
Bond Saxon had avoided Burgess since the event, so the young man himself
made occasion to get Bond up into Dr. Fenneben's study one June day just
before commencement.
“Saxon,” he said gravely, “you are a man of sense, and you know that
there's something wrong about this Fenneben assault. You've put up some
smooth stories about our happening to be out at the bend of the river
that night, so I guess suspicion will be turned from us all right when
Lagonda Ledge gets time to think about causes; but I must be let into
the truth now.” Burgess was adamant now.
For a little while the old man looked away through the study window at
the prairie empire to be found for the looking.
“Do you see that little twist of blue smoke over west?” he queried
presently.
“What of it?” Burgess asked.
“Nothing, only the man huddlin' down round the fire makin' that smoke
way down where it's cold and dark, that's the man who--say, Professor!”
Old Bond looked up appealingly, and the pitiful face touched Burgess'
heart.
“What is it, Saxon? Be frank now, but be fair, too. Sooner or later,
this thing must be run down. Fenneben will do it himself, anyhow, as
soon as he's well enough.”
“Professor, I have asked you twice if you'd be good to Dennie--”
“Yes, yes; you always come back to that. Anybody would be good to her,
and she's a capable girl who does n't need anybody's care, anyhow. Now,
go on.”
“I will”--it seemed an heroic resolve--“I asked this for Dennie, because
my own life is never safe.”
“So you have said. Why not?” Burgess insisted. There was no way to evade
the question now.
“That's my own business--just a little longer,” Bond answered slowly.
“One thing more; I want your promise not to tell what I say--yet awhile.
It can't hurt anyone to keep still, and it will help some folks.”
“Oh, I'll help you all I can.” Burgess's kindly patience now was
strangely unlike the aristocratic, resentful man to whom old Bond Saxon
had appealed one stormy October night.
“I'm a failure, Professor. I've spoiled my life by my infernal weak will
and appetite for whisky. I know it as well as you do. But I'm not meant
for a bad man.” There was unspeakable pathos in Saxon's face and words.
“Nobody would call you bad. You are a lovable man when you--keep
straight,” Burgess declared cordially.
“I graduated from the university back in the sixties,” Bond went on.
“You!” Burgess exclaimed.
“Yes, I'm one of your alumni brothers from Harvard. It takes more 'n a
college diploma to make a man sometimes, although this would mighty soon
get to be a cheap, destructible nation, if we should pull the colleges
out of it. The boys I've seen Sunrise make into men does an old man's
heart good to think about! But there's more than book-learning in a
Master's Degree. There must be MASTERY in it. I never got farther 'n
an A.B., partly because Nature made me easy going, but mostly because
whisky ruined me. I finally came to Kansas. I'd have had tremens long
ago but for that. But even here a man's got to keep the law inside, or
no human law can prevent his making a beast of himself.”
Saxon paused, and the professor waited.
“The man that sets the cussed trap for me is a law breaker, an escaped
convict, and a murderer. That's what drinking did for him; drinking and
injustice in money matters together.”
Burgess started and his face grew pale.
“Oh, it's a fact, Professor. There are several roads to ruin. One by
the route I've taken. One may be too much love of money, of women, or
of having your own way. You can ruin your soul by getting it set on one
thing above everything else. Education, for instance, like the Wreams
back there in Cambridge.”
“The Wreams!” Burgess exclaimed.
“Yes, old Joshua Wream sold himself to an appetite for musty old
Sanscrit till he'd sacrifice anybody's comfort and joy for it, same as I
sold out to a fool's craving for drink. You'll know the Wreams sometime
as I know 'em now. Fenneben's only a stepbrother and the West made a man
of him. He was always a gentleman.”
“Go on!” Vincent's voice was hardly audible.
“This outlaw, boot-legger, thief, and murderer was a respectable fellow
once, the adopted son of a wealthy family back East, who began by
spoiling him, lavished money on him, and let him have his own way in
everything. He was a gay youngster on the side, given to drinking and
fast company. He fell in love with a pretty girl, but when she found him
out, she cut him. Then he went to the dogs, blaming her because she had
sense enough to throw him over where he belonged. She fell in love--the
right kind of love--with another man. And this young fool who had no
claim on her at all, swore vengeance. Her family wanted her to marry the
young sport because he had money. They were long on money--her father
was, anyhow. But she would n't do it.”
“Did she marry the one she really cared for?” Burgess asked eagerly.
“No; but that's another story. Meantime this fellow's father died,
leaving the boy he, himself, had started on the wrong road, entirely out
of his will. The boy went to the devil--and he's still there.”
Saxon paused and looked once more at the tiny wavering smoke column,
hardly visible now.
“He's over yonder hiding away from the light of day under the bluffs by
the fire that sends that curl of smoke up through the crevices in the
rock, an outlaw thief.”
Saxon gazed long at the landscape beyond the Walnut. When he spoke
again, it was with an effort.
“Professor, this outlaw got a hold on me once when I was drunk, drunk
by his making. It would do no good to tell you about that. You could n't
help me, nor harm him. You'll trust me in this?”
A picture of Dennie down in the Kickapoo Corral, with the flickering
firelight on her rippling hair, the weird, shadowy woodland, and the old
Indian legend all came back to the young man now, though why he could
not say.
“I certainly would never bring harm to you nor yours,” he said kindly.
“I can't inform on the scoundrel. I can only watch him. The woman he was
in love with years ago, who would n't stand for his wild ways--that's
the gray-haired woman at Pigeon Place. Her life's been one long tragedy,
though she is not forty yet.”
The anguish on the old man's face was pitiful as he spoke.
“She has a reason of her own for living here, and she is the soul of
courage. On the night of the Fenneben accident, I was out her way--yes,
running away from Bond Saxon. I knew if I stayed in town, I'd get drunk
on a bottle left at my door. So I tore out in the rain and the dark to
fight it out with the devil inside of me. And out at Pigeon Place I run
onto this fiend. When I ordered him back to his hiding place, he vowed
he'd get Fenneben and put him in the river. There's one or two human
things about him still. One is his fear of little children, and one is
his love for that woman. He really did adore her years ago. I tracked
home after him, and you know the rest. He put up some story to the Dean
to entice him out there.”
He hesitated, then ceased to speak.
“Why the Dean?” Burgess asked.
“Because Lloyd Fenneben's the man she loved years ago, and her folks
wouldn't let her marry,” Bond Saxon said sadly.
Burgess felt as if the limestone ridge was giving way beneath him.
“Where is she now?”
“She's gone, nobody knows where. I hope to heaven she will never come
back,” the old man replied.
“And it was she who saved Dr. Fenneben's life? Does he know who she is?”
“No, no. She's never let him know, and if she does n't want him to know,
whose business is it to tell him?” Saxon urged. “I have hung about and
protected her when she never knew I was near. But when I'm drunk, I'm
an idiot and my mind is bent against her. I'd die to save her, and yet
I may kill her some day when I don't know it.” Bond Saxon's head was
drooping pitifully low.
“But why live in such slavery? Why not tell all you know about this man
and let the law protect a helpless woman?” Burgess urged.
Old Bond Saxon looked up and uttered only one word--“Dennie!”
Vincent Burgess turned away a moment. Dennie! Yes, there was Dennie.
“This woman had a husband, you say?” he asked presently.
Bond Saxon stared straight at him and slowly nodded his head.
“What became of him? Do you know?” Vincent questioned.
Saxon leaned forward, and, clutching Vincent Burgess by the arm,
whispered hoarsely, “He's dead. I killed him. But I was drunk when I did
it. And this man knows it and holds me bound.”
SERVICE
_If you were born to honor, show
it now;
if put upon you, make the judgment
good that thought you
worthy of it_.
--SHAKESPEARE