EXCITEMENT.
By nine o’clock the next morning everyone in Oak City knew that Paul had
escaped. “Broke jail, and there ain’t no court to-day,” Max Allen said,
when he brought the news to Miss Hansford, who was breakfasting alone.
Hearing no sound from Elithe’s room, she had looked in and, finding her
asleep, had decided not to waken her.
“The child is just played out, and no wonder,” she said, closing the
door carefully, and leaving the room by the opposite way from which she
had entered.
It was the back way through which Elithe had come in her wet garments,
stopping a moment as she fancied she heard her aunt moving. A puddle of
water on the floor was the consequence, and into this Miss Hansford
stepped as she went out.
“For goodness’ sake, I didn’t know it leaked here,” she said, peering
overhead to find the place.
Failing in this, she wiped up the water and thought no more about it.
She had heard nothing in the night except the storm, which woke her two
or three times. When Max came in with his news, which seemed to excite
him happily, she put her coffee cup down quickly and, with the jerk
natural to her when surprised, she repeated, “Broke jail! What do you
mean?”
“Mean what I say. Mr. Ralston has skipped. Three of them iron bars to
the winder gone slick and clean. Must of took a giant’s strength to pull
’em out, though the old house is rotten as dirt. Fourth bar twisted all
out of shape. Somebody must of got hurt on the sharp point, for there’s
blood on it,—prints of the ends of fingers on the casin’ below,—not very
big fingers, either, and jam up under the winder a large stone had been
moved for somebody to stan’ on; somebody short, and round the stone was
tracks ground down into the sand and mud, so deep that the rain didn’t
wash ’em all away. Two tracks,—one a woman’s, sure. There must of been a
big tussle right there under the eaves; then there ain’t no more tracks
to be seen, nor nothin’ to tell which way they went.”
“Thank the Lord for that!” Miss Hansford said, and Max continued: “Who
do you s’pose the woman was?”
“How should I know?” Miss Hansford replied, thinking the same thought
with Max, who went on: “Between you and I, I b’lieve ’twas Miss Ralston,
for who but his mother would go out such an awful night. Rained cats and
dogs. I never heard bumpiner thunder, nor seen streakeder lightnin’.
Struck two trees and a barn at Still Haven. Folks think she must have
had a hand in it and don’t seem much sorry that he’s cut and run. That
evidence yestiddy was tellin’ and sure to convict him. But the law must
be vin-di-ca-ted, you know, and they’ll have to pretend to hunt for him,
of course. You don’t know nothin’ about it, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” Miss Hansford replied, bristling at once. “Have you come
with a writ to search my house? If so, go ahead, and when you are
through, I’ll take you by the scruff of your neck and pitch you down the
steps.”
“Easy, easy,” Max said, good-humoredly. “I hain’t no writ. I only wanted
to warn you that they was goin’ to search Miss Percy’s and your house,
and the Ralston’s, as the three most likely places where he’d be hid. I
didn’t want you to be took unawares, if he happened to be here.”
“He ain’t here, I tell you,” Miss Hansford said, and Max rejoined: “Of
course he ain’t. He ain’t nowheres, and I hope he’ll stay there. I’d
help get him off the island, I do believe. Where’s Miss Elithe?”
“Bed and asleep; all wore out,” was Miss Hansford’s reply.
“Should s’pose she would be. ’Twas awful the way they put her through
yestiddy. Well, I must go over to the Ralston’s. Good day!”
He nodded and went out, and, shaking like a leaf, Miss Hansford
watched him taking the path through the woods to the Ralston House.
That Elithe had had anything to do with Paul’s escape she had no
suspicion. It was natural that she should sleep late and look white
and scared when she at last came down stairs and was told what had
happened. Miss Hansford was washing her dishes and did not look
closely at Elithe as she repeated what Max had said of the bars pushed
out of place and the twisted one with blood upon it,—the marks of
fingers on the window sill, and the footprints,—one a man’s,
presumably Tom’s; the other a woman’s,—presumably Mrs. Ralston’s.
“Oh-h! Mrs. Ralston’s!” Elithe exclaimed, closing her right hand, in the
inside of which was the cut she had received on the sharp point of the
iron bar.
Once she thought to tell her aunt everything, then decided to await
developments. She was glad suspicion had fallen upon Mrs. Ralston rather
than upon herself, and wondered how that frail woman would have come
through the fearful storm. She did not want to talk and kept out of her
aunt’s way as much as possible, and when, towards noon, she saw three
men coming up the walk and guessed their errand. She quietly slipped
through the back door and left her aunt to receive her visitors alone.
Very few of the islanders had expressed themselves as freely as Max, but
there was a general feeling of gladness that Paul had escaped, and a
hope that he would not be recaptured. Still, the law must be
“vin-di-ca-ted,” and a search, or the semblance of one, made for him.
There were only three places where he was at all likely to have taken
refuge,—Mrs. Percy’s, Miss Hansford’s, and his own home. That he was at
the latter place was probable, but it was thought best to begin with
Mrs. Percy. They told her why they had come, apologizing for their
errand on the plea of its advisability in order to make it easier for
other places to be visited. Mrs. Percy had heard of Paul’s escape and
resented the idea that he was in her cottage; but she made no objection
to their going over the house and into the room where Clarice was again
on the verge of hysterics at the new phase matters had assumed.
Paul was not there, and Miss Hansford was next called upon. They found
her furious, but resolute.
“Come to look for Paul, have you?” she said. “Well, hunt away, and I’ll
help you.”
More for form’s sake than for anything else, they followed her upstairs
and downstairs, from room to room, while she opened closet doors and
bureau drawers and trunks, and bade them satisfy themselves.
“This is my niece’s sleeping room, and this her clothes-press,” she
said, swinging wide the door of Elithe’s closet before the men were
quite in the room behind her. “Lord of Heavens!” she exclaimed under her
breath, as the first objects which met her view were the muddy boots and
wet garments and crushed hat which Elithe had put there until she had a
chance to dry them while her aunt was gone to market or shopping. She
knew now that Elithe and not Mrs. Ralston was concerned in Paul’s
escape, and she felt as if she were sinking to the floor. This would not
do, and, with a mighty effort, she kept herself upright and, taking down
some of Elithe’s dresses, dropped them over the pile of wet clothes.
Then, with a sneer, she said: “Look in, gentlemen, and see for
yourselves that he is not here hanging on the hooks.”
She made them look in, and made them look under the bed and followed
them downstairs, telling them to call again if they did not find him,
and asking if they had nothing better to do than hunt an innocent man.
“We are no more anxious to find him than you are,” they said, as they
bade her good morning and started for the Ralston House. When they were
gone, Miss Hansford sat down, more worried and perplexed than she had
ever been in her life, and more conscience-stricken, too.
“I’m backslidin’ every day,” she thought. “Actually got so I swear,—for
‘Lord of Heavens’ is swearin’, spoke the way I spoke it. I couldn’t help
it. I was so took back with what I saw and what I know. Mrs. Ralston up
at the jail, enjoyin’ such poor health as she does! I might have knew it
was Elithe. Where is she, I wonder?”
She found her in the kitchen, hovering over the few coals of fire still
burning in the stove. She had staid outside until she saw the men leave,
and then had come in by the same door through which she went out.
“Be you cold?” her aunt said to her.
“Yes, the weather has changed a good deal since yesterday,” Elithe
answered, with a shiver, wondering if her aunt would detect the odor of
witch hazel in which she had bathed her hand.
She did smell it, but was too much excited to think about it or care.
“I s’pose you took cold last night at the jail! Who was with you?” she
asked.
Elithe fairly jumped. Her aunt knew, and there was nothing left but to
tell the truth.
“Tom was with me,” she said.
“I thought so. Where’s Paul? What did you do with him?”
“Left him in the boat-house. I don’t know where he is now,” Elithe
replied, and her aunt continued: “In the boat-house! Elithe Hansford, do
you mean you brought him by boat in that awful storm? They say two trees
and a barn were struck near Still Haven.”
“It would not have surprised me if every house in Oak City had been
struck,” Elithe answered, as she recalled the awful storm and the great
peril she had been in.
At her aunt’s request, she told everything,—why she went and what she
did, and showed her wounded hand, and said there was a cut on Paul’s
forehead, which had scraped against the same sharp iron point. Miss
Hansford’s knees shook so that she could hardly stand. Nor could she
think of any fitting words with which to express her feelings except
“Lord of Heavens!” which came to her the more readily because she had
used it so recently.
“There, I’m swearing again, but it’s enough to make a minister
swear,—the things I’m goin’ through. I wonder I’m alive. I know where
they’ll put him, but he’ll be found, if they haven’t got him already,
and then it’ll be worse for him.”
She didn’t reproach Elithe for what she had done, nor feel like
reproaching her. On the contrary, she felt an increased admiration for
the girl who had braved so many difficulties to save Paul. Elithe seemed
to be more like a woman to be counseled with and considered than a girl
to be advised and dictated to. And Elithe felt ten years older than she
had when the great trouble came. Together she and her aunt talked the
matter over and waited for news from the Ralston House. Max Allen had
gone there after his interview with Miss Hansford to notify Tom, he
said, although he had his own suspicions with regard to that young man.
He found him grooming a horse near the stable and so busy with his work
that he did not seem to see Max until he was close to him and said,
“Good mornin’! Heard the news?”
“Yes. Two trees and a barn struck with lightnin’ last night, if that’s
what you mean,” Tom answered, without looking up.
“Oh, git out! ’Tain’t that. You know ’tain’t,” Max rejoined. “Paul
Ralston’s broke jail, and they’ll be scourin’ the country for him. You
hain’t seen him, I s’pose?”
Tom meant to be truthful in the main, but, thinking this a time to lie,
he did so without a scruple.
“No, I hain’t, and if I had I’d die before I’d tell. How did he get
out?”
Max repeated the story, while Tom groomed the horse assiduously, asking
a question now and then but not hoodwinking Max. That Tom knew something
about it he was sure, and finished by saying: “Whoever did it was
all-fired plucky, and I respect ’em for it. Folks suspect Miss Ralston;
the finger tips on the window and the footprints under it was so small.
I hope she’s well as usual this mornin’ and will have her wits about her
when they come to search. You are sure he ain’t here?”
“Yes, sure,” Tom answered, giving the horse a blow which made him spring
round with his heels close to Max, who began to back off and very soon
left the yard with the remark, “You’d better warn ’em that they are
comin’.”
Tom did not reply, but after Max was gone he said: “I must tell them
now, but not where he is till after the search has been made.” Putting
the horse in the stable, he started for the house. Mr. and Mrs. Ralston
had passed a sleepless night, thinking only of Paul and counting the
hours before they could see him again. They had no hope of an acquittal.
That died out with Elithe’s testimony. Mrs. Ralston could not feel
altogether kindly disposed towards the girl, although she pitied her,
and knew that what she said had been wrung from her by the iron hand of
the law. The result, however, would be the same and she would lose her
boy,—not by death, perhaps,—but in a manner nearly as bad and hard to
bear. She wished to be early at the jail that morning so as to be with
him as long as possible before he went into the court room, and had told
Tom to hurry with the carriage. She had her bonnet on waiting for him
and wondering why he was so long in coming, when he appeared and told
the news as Max had told it to him. Mrs. Ralston fainted, and during his
efforts to restore her the judge had time to consider the situation,
which looked to him rather grave. Still the thought that Paul was free
gave him a thrill of joy, while he doubted the wisdom of the escape. But
who helped him, and where is he? he asked.
Tom, who, since he began to lie, did so without compunction, insisted
that all he knew was what Max had told him. The officers were coming to
search the house by and by, he said, offering to attend to them himself.
If the judge suspected Tom he said nothing, and with his wife waited in
painful suspense until the arrival of the three men who had visited Mrs.
Percy and Miss Hansford at an earlier hour. They were met by Tom and
were shown at once into the room where the judge and his wife were
sitting, the mother’s face full of agonized fear and the father’s stern
and grave, as, in answer to the question, “Do you know where your son
is?” he replied, “I do not. Go where you like. Tom will conduct you.”
The next ten minutes were minutes of torture to the two who sat
listening to the tramp of feet while the party went over the house, led
by Tom, who threw open presses and closets, with a strange glitter in
his eyes, especially when he came to the closet under the stairs in the
large square entry or hall.
“They keep their best clothes here,” Tom said, taking down a silk dress
and the judge’s evening coat. “Go in, if you like.”
They didn’t go in nor into the cellar either. Only one of them, an old
resident of the place, knew anything definite about the smuggler’s room,
and he kept his knowledge to himself and hurried the others away. They
were satisfied, they said to Tom, as they left the house with a feeling
that Paul was there somewhere.
“And if he is, let him stay. We have done our duty, and don’t want to
drag him back to prison,” they said to each other.
This was the prevailing sentiment of the people when the first
excitement was over. There was a little disappointment on the part of
the idlers and curious ones that they were not to have another day in
court, but they consoled themselves by going in crowds to the jail and
staring at the windows and the twisted bars and the finger marks and
footprints, which last were effectually trampled out of sight before the
day was over by the many feet which walked over the spot.
“We must try to find him, of course,” the people said, and a pretended
watch was kept upon the outgoing boats and the little fishing smacks
which crossed to the mainland, but there was no heart in it.
Nobody wanted to capture the runaway, and when a new sensation came up
in the shape of a fire and the arrest of the incendiary, public interest
was centred in that, and when Paul was mentioned it was only to ask,
“Where do you suppose he is?”