clean-shaven, and sixty, his closely cut, crisp gray hair showing no
thinness at the crown and his deep-set eyes alert and keen to everything
that went on about him, although he was not a man of many words and
seldom entered into conversation of his own free will. In short, he was
the type of the old country farmer, who, clad in cords and gaiters,
spends half his time riding about his place on a deep-chested hunter,
and is an ardent follower of the hounds when the chase does not
interfere with market day. His speech, though usually correct, broadened
with certain words; his _s_ took the sound of _z_, and sometimes, when
excited, he reversed his vowels.
That he was a man of some means, was evinced by the fact that he owned
his home, paid as he went, contributed freely to local charities, had
three or four good horses, kept and bred dogs, farmed his land for
pleasure rather than profit, and displayed a love of sport by his
interest in the county and local fairs and horse shows. At the same time
he had evidently retired from active business life, as he only went to
the city one day in the week, as any man of leisure might, who, though
loving an out-of-door life, did not wish to cut entirely loose from old
associations.
For the rest, though he was referred to familiarly as Tom Scott by all
the men of his own age, and a good many of the younger ones, and
considered by all a square fellow, not one, if they had been questioned
about the matter, could have told from whence he came, or that his
previous occupation had in any way been mentioned.
When a new family comes to Oaklands, the natives have three tests by
which the strangers are graded and accorded citizenship in one of
several degrees, the first being financial, the second, moral, and the
third, social. Have they paid for their house in full, or is it held on
mortgage? Will they take a church pew, and if so, in which one of the
four churches? Does the man of the family wear a collar, tie, and coat
when at rest in the bosom of his family?—appearing in shirtsleeves upon
the front porch, even of a hot summer evening, no longer being permitted
by the rising generation of daughters trained at the Bridgeton High
School.
The Scotts had passed the tests in a manner satisfactory to all,
immediately taking a pew, neither aggressively toward the front, nor yet
economically in the rear, in our equivalent of the Established Church,
of which, it seemed, they were all members. Thus the only questioning
murmurs that had ever arisen about the head of the family came from a
few discontented people who had considered Tom Scott an inexperienced
city man of money, and therefore had tried, but tried in vain, to sell
him either an unsound horse, badly cured hay, or other farm produce of
poor quality, but at a price above the market rates. To these Scott
quickly showed so much horse lore, and such a shrewd and experienced
side to his character in general, that they voiced the opinion between
themselves that he wasn’t, in their judgment, what he seemed to be, and
that if it were known _how_ and _where_ he made his money—“well,
gambling and horse-racing had made many a fortune, and the ’Piscopals
should go slow before they committed themselves to his iniquities and
asked him to pass the plate.”
Few guests from outside ever went to the Queen Anne villa, and though
Mrs. Scott and her daughters joined in the milder social diversions of
the village, it was suddenly announced, the fall after they graduated
from the high school and something in the nature of a party was expected
of them, that mother and daughters were going to the old country to
spend Christmas, but that Tom Scott himself would stay behind and keep
bachelor’s hall. Then again the murmurers said: “Why doesn’t he go with
them? Has he done anything that prevents his going home?”
It was a little after this time that Scott, an inveterate home lover,
and now lonely and hungering for companionship, appeared at the
Pharmacy, his mantle of reserve replaced by an almost garrulous
familiarity. His first act was to buy a box of really fine cigars, which
he passed about freely among his fellows, only frowning at the one
outsider, a drummer, who, pushing his way into the group, prepared to
take a fistful at once. “Slow, young man, go slow,” Scott said
deliberately, measuring the fellow with a single sweep of the eye; “when
you ask a gentleman to drink, he doesn’t fill five glasses before he
empties the first, does he?”
The drummer slunk back with an exclamation half impertinent, half
apologetic, and at that moment the door was flung open, and Martin
Cortright entered, agitation written on every feature of his usually
calm student face; going directly to the proprietor, who was leaning
over the soda-water counter, he called in a voice very unlike his usual
quiet tones:—
“Give me some rough-on-rats, and any other poison you have; if they die
in the house, and we have to leave, so be it. My patience is exhausted.
To-day, while we were out driving, the rats, or a rat, actually got into
my little book room, though it has a hardwood floor and high wainscot,
and gnawed the corner off the antique leather binding of my ‘Denton’s
History of New York’; if this continues, imagine the condition of my
library!”
“Why don’t you cover all the food in the house and try traps, Mr.
Cortright?” asked Tom Scott, turning abruptly from the group who were
discussing the merits of a litter of bull pups that were asleep in a box
behind the candy counter.
“Traps!” ejaculated Martin. “We have tried five different kinds, and
rats managed to take the bait from four, without snapping the springs,
and the fifth, the wire-cage variety, they must have rolled about the
kitchen like a toy, for we found it in a corner standing on end. My
belief is, Mr. Scott, that intelligence in rats varies, as it does in
human beings, and that these particular specimens are what might be
called intellectual, and are only to be circumvented and trapped, if at
all, by some one who understands their own methods. How do they get into
the house? The foundations are solid, the cellar plastered, and with a
cement floor that shows no holes, and yet in the space of a month there
is hardly a door in the house that does not show the marks of their
teeth.”
“You are perfectly right,” said Scott, with the utmost seriousness,
interest sparkling in his eyes; “they must be understood and met on
their own ground, for they have surely some runway by which they enter
and leave, and no two tribes of rats work in exactly the same way, any
more than any two gangs of housebreakers handle their tools alike.”
Then, as he saw that all eyes were fixed on him inquiringly, he added,
in the most casual way possible, “I’ve always been keen on watching
animals to learn their ways, and as a young chap I had some queer
experiences with rats.”
“Why don’t you take up the reward offered, and clear the town of the
rats?” asked the drummer, sneeringly; “a gent who’s so well acquainted
with their ways ought to find it a cinch.”
The sneer passed unnoticed. “Have the Selectmen offered a reward in the
matter?” Scott asked.
“Yes, posted this afternoon,” said the druggist; “there is one of the
bills on the tree opposite. One hundred dollars’ reward for any one who
will either do the job or suggest a remedy.”
For a full minute Tom Scott stood with his hands in his pockets looking
into the show window and whistling softly to himself as if he were
alone; then squaring about he almost called, so loud was his voice,
“I’ve time on my hands now, and I’m going to take up that challenge,
boys: if I make the rats go in my traps, I’ll give the hundred to the
Bridgeton Hospital; if they don’t, I’ll add a hundred to the sum to make
it bigger bait for a smarter fellow.”
“I wish you could start to-night and begin at my house, but of course
that is asking too much; my wife and the maids are completely upset,”
Martin Cortright said beseechingly, as though Scott were some sort of
priest whose incantations would bring immediate relief to the nerves of
the feminine part of the household, and safety to his own beloved books.
“No, I was going to suggest that myself; I must get the lay of the land
a bit before I can plan my game, and night’s the only time for that. I
must go to my house first for a few things that may come handy. Has any
one a team outside?”
“I have,” said father, who had opened the door as the conversation
began, only entering far enough to hand some prescriptions to the
druggist, with a few words of directions concerning their filling. “I
must wait about for an hour at least, so that I can drive you up and
back again as well as not. What, you are going to try and rid us of this
plague? Surely, then, as health officer, it is my duty to give you a
lift.”
“Thank you, Dr. Russell,” said Scott, still in a sort of dream, as the
two went out together.
“I wonder where Tom Scott got acquainted with rats,” said the first
Selectman, who had all this time been playing chess imperturbably with
the Town Clerk upon the top of a barrel of pop-corn balls.
“In jail, most likely; that’s a thriving place for ’em, and there’s
plenty of time to watch ’em,” sneered the drummer, who had just reached
into the cigar box that Scott had left upon the counter, only to find
that its owner had pocketed the remaining contents.
“You speak as if you’d had personal experience. I see you list rat-traps
in your hardware side line,” said the Town Clerk, tartly. He liked
Scott, and also as a native he resented such remarks from a stranger.
“Mated!” cried the first Selectman, and the coterie began to break up.
Tom Scott and father drove along for a few moments in silence, and then
father asked him some questions about Mrs. Hobbs, the friend of Martha
Saunders, who was Scott’s housekeeper during the absence of his wife.
“She’s a good woman and a fine cook, but, Dr. Russell, she’s too stiff
for comfort; she serves my meals as if I was a gentleman, which I’m not,
and never pretended, and won’t sit down at table with me.”
Father was somewhat surprised at this remark, for he only realized Scott
as intelligent and a straightforward man of his word, and, further than
this, social classification never entered his head.
The house reached, Scott deftly fastened and blanketed the horses,
opened the door with a latch-key, and, leading the way through several
dimly lit rooms, said, “Perhaps you’ll kindly wait in here in my
sitting-room while I hunt about for what I need; there’s always a bit of
fire in here, sir, and it’s less lonely than the empty big rooms.”
As soon as father accustomed himself to the light, he saw he was in what
is commonly known as a den. A low book-case filled one side, above which
hung some good sporting prints in colour, pictures of famous horses, all
winners of the Derby, mingled with a few really fine engravings of
English rural scenes by Birket Foster, and others of his school. In the
bay window was a combination table and writing-desk, upon which papers
were littered, a tray of pipes acting as a paper-weight, while three
framed photographs and a work-basket of ample proportions spoke of the
absent wife and daughters. Comfortable easy-chairs filled the other
window recesses; one showing more signs of wear than the rest was drawn
up before the hearth, within the arms of which dozed a large, but
exceedingly amiable, bulldog, an old friend of father’s, that doubtless
would have wagged a welcome had he the wherewithal; this lacking, he
grinned broadly, and reading in father’s face that he wished to sit in
the chair, rolled sleepily to the rug, where, resting against father’s
knees, he threw back his head, extending his chin and throat to be
scratched.
As the dog finally dropped his head to the rug in absolute content,
father stretched his feet toward the fire, noticing for the first time
that it was not of logs but a glowing mass of Liverpool coal, a rarity
in a New England village. Then, as idleness bred of a capacity for
dwelling upon the details of what surrounds one, seized him, his eyes
travelled upward to the mantel-shelf, which had odd, narrow cupboards on
either side that reached quite to the ceiling; between these, set
panel-wise in a heavy frame of black oak, was an oil painting. This was
of such an unusual quality and subject for the surroundings, that father
first rubbed his eyes and then pushed the chair back to see the better.
The background was painted broadly, or, rather, merely suggested a
dark-walled room with the corner of a table littered with the remains of
a recent feast; upon a crimson leather chair close by the table was
perched a young woman, a-tiptoe, in her stocking feet; her copper-brown
hair and some white, loose-flowing wrap drooped from her shoulders,
while with both hands she held her skirts about her knees and stared in
wide-eyed terror at a couple of rats that scurried across the floor
toward her. The abrupt lighting of the figure came entirely from a
bull’s-eye lantern that was held in front of the man who crouched in the
shadow directly opposite the woman.
So striking and realistic was the canvas that after an examination at
close range, which revealed the name of the painter, an artist of repute
who had made a name some twenty years before for his daring and original
portraits and figure compositions, father placed the easy-chair in the
best possible position, reseated himself, and for the moment forgot his
errand and surroundings in his blended admiration and curiosity
concerning the painting.
* * * * *
“I suppose you are wondering how a five-hundred-guinea picture like that
came here, sir,” said Tom Scott’s voice, so close behind the chair that
father started, only to give a second and more emphatic jump and
ejaculate, “Bless me! for a moment I took you for a burglar,” as the man
came forward and stood leaning against the mantel, upon which he set a
small bull’s-eye lantern. Usually so carefully dressed and precise, even
when working as he often did about his stable and garden, Scott had
undergone a complete transformation. A close-fitting cap pulled down
about his ears touched the collar of a dull gray sweater, below which
were tightly fitting knee breeches, long stockings, and flexible,
heelless shoes; a stout bag that he brought in he dropped on the floor,
and it gave out a clank, suggestive of handcuffs and chains.
For a moment after father spoke, Scott coloured deeply, even allowing
for the firelight, and then he repeated the question concerning the
picture.
“Yes, I must confess that I am curious to know something of the history
of that painting,” replied father, speaking slowly and peering from
half-closed lids, “for though it is evidently what is called a fancy
piece, there is something about it that makes me feel that it was a real
happening and the woman real flesh and blood.”
It was Tom Scott’s turn to start and scan father’s face narrowly.
Whatever he read there evidently satisfied him, for he said quickly, as
if determined to speak before he changed his mind, “She was real flesh
and blood, and she is still, please God. The woman in the picture is my
wife!”
“Your wife? Not the Mrs. Scott that I know and have tended?”
“Yes, there’s never been but one for me. Of course I’ll not say that
she’s as slim and girlish as she was twenty-five years ago, but she’s
just as game and true as she was that night. If you’ll listen, I’ll tell
you the story of it all, and not make it long. Moreover, it will be a
kindness to me. For some time back I’ve felt that I must share those
days with some man that I could trust, and now, to-night, with all this
rat talk, and the missus who knows being gone, I must speak it out to
some one or lose my grip. No, don’t look troubled, sir, it’s no crime,
only something I’ve held back for the good of my girls, as I thought,
and if I do right or wrong, it’s for you to help me judge, Dr. Russell.
“Some people hereabout, as well as in other places, have wondered where
and how I got my start, and if the money I have was rightly come by.
Yes, sir, I see by your face that you’ve heard this, and I’ll not
attempt to deny that, since leaving my trade, I’ve taken enough trouble
to hide it to make people suspect more than there is to tell.”
Opening one of the cupboards with a key fastened to his pocket by a
chain, he took out a small double leather case; one side contained a
photograph of an old lady in a black gown and a white puffed widow’s
cap; from the opposite opening, he drew a thick card, yellow from its
rest in the dark, and handed it to father. Printed on it in heavy
letters were these words: “Successor to the original Harry
Leverings—Rat-catcher. At the old stand—2100 West 42d St.—Contracts
made for clearing hotels and public buildings.—No poisons used, traps
and strictly reliable men only employed.” Across the bottom in
silhouette were a string of steel traps and a bevy of scurrying rats.
Taking the card from father, whose face certainly expressed all the
interest necessary to encourage the narrator, Scott placed it on the
mantel-shelf as a sort of prompter, and straightway plunged into the
story:—
“There were only two boys of us who lived to grow up at home, John and
me. Of course, when my father died, John, being the elder, had the land
holdings, a goodish bit of a farm that had given a fair living when well
managed, while I had very little, but leave to get out. My mother loved
me best, I knew, but John was the heir, and that was the beginning and
the end of it. To keep me by her, she would have been willing to see me
knuckle down to be little more than a field hand to my brother, but I
would not. I had no trade except if knowing a good horse and how to ride
him could be called one, but I could shoot straight, and through
friendship with a game-keeper, I knew the ways of every beastie of the
woods and fallows of a great estate on the edge of which our land lay.
Many a night I’ve lain out in the fern with him, and miles did I tramp
after him when he went about setting and tending his traps for things
that killed the game. Poor McTaggert, I remember him well; he only died
last year.
“What I meant to do more than get away, I never knew when I took my
fortune, less than a hundred pounds, and left for America, for John was
hard and had an underhand way of working between me and my mother that
made every day I stayed a battle. Then, too, he made trouble with my
boyish sweetheart, Annie Fenton, a neighbour’s daughter, that in my eyes
always acted as if she feared and disliked him, yet dared not tell him
so. For a couple of months I drifted about here and there, but never
locating. One night when I had been thinking that my money would likely
run low before I had made my start, I was stopping at a cheap commercial
hotel in New York, when I heard them talking of the rats that overran
the kitchen, and about one Harry Leverings, who, with a gang of men
under him, made a handsome living at rat-catching. This man, moreover,
was coming there that night.
“Then my old days with McTaggert and my work of trap-setting came to me,
and getting leave to go below stairs, I chanced to fall in with
Leverings himself, who proved to be a fellow-countryman. One thing led
to another; I told him of a kind of trap McTaggert made, and sent for
one; soon I was working for him, improved the trap, took out a patent on
it, and five years later, when he was ready to drop out and go home, I
succeeded to his business, as the card says, and sometimes employed
upwards of twenty men who travelled all about the country, though for
some reason I can’t explain, my own name never appeared as head of the
business.
“Meanwhile, things had gone badly at home; soon after I left, Annie
Fenton’s father, thinking a bird in the hand the best bargain, tried to
force her to marry my brother, but she slipped away to an aunt somewhere
in America, leaving no trace of herself.
“John mismanaged the land, and, being caught in sharp practice, fell
into debt, leased out what he could of the place without thought of
mother, and went, some said, to Australia, though others said he had
followed Annie. Next, my mother fell into straits, and as I knew she
couldn’t be happy here, at least until I had a settled home, I sent her
money every month, through old McTaggert, lest it should be caught in
any way to pay my brother’s debts.
“It was close upon Christmas of the sixth year after I left home when I
had about made up my mind to go back for the holidays, that one of my
best customers, the owner of several large buildings for which I cared,
asked me if I would go out to his country house for a week or so and see
if I could do something about the rats, that, since cold weather, had
come into the cellar in a drove and were working up through the house,
destroying the woodwork and furnishings. He was to have house parties
there all through the holidays, and he wished, if possible, to have the
rats kept down, if nothing more, lest they annoy his guests.
“By this time I had given up personal jobs, preferring to look over the
ground and arrange the plans for my men, but Mr. —— rather insisted
that I should go to his place alone, promising to put me up at the
lodge, and so I went. Talk about seeing life, Dr. Russell, no one sees
more of it behind the scenes, as it were, than a rat-catcher. To do his
work properly on a large scale, he must be trusted to go everywhere, at
all hours. Those years had educated me, and at the same time made me old
at thirty. I saw into all their ways, how houses were furnished, the
pictures and books people bought, what food they ate, and what wine they
drank, and—beg pardon, sir, I’m getting off my story.
“This country house had sliding doors, draped by curtains all through,
and I saw at once that it was through these doors the rat runways lay.
Not wishing to make talk of the matter, Mr. —— explained my errand
only to the butler and told him to give me freedom of all below the
bedroom floors at night, so that I could remove both traps and rats, if
any were caught before daylight. The second night of my stay there was a
long dinner that lasted well into the night, with music and a play, for
among the guests that had come were some singers and a famous artist,
who rigged up a stage in the drawing-room and trimmed it up with
draperies and the like.
“I saw a good deal of the doings from behind a curtain where the first
of my trap line was set, and after everybody had gone to bed, and the
extra waiters had left for their quarters outside, I took my dark
lantern that I always kept lighted and went about the dining-room to see
if any fruit or sweets that would distract the rats had been left upon
the sideboard. At that moment I heard a rustling in a cage-trap, a kind
I seldom use, on the opposite side of the room; going to it I found that
three young rats had crowded into it together. Not wishing to go out, I
dropped trap and all into the bag that a rat-catcher always carries.
Then I continued across the room carefully, for the chairs were all in
confusion, the men having been tired and left in a hurry. I was about to
open the slide in the lantern front, when I saw, reflected in one of the
long mirrors, a woman’s figure coming down the stairs, shading the
candle that she carried in one hand.
“The figure came on through the open door straight into the dining room,
where I stood half in the corner with the curtain held before me. The
woman was slender and rather tall; her hair was hanging loosely and
looked black in the dim light. She wore a white wrapper of some sort,
and by the muffled sound of her steps, I knew that she was in stocking
feet.
“What did she want—a glass of water, to meet a sweetheart, or was she
looking for some lost article? For all of these things had I seen
happen. It was the last, for, setting the candle upon the table, she
began to grope underneath it, and, giving a soft exclamation of
pleasure, held to the light a glittering diamond collar with a wide
clasp of coloured gems. But it was not the sight of these that made me
turn so cold that the lantern nearly fell from my stiff fingers; it was
when the light of the candle flashed full on the girl’s face and reddish
hair, and showed me Annie Fenton!
“Before I could pull myself together, I heard steps coming from the
butler’s pantry just behind me, and a man’s figure, with a clean-shaven
face and wearing the dress suit of a waiter, stepped into the light.
Facing Annie, he laid his hand on her shoulder. She started and cringed,
but not a sound left her lips.