Bayard re-read this message thoughtfully. He could hardly have
told why it perplexed him. Up and down the shores and streets of
Windover no cry of misery or of guilt had ever yet lifted itself to
him in vain. Such appeals were common enough. Often it would happen
that a stranger would stop him in the street, and use much the same
naïve language: “I hear when you talk to folks they stop drinking.
I wish you’d talk to me.” Contrary to his custom in such matters,
he showed this slip of paper to Mrs. Granite.
“Mr. Bayard, sir,” she said, with that prompt feminine fear which
sometimes takes the place of reliable good sense, “don’t you go a
step!”
Bayard did not reply. He turned away musing, and paced up and down
between the larkspurs. True, the place was lonely, and the hour
late. But the vagaries of disgraced men are many, and nothing was
more possible than that some fisherman, not wholly sober, and
not half drunk, should take it into his befuddled brain that an
interview with the minister located at a safe distance from nagging
wife, crying child, or jeering messmate, or, let us say, far
removed from the jaws of Trawl’s door, should work the magic or the
miracle for which the morally defective are always waiting.
“I see no reason why I should not comply with this request,” he
said decidedly.
“Mr. Bayard, sir,” urged Mrs. Granite, “it’s a thing I don’t like
to be her who tells you, but it’s time somebody did. There’s them
in this town wouldn’t stop at nothing, they have that feeling to
you.”
“To _me_?” cried Bayard, opening his hazel eyes as wide as a
child’s.
“Rum done it,” stammered Mrs. Granite, instinctively using the
three familiar words which most concisely covered the ground. “It’s
your temperance principles. They ain’t pop’lar. They affect your
standing in this community.”
This was the accepted phrase in Windover for all such cases made
and provided. It was understood to contain the acme of personal
peril or disgrace. To talk to a man about “your standing in this
community” was equivalent to an insult or a scandal. Poor Mrs.
Granite, an affectionate and helpless parrot, reëchoed this
terrible language, and trembled. She felt as if she had said to the
minister, Your social ruin is complete for all time, throughout the
civilized world.
“Not that it makes any difference to _us_,” sobbed Mrs. Granite;
“we set just as much by you. But your standing is affected in this
community. There’s them that hates you, sir, more shame to ’em,
more’n the Old Boy himself. Mr. Bayard, Mr. Bayard, don’t you go to
Ragged Rock alone, sir, this time o’ night to meet no tom-fool of a
drunkard anxious about his soul. He don’t own such a thing to his
name! All he’s got is a rum-soaked sponge, he’s mopped up whiskey
with all his born days!”
“Your drinks (if not your metaphors) are getting a little mixed,
dear Mrs. Granite,” laughed Bayard.
“_Sir?_” said Mrs. Granite.
“But still I must say, there is some sense in your view of the
case--Ah, here’s Jane; and Ben with her. We’ll put the case to--No.
I have it. Mrs. Granite, to please you, I will take Ben Trawl along
with me. Will that set you at rest?--Here, Trawl. Just read this
message, will you? Something about it looks a little queer, and
Mrs. Granite is so kind as to worry about me. What do you make of
it?”
“Oh, you’ve got home so soon, have you?” said Trawl rather sullenly.
In the evening his eyebrows met more heavily than ever across his
forehead; they looked as if they had been corked for some ugly
masquerade. He glanced from under them, coldly, at the minister;
read the note, and was about to tear it into strips.
“I’ll take it, thank you,” said Bayard quietly, holding out his
hand.
“Mr. Bayard,” said Jane, who had not spoken before, “I hope you
will pay no attention to this message.”
She spoke in a voice so low as to be almost inarticulate.
“Oh, I’ll go with him, if he’s afraid,” said Trawl, with that
accent which falls just so far short of a sneer that a man may not
decently notice it.
“I incline to think it is wise to take a witness to this
adventure,” replied Bayard serenely. “But I need not trouble you,
Mr. Trawl. Pray don’t exert yourself to oblige me.”
“It’s no exertion,” said Ben, with a change of tone. “Come along!”
He strode out into the street and Bayard, after a moment’s
hesitation, did the same, shutting the garden gate behind him. Jane
Granite opened it, and followed them for a little way; she seemed
perplexed and distressed; she did not speak, but trotted silently,
like a dog, in the dark.
“Go back!” said Trawl, stopping short. Jane slunk against a fence,
and stopped.
“Go back, I say!” cried Trawl.
“It is natural that she should want to come. She feels anxious
about you,” observed Bayard kindly.
“Go back to your mother, and stay there!” commanded Trawl, stamping
his foot.
Jane turned and obeyed, and vanished. The two men walked on in
silence. They came quickly through the village and down the
Point, turning thence to cross the downs that raised their round
shoulders, an irregular gray outline against the sky. Bayard
glanced back. It looked black and desolate enough ahead of him.
Below and behind him the life of the summer-seekers stirred softly,
like the figures in a gay game, or old-fashioned walking-dance.
The hotels blazed cheerfully; the piazzas were full and merry; in
the parlors people were playing and singing. He could not see the
lights of the Flying Jib from where he stood; this disappointed
him, and he walked on. The music from the Mainsail piano followed
him. There was a parlor concert--a woman’s voice--a soprano
solo--ah! The great serenade!
“Komm, beglücke mich!”
The strain seemed to chase him, like a cry, like an entreaty,
almost like a sob. His heart leaped, as if soft arms had been
thrown around him. He stopped and listened, till the song had
ceased.
“That is good music,” he said aloud, not knowing what he said, but
oppressed by the dogged silence which his escort maintained.
“Good enough,” said Ben roughly. The two walked on, and neither
said anything more. It was now quite dark and still around them.
The rough, broken surface of the rocky downs made traveling
difficult; but both men were familiar with the way, and lost no
time upon it. The sky was cloudy, and the sea was dark. The ebbing
tide met the deserted beach with a sigh. The headlights in the
harbor looked far off, and of the town not a glimmer could be seen.
Ben strode on in sullen silence. Bayard watched him with some
discomfort, but nothing like a sensation of fear had yet reached
his nerves.
“This fellow chose a lonely place for a pastoral visit,” he
observed at length, as they approached the little beach made
memorable by the wreck of the Clara Em.
“Wanted to stump you,” said Ben, with an unpleasant laugh. “Wanted
to dare you, you know--to see if you’d show game. It’s a way they
have, these toughs who meddle with parsons. They like to make out
a big story, and tell it round the saloons. Probably the whole
thing’s a put-up job.”
“That is more than possible, of course. But I’d rather investigate
three put-up jobs than neglect one real need of one miserable man.
That is my business, you see, Ben. Yours is to ruin people. Mine is
to save them. We each attend to our own affairs, that’s all.”
“D---- you!” cried Ben, suddenly facing about. “That’s just it! You
don’t attend to your own affairs! You meddle with mine, and that’s
what’s the matter! I’ll teach you to mind your own business!”
Before Bayard could cry out or move, he felt the other’s hands at
his throat.