and their suspicions became a certainty. The sinister gentleman in
cinder-grey roused himself. "Is there a constable here?" he asked in
thick tones. "If so, let him step forward."
The engaged man of fifty stepped quavering out of the corner, his
betrothed beginning to sob on the back of the chair.
"You are a sworn constable?"
"I be, sir."
"Then pursue the criminal at once, with assistance, and bring him
back here. He can't have gone far."
"I will, sir, I will--when I've got my staff. I'll go home and get
it, and come sharp here, and start in a body."
"Staff!--never mind your staff; the man'll be gone!"
"But I can't do nothing without my staff--can I, William, and John,
and Charles Jake? No; for there's the king's royal crown a painted
on en in yaller and gold, and the lion and the unicorn, so as when I
raise en up and hit my prisoner, 'tis made a lawful blow thereby. I
wouldn't 'tempt to take up a man without my staff--no, not I. If I
hadn't the law to gie me courage, why, instead o' my taking up him he
might take up me!"
"Now, I'm a king's man myself, and can give you authority enough for
this," said the formidable person in cinder-grey. "Now then, all of
ye, be ready. Have ye any lanterns?"
"Yes--have ye any lanterns?--I demand it," said the constable.
"And the rest of you able-bodied----"
"Able-bodied men--yes--the rest of ye," said the constable.
"Have you some good stout staves and pitchforks----"
"Staves and pitchforks--in the name o' the law. And take 'em in yer
hands and go in quest, and do as we in authority tell ye."
Thus aroused, the men prepared to give chase. The evidence was,
indeed, though circumstantial, so convincing, that but little
argument was needed to show the shepherd's guests that after what
they had seen it would look very much like connivance if they did not
instantly pursue the unhappy third stranger, who could not as yet
have gone more than a few hundred yards over such uneven country.
A shepherd is always well provided with lanterns; and, lighting these
hastily, and with hurdle-staves in their hands, they poured out of
the door, taking a direction along the crest of the hill away from
the town, the rain having fortunately a little abated.
Disturbed by the noise, or possibly by unpleasant dreams of her
baptism, the child who had been christened began to cry heartbrokenly
in the room overhead. These notes of grief came down through the
chinks of the floor to the ears of the women below, who jumped up one
by one, and seemed glad of the excuse to ascend and comfort the baby,
for the incidents of the last half hour greatly oppressed them. Thus
in the space of two or three minutes the room on the ground floor was
deserted quite.
But it was not for long. Hardly had the sound of footsteps died away
when a man returned round the corner of the house from the direction
the pursuers had taken. Peeping in at the door, and seeing nobody
there, he entered leisurely. It was the stranger of the
chimney-corner, who had gone out with the rest. The motive of his
return was shown by his helping himself to a cut piece of
skimmer-cake that lay on a ledge beside where he had sat, and which
he had apparently forgotten to take with him. He also poured out
half a cup more mead from the quantity that remained, ravenously
eating and drinking these as he stood. He had not finished when
another figure came in just as quietly--the stranger in cinder-grey.
"Oh--you here?" said the latter smiling. "I thought you had gone to
help in the capture." And this speaker also revealed the object of
his return by looking solicitously round for the fascinating mug of
old mead.
"And I thought you had gone," said the other, continuing his
skimmer-cake with some effort.
"Well, on second thoughts, I felt there were enough without me," said
the first confidentially, "and such a night as it is, too. Besides,
'tis the business o' the Government to take care of its
criminals--not mine."
"True; so it is. And I felt as you did, that there were enough
without me."
"I don't want to break my limbs running over the humps and hollows of
this wild country."
"Nor I neither, between you and me."
"These shepherd-people are used to it--simple-minded souls, you know,
stirred up to anything in a moment. They'll have him ready for me
before the morning, and no trouble to me at all."
"They'll have him, and we shall have saved ourselves all labour in
the matter."
"True, true. Well, my way is to Casterbridge; and 'tis as much as my
legs will do to take me that far. Going the same way?"
"No, I am sorry to say. I have to get home over there" (he nodded
indefinitely to the right), "and I feel as you do, that it is quite
enough for my legs to do before bedtime."
The other had by this time finished the mead in the mug, after which,
shaking hands at the door, and wishing each other well, they went
their several ways.
In the meantime the company of pursuers had reached the end of the
hog's-back elevation which dominated this part of the coomb. They
had decided on no particular plan of action; and, finding that the
man of the baleful trade was no longer in their company, they seemed
quite unable to form any such plan now. They descended in all
directions down the hill, and straightway several of the party fell
into the snare set by Nature for all misguided midnight ramblers over
the lower cretaceous formation. The "lynchets," or flint slopes,
which belted the escarpment at intervals of a dozen yards, took the
less cautious ones unawares, and losing their footing on the rubbly
steep they slid sharply downward, the lanterns rolling from their
hands to the bottom, and there lying on their sides till the horn was
scorched through.
When they had again gathered themselves together, the shepherd, as
the man who knew the country best, took the lead, and guided them
round these treacherous inclines. The lanterns, which seemed rather
to dazzle their eyes and warn the fugitive than to assist them in the
exploration, were extinguished, due silence was observed; and in this
more rational order they plunged into the vale. It was a grassy,
briary, moist channel, affording some shelter to any person who had
sought it; but the party perambulated it in vain, and ascended on the
other side. Here they wandered apart, and after an interval closed
together again to report progress. At the second time of closing in
they found themselves near a lonely oak, the single tree on this part
of the upland, probably sown there by a passing bird some hundred
years before. And here, standing a little to one side of the trunk,
as motionless as the trunk itself, appeared the man they were in
quest of, his outline being well defined against the sky beyond. The
band noiselessly drew up and faced him.
"Your money or your life!" said the constable sternly to the still
figure.
"No, no," whispered John Pitcher. "'Tisn't our side ought to say
that. That's the doctrine of vagabonds like him, and we be on the
side of the law."
"Well, well," replied the constable impatiently; "I must say
something, mustn't I? and if you had all the weight o' this
undertaking upon your mind, perhaps you'd say the wrong thing
too.--Prisoner at the bar, surrender, in the name of the Fath----the
Crown, I mane!"
The man under the tree seemed now to notice them for the first time,
and, giving them no opportunity whatever for exhibiting their
courage, he strolled slowly toward them. He was, indeed, the little
man, the third stranger; but his trepidation had in a great measure
gone.
"Well, travellers," he said, "did I hear ye speak to me?"
"You did: you've got to come and be our prisoner at once," said the
constable. "We arrest ye on the charge of not biding in Casterbridge
gaol in a decent proper manner to be hung to-morrow morning.
Neighbours, do your duty, and seize the culpet!"
On hearing the charge, the man seemed enlightened, and, saying not
another word, resigned himself with preternatural civility to the
search-party, who, with their staves in their hands, surrounded him
on all sides, and marched him back toward the shepherd's cottage.
It was eleven o'clock by the time they arrived. The light shining
from the open door, a sound of men's voices within, proclaimed to
them as they approached the house that some new events had arisen in
their absence. On entering they discovered the shepherd's
living-room to be invaded by two officers from Casterbridge gaol, and
a well-known magistrate who lived at the nearest country seat,
intelligence of the escape having become generally circulated.
"Gentlemen," said the constable, "I have brought back your man--not
without risk and danger; but every one must do his duty. He is
inside this circle of able-bodied persons, who have lent me useful
aid considering their ignorance of Crown work. Men, bring forward
your prisoner." And the third stranger was led to the light.
"Who is this?" said one of the officials.
"The man," said the constable.
"Certainly not," said the other turnkey; and the first corroborated
his statement.
"But how can it be otherwise?" asked the constable. "Or why was he
so terrified at sight o' the singing instrument of the law?" Here he
related the strange behaviour of the third stranger on entering the
house.
"Can't understand it," said the officer coolly. "All I know is that
it is not the condemned man. He's quite a different character from
this one; a gauntish fellow, with dark hair and eyes, rather
good-looking, and with a musical bass voice that if you heard it once
you'd never mistake as long as you lived."
"Why, souls--'twas the man in the chimney-corner!"
"Hey--what?" said the magistrate, coming forward after inquiring
particulars from the shepherd in the background. "Haven't you got
the man after all?"
"Well, sir," said the constable, "he's the man we were in search of,
that's true; and yet he's not the man we were in search of. For the
man we were in search of was not the man we wanted, sir, if you
understand my everyday way; for 'twas the man in the chimney-corner."
"A pretty kettle of fish altogether!" said the magistrate. "You had
better start for the other man at once."
The prisoner now spoke for the first time. The mention of the man in
the chimney-corner seemed to have moved him as nothing else could do.
"Sir," he said, stepping forward to the magistrate, "take no more
trouble about me. The time is come when I may as well speak. I have
done nothing; my crime is that the condemned man is my brother.
Early this afternoon I left home at Anglebury to tramp it all the way
to Casterbridge gaol to bid him farewell. I was benighted, and
called here to rest and ask the way. When I opened the door I saw
before me the very man, my brother, that I thought to see in the
condemned cell at Casterbridge. He was in this chimney-corner; and
jammed close to him, so that he could not have got out if he had
tried, was the executioner who'd come to take his life, singing a
song about it and not knowing that it was his victim who was close
by, joining in to save appearances. My brother looked a glance of
agony at me, and I knew he meant, 'Don't reveal what you see; my life
depends on it.' I was so terror-struck that I could hardly stand,
and, not knowing what I did, I turned and hurried away."
The narrator's manner and tone had the stamp of truth, and his story
made a great impression on all around. "And do you know where your
brother is at the present time?" asked the magistrate.
"I do not. I have never seen him since I closed this door."
"I can testify to that, for we've been between ye ever since," said
the constable.
"Where does he think to fly to? What is his occupation?"
"He's a watch-and-clock-maker, sir."
"'A said 'a was a wheelwright--a wicked rogue," said the constable.
"The wheels o' clocks and watches he meant, no doubt," said Shepherd
Fennel. "I thought his hands were palish for's trade."
"Well, it appears to me that nothing can be gained by retaining this
poor man in custody," said the magistrate; "your business lies with
the other, unquestionably."
And so the little man was released off-hand; but he looked nothing
the less sad on that account, it being beyond the power of magistrate
or constable to raze out the written troubles in his brain, for they
concerned another whom he regarded with more solicitude than himself.
When this was done, and the man had gone his way, the night was found
to be so far advanced that it was deemed useless to renew the search
before the next morning.
Next day, accordingly, the quest for the clever sheep-stealer became
general and keen, to all appearance at least. But the intended
punishment was cruelly disproportioned to the transgression, and the
sympathy of a great many country folk in that district was strongly
on the side of the fugitive. Moreover, his marvellous coolness and
daring under the unprecedented circumstances of the shepherd's party
won their admiration. So that it may be questioned if all those who
ostensibly made themselves so busy in exploring woods and fields and
lanes were quite so thorough when it came to the private examination
of their own lofts and outhouses. Stories were afloat of a
mysterious figure being occasionally seen in some old overgrown
trackway or other, remote from turnpike roads; but when a search was
instituted in any of these suspected quarters nobody was found. Thus
the days and weeks passed without tidings.
In brief, the bass-voiced man of the chimney-corner was never
recaptured. Some said that he went across the sea, others that he
did not, but buried himself in the depths of a populous city. At any
rate, the gentleman in cinder-grey never did his morning's work at
Casterbridge, nor met anywhere at all, for business purposes, the
comrade with whom he had passed an hour of relaxation in the lonely
house on the coomb.
The grass has long been green on the graves of Shepherd Fennel and
his frugal wife; the guests who made up the christening party have
mainly followed their entertainers to the tomb; the baby in whose
honour they all had met is a matron in the sere and yellow leaf. But
the arrival of the three strangers at the shepherd's that night, and
the details connected therewith, is a story as well known as ever in
the country about Higher Crowstairs.
VI
THE PASSING OF BLACK EAGLE
O. HENRY
For some months of a certain year a grim bandit infested the Texas
border along the Rio Grande. Peculiarly striking to the optic nerve
was this notorious marauder. His personality secured him the title
of "Black Eagle, the Terror of the Border." Many fearsome tales are
of record concerning the doings of him and his followers. Suddenly,
in the space of a single minute, Black Eagle vanished from the earth.
He was never heard of again. His own band never even guessed the
mystery of his disappearance. The border ranches and settlements
feared he would come again to ride and ravage the mesquite flats. He
never will. It is to disclose the fate of Black Eagle that this
narrative is written.
The initial movement of the story is furnished by the foot of a
bartender in St. Louis. His discerning eye fell upon the form of
Chicken Ruggles as he pecked with avidity at the free lunch. Chicken
was a "hobo." He had a long nose like the bill of a fowl, an
inordinate appetite for poultry, and a habit of gratifying it without
expense, which accounts for the name given him by his fellow vagrants.
Physicians agree that the partaking of liquids at meal times is not a
healthy practice. The hygiene of the saloon promulgates the
opposite. Chicken had neglected to purchase a drink to accompany his
meal. The bartender rounded the counter, caught the injudicious
diner by the ear with a lemon squeezer, led him to the door and
kicked him into the street.
Thus the mind of Chicken was brought to realize the signs of coming
winter. The night was cold; the stars shone with unkindly
brilliancy; people were hurrying along the streets in two egotistic,
jostling streams. Men had donned their overcoats, and Chicken knew
to an exact percentage the increased difficulty of coaxing dimes from
those buttoned-in vest pockets. The time had come for his annual
exodus to the South.
A little boy, five or six years old, stood looking with covetous eyes
in a confectioner's window. In one small hand he held an empty
two-ounce vial; in the other he grasped tightly something flat and
round, with a shining milled edge. The scene presented a field of
operations commensurate to Chicken's talents and daring. After
sweeping the horizon to make sure that no official tug was cruising
near, he insidiously accosted his prey. The boy, having been early
taught by his household to regard altruistic advances with extreme
suspicion, received the overtures coldly.
Then Chicken knew that he must make one of those desperate,
nerve-shattering plunges into speculation that fortune sometimes
requires of those who would win her favour. Five cents was his
capital, and this he must risk against the chance of winning what lay
within the close grasp of the youngster's chubby hand. It was a
fearful lottery, Chicken knew. But he must accomplish his end by
strategy, since he had a wholesome terror of plundering infants by
force. Once, in a park, driven by hunger, he had committed an
onslaught upon a bottle of peptonized infant's food in the possession
of an occupant of a baby carriage. The outraged infant had so
promptly opened its mouth and pressed the button that communicated
with the welkin that help arrived, and Chicken did his thirty days in
a snug coop. Wherefore he was, as he said, "leary of kids."
Beginning artfully to question the boy concerning his choice of
sweets, he gradually drew out the information he wanted. Mamma said
he was to ask the drug-store man for ten cents' worth of paregoric in
the bottle; he was to keep his hand shut tight over the dollar; he
must not stop to talk to anyone in the street; he must ask the
drug-store man to wrap up the change and put it in the pocket of his
trousers. Indeed, they had pockets--two of them! And he liked
chocolates cream best.
Chicken went into the store and turned plunger. He invested his
entire capital in C.A.N.D.Y. stocks, simply to pave the way to the
greater risk following.
He gave the sweets to the youngster, and had the satisfaction of
perceiving that confidence was established. After that it was easy
to obtain leadership of the expedition, to take the investment by the
hand and lead it to a nice drug store he knew of in the same block.
There Chicken, with a parental air, passed over the dollar and called
for the medicine, while the boy crunched his candy, glad to be
relieved of the responsibility of the purchase. And then the
successful investor, searching his pockets, found an overcoat
button--the extent of his winter trousseau--and, wrapping it
carefully, placed the ostensible change in the pocket of confiding
juvenility. Setting the youngster's face homeward, and patting him
benevolently on the back--for Chicken's heart was as soft as those of
his feathered namesakes--the speculator quit the market with a profit
of 1,700 per cent. on his invested capital.
Two hours later an Iron Mountain freight engine pulled out of the
railroad yards, Texas bound, with a string of empties. In one of the
cattle cars, half buried in excelsior, Chicken lay at ease. Beside
him in the nest was a quart bottle of very poor whiskey and a paper
bag of bread and cheese. Mr. Ruggles, in his private car, was on his
trip south for the winter season.
For a week that car was trundled southward, shifted, laid over, and
manipulated after the manner of rolling stock, but Chicken stuck to
it, leaving it only at necessary times to satisfy his hunger and
thirst. He knew it must go down to the cattle country, and San
Antonio, in the heart of it, was his goal. There the air was
salubrious and mild; the people indulgent and long-suffering. The
bartenders there would not kick him. If he should eat too long or
too often at one place they would swear at him as if by rote and
without heat. They swore so drawlingly, and they rarely paused short
of their full vocabulary, which was copious, so that Chicken had
often gulped a good meal during the process of the vituperative
prohibition. The season there was always spring-like; the plazas
were pleasant at night, with music and gaiety; except during the
slight and infrequent cold snaps one could sleep comfortably
out-of-doors in case the interiors should develop inhospitality.
At Texarkana his car was switched to the I. and G. N. Then still
southward it trailed until, at length, it crawled across the Colorado
bridge at Austin, and lined out, straight as an arrow, for the run to
San Antonio.
When the freight halted at that town Chicken was fast asleep. In ten
minutes the train was off again for Laredo, the end of the road.
Those empty cattle cars were for distribution along the line at
points from which the ranches shipped their stock.
When Chicken awoke his car was stationary. Looking out between the
slats he saw it was a bright, moonlit night. Scrambling out, he saw
his car with three others abandoned on a little siding in a wild and
lonesome country. A cattle pen and chute stood on one side of the
track. The railroad bisected a vast, dim ocean of prairie, in the
midst of which Chicken, with his futile rolling stock, was as
completely stranded as was Robinson with his land-locked boat.
A white post stood near the rails. Going up to it, Chicken read the
letters at the top, S.A.90. Laredo was nearly as far to the south.
He was almost a hundred miles from any town. Coyotes began to yelp
in the mysterious sea around him. Chicken felt lonesome. He had
lived in Boston without an education, in Chicago without nerve, in
Philadelphia without a sleeping place, in New York without a pull,
and in Pittsburgh sober, and yet he had never felt so lonely as now.
Suddenly through the intense silence, he heard the whicker of a
horse. The sound came from the side of the track toward the east,
and Chicken began to explore timorously in that direction. He
stepped high along the mat of curly mesquite grass, for he was afraid
of everything there might be in this wilderness--snakes, rats,
brigands, centipedes, mirages, cowboys, fandangoes, tarantulas,
tamales--he had read of them in the story papers. Rounding a clump
of prickly pear that reared high its fantastic and menacing array of
rounded heads, he was struck to shivering terror by a snort and a
thunderous plunge, as the horse, himself startled, bounded away some
fifty yards, and then resumed his grazing. But here was the one
thing in the desert that Chicken did not fear. He had been reared on
a farm; he had handled horses, understood them, and could ride.
Approaching slowly and speaking soothingly, he followed the animal,
which, after its first flight seemed gentle enough, and secured the
end of the twenty-foot lariat that dragged after him in the grass.
It required him but a few moments to contrive the rope into an
ingenious nose-bridle, after the style of the Mexican _borsal_. In
another he was upon the horse's back and off at a splendid lope,
giving the animal free choice of direction. "He will take me
somewhere," said Chicken to himself.
It would have been a thing of joy, that untrammelled gallop over the
moonlit prairie, even to Chicken, who loathed exertion, but that his
mood was not for it. His head ached; a growing thirst was upon him;
the "somewhere" whither his lucky mount might convey him was full of
dismal peradventure.