Outside, the village, the Greenstream Valley, was folded in still, velvety
dark. He crossed the street, and sat on one of the iron benches placed
under the trees on the Courthouse lawn. He could see a dull, reddish light
shining through the dusty window of the _Bugle_ office. Shining like that,
through his egotistical pride, the facts of his failure and impotence
tormented him. It hurt him the more that he had been, simply, diddled, no
better than a child in Simmons' astute, practised hands. The latter's
rascality was patent, but Simmons could not have been successful unabetted
by his own blind negligence. The catastrophe that had overtaken him
rankled in his most vulnerable spot--his self-esteem.
He suffered inarticulately, an indistinguishable shape in the soft, summer
gloom; about his feet, in the lush grass, the greenish-gold sparks of the
fireflies quivered; above the deep rift of the valley the stars were like
polished silver coins.
Vaguely, and then more strongly, out of a chaos of vain, sick regrets, his
combativeness, his deep-lying, indomitable determination, asserted
itself--he would not fall like an over ripe apple into Simmons'
complacent, waiting grasp. But to get, without resources, two hundred and
fifty dollars by Saturday, was a preposterous task. Outside his, Clare's,
home, he had nothing to sell; and to sell that now, he realized with a
spoken oath, would be to throw it away--the vultures, Hollidew and Co.,
would have heard of his necessity, and regulate their action, the local
supply of available currency, accordingly.
There was no possible way of earning such a sum in four days; there was
little more chance, he realized sardonically, of stealing it.... Sometimes
large sums of money were won in a night's gambling in the lumber and
mining towns over the West Virginia line. But, for that, he would require
capital; he would have his wages to-morrow; however, if he gambled with
that and lost, Clare and himself would face immediate, irredeemable ruin.
He dismissed that consideration from the range of possibilities. But it
returned, hovered on the border of his thoughts--he might risk a part of
his capital, say thirty dollars. If he lost that they would be little
worse off than they were at present; while if he won ... he might easily
win.
He mentally arranged the details, assuring himself, the while, that he was
only toying with the idea.--He would pay the customary substitute to
drive the stage to Stenton, and cross Cheap Mountain on foot; by dark he
would be in Sprucesap, play that night, and return the following day,
Friday.
With an effort he still put the scheme from his thoughts; but, while he
kept it in abeyance, nothing further occurred to him. That gave him a
possible reprieve; all else offered sure disaster. He rose, and walked
slowly toward his home, revolving, testing, the various aspects of the
trip to Sprucesap; at once deciding upon that venture, and repeating to
himself the incontestable fact of its utter folly.
The dark was intense, blue-black, about his dwelling. He struck a match at
the edge of the porch, a pointed, orange exclamation on the impenetrable
gloom. Clare, weary of waiting, had gone to bed; her door was shut, her
window tightly closed. The invisible stream gurgled sadly past its banks,
the whippoorwills throbbed with ceaseless, insistent passion.
A sudden, jumbled vision of the past woven about this dwelling, his home,
wheeled through Gordon's mind, scenes happy and unhappy; prevailing want
and slim, momentary plenty; his father dead, in his coffin with a stony,
pinched countenance, a jaw still unrelaxed above the bright flag that
draped his nondescript uniform. Later events followed--his elder, vanished
brother bullying him; the brief romance of his sister's courtship; the
high, strident voice of his mother, that had always reminded him of her
angry red nose--events familiar, sordid, unlovely, but now they seemed all
of a piece of desirable, melancholy happiness; they endowed with a
hitherto unsuspected value every board of the rough footing of the
Makimmon dwelling, every rood of the poor, rocky soil, the weedy grass. He
said aloud, in a subdued, jarring voice, "By God, but Simmons won't get
it!" But the dreary whippoorwills, the feverish crickets, offered him no
confirmation, no assurance.