for which you will have to serve a term in state's prison, you would do
well to scourge your soul with a whip of scorpions for your sin against
the mother who bore you. As you are innocent of that and of all other
crimes you have no right to hold yourself responsible for the
consequences of other people's mistakes."
"Am I free to go to my mother while she yet lives?" Boyd asked in an
agony of apprehension.
Then Jack Towns lied--like the generous gentleman he was.
"No," he said. "Legally you are free to go anywhere you please--to
Mozambique or the dominions of Mumbo Jumbo if you choose. But you are
free only because of the generous confidence of the Judge and the
Commonwealth's Attorney in your honor as a gentleman. You are bound by
that honor not to leave Richmond during the days granted you."
As a matter of fact Jack Towns had in his possession a letter addressed
to him by the Westover family physician in which were written these
words:
"Whatever else happens, for heaven's sake don't let Boyd come home now.
The shock of seeing him would kill his mother out of hand."
But Jack Towns was a lawyer and he found a better way of putting the
matter by way of accomplishing his purpose.
Still another thing darkened the young man's way. It was not because of
news, but because of no news at all.
There was no line in any of his mails from Margaret Conway, the woman
he loved with all his soul, the woman who had plighted her troth to him
in the impassioned words he so well remembered:
"I am not a woman to love lightly or lightly to forget. Love seems to
me a holy thing, and to trifle with it a blasphemy. I have given you my
love, Boyd, and there is no power in all the universe that can make me
take it back. Even you could not do that. Nothing you might do--even if
it were crime itself--could alter the fact that my love is all yours,
now and forever."
Upon reflection, he absolved Margaret from blame, and with good reason.
Upon his first accusation he had not written to her at all in
supplement to the love letter of that night. He had regarded the whole
matter as a thing preposterous, which a hearing in the magistrate's
court would promptly dissipate into thin air, and it had been his
kindly thought not to tell her of the absurd accusation until he could
tell her also of the ridiculous end made of it at a court hearing. When
at last the matter had assumed a serious aspect he had written her a
letter in which he had asserted his innocence but without protesting it
in any impassioned way. To that he had added:
"Of course if I am a man of honor I am bound to offer you a release
from the engagement between us, while if I am not an honorable man but
the criminal I am accused of being, you are free to take your release
without permission from me."
A calculation showed that if that letter had reached its destination
when it should, and if an answer had been sent by the first returning
mail, he should now have the reply. But mails were slow and uncertain
in those days and The Oaks lay far up near the Blue Ridge and seven
miles from the post office. It might easily have happened that his
letter to Margaret had not reached her as soon as it should; or that
the shock of it might have unfitted her to reply immediately; or that
her answer might have been delayed in transmission. All these were
possibilities, and they comforted the young man.
But as the days went by and still no letter came from Margaret the
comfort became less and less, until at last he despaired and summoned
his stoicism to his relief.
"Why should I have expected her to write to me?" he asked himself.
"What obligation can she owe to a convicted criminal? I was a fool to
look for a letter. I must bear my burden alone. I must meet my fate
with a calm mind."
Then another thought came to him.
"I am living in a fool's paradise. Jack Towns professes still to
believe in me, and perhaps he does. But how can I expect anybody else
to do so? In view of the testimony against me, there is no room or
reason for doubt of my guilt in any sane mind. I must recognize that
and face it with what courage I can. I am a convicted criminal, and I
must expect everybody to regard me as such. I must go through my life
with that brand upon my brow. There is an end of hope for me. I must
simply endure."
It was characteristic of him that in all this melancholy meditation, no
thought of suicide entered his mind. He had from his youth up held his
life in readiness for sacrifice in any worthy behalf. There was never a
time when he would not have given it as a forfeit in behalf of those he
loved, never a time when he would not have laid it down gladly in
answer to any call of duty. But the cowardly thought of destroying it
by way of himself escaping from intolerable sufferings did not suggest
itself to his brave young soul. It is a man's part to endure what comes
to a man, and Boyd Westover was altogether a man.
He remembered Margaret's impassioned promise, and he doubted not the
sincerity of her soul in giving it. But he absolved her now and
accepted the result as part and parcel of the strangely bewildering
Fate that had overtaken him.
To that effect he wrote to her on the night before the day appointed
for his sentencing. On that day had come to him the crushing news of
his mother's death, and very bitterly he had felt the cruelty of a fate
that forbade him even to go home to bury his dead.
He wrote to Margaret:
"I find that I have been expecting some letter from you in reply to my
late one. I realize that I had neither right nor reason to expect
anything of the kind. I am a convicted criminal, convicted upon
testimony so conclusive that no sane person can doubt its truth.
To-morrow morning I shall be sentenced. You can have no relations with
me. You can bear me no duty of any kind. It is only to say this that I
write to you now, to say that I hold you absolved from any and all
obligations toward me, and that I shall live and die cherishing in full
measure my faith in your loyalty and truth. You are never to let a
doubt of that vex your mind."
With that he finally banished all thought of his past life, its joys,
its sorrows, its aspirations and its apprehensions, from his mind.
"How long a sentence will they give me, Jack?" he asked his lawyer.
"I don't know. The shortest, probably, or very nearly the shortest that
the law allows; not over two years at any rate."
"Of course it doesn't matter," Boyd answered. "Two minutes or two years
of shame are all one to a sensitive man, and as for the 'hard labor,'
I'm strong and well. I probably shall not find it interesting to grind
stove lids or do whatever else the prison authorities set me at, but at
any rate the work will occupy the time and prevent me from thinking too
deeply. It will tire me, too, so that I shall sleep of nights."
Jack Towns found nothing to say by way of reply, and he said nothing.
Presently Boyd drew a package of papers from his pocket and passed it
over to the man he regarded as the one friend left him in all the world
now.
"Perhaps you'd better look into that," he said. "It may help Wanalah
out of difficulty. I don't know. The thing came in my mail a week ago,
but it didn't interest me then and I slipped it into my pocket and
forgot all about it. No, don't bother with it now. Read it later. Just
now I have something else to talk to you about. You've promised to look
after my affairs while I'm in prison, and there's one thing I want to
ask you. Don't let the overseer at Wanalah work the servants too hard.
There is no need. With only ordinary crops the plantation can easily
carry its load now, and I don't want the people there overworked. See
to it please. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to bed. To-morrow night
I'll lie in a cell."
With that the young man withdrew, and after half an hour of sad gazing
at the moonlight that streamed in through the window, Jack Towns turned
up the gas and set to work reading the papers that had failed to
interest their owner. They interested Jack Towns amazingly, and he had
no sooner finished the reading of them than he hurried unceremoniously
into Boyd's room, and shaking him said:
"Here, get up. This thing must be attended to immediately. There are
papers to be drawn and executed at once. So hustle into some clothes
quick."
IX
THE COURAGE OF WOMANHOOD
When rumors came to The Oaks of Boyd Westover's trouble, Margaret
Conway's first impulse was to drive over to Wanalah and comfort Boyd's
mother with assurances that there could be no truth in the reports.
Margaret had always cherished a very tender affection for Mrs.
Westover, and during the brief time since her love had been pledged to
Boyd, she had found that affection rapidly taking upon itself the
character of a girl's tenderness for her mother. Having never known a
mother of her own, the girl was quick to make herself a daughter in
affection where she was presently to become a daughter in law and in
fact. She drove every day to Wanalah and spent loving hours there with
the gentle invalid who had so warmly welcomed her daughterly love.
But when the evil news of Boyd's conviction came and Margaret planned
to go earlier than usual to Wanalah, Colonel Conway objected.
"You will only distress yourself and afflict her," he said. "This thing
will be your only topic of conversation, and what can either of you say
that will bring comfort to the other?"
"I can tell her I love her and that I loyally believe in Boyd,"
answered the girl with all the pride of her race in her voice and
attitude.
"But how can you say that, daughter, in face of the evidence?"
"It isn't evidence--it's merely testimony. The evidence lies in Boyd
Westover's character and it flatly contradicts the testimony. The
testimony is false; the evidence is subject to no possible question.
I'm sorry you don't see it so, Father."
The old man paced the floor for a space and then answered:
"Perhaps I do see it so. I'd like to, at any rate; I'm strongly
disposed to give the young man the benefit of the doubt, but--"
"There isn't any doubt," interjected the passionate girl with
vehemence. "There isn't any doubt, and I shall quarrel even with you,
Father, if you suggest such a thing."
"Be calm, my child," pleaded the old man placatively. "Perhaps you are
right. I'm disposed to take your view--strongly so. But there's your
Aunt Betsy, you know."
"Yes, I know. She's the only human being you were ever afraid of,
Father. But you're afraid of her as everybody else is--everybody but
me. I don't know why."
"But your Aunt Betsy presents the matter in a way that must be
considered. She says--"
"Oh, I know what she says," interrupted the overwrought girl. "She has
said it all to me, over and over again. She urges the conventions--the
cowardly shams and falsities of our artificial life. She talks of 'what
people will say,' as if it made any difference what people say when we
know we are doing right. You _know_ that Boyd Westover is an honorable
man, just as I know it. If you hadn't been afraid of Aunt Betsy, you'd
have done your duty like a man; you'd have gone to Boyd's side. You'd
have stood by him in his hour of need--"
"But, Margaret, what good would that have done in face of the evidence
or the testimony, for I agree with you that there's a difference?"
"It would have strengthened and encouraged him with the assurance that
one brave man at least knew his character and was ready to face calumny
with an assertion of his confidence. But you were afraid of Aunt Betsy.
It is the only cowardice I ever knew you to be guilty of. She talks of
placing 'blots on our escutcheon'--as if we had an escutcheon, whatever
that sort of thing may be; I tell you the worst blot of all was made by
your failure to go to Richmond and stand by Boyd in his undeserved
trouble. You played the part of a coward there. Pardon me if my words
are harsh. I feel them and mean them. Now I am going to Wanalah. I, at
least, will do my part as a descendant of a brave race, if all the
demons of perdition stand in the way."
With that the girl moved proudly out of the house, mounted the horse
that a negro held waiting for her, and rode away.
She did not return until after the funeral at Wanalah, which her father
and her aunt attended, and when she returned, her attitude was one of
stately reserve which appalled her father and "grieved" her aunt.
In the meanwhile she had written every day a loyal letter to Boyd
Westover.
Not one of those letters ever reached him. Nor did any of his letters
come to her. Aunt Betsy had deemed it her "duty to the family" to see
to that, and Aunt Betsy prided herself upon doing her duty, no matter
how disagreeable it might be--to others.
But the failure of the missives left Margaret in sorely distressing
perplexity. Why did not Boyd write to her? Why did he not take her into
his confidence? Especially why did he not respond, in some way, to her
repeated avowals of splendid loyalty and confidence?
She could not understand. She could not even inquire. She could only
mourn.
X
THE PACKET OF PAPERS
Jack Towns was accustomed to have about him whatever there was that
could make his hard-working life comfortable, if any reasonable
expenditure of money could secure it. And he interpreted the words
"reasonable expenditure," in that connection, rather liberally. His
income was large and he had nobody anywhere dependent upon him.
Accordingly he was one of the two or three self-indulgent men in
Richmond at that time, who possessed a set bath tub with water taps
running into it and a showering apparatus above.
When he roused his friend that night, after hurriedly running through
the packet of papers, he was full of an eagerness and enthusiasm which
the other did not seem to share. Boyd Westover was sleepy, and worse
still, in his present case, he was indifferent. What good could a
packet of papers or anything else bring to a man disgraced, condemned,
doomed to a life of lost repute? He heartily wished that Jack had kept
the papers and done whatever he pleased with them after the closing of
the prison doors behind himself on the approaching day. But in response
to Jack's insistence, he arose, drew on a light dressing gown and
slippers, and offered his dully uninterested presence in Jack's dining
room. 4 Promptly recognizing his condition of mind, Jack took matters
into his own hands, after a masterful habit he had. He seized Boyd by
the elbow and led him into the bath room.
"There," he said; "lay off your gown and pull your toes out of those
slippers. Hop into the tub and I'll wake you up."
At the next instant the cold shower descended upon the young man's head
and person, and Jack continued his chatter.
"Now you're awake, rub yourself down and come into the dining room.
I've got to have you awake and you and I are going to work all night.
I've sent Dick for half a hundred oysters and a dozen bottles of cold
ale, and later he'll make black coffee for us. Hurry up now, and 'do
try to be interested' as a bashful friend of mine said to a girl when
he was about to propose to her."
As he left the bath room abruptly, Boyd made no reply until he joined
the lawyer in the dining room where the papers from the packet lay
spread out in the order in which they were to be taken up for
consideration. Then he said:
"I will try to be interested, Jack; for your sake I'll do my best. But
what interest can a man in my position feel in anything?"
"Now listen to me, Boyd!" Jack Towns said commandingly, and rising to
his feet to say it. "Listen to me. You are morbid. You need calomel or
something. You're the victim of some mistake and you're in sore
trouble. But you are not disgraced. Nobody can disgrace a man but the
man himself. You are conscious of your own honor; what matters it what
others think? Besides, no honest man in Virginia believes that you are
guilty of a sneaking crime or capable of it. The jury that convicted
you didn't believe it and not one of them believes it now. The Judge
who will sentence you doesn't believe it. If the envious and malignant
falsely pretend to believe it, why should you care for the despicable
pretense of people so utterly unworthy? If cowards fight shy of your
acquaintance, lest recognition of you should compromise themselves, why
should you care for the acquaintance of such poltroons? You are
Westover of Wanalah--inheritor of an honorable name. You will be that
so long as you shall live. It behoves you to bear that name with head
erect and with contempt alone for those who do not recognize your
worthiness to bear it. This affair is an unfortunate incident. It will
soon be over, and you will have a lifetime before you in which to teach
men the falsity of the accusation against you. There. My lecture is
done. Let us get to these papers. They hold great news for you."
When the two were seated, Jack took up a letter, which was first of the
papers in the order of consideration.
"This is from a firm of lawyers, Dodge, Denslow and Deming of
Denver--charmingly alliterative throughout--do you happen to know who
they are?"
"Yes, in a way. There was a memorandum among my father's papers, that
mentioned them."
"Well, go on. What did it say, or reveal, or suggest? This is business,
Boyd. Put your thinking machine on it."
"I will,--to oblige you, Jack. The memorandum catalogued a long list of
mining lands and mining claims somewhere up in the Rocky Mountains or
in some side issue of a range--you'll find the paper in my desk at
home--lands and claims which my father had bought during one of his
journeys out that way and had placed in my name, as a provision for me
in case of accident."
"That accounts for these papers being in your name and not your
father's," interrupted Jack. "I was puzzled by that. But go on. I want
to hear all about it."
"Well, you know my father was an optimist--a dreamer almost--and he was
possessed of an idea, reflected in the memorandum, that these things
would make the future Westover of Wanalah--myself or my son if I should
have one--enormously rich. As nearly as I could make out, the
multitudinous lands and mining claims he bought in my name covered a
large area of entirely untillable and not very accessible land
somewhere up in the high mountains, where grub-staked miners scratched
the surface for silver ore, with now and then a little find of gold.
They worked on shares somehow, and this law firm collected my share
from time to time and remitted it. It was so small a part of the assets
of the estate that I've forgotten how much it was. That's all I know of
Dodge, Denslow & Deming."
"You're likely to know a good deal more about them hereafter," said
Jack, "if I can awaken in your mind a reasonable interest in a matter
that promises to make you the richest man in Virginia, twice or thrice
over."
"Cui bono?" responded Boyd. "When my prison term ends I shall have
enough, without that, to feed me, and I've nobody else to feed."
"Boyd Westover, if you go on in that mood, I'll chuck you into the bath
tub again and set the shower going without giving you a chance to shed
your clothes. Can't you see that when you--when--well, when present
difficulties are over, this thing will give you an interest in life,
something to occupy your mind, something to manage and--oh, I forgot,
you don't know the facts yet. It appears from these papers--we won't
bother now to read them in detail--that the mining lands your father
bought in your name, have proved to be about the richest in the world.
They cover practically all of one of the richest deposits of gold,
silver, lead, and quicksilver, ever discovered. Listen. This is the way
Jake Greenfield puts it in a letter. Jake seems to be a shrewd Yankee
whom your lawyers have established on the lands to watch operations and
prevent trespass. He writes to the lawyers:
"'I don't s'pose Mr. Westover nor you neither's got a krect idee of
what he's got up here. It's like an injun's blanket, with fringes all
round it. He's got the blanket an' these fellers what's opened up mines
north an' south of him has got the fringes. Nachurly they's a tryin' to
git in under the blanket, but I'm a watchin' out an' they're a doin' no
trespassin'. They's got the fence corners an' Mr. Weststover's got the
field. They's plannin' to buy him out an' they's got experts an'
engineers an' lawyers enuff here to run a ship or an orphan asylum. My
say to Mr. West Stover is don't bargain with 'em till you know for
yourself. That used to be our way in Varmont, whare I come from. This
is my wink to a blind hoss, an' a nod with it.'
"The lawyers seem to have taken Jake Greenfield's counsel seriously, so
far at least as to send experts of their own to study the situation,
and these seem to confirm Jake's judgment. So do these other letters,
from the mining men who want to buy you out. I'll read them."
"Can't you summarize them in your own words, Jack?" interrupted Boyd.
"The thing doesn't greatly interest me, and--"
"Well, listen then, and perhaps I can awaken your interest. These
people it appears are amply backed by New York and Boston bankers. In
fact the bankers really constitute the company, and they seem to know
their own minds. They have spent some hundreds of thousands in setting
up machinery and all that sort of thing, and they say their mining
operations are paying heavy dividends--twenty-five or thirty per cent.
on their investment. But the richest leads or lodes or veins or
whatever they are called, lie beneath your land. You've got the blanket
and they only the fringe, as Jake picturesquely puts it. They want to
buy the blanket, or get in under it somehow, and they're prepared to
pay for what they want. They propose to organize a new company to work
the whole thing; they to put in their plant, their costly machinery,
their mining privileges and all their other assets, and you to put in
your mineral lands. They make you a flat offer of nine hundred thousand
dollars in money, and thirty-nine per cent. of the stock of the new
company, if you will join them in this project by ceding your lands,
mining rights, etc., to the joint concern. Perhaps they can be induced
to do better even than that, as they seem very eager, but that is what
they offer to begin with. It means fabulous wealth to you if their
hopes as to the profits of the new company are measurably fulfilled,
and even if they are not fulfilled at all it means that you can wear
Wanalah plantation as a watch charm for all your life to come. Isn't
that a fine prospect?"
Jack was disappointed in Boyd's reply. He had hoped that this startling
happening might awaken his friend to a new interest in life and life's
affairs, but, after swallowing two oysters and slowly sipping half a
glass of ale, the unfortunate young man said, in a melancholy tone:
"I suppose the thing ought to be looked into. If I were a free man
again, I'd make my way out into those wilds and see what could be done.
As it is--"
"As it is," broke in Jack Towns, "you're going to execute a sweeping
power of attorney authorizing me to act for you, and I'm going out
there. When you--well, I mean later,--you'll take hold of the thing
yourself, and those hustling fellows out there will wake you up, if I
can't. Go to bed now, if you feel like it. I'll prepare the power of
attorney and you can execute it at breakfast time. I must say you're
uncommonly bad company."
"I suppose I am," said Boyd as he shuffled off to his bedroom.
XI
THE EVENTS OF A MORNING
It was with a firm step and with head erect, and, more significant
still, with eyes that looked straight into other eyes without a
suggestion of flinching, that Boyd Westover entered the court room on
the morning appointed for the pronouncement of sentence upon him. Jack
Towns, who accompanied him, thought he had never seen so superb an
exhibition of stoicism as that which Boyd had given throughout this
affair.
"But this caps the climax," he said to the Commonwealth's Attorney,
whose drawn features showed clearly the distress he felt in view of the
duty he had to do in moving that sentence be pronounced upon his old
schoolmate, his boyhood's comrade, whom he had been compelled to
prosecute and convict of an infamous crime.
"Just look at him," Jack whispered. "For all that his appearance or his
manner could mean you'd think he had come here to deliver an oration on
some distinguished occasion. It's simply magnificent!"
"It is simply horrible--my part of it, I mean," answered the other with
a suppressed groan.