AFRAID IN THE DARK.
McElwin hastened along the hard and slippery path that ran on a ridge
at the side of the road. Sometimes a low-bending bough raked across
his umbrella, and once he was made to start by a cold slap in his
face, dealt by the broad leaf of a shrub that leaned and swayed above
a garden fence. He came upon a wooden bridge over a small stream and
halted to breathe, for his walk beneath the dark trees had been rapid
and nervous. Frogs were croaking in the sluggish water. A cradle in a
hovel bumped upon the uneven floor, and he remembered to have heard
from his father that in the pioneer days he had been many a time
rocked to sleep in a sugar trough. The lights of the town, the few
that he could see, looked red and angry. He remembered a newspaper
account of the way-laying and robbing of a prominent citizen. It was
so easy for a tramp to knock down an unsuspecting man. Tramp and
robber were interchangeable terms with him, and often, on a cold
night, when he had seen the wanderer's fire, kindled close to the
railway track, he had wondered why such license had been allowed in a
law-abiding community. He moved off with a brisk step, for he fancied
that he heard something under the bridge. There was many a worse man
than McElwin, but it is doubtful whether a ranker coward had ever been
born to see the light of day, or to shy at an odd shape in the dark.
He felt an easy-breathing sense of relief when he reached the main
street, and in the light of the tavern lamp, hung out in front, he was
bold; his head went up and his heels fell with measured firmness upon
the bricks. He halted in front of his bank, as his own clock was
striking ten, and looked up at Lyman's window. The room was dim, but
the other part of the floor, the long room, was bright. He was afraid
to show anxiety concerning either Sawyer or Lyman, nor did he deem it
advisable to call at old Jasper's house. For what purpose had he come,
he then asked himself. He must do something to pay himself for coming,
to make himself feel that his time had not been utterly thrown away.
In his arrangement of economy, every piece of time must show either
an actual or a possible result. To go even in the direction of old
Jasper's house was out of the question, for if anyone should see him
he would surely be associated with the White Caps. Why would it not be
a wise move to find out whether or not Lyman was in the
printing-office, and to warn him. He could easily put his call upon
the ground of an argument against the impulsive man's rashness in
burning the check. No, that would invite the ill-will and perhaps the
outright enmity of Sawyer. He could not afford to lose Sawyer; he
needed his energy for the future and the use of his money for the
present. But he could bind Lyman to secrecy. "I wonder," he mused,
"that I should have any faith in his word, but I have. Confound him,
he has upset us all. But I ought to warn him. It is terrible to be
taken out and whipped upon the bare back. I'll make him promise and
then I'll tell him."
He crossed the street and began slowly to climb the stairs. He reached
the first landing and halted. "It won't do," he said. "Sawyer might
find it out and that would ruin everything. I advised against it; I
have done my best to prevent it, and it is now no concern of mine. I
will go home. I have been foolish."
He turned about and walked rapidly down the stairs. When he reached
home his daughter had gone to bed, but his wife was sitting up,
waiting for him. She met him at the door and looked at him,
searchingly, as he halted in the light of the hall lamp to put the
umbrella in the rack.
"Did you see him?" she asked, not in the best of humor, now that the
worry was practically over.
"Sawyer? No, he's out in the country, so a man told me. I have decided
to dismiss the matter from my mind or to think about it as little as
possible. It isn't so very late yet," he added, looking at his watch.
He found his slippers beside his chair when he entered the
sitting-room, but he shoved them away with his foot.
"Did Mr. Menifee have anything of interest to say?" he asked, leaning
with his elbows on the table.
"It may not interest you, but it has been put to Eva and me as a
matter of duty, that we ought to go out to Mt. Zion to hear Henry
Bostic preach."
McElwin grunted: "Menifee may put it as a matter of duty, but I
don't. Fortunately I have other duties that are of much more
importance. I will not go."
"He didn't seem to expect that you would," she replied.
"I hope not. He may have reason to believe me worldly in some things,
but I trust he has never found me ridiculous."
"Would it be ridiculous to hear that young man preach?"
"For me to hear him? Decidedly. The true gospel has not been handed
over to the keeping of the malicious idiot, I hope."
"I believe he is sincere."
"Sincere? Of course he is. So is a wasp when it stings you."
She laughed in her dignified way, her good humor having suddenly
returned; and he looked up with a smile, pleased with himself. They
sat for a time, talking of other matters, and he went to bed humming
the defineless tune of self-satisfaction. But late in the night Mrs.
McElwin awoke and found him standing at the window, listening.
"What is it, dear?" she asked.
"Nothing."
"Then why are you standing there?"
"I thought I heard something."
"In the house?" she asked, rising up with sudden alarm.
"No. Over in town, or rather over by the railroad track. I noticed
some tramp-fires along there."
"Oh, well, don't worry. The watchman will look after them."
"Hush," he said, leaning from the window. "There it is again."
"I don't hear anything," she declared. "Why, it's only a negro
singing."
"So it is," he said. "I thought it was someone yelling over in town.
Are you sure that it was a negro singing?"
"Oh, I don't know whether he is a negro or not, but it is someone
singing. But what if it is someone yelling over in town? It's nothing
unusual, I am sure. I have heard them yell at all times of the night.
I believe it is someone singing," he finally said, turning from the
window.