Benson ventured the opinion that such being the case, he would have abandoned so unpromising a field; but Dr. Stillman merely smiled in a superior way which the lawyer found singularly exasperating.
“Personal considerations should never be allowed to clash with one's manifest duty,” he said.
In truth, he had never spared himself; and he exacted of others quite as much as he gave himself.
“Not if one can always be sure of the manifest duty,” said Benson.
“I was sure.”
“You were fortunate,” said the lawyer drily.
There succeeded a long pause which continued for many a mile. Dr. Stillman gave himself up to his own thoughts; and Benson fixed his glance on scenes beyond the coach window; as the day waned, these became more and more familiar, and just at nightfall they began the descent of Landray Hill.
Benson's heart was beating fast. There, off to the right, he saw through the branches of the bare maples and chestnuts, and the dead, dry foliage of the oaks and beeches, the light he was looking for; while out of the shadow back of it grew the huge bulk of the old stone mill.
They clattered noisily through the covered bridge and up Main Street, to come to a stop before the tavern. Dr. Stillman folded his blankets in a compact bundle; and drawing the folds of the vast dolman-like garment which he wore, closer about him, stepped from the stage. Benson quickly followed him.
The doctor was welcomed by his brother; an amiable little man who all but wept over him as he embraced him with fervid enthusiasm in the region of the thighs.
“My dear John! My dear, dear John!” the little man kept repeating. “You're home again! There have been many changes, but it's still home.” Then he espied Benson. “Why, God bless me, Jacob, and so you are back, too! Shocking news you bring, my dear boy. My heart bleeds for those poor ladies! But we are all in His hands, it's His Providence, the mystery of His Ways;” and he wrung the lawyer's hand feelingly. “This is my brother; you have heard of him!”
“We have met,” said Benson.
“Oh, yes, to be sure, to be sure! Well, good-night, Jacob; I'm glad we have you safe back.” And he turned hurriedly away in pursuit of his brother who was striding off across the square, and in the wrong direction from that in which he should have gone.
Benson watched the two out of sight; the tall missionary, and the portly little man, who, holding him fast by the arm, puffed and panted at his side in a vain endeavour to keep pace with his long strides; then he crossed the square in the direction of his own home.
Benson saw Virginia the next day.
There was a touch of weariness in her manner when she greeted him, and the shadow had deepened in her eyes; but aside from this there was no change; her beauty was as rare and wonderful as ever. He drank it in by stealth; and the recollection of those months he had passed without the potent spell of her presence dropped from him in a twinkling; yet because of this, he seemed to have lost ground in his absence. He had lived beyond his unspoken devotion. He had toiled and laboured for her as one only toils and labours for the one they love; and he recognized that he had returned to less than he expected. Would he never get beyond this irksome regard, in which he felt he was held, because of the affection she supposed him to have had for Stephen Landray?
“You received my letter from St. Louis?” he said, scarcely knowing where to begin the conversation.
“Yes, days ago, Mr. Benson.”
“At first I was quite unable to satisfy myself with a letter, I found it was easier to write Judge Bradly; it was less difficult to write you then, knowing you would be in a manner familiar with all that I had learned.”
“I understood perfectly.”
Her composure was beyond what he had anticipated, and he was grateful for the restraint she put upon herself.
“I want you to tell me all!” she went on. “All you did, and all you found. I am trying to understand it. Do you know, that in spite of the conviction I have had since last winter that he was lost to me, I am still unprepared for the positive word you bring. It is all new each time I think of it; and I think of nothing else! You are sure—sure? There is no doubt in your mind?”
Her glance searched his face beseechingly.
“You mustn't ask me to give you any false hope,” he said with grave kindness.
“If I could only go back to the doubt. Even to that; for this is so much worse. This leaves me nothing!”
Very gently Benson began, starting with the recovery of Stephen's knife from Gibbs, and his trip across the plains.
She did not speak until he had quite finished; then she said in the long pause that followed:
“And you think—you think there is no hope?”
“None,” he said gravely.
With a sudden eloquent gesture she pressed her hands to her heart.
“I can't quite realize it yet,” she faltered; for how could he be dead when her love was all alive, when it had undergone no change? She was weighing each point; she would have given much to have believed there was yet hope; but since this could not be, she tried to believe death had been swift and merciful to the man she loved; and the man who loved her was so far forgotten, that afterward she suffered more than one accusing pang when she recalled how inadequate the expressions of her gratitude had been, measured by the weeks and months he had devoted to her service.
Benson seemed to divine that there was a question she wished to ask, but lacked the courage; and he proceeded to answer it in his own direct way.
“When I returned to Salt Lake I made arrangements to have a block of granite cut to mark the spot. I suppose it has been conveyed to the mountains before this. I should have waited to see it in place only I feared the winter might set in and prevent my return to the States until spring; I dared not risk that.”
“You have seen Anna?” she suddenly asked.
He understood; she wished to be alone. He realized this with a quick sense of disappointment. He rose reluctantly from his chair.
“Really I might have gone there first. Where is Mrs. Walsh?” he asked.
“She is with Anna. We fear to leave her alone. It seems she never for one moment lost hope, or had any other belief than that they would come back safe and well.”
“And are you alone here?” he said.
“Yes, for the present.”
“I should think you needed Mrs. Walsh rather more than she does,” he commented with some little brusqueness.
“You must go to her at once when you return to town. I am sure she will feel it if you do not,” urged Virginia.
He drove straight to Anna's. There in the darkened parlour he waited impatiently for a full half hour before she made her appearance. When she at last entered the room, she greeted him with such lack of warmth, that he instantly felt that here he was held in positive disfavour.
“I heard last night that you were home, and I have been expecting you all the morning,” she said resentfully. “Have you seen Virginia?”
“Yes.”
She frowned slightly.
His lips parted in a faintly cynical smile.
“I suppose Virginia told you that I had been utterly prostrated since the cruel news came?”
“Yes,” said Benson. “But I heard last night of your condition; I drove out to the farm first. I knew Mrs. Landray would be able to tell me if it would be advisable for you to see me.”
She looked at him with lurking suspicion; but he met her glance frankly, and she was half convinced of his sincerity.
“I am sorry I kept you waiting,” she said relenting.
“I was so distressed to hear that you were not well,” he murmured. “You must let me come again when you are stronger,” he urged. “I don't think you are in a condition now to hear what I have done; you must be spared that until you are more yourself.”
“But I shall never be that!” cried Anna, with a choking sob. And at this touch of real feeling, he regretted that he had stooped to play a part.
When a little later Benson went back to his office he found Judge Bradly waiting for him.
“You have seen them?” questioned the judge. “My dear Jacob, it must have been a trying experience.”
Benson nodded, and slipped into a chair before his desk. The judge watching him, shook his head with settled melancholy of manner.
“When I made their loss known to them Bushrod's wife fainted, Jake, keeled over at the first word; and when she came to, her grief was most heartrending. Her sister-in-law's composure was remarkable; while Mrs. Walsh showed much emotion—a nice little thing, Jacob; did I understand you to say quite penniless?”
“Yes.”
“Too bad, too bad! wholly incapable, I should say, of meeting the situation by herself. You are convinced in your own mind that Stephen and Bush and the others are dead?”
“Yes,” said Benson shortly.
“Shocking! Shocking!” said the judge, holding up his hands in horror.
“Have you seen either of the ladies since you took the word to them?” asked Benson.
For some reason the judge coloured slightly.
“I think, indeed, I am quite sure, that I have seen Mrs. Bushrod Landray, being close by—you understand,” he paused, and looked hard at Benson.
Benson shot the judge a covert glance.
“A most estimable lady,” continued the latter warmly. “I trust Bush left her well provided for?”
“He did,” said Benson.
“I am relieved to hear it. I had feared that the boys were badly involved. It's a great misfortune for a young and handsome lady to be left as she has been left,” concluded the judge, smiling blandly.
“Yes,” agreed Benson, “it is;” but now he turned on the judge with a quickened interest. The expression on his face was half quizzical, half cynical.
“Do you suppose she will marry again?” asked the judge with studied indifference.
“How should I know?” demanded Benson sharply.
“I did not know but that you might have formed some opinion,” ventured the judge with a slightly embarrassed air.
He became silent. He settled his stock, and took his tall hat from the table at his elbow, and Benson fell to pulling over the papers on his desk.
“When you are ready, Jake, to look into what I have done in your absence—” remarked the judge, about to take his leave.
“In a day or two. I have had a pretty long holiday, you know.”
“Well, whenever you are ready,” said the judge, quitting the room.
Benson turned frowning to the papers on his desk.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
WHEN the railroad came to Benson, it reached down from a lake port, a feeble little tentacle of iron which joined another feeble tentacle that had pushed up from a river point. Theoretically, its coming was in response to the town's need, because of its mills and warehouses, and the bounty of its waving fields of grain; so Colonel Sharp declared in an editorial which contained much Latin, some very superior English, and numerous allusions to destiny; and the town, lacking not in local pride, and having had dreams of civic greatness, was prepared to believe that its importance as a commercial centre was the magnet that drew the road thither.
But Jacob Benson and some others knew that the real reason the railroad came, was that they had exchanged certain dollars for uncertain stock; that but for this, the line would have sought the town of Carthage, distant some twenty miles to the east, where the air was heavy with the reek of soft-coal smoke, the chimneys of the blast furnaces blazed unceasingly in the night, and a small but active population worked, drank, and fought, beyond what was habitual to any other population of its size in the State.
While the general public was favourable to the road, there were certain wise ones who clung with satisfaction to the memory of days when the pioneer turned the corn of his clearing into whisky; his wheat into flour; and rafted his produce down the Little Wolf River, and thence by the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, where boat and cargo were exchanged for Spanish silver. These, dubiously regarding what the world in its short-sighted folly was pleased to call progress, pointed out that even yet, all the town traded in, found its way conveniently enough by the stage road to lake or river point; so it mattered not that the Little Wolf had become a failing stream, flowing through depleted forest lands; so shallow, where it had once floated great rafts, that now the lightest skiff was steered with difficulty among the encroaching sand-bars.
These ancient oracles, looking back over forty years through a haze of pleasant memories, took no stock in Colonel Sharp's mouthfilling sentences. They declared that the advent of the railroad meant the town's ruin, for how could a town reasonably expect to thrive unless it was at either one end or the other of a line?
For full ten years there had been talk of this railroad, but when it did come and when the first brief wonder of it was past, it was at once as a familiar thing; even in the full effulgence of its newness, it was not quite a miracle; it had been a miracle when fifty miles away; it was still a miracle when this distance had been reduced to ten miles; and then when the first train steamed into Benson, the wonder seemed almost as remote, as the day when the first horse was broken and ridden by the first man, that pre-historic genius who had found his own legs all too short for the work they must do.
The railroad came to the town of Benson the year Benson, the man, returned from the West. It came visibly one cold February day in a flurry of snow, and with the fall of twilight; a puffing, panting engine, of even then obsolete type, drawing a single dingy coach, once spectacularly decked with streamers and flags, now wet and bedraggled. It rumbled out of the deep cut north of town, at a rate of speed variously estimated by the crowd of men at the station at from ten to thirty miles an hour.
Young Jacob Benson, as a stockholder, with certain other public-spirited citizens, who between them had taken some hundreds of shares in the enterprise, formed a little group with Mr. Cammack the mayor; Captain Tompkins, the sheriff; Mr. Bently, the postmaster; the members of the town council, Colonel Sharp of the Pioneer, and Judge Bradly, whose presence could be counted on at any public gathering where there was the slightest possibility of argument or oratory, for both of which, so eminent an authority as Colonel Sharp had declared him singularly fitted.
This opinion having been carried to the judge, it had provoked a sentiment of such tropic warmth on his part, that the colonel rarely crossed the square going from his office to the tavern for so simple a thing as a drink of whisky, without the judge, whose office windows also overlooked the square, starting in instant pursuit. Being favoured as to the distance he had to cover, he was usually able to plant himself squarely in the path of his victim; and the colonel, mild of eye and mein, and lacking in decision of character, invariably proffered the expected invitation.
Now the judge held the editor affectionately by the arm; but ventured only such remarks as he felt must fully sustain the other's opinion of his intellectual attainments; but to live up to the flattering opinion the colonel entertained for him, had its difficulties; it was quieting and not conducive to conversation; and while he felt the present was a great occasion, an occasion pregnant with deep significance for the future, he searched his mind, which was pleasantly vacant, for some thought that would be adequate to the moment.
A wave of enthusiasm diffused itself over the crowd as the engine's headlight swung out of the cut north of town.
“Why, the infernal thing's smoking like a cook stove!” cried Mr. Bartlett at Benson's elbow.
Benson turned to the stage driver,
“Are you going with us?” he asked.
“Me ride on that doggone wheezy contrivance, me risk my life on that blame steaming invention where I'm likely to be set afire any minute? No, sir! You don't catch me!”
Benson laughed.
“I don't think you need fear that; you'd better come along.”
But Mr. Bartlett only shook his head.
“And they say the stage is done for, put out of business by that ornery looking concern. I don't believe it, people's got too much sense. I wouldn't like to think my fellers was such damn fools. What time will she make, do you reckon; ten miles an hour?”
“Twice that, three times that,” said Benson.
Mr. Bartlett shook his head.
“That,” said he, “is one of your yarns. It can't be done; a man can't set still and get his breath going at that clip. Blame it! we are coming to pretty times. It will scare the hosses, it will run over cows; damned if it ain't real dangerous! What's to keep it from just scooting off through the fields, from getting clear loose?” He skipped back suddenly in some alarm as the engine rolled past, but when it came to a stop he recovered his courage. “The town's done for,” he mourned. “I'm glad I ain't a property owner; catch me owning a house in a town that's got a railroad! Travel will just be sliding past at a top-notch gait; it ain't going to be like the stage, where all hands stop to take a drink at the tavern and put good money in circulation. Now they'll be piling through in their foolish haste. The big towns 'll suck the blood out of the little towns.”
“His is the world-old cry against the new,” murmured the judge in the colonel's ear with a wise shake of the head.
“They say the government's stopped work on the national roads!” cried Mr. Bartlett more in sorrow than in anger. “And the canals is done for, too! Well, there's plenty of sense in a canal, for its natural to ride on the water, and I ain't opposed to anything that's natural, but I'm agin all foolishness.”
An old man, bent and withered, and leaning heavily on a cane, pushed his eager way into the centre of the little group.
“Why, Mr. Randall, what are you doing here?” said the stage driver. “I reckon you don't take much stock in this foolishness? You've heard a heap too much nonsense talked in your time to be fooled now.”
The old man shot him a shrewd glance out of his beady black eyes.
“It's fat Jim Bartlett!” he said in a shrill cracked treble. “Fat Jim Bartlett, who's seeing the last of his easy hoss-driving job.”
“Don't you believe it, pap!” said the stage driver good-naturedly.
The old man rapped on the new station platform with his heavy thorn walking stick.
“Why ain't there more doing, jedge?” he said. “You should ha' seen us here when the fust stage coach come through from clean acrost the mountings.”
“Do you remember that?” asked Colonel Sharp interestedly.
“Do I remember it! I've seen this here country grow outen the timber. It was rolling green for two hundred miles, smooth and round as a duck's breast, when I crost the mountings; not a clearing, not a road, not a house. I seen the fust booted foot that was put onto the trace; the fust shod hoof; I seen the fust grist of corn that was ground on the Little Wolf; I seen the fust barrel of whisky that was run outen a still; I seen the fust flat-bottomed boat that was poled up from the Ohio; I seen the fust wheeled cart that General Landray fetched in from Virginia, when he come with his niggers; and I seen the fust stage coach, and rid in it, too, long enough afore your time, fat Jim Bartlett! That's enough to crowd into one life time, ain't it?”
“You seen a plenty when you seen the stage, pap,” said Mr. Bartlett, tolerantly. “I believe in letting good enough alone, I do. The world got on pretty tolerable well for a many year without none of these here railroads!”
But the stage driver had the argument to himself; the judge and
Benson and their friends were entering the coach, and they had taken old Pap Randall with them. And then presently the miracle of steam and iron rumbled off down the track to cross the new railroad bridge which spanned the Little Wolf River not two hundred yards distant from where the old covered bridge stood, stained and weather-beaten, with here and there a board missing.
The river rippled beneath the bridges, the old and the new, where it had once swept in silent volume, soundless and deep. From the bank above, the big warehouses cast long black shadows.
The day of flat boats had come and gone; the river, with its failing flow and the sand-bars that choked its channel, had been the first means of pioneer trade; and now the stage road was doomed too, this new marvel had come to usurp its use, to take its place, its trade, its life; the life of cross-road shops, and stores, and taverns. It would soon be shorn of its dignity, its traffic of herds and flocks, and heavy merchandize, the hurry and bustle of its flying mail stages; to be left a thing disused, a mere country highway, the relic of a day of lesser needs and smaller activities. Two strands of wire, hung on poles, followed the course of the railroad; and on these the wind played a dirge.
It was midnight when their little journey by rail ended; and Judge Bradly attached himself to Benson as the party separated. The night was cold and raw, and the two men walked rapidly up the street. They came to the judge's boarding-house, and Benson paused.
“Good-night, judge,” he said.
The judge was searching his pockets one after another. “I seem to have lost my key. This thing of boarding is a great mistake. Every man should have a wife to let him in when he stays out late!”
“See if you can make some one hear; if you can't, you'd better come with me,” said Benson.
The judge mounted the steps and began to pound vigorously on the door. He continued this for a minute or two, pausing at intervals to listen.
“Oh, come along!” cried Benson impatiently.
The judge abandoned the attempt, however, with some reluctance, but he rejoined Benson after delivering a final kick to the door.
“I like,” said he, adjusting himself to a new and pleasant train of thought as they moved away, “I like a hot whisky when I come in late; it's been one of the little luxuries I have carried into my lonely state.”
“You shall have your hot whisky, judge,” said Benson.
“My dear Jake, you must not let me put you to any trouble; for I know that admirably conducted as your house is, you rather ignore the liquids. So if hot whiskey makes too great a demand, I'd suggest that just plain whisky is preferable to no whiskey at all. When a man is on the wrong side of fifty, his little nips do him a world of good.”
They had reached their destination, and Benson unlocked his office door and motioned the judge to precede him into the room.
A lamp was burning on his desk, and the big logs he had thrown on the fire earlier in the evening had wasted to a mass of glowing coals. He added a stick or two, and soon a cheerful blaze was roaring in the wide chimney. Having rid himself of his hat and coat, Benson produced a black bottle and two glasses from his cupboard, and sugar and a pitcher of hot water from the kitchen; the judge watched these preparations with grave but silent approval. This approval grew and reached its zenith, when he on one side of the fireplace, and his host on the other, smiled and nodded over the rims of their glasses. They sipped in silent enjoyment, with their feet thrust out toward the fire.
“Jake,” said the judge, “it's well that the pitcher has capacity. This is just right. If you attempted to duplicate it, you might fail. Failure is always a sad thing, Jake, a thing to be avoided.”
“It is,” agreed Benson.
“My dear boy, I am troubled,” said the judge. He threw a certain significance into the glance that accompanied these words.
“And what have you to worry about?” questioned the younger man lazily.
“I'm alone,” began the judge in his mellow voice. “Quite alone. I may say a homeless vagabond. This is the second time I've been locked out this winter. Now I ask you, Jake, what sort of a life is this for a man of my years, and if you will allow me, my position?”
“Well,” said Benson, cheerfully, “you shouldn't forget your key.”
“That's a detail I never had to burden myself with in Mrs. Bradly's lifetime, sir. It was her pride to care for me in such matters; it furnished her with occupation.” There was a long pause, during which the judge's glass was filled and emptied and filled again, and then he spoke.
“Have you seen Mrs. Landray recently?” he asked.
“Which Mrs. Landray?”
“Bush's widow.”
“Not recently; why?”
“I was merely curious.” And he was silent again, but not for long. “Jake?”
“Yes, judge.”
“She's going to make a fool of herself.”
“I dare say,” said Benson indifferently.
The judge stared at him in some surprise.
“You dare say?” he repeated.
“I mean it's quite likely.”