Archibald ate his late supper absent-mindedly and spent his evening, as
usual, with Pegeen and Wiggles and his pipe. Mrs. Benderby always dozed
in the kitchen after her supper dishes were washed, and Spunky, like her
big cousins of the jungle, always answered the call to good hunting when
the night closed in; but Pegeen and Wiggles and the man they loved kept
each other company in the living-room or on the doorstep and, whether
they were merry or quiet, all three found content at the day’s end, in
being together.
At their usual early bedtime, Pegeen rose and lighted the bedroom
candles; but, instead of taking his candle, Archibald reached for his
cap which hung beside the door. He had decided to see Ezra before he
slept and send him away from the Valley, if any reasonable amount of
persuasion or money would move him.
“I’m not sleepy, Peg,” he said. “No; nothing wrong. Never felt better.
I’m just wide awake. Go to bed and don’t lie there listening for me.
Wiggles and I are going to prowl.”
The drowsing dog whacked his tail sleepily against the floor, at the
sound of his name, yawned elaborately, opened his eyes, and saw the cap
in his master’s hand. Whereupon he forsook all idea of sleep and
converted himself into a canine battering ram, until finally assured
that he was invited to join in whatever the cap might mean.
The two went out into the warm, star-lit night; and Pegeen stood looking
after them until the shadowy figures melted into the dark.
“I suppose it’s Her,” she said to herself, with a sigh, “but he didn’t
seem so awfully, blue. I’m glad he took Wiggles.”
Wiggles was glad too, exuberantly glad. Night wandering was an unusual
experience for him. In the early evening, he curled up close to his
master or to the small girl who shared his allegiance and no temptation
was strong enough to lure him beyond the sound of their voices or the
touch of their hands. When they went off to bed, responsibility fell
weightily upon him. A watch dog had no right to night roaming and
Wiggles knew it. So, though sometimes his yellow body quivered with
eagerness when distant night noises called him and his sharp nose
sniffled excitedly at the scents that came to him on the night breeze,
he kept faith with the sleepers in the shack and watched over them with
unswerving fidelity as only a yellow mongrel dog knows.
But now he was out and away with a clear conscience and with his master
for companion, and he made the most of the happy chance. Such frantic
following of fresh smelly trails! Such wild yelping at stone walls where
wood-chucks lurked! Such mad pursuit of little furry folk, going about
their night business! Such excited returns to his master and futile
efforts to tell him all about the things that, being only a man, he
could not see or smell or hear!
“Larks, eh, Wiggles?” Archibald said laughingly, as the dog dashed back
to him with the news of most prodigious occurrences further along the
road.
Wiggles leaped up at him joyously, then, lighting on all four feet,
stiffened and listened to something behind them. A moment later, the
man’s duller ears caught the sound of galloping hoofs. He stepped out of
the road, wondering idly that so many riders should be out; and, as a
dozen men swept by him, he peered curiously through the gloom. The night
veiled the men’s faces and they passed too quickly for recognition; but
as they went, a laugh and an oath from one of them gave him a clue. Lem
Tollerton’s voice! It had been loud enough and insistent enough at the
smithy that afternoon to fix itself in Archibald’s memory; and as he
heard it again a suspicion leaped into his brain. What had brought Lem
Tollerton and his crew down the Valley? Ezra? Conviction came on the
heels of the suspicion. Ezra, of course. Just what the night riders
meant to do with the man, he did not know. Lem had talked of tar and
feathers; but men did not carry tar and feathers on horseback. Whipping,
probably. Archibald remembered Mr. Neal’s story of the Jew peddler and
winced at the thought. Perhaps Ezra deserved a thrashing; but there was
a slender chance that he was the wrong man.
With a sudden tightening of the jaw that meant action, Archibald turned
from the road and swung himself over the wall.
“Come on, Wiggles,” he called. There was a little ring of excitement in
his voice. “Maybe we can beat them to it, by the short cut.”
Wiggles was willing—delighted. He did not know just what the new game
was and it interfered with his hunting; but, since his master wanted to
run, run they would, and the meadow turf was softer than the road and
altogether life had become gloriously eventful. He raced along beside
the running man, with occasional side steps, when provocation proved too
strong, and scurrying haste to catch up after each lapse. Together, the
two came to the wall bordering the Back Road, climbed it and found
themselves within sight of Ezra Watts’ cottage, but, just as they
dropped from the wall, the same riders who had passed them ten minutes
before clattered by them again.
Archibald stood still for a moment or two to regain the breath he had
lost in his dash across fields. When he ran down the road, the horsemen
had already stopped before the cottage and one of them was pounding on
the door.
“Come out of that before we smoke you out.” It was Lem Tollerton’s voice
again and the profanity with which he elaborated his command was more
eloquent than decent. The riders were all yelling now, accusing,
cursing, threatening. Drunk, every one of them—Archibald realized it
with a sinking of the heart. Reasoning with drunken men was fruitless
business and he was one man against twelve. Ezra did not count. Still he
pelted on, with Wiggles at his heels. As he joined the group before the
cottage, the door opened and Ezra appeared in the doorway. His face was
livid with fear, and the picture he made in the light of the dark
lantern which one of the riders carried was not one to rouse sympathy.
If ever a criminal, face to face with retribution, looked the part, the
cringing wretch in the doorway looked it.
“What d’ye want?” he snarled, his little ferret eyes searching this way
and that for a chance of escape.
“You,” Lem Tollerton answered tersely. He seized the shrinking figure,
jerked it down the steps, and handed it over to two men with ropes in
their hands. Then, stepping back among the mounted men, he took a heavy
horsewhip from one of them.
Archibald waited no longer.
“See here, men, this sort of thing doesn’t go in a civilized community,”
he said. “You’d better stop feeling and do some thinking.”
The quiet voice was as cheerfully conversational as though the stage had
not been set for melodrama; and the lean, nonchalant intruder to whom
the night had suddenly given birth stood with his hands in his pockets
and a half smile on his lips; but there was a look in his eyes that made
the men nearest him glance apprehensively at the pockets and back away.
Some of them pulled their hats low over their eyes. One or two wheeled
their horses around, as though for flight; but Lem Tollerton was made of
sterner stuff.
“You’ll get along better if you’ll take your own advice and do some
thinking yourself,” he blustered. “We don’t want to do you any harm, Mr.
Archibald, but this is our affair; and, if you don’t want to get hurt,
you’d better not mix up in it. We’re out to give this d—d fire-bug a
dressing down that he’ll remember and see him across the state line, and
we’re going to do it.”
“What has he done?” Archibald asked, still cool, though his fighting
blood was warming.
“Done? You know well enough what he’s done.”
“Where’s your proof?”
“Proof be damned. Get out of my way.”
Tollerton raised his whip as though to enforce his command and
Archibald’s right hand came swiftly out of his pocket. There was no
revolver in it; but as his clenched fist hit Lem Tollerton’s chin, that
hulking worthy dropped as though he had been shot and lay still in the
path. Archibald stooped, caught the whip from his hand, and backed
against the cottage wall, while Wiggles, a ridge of upstanding hair
along his back, his lips curled back angrily from his sharp white teeth,
a low ominous growl sounding in his throat, crouched at his master’s
feet. Archibald had forgotten Wiggles when he had figured that he would
be one against twelve.
“Don’t be fools, boys,” the man against the wall pleaded. “I’ll promise
to get Ezra out of the State for good, to-night. Maybe he’s guilty.
Maybe he isn’t—but twelve to one isn’t a man’s game, any way you look
at it. You’ll be glad you called it off, when morning comes.”
The men wavered uncertainly. Several of them made a threatening move
forward. Archibald clutched the whip in the middle, with its heavy butt
ready for action.
“I’m a friend of yours, boys,” he said grimly, “and I haven’t much use
for Ezra; but I believe in fair play. I can’t lay you all out before you
get me; but I’ll do all the damage I can; and if you don’t beat the life
out of me, God’s my witness, I’ll drag every mother’s son of you into
court and send him up, if it takes the rest of my life and my last penny
to do it. You’d better think it over.”
For a moment, the men stood irresolute. Then one of them dug his heels
into his horse’s flanks and galloped off down the road. The others
followed promptly, only the two dismounted men lingering to look
ruefully down at Lem Tollerton’s prostrate figure. As they hesitated, he
groaned, put a hand to his head, opened his eyes—and closed them again.
“There’s a pump behind the house, Nick,” Archibald said. One of the men
disappeared and came back with a gourd full of water which he dashed in
Tollerton’s face. The treatment worked well. Lem sat up, looked around
him, and staggered groggily to his feet.
“Well, what the—” he began; but his friends took him by the arms, led
him to his horse and helped him to mount.
“Nothing doing, Lem,” Nick Bullard said soothingly. “Mr. Archibald’s
going to take Watts out of the State to-night. That’s good enough. Let’s
fade away.”
Limp, dazed, reeling in his saddle, but sober, Lem Tollerton looked at
the man who still stood on the defensive, his back to the wall and his
dog at his feet.
“That’s some little knockout of yours,” he said with a sheepish grin in
which there was no malice. “Don’t tell _me_ you was trained for a
painter.”
He held out a hand as he spoke and Archibald, laughing, met the hand
half way.
“It’s a useful thing to have a knockout in one’s fist,” he said
genially. “Come over to the shack some evening and I’ll teach it to
you.”
When the last of the riders had disappeared in the darkness, he turned
to Ezra who cowered beside him, still shaking with fear.
“Well, Ezra, the whipping didn’t come off.”
In spite of himself there was contempt mixed with the kindness in his
voice. “But you heard what I said about your leaving the State?”
“Uh,” grunted Ezra. Neither relief nor gratitude could move him to
civility.
“That goes; but I’m willing to give you what money you’ll need for a
month or two. Fifty dollars ought to see you through; and I’m ready to
hand it over when I’ve put you on a train at Pittsfield; but if ever you
show your face here again, the boys may do as they please with you.”
He stopped in astonishment; for the mention of the money had evidently
wakened no interest and Ezra appeared to be listening not to him but to
some sound from within the house. As Archibald leaned forward to see him
more closely, he moved hurriedly toward the door.
“Come in here,” he said. “I want to show you something.”
Archibald stepped into the house and waited while Ezra scratched a match
on the wall and lighted a candle. The flickering tongue of flame left
most of the room in darkness; but it threw its light upon a man who lay
upon the bed—a man in even worse case than Ezra’s when Archibald had
first found his way into the squalid little house—a bleared, bloated,
dirty, unkempt hulk of a man who lay with closed eyes and breathed in
short strangling gasps.
“He’s been like that ever since I found him last night,” Ezra said. “I
was going for you anyway in the morning. Seemed as if something had
orter be done and I didn’t know what.”
“Why didn’t you call Dr. Fullerton?” Archibald asked wonderingly.
“Well, you know how folks feel about the barn burnings and I didn’t know
how Doc’d see his duty; but I thought you—”
“Who is he?”
Ezra looked back at the doors and windows and moved nearer to Archibald.
“It’s Mike O’Neill,” he whispered.
The name meant nothing to Archibald and his face showed it.
“The kid’s father,” Ezra explained.
“Pegeen’s father?” The man’s tone was amazed, unbelieving, protesting;
but Ezra nodded his head.
“Uh huh. He’s been hanging around ever since spring. Crazy as a loon.
Stayed in that old woodchopper’s hut on Bald Pate, daytimes, and went
skulking around nights, stealing enough to live on and burning a barn
now and then just for fun.”
“You’re sure?” Archibald’s heart cried out against the hideous thing.
Peg’s father the barn burner, the petty thief, the miserable, sodden
wreck that lay there on the dirty bed! It was unthinkable and yet Ezra’s
voice and manner carried conviction.
“Oh, yes. I’m sure,” he was saying. “I’ve known ever since the Shaker
fire. I’d suspicioned there was somebody around that nobody knew about;
and one night I’d run into a man when I happened to be coming out of
Miss Moran’s chicken house; but I didn’t see him rightly. I was sort of
busy not being seen myself. Then, the night the Shaker barn burned, I
caught him running away down the road just after the fire broke out. I
knew him the minute I clapped eyes on him. ’Twus bright moonlight, you
know. He ducked into the woods; but I trailed him up Bald Pate and then
I come home and figgered things out. ’Twus plain as the nose on yer face
that he’d been doing the barn burning; and, first off, I thought I’d
tell folks and sort of clear things up for myself. But then I got to
thinking about the kid and how bad she’d feel and there wuzn’t anybody
to be upset be-cuz _I_ was a fire-bug and I didn’t give a damn what
folks believed about me; so I just decided to keep things to myself. I
went up and called turkey to O’Neill, though—told the crazy fool that I
knew all about what he’d been doing and that I could have him hanged but
that I wouldn’t if he’d let up on the barn business. I didn’t care how
much he stole. He seemed to sense what I meant and blubbered around and
said he wouldn’t light any more fires, only they looked so pretty when
they burned and St. Michael had told him to come back here and burn all
the barns, and Michael was his special saint so he didn’t want to
contrary him. I told him I’d fix it up with Michael and then he quieted
down and I come away. Looked as if he wasn’t too batty to keep a
promise, until last night. Then Tibbits’ barn went up; and, as I wuz
sneaking along through the woods so as nobody’d see me and think I’d
been out doing the burning, I stumbled over this here bundle of rags.
Just the way he is now, he wuz. I had a time getting him down here and
then I didn’t know what to do next; but I figgered I’d better go and git
you, in the morning.”
It was a long speech for Ezra. Never, to his own knowledge, had he
strung so many words together at one time; and he stumbled through the
story with a hang-dog air as though mortally ashamed to shift his
vicious reputation to other shoulders.
Archibald listened with knitted brows.
“Poor Peg!” he said softly, under his breath. “Poor little Peg!”
Ezra shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and back again.
“What’s the good of her knowing?” he asked gruffly. Archibald looked at
him in blank surprise.
“Why, she’ll have to know.”
“No, she won’t,” Ezra snapped it out in his most disagreeable manner.
“He’s going to die. If he don’t, he’s too crazy to be left running
around free. If he dies, you and Doc can bury him on the quiet; and, if
he lives, you can chuck him into the asylum. She couldn’t do anything
for him, if she knew. What’s the use bothering her?”
“But you—” Archibald began in bewilderment.
“Oh, I’d be moving along sometime, anyway. What’d I stay for? And what’d
I care if they think they run me out? Kind of tickles me to have ’em
think I burned their barns and stole ’em blind. No use white-washing me.
It wouldn’t stick. I’ll light out; and then you can tell the kid some
sort of fairy story that’ll let her down easy.”
He cleared his throat, sniffed unpleasantly, and drew his sleeve across
his nose.
“She’s better than most,” he said.
Archibald looked into the dirty, repulsive face and humbled himself
before the thing he saw in it.
There _was_ a scrap of decent soul hidden deep down in Ezra Watts, as
the Smiling Lady had said, and Peg had brought it to the surface. Here
was a man capable of love and sacrifice.
“You’re a very good sort, Ezra,” Archibald said slowly. “I’d like to
shake hands with you.”
He held out a friendly hand and Ezra clasped it in a furtive,
embarrassed fashion, but with a look of satisfaction on his ugly face.
“You stood up to ’em fine.” It was his first word of appreciation, and
it came haltingly. “I went out becuz I didn’t want ’em to come in here
and find him; but things looked sort of bad for me until you come
along.”
“You stood up to them better than I did, man.” Archibald’s voice was
husky. Souls were surprising things. “It took more courage to face
another man’s punishment than to fight another man’s battle. Now I’ll go
for Dr. Fullerton. When he comes, we’ll decide what to do about Pegeen.”
“O’Neill’s dying,” the doctor said, as he stood by Michael’s bed, an
hour later. “You must bring Peg. It will be better for her to know that
he is dead than to be always imagining he’s alone and in trouble. And,
in fairness to Ezra, we ought to tell the whole truth!”
He stopped and stood thinking for a moment, then shook his head
decisively.
“No; that’s wrong. It’s fairer to Ezra to let him do the generous thing
for love of Peg. It’d be a pity to let his first fine sentiment be
still-born. Yes; on the whole, I believe we’d better let him go with his
bad reputation intact. God bless him for a thieving, big-hearted,
low-down scallawag!”
And so it was arranged. The doctor drove to Pittsfield with Ezra and put
him on the midnight train.
“Get off when you feel like it,” he said, “and let Archibald or me hear
from you if you’re in a hole so tight that you can’t squirm out of it.
Hang it all, I’m actually glad I saved your life, Ezra.”
Ezra made no reply. His hour of expansiveness had passed and he had sunk
back into his sullen quiet; but there were fifty dollars in cash and a
check for five hundred more in his pocket; and somewhere back in his
mind was an idea of raising chickens instead of stealing them. He had
always liked chickens and now that he was a capitalist, he could indulge
his fancies.
When the doctor reached the cottage on the Back Road once more,
Archibald borrowed the car and went for Pegeen.
“You’ll have to hurry,” Doctor Fullerton said, after a moment’s
examination of the man on the bed who had been given some semblance of
cleanliness and order, and Archibald hurried. A half hour later he was
back again, with a white-faced, great-eyed child who ran past the doctor
and dropped on her knees beside the bed.
“Daddy!” she cried; and the love and yearning in her voice made the two
men behind her bite their lips and look angry as men will when their
hearts are touched.
“Daddy!”
The pleading voice found its way, somehow, to the fog-bound brain and
Michael O’Neill’s soul turned back from its long journey, to look
through sane eyes, into the tender child face, framed in wind-blown,
black curls.
“Why, Pegeen,” he whispered feebly. “My little Peggy, of the curls!—
But ’twas your mother I made the name for, Mary of the Curls! You’ve a
look of her.”
The eyes that had been blue as Pegeen’s own, before the drink blurred
them, closed and the lips that had, on some far-off day, wooed Mary of
the Curls, settled into strange stillness, and Archibald, kneeling
beside Peg, put his arm around her, drew her close and let her cry;
while, stealing in from the outer dark, a lonely and forgotten yellow
pup snuggled up to the sobbing child and nuzzled a cold wet nose into
her hand.