THE LANDING OF THE "PAUL REVERE"
The Paul Revere tied up at the landing shortly after two o'clock.
The usual crowd of onlookers thronged the bank, attention being
temporarily diverted from an important game of "horseshoes" that
was taking place in the sugar grove below Trentman's shanty.
Pitching horseshoes was the daily fair-weather pastime of the male
population of the town. At one time or another during the course
of the day, practically every man in the place came down to the
grove to shy horseshoes at the stationary but amazingly elusive pegs.
It was not an uncommon thing for a merchant to close his place of
business for an hour or so in order to keep an engagement to pitch
horseshoes with some time-honoured adversary.
On this occasion a very notable match was in progress between
"Judge" Billings and Mr. Pennington Sawyer, the real estate agent.
They were the recognized champions. Both were accredited with the
astonishing feat of ringing eight out of ten casts at twenty paces;
if either was more than six inches away from the stake on any try
the crowd mutely attributed the miss to inhibitions of the night
before. Not only was the betting lively when these two experts met
but all other matches were abandoned during the classic clash.
The "Judge" did not owe his title to service on the bench nor
even at the bar of justice. It had been bestowed upon him by a
liberal-minded community because of his proficiency as a judge of
horse races, foot races, shooting matches, dog or rooster fights, and
other activities of a similar character. He was, above all things,
a good judge of whiskey. When not engaged in judging one thing
or another, he managed to eke out a comfortable though sometimes
perilous living by trading horses,--a profession which made him
an almost infallible judge of men, notwithstanding two or three
instances where he had erred with painful results to his person.
Notably, the prodigious thrashing Jake Miller had given him two days
after a certain trade, and an almost identical experience with Bud
Shanks who had given a perfectly sound mare and seventeen dollars
to boot for a racehorse that almost blew up with the heaves before
Bud was half-way home.
But, whatever his reputation may have been as a horse-trader, "Judge"
Billings was unaffectedly noble when it came to judging a contest
of any description. Far and wide he was known to be "as honest as
the day is long," proof of which may be obtained from his publicly
uttered contention that "nobody but a derned fool would do anything
crooked while a crowd was lookin' on, with more'n half of 'em
carryin' guns or some other weapon that can't be expected to listen
to argument."
He was Kenneth Gwynne's first client. In employing the young
man to defend a suit brought by Silas Kenwright, he ingenuously
announced that the plaintiff had a perfectly good case and that his
only object in fighting the claim was to see how near Silas could
come to telling the truth under oath. Mr. Kenwright was demanding
twenty-five dollars damages for slander. In the complaint Mr.
Billings was charged with having held Mr. Kenwright up to ridicule
and contumely by asseverating that said plaintiff was "a knock-kneed,
cross-eyed, red-headed, white-livered liar."
"The only chance we've got," he explained to Gwynne, "is on the
question of his liver. We can prove he's a liar,--in fact, he admits
that,--but, doggone it, he's as bow-legged as a barrel hoop, he's
wall-eyed, and what little hair he's got is as black as the ace
o' spades. I don't suppose the Court would listen to a request to
have him opened up to see what colour his liver is,--and that's
where he's got us. It ain't so much being called a liar that riles
him; he's used to that. It's being called knock-kneed and cross-eyed.
He don't mind the white-livered part so much, or the way I spoke
about his hair, 'cause one of 'em you can't see an' the other
could be dyed or sheared right down to the skin if the worst came
to the worst. If I'd only called him a lousy, ornery, low-lived,
sheep-stealing liar, this here suit never would have been brought.
But what did I do but up and hurt his feelings by callin' him
knock-kneed and cross-eyed. That comes of not stickin' to the truth,
Mr. Gwynne,--and it's a derned good lesson for me. Honesty is the
best policy, as the feller says. It'll probably cost me forty or
fifty dollars for being so slack with my veracity."
Kenneth's suggestion that an effort be made to settle the controversy
out of court had met with instant opposition.
"It ain't to be thought of," declared Mr. Billings firmly. "Why,
dodgast it, you don't suppose I'm going to pay that feller any
money, do you? Not much! I'm willing enough to let him get a judgment
against me for any amount he wants, just fer the fun of it, but,
by gosh, when you begin to talk about me giving him money, why,
that's serious. I'm willing to pay you your ten dollars fee and
the court costs, but the only way Si Kenwright can ever collect a
penny from me will be after I'm dead and he sneaks in when nobody's
around and steals the coppers off my eyes."
This digression serves a simple purpose. It introduces a sporty
gentleman of unique integrity whose friendship for Kenneth Gwynne
flowered as time went on and ultimately bore such fruits as only the
most favoured of men may taste. In passing he may be described as
a pudgy, middle-aged individual, with mild blue eyes, an engaging
smile, cherubic cheeks, sandy hair, and a highly pitched,
far-reaching voice. He also had a bulbous nose resembling a large,
ripe strawberry.
Before coming to rest alongside the wharf, the Paul Revere indulged
in a vast amount of noise. She whistled and coughed and sputtered
and gasped with all the spasmodic energy of a choking monster; her
bells kept up an incessant clangour; her wheel creaked and grovelled
on the bed of the river, churning the water into a yellowish,
foaming mass; her captain bellowed and barked, her crew yelped,
her passengers shouted; the flat boats and perogues moored along
the bank, aroused from their lassitude, began to romp gaily in the
swirl of her crazy backwash; ropes whined and rasped and groaned,
the deck rattled hollowly with the tread of heavy feet and the
shifting of boxes and barrels and crates; the gangplank came down
with a crash,--and so the mighty hundred and fifty ton leviathan
of the Wabash came to the end of her voyage!
There were a score of passengers on board, among them Barry Lapelle.
He kept well in the rear of the motley throng of voyagers, an
elegant, lordly figure, approached only in sartorial distinction
by the far-famed gambler, Sylvester Hornaday, who likewise held
himself sardonically aloof from the common horde, occupying a
position well forward where, it might aptly be said, he could count
his sheep as they straggled ashore.
From afar Barry had recognized Viola standing among the people at
the top of the bank, and his eager, hungry gaze had not left her.
She, too, had caught sight of him long before the boat was near
the landing. She waved her kerchief.
He lifted his hat and blew a kiss to her. A thrill of exultation
ran through him. He had not expected her to meet him at the landing.
Her mere presence there was evidence of a determination to defy
not only her mother but also to brave the storm of gossip that was
bound to attend this public demonstration of loyalty on her part,
for none knew so well as he how the townspeople looked upon their
attachment. A most satisfying promise for the future, he gloated;
here was the proof that she loved him, that her tantalizing
outbursts of temper were not to be taken seriously, that his power
over her was irresistible. There were times when he felt uncomfortably
dubious as to his hold upon her affections. She was whimsical,
perverse, maddening in her sudden transitions of mood. And she
had threatened more than once to have nothing more to do with him
unless he mended his ways! Now he smiled triumphantly as he gazed
upon her. All that pother about nothing! Henceforth he would pay
no attention to her whims; let her rail and fume and lecture as
much as she liked, there was nothing for him to be worried about.
She would always come round like a lamb,--and when she was his for
keeps he would take a lot of the nonsense out of her!
With few exceptions the passengers on board the Revere were
strangers,--fortune-seekers, rovers, land-buyers and prospectors
from the east and south come to this well-heralded region of promise,
perhaps to stay, perhaps to pass on. Three or four Lafayette men,
home after a trip down the river, crowded their way ashore, to be
greeted by anxious wives. The strangers were more leisurely in their
movements. They straggled ashore with their nondescript possessions
and ambled off between two batteries of frank, appraising eyes.
Judge Billings, shrewd calculator of human values, quite audibly
disclosed his belief that at least three of the newcomers would
have to be run out of town before they were a day older, possibly
astraddle of a rail.
One of these marked individuals was a tall, swart, bearded fellow
with black, shifty eyes and a scowling brow. His baggage consisted
of a buckskin sack slung across his shoulder and a small bundle
which he carried under his arm. He appeared to have no acquaintances
among the voyagers.
"You don't know how happy this makes me, Viola," exclaimed Lapelle
as he clasped the girl's hand in his. He was devouring her with a
bold, consuming gaze.
She reddened. "I told mother I was coming down to meet you," she
explained, visibly embarrassed by the stares of those nearby. "I--I
wanted to see you the instant you arrived, Barry. Shall we walk
along slowly behind the rest?"
"What's happened?" he demanded suspiciously, his brow darkening.
"Don't be impatient. Wait till they are a little ahead."
"'Gad, it sounds ominous. I thought you came down to meet me because
you love me and were--well, glad to see me."
"I am glad to see you. You didn't expect me to make an exhibition
of myself before all those people, did you?"
His face brightened. "Well, THAT sounds better." His mouth went up
at the corner in its habitual curl. "I'd give all I possess if it
was dark now, so that I could grab you and squeeze the--"
"Sh! They will hear you," she whispered, drawing away from him in
confusion.
They held back until the throng had moved on a short distance. Then
she turned upon him with a dangerous light in her eyes.
"And what's more," she said in a low voice, "I don't like to hear
you say such things. They sound so cheap and low--and vulgar,
Barry. I--" "Oh, you're always jumping on me for saying the things
I really feel," he broke in. "You're my girl, aren't you? Why
shouldn't I tell you how I feel? What's vulgar about my telling
you I want to hold you in my arms and kiss you? Why, I don't think
of anything else, day or night. And what do I get? You put me
off,--yes, you do!--bringing up some silly notion about--about--what
is it?--propriety! Good Lord, Viola, that's going back to the days
of the Puritans,--whoever they were. They just sat around and
held hands,--and that's about all I've been allowed to do with you.
It's not right,--it's not natural, Viola. People who are really
in love with each other just simply can't help kissing and--"
"I guess you were right when you said you were not expecting me
down to meet the boat, Barry," she interrupted, looking straight
before her.
"Well, didn't I tell you how happy it made me?"
"If you had thought there was any chance of me coming down to
meet you, you wouldn't have taken so much to drink," she went on,
a little catch in her voice.
Whereupon he protested vigorously that he had not tasted a
drop,--except one small dram the captain had given him early that
morning when he complained of a chill.
"Why, you're drunk right now," she said miserably. "Oh, Barry,
won't you ever--"
"Drunk? I'm as sober as the day I was born," he retorted, squaring
his shoulders. "Look at me,--look me in the eye, Viola. Oh, well,
if you WON'T look you won't, that's all. And if I'm as drunk as
you imagine I am I should think you'd be ashamed to be seen in my
company." She did not respond to this, so, with a sneering laugh,
he continued: "Suppose I have had a little too much,--who's the cause
of it? You! You drive me to it, you do. The last couple of weeks
you've been throwing up all my faults to me, tormenting me till
I'm nearly crazy with uncertainty. First you say you'll have me,
that you'll do anything I wish, and then, just as I begin to feel
that everything's all right, you up and say you're not sure whether
you care for me or not and you're going to obey your mother in
every--And, say, that reminds me. Unless I am very much mistaken, I
think I'll soon have a way to bring your mother to time. She won't--"
He brought himself up with a jerk, realizing that his loose tongue
was running away with his wits. She was looking at him with startled,
inquiring eyes.
"What do you mean by that, Barry Lapelle?" she asked, and he was
quick to detect the uneasiness in her manner.
He affected a grin of derision. "I'm going to put my case in the
hands of Kenny Gwynne, the rising young barrister. With him on
our side, my dear, I guess we'll bring her to time. All he has to
do is to stand up to her and say he isn't going to put up with any
more nonsense, and she'll see the light of wisdom. If he thinks it's
all right for you to marry me, I guess that will end the matter.
He's the head of the family, isn't he?"
This hastily conceived explanation of his luckless remark succeeded
in deceiving her. She stared at him in distress.
"Oh, Barry, you--you surely can't be thinking of asking Kenneth to
intercede--"
"Why not? He doesn't see any reason why we shouldn't be married,
my dear. In fact, he told me so a few days ago. He--"
"I don't believe it," she cried.
"You don't?" he exclaimed sharply.
"No, I don't," she repeated.
"Has he been talking to you about me?" he demanded, an ugly gleam
flashing into his eyes.
"He has never said a word against you,--not one. But I don't believe
you when you say he told you that we ought to get married." She
felt her cheeks grow hot. She had turned her face away from him.
"I'm a liar, am I?" he snarled.
"I--I don't believe he ever said it," she said stubbornly.
"Well,--you're right," he admitted, after a moment's hesitation.
"Not in so many words. But he did say to me that he had told you
he saw no reason why you shouldn't marry me if you wanted to. Did
he ever tell you that?"
She remembered only too well the aggravating encounter in the
thicket path.
"Yes, he did," she replied, lifting her head defiantly. "And," she
added, "I hated him for it. I hate him more and more every time I
think of it. He--he was perfectly abominable."
"Well, you're--you're damned complimentary," he grated, his face
expressing the utmost bewilderment.
She walked on for eight or ten paces before speaking again. Her
head was lowered. She knew that he was glaring at the wing of the
bonnet which shielded her whitening cheek. Suddenly she turned to
him.
"Barry, let's sit down on that log over there for a few minutes.
There is something I've got to say to you,--and I'm sorry. You
must not be angry with me. Won't you come over there with me,--and
listen to what I have to tell you?"
He hung back for a moment, his intuition grasping at something
vague and yet strangely definite.
"You--you are going to tell me it's all over between us, Viola?"
he ventured, going white to the lips. He was as sober now as though
he had never touched liquor in his life.
"Come and sit down," she said gently, even compassionately.
He followed her in silence to the log she had indicated, a few
rods back from the roadside at the edge of the clearing. He sat
down beside her and waited for her to speak, and as she remained
speechless, evidently in distress, his lips curled in a smile
of reviving confidence. He watched the quick rise and fall of her
bosom, exulting in her difficulty. Birds were piping among the fresh
green twigs overhead. The air was redolent of the soft fragrance of
May: the smell of the soil, the subtle perfume of unborn flowers,
the tang of the journeying breeze, the spice of sap-sweating trees.
The radiance of a warm, gracious sun lay soft upon the land.
At last she spoke, not tremulously as he had expected but with a
firmness that boded ill for his composure.
"Barry," she began, still staring straight ahead, "I don't know
just how to begin. It is awfully hard to--to say what I feel I must
say. Perhaps I should have waited till--well, till you were home
for a little while,--before doing what I have made up my mind to
do. But I thought it right to have it over with as soon as possible."
She paused for a moment and then resolutely faced him. He saw the
pain in her dark, troubled eyes, and the shadow of an appealing
smile on her lips. His face hardened.
"So," she went on unflinchingly, "I came down to the landing to
meet you in case you were on the Paul Revere. I cannot marry you,
Barry. I--I don't love you as I should. I thought I did but--but--well,
that's all. I don't know what has happened to make me see things so
differently, but whatever it is I know now that I was mistaken,--oh,
so terribly mistaken. I know I am hurting you, Barry,--and you
have a right to despise me. I--I somehow hope you will,--because
I deserve it."
He smiled indulgently. "I hope you don't think I am taking this
seriously. This isn't the first time I've heard you take on like--"
"But I mean it this time, Barry,--I do truly and honestly," she
cried. "I know I've played hot and cold with you,--and that's
just the point. It proves that I never really cared for you in--in
that way--down in my soul, I mean. I am sure of it now. I have been
dreadfully unhappy about it,--because, Barry dear, I can't bear
to hurt you. We are not suited to each other. We think differently
about a great many things. We--"
"Look here," he exclaimed roughly, no longer able to disguise his
anger; "you've got to stop this everlasting--"
"Let go of my arm, Barry Lapelle!" she cried. "Don't you dare lay
your hand on me like that!"
He loosened his grip on her arm and drew back sulkily. "Ah,--I
didn't mean to hurt you and you know it. I wouldn't hurt you for
anything in the world. I'm sorry if I was rough with--"
"I don't blame you," she broke in, contritely. "I guess it would
serve me right if you beat me black and blue."
"What I was going to say," he growled, controlling himself with
difficulty, "is this: if you think I'm going to take this as final,
you're very much mistaken. You'll get over this, just as you've
gotten over your peevishness before. I've spoiled you, that's the
truth of the matter. I always give in to you--"
"I tell you I am in earnest," she cried hotly. "This is for good
and all,--and you make me furious when you talk like that. I am
doing my best to be kind and considerate, so you'd better be careful,
Barry Lapelle, not to say too much."
He looked into her flaming eyes for a moment and then muttered
slowly, wonderingly: "By heaven, Viola, I believe you DO mean it.
You--you are actually throwing me over,--giving me the mitten?"
"I can't help it, Barry," she insisted. "Something,--I don't know
what,--has come over me. Nothing seems to be the same as it used
to be. I only know that I cannot bear the thought of--why, Barry
dear, for the past three or four nights I've lain awake for hours
thinking of the awful consequences if we had succeeded in making
our escape that night, and had been married as we planned. How
terrible it would have been if I had found out too late that I did
not love you,--and we were tied to each other for life. For your
sake as well as my own, Barry. Can you imagine anything more horrible
than to be married to a woman who--who didn't love you?"
"Yes," he snapped, "I can. It's worse a thousand times over not to
be married to the girl you love,--and to see her married to some
one else. That would be hell,--hell, do you understand?"
She drew a little away from him. "But not the hell it would be for
me when I found out--too late. Won't you understand, Barry? Can't
you see how terrible it would be?"
"Say, when did you get this idea into your head?" he demanded
harshly. "What put it there? You were loving me hard enough a
while ago,--couldn't get along without me, you claimed. Now you're
singing another tune. Look here! Is--is there some one else?"
"You know there isn't," she cried indignantly. "Who else could
there be? Don't be foolish, Barry."
"By God, if some one else has cut me out, I'll--I'll--"
"There is no one else, I tell you! I don't love anybody,--I swear
it."
He eyed her narrowly. "Has Kenny Gwynne anything to do with all
this?"
She started. "Kenny? Why,--no,--of course not. What on earth could
he have to do with my loving or not loving you?"
"It would be just like him to turn you against me because he
thinks I'm not fit to--Say, if I find out that he's been sticking
his nose into my affairs, I'll make it so hot for him,--brother or
no brother,--that he'll wish he'd never been born. Wait a minute!
I'll tell you what I think of him while I'm about it--and you can
run and tell him as quick as you please. He's a G-- d---- snake
in the grass, that's what he is. He's a conceited, sanctimonious,
white-livered--"
"Stop that!" she cried, springing to her feet, white with fury,
her eyes blazing. "You are forgetting yourself, Barry Lapelle. Not
another word! How dare you speak like that about my brother?"
He sat staring up at her in a sort of stupefaction.
"How dare you?" she repeated furiously.
He found his voice. "You weren't sticking up for him this time
last week," he sneered. "You were hating him like poison. Has the
old woman had a change of heart, too? Is she letting him sit in
her lap so's she can feed him with a spoon when he's hungry and--"
"I wouldn't marry you if you were the only man in the world, Barry
Lapelle," said she, her voice low with passion.
She whirled and walked rapidly away from him, her head in the air,
her hands clenched. Leaping to his feet, he started after her,
calling:
"Wait a minute, Viola! Can't you see I'm almost out of my head over
what you've--Oh, well, go it! I'm not going to CRAWL after you!
But let me tell you one thing, my girl. You'll be talking out of
the other side of your mouth before you're much older. You'll be
down on your knees--"
"Don't you follow me another step!" she cried over her shoulder.
He was not more than two yards behind her when she uttered this
withering command. He stopped short in his tracks.
"Well, this is a hell of a way to treat a gentleman!" he shouted,
hoarse with fury.