Not more than half an hour after Everett had reached Sherwoods Lane,
Governor Vandecar's train came to a halt at the same place, and the
party, consisting of the governor, Ann Shellington, and Katherine
Vandecar, made ready to step out into the night.
"Please draw up to the switch," the governor instructed the conductor,
"and I'll hail you as soon as we return. Keep an ear out for my call."
"Yes, Sir," replied the conductor; "but you'd better take this
lantern--it's sure dark down by that lake, Sir. And you can signal me
with the light."
Ann and Katherine clasped hands, and, aided by the light which Vandecar
held high, slowly followed him. So stern did the tall man seem in the
deep gloom that neither girl spoke to him as they stumbled down the
hill. They halted with thumping hearts in sight of the dark lake. All
three noticed a small light twinkling through the Cronk window, and,
without knocking, Governor Vandecar flung wide the door of Lon's hut and
stepped in.
The squatter sat on the floor, whittling a stick; Fledra crouched by the
window. As the door opened, she raised her eyes wonderingly; but when
she saw a tall stranger she dropped them again--someone had lost his way
and needed Pappy Lon. Cronk looked up and, recognizing Vandecar,
suddenly slid like a serpent around the hut wall until he was in
touching distance of the girl.
"Ye'd better not come any closer, Mister," he said darkly. "I has this,
ye see--and Flea's meat's as soft as a chicken's!" He raised his knife
menacingly; but dropped it slowly at sight of Ann and Katherine.
"Sister Ann!" breathed Fledra.
Ann's fingers grasped Vandecar's arm spasmodically; but, without
glancing back at her, he shook them off. His brow had gathered deep
lines at Lon's words, and now his unswerving gray eyes bent low to the
squatter. Under the steady gaze Cronk looked down and began to whittle.
In after days Ann could always conjure up the picture before her. Fledra
looked so infinitely young and melancholy, as her eyes fixed themselves
in wide terror upon Cronk. Out of the ragged blouse rose the proud, dark
head, and the lovely face was almost overshadowed by two tightly
clenched fists. Instead of falling into her arms, as Ann had imagined
she would, the girl only sank lower to the floor, her face ghastly in a
new horror. Miss Shellington's patience gave way as she stared at
Vandecar--his delay was imperiling Fledra's life; for, if ever a wicked
face expressed hate and murder, the squatter's did now. She turned
appealing eyes to Katherine, and took a step forward; but the latter
held her and whispered:
"Wait, wait a moment, Ann! Wait until Uncle has spoken!"
The whisper broke the silence, and Fledra turned her eyes from Lon. She
wondered dazedly who the stranger was, and why he had come with Ann. She
thought of Horace, and a pain shot through her heart. She was aware that
his sister had come for her; but no thought entered her mind to give up
the yoke that would soon be too heavy to bear. Then Governor Vandecar
began to speak, and Fledra looked at him.
"I have come to take back my own, Lon Cronk," said he, "that of which
you robbed me many years ago."
"I ain't nothin' that belongs to ye, and ye'd better go back where ye
comed from, Mister--and don't--come no nearer!"
As the squatter spoke, his lips spread wide over his teeth, and he began
picking up and laying down the bits of white wood. He did it
deliberately, and no one present imagined how the sight of Vandecar tore
at his heartstrings. Cronk could tolerate no robbing him of his revenge,
no taking away his chance of soothing the haunting spirit of his dead
woman.
Again Ann touched the governor's arm.
"Don't, Dear!" he said, pushing her back a little. "Lon Cronk--I want to
tell you--a story."
Cronk made no response; only stooped over and gathered a few slender
whittlings, and stacked them up among the others. There was an intense,
biting silence, until the governor spoke again.
"Nineteen years ago, when I lived in Syracuse, there came to me an
opportunity to convict a man of theft. Then I was young and happy; I
knew nothing of deep misery, or of--deep love." The hesitation on his
last words brought a shake from the squatter's shoulders. "This man, as
I have said, was a thief, admitted his crime to me; but, at the time of
his conviction, he pleaded with me that he might go home for a little
while to see his wife, who was ill. But of course I had no authority to
do that."
A dark shade flashed over Cronk's face, followed by one of awful
suffering.
"Yep, ye had," he repeated parrot-like; "ye might have let him go."
"But I couldn't," proceeded the governor, "and the man was taken away to
prison without one glance at the woman who was praying to see him. For
she loved him more--than he did her."
"That's a lie!" burst from Cronk's dry puckered lips.
"I repeat, she loved him well," insisted Vandecar; "for every breath she
took was one of love for him."
In the hush that followed his broken sentence, Lon moved one big foot
outward, then drew it back.
"Afterward--I mean a few hours after the man was taken away--I began to
think of him and his agony--over the woman, and I went out to find her.
She was in a little hut down by the canal,--an ill-furnished, one-room
shanty,--but the woman was so sweet, so little, yet so ill, that I
thought only of her."
A dripping sweat broke from every pore in Lon's body, and drops of water
rolled down his dark face. He groped about for another stick of wood, as
if blind.
"She was too young, too small, Lon Cronk, for the cross she had to
bear."
Lon threw up his head.
"Jesus! what a blisterin' memory!" he said.
His throat almost smothered the words. Ann began to sob; but Katherine
stood like a stone image, staring at the squatter.
The governor's low voice went on again:
"She was sicker than any woman I'd ever seen before, and when I was
there her little baby was born. I held her hands until she died. I
remember every message she sent you, Cronk. She told me to tell you how
much she loved you, and how the thought of your goodness to her and your
love would go down with her to the grave. If I could have saved her for
you, I should have done so; but she had to go. Then I wrote and asked
you if I should care for her body."
An evil look overspread the squatter's face. The misty tears cleared,
and he began to scrape again at the wood. He flashed a murderous look
upward.
"Ye could have left her dead in the hut, as long as yer killed her!"
said he.
Not heeding the interruption, Vandecar went on:
"But you sent me no word, and, because I was sorry, and because--"
The knife slipped from Lon's stiffened fingers, and a long groan fell
from his lips.
"I didn't get no word from ye!" he burst out. "I didn't know nothin'
till they told me she were dead." The man's head dropped down on his
chest.
Relentlessly Vandecar spoke again:
"Because I could not give you to her when she wanted you, and because
she had suffered so, I took her body and placed it in our family plot. I
went to the prison to tell you this, so that you could go to her grave
whenever you wished; but you had escaped the night before I arrived
there, and I never associated you with my great loss."
The revenge Cronk had planned upon this man suddenly lost its savor
before the vividly drawn picture. He did not remember that Vandecar had
come for his girl; he had in mind only the wee, sweet squatter woman so
long dead.
"Didn't the warden tell ye that I hit him, Mister," he groaned, "and
that I smashed the keeper when they telled me about her, and--and that
the strait-jacket busted my collarbone when I was tryin' to get out to
her?"
Vandecar shuddered and shook his head; but before he could speak Cronk
wailed dazedly:
"Ye might have come and telled me yerself, ye might a knowed how I
wanted ye to!"
"I told you that I did come and you were gone," Vandecar answered
emphatically.
"Ye didn't think how I loved her, how I'd a dreamed of huggin' my own
little brat!"
Vandecar interrupted again:
"I took the baby with me, Lon Cronk." At the word "baby," Lon dragged
his heavy hand backward across his eyes. "The baby," continued the
governor, "was no bigger than this,--a wee bit of a girl, such as all
big men love to father."
The squatter stood rigidly up against the wall, until his head almost
reached the ceiling. His fierce eyes centered themselves upon Vandecar.
"If I'd a knowed, Mister," he mumbled, "that ye'd took my little Midge's
hand in yer'n, that ye soothed her when she was a howlin' fer me, I
wouldn't have cribbed yer kids--I'll be damned if I would 'ave! But I
hated ye--Christ! how I hated ye! I could only think how ye wouldn't
help me." He shuddered, wiped his wet lips, and went on, "After that I
went plumb to hell. There weren't no living with me in prison, lessen I
were strapped in the jacket till my meat were scorched. It seemed as how
it made my hurt less for her to have my own skin blistered. Then, when I
got out of prison, I never once took my eyes offen ye, and when yer
woman gived ye Flea and Flukey--"
A cry from Fledra brought all eyes upon her save Lon's.
"When yer woman gived ye the two kids," he went on, "I let 'em stay long
enough for ye to love 'em; then I stole 'em away. But, if I'd a knowed
that ye tooked mine--" He moved forward restlessly and almost whispered,
"Mister, will ye tell me how the little 'un looked? And were it warm and
snuggly? Did ye let it lay ag'in' ye--and sleep?" The miserable,
questioning voice rose in demand, but lowered again. "Did ye let it grab
hold of yer fingers--oh, that were what I wanted more'n anythin' else!
And that's why I stealed yours; so ye'd know what sufferin' was. If ye'd
only telled me, Mister--if ye'd only telled me!"
Vandecar groaned--groaned for them all, no more for himself and for his
gentle wife than for the great hulk of a man wrestling in agony. Tears
rose slowly to his lids; but he dashed them away.
"Cronk," he cried, "Cronk, for God's sake, don't--don't! I've borne an
awful burden all these years, and every time I've thought of her I've
thought of you and wondered where you were."
"I were with my little woman in spirit," the squatter interrupted, "when
I weren't tryin' to get even with you. Mister, will ye swear by God that
ye telled me the truth about the baby?"
"I swear by God!" repeated Vandecar solemnly.
"And I believe ye. I could a been good, if I'd a had the little kid
awhile. It were a bit of her, a little, livin' bit. I could a been, but
I wasn't, a good man. I loved to lash Flukey and Flea. I loved to make
the marks stand out on their legs and backs. And I tried to l'arn Flukey
to be a thief, and Flea were a goin' to Lem tomorry. It were the only
way I lived--the only way!" Cronk trailed on as if to himself. "The
woman camed and camed and haunted me, till my mind were almost gone, and
I allers seed the little kid's dead face ag'in' her, and allers she
seemed to tell me to haggle the life outen yer kids; and haggle I did,
till they runned away, and then I went after 'em, and Flea--"
Vandecar stopped the speaker with a wave of the hand.
"Then you brought her back here, and I discovered that she was mine, and
I came for her. Lon Cronk, you give me back my girl, and I'll," he
whitened to the very lips, and repeated,--"and I'll give you back
yours!"
With a sweep of the arm Vandecar pushed Katherine forward. The very air
grew dense with anxiety. Ann clutched Katherine by the arm as if to stay
her movement, as if to keep her from the dazed squatter. His confession
of the kidnapping and his uncouth appearance forced Miss Shellington to
try and protect her gentle friend from his contact. But Katherine
loosened Ann's fingers in stony silence. Only a choking sound from
Fledra broke the quietude. She was staring into Lon's face, and he was
flashing from her to Katherine glances that changed and rechanged like
dark clouds passing over the heaven's blue. He saw Katherine, so like
his dead wife, bow her fair head before him. He noted her trembling
fingers pressed into pink palms, her slender body grow tense again and
again, relaxing only with spontaneous sobs. That he could touch the
fragile young creature, that he might listen to the call of his heart
and take her as his own, had not yet been fully forced upon him. The
meaning of Governor Vandecar's words seemed to leave his mind at
intervals; then his expression showed that he realized the truth of
them. He swayed forward; but crouched back once more against the wall.
Fledra rose silently to her feet, her ready intelligence grasping the
great fact that she was free, that the magnificent stranger had come for
her, that he claimed her as his. She was free from Lem, from Lon, free
to go back to Flukey. Lem's menacing shadow had lifted slowly from her
life, cast away by her own blood. For an instant there rose rampant in
her breast the desire to turn and fly, before another chance should be
given Lon to exert his authority over her. Then something snapped in her
head, and, unconscious, she sank noiselessly to the floor. No one
noticed her. She was like a small prey over which two great forces
ruthlessly fought and tore at human flesh and human hearts.
Vandecar gently touched Katherine's arm; but her feet were powerless to
move.
"Katherine," the governor groaned, "don't you remember that you cried
over him and your mother, and that--"
"Yes, yes!" Katherine breathed. She was trying to still the beating of
her heart, trying to thrust aside a great, revolting fear; yet she knew
intuitively that the squatter was her father, and remembered how the
recounting of her mother's death had touched her. In one flashing
thought, she recalled how she had longed for a mother, and how she had
turned away when other girls were being caressed and loved. But never
had it entered her mind to imagine that her parents were like this. The
picture of the hut in which the wee woman had died rose within her--the
death agony had been so plainly described. The tall, shrinking, sobbing
man against the wall was her father! Even that afternoon, when Governor
Vandecar had told her of her birth and her mother's death, and of her
father in the lake hut, she had not imagined him like this man. Yet
something pleaded for him, some subtle, gentle spirit hovering near
seemed to drag her forward. She shuddered, slipped from Vandecar's arms,
and crouched down before the squatter. She turned a livid, twitching
face up to his, her eyes beseeching his with infinite compassion. All
that was beautiful in the gentle, soulful girl broke over Ann like a
surging sea. This girl, who had been brought up in a beautiful home,
always attended with loving kindness, was casting her lot with a man so
low and vile that another person would have turned away in disgust. Miss
Shellington's mind recalled her girlhood days, in which Katherine had
been an intimate part. She could not bear it. She took an impulsive
forward step; but Vandecar gripped her.
"Stay," came sternly from his lips, "stay! But--but God pity her!"
The next seconds were laden with biting agony such as neither the
governor nor Ann had ever experienced. Katherine pleaded silently with
the man above her for paternal recognition. Suddenly he drew away from
the kneeling girl and shrank into the corner, pressing the wall with his
great weight until the rotting boards of the shanty creaked behind him.
Only now and then was his mind equal to the task of owning her.
Gathering strength to speak, Katherine sobbed:
"Father, Father, I never knew of you until today--I didn't know, I
didn't know!"
In her agony she did not notice the fierce eyes melt with tenderness;
but Vandecar saw it with a tumultuous heart. He was waiting to claim the
little figure on the floor, that he might take her back to her mother.
In that way he would retrieve his own past errors and in a measure
redeem the misspent life of the thief. He saw Cronk smooth his brow with
a shaking hand, as if to wipe away from his befuddled brain the cobwebs
of indecision and time-gathered shadows. His lips, drawn awry with
intensity, opened only to drone:
"Pretty little Midge, I thought as how ye were dead! And ye've come back
to yer man, a lovin' him as much as ever! God--God!" He raised streaming
eyes upward, and then finished, "God! And there be a God, no matter how
I said there wasn't! He didn't let ye die when I were pinched!" With a
mighty strength he swept the girl from the floor and turned mad eyes
upon Vandecar.
"She ain't dead, Mister--I thought she were! Take back yer brat, and
keep yer boy--and God forgive me!"
So tender was his last petition, that it seemed but a breath whispered
into the infinite listening ear of the God above. Katherine, like
Fledra, had lapsed into unconsciousness.
"She's fainted!" cried Ann. "Oh, Katherine, poor, pretty little
Katherine!"
"Help her, Ann!" urged Vandecar. "Do something for her!"
He did not wait to see Ann comply; but turned to Fledra, who, still
wrapped in unconsciousness, lay crouched on the floor, her dark curls
massed in confusion. Granny Cronk's blouse had fallen away, leaving the
rounded shoulders bare and gleaming in the faint yellow light.
The father gathered the daughter into his arms with passionate
tenderness. At first he did not try to revive her; but sat down and held
her close, as if he would never let her go. Tears, the product of weary
ages of waiting, fell on her white, upturned face, and again he murmured
thanksgivings into her unheeding ear. For many moments only the words of
Ann could be heard, as she tried to reason with Cronk to release
Katherine for a moment.
"Lay her down, won't you? She's ill. Please, let me put water on her
face!"
"Nope," replied Lon; "she won't git away from me ag'in. She's Midge, my
little Midge, my little woman, and she's mine!"
"Yes, yes," answered Ann, "I know she's yours; but do you want her to
die?"
With his great hands still locked about Katherine, Cronk looked down on
her lovely face, crushed against his breast. She was a counterpart of
the woman who had lived in another hut with him, and his dazed mind had
lost the intervening years. Midge had come out of the prison shadows,
and the big squatter had turned back two decades to meet her.
"She's only asleep," he said simply; "she allers slep' on my breast,
Missus. She'd never let me put her off'n my arm a minute. And I didn't
want to, nuther. She were allers afeared of ghosts--allers, allers! And
I kep' her close like this. She ain't dead, Ma'm."
His voice was free from anger and passion. By dint of persuasion, at
length Ann forced him to release Katherine and to aid her while she
bathed the girl's white face with water.
Katherine was still limp and bewildered when, ten minutes later, Fledra
opened her eyes and looked up into her father's face. The past hour had
not returned to her memory, and she drew quickly away. Of late she had
become timid, always on the defensive; and when Ann spoke to her she
held out her arms.
"I'm afraid!" she whimpered. "I want to go to Sister Ann."
But Vandecar held her fast as Miss Shellington knelt on the hut floor at
his side.
"Fledra, listen to me! This is your own father, Dear. Don't draw away
from him. He came with me for you. We're going to take you back to your
mother and little Floyd."
It seemed an eternity to the waiting man before Fledra received him.
There were many things she had to reason away. It was necessary first to
dispense entirely with Lon Cronk, to feel absolutely free from Lem.
Until then, how could she feel secure? The eyes bent upon hers affected
her strangely. They were spotted like Flukey's, and had the same trick
of not moving when they received another's glance. Then Ann's
exclamation seemed to awaken her lethargic soul, and she seized upon the
word "mother."
"Mother, Mother!" she stumbled, "oh, I want her, Sister Ann! I want her!
Will you take me to her? She's sweet and--and mine!" She made the last
statement in a low voice directly to Vandecar.
"Yes, and I'm your father, Fledra," he whispered. He longed for her to
be glad in him--longed now as never before.
Fledra's eyes sought Cronk's. He had forgotten her; Katherine alone held
his attention. Timidly she raised her arms and drew down her father's
face to hers.
"I'm glad, I'm awful glad that you're mine--and you're Floyd's, too. Oh,
I'm so glad! And you say--my mother--"
"Yes, Dear," Vandecar murmured, deeply moved; "a beautiful mother, who
is waiting and longing for her girl. Dear God, how thankful I am to be
able to restore you to her!"
The governor held her close, while he told her of her babyhood and the
story of the kidnapping, refraining from mentioning Cronk's name. It
took sometime to impress upon her that all need of apprehension was
past, that her future cast with her own dear ones was safe, and that Lem
and Lon were but as shadows of other days.
Katherine, weeping with despair, was sitting close to Lon. She knew
without being told that the father she had just found had lost from his
memory all of the bitterness of the years gone by. He had gone back to
his Midge, and now centered upon his newly found child the identity of
this dead woman. It was better so, even Katherine admitted; for he was
meek and tender, wholly unlike the sullen, ugly man they had seen
earlier in the evening. The squatter's condition made it impossible to
allow Katherine to be with him, and they dared not leave him alone in
the hut. Later, when they were making plans for Cronk's future, Vandecar
said:
"We can't leave him here, Ann dear. Can't we take him with us,
Katherine?"
"It's the only thing I can see to do," replied Ann, with catching
breath.
"You'll come with him and me, Katherine, and we'll take him to the car,
while he is subdued. You, Ann, dress that child, and wait here for
Horace. I'll come back directly. I must place Cronk with the conductor,
for fear--"
"Don't be long," begged Ann. "I'm so afraid!"
"No, only long enough to signal the train and get them aboard. You must
be brave, dear girl, and we must all remember what he has suffered. His
heart is as big as the world, and I can't forget that, indirectly, I
brought this upon him." He turned his glance upon the squatter, and
Katherine's eyes followed his. The lines about Lon's mouth had softened
with tenderness, his eyes were filled with adoration. Katherine flashed
him back a sad smile.
"The little Midge!" murmured Lon. "I'll never steal ag'in--never! And
I'll jest fish and work fer my little woman--my pretty woman!"
Vandecar rose and went to the squatter.
"Lon," he said, placing a hand upon the rough jacket, "will you bring
your little--" He was about to say daughter, but changed the word to
"Midge," and continued, "Will you bring Midge to my car and come to
Tarrytown with us?"
Cronk stared vacantly.
"Nope," he drawled; "I'll stay here in the hut with Midge. It's dark,
and she's afraid of ghosts. I'll never steal ag'in, Mister, so I can't
get pinched."
Vandecar still insisted:
"But won't you let your little girl come back and get her clothes? And
you, too, can come to our home, for--for a visit." His face crimsoned as
he prevaricated.
But Lon still shook his head.
"A squatter woman's place be in her home with her man," he said.
Vandecar turned helplessly upon Katherine.
"You persuade him," he entreated in an undertone.
Katherine whispered her desire in her father's ear.
"We'll go only for a few days," she promised.
"And ye'll come back here?" he demanded.
The girl glanced toward Governor Vandecar, and caught the slight
inclination of his head.
"Yes," she promised; "yes, we'll come back, if you are quite well."
Cronk stooped down and pressed his lips to hers.
"I'd a gone with ye, Midge, 'cause I couldn't say no to nothin' ye asked
me." But he halted, as they tried to lead him through the door.
"I don't like the dark," he muttered, drawing back.
Fledra eyed him in consternation. Never before had she known him to
express fear of anything, much less of the elements which seemed but a
part of his own stormy nature. Never had she seen the great head bowed
or the shoulders stooped in timidity. Katherine had Cronk's hand in
hers, and she gently drew him forward.
"Come, come!" she breathed softly.
"I'm afraid," Lon whined again. "I want to stay here, Midge." He looked
back, and, encountering Vandecar's eyes, made appeal to him.
"Cronk," the governor said, "do you believe that I am your friend?"
The squatter flung about, facing the other.
"Yep," he answered slowly, "I know ye be my friend. If ye'll let me walk
with my hand in yer'n, I'll go." He said it simply, as a child to a
parent. He held out his crooked fingers, and Vandecar seized them.
Katherine took up her position on the other side of her father, and the
three stepped out into the night and began slowly to ascend the hill.