“WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWS”
Jason remained with Mahala and Rebecca in the directors’ room of the
bank as long as there was life in Rebecca’s body. After that he spent
some time in consultation as to what was to be done. With his own hands
he carried Rebecca from the bank to the rooms of the undertaker. When he
had finished the things that required immediate attention, he went back
to the bank and demanded admittance to the private room of the
president; but the door was locked. Then he inquired for Junior and
found that no one knew where he was. Suspecting that he might be in
hiding in his room above the bank, Jason went around the block and down
the alley. He crept up the back stairway and going to the window which
looked into Junior’s room, he saw him sitting before his table. He
seemed to be leaning forward, and was so still that Jason fancied that
he might be completely exhausted or even asleep.
He stepped through the window, and walking around the desk, placed
himself in front of Junior. He saw that Junior was crouched in his
chair; that there was a ghastly expression on his face. A revolver was
lying on the table in front of him. His left hand was gripping his
clothing that he was pressing hard over the region of his heart. In the
air two predominant taints were mingling. Either of them was sickening.
About the combination there was a nausea that shook Jason on his feet,
but he braced his hands on the table, and leaning forward, he tried to
stare deep into Junior’s eyes.
Junior smiled at him in a stiff, set way that was disarming. The first
time his lips moved, Jason could not catch what he was saying. He leaned
closer, and then he heard distinctly: “You have come to settle with me?”
Jason nodded grimly. He studied Junior an instant longer and then he
said quietly: “With my naked hands I’m going to tear you limb from
limb!”
To his surprise, Junior nodded in agreement.
Jason continued: “And when I have finished with you, I am going to do
the same thing to your horrible father.”
Surprise arrested Jason as he saw Junior’s lips draw back over his teeth
in a stiff smile, a stiff, set smile, and yet there was something about
him, about the wave of the hair around his white face, about the light
in his eyes, that was bonny. He must have been a beautiful baby. His
mother might have been excused for loving him to idolatry.
Junior’s voice was hoarse, scarcely understandable: “You’re too late,”
he said. “A woman got ahead of you.”
Jason rounded the corner of the table. He seized the coat which Junior
was holding to his side. Then both of them heard a battering on the
outer door. Both of them recognized the voice of Mahala crying: “Jason!
For God’s sake let me in!”
Jason withdrew his hands from Junior and stared down at him, and then he
looked at the door. But Junior met his eyes, and gathering his forces,
he said quietly: “Let her in. It is her right to be present at the
finish of the Morelands.”
Slowly Jason crossed the room and unlocked the door. Mahala rushed
inside and Jason slammed shut the door after her, relocking it. He could
almost feel the steps rocking from the weight of the men crowded upon
them. Mahala’s eyes raced over Jason from head to foot and a breath of
relief escaped her. Then she turned to Junior. She saw his ghastly face;
she saw a slow red spread over the hand that was gripping his side. She
saw the revolver on the table before him, and she cried out in horror:
“Oh, Jason! Am I too late to keep you from blackening your soul?”
Junior gathered his remaining forces. He made a brave struggle to
straighten in his chair. The smile that he meant to be attractive was
ghastly. There was something beyond description in his tones: “Mahala,
you’ve been a long time coming,” he said to the terrified girl. “Pardon
my bad manners, I would stand to welcome you if I could.”
Mahala watched him in fascinated wonder and again that awful smile
flashed across his face.
“Don’t look so horrified,” he said to her. “This is not fratricide.”
He lifted his right hand and grasping the revolver, drew it toward him.
“I have the honour to inform you,” he said, “that at the eleventh hour I
have had the decency to remove myself from the world for the express
purpose of saving a lady and my dear brother the disagreeable task. In
about three minutes, Mahala, I’m going to be a very dead man.”
A door near the closet opened and Martin Moreland hurried into the room.
In a panic of terror, he rushed to Junior, calling in a high, strained
voice: “Up, boy, up! This is no time to sleep! The mob is hot after our
blood! The mob! They mean business, I tell you! They’re going to beat us
and strangle us like dogs!”
He rushed to Junior, seized him by the shoulder and dragged him to a
sitting posture. “Wake up, Junior!” he cried. “Wake up!”
There was still life in Junior. With a gasp and a rattle, he answered
his father: “Too late, Dad, I’ve finished this in my own way. They can’t
get me, because I’m not here.”
Then he relaxed, and what might have been a beautiful and a gallant
spirit took its flight.
Seeing the revolver clasped in Junior’s hand, and realizing what he had
said and what the blood-soaked side and hand meant, Martin Moreland
stood still. The room was filled with the roar of angry voices. The door
was shivering under the blows that were being trained against it. He
raced across the room to take refuge in the closet. He jerked open the
door and stood facing Marcia looking at him with cold, relentless eyes.
In his fear and agony, he did not realize that she was a living woman;
it never occurred to him that she could be standing there in flesh and
blood. He thought what he was seeing was an avenging spirit. He drew
back, overcome with horror, and then suddenly he dropped on his knees
and reaching up his hands to her, he began to pray as he should have
prayed to the Mother of God. He begged her to forgive him, to have
mercy; he implored her to restore to him the life of his beloved son.
Looking down at him, in a tone of utter finality, Marcia suddenly began
to quote: “‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he
that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.’”
Under the lash of her pointing finger and her white face of accusation,
the last trace of reason fled the brain of the old banker. He shrank
back from her, and cowering on the floor, began jabbering incoherently.
Marcia stepped from the closet and faced Jason and Mahala. Instantly,
they recognized each other. Jason left Mahala’s side and went to Marcia.
“You?” he cried in bewilderment. “Did Junior shoot himself to save you
from having blood on your soul?”
“Yes, Jason,” answered Marcia. “Junior knew that I already had enough
sin on my soul.”
Jason cried out in protest: “No! No! Your soul always has been white.”
Marcia held out her hands. She bowed her head, but presently she lifted
her face and made her confession.
“No, Jason,” she said deliberately, “I gave myself to the man I had
learned to love in defiance of everything. God knows that I have had,
and shall continue to have through all the days of my life, my
punishment. Maybe He will forgive me some day. But, Jason, will you
forgive me now for your unloved childhood? I never dared teach you to
love me, but I do feel that my chance with God would be better, if you
would say that you forgive me before I make my appeal to Him.”
Jason took her in his arms. He ran his hand under her chin and lifted
her face. He laid his lips on her forehead.
“Don’t cry, Marcia, it’s all right,” he said quietly.
There was no time to say more. The outer door would give way any minute.
Martin Moreland crept to the feet of Mahala, whimpering like a
frightened dog. He kept working her body between him and Jason.
Mahala looked at him in sick dismay. “We must get him out of here,” she
said to Jason.
“Let them have him!” cried Jason. “His blood belongs to a hundred men in
that crowd, only God knows to how many women.”
Mahala looked down at Martin Moreland, crouching, fawning. “Stand up!”
she cried suddenly; and he obeyed. “Did you come here by an inside
stairway?” she asked.
Martin Moreland drew a ring from his pocket, but his shaking fingers
could only indicate the key. He turned to the door by which he had
entered. Mahala opened it and said to Jason: “You and Marcia take him
down to his private office. I’ll come in a minute.”
When the door closed after them, Mahala drew the lock and opened the
outside door so that the sheriff and the men crowding the stairs could
come into the room. She indicated Junior. “There is one of the men you
want,” she said, “but he is out of your reach.”
She pointed to the revolver lying near his right hand. “He admitted to
three of us and his father that he took his own life,” she said, “which
is his way of acknowledging his guilt and showing that he was too big a
coward to endure himself, what he put upon me—— But let that go, the
debt is paid now.”
As she talked, Mahala backed toward the door to the inner stairway. When
she reached it she added: “I was here when Martin Moreland heard Junior
say he had shot himself and then he saw a ghost, and his brain gave way.
The father is as far past your vengeance as the son. He is a cringing
maniac. You people must go home quietly. Your work is finished for you.”
She swiftly stepped through the door and hurriedly locked it after her,
running down the stairs. At the door to the private office she stood
dazed. Martin Moreland, with shaking hands and babbling voice, was
exhorting Jason and Marcia to pass under the white flag in the exact
words of Rebecca, but there was no light of reason in his eyes.
Mahala looked at him a long time. Then she said to Jason: “Both of them
have escaped you, and for your sake, it is best. Come on, we will take
him home. No mob will attack an insane man, and once we have taken him
to his home, our share of this is finished. Bring him along.”
“Wait a minute,” said Jason. He turned to Marcia. “There is no necessity
for you to face the mob and be connected with this,” he said. He
stretched his hand toward Mahala. “Give me those keys until I find the
one that fits the back door. As soon as I let Marcia out, I will come
back and do what you wish.”
As soon as Jason returned, Mahala went through the directors’ room and
down the hall where she was in sight of the mob. As soon as they saw
her, quiet fell upon them. She advanced to the front door, and unlocking
it, she threw it wide. Then she stepped out, lifting her hands for
silence. Before she had time to speak, the sheriff came down the outer
stairway and took up his place beside her. At sight of him, a babel of
cries broke from the mob and they surged forward, shouting: “Where are
they?”
Mahala began to speak. When they heard her voice, silence again fell on
the mob.
“Men and women of Ashwater, I have this to tell you,” she said in a
clear, cold voice. “I admit the justice of your anger, but none of you
has so great cause against the Morelands as I have. I admit that they
have escaped me, and I am here to tell you that they have escaped you.
The sheriff and the men accompanying him found Junior lying in his room.
He has made the great crossing by his own hand. He admitted to three of
us, and in the presence of his father, that he had taken his own life.
That was his admission of guilt. When his father realized this and
turned from it to see a ghostly spectre of his past standing before him,
a strain that must have been of long duration, gave way. Dying, Rebecca
Sampson cursed him and declared that the punishment God had meted out to
him was to spend the remainder of his life carrying the white flag and
preaching the doctrine of purity as her conscience has forced her to do
all these years among us. Coming from the sight of Junior’s ghastly
face, his father saw the flag that Becky had decreed that he should
carry. He had brain enough to recognize the justice of the obligation.
He is standing in the directors’ room with it now. I beg that you will
agree with me that this is finished. I beg that you will stand back
quietly and let him pass; let us lead him to his home and turn him over
to another woman who does not deserve punishment, yet who will be
bitterly punished by the sins of the Morelands. Men of Ashwater, will
you let an insane man pass?”
Slowly the faces of the mob changed. The snarling anger, the hatred,
began to fade. A few in the immediate foreground stepped back. Others
held their places. Suddenly, Mahala leaned forward. “If you will let him
pass unmolested,” she said, “I will promise you this. A committee shall
be appointed, headed by Albert Rich, and the claims of each one of you
and your papers shall be carefully investigated, and where wrongs have
been committed you shall have back your property. I know that Mrs.
Moreland will agree to this, and I know that the courts of the county
will compel it. Now, will you let us pass?”
Slowly the mob fell back. Mahala turned and beckoned to the doorway. A
minute later there appeared in it the shaking form of Martin Moreland.
His clothing was in disorder, his white hair disarranged; his face was
ghastly. With his left hand he was clinging to Jason, who could scarcely
support him; in the right he was clutching the osier that bore the white
flag, at that minute stained with the blood from Rebecca Sampson’s
broken head. The sheriff stepped to his side and assisted Jason. Between
them he advanced to the steps leading to the sidewalk. Fear had fled the
face of Martin Moreland with the going of his reason. In still amazement
the mob saw him swing over them the blood-stained banner and heard his
voice, flat and toneless, begin a sort of chant in the exact words with
which Rebecca had familiarized them through many long years: “Behold the
emblem of purity! Clean hearts may pass under with God’s blessing. Come,
ye workers of darkness, wash your hearts clean by passing under the
white flag!”
Slowly the look of hate and of anger faded from the faces of the people.
There is in the average mob at bottom a sense of justice. They are moved
to the course they take by indignation over a great wrong, but there is
always the possibility of their being swayed quickly, as they were
swayed at that minute by the fact that Martin Moreland was insane. Had
he stood there, clothed in his right mind, they would have fallen upon
him and torn him like beasts. Bereft of his reason, he was a helpless,
childish thing. Not one of them cared to touch his soiled, repulsive
body. Silently they drew back; they allowed him to go down the steps and
to make his way toward his home unmolested. There was a look more of
pity than of anger upon their faces as they saw his shaking hands, his
tottering step, and heard the high, strained quality of the voice that
besought every one he met to pass under the white flag.