Life in the Morley cabin was tense and dangerously vital. The cold had
settled down now with serious intent; the door was permanently closed
except of entrances and exits and the two small sliding windows in the
front and back of the living-room were never opened, and they were
coated with grease and dirt until even the brightest day filtered
through but dimly.
Martin was depressed and forlorn, he took what was offered him, asked
no questions and seemed far and away from any hope of reasserting
himself. He brought water and wood indoors; he made and kept the fire;
he slept on the settle before the hearth and always he was dreaming or
thinking of Sandy. The letter that had, after many weeks, drifted to
him, had been read to him by The Forge doctor who happened to be riding
by when Martin tremblingly pleaded with him for help.
"It's this-er-way," Morley had explained, striving to hide the depths
of his illiteracy; "my eyes don' gone back on me. I reckon I better go
down to The Forge and get specs, but jes' now I'd like to have light on
this yere letter."
The doctor read poor Sandy's effusion with some emotion. With broader
experience he saw the effort the boy had made to withhold his own
lonely state from the father. There was an attempt at cheer in the
words weighted, as the reader saw, with homesickness and longing.
"Now, Morley," he cautioned, when the letter was ended, "you keep your
hands off that boy. If there is a spark of love for him in your heart,
let him fight his battle off there alone. He's found a good friend and
it's his one chance. If you want to do anything for him keep yourself
above water; have the family respectable for him to come back to. I'm
not much on prophesying, but remembering what you once were and what
his mother was, I have hopes of Sandy."
No one knew or could have guessed that poor Martin was heeding the
doctor's words, but he was. He had stopped drinking. Not a drop of
liquor had passed his lips for weeks, and the craving was stronger at
times than Martin could endure. At such moments he stole to the
outshed and, gripping a certain little ragged jacket, which still hung
there, to his twitching face, would moan: "Oh! God, help me for
Sandy's sake." Not for his own--but for Sandy's sake always. And God
heard and upheld the weak creature.
Then came the night when Mary and Molly aroused Martin from his sleep
as they came in about midnight. Martin had supposed them upstairs long
before. He had come in at nine o'clock from the shed where he had
wrestled with his craving and, by the help of God, had come out
victorious once again. He had fallen asleep soon after and a vivid and
strange dream had held him captive by its power. Sandy had come to him
clearly, and comfortingly; had sat close to him and laid his hand in
his. They had talked familiarly, and then suddenly the boy had asked:
"Dad, how about Molly? She belongs to us-all, you said. I've been
thinking about Molly; where is she?"
Just then the dream faded; the man on the hard settle pulled himself
up, looked dazedly at the almost dead fire and--listened! Some one was
fumbling at the door; some one was coming in! Martin's heart stood
still for, with the dream fresh in his mind, he thought it was Sandy,
and even through his sick longing for the boy a fear seized him. But
Mary came into the dim room with Molly clinging to her. They tiptoed
across the floor toward the stairway and had almost reached it when
Martin flung a log of wood on the fire, and in the quick flash of light
that followed stood up and asked in a clear, forceful voice:
"Whar you-all been?"
The strangeness and surprise took Mary off her guard, and she faltered:
"What's that to you, Mart Morley?"
Martin threw another log on the fire, as if by so doing he could
illuminate more than the cold black room.
"What yo-all been doing? Molly, come here."
Frightened and trembling the girl came forward. She looked far older
than her years. Her bold, coarse beauty had developed amazingly during
the past few months, and the expression on her face now roused all the
dormant manhood in Morley's nature. Ignoring the woman by the
stairway, he gripped Molly by the shoulders, and holding her so that
the lurid light of the flaming logs fell upon her, he drove his
questions into the girl's consciousness and brought alarmed truth forth
before a lie could master it.
"Whar yo' been, Molly?"
"Up to--to Teale's."
"What--doing?"
"Dancing for 'em."
Martin's eyes flashed. It was quite plain to him now--the hideous,
drunken orgy, and this little girl fanning ugly passions into fire by
her youth and beauty!
"You----" Morley rarely swore, but the eloquent pause was more
thrilling than the word he might have spoken. While he clutched Molly,
his infuriated eyes held Mary like something tangible, and drew her
forth from her shadows.
"She's--mine!" the woman panted. For the first time in her life she
was awed by Morley; "she's mine and--the devil's. That was the bargain
and no questions asked. The devil pays good wages, Mart. We'll--we'll
share with you!"
The woman was actually whining and seeking to propitiate the man.
"I've been true to you, Mart. Sure as God hears me, and 'taint cause
I'm old and unsought either. I'll look after her, Mart--but--we-all
have got to live!"
Morley tried to control himself before he spoke, and finally managed to
say, not unkindly:
"Molly, you go upstairs. Shut--shut and lock the door!"
"Mart!" Genuine terror rang in Mary's tones. "Mart--she's mine
and----"
"Go!" commanded Morley, and the child almost ran to do his bidding.
Then alone the man and woman faced each other. Desperation gave
courage to Mary. If all were lost but her physical strength and
bravado, then she must use them.
"You did what you wanted to do with him as was yours," she panted; "you
helped him away, and left us-all to starve. You leave--Molly to me
and----"
"Stop!" cried Morley, unable to hear the brutal repetition. "You would
sell the--the child to Teale and his kind?"
"It's the only way, Mart. I'll keep my hold on her--they----"
"You!" And then, driven by the outraged virtue of the suppressed and
forgotten past, Morley gave expression to his emotions in the language
of The Hollow. For the first time in his life he struck a woman!
Once the deed was done he reeled back, calmed at once into frozen
horror. Mary staggered and fell. In falling she struck her head
against the andirons on the hearth and lay quite, quite still while a
stream of blood from a cut behind the left ear mingled with the ashes
and turned them dark and moist. It seemed hours that Morley looked and
looked before he could master himself and move toward the woman upon
the floor. Finally he listened to her heart, but his own pulsing ears
deceived him; he tried to raise her up, but his strength was gone, and
he let the lifeless body drop again on the hearth. Then a craven
desperation overcame him. Gone were his courage and power, like a
maddened criminal he strode to the stairway and wrenched the locked
door from its hinges and sprang up to where Molly, sobbing and moaning,
crouched in the far corner.
"Come," he whispered; "come!"
"Where's--mother?"
"Her's gone--to--Teale!" The lie rang out fiercely, boldly. Then
wrapping an old bedspread about Molly and keeping her close to him, he
made his way down the stairs and out of the house. Molly did not turn
to look into the lower room, she believed Martin, and she was numb with
terror.
"Whar we-all going?" she panted, as Martin dragged her on. This
question roused Morley. Up to that instant he had not considered where
he was going; he only felt the necessity of flight.
"To--to Trouble Neck," he answered as if some one else were speaking
through him.
"To her as--as they call the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady."
Molly did not speak again, but the answer had stilled somewhat her fear
and anguish. By the time she and Martin reached the Trouble Neck cabin
her uncanny shrewdness and cunning were well to the fore.
The little clock on the mantelshelf had just struck two when Marcia
Lowe raised her tired eyes from the book spread out on the table before
her.
The one large room of the cabin was kitchen, dining-room, parlour,
library; all that was not included in bed-chamber. The lean-to was
Marcia Lowe's sleeping apartment and a tiny room above reached only by
a ladder from outside, served as a trim, cleanly resting-place for a
chance guest or a needy traveller.
The little doctor lifted her aching eyes and took in the rude comfort
of her home-place with a deep sigh.
"Oh!" she whispered--for she had adopted the compromise of the lonely
woman and talked aloud to herself--"oh! if they could forget my sex!"
She was thinking of a conversation she had had with The Forge doctor
that very day.
"I--I wish you would work with me," she had pleaded; "they would accept
you; obey what you say and--give me a chance."
The doctor had laughed good-naturedly. Miss Lowe amused him hugely.
She seemed to him like a child playing with sugar and bread pills.
"My dear young lady," he had said; "they'd shoot me, and with good
reason, if I let any petticoat Saw Bones tamper with them; no insult
intended--only compliment, dear lady! Your books read like fairy
stories; I'm too old a hand to be taken in. The revised Bible, ma'am,
is dangerous for souls, and new ideas in physic are about the same for
bodies. I read when I can--but I'm too human to experiment on my kind.
A few old remedies and a good stiff bluff are all that are needed
up-er-here. Now as to you, my dear young miss, I'd have to put you
under lock and key or buy you a return ticket to that
fly-in-the-face-of-Providence state of yours if you tampered with the
bodies of these people. That uncle of yours juggled considerable in
his day, but souls are one thing; bodies, another."
Marcia Lowe now clasped her hands behind her tired head and raised her
eyes to the low ceiling.
"Just for one faithful soul!" she murmured; "no, one faithful body that
would trust itself to me for--a month; a month! A few days of
starvation; a magic little pill; a spell of patient waiting and then--a
miracle."
But no response came from the stillness of the night and Miss Lowe was
about to make preparations for bed when a sound outside stayed her.
Then came a knock on the door! She went to the small window beside the
door, drew aside the dainty white curtain, opened it halfway and asked:
"Is that you, Hope?" She had promised Liza to bide with her when her
hour came, but it was not Hope who replied:
"This is Martin Morley, ma'am. Me and lil' Molly."
The door was opened at once and closed after the two.
"Now," said the little doctor, stirring the fire to greater effort and
seeing that her callers had the easiest chairs in the room, "now, then,
Mr. Morley."
Molly followed every motion of Marcia Lowe with unchildlike interest.
Fear was gone from the girl's face, but an alert sharpness marked it.
"Can you give her," Martin nodded toward Molly, "a bed for--for
to-night? I have something to tell you."
Marcia Lowe sensed that something serious lay behind the request, and
rose at once and went to Molly.
"Come into my bedroom," she said; "I can make you very comfy, I'm sure.
Will you sleep with me?"
Molly nodded and followed meekly. After a time Marcia Lowe came back
and, standing in front of Morley, said quickly:
"What is it?"
The haggard, haunted face was raised to her.
"I've--I've done killed Mary!" he said simply.
The little doctor shuddered, but controlled her features; her eyes did
not fall from the wretched man's face.
"Tell me!" was all she said. Then Martin slowly in a hushed voice,
described all that had passed, even the vision of Sandy.
"The Lord-a'mighty, He knows I didn't mean to kill," Martin quivered;
"but who-all will believe that? I meant to stay clean and fair for the
boy's coming back, Miss Lowe, ma'am, deed I did, and now he'll come
back to----" Martin could not frame the hideous truth in words; he
gulped miserably and went on; "please, ma'am, keep--her, Molly, from
Teale and them-all!"
"And you?" So simply did the question come that the man replied in
kind.
"I--I can't let them-all cotch me, ma'am. Come morning, I'll be past
hurting any one, more."
The childlike pathos in this criminal's voice and attitude confused the
listener. For the life of her she could not deal with the situation in
any ordinary fashion; it seemed like a dramatic incident bungled by
amateurs. Presently she asked gently:
"Are you _sure_ she is dead, Mr. Morley?"
The unreality held Martin, too.
"I reckon she is," he faltered; "I--I couldn't hear her heart--and she
laid right still. I expect she is dead."
The ludicrous overpowered even the turn of possibility, and the little
doctor said:
"You just mustn't kill yourself or harm Sandy unless it is necessary,
you know. If you will go out and harness my horse to the buggy, you
and I will make sure."
By the time Morley had mechanically fulfilled these commands, Marcia
Lowe had decided, from the sound of Molly's breathing, that she might
safely be left alone, and, cloaked and hooded, joined Martin outside.
It was a dreary ride, and the two spoke seldom.
"You are to be no coward, Morley," Marcia Lowe had said; "you're to
face your future like a man--like Sandy's father. He will well
understand. I will stand by you and see fair play for you; I'll pay
for a good lawyer, and you will take your medicine, whatever it is, and
be clean and decent for your boy and girl. I'll take care of Molly."
After a time Martin agreed to this, but from the shivering of the form
beside her, the little doctor realized the struggle.
And so they reached Morley's cabin and entered, like ghosts, into the
fear-haunted place. Mary was gone. The fire was smouldering in the
last flashes, the damp ashes were drying--but Mary had made a bodily
escape.
"So!" whispered Marcia Lowe. "It was better to make sure. Go
upstairs, see if she is there."
Mary was not there.
"Now come back."
Through the chill of the early morning the two drove silently back to
Trouble Neck and with strange foreboding the little doctor made her way
at once to the lean-to bed-chamber--Molly, too, was gone! She had made
her way to Teale's, Miss Lowe felt sure.
The next morning the news spread fast, garbled by many tongues.
Teale's place had been raided! Teale had escaped and the Morleys had
accompanied him.
"Well!" said Sally Taber to Cynthia; "I 'spect Mart Morley had to get
his livin' somehow. The yaller streak's got the best of him."
Cynthia made no reply. Oddly enough in her fancy she was gazing upon
the portrait of "The Biggest of Them All."