Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: JUSTINE SHERROD.]
[Illustration: Title page]
THE
SHERRODS
By
George Barr McCutcheon
Author of "Graustark", "Castle Craneycrow", Etc.
With Illustrations by
C. D. Williams
Grosset & Dunlap
New York
Copyright, 1903, by
Dodd, Mead and Company
_Entered at
Stationers' Hall_
_Published September, 1903_
HILL AND LEONARD
NEW YORK CITY, U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE SOFT SUMMER NIGHT
II. "LET NOT MAN PUT ASUNDER"
III. JUD AND JUSTINE
IV. MRS. HARDESTY'S CHARITY
V. WHEN THE CLASH CAME
VI. THE GIRL IN GRAY
VII. LEAVING PARADISE
VIII. THE FIRST WAS A CRIMINAL
IX. THE ENCOUNTER WITH CRAWLEY
X. THE CLOTHES AND THE MAN
XI. WHEN THE WIND BLOWS
XII. THE GOOD OF EVIL
XIII. THE FINDING OF CELESTE
XIV. "MY TRUEST COMRADE"
XV. ONE HEART FOR TWO
XVI. THE FALL OF THE WEAK
XVII. AT SEA
XVIII. 'GENE CRAWLEY'S SERMON
XIX. THE PURE AND THE POOR
XX. THE SOCIABLE
XXI. THE COMING IN THE NIGHT
XXII. THE FIRST-BORN
XXIII. THE TALE OF TEARS
XXIV. THE NIGHT OUT
XXV. THE LETTER TO CRAWLEY
XXVI. TWO WOMEN AND A BABE
XXVII. THE END OF IT ALL
XXVIII. HEARTS
XXIX. CRAWLEY'S LEGACY
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
JUSTINE SHERROD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
"IN A SECOND CRAWLEY WAS ROLLING UP HIS SLEEVES"
"YOU MUST LET ME PAY YOU FOR IT"
"HIS EYES TOOK IN THE PICTURE"
"'YOU'RE A LIAR--YOU'RE ALL LIARS'"
"'IT IS NOT TRUE,' HALF SHRIEKED CELESTE"
THE SHERRODS
CHAPTER I.
THE SOFT SUMMER NIGHT.
Through the soft summer night came the sounds of the silence that is
heard only when nature sleeps, imperceptible except as one feels it
behind the breath he draws or perhaps realizes it in the touch of an
unexpected branch or flower. The stillness of a silence that is not
silent; a stillness so dead that the croaking of frogs, the chirping of
crickets, the barking of dogs, the hooting of owls, the rustling of
leaves are not heard, although the air is heavy with those voices of
the night--the stillness of a night in the country. All human activity
apparently at an end, all sign of life lost in somber shadows. The
ceaseless croaking, the chirping, the hooting, the rustling themselves
make up this unspeakable silence--this sweet, unconscious solitude.
A country lane, dark and gloomy, awaited the moon from the clouded
east. Lighted only here and there by the twinkling windows in roadside
homes, it lay asleep in its bed of dust. Far off it straggled into a
village, but out there in the country it was lost to the world with the
setting of the sun.
The faint glow from the window of a cottage poured its feeble but
willing self into the night as if seeking to dispel the gloom, dimly
conscious that its efforts were unappreciated and undesired. Down at
the rickety front gate, cloaked in blackness, stood two persons.
Darkness could not hide the world from them, for the whole world dwelt
within the confines of a love-lit garden gate. For them there was no
sound of life except their tender voices, no evidence that a world
existed beyond the posts between which they stood, his arm about her,
her head upon his breast. They spoke softly in the silence about them.
"And to-morrow night at this time you will be mine--all mine," he
murmured. She looked again into his face, indistinct in the night.
"To-morrow night! Oh, Jud, it does not seem possible. We are both so
young and so--so--"
"So foolish!" he smiled.
"So poor," she finished plaintively.
"But, Justine, you don't feel afraid to marry me because I am poor, do
you?" he asked.
"Do you think I have been poor only to be afraid of it? We love each
other, dear, and we are rich. To-morrow night I shall be the richest
girl in the world," she sighed tremulously.
"To-morrow night," he whispered. His arm tightened about her, his head
dropped until his lips met hers and clung to them until the world was
forgotten.
Far away in the night sounded the steady beat of a galloping horse's
hoofs. Louder and nearer grew the pounding on the dry roadway until at
last the rollicking whistle of the rider could be heard. Standing in
the gateway, the silent lovers, their happy young hearts beating as
one, listened dreamily to the approach.
"He has been in the village," said she, at length breaking the silence
that had followed their passionate kiss. Her slender body trembled
slightly in his arms.
"And he is going home drunk, as usual," added the youth sententiously.
"Has he annoyed you lately?"
"We must pay no attention to what he says or does," she answered
evasively.
"Then he has said or done something?"
"He came to the schoolhouse yesterday morning, dear--just for a
moment--and he was not so very rude," she pleaded hurriedly.
"What did he say to you; what did he want?" persisted her lover.
"Oh, nothing--nothing, Jud. Just the same old thing. He wanted me to
give you up and--and--" She hesitated.
"And wait for him, eh? If he bothers you again I'll kill him. You're
mine, and he knows it, and he's got to let you alone."
"But it will all be over to-morrow night, dear. I'll be yours, and
he'll have to give up. He's crazy now, and you must not mind what he
does. When I'm your wife he'll quit--maybe he'll go away. I've told
him I don't love him. Don't you see, Jud, he has hope now, because I
am not married. Just as soon as the wedding's over he'll see that it's
no use and--and he'll let us alone."
"The drunken hound! The idea of him daring to love you! Justine, I
could kill him!"
The horseman swept past the gate, a swift black shadow amid the thunder
of hoof-beats, and the lovers drew closer together. Just as he roared
past them his whistling ceased and a strong, bold voice shouted:
"Hello, Justine!" He was saluting, in drunken gallantry, the girl whom
he believed to be asleep beneath a counterpane near some black window
in the little house. The horse shied, his whip swished through the air
and cut across the animal's flank; the ugly snort of the beast mingled
with oaths from the rider.
The girl shuddered and placed her hands over her ears; her companion
set his teeth and muttered:
"The dog! I wish that horse would throw him and break his neck! He's
not fit to live. Justine, if there is a man who will go to hell when
he dies, that man is 'Gene Crawley. And he wants you--the hound! The
sweetest, gentlest, purest girl in the world! He wants you!"
They forgot the rider, and the clatter of the horse's hoofs died away
in the night. The lovers turned slowly toward the house. At the door
he stooped and kissed her.
"The last night we are to part like this," he whispered.
She laid both hands upon his face.
"Let us pray to-night, dear, that we may be always as happy as we now
are," she said softly.
She opened the door, and the two stood for a moment in the fair light
from the cottage lamp. From above him on the door-sill, she laid her
fingers in his curly brown hair, and said, half timidly, half joyfully:
"The last night we shall say good-bye like this."
Then she kissed him suddenly and was gone, blushing and trembling. He
looked at the closed door for an instant, and then dropped to his knees
and kissed the step on which she had stood.