Читать книгу The Spoilers of the Valley - Robert Watson - Страница 8

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At the door, the man carrying the rifle came close to Eileen. He caught her hand in his and tapped it lightly.

“Don’t worry, little girl! I tried my best to keep them from disturbing you,” he said in low tones, “but you know what these fellows are like.”

“Thank you! You are very kind,” answered Eileen quietly. “Father will thank you, too, when he comes back.”

The Mayor wished her good-night, raised his hat and followed the others, who were already well on their way down the hill.

Eileen waited at the door until they were no longer within sight or earshot. Then she closed and bolted it. She ran over to the wood-box. She tossed the chunks of wood about her in frantic haste, whispering, almost crooning, to the man underneath, who did not hear her for he was lying there crumpled in a senseless heap.

With a cry she freed him and bent over him. Her supple young arms went under his shoulders. She raised him, half dragging, half lifting, until she had him stretched upon the floor in front of the stove. She ran for a basin of water, cut some linen into strips and, on her knees beside him, she bathed and dressed the raw, open wound in his side, where a bullet had ripped and torn along the white flesh.

20

When she finished, she raised his limp head and bathed his brow with cold water.

The fugitive groaned and opened his eyes.

He smiled a wan sort of smile through a grimy, unshaven mask, as he looked into the sweet face above him. Then he closed his eyes again, as if he feared the picture might vanish.

“Oh, brace up!” Eileen whispered tearfully, almost shaking him in her fear. “You must brace up. They’ve gone. But they may come back. If they do, they’ll be sure to get you.”

Gathering his scattered senses, the man on the floor raised himself with an effort on to his elbow. He struggled to his feet and swayed unsteadily. He passed his hand over his eyes and made an involuntary movement as if to thrust his fingers through his hair. As he did so, a pained expression crossed his face, for his fingers encountered nothing but a short stubble of hair close cropped to his skin.

Eileen lent him her support, as he tried to brace himself. She set him in an armchair, then brought him bread, butter, some cold meat and fresh milk from the cupboard, placing them on the table before him.

Only his eyes expressed thanks, but they did it eloquently. Ravenously he turned to, while his young hostess watched him in curiosity and wonder, for never before had she seen one really famishingly hungry.

When not a morsel remained, the man pushed back his chair and turned to the young lady apologetically.

“You’ll excuse me if I forgot my table manners, but––but that was my first food for three days.”

He rose.

“I guess I will be able to make it now. I feel all right;––thanks to you.”

“No, no!” exclaimed Eileen, “you mustn’t go just yet. 21 You must rest if only for a few minutes. I was anxious before these men were clear away, but they have gone. The rest will do you good.”

“No!––I must go. It––it would mean trouble for you if they found me here.”

“You shan’t! Sit down!” she commanded. “You may require all your strength before morning.”

She set him in the chair again, and he obeyed her helplessly and with a sigh of weariness.

“But–––” he protested feebly, raising his hand.

“Trouble for me!” she interposed; “I am not afraid of trouble.”

“You are indeed a Good Samaritan,” he said in a voice which sounded less forlorn. “If I wasn’t a jailbird, I’d thank you in my prayers.”

He smiled crookedly. “You know, convicts’ prayers don’t seem to rise very high, miss––don’t seem to reach anywhere. We haven’t got the stand-in with the Boss that others seem to have,” he said in some bitterness.

“Hush!” she whispered. “You must not say that, for it isn’t true. Those men might have caught you,––but they didn’t. But, but,” she added seriously, “surely you are not a convict; not a criminal, I mean?”

He turned his hands outwards with a shrug.

“You don’t look like one who loved doing wrong. If you have ever done wrong, I am sure it was done in a moment of rashness; maybe thoughtlessness.” She clasped her hands in front of her. “You would never do it again.”

He shook his head.

“No,––never, never again!” But his voice had no sound of contrition in it.

“When you are free––really free––you will try to be what God meant you to be; a real man; good, honest and earnest.”

22

He moved uneasily, then he got up once more, went over to the window and looked out into the night. He remained with his back to her for some time, and she did not seek to break into his thoughts.

Finally he turned, and, as he leaned against the wall by the door, he gazed at her curiously.

“They nick-named me ‘Silent’ in jail, because I wouldn’t talk,” he said in a husky tone. “God knows!––what inducement had a man to talk––there?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t talk now––but I might feel better if I did, and you cared to listen.”

“Yes, oh yes!––please tell me,” replied the girl earnestly.

“I have never committed any crime against anyone. The only wrong I have done is to myself. Like a fool, I took the blame to save the other fellow, because, oh, because I thought I was better able to––that was all. But that other fellow skulked away, deserted me;––the low coward!”

The man’s voice rose in the quiet of that little bungalow upon the hill where the only other sounds were the ticking of the clock and the quick breathing of an anxious listener.

“God help him when we meet!”

“Hush!” cautioned the girl again.

“When I took on his troubles,” he continued, more quietly, “I did not think of anything more than a few months in prison, but, Great God! they gave me five years:––five years!”

His eyes widened at the awfulness of the thought and a look of agony came into his face.

Eileen Pederstone gasped, and her lips parted.

“Five years,” she whispered.

The man continued in bitterness.

“Yes! five years in hell––buried alive––away from 23 humanity––from light––air––freedom; from the sunshine, the hills, and the valleys; from the sea, the wind, and, and, the higher things––literature, music, art: truth––love––life:––buried from the combination of all these, from God himself.”

He shuddered. He almost wept in his frailness. “And now the very sunshine hurts like an electric shock, the open spaces make me feel lost and afraid; make me long for the confinement of a cell again.”

He stopped suddenly and brushed his eyes with the back of his hand.

Eileen went over to him, laid a hand tenderly on his torn shirt-sleeve and led him over to the chair again, for he still showed signs of his physical exhaustion. He sat back and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Eileen spoke to him.

“And you ran away? Why, oh, why did you do that? Couldn’t you see that it would mean recapture; more imprisonment? And you were probably so near the end of it.”

Her whole soul was speaking compassionately.

“Near the end!” he said bitterly. “It was the end. I broke prison because they had no right to keep me there any longer.”

“But why? How could that possibly be?” she asked, closing her hands nervously.

He gave expression to a sound of surprise at her innocence.

“You don’t know them, miss. Anything, everything is possible in there. They are masters, kings, gods. My conduct was good. After three years and eight months I was due to get out in one month more. But I was useful to them in there. I had education. I was the only accountant; the greatest book-lover in jail. To keep me from thinking––for the thinking is what drives 24 men mad––I worked and slaved night and day. They had no one to take my place. I was trusted. I did the work of three men.

“One day I interfered in behalf of a fellow prisoner––a horse thief––who was wrongly accused at this particular time of breaking some trivial prison law. My good conduct sheet was cancelled. I was told that I must serve my full time. That’s what I got for trying, for the second time, to help my fellow-man.” He laughed. “That––and a peculiar-sounding word which that strange little jailbird gave to me, on condition that I would never sell it, stating it was all he had and that it might be useful to me some day if I ever had the handling of horses.

“Yes!––I should have been wise that time. It was my second offence of helping my neighbour. Three years and nine months in jail for a kindly act! Fifteen months more in hell in exchange for a word! What bargains!”

He grew bitter again.

“The hell-hounds!––they thought I didn’t tumble to their little game.”

He stopped again, closing his mouth tightly as if inquiring of himself why he should be telling this young lady so much.

“Please––please go on,” Eileen pleaded, divining his thoughts.

“Why?” he asked bluntly, surveying the slight, lissom figure before him.

“Oh, because––because I am interested. I am so sorry for you and for so many others like you,” she said.

“Well!––I served my full time––five years––three years with 365 days each and two leap years with an extra day in them,––1,827 days and nights, 43,848 hours; 2,630,880 minutes; 157,852,800 second strokes on the 25 clock. You see I remember it all. Great God, how I used to figure it out!

“Eight days ago my time was up. I asked them regarding my release. And simply because I inquired instead of waiting their good pleasure, they told me I had two weeks more to serve. The damnable lie! As if I didn’t know, as if every jailbird doesn’t know the day and the very minute his release is due!

“Two weeks more!” he went on, his face flushed with indignation and his breath coming in short jerks.

The clock on Eileen’s mantelshelf struck midnight, slowly and clearly.

The convict looked at it and gasped. When it stopped striking, he turned to Eileen and his eyes twinkled for a second.

“The Governor of the prison has a little clock just the same as that in his private room,” he said. “Do you know, I’m afraid all the time that I’m going to wake up from this and find myself back there.”

He jerked his torn garments together.

“Guess I’d better be going, though. I’ve stayed far too long already. I feel rested now.”

“Won’t you finish your story first?” pleaded Eileen. “I think you are safer here––for a while longer––than you would be outside. It won’t hurt to let those horrid, prying, suspicious creatures get well away from here.”

“I have already said more than I intended to,” he remarked.

The pair presented a strange contrast as they sat opposite each other in the lamplight; the one, wet-eyed, sympathetic and earnest; the other, gaunt, indignant and breathless as he gasped out his story with the hunger of one to whom sympathy was a rediscovered friend.

“Where was I at?” he asked. “Ah, yes!

26

“The Governor’s dirty-worker wouldn’t listen when I tried to explain. He ordered me back.

“At work in the office next day, I took advantage of a warder’s slackness and broke clear away.

“I didn’t care what happened then. I was crazed. An old lady in a cottage––God bless her!––fed me and gave me these clothes––her son’s castaways––and three dollars; all the money she had.

“I walked twenty miles without stop or let-up. After that I slept during the day and walked at night. Three days after my breakaway, I got on to a freight train and stole a ride as far as Sicamous. I slept overnight in a barn there. Next morning I tried to bribe a boy to get me some food at the grocery store. I gave him a dollar. He never came back. I heard some men talking at the door of the barn about a suspicious character who had been seen skulking about. That decided me. I got out when night came and slipped under an empty fruit car which was being shunted on the siding. I got off yesterday, slipping away between a little village up the line and here. The engineer got his eye on me and stopped the train. He let some men off: they were two detectives, I think. They had been riding in the caboose. They came after me. I fell exhausted somewhere in the bush. When I came to it was broad daylight and the men were gone.”

He looked up at Eileen suddenly.

“There isn’t much more. Early this morning I managed to get into a barn by the railway tracks. I got in through a skylight in the roof. I went to sleep among the straw there. Soon after, the sound of a key in the padlock outside woke me. I scrambled up and through the skylight again, and away. There were three men––one with a rifle. They hunted me, finding me and 27 losing me several times. The devil with the rifle got a line on me down the hill a short time ago.

“When I got to your door I was all in.” He smiled. “You’re a real sport. You didn’t give me away.”

He got up and threw out his hands. “Oh, what’s the good anyway! All jailbirds tell the tale and shout their innocence.”

Eileen’s heart was moved. Tears welled up in her eyes. She was at a loss to know what to do or say.

As the man turned from her, his elbow struck something hanging on the wall. He caught at it quickly as it was falling.

It was an old violin of very delicate workmanship.

“Sorry!” he exclaimed, handing it to her. “I am clumsy in a house. Haven’t been in one for so long. Glad I didn’t smash it.”

“I almost wish you had,” said Eileen enigmatically.

“Don’t you like music?” he asked.

“Oh, yes!”

“Violin music?”

“Yes!––but not from that violin. It is not like other violins: it has an unsavoury history.”

“Do you play?”

“Not the violin,” said Eileen, standing with her back to the table, leaning lightly there, clad in her dressing gown, her plaited hair hanging over her shoulder and her eyes on her strange visitor in manifest interest.

“My father is very fond of scraping on a violin. The one he plays is hanging up there.”

She pointed to another violin beside the mantelshelf in the adjoining room.

“And this one?” he queried curiously, pointing to the one she had laid on the table.

“This one is several hundred years old. It has been in the family for ever so long. The story goes with it 28 that the member of our family who owns it will attain much wealth during his life, but will lose it again if he doesn’t pass it on when he is at the very height of his prosperity. My father says it has always proved true, and he is hoping for the day when its promise will be fulfilled in his case, for he longs for wealth and all it brings; and he has striven all his life to get it.”

“I hope that he has his wish and is able to tell when he gets to the highest point of his success, so that he may get rid of the violin in time.”

Eileen smiled.

“Daddy says that has been the trouble with our forefathers, who always got wealthy but never seemed to be able to hold it when they got it. That is my daddy over there.”

She pointed to framed picture on the wall.

“He is big and brawny, and not afraid of anybody. He is––oh, so good. He is the best in all the world.”

The young man gazed at her as she expressed her admiration.

“He isn’t here to-night?” he remarked.

Eileen turned her eyes on him sharply, as if she had sensed something of a suspicious nature in his query. But she shook the thought from her and laid her mind bare.

“No!––daddy was called away this afternoon. He won’t be back until to-morrow, noon.

“This violin,” reverted Eileen, as if endeavouring to interest her guest and keep his thoughts away from the misery of his own condition as long as possible, “was the last work of a very famous Italian violin maker, who disappeared mysteriously and was never heard of afterwards. It has a most beautiful tone, but for one note, and that one note is hideous. Ugh!––I hate it.”

She shuddered. “I would have destroyed it long ago 29 only my father prizes it as a great curio and as an heirloom.”

The convict showed deep interest.

“Isn’t it strange that a beautiful instrument like this should have a discordant note in it that no one seems to be able to explain away?” she asked, as they stood together near the window, losing themselves in their interest.

“Yes,––it is strange,” returned the man, examining the violin closely. “I have read of something similar somewhere. The discord, I think, is called the wolf note, and it is well named. I believe its presence is difficult to explain, and such an instrument has occasionally been produced by the best violin makers. They usually destroyed them, as the discord is unalterable, making the instrument, of course, unmarketable as a music producer.”

Eileen remained in thought for a while, then she held out her hand for the violin, took it from the man and went to the wall where she hung it up, as if dismissing a distasteful subject.

Back to the young man’s face came the hopeless look of remembrance. “I had almost forgotten myself,” he remarked. “Thank you! I must be off. I should not be here. I––I should never have intruded.”

“One moment!” said Eileen. “The air is chilly and you have nothing but that thin, torn, cotton shirt on your back. Get into this! It is an old sweater of mine; it is loose and big. It will keep the cold out.”

“No! You have already done more than I can ever hope to pay back. I might get caught with it on–––”

“But you must,” she put in imperiously. “I have several of them. This is the oldest of those I have. You are not depriving me of anything, and you will be glad of it before the morning, for it is cold up here at nights.”