Читать книгу Thunder Moon Strikes - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 9

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In the meantime, a string of beautiful chestnuts, sleek and bright in the sunshine, was being conducted back to Sutton House by the Keene servants, and Judge Keene himself, mightily perturbed, hurried on ahead, riding his fastest mount.

When he came to Sutton House, he asked to see his neighbor at once, and was brought into the presence of the colonel, on whose face there was a mingling of brightness and of shadow.

“I’m glad to have one moment alone with you, my dear Randolf,” said the judge. “I’ve wanted to have a chance to congratulate you again, quietly, personally, on the great joy that has come to you today. God knows, Randolf, that no man ever less deserved that such a tragedy should come to him as came to you twenty years ago! No man deserves more to have the effects of it undone. And here your boy is back among us!”

“Thank you, thank you!” muttered the colonel. “But I hardly know how long he’ll stay!”

“What?”

“I mean it. He’s like a wild tiger. He starts away at everything or shows his claws. I only pray that he doesn’t murder someone—he or the little devil of a Cheyenne that’s with him!”

The judge rubbed his chin.

“I understand you,” said he.

“And I suppose,” said the colonel, coloring a little, “that the entire countryside is still laughing over this morning’s affair?”

“Laughing?” cried the judge hotly. “Laughing at such a thing as the return of my dear Sutton’s first-born son? By heavens, Randolf. I’d horsewhip the rascal who dared to laugh at such a thing in my presence!”

“Would you? I think that you would. But everyone in this neighborhood is not a Keene.”

“No, sir,” answered the hot-headed judge, “nor would we want to include every Tom, Dick, and Harry in our family, I hope!”

“You always must eat a bit of fire,” exclaimed the colonel. “Well, God bless you, Dick! You do me good. At the same time, it was a shocking thing, rather, to see him come down the stairs—civilized up to the neck—and wild Indian above!”

“Shocking? Not at all! Of course, every man is a little oversensitive about the appearance of his family. But every man and woman in your house this morning must have known that there was a Sutton heart in the wild man who came down those stairs!”

“What, with horrible paint on his face?”

“What the devil is paint, Randolf? What has that to do with the mind of a man? He needs to learn other ways, that’s all. All you need to do is to work on the surface. He’s already a man and a leader of men!”

“I might try to send him off to school,” suggested the colonel. “He’s a bit old for school, but—there’s the place that that cousin of yours runs—”

“As a matter of fact,” put in the judge hastily, “that school has some very sacred traditions it clings to. And—and—”

“Don’t say another word! I understand perfectly. And every other school worth sending him to would have the same!”

“Besides, Randolf, there would be something absurd in sending a great chief, a famous warrior, to sit with schoolboys. You’d better try a tutor!”

“I’ll try a tutor,” decided the colonel, “and I’ll be the tutor myself, by heaven! What better have I to do in the world than to see that my son has the proper chance in life?”

Here the judge was compelled to turn his head and to clear his throat with violence.

He put in, “But, by the way, colonel, there’s another matter that brought me over here. It’s only some practical joke among the grooms, I suppose, but you don’t want your grooms to take liberties with your thoroughbreds, I imagine?”

“Certainly not! What have the rascals been doing?”

“Which ones were up to the mischief, I don’t know. But a while ago we walked out and found a string of ten of your chestnuts tethered to the rack in front of the house!”

The colonel sat down suddenly, and with violence.

“Ten, did you say?”

“Ten!”

The colonel passed his hand across his brow. “Heavens!” said he.

“What’s wrong? It’s not so serious as all that, I hope?” exclaimed the judge.

“I—Dick—before anything more happens along this line, I think that I’d better tell you my suspicion.”

“Go on, my dear fellow.”

“The fact is, that this morning when the people were arriving, William looked out the window and saw only one face, really.”

“Well.”

“You can imagine what face would stand out in any crowd. It was your girl, Charlotte.”

“Charlotte!”

“Yes. Charlotte. ‘A face like a flower,’ he said, and he was quite right. And, later on, he asked me for a gift of ten horses—would give no reason for his request; simply wanted them—I suppose that you begin to see the connection?”

“The connection between Charlotte and ten horses? No, sir, I confess that I don’t understand what you may mean!”

“Simply this. I hate to say it. But the fact is—as I’ve heard it—that when the Indians on the plains decide on a girl they want for a wife, they simply lead out a string of their horses—one horse for an ordinary squaw who may have been married before; two horses for a fine young girl; five horses for a beauty—and—you understand now, I hope?”

The judge’s face was purple.

“Extraordinary!” said he.

“Extraordinary, of course,” agreed the colonel. “But in a case like this, with a man just from the plains—twenty years as an Indian makes an Indian, in a way. That ought to be clear enough, my dear Dick!”

The judge made a turn up and down the room. He cleared his throat. He had turned from purple to a fiery red.

“There is something to be said—” he began, and stuck.

“For what?” said the colonel, very good-humored.

“For a natural sense of delicacy and decency where women are concerned,” said the judge.

“Dick, you’re rather running on a bit, it seems to me!”

“Am I? Am I? Colonel, I want you to remember that we’ve mentioned my only child—my dear Charlotte!”

“It seems that we have,” said the colonel, becoming a trifle dry.

“And in connection with—er—”

“In connection,” the colonel took up the sentence and went on, more dryly than before, “with my oldest son and heir.”

“Hmm!” said the judge. He added stiffly, “I don’t quite follow you in this, Dick. Do you suggest that you are making a formal proposal of marriage on behalf of your son?”

“I?” said the colonel, raising his bushy brows. “By no means! By no means!”

“Ah!”

“Marriage among all the plains Indians is rather an informal matter,” said the colonel.

“Really?”

“Yes. As I understand it, a man gets a wife almost as casually as he gets a horse. And, of course, I don’t imagine that William’s ideas about marriage differ much from those of the people he’s been raised among.”

“A very unusual idea,” said the judge. “I can hardly imagine that any son of mine—that is to say—”

The colonel rose.

“Perhaps you’d better not hunt for the word, Judge,” said he.

“No?”

“Perhaps I understand you well enough as it is!”

The judge was silent. But when the thunder clouds are piled high in the sky, though there may not be either rain or lightning, at least the thunder must rumble, here and there.

“By Jupiter!” exclaimed the judge. “A price of ten horses for my daughter’s hand! My Charlotte!”

“I attempted,” said the colonel, growing stiffer still, “to explain away an embarrassing moment for both of us. It seems that you don’t follow me. I can only assure you that I never shall be a party to any attempt to inveigle your daughter into exchanging your house for mine.”

“Colonel Sutton, you use decided language.”

“Judge Keene, you suggested the terms to me.”

The judge was silent. For a moment the friends stared at one another.

“I think,” the judge said softly, at length, “that the ten horses have, by this time, been returned to your paddock.”

“Sir, you have shown the most neighborly—thoughtfulness. I thank you.”

“Don’t mention such a small matter, sir. Good morning!”

“Good morning, Judge Keene!”

The judge bowed, turned upon his heel, and left the house. Precisely, rapidly, he went down the front steps. He approached his horse. He mounted and thanked the groom who held the stirrup for him.

The colonel, from behind a curtained window, watched all of this proceeding, and he marked how his old friend raised his eyes and glanced quickly and searchingly over the face of Sutton House, very much in the manner of one who wishes to take away a clear mental picture of a thing he never may see again. Then the judge rode off.

And the colonel went slowly back to his library and there sat down and pondered. Already he was beginning to pay a price for the return of his son. He had been made ridiculous in the eyes of the neighborhood. He could endure that. But now it had cost him the friendship of a very old and dear friend.

The heart of the colonel began to sink.