Читать книгу The Bail Jumper - Robert J. C. Stead - Страница 3

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“We have felt the cold of winter—cursed by those who know it not—We have braved the blizzard’s vengeance, dared its most deceptive plot;We have learned that hardy races grow from hardy circumstance,And we face a dozen dangers to attend a country dance;Though our means are nothing lavish we have always time for play,And our social life commences at the closing of the day;We have time for thought and culture, time for friendliness and friend,And we catch a broader vision as our aspirations blend.” Prairie Born.

The short winter day was at an end. The gloom of five-o’clock twilight gathered about the frost-shrouded team and the farm sleigh which crunched complainingly behind. For twenty miles the team had plodded, steadily, laboriously—their great heads undulating with their gait, through the snow-blocked roads. The two fur-clad men had long ago dropped all attempt at conversation, and an occasional swing of their arms, in an effort to revive the chilled circulation, was the only evidence that the vital spark still burned in their deep-bosomed bodies.

Suddenly a shape loomed through the grey mist of the night. The horses lurched back upon the double trees, their trace-chains clattering with the slack. The shape took form; a frightened team were seen plunging in the deep snow by the roadside; the vehicles interlocked.

“What d’ye mean by crowdin’ me off the road like that?” cried an angry voice, as a man’s form rose in the opposing cutter.

“I didn’t crowd you off,” returned the driver of the sleigh. “It was your own reckless speed that got you into trouble. See, man, your nigh horse is down; I’m thinkin’ he needs your attention more than me.”

“But it’s you will have it first,” came the savage reply, as the speaker sprang from the cutter on to the side of the sleigh. But almost before he landed a great bear-like arm shot out, and the assailant would have fallen in a crumpled mass beside his struggling horses, had not the same arm jerked him forward into the sleigh.

In the deep gloom the two men thrust their faces close, then drew suddenly back.

“And what way is this to greet a neighbour on the public road, Hiram Riles?” demanded the driver of the sleigh. “Ye’ll have strange tales for the wife to-night, I’m thinkin’, by the breath o’ you. Away home with ye, and mind the road. It’s no fit night for a man in your shape, Hiram.”

The other murmured thickly, “I’m all right,” but showed no further belligerent tendencies; and when the team had been extricated from their entanglement and set upon the road again, the two old-timers parted in their opposite directions.

“It’s a sore temptin’ o’ Providence for a man to venture on the country roads a winter’s night without all his senses, Raymond,” said the elder man, as they drove on. “See ye’re no guilty of it. There’s many a tragedy blamed to the climate that’s begun in the gin-shop.”

Already the town lights were peering mistily through the haze, and in a few minutes the sleigh drew up at the door of Gardiner’s general store. The two men got out and lifted a trunk to the sidewalk, when the elder resumed his seat in the sleigh.

“Hadn’t you better put in the team and stay all night, father? The horses are dog-tired, and it’ll be better driving in the morning.”

“No, Raymond. I’ll push back as far as Mathesons’, and spend the night there. I’m no hand for stayin’ in town. I’ll be leavin’ now, and mind, boy, we’re expectin’ you to make good.”

The two men grasped hands in a moment’s clasp; the next, sleigh and driver had disappeared in the night.

The young man stood on the sidewalk, in the momentary irresolution of the stranger. He had been in Plainville before, and knew Mr. Gardiner by sight; but then, he met him as a customer, and now it was to be as employee. Overcoming his bashfulness, he pushed open the store door and entered. The white glare of the gasoline lights revealed a boy of twenty-one, sturdy and well set up, although of somewhat smaller stature than the average in the country; with clean, weather-beaten face and eyes accustomed to look squarely before them. The nose rose strong and resolute from the cheeks, but in the quiet mouth there was a lurking sadness suggestive of melancholy.

Raymond Burton unbuttoned his coat and threw back the collar, when a cheery voice said, “Hello, Burton, you got in? Hardly expected you to-night, the roads are so full. Throw off your coat and warm yourself, and then go up to Mrs. Goode’s boarding-house and make yourself at home. I have arranged accommodation for you there. She is one of our best customers, and she runs a good house.”

There was nothing stand-offish about Gardiner. He met his employees on a basis of friendship and equality, and had a ready way with him that was continually swelling his list of customers, notwithstanding the competition of the Sempter Trading Co., the oldest and strongest mercantile firm in the town. Indeed, Gardiner was little more than a boy himself, who, a few years before, had come up from one of the Eastern Provinces to engage in business in the West.

Gardiner walked around to the boarding-house with Burton, after giving a boy a quarter to deliver the trunk. Mrs. Goode, herself, answered the bell. She was a sprightly, motherly woman, with a quick step, a ready tongue, and a hearty laugh; hair that hinted of fifty, but a smile that said she was twenty-five; and, withal, not entirely blind to her own accomplishments.

“This is my new clerk, Mr. Burton, Mrs. Goode,” said Gardiner. “I brought him here because I knew the house you run. He has driven most of the day, and just needs one of your hot suppers to make him feel the luck he has in being one of Mrs. Goode’s boarders.”

“Well, I do give a good supper, if I say it myself,” said Mrs. Goode. “No hungry people in my house, if I know it. But you want to go to your room. Alice, show Mr. Butler to room sixteen. Sweet sixteen, I call it, and I always save it for the young men,” she added, with a coquettish glance at her new customer.

Alice Goode, aged eighteen, emerged from the dining-room, and Burton having been introduced, as “Mr. Garden’s new clerk,” she demurely led the young man upstairs. “I hope you will like your room,” she said, and, the business obligations of the situation discharged, continued, “Do you dance?”

“Why, a little,” Burton admitted. “But I never learned, properly. Just country dances, you know.”

“Gee, that’s all is any good, anyway. None of your city camel-strides for me, but a good turkey-in-the-straw alamen-lefter an’ you can count me in every trip. There’s a hop on at Grant’s to-night. Going?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t an invitation, and I don’t even know the people.”

“That don’t matter. There’ll be some loads goin’ out from town, an’ you better just roll into one of them. It’s about five miles, an’ the ride will be dandy. Besides, Grant’s are the best there is, an’ you’ll be as welcome as a rich sinner in church. The hoe-down is in honour of their niece, who has come out from the East, an’s goin’ to live with them. They say she’s pretty an’ a swell singer. It’ll be quite a show-ring affair, I expect, but all to the good.”

“Al-i-c-e!” cried her mother. “Set them good silver knives an’ forks, cause Mr. Burtle’s here, an’ get a two-step on yuh now or never a foot will yuh go to the dance to-night.”

Alice disappeared, and Burton was left to examine his quarters. They were small and cheaply furnished, but comfortable enough. “At any rate,” he soliloquised, “I shall not be very lonely, if Miss Alice is a sample of Plainville society.”

The smell from Mrs. Goode’s supper table justified that lady’s high opinion of it. When Burton came in he was introduced to each boarder in turn. There were two lady school-teachers, two bank clerks, a couple of store employees, a young lawyer, and several who might be termed “not classified.” A spirit of good fellowship prevailed, and Burton was surprised at the point to which banter was carried. Alice waited on the table, while Mrs. Goode presided in the kitchen. Mr. Goode, a tall, cadaverous man, moved shyly about the house, in which he occupied a minor position. It was understood that Mrs. Goode held him in much disfavour on account of his emaciated appearance, which she felt to be a reflection upon her boarding-house.

“How can I expect to prosper when I have a walkin’ sign-post like that?” she lamented to her neighbour, Mrs. O’Brien.

“Fade him on breakfast food with a little ‘barm’ in til’t,” was that honest woman’s advice.

After supper Burton was reading in his room, when a knock came at the door, and Gardiner burst in.

“Say, Burton, come with me to the dance at Grant’s to-night,” said the visitor. “I’m driving out in my cutter, and I want company. They’re O.K. people, and there’s a new-comer out there we all want to see. As for an invitation—well, I have instructions to see that all the desirables are asked, and I figure you in that bunch. Come along. The sooner you get acquainted here the better, both for yourself and from a business point of view.”

Burton surmised that the “business point of view” had a good deal to do with most of Gardiner’s attitudes, but he was glad enough to accept the invitation. The drive, in a top cutter, behind a spirited team, was so different from the dreary monotony of the afternoon that Raymond could scarce believe it was the same country. There were many rigs on the road, but the trail was banked so high (for in prairie countries the winter roads rise high above the surrounding snow) that it was impossible to pass, and before reaching Grant’s the scattered rigs had gathered into a long procession.

The Grant boys, George and Harry, were at the stable with lanterns, and hurried about, exchanging greetings while they wrestled with frozen tugs, and directed drivers blinking in the light. The young ladies became the charge of Susy Grant, who bundled them in at the front door of the house, while her brothers herded the swains into the kitchen, for be it known, that while women may be ushered into parlour or bedroom, the kitchen is the proper reception place for men. There they sit on stools and wood-boxes, or crowd into corners, exchanging anecdotes or revelling in amusement furnished by the wits of the countryside. Burton was introduced by his employer to a few of the men and boys nearest by, but none Waited for an introduction when there was occasion to speak. They were a mixed company, some from the town, and others from the country district in which the Grant homestead lay, but all were acquainted and most were friends. Presently the door opened and a new-comer ambled in; a strange human contrivance, half man, half boy, who tripped over his long coat on the doorstep and projected himself in a heap in the midst of the laughing crowd.

“Hello, London, what flew up an’ hit you?” said one, as the boy scrambled clumsily to his feet. “Been to town on your way over?”

“Hit’s my bloomin’ coat,” explained London. “Hi fall w’en hever Hi try to stand hup.”

“Take it ’hoff,’ ” shouted the crowd, as London proceeded to remove his outer garments. This operation revealed the fact that London, as the Barnardo lad was popularly called, although a boy in stature, aspired to the wearing of man’s clothes, with the result that his trousers were turned up almost to his knees and his coat hung down below them, the two extremes meeting, as it were, about a foot from the floor. His commodious boots had been recently blacked, and a heavy brass chain stretched from pocket to pocket of his vest; but, most glorious of all, was the bright red tie speared with a pin in the form of a horseshoe and intended, doubtless, to indicate that its wearer was a sport of the first blood.

“How did you get away to-night, London? Couldn’t Riles find anything for you to do?”

“ ’E could. ’E’ll find work for them as comes to ’is funeral. But ’e’s comin’ ’imself, an’ has Hi was specially named in Missus Grant’s hinvitation”—this with an air of profound importance—“ ’e could ’ardly ’elp letting me come, ’specially has Hi said Hi would burn down the ’ouse hif they came with-hout me.”

“Good boy, London,” was the comment. “That’s the way to bring him to time.”

“Hi drownded a pig hin the well one day ’e went to town an’ wouldn’t take me,” said London, proudly. “Hand another time——”

What happened another time was never made public, for at that moment Big Jack McTavish, official caller-off and master of ceremonies at every dance in the Plainville district for a dozen years, strode into the dining-room and shouted, “Partners for the Circashyun Circle.”

The men from the kitchen swarmed into the dining-room and parlour, which had been cleared of carpets and furniture. The piano stood in the hall, where it was presided over by Miss Green, the school-teacher; on a chair alongside sat old Dave Cottrell, the fiddler, who had spent the sixty-odd years of his life in struggle to draw the maddening music from his violin, and had succeeded in that, and in nothing else; along the stairs, and in the bedrooms above, were crowded the girls and young women. This was partners’ dance, and in a few moments the floor was crowded. Then the music struck up and the feet kept time, and the dance had started. In the intricacies of the Circassian Circle every couple is made to dance with every other couple, so that all have a chance to exchange greetings before the first set is over, and it affords as appropriate an opening selection as Old Hundred at morning service. Before Big Jack’s ample hands came together as a signal that the first dance was ended the last atom of reserve had been swept away, and everybody was in tune to make a night of it. Gardiner danced with every lady in the room, from Alice Goode to little Miss Green, who was persuaded to leave the piano for just one set, and even London found young women who did not scorn his clumsy advances. The dances were quadrilles, lancers, schottisches and reels, with an occasional waltz or two-step just to indicate that if they did not give city dances the place of prominence it was through choice, not ignorance.

Among the ladies was one whom Burton knew to be the guest of honour, even before he was told; a young woman his own age, or older, dressed in a creamy white, with a single real rose in her hair. Her dark, full eye-lashes, the finely shaped nose and ears, the firm but sympathetic mouth, electrically responsive to every wave of emotion of her alert brain, were not lost upon the country youth. There were many graceful dancers, many radiant, happy-faced girls, but hers was a grace distinct from theirs and a happiness more subtle, more delightful, more pervading. The little tricks of speech which distinguish between the intelligent and the well-educated; the little delicate courtesies which distinguish between the well-meaning and the well-bred; the inborn and self-effacing refinement which is the touchstone of true culture—these were evidenced in every word, every motion, every gesture. Burton forgot about dancing, forgot that he was expected to dance, as he drank in a music unheard by the less discerning ears about him, and revelled in an intoxication not of wine. It was not until Gardiner came to his corner and, with a friendly slap, said, “Burton, old man, get up and dance. What are you moping for?” that he was recalled to his surroundings.

“I’m not moping; just dreaming,” he said, springing to his feet.

“Never dream while you are awake; it doesn’t pay. There’s Alice Goode; she has glanced your way a dozen times—and there’s worse girls than Alice.”

Burton took the hint, and in a few moments was threading his way through the meshes of a quadrille amid the pepsin aroma of the sweet Alice. He discharged his obligation with credit, thanked his partner courteously, and retired into his corner until supper was called at midnight.

Mrs. Grant supervised the work in the kitchen, while willing, although not always skilful, hands assisted in the distribution of the refreshments. This was the stage of the evening’s entertainment at which the social spirit flowed highest; men and women, boys and girls, sat or stood about in disorganised groups, eating sandwiches, cake and pie, and consuming great cups of hot coffee, the while sharpening their wits at each other’s expense and joining as heartily in the laugh when it happened to be at their own.

A middle-aged gentleman whose appearance stirred some old memory in Burton, seeing the young man seated a little by himself, came over and engaged in conversation.

“If my old eyes do not deceive me, you are a son of John Burton’s,” said he.

“I am Raymond Burton. And you—surely I should remember you?”

“Man, man, I know your father like my own brother. Sure you’ve heard him speak of Dick Matheson? We shantied together on the Muddywaski, and a better man than John Burton never rode a log in the Ottaway country, which is sayin’ a good deal. I do not see you dancin’ much. I’m thinkin’ you will have your father’s quiet way; like a sleepy kitty, he was, when left alone, but a roarin’ lion when put to the bit. But times are changed, and men win more now with soft speech than we did with hard knuckles. And whichever the game, a Burton should be to the fore. Grant,” he said, addressing the head of the house, as he was about to pass, “this is Raymond Burton. I knew his father on the Muddywaski.” To honest Dick Matheson no further credentials seemed necessary.

“Glad to meet you,” said Mr. Grant, cordially. “Have you been introduced to my niece? Dear me, I’m afraid the reception committee are too busy with the sandwiches. Myrtle, just a moment,” as the young lady emerged from an eddy of humanity, “let me present Mr. Burton. Mr. Burton—Miss Vane,” and the two elder gentlemen allowed themselves to be swept into the vortex of the crowd.

Miss Vane took Burton’s hand in a friendly grip—a grip that was not afraid to speak of the soul behind it. “I am a stranger here, and I meet so many people, but I shall remember you,” she said in quiet, musical tones, in such striking contrast, Burton thought, to the strident country voices about him.

“I am a stranger too,” the young man answered for want of a better thing to say.

“Then we at least have something in common,” said Miss Vane, and it occurred to Raymond that he had said the best thing possible.

In a moment the young lady was claimed by other guests. But Burton was satisfied.

When supper was over and the conversation began to lag, some one suggested that Miss Vane should sing. The proposal was received with applause.

“If it will give you any pleasure,” said the young lady. Miss Green resumed her seat at the piano, and in a few moments human tones such as never before had been heard in Plainville district filled the sturdy house from kitchen to attic. Deep, melting, melodious tones—the cultured expression of the greatest musical instrument God Himself could devise—the human voice! To what degrading uses it is so often put! She sang, not the popular airs of the day, nor classical selections beyond the ken of her audience, however dear to herself, but the old Scotch songs which are strong enough to force a way to the roughest intellect, yet fine enough to stir the slightest chord in the galaxy of human accomplishment; deep enough to send men raging to battle and gentle enough to croon little children to sleep. As she wandered on and on, through the heroic, the pathetic, the tenderly sentimental, the dancers sat in the rapture of a spell as new to them as the angel chorus to the shepherds of Palestine, and when at last the low voice poured forth the sanctified lament of “The Land o’ the Leal,” Big Jack’s wife went sobbing to the kitchen, and Mrs. Grant slipped a motherly arm around little Mrs. Dale, whose misty eyes were seeing a year-old mound and a little white slab that stared stolidly through the snow:

“Our bonnie bairn’s there, Jean,

She was baith gude and fair, Jean,

And oh, we grudged her sair,

Tae the Land o’ the Leal.”

Even London forgot to dangle his watch-chain, and his employer, Riles, who had sold his soul to Mammon twenty years ago, laughed quietly at the tear on the boy’s cheek.

When the singer had finished, and the spell was broken by the commonplace talk which someone always finds necessary to introduce on such occasions, Dick Matheson got up and said, “We have all listened to Miss Vane with great delight, and feel that she is no longer a stranger among us. But we have another stranger here to-night, and it is but fair that we should hear him too. Burton, let’s hear from you. Your father could sing ‘The Death of Jimmie Whalen’ with any man in the shanties. I knew his father on the Muddywaski,” he explained.

Burton blushed and made excuses, but a popular suggestion in such a company is tantamount to a command. Surrendering to the inevitable, he arose, saying, “I do not sing at all, but I will repeat some verses, if you insist.”

“We insist,” came the chorus, and, when silence was secured, he began in a strong, human voice, lacking the finish of culture, but vibrant with sympathy with the spirit of the poem:

“This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,

Sails the unshadowed main—

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings

In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings——”

He had not repeated four lines until he discovered that he had made a mistake. The soul may respond to music it cannot comprehend, as a rusty wire may thrill with vibrations from the throat of a Melba, but the mind of man makes no answer to poetry beyond its grasp. Burton was forcing himself against an immovable resistance; projecting a thought, live, warm, charged with the germs of a million inspirations, against a stone wall of mental vacuity. And yet he was sustained, as in an electric coil a single wire thinner than a human hair may support the current that flashes on two oceans at once, and he proceeded. In the second stanza his eyes met Miss Vane’s, and heaven was opened before him. She understood! Her mind was pacing the “caves of thought” with his; her mentality was producing the current that he transformed into speech. He remembered the advice of a great orator—“Speak to one soul in your audience, and forget all others,” and he obeyed. Not again did he look at Miss Vane; he dared not double-circuit the delicate current that carried him on, but he poured forth the solemn cadences of Holmes’ great poem with a fire and enthusiasm that commanded the attention of the company until, focusing his energy in the last stanza, the walls trembled with the vibrations of his intensity:

“Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll;

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea.”

There was a clapping of hands, which Burton knew to be a courtesy rather than a compliment, and Susy Grant went so far as to say that it was a very nice piece. Matheson justified all by repeating that he “knew his father on the Muddywaski,” but the young man cared not what they said or thought. For a dozen years he had spent the long winter evenings on the farm in reading and self-culture, thereby opening to himself a door through which none of these could follow. None—save one. And she had followed. She understood!

The dancing was then revived, more vigorously, if possible, than in the earlier part of the evening. Burton noticed that Gardiner twice engaged Miss Vane as his partner, but himself did not dare claim so great a boon. He was but a country boy, and Gardiner was a town man, a business man, and—his employer.

Before the dance broke up a laugh was caused by the discovery of London in the kitchen, deep amid the sandwiches and pie.

“You must be hungry, London,” said one of the young men, as a group gathered round him.

“You bet Hi ham,” answered the lad, unabashed. “Hi ’aven’t ’ad wot you’d call a decent meal hin a month.”

“Fill your pockets, then; there’s lots there,” was the good advice given, which London proceeded to take.

At the back of the group was a coarse, animal-looking man, with heavy, scowling features and an eye whose natural repulsiveness was heightened by a deep scar along the brow, which caused the livid eye-lids to loop outward as they approached the nose. He noted the incident, and as he heard the conversation a look of malignant hate deepened in the glaring eyes, and the mouth twitched in a brutal lust for revenge. It was Riles.

At last it was time to go home, and the gathering broke up. Gardiner lingered a moment with Miss Vane, and Burton proceeded to the stable. On the way he passed near by the Grant summer-house, now little more than a great mound of snow. Through his fur covering he fancied he heard a strange noise; he turned down the collar, and listened. Unmistakable sounds of violence, of muffled cursing, of hard, short breathing, came from beyond the summer-house. Burton ran in that direction, and the gibbous moon which now shone dimly through the scattering clouds revealed a form in the snow and another above kicking viciously, endeavouring to sink the heavy boots in the face of the fallen man. As the victim threw up his arms to protect his face he received the blows in the chest, driving the breath from his lungs in great gasps. Burton, seeing how desperate was the situation, rushed upon the assailant, and, crossing his arms about the other’s neck, gripped his throat in a strangle-hold that sent him to his knees in a moment. Every effort to break loose was vain; the vital supply of air was shut off, and in a few seconds the big frame rolled helplessly in Burton’s arms. The muscles relaxed, the head fell back, the face turned up to the pale light of the moon, and the eyes, glaring and misshapen, glared into his. It was Riles.

London, seeing help at hand, sent up a lusty shriek, and in a few minutes a big crowd had gathered about the combatants. Gardiner hurried to Burton’s side and whispered, “Let him go, that’s not what I hired you for.” Burton released his grip and Riles fell in the snow, London sending up a fresh series of shrieks when he saw his oppressor again at liberty. The big man soon recovered himself and scrambled to his feet, and the crowd rapidly dispersed. But before Riles went he found occasion to hiss in Burton’s ear, “You got the drop on me that time, young meddler, but I’ll square it with ye yet, if I do murder for it.”

Burton laughed, but the words left an unpleasant taste.