_ A fortnight passed before Will came to Christopher's again, and
then he stole over one evening in the shadow of the twilight.
Things were no better, he said; they were even worse than usual;
the work in the tobacco field was simply what he couldn't stand,
and his grandfather was growing more intolerable every day.
Besides this, the very dullness of the life was fast driving him
to distraction. He had smuggled a bottle of whisky from the town,
and last night, after a hot quarrel with the old man, he had
succeeded in drugging himself to sleep. "My nerves have gone all
to pieces," he finished irritably, "and it's nothing on earth but
this everlasting bickering that has done it. It's more than flesh
and blood can be expected to put up with."
His hand shook a little when he lighted a cigarette, and his
face, which was burned red from wind and sun, contracted
nervously as he talked. It was the wildness in his speech,
however, the suppressed excitement which ran in an undercurrent
beneath his words, that caused the other to turn sharply and
regard him for a moment with gathered brows.
"Well, take my advice and don't try that dodge too often,"
remarked Christopher in a careless tone.
"What in the deuce does it matter?" returned Will desperately.
"It was the only quiet night I've had for three weeks: I slept
like a log straight through until the breakfast-bell. Then I was
late, of course, and he threatened to take an hour's time from my
day's wages. By the way, he pays me now, you know, just as he
does the other labourers."
For a time he kept up his rambling complaint, but, breaking off
abruptly at last, made some trivial excuse, and started homeward
across the fields. Christopher, looking after him, was hardly
surprised when he saw him branch off into the shaded lane that
led to Sol Peterkin's.
There followed a month when the two met only at long intervals,
and then with a curious constraint of manner. Sometimes
Christopher, stopping on his way to the pasture, would exchange a
few words over the rail fence with Will, who lounged on the edge
of his grandfather's tobacco crop; but the old intimacy had
ceased suddenly to exist, and it was evident that a newer
interest had distracted the boy's ardent fancy.
It was not until August that the meaning of the change was made
clear to Christopher, when, coming one day to a short turn in a
little woodland road upon his land, he saw Will and Molly
Peterkin sitting side by side on a fallen log. The girl had been
crying, and at the sight of Christopher she gave a frightened sob
and pulled her blue gingham sunbonnet down over her forehead; but
Will, inspired at the instant by some ideal of chivalry, drew her
hand through his arm and came out boldly into the road.
"You know Molly," he said in a brave voice that was not without
pathos, "but you don't know that she has promised to be my wife."
Whatever the purpose of the girl's tears, she had need of them no
longer, for with an embarrassed little laugh she flushed and
dimpled into her pretty smile.
"Your wife?" repeated Christopher blankly. "Why, you're no better
than two children and deserve to be whipped. If I were in your
place, I'd start to catching butterflies, and quit fooling."
He passed on laughing merrily; but before the day was over he
began to wonder seriously if Will could be really sincere in his
intention to marry Molly Peterkin--poor, pretty Molly, whose fame
was blown to the four corners of the county.
By night the question had come to perplex him in earnest, and it
was almost with relief that he heard a familiar rattle on his
window-pane as he undressed, and, looking out, saw Will standing
in the long grass by the porch.
"Well, it's time you turned up," he said, when he had slipped
cautiously down the staircase and joined him in the yard.
"Get your lantern," returned Will, "and come on to the barn.
There's something I must see you about at once," and while the
other went in search of the light, he stood impatiently uprooting
a tuft of grass as he whistled a college song in unsteady tones.
At the end of a minute Christopher reappeared, bearing the
lantern, which he declared was quite unnecessary because of the
rising moon.
"Oh, but I must talk indoors," responded Will; "the night makes
me creepy--it always did."
"So there is something to say, and it's no nonsense? Are the
skies about to fall, or has your grandfather got a grip on his
temper?"
"Pshaw! It's not that. Wait till we get inside." And when they
had entered the barn, he turned and carefully closed the door,
after flashing the light over the trampled straw in the dusky
corners. In the shed outside a new-born calf bleated plaintively,
and at the sound he started and broke into an apologetic laugh.
"You thought I was joking to-day," he said suddenly.
Christopher nodded.
"So I presumed," he answered, wondering if drink or love or both
together had produced so extreme an agitation.
"Well, I wasn't," declared Will, and, placing the lantern on the
floor, he raised his head to meet the other's look. "I was as
dead in earnest as I am this minute--and if it's the last word I
ever speak, I mean to marry Molly Peterkin."
His excitable nerves were plainly on the rack of some strong
emotion, and as he met the blank amazement in Christopher's face
he turned away with a gesture of angry reproach.
"Then you're a fool," said Christopher, with a shrug of his
shoulders.
Will quivered as if the words struck him like a whip.
"Because she's Sol Peterkin's daughter?" he burst out.
Christopher smiled.
"It's not her father, but her character, that I was thinking of,"
he answered, and the next instant fell back in sheer surprise,
for Will, flinging himself recklessly upon him, struck him
squarely in the mouth.
As they fell breathlessly apart Christopher was conscious that
for the first time in his life he felt something like respect for
Will Fletcher--or at least for that expression of courageous
passion which in the vivid moments of men's lives appears to
raise the strong and the weak alike above the ordinary level of
their surroundings. For a second he stood swallowing down the
anger which the blow aroused in him--an anger as purely physical
as the mounting of the hot blood to his cheek--then he looked
straight into the other's face and spoke in a pleasant voice.
"I beg your pardon; it was all my fault," he said.
"I knew you'd see it," answered Will, appeased at once by the
confession, "and I counted on you to help us; that's why I came."
"To help you?" repeated Christopher, a little startled.
"Well, we've got to be married, you know--there's simply nothing
else to do. All this confounded talk about Molly has come near
killing her, and the poor child is afraid to look anybody in the
face. She's so innocent, you know, that half the time she doesn't
understand what their lies are all about."
"Good God!" said Christopher beneath his breath.
"And besides, what use is there in waiting?" urged Will. "Grandpa
won't be any better fifty years from now than he is to-day, and
by that time we'd be old and gray-haired. This life is more than
I can stand, anyway, and it makes mighty little difference
whether it ends one way or another. Just so I have Molly I don't
care much what happens. "
"But you can't marry--it's simply out of the question. Why,
you're not yet twenty."
"Oh, we can't marry here, of course, but we're going on to
Washington to-morrow--all our plans are made, and that's why I
came to see you. I want to borrow your horses to take us to the
crossroads at midnight. "
Seizing him by the shoulder, Christopher shook him roughly in a
powerful grasp.
"Wake up," he said impatiently; "you are either drunk or asleep,
and you're going headlong to the devil. If you do this thing
you'll be ashamed of it in two weeks." Then he released him,
laughing as he watched him totter and regain his balance. "But if
you're bent on being an ass, then, for heaven's sake, go and be
one," he added irritably.
A shiver passed through Will, and he stuttered an instant before
he could form his words.
"She told me you'd say that," he replied. "She told me you'd
always hated her."
"Hate her? Nonsense! She isn't worth it. I'd as soon hate a white
kitten. As far as that goes, I've nothing against the girl, and I
don't doubt she'd be a much better wife than most men deserve.
I'm not prating about virtue, mind you; I'm only urging common
sense. You're too young and too big a fool to marry anybody."
"Well, you disapprove of her, at any rate--you're against her,
and that's why I haven't talked about her before. She's the most
beautiful creature alive, I tell you, and I wouldn't give her up
if to keep her meant I'd be a beggar."
"It will mean that, most likely."
Turning away, Will drew a small flask from his pocket and,
unscrewing the stopper, raised the bottle to his lips. "I'd go
mad but for this," he said; "that's why I've carried it about
with me for the last week. It's the only thing that drives away
this horrible depression."
As he drank, Christopher regarded him curiously, noting that the
whisky lent animation to his face and an unnatural luster to his
eyes. The sunburn on his forehead appeared to deepen all at once,
and there was a bright red flush across his cheeks.
"You won't take my advice," said Christopher at last, "but I
can't help telling you that unless you're raving mad you'd better
drop the whole affair as soon as possible."
"Not now--not now, " protested Will gaily, consumed by an
artificial energy. "Don't preach to me while the taste of a drink
is still in my mouth, for there's no heart so strong as the one
whisky puts into a man. When I feel my courage oozing from my
fingers I can reinforce it in less time than it takes to sneak
away."
Growing boisterous, he assumed a ridiculous swagger, and broke
into a fragment of a college song. Until morning he would not
probably become himself again, and, knowing this, Christopher
desisted helplessly from his efforts at persuasion.
"You will lend me the horses?" asked Will, keeping closely to his
point.
"Are you steady enough?"
"Of course--of course, " he stretched out his hands and moved a
pace or two away; "and besides, Dolly drives like old Nick."
"Well, I'll see," said Christopher, and going to the window, he
flung back the rude shutter and looked out into the August night.
The warm air touched his face like a fragrant breath, and from
the darkness a big white moth flew over his shoulder to where the
lantern burned dimly on the floor.
"I may take them?" urged Will again, pulling him by the sleeve.
At the words Christopher turned and walked slowly back across the
barn.
"Yes, I'll lend them to you," he answered, without meeting the
other's eyes.
"You're a jolly good chap; I always knew it, " cried Will
heartily. "I'll take them out at midnight, when there's a good
moon, and get Jerry Green to drive them back to-morrow. Hurrah!
It's the best night's work you ever did!"
He went out hurriedly, still singing his college song, and
Christopher, without moving from his place, stood watching the
big white moth that circled dizzily about the lantern. At the
instant he regretted that Will had appealed to him--regretted
even that he had promised him the horses. He wished it had all
come about without his knowledge--that Fletcher's punishment and
Will's ruin had been wrought less directly by his own
intervention. Next he told himself that he would have stopped
this thing had it been possible, and then with the thought he
became clearly aware that it was still in his power to prevent
the marriage. He had but to walk across the fields to Fletcher's
door, and before sunrise the foolish pair would be safely home
again. Will would probably be sent off to recover, and Molly
would go back to making butter and to flirting with Fred Turner.
On the other hand, let the marriage but take place--let him keep
silent until the morning--and the revenge of which he had dreamed
since childhood would be accomplished at a single stroke. Bill
Fletcher's many sins would find him out in a night.
The big moth, fluttering aimlessly from the lantern, flew
suddenly in his face, and the touch startled him from his
abstraction. With a laugh he shook the responsibility from his
shoulders, and then, as he hesitated again for a breath, the
racial instinct arose, as usual, to decide the issue.
Taking a dime from his pocket, he tossed it lightly in the air
and waited for it to fall.
"Heads for me, tails for Fletcher."
The coin spun for an instant in the gloom above him and then
dropped noiselessly to the floor. When he lifted the lantern and
bent over it he saw that the head lay uppermost. _