_ Rising at daybreak next morning, Will's eyes lighted in his first
glance from the window on Christopher's blue-clad figure
commanding the ploughed field on the left of the house. In the
distance towered the black pines, and against them the solitary
worker was relieved in the slanting sunbeams which seemed to
arrest and hold his majestic outline. The split basket of plants
was on his arm, and he was busily engaged in "setting out" Will's
neglected crop of tobacco.
Leaving Molly still asleep, Will dressed himself hurriedly, and,
putting the diamond brooch in his pocket, ran out to where
Christopher was standing midway of the bare field.
"So you're doing my work again," he said, not ungratefully.
"If I didn't I'd like to know who would," responded Christopher
with rough kindliness, as he dropped a wilted plant into a hole.
"You're up early this morning. Where are you off to?"
Will drew the brooch from his pocket and held it up with a laugh.
"Maria gave me this," he explained, "and I'm going to town to
turn it into money."
"Well, I'll keep an eye on the place while you are away,"
returned Christopher, without looking at the trinket. "Go about
your business, and for heaven's sake don't stop to drink. Some
men can stand liquor; you can't. It makes a beast of you."
"And not of you, eh?"
"It never gets the chance. I know when to stop. That's the
difference between us."
"Of course that's the difference," rejoined Will a little
doggedly. "I never know when to stop about anything, I'll be
hanged if I do. It's my cursed luck to go at a headlong gait."
"And some day you'll get your neck broken. Well, be off now, or
you'll most likely miss the stage."
He turned away to sort the young plants in his basket, while Will
started at a brisk pace for the cross-roads.
The planting was tedious work, and it was almost evening before
Christopher reached the end of the field and started home along
the little winding lane. He had eaten a scant dinner with Molly,
who had worried him by tearful complaints across the turnip
salad. She had never looked prettier than in her thin white
blouse, with her disordered curls shadowing her blue eyes, and he
had never found her more frankly selfish. Her shallow-rooted
nature awakened in him a feeling that was akin to repulsion, and
he saw in imagination the gallant resolution with which Maria
would have battled against such sordid miseries. At the first
touch of her heroic spirit they would have been sordid no longer,
for into the most squalid suffering her golden nature would have
shed something of its sunshine. Beauty would have surrounded her,
in Will's cabin as surely as in Blake Hall. And with the thought
there came to him the knowledge, wrung from experience, that
there are souls which do not yield to events, but bend and shape
them into the likeness of themselves. No favouring circumstance
could have evolved Maria out of Molly, nor could any crushing one
have formed Molly from Maria's substance. The two women were as
far asunder as the poles, united only by a certain softness of
sex he found in them both.
The sun had dropped behind the pines and a gray mist was floating
slowly across the level landscape. The fields were still in
daylight, while dusk already enshrouded the leafy road, and it
was from out the gloom that obscured the first short bend that he
saw presently emerge the figure of a man who appeared to walk
unsteadily and with an effort.
For an instant Christopher stopped short in the lane; then he
went forward at a single impetuous stride.
"Will!" he cried in a voice of thunder.
Will looked up with dazed eyes, and, seeing who had called him,
burst into a loud and boisterous laugh.
"So you'll begin with your darn preaching," he remarked, gaping.
For reply, Christopher reached out, and, seizing him by the
shoulder, shook him roughly to his senses.
"What's the meaning of this tomfoolery?" he demanded. "Do you
mean to say you've made a beast of yourself, after all?"
Partly sobered by the shock, Will gazed back at him with a dogged
misery which gave his face the colour of extreme old age.
"I'm not so drunk as I look," he responded bitterly. "I wish to
Heaven I were! There are worse things than being drunk, though
you won't believe it. I say," he added, in a sudden, hysterical
exclamation, "you're the only friend I have on earth!"
"Nonsense. What have you been doing?"
"Oh, I couldn't help it--it wasn't my fault, I'll be blamed if it
was! I did sell the breastpin and get the money, and wrapped it
in the list of things that Molly wanted. I put them in my
pocket," he finished, touching his coat, "the money and the list
together."
"And where is it?"
For a moment Will did not reply, but stood shaking like a blade
of grass in a high wind. Then removing his hat, he mopped feebly
at the beads of sweat upon his forehead. His eyes had the dumb
appeal of a frightened animal's. "I haven't had a morsel all
day," he whimpered, "and the effect of the whisky has all worn
off."
"Speak up, man," said Christopher kindly. "I can't eat you."
"Oh, it's not you," returned Will desperately; "it's Molly. I'm
afraid to go home and look Molly in the face."
"Pish! She doesn't bite."
"She does worse; she cries."
"Then, for God's sake, out with the trouble," urged Christopher,
losing patience. "You've lost the money, I take it; but how?"
"There was a fair," groaned Will, his voice breaking. "I met Fred
Turner and a strange man who owned horses, and they asked me to
come and watch the racing. Then we had drinks and began to bet,
and somehow I always lost after the first time. Before I knew it
the money was all gone, every single cent, and I owed Fred Turner
a hundred and fifty dollars."
Christopher's gaze travelled slowly up and down the slight figure
before him and he swore softly beneath his breath.
"Well, you have made a mess of it!" he exclaimed with a laugh.
"I knew you'd say so, and you're the only friend I have on earth.
As for Molly--oh, I'm afraid to go home, that's all. Do you know,
I've half a mind to run away for good?"
"Pshaw! Accidents will happen, and there's nothing in all this to
take the pluck out of a man. I've been through worse things
myself."
"But Fred Turner!" groaned Will. "I promised him I'd pay him in
two days."
"Then you'll do it. I'll undertake to see to that."
"You!" exclaimed the other, with so abject a reliance upon the
spoken word that it brought a laugh from Christopher's lips. "How
will you manage it?"
Oh, somehow--mortgage the farm, I reckon. At any rate, in two
days you shall be clear of your debt to Fred Turner; there's my
word. All I hope is that you'll learn a lesson from the fright."
"Oh, I will, I will; and by Jove! you are a bully chap!"
"Then go home and make your peace with Molly. Mind you, if you
get in liquor again I warn you I won't lift a hand."
With a last cheery "good night" he swung on along the road,
dismissing the thought of Will to invoke that of Maria, and
meeting again in fancy the rich promise of her upturned lips.
Body and soul she was his now, flame and clay, true brain and
true heart. "I will follow you, for the lifting of a finger,
anywhere," she had said, and the words reeled madly in his
thoughts. Her impassioned look returned to him, and he closed his
eyes as a man does in the face of an emotion which proclaims him
craven.
When Christopher's footsteps had faded in the distance, Will, who
had been looking wistfully after him, shook together his
dissolving courage and started with a strengthened purpose to
bear the bad news to Molly. A light streamed through the broken
shutters of her window, and when he laid his hand upon the door
it shot open and she stood before him.
"So you're back at last," she said sharply; "and late again."
"I couldn't help it," he answered with assumed indifference,
entering and passing quickly under the fire of her questioning
look. "I was kept."
"What kept you?"
"Oh, business."
"I'd like to know what business you have!" she retorted
querulously; and a minute later: "Have you brought the medicine?"
He went over to the table and stood looking gloomily down upon
the scattered remains of supper upon the sloppy oilcloth, the
cracked earthenware teapot, and the plate half filled with soppy
bread. "Give me something to eat. I'm almost starved," he
pleaded.
A flash shot from her blue eyes, while the anger he had feared
worked threateningly in the features of her pretty face. There
was no temperateness about Molly; she was all storm or sunshine,
he had once said in the poetic days of courtship.
"If you've brought the things, where are they?" she demanded,
driving him squarely into a corner from which there was no escape
by subterfuge.
A sullen defiance showed in his aspect, and he turned upon her
with a muttered curse. "I haven't them, if you want the truth,"
he snarled. "I meant to buy them, but Fred Turner got me to
drinking and we bet on the races. I lost the money."
"To Fred Turner!" cried Molly. "Oh, you fool!"
He made an angry movement toward her; then checking himself,
laughed bitterly.
"You're as bad as grandfather," he said, "and it's like jumping
from the frying-pan into the fire. I'll be hanged if I knew you
were a shrew when I married you!"
Molly's eyes fairly blazed, and as she shook her head with an
enraged gesture, her hair, tumbling upon her shoulders, flooded
her with light. Even in the midst of his fury his ready senses
responded to the appeal of her dishevelled loveliness.
"And I'll be--anything if I knew you were a drunkard!" she
retorted, pressing her hand upon her panting breast.
"Well, you ought to have known it," he sneered, "for I was one.
Christopher Blake could have told you so. But if I remember
rightly, you weren't so precious particular at the time. You were
glad enough to get anybody, as it happened!"
"How--how dare you?" wailed Molly, in the helplessness of her
rage, and throwing herself upon the lounge, she beat her hands
upon the wooden sides and burst into despairing sobs. "Why, oh,
why did I marry you?" she moaned between choking gasps.
"Some said it was because Fred Turner threw you over," returned
Will savagely, and having hurled his last envenomed dart, he
seized his hat and rushed out into the night.
The scene had worked like madness on his nerves, and in the
darkness of the lane, where the trees kept out the moonbeams, he
still saw the flickering lights that he had left behind him in
the room. He had eaten nothing all day, and his empty stomach
oppressed him with a sensation of nausea. His head spun like a
top, and as he walked the road rocked in long seesaws beneath his
feet. Yet his one craving was for drink, drink, more drink.
Running rather than walking, he reached the store at last, and
went back to the little smoky room where Tom Spade was drawing
beer from the big keg in one corner.
"Give me something to eat, Tom; I'm starving," he said; "and
whisky. I must have whisky or I'll die."
"It's my belief that you'll die if you do have it," responded
Tom. "As for bread and meat, however, Susan will give you a bite
an' welcome." Nevertheless, he poured out the whisky, and,
leaving it upon one of the dirty tables, went hastily out in
search of Mrs. Spade.
Lifting the glass with a shaking hand, Will drained it at a
single swallow, feeling his depleted courage revive as the raw
spirit burned his throat. A sudden heat invaded him; his eyes saw
clearer, and the tips of his fingers were endowed with a new
quality of touch. As his hands travelled slowly over his face he
became aware that he was looking through his finger ends, and he
noted distinctly his haggard features and the short growth of
beard which made him appear jaded and unwashed. Then almost
instantly the quickness died out of his perception, and he felt
the old numbness creeping back.
"Another glass--I must have another glass," he called out
irritably to the empty room. His hands hung stone dead again at
his sides, and his head dropped limply forward upon his breast.
He had forgotten his quarrel with Molly; he had forgotten
everything except his own miserable bodily condition.
When Susan Spade came in with a plate of bread and ham, he roused
himself with a nervous start and inhaled quickly the strong odour
of the meat, endeavouring through the sense of smell to reawaken
the pang of hunger he had felt earlier in the evening. But in
place of the gnawing emptiness there had come now a deadly
nausea, and after the first mouthful or two he pushed the food
away and called hoarsely for more whisky. His head ached in loud,
reverberating throbs, and a queer fancy possessed him that the
sound must be as audible to others as to himself. With the
thought, he glanced about suspiciously, but Tom Spade was
stopping the keg that he had tapped, and Susan was wiping off the
table with energetic sweeps of her checked apron. Relieved by
their impassiveness, he braced himself with the determination to
drink to the dead-line of unconsciousness and then lie down
somewhere in the darkness to sleep off the effects.
"Whisky--give me more whisky," he repeated angrily.
But Mrs. Spade, true to her nature, saw fit to intervene between
him and destruction.
"Not another drop, Mr. Will," she said decisively. "Not another
drop shall you have in this room if it's the last mortal word I
speak. An' if you'd had me by you in the beginning, I'm not
afeard to say, things would have held up a long sight sooner than
this."
"Don't you see I'm in downright agony?" groaned Will, rapping the
glass upon the table. "My head is splitting, I tell you, and I
must have it."
"Not another drop, suh," replied Mrs. Spade with adamantine
firmness of tone. "I ain't a weak woman, thank the Lord, an' as
far as that goes, you might split to pieces inside and out right
here befo' my eyes an' I wouldn't be a party to sendin' you a
step nearer damnation. I ain't afeard of seein' folks suffer. Tom
will tell you that."
"That she ain't, suh," agreed Tom with pride. "If I do say it who
shouldn't, thar never was a woman who could stand mo' pain in
other people than can Susan. Mo' than that, Mr. Will, she's
right, though I'd be sayin' so even if she wasn't--seein' that
the only rule for makin' a woman think yo' way is always to think
hers. But she's right, and that's the truth. You've had too
much."
"Oh, you're driving me mad between you!" cried Will in
desperation. "I'm in awful trouble, and there's nothing under
heaven will make me forget it except drink. One glass more--just
one. That can't hurt me."
"May he have one glass, Susan?" asked Tom, appealing to his wife.
"Not another drop, suh," returned Mrs. Spade, immovable as a
rock.
"Not another drop, she says," repeated the big storekeeper in a
sinking voice. Then he laid his hand sympathetically on Will's
shoulder. "To be sure, I know you're in trouble," he said, "an'
I'll swear it's an out-an'-out shame, I don't care who hears me.
Yes, I'll stand to it in the very face of Bill Fletcher himself."
"Oh, he's a devil!" cried Will, stung by the name he hated.
"I ain't sayin' you've been all you should have been," pursued
Tom in his friendly tones, "but as I told Susan yestiddy, a body
can't sow wild oats in one generation without havin' a volunteer
crop spring up in the next. Now, yo' wild oats were sown long
befo' you were born. Ain't that so, Susan?"
Mrs. Spade planted her hands squarely upon her hips and stood her
ground with a solidity which was as impressive in its way as
dignity.
"I've spoken my mind to Bill Fletcher," she said, "an' I'll speak
it again. 'How's that boy goin' to live, suh?' That's what I
asked, an' 'twas after he told me to shut my mouth, that it was.
Right or wrong, that's what I told him. You've gone an' made the
meanest will this county has ever seen."
"What?" cried Will, springing to his feet, while the room whirled
round him.
"Thar, thar, Susan, you've talked too much," interposed Tom, a
little frightened. "What she means is just some foolishness yo'
grandpa's been lettin' out," he added; "but he'll live long
enough yet to change his mind an' his will, too."
"What is it about? Speak louder, will you? My ears buzz so I
can't hear thunder."
Tom coughed reproachfully at Susan.
"Well, he was talkin' down here last night about havin' changed
his will," he said apologetically. "He's tied it up, it seems, so
you can't get it, an' he's gone an' left the bulk of it to Mrs.
Wyndham."
"To Maria!" repeated Will, and saw scarlet.
"That's what he says; but he'll last to change his mind yet,
never fear. Anger doesn't live as long as a man--eh, Susan?"
But Will had risen and was walking quite steadily toward the
door. His face was dead white, and there were deep blue circles
about his eyes, which sparkled brilliantly. When he turned for a
moment before going out, he sucked in his under lip with a
hissing sound.
"So this was Maria's trick all along," he said hoarsely. _