The Bishop of Cottontown Part 78

The big bowed gla.s.ses looked at him quietly and nodded affirmatively.

"Wal, then," went on Jud, "I come to git you to do a job of surveying for the mill. It's a lot of timber land on the other side of the mountain--some twenty miles off. The Company's bought five thousand acres of wood and they want it surveyed. What'll you charge?"

Clay thought a moment: "Going and coming, on horse-back--it will take me a week," said Clay thoughtfully. "I shall charge a hundred dollars."

"An' will you go right away--to-morrow mornin'?"

Clay nodded.

"Here's fifty of it," said Jud--"the Company is in a hurry. We want the survey by this day week. Let me see, this is Sat'dy--I'll come next Sat'dy night."

Clay's face flushed. Never before had he made a hundred dollars in a week.

"I'll go at once."

"To-morrow at daylight?" asked Jud, rising.

Clay looked at him curiously. There was something in the tone of the man that struck him as peculiar, but Jud went on in an easy way.

"You see we must have it quick. All our winter wood to run the mill is there an' we can't start into cordin' till it's surveyed an' the deed's pa.s.sed. Sorry to hurry you"--

Clay promised to start at daylight and Jud left.

He looked at his watch. It was late. He would like to tell Helen about it--he said aloud: "Making a hundred dollars a week. If I could only keep up that--I'd--I'd--"

He blushed. And then he turned quietly and went to bed. And that was why Helen wondered the next day and the next, and all the next week why she did not see Clay, why he did not come, nor write, nor send her a message. And wondering the pang of it went into her hardening heart.

CHAPTER XII

IN THYSELF THERE IS WEAKNESS

It was the middle of Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and all the week Edward Conway had fought against the terrible thirst which was in him. Not since Monday morning had he touched whiskey at all, and now he walked the streets of the little town saying over and over to himself: "I am a Conway again."

He had come to town to see Jud Carpenter about the house which had been promised him--for he could not expect to hold Millwood much longer. With his soberness some of his old dignity and manhood returned, and when Carpenter saw him, the Whipper-in knew instinctively what had happened.

He watched Edward Conway closely--the clear eye, the haughty turn of his head, the quiet, commanding way of the man sober; and the Whipper-in frowned as he said to himself:

"If he keeps this up I'll have it to do all over."

And yet, as he looked at him, Jud Carpenter took it all in--the weakness that was still there, the terrible, restless thirst which now made him nervous, irritable, and turned his soul into a very tumult of dissatisfaction.

Carpenter, even as he talked to him, could see the fight which was going on; and now and then, in spite of it and his determination, he saw that the reformed drunkard was looking wistfully toward the bar-room of Billy Buch.

And so, as Jud talked to Edward Conway about the house, he led him along toward the bar-room. All the time he was complimenting him on his improved health, and telling how, with help from the mill, he would soon be on his feet again.

At the bar door he halted:

"Let us set down here an' res', Majah, sah, it's a good place on this little porch. Have somethin'? Billy's got a mighty fine bran' of old Tennessee whiskey in there."

Jud watched him as he spoke and saw the fire of expectancy burn in his despairing eyes.

"No--no--Carpenter--no--I am obliged to you--but I have sworn never to touch another drop of it. I'll just rest here with you." He threw up his head and Jud Carpenter saw how eagerly he inhaled the odor which came out of the door. He saw the quivering lips, the tense straining of the throat, the wavering eyes which told how sorely he was tempted.

It was cool, but the sweat stood in drops on Edward Conway's temple.

He gulped, but swallowed only a dry lump, which immediately sprang back into his throat again and burned as a ball of fire.

"No--no--Carpenter," he kept saying in a dazed, abstracted way--"no--no--not any more for me. I've promised--I've promised."

And yet even while saying it his eyes were saying: "For G.o.d's sake--bring it to me--quick--quick."

Jud arose and went into the bar and whispered to Billy Buch. Then he came back and sat down and talked of other things. But all the time he was watching Edward Conway--the yearning look--turned half pleadingly to the bar--the gulpings which swallowed nothing.

Presently Jud looked up. He heard the tinkle of gla.s.ses, and Billy Buch stood before them with two long toddies on a silver waiter. The ice tinkled and glittered in the deep gla.s.ses--the cherries and pineapple gleamed amid it and the whiskey--the rich red whiskey!

"My treat--an' no charges, gentlemen! Compliments of Billy Buch."

Conway looked at the tempting gla.s.s for a moment in the terrible agony of indecision. Then remorse, fear, shame, frenzy, seized him:

"No--no--I've sworn off, Billy--I'll swear I have. My G.o.d, but I'm a Conway again"--and before the words were fairly out of his mouth he had seized the gla.s.s and swallowed the contents.

It was nearly dark when Helen, quitting the mill immediately on its closing, slipped out of a side door to escape Richard Travis and almost ran home across the fields. Never had she been so full of her life, her plans for the future, her hopes, her pride to think her father would be himself again.

"For if he will," she whispered, "all else good will follow."

Just at the gate she stopped and almost fell in the agony of it all.

Her father lay on the dry gra.s.s by the roadside, unable to walk.

She knelt by his side and wept. Her heart then and there gave up--her soul quit in the fight she was making.

With bitterness which was desperate she went to the spring and brought water and bathed his face. Then when he was sufficiently himself to walk, she led him, staggering, in, and up the steps.

Jud Carpenter reached the mill an hour after dark: He sought out Richard Travis and chuckled, saying nothing.

Travis was busy with his books, and when he had finished he turned and smiled at the man.

"Tell me what it is?"

"Oh, I fixed him, that's all."

Then he laughed:

"He was sober this morning an' was in a fair way to knock our plans sky high--as to the gal, you kno'. Reformed this mornin', but you'll find him good and drunk to-night."

"Oh," said Travis, knitting his brows thoughtfully.