The Mystery of Metropolisville Part 13

"I thought as how as I'd like to explain to you somethin' that might 'a' hurt yer feelin's, Miss Charlton. Didn't you feel a little teched at sompin'?"

"No, Mr. Sawney, you never hurt my feelings."

"Well, gals is slow to own up that they're hurt, you know. But I'm sh.o.r.e you couldn't help bein', and I'm ever so sorry. Them Injin goin'-ons of mine wuz enough to 'a' broke your heart."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, my sellin' out to Perritaut for ten thousand dollars, only I didn't. Haw! haw!" and Dave threw his head back to laugh. "You had a right to feel sorter bad to think I would consent to marry a Injin. But 'tain't every feller as'll git ten thousand offered in five annooal payments; an' I wanted you to understand 'twan't the Injin, 'twas the cash as reached me. When it comes to gals, you're the posy fer me."

Katy grew red, but didn't know what to say or do.

"I heerd tell that that feller Westcott'd got his walkin' papers. Sarved him right, dancin' roun' like a rang-a-tang, and jos'lin' his keys and ten-cent pieces in his pocket, and sayin' imperdent things. But I could 'a' beat him at talk the bes' day he ever seed ef he'd on'y 'a' gi'n me time to think. I kin jaw back splendid of you gin me time. Haw! haw! haw!

But he ain't far--don't never gin a feller time to git his thoughts gethered up, you know. He jumps around like the Frenchman's flea. Put yer finger on him an' he ain't thar, and never wuz. Haw! haw! haw! But jest let him stay still wunst tell I get a good rest on him like, and I'll be dog-on'd ef I don't knock the hine sights offen him the purtiest day he ever seed! Haw! haw! haw! Your brother Albert handled him rough, didn't he? Sarved him right. I say, if a man is onrespectful to a woman, her brother had orter thrash him; and your'n done it. His eye's blacker'n my boot. And his nose! Haw! haw! it's a-mournin' fer his brains! Haw I haw!

haw! And he feels bad bekase you cut him, too. Jemently, ef he don' look like 's ef he'd kill hisself fer three bits."

Katy was so affected by this fearful picture of poor, dear Smith's condition, that she got up and hurried out of the room to cry.

"What on airth's the matter?" soliloquized Dave. "Bashful little creeter, I 'low. Thought I wuz a-comin to the p'int, maybe. Well, nex' time'll do. Haw! haw! Young things is cur'us now, _to_ be sh.o.r.e. Mout's well be a gittin' on, I reckon. Gin her time to come round, I 'low."

With such wooing, renewed from time to time, the clumsy and complacent Dave whiled away his days, and comforted himself that he had the persimmon-tree all to himself, as he expressed it. Meanwhile, the notes of Westcott were fast undoing all that Albert had done to separate him from "the purty little girl."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHAT ON AIRTH'S THE MATTER?"]

Of course, when the right time came, he happened to meet Katy on the street, and to take off his hat and make a melancholy bow, the high-tragedy air of which confirmed Katy's suspicions that he meant to commit suicide at the first opportunity. Then he chanced to stop at the gate, and ask, in a tone sad enough to have been learned from the gatherers of cold victuals, if he might come in. In three days more, he was fully restored to favor and to his wonted cheerfulness. He danced, he sang, he chirruped, he rattled his keys, he was the Privileged Infant once more. He urged Katy to marry him at once, but her heart was now rent by pity for Albert and by her eager anxiety lest he should do something desperate when he heard of her reconciliation. She trembled every day at thought of what might happen when he should return.

"Goin' to pre-empt in a few days, Katy. Whisky Jim come plaguey near to gittin' that claim. He got Shamberson on his side, and if Shamberson's brother-in-law hadn't been removed from the Land Office before it was tried, he'd a got it. I'm going to pre-empt and build the cutest little bird's nest for you.

"If I was young and in my prime, I'd lead a different life, I'd save my money, and buy me a farm, Take Dinah for my wife.

Oh! carry me back--

"Psha! Dat dah ain't de toon, bruddern. Ahem!

"When you and I get married, love, How jolly it will be!

We'll keep house in a store-box, then, Just two feet wide by three!

Store-box!

Band-box!

All the same to me!

"And when we want our breakfast, love, We'll nibble bread and chee-- It's good enough for you, love, And most too good for me!

White bread!

Brown bread!

All the same to me!

"Dog-on'd ef 'tain't. White bread's good as brown bread. One's jest as good as the other, and a good deal better. It's all the same to me, and more so besides, and something to carry. It's all the same, only 'tain't. Ahem:

"Jane and Sukey and July Ann-- Too brown, too slim, too stout!

You needn't smile on this 'ere man, Git out! git out! git out!

But the maiden fair With bonny brown hair-- Let all the rest git out!"--

"Get out yourself!" thundered Albert Charlton, bursting in at that moment. "If you don't get your pack of tomfoolery out of here quick, I'll get it out for you," and he bore down on Westcott fiercely.

"I beg pardon, Mr. Charlton. I'm here to see your sister with her consent and your mother's, and--"

"And I tell you," shouted Albert, "that my sister is a little girl, and my mother doesn't understand such puppies as you, and I am my sister's protector, and if you don't get out of here, I'll kill you if I can."

"Albert, don't be so quarrelsome," said Mrs. Plausaby, coming in at the instant. "I'm sure Mr. Westcott's a genteel man, and good-natured to Katy, and--"

"Out! out! I say, confound you! or I'll break your empty head," thundered Charlton, whose temper was now past all softening. "Put your hand on that pistol, if you dare," and with that he strode at the Privileged Infant with clenched fist, and the Privileged Infant prudently backed out the door into the yard, and then, as Albert kept up his fierce advance, the Privileged Infant backed out of the gate into the street. He was not a little mortified to see the grinning face of Dave Sawney in the crowd about the gate, and to save appearances, he called back at Albert, who was returning toward the house, that he would settle this affair with him yet. But he did not know how thoroughly Charlton's blood was up.

"Settle it?" said Albert--yelled Albert, I should say--turning back on him with more fury than ever. "Settle it, will you? I'll settle it right here and now, you cowardly villain! Let's have it through, now," and he walked swiftly at Westcott, who walked away; but finding that the infuriated Albert was coming after him, the Privileged Infant hurried on until his retreat became a run, Westcott running down street, Charlton hotly pursuing him, the spectators running pell-mell behind, laughing, cheering, and jeering.

"Don't come back again if you don't want to get killed," the angry Charlton called, as he turned at last and went toward home.

"Now, Katy," he said, with more energy than tenderness, as he entered the house, "if you are determined to marry that confounded rascal, I shall leave at once. You must decide now. If you will go East with me next week, well and good. If you won't give up Smith Westcott, then I shall leave you now forever."

Katy couldn't bear to be the cause of any disaster to anybody; and just at this moment Smith was out of sight, and Albert, white and trembling with the reaction of his pa.s.sion, stood before her. She felt, somehow, that she had brought all this trouble on Albert, and in her pity for him, and remorse for her own course, she wept and clung to her brother, and begged him not to leave her. And Albert said: "There, don't cry any more.

It's all right now. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. There, there!"

There is nothing a man can not abide better than a woman in tears.

CHAPTER XXI.

ROWING.

To get away with Katy immediately. These were the terms of the problem now before Albert His plan was to take her to visit friends at the East, and to keep her there until Westcott should pa.s.s out of her mind, or until she should be forgotten by the Privileged Infant. This was not Westcott's plan of the campaign at all. He was as much bent on securing Katy as he could have been had he been the most constant, devoted, and disinterested lover. He would have gone through fire and flood. The vindictive love of opposition and l.u.s.t for triumph is one of the most powerful of motives. Men will brave more from an empty desire to have their own way, than they could be persuaded to face by the most substantial motives.

Smith Westcott was not a man to die for a sentiment, but for the time he had the semblance of a most devoted lover. He bent everything to the re-conquest of Katy Charlton. His pride served him instead of any higher pa.s.sion, and he plotted by night and managed by day to get his affairs into a position in which he could leave. He meant to follow Albert and Katy, and somewhere and somehow, by working on Katy's sympathies, to carry off the "stakes," as he expressed it. He almost ceased trifling, and even his cronies came to believe that he was really in love. They saw signs of intense and genuine feeling, and they mistook its nature. Mrs.

Ferret expressed her sympathy for him--the poor man really loved Kate, and she believed that Kate had a right to marry anybody she pleased. She did not know what warrant there was in Scripcherr for a brother's exercising any authority. She thought Mrs. Plausaby ought to have brought up her son to have more respect for her authority, and to hold Scripcherral views. If he were her son, now! What she would have done with him in that case never fully appeared; for Mrs. Ferret could not bring herself to complete the sentence. She only said subjunctively: "If he were _my_ son, now!" Then she would break off and give her head two or three awful and ominous shakes. What would have happened if such a young man as Albert had been her son, it would be hard to tell. Something unutterably dreadful, no doubt.

Even the charms of Miss Minorkey were not sufficient to detain Albert in his eager haste and pa.s.sionate determination to rescue Katy. But to go, he must have money; to get money, he must collect it from Plausaby, or at least get a land-warrant with which he could pre-empt his claim. Then he would mortgage his land for money to pay his traveling expenses. But it was so much easier to lend money to Plausaby, Esq., than it was to collect it. Plausaby, Esq., was always just going to have the money; Plausaby, Esq., had ever ready so many excuses for past failure, and so many a.s.surances of payment in the immediate future, that Charlton was kept hoping and waiting in agony from week to week. He knew that he was losing ground in the matter of Westcott and Katy. She was again grieving over Smith's possible suicide, was again longing for the cheerful rattle of flattery and nonsense which rendered the Privileged Infant so diverting even to those who hated him, much more to her who loved him.

Albert's position was the more embarra.s.sing that he was obliged to spend a part of his time on his claim to maintain a residence. One night, after having suffered a disappointment for the fifth time in the matter of Plausaby and money, he was walking down the road to cool his anger in the night air, when he met the Inhabitant of the Lone Cabin, again.

"Well, Gray," he said, "how are you? Have you written any fresh verses lately?"

"Va.r.s.es? See here, Mr. Charlton, do you 'low this 'ere's a time fer va.r.s.es?"

"Why not?"

"_To_ be sh.o.r.e! Why not? I should kinder think yer own heart should orter tell you. You don' know what I'm made of. You think I a'n't good fer nothin' but va.r.s.es. Now, Mr. Charlton, I'm not one of them air fellers as lets theirselves all off in va.r.s.es that don' mean nothin'. What my pomes says, that my heart feels. And that my hands does. No, sir, my po'try 's like the corn c.r.a.p in August. It's laid by. I ha'n't writ nary line sence I seed you afore. The fingers that holds a pen kin pull a trigger."

"What do you mean, Gray?"

"This 'ere," and he took out a pistol. "I wuz a poet; now I'm a gardeen angel. I tole you I wouldn' do nothin' desperate tell I talked weth you.

That's the reason I didn' shoot him t'other night. When you run him off, I draw'd on him, and he'd a been a gone sucker ef't hadn' been fer yore makin' me promise t'other day to hold on tell I'd talked weth you. Now, I've talked weth you, and I don't make no furder promises. Soon as he gits to makin' headway agin, I'll drap him."