Darrel of the Blessed Isles Part 34

"I presume you were surprised."

"Wal," said he, "Ez ain't said a word before in six months."

Tunk opened the horse's mouth and stood a moment, peering thoughtfully at his teeth.

"Kind of unexpected to be spoke to by Ez Tower," he added, turning his eyes upon them with the same curious look.

The interrogation of Tunk and the two boys began immediately. The story of the fowl corroborated, the sugar-bush became an object of investigation. Milldam was ten miles away, and it was quite possible for the young man to have ridden there and back between the hour when Tunk left him and that of sunrise when he met Mrs.

Vaughn at her door. Trove and Tunk Hosely went with the officers down a lane to the pasture and thence into the wood by a path they followed that night to and from the shanty. They discovered nothing new, save one remarkable circ.u.mstance that baffled Trove and renewed the waning suspicion of the men of the law. On almost a straight line from bush to barn were tracks of a man that showed plainly where they came out of the gra.s.s upon the garden soil.

Now, the strange part of it lay in this fact: the boots of Sidney Trove exactly fitted the tracks. They followed the footprints carefully into the meadow-gra.s.s and up to the stalk of mullen.

Near the top of it was the abandoned home of the spider and around it were the four snares Trove had observed, now full of prey.

"Do not disturb the gra.s.s here," said Trove, "and I will prove to you that the tracks were made before the night in question. Do you see the four webs?"

"Yes," said the attorney..

"The tracks go under them," said Trove, "and must, therefore, have been made before the webs. I will prove to you that the webs were spun before two o'clock of the day before yesterday. At that hour I saw the spinner die. See, her lair is deserted."

He broke the stalk of mullen and the cables of spider silk that led away from it, and all inspected the empty lair. Then he told of that deadly battle in the gra.s.s.

"But these webs might have been the work of another spider," said the attorney.

"It matters not," Trove insisted, "for the webs were spun at least twelve hours before the crime. One of them contains the body of a red b.u.t.terfly with starred wings. We cut the wings that day, and Miss Vaughn put them in a book she was reading."

Paul brought the wings, which exactly fitted the tiny torso of the b.u.t.terfly. They could discern the footprints, one of which had broken the ant's road, while another was completely covered by the b.u.t.terfly snare.

"Those tracks were made before the webs--that is evident," said the attorney. "Do you know who made the tracks?"

"I do not," was the answer of the young man.

Trove remained at Robin's Inn that night, and after the men had gone he recalled a circ.u.mstance that was like a flash of lightning in the dark of his great mystery.

Once at the Sign of the Dial his friend, the tinker, had shown him a pair of new boots. He remembered they were of the same size and shape as those he wore.

"We could wear the same boots," he had remarked to Darrel.

"Had I to do such penance I should be d.a.m.ned," the tinker had answered. "Look, boy, mine are the larger by far. There's a man coming to see me at the Christmas time--a man o' busy feet. That pair in your hands I bought for him."

"Day before yesterday," said Tunk, that evening, "I was up in the sugar-bush after a bit o' hickory, an' I see a man there, an' I didn't have no idee who 'twas. He was tall and had white hair an'

whiskers an' a short blue coat. When I first see him he was settin' on a log, but 'fore I come nigh he got up an' made off."

Although meagre, the description was sufficient. Trove had no longer any doubt of this--that the stranger he had seen at Darrel's had been hiding in the bush that day whose events were now so important.

Whoever had brought the money, he must have known much of the plans and habits of the young man, and, the night before Trove's arrival at Robin's Inn, he came, probably, to the sugar woods, where he spent the next day in hiding.

The young man was deeply troubled. Polly and her mother sat well into the night with him, hearing the story of his life, which he told in full, saving only the sin of his father. Of that he had neither the right nor the heart to tell.

"G.o.d only knows what is the next chapter," said he, at last. "It may rob me of all that I love in this world."

"But not of me," said Polly, whispering in his ear.

"I wish I were sure of that," he answered.

XXVI

The Coming of the Cars

That year was one of much reckoning there in the land of the hills.

A year it was of historic change and popular excitement. To begin with, a certain rich man bought a heavy cannon, which had roared at the British on the frontier in 1812, and gave it to the town of Hillsborough. It was no sooner dumped on the edge of the little park than it became a target of criticism. The people were to be taxed for the expense of mounting it--"Taxed fer a thing we ain't no more need of than a bear has need of a hair-brush," said one citizen. Those Yankees came of men who helped to fling the tea into Boston harbour, and had some hereditary fear of taxes.

Hunters and trappers were much impressed by it. They felt it over, peering curiously into the muzzle, with one eye closed.

"Ye couldn't kill nuthin' with it," said one of them.

"If I was to pick it up an' hit ye over the head with it, I guess ye wouldn't think so," said another.

Familiarity bred contempt, and by and by they began to shoot at it from the tavern steps.

The gun lay rejected and much in the way until its buyer came to his own rescue and agreed to pay for the mounting. Then came another and more famous controversy as to which way they should "p'int" the gun. Some favoured one direction, some another, and at last, by way of compliment, they "p'inted" it squarely at the house of the giver on the farther side of the park. And it was loaded to the muzzle with envy and ingrat.i.tude.

The arrest of Sidney Trove, also, had filled the town with exciting rumours, and gossip of him seemed to travel on the four winds--much of it as unkind as it was unfounded.

Then came surveyors, and promoters of the railroad, and a plan of aiding it by bonding the towns it traversed. In the beginning horror and distrust were in many bosoms. If the devil and some of his angels had come, he might, indeed, for a time, have made more converts and less excitement.

"It's a delusion an' a snare," said old Colonel Barclay in a speech. "Who wants t' whiz through the air like a bullet? G.o.d never intended men to go slidin' over the earth that way. It ain't nat'ral ner it ain't common sense. Some say it would bring more folks into this country. I say we can supply all the folks that's nec'sary. I've got fourteen in my own family. S'pose ye lived on a tremendous sidehill that reached clear to New York City, so ye could git on a sled an' scoot off like a streak o' lightnin'. Do ye think ye'd be any happier? Do ye think ye'd chop any more wood er raise a bigger crop o' potatoes? S'pose ye could scoot yer crops right down t' Albany in a day. That would be all right if 'ye was the only man that was scootin', but if there was anything t' be made by it, there'd be more than a million sleds on the way, an' ye couldn't sell yer stuff for so much as ye git here. Some day ye'd come home and ask where's Ma an' Mary, and then Sam would say, 'Why, Mary's slid down t' New York, and the last I see o' Ma she was scootin' for Rochester.'"

Here, the record says, Colonel Barclay was interrupted by laughter and a voice.

"Wal, if there was a railroad, they could scoot back ag'in," said the voice.

"Yes," the Colonel rejoined, "but mebbe after they'd been there a while ye'd wish they couldn't. Wal, you git your own supper, an'

then Sam says, says he, 'I guess I'll scoot over t' Watertown and see my gal fer a few minutes.' An' ye sit by the fire a while, rockin' the twins, an' by and by yer wife comes back. An' ye say, 'Ma, why don't ye stay t' home?' 'Wal,' says she, 'it is so splendid, and there's so much goin' on.' An' Mary, she begins t'

talk as if she'd bit her tongue, an' step stylish, an' hold up her dress like that, jest as though she was steppin' over a hot griddle. Purty soon it's dizzle-dazzle an' flippity-floppity an'

splendiferous and sewperb, an' the first thing ye know ye ain't knee-high to a gra.s.shopper. Sam he comes back an' tells Ed all about the latest devilment. You hear of it; then, mebbe, ye begin to limber up an' think ye'll try it yerself. An' some morning ye'll wake up an' find yer moral character has scooted. You fellers that go t' meetin' here an' talk about resistin'

temptation--if you ever git t' goin' it down there in New York City, temptation 'll have to resist you. My friends, ye don't want to make it too easy fer everybody to go somewhere else. If ye do, by an' by there won't be n.o.body left here but them that's too old t' scoot er a few sickly young folks who don't care fer the sinful attractions o' this world."

Who shall say that old Colonel Barclay had not the tongue of a prophet?

"An' how about the cost?" he added in conclusion, "Fellow-citizens, ye'll have to pay five cents a mile fer yer scootin', an' a tax,--a tax, fellow-citizens, to help pay the cost o' the railroad. If there's anybody here that don't feel as if he'd been taxed enough, he ought t' be taxed fer his folly."

The dread of "scooting" grew for a time, but wise men were able to overcome it.

In 1850, the iron way had come through the wilderness and begun to rend the northern hills. Some were filled with awe, learning for the first time that in the moving of mountains giant-powder was more efficient than faith. Soon it had pa.s.sed Hillsborough and was finished. Everybody came to see the cars that day of the first train. The track was lined with people at every village; many with children upon arms and shoulders. They waited long, and when the iron horse came roaring out of the distance, women fell back and men rolled their quids and looked eagerly up the track. It came on with screaming whistle and noisy brakes and roaring wheels.

Children began to cry with fear and men to yell with excitement.

Dogs were barking wildly, and two horses ran away, dragging with them part of a picket-fence. A brown shoat came bounding over the ties and broke through the wall of people, carrying many off their feet and creating panic and profanity. The train stopped, its engine hissing. A brakeman of flashy attire, with fine leather showing to the knees, strolled off and up the platform on high heels, haughty as a prince. Confusion began to abate.