Westways: A Village Chronicle Part 22

"How is it interesting?" said Rivers.

"Oh, what he saw-his delusions when he was at his worst."

"What did he see?"

"Oh, bugs-snakes-the common symptoms, and at last the 'Wilmot Proviso.' Imagine it. He knew no more of that than of the physiology of the man in the moon. He described it as a 'plucked chicken.'"

"I suppose that was a wild contribution from the endless political talk of the town."

"Well, a 'plucked chicken' was not so bad. He saw also 'Bleeding Kansas.'

A 'stuck pig' that was; and more-more, but I must go."

Rivers went back to the room. "Here is your tobacco, Billy, and wait downstairs; don't go away."

The big man turned over in bed as the clergyman entered. "Mr. Rivers. I'm bad. I might have died. Won't you pray for me?"

Rivers hesitated, and then fell on his knees at the bedside, his face in his hands. Peter lay still smiling, grimly attentive. As Rivers rose to his feet, Lamb said, "Couldn't I have just a little whisky? Doctors don't always know. I've been in this sc.r.a.pe before, and just a little liquor does help and it don't do any harm. I can't think, I'm so harried inside. I can't even pray, and I want to pray. Now, you will, sir, won't you?"

This mingling of low cunning, of childlike appeal and of hypocrisy, obviously suggested anything but the Christian charity of reply; what should he say? Putting aside angry comment, he fell back upon his one constant resource, What would Christ have said to this sinful man? He stood so long silent by the bed, which creaked as Lamb sat up, that the man's agony of morbid thirst caught from his silence a little hope, and he said, "Now you will, I know."

Rivers made no direct answer. Was it hopeless? He tried to read the face-the too thin straight nose, white between dusky red cheeks, the projecting lower lip, and the lip above it long, the eyes small, red, and eagerly attentive. This was not the time for reason. He said, "I should be your worst enemy, Peter. Every one has been good to you; over and over the Squire has saved you from jail. Mrs. Penhallow asked me to help you. Try to bear what your sin has brought on you, oh! do try. Pray G.o.d for help to bear it patiently."

"I'm in h.e.l.l. What's the use of praying in h.e.l.l? Get me whisky and I'll pray."

Rivers felt himself to be at the end of his resources, and that the enfeebled mind was incapable of response to any appeal to head or heart. "I will come again," he said. "Good-bye."

"Oh, d.a.m.n everybody," muttered Peter.

Rivers went out and sent Billy up to take charge. Lamb was still sitting up in bed when Billy returned. The simple fellow poured out in brief sentences small bits of what he had seen at the street door.

"Oh, shut up," said Peter. "The doctor says I'll feel better if I'm shaved-ain't been shaved these three weeks. Doctor wants you to go and get Josiah to come and fix me up to-night. You tell him it's the doctor's orders. Don't you be gone long. I'm kind of lonely."

"All right," said Billy, in the cheerful way which made him a favourite despite his disinclination for steady work.

"Now, don't be gone long. I need a good shave, Billy."

"Guess you do-way you look you wouldn't fetch five cents at one of them rummage-sales. Ain't had but one in four years."

"Oh, get out, Billy." Once rid of his guard he tried in vain to stand up and fell back cursing.

The order from the doctor was to be obeyed. "Guess he's too shaky to shave himself," said Josiah. "I'll come about half-past eight."

As Josiah walked to the far end of the village, he thought in his simple way of his last three years. After much wandering and fear of being traced, he had been used at the stables by Penhallow. That he had been a slave was suspected, but that troubled no one in Westways. He had long felt at ease and safe. He lived alone, a man of some forty years, cooked for himself, and had in the county bank a small amount of carefully saved earnings. He had his likes and dislikes, but he had the prudently guarded tongue of servitude. Long before John Penhallow had understood better the tall black man's position and won the confidence of a friendly hour, he saw with his well-bred courtesy how pleased was the man to be called Mr. Josiah. It sounded queer, as Pole remarked, to call a runaway darkey Mister, but this in no way disturbed John. The friendly feeling for the black grew as they fished together in the summer afternoons, or trapped muskrats, or dug up h.e.l.lbenders. The barber had one half-concealed dislike. The man he was now to shave he both feared and hated. "Couldn't tell you why, Master John. It's like the way Crocker's wife's 'feared of cats. They ain't never hurt her none."

"Well," he said, "here I am," and in unusual silence set about his work by dim candlelight. The patient was as silent. When Josiah had finished, he said no word of his fee, knowing it to be a hopeless debt.

"Guess you do look the better for a shave," he remarked, as he was about to leave. "I'll send up Billy." The uneasy guardian had seized on the chance to get a little relief.

"No, don't go," said Lamb. "I'm in a h.e.l.l of thirst. I want you to get me some whisky. I'll pay you when I get work."

Josiah was prudent and had no will to oblige the drunkard nor any belief in future repayment. "Couldn't do that-doctor wouldn't like it."

"What, you won't do it?"

"No, I can't do it."

"If you don't, I'll tell what I know about you."

"What do you know?" The long lost terror returned-but what could he know?

"Oh, you ran away-I know all about it. You help me now and I'll keep quiet-you'd better."

A fierce desire rose in the mind of Josiah to kill the rascal, and then, by long habit prudent, he said, "I'll have to think about it." But what could this man know?

"Best to think d.a.m.n quick, or you'll have your old master down on you. I give you till to-morrow morning early. Do you hear? It's just a nip of whisky I want."

"Yes, I hear-got to think about it." He went out into the night, a soul in fear. No one knew his former master's name. Then his very good intelligence resumed control. No one really knew-only John-and he very little. He put it aside, confident in the young fellow's discretion. Of course, the town suspected that he was a fugitive slave, but n.o.body cared or seemed to care. And yet, at times in his altogether prosperous happy years of freedom, when he read of the fugitive-slave act, and he read much, he had disturbing hours. He stood still a moment and crossed the road. The Episcopal church, which he punctually attended, was on Penhallow's land, and near by was the rectory where Mark lived with an old woman cook and some help from Mrs. Lamb. The night was warm, the windows were open, and the clergyman was seen writing. Josiah at the window spoke.

"Excuse me, sir, could I talk to you? I am in a heap of trouble."

"In trouble, Josiah? Come in, the front door is open."

As he entered the rector's study, Rivers said, "Sit down."

Something in the look of the man made him think of hunted animals. "No one else is in the house. What is it?" The black poured out his story.

"So then," said Rivers, "he lied to you about the doctor and threatened you with a lie. Why, Josiah, if he had known who was your master, he would have told you, and whether or not you ran away from slavery is none of his business. Mr. Penhallow believes you did, others suspect it, but no one cares. You are liked and you have the respect of the town. There would be trouble if any man tried to claim you."

"I'd like to tell you all about it, sir."

"No-no-on no account. Tell no one. Now go home. I will settle with that drunken liar."

"Thank you. May G.o.d bless-and thank you."

The clergyman sat in thought a while, and the more he considered the matter which he had made light of to the scared black, the less he liked it. He dismissed it for a time as a lie told to secure whisky, but the fear Josiah showed was something pitiful in this strong black giant. He knew Lamb well enough to feel sure that Josiah would now have in him an enemy who was sure in some way to get what he called "even" with the barber, and was a man known and spoken of in Westways as "real spiteful."

When next day Rivers entered the room where Lamb lay abed, he saw at once that he was better. He meant to make plain to a revengeful man that Josiah had friends and that the attempt to blackmail him would be dangerous. Lamb was sitting up in bed apparently relieved, and was reading a newspaper. The moment he spoke Rivers knew that he was a far more intelligent person than the man of yesterday.

Lamb said, "Billy, set a chair for Mr. Rivers. The heat's awful for October." Billy obeyed and stepped out glad to escape.

Rivers said, "No, I won't sit down. I have something to say to you, and I advise you to listen. You lied to Billy about the doctor yesterday, and you tried to frighten Josiah into getting you whisky-you lied to him."

Josiah had not returned, and now it was plain that he had told the clergyman of the threat. Lamb was quick to understand the situation, and the cleverness of his defence interested and for a moment half deceived the rector.

"Who says I lied? Maybe I did. I don't remember. It's just like a dream-I don't feel nowise accountable. If-I-abused Josiah, I'm sorry. He did shave me. Let me think-what was it scared Josiah?" He had the slight frown of a man pursuing a lost memory.

"It is hardly worth while, Peter, to go into the matter if you don't recall what you said." He realized that the defence was perfect. Its too ready arguments added to his disbelief in its truth.

Lamb was now enjoying the game. "Was Josiah really here, sir? But, of course, he was, for he shaved me. I do remember that. Won't you sit down, sir?"