Westways: A Village Chronicle Part 30

"Yes, I said to George that we would buy Josiah's freedom-what amuses you, James?" He was smiling.

"Oh, the idea of buying a man's power to go and come, when he has been his own master for years. You were right, but it seems that you failed-or, so I infer."

"Yes. He said Mr. Woodburn was still angry and always had considered Josiah wickedly ungrateful." Penhallow looked at his wife. Her sense of the comedies of life was sometimes beyond his comprehension, but now-now was she not a little bit, half consciously, of the defrauded master's opinion?

"And so, when that failed, you went to bank and drew out the poor fellow's savings?" He meant to hear the whole story. There was worse yet, and he was sure she would speak of it. But now she was her courageous self and desired to confess her share in the matter. "Of course, he had to have money, Ann."

She wanted to get through with this, the most unpleasant part of the matter. "I want to tell you," she said. "I drew out his money with a cheque John made out and Josiah signed. John took him his two hundred dollars, as he knew where Josiah would hide-I-I did not want to know."

Her large part in this perilous business began to trouble the Squire. His face had long been to her an open book, and she saw in his silence the man's annoyance. She added instantly, "I could not let John draw it-and Josiah would not-he was too scared. He had to have his money. Was I wrong-was I foolish, James?"

"No-you were right. The cheque was in John's handwriting. You were the person to draw it. I would have drawn the money for him. He had a man's right to his honest savings. It will end here-so you may be quite at ease." Of this he was not altogether certain. He understood now why she had not given him of her own money, but Ann was clearly too agitated to make it well or wise to question her methods further. "Go to bed, dear, and sleep the sleep of the just-you did the right thing." He kissed her. "Good-night."

"One moment more, James. You know, of course-you know that all my life I have believed with my brothers that slavery was wise and right. I had to believe that-to think so might exact from me and others what I never could have antic.i.p.ated. I came face to face with a test of my creed, and I failed. I am glad I failed."

"My dear Ann," he said, "I am supposed to be a Christian man-I go to church, I have a creed of conduct. To-day I lost my temper and told a man I would thrash him if he dared to say a word more."

"It was at the bank, James?"

"Yes. That fellow Swallow spoke of your having drawn Josiah's money. He was insolent. You need have no anxiety about it-it is all over. I only mention it because I want you to feel that our creeds of conduct in life are not always our masters, and sometimes ought not to be. Let that comfort you a little. You know that to have been a silent looker-on at the return to slavery of a man to whom we owed so much was impossible. My wonder is that for a moment you could have hesitated. It makes me comprehend more charitably the att.i.tude of the owners of men. Now, dear, we won't talk any more. Good-night-again-good-night."

He lighted a cigar and sat long in thought. He had meant not to speak to her of Swallow, but it had been, as he saw, of service. Then he wondered how long Mr. George Grey would remain and if he would not think it necessary to speak of Josiah. As concerned John, he would be in no hurry to talk to him of the barber; and how the lad had grown in mind and body!-a wonderful change and satisfactory.

When after breakfast Mr. Grey showed no desire to mention Josiah and prudently avoided talk about politics, Penhallow was greatly relieved. That his host did not open the question of Mr. Grey's conduct in the matter of the runaway was as satisfactory to the Maryland gentleman, whose sense of duty had created for him a situation which was increasingly disagreeable. He warmly welcomed Penhallow's invitation to look at some newly purchased horses, and expressed the most cordial approval of whatever he saw, somewhat to the amus.e.m.e.nt of Penhallow.

Penhallow left him when, declining to ride to the mills, Mr. Grey retired to the library and read the Tribune, with internal comment on its editorial columns. He laid the paper aside. Mr. Woodburn would probably have arrived in the afternoon, and would have arranged with Swallow for a consultation in which Mr. Grey would be expected to take part. It was plain that he really must talk to the Captain. He rose and went slowly down the avenue. A half-hour in Westways singularly relieved him. Swallow was not at home, and Josiah, the cause of Mr. Grey's perplexities, had certainly fled, nor did he learn that Mr. Woodburn had already arrived.

He was now shamefully eager to escape that interview with the captain, and relieved to find that there was no need to wait for the friend he had brought to Westways on a vain errand. Returning to Grey Pine, he explained to his cousin that letters from home made it necessary for him to leave on the mid-afternoon train. Never did Ann Penhallow more gratefully practise the virtue that speeds the parting guest. He was sorry to miss the captain and would have the pleasure of sending him a barrel of the best Maryland whisky; "and would you, my dear cousin, say, in your delightful way, to the good rector how much I enjoyed his conversation?"

Ann saw that the lunch was of the best and that the wagon was ready in more than ample season. As he left, she expressed all the regret she ought to have felt, and as the carriage disappeared at a turn of the avenue she sank down in a chair. Then she rang a bell. "Take away that thing," she said,-"that spittoon."

"If James Penhallow were here," she murmured, "I should ask him to say-d.a.m.n! I wonder now if that man Woodburn will come, and if there will be a difficulty with James on my account." She sat long in thought, waiting to greet her husband, while Mr. Grey was left impatient at the station owing to the too hospitable desire of Ann to speed the parting guest.

When about dusk the Squire rode along the road through Westways, he came on the rector and dismounted, leaving his horse to be led home by Pole's boy. "Glad to see you, Mark. How goes it; and how did you like Mr. Grey?"

"To tell you the truth, Squire, I did not like him. I was forced into a talk about politics. We differed, as you may suppose. He was not quite pleasant. He seemed to have been so mixed up with this sad business about Josiah that I kept away at last, so that I might keep my temper. Billy drove him to the station after lunch."

"Indeed!" said Penhallow, pleased that Grey had gone. It was news to him and not unwelcome. Ann would no doubt explain. "What put Grey on the track of Josiah as a runaway? Was it a mere accidental encounter?" He desired to get some confirmatory information.

"No-I suspect not." Then he related what Josiah had told him of Peter's threats. "I may do that reprobate injustice, but-However, that is all I now know or feel justified in suspecting."

"Well, come up and dine to-day; we can talk it out after dinner."

"With pleasure," said Rivers.

Penhallow moodily walking up the street, his head bent in thought, was made aware that he was almost in collision with Swallow and a large man with a look of good-humoured amus.e.m.e.nt and the wide-open eyes and uplift of brow expressive of pleasure and surprise.

"By George, Woodburn!" said the Squire. "I heard some one of your name was here, but did not connect the name with you. I last heard of you as in a wild mix-up with the Sioux, and I wished I was with you." As Penhallow spoke the two men shook hands, Swallow meanwhile standing apart not over-pleased as through the narrowed lids of near-sight he saw that the two men must have known one another well and even intimately, for Woodburn replied, "Thought you knew I'd left the army, Jim. The last five years I've been running my wife's plantation in Maryland."

The Squire's pleasure at his encounter with an old West Point comrade for a moment caused him to forget that this was the master who had been set on Josiah's track by Grey. It was but for a moment. Then he drew up his soldierly figure and said coldly, "I am sorry that you are here on what cannot be a very agreeable errand."

"Oh!" said Woodburn cheerfully, "I came to get my old servant, Caesar. It seems to have been a fool's errand. He has slipped away. I suppose that Grey as usual talked too freely. But how the deuce does it concern you? I see that it does."

Penhallow laughed. "He was my barber."

"And mine," said Woodburn. "If you have missed him, Jim, for a few days, I have missed him for three years and more." Then both men laughed heartily at their inequality of loss.

"I cannot understand why this fellow ran away. He was a man I trusted and indulged to such an extent that my wife says I spoiled him. She says he owned me quite as much as I owned him-a darned ungrateful cuss! I came here pretty cross when I got George's letter, and now I hear of an amount of hostile feeling which rather surprised me."

"That you are surprised, Will, surprises me," said Penhallow. "The Fugitive-Slave Act will always meet with opposition at the North. It seems made to create irritation even among people who really are not actively hostile to slavery. If it became necessary to enforce it, I believe that I would obey it, because it is the law-but it is making endless trouble. May I ask what you propose to do about this present case?"

"Do-oh, nothing! I am advised to employ detectives and hunt the man down. I will not; I shall go home. It is not Mr. Swallow's advice."

"No, it is not," said the lawyer, who stood aside waiting a chance to speak. "Some one warned the man, and it is pretty generally suspected how he came to be told."

Penhallow turned to Woodburn, "Has Mr. Swallow ventured to connect me or any of my family with this matter?"

"No," said Woodburn, which was true. Swallow meant to keep in reserve Mrs. Penhallow's share in the escape until he learned how far an angry slave-owner was disposed to go. Woodburn had, however, let him understand that he was not of a mind to go further, and had paid in good-humour a bill he thought excessive. Grey had made it all seem easy, and then as Swallow now learned had gone away. He had also written to his own overseer, and thus among their neighbours a strong feeling prevailed that this was a case for prompt and easy action. The action had been prompt and had failed. Woodburn was going home to add more bitterness to the Southern sense of Northern injustice.

When Woodburn, much to Penhallow's relief, had said he was done with the case, the Squire returned, "Then, as you are through with Mr. Swallow, come home and dine with me. Where are you staying?"

"At Mr. Swallow's, but I leave by the night train."

"So soon! But come and dine. I will send for your bag and see that you get to your train."

The prospect of Swallow and his feeble, overdressed wife, and his comrade's urgency, decided Woodburn. He said, "Yes, if Mr. Swallow will excuse me."

Swallow said, "Oh, of course!" relieved to be rid of a dissatisfied client, and the two ex-soldiers went away together chatting of West Point life.

Half-way up the avenue Penhallow said, "Before we go in, a word or two-"

"What is it, Jim?"

"That fellow said nothing of Mrs. Penhallow, you are sure?"

"Yes," returned Woodburn, "not a word. I knew that you lived here, but neither of you nor of Mrs. Penhallow did he say a word in connection with this business. I meant to look you up this afternoon. Why do you speak of your wife?"

"Because-well-I could not let you join us without an honest word concerning what I was sure you would have heard from Swallow. Now if you had taken what I presume was his advice-to punish the people concerned in warning Josiah, you-indeed I-might hesitate-"

"What do you mean, Jim?" said his companion much amazed.

"I mean this: After our loose-tongued friend Grey told my wife that Josiah was in danger, she sent him word of the risk he ran, and then drew out of our bank for him his savings and enabled him to get away. Now don't say a word until I have done. Listen! This man turned up here over three years ago and was soon employed about my stables. He broke his leg in stopping a runaway and saved my wife's young niece, our adopted child, Leila Grey. There was some other kind and efficient service. That's all. Now, can you dine with me?"

"With all my heart, Jim. d.a.m.n Grey! Did he talk much?"

"Did he? No, he gabbled. But are you satisfied?"

"Yes, Jim. I am sorry I drove off your barber-and I shall hold my tongue when I get home-as far as I can."