Westways: A Village Chronicle Part 35

"What! I like Uncle Jim! I wish I were."

"Now go," she said, giving him a gentle push. She was shyly aware of a lapse into unhabitual emotion and of some closer approach to the maternal relation fostered by his growing resemblance to James Penhallow.

"So," laughed his uncle as John entered the library, "you have burned down the school and are on a holiday-you and Rivers."

John grinned. "Yes, sir."

"Sit down. We are discussing that fire. You were the first to see it, John. It was about eleven-"

"Yes, uncle, it struck as I left the hall."

"No one else was in sight, and in fact, Rivers, no one in Westways is out of bed at ten. Both you and John are sure the fire began outside where the wood was piled under a shed."

"Yes," said Rivers. "It was a well dried winter supply, birch and pine. The shed, as you know, was alongside of the kitchen door. I went over the house as usual about nine, after old Susan, the maid, had gone home. I covered the kitchen fire with ashes-a thing she is apt to neglect. I went to bed at ten and wakened to hear the gla.s.s crack and to smell smoke. The kitchen lay under my bedroom. I fear it was a deliberate act of wickedness."

"That is certain," said Penhallow, "but who could have wanted to do it. You and I, Rivers, know every one in Westways. Can you think of any one with malice enough to make him want to b.u.m a house and risk the possibility of murder?"

Rivers turned his lean pale face toward the Squire, unwilling to speak out what was in the minds of both men. John listened, looking from one serious face to the other.

"It seems to me quite incredible," said Penhallow, and then Rivers knew surely that the older man had a pretty definite belief in regard to the person who had been concerned. He knew too why the Squire was unwilling to accuse him, and waited to hear what next Penhallow would say.

"It makes one feel uncomfortable," said Penhallow, and turning to John, "Who was first there after you came?"

"Billy, sir, I think, even before the men from the Wayne, but I am not sure. I told him to pound on the doors and wake up the town."

"Did he say anything?"

"Oh, just his usual silliness."

"Was Peter Lamb at the fire?"

"I think not. His mother opened a window and said that she could not waken Peter. It was Billy told me that. I told Billy, I supposed Peter was drunk. But he wasn't yesterday afternoon-I saw him."

"Oh, there was time enough for that," remarked Rivers.

Then the two men smoked and were silent, until at last the Squire said, "Of course, you must stay here, Rivers, and you know how glad we shall be-oh, don't protest. It is the only pleasant thing which comes out of this abominable matter. Ann will like it."

"Thank you," returned Rivers, "I too like it."

John went away to look at the ruin left by the fire, and the Squire said to his friend, "As I am absent in the mornings at the mills, you may keep school here, Rivers," and it was so settled.

Before going out Penhallow went to his wife's little room on the farther side of the hall. He had no desire to hide his conclusions from her. She saw how grave he looked. "What is it, James?" she asked, looking up from her desk.

"I am as sure as a man can be that Peter Lamb set fire to the parsonage. He has always been revengeful and he owed our friend, the Rector, a grudge. I have no direct evidence of his guilt, and what am I to do? You know why I have always stood by him. I suppose that I was wrong."

She knew only too well, but now his evident trouble troubled her and she loved him too well to accept the temptation to use the exasperating phrase, "I always told you so." "You can do nothing, James, without more certainty. You will not question his mother?"

"No, I can't do that, Ann; and yet I cannot quite let this go by and simply sit still."

"What do you propose to do?"

"I do not know," and with this he left her and rode to the mills. In the afternoon he called at Mrs. Lamb's and asked where he could find Peter.

She was evidently uneasy, as she said, "You gave him work on the new roof of the Baptist chapel with Boynton; he might be there."

He made no comment, and went on his way until reaching the chapel he called Peter down from the roof and said, "Come with me, I want to talk to you."

Peter was now sober and was sharply on guard. "Come away from the town," added the Squire. He crossed the street, entered his own woods and walked through them until he came in sight of the smoking relics of the parsonage, where at a distance some few persons were idly discussing what was also on Penhallow's mind. Here he turned on his foster-brother, and said, "You set that house on fire. I could get out of your mother enough to make it right to arrest you, but I will not bring her into the matter. Others suspect you. Now, what have you to say?"

"Say! I didn't do it-that's all. I was in bed."

"Why did you not get up and help?"

"Wasn't any of my business," he replied sulkily. "Everybody in this town's against me, and now when I've given up drinking, to say I set a house afire-"

"Well!" said Penhallow, "this is my last word, you may go. I shall not have you arrested, but I cannot answer for what others may do."

Peter walked away. He had been for several days enough under the influence of whisky to intensify what were for him normal or at least habitually indulged characteristics. For them he was only in part responsible. His mother had spoiled him. He had been as a child the playmate of his breast-brother until time and change had left him only in such a relation to Penhallow as would have meant little or nothing to most men. As a result, out of the Squire's long and indulgent care of a lad who grew up a very competent carpenter, and gradually more and more an idle drunkard, Peter had come to overestimate the power of his claim on Penhallow. What share in his evil qualities his father's drunkenness had, is in no man's power to say. His desire to revenge the slightest ill-treatment or the abuse his evil ways earned had the impelling force of a brute instinct. What he called "getting even" kept him in difficulties, and when he made things unpleasant or worse for the offenders, his constant state of induced indifference to consequences left him careless and satisfied. When there was not enough whisky to be had, his wild acts of revengeful malice were succeeded by such childlike terror as Penhallow's words produced. 'The preacher would have him arrested; the Squire would not interfere. Some day he would get even with him too!' There was now, however, no recourse but flight. He hastened home and finding his mother absent searched roughly until by accident as he let fall her Bible, a bank note dropped out. There were others, some sixty dollars or more, her meagre savings. He took it all without the least indecision. At dark after her return he ate the supper she provided. When she had gone to bed, he packed some clothes in a canvas bag and went quietly out upon the highway. Opposite to the smoking ruin of the rectory he halted. He muttered, "I've got even with him anyhow!"

As he murmured his satisfaction, a man left on guard crossed the road.

"Halloa! Where are you bound, Peter?"

"Goin' after a job. Bad fire, wasn't it-hard on the preacher!"

"Hard. He's well lodged at the Squire's, and I do hear it was insured. n.o.body's much the worse, and it will make a fine bit of work for some of us. Who done it, I wonder?"

"How should I know! Good-night."

When out of sight, he turned and said, "I ain't got even yet. Them rich people's hard to beat. d.a.m.n the Squire! I'll get even with him some day." He was bitterly disappointed. "Gos.h.!.+ I ran that n.i.g.g.e.r out, and now I'm a runaway too. It's queer."

At Westways Crossing he waited until an empty freight train was switched off to let the night express go by. Then he stowed himself away in an open box-car and had a comfortable sense of relief as it rolled eastward. He felt sure that the Squire's last words meant that he might be arrested and that immediate flight was his only chance of escape.

He thus pa.s.ses, like Josiah, for some years out of my story. He had money, was when sober a clever carpenter, and felt, therefore, no fear of his future. He had the shrewd conviction that the Squire at least would not be displeased to get rid of him, and would not be very eager to have him pursued.

James Penhallow was disagreeably aware that it was his duty to bring about the punishment of his drunken foster-brother, but he did not like it. When the next morning he was about to mount his horse, he saw Mrs. Lamb, now an aged woman, coming slowly up the avenue. As she came to the steps of the porch, Penhallow went to meet her, giving the help of his hand.

"Good-morning, Ellen," he said, "what brings you here over the snow this frosty day? Do you want to see Mrs. Penhallow?"

For a moment she was too breathless to answer. The withered leanness of the weary old face moved in an effort to speak, but was defeated by emotion. She gasped, "Let me set down."

He led her into the hall and gave her a chair. Then he called his wife from her library-room. Ann at once knew that something more than the effect of exertion was to be read in the moving face. The dull grey eyes of age stared at James Penhallow and then at her, and again at him, as in the vigour of perfect health they looked down at his old nurse and with kindly patience waited. "Don't hurry, Ellen," said Mrs. Ann. "You are out of breath."

She seemed to Ann like some dumb animal that had no language but a look to tell the story of despair or pain. At last she found her voice and gasped out, "I came to tell you he has run away. He went last night. I'd like to be able to say, James Penhallow, that I don't know why he went away-"

"We will not talk of it, Ellen," said the Squire, with some sense of relief at the loss of need to do what he had felt to be a duty. "Come near to the fire," he added.

"No, I want to go home. I had to tell you. I just want to be alone. I'd have given it to him if he had asked me. I don't mind his taking the money, but he took it out of my Bible. I kept it there. It was like stealing from the Lord. It'll bring him bad luck. Mostly it was in the Gospels-just a bank-note here and there-sixty-one dollars and seventy-three cents it was." She seemed to be talking to herself rather than to the man and woman at her side. She went on-sometimes a babble they could not comprehend, as in pity and wonder they stood over her. Then again her voice rose, "He took it from the book of G.o.d. Oh, my son, my son! I must go."

She rose feebly tottering, and added, "It will follow him like a curse out of the Bible. He took it out of the Bible. I must go."

"No," said Penhallow, "wait and I will send you home."