The Ancient Law Part 11

"Of course it ain't any of my business, suh," she continued impressively, "but if I were you I wouldn't pay any attention to Kit Berry or his messages. Viciousness is jest as ketchin' as disease, that's what I say, an' you can't go steppin' aroun' careless whar it is in the air an' expect to git away with a whole morality. 'Tain't as if you were a female, either, for if I do say it who should not, they don't seem to be so thin-skinned whar temptation is concerned. 'Twas only two weeks ago last Sat.u.r.day when I went to drag Bill away from that thar low lived saloon (the very same you broke into through the window, suh) that Timmas Kelly had the imperence to say to me, 'This is no place for respectable women, Mrs. Twine.' 'An, indeed, I'd like to know, Mr.

Kelly,' said I to him, 'if it's too great a strain for the women, how the virtue of the men have stood it? For what a woman can't resist, I reckon, it's jest as well for a man not to be tempted with.' He shet up then tight as a keg--I'd wish you'd have seen him."

"In his place I should probably have done the same," admitted Ordway, as he took his coffee from her hands. He was upon excellent terms with Mrs.

Twine, with the children, and even with the disreputable Bill.

"Wall, I've done a lot o' promisin', like other folks," pursued Mrs.

Twine, turning from the table to pick up a pair of Canty's little breeches into which she was busily inserting a patch, "an' like them, I reckon, I was mostly lyin' when I did it. Thar's a good deal said at the weddin' about 'love' and 'honour' and 'obey', but for all the slick talk of the parson, experience has taught me that sich things are feelin's an' not whalebones. Now if thar's a woman on this earth that could manage to love, honour and obey Bill Twine, I'd jest like for her to step right up an' show her face, for she's a bigger fool than I'd have thought even a female could boast of bein'. As for me, suh, a man's a man same as a horse is a horse, an' if I'm goin' to set about honourin'

any animal on o'count of its size I reckon I'd as soon turn roun' an'

honour a whale."

"But you mustn't judge us all by our friend Bill," remarked Ordway, picking up the youngest child with a laugh, "remember his weakness, and be charitable to the rest of us."

Mrs. Twine spread the pair of little breeches upon her knee and slapped them into shape as energetically as if they had contained the person of their infant wearer.

"As for that, suh," she rejoined, "so far as I can see one man differs from another only in the set of his breeches--for the best an' the worst of 'em are made of the same stuff, an' underneath thar skin they're all pure natur. I've had three of 'em for better or for worse, an' I reckon that's as many specimens as you generally jedge things by in a museum. A weak woman would have kept a widow after my marriage with Bob Cotton, the brother of William, suh--but I ain't weak, that's one thing can be said for me--so when I saw my opportunity in the person of Mike Frazier, I up an' said: 'Wall, thar's this much to be said for marriage--whether you do or whether you don't you'll be sure to regret it, an' the regret for things you have done ain't quite so forlorn an' impty headed a feelin' as the regret for things you haven't.' Then I married him, an'

when he died an' Bill came along I married him, too. Sech is my determination when I've once made up my mind, that if Bill died I'd most likely begin to look out for another. But if I do, suh, I tell you now that I'd try to start the next with a little pure despisin'--for thar's got to come a change in marriage one way or another, that's natur, an' I reckon it's as well to have it change for the better instead of the worst."

A knock at the door interrupted her, and when she had answered it, she looked back over her shoulder to tell Ordway that Mr. Banks had stopped by to walk downtown with him.

With a whispered promise to return with a pocket-full of lemon drops, Ordway slipped the child from his knee, and hurriedly picking up his hat, went out to join Banks upon the front steps. Since the day upon which the two men had met at a tobacco auction Banks had attached himself to Ordway with a devotion not unlike that of a faithful dog. At his first meeting he had confided to the older man the story of his youthful struggles, and the following day he had unburdened himself with rapture of his pa.s.sion for Milly.

"I've just had breakfast with the Trends," he said, "so I thought I might as well join you on your way down. Mighty little doing in tobacco now, isn't there?"

"Well, I'm pretty busy with the accounts," responded Ordway. "By the way, Banks, I've had a message from Bullfinch's Hollow. Kit Berry wants me to come over."

"I like his bra.s.s. Why can't he come to you?"

"He's sick it seems, so I thought I'd go down there some time in the afternoon."

They had reached Trend's gate as he spoke, to find Milly herself standing there in her highest colour and her brightest ribbon. As Banks came up with her, he introduced Ordway, who would have pa.s.sed on had not Milly held out her hand.

"Father was just saying how much he should like to meet you, Mr. Smith,"

she remarked, hoping while she uttered the words that she would remember to instruct Jasper Trend to live up to them when the opportunity afforded. "Perhaps you will come in to supper with us to-night? Mr.

Banks will be here."

"Thank you," said Ordway with the boyish smile which had softened the heart of Mrs. Twine, "but I was just telling Banks I had to go over to Bullfinch's Hollow late in the afternoon."

"Somebody's sick there, you know," explained Banks in reply to Milly's look of bewilderment. "He's the greatest fellow alive for missionarying to sick people."

"Oh, you see it's easier to hit a man when he's down," commented Ordway, drily. He was looking earnestly at Milly Trend, who grew prettier and pinker beneath his gaze, yet at the moment he was only wondering if Alice's bright blue eyes could be as lovely as the softer ones of the girl before him.

As they went down the hill a moment afterward Banks asked his companion, a little reproachfully, why he had refused the invitation to supper.

"After all I've told you about Milly," he concluded, "I hoped you'd want to meet her when you got the chance."

Ordway glanced down at his clothes. "My dear Banks, I'm a working man, and to tell the truth I couldn't manufacture an appearance--that's the best excuse I have."

"All the same I wish you'd go. Milly wouldn't care."

"Milly mightn't, but you would have blushed for me. I couldn't have supported a comparison with your turtle-dove."

Banks reddened hotly, while he put his hand to his cravat with a conscious laugh.

"Oh, you don't need turtle-doves and things," he answered, "there's something about you--I don't know what it is--that takes the place of them."

"The place of diamond turtle-doves and violet stockings?" laughed Ordway with good-humoured raillery.

"You wouldn't be a bit better looking if you wore them--Milly says so."

"I'm much obliged to Milly and on the whole I'm inclined to think she's right. Do you know," he added, "I'm not quite sure that you are improved by them yourself, except for the innocent enjoyment they afford you."

"But I'm such a common looking chap," said Banks, "I need an air."

"My dear fellow," returned Ordway, while his look went like suns.h.i.+ne to the other's heart, "if you want to know what you are--well, you're a downright trump!"

He stopped before the brick archway of Baxter's warehouse, and an instant later, Banks, looking after him as he turned away, vowed in the luminous simplicity of his soul that if the chance ever came to him he "would go to h.e.l.l and back again for the sake of Smith."

CHAPTER XI

BULLFINCH'S HOLLOW

At five o'clock Ordway followed the uneven board walk to the end of the main street, and then turning into a little footpath which skirted the railroad track, he came presently to the abandoned field known in Tappahannock as Bullfinch's Hollow. Beyond a disorderly row of negro hovels, he found a small frame cottage, which he recognised as the house to which he had brought Kit Berry on the night when he had dragged him bodily from Kelly's saloon. In response to his knock the door was opened by the same weeping woman--a small withered person, with snapping black eyes and spa.r.s.e gray hair brushed fiercely against her scalp, where it clung so closely that it outlined the bones beneath. At sight of Ordway a smile curved her sunken mouth; and she led the way through the kitchen to the door of a dimly lighted room at the back, where a boy of eighteen years tossed deliriously on a pallet in one corner. It was poverty in its direst, its most abject, results, Ordway saw at once as his eyes travelled around the smoke stained, unplastered walls and rested upon the few sticks of furniture and the scant remains of a meal on the kitchen table. Then he looked into Mrs. Berry's face and saw that she must have lived once amid surroundings far less wretched than these.

"Kit was taken bad with fever three days ago," she said, "an' the doctor told me this mornin' that the po' boy's in for a long spell of typhoid.

He's clean out of his head most of the time, but whenever he comes to himself he begs and prays me to send for you. Something's on his mind, but I can't make out what it is."

"May I see him now?" asked Ordway.

"I think he's wanderin', but I'll find out in a minute."

She went to the pallet and bending over the young man, whispered a few words in his ear, while her knotted hand stroked back the hair from his forehead. As Ordway's eyes rested on her thin shoulders under the ragged, half soiled calico dress she wore, he forgot the son in the presence of the older and more poignant tragedy of the mother's life.

Yet all that he knew of her history was that she had married a drunkard and had brought a second drunkard into the world.

"He wants to speak to you, sir--he's come to," she said, returning to the doorway, and fixing her small black eyes upon Ordway's face. "You are the gentleman, ain't you, who got him to sign the pledge?"

Ordway nodded. "Did he keep it?"

Her sharp eyes filled with tears.

"He hasn't touched a drop for going on six weeks, sir, but he hadn't the strength to hold up without it, so the fever came on and wore him down."

Swallowing a sob with a gulp, she wiped her eyes fiercely on the back of her hand. "He ain't much to look at now," she finished, divided between her present grief and her reminiscent pride, "but, oh, Mr.

Smith, if you could have seen him as a baby! When he was a week old he was far and away the prettiest thing you ever laid your eyes on--not red, sir, like other children, but white as milk, with dimples at his knees and elbows. I've still got some of his little things--a dress he wore and a pair of knitted shoes--and it's them that make me cry, sir. I ain't grievin' for the po' boy in there that's drunk himself to death, but for that baby that used to be."

Still crying softly, she slunk out into the kitchen, while Ordway, crossing to the bed, stood looking down upon the dissipated features of the boy who lay there, with his matted hair tossed over his flushed forehead.