The Victorian Villains Megapack (58 page)

“Gosh, how Henery worked to clear this farm!” remarked the Deacon. “He hove stone for twenty years, an’ then died. Look at them trees!”

He pointed dramatically to a large orchard containing row upon row of young apple-trees.

At the sound of the wheels a woman came slowly out of the side door and w
atched their approach. She had the pale, sickly countenance of the wife of the inland Maine farmer, and her limp dress ill concealed the angularity of her form. Her eyes showed that she had passed a sleepless night. McAllister leaped out and lifted Abby down. The woman neither spoke to nor kissed the child, but clutched her tightly in her arms. Then she nodded to the new-comers.

“I’m obliged to ye, Deacon Brewer,” she said. “Is this the man who sent the telegram? Won’t ye come in and set down?”

“Oh, yes,” cried Abby ecstatically. “Get out, Mr. Wilkins! I want to show you the black horse, and all the hens.”

“I must be gettin’ back,” muttered the Deacon.

“Could you let us have a bite of breakfast?” inquired McAllister. “My train doesn’t go until twelve o’clock.” To return to Bangor at this particular time did not suit him.

“Such as it is,” replied Miss Higgins.

“Could you arrange to call out for me in an hour or so?” asked McAllister.

“I reckon I kin,” said the Deacon with some reluctance. “I’ll hev ter charge ye fifty cents.”

“Of course,” said McAllister.

Wilkins took down the parcels, and the Deacon drove slowly away.

“I’ll scrape somethin’ toge
ther in a few minutes,” said Miss Higgins. “How much was that telegram?”

“Oh, that’s all right!” said the abashed clubman.

“No, it ain’t. Money’s money. Was it ez much ez a quarter?”

McAllister acknowledged the amount.

“I thought so,” commented Miss Higgins. “It was wuth it.” She had the money all ready and handed it to McAllister.

Etiquette seemed to demand its acceptance.

“Did you say your name was McAllister? Who’s this man?”

“His name is Wilkins.”

“Well,” said Aunt Abby, “one of ye might split up that log, if ye don’t mind, while I get the breakfast.”

She turned into the house.

McAllister looked doubtfully at the wood-pile.

“Let Mr. Wilkins chop the wood!” shouted Abby; “I want to show you the ba-an.”

“Wilkins,” said McAllister, “wood-chopping is an art sanctified in this country by tradition.”

“Very good, sir,” answered Wilkins.

Abby grasped McAllister’s hand and tugged him joyfully over the poverty-stricken farm. They visited the orchard, the pig-sty, the hen-house, admired the horse that had be
en a girl, and ended at the water’s edge.

“We ketch salmon here in the spring,” explained Abby; “and smelts.”

Across the eddying river quiet farms slept in the hot sunshine. Two men in a dory swung slowly up-stream. At their feet the clear water rippled against the stones. In his mind the clubman pictured the stifling city and the squalor of relative existence there.

“It’s beautiful, Abby,” he said.

“It’s the loveliest place in the whole world,” she answered, holding his hand tightly. “And I shall never, never go away.”

Behind them came the shrill tones of Aunt Abby’s voice bidding them to breakfast. Wilkins, coatless, was bearing some mangled fragments of log toward the kitchen. His beaded face spoke unutterable dejection.

“Well, set daown; it’s all there is,” said Miss Higgins.

McAllister sat, and Abby climbed into a high chair. Wilkins remained standing.

“Ain’t ye goin’ to set?” inquired Miss Higgins.

Wilkins reddened.

“Well, ye be the most bashful man I ever met,” remarked the lady. “Set daown and eat yer victuals.”

“Sit down,” said McAllister
, and for the second time master and man shared a meal.

The little room was bare of decoration except for some colored lithographs and wood-cuts, which for the most part represented the funeral corteges of distinguished Americans, with a few hospital scenes and the sinking of a steamship. A rug soiled to a dull drab made a sort of mud spot before the fireplace; a knitted tidy, suggestive of the antimacassar, ornamented the only rocker; at one end stood the stove, and hard by two fixed tubs. Everything except the carpet was scrupulously clean.

Miss Higgins brought to the table a dish of steaming boiled eggs, half a loaf of white bread, and a vegetable dish with a large piece of butter.

“I’ll have some coffee for ye in a minute,” she remarked as she placed the dishes before them.

McAllister broke some of the eggs into a tumbler and cut the bread.

“What might be your business?” inquired Miss Higgins.

“Er—well—” hesitated McAllister. “I’ve travelled quite a bit.”

“I had a cousin in the hardware line,” remarked the hostess reminiscently. “He travelled everywheres. Has it ever taken you ez fur as St. Louis?”

“No,” said McAllister. “My li
ne never took me so far.”

“Andrew died there—of the water. What’s your business?” continued Miss Higgins to Wilkins.

“I’m with Mr. McAllister, ma’am.”

“Oh! Same firm?”

Wilkins coughed violently and evaded the interrogation.

“Mr. Wilkins handles gents’ clothing, underwear, haberdashery, and notions,” interposed McAllister gravely.

Wilkins swayed in his seat and grew purple around the gills.

“Oh, Mr. Wilkins!” cried Abby, “what’s the matter? You will burst! Take a drink of water.”

The valet obediently tried to do as she bade him.

“How much is land worth around here?” asked the clubman. “And what do you raise?”

Miss Higgins looked at him suspiciously.

“We raise pertaters, some corn and oats, and get a purty fair apple crop in the autumn.”

“Must have been hard work clearing the farm,” added McAllister, “if one can judge by the piles of stones.”

“Work? I guess ’twas work!” sniffed Miss Higgins. “You travellin’ men hain’t got no idee of what real work is. There ain’t a stone in the nineteen acres of farm land.
Henery picked ’em all up by hand.”

“Are you Abby’s guardian?” asked McAllister.

“Yes,” said Miss Higgins. “I’m all the folks she’s got, except Moses, down to Portsmouth, and a lot of good he is with that wife he’s got!”

Wilkins now asked awkwardly to be excused.

“That friend of yourn seems to be a dummy!” remarked Miss Higgins after the valet had disappeared.

“He isn’t much in the social line,” admitted his master. “But he knows his business.”

“I’m goin’ out to show Mr. Wilkins the beehive,” cried Abby, slipping down from her chair. “Come right along, won’t you?”

“I’ll be there in just a minute,” said McAllister.

Abby grabbed up her sunbonnet and ran skipping out of the kitchen.

“She’s a dear little girl,” said McAllister. “I hope she’ll have a chance to get a good education.”

“Education behind a counter in Bangor is all she’ll get,” answered her aunt.

They sat in silence for a moment, and then McAllister, feeling the craving induced by habit, drew an Obsequio from his pocket, and asked:

“Do you object to smoking?”

Miss Abby bristled.

“I don’t want none o’ them se-gars in this house, so long’s I’m in it!”
she exclaimed. “Ain’t out-doors good enough for you, without stinkin’ up the kitchen?”

“I didn’t mean any offence,” apologized McAllister. “I’ll wait till I go out, of course.”

“One of the devil’s tricks!” sniffed Miss Abby.

McAllister, terribly embarrassed, got up and stepped to the window. The coffee had been execrable, but a benign influence animated him. Down the slope toward the gently flowing Penobscot little Abby was leading Wilkins by the hand. The boy-horse kicked his heels in a daisy-flecked pasture beyond the barn.

“What did you say the farm was worth?” asked the clubman.

“There’s a hundred and eighty-one acres o’ woodland, and the cleared land just makes two hundred. It ought to be worth eighteen hundred dollars.”

“I know a man who wants a farm. He says some day all this river front will be valuable for a summer resort. I’m authorized to buy for him. I’ll give you sixteen hundred and fifty. Is it a bargain?”

Miss Abby turned pale.

“Oh, I don’t know! It seems dreadful to sell it, after all the years Henery put into cleanin’ of it up. I was hopin’ somehow that maybe I could get work on the farm from them as
bought it and keep Abby here for a while longer.”

“That’s all right,” said McAllister. “My principal is buying it on a speculation. You can stay indefinitely.”

“How about rent?” asked Miss Abby.

“You can take care of the farm, and he won’t charge you any rent.”

The terms having been finally arranged to Miss Abby’s satisfaction, McAllister drew a small check-book from his pocket and filled out a voucher for the amount.

“We can sign the papers later,” said he with a smile.

Miss Abby took the slip of paper doubtfully.

“How do I know I ain’t gettin’ cheated?” she asked. “Suppose this should turn out to be no good?”

“Then you’d have the farm,” said McAllister.

He fumbled in his pocket until he found a clean letter-back and with his stylographic pen rapidly wrote the following:

“I hereby give and convey the Henry Higgins farm, heretofore purchased by me, to my friend Abigail Martha Higgins, in consideration for much of value of which no one knows but myself. In witness whereof I sign my name and affix a seal.”

He found a used postage-stamp
that still had a trifle of gum on its back and made use of it as a fragmentary seal.

While in some doubt as to the legal sufficiency of this instrument, McAllister felt that its intendment was unmistakable. Having replaced his pen, he carefully folded the document and thrust it into his pocket. Just at this moment Miss Higgins announced the return of Deacon Brewer, who was wheeling slowly into the gate. Toward the orchard McAllister could see, as he stepped to the door, little Abby still tugging along Wilkins, whose massive and emotionless face was glistening with the heat.

“Hit’s very ’ot, sir!” he remarked tentatively to his master. “I’ve been to see the ’ives.”

“How funny Mr. Wilkins talks!” said Abby. “He told me he knew a boy once who got stung, and said the bee
bit ’im in ’is ’ead
! Do all drummers talk like that?”

“Drummers!” exclaimed Wilkins.

“Aunt said you were both drummers; I s’pose you left your drums somewhere. I don’t like ’em; they make too much music. They have them in the circus parade in Bangor every year.”

“Be you folks ready to start?” inquired Deacon Brewer. “Purty nice view of the water from here, ain’t they? There’s a good well on the place, too, and a few boat-lo
ads of manure would give you crops to beat—all. Don’t know enybody thet wants to speckalate a little in farmin’ land, do ye? This here is a good, likely place. Reckon you kin buy it cheap.”

“Sh-h!” said McAllister, laying his finger on his lips.

“No one sha’n’t ever buy this farm,” said Abby; “I’m goin’ to live here always.”

“Wall,” said the Deacon, “better be movin’. I don’t like to keep the mare standin’ in the sun.”

“Are you goin’ away?” cried Abby in agonized tones. “You’ll come back soon, won’t you?”

“I hope so, very soon,” said McAllister. “Don’t you want to show me the boy-horse before I start?”

“Oh, yes, yes!” she cried, seizing his hand.

The stout clubman and the little girl walked slowly across the grass-grown drive to the daisy field beside the barn, talking busily.

“Your friend’s bought this farm,” announced Miss Abby to Wilkins.

“’Oly Moses!” ejaculated the valet.

“By gum!” exclaimed the Deacon. “What did he give?”

“Sixteen hundred and fifty dollars.”

“Gee!” said the Deacon.

“An’ we’re to stay on rent-free
’s long ’s we want!”

“I swan!” commented the pillar of the local Baptist Church. “Some folks doos hev luck!”

He went over to adjust a bit of harness.

“It’ll keep ’em out o’ the poor farm,” he muttered. “But, by gosh, thet feller must be a fool!”

Over in the daisy field, McAllister, to the wonder of the boy-horse, pulled the despised cigar from his pocket, cut off the end, and began to smoke with infinite satisfaction.

“What a beautiful, beautiful, lovely ring!” exclaimed Abby joyfully, examining with delight the embossed paper of red and gold.

“Do you remember about the lonely man who lived in the big white house I told you of?” asked McAllister.

“Of course I do,” sighed Abby. “Poor man! He was so good, and nobody loved him.”

“Do you love him?” asked McAllister.

“Dear man! I love him, all my heart!” cried the child.

“Then the man is very, very happy,” said McAllister softly.

Overhead a single black crow, wheeling out of a stumpy pine, circled to investigate this strange love-scene. Satisfied of its propriety, he cawed loudly and resettled himself u
pon the shaking topmost bough.

McAllister drew the golden band from his cigar and took the folded paper from his pocket.

“Here’s a love-letter,” said he. “Your aunt will read it for you when I’ve gone.”

Abby took it sadly.

“Now hold up your left hand,” said McAllister, smiling. As he slipped the paper circle over her fourth finger he said gravely:

“‘With this ring I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.’ Give me a kiss.”

She did so, in wonder.

“Now we are married,” said he.

THE JAILBIRD, by Arthur Train

Taken from
McAllister and His Double
(1905).

I

Now it had come
, he was
not quite sure that he wanted it. For a moment he longed to go back and join the men marching away to the shoe-shop. Inside those walls he had never had to think of what he should eat or drink, or wherewithal he should be clothed.

Over against the gray parapet echoed the buzzing of the electric cars, a strange sound to ears accustomed only to the tramp of marching feet, the harsh voices of wardens, and the clang of iron doors. Below him the harbor waves danced and sparkled, ferry-boats rushed from shore to shore, big ships moved slowly toward the distant islands and the still more distant sea, while near at hand the busy street flowed like a river, which he was compelled to swim but in which he already felt the millstone of his past dragging him down.

His heart sank as he asked himself what life could hold for him. How often, sitting on his prison bed with his head in his hands, he had pictured joyously the present momen
t! Now he felt like a child who has lost its parent’s hand in the passing throng.

There had been a day, the year before, when his old mother’s letter had not come, and, instead, only a line of stereotyped consolation from the country pastor to the village ne’er-do-well. No one had seen him choke over his bowl of soup and bread, or noticed the tears that trickled down upon the shoe-leather in his hand. She had been the only one who had ever written to him. There was nothing now to take him back to the little cluster of white cottages among the hills where he was born.

As he stood there alone facing the world, he yearned to throw himself once more upon his cot and weep against its iron bars—for three years the only arms outstretched to comfort him.

II

The Judge concluded his charge with the usual, “I leave the case with you, gentlemen,” and the jury, collecting their miscellaneous garments, slowly retired. Leary, the County Detective assigned to “Part One,” pushed an indictment across the desk, whispering:

“Try
him
; he’s a
short
one,” for it was getting late, and the afternoon sun was
already gilding the dingy cornices of the big court-room, now almost deserted save by a lounger or two half asleep on the benches.

“People against Graham,” called Dockbridge, the youthful deputy assistant district attorney.

“Fill the box!” shouted the clerk. “James Graham to the bar!” and another dozen “good men and true” answered to their names and settled themselves comfortably in their places.

At the rear the door from the pen opened and the prisoner entered, escorted by an officer. He walked stolidly around the room, passed through the gate held open for him, and took his seat at the table reserved for the defendant and his attorney. There appeared, however, to be no lawyer to represent him.

“Have you counsel?” casually inquired the clerk.

“No,” answered the prisoner.

“Mr. Crookshanks, please look after the rights of this defendant,” directed the Judge.

The prisoner, a thick-set man of medium height, half rose from his seat, and, turning toward the weazened little lawyer, shook his head rather impatiently. It was obvious that they were not strangers. After a whispered conversation Crookshanks stepped forward and addressed the Court.

“The defendant declines counsel,
and stands upon his constitutional right to defend himself,” he said apologetically.

There was a slight lifting of heads among the jury, and a few sharp glances in the direction of the prisoner, which seemed in no wise to disconcert him.

“Very well, then; proceed,” ordered the Court.

The prosecutor rapidly outlined his case—one of simple “larceny from the person.” The People would show that the defendant had taken a wallet from the pocket of the complaining witness. He had been caught
in flagrante delicto
. There were several eye-witnesses. The case would occupy but a few moments, unless, to be sure, the prisoner had some witnesses. The young assistant, who seemed slightly nervous at the unusual prospect of conducting a trial against a lawyerless defendant (savoring as it did of a hand-to-hand combat in the days of trial by battle), started to comment upon the novelty of the situation, gave it up, and to cover his retreat called his first witness.

Dockbridge was very young indeed. He was undergoing the process of being “whipped into shape” by the Judge, a kind but unrelenting observer of all the technicalities of the criminal branch, and this was one of his first cases. He could work up a pretty fair argument in his office, but he now felt his inexperience
and began to wish it was time to adjourn, or that his senior, “Colonel Bob,” the stout Nestor of Part One, whose long practice made him ready for any emergency, would return. But “Colonel Bob” could have proved an excellent alibi at that moment, and the battle had to be fought out alone.

The prisoner, meanwhile, was sitting calm but vigilant, pen in hand. His face, square and strong, with firmly marked mouth and chin, showed no sign of emotion, but under their heavy brows his black eyes played uneasily between the Court and jury. Evidently not more than thirty years of age, his attitude and expression showed intelligence and alert capacity.

“Go on, Mr. District Attorney,” again admonished the Judge; and Dockbridge, pulling himself together, commenced to examine the complainant.

The prisoner was now straining eye and ear to catch every look and word from the witness-stand. Hardly had the complainant opened his mouth before the defendant had objected to the answer, the objection had been sustained, and the reply stricken out. He continued to object from time to time, and his points were so well taken that he dominated not only the examination but the witness as well, and the jury presently found themselves listening to a cross-examination as
skilfully conducted as if by a trained practitioner.

But, although the defendant showed himself a better lawyer than his adversary, it was apparent that his battle was a losing one. Point after point he contested stubbornly, yet the case loomed clear against him.

The People having “rested,” the defendant announced that he had no witnesses, and would go to the jury on the evidence, or, rather “failure of evidence,” as he put it, of the prosecution. It was done with great adroitness, and none of the jury perceived that, by refusing to accept counsel, he had made it impossible to take the stand in his own behalf, and had thus escaped the necessity of subjecting himself to cross-examination as to his past career.

If the spectators had expected a piteous appeal for mercy or a burst of prison rhetoric, they were disappointed. The prisoner summed his case up carefully, arguing that there was a reasonable doubt upon the evidence to which he was entitled; begged the jury not to condemn him merely because he appeared before them as one charged with a crime; appealed to them for justice; and at the close, for the first time forgetting the proprieties of the situation, exclaimed, “I did not do it, gentlemen! I did not do it! There is an absolute failure of proof! You cannot fin
d that I took the purse from the old gentleman on such evidence! It is all a lie!”

It was his one false touch. To raise the issue of veracity is usually a mistake on the part of a defendant, and the defiant look in Graham’s eyes might well have suggested conscious guilt.

As he paused for a moment after this concluding sentence, an Italian band came marching down Centre Street playing the dead march. Some patriot was being borne to his last sleep in an alien land. Outside the court-house it paused for a moment with one melancholy crash of funeral chords. It seemed a vibrant echo of the discord of his own fruitless life. At the same moment a ray from the red sun setting over the Tombs fell upon the prisoner’s face.

Dockbridge summed the case up in the stock fashion, and then for half an hour the Judge addressed the jury in a calm and dispassionate analysis of the evidence, not hesitating to compare the abilities of the prosecutor and prisoner to the disadvantage of the former, saying in this respect: “Neither must you be influenced by any feeling of admiration at the capacity shown by this defendant to conduct his own case. If he has appeared more than a match for the prosecution, it must not affect the weight which you give to the evidence against him.”

“More than a match for the prosec
ution!” That had been rather rough, to be sure, and the fifth juror had looked at Dockbridge and grinned.

The jury filed out, the prisoner was led back to the pen, the Judge vanished into his chambers, and the prosecutor, his feet on the counsel table, lit a cigar and indulged in retrospection. The benches were deserted. There was no one but himself left in the court-room. Usually, when a jury retired, there was some mother or wife or daughter, with her handkerchief to her eyes, waiting for them to come back, but this fellow had none such. He had fought alone. Well, damn him, he deserved to! But who the deuce was he? It had been clever on his part not to take the stand. Strange to be trying a man you had never seen before—of whom you knew nothing, who had merely side-stepped into your life and would soon back out of it. “Poor devil!” thought the deputy as he lit another Perfecto.

Now the jury, as juries sometimes do, wanted to talk and had a consuming desire to smoke, so they both smoked and talked; and when O’Reilly came to turn on the lights in the court-room, they were still out, and Dockbridge had fallen fast asleep.

III

At half past ten o’clock the
big court-room still remained almost empty. Inside the rail the clerk and the stenographer, having returned from a short visit to Tom Foley’s saloon across the way, were languidly discussing the condition of the stock-market. A nebulous illumination in the vastness above only served to increase the shadowy dimness of the room. The talk of the pair made a scarcely audible whisper in the great silence. Outside, an electric car could be heard at intervals; within, only the slam of iron doors, subdued by distance, echoed through the corridors.

Dockbridge had awakened, and, lounging before his table, was trying to get up a case for the morrow. The Judge had gone home for dinner. One by one the court attendants had strayed away, coming back to push open the heavy door, and, after a furtive glance at the empty bench, as silently to depart.

Below in the stifling pen, alone behind the bars, James Graham sat staring vacantly at the stained cement floor. A savage rage surged through him. Curse them! That infernal Judge had not given him half a chance. Once more he recalled that day when he had stepped out into
the sunlight a free man. Again he saw his iron bed, his cobbling bench, his coarse food, his hated stripes. He choked at the thought of them. Only two months before he had been at liberty. Think of it! Good clothes, good food, pleasure! God, what a fool! A dull pain worked through his body; he remembered that he had not eaten since seven that morning.

Outside in the corridor the keeper was smoking a cigar. The fumes of it drifted in and mingled with the stench of the pen. It almost nauseated him. He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. The act brought rushing back the memories of his childhood, and of how, every night, he would lay his head upon his mother’s knee and say, “Have I been a good boy today?” A sob shook him, and he pressed closer against the wall.

A sound of moving feet roused him suddenly. A door swung open, shut again, and voices came with a draught of air from the corridor.

The keeper waiting outside stirred and stood up, looking regretfully at his cigar.

“Get up there, you!”

The prisoner obeyed perfunctorily, and followed the officer heavily up the stairs and down the dirty passage to the court-room. Outside, he shrank from entering. Those eyes—
those eyes! That hard, pitiless Judge! But he was pushed roughly forward. Then his old pugnacity returned; he set his teeth, and entered.

He trudged around the room and stopped at the bar before the clerk. On his right sat the twelve silent men. On the bench the white-haired Judge was gazing at him with sad but penetrating eyes.

It was different from the mellow glow of the afternoon. They were all so still—like ghosts—and all around, all about him! He wanted to shout out at them, “Speak! For God’s sake, speak!” But something stifled him. The overwhelming power of the law held him speechless.

The clerk rose without looking at the prisoner.

“Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?”

“We have,” answered the foreman, rising and standing with his eyes upon the floor.

“How say you, do you find the defendant guilty, or not guilty?”

“Guilty of grand larceny in the first degree.”

The prisoner involuntarily pressed his hand to his heart. He had weathered that blast before and could do so again. Dockbridge gave him a look full of pity. Graham hated him for it. That child! That snivelling little fool! He wanted none of his sympathy! His breath came faster. Must they all look at him? Was that
a part of his trial—to be stared down? He glared back at them. The room swam, and he saw only the stern face on the bench above.

“Name?” broke in the harsh voice of the clerk.

“James Graham.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“Married, or unmarried?” “Temperate?” came the pitiless questions, all answered in a monotone.

“Ever convicted before?”

“No,” said the prisoner in a low voice, but the word sounded to him like a roaring torrent. Then came once more that awful silence. The dread eye of the Judge seared his soul.

“Graham, is that the truth?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you quite sure?”

That merciless question! What had that to do with it? Why should he have to tell them? That was not his crime. He was ready to suffer for what he had done, but not for the past; that was not fair—he had paid for that. He must defend himself.

“Yes, sir.”

“Swear him,” said the Judge.

The officer took up the soiled Bible an
d started to place it in Graham’s hand. But the hand dropped from it.

“No, no, I can’t!” he faltered; “I can’t—I—I—it is no use,” he added huskily.