Part 2 (1/2)

”Did he ever get over it--your little boy? Oh, I see; that was him I heard. 'Popper,' he says--'Popper.'”

Above the whir of the automobile, above the chatter of the exhaust, above the voice of the wind, the sound of a man's m.u.f.fled groan came distinctly to the ear that was fine enough to hear it.

”Trust me,” said Chester, gently. ”I'll get you there. I'll get you to your boy.”

The gentleman's face was almost as white now as Jacob Dryver's. The fog glistened upon his mustache and made him look a gray-haired man, as he emerged from gulfs of darkness and shot by widely scattered dim street lamps. Both men had acquired something of the same expression--the rude face and the finished one; both wore the solemn, elemental look of fatherhood.

The heart of one repeated piteously: ”It's Batty.”

But the other thought: ”What if it were Bert?”

”I'll let her out a little more,” repeated Chester. The car throbbed and rocked to the words.

”How do you like my machine?” he added, in a comfortable voice. He felt that the mercury of emotion had mounted too far. ”Mrs. Chester has named her,” he proceeded. ”We call her Aurora.”

”Hey?”

”We've named the machine Aurora, I said.”

”'Roarer,' sir?”

”Oh, well, that will do--'Roarer,' if you like. That isn't bad. It's an improvement, perhaps. By-the-way, how did you happen on my place to-night? There are a good many nearer the station; you had quite a walk.”

”I see a little pair o' reins an' bells in the gra.s.s alongside--such as little boys play horse with. We had one once for Batty, sir.”

”_Ah_! Was that it? What's your business, Dryver? You haven't told me. Do you fish?”

”Winters, I make paving-stones. Summers, I raise vegetables,” replied Jacob Dryver. ”I'm a kind of a quarry-farmer. My woman she plants flowers for the summer folks, and Batty bunches 'em up and delivers 'em. Batty--he--G.o.d! My G.o.d! Mebbe there _ain't any Batty_--”

The sentence broke. In truth, it would have been hard to find its remnants in the sudden onset of sound made by the motion of the machine.

The car was freed now to the limit of her mighty strength. She took great leaps like those of a living heart that is overexcited.

Powerfully, perfectly, without let or hindrance, without flaw or accident, the chariot of fire bounded through the night. A trail of smoke like the tail of a comet followed her. The dark scenery of the guarded sh.o.r.e flew by; Montserrat was behind; Prides' was gone; the Farms blew past.

They were now well out upon the beautiful, silent Manchester road, where the woods, solemn at noonday, are sinister at dead of night. The automobile, flying through them, encountered no answering sign of life.

Both men had ceased to speak. Awe fell upon them, as if in the presence of more than natural things. Once it seemed to Dryver as if he saw a boy running beside the machine--a little fellow, white, like a spirit, and, like a spirit, silent. Chester's hands had stiffened to the throttle; his face had the stern rigidity of those on whom life or human souls absolutely depend. Neither man spoke now aloud.

To himself Jacob Dryver repeated: ”It's Batty! It's my Batty!”

And Hurlburt Chester thought: ”What if it were Bert?”

Now the great arms of the sea began to open visibly before them. The fog on their lips grew salter, and they seemed to have entered the Cave of the Winds. Slender beach and st.u.r.dy headland slid by. West Manchester, Manchester, Magnolia rushed past. In the Magnolia woods they lost the sea again; but the bell-buoy called from Norman's Woe, and they could hear the moan of the whistling-buoy off Eastern Point.

In the Cape Ann Light the fog bell was tolling.

At the pace which the car was taking there was an element of danger in the situation which Jacob Dryver could not measure, since he feared safety ignorantly and met peril with composure. Chester reduced the speed a little, and yet a little more, but pushed on steadily. Once Jacob spoke.

”I'll bet your shove-her couldn't drive like you do,” he said, proudly.