Part 44 (1/2)

So Peter stood alone in the little lawn, dark figures of his enemies stretched here and there about him, his great arms clutching the inert body of his friend, groaning his pain to the four winds. But the next instant, flying hoof-beats sounded on the road, raced near, and a two-horse buggy, overloaded with men, pulled up sharply at the gate. A very small pale man, in a frock-coat plastered with dirt, and stuttering violently as he shouted Peter's name, tore up the path.

”You're too late, Hare!” cried Peter wildly. ”They've killed him!”

CHAPTER XXII

RELATING HOW VARNEY FAILS TO DIE; AND WHY SMITH REMAINED IN HUNSTON; AND HOW A RECEPTION IS PLANNED FOR MR. HIGGINSON

Thus it happened that the southbound local, which went through at eight-ten, did not acquire Varney as a pa.s.senger that night; and his old friend, Elbert Carstairs, did not meet his emissary at nine-thirty, or indeed at any hour that evening. But two travelers for New York did board the local at Hunston, and both of them, as it chanced, repaired to the car provided for smokers, each for his own reasons.

One of them straightway lighted a long cigar, which a gentleman had given him that morning, doubtless unwisely, for he was not above twelve years old. The other, who happened to sit in the seat just before him, did not smoke. He was rendered conspicuous by the fact that he wore no hat, and by the deadly pallor of his face, relieved only by a reddening b.u.mp beneath the right eye. His clothes also were dirty and disheveled till he seemed scarcely the superior in elegance of the little ragam.u.f.fin behind him.

So that it was not surprising that the amiable conductor, standing by for the tickets and struck by the obvious likeness, should have observed:

”Your son's pretty young to be a-smokin' seegars, ain't he?”

Mr. Stanhope, not knowing what this remark meant, and caring less, answered with a cold stare, though inwardly he cursed the man for his fatuous impertinence. That done, he relapsed dully into his own thoughts, which were all of the house he had scurried from, terrified by Peter's cry, half an hour before....

In that house, in Mr. Stanhope's own deserted bed, Varney lay at his ease, as quiet as a statued man. Over the bed, industriously at work, hung the keen-faced town doctor, whom Hare had gotten with a speed which pa.s.sed all understanding. At the foot of the bed stood Peter Maginnis, his face like the face of a carven image.

At the very moment when the garrulous conductor was trying to foist off poor little Tommy Orrick upon Mr. Stanhope, the old doctor raised his head.

”He's not dead _yet_. An excellent chance I should say.”

Peter's face did not change. His hand tightened on the foot-board till his nails whitened. It was as though he had pulled a signal cord which ran unseen under the bed-clothes and rung a mysterious bell in some remote corner of his friend's head. Varney immediately opened one eye, let it rest on Peter and said in a clear voice:

”You all right, Peter?”

That done he relapsed immediately into unconsciousness again. The doctor took out a large handkerchief, wiped his brow and smiled. Peter, his quick relief like a storm of joy, went downstairs to tell his friends of the Reform Committee, and do a thousand other things.

By nine o'clock the town was ringing with the wild story, and in the still watches of the later night the telegraph flung it to far places, to be read in wonder next morning in a million homes. Overnight, the great eye of the country turned like an unwinking searchlight upon the dingy town by the Hudson where happened to dwell Mrs. Elbert Carstairs and her only daughter, Mary. And all the world read how two men who were doubles had strangely met in a lonely house with a drunken mob outside; how one of them, who had earned the mob, turned the other out to face it; how the son of a famous captain of industry had shamed the Berserkers in his pa.s.sionate muscularity: how one ”double” had fled to save his skin and how the other, battered almost beyond recognition, now lay trembling between life and death.

In Hunston, there followed next day a whirl of police activity, of which the net results were tame in the extreme. Of all the fierce band which had stormed the house of Mr. Stanhope, only poor old Orrick and Mr.

British, the bookseller--he who had been pulled out senseless from under the beams of the porch--were identified. Mr. British flatly and resolutely declined to testify as to who his comrades were, and old Sam Orrick, terrified though he was by prospective horrors of the law, loyally perjured his immortal soul by swearing that the men were all strangers to him and that he believed them to be visitors from another city.

The count against these two proved to be only a.s.sault and battery, though for three days and nights it was a toss of the coin whether they would not have to answer for a graver charge. Peter's joy had soon proved premature and the doctor's smile faded in unexpected bewilderment. The sick man did not improve in the least. Delirium followed hard upon deadly stupor and there seemed no rousing him from either.

The yellow cottage with the trampled flower-beds and smashed windows, which looked so bare-faced with its front porch shaved away, had pa.s.sed to Peter for the moment by right of conquest. In it everything that conducted to the comfort of ill man had been quickly and lavishly installed. Everybody was wonderfully kind and thoughtful. Mrs. Marne, who reached the cottage with Mrs. Carstairs half an hour after the doctor the first night, and had done wonders before the nurses arrived, was simply invaluable. Hare came night and morning, horribly formal and ill at ease, begging for something to do. Flowers and inquiries from total strangers were an hourly occurrence. From Charlie Hammerton came a quart of magnificent Scotch, followed on the second day by a pile of clippings from the _Gazette's_ exchanges which must have gratified the injured man extremely if only he had been able to read them. His own leading article, headed ”Laurence Varney, Hero,” Editor Hammerton modestly suppressed. By the hand of sad-faced McTosh came a hideous floral piece, in fact, a red, white, and blue star, bearing the label ”From the sorrowing crew of the _Cypriani_.” Mrs. Carstairs, whose emotions at the time were hardly fully understood in the yellow cottage, called daily and sent beautiful roses and chicken jelly. The roses faded and the chicken jelly was considerably enjoyed by the nurses. But from Mrs. Carstairs's daughter, whose filial relations had invoked all these things, there came neither flower nor word.

The fight had taken place upon a Thursday night. On Friday, the Hunston doctor, at his wits' end, had asked for a consultation. On Sat.u.r.day, the great doctor from the city had spent an hour in the sick-room, first examining the patient in a bodily way, and then prodding him with a tireless stream of questions, however futile--anything to make him talk.

At the end of that time he had whispered awhile with the town doctor and drawn Peter into the study downstairs.

”What's the matter with him, Mr. Maginnis?” he asked abruptly.

”Matter?” echoed Peter. ”Wasn't he beaten to a pulp?”

”Kicks don't kill a man with that kind of physique. What has he got on his mind?”

”I don't know,” said Peter, miserably. ”The last time I saw him--”