Part 24 (1/2)

Sol nodded.

”Do you know anything about a man who had been boarding here the past week or two?”

The coroner seemed to ask this as an afterthought.

”Morgan,” said Sol, crossing his legs the other way for relief. ”Yes, I knowed him.”

”Did you see him here last night?”

”No, he wasn't here. The old lady said he stopped in at our house yesterday morning to sell me a ready-reckoner.”

Sol chuckled, perhaps over what he considered a narrow escape.

”I was over at Shelbyville, on the jury, and I wasn't there, so he didn't sell it. Been tryin' to for a week. He told the old lady that was his last day here, and he was leavin' then.”

”And about what time of night was it when you heard the shot in Isom Chase's house, and ran over?”

”Along about first rooster-crow,” said Sol.

”And that might be about what hour?”

”Well, I've knowed 'em to crow at 'leven this time o' year, and ag'in I've knowed 'em to put it off as late as two. But I should judge that it was about twelve when I come over here the first time last night.”

Sol was excused with that. He left the witness-chair with ponderous solemnity. The coroner's stenographer had taken down his testimony, and was now leaning back in his chair as serenely as if unconscious of his own marvelous accomplishment of being able to write down a man's words as fast as he could talk.

Not so to those who beheld the feat for the first time. They watched the young man, who was a ripe-cheeked chap with pale hair, as if they expected to catch him in the fraud and pretense of it in the end, and lay bare the deceit which he practised upon the world.

The coroner was making notes of his own, stroking his black beard thoughtfully, and in the pause between witnesses the a.s.sembled neighbors had the pleasure of inspecting the parlor of dead Isom Chase which they had invaded, into which, living, he never had invited them.

Isom's first wife had arranged that room, in the hope of her young heart, years and years ago. Its walls were papered in bridal gaiety, its colors still bright, for the full light of day seldom fell into it as now. There hung a picture of that bride's father, a man with shaved lip and a forest of beard from ears to Adam's apple, in a little oval frame; and there, across the room, was another, of her mother, Quakerish in look, with smooth hair and a white something on her neck and bosom, held at her throat by a portrait brooch. On the table, just under that fast-writing young man's eyes, was a gla.s.s thing shaped like a cake cover, protecting some flowers made of human hair, and sprigs of bachelor's b.u.t.ton, faded now, and losing their petals.

There hung the marriage certificate of Isom and his first wife, framed in tarnished gilt which was flaking from the wood, a blue ribbon through a slit in one corner of the doc.u.ment, like the pendant of a seal, and there stood the horsehair-upholstered chairs, so spare of back and thin of shank that the rustics would stand rather than trust their corn-fed weight upon them. Underfoot was a store-bought carpet, as full of roses as the Elysian Fields, and over by the door lay a round, braided rag mat, into which Isom's old wife had st.i.tched the hunger of her heart and the brine of her lonely tears.

The coroner looked up from his little red-leather note-book.

”Joe Newbolt, step over here and be sworn,” said he.

Joe crossed over to the witness-chair, picking his way through feet and legs. As he turned, facing the coroner, his hand upraised, Ollie looked at him steadily, her fingers fluttering and twining.

Twelve hours had made a woeful change in her. She was as gaunt as a suckling she-hound, an old terror lay lurking in her young eyes. For one hour of dread is worse than a year of weeping. One may grieve, honestly and deeply, without wearing away the cheeks or burning out the heart, for there is a soft sorrow which lies upon the soul like a deadening mist upon the autumn fields. But there is no worry without waste. One day of it will burn more of the fuel of human life than a decade of placid sorrow.

How much would he tell? Would it be all--the story of the caress in the kitchen door, the orchard's secret, the attempt to run away from Isom--or would he s.h.i.+eld her in some manner? If he should tell all, there sat an audience ready to s.n.a.t.c.h the tale and carry it away, and spread it abroad. Then disgrace would follow, pitiless and driving, and Morgan was not there to bear her away from it, or to mitigate its sting.

Bill Frost edged over and stood behind the witness chair. His act gave the audience a thrill. ”He's under arrest!” they whispered, sending it from ear to ear. Most of them had known it before, but there was something so full and satisfying in the words. Not once before in years had there been occasion to use them; it might be years again before another opportunity presented. They had an official sound, a sound of adventure and desperation. And so they whispered them, neighbor nodding to neighbor in deep understanding as it went round the room, like a pa.s.s-word in secret conclave: ”He's under arrest!”

There was n.o.body present to advise Joe of his rights. He had been accused of the crime and taken into custody, yet they were calling on him now to give evidence which might be used against him. If he had any doubt about the legality of the proceeding, he was too certain of the outcome of the inquiry to hesitate or demur. There was not a shadow of doubt in his mind that his neighbors, men who had known him all his life, and his father before him, would acquit him of all blame in the matter and set him free. They would believe him, a.s.suredly. Therefore, he answered cheerfully when the coroner put the usual questions concerning age and nativity. Then the coroner leaned back in his chair.

”Now, Joe, tell the jury just how it happened,” said he.

The jury looked up with a little start of guilt at the coroner's reference to itself, presenting a great deal of whiskers and shocks of untrimmed hair, together with some reddening of the face. For the jury had been following the movements of the coroner's stenographer, as if it, also, expected to catch him in the trick of it that would incriminate him and send him to the penitentiary for life.