Part 3 (1/2)

”But, father,” I exclaimed, being aroused by this injustice to defend myself, ”Professor Blight said that I must be one of those b.u.mptious Malcolms. Those were his exact words--b.u.mptious Malcolms.”

As the horse saith among the trumpets, ha! ha! and smelleth the battle afar off--the thunder of the captains and the shouting--so Mr. Pound lifted his great mane at the mention of the Professor and swept the table with eyes full of fire.

”Ha! Judge Malcolm, what have I not told you of this man? Don't you recall that I warned you we should have to deal with him? When I found him making trouble in my flock, setting the sheep against the shepherd, I told you the time would come when he would strive to set the son against the father.”

While I could not understand in what way I had turned against my father, it was plain to me that the term which the Professor had applied to my family was one of opprobrium. It was clear, too, that it had considerable explosive power, for after the first frightened hush it stirred the whole company into a terrific outburst against my friend of yesterday. Even Miss Spinner stopped choking, and announced that she ”declared.” What she declared was not imparted, but as the general trend of exclamation was against the Professor I knew that did she continue her statement it must be aimed at him.

My father leaned back and grasped the k.n.o.bs of his chair-arms.

”David,” he said slowly, ”when did Henderson Blight speak in terms so disrespectful--no, that is not the word I want--in this sarcastic--that is hardly correct--when did he speak thus of us?”

”Yesterday, sir,” I answered, ”when I was in his house getting warm.

But he didn't mean anything bad, father. Why, he told me that you were the celebrated Judge Malcolm.”

I expected that such gentle flattery would propitiate my father.

Instead, his brows knitted, and he shot forward his head and asked: ”The what kind of a judge, David?”

Before I could reply Mr. Pound injected himself into the examination.

”Pardon me, Judge, but I should like to ask my young friend if Henderson Blight smiled as he said it.”

”No, sir,” I answered promptly. ”He was just as solemn as you are now.”

Miss Spinner fell to choking again. My mother gave vent to a long-drawn ”Dav-id!” an exclamation which I had come to fear as much as the Seven Seals, and her use of it now so unjustly made me feel as if every man's hand were against me, for Mr. Pound was solemn, and in using the best comparison at hand I meant no ill.

”Dav-id!” said my mother again, lifting an admonis.h.i.+ng finger.

The good minister saw nothing offensive in my remark, but even repeated it with a nod of understanding. ”As solemn as I am now. Judge Malcolm, your son has quite accurately described this man Blight's way of speaking--of saying one thing when he means quite another. I should hardly dare repeat some of the terms which have come to my ears as having been applied by him to me. Just the other day, as we were walking through town, I overheard him talking to Stacy Shunk, and he referred to my wife as the lovely Mrs. Pound. Now I have no objections to persons speaking of my wife as lovely, but I want them to mean it and not to infer quite the opposite.”

It was Mrs. Pound's turn to ”declare,” but she was clearer in the meaning than Miss Spinner. She would have told us some of the things Mr. Blight had said of Mr. Pound with a meaning quite as inverted. My mother, seeing the tempest rising, sought to still it by protesting that she was sure that in this instance the Professor was quite sincere.

”I know he meant it,” she said over and over again, until Mrs. Pound was unable to make herself heard and retired to silence and coffee.

But Mr. Pound, a believer in truth at all hazards, would not admit that the Professor did mean it. ”A person of such an insinuating character is a danger to the community,” he said. ”I have repeatedly warned the judge against him, Mrs. Malcolm, and now my warning has come home.

Yesterday's deplorable incident has been forgotten by me; I have blotted it from my memory because I realized that you were in spirit struck down as I was, though not so publicly. I have forgiven James.

Since he has come to me sober and penitent, and confessed where he got the liquor, I have pa.s.sed his part in the affair by with a kindly warning. But I cannot pa.s.s by the real culprit, the man who struck at me through the weak James, and almost felled me before the town, the man who furnished James with the sources of his intoxication. His punishment I leave to you.” Mr. Pound drove his fork into an asparagus stalk to show that he had said all that could be said and all that he would say. That he had said enough to bring others to his way of thinking was evident from the gravity with which my father shook his head.

”David, when I questioned you as to yesterday's unfortunate occurrence you confessed that this man Blight gave James the liquor.”

”No, sir,” I returned quickly. ”I didn't say that.”

”How was it, then?” my father asked.

I had pleaded with my mother to allow me to be one of this great dinner-party, that I might partake, first-hand, of the good things which I had seen preparing. I was to enjoy the feast in a silence proper to my years. So I had promised. And now one of those dangerous questions which rise like a rocket from a boy's lips had transformed me from a small guest whose part was to sit silently in the shadow of the mighty clergyman, and there only to even up the side of the table, into a person of unpleasant importance. Had my father rapped for order, risen, and announced that we had the good fortune to have with us Master David Malcolm, who would tell us where James found the source of his intoxication, he could not have made me more dreadfully conspicuous. I wanted to run, but, if nothing else, my father's eyes would have held me. I wanted, above all, to keep silent because I loved James, who from the day when I had first toddled out of the house into the broad world of hay and wheat fields had been almost my sole playfellow. As yet I did not know what a b.u.mptious Malcolm was; I did not understand the man who always said what he did not mean; I remembered him only as the kindly host who had found me dripping and cold and had made me gloriously warm. And more than that, I remembered the little girl who had dragged me from the creek. Something in the gaunt man who lived among the clouds, something in the ragged creature who lifted a smiling face and ribboned head above the weeds of that lonely clearing, had touched me strangely. It seemed that I must be their only friend, and for them I would tell the truth. I should have told the truth but for Mr. Pound.

”I said, sir,” I answered my father, ”that James just took the bottle and----”

”The bottle was Blight's, was it not?” broke in Mr. Pound.

”Yes, sir,” I said.