Part 9 (2/2)
He sank down on an iron bench at one side on the velvety turf and feebly gasped.
”I'll get some brandy,” Gladys said in a low tone to Lillian, and sped swiftly up the steps toward the house.
Suddenly Clenk partially lifted himself and dived into one of the pockets of his loose coat. He brought up a little red shoe, all tarnished and tobacco-stained, and held it out to Lillian with a faint and flickering smile of bestowal, certain of grat.i.tude as well as recognition. ”Does you-uns know that leetle foot?”
Lillian swayed for a moment as if she might fall. Then, with a piercing shriek, she darted forward and seized it from his shaking grasp. She held it up to the light, and as Gladys returned, herself bearing the tray with the gla.s.s and decanter, Lillian convulsively clutched her arm and, speechless and trembling, pointed to the name in tarnished gilt on the inside of the sole--her own shoemaker, who had constructed the delicate little hand-sewed slipper!
”Where is he now--where is this child?” Bayne demanded precipitately, his own breath short, his pulses beating in his temples till the veins seemed near bursting.
”I can't rightly say _now_,” the old man drawled; ”but--but I kin tell you where we-uns lef' him. 'T war a awful bis'ness, that crackin' off Briscoe--that warn't in the plan at all. We-uns war after the revenuer.
What right had he ter bust our still an' break up our wu'm and pour our mash an' singlings out on the ground? Ain't it our'n? Ain't the corn an'
apples an' peaches our'n? Didn't we grow 'em?--an' what right hev the gover'ment ter say we kin eat 'em, but can't bile 'em--eh? They b'long ter we-uns--an' gos.h.!.+ the gover'ment can't hender! But we never meant no harm ter Briscoe. Lawd! Lawd! that warn't in the plan at all. But the child viewed it, an', by gos.h.!.+ I b'lieve that leetle creetur could hev told the whole tale ez straight as a string--same ez ef he war twenty-five year old. That deedie of a baby-child talked sense--horse-sense--he _did_, fur a fack!”
”Where--where----” Lillian was using every power of her being to restrain the screams of wild excitement, to sustain the suspense.
”Where did you last see him?” asked Bayne. He had grown deadly white, and the old man, lifting his face, gazed vaguely from one to the other. Their intense but controlled excitement seemed subtly imparted to his nerves.
The details of the tragedy had become hackneyed in his own consciousness, but their significance, their surfeit of horror, revived on witnessing their effect on others.
”Look-a-hyar, you two an' this woman will stan' up fur me when I gin myself up fur State's evidence, ef I put ye on the track fur findin'
Bubby? He's thar all right yit, I'll be bound--well an' thrivin, I reckon. He hev got backbone, tough ez a pine knot.”
”Yes, yes, indeed; we pledge ourselves to sustain you,” cried Lillian.
Bayne was putting the gla.s.s of brandy into the grimy, shaking paw, mindful of the old man's shattered composure.
”It be a mighty risk I be a-runnin'”--the old, seamed face was of a deadly pallor and was beginning to glister with a cold sweat. ”I reckon I oughtn't ter tell nuthin' exceptin' ter the officers, but--but--I 'lowed leetle Archie's mother would help me some again them bloodhounds o' the law.”
”I'll move heaven and earth to aid you!” cried Lillian.
”See here, I can _promise_ that you shall be held harmless, for I am the prosecutor,” Gladys struck suddenly into the conversation, pale but calm, every fibre held to a rigorous self-control. ”I am Mr. Briscoe's wife, his widow. Now tell me, _where_ did you last see that child?”
”Wh--wh--wh--whut? You the widder?” Clenk's eyes were starting from their sockets as he gazed up at her from his crouching posture on the bench, his head sunk between his shoulders, his hand with the untasted gla.s.s in it trembling violently.
”An' ye say that ye too will stand by me? Then lemme tell it--lemme tell it now. 'T was--what d'ye call that place?--I ain't familiar with them parts. _Wait_”--as Bayne exclaimed inarticulately--”lemme think a minit.”
He dropped his head on one of his hands, his arm, supported by the back of the bench, upholding it. His slouched hat had fallen off on the stone pavement, and his shock of gray hair moved in the soft breeze.
The moment's interval in the anguish of suspense seemed interminable to the group. ”Drink a little brandy,” Bayne counselled, hoping to stimulate his powers.
He evidently heard, and sought to obey. The hand holding the untasted liquor quivered, the gla.s.s swayed, fell from his nerveless grasp, and s.h.i.+vered to fragments on the stone pavement.
Bayne sprang to his side and lifted his head. Ah, a drear and ghastly face it was, turned up to the gorgeous sunset, the gentle ambient air, the happy, fleeting shadows of the homing birds.
”Has he fainted?” asked Lillian.
”The man is dead!” Bayne cried with a poignant intonation. ”He is dead!
He is dead!”
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