Part 9 (2/2)

CHAPTER IX

Old Jerry drove his route that morning in a numbed, trancelike fas.h.i.+on; or, rather, he sat there upon the worn-out leather seat with the reins looped over the dash, staring straight ahead of him, and allowed the fat old mare to take her own pace. It was she who made the customary stops; he merely dug absent-mindedly beneath the seat whenever she fell to cropping gra.s.s at the roadside, and searched mechanically for the proper packet of mail. And twice he was called back to correct mistakes which he admitted were his own with an humbleness that was alarming to the complainant. In all the days of his service he had never before failed to plead extenuating circ.u.mstances for any slip that might occur--and to plead with much heat and staccato eloquence. But then, too, in all those years no day had ever equalled the bitter awakening of that morning.

As he reviewed it all, again and again, Old Jerry began to understand that it was not the public rebuff which had hurt so much; for there was that one of the night previous, when the Judge had cut him off in the middle of his eager corroboration of Jed The Red's history, which had not left a trace of a sting twelve hours later. It was more than wounded vanity, although hurt pride was still struggling for a place in his emotions against a shamed, overwhelming realization of his own trifling importance, which could not hold its own against the first interloper, even after years of entrenchment. Judge Maynard's first thrill had been staged without a hitch; he had paved the way for the personal triumph which he meant to achieve that night, but he had accomplished it only at a cost--the loyalty of him who had been, after all, his stanchest supporter.

From that moment Old Jerry's defection from the ranks must be dated, for it was in those bitter hours which followed the yellow-wheeled buckboard's early morning flight down the main street that the old man woke to the fact that his admiration for the Judge was made of anything but immortal stuff. He weighed the Judge in the balance that morning, and half forgot his own woe in marveling at the discrepancies which he discovered.

Self-deceit may or may not be easy of accomplishment. Maybe it is merely a matter of temperament and circ.u.mstance, after all. But it is a certainty that the first peep at one's own soul is always the most startling--the most illuminating, always hardest of all to bear. And once stripped of that one garment of grandeur, which he had conjured out of his own great hunger for attention, Old Jerry found a ruthless, half-savage joy in tearing aside veil after veil, until he found himself gazing straight back into the eyes of his own spirit--until he saw the pitiful old fraud he really was, naked there before him.

Just as well as though he had been a party to it he understood the Judge's crafty exhibition of Young Denny's maimed face that morning; he knew without a trace of doubt just what the Judge, in his ominous silence, had meant to insinuate, and what the verdict would be that night around the Tavern stove. What he could not understand quite was why all of them were so easy to convince--so ready to believe--when only the night before they had sat and heard the Judge's recital of Jed The Red's intimate history for the benefit of the newspaper man from the metropolis which, to name it charitably, had been anything but a literal translation of facts.

Groping back for one single peg upon which to hang the fabric of their oft-reiterated prophesy was alarmingly profitless. There had been nothing, not even one little slip, since Old Denny Bolton's pa.s.sing on that bad night, years before. And from that realization he fell to pondering with less leadenness of spirit upon what the real facts could be which lay behind Young Denny's sudden transformation. For that also was too real--too evident--for any eyes to overlook.

It was not until long after the hour which witnessed the return flight of the yellow-wheeled buckboard through the village street, leaving behind an even busier hum of conjecture than before, that he awoke to a realization that his opportunity for a solution of the riddle was at least better than that of the wrangling group that had turned traitor before the post-office steps.

Long before he reached the top of the grade that ran up to the bleak house alone on the crest, he was leaning out of his seat, trying to penetrate the double gloom of rain and twilight; but not until he had reined in his horse was he positive that there was no shadowy figure standing there waiting for his arrival.

He could not quite understand the sensation which the boy's absence waked in him at that instant. Days afterward he knew it had been lonesomeness--a rather bewildering loneliness--for no matter what his reception chanced to be along the way, Young Denny's greeting had been infallibly regular.

And another emotion far less difficult to understand began to stir within him as he sat motionless for a time scanning the shapeless bulk of the place, entirely dark save for a single light in the rear room.

For the first time he saw how utterly apart from the rest of the town those unpainted old farm buildings were--how utterly isolated. The twinkling lights of the village were mere pin-points in the distance.

Each thick shadow beneath the eaves of the house was blacker than he had ever noticed before. Even the soft swish of the rain as it seeped from the sodden s.h.i.+ngles, even the very familiar complaint of loose nails lifted by the wind under the clapboards, set his heart pumping faster. All in an instant his sensation-hungry old brain seized upon each detail that was as old as he himself and manufactured, right there on the spot, a sinister something--a something of unaccountable dread, which sent a delightful s.h.i.+ver up and down his thin, bony, old back.

For a while he waited and debated with himself, not at all certain now that he was as keen for a solution of the riddle of that cut which had adorned Young Denny's chin as he had been. And yet, even while he hesitated, feeding his imagination upon the choicest of premonitory t.i.t-bits, he knew he meant to go ahead. He was magnifying the unfathomed peril that existed in his erratic, hair-trigger old brain alone merely for the sake of the complacent pride which resulted therefrom--pride in the contemplation of his own intrepid dare-deviltry.

He could scarcely have put into words just what reception he had imagined was awaiting him; but, whatever it might have been, Young Denny's greeting was full as startling. A worn, dusty, shapeless leather bag stood agape upon the table before the window, and Denny Bolton paused over the half-folded garment in his hands to wheel sharply toward the newcomer as the door creaked open.

For one uncomfortable moment the old adventurer waited in vain for any light of welcome, or even recognition, to flash up in the boy's steady scrutiny. Then the vaguest of smiles began to twitch at the corners of Denny's lips. He laid the coat back upon the table and stepped forward a pace.

”h.e.l.lo!--Here at last, are you?” he saluted. ”Aren't you pretty late tonight?”

Old Jerry swallowed hard at the cheery ease of the words, but his fluttery heart began to pump even faster than when he had sat outside in the buggy debating the advisability of his further advance. That warning premonition had not been a footless thing, after all, for this self-certain, vaguely amused person who stood steadily contemplating him was not the Denny Bolton he had known twenty-four hours before--not from any angle or viewpoint.

Behind the simulated cheer of his greeting there was something else which Old Jerry found disturbingly new and hard to place. In his perplexity the wordless accusation that morning had been correct at that. And Young Denny was smiling widely at him now--smiling openly.

The old man shuffled his feet and s.h.i.+fted his gaze from the open wound upon the boy's face as though he feared his suspicion might be read in his eyes. Then he answered Denny's question.

”I--I cal'late I be late--maybe a little,” he admitted.

Denny nodded briskly.

”More than a little,” he corrected. ”I expected you to be along even earlier today! An hour or two, at least.”

Even while he was speaking Young Denny turned back to the packing of the big bag on the table. Old Jerry stood there, still s.h.i.+fting from one foot to the other, considering in growing wonder that silent preparation, and waiting patiently for a further explanation of what it meant. At last, when he could no longer endure the suspense, he broke that silence himself.

”Packin' up for a little trip, be you?” he ventured mildly.

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