Part 32 (1/2)
”A vitriol-throwing case?” asked s.h.a.garach.
”Read it for yourself,” said the detective.
”At my leisure. We may as well start.”
”Has any one a compa.s.s?” asked McCausland.
”Nonsense,” replied Dr. Silsby. ”Do I need a compa.s.s with the flora to guide me? There is the fern bed ahead of us, and, by the way, I think I'll gather a few more specimens.”
”Not now, doctor,” remonstrated s.h.a.garach, and the frightened women echoed him.
”Tut, tut,” said the botanist. ”Have I slept out o' night in the woods since I was so high to be frightened by a little miscalculation of time? Who asked you to come?” he said to the followers, and the coolness with which he rooted up several ferns actually rea.s.sured his timid companions. ”I'll take your newspapers to wrap them in,” said he to one of the boys, but McCausland interposed.
”Something else, doctor.”
”My hands, then,” said the botanist, cheerfully. And in fact he guided them out by his trained remembrance of the vegetation he had pa.s.sed almost as quickly and surely as the hound had led them in by his scent.
It was then Miss Senda Wesner proved to s.h.a.garach that for all her reputation as a chatterbox she could be prudent on occasion. For she selected a moment when s.h.a.garach was bringing up the rear, to slip off the arms of her escort and pluck the lawyer's sleeve.
”Do you know who he was, Mr. s.h.a.garach?” she asked.
”Who?”
”The crazy man, I saw him plainly on the top of the rock. It was the peddler in the green cart that used to come to Prof. Arnold's.”
CHAPTER XLIII.
AN OLD SINGING SOLDIER.
”What will remind me of the summer while you are away, dear?” Robert had said to Emily one morning, little thinking that the sweet girl would treasure the saying for a whole day and end with a pitiful accusation to herself of ”selfishness” for leaving him. Could she have consulted her own wish she would have put off the excursion then and there, but a stateroom had already been booked in the Yarmouth, Beulah Ware was looking forward joyfully to the trip and Dr. Eustis' orders had been imperative. So good Mrs. Barlow sensibly stamped her foot at the notion of her daughter's withdrawal and the maternal fiat went forth finally and irrevocably that Emily must go.
But Emily determined that while she was away the bare cell in murderers' row should not wholly lack touches of the midsummer of whose pa.s.sing glories Robert, their loyal votary, was cruelly denied a glimpse.
And so one day the carpenter came and plotted off a s.p.a.ce over a foot wide at the side of the cell, and the florist followed with a load of beautiful long sods rolled up like jelly cake, and little potted plants all in bloom. And the sods were laid down in the trough the carpenter had made, and places scooped out with a trowel for the roots of the plants, and presto, there was a flower bed all along the side that got the suns.h.i.+ne, for Robert's window faced toward the south.
There were twiggy verbenas and fuchsias of tropic coloring, the nappy-leaved rose geranium, less highly rouged than its scarlet-flowered sisters, and blue oxalis along the border, plaintively appealing for notice with its spray of tiny stars. And lest these should not insinuate the odor of the country sufficiently into Robert's senses a pot of sweet basil was suspended from the ceiling to give out fragrance like the live coal in an acolyte's censer. Robert had complained of sleeplessness. What was better for this than a pillow stuffed with prunings of a fir-balsam at night and a sweet-clover cus.h.i.+on by day, when he sat at his table and wrote down his thoughts on ”The Parisian Police Theory of Concentration of Crime,” or some other such momentous topic.
But the last day, when the finis.h.i.+ng touch had been placed on this narrow bower, over which the shadow of the scaffold so imminently hung, while Emily was sprinkling the beds with her watering-jar, Robert had laid aside his pen and was drawing forth sweet music from the violin.
”How divine it will be, Emily,” he said. ”The ocean sail and the week at beautiful Digby!”
”I wish you were coming, Robert,” she answered, sadly.
”We may arrange a voyage in September. That is the month of glory in the provinces.”
Robert had never admitted entertaining a doubt as to his acquittal. It must have been the confinement and the ignominy that had worn him down and converted his nights into carnivals of restless thought.
”But I will be with you in imagination,” he added, while Emily silently poured the fine spouting streams over thirsty leaf and flower. Poor little green prisoners! They, too, would miss the air and the suns.h.i.+ne and, perhaps, would reproach her, when she returned, with wilted stalks and withering petals.
While she hung her head a far-away voice stole over the high jailyard wall, through the narrow cell window, into the lover's ears. It was a tenor voice, not without reminiscences of bygone sweetness, though worn, and still powerful as if from incessant use. Something in its tones told the listeners that it was no common youth of the city trolling a s.n.a.t.c.h. For when do such sing, except in derision of song, with grating irony that is ashamed of the feelings to which true song gives expression? We are ashamed of our best impulses and proud of our worst, we cynical city folk! But this was a street singer, a minstrel, musical and sincere. Straining their attention, the lovers caught here and there the import of this ballad. Or was it a ballad repeated by rote? Was it not rather a recitative improvised as the impulse came, both words and music?
He sang of the southward march of armed battalions. Their ranks were full, their banners untattered, and the men shouted watchwords of joy when they beheld the battle-ground before them. A great chieftain stood mounted and motioned them into place with his brandished sword. Grant! Grim Grant! They echoed his name. Then came the thunder of artillery from distant hills, and the lines of the enemy's rifles were seen glistening as they advanced. The defenders did not linger, but rushed forward to meet them and their embrace was the death-lock of t.i.tans. Hurrah, the chivalry of the south give way! It is cavalry Sheridan who routs them! Then the sun stood at its meridian. It was the noon of all glory, for the northern crusaders, doing battle in the just cause. Oh, the chase, the rallies, the heroic stands, and the joyful return, with plunder! But the corpse-strewn field checked their paean. Sire and son lay clasped in death, facing each other. The garb of one was gray, of the other blue. Ambulances issued empty from the hospital tents, and rode back groaning with the wounded. Nurses knelt with water cups at the dying hero's side. And until night closed over, sorrow mingled with joy in that bivouac by the fresh-fought field.
A loud salvo of applause told that the singer was done. Emily could see in her mind's eye the ring at the sidewalk edge, arrested in the course of meaner thoughts or idle vacuity by his heart-moving story. The gift of Homer, in a humble degree, was his; and men to-day are not unlike what they were 3,000 years ago. Robert had long since hushed his violin and stood with bow suspended in air.
”Emily!” he said in a strange tone.
She looked at him and started. He was eying her so eagerly.
”Emily!” he repeated.
The bow dropped from his hand. He reached forward as if he would touch her.
”What is it, Robert?” she asked.
”The water-lily. You are still wearing it?”
”Still wearing it, Robert. I put it on this morning.”
Robert uttered a cry.
”It comes back! It comes back!” he said. ”The old singing soldier that I met at the park gate. He is blind and wears a brown shade over one eye. His hair is white when he takes off his cap and pa.s.ses among the crowd. I see him again! I see it all!”
Robert's gaze was far away. He was not looking at Emily, yet he heard her voice.
”When was this all, Robert?”
”That day, the day of the fire. I could not remember before.”
She repressed a throb of joy. Was it indeed returning? G.o.d was good. He had at last answered her prayers.
”And the water-lily, Robert?”
”Do you not remember, Emily, that I brought you one that evening? It was the first of the season, I told you.”
”I do--I do!”
”Search out the old gardener, who lives in the lodge at the west angle of the park. He will remember. 'This is the first of the season,' he said. He will remember the date. He will have kept some memorandum.”
”And you talked with him, Robert?”
”We are friends of old. He will remember the incident--our stroll into the glen where the little pond glistens, my noting the one white flower floating among the pads, our poling the flat-bottomed boat from the bank and the courteous speech of presentation he made. 'For your sweetheart,' he said. Oh, it is as plain to me now as the sound of my own voice, Emily. How could I ever have forgotten?”