THE FACE AT THE WINDOW.
Allan Dorris sleeps on, unconscious of the darkness peering in at him from the outside, which is also running riot in the town, and particularly down by the river, where the crazy houses with their boarded windows seem to collect shadows during the day for use at night, robbing the sunlight for the purpose; for there is little brightness and warmth at Davy's Bend, but much of dampness and hazy atmosphere.
There is light and life down this way; a light in the window of the wretched house occupied by Mr. Tug Whittle, and all the neighboring buildings are alive with rats and vermin. Tug occupies his house for the same reason that the rats occupy theirs, for in this quarter of the town the tenants pay no rent. Some of the buildings were once busy warehouses and stores, but they have been turned over to the rats these ten years, and Tug occupies a little frame one from choice, as he argues that if it falls down from old age, there will not be so many ruins in which to bury the tenants. Besides, the big buildings shelter him from the cold north winds in winter, and do not interfere with the southern breezes from the river in summer; therefore the faded sign of "T. Whittle, Law Office," swings in front of the little frame building back from the street, instead of from the more imposing ones by its side.
Everybody knows Tug Whittle, and admits that he is perfectly harmless and hopelessly lazy—always excepting Silas Davy, who believes that his friend is very energetic and dangerous; therefore when Silas is unable to hold a position because he is a good fellow, or because he spends so much time at night with Tug that he is unfit for work during the day, he is also an inhabitant of the little law office, along with the lawyer and the rats, although it is not much of a law office, for it contains nothing but a stove, half cooking and half heating, a bed that looks as though it came from the fourth story of a cheap hotel, a few broken chairs, a box that is the lawyer's table, and a few other articles common to a kitchen, all of them second-hand, and very poor.
There is nothing about the place to suggest a law office save the sign in front, and a single leather-covered book on the inside; a ponderous volume to which Mr. Whittle applies for everything, including kindling. Silas has seen him look through it to decide questions in science, theology, law, and history, and tear leaves out of it with which to start his fire; and while a cunning man would have guessed that Mr. Whittle made up his authority, instead of finding it in the book, Silas Davy, who is not cunning, believes that it is a repository of secrets of every kind, although it is really a treatise on a law which has been repealed many years. When Silas so far forgets himself as to mildly question something his companion has said, Mr. Whittle refers to the book, and triumphantly proves his position, no difference what it may be; whereupon the little man feels much humiliated. Mr. Whittle has even been known to refer to the book to convict his enemies in Davy's Bend of various offences; and Silas has so much respect for the volume that he has no trouble in imagining that the den in which Tug lives is not only a law office, but a repository of profane, political, and sacred history, to say nothing of the sciences and the town scandal.
Like the rats again, Tug lies by during the day, and goes abroad at night, for he is seldom seen on the streets until the sun goes down, and he is not entirely himself until after midnight. Occasionally, on dark, bad days he is to be seen walking about, but not often, and it is known that he sleeps most of the day on the rough bed in his rough office. If he is disturbed by idle boys, which is sometimes the case, he gets up long enough to drive them away, and returns to his bed until it is dark, when he yawns and stretches himself, and waits patiently for Silas Davy, who is due about that hour with his supper.
But for Silas Davy, like the rats again, Tug would be compelled to steal for a living; for he never works, but Silas believes in him, and admires him, and whenever he is employed, he saves half of what he gets for his friend, who eats it, and is not grateful. Indeed, he often looks at Silas as much as to say that he is not providing for him as well as he should, whereupon Silas looks downcast and miserable; but, all in all, they get along very well together.
Up to the present rainy and wet year of our Lord eighteen hundred and no difference what, Tug has never admired anyone, so far as is known; but he admires Allan Dorris, the new owner of The Locks, and frequently says to Silas that "There is a man," at the same time aiming his big eye in the direction Dorris is supposed to be. There is every reason why Tug should admire Silas Davy, who is very good to him, but he does not, except in a way, and which is a very poor way; and there is no reason why he should admire Allan Dorris, who is suspicious of him, but he does, and on this night, Silas having arrived early with his supper, he is killing two birds with one stone, by discussing both at the same time.
"By the horns of a tough bull," Tug says, which is his way of swearing, "but there is a man. Muscle, brain, clothes, independence, money; everything. What, no butter to-night?"
He says this impatiently after running through the package his companion has brought, and not finding what he was looking for; and Silas humbly apologizes, saying he could not possibly get it at the hotel.
"Well, no matter," Tug continued in an injured way, using a pickle and two slices of bread as a sandwich. "It will come around all right some day. When I come into my rights, I'll have butter to spare. But this impudent Dorris; I like him. He has the form of an Apollo and the muscle of a giant. If he should hit you, you would fall so fast that your rings would fly off your fingers. He's the kind of a man I'd be if I had my rights."
While Tug is munching away at his supper, Davy remembers how unjust the people are with reference to these same rights; how they say he has none, and never will have, except the right to die as soon as possible. The people say that Tug's wife, the milliner, drove him from her house because he would not work, and because he was ugly in disposition, as well as in face and person; that it was soon found out that he was not so dangerous, after all, when men were talking to him, so they have regarded him as a harmless but eccentric loafer ever since. Some of the people believe that Tug does not appear on the streets during the day for fear of meeting his wife, while others contend that he goes out only at night because he is up to mischief; but neither class care to question him about the matter, for he has a mean tongue in his head, and knows how to defend himself, even though he is compelled to invent facts for the purpose.
But Davy knows that Tug can tell a very different story, and tell it well, and he is sure that there will be a genuine sensation when he finally tells it, and comes into his own.
"What a voice he has, and what a eye," Mr. Whittle goes on to say, throwing a leg over a chair to be comfortable. "I usually despise a decent man because I am not one myself, but this fellow—damn him, I like him."
Silas Davy was the sort of a man who is never surprised at anything. Had he been told on a dark night that it was raining blood on the outside, he would not have disputed it, or investigated it, believing that such storms were common, though they had escaped his observation; therefore he was not surprised that Tug admired Allan Dorris, although he knew he had no reason to.
"I have known people to come here and denounce us for a lack of culture who knew nothing about propriety except to eat pie with a fork," Mr. Whittle said again; "but this Dorris,—I'll bet he practises the proprieties instead of preaching them. He don't remind me of the people who come here and call us ignorant cattle because we do not buy their daub paintings at extravagant prices, or take lessons from them; he don't look like the cheap fellows who declare that we lack cultivation because we refuse to patronize their fiddle and pianow concerts, therefore look out for Dorris. He's a man, sure enough; I'll stake every dollar I'm worth and my reputation on it."
Although he had neglected to bring butter, the supper Silas had brought was good enough to put Mr. Whittle in a cheerful humor, and he continued,—
"The people around here put me in mind of the freaks in a dime museum; but Dorris's clothes fit him, and he looks well. There are plenty of men so common that they look shabby in broadcloth, and who are so miserably shaped that no tailor can fit their bones; but this fellow—he would look well with a blanket thrown over his shoulders, and running wild. Hereafter, when I refer to my rights, understand that I would be a Dorris sort of a fellow were justice done me. Did you bring me a drink?"
Silas produced a flask from his pocket, and while Tug was mixing the contents with sugar, by means of stirring them together with a spoon in a tumbler, making a cheerful, tinkling sound the while, he delivered a stirring temperance lecture to his companion. He did this so often that Silas regarded himself as a great drunkard, although that was not one of his failings; but he felt grateful to Tug, who drank a great deal, for his good advice. He was so mortified to think of his bad habits and Tug's worthiness, that he turned his face away, unable to reply.
"Dorris reminds me of a young widow two years after the funeral," Mr. Whittle said, after drinking the dram he had prepared. "Handsome, clean, well-dressed, and attractive. I have an ambition to be a young widow myself, but owing to the circumstance that I have been defrauded of my rights, at present I look like a married woman with six children who does not get along with her husband. In short, I am slouchy, and ill-tempered, and generally unattractive, with an old wrapper on, and my hair down. Ben, come here."
The light in the room was so dim that it had not yet revealed to the eyes of Silas the form of a boy seated on a low box at the side of the room farthest from him, who now came over into the rays of the lamp, and looked timidly at Tug.
Silas knew the boy very well; little Ben Whittle, the son of his friend, who worked on a farm three miles in the country, and who came to town occasionally after dark to see Silas, who treated him well, but always returning in time to be called in the morning; for his employer was a rough man, and very savage to his horses and cattle and boys. Ben was dressed in a coat no longer than a jacket, buttoned tightly around his body, and his pants were so short that they did not nearly touch the tops of his rough shoes. He wore on his head a crazy old hat, through the torn top of which his uncombed hair protruded, and altogether he was such a distressing sight that Davy was always pitying him, although he was never able to do him much good, except to treat him kindly when he came to the hotel at long intervals, and give him something to eat.
"Are you hungry?" Tug inquired, looking sharply at the boy, as he stood cringing before him.
"Yes, sir, if you please."
"Then help yourself," his father roughly returned, crabbed because Ben had told the truth, and pointing to the table; whereupon the boy went to nibbling away at the crumbs and bones remaining of the lunch brought by Silas.
Little Ben was so surprisingly small for a boy of eleven that he was compelled to stand to reach the crumbs and bones, but his father regarded him as a brawny youth as tough as dogwood.
"When I was a boy of his age," Tug said to Davy, "they dressed me up in good clothes, and admired me, and thought I was about the cutest thing on earth, but I wasn't."
Davy looked up as if to inquire what he really was at Ben's age, and received an answer.
"I was an impudent imp, and detested by all the neighbors; that's the truth. My father used to go around town, and tell the people the cute things I said, instead of making me go to work, and teaching me industry; but the people didn't share his enthusiasm, and referred to me as that 'worthless Whittle boy.' Ben, what can you do?"
"I can cut corn, sir, and drive the team, and plough a little," the boy replied, startled by his father's loud voice.
"Anything else?"
"I can't remember everything, sir. I do as much as I can."
Little Ben did not look as though he could be of much use on a farm, for he was very thin, and very weak-looking; but apparently this did not occur to his father, who continued to stare at him as though he wondered at his strength.
"Think of that, will you," Tug continued, addressing Silas again. "He can cut corn, and plough, and all that, and only eleven years old. Why, when he gets to be thirteen or fourteen he will whip old Quade, and take possession of the farm! What could I do when I was eleven years old? Nothing but whine, and I was always at it, although I was brought up in a house with three-ply carpets on the floor, and always treated well. I was treated too well, and I intend to make a man out of Ben by seeing that he is treated as mean as possible. Look here, you," he added turning toward the boy, "when old Quade fails to lick you twice a day, get your hat and run for me; and I'll try and make you so miserable that you'll amount to something as a man."
It was the opinion of Davy that Ben was meanly enough treated already, not only by his father, but by the farmer with whom he worked; for no one seemed to be kind to the boy except himself, and he made his long journeys to town for no other reason than to hear Davy's gentle voice. But Davy was afraid to say this to Tug, and in his weakness could do nothing to help him. In the present instance he looked out of the window.
"You are a fortunate boy in one respect, at least," the admiring father said to his son again. "Your mother hates you, and you have a prospect of becoming a man. Many a boy at your age has a good bed to sleep on, and plenty to eat, and will grow up into a loafer; but here you are on the high road to greatness. Had my father been a wise man, as your father is, I might have been a storekeeper now instead of what I am; therefore don't let me hear you complain—I'll give you something to complain about if I do. The ways of Providence may be a little mysterious to you now, you robust rascal; but when the Hon. Benjamin Whittle goes to Congress he will tell the reporter who writes him up that his father was a kind, thoughtful man who did a great deal for him."
There was something more than the darkness peering in at the window when Silas Davy looked that way; a good deal more—a strange man's face, which was flattened against the lower pane. At the moment that Silas saw him, the man seemed to be using his eyes in investigating the other corner of the room, for he did not know for a moment that he was detected. When his gaze met Silas Davy's, he quickly drew away from the window, and disappeared; but not until Silas remarked that it was a swarthy, malicious face, and that cunning and determination were expressed in its features. Silas was not at all astonished at the appearance, as was his custom; but when he looked at Tug again, to pay respectful attention to his next observation, he saw that he, too, had seen the face, for he was preparing to go out.
"Another stranger," Tug said, as he looked for his hat. "We are becoming a great town."
Silas asked no questions, but when his companion stepped into the dirty street, leaving little Ben alone, he followed, and walked a few paces behind him, as he hurried along in the direction of the inhabited portion of the town. As they neared the dismal lamps, and while they were yet in the darkness, they saw the figure of a tall man, enveloped in what seemed to be a waterproof cloak, turn into the main street, which ran parallel with the river, and walk toward the hotel where Davy was employed. But the man wearing the cloak did not stop there, except to examine a scrap of paper under the light; after which he turned again, and walked in the direction of The Locks. Silas and his companion followed, as rapidly as they could, for there were no lights now, and they stumbled over the hills, and into the gullies, until The Locks gate was reached, which they found ajar.
This strange circumstance did not deter them from entering at once, though quietly and with caution, and together they crept up the pavement, and up the front steps, through the front door, which was wide open, and up the stairway, until they stopped in front of the door leading into the room occupied by Allan Dorris.
Everything was still; and as they stood there in the dark, listening, Tug was surprised to find that Davy was in front of him, whereas he had believed that he was in his rear. Likewise Silas Davy was surprised, for while he was sure that Tug had passed him, and gone lightly down the stairs, a moment afterward he put his hand on him, and knew that he was bending over, and listening at the keyhole.
But nothing could be heard except the regular breathing of Allan Dorris as he slept in his chair, although they now realized that the mysterious stranger had passed them on the stairs, and was on the outside; so they crept down the stairs, and into the street, closing the door and gate after them.
Over the hills and into the hollows again; so they travelled back to their retreat down by the river, where they greatly surprised little Ben and the rats by opening the door suddenly and walking in upon them.
Silas dropped down on the bed, and Tug into a chair, where they remained a long time without speaking.
"What do you make of it?" Tug inquired at last.
"Nothing," Silas returned.
There was another long silence, which was finally broken by Tug remarking,—
"I make nothing of it, myself. We are agreed for once."