VIII
Louada Murilla opened the front door when the chief constable knocked, after an exasperatingly elaborate hitching and blanketing of horses. She staggered to the door rather than walked. The Cap'n sat with rigid legs still extended toward the fire.
The three men filed into the room, and remained standing in solemn row. Mr. Nute, on behalf of the delegation, refused chairs that were offered by Mrs. Sproul. He had his own ideas as to how a committee of notification should conduct business. He stood silent and looked at Louada Murilla steadily and severely until she realized that her absence was desired.
She tottered out of the room, her terrified eyes held in lingering thrall by the woe-stricken orbs of the Cap'n.
Constable Nute eyed the door that she closed, waiting a satisfactory lapse of time, and then cleared his throat and announced:
"I want you to realize, Cap'n Sproul, that me and my feller constables here has been put in a sort of a hard position. I hope you'll consider that and govern yourself accordin'. First of all, we're obeyin' orders from them as has authority. I will say, however, that I have ideas as to how a thing ought to be handled, and my associates have agreed to leave the talkin' to me. I want to read you somethin' first," he said, fumbling at the buttons on his coat, "but that you may have some notion as to what it all points and be thinkin' it over, I'll give you a hint. To a man of your understandin', I don't s'pose I have to say more than 'Cincinnatus,' That one word explains itself and our errunt."
"I never knowed his last name," mumbled the Cap'n, enigmatically. "But I s'pose they've got it in the warrant, all right!" He was eying the hand that was seeking the constable's inside pocket. "I never was strong on Portygee names. I called him Joe."
Mr. Nute merely stared, without trying to catch the drift of this indistinct muttering.
While the Cap'n watched him in an agony of impatience and suspense, he slowly drew out a spectacle-case, settled his glasses upon his puffy nose, unfolded a sheet of paper on which a dirty newspaper clipping was pasted, and began to read:
"More than ever before in the history of the United States of America are loyal citizens called upon to throw themselves into the breach of municipal affairs, and wrest from the hands of the guilty—"
The ears of Cap'n Sproul, buzzing with his emotions, caught only a few words, nor grasped any part of the meaning. But the sonorous "United States of America" chilled his blood, and the word "guilty" made his teeth chatter.
He felt an imperious need of getting out of that room for a moment—of getting where he could think for a little while, out from under the starings of those three solemn men.
"I want to—I want to—" he floundered; "I would like to get on my shoes and my co't and—and—I'll be right back. I won't try to—I'll be right back, I say."
Mr. Nute suspended his reading, looked over his spectacles, and gave the required permission. Perhaps it occurred to his official sense that a bit more dignified attire would suit the occasion better. A flicker of gratification shone on his face at the thought that the Cap'n was so nobly and graciously rising to the spirit of the thing.
"It's come, Louada Murilla—it's come!" gulped Cap'n Sproul, as he staggered into the kitchen, where his wife cowered in a corner. "He's readin' a warrant. He's even got the Portygee's name. My Gawd, they'll hang me! I can't prove northin'."
"Oh, Aaron," sobbed his wife, and continued to moan. "Oh, Aaron—" with soft, heartbreaking cluckings.
"Once the law of land-piruts gets a bight 'round ye, ye never git away from it," groaned the Cap'n. "The law sharks is always waitin' for seafarin' men. There ain't no hope for me."
His wife had no encouragement to offer.
"Murder will out, Aaron," she quaked. "And they've sent three constables."
"Them other two—be they—?"
"They're constables."
"There ain't no hope. And it shows how desp'rit' they think I be. It shows they're bound to have me. It's life and death, Louada Murilla. If I don't git anything but State Prison, it's goin' to kill me, for I've lived too free and open to be penned up at my time o' life. It ain't fair—it ain't noways fair!" His voice broke. "It was all a matter of discipline. But you can't prove it to land-sharks. If they git me into their clutches I'm a goner."
His pistols hung on the wall where Louada Murilla had suspended them, draped with the ribbons of peace.
"There's only one thing to do," he whispered, huskily, pointing at the weapons with quivering finger. "I'll shoot 'em in the legs, jest to hold 'em up. I'll git to salt water. I know skippers that will take me aboard, even if they have to stand off the whole United States. I've got friends, Louada, as soon as I git to tide-water. It won't hurt 'em in there—a bullet in the leg. And it's life and death for me. There's foreign countries where they can't take me up. I know 'em, I've been there. And I'll send for you, Louada Murilla. It's the best I can think of now. It ain't what I should choose, but it's the best I can think of. I've had short notice. I can't let 'em take me."
As he talked he seemed to derive some comfort from action. He pulled on his boots. He wriggled into his coat. From a pewter pitcher high up on a dresser shelf he secured a fat wallet. But when he rushed to take down the pistols his wife threw herself into his arms.
"You sha'n't do that, Aaron," she cried. "I'll go to State Prison with you—I'll go to the ends of the world to meet you. But I couldn't have those old men shot in our own house. I realize you've got to get away. But blood will never wash out blood. Take one of their teams. Run the horse to the railroad-station. It's only four miles, and you've got a half-hour before the down-train. And I'll lock 'em into the setting-room, Aaron, and keep 'em as long as I can. And I'll come to you, Aaron, though I have to follow you clear around the world."
In the last, desperate straits of an emergency, many a woman's wits ring truer than a man's. When she had kissed him and departed on her errand to lock the front door he realized that her counsel was good.
He left the pistols on the wall. As he ran into the yard, he got a glimpse, through the sitting-room window, of the constables standing in solemn row. Never were innocent members of committee of notification more blissfully unconscious of what they had escaped. They were blandly gazing at the Cap'n's curios ranged on mantel and what-not.
It was a snort from Constable Swanton that gave the alarm. Mr. Nute's team was spinning away down the road, the wagon-wheels throwing slush with a sort of fireworks effect. Cap'n Sproul, like most sailors, was not a skilful driver, but he was an energetic one. The horse was galloping.
"He's bound for the town house before he's been notified officially," stammered Mr. Swanton.
"It ain't regular," said Constable Wade.
Mr. Nute made no remark. He looked puzzled, but he acted promptly. He found the front door locked and the kitchen door locked. But the window-catches were on the inside, and he slammed up the nearest sash and leaped out. The others followed. The pursuit was on as soon as they could get to their wagons, Mr. Wade riding with the chief constable.
The town house of Smyrna is on the main road leading to the railway-station. The constables, topping a hill an eighth of a mile behind the fugitive, expected to see him turn in at the town house. But he tore past, his horse still on the run, the wagon swaying wildly as he turned the corner beyond the Merrithew sugar orchard.
"Well, I swow," grunted Mr. Nute, and licked on.
The usual crowd of horse-swappers was gathered in the town-house yard, and beheld this tumultuous passage with professional interest. And, recognizing the first selectman-elect of Smyrna, their interest had an added flavor.
Next came the two teams containing the constables, lashing past on the run. They paid no attention to the amazed yells of inquiry from the horse-swappers, and disappeared behind the sugar orchard.
"You've got me!" said Uncle Silas Drake to the first out-rush of the curious from the town house. In his amazement, Uncle Silas was still holding to the patient nose of the horse whose teeth he had been examining. "They went past like soft-soap slidin' down the suller stairs, and that's as fur's I'm knowin'. But I want to remark, as my personal opinion, that a first seeleckman of this town ought to be 'tendin' to his duties made and pervided, instead of razooin' hosses up and down in front of this house when town meetin' is goin' on."
One by one, voters, mumbling their amazement, unhitched their horses and started along the highway in the direction the fugitives had taken. It seemed to all that this case required to be investigated. The procession whipped along briskly and noisily.
Colonel Gideon Ward, returning from the railroad-station, where he had been to order flat-cars for lumber, heard the distant clamor of voices, and stood up in his tall cart to listen. At that instant, around the bend of the road, twenty feet away, came a horse galloping wildly. Colonel Ward was halted squarely in the middle of the way. He caught an amazed glimpse of Cap'n Sproul trying to rein to one side with unskilled hands, and then the wagons met. Colonel Ward's wagon stood like a rock. The lighter vehicle, locking wheels, went down with a crash, and Cap'n Sproul shot head-on over the dasher into his brother-in-law's lap, as he crouched on his seat.
The advantage was with Cap'n Sproul, for the Colonel was underneath. Furthermore, Cap'n Sproul was thrice armed with the resolution of a desperate man. Without an instant's hesitation he drew back, hit Ward a few resounding buffets on either side of his head, and then tossed the dizzied man out of his wagon into the roadside slush. An instant later he had the reins, swung the frightened horse across the gutter and around into the road, and continued his flight in the direction of the railroad-station.
The constables, leading the pursuing voters by a few lengths, found Colonel Ward sitting up in the ditch and gaping in utter amazement and dire wrath at the turn of the road where Cap'n Sproul had swept out of sight.
The wreck of the wagon halted them.
"I s'pose you've jest seen our first selectman-elect pass this way, haven't ye?" inquired Mr. Nute, with official conservatism.
The Colonel had not yet regained his powers of speech. He jabbed with bony finger in the direction of the railroad, and moved his jaws voicelessly. Mr. Swanton descended from the wagon, helped him out of the ditch, and began to stroke the slush from his garments with mittened hand. As he still continued to gasp ineffectually, Mr. Nute drove on, leaving him standing by the roadside.
Cap'n Sproul was at bay on the station platform, feet braced defiantly apart, hat on the back of his head, and desperate resolve flaming from his eyes.
"Don't ye git out of your wagon, Nute," he rasped. "It's been touch and go once with the three of ye to-day. I could have killed ye like sheep. Don't git in my way ag'in. Take warnin'! It's life or death, and a few more don't make much difference to me now."
The chief constable stared at him with bulging eyes.
"I could have killed ye and I didn't," repeated the Cap'n. "Let that show ye that I'm square till I have to be otherwise. But I'm a desp'rit' man, Nute. I'm goin' to take that train." He brandished his fist at a trail of smoke up behind the spruces. "Gawd pity the man that gits in my way!"
"Somethin' has happened to his mind all of a sudden," whispered Mr. Wade. "He ought to be took care of till he gits over it. It would be a pity and a shame to let a prominent man like that git away and fall into the hands of strangers."
"All of ye take warnin'," bawled the Cap'n to his townsmen, who were crowding their wagons into the station square.
Constable Zeburee Nute drove his whip into the socket, threw down his reins, and stood up. The hollow hoot of the locomotive had sounded up the track.
"Feller citizens," he cried, "as chairman of the committee of notification, I desire to report that I have 'tended to my duties in so far as I could to date. But there has things happened that I can't figger out, and for which I ain't responsible. There ain't no time now for ifs, buts, or ands. That train is too near. A certain prominunt citizen that I don't need to name is thinkin' of takin' that train when he ain't fit to do so. There'll be time to talk it over afterward."
Cap'n Sproul was backing away to turn the corner of the station.
"I call on all of ye as a posse," bawled Mr. Nute. "Bring along your halters and don't use no vi'lence."
Samson himself, even though his weapon had been the jaw-bone of a megatherium, couldn't have resisted that onrush of the willing populace. In five minutes, the Cap'n, trussed hand and foot, and crowded in between Constables Nute and Wade, was riding back toward Smyrna town house, helpless as a veal calf bound for market.
"Now," resumed Mr. Nute, calmly, "now that you're with us, Cap'n, and seem to be quieted down a little, I'll perceed to execute the errunt put upon me as chairman of the notification committee."
With Mr. Wade driving slowly, he read the newspaper clipping that sounded the clarion call that summoned men of probity to public office, and at the close formally notified Cap'n Sproul that he had been elected first selectman of Smyrna. He did all this without enthusiasm, and sighed with official relief when it was over.
"And," he wound up, "it is the sentiment of this town that there ain't another man in it so well qualified to lead us up out of the valley of darkness where we've been wallerin'. We have called our Cincinnatus to his duty."
They had come around a bend of the road and now faced Colonel Ward, stumping along stolidly through the slush, following the trail of his team.
"That's the way he ought to be," roared the Colonel. "Rope him up! Put ox-chains on him. And I'll give a thousand dollars to build an iron cage for him. You're all crazy and he's your head lunatic."
Mr. Nute, inwardly, during all the time that he had been so calmly addressing his captive, was tortured with cruel doubts as to the Cap'n's sanity. But he believed in discharging his duty first. And he remembered that insane people were more easily prevailed upon by those who appeared to make no account of their whims.
During it all, Cap'n Sproul had been silent in utter amazement. The truth had come in a blinding flash that would have unsettled a man not so well trained to control emotion.
"Drive along," he curtly commanded Nute, paying no heed to the incensed Colonel's railings. "You look me in the eye," he continued, as soon as they were out of hearing. "Do you see any signs that I am out of my head, or that I need these ropes on me?"
"I can't say as I do," admitted the constable, after he had quailed a bit under the keen, straightforward stare of the ex-mariner's hard, gray eyes.
"Take 'em off, then," directed the Cap'n, in tones of authority. And when it was done, he straightened his hat, set back his shoulders, and said:
"Drive me to the town house where I was bound when that hoss of yours run away with me." Mr. Nute stared at him wildly, and drove on.
They were nearly to their destination before Constable Nute ventured upon what his twisted brow and working lips testified he had been pondering long.
"It ain't that I'm tryin' to pry into your business, Cap'n Sproul, nor anything of the kind, but, bein' a man that never intended to do any harm to any one, I can't figger out what grudge you've got against me. You said on the station platform that—"
"Nute," said the Cap'n, briskly, "as I understand it, you never went to sea, and you and the folks round here don't understand much about sailormen, hey?"
The constable shook his head.
"Then don't try to find out much about 'em. You wouldn't understand. The folks round here wouldn't understand. We have our ways. You have your ways. Some of the things you do and some of the things you say could be called names by me, providin' I wanted to be disagreeable and pick flaws. All men in this world are different—especially sailormen from them that have always lived inshore. We've got to take our feller man as we find him."
They were in the town-house yard—a long procession of teams following.
"And by-the-way, Nute," bawled the Cap'n, from the steps of the building as he was going in, using his best sea tones so that all might hear, "it was the fault of your horse that he run away, and you ought to be prosecuted for leavin' such an animile 'round where a sailorman that ain't used to hosses could get holt of him. But I'm always liberal about other folks' faults. Bring in your bill for the wagon."
Setting his teeth hard, he walked upon the platform of the town-hall, and faced the voters with such an air of authority and such self-possession that they cheered him lustily. And then, with an intrepidity that filled his secret heart with amazement as he talked, he made the first real speech of his life—a speech of acceptance.
"Yes, s'r, it was a speech, Louada Murilla," he declared that evening, as he sat again in their sitting-room with his stockinged feet to the blaze of the Franklin. "I walked that platform like it was a quarter-deck, and my line of talk run jest as free as a britches-buoy coil. And when I got done, they was up on the settees howlin' for me. If any man came back into that town-house thinkin' I was a lunatic on account of what happened to-day, they got a diff'runt notion before I got done. Why, they all come 'round and shook my hand, and said they must have been crazy to tackle a prominunt citizen that way on the word of old Nute. It must have been a great speech I made. They all said so."
He relighted his pipe.
"What did you say, Aaron?" eagerly asked his wife. "Repeat it over."
He smoked awhile.
"Louada Murilla," he said, "when I walked onto that platform my heart was goin' like a donkey-engine workin' a winch, there was a sixty-mile gale blowin' past my ears, and a fog-bank was front of my eyes. And when the sun came out ag'in and it cleared off, the moderator was standin' there shaking my hand and tellin' me what a speech it was. It was a speech that had to be made. They had to be bluffed. But as to knowin' a word of what I said, why, I might jest as well try to tell you what the mermaid said when the feller brought her stockin's for her birthday present.
"The only thing that I can remember about that speech," he resumed, after a pause, and she gazed on him hopefully, "is that your brother Gideon busted into the town house and tried to break up my speech by tellin' 'em I was a lunatic. I ordered the constables to put him out."
"Did they?" she asked, with solicitude.
"No," he replied, rubbing his nose, reflectively. "'Fore the constables got to him, the boys took holt and throwed him out of the window. I reckon he's come to a realizin' sense by this time that the town don't want him for selectman."
He rapped out the ashes and put the pipe on the hearth of the Franklin.
"I'm fair about an enemy, Louada Murilla, and I kind of hate to rub it into Gideon. But now that I'm on this bluff about what happened to-day, I've got to work it to a finish. I'm goin' to sue Gid for obstructin' the ro'd and smashin' Nute's wagon, and then jumpin' out and leavin' me to be run away with. The idea is, there are some fine touches needed in lyin' out of that part of the scrape, and, as the first selectman of Smyrna, I can't afford to take chances and depend on myself, and be showed up. I don't hold any A.B. certificate when it comes to lyin'. So for them fancy touches, I reckon I'll have to break my usual rule and hire a lawyer."
He rose and yawned.
"Is the cat put out, Louada?"
And when she had replied in the affirmative, he said:
"Seein' it has been quite a busy day, let's go to bed."