CHAPTER XXI.
INTO THE WORLD BEYOND THE HILLS.
"You are a wise man," said the commanding officer as the wagon toiled along. "You don't begin to plead your innocence."
"Maybe I haven't any. What is your name?"
"Foster."
"It may come my way to do you a favor, Mr. Foster. You have been kind to me. But why do we turn up here?"
"To pick up one Laz Spencer, witness."
"One Laz Spencer," mused the old man. "It would be a tug of nature to have two. But I'm sorry you are goin' to take him. Let him go and I'll agree to deliver the testimony expected of him."
"No, that can't be. We have our orders."
Out by the fence and with laborious stroke Laz was cutting wood. Leaving off his work as the wagon drew near he gazed with hand-shaded eye, and recognizing Jasper, threw down his axe and began to scramble over the fence, but one of the men fired a shot to scare him and he dropped back, took off his hat, scratched his head and remarked: "Sorter 'pears like you got me. Helloa, Jasper. Didn't know folks war a comin' around a takin' you a ridin'."
"Get up into the wagon," Foster commanded.
"Yes, that's what I 'lowed I'd do. But let me go into the house an' put on some more duds if you air goin' to take me down into society."
"Go with him, Nick," said Foster, and the deputy leaped to the ground.
Old Mrs. Spencer came to the door and with her tangish tongue larrupped the men, called them cowards, dogs; and appealing to Jasper asked why he didn't kill them as his forefathers would have done. She swore that all spirit had gone out of the country.
"I've moulded bullets to kill better men than you," she exclaimed. "Not one of you is worth an ounce of lead; an' you tell them government fellers down there that thinks themselves so smart that if they tetch a hair on my boy's head, I'll come down there and murder the whole kit an' b'ilin' of them. Go on now, Laz, an' show 'em that you ain't afeared."
"Got rid of her easy," said Foster, when the old woman turned back into the house; and Laz, overhearing him as he climbed into the wagon drawled out a reply:
"Don't take long for anybody to git rid of her."
She waved him a good-bye from the window, and humped upon a seat beside Jasper, Laz was silent for some time, and then he inquired if there were any news stirring.
"No. Anythin' goin' on round here?"
"Nothin' wu'th dividin' 'cept Mose Blake fell into the river yistidy an' was drownded."
"What, you don't tell me so?" the old man exclaimed.
"Yes, couldn't swim a lick atter he struck the water an thar wan't no use in tryin' befo' he struck."
"Powerful sorry to hear it," said Jasper. "Good feller—worst habit of his was always tryin' to talk when he couldn't."
"Yep. But he ain't tryin' of it now."
"I am also sorry he's dead," said Foster. "We were going to take him down to town with us."
"No use to take him now," Laz replied; and a silence fell, broken only when they turned back into the highway, when the lout of a driver, impressed in the neighborhood, remarked to Laz:
"I reckon you air as about as big a liar as they kin set up. Here comes Mose Blake now."
"Hah!" exclaimed Foster. "A good backwoods trick. Round him up, boys."
The stutterer was dressed in his best, on his way to pay stammering court to a girl. He strove to explain that he couldn't go with them, but the officers laughed at his attempts to talk, compelled him to get in, and drove on.
At night they camped near a spring, beneath a walnut tree, the officers standing turn about while the prisoners slept; and early the next morning they resumed their rumbling journey.
As they were now out of the neighborhood range of the two boys, everything began to possess a keen interest for them, the houses, cattle and even the dogs that ran along the yard fences to bark at the wagon. Just before sunset they saw from afar the capitol dome, the mausoleum of Stricklin, who built many state houses, constructing in each one a tomb for himself. Years had passed since Jasper, a battle-smoked and bleeding soldier, had trod up to that lofty pile of rock to receive his discharge from the ranks; and desolate, with no drum and no fife to march back to his wretched home. To him the scene was heart-heavy with memories, but to the boys it was the first glimpse of that great and mysterious life lying far beyond their native hills.
"I reckon the man that lives in thar could go to a sale up whar we live an' buy every wagin an' team on the place," said Laz, pointing toward the fading state-house, and Mose replied:
"Reckon h—h—h—he could t—t—t—talk all day without a h—h—hitch."
"Whar do we sleep to-night, with some of the neighbors?" Laz inquired, and Foster laughed.
"You sleep," said he, with an old joke, "in a house that will keep the dogs from coming in and biting you."
"You mean the jail?"
"Yes, that's what I mean. We'll have to keep you close till we get through with you."
"Yes, as we understand it."
"Wall, then, I may not have to shoot you the fust time I meet you in the big road. Got a good artickle of pie thar in the kitchin?"
"You shall have all the pie you want."
Then Mose began: "Ef t—t—t—that's the case you m—m—m—mout drive a l—l—little faster. An' p—p—p—pound cake?"
"Yes, you may have some of that, too."
"Then I'm g—g—g—glad I c—c—come. Never had as m—m—much p—p—pound cake as I co—could eat b—b—but once, an' then I staid all night with a feller w—w—w—when his mammy w—w—wan't at home."
"Am I to be locked up?" the old man asked.
"Yes, Mr. Starbuck."
The old fellow groaned and in the dusk shrank down, little in his humiliation.
"Sometimes," he said, "folks have to stay in there a good while before they air fotch to trial. Do you think you kin fix it so they kin have it over with my case as soon as possible?"
"Yes, we'll try to rush you through."
"Through to where—to where?" the old man muttered to himself.
They passed a theatre as the audience was pouring out, from under the Hamlet spell of Booth, and Laz remarked: "Feller that preached in thar to-night must be as long-winded as our man Fetterson; but I'll bet Old Fetter could outswop him in a hoss trade."
"That's a theatre," Foster informed him, and after musing for a time he said:
"Place whar they swollow knives, I reckon. Seed a feller do that at a school-house one night, an' I thought he'd killed hisse'f, but he spit it out jest like a stick of molasses candy. Wall, suh, I never seed as many lanterns hung up befo'. An' I want to tell you they've got good roads through this place. What's that feller doin' over thar with that crowd about him?"
"Preaching," Foster answered.
"Wall, he couldn't call up mourners—the wagins would run over 'em. What do you think of all this, Jasper?"
"Who, me?" the old man replied as if startled out of a dream, "I wasn't thinkin' of it—didn't see it."
"I don't reckon," said Laz, "that all these folks knows we air goin' to jail."
Old Jasper shook as if with a chill. "We know it, an' that's enough," he replied.
The wagon, directed by Foster, turned into a darker street, into an alley, and drew up in front of a building black in the dusk. The old man's legs were so stiffened that they had to help him out and rheumatically he walked through the portals of stone-walled disgrace. Into a cell they turned him, and when the bolt grated, he leaped from the rock beneath his feet, leaped as he had when he struck Peters; and then into a corner he sank with a groan.
The two boys were given the liberty of a long corridor, and up and down they walked, light of foot, in reverence for the dejected man behind the bars.