The shadows deepened swiftly in the woods; they lengthened in the open valley, filling the hollows, climbed the hill to Salem, and made dusky Dr. Wye's little porch and his tiny office duskier still. The office was so tiny that portly Judge Carter of Gilead seemed nearly to fill it, leaving small space for the doctor. For this or some other reason the doctor seemed uncomfortable, quite oppressed and borne down, and remonstrating with the oppression. The judge was a man of some splendor, with gold eye-glasses and cane.
“There really is no doubt about it,” he was saying, with a magnificent finger on the doctor's knee, “no doubt at all.”
The conversation seemed to be most absorbing. The doctor pulled his beard abstractedly and frowned.
The serious boy drove by outside in the dusk, and after a while came up from the bam. He sat down on the edge of the porch to think things over, and the judge's voice rolled on oracularly. Jack hardly knew yet what his thoughts were; and this was a state of mind that he was not accustomed to put up with, because muddle-headedness was a thing that he especially despised. “You don't exactly abolish the old man,” he kept hearing the peddler say; “you just imagine him comfortably buried—with an epitaph—flourishy—stating—”
“Clever, very,” said the judge. “Merriwether was telling me—won't catch him, too clever—Merri-wether says—remarkable—interesting scamp, very.” The doctor growled some inaudible objection.
“Why did he show himself!” exclaimed the judge. “Why, see here. Observe the refined cleverness of it! It roused your interest, didn't it? It was unique, amusing. Chances are ten to one you would n't have taken the boy without it. Why, look here—”
“Stuff!”—Here the doctor raised his voice angrily. “The boy ran away from him, of course.”
“Maybe, doctor, maybe,” said the judge, soothingly. “But there are other things—looks shady—consider the man is known. Dangerous, doctor, dangerous, very. You ought to be careful.” Then the words were a mere murmur.
Jack sat still on the porch, with his chin on his hands. Overhead the night-hawks called, and now and then one came down with a whiz of swooping wings. Presently he heard the chairs scrape; he rose, slipped around to the back porch and into the kitchen.
The little bronze clock in the dining-room had just told its largest stint of hours,—and very hard work it made of it. It was a great trial to the clock to have to rouse itself and bluster so. It did not mind telling time in a quiet way. But then, every profession has its trials. It settled itself again to stare with round, astonished face at the table in the centre of the room.