The whip cracked, the horses started forward, the wheels crunched in gravel and came out on the hard road. Turning our backs on the village of Topham, we left behind us the benches on the green, the fine new platform, the banquet that was already half prepared, and all our anticipations of the great farewell.
We went up the long hill, from the summit of which we could see the lights of the town shining in the dark valley, the great flare of fire at the burning barn, and the country stretching for miles in every direction, and thence we drove rapidly away.
Thus, for the second time, twenty years after the first, Cornelius Gleazen left his native town as a fugitive from justice. But this time the fortunes of five men were bound up with his, and we whom he was leading on his mad quest knew now only too well what we could expect of our drunken leader.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BRIG ADVENTURE
We drove for a long time in silence, with the jolting of the chaise and the terrible scenes behind us to occupy our minds; and I assure you it was a grim experience. In all the years that have intervened I have never been able to escape from the memory of the burning barn, with the dark figures running this way and that; the shrill cries of Cornelius Gleazen, staring drunk, and his talk of the man he had killed; the landlord at the tavern, with the blood spurting from his shoulder where the hook had pulled through the flesh.
In a night the whole aspect of the world had changed. From a care-free, selfish, heedless youth, put to work despite his wish to linger over books, I had become of a sudden a companion of criminals, haunted by terrible memories, and through no fault of my own. After all, I thought, by whose fault was it? Cornelius Gleazen's, to be sure. But by whose fault was I forced to accompany Cornelius Gleazen in his flight? Certainly I was guiltless of any unlawful act—for that matter, we all were, except Gleazen. I had not a jot of sympathy for him, yet so completely had he interwoven our affairs with his that, although the man was a drunken beast, we dared not refuse to share his flight. By whose fault? I again asked myself.
For a while I would not accept the answer that came to me. It seemed disloyal to a well-meaning man who at one time and another had given a thousand evidences of his real affection for me, which underlay the veneer of sharpness and irascibility that he presented to the world at large. It seemed to me that I could hear him saying again, "You're all I've got, Joey; you're all that's left to the old man and I 'm going to do well by you—"; that I could hear again the clink of gold thrown down before me on the table; that I could feel his hand again on my shoulder, his voice again trembling with despair when he cried, "I've meant to do so well by you, Joey! But now—heaven keep us all!" Yet, as we jounced away over that rough road and on into the night, and as I thought of things that one and another had said, I felt more and more confident that at bottom Seth Upham was to blame for our predicament. To be sure, he had meant well, even in this present undertaking; and though he was said to drive sharp bargains, he lived, I well knew, an honest life. Yet I was convinced that at some time in the past he must have been guilty of some sin or other that gave Neil Gleazen his hold over him. It fairly staggered me to think of the power for good or evil that lies in every act in a man's life. To be sure, had Seth Upham been a really strong man, he would have lived down his mistake long since, whatever it might have been, and would have defied Gleazen to do his worst. But the crime, if such there was, was his, none the less; and that it was the seed whence had sprung our great misfortunes, I was convinced.