"Mr. Sheriff," he said, solemnly, "remove that child from the presence of the court."
And the said Elnathan Daniel Kittredge went out gleefully kicking in the arms of the law.
The hundred or so grinning faces in the court-room relapsed quickly into gravity and excited interest. The rows of jeans-clad countrymen seated upon the long benches on either side of the bar leaned forward with intent attitudes. For this was a rich feast of local gossip, such as had not been so bountifully spread within their recollection. All the ancient Quimbey and Kittredge feuds contrived to be detailed anew in offering to the judge reasons why father or mother was the more fit custodian of the child in litigation.
As Absalom sat listening to all this, his eyes were suddenly arrested by his wife's face—half draped it was, half shadowed by her sun-bonnet, its fine and delicate profile distinctly outlined against the crystalline and frosted pane of the window near which she sat. The snow without threw a white reflection upon it; its rich coloring in contrast was the more intense; it was very pensive, with the heavy lids drooping over the lustrous eyes, and with a pathetic appeal in its expression.
And suddenly his thoughts wandered far afield. He wondered that it had come to this; that she could have misunderstood him so; that he had thought her hard and perverse and unforgiving. His heart was all at once melting within him; somehow he was reminded how slight a thing she was, and how strong was the power that nerved her slender hand to drag his heavy weight, in his dead and helpless unconsciousness, down to the bars and into the safety of the sheltering laurel that night, when he lay wounded and bleeding under the lighted window of the cabin in the Cove. A deep tenderness, an irresistible yearning had come upon him; he was about to rise, he was about to speak he knew not what, when suddenly her face was irradiated as one who sees a blessed vision; a happy light sprang into her eyes; her lips curved with a smile; the quick tears dropped one by one on her hands, nervously clasping and unclasping each other. He was bewildered for a moment. Then he heard Peter gruffly growling a half-whispered curse, and the voice of the judge, in the exercise of his discretion, methodically droning out his reasons for leaving so young a child in the custody of its mother, disregarding the paramount rights of the father. The judge concluded by dispassionately recommending the young couple to betake themselves home, and to try to live in peace together, or, at any rate, like sane people. Then he thrust his spectacles up on his forehead, drew a long sigh of dismissal, and said, with a freshened look of interest, "Mr. Clerk, call the next case."
The Quimbey and Kittredge factions poured into the hall; what cared they for the disputed claims of Jenkins versus Jones? The lovers of sensation cherished a hope that there might be a lawless effort to rescue the infant Kittredge from the custody to which he had been committed by the court. The Quimbeys watchfully kept about him in a close squad, his pink sun-bonnet, in which his head was eclipsed, visible among their brawny jeans shoulders, as his mother carried him in her arms. The sheriff looked smilingly after him from the court-house steps, then inhaled a long breath, and began to roar out to the icy air the name of a witness wanted within. Instead of a gate there was a flight of steps on each side of the fence, surmounted by a small platform. Evelina suddenly shrank back as she stood on the platform, for beside the fence Absalom was waiting. Timothy hastily vaulted over the fence, drew his "shooting-iron" from his boot-leg, and cocked it with a metallic click, sharp and peremptory in the keen wintry air. For a moment Absalom said not a word. He looked up at Evelina with as much reproach as bitterness in his dark eyes. They were bright with the anger that fired his blood; it was hot in his bronzed cheek; it quivered in his hands. The dry and cold atmosphere amplified the graces of his long curling yellow hair that she and his mother loved. His hat was pushed back from his face. He had not spoken to her since the day of his ill-starred confidence, but he would not be denied now.
"Ye'll repent it," he said, threateningly. "I'll take special pains fur that."
She bestowed on him one defiant glance, and laughed—a bitter little laugh. "Ye air ekal ter it; ye have a special gift fur makin' folks repent they ever seen ye."
"The jedge jes gin him ter ye 'kase ye made him out sech a fibble little pusson," he sneered. "But it's jes fur a time."
She held the baby closer. He busied himself in taking off his sun-bonnet and putting it on hind part before, gurgling with smothered laughter to find himself thus queerly masked, and he made futile efforts to play "peep-eye" with anybody jovially disposed in the crowd. But they were all gravely absorbed in the conjugal quarrel at which they were privileged to assist.