"This is really a case of necessity," he said, and then checked himself abruptly. The circumstances of the nervous shock it would not be well to unnecessarily detail.
"Mrs. Laniston ill?" asked the clerk, drawing his visage into such an expression of respectful sympathy as might do homage to one of the valued patrons of the house. "Sorry, indeed. Would be glad to provide the stimulants. Interests of house prevent. Law strictly enforced. Sorry, indeed."
Then a sudden new thought seemed to strike him. "No law against tipping you a wink." He began to laugh very much. "I wouldn't tell such a thing to the young man, Frank—of course. Promising boy. Confide in your discretion. Distinguished stranger in town. Retiring disposition. Dispenses for a consideration. Holds forth in seclusion. Best of reasons. Follow the first tipsy hill-billy you see. Meet up with something. Surprise you. Purest liquor in the world. Absolutely unadulterated." The duck smacked his bill together and quacked forth a laugh of the most wicked relish.
As a matter of curiosity Jardine had been given the opportunity more than once at New Helvetia to sample certain spirits said to issue from no bonded still. There hung about this beverage a wholesome home-made flavour, or perhaps its extraordinary strength and its colourless limpidity imparted a persuasion of its purity. He was easily convinced of the value of the commodity, but he only doubtfully thanked the clerk and walked forth on the verandah, his ardour very definitely quenched.
He had made for Lucia Laniston this day sacrifices of inclination and conviction altogether disproportioned to the trivial matters that had constrained them. He would not have believed himself capable of so much self-abnegation as they had involved. He could have done greater things that were in accord with his tastes, his habits, his sense of the appropriate, with far less strain upon his generosity. It seemed to him now that he had indeed reached the limit. To be recommended to sally forth to seek a moonshiner's lair!—he was amazed and affronted that the clerk should have ventured such a suggestion. Then he reflected that he had said that it was a case of necessity, and not even the drug stores were privileged to keep the ardent stuff for medical purposes.
It was indeed a case of necessity, he said to himself, remembering the transparent pallor of Lucia's face, the nerveless flaccidity of her cold little hand as he had held it in his grasp for one moment in the good-night leave-takings. He loved her in a plain, home-like, hearty fashion. He would have been constant himself, and unreceptive to little variations of sentiment in her; he would not have entertained captious and suspicious theories as to minutiæ of tone and word and manner; he would not have sought unhappiness in analysing his own affection and the degree of responsive warmth it awakened had she once accepted his devotion and promised her love in return. He would have believed placidly in her and continued altogether confident in himself. He was solicitous for her well-being, her health, her happiness in a reasonable sense. Had he been sure of her heart, her approval of himself, he would not have hesitated to deny her all the fantastic follies that had no real value as amusement and that had served to make the day a nettling penance to him, as it should have been to any other sane being. But any valid pleasure, any opportunity of worldly advantage, any cultivated and appropriate enjoyment—he would have strained every nerve to afford her these. The idea that she was neglected, that her aunt did not realise the shock she had endured, that she was suffering for aught that he could procure and he alone—he clapped his correct hat on his priggish head and started out into the night.
It was dank and cool; the winds were still astir in the upper atmosphere, for the clouds raced continually athwart the densely enstarred sky. The town, stretching away in straggling streets along the hillside, was dark save for the lamps at regular intervals; here and there an upper window shone above shrubbery and vines, the chamber of some late patron of the Street Fair or perchance a sick-room. The square was almost deserted; the business houses were dark, presenting the blank front of their shutters to the passer-by; only the drug store was yet alight and groups of loiterers congregated here, more than one exhibiting the unsteady footsteps in which the hotel clerk had recommended his patron to walk for the nonce.
These wavering steps set a languid pace along the quiet country road for a considerable distance. Trees grew close on either hand but there were few dwellings; they were dark and silent, with one exception where a frantically barking dog dragged a block and chain around a dooryard, unaccustomed to be thus accoutred by night, and possibly restrained to avoid harassing the unusual number of harmless wayfarers along the highroad. The stars gave sufficient light to show the direction of the thoroughfare and the eccentric gait of the guide whom Jardine had elected to follow. There was a footbridge visible spanning the river; many a broken stellular reflection flashed from the dark, lustrous surface, and the foam of the rapids was assertively white in the claro-obscuro. Jardine had a sense of anxiety lest the feet of the "hill-billy" in advance were too unsteady to carry him safely across the narrow structure. But he presently descried him meandering cheerfully along on the sit, he had paused and clung fearfully to the hand-further side, although at one point, when in tran-rail, and cried aloud in thick, drunken accents that he was falling—he was a goner—he was a goner!—"Tell Polly Ann how I died—how I died—how I died!"——All the solemn rocks and all the impressive dark solitudes echoed and re-echoed the serio-comic mandate, till even after Jardine had crossed he noted a crag that was still rehearsing the words as if in conscious mimicry.
There seemed no goal to this night jaunt, and Mr. Jardine was beginning to feel a fool in his own estimation—a catastrophe he dreaded, for he was fain to think well of himself—when he met two or three hilarious, roaring wights coming townward singing with more uproarious mirth than melody—"A leetle mo' cider, too, an' a leetle mo' cider, too."
He was glad of the darkness that precluded their notice, as they passed, that he was of a different type from that proclaimed by their accent. But as he turned a sudden curve of the road obscurity no longer protected him. He must have been instantly visible even at the distance in the flaring fires of an encampment which sent far-reaching red pulsations through the woods and across the dark waters of the river. A dozen torch standards, after the manner of the lights of the street fair, showed rude tables whereon barbecued meats, salt-rising breads, and home-made cakes and pies were dispensed at prices which no doubt undercut the charges for such refreshments in the town. There were two barrels, brazenly displayed, placed close together with a small plank, shelf-like, from one to the other, holding glasses and a big blue pitcher. In the background was a stanch waggon, of which the white canvas hood was no mean shelter from the weather had one needed it; two or three of the dogs were now asleep on the straw beneath it. An old woman, a younger one, with an infant in arms, and a girl of eighteen, perhaps, grouped about the fire gave a touch of domesticity to the scene. Naught could seem further removed from the suggestion of law-breaking and defiance of vested authority. An eating-stand at a distance from the town, to escape the municipal tax on a lunch counter, and yet catch the country custom, to make some small profits on the occasion and see the Carnival—what more candid? Jardine felt pierced through and through with the vigilance of the eyes focussed upon him as he advanced in the light. And never was there more virtuous indignation expressed in voice and manner than was shown by an elderly man with a bushy red beard and a pale stolid face and a brown jeans suit, standing at the refreshment counter, as Jardine came up and proffered his request.