“Don't squeal to the sheriff now,” he urged. “The scoundrel is gone, and it would make a nine days' hooray, and nothing would come of it. He was darned slick to take the time when Funnybone was away.”
“Why?” Vic asked.
But Bond would not tell why. And Vic never dreamed how much cause Bond Saxon had to dread the day when Tom Gresh should be brought into court, and his own great crime committed in his drunken hours would demand retribution. So Lagonda Ledge and Sunrise knew nothing of what had occurred. Burleigh had no recourse but to wait, while Bug buttoned up his lips, as he had done for Burgess out at Pigeon Place, and conveniently “fordot” what he chose not to tell. But he wandered no more alone about the pretty by-corners of Lagonda Ledge.
CHAPTER XIV. THE DERELICTS
I dimly guess from blessings known
Of greater out of sight,
And, with the chastened Psalmist, own
His judgments, too, are right.
I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.
—WHITTIER
IT was early spring before Dr. Fenneben returned to Lagonda Ledge. Everybody thought the new line on his face was put there by the death of his brother. To those who loved him most—that is, to all Lagonda Ledge—he was growing handsomer every year, and even with this new expression his countenance wore a more kindly grace than ever before.
“Norrie, your uncle was a strange man,” Fenneben declared, as he and Elinor sat in the library on the evening of his return. “Naturally, I am unlike my stepbrothers, but I have not even understood them. There were many things I learned at Joshua's bedside that I never knew of the family before. There were some things for you to know, but not now.”
“I can trust you, Uncle Lloyd, to do just the right thing,” Norrie declared.
The new line of sadness deepened in Lloyd Fenneben's face.