“You see, ’twas this way, and it happened nigh on to eighty or a hundred years ago. This tarvern wasn’t built then. T’other one that was burnt stood further up the street and was kep’ by—I can’t think of his name, but he was one of Dot’s ancestors. Beats all what a lot she has, and what a sight she thinks of ’em. Got ’em all in a book, somewhere; the one in the portrait who helped throw over the tea,—and the one who pushed the carts of hemp against the garrison. I’ve turned him wrong side up, I guess, but you know who I mean. She has him, door latch and all,—and the one who kep’ the tarvern when Mr. Dalton,—Mark’s great-grandfather,—brought his bride to town. She was handsome as a picter, they say,—with yaller curls down her back and blue eyes which looked as innocent as a baby’s. She was proud as Lucifer; wasn’t willin’ to associate with any but the high bloods; walked as if the ground wasn’t good enough for her to step on with her little morocco shoes. Dressed up in the mornin’ as much as some do in the afternoon. But then she’d nothin’ to do, for she had a hired girl, Mari, who waited on her as if she was a queen. Had a pianner,—the fust there was in town, and folks used to go up the lane and set on the wall to hear her play Money Musk and Irish Washwoman and Bonaparte’s March, and some new things they didn’t like so well.
“Mr. Dalton was a first-rate man, fine looking and a perfect gentleman. Mark must be like him, and mebby that’s where your hereditary comes in. Everybody liked Mr. Dalton, and he had a kind word for everybody. He was rich for them days, and had some interest in the stages that run between Boston and Albany. The railroad wasn’t here then. ’Twas all stages, three a day each way, and they stopped at the tarvern to change horses. Them was lively times, and Dot’s ancestor made money hand over fist. Mr. Dalton paternized him a good deal. He used to go off in the stages sometimes and be gone a few days, but when he was to home he had nothin’ to do and sat on the tarvern piazza a sight talkin’ sociable with Dot’s ancestor, smokin’ and takin’ a drink now and then and treatin’ the other fellers. Everybody took a drink them days. W. C. T. U. wasn’t born. Dot’s one of ’em,—true blue, too. Don’t keep it in her cupboard for little private nips and then go a crusadin’ as some of ’em do. She hates it like p’isen, and if Johnny had lived she’d had him sign the pledge before he could walk. She’d no more let me sell toddy than she’d put her head in the oven. She’s right, too. I shouldn’t of backslid the last time if I hadn’t took some black strap and molasses for a cold. I like the stuff, and only Dot and the thought of little Johnny keeps me from drinkin’. But to return to my story.
“I guess you’ll think I’m goin’ ’round Robin Hood’s barn to git to it. Mr. Dalton worshipped his wife, and she ’peared to worship him, till there come up from Boston a dark complected man, a friend of the Dalton’s,—St. John, they called him, and he was there half the time talkin’ to Miss Dalton and playin’ the flute while she banged the pianner. The rest of the time he sat on the piazza at the tavern smokin’, takin’ drinks oftener than Mr. Dalton, but never treatin’ nobody. Mr. Dalton thought a sight of him. They was college chums,—Harvard, I b’lieve,—and when he went off on the stage he’d ask him to sleep in his house and see to Miss Dalton, who was timid,—the more fool he. And he did see to Miss Dalton, and drove with her and walked with her clear up to North Ridgefield, and didn’t get back till after dark. Folks began to talk and the women pumped Mari, who wouldn’t say nothin’, she was so bound up in Miss Dalton.
“After a spell another feller appeared, St. John’s vally they called him, and he brushed his clothes and blacked his boots, and walked behind him in the street, and went a good deal to the Dalton’s,—sparkin’ Mari, folks said, and I guess that was so. Wall, after a spell another chap appeared,—brother to the vally, they pretended. He didn’t go to the Dalton’s, but sat on the piazza and smoked and drank and swore about big bugs ridin’ over the poor, and was an ugly lookin’ cuss generally. Mr. Dalton was real good to him,—gave him money once or twice and tried to git him work. But he didn’t want to work. It warn’t that he’d come for.
“Wall, as I was sayin’, things went on this way with St. John and his vally and his vally’s brother comin’ and goin’, till folks was talkin’ pretty loud and sayin’ Dalton or’to be told, and finally Dot’s ancestor,—the one who kep’ the tavern,—up and told Mr. Dalton careful like what folks was surmisin’, and hinted that St. John shouldn’t go there so much. Mr. Dalton threw back his head and laughed the way Mark has when he don’t believe a thing.
“St. John was his best friend; he’d known him since he was a boy, he said, and his wife was a second pen—penny—something——”
“Penelope,” Craig suggested.
“I b’lieve that’s the name; sounds like it, though who she was I don’t know,” Uncle Zacheus replied, and continued: “The next day what did Mr. Dalton do but go to Worcester in the stage and buy her a silk gown that would stan’ alone, and a string of gold beads. Dot’s ancestor’s wife’s sister, or aunt, I don’t remember which, made the gown, and Miss Dalton wore it and the beads and a new bunnet to meetin’ the next Sunday, lockin’ arms with her husband all the way, and lookin’ up in his face lovin’ like with her great pretty blue eyes which had something queer in ’em, rollin’ round as if watchin’ for somethin’. I’ll be dumbed if Mark hain’t the same trick with his eyes, and that’s all the hereditary he has from that jade. She’d heard what folks was sayin’, but was jest as sweet and innocent as a lamb, and sent some flowers to Dot’s ancestor’s wife, who had said the most about her.
“Wall, I don’t git on very fast, do I? but, as I was sayin’, time went on, and it was summer again, and folks had kinder forgot. St. John wa’n’t in town, nor hadn’t been that anybody knew, unless it was Mari, who kep’ a close mouth. The vally wasn’t in town, nor the vally’s brother,—no more his brother than you are. That came out on the trial.
“Wall, there was an awful thunder shower one night,—struck the Unitarian Church and knocked the steeple into splinters, and rained till the gutters run like a river, and you could almost go in a boat the street was so full of water. Mr. Dalton was at the tarvern when the storm came up, and waited for it to stop. It was dark as pitch, and they tried their best not to have him go home. But go he would. His wife would be anxious and not sleep a wink, he said, and about eleven o’clock, when it had nearly stopped raining, he started with a lantern, and that was the last he was ever seen alive.