“When seen this morning, Caleb Dyker, the grandfather, while protesting his grandson’s innocence, declared that Merrick was a scoundrel and had received his just deserts at the hands of his murderer. Caleb admits sending Anson to Kingston yesterday with over two hundred dollars back rental to pay Merrick. This he drew out of the bank resolved to be under no further obligation to the man who was to ‘turn him out’ as he phrased it, from his home of thirty years.”
There was considerably more to this sensational report concerning mainly the suspected whereabouts of the fugitive boy, of whom there was no trace. Articles in issues of the paper immediately following rounded out the story in the original report and Tom read these with breathless interest to a point where the crime was relegated to an inside page and the reports of progress in the matter (or lack of progress) were brief and perfunctory.
From all these diminishing accounts he learned that the Dykers, notwithstanding that they had been in many ways the subjects of their wealthy landlord’s forbearance and benevolence for years, had been seized with a blind wrath against him when he was forced by the government to dispose of his property in the little doomed village. Evidently the Dykers had not perceived his innocence and helplessness in this matter. Simple and ignorant, they had seen him only as they had seen the whole great engineering project; he and it were ruthless destroyers.
There was much in the old newspapers to this purpose. The blind hatred of the Dykers was like the senseless wrath underlying a southern feud. They could see only one fact, and that fact, tragic indeed, obscured every other consideration. They were to be driven from their home.
The boy, susceptible and loyal, imbibed this hatred. Neighbors heard him say that he would like to kill the scoundrel Merrick. It was but a week or two prior to their necessary eviction that old Caleb in a burst of hatred and scornful independence drew out of his small savings the money with which to square his account with his detested landlord.
With this money young Anson had been sent to Kingston. Before starting he had been heard to say, “If he starts talking to me and stringing me with a lot of lies, I’ll kill him.”
That was the sum and substance of the known facts about the horrid crime, tragic sequel of misplaced hatred and vengeance; an instance of that blind, irrational malice so often persisting in the country.
It was easy for Tom to piece out the sad story of ignorant rebellion against the inevitable by these lowly people, of rash and fiery youth, of the grandmother’s broken heart and death, of the grandfather, homeless and lonely, wandering forth into a strange world. Tom pictured him very vividly with his stick and his old crooked spectacles.
And the vast Ashokan Reservoir, subject of his valiant loathing, had crept over its allotted area and finally filled the green valley and covered up the scene of the deserted village and the forsaken, devastated home.
Tom was recalled from his momentary reverie by Brent’s drawling, matter-of-fact tone. “I’m a better Sherlock Nobody Holmes than you thought I was. Look here. I’ve discovered everything but the married-and-lived-happily-thereafter part. Here’s a copy of the paper published only last week. Read that—down there—second column.”