CHAPTER NINE
MR. TUCKER took the south road out of Benson, his belief being that the runaways would drive across the State to Indiana. Events proved him so far right in this conjecture that he dined at the tavern where they had breakfasted, and supped where they had dined. Then, since they had gone on presumedly in the direction of Columbus, he mounted to his seat again and urged the fractious mare forward at the best pace which the condition of the roads rendered safe. He himself was now on the verge of exhaustion; and his desire to be revenged on the fugitives, alone sustained him; it was nothing that he ached in every bone and muscle, or that his old joints had stiffened so that as he swung forward over the rutted road, or splashed through mud-holes, he was tossed and jolted from side to side quite lacking the power to protect or save himself.
The bitter sense of shame never left him; and with each weary mile the wish to be avenged for the monstrous evil he was suffering grew in his sodden brain. Yet as darkness closed about him, between the paroxysms of his rage, he thought miserably enough of his own comfortable tavern bar, filled as he knew it must be with the pleasant odour of tobacco smoke—that soft familiar haze through which for thirty years he had looked each night. He thought of the long rows of bottles on the shelves back of the deal bar, and of what they held; of the open fireplace with its warmth and cheer, which Jim had heaped with great logs. There was something inspiring and of high domestic virtue even in the reek of the sperm oil in the brass lamps; indeed, there was not a single memory which his mind fed upon, that he would have had changed in the minutest particular, or that did not add to the wretchedness of his present plight.
He thought of the excellent and thirsty company that was gathering there, and the best company was always thirsty. He thought tenderly of the little cherished peculiarities of each of his cronies; of Mr. Harden the undertaker, and the accurate information he was always ready to impart touching the ravages of sickness and death in the county; of Mayor Kirby, and Squire Riley, and the argument on certain mooted points of constitutional law they had been carrying on almost nightly, for more years than he could remember; and which had become so intricate that these distinguished opponents were as often as not astonished to find themselves on the wrong side of the question, each upholding the opinions of the other with a most embarrassing force and logic; he thought of Mr. Bently, the postmaster, and his interesting political reminiscences, the chiefest gem being the narrative of his meeting with Andrew Jackson, and the wealth of whose impressions concerning that remarkable man—which might be said to have compounded themselves most industriously—now bore no relation whatever to the actual time which the victor of New Orleans had devoted to Mr. Bently's case, generally supposed to have been the Benson post-office. He thought of Colonel Sharp, stately but condescending, and his agreeable conversation embellished as it was by classical quotations, which never failed to carry a sense of conviction and fullness to the mental stomach: of the British bullet he had brought away from the disastrous fight at Fallen Timbers, but which no surgeon's probe had ever been able to locate, and concerning the outrageous behaviour of which Mr. Tucker was expected to show daily the keenest interest, since the most subtle change in the weather, a rise or fall in the temperature, a shift in the wind, affected this piece of lead in the most singular manner, enabling it, so the colonel stoutly averred, to travel up and down his leg between the knee and thigh quite at its own pleasure, but much to his discomfort.
Probably they were all at the tavern even now; and here was he, wet and wretched, with a cold wind and a yet colder rain beating in his face, miles and miles away!
Then at last, out of the darkness and mist and the falling rain, down the waste of muddy roads, and far across the desolate fields, one by one the lights of the capitol city blinked at him. He drove up High Street, past the Niel House, for he was prejudiced against so pretentious an establishment; and turning down a side street drew up in front of a small frame building, which a creaking sign announced to be Roebuck's Tavern.
Roebuck was an old friend, though they had not met in years; and it was Roebuck himself, who, hearing the rattle of wheels before his door, hurried out from the bar, lantern in hand, to bid his guest welcome. He was a burly figure of a man, florid of face, but bland and smiling.
“John,” cried Mr. Tucker weakly, “John, I wonder if you'll know me!”