The Manager of the B. & A.: A Novel

by Vaughan Kester

The day preceding that of the funeral a dusty countryman, on a hard-ridden plough-horse, dashed into town with the news that a man who answered perfectly to the description of Roger Oakley had been seen the night before twenty-six miles north of Antioch, at a place called Barrow's Saw Mills, where he had stopped at a store and made a number of purchases. Then he had struck off through the woods. It was also learned that he had eaten his breakfast the morning after the murder at a farmhouse midway between Antioch and Barrow's Saw Mills. The farmer's wife had, at his request, put up a lunch for him. Later in the day a man at work in a field had seen and spoken with him.

There was neither railroad, telegraph, nor telephone at Barrow's Saw Mills, and the fugitive had evidently considered it safe to venture into the place, trusting that he was ahead of the news of his crime. It was on the edge of a sparsely settled district, and to the north of it was the unbroken wilderness stretching away to the lakes and the Wisconsin line.

The morning of the funeral an extra edition of the Herald was issued, which contained a glowing account of Ryder's life and achievements. It was an open secret that it was from the gifted pen of Kenyon. This notable enterprise was one of the wonders of the day. Everybody wanted a Herald as a souvenir of the occasion, and nearly five hundred copies were sold.

All that morning the country people, in unheard-of numbers, flocked into town. As Clarence remarked to Spide, it was just like a circus day. The noon train from Buckhom Junction arrived crowded to the doors, as did the one-o'clock train from Harrison. Antioch had never known anything like it.

The funeral was at two o'clock from the little white frame Methodist church, but long before the appointed hour it was crowded to the verge of suffocation, and the anxious, waiting throng overflowed into the yard and street, with never a hope of wedging into the building, much less securing seats.

A delegation of the strikers, the Young Men's Kenyon Club, of which Ryder was a member, and a representative body of citizens escorted the remains to the church. These were the people he had jeered at, whose simple joys he had ridiculed, and whose griefs he had made light of, but they would gladly have forgiven him his sarcasms even had they known of them. He had become a hero and a martyr.

Chris Berry and Cap Roberts were in charge of the arrangements. On the night of the murder the former had beaten his rival to the Herald office by exactly three minutes, and had never left Ryder until he lay in the most costly casket in his shop.

It was admitted afterwards by thoughtful men, who were accustomed to weigh their opinions carefully, that Mr. Williamson, the minister, had never delivered so moving an address, nor one that contained so obvious a moral. The drift of his remarks was that the death of their brilliant and distinguished fellow-townsman should serve as a warning to all that there was no time like the present in which to prepare for the life everlasting. He assured his audience that each hour of existence should be devoted to consecration and silent testimony; otherwise, what did it avail? It was not enough that Ryder had thrown the weight of his personal influence and exceptional talents on the side of sound morality and civic usefulness. And as he soared on from point to point, his hearers soared with him, and when he rounded in on each well-tried climax, they rounded in with him. He never failed them once. They always knew what he was going to say before it was said, and were ready for the thrill when the thrill was due. It might have seemed that Mr. Williamson was paid a salary merely to make an uncertain hereafter yet more uncomfortable and uncertain, but Antioch took its religion hot, with a shiver and a threat of blue flame.

When Mr. Williamson sat down Mr. Kenyon rose. As a layman he could be entirely eulogistic. He was sure of the faith which through life had been the guiding star of the departed. He had seen it instanced by numerous acts of eminently Christian benevolence, and on those rare occasions when he had spoken of his hopes and fears he had, in spite of his shrinking modesty, shown that his standards of Christian duty were both lofty and consistent.

Here the Hon. Jeb Barrows, who had been dozing peacefully, awoke with a start, and gazed with wide, bulging eyes at the speaker. He followed Mr. Kenyon, and, though he tried hard, he couldn't recall any expression of Ryder's, at the Red Star bar or elsewhere, which indicated that there was any spiritual uplift to his nature which he fed at secret altars; so he pictured the friend and citizen, and the dead fared well at his hands, perhaps better than he was conscious of, for he said no more than he believed.