THE MAN WITH THE SCYTHE

It was late in June before I was able to disengage myself from the work of the judge's office. Meanwhile there had been blood shed back in the hills. One of the sheriff's posse had been severely wounded by a bullet and had failed to serve the writs. The judge had appealed to the governor. People were talking of "the rent war."

Purvis had returned to St. Lawrence County and hired to my uncle for the haying. He had sent me a letter which contained the welcome information that the day he left the stage at Canton, he had seen Miss Dunkelberg on the street.

"She was lookin' top-notch--stop't and spoke to me," he went on. "You cood a nocked me down with a fether I was that scairt. She ast me how you was an' I lookt her plum in the eye an' I says: all grissul from his head to his heels, mam, an' able to lick Lew Latour, which I seen him do in quick time an' tolable severe. He can fight like a bob-tailed cat when he gits a-goin', I says."

What a recommendation to the sweet, unsullied spirit of Sally! Without knowledge of my provocation what would she think of me? He had endowed me with all the frightfulness of his own cherished ideal, and what was I to do about it? Well, I was going home and would try to see her.

What a joy entered my heart when I was aboard the steamboat, at last, and on my way to all most dear to me! As I entered Lake Champlain I consulted the map and decided to leave the boat at Chimney Point to find Kate Fullerton, who had written to the schoolmaster from Canterbury. My aunt had said in a letter that old Kate was living there and that a great change had come over her. So I went ash.o.r.e and hired a horse of the ferryman--one of those "Green Mountain ponies" of which my uncle had told me: "They'll take any gait that suits ye, except a slow one, an'

keep it to the end o' the road."

I think that I never had a horse so bent on reaching that traditional "end of the road." He was what they called a "racker" those days, and a rocking-chair was not easier to ride. He took me swiftly across the wide flat and over the hills and seemed to resent my effort to slow him.

I pa.s.sed through Middlebury and rode into the grounds of the college, where the Senator had been educated, and on out to Weybridge to see where he had lived as a boy. I found the Wright homestead--a comfortable white house at the head of a beautiful valley with wooded hills behind it--and rode up to the door. A white-haired old lady in a black lace cap was sitting on its porch looking out at the sunlit fields.

"Is this where Senator Wright lived when he was a boy?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," the old lady answered.

"I am from Canton."

She rose from her chair.

"You from Canton!" she exclaimed. "Why, of all things! That's where my boy's home is. I'm glad to see you. Go an' put your horse in the barn."

I dismounted and she came near me.

"Silas Wright is my boy," she said. "What is your name?"

"Barton Baynes," I answered as I hitched my horse.

"Barton Baynes! Why, Silas has told me all about you in his letters. He writes to me every week. Come and sit down."

We sat down together on the porch.

"Silas wrote in his last letter that you were going to leave your place in Cobleskill," she continued to my surprise. "He said that he was glad you had decided not to stay."

It was joyful news to me, for the Senator's silence had worried me and I had begun to think with alarm of my future.

"I wish that he would take you to Washington to help him. The poor man has too much to do."

"I should think it a great privilege to go," I answered.

"My boy likes you," she went on. "You have been brought up just as he was. I used to read to him every evening when the candles were lit. How hard he worked to make a man of himself! I have known the mother's joy.

I can truly say, 'Now let thy servant depart in peace.'"

"'For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,'" I quoted.

"You see I know much about you and much about your aunt and uncle," said Mrs. Wright.

She left me for a moment and soon the whole household was gathered about me on the porch, the men having come up from the fields. The Senator had told them on his last visit of my proficiency as a sound-hand writer and I amused them by explaining the art of it. They put my horse in the barn and pressed me to stay for dinner, which I did. It was a plain boiled dinner at which the Senator's cousin and his hired man sat down in their shirt-sleeves and during which I heard many stories of the boyhood of the great man. As I was going the gentle old lady gave me a pair of mittens which her distinguished son had worn during his last winter in college. I remember well how tenderly she handled them!

"I hope that Silas will get you to help him"--those were the last words she said to me when I bade her good-by.

The visit had set me up a good deal. The knowledge that I had been so much in the Senator's thoughts, and that he approved my decision to leave the learned judge, gave me new heart. I had never cherished the thought that he would take me to Washington although, now and then, a faint star of hope had shone above the capitol in my dreams. As I rode along I imagined myself in that great arena and sitting where I could see the flash of its swords and hear the thunder of Homeric voices. That is the way I thought of it. Well, those were no weak, piping times of peace, my brothers. They were times of battle and as I rode through that peaceful summer afternoon I mapped my way to the fighting line. I knew that I should enjoy the practise of the law but I had begun to feel that eventually my client would be the people whose rights were subject to constant aggression as open as that of the patroons or as insidious as that of the ca.n.a.l ring.

The shadows were long when I got to Canterbury. At the head of its main street I looked down upon a village green and some fine old elms. It was a singularly quiet place. I stopped in front of a big white meeting house. An old man was mowing in its graveyard near the highway. Slowly he swung his scythe.

"It's a fine day," I said.

"No, it ain't, nuther-too much hard work in it," said he.

"Do you know where Kate Fullerton lives?" I asked.

"Well, it's purty likely that I do," he answered as he stood resting on his snath. "I've lived seventy-two years on this hill come the fourteenth day o' June, an' if I didn't know where she lived I'd be 'shamed of it."

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment and added:

"I know everybody that lives here an' everybody that dies here, an' some that orto be livin' but ain't an' some that orto be dead which ye couldn't kill `em with an ax--don't seem so--I declare it don't. Do ye see that big house down there in the trees?"

I could see the place at which he pointed far back from the village street in the valley below us, the house nearly hidden by tall evergreens.

"Yes," I answered.

"No ye can't, nuther--leastways if ye can ye've got better eyes'n mos'

people, ye can't see only a patch o' the roof an' one chimney--them pine trees bein' thicker'n the hair on a dog. It's the gloomiest ol' house in all creation, I guess. Wal, that's the Squire Fullerton place--he's Kate's father."

"Does the squire live there?"

"No, sir--not eggzac'ly. He's dyin' there--been dyin' there fer two year er more. By gosh! It's wonderful how hard 'tis fer some folks to quit breathin'. Say, be you any o' his fam'ly?"

"No."

"Nor no friend o' his?"

"No!"

"Course not. He never had a friend in his life--too mean! He's too mean to die, mister--too mean fer h.e.l.l an' I wouldn't wonder--honest, I wouldn't--mebbe that's why G.o.d is keepin' him here--jest to meller him up a little. Say, mister, be you in a hurry?"

"No."

"Yis ye be. Everybody's in a hurry--seems to me--since we got steam power in the country. Say, hitch yer hoss an' come in here. I want to show ye suthin'."

He seemed to enjoy contradicting me.

"n.o.body seems in a hurry in this town," I said.