"I can't say it was. I think I'd had too much ale, and then something more there--b.u.t.tered rum. That was my undoing." His laughter sounded to himself feeble and unwelcome.

"You mean nothing happened?"

"Nothing much.... No, d.a.m.n it, nothing--I spilled at the gates. I think maybe I didn't really wish to go. Mr. Shawn----"

Reuben's words raced and ran together: "Well, the devil fly off with your friend Shawn, and couldn't the son of a b.i.t.c.h stand by you and you so drunk? Do you know you was stepping direct for that quicksand?"

"I--was?"

"We might have gone down in it."

"Well--wait, Ru! It was no fault of Shawn. I left him at the house. He was still with his wench when I was ready to go, and some-way I didn't wish to see him then, so I came off alone."

"Oh." His face still averted, his thin hands motionless on the books, Reuben muttered: "Sorry, Ben. The cork popped out of the bottle and I spattered. My regrets." He started getting dressed, and Ben knew his chatter was mainly for his own benefit: "Beware the lightning after breakfast--Pontifex is not wholly pleased with our Benjamin, and will be summoning the cohorts of Ovid, his _Tristia_; Ramus, his _Logic_; Cicero, his honorificabilitudinitatibus."

"Ow-ooh!"

"What--coach wheels?"

"I thought that was my head."

"No," said Reuben, and flung open the window. "Something's afoot."

"If on wheels, how should it be--ow! Shut that arctic window, you b.l.o.o.d.y worm!" But as Ben tried to creep under the covers, Reuben hauled a corner of them over his shoulder and marched to the door with it, his good humor restored, peeling Ben raw to the April breeze. He wadded the bedclothes into a spherical snarl out of Ben's reach, heaved that into the closet, barked in some satisfaction, and ran downstairs. Ben could plainly make out the squeak and rattle of coach wheels from the driveway before the house. He leaped for his clothes--unwisely, considering his head--and paused to reflect on the uses of sobriety.

The fat horses were lathered, blowing in relief at the halt. From the parlor window Reuben saw the girl alight before the coachman's hand could aid her, a square small maiden in a hurry. As Kate Dobson opened the door he heard fright, determination and embarra.s.sment in the throaty voice: "I must speak with Mr. Kenny--'tis most urgent."

Kate was fluttering. "He's at breakfast, my dear."

Reuben intervened, startled as she abruptly swung to him, a miniature whirlwind with sea-blue eyes. Some blurred yellowish phenomenon pa.s.sed her feet--a dog apparently, not relevant unless Mr. Eccles should choose that moment to come downstairs. "I'll take you to him," Reuben said, and Kate relaxed at the authority of a man in the house.

"You are Mr. Cory's brother."

"Madam, the charge is well founded."

"This," said Charity, "is no time for schoolboy levity."

"Ow-ooh!" said Reuben, and stood to attention by the dining-room doorway as Charity pa.s.sed, and the dog. In a woolgathering way, the animal acknowledged Reuben's feet, but had no time for them. It was mere carelessness, not sin, that made Reuben leave the door open as he followed Charity with all the meekness of Sultan.

Pleased and then alarmed, Mr. Kenny jumped up, winced at his bad foot and clutched the table-edge. "Charity, my dear, what lucky wind----"

"Sir, Faith said I'd best be the one to bring word, seeing Mama is prostrated and--and so--so I----" she lapsed into stuttering confusion and stamped her foot in rage at her own behavior.

"Breathe slow, my dear," said the old man, no longer smiling. "Count to four, my dear, then to eight by twos. Now: two, four, six----"

"Eight, ten, twelve," said Charity, and shuddered. "Pray don't be prostrated, Mr. Kenny, the way Mama said you was sure to be. I'd not know what to do."

"Now sit thee down," said John Kenny. "I shall undertake not to be prostrated, and a'n't thy bonnet-strings a little tight?"

Standing by her chair, Reuben briefly recalled the sensation of living as a pigmy in a world of giants. "Mama saith, never no such thing happened here in all her time. My father--he--well, when they brought the news he heard something and came downstairs, but he--but he...."

Reuben noticed her fists pressing on the table. On impulse he lifted one of them. "Allow me," said Reuben, urging the fingers to open and relax.

They did so, as Charity stared up at him in a trance of observation. He patted the hand and set it back on the table. "I think, Charity, my Uncle John would prefer not to have bad news broken gently. Am I right, sir? Better to hear it quick and plain?"

"Much better." John Kenny spoke absently, watching him and not Charity, who would have accomplished her errand then, Reuben guessed, but h.e.l.l broke loose.

Reuben glimpsed the preliminary tableau--Sultan in the doorway, frozen in unbelieving horror at a ball of golden evil which advanced on stiff legs directly toward his nose. Reuben had time to lay a private wager entirely in favor of Mr. Eccles, but was too late for anything else--the golden ball rose up straight, reversed itself in mid-air, and dropped on Sultan's back with the ineluctable certainty of the Puritan h.e.l.l.

"Oh!" Charity cried. "Oh, the horrid beast!" She jumped up on her chair, maybe to see better. "Sultan, stop it!"

Sultan would have loved to, if he could. John Kenny swung up his aging feet as the storm swept by.

Reuben followed.

"Sultan!" Charity wailed. "Come here this instant! Sultan, shame!

Abusing that poor cat!"

Mr. Kenny lifted his feet again.

Reuben followed.

A chair toppled over. If Sultan had nourished any hopes at all, they had centered around that chair. He might, like Milton's Lucifer, have had none--_Which way I fly is h.e.l.l, myself am h.e.l.l...._ Reuben followed, dimly aware of his brother in the doorway and Kate Dobson behind him, both shouting encouragement. Uncle John seemed rather happy too, but was preparing to lift his feet a third time. Reuben observed that everyone, in fact, was laughing except himself, and he would too if he could only _gain_ a little.... At last he was able to swoop down and grasp the loose skin of a rigid yellow neck. He hoisted it; Sultan shot away from under it. A good deal of Sultan's hair came up on the claws, but the essential dog was then able to flee under Charity's chair and leave all the rest to the judgment of history.

Reuben secured Mr. Eccles' threshing hind legs and bore him to the kitchen door. Ben dived to open it for him, doubled over and hooting but aware of the flashing forepaws.

"Ben!" said Mr. Kenny--"Ben, you a'n't got sea-room. You, Reuben, I mean Mr. Cory, do you tack a mite to la'board--la'board, sir! There--now, Ben, now you can cross his bow."

"'Sbody!" said Kate. "I wouldn't trade 'im for a mastiff!"

"Best not leave him alone out there, Kate," said Mr. Kenny. "You hear that?" Reuben had flung Mr. Eccles into the kitchen and closed the door just in time, but he could be heard marching up and down, blaspheming.

"He's lonely, the little thing."

Kate bounced away whooping. Mr. Kenny wiped his eyes and finished a b.u.t.tered bun. "I suppose," said Reuben, "it happens to the best of dogs."

"Why," said Charity, "he was overtaken by surprise."

"Of course he was," said Mr. Kenny. "Come, Sultan! Come here, boy, good boy!" Mr. Kenny chirped, but though Sultan was willing to explain everything in a long undertone, he was not at the moment coming anywhere, for anyone.

Charity exploded in fresh cries. "I can't stop laughing!" she wept, and dropped her head on the table. "I can't _stop_ it!" Mr. Kenny bent over her, concerned; her laughter had gone shrill and sick. "Dreadful news, and I--I _can't stop laughing_! Help!"

For Reuben, the worst of Mr. Eccles' dangerous writhing had not obscured a second's glimpse of Charity in the moment when she discovered that Ben was in the room. Under cover of her wailing laughter he muttered in Ben's ear: "Can't you see she loves you? Do something!"

He knew Ben did not quite understand nor believe it, but Ben took an uncertain step toward the chair where Charity struggled with the demons of her laughter, and that was enough. Charity flung herself at him.

Reuben saw his brother's arms close around her with a natural kindness, and heard him say: "Now, now! What's the matter, Mistress Charity?"

"Cousin Jan--Mr. Dyckman." She spoke quietly into Ben's shirt, all laughter spent.