The Tempering. Charles Buck
boy; a boy whose cheeks had gone pale and whose eyes had turned from sky-blue to flame blue.
"They're jest a'seekin' ter git ye thar an' hang ye out of hand, Asa. Tell 'em all ter go everlastin'ly ter hell! Ye kin hide out hyar in ther mountains an' five hundred soldiers couldn't never run ye down. Ye kin cross over inter Virginny an' go wharsoever ye likes – but ef ye suffers yoreself ter be took, they'll hang ye outen pure disgust fer ther hills!"
Yes, thought Victor McCalloway, that was just about what would happen. The boy whom he had been educating to a new viewpoint had, at a stride, gone back to all the primitive sources of his nature, yet he spoke the truth. Then the voice of Asa Gregory sounded again with a measured evenness.
"What does ye think, Mr. McCalloway? I was thar on thet day. I kin hide out hyar an' resist arrest, like ther boy says, an' I misdoubts ef I could git any lavish of justice down thar."
"I doubt it gravely, sir," snorted McCalloway. "By Gad, I doubt it most gravely."
"An' yit," went on the other voice slowly, somewhat heavily, "ef I did foller thet course hit mout mean a heap of bloodshed, I reckon. Hit'd be mightily like admittin' them charges they're amakin' too." He paused a moment, then rose abruptly from his chair. "I come ter ask counsel," he said, "but afore I come my mind was already done made up. I'm agoin' over ter Marlin Town termorrer mornin' an' I'm agoin' ter surrender ter Bev. Jett, ther High Sheriff."
"Don't ye never do hit, Asa," shouted the boy. "Don't ye never do hit!" but McCalloway had risen and in his eyes gleamed an enthusiastic light.
"It's a thing I couldn't have advised, Mr. Gregory," he said, in a shaken voice. "It's a thing that may lead – God knows where – and yet it's the only decent thing to do."
CHAPTER XI
At the edge of Marlin Town stood the bungalow of the coal company's superintendent, and in its living-room, on either side of a document-littered table, sat two men. One of them, silvered of temple and somewhat portly of stature, leaned back with the tranquillity of complete relaxation after his day's work. His face wore the urbanity of well-being and prosperity, but the man across from him leaned forward with an attitude of nervous tension.
To Larry Masters there was something nettling in the very repose with which his visitor from Louisville crossed his stout and well-tailored legs. This feeling manifested itself in the jerky quickness of hand with which the mine superintendent poured whiskey into his glass and hissed soda after it from the syphon.
"Won't you fill up, Tom," he invited shortly. "The entertainment I can offer you is limited enough – but at least we have the peg at our disposal."
"Thank you – no more." Colonel Wallifarro spoke with a pleasingly modulated voice, trained into effectiveness by years of jury elocution. "I've had my evening's allowance, except for a night-cap."
Masters rose abruptly from his chair. He tossed down half the contents of his glass and paced the floor with a restless stride, gnawing at his close-cropped and sandy moustache. His tall, well-knit figure moved with a certain athletic vitality, and his florid face was tanned like a pig-skin saddle-skirt. But his brow was corrugated in a frown of discontent, and his pale blue eyes were almost truculent.
"By Gad, Tom," he flared out with choleric impetuosity, "you can put more righteous rebuke into a polite refusal of liquor than most men could crowd into a whole damned temperance lecture. I dare say, however, you're quite right. Life spells something for you. It's worth conserving. You've got assured position, an adoring family, money, success, hosts of friends. You'd be a blithering fool, I grant you, to waste yourself in indulgence, but I'm not so ideally situated. I 'take the cash and let the credit go.'"
"Yet you have, ahead of you, some ten or twelve years more of life than I can reasonably expect," was the quiet response. "You still have youth – or youth's fulfilment – early middle-age."
"And a jolly lot that means to me," retorted Masters, with acerbity. "I live here among illiterates, working for a corporation on a salary pared to the bone. At the time of life when one ought to be at the top of one's abilities, I'm the most pathetic human thing under God's arching sky – a man who started out with big promise – and fell by the wayside. Heaven help the man who fires and falls back – and if he can retrieve a bit of temporary solace from that poor substitute" – he jerked a forefinger toward the bottle – "then I say for Heaven's sake let him poison himself comfortably and welcome."
Colonel Wallifarro studied the darkened scowl of his companion for a moment before he replied, and when he spoke his own manner retained its imperturbability.
"I didn't offer gratuitous criticism, Larry," he suggested. "I merely declined another toddy."
"You know my case, Tom" – the younger of the two caught him up quickly; "you know that no younger son ever came out from England with fairer expectations of succeeding on his own. I've been neither the fool nor the shirk – and yet – " A shrug of disgust finished the sentence.
Colonel Wallifarro studied his cigar ash without rejoinder, and when Larry Masters failed to draw a return fire of argument, he sat for a minute or two glumly silent. Then, as his thoughts coursed back into other years, a slow light kindled in his eyes, as if for a dead dream.
"You were always sceptical about Middlesboro, even when others were full of faith – but why?" he demanded. "To you, with your Bluegrass ideas of fat acres, these hills must always be the ragged fringes of things, a meagre land without a future. It was only that you lacked imagination."
The speaker swept torrentially on with as much of argumentative warmth as though he had not just confessed himself ruined by reason of his own former confidence.
"Where the Gap came through lay the natural gateway of the hills, hewn out in readiness by the hand of the Almighty. There was water-power – ore. There was coal, for smelter and market, timber awaiting the axe and the saw-mill – the whole tremendous treasure house of a natural Eldorado."
"Perhaps," observed the Colonel, "and yet, when all is said and done, it was only a boom – and it collapsed. Whatever the causes, the results are definite."
"Yes, it collapsed, and we went with it." Masters paused to take up and empty the glass which had started the discussion, then with a heightened excitement he swept on afresh:
"Yet how near we came! Gad, man, your own eyes saw our conception grow! You saw lots along what had been creek-bed trails sell at a footage-price that rivalled New York's best avenues, and you yourself recognized in me, for all your scepticism, a man with a golden future. Then – after all that – you saw me jolly well ruined – and yet you prate of what life may hold for me in the vigour of my middle-age."
"All that happened ten years back, however," the elder man equably reminded his companion. "It was the old story of a boom and a collapse – and one misfortune – even one disaster – need not break a man's spirit. You might have come back."
The eyes of the portly gentleman rested in a momentary glance on the bottle and glass, but that may have been chance. At least he did not mention them.
"You think I might have come back, do you?" The voice of the Englishman had hardened. "I don't want to be nasty or say disagreeable things. You've been a staunch friend to me – even when Anne found herself growing bitter against me. Well, I don't blame her. Her people had been leaders always. She had the divine right to an assured place in society, and I had failed. I suppose it was natural enough for her to feel that she'd been done in – but it happened to be the finish of me. I'd sweated blood to make Middlesboro – and I didn't have the grit left to commence over."
For the first time Colonel Wallifarro's attitude stiffened, bringing up his silver-crowned head defensively.
"Anne didn't leave you for financial reasons, Larry," he asserted steadily. "She's my kinswoman, and you are my friend, but no purpose is to be served by my listening to ex parte grievances from either of you."
Masters shrugged his shoulders. "I dare say you're quite right," he admitted. "But be that as it may, she did leave me – left me flat. If she didn't divorce me, it wasn't out of consideration for my feelings. It would almost have been better if she had. All I ever succeeded in doing