Shattuck

“ It was so patent a possibility that Shattuck should have used his friend's temporary unconsciousness and his own affected solicitude as a blind to despatch Steve Yates upon some mysterious errand of their own, from which he was never intended to return, that it amazed all the cronies that so obvious an idea had never occurred to them before. Far more natural than that Shattuck should experience so preposterous a fear for so slight a hurt. "Why," said the old man, "Rhodes looks ez survigrous ez that thar oak-tree!" ”

“ Shattuck led the way. He had turned once more to the tall isolated laurel-bush, almost of tree-like proportions, where he had begun his labors before. He did not at once throw himself from his horse; he was taking note of a strange thing, something that he had not marked heretofore. That mass of bloom and foliage rose between the grave whose stone coffin his pickaxe had struck and any possible surveillance from the Yates cabin. A doubt for the first time stirred in his mind whether it were indeed Adelaide who had fired that murderous rifle ball. ”

“ Guthrie drew a long sigh. "An' a mighty mean way too," he commented.
"And men are not often more communicative," Shattuck dexterously equalized the balance. "Mr. Rhodes hasn't talked to me on the subject, but I think I might undertake to say for him that he doesn't want to interfere with you in that quarter."
"He did the night o' the infair at Pettingill's," the slow mountaineer argued, with a swift application of logic.
"Oh, pshaw! he didn't want to 'dance Tucker,' that's all," said Shattuck, with a laugh, and once more seeking to turn away. ”

“ He had noted often that strange mesmeric influence of the eye; a wild beast in the woods would not remain oblivious of the presence of his natural enemy were a human being's gaze steadily fixed for some space upon him. Shattuck suddenly put up his hand with a vaguely impatient air of interruption, and passed it over his cheek; then he rose abruptly to his feet, crossed the hearth with his quick, sure step, and reached up to the high mantel-piece, dusky in the shadow. There was a sharp metallic click outside amongst the honeysuckle vines—Guthrie had cocked his pistol. ”

“ She said nothing; but determination, immobility, could hardly have had more adequate expression than in her face, her soft and delicate lips closed fast, her eyes bright and fearless.
"But shucks!"—he sought to make light of it—"Shattuck ain't a-goin' ter kem agin ter the Leetle People's buryin'-groun'—leastwise not when Mis' Yates be out an' stirrin'." A dim prospect of organizing a nocturnal expedition for Shattuck's assistance was shaping itself in his mind. "She can't be on watch night and day."
Letitia looked up, her interest in all that interested Shattuck shining in her eyes. ”

“ Shattuck declared, easily. "And to that I'd be willing to take my oath."
"Ye see, stranger, I be mightily afflicted," said Fee Guthrie, and his strong voice trembled.
"You don't look like it, my friend," returned Shattuck, with a smile.
"Oh, I am!" cried the other, with a poignant intonation. "Even ef Rhodes warn't ahead of me, an' ef she liked me, she moughtn't be willin' ter marry me. Some wimmen wouldn't. I hev got that step-mam o' mine ter take keer of; many a gal wouldn't 'gree ter 'bide with her. An' I can't leave her!" ”

“ He sees above the western mountains a dull red after-glow of the sunset, and below its darkling pine-grown slopes the little Yates cabin, its windows shining squares of yellow light. The radiance issued forth so far as to reveal Shattuck alighting from his horse at the bars, and the clumsier figure of Ephraim Guthrie still mounted, and looking over his shoulder, as he perceived for the first time that Rhodes was not in the lead.
An aptitude in emergency is a natural trait, not cultivated, and Rhodes possessed it to a useful degree. ”

“ It would have been far indeed from his own roof-tree could Zack Pettingill, the very soul of hospitality, have contemplated the infamy of which Shattuck had affected to suspect him. He wondered a trifle that so ignorant, so coarse, so violent, so lawless a man should be so vulnerable in the more æsthetic sensibilities, forgetting that traits of character are as the solid wood, indigenous; and that cultivation is, after all, only surface polish and veneer, and can never give to common deal the rich heart, the weight, and the value of the walnut or the oak. ”

“ Yet two months later Shattuck had been seen alive, and the following winter had engaged in an Albany hotel robbery which had earned for him, under an entirely different name, a nine-year sentence in Sing Sing.
From the memory of that case Never-Fail Blake wrung a thin and ghostly consolation. The more he brooded over it the more morosely disquieted he became. The thing grew like a upas tree; it spread until it obsessed all his waking hours and invaded even his dreams. Then a time came when he could endure it no more. He faced the necessity of purging his soul of all uncertainty. ”

“ He had on the face which he took about with him on his canvass—his best expression, gay, gentle, kind; his conversation was full of country jokes, which he delivered with a rural drawl, and he was about as rustic a specimen as an educated man can well personate. He never dropped the character for a moment, although he hardly cared to impress his friend with its value. Its lapses from his usual habit of speech revolted Shattuck in some sort, albeit the contorted language of the ignorant mountaineers never grated upon his somewhat nice philological prejudices. ”

“ Rhodes, visibly agitated, pulled himself into a sitting posture. "Who—who—said that—such a thing?" Still dazed and confused though he was, his eyes, sweeping the by-standers, rested with the certainty of reproach upon Shattuck. There was a momentary silence. "Understand one thing, Mr. Pettingill," he said at length, with a quick flush upon his pale face that had seemed to grow lean in the last hour—"understand this: alive or dead, no man speaks for me." ”

“ The clamorous voices of those angered men rose to a hoarse scream, and the agitated tones of the officer, pleading, arguing, justifying himself, were overborne. Shattuck put his foot in the stirrup. The next moment he was in the saddle. As he looked down, he saw Letitia's face distinctly in the moonlight that trickled through a bough; something of that love of hers, which Guthrie had at once divined and denied and revealed, was expressed in it.
"Ye'll kem back again—some day—some day?" she said. ”

“ Felix Guthrie evidently cared as little as might be. His eyes met Shattuck's unabashed.
"Fee ain't in no wise malicious," Eph piped up.
"I know it—I know that—no man better," Rhodes interrupted him promptly, for he knew that Eph could talk by the yard measure on the subject of his brother's perfections, so close was the fraternal bond. "I know Fee can't bear malice. I like Fee, and Fee likes me, and won't do a thing against me—not a thing!"
"Waal, ye better not be too sure o' that," the voice at Shattuck's elbow said, in that suppressed, significant soliloquy. ”

“ There is naught of which the man of science, albeit the veriest amateur, is so intolerant as ignorant ridicule. His fleering laugh jarred Shattuck's nerves, made sensitive by the ordeal of the morning, and his utter lack of appreciation of the meaning of that bit of pottery was as pitiable as if he lacked a sense—that of sight, for instance, and jeered at the idea of light. The human significance of it; the lost history of lands and peoples and civilization, of which it was a dim, vague intimation ”

“ Ephraim looked with quick anxiety from one to the other. On his ready impulse he spoke, forestalling Shattuck's reply. "Oh, ye can't holp makin' mam mad; she gits mad 'kase other folks breathe the breath o' life. The only way ter suit her is ter die, an' gin her the Great Smoky Mountings fur elbow-room. Nuthin' less."
"I had no idea that you would come too," protested Shattuck. "I thought that if one of us stayed, the courtesies would be amply observed; and so they would."
"You had no right to think," said Rhodes, putting his foot into the stirrup, his face scarlet under his dark straw hat. ”

“ The public expectation of success is as a loadstone to the event. He sustained a positive loss in the mere fact that he or his friend had been fired upon. And whither was Shattuck bound now, and what to do? With a determination to hold him in check and to thwart his purpose, Rhodes galloped in the direction whence the faint hoof-beats sounded, albeit the darkness held unknown terrors, the thought of which shook his nerves, and although silence as profound as this had but now been rent by that tense report of the rifle. ”

“ What made ye put the slab back?' An' Fee—ye know how crusty an' sour an' cantankerous he be—he say, 'Them Leetle People air folks, an' I hev no call ter go grave-robbin' ez I knows on!' That thar Shattuck turned fire-red in a minit. He air a mighty nice, sa-aft-spoken, perlite man, though spindlin'. An' he talked mos'ly ter me arter that—Fee stood by an' listened—an' I liked Shattuck middlin' well. He 'lowed ez 'twar important ter know fur the history of the kentry—an' he did sound sorter like he war vagrantin' in his mind—ter know ef them Leetle People war grown folks or jes' chil'n. ”

“ As Rhodes bounded about, now and then executing a double-shuffle and cutting a pigeon-wing of an extraordinary agility, and more than once intentionally suffering an opportunity of securing a partner to escape him, remaining "Tucker" through several rounds, Shattuck heard comments among the by-standers altogether at variance with the candidate's expectations. "That's all done a purpose!" "He makes a tremenjious fool of hisself!" "He don't expect ter git married in this kentry!" ”

“ More money? Not an obole until your job is finished. We cannot depend upon the fool Cleon. Go with him. Stick to his heels. He cannot be trusted by himself. Ben Shattuck is in Jerusalem. He is called Dion,—a captain once in the Greek guard. But he has scented out his own Jewish blood, and will go back to it, like a dog to his vomit. ”

“ Shattuck, tiring but a moment ago, felt a freshening of interest. "Why," he said, "I have heard that she was unkind to you and your brother when you were children."
"Onkind! Lord! that warn't the word fur it till I got the strength ter be more onkind ter her. But she don't own nuthin'. She 'ain't got nuthin' ter live on. I promised my dad ter support her." ”

“ After King Ptolemy's rage had abated—thanks chiefly to Ctesiphon's influence with the King—the Jews often came to my house when they visited their kinsman Nahum. Thus I often saw your father, Shattuck. He was a princely fellow; of wondrous gentility; and withal as much shrewdness as any of his race. My money I left with him, sure of its proper usury. He soon won the affection of Sara, and they were betrothed and wedded according to their nation's custom. The coming of Sara's child, and the death of Shattuck, her husband, were near together. ”

“ Tenders of affection are not retroactive. A man can't flirt as proxy for his dead grandfather. It was merely a little electioneering compliment."
"Oh, Rhodes, how do you manage to look yourself in the face in the mirror?" exclaimed Shattuck, with a laugh.
"I look at myself in the mirror with a good deal more pleasure than is proper, I expect," said Rhodes, smoothing his handsome and lustrous red-brown beard. He tipped his straw hat over his smiling, full-lashed dark eyes, for they were out of the shadows at last, and in the sun amongst a stretch of the barley. The wind bent it ”

“ Shattuck shook off the hand which his friend placed upon his shoulder; but Rhodes turned with unimpaired cheerfulness to the others.
"Now look-a-here, Mrs. Yates, this must stop, short off, right here. I'd like to think I'd leave as good a friend behind me as the pygmies have in you; but you can't befriend with impunity people who have been dead so long that they are too funny to keep their coffins to themselves. You look out! You don't want an action for assault with intent to kill brought against you, I reckon. ”

“ An', damn ye! what d'ye want ter hear her sing fur?"
Shattuck's face, with a startled astonishment upon it, had grown more deeply grave. Every intimation of anger had fallen from his manner. "Guthrie," he said, in a tone so coercive, so serious, that the other looked up, newly intent, "is there no way to convince you? I never heard her sing. I never was in the pygmy burying-ground but that one time with your brother. Now, think! Is there no one else who might loiter about that house; who might venture—I should never take such a liberty—to look through the crevices of a closed window?" ”

“ I wouldn't hold Rhodes no gredge ef 'twarn't fur her. An' though she showed she hed ruther dance with him than with me, she don't 'pear ter like him noways special. An' sometimes I feel like I ought ter make myse'f easy."
The pitiable vacillations of a lover's hopes and fears appealed to Shattuck. The strength of the man's will, the sternness, almost savagery, of his character, added a force to all that he said, not lessened by Shattuck's knowledge of the object of his affections, or, rather, that upon that aerial and whimsical identity little knowledge was predicable. ”

“ And when Shattuck had acceded, and the peculiarity of his manner had proved attractive to the mountaineers, and encomiums from the simple people followed him here and there, Rhodes had been impressed with the idea that his friend was an immense acquisition and a positive help in the canvass, in which small matters of personal popularity would have to count against party principles. Few men in this world could be more engagingly genial and affectionate than was Leonard Rhodes at this stage of his onslaught upon the predilections of Kildeer County. ”