Tess of the Storm Country Part 43

"I takes him back to feed him. He air hungry."

"Oh, Tess, if I could only feed him! If I could only always have him! I wish--I wish I were a squatter. Then I would face the world with my baby.... Oh, I am so unhappy and ill!"

True, she was ill, for there came to Tessibel's ears a cough that echoed against the rocks with the familiar sound of death in it. It sounded like that of a fisherwoman she had known in a shanty below the great rocks, who had died and been taken to the Potter's field.

"I air a-prayin' every day," said Tess, with a lump in her throat, "that ye be taken with the brat to the sky--to the brat's pa what ye loves....

Air that the prayin' ye wants?"

Teola nodded, and Tess, smiling tenderly, hesitated, and whispered:

"The student's G.o.d can do anything He wants to. Asks Him to let ye go 'cause ye be sick, and the brat air sick, too, and--the winter'll be cold for him."

She touched the handle on her arm lightly, turned, and disappeared.

Teola sat for some moments dry-eyed, looking at the high hill across the blue water, thinking of the next few weeks, and of how she and the babe would be called away. If she only had the precious uplifting faith of Tessibel! Something must come to her and the baby. Her stern father, who hated Tessibel Skinner with all his heart, must never know of the little Dan. Her mother, weary and nervous, would go to her grave from the shock; and Frederick--

Teola straightened at the thought of her brother. He would help her in all things, even in the tragedy that now covered her life. Of that Teola felt sure, but the humiliation would be too great. Better die apart from her child. With another racking cough, she turned her face toward home, two hectic spots s.h.i.+ning clear and red upon the white cheeks. Rebecca silently helped her to bed.

That night, at ten o'clock, after Tess had silenced the child in her arms and Teola had lost her nervousness in a stupor, three boats shot from different points of the west sh.o.r.e, and quietly oared a path through the moonlit lake toward the netting place.

The occupants of one boat were Satisfied Longman and his son. In another Jake Brewer sat, alone. In the third Ben Letts puffed upon his pipe. His thoughts were upon the one person he desired--Tess. Like most of mankind, he wanted what he could not get; wanted the girl who turned a mocking, beautiful face toward him and used such a bitter tongue. Tess was responsible for the scars upon his face, but he would feel them well carried if he gained the girl--and tamed her. That Tess was a devoted admirer of the student Graves made her none the less desirable. Ben dipped his oars with dexterous apt.i.tude and shot under the shadow of the trees. An instant later, his boat was beside those of the other squatters, and he was standing with his hand upon the north reel. Out into the lake the net was carried by Satisfied Longman and Jake Brewer.

Ben could see the tall, thin form of Ezra through the shadows, guiding the ropes as they slipped through his fingers. Here was a boy aspiring to the love of Tessibel Skinner. Ben heard the swish of the net far out in the lake as it took to the silent waters, heard the dipping of the oars, and saw the boats strike for the sh.o.r.e. Then Ezra came toward him, at the command of his father, Satisfied Longman.

During that evening, Deforest Young was calling upon Deacon Hall. He refused the Deacon's invitation to row him to the city.

"Thanks," said he, "but the night is delightful. I think I shall walk. I shall go by the sh.o.r.e and skirt to the tracks at the Hoghole."

He failed to say, however, that his reason for walking was that he desired to catch a glimpse of the red-haired Tess. He had not seen her since the discovery of the new-born babe.

The candle was lighted in the Skinner hut, and he tapped gently. For an instant there was no response, He knew the girl was at home--there had been a sudden discontinuance of a humming when he knocked.

"Miss Skinner, it is I--Professor Young," he called. "If it is too late, I will come again."

The door was promptly thrown open.

"Come in," said Tess with a smile. "I thought as how it were someone else."

"I have been at Deacon Hall's," explained he. "They agree with me that you ought to go and see your father. I did not tell them why you could not. Where is the little child?"

Tess glanced at the babe.

"I keeps him in the basket or the box in the daytime, but nights I takes him to bed with me. The rats be so dum thick that one of them big fellers would chew the little chap's ear offen him afore I could stop it."

She said it so naturally, as if she were speaking of the most ordinary thing, that Young felt a hysterical desire to laugh. It was a dreadful thought, this of the rat in the box with the babe.

"Are the men netting to-night?" he asked, quickly changing the subject.

"Yep, they be."

"I suppose there is no stopping it," sighed Young; "and they run such dreadful risks. But, if there were no laws about it, there would be no fish left in the lake."

Tessibel's brow gathered a thick network of wrinkles. She had heard the subject discussed and argued from her babyhood days. The best fish in the waters must be kept for the gentlemen who came for sport during the season. But the fishermen, who needed bread for their families, were forced by the law to go without.

"There oughtn't to be no laws about fis.h.i.+n'," she frowned, in decision.

"It air wicked, when brats air a-wantin' bread and beans."

Young saw danger ahead in the argument, so he switched to the home-coming of the minister's family. From that he again spoke of the infant, who was whimpering a little. Tess took him up, and warmed the milk.

"I shall go now, child," said Young, rising. "You are tired. You ought to go to bed."

"Yep, I air tired, I air," answered Tess, wearily "Good-night."

Once out upon the sh.o.r.e, Young looked back at the hut. It was dark. He saw three boats flit silently by him toward the city, as if phantoms guided them. They crossed the moonbeams, and Young lost them in the dark shadows near the sh.o.r.e.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

Keeping to the water's edge, Professor Young walked rapidly toward Ithaca. He knew that further up the sh.o.r.e the fishermen were drawing their nets; he did not wish to advance upon them. Since knowing Tessibel Skinner, he had become more lenient toward the law-breakers.

He turned into the forest at the side of the Hoghole, but the sound of voices brought him to a standstill.

Ezra Longman was shouting out a threat.

"Ye be a-tryin' to get Tess, and I tells ye to look out."

"Shet up!" responded Ben Letts.

"If ye air a-wis.h.i.+n' to live," came the boy's voice again, "I says for ye to keep away from her."

"I lives 'cause I lives, and I ain't afraid of ye, nohow."

The Professor barely caught the words, for they were gurgled in the deep throat.

"I wants Tess for a woman," Ben broke out, "and for a woman I air a-goin' to have her. She'll care for Mammy and me. I gets her. See?"

The north reel stopped turning, but the south one went on silently. Ben Letts and Ezra Longman were turning over and over on the sand, at grips with each other.

Professor Young uttered no word. Then Ezra's voice came from under Ben's big body.

"I tells what I knows about Skinner if ye don't get up and let me be,"

said he. "I tells--"

Red fingers closed over his throat, and Ezra Longman spoke no more. As the south reel kept turning around and around, the rope slackened from the north reel in the water; and still Ben Letts held his deadly fingers pressed about the neck of his enemy.

Professor Young saw Ben sit up and bend his head to the heart of the other fisherman. Then, with a furtive glance about, he lifted the boy in his arms, and came toward Young, grunting under his burden. Young drew back into the overhanging branches.