Tiverton Tales Part 30

So strong was the family conviction that Nicholas had involved them in disgrace, that Mary glanced up fiercely, and her mother gave an apologetic cough.

"Well," said Young Nick's Hattie, "I dunno's I know anything particular about father."

"Where is he, I mean," asked the minister. "I want to see him. I've got to."

"Gran'ther's gone away," announced Mary, looking up at him with hot and loyal eyes. "We don't know where." Her fingers trembled, and she lost her st.i.tch. She was furious with herself for not being calmer. It seemed as if gran'ther had a right to demand it of her. The minister bent his brows impatiently.

"Why, I depended on seeing Mr. Oldfield," said he, with the fractiousness of a man recently ill. "This sickness of mine has put me back tremendously. I've got to make the address, and I don't know what to say. I meant to read town records and hunt up old stories; and then when I was sick I thought, 'Never mind! Mr. Oldfield will have it all at his tongue's end.' And now he isn't here, and I'm all at sea without him."

This was perhaps the first time that Young Nick's Hattie had ever looked upon her father's pursuits with anything but a pitying eye. A frown of perplexity grew between her brows. Her brain ached in expanding. Mary leaned forward, her face irradiated with pure delight.

"Why, yes," said she, at once accepting the minister for a friend, "gran'ther could tell you, if he was here. He knows everything."

"You see," continued the minister, now addressing her, "there are facts enough that are common talk about the town, but we only half know them.

The first settlers came from Devon. Well, where did they enter the town?

From which point? Sudleigh side, or along by the river? I incline to the river. The doctor says it would be a fine symbolic thing to take the procession up to the church by the very way the first settlers came in.

But where was it? I don't know, and n.o.body does, unless it's Nicholas Oldfield."

Mary folded her hands, in proud composure.

"Yes, sir," said she, "gran'ther knows. He could tell you, if he was here."

"I should like to inquire what makes you so certain, Mary Oldfield,"

asked her mother, with the natural irritation of the unprepared. "I should like to know how father's got hold of things pa'son and doctor ain't neither of 'em heard of?"

"Why," said the minister, rising, "he's simply crammed with town legends. He can repeat them by the yard. He's a local historian. But then, I needn't tell you that; you know what an untiring student he has been." And he went away thoughtful and discouraged, omitting, as Hattie realized with awe, to offer prayer.

Mary stepped joyously about, getting supper and singing "Hearken, Ye Sprightly!" in an exultant voice; but her mother brooded. It was not until dusk, when the three sat before the clock-room fire, "blazed"

rather for company than warmth, that Young Nick's Hattie opened her mouth and spoke.

"Mary," said she, "how'd you find out your grandpa was such great shakes?"

Mary was in some things much older than her mother. She answered demurely, "I don't know as I can say."

"Nick," continued Hattie, turning to her spouse, "did you ever hear your father was smarter'n the minister an' doctor put together, so 't they had to run round beseechin' him to tell 'em how to act?"

Nicholas knocked his pipe against the andiron, and rose, to lay it carefully on the shelf. "I can't say's I did," he returned. Then he set forth for Eli Pike's barn, where it was customary now to stand about the elephant and prophesy what Tiverton might become. As for Hattie, realizing how little light she was likely to borrow from those who were nearest and dearest her, she remarked that she should like to shake them both.

The next day began a new and exciting era. It was bruited abroad that the presence of Nicholas Oldfield was necessary for the success of the celebration; and now young men but lately engaged in unprofitable warfare rode madly over the county in search of him. They inquired for him at taverns; they sought him in farmhouses where he had been wont to lodge. He gained almost the terrible notoriety of an absconding cas.h.i.+er; and the current issue of the Sudleigh "Star" wore a flaming headline, "No Trace of Mr. Oldfield Yet!"

Mary at first waxed merry over the pursuit. She knew very well why gran'ther was staying away; and her pride grew insolent at seeing him sought in vain. But when his loss flared out at her in sacred print, she stared for a moment, and then, after that wide-eyed, piteous glance at the possibilities of things, walked with a firm tread to her little room. There she knelt down, and buried her face in the bed, being careful, meanwhile, not to rumple the valance. At last she knew the truth; he was dead, and village gossip seemed a small thing in comparison.

It would have been difficult, as time went on, to convince the rest of the towns.h.i.+p that Mr. Oldfield was not in a better world.

"They'd ha' found him, if he's above ground," said the fathers, full of faith in the detective instinct of their coursing sons. It seemed incredible that sons should ride so fast and far, and come to nothing.

"Never was known to go out o' the county, an' they've rid over it from one eend to t' other. Must ha' made way with himself. He wa'n't quite right, that time he tolled the bell."

They found ominous parallels of peddlers who had been murdered in byways, or stuck in swamps, and even cited a Tivertonian, of low degree, who was once caught beneath the chin by a clothes-line, and remained there, under the impression that he was being hanged, until the family came out in the morning, and tilted him the other way.

"But then," they added, "he was a drinkin' man, an' Mr. Oldfield never was known to touch a drop, even when he had a tight cold."

Dark as the occasion waxed, what with feuds and presentiments of ill, there was some casual comfort in rolling this new tragedy as a sweet morsel under the tongue, and a mournful pleasure in referring to the night when poor Mr. Oldfield was last seen alive. So time went on to the very eve of the celebration, and it was as well that the celebration had never been. For kindly as Tiverton proved herself, in the main, and closely welded in union against rival towns, now it seemed as if the hand of every man were raised against his brother. Settlers and Indians were still implacable; neither would ride, save each might slay the other. The Crane boy tossed in bed, swollen to the eyes with an evil tooth; and his exulting mates so besieged Brad Freeman for preferment, that even that philosopher's patience gave way, and he said he'd be hanged if he'd take the elephant out at all, if there was going to be such a to-do about it. Even the minister sulked, though he wore a pretense of dignity; for he had concocted a short address with very little history in it, and that all hearsay, and the doctor had said lightly, looking it over, "Well, old man, not much of it, is there? But there's enough of it, such as it is."

It was in vain for the doctor to declare that this was a colloquialism which might mean much or little, as you chose to take it. The minister, justly hurt, remarked that, when a man was in a tight place, he needed the support of his friends, if he had any; and the doctor went whistling drearily away, conscious that he could have said much worse about the address, without doing it justice.

The only earthly circ.u.mstance which seemed to be fulfilling its duty toward Tiverton was the weather. That shone seraphically bright. The air was never so soft, the skies were never so clear and far, and they were looking down indulgently on all this earthly turmoil when, something before midnight, on the fateful eve, Nicholas Oldfield went up the path to his side-door, and stumbled over despairing Mary on the step.

"What under the heavens"--he began; but Mary precipitated herself upon him, and held him with both hands. The moral tension, which had held her hopeless and rigid, gave way. She was sobbing wildly.

"O gran'ther!" she moaned, over and over again. "O gran'ther!"

Nicholas managed somehow to get the door open and walk in, hampered as he was by the clinging arms of his tall girl. Then he sat down in the big chair, taking Mary there too, and stroked her cheek. Perhaps he could hardly have done it in the light, but at that moment it seemed very natural. For a long time neither of them spoke. Mary had no words, and it may be that Nicholas could not seek for them. At last she began, catching her breath tremulously:--

"They've hunted everywhere, gran'ther. They've rode all over the county; and after the celebration, they're going to--dr--drag the pond!"

"Well, I guess I can go out o' the county if I want to," responded Nicholas calmly. "I come across a sheet in them rec'ids that told about a pewter communion set over to Rocky Ridge, an' I've found part on 't in a tavern there. Who put 'em up to all this work? Your father?"

"No," sobbed Mary. "The minister."

"The minister? What's he want?"

"He's got to write an address, and he wants you to tell him what to say."

Then, in the darkness of the room, a slow smile stole over Nicholas Oldfield's face, but his voice remained quite grave.

"Does, does he?" he remarked. "Well, he ain't the fust pa'son that's needed a lift; but he's the fust one ever I knew to ask for it. I've got nothin' for 'em, Mary. I come home to wind up the clocks; but I ain't goin' to stand by a town that'll swaller a Memory-o'-Me timekeeper an'

murder the old bell. You can say I was here, an' they needn't go to muddyin' up the ponds; but as to their doin's, they can carry 'em out as they may. I've no part nor lot in 'em."

Mary, in the weakness of her kind, was wiser than she knew. She drew her arms about his neck, and clung to him the closer. All this talk of plots and counter-plots seemed very trivial now that she had him back; and being only a child, wearied with care and watching, she went fast asleep on his shoulder. Nicholas felt tired too; but he thought he had only dozed a little when he opened his eyes on a gleam of morning, and saw the doctor come striding into the yard.

"Your door's open!" called the doctor. "You must be at home to callers.

Morning, Mary! Either of you sick?"

Mary, abashed, drew herself away, and slipped into the sitting-room, a hand upon her tumbled hair; the doctor, wise in his honesty, slashed at the situation without delay.

"See here, Mr. Oldfield," said he, "whether you've slept or not, you've got to come right over to parson's with me, and straighten him out. He's all balled up. You are as bad as the rest of us. You think we don't know enough to refuse a clock like a comic valentine, and you think we don't prize that old bell. How are we going to prize things if n.o.body tells us anything about them? And here's the town going to pieces over a celebration it hasn't sense enough to plan, just because you're so obstinate. Oh, come along! Hear that! The boys are beginning to toot, and fire off their crackers, and Tiverton's going to the dogs, and Sudleigh'll be glad of it! Come, Mr. Oldfield, come along!"

Nicholas stood quite calmly looking through the window into the morning dew and mist. He wore his habitual air of gentle indifference, and the doctor saw in him those everlasting hills which persuasion may not climb. Suddenly there was a rustling from the other room, and Mary appeared in the doorway, standing there expectant. Her face was pink and a little vague from sleep, but she looked very dear and good. Though Nicholas had "lost himself" that night, he had kept time for thought; and perhaps he realized how precious a thing it is to lay up treasure of inheritance for one who loves us, and is truly of our kind. He turned quite meekly to the doctor.

"Should you think," he inquired, "should you think pa'son would be up an' dressed?"

Ten minutes thereafter, the two were knocking at the parson's door.

Confused and turbulent as Tiverton had become, Nicholas Oldfield settled her at once. Knowledge dripped from his finger-ends; he had it ready, like oil to give a clock. Doctor and minister stood breathless while he laid out the track for the procession by local marks they both knew well.

"They must ha' come into the town from som'er's nigh the old cross-road," said he. "No, 't wa'n't where they made the river road.

Then they turned straight to one side--'t was thick woods then, you understand--an' went up a little ways towards Horn o' the Moon. But they concluded that wouldn't suit 'em, 't was so barren-like; an' they wheeled round, took what's now the old turnpike, an' clim' right up Tiverton Hill, through Tiverton Street that now is. An' there"--Nicholas Oldfield's eyes burned like blue flame, and again he told the story of the Flat-iron Lot.

"Indeed!" cried the parson. "What a truly remarkable circ.u.mstance! We might halt on that very spot, and offer prayer, before entering the church."