The Mystery of the Locks Part 20

"I have tried all my life to convince myself that I possessed the spark of immortality, but my stubborn brain resists the attempt. All my reasoning convinces me that I live for the same reason that my horse exists. I am superior to the faithful animal only in intelligence, for in physical organization I am only an animal. When an animal dies, I see its body dwindle away until there is nothing left; it becomes dust again. I _hope_ that I may share a different fate, but I _believe_ that I shall pa.s.s away in precisely the same manner. Understand me; I want to be religious, but I cannot be. There are some people--I suppose there are a great many, though I never knew but one personally--who ought to live forever; they are too rare to die. You are one of them, but I fear you will be lost to the world in the course of nature. You ought to be preserved for the good you can accomplish by playing the organ. I never believe in heaven so much as when I am in the back pews listening to your music. There is more religion in the old organ when you are at the keyboard than in all the people who listen to it put together; and I sometimes think that those who write the music and the songs are inspired, though when you know them, their personal characters do not encourage that impression."

She put her hand to his mouth as if to stop him, but he pushed it away with a laugh, and continued,--

"Let me finish, that you may know what I really am, and then I will never mention the subject again. But don't think me worse than other men for my unbelief; they nearly all think as I do, though only the bad ones say so. All good men rejoice that there is a pleasing hope in religion, and encourage it all they can, but only a few of them have your faith."

"All be well yet, Allan," the wife answered. "You have promised to try and get rid of your unbelief, and I know that you will be honest in it.

The Master whom I serve next to you--I fear I am becoming very wicked myself, for you are more to me than everything else--"

"There it is again," Dorris said, looking at her, half laughing. "That expression wasn't studied, I know, but it pleases me greatly. You are always at it, though you have a right to now."

"He is more considerate than any of us imagine, and if He knows you did not believe, He will also know that you could not, and did not intend any disrespect."

"There is something in that," he answered. "I loved you before I knew you, though I did not believe you existed."

"But you _did_ find me. Is it not possible that you will find Him, though you do not believe He exists?"

"That is worth thinking about. The next time I take a long ride into the country I will think it over, if I can get you out of my mind long enough. One thing, however, is certain; I want to follow you, wherever that leads me. Let me add, too, that in what I have said I intend no disrespect. It would be impudent in me, a single pebble in the sands surrounding the sh.o.r.es of eternity, to speak ill of a faith which is held by so many thousands of intelligent and worthy people. I speak freely to you, as my wife, my confidant, that you may know what I am."

"But you are leading, Allan, and I am following," she said. "You are kind enough to believe that my future is a.s.sured, but it is not unless you are saved. You can save both of us by saving yourself. If we were at the judgment now, and you should be cast out, I would follow you. I might be of some use to you even there."

"That's horrible to think about," he replied, rising to his feet; "but it pleases me. Anyway, little woman, we get along delightfully here; I hope we will always be as well off as we are now. If the next world affords me as much pleasure as this one has during the past three months, I shall be more than satisfied. It is said that a man is very happy when he is in love, and I am growing more in love with my wife every day. I suppose it is because I never was in love before. I have had extensive experience in everything else; I know a little of everything else. This may be the reason why my honeymoon lasts so long."

"When I met you that afternoon, out in the hills," she answered, "you were such an expert at love-making that I was at first afraid of you. If ever man made a desperate, cunning love to a woman, you made it to me; but I soon got over my timidity, and knew you were only desperately in earnest, which made me love you until I went mad. I had nothing to give you but myself, and that I gave so readily that I sometimes fear--when you are away from me; I never think of it at any other time--that you accuse me for it."

"It so happened," he answered, "that you did exactly what I wanted you to do, though I am not surprised at it now, since discovering how naturally you do a hundred things a day to please me. Accuse you?"

He laughed good-naturedly at the thought.

"Instead of that, it is the boast of my life that my sweetheart, my vision which came true, had so much confidence in me that she placed herself in my keeping without conditions or promises. You are the hope I have had all my life; you are the heaven I have coveted; and don't suppose that I find fault because the realization is better than the dream. When you go to heaven, and find that it is a better place than you imagined, you will not accuse the Master of a lack of propriety because he is more forgiving of your faults than you expected; nor do I.

Dismiss that thought forever, to oblige me, and believe, instead, that your single fault turned out to be my greatest blessing. If I made desperate love to you up in the hills, it was natural, for I had no previous experience. I cannot remember that I ever was a young man; I was first a child, and then a man with grave responsibilities. But the fancy I told you about--the Maid of Air--I always loved it until I found you."

Putting her arm through his, they walked toward the town, and the shadow emerged from a clump of bushes within a few feet of where they had been sitting. The married lovers walked on, unconscious of the presence; and occasionally the laugh of Mrs. Dorris came to the shadow on the wind, which caused it to listen anxiously, and creep on after them again.

In turning out of the path that led up into the hills, and coming into the road, Dorris and his wife met Tug and Silas, who were loitering about, as usual; Tug in front, carrying the gun, and Silas lagging behind.

"What now?" Dorris said good-naturedly, on coming up with them. "What are you up to to-night?"

"On a Wednesday night," Tug replied, putting the stock of the gun on the ground, and turning his head to one side to get a square sight at the woman, "the woods are full of rabbits. We are out looking for them."

"Why on Wednesday night?"

Tug removed his gaze from Mrs. Dorris to Silas.

"When do we find our game?" he inquired.

"On Wednesday; at night," the little man answered meekly.

"I don't know how it is, myself," Tug continued, this time taking a shot at Dorris; "but Wednesday it is. You are both looking mighty well."

They thanked him for his politeness, and added that they were feeling well.

"They didn't think much of you when you came," he said, pointing a finger at Dorris, which looked like a pistol, "but they have changed their minds. Even Reverend Wilton says you will do; it's the first kind word he ever said of anybody. It came out--Silas, how did it come out?"

"Like a tooth," Silas answered, who had been standing by with his hands in his pockets.

"Like a _back_ tooth, you told me. Come now, didn't you say a back tooth?"

Silas muttered something which was accepted as an acknowledgment, and Tug went on,--

"Why didn't you say so, then? Why do you want to put it on me in the presence of the lady? But Reverend Wilton never said anything bad about you, or anybody else; he's too lazy for that. I only wonder that he didn't drop over from exhaustion when he said you'd do. Well, I should say you _would_ do; eh, pretty girl?"

Annie Dorris made no other answer than to cling closer to her husband, and Tug regarded them with apparent pleasure.

"And there's Uncle Ponsonboy. Silas, what does Uncle Ponsonboy say?"

"He says that Mr. Dorris is a man of promise," Davy answered.

"Oh, _does_ he? Well, he's not the kind of a man of promise, Uncle Ponsonboy is, who has been promising to distinguish himself for forty years. Old Albert reminds me of a nephew of my wife's. I supported him four years in idleness, but he was always boasting that he was able to take care of himself, and that _he_ asked favors of n.o.body. He used to fill up on my bread and meat, and lounge in front of my fire, and declare that he never knew solid content until he began to make his own living, although he did nothing except to write to his folks, and say that they needn't worry about him,--_he_ was able to take care of himself. But the old lady holds out against you."

Tug swallowed a laugh with a great effort, apparently locking it up with a spring lock, for there was a click in his throat as he took aim at Dorris again and continued, but not before his scalp had returned to its place after crawling over on his forehead to look at the smile,--

"I am glad of that, though. The old lady and I never agree on anything.

I like the devil because she hates him. I shall be quite content in purg if she fails to like it."

Allan Dorris looked puzzled for a moment.

"Oh, purgatory," he said, finis.h.i.+ng the abbreviation, and turning to his wife, who laughed at the idea, "we were talking about that just before you came up."

"Neither of you need worry about _that_," Tug said. "_You_ are all right. I am the devil's partner, and I know. But if you _should_ happen down there by any mischance, I will give you the best accommodations the place affords. If there is an ice-box there, you shall have a room in it; but no ice-water for the old lady. I insist on that condition."

They were very much amused at his odd talk, and promised that his instructions should be obeyed in case they became his guests.

"But why are you the devil's partner?" Dorris asked.

"He must have a.s.sistants, of course," Tug replied, "and I shall make application to enter his service as soon as I arrive. I want to get even with Uncle Ponsonboy."

Tug locked up a laugh again with a sharp click of the lock, and his scalp hurried back to its place on learning that it was a false alarm.

"I want to get a note from him to this effect: 'Dear Tug: For the sake of old acquaintance, send me a drop of water.' Whereupon I will take my iron pen in hand, and reply: 'Uncle Ponsonboy: Drink your tears.' Then I will instruct one of my devilish a.s.sistants to lock him up, and never let him see the cheerful light of the fires again. As the door closes, I will say to him, as I now say to you,--Good-night."

Tug and Silas walked toward the hills, and Dorris and his wife toward the town, but the shadow no longer followed them; it had disappeared.

In case the shadow came back that night to prowl around The Locks, and peer in at the windows, it found a determined-looking man on guard, carrying a wicked-looking gun.

Had the eyes of the shadow followed the feet of the man, it would have noted that they walked around the stone wall at regular intervals, and that they stopped occasionally, as if listening; it would have seen them strolling leisurely away at the first approach of dawn, carrying the gun and Tug's burly body with them.