The Mystery of the Locks Part 25

There was something so womanly in her manner that Silas was convinced that she would live only to honor the memory of his friend. There was inexpressible sadness in her face, but there was also strength, and capacity, and love, and honor.

"I am the one person whose good opinion he cared for," she said again; "and I forget everything except his love for me, and his manliness in everything. It is nothing to me what he was away from here. A single atom in the human sea, he may have committed a wrong while attempting to do right, and came here a penitent, trying to right it; but as I knew him he was worthy of any woman's profoundest admiration, and he shall receive it from me as long as I live. The stream of life leads upwards to heaven against a strong current, and, knowing myself, I do not wonder that occasionally the people forget, and float down with the tide. He has told me that he had but one apology to make to any one,--to me, for not finding me sooner. This was a pretty and an undeserved compliment; but it was evident that in his own mind he did not feel that he had wronged anyone, and I feel so. I have no idle regrets, and do not blame you and Tug. On the contrary, I thank you both for your thoughtful care.

When Tug returns, as I am sure he will, bring him here. Who has not wounded their best friends in trying to befriend them? Though you two have grievously wounded me, I recognize the goodness of your motives, and feel grateful."

She got up at this, and started toward the door, motioning Silas to follow. From the dark hall she stepped through the door which Dorris had never entered alive; but he had been carried there dead. A dim light burned near the door, and there was something in the air--a taint not to be described, but to be remembered with dread--which made Silas think of a sepulchre.

On a raised platform, in the room to which the steps of poor Helen were always leading, stood a metallic burial case, with a movable lid showing the face under gla.s.s. The face was so natural that Silas thought it must have been preserved in some manner, for his friend seemed to be quietly sleeping, and he could not realize that he had been dead a week. Even before Silas had taken his hasty glance, Annie Dorris had knelt beside the inanimate clay of her husband, and he thought he had better go away--he could think of nothing else to do--and leave her. And this he did, only stopping at the door to see a picture which he never forgot,--the coffin, the sobbing woman, the dim light, and the gloomy hangings of the room.

On being awakened, little Ben s.h.i.+elded his face with his hands, as if expecting a blow, which was his usual greeting on opening his eyes, but, recognizing his friend, he contentedly followed him down the stairs, and out at the iron gate into the street. Davy was not a large man or a strong man, but little Ben found it difficult to follow him, and was compelled to ask his friend to stop and rest before they reached the hotel. When they finally reached the kitchen, they found it deserted, and Silas hastily placed meat and bread before the boy. This he devoured like a hungry wolf, and Davy wondered that such a little boy had so much room under his jacket.

"They don't feed you overly well at the farm, do they, Ben?" Silas inquired.

The boy had turned from the table, and was sitting with his hands clasped around his knees, and his bare feet on the upper round of the chair. After looking at his companion a moment, he thoughtfully shook his head.

"You work hard enough, heaven knows," Silas said again, in a tone which sounded like a strong man pitying some one less unfortunate, but there was little difference between the two, except age, for there was every reason to believe that should little Ben's cough get better, he would become such a man as Silas was.

"I do all I can," little Ben answered, "but I am so weak that I cannot do enough to satisfy them. I haven't had enough sleep in years: I think that is the trouble with me."

That cough, little Ben, is not the result of loss of sleep: you must have contracted that in going out to work in the early morning, illy clad, while other children were asleep.

"I'm going to tell you something, poor fellow," Silas said, "which will please you. While you were asleep up at The Locks to-night, the lady kissed you."

Little Ben put his hand apologetically to his mouth, and coughed with a hoa.r.s.e bark that startled Silas, for he noticed that the cough seemed worse every time the boy came to town. But he seemed to be only coughing to avoid crying, for there were tears in his eyes.

"You are not going to cry, Ben?" Silas said, in a voice that indicated that he was of that mind himself.

"I think not, sir," the boy replied. "When I first went to the farm, I cried so much that I think that the tears have all left me. I was only thinking it was very kind of the lady, for n.o.body will have me about except you, Mr. Davy. My father and mother, they won't have me around, and I am in Mr. Quade's way; and his wife and children have so much trouble of their own that they cannot pay attention to me. They live very poorly, and work very hard, sir, and I do not blame them; but I often regret that I am always sick and tired, and that no one seems to care for me."

Little Ben seemed to be running the matter over in his mind, for he was silent a long while. In rummaging among his recollections he found nothing pleasant, apparently, for when he turned his face to Silas it showed the quivering and pathetic distortion which precedes an open burst of grief.

"If you don't care," he said, "I believe I _will_ cry; I can't help it, since you told me about the lady."

The little fellow sobbed aloud at the recollection of his hard life, all the time trying to control himself, and wiping his eyes with his rough sleeve. He was such a picture of helpless grief that Silas Davy turned his back, and appeared to be rubbing something out of his eyes; first one and then the other.

"I am sorry I am not able to help you, Ben," the good fellow said, turning toward the boy again, after he had recovered himself; "but I am of so little consequence that I am unable to help anyone; I cannot help myself much. I have rather a hard time getting along, too, and I am a good deal like you, Ben, for, though I work all the time, I do not give much satisfaction."

Little Ben looked at his companion curiously.

"I thought you were very happy here, sir," he said, "with plenty to eat every day. You are free to go to the cupboard whenever you are hungry, but often I am unable to sleep because I am so hungry. You never go to bed feeling that way, do you, Mr. Davy?"

"No," he replied, almost smiling at the boy's idea that anyone who had plenty to eat must be entirely content; "but I am a s.h.i.+ftless sort of a man, and I don't get on very well. I always want to do what is right and fair, but somehow I don't always do it; I sometimes think, though, that I am more unjust to myself than to anyone else. It causes me a good deal of regret that I am not able to help such as you, Ben. If I were able, I would like to buy you a suit of clothes."

"Summer is coming on, sir, and these will do very well," the boy replied.

"Yes; but you were very thinly clad last winter, Ben, and oftentimes I could not sleep from thinking of how cold you were when out in the fields with the stock. If ever there was a good boy, you are one, Ben; but you are not treated half so well as the bad boys I know. This is what worries me, as hunger worries you."

"I am sorry to hear you are poor, sir," little Ben said. "Not that I want you to do more for me than you have done, but you have always been so kind to me that I thought you must be rich to afford it. You always have something for me when I come to town, and I am very thankful to you."

What a friendless child, Davy thought, to consider what he had done for him the favor of a rich man! A little to eat, and small presents on holidays; he had been able to do no more than that; but, since no one else was kind to the boy, these were magnificent favors in his eyes.

"On which cheek did the lady kiss me, Mr. Davy?" the boy inquired later in the night.

"On this one," Davy replied, touching his left cheek with his finger tips.

"I was thinking it was that one," little Ben continued. "There has been a glow in it ever since you told me. I should think that the boys who have mothers who do not hate them are very happy. Do you know whether they are, Mr. Davy?"

"I know they ought to be," he said; "but some of them are very indifferent to their mothers. I have never had any experience myself; my own mother died before I could remember."

"It seems to me," little Ben continued, "that if I were as well off as some of the boys I see, I should be entirely satisfied. I must start home soon, or I will not get there in time to be called for to-morrow's work, and when I creep into the hay, where I sleep after coming to see you, I intend to think that the kiss the lady gave me was the kiss of my mother, and that she does not hate me any more."

For such as you, little Ben, there must be a heaven. The men who are strong in doubt, as well as in the world's battles, come to that conclusion when they remember that there can be no other reward for such as you and Silas Davy, for your weakness is so unfit for this life that it must be a burden which can only be reckoned in your favor in the Master's house where there are many mansions.

"If there were not so many happy children," little Ben said again, "perhaps I should not mind it so much, but I see them wherever I go, and I cannot understand why my lot is so much harder than theirs. My bones ache so, and I want to sleep and rest so much, that I cannot help feeling regret; except for this I hope I would be happy as you are."

Silas Davy is anything but a happy man, little Ben, but, being a good man, he does not complain, and does the best he can, so when the boy soon after started for the farm, and Silas walked with him to the edge of the town, he pretended to be very well satisfied with himself, and with everything around him. Indeed, he was almost gay, but it was only mockery to encourage his unfortunate companion.

"Next Christmas, Ben," Silas said, as they walked along, "you shall have"--he paused a moment to consider his financial possibilities--"a sled from the store."

"_That_ is too much," Ben replied, with hope and gladness in his voice.

"A sled will cost a great deal, for the painting and striping must come high. I would like to have a sled more than anything else, but I am afraid you would rob yourself in buying it. I am afraid that is too much, Mr. Davy."

"It will not cost as much as you expect, and I can easily save the money between this and Christmas," the good fellow replied. "I have always wanted to do it, and I will, and it will be a pleasure. Remember, Ben, when you feel bad off in future, what you are to get when you come to see me Christmas morning."

"I will not forget, sir."

"When you own the sled, and I have had the pleasure of giving it to you, we will feel like very fortunate fellows, won't we, Ben?" Silas said again, cheerfully, as they walked along.

"We shall feel as though we are getting along in the world, I should think, Mr. Davy," the boy replied.

They had reached the edge of the town by this time, and Davy stopped to turn back. He took the boy's hand for a moment, and said,--

"Remember the sled, Ben. Good night."

"Good night, sir. I will not forget."

Silas had scarcely said good night to him before he was lost to his sight,--he was such a very little fellow.

CHAPTER XXII.

TUG'S RETURN.

A month had pa.s.sed since Allan Dorris was found floating over the mounds in Hedgepath graveyard, and the waters having gone down in the bottoms, the people were busy in rescuing their homes from the ooze and black mud beneath which they were buried. There had been so much destruction in the bottoms, and so much loss of trade in the town, that the people were all mourners like Annie Dorris and Silas Davy, and it did not seem probable that any of them would ever be cheerful again.

Silas Davy was the only person in the town, save Annie Dorris, who knew the secret of the murder, and he kept it to himself, believing that Tug was on the trail of the culprit, and that nothing could be gained by making the people aware of the mysterious man and his mysterious visits.