The Bondboy Part 58

"Am I too late--is it over--have they convicted him?" he asked.

"Yes, it's over," nodded the judge, studying Morgan's face narrowly.

"Merciful heavens!" said Morgan, springing to his feet, looking around for his coat and hat. "We must stop this thing before it's too late, Judge--I tell you we must stop it! Isn't there some way--have they convicted Joe?"

"Sit down, Morgan, and calm yourself. Hold your feet out to the blaze and dry them," the judge admonished, kindly.

"What's happened?" asked Morgan, wildly, not heeding the command.

"You shall hear it all in time," promised the judge. "Sit down here and tell me what you've been doing all these weeks. Where have you been?"

"Judge, I've been over in Saint Joe selling books," said Morgan, "and I'll tell you the truth, Judge, I never intended to come back here." He turned and faced the judge, leaning forward earnestly, his face white.

He lowered his voice to a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "But I had to come back--I was sent back by--by a voice!"

"Just so," nodded Judge Maxwell.

"You may think it's a pipe-dream, Judge, but it ain't. It's the solemn truth, if I ever told it in my life. I intended to let Joe Newbolt go on and carry what he'd picked up, and then when he was out of the way in the pen, or worse, maybe, I intended to hunt Ollie up and marry her. I didn't want that business that Joe Newbolt's been keeping back let out on her, don't you see, Judge? It concerns her and me, Judge; it ain't the kind of a story a man's folks would want told around about his wife, you understand?"

The judge nodded.

"All right," said Morgan, wiping his forehead, which was beaded with sweat, "Last night along about ten o'clock I was in my room reading the account in the paper of how Joe had refused on the stand yesterday to tell anything, and how a young woman had stood up in the court-room and backed him up and encouraged him in his stand. I was reading along comfortable and all right, when I seemed to hear somebody call me by my name.

"I tell you I seemed to hear it, for there wasn't a soul in that room but myself, Judge. But that voice seemed to sound as close to my ear as if it come out of a telephone. And it was a woman's voice, too, believe me or not, Judge!"

"Yes?" said the judge, encouragingly, still studying Morgan's face, curiously.

"Yes, sir. She repeated my name, 'Curtis Morgan,' just that way. And then that voice seemed to say to me, 'Come to Shelbyville; start now, start now!'

"Say, I got out of my chair, all in a cold sweat, for I thought it was a call, and I was slated to pa.s.s in my checks right there. I looked under everything, back of everything in that room, and opened the door and took a dive down the hall, thinkin' maybe some swift guy was tryin' to put one over. n.o.body there. As empty, Judge, I tell you, as the pa'm of my hand! But it's no stall about that voice. I heard it, as plain as I ever heard my mother call me, or the teacher speak to me in school.

"I stood there holding onto the back of my chair, my legs as weak under me as if I'd stayed in swimmin' too long. I didn't think anything about going to Shelbyville, or anywhere else, but h.e.l.l, I guess, for a minute or two. I tell you, Judge, I thought it was a call!"

Morgan was sweating again in the recollection of that terrible experience. He wiped his face, and looked around the room, listened as the rain splashed against the window, and the wind bent the branches of the great trees beside the wall.

"Well?" said Judge Maxwell, leaning forward in his turn, waiting for Morgan's next word.

"I tell you, Judge, I kept hearing that thing in my ear that way, every little while, till I threw some things in my grip and started for the depot. There wasn't any train out last night that'd fetch me within fifty miles of here. I went back to my room and went to bed. But it didn't let up on me. Off and on, all night, just about the time I'd doze off a little, I'd seem to hear that voice. I went to the depot this morning, and caught the eight o'clock train out. I'd 'a' made it in here at two this afternoon if it hadn't been for a washout between here and the junction that put the trains on this branch out of service.

"I took a rig and I started to drive over. I got caught in the rain and lost the road. I've been miles out of my way, and used up three horses, but I was bound to come. And I'm here to take my medicine."

"I see," said the judge. "Well, Morgan, I think it was the voice of conscience that you heard, but you're no more to blame than any of us, I suppose, because you failed to recognize it. Few of us pay enough attention to it to let it bother us that way."

"Believe me or not, it wasn't any pipe-dream!" said Morgan, so earnestly that the flippancy of his slangy speech did not seem out of place. "It was a woman's voice, but it wasn't the voice of any woman in this world!"

"It's a strange experience," said the judge.

"You can call it that!" shuddered Morgan, expressive of the inadequacy of the words. "Anyhow, I don't want to hear it again, and I'm here to take my medicine, and go to the pen if I've got to, Judge."

Judge Maxwell put out his hand, impatiently.

"Don't try to make yourself out a martyr, Morgan," said he. "You knew--and you know--very well that you hadn't done anything for which you could be punished, at least not by a prison sentence."

"Well, I don't know," said Morgan, twisting his head argumentatively, as if to imply that there was more behind his villainy than the judge supposed, "but I thought when a feller got to foolin' with another man's wife----"

"Oh, pshaw!" cut in the judge. "You're thinking of it as it should be, not as it is. The thing that you're guilty of, let me tell you for your future guidance and peace, is only a misdemeanor in this state, not a felony. In a case like this it ought to be a capital offense. You've shown that there's something in you by coming back to take your medicine, as you say, and voice or no voice, Morgan, I'm going to give you credit for that."

"If the devil ever rode a man!" said Morgan.

"No, it was far from that," reproved the judge.

"It got me goin', Judge," said Morgan, scaring up a little jerky laugh, "and it got me goin' _right_! It stuck to me till I got on that train and headed for this town, and I'll hear the ring of it in my ear to my last--what's that?"

Morgan started to his feet, pale and shaking.

"It was the wind," said the judge.

"Well, I'm here, anyhow, and I came fast as I could," said Morgan, appealingly. "Do you think it'll stick to me, and keep it up?"

"Why should it?" said the judge. "You've done your duty, even though whipped to it."

"If the devil ever whipped a man!" breathed Morgan, "I'm that man."

Judge Maxwell had doubted the man's sanity at first, when he began to talk about the voice. Now he only marveled at this thing, so elusive of all human science to explain, or human philosophy to define. He recalled an experience of a friend--one who had been for many years court stenographer--who, in a distant city, had been impelled to seize his pencil on a certain night, and write a message which he seemed to hear plainly dictated into his ear by one in Shelbyville. As soon as the post could carry a message to the man whose voice the stenographer had heard, he was asked about the telepathic communication. He at once mailed to the man who had taken it down, more than two thousand miles away, the identical message, word for word. It had been an experiment, he said.

Perhaps something like that had occurred in Morgan's case, or perhaps the man merely had dreamed, a recurring dream such as everybody has experienced, and the strong impression of his vision had haunted him, and driven him to the act. And perhaps someone of vigorous intellect and strong will had commanded him. Perhaps--no matter. It was done.

Morgan was there, and the record of justice in the case of state against Newbolt was about to be made final and complete.

"You say it's all over, Judge," spoke Morgan. "What did they do with Joe?"

"What happened in court today," said Judge Maxwell, rising to his feet, "you would have heard if you had been there. But as you were not, it is not for me to relate. That is the privilege of another, as the matter of your condemnation or acquittal is in other hands than mine."

"I know I acted like a dog," admitted Morgan, sincerely contrite, "both to Ollie and to Joe. But I'm here to take my medicine, Judge. I thought a lot of that little woman, and I'd 'a' made a lady of her, too. That was it. Judge; that was at the bottom of this whole business. Ollie and I planned to skip out together, and Joe put his foot in the mess and upset it. That's what the fuss between him and old Isom was over, you can put that down in your book, Judge. I've got it all lined out, and I can tell you just----"

"Never mind; I think I understand. You'd have made a lady of her, would you? But that was when she was clean, and unsuspected in the eyes of the world. How far would your heroism go, Morgan, if you met her in the street tonight, bespattered with public scorn, bedraggled with public contempt, crushed by the discovery of your mutual sin against that old man, Isom Chase? Would you take her to your heart then, Morgan? Would you be man enough to step out into the storm of scorn, and shoulder your part of the load like a man?"

"If I found her in the lowest ditch I'd take her up, Judge, and I'd marry her--if she'd have me then!" said Morgan, earnestly. "When a man's careless and free, Judge, he sees things one way; when he comes up on a short rope like this, he sees them another."

"You are right, Morgan," said the judge.

He walked the length of the room, hands clasped behind his back, his head bent in thought. When he came back to the fire he stood a little while before Morgan, looking at him with intent directness, like a physician sounding for a baffling vagary which lies hidden in the brain.

There was a question in his face which Morgan could not grasp. It gave him a feeling of impending trouble. He s.h.i.+fted uneasily in his chair.

"Stay here until I return," commanded the judge. "I shall not be long."

"I'm here to take my medicine," reiterated Morgan, weakly. "I wouldn't leave if the road was open to me, Judge."

Judge Maxwell went to the door, calling for Hiram. Hiram was not far away. His candle was still burning; he came bobbing along the hall with it held high so he could look under it, after the manner of one who had been using candles all his life.