There was a custom of Canaan, time-worn and seldom honored in the breach, which put Ariel, that afternoon, in easy possession of a coign of vantage commanding the front gate. The heavy Sunday dinner was finished in silence (on the part of Judge Pike, deafening) about three o'clock, and, soon after, Mamie tossed a number of cushions out upon the stoop between the cast-iron dogs,—Sam Warden having previously covered the steps with a rug and placed several garden chairs near by on the grass. These simple preparations concluded, Eugene sprawled comfortably upon the rug, and Mamie seated herself near him, while Ariel wandered with apparent aimlessness about the lawn, followed by the gaze of Mr. Bantry, until Miss Pike begged her, a little petulantly, to join them.
She came, looking about her dreamily, and touching to her lips, now and then, with an absent air, a clover blossom she had found in the longer grass against the fence. She stopped to pat the neck of one of the cast-iron deer, and with grave eyes proffered the clover-top first for inspection, then as food. There were those in the world who, seeing her, might have wondered that the deer did not play Galatea and come to life.
"No?" she said, aloud, to the steadfast head. "You won't? What a mistake to be made of cast-iron!" She smiled and nodded to a clump of lilac-bushes near a cedar-tree, and to nothing else—so far as Eugene and Mamie could see,—then walked thoughtfully to the steps.
"Who in the world were you speaking to?" asked Mamie, curiously.
"That deer."
"But you bowed to some one."
"Oh, that," Ariel lifted her eyebrows,—"that was your father. Didn't you see him?"
"No."
"I believe you can't from here, after all," said Ariel, slowly. "He is sitting upon a rustic bench between the bushes and the cedar-tree, quite near the gate. No, you couldn't see him from here; you'd have to go as far as the deer, at least, and even then you might not notice him, unless you looked for him. He has a book—a Bible, I think—but I don't think he is reading."
"He usually takes a nap on Sunday afternoons," said Mamie.
"I don't think he will, to-day." Ariel looked at Eugene, who avoided her clear gaze. "He has the air of having settled himself to stay for a long time, perhaps until evening."
She had put on her hat after dinner, and Mamie now inquired if she would not prefer to remove it, offering to carry it in-doors for her, to Ariel's room, to insure its safety. "You look so sort of temporary, wearing it," she urged, "as if you were only here for a little while. It's the loveliest hat I ever saw, and so fragile, too, but I'll take care—"
Ariel laughed, leaned over, and touched the other's hand lightly. "It isn't that, dear."
"What is it, then?" Mamie beamed out into a joyful smile. She had felt sure that she could not understand Ariel; was, indeed, afraid of her; and she found herself astonishingly pleased to be called "dear," and delighted with the little familiarity of the hand-tap. Her feeling toward the visitor (who was, so her father had announced, to become a permanent member of the household) had been, until now, undefined. She had been on her guard, watching for some sign of conscious "superiority" in this lady who had been so long over-seas, not knowing what to make of her; though thrown, by the contents of her trunks, into a wistfulness which would have had something of rapture in it had she been sure that she was going to like Ariel. She had gone to the latter's room before church, and had perceived uneasily that it had become, even by the process of unpacking, the prettiest room she had ever seen. Mrs. Warden, wife of Sam, and handmaiden of the mansion, was assisting, alternately faint and vociferous with marvelling. Mamie feared that Ariel might be a little overpowering.
With the word "dear" (that is, of course, with the way it was spoken), and with the touch upon the hand, it was all suddenly settled; she would not understand Ariel always—that was clear—but they would like each other.
"I am wearing my hat," answered Ariel, "because at any moment I may decide to go for a long walk!"
"Oh, I hope not," said Mamie. "There are sure to be people: a few still come, even though I'm an engaged girl. I expect that's just to console me, though," she added, smiling over this worn quip of the betrothed, and shaking her head at Eugene, who grew red and coughed. "There'll be plenty to-day, but they won't be here to see me. It's you, Ariel, and they'd be terribly disappointed if you weren't here. I shouldn't wonder if the whole town came; it's curious enough about you!"
Canaan (at least that part of it which Mamie meant when she said "the whole town") already offered testimony to her truthfulness. Two gentlemen, aged nine and eleven, and clad in white "sailor suits," were at that moment grooving their cheeks between the round pickets of the gate. They had come from the house across the street, evidently stimulated by the conversation at their own recent dinner-table (they wore a few deposits such as are left by chocolate-cake), and the motive of their conduct became obvious when, upon being joined by a person from next door (a starched and frilled person of the opposite sex but sympathetic age), one of them waggled a forefinger through the gate at Ariel, and a voice was heard in explanation:
"THAT'S HER."
There was a rustle in the lilac-bushes near the cedar-tree; the three small heads turned simultaneously in that direction; something terrific was evidently seen, and with a horrified "OOOH!" the trio skedaddled headlong.
They were but the gay vanguard of the life which the street, quite dead through the Sunday dinner-hour, presently took on. Young couples with their progeny began to appear, returning from the weekly reunion Sunday dinner with relatives; young people meditative (until they reached the Pike Mansion), the wives fanning themselves or shooing the tots-able-to-walk ahead of them, while the husbands, wearing long coats, satin ties, and showing dust upon their blazing shoes, invariably pushed the perambulators. Most of these passers-by exchanged greetings with Mamie and Eugene, and all of them looked hard at Ariel as long as it was possible.
And now the young men of the town, laboriously arranged as to apparel, began to appear on the street in small squads, making their Sunday rounds; the youngest working in phalanxes of threes and fours, those somewhat older inclining to move in pairs; the eldest, such as were now beginning to be considered middle-aged beaux, or (by the extremely youthful) "old bachelors," evidently considered it advantageous to travel alone. Of all these, there were few who did not, before evening fell, turn in at the gate of the Pike Mansion. Consciously, shyly or confidently, according to the condition of their souls, they made their way between the cast-iron deer to be presented to the visitor.
Ariel sat at the top of the steps, and, looking amiably over their heads, talked with such as could get near her. There were many who could not, and Mamie, occupying the bench below, was surrounded by the overflow. The difficulty of reaching and maintaining a position near Miss Tabor was increased by the attitude and behavior of Mr. Flitcroft, who that day cooled the feeling of friendship which several of his fellow-townsmen had hitherto entertained for him. He had been the first to arrive, coming alone, though that was not his custom, and he established himself at Ariel's right, upon the step just below her, so disposing the great body and the ponderous arms and legs the gods had given him, that no one could mount above him to sit beside her, or approach her from that direction within conversational distance. Once established, he was not to be dislodged, and the only satisfaction for those in this manner debarred from the society of the beautiful stranger was obtained when they were presented to her and when they took their departure. On these occasions it was necessary by custom for them to shake her hand, a ceremony they accomplished by leaning across Mr. Flitcroft, which was a long way to lean, and the fat back and shoulders were sore that night because of what had been surreptitiously done to them by revengeful elbows and knees.
Norbert, not ordinarily talkative, had nothing to say; he seemed to find sufficient occupation in keeping the place he had gained; and from this close vantage he fastened his small eyes immovably upon Ariel's profile. Eugene, also apparently determined not to move, sat throughout the afternoon at her left, but as he was thin, others, who came and went, were able to approach upon that side and hold speech with her.
She was a stranger to these young people, most of whom had grown up together in a nickname intimacy. Few of them had more than a very imperfect recollection of her as she was before Roger Tabor and she had departed out of Canaan. She had lived her girlhood only upon their borderland, with no intimates save her grandfather and Joe; and she returned to her native town "a revelation and a dream," as young Mr. Bradbury told his incredulous grandmother that night.
The conversation of the gallants consisted, for the greater part, of witticisms at one another's expense, which, though evoked for Ariel's benefit (all eyes furtively reverting to her as each shaft was loosed), she found more or less enigmatical. The young men, however, laughed at each other loudly, and seemed content if now and then she smiled. "You must be frightfully ennuied with all this," Eugene said to her. "You see how provincial we still are."
She did not answer; she had not heard him. The shadows were stretching themselves over the grass, long and attenuated; the sunlight upon the trees and houses was like a thin, rosy pigment; black birds were calling each other home to beech and elm; and Ariel's eyes were fixed upon the western distance of the street where gold-dust was beginning to quiver in the air. She did not hear Eugene, but she started, a moment later, when the name "Joe Louden" was pronounced by a young man, the poetic Bradbury, on the step below Eugene. Some one immediately said "'SH!" But she leaned over and addressed Mr. Bradbury, who, shut out, not only from the group about her, but from the other centring upon Miss Pike, as well, was holding a private conversation with a friend in like misfortune.
"What were you saying of Mr. Louden?" she asked, smiling down upon the young man. (It was this smile which inspired his description of her as "a revelation and a dream.")
"Oh, nothing particular," was his embarrassed reply. "I only mentioned I'd heard there was some talk among the—" He paused awkwardly, remembering that Ariel had walked with Joseph Louden in the face of Canaan that very day. "That is, I mean to say, there's some talk of his running for Mayor."
"WHAT?"
There was a general exclamation, followed by an uncomfortable moment or two of silence. No one present was unaware of that noon walk, though there was prevalent a pleasing notion that it would not happen again, founded on the idea that Ariel, having only arrived the previous evening, had probably met Joe on the street by accident, and, remembering him as a playmate of her childhood and uninformed as to his reputation, had, naturally enough, permitted him to walk home with her.
Mr. Flitcroft broke the silence, rushing into words with a derisive laugh: "Yes, he's 'talked of' for Mayor—by the saloon people and the niggers! I expect the Beaver Beach crowd would be for him, and if tramps could vote he might—"
"What is Beaver Beach?" asked Ariel, not turning.
"What is Beaver Beach?" he repeated, and cast his eyes to the sky, shaking his head awesomely. "It's a Place," he said, with abysmal solemnity,—"a Place I shouldn't have mentioned in your presence, Miss Tabor."
"What has it to do with Mr. Louden?"
The predestined Norbert conceived the present to be a heaven-sent opportunity to enlighten her concerning Joe's character, since the Pikes appeared to have been derelict in the performance of this kindness.
"He goes there!" he proceeded heavily. "He lived there for a while when he first came back from running away, and he's a friend of Mike Sheehan's that runs it; he's a friend of all the riff-raff that hang around there."
"How do you know he goes there?"
"Why, it was in the paper the day after he came back!" He appealed for corroboration. "Wasn't it, Eugene?"
"No, no!" she persisted. "Newspapers are sometimes mistaken, aren't they?" Laughing a little, she swept across the bulbous face beside her a swift regard that was like a search-light. "How do you KNOW, Mr. Flitcroft," she went on very rapidly, raising her voice,—"how do you KNOW that Mr. Louden is familiar with this place? The newspapers may have been falsely informed; you must admit that? Then how do you KNOW? Have you ever MET any one who has seen him there?"
"I've seen him there myself!" The words skipped out of Norbert's mouth like so many little devils, the instant he opened it. She had spoken so quickly and with such vehemence, looking him full in the eye, that he had forgotten everything in the world except making the point to which her insistence had led him.
Mamie looked horrified; there was a sound of smothered laughter, and Norbert, overwhelmed by the treachery of his own mouth, sat gasping.
"It can't be such a terrific place, then, after all," said Ariel, gently, and turning to Eugene, "Have you ever been there, Mr. Bantry?" she asked.
He changed color, but answered with enough glibness: "No."
Several of the young men rose; the wretched Flitcroft, however, evading Mamie's eye—in which there was a distinct hint,—sat where he was until all of them, except Eugene, had taken a reluctant departure, one group after another, leaving in the order of their arrival.
The rosy pigment which had colored the trees faded; the gold-dust of the western distance danced itself pale and departed; dusk stalked into the town from the east; and still the watcher upon the steps and the warden of the gate (he of the lilac-bushes and the Bible) held their places and waited—waited, alas! in vain.... Ah! Joe, is THIS the mettle of your daring? Did you not say you would "try"? Was your courage so frail a vessel that it could not carry you even to the gate yonder? Surely you knew that if you had striven so far, there you would have been met! Perhaps you foresaw that not one, but two, would meet you at the gate, both the warden and the watcher. What of that? What of that, O faint heart? What was there to fear? Listen! The gate clicks. Ah, have you come at last?
Ariel started to her feet, but the bent figure, coming up the walk in the darkness, was that of Eskew Arp. He bowed gloomily to Mamie, and in response to her inquiry if he wished to see her father, answered no; he had come to talk with the granddaughter of his old friend Roger Tabor.
"Mr. Arp!" called Ariel. "I am so very glad!" She ran down to him and gave him her hand. "We'll sit here on the bench, sha'n't we?"
Mamie had risen, and skirting Norbert frostily, touched Eugene upon the shoulder as she went up the steps. He understood that he was to follow her in-doors, and, after a deep look at the bench where Ariel had seated herself beside Mr. Arp, he obeyed. Norbert was left a lonely ruin between the cold, twin dogs. He had wrought desolation this afternoon, and that sweet verdure, his good name, so long in the planting, so carefully tended, was now a dreary waste; yet he contemplated this not so much as his present aspect of splendid isolation. Frozen by the daughter of the house, forgotten by the visitor, whose conversation with Mr. Arp was carried on in tones so low that he could not understand it, the fat one, though heart-breakingly loath to take himself away, began to comprehend that his hour had struck. He rose, descended the steps to the bench, and seated himself unexpectedly upon the cement walk at Ariel's feet. "Leg's gone to sleep," he explained, in response to her startled exclamation; but, like a great soul, ignoring the accident of his position as well as the presence of Mr. Arp, he immediately proceeded: "Will you go riding with me to-morrow afternoon?"
"Aren't you very good-natured, Mr. Flitcroft?" she asked, with an odd intonation.
"I'm imposed on, often enough," he replied, rubbing his leg, "by people who think I am! Why?"
"It is only that your sitting so abruptly upon the ground reminded me of something that happened long ago, before I left Canaan, the last time I met you."
"I don't think I knew you before you went away. You haven't said if you'll go riding with me to-morrow. Please—"
"Get up," interrupted Mr. Arp, acidly. "Somebody 'll fall over you if you stay there."
Such a catastrophe in truth loomed imminent. Judge Pike was rapidly approaching on his way to the house, Bible in hand—far better in hand than was his temper, for it is an enraging thing to wait five hours in ambush for a man who does not come. In the darkness a desecration occurred, and Norbert perfected to the last detail whatever had been left incomplete of his own destruction. He began lumberingly to rise, talking at the same time, urging upon Ariel the charms of the roadside; wild flowers were in blossom, he said, recounting the benefits she might derive through acceptance of his invitation; and having, thus busily, risen to his knees, became aware that some one was passing near him. This some one Mr. Flitcroft, absorbed in artful persuasions, may have been betrayed by the darkness to mistake for Eugene. Reaching out for assistance, he mechanically seized upon the skirts of a coat, which he put to the uses of a rope, coming up hand-over-hand with such noble weight and energy that he brought himself to his feet and the owner of the coat to the ground simultaneously. The latter, hideously astonished, went down with an objurgation so outrageous in venom that Mr. Arp jumped with the shock. Judge Pike got to his feet quickly, but not so quickly as the piteous Flitcroft betook himself into the deep shadows of the street. Only a word, hoarse and horror-stricken, was left quivering on the night breeze by this accursed, whom the gods, intent upon his ruin, had early in the day, at his first sight of Ariel, in good truth, made mad: "MURDER!"
"Can I help you brush off, Judge?" asked Eskew, rising painfully.
Either Martin Pike was beyond words, or the courtesy proposed by the feeble old fellow (for Eskew was now very far along in years, and looked his age) emphasized too bitterly the indignity which had been put upon him: whatever the case, he went his way in-doors, leaving the cynic's offer unacknowledged. Eskew sank back upon the bench, with the little rusty sounds, suggestions of creaks and sighs, which accompany the movement of antiques. "I've always thought," he said, "that the Judge had spells when he was hard of hearing."
Oblongs of light abruptly dropped from the windows confronting them, one, falling across the bench, appropriately touching with lemon the acrid, withered face and trembling hands of the veteran. "You are younger than you were nine years ago, Mr. Arp," said Ariel, gayly. "I caught a glimpse of you upon the street, to-day, and I thought so then. Now I see that I was right."
"Me—YOUNGER!" he groaned. "No, ma'am! I'm mighty near through with this fool world—and I'd be glad of it, if I didn't expect that if there IS another one afterwards, it would be jest as ornery!"
She laughed, leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knee, and her chin in her hand, so that the shadow of her hat shielded her eyes from the light. "I thought you looked surprised when you saw me to day."
"I reckon I did!" he exclaimed. "Who wouldn't of been?"
"Why?"
"Why?" he repeated, confounded by her simplicity. "Why?"
"Yes," she laughed. "That's what I'm anxious to know."
"Wasn't the whole town the same way?" he demanded. "Did you meet anybody that didn't look surprised?"
"But why should they?"
"Good Lord Admighty!" he broke out. "Ain't you got any lookin'-glasses?"
"I think almost all I have are still in the customs warehouse."
"Then use Mamie Pike's," responded the old man. "The town never dreamed you were goin' to turn out pretty at all, let alone the WAY you've turned out pretty! The Tocsin had a good deal about your looks and so forth in it once, in a letter from Paris, but the folks that remembered you kind of set that down to the way papers talk about anybody with money, and nobody was prepared for it when they saw you. You don't need to drop no curtseys to ME." He set his mouth grimly, in response to the bow she made him. "I think female beauty is like all other human furbelows, and as holler as heaven will be if only the good people are let in! But yet I did stop to look at you when you went past me to-day, and I kept on lookin', long as you were in sight. I reckon I always will, when I git the chance, too—only shows what human nature IS! But that wasn't all that folks were starin' at to-day. It was your walkin' with Joe Louden that really finished 'em, and I can say it upset me more than anything I've seen for a good many years."
"Upset you, Mr. Arp?" she cried. "I don't quite see."
The old man shook his head deploringly. "After what I'd written you about that boy—"
"Ah," she said, softly, touching his sleeve with her fingers, "I haven't thanked you for that."
"You needn't," he returned, sharply. "It was a pleasure. Do you remember how easy and quick I promised you?"
"I remember that you were very kind."
"Kind!" He gave forth an acid and chilling laugh. "It was about two months after Louden ran away, and before you and Roger left Canaan, and you asked me to promise to write to you whenever word of that outcast came—"
"I didn't put it so, Mr. Arp."
"No, but you'd ought of! You asked me to write you whatever news of him should come, and if he came back to tell you how and when and all about it. And I did it, and kept you sharp on his record ever since he landed here again. Do you know why I've done it? Do you know why I promised so quick and easy I WOULD do it?"
"Out of the kindness of your heart, I think."
The acid laugh was repeated. "NO, ma 'am! You couldn't of guessed colder. I promised, and I kept my promise, because I knew there would never be anything good to tell! AND THERE NEVER WAS!"
"Nothing at all?" she insisted, gravely.
"Never! I leave it to you if I've written one good word of him."
"You've written of the treatment he has received here," she began, "and I've been able to see what he has borne—and bears!"
"But have I written one word to show that he didn't deserve it all? Haven't I told you everything, of his associates, his—"
"Indeed you have!"
"Then do you wonder that I was more surprised than most when I saw you walking with him to-day? Because I knew you did it in cold blood and knowledge aforethought! Other folks thought it was because you hadn't been here long enough to hear his reputation, but I KNEW!"
"Tell me," she said, "if you were disappointed when you saw me with him."
"Yes," he snapped. "I was!"
"I thought so. I saw the consternation in your face! You APPROVED, didn't you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Yes, you do! I know it bothers you to have me read you between the lines, but for this once you must let me. You are so consistent that you are never disappointed when things turn out badly, or people are wicked or foolish, are you?"
"No, certainly not. I expect it."
"And you were disappointed in me to-day. Therefore, it must be that I was doing something you knew was right and good. You see?" She leaned a little closer to him, smiling angelically. "Ah, Mr. Arp," she cried, "I know your secret: you ADMIRE me!"
He rose, confused and incoherent, as full of denial as a detected pickpocket. "I DON'T! Me ADMIRE? WHAT? It's an ornery world," he protested. "I don't admire any human that ever lived!"
"Yes, you do," she persisted. "I've just proved it! But that is the least of your secret; the great thing is this: YOU ADMIRE MR. LOUDEN!"
"I never heard such nonsense," he continued to protest, at the same time moving down the walk toward the gate, leaning heavily on his stick. "Nothin' of the kind. There ain't any LOGIC to that kind of an argument, nor no REASON!"
"You see, I understand you," she called after him. "I'm sorry you go away in the bitterness of being found out."
"Found out!" His stick ceased for a moment to tap the cement. "Pooh!" he ejaculated, uneasily. There was a pause, followed by a malevolent chuckle. "At any rate," he said, with joy in the afterthought, "you'll never go walkin' with him AGAIN!"
He waited for the answer, which came, after a time, sadly. "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I shall not."
"Ha, I thought so! Good-night."
"Good-night, Mr. Arp."
She turned toward the lighted house. Through the windows nearest her she could see Mamie, seated in the familiar chair, following with happy and tender eyes the figure of Eugene, who was pacing up and down the room. The town was deadly quiet: Ariel could hear the sound of footsteps perhaps a block away. She went to the gate and gazed a long time into the empty street, watching the yellow grains of light, sieved through the maples from the arc lights on the corner, moving to and fro in the deep shadow as the lamp swung slightly in the night air. Somewhere, not far away, the peace was broken by the screams of a "parlor organ," which honked and wailed in pious agonies (the intention was hymnal), interminably protracting each spasm. Presently a woman's voice outdid the organ, a voice which made vivid the picture of the woman who owned it, and the ploughed forehead of her, above the nose-glasses, when the "grace-notes" were proudly given birth. "Rescue the Perishing" was the startlingly appropriate selection, rendered with inconceivable lingering upon each syllable: "Roos-cyoo the Poor-oosh-oong!" At unexpected intervals two male voices, evidently belonging to men who had contracted the habit of holding tin in their mouths, joined the lady in a thorough search for the Lost Chord.
That was the last of silence in Canaan for an hour or so. The organ was merely inaugural: across the street a piano sounded; firm, emphatic, determined, vocal competition with the instrument here also; "Rock of Ages" the incentive. Another piano presently followed suit, in a neighboring house: "Precious Jewels." More distant, a second organ was heard; other pianos, other organs, took up other themes; and as a wakeful puppy's barking will go over a village at night, stirring first the nearer dogs to give voice, these in turn stimulating those farther away to join, one passing the excitement on to another, until hounds in farm-yards far beyond the town contribute to the long-distance conversation, even so did "Rescue the Perishing" enliven the greater part of Canaan.
It was this that made Ariel realize a thing of which hitherto she had not been able to convince herself: that she was actually once more in the town where she had spent her long-ago girlhood; now grown to seem the girlhood of some other person. It was true: her foot was on her native heath and her name was Ariel Tabor—the very name of the girl who had shared the town's disapproval with Joe Louden! "Rescue the Perishing" brought it all back to her; and she listened to these sharply familiar rites of the Canaanite Sabbath evening with a shiver of pain.
She turned from the gate to go into the house, heard Eugene's voice at the door, and paused. He was saying good-night to Mamie.
"And please say 'au revoir' to Miss Tabor for me," he added, peering out under his hand. "I don't know where she can have gone."
"Probably she came in and went to her room," said Mamie.
"Don't forget to tell her 'au revoir.'"
"I won't, dear. Good-night."
"Good-night." She lifted her face and he kissed her perfunctorily. Then he came down the steps and went slowly toward the gate, looking about him into the darkness as if searching for something; but Ariel had fled away from the path of light that led from the open door.
She skimmed noiselessly across the lawn and paused at the side of the house, leaning against the veranda, where, on a night long past, a boy had hid and a girl had wept. A small creaking sound fell upon her ear, and she made out an ungainly figure approaching, wheeling something of curious shape.
"Is that you, Sam?" she said.
Mr. Warden stopped, close by. "Yes'm," he replied. "I'm a-gittin' out de hose to lay de dus' yonnah." He stretched an arm along the cross-bar of the reel, relaxing himself, apparently, for conversation. "Y'all done change consid'able, Miss Airil," he continued, with the directness of one sure of privilege.
"You think so, Sam?"
"Yes'm. Ev'ybody think so, I reckon. Be'n a tai'ble lot o' talkum 'bout you to-day. Dun'no' how all dem oth' young ladies goin' take it!" He laughed with immoderate delight, yet, as to the volume of mere sound, discreetly, with an eye to open windows. "You got 'em all beat, Miss Airil! Dey ain' be'n no one 'roun' dis town evah got in a thousum mile o' you! Fer looks, an' de way you walk an' ca'y yo'self; an' as fer de clo'es—name o' de good lan', honey, dey ain' nevah SEE style befo'! My ole woman say you got mo' fixin's in a minute dan de whole res' of 'em got in a yeah. She say when she helpin' you onpack she must 'a' see mo'n a hunerd paihs o' slippahs alone! An' de good Man knows I 'membuh w'en you runnin' roun' back-yods an' up de alley rompin' 'ith Joe Louden, same you's a boy!"
"Do you ever see Mr. Louden, nowadays?" she asked.
His laugh was repeated with the same discreet violence. "Ain' I seen him dis ve'y day, fur up de street at de gate yonnah, stan'in' 'ith you, w'en I drivin' de Judge?"
"You—you didn't happen to see him anywhere this—this afternoon?"
"No'm, I ain' SEE him." Sam's laughter vanished and his lowered voice became serious. "I ain' SEE him, but I hearn about him."
"What did you hear?"
"Dey be'n consid'able stir on de aidge o' town, I reckon," he answered, gravely, "an' dey be'n havin' some trouble out at de Beach—"
"Beaver Beach, do you mean?"
"Yes'm. Dey be'n some shootin' goin' on out dat way."
She sprang forward and caught at his arm without speaking.
"Joe Louden all right," he said, reassuringly. "Ain' nuffum happen to him! Nigh as I kin mek out f'm de TALK, dat Happy Fear gone on de ramPAGE ag'in, an' dey hatta sent fer Mist' Louden to come in a hurry."
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