A Master's Degree

CHAPTER XIV. THE DERELICTS

 I dimly guess from blessings known
     Of greater out of sight,
 And, with the chastened Psalmist, own
     His judgments, too, are right.

 I know not what the future hath
     Of marvel or surprise,
 Assured alone that life and death
     His mercy underlies.
                    —WHITTIER

IT was early spring before Dr. Fenneben returned to Lagonda Ledge. Everybody thought the new line on his face was put there by the death of his brother. To those who loved him most—that is, to all Lagonda Ledge—he was growing handsomer every year, and even with this new expression his countenance wore a more kindly grace than ever before.

“Norrie, your uncle was a strange man,” Fenneben declared, as he and Elinor sat in the library on the evening of his return. “Naturally, I am unlike my stepbrothers, but I have not even understood them. There were many things I learned at Joshua's bedside that I never knew of the family before. There were some things for you to know, but not now.”

“I can trust you, Uncle Lloyd, to do just the right thing,” Norrie declared.

The new line of sadness deepened in Lloyd Fenneben's face.

“That is a hard thing to do sometimes. Your trust will help me wonderfully, however,” he replied. “My brother in his last hours made urgent requests of me and pled with me until I pledged my word to carry out his wishes. Here's where I need your trust most.”

Elinor bent over her uncle and softly stroked the heavy black hair from his forehead.

“Here's where I help you most, then,” she said, gently.

“I have some funds, Elinor, to be yours at your graduation—not before. Believe me, dear girl, I begged of Joshua to let me turn them over to you now, but he staid obstinate to the last.”

“And I don't want a thing different till I get my diploma. Not even till I get my Master's Degree for that matter,” Elinor said, playfully.

“And meantime, Norrie, will you just be a college girl and drop all thought of this marrying business until you are through school?” Fenneben was hesitating a little now. “A year hence will be time enough for that.”

“Most gladly,” Elinor assured him.

“Then that's all for my brother's sake. Now for mine, Norrie, or for yours, rather, if my little girl has her mind all set about things after school days, I hope she will not be a flirt. Sometimes the words and acts cut deeper into other lives than we ever dream. Norrie, I know this out of the years of my own lonely life.”

Elinor's eyes were dewy with tears and she bent her head until her hair touched his cheek.

“I'll try to be good 'fornever,' as Bug Buler says,” she murmured.

Over in the Saxon House on this same evening Vincent Burgess had come in to see Dennie about some books.

“I took your advice, Dennie,” he said. “I have been a man to the extent of making myself square with Victor Burleigh, and I've felt like a free man ever since.”

The look of joy and pride in Dennie's eyes thrilled him with a keen pleasure. Her eyes were of such a soft gray and her pretty wavy hair was so lustrous tonight.

“Dennie, I am going to be even more of a man than you asked me to be.”

Dennie did not look up. The pink of her cheek, her long lashes over her downcast eyes, the sunny curls above her forehead, all were fair to Vincent Burgess. As he looked at her he began to understand, blind bat that he had been all this time, he, Professor Vincent Burgess, A.B., Instructor in Greek from Harvard University.

“I must be going now. Good-night, Dennie.”

He shook hands and hurried away, but to the girl who was earning her college education there was something in his handclasp, denied before.

The next day there was a settling of affairs at Sunrise, and the character-building put into Lloyd Fenneben's hand, as clay for the potter's wheel, seemed to him to be shaping somewhat to its destined uses.

Again, Vincent Burgess sat in the chair by the west study window, acting-dean, now seeking neither types, nor geographical breadth, nor seclusion amid barren prairie lands for profound research in preparing for a Master's Degree.

With no effort to conceal matters, except the fact that the trust funds had first belonged to his own sister and brother-in-law, he explained to Fenneben the line of events connecting him with Victor Burleigh.

“And, Dr. Fenneben, I must speak of a matter I have never touched upon with you before. It was agreed between Dr. Wream and myself that I should become his nephew by marriage. I want to go to Miss Elinor and ask her to release me. You will pardon my frankness, for I cannot honorably continue in this relationship since I have restored the property to Victor Burleigh.”

“He thinks she will not care for him now,” Fenneben said to himself. Aloud he said:

“Have you ever spoken directly to Elinor on this matter?”

“N-no. It was an understanding between her and her uncle and between him and me,” Burgess replied.

“Well, I don't pretend to know girls very well, being a confirmed bachelor”—the Dean's eyes were smiling—“but my advice at this distance is not to ask Norrie to release you from what she herself has never yet bound you. I'll vouch for her peace of mind; and your sense of honor is fully vindicated now. To be equally frank with you, Burgess, now that Norrie is entirely in my charge, I have put this sort of thing for her absolutely into the after-commencement years. The best wife is not always the girl who wears a diamond ring through three or four years of her college life. I want my niece to be a girl now, not a bride-in-waiting.”

As Burgess rose to go his eye caught sight of the pigeons above the bend in the river.

“By the way, Doctor, have you ever found out anything about the woman who used to live in that deserted place up north?”

“Nothing yet,” Fenneben replied. “But, remember, I have not spent a week—that is, a sane week—in Lagonda Ledge since the night you, and she, and Saxon, and the dog saved my life. I shall take up her case soon.”

“She is gone away and nobody knows where, Saxon tells me,” Burgess said. “For many reasons I wish we could find her, but she has dropped out of sight.”

Lloyd Fenneben wondered at the sorrowful expression on the younger man's face when he said this.

As he left the study Victor Burleigh came in.

“Sit down, Burleigh. What can I do for you?” Fenneben asked.

Something like his own magnetism of presence was in the young man before him.

“I want to tell you something,” Vic responded.

“Let me tell you something. I knew you had good blood in your veins even when I saw you kill that bull snake. Burgess has just been in. He has told me his side of your story. Noble fellow he is to free himself of a life-long slavery to somebody else's dollars. However much a man may try to hide the fetters of unlawful gains, they clank in his own ears till he hates himself. Now Burgess is a freeman.”

“I am glad to hear you say so, Dr. Fenneben. It makes my own freedom sweeter,” Vic declared.

“Yes,” Fenneben replied. “Your added means will bring you life's best gift—opportunity.”

“I have no added means, Doctor. I have funds in trust for Bug Buler, and I come to ask you to take his legal guardianship for me.” And then he told his own life story.

“So the heroism shifts to you as well. I can picture the cost to a man like yourself,” the Dean said. “Have you no record of Bug's father and mother?”

“None but the record given by Dr. Wream. They are dead,” Burleigh replied. “His father may have met the same fate that my father did.”

“Why don't you take the guardianship yourself, Burleigh? The boy is yours in love and blood. He ought to be in law.”

Victor Burleigh stood up to his full height, a magnificent product of Nature's handiwork. But the mind and soul “Dean Funnybone” had helped to shape.

“I will be honest with you, Dr. Fenneben,” Burleigh said, and his voice was deep and sweetly resonant. “If I keep the money in charge I may not be proof against the temptation to use it for myself. As strong as my strong arms are my hates and loves, and for some reasons I would do almost anything to gain riches. I might not resist the tempter.”

Lloyd Fenneben's black eyes blazed at the words.

“I understand perfectly what you mean, but no woman who exacts this price is worth the cost.” Then, in a gentler tone, he continued: “Burleigh, will you take my advice? I have always had your welfare on my heart. Finish your college work first. Get the best of the classroom, the library, the athletic field, and the 'picnic spread.' Is that the right term? But fit yourself for manhood before you undertake a man's duties. Meantime, He who has given you the mastery in the years behind you is leading you toward the larger places before you, teaching you all the meanings of Strife, and Sacrifice, and Service symbolized above our doorway in our proud College initial letter. The Supremacy is yet to come. Will you follow my counsel? I'll take care of Bug, and we will keep Burgess out of this for a while.”

Burleigh thought he understood, and the silent hand clasp pledged the faith of the country boy to the teacher's wishes.

It is only in story books that events leap out as pages are turned, events that take days on days of real life to compass. In the swing of one brief year Lagonda Ledge knew little change. New cement walks were built south almost to the Kickapoo Corral. A new manufacturing concern had bonds voted for it at an exciting election, and a squabble for a suitable site was in process. Vincent Burgess and Victor Burleigh, two strong men, were growing actually chummy, and Trench declared he was glad they had decided to quit playing marbles for keeps and hiding each other's caps.

And now the springtime of the year was on the beautiful Walnut Valley. Elinor and Dennie, Trench, “Limpy,” the crippled student, and Victor Burleigh were all on the home-stretch of their senior year. One more June Commencement day and Sunrise would know them no more. Beyond all this there was nothing new at Lagonda Ledge until suddenly the white-haired woman was up at Pigeon Place, again, a fact known only to old Bond Saxon and little Bug, who saw her leave the train. The little blue smoke-twist was again rising lazily in the warm May air, and somebody was systematically robbing houses in town, and Bond Saxon was often drunk and hiding away from sight. A May storm sent the Walnut booming down the valley, bank full, cutting off traffic at the town bridge, but the days that followed were a joy. A tenderly green world it was now, all blossom-decked, and blown across by the gentle May zephyrs, with nothing harsh nor cruel in it, unless the rushing river down below the shallows might seem so. The Kickapoo Corral, luxuriant with flowers, and springing grass, and May green foliage, told nothing of the old-time siege and sorrow of Swift Elk and the Fawn of the Morning Light.

On the night after the storm Professor Burgess stopped at the Saxon House.

“Where is your father, Dennie?” he asked.

“He went up north to help somebody out of the mud and water, I suppose,” Dennie replied. “He is the kindest neighbor, and he has been trying to—to keep straight. He told me when he left that this night's work was to be a work of redemption for him. He may get stronger some time.”

In his heart Burgess knew better. He had no faith in the old man's will power, and the burden of a hidden crime he knew would but increase its weight with time, and drag Bond down at last. But Dennie need not suffer now.

“Will you go with me down to the old Corral tomorrow afternoon, Dennie? I want some plants that grow there. I'm studying nature along with Greek,” he said, smiling.

“Of course, if it is fair,” Dennie replied, the pretty color blooming deeper in her cheeks.

“Oh, we go fair or foul. You remember we fought it out coming home from there once.”

Meanwhile Bond Saxon was hurrying north on his work of redemption. At the bend in the river he found Tom Gresh sitting on the flat stone slab. The light was gleaming through the shrubbery of the little cottage, and the homey sounds of evening and the twitter of late-coming birds were in the air.

“What are you here for, Gresh?” Bond asked, hoarsely. “I thought you had left for good.”

The villainous-looking outlaw drew a flask from his pocket.

“Have a drink, Saxon. Take the whole bottle,” and he thrust it into the old man's hands.

Bond wavered a moment, then flung it far into the foamy floods of the Walnut.

“Not any more. You shall not get me drunk again while you rob and kill.”

“You did the killing for me once. Won't you do it again?” Gresh snarled.

Bond clinched his fists but did not strike.

“What are you after now?” he asked. “You are through with the Burleighs; Vic settled you and you know it.”

Even with the words the clutch of Vic's fingers on the outlaw's throat seemed to choke him now.

“If my last Burleigh is gone,” he growled with an oath, “I'm not done yet. There's Elinor Wream. Don't forget that her mother was my adopted sister. Don't forget that my old foster father cut me off without a cent and gave her all his money. That's why Nathan Wream married her. He wanted her money for colleges.” The sneer on the man's face was diabolical. “I can hit the old man through Elinor, and I'll do it some time, and that's not the only blow that I can strike here, and I am going to finish this thing now.” He pointed toward the cottage where the unprotected woman sat alone. “Twice I've nerved myself to do it and been fooled each time. One October day you were here drunk. I could have laid it on you easy, and maybe fixed Fenneben too, if a little child's voice hadn't scared me stiff. And the day of the big football game you wouldn't get drunk and she must go down to that game just to look once at Lloyd Fenneben. I meant to finish her that day. This is the third and last time now. There is not even a dog to protect her.”

Bond Saxon had been a huge fellow in his best days, and now he summoned all the powers nature had left to him.

“Tom Gresh,” he cried, “in my infernal weakness you made me a drunken beast, who took the life of an innocent man you wanted out of your way. You thought, you fool, that she might care for you then. I've carried the curse of that deed on my soul night and day. I'll wipe it partly away now by saving her life from you. So surely as tonight, tomorrow, or ever you try to harm her, I'll not show you the mercy Vic Burleigh showed you once.”

Strange forms the guardian angel takes!

Hence we entertain it unawares.

Of all Lagonda Ledge, old Bond Saxon, standing between a woman and the peril of her life, looked least angelic. Gresh understood him and turned first in fawning and tempting trickery to his adversary. But Saxon stood his ground. Then the outlaw raged in fury, not daring to strike now, because he knew Bond's strength. And still the old man was unmoved. A life saved for the life he had taken was steeling his soul to courage.

At last in the dim light, Gresh stood motionless a minute, then he struck his parting blow.

“All right, Bond Saxon, play protector all you want to, but it's a short game for you. The sheriff is out of town tonight, but tomorrow afternoon he will get back to Lagonda Ledge. Tomorrow afternoon I go with all my proofs—Oh, I've got 'em. And you, Bond Saxon, will be behind the bars for your crime, done not so many years ago, and your honorable daughter, disgraced forever by you, can shift for herself. I've nothing to lose; why should I protect you?”

He leaped down the bank into the swiftly flowing river, and, swimming easily to the farther side, he disappeared in the underbrush.

The next afternoon, somebody remembered that Bond Saxon had crossed the bridge and plunged into the overflow of the river around the west end. But Bond had been drunk much of late and nobody approached him when he was drunk. How could Lagonda Ledge know the agony of the old man's soul as he splashed across the Walnut waters and floundered up the narrow glen to the cave? Or how, for Dennie's sake, he had begged on his knees for mercy that should save his daughter's name? Or how harder than the stone of the ledges, that the trickling water through slow-dragging centuries has worn away, was the stony heart of the creature who denied him? And only Victor Burleigh had power to picture the struggle that must have followed in that cavern, and beyond the wall into the blind black passages leading at last to the bluff above the river, where, clinched in deadly combat, the two men, fighting still, fell headlong into the Walnut floods.

Down at the shallows Professor Burgess and Dennie had found the waters too deep to reach the Kickapoo Corral, so they strolled along the bluff watching the river rippling merrily in the fall of the afternoon sunshine. And brightly, too, the sunshine fell on Dennie Saxon's rippling hair, recalling to Vincent Burgess' memory the woodland camp fire and the old legend told in the October twilight and the flickering flames lighting Dennie's face and the wavy folds of her sunny hair.

But even as he remembered, a cry up stream came faintly, once and no more, while, grappling still, two forms were borne down by the swift current to the bend above the whirlpool. Dennie and Vincent sprang to the very edge of the bluff, powerless to save, as Tom Gresh and Bond Saxon were swept around the curve below the Corral. Across the shallows they struggled for a footing, but the undertow carried them on toward the fatal pool.

A shriek from the bank came to Bond Saxon's ears, and he looked up and saw the two reaching out vain hands to him.

“Your oath, Vincent; your oath!” he cried in agonizing tones.

Then Vincent Burgess put one arm about Dennie Saxon and drew her close to him and lifted up his right hand high above him in token to the drowning man of his promise, under heaven, to keep that oath forever.

A look of joy swept over the old face in the water, his struggling ceased, and once more tribute was paid to the grim Chieftain of Lagonda's Pool.————

They said about town the next day that it was the peacefulest face ever seen below a coffin lid. And, remembering only his many acts of neighborly kindness, they forgave and forgot his weaknesses, while to the few who knew his life-tragedy came the assuring hope that the forgiving mercy of man is but a type of the boundless mercy of a forgiving God.