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diff --git a/6285.txt b/6285.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..443818f --- /dev/null +++ b/6285.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2350 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook You Never Know Your Luck, Parker, V1 +#112 in our series by Gilbert Parker + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: You Never Know Your Luck, Volume 1. + [BEING THE STORY OF A MATRIMONIAL DESERTER] + +Author: Gilbert Parker + +Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6285] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on December 5, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK, V1*** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + +YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK + +[BEING THE STORY OF A MATRIMONIAL DESERTER] + +By Gilbert Parker + +Volume 1. + + + +CONTENTS: + +Volume 1. +PROEM +I. "PIONEERS, O PIONEERS" +II. CLOSING THE DOORS +III. THE LOGAN TRIAL AND WHAT CAME OF IT +IV. "STRENGTH SHALL BE GIVEN THEE" +V. A STORY TO BE TOLD + +Volume 2. +VI. "HERE ENDETH THE FIRST LESSON" +VII. A WOMAN'S WAY TO KNOWLEDGE +VIII. ALL ABOUT AN UNOPENED LETTER +IX. NIGHT SHADE AND MORNING GLORY +X. "S. O. S." +XI. IN THE CAMP OF THE DESERTER + +Volume 3. +XII. AT THE RECEIPT OF CUSTOM +XIII. KITTY SPEAKS HER MIND AGAIN +XIV. AWAITING THE VERDICT +XV. "MALE AND FEMALE CREATED HE THEM" +XVI. "'TWAS FOR YOUR PLEASURE YOU CAME HERE, YOU GO BACK FOR MINE" +XVII. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IT? +EPILOGUE + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +This volume contains two novels dealing with the life of prairie people +in the town of Askatoon in the far West. 'The World for Sale' and the +latter portion of 'The Money Master' deal with the same life, and 'The +Money Master' contained some of the characters to be found in 'Wild +Youth'. 'The World for Sale' also was a picture of prairie country with +strife between a modern Anglo-Canadian town and a French-Canadian town in +the West. These books are of the same people; but 'You Never Know Your +Luck' and 'Wild Youth' have several characters which move prominently +through both. + +In the introduction to 'The World for Sale' in this series, I drew a +description of prairie life, and I need not repeat what was said there. +'In You Never Know Your Luck' there is a Proem which describes briefly +the look of the prairie and suggests characteristics of the life of the +people. The basis of the book has a letter written by a wife to her +husband at a critical time in his career when he had broken his promise +to her. One or two critics said the situation is impossible, because no +man would carry a letter unopened for a long number of years. My reply +is: that it is exactly what I myself did. I have still a letter written +to me which was delivered at my door sixteen years ago. I have never +read it, and my reason for not reading it was that I realised, as I +think, what its contents were. I knew that the letter would annoy, and +there it lies. The writer of the letter who was then my enemy is now my +friend. The chief character in the book, Crozier, was an Irishman, with +all the Irishman's cleverness, sensitiveness, audacity, and timidity; for +both those latter qualities are characteristic of the Irish race, and as +I am half Irish I can understand why I suppressed a letter and why +Crozier did. Crozier is the type of man that comes occasionally to the +Dominion of Canada; and Kitty Tynan is the sort of girl that the great +West breeds. She did an immoral thing in opening the letter that Crozier +had suppressed, but she did it in a good cause--for Crozier's sake; she +made his wife write another letter, and she placed it again in the +envelope for Crozier to open and see. Whatever lack of morality there +was in her act was balanced by the good end to the story, though it meant +the sacrifice of Kitty's love for Crozier, and the making of his wife +happy once more. + +As for 'Wild Youth' I make no apology for it. It is still fresh in the +minds of the American public, and it is true to the life. Some critics +frankly called it melodramatic. I do not object to the term. I know +nothing more melodramatic than certain of the plots of Shakespeare's +plays. Thomas Hardy is melodramatic; Joseph Conrad is melodramatic; +Balzac was melodramatic, and so were Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, and +Sir Walter Scott. The charge of melodrama is not one that should +disturb a writer of fiction. The question is, are the characters +melodramatic. Will anyone suggest to me the marriage of a girl of +seventeen with a man over sixty is melodramatic. It may be, but I think +it tragical, and so it was in this case. As for Orlando Guise, I +describe the man as I knew him, and he is still alive. Some comments +upon the story suggested that it was impossible for a man to spend the +night on the prairie with a woman whom he loved without causing her to +forget her marriage vows. It is not sentimental to say that is nonsense. +It is a prurient mind that only sees evil in a situation of the sort. +Why it should be desirable to make a young man and woman commit a +misdemeanor to secure the praise of a critic is beyond imagination. It +would be easy enough to do. I did it in The Right of Way. I did it in +others of my books. What happens to one man and one woman does not +necessarily happen to another. There are men who, for love of a woman, +would not take advantage of her insecurity. There are others who would. +In my books I have made both classes do their will, and both are true to +life. It does not matter what one book is or is not, but it does matter +that an author writes his book with a sense of the fitting and the true. + +Both these books were written to present that side of life in Canada +which is not wintry and forbidding. There is warmth of summer in both +tales, and thrilling air and the beauty of the wild countryside. As for +the cold, it is severe in most parts of Canada, but the air is dry, and +the sharpness is not felt as it is in this damper climate of England. +Canadians feel the cold of a March or November day in London far more +than the cold of a day in Winnipeg, with the thermometer many degrees +below zero. Both these books present the summer side of Canada, which is +as delightful as that of any climate in the world; both show the modern +western life which is greatly changed since the days when Pierre roamed +the very fields where these tales take place. It should never be +forgotten that British Columbia has a climate like that of England, +where, on the Coast, it is never colder than here, and where there is +rain instead of snow in winter. + +There is much humour and good nature in the West, and this also I tried +to bring out in these two books; and Askatoon is as cosmopolitan as +London. Canada in the West has all races, and it was consistent of me to +give a Chinaman of noble birth a part to play in the tragicomedy. I have +a great respect for the Chinaman, and he is a good servant and a faithful +friend. Such a Chinaman as Li Choo I knew in British Columbia, and all I +did was to throw him on the Eastern side of the Rockies, a few miles from +the border of the farthest Western province. The Chinaman's death was +faithful in its detail, and it was true to his nature. He had to die, +and with the old pagan philosophy, still practised in China and Japan, he +chose the better way, to his mind. Princes still destroy themselves in +old Japan, as recent history proves. + + + +YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK + +Volume 1. + +PROEM +I. "PIONEERS, O PIONEERS" +II. CLOSING THE DOORS +III. THE LOGAN TRIAL AND WHAT CAME OF IT +IV. "STRENGTH SHALL BE GIVEN THEE" +V. A STORY TO BE TOLD + + + +PROEM + +Have you ever seen it in reaping-time? A sea of gold it is, with gentle +billows telling of sleep and not of storm, which, like regiments afoot, +salute the reaper and say, "All is fulfilled in the light of the sun and +the way of the earth; let the sharp knife fall." The countless million +heads are heavy with fruition, and sun glorifies and breeze cradles them +to the hour of harvest. The air-like the tingle of water from a +mountain-spring in the throat of the worn wayfarer, bringing a sense of +the dust of the world flushed away. + +Arcady? Look closely. Like islands in the shining yellow sea, are +houses--sometimes in a clump of trees, sometimes only like bare-backed +domesticity or naked industry in the workfield. Also rising here and +there in the expanse, clouds that wind skyward, spreading out in a +powdery mist. They look like the rolling smoke of incense, of sacrifice. +Sacrifice it is. The vast steam-threshers are mightily devouring what +their servants, the monster steam-reapers, have gleaned for them. Soon, +when September comes, all that waving sea will be still. What was gold +will still be a rusted gold, but near to the earth-the stubble of the +corn now lying in vast garners by the railway lines, awaiting transport +east and west and south and across the seas. + +Not Arcady this, but a land of industry in the grip of industrialists, +whose determination to achieve riches is, in spite of themselves, +chastened by the magnitude and orderly process of nature's travail which +is not pain. Here Nature hides her internal striving under a smother of +white for many months in every year, when what is now gold in the sun +will be a soft--sometimes, too, a hard-shining coverlet like impacted +wool. Then, instead of the majestic clouds of incense from the +threshers, will rise blue spiral wreaths of smoke from the lonely home. +There the farmer rests till spring, comforting himself in the thought +that while he waits, far under the snow the wheat is slowly expanding; +and as in April, the white frost flies out of the soil into the sun, it +will push upward and outward, green and vigorous, greeting his eye with +the "What cheer, partner!" of a mate in the scheme of nature. + +Not Arcady; and yet many of the joys of Arcady are here--bright, singing +birds, wide adventurous rivers, innumerable streams, the squirrel in the +wood and the bracken, the wildcat stealing through the undergrowth, the +lizard glittering by the stone, the fish leaping in the stream, the +plaint of the whippoorwill, the call of the bluebird, the golden flash of +the oriole, the honk of the wild geese overhead, the whirr of the mallard +from the sedge. And, more than all, a human voice declaring by its joy +in song that not only God looks upon the world and finds it very good. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +"PIONEERS, O PIONEERS" + +If you had stood on the borders of Askatoon, a prairie town, on the +pathway to the Rockies one late August day not many years ago, you would +have heard a fresh young human voice singing into the morning, as its +possessor looked, from a coat she was brushing, out over the "field of +the cloth of gold," which your eye has already been invited to see. With +the gift of singing for joy at all, you should be able to sing very +joyously at twenty-two. This morning singer was just that age; and if +you had looked at the golden carpet of wheat stretching for scores of +miles, before you looked at her, you would have thought her curiously in +tone with the scene. She was a symphony in gold--nothing less. Her +hair, her cheeks, her eyes, her skin, her laugh, her voice they were all +gold. Everything about her was so demonstratively golden that you might +have had a suspicion it was made and not born; as though it was unreal, +and the girl herself a proper subject of suspicion. The eyelashes were +so long and so black, the eyes were so topaz, the hair was so like such a +cloud of gold as would be found on Joan of Are as seen by a mediaeval +painter, that an air of faint artificiality surrounded what was in every +other way a remarkable effort of nature to give this region, where she +was so very busy, a keynote. + +Poseurs have said that nature is garish or exaggerated more often than +not; but it is a libel. She is aristocratic to the nth degree, and is +never over done; courage she has, but no ostentation. There was, +however, just a slight touch of over-emphasis in this singing-girl's +presentation--that you were bound to say, if you considered her quite +apart from her place in this nature-scheme. She was not wholly +aristocratic; she was lacking in that high, social refinement which would +have made her gold not so golden, her black eyelashes not so black. +Being unaristocratic is not always a matter of birth, though it may be a +matter of parentage. + +Her parentage was honest and respectable and not exalted. Her father had +been an engineer, who had lost his life on a new railway of the West. +His widow had received a pension from the company insufficient to +maintain her, and so she kept boarders, the coat of one of whom her +daughter was now brushing as she sang. The widow herself was the origin +of the girl's slight disqualification for being of that higher circle of +selection which nature arranges long before society makes its judicial +decision. The father had been a man of high intelligence, which his +daughter to a real degree inherited; but the mother, as kind a soul as +ever lived, was a product of southern English rural life--a little +sumptuous, but wholesome, and for her daughter's sake at least, keeping +herself well and safely within the moral pale in the midst of marked +temptations. She was forty-five, and it said a good deal for her ample +but proper graces that at forty-five she had numerous admirers. The girl +was English in appearance, with a touch perhaps of Spanish--why, who can +say? Was it because of those Spanish hidalgoes wrecked on the Irish +coast long since? Her mind and her tongue, however, were Irish like her +father's. You would have liked her, everybody did,--yet you would have +thought that nature had failed in self-confidence for once, she was so +pointedly designed to express the ancient dame's colour-scheme, even to +the delicate auriferous down on her youthful cheek and the purse-proud +look of her faintly retrousse nose; though in fact she never had had a +purse and scarcely needed one. In any case she had an ample pocket in +her dress. + +This fairly full description of her is given not because she is the most +important person in the story, but because the end of the story would +have been entirely different had it not been for her; and because she +herself was one of those who are so much the sport of circumstances or +chance that they express the full meaning of the title of this story. +As a line beneath the title explains, the tale concerns a matrimonial +deserter. Certainly this girl had never deserted matrimony, though she +had on more than one occasion avoided it; and there had been men mean and +low enough to imagine they might allure her to the conditions of +matrimony without its status. + +As with her mother the advertisement of her appearance was wholly +misleading. A man had once said to her that "she looked too gay to be +good," but in all essentials she was as good as she was gay, and indeed +rather better. Her mother had not kept boarders for seven years without +getting some useful knowledge of the world, or without imparting useful +knowledge; and there were men who, having paid their bills on demand, +turned from her wiser if not better men. Because they had pursued the +old but inglorious profession of hunting tame things, Mrs. Tyndall Tynan +had exacted compensation in one way or another--by extras, by occasional +and deliberate omission of table luxuries, and by making them pay for +their own mending, which she herself only did when her boarders behaved +themselves well. She scored in any contest--in spite of her rather small +brain, large heart, and ardent appearance. A very clever, shiftless +Irish husband had made her develop shrewdness, and she was so busy +watching and fending her daughter that she did not need to watch and fend +herself to the same extent as she would have done had she been free and +childless and thirty. The widow Tynan was practical, and she saw none of +those things which made her daughter stand for minutes at a time and look +into the distance over the prairie towards the sunset light or the grey- +blue foothills. She never sang--she had never sung a note in her life; +but this girl of hers, with a man's coat in her hand, and eyes on the +joyous scene before her, was for ever humming or singing. She had even +sung in the church choir till she declined to do so any longer, because +strangers stared at her so; which goes to show that she was not so vain +as people of her colouring sometimes are. It was just as bad, however, +when she sat in the congregation; for then, too, if she sang, people +stared at her. So it was that she seldom went to church at all; but it +was not because of this that her ideas of right and wrong were quite +individual and not conventional, as the tale of the matrimonial deserter +will show. + +This was not church, however, and briskly applying a light whisk-broom to +the coat, she hummed one of the songs her father taught her when he was +in his buoyant or in his sentimental moods, and that was a fair +proportion of the time. It used to perplex her the thrilling buoyancy +and the creepy melancholy which alternately mastered her father; but as a +child she had become so inured to it that she was not surprised at the +alternate pensive gaiety and the blazing exhilaration of the particular +man whose coat she now dusted long after there remained a speck of dust +upon it. This was the song she sang: + + "Whereaway, whereaway goes the lad that once was mine? + Hereaway I waited him, hereaway and oft; + When I sang my song to him, bright his eyes began to shine-- + Hereaway I loved him well, for my heart was soft. + + "Hereaway my heart was soft; when he kissed my happy eyes, + Held my hand, and pressed his cheek warm against my brow, + Home I saw upon the earth, heaven stood there in the skies-- + 'Whereaway, whereaway goes my lover now?'" + + "Whereaway goes my lad--tell me, has he gone alone? + Never harsh word did I speak, never hurt I gave; + Strong he was and beautiful; like a heron he has flown-- + Hereaway, hereaway will I make my grave. + + "When once more the lad I loved hereaway, hereaway, + Comes to lay his hand in mine, kiss me on the brow, + I will whisper down the wind, he will weep to hear me say-- + 'Whereaway, whereaway goes my lover now?'" + + +There was a plaintive quality in the voice of this russet maiden in +perfect keeping with the music and the words; and though her lips smiled, +there was a deep, wistful look in her eyes more in harmony with the +coming autumn than with this gorgeous harvest-time. + +For a moment after she had finished singing she stood motionless, +absorbed by the far horizon; then suddenly she gave a little shake +of the body and said in a brisk, playfully chiding way: + +"Kitty Tynan, Kitty Tynan, what a girl you are!" There was no one near, +so far as eye could see, so it was clear that the words were addressed +to herself. She was expressing that wonder which so many people feel +at discovering in themselves long-concealed characteristics, or find +themselves doing things out of their natural orbit, as they think. If +any one had told Kitty Tynan that she had rare imagination, she would +have wondered what was meant. If anyone had said to her, "What are you +dreaming about, Kitty?" she would have understood, however, for she had +had fits of dreaming ever since she was a child, and they had increased +during the past few years--since the man came to live with them whose +coat she was brushing. Perhaps this was only imitation, because the man +had a habit of standing or sitting still and looking into space for +minutes--and on Sundays for hours--at a time; and often she had watched +him as he lay on his back in the long grass, head on a hillock, hat down +over his eyes, while the smoke from his pipe came curling up from beneath +the rim. Also she had seen him more than once sitting with a letter +before him and gazing at it for many minutes together. She had also +noted that it was the same letter on each occasion; that it was a closed +letter, and also that it was unstamped. She knew that, because she had +seen it in his desk--the desk once belonging to her father, a sloping +thing with a green-baize top. Sometimes he kept it locked, but very +often he did not; and more than once, when he had asked her to get him +something from the desk, not out of meanness, but chiefly because her +moral standard had not a multitude of delicate punctilios, she had +examined the envelope curiously. The envelope bore a woman's +handwriting, and the name on it was not that of the man who owned the +coat--and the letter. The name on the envelope was Shiel Crozier, but +the name of the man who owned the coat was J. G. Kerry--James Gathorne +Kerry, so he said. + +Kitty Tynan had certainly enough imagination to make her cherish a +mystery. She wondered greatly what it all meant. Never in anything else +had she been inquisitive or prying where the man was concerned; but she +felt that this letter had the heart of a story, and she had made up fifty +stories which she thought would fit the case of J. G. Kerry, who for over +four years had lived in her mother's house. He had become part of her +life, perhaps just because he was a man,--and what home is a real home +without a man?--perhaps because he always had a kind, quiet, confidential +word for her, or a word of stimulating cheerfulness; indeed, he showed in +his manner occasionally almost a boisterous hilarity. He undoubtedly was +what her mother called "a queer dick," but also "a pippin with a perfect +core," which was her way of saying that he was a man to be trusted with +herself and with her daughter; one who would stand loyally by a friend or +a woman. He had stood by them both when Augustus Burlingame, the lawyer, +who had boarded with them when J. G. Kerry first came, coarsely exceeded +the bounds of liberal friendliness which marked the household, and by +furtive attempts at intimacy began to make life impossible for both +mother and daughter. Burlingame took it into his head, when he received +notice that his rooms were needed for another boarder, that J. G. Kerry +was the cause of it. Perhaps this was not without reason, since Kerry +had seen Kitty Tynan angrily unclasping Burlingame's arm from around her +waist, and had used cutting and decisive words to the sensualist +afterwards. + +There had taken the place of Augustus Burlingame a land-agent--Jesse +Bulrush--who came and went like a catapult, now in domicile for three +days together, now gone for three weeks; a voluble, gaseous, humorous +fellow, who covered up a well of commercial evasiveness, honesty and +adroitness by a perspiring gaiety natural in its origin and convenient +for harmless deceit. He was fifty, and no gallant save in words; and, +as a wary bachelor of many years' standing, it was a long time before he +showed a tendency to blandish a good-looking middle-aged nurse named Egan +who also lodged with Mrs. Tynan; though even a plain-faced nurse in +uniform has an advantage over a handsome unprofessional woman. Jesse +Bulrush and J. G. Kerry were friends--became indeed such confidential +friends to all appearance, though their social origin was evidently so +different, that Kitty Tynan, when she wished to have a pleasant +conversation which gave her a glow for hours afterwards, talked to the +fat man of his lean and aristocratic-looking friend. + +"Got his head where it ought to be--on his shoulders; and it ain't for +playing football with," was the frequent remark of Mr. Bulrush concerning +Mr. Kerry. This always made Kitty Tynan want to sing, she could not have +told why, save that it seemed to her the equivalent of a long history of +the man whose past lay in mists that never lifted, and whom even the +inquisitive Burlingame had been unable to "discover" when he lived in +the same house. But then Kitty Tynan was as fond of singing as a canary, +and relieved her feelings constantly by this virtuous and becoming means, +with her good contralto voice. She was indeed a creature of +contradictions; for if ever any one should have had a soprano voice +it was she. She looked a soprano. + +What she was thinking of as she sang with Kerry's coat in her hand it +would be hard to discover by the process of elimination, as the +detectives say when tracking down a criminal. It is, however, of no +consequence; but it was clear that the song she sang had moved her, for +there was the glint of a tear in her eye as she turned towards the house, +the words of the lyric singing themselves over in her brain: + + "Hereaway my heart was soft; when he kissed my happy eyes, + Held my hand, and pressed his cheek warm against my brow, + Home I saw upon the hearth, heaven stood there in the skies' + Whereaway, whereaway goes my lover now?"' + +She knew that no lover had left her; that none was in the habit of laying +his warm cheek against her brow; and perhaps that was why she had said +aloud to herself, "Kitty Tynan, Kitty Tynan, what a girl you are!" +Perhaps--and perhaps not. + +As she stepped forward towards the door she heard a voice within the +house, and she quickened her footsteps. The blood in her face, the look +in her eye quickened also. And now a figure appeared in the doorway--a +figure in shirt-sleeves, which shook a fist at the hurrying girl. + +"Villain'!" he said gaily, for he was in one of his absurd, ebullient +moods--after a long talk with Jesse Bulrush. "Hither with my coat; my +spotless coat in a spotted world,--the unbelievable anomaly-- + + "'For the earth of a dusty to-day + Is the dust of an earthy to-morrow.'" + +When he talked like this she did not understand him, but she thought it +was clever beyond thinking--a heavenly jumble. "If it wasn't for me +you'd be carted for rubbish," she replied joyously as she helped him on +with his coat, though he had made a motion to take it from her. + +"I heard you singing--what was it?" he asked cheerily, while it could +be seen that his mind was preoccupied. The song she had sung, floating +through the air, had seemed familiar to him, while he had been greatly +engaged with a big business thing he had been planning for a long time, +with Jesse Bulrush in the background or foreground, as scout or rear- +guard or what you will: + + "'Whereaway, whereaway goes the lad that once was mine? + Hereaway, I waited him, hereaway and oft--'" + +she hummed with an exaggerated gaiety in her voice, for the song had +saddened her, she knew not why. At the words the flaming exhilaration of +the man's face vanished and his eyes took on a poignant, distant look. + +"That--oh, that!" he said, and with a little jerk of the head and a +clenching of the hand he moved towards the street. + +"Your hat!" she called after him, and ran inside the house. An instant +later she gave it to him. Now his face was clear and his eyes smiled +kindly at her. + +"'Whereaway, hereaway' is a wonderful song," he said. "We used to sing +it when I was a boy--and after, and after. It's an old song--old as the +hills. Well, thanks, Kitty Tynan. What a girl you are--to be so kind +to a fellow like--me!" + +"Kitty Tynan, what a girl you are!"--these were the very words she had +used about herself a little while before. The song--why did it make Mr. +Kerry take on such a queer look all at once when he heard it? Kitty +watched him striding down the street into the town. + +Now a voice--a rich, quizzical, kindly voice-called out to her: + +"Come, come, Miss Tynan, I want to be helped on with my coat," it said. + +Inside the house a fat, awkward man was struggling, or pretending to +struggle, into his coat. + +"Roll into it, Mr. Rolypoly," she answered cheerily as she entered. + +"Of course I'm not the star boarder--nothing for me!" he said in +affected protest. + +"A little more to starboard and you'll get it on," she retorted with a +glint of her late father's raillery, and she gave the coat a twitch which +put it right on the ample shoulders. + +"Bully! bully!" he cried. "I'll give you the tip for the Askatoon cup." + +"I'm a Christian. I hate horse-racers and gamblers," she returned +mockingly. + +"I'll turn Christian--I want to be loved," he bleated from the doorway. + +"Roll on, proud porpoise!" she rejoined, which shows that her +conversation was not quite aristocratic at all times. + +"Golly, but she's a gold dollar in a gold bank," remarked Jesse Bulrush +warmly as he lurched into the street. + +The girl stood still in the middle of the room looking dreamily down the +way the two men had gone. + +The quiet of the late summer day surrounded her. She heard the dizzy din +of the bees, the sleepy grinding of the grass hoppers, the sough of the +solitary pine at the door, and then behind them all a whizzing, machine- +like sound. This particular sound went on and on. + +She opened the door of the next room. Her mother sat at a sewing-machine +intent upon some work, the needle eating up a spreading piece of cloth. + +"What are you making, mother?" Kitty asked. "New blinds for Mr. Kerry's +bedroom-he likes this green colour," the widow added with a slight flush, +due to leaning over the sewing-machine, no doubt. + +"Everybody does everything for him," remarked the girl almost pettishly. + +"That's a nice spirit, I must say!" replied her mother reprovingly, the +machine almost stopping. + +"If I said it in a different way it would be all right," the other +returned with a smile, and she repeated the words with a winning soft +inflection, like a born actress. + +"Kitty-Kitty Tynan, what a girl you are!" declared her mother, and she +bent smiling over the machine, which presently buzzed on its devouring +way. Three people had said the same thing within a few minutes. A look +of pleasure stole over the girl's face, and her bosom rose and fell with +a happy sigh. Somehow it was quite a wonderful day for her. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +CLOSING THE DOORS + +There are many people who, in some subtle psychological way, are very +like their names; as though some one had whispered to "the parents of +this child" the name designed for it from the beginning of time. So it +was with Shiel Crozier. Does not the name suggest a man lean and flat, +sinewy, angular and isolated like a figure in one of El Greco's pictures +in the Prado at Madrid? Does not the name suggest a figure of elongated +humanity with a touch of ancient mysticism and yet also of the +fantastical humour of Don Quixote? + +In outward appearance Shiel Crozier, otherwise J. G. Kerry, of Askatoon, +was like his name for the greater part of the time. Take him in repose, +and he looked a lank ascetic who dreamed of a happy land where +flagellation was a joy and pain a panacea. In action, however, as when +Kitty Tynan helped him on with his coat, he was a pure improvisation of +nature. He had a face with a Cromwellian mole, which broke out in +emotion like an April day, with eyes changing from a blue-grey to the +deepest ultramarine that ever delighted the soul and made the reputation +of an Old Master. Even in the prairie town of Askatoon, where every man +is so busy that he scarcely knows his own children when he meets them, +and almost requires an introduction to his wife when the door closes on +them at bedtime, people took a second look at him when he passed. Many +who came in much direct contact with him, as Augustus Burlingame the +lawyer had done, tried to draw from him all there was to tell about +himself; which is a friendly custom of the far West. The native-born +greatly desire to tell about themselves. They wear their hearts on their +sleeves, and are childlike in the frank recitals of all they were and are +and hope to be. This covers up also a good deal of business acumen, +shrewdness, and secretiveness which is not so childlike and bland. + +In this they are in sharp contrast to those not native-born. These +come from many places on the earth, and they are seldom garrulously +historical. Some of them go to the prairie country to forget they ever +lived before, and to begin the world again, having been hurt in life +undeservingly; some go to bury their mistakes or worse in pioneer work +and adventure; some flee from a wrath that would devour them--the law, +society, or a woman. + +This much must be said at once for Crozier, that he had no crime to +hide. It was not because of crime that "He buckles up his talk like the +bellyband on a broncho," as Malachi Deely, the exile from Tralee, said +of him; and Deely was a man of "horse-sense," no doubt because he was a +horse-doctor--"a veterenny surgeon," as his friends called him when they +wished to flatter him. Deely supplemented this chaste remark about the +broncho with the observation that, "Same as the broncho, you buckle him +tightest when you know the divil is stirring in his underbrush." And he +added further, "'Tis a woman that's put the mumplaster on his tongue, +Sibley, and I bet you a hundred it's another man's wife." + +Like many a speculator, Malachi Deely would have made no profit out of +his bet in the end, for Shiel Crozier had had no trouble with the law, +or with another man's wife, nor yet with any single maid--not yet; though +there was now Kitty Tynan in his path. Yet he had had trouble. There +was hint of it in his occasional profound abstraction; but more than all +else in the fact that here he was, a gentleman, having lived his life for +over four years past as a sort of horse-expert, overseer, and stud- +manager for Terry Brennan, the absentee millionaire. In the opinion of +the West, "big-bugs" did not come down to this kind of occupation unless +they had been roughly handled by fate or fortune. + +"Talk? Watch me now, he talks like a testimonial in a frame," said +Malachi Deely on the day this tale opens, to John Sibley, the gambling +young farmer who, strange to say, did well out of both gambling and +farming. + +"Words to him are like nuts to a monkey. He's an artist, that man is. +Been in the circles where the band plays good and soft, where the music +smells--fairly smells like parfumery," responded Sibley. "I'd like to +get at the bottom of him. There's a real good story under his asbestos +vest--something that'd make a man call for the oh-be-joyful, same as I do +now." + +After they had seen the world through the bottom of a tumbler Deely +continued the gossip. "Watch me now, been a friend of dukes in England-- +and Ireland, that Mr. James Gathorne Kerry, as any one can see; and there +he is feelin' the hocks of a filly or openin' the jaws of a stud horse, +age-hunting! Why, you needn't tell me--I've had my mind made up ever +since the day he broke the temper of Terry Brennan's Inniskillen +chestnut, and won the gold cup with her afterwards. He just sort of +appeared out of the mist of the marnin', there bein' a divil's lot of +excursions and conferences and holy gatherin's in Askatoon that time +back, ostensible for the business which their names denote, like the +Dioceesan Conference and the Pure White Water Society. That was their +bluff; but they'd come herealong for one good pure white dioceesan thing +before all, and that was to see the dandiest horse-racing which ever +infested the West. Come--he come like that!"--Deely made a motion like a +swoop of an aeroplane to earth--"and here he is buckin' about like a +rough-neck same as you and me; but yet a gent, a swell, a cream della +cream, that's turned his back on a lady--a lady not his own wife, +that's my sure and sacred belief." + +"You certainly have got women on the brain," retorted Sibley. "I ain't +ever seen such a man as you. There never was a woman crossing the street +on a muddy day that you didn't sprint to get a look at her ankles. +Behind everything you see a woman. Horses is your profession, but woman +is your practice." + +"There ain't but one thing worth livin' for, and that's a woman," +remarked Deely. + +"Do you tell Mrs. Deely that?" asked Sibley. + +"Watch me now, she knows. What woman is there don't know when her +husband is what he is! And it's how I know that the trouble with James +Gathorne Kerry is a woman. I know the signs. Divils me own, he's got +'em in his face." + +"He's got in his face what don't belong here and what you don't know much +about--never having kept company with that sort," rejoined Sibley. + +"The way he lives and talks--'No, thank you, I don't care for anny +thing,' says he, when you're standin' at the door of a friendly saloon, +which is established by law to bespeak peace and goodwill towards men, +and you ask him pleasant to step inside. He don't seem to have a single +vice. Haven't we tried him? There was Belle Bingley, all frizzy hair +and a kicker; we put her on to him. But he give her ten dollars to buy +a hat on condition she behaved like a lady in the future--smilin' at her, +the divil! And Belle, with temper like dinnemite, took it kneelin' as it +were, and smiled back at him--her! Drink, women--nothin' seems to have a +hold on him. What's his vice? Sure, then, that's what I say, what's his +vice? He's got to have one; anny man as is a man has to have one vice." + +"Bosh! Look at me," rejoined Sibley. "Drink women--nit! Not for me! +I've got no vice. I don't even smoke." + +"No vice? Begobs, yours has got you like a tire on a wheel! Vice--what +do you call gamblin'? It's the biggest vice ever tuk grip of a man. +It's like a fever, and it's got you, John, like the nail on your finger." + +"Well, p'r'aps, he's got that vice too. P'r'aps J. G. Kerry's got that +vice same as me." + +"Annyhow, we'll get to know all we want when he goes into the witness +box at the Logan murder trial next week. That's what I'm waitin' for, +"Deely returned, with a grin of anticipation. "That drug-eating Gus +Burlingame's got a grudge against him somehow, and when a lawyer's got +a grudge against you it's just as well to look where y' are goin'. +Burlingame don't care what he does to get his way in court. What set him +against Kerry I ain't sure, but, bedad, I think it's looks. Burlingame +goes in for lookin' like a picture in a frame--gold seals hangin' beyant +his vestpocket, broad silk cord to his eye-glass, loose flowin' tie, and +long hair-makes him look pretentuous and showy. But your 'Mr. Kerry, +sir,' he don't have anny tricks to make him look like a doge from Veenis +and all the eyes of the females battin' where'er he goes. Jealousy, John +Sibley, me boy, is a cruil thing." + +"Why is it you ain't jealous of him? There's plenty of women that watch +you go down-town--you got a name for it, anyway," remarked Sibley +maliciously. + +Deely nodded sagely. "Watch me now, that's right, me boy. I got a name +for it, but I want the game without the name, and that's why I ain't +puttin' on anny airs--none at all. I depend on me tongue, not on me +looks, which goes against me. I like Mr. J. G. Kerry. I've plenty +dealin's with him, naturally, both of us being in the horse business, +and I say he's right as a minted dollar as he goes now. Also, and +behold, I'd take my oath he never done annything to blush for. His +touble's been a woman--wayward woman what stoops to folly! I give up +tryin' to pump him just as soon as I made up my mind it was a woman. +That shuts a man's mouth like a poor-box. + +"Next week's fixed for the Logan killin' case, is it?" + +"Monday comin', for sure. I wouldn't like to be in Mr. Kerry's shoes. +Watch me now, if he gives the, evidence they say he can give--the +prasecution say it--that M'Mahon Gang behind Logan 'll get him sure as +guns, one way or another." + +"Some one ought to give Mr. Kerry the tip to get out and not give +evidence," remarked Sibley sagely. Deely shook his head vigorously. +"Begobs, he's had the tip all right, but he's not goin'. He's got as +much fear as a canary has whiskers. He doesn't want to give evidence, +he says, but he wants to see the "law do its work. Burlingame 'll try to +make it out manslaughter; but there's a widow with children to suffer for +the manslaughter, just as much as though it was murder, and there isn't a +man that doesn't think murder was the game, and the grand joory had that +idea too. + +"Between Gus Burlingame and that M'Mahon bunch of horse-thieves, the +stranger in a strange land 'll have to keep his eyes open, I'm thinkin'." + +"Divils me darlin', his eyes are open all right," returned Deely. + +"Still, I'd like to jog his elbow," Sibley answered reflectively. +"It couldn't do any harm, and it might do good." + +Deely nodded good-naturedly. "If you want to so bad as that, John, +you've got the chance, for he's up at the Sovereign Bank now. I seen him +leave the Great Overland Railway Bureau ten minutes ago and get away +quick to the bank." + +"What's he got on at the bank and the railway?" + +"Some big deal, I guess. I've seen him with Studd Bradley." + +"The Great North Trust Company boss?" + +"On it, my boy, on it--the other day as thick as thieves. Studd Bradley +doesn't knit up with an outsider from the old country unless there's +reason for it--good gold-currency reasons." + +"A land deal, eh?" ventured Sibley. "What did I say--speculation, +that's his vice, same as mine! P'r'aps that's what ruined him. Cards, +speculation, what's the difference? And he's got a quiet look, same as +me." + +Deely laughed loudly. "And bursts out same as you! Quiet one hour like +a mill-pond or a well, and then--swhish, he's blazin'! He's a volcano in +harness, that spalpeen." + +"He's a volcano that doesn't erupt when there's danger," responded +Sibley. "It's when there's just fun on that his volcano gets loose. +I'll go wait for him at the bank. I got a fellow-feeling for Mr. Kerry. +I'd like to whisper in his ear that he'd better be lookin' sharp for the +M'Mahon Gang, and that if he's a man of peace he'd best take a holiday +till after next week, or get smallpox or something." + +The two friends lounged slowly up the street, and presently parted near +the door of the bank. As Sibley waited, his attention was drawn to a +window on the opposite side of the street at an angle from themselves. +The light was such that the room was revealed to its farthest corners, +and Sibley noted that three men were evidently carefully watching the +bank, and that one of the men was Studd Bradley, the so-called boss. The +others were local men of some position commercially and financially in +the town. Sibley did not give any sign that he noticed the three men, +but he watched carefully from under the rim of his hat. His imagination, +however, read a story of consequence in the secretive vigilance of the +three, who evidently thought that, standing far back in the room, they +could not be seen. + +Presently the door of the bank opened, and Sibley saw Studd Bradley lean +forward eagerly, then draw back and speak hurriedly to his companions, +using a gesture of satisfaction. + +"Something damn funny there!" Sibley said to himself, and stepped +forward to Crozier with a friendly exclamation. Crozier turned rather +impatiently, for his face was aflame with some exciting reflection. At +this moment his eyes were the deepest blue that could be imagined--an +almost impossible colour, like that of the Mediterranean when it reflects +the perfect sapphire of the sky. There was something almost wonderful +in their expression. A woman once said as she looked at a picture of +Herschel, whose eyes had the unworldly gaze of the great dreamer looking +beyond this sphere, "The stars startled him." Such a look was in +Crozier's eyes now, as though he was seeing the bright end of a +long road, the desire of his soul. + +That, indeed, was what he saw. After two years of secret negotiation he +had (inspired by information dropped by Jesse Bulrush, his fellow- +boarder) made definite arrangements for a big land-deal in connection +with the route of a new railway and a town-site, which would mean more +to him than any one could know. If it went through, he would, for an +investment of ten thousand dollars, have a hundred and fifty thousand +dollars; and that would solve an everlasting problem for him. + +He had reached a critical point in his enterprise. All that was wanted +now was ten thousand dollars in cash to enable him to close the great +bargain and make his hundred and fifty thousand. But to want ten +thousand dollars and to get it in a given space of time, when you have +neither securities, cash, nor real estate, is enough to keep you awake at +night. Crozier had been so busy with the delicate and difficult +negotiations that he had not deeply concerned himself with the absence of +the necessary ten thousand dollars. He thought he could get the money at +any time, so good was the proposition; and it was best to defer +raising it to the last moment lest some one learning the secret should +forestall him. He must first have the stake to be played for before he +moved to get the cash with which to make the throw. This is not +generally thought a good way, but it was his way, and it had yet to be +tested. + +There was no cloud of apprehension, however, in Crozier's eyes as they +met those of Sibley. He liked Sibley. At this point it is not necessary +to say why. The reason will appear in due time. Sibley's face had +always something of that immobility and gravity which Crozier's face had +part of the time-paler, less intelligent, with dark lines and secret +shadows absent from Crozier's face; but still with some of the El Greco +characteristics which marked so powerfully that of the man who passed as +J. G. Kerry. + +"Ah, Sibley," he said, "glad to see you! Anything I can do for you?" + +"It's the other way if there's any doing at all," was the quick response. + +"Well, let's walk along together," remarked Crozier a little +abstractedly, for he was thinking hard about his great enterprise. + +"We might be seen," said Sibley, with an obvious undermeaning meant to +provoke a question. + +Crozier caught the undertone of suggestion. "Being about to burgle the +bank, it's well not to be seen together--eh?" + +"No, I'm not in on that business, Mr. Kerry. I'm for breaking banks, +not burgling 'em," was the cheerful reply. + +They laughed, but Crozier knew that the observant gambling farmer was not +talking at haphazard. They had met on the highway, as it were, many +times since Crozier had come to Askatoon, and Crozier knew his man. + +"Well, what are we going to do, and who will see us if we do it?" +Crozier asked briskly. + +"Studd Bradley and his secret-service corps have got their eyes on this +street--and on you," returned Sibley dryly. + +Crozier's face sobered and his eyes became less emotional. "I don't see +them anywhere," he answered, but looking nowhere. + +"They're in Gus Burlingame's office. They had you under observation +while you were in the bank." + +"I couldn't run off with the land, could I?" Crozier remarked dryly, yet +suggestively, in his desire to see how much Sibley knew. + +"Well, you said it was a bank. I've no more idea what it is you're +tryin' to run off with than I know what an ace is goin' to do when +there's a joker in the pack," remarked Sibley; "but I thought I'd tell +you that Bradley and his lot are watchin' you gettin' ready to run." +Then he hastily told what he had seen. + +Crozier was reassured. It was natural that Bradley & Co. should take an +interest in his movements. They would make a pile of money if he pulled +off the deal-far more than he would. It was not strange that they should +watch his invasion of the bank. They knew he wanted money, and a bank +was the place to get it. That was the way he viewed the matter on the +instant. He replied to Sibley cheerfully. "A hundred to one is a lot +when you win it," he said enigmatically. + +"It depends on how much you have on," was Sibley's quiet reply--"a dollar +or a thousand dollars. + +"If you've got a big thing on, and you've got an outsider that you think +is goin' to win and beat the favourite, it's just as well to run no +risks. Believe me, Mr. Kerry, if you've got anything on that asks for +your attention, it'd be sense and saving if you didn't give evidence at +the Logan Trial next week. It's pretty well-guessed what you're goin' +to say and what you know, and you take it from me, the M'Mahon mob that's +behind Logan 'll have it in for you. They're terrors when they get +goin', and if your evidence puts one of that lot away, ther'll be trouble +for you. I wouldn't do it--honest, I wouldn't. I've been out West here +a good many years, and I know the place and the people. It's a good +place, and there's lots of first-class people here, but there's a few +offscourings that hang like wolves on the edge of the sheepfold, ready to +murder and git." + +"That was what you wanted to see me about, wasn't it?" Crozier asked +quietly. + +"Yes; the other was just a shot on the chance. I don't like to see men +sneakin' about and watching. If they do, you can bet there's something +wrong. But the other thing, the Logan Trial business, is a dead +certainty. You're only a new-comer, in a kind of way, and you don't need +to have the same responsibility as the rest. The Law'll get what it +wants whether you chip in or not. Let it alone. What's the Law ever +done for you that you should run risks for it? It's straight talk, Mr. +Kerry. Have a cancer in the bowels next week or go off to see a dyin' +brother, but don't give evidence at the Logan Trial--don't do it. I got +a feeling--I'm superstitious--all sportsmen are. By following my +instincts I've saved myself a whole lot in my time." + +"Yes; all men that run chances have their superstitions, and they're not +to be sneered at," replied Crozier thoughtfully. "If you see black, +don't play white; if you see a chestnut crumpled up, put your money on +the bay even when the chestnut is a favourite. Of course you're +superstitious, Sibley. The tan and the green baize are covered with +ghosts that want to help you, if you'll let them." + +Sibley's mouth opened in amazement. Crozier was speaking with the look +of the man who hypnotises himself, who "sees things," who dreams as only +the gambler and the plunger on the turf do dream, not even excepting the +latter-day Irish poets. + +"Say, I was right what I said to Deely--I was right," remarked Sibley +almost huskily, for it seemed to him as though he had found a long-lost +brother. No man except one who had staked all he had again and again +could have looked or spoken like that. + +Crozier looked at the other thoughtfully for a moment, then he said: + +"I don't know what you said to Deely, but I do know that I'm going to +the Logan Trial in spite of the M'Mahon mob. I don't feel about it as +you do. I've got a different feeling, Sibley. I'll play the game out. +I shall not hedge. I shall not play for safety. It's everything on the +favourite this time." + +"You'll excuse me, but Gus Burlingame is for the defence, and he's got +his knife into you," returned Sibley. + +"Not yet." Crozier smiled sardonically. + +"Well, I apologise, but what I've said, Mr. Kerry, is said as man to man. +You're ridin' game in a tough place, as any man has to do who starts with +only his pants and his head on. That's the way you begun here, I guess; +and I don't want to see your horse tumble because some one throws a +fence-rail at its legs. Your class has enemies always in a new country +--jealousy, envy." + +The lean, aristocratic, angular Crozier, with a musing look on his long +face, grown ascetic again, as he held out his hand and gripped that of +the other, said warmly: "I'm just as much obliged to you as though I took +your advice, Sibley. I am not taking it, but I am taking a pledge to +return the compliment to you if ever I get the chance." + +"Well, most men get chances of that kind," was the gratified reply of the +gambling farmer, and then Crozier turned quickly and entered the doorway +of the British Bank, the rival of that from which he had turned in brave +disappointment a little while before. + +Left alone in the street, Sibley looked back with the instinct of the +hunter. As he expected, he saw a head thrust out from the window where +Studd Bradley and his friends had been. There was an hotel opposite the +British Bank. He entered and waited. Bradley and one of his companions +presently came in and seated themselves far back in the shadow, where +they could watch the doorway of the bank. + +It was quite a half-hour before Shiel Crozier emerged from the bank. His +face was set and pale. For an instant he stood as though wondering which +way to go, then he moved up the street the way he had come. + +Sibley heard a low, poisonous laugh of triumph rankle through the hotel +office. He turned round. Bradley, the over-fed, over-confident, over- +estimated financier, laid a hand on the shoulder of his companion as they +moved towards the door. + +"That's another gate shut," he said. "I guess we can close 'em all with +a little care. It's working all right. He's got no chance of raising +the cash," he added, as the two passed the chair where Sibley sat--with +his hat over his eyes, chewing an unlighted cigar. + +"I don't know what it is, but it's dirt--and muck at that," John Sibley +remarked as he rose from his chair and followed the two into the street. + +Bradley and his friends were trying steadily to close up the avenues of +credit to the man to whom the success of his enterprise meant so much. +To crowd him out would mean an extra hundred and fifty thousand dollars +for themselves. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE LOGAN TRIAL AND WHAT CAME OF IT + +What the case was in which Shiel Crozier was to give evidence is not +important; what came from the giving of his testimony is all that +matters; and this story would never have been written if he had not +entered the witness-box. + +A court-room at any time seems a little warmer than any other spot to all +except the prisoner; but on a July day it is likely to be a punishment +for both innocent and guilty. A man had been killed by one of the group +of toughs called locally the M'Mahon Gang, and against the charge of +murder that of manslaughter had been set up in defence; and manslaughter +might mean jail for a year or two or no jail at all. Any evidence which +justified the charge of murder would mean not jail, but the rope in due +course; for this was not Montana or Idaho, where the law's delays +outlasted even the memory of the crime committed. + +The court-room of Askatoon was crowded to suffocation, for the +M'Mahons were detested, and the murdered man had a good reputation in +the district. Besides, a widow and three children mourned their loss, +and the widow was in court. Also Crozier's evidence was expected to be +sensational, and to prove the swivel on which the fate of the accused man +would hang. Among those on the inside it was also known that the clever +but dissipated Augustus Burlingame, the counsel for the prisoner, had a +grudge against Crozier,--no one quite knew why except Kitty Tynan and her +mother, and that cross-examination would be pressed mercilessly when +Crozier entered the witness-box. As Burlingame came into the court-room +he said to the Young Doctor--he was always spoken of as the Young Doctor +in Askatoon, though he had been there a good many years and he was no +longer as young as he looked--who was also called as a witness, "We'll +know more about Mr. J. G. Kerry when this trial is over than will suit +his book." It did not occur to Augustus Burlingame that in Crozier, who +knew why he had fled the house of the showy but virtuous Mrs. Tynan, he +might find a witness of a mental and moral calibre with baffling +qualities and some gift of riposte. + +Crozier entered the witness-box at a stage when excitement was at fever +height; for the M'Mahon Gang had given evidence which every one believed +to be perjured; and the widow of the slain man was weeping bitterly in +her seat because of noxious falsehoods sworn against her honest husband. + +There was certainly someting credible and prepossessing in the look of +Crozier. He might be this or that, but he carried no evil or vice of +character in his face. He was in his grave mood this summer afternoon. +There he stood with his long face and the very heavy eyebrows, clean- +shaven, hard-bitten, as though by wind and weather, composed and +forceful, the mole on his chin a kind of challenge to the vertical dimple +in his cheek, his high forehead more benevolent than intellectual, his +brown hair faintly sprinkled with grey and a bit unmanageable, his +fathomless eyes shining. "No man ought to have such eyes," remarked a +woman present to the Young Doctor, who abstractedly nodded assent, for, +like Malachi Deely and John Sibley, he himself had a theory about +Crozier; and he had a fear of what the savage enmity of the morally +diseased Burlingame might do. He had made up his mind that so intense a +scrupulousness as Crozier had shown since coming to Askatoon had behind +it not only character, but the rigidity of a set purpose; and that view +was supported by the stern economy of Crozier's daily life, broken only +by sudden bursts of generosity for those in need. + +In the box Crozier kept his eye on the crown attorney, who prosecuted, +and on the judge. He appeared not to see any one in the court-room, +though Kitty Tynan had so placed herself that he must see her if he +looked at the audience at all. Kitty thought him magnificent as he told +his story with a simple parsimony but a careful choice of words which +made every syllable poignant with effect. She liked him in his grave +mood even better than when he was aflame with an internal fire of his +own creation, when he was almost wildly vivid with life. + +"He's two men," she had often said to herself; and she said it now as she +looked at him in the witness-box, measuring out his words and measuring +off at the same time the span of a murderer's life; for when the crown +attorney said to the judge that he had concluded his examination there +was no one in the room--not even the graceless Burlingame--who did not +think the prisoner guilty. + +"That is all," the crown attorney said to Crozier as he sank into his +chair, greatly pleased with one of the best witnesses who had ever been +through his hands--lucid, concentrated, exact, knowing just where +he was going and reaching his goal without meandering. Crozier was about +to step down when Burlingame rose. + +"I wish to ask a few questions," he said. + +Crozier bowed and turned, again grasping the rail of the witness-box with +one hand, while with an air of cogitation and suspense he stroked his +chin with the long fingers of the other hand. + +"What is your name?" asked Burlingame in a tone a little louder than he +had used hitherto in the trial, indeed even louder than lawyers generally +use when they want to bully a witness. In this case it was as though he +wished to summon the attention of the court. + +For a second Crozier's fingers caught his chin almost spasmodically. The +real meaning of the question, what lay behind it, flashed to his mind. +He saw in lightning illumination the course Burlingame meant to pursue. +For a moment his heart seemed to stand still, and he turned slightly +pale, but the blue of his eyes took on a new steely look--a look also +of striking watchfulness, as of an animal conscious of its danger, yet +conscious too of its power when at bay. + +"What is your name?" Burlingame asked again in a somewhat louder tone, +and turned to look at the jury, as if bidding them note the hesitation of +the witness; though, indeed, the waiting was so slight that none but a +trickster like Burlingame would have taken advantage of it, and only then +when there was much behind. + +For a moment longer Crozier remained silent, getting strength, as it +were, and saying to himself, "What does he know?" and then, with a +composed look of inquiry at the judge, who appeared to take no notice, +he said: "I have already, in evidence, given my name to the court." + +"Witness, what is your name?" again almost shouted the lawyer, with a +note of indignation in his voice, as though here was a dangerous fellow +committing a misdemeanour in their very presence. He spread out his +hands to the jury, as though bidding them observe, if they would, this +witness hesitating in answer to a simple, primary question--a witness who +had just sworn a man's life away! + +"What is your name?" + +"James Gathorne Kerry, as I have already given it to the court," was the +calm reply. + +"Where do you live?" + +"In Askatoon, as I have already said in evidence; and if it is necessary +to give my domicile, I live at the house of Mrs. Tyndall Tynan, Pearl +Street--as you know so well." + +The tone in which he uttered the last few words was such that even the +judge pricked up his ears. + +A look of hatred came into the decadent but able lawyer's face. + +"Where do you live when you are at home?" + +"Mrs. Tynan's house is the only home I have at present." + +He was outwitting the pursuer so far, but it only gained him time, as he +knew; and he knew also that no suggestive hint concerning the episode at +Mrs. Tynan's, when Burlingame was asked to leave her house, would be of +any avail now. + +"Where were you born?" + +"In Ireland." + +"What part of Ireland?" + +"County Kerry." + +"What place--what town or city or village in County Kerry?" + +"In neither." + +"What house, then--what estate?" Burlingame was more than nettled; and +he sharpened his sword. + +"The estate of Castlegarry." + +"What was your name in Ireland?" + +In the short silence that followed, the quick-drawn breath of many +excited and some agitated people could be heard. Among the latter were +Mrs. Tynan and her daughter and Malachi Deely; among those who held their +breath in suspence were John Sibley, Studd Bradley the financier, and the +Young Doctor. The swish of a skirt seemed ridiculously loud in the hush, +and the scratching of the judge's quill pen was noisily irritating. + +"My name in Ireland was James Shiel Gathorne Crozier, commonly called +Shiel Crozier," came the even reply from the witness-box. + +"James Shiel Gathorne Crozier in Ireland, but James Gathorne Kerry here!" +Burlingame turned to the jury significantly. "What other name have you +been known by in or out of Ireland?" he added sharply to Crozier. "No +other name so far as I know." + +"No other name so far as you know," repeated the lawyer in a sarcastic +tone intended to impress the court. + +"Who was your father?" + +"John Gathorne Crozier." + +"Any title?" + +"He was a baronet." + +"What was his business?" + +"He had no profession, though he had business, of course." + +"Ah, he lived by his wits?" + +"No, he was not a lawyer! I have said he had no profession. He lived on +his money on his estate." + +The judge waved down the laughter at Burlingame's expense. + +"In official documents what was his description?" snarled Burlingame. + +"'Gentleman' was his designation in official documents." + +"You, then, were the son of a gentleman?" There was a hateful suggestion +in the tone. + +"I was." + +"A legitimate son?" + +Nothing in Crozier's face showed what he felt, except his eyes, and they +had a look in them which might well have made his questioner shrink. He +turned calmly to the judge. + +"Your honour, does this bear upon the case? Must I answer this legal +libertine?" + +At the word libertine, the judge, the whole court, and the audience +started; but it was presently clear the witness meant that the questioner +was abusing his legal privileges, though the people present interpreted +it another way, and quite rightly. + +The reply of the judge was in favour of the lawyer. "I do not quite see +the full significance of the line of defence, but I think I must allow +the question," was the judge's gentle and reluctant reply, for he was +greatly impressed by this witness, by his transparent honesty and +straightforwardness. + +"Were you a legitimate son of John Gathorne Crozier and his wife?" asked +Burlingame. + +"Yes, a legitimate son," answered Crozier in an even voice. + +"Is John Gathorne Crozier still living?" + +"I said that gentleman was his designation in official documents. I +supposed that would convey the fact that he was not living, but I see you +do not quickly grasp a point." + +Burlingame was stung by the laughter in the court and ventured a riposte. + +"But is once a gentleman always a gentleman an infallible rule?" + +"I suppose not; I did not mean to convey that; but once a rogue always a +bad lawyer holds good in every country," was Crozier's comment in a low, +quiet voice which stirred and amused the audience again. + +"I must ask counsel to put questions which have some relevance even to +his own line of defence," remarked the judge sternly. "This is not a +corner grocery." + +Burlingame bowed. He had had a facer, but he had also shown the witness +to have been living under an assumed name. That was a good start. He +hoped to add to the discredit. He had absolutely no knowledge of +Crozier's origin and past; but he was in a position to find it out if +Crozier told the truth on oath, and he was sure he would. + +"Where was your domicile in the old country?" Burlingame asked. + +"In County Kerry--with a flat in London." + +"An estate in County Kerry?" + +"A house and two thousand acres." + +"Is it your property still?" + +"It is not." + +"You sold it?" + +"No." + +"If you did not sell, how is it that you do not own it?" + +"It was sold for me--in spite of me." + +The judge smiled, the people smiled, the jury smiled. Truly, though a +life-history was being exposed with incredible slowness--"like pulling +teeth," as the Young Doctor said--it was being touched off with laughter. + +"You were in debt?" + +"Quite." + +"How did you get into debt?" + +"By spending more than my income." + +If Askatoon had been proud of its legal talent in the past it had now +reason for revising its opinion. Burlingame was frittering away the +effect of his inquiry by elaboration of details. What he gained by the +main startling fact he lost in the details by which the witness scored. +He asked another main question. + +"Why did you leave Ireland?" + +"To make money." + +"You couldn't do it there?" + +"They were too many for me over there, so I thought I'd come here," slyly +answered Crozier, and with a grave face; at which the solemn scene of a +prisoner being tried for his life was shaken by a broad smiling, which in +some cases became laughter haughtily suppressed by the court attendant. + +"Have you made money here?" + +"A little--with expectations." + +"What was your income in Ireland?" + +"It began with three thousand pounds--" + +"Fifteen thousand dollars about?" + +"About that--about a lawyer's fee for one whisper to a client less than +that. It began with that and ended with nothing." + +"Then you escaped?" + +"From creditors, lawyers, and other such? No, I found you here." + +The judge intervened again almost harshly on the laughter of the court, +with the remark that a man was being tried for his life; that ribaldry +was out of place; and that, unless the course pursued by the counsel was +to discredit the reliability of the character of the witness, the +examination was in excess of the privilege of counsel. + +"Your honour has rightly apprehended what my purpose is," Burlingame said +deprecatingly. He then turned to Crozier again, and his voice rose as it +did when he began the examination. It was as though he was starting all +over again. + +"What was it compelled" (he was boldly venturing) "you to leave Ireland +at last? What was the incident which drove you out from the land where +you were born--from being the owner of two thousand acres"-- + +"Partly bog," interposed Crozier. + +"--From being the owner of two thousand acres to becoming a kind of head- +groom on a ranch? What was the cause of your flight?" + +"Flight! I came in one of the steamers of the Company for which your +firm are the agents. Eleven days it took to come from Glasgow to +Quebec." + +Again the court rippled, again the attendant intervened. + +Burlingame was nonplussed this time, but he gathered himself together. + +"What was the process of law which forced you to leave your own land?" + +"None at all." + +"What were your debts when you left?" + +"None at all." + +"How much was the last debt you paid?" + +"Two thousand five hundred pounds." + +"What was its nature?" + +"It was a debt of honour--do you understand?" The subtle challenge of +the voice, the sarcasm, was not lost. Again there was a struggle on the +part of the audience not to laugh outright, and so be driven from the +court as had been threatened. + +The judge interposed again with the remark, not very severe in tone, +that the witness was not in the box to ask questions, but to answer them. +At the same time he must remind counsel that the examination must +discontinue unless something more relevant immediately appeared in the +evidence. + +There was silence again for a moment, and even Crozier himself seemed to +steel himself for a question he felt was coming. + +"Are you married or single?" asked Burlingame, and he did not need to +raise his voice to summon the interest of the court. + +"I was married." + +One person in the audience nearly cried out. It was Kitty Tynan. She +had never allowed herself to think of that, but even if she had, what +difference could it make whether he was married or single, since he was +out of her star? + +"Are you not married now?" + +"I do not know." + +"You mean you do not know if you have been divorced?" + +"No." + +"You mean your wife is dead?" + +"No." + +"What do you mean? That you do not know whether your wife is living or +dead?" + +"Quite so." + +"Have you heard from her since you saw her last?" + +"I had one letter." + +Kitty Tynan thought of the unopened letter in a woman's handwriting in +the green baize desk in her mother's house. + +"No more?" + +"No more." + +"Are we to understand that you do not know whether your wife is living or +dead?" + +"I have no information that she is dead." + +"Why did you leave her?" + +"I have not said that I left her. Primarily I left Ireland." + +"Assuming that she is alive, your wife will not live with you?" + +"Ah, what information have you to that effect?" The judge informed +Crozier that he must not ask questions of counsel. + +"Why is she not with you here?" + +"As you said, I am only picking up a living here, and even the passage +by your own second-class steamship line is expensive." + +The judge suppressed a smile. He greatly liked the witness. + +"Do you deny that you parted from your wife in anger?" + +"When I am asked that question I will try to answer it. Meanwhile, I do +not deny what has not been put before me in the usual way." + +Here the judge sternly rebuked the counsel, who ventured upon one last +question. + +"Have you any children?" + +"None." + +"Has your brother, who inherited, any children?" + +"None that I know of." + +"Are you the heir-presumptive to the baronetcy?" + +"I am." + +"Yet your wife will not live with you?" + +"Call Mrs. Crozier as a witness and see. Meanwhile, I am not upon my +trial." + +He turned to the judge, who promptly called upon Burlingame to conclude +his examination. + +Burlingame asked two questions more. + +"Why did you change your name when you came here?" + +"I wanted to obliterate myself." + +"I put it to you, that what you want is to avoid the outraged law of your +own country." + +"No--I want to avoid the outrageous lawyers of yours." + +Again there was a pause in the proceedings, and on a protest from the +crown attorney the judge put an end to the cross-examination with the +solemn reminder that a man was being tried for his life, and that the +present proceedings were a lamentable reflection on the levity of human +nature--in Askatoon. Turning with friendly scrutiny to Crozier, he said: + +"In the early stage of his examination the witness informed the court +that he had made a heavy loss through a debt of honour immediately before +leaving England. Will he say in what way he incurred the obligation? +Are we to assume that it was through gambling-card-playing, or other +games of chance?" + +"Through backing the wrong horse," was Crozier's instant reply. + +"That phrase is often applied to mining or other unreal flights for +fortune," said the judge, with a dry smile. + +"This was a real horse on a real flight to the winning-post," added +Crozier, with a quirk at the corner of his mouth. + +"Honest contest with man or horse is no crime, but it is tragedy to +stake all on the contest and lose," was the judge's grave and pedagogic +comment. "We shall now hear from the counsel for defence his reason for +conducting his cross-examination on such unusual lines. Latitude of this +kind is only permissible if it opens up any weakness in the case against +the prisoner." + +The judge thus did Burlingame a good turn as well as Crozier, by creating +an atmosphere of gravity, even of tragedy, in which Burlingame could make +his speech in defence of the prisoner. + +Burlingame started hesitatingly, got into his stride, assembled the +points of his defence with the skill of which he really was capable. He +made a strong appeal for acquittal, but if not acquittal, then a verdict +of manslaughter. He showed that the only real evidence which could +convict his man of murder was that of the witness Crozier. If he had +been content to discredit evidence of the witness by an adroit but +guarded misuse of the facts he had brought out regarding Crozier's past, +to emphasise the fact that he was living under an assumed name and that +his bona fides was doubtful, he might have impressed the jury to some +slight degree. He could not, however, control the malice he felt, and he +was smarting from Crozier's retorts. He had a vanity easily lacerated, +and he was now too savage to abate the ferocity of his forensic attack. +He sat down, however, with a sure sense of failure. Every orator knows +when he is beating the air, even when his audience is quiet and +apparently attentive. + +The crown attorney was a man of the serenest method and of cold, +unforensic logic. He had a deadly precision of speech, a very remarkable +memory, and a great power of organising and assembling his facts. There +was little left of Burlingame's appeal when he sat down. He declared +that to discredit Crozier's evidence because he chose to use another +name than his own, because he was parted from his wife, because he left +England practically penniless to earn an honest living--no one had shown +it was not--was the last resort of legal desperation. It was an +indefensible thing to endeavour to create prejudice against a man because +of his own evidence given with great frankness. Not one single word of +evidence had the defence brought to discredit Crozier, save by Crozier's +own word of mouth; and if Crozier had cared to commit perjury, the +defence could not have proved him guilty of it. Even if Crozier had not +told the truth as it was, counsel for the defence would have found it +impossible to convict him of falsehood. But even if Crozier was a +perjurer, justice demanded that his evidence should be weighed as truth +from its own inherent probability and supported by surrounding facts. +In a long experience he had never seen animus against a witness so +recklessly exhibited as by counsel in this case. + +The judge was not quite so severe in his summing up, but he did say of +Crozier that his direct replies to Burlingame's questions, intended to +prejudice him in the eyes of the community into which he had come a +stranger, bore undoubted evidence of truth; for if he had chosen to say +what might have saved him from the suspicions, ill or well founded, of +his present fellow-citizens, he might have done so with impunity, save +for the reproach of his own conscience. On the whole, the judge summed +up powerfully against the prisoner Logan, with the result that the jury +were not out for more than a half-hour. Their verdict was, guilty of +murder. + +In the scene which followed, Crozier dropped his head into his hand and +sat immovable as the judge put on the black cap and delivered sentence. +When the prisoner left the dock, and the crowd began to disperse, +satisfied that justice had been done--save in that small circle where the +M'Mahons were supreme--Crozier rose with other witnesses to leave. As he +looked ahead of him the first face he saw was that of Kitty Tynan, and +something in it startled him. Where had he seen that look before? Yes, +he remembered. It was when he was twenty-one and had been sent away to +Algiers because he was falling in love with a farmer's daughter. As he +drove down a lane with his father towards the railway station, those long +years ago, he had seen the girl's face looking at him from the window of +a labourer's cottage at the crossroads; and its stupefied desolation +haunted him for many years, even after the girl had married and gone to +live in Scotland--that place of torment for an Irish soul. + +The look in Kitty Tynan's face reminded him of that farmer's lass in his +boyhood's history. He was to blame then--was he to blame now? Certainly +not consciously, not by any intended word or act. Now he met her eyes +and smiled at her, not gaily, not gravely, but with a kind of whimsical +helplessness; for she was the first to remind him that he was leaving the +court-room in a different position (if not a different man) from that in +which he entered it. He had entered the court-room as James Gathorne +Kerry, and he was leaving it as Shiel Crozier; and somehow James Gathorne +Kerry had always been to himself a different man from Shiel Crozier, with +different views, different feelings, if not different characteristics. + +He saw faces turned to him, a few with intense curiosity, fewer +still with a little furtiveness, some with amusement, and many with +unmistakable approval; for one thing was clear, if his own evidence was +correct: he was the son of a baronet, he was heir-presumptive to a +baronetcy, and he had scored off Augustus Burlingame in a way which +delighted a naturally humorous people. He noted, however, that the nod +which Studd Bradley, the financier, gave him had in it an enigmatic +something which puzzled him. Surely Bradley could not be prejudiced +against him because of the evidence he had given. There was nothing +criminal in living under an assumed name, which, anyhow, was his own name +in three-fourths of it, and in the other part was the name of the county +where he was born. + +"Divils me own, I told you he was up among the dukes," said Malachi Deely +to John Sibley as they came out. "And he's from me own county, and I +know the name well enough; an' a damn good name it is. The bulls of +Castlegarry was famous in the south of Ireland." + +"I've a warm spot for him. I was right, you see. Backing horses ruined +him," said Sibley in reply; and he looked at Crozier admiringly. + +There is the communion of saints, but nearer and dearer is the communion +of sinners; for a common danger is their bond, and that is even more than +a common hope. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +"STRENGTH SHALL BE GIVEN THEE" + +On the evening of the day of the trial, Mrs. Tynan, having fixed the new +blind to the window of Shiel Crozier's room, which was on the ground- +floor front, was lowering and raising it to see if it worked properly, +when out in the moonlit street she saw a wagon approaching her house +surrounded and followed by obviously excited men. Once before she had +seen just such a group nearing her door. That was when her husband was +brought home to die in her arms. She had a sudden conviction, as, +holding the blind in her hand, she looked out into the night, that again +tragedy was to cross her threshold. Standing for an instant under the +fascination of terror, she recovered herself with a shiver, and, stepping +down from the chair where she had been fixing the blind, with the +instinct of real woman, she ran to the bed of the room where she was, and +made it ready. Why did she feel that it was Shiel Crozier's bed which +should be made ready? Or did she not feel it? Was it only a dazed, +automatic act, not connected with the person who was to lie in the bed? +Was she then a fatalist? Were trouble and sorrow so much her portion +that to her mind this tragedy, whatever it was, must touch the man +nearest to her--and certainly Shiel Crozier was far nearer than Jesse +Bulrush. Quite apart from wealth or position, personality plays a part +more powerful than all else in the eyes of every woman who has a soul +which has substance enough to exist at all. Such men as Crozier have +compensations for "whate'er they lack." It never occurred to Mrs. Tynan +to go to Jesse Bulrush's room or the room of middle-aged, comely Nurse +Egan. She did the instinctive thing, as did the woman who sent a man a +rope as a gift, on the ground that the fortune in his hand said that he +was born not to be drowned. + +Mrs. Tynan's instinct was right. By the time she had put the bed into +shape, got a bowl of water ready, lighted a lamp, and drawn the bed out +from the wall, there was a knocking at the door. In a moment she had +opened it, and was faced by John Sibley, whose hat was off as though he +were in the presence of death. This gave her a shock, and her eyes +strove painfully to see the figure which was being borne feet foremost +over her threshold. + +"It's Mr. Crozier?" she asked. + +"He was shot coming home here--by the M'Mahon mob, I guess," returned +Sibley huskily. + +"Is--is he dead?" she asked tremblingly. "No. Hurt bad." + +"The kindest man--it'd break Kitty's heart--and mine," she added hastily, +for she might be misunderstood; and John Sibley had shown signs of +interest in her daughter. + +"Where's the Young Doctor?" she asked, catching sight of Crozier's face +as they laid him on the bed. "He's done the first aid, and he's off +getting what's needed for the operation. He'll be here in a minute or +so," said a banker who, a few days before, had refused Crozier credit. + +"Gently, gently--don't do it that way," said Mrs. Tynan in sharp reproof +as they began to take off Crozier's clothes. + +"Are you going to stay while we do it?" asked a maker of mineral waters, +who whined at the prayer meetings of a soul saved and roared at his +employees like a soul damned. + +"Oh, don't be a fool!" was the impatient reply. "I've a grown-up girl +and I've had a husband. Don't pull at his vest like that. Go away. You +don't know how. I've had experience--my husband . . . There, wait +till I cut it away with the scissors. Cover him with the quilt. Now, +then, catch hold of his trousers under the quilt, and draw them off +slowly. . . . There you are--and nothing to shock the modesty of a +grown-up woman or any other when a life's at stake. What does the Young +Doctor say?" + +"Hush! He's coming to," interposed the banker. It was as though the +quiet that followed the removal of his clothes and the touch of Mrs. +Tynan's hand on his head had called Crozier back from unconsciousness. + +The first face he saw was that of the banker. In spite of the loss of +blood and his pitiable condition, a whimsical expression came to his +eyes. "Lucky for you you didn't lend me the money," he said feebly. + +The banker shook his head. "I'm not thinking of that, Mr. Crozier. God +knows, I'm not!" + +Crozier caught sight of Mrs. Tynan. "It's hard on you to have me brought +here," he murmured as she took his hand. + +"Not so hard as if they hadn't," she replied. "That's what a home's for +--not just a place for eating and drinking and sleeping." + +"It wasn't part of the bargain," he said weakly. + +"It was my part of the bargain." + +"Here's Kitty," said the maker of mineral waters, as there was the swish +of a skirt at the door. + +"Who are you calling 'Kitty'?" asked the girl indignantly, as they +motioned her back from the bedside. "There's too many people here," she +added abruptly to her mother. "We can take care of him"--she nodded +towards the bed. "We don't want any help except--except from John +Sibley, if he will stay, and you too," she added to the banker. + +She had not yet looked at the figure on the bed. She felt she could not +do so while all these people were in the room. She needed time to adjust +herself to the situation. It was as though she was the authority in the +household and took control even of her mother. Mrs. Tynan understood. +She had a great belief in her daughter and admired her cleverness, and +she was always ready to be ruled by her; it was like being "bossed" by +the man she had lost. + +"Yes, you'd all better go," Mrs. Tynan said. "He wants all the air +he can get, and I can't make things ready with all of you in the room. +Go outdoors for a while, anyway. It's summer and you'll not take cold! +The Young Doctor has work to do, and my girl and I and these two will +help him plenty." She motioned towards the banker and the gambling +farmer. + +In a moment the room was cleared of all save the four and Crozier, who +knew that upon the coming operation depended his life. He had been +conscious when the Young Doctor said this was so, and he was thinking, as +he lay there watching these two women out of his nearly closed eyes, that +he would like to be back in Ireland at Castlegarry with the girl he had +married and had left without a good-bye near five years gone. If he had +to die he would like to die at home; and that could not be. + +Kitty had the courage to turn towards him now. As she caught sight of +his face for the first time--she had so far kept her head turned away-- +she became very pale. Then, suddenly, she gathered herself together. +Going over to the bed, she took the limp hand lying on the coverlet. + +"Courage, soldier," she said in the colloquialism her father often used, +and she smiled at Crozier a great-hearted, helpful smile. + +"You are a brick of bricks, Kitty Tynan," he whispered, and smiled. + +"Here comes the Young Doctor," said Mrs. Tynan as the door opened +unceremoniously. + +"Well, I have to make an excursion," Crozier said, "and I mayn't come +back. If I don't, au revoir, Kitty." + +"You are coming back all right," she answered firmly. "It'll take more +than a horse-thief's bullet to kill you. You've got to come back. +You're as tough as nails. And I'll hold your hand all through it--yes, +I will!" she added to the Young Doctor, who had patted her shoulder and +told her to go to another room. + +"I'm going to help you, doctor-man, if you please," she said, as he +turned to the box of instruments which his assistant held. + +"There's another--one of my colleagues--coming I hope," the Young Doctor +replied. + +"That's all right, but I am staying to see Mr. Crozier through. I said +I'd hold his hand, and I'm going to do it," she added firmly. + +"Very well; put on a big apron, and see that you go through with us if +you start. No nonsense." + +"There'll be no nonsense from me," she answered quietly. + +"I want the bed in the middle of the room," the Young Doctor said, and +the others gently moved it. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A STORY TO BE TOLD + +A great surgeon said a few years ago that he was never nervous when +performing an operation, though there was sometimes a moment when every +resource of character, skill, and brain came into play. That was when, +having diagnosed correctly and operated, a new and unexpected seat of +trouble and peril was exposed, and instant action had to be taken. The +great man naturally rose to the situation and dealt with it coolly; but +he paid the price afterwards in his sleep when, night after night, he +performed the operation over and over again with the same strain on his +subconscious self. + +So it was with Kitty Tynan in her small way. She had insisted on being +allowed to help at the operation, and the Young Doctor, who had a good +knowledge of life and knew the stuff in her, consented; and so far as the +operation was concerned she justified his faith in her. When the banker +had to leave the room at the sight of the carnage, she remained, and she +and John Sibley were as cool as the Young Doctor and his fellow- +anatomist, till it was all over, and Shiel Crozier was started again on a +safe journey back to health. Then a thing, which would have been amusing +if it had not been so deeply human, happened. She and John Sibley went +out of the house together into the moonlit night, and the reaction seized +them both at the same moment. She gave a gulp and burst into tears, and +he, though as tall as Crozier, also broke down, and they sat on the stump +of a tree together, her hand in his, and cried like two children. + +"Never since I was a little runt--did I--never cried in thirty years-- +and here I am-leaking like a pail!" Thus spoke John Sibley in gasps and +squeezing Kitty's hand all the time unconsciously, but spontaneously, and +as part of what he felt. He would not, however, have dared to hold her +hand on any other occasion, while always wanting to hold it, and wanting +her also to share his not wholly reputed, though far from precarious, +existence. He had never got so far as to tell her that; but if she had +understanding she would realise after to-night what he had in his mind. +She, feeling her arm thrill with the magnetism of his very vital palm, +had her turn at explanation. "I wouldn't have broke down myself--it was +all your fault," she said. "I saw it--yes--in your face as we left the +house. I'm so glad it's over safe--no one belonging to him here, and not +knowing if he'd wake up alive or not--I just was swamped." + +He took up the misty excuse and explanation. "I had a feeling for him +from the start; and then that Logan Trial to-day, and the way he talked +out straight, and told the truth to shame the devil--it's what does a man +good! And going bung over a horserace--that's what got me too, where I +was young and tender. Swatted that Burlingame every time--one eye, two +eyes all black, teeth out, nose flattened--called him an 'outrageous +lawyer'--my, that last clip was a good one! You bet he's a sport-- +Crozier." + +Kitty nodded eagerly while still wiping her red eyes. "He made the judge +smile--I saw it, not ten minutes before his honour put on the black cap. +You couldn't have believed it, if you hadn't seen it-- + +"Here, let go my hand," she added, suddenly conscious of the enormity +John Sibley was committing by squeezing it now. + +It is perfectly true that she did not quite realise that he had taken +her hand--that he had taken her hand. She was conscious in a nice, +sympathetic way that her hand had been taken, but it was lost in the +abstraction of her emotion. + +"Oh, here, let it go quick!" she added--"and not because mother's +coming, either," she added as the door opened and her mother came out-- +not to spy, not to reproach her daughter for sitting with a man in the +moonlight at ten o'clock at night, but--good, practical soul--to bring +them each a cup of beef-tea. + +"Here, you two," she said as she hurried to them. "You need something +after that business in there, and there isn't time to get supper ready. +It's as good for you as supper, anyway. I don't believe in underfeeding. +Nothing's too good to swallow." + +She watched them sip the tea slowly like two schoolchildren. + +"And when you've drunk it you must go right to bed, Kitty," she added +presently. "You've had your own way, and you saw the thing through; but +there's always a reaction, and you'll pay for it. It wasn't fit work for +a girl of your age; but I'm proud of your nerve, and I'm glad you showed +the Young Doctor what you can do. You've got your father's brains and my +grit," she added with a sigh of satisfaction. "Come along--bed now, +Kitty. If you get too tired you'll have bad dreams." + +Perhaps she was too tired. In any case she had dreams. Just as the +great surgeon performed his operation over and over in his sleep, so +Kitty Tynan, through long hours that night, and for many nights +afterwards, saw the swift knives, helped to staunch the blood, held the +basin, disinfected the instruments which had made an attack on the man +of men in her eyes, and saw the wound stitched up--the last act of the +business before the Young Doctor turned to her and said, "You'll do +wherever you're put in life, Miss Kitty Tynan. You're a great girl. +And now get some fresh air and forget all about it." + +Forget all about it! So, the Young Doctor knew what happened after a +terrific experience like that! In truth, he knew only too well. Great +surgeons do surgery only and have innumerable operations to give them +skill; but a country physician and surgeon must be a sane being to keep +his nerve when called on to use the knife, and he must have a more than +usual gift for such business. That is what the Young Doctor had; but he +knew it was not easy to forget those scenes in which man carved the body +of fellow-man, laying bare the very vitals of existence, seeing "the +wheels go round." + +It haunted Kitty Tynan in the night-time, and perhaps it was that which +toned down a little the colour of her face--the kind of difference of +colouring there is between natural gold and 14-carat. But in the daytime +she was quite happy, and though there was haunting, it was Shiel Crozier +who, first helpless, then convalescent, was haunted by her presence. It +gave him pleasure, but it was a pleasure which brought pain. He was not +so blind that he had not caught at her romance, in which he was the +central figure--a romance which had not vanished since the day he +declared in the court-room that he was married, or had been married. +Kitty's eyes told their own story, and it made him uneasy and remorseful. +Yet he could not remember when, even for an instant, he had played with +her. She had always seemed part of a simple family life for which he and +Jesse Bulrush and her mother and the nurse-Nurse Egan-were responsible. +What a blessing Nurse Egan had been! Otherwise, all the nursing would +have been performed by Kitty and her mother, and it might well have +broken them down, for they were determined to nurse him themselves. + +When, however, Nurse Egan came back, two days after the operation was +performed, they included her in the responsibility, as one of the family; +and as she had no other important case on at the time, fortunately she +could give Crozier almost undivided attention. She had been at first +disposed to keep Kitty out of the sick-chamber, as no place for a girl, +but she soon abandoned that position, for Kitty was not the girl ever to +think of impropriety. She was primitive and she had rather a before-the- +flood nature, but she had not the faintest vulgar strain in her. Her +mind was essentially pure; nothing material in her had been awakened. +Her greatest joy was to do the many things for the patient which a nurse +must do--prepare his food, give him drink, adjust his pillows, bathe his +face and hands, take his temperature; and on his part he tried hard to +disguise from her the apprehension he felt, and to avoid any hint by word +or look that he saw anything save the actions of a kind heart. True, her +views as to what was proper and improper might possibly be on a different +plane from his own. For instance, he had seen girls of her station in +the West kiss young men freely--men whom they had no thought of marrying; +and that was not the custom of his own class in his home-country. + +As he got well slowly, and life opened out before him again, he felt he +had to pursue a new course, and in that course he must take account of +Kitty Tynan, though he could not decide how. He had a deep confidence in +the Young Doctor, in his judgment and his character; and it was almost +inevitable that he should tell his life-story to the man whose skill had +saved him from death in a strange land, with all undone he wanted to do +ere he returned to a land which was not strange. + +The thing happened, as such things do happen, in a quite natural way one +day when he and the Young Doctor were discussing the probable verdict +against the man who had shot him--the trial was to come on soon, and once +again Augustus Burlingame was to be counsel for the defence, and once +again Crozier would have to appear in a witness-box. + +"I think you ought to know, Crozier, that, in view of the trial, +Burlingame has written to a firm of lawyers in Kerry to get full +information about your past," the Young Doctor said. + +Crozier gave one of those little jerks of the head characteristic of +him and said: "Why, of course; I knew he would do that after I gave my +evidence in the Logan Trial." He raised himself on his elbow. "I owe +you a great deal," he added feelingly, "and I can't repay you in cash or +kindness for what you have done; but it is due you to tell you my whole +story, and that is what I propose to do now." + +"If you think--" + +"I do think; and also I want both Mrs. Tynan and her daughter to hear my +story. Better, truer friends a man could not have; and I want them to +know the worst and the best there is, if there is any best. They and you +have trusted me, been too good to me, and what I said at the trial is not +enough. I want to do what I've never done before. I want to tell +everything. It will do me good; and perhaps as I tell it I'll see myself +and everything else in a truer light than I've yet seen it all." + +"You are sure you want Mrs. Tynan and her daughter to hear?" + +"Absolutely sure." + +"They are not in your rank in life, you know." + +"They are my friends, and I owe them more than I can say. There is +nothing they cannot or should not hear. I can say that at least." + +"Shall I ask them to come?" + +"Yes. Give me a swig of water first. It won't be easy, but--" + +He held out his hand, and the Young Doctor grasped it. + +Suddenly the latter said: "You are sure you will not be sorry? That it +is not a mood of the moment due to physical weakness?" + +"Quite sure. I determined on it the day I was shot--and before I was +shot." + +"All right." The Young Doctor disappeared. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Anny man as is a man has to have one vice +Her moral standard had not a multitude of delicate punctilios +Law's delays outlasted even the memory of the crime committed +She looked too gay to be good +They had seen the world through the bottom of a tumbler + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK, V1 *** + +******** This file should be named 6285.txt or 6285.zip ********* + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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