CHAPTER XXXVIII.
"The burnished dragon-fly is thine attendant, And tilts against the field, And down the listed sunbeam rides resplendent, With steel-blue mail and shield."
--LONGFELLOW.
Miss Lois came home excited. She had seen a left-handed man. True, hewas a well-known farmer of the neighborhood, a jovial man, apparentlyfrank and honest as the daylight. But there was no height ofimpossibility impossible to Miss Lois when she was on a quest. Sheannounced her intention of going to his farm on the morrow under thepretext of looking at his peonies, which, she had been told, wereremarkably fine, "for of course I made inquiries immediately, in orderto discover the prominent points, if there were any. If it had beenonions, I should have been deeply interested in them just the same."
Anne, obliged for the present to let Miss Lois make the tentativeefforts, listened apathetically; then she mentioned her wish to row onthe river.
"Better stay at home," said Miss Lois. "Then I shall know you are safe."
"But I should like to go, if merely for the air," replied Anne. "My headthrobs as I sit here through the long hours. It is not that I expect toaccomplish anything, though I confess I _am_ haunted by the river, butthe motion and fresh air would perhaps keep me from thinking soconstantly."
"I am a savage," said Miss Lois, "and you shall go where you please. Thetruth is, Ruth, that while I am pursuing this matter with my mentalfaculties, _you_ are pursuing it with the inmost fibres of your heart."(The sentence was mixed, but the feeling sincere.) "I will go down thisvery moment, and begin an arrangement about a boat for you."
She kept her word. Anne, sitting by the window, heard her narrating toMrs. Blackwell a long chain of reasons to explain the fancy of her nieceRuth for rowing. "She inherits it from her mother, poor child," said thewidow, with the sigh which she always gave to the memory of her departedrelatives. "Her mother was the daughter of a light-house keeper, andlived, one might say, afloat. Little Ruthie, as a baby, used to playboat; her very baby-talk was full of sailor words. _You_ haven't anykind of a row-boat she could use, have you?"
Mrs. Blackwell replied that they had not, but that a neighbor fartherdown the river owned a skiff which might be borrowed.
"Borrow it, then," said Mrs. Young. "They will lend it to _you_, ofcourse, in a friendly way, and then _we_ can pay _you_ something for theuse of it."
This thrifty arrangement, of which Mrs. Blackwell unaided would neverhave thought, was carried into effect, and early the next morning theskiff floated at the foot of the meadow, tied to an overhanging branch.
In the afternoon Mrs. Young, in the farm wagon, accompanied by herhostess, and her hostess's little son as driver, set off for John Cole'sfarm, to see, in Mrs. Blackwell's language, "the pynies." A little laterAnne was in the skiff, rowing up the river. She had not had oars in herhands since she left the island.
She rowed on for an hour, through the green fields, then through thewoods. Long-legged flies skated on the still surface of the water,insects with gauzy wings floated to and fro. A dragon-fly withsteel-blue mail lighted on the edge of the boat. The burnished littlecreature seemed attracted. He would not leave her, but even when he tookflight floated near by on his filmy wings, timing his advance with hers.With one of those vague impulses by which women often select the merestchance to decide their actions, Anne said to herself, "I will row onuntil I lose sight of him." Turning the skiff, she took one oar for apaddle, and followed the dragon-fly. He flew on now more steadily,selecting the middle of the stream. No doubt he had a dragon-fly'smotives; perhaps he was going home; but whether he was or not, he ledAnne's boat onward until the river grew suddenly narrower, and entered aravine. Here, where the long boughs touched leaf-tips over her head, andeverything was still and green, she lost him. The sun was sinking towardthe western horizon line; it was time to return; but she said to herselfthat she would come again on the morrow, and explore this cool glen towhich her gauzy-winged guide had brought her. When she reached home shefound Miss Lois there, and in a state of profound discomfiture. "The manwas left-handed enough," she said, "but, come to look at him, he hadn'tany little finger at all: chopped off by mistake when a boy. Now thelittle finger in the impression is the most distinct part of the whole;and so we've lost a day, and the price of the wagon thrown in, not tospeak of enough talking about peonies to last a lifetime! There's a fairto-morrow, and of course I must go: more left hands: although now, Iconfess, they swim round me in a cloud of vexation and peonies, whichmakes me never want to lay eyes on one of them again;" and she gave agroan, ending in a long yawn. However, the next morning, with patienceand energies renewed by sleep, she rose early, like a phoenix from herashes, and accompanied Mrs. Blackwell to the fair. Anne, again in herskiff, went up the river. She rowed to the glen where she had lost thedragon-fly. Here she rested on her oars a moment. The river stillhaunted her. "He went away in a boat," had not been out of her mindsince it first came to her. "He went away in a boat," she now thoughtagain. "Would he, then, have rowed up or down the stream? If he hadwished to escape from the neighborhood, he would have rowed down to thelarger river below. He would not have rowed up stream unless he livedsomewhere in this region, and was simply going home, because there is nomain road in this direction, no railway, nothing but farms which toucheach other for miles round. Now, as I believe he was _not_ a stranger,but a resident, I will suppose that he went up stream, and I will followhim." She took up her oars and rowed on.
The stream grew still narrower. She had been rowing a long time, andknew that she must be far from home. Nothing broke the green solitude ofthe shore until at last she came suddenly upon a little board house,hardly more than a shanty, standing near the water, with the forestbehind. She started as she saw it, and a chill ran over her. And yetwhat was it? Only a little board house.
She rowed past; it seemed empty and silent. She turned the skiff, cameback, and gathering her courage, landed, and timidly tried the door; itwas locked. She went round and looked through the window. There was noone within, but there were signs of habitation--some common furniture, agun, and on the wall a gaudy picture of the Virgin and the Holy Child.She scrutinized the place with eyes that noted even the mark of muddyboots on the floor and the gray ashes from a pipe on the table. Thensuddenly she felt herself seized with fear. If the owner of the cabinshould steal up behind her, and ask her what she was doing there! Shelooked over her shoulder fearfully. But no one was visible, no one wascoming up or down the river; her own boat was the only thing that moved,swaying to and fro where she had left it tied to a tree trunk. With thevague terror still haunting her, she hastened to the skiff, pushed off,and paddled swiftly away. But during the long voyage homeward the feardid not entirely die away. "I am growing foolishly nervous," she said toherself, with a weary sigh.
Miss Lois had discovered no left-handed men at the fair; but she hadseen a person whom she considered suspicious--a person who soldmedicines. "He was middle-sized," she said to Anne, in the low tone theyused when within the house, "and he had a down look--a thing I nevercould abide. He spoke, too, in an odd voice. I suspected him as soon asI laid my eyes upon him, and so just took up a station near him, andwatched. He wasn't left-handed _exactly_," she added, as thoughhe might have been so endowed inexactly; "but he is capable ofanything--left-handed, web-footed, or whatever you please. After takinga good long look at him, I went round and made (of course by chance, andaccidentally) some inquiries. Nobody seemed to know much about himexcept that his name is Juder (and highly appropriate in my opinion),and he came to the fair the day before with his little hand-cart ofmedicines, and _went out again_, into the country somewhere, at sunset.Do you mark the significance of that, Ruth Young? He did not stay at theTimloe hotel (prices reduced for the fair, and very reasonable beds onthe floor), like the other traders; but though the fair is to becontinued over to-morrow, and he is to be there, he took all the troubleto go out of town for the night."
"Perhaps he had no money," said Anne, abstr
actedly.
"I saw him with my own eyes take in dollars and dollars. Singular thatwhen country people will buy nothing else, they will buy patentmedicines. No: the man knows something of that murder, and _could_ notstay at that hotel, Ruth Young. And that's _my_ theory."
In her turn Anne now related the history of the day, and the discoveryof the solitary cabin. Miss Lois was not much impressed by the cabin. "Aman is better than a house, any day," she said. "But the thing is to getthe man to say 'cold.' I shall ask him to-morrow if he has any pills fora cold in the head or on the lungs; and, as he tells long stories aboutthe remarkable cures his different bottles have effected, I hope, when Ionce get him started, to hear the word several times. I confess, Ruth,that I have great hopes; I feel the spirit rising within me to run himdown."
Miss Lois went again to the fair, her mission bubbling within her. Ateight in the morning she started; at nine in the evening she returned.With skirt and shawl bedraggled, and bonnet awry, she came to Anne'sroom, closed the door, and demanded tragically that the broom-switchshould be taken from the shelf and applied to her own thin shoulders. "Ideserve it," she said.
"For what?" said Anne, smiling.
Miss Lois returned no answer until she had removed her bonnet andbrought forward a chair, seated herself upon it, severely erect, withfolded arms, and placed her feet on the round of another. "I went tothat fair," she began, in a concentrated tone, "and I followed thatmedicine man; wherever he stopped his hand-cart and tried to sell, _I_was among his audience. I heard all his stories over and over again;every time he produced his three certificates, _I_ read them. I watchedhis hands, too, and made up my mind that they would do, though I did notcatch him in _open_ left-handedness. I now tried 'cold.' 'Have you anypills for a cold in the head?' I asked. But all he said was 'yes,' andhe brought out a bottle. Then I tried him with a cold on the lungs; butit was just the same. 'What are your testimonials for colds?' Iremarked, as though I had not quite made up my mind; and he thereupontold two stories, but they were incoherent, and never once mentioned theword I was waiting to hear. 'Haven't you ever had a cold yourself?' Isaid, getting mad. 'Can't you speak?' And then, looking frightened, hesaid he often had colds, and that he took those medicines, and that theyalways cured him. And then hurriedly, and without waiting for the twobottles which I held in my hand tightly, he began to move on with hiscart. But he had said 'gold,' Ruth--he had actually said 'gold!' And,with the stings of a guilty, murderous conscience torturing him, he wasgoing away without the thirty-seven and a half cents each which thosetwo bottles cost! It was enough for me. I tracked him from thatmoment--at a distance, of course, and in roundabout ways, so that hewould not suspect. I think during the day I must have walked, owing todoublings and never stopping, twenty miles. When at last the fair wasover, and he started away, I started too. He went by the main road, andI by a lane, and _such_ work as I had to keep him in sight, and yet notlet him see me! I almost lost him several times, but persevered until hetoo turned off and went up a hill opposite toward a grove, dragging hislittle cart behind him. I followed as quickly as I could. He was in thegrove as I drew near, stepping as softly as possible, and others werewith him; I heard the murmur of voices. 'I have come upon the wholevillainous band,' I thought, and I crept softly in among the trees,hardly daring to breathe. Ruth, the voices had a little camp; they hadjust lighted a fire; and--what do you think they were? Just a parcel ofchildren, the eldest a slip of a girl of ten or eleven! I never was moredumbfounded in my life. Ruth, that medicine man sat down, kissed thechildren all round, opened his cart, took out bread, cheese, and alittle package of tea, while the eldest girl put on a kettle, and theyall began to talk. And then the youngest, a little tot, climbed up onhis knee, and called him--Mammy! This was too much; and I appeared onthe scene. Ruth, he gathered up the children in a frightened sort ofway, as if I were going to eat them. 'What do you mean by following meround all day like this?' he began, trying to be brave, though I couldsee how scared he was. It _was_ rather unexpected, you know, myappearing there at that hour so far from town. 'I mean,' said I, 'toknow who and what you are. Are you a woman, or are you a man?'
"'Can't you see,' said the poor creature; 'with all these childrenaround? But it's not likely from your looks that _you_ ever had any ofyour own, so you don't know.' She said that," thoughtfully remarked MissLois, interrupting her own narrative, "and it has been said before. Buthow in the world any one can know it at sight is and always will be amystery to me. Then said I to her, 'Are you the mother, then, of allthese children? And if so, how came you to be selling medicines dressedup like a man? It's perfectly disgraceful, and you ought to bearrested.'
"'No one would buy of me if I was a woman,' she answered. 'The cart andmedicines belonged to my husband, and he died, poor fellow! four weeksago, leaving me without a cent. What was I to do? I know all themedicines, and I know all he used to say when he sold them. He was aboutmy size, and I could wear his clothes. I just thought I'd try it for alittle while during fair-time for the sake of the children--only for alittle while to get started. So I cut my hair and resked it. And it'sdone tolerably well until _you_ come along and nearly scared my life outof me yesterday and to-day. I don't see what on earth you meant by it.'
"Ruth, I took tea with that family on the hill-side, and I gave them allthe money I had with me. I have now come home. Any plan you have topropose, I'll follow without a word. I have decided that my mission inthis life is _not_ to lead. But she _did_ say gold for cold," added MissLois, with the spirit of "scissors."
"I am afraid a good many persons say it," answered Anne.
The next day Miss Lois gave herself up passively to the boat. They wereto take courage in each other's presence, and row to the solitary cabinon the shore. When they reached it, it was again deserted.
"There is no path leading to it or away from it in any direction," saidMiss Lois, after peeping through the small window. "The fire is stillburning. The owner, therefore, whoever it is, uses a boat, and can nothave been long gone either, or the fire would be out."
"If he had gone down the river, we should have met him," suggested Anne,still haunted by the old fear, and watching the forest gladesapprehensively.
"How do you know it is a _he_?" said Miss Lois, with grim humor."Perhaps this, too, is a woman. However, as you say, if he had gone downthe river, _probably_ we should have met him--a 'probably' is all wehave to stand on--and the chances are, therefore, that he has gone up.So we will go up."
"THE SECOND BOAT, WHICH WAS FARTHER UP THE LAKE,CONTAINED A MAN."]
They took their places in the skiff again, and the little craft movedforward. After another half-hour they saw, to their surprise, a broadexpanse of shining water opening out before them: the river was theoutlet of a little lake two miles long.
"This, then, is where they go fishing," said Miss Lois. "The Blackwellsspoke of the pond, but I thought it was on the other side of the valley.Push out, Ruth. There are two boats on it, both dug-outs; we'll row bythem."
The first boat contained a boy, who said, "Good-day, mums," and showed astring of fish. The second boat, which was farther up the lake,contained a man. He was also fishing, and his face was shaded by an oldslouch hat. Anne, who was rowing, could not see him as they approached;but she saw Miss Lois's hands close suddenly upon each other in theirlisle-thread gloves, and was prepared for something, she knew not what.No word was spoken; she rowed steadily on, though her heart wasthrobbing. When she too could look at the man, she saw what it was: hewas holding his rod with his left hand.
Their skiff had not paused; it passed him and his dug-out, and movedonward a quarter of a mile--half a mile--before they spoke; they wereafraid the very air would betray them. Then Anne beached the boat underthe shade of a tree, took off her straw hat, and bathed her pale face inthe clear water.
"After all, it is the vaguest kind of a chance," said Miss Lois,rallying, and bringing forward the common-sense view of the case: "nobetter a one, at this stage, than the peony farmer or my
medicine man.You must not be excited, Ruth."
"I am excited only because I have thought so much of the river," saidAnne. "The theory that the man who did it went away from the foot ofthat meadow in a boat, and up this river, has haunted me constantly."
"Theories are like scaffolding: they are not the house, but you can notbuild the house without them," said Miss Lois. "What we've got to donext is to see whether this man has all his fingers, whether he is awoman, and whether he says, 'gold.' Will you leave it to me, or will youspeak to him yourself? On the whole, I think you had better speak tohim: your face is in your favor."
When Anne felt herself sufficiently calm, they rowed down the lakeagain, and passed nearer to the dug-out, and paused.
"Have you taken many fish?" said Anne, in a voice totally unlike herown, owing to the effort she made to control it. The fisherman lookedup, took his rod in his right hand, and, with his left, lifted a stringof fish.
"Pretty good, eh?" he said, regarding Anne with slow-coming approval."Have some?"
"Oh no," she answered, almost recoiling.
"But, on the whole, I think I _should_ like a few for tea, Ruth," saidMiss Lois, hastening to the rescue--"my health," she added, addressingthe fisherman, "not being what it was in the lifetime of Mr. Young. Howmuch are your fish? I should like six, if you do not ask too much."
The man named his price, and the widow objected. Then she asked him tohold up the string again, that she might have a better view. He laid hisrod aside, held the string in his right hand, and as she selected, stillbargaining for the fish she preferred, he detached them with his lefthand. Two pairs of eyes, one old, sharp, and aided by spectacles, theother young, soft, intent, yet fearful, watched his every motion. Whenhe held the fish toward them, the widow was long in finding her purse;the palm of his hand was toward them, they could see the underside ofthe fingers. They were broad, and cushioned with coarse flesh.
Anne had now grown so pale that the elder woman did not dare to lingerlonger. She paid the money, took the fish, and asked her niece to row ondown the lake, not forgetting, even then, to add that she was afraid ofthe sun's heat, having once had a sun-stroke during the life of thelamented Mr. Young. Anne rowed on, hardly knowing what she was doing.Not until they had reached the little river again, and were out of sightround its curve under the overhanging trees, did they speak.
"Left-handed, and cushions under his finger-tips," said Miss Lois. "But,Ruth, how you acted! You almost betrayed us."
"I could not help it," said Anne, shuddering. "When I saw that hand, andthought-- Oh, poor, poor Helen!"
"You must not give way to fancies," said Miss Louis. But she too felt aninward excitement, though she would not acknowledge it.
The fisherman was short in stature, and broad; he was muscular, and hisarms seemed too long for his body as he sat in his boat. His head wasset on his shoulders without visible throat, his small eyes were verynear together, and twinkled when he spoke, while his massive jawcontradicted their ferrety mirthfulness as his muscular framecontradicted the childish, vacant expression of his peculiarly smallboyish mouth, whose upper lip protruded over narrow yellow teeth likefangs.
"Faces have little to do with it," said Miss Lois again, half toherself, half to Anne. "It is well known that the portraits of murderersshow not a few fine-looking men among them, while the women are almostinvariably handsome. What _I_ noticed was a certain want in thecreature's face, a weakness of some kind, with all his evidentcraftiness."
When they came to the solitary cabin, Miss Lois proposed that theyshould wait and see whether it really was the fisherman's home. "It willbe another small point settled," she said. "We can conceal our boat, andkeep watch in the woods. As he has my money, he will probably come homesoon, and very likely go directly down to the village to spend it: thatis always the way with such shiftless creatures."
They landed, hid the boat in a little bay among the reeds some distancebelow the cabin, and then stole back through the woods until they camewithin sight of its door. There, standing concealed behind two treetrunks, they waited, neither speaking nor stirring. Miss Lois was rightin her conjecture: within a quarter of an hour the fisherman came downthe river from the lake, stopped at the house, brought out a jug, placedit in his dug-out; then, relocking the door, he paddled by them down theriver. They waited some minutes without stirring. Then Miss Lois steppedfrom her hiding-place.
"Whiskey!" she said. "And _my_ money pays for the damnable stuff!" Thisreflection kept her silent while they returned to the skiff; but whenthey were again afloat, she sighed and yielded it as a sacrifice to theemergencies of the quest. Returning to the former subject, she heldforth as follows: "It is something, Ruth, but not all. We must not hopetoo much. What is it? A man lives up the river, and owns a boat; he isleft-handed, and has cushions of flesh under his finger-tips: that isthe whole. For we can scarcely count as evidence the fact that he is asugly as a stump fence, such men being not uncommon in the world, andoften pious as well. We must do nothing hurriedly, and make noinquiries, lest we scare the game--if it _is_ game. To-morrow ismarket-day; he will probably be in the village with fish to sell, andthe best way will be for me to find out quietly who his associates are,by using my eyes and not my tongue. His associates, if he has any, mightnext be tackled, through their wives, perhaps. Maybe they do sewing,some of them; in that case, we could order something, and so get tospeaking terms. There's my old challis, which I have had dyed black--itmight be made over, though I _was_ going to do it myself. And now do rowhome, Ruth; I'm dropping for my tea. This exploring work is powerfullywearing on the nerves."
The next day she went to the village.
Anne, finding herself uncontrollably restless, went down and unfastenedthe skiff, with the intention of rowing awhile to calm her excitedfancies. She went up the river for a mile or two. Her mind had fasteneditself tenaciously upon the image of the fisherman, and would not loosenits hold. She imagined him stealing up the stairway and leaning overHelen; then escaping with his booty, running through the meadow, andhiding it in his boat, probably the same old black dug-out she had seen.And then, while she was thinking of him, she came suddenly upon him,sitting in his dug-out, not ten feet distant, fishing. Miss Lois hadbeen mistaken in her surmise: he was not in the village, but here.
There had not been a moment of preparation for Anne; yet in theemergency coolness came. Resting on her oars, she spoke: "Have you anyfish to-day?"
He shook his head, and held up one. "That's all," he said, drawing hishand over his mouth by way of preparation for conversation.
"I should not think there would be as many fish here as in the lake,"she continued, keeping her boat at a distance by a slight motion of heroars.
"When the wind blows hard, there's more in the river," he answered."Wind blows to-day."
Was she mistaken? Had he given a sound of _d_ to _th_?
"But the water of the lake must be colder," she said, hardly able topronounce the word herself.
"Yes, in places where it's deep. But it's mostly shaller."
"How cold is it? Very cold?" (Was _she_ saying "gold" too?)
"No, not very, this time o' year. But cold enough in April."
"What?"
"Cold enough in April," replied the fisherman, his small eyes gazing ather with increasing approbation.
He had given the sound of _g_ to the _c_. The pulses in Anne's throatand temples were throbbing so rapidly now that she could not speak.
"I could bring yer some fish to-morrer, I reckon," said the man, makinga clicking sound with his teeth as he felt a bite and then lost it.
She nodded, and began to turn the boat.
"Where do you live?" he called, as the space between them widened.
She succeeded in pronouncing the name of her hostess, and then rowedround the curve out of sight, trying not to betray her tremulous hasteand fear. All the way home she rowed with the strength of a giantess,not knowing how she was exerting herself until she began to walk throughthe meadow to
ward the house, when she found her limbs failing her. Shereached her room with an effort, and locking her door, threw herselfdown on a couch to wait for Miss Lois. It was understood in the housethat "poor Miss Young" had one of her "mathematical headaches."
Anne: A Novel Page 38
