Chapter XV: And the Trouble Begins

Ruth Lenox was, just at this time, on a brief visit to the house of a married brother, who lived near Babylon; so that Mary was not able to consult with her only confidante until the second day after Billy Prangle's visit. Who could tell the agony of mind she felt during that time as the leaden hours dragged slowly by? It seemed to her fearful and excited imagination as if at any moment she was liable to hear of her lover's capture and imprisonment, and she was powerless to do aught to save him. One hope only suggested itself to her mind: that he might have sailed away from New Haven before his pursuers could reach him, and that by the time of his return from the West Indies the real murderer might be discovered, and the foul suspicion against Dorn entirely dissipated. But she was not left to cherish in peace even that small germ of comfort, for Aunt Thatcher, with the astuteness and malice of a feminine fiend--and if there is a distinction of sex among the devils, the female ones must surely be far the worst--divined that the sailor who visited Mary had come from Dorn, or in his interest, and embittered every hour of the poor girl's life by the wagging of her venomous tongue. As soon as Billy had gone away she demanded to know what his business was; and receiving no reply--for Mary felt that she would rather have died than give her aunt the satisfaction of knowing the hideous intelligence he brought--proceeded to treat the subject in her own lively fashion.

"Oho! So you don't want to tell! Well, I don't wonder at it. I'd be ashamed, too, if I was in your place. But I can guess without your telling me. It's some word from Dorn Hackett, I'll be bound. Wants you to go and take up with him while he's in port, maybe. If you do, you needn't think to come back here with your disgrace. I s'pose he thinks he's got a heap of money now. Did he let you know how much he got by killing old Jake Van Deust?"

"Oh, aunt!" exclaimed Mary. "You know that is a wicked falsehood! You know Dorn never would have done such a thing!"

"Don't tell me I lie, you impudent, deceitful, good-for-nothing hussy! Don't you dare to talk back to me! I know what I know! Oh, I'll have the satisfaction of seeing him hanged yet!"

Mary burst into tears and left the house. That bit of dialogue was a sample of what the heart-sick miserable girl had to endure constantly when Uncle Thatcher was not present. When he was by, the vixen did not dare to torment her victim, and Mary might have had a stop put to the woman's malignant attacks had she appealed to him; but from that extreme measure she revolted.

When Ruth returned home Mary hastened to her with her load of troubles, and was not disappointed in her expectation of sympathy and consolation.

"Don't you be afraid, dear," said little Ruth, in a very confident and protecting tone. "It will be all right. You'll see that it will. I'll make Lem fix it."

"Lem?"

"Yes. He shall go and find out who did kill Mr. Van Deust, and then I'm sure there can't be any more talk about Dorn. And I know, just as well as anything, that it was all started by that spiteful, wicked old aunt of yours. Lem told me, the night before I went away, that he saw her go into the Squire's office the evening of the inquest, after everybody else was gone but a strange man, and she stayed a long time; and I'd just risk my neck on it that that was the time she put him up to the notion of Dorn doing it. And I think he might have had more sense--a man like him, who has known him from he was a boy, and no stranger to what she is. But don't be afraid, dear. I'll start Lem right out to catch the real murderer, and I'll tell him I won't marry him until he finds him; and that'll bring him to his senses, I guess, for he's getting in an awful hurry about it."

Ruth was very earnest and emphatic, and her friend understood and was comforted by her, although it was not always easy to comprehend the breathless torrent of words that the energetic little maid poured forth, with reckless disregard alike of punctuation and of pronouns, when she became excited, as she now was.

Lem was very reluctant to undertake the task that Ruth sought to impose upon him.

"It ain't my business," he protested, "and I don't know anything about it. I wouldn't even know how to begin. How would I look going around the country asking people, 'who killed Jake Van Deust?' And I swon I don't know any other way to tackle the job. Squire Bodley told me he's got a real sharp fellow from New York at work--a chap that makes a business of catching thieves and murderers, and knows all about it. And I might do no end of mischief if I went to meddling."

"Now don't talk to me that way, Lem Pawlett. I won't have it. You've got a heap more sense than you give yourself credit for, and more than most people would think, to look at you, I must say. Wasn't it you that found the marks on the window, and tracked the murderer out to the lane? Of course it was. None of them gawks standing around saw anything until you showed it to them. And as for that smart chap from New York--why, he's the very one that went and bleated out his business to a lot of sailors in New London,--Dorn's friends all of them,--and they thrashed him, and served him right, too. And that's how we come to know about his being after Dorn, which, if he had any sense, he wouldn't be. And you've got to find some way to clear Dorn for Mary's sake, or I'll never forgive you, and I won't marry you until Dorn and Mary can stand up with us, and--so there, now."

Lem started home that evening, after his interview with Ruth, in a very despondent mood, and at a much earlier hour than usual, almost inclined to rebel against her authority, yet feeling that he must eventually succumb to her will. As he strolled moodily down the village street, wondering "what on earth" he should do, and thinking, as he subsequently confessed, that perhaps it might be as well to amuse Ruth by letting her imagine him very busy in Dorn's affairs, while he simply left matters to take their own course, confiding in Dorn coming out all right somehow, at last, his attention was attracted to the presence of an unwonted number of persons in the principal store, and the prevalence among them of some unusual excitement. Entering to learn what was going on he was just in time to hear the mail-rider, who had arrived but a little before, conclude a sentence with the words "and so he's in Sag Harbor jail already."

"Who's in jail?" Lem demanded, with a sinking at the heart, for he well knew that no idle putting off would do for Ruth if her friend's lover were really locked up.

"Dorn Hackett," replied the mail-rider, proud of his news, and glad to have the opportunity of repetition to a new auditor,--"for the murder and robbery of Jacob Van Deust."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Lem.

"It's so, I tell you. They caught him in New Haven last night. If they'd missed him until to-day, he'd have been off for the West Indies; but a New York officer, who got on his track in New London, caught him. And they say he fought like a tiger. Both the officer's eyes are blacked; but one of 'em is a little staler color than the other, and I guess he must have been in two musses lately. Anyhow, he had two New Haven constables to help him to put handcuffs on Dorn, and then they brought him over in a sloop; and so he's in Sag Harbor jail already."

"Him that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. The Lord wouldn't let him escape," snuffled Deacon Harkins from his perch on the sugar barrel.

"That's what comes of young men leaving their homes where they were brought up, and going off to the big cities to make their fortunes and get into evil ways," sagely observed the store-keeper, reflectively, chipping off a bit of cheese for himself.

"Yes." "That's so." "Just what a body might have expected," murmured several voices.

"How do they know he did it?" asked Lem, in an aggressive tone, resenting the willing acceptance of Dorn's probable guilt, which was manifestly the disposition of the group about him.

"Ain't he arrested? What more d'ye want?" retorted Deacon Harkins.

"Oh! That's reason enough for you, is it? That's the sort of a Christian you are! Condemn a man before he's tried! Hang him on suspicion! As if the law never got hold of the wrong person! Well, I don't believe Dorn Hackett was the chap that ever would have done such a deed, and I don't care if he was arrested a hundred times, I'd bet my life no jury but a jury of Deacon Harkins's would ever find him guilty."

"There goes another young man I don't never expect any good of," remarked Deacon Harkins, in a self-satisfied tone, as though his condemnation quite settled the here and the hereafter of Lem Pawlett, as that young man, having "said his say," strode out angrily, and went on his way.

But Lem heard him not, and would have cared little if he had, for just then his mind was busy with a new and firm resolve.

"I'll do it," he muttered to himself, "to spite that consarned old deacon, who never was known to have a good word for anybody, as much as to please Ruth! I'll save Dorn Hackett; by the great horn spoon, I will!"