Chapter THIRTY-SEVEN

Not more than half an hour after Everett had reached Sherwoods Lane, Governor Vandecar's train came to a halt at the same place, and the party, consisting of the governor, Ann Shellington, and Katherine Vandecar, made ready to step out into the night.

"Please draw up to the switch," the governor instructed the conductor, "and I'll hail you as soon as we return. Keep an ear out for my call."

"Yes, Sir," replied the conductor; "but you'd better take this lantern--it's sure dark down by that lake, Sir. And you can signal me with the light."

Ann and Katherine clasped hands, and, aided by the light which Vandecar held high, slowly followed him. So stern did the tall man seem in the deep gloom that neither girl spoke to him as they stumbled down the hill. They halted with thumping hearts in sight of the dark lake. All three noticed a small light twinkling through the Cronk window, and, without knocking, Governor Vandecar flung wide the door of Lon's hut and stepped in.

The squatter sat on the floor, whittling a stick; Fledra crouched by the window. As the door opened, she raised her eyes wonderingly; but when she saw a tall stranger she dropped them again--someone had lost his way and needed Pappy Lon. Cronk looked up and, recognizing Vandecar, suddenly slid like a serpent around the hut wall until he was in touching distance of the girl.

"Ye'd better not come any closer, Mister," he said darkly. "I has this, ye see--and Flea's meat's as soft as a chicken's!" He raised his knife menacingly; but dropped it slowly at sight of Ann and Katherine.

"Sister Ann!" breathed Fledra.

Ann's fingers grasped Vandecar's arm spasmodically; but, without glancing back at her, he shook them off. His brow had gathered deep lines at Lon's words, and now his unswerving gray eyes bent low to the squatter. Under the steady gaze Cronk looked down and began to whittle.

In after days Ann could always conjure up the picture before her. Fledra looked so infinitely young and melancholy, as her eyes fixed themselves in wide terror upon Cronk. Out of the ragged blouse rose the proud, dark head, and the lovely face was almost overshadowed by two tightly clenched fists. Instead of falling into her arms, as Ann had imagined she would, the girl only sank lower to the floor, her face ghastly in a new horror. Miss Shellington's patience gave way as she stared at Vandecar--his delay was imperiling Fledra's life; for, if ever a wicked face expressed hate and murder, the squatter's did now. She turned appealing eyes to Katherine, and took a step forward; but the latter held her and whispered:

"Wait, wait a moment, Ann! Wait until Uncle has spoken!"

The whisper broke the silence, and Fledra turned her eyes from Lon. She wondered dazedly who the stranger was, and why he had come with Ann. She thought of Horace, and a pain shot through her heart. She was aware that his sister had come for her; but no thought entered her mind to give up the yoke that would soon be too heavy to bear. Then Governor Vandecar began to speak, and Fledra looked at him.

"I have come to take back my own, Lon Cronk," said he, "that of which you robbed me many years ago."

"I ain't nothin' that belongs to ye, and ye'd better go back where ye comed from, Mister--and don't--come no nearer!"

As the squatter spoke, his lips spread wide over his teeth, and he began picking up and laying down the bits of white wood. He did it deliberately, and no one present imagined how the sight of Vandecar tore at his heartstrings. Cronk could tolerate no robbing him of his revenge, no taking away his chance of soothing the haunting spirit of his dead woman.

Again Ann touched the governor's arm.

"Don't, Dear!" he said, pushing her back a little. "Lon Cronk--I want to tell you--a story."

Cronk made no response; only stooped over and gathered a few slender whittlings, and stacked them up among the others. There was an intense, biting silence, until the governor spoke again.

"Nineteen years ago, when I lived in Syracuse, there came to me an opportunity to convict a man of theft. Then I was young and happy; I knew nothing of deep misery, or of--deep love." The hesitation on his last words brought a shake from the squatter's shoulders. "This man, as I have said, was a thief, admitted his crime to me; but, at the time of his conviction, he pleaded with me that he might go home for a little while to see his wife, who was ill. But of course I had no authority to do that."

A dark shade flashed over Cronk's face, followed by one of awful suffering.

"Yep, ye had," he repeated parrot-like; "ye might have let him go."

"But I couldn't," proceeded the governor, "and the man was taken away to prison without one glance at the woman who was praying to see him. For she loved him more--than he did her."

"That's a lie!" burst from Cronk's dry puckered lips.

"I repeat, she loved him well," insisted Vandecar; "for every breath she took was one of love for him."

In the hush that followed his broken sentence, Lon moved one big foot outward, then drew it back.

"Afterward--I mean a few hours after the man was taken away--I began to think of him and his agony--over the woman, and I went out to find her. She was in a little hut down by the canal,--an ill-furnished, one-room shanty,--but the woman was so sweet, so little, yet so ill, that I thought only of her."

A dripping sweat broke from every pore in Lon's body, and drops of water rolled down his dark face. He groped about for another stick of wood, as if blind.

"She was too young, too small, Lon Cronk, for the cross she had to bear."

Lon threw up his head.

"Jesus! what a blisterin' memory!" he said.

His throat almost smothered the words. Ann began to sob; but Katherine stood like a stone image, staring at the squatter.

The governor's low voice went on again:

"She was sicker than any woman I'd ever seen before, and when I was there her little baby was born. I held her hands until she died. I remember every message she sent you, Cronk. She told me to tell you how much she loved you, and how the thought of your goodness to her and your love would go down with her to the grave. If I could have saved her for you, I should have done so; but she had to go. Then I wrote and asked you if I should care for her body."

An evil look overspread the squatter's face. The misty tears cleared, and he began to scrape again at the wood. He flashed a murderous look upward.

"Ye could have left her dead in the hut, as long as yer killed her!" said he.

Not heeding the interruption, Vandecar went on:

"But you sent me no word, and, because I was sorry, and because--"

The knife slipped from Lon's stiffened fingers, and a long groan fell from his lips.

"I didn't get no word from ye!" he burst out. "I didn't know nothin' till they told me she were dead." The man's head dropped down on his chest.

Relentlessly Vandecar spoke again:

"Because I could not give you to her when she wanted you, and because she had suffered so, I took her body and placed it in our family plot. I went to the prison to tell you this, so that you could go to her grave whenever you wished; but you had escaped the night before I arrived there, and I never associated you with my great loss."

The revenge Cronk had planned upon this man suddenly lost its savor before the vividly drawn picture. He did not remember that Vandecar had come for his girl; he had in mind only the wee, sweet squatter woman so long dead.

"Didn't the warden tell ye that I hit him, Mister," he groaned, "and that I smashed the keeper when they telled me about her, and--and that the strait-jacket busted my collarbone when I was tryin' to get out to her?"

Vandecar shuddered and shook his head; but before he could speak Cronk wailed dazedly:

"Ye might have come and telled me yerself, ye might a knowed how I wanted ye to!"

"I told you that I did come and you were gone," Vandecar answered emphatically.

"Ye didn't think how I loved her, how I'd a dreamed of huggin' my own little brat!"

Vandecar interrupted again:

"I took the baby with me, Lon Cronk." At the word "baby," Lon dragged his heavy hand backward across his eyes. "The baby," continued the governor, "was no bigger than this,--a wee bit of a girl, such as all big men love to father."

The squatter stood rigidly up against the wall, until his head almost reached the ceiling. His fierce eyes centered themselves upon Vandecar.

"If I'd a knowed, Mister," he mumbled, "that ye'd took my little Midge's hand in yer'n, that ye soothed her when she was a howlin' fer me, I wouldn't have cribbed yer kids--I'll be damned if I would 'ave! But I hated ye--Christ! how I hated ye! I could only think how ye wouldn't help me." He shuddered, wiped his wet lips, and went on, "After that I went plumb to hell. There weren't no living with me in prison, lessen I were strapped in the jacket till my meat were scorched. It seemed as how it made my hurt less for her to have my own skin blistered. Then, when I got out of prison, I never once took my eyes offen ye, and when yer woman gived ye Flea and Flukey--"

A cry from Fledra brought all eyes upon her save Lon's.

"When yer woman gived ye the two kids," he went on, "I let 'em stay long enough for ye to love 'em; then I stole 'em away. But, if I'd a knowed that ye tooked mine--" He moved forward restlessly and almost whispered, "Mister, will ye tell me how the little 'un looked? And were it warm and snuggly? Did ye let it lay ag'in' ye--and sleep?" The miserable, questioning voice rose in demand, but lowered again. "Did ye let it grab hold of yer fingers--oh, that were what I wanted more'n anythin' else! And that's why I stealed yours; so ye'd know what sufferin' was. If ye'd only telled me, Mister--if ye'd only telled me!"

Vandecar groaned--groaned for them all, no more for himself and for his gentle wife than for the great hulk of a man wrestling in agony. Tears rose slowly to his lids; but he dashed them away.

"Cronk," he cried, "Cronk, for God's sake, don't--don't! I've borne an awful burden all these years, and every time I've thought of her I've thought of you and wondered where you were."

"I were with my little woman in spirit," the squatter interrupted, "when I weren't tryin' to get even with you. Mister, will ye swear by God that ye telled me the truth about the baby?"

"I swear by God!" repeated Vandecar solemnly.

"And I believe ye. I could a been good, if I'd a had the little kid awhile. It were a bit of her, a little, livin' bit. I could a been, but I wasn't, a good man. I loved to lash Flukey and Flea. I loved to make the marks stand out on their legs and backs. And I tried to l'arn Flukey to be a thief, and Flea were a goin' to Lem tomorry. It were the only way I lived--the only way!" Cronk trailed on as if to himself. "The woman camed and camed and haunted me, till my mind were almost gone, and I allers seed the little kid's dead face ag'in' her, and allers she seemed to tell me to haggle the life outen yer kids; and haggle I did, till they runned away, and then I went after 'em, and Flea--"

Vandecar stopped the speaker with a wave of the hand.

"Then you brought her back here, and I discovered that she was mine, and I came for her. Lon Cronk, you give me back my girl, and I'll," he whitened to the very lips, and repeated,--"and I'll give you back yours!"

With a sweep of the arm Vandecar pushed Katherine forward. The very air grew dense with anxiety. Ann clutched Katherine by the arm as if to stay her movement, as if to keep her from the dazed squatter. His confession of the kidnapping and his uncouth appearance forced Miss Shellington to try and protect her gentle friend from his contact. But Katherine loosened Ann's fingers in stony silence. Only a choking sound from Fledra broke the quietude. She was staring into Lon's face, and he was flashing from her to Katherine glances that changed and rechanged like dark clouds passing over the heaven's blue. He saw Katherine, so like his dead wife, bow her fair head before him. He noted her trembling fingers pressed into pink palms, her slender body grow tense again and again, relaxing only with spontaneous sobs. That he could touch the fragile young creature, that he might listen to the call of his heart and take her as his own, had not yet been fully forced upon him. The meaning of Governor Vandecar's words seemed to leave his mind at intervals; then his expression showed that he realized the truth of them. He swayed forward; but crouched back once more against the wall. Fledra rose silently to her feet, her ready intelligence grasping the great fact that she was free, that the magnificent stranger had come for her, that he claimed her as his. She was free from Lem, from Lon, free to go back to Flukey. Lem's menacing shadow had lifted slowly from her life, cast away by her own blood. For an instant there rose rampant in her breast the desire to turn and fly, before another chance should be given Lon to exert his authority over her. Then something snapped in her head, and, unconscious, she sank noiselessly to the floor. No one noticed her. She was like a small prey over which two great forces ruthlessly fought and tore at human flesh and human hearts.

Vandecar gently touched Katherine's arm; but her feet were powerless to move.

"Katherine," the governor groaned, "don't you remember that you cried over him and your mother, and that--"

"Yes, yes!" Katherine breathed. She was trying to still the beating of her heart, trying to thrust aside a great, revolting fear; yet she knew intuitively that the squatter was her father, and remembered how the recounting of her mother's death had touched her. In one flashing thought, she recalled how she had longed for a mother, and how she had turned away when other girls were being caressed and loved. But never had it entered her mind to imagine that her parents were like this. The picture of the hut in which the wee woman had died rose within her--the death agony had been so plainly described. The tall, shrinking, sobbing man against the wall was her father! Even that afternoon, when Governor Vandecar had told her of her birth and her mother's death, and of her father in the lake hut, she had not imagined him like this man. Yet something pleaded for him, some subtle, gentle spirit hovering near seemed to drag her forward. She shuddered, slipped from Vandecar's arms, and crouched down before the squatter. She turned a livid, twitching face up to his, her eyes beseeching his with infinite compassion. All that was beautiful in the gentle, soulful girl broke over Ann like a surging sea. This girl, who had been brought up in a beautiful home, always attended with loving kindness, was casting her lot with a man so low and vile that another person would have turned away in disgust. Miss Shellington's mind recalled her girlhood days, in which Katherine had been an intimate part. She could not bear it. She took an impulsive forward step; but Vandecar gripped her.

"Stay," came sternly from his lips, "stay! But--but God pity her!"

The next seconds were laden with biting agony such as neither the governor nor Ann had ever experienced. Katherine pleaded silently with the man above her for paternal recognition. Suddenly he drew away from the kneeling girl and shrank into the corner, pressing the wall with his great weight until the rotting boards of the shanty creaked behind him. Only now and then was his mind equal to the task of owning her. Gathering strength to speak, Katherine sobbed:

"Father, Father, I never knew of you until today--I didn't know, I didn't know!"

In her agony she did not notice the fierce eyes melt with tenderness; but Vandecar saw it with a tumultuous heart. He was waiting to claim the little figure on the floor, that he might take her back to her mother. In that way he would retrieve his own past errors and in a measure redeem the misspent life of the thief. He saw Cronk smooth his brow with a shaking hand, as if to wipe away from his befuddled brain the cobwebs of indecision and time-gathered shadows. His lips, drawn awry with intensity, opened only to drone:

"Pretty little Midge, I thought as how ye were dead! And ye've come back to yer man, a lovin' him as much as ever! God--God!" He raised streaming eyes upward, and then finished, "God! And there be a God, no matter how I said there wasn't! He didn't let ye die when I were pinched!" With a mighty strength he swept the girl from the floor and turned mad eyes upon Vandecar.

"She ain't dead, Mister--I thought she were! Take back yer brat, and keep yer boy--and God forgive me!"

So tender was his last petition, that it seemed but a breath whispered into the infinite listening ear of the God above. Katherine, like Fledra, had lapsed into unconsciousness.

"She's fainted!" cried Ann. "Oh, Katherine, poor, pretty little Katherine!"

"Help her, Ann!" urged Vandecar. "Do something for her!"

He did not wait to see Ann comply; but turned to Fledra, who, still wrapped in unconsciousness, lay crouched on the floor, her dark curls massed in confusion. Granny Cronk's blouse had fallen away, leaving the rounded shoulders bare and gleaming in the faint yellow light.

The father gathered the daughter into his arms with passionate tenderness. At first he did not try to revive her; but sat down and held her close, as if he would never let her go. Tears, the product of weary ages of waiting, fell on her white, upturned face, and again he murmured thanksgivings into her unheeding ear. For many moments only the words of Ann could be heard, as she tried to reason with Cronk to release Katherine for a moment.

"Lay her down, won't you? She's ill. Please, let me put water on her face!"

"Nope," replied Lon; "she won't git away from me ag'in. She's Midge, my little Midge, my little woman, and she's mine!"

"Yes, yes," answered Ann, "I know she's yours; but do you want her to die?"

With his great hands still locked about Katherine, Cronk looked down on her lovely face, crushed against his breast. She was a counterpart of the woman who had lived in another hut with him, and his dazed mind had lost the intervening years. Midge had come out of the prison shadows, and the big squatter had turned back two decades to meet her.

"She's only asleep," he said simply; "she allers slep' on my breast, Missus. She'd never let me put her off'n my arm a minute. And I didn't want to, nuther. She were allers afeared of ghosts--allers, allers! And I kep' her close like this. She ain't dead, Ma'm."

His voice was free from anger and passion. By dint of persuasion, at length Ann forced him to release Katherine and to aid her while she bathed the girl's white face with water.

Katherine was still limp and bewildered when, ten minutes later, Fledra opened her eyes and looked up into her father's face. The past hour had not returned to her memory, and she drew quickly away. Of late she had become timid, always on the defensive; and when Ann spoke to her she held out her arms.

"I'm afraid!" she whimpered. "I want to go to Sister Ann."

But Vandecar held her fast as Miss Shellington knelt on the hut floor at his side.

"Fledra, listen to me! This is your own father, Dear. Don't draw away from him. He came with me for you. We're going to take you back to your mother and little Floyd."

It seemed an eternity to the waiting man before Fledra received him. There were many things she had to reason away. It was necessary first to dispense entirely with Lon Cronk, to feel absolutely free from Lem. Until then, how could she feel secure? The eyes bent upon hers affected her strangely. They were spotted like Flukey's, and had the same trick of not moving when they received another's glance. Then Ann's exclamation seemed to awaken her lethargic soul, and she seized upon the word "mother."

"Mother, Mother!" she stumbled, "oh, I want her, Sister Ann! I want her! Will you take me to her? She's sweet and--and mine!" She made the last statement in a low voice directly to Vandecar.

"Yes, and I'm your father, Fledra," he whispered. He longed for her to be glad in him--longed now as never before.

Fledra's eyes sought Cronk's. He had forgotten her; Katherine alone held his attention. Timidly she raised her arms and drew down her father's face to hers.

"I'm glad, I'm awful glad that you're mine--and you're Floyd's, too. Oh, I'm so glad! And you say--my mother--"

"Yes, Dear," Vandecar murmured, deeply moved; "a beautiful mother, who is waiting and longing for her girl. Dear God, how thankful I am to be able to restore you to her!"

The governor held her close, while he told her of her babyhood and the story of the kidnapping, refraining from mentioning Cronk's name. It took sometime to impress upon her that all need of apprehension was past, that her future cast with her own dear ones was safe, and that Lem and Lon were but as shadows of other days.

Katherine, weeping with despair, was sitting close to Lon. She knew without being told that the father she had just found had lost from his memory all of the bitterness of the years gone by. He had gone back to his Midge, and now centered upon his newly found child the identity of this dead woman. It was better so, even Katherine admitted; for he was meek and tender, wholly unlike the sullen, ugly man they had seen earlier in the evening. The squatter's condition made it impossible to allow Katherine to be with him, and they dared not leave him alone in the hut. Later, when they were making plans for Cronk's future, Vandecar said:

"We can't leave him here, Ann dear. Can't we take him with us, Katherine?"

"It's the only thing I can see to do," replied Ann, with catching breath.

"You'll come with him and me, Katherine, and we'll take him to the car, while he is subdued. You, Ann, dress that child, and wait here for Horace. I'll come back directly. I must place Cronk with the conductor, for fear--"

"Don't be long," begged Ann. "I'm so afraid!"

"No, only long enough to signal the train and get them aboard. You must be brave, dear girl, and we must all remember what he has suffered. His heart is as big as the world, and I can't forget that, indirectly, I brought this upon him." He turned his glance upon the squatter, and Katherine's eyes followed his. The lines about Lon's mouth had softened with tenderness, his eyes were filled with adoration. Katherine flashed him back a sad smile.

"The little Midge!" murmured Lon. "I'll never steal ag'in--never! And I'll jest fish and work fer my little woman--my pretty woman!"

Vandecar rose and went to the squatter.

"Lon," he said, placing a hand upon the rough jacket, "will you bring your little--" He was about to say daughter, but changed the word to "Midge," and continued, "Will you bring Midge to my car and come to Tarrytown with us?"

Cronk stared vacantly.

"Nope," he drawled; "I'll stay here in the hut with Midge. It's dark, and she's afraid of ghosts. I'll never steal ag'in, Mister, so I can't get pinched."

Vandecar still insisted:

"But won't you let your little girl come back and get her clothes? And you, too, can come to our home, for--for a visit." His face crimsoned as he prevaricated.

But Lon still shook his head.

"A squatter woman's place be in her home with her man," he said.

Vandecar turned helplessly upon Katherine.

"You persuade him," he entreated in an undertone.

Katherine whispered her desire in her father's ear.

"We'll go only for a few days," she promised.

"And ye'll come back here?" he demanded.

The girl glanced toward Governor Vandecar, and caught the slight inclination of his head.

"Yes," she promised; "yes, we'll come back, if you are quite well."

Cronk stooped down and pressed his lips to hers.

"I'd a gone with ye, Midge, 'cause I couldn't say no to nothin' ye asked me." But he halted, as they tried to lead him through the door.

"I don't like the dark," he muttered, drawing back.

Fledra eyed him in consternation. Never before had she known him to express fear of anything, much less of the elements which seemed but a part of his own stormy nature. Never had she seen the great head bowed or the shoulders stooped in timidity. Katherine had Cronk's hand in hers, and she gently drew him forward.

"Come, come!" she breathed softly.

"I'm afraid," Lon whined again. "I want to stay here, Midge." He looked back, and, encountering Vandecar's eyes, made appeal to him.

"Cronk," the governor said, "do you believe that I am your friend?"

The squatter flung about, facing the other.

"Yep," he answered slowly, "I know ye be my friend. If ye'll let me walk with my hand in yer'n, I'll go." He said it simply, as a child to a parent. He held out his crooked fingers, and Vandecar seized them. Katherine took up her position on the other side of her father, and the three stepped out into the night and began slowly to ascend the hill.