 | XXXIX.
THE INQUEST. Lucy Arlyn |  |
39. XXXIX.
THE INQUEST.
AND now, while the coroner is impanelling his
solemn jury; while the news of the murder
thrills from house to house, and from village to
village, and is telegraphed to New York and Chicago, to be
read there in the evening papers; and the blackbirds, brisk
stump-speakers, appear to chatter about it down in the burnt
swamp-lot; and everybody is wondering, and doubtless some
hearts are quaking, — now, at twelve o'clock, noon, on the
shady grass by Biddikin's front-door, sits little poorhouse Job,
with bread and cheese, placidly munching.
At which time, constable Aaron Burble, having been to
summon to the inquest the German who paid Pelt his money,
returning, sees Job sitting on the grass, with bread and
cheese, munching, and drives up.
“Where are the folks?” asks Aaron.
“Gone,” says little Job, mildly staring. “Doctor gone
up on the mountain.”
“When will he be back?”
“Do'no'. Had a fight.”
“A fight! Who with?”
“Him and Mad, — they fit; coz Mad was out las' night,
and was goin' off agin this mornin'; said he was goin' to find
the pistil.”
And Job nibbled his cheese, unconscious how his feeble
words shot conviction into Aaron's massy brain.
“Come here, my son.” Aaron got out of his wagon, and
gave him a penny. Job crammed the contents of his right
hand into his mouth in order to receive it. “What was
Mad going to find?”
“Pistil. Shoot birds with. Lost it in the woods last
night,” said Job through crumbs.
“How do you know that, my son?”
“Heard him and doctor fighting. Thought I was asleep,”
— with a faint twinkle of the lustreless large eyes. “Mad
struck him.”
“Whose pistol was it?”
“Do'no'. Mad had it ever since they killed the bear.”
Aaron gave Job another penny for his thought; at which
the latter delivered over to his molars the reserved contents
of his left hand (namely, the cheese), and grinned at the munificent
subsidy, — a copper in each grimy little palm.
“What was Mad doing last night in the woods?”
“Guess shooting birds.”
“Shooting birds in the night?”
“Y-a-a-s! Him and Mr. Murk.”
“Murk! Where is Murk now?”
“Guess up on the mountain.” Job started, and grew
pale. “There comes doctor!”
And Biddikin, having entered the house by the back way,
came through, stepping excitedly, banging the doors, and
fiercely calling Job. Seeing a visitor, he came out.
“Doctor,” cried Aaron with a tact he bragged of afterwards,
“my dear doctor, how do ye do?”
“Broken-hearted, broken-hearted!” — and the little man
shook his head and compressed his lips with an expression of
desperate grief.
“Why, what now, doctor?”
“Oh that son of mine! I know, I know!” — with
dark significance.
“Ah! what's the matter with your eye, doctor?” asked
Aaron.
“Mr. Burble, Mr. Aaron Burble!” said Biddikin, quivering
with passion, “what do you think of a son that strikes
his own father? — yes!” thundered the doctor, “actooally
drors his fist on him! — don't he, Job?”
“Y-a-a-s, seen him!” said Job.
“Mr. Aaron Burble, Mr. Aaron Burble!” repeated
Biddikin, all his past differences with that gentleman forgotten
in his present agitation, “look at me, sir, — look at me!
Now tell me, — now tell me! Am I a dorg?”
“A dorg, doctor!”
“Look at me well, Mr. Burble! Am I a dorg? I appeal
And, sir!” — rising to a climax, — “do I deserve the treatment
of a dorg?”
“Bless me!” said Aaron sympathizingly, examining the
doctor's green eye, “that was a sorry blow!”
“Yes, sir! yes, Mr. Burble! that were a sorry blow! — a
blow that felled me to the earth, Mr. Burble! And for
what? for what? Because I desired to keep him out of danger;
yes, out of danger! I know what I say, I know what
I say! — OUT OF DANGER! For a father, a father, Mr. Burble,
will screen his own child, his own flesh and blood, won't he?
though that child may have guilt on his hands, — I say guilt
on his hands; and I know what I say!”
“Why,” said the constable, “I left Mad loafing about the
village this morning” —
“In the village? — in the village?” cried the doctor,
alarmed. “Who ever heard of such ordacity? He'll put
his neck in the very halter next!”
“In the halter, doctor? How so?”
“No matter!” muttered Biddikin, shaking his head mysteriously.
“I've said enough. He is my own son, my own
flesh, is Madison!” And, growing circumspect in his
speech, the more he was questioned, the more provokingly
knowing and obstinately secret he became.
“Well, doctor,” said Aaron, “I am summoning witnesses;
and I want you to go and report before the coroner what
you have said to me.”
Biddikin turned pale as death.
“Said? I have said nothing! — have I, Job?”
“N-o-o-o!”
“No, not a word. It's a plot against my son! Not a
word have I — not a word can any man say against my son
Madison. He's a very dutiful boy, an affectionate child;
isn't he, Job? Tell the truth, Job!”
“Y-a-a-s!” — and Job counted his treasures on the turf.
Aaron, however, avowed his determination to take both the
doctor and Job along with him as witnesses.
“To give evidence against my own flesh and blood? It is
horrible! — it is inhuman! — it is atrocious! — ain't it, Job?
Sir, I shall not go. Here I stand, — a rock, a colossus!
Touch me at your peril!”
Upon which, Aaron, laughing, and without stopping to consider
the precise legality of the measure, threw his official arms
about the rock, the colossus, lifted it lightly, conveyed it
gently, and placed it in the wagon. Colossus was astonished;
colossus was rigid; refusing to bend to a sitting posture, and
showing a log-like tendency to roll off the seat, — a tendency
which the good-natured constable indulged so far as to give
the adamantine doctor his choice of position on the wagon-bottom.
Then taking the mildly wondering little two-cent
millionnaire, with all his riches, upon the seat by his side,
Aaron drove back towards the village.
Colossus spoke. “You are assuming a tremenjuous
responsibility, sir! — tremenjuous! There's papers in that
are responsible for their safety. You are laying yourself liable
to the lor!”
“Go 'long!” said Aaron, whipping his nag.
“I — I am suffering excruciating agonies with my head
on this bolt!” groaned the man of stone, softening. “I entreat
you, Aaron Burble! I implore you! You yourself
have a child,” — and he burst into tears; water flowing from
the rock, — stricken, not by Moses, but by Aaron.
The inquest was in session at the tavern. Several witnesses
had already been called; among them Guy, who had
identified his father's pistol. Two stout Germans came and
testified to having paid Pelt gold. And now Aaron brought
in his special witnesses, — Biddikin, ghastly, grim, marked
by the filial fist; and round-eyed little Job.
The doctor was sworn; but nothing could be got out of
him. He was ignorant; he was stubborn; he was mum.
His feelings as a parent and his rights as a citizen had been
outraged; and, when he had said that, he closed his ashen
lips.
He was accordingly set aside for the time, and Job was
put upon the stand, — meek, bewildered, softly-smiling, bottle-shaped
little Job; and the inquisitorial corkscrew was applied,
and the truth gently drawn.
“Did you ever see this pistol?”
“Y-a-a-s! Mad had it.”
“Job, Job!” cried Biddikin, “tell the truth! You
never sor that pistol, did you? The truth, Job!”
“N-o-o-o!” falters the terrified Job.
Biddikin is sternly ordered to remain silent, while the examination
proceeds. The old man utters groan after groan
as the little witness relates what he knows. Guy leans his
head heavily upon his hand; and Mad, listening in the
crowd outside the window, feels his soul shrivel and wither
within him like a leaf touched by fire.
There was a whispered consultation: then Aaron made his
way to the door, and came round by the window where he
had seen Mad a minute before; searching through the crowd.
But already Mad was gone.
Seized by an impulse of fear, he walked swiftly up the
road, and leaped into a field. There, skulking behind some
bushes, he looked back, and saw Aaron whipping after him
in his wagon. No doubt he had been observed. His present
retreat was unsafe. Panic-struck, he ran first to Jehiel's orchard;
then to the house; then up the stairs, and into Lucy's
room.
The widow was absent at the moment. Lucy was alone
with her babe. She started up in affright, and confronted her
wild visitor. Mad shut the door behind him, and whispered
hoarsely, his eyes redly gleaming, —
“Hide me, for God's sake!”
“Hide you?” repeated the terrified girl in an agony of
apprehension.
“Guy is just as much in it as I am!” he hurriedly exclaimed.
“If they get me, they'll get him. — Damnation!
menacingly.
“O Heaven!” she cried wildly, “what can I do?”
She thought of the gold. “You should not have come here!
Go, go! — you endanger all!”
“That's what I do!” he replied with a ferocious laugh.
“If I hang, all hang!”
Heavy footsteps were heard below.
Mad drew his knife. “Blood will run first, though!
Let him come!”
Aaron was already on the stairs. Lucy had but an instant
to act. Hide the fugitive she could not; yet save him she
would, for Guy's sake. She hushed him with a gesture.
“Here!” she whispered, springing to a window, and flinging
it open. A branch of the butternut-tree that shaded it was
within reach. Mad thrust his open knife into his pocket,
grasped the limb, dragged himself through the casement, and
slipped down the trunk.
Aaron entered the room just in season to see him dash
across the brook into the woods.
| XXXIX.
THE INQUEST. Lucy Arlyn | |