University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.
BATTLING WITH FATE.

Does Margery know? It is not easy to judge. That
“scar't” look seemed to convict her of participation in
the dreadful secret, but on the other hand, after Van
Hausen had gone, she became composed, and even went
about her common household duties. Not once did Angie,
who was keenly observant, catch her eye, — not one
syllable of information did she glean from her lips.
Mute and downcast, she groped about the kitchen
hearth, the woodshed, or her son's attic chamber, — not
a glance of curiosity, not an exclamation of alarm, escaping
her, — stranger still, not a murmur, not even
a sigh. Silence had set its seal upon her, and a stone
statue could not have been more non-committal.

Was this prudence or stupor, the stoicism of resolve,
or the reaction after a night of excitement? It might
have been either.

The storm had cleared, and the Christmas sun was
shining brightly in at the cottage windows; but it could
not relieve the mystery, light up the darkness, heal the

pain which the night had left to mock the day. The
glistening snow had mantled the earth in a holiday dress
for happy eyes to gaze upon, but horror-struck faces grew
paler yet as they caught sight of Nature lying stiff and
still under her cold death-robe. So, too, on the mountain-top,
where guilty Night had witnessed a dead of
blood, innocent Day was powerless to atone for the
crime. Something, however, she could and did betray.

An old man dead, a strong-box empty, a peaceful
homestead transformed into a deserted tomb! Night
and its accomplices had fled together; but morning
revealed the open window through which murder entered,
the rope with which she bound her victim, the
disorder which attested the struggle, the very instrument
of the crime.

And without the house, too, the pure snow, which
elsewhere veiled all earth's disfigurements, and hid her
stains, furnished a written record, which he who ran
might read. Heaven had checked her storm just in
season to secure the evidence, and had sent out her
frost to stereotype it.

The distinct tracks of sleigh-runners from the foot of
the mountain to the very door-stone of the dwelling
afforded a double line of testimony as to the route and
mode of travel pursued by the murderers, both in going
and returning, and the clumsy boot of the individual who
had reconnoitred the house, and found access at the
window, had left its impression at every step. Nor was
a link wanting between the proof afforded within doors

and without. Deep as was the snow, it was easy to
discern traces of an accident and delay, which the party,
bound upon their cruel errand, had encountered about
half way up the mountain. At this point their vehicle
had evidently been disabled, and further progress impeded
by the breakage of one of the sleigh-runners; thenceforward,
and on the return track, one side of the sleigh had
been more depressed than the other, and while one runner
had marked a smooth furrow, the other had ploughed
roughly through the snow. To corroborate the suspicions
to which this circumstance gave rise, the only
instrument of violence found upon the premises was this
same iron runner, which lay near the head of the fallen
Baultie, at whose temples it had no doubt dealt the
bloodless but fatal blow.

“And is that all?” asked Hannah, when Van Hausen,
who returned just before noon, had reported the above
as the result of a diligent search on the part of an
excited neighborhood.

“Why, yes,” said Van Hausen, speaking loud, and
close to her ear, “that's about the long an' the short on
it, as fur's I can make out.”

“What! no stabs on the body; no clothes o' theirn
stained with blood; no knives nor nothin'?” questioned
Hannah with a sort of savage disappointment.

“No; they shaved their work off smooth, and made a
neat job on it. I'll say that fur 'em,” bawled Dick; his
habitual respect for a skilful workman giving to his tone,
as well as to his words, the effect of a complimentary
tribute.

“The cunnin' knaves!” cried Hannah; “with the
evil one hisself a backin' 'em up no wonder they did
their work thorough. Still I was a hopin' you'd ha' found
somethin' with a mark on't, Dick, — a hankercher, or a
jack-knife, may be. Somethin' that might help you to
foller 'em up.”

“Law, now, do hear the woman!” began Dick, in his
usual tone; then elevating his voice, he continued, “why,
you don't s'pose, do yer, that folks in their line o' business
leave their names behind 'em when they call, or send
yer word where you'll find 'em agin at short notice?”

“I ain't a fool, Dick!” retorted Hannah, hotly; “but
this much I know for sartain — them as sarves the
Almighty has luck on their side; them as follers the lead
o' the old sarpent may wriggle about a long while, but
they never travel so fast nor so fur but that their evil
desarts will come up wi' 'em some day. May the Lord
that rules in heaven hasten on that day of justice, and
may I live to see it — that's my prayer,” she added, in a
tone in which revenge and supplication were strangely
mingled.

“That's a nat'ral wish,” said Van Hausen, “I say
amen to it; and you, too, Mis' Rawle, don't yer?” and
he turned suddenly in the direction where Margery, who
had followed him into the bed-room, stood just within the
doorway. She was wiping a dish at her sink when Van
Hausen reëntered the house — the same dish which she
had vacantly washed and wiped several times during the
morning. Standing with it half wrapped in the dishtowel,

she had clung convulsively to it while listening
to the tidings which Dick brought, but at his abrupt
question it dropped to the floor and was broken to
pieces.

“Lord bless the woman, and save the crockery!”
ejaculated Van Hausen.

Angie, who, stationed within hearing, had also been
drinking in the news, darted forward and busied herself
in collecting the fragments.

“The jiltin' hussy, what business has she here?”
grunted Dick, as he looked down with disdain at the
poor girl thus humbly occupied at his feet. Angie's ear
did not catch the exact purport of his words, but the
epithet bestowed on her was intelligible enough, and she
retreated instinctively from his vicinity.

“Margery!” now exclaimed Hannah, reprovingly,
from her bed, “you're weak! Go an' set down. You
ain't fit to stand about. Any body 'd think 'twas her,
an' not me, that had got a blow!” she added, with stoical
self-complacency.

Margery, meek and dumb, crept away to her straight-backed
chair, in the kitchen chimney-corner, sat down,
clasped her hands, and gazed into the fire. Angie moved
off in the direction of the woodshed with the broken
crockery in her apron. Hannah Rawle and Van Hausen,
left alone, held a short conversation, during which the
former gave some directions concerning the final disposition
of her husband's body, leaving it to her brother to
make such arrangements as he thought proper for the

coroner's inquest. She herself would remain where she
was, she said — a resolve which her condition, perhaps,
rendered inevitable, but which she, at all events, arrived
at independently of any consultation with Margery.

These points being settled, and reiterated charges having
been given to Van Hausen to spare no efforts for the
discovery and apprehension of the murderers, he again
left the house to pursue his investigations, and otherwise
act in his sister's behalf.

“I think I'll go now?” said Angie in an interrogative
tone to Margery, and she put on her hood and commenced
tying it.

Margery answered by casting a shrinking glance towards
the bed-room, as if she feared being left alone
with its inmate, at the same time clinging to Angie's
hand, which she caught and held tight, veiling the action,
however, beneath the folds of a shawl that hung over the
girl's arm.

“I'll come back by and by,” whispered Angie, at once
putting a right interpretation upon the look and gesture.

Margery, satisfied with this promise, released her hold,
and Angie hastened home to dine with her father, or at
least sit down with him to the Christmas dinner, which
she knew both he and Happy would be disappointed if
she were not there to share.

It was a hard ordeal for Angie. The volatile little
Frenchman was greatly excited by the events of the
morning. With an instinctive dread of participating in
any painful scene, he had confined his neighborly duties

to rousing others and despatching them up the mountain;
but he had, nevertheless, waylaid each party on their return,
and had possessed himself of all the information
they brought. He now talked volubly, speculated wildly,
and plied Angie with questions, each one of which was
to her an instrument of torture. The tough fowl, the
last of his race, which, like Mr. Cousin's other experiments
in farming, had never thriven, was larded and
interlarded with the melancholy particulars, which Mr.
Cousin had gleaned; and Happy's pastry was seasoned
with such minute details as could be extracted from Angie
concerning the circumstances that had transpired at the
cottage, — subjects little favorable to Christmas cheer under
any circumstances! — to Angie, a wretched foretaste
of what Fate had in store for her. Burdened as she was
with a weight of suffering, sin, and secrecy, she realized
how hopeless would be any attempt to hide or flee from
the poisoned shafts which the curiosity, the malice, and
the gossip of the neighborhood would hourly inflict.

Fortunately for her, no degree of agitation was a matter
of surprise in a community where all were excited
by rumors, fears, and exaggerations; and for the inward
pain, that had so fastened its fang upon her, that, struggle
as she might, it would not yield its prey; and, so that she
had strength given her not to betray, she was nerved to
endure. And nobody suspected her, and she bore up.
How, they may ask, who have only seen phantom miseries
in the dim perspective — How, let them answer
who have proved the monsters real and survived the

shock. Men and women speculate on imaginary woes;
realities they live through — let each one answer how; —
let all believe that “as our day so shall our strength be.”

It was towards dusk, when Angie once more prepared
to make her way through the snowdrifts to Margery's
cottage. Mr. Cousin, early broken of his rest, and wearied
with the excitements of the day, had fallen asleep in
his arm-chair, and Angie, before leaving, took the precaution
to inform Happy that unless she came home
before dark, it might be taken for granted that she meant
to spend the night at Mrs. Rawle's.

As she crossed the fields and approached the cottage
from a quarter opposite the road, she was surprised at
the light which streamed from the back window of the
kitchen. As she drew nearer, she discovered it to proceed
from a brighter fire than she had ever before beheld
in the fireplace of the prudent Margery, and stranger
still, the old woman herself might be seen bending over
her hearth, one arm heavily laden with fuel, which with
the other she was rapidly heaping on the fire.

Are those short fagots green or water-soaked, that
they smoulder and smoke so? And why does Margery,
now and then, plunge her hand into a basket beside her,
and fling on heaps of shavings, chips, and other combustible
matter, to increase the blaze? Is this a time and
place for lighting Christmas fires and burning yule logs?

Such were the questions which Angie asked herself
as she drew near the window, pressed her face against its
frosty panes, and followed Margery's motions with an

observant eye. Whether it was anxiety, fear, or simply
curiosity which impelled Angie's scrutiny, the result was
apparently decisive, for, after a few minutes of earnest
watching she withdrew a few steps from the window, and
quietly waited until Margery's supply of fuel was exhausted.
She then entered the house at the wood-shed
door, though not without first shaking the snow from her
feet, rattling the lock, and otherwise giving indications of
her approach. Notwithstanding these precautions, she
found Margery trembling from head to foot, and wearing
the frightened look of one detected in a crime.

“Did I startle you? Never mind me, I'm alone,”
said Angie, soothingly, while Margery sank into a chair,
speechless.

“You've got a good fire,” said Angie, with an attempt
at her usual cheerful ease. “I'm glad of it, for I'm
cold and damp;” and throwing her shawl over the back of
a chair, and placing herself on a low seat in the chimney-corner,
she continued, pointing to the bed-room, — “Is
she asleep?”

Margery nodded in the affirmative; then, either restless
or fearful of being further questioned, she rose up
suddenly, and making a pretext of her chip-basket, the
same which George had filled the night before, and which
she had now emptied, went out with it into the shed,
where she could be heard fumbling at the wood-pile. If
Angie had a doubt regarding the nature of Margery's recent
employment, here was an opportunity of solving it.
Just above her head was the press in which the widow's

stock of valuables was for the most part garnered up.
Angie knew the corner in which the products of her industry
were invariably stowed. It was but to pull out a
drawer, plunge in a hand, and certify one's self of its present
condition. It was done — the drawer was empty.
Add to this the smell of burning wool which loaded the
atmosphere, and there could be no doubt that the fruits
of Margery's skill and economy in carding, spinning, and
dyeing had been ruthlessly sacrificed on the altar of secrecy,
that the poor mother had been eagerly feeding the
flames with all that remained of those brown, hard-twisted
skeins of home-spun yarn, of which her son's
knitted mittens had been the first and the only manufacture.

Scarcely had Angie's suspicion, however, the time to
flash into certainty; scarcely had the brass drawer handle
ceased to click against its metallic plate as the drawer
flew back into its place, when the front door of the cottage
opened, and a visitor entered.

It was Diedrich Stein. Coming as he did from the
direction of the road, and passing only a window whose
shutter was closed and barred, Stein had not enjoyed the
same opportunity that Angie had of surveying the premises
before entering. His keen senses, however, being always
on the alert, it was not surprising that he came in
with the air of one who snuffed mischief.

“Good evening, Mr. Stein!” said Angie, facing about
briskly, and at the same time with a carelessness (if it were
carelessness) very unusual to her, contriving to push the

chair, over which her shawl hung, nearly into the fire.
“It is a cold evening, sir; take a seat.”

“I hope I see you well to-night, Miss Angie,” said
the dingy little brown man, bowing low; “pretty
well — that is, — of course — considering — ” with
a series of pauses which were intended, like his words,
to qualify the possibility of rude health under the
present depressing circumstances — then, stopping short,
and with his nose elevated; “don't I smell something?
Margery, woman, what's burning?” turning
towards Margery, who was coming in at the moment
he put the question. Margery, terrified alike by
her brother's presence and his question looked distractedly
wild; but Angie had already provided
for this emergency, and was sufficient for the occasion.

“O my shawl! it is all on fire!” was the girl's
quick response to Stein's query; and darting forward,
she snatched from the embers one end of the woollen
shawl, which, truly enough, was dangling where Angie
had purposely thrust it, just over the bed of coals, — a
second burnt-offering laid on that fiery altar, and no
vain one either; for, as Hannah, wakened by the sound
of voices, now started up with the cry, “You're all
a-fire!” Angie, zealously smothering the flames, was
able to satisfy her also with the assurance, “My shawl 's
been on fire, ma'am, but I've put it out — it's of no
consequence.”

“No consequence!” retorted Hannah, sharply. “My

stars! what are these young folks a comin' to, with their
carelessness, I wonder! They'd burn the house down
over yer head, and then say it was no consequence.”

“New shawls don't grow on every bush,” remarked
Stein, sententiously.

Harsh rebukes these, for Angie; she, so used to flattery,
was getting blamed on all sides to-day. But such
blame was praise to her ears. It proved the success
of her ruse, and protected the achievement of Margery.
These two women were fighting together against fate,
and keeping despair at bay. Like drowning men battling
for life with the waves, they little heeded the
comments of spectators on the shore.

Stein's visit was one of condolence — so this little
alarm over, he proceeded at once to business. Stein
had a face for such occasions, as well as for those of
a convivial character. Not that the landlord's features
were naturally mobile, or that a quick alternation of
emotions in him had power to transform the outer man.
But he was like one of those comic pictures whose harsh
outline, presenting in one view a visage on the broad
grin, needs only to be reversed to display a countenance
grim as midnight or hopelessly woebegone. Thus
Stein, giving his features a sudden wrench, was able, at
pleasure, to assume his humorous mask, his mask of
severity, or his sable mask, — and it was this last named
disguise which he now wore.

His voice, too, was capable of modulations corresponding
to the part he had to play. Cracked and

squeaking by nature, it could never possess the music
of mirth, nor draw from the deep wells of pathos or
tragedy; but he had a smart, brisk tongue for flattery, a
harsh, stinging lash with the same member for the correction
of offenders, and a subdued twang for the benefit
of all objects of commiseration.

Thus, with a mouth well-drawn down at the corners,
and stepping on tiptoe, he ventured to insert his head
within the bed-room door, and to drawl out, “Mis'
Rawle, I jest looked in to see how you find yourself
to-night, — tolerable, I hope, — considering?”

Hannah, who had an instinctive distrust of Stein, and
who, either from infirmity or obstinacy, was always
more than ordinarily deaf to his words, answered him
only with a stare of irritation. He was obliged to
repeat his remark in a louder key, robbing it thereby
of much of its significancy.

“O, I'm well enough,” answered Hannah, curtly.

“Can I do any thing for you?” asked Stein, keeping
his voice up to the required pitch.

“You? No.”

“This is a sad piece o' business, Mis' Rawle.”

“Yes, sad for some.”

“Sad for all, ma'am; your husband was a thrifty
man, universally respected.”

“So much the wuss for them that's lost him; so much
the better for them that steps inter his shoes.”

“I've lost a most excellent friend in Baultie Rawle,”
said Stein, adroitly appropriating to himself the portion

of Hannah's remark least intended to include him.
“The rogues that took his life, took what 'll never be
made up to me in this world.”

“They've broken up the money-chest, I hear, and
carried off the best part o' my old man's savins; that's
bad for the heirs, sartain,” remarked Hannah, who was
not to be outdone by Stein in putting whatever interpretation
she chose upon another's words.

“The gold is nothing, ma'am,” said Stein, persevering
in his hypocritical show of disinterestedness;
“besides, that may be recovered, but there is no bringing
back the dead.”

“Let them that is consarned foller up the gold,”
responded Hannah. “They can't do a better sarvice
to Baultie nor me than to keep on the track o' them
villains, whether it be for love or money.”

“You may depend on my best sarvices,” said Diedrich,
with an air of devotion.

“Very well,” said Hannah, “I'm glad on't. `Set a
thief to ketch a thief,' is an old sayin', and a wise one,”
she further muttered; and she turned over on her pillow,
as if to put an end to the dialogue, quite unconscious
that she muttered audibly.

Stein heard and winced a little, but as Margery and
Angie were at too great a distance to have heard also,
he prudently forbore taking any notice of the insinuation.

“If you're afraid to stay here alone to-night,” he
continued, still feigning the part of a protecting friend,
“I'll send a man up from the tavern.”

“A man! what fur?” exclaimed Hannah. “We
don't want no man. I reckon two old women, without
a cent in the world, are safe enough. I'd like to know
what 'arthly use a man 'ud be?”

“O, you're safe enough, I'll venture to say,” said
Stein, as he turned to leave the room. “I was only
thinking,” he went on, by way of explanation to Angie,
to whom, reëntering the kitchen, he now addressed himself,
“that they might naturally feel a little lonely and
shaky-like after last night; but Mis' Rawle's got uncommon
stout nerves, so between 'em I reckon they'll do,
especially with such excellent neighbors as they have at
hand,” — and Stein, dressed now in his mask of obsequiousness,
bowed and took his hat. Always accustomed
to count Margery a cipher, he would not probably have
thought it necessary to address a remark to her at leaving;
but, happening to bethink himself of George, he
turned just as he reached the door, to say, with the
tongue that knew how to lash, “Margery, it's a pity
that boy of yours is away just now. It looks bad.
Besides, he ought not to lose the chance to be of use
for once in his life. If it hadn't been for Miss Angie
here, I don't know what you'd have done for the want
of him. But,” turning to Angie, and lapsing into his
complimentary vein, “one steady gal 's worth a dozen
wild lads any day;” then, in an insinuating whisper, —
“he isn't worthy of you, Miss Angie, never was; but
there's a fine young fellow, of a considerable higher
figure in life, that 'll be glad enough to cut him out in

the good graces of our New Jarsey belle that we're all
so proud of. You don't need me, though, to tell you of
your conquests in that quarter, eh!” — and with a flourish
of the hand that would have become a supernumerary in
a low comedy, he went his way out of the house, chuckling
at his own skill in trimming his sails according as
the wind chanced to set, and attributing Angie's shamefaced
looks to an affectation of modesty.

“Has that wolf in sheep's clothin', — that brother o'
yourn, — gone, Margery?” called Hannah, the moment
she heard the bang of the outside door.

“Yes,” was the humbly spoken monosyllable in which
Margery replied.

“Then rake up the fire and come to bed.”

Margery looked imploringly at Angie. “I'll stay and
sleep with you,” said the latter. “Never mind what she
says; we'll bring down the bed from — from,” — she
could not speak his name, — “from the room overhead,
and make it up on the floor; tell her so, tell her! — she's
calling.”

Margery crept timidly into the bed-room, and, with
some hesitation and difficulty, made known Angie's intention
to spend the night at the cottage.

“What's that gal here agin fur?” was the exclamation
that next reached Angie's ear. “Geordie ain't at home
to be bejuggled by her tricks. What business has she to be
danglin' round so?” It was desirable to have Hannah's
good will, since, owing to her deafness, her opinion of
people was seldom disguised; and, pretend as we may to

the contrary, if disagreeable things must be said of us,
we all prefer to have them said behind our backs.

This was the last home-thrust, however, which Angie
was to experience that night. As Margery did not
attempt to defend her young neighbor's forwardness,
Hannah, satisfied with having given vent to her disgust
at the intrusion, lay quite still, and offered no further
interference. It required but a few moments to carry
out Angie's plan, and she and Margery were soon
stretched side by side on their bed upon the kitchen floor.
After a while Hannah, strong and, as Stein had said,
sound of nerve, slept as she meditated, audibly. The
other two women spoke not, moved not, scarcely breathed,
— with eyes wide open, ears strained, limbs rigid, and
hearts throbbing to one nameless fear, they watched and
waited until the morning, each hoping, trusting that the
other slept, and thus each, for the first time since the
shock, left, as it were, alone with her anguish. We
may not lift the veil which night had in mercy drawn
over that pair of broken hearts.