University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.
TWO OLD MEN.

Shortly after Martha Deane left home for her eventful
ride to Falconer's, the Doctor also mounted his horse and
rode out of the village in the opposite direction. Two
days before, he had been summoned to bleed “Old-man
Barton,” on account of a troublesome buzzing in the head,
and, although not bidden to make a second professional
visit, there was sufficient occasion for him to call upon his
patient in the capacity of a neighbor.

Dr. Deane never made a step outside the usual routine
of his business without a special and carefully considered
reason. Various causes combined to inspire his movement
in the present instance. The neighborhood was
healthy; the village was so nearly deserted that no curious
observers lounged upon the tavern-porch, or sat upon the
horse-block at the corner-store; and Mr. Alfred Barton
had been seen riding towards Avondale. There would
have been safety in a much more unusual proceeding; this,
therefore, might be undertaken in that secure, easy frame
of mind which the Doctor both cultivated and recommended
to the little world around him.

The Barton farm-house was not often molested by the
presence of guests, and he found it as quiet and lifeless as
an uninhabited island of the sea. Leaving his horse
hitched in the shade of the corn-crib, he first came upon
Giles, stretched out under the holly-bush, and fast asleep,
with his head upon his jacket. The door and window of
the family-room were open, and Dr. Deane, walking softly

upon the thick grass, saw that Old-man Barton was in his
accustomed seat. His daughter Ann was not visible; she
was at that moment occupied in taking out of the drawers
of her queer old bureau, in her narrow bedroom up-stairs,
various bits of lace and ribbon, done up in lavender, and
perchance (for we must not be too curious) a broken sixpence
or a lock of dead hair.

The old man's back was towards the window, but the
Doctor could hear that papers were rustling and crackling
in his trembling hands, and could see that an old casket of
very solid oak, bound with iron, stood on the table at his
elbow. Thereupon he stealthily retraced his steps to the
gate, shut it with a sharp snap, cleared his throat, and
mounted the porch with slow, loud, deliberate steps.
When he reached the open door, he knocked upon the
jamb without looking into the room. There was a jerking,
dragging sound for a moment, and then the old man's
snarl was heard:

“Who 's there?”

Dr. Deane entered, smiling, and redolent of sweet-marjoram.
“Well, Friend Barton,” he said, “let 's have a
look at thee now!”

Thereupon he took a chair, placed it in front of the old
man, and sat down upon it, with his legs spread wide apart,
and his ivory-headed cane (which he also used as a riding-whip)
bolt upright between them. He was very careful
not to seem to see that a short quilt, which the old man
usually wore over his knees, now lay in a somewhat angular
heap upon the table.

“Better, I should say, — yes, decidedly better,” he remarked,
nodding his head gravely. “I had nothing to do
this afternoon, — the neighborhood is very healthy, — and
thought I would ride down and see how thee 's getting on.
Only a friendly visit, thee knows.”

The old man had laid one shaking arm and crooked
hand upon the edge of the quilt, while with the other he

grasped his hickory staff. His face had a strange, ashy
color, through which the dark, corded veins on his temples
showed with singular distinctness. But his eye was unusually
bright and keen, and its cunning, suspicious expression
did not escape the Doctor's notice.

“A friendly visit — ay!” he growled — “not like Doctors'
visits generally, eh? Better? — of course I 'm better.
It 's no harm to tap one of a full-blooded breed. At
our age, Doctor, a little blood goes a great way.”

“No doubt, no doubt!” the Doctor assented. “Especially
in thy case. I often speak of thy wonderful constitution.”

“Neighborly, you say, Doctor — only neighborly?” asked
the old man. The Doctor smiled, nodded, and seemed to
exhale a more powerful herbaceous odor.

“Mayhap, then, you 'll take a bit of a dram? — a thimble-full
won't come amiss. You know the shelf where it 's
kep' — reach to, and help yourself, and then help me to a
drop.”

Dr. Deane rose and took down the square black bottle
and the diminutive wine-glass beside it. Half-filling the
latter, — a thimble-full in verity, — he drank it in two or
three delicate little sips, puckering his large under-lip to
receive them.

“It 's right to have the best, Friend Barton,” he said,
“there 's more life in it!” as he filled the glass to the
brim and held it to the slit in the old man's face.

The latter eagerly drew off the top fulness, and then
seized the glass in his shaky hand. “Can help myself,” he
croaked — “don't need waitin' on; not so bad as that!”

His color presently grew, and his neck assumed a partial
steadiness. “What news, what news?” he asked. “You
gather up a plenty in your goin's-around. It 's little I get,
except the bones, after they 've been gnawed over by the
whole neighborhood.”

“There is not much now, I believe,” Dr. Deane observed.

“Jacob and Leah Gilpin have another boy, but thee hardly
knows them, I think. William Byerly died last week in
Birmingham; thee 's heard of him, — he had a wonderful
gift of preaching. They say Maryland cattle will be cheap,
this fall: does Alfred intend to fatten many? I saw him
riding towards New-Garden.”

“I guess he will,” the old man answered, — “must make
somethin' out o' the farm. That pastur'-bottom ought to
bring more than it does.”

“Alfred does n't look to want for much,” the Doctor continued.
“It 's a fine farm he has.”

“Me, I say!” old Barton exclaimed, bringing down the
end of his stick upon the floor. “The farm 's mine!”

“But it 's the same thing, is n't it?” asked Dr. Deane,
in his cheeriest voice and with his pleasantest smile.

The old man looked at him for a moment, gave an incoherent
grunt, the meaning of which the Doctor found it
impossible to decipher, and presently, with a cunning leer,
said, —

“Is all your property the same thing as your daughter's?”

“Well — well,” replied the Doctor, softly rubbing his
hands, “I should hope so — yes, I should hope so.”

“Besides what she has in her own right?”

“Oh, thee knows that will be hers without my disposal.
What I should do for her would be apart from that. I am
not likely, at my time of life, to marry again — but we are
led by the Spirit, thee knows; we cannot say, I will do
thus and so, and these and such things shall happen, and
those and such other shall not.”

“Ay, that 's my rule, too, Doctor,” said the old man, after
a pause, during which he had intently watched his visitor,
from under his wrinkled eyelids.

“I thought,” the Doctor resumed, “thee was pretty safe
against another marriage, at any rate, and thee had perhaps
made up thy mind about providing for thy children.

It 's better for us old men to have our houses set in order,
that we may spare ourselves worry and anxiety of mind.
Elisha is already established in his own independence, and
I suppose Ann will give thee no particular trouble; but if
Alfred, now, should take a notion to marry, he could n't,
thee sees, be expected to commit himself without having
some idea of what thee intends to do for him.”

Dr. Deane, having at last taken up his position and uncovered
his front of attack, waited for the next movement
of his adversary. He was even aware of a slight professional
curiosity to know how far the old man's keen,
shrewd, wary faculties had survived the wreck of his body.

The latter nodded his head, and pressed the top of his
hickory stick against his gums several times, before he answered.
He enjoyed the encounter, though not so sure of
its issue as he would have been ten years earlier.

“I 'd do the fair thing, Doctor!” he finally exclaimed;
“whatever it might be, it 'd be fair. Come, is n't that
enough?”

“In a general sense, it is. But we are talking now as
neighbors. We are both old men, Friend Barton, and I
think we know how to keep our own counsel. Let us suppose
a case — just to illustrate the matter, thee understands.
Let us say that Friend Paxson — a widower, thee
knows — had a daughter Mary, who had — well, a nice
little penny in her own right, — and that thy son Alfred
desired her in marriage. Friend Paxson, as a prudent
father, knowing his daughter's portion, both what it is and
what it will be, — he would naturally wish, in Mary's interest,
to know that Alfred would not be dependent on her
means, but that the children they might have would inherit
equally from both. Now, it strikes me that Friend Paxson
would only be right in asking thee what thee would do for
thy son — nay, that, to be safe, he would want to see some
evidence that would hold in law. Things are so uncertain,
and a wise man guardeth his own household.”

The old man laughed until his watery eyes twinkled.
“Friend Paxson is a mighty close and cautious one to deal
with,” he said. “Mayhap he 'd like to manage to have me
bound, and himself go free?”

“Thee 's mistaken, indeed!” Dr. Deane protested. “He's
not that kind of a man. He only means to do what 's right,
and to ask the same security from thee, which thee — I 'm
sure of it, Friend Barton! — would expect him to furnish.”

The old man began to find this illustration uncomfortable;
it was altogether one-sided. Dr. Deane could
shelter himself behind Friend Paxson and the imaginary
daughter, but the applications came personally home to
him. His old patience had been weakened by his isolation
from the world, and his habits of arbitrary rule. He
knew, moreover, the probable amount of Martha's fortune,
and could make a shrewd guess at the Doctor's circumstances;
but if the settlements were to be equal, each must
give his share its highest valuation in order to secure more
from the other. It was a difficult game, because these
men viewed it in the light of a business transaction, and
each considered that any advantage over the other would
be equivalent to a pecuniary gain on his own part.

“No use beatin' about the bush, Doctor,” the old man
suddenly said. “You don't care for Paxson's daughter,
that never was; why not put your Martha in her place.
She has a good penny, I hear — five thousand, some
say.”

“Ten, every cent of it!” exclaimed Dr. Deane, very
nearly thrown off his guard. “That is, she will have it,
at twenty-five; and sooner, if she marries with my consent.
But why does thee wish particularly to speak of her?”

“For the same reason you talk about Alfred. He
has n't been about your house lately, I s'pose, hey?”

The Doctor smiled, dropping his eyelids in a very sagacious
way. “He does seem drawn a little our way, I must

confess to thee,” he said, “but we can't always tell how
much is meant. Perhaps thee knows his mind better
than I do?”

“Mayhap I do — know what it will be, if I choose!
But I don't begrudge sayin' that he likes your girl, and I
should n't wonder if he 'd showed it.”

“Then thee sees, Friend Barton,” Dr. Deane continued,
“that the case is precisely like the one I supposed; and
what I would consider right for Friend Paxson, would
even be right for myself. I 've no doubt thee could do
more for Alfred than I can do for Martha, and without
wrong to thy other children, — Elisha, as I said, being
independent, and Ann not requiring a great deal, — and
the two properties joined together would be a credit to
us, and to the neighborhood. Only, thee knows, there
must be some legal assurance beforehand. There is nothing
certain, — even thy mind is liable to change, — ah,
the mind of man is an unstable thing!”

The Doctor delivered these words in his most impressive
manner, uplifting both eyes and hands.

The old man, however, seemed to pay but little attention
to it. Turning his head on one side, he said, in a
quick, sharp voice: “Time enough for that when we come
to it. How 's the girl inclined? Is the money hers, anyhow,
at twenty-five, — how old now? Sure to be a couple,
hey? — settle that first!”

Dr. Deane crossed his legs carefully, so as not to crease
the cloth too much, laid his cane upon them, and leaned
back a little in his chair. “Of course I 've not spoken to
Martha,” he presently said; “I can only say that she
has n't set her mind upon anybody else, and that is the
main thing. She has followed my will in all, except as to
joining the Friends, and there I felt that I could n't rightly
command, where the Spirit had not spoken. Yes, the
money will be hers at twenty-five, — she is twenty-one
now, — but I hardly think it necessary to take that into

consideration. If thee can answer for Alfred, I think I
can answer for her.”

“The boy 's close about his money,” broke in the old
man, with a sly, husky chuckle. “What he has, Doctor,
you understand, goes toward balancin' what she has, afore
you come onto me, at all. Yes, yes, I know what I 'm
about. A good deal, off and on, has been got out o' this
farm, and it has n't all gone into my pockets. I 've a trifle
put out, but you can't expect me to strip myself naked, in
my old days. But I 'll do what 's fair — I 'll do what 's
fair!”

“There 's only this,” the Doctor added, meditatively,
“and I want thee to understand, since we 've, somehow
or other, come to mention the matter, that we 'd better
have another talk, after we 've had more time to think of
it. Thee can make up thy mind, and let me know about
what thee 'll do; and I the same. Thee has a starting-point
on my side, knowing the amount of Martha's fortune
— that, of course, thee must come up to first, and then
we 'll see about the rest!”

Old-man Barton felt that he was here brought up to the
rack. He recognized Dr. Deane's advantage, and could
only evade it by accepting his proposition for delay. True,
he had already gone over the subject, in his lonely, restless
broodings beside the window, but this encounter had freshened
and resuscitated many points. He knew that the
business would be finally arranged, but nothing would
have induced him to hasten it. There was a great luxury
in this preliminary skirmishing.

“Well, well!” said he, “we need n't hurry. You 're
right there, Doctor. I s'pose you won't do anything to
keep the young ones apart?”

“I think I 've shown my own wishes very plainly, Friend
Barton. It is necessary that Alfred should speak for himself,
though, and after all we 've said, perhaps it might be
well if thee should give him a hint. Thee must remember

that he has never yet mentioned the subject to
me.”

Dr. Deane thereupon arose, smoothed his garments, and
shook out, not only sweet marjoram, but lavender, cloves,
and calamus. His broad-brimmed drab hat had never
left his head during the interview. There were steps on
the creaking floor overhead, and the Doctor perceived that
the private conference must now close. It was nearly a
drawn game, so far; but the chance of advantage was on
his side.

“Suppose I look at thy arm, — in a neighborly way, of
course,” he said, approaching the old man's chair.

“Never mind — took the bean off this mornin' — old
blood, you know, but lively yet. Gad, Doctor! I 've not
felt so brisk for a year.” His eyes twinkled so, under
their puffy lids, the flabby folds in which his mouth terminated
worked so curiously, — like those of a bellows,
where they run together towards the nozzle, — and the
two movable fingers on each hand opened and shut with
such a menacing, clutching motion, that for one moment
the Doctor felt a chill, uncanny creep run over his
nerves.

“Brandy!” the old man commanded. “I 've not talked
so much at once't for months. You might take a little
more, maybe. No? well, you hardly need it. Good
brandy 's powerful dear, these times.”

Dr. Deane had too much tact to accept the grudging
invitation. After the old man had drunk, he carefully
replaced the bottle and glass on their accustomed shelf,
and disposed himself to leave. On the whole, he was well
satisfied with the afternoon's work, not doubting but that
he had acted the part of a tender and most considerate
parent towards his daughter.

Before they met, she also had disposed of her future,
but in a very different way.

Miss Ann descended the stairs in time to greet the Doctor

before his departure. She would have gladly retained
him to tea, as a little relief to the loneliness and weariness
of the day; but she never dared to give an invitation except
when it seconded her father's, which, in the present
case, was wanting.